The Americana Music Association released their 2017 Americana Airplay Chart Top 100 Albums. I tend to track the AMA Radio chart fairly closely through the year. Spotify helps feed the new music habit—or is that “enable the new music habit”? While I’ve streamed most of these albums, my spins for 2017* may tune a different frequency […]
Three Ladies and a Cowboy: Buy Good Roots Music for Xmas
Black Friday. Small Biz Saturday. Sunday. Cyber Monday. Whatever Whenever. There’s no good excuse not to buy somebody you love some good music for Christmas. Or Hanukkah, Or Kwanzaa, Or Yuletide. Or Whatever. The Americana Radio Charts et al are bursting with late year releases of Roots and Traditional Country music. New stuff is Autumn […]
Americana Music Awards 2017
As autumn leaves turn golden hues, music awards season begins each Fall with awards for golden tunes. Each September, the Americana Music Association bestows Honors and Awards on the previous year’s crop and the genre’s legends. The Americana Honors & Awards show is fairly well established these days. The Call for Nominees goes out in […]
Telluride, Bluegrass and the Cross of Gold (Repost #APACO17)
My first time into Telluride I was coming in from the East. The summer was hot and dry; the Colorado backcountry better suited to rattlesnakes than trout water. I had been camping up the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, some rutted jeep trail of a Forest Service road that would have seemed an interstate compared […]
West County Line
Building permits required. Archuleta-LaPlata county line, US Highway 160 east of Bayfield, Colorado. .
Neuromancer the Movie
Rumors are surfacing again that William Gibson‘s classic cyberpunk SciFi novel Neuromancer may finally be reaching the big screen. The 1984 story—winner of the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick awards—has had far-reaching impact on pop culture as Gibson fleshed out the ideas behind “cyberspace” and “the Matrix.” You might have heard a bout a little […]
The Disease that Afflicts all Modern Institutions
Repatrimonialization Modern state institutions, which are supposed to be impersonal even if not necessarily democratic, are particularly vulnerable to insider-capture in a process that I labeled “repatrimonialization.” As we have seen, natural human sociability is built around the twin principles of kin selection and reciprocal altruism—the favoring of family or of friends with whom one […]
The Fates Have Been Kind — New Music for 2017
The Fates have been gracious again to Americana music this year. 2017 has featured several strong releases from long-time Country music stars (Alison Krauss, Marty Stuart, Willie Nelson), Alt.Country should-be stars (Son Volt, Mavericks, Jason Isbell), and ignored-by-radio Texas Country stars (Aaron Watson, Sunny Sweeney). I’ve been streaming a LOT of music this year, and […]
Gene Habets, 1940-2017
Eugene “Gene” H. Habets, 77, of Dutton, Montana, passed away June 15, 2017, at home with his family. Gene was born on January 12, 1940, in Conrad, MT, to Eugenius “Eugene” Hubertus and Irene (Slezak) Habets. Eugenius emigrated from The Netherlands with his father in 1913, and Irene’s parents emigrated from Silesia. Growing up Gene […]
Songs of the Fall – Confessions
Stetson Adkisson and Cia Cherryholmes—Songs of the Fall—have a new Americana album out, called Confessions. After an initial singer-songwriter release as Stetson & Cia, they recorded a self-titled album in 2012. So this may be a sophomore effort, or it may not. In light of Cia’s multiple Grammy nominations with her Cherryholmes family bluegrass band, […]