Country Music People November 2016 | Página 3

14 COUNTRY MUSIC PEOPLE - NOVEMBER 2016

Duncan Warwick talks beaches , work ethics , and Cosmic Hallelujahs with the superstar performer .

Words by Janet Aspley . Pictures by Joe Simes .

George Strait

y name is Janet and I am an that as a child , she was taken to the tributes to the greats who have passed addict . My drug of choice Goo Goo Cluster factory and allowed to away this year , as an a cappella quartet is the Nashville-produced buy mis-shapes in the adjoining shop . that included Buddy Miller and Alison delicacy known as the Goo Goo I can ’ t imagine what a mis-shaped Krauss sang for Dr Ralph Stanley ; Joe cluster . I am not selective about cluster looks like . They are great

Henry paid tribute to Allen Toussaint ; the form in which I get my fix : the uncontrolled , uncontained dollops of Steve Earle offered up Desperadoes ‘ original ’, a simple concoction of sugar and fat . Waiting For A Train for his hero and peanuts , marshmallow and caramel , I mention this , not by way of role model Guy Clark ; and a besandled covered in chocolate of a dubious confession – although I do crave

Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead sent quality ; the smoother , peanut butter redemption - but to give you a feel for up Mama Tried to Merle Haggard . It variety ; or the ‘ Premium ’ cluster , the unrelenting pace of AMA week in was a pertinent way for the celebration with its creamy pecan ( pronounce Nashville . This was my sixth , and it to start ; Americana , although loosely p ’ cahn ) chunks . I have even resorted never gets any more leisurely . Some defined , is built on the idea of roots to the drug in liquid form , presented fellow Brits conquer the fatigue by and likes to honour its founders . Later as a milkshake and administered dousing it in beer , but I prefer the sugar in the show , Buddy Miller , who again through a straw which , like all drug high provided by a Goo Goo cluster ; led the house band , and Steve Earle paraphernalia , is deceptively mundane it clears the head , lifts the spirits and would form a duet to honour the until you notice that one end has been hangs the nerves on tenterhooks . The Delmore Brothers by performing their widened to allow the glutinous puree advantage of the milkshake is that you Freight Train Boogie . of marshmallow and peanut to be can add a double espresso . It ’ s like

The Awards show is always a delight . channelled more easily to the mouth confectionary cocaine .

Sitting on the unforgiving Ryman pews , and , hence , to the bloodstream . Just The trouble with AMA week is that it is a pleasure to be swept away by so you don ’ t make the same novice from breakfast time till way after what the cascade of talent as it flows , just mistake as I did , I ’ ll tell you that the would be my normal bedtime , there is the right side of slick , across the stage . wider end goes down into the shake just too damn much good stuff going There is a sense of awe at the sheer and not into your eager , gaping mouth . on and you can ’ t miss it . This year number of icons of the genre who pass

If you have never had the guilt-tinged there were more than a dozen venues across the stage , either to pay tribute pleasure of eating a goo goo cluster , and more artists than I could begin to to others or perform . This year we I would describe it to you as kind of count ; although I saw and heard loads saw some of the show ’ s regulars , like like a Marathon bar , but more ; more of great stuff , I missed a lot more . Bonnie Raitt , Emmylou Harris , and marshmallow , more peanuts , more

The Honors and Awards show , held Rodney Crowell , who won Group / Duo caramel , more chocolate , just more . at the Ryman Auditorium , provided a of The Year ; and Lucinda Williams , And round-ish . A friend of mine swears focal point for the week . It opened with who I swear performs on the show

22 COUNTRY MUSIC PEOPLE - NOVEMBER 2016

26 COUNTRY MUSIC PEOPLE - NOVEMBER 2016

52 COUNTRY MUSIC PEOPLE - NOVEMBER 2016

56 COUNTRY MUSIC PEOPLE - NOVEMBER 2016 beaches , sleeveless shirts , flip-flops and Mojitos . He even named his 2007 tour the ‘ Flip-Flop Summer Tour ’ and his 2003 festive charter was All I Want for Christmas Is A Real Good Tan . And it is an image that has served him well . In a career spanning nearly 25 years he has become the king of the ‘ Gulf & Western ’ sound , had 28 number one singles , shifted more than 30 million albums , consistently been among the highest earners in music across all genres thanks to his crowd-pleasing live shows ( he is the only country act to feature in Billboard ’ s Top touring Acts of the Past 25 Years ) and he makes it all look so easy .

Initially glimpsing success via a short-lived Warner Brothers

Dwight Yoakam

every year – she is quite rightly nominated for something or other , and this year it was Artist of The Year . Hers was one of the standout performances of the evening , whose intensity brought a hush to the excitable Ryman . She also led the tributes to Woody Guthrie , who received this year ’ s President ’ s Award . As well as celebrating the past , the show anoints icons – this year it was the turn of one of our own , Billy Bragg . Billy received the Spirit of Americana Award for Free Speech In Music . There was a moment of surprise for British attendees when , introducing Bragg , Joe Henry acknowledged him for having freely expressed his views in song ‘ without the protection of the first amendment ’, making it sound as though Britain , in its lack of a written constitution , were some sort oppressive state . But we got over it .

The ‘ Emerging Artist ’ Award gives an opportunity to check out some of the newer kids on the block . There was a buzz all week around Margo Price , who won the Award , was resplendent in an orange velvet dress as she sang her Tennessee Song . I love her bold , brassy style . Vocally , she doesn ’ t quite have the expressive depth of a Tammy or a Lee Ann Womack , but she offshoot , Capricorn Records , in 1993 , a youthful and mulleted Chesney barely dented the Top 75 with Whatever It Takes and The Tin Man , his first singles . Falling firmly in the ‘ new traditional ’ camp Chesney landed himself a deal with BNA when Capricorn was closed and hasn ’ t looked back since his BNA debut , Fall In Love , made the Top Ten and peaked at # 6 . It wasn ’ t long before his first chart-topper ( She ’ s Got It All - 1997 ) and by the noughties he was picking up the CMA Entertainer Of The Year Awards seemingly every year .

It may all look as though Kenny Chesney can be best summed up by his beach-bum 2003 # 2 hit No Shoes , No Shirt , No Problems , but that kind of success doesn ’ t just happen , and the superstar who has just released his 16th studio album – Cosmic Hallelujah – puts it simply down to hard work .

“ I can tell you that we didn ’ t wake up and do this . We didn ’ t wake up one day and start playing all these football stadiums across America and have the audience that we have . It was built slowly but surely and I would not be the performer , entertainer , artist I am today if I didn ’ t have those years of struggle because it made me so hungry and want it so hard and for years I was just so laser-visioned on this dream , and I ’ m still that way . I ’ m very focused . And I can tell you that my life would not be the same if there hadn ’ t been those years of struggle and those years of learning and those years of wondering if it was really gonna happen . I get up there on the stage now and I look at that audience and I ’ m a different person than I was then but I wouldn ’ t be that person if it wasn ’ t

NOVEMBER 2016 - COUNTRY MUSIC PEOPLE 15

sure looks the part . She ’ s sassy too , wonderment at his failure to become having the balls to acknowledge in her a mainstream star . He and his music acceptance speech that a number of are both so quirky , and so eclectic , and executives who ‘ passed on my record ’ he is such an original that it ’ s painful were likely to be in the audience . to even imagine him being chewed

Jason Isbell has established up and spat out by the Nashville himself as someone who will be a star machine ; who else , for instance , longstayer over the past few years . His would have dressed for receiving an performance of If It Takes A Lifetime award named after Porter as if he was assured and grounded , accepting had raided Porter ’ s wardrobe ? Strait of his right to be on that stage , but with was chosen to present Lauderdale ’ s nothing of bragadoccio about it . He ’ s award because he has recorded no less a keeper , and a touching moment of than fourteen of his songs – in itself torch-passing was captured as John a success of which most songwriters Prine presented him with the award in the competitive world of country for Something More Than Free as Best can only dream . In his acceptance Album ; he also won Best Song for 24 speech , Lauderdale credited Strait Frames . Chris Stapleton , whose recent with enabling him to earn a living – breakthrough followed many years of something which for him has involved moderate success , followed his CMA releasing 28 albums across any genre triumph with an AMA Artist of the that might be said to fall under the Year title , but , disappointingly , did not Americana umbrella , sometimes two at perform . a time . His latest release , This Changes

The ultimate moment of CMA meets Everything , is a record so hardcore that AMA came when George Strait took to it earned him the title of Honky Tonker the stage to present Jim Lauderdale , of the Month in this very publication . who was hosting the Awards Show Strait brought a warm and relaxed for the 14th year running with the presence to the stage ; he was in great WagonMaster Award – named , of voice , ending the celebration with a course , in honour of Porter Wagoner performance of Lauderdale ’ s tribute - for Lifetime Achievement . I am never to Gram Parsons and George Jones , sure why the accepted narrative

King Of Broken Hearts , with Jim , who of Lauderdale ’ s career is one of amongst his many other talents is the

NOVEMBER 2016 - COUNTRY MUSIC PEOPLE 23

Kelly Gregory meets the Texas Troubadour forging her own path .

riding in horse shows , play days , and rodeos across the Southwest — before following in her father ’ s footsteps and heading to A & M University in Texas . of somebody who is on three packs of Fortune stepped in when a guitar Marlboro Reds a day . that her mom had bought for her Growing up in Beaumont , Texas — father was left unplayed . the town that brought us George

“ My mama bought it for him in Jones , Mark Chesnutt and Tracy Byrd ; England when the Beatles were big famous for Cutter ’ s nightclub ; is and he wanted to learn to play but he synonymous with country music and never did , so I started playing around is considered the epicentre of Texas with that . I really didn ’ t get a chance talent — from a young age , Glenna Bell to actually start learning until I went was constantly immersed in country to college when I was 17 . I actually music . skipped my third year of high school “ I guess collectively all of the artists and graduated a year early . I went

I grew up listening to must have to Texas A & M university and I had a influenced me ,” she affirms . roommate there from North Dakota

“ I loved Buddy Holly . I loved those and she had learned guitar from an love songs when I was a teenager and older man who was her teacher . She I would sing along with Dolly Parton had learned , I ’ ve been told it ’ s called all of the time when I was young . I ’ d the Carter family style . Basically , she say that by the time I was about nine taught me to learn to play the guitar or ten I was listening only to country and now I realise , in hindsight , that music and I would try to sing along the style is unique today . It ’ s rather with everybody and in some way try rare today because when I play people to sing like them . I guess that ’ s how come up and say , ‘ Wow , what is that ?’ I learnt to sing really . And in some and then one day somebody told me weird way it came out my way , it that it ’ s a Carter family style . always does .”

“ My friend , she lives in Austin now ,

Glenna Bell lived the real country I said to her , ‘ Thank you . Thank you life — running barefooted through the for teaching me all I know .’ And she tangled paths of the Big Thicket and said , ‘ You don ’ t consciously realise it

NOVEMBER 2016 - COUNTRY MUSIC PEOPLE 27

“ I can take this thing over to Perk Williams ’ house and I can get him to show me how he plays Release Me .

Duncan Warwick meets the purveyor of Western Swing .

fair amount of Western Swing and it wasn ’ t until 1970 that I came so it got insufferably hot inside the comes my way , but Paul along and so I had the benefit of house and one day I picked up that

Schlesinger really impressed having parents that were a little bit 78 and it melted in my hand — I was with his Paul Schlesinger And His older than I guess what you would heartbroken . So using that I guess as Knights Of Western Swing album this say would be normal . And they had I got older I made it a point to try to year . a pretty good record collection and , find that record and I began collecting

Hailing from just East of Round to make a long story short , I always records and I mainly started collecting Rock , Texas , Taylor to be more precise , enjoyed listening to older music . My The Sons Of The Pioneers records Schlesinger is a true student of the mother ’ s records , which she did have and at that time I was getting older genre . He lives and breathes Western a lot of original 45s of Elvis and Chuck in my late teenage years and that ’ s Swing and his album was chock-ablock full of local swing legends , and and folks like that and as they got putting out a lot of their products . By

Berry and Bo Diddley and Buddy Holly kind of when The Bear Family started

is as much a tribute to local musicians , older they kind of got more into the that time I had enrolled in a College even the more obscure musicians country music and there was a lot of of Communication at the University who might not be known outside of the 60s and 70s country music in their of Austin in Texas where I went to their immediate local area except record collection . That ’ s what I grew college and I graduated as a journalist by avid Western Swing aficionados . up with , thinking it was important . I and I had already started taking Names like Jimmy Heap and Cecil also had an affinity for the The Sons pictures of Western Swing musicians Harris aren ’ t uttered quite as often as Of The Pioneers and I always seemed and making them the subjects of a lot that of Bob Wills but the impact they to be drawn to musical groups that of my essays .” have had on Schlesinger ’ s music is had a lot of good harmonies , I always It was , it transpires , a Bear Family immense . enjoyed the vocal harmonies . And release that is more responsible than

Jimmy Heap is a legend down

I became an avid record collector . anything for Schlesinger ’ s thirst for Taylor , TX . way , and one of Paul ’ s main Primarily because I had a 78 of knowledge of the local Western Swing inspirations , but it wasn ’ t just the the guy on a 78 record label from history . geography that led Schlesinger down Louisiana called Meladee Records , a “ There is a Bear Family distributor the Western Swing path . fellow by the name of Gene Rodriguez here in Austin and his name is Jurgen

“ It ’ s more complicated than that ,” And The Bayou Boys . The house that Koop and he and I have become says the fiddle maestro , explaining his we lived in was an older house and my friends and he was involved in getting musical interests . folks didn ’ t have enough money to pay me lots of Bear Family products and “ My parents were married in 1960 for air conditioning all the time and stuff , and one day he says , ‘ Hey Paul ,

NOVEMBER 2016 - COUNTRY MUSIC PEOPLE 53 and heart disease . A week before she had entered a hospice for round-theclock care . “ Today is one of the hardest days of my life ,” announced son Harold Hawkins , Jr . “ Mom has been called home this morning and is now at peace . Please keep our family in your prayers during this tough time . Thank you everyone for your support .”

The Country Music Hall of Famer first debuted on Billboard ’ s charts in a big way with a 1953 # 1 country cut A Dear John Letter , that crossed over , becoming a pop Top Five . That number boasted a narration by Ferlin Husky , spawning an answer song - Forgive Me , John - that became a Top 20 pop favourite , while registering Top Five on the country chart that same year .

Not bad for a 19-year-old newcomer at Capitol Records . Well , Shepard also could proudly point to chalking up hits over three decades at the label , having hit Top Five in 1964 with her yodeling song Second Fiddle ( To An Old Guitar ),

Walt Trott looks at the career of the late Hall of Famer .

and scoring Top 10 with her ballad single ( charting nine weeks ). “ I ’ m a Then He Touched Me in 1970 . dummy ,” smiled Shepard . “ I ’ d never

I remember our 2008 interview , one done anything connected to a movie . of several we had through the years , Of course , they would ’ ve handled but on that occasion , she shared one everything for me in the studio . of her big regrets , passing on 20th Thinking back , I just can ’ t believe I Century Fox ’ s request she dub vocals didn ’ t do it ! I ’ ve listened to it and feel I for Hollywood ’ s reigning sex symbol could have sung that song .” Marilyn Monroe in a heated Western She sang a bit of it : “ There is a river flick co-starring Robert Mitchum . Of called the River of No Return / Sometimes course , Marilyn could later thank Jean it ’ s peaceful and sometimes wild and for passing up the opportunity , as she free / Love is a traveler , on the River of was asked by director Otto Preminger No Return / Swept on forever , to be lost in to try vocalising the title tune The the stormy sea ...” River Of No Return herself , which gave Shepard experienced her share the star her one and only Billboard of stormy seas , including two brief charting (# 30 , 1954 ). marriages , losing singer-husband

Why did Jean decline Fox ’ s offer ? Hawkshaw Hawkins , 41 , in a fiery plane “ They wanted me to be her voice , you crash on March 5 , 1963 , just weeks know to overdub her singing River Of before giving birth to their second son , No Return , because she wasn ’ t known Harold , Jr . Shortly after joining WSM ’ s as a singer . Well , the thought of it Grand Ole Opry in 1955 , she reportedly scared me to death . I had only a couple began a romance with Opry singer records out at the time and she was Doyle Wilburn , but rumour had it she such a big star ... so I wouldn ’ t do it .” rejected an offer of marriage due to his

Jean pointed out that Capitol drinking . ( He later wed singer Margie label-mate Tennessee Ernie Ford Bowes .) sang the song for the movie ’ s creditcrawl and ended up with a Top 10 on Nov . 21 , 1933 in Paul ’ s Valley , Okla

She was born Ollie Imogene Shepard .,

NOVEMBER 2016 - COUNTRY MUSIC PEOPLE 57

contents

November 2016 cmp

Features

12 What ’ s on the cover CD

Your guide to the artists on CMP ’ s first ever cover mounted disc .

14 Kenny Chesney

Duncan Warwick meets the superstar for whom life is a beach .

20 All-time Top Songs

The results of the CMP Readers ’ Poll . We list the most popular songs and the biggest artists .

22 Americanafest

Janet Aspley reports from The Americana Music Festival Conference and Awards in Nashville .

26 Glenna Bell

Kelly Gregory talks to the Texas singer-songwriter .

52 Paul Schlesinger

The fiddler and Western Swing purveyor talks to Duncan Warwick .

56 Jean Shepard

Walt Trott pays tribute to the Hall of Famer who passed away recently .

Reviews

30 CD Reviews 48 Live Review

Regulars

4 News 8 Tour Guide 10 This Month In Country Music 11 The David Allan Page 49 Americana Roundup 63 Write to Reply

Charts

64 Americana & UK Country Charts 65 Billboard Country Charts

Courtesy of Billboard Inc .

M

KENNY

CHESNEY

Postcards from the beach

mage is everything , they say . Mention Kenny Chesney ’ s name

Iand the image that immediately comes to mind is one of sun-kissed

A

Under a Lone Star moon

�

“... when I play people come up and say , ‘ Wow , what

GLENNA BELL

is that ?’ and then one day somebody told me that it ’ s a Carter family style .”

ith the true spirit of a Texas troubadour , Glenna Bell

Wwrites songs from the heart and delivers them with the gravitas

Paul

Schlesinger

A life on the fiddle

If he could teach me how to play Release Me I ’ d consider my life complete .” ountry music lost one of its sauciest song stylists , when Jean

CShepard , 82 , slipped away Sept . 25 , after suffering from Parkinson ’ s

Jean Shepard

1933-2106

Page 14

Page 22

Page 26

Page 52

Page 56