Tag: Americana

Uncle Tupelo’s Last Concert on May 1, 1994

Tupelo Final Show The great alt-country band Uncle Tupelo played its last concert on May 1, 1994, at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis, Missouri. Fortunately, the concert is now available on YouTube in high quality video.

By the time of this show, Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar were already not getting along well. Soon after the performance, they would both go on to create other bands, with Farrar founding Son Volt and Tweedy forming Wilco.

But on that night in May 1994, there was one last grasp at combined harmony and greatness. In the video below, Tweedy and Farrar trade off on the lead vocals, with drummer Mike Heidorn joining the band on the final song of the set, “Looking for a Way Out,” and also singing on the encore with Brian Henneman and the Bottle Rockets on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gimme Three Steps.”

So, take some time to travel back to 1994 when one of the great bands was still together. The final words of the show: “That’s got to be it.” Check it out.

From YouTube, the songs at this performance are: “No Depression”/ “Chickamauga”/ “Watch Me Fall”/ “Grindstone”/ “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down”/ “Fifteen Keys”/ “Long Cut”/ “Anodyne”/ “New Madrid”/ “Slate”/ “Atomic Power”/ “Postcard”/ “Gun”/ “High Water”/ “Acuff-Rose”/ “True to Life”/ “We’ve Been Had”/ “Give Back the Key To My Heart”/ “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere”/ “Whiskey Bottle”/ “Truck Drivin’ Man”/ “Looking for a Way Out” (w/ Mike Heidorn)/ “Gimme Three Steps” (w/ Heidorn and the Bottle Rockets, Brian Henneman vocals).

What is your favorite Uncle Tupelo song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Andrew Combs Need Not Be A “Worried Man” (CD Review)

    Andrew Combs Worried Man

    I do not quite get the album art on Worried Man (2012), the debut full-length CD by Andrew Combs. Is he cold? Is it supposed to be a picture of a “Worried Man”? I do not think the album cover adequately prepared me for what to expect when I heard the music. One thing I do know, though, is that it is the best album by a new artist I have heard in a long time.

    Because Worried Man came out in October 2012, I realize I am a little slow in discovering Andrew Combs. But seeing a video of Andrew Combs performing on the Twang Nation website recently led me to check out his album. Listening to Worried Man starting with the first track of “Devil’s Got My Woman” has been one of those periodic experiences that restores my faith in new music.

    Combs, who is originally from Texas and now resides in Nashville, wrote all of the songs on the album, and he sings with an ache in his voice in the best country and Americana tradition. The album includes heartbreak, whiskey, and pedal steel, and the title track reminds one of an old murder ballad (even if the violence stops short of killing). You can hear the influences of Combs’s heroes who include Harlan Howard, Willie Nelson, Mickey Newbury, Guy Clark, Jackson Browne, and Tom T. Hall. Combs pulls off connecting to these past influences while also sounding modern at the same time, as he does in this performance of “Please, Please, Please.”

    Every artist is different, of course, but for comparison purposes, a lot of the songs remind me of another artist I like a lot, Slaid Cleaves. “Please, Please, Please” sounds like it could be a great Heartbreaker-era Ryan Adams track. The song “Worried Man” sounds like it is off of the album of another Texan, Ray Wylie Hubbard . For now, Andrew Combs has made a stream of the album available so you can listen for yourself below Check it out.

    Combs, who released the album on his own Coin Records, also co-produced the album with Mike Odmark. Singer-songwriter Caitlin Rose adds her voice to several of the tracks. I look forward to more music from Andrew Combs, whatever the cover looks like.

    What is your favorite track off of Worried Man? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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