Music: Country and Folk Product videos: Free video downloads and streaming video
Dolly Parton: "Better Get To Livin'"
Created: 08/13/2008
Check out the latest video from Dolly Parton, "Better Get To Livin'."
Dolly Parton: "Jesus And Gravity"
Created: 08/22/2008
Check out the first of two new videos from country icon Dolly Parton.
Jay Brannan: "Housewife"
Created: 07/15/2008
Check out the video for "Housewife" by Jay Brannan
Emily Jane White "Dagger"
Created: 01/09/2008
Armed with little more than an acoustic guitar and her fragile alto, San Francisco folk singer/songwriter Emily Jane White offers complex tales of melancholy and isolation. Her gothic blues are starting to catch some serious attention and her debut Dark Undercoat is among 2007's strongest.
Kelly Willis: "Teddy Boys"
Created: 11/12/2007
As Kelly Willis planned to go into the studio last fall, she really didn't know what to expect. She had spent the four years since co-producing her 2002 album, the lovely, laid-back Easy, on family matters: her oldest son Deral, born in 2001, got three siblings -- twins Abby and Ben born in 2004 and baby Joseph, whose birth followed in early 2006. "This time around, I had absolutely no time or energy to be involved in the producer role at all," Willis recalls. So she called a guy "who lives and breathes music," whose instincts she loved and who she felt "really comfortable around": Chuck Prophet, the edgy singer-songwriter who contributed guitar to both Easy and 1999's acclaimed What I Deserve. Together, they would create the most sonically adventurous album of Kelly Willis' seventeen-plus-year recording career, "Translated From Love."
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss: "Raising Sand"
Created: 09/21/2007
The musical collaboration of the decade, Raising Sand is the sound of two iconic figures stepping out of their respective comfort zones and letting their instincts lead them across a brave new sonic landscape. Despite hailing from distinctly different backgrounds, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant share a maverick spirit and willingness to extend the boundaries of their respective genres. This spirit, expertly honed by producer T Bone Burnett, has resulted in an album pitched three steps beyond some cosmic collision of early urban blues, spacious West Texas country, and the untapped potential of the folk-rock revolution. Supported by the unparalleled musicianship of Marc Ribot, Dennis Crouch, Mike Seeger, Jay Bellerose, Norman Blake, Greg Leisz, Patrick Warren, and Riley Baugus, Plant and Krauss - as both solo and harmony vocalists - tackle an intriguing selection of songs from such tunesmiths as Tom Waits, Gene Clark, Sam Phillips, Townes Van Zandt, The Everly Brothers, and Mel Tillis. Raising Sand finds Robert Plant and Alison Krauss exploring popular music's elemental roots while still sounding effortlessly, breath-takingly contemporary.
Charlie Louvin: "Ira"
Created: 07/16/2007
Country legend Charlie Louvin (of classic country duo the Louvin Brothers) pays tribute to his late brother Ira in this beautiful ballad from Charlie's 2007 self-titled solo album.
Chatham County Line: "Nowhere to Sleep"
Created: 07/10/2007
The North Carolina bluegrass band buzzes through this song from its album "Route 23."
June Carter Cash: "Keep on the Sunny Side"
Created: 09/07/2005
Johnny Cash sings alongside June Carter Cash on this classic country number, accompanied by vintage footage of June, Johnny, and the legendary Carter Family.
Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Matt Sweeney: "I Give You"
Created: 01/09/2006
This video from two great indie songwriters is among the best indie music videos of 2005. The song is from the duo's album "Superwolf," released on Drag City.
Johnny Cash: "Live at San Quentin"
Created: 12/11/2006
After nearly four decades, their full-length, unedited hour-and-a-half concert is now officially available over-the-counter, as Johnny Cash At San Quentin: Legacy Edition, a deluxe three-disc display book box set package (a la the recent Bruce Springsteen Born To Run 30th Anniversary Edition) arrives in stores November 14th on Columbia/Legacy, a division of Sony Bmg Music Entertainment. The complete 31-track concert, the longest Johnny Cash live performance on record containing 13 previously un-issued tracks, four of them featuring Johnny will be complemented by Johnny Cash In San Quentin. This one-hour DVD documentary film, produced by Englands Granada TV, chronicled the event with numerous performances as well as graphic one-on-one interviews with prison guards and inmates discussing their experiences behind bars.
Kacey Jones: "San Francisco Mabel Joy"
Created: 07/21/2006
She's been virtually the laughing stock of the music industry for years. She's been laughed at outside the Nashville city limits by the likes of People Magazine, USA Today, Billboard, and on National Public Radio as Garrison Keillor's special guest on "A Prairie Home Companion." With KACEY JONES there's a lot to laugh about.
Her new CD on IGO Records, "The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Box of Music," proves that Kacey Jones won't be taken seriously anytime soon. The follow-up to her last music-comedy project, "Never Wear Panties to a Party," the newest creation is not only bottomless in comedy appeal, but in establishing the vocal talent and comedy genius caught in the grooves.
In the hard work-a-day world of carving a national name as one of the brightest new musical humorists to break through in recent years, Kacey Jones is used to breaking the mold. Singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, producer, and publisher--all distinct descriptions that fit only one unique piece of this puzzle. When completely assembled, the one that emerges is one of a delightful, born and bred in the San Francisco Bay Area, madcap redhead who sees the world at large with laser perception and a funny tilt.
The naked truth is that many of the songs on "The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Box of Music" were divinely inspired by three best-selling Sweet Potato Queen books written by Kacey's friend and ally, Jill Conner Browne. "The Sweet Potato Queen's Big-Ass Cookbook & Financial Planner" written by Conner Browne and published by Three Rivers Press/Random House, hit #1 on the NY Times bestseller list for three weeks in March of 2003. Boasting a worldwide membership of 50,000, the Sweet Potato Queens can also boast that Kacey Jones holds the Official Title: "Royal Minstrel To The Sweet Potato Queens' Court" among the ranks of those who consider the sweet potato a sacred vegetable and have raised its perception to a national art form.
If it all seems off the wall, it's totally sane in the world of Kacey. Hers was, after all, the brilliant mind that conceived one of Nashville's most unique and revered cult groups, the all-girl "Ethel and The Shameless Hussies," who broke above the waves in the late 80's to mainstream nominations as "Comedy Act of the Year," as well as a major contract with MCA Records. As lead singer and lead comedy writer, Kacey put the Shameless Hussies on America's national radar.
Further proving that her talents could produce more than just a few good laughs, Kacey went into the studio with legendary cult artist, Kinky Friedman, only to emerge as the producer of his critically acclaimed project, "Pearls in the Snow." The album reached the #1 spot on the Americana radio chart in 1999. She added further weight to her professional portfolio by producing tracks for Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Tom Waits, Dwight Yoakam and Delbert McClinton for the same project.
Movies were next to fall under the spell. Kacey contributed three original songs to the soundtrack of the award winning cult film, "Sordid Lives" starring Beau Bridges, Olivia-Newton-John, Delta Burke, Bonnie Bedalia, and Leslie Jordan. Could television be next? The WB Television Network currently has a sitcom in development titled, "The Sweet Potato Queens."
"I hitched my wagon to the Sweet Potato Queens' rising star four years ago," stated Jones in a recent interview, "I've got 50,000 fabulous women (and a few Spud Studs) who worship me like I'm their Elvisit's a Royal ride and I'm enjoying every minute of it."
The simultaneous release of "The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Box of Music" and a three-book-box-set by Conner Browne titled, "The Sweet Potato Queen's Big-Ass Box of Love," may just be the puff of wind under the dress that lifts Kacey Jones' career to new comedy heights.
Blackmore's Night: "Just Call My Name"
Created: 07/27/2006
Legendary Deep Purple and Rainbow guitarist Ritchie Blackmore (b. April 14, 1945, Weston-super-Mare, England) shifted his musical focus away from hard rock in the late 1990s and started concentrating on his love of Renaissance-era music. He formed Blackmore's Night with his fiancee, vocalist/lyricist Candice Night (b. May 8, 1971, Hauppauge, Long Island, NY), and recruited other musicians from around the world to combine elements of world music, Renaissance, new age, folk, and rock & roll. Blackmore didn't exactly retire his Fender Stratocaster, but he plays acoustic guitar almost exclusively in Blackmore's Night. His acoustic guitar melodies and Night's clear, ethereal voice blend with a host of instruments such as mandolins, keyboards, pennywhistles, violins, tambourines, military drums, and hurdy-gurdies. Blackmore once described the band's sound as "Mike Oldfield meets Enya." Blackmore and Night met in about 1989 when Deep Purple played soccer against employees of a Long Island radio station where she worked. Night, a former model, studied communications at the New York Institute of Technology and had her own radio show. Blackmore and Night discovered they shared a love of Renaissance culture and quickly became a couple.
The formation of Blackmore's Night is tied to the efforts of his previous two bands. Blackmore left Deep Purple -- again -- after 1993's musically disappointing The Battle Rages On... album. Blackmore then revived Rainbow -- technically under the original Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow moniker -- with largely unknown musicians for 1995's Stranger in Us All, and Night contributed lyrics for four songs. Blackmore didn't really want to call it a Rainbow project, but record company executives insisted the name recognition would make it easier to market the album. After Stranger in Us All, Blackmore decided to actually record Renaissance-inspired music. He'd loved the style for years, but he never really played it himself. Once he began playing the music at home, Night would casually start singing along. This innocent, informal practice germinated into Blackmore's Night. The debut album, Shadow of the Moon, was released domestically in 1998. Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson contributes flute on "Play Minstrel Play." Under a Violet Moon followed in 1999, and since a full tour was planned Blackmore consciously wrote more upbeat, stage-friendly music. ~ Bret Adams, All Music Guide
Blackmore's Night:"Olde Mill Inn"
Created: 07/27/2006
Legendary Deep Purple and Rainbow guitarist Ritchie Blackmore (b. April 14, 1945, Weston-super-Mare, England) shifted his musical focus away from hard rock in the late 1990s and started concentrating on his love of Renaissance-era music. He formed Blackmore's Night with his fiancee, vocalist/lyricist Candice Night (b. May 8, 1971, Hauppauge, Long Island, NY), and recruited other musicians from around the world to combine elements of world music, Renaissance, new age, folk, and rock & roll. Blackmore didn't exactly retire his Fender Stratocaster, but he plays acoustic guitar almost exclusively in Blackmore's Night. His acoustic guitar melodies and Night's clear, ethereal voice blend with a host of instruments such as mandolins, keyboards, pennywhistles, violins, tambourines, military drums, and hurdy-gurdies. Blackmore once described the band's sound as "Mike Oldfield meets Enya." Blackmore and Night met in about 1989 when Deep Purple played soccer against employees of a Long Island radio station where she worked. Night, a former model, studied communications at the New York Institute of Technology and had her own radio show. Blackmore and Night discovered they shared a love of Renaissance culture and quickly became a couple.
The formation of Blackmore's Night is tied to the efforts of his previous two bands. Blackmore left Deep Purple -- again -- after 1993's musically disappointing The Battle Rages On... album. Blackmore then revived Rainbow -- technically under the original Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow moniker -- with largely unknown musicians for 1995's Stranger in Us All, and Night contributed lyrics for four songs. Blackmore didn't really want to call it a Rainbow project, but record company executives insisted the name recognition would make it easier to market the album. After Stranger in Us All, Blackmore decided to actually record Renaissance-inspired music. He'd loved the style for years, but he never really played it himself. Once he began playing the music at home, Night would casually start singing along. This innocent, informal practice germinated into Blackmore's Night. The debut album, Shadow of the Moon, was released domestically in 1998. Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson contributes flute on "Play Minstrel Play." Under a Violet Moon followed in 1999, and since a full tour was planned Blackmore consciously wrote more upbeat, stage-friendly music. ~ Bret Adams, All Music Guide
