DAVE'S DIARY - 15/1/08 -PREVIEW OF EPISODE 7 - SERIES 9

BECKY RIDES THE TAMWORTH COUNTRY MUSIC TRAIN

Nashville country stars Becky Hobbs and Grammy winner Suzy Bogguss headline Nu Country TV this Saturday - January 19 - at 8 pm on C 31.

By the time you see this week's show Becky and touring partner Kacey Jones will be on board the Tamworth Country Music Train.

Former Nu Country FM DJ Corrina Steel, Lake Bolac singer-songwriter Neil Murray, Sydney singer Luke O'Shea and former Dunkeld duo The Sunny Cowgirls are also on this week's show.

All are performing live at the prestigious 36th Australian Country Music Festival in Tamworth this week during the week.

Becky and Kacey fly down south to Melbourne for the gala Nu Country TV concert at the Noise Bar at the Railway Hotel, in Brunswick, on Friday February 1.

By then Becky will have celebrated her 58th birthday at the Family Hotel in Tamworth on Thursday.

Perhaps Leslie Avril, who recorded Becky's song Cowgirl's Heart, will sing it to her at the birthday celebration.

Becky performs the video for Do You Feel The Same Way Too from her latest CD Best of The Beckaroo - Part 1.

The show, hosted by Mid Pacific Bob Olson, is repeated Monday - 4 p m, Wednesday
- 3 am and Thursday at 9 am.

CLICK HERE for a Becky feature from the Diary on December 15 2007.

SUZY BOGGUSS DEBUT

Celebrated country singer Suzy Bogguss debuts on Nu Country with her revamp of Peter Cetera penned Chicago hit If You Leave Me Now.

Suzy, one of the many country stars once managed by expatriate Australasian Barry Coburn, graduated from university in Illinois with a metal smith degree.

She later moved to Nashville where she became a successful singer and songwriter - If You Leave Me Now is from her 12th album Sweet Danger.

Suzy's musician husband Doug Crider wrote new song In Heaven about the death of two close friends, one after a 15-year battle with breast cancer.

"It was not my intention to sing it," Suzy confessed.

"I figured somebody else would sing it. I ended up singing it because I pitched it to a couple of people. But I didn't feel they had the passion for it that I did, so I started performing it just to see if I could get through it."

Suzy, now 50, recently appeared on the famous Garrison Keillor TV show A Prairie Home Companion - subject of a successful Hollywood movie that premiered last year in Australia.

Her recent albums include 2003 disc Swing, co-produced by the Texan maestro of western swing, Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel.

And she has collaborated with master guitarist Chet Atkins and shared in a Grammy for her work on 2005's Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster.

Bogguss grew up in the Midwest - "raised in a cornfield in Illinois," she says - and earned an art degree with a concentration on metal-smithing that led to her making jewellery as she sang for her supper in Nashville.

In the early '90s, she broke with Ian Tyson's song Someday Soon before hits such as Tom Russell's Outbound Plane, Aces, Letting Go and John Hiatt song Drive South. She also scored with her co-writer Crider on Just Like the Weather and Matraca Berg gems Hey Cinderella and Give Me Some Wheels and Gretchen Peters hit Souvenirs.

Suzy's breakthrough album, Aces, was certified platinum, and she also won the CMA Horizon Award in 1992 and attained gold plaques for Voices in the Wind, Something Up My Sleeve and Greatest Hits.

Further info - http://www.suzybogguss.com/

CORRINA STEEL EVENING STAR

Corrina Steel hails from the famous sheep country at Camden south of Sydney but is fondly recalled as a Nu Country FM DJ during our era at Harley House at the Paris, Texas, end of Collins St in 2001.

The soulful sing-songwriter also performed at our live concert at the Victorian Arts Centre on January 30, 2005.

She returns to Nu Country this week with her song Evening Star from second album Blues Is A Good Woman Gone Bad.

Corrina also performs at a Shock Records showcase in Tamworth on Wednesday with Mike Brady, Felicity, The Noll and Davidson Bros, Jayne Denham, Paul Costa, Bec Willis, Travis Sinclair and Markus Meier.

CLICK HERE for a Corrina story from the Diary on November 14, 2004.

 

< Corrina Steel at Arts Centre 2005
photo by Andrew Wuttke

NEIL MURRAY

Lake Bolac raised singer-songwriter Neil Murray returns to Nu Country with Lights Of Hay from his seventh album Overnighter.

Hay is hometown of Susan Lilly who performed at our Christmas party at Hotel Kew.

Murray is performing in Tamworth this week with fellow ABC Music label-mates.

Sydney band The Happening Thang and Wallington and Colac raised Golden Guitar winner Adam Brand have also cut his songs.

Murray and former Goanna singer Shane Howard frequently tour together and host gigs near Howard's Killarney studio The Shed on the Shipwreck Coast.

In 1995, Neil Murray was awarded the APRA song of the year for My Island Home - originally written for the Warumpi Band and re-recorded by Christine Anu.

My Island Home was featured in the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

CLICK HERE for a review of Murray's album The Overnighter from The Diary.

SUNNY COWGIRLS

Sunny Cowgirls Sofie and Celeste Clabburn grew up in the same sheep and wheat belt as Murray in the fertile western Victoria heartland.

The Clabburn sisters were raised at Sunninghill, the family farm at Dunkeld due north of Hamilton near the Grampians.

They then moved to their new property in W A before an epic five day trip in their ute to Gunnedah near Tamworth to land a record deal.
The sisters perform their video for rollicking rural anthem Cutting Up B & S Style on this week's show.

The duo has released two Compass Brothers albums A Little Bit Rusty and Long Five Days.

Singer-songwriter Sofie and bassist-singer-songwriter Celeste went to high school in Perth before opting for a singing career and earning two Golden Guitar nominations in 2006 and presenting awards to peers.

They're also performing in Tamworth this week.

Further Info - http://www.compassbros.com.au/
http://www.sunnycowgirls.com/

LUKE O'SHEA

Singing Sydney teacher Luke O'Shea has long harvested hay from the fertile fields of his international travels.

O'Shea, performing prolifically in Tamworth during the 36th festival this week, was discovered on ABC TV show Live At The Basement.

Luke and his band Medicine Wheel performed live in the first series of Nu Country in 2003 at the Buckin' Bull at Tottenham and recently deceased Armadale Hotel.

O'Shea wrote all 12 tunes on debut ABC disc No Day Like Today and exploited raw material unearthed from visits to the U.K., Ireland and Indian reservations in the U.S.

He named his band after the Native American medicine wheel and cut tunes diverse as Telephone Lines, Cigarettes For Sale, Wild Pony and the David Lynch inspired Bourbon Coloured Sky.

O'Shea recorded several videos for songs from his new album Listen To The Words.

This week the singer, who also taught in the Torres Strait, performs in the video for his song Making Memories

Further info - http://www.lukeoshea.com/

TAMWORTH TRAIN SPONSOR

Nu Country has a new sponsor for Series #9 - The Tamworth Country Music Country Train that leaves Geelong and Southern Cross stations at dawn on January 19 for the NSW country music capital.

Headlining entertainment is Oklahoma raised stone country legend Becky Hobbs and Nashville comedienne, producer and singer-songwriter Kacey Jones.

We have new video clips by Becky and vintage footage of by Jones who hosted Nu Country TV from an Austin motel room during the Mickey Newbury festival in June of 2006.

Kacey recorded the Newbury tribute disc San Francisco Mabel Joy - the video clip, directed by New Mexico country star Stacy Dean Campbell, features singing actors Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Payne.

We reprised it in Series #9.

Kacey and Becky sing for their supper on the train - cool home for passengers during the hot Tamworth festival.

Nashville singer Julie Taylor performs on the train with local artists including Grant Luhrs, Connie Anderson, J R Williams, Ian Muir, Rick Bartlett, Hank Sasaki, June Harrison and Bec Hance.

Full details - www.tamworthcountrymusictrain.com.au

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