Winning and losing isn't something that usually comes to mind when thinking about music, but the guys in Reckless Kelly say that sometimes at the end of a concert you get one feeling or the other from a crowd. They definitely won Thursday night (Nov. 19) at Nashville's Exit/In. Opened by Scott Miller, the show ran past midnight for an audience that only seemed to want more.
Charlie Daniels is already spreading the good tidings of Christmas. First of all, he's released a new holiday album, Joy to the World: A Bluegrass Christmas, with guests like Jewel, Kathy Mattea and Aaron Tippin, as well as Suzanne and Evelyn Cox, the Grascals and Dan Tyminski. Instead of a duets project, Daniels lets the singers tackle a whole tune. (Tyminski's rendition of "The Christmas Song" is especially terrific.) Daniels also offers a nifty new original, "Mississippi Christmas Eve," and recites both an original short story ("A Carolina Christmas Carol") and a passage from the book of Luke.
Some of my earliest memories of really connecting with music come from a Creedence Clearwater Revival Chronicle Vol. 1: The 20 Greatest Hits CD that my mother owned, and usually it started with a guitar lick. The riffs that John Fogerty wrote with Creedence were so iconic and natural that I never gave any thought to his skill with his instrument. But according to this interview in The Tennessean, even after all of his success he felt guilty about his guitar playing and how he never reached the level of his inspiration, Chet Atkins. Disproving the old-dogs-can't-learn-new-tricks theory, he spent almost two decades practicing and now feels like he can jam with Buddy Miller -- who contributed to Fogerty's The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again album -- without having to apologize first. That's pretty amazing, if you ask me, and shows what determination can do. Needless to say, I am pumped to see what he's got this Sunday at the Ryman. Maybe it will be something like this trailer from his concert DVD, Comin' Down the Road.
This past weekend was our last with Jason Aldean and his crew, and although we were pretty bummed about that, with that in mind, we went out with a bang! The first night of the run brought us to Hattiesburg, Miss., and it may have been my favorite night Love and Theft has ever spent on the road! The crowd was rowdy, the floor was dirty, the weather was cool and the music was loud. After the show was when things really took off. We went from the venue to a local club where we were treated to another rowdy crowd. As Jason took the stage, we followed, and the whole bar was singing along the whole time. It was a party! Once the club cleared out, we hung around, and then something magical happened. The club was attached to a bowling alley which was closed, and we all went in and bowled with the whole place to ourselves. Bowling, victory dances and hot orange and yellow bowling shoes ... it all boils down to a lethal combination. It was one helluva night, and I'll never forget it!
Sometimes celebrities seem to dart in and out of concerts without really doing much listening. It's like they are more about the appearance than the actual music. But at Friday night's (Nov. 13) Keith Anderson and David Nail concert in Chicago, Vince Vaughn was there for the music. He was there with his mother and his fiancé Kyla Weber. And after being bombarded with fan requests for pictures, autographs and chit chat before the show -- which he doled out graciously -- he finally sat down when the concert started. He even told the remaining fans, as kindly as possible, "No more pictures, please. I'd like to watch the show now." I'm not suggesting Vaughn is a hardcore country music fan. But I do love seeing everyone -- movie stars and common folk -- pay attention when the country comes on.
Sugarland captured their third consecutive CMA Award for duo of the year on Wednesday night (Nov. 11), capping a very successful 2009. Although there have been numerous highlights -- multi-platinum certifications, a network TV special, a new Christmas album -- Jennifer Nettles was forced to cancel several tour dates this year due to nagging health concerns. She fielded a question about it during a visit to the press room backstage at the CMA Awards.
"This year I started out on a limp leg because I was randomly sick several times before we went on the road. That started me out, when we were on the road, still dealing with that," she said.
All our troops stationed around the world will be celebrating the holidays aways from home this year. So in an effort to boost morale, Montgomery Gentry is joining Vault and the USO for "The Uniform of Heroes: The Taste of Support" campaign. And it is so, so easy. Just find the Vault displays at your local grocery or convenience store, grab some of the pre-printed postcards, write a nice message and drop the postcards in the mail. Montgomery Gentry kicked off the campaign at the Tabernacle Concert Hall in Atlanta, and Troy Gentry said, "We're proud to continue the effort to support our U.S. troops, and it's exciting to partner with Vault on this important campaign once again. Vault and the USO have created a great way to spread goodwill and offer our thanks to the brave men and women serving our country." The duo is putting the finishing touches on their seventh album, which is due out early 2010. One song, "Freedom Never Goes Out of Style," sounds like it could be a message for one of those postcards to the troops.
This last weekend with Jason Aldean was a blast, as could be expected. And although we were in Missouri and Nebraska, the weather was fantastic! In both cities, we made time to play some basketball in the afternoon before the show, and both days, Chris, our drummer, beat me several times. He's either really good, or I'm not that good -- but most likely a combination of the two.
Remember how you could see a Sugarland concert at movie theaters this past August? And how you could do the same thing with Miley Cyrus back in 2008? Well now Kenny Chesney's doing the same exact thing to get his piece of the box office pie. So in April, check your theater listings to go see Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3D. The movie was shot in five different locations on both coasts, so it (hopefully) won't be the same thing over and over. "I've been trying for years to have the audience closer to me and to have me be closer to them," Chesney said. "It was an amazing -- and at times scary -- experience to have cameras that close, in the air, in a blimp. But when you see what this film captures ... even for me, who's in the eye of the storm, I was taken aback." According to USA Today, it won't be all about the stage show. There will be also be some fun fan footage from Chesney's June show in Pittsburgh when the 3-D cameras followed him onto a houseboat on the Ohio River.
Photo credit: Ed Rode
Last year at this time, the Bellamy Brothers enjoyed a surprising career resurgence in Europe when one of their signature songs, "Let Your Love Flow," was featured in a credit card advertisement for England's Barclay Bank. "Whoever the ad guy is there, I'd like to give him a big hug," says David Bellamy. "He just put it in the commercial and the thing came back on the charts. It was bigger than Beyoncé's record." Originally released in 1976, the instantly memorable song initially spread across Europe, and eventually the world, after they performed it on a popular television program in Amsterdam. Now it's a cornerstone of Anthology, Vol. 1, which is already available digitally, with a physical release in Europe scheduled for Nov. 23.
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