Tag: Alison Krauss

Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson Put Johnny Cash’s Poetry to Music

Johnny Cash PoemsKris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson join forces to pay tribute to their late friend and former collaborator Johnny Cash.  In “Forever Words / I Still Miss Someone,” Kristofferson and Nelson take a final poem written by Johnny Cash and put it to music.

Cash’s son John Carter Cash explained to Rolling Stone that after his father died in 2003, they found a folder of letters and poems.  Johnny Cash wrote the letters and poems in his old age after the death of his wife June Carter Cash.

Among the sad poems was one called “Forever.”  The poem is about life going on and recognizing that “the trees that I planted are still young.”  Kristofferson and Nelson took the poem to create “Forever Words / I Still Miss Someone.”

The track features Kristofferson’s reading of the poem and Nelson’s guitar.  In addition, they added an instrumental track from Cash’s 1958 song “I Still Miss Someone.”

The video below shows Kristofferson and Nelson on the track.  And it also includes them talking about their deceased friend and former Highwayman colleague.  Check it out.

“Forever Words / I Still Miss Someone” is the lead track on the upcoming album Johnny Cash: Forever Words. The album features Cash’s poetry interpreted musically by friends, family, and other artists, such as John Mellencamp, Rosanne Cash, Elvis Costello, Chris Cornell, Alison Krauss, Carlene Carter, The Jayhawks, and Brad Paisley.

Forever Words hits stores and the Internet on April 6, 2018. An accompanying book, Forever Words: The Unknown Poems, has also been released.


Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Alison Krauss Previews New Album “Windy City”

    Alison Krauss

    Alison Krauss is releasing her first album for Capitol Records, Windy City.  The new album is also her first without Union Station since her 2007 collaboration with Robert Plant, Raising Sand.

    The new album includes some classic covers like “You Don’t Know Me,” Willie Nelson’s “I Never Cared for You,” and “Poison Love” (recorded by Bill Monroe).

    The first released track from the album is “Losing You.” In 1963, Brenda Lee released her version of the song, which was written by Jean Renard and Carl Sigman. Famous record producer Owen Bradley produced Lee’s version. Below is Krauss’s new recording.

    Krauss has also released a trailer for her new album.  Check it out.

    Windy City hits the Internet and stores on February 17, 2017. The album tracks are: “Losing You”; “It’s Goodbye and So Long to You”; “Windy City”; “I Never Cared for You”; “River in the Rain”; “Dream of Me”; “Gentle on My Mind”; “All Alone Am I”; “Poison Love”; and “You Don’t Know Me.”

    What is your favorite recording by Alison Krauss? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson Put Johnny Cash’s Poetry to Music
  • The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris
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    The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris

    Emmylou Harris Tribute

    On January 10, 2015, a group of great performers came together at Washington, DC’s DAR Constitution Hall to honor Emmylou Harris. To celebrate Harris’s work, Rounder is releasing DVD and CD versions of The Life & Songs of Emmylou Harris: An All-Star Concert Celebration, created and produced by Blackbird Presents.

    The performers on the DVD and CD feature many of my favorite artists. The package includes music by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, Sheryl Crow, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Vince Gill, Patty Griffin, Chris Hillman, Iron & Wine, Alison Krauss, Kris Kristofferson, Daniel Lanois, Martina McBride, Buddy Miller, Conor Oberst, Mavis Staples, Sara Watkins, Lee Ann Womack, and Lucinda Williams.

    Of course, the celebration would not be complete without Emmylou Harris. She performs “Boulder to Birmingham,” a song she co-wrote about Gram Parsons after he passed away. The song originally appeared on Harris’s 1975 album Pieces of the Sky.

    Below, Harris performs “Boulder to Birmingham” at the celebration concert with a little help from her friends. She begins singing the song alone before the others join her onstage. It is not much of a stretch to see the symbolism in the arrangement, considering how Harris must have felt so alone after Parson’s death. But her fans and colleagues, who in many ways are children of Gram Parsons, remind her that she is not alone. It is a beautiful song, and this performance is a nice arrangement.

    The Life & Songs Of Emmylou Harris: An All-Star Concert Celebration will be released in various forms on November 11, 2016.

    What is your favorite Emmylou Harris song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    John Prine Releasing New Album, “For Better, For Worse”

    John Prine Album John Prine is releasing a new album of duets called For Better, For Worse (2016).  On the upcoming album, Prine covers a number of country classics with some help from female singers like Iris DeMent, Alison Krauss, Miranda Lambert, Kathy Mattea, Kacey Musgraves, Fiona Prine, Amanda Shires, Morgane Stapleton, Susan Tedeschi, Holly Williams, and Lee Ann Womack.

    The Album

    For Better, For Worse is a follow-up of sorts to Prine’s 1999 album of similar duets, In Spite of Ourselves.   Jim Rooney helped produce the 1999 CD, and he is on board again for the new album.

    Prine explained to NPR that he was “kinda tricked” into recording his first full-length CD in five years.  His wife and his son-manager suggested he record a handful of songs to fill the last side of a vinyl version of In Spite of Ourselves.  Once he got started, they encouraged him to round out a new album.

    Although we long for a new album of original material from Prine, this one sounds pretty good so far. He chooses some great songs originally performed by artists like Hank Williams, George Jones, Ernest Tubb, and Buck Owens.

    “Who’s Gonna Take the Garbage Out”

    On the new album, Iris DeMent joins Prine on “Who’s Gonna Take the Garbage Out,” which you may hear below.

    Johnny Tillotson and Teddy Wilburn wrote “Who’s Gonna Take the Garbage Out.” The song was originally recorded by Loretta Lynn and Ernest Tubb in 1969. Check out their version below.

    For Better, Or Worse hits the Internet on September 30, 2016.

    What is your favorite John Prine album? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Know the Song But Not the Songwriter: Tony Macaulay

    Tony Macaulay

    For this edition of our series about hits by songwriters who most people do not know by name, we look at some of the hits written or co-written by Tony Macaulay. The songwriter, who was born with the name Anthony Gordon Instone on April 21, 1944 in England, wrote a number of catchy songs you know.

    He provided two hits to The Foundations: “Baby Now That I’ve Found You” and “Build Me Up Buttercup.” Macaulay co-wrote “Baby Now That I’ve Found You” with John MacLeod, and The Foundations released their recording of the song as their debut single. The song eventually was a number one hit on the British charts and a hit in the U.S. too.

    Decades later, Alison Krauss also had a country hit with her version of the song as the title track of her 1995 album Now That I’ve Found You: A Collection.

    The Foundations created a classic with their 1968 release of “Build Me Up Buttercup,” a song Macaulay co-wrote with Mike d’Abo. You also may remember the song from when it appeared before the end credits for the Farrelly Brothers’ movie, There’s Something About Mary (1998). It is one of the most effective uses of a song at the end of the movie, and I would bet that you were humming it and smiling when you left the theater.

    The hits kept coming in the 1970s. The 5th Dimension had a hit with Mcaulay’s “(Last Night) I Didn’t Get to Sleep at All,” a song the band released in 1972.

    The Farrelly Brothers must have a thing for Macaulay’s pop sound because they also used another one of his songs over the end credits of another movie, Shallow Hal (2001). Macaulay wrote “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)” with Barry Mason, and the song became a hit for Edison Lighthouse.

    Talented lead singer Tony Burrows sang the version of “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)” that we all know, but by the time this video was recorded, he had left the band. So Macaulay, who had the rights to the band’s name, put together other musicians for the video.

    If you were around in 1976, you could not miss Macaulay’s song that he produced for singer-actor David Soul, “Don’t Give Up On Us.” If you mention the song today, people in the U.S. will remember it as the one hit by “Hutch” from the TV show Starsky & Hutch, which starred Soul and Paul Michael Glaser, who is still close friends with Soul.

    But Soul also had other hits in the U.K., and he pursued singing even before he was on the popular TV show. “Don’t Give Up on Us” was huge, and I even remember having a songbook for my trombone that included the song. Believe me, you would rather hear the David Soul version instead of my trombone version.

    Macaulay has used his talents in a number of ways, including writing novels and recently writing music for the play Sherlock in Love. For more about him, check out his website.

    What is your favorite Tony Macaulay song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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  • John Prine Releasing New Album, “For Better, For Worse”
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