Sunday, July 1, 2012

The Sunday Share...

Time to share! Here's my findings from the web for today's Sunday Share!

Great old-time string bands keep flowing from the northeast and Nettle Honey is a great example. Originally known as Old Technology, Nettle Honey's roots spring from a friendship started at the University of Washington back in 2005 between Johnny Fitzpatrick (banjo) and Colin Sterling (guitar). Later, the lineup was solidified when Brittany Newell added her fiddle prowess and Robert Fulwiler grabbed the bass lines while also bringing in a van to tour with. Fiddlefreak.com has more on their music with their post Nettle Honey: This Shed is Bound for Glory (MP3)

While you are over at Fiddlefreak.com, be sure and check out the entry on Foghorn Stringband's new release Outside the Sun.

I also stumbled across a Folk Alley entry for The Carper Family. See the video below for an in-studio performance but also check out Folk Alley's site for more.



To finish off the morning, the Infamous Stringdusters have a new album just released titled Silver Sky. Here's a new video of the song "Don't Mean Nothin'"released in support of the new album.

Monday, May 28, 2012

How to Grow a Band... trailer

Here is the trailer to the film How to Grow a Band. The story of a group of phenomenal musicians eternally in search of new spaces to experience.


Sunday, April 15, 2012

Pug-nacious

Just a reminder that Joe Pug will be performing tonight at Lovett Auditorium at Murray State University at 7:30 PM. This should be a great night of music.



Ssssssssswampy!!

Tony Joe White - Black and White
I have been listening to a lot of Tony Joe White lately. He's reached many of you directly with songs like "Polk Salad Annie" and "Roosevelt and Ira Lee (Night of the Moccasin)." For others it was via Dusty Springfield 's cover of "Willie and Laura Mae Jones" or Brook Benton's version of White's "Rainy Night in Georgia".

White was born in 1943 in Goodwill, LA, a small town about 50 miles northeast of Shreveport. He worked clubs in Texas in the 60's before landing in Nashville in 1968 and cutting his debut album Black and White.

Here's a great taste of the bluesy, dripping, groovy, swampy sound that White was best at.

Dig it!



Friday, April 6, 2012

Front Porch Notes for April 7 Show

This weeks Music From the Front Porch will feature music from ROMP, a look at the year 1973 and the sounds of Earl Scruggs as highlights that are mixed in with great music old and new.

First Hour

Master Earl Scruggs In the first hour we'll start off with a bit of Earl Scruggs as a nod to his incredible influence on the banjo. It would be hard to find a modern-day banjo player not influenced by his three-fingered style in some way. It's not often that a musician can say they changed the way an instrument was played but Scruggs did. 

Scruggs says that the three-fingered style kind of resulted from an argument that he had with his brother. He had been trying to play with three fingers and couldn't quite get it right so he locked himself in his room and went to work. He was playing the tune "Ruben" when he finally realized he had it and came busting out of his room yelling, "I've got it! I've got it! I can play with three fingers!" He played the tune for a week straight before trying the approach on other tunes as well, smoothing out the rolls into a syncopated rhythm pattern and emphasizing the melody lines. The style would come to be known as the "Scruggs-style".

Best known for his days with the bluegrass act Flatt & Scruggs and theme music to The Beverly Hillbillies and Bonnie & Clyde, Scruggs never shyed away from new musical horizons. He parted ways with Lester Flatt to work with his sons and Josh Graves on more progressive music.

Earl Scruggs passed away on March 28 of this year.

Second Hour

We will kick off the second hour with more music from the upcoming ROMP Festival in Owensboro the last week of June. This week we will feature the Carolina Chocolate Drops, The 23 String Band, The Deadly Gentlemen and The Punch Brothers. For more info on ROMP and the full lineup check out their website. Also, if you are a business and would like to display a flyer for the fest, e-mail me at johndmcmillen@gmail.com and I will hook you up.

Gram Parsons GPWe will also take a listen to music from the year 1973 this morning. The year saw Secretariat become the first horse to win the Triple Crown in 25 years. The Thoroughbred set race records in The Kentucky Derby and at The Belmont Stakes... records that still stand today. Raquel Welch was the hottest actress of the day and Burger King wanted you to “Have it Your Way”. Richard Nixon told us "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got." The MRI was invented and the first air bag appeared on the Oldsmobile Toronado. All in the Family was the #1 TV show and Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Roberta Flack, The Edgar Winter Group, Jim Croce and The Rolling Stones all had #1 songs as well as Marvin Gaye with “Let’s Get it On”.

This morning we will hear 4 songs released in 1973 including the cut "A Song for You" from Gram Parsons legendary album GP as well as Tom Waits crooning to "Old Shoes" from Closing Time, The hopping tune "Rider" from The Seldom Scenes' Act 3, "Dark Hollow" from Muleskinners' self-titled release and Doc and Merle Watson teaming up on "Match Box Blues" from Then and Now.

And finally in the second hour we will hear the new release We Have Made a Spark from Rose Cousins. Cousins is hard to keep into one genre of music but her songs are impeccably arranged and feature a silky voice that delivers weighty subjects. We will hear "The Darkness" this morning.

Third Hour

Joe PugJoe Pug will be performing at Lovett Auditorium Sunday, April 15th here on the campus of Murray State University. We will open the third-hour with a sampling of music by Pug including the title cut from his Messenger release from 2010, "Call it What You Will" from EP and "Lock the Door Christina from In the Meantime. Pug, a Maryland native, got his start in music in the sixth grade after a science teacher dared his friends to come up with a musical act for the school dance. He went on to college in North Carolina before dropping out to relocate to Chicago and dedicate more time to songwriting. Pug has 4 releases to his credit since 2007. You can find more info at http://www.joepugmusic.com/ and get a free sampler download of Pug's material.

See you Saturday morning at 10:00 AM CST on www.wkms.org for Music From the Front Porch!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Robbie Fulks... cigarette state

I've always liked Fulks for his prowess and his willingness to fly the number one when he feels it deserved. Here he reminds those "Tar Heels" that you do have something else to be proud of.

The Deadly Gentlemen - Moonshiner

These guys will be at ROMP in June. A tad bit different yet still just enough of the same.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

ROMP-ing no doubt

The 2012 ROMP Festival lineup is once again stacked with great music. The Thursday through Saturday fest certainly will be a blast. The lineup includes Old Crow Medicine Show, Vince Gill, Punch Brothers, Carlina Chocolate Drops, The Deadly Gentlemen, Pokey LaFarge & The South City Three, Jesse McReynolds, Bawn in the Mash and so many more. Might want to grab you a couple of tickets to this and take a few days off work!

ROMP Website

Jackstraw | Sunday Never Comes | CD Baby

Just stumbled across these guys. This is a great album from the Portland, OR based band.

Jackstraw | Sunday Never Comes | CD Baby

Saturday, February 4, 2012

truckstop honeymoon | steamboat in a cornfield

So, how DO you get to Kansas from New Orleans? That's easy. Go to St. Louis and turn left.

Truckstop Honeymoon isn't the type of folk you'll see on that easy road and it's by choice. Katie Euliss and Mike West met in New Orleans and formed a musical and personal relationship. The stories goes along the lines of girl plays piano, boy plays banjo, girl meets boy, they get married and spend their honeymoon night at a truckstop between Lafayette, LA and the Atchafalaya Swamp. Thus, that name. 

They were washed out of their New Orleans home, well, sort of. They were on tour when the floods hit and so they just never went back. Instead, opting for Lawrence, KS as a place to base not only their own musical offerings but also those of others via the 9th Ward Picking Parlor, a recording studio the couple own.

With six albums of experience, the 'Honeymooners' look to further meld the sounds they had cultivated from the New orleans experience with the stories from the road and the new influence of the Kansas surroundings they have now planted themselves into. Steamboat in a Cornfield still feels a lot like an album heavily influenced by the New Orleans experiences while introducing an earthy tone that melds nicely into the stories.

Definitely a nice fit into your Americana collection. I will be adding this to Front Porch rotation 02/11/12.

http://www.http://truckstophoneymoon.com/

Here's a live performance of Homemade Haircut, the title cut from a previous album.