DAVE'S DIARY - 18/6/2018 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 28 - SERIES 34

KACEY MUSGRAVES AND RUSTON KELLY HEADLINE NU COUNTRY TV

Texan troubadour Kacey Musgraves and her singing spouse Ruston Kelly headline Nu Country TV on Saturday June 23 at 9 pm on Channel 31/ Digital 44.

Fellow Texan trio Midland also return to the show repeated on Sunday at 11.30 pm and Monday at 3 pm.

Tasmanian band The Wolfe Brothers debut on the program filmed and edited by Laith Graham.

And Victorian high country chanteuse Fanny Lumsden also returns with her latest video.

Kentucky duo Montgomery Gentry perform a tribute to late Californian legend Merle Haggard shortly before Troy Gentry, just 50, was tragically killed in a helicopter crash en route to a New Jersey concert.

Nu Country TV is a highlight of C 31 streaming list on Digital 44.

Further info - https://www.c31.org.au/

HOW KACEY DITCHED A SPACE COWBOY

Kacey Musgraves reveals how she needed more space to escape a cowboy in her latest video.

It was definitely not her singing spouse Ruston Kelly whom she wed on October 14, 2017.

Kacey and Ruston, both 29, share their love and songs with radio, TV and in live shows.

Her video for Space Cowboy is one of several she made to promote her seventh album Golden Hour that topped all charts on debut.

Musgraves recently performed High Horse and Slow Burn on TV show Saturday Night Live hosted by Amy Schumer.

She also appeared in a pre-taped Spirituality Rap skit that features Musgraves as a choir girl - spoof of a rap music video airing on MTV Hungary .

CLICK HERE for our interview with Kacey in The Diary.

RUSTON KELLY BLACK MAGIC

Texan renegade Ruston Kelly wrote hits for peers diverse as Tim McGraw and Josh Abbott Band before he met Kacey Musgraves.

Kelly performs this week in his video for Black Magic that was played in the season two finale of TV series Scorpion.

It's also on his debut solo album Halloween .

Kelly also co-wrote Face the Sun that Charles Esten sang on a February 2018 episode of Nashville.

Although Kelly didn't need black magic to lead Kacey to the altar he needed her help when he was arrested for DUI in Nashville in January this year.

Kelly wrote a new song A-Hole while he was behind bars awaiting his Uber driver Kacey to rescue him.

"I blew over the line/he cuffed me and brought me in like a prize/ I spit on the floor just to piss him off /he pulled out a taser cause he's got no ck / F cops."

The song starts with an attention grabbing storyline before a faux apology in the chorus.

"Taking everything for granted/the moment someone does something nice I take advantage /easy breezy only when it pleases me/ I've been told, I'm kind of an A-hole."

Kelly revealed he wrote the song in jail after being arrested in January.

"Though my full length will be released soon, I'm constantly writing from my experiences. I wrote this in a jail cell a month ago,” Kelly tweeted.

Further info - https://www.rustonkelly.com/

MIDLAND BURN OUT ON THE ROCKS

Texan trio Midland return with a live honky tonk performance in our Behind Bars segment.

They perform their new single Burn Out from their debut album On The Rocks .

Ironically, Midland now live at Dripping Springs - the site of the first of Willie Nelson's 44 July 4 picnics.

They took their name from Kentuckian singing actor Dwight Yoakam's song Fair To Midland and turned cash flow into lucrative liquidity with wry word play in Top 10 hit Drinking Problem - one of 15 songs they wrote at Sonic Ranch near El Paso in West Texas.

Lead singer Mark Wystrach was an actor-underwear model before meeting bassist-video director Cameron Duddy and lead guitarist Jess Carson at Jess's wedding in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Cameron and Jess formed a musical and personal bond picking songs together on Jess's cabin's front porch.

The trio released a five-song EP that features Drinking Problem written with Josh Osborne and Shane McAnally who also produced it before they opened for superstars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill on tour.

Further info - http://midlandofficial.com/

MONTGOMERY GENTRY HONOUR MERLE HAGGARD

Kentucky duo Montgomery Gentry also return to Behind Bars with their timely tribute to the late Californian legend Merle Haggard.

They perform Haggard song Chill Factor for five times wed Merle who died on his 79th birthday on April 6, 2016.

Sadly, Troy was killed aged just 50, and pilot James Evan Robinson died in a helicopter crash at a resort at the Flying W airport en route to a concert in Medford, New Jersey.

It was on September 8, 2017 - the same day Texan singing actor Don Williams died aged 78.

Troy and duo partner Eddie Montgomery, who turned 54 just 22 days later, had just recorded their ninth album Here's To You and planned to perform songs from it at the concert.

“Our world was turned upside down in an instant and nothing could have prepared us for this," Eddie revealed.

“Over the past few months T-Roy and I have been working on what I think is the best record of our career. In the last few weeks we had been talking about what our first single would be. Then on September 8 none of that mattered."

Better Me , one of the songs from the new Montgomery Gentry album, was played during Gentry's memorial at the Grand Ole Opry on September 14.

" Better Me is a song we all loved and Troy sings his ass off on it," Montgomery added.

"It speaks volumes about his life and who he had become and everyone he touched and how much he loved his family. I am so proud of this song and also to call him my friend, my family, my brother for 30 years."

Montgomery celebrated the duo's 20 th anniversary on February 2, 2018, and promoted Here's to You on his latest tour.

CLICK HERE for a Montgomery Gentry CD review in The Diary on January 29, 2007.

WOLFE BROTHERS PICK BERRIES AND GUITARS AT FAIRY GLEN

The world famous Wolfe Brothers take us on a joyous trip to their 120 year-old southern Tasmanian berry farm to promote their fourth album Country Heart.

They perform latest single Ain't Seen It Yet in front of the signpost to Fairy Glen near Neika in the deep south of Van Diemen's Land.

You can sample their berries on your next Tasmanian trip.

With only 217 residents in Neika it's not hard to find.

But don't go to the post office - it closed in 1969.

CLICK HERE for a Wolfe Brothers interview in The Diary on June 4.

FANNY LUMSDEN EXPANDS ELASTIC WAISTBAND

Victorian high country chanteuse Fanny Lumsden returns to the show after showcasing her music at the 2017 Out On The Weekend festival at Williamstown and the 44th Port Fairy folk festival.

Fanny lives on a farm in the Upper Murray in the Snowy Mountains shadows when not on the road in a 1978 pop-top Millard Caravan.

This week she performs her video for Elastic Waistband from second album A Real Class Act.

" This song is a celebration of mundane things that over time you learn to appreciate as precious,” Fanny revealed.

“We loved working on this song and building up contrast of its poppy - aspirational feel with the fact that the songs theme is celebrating the mundane desire for elastic waistbands and sitting on the couch.”

Lumsden, now 31 and about to give birth, says the song is not life imitating art.

But she says the fact the song is named after stretchy waistbands, a necessity for pregnant women, and discusses "watching our babies grow” is pure coincidence.

"I wrote that song a few years ago and I planned this album and tour ages ago, so it is literally all coincidence,” she explained.

"My appreciation for elastic waistbands is still increasing. It's about how you do have all those ambitions when you are younger, and you think it will be all this, that and the other but that completely changes as you grow older.

“You learn to appreciate those smaller things in your life, and those moments are more precious.”

Fanny took a road trip far from Tallimba near Mount Buffalo in previous video Roll On .

“I grew up there but live on a farm in the Upper Murray under the shadow of the Snowy Mountains not Mount Buffalo,” Fanny revealed.

“That is where my grandma lives in Victoria in the shadows of Mount Buffalo.”

This time they swapped halls for backyards in Queensland for two months on their Under Our Hills Hoist Tour.

"We just love getting out and sharing our songs and stories in an intimate backyard setting,” Fanny explained.

“We had a lot of applications come through this year and are really looking forward to getting out and playing for the fine folk of Queensland and snooping on their backyards."

The crowd funded album is on Red Dirt Road Records - the label Fanny and husband Dan Stanley Freeman operate and promote on her annual Country Halls Tours.

It follows her ARIA nominated debut album Small Town Big Shot that won 2017 Golden Guitar and CMC Awards for Best New Talent.

It's a long trip from studying rural science at University of New England where her song-writing grew.

“I think because my degree was science and factual focused it made me more creative in my writing.”

Further info - http://www.fannylumsden.net/

HOW TO KEEP NU COUNTRY ON AIR

We need your support as we celebrate Nu Country TV's 34th series with Australian record companies and artists teaming to ensure our survival.

You can win Kip Moore's third album Slowheart , thanks to EMI promotions chief Dave Parker, and Blake Shelton's 12th CD If I'm Honest from Karen Black and Tony Midolo at Warner Music.

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

They include Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Gary Allan, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church and late larrikin legend A.P. Johnson.

CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for full details.

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