Here’s some of the best new Americana and roots-type music for the week of June 7th, 2011.  The artist’s names link to their websites or MySpace pages and the CD title links go to either Amazon or CD Baby for easy ordering.  The Freight Train Boogie podcast playlists with players and iTunes links are now posted at FTBpodcasts.com.

JOE ELY – Satisfied At Last (Rack ‘Em/Red Eye)

Ely’s latest release from his independent  label, Rack’Em Records, suggests that he is seeing things in a new light…but one listen to the album that embodies his genre busting unique mix of traditional Tex-Mex rhythms, outlaw country, Texas blues and good old-fashioned American rock and roll, people will see that he isn’t about to slow down any time soon. Wait until you hear his cover of Billy Joe Shaver’s “Live Forever.” Lloyd Maines and David Grissom guest.

THE FAREWELL DRIFTERS  - Echo Boom (Heart Squeeze/Thirty Tigers)

Echo Boom, the band’s third album, displays a growing maturity both musically and thematically, as the band considers the pressures and expectations placed on their generation by the previous one, and the ramifications of some of the vague self-actualization advice passed on by the boomers to their latchkey kids.  Many of this generation find connection through virtual community, which leads to an increasing inability to find substance in relationship.  “Facebook and Twitter and mediums like that have their place and they’re fun, but it’s not a place where friends can tell real truths and find real depth. You can’t find true hope and encouragement there.” Recommended!

ROD PICOTT – Welding Burns (self released)

“Rod Picott’s world weary songs glow with both self awareness and humility. The truth of who we are is slippery, hard to contain, and most people have very little interest in it. Nonetheless, it is the work of an artist to find that truth and show it to us in ways that will see it. Welding Burns, Rod’s new collection of songs, is a fine example of an artist doing just that.  The songs on this record reflect the realities of the time we live in, and they contain hard truths. The songs are both beautiful and disturbing, and are the work of an artist who deserves to be heard. I hope he sells a million copies.”  – Mary Gauthier

Also new this week…
PATROLLED BY RADAR – Be Happy (Knitting Factory)
TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND – Revelator (Sony)
MICHAEL THOMASON BAND – 100% Chance of Tears (Beegum Creek)
GENE WATSON & RHONDA VINCENT – Your Money and My Good Looks (Upper Management)

Coming soon… BLACKIE AND THE RODEO KINGS, NEIL YOUNG, JONATHAN EDWARDS, MATT THE ELECTRICIAN, DAVE ALVIN, JIM LAUDERDALE, THE GREENCARDS, GILLIAN WELCH … more new releases

Here’s a link to this week’s Americana Music Association Americana Airplay Chart

Bill Frater
Freight Train Boogie

Here’s what’s new in the way of Americana and roots-type music for the week of  May 31st, 2011.  The artist’s names link to their websites or MySpace pages and the CD title links go to either Amazon or CD Baby for easy ordering.  The Freight Train Boogie podcast playlists with players and iTunes links are now posted at FTBpodcasts.com.

THE BLASTERS – Live 1986 (S’More)

Phil & Dave Alvin and the original  Blasters could rock harder than any band on earth. From what I’ve heard this was one of those good nights. Recorded after their Hard Line album, which one of their best. Four tracks from that CD are featured here along with a couple of obscure covers. Dave Alvin has a new one called Eleven Eleven due June 21st and he called on some Blasters including his brother Phil, with whom he duets for the first time ever on record.

FRANK FAIRFIELD – Out on the Open West (Tompkins Square)

Frank Fairfield may have an old folk sound, but he’s just 24, and he hails from California’s central valley — not Appalachia. He plays banjo and fiddle music, and has opened for acts such as Fleet Foxes. With his Brylcreem-parted hair and high-waisted pants, he brings an old-time aesthetic to his old-time music. Fairfield says he thinks the banjo’s reputation has suffered as of late, but argues that it can be a sweet and warm instrument. He adds that playing American folk music was a natural place to start for him. “I’m just picking up where [music] left off and just keep playing and see what happens from there,” he says.

THE SWEETBACK SISTERS - Looking for a Fight (Signature Sounds)

The rollicking country swing of the Sweetback Sisters is as infectious as it is heartbreaking.  Like their pseudo-sister role models, the Davis Sisters, Emily Miler & Zara Bode sing country songs in close harmony and signature matching dresses. Their repertoire combines several of the Sisters’ passions, country music from before they were born and new interpretations of those traditions, to create a fresh take on what it means to be country.  They combine choice covers with some truly fine originals all wrapped in a tasteful package. Highly recommended! (edited from their website)

Also new this week…

RICK DANKO – Live at The Tin Angel (double CD, recorded in 1999)
FRANK FAIRFIELD – Out on the Open West (Tompkins Square)
MY MORNING JACKET – Circuital (ATO)
JOHN REISHMAN & THE JAYBIRDS – Vintage & Unique (Corvus)
J.D. SOUTHER – Natural History (Entertainment One)

Coming soon… JOE ELY, ROD PICOTT, JOE ELY, THE FAREWELL DRIFTERS, GENE WATSON & RHONDA VINCENT, BLACKIE AND THE RODEO KINGS, JONOTHAN EDWARDS, THE GREENCARDS,  … more new releases

Here’s a link to this week’s Americana Music Association Americana Airplay Chart

Bill Frater
Freight Train Boogie

Here’s what’s new in the way of Americana and roots-type music for the week of  May 24th, 2011.  The artist’s names link to their websites or MySpace pages and the CD title links go to either Amazon or CD Baby for easy ordering.  The Freight Train Boogie podcast playlists with players and iTunes links are now posted at FTBpodcasts.com.

PAUL BRADY – Hooba Dooba (Proper American)

Being a Paul Brady fan in the United States is difficult. First, you can’t talk about Paul Brady because almost no one knows who you’re talking about. Second, you never know when he has released a new album. Let me just say that the Irishman has not lost any of his songwriting chops. You must know that his songs have been used by other famous artists such as Tina Turner and Bonnie Raitt. Village Records says, “Working his usual Little Feat type of groove and adding some lyrics that tell stories in a captivating and literate way he moves effortlessly from song to song. He doesn’t record a lot on his own, but he continues to write and be a behind the scenes player in the contemporary singer songwriter field”

CHIP TAYLOR – Rock & Roll Joe (Trainwreck)

Rock and Roll Joe is a project dedicated to promoting the unsung heroes of rock music – the people who were, and still are, critical to the spirit and passion of rock and roll and yet never have received the credit they deserve. The idea for Rock and Roll Joe began during Chip Taylor’s Scandinavian tour of 2007.  Chip and his longtime friend and guitarist John Platania realized that most music fans didn’t really know the people who were behind many of the great records of the last 60 years.  The album is just the beginning of the Rock and Roll Joe project. After the release of the CD, Chip Taylor and Train Wreck Records are launching a web site that will promote and honor the unsung heroes of rock music. The project will seek to redress this injustice while also being a place where music lovers can have fun learning about and discussing the present and history of rock and listening to great music.  A portion of the profits from Rock and Roll Joe will be donated to musicians in need.

Various Artists – I Love: Tom T. Hall’s Songs of Fox Hollow  (Red Beet)

Tackling an iconic children’s album is dicey at best, but in the right hands it all works out as one of the years most pleasant surprises. Helmed by Eric Brace and Peter Cooper, they have assembled an all star cast at Hall’s home studio and the rest, as they say, is history. Those taking their turn at the mic include Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller, Bobby Bare, Jim Lauderdale, Brace, Cooper, Hall and more. As with a lot of Hall’s work there is something just below the surface that makes this more than a children’s album. There’s plenty of lessons for adults here too. (Village Records) Highly recommended!

Also new this week…
SUZIE BROWN – Heartstrings (Freshie)
HARRY MANX AND KEVIN BREIT – Strictly Whatever (Stony Plain)
DAVID OLNEY – Film Noir (Deadbeet)

Coming soon… THE SWEETBACK SISTERS, J.D. SOUTHER, FRANK FAIRFIELD, ROD PICOTT, JOE ELY, THE FAREWELL DRIFTERS … more new releases

Here’s a link to this week’s Americana Music Association Americana Airplay Chart

Bill Frater
Freight Train Boogie

Here’s what’s new in the way of Americana and roots-type music for the week of  May 17th, 2011.  The artist’s names link to their websites or MySpace pages and the CD title links go to either Amazon or CD Baby for easy ordering.  The Freight Train Boogie podcast playlists with players and iTunes links are now posted at FTBpodcasts.com.

MATRACA BERG - The Dreaming Fields (Dualtone)

It’s been 14 years since her last album although she’s a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and was  first woman to write five #1 Country singles in a year. “It is a little strange to be back out here,” the somewhat reclusive artist concedes. “But these songs, and the women in them… They deserved to be heard and seen and to be realized. So many people are never put in the light, and The Dreaming Fields is about recognizing their courage, strength and dignity in a world that is often decaying around them.”  Marked by a strong sense of humanism and social awareness, Berg never flinches as she excavates the caverns of women’s lives – often lived on the verge of disappearing. The title track is an elegy for her grandfather’s Wisconsin dairy farm, now being parceled off as a housing development, the surging “If I Had Wings” tackles the aftermath of domestic abuse turned fatal, “Silver & Glass” is the desperate truth about aging beauty and “South of Heaven” is a war mother’s lament for the child lost to battle. (From press release)

FOSTER & LLOYD - It’s Already Tomorrow (Effin Ell)

Foster & Lloyd also became one of the few acts to be played simultaneously on Country and College radio, sharing common musical ground and press accolades with Rank and File, Lone Justice and the Blasters.  Though they remained friends and wrote together sporadically over the years, it took a request from the Americana Music Association to reunite for a fundraiser to get the duo together again onstage.  It was so much fun getting back together onstage, and we realized that the new songs we had written together still had that magic,” says Foster.  One might think that after a twenty-year break, the vocal harmonies might creak a little but the duo sounds surprisingly strong from the opening notes.  Their vocal blend is cohesive and as tight as it used to be and the guitars still hold center spotlight when it comes to the instrumental aspect of the Foster & Lloyd sound. Recommended!

LEVON HELM - Ramble at the Ryman (Vanguard)

Ramble At The Ryman captures the joy, essence and reverence of Helm’s live shows.  This collection features the Levon Helm Band performing many classics from his tenure with The Band, as well as song’s from Dirt Farmer and selections from artists such as Chuck Berry, the Carter Family and more. Recorded at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium, Helm is joined by Larry Campbell, Buddy Miller, John Hiatt, Sheryl Crow, Sam Bush and others. There is also a DVD of the show available. (From press release)

Also new this week…

SARAH JAROSZ – Follow Me Down (Sugar Hill)
GREEZY WHEELS – Gone Greezy (MaHatMa)
NRBQ – Keep This Love Goin’ (Clang!)
Various Artists – A Nod To Bob 2: Tribute to Bob Dylan (Red House)
HANK WILLIAMS III – Hillbilly Joker (Curb)

Coming soon… DAVID OLNEY, CHIP TAYLOR, ROD PICOTT  … more new releases

Here’s a link to this week’s Americana Music Association Americana Airplay Chart

Bill Frater
Freight Train Boogie

GREG BROWN - Freak Flag (Bee Flat/Yep Roc)

Greg Brown, legendary folk artist in some circles, has put out 23 albums prior to this one, which means he’s also a very prolific songwriter…and that’s a good thing. As the result of a fateful lighting strike on the studio where he was working, Brown lost the recordings that were to comprise his next album. For most artists, losing that much material would have been a creatively scarring and demoralizing experience. For Greg, it was just an excuse to turn inward once again, and write more songs. He wrote ten new ones, moving on to record them at Memphis’ legendary Ardent Studios. This time there were no storms, but creative lightning did strike again, resulting in what many have called Greg’s best album. Like a jagged stone worked by ocean waves, Brown’s signature rough hewn-yet-velvet-smooth baritone is in fine form on Freak Flag.

JIMMIE DALE GILMORE & THE WRONGLERS - Heirloom Music (Redeye)

For some time Jimmie Dale Gilmore has been wanting to go back to a time before country music got really commercialized and he saw his opportunity with The Wronglers. He and banjo player Warren Hellman (founder and benefactor of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival) have joined forces to make Heirloom Music, an album of early twentieth century, folk-rooted country music featuring material from the likes Charlie Poole, the Carter Family, Bill Monroe, Bob Wills and the Delmore Brothers. Fiddler Heidi Clare, once with the Reeltime Travelers, is the “ringer” in the Wronglers  and adds great harmony vocals to Jimmie’s vintage voice.

TED RUSSELL KAMP - Get Back To The Land (Dualtone)
Although his day job is playing bass for Shooter Jennings, Kamp is actually quite an accomplished singer songwriter on his own. Working the dusty, run down side of the tracks, Kamp’s songs are inhabited by the characters that drift from place to place and always have a story to tell. Stories about how with just a couple more breaks they could have been somebody. In Kamp’s songs though they are somebody: they’re people just like us. A gritty down to earth album for our times. (Village Records)

CHRIS THILE & MICHAEL DAVIES - Sleep With One Eye Open (Nonesuch)

Sleep with One Eye Open is an impassioned collaboration/conversation between mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile and guitarist Michael Daves in which the subject is bluegrass, specifically how this upstart duo can acknowledge history and tradition while exuberantly defying convention. Though it was recorded in mostly around one mike in only four days at Jack White’s studio in Nashville. The two met jamming in the outside of the Baggot Inn in New York City and found a common love of old bluegrass tunes. It’s kind of like of the Monroe Brother reborn, and playing twice as fast! Recommended.

Also new this week…

BLAME SALLY – Speeding Ticket & A Valentine (Ninth Street Opus)
PETER CASE – The Case Files (Alive) (demos,out-takes, rarities from the 1985-2010)
THE FELICE BROTHERS – Celebration, Florida (Fat Possum/Ryko)
BOOKER T. JONES – The Road From Memphis (Anti-)
BEN SOLLEE – Inclusions (Thirty Tigers)
TOWN MOUNTAIN – Steady Operator (Pinecastle)

Coming soon…  LEVON HELM, MATRACA BERG, FOSTER & LLOYD, SARAH JAROSZ, HANK WILLIAMS III,  … more new releases

Here’s a link to this week’s Americana Music Association Americana Airplay Chart

Bill Frater
Freight Train Boogie

JEFFREY FOUCAULT – Horse Latitudes (Signature Sounds)

The is Jeffrey’s first collection of original material in five years.  His deeply poetic songs are complemented by Eric Heywood on pedal steel and electric guitars, Jennifer Condos on electric bass, Billy Conway (Morphine) on drums, and Van Dyke Parks (Ry Cooder, Lowell George, Brian Wilson) on keys and his wife Kris Delmhorst on vocals and cello. “A cross-country collision of rock, country and folk, Horse Latitudes alights with equal grace ion full-band ragers and whispered solo pieces.”  Check out the 18 minute YouTube video below to really “get” Jeffrey’s masterful ways!

ELIZA GILKYSON – Roses at the End of Time (Red House)

Eliza Gilkyson has never made a bad album in my opinion and many are down-right excellent.  While comfortable with the label folk artist, she continually  stretches the boundaries the genre and is not afraid to push some peoples buttons, especially when it come to politics.  The ten songs of Roses at the End of Time run the full spectrum of emotions and issues. My favorite is “2153″, a witty ragtime ode to the the promise of salvation and the ultimate demise of civilization in 2153.  Recommended!

LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III - 40 Odd Years (Shout Factory!)

40 Odd Years into an exceptionally prolific and storied career, Loudon Wainwright III is being celebrated with an aptly named career-spanning 4-CD/1-DVD box set, including a 40-page book, with an essay by  journalist/author David Wild and an introduction by filmmaker and box set co-producer Judd Apatow.  Featuring songs from throughout his career, including works of brilliance such as “The Man Who Couldn t Cry” from 1973′s Attempted Mustache, to the genuinely weird “Dead Skunk,” which became a  pop hit and thus a true novelty in the Wainwright canon, to highlights from his most recent projects, including cuts from the Grammy®-winning album High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project. The 3-hour-plus DVD includes a rare documentary made for Dutch television entitled One Man Guy, numerous TV appearances (for the BBC, Saturday Night Live, Austin City Limits and others), as well as previously unreleased concert performances.

Also new this week…

BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA – Take The High Road (Saguaro Road)
FLEET FOXES – Helplessness Blues (Sub Pop)
KATE & ANNA McGARRIGLE - Tell My Sister (Nonesuch) (compilation)
TARA NEVINS – Wood And Stone (Sugar Hill)
AMANDA SHIRES – Carrying Lightning (self released)

Coming soon…  GREG BROWN, JIMMIE DALE GILMORE & THE WRONGLERS, CHRIS THILE & MICHAEL DAVIES, BEN SOLLEE, LEVON HELM … more new releases

Here’s a link to this week’s Americana Music Association Americana Airplay Chart

Bill Frater
Freight Train Boogie

STEVE EARLE – I’ll Never Get of This World Alive (New West)

The 11-track set was produced by T Bone Burnett and is Earle’s first collection of original material since his 2007  album, Washington Square Serenade. The album includes the “This City”, written for the HBO, “Treme”, which Earle also appears in as an actor.  Other highlights include the ballad “Every Part of Me” and the ode to those who make their living on the The Gulf Of Mexico. “Here’s a news flash for you Steve: none of us are going to make it out alive, so relax and enjoy the ride. As is the custom in the alt-country genre the past few years this new album was produced by T-Bone Burnett. And as is also the custom, it’s a great album. Eleven new originals with a bit of the dirt left on. Contains a duet with Allison Moorer that just might be the highlight.” (Village Music)

EMMYLOU HARRIS – Hard Bargain (Nonesuch)

Few in pop or country music have achieved such honesty or revealed such maturity in their writing. Forty years into her career, Harris shares the hard-earned wisdom that—hopefully if not inevitably—comes with getting older, though she’s never stopped looking ahead. The candor of Harris’ words is matched by a simple, elegant production from Jay Joyce, with only Harris, Joyce, and multi-instrumentalist Giles Reaves on the album. Throughout the disc, Harris contrasts the comforts of long-time companionship with the rigors, and just maybe the rewards, of a more solitary life. On “The Road,” she addresses, the short, life-altering period when she worked with Gram Parsons. “I think you get to a certain point in your life where you do gaze back over the years and it’s sort of a celebration or a thank-you for the fact that you cross paths with people who change you forever. Certainly Gram did that; I did come down walking in his shoes and trying to carry on for him.”  Joyce’s own luminous “Cross Yourself” serves as a hopeful, ethereal album closer, with a subtly spiritual undertone in its spare lyrics; Harris calls it “the perfect ‘dot dot dot’ song—you know, to be continued.”  And that’s perhaps the overarching message of Hard Bargain: The music, like life, will go on.  Michael Hill, from press release

OWEN TEMPLE - Mountain Home  (El Paisano)

Mountain Home, the sixth studio record from Austin, Texas-based songwriter Owen Temple, is a collection of ten songs about eccentric characters living extraordinary lives in small towns and on the fringes of big cities. The characters are all on edge- on the verge of freedom, catastrophe, and hope- and the songs tell of strange happenings in rural landscapes past and present. Recorded with producer Gabriel Rhodes, the album has the feel of a live performance with tasteful contributions from Charlie Sexton on baritone guitar and bass, Bukka Allen on keyboards, Tommy Spurlock on pedal steel, and drummer Rick Richards.  The project includes songs written by Temple and co-writes with Adam Carroll, Scott Nolan, and Gordy Quist (of The Band of Heathens). Temple’s love of folk, blues, and bluegrass shines through in the arrangements and the playing of his compadres.

Also new this week…

MICHAEL FRACASSO – Saint Monday (Little Fuji)
HOLLY GOLIGHTLY & THE BROKEOFFS – No Help Coming (Transdreamer)
THE WAIFS – Temptation (Compass)

Coming soon…  ELIZA GILKYSON, JEFFREY FOUCAULT, LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III, AMANDA SHIRES, FLEET FOXES, KATE & ANNA McGARRIGLE, GREG BROWN, JIMMIE DALE GILMORE & THE WRONGLERS, CHRIS THILE & MICHAEL DAVIES, BEN SOLLEE … more new releases

Here’s a link to this week’s Americana Music Association Americana Airplay Chart

Bill Frater
Freight Train Boogie

ZOE MUTH & THE LOST HIGH ROLLERS – Starlight Hotel (Signature Sounds)
Whether nailing an upbeat honky-tonk tune or a slow, sad story-song, Zoe Muth’s music is so honest and familiar, you’ll wonder why you haven’t heard it yet.  Starlight Hotel is her 2nd release and  you can almost feel the wheels turning under the pickup truck. Picture an old country road, flat land on either side and a whole lot of nothing out the window. The mood of the music – and Muth’s narrative lyrics – captures a stark honesty that recalls some of the finest country classics. In fact, there’s so much spirit of Merle and Hank in these tunes (sung in an earnest tone reminiscent of Iris DeMent), it’s easy to forget they were actually realized in the lush green of western Washington State. (from press release)

TRACY NELSON – Victim Of The Blues (Delta Groove)
This is her 26th album in just over five decades, she has circled fully, back to the original music from South Side Chicago that mesmerized her teenaged mind in the mid-1960s. The new album, Victim of the Blues, is a hand-picked collection of songs, most written by Nelson’s early heroes: Muddy Waters (One More Mile), Jimmy Reed (Shoot Him), Percy Mayfield (Stranger in My Own Hometown), Lightning Hopkins (Feel So Bad), Joe Tex (The Love You Save) and Howlin’ Wolf (Howlin’ for My Baby). She has chosen 11 songs of the day, ones that were spilling out of AM radios from second-story apartments, rolled-down car windows, and live from darkened clubs with exotic names like El Macambo.

RALPH STANLEY – A Mother’s Prayer (Rebel)
Ever since the “Oh Brother” bounce for Ralph’s career he’s been coasting a little bit and at 84, who could blame him.  This is a newly recorded collection of hymns and spirituals His son Ralph Jr. handles some of the lead vocal chores Ralph doesn’t play much banjo anymore but he’s a legend and one of the only remaining links to true traditional mountain music. This marks his fortieth year of recording for Rebel Records.  His first album for the label, the excellent Cry From the Cross (with a young Keith Whitley and Ricky Skaggs), was also a collection of sacred music.

Also new this week…
DEAD ROCK WEST – Bright Morning Stars (Red River)
REBECCA PRONSKY – Viewfinder (Nine Mile)
THE SILOS – Florizona (Sonic Pyramid)
Various Artists – No One Got Hurt: Bloodshot’s 15th Anniversary at the Hideout Block Party (Bloodshot)

Coming soon…  EMMYLOU HARRIS, STEVE EARLE, ELIZA GILKYSON, JEFFREY FOUCAULT, AMANDA SHIRES … more new releases

Here’s a link to this week’s Americana Music Association Americana Airplay Chart

Bill Frater
Freight Train Boogie

DANNY CLICK – Life Is A Good Place (DogStar)
The long-anticipated new album by Austin, Texas singer/songwriter and guitarist extraordinaire Danny Click is worth the wait. Life Is A Good Place is a songwriting tour de force performed by an amazing cast of stellar musicians. Click’s songwriting continues in the tradition of the Texas greats. Wide open songs with a dose of hope for all who hear them. From its radio perfect songs to the sparse stories taken from real life, Life Is A Good Place will leave you filled with hope and new respect for the human condition. (Village Records)

JASON ISBELL & THE 400 UNIT – Here We Rest (Lightning Rod)
An Alabama native, Isbell comes from a tradition of Southern music. His thoughtful songwriting and warm, soulful voice are genuine, natural abilities that shine through in his songs.  He’s played with both the Drive-By Truckers and Justin Townes Earle, and this sounds more like the latter, which is a good thing. From the soulful heartache of “We’ve Met” and “Save It For Sunday” to the country-infused folk of “Alabama Pines” and “Daisy Mae” to the old school R&B of Candi Staton’s “Heart On A String”, Here We Rest is steeped the best of southern American music.  Highly recommended!

ALLISON KRAUSS AND UNION STATION – Paper Airplane (Rounder)
First full group album from Alison and the gang since 2004. This crack band that includes Jerry Douglas and Dan Tyminski are back and energized from too long a hiatus. Being the thoughtful artist that she is they don’t mess with their formula or try to reinvent the wheel. They simply do what they’ve always done which is make timeless music for uncertain times.  The Amazon link has a nice long interview with the band about the project.

DEL McCOURY & PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND – American Legacies (McCoury Music)
With common roots in the rich musical gumbo of the American south in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, bluegrass and jazz have sat alongside one another with a myriad of common influences and musical vocabularies that have nevertheless remained largely unexplored until now. American Legacies is a no-holds-barred tour of songs and sounds that sum up the simultaneous (and often intersecting) histories of two distinctively American musical forms—the jazz that has drawn music lovers from around the world to New Orleans for more than a century, and the “hillbilly jazz” of bluegrass, created more than 60 years ago by Del McCoury’s one-time employer, Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys.

Also new this week…

BRETT DENNEN – Loverboy (Dualtone)
k.d.lang AND THE SISS BOOM BANG – Sing It Loud (Nonesuch)
JOHN OATES -  (PS Records)
PAUL SIMON – So Beautiful or So What (Hear/Concord)

Coming soon… RALPH STANLEY, TRACY NELSON, ZOE MUTH, EMMYLOU HARRIS, STEVE EARLE, ELIZA GILKYSON, JEFFREY FOUCALT, AMANDA SHIRES … more new releases

Here’s a link to this week’s Americana Music Association Americana Airplay Chart

Bill Frater
Freight Train Boogie