Country Music People May 2018 | Page 3

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