Over the last three decades, honky-tonk legend Dale Watson has carried the torch for pure country music. A permanent fixture of the Austin, TX, music scene for as long as I can remember, Watson has a new home base, Memphis, TN and recorded all but one song on his new Red House Records release, CALL ME LUCKY, at historic Sam Phillips Recording studio in Memphis. The album features some of city’s finest as well as Dale’s longtime band, His Lone Stars, and includes a horn section on some of the tracks. With nods to the Man in Black, Johnny Cash, as we listened to last week, and to Hank Williams Sr. Watson pays homage to the greats and proves he’s the real McCoy.
We’ve just listened to the song Tupelo Mississippi & 57 Fairlane, Tupelo was the place where Elvis was born, and a Ford Fairlane is a car which Elvis bought in 1956, now almost 53 years ago, and a classic car from the first era of Elvis Prestley. As Dale says, they don’t make them like that no more. We’ll say goodbye to Dale Watson listening to the song David Buxkemper, which resembles to me the classic “Six days on the Road” from Dave Dudley. An anthem of trucker sound. We’ll listen to both of them.
We’ve listened to Heather Myles and her “Big Cars”, from her 4th album “Sweet Talk and Good Lies” from 2002. Just as Dale was talking about the Ford 1957 Fairline, Heather talked about the classic cars that the amecian car industry used to produce until the 70s. Heather plays Bakersfield honky tonk tradition, and she developed a reputation as one of the finest traditional-style country singers to emerge in the 1990s and her songwriting is just as strong as her voice. Heather Myles was born and raised in Riverside, CA, where her parents raised her on a ranch. Myles grew up with an enthusiasm for horses, as well as the traditional California country sounds her parents loved. When she was a child, Myles picked up a ukulele belonging to her father and tried to learn how to play it; in time, she graduated to a guitar and in the 1980s, she began performing live with a group called the Lonesome Myle Band. Myles in 1992 released her first album, Just Like Old Times, recorded under her own name for the label Hightone, and from there a series of albums by different producers and with classic artists such as Merle Haggard and Dwight Yoakam collaborated in her real country albums. A collection of Myles's material for Hightone (which featured a previously unreleased song), Rum and Rodeo, appeared in 2005, and this is the song we will use to say goodbye to this great singer. Rum and Rodeo talks about the hard life of rodeo riders that every year compete in the American circuit. Always on the road, they are never at home, just earning enough to survive, but their physical strength sooner or later comes to an end and then they find it difficult to survive in society.
The duet Larkin Poe, formed by siblings Rebecca and Megan Lovell, part of the older group The Lovell Sisters, which disbanded in 2009, have just played this beautiful version of the classic by Santo & Johnny “Sleepwalker”, a classic mix between Hawaiian and Country music instrumental, with the electric guitar in Rebecca’s hands, and Megan at the lap steel. When they reunited in 2010, they decided to name their duet after their great-great-great-grandfather, who happened to be a distant cousin of Edgar Allan Poe, the writer. They released their 5th work in their career, “Venom and faith”, in november last year, and from this one we will listen to the 6th track of the CD, called “Blue Ridge Mountain”, where they will display their talent in their modern bluesy country style.
A long 15 years ago this show had the opportunity to have a little interview with young talent Sunny Sweeney right after releasing her debut album “Heartbreaker’s Hall of Fame”, re-lauched last year from which we have just listened to “The next big nothing”. Sunny Sweeney was so intensely attached to country music that during the interview she stated clear that her most important influence was the late Merle Haggard, Bakersfield sound in new traditionalist hands. From her first album to 2018 she has published 9 albums of great quality. Just out of curiosity, we will listen to two songs from two different works. First one, “Nothing Wrong with Texas”, from her album “Trophy”, a song about returning to your origins, to what really is important. The second album, “Heartbroke”, also published in 2017. From this one we will listen to the song that gives its name to the piece of work, too, “Heartbroke”, the classic from Ricky Skaggs from 1981.
It is always a pleasure to listen to George Strait, here covering the classic by Ricky Skaggs, Heartbroke, included in his second album “Strait from the heart”, from 1982.
George is working on his latest album, the 30th in his career, called “Honky Tonk Time Machine”, due out on March 29, also with MCA Nashville, record label that has been his home since the beginning of his career. The album cover has already been leaked to the press, and it’s a picture of the “Broken Spoke”, famous Austin honky-tonk bar at which he performed early in his career. On February 11th, that is, yesterday, the song “Every Little Honky Tonk Bar” was released as his next single to country radios around the USA. Composed by Strait himself, his son Bubba, and tunesmith Dean Dillon. Let’s listen to it.
Harvey Strait, the grandson of George Strait, son of Bubba Strait, collaborates in this beautiful song included in George’s 30th album. There will be a concert that’ll stand alone in Atlanta Georgia, to be announced, which will also include artists such as Chris Janson, Ashley McBryde, and Chris Stapleton, whose voice we heard last week.
Last year Shooter Jennings published his 9th album. The only son of country legends Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, and relay in country music, spent literally his childhood on a tour bus. We have just listened two tracks of his last album, Shooter, a mixture between rock and roll and country music. He is more than capable of bringing both sides of his musical personality together on an album, even though I must say that I can hear more of country music than rock and roll throughout this jewell. The first song we’ve heard from him is “Bound to git down”, a rollicking boogie number that kicks up plenty of dust, followed by “Do you love Texas?”, a pedal steel-infused two-step that wouldn’t have been out of place if it had been included in one of his dad’s albums.
To finish with today’s show, we will listen to a couple more songs from this fantastic and talented musician born in Nashville, Tennessee. The first one is “D.R.U.N.K.”, that is, “drunk”, a great outlaw song, and “Living in a minor key”, song which he wrote for George Jones years in the past, and that he himself is trying to defend here.
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