At this point, after being in the music blog racket for a number of years, I don’t have any misconceptions about my role. I have a small blog that will never break out traffic wise because I choose not to write about the band of the minute. But I’ve really taken this approach a step too far lately by purposefully trying to write about bands that stump Elbo.ws and Hype Machine. One such artist is the British singer songwriter Ian Williams. A quick search on both sites reveals no other post about this British artist.
The new EP by Ian Williams has just been released by Adventure Club Records. Although Ian is originally from Wales he makes his home now in Leeds and is part of that city’s americana/alt-country movement. Here’s the “Amputation song” from Bible Black Heart. I think you’ll see why this gently strummed, richly sung song deserves time on songs:Illinois.
If you’re like me and are wondering who the hell Arty Hill and the Long Gone Daddy’s is and why their 5 year old debut record Back On the Rail is in the top ten of the Americana Charts then let me explain. the band’s debut has just recently been re-released. And apparently this 5 year old honky-tonk is better than most of the stuff coming out at the moment. Unfortunately I don’t have anything from Back On The Rail but check out these samples from the band’s followup Bar Of Gold.
I may all be a little late catching up with Arty Hill but now that I have them on my radar I’m going to play closer attention. Their next project is a Hank Williams tribute that mixes covers with originals called Montgomery On My Mind: The Hank EP.
So I’m back from LA. Did you miss me? Anyway. I’m back and better than ever. Or not. We’ll see.
One of my most highly anticipated records of the year from the alt-country genre is Gina Villalobos‘ record Days On Their Side due out July 12.
Here’s the title track. Of course it’s only a small sample of the new record but through it you will hopefully get the gist. And if you don’t I’d namedrop Lucinda Williams and Kathleen Edwards as contemporaries who are also able to sound both tough and emotionally frail at the same time.
On a side note, before I left for L.A. I recorded an interview and picked a couple of tracks for Hype Radio wearing my Swedesplease hat. I’m in the beginning of the show after the Akron Family song.
The last mention of Jimbo Mathus (Squirrel Nut Zippers) on Elbo.ws was Nov. 14, 2008 by you know who (me!?). And that’s a shame. Jimbo has gone from making a likeness of string band, delta blues and jug music with SNZ to straight up southern fried country rock with his new solo record Jimmy the Kid. This new sound is being called “inner-planetary honky tonk music.”
If the music doesn’t go viral maybe the album art will create a controversial puritanical storm instead. Buy the new record here or here.
If this guy was Joe Ely or John Prine I wouldn’t have hesitated to write about these songs. If these were new songs by either of those two I would have made a big stink and gotten to them asap. But Mickey Clark is a bit of a mystery to me so this post sat for a bit. I’m sorry it did.
Mickey’s story is a familiar one of a singer songwriter who almost made it, struggled around the edges of fame, and then left music for a long while to raise a family. In his heyday though Mickey Clark was playing with Kinky Friedamn, Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson, Steve Goodman and many more. He was headlining festivals when Lyle Lovett and Lucinda Williams were opening up for folks at the same festivals. Here’s a nice interview/piece from the Houston Press.
Winding Highway is Mickey’s entre back into the world of music and a great one it is at that. Besides his great songs and voice the record features guests John Prine, Kinky Friedman, Jerry Jeff Walker and Sam Bush. It came out in February on ear X-tacy Records and is available here on Amazon.
“Don’t Piss On My Boots” features a duet with John Prine.
Scott Miller’s had a successful solo career since leaving the V-Roys. He has released three consistently good records on Sugar Hill. He has worked with Patty Griffin, Tim O’Brien, and Jim Dickinson and he has toured the country religiousely for years.
All that hard work has led to releasing his new fan funded record on his own label. Of the five bands profiled this week on Songs:Illinois Scott Miller is the third to go this route. I’d call that a trend. His new record is titled For Crying Out Loud. Scott’s been known in the past for his humorous songs and I’m sure there are plenty on this record. But I’ve only heard this one song and it’s the last one on the record and closes it out with a whimper rather than a bang.
I got an email with a long backstory about the band Old Californio and their new album Westering. For me the whole thing was a waste of space. Not that the email wasn’t informative and well written but the key fact for me was that Dave Gleason is a fan and plays on the record. That’s all that needed to be said. See, Dave Gleason (and his west coast consorts like Mike Stinson and Tracy Huffman) has been making some of the best alt-country honky-tonk for a decade or so now. His stamp of approval goes a long way.
The new record is due out April 21st and was produced by Alfonso Rodeñas (Mark Olson / Ben Vaughn/ Los Tigres Del Norte). Westering Again was recorded in a converted garage that used to serve as a chicken coup and you can hear that rootsiness in the song “Mother Road”. You can also hear nods to the Grateful Dead, Wilco, Jayhawks and Gram Parsons. The band is celebrating the release of the new record on April 5 at The Grand Ole Echo.
I’m generally against animal cruelty. But I can’t overlook this opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Sarah MacDougall is an ex pat Swede living in Vancouver. Her brand of polished folk pop is perfect for Songs:Illinois while her Nordic routes make her an ideal artist for Swedesplease. Sarah’s new record, Across The Atlantic, came out this year on the excellent little label Copperspine.
“Crow’s Lament” is a great example of the eclectic nature of this new record. The song’s a whirling dervish of a tune about death. It features Sarah’s lusty vocals, some of the unusual instrumentation from the record (dobro, weissenborn, lapsteel, odd percussion, rhodes, and pedal steel) and clever lyrics.
You can buy the new record here or here (and I heartily recommend that you do!).
James Intveld looks like his music sounds. Really, click below on “Walk With Me” and see what I mean. “Walk With Me” is off James’ third album Have Faith which came out in 2008.
James is playing The Continental Club on March 21st as part of SXSW.
Neal Casal has attained more fame from his association with Ryan Adams than from any of his solo recordings/tours. The man produced some of the great americana rock of the 90′s and continues to record solo albums that are solid works of songcraft (wrote about his earlier work here and here). His new record is out soon in Europe on Fargo Records but is also available now on his website here.
The word is that this record is more acoustic and folk rock rather than gritty alt-country. On the song “Here By The Sea” from Roots & Wings you get a good taste of what the whole record must be like with it’s gentle acoustic guitar, vocal harmonies (reminiscent of The Jayhawks or Mathew Sweet) and occasional electric guitar/pedal steel weaving its way in and out of the mix. I’m a big fan and you should be too.
OK. Forget what I said yesterday about having two women artists in a row. Because today’s post makes three. Also I was going to throw an exclusive tag up on this post but why bother since every one of the songs from this week are exclusives to Songs:Illinois. So why signal this one out. As I said back in January, Diana Jones‘ new record Better Times Will Come is one of my most anticipated records of the year. I’ve raved about Diana’s music before and I’m just in love with her voice (more so than any other singer I think her voice expresses so much angst and yearning), her deft instrumentation, and of course her songs. And I’m not the only one in such a tizzy as she’s won multiple awards since her groundbreaking 2006 release My Remembrance of You. She’s toured with some of the best, her songs have been recorded and praised by the elite in the folk world (most notable were covers by Joan Baez and Gretchen Peters) and she’s got some pretty serious friends at radio (BBC, Mountainstage, WXPN) and press.
Diana Jones’ new record is called Better Times Will Come and that’s also the track I have for you today. Considering she must have written this song long before the markets collapsed, before people lost their jobs en masse and before the trillion dollar bailout was proposed it is a pretty prescient. The message of hope and change in this song is strong but it’s Diana jopnes’ world weary voice that makes it seem like having such hope is a pipe dream.
To add to the appeal of the album are guest appearances by Mary Gauthier, Nancy Griffith and Betty Elders. You can order this as an import here or wait for it to hit the states in April. I’ll do an update once this is for sale here.
With a stroke of his pen (10 original songs), a flourish of pedal steel, and high lonesome tenor voice Ben Kweller has fired a shot across the bow of the americana community. In an 11 day studio session Kweller, who has flirted with countrified rock in the past but more often than not channeled either the Stones or Big Star, has suddenly struck a claim as being the most important new voice in a genre that is always flirting with extinction, irrelevance, or at the very least musical complacency.
With cover art that hints at Sweetheart At The Rodeo and a sound like the dry earth of Kweller’s new adopted hometown of Austin, Texas, Changing Horses is both a change of pace and a return to his roots. Kweller says it best here:
I recorded this album called Changing Horses. I grew up in a small east-Texas town called Greenville where my whole childhood was spent playing in creeks, bass fishing, shooting bb guns, thinking about girls and listening to Garth. After the Beatles and before Nirvana, country music was the soundtrack to my life. That music shaped who I am. My albums which tend to be diverse, usually have one or two cuts on them that are rootsy-americana-folkie-whatever-the-fuck ya wanna call it. This album focuses in on that one side of me.
The short song “Things I Like To Do” with its prominent pedal steel and simple lyrics about small town life and the allure of Texas (vs. NYC) pretty much sums up the new direction in Kweller’s music and life. You can order the record here and be entered into some kind of fancy contest thingy.
I had some stuff ready to post today. Good stuff too. There was even some well-written, descriptive prose from me about said stuff. But late last night I stumbled across a song from the forthcoming record by Justin Townes Earle. And here we are.
“Mama’s Eyes”, from Midnight At The Movies, looks headlong into Justin’s family affairs. It addresses the ways in which in Justin’s case the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, even if the tree is old and gnarled. But it also (as the song title alludes to) points to the importance of his mother in his life and his subsequent well being. I can’t say that the new record will match his debut on the strength of just one song, but the Bloodshot folks are pretty excited about this one and that’s some pretty good track record, right there.
Midnight At The Movies is out on March 9th but I’m sure I’ll have an update, more from the record, and a pre-order page in the weeks to come. So stay tuned.
For someone who literally has never tried an illicit drug before I’m always fascinated by songs that add drugs to the mix. Ted Russell Kamp’s new record Poor Man’s Paradise is due out in the US on Feb. 17 and features one such song. “Old Folks Blues” includes a litany of things that are bad for you and then some. But it also deals with some of the consequences of the choices the protagonist made.
Ted Russell Kamp is skilled multi-instrumentalist but he is also well known as the bassist in Shooter Jennings band. So you can imagine that he’s been exposed to a ton of great music. In the liner notes Kamp describes the recording process this way, “recorded in Ted’s living room, the Shooter Jennings tour bus & countless hotel rooms across America”. You can hear that on the diverse styles of music represented on the new record. Here’s “Old Folks Blues”, buy Poor Man’s Paradisehere.
I was impressed by and wrote about the last Sarah Borges record. It was fairly straight forward and slightly on the raw side which I liked. I didn’t think she had an outstanding voice or the best songs. But I respected her ballsy presentation of a guitar wielding woman fronted band. The promise from that last record doesn’t seem to have been played out on her latest. The new record is called The Stars Are Out and is due out March 24 on Sugarhill Records.
Perhaps I’m having a jaded, seen it all, heard it all, kind of morning but it just seems like all the passion from the first record has been sucked out and replaced with smoothed and rounded edges. Here’s an atmospheric reverb laced ballad from “The Stars Are Out”. Decide for yourself.
I didn’t know much about Chris Gaffney. But from what I’d heard he was the epitome of the unsung roots rock musician. What I do know is that whenever I heard his signature mix of roots, country, tex-mex and blues music I was impressed. He died this past April of liver cancer (LA Times obit here). Now all his friends have gotten together and recorded a tribute record to his songs that’s out in March on Yep Roc. Dave Alvin was one of the driving forces behind the record and it’s quite a bunch of guys he rounded up to contribute and that’s as much a testament to Gaffney’s skill, humanity, and friendship as anything else. Artists include Joe Ely, Dave Alvin, Peter Case, Alejandro Escovedo, Big Sandy, Tom Russell, Calexico and Los Lobos.
The record has a great flow with each artist putting a different spin on a Chris Gaffney song. There are some rockers, some country soul, plenty of latin-tinged rock and a few honky-tonk numbers. Of course it’s the honky-tonk we’ll concern ourselves with this (and every) Friday. In particular Robbie Fulks’ rendition of “King Of The Blues”.
“25 Mexicans” is a song of border crossings, illegal immigration, and the living conditions of Mexican Nationals that strikes up thoughts of Woody Guthrie, John Prine and Tom Russell. As performed by Phil Lee it shares both the cadence and the lyrical themes of some of those great singer-songwriters. It’s a pretty amazing song and one that adds to the great week of music we’ve had already on Songs:Illinois (here and here).
Phil Lee is an unsung “real” country artist from Nashville. He’s had two previous critically acclaimed records. The new one, So Long, Its Been Good To Know You, was released towards the end of 2008 and rocketed to #1 on the Euro Americana Charts where it sits to this day. From the two songs below you can hear how he effectively mixes folk, rhythm and blues, blue-eyed soul and country.
All I had to go on about Doug Keith was the generic genre tag “alt-country”. And that’s not too much so I wasn’t too confident that I’d like him. But from the first notes of “The Companion of an Angel” from his upcoming release Here’s To Outliving Me I was hooked. As a nice bonus Jennifer O’Connor is featured on a number of tracks including “Companion…”.
Its theme of an undying love for an angel-like woman is one I can relate to.
What’s more honky-tonk than death and taxes? Combine the two and you get the story of “Darling Corey”. Charlie Louvin is following up his country gospel record Steps To Heaven album with some darker material on his Dec. 9 release Charlie Louvin Sings Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs. Look for the new record out soon on Tompkins Square. More here and here.
I’m surprised more singer-songwriters don’t use YouTube to their advantage. As Jon “Trailerpark” Jackson proves in his continuing series of homemade videos all you need is a video camera, a guitar, a song and in this case a trailer. “Mona Lisa” has a couple clever lines and nicely continues Jon’s “searching for love” series of songs. Jon recorded this last night in the “wee hours of the morning”.
Glad you found me at my new url. Songs:Illinois is committed to writing about music that is under-appreciated and unique. I've found that the music I write about shares a couple of traits. And they are: lyrical integrity, musically diverse, and written/performed by compelling characters.
Most songs found here are free and legal and have been provided by either the artist or label. If for some reason you'd like to have a song removed, please email me at cbonnell (at) gmail.com.
