Premiere | Justin Clyde Williams: Empty Rooms

Premiere | Justin Clyde Williams: Empty Rooms

Susan Wood

Justin Clyde Williams told me in a brief email interview that “My mom's side of the family are a bunch of grassers and she's a rocker so I had a bunch of old country and bluegrass sitting around a lot of southern rock, of course your parents' music ain’t cool which led to a real long metal phase.” His website bio summarizes this perfectly, stating that he was “Raised on the sounds of traditional country and bluegrass music with a variety of influences…” and that he “...always leaves people wanting more with an unwavering experience that is blunt, therapeutic, candid and above all - unforgettable.”

With running themes of love, loss, redemption and catharsis, Empty Rooms has all of the elements listed above, incorporated into an enduring country album. Williams’ vocals (he says humbly, “I think I could stand a vocal lesson or 12”) have beautiful Appalachian depth with contemporary clarity, and when combined with acoustic guitar and fiddle, weave the listener into a relatable fabric of bad decisions, regret, and taking the chance of alienating loved ones to chase a dream.

Born & Raised:A Festival Review

Born & Raised:A Festival Review

Melissa Payne

It’s hard to mention festivals and live music these days and not mention the fact that people have been hungry for both, due to a lingering pandemic that has made live music and large crowds an iffy situation. It’s also worth mentioning with festivals and promoters trying to make up for lost revenue, that holding a festival in 2021 can either be a dismal failure or a resounding success. Thankfully, the folks behind Born & Raised fall in the latter category. There were no water shortages, muddy campgrounds or freak weather to contend with on a balmy, late September weekend in Pryor, Oklahoma. Held at the same grounds as Rocklahoma, which occurred not even 2 weeks earlier, Born & Raised ran like a well-oiled machine. Schedules were kept, there were food vendors galore, and any last-minute artist cancellations were replaced before the festival even took place. The only negatives I witnessed were sound issues on more than one set at the Neon Moon stage and the overwhelming heat. The music was a mix of well-known and up and coming artists, and festival-goers spoke of the campgrounds and how they spent more time than usual there, foregoing music to hang out longer with new and old friends.

Diamond Stone: Festival Review

Diamond Stone: Festival Review

Derek Scudder

If Red Dirt music was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma, its soul resides in Tahlequah, and there is a spot in Cherokee County along the Illinois River that is sacred ground to the Red Dirt music family. Diamondhead Resort hosted the Medicine Stone festival from its beginning as the brainchild of Jason Boland and the Turnpike Troubadours who would select the majority of the artists on the lineup and headline on Friday & Saturday. The festival grew each year and quickly became the “go-to” Red Dirt party. Then came the summer of 2019 with Turnpike’s “indefinite hiatus” and an ugly lawsuit against the manager of the festival (who also happened to manage both Boland & the Troubadours), and the future of Medicine Stone was in serious doubt. Robert Earl Keen filled the headliner spot in Turnpike’s place and the 2019 show went on.

Sara Trunzo: Cabin Fever Dream

Sara Trunzo: Cabin Fever Dream

Susan Wood

When reviewing the third EP from Sara Trunzo, Cabin Fever Dream, this listener was immediately struck by what seemed like the magical, vocal embrace of a mature Edie Brickell. Make no mistake, however, Trunzo’s Americana musical sound and songwriting style are all her own.

Sara has a comparatively uncommon background for Americana: working-class Catholic school in New Jersey, followed by college, and eventually landing in rural Maine where she worked with food banks and food security programs across the state. The end of a relationship ultimately led her to songwriting, to Nashville for a time, and back to Maine. The rural Maine backroads, lifestyle, and unique perspectives that Trunzo had grown to love are now the underpinning inspirations, and sometimes, featured heavily, in the songs of Cabin Fever Dreams.

RC & the Ambers: Big Country

RC & the Ambers: Big Country

Derek Scudder

R.C. Edwards was the foundation on which the Turnpike Troubadours was built. He was always right in the middle of the stage watching Evan Felker’s back, since the beginning of the band, in 2005. RC & the Ambers has been keeping Edwards busy since the Troubadours went on indefinite hiatus in the summer of 2019.

Edwards wrote or co-wrote more of the Turnpike Troubadours great songs than many realize, but seemed content to remain mostly in the background until his moment to shine came during the encore set. That was when he set the bass down, picked up the acoustic guitar and stepped up to the mic to sing “Drunk, High, and Loud.”


Premiere | Matthew James Adkins: Maybe I Wanna Cry

Premiere | Matthew James Adkins: Maybe I Wanna Cry

Melissa Payne

We’ve got a new single from Matthew James Adkins today, a Michigan-based, self-proclaimed, “karaoke cowboy”, whose debut album, Stoned On My Own, is out everywhere on September 17th. Adkins journey into music isn’t your typical one. He wasn’t born into a musical family and didn’t grow up with a guitar in his hand. He did however, feel drawn towards music from a young age and begin composing his own songs. The influence of a bluegrass guitarist and finally getting his own guitar took Adkins to the next level.

Having lived a life much like a country song, heavy on the substance abuse and sadness, one might think Stoned On My Own would draw heavily from the older country sound, and although there are country embellishments and signs of Adkins influences, like John Denver and Willie Nelson, it’s an album that also has an unmistakable Muscle Shoals vibe, due to many of the contributors on the album.

“Maybe I Wanna Cry” starts off with a slow burn of Jimmie Bones’ B3 organ, making way for a finger-picked acoustic solo and some barely discernible German speaking, adding to the mystique before kicking in with the full band plus horns and backing vocals combination that serves as a stunning signature sound for Adkins and company.”

Summer Dean: Bad Romantic

Summer Dean: Bad Romantic

Jolene Horihan

Western Swing and Texas Waltzes have inspired Summer Dean her whole life. Growing up on her family’s ranch, those were the style of songs that embodied the soundtrack of her formative years. Summer draws imagery and experiences from the western spirit to formulate her full-length album, Bad Romantic. One must have grit to survive the rancher’s way of life, but there is a vulnerability that is also inescapable when tending to something that can easily succumb to elements out of your control. Those characteristics are the foundation this album was created on.

Jason Eady: To the Passage of Time

Jason Eady: To the Passage of Time

Derek Scudder

What do we do when we get back to normal / And we find ourselves out in the world again

What do we do when we get back to normal / And we find we’re somewhere we ain’t never been”

Jason Eady has given us the best summary of the pandemic I’ve yet heard in “Back to Normal,” on his new release, To the Passage of Time.

The ten tracks all feature the resonant vocals of Eady supported by thoughtful arrangements which provide the perfect backdrop for tremendous songs.
No matter what the subject of the song, Jason Eady’s voice draws you in and makes you believe. Whether it’s the recitation of his grandfather’s life story in “French Summer Sun,” or the more lighthearted “Saturday Night,” that voice just wraps around the lyrics and carries you along. You want to cheer for the narrator in “Gainesville” and hope he really is going back when he says, “I mean it this time,” and you understand completely when he sings, “There’s a lot more to living than just being alive,” in “Possibilities.”

Sturgill Tells the Story: The Ballad of Dood & Juanita

Sturgill Tells the Story: The Ballad of Dood & Juanita

Mandy Mitchell

Sturgill may have had the title for his latest concept album, The Ballad of Dood & Juanita, in his head for years, but he reportedly kept hitting a wall when it came to actually bringing the idea to fruition. Simpson stumbled upon inspiration during his recent drive home from Oklahoma after wrapping up filming for Sorcese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, in which Simpson co-stars. According to Simpson, the drive proved fateful when he found himself in the clutches of Willie’s 1975 conceptual masterpiece Red Headed Stranger. After listening to the album 7 or 8 times on repeat, he mentally blended the album’s style and purpose with a picture his wife had recently sent him of two antique Kentucky long rifles and his long-held notions of a tribute album for his grandfather Dood, whom fans met in Panbowl and came to know better in Hero. Sturgill says it took two days for the entire album to culminate lyrically, with Sturgill’s grandfather Dood stepping into somewhat of a historical fiction protagonist role and each supporting character, Sham, Sam, and Juanita, being paid homage with their own individual tune. With the writing done, Sturgill called upon the talented musicians who helped him create his last two bluegrass albums to help give his bird of a story a song in its throat. Willie even lent ol’ Dood a hand, cranking out a signature Spanish guitar solo on Trigger that deftly gives structure to our meeting with Juanita during the tune by that name. The entire process “from coming into [Sturgill’s] head and out of the speakers” took a mere five days.

Corduroy Brown: Let Me Know

Corduroy Brown: Let Me Know

Phillip Ring

Albums come along that pose questions. Some of them are interesting. Some of them are less interesting, and yet more are mundane. Corduroy Brown’s Let Me Know asks how do you take a life threatening, life altering event and find something positive in it? How do you express fear, relief, and joy, while exercising reverence for obstacles most of us are fortunate enough to not have a baseline for? How do you accomplish all of that without being preachy, or worse, cheesy?

Let Me Know answers all of these brilliantly, in a way that’s a joy to listen to. In a room of special albums, this album is still special. It comes with a sense of true humility, wonder and a kindness that’s becoming ever more rare. It’s a truly inspired, and inspiring, album.

Train to Birmingham: Peacemaker Festival

Train to Birmingham: Peacemaker Festival

Derek Scudder

With high temperatures hovering just below the century mark on the last weekend of July, the banks of the Arkansas River in Fort Smith was certainly not the most comfortable place to spend a weekend outdoors with live music, but a diverse lineup and solid production made it worthwhile.

Peacemaker turned seven this year and the festival has overcome some huge obstacles the past two summers. In 2019 the Arkansas flooded the festival site just weeks before the event but the river receded and the show went on even though they had to find a replacement headliner for the Turnpike Troubadours who had just gone on permanent hiatus. Of course last year’s pandemic shut down most festivals but Peacemaker held on even with some last-minute lineup changes and literal last-second changes from the state health department to stand as one of the few two-day outdoor festivals in the country. This year it was the heat that tried to ruin the party but this is one tough festival.

The Barlow – A Colorado Band Putting Their Own Mark on the Scene

The Barlow – A Colorado Band Putting Their Own Mark on the Scene

Erik Guthrie

The boys from Oklahoma may roll their joints all wrong, but the fellas of The Barlow are rocking the Colorado music scene exactly right! Based out of Denver’s northwest suburb of Arvada (Arvada? The last noteworthy thing to come out of there was some band called The Fray), these four guys have a mission that drives every gig, every performance, and clearly, their first two albums. That mission: to demonstrate exactly how essential their take on Country-Rock is to the entire genre. To brush them off as just another upstart trying to ride the coat-tails of an already established country genre, simply because they do not call Oklahoma or Texas home, is to demonstrate a profound lack of understanding for what the Red Dirt movement is all about: authenticity, experiences, humility, and stories that resonate because you relate to the characters in the songs (hell, maybe you even lived those stories). They also have just enough hard-edged, honky-tonkin’ Friday night energy to have some rowdy fun! What The Barlow brings to the table will spin you up, get you re-energized about this Country music subculture we all adore, as though you were just hearing Robert Earl Keen, Pat Green, Randy Rogers, Ragweed or Turnpike for the first time, falling excitedly in love all over again.

Mike and the Moonpies: One to Grow On

Mike and the Moonpies: One to Grow On

Derek Scudder

At its heart, Mike and the Moonpies is a dance band made for filling up the floors with everyday folks looking to cut loose and have some fun. The band’s eighth studio album One to Grow On celebrates the workingman and his day to day efforts to get ahead.

"I wanted to create a record you could crank loudly in your truck on Friday afternoon at quitting time," says frontman Mike Harmeier, who wrote One To Grow On in his backyard studio on the outskirts of Austin. "To do that, I developed a narrative and a central character. It's a guy who's working hard to make ends meet, all while living in the moment and hoping to stay appreciative of the things he has. A guy who takes pride in what he does but is still searching for a balance in his life. There are a lot of similarities between him and me."

“Everyone I know who isn't a musician is working construction.” adds Harmeier.” They're putting one foot in front of the other and trying to appreciate the moment they're in, while basically working 24/7, 365. A lot of people live their lives that way, and they inspired me to write a workingman's story.”

John R. Miller: Depreciated

John R. Miller: Depreciated

Ryan Bush

With a simple name and veins flooded with creative magic, John R. Miller has etched his brand across the musical landscape, demonstrating this gift with his solo debut album, Depreciated – an eleven-chapter odyssey drenched in talent. Throughout the years, Miller has gained notoriety amongst the explosion of musical brilliance smoldering from the Appalachian foothills and the streams of the Shenandoah Valley. With bands including Prison Book Club, The Fox Hunt, as well as The Engine Lights, Miller continued to grow and fine-tune his craft, which is exemplified though Depreciated – each track penned by the dusty backwoods poet himself.

Gathering from personal experiences and fueled by Miller’s wandering van tromping about the countryside, Depreciated offers a sound that captures much of the influences that played through Miller’s own speakers – an eclectic and genre-bounding balance.

Tosha Hill: Forty Miles

Tosha Hill: Forty Miles

Derek Scudder

Tosha Hill loves writing songs and the stories she tells about their creation are nearly as delightful as the tunes themselves. Whether it’s the tale of having to write a song on a ukulele instead of a guitar because there wasn’t enough room in the car on a family trip to Missouri, or a song written while on the Natchez Trace on the way to visit a family member in the hospital in Tupelo (she got better), or the time she wrote a song while on a road trip to Atlanta to see an Emmylou Harris show; Tosha knows how to set the scene for the genesis of her songs.

She is an Alabama girl from the Muscle Shoals area and her powerful voice carries some of the soulful magic that seems to emanate from that particular stretch of the Tennessee River. Tosha is working her way up the Nashville songwriting food chain and already has penned tunes with John Oates (of Hall & Oates fame) and Hall of Famer Brenda Lee (another wonderful story about that session!). Nashville studio players back the tracks on the record but onstage she is joined by her brother Josh on guitar and Caleb on percussion. Her debut EP Forty Miles is a 5-song selection from an already large catalog of self-written tunes, many with the help of her daddy, Billy.

Shelby Lore: Great Unknown

Shelby Lore: Great Unknown

Jolene Horihan

Have you ever gone to a show or a festival and there’s that one name on the bill that you have never heard of and they end up being the dark horse of the lineup? Well, over the Memorial Day weekend I attended a small festival in “Almost Indiana” (Warsaw, KY) and that was where Shelby Lore became my dark horse. Honestly, I didn’t know if it was a female or male, solo artist or band. But it didn’t take long for me to figure out that he, Shelby Lore, was a highly anticipated act that weekend. His name seemed to be on everyone’s lips leading up to that Saturday afternoon set. Attendees and artists alike all reminisced on what a talented guitar player Shelby is and what an energetic show he and his bandmates, Luke Estep and Tyler Kiser, put on. My friends were not wrong. In no time, Shelby and the band had the crowd on their feet - smiling, singing, dancing and cheering. I also overheard lots of folks getting excited for his upcoming album to be released. That album, Great Unknown, dropped over the weekend (July 10) and now you can see for yourself what all the buzz is about.


Train to Birmingham: July 2021

Train to Birmingham: July 2021

Derek Scudder

No live music experience can match a Texas dance hall on a Saturday night with a hot country band on stage and a roomful of people two-stepping around a hardwood floor. When that dance hall is the Old Coupland Dance Hall and that band is Mike and the Moonpies, you have officially arrived in Honky-Tonk Heaven!

Working out a road trip itinerary that would get me from a Cody Canada show in Gun Barrel City, Texas, to a Blackberry Smoke show in Lake Charles, Louisiana, I found a Mike and the Moonpies show that fit perfectly. Little did I realize how life-changing that decision would be.


Wild Earp: Dyin’ for an Easy Livin’

Wild Earp: Dyin’ for an Easy Livin’

Phillip Ring

How do you make a Wild Earp record? Take a honky tonk band, drench it in Tequila, put nine people on stage, have a revolving host of talented writers and a charismatic frontman. That’s a start. I had the opportunity to catch up with Wild Earp himself, a Chicago-based musician who has previously released some material in more of a solo fashion, and is now getting the posse together to bring some depth to the songs that define him and the Free For Alls.

When I heard the first track, it felt like line dancing on mescal--trippy, fun, loud, smiling. The album is packed with that kind of energy: it makes you want to move, has deep hooks, and doesn't take itself too seriously, but it is art. The kind of art that only a thoughtful artist can make. It pays respect to the albums and artists that paved the way with a degree of showmanship that’s often lacking in the current landscape of toned-down Americana.

From the opening beat of “Ain’t It a Shame (When Your Horse Goes Lame),” you immediately know this isn’t going to be a single man and an acoustic guitar telling you why the world should be more serious. But that doesn’t mean that Earp and the Free For Alls, who contributed tracks, have nothing to say. Kiley “Sweet Sassy Molassey" More offering her first writing effort for the band with “Smile Like That,” proves the writing talent of the band isn’t isolated to its front man, nor is the vocal talent. This album feels like what a wife picks up on her wedding day: something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. It’s eclectic and full of surprises, and manages to not get too wrapped up in a formulaic nostalgia, even though the record is clearly influenced by musicians that wrote within eras passed.


The Mallett Brothers Band: Gold Light

The Mallett Brothers Band: Gold Light

Derek Scudder

What does a band from Maine sound like? When you hear that a band plays “Southern Rock” you have a good idea what you’re going to get. Many artists from Texas and Oklahoma share musical qualities. Some cities have a “sound” that makes them unique such as New Orleans, Memphis, or Seattle. But Maine? The Mallett Brothers Band is from Maine and it turns out what they play is some damn fine rock n’ roll.

Gold Light is the band’s eighth studio album since they formed in 2009. All ten tracks on the self-produced record were written by Luke and Will Mallett. As for what fans can expect, singer/guitarist Luke says “We ended up picking out the songs for this record based on a rough outline of the Hero’s Journey, applied generally to the creative life, the rock and roll life or however you want to think about it. Reflecting that, there is definitely a lot of turmoil on this record, but overall it’s pretty optimistic. We’ve all needed all the joy we can get over the past year, and there’s a lot of it on here.”


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