Run, Don’t Walk to get Jimmy LaFave’s newest album – Depending on the Distance

 

Eilen Jewell’s Third Record Sea of Tears Released To Critical Acclaim

Nashville, TN – Since the April 21st release of Sea of Tears, critics have taken note of Eilen Jewell’s third album and are celebrating her alluring vocals and intimate song choices. From The Boston Globe to Magnet, the album has been featured on top ten lists and highlighted for its extraordinary blend of blues, folk, and rockabilly. Maverick bestowed a perfect 5-star review for the album and Blurt declares, “Jewell and her razor-sharp backing band put the jumper cables on classic rock.”

In addition to glowing reviews, Sea of Tears is moving up the Americana Radio Charts and holding in the “Top 10” for more than 7 weeks. On the chart with legends such as Elvis Costello and Bob Dylan, Eilen Jewell remains the only female artist in a top 10 boys club as reported to Americana radio. iTunes also lauded the album as “New and Noteworthy” in April, just one week after its release.

Unveiled April 21, 2009, through Signature Sounds, Jewell is more Dusty Springfield than Gillian Welch. Sea of Tears finds the artist acknowledging her electric influences and the roots of rock and roll on the album’s twelve tracks. She pays homage to the British invasion of the sixties, bands like The Kinks and The Animals; her forlorn, yet confident, delivery matches slow rock and resonant guitar sounds throughout the record. Although nine of the tracks are Jewell originals, the entire album could easily have been recorded forty years earlier.

Sea of Tears has a smooth sliding pace that is punctuated by a chill of sharp guitar. The tone can be summarized in the words of “Shakin’ All Over,” a cover of Johnny Kidd & The Pirates’ recording, where Jewell expertly explains the album’s sound in the lyrics, “Quivers down the back bone…shakin’ all over.” The slow syncopation on the record hits the listener like ice water on a hot sunny day, unexpected but appreciated – evidently, a feeling valued by music supervisors at the HBO series “True Blood,” who have slated “Shakin'” to appear in a forthcoming episode this season.

The album was recorded along with her touring band; a tried and true ensemble of Jewell, Jason Beek (drums, harmony vocals), Jerry Miller (electric, acoustic, and steel guitars), and Johnny Sciascia (upright bass). The rapport of years touring together along with the musical talent are album highlights; the four musicians merge to produce a tight swagger that cascades through the album.

Eilen Jewell is a multi-faceted artist whose previous two records, Boundary County (self-released, 2006) and Letters from Sinners and Strangers (Signature Sounds, 2007) received national attention for their crisp, organic feel.

Jewell continues to tour in support of the record Sea of Tears and her summer dates include high profile performances at The Birchmere, FitzGerald’s, The Ark, and Rams Head. Take every opportunity to see Jewell live to witness the transformation of the stage around her into a performance arena of the 1950s and 1960s; as the Washington Post pointed out in their live review of her May IOTA show, “Jewell is a roots music star in the making.”

New Buckwheat Zydeco Album/30th Anniversary Tour

The BUCKWHEAT ZYDECO 30th Anniversary TOUR is coming your way!

BUCKWHEAT ZYDECO’S AMAZING NEW STUDIO ALBUM
— LAY YOUR BURDEN DOWN — IS OUT NOW!

AVAILABLE FROM www.BUCKWHEATZYDECO.COM UNTIL JULY 5 FOR ONLY $14.99 INCLUDING SHIPPING…

http://www.buckwheatzydeco.com/bwzydecogoods/bwzydecogoods.html

LAY YOUR BURDEN DOWN IS
Produced by Steve Berlin (Los Lobos)
Features guests Sonny Landreth, Warren Haynes,
Steve Berlin, JJ Grey, and Trombone Shorty

Features five originals and songs made famous by Led Zeppelin, Gov’t Mule, Bruce Springsteen, Captain Beefheart, JJ Grey & Mofro.

The Detroit Free Press says: “Buckwheat Zydeco shines on accordion and vocals, and his tight band is superbly captured by producer Steve Berlin of Los Lobos. Stanley ‘Buckwheat’ Dural Jr.’s in terrific form on ‘Lay Your Burden Down’.”

The Pittsburg Post-Gazette says: “great New Orleans stylings, but it’s also got a a lot of heart and mind behind it. Dural has put together a collection of thoughtful, wide-ranging songs…that come up pulsating with the Buckwheat spirit.

Popmatters.com calls it “an album of highlights…a great party.”

Sonicboomers.com names it “Album of the Week” and calls it: “a vastly entertaining and appealingly diverse package.”

Living Blues says “Buckwheat Zydeco returns with a new release on famed Chicago blues label Alligator Records, and the results are stunning.”

Blues Revue continues, saying the album “is as steeped in blues as in the joyous Louisiana soul at the heart of this outstanding, wonderfully diverse set.”

Chris Morris, writing in Sonicboomers.com, which named Lay Your Burden Down an “Album Of The Week,” called it “a vastly entertaining and appealingly diverse package.”

Rare SRV Recordings Released

Marc Benno and The Nightcrawlers (featuring Stevie Ray Vaughan)

Release Date: Jun 16, 2009

The original recordings of the infamous Texas blues-rock band featuring Stevie Ray Vaughan on lead guitar, Doyle Bramhall on drums, Tommy McClure on bass guitar and Billy Etheridge on keyboards, performing classics written by Marc Benno and the band. Concentrating on Benno’s songwriting talents, the band took on a sound of their own and became underground legends in the Austin music scene of the 70’s. The album, which also features Stevie’s first instrumental, was recorded at Sunset Sound in Hollywood right before the Nightcrawlers went off on tour with J. Geils and Humble Pie. They returned from tour to find their label wasn’t looking for another blues based project, and the album has sat unreleased until now!

MP3 — Dale Ann Bradley releases Don’t Turn Your Back

MP3 Dale Ann Bradley – Don’t Turn Your Back

It’s 9  a.m. on a rainy January day in Nashville, five  days into 2009.  Dale Ann Bradley is coming  up the studio steps without a raincoat, carrying  a guitar and a folder full of lyrics.   She’s been on the road for 14 straight days,  it’s 25 degrees and pouring, but never mind all  that.  She’s been shaping the concept of  her new project, the follow-up to her Compass  Records debut Catch Tomorrow, for  months, and she can’t wait to kick off the first  song. She’s let her heart guide her way through  stacks of songs, looking for those that capture  something beyond great music, something that  gives voice to what she’s been living and  breathing in her own life for the last year.  

So take a seat around the coffee table  at the Compass Sound Studio–where Dale Ann  Bradley sits with an old D-28 and producer and  banjoist Alison Brown puts her gentle mark of  genius on arrangements–and let Dale Ann tell  you about Don’t Turn Your Back in her  own words: “It needs to be more than a record,”  she’s says. “This is my dream album. I want it  to inspire people to hang in with whatever  they’re facing–to find the hope and inspiration  to keep going. I want to share the music that’s  touched me and I want to put everything into it  that has been given to me over the past  year.”

This is Dale Ann Bradley. She’s  the 2007 & 2008 IBMA Female Vocalist of the  Year and has been hailed by Alison Krauss and  Ricky Skaggs as one of the greatest vocalists in  country and bluegrass music. A former Coon Creek  Girl and mainstay at Kentucky’s Renfro Valley  Barn Dance, Bradley commands a list of awards as  long as Highway 40, yet a few minutes with her  tells you she is something even more than  extraordinarily gifted–she’s extraordinarily  human. A Primitive Baptist preacher’s daughter  out of the hills of Kentucky where no musical  instruments were allowed, Bradley grew up in a  self-described “backwoods holler” down a rural  road where electricity and running water weren’t  available until she was in high  school–something she has more in common with  the first generation of bluegrass than her  contemporaries in today’s scene.

Dale  Ann Bradley is nothing if not a great  storyteller, but her ability to step into  someone else’s shoes and make their story her  own for a few minutes, that is what allows every  note sung and played on Don’t Turn Your  Back to be believable. In the company of  some of best bluegrass pickers and singers  including Stuart Duncan (fiddle/banjo), Deanie  Richardson (fiddle), Alison Brown (banjo), Gena  Britt (banjo), Steve Gulley (vocals), and Mike  Bub (bass), Bradley explores Don’t Turn Your  Back’s undeniable themes of bravery and  hope through the eyes of mothers, lovers,  trains, and one shiny, soon-to-be-lucky penny.  

Staying true to her  daughter-of-a-preacher roots, Don’t Turn  Your Back includes three bluegrass gospel  numbers: the humorous “Rusty Old Halo”, The  Carter Family’s “Fifty Miles of Elbow  Room”,  and the traditional “Heaven”, which  features reigning IBMA Entertainers of the Year  Jamie Dailey and Darrin Vincent. Sharing her  love of classic rock and its influence on her  music and voice, Bradley includes bluegrass  versions of Fleetwood Mac’s “Over My Head”and  Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down”, yet stays close  to tradition with the Kentucky mountain ballad  “Blue Eyed Boy”. Courage is the silver thread  running through all twelve tracks of Don’t  Turn Your Back, and it is in these songs  that Bradley lays out all she’s got: “Anybody  Else’s Heart But Mine” teaches us how to push  through a broken heart, “Will I Be Good Enough”  (Branscomb, Claire Lynch on guest vocals)  whispers hope to uncertain parents, and “Music  City Queen” (Bradley/Branscomb) documents the  dauntlessness of those who come to Nashville  seeking stardom. The title track calls for  giving life’s highway one more  chance.

Dale Ann Bradley’s mountain  soprano has been called “shimmering” (The  Washington Post)

Reviews

We’ve got a stack of great CDS sitting here we’re itching to tell you about. Stay tuned to this page for our own version stimulus plan — for country music.

First up will be a review of a disc that arrived in my mailbox two days ago from someone that despite not having  a new release in a few years hasn’t missed a honky tonk beat….

Curious?

Then stay tuned… 🙂

Ryebender – Alaskan Americana (recommended)

(press release)Ryebender are no ordinary rock band. And with three of four members hailing from the farthest outpost of the union, they don’t make ordinary music either. Brothers Mark and Jason Ward, fellow Alaskan Lennie Dietsch and drummer, Michael Carpenter are primed to shake Americana music to its core.Audio Link: Gravity

 

The guitars, harmonies, songwriting and shear musical craftsmanship of the band’s debut album, ‘Hollow and Drifting’, shows that we are dealing with musicians with an unusual sense of what makes a song great.

Theirs is a combination of indie sensibilities, country and folk roots and a rare sense of harmony and arrangement. The music of Ryebender is at once familiar and new, strange and comforting. It has what all great songwriting has: the moment where you only realize what is said after it has gone.

On ‘Your Time Has Come and Gone’, they sing “I can’t turn the page without thinking you just can’t make it right by another wrong.” It is typical of the simplicity and beauty of their lyrics, and their music. It is the simplicity that great country based music should always have and so often does not.

Maybe it is the frontier mentality that still exists in Alaska, but is missing from so much of the rest of the country, that keeps Ryebender singing about a ‘One Horse Town’ where they sing “the same old songs”. Maybe it is that mentality that makes this record sound like a paean to an America that could soon be a thing of the past.

There are elements of 60’s greats like the Byrds in this music, just as there are traces of modern songwriting icons such as Ryan Adams and Uncle Tupelo.

Yet, despite the comparisons, the sound of Ryebender is very much their own. And despite the fact that the original members have left their homes to move to places as far-flung as Chicago, Oregon and Sun Valley, the mood is still very much Alaskan in spirit.

This band plays, sings and writes about the heart of Americana, as it is and as it was, and for that we salute them. I’m sure you will too.

‘Hollow and Drifting’ is available now in all good record stores and online at Amazon, CDBaby, iTunes and many others.