DAVE'S DIARY - 14/8/2023 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 12 - SERIES 56
ALEX MILLER AND LORI MCKENNA HEADLINE NU COUNTRY TV
Kentuckian Alex Miller and dual Grammy winner Lori McKenna headline Nu Country TV at 6.30 pm on Saturday August 19.
Texan young gun Jake Ybarra and Port Fairy singer-songwriter Fleur Wiber debut on the show repeated Thursday at 1 am.
Victorian high country Golden Guitarist Fanny Lumsden and expat Oregonian Cletis Carr boomerang to the program filmed and edited by our multi-talented lockdown producer-host Laith Graham.
Nu Country TV is a highlight of C 31 streaming list on Digital 44.
Further info - https://www.c31.org.au/
ALEX CHASES LOVE ON THE RUN
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Third generation Kentucky farmer and singer Alex Miller explores a riveting romance chase on his return to our show.
Alex moves from playing guitar on the back of his pick-up truck to serving behind the counter in a diner in his pursuit of a femme fatale who keeps on running at her own pace.
Miller, just 21, has time on his side after growing up on his family's farm in Lancaster in Kentucky.
Girl, I Know A Guy is on his second album that follows his Miller Time debut on Billy Jam Records.
The American Idol finalist mourned late grandfather, GB Miller, who died at 75 on July 3 in 2022 in his previous Nu Country appearance in When God Made The South .
Miller also fronted our show with Through With You and Don't Let The Barn Door Hit Ya with farm visitor - Kentucky model and basketball TV-radio host Maria Montgomery.
Further info - https://alexmillercountry.com/
LORI MCKENNA AND HILLARY LINDSEY
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Dual Grammy winner Lori McKenna and fellow song writer Hillary Lindsey boomerang to our show.
The Massachusetts mother of five is a prolific hit writer and teamed with ace writer Hillary to drive home her powerful message - trying to make someone happy was their mortality metaphor.
Killing Me is on Lori's 15th album 1988.
Lori, 54, was joined live in the studio on a previous Nu Country show by Hilary and Liz Rose on their tune When You're My Age from her 14th album The Balladeer.
She also fronted our show with Balladeer title track video and depicted time travel in Young And Angry Again - one of 11 songs on her Dave Cobb produced 12th album The Tree and The Bird & The Rifle.
McKenna has written hits for major artists diverse as singing actor Tim McGraw and expat Australasian superstar Keith Urban.
Lori won Grammys for writing McGraw hit Humble & Kind and Little Big Town smash Girl Crush.
She and McGraw also wrote Gravity for movie Free Solo about Alex Honnold's pursuit to free solo climb El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.
McKenna and Brandy Clark, 42, wrote Three Kids No Husband for Lori's eighth album Numbered Doors in 2014 after meeting a woman with five children and no husband.
It also appeared on Clark's second album Big Day In A Small Town inspired by a YouTube video Clark created to introduce Pray to Jesus from her 2013 album 12 Stories .
Further info - http://www.lorimckenna.com/
SHIPWRECK COAST CHANTEUSE FLEUR WIBER BLOOMS
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Port Fairy singer-songwriter Fleur Wiber debuts on our show in a cryptic cemetery stroll in her Walk Me video directed by Sydney film maker Kate Vinen.
Fleur takes viewers on a fantasy escapist trip at Waverley cemetery in Sydney.
Walk Me depicts ocean scenes and tombstones, unique statues and symbols of one of Sydney 's most beautiful cemeteries.
The camera floats through the cemetery following Fleur with overhead drone footage creating a sense of awe and the sublime.
“Walk Me is about wanting someone else to take the reins when feeling like a lot of responsibility has been placed upon one's shoulders,” Fleur explained.
“It is a personal song which was written at a time of sadness, but has an uplifting and hopeful feel, "walk me through the raging tide".
Kate and Fleur collaborated over ten years in Sydney with previous videos There is Always Hope and I'll Go South.
Fleur's music is described as mermaid country, far from where she was born in Hamilton and raised in Macedon.
Wiber graduated from Berkely University in California and lived in Europe where she wrote and performed her songs.
She expanded her music in Sydney on return and recorded Walk Me for debut album Parramatta River released on June 28.
Michael Carpenter produced her album with Jy Perry Banks on pedal steel.
Further info - https://www.facebook.com/FleurWiberMusic/
FANNY LUMSDEN HIGH COUNTRY MORTALITY TALE
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Eight time Golden Guitarist and 2020 ARIA Award winner Fanny Lumsden takes us to her Snowy Mountains home for a humorous mortality tale.
Fanny, 36, sang and drummed with her band including husband Dan Freeman as they acted on a high country funeral request.
They feature bearded lumberjack and cattle farmer Brett who bailed her up in a local pub and asked her to film one of her songs for his wake and shoot his ashes from a shot gun.
She requested a down payment of a cow and two loads of wood.
“Six months later he rocked up to our house with the first down payment of a load of wood so I had to get the details,” Fanny revealed.
Brett requested his ashes be mixed with glitter and put into shotgun shells as his friends gather for the wake behind his house - a locale he calls Awesome View.
“There'll be a bonfire and I'm going to rattle out a bunch of Monty Python songs and some others” Fanny explained.
“Everyone's going to shoot his ashes into the sky with shotguns at sunset and send him off in his most glorious way.”
Tooma troubadour Fanny wrote When I Die during a pitstop on the Nullarbor Plain trip and filmed her video with Brett on guitar on his Awesome View farm for her fourth album Hey Dawn .
Fanny fronted Nu Country with videos for Tidy Town , while 38 weeks pregnant, Dig, Mountain Song, This Too Shall Pass, Pretty Little Fools and collage of childhood memories and rural survivors in Real Men Don't Cry (War On Pride).
She records with husband Dan and Matt Fell in a stone hut studio on their farm on the western side of the Snowy Mountains .
Fanny's band raised funds for Snowy Mountains survivors at concerts after 2019-2020 mountain mega fires and during the pandemic.
Her third album Fallow celebrated incredible surroundings caught in the horrendous bushfires - the poignant cover image illustrates devastating impact of the valley fires.
Further info - http://www.fannylumsden.net/
JAKE YBARRA CONTINUES FAMILY TRADITION
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Texan Jake Ybarra digs deep into his memory bank for his Nu Country debut.
Jake, 25, explores a couple's century old love letters in his A Whole Lot To Remember video.
The singer had plenty of family music to draw upon from his horn player dad and pianist mother.
At the age of eight he moved to Greenville, South Carolina, and took up music full time when he graduated from university and played baseball for recreation after a legislative internship at the European Parliament in Brussels .
“We grew up Southern Baptist,” Jake revealed, “so I sang in a bunch of quartets and boys choirs growing up. One was a group called Chicora Voices and we would do recitals, sometimes with the Greenville Symphony . You learn to listen and learn what your voice can do.”
A Whole Lot To Remember is on his debut album Something In The Water.
Further info - https://www.jakeybarra.com/
CLETIS DRIVES HIS CAR FAST
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Expatiate Oregonian singing DJ Cletis Carr returns down under after trail blazing in Melbourne with Paul Norton in the Big Whiskey and Hillbilly Moon bands.
Carr was a frequent guest DJ on Nu Country FM at Beer Can Hill, Northcote, during the station's halcyon era before it burned down on June 26, 2000.
It's no surprise Cletis is qualified to sing how trouble follows him on roads, railways and other routes.
His live Trouble And Me video on Laneway Music from his 13th album precedes a joint venture on his Australian return with Chris Stockley of The Dingoes.
Cletis hung his hat in Australia for 30 years before making his 12th album Sedalia Blues with producer Alex Kellar at the Dryve-in Studio in the Blue Mountains.
Further info - https://www.cletis.com/
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, Carrie Underwood and late larrikin legend A.P. Johnson.
CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for details.