Ron Blackwood, with Willie Nelson, and other artists, at Luck, Texas.
Blackwood &
The Blackwood Quartet will once again perform at Farm Aid, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on October 2, 2010. This will be the 3rd appearance of Ron Blackwood at a Farm Aid Concert.
Luck Films released this video from the December 16, 2009 concert at Willie’s Place Theater, Carl’s Corner, Texas, when Willie Nelson invited Ron Blackwood and the Blackwood Brothers Quartet onstage to sing the gospel set, including, “I’ll Fly Away.”
On September 13, 2010, Charlie Daniels, Marcus Luttrell and the Boot Girls will perform at a fundraiser in Nashville called, “Get Your Boots On, Nashville.” Funds raised from the event will support veterans and their families, and other Boots Girls’ charities to benefit those in need.
The event will be hosted by the Nashville Palm Restaurant, and will benefit Stars for Stripes and the Boot Campaign for the Lone Survivor Foundation. Daniels, along with wife Hazel, will host the event, along with Luttrell and Karri Turner of TV’s “J.A.G.” For more information and tickets, call Paige Dixon at (615) 742-3193.
The fundraiser will be held a day prior to the release of the special compilation album entitled, “When They Come Back,” with profits from the sale of the album will also be used to benefit returning service men and women. Artists participating in the compilation album include Aaron Watson, Bleu Edmondson, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Eli Young Band, Derek Sholl, Jason Boland, Micky and the Motorcars, No Justice, Randy Rogers Band, Reckless Kelly, Stoney Larue, Wade Bowen and Robert Earl Keen.
Also, this year, the Country for our Country concert, in memory of the men and women who were killed on 9/11, will be held on Sat., Sept. 11 at the Villa di Felicita, and will feature music by country music icons Phil Vassar, Heidi Newfield, Derek Sholl and Kacey Musgraves. Luttrell will be the Honored Guest of the evening. As stated on the Country for our Country website, the event “has been formed for the purpose of raising money and/or assets for the assistance of those in need. Primary beneficiaries will be military wounded and their families.” All of the funds raised support military veterans in achieving higher education or vocational opportunities.
For more information regarding the Boot Campaign and these upcoming events, visit www.bootcampaign.com
1961 marked the dazzling highs and terrifying low of Patsy Cline’s career…and life, for that matter. January saw the release of her landmark recording of Hank Garland’s “I Fall to Pieces” (co-written by Harlan Howard). The track eventually landed at #1 on the country charts, a first for Cline. The song also had crossover success, eventually peaking at #12 on the pop chart. Cline was country royalty by this point. She had joined the cast of the Grand Ole Opry the year before and was rubbing shoulders with the biggest names in the business. Somehow, she also had time to welcome a son into the world, Randy.
Then on June 14 it all came crashing down as Cline and her brother were involved in a serious automobile accident in Nashville, Tennessee. The head-on collision threw Cline into the windshield, where she suffered a huge cut across her forehead, bruised ribs, a broken wrist and a dislocated hip. The driver of the other vehicle was killed. Cline spent a month in the hospital and left still on crutches and with a scar that would remain for the rest of her life (she wore wigs and makeup to cover it).
With no touring or other promotions while she was out of action, Cline’s career was in danger of slipping permanently off the rails. In stepped producer Owen Bradley, who had helped to make Cline a star (a feat he matched working with Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, among others), steering her toward pop material like “Walkin’ After Midnight” and the aforementioned “Pieces.”
Bradley wanted Cline to record a song by an up-and-coming writer named Willie Nelson. The song was called “Crazy,” and Bradley thought it had the potential to match “I Fall to Pieces” in terms of crossover appeal.
Cline didn’t like the song. Perhaps affected by the physical pain she was still feeling from the wreck, she was unable to sing the tune as recorded on Nelson’s demo. The high notes, in particular, troubled her bruised ribs. Exasperated, Cline refused to go any further with a tune that she didn’t really like in the first place. Cline and Bradley had a heated argument about the song and she left the studio without finishing the track.
The following week (on this very day in 1961), Bradley convinced her to take another crack at the song with a version a bit more broad and straightforward. In a single take, Cline nailed what would be her most enduring hit. The track rose to #2 on the country and adult contemporary charts and #9 on the pop charts. Cline would forevermore be recognized as one of the biggest names of country, headlining everywhere from Carnegie Hall to the Hollywood Bowl. Sadly, she was only able to enjoy the fruits of her success for a short time. She died in an airplane crash in 1963.
Randy Travis, Lorrie Morgan and Jamey Johnson have been added to the list of performers at the Leadership Music Dale Franklin Award gala in Nashville. The Aug. 29 event at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Nashville will recognize Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and record producer and label executive Fred Foster for exemplifying “the highest quality of leadership and leading by example.”
The award is named for the late Dale Franklin, the first executive director of Leadership Music, an educational organization serving Nashville’s music and business community. Host Vince Gill and bandleader Shawn Camp will lead the presentations and performances that will also feature Lee Ann Womack, Lyle Lovett, Billy Swan, Rodney Crowell and surprise guests.
The Leadership Music Dale Franklin Award, named for the first executive director of Leadership Music, was created in 2004 to recognize a music industry leader who exemplifies the highest quality of leadership and leading by example.
This exclusive event is by invitation only to Leadership Music alumni and special guests; responses are requested by Friday, August 6.
Benefactor level tickets, which include a pre-event VIP reception, cocktail reception, preferred placement dinner table for ten and program acknowledgement, are $500 each; Benefactor Tables of 10 are $5,000. Patron tickets, for cocktail reception and dinner, are $200 each for LM alumni and $250 for non-alumni; Patron tables of 10 are $2,499. Proceeds from the evening benefit Leadership Music, a 501(c)(3) organization.
The free celebration kicks off at dusk on Friday, Aug. 27 at the Lawnchair Theatre as Jailhouse Industry’s present the 1986 classic film, “Stagecoach,” starring Jennings, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and John Schneider. A short documentary on Waylon will precede the movie.
Saturday, Aug. 28, Waylon Jennings Day offers an all-day celebration with all things Jennings. The Country Boy Restaurant, Puckett’s Grocery and Joe Natural’s organic restaurant will feature some of Waylon’s favorite dishes from the new cookbook, Cooking Waylon’s Way, authored by Jessi Colter and Maureen Rafferty. (more…)
Zac Brown and Dave Matthews Band played Willie Nelson’s “Funny How Time Slips Away” at last night’s Nationals Park concert in Washington, D.C.
It was the first appearance of “Funny How Time Slips Away” at a DMB concert since 2002, and all previous versions had been Dave Matthews solo performances. Zac Brown, Dave Matthews, Tim Reynolds and Carter Beauford played on this version.
Zac Brown Band was the opening act for DMB’s National Park concert. Watch this video of Zac Brown and Dave Matthews Band playing “Funny How Time Slips Away,” and pay special attention to the “Lie In Our Graves” interpolation in the middle of the song.
It happened in Las Vegas on a Saturday night. I was in town laid over and had a show the next night and went out to hit the casinos at about six o’ clock. Somebody said that Willie Nelson was playing the Hacienda at 8. And I was invited to Charles Barkley’s birthday party at midnight at the Rum Jungle.
Willie spotted me and said come up here, and we did a couple of songs together. Later, on the bus he rolled up one. And you could put all the weed I smoked in my life in a coffee cup. It never was my high, you know. But you know, he’s famous for that, and just to say you did it with Willie is kind of cool. … It knocked me out. I missed Charles’ birthday party and everything.
Was he mad at you?
Nah, he understood. It was just one of those things.
Hank Cochran, the celebrated country songwriter and singer who died Thursday at age 74 from pancreatic cancer, spent most of his life immersed in music, searching for the next song to write, and it sounds like that’s the way he spent his final time on Earth.
“I spent the last day of his life at his bedside along with his family and a few close friends,” singer and songwriter Jamey Johnson told me in an e-mail he sent a few hours after Cochran died at his home in Hendersonville, Tenn. “Buddy (Cannon, the songwriter) joined us later in the afternoon and brought along Billy Ray Cyrus. We sang a range of old gospel songs and many of his own songs to him: ‘I Fall to Pieces,’ ‘Is it Raining at Your House,’ ‘Set em Up Joe’ and ‘Make the World Go Away.’
“My 6-year-old daughter even sang along with us on ‘The Chair,’ and she got a kick out of Billy Ray’s ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ which even got Hank singing along for a note or two,” Johnson noted. “Although Hank was tired, he didn’t want anyone to leave. He was enjoying the fellowship.”
Because Cochran had been struggling for a long time with cancer, many of his friends kept in close touch and spoke to him in person or by phone in his final days. Ray Price told me, “I talked to Hank on Monday and had a chance to say goodbye. This is not a real happy day; he will be missed, I guarantee it. … He was a great person in our business, and he contributed an awful lot.”
Merle Haggard said he also checked in with Cochran on Wednesday night while Johnson and the others were in the room. Haggard had been told when he called that Cochran wasn’t responsive, but when he spoke into the phone “Hello, Hank,” Cochran perked up and said, “Hey – hi, Merle.”
Haggard asked his fellow songwriter, many of whose songs Haggard recorded over the years, “If we were to write a song together right now, what would it be called?” He said Cochran replied, “Oh . . .,” and that may have been the last thing he said. “He was our idol,” Haggard said, speaking on behalf of a triumvirate of country’s finest writers: himself, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson.
Kristofferson sent me this note on Friday morning about his longtime friend:
“When I came to Nashville in 1965 there were four songwriters who were in a class by themselves at the top of the business: Roger Miller, Hank Cochran, Willie Nelson and Harlan Howard. They didn’t just write the most hits; their songs were beautiful, timeless classics. And on top of that they were some of the funniest people on the planet.
“Once we were all together being filmed taking turns singing our songs when suddenly the action was interrupted by Poodie Locke – Willie’s famous roadie – punching Hank in the face hard, apparently over a woman he’d stolen. It sort of disrupted things for awhile, and I remember Willie saying, “It was kinda like seeing your mother-in-law drive off a cliff in your new Cadillac. I thought, All right! Oh, no!’
“Later back stage we were all drinking and laughing, and Hank was sitting off by himself. He was wearing a pith helmet, with dark glasses to cover the black eye. I went over and asked him how he was doing. He didn’t say anything for a few moments, then he said, My horoscope said this was going to be a better day.’ That’s all he said all night.
“And now Hank’s gone. So is Poodie. And Roger, and Harlan,” Kristofferson wrote. “I’d like to think they’re all hanging out somewhere, with their music and laughter.”
After Faron Young’s 1960′s hit, ‘Riverboat,” he went into a career slump. None of his next three singles even made it out of the 20′s on the country charts. By 1961, Faron badly needed a hit.
He found it in “Hello Walls.”
Willie Nelson told me about how he wrote the song. “Hank Cochran was almost a writer on ‘Hello Walls,’ ” he said. “Hank and I were trying to write in a little one-room house out in back of Pamper Music. It didn’t have a phone and it only had one window. I’d just told him I wanted to write a song called ‘Hello Walls’ when someone came out and told Hank he had a phone call up at the office. I told him I’d start on the song while he was taking the call. He was gone about ten minutes, and when he came back I’d already finished it. It’s your basic ten-minute song.”
Willie had been pitching the song at Tootsie’s and according to Porter Wagoner, everyone was making fun of it. “Other songwriters were going around saying, ‘Hello glass. Hello table. Hello commode.;” But Faron recognized it as a hit, and Willie, who was broke at the time, offered to sell it to him for fifty dollars.
“I won’t buy it,” Faron said. “But Ill record it and loan you the fifty bucks.”
He ended up loaning Willie five hundred dollars, and then went a step further in helping both his and Willie’s fortunes by recording another Nelson composition, “Congratulations,” during the same session.
The studio musicians who worked on the “Hello Walls” session were as unimpressed with the song as the Tootsie’s crowd. “They’d sit there and tuning up and say, ‘Hello guitar.” The musicians thought ‘Congratulations’ was the big hit, but I knew Hello Walls’ was the one,” said Faron.
I knew it, too. Faron and I were on the road together in 1961, and he approached me backstage and said, “Ralph, let me play you a little song that’s about to come out. I think it’s going to be a hit.” Boy was it ever. Faron was banking on a song that had become the butt of jokes, and it became the biggest seller, staying as #1 in Billboard’s country charts for nine weeks in 1961 and hitting #12 in the trade publication’s pop charts. Faron was back with a vengeance, and he had Willie Nelson to thank.
“I walked into Tootsie’s one day and Willie waved a check for twenty thousand dollars in my face, and kissed me,” Faron laughed.
“The Gospel Roots”, documentary focuses on the very beginning of Willie and Bobbie Nelson’s early musical influences, and describes their experience with the first music they ever learned. The film also hightlights performances by “The Bells of Joy”, a group that is not only one of Willie’s favorite black gospel groups, but one who continues to play Easter Services at his church year after year.
Filmed in Willie’s studio and church on the outskirts of Austin, Texas, “The Gospel Roots” offers a deeper understanding of the foundation of Willie’s music heritage and provides a delightful glimpse into the personal history of this cherished music legend.
This dvd is available for purchase at www.WillieNelson.com.
Music Tracks:
1. He Walks With Me (Willie)
2. Jesus Loves Me (Children)
3. Jesus Loves the Little Children (Children)
4. Talk About Jesus (Bells of Joy)
5. I’d Rather Have Jesus (Willie)
6. Just A Closer Walk With Thee (Willie)
7. Tide of Live (Bells of Joy)
8. How Great Thou Art (Willie)
9. Family Bible (Willie)
10. If I Perish (Bells of Joy)
11. Farther Along (Willie)
12. Angel Lullaby (Bells of Joy)
13. Have A Little Talk With Jesus (Willie & Bells of Joy)
