Tin Pan South’s highlight to date had to be Tom T. Hall’s performance at the Bluebird Cafe tonight. Hall said he plays just one night a year and this was it. Lucky audience. Tom T. played some of this best-known songs, supplemented with entertaining anecdotes and playfulness. He followed up his “How I Got to Memphis” (surprisingly, the most lucrative…
Tin Pan South opens
Tin Pan South, the songwriters’ festival organized by the Nashville Songwriters Association International opened tonight with its usual deep line-up of talent. I opted for a show featuring David Olney, Tom Littlefield, Chris Scruggs and Brennen Leigh. That proved to be a good choice, with one great song after another. I’ve seen Olney and Scruggs many times, and they’re always…
Cayamo’s 2012 line-up
Sixthman has announced its initial 2012 Cayamo line-up, including John Hiatt, John Prine and Lyle Lovett. For the uninitiated, this is a February cruise that features some of the top Americana music artists in a weeklong music festival on the ocean. Among others booked for next year: Richard Thompson, Keb Mo, Buddy Miller, Loudon Wainwright, Iris Dement, Greg Brown, Shawn…
Wilder, Jones and Rotenberry celebrate Americana
The 2011 American Music Association series at the Bluebird kicked off Thursday with sets by the duo of Brad Jones and Hans Rotenberry and Webb Wilder. Jones and Rotenberry’s “Mountain Jack” CD is an eminently entertaining blend of melodic pop and Americana. They played much of the album, plus one song from Rotenberry’s band “The Shazam.” The acoustic renditions were…
Tin Pan South announces impressive line-up
Tom T. Hall, Kenny Loggins and Steve Cropper are among the wide range of artists set to play the 2011 Tin Pan South Festival, according to the Nashville Songwriters Association, organizers of the event. The festival will run from March 29 through April 2 and will include performances at 9 different venues. Among the most promising shows: –Tom T. Hall,…
Americana at the Bluebird 2011
One of the best musical events in February and March in Nashville in recent years has been the “Live at the Bluebird” series organized by the Americana Music Association. These have been four-show series featuring a tremendous range of talents, including Sam Bush, Rodney Crowell, Will Kimbrough and Foster and Lloyd. This year’s series is being sold as individual shows…
Todd Snider Live
Todd Snider is a subversive Steve Goodman, a guy who writes fine songs and tells entertaining stories on stage. That’s nicely captured on Todd Snider Live: The Storyteller, a two-CD collection that’s deep in engaging songs and stories. Sometimes they’re one and the same. Snider talks of his high school years and the mushroom-related incident that set him on his…
Cayamo’s 11 best moments
Paste writer Josh Jackson has posted his “10 unforgettable moments from Cayamo 2011.” It’s a good list, but it inspires the ever-competitive Sun209 to offer up 11 of our own favorite performances from the Cayamo cruise: 1. Loud and Rich -Loud and Rich are better known as Loudon Wainwright and Richard Thompson, and this was a rare show as a…
Buddy Miller and friends
Buddy Miller stepped into the elevator on the Cayamo cruise, seemingly unaware of the growing crowd lining up to see him. I had met Buddy at a party in Nashville recently and told him I was looking forward to seeing him play – if I could get in. He looked puzzled. “There are already 200 people lined up outside the…
Loud and Rich perform as a duo
Richard Thompson and Loudon Wainwright have toured in tandem on their “Loud and Rich” tour, but they said their pairing on Saturday night on the Cayamo cruise was their first-ever full set together. They opened with Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” prompting Thompson to joke “Does he do our songs?” Maybe he should. This was a terrific show by…
Cayamo update: Steve Earle
Steve Earle looks like a happy man. His wife Allison Moorer has joined the band and he was spotted carrying a child booster seat in the Cayamo cruise cafeteria. For a man who has had his share of demons, he’s making a joyful noise these days and his set at Cayamo was energetic and powerful. Recognizing that this audience might…
Cayamo update: Larkin Poe
Larkin Poe is two-thirds of the Lovell Sisters, building on their bluegrass roots with rock and blues. This is a very young, but extremely talented band. They thanked their parents for their support, and were tickled that they could bring their folks – and 8-year-old brother – on a good road trip for once. Larkin Poe played songs from their…
Cayamo update: Will Hoge, Scott Miller
Will Hoge and Scott Miller dropped in for a taping of “World Café” at Cayamo, each fielding a challenge to play four songs – one early and one new song, plus a cover and something anthemic. The covers were particularly entertaining, with Hoge performing “Crying Time” and telling a story about blowing his chance to talk to hero Buck Owns.…
John Prine on Cayamo
The Cayamo cruise is an Americana and folk music festival on the water. It’s a great environment for music fans and musicians alike. The first of regular reports from Cayamo: John Prine laughed and said the 60-minute limit on his Cayamo show posed some pacing problems. “We usually play for two and a half hours, and we’re trying to cram…
Greg Trooper: Upside-Down Town
Greg Trooper’s just-released Upside-Down Town ranks with his best work – and that’s saying something. His last studio album, the Dan Penn-produced Make It Through This World in 2005 was a compelling melding of folk and R&B, and this album builds on that, with touching songs and a Hammond B3. Trooper remains a storyteller and Upside-Down Town reminds us what…
Charlie Louvin’s final TV appearance
The Marty Stuart Show on RFD is always a hoot, a throwback to early country music television. Stuart and the Fabulous Superlatives are terrific players and they have a wonderful time. The show that aired this week, though, was truly something special. It began goofily enough, with the theme from Bonanaza, complete with lyrics. But then Stuart introduced the legendary…
Great Lost Bands: Timberline
I’ve been transferring my favorite vinyl to MP3s and ended up revisiting a terrific country-rock (the best description we had pre-Americana) LP called “The Great Timber Rush” by a young band called Timberline. This was an energetic and highly melodic collection of songs in the spirit of Poco’s “Good Feelin’ to Know.” They even had one of those great greet-the-audience…
Gregg Allman tops Americana chart
Gregg Allman is #1 on this week’s Americana Music Association Chart with his new CD “Low Country Blues,” edging out Robert Plant’s “Band of Joy.” What year is this? I’m not complaining. It’s actually pretty astonishing (and encouraging) to see artists you’ve admired for decades find a new home in Americana.
Greg Trooper CD preview
Greg Trooper’s new CD “Upside-Down Town” will be released in a few days. Here’s a live version of “They Call Me Hank” from the new album.
John Oates at the Bluebird Cafe
Nashville has long been the home or hangout of the stars who graced our ’60s and ’70s record collections. John Kay, John Fogerty, Peter Frampton and Felix Cavaliere have all called Nashville home. Now John Oates has established partial residency in Nashville. He showed up at the Bluebird this week to perform in the round with Sam Bush and Jeff…