Hank Williams photo courtesy of the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum.

The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum will present a special program honoring Hank Williams on April 16. Titled “I Saw the Light: Songwriters Salute Hank,” the program will feature Rodney Crowell, Ashley Monroe, The Secret Sisters and Steve Young. I Saw the Light, which is presented in conjunction with the Museum’s exhibition Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy, Presented by SunTrust, will begin at 1:30 p.m. in the Museum’s Ford Theater; it is included with Museum admission and is free to Museum members.

During the program, which will be hosted by Family Tradition co-curator Michael McCall, each artist will perform one or more of Hank’s classic songs, as well as some of their own compositions that were influenced or inspired by Williams. They will also discuss how Hank influenced their work. Continue Reading

ShareThis

The Americana Music Association announced its year end Top 100 Albums of the Year.  The Top 100 albums are based on those records reported to the Americana Airplay Chart during the period of November 17, 2009 through November 15, 2010.  We’ll serve up the first half of the list and you can visit the Americana Music Association website to access the full list of all 100 albums…

The Top 50 most played albums, as charted on the Americana Airplay Chart are:

1.       Various Artists, Crazy Heart Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, New West

2.       Rosanne Cash, The List, Manhattan

3.       John Hiatt, The Open Road, New West

4.       Carolina Chocolate Drops, Genuine Negro Jig, Nonesuch

5.       Ray Wylie Hubbard, A Enlightenment B Endarkenment Hint There Is No C, Bordello/Thirty Tigers

6.       Robert Earl Keen, The Rose Hotel, Lost Highway

7.       Band Of Heathens, One Foot In The Ether, BOH Records

8.       Avett Brothers, I And Love And You, Columbia

9.       Patty Griffin, Downtown Church, Credential

10.   Reckless Kelly, Somewhere In Time, Yep Roc Continue Reading

ShareThis

Lady Antebellum's Need You Now CD. Photo courtesy of Capitol Nashville.

Billboard.com has just released its year-end charts for 2010. Here are the 50 most popular country albums for the year (based on album sales). Congrats to Lady Antebellum for taking the top spot!

1. Need You Now - Lady Antebellum
2. Fearless – Taylor Swift
3. Speak Now- Taylor Swift
4. Play On – Carrie Underwood
5. The Foundation – Zac Brown Band
6. Lady Antebellum – Lady Antebellum
7. Revolution – Miranda Lambert
8. Wide Open – Jason Aldean
9. Southern Voice – Tim McGraw
10. The Incredible Machine – Sugarland Continue Reading

ShareThis

Lady Antebellum photo courtesy of Capitol Nashville.

Hello, world: Just in case anyone was left on the planet that hadn’t figured out how significant Lady Antebellum was this year, the Recording Academy slipped the band into three of the big-four, multi-genre categories on the prestigious Grammy Awards ballot. Finalists in the general-interest categories were unveiled Wednesday during a one-hour nominations special on CBS.

“Need You Now” and the album of the same name were tabbed as finalists for Record, Song and Album of the Year, pitting Lady A against such pop, rock and rap acts as Eminem, Katy Perry and Arcade Fire.

Miranda Lambert sang her snarky “Only Prettier” on the special, which also saw “The House That Built Me” gain a Song of the Year nomination for composers Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin. As a result, two country titles — “Need You Now” and “House” — are among the five Song of the Year finalists, something that’s only happened seven times in the Grammys’ previous 52 years.

Continue Reading

ShareThis

Johnny Cash photo courtesy of Lost Highway Records.

The American public went crazy on the Dixie Chicks because of Natalie’s statement, and the incident cost the band its mainstream audience. As it turns out, the Man In Black might well have come out publicly against the Iraq War, too, if he weren’t in such poor health.

Daughter Rosanne Cash had put her name on a full-page ad in The New York Times just two weeks prior, joining Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Sheryl Crow, Lucinda Williams, Dave Matthews and T Bone Burnett among a group of musicians who said, “War on Iraq is wrong and we know it.”

Continue Reading

ShareThis

Ryan Bingham photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

Film makers want very much for the general public to buy in to the magic of movies. You can count Ryan Bingham among those who believe in celluloid’s power.

After sharing a Golden Globe and an Oscar Award for Best Song with T Bone Burnett for writing the “The Weary Kind (Theme From Crazy Heart),” Ryan took home two trophies — Song and Artist of the Year — Thursday during the ninth annual Americana Music Association Honors & Awards in Nashville.

The Americana nods only add to the lists in which Ryan finds himself. The Song of the Year Oscar put him in the company of such songwriters as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Henry Mancini and Irving Berlin — all of whom have won the Film Academy’s Best Song prize at least once. Ryan’s new album, Junky Star, made its chart debut this week, landing at No. 2 on the Billboard Country Albums list. And the Americana Artist of the Year trophy put him on yet another list among such previous winners as Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Neil Young and Jim Lauderdale, who hosted Thursday’s show.

Continue Reading

ShareThis

Rosanne Cash photo courtesy of myspace.com/rosannecash.

Ronald Reagan, the DeLorean and parachute pants.

The 1980s were kind of strange — and we’re still paying for the greed-is-good mentality that the ‘80s movie Wall Street embraced.

Nevertheless, there were numerous artists worth their salt in that decade who still matter: Reba McEntire, Dwight Yoakam and George Strait had their first hits, for example. And several acts — including Rosanne Cash, Paul Overstreet and the Desert Rose Band — are still making their presence felt.

Here’s a look at some of the artists who reached their commercial peak during the ‘80s who are making a creative difference in slightly different ways:

Continue Reading

ShareThis

Eli Young Band photo courtesy of Universal Records South.

In an era when Kid Rock and Bon Jovi have found success in country music, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to hear Tom Petty’s name being thrown around.

The Eli Young Band has been covering the rocker’s “American Girl” frequently in concert, and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers are something of a muse for the Texas foursome as it develops a follow-up to the 2008 album Jet Black & Jealous.

Continue Reading

ShareThis

George Strait photo by Danny Clinch, courtesy of UMG Nashville.

Memorabilia belonging to country music’s best — from Country Music Hall of Fame member George Strait to multi-platinum act Taylor Swift — is on display in a new exhibit at the Hall of Fame and Museum, where the genre’s vault neatly escaped the ravages of Nashville’s recent flooding.

The Hall’s caretakers held an invitation-only preview Thursday for its updated exhibit, Sing Me Back Home: A Journey Though Country Music, which features a bevy of memorabilia from acts that had their commercial peaks in the last three decades. Behind the glass are such pieces as the boots Reba McEntire wore her first night on the Grand Ole Opry, the Martin D-28 guitar Garth Brooks played on his recording of “The Dance” and Bill Anderson’s hand-written lyrics to “Whiskey Lullaby.”

Continue Reading

ShareThis

Emmylou Harris photo by Rocky Schenck, courtesy of Nonesuch Records.

Dave Rawlings grabbed four nominations to lead the rootsy field as Emmylou Harris and Todd Snider announced the nominees for the Americana Awards & Honors Wednesday at the W.O. Smith Music School in Nashville.

Dave’s nominations came for music he recorded at the historic RCA Studio B with a band shaped out of members from Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, Bright Eyes and Old Crow Medicine Show. The Machine’s A Friend Of A Friend is a finalist for Album of the Year, and “Ruby” — co-written with Dave’s frequent collaborator Gillian Welch — is in the running for Song of the Year. Dave is up for Instrumentalist and the Machine is a finalist for Duo Group.

Ray Wylie Hubbard rode his cleverly titled album A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint: There Is No C) to a trio of nominations. Ryan Bingham, whose “The Weary Kind (Theme From Crazy Heart” has already won a Golden Globe and an Oscar award, picked up three as well.

Continue Reading

ShareThis