TALL TEXANS: A new album from Billy Joe Shaver, who was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award for songwriting at the first annual Americana Music Association Awards September 13 in Nashville, is due November 19 on Compadre Records. Titled Freedom Child, it was produced by R.S. Field, who last worked with Shaver on his 1993 album Tramp On Your Street….
Also honored at the AMA Awards was the late Doug Sahm, who was given the organization’s inaugural President’s Award. Sahm also was recognized recently by his hometown of San Antonio; Mayor Ed Garza proclaimed October 13 to be Doug Sahm Day, with a celebration that included performances by Sahm’s sons Shawn and Shandon, his longtime bandmate Augie Meyers, and other friends such as Little Joe y la Familia, Marcia Ball and Angela Strehli….
Lost Highway serves up Stars & Guitars, a Willie Nelson live album culled from his guest-riddled television special filmed in Nashville earlier this year, on November 5. The 20 tracks include Willie teaming up with Ray Price, Patty Griffin, Toby Keith, Norah Jones, Jon Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, John Hiatt, Matchbox 20, Emmylou Harris, Dave Matthews, Vince Gill, Aaron Neville, Brian McKnight, and a retooled Highwaymen featuring Keith Richards, Ryan Adams and Hank Williams III.
BOXING DAY: The first three albums from Camper Van Beethoven, originally released in the mid-1980s on their own Pitch-A-Tent label before the band moved up to Virgin Records, are being reissued November 5 on Pitch-A-Tent as part of a box set titled Cigarettes And Carrot Juice: The Santa Cruz Years. Along with Telephone Free Landslide Victory, II & III, and the band’s self-titled album, the box will include a collection of oddities called Camper Vantiquities (originally issued in 1993 after the band’s demise) and a previously unreleased live recording….
Also due November 5 on Rhino/Warner Bros. is Reprise Please Baby, a four-disc, 89-song Dwight Yoakam box set. The material ranges from Yoakam’s 1986 debut through last year’s soundtrack for South Of Heaven, West Of Hell (his directing and screenwriting debut). A handful of previously unreleased tracks and duet recordings supplement the material culled from Yoakam’s Reprise catalog; liner notes are by Holly George-Warren.
DATE WITH BOB: Bootleg Series Vol. 5, a double-disc Bob Dylan release documenting his 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue Tour in 1975, is due out November 25 on Columbia/Legacy. The set, which features recordings from three shows in Massachusetts and one in Montreal, will be packaged with a limited edition DVD featuring two songs from the obscure Dylan film of the period, Renaldo & Clara….
Rumors were circulating during the summer that Dave Alvin would soon be taking over for Charlie Sexton as guitarist in Bob Dylan’s touring band, but sources at Alvin’s label, HighTone, say this is not the case, though Alvin did sit in with Dylan and his band for a couple songs at a September show in Colorado Springs….
In early October, Dylan began playing piano during a good portion of his shows, and also was regularly working in a few covers of songs by Warren Zevon, who recently confirmed he is dying of cancer.
ALISON, GILLIAN & EMMY: November 5 is the release date for a two-disc live album from Alison Krauss & Union Station on Rounder. The album was recorded at a pair of late-summer shows in Louisville, Kentucky; the shows were also filmed for an accompanying DVD release….
Also set to unveil a DVD are Gillian Welch & David Rawlings. A November 12 date is scheduled for a release that includes videos for a couple songs from last year’s Revelator album plus live concert footage shot in 2001 at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, North Carolina….
Emmylou Harris will receive the Patrick J. Leahy Humanitarian Award at a ceremony at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia. The award recognizes Harris’ efforts on behalf of landmine victims. The ceremony caps a brief early-November run of the continuing Concerts For A Landmine Free World series, with Harris joined by Patty Griffin, Bruce Cockburn and Mary Chapin Carpenter.
IN THE WORKS: Tentatively set for early summer 2003 is the Dualtone Records debut of June Carter Cash, a follow-up to her 1999 Grammy winner Press On. She performed at the Americana Music Association Awards in Nashville in September, joined by her husband Johnny Cash, daughter Carlene Carter, and other members of her family….
Singer-songwriters Pete Droge, Shawn Mullins and Matthew Sweet have teamed up to form a band called the Thorns, and were in the studio in Los Angeles in September recording an album due out sometime in 2003 on Aware/Columbia….
A January release date is planned on independent label Drag City for the debut of Loose Fur, a side project featuring Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche plus producer/musician Jim O’Rourke….
Online bookseller Amazon’s UK site lists a January 13 release date for an Omnibus Press biography of Ryan Adams, written by Michael Heatley, who has previously authored books on Eminem, the Backstreet Boys, Metallica and many other acts.
HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE: Finally out in the U.S., on Okra-Tone, is Double Back, the third album by Hazeldine but the band’s first disc of original material to be released domestically. Their 1998 debut Digging You Up came out on Polydor overseas but was never issued in the U.S.; a covers disc called Orphans was released independently in 1999. Double Back came out in Europe last year on Glitterhouse….
Bottle Rockets members Brian Henneman and Mark Ortmann have a new side-project in St. Louis, teaming with Rockhouse Ramblers members Kip Loui and Dade Farrar in a group called Diesel Island.
ALL THE FIXINS: A photo from the Bean Blossom Festival on page 14 of ND #41 [Sept.-Oct. 2002] incorrectly identified the musicians playing behind James King as members of the Lonesome River Band. The musicians were members of Longview. Also, the Bean Blossom review stated that Ralph Stanley is from East Tennessee; he is from Virginia….
A review of Rick Shea & Brantley Kearns’ disc Trouble And Me incorrectly stated that Shea has played with Doc Watson, which is not the case….
A review of the Dixie Chicks’ Home implied that the song “Landslide” was taken from Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album; the song was actually on the self-titled Fleetwood Mac album that preceded Rumours….
A photo of the band Horse Stories in ND #40 [July-Aug. 2002] was taken by Jessica Holmes, not Sophie Best as credited.
