DAVE'S DIARY - 6/4/2020 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 7 - SERIES 43
BRANDY CLARK AND CARRIE UNDERWOOD HEADLINE NU COUNTRY TV
Prolific award winning singer-songwriters Brandy Clark and Carrie Underwood headline Nu Country TV on Saturday April 11 at 9.30 pm on Channel 31/ Digital 44.
Singing Texan actor and singer-songwriter Willie Nelson also returns to the show hosted by Mid-Pacific Bob Olson and repeated Thursday at 5 am.
Turnpike Troubadours co-founder Evan Felker boomerangs solo on the program filmed and edited by Laith Graham.
Dandenong Ranges singing tradie and pianist Benny Allen and expat Kiwi Lucille also return.
Nu Country TV is a highlight of C 31 streaming list on Digital 44.
Further info - https://www.c31.org.au/
BRANDY HAS A NIP OR TWO WITH AVA AND BETTE
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Washington State born singer-songwriter Brandy Clark expanded her fan base on her CMA tour here last year with Californian Devin Dawson and Canadian chanteuses Lindsay Ell and Tenille Townes.
Now she's indebted to her two rescue canines who wait at home for her when she is on tour.
Brandy, now 44, thanks constant companions Ava Gardiner and Bette Davis for her new single Love Is a Fire.
It's on her third album Your Life Is A Record, released on March 6.
She also credits award winning septuagenarian former Chicago postie John Prine for her first single from the album.
Brandy wrote Who You Thought I Was after seeing Prine perform at Americana Awards at the famed Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
But she is equally indebted to acclaimed Grammy and Academy award winning movie-TV soundtrack and hit writer Randy Newman for his duet on another new song Bigger Boat.
“I got really lucky because my manager was saying Bigger Boat would be a great duet,” Brandy revealed.
“Randy was so generous - it's not even in the right key for him but he made it work. I felt so lucky.”
CLICK HERE for our Brandy interview in The Diary.
CARRIE UNDERWOOD DRINKS SOLO
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Oklahoma born singer-songwriter-actor Carrie Underwood returns after hosting the 53rd CMA Awards with Reba McEntire and Dolly Parton and headlining the 2018 Deni Ute Muster.
She appeared at the 20 th Ute muster while pregnant after serious injuries in a fall at her Nashville home where she broke her wrist and had 50 facial stitches.
Carrie, 37, wed former Canadian ice hockey champion Mike Fisher in 2010 and has two sons Isaiah, now five, and Jacob who was born after her previous Australian tour.
Mike stays at home for parenting when Carrie is on the road.
Underwood is animated in her live video Drink Alone from sixth album Cry Pretty.
Carrie wrote the song with Brett James and David Garcia and recorded it at Georgian Zac Brown's Southern Ground Recording Studio inside a former Presbyterian sanctuary at the corner of 17th and McGavock Street in Nashville.
She explained the song source in a recent interview.
“It was important to me because we're singing this in the first person,” Carrie revealed.
“I didn't want it to be like, ‘Oh, we're going to get drunk and go home together,' because that's not something that I would do. If it is going to be like an extreme kind of character, I think I'd rather put it in third person, or put it in a context where you're speaking about somebody completely different, not use first person.”
Carrie has her rules for drowning her sorrows in public.
“You know ‘this isn't a thing, I'm not going home with you. Let's just be here and be present and kind of get over our heartaches in the same space,'” Carrie explained.
CLICK HERE for a Carrie feature in The Diary on October 29, 2018.
WILLIE ON THE ROAD AGAIN
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Singing actor and hit writer Shotgun Willie Nelson returns on the eve of his 87th birthday on April 29.
Willie leads a seniors' singalong on First Rose Of Spring - the Randy Houser, Allen Shamblin & Mark Beeson penned title track of his 70th studio album.
Willie wrote two new songs - Blue Star and Love Just Laughed - with long time producer Buddy Cannon for the disc that includes fellow Texan Billy Joe Shaver classic We Are The Cowboys and Toby Keith's Don't Let The Old Man In.
The Redheaded Stranger has recorded more than 100 albums including diverse duo, trio and quartet discs, live records, DVDS and movie soundtracks.
He also operates horse rescues at one of his ranches - an equine passion he shares with fellow Texan Tanya Tucker.
Willie won his 12 th Grammy in February with previous album title track Ride Me Back Home for best country solo performance.
Ride Me Back Home concludes a trilogy of albums with mortality themes that began with 2017's God's Problem Child and Last Man Standing in 2018 .
Willie has no plans to slow down - he headlines his 47 th July 4 picnic, Farm Aid and many more gigs later in the year.
Sadly Willie's drummer Paul English, who joined his band in 1966, died of pneumonia at 87 on February 12.
Willie's love of nature extends longevity he attributes to side dishes of the herb superb.
"I wouldn't be alive. It saved my life, really. I wouldn't have lived 85 years if I'd kept drinking and smoking like I was when I was 30, 40 years old," Willie revealed.
"I think that weed kept me from wanting to kill people. And probably kept a lot of people from wanting to kill me, too - out there drunk, running around."
Nelson is such a passionate believer in positive effects of cannabis he and fourth wife Annie launched their own line of marijuana and marijuana products, Willie's Reserve, in 2015.
He also introduced new hemp-infused products - Willie's Remedy Relief Balm and Willie's Remedy Tea .
Those healing products infused with full-spectrum hemp oil follow flagship products Willie's Remedy Coffee and Willie's Remedy Hemp Oil Tincture.
CLICK HERE for our latest Willie CD feature in The Diary on August 5, 2019.
EVAN FELKER FINDS WHISKEY IN HIS WATER
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Turnpike Troubadours singer Evan Felker is joined live in the studio by Carrie Rodriguez and the Next Waltzers band on his return.
Evan, 36, dated Texan tourist Miranda Lambert, now 35, after she split with Blake Shelton.
His version of Whiskey in Your Water was first single on chart topping The Next Waltz - Volume 2 compilation produced by another Texan Bruce Robison.
It was recorded in April last year before the Troubadours announced their hiatus on May 31 and released on October 29, 2019.
Felker's band performed as part of Next Waltz and he mentioned to Robison that he was a fan of Rodriguez but had never met her.
“I proposed that we come up with a song to do and had been pitching things at him for a while,” Robison explained.
“When he sent me the chorus of Whiskey in Your Water I knew it was the one we should do with Carrie. He was still writing lyrics to the moment we cut the song. It's just magic - they should do an entire record together.”
Rodriguez released her album Lola - a bilingual collection that placed Mexican rancheras alongside country ballads - in 2016.
Felker recorded five albums with the Turnpike Troubadours from 2007-2019.
He was born in Okemah, Oklahoma, to cowboy father Van and healthcare worker Tane and has a sister named Cheyenne.
Further info - http://www.turnpiketroubadours.com/
BENNY ALLEN DOWNS TOOLS AND HEADS NORTH
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Dandenong Ranges singing pianist and tradie Benny Allen takes us on a trip to the Hunter Valley and New England towns Tamworth , Moonbi and Walcha in his new video.
Jay Seeney shot the Places I've Never Been video for Benny's debut disc Never Knew I Was Country.
“It's so great to see people embracing new Australian music,” Benny revealed.
“With this video and song, Jay and I really wanted to encourage people to get out on the road, visit our towns and explore the amazing scenery Australia has to offer.”
The song grew out of Benny thinking about everything he'd been able to achieve and see since he started playing music live.
“I've been getting out and about in Victoria and getting out to towns I haven't been to before and meeting all these fantastic people,” Allen explained.
“I get to do all of this because of music and get to places I've never been and there was the idea for a song, so I just let the imagination run wild. Producer Michael Carpenter and I were going for the road tripping feel while we were putting it together. We both have very similar backgrounds in terms of playing 80s pub rock, so Places I've Never Been is a country rock song, but also has elements of that classic Oz rock throughout.”
Benny won most popular balladeer and album at the 2020 Independent Country Music Awards and best video at Australian Country Music People's Choice Awards.
Further info - https://www.bennyallen.rocks/
LUCILLE HEADS HOME TO KERIKIRIE
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Berlin born Melbourne singer-songwriter Lucille returned to her favourite New Zealand childhood holiday spot in her animated video.
Butterflies, balloons, pipis and mandarins adorned her memory bank in Kerikeri - first single from her debut album Come On, Fly, released on March 27.
“ Kerikeri is about nostalgia and that magical time in childhood where, even if just for a fleeting moment, things felt whole and full of light-heartedness and wonder,” Lucille revealed.
Kerikeri is in Northland where the weather is warmer than Lucille's childhood home New Plymouth, and her family's perfect holiday destination.
“Kerikeri is a bit of a gateway to that whole Northland area,” she recalled.
“There's 90 Mile Beach which is a national highway. Anyone can use it as a road. If your car breaks down though, by the time you get back to it, it has probably sunk into the sand. When I was a kid, spotting the sunken cars was part of the fun. In the eighties, breaking down was part of travel at least my family's cars. There are lots of mandarin orchards up there. Pipis are clam shellfish that live in the tide zone, at low tide you hunt them by spotting their bubbles and you dig them out or use a pipi harvester which is basically a suction pipe. They are delicious. You go fishing. You eat the fish fresh that day, on a fire on the beach.
It's a paradise and looking back to how I felt as a child it was all sunlight. I'm sure most of us have that special place we can think of. It's like a feeling where over time you feel like your vision has dulled, and you can't see the colours like you saw them back then. There was yellow sand, and blue sky like I can't see it now. That is what it feels like anyway. I call Australia home, but going to NZ also feels like going home. Everything is very familiar.”
Further info - https://musicbylucille.com/
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.