Music Monday: My Hometown by Charlie Robison

You guys.  I did a thing.  I just can’t seem to set still for more’na few years without my feet itching for those hillbilly highways.  Although this last trip might be for good.

Sort of.  I took a job up in the mountains I call home, but I gotta start work long before I can sell the house and get the family moved down, so I’m gonna be heading up and down those hillbilly highways between the Rust Belt and Appalachia every couple weeks for a spell.

Music Monday: Lightning on the Mountain by Kyle Nix

Art in downtown Waynesville

Truly, everything started going to shit when the Turnpike Troubadours broke up.  After a period to sulk, I’ve been digging back into their discography.  Evan Felker may be on the DL, but the rest of the Troubadours are alive and kicking and ready to work.  Which is how we got an album from all the Troubadours not named Felker under the name of Turnpike fiddler Kyle Nix.  Lightning on the Mountain came out on Friday.  I haven’t had as much time to dig into it as I would have liked, and it isn’t the Turnpike Troubadours, but I dig it.

Music Monday: The Housefire by the Turnpike Troubadours

Saving Country Music’s greatest country albums of the decade post back in February had four Turnpike Troubadours albums in the top 20.  Yeah, they really were that good.  I can’t believe I have featured the Turnpike Troubadours only once in these pages.  After a long hiatus spurred by their breakup, I have been back digging into their catalog.  One song I keep coming back to is The Housefire.

My sister died in a house fire.  But this isn’t a post about that.  This is a post about my brother.

Music Monday: House and 90 Acres by Chris Knight

I was down in Oklahoma this past weekend.  It being my first time there, I was excited to check out some Red Dirt.  Checked the local venues, didn’t see much in the way of the regular Red Dirt crowd, but I did see that Chris Knight would be in town.  I am always down to see Chris again, even if it is for the seventh time in the fourth different state (once in NC, twice in Virginia, three times in Texas, and now once in Oklahoma).

Music Monday: It Ain’t Easy Being Me by Chris Knight

Our long national nightmare is almost over.  Chris Knight has a new album, Almost Daylight, out on Friday.  It is hard to believe that it has been seven years since his financial crisis opus, Little Victories, let alone that I have been a Chris Knight fan for over a decade now.

Music Monday: The Gougers and The Trishas

My music bucket list isn’t that long.  I’ve done pretty well at seeing the musicians I really want to see.  But musicians die.  I remain immensely gratified I saw Chris LeDoux before he died.  And bands break up.  I missed out on both The Gougers and The Trishas.

New Music Friday: TEXAS by Rodney Crowell

Along with Chris LeDoux and Charlie Robison, Rodney Crowell was one of my earliest introductions to indie country.  A buddy of mine from college came back from a summer internship with a record company raving about I Walk the Line Revisited.  Last year I featured Crowell’s song Telephone Road, from his 2001 album The Houston Kid.  I am happy to feature some new music.  (Crowell was also one of the young turk songwriters who would hit Nashville and provide much of the motive force behind the outlaw country movement; he’s been around for a while.)

Out yesterday: TEXAS by Rodney Crowell.

Music Monday: Hell Ain’t Half Full by Chris Knight and Methhead by Ian Noe

Something I want to do more of with my Music Monday posts (back now after a Game of Thrones induced hiatus!) is to feature two songs together that cover similar themes and subject matter.  Today’s subject is meth, and the scene is killing people who screw around with meth.

New Music Friday: Hellbent by the Randy Rogers Band

The Randy Rogers Band is quintessential Texas country, if one of the few quintessential country acts I never caught live during my time in Houston.  Any day with a new Randy Rogers Band album is a good day.

Out today: Hellbent by the Randy Rogers Band.

Music Monday: 17 by Cross Canadian Ragweed

Going back to your small hometown after you’ve left is a funny thing.  It is a significant theme in one of my current reads, Empire Falls by Richard Russo.  I’ve been gone for almost twenty years now, although I did three short stints during that period crashing at home.  I think I am finally past always feeling 17 in my hometown (and clenching up every single time I see the cops).  Having a baby will do that to you.  But with a roadtrip home impending, my thoughts are turning to my hometown and my old friends.