DAVE'S DIARY - 30/3/2020 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 6 - SERIES 43
FANNY LUMSDEN HEADLINES NU COUNTRY TV
Snowy Mountains singer-songwriter Fanny Lumsden headlines Nu Country TV on Saturday April 4 at 9.30 pm on Channel 31/ Digital 44.
West Texan Randall King and New Mexico born Bri Bagwell return on the show repeated Thursday at 5 am.
Fellow Texan Tracy Lawrence, Canadian chanteuse Kalsey Kulyk and West Australian Jonny Taylor boomerang on the program filmed and edited by Laith Graham.
Nu Country TV is a highlight of C 31 streaming list on Digital 44.
Further info - https://www.c31.org.au/
FANNY'S SNOWY MOUNTAINS SURVIVAL
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Snowy Mountains singer Fanny Lumsden is an altruistic optimist - she performs bush fire benefit shows in the Tooma River Valley.
Fanny recorded her third album Fallow in a stone hut in the valley a few hundred metres from her home.
This week she performs Mountain Song, This Too Shall Pass - one of the songs she wrote with husband Dan Freeman.
“We used this bathroom that's built out of a cast iron tank as an echo chamber,” Fanny, now 34, revealed.
Matt Fell produced the album with Fanny and Freeman who launched Fallow while raising funds for Tooma - stuck in the middle of the Megafire.
The album celebrates incredible surroundings caught in horrendous bushfires that swept through the area over the new year.
Their poignant cover image illustrates devastating impact fires had on the valley.
Fanny, her band and crew are donating time and proceeds to Tooma Community Bushfire Recovery Fund.
They're raising money for the recovery that includes rebuilding fences and sheds, sourcing feed for pets and stock, mental health resources and more.
“I wrote this album in amongst a season of change,” Fanny explained.
“It was a time of re-evaluation. With this album I was really trying to just write what I felt, rather than trying to be clever about observations. I felt like I learned to see not just the funny, witty stuff anymore. I want to say these things and sing these things because that's what I'm feeling right now. I'm in this space, so why not celebrate it?”
She also appeared on Nu Country with Pretty Little Fools and with Troy Cassar Daley, William Crichton, Pete Denahy and others in a collage of childhood memories and rural survivors in Real Men Don't Cry (War On Pride).
Further info - http://www.fannylumsden.net/
RANDALL KING LOSES LOVE AND DOG
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Randall King - a fourth generation hay hauler from Hereford west of Amarillo in West Texas - returns with a lost love lament.
The Lubbock singer-songwriter is used to loss - his Gibson Dove acoustic guitar was stolen in Amarillo and recovered.
Now he yearns a lover who decamped with his dog of seven years in her pick-up truck in his video for She's Gone on his self-titled, self-produced third album that follows Old Dirt Road and Another Bullet.
He debuted on Behind Bars with his live version of Taking Me A Heartbreak.
Garth Brooks also recorded his song The Road I'm On for his new album Fun.
King was raised listening to the soulful, classic country voices of Keith Whitley, George Strait and Alan Jackson - neo-traditional country artists.
“There's a lot of people that want country music to come back around and there's a lot of people that will say you have to sell out and play radio hits to make it,” says King who studied sound engineering in college.
“I think for me I want to make my stamp as an artist with this record, that I can be me and still make an impact across the country. Every time I go home I get that same feeling. It just gives you butterflies. Like when you're a kid watching that west Texas sunset, watching your dog run away for three miles. It's your roots, and your roots sink deep there. There are a lot of pieces of my family in that record. Every song I write I try to make sure it reflects who I am as best as possible. Without a good song you have no product to begin with.”
Further info - https://www.randallkingmusic.com/
BRI BAGWELL ASPHALT AND CONCRETE
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New Mexico born singer-songwriter Bri Bagwell moved to Texas at 18 and returns with live video Asphalt & Concrete in her Treehouse Sessions in Austin.
The song is on the four-time Texas Female Vocalist of the Year's third album In My Defence.
Asphalt & Concrete - first song on the record - paints a picture of a desert girl cutting loose and losing herself in the big city.
Bri soars as she sings, “Well I'm into sunsets and I love the sand, but I wasn't myself in a disrupted land, with buildings and people and too many drinks in my hand.”
The album was produced by Rachel Loy, and features co-writes with Courtney Patton and Jody Booth.
“I am so proud of the record we have created, no matter how cliched that sounds,” Bagwell, now 32, revealed.
“I have put everything I have, and every dollar to my name creating this record for myself and my fans. I truly believe it's the best record I have released and the pressure I felt to create something great pushed me to the max. I embraced it. I can't wait for everyone to hear it.”
Bri recorded an album and formed The Banned - a play on words from her song Banned from Santa Fe .
Further info - https://www.bribagwell.com/
TRACY LAWRENCE MADE IN AMERICA
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Texan Tracy Lawrence who still has a bullet in his hip from a 1991 shooting in Nashville but that hasn't slowed him down
Tracy, 52, wrote eight of the 12 songs on his 18th album.
They include patriotic title track Made In America penned with Rick Huckaby and Paul Nelson.
The video features live concert footage at Billy Bob's in Fort Worth and collage of local heroes and heroines.
“That was the very last song written for the record,” Lawrence revealed.
“I had this idea but didn't want it to be political. I wanted it to be very Americana because I've never done anything like this before. I wanted it to reflect the way that I viewed America before, when there was pride in craftsmanship. When you bought something from the store, you expected it to last a long time, and it wasn't a disposable thing. Just about pride in America , the pride in your town, your local football team, and where you come from. I wanted it to reflect those kinds of things from America that I remember as a child. We literally wrote that song in about two hours. It came really fast. I think it's real special and we're opening up the show with it and by the second chorus people are singing the words so I think it's impacting really well.”
Lawrence spent two years making the record.
“I am extremely proud of my new album,” Tracy revealed.
“It is possibly the most personal album I have ever released. I co-wrote eight out of the 12 songs, pouring my heart and soul into each of the songs. I feel it will resonate with my fans and country music lovers across this nation. I didn't want to overlap things I had done in the past. I wanted this album to really be traditional but I didn't want people to listen to it and say well that sounded like Sticks And Stones or that reminded me of Time Marches On . I didn't want to make a record like that. I wanted to make something that really stood on its own, and I think we accomplished that. So being able to write to those holes of what I saw the album was missing helped. And I don't know if people even listen to an album top to bottom anymore but that's still the approach that I use putting one together.”
Lawrence and songwriter Flip Anderson wrote lyrics and music for Storming Heaven: The Musical - based on Denise Giardina's award-winning novel about labor strife in the coalfields of southern West Virginia during 1920-21.
Lawrence appeared in the movie L.A. Dirt filmed around Mobile, Alabama, and plays Uncle Charlie to nephew, Ty Hargrove, portrayed by Michael Roark.
He also performed his song Dirt Track Demon on the soundtrack.
Further info - http://www.tracylawrence.com/
KALSEY KULYK TRIUMPHS
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Canadian chanteuse Kalsey Kulyk began singing in Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan at 13.
As a child she overcame her parents' divorce and beat Hodgkin's Lymphoma at 17 after months of chemotherapy
She turned her traumatic experiences into something positive.
“I lost all my hair, but got a lot of song inspiration, because there were a lot of people I got to meet during chemo," Kalsey revealed.
"I'd run home and write about their incredible stories. I had to get it all out, and I wanted to give that voice to people.”
Kulyk has personal experience of how music can heal people and comfort them in times of need.
“After my parents' divorce, my dad would listen to Nobody Knows It But Me by Kevin Sharp, over and over again," she recalled.
"I knew exactly what he was feeling without him telling me what he was feeling. That's when I knew what music could do for people. That's what I want to do for people.”
She recently wed fellow musician Eric Etheridge and wrote Damn You Love with Liz Rose and Phil Barton for her new self-titled album.
“I have waited forever to have an album like this,” Kalsey explained.
“And that's not being conceited or egotistical. I have worked on these songs and what I wanted to say for a very long time. And I feel like I can finally say I'm proud of what this record says. It's a record for people who feel like they haven't yet been heard in a song. For people who have felt love, felt loss, and need to be reminded that they are not alone.”
Further info - https://www.facebook.com/kalseykulyk/
JONNY TAYLOR TAKES IT SLOW
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West Australian singer-songwriter Jonny Taylor used family creativity for his video Take It Slow shot on his property in Kukerin in the West Australia wheat belt.
The land-based footage was taken by wife Nicole and performance footage was filmed by his father, Paul.
It's on his third album Dig Deep.
Take It Slow is a song about taking a breath, stopping, standing-still and giving oneself a break now and then.
“My goals, aspirations, pride and desire became a massive obstacle,” Taylor revealed.
“I could barely see straight. This song is a reminder that it's okay to stop, ask for support and treat ourselves with a little kindness. We're only human and we can't do it all.
“We all like to think we can take on the world and it's so easy to put too much pressure on ourselves. I learned the hard way that sometimes we just need to stop, stand still, and give ourselves a break.”
CLICK HERE for a Jonny Taylor review in The Diary on July 16, 2013.
We need your support in Nu Country TV's 43rd series with Australian record companies and artists teaming to ensure our survival.
You can join Watling & Bates as members and win their 13 track CD Small Town Tales.
Also Kip Moore's third album Slowheart , thanks to EMI promotions chief Dave Parker.
We also have other CDS by major artists you can win by becoming a Nu Country TV member or renewing your membership.
They include Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Gary Allan, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church and late larrikin legend A.P. Johnson.
CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for details.