There's a great blog called Country'sChatter that I check on a regular basis. It gets a lot of traffic so it was one of the first places I advertised Blood Country. I also sent "Country" a copy of the book in hopes that she might review it. Well, she did review it and, I'm pleased to say, liked it. After you read the review here, go check out her great blog for the latest info on country music and its stars.

CountryChatter's Book Review

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Book Review: Blood Country, A Nashville 

Sideman Mystery 

by Dan Jewell

SHARETHIS | FILED BY: COUNTRY ON MAY 29, 2011 | 

NO COMMENTS
CATEGORIES: REVIEW

Since I started writing Country’s Chatter, more than 3-1/2 years ago, you have all seen
 me review concerts, and albums, and even the artists themselves, and a movie or two.
But something I have not yet done is review a book. Now, I’m going to.

The book is called Blood Country: A Nashville Sideman Mystery. The author is Dan
Jewell. It’s a fiction novel, obviously about a murder in Nashville – a 20 year old murder
that needs solved. Whenever I’m deciding on a book to read, I open the cover and read
the inside leaf, to find out a little about the story – this one has it on the back of the
book. And, I’m going to get you interested by letting you read the back of the book:

In Nashville, it’s conventional wisdom
that if you’re looking for work in the
music business, you’d better have a
steady day job. Guitarist Joe Rose
has a day job–he’s a private detective.
Rose is hired by strung out country
music superstar Vern Hamlin,owner 

of Great Axe Music, to look into his
father’s two decades old murder.
Hamlin has received an anonymous letter 

suggesting that the man convicted of the
crime, who was killed in an escape attempt,
was not the real murderer. Because of
Hamlin’s drug and alcohol problems,
his uncle Claude, CEO of Hamlin Enterprises,
doesn’t approve of his nephew’s plan
to reopen the old murder case; he thinks it 

will jeopardize Hamlin’s present sobriety and
interfere with his work at Great Axe. But Hamlin’s personal assistant, Jessica Apple, thinks
his father’s death is actually the cause of his substance abuse and that pursuing the
investigation will help him get closure. After Rose interviews a Desert Storm Vet with PTSD,
the man is found dead. Is it suicide or murder? Along the way, Rose 

encounters a rogue P.I., Hamlin’s sexy ex-wife (Country’s answer to Lady Gaga), 

a Professor who writes mystery novels, Hamlin’s promiscuous stepmother–now married
to the pastor of a Nashville megachurch, and a songwriter with a big gun. Rose’s
investigation takes him deep into blood country, a place not found on Music City tour maps.

The book is well-written, the story is good, and it definitely keeps you interested from the first
page to the last. While it is not one of those books you just can’t put down once you pick it up –
it is the kind of book you are anxious to get back to every opportunity you have to sit and read.
And, for me, it is one of those books I’ll be reading again.

The book is available on Amazon, so if you are shopping for Father’s day, or have any
readers on your Christmas gift list, you might want to jump over and order a few of these
books. Especially if your avid reader friends are also country music/Nashville fans.
They definitely won’t be disappointed.

Hope you are having a good Memorial Day Weekend. I’ll talk to you tomorrow!
Country

Corb Lund: Pullin' Dragons from the Ground

Canadian blogger Deb recently had a post about how little most Americans know about Canada.

Did you know that voter concerns about bloated government, etc. have spread to Canada too and that in their most recent election, the Conservatives, who already controlled the executive office with Stephen Harper, now control Parliament as well? That's good news, IMHO.

Do you know a Canadian singer other than Shania Twain? I knew about Ian Tyson,and I also know about Stu Phillips because he now lives fairly close to me, but beyond that, not much else.

How about Corb Lund? Heard of him? His group is called the Hurtin' Albertans. Here's Lund's song, "Roughest Neck Around." Take a listen and tell me what you think.

I love that line "pulling dragons from the ground." I like this guy singing a lot and I'll post a couple more of his songs from youtube in the next few days.

Country Music's Original Bad Boy

Today's post features the official trailer for "The Last Ride."

"The Last Ride" is the soon to be released movie about Hank Williams' (born HIRAM KING WILLIAMS) death. The movie stars Henry Thomas, Jesse James, Fred Dalton Thompson, and Kaley Cuoco.

Williams was born with spina bifida occulta, a painful spine condition which led to his use of alcohol and drugs as a means to cope with the pain. About Hank's drug use, Wiki says...

In 1952, Williams's consumption of alcohol, morphine and other painkillers to ease the pain resulting from his back condition caused problems in his personal and professional life. He divorced his wife and was fired by the Grand Ole Opry due to frequent drunkenness.On January 1, 1953, on the way to a concert, he had a doctor inject him with a combination of vitamin B12 and morphine, which, added to the alcohol and chloral hydrate that Williams had consumed earlier, caused him to have a fatal heart attack. He was only 29. 

Emmy Lou Drives a Hard Bargain

From Amazon: Emmylou Harris's Hard Bargain will be released April 26 on Nonesuch Records.... Hard Bargain, which comprises 11 new songs by Harris as well as two covers, was produced by Jay Joyce (Cage the Elephant, Patty Griffin). 

Also available as a deluxe edition of the album, which includes a DVD featuring six performances interspersed with interviews.

Townes Van Zandt

The weather's been good for the past few days, warm with sunshine breaking through the clouds from time to time. But the rainy, gloomy weather that preceded it got me thinking about Townes Van Zandt.

The blogger at Cuckoo Bird says Van Zandt "speaks to some of the darkest places of the human psyche." Trust me, Cuckoo Bird got that right. Before we listen to a few of his songs, here's a whole lotta wiki info on Mr. Van Zandt, who died in 1997.

John Townes Van Zandt^[1] (March 7, 1944 – January 1, 1997), best-known asTownes Van Zandt, was an American country-folk music singer-songwriter, performer, and poet. Many of his songs, including "If I Needed You," "To Live is to Fly," and "No Place to Fall" are considered standards of their genre.While alive, Van Zandt was labeled as a cult musician: though he had a small and devoted fanbase, he never had a successful album or single, and even had difficulty keeping his recordings in print.^[2][3] In 1983, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggardcovered his song "Pancho and Lefty," scoring a number one hit on the Billboard country music charts.^[2][4] Despite achievements like these, the bulk of his life was spent touring various dive bars,^[5] often living in cheap motel rooms, backwoods cabins, and on friends' couches.^[3] Van Zandt was notorious for his drug addictions,^[6] alcoholism,^[6] and his tendency to tell tall tales.^[7] When young, he was diagnosed with manic depression, and insulin shock therapy erased much of hislong-term memory.^[8][9][10]Van Zandt died on New Years Day 1997 from health problems stemming from years of substance abuse.^[6] The 2000s saw a resurgence of interest in Van Zandt.^[2]During the decade, two books, a documentary film, and a number of magazine articles about the singer were created.^[2] Van Zandt's music has been covered by such notable and varied musicians as Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan,^[11] Norah Jones,^[12] Steve Earle, Meat Puppets and Robert Plant's Band of Joy.

In a funk? Want to hear a truly bleak song? Try Van Zandt's "Nothin."

He could laugh too. Here he is performing his "Talking Thunderbird Blues" in 1993.

A very sad Van Zandt song, in a moving performance by Nancy Griffith: "Tecumseh Valley."

Blog Ad for Blood Country

I worked on this two weeks ago. It took me awhile to find a place on the Net where I could reduce the size of the pic to 125 x 125. I've just placed the ad on Country Music Tattletale (see the link in my right sidebar).

The Dirt Drifters

You've got your dirty jokes, dirty money, and dirty dancing. Then there's The Dirty Dozen, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and, of course, our own humble abode, Country Dirt blogspot.

Now there's another dirt in town. The Dirt Drifters are Warner Bros. Nashville recording artists. They've been on a radio tour around the country. I really like these guys. Love their name and the song "Something Better" is a great single. Along with the Nitty Gritty, these guys could become our house band here on the Dirt.