contents
cmp
May 2018
Features
12 Western Centuries
Don’t calll them a ‘honky tonk supergroup’ but they are a super honky tonk group! Duncan
Warwick talks to core member Ethan Lawton. WESTERN
18 Luke Combs I
Luke Combs has stormed the scene from nowhere... or so it seems. Turns out it was down
to hard work and three hour gigs finds Duncan Warwick.
CENTURIES
WESTERN CENTURIES REALLY IMPRESSED WITH THEIR DEBUT ALBUM. NOW THE SEATTLE-BASED BAND ARE BACK
WITH THEIR SOPHOMORE EFFORT, SONGS FROM THE DELUGE AND DUNCAN WARWICK CHATS WITH ONE OF THE THREE
PRINCIPAL SONGWRITERS, ETHAN LAWTON.
t sure ain’t easy being different, but
when it happens organically, that’s when
you might end up with something truly
special. Seattle-based band Western
Centuries have done just that. They have an
immediately identifiable sound all of their
own and it’s purely serendipitous.
Formed around the principal songwriters
of Cahalen Morrison, Ethan Lawton, and
Jim Miller, each of them brings their own
52 cmp - MAY 2018
influences and rich histories to the mix.
Morrison is a bit of a hero in his hometown
and is recognised for his work with Eli West.
Ethan Lawton was previously with Zoe Muth
& The High Rollers and brings some serious
R&B knowledge to the table. New Yorker Jim
Miller meanwhile, is known as the ‘resident
psychedelic poet’ and is known for his work
with Donna The Buffalo
As if their debut album from a little over
MAY 2018 - cmp
53
Page 12
22 Are You Ready For The Country? Part Two.
LUKE
The second instalment in which Spencer Leigh looks the rise of Country Rock and all those
pesky definitions.
COMBS
ROAD WARRIOR
54 Wade Bowen
Duncan Warwick meets the the hard-gigging and
hard working singer and songwriter who is one
of the biggest new names OF the last year or so.
L
ook a bit more deeply at just about any
overnight success and you’ll usually find a
trail of very hard work indeed. Luke Combs
seemingly came out of nowhere when his
Columbia debut album - This One’s For You -
topped the album charts last year following his
#1 single When It Rains It Pours, and made his UK
debut at C2C in March.
“It was definitely a lot longer process than I
think it looks like it might have been,” reflects the
North Carolina native famed for his rowdy live
shows and a reputation as a true road warrior on
his rapid rise to the top.
“I started playing guitar in college and was kind
of rediscovering my love for country music at that
same time and then I just started writing my own
songs. I was playing local cover gigs and I just
said I’d like to write some of mine own stuff. So I
did. I’d visited Nashville a few times and recorded
some of those songs and tried to put them out on
my own accord. A few months later I decided to
make the move to Nashville and here we are three
and a half years later.”
Combs released his first EP early in 2014
following his move to Nashville, and the idea that
an artist can still be discovered via a self-financed
indie release is refreshing in an age of TV talent
comps, but Combs suggests otherwise. “I think
it was so hard before the age of social media or
the internet to get yourself out there and put
your own music out on your own accord. I think
that’s more acceptable now than it has ever been
so I think I kind of attribute some of my success
to that because without the ability to do that I
wouldn’t have anything going. But I was able to
go out and cultivate my own fan base on my own
terms.”
Adrian Peel talks to the Texan artist ahead of his UK visit.
60 Mary Chapin Carpenter
From the Billboard charts to her folky roots, Mary Chapin is a singer-songwriter who
despises catergorisation. By Kelly Gregory.
18 cmp - MAY 2018
MAY 2018 - cmp
19
Page 18
Reviews
30 Album Reviews
53 EP Reviews
Regulars
ARE YOU
READY
FOR THE
The Strange Case of
Ronnie Hawkins
COUNTRY?
Spencer Leigh looks at those pesky definitions from country rock to Americana
Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks established themselves as wild rock’n’rollers,
and they recorded for Roulette Records in New York which was run by the
gangster Morris Levy. In a curious move, Ronnie went to Nashville in April 1960
to make an album called Folk Ballads and he returned in October to make The
Songs Of Hank Williams in just one day. There are top Nashville musicians on the
records including Owen and Howard Bradley, Bob Moore and Hank Garland, plus
Fred Carter Jr and Levon Helm from the Hawks.
Ronnie chose good musicians but he couldn’t keep them, enticing new
members with the promise, “You won’t earn much money but you’ll get more
pussy than Frank Sinatra.”
In January 1963, he had pretty well formed the Band (just Garth Hudson was
missing) and with another legendary guitarist, Roy Buchanan, they cut the
wildest of all singles, Bo Diddley and Who Do You Love. Hawkins couldn’t hang
onto them and they developed their own sound without him. The Band’s album
Moondog Matinee (1973) is a tribute to what they had been doing back them.
After Fred Carter Jr left the Hawks, he established himself as a session
musician in Nashville. Ronnie Hawkins returned to Nashville in April 1966
and was backed by Grady Martin and Charlie McCoy as he recorded Gordon
Lightfoot’s Early Mornin’ Rain, produced by Carter. Ronnie commented with
typical hyperbole, “They offered me big money to move to Nashville and go
country. But I’m a rocker and I hate all the whining, nasal country stuff.” He was
good at it though.
“
Ronnie went to
Nashville in April
1960 to make an album
called Folk Ballads
and he returned in
October to make
The Songs Of Hank
Williams in just one
day.
”
22 cmp - MAY 2018
MAY 2018 - cmp
23
Page 22
WADING
4 News
8 Tour Guide
11 The David Allan Page
21 CanCountry
58 Nice to meet y’all - The Farmer & Adele
59 Americana Roundup
IN
Wade Bowen has been a mainstay and a must-see live act on the Texas Country
scene for nearly 20 years. He recently put out a new record and will be
appearing in the UK, for the second time, in June. Adrian Peel caught up with him.
S
tarting out as a member of the band West 84 along
with his friend Matt Miller, Wade Bowen left in 2001 to
pursue a solo career, putting out his first album, Try Not
To Listen, in 2002. Since then, the hardworking artist,
who is rarely off the road, has released further albums of
note, including Lost Hotel (the first record of his I ever bought), If We
Ever Make It Home, Wade Bowen and Solid Ground, his seventh studio
album, which came out in February and features guest appearances
from Miranda Lambert and Jack Ingram.
“More than anything I just really wanted to push myself,” says Wade
of this new long-playing effort. “I think at this point in my career, I
could have easily just settled for putting a group of songs together
that I love and found someone to make it sound good and go ahead a
make a record.
“But I chose to find a producer that would push me beyond that. I
found my buddy Keith Gattis, a fellow Texan, who understood what
I wanted and really pushed me beyond my comfort zone, my norm,
and got things out of me that I didn’t know I still had.”
Day Of The Dead and Acuña are two of the tracks on the new
album that suggest a Mexican influence. “We made a conscious effort
54 cmp - MAY 2018
MAY 2018 - cmp
55
Page 54
Charts
MARY
CHAPIN
CARPENTER
64 Americana & UK Country Charts
65 Billboard Country Charts
Words: Kelly Gregory
Photos: Aaron Farrington
T
he latest release from Mary Chapin Carpenter is
comprised of new interpretations of old favourites
from her extensive catalogue, but the Nashville
Songwriters Hall of Famer has steered clear from
the more obvious choices such as Passionate Kisses,
which she took to #4 on the Billboard Hot Country
chart, or even her chart topping Shut Up And Kiss
Me. “I didn’t want to fall into a, not a trap so much
but that other sort of predictable place where you sort of do your best
known thing. I didn’t want it to be perceived as a greatest hits at all. It
was just a desire to revisit one…The process that I came up with was to
pick one song from every existing album and then add one new song as
well,” says the CMA’s Female Vocalist of 1992 and 1993 about her latest
project.
“And I ended up for the most part doing that,” she continues. “Then,
for example, I found a song called Superman which never showed up on
an album but was a B side and I was always very fond of that song. To be
able to select it and have it show up on this album felt wonderful after
all these years.”
Carpenter has sold in excess of 14 million records, but since her Hot
country chartings of the 90s has returned to a more intimate style akin
to her early days as a folk-influenced performer in Washington DC. She
admits that picking the songs for this latest project - Sometimes Just The
Sky - was difficult. “Yeah, it was because there are a lot of songs. After
fourteen albums there’s a lot of songs and so it was hard. It was not an
easy task but it was something that was obviously not an awful task it. It
was a lovely, enjoyable thing to be able to do.”
Courtesy of Billboard Inc.
60 cmp - MAY 2018
MAY 2018 - cmp
61
Page 60