“When You Walk in the Room,” Jackie DeShannon’s first album in 11 years, is a remarkable retrospective of songs she wrote and others she made famous. DeShannon is in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, but you have to wonder why she’s not also in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Like Carole King, she wrote songs for some of…
Mark Twain: Words and Music
It’s been a good month for Americana music fans who love history. First came the fine 1861 Project , which chronicled the Civil War. New today is “Mark Twain: Words and Music,” a fundraising project for the Mark Twain Boyhood Home in Hannibal, Missouri. We haven’t heard the two-CD package yet, but the spoken word and music set features a…
Robert Earl Keen’s “Ready for Confetti” tops Americana chart
Robert Earl Keen’s “Ready for Confetti” hits number one on this week’s Americana Music Association Chart. That’s no surprise. The album first appeared on the chart a month before release and its climb has been relentless. John Hiatt’s “Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns” falls to third after a long run at the top. Elsewhere in the top ten, the Jayhawks…
This day in Americana music: Gram Parsons died in 1973
Sept. 19: On this date in 1973, Gram Parsons died of a drug overdose at age 26. His recordings spanned just seven years, but his melding of rock and country was hugely influential, and established a foundation for what we now call Americana music. From his role in the Byrds and “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” to the founding of the…