7 April 2014

The Southern Fried Festival 2014 will take place on Friday July 25 to Sunday 27 in Perth, Scotland with tickets on sale Friday April 18. The festival has now announced its country star headliners Buffy Sainte-Marie, Steve Earle, Rosanne Cash, John Fullbright, Marc Ford and Cedric Watson. Southern Fried Festival, Scotland’s biggest and best festival of American roots music returns to Perth for the seventh time featuring some of the biggest names in country. Covering all the American Roots music bases including blues, country, gospel, swing and soul, Southern Fried Festival is a little nugget of Americana in the rolling Scottish countryside with a rich vein of international stars and home grown talent just waiting to be prospected! Taking place in Perth Concert Hall and other venues within easy strolling distance, Southern Fried is a super-sized serving of the best in American Roots music topped with a warm slice of Scottish hospitality! Since the festival launched in 2008, artists have included The Mavericks, Lucinda Williams, Seasick Steve, Booker T, Lyle Lovett, Gretchen Peters, Blind Boys Of Alabama, Stax! featuring Steve Cropper, Donald “Duck” Dunn and Eddie Floyd, Raul Malo, John Prine, Justin Townes Earle, Savoy Family Cajun Band, Hayseed Dixie, Allen Toussaint, Los Lobos, Nanci Griffith, Hot 8 Brass Band, Mary Gauthier, Eddi Reader, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Slaid Cleaves, Alvin Youngblood Hart, The Holmes Brothers, Elizabeth Cook, Rachel Harrington, Phantom Limb and many more.

Sea Gayle Records/Arista Nashville hitmaker Jerrod Niemann has unveiled his new nonprofit charity, Free The Music USA (FTMUSA). The charity will be dedicated to collecting used instruments and giving them to children in need. Born out of Niemann’s deeply rooted belief that every child deserves the opportunity to explore music within themselves, Niemann set out to help place instruments in the hands of children who could not otherwise afford them. FTMUSA will also make spontaneous and varied donations to music based charities throughout the year. FTMUSA is partnering with Songs for Sound, a Nashville-based charity dedicated to assisting the profoundly deaf through awareness and providing resources for cochlear implants and rehabilitation. Songs for Sound and FTMUSA have partnered with the Academy of Country Music to give three recent recipients of cochlear implants a trip to the 2014 ACM Awards in Las Vegas to meet Niemann and hear him perform at the 2nd Annual ACM Party for a Cause Festival on April 5 at The LINQ. Newly appointed FTMUSA board member Shannon Shryne has said: “Jerrod’s passion for helping people is just as strong as his passion for creating great music. Free the Music USA will harness that philanthropic energy and truly make a difference in so many ways. The possibilities are extraordinary and we’re excited to get started!”

Ray Lamontagne has announced details of the release of a new album. SUPERNOVA, his 5th studio album, is released on RCA Records on Monday May 6, 2014. It follows his 2010 Grammy Award winning album, GOD WILLIN’ AND THE CREEK DON’T RISE. Commenting on the song writing process for Supernova, Lamontagne said: “For the longest time these songs were eluding me. I felt like a kid trying to collect lightning bugs. I’d catch a glimpse out the side of my eye and run for I, but the light would go out just as I thought I’d gotten hold of one. But eventually I caught onto their game. I stopped chasing them altogether. Instead I just sat there as if I were completely disinterested in them. And wouldn’t you know it, one by one they came to me! Flew right into my jar.” SUPERNOVA was recorded in Nashville, TN with producer Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys.

Live Nation have announced that BluesFest will return to the Royal Albert Hall this autumn for an extended six-day event, which will once again feature a wonderful array of international stars from the worlds of blues, soul, jazz and beyond. Now in its fourth year, and widely regarded as one of the highlights of the live music calendar, BluesFest made history in 2013 when it relocated to the Royal Albert Hall and became the iconic building’s first ever full-scale music festival. The four day event was a resounding success, with over 40,000 music fans enjoying an incredible run of shows from the likes of Robert Plant, Ronnie Wood, Bobby Womack, Van Morrison, Gregory Porter, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Mavis Staples, Chris Rea and many more. This year’s festival will feature a similarly world class line-up as evidenced by the first batch of headliners which includes the return of one of the most indelible artists of the 20th century, the legendary Van Morrison (Oct 28th), song-writing icon Elvis Costello (Oct 29th), the inimitable Georgie Fame (who opens for Costello on Oct 29th), multi-Grammy-winning Sheryl Crow (Oct 31st) and chart-topping jazz funk outfit Level 42 (Oct 26th). Although all these artists are now celebrated for their own distinctive sounds and styles, they all credit the blues as the start of their musical journeys. Leo Green – Festival Director: “Following on from last year with some fantastic shows from Van Morrison, Robert Plant, Ronnie Wood, Bobby Womack and Tedeschi Trucks Band, we’re delighted Bluesfest will be returning to the Royal Albert Hall in 2014. Last year’s daytime stroller tickets, which are free for kids, proved very popular and it was great to see a family audience enjoy the likes of James Hunter, Dr Feelgood, Huey Morgan and Jo Harman – we’re now looking forward to Bluesfest 2014 and are delighted to announce the first of our headliners and look forward to what will be six very memorable days and nights.” This year’s festival runs from Sunday October 26 – Friday 31 October. Tickets go on-sale 9am on Friday April 4 priced from £20 upwards (subject to per-ticket charge plus order processing fee).