2014

This now annual and signature release presents a track from each of the nominated artists for The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2014. Released on February 17, this acclaimed 2CD set includes 27 tracks from the cream of the crop in the folk world: Lisa Knapp, Martin Simpson, Bella Hardy, Will Pound, Linda Thompson, Georgia Ruth, Chris Wood, Breabach, Lau, Full English Project, Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker, Fay Hiles, Greg Russell & Ciaran Alger, Melrose Quartet and many more… The Awards, which celebrate their 15th anniversary in 2014, are taking place on Wednesday February 19 at The Royal Albert Hall in London. The ceremony, including performances by some of the biggest names in folk music, will commence at 8pm and will be broadcast live on Radio 2, via the Red Button, and online at bbc.co.uk/radio2, with video highlights to follow the next day.

Charlie Daniels’ first new album project release since 2007 is the musical legends dedication to his own person icon – Bob Dylan. Daniels added his guitar to three of Dylan’s Nashville produced projects (NASHVILLE SKYLINE, SELF PORTRAIT and NEW MORNING) in the 60s. Charlie has explained that the Dylan sessions not only did a lot for his confidence, but helped legitimise him in Nashville circles and beyond as a serious musician. He certainly repays the debt of gratitude on this new project. “It was about 50 years ago when I first became aware of Bob Dylan—and no, I was not naive enough to think I could swim in the same stream, try to emulate what he had done, or cop his licks. Nobody could do that,” comments Daniels. “My ambitions were to provoke some thought, to colour the imagery of my songs, to think outside the box of conformity—in other words to be myself.” The new collection contains Daniels’ signature deft musical delivery on ten of Dylan’s finest writings: Tangled Up In Blue Times They Are a Changin’ I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight Gotta Serve Somebody I Shall Be Released Country Pie Mr. Tambourine Man Hard Rains A Gonna Fall Just Like A Woman Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn) “Whatever it was Bob Dylan meant by his lyrics, they grabbed the attention of the world and changed the face of music forever,” continues Charlie. “He inspired musicians to knock down the restrictive, bubble gum, three minute a side, Tin Pan Alley world that set the parameters of popular music and turn their creative minds loose in a thousand new directions.” OFF THE GRID will be released on Blue Hat Records in association with MRI and distributed by RED. It is set for release on April 1, 2014.

Rhonda Vincent’s new album, ONLY ME, debuts at number one on Billboard Bluegrass Album chart, ending a 4-month reign by Alan Jackson. In addition, the album debuts on four other Billboard charts including number ten on Heatseekers, and number 36 on Top Current Country Albums, “It’s a dream come true!” says Rhonda Vincent. “I was hoping for a number one CD with ONLY ME, but never expecting it after only 2 days of sales. This is unbelievable! ” The album has been endorsed by country superstar Dolly Parton and features duets with both Willie Nelson and Daryle Singletary. Nelson said: “Rhonda’s voice is beautiful. I am thankful for her letting me be a part of it all,” while Singletary said that he loves singing with Rhonda “cause she makes you bring your A game.”

Four-time GRAMMY Award winner Steve Wariner will go on tour again this April, to promote his new album. IT AIN’T ALL BAD. His process for putting together the concert’s set-lists will be much different this year as he asks his fans to help choose the songs that he will perform on tour. “I’m always hearing from my fans that they loved all the songs I performed in concert, but they wish I had performed one particular song or another,” says Wariner. “I want to give them a voice in this year’s set list, and hopefully their song will make the cut. I can’t wait to see what they choose!” With over 50 hit singles to his credit, Wariner has quite the selection of songs for his fans to choose from. In addition to his own, he has also written and co-written several hits for other artists, including “Longneck Bottle” for Garth Brooks, “Nothin’ But the Taillights” for Clint Black, “One Small Miracle” for Bryan White, and “Where the Blacktop Ends” for Keith Urban (among others), so fans may choose to vote for those songs as well. Voting began yesterday, Monday February 3 and will continue until Friday February 28, 2014. In order to vote, fans should visit www.SteveWariner.com, A list of Wariner’s hit singles and song-writing credits can be found on the website too. “Of course, I’ll also perform several songs from my new CD, IT AIN’T BAD, as well as an instrumental or two,” continues Wariner. “And since Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, the Del McCoury Band, Peter Tork, and Don Williams have all recently recorded my songs, I might occasionally perform my versions of those songs as well. I am really excited to create this set-list based on what I hear from the fans!” www.SteveWariner.com

C2C Country to Country 2014 is excited to announce 28 up and coming acts to appear at the London 2-day festival at The O2 where tickets for the main concerts are almost completely sold out with less than two months to go. Fans will get a rare chance to discover new artists who will be playing intimate shows around the venue. These shows are free and will follow the huge success of last year’s gigs where the cream of new talent were given a stage to showcase their talents and prove that country music has a very strong future in the UK. Artists performing on the Pop-Up Stages include Jill & Kate from Nashville who have toured internationally as Kelly Clarkson’s backing singers, Emma Jade a former contestant on BBC’s The Voice and Jill Johnson who is a platinum selling artist in her native Sweden. Also appearing are the duo Striking Matches, who are in the UK courtesy of the CMA and the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation and are also on the bill of the recently announced CMA Songwriters Series on 14th March. BBC Radio 2’s Bob Harris: “”I am thrilled to be a part of this years C2C festival and am particularly looking forward to seeing the performances on the pop up stages. It’s a wonderful opportunity for these artists to broaden their audiences, while giving C2C fans a chance to hear their music. The pop up stages add hugely to the wonderful atmosphere of the weekend”. With artists coming from as far and wide as America (Houston, Nashville, New Jersey), Germany and Sweden to home-grown talent from the UK and Ireland, country music’s new stars performing on the pop-up stages will be a truly international get-together. C2C Country to Country returns to The O2 in March 2014 after already selling out weekend and Saturday tickets and a total of 25,000 tickets have been sold over the weekend in total. Pop up stages will be in the themed marketplace, in the main entrance to the venue and dotted along the boulevard within the O2. These exciting new artists will be heading to The O2 to perform alongside US megastars Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts, Chris Young, The Band Perry, Zac Brown Band, Dixie Chicks and Dirks Bentley and Country Queen Martina McBride. Full list of artists confirmed to play on the pop-up stages over the weekend: Ann Doka – Frankfurt Curran – New Jersey Dexeter – Connecticut Emma Jade Gary Quinn – Ireland Hannah Jane Lewis Hometown Show Jessica Clemmons – Houston Jill and Kate – Nashville Jill Johnson – Sweden Lisa Marie Fischer- Germany Lisa Redford Luke and Mel Maria Byrne – Ireland McKay Raintown – Glasgow Star Lane Stephen Kellogg – USA Steve Agnew – Scotland Striking Matches – Nashville The Diablos The Dirty Beggars – Scotland The Shires The Sonny Walters Band Thorne Hill Tom Wright Ward Thomas

Pete Seeger, champion of folk music as a catalyst for change, has died in New York age 94. According to his grandson he passed away at a New York hospital after a short illness. Seeger rose to fame as member of The Weavers, formed in 1948. He continued to perform in his own right for many years, in a career spanning six decades. Seeger’s hits include If I Had a Hammer, Turn, Turn, Turn, Where Have All the Flowers Gone and Kisses Sweeter Than Wine. Pete Seeger will be remembered for his courageous protest songs which saw him blacklisted by the US Government in the 1950s for his left wing stance – even quizzed by the Un-American Activities Committee in 1955, which he greatly resented. During these years he was denied broadcast exposure and charged with contempt of Congress. The sentence was overturned and Seeger was able to return to television in the late 1960s. He had never given up on his ethos though, and spent this time touring US college campuses spreading his music and his ideas, a job that Seeger himself described as the most important of his career. This skinny framed, bearded, banjo-playing musician became an iconic bearer for political causes ranging from nuclear disarmament to the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011. He was closely identified with the sixties civil rights movement and was an enduring champion of the folk community and its social activism. Seeger performed with Woody Guthrie in his early years, and went on to have an effect on the protest music of later artists including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Joan Baez. His influence continued through the decades and was inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. In 2006, Springsteen recorded an album of songs originally sung by Seeger. On his 90th birthday, Seeger was feted by artists including Springsteen, Eddie Vedder and Dave Matthews in New York’s Madison Square Garden. Springsteen called him “a living archive of America’s music and conscience, a testament of the power of song and culture to nudge history along.

Darius Rucker has just received a Grammy Award for Best Country Solo Performance for his number one hit Wagon Wheel, featuring Lady Antebellum. This is Rucker’s third career Grammy, but first time winning this award. The good times continue as tickets for the second leg of his 2014 True Believers Tour go on sale. He will he joined by Eli Young Band, Corey Smith and Joel Crouse on a tour around America. Rucker recently received three Academy of Country Music Award nominations including Single Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Vocal Event of the Year for Wagon Wheel. The 49th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards will take place in MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on Sunday, April 6th 2014. The first leg of the tour, featuring Eli Young Band and David Nail, began January 29, 2014 and will continue until March 9. The second leg will begin March 27 and run until August.

At a ceremony last week held at the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., Bob Taylor, President of Taylor Guitars, was presented with the Award for Corporate Excellence (ACE) to honour the company’s transformative work in the ebony trade and in the lives of its many employees at its ebony mill, Crelicam, in Cameroon. This annual award recognises U.S.-owned businesses that play vital roles around the world as good corporate citizens in supporting sustainable development, respect for human and labour rights, environmental protection, open markets, transparency, and other democratic values. At a formal presentation ceremony held in the Benjamin Franklin Room, Secretary of State John Kerry presented the award to Bob Taylor, noting that through Crelicam, “Bob and Taylor Guitars have fundamentally changed the entire ebony trade.” Secretary Kerry underscored the company’s commitment to both the environment and its employees, and as an advocate for improved economic policies and responsible forestry management. “Taylor Guitars has become an effective advocate for legal and policy reforms to improve the permitting process around the ebony trade to better protect both the environment and the rights and needs of other forest users,” he observed. “Taylor ensures that its works are protected, and they ensure that their workers likewise benefit as a result of this.” To close, he noted that “this is absolutely the example of how people ought to do business. We’re so proud to be able to tell this story, as each of these stories, because they’re a wonderful example of the best of corporate citizenship globally. It’s an honour for me to present the 2013 Award for Corporate Excellence to Taylor Guitars.” Upon receipt of the award, Bob Taylor acknowledged the company’s commitment to a vision which would transform the ebony trade, and the lives of its employees, by applying business solutions to an environmental problem. Equally important, Taylor underscored the company’s commitment to act in the spirit of compassionate capitalism, with an emphasis on enriching the lives of employees through training and social events, and to retain the value of ebony wood in Cameroon. “Our vision was to transform the way that ebony is harvested, processed, and sold into a new model of responsible social forestry while enriching the lives of our 75 employees through meaningful work,” Taylor shared in his formal remarks. “To accomplish this, we assumed the role of guardian of the forest, and we operate with the philosophy to use what the forest gives us. To us, this means using ebony of all colours and all variegations, including wood that features spotted or streaked colouring, wood which prior to our involvement would have been left to deteriorate on the forest floor.”

Iconic singer, songwriter, musician, actress, philanthropist, and 2014 Grammy nominee, DOLLY PARTON, is set to kick off her “Blue Smoke World Tour” this Friday, January 24, in Rancho Mirage, California. In addition this past Friday, Parton announced shows in Tamworth and Cairns being added to the Australian leg of the tour, both shows are already sold out! “It’s always great to perform at home in the good ol’ USA. We’re kicking off our Blue Smoke World Tour right here at home. I love traveling all over the world; but it’s true, there’s nothing like home,” says Dolly Parton. After a widely successful tour of Australia in 2011, Parton will head down under for her first visit to New Zealand in over three decades as well as a return visit to Australia. “Australia, here I come again. We have a lot of new and exciting things for the show and can’t wait to share it with you. I love my fans in that part of the world. You’ve been so very good to me for so many years, I’m really, really excited to be coming back to New Zealand again after 30 years or so. And I know that we’re gonna have a wonderful time. It’s a long way from home in your part of the world, but I always feel like I’m right at home. So Australia, New Zealand, I’m coming home. Wait up!” After returning home from Australia and New Zealand, there is no slowing down for Dolly. In May, Dolly will, once again, hit a few more markets in America before heading across the pond for June concerts in Europe as well as a return to the O2 Arena in London, the venue where Dolly recorded and filmed An Evening With…Dolly (Dolly Records), her widely praised DVD/CD set that was certified GOLD by the RIAA. “Every time I come to Europe I’m just as excited as I was my very first time, which was many, many years ago. I love that part of the world and I especially love the fans,” adds Parton. “We always have such a good time and I’ve put together a lot of things for this show that I think the fans will love. We had not planned to come back so soon, but we got so much fan mail and such a great reaction that I thought ‘Well, why not. If they’re having a good time and we always do, let’s just do it’.” In 2011, Dolly continued to receive accolades for what was her most successful European and Australian tour of her 45-plus year career—The Better Day Tour! During the 2011 tour, Dolly performed for record-breaking attendances in both Europe and Australia, surpassing her previous attendance records. In 2008, Dolly performed 17 European shows to over 170,000 fans, surpassing her then-best 2007 European tour, where she played 21 shows for over 140,000 people. Each of these treks grossed in the tens of millions of dollars and established Dolly as Europe’s favorite and most successful country artist. Tour dates and venues are below, for ticket and on-sale information please check with your local market. US Dates Jan 24th Rancho Mirage, CA – Agua Caliente Casino Jan 25th Primm, NV – Star of the Desert Arena Jan 26th Reno, NV – Reno Events Center Jan 28th Phoenix, AZ – Comerica Theater NEW ZEALAND/AUSTRALIA Dates Feb 7th New Zealand, Auckland – Vector Arena Feb 8th New Zealand, Auckland – Vector Arena **2nd Show Feb 11th Australia, Melbourne – Rod Laver Arena Feb 12th Australia, Melbourne – Rod Laver Arena Feb 13th Australia, Adelaide – Entertainment Centre Feb 15th Australia, NSW, Hunter Valley – Hope Estate Feb 16th Australia, Tamworth – TRECC Feb 18th Australia, Sydney – Entertainment Centre Feb 19th Australia, Sydney – Entertainment Centre Feb 21st Australia, Brisbane – Entertainment Centre Feb 22nd Australia, Brisbane – Entertainment Centre Feb 24th Australia, Cairns – Cairns Convention Center Feb 27th Australia, Perth – Perth Arena US Dates: May 22nd Tulsa, OK – Hard Rock Casino May 23rd Tulsa, OK – Hard Rock Casino May 25th Cherokee, NC – Harrah’s Cherokee Casino May 27th Richmond, KY – EKU Center For The Arts (St. Mark’s Evening Among Friends) May 28th Knoxville, TN – University of Tennessee (Benefiting Dolly’s Imagination Library) May 30th Thackerville, OK – Winstar Casino May 31st Thackerville, OK – Winstar Casino UK & EUROPE Dates: Jun 8th England, Liverpool – Echo Arena Jun 10th Northern Ireland, Belfast – Odyssey Arena Jun 11th Ireland, Dublin – O2 Arena Jun 12th Ireland, Cork – Live At The Marquee Jun 14th England, Newcastle – Metro Radio Arena Jun 15th Scotland, Aberdeen – GE Arena Jun 17th Scotland, Glasgow – SSE Hydro Arena Jun 18th Scotland, Glasgow – SSE Hydro Arena Jun 20th England, Leeds – First Direct Arena Jun 21st England, Manchester – Phones 4U Arena Jun 22nd England, Birmingham – LG Arena Jun 24th Wales, Cardiff – Motorpoint Arena Jun 25th Wales, Cardiff – Motorpoint Arena Jun 27th England, London – O2 Arena Jun 28th England, London – O2 Arena July 2nd England, Nottingham – Capital FM Arena July 5th Germany, Cologne – LANXESS Arena July 6th Germany, Berlin – o2 World July 8th Denmark, Copenhagen – Forum July 9th Norway, Oslo – Spektrum July 11th Sweden, Stockholm – THE GLOBE For all the latest tour, VIP Experience and ticketing information please visit http://www.dollypartonmusic.net

Billboard.com released its highly sought after list of “Top 10 Country Artists to Watch in 2014” and selected Minneapolis rising talent GB Leighton among its honorees. Leighton, managed by Average Joe’s Rusty Harmon (Hootie & the Blowfish, the LACS and Jason Michael Carroll), is praised for his originality by journalist Chuck Dauphin who describes his songs as “deep, introspective, and moving.” This list places Leighton among great company like “Pretty Little Liars” star Lucy Hale. To view the full list, click here. “I’ve been hitting the Midwest tour scene and traveling to Nashville for several years, but it’s great to see the industry getting behind our newest project” says GB Leighton. “2014 seems to be lining itself up to be a great year.” Leighton is at country radio with his debut national release and title track to his project “Get Up.” He was recently in Nashville shooting a video for the single which will be premiering in February. ­­To stay updated on GB Leighton including the latest news and tour information, visit www.gbleighton.com. Leighton has already made a huge impact on his home state of Minnesota and the rest of the Midwest – packing out venues and having fans post pictures of inked lyrics across his social media platforms. One would expect to find his “heartland country” on iPod menus, but this father of two boys is truly serving up a taste of country at GB Leighton’s Pickle Park in Fridley, MN. “It was a bar that I had played for years and when it fell into the current owner’s hands, he told me he was going to name it after me and my songs. How cool is it to walk into restaurant and see food named after your tunes!”