Affiliated Websites
Farnovision
Fusor.net
Photography
T. Townsend Brown
The Incorrigible Iconoclast
Nice photo, huh?
As I start to write this post I keep seeing that scene in one of the Star Wars movies where the evil Emperor tells Darth Vader that “it is all proceeding precisely as I have foreseen…”
Because, you see, this is how it’s going to work, as the monolithic networks of the past give way to the niche networks of the future. It’s all revealed between the lines of this feature story about Dana Cooper that appeared in today’s Tennessean, as we get ready for Dana’s appearance tomorrow night on WSM radio’s Music City Roots – Live from the Loveless Barn broadcast from the outskirts of Nashville. Peter Cooper gets the essence of it the shift when he writes:
Dana Cooper has been working at this music thing for more than 40 years now, and in that time he’s managed to move from auditorium stages to living rooms.
“I had a duo with Shake Russell in Texas (in the late 1970s and early ’80s), and we had roadies, a light guy, a sound guy and a guy to keep people away from us,” said Cooper, sipping from a coffee cup at Flatrock Café on Nolensville Pike.
“It’s the most financially successful I was in music, and also the most unhappy I’ve been,” Cooper said. “Now, I love playing small places, and I love playing house concerts. It’s about community, potluck, and people talking in the kitchen. They feed you, put you up and give you directions to where you’re going, and it’s interesting to me to see what kind of characters are out there and what they have to say for themselves.”
I think that defines the “new troubadour tradition” as well as anything I could possibly add. Now we just need to use the tools that we’re learning to get more people into those living rooms and kitchens… and then, who knows, concert halls again as well…
…when the music is really good….
Last week, Rosanne Drucker finished setting up her website using the “SiteBuilder” feature of ReverbNation (which is a plugin-partnership with Bandzoogle). From the site, Rosanne offers streaming audio and downloads of her new “Virtual EP” Doin’ Hard Time.
That was like Thursday. Today (Monday), she’s got her first review of the “virtual release,” in a glowing blog-post by Nelson Gullett, who works as a DJ at WDVX , a listener supported Americana radio station in Knoxville, TN and reports on his musical encounters with his “Fifty Cent Lighter & A Whiskey Buzz” blog. After describing his serendipitous encounter with Rosanne at a club (“…In Nashville… what are the odds?…”), Nelson writes:
The EP contains seven original tracks co-produced by Rosanne and Mike Loudermilk (John D. Loudermilk’s son), and blends several Americana styles to mostly paint pictures of heartbreak and love gone sour. Three of the four songs on the sampler Rosanne gave me dealt with such topics. The title track makes solid use of Bailey and Ickes to tell a heavily bluegrass flavored tale of a heart trapped behind bars, and “This is Sunday” is a piano ballad that counts the days until a lost lover’s return (he’s not coming). Even the optimistically titled and musically upbeat rockabilly bluegrass tune (featuring Rocker) “Mr. Dream Come True” is about a race horse and not an actual Mr. Right. I’m guessing by the “Aww shoot” thrown in at the end of each chorus that the horse doesn’t even finish in the money.
There’s some validation in this review for Rosanne, who has been working on this project for many months and is suddenly getting positive feedback just as it begins to see the light of day.
This review puts Rosanne in some pretty good company. Elsewhere on the page… Ellis Paul, Anne McCue, and somebody named Emmylou-somebody.
We all gotta start somewhere…
The Rogues Gallery
Join The Tribe