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.

Give them as gifts (Amazon now allows you to gift MP3s) or treat yourself while the price is right.

Click any cover image to go to the download page.

This is Gretchen Peters, writer of “Independence Day,” “Chill of an Early Fall,” “The Secret of Life,”and “If Heaven.” The same Gretchen Peters whose collaboration with Tom Russell, One to the Heart, One to the Head, came in at #2 on our list of the Best Country Albums of 2009. You know, Gretchen Peters, one of the finest singer-songwriters of our time?

Fifteen songs. For free. If you’re still here, you’re stalling. Go claim your download of the Gretchen Peters retrospective. It’ll instantly improve your Monday.

* Pssttt, hey HSB… how about issuing some media passes? It’d make life easier for the well-mannered, crowd-phobic bloggers among us.

• I recently added an Album Release Calendar, which I’ll do my best to keep up-to-date with any country-ish albums on the horizon. We’ve got new stuff from Willie Nelson, Diana Jones, Jason Isbell, Ralph Stanley and Emmylou Harris coming up in the near future, just to name a few.
• For those of you residing in or coming through the Northern California area, I recently added a bunch of dates to the local Concert Calendar. There are about 14 in April alone, including Terri Clark, Chris Young, The Devil Makes Three, Mindy Smith, etc. I’ve got listings all the way through October.
• In an effort to make the site more accessible to first-time readers—I can only imagine it’d be weird to arrive on a site like this if you’d only ever been to CMT or whatnot—I’m trying to put together a Best Of Country California section to showcase some of the most immediately likable stuff we’ve done to date (i.e. stuff that’s actually thought-provoking or funny and doesn’t rely too heavily on inside jokes). If you have suggestions as far as older posts to include, I’d love to hear them.

The album and concert calendars can both be found under the ‘Resources’ tab at the top of every page. The Best Of section will be linked from the homepage once I put it together.

I’m really excited to be going to Nashville next month to record a new CD! Will Kimbrough is back in the producer’s seat, but this time, I’m bringing along my amazing SC band, the Beguilers: Brandon Turner on lead guitar and Jeff Hook on the drums. We’ve got some great new songs and the combination of players cannot be beat. Byron House, currently touring with Robert Plant, Buddy Miller & Patty Griffin in Band of Joy will be joining us on the bass. Plus lots of special surprise guests.

All this wonderment does not come cheap and I’ve been saving every penny I make from my touring over the last 2 years to pay for it. I’m an indie artist and entirely self–funded. I’m just about there, but need a little boost to help cover our living expenses in Nashville.

To raise some money, I have a great gift. For a donation of $15, I will send a personalized Holiday card to whoever you want to receive it. Inside the card will be gift cards to download BOTH of my albums, BlackTop Road and Earning Her Wings for free!! This makes a great gift and a nice way to share my music with your friends. Or get my albums for yourself if you don’t have them already! At only $15, it is cheaper than downloading both my albums on Amazon or Itunes, plus you get the added bonus of the personalized card and the chance to support my new CD. The downloads can be played on any ipod or Mp3 player and also burned onto a CD.

I have 115 of these gifts available. Just think, if I sell all of them, that is over $1700, which would be a HUGE help in our budget. The cards will be sent out the first week in December. You can buy just one or as many as you want. I’m happy to send them to multiple addresses in one order. I really hope I can sell them all!

You can message me here or at easterling.fans@gmail.com if you are interested!

Even if you just do it for yourself, $15 for two albums and some holiday cheer is a pretty sweet deal. You’ll also enjoy the good feeling of knowing you’re helping Angela get her third album off on the right foot. Consider it!

I’m a pretty hard sell on this type of music, just because there seem to be a lot of young old-voiced guys doing basically the same thing, but Bound for Glory was one album that gave me pause when it passed my desk earlier this year. For free, this new acoustic EP is definitely worth a listen.

More content-like content coming up soon. Just been busy, that’s all!

For more information on the event this weekend, check out the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass website.