Arts and Entertainment

In the late 1960s and early 70s, folk musicians around the western world were thinking impure thoughts. Bob Dylan, The Byrds and The Band set ballads and characters and tropes from the American roots to electrified beats. Over in London, the Fairport Convention made folk rock out of old British source material. In Kentucky, New Grass Revival was blaspheming bluegrass. Not to mention the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and the Earl Scruggs Revue. 

Almost exactly a year ago, singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile dropped the jaws of the nation and the big time music industry with her televised performance of “The Joke” on the Grammy Awards. She won her first three Grammys that night, with all the contrived yet important legitimacy that confers. That was also the point at which thousands and thousands of fans who’d been bonding with and singing along with Carlile during her 20-year rise from Seattle clubs were perhaps thinking, “Where’ve y’all been?” 

David Olney, one of the most thought-provoking and independent-minded songwriters of the past fifty years, died on Saturday night, following a heart attack on stage at Florida's 30A Songwriters Festival in Santa Rosa Beach. The 71-year-old Nashville icon was performing in a round with artists Amy Rigby and Scott Miller.

It’s been almost five years since East Nashville recording engineer Elijah “Lij” Shaw saw his home recording studio get reported to, and shut down by, Metro Nashville. And he’s been telling his story far and wide ever since. The latest forum, a “Save Music City” home studio expo held last week on Music Row.

  NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)  --  Tennessee Titans fans can gather in Nashville for a free viewing party to watch the team play in the AFC Championship Game against the Kansas City Chiefs at Kansas City.

The Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. said the party will include live music, giveaways and other activities starting at 11 a.m. Sunday on Lower Broadway. The game is at 2:05 p.m. 

Two large screens will be set up to show the game feed. Fans can bring blankets and collapsible chairs.

Amid the 50 pages of notes, tribute essays and photos included in the new box set Only The Song Survives, John Hiatt’s daughter Lilly writes up some loving memories of going on the road with her dad back in 2004, when she was 20 years old. She sees his working life, his joie de vivre and his band camaraderie up close and in a new light.

The McCrary Sisters are so deeply woven into the fabric of Music City, and music fans get to hear them so often in so many settings, that we need to take time every now and then to remember how much we appreciate them, their talent and their loving aura. And what better time than the holidays, especially when the sisters have released their first ever Christmas album?

Allison Moorer’s song “Cold Cold Earth” has the bones of a centuries-old tradition, the folk murder ballad in which a man inexplicably goes mad with jealousy and takes the life of his beloved. Songs like “The Knoxville Girl” and “Delia’s Gone” drew from true events to evoke a morally complex and tragic world in the British and African-American threads of country respectively.

Unlike some year-end album lists, mine shies away from ranked order or making claims on “best” because I want it to feel more like the way a music fan thinks. What made an impact? What albums had stories that amplified the trends in roots music and that might be landmarks on your journey of discovery? What’s interesting about this year’s roundup though is that if you absolutely made me rank a top ten, it would be albums made almost entirely by women. What a year.

Christmas albums present a chicken/egg conundrum. Do you spin them to get in the spirit or because you're already in it? I'm usually in the former category and with albums as good as this year's bounty, they had their intended effect. I put up some lights and turned up the stereo and in only a few minutes I was able to put closure on Thanksgiving and look forward to the coming weeks of light and mirth.