Country Music

Got your calendars ready? We have the full list of FREE music for CMA Fest 2013! It’s fun, exciting and we can’t wait!  I know it’s a lot to read but CMA Fest if the BEST country music festival in the world and there is TONS to see and do! The 2013 CMA Music Festival [...]

Willie Nelson interview with DJ Whoo Kid.

Linda and friends welcomed Willie Nelson to Minnesota for his show at the Grand Casino Mille Lac. Aren’t they cute. Looks like they roped Lana Nelson into helping spread the birthday wishes.  I hope Willie looked out and saw them, it would have made him smile. Later, during the concert, they all brought their signs and message to the front of the stage for Willie, and Linda told me when he saw the sign, he smiled and then started singing Happy Birthday to himself. What fun. Thanks, Linda for the pictures and the stories.

More thanks to Linda from Minnesota, for sharing her photos of Willie Nelson & Family.  Love these of Bobbie and Paul.

Willie Nelson — A Real Man and His Music Dallas Morning News Scene Magazine August 10, 1975 by Bob St. John “I live one day at a time. I dream one dream at a time. Yesterday’s gone; and tomorrow is blind And I live one day at a time” — Willie Nelson You could call it a crowd or an audience.  No matter, really, because the man and his fans are not bound by tags and labels and names that categorize them.  The drifters are there, the denim crowd (real and dyed), the dreamers, the rednecks, the intellectuals who do not have stiff rods for backbones, and the suburbanites who have escaped the backyard tempo of flip-top beers and philosophical martinis. “Willie!” somebody says, and everybody is picking it up. “Hello, Willie!” And the man, Willie Nelson, smiles and shakes hands which reach for him, and chats briefly as he moves across the floor, between tables.  You see, Willie Nelson is touchable and touches.  He is real.  He has run the gauntlet of life’s deepest emotions and survived.  And his fans, in him, have survived. Now he is on the stage, talking to members of his group, his band.  Blue lights, piercing, find him through the smoke-covered room with its beer smells, perfume — expensive and cheap.  Now he has his guitar, worn like it’s owner, and the people begin shouting, stomping and cheering. And he begins.  “Well, it’s a Bloody Mary morning, baby left me without warning, sometime in the night.  So I’m flying down to Houston, with forgetting her the nature of my flight.   As we taxi towards the runway, with the smog and haze reminding me of how I feel.   Just a country boy who’s learning that the pitfalls of the city are extremely real.” A man in jeans, a cowboy hat, gets up and walks toward the stage and Willie leans down and shakes hands.   A young girl runs up and Willie takes her hand, leans over and she kisses him on the cheek.   “All the night life and the parties, temptations decide the order of the day.  Well, it’s a Bloody Mary morning and I’m leaving baby somewhere in L.A…” It is a loud, fast, foot-stomping song.  But soon he will do something slower, sad, ballad-like.  He will do them all.  This is the Willie Nelson experience.  On this night he went on at 10 and though the show is supposed to last a couple of hours, he sings and picks until almost 2 a.m.  Willie is like that.  He’s the only entertainer I’ve ever met who has been known to wear out audiences. The people love it.  So does Willie.  Willie Nelson is not like so many top performers who give the impression they’re doing what they do as a favor to you, after you pay your money.   Many seem to be looking for the quickest, most painless exit from the stage as they look blankly at the same faces in another town, another place.  Willie Nelson enjoys himself. Willie sings in a strong, clear baritone which can become very mellow and, at times, subtle.  He has a person-to-person style, and his voice strikes chords in you if you have been lonely, happy, deserted, sad or under the compulsion of wanderlust.  Some of his songs are fun, happy, some sad and haunting.  Often when I listen to his lyrics and music I find in them a correlation to a truly good novel.  You can read his song for a good story but, looking deeper, you find something more profound, allegorical.  In one recent album, “Phases and Stages,” he takes a poignant look at the breakup of a marriage, one side of the album being form the woman’s viewpoint and the other from the man’s.  Each is his own way goes through the stages of feeling hopeless and depressed, then becomes philosophical and, finally, rebounds.  There are many different type songs, different eats, in the album, but together they paint a complete picture. For years Willie was a word-of-mouth legend.  Now, more than anybody, he is the catalyst of the current movement in music, a blending fo pop, country, rock, even some blues.  It has been called “progressive country,” though Willie doesn’t care for that particular designation. “I hate

Illustration by Adrien Korczynski To mark the birthday of a musician who’s no stranger to generosity, artists and music critic Mario Tarradell salute Texas’ good-hearted, good-timin’ man.  Scroll through the gallery for 80 illustrations. www.dallasnews.com Illustration by Alex Fine   5 of 80   What would we do without Willie? What would we do without Willie? Let’s hope we don’t have to find out, at least not for a long time. I ponder the question because Willie Nelson is turning 80 on Monday. Yet the man feels timeless, looks ageless — now more than ever. As I sit here listening to Let’s Face the Music and Dance, Willie’s 67th studio album in a recording career that spans 51 years, I am once again struck by his utterly prolific artistic nature. At an age when most singers, songwriters and musicians have eons ago stopped recording new music, and some have altogether retired, Willie keeps going. This is his fourth album since 2010. His voice is whiskey-soaked; a deep husk tempers the nasal twang. His jazzy, behind-the-beat phrasing is intact. His penchant for mining the American songbook, and then some, remains fervent. On the new album he interprets Irving Berlin (“Let’s Face the Music and Dance”), Carl Perkins (“Matchbox”), Frank Loesser (“I Wish I Didn’t Love You”) and Spade Cooley (“Shame on You”), to name a few. His trusty guitar, Trigger, doesn’t fail him. His beloved Family Band, including sister Bobbie Nelson, harmonica player Mickey Raphael and drummer Paul English, is there giving him that richly organic blend of traditional country and free-form jazz. Willie is a constant. We always know what to expect from him, and it’s incredibly comforting. When he ventures into reggae, blues, pop and brooding rock, he always remains Willie. Willie the musician extends into Willie the human being. He savors life the way he embraces music. He’s open to trying just about anything at least once — even a collaboration with rapper Snoop Dogg on the wink-and-nod tune “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die” from 2012’s Heroes. He’s a man always ready and willing to entertain a crowd, sing with a friend and extend a helping hand. Nobody had to ask him to turn Sunday night’s concert at the New Backyard in Bee Cave, Texas, into a benefit for the West Volunteer Fire Department. Willie declared it so last week after the fertilizer plant explosion that crippled the town near Waco. Whenever his home state is in peril, Willie is there to do what he does best — play music for a good cause. West is personal to him. It is roughly six miles from his hometown of Abbott. Willie has a huge heart. He’s raised money and awareness for farmers via his Farm Aid charity concerts, for animal rights, for the LGBT movement, for victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, for the environment and a myriad of other organizations. That he would extend his graciousness to West is a given. So much about Willie Nelson can be taken for granted. He tours incessantly. He walks into a recording studio whenever he feels an itch to sing a new (or old) song. He spreads his generosity without giving it a second thought. His artistic reach is far and wide. He recently filmed an 80th birthday party for Country Music Television’s Crossroads series, featuring Sheryl Crow, Jamey Johnson, Norah Jones, Jack White, Leon Russell, Ashley Monroe and Neil Young. Let’s make sure to treasure what we have. What would we do without Willie? There’s a question that won’t soon be answered. Plan your life

Maggie Rose recently stopped by the Yahoo! studios in Santa Monica, CA to perform for Ram Country on Yahoo! Music. Performances include “Better,” the new single off her debut album Cut To Impress, and her Ram Country Cover of Linda Ronstadt’s “You’re No Good.” Yahoo! Ram Country is a series committed to creating intimate and [...]