DAVE'S DIARY - 5 JUNE 2013 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 1 - SERIES 20

PISTOL ANNIES DUO HEADLINE NU COUNTRY TV SERIES #20 PREMIERE

Pistol Annies Miranda Lambert and Ashley Monroe headline the Series #20 premiere of Nu Country TV with their latest solo video clips this Saturday June 8 at 9.30 pm on Channel 31.

The duo also returns later in the series with Angaleena Presley in the Pistol Annies video for latest hit Hush-Hush.

Premiere host - expatriate Californian Mid-Pacific Bob Olson - also returns from his two month homeland hiatus with a hot new recipe for his marinated Tri Tip, filmed by our editor Blaize Warden at Bob's Beer Can Hill delta kitchen.

Olson introduces Texan outlaw Ray Wylie Hubbard in our new Behind Bars & BBQs segment with his video for a song he wrote with fellow Texan Hayes Carll who debuted last year at the top of Beer Can Hill at Northcote Social Club with Hunter Valley singer Kirsty Akers.

Akers' fellow rural raised NSW peer Jayne Denham and former Sunraysia singer-songwriter Paul Costa also return to the show repeated Monday at 3 pm and midnight and Thursday at 1 am.

MIRANDA LAMBERT - MAMA'S BROKEN HEART

Miranda Lambert returns with her hot new video hit for Mama's Broken Heart - a song she wrote with fellow Texan troubadour Kacey Musgraves.

The latter day Oklahoman takes viewers on a tour of her boudoir and dining table on her mansion on the hill.

Miranda and singing spouse and Voice host Blake Shelton have adjoining ranches in Tishomingo county in Oklahoma.

The song is her fourth hit from her fifth album 4 The Record - it beat the Pistol Annies latest hit Hush-Hush onto chart tops.

Lambert and singing spouse Blake Shelton recently headlined the first Healing In The Heartland Relief concert in Oklahoma City that raised $6 million for victims in Moore - hometown of fellow star Toby Keith and Kelley Coffey - just 90 miles north of the Shelton-Lambert ranches.

Fellow Oklahoma born stars Reba McEntire and Vince Gill - Monroe's producer - also performed on the concert with recent Aussie tourists Rascal Flatts and fellow stars Darius Rucker and Luke Bryan.

Lambert's Mutt Nation charity also donated a large amount of help for families and pets separated in the tornadoes shortly before she suffered a major loss.

Animal lover and barrel racer Miranda also lost one of her best friends - her horse.

The country star/animal activist hit Twitter to mourn her loss:
"Had to put our great old horse down today. Animal love is so strong and it can really break your heart. Hope he is the one Jesus comes back on."

CLICK HERE for a review of Miranda's fourth album Revolution in the Diary on January 11, 2010.
CLICK HERE for our membership page to win Revolution and her DVD Revolution - Live By Candlelight.

ROSES IN BLOOM FOR ASHLEY MONROE

Knoxville girl Ashley Monroe returns to Nu Country TV with the video for the title track of her second solo CD Like A Rose.

Monroe has plenty of major strings to her bow - and they don't just include writing with expat Novocastrian Catherine Britt when Britt was living on the edge for five years in Nashville.

National ABC radio host Britt recently interviewed Monroe on Saturday Night Country as fans drove home on Highway 1 and the Hamilton Highway from Geelong after the first AFL night game at Kardinia Park.

And, like Britt, her first Nashville produced disc withered on the vine and failed to burst from the chute when it was due.

But the Tennessean hung in, joined the Pistol Annies, and is now blooming - like a rose.

She and Britt, with whom she wrote Call You Back Town and Down for Britt's self-titled fourth album, shared dreams and wrote with roots country tunesmiths in Music City.

Now, with her debut hit Like A Rose penned with Texans Guy Clark and Jon Randall - third of six times wed Lorrie Morgan's four ex-singing spouses - she's front and centre in the cred country posse.

Monroe expands on her long stemmed floral fantasy with Give Me Weed Instead Of Roses - a satiric stab at trad romantic stimulants.

The singer also duets with Lambert's singing spouse Shelton on You Ain't Dolly And You Ain't Porter - a song she wrote with her producer Vince Gill, second husband of Christian singer Amy Grant.

Monroe was born in tiny Corryton, east of Knoxville, on the street where most her family members lived.

She's a cousin to country legend Carl Smith - first ex-husband of June Carter Cash and father of Carlene Carter.

Her first album was a digital disc only - released after she walked the plank at Sony.

CLICK HERE for a Monroe feature in the Diary on May 27.
CLICK HERE TO WIN HER CD LIKE A ROSE on our membership page.

RAY WYLIE HUBBARD BEHIND BARS AND BARBECUES

It's fitting that TV show host Mid Pacific Bob Olson introduces veteran Oklahoma born, latter day Texan outlaw Ray Wylie Hubbard in his Behind Bars & Barbecues segment this week.

Bob and editor Blaize Warden filmed their exotic Tri Tip recipe at Bob's outdoor kitchen in his Beer Can Hill delta home in Northcote.

Hubbard, 66, and drummer Rick Richards perform in the video for Drunken Poet's Dream - a song he wrote with Texan Hayes Carll who made his Victorian debut last year at Northcote Social Club atop Beer Can Hill with Hunter Valley singer Kirsty Akers.

The song appeared on Hubbard's 15th album A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint: There is No C).

It features the 2010 album title track (inspired by his favorite Edgar Allan Poe poem) as well as Drunken Poet's Dream - also first song on Hayes third album Trouble In Mind in 2007.

Carll changed some lyrics for his version that rhymes Mescalene and gasoline.

Hubbard and Carll have been regular co-writers - part of the singer's cross pollination with younger artists.

So how did the duo meet?

"We tell people we found him on our doorstep in a little basket, that's how we met him," says Hubbard's long time wife Judy - also the inspiration for many songs.

Hubbard, who wrote another album title track Snake Farm under the name Wylie Lama, tells a different story.

"I played the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival a few years ago and I was out in San Francisco," Ray Wylie recalled.

"So after I did my set this young guy came up and he said, "Mr. Hubbard, can I talk to you for a minute?" And I said, "Sure." And he said, "Well, can I tell you how inspiring you are?" And I said, "Yeah, go ahead." And he said, "I play mandolin and bluegrass and I just really enjoy watching and listening to your lyrics and what you're doing, I just really respect your commitment that you have to what you're doing. Please don't take this wrong but you're an older guy, you're still writing these songs and taking that guitar and that case and flying and traveling and performing them and making records. I just really admire your commitment. I hope to have that commitment someday." And I said, "Well, just never learn to do anything else."

Hubbard, whose son Lucas has played in his road band since he was 12, hosts his show Roots & Branches on Americana radio station KNBT in New Braunfels - locale of Gruene Hall, the oldest dance hall in Texas.

Hubbard promoted 16th album The Grifter's Hymnal on David Letterman's TV Show by performing two songs - a rarity - with encore Screw You, We're From Texas.

The singer co-wrote the screen play and was music supervisor for 2010 outlaw movie The Last Rites Of Ransom Pride that starred Dwight Yoakam and Kris Kristofferson.

CLICK HERE for Ray Wylie Hubbard interviews in the Diary on July 7, 2012.
CLICK HERE for a Hayes Carll feature in the Diary on July 14, 2012

JAYNE DENHAM - ADDICTED TO THE DIESEL

Former Londonderry singer Jayne Denham graduates from Mescalene and gasoline to different fuels in her video for Addicted To The Diesel from her third album Renegade on ABC Music.

That song cements her sponsorship by Wickham Freight Lines who provide her with her two touring trucks.

"I wrote that with Matt Scullion, whom I hadn't written with before, and Garth Porter at his studio in Botany," Denham told Nu Country.

"We had been talking about writing together for years and Matt had the title in his head and the riff, he's a riff master."

Denham deepened her rural roots by moving to the bush and writing about her genetic love of trucks, cowgirls and bone crunching sports - rodeo and roller derby.

One of her songs Shelter is a tribute to husband-writing partner Paul with whom she moved to a 10 acre farm-let at Hartley west of the Blue Mountains over a year ago.

"I wrote Shelter with Tamara Stewart and we gelled straight away and did really well together," Jayne added.

Denham also duets with bush bred country rocker Shannon Noll on Beyond These City Lights - a Noll tune extolling yearning for his agrarian ancestry.

"I met him Shannon a few years ago when I was touring with the Noll Brothers," says Jayne now touring nationally in July and August to promote her album.

CLICK HERE for a Denham feature in The Diary.

COSTA - PAUL NOT FRANK - LAMPOONS BIG END OF TOWN

Sunraysia born singer-songwriter Paul Costa injects some strident social comment into his song Big End Of Town - one of the highlights of his fourth album Wheels & Steel.

Costa's video illustrates the widening social, economic and political gap in the unlucky radio country.

The singer, in his forties, is well qualified to comment on city power brokers inflicting broken promises and shattered dreams on the sons and daughters of the soil.

Paul and his brothers bought back their family orchard at Robinvale near Mildura on the banks of the mighty Murray River.

Costa wrote the song with Tamara Stewart who was born at Mooroopna in the Goulburn Valley - another citrus belt being decimated by big city power brokers closing down fruit processing companies.

Paul first explored big banks foreclosing on family farms on third album In This Life.

Costa and brother Noel - one of the four Costa singing siblings - wrote Survivor 1932 about the historic depression that wreaked havoc in the bush and cities.

They joined long-time producer Rod McCormack to daub their riveting post Great Depression parable with the triumph of racing icons diverse as Phar Lap, Peter Pan and Gundagai Dog on The Tuckerbox over poverty.

Now, on Wheels & Steel, he also updates history on his evocative version of Drew McAlister-Allan Caswell song - Buying Back The Farm.

CLICK HERE for a Costa feature in The Diary on July 29, 2012.

HOW TO KEEP NU COUNTRY ON AIR

We need your support to return to air in December on Channel 31 to celebrate our 21st series of Nu Country TV.

Australian record companies and artists have joined forces to help our survival.

We have new CDS by major artists you can win by becoming a Nu Country TV member or renewing your membership.

They include singing actors Willie Nelson and Tim McGraw, Voice judge Blake Shelton and singing spouse Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe, Brad Paisley, Gary Allan, Keith Urban, Toby Keith, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church, Carrie Underwood, Slim Dusty, Felicity and many more.

We also have the latest John Fogerty and John Denver all-star tribute albums and DVDS by Miranda and fellow chart topper Lady Antebellum.

CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for full details.

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