Scott Miller

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Scott Miller is best known for non-stop touring with his band the Commonwealth, and for his eight prior critically acclaimed albums including the recent Appalachian Refugee Demos. In fact it was with proceeds from Internet sales of that album (demos from a Marantz hard-disc recorder with handmade cover art for each copy) that he financed his forthcoming release titled For Crying Out Loud. The album, due out April 14 on Miller’s own F.A.Y. Records, was produced by Nashville producer Mike Webb (Allison Moorer, Stacey Earle, Glenn Tilbrook) and features the Commonwealth (guitarist/keyboardist Jeremy Pennebaker, bassist Chris Autry and drummer Shawn McWilliams) and includes guest artists Patty Griffin and Tim O’Brien.

In making the new album, Miller took the idea one step further: He’d have the band play to guitar and vocal performances on those demos, building them into full-on band tracks. The ultimate wisdom of this wild notion can be found within the smokin’ grooves of For Crying Out Loud.

The album possesses a prevailing character and gritty, hard-earned spirit. It’s jammed full of scrappy, defiant rockers, interspersed with tender tunes suffused with the quiet joys of home and hearth. The pummeling, power-chord driven opener “Cheap Ain’t Cheap (For Crying Out Loud)” is a shout-along anthem for the legions of newly unemployed. Miller had a hunch that the blackly (and bleakly) humorous song “would be a great soundtrack for the (then) impending economic meltdown which I had predicted years ago but wasn’t smart enough to do anything about — like buy stock in cardboard boxes that people use to put their desk junk in when they lose their jobs. Now the record’s coming out, and I’m pretty sure we still haven’t seen the bottom yet.”

“Let You Down,” co-written with Doug Lancio (who produced two of the tracks on For Crying Out Loud) is an exercise in brutal self-awareness. (He and Miller also teamed up for the eerie sounding “Double Indemnity,” a tale based on the actual murder case that inspired Billy Wilder’s classic film.) The Cajun-spiced torque of “Claire Marie” channels the very essence of seminal rock and roll, and then there’s the wicked-clever “Sin in Indiana,” its characters — Henry Streator, Chalmers Wolcott and Magnolia Hempstead — named after exit signs Miller had spotted and dutifully jotted down while touring the Midwest with his band.

The record’s gentle side is represented by the gorgeous “I’m Right Here, My Love,” a ballad on which he’s joined by Patty Griffin. “The thing I like about working with Patty is that we got along great before we’d even heard each other’s music,” Scott marvels. “We also grew up in the same home town, except mine was in Virginia and hers was in Maine.”

Miller, one of the founders of the seminal roots rock band The Vroys, who recorded three albums for Steve Earle and Jack Emerson’s label E-Squared Records–went on to a successful solo career at Sugar Hill records where he released four critically acclaimed albums from 2001 -2008. He now joins many independently minded artists of today by releasing his own record, For Crying Out Loud.

Throughout his career, Miller has attracted favorable press notices. No Depression observed, “Probably too smart by half for his own damn good, Scott Miller straddles the cerebral and the visceral.” Added the Washington Post, “In addition to his considerable talents as tunesmith, Miller has two things going for him: a voice gruff enough to suit the music he loves and a personality lighthearted enough to keep the performances from dragging.” And the Nashville Scene summed it up: “Miller stays in touch with his inner rebel while alternating between hillbilly folk and spitfire garage rock that tried to ignore how well-crafted his songs are.”

Miller and the Commonwealth will take to the road immediately following the album’s April 14 release with dates to follow shortly.

– From Conqueroo

Scott Miller & the Commonwealth Audio Clips

Scott Miller & the Commonwealth on tour

Random Americana Music News

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“Gold and the Sand” Corey Crowder (Tooth & Nail) Corey Crowder

“Southern Way,” the swampy first single from Georgia-raised singer-songwriter Corey Crowder’s much-anticipated new album Gold and The Sand, immediately transports the listener to a different state of mind – one of careless abandon, with freedom ringing in the driving, infectious roots rock rhythm. Such surprising, textured, and ultimately catchy combinations of lyrics and sounds are the mark of the 25-year-old’s adult ambitions achieved—in the first songs he’s released since his emergence as a young online sensation.

Corey’s previous two self-produced, independent recordings consisted of songs he’d written and collected since his teenage years and their release modeled a contemporary musical success story. Those early songs were played over five million times on his MySpace page alone after being featured on prime-time television shows. The Biggest Loser, One Ocean View and a particularly audience swelling season-ending scene on MTV’s The Real World all featured Corey’s music from these early independent releases. Extensive touring across the continental United States added to his musical reach and acceptance. That same audience eagerly anticipates hearing Corey’s newest self-penned tunes on Gold and the Sand. These songs, enriched with a new-found maturity and a musical excitement born from fresh creation, will help Corey grow his base of support and find an even larger audience.

The songs on “Gold and the Sand“, richly-textured, varied songs of contemporary love, life hopes and realities, are Corey’s most personal and mature in content, focusing on the large life questions and course corrections so typically faced by young adults in their mid-twenties. The point of view is sometimes searching, sometimes skeptical, and often pointed, as in “Innocence,” the song from which the album title is taken—a depiction of how the pursuit of status and money can consume peoples’ lives.

The sonically varied tracks feature Crowder’s engagingly confessional and distinctive lead vocals, but then they take a route precisely opposite from typical “stripped down” solo-guitar-strumming, singing-songwriter outings to deliver these deep personal stories. Rich with horns, strings, and a road-tested four member rock band (with whom Corey’s been working closely for several years) the album’s sounds often hearken back to the thick soul production of ‘60s and ‘70s album tracks by Al Green or Van Morrison, and the straight-ahead roots rock of Creedence.

Corey Crowder is now a contract writer with EMI as well as a recording and touring artist; he and his wife relocated to Nashville from Greenville, SC, in July. In support of the new CD, he will be appearing, along with his band, in a series of dates across the Southeast.

Corey Crowder on the road:

• Dec. 4 - Columbia, SC @ 5 Points Pub
• Dec. 13 - Greenville, SC @ The Channel
• Dec. 20 - Atlanta, GA @ Vinyl

Sample Corey Crowder’s Music

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Gurf Morlix

Austin, Texas – Gurf Morlix, who has worked as producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist for some of America’s greatest artists, is getting set to release his own fifth album, Last Exit to Happyland on the Rootball Records label on February 17, 2009.

Tempting as it may be, don’t just judge Morlix by the company he keeps, even if it does provide a fine starting point: Lucinda Williams, Warren Zevon, Patty Griffin, Michael Penn, Buddy Miller, Mary Gauthier, Tom Lauderdale, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Robert Earl Keen, Tom Russell, Jim Lauderdale and Slaid Cleaves, to name but a few. Instead, a listen to Last Exit to Happyland should demonstrate why his blue ribbon associations have led Morlix to a similar level of excellence as singer/songwriter and artist in his own right.

“If anybody is still looking for a candidate to replace Robbie Robertson of The Band, look no further,” writes Henry Cabot Beck on Amazon.com. “Morlix can write, sing, produce and play nearly every instrument and has a bottomless range of American musical idioms from which to draw.”

The new album is something of a tour de force for Morlix’s gift as a musician and producer as well as his finest moment yet as a writer and singer. He plays everything on it but drums, which are ably handled by Rick Richards, who has manned the kit on many of Morlix’s productions in recent years. Icing the cake are Patty Griffin, Barbara K (of Timbuk3) and rising Texas singing sensation Ruthie Foster, who contribute harmony to a number of tracks. As with all that Morlix has produced and played over the years, every note and creative touch ultimately serves the songs. And his trademark grit, soulfulness and authenticity suffuse the album representing the “muddy,” as Gurf Morlix calls the junction where varied strains of American roots music mingle, at its truest and finest.

Last Exit to Happyland is peopled with characters “headed to reckoning day,” as Morlix sings in the propulsive opener, “One More Second.” The swampy bomp of “Walkin’ to New Orleans” finds a Crescent City resident heading home into the deadly wind and rain of Hurricane Katrina, while the haunting country-blues “Crossroads” reveals new wrinkles in Robert Johnson’s fateful meeting with the devil. Whether it’s longtime lovers at the “End of the Line,” a traveler on a “Hard Road” or an outcast who laments “I Got Nothin’,” Morlix captures their emotional essence.

Prior to embarking on his own career, Gurf Morlix was likely best-known for his 11-year creative partnership with Lucinda Williams as her guitarist, band leader and backing vocalist on two of her classic albums, Lucinda Williams and Sweet Old World. His production work with Williams led him to produce multiple recordings for Ray Wylie Hubbard (four albums), Slaid Cleaves (three albums and an EP, with a fourth about to be released), and two apiece by Robert Earl Keen and Mary Gauthier, as well as discs by Tom Russell, Ian McLagan, Butch Hancock, Hot Club of Cowtown, the Setters (Alajandro Escovedo, Michael Hall and Walter Salas-Humara) and others.

And now with Last Exit to Happyland, Morlix feels he has come into his own as an artist, songwriter and performer. ”I’m really enjoying songs making my records and going out and playing,” he notes. His ever-expanding touring circuit has already taken him across North America and to Europe and Japan.

–Conqueroo

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Brad Paisley “Play” Arista / Sony BMG

When Brad Paisley’s new CD “Play” arrived in my mailbox, at first glance I thought there had been some confusion about what music Roots Rock Review was trying to cover.

It’s not that I haven’t listened to and appreciated Brad Paisley’s music. It’s more a case of mainstream country, save a few acts in the mold of Alan Jackson, Marty Stuart and Paisley, has completely lost my interest in its push to compete with Pop music and its sales figures. For those reasons I’ve kinda lost touch with some of the genuine country artists on Top-40 Radio because it’s not worth wading through the rest of it.

Paisley’s single “Me Neither”, released from his debut album “Who Needs Pictures” was my first exposure to Paisley’s brand of Telecaster pickin’. At the time, his style of playing was, and still is, a breath of fresh air in a genre known for having session players take over the recording end of the business due mainly to economics. His playing was humorous, inventive and had a bit more drive than Nashville was typically known for at the time.

Not much has changed for the worse with Paisley’s guitar playing since those days when he still a relative newcomer on the scene. “Play” is packed full of catchy, guitar-hook laden instrumentals that pay tribute to some of guitar’s greatest stylists, all the while retaining Paisley’s unique approach to Telecaster chicken pickin’ and just a sprinkling of vocal songs that I’d expected the CD to be full of when I first got it.

“Kentucky Jelly” starts off acoustically and almosts leans to the Bluegrass side of things. However that changes when the band kicks in with a heavy Waylon-sounding back beat and when the chorus hits, it even recalls the triple guitar threat of the heydays’ Southern rock group, The Outlaws led by Hughie Thomasson.

“More Than Just a Song” is a touching tribute that features Paisley and the sorely missed Steve Wariner paying homage to their guitar mentors (Chet Atkins and Clarence “Hank” Goddard respecitvely) vocally as well as instrumentally — down to playing in the style of — and on — their mentors’ guitars on the cut.

“Cluster Pluck,” a high energy romp, features Paisley with some of the finest players to ever touch a Telecaster. James Burton of Elvis, Ricky Nelson and Emmylou Harris fame; Vince Gill, Steve Wariner, Albert Lee (who replaced James Burton in Emmylou’s band), Brent Mason (One of Nashville’s top session guitarists for the last two decades), Redd Volkaert (Merle Haggard) and John Jorgenson (Desert Rose Band, The Hellecasters, Elton John) trade licks “in the round” style, capturing a snapshot of some of the Telecaster’s greatest stylists in the last 40 to 50 years.

Then, there’s a the posthumous duet “Come On In” with Buck Owens. Paisley flew in Buck’s vocal, mandolin and dobro tracks from a demo that Owens cut in his Bakersfield office that was never destined to see the light of day otherwise. The world wasn’t left with enough Buck Owens music. Period!

Oh, and did I mention “Let The Good Times Roll” featuring “The King” himself. Yes, “The King of Beale Street” makes an appearance on “Play” as well. Paisley and B.B. King run through a boisterously smokin’ hot version of this classic.

Well it turns out the PR person from the record label who sent the CD did understand what Roots Rock Review is all about after all. Yeah, “Play” is a bit slick around the edges from a production standpoint, but the meat and potatoes of the CD are all about Paisley, some great instrumental songs with plenty of melodic content and his guests’ monstrous chops on the Telecaster (and Lucille). Who knows, maybe this is just the beginning of the return of the “instrumental” to the glory it once had in the genre’s earlier years.

Truth be told, I’m a self-admitted guitar junkie with a weakness for Telecasters and while I’ve mentioned my highlights on the disc, there’s really not anything on the CD that isn’t deserving of the term, “highlight.” If there was any doubt before, “Play” seals the deal.

Brad Paisley is definitely on the top shelf with the rest of Nashville’s Telecaster wielding, A-list guitar slingers.

You might Like to read these related news items:

• Brad Paisley Is Ready to Run and “Play” -- October 31, 2008