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Canadian multi-platinum supergroup Blue Rodeo

“They have the chops to warrant the attention and high expectations they’ve sparked since their debut… When Rodeo hits the mark with the likes of “Summer Girls” they’re first class.”
Harp – February 2008

The day before Blue Rodeo released their 11th studio album, Small Miracles, the band loaded themselves up in a van and did something they had never done before.  For ten hours that day, one of Canada’s most popular bands played on street corners all around the downtown core, shocking fans and stopping local traffic.  For a band that has become woven into the fabric of Canadian life, it just seemed to make sense to step down off the stage and serenade the public on its way to work.

Commuters were caught off guard as they got off their morning trains and hockey fans were thrilled to run into the band outside a Toronto Maple Leaf pre-season game.  But perhaps the most appreciative audience were the patients at Princess Margaret Hospital.  Patients and staff jammed the hospital’s foyer to enjoy the band’s five song performance.  Of all of the impromptu performances, this was the one that had the most meaning to the band members.

“The nurse who looked after my dad when he was in intensive care up in North York was there too, and so that was pretty sweet,” said Greg Keelor afterwards.

By today’s standards, it can be called a small miracle if a band stays together for five years and records two albums, but what would you call it when a band has been recording best selling albums for twenty years?  Though it was no intended that way, it seems most appropriate that Blue Rodeo called their new album Small Miracles.  The thirteen track album, once again features the storied songwriting  talents of Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor.

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The Dedringers
Austin, Texas

“The Dedringers are without a doubt one of Austin’s best new bands…..they sound at once familiar and fresh.” Jody Denberg, KGSR

“When The Dedringers play the Hollywood Bowl we hope that they will let us open for them”. - James McMurtry

The Dedringers have been playing bars and venues since they were pre-teens . They are mature beyond their years and their music and their demeanor will prove that. You could say their debut EP is self titled in some respects. Definitely, Purposely, Infinite. The Dedringers and their music are as eclectic as an indie record shop, creating an atmosphere where you spend hours revisiting old treasures and discovering new ones.

With influences like Townes Van Zandt, Bob Dylan, John Prine, Steve Earle, Gram Parsons, Todd Snider and Guy Clark, you can’t help but find something to fall in love with in the mix. Don’t be mistaken…their music is their own.

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Tom Gillam
Residence: Austin, Texas
Style: Rock/Americana

Tom Gillam died March 20, 2006, returning from a string of dates in Texas and in the middle of recording his fourth LP. He’s doing fine, thank you. There’s a reason his new album is called Never Look Back.

He suffered two of three heart attacks on the table in the ER of Virtua Hospital in deepest New Jersey. They were operating to clear his totally blocked aorta the third time; two percent of the men in their 30s and 40s survive similar attacks. Occasionally it pays to be in the minority.

None of which means his new album is filled with maudlin songs revealing his new appreciation of life and deep spirituality. (Those are private matters.) Like 2005’s breakthrough Shake My Hand — 14 weeks on the Americana radio top 10, peaking at #4 — for which he received a “Best Emerging Artist” nomination from the Americana Music Association — Never Look Back is a thoroughly entertaining and highly literate burst of classic songwriter-driven rock.

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Chris Knight

Residence: Slaughters, Kentucky
Genres: Americana, Singer/Songwriter, Country, Rock
Website: www.chrisknight.net

In the summer of 1996 inside a sweltering singlewide trailer outside a small Kentucky mining town, an unknown singer-songwriter named Chris Knight recorded an ‘unofficial’ batch of tracks prior to the release of his major label debut album. Over the next decade, through a combination of leaks, bootlegs and legend, those sessions would become something much more. “People have been talking about these tapes ever since I recorded them,” Chris Knight says. “To me, they were rough and stark and I never thought they’d see the light of day.” Ten years and four acclaimed albums later, The Trailer Tapes remain a remarkable moment in time less captured than cornered, a portrait of the artist as a ferociously talented young man. And for the artist The New York Times would soon call “the last of a dying breed … a hard-nosed iconoclast with an acoustic guitar and a college degree”, The Trailer Tapes have now arrived as the long-missing first chapter of one of the most uncompromising careers in music today.

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Beggars’ Caravan
Hometown: Durham, NC
Style: Jam Band, Indie Rock
Website:  www.beggarscaravan.com

Since officially forming in Durham, NC, Beggars’ Caravan rolled into the indie rock scene in 1999 with highly distributed copies of their self-titled demo along with various fan recordings of their earliest live shows. Singer/songwriter Chris Barkley and guitarist/songwriter Kevin Thornton began blending their sorted musical backgrounds in college, both already drawing on professional training on various instruments as well as on experience performing both nationally and internationally. They soon would be joined by Brandon Allen on percussion, whose extensive experience and unique rhythmic playing style intertwined with bassist Paul Benner’s keen sense of groove established a mighty foundation to the rootsy, home-grown melodic rock that has become the trademark Caravan sound.

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The Derailers
Hometown: Austin
Style: Beatles-meets-Bakersfield
Website: www.derailers.com

It was their mutual love for the music of legendary country artist Buck Owens that originally brought The Derailers together back in the ’90s, and with the release of their eighth album, Under the Influence of Buck, the honky-tonkin’ boys from Austin bring their music all the way back to the source with a rollicking and heartfelt tribute to the timeless music of Buck Owens.

As the band has evolved over the years, perfecting its patented “Beatles-meets-Bakersfield” sound, The Derailers have always looked to Owens and his band, the Buckaroos, for inspiration. Their love and respect for the music Owens made is as unabashed and real as the performances that are captured on this special album. Well-loved standards like “I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail,” “Cryin’ Time” and “Together Again” are delivered fresh, and the band dusts off lesser-known Owens songs like “Down On the Corner of Love” and “Who’s’ Gonna Mow Your Grass” with passion-fueled versions that do the Buckaroos proud.

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The Gougers
Austin, Texas
Acoustic Folk & Bluegrass
www.thegougers.com

Thursday Night Exclusive - 4-day Tickets Only!

For The Gougers, it is more important that audiences hear the lyrics of the songs created by the singing/writing team of Shane Walker and Jamie Wilson — poems of vivid imagery, human struggle, subtle social comment, truth — than be concerned with what sort of genre the band’s music fits into.

That’s because The Gougers’ sound takes in most genres, constantly moving in and out of country, rock, folk, roots, or mixing them up, as Walker and Wilson experiment and evolve as songwriters. They’re playing with rhythm and instrumental effects, too, along the lines of influences and music mavericks Ryan Adams, Emmylou Harris and Bright Eyes and premier musical partners David Rawlings and Gillian Welch.

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Penguin’s musical style is deeply rooted in 70’s classic rock and roll. Their original music has the “rock” of Led Zeppelin, the funk of early Stevie Wonder, and a splash of Pink Floydian psychedelia, all blended together with the soulful blues of well-crafted guitar leads.

Penguin’s goal is as natural as it is simple: “To bring back and play honest music that has been lost by today’s trend of regurgitated commercialism, hype, and stereotype”. They believe that today’s best musicians must be students of yesterday’s best musicians, and their unique sound is proof of that. Penguin is excited by the overwhelmingly positive response their music is receiving, is looking forward to big things in 2008.

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Tommy Alverson
Fort Worth, Texas
Traditional Country
www.tommyalverson.com

4-day Tickets / Thursday Night Feature!

The charms of Texas may be more apparent from the inside than from the outside, where the rest of us live without entertaining much desire — as we might with some more obviously appealing place — to move there and check it out. Nobody with working ears and functioning taste, however, can rationally dispute that the Lone Star State has produced a wealth of classic American music in a range of genres, perhaps none more so than country.

Listening to veteran Texas country singer Tommy Alverson will not convince you that we need another Texas-bred president — ever — but it’ll make you feel good about the more down-to-earth Texas culture he represents, spawned in honkytonks and dance halls where blue-collar folk go to ease their sorrows by memorializing them in songs.

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Joe Moss
Hometown: Chicago, IL
Style: Blues
Website: www.joemossband.com

Few up and coming young blues performers walk the walk to the degree of Chicago-based guitarist/bandleader JOE MOSS. One of the hardest-working performers on the Windy City circuit, Moss routinely works up to 28 gigs a month. His sound, a winning mix of blues and R&B flavors paired with original songwriting vision, can be heard blasting out of Chicago venues like Buddy Guy’s Legends and House of Blues on a regular basis. His stinging guitar and accomplished vocal style have won him fans citywide. His debut CD “The Joe Moss Band” (212 Records) gives ample proof to the rest of the world of what Midwest blues fans have known for some time: Joe Moss is for real.

A guitarist since the age of 15, Moss was given his passport into the blues world by Buddy Scott, who noticed Moss at a jam session at Rosa’s Blues Lounge on Chicago’s west side. Soon, Moss was playing seven nights a week as a member of Buddy’s Rib Tip band. In 1992, Joe toured Spain with Buddy and also recorded “Bad Ave.” with him as well. The record was released on Polygram’s Verve Gitane Blues label. Moss’ guitar skills quickly became notorious on the local scene and made him an in-demand sideman. He played countless gigs with nearly every bluesman and -woman in the city. Some of his past employers include Zora Young, Charles Wilson, Lil’ Smokey Smothers, Syl Johnson, Big Time Sarah, Barkin’ Bill Smith, Lefty Dizz, Magic Slim, A.C. Reed, Billy Branch, and Little Mack Simmons. Not merely a local hotshot, Joe has backed these artists in places like Canada, Turkey, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, France, and Germany as well as in Chicago.

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Jason Eady & The Wayward Apostles
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Genre: Texas Country, Bluegrass & Blues
Website: www.jasoneady.com

Jason Eady is a singer-songwriter whose music is a distillation of country, bluegrass, blues, gospel, folk and Southern rock, but in essence is roots all the way, with organic arrangements, genuine lyrics, and strong lead and harmony vocals, no matter what style of song he is writing.

Originally from Jackson, Miss., Eady started playing guitar at age 13, played in various cover bands around the state, and reveled in exposure to Mississippi’s varied musical genres. It all worked to infuse his music – through his days in Nashville, the re-ignition of his dream to touch listeners’ hearts and minds with his original songs after a stint as a U.S. Air Force translator, and his August 2005 debut album, FROM UNDERNEATH THE OLD, which was produced by Texas songwriter Walt Wilkins and instrumentalist Tim Lorsch and which peaked at #9 on XM Channel 12 (X Country).

The same month Eady would meet musicians that would become his next touring and studio band. Scott Davis of The Woodlands moved to Fort Worth to attend TCU and graduated with a degree in radio-TV-film-video, playing in several Dallas-Fort Worth area bands including Woodeye, Chatterton and Quaker City. He plays guitar, mandolin, accordion, Dobro, lap steel and banjo and sings harmony vocals.

Kenny Smith, from Dallas-Fort Worth, has been playing drums professionally for more than 10 years, playing in Woodeye and Chatterton with Davis. Six months after meeting Smith at a private party, where the two played some impromptu songs together, Eady began putting together a band, and Smith was the first person he called.

Bass player Jordan Kiener was a perfect fit, too; he had moved to Denton to start a musical career after earning a degree at Oklahoma in instrumental music education, focusing on jazz and playing clarinet and bass. He answered Eady’s ad and was the only person auditioned, after band members heard his playing and high harmonies.

Together the quartet is Jason Eady & The Wayward Apostles, so named to spread the word about the band’s roots-music origins while putting its own spin on tradition. From different musical backgrounds and incorporating them all, theirs is a unique sound.

Touring regionally and nationally for the past year with cuts from its upcoming album, WILD EYED SERENADE, has earned the band airplay on Americana stations. It was tracked live in one open room to give it a live and authentic roots sound.

Eady continues to stay true to his roots music and touching audiences with its honesty and inspiration – the thing he’s always wanted to do.

 

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Roger Alan Wade
Chattanooga, TN
Alt-Country, Outlaw, Americana
http://www.myspace.com/rogeralanwade

Roger Alan Wade is an American singer-songwriter known for writing humorous novelty songs in the country music medium.

Wade has written songs for country legends such as Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, George Jones and Hank Williams Jr. He embarked on a solo career with the promotional assistance of his cousin, actor Johnny Knoxville, who occasionally featured Wade’s music on his TV show Jackass. During a 2003 appearance on the Howard Stern radio show, Knoxville promoted his cousin’s songs, which were favorably received by Stern and his audience and given frequent airplay thereafter. In 2005, Wade released his first album All Likkered Up on Knoxville’s record label.

Wade’s lyrics satirically deal with topics and stereotypes relating to redneck and honky tonk culture. His songs feature folky arrangements, featuring little or no accompaniment beyond acoustic guitar. His best known compositions include “BB Gun,” “Butt Ugly Slut,” “D-R-U-N-K,” “Poontang,” and “If You’re Gonna Be Dumb.”

 

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Billy Block
Nashville, TN
www.billyblock.com

Billy Block to host our Saturday Night Lineup!

CMT’s newest weekly program is Billy Block’s Western Beat, which features artists that you may not hear often, or at all on contemporary country radio these days.

Not only does the show feature live performances by the artists, but they’ll also be interviewed by Billy Block, or his wife, Jill, in between sets. The shows are taped at the Exit/In, and are the centerpiece of the Western Beat empire which includes a radio show, Internet website, magazine, and record label.

Billy Block got his musical start in the Texas music scene back in the late ’70’s playing drums for local artists, Freddy Fender, Shake Russell, Billy Joe Shaver, and B.W. Stevenson. He moved to Los Angeles in 1985, and worked a variety of jobs for the next 10 years, including gigs in a house band at the famed Palomino Club as part of Ronnie Mack’s Barn Dance. Block credits Mack’s efforts in California as being one of the sparkplugs of the alternative country movement.

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Gulf coast Texas native Tressie Seegers brings something a little different to today’s music scene. Tressie combines two talents — visual art and songwriting — into one unique show. Surrounded by her paintings as she performs, this Americana songbird gives audiences an unforgettable and enjoyable show to be inspired by. Tressie’s music is described by Americana legend Walt Wilkins as, “… music that I like: Deep soulful country just two steps away on a well-worn path from Texas country blues. Cool songs about real life - loss, love, work, faith - sung straight from the heart for real people by a real woman with a real and very cool voice.”

Her talent has attracted the attention of another fellow Texan, the incomparable songwriter Billy Joe Shaver. A fan and a friend, Shaver has given Tressie a special gift she carries with her everywhere she goes: a black Martin guitar filled with songs and special instructions on how to
shake ‘em out. Legend among old-school songwriters is that songs actually live inside guitars and can be shaken out. Shaver once borrowed Harlan Howard’s guitar and wrote several songs like “Old Chunk of Coal” and “Ride Me Down Easy.” When Howard learned of this, he made Shaver give the guitar back so he wouldn’t use up all the songs. What better gift could a songwriter receive from such a fabled icon in music history?

Tressie fulfills the promise of that guitar, and writes and plays with heart and soul. Her voice is pure Americana, honest, true and beautiful. And as Billy Joe Shaver learned when he commissioned her to paint a tribute to his late son, Tressie combines music and art in an unforgettable, truly Texan way.

 

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Laura Cantrell
Hometown: Chattanooga
Residence: New York City
Style: Americana/Folk
Website: www.lauracantrell.com

“This project feels like a step forward for me,” Cantrell notes.  “But at the same time, I feel like I’m going back to my roots, making music purely for myself.  Delving into these songs allowed me to feel my way through the music and rediscover my instincts.”

Trains and Boats and Planes features Cantrell’s first new recordings in three years, ending a temporary hiatus during which her attentions were focused on raising her new daughter.  The new, all-covers collection adds a vibrant new chapter to the artist’s distinctive, deeply personal body of work, which has artfully merged her lifelong affinity for American country and folk traditions with an unmistakably contemporary sensibility.  The result is timelessly resonant music that’s unmistakably personal and thoroughly original.

The British daily The Independent called Cantrell “arguably the most vital new country voice in decades,” while The New York Times praised “the kind of cosmic wistfulness that the best country and folk music can conjure when it dreams of the past.”  The Wall Street Journal described her as “sweet and steady, sneaking up on you with a light touch and a sustained passion.”  London’s Sunday Times noted, “She picks great songs to sing, and her clear, understated voice proves the perfect vehicle to convey the emotion-drenched lyrics.”  Rolling Stone called Cantrell “a modern woman with an old-timey heart, with a voice pitched somewhere between the bluesy realism of Lucinda Williams and the vintage femininity of Kitty Wells.”

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Trent Summar & The New Row Mob
Hometown: Nashville, TN
Genres: Americana, Country, Farm Rock
Website: www.trentsummarmusic.com

Not that labels in music matter much — at least they shouldn’t — but Trent Summar has an evocative and altogether hard-to-resist term for the music he makes: Farm rock.

That probably says it well enough. But in case further explanation helps, we’re talking about that intersection where Chuck Berry rock and George Jones country converge. We’re talking about love songs that veer off the beaten path with honest slices of rural imagery and humor.

It’s a place on the musical map that’s entirely familiar but just a little too rowdy, a little too much fun (and in truth, too rooted in tradition) to be called mainstream country

If you’ve heard Summar’s 2000 debut album, the critically acclaimed Trent Summar & The New Row Mob, or seen his raucous live act in recent years, you may already be a staunch farm rock adherent.

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Pure Prairie League
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Genres: Americana, Country, Rock
Website: www.pureprairieleague.com

Their rich history goes back to 1969 in the Southern Ohio area where a group of young musicians initially played cover tunes at local bars. Original member Craig Fuller and early member George Powell were beginning to stir their song writing abilities around the time original drummer Tom McGail happened to catch a late night 1939 Errol Flyn flick called Dodge City. The movie’s Pure Prairie League was the woman’s temperance union attempting to clean up Kansas’ most lawless town. RCA signed Pure Prairie League after seeing them play in Cleveland, Ohio. The first album was released the following year. The most memorable thing about it was the Norman Rockwell cover from a 1927 Saturday Evening Post cover, ” recalls Mike Reilly. (more…)

 

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Dallas Wayne
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Genres: Americana, Country
Website: www.dallaswayne.com

4-day Tickets / Thursday Night Feature!

Sirius program host Dallas Wayne will be your festival tour guide on Friday - Outlaw Country night! www.siriusradio.com/outlawcountry Listen to Dallas live on Sirius 63 weekdays noon-4pm ET.

Dallas Wayne considers himself lucky to be able to make a living doing something he loves. Some people might say it has more to do with talent than luck. But throughout a career that has taken Dallas around the world as a songwriter, singer, actor and radio deejay, he claims he’s never had a real job.

A native of Springfield, Missouri, Dallas began performing professionally in 1975, and by the age of 18 he had toured throughout the entire U.S. and Canada. After moving to Nashville, he further developed his vocal style singing demos for many of the top publishing houses in the music industry.

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Buzz Cason
Hometown: Nashville
Genres: Americana, Rock, Singer/Songwriter
Website: www.buzzcason.com

4-day Tickets / Thursday Night Feature!

As 2007 arrived, Buzz Cason was the only songwriter credited with cuts by pop icons, the Beatles, Pearl Jam and U2 – not to mention Martina McBride, Gloria Estefan, Jan & Dean, The Derailers, Placido Domingo and even the Oak Ridge Boys. And it all started because of girls.

In 1956, Buzz (then an Inglewood, TN teenager) was given the opportunity to lip-synch “White Christmas” on the Noel Ball Saturday Showcase, a local talent show on WSIX-TV (ABC). Reluctant to delve into a television musical, Jim Seymore, a fellow art student organizing the show told him, “It’ll be fun and there’ll be lots of girls there!” Buzz did enjoy himself and afterwards met other musicians at the television station to later form a band they named The Casuals. Generally recognized as Nashville’s first rock-n-roll band, The Casual’s first album also launched Buzz’s songwriting career with, “My Love Song For You,” co-written with band-mate Richard Williams. By 1957, The Casuals had become a national touring act, replacing The Everly Brothers on a tour of 60 fair dates.

During this same period, Buzz met Bobby Russell, an aspiring writer at the old Globe Recording Studio in Nashville located above Mom’s Tavern (now Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge) and the two began to co-write. At the urging and support of Gary Walker of Lowery Music, they wrote and recorded “Tennessee” as a studio group, The Todds. The song was covered in ‘58 by Jan and Dean, their first Hot 100 record on the BILLBOARD chart, and thus an association of more than 25 years began. Prior to moving to California, Buzz wrote another Todd’s single with Russell, “Popsicle,” which went on to become another Top 20 record for Jan and Dean in 1963.
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Walt Wilkins & The Mystiqueros

Hometown: Austin, Texas
Genres: Americana, Rock, Country
Website: www.waltwilkins.com

4-day Ticket / Thursday Night Feature!

CMT.com’s Top 10 Artist for 2007!

“If there is a better songwriter on the planet, I’m not aware of it.” - Pat Green

“Walt Wilkins is the salt of the earth. He writes like it. He sings like it. He acts like it.” - Jack Ingram

San Antonio-born Walt Wilkins has been called a genius, more than once, and a writer the caliber of John Steinbeck and his voice as comfortable as a pair of old blue jeans, and he is, and has, all of that. His crafting of story-songs, hard-edged vocals to sing them and a plaintive guitar have made him a fixture of the Texas music scene (and Nashville before that). He’s put his magical touch on recordings by new and veteran artists, too many to count.

Is he near done? Hasn’t he done it all? Double hell no.

With The Mystiqueros, Wilkins has created something of a “Texas Hill Country super-group” that features five great singers and four great songwriters from the heart of the Lone Star State, all of whom have made their own records and are flush with recording credits.

Onstage and in the studio, Wilkins is joined by Bill Small (bass, percussion, acoustic guitar), John M. Greenberg (electric guitars), Ramon Rodriguez (drums, percussion) and Marcus Eldridge (electric guitars). Live performances around Texas are being likened to both outlaw country and classic rock bands, and they’re captured on Diamonds in the Sun on Palo Duro Records.

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Miles from Nowhere

Hometown: Paris, Texas
Genres: Americana, Rock, Country
Website: www.milesfromnowhereband.com

Miles From Nowhere was formed in the summer of 2004 when Merrol Ray decided he was through with being a guitar for hire and knew it was time to do his own thing. With a few phone calls, the genesis of what would become Miles From Nowhere was conceived. Ray found himself a drummer then called his younger cousin Adam. He knew Adam would be interested because he would occasionally bring his guitar over and sing parts of songs that he had learned. Practicing in Ray’s Dad’s welding shop, they began auditioning bass players with none quite working out. Finally a phone call that Ray had placed weeks before, paid off. Joey showed up, played one song, Ray said, “You’re in for life; quit, and I’ll kill you.” After only five months the original drummer left the band so Ray called Wesley Joe to play drums. Disappointment turned into joy, Miles From Nowhere was born.

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Two Tons of Steel
Hometown: San Antonio, Texas
Genres: Americana, Rockabilly, Rock
Website: www.twotons.com

Texas band Two Tons of Steel might be described as equal parts Elvis Presley and Elvis Costello, with a liberal dose of Buddy Holly and a dollop of The Ramones. It’s a one-of-a-kind sound that bandleader and frontman Kevin Geil likes to call countrybilly. (more…)