DAVE'S DIARY - 20/8/2018 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 4 - SERIES 35

LUKE COMBS HEADLINES NU COUNTRY TV

North Carolina nouveau outlaw Luke Combs headlines Nu Country TV on Saturday August 25 at 9 pm on Channel 31/Digital 44.

Texan Kasey Musgraves and singing spouse Ruston Kelly return to our live Behind Bars segment with a tribute to the late Johnny Cash on the show hosted by Mid Pacific Bob Olson.

Kelly also performs his new solo video on the program repeated Sunday 11.30 pm and Monday 3 pm and filmed and edited by Laith Graham.

Another Texan Aaron Watson returns to the show featuring Wauchope singer-songwriter Angus Gill, Kevin Bennett and Amos Morris on a social comment song.

Nu Country TV is a highlight of C 31 streaming list on Digital 44.

Further info - https://www.c31.org.au/

COMBS HAS A HOUSTON PROBLEM

Luke Combs recalls a lonely night in his luxurious 12th floor suite overlooking the famed Houston Astrodome in his latest live video clip.

Luke, now 28, wore his Don't Mess With Texas T-shirt and red dirt boots as he sipped cold beer and listened to Steve Earle's epic hit Copperhead Road.

But someone was absent - that girl in his missing you Lone Star state greeting card.

The good news - he reached his missing belle by the end of the song.

Houston, We Got a Problem is one of five new bonus tracks on his deluxe debut album This One's For You Too.

CLICK HERE for a Combs feature in The Diary on July 5.

KASEY AND KELLY HONOUR JOHNNY AND JUNE CARTER CASH

Texan troubadours Kacey Musgraves and Ruston Kelly, both 29, honour the late Johnny and June Cash in their return to our live Behind Bars segment.

First they tell the story behind their adaptation of the Johnny Cash poem To June This Morning that started as an ode by the man-in-black to his second wife June Carter Cash.

Then they perform their song from the 2016 book Forever Words: The Unknown Poems.

Johnny died at 71 on September 12, 2003, and June died earlier that year on May 15 at 73 after many Australian tours.

Their son John Carter Cash produced the disc that features one of Johnny's daughters - Rosanne.

We featured her tribute The Walking Wounded last month.

Other artists on the disc include Willie Nelson, Jamey Johnson, Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss.

Musgraves has since released another new video for High Horse .

Kelly, who was also Behind Bars in Nashville on a DUI charge in January this year, performs his latest video clip Jericho with the aid of a spray can.

Jericho may have seemed like a prison but not quite the same as the Nashville gaol where he wrote another new song while waiting for bail from his Uber driver Kasey.

It's one of 14 songs Kelly wrote on his major label debut disc Dying Star that he recorded at Sonic Ranch, way out west in El Paso .

CLICK HERE for our Kasey interview in The Diary on June 18.

AARON WATSON LETS HIS HORSES RUN

West Texan singer-songwriter Aaron Watson belatedly celebrates our horses' birthdays as he rides his equine metaphor with roses and romance in Run Wild Horses on his 13 th album Vaquero.

Watson, 40, was raised in Amarillo and has a Buffalo Gap ranch near birthplace Abilene.

Aaron kicked love into top gear at the Houston Rodeo as he sang of the staying power of love in previous video Outta Style - also on Vaquero.

Watson mixes narratives and love songs in his down home music - previous album Underdog was first indie release to debut at #1 on Billboard .

Watson appeared on Nu Country with an evocative tribute video to late rodeo champion Lane Frost who died after being high in the saddle on July 30, 1989, in Cheyenne , Wyoming .

Aaron honoured Frost, just 25, who died in rain, mud and blood at the rodeo after being thrown from the Brahma bull - Taking Care Of Business .

He appeared with July in Cheyenne on 11th album Real Good Time and Raise The Bottle - a tribute to unsung war heroes including his late grandfather who returned from World War 2 in a wheel chair and walked with a cane.

Asleep At The Wheel icon Ray Benson produced Watson's 2004 album The Honky Tonk Kid with a cameo by Shotgun Willie Nelson.

Watson released 2006 collection of gospel songs - Barbed Wire Halo - including readings by latter day veteran Waco singer-songwriter Billy Joe Shaver.

Watson's eighth album Angels & Outlaws peaked at #28 on Billboard in 2008 on the Top 200 all genre chart before he released The Road And The Rodeo in 2010 and Real Good Time in 2012.

Further info - www.aaronwatson.com/

TRIO RECALL CAR NIGHTMARES

Young Wauchope singer-songwriter Angus Gill recalled painful memories of the Stolen Generation when he wrote painful paean Staring Out Of The Back of A Car with Kevin Bennett.

Amos Morris joined Angus, just 20, and Bennett in the video for the third single from Gill's debut album Nomad, released in September, 2017.

They released it for 2018 National Reconciliation Week.

“The theme of National Reconciliation Week this year is don't keep history a mystery which is fitting because it summarised our intentions with this release,” Gill revealed.

“Just before the song came about I had seen Phillip Noyce film Rabbit-Proof Fence and I basically broke down emotionally during the scene where they were taking the children away. This was when I had the line pop into my head, ‘It's hard to look forward when you're staring out the back of a car.'

“I brought the idea to Kevin Bennett; a mate of mine, also a well-respected indigenous singer-songwriter, and we wrote the song in a couple of hours. I really experienced the weight of the words when I first performed the song to a small crowd and the first lady in my line of vision completely broke down in tears when I reached the chorus. That was when I realised that she felt exactly the same listening to the song as I did when I saw the film.”

The decision to record it as a vocal collaboration was symbolic.

“I decided to ask Kevin and another old friend of mine Amos Morris if they would both sing on the song with me because I really envisioned several voices telling the story in order to represent the thousands upon thousands of indigenous families often referred to as the Stolen Generation affected by Government policy of the time which was to remove many Aboriginal children from their families and communities and integrate them into white society. We may never heal the scars of the past, but what we can do is educate and that's what we've tried to do with this song. The feeling of being forcefully taken away from your family with the possibility of never being reunited is absolutely unimaginable for many.”

Gill co-wrote all 13 tracks on the album he produced and mixed at Hot Plate Studios on the NSW Mid North Coast.

It featured collaborations with peers as diverse as Adam Harvey, Gina Jeffreys, Luke O'Shea, Drew McAlister, Troy Kemp, Bennett and Morris.

Angus is now writing for his new album on a U.S. trip embracing California and Nashville .

He is attending a songwriting retreat with Rodney Crowell and Bernie Taupin and hopes to meet up with legendary Steve Earle whom he first met in 2015 in upstate New York .

Further info - https://angusgill.com.au/

HOW TO KEEP NU COUNTRY ON AIR

We need your support as we celebrate Nu Country TV's 35th series with Australian record companies and artists teaming to ensure our survival.

You can win Kip Moore's third album Slowheart , thanks to EMI promotions chief Dave Parker, and Blake Shelton's 12th CD If I'm Honest from Karen Black and Tony Midolo at Warner Music.

We also have other CDS by major artists you can win by becoming a Nu Country TV member or renewing membership.

They include Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Gary Allan, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church and late larrikin legend A.P. Johnson.

CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for full details.

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