DAVE'S DIARY - 26/4/2021 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 10 - SERIES 47
TROY CASSAR-DALEY HEADLINES NU COUNTRY TV
Prolific award winning singer-songwriter Troy Cassar-Daley headlines Nu Country TV Saturday May 1 at 9.30 pm on Channel 31/Digital 44.
Fellow Australian stars Lee Kernaghan, The Wolfe Brothers and Imogen Clark return to the show repeated Wednesday at 11.30 pm.
Kentuckian Taylor Austin Dye debuts in Behind Bars on our program edited by multi-talented lockdown producer Laith Graham.
North Carolina icon Eric Church and Montana minstrel Tim Montana return as we celebrate Waylon Jennings legacy with one of his major hits with fellow late Highwayman Johnny Cash.
Nu Country TV is a highlight of C 31 streaming list on Digital 44.
Further info - https://www.c31.org.au/
TROY BACK ON HOME COUNTRY
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Troy Cassar-Daley boomerangs to our show with sweet solace after losing his father and father-in-law during lockdown.
The father of two was persuaded to return to writing and recording by his TV and radio presenter wife Laurel Edwards.
Troy , who celebrates his 52 nd birthday on May 18, performs his evocative Back On Country video - one of 14 original songs on his 15 th album The World Today.
The album is likely to add to his four ARIA awards and 37 Golden Guitars.
It will be welcome relief for Troy whose dad Tony suicided after suffering two strokes in 2019.
“Losing my dad was hard enough but then going into COVID was a darkness I didn't need,” he says.
“Every day was another email from my manager saying this is cancelled, that's cancelled, all my purpose was going down the drain.
“As a musician, you either go into depression because you've got no gigs and you're losing all your creativity in one hit, or you decide that if you can't play, you'll go and make some noise yourself.”
Wife Laurel encouraged him to channel heartbreak and despair into writing.
Instead of starting on guitar he turned to drums and bass in his home studio - instruments usually only played by his son Clay or daughter Gem or bandmates during rehearsals.
“That was my mental health saviour when I didn't know how I was going to write my way out of the shitty time I was in. It was very, very dark,” he says.
CLICK HERE for a Troy CD feature in The Diary on April 19.
LEE KERNAGHAN AND WOLFE BROTHERS
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Corryong born country king Lee Kernaghan and the Van Diemen's Land Wolfe Brothers return with a vibrant video Till It Ends from Lee's 15th album Backroad Nation.
Lee, 57 and father of two boys, is back on the road again to promote it.
Kernaghan was raised by his trucking troubadour dad Ray and mum across the border in Albury.
He performed the outback, cities and towns on all coasts in a career that earned him an OAM in 2004 and Australian of the Year in 2008.
Lee headed to red dirt country to film videos for his new songs - riveting reflections of travel that earned him four ARIA and three APRA Awards while raising funds for long suffering farmers beset by drought, flood and famine.
Lee equaled the late Slim Dusty's 38 Golden Guitars record at the 48 th Australian Country Music Awards in January of 2020.
The Wolfe Brothers, who retreated to Tasmania during the pandemic, are also touring again.
They recorded their fifth album in Tom's home studio at their 120 year-old Fairy Glen berry farm near Neika in the deep south of Tasmania .
With only 217 residents in Neika it's not hard to find.
But don't go to the post office - it closed in 1969.
The Wolfe Brothers often tour with Lee and played Canada with expat Gippsland star Gord Bamford who joined them on Australian tours.
CLICK HERE for a Backroad Nation CD feature in The Diary on May 20, 2019.
CLICK HERE for a Wolfe Brothers interview in The Diary on June 4, 2018.
IMOGEN CLARK RETURNS WITH SAFETY MESSAGE
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Blue Mountains born belle Imogen Clark delivers a powerful message in her new video.
Imogen, now 25, urges peers to resist booze and dope as an escape in Never This Time.
She wrote it with Taylor Goldsmith from US band Dawes and Jason Boesel who plays drums on the track.
Never This Time is second single from her Bastards EP released on May 21.
The singer revealed the source of her reality rooted song.
“Two things run in my family - anxiety and alcoholism,” Clark explained.
“I've struggled with the former as long as I can remember, and I've seen the latter ruin so many people in my life. The heartbreaking thing about alcoholism is how it twists people you love, turns them into strangers. This song is about something I've learned the hard way - you can give people chance after chance, let them make promises to you and break them, but in the end, if they don't want to change, there's nothing you can do, and have to cut the cord before they drag you down with them.
“I had to tap into something so raw to write this song, and I think you can hear that in the finished track.”
Imogen begins her national tour in Newcastle on August 10 then Gold Coast, Brisbane , Bundalaguah and Melbourne, following residency at Sydney 's Low 302 this month.
Imogen appeared on Nu Country in April with Forgot About London after other videos Drawing Hearts, Collide, You'll Only Break My Heart, Take Me For A Ride and Your Anything At All .
She toured Australia in 2019 with Americana star Jim Lauderdale.
Click Here for our Imogen-Jim live review in our concert section on October 13, 2019.
Further info - https://www.imogenclark.com.au/
TAYLOR AUSTIN DYE NO GOOD TIME GIRL
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Booneville belle Taylor Austin Dye, no relation to Issy, proves she is a fierce femme fatale in her Nu Country debut.
Her No Good-Time Girl video follows singles Mean, Salt On The Wound, Like You Do, Bad Habits and White Oak and her album Believe In The Sun.
Dye flies in the slipstream of peers diverse as Gretchen Wilson, Miranda Lambert, Ashley McBryde and Kacey Musgraves.
“I have been playing and singing since I was 5 years old,” Dye revealed.
“I always knew I wanted to be an artist and have been pursuing it in some way or another ever since.”
Further info - https://www.tayloraustindye.com/
TIM MONTANA CARS ON BLOCKS
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Tim Montana is at home on his range in Butte , Montana , on his return.
Montana , 37, is accompanied by dogs, chooks, a horse and tough dudes as he performs in a car crematorium in his Cars On Blocks video - also title track of his new EP that follows three albums.
There is no sign of actor Charlie Sheen and Butte sniper Rob O'Neill who were in his previous videos including Hillbilly Rich and Mostly Stoned.
O'Neill, 43, was the Navy Seal sniper who shot terrorist boss Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on May 1, 2011.
Tim was raised in a trailer without power in the Montana mountains.
His second album was Tim Montana & the Shred Necks .
Further info - https://www.timmontana.com/
ERIC CHURCH FINDS NEW LYNYRD SKYNYRD
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North Carolina nouveau outlaw and 2020 CMA entertainer of the year Eric Church returns to Behind Bars after performing the national anthem with Jazmine Sullivan at the Super Bowl game in Florida .
This time he honours one of the Jones boys - not late Texan George who died at 81 on April 26, 2013.
Instead he sings of Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones - from the third of his triple albums Heart And Soul released in April.
His iso videos featured him solo and with his Church Choir and singer Joanna Cotten.
“I had three albums out in April. They came out of my 28 days in the mountains of North Carolina , where the songs were recorded and written. The collection is entitled Heart & Soul ,” Church revealed.
Eric explored a month-long creative process in this 24-song collection that features elite songwriters who joined secluded marathon writing and recording sessions.
“I've always been intrigued when a song is born in a writer room - there is a magic that happens there,” Church explained.
“I wanted to put that in the studio form. So, every day, we would write a song in the morning and we would record the song that night. Doing it that way allowed for the songwriters to get involved in the studio process and the musicians to be involved in the creative process. You felt a little bit like you were secretly doing something that was special, and you knew it. You started going, wait 'til the world finds out about this.'”
Producer Jay Joyce, vocalist Cotten and his Church Choir band joined studio musicians on those albums.
“It's been a long 10 months. With the power of music and love for each other, we will get through this, we will gather again soon. I cannot wait to play this music for you live.”
CLICK HERE for a Church feature in The Diary on December 10, 2018.
CLICK HERE to win a Church CD on our Membership page.
WAYLON AND JOHNNY CASH MINE CHAIN GANG MEMORIES
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The late Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash prove there ain't no good chain gang in their show return.
The song is on one of many Waylon, Johnny Cash, Highwaymen and George Jones albums you can win by becoming a Nu Country TV member or renewing your membership.
They are among albums donated by country historian Barbara Dowling who died at 77 on December 11, 2020.
She co-hosted Long In The Saddle in our Nu Country FM era.
The pioneer Australian and Victorian country music awards judge was admired for rising above losing her sight as a young woman and pursuing country music passion with regular trips to Waylon's birthplace in Littlefield, West Texas .
Waylon died at 64 on February 13, 2002 and is survived by singing spouse Jessi, now 77, and son Shooter, 41.
WIN KEITH URBAN CDS ALSO
We have expatriate Australasian superstar Keith Urban's chart topping 12th album The Speed Of Now - Part 1.
Also BR5-49 CD Big Backyard Beat Show and Billy Ray Cyrus's historic 1992 album Some Gave All that features his Achy Breaky Heart hit.
Join Watling & Bates as members and win their 13 track CD Small Town Tales.
We 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, Eric Church, Kip Moore and late larrikin legend A.P. Johnson.
CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for details.