Last week in Country Music
Interesting
new development in Chattanooga, Tennessee. A large grocery store chain
“Puckett’s Grocery” with a large restaurant serving delicious
home-grown style food, the specialty of the house being cherry wood
smoked BBQ, and of all things, a stage where the unlimited fountain of
singer-songwriters from Nashville play and sing. Created by Andy
Marshall, who formerly owned a cluster of Piggly Wiggly supermarkets, he
sold all of them to begin his “Puckett’s Grocery.” Chattanooga is not
the first one either. In 2000 the Marshall family opened their first
store, and the new one in Chattanooga brought the Marshall Family stores
to be listed among the fastest growing companies in America. What the
family does is look for a large enough building, restaurants that are
failing, or even another grocery selling out, buy them and convert them
to the down-home facilities they have become. They do well by marketing
to the locals, and they keep the music standards high by only inviting
singer-songwriters that have had a least one country hit song. What
this does is take the rogue control of music away from a licensing
agency like ASCAP and puts it back in the hands of those who create it.
At their grocery store in Nashville they are getting as many as 100
inquiries a week from singer-songwriters who control their own music.
The philosophy of the grocery store is, if it becomes a go-to place for
the locals, the tourists aren’t far behind. They permit good local
backing musicians to work behind the songwriters who control their own
songs. In the evening hours the restaurant dims the lights and diners
feel like they’re in a separate entity. On Sundays it’s gospel music,
and the church goers come by the droves soon as church is out. The
owners wanted the entire grocery-restaurant-performance center to have a
genial family atmosphere, away from the smoke and rowdiness of the
Music City bar scene. The formula seems to be working, they simply call
it pork and jeans as far as food and clothing is concerned. Wow, I
would say Crackerbarrel, also a Tennessee based corporation, should
raise it’s shaggy head, and pay attention. Many of you know we did a
couple of years of old-time music on the front porch of the Council
Bluffs Crackerbarrel Restaurant. Didn’t make a lot of money (neither do
the singer-songwriters in Chattanooga). It’s amazing isn’t it? In
Iowa we have a home-state employee-owned grocery called HyVee, who are
already converting their sit-down quick-lunch space into up-scale
restaurants, including alcoholic beverages no less. The Puckett stores
have declined the liquor in favor of more family-friendly atmosphere.
But the big question is??? WHY doesn’t HyVee include an evening
down-home old-time music staging area???
Many readers of this Sunday Bulletin are familiar with Curt
Shoemaker, the outstanding steel player from Kansas. He’s the
excellent steel sound behind Martina McBride, who is being singled out
for her good works. The Music Business Association will give McBride
their Harry Chapin Memorial Humanitarian Award at a luncheon in
Nashville on May 14. McBride is being recognized for her work against
domestic violence and cancer. She says in a statement her goal was
never to be recognized for her charitable efforts, but his award is
proof everyone and anyone can make a difference.
Big article in the Washington Post this past week:
“Everyday Zen: On The Road With Willie Nelson at 81” Willie is in Las
Vegas for his 7th gig of the new year, and after this one he’ll have a
least 100 more concerts to go to the end of the year. Once labeled the
“Hillbillie Dala Lama” Willie feels his road in life is like a spiritual
path, an asphalt Mobiums strip, the long way to enlightenment, or
both. His most devout fans (me among them) think of him as a messenger,
or even a manifestation of God. According to Willie, “It’s not a
responsibility that’s mine. It’s everybody’s. They all have the
obligation to set an example. Do unto others, “The Old Golden Rule.”
It’s an easy one to follow. Sometimes, “People flock to Vegas to escape
their own heads, however a Willie concert won’t allow that. Nelson’s
songs pull us deeper into ourselves. With Willie singing about the
weight of yesterday and the uncertainty of tomorrow it’s the the
easiness of right now. His songs are essentially about time which makes
them about life, which makes them about everything. “It’s been that
way as long as I can remember,” Nelson says of his multi-generational
flock. “When you go to church, it’s young and old. The audience, for
me, is very similar to a congregation. It’s all ages out there.” Willie
believes that God speaks through all of us. His sense of humor and his
spirituality are inextricable. Life is a joke. The funniest one we’ll
ever know. When Willie is writing songs, he writes the lyrics first,
confident that good melodies are more plentiful than good words, and
easier to locate too. As for cutting his songs, he’s quick. He
released two fine albums just last year, and when he presses a button on
the tour-bus stereo, out jumps a zesty new duet he recorded with Merle
Haggard a few weeks ago. So, this never-ending odyssey that requires an
increasingly fragile body to breathe melody 100 nights a year – this is
actually the thing that keeps him alive??? “Oh Yeah,” he says with a
firm nod. Then he smiles. The idea makes him feel either deeply
contented, a little frightened, or nothing at all. This amazingly good
story written by Chris Richards is an excellent journalist for the
Washington Post.
A lot of stuff comes down the pike via the Internet to me,
some of it even seems legitimate. Planet Blue Pictures is a film
company in Australia, and is currently looking for new songs for both
film and TV. What with the stupendously stupid moronisitic music coming
out of Nashville these days, this is probably a good opportunity for
good songwriters. Check their website at www.plantetbluepictures.com
January 20 would be the birthday of Huddie Ledbetter,
better known as Leadbelly, who passed away in 1949. All of his works is
still available at Smithsonian-Folkways, the same label Sheila and I
work and record for. The Smithsonian let me know that they will be
celebrating Leadbelly’s birthday with a new social media series, “Lead
Belly: Song By Song,” in anticipation of the February 24th release of
“Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection.” Lead Belly was the
2nd black country artist (after Deford Bailey) into our America’s Old
Time Country Music Hall of Fame.
Ernie Ruth, one of our local promoters, singers, comedian,
and whatever, reported that Junior Wittstruck, one of the better upright
bass players in the upper Midwest, has been placed in a hospice with
cancer. Junior showed up at nearly all the local and regional
gatherings of acoustic old-time music as well as the more classic
country events. He had a great 60’s & 70’s band that played regular
in the Starlite Ballroom in Lincoln, Nebraska. Please send a prayer his
way, he might need it.
Bob Dylan just kinds of stays in the news. “Blowing in the
Wind” creator has a solution for unemployment. “Let the billionaires
step up” is what he told the AARP. “The government’s not going to
create jobs. It doesn’t have to. People have to create jobs, and those
big billionaires are the ones who can do it.” But instead of doing
that, he said, he sees inner cities festering with crime and people
turning to alcohol and drugs. “They could all have work created for
them by all those hotshot billionaires. For sure that would create a
lot of happiness. Now, I’m not saying they have to, I’m not talking
about communism, but what do they do with all their money?” He also
told the AARP (of which he is old enough to be a member), if he wasn’t a
musician he would probably have been a teacher, preferably teaching
Roman History or Theology. Of course all of this media attention is
about his new CD “Shadows in the Night,” songs that Frank Sinatra
recorded, and Dylan apparently trying to improve upon. At least he is
generous. He’s giving 50,000 elderly folks (readers of the AARP
magazine) free copies of his new album. Release date is expected to be
February 3rd.
Short note just came out on Face-Book, Jim Ed Brown has
been declared cancer free as of January 19th. Prayer works folks. Jim
Ed, a member of our Old Time Country Music Hall of Fame, has a new album
that just came out. Check his website out, you’ll like it!
A group has formed in the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri,
called GCMA meaning “Genuine Country Music Association.” It’s amazing
isn’t it, how many hundreds of thousands, millions of people, disgusted
with the so-called country music today coming out of Nashville. Anyway,
this new one in Missouri is a non-profit with a strong desire to keep
the ‘real thing’ alive. According to Jack Farrell, the president of the
Association, “Traditional country music is nearly dead. The Country
Music Association and the Grand Ole Opry have lost their roots.”
Membership in the organization is $25 a year (same as the NTCMA has been
charging the past 40 years) and they meet once a month to play at
Farrell’s barn. They are absolutely not going to allow some no-good
modern country music maker entry, the barn is only open to close
friends, relatives, and the members of the association.
Loretta Lynn is working hard on a new album with John
Carter Cash producing. Like Bobby Bare’s latest album, Loretta is
reaching back to her childhood to reintroduce her fans to songs like
“Wreck On The Highway” and “Beautiful Brown Eyes” and “The Great
Titanic” and a host of other old-time country songs. She will also
include some re-recordings of the songs she wrote for other artists.
Country music legend Alan Jackson took his 25th anniversary
“Keeping’ It Country” tour to Springfield, Missouri, recently. The
two-time Grammy winner with his band the Strayhorns, performed many of
his country hits from a songbook spanning a quarter of a century. It
was a completely sold out SRO concert.
Sheila and I have been asked to open for LuLu Roman, you
remember her as the large woman on Hee-Haw, and she was just at
our LeMars Festival last year. Also on the show we are opening for is
Dion, remember him from the Belmonts who recorded “The Wanderer” and “A
Teenager In Love” and “Runaround Sue.” Dion’s most successful recordings
were in the 60’s. By 1988 he was deeply involved in Christian music
which is what he records and performs today. He is also involved with
prison ministry and reaches out to men going through addiction
recovery. He currently lives in Boca Raton, Florida. On June 24th
we’ll all gather for Gloria’sGloryFest, in Stewartville, Minnesota.
Bob Everhart for Country Music News International
new development in Chattanooga, Tennessee. A large grocery store chain
“Puckett’s Grocery” with a large restaurant serving delicious
home-grown style food, the specialty of the house being cherry wood
smoked BBQ, and of all things, a stage where the unlimited fountain of
singer-songwriters from Nashville play and sing. Created by Andy
Marshall, who formerly owned a cluster of Piggly Wiggly supermarkets, he
sold all of them to begin his “Puckett’s Grocery.” Chattanooga is not
the first one either. In 2000 the Marshall family opened their first
store, and the new one in Chattanooga brought the Marshall Family stores
to be listed among the fastest growing companies in America. What the
family does is look for a large enough building, restaurants that are
failing, or even another grocery selling out, buy them and convert them
to the down-home facilities they have become. They do well by marketing
to the locals, and they keep the music standards high by only inviting
singer-songwriters that have had a least one country hit song. What
this does is take the rogue control of music away from a licensing
agency like ASCAP and puts it back in the hands of those who create it.
At their grocery store in Nashville they are getting as many as 100
inquiries a week from singer-songwriters who control their own music.
The philosophy of the grocery store is, if it becomes a go-to place for
the locals, the tourists aren’t far behind. They permit good local
backing musicians to work behind the songwriters who control their own
songs. In the evening hours the restaurant dims the lights and diners
feel like they’re in a separate entity. On Sundays it’s gospel music,
and the church goers come by the droves soon as church is out. The
owners wanted the entire grocery-restaurant-performance center to have a
genial family atmosphere, away from the smoke and rowdiness of the
Music City bar scene. The formula seems to be working, they simply call
it pork and jeans as far as food and clothing is concerned. Wow, I
would say Crackerbarrel, also a Tennessee based corporation, should
raise it’s shaggy head, and pay attention. Many of you know we did a
couple of years of old-time music on the front porch of the Council
Bluffs Crackerbarrel Restaurant. Didn’t make a lot of money (neither do
the singer-songwriters in Chattanooga). It’s amazing isn’t it? In
Iowa we have a home-state employee-owned grocery called HyVee, who are
already converting their sit-down quick-lunch space into up-scale
restaurants, including alcoholic beverages no less. The Puckett stores
have declined the liquor in favor of more family-friendly atmosphere.
But the big question is??? WHY doesn’t HyVee include an evening
down-home old-time music staging area???
Shoemaker, the outstanding steel player from Kansas. He’s the
excellent steel sound behind Martina McBride, who is being singled out
for her good works. The Music Business Association will give McBride
their Harry Chapin Memorial Humanitarian Award at a luncheon in
Nashville on May 14. McBride is being recognized for her work against
domestic violence and cancer. She says in a statement her goal was
never to be recognized for her charitable efforts, but his award is
proof everyone and anyone can make a difference.
“Everyday Zen: On The Road With Willie Nelson at 81” Willie is in Las
Vegas for his 7th gig of the new year, and after this one he’ll have a
least 100 more concerts to go to the end of the year. Once labeled the
“Hillbillie Dala Lama” Willie feels his road in life is like a spiritual
path, an asphalt Mobiums strip, the long way to enlightenment, or
both. His most devout fans (me among them) think of him as a messenger,
or even a manifestation of God. According to Willie, “It’s not a
responsibility that’s mine. It’s everybody’s. They all have the
obligation to set an example. Do unto others, “The Old Golden Rule.”
It’s an easy one to follow. Sometimes, “People flock to Vegas to escape
their own heads, however a Willie concert won’t allow that. Nelson’s
songs pull us deeper into ourselves. With Willie singing about the
weight of yesterday and the uncertainty of tomorrow it’s the the
easiness of right now. His songs are essentially about time which makes
them about life, which makes them about everything. “It’s been that
way as long as I can remember,” Nelson says of his multi-generational
flock. “When you go to church, it’s young and old. The audience, for
me, is very similar to a congregation. It’s all ages out there.” Willie
believes that God speaks through all of us. His sense of humor and his
spirituality are inextricable. Life is a joke. The funniest one we’ll
ever know. When Willie is writing songs, he writes the lyrics first,
confident that good melodies are more plentiful than good words, and
easier to locate too. As for cutting his songs, he’s quick. He
released two fine albums just last year, and when he presses a button on
the tour-bus stereo, out jumps a zesty new duet he recorded with Merle
Haggard a few weeks ago. So, this never-ending odyssey that requires an
increasingly fragile body to breathe melody 100 nights a year – this is
actually the thing that keeps him alive??? “Oh Yeah,” he says with a
firm nod. Then he smiles. The idea makes him feel either deeply
contented, a little frightened, or nothing at all. This amazingly good
story written by Chris Richards is an excellent journalist for the
Washington Post.
some of it even seems legitimate. Planet Blue Pictures is a film
company in Australia, and is currently looking for new songs for both
film and TV. What with the stupendously stupid moronisitic music coming
out of Nashville these days, this is probably a good opportunity for
good songwriters. Check their website at www.plantetbluepictures.com
better known as Leadbelly, who passed away in 1949. All of his works is
still available at Smithsonian-Folkways, the same label Sheila and I
work and record for. The Smithsonian let me know that they will be
celebrating Leadbelly’s birthday with a new social media series, “Lead
Belly: Song By Song,” in anticipation of the February 24th release of
“Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection.” Lead Belly was the
2nd black country artist (after Deford Bailey) into our America’s Old
Time Country Music Hall of Fame.
and whatever, reported that Junior Wittstruck, one of the better upright
bass players in the upper Midwest, has been placed in a hospice with
cancer. Junior showed up at nearly all the local and regional
gatherings of acoustic old-time music as well as the more classic
country events. He had a great 60’s & 70’s band that played regular
in the Starlite Ballroom in Lincoln, Nebraska. Please send a prayer his
way, he might need it.
Wind” creator has a solution for unemployment. “Let the billionaires
step up” is what he told the AARP. “The government’s not going to
create jobs. It doesn’t have to. People have to create jobs, and those
big billionaires are the ones who can do it.” But instead of doing
that, he said, he sees inner cities festering with crime and people
turning to alcohol and drugs. “They could all have work created for
them by all those hotshot billionaires. For sure that would create a
lot of happiness. Now, I’m not saying they have to, I’m not talking
about communism, but what do they do with all their money?” He also
told the AARP (of which he is old enough to be a member), if he wasn’t a
musician he would probably have been a teacher, preferably teaching
Roman History or Theology. Of course all of this media attention is
about his new CD “Shadows in the Night,” songs that Frank Sinatra
recorded, and Dylan apparently trying to improve upon. At least he is
generous. He’s giving 50,000 elderly folks (readers of the AARP
magazine) free copies of his new album. Release date is expected to be
February 3rd.
been declared cancer free as of January 19th. Prayer works folks. Jim
Ed, a member of our Old Time Country Music Hall of Fame, has a new album
that just came out. Check his website out, you’ll like it!
called GCMA meaning “Genuine Country Music Association.” It’s amazing
isn’t it, how many hundreds of thousands, millions of people, disgusted
with the so-called country music today coming out of Nashville. Anyway,
this new one in Missouri is a non-profit with a strong desire to keep
the ‘real thing’ alive. According to Jack Farrell, the president of the
Association, “Traditional country music is nearly dead. The Country
Music Association and the Grand Ole Opry have lost their roots.”
Membership in the organization is $25 a year (same as the NTCMA has been
charging the past 40 years) and they meet once a month to play at
Farrell’s barn. They are absolutely not going to allow some no-good
modern country music maker entry, the barn is only open to close
friends, relatives, and the members of the association.
Carter Cash producing. Like Bobby Bare’s latest album, Loretta is
reaching back to her childhood to reintroduce her fans to songs like
“Wreck On The Highway” and “Beautiful Brown Eyes” and “The Great
Titanic” and a host of other old-time country songs. She will also
include some re-recordings of the songs she wrote for other artists.
“Keeping’ It Country” tour to Springfield, Missouri, recently. The
two-time Grammy winner with his band the Strayhorns, performed many of
his country hits from a songbook spanning a quarter of a century. It
was a completely sold out SRO concert.
remember her as the large woman on Hee-Haw, and she was just at
our LeMars Festival last year. Also on the show we are opening for is
Dion, remember him from the Belmonts who recorded “The Wanderer” and “A
Teenager In Love” and “Runaround Sue.” Dion’s most successful recordings
were in the 60’s. By 1988 he was deeply involved in Christian music
which is what he records and performs today. He is also involved with
prison ministry and reaches out to men going through addiction
recovery. He currently lives in Boca Raton, Florida. On June 24th
we’ll all gather for Gloria’sGloryFest, in Stewartville, Minnesota.