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Features
12 Kelly Willis
July 2018
K E L L Y W I L L I S
Blue
is the
COLOUR
The Austin singer-songwriter is back with her first solo record in 11 years and she’s in her
blue zone.
I
22 Tim Culpepper
For Tim Culpepper there are no grey areas. It’s neo-traditional all the way. He speaks to
Duncan Warwick.
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n Austin, they like it when one of their own does
good and secures a major label deal in Nashvegas. It
gives everyone else hope and it reassures them that
someone is paying attention. Sunny Sweeney may not
have had the chart success she would’ve liked or deserved
but she is revered in Austin since returning to her old
stomping ground and is free to make the records she wants
to make. But Kelly Willis is practically royalty.
Arriving in Austin in her late teens, Willis fronted a short-
lived rockabilly band, Radio Ranch. Courted by MCA in 1990,
Kelly Willis seemed on the verge of many a hit with her
revved-up retro honky tonk sound. It might not have been
a million miles from the Dwight and Pete Anderson sounds
on the charts but Willis was already proving too country (or
too retro, or maybe both) for country radio and therefore
big chart success proved elusive. Her chart debut was Baby
Take A Piece Of My Heart, a co-write with the hottest writer
of the time, Kostas, which peaked at 51 early in 1991. MCA
then seemingly panicked and went with a couple of covers
- Whatever Way The Wind Blows and Heaven’s Just A Sin
Away but they both fared even worse.
Recalling those times Willis says, “They [MCA] were
really taking chances and always…Every label had a couple
of artists that they knew were not super mainstream but
that they wanted to kind of work with and groom and it
was a great time.”
Willis laughs at the suggestion that ‘groom’ might have
taken on a new meaning in the last few decades and
further explains, “Absolutely. That word ‘groom’, I mean it
was full of conflict and that was my problem. I wanted to
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50 Tyminski
The voice of O Brother drops the Dan for his Southern Gothic outing.
TIM
54 Kayla Ray
“I can sit down and listen
to a lot of songs from the
90s or late 80s, even going
back a little further, and
what it does...it takes you
to a place.”
The feisty Texas singer has made one of classiest pure country records of the year.
NO GREY AREAS
F
ew records can have been quite so anticipated as D.U.I. or Drinkin’
Under The Influence to give it its full title - the latest from Tim
Culpepper. After all, this was the guy responsible for one of the best
records of the past ten years, Pourin’ Whiskey On Pain. For fans raised
on the more hardcore neo-traditionist music of the late 1980s and early 90s
such as Randy Travis and Keith Whitley, Culpepper’s 2012 release can hold its
ground against anything from that era.
Culpepper’s latest, D.U.I., might be only eight tracks, but they are eight tracks
of country perfection that have already delighted the fans who were converted
by the Pourin’ Whiskey... album. Culpepper provides the perfect antidote to a
bunch of rock and roll guitar mixed right up in your face or the rapping and
drum loops so prevalent in today’s mainstream country. When Culpepper
states that “There’s no grey area” in what he does musically he’s not kidding.
He genuinely loves this music and it’s as if he is on a never-ending mission to
write and sing the perfect country song.
“When I first moved to Nashville, me and my wife, Jeanette, thought that we
had to conform our way of writing, singing and all that to the Nashville way,
to fit in. Pourin’ Whiskey On Pain kind of changed all that for me. It let people
know that this is the real me, this is what I do, and ever since then we’ve been
doing nothing but writing that type of music. Lyrics with a lot of meaning,
lyrics that touch people. People say all the time ‘His Old Boots makes me cry,
makes me think of my dad,’ so, songs like that and songs off the new album –
D.U.I. – there’s a lot of meaningful lyrics there, and I think that melodically, all
the melodies there kind of take people back to a time when country music was
something that everybody was pleased with on the airwaves and everybody
loved, so, that’s kind of our mission in all of this. It’s not a job, it’s something
that we love to do and it comes natural, and that’s something that people
accept and it makes it a whole lot easier.”
Jack Watkins looks at the real roots of country music explored by a host of artists on a
rather special release.
Rockabilly hero to top songwriter. By Walt Trott
CULPEPPER
His 2012 release Pourin’ Whiskey On Pain was
nirvana for neo-traditionalists. Now tim
Culpepper is back with Drinkin’ Under The Influence
(D.U.I.). duncan Warwick got to catch up with him
and finds that when it comes to an uncompromising
sound, with Culpepper, there are no grey areas.
58 Appalachian Ballads
63 Royce Porter Obit.
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Reviews
A Southern gothic
Mansion on the hill
the voice of o brother is back and he’s dropped the dan. ahead of his
london appearance he talks to dun can warwick
30 Album Reviews
49 Live Review
Regulars
4 News
8 Tour Guide
16 Nice to meet y’all... - Craig Gerdes
19 The David Allan Page
20 Nice to meet y’all... - Robynn Shayne
26 Nice to meet y’all... - Mike & The Moonpies
28 Nice to meet y’all... - Steve Griggs
57 Americana Roundup
I
n case you think that Dan Tyminski is best known
as a Soggy Bottom Boy and the voice behind The
Man Of Constant Sorrow in the O Brother, Where
Art Thou movie there might be a whole nuther
generation that doesn’t even immediately associate him
with his 25 years as part of Alison Krauss & Union Station.
They might be more likely to think of him as the vocalist
on the late Swedish DJ and remixer Avicii’s international
hit Hey Brother which charted Top 5 in more than 15
countries.
For his latest solo release, Southern Gothic, Tyminski
has become a mononym and dropped the ‘Dan’. the hugely
likeable, charming and talented musician laughs and
explains, “Well, we didn’t drop the Dan for who I am as
an artist. I have such a long history of the type of music
that I made, having made this new record and having it
be in such a different genre we wanted to be able to draw
lines so that people would understand this isn’t the Dan
Tyminski that they have been used to hearing. We wanted
them to know there was something different coming. So
this was more to draw a line of what the music is rather
than who I am. I mean I’m still Dan.”
As he hints, Southern Gothic is likely to surprise long-
time followers of the 14 time Grammy winner. An “almost
uncategorizable, sonic labyrinth” is one way it is described
in Tyminski’s official bio, and he shares, “When I found
myself coming off the road for the last tour with Alison
Krauss and Union Station I had some time. Every time
I’ve found myself a little bit of time I’ve done something
different and this time I decided to focus my off-time in
songwriting. I took a publishing deal and found myself
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R a in y
a Plugged
l
y
a
K
Kayla Ray was mentored by Johnny Gimble
and has a voice made for real country music.
She just happens to have made one of the best
albums of the year as well.
She talks to Duncan Warwick.
Y
ou know straight away when
something’s good. From the very
first taste. From the aroma. From
the first few notes of slide guitar.
That’s how it is with Kayla Ray’s Yesterday &
Me. And the moment Kayla’s vocals–dripping
with attitude, Southerness, Texas, and evoking
memories yet to be lived of the perfect country
singer somewhere between Tammy and Bobbie and strings and stuff, we kind of sought after that.
And so he was around for a lot of like the basic
tracking, just forming arrangements and stuff,
but that was really his only role. He released his
record last April and it was a lot more than he
anticipated so his schedule kind of made it so
that he actually wasn’t as big a part of the record
as we would have liked. But he certainly was
there for the building blocks and foundation and my own.”
The jewel in the crown of Yesterday & Me is
Once A Week Cheaters. It’s a waltz. It’s hardcore
country. It’s sung as a duet, and it came from an
unreleased Keith Whitley demo Kayla heard. “Oh
my gosh, that song is so crazy and it just gives
me chills,” she enthuses. “Really. I love Keith
Whitley so much, I always have, and there’s no
real coincidence but I was born a year to the day
Gentry–kick in you get the distinct feeling that you
might just be hearing one of the best albums of
the year. It doesn’t hurt that Texas favourite Jason
Eady has produced, and done one heck of a job.
Kayla’s connection with Eady goes back some
way. In 2012, the singer and songwriter who was
called a “pint sized ball of fury” by Texas singer/
songwriter Austin Gilliam started tour managing
Jason Eady and his band. Two years later Kayla so we listed him as a co-producer. Our engineer,
Pat Mansky, he kind of stepped in for the rest of
the record and he and I just kind of…I told Eady,
we just kind of painted the walls. He built the
foundation and the shell and then we added all
the colour. We just went in with a clear cut idea
that we set out to make country music.”
Yesterday & Me may have been recorded in
Texas, with a Texas producer, and Waco native after he drank himself to death which means
nothing but I always like to parade about it like it’s
important…
“So I met Erin Enderlin, probably three years
ago now, we were on a song slot together in
Luckenbach and it was actually my first ever
Lukhenbach show so I was very nervous.
Courtney Patton, Jason’s wife, booked me on
the show so it was her and Jamie Lin Wilson
released her debut album.
Kayla actually plays down Eady’s importance
when it comes to the sound of her record. “I tour
managed for Eady in my early twenties and so
we obviously became pretty close. He’s kind
of like an older brother and I just love all that
kind of music so luckily we had a good enough
rapport that we kind of both knew what we were
going after. That was just really the sounds that
we wanted. We sat down, and we love the Red
Headed Stranger album, all that acoustic guitar Kayla Ray at the mic but the feel of the album is
far less Texas than one might expect. Perhaps
this will give the record better legs with which to
find ears in search of quality worldwide. Kayla
Ray doesn’t take offence at the suggestion that
the record is not very Texas. “Obviously a lot of
my buddies make music here and that’s cool, but
there is a big distinction that’s happening here…
There’s almost just as much of a formula as there
is in some strands of popular music, which is
okay, but I just set out to make something that is originally booked, and then they called us and
said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna add Erin Enderlin.’ I
was like, ‘Erin Enderlin, I know that name’ and
I started doing my research and realised she’s
written these monster country songs, and they’re
still country songs on a pretty pop market which
is pretty cool.
“Anyway, we met and we became best friends.
I remember she invite d me to meet Tanya Tucker
at Billy Bob’s the next day and I was booked here
at home in Waco with a band that I came up with
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Charts
Appalachian
M
any of us talk so much about what real country
music should sound like, wondering who buys the
garbage littering Billboard’s Hot Country Chart,
that sometimes it’s worth returning to the roots. It serves
as a reminder that country music has always been on a
journey, and that even some of the sounds we now regard
as traditional or stone country are some distance from the
original folk sources.
The evidence is on a new CD which is already on my
shortlist for the Top 10 albums of the year, Big Bend Killing:
The Appalachian Ballad Tradition. The two-disc album
contains 32 new recordings of traditional ballads pared
right back to their most raw, primitive, unaffected state. The
artists involved include leading American and British roots
music luminaries. Some of the names like Rosanne Cash
and Doyle Lawson you will have heard of, but most of the
rest almost certainly not. Produced to raise funds for The
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, it’s helmed by one
of the leading authorities in the field of Appalachian music,
Ted Olson, professor of Appalachian Studies and Bluegrass,
Old-Time and Country Music Studies at East Tennessee
State University.
This is the fourth in a series of related albums Ted has
produced for the Great Smoky Mountains Association,
a body supporting the preservation of America’s most
64 Americana & UK Country Charts
65 Billboard Country Charts
Courtesy of Billboard Inc.
meeting new people in Nashville and just trying to make
music…trying to create songs that hadn’t already been
made. Trying to make new music.
“And really the album was born out of meeting a lot of
different people and just writing songs that I never, ever
intended on recording myself. I had a job where I’d write
songs and pitch…give them to my publishing company and
they’d try to get other artists to cut them. In the process of
a few songs going across the desk a few people at Universal
Records they showed interest. They said, ‘We like the
songs; we’re not really sure who to give them to…’ When
it was brought back to me that they were interested in
possibly doing a record, before I even knew I wanted to do
a record I had the bulk of the material already finished.
“I really only wrote a couple of songs, one or two songs,
for this record; everything else came up in the process of
just trying to create music. So it’s quite by accident that
this record was born and once I realised what it was we felt
like I was in a spot where I was writing a lot of songs that
kind of held up a mirror to society and was just exposing
some things that we don’t really talk about a lot in music.
It was an interesting angle, an interesting approach, I
thought the music was really interesting. I’ve never looked
back at anything that I’ve done outside of the box and
been unhappy so I thought this was an opportunity to just
experiment and try something new. That was the birth of
Southern Gothic.”
There’s almost the feel of a concept album about
Southern Gothic, and it would be easy to imagine it
accompanying a quality US TV drama one might expect to
find being made by HBO. Dan agrees, “There was a lot of
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Jack Watkins looks at a new release that really goes
back to the roots of country music and talks to the
man behind the project, Ted Olson, one of the leading
authorities in the field of Appalachian music.
popular national park, the Great Smoky Mountains National
Park, which has been subject to drastic budget slashing by
the federal government.
The first of these albums, the Grammy-nominated Old-
Time Smoky Mountain Music, brought together rare 1939
field recordings of traditional music made in the mountains
among people soon to be displaced to create the National
Park. The second, Old-Time Bluegrass from the Great Smoky
Mountains, featured historically significant field recordings
from 1956 and 1959 of legendary Smokies-area banjo
player Carroll Best, often credited with pioneering the
“melodic” three-finger banjo style popular with bluegrass
players today. The third, On Top of Old Smoky: New Old-
Time Smoky Mountain Music, was in Ted’s words “an effort
to bring the first two albums into the present day, inviting
contemporary musicians such as Dolly Parton, Norman
Blake, Bryan Sutton, Martin Simpson, Don Flemons and
Tony Trischka to reinterpret those older field recordings.
The album was named Best Tribute Album at the
Independent Music Awards.”
In his sleeve notes to Big Bend Killing Ted mentions
the pessimism some feel about the chances of traditional
Appalachian music surviving as a live musical form. No-one
could be better placed than he is to assess the prospect - he
seems cautiously optimistic - given he has either followed
Rosanne Cash
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