DAVE'S DIARY - 20/8/2022 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 12 - SERIES 52
TOMMY STEELE BAND HEADLINES NU COUNTRY TV
Michigan Tommy Steele Band headline Nu Country TV on Wednesday August 24 at 8 pm with a powerful paean for front line saviors.
Another Steele - expat Kiwi Luke Steele - boomerangs to the show repeated Tuesday at 8 am and Saturdays - 11.30 pm.
Oregon band The Delines mix boxing and romance metaphors and reformed NSW duo McAlister Kemp return to the program filmed and edited by our multi-talented lockdown producer-host Laith Graham.
Blue Mountains belle Cass Hopetoun exposes Chinese whispers on her return and Randwick singing nurse Ben Ransom showcases his songwriting therapy.
Nu Country TV is a highlight of C 31 streaming list on Digital 44.
Further info - https://www.c31.org.au/
STEELE BY NAME AND NATURE
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Michigan maestro Tommy Steele debuts with inspirational video Real Americans praising doctors, nurses, fire fighters, servicemen and women and other unsung heroes.
Tommy lives up to his family name - his folks worked in Detroit auto factories and red dirt Georgia clay soil and his music is inspired by artists diverse as Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bruce Springsteen.
He started his band in 2006 and debut 2009 Nashville produced CD, The Long Haul, had three hits Watching Love Grow, Forever 17 and What Kind of Man Would I Be.
Tommy's 2012 single My Side Of The Street was produced by veteran singer songwriter Dave Gibson and followed by 2013 party song video for We Ain't Drunk.
Steele opened for Big & Rich at hometown Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan and played three CMA Music Festivals in Nashville .
He tours with Leann Rimes, Gretchen Wilson, Little Big Town , Big & Rich, Blackberry Smoke, Dwight Yoakam and other major artists.
“Family is everything to me, and fatherhood” Steele revealed of his blue collar genes.
“Well, that's the reward! I am humbled to create music with a vision but life experiences and my family are my inspirations.”
Real Americans is on his fifth album out this year.
Further info - https://tommysteeleband.com/
ANOTHER STEELE FROM ACROSS THE OCEAN
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Expat Kiwi singer-songwriter Luke Steele returned to the Eccentric Farm in northern California to record and film his videos.
The former Sleepy Jackson and Empire of The Sun singer hit the beach with wife Jodie and their daughter.
Jodie directed their dreamy video for Listen To The Water - title track of Luke's debut solo album.
Steele debuted on Nu Country with Common Man - one of 14 tracks on Listen To The Water.
"This solo record was a chance for me to be naked, fearless and on my own," Steele revealed.
“The crown is off, the make-up is off and this is where we find out what is left.”
Steele's videos directed by Jodie feature their daughter Sunny Tiger (13) and son Cruz (7) playing in glistening water and open fields.
“It was a bucolic contrast with the mess and the madness within the songs, this wrestling in my mind," Steele revealed.
“Our home in LA got infested with ants, the freezer shut down, lights were constantly flickering on and off and the message became clear.”
Further info - https://lukesteeleofficial.com/more-music/
DELINES BOXING AND ROMANCE METAPHORS
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Oregon retro country band The Delines debut on our show with evocative video Kid Codeine that depicted the sad life of a boxer's belle when he's in the ring.
The band formed in 2012 after singer Amy Boone toured with Richmond Fontaine.
Boone and her sister Deborah Kelly were also in Texas band the Damnations.
The Delines are led by acclaimed novelist-songwriter Willy Vlautin who fronted Richmond Fontaine and published six acclaimed novels - the most recent The Night Comes In.
Love Police toured The Delines in 2014 for the first Out On The Weekend Festival at the Steamworks in Williamstown.
Willy also appeared at the Melbourne Writers Festival.
Kid Codeine tells the story of a couple that Richmond Fontaine met on one of their first tours in the 1990s.
“Years ago in Los Angeles Richmond Fontaine was playing at a club downtown called Al's Bar and after the gig the bartender invited us to a strip joint,” Willie revealed.
“She was maybe thirty-five and had a big bouffant and a twenty-one-year-old boyfriend who never said a word. Nothing. It was almost like she had him on a chain. She took us to a place where the dancers come to your table. The woman who came to ours was a friend of hers but a junkie and nodded out and crashed into our table. Drinks spilled everywhere but the bouffanted bartender got hers out in time and she and her boyfriend got up and she said, 'I gotta run but bet the third horse in the fifth race at Hollywood Park tomorrow.' Man oh man, she was really wild and she drove the coolest car and nothing seem to faze her. I hadn't thought of her in years but during the time I was writing The Sea Drift tunes I just woke up one morning and she came to me and I wrote the song.
"The video is set in my favorite neighborhood Portland, St. Johns A neighborhood in midst of a big gentrification swing. Amy was brave enough to be on camera and we tried to hit the old haunts, a lot of them closed down and ready to be bulldozed. I'm a big boxing fan and I wanted to incorporate Andy Kendall The Scappoose Express one of the most famous boxers of the area. The fight we used was his title shot against world light heavyweight champion Bob Foster. Kendall got knocked out in the fourth but still what a feat. Both characters Kid Codeine and The Scappoose Express are now just ghosts to a city in a major economic boom and transformation.”
Kid Codeine is on Delines fourth album Sea Drift on Love Police Records & Tapes.
Further info - https://www.thedelines.com/
MCALISTER KEMP REUNION
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Australian Golden Guitarists duo Troy Kemp and Drew McAlister fire on their live return to our show after making three albums before a seven year hiatus in 2015.
They released solo albums and duets in the break that enabled Kempsey born Kemp to move to Nashville with his family and record and write new songs.
Troy and Narrabri raised Drew released solo albums before their reunion.
They showed how to fight heartbreak and tragedy in our tough times in their video for After The Breakdown that joins another single Paid For Drinking Beer on their fourth album We Roll On released on August 19 by ABC Music.
“We are so excited to finally have an album on its way,” Drew revealed. “After so long between releases it feels pretty cool to finally have something to put out there into the universe. The writing side of things was super awesome as well, we hadn't written together for some years and we just fell back into it like nothing had changed. We can't wait to take it on the road have some fun!”
“After a 7 year hiatus we are extremely excited to be releasing our fourth official studio album We Roll On ,” Troy explained.
“Living on opposite sides of the world, we wrote 9 of the 10 songs on online Zoom sessions during the Covid Pandemic and borrowed one from Nashville to round out the album. We didn't want to reinvent the wheel, we just stuck to that classic MK sound and those distinct themes that worked so well for us in days gone by. We Roll On is collection of 10 songs, from upbeat party vibes to mid-tempo singalongs down to the heartfelt ballad or two.”
McAlister Kemp make their first national tour in seven years in August-September.
CLICK HERE for an historic McAlister Kemp interview in the Diary on May 9, 2011.
CASS HOPETOUN EXPOSES CHINESE WHISPERS
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Blue Mountains belle Cass Hopetoun has diverse performing partners in her neck of the woods including fiancé singer Blake Dantier and mother trucker Jayne Denham.
She heard whispers in her waitress role when not playing festivals and wrote empowerment anthem Chinese Whispers.
“It's a song you put on when someone has been talking smack about you and you want to feel empowered and have that ‘shake it off' moment,” Cass revealed.
“It's a reminder that people are always going to ‘talk' but, you can choose to ignore them because you know what's true and what's not.”
Chinese Whispers is one of 13 songs she wrote with Dantier in their home studio where they record and highlight of her debut album Not Your Typical Bride.
Dantier is also promoting his sixth single Don't Say When from his debut album Dry Season.
Cass fronted our show with Who Needs Hawaii, Shots and Typical Bride videos directed by Bruce Dawson for her Compass Brothers label album produced by Matt Fell at his Love Hz studio in Sydney.
Further info - http://www.casshopetoun.com.au/
BEN RANSOM HEADS FOR FREEDOM
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Randwick singing nurse Ben Ransom heads to the beaches, rivers and roads in his freedom frolic on his Nu Country TV return.
Ben, 47 and dad of two, took a break from his nursing career and wrote songs as therapy after deaths of his mother and brother.
He exuded freedom in his Living video from his fifth album.
Ben also appeared on our show with Raise Some Hell from fourth album Brave New World .
When he toured Europe in 1999 he worked as Anaesthesia nurse while singing for his supper.
It enabled him to keep dingoes from his door as he used the Walkabout Hotel as his mecca and exposed his music to enthusiastic expatriate Australians and others on the Continent and way beyond.
Ransom's popularity ignited Shepherd's Bush Covent Garden before boomeranging to our bush on tours and festivals to promote original songs.
Ben's benevolence to patients enabled him to use his songs as therapy for family tragedies including premature deaths of his mother at 62 and brother at 48 from brain cancer and another young relative from a stroke.
His mother inspired maternal wisdom song Mamma Said and family tragedies sourced Never Can Tell and Coming Down In Spades from Brave New World inspired by Aldous Huxley .
CLICK HERE for a Ransom feature in The Diary on March 22, 2021.
WIN WAYLON, GEORGE JONES AND MERLE HAGGARD
Help us celebrate being Nu Country TV members and win albums by late Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, George Jones and Highwaymen by becoming a Nu Country member or renewing your membership.
George, Waylon, Merle and Willie Nelson were among country historian Barbara Dowling's favourite Texans.
The Waylon, Highwaymen , Merle and George discs were donated by Barbara who died at 77 in December, 2020.
She co-hosted Long In The Saddle in our Nu Country FM era and was pioneer Australian and Victorian country music awards judge.
Barbara was admired for rising above losing her sight as a young woman and her country passion with annual 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 79, and son Shooter, 43.
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 featuring Achy Breaky Heart.
We have other CDS by major artists you can win by becoming a Nu Country TV member or renewing memberships.
They include Brad Paisley, Eric Church, Kip Moore and late larrikin legend A.P. Johnson.
CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for details.