Dierks Bentley – Home

Various Artists – Music Inside: A Collaboration Dedicated to Waylon Jennings, Part 2

Various Artists – Hearts Across Texas (includes Aaron Watson/Elizabeth Cook duet)

Glen Campbell – Meet Glen Campbell (reissued with bonus tracks)

Guy Clark Week > Shark Week

The Los Angeles Americana music blog Turnstyled Junkpiled has named Guy Clark its ‘Pimp of the Week,’ and festivities over there have so far included a review of This One’s for Him (which you may recall as our #3 album of 2011), a feature/interview with Clark, and a video compilation of LA area musicians covering several of his songs. Among the videos, particular favorites are Brian Wright and the Ladies Gun Club (below), Ted Russell Kamp, and Mark W. Lennon, but you’ll want to give all of them a listen. Lots of talent down there in the hipper half of the state.

A Hag-Off of Epic Proportions

Matt Hillyer of Eleven Hundred Springs hosts Country Jam Radio on KHYI out of Dallas. On last Saturday night’s show, he was joined by Jason Eady and steel guitarist Roger Ray. After performing a handful of original songs during the broadcast segment of the show, Hillyer and Eady let the tape roll for more than an hour as they entertained themselves and the assembled crowd with an off-the-cuff Haggard song swap. Besides the obvious choices, there were plenty of deeper cuts like “Going Where the Lonely Go,” “C.C. Waterback,” and “I’m Gonna Break Every Heart I Can.” The impromptu nature of the performance, with drinks ordered and lyrics dropped here and there, makes it an especially entertaining listen.

You can stream or download the whole thing here.

Also revealed on the show: Eady’s new album, AM Country Heaven, finally has a release date of April 10. A true throwback country record, it features Heybale as a backing band and Lloyd Maines on pedal steel.

Here’s the album’s title track, which wears some of that Haggard influence on its sleeve.

Two of the best-written albums you’ll hear all year – which both happen to hit the market next Tuesday, January 31 – are available for streaming right now.

Gretchen Peters has Hello Cruel World up at Performing Songwriter. If you grabbed that free sampler we steered you toward last month, you know that you need to give this a listen, stat. I have “The Matador” playing right now and it’s a killer. There’s a nice duet with Rodney Crowell, too. Don’t miss it.

Here’s the Gretchen Peters listening link.

Meanwhile, Darrell Scott – he of “Long Time Gone” and “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” fame, to name but two of his best-known radio songs – has Long Ride Home up at Folk Alley. A deeply personal collection mining Scott’s early years and hard country roots, it includes duets with musical heroes Guy Clark and Wayne Scott, the singer’s own late father. Whereas he played and tracked all instruments separately on his last album, this time Scott builds a crack studio band around Hargus ‘Pig’ Robbins, Lloyd Green, Dennis Crouch, and Kenny Malone, and the live energy comes across beautifully on record. Great stuff.

Here’s the Darrell Scott listening link.

Here are some of our favorite country songs about money matters.

1. Wynn Stewart – Another Day, Another Dollar
2. Chris Knight – Another Dollar
3. Tom T. Hall – Ballad of Forty Dollars
4. Billy Joe Shaver – Bottom Dollar
5. Jamey Johnson – The Dollar
6. Ted Russell Kamp – If I Had A Dollar
7. Faron Young – I’ve Got Five Dollars and It’s Saturday Night
8. Tim McGraw – Last Dollar (Fly Away)
9. Rebecca Lynn Howard – Life of a Dollar
10. Gillian Welch – One More Dollar
11. Emmylou Harris – Queen of the Silver Dollar
12. The Delmore Brothers – Silver Dollar
13. Shawn Camp – The Tune of the Twenty Dollar Bill
14. Chris LeDoux – Workin’ Man’s Dollar
15. Corb Lund – Five Dollar Bill
16. Townes Van Zandt – Dollar Bill Blues
17. Stringbean – Give Me Back My Five Dollars
18. Steve Gulley & Tim Stafford – Sixteen Cents
19. Ricky Skaggs – I Had But 50 Cents
20. Chris Wall – Ten Cents on the Dollar

See also:
Hoyt Axton – Greenback Dollar
Eddie Rabbitt – Two Dollars in the Jukebox
Walt Wilkins – Somedays A Dollar
Bleu Edmonson – 50 Dollars & a Flask of Crown
Owen Temple – Dollars and Dimes
The Infamous Stringdusters – 17 Cents
The Wilkinsons – 26 Cents
Porter Wagoner – Eleven Cent Cotton
Norman Blake – Give Me Back My Fifteen Cents
John Michael Montgomery – A Few Cents Short

Martina McBride - Hits and More

Roger Creager - Surrender

Rodney Hayden - Live from the Phoenix Saloon

Ernest Troost - Live at McCabe's

Cory Morrow - Live at Billy Bob's Texas

Cory Morrow - Live at Billy Bob's Texas (Acoustic)

Kellie Pickler – “Stop Cheatin’ on Me” (from 100 Proof, out January 24)

Randy Travis and John Anderson – “Diggin’ Up Bones” (from Anniversary Celebration)

LeAnn Rimes – “Sixteen Tons” (from Lady & Gentlemen)

The Little Willies - For the Good Times