DAVE'S DIARY - 1 /3/ 2023 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 8 - SERIES 54
CHARLEY CROCKETT AND LUKE COMBS HEADLINE NU COUNTRY TV
Texan tourist Charley Crockett and North Carolina star Luke Combs headline N u Country TV at 9 pm on Saturday March 4 on the eve of their Australian tours.
Fellow Texans Amanda Shires and Rachel Stacy boomerang to the show repeated Wednesday at 4.30 am.
Kentuckian Kelsey Waldon and Hunter Valley coalmine truck driving troubadour Jemma Beech also appear on the program filmed and edited by our multi-talented lockdown producer-host Laith Graham.
Nu Country TV is a highlight of C 31 streaming list on Digital 44.
Further info - https://www.c31.org.au/
CHARLEY PREVIEWS MARCH TOUR
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Texan troubadour Charley Crockett returns to our show on the eve of his debut Australian tour in March.
Charley, now 38, cancelled his 2019 Australian tour with Sierra Ferrell after major health issues including a hernia and open-heart surgery.
He performs his I Feel For You video on his 11th album Jukebox Charley on his Son Of Davy label.
Crockett has since released his 12 th album The Man From Waco.
CLICK HERE for our Charley interview in The Diary on January 23.
LUKE COMBS GROWING UP
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Dual Grammy winner and seven time CMA victor Luke Combs returns with an acoustic video of Going-Going Gone from his third album Growing Up that precedes fourth album Getting Old out March 24.
The North Carolina nouveau outlaw, 32, makes his second sold out Australian tour in August.
Luke's wife Nicole recently gave birth to their son Tex.
Going-Going Gone follows two huge selling albums re-released as deluxe discs after playing St Kilda Palais on March 13, 2019, with fellow CMA winner-Arkansas traveller Ashley McBryde.
Another Nu Country TV guest this week - Amanda Shires - joined him on previous Without You video with his trio during isolation.
Luke joins expat Australasian superstar Keith Urban by writing songs for a wife named Nicole whom he married on a southern Florida beach.
Nicole inspired many songs including Loving On You for Luke who filmed live videos for topical Six Feet Apart and Eric Church on their duet Does To Me.
His debut deluxe disc This One's For You 2 was #1 for 44 weeks on Billboard and broke Randy Travis's record for Always and Forever that was #1 for 43 non-consecutive weeks in 1987-1988.
It held second-longest run at No.1 for country album after Shania Twain's 1997 album Come On Over 50 weeks reign.
He became first artist to have their first two studio albums spend 25 weeks at No. 1 on Billboar d - breaking Taylor Swift's record of 24 weeks.
Combs charted five tracks from The Prequel on Billboard Top 25 in June, 2019 - a feat not accomplished since Johnny Cash in 1959.
He recorded Let's Just Be Friends for The Angry Birds Movie 2 .
CLICK HERE for Luke's What You See Is What You Get CD feature in The Diary on November 25, 2019.
HIGHWOMAN SINGER AMANDA SHIRES RETURNS
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Texan singer and fiddler Amanda Shires returns to Nu Country after touring here in 2014 with singing spouse Jason Isbell who returns in April.
Amanda, now 40, is a member of 2021 Grammy winning Highwomen quartet with Maren Morris, Natalie Hemby and Brandi Carlile who fronted Nu Country with Redesigning Women.
Take It Like a Man provides gender role reversal advice - it's title track of her eighth album after a major health scare.
“When I was hospitalized in Texas on August 9, 2021, with a ruptured fallopian tube caused by an ectopic pregnancy,” Amanda revealed.
“For those who are unfamiliar, it is impossible for an ectopic pregnancy to go to term. I would have died; my daughter, Mercy, would have lost her mother, my husband, Jason, would be a widower. I was lucky. This happened to me two and a half weeks before Texas ' abortion ban went into effect. And I was still dealing with all of it two and a half weeks later.”
Amanda released eight albums with Isbell and one with Rod Picott.
Four-time Grammy winner Isbell won three major 2018 Americana awards after topping charts with 10th album The Nashville Sound with his 400 Unit band.
Isbell has released 12 albums in a career that began in Drive By Truckers in 2001 before he went solo in 2007 and appeared in the Deadwood movie.
CLICK HERE for an Isbell interview in The Diary on March 12, 2014
Further info - https://amandashiresmusic.com/
KENTUCKIAN KELSEY WALDON
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Kentuckian Kelsey Waldon proves why she is tall and mighty on her return.
Kelsey, now 36, hails from Monkey's Eyebrow in Loretta Lynn coal country in west Kentucky and worked on farms and tobacco fields before chasing music.
She performs her Tall And Mighty video from her sixth album No Regular Dog Shooter Jennings produced for the late John Prine's Oh Boy label.
Kelsey also fronted our show with her Sweet Little Girl video from fifth album No Regular Dog released on August 12, 2022, and Anyhow from her third album White Noise/White Lines she produced with Dan Knobler.
It followed self-released EPS and debut 2014 album The Goldmine and 2016 disc I've Got A Way on 30 Tigers.
Kelsey has her name etched on Monkey's Eyebrow town entry sign.
“As a Kentuckian, I grew up seeing signs like this all over my beloved home state - ‘Home Of' Merle Travis, Bill Monroe, Loretta Lynn, Keith Whitley, Ricky Skaggs, Dwight Yoakam, Patty Loveless, Tom T Hall, all of Country Music Highway 23 and countless others,” Kelsey revealed.
“Add this to the list of proud moments. Thank-you Ballard County officials for making it happen. It means a lot.”
Ballard County is shaped like a monkey's head and Monkey's Eyebrow is where the eyebrow would be or how the town looks like an eyebrow from a nearby hill or that the local general store was once only considered good enough for “a bunch of monkeys.”
CLICK HERE for a Waldon CD feature in The Diary on February 10, 2020.
RACHEL STACY LIVE AT LIZZY GATOR BAR
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First Texan singer-songwriter Rachel Stacy finds trouble with a Ray Wylie Hubbard produced song she performed live at Texan Lizzy Gator bar in Pilot Point.
Rachel wrote Trouble with Guthrie Kennard.
Stacy recorded with Ray at Zone Recording Studio outside Dripping Springs , Texas , in 2021 with tunes The Ghost of Lishe Jackson, Take a Little Time, Trouble and The Night.
Rachel debuted on our show last week with her Wishing Well video.
It was a fitting reward for the Oklahoma born singer who overdosed during her drug and alcohol addiction that she recovered from 11 years ago.
Rachel transferred her passion to playing guitar, violin, singing and songwriting and released her debut album Full Circle in 2017 before meeting fellow Texan Ray Wylie who wrote songs with her and produced Trouble and Wishing Well.
“Ray kind of mentored me early on when I got sober, but we didn't really reconnect until last year,” Rachel, now 32, revealed.
“In that time in between I was doing a lot of touring, and I had some other songs on the radio, including one called Boomerang in 2017 that did really well. But then we crossed paths again and Ray said, ‘Let's get in the studio and do that project we talked about doing together some day. I think it's time people learned the songwriter you really are.”
“My platform is not sobriety. My goal now is to try to inspire other people - especially women - to continue in their endeavors with music and art. My mission is all about wanting to be a good example: not just for younger artists just starting, but for ones at that age - my age - where society might be telling them, ‘You're too old for this, you need to quit.' Because no, you don't.”
Rachel has toured with Dierks Bentley, Keith Anderson, Oak Ridge Boys, ZZ Top , George Thorogood, Larry Joe Taylor, Deryl Dodd, Jack Ingram, Phil Vassar, Kentucky Headhunters , Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Jesse James Dupree, Alice in Chains and Big and Rich.
Further info - https://www.rachelstacy.com/
JEMMA BEECH HUNTER VALLEY TRUCKING TROUBADOUR
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Former Pilbara coal mine truck driver Jemma Beech returns with new video You Fool filmed near her latter day Hunter Valley winery hometown Singleton.
You Fool is a light-hearted introspection on Jemma's relationship track record. “I'm always wishing on a star / Love won't be cruel,” she sings in the chorus featuring banjos and guitars and produced by Rod McCormack at the Music Cellar.
“Being there felt awesome to be a part of the recording and choosing what guitar parts were right for the song,” Jemma revealed of the recording of her song penned with Rod and Nashville-based Sally Barris.
“We caught up with Rod's Nashville songwriting friend Sally Barris to write. I was away for the beginning of this co-write but once I was in the studio with Rod, I added my input on a few lines and arrangement in the second verse. After writing one song prior with the pair they had enough of a gauge on where my life's stories and challenges sat in finding love. As a vulnerable songwriter myself it felt right to be as honest and open as I could be.”
Jemma was born in small NSW town Yandeera before driving dump trucks in Pilbara mines and now mixes music with more truck driving.
You Fool follows debut 2018 album That's Just Me and singles Stuck In The Mud and Truck Stop Diner Girl.
Further info - https://www.jemmabeech.com.au/
WIN WAYLON, GEORGE JONES AND MERLE HAGGARD
Help us celebrate being Nu Country TV members and win albums by late Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, George Jones and Highwaymen by becoming a Nu Country member or renewing your membership.
George, Waylon, Merle and Willie Nelson were among country historian Barbara Dowling's favourite Texans.
The Waylon, Highwaymen , Merle and George discs were donated by Barbara who died at 77 in December, 2020.
She co-hosted Long In The Saddle in our Nu Country FM era and was pioneer Australian and Victorian country music awards judge.
Barbara was admired for rising above losing her sight as a young woman and her country passion with annual trips to Waylon's birthplace in Littlefield, West Texas.
Waylon died at 64 on February 13, 2002, and is survived by singing spouse Jessi, now 79, and son Shooter, 43.
WIN KEITH URBAN CDS ALSO
We have expatriate Australasian superstar Keith Urban's chart topping 12th album The Speed Of Now - Part 1.
Also BR5-49 CD Big Backyard Beat Show and Billy Ray Cyrus's historic 1992 album Some Gave All featuring Achy Breaky Heart.
We have other CDS by major artists you can win by becoming a Nu Country TV member or renewing memberships.
They include Brad Paisley, Eric Church, Kip Moore and late larrikin legend A.P. Johnson.
CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for details.