May 2018 - Page 3 of 3 - STAGING Maverick

“Stay Wild” released today by Shook Twins folk group

The Shooks first emerged in 2008 with their independent debut ‘You Can Have The Rest’ followed by Window, and 2014’s ‘What We Do—which’ garnered acclaim from USA Today and more. Organically stirring up a buzz, they engendered fandom in fellow creators such as Langhorne Slim, The Lumineers, Mason Jennings, and iconic best-selling author Neil Gaiman who claimed, “They make music that twines through your soul the way vines cover an abandoned shack in the woods.” Along the way, the full band, including Niko Slice [electric guitar, mandolin, vocals], Barra Brown [drums, vocals, drum pad], and Josh Simon [bass, vocals, electric guitar, synth], has shared bills with everyone from Ryan Adams to The Indigo Girls. See below for the girls’ tour dates. TOUR DATES May 11 – Black Mountain, NC – Leaf Festival May 20 – Joshua Tree, CA – Joshua Tree Music Festival May 24-25 – Bradley, CA – Lightning in a Bottle May 27 – Novato, CA – HopMonk Tavern – Novato (with Rainbow Girls) Jun 02 – El Prado, NM – Music on the Mothership Jun 20 – The Shitty Barn – Spring Green, WI (with Shawn Butzin) Jun 21-24 – Rothbury, MI – Electric Forest Jul 13 – Eastsound, WA – Orcas Center presents Center Stage Live Concert Jul 14 – Friday Harbor, WA – San Juan Community Theatre Jul 15 – Lopez, WA – The Lopez Center for Community for and The Arts Jul 20-22 – North Plains, OR – Northwest String Summit Aug 03-05 – Loveland, CO – ARISE Music Festival Aug 24-25 – Fayetteville, AR – Fayetteville Roots Festival Sept 12-15 – Nashville, TN – AmericanaFest

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Lachlan Bryan & The Wildes announce return to the UK

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Australian alt-country/Americana outfit Lachlan Bryan & The Wildes have announced their return to the UK next month including an appearance at Maverick Festival, coinciding with the European release of their fourth album ‘Some Girls (Quite) Like Country Music’ on June 29th 2018. The album opens with the band’s semi-political brand new single ‘I Hope That I’m Wrong’ – in the words of lead singer and songwriter Bryan: “I wrote this song around October 2017. It was about nine o’clock in the morning, and I walked down the stairs and into the kitchen and I sat down and read the newspaper. The song started playing in my head and it was as though every headline I read triggered a new line or a new verse. I guess it was around the time that the #MeToo movement started, and as soon as I wrote the opening words “Women, do what you must/There’s not a man in the world you can trust” I knew that I wanted that to be the first line anybody hears on the new album (which we were already half way through recording). “The song came together so quickly in my head – it was fully formed within minutes, and when I picked up my girlfriend’s guitar which was leaning on the kitchen table, I was already in the right key and could play it from beginning to end. There are songs on this album that I laboured over for months – years in one case – but ‘I Hope that I’m Wrong’ was the opposite. If someone had told me I would one day come up with a song that discussed climate change, greed, poverty and sexual harassment I’d have told them they had me mistaken for somebody else. But I guess that’s what this is, and it took about as long to write as it does to sing. “Like a lot of this record, ‘I Hope that I’m Wrong’ was cut live in the studio – we did have a few goes at it, on different days, in different moods, to get the one that felt right – which happened to be the last take we did.” Lachlan Bryan and The Wildes have built their reputation on storytelling. Over the past eight years they have released four records, toured Europe and the USA multiple times, shared stages with Americana and country heavyweights and picked up a string of awards, including the Golden Guitar for ‘alt country album of the year’ with their landmark release ‘Black Coffee’.Since emerging in 2009, Lachlan Bryan and The Wildes have become known as the finest Australian exponents of Americana Music, winning the prestigious Golden Guitar Award for Alt-Country Album of the Year in 2014 and being finalists again in the category in 2016 (Lachlan returned to the awards to present the very same award to Kasey Chambers in 2018). At home they have played the main stage at every major country and roots festival, as well as supporting international acts such as Steve Earle, Joan Armatrading, Shawn Colvin and John Hiatt in theatres across the country. Lachlan and band have also toured the USA several times and made their first visit to Europe in 2017, where they performed shows in Switzerland, Germany and The UK (where the band was a highlight of the iconic Maverick Festival). Tour dates Wed 27 June: What’s Cookin, Leytonstone, London Thurs 28 June: Chapel Arts Centre, Bath, UK + Dan Webster (UK) Friday 29 June: The Howlin Wolf, Glasgow + Imogen Clarke (Aus) Sat 30 June: MacSorleys Music Bar, Glasgow + The Weeping Willows (Aus) Tues 3 July: The Winning post, York + Amelia White (USA) and Dan Webster (UK) Weds 4 July: The Woodend Gallery, Scarborough + The Roamin Jasmine (USA) Thurs 5 July: The Green Note, London + Jonathan Byrd (USA) Fri 6 July: Maverick Festival, Woodbridge, Suffolk Sat 7 July: Maverick Festival, Woodbridge, Suffolk Info & tickets from lachlanbryanandthewildes.com

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Brothers Osborne announce 2018 UK tour

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Brothers Osborne have announced a 2018 UK tour, which includes performances by Planet Rockstock. The headline UK tour will take place in November & December this year, with songs from the second studio album PORT SAINT JOE sure to be included in the set. The announcement comes as the award-winning duo – originally from Maryland, now based in Nashville – are poised to start their first ever headline tour of the UK & Ireland, with venues selling out fast and upgrades taking place where possible. TJ & John Osborne first visited UK shores in March 2017 to perform at the Country2Country events in London and Scotland, followed by a one-off, sold-out headline show in London; they then joined friends and Nashville neighbours The Cadillac Three on the latter’s UK tour late last year, all of which has seen a dramatic rise in the Brothers’ profile, supported by the release of two studio albums via Snakefarm Records in the UK – PAWN SHOP (re-issued here in 2017) and the recently arrived PORT SAINT JOE, heralded by lead single, the combustible ‘Shoot Me Straight’. The November-December visit also takes in a debut appearance at Planet Rockstock in South Wales; this will be the sixth annual festival hosted by Planet Rock, who have been strong supporters of The Brothers from the start, with current single ‘Drank Like Hank’ currently sitting on the station’s A-List. Recorded in a Florida beach house away from the sometimes sterile environs of the studio, PORT SAINT JOE has been hugely well-received, attracting widespread attention with its raw, honest, uniquely homemade feel; indeed, the record was mostly captured in a series of live takes, retaining the atmospheric background noises of wind, roaring water and the excited and ‘refreshed’ encouragement of visiting Nashville friends. This unconventional location proved a perfect complement to the Brothers’ music, which instinctively bends both rules and genres… “PORT SAINT JOE’ is a sonic representation of who we’ve become, not only as a band but as people,” says guitarist John. “Every show we’ve ever played together is on this record. Every song we’ve ever written and every mile we’ve ever ridden has led to the making of this record. Imperfections and all.” A diverse collection, ‘PORT SAINT JOE’ touches on emotive ballads, southern slow jams, roots-y rave-ups and half-lit drinking songs, including the hugely atmospheric ‘Weed, Whiskey And Willie’. Full list of dates for November/December 25th NOVEMBER, GLASGOW O2 ACADEMY 27th NOVEMBER, NEWCASTLE O2 ACADEMY 28th NOVEMBER, MANCHESTER ACADEMY 30th NOVEMBER, NOTTINGHAM ROCK CITY 01st DECEMBER, PLANET ROCKSTOCK 02nd DECEMBER, LONDON O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN General sale of tickets are available from May 11 at 9am GMT at www.livenation.co.uk/artist/brothers-osborne-tickets

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Jessica Risker produces "haunting" experimental folk

Top Picks / Editor

Jessica Risker I SEE YOU AMONG THE STARS Western Vinyl *** Sleep inducing folk from Chicago’s lo-fi experimentalist Also performing under the name DEADBEAT, Jessica Risker’s output veers from electro-psychedelic towards psych-folk. Recently she’s experimented with an electro-psych album BIG FOREVER and SOFT MOONS: TWENTY LULLABIES, a collection of original music box lullabies. For I SEE YOU AMONG THE STARS, Jessica has stripped things down to just her sleepy, rather twee vocals and acoustic guitar with psychedelic sound effects overlaid in the background. The result is a pleasant enough folk album of just eight numbers spanning a meagre 30 minutes. The song writing is clever enough but if the listener can stay awake long enough, every haunting track sounds much the same as the last. When not performing solo, Jessica performs with Joshua Wentz (keyboards/synths, drum machines, electronix), Jarrett Hothan (bass) and Adam Wiebe (drums) who are presumably, responsible for the psychedelic tinged backing. Songs like ‘Anyway When I Look Into Your Eyes’ and ‘Zero Summer Mind’ display a mature songwriting style but after repeated listenings, I continually found it difficult to make it through to the final track before descending into a deep coma. John Roffey

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The Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers is "contemporary old-time country with a sense of humour…"

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The Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers DON’T THINK ABOUT TOMORROW TONIGHT Self release **** Contemporary old-time country with a sense of humour If you’re a fan of old-time country music then the new album from The Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers is going to float your boat so high it will end up ten miles inland. Lovelorn and lost but still able to at least see the sunny side of the street, the titles here tell their own tale: the punning ‘Fools Were Made To be Broken’, ‘Come On Back, Break My Heart’, ‘It’s Lonely At The Bottom’: this is classic heartbreak set to a jaunty melody driven along by fiddle and steel guitar. Effectively a duo (Nikki Grossman & Joe Hart) augmented for the studio, they have a sense of humour too so this is no po-faced homage. The wry post-relationship song ‘If You Don’t Exist’ and particularly ‘This Song’ – we have no idea if we know the words or indeed the tune – which in other hands would be cynical here is just fun It’s not easy pastiche either. The dozen songs all stand up in their own right, the sound is contemporary as is the production – no valve amplifiers or recordings in a backwoods cabin here fortunately. Hank would be proud: no higher praise is possible. Jeremy Searle https://www.sapsuckersmusic.com

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Mary Chapin Carpenter & Emily Barker to perform in London on May 15!

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Mary Chapin Carpenter is gearing up for another outstanding performance together with Emily Barker this Spring. Five-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee Mary Chapin Carpenter will perform songs from new album SOMETIMES JUST THE SKY on May 15 at the Barbican in London – a record celebrating the singer’s 30 year career and the new title track. Opening the show is award-winning Australian singer-songwriter Emily Barker who blends country and English folk with 60s pop, rich string arrangements and multi-part vocal harmonies spearheaded by Emily’s clear, expressive voice and her charismatic stage presence. Her music has featured as the themes to BBC dramas Wallander and The Shadow Line and her latest album, Sweet Kind of Blue, was released to critical acclaim in 2017 SOMETIMES JUST THE SKY, out in 30 March on Thirty Tigers, which was recorded at Real World Studios with her long-time collaborator guitarist Duke Levine alongside handpicked musicians and was produced by Ethan Johns (Ryan Adams, Kings of Leon, Laura Marling). To find out more, visit serious.org.uk/marychapin

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Johnny Cash Museum unveils rare artefact commemorating first #1 'I Walk the Line'

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The Johnny Cash Museum premiered an artifact today that has never previously been on public display despite being presented to Johnny Cash more than six decades ago. The unveiling of this rare artifact – Johnny Cash’s very first gold record – was released today to commemorate Cash’s first #1 I Walk the Line on what is the anniversary of the song’s release on Sun Records on May 1, 1956. Johnny’s siblings Tommy Cash and Joanne Cash-Yates joined Sam Phillips’ son Jerry Phillips on site today as the award finally found a permanent home on exhibition at the museum, which is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year. In a ceremony hosted by WSM’s Bill Cody, Johnny Cash’s first ever gold record, originally presented to Johnny Cash by Sam Phillips in 1956, was reunited with the Cash family for the first time in over a decade. The cherished award remained in Cash’s possession until his death in 2003, at which time it was auctioned off to several different private owners over the years. Recently, museum founder Bill Miller learned that the record was in Germany in the hands of a private collector. Says Miller, “This is a piece we had to acquire—-at any price—-and return to its proper place, which is the Johnny Cash Museum. I held this award in my hands during my last visit with Johnny in early September in 2003. I feel good that it’s in my hands again, this time for all the world to see and enjoy.” I Walk the Line remained on the Billboard charts for 43 weeks. Cash was inspired to write the melody of the song after hearing a reel-to-reel tape record during his Air Force days in Germany with what he thought were interesting chord changes. It turned out the reel had gotten turned around and all the chords were being played backwards. The strange, haunting sound inspired the melody to “I Walk the Line” which Cash wrote several years later, backstage before a show in Texas in 1956. The song would become an American music standard and be credited with numerous accolades: Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts selected it among the 365 titles chosen as“Songs of the Century.” In 2000, NPR ranked it among the 100 most important American musical works of the 20th Century. CMT included the recording in its list of the “100 Greatest Songs of Country Music. In 2014, Rolling Stone ranks it as #1 on its list of the “100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time” RIAA Double Platinum selling single with more than 2 million copies sold Fans can view the article on display at the museum which is open daily from 9 AM to 6 PM CT.

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Green Rock River Band – 'Edgelands' Review

Top Picks / Editor

Green Rock River Band Edgelands Self-released ✭✭✭✭⭐︎ Following up on their debut album in style Green Rock River Band were very much in demand after the release of their debut album in 2014, ‘Rhinceros’, and there has been a great deal of anticipation ahead of this release. While the album is only eight tracks in length, this album is very much a case of quality over quantity, as every song that lies on this album packs a punch. The band is far from your ordinary country band, and the group revel in this – and indeed, demonstrate that musically. The band utilise guitar, banjo, washboard, trombone, trumpet, fiddle, bass and drums for ‘Edgelands’, complete with some exceptional vocal harmonies. ‘King of the Edgelands’ is perhaps the standout track on this well-produced album, which is a track that will resonate perfectly with country music fans of a certain age, and really is a lovely track that is certain to stand the test of time. Rob Ramsey www.greenrockriverband.com

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EP by Lisa Wright soon to be released!

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One of the most exciting voices in the UK’s homegrown country/Americana scene, Lisa Wright, has announced the May 25th 2018 release of her brand new EP ‘Mind of Mine’. Produced by Matt Greaves (Ward Thomas, The Girls Musical), ‘Mind of Mine’ contains four brand new songs, and is Lisa’s most personal work to date. Lead single, ‘Tennessee’, co-written by Wright with Kaity Rae and currently gaining airplay on country shows & stations across the UK, was inspired by her trip to the US in late 2017, reflecting the notorious ups and downs of the music industry and the search for purpose in life. Nominated for ‘Best Country/Folk Act’ by the Unsigned Music Awards and described as ‘Kacey Musgraves meets Patty Griffin meets John Mayer’, it’s clear from your first listen that, to Lisa Wright, lyrics mean everything. Inside Nashville called Wright’s songwriting: “intelligent, elegant and beyond her years”. With great support from BBC Introducing, the young singer-songwriter was announced as one of their emerging ‘Sound of 2017’ artists and subsequently was handpicked by BBC Radio 6Music to perform at Latitude Festival. With over 70,000 streams on Spotify to date; previous singles playlisted on radio including Chris Country & Amazing Radio; and supporting artists such as; Cam, Ward Thomas, Phil Vassar and Emily Barker, it’s clear to see why Lisa has often been described as “the UK’s best kept secret”. Two of the tracks were solely written by Lisa, with ‘Giving Up The Ghost’ penned in collaboration with Jake Etheridge, known for his starring role as Sean McPherson on CMT’s Nashville TV show, and having also lent his songwriting talents to the show’s soundtrack. Combining Wright’s staple of honest and emotive lyrics with a new exploration of sound and style, it’s obvious that ‘Mind of Mine’ will showcase this young artist’s ability to continually re-create herself, while staying true to her roots. Having opened for US country star Cam earlier this month, and with support dates with the likes of Ward Thomas & Phil Vassar under her belt, it’s easy to see why the Nashville Songwriters Association (NSAI) have declared Lisa Wright “one to watch”. ‘Mind of Mine’ is out on May 25th 2018, and available to pre-order now, with an EP launch at 229 in London on May 23rd. Forthcoming live dates include: 18th May – Escape The Great Escape Festival, Brighton 23rd May – 229, London (EP Launch) Get tickets & info from lisawrightmusic.com

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Man, I feel like a winner! Shania Twain launches country music competition

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Reports have surfaced that Shania Twain will host a TV show dedicated to finding the latest singing talent. The show, ‘Real Country’, will be hosted by the well-loved country star, together with Jake Owen. Shot in Nashville it will trace the journeys of those looking to succeed in the industry, all in an eight-part series. Within the show will be emerging solo artists, duos and groups who will showcase the rich traditions, songs and themes of various country genres. The best artists to perform will display their talent in a grand finale for the chance to be named one of country music’s next breakout acts, which will be aired in the Fall. Twain said, “It’s beyond thrilling to be leading the charge with REAL COUNTRY, and I’m on a mission to find artists who will keep country music diverse and dynamic. The kind of diversity that inspired all of us.” The Canadian singer recently spoke of an “awkward” remark made in a Guardian newspaper interview, in which star said she would have voted for President Donald Trump if she could have.

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