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GRAMMY® NOMINATED BLUEGRASS-MEETS-SOUL BAND  THE STEELDRIVERS RELEASING NEW HAMMER DOWN

“They’re a blues, country, bluegrass, swagger band and they are brilliant.” ~ Adele

“Whether it was older songs such as ‘Drinkin’ Dark Whiskey’ or newer songs such as ‘Guitars, Whiskey, Guns and Knives,’ the new lineup earned the respect of the most skeptical in the crowd. The SteelDrivers are still in the running to become a crucial factor in the history of bluegrass.” ~Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper

The SteelDrivers are back! The three time Grammy® nominated bluegrass-meets-soul band has threaded the roots of bluegrass music with the distinctive threads of their own design, bringing together country and soul to create their own unapologetic hybrid of new music with the old feeling. Hammer Down, their third release on Rounder Records, is set for release March 5th 2013.

The SteelDrivers’ brand of bluegrass – intense, dark, poetic, and inescapably human – is a refreshing reminder of the timeless power of string band music, and is captured perfectly on the new Hammer Down. The band has gone through a few changes since they first hit the national scene in 2008 with their self-titled debut, but their songs and sound remain fresh and powerful.

The SteelDrivers are banjo player Richard Bailey, bass/vocalist Mike Fleming, guitar/vocalist Gary Nichols, fiddler/vocalist Tammy Rogers and mandolinist Brent Truitt. Produced by Luke Wooton, Hammer Down is a collection of 10 new tunes from original members Chris Stapleton and Mike Henderson, as well as Rogers and Nichols. The set also includes the songs “I’ll Be There” and “Cry No Mississippi” that Nichols co-wrote with John Paul White – one-half of the band The Civil Wars.

The English pop star Adele was so smitten with the band that she began performing their song, “If It Hadn’t Been For Love,” in her live performances and released as a B side.

Throughout 2013, The SteelDrivers will be touring nationwide in the USA at clubs and festivals.

www.steeldrivers.net

On March 18th 2013, Son Volt will release Honky Tonk, the highly anticipated follow-up to 2009’s critically lauded American Central Dust.

The album features eleven new Son Volt songs that are inspired by the classic honky tonk sound of Bakersfield. Bandleader Jay Farrar observes, “Honky tonk music is about heartache, heartbreak, the road.” He reflects that as he wrote and recorded the songs so deeply steeped in tradition,  “I wanted these songs to sound more contemporary and modern. There was no strict adherence to methodology of the past. You never want to be a nostalgia act.”

Honky Tonk sees Son Volt moving forward on the path of a more acoustic-based sound.  Many of its compositions mine a thematic lyrical vein inspired by a traditional country music aesthetic, which Farrar first explored onAmerican Central Dust. Farrar recalls, “I was always averse to using certain words in songs, including ‘love’ and ‘heart.’ But I started using them on American Central Dust, and now I guess the floodgates have opened.”

Indeed, many of Honky Tonk’s songs dwell on affairs of the heart, including the album’s opener, “Hearts and Minds,” a speedy Cajun waltz which assays the delicate balance between love’s steadfastness and its caprice, the plaintive “Brick Walls,” and “Barricades,” which affirms the necessity of pushing forward in the face of overwhelming despair and defeat.

Farrar recalls how his decision to learn a new instrument inspired an intense exploration of honky tonk music: “In the time between Son Volt records, I started learning pedal steel guitar. I play with a local band in St. Louis now and then called Colonel Ford. So I was immersed in honky tonk music, the Bakersfield sound, in particular. And it was almost second nature when I started writing the songs for this record.”

Honky Tonk and Farrar’s forthcoming book, Falling Cars and Junkyard Dogs (Counterpoint Press, 2013) both continue his ongoing exploration of America’s landscape through the redemptive power of its music. Yet for all its hearkening back to a classic sound, Farrar and company make Honky Tonk feel vital, fresh, and new.

 

Honky Tonk Tracklist:

1.    Hearts and Minds

2.    Brick Walls

3.    Wild Side

4.    Down the Highway

5.    Bakersfield

6.    Livin’ On

7.    Tears of Change

8.    Angel of the Blues

9.    Seawall

10.  Barricades

11.  Shine On

 

Son Volt On Tour in the USA:

April 10 – Mercy Lounge – Nashville, TN                   April 11 – The Orange Peel – Asheville, NC

April 12 – Terminal West – Atlanta, GA                    April 13 – Cat’s Cradle – Carrboro, NC

April 14 – Bijou Theatre – Knoxville, TN                   April 16 – WorkPlay Theatre – Birmingham, AL

April 17 – The Parish – New Orleans, LA                  April 18 – Continental Club – Houston, TX

April 19 – Old Settler’s Music Festival – Austin, TX     April 20 – Sons of Herman Hall – Dallas, TX

 

Son Volt Honky Tonk [116619145-2] Available March 18, 2013

http://www.sonvolt.net                                          https://www.facebook.com/SonVolt

 

https://twitter.com/sonvoltmusic –

 

 

Son Volt was formed in 1993 out of the ashes of Uncle Tupelo, a band Jay Farrar fronted with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy. Son Volt went on to become one of the leading bands of the burgeoning alternative country movement.

 

ALBUM DUE OUT ON ROUNDER RECORDS APRIL 22nd

http://mediakits.concordmusicgroup.com/p/lovehascomeforyou/

 

– Rounder Records will release Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s inaugural duo effort “Love Has Come For You” on April 22. The remarkable new collaboration offers 13 eloquently rootsy compositions that combine Martin’s inventive five-string banjo work with Brickell’s distinctive vocals and vivid, detail-rich lyrics.  “Love Has Come For You” is a substantial departure, as a well as a creative milestone, for both artists.

 

“This is the kind of music that I’ve always wanted to make, but I never knew how until now,” Brickell states, adding, “I just fell in love with all of these songs, because they all represent something that’s true.”

 

The album features deeply evocative songs such as “When You Get to Asheville,” “Sarah Jane and the Iron Mountain Baby,” “Remember Me This Way,” “Fighter,” as well as the haunting title track. Each tune offers playful, resonant character studies, conveying a wealth of imagery, emotion and musical ideas within spacious, mostly acoustic arrangements and irresistibly accessible tunes.

 

“The banjo can be so evocative when it’s used sparingly, and that was in the back of my mind as we were writing,” says Martin.  “It’s the way I’ve longed to play and hear the banjo, rather than it being present at every moment. In these songs, the point is to tell the story and get out.”

 

Produced by studio legend Peter Asher (James Taylor, Elvis Costello, Linda Ronstadt) “Love Has Come For You” also features notable players including rising-star bassist Esperanza Spalding, veteran studio guitarist Waddy Wachtel and Nickel Creek alumni Sara and Sean Watkins.  The album also features the esteemed bluegrass combo the Steep Canyon Rangers with whom Martin recorded his latest Grammy® nominated albumRare Bird Alert with and has toured extensively.

 

Steve Martin is currently in the fifth decade of a uniquely varied and accomplished career in which he’s excelled as a comedian, actor, author and playwright, and as a Grammy-winning, boundary-pushing bluegrass banjoist and composer.  Martin’s debut album The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo won a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album in 2009. Since bursting onto the national scene in the late 80’s, Edie Brickell has carved out an iconoclastic solo career that’s solidified her reputation as a uniquely compelling singer and a songwriter of rare insight.

 

“I think that the goal of any collaboration should be to come up with something that each individual wouldn’t have come up with on their own, and I think that we’ve done that here,” says Martin.

 

Tour dates in the USA for Steve Martin and Edie Brickell will be announced soon.

Brothers Of The Highway

Release Date: May 7, 2013

Dailey & Vincent is one of the top Bluegrass bands in America. From the very beginning of their partnership in late 2007, Jamie Dailey and Darrin Vincent quickly established themselves as fresh voices in their genre. The

concoction of their fantastically powerful vocal blends, 4 award-winning studio albums, and heavy touring schedules has gained them well-deserved attention from bluegrass, country, and gospel critics and fans alike.

 

Dailey & Vincent has been recognized as 3-time IBMA Entertainer of

The Year, 3-time IBMA Vocal Group of the Year, 2-time Grammy nominee, and

Dove Award winners. Equally at home with material from any of the

aforementioned genres, Jamie and Darrin continue to expand on the

possibilities of what kinds of music can become “Dailey & Vincent” music.

 

The band has also become a perennial favorite on the touring and festival circuit: they play over 115 shows per year to sold out crowds in the United States and have developed a strong international following.

 

Young but seasoned veterans of bluegrass, traditional country, and gospel groups themselves, Dailey and Vincent have built on the experience and knowledge gained from working with Doyle Lawson (Dailey) and John Hartford and Ricky Skaggs (Vincent) to forge their own distinct career path. Darrin Vincent began his career onstage at age two with his family band, The Sally Mountain Show (and has been singing with his sister Rhonda for most of his life). Jamie Dailey also comes from a musical family: his father, guitarist J.B. Dailey, was a founding member of The Four J’s, a regional gospel quartet. Jamie started singing when he was just three years old. By the time he was nine, he was learning to play bass and guitar, and within a few years, he added banjo to his repertoire.

 

 

The duo’s two most recent albums, Dailey & Vincent Sing the Statler Brothers and The Gospel Side of Dailey and Vincent, both garnered Grammy nominations, but each had a very specific focus. With Brothers Of The Highway, Dailey &Vincent made a conscious attempt to take stock of their careers so far, a sort of look “Back To The Future,” heeding the admonition of their friend and mentor Ricky Skaggs, who advised them “you can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been.”

 

In Jamie Dailey’s case, knowing where you’ve been includes a look back at his childhood, which he does in his original song “Jackson County,” a finely crafted account of his idyllic upbringing in Jackson County, Tennessee. Recalling church bells on Sunday morning, family picnics on the Cumberland River, the sound of rain on a tin roof, and the call of whippoorwills, the song is not only a perfect evocation of his youth, but serves as a fitting metaphor for where the duo finds itself today. The song opens with the simple interplay of the fiddle and banjo, although it blossoms into a full band number.

 

Similarly, the Jamie Dailey original “Steel Drivin’ Man,” which leads off the album, is a hard driving workout for banjo, guitar, mandolin, and fiddle, (played respectively by Jessie Baker, Bryan Sutton, Jeff Parker, and Andy Leftwitch).

 

“Close By,” composed by the Father of Bluegrass himself, Bill Monroe, reminds listeners of Dailey & Vincent’s close ties to that most American of form.

 

“When I Stop Dreaming” is a lovely Louvin Brothers ballad, and showcases the power and beauty of Dailey and Vincent’s vocal blend, as well as showcasing Darrin’s emotive lead solo vocal.

 

“Brothers Of The Highway,” originally recorded by George Strait, is an anthemic treatment of the life of the long haul truck driving fraternity, and is given new life through its inventive, string driven acoustic arrangement.

 

“Tomorrow I’ll Be Gone,” written by the great Wilma Lee Cooper, was first recorded by Bill Monroe.

 

“Hills Of Caroline,” which features a guest performance by guitarist Bryan Sutton, is a dark, tragic tale from the pen of Vince Gill, though it sounds as old as the hills that it describes.

 

“Big River” is an original bluegrass number written by Pine Mountain Railroad’s Cody Shuler, and features a great fiddle break from band member B.J. Cherryholmes and his phenomenal sister Molly.

 

“Howdy Neighbor Howdy” is a venerable feel-good number from Grand Ole Opry legend Porter Wagoner.

 

”It Will Be Wonderful Over There” showcases the much heralded Dailey & Vincent gospel quartet, including outstanding vocal harmonies from Jamie, Darrin, the wonderful Jeff Parker, as well as the floor-rattling bass voice of the astounding Christian Davis.

 

“Back To Hancock County,” by Pete Goble and Leroy Drumm, is another look back at a way of life that is all but gone for most folks, though fondly remembered in the music and lyrics of Dailey &Vincent.

 

The album closes with “Where Have You Been,” the wonderfully evocative Kathy Mattea hit, co-written by Mattea’s husband Jon Vezner and Don Henry.

 

While Dailey and Vincent continue to draw on the lessons they learned over the years about respect for musical integrity and the importance of tradition, they have certainly planted their own flag deeply and permanently into the soil of American music.

 

Dailey & Vincent are supported by some of the best musicians in the world. Their unparalleled band lineup includes the outstanding mandolin playing and lead and harmony vocals of Jeff Parker, the remarkable talents of banjo player Jessie Baker, fiddler B.J. Cherryholmes, bass singer extraordinaire Christian Davis, as well as the unmatched vocals of Jamie and Darrin themselves.

 

In the world of acoustic traditional music, “sibling harmony” is special. It’s no accident that the best harmonies in bluegrass, dating back to its earliest days, have been by siblings: the Monroe Brothers, the Stanley Brothers, the Osborne Brothers, Jim & Jesse, and Dailey & Vincent’s contemporaries the Gibson Brothers. In traditional country music, the Delmore Brothers and the Louvin Brothers both left their unique mark.

 

Although Jamie Dailey and Darrin Vincent aren’t related by blood, the instinctive vocal blend they have achieved rivals that of any singing siblings: it’s no accident that they titled an earlier album Brothers From Different Mothers, and with Brothers Of The Highway, the ties they’ve forged grow ever stronger.