Why You Gotta Be So Rude?

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Susie Krivak

Friday, Friday, Friday!  I am completely aware that the song title I have chosen for today is not a country song.  But as you read on, you will see why I chose it.

I have a great weekend lined up with a lot on deck.  I am so glad it is finally here!  I have had a phenomenal week and  I am hoping you guys had a great week too.  I have been invited to the MCMA Awards as a member of the media and I couldn’t be more excited.  It is my first time doing something like this, so needless to say, the post after that will re-cap the awards with some photos.  I can’t believe this all started by me sending smart-ass tweets to Blake Shelton!  So even though I haven’t gotten to interview him (YET), I guess I have a lot to thank him for.  Now if I could only get a re-tweet.  If any of you know him, let him know I am waiting…

Let’s get this party started…

CELEBRITY NEWS:

Islands of Imagination:

It is true.  Kenny Rogers recently announced his retirement.  Just a few days after he broke the big news, Rogers headed over to Dollywood in Nashville to lend a hand to his old friend and duet partner, Dolly Parton.  Parton, who has a charity called Imagination Library, held a fundraiser last weekend for the organization and Rogers came to sing a few songs.  He performed to a sold-out crowd at Dollywood’s D.P. Celebrity Theater.  He chatted with the crowd a bit and mentioned that Parton has shipped over 70 million books through the charity.  The event raised over $60,000 bringing the total raised by the fundraising concert series to over $635,000.  That’s a lot of books!  Rogers is currently preparing for a 30 date concert tour that will take the singer across the US and Canada with a Christmas themed show.

 Sacred Responsibility:

There is a huge number of country singers who have pets and are involved with animal causes.  Emmylou Harris falls in to this category. In a PBS Documentary titled Shelter Me: Partners for Life, Mad Men star John Hamm hosts the program, which highlights Harris’ work with the a homeless animal shelter that is on her property called Bonaparte’s Retreat.  The Nashville based shelter is named after a beloved family pet of Harris that passed away at 11 years old.  It became the first in the Nashville area to work with Animal Control to limit the number of animals who are euthanized.  Harris is also involved with a program called Crossroads Campus, which couples at-risk youth with foster animals to help teach them responsibility and life skills.  The documentary began airing last night (Oct. 1) on PBS stations across the US.

Busker Beware:

Canadian singer songwriter Lindsay Ell is taking to the streets of Nashville.  She has partnered with CMT’s Next Women of Country to hold a 24 hour concert called Lindsay Ell Busking on Broadway.  The concert was set to begin last night at 11 pm and is to continue until 11 pm tonight (Oct. 2).  Why on Earth would she want to do this?  To celebrate, of course!  Ell has a new single (“By the Way”) coming out very soon.  She will have her guitar in tow and will perform covers as well as original music.  She has even hinted that there MAY be some surprise guests dropping by to join her for a tune or 2.  My gut tells me that one of those may be Dierks Bentley.  Ell will be accepting “tips” which will be donated to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt; the same charity that Bentley’s Miles and Music fundraiser supports.  If you aren’t in Nashville, this is also airing on Periscope.

COUNTRY FASHION:

Rude Boy Clothing isn’t necessarily a brand that most would associate with country anything.  In fact, this company based in Asia is actually geared more toward hip hop/ urban fashion.  So why am I talking about them on here?  Well, the feature artist in my interview this week has recently become sponsored by the brand, so it seemed only fitting that we talk about them today.

The term “Rude Boy” (or “Rudie”) comes from the Jamaican term for “bad boy” or “bad man”.  The brand itself is a company built by CEO Jimmy Li.  The focus of the brand is on an urban lifestyle with a modern edge.  The company believes in individuality and success for those who a working hard toward reaching their goals.  With that in mind, they sponsor music artists the world over, helping them get some exposure for their work.  They are partners with Rude Boy Magazine in this endeavour.

Their latest collection consists of over-size t-shirts, hoodies, hats and beanies (or “toques” if you are Canadian).  They can all be purchased on their website which is www.rudeboybrand.com.  Here are a couple of the styles that are available:

   

COUNTRY MUSIC:

I keep a notebook on my desk.  It’s just a small, black Moleskin notebook.  It isn’t so much for writing ideas down as it is to write down names of artists that I would really like to contact and interview because something about them strikes a chord with me (no pun intended).  I like to be able to go back and look them up to check out their other work. Several times I wrote down Chris Ising’s name while listening to The Iceman Show on different days.  His voice had this wicked rasp to it that made me want to hear more.  His song “I’m From the Country” made me smile because I felt like I could relate to it.  On my personal Facebook page, I mentioned that I had been listening to The Iceman when I got a message from an acquaintance of mine commenting that her husband was on the countdown.  I had met Chris twice during my VERY short stint with the Winnipeg Roller Derby League, of which his wife is a member.  I couldn’t believe that I didn’t put 2 and 2 together.  Well, I am glad that Serenity helped me to do so.  I was fortunate enough that Chris didn’t hold that against me and agreed to sit down with me to talk about his career, finding work-life balance and song writing.

Chris is not only a very nice and soft-spoken guy, but he is also from my home town – Winnipeg, Manitoba.  At the age of 7, Chris’ parents placed him and his 2 brothers in music lessons.  His first love, however, was not country music.  Chris was a bit of a “metal head”, and still enjoys rock.  It wasn’t until university that he discovered a love for country music.  I asked him who some of the bands were that inspired him to make this change.  He replied, “Diamond Rio and Garth Brooks.  Mostly Diamond Rio.”  There was a very eclectic mix of music that was played in his house.  “Growing up, my Mom liked country music so the Oak Ridge Boys and The Gatlin Brothers were always playing.  Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers.  And my Dad listened to that but he also listened to rock and Englebert (Humperdinck) and odd ones like that.”  His Dad grew up in Germany, so there were also a lot of German records in the house.

Because of this musically varied upbringing, I asked Chris if he had any guilty pleasure songs.  You know, those ones that you may be embarrassed to admit, or maybe you can listen to them over and over and over again (mine is “Sara” by Starship.  Don’t judge me).  Chris admitted to a couple of them, “I have a few.  King’s X would be the biggest one.  Rascal Flatts, there’s a few of theirs that I can put on at any point.  ‘What Hurts the Most’ is probably the biggest one.  I could listen to it over and over.”  Chris attended the Jeffrey Steele Boot Camp in 2008.  He happened to be the person who wrote that song.  When his daughter found out, every time she would see Jeffrey’s photo she would say, “Hey, that’s What Hurts the Most!”, knowing it was her Dad’s favorite song.

As a husband, father to 3 children and working a full-time government job, we started talking about how he manages all of it.  I have a hard enough time balancing being a wife, the blog, my job and getting dishes done.  I asked Chris what his secret was.  He sighed, “I have no time anymore.  I go to work, come home, make dinner, do the kid stuff and once they go to bed, I’m up until probably 2 in the morning.  And then back up at 6:30.”  Looking at Chris, he has a real rocker image; the longer hair, the cool glasses, the arms full of tattoos.  It is hard to imagine him in this role.  So I asked what is something he does that most people would find surprising.  He laughed, “The housework?  That I like to vacuum?  It’s all the dogs.  I’ve got allergies and our youngest has fairly bad allergies and really bad asthma as well so when we give them a bath, the long-haired one sheds like crazy!”  I told him that he could come by my house any time to vacuum.  He laughed again, “It’s kinda like that and mowing the lawn.  It’s just a mindless chore you do that I don’t have to think so I don’t mind doing it.”

Despite the fact that this talented guy has so much on his plate, he is making the most of the time that he does have to work on his music career.  He has songs at the top of a couple of charts on radio stations in the US and he is up for 5 MCMA Awards.  Very recently, he was at The Josie Show Awards in Nashville, where he won an award for Country Modern Male Song of the Year for “I’m From the Country”.  I asked him to look at all of these success as a whole and tell me what his thoughts were on it.  Was it a “wow” moment?  “You know, it is!  You know what is funny?  I tell people this all of the time; I started out as a writer, I had no intention of ever performing.”  He really enjoyed doing songwriter showcases but never thought he’d have a band and be performing as an artist.  He explained, “When I put out the CD and it started getting played, I was like ‘I’m a songwriter’.  I put out these singles as a calling card.  Then I went to the CCMA’s and I had a video out for ‘I’m From the Country’ and people started recognizing me from that.”  Chris went on, “When I started getting played in the US, that was different because people started looking at me as an artist.”

Chris is no stranger to the Nashville scene, having been invited to play during the CMA Festival this year.  Since I had been there myself as a fan, I asked him to tell me what it was like from an artist’s perspective.  “It was exciting.  It’s a busy event.  We were in The Boot Barn, that’s where I did all my shows.  You had a full store of people shopping while you’re playing.  Then you have hundreds of people just going down the street and stopping and watching from outside.”  He then made a bit of a comparison to the CCMA’s, “I had done showcases at CCMA before so it was the equivalent to that in terms of the audience you had and the nerves that would go along with it.”  He added, “I went down there not so much as a writer, more as the artist.  It’s different when I go to an event and I’m going to showcase as a writer.  You treat it a little bit different.”  We had been talking about performing in all of these amazing settings, so I asked what his favourite place to play in Winnipeg was.  Chris replied, “I like playing at The Thirsty Lion.  I used to do in-the- rounds there.  Other than that, I have not played my own stuff in Winnipeg other than just doing song circles.”  His favourite room of all?  “The Park Theatre.”

Since Chris considers himself a songwriter first, I asked him where he draws his inspiration from.  He replied, “Everything.  Everything you see around you.  It’s funny because there’s a lot of drinking songs on there.  Iced tea is what I drink.  Or Diet Pepsi.  I don’t really drink.  Maybe a beer here and there.”  He furthered that point, “There’s a lot of breaking up songs on there and I’ve been married for a long time.  So a lot of my stuff is not about my life.  It’s just stories.  Maybe I’ll see something on TV and I’ll go, ‘Hey, I could do that in a song’ and it’ll just develop in to an idea.”  He does admit there is a bit of him in the songs though, “You always put a little bit of yourself in there too, there will be a line or 2 about an experience you had.”

Knowing how I feel about putting “a baby” out in to the world, I am always curious to know if people are like me.  Sometimes you write something and think “I don’t know about that”.  I asked Chris if he had ever put anything out there that he wasn’t really thrilled with.  “Everything, sort of.  I’ll write songs and I’ll play them until I’m happy with them.  I’ll work on them until I’m happy with them.”  He continued, “Some of those on the CD have been around for a while.  And I reworked them and reworked them But even now I when I listen to them…It may be that you don’t like listening to yourself so you’re always critical of your own material I think more than others.”  He admitted to being a bit of a perfectionist, “I don’t think I’ve put out anything I’m not proud of though because I know that I won’t really release things publicly until I’m satisfied with them.”  Chris finished the thought by adding, “You’ve got to critique it a lot yourself before you give it out to people.”

Chris has been doing this for a number of years so I asked him to compare his style and song writing from then to now.  “I would say I just grew up a bit.  It’s more sophisticated now.  When I started writing, you’re told what the rules are.”  Time and maturity changes things, “As you go along through the years, you kinda toss that out the window and you learn that it’s more a feeling or a gut feeling.  It doesn’t always have to rhyme.  As long as the flow is there and it sounds good and it doesn’t feel awkward.”  In a nutshell, “It’s become more comfortable.”

He has not only written material on his own. Chris has been involved in many co-writes as well.  I wanted him to explain the pros and cons to co-writing to me.  He began, “When I started out, looking at co-writing was a scary thing.  You have to share those ideas with others and you don’t know where that song is going to go.”  But things changed as time went on, “When I started co-writing, I look at it as easier because you can feed off each other.”  Co-writing takes a certain formula to be successful. “Three is the magic number for that.  There are some groups I write with all the time now.  I’ve found over the years that you have to weed people out.” I had heard this before from other artists who co-write.  “I have to be careful about who I write with and who I don’t because I don’t have that much time so I’ve got to make it count.”  He does have several people (including a woman named “Fly”) he usually writes with. “I tend to stick with a lot of the same people because we have a history of writing and we all work well together.”

Chris has already had a big year and it recently got bigger.  He has been sponsored by Rude Boy Clothing (there’s your connection the fashion feature this week).  I was curious how a country artist became involved with a company that is obviously hip hop/ urban fashion-oriented.  “I got an email from them one day, probably about a half a year ago.  They contacted me and asked if I was interested.  We missed the cut-off for their quarterly magazine at that point.  I had emailed them back about a month or so ago and asked them if they were still interested in working that out, to see if they’re interested in pursuing that still.  They contacted me and said, ‘Yeah, yeah, totally.’  I went back to them and said, ‘Are you sure because it’s country?’ because it’s hip hop clothing.  One of my friends said, ‘I think it’s because of your look and all the tattoos.  That fits with what they do.’  Shortly after that last email, Chris had an article in their magazine and next thing he knew, “I had to select what kind of clothing I wanted; t-shirts or hats or whatever.”  He is also sponsored by Steve Clayton Picks, “I used those picks for quite a few years.  You could get in touch with them for sponsorship so I figured I might as well.  And they said sure!”  Having “some” knowledge of the garment industry, I knew what deals like this meant for artists.  Chris did too, “It gives you more standing.  It shows that you are serious.”

I looked at this opportunity to talk to Chris as a chance to see what kind of advice people had given him.  He has had so many experiences, that I was curious to see what the best piece of advice he had ever gotten was and who it came from.  Chris answered, “Jeffrey Steele.  Two years after being down there being mentored by him, as a group we had written a song that a band picked up, went in to the studio to record, then broke up.”  Chris explained more of the story, “I contacted Jeffrey and said, ‘Well, what do we do with this?  It’s got 13 writers on it.’  He actually said, ‘I’ll put it under my publishing company’ and we decided anything made from that would just go straight to his charity because it was too hard to distribute to everybody.  The best advice I got from him was at that time.  He told me not to get excited because until the actual CD comes out, you don’t know if it’s going to happen or not.”

Because I do my research, I knew that Chris has a duet coming out with a new artist named Laura Ashley.  He told me the story of how that came about. “I had the song.  It’s one that I wrote probably about 2 years ago.  It was written as a duet and then I didn’t know who I wanted to sing it.  The way it was written, some of my parts are a little bit higher, so I had to find a female vocalist who could sing in a lower range.  When I got on to The Iceman’s countdown, I thought I’ll maybe find one on there who will suit it.  I didn’t want anyone too raspy because I’ve got a little bit of that in my voice and I didn’t want it to be overpowering.  And then when I heard her voice I said, ‘That’s the voice right there!  That would be perfect!’ and so I worked on it.”  It wasn’t until a while later that he asked Laura to join him on the project.  “When we were at the CMA’s, we were at an after party and I went up to her and asked her if she would be interested.  I said, ‘Because you have the voice I want to put on it’ and she was up for it.”  The 2 are still working on the song and it will hopefully be released soon.

This isn’t all he has on his plate right now.  On top of the duet with Laura, he is looking at releasing another single off the CD.  And if that isn’t enough, he is also on the board of directors for the MCMA’s.  With the award show coming up quickly, his up runneth over.

I had one last question to finish up with.  I asked Chris what the last photo he took with his phone was.  He leaned over to show me. “The Northern Lights.  The kids wanted to go outside and see if the Northern Lights were there.  So we went out at 10 o’clock and my daughter said, ‘Take a picture of the Northern Lights!’  I took like 4 of them then our arms were getting bitten by mosquitoes so I was like, ‘OK, we’re going in now.’”

Be sure to check out Chris’ website at http://www.chrisising.com and follow him on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/cising) and Twitter (@ChrisIsing).  Here is Chris Ising’s chart topping song “I’m From The Country”:

Posted in Country Fashion, Country Music, Country News, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

You’re The Reason God Made Oklahoma

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Susie Krivak

Happy Tuesday, folks!

First and Foremost a HUGE congratulations to Chris Ising for winning Modern Country Male Song of the Year with “I’m From The Country” at the Josie Show Awards this weekend in Nashville!  I’m so happy for you.  Stay tuned to the blog because next week I will have a great interview that I had with Chris a couple of weeks ago.

There are a few other things that I am planning for the blog which I am really excited about.  Once the details are worked out, I will fill you in.

How about some news…

CELEBRITY NEWS:

Sat-Swif-faction:

Taylor Swift was wrapping up a 2 night stand at Bridgestone Arena in downtown Nashville on Saturday (Sept. 26).  Throughout her 1989 tour, Swift has invited some of her celebrity to join her stage to perform a song or 2.  She’s had Dierks Bentley, Steven Tyler, and on Saturday night, she pulled out the big guns.  After the confetti fell, Swift let her fans know that she had a special surprise for them.  Out of the wings he came, bounding with energy, rock god Mick Jagger.  Together they sang Rolling Stones mega hit “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.  After the dust settled, Swift tweeted her followers about her excitement of having this experience.  It appears everyone is “cray-cray for Tay-Tay” – even rock royalty.

A Day In The Life:

Country singer Kellie Pickler has a new reality series called “I Love Kellie Pickler” being aired on CMT this fall.  The “soft-scripted show” will show people what is like to be a country music star.  It will also feature a glimpse in to the day-to-day life she shares with songwriter husband, Kyle Jacobs.  The series, which airs on November 5, is being produced by Pickler’s Pal, Ryan Seacrest. She does realize that the music industry is changing, “I think today it’s all about building your brand.”  Pickler explains, “And so, I want to do everything.  I just want to have fun, and be a part of people’s lives, and tell my story through the form of a song and branch out in different avenues and whatnot.”

Tragedy Strikes:

You may have noticed that I very rarely bring bad news to the blog. That is intentional.  There is so much doom and gloom in the news that I really want to talk about happy or funny stories.  But this I felt deserved to be spoken about.

On Sunday (Sept. 27), after being on life support over the weekend following a severe accident, Hunter Montgomery (son of Eddie Montgomery) passed away in a Kentucky hospital.  Details regarding the accident have not been released as of yet.  The family made the difficult decision to remove Hunter from life support that he had been on since late last week.  The country music community has rallied around the Montgomery family, offering words of comfort and support.  Join me in sending prayers, love and healing thoughts to the Montgomery’s.

COUNTRY FASHION:

Recently I wrote a piece about belt buckles and featured some photos of my Dad’s collection.  There is a part of said collection that really warrants having a piece written on it by itself.

You may or may not have noticed that in that case of buckles, there was a grouping of Hesston buckles.  Hesston has been a leader in hay implement manufacturing since 1955.  In 1974, as an advertising strategy, they issued their first belt buckles.  It was very plain, with just had Hesston written on it. They handed them out to staff, customers and families of employees.

In 1975, the buckles became approved by the PRC Rodeo Association.  The buckles featured the words “1975 National Finals Rodeo” for which Hesston was the exclusive sponsor.  It also had a depiction of a chute dodging event.

As the years went on, so did the styling of the buckles.  They became highly sought after so much so that fake Hesston Buckles began to circulate.  The rodeo collection originally designed by Bill Marley, changed slightly after 1983 – which was Marley’s last design.  It was for the 25th anniversary of the NFR.  It is also where my Dad’s collection (all of which are authentic) starts:

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COUNTRY MUSIC:

The Clint Scholz Band hasn’t been together for a very long time but that has not stopped them from making a name for themselves.  There is something deep and intoxicating about their sound that makes you almost ache inside.  Not in a bad way, it just gives you the feeling that they know what you have been through.  Clint’s voice resonates and has a rasp that stays with you.  The White Lines album definitely makes me want to pack up the truck, hit the road and leave everything behind.

If you have never heard the term “Red Dirt Music”, this band is a pretty good example, although even Clint would say it is more of a cross between red dirt and rock.  The term “red dirt” is a phrase coined from the color of the soil in Oklahoma, where the band originates from.  Generally speaking, Red Dirt Music can be classified as Americana or alt-country with rock influences.  It is safe to say that The Clint Scholz Band hits these notes.

The band is composed of 5 members; Clint Scholz (obviously), Dean Hess, Eric Turner, Dave King and Taylor Smith.  All of the band members have had a very eclectic musical background, from country and heavy metal to gospel and classical.  Whatever their background, these guys have come together to create a sound that is almost mesmerizing.

I knew if I was lucky enough to have the chance to speak to Clint that I would be in for a real treat.  I have been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to travel through Oklahoma several times and I knew that in general, “Okies” are good-natured, friendly and typically have a great sense of humor about themselves and life in general.  Clint did not disappoint.  It is interesting to note that he and I are both from smaller communities (his being FAR smaller than mine).  One thing you can always guarantee when speaking to someone from a small town is that you will get a weather report.  This conversation was no different.  Immediately, I felt like I was talking to a friend.  It was familiar and comfortable.  Clint is from a very small community called Ramona, Oklahoma which is nestled in between Tulsa and Bartlesville.  “It’s a pause on a major highway.”  But despite the small size, he still lives in the area.  I asked him to describe Ramona to me so I could get a feel for how small we were talking about.  “Well, it has a really nice small town feel to it.  There’s a little sandwich shop and a convenience store.”  The town, of course, has a huge hometown sports crowd, especially when it comes to football.  Being that he is from Oklahoma, I asked Clint if he felt there was a higher expectation to perform well based on the high volume of country royalty that hails from there (Blake Shelton, Vince Gill, Garth Brooks, etc.)  I wanted to know if he felt that pressure.  “I think definitely there is,” he started, “Especially when you’re standing in the light of Garth Brooks and Vince Gill and Cross Canadian Ragweed and some of the best country rock bands that are out there.”  He went on to say that although it’s great to see what these people have done and what they’ve accomplished, he has a different plan, “I kinda want to do my own thing and set off on my own path.”  Vince Gill is especially near and dear to Clint’s heart. “My Mom used to listen to Vince Gill when I was growing up.  She had a tape of Vince Gill she used to leave in the truck and I knew that thing forward and backward.”

Since we were already on the topic of the band’s unique sound, which I personally love, I wanted to ask about one song in particular, titled “Can’t Forget About Jack”.  I love this song, but apparently Clint and I have very different opinions of it.  “Well, about all that.  I thought ‘Can’t Forget About Jack’ was probably, in my opinion, the worst song ever written.  I was a little inebriated, well, I was whole lot inebriated and I just thought of some fun lyrics and I wrote them down.  It literally went from that and I never, ever, ever, Susie, I never should have played it once because now it’s a rather requested song of mine from a lot of people and I think it’s horrible!”  He went on to explain, “When it comes to my own personality as a songwriter, I tend to prefer more of the heartfelt songs.”

Based on that, obviously “Can’t Forget About Jack” isn’t typical of the type of songs that Clint was used to writing.  So what exactly is his inspiration?  “Lately, most everything I write comes from either my own experiences or people who are close to me, their experiences. That’s why a lot of times if I’m going through a phase in my life, you’ll definitely be able to tell in the songs that I write.”  We talked about this for a little while.  After listening to the White Lines album, I felt an ache.  If his inspiration was from personal experiences, all I could think was “Man, I think this guy needs a hug.”  I said this to him and he laughed.  He assures me that this is not the case and that if you know him personally he is a pretty out-going and happy guy.  “My music is pretty heartfelt and it’s pretty slow.  I try really hard to grasp people’s emotions and you can really see that in my live performances.”

We chatted a little bit about performances he’s done and places he’s played. He had a great story that involved a drunken old guy in a bar that swore up and down that he had written a song called “Amy”.  When Clint invited him up on stage to perform his song, the man didn’t know any of the lyrics.  In fact he didn’t know one chord.  As we were laughing about the situation, he was reminded of another story.  Clint started off by mentioning that he doesn’t hide the fact that he is a Christian and has no problem professing that.  Although he has Christian roots, he would not classify his band as a Christian one.  I thought this was odd to mention, then I realized that this was a pivotal part of the story.  The first project that Clint worked on outside of the church was with a band called Black Water Runs.  “This kid came in and tried out for the drummer one time.  After he tried out he decided he didn’t like it and he said, ‘Well, you know I got us this gig over there.’  There was this place this place in this town about 40 miles away called The Vine and I had heard of The Vine.  It was like a metal venue for a long time.”  Even though they were a different genre than what typically played there, they thought it would be an interesting place to play.  Clint continued, “We said alright, this gig’s on Saturday or something like that.  We’re gonna get all fired up for it.  We got our boots on and everything. Our music back then was not so different from what it is now.  So we get up there and they put us as the headlining band.  There are 4 bands ahead of us.  We were headlining that do!  So we’re all freaking out!  Yeah!  That’s gonna be awesome!  We finally got a headlining gig! Well, we show up before the other bands started playing because it’s common courtesy to watch the rest of the bands.  Well, I’m telling you, Susie, we got up there and the first band is a girl with a piano and she sings nothing but Christian music.  Like heartfelt worship music.”  The story went from there.  Band after band had the same sound. Clint then realized that after speaking to people, it was a worship band concert.  Despite the fact that Clint is very comfortable on stage, he admits, “I froze up!  I didn’t know what to say!  They see us get all strapped up with our banjos and people are thinking it’s gonna be old bluegrass gospel.  It’s going to be amazing.  So we get up there and start singing these songs and people start leaving by the droves!”  Although we were laughing about it, at the time, Clint says, it actually wasn’t funny at all.

The Clint Scholz Band is relatively new and judging from things said on the website, it appears that Clint is a bit of a planner.  I know that for those types of personalities (myself being included in that group); a timeline shift can really shake you.  I asked Clint how his timeline has changed based on their rapid success.  “The problem that we have with our timeline is that we’ve achieved every goal at least 18 months in advance.  We weren’t expecting to get as big as we thought in this short amount of time.  So, that makes short-term and long-term goal setting really, really difficult.  Most of the time I try to dictate to someone else to set those goals.  I just get on the bus and play the music.”  One of the goals the band has is to play some of the larger festivals in 2016.  The band also has a new album coming out next year.  He says that it is a bit nerve-wracking because their style is really right in the middle of rock and country.  Releasing an album in a genre that is dominated by country-sounding music is also exciting because they want red dirt fans and country fans to develop a taste for it.  “The plan is to really push this album,” Clint said.  This will include a merchandising plan to go with it.

I moved over to some fun questions with Clint.  There was no way I was going to pass up an opportunity like this.  He is so laid back and down-to-earth, I felt like I was talking to an old school buddy on the phone.  I asked him what some of his comfort foods are.  He paused for a quick second, “Ok, here’s the deal and I am ashamed of this, ok. Because it’s not healthy.  I am addicted to the new Lay’s dill pickle chips.”  I burst out laughing, “Like you don’t understand!  My band leader’s Dad works for Lay’s and I buy dill pickle chips buy the case!” (Note to self – if ever going to Oklahoma, bring assortment of dill pickle flavored snacks for Clint.)  He had one more for me, “Another thing, I know it’s disgusting, and I can’t believe I am going to say this because my fans might be reading this but…I am a serious pickled garlic addict.”  I admitted to him that I also have a pickled garlic problem. Before you knew it, we sounded like 2 people who needed a pickled garlic intervention.

Of course, I also asked what the last photo he took with his phone was.  Clint’s response? “There is a picture of me and Gene Collier,” and he admitted to me that he was a little star struck when he saw him.

Please, please, PLEASE check this band out!  In fact, I am thinking I may need to take an Oklahoma road trip just to go see them!  (If anyone is interested, let me know).  Their Facebook link is https://www.facebook.com/Clint-Scholz-Band and their website is http://theclintscholzband.com/

If you aren’t able to make it down south to take in this amazing band, have no fear.  Here is a little sample.  This is “Can’t Forget About Jack” by The Clint Scholz Band (Thanks Clint, for being a good sport about me posting this video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aKMmJntZeg

Posted in Country Fashion, Country Music, Country News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

We Got Cowboy Boots and Camo Pants

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Susie Krivak

Is it Friday already?  Yes it sure is!  It has been one heck of a week and I am so glad that the weekend is here.  I know, I know, I usually have this up on Thursday night.  As previously mentioned, it has been a heck of a week.  But here we are, at 2:30 in the morning and my dedication WILL NOT let me sleep until this is posted.

I would like to send out a big “Good Luck” to 2 fantastic artists, Andrew Frelick and Chris Ising, who are on their way to Nashville this weekend for the Josie Show Awards.  Both of these talented gents are up for awards this weekend and will be playing a show there.  Please join me in wishing them all the best!  They both are deserving of any awards that they win.

And now – on to the news.

CELEBRITY NEWS:

Strait Flush:

You may not have had the opportunity to see George Strait on tour, as he officially retired in 2014.  However, that doesn’t mean that you will never have the opportunity to see him play live.  On Tuesday (Sept.22), at a press conference at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Strait announced 4 special performances that he will be doing at the new Las Vegas Arena, scheduled to open in April of next year.  He will be among the first artists to perform at the new venue on April 22-23, 2016 and will have 2 more performances on Sept. 22-23, 2016.  Texan songstress Kacey Musgraves is slated to be the opening act for Strait for all 4 performances.  Tickets will go on sale to the general public on Oct. 2, 2015.  If you love country music and have been looking for an excuse to plan a trip to Sin City, I believe I just gave you one.

Yearwood Over Texas:

Trisha Yearwood and husband Garth Brooks are in the middle of an ongoing world tour.  They have been on tour for 10 months and are currently on a quick break while the set-up is being reconfigured.  Yearwood, who turned 51 on Sept. 19, was busy that night, as she was playing the American Airlines Center in Dallas, forcing her to work on her special day. Have no fear; she did have the opportunity to celebrate.  Six Flags Over Texas is typically only open to guests on the weekends.  However, when country royalty comes to town, apparently they pull out all the stops.  According to NBC Dallas-Ft. Worth, the amusement park made arrangements for Brooks, Yearwood and their band to hold a private gathering to celebrate the singer’s birthday on Monday (Sept. 21).  Brooks was reported as saying that his favorite ride was Mr. Freeze, while Yearwood prefers The Texas Giant.  Happy Belated Birthday, Trisha!

Music Row Freebie:

I know I just wrote about Blake Shelton, but this is just too fantastic to not talk about.  Last week, Shelton sent a message to all of his followers on Twitter that he would be holding a free concert in Nashville this week.  Well, he apparently delivers what he dangles because on Wednesday (Sept. 23) a 2 block section of Music Square East was shut down and a stage was put in the streets for a free 1 hour concert by Shelton and his band.  Naturally, fans showed up in droves to see their favourite Voice coach perform 12 songs on an intimate stage.  His whole band accompanied him and the group were off stage just after sunset so that the street could be re-opened to traffic.  Thanks for giving me one more reason to love Music City, Blake.

COUNTRY FASHION:

I will say this loud and proud – I love camo.  In fact, one of my favorite fall jackets is a Browning zip-off sleeve camo fleece.  When discussing camo, it is almost imperative that one brings up the brand Realtree.

In 1986, Bill Jordan decided to try designing camouflage.  He had already been involved in the sporting/ hunting industry for a few years with this company Spartan Archery Products.  At that time, he was having t-shirts made at a mill for his business.

The industry at that time was not a profitable one.  Margins had to be kept low as the cost of manufacturing garments increased.  While at his parent’s one afternoon, Bill sat sketching some ideas for a camouflage pattern.  According to the company’s history, he believed that”… by layering the images of twigs and leaves over a vertical bark background, he could create a 3 dimensional appearance that would match a variety of terrain…” and thus, Realtree was born.

As years and finances allowed, Jordan innovated the brand.  It has staked a claim at the head of the pack when it comes to sporting goods.  Using computers, photography and digital imaging, Realtree has become and continues to be a leader in fabric design and printing.  The images they produce are now used by over 1500 licensees of their product.  Visit their website at www.realtree.com for more information.  Personally, I am a huge fan of this brand.  Here are a couple of my personal favorites:

       

COUNTRY MUSIC:

I first heard The Lonesome Band on an online radio show called The Iceman Show.  On their website, they referred to their music as “Texas Cosmic Honk Tonk”.  I wasn’t sure what the heck that was, but whatever they were selling, I was buying.  When I started doing my research on them, I also found out that they were from one of my favourite cities of all time, Austin, Texas.  My excitement grew because I have been to Austin a few times and I am familiar with the live music scene there.  I have seen many a great band there, so I knew I was in for a treat when I decided to listen to more of their music.

The band originally started as a duo that consisted of 2 college friends, Sam Whips Allison (Whips is actually his name and not a nickname) and Anthony Lucio.  Not only were they college buddies but they are also both audio engineers.  The commonalities do not stop there.  Both of them were native Texans and they both come from homes where they grew up around music.  Anthony had set himself a goal to write 100 songs in a year.  I know from the limited writing experience I have (and the fact that I have tried writing a song or 2) that this is no easy feat.  One of the songs that he wrote (“Agree To Disagree”) left a mark on Sam.  He added a few final touches and before you knew it, the group had their first song.  After playing a number of gigs around Texas with just the 2 of them, they opted to expand the group and brought aboard Miguel Gilly, Barrett O’Donnell and Dan Johnson.  They released their album “Running Alone” in May of this year.  I really recommend checking it out!  It is gritty and well, down right “honky-tonky” (yes, I made that up and it is staying). Amidst their busy schedule, Sam and Anthony took some time on a rare day off to talk to me.

When a band refers to their style as Texas Cosmic Honky-tonk, the first question really writes itself.  I asked the guys if they could clarify what that means. Sam laughed, “It kinda took a while to get to that.  We didn’t even know what we were playing until other people started telling us what it was.  We didn’t really sit down and think ok, we’re going to play Texas country music or country music.  We just tried to let it develop naturally and that’s what it came out as.”  The sound could be described as traditional country, or even like Shooter Jennings, which is the sound that they were looking for.

Being that the majority of the band is from Texas, I thought it was only right to ask the one thing that a non-Texan wants to know about a Texan – did they identify as Texan first or American first?  Sam replied, “Maybe a little from column A.  Maybe a little from column B.  Maybe a little bit more from column A.”  We all laughed, because if you know anything about Texans, this is typically the response.  As Barrett is the only non-Texan in the group, I was curious to see how much they harassed him over that fact or if they had accepted him as one of their own. Anthony (referred to as “Ant”) and Sam both laughed. Sam answered, “He is an honorary Texan, for sure. He’s been here for a while.”  Being an honorary Texan myself, I can understand the compliment that this is.

The music on their album has a real depth and honesty to it.  There was one song in particular that stuck with me.  I really needed to know if “Woman Who Can Shoot” was in fact, fact or fiction.  Again they both chuckled and Sam said, “You know, being from Texas, we do have a quite a few women who can shoot.  You know, you just don’t want to mess with a lady like that.  There is definitely some fact in that, leaning a bit on the fiction side because it makes a good story.”  Anthony added, “We didn’t find anybody with bullet holes or anything.”

Since I am a huge fan of their sound, I was really interested in finding out more about their song writing process, including how they settle creative differences.  I mean, it couldn’t be easy in a room with 5 guys in it, could it?  Apparently, for them, it could.  Sam clarified, “We chose from those songs (the 100 songs that Anthony challenged himself to write) and then we sat down together and altered things, wrote melodies and did that kind of stuff.  That was for the first album.  For the second one, that’s a different process I think.”  When thinking of song writing, it is always interesting to find out where the ideas for their music comes from.  I asked the guys where they drew their inspiration from.  Sam answered, “Oh man, anything!”  He regaled me with a scene from a recent radio tour they were on, “We saw a guy walking down the road with a fiddle in his hand.  The nearest, largest town was about an hour each way.  This is not just a road, it’s I-20, a major interstate!”  Anthony expanded on the idea, “We saw him walking and we’re thinking what’s his story?  We kinda felt like writing a story about you know, did he tick someone off and they dropped him off on the side of the road?”

I then took a bit of a detour from music and song writing.  As these guys are from one of my favorite places, I wanted them to pretend they had to describe Austin to someone who has never been there.  I also mentioned that “weird” and “dripping normal” didn’t count. (If you do not know what this means, I highly recommend looking them up as the explanation behind it is hilarious.)  Sam answered, “Well, changing pretty fast.  There’s a whole new influx of people.  They say that there’s 50-100 new people moving here every day.  So it’s definitely changing.  And unfortunately it’s losing a lot of what made Austin great.  A lot of great venues are closing down to make way for new, big condos for everybody to live in.  I would say to anyone who has never been here before, hopefully they can come and appreciate what made Austin, Austin.”  We started talking about some of the great venues in Austin so I asked where some of their favorite places to play were.  Sam said, “There’s tons of great places to play.  You know, there are places that won’t go anywhere.  The Continental Club, that’s where we had our album release party.  It was great.  White Horse, The Hole in The Wall, Sahara Lounge, those are the places where we really cut our teeth.”

This really gave me a great lead in to the next question I had for them.  Now that I knew where they liked to play, I wanted to know who they would want to play there with, past or present.  It was decided that at the top of the list for Sam were Hank Sr., George Jones, Waylon Jennings and Billy Joe Shaver.  Anthony and Sam had both grown up listening to them. “They were originals,” Sam added.  And all 3 of us decided that an Outlaw Tour featuring “The Highway Men” would certainly be a sight to be seen.

Since I am doing this whole project to really get the word out there about great new artists, I asked what was next on deck for the band.  They are so great that I want to let everyone know!  The Lonesome band is really getting involved in the festival circuit in the state of Texas.  They will be playing at the Peanut Festival in Floresville, Texas in October, as well as the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival in New Mexico.  Sam and Anthony explained to me that there are tons of small towns and cities in Texas that are all known for something.  Anthony clarified this, “They are all self-proclaimed.  Self-proclaimed sausage capital of the world.  Self-proclaimed cowboy capital of the world.”  As we were already on the topic of festivals, I decided to gain a little insight on one of the largest festivals in Austin – South By South-West – from a performers point of view. Sam explained, “It can be great but you really gotta watch which shows you do.  There are people who come to town and they want to take advantage of hungry musicians who are willing to play for anything.  But the actual official shows are awesome.  We are really hoping to get on some of those this year.”

It was time to have a little fun with these guys.  We had been having so much fun, I knew that they would be game.  I asked some rapid fire questions:

  1. Who eats the most CFS (chicken fried steak):  Sam (Anthony chimed in, “You know, to try the self-proclaimed world’s best chicken fried steak.”)
  2. Who’s a slave to coffee: Barrett
  3. Who has the most tattoos: Anthony
  4. Who takes the longest to get ready: The previous drummer and apparently the new drummer (we decided it was something to do with drummers in general).
  5. Who has the craziest ex-girlfriend story: “Speaking from personal experience, I would say me.”, Anthony

The last question I asked was the good ol’ standby; “What was the last photo you took with your phone?”  Anthony took a Guitar Center Screen Shot and Sam? Well, he took one of his best friend. “Me and my dog went dove hunting.  It was opening season and I took a picture of my dog with some birds she got for me.”

Be sure to look these guys up!  If you like what you hear, let them know!  They were so great to talk to and really nice guys.  The next time I am in Austin, they MAY even take me for that tattoo I wanted!  Their website is: http://www.thelonesomeband.com/ and follow them on Twitter at @TheLonesomeBand.  Also make sure to check out their Facebook page and like it: https://www.facebook.com/TheLonesomeBand.  If you have never heard this band before, that is all about to change.  Here is “Love I’ve Never Known” by The Lonesome Band:

Posted in Camo, Country Fashion, Country Music, Country News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Jean Jacket Girl

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Susie Krivak

Yes, I just referenced a Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. song.  The song itself is horrifyingly bad but it is very fitting for both the fashion feature as well as my music feature today.  Please don’t judge me.

After a fantastic weekend, it’s always so hard to come back to the office.  I had a couple of great evenings out with some great gals!  I visited a karaoke bar in my neighbourhood where I did not sing.  I am perfectly fine with admitting that I am much better suited for writing about music than participating in it as a singer. Thanks for an awesome time this weekend, ladies and helping me unwind!  You all know who you are.

Let’s get started.

CELEBRITY NEWS:

Hoping to Score:

It appears that Stanley Cup winner Theo Fleury has decided to follow in the footsteps of Chad Brownlee and is releasing a country music album.  Fleury, who is now a motivational speaker and an advocate for sexual abuse victims, has had a very difficult past.  A victim of abuse himself, Fleury succumbed to drug and alcohol abuse which eventually led to the end of his career.  The album entitled “I Am Who I Am” is scheduled to be released on October 23rd and the first single to be released is called “My Life’s Been A Country Song”.  This project is about Fleury’s struggles and experiences and he hopes that he can provide some comfort to victims of abuse.  Fleury is quoted as saying, “Maybe they find their own voice or it inspires them to start the process of healing.”

Digital Takedown:

Proving that he is STILL the King of Country Music, fans trying to purchase tickets for some upcoming shows actually crash the AXS Ticket System.  On Friday, thousands of fans tried to secure tickets for 2 dates in November in San Diego to see Brooks and the demand for seats was so high that the system couldn’t keep up, forcing it to crash.  Have no fear though, tickets will be re-released this Thursday via phone and online sales.  Be forewarned, if you think you are going to beat the digital rush, there will be no ticket sales at outlets or at the Valley View Casino Center box office.

Rise Up:

As if Dierks Bentley’s Music And Miles For Kids Fundraiser doesn’t prove how big a heart this guy has, doesn’t he go ahead and go one step further.  Bentley, whose annual event is in its 10th year, has released a limited-edition necklace to be released coinciding with the event.  The pieces are hand-made in Maine and are adorned with a gold bar with the word “Riser” stamped on them.  The necklace will come in a box along with a note of encouragement from the artist.  Only 100 pieces will be made and all proceeds from the sale of the jewellery will go to Music And Miles For Kids.  They are available on Bentley’s website for a very reasonable $79.00.  I may need to get one of these for myself:

COUNTRY FASHION:

Since we are moving in to fall (which means “jacket season”), it is only fitting that we discuss a country essential – the jean jacket.

The jean jacket saw it’s beginning sometime in the early 1900’s (it is suggested that it was around 1905).  It was called the “Levi Blouse”, as the style had been designed by Levi Strauss and Co.  It was developed to be a work coat and was intended to accompany the jeans that they already had in production.  By the late 1930’s the blouse started to be referred to as a jacket.

As time went on, Levi’s took the jean jacket from work wear and moved in to casual wear with the development of its western wear line.  But it wasn’t until a photo shoot featuring Marilyn Monroe wearing a jean jacket that this iconic piece became, well, iconic.  More and more celebrities began to wear the jacket.  With stars such as James Dean, Robert Redford and Debbie Harry being a huge fan of the style throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s, the jacket became a symbol of rebellion and individualism, making it highly desirable.

In the 1980’s and 1990’s people continued to wear jean jackets.  From the classic 2 chest pocket style, to oversized, jean jackets started to become decorated with studs, spikes, patches, embroidery and yes, even sequins.  As the ability to factory distress garments became more possible and more common starting in the late 1990’s, manufacturers were able to create jackets that were new but had a vintage look and feel.

Popular with celebrities and “normal” people alike, it is safe to say that the jean jacket has solidified its position in popular culture. Here are some of the hottest styles for fall of 2015:

                    

COUNTRY MUSIC:

This is the first time I have written an article on a female artist.  Despite Mr. Jason Aldean’s view on women in country music, there are some real power houses in the genre and this young lady is positioning herself to be one of them.  Christie Lamb has a voice that is intoxicating.  Listening to her, it is clear to see why she is often compared to Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert.

Originally born in England, Christie and her family emigrated to Australia when she was 6 years-old.  She started dance lessons at that time and by age 14 she was playing the guitar and song writing.  She has won a number of vocal awards and graduated from university in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in music.

This year, Christie won the CMAA Golden Guitar Award for Best New Talent.  Her recent album “All She Wrote” hit number 1 on the ARIA Hit Seekers Album Chart and number 2 on the ARIA Australia Artist Country Chart.  She’s had several singles that have hit top number 5 on radio charts , including 2 singles that have hit number 1.

Christie has toured with Australian performer Jon English, was part of the “Girls of Country” tour and is currently on a 30 date tour with Lee Kernaghan and The Wolfe Brothers.  Although this very talented young lady has a very rigorous touring schedule, she still took some time to answer a few questions for me.  So with that, here is “5 in 5 with Christie Lamb”:

What are the main differences between the Australian country music scene and the North American country music scene?  Christie:  I would say Australian Country music has been typically more of a cultural traditional country genre with songs about the bush and the huge open landscape we have here. It has started to evolve in the last few years and have more of an American influence. Pop country is starting to be accepted more readily with all of the new artists coming through.

When people talk about you, there are often references to you sounding like Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert.  Knowing the successes these women have had, how does it make you feel to be compared to them?  Christie: Carrie and Miranda are my two favorite female Country artists, so of course it’s a huge compliment. I have grown up listening to them and loving all their music. I do think I am similar in style to them, but I have my own tone and sound, which is rootsy and earthy and unmistakably me! I only hope I have successes anywhere near like these amazing ladies have had throughout their careers.

Right now you have a very hectic tour schedule.  What do you do to unwind?  Christie:  It’s rare to be home at the moment and be in my own bed, as I am part of two tours and just spent a month in Nashville writing. So to be honest, it’s not very exciting, but I love just hanging around at home in my pj’s and watching some tv and eating a home cooked meal.

What is the best part about touring with a group of men?  What is the worst part?  Christie:  Haha good question! The best part is the fact I am on tour with the nicest guys you could ever wish to meet. So down to earth and humble and easy to get on with and have a laugh with, it’s great!  The worst thing is they are practical jokers and I am afraid to fall to sleep in the tour bus in case they draw a moustache on me or video me or something worse! Lol

What is the last photo you took with your phone?  Christie:  A selfie of me and Lee Kernaghan backstage – have to be on the social media promo at all times! lol

Christie is an incredible artist.  You owe it to yourself to look her up.  She is on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christielambofficial) and Twitter (@christielambmus).  Be sure to visit her website as well: http://www.christielamb.com.  Here is something I think you will all enjoy!  It is “All She Wrote” by Christie Lamb:

Posted in Country Fashion, Country Music, Country News | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lonestar belt buckles and old faded Levis

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Susie Krivak

Well it is Friday folks! HELLO WEEKEND!  I have had one heck of a week and I plan to sleep in for the next 2 days.  It has been a busy time.

Things have been moving along swimmingly for the blog!  I am now an industry member of the Manitoba Country Music Association (MCMA), I’ve had almost 1000 views since August 3rd and the first t-shirt designs are ready to go!  I couldn’t be happier with the successes that I have been having with this thing, and I owe it all to you guys!  Thanks so much for your support of me and of new artists.

Now.  On with the show!

CELEBRITY NEWS:

A Salute to Soldiers:

There is an absolute connection between American country music artists and all branches of their military.  On September 16th, Brantley Gilbert performed “One Hell Of An Amen” at Chattanooga Unite: A Tribute on the River to pay respect to the soldiers who lost their lives during a shooting at a military recruiting centre and a Navy-Marine training centre in Chattanooga, TN in July.  Gilbert took a moment to honour the 5 victims and is quoted as saying, “Put your finger in the air one time.  Tell ‘em you love ‘em, that you miss ‘em, and we’ll see ‘em again soon.  God bless y’all, Chattanooga.”  During the concert, Lorri Wyatt, widow of one of the victims, spoke to the crowd and thanked them for their support and generosity during this difficult time.”

Music City Walk Of Fame Inductees:

If you’ve never been to Nashville, one thing you should take the time to go and see is the Music City Walk of Fame.  Located down town near Bridgestone Arena, It is home to a collection of over 65 polished stars that honour artists, industry executives and others that have made a contribution to the music industry and have some connection to Nashville.  Two of the latest inductees to the walk will be country music legend Johnny Cash, and Texan songstress, Miranda Lambert.  In a recent press release, Lambert thanked the City of Nashville and the Music City Walk of Fame for the honour.  She will be joining the ranks of powerhouse female artists such as Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Trisha Yearwood and Reba McEntire.  That is a pretty esteemed list.  Congratulations on this prestigious award, Miranda!

Clearing Things Up:

Blake Shelton is pretty much fodder for news every day (especially considering I am a die-hard BS’er). There has been a lot of rumours and speculation about his love life and downward spiral over the last few days.  From Gwen Stefani to Rhianna to needing rehab, Shelton took to Twitter this week to put things back in check for his followers.  The first one was to clear up is apparently blossoming love life.  Shelton tweeted this to 13.5 million followers:

Blake Deer Plot Tweet

Of course, we mustn’t forget his clever response to hearing that he has also hit “rock bottom” and is in desperate need of rehab:

Blake Rehab Tweet

I will give him this much; even if all of these rumours are true, the guy has one heck of a sense of humour about it! Give ‘em hell, Blake! 

COUNTRY FASHION:

Even my husband, who would not be what you would call “countrified”, has an amazing belt buckle.  Now, I should be more specific here.  Belt buckles in general came in to use around the 6th or 7th century.  I am referring to the “cowboy” belt buckle.

During the civil war, military buckles were used and they had a huge part in the way that cowboy buckles looked.  However, cowboy buckles themselves did not become popular until the early 20th century, when they began to grace Hollywood with their presence.

Most buckles told a story of the wearer.  They had their name on it or some symbol of who they were and who their family was.  Sometimes it even had a symbol of their occupation on it.  Contemporary buckles continue to do this.  Many buckles have flags on them or patriotic text so that the wearer can show their allegiance.  Some buckles have the wearers name or maybe it depicts a prize they received in a contest.

These interesting pieces can be made from a variety of materials.  From pewter, to silver, to copper or even bone, the varying designs and styles make them very collectible to some…including my Dad.  So much so, that he had a bar designed SPECIFICALLY to house his collection:

Buckles 3 Buckles 2

Buckles 1

COUNTRY MUSIC:

I was first told about TwoShine County just before their latest single dropped.  Not being from Calgary and being relatively new to this whole writing thins, I hadn’t heard of them.  Honestly, I am sure glad I did hear of them!  These 2 guys have incredible voices and a sound that is spectacular.

D&DEPK2 copy

Having been acquaintances for more than 10 years, Daron Schofield and Dennis Hann tended to cross paths in more of a songwriter/producer and artist kind of way.  Dennis’ punk/pop band at one time had one of the most requested songs on Calgary radio (“Rockstar”), which had been produced by Daron.  After repeatedly coming across one another, the relationship eventually took on a student/ teacher one when Dennis decided he wanted to transition in to country music.

Daron is originally from Vancouver, British Columbia and moved to Calgary.  His passion for music comes from his parents, who were also musicians.  Over the years, Daron has established himself as a respected and accomplished producer and songwriter in many circles.  That all aside, TwoShine County and his relationship with Dennis has become his focus.

Dennis also has his family to thank for his musical roots.  However, coming from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Calgary was a pretty big shock.  He had success with his band “For The Weekend” but decided to eventually come back to his country roots.

Their new single “Love This Song” Is available on iTunes and has been serviced to Canadian radio.  It has a great, light-hearted beat.  In fact I listened to it a few times back-to-back because, well, it “felt good”.  If you haven’t heard of them, you need to check them out!  They have opened for the likes of Dean Brody, Emerson Drive and Kip Moore.  They’ve even shared the stage with Blue Rodeo and the Sheepdogs.

These guys are very talented and were also awesome enough to answer some questions for me (which I always love).  Here you go – “8 questions for TwoShine County”:

You are both from different communities.  How did you end up in Calgary?

Daron:  I was born and raised in Vancouver, BC. That’s where my life and my music career started. I began my journey at a very young age, with many different musical instruments and it wasn’t long before I was playing in bands and writing songs. After my original project in Vancouver had run its course I was looking for a change of scenery and ended up moving to Calgary to start something new, with a completely blank slate. It wasn’t long before I was making connections and working in studios as a writer, session player and eventually a producer. I met Dennis when he was just a young lad. We ended up working together on a few projects and eventually came together to do some writing, which ended up becoming, TwoShine County.

Dennis:  I was born and raised in St. John’s, Newfoundland. All of my roots in country music sprouted there, and it’s really where I discovered my love and passion for music. At only 15 years old, my family made the decision to move to Alberta to pursue a better life. Upon arriving in Calgary, feeling intimidated by the new big city, and not knowing anyone and having to start over, it really made me focus on my music as a way to cope with the adversity of the change. Turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because the following years would take my dedication to music and song writing to an entirely new level. Upon growing into the music scene and community here, Calgary really started to feel like the right place to be, and to this day I still call Calgary home.

What are some of the things you miss about home?

Daron:  I miss the rain, the ocean and the Vancouver Canucks. Haha. Yes, I am truly Canadian. I do miss the laid back lifestyle of the West Coast, but I haven’t changed who I am or where I come from, most people who meet me, often comment or ask, “You’re from the West Coast aren’t you?” All of my family is back in BC…..so it is tough being away from them too. I’m definitely due for a visit….can you say….radio tour???

Dennis:  Growing up in St. John’s compared to Calgary, it really was like growing up in those “small towns” that you hear about. Everybody seemed to know everyone, and you really get to know every corner and area about the city. You really get attached to the feel and humble beginnings of a town like that, and that’s why I visit home every chance I get. I’ll proudly say I’ll be a true and true Newfoundlander until I die! And the ocean. Who wouldn’t miss that?!

What is your song writing process?

Dennis:  Anything goes!!! Leave no stone unturned. To boldly go where no man has gone before. Haha. But seriously we have a great dynamic. There’s no set formula or starting place. One of us will bring a guitar riff to the table, or lyrics….or even just a little hook. Then we get started. It doesn’t take too long to decide whether we have something exciting going on or something that we just need to finish, so that we can get it off our plate. The main thing is, we never throw anything out before we’ve given it a chance.

Creative differences – how do you settle them?

Daron:  We arm wrestle! Dennis works out a lot, but I have old man strength. Haha! Fortunately, when we get together to write, it really is a cohesive and easy process. We are both pulling towards the same vision, which definitely makes song writing a fun, creative and inspiring thing! We draw from ALL of our influences and it somehow comes together to create a unique and identifiable sound.

“Love This Song” was just released on Monday (Aug 31).  When you send a new song out in to the world, what are some of the thoughts that go through your mind?

Dennis:  Sending a song out really is like letting one of your babies out into the world, so nerve racking, but watching one of your creations grow and find legs, especially on radio, is an immensely rewarding experience. When we lock ourselves up in the studio to make new music, the excitement of knowing we are going to release these to the world and share them with music lovers is ever present. If only we could release a song a day.

When you are on the road, what one thing is a “must have” (BESIDES an instrument or an electronic device)?

Dennis:  Daron typically takes the wheel for the entirety of our radio tours, leaving me to man the passenger seat. And if you’ve ever driven for hours across a country in a vehicle, you’d know the importance of having your trusty pillow handy! Catching much need z’s on the road between shows and cities is certainly a lot easier when you can use one of those babies! I just hope Daron doesn’t crash while I’m sleeping…

Daron:  Coffee… Coffee… Coffee… Coffee. How else can I stay awake and keep my eyes on the road while Dennis is catching his beauty sleep? When we finally reach our destination, if there’s no good Family Guy episodes on the TV, then a good book is also a necessity!

Rapid fire….

Who is the grouchiest in the morning? Dennis

Who has the strangest sense of humour? I think we’re tied… Definitely tied.

Who has the most speeding tickets? Daron, but I am trying daily to beat that record.

Who is a better cook? On the road our trusty redhead friend Wendy is actually our personal daily chef.

Who takes the longest to get ready? If there’s a deadline….Dennis. If we have all the time in the world…..Daron

What is the last photo you took with your phone?

Daron:  My cat, coolest cat on the planet.

Dennis:  A strawberry cheesecake. God I love cheesecake.

Take the time to check TwoShine County on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/TwoShineCounty), on Twitter (@TwoShineCounty) and their website (www.twoshinecounty.com).  Here is a gift from me to you on this fantastic Friday – “Make It With You” by TwoShine County:

 

Posted in Country Fashion, Country Music, Country News | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Her Low Rider Jeans Ride A Little Too Low

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Susie Krivak

Well, CCMA week is over, but I have opted to continue this week with covering some other Canadian artists.  I promise American friends, I will get back to some awesome talent from other parts.  This week will not have a “Riser Friday”.  In fact it will be “Riser Tuesday AND Friday”.  I have been very fortunate to have had a great response to the blog, with readers and artists alike.  So, it may very well continue with 2 artists a week!  If you have any suggestions for artists that you would like to see on here, let me know and I will touch base with them to see what we can put together.

In some exciting blog news, I am working on some t-shirt designs for Red, White and Country!  My wonderful and talented friend, Teena Lee, is helping me work out some of the graphic work.  She is actually the creator of the new banner you see on here! I will have some shirts for sale here in Winnipeg and I also have a Café Press site set up so that those of you who aren’t in my home-town can still wear them.  The site will have hats, t-shirts, sweatshirts, water bottles and other really great merchandise for sale all with the Red, White and Country designs on them!  As soon as it is ready to go, I will let you all know!  I am so excited for you guys to see them!

On to the news…

CELEBRITY NEWS:

I am not doing 3 pieces today.  I thought in light of the fact that the CCMA’s are over for another year, that I would recap the winners for you!  If you didn’t watch it, some of the highlights were: Tim Hick’s killing it, Thomas Rhett singing as sweet as can be, Florida Georgia Line tearing it up, and Johnny Reid…well…being Johnny Reid…AMAZING!  Jessi Cruikshank was fantastic as a hostess!  I actually laughed out loud at most of her stuff last night.  Kudos to her on a job well done!  So, here are you CCMA 2015 Artist Award Winners (courtesy of www.ccma.org):

FANS’ CHOICE AWARD                                                                 
Johnny Reid
FEMALE ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Jess Moskaluke
MALE ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Gord Bamford
GROUP OR DUO OF THE YEAR
High Valley
SINGLE OF THE YEAR
Where A Farm Used To Be – Gord Bamford
VIDEO OF THE YEAR
Upside Down – Dean Brody
SONGWRITER(S) OF THE YEAR
Where A Farm Used To Be
(Written By: Gord Bamford, Buddy Owens, Phil O’Donnell, Performed By: Gord Bamford)
ROOTS ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Lindi Ortega
INTERACTIVE ARTIST OR GROUP OF THE YEAR
Brett Kissel
RISING STAR
Madeline Merlo
CCMA DISCOVERY AWARD
Raquel Cole

For a complete list of the winners, please see the CCMA website.

COUNTRY FASHION:

Yes.  Jeans are a wardrobe staple.  But there is one style in particular that warrants a discussion all on their own – bootcut jeans.  The story of the bootcut jean is an interesting one.  It was inspired by the pants worn by sailors in the 1850’s.  They were designed for them to be able to wear their boots with no problem.  They became used by ranchers and cowboys because they were comfortable but afforded them the ankle room they required for their boots.  In the 1940’s, jean manufacturers started bringing in cowboys as consultants for creating the famous style.  If anyone knew what went in to creating the ideal pair of jeans, it was them.  In 1941, Lee Jeans enlisted Sally Rand (wife of a famous rodeo star) to help improve the fit if their jeans.  She restructured the pant to have a tighter fit with a slight flare at the bottom to fit her husband’s boots, thus creating the “bootcut jean”.

The pant leg openings expanded through the 1960’s and 1970’s to a bell bottom.  However, this style only lasted until the 1980’s, when the boot cut style made a resurgence.  The style, which is still extremely popular today, now comes in a variety of washes and denims.  From the standard to jeweled, from a low-rise (below the navel) to a regular rise (at the natural waist) which is the standard.  They are available in all price points, making them accessible to everyone.  Here are a couple of then and now photos of the beloved bootcut:

                   

COUNTRY MUSIC:

There is something about being from the Prairies that makes you a little different from people in other areas of the country.  Admittedly, Canadians in general are known for being extremely polite and each area has something that they are known for.  I would have to say, having travelled from coast-to-coast of our magnificent homeland, that Prairie folk are not only friendly, but they are very open.  Most of us will tell you our life stories if you want to know it over a cup of coffee and without much coaxing.  Codie Prevost is no different.  I’ve been very lucky thus far to have gotten to speak to many wonderful and wonderfully talented people and Codie most certainly fits in to both of these categories.  Of course, I sort of knew what to expect.  His reputation had preceded him.  When I had mentioned to other artists that I was going to have the opportunity to talk with this Saskatchewan native, I was told (on more than one occasion, I might add) “Oh!  He is such a nice guy!  Just wait!”  Honestly…I couldn’t agree more.

From the get-go, it was plain to see that Codie had come from a small town.  Although he has had the opportunity to open for names such as Florida Georgia Line, Big & Rich and Joe Nichols, Codie comes across as relaxed and easy to talk to.  He is so down-to-earth that I honestly felt more like I was having coffee with a good friend from town rather than an award nominated and award-winning country artist.  Being from a smaller town myself, I asked Codie to describe his hometown of Archerwill to me.  “It’s a small town in Saskatchewan.  It’s basically about 300 people.  It’s your typical small town; there’s a bar, which actually, my mom owns the bar, then there’s a post office, a Co-op gas station, a Co-op grocery store and a Co-op farm supply store and that’s what basically makes up a small town.  It’s such a great place to grow up.  Everybody is so friendly and the slogan for the town is “Where you’re only a stranger once”.  I definitely believe there’s some truth to that.”  Having had my own experiences in rural Saskatchewan (Strasbourg, to be exact), I spoke to him about being able to walk down the middle of main street at 6 in the evening.  Codie laughed, “Oh yeah!  You can do that in Archerwill for the most part.  It’s a pretty quiet town, in the evenings especially.”

Growing up on a farm, you’d think that it would be instinctual for Codie to gravitate toward country music.  He learned how to play the guitar from his Mom and Uncle – and this WAS country.  But in a turn of events, his first band was actually a punk band. I was curious to discover why Codie made his way back to country.  “I had a close uncle of mine pass away suddenly and he loved country,” Codie started. “He always played guitar.  He lived in Calgary but whenever he’d come down, he’d bring his acoustic guitar and I just remember being at family functions and he’d pull out the guitar and it was just awesome having live music at those events.  So when he passed away, I was performing in the punk rock band in high school and my family and I were getting ready to travel to Calgary to attend his funeral.  I went in to a guitar store there; I had saved up some money from working on road construction the summer before so I had about $1100 saved up and I was really hoping to buy an electric guitar on that trip for the rock band because things were starting up.  We were starting to play more and more.  But something happened when I went in the music store.  It was my Dad who actually talked me in to going in to the acoustic room.  I picked up this Takamine which is a brand of acoustic guitar.  I did one strum and I just knew that I had to buy that acoustic guitar.  So that day I bought it and after the funeral, I came home and learned “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny cash and ever since, [I’ve] been playing country music.  I mean, it kinda makes sense as to where I came from.  I grew up on a farm my whole life.  And so when we’re working on tractors and on the farm, there’s always a country music radio station playing.  It’s definitely where my roots are so to get back to that was definitely a great thing.”  Codie continued, “I guess that’s one thing I’ve always said.  People ask me why I do music and I say, ‘Back when I was 14, I watched my Mom and my Uncle play at family reunions.  There is nothing like the smile it could bring to people’s faces with just a guitar and a voice.’  When I was 14, that’s why I picked it up and started teaching myself to play and still to this day that’s why I do it.  You know, there is no better feeling than being at a concert and somebody in the crowd is laughing at a song you’ve written or laughing at a joke you’re telling, or maybe feeling emotional toward a song that is a little more personal and just connecting with an audience on that level.  That for me is where the reward is in music.”

These rewards have not been without sacrifice.  Artists in larger cities have things more accessible to them; like more places to play and more people to hear them play.  Coming from a small town presents its own set of challenges when trying to start a music career.  Codie is no exception to that rule.  “I think anything you want to do in life, if you want to make it as far as you possibly can, you just got to look at it as it’s not going to be an easy road.  The main thing to remember is that if you love to do it you can always find a way to make it happen.  So when I was starting out, I was in high school and I graduated from high school and my Dad actually talked me in to going to college for a year.  I really wanted to pursue music; I just wasn’t sure how I was going to do it.  You know, growing up in Saskatchewan in a small town, not a lot of other people played music or wanted to pursue that as a career, I was kinda the one out of the bunch,” Codie laughed.  “So I ended up going to college for a year.  Through that year at college, I entered a talent contest and I ended up meeting this guy Al Leblanc.  We started writing songs together because he was working in a recording studio in a small town in Saskatchewan with a guy named Rory who had become a quadriplegic.  Rory was a musician himself and so what they did is they built him a recording studio that he could run just using his eyes as the mouse which was super incredible.” This was just the beginning of the relationship between Codie and Al.  “So Al was helping him out at this studio and Al had been at the talent contest where I was performing.  They were looking for artists with original material and I had been writing songs since I was about 16.  So I had played a couple of my originals and ended up making it to the finals that night.  Al came up after the show and said, ‘Man, I loved what you did.  I’d love if you came down to the studio and we could write together and try to record a few things.’  So I went the studio a couple weeks later and [we] started working together. I did that maybe 2 times, 3 times a month where we’d get together and write songs.  Eventually I just felt the need to ask him if he’d be interested in helping me book some shows and he said yes to that.  Next thing I knew I was playing in small town bars for a hundred bucks a night.  Nobody could really say no because they’d sell 5 beer and pay for the band.”  Codie and I both laughed, mainly because we both knew this to be true of small town bars. “It didn’t take a lot to convince them to get me into perform.  But it was great!  I know it was only a hundred dollars but at the same time when you’re starting out you really need to get experience playing and just get in front of crowds.  So every weekend I had 2-3 shows and it was non-stop.  I was playing every night.  I did this for about a year and I felt the need that I really want to record music now, I think that’s the next step in this music business and my music career.”

Codie continued his story, “I was taking vocal lessons in Saskatoon from a lady named Jessica Robinson and she had been recording down in Nashville with a guy named Steve Fox.  I asked her, ‘Would you be interested in hooking me up with Steve?  I’d love to work down in Nashville on my first album.’  Steve was in Saskatchewan writing with her and came out to a performance I was doing and said, “I’d love to work with you on your first album. Basically what he told me was I would need about $20-25,000 to be able to record this first album in Nashville.  So there was the first mountain.  I was like, well how am I going to get $25,000?  What happened next is I put together a business plan and Al helped out with it and I went in and saw my local bank and surrounding banks.  I just wasn’t having any luck.  I was about 19 years-old at the time and really didn’t have any collateral to my name to put up to be able to get this $25,000.  So I went to a small community near Archerwill, Tisdale, and met with a group called Community Futures. They fund rural business in rural Saskatchewan to keep it thriving.  I sat down with the ladies there and they were impressed with the 5 year business plan that we had put together and they invited me back a week later with my guitar because they were having a board meeting.  They said, ‘We can’t really make the decision here today.  We need all the board here because we’ve never invested in something like this.’  So a week later I showed up with my guitar and sat down in the board meeting that day and played a couple of songs that were going to be on that album.  It was a week after that I got a phone call that said that I was approved for my first small business loan which enabled me to travel to Nashville and record the first CD.  So it’s kind of a long story but that is basically where it started.”  I loved hearing this story from Codie.  We talked about how sometimes we forget that there are things in place in our communities to help people get a start.  He replied, “I got a Facebook message from another musician and he’s like, ‘Oh hey!  I just wanted to let you know I got a small business loan through Community Futures for music.’  He was like, ‘I read what you did.’ And that is so cool for me to read, looking back on where it all started.”

The hard work and sacrifice has certainly paid off for Codie with huge dividends.  He has been nominated for numerous awards (both SMCA and CCMA) and has been the recipient of several awards.  Being as I have yet to win any awards for anything (scratch that, I was a finalist in a beauty pageant in 1999, but that is a whole other story); I wanted to know what it feels like to reach this level of success.  So I asked Codie about the first time he was ever nominated.  “It was for Rising Star at the Saskatchewan Country Music Awards.  It was definitely one of those moments where the hairs on your arm stand up.  You kinda know where everything started and that’s what’s so cool about coming from a small community and kinda going through a lot of hoops to get that flowing and doing a lot of that stuff.  When something like that happens, there are no words for the amount of appreciation you have and the thankfulness to be nominated and up for an award like that.  When that first happened, I’ll never forget it.  It almost makes you want to do that much more stuff and further yourself that much more because you know you’ve made it to this milestone.  Now you wanna get to that next point and that next milestone.  Let’s just say it was incredible and it was something I will never forget.  That was actually the first award I won and just knowing that my family was there and they supported me through all of that and just the people who are closest to me and my manager Al, you know everybody who was a part of it.  It’s just so incredible when you have that many people to share something like that with.”  That was his first one.  So I followed up by asking does that feeling change as he is nominated more and more?  Codie answered, “When a nomination comes in, I am blown away.  I always think of it like ‘I’m just this guy from Archerwill!  How did I get nominated for this?” I guess that is still in my mind – when you are just a small town kid and that’s who you grew up as.  I remember being nominated for the CCMAs last years for album of the year.  I was up against Dean Brody and Brett Kissel and Tim Hicks and all these country artists that have record labels behind them.  I was sitting in the crowd, and again, it’s one of those moments when the hairs on your arms stand up.  I am sitting there with Al (who I am still working with) and it’s just an incredible ride, and my wife and I look around and I’m like, ‘Man! This is incredible to be sitting here and just to be nominated in here with these people.’  You know, words can’t explain the feeling you get.”

Understanding that Codie is an award-winning artist and a seasoned performer, I couldn’t help but wonder if there were any moments when he still gets a case of the nerves before performing.  He told me of a recent experience where he did get some nerves, “Actually I just did one that I was pretty nervous for.  There was a massive Children’s Hospital fundraiser in Saskatoon.  They’re putting up a new children’s hospital which is incredible.  They got Garth Brooks in and so basically I was the opening act for Garth Brooks, who was speaking and performing at this event.  I have had Garth Brooks’ CD’s and music in my house since I was probably about 8 years-old and to just know that he is one of the best entertainers in the country music business in the world.  Just being there and performing on that stage, I was nervous, like definitely, the first couple of songs I was really nervous and then I kinda got more comfortable after that.  But you know, I think there’s something about being nervous that also keeps you on your best game at the same time.”  I asked him if he got to meet the man himself, “I met him,” Codie said, “He’s just a great guy and down-to-earth.”  Codie went on further to explain to me more about the Children’s hospital project.  “They’re putting in a child fun zone in the Saskatchewan Children’s Hospital and it’s the first one in Canada.  They have 11 of them in the U.S. already but the first one they are putting in Canada is going in Saskatoon.  So it was amazing being a part of it.”  His perspective has certainly changed over the last year, he admitted, “My wife and I had our first baby girl in November so that kind of changes a lot of things for me, you know.  It just makes me more aware when things like that in the community are happening and how incredible it really is.”

His philanthropic ways do not stop at the Children’s Hospital.  Codie is also helping out the North Battleford Humane Society by donating a “Cruisin’ with Codie” night, where auction winners will receive dinner with the singer, photo opportunities, some swag and a few songs.  His friend Brock Andrews (who works with Fender) has come along for the ride to perform with Codie and Fender has donated a guitar to be auctioned off.  “It turned in to this massive thing!” Codie said of the event.

Another cause that he is involved in is the “Imagine No Bullying” tour.  It was started by his friend Stephen McGuire and they have been working with the Red Cross to spread awareness about bullying to different communities in the province.  Stephen had invited Codie to be a part of it and it took off from there.  Stephen started getting calls and messages from people, asking him to bring the event to their community.  He then asked Codie if he would like to be a part of it.  I asked Codie why the interest? He replied, “I grew up in a small town.  Bullying is everywhere.  I was bullied probably somewhere along the line.  I think everybody sometime throughout their life has been bullied or they’re the bully.  It’s about creating awareness and making a difference in all these communities.”  They go in to the schools and put on a performance and they are joined by a representative from the Red Cross to give the facts.  Codie firmly believes that this has made a difference.

After meeting the “business” side of Codie, I decided to check out his sense of humour.  I asked him who he would pick to play him in a movie made about his life.  Codie laughed, “That’s a good one!  Who would I pick…”  At first he seemed conflicted, but then replied, “Maybe Ben Affleck?  I don’t know why that came to mind.”  I suggested the reasons that maybe Ben Affleck would be a good choice – they are both talented, have a great sense of humour, are self-starters  and both want to give back.  That sealed the deal, “I’m going to go with that choice!”  Naturally I moved on to my “finishing move” and asked what the last photo he took with his phone was.  He answered with an obvious smile, “It was of my daughter.  She just started walking.  It was actually last night.  She’s 9 months old.  She can make it a good 20 yards then she loses balance.  But she’s doing pretty good.”  He was awesome enough to share that photo of Lyriq with me:

FullSizeRender

What’s up next for Codie?  A lot of travelling!  He will be heading to L.A. in October, as he is working on a new album to release in the beginning of next year.  He’s also heading to Australia for the second time this year in November.  Codie’s first tour there was in January of this year.  He ended up signing with a record label and his visit will have him playing at some festivals there.

Follow Codie on Twitter: @codieprevost, on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/codieprevostmusic  or check out his website: www.codieprevost.com

I am really looking forward to hearing more from this really nice guy who made me feel like a friend.  I can’t wait for his new album to be released, but in the meantime here is “All Kinds Of Crazy” by Codie Prevost:

Posted in Country Fashion, Country Music, Country News | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

She Can Look Sexy In a Touque

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Susie Krivak

When I first thought about writing this blog, I wasn’t sure how Canadian I wanted to be.  I mean, I love country in general; I don’t really care where it comes from.  The more and more I listen to new artists, I can see there is definitely a slight difference between American country and Canadian country.  I maintain that I love them both!  That being said, I had actually toyed with the idea of not playing my maple leaf card too hard.  Would people find it off-putting?  Would Americans feel like they aren’t getting enough recognition?  At the end of the day, I AM Canadian and have decided to let “le drapeau” fly!  Don’t worry American friends, I have A LOT of love for you and I promise you will get just as much air time as my Canadian ones.  It’s just…well…this week is kind of a big deal for us.

As CCMA week continues so does my all-Canadian jamboree!!  I hope you enjoy what I have in store for you today because heaven knows it’s RISER FRIDAY (not to be confused with “Rider Friday”, Craven Jamboree participants/ Roughrider fans)!

 CELEBRITY NEWS:

Canadian Country Music Hall Of Fame:

In Halifax this weekend, in a private industry event, Dianne Leigh and the late Elizabeth (Ma) Henning will be honoured as the 2015 inductees to the Canadian Country Music Hall Of Fame.  An earlier press release stated that Leigh, who will be attending the ceremony, played the drums in Patsy Cline’s road band.  She also has recorded in Nashville, has played the Opry stage and is “one of Canada’s first female country artists to earn national recognition.”

Henning settled in Winnipeg where she opened “Ma’s Corral” at The Down’s Hotel.  She is also responsible for launching The Downs record label, The Downs Publishing Company and she lead the team that put together the first televised production of the CCMA Awards, which was broadcast by Global.

Giving Back to the Halifax Community:

Calgary Duo TwoShine County took some time out of their busy CCMA schedule on Thursday to lend a hand at the Souls Harbour Rescue Mission.  The 2 members, Dennis Hann and Daron Schofield, said that their manager had helped at a previous fundraiser for the mission and they jumped at the opportunity to serve up some sandwiches and some dining music.  Schofield was quoted as saying, “Music is a universal language that just kind of connects everybody together.  It doesn’t even matter what genre or type of music or walk of life you come from.”  Guests of the mission were surprised and pleased with the event; because for many of the guests and staff, this will be the only opportunity they will get to partake in any of the CCMA activities.  Be sure to stay tuned to the blog.  Next week I will be giving you a little peek in to who these guys are.  Judging from this, these are 2 artists whose hearts are as big as their talent.

Who Is Jessi Cruickshank?

The host of this year’s CCMA Awards is Jessi Cruickshank.  But who is she?  Born in an A&W in Calgary, Cruickshank actually grew up in Vancouver.  Both her mother and sister have been involved in the television business; her mother hosted a show called Alive: The Picture of Health and her sister is a reporter and anchor for a station in Seattle.  Although she had small rolls in commercials and made-for-TV films as a child, she was one of the original seven co-hosts of the MTV series MTV Live.  She now lives in Los Angeles and is the Canadian Correspondent in L.A. for eTalk and has joined them for coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival for the past couple of years.  Most recently, Cruickshank’s Canadian work was as host of the game show Canada’s Smartest Person.

COUNTRY FASHION:

Ok, I realize that this is not necessarily “country” fashion but this company is Canadian and they also happen to be located in Nova Scotia, home to the CCMA Awards this year.  So rather than do something really country, I decided to give props to a small company who is gaining some momentum.

New Scotland Clothing Company was started late last year by brothers Kevin and Scott Saccary.  The guys not only wanted to start something of their own, but they wanted to develop something that showed their love of their Scottish roots, their love for curling and of course, their love for their home province.  According to an article in the Chronicle Herald back in April, the brothers are still working full-time jobs while the project gets off the ground.  They are both very surprised by the popularity of the line.  They currently have a couple of locations that are selling the brand and they also have an online shop.  I think it is safe to say that these down-home guys will probably have to draw straws to see who is going to quit their job first to take on the business full-time.  Please take some time to check them out at http://newscotlandclothing.ca/.  Taking a look at some of these styles, I think it may be time for this Prairie girl to show her New Scotland heritage:

    Lion Women's Racerback Tank - Dark Heather

COUNTRY MUSIC:

Not many people are aware of the fact that there was one season of Canada’s Got Talent and know that Ivan Daigle is a country singer who was a finalist.  How this happened and how he didn’t win, I am not really sure because he is fantastic!  His traditional country sound is so familiar and comforting.  It is sincere and it is obvious that this is not for show.  Take a look at any of the clips of him from CGT and you can see that it is genuinely who is. So…who is he?

Ivan, originally from Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia, started writing music at a very young 10 years-old.  In 2012, he was on Canada’s Got Talent and was the only representative of country music on the show.  He ended up going all the way to the finals. The show has led to some high-profile events for Ivan, including the Cavendish Beach Music Festival, The New Brunswick Provincial Exhibition and a number of engagements at Casino New Brunswick.  Ivan took some time to answer some questions for me (for which I am very grateful)!  Here is “5 in 5 with Ivan Daigle”:

  1.  When you are feeling down, what cheers you up?  Ivan: I’m Rarely down but when I am I like to throw myself into music – Looking for new shows contacting new venues, Planning new songs to do, revamping set lists, going over new songs that I’m writing to try to improve them…. it’s a never-ending storm of things to do
  2. What is something you have always wanted and did you get it? Ivan:  Always wanted to Record in Nashville and I Recorded in Nashville 2013 at County Q productions. And wrote with a HIT songwriter: in this case “Phil O’Donnell”  (who hails originally from a little place called Norton, New Brunswick) co-writer of Blake Shelton’s “Doin What She Likes” and George Strait’s 60th # 1 hit “Give it all we got Tonight” – What an honour to meet him, talk to him and write with him – he’s just a MUSICAL explosion!
  3. What’s it mean to be a Maritimer? Ivan:  Maritimer; a put-your-back-into-everything-you-do type of person/ ain’t afraid to shovel/ ain’t afraid to help/ we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps but we’re always there and we’ve got your back!
  4. What is the best piece of advice you have ever gotten? Ivan:  I met My Bass Player, Warren Butland, at the Venue and we were unloading our gear, I turned to him and said “Man I don’t like playing here – I think next time they call I’ll tell them we’re booked somewhere else” he turned to me and simply said “There’s a LOT of Guys sitting at home tonight wishing they were doing what we’re doing right now”. Since that Day I’ve rarely turned down a show – those few words made me appreciate what I do so much more and appreciate how people are still coming out to see us after all these years.
  5. What is the last photo you took with your phone? Ivan:  The last photo I took was of my newly refurbished Boots – I wore them COMPLETELY out and they look good as new Thanks to Hiltz Shoe Repair, Dartmouth, NS.

Ivan has the ability to entertain fans of all ages, engaging the whole crowd in a high energy show.  I had the opportunity to catch him on the MediaWorks “Live Off the Floor” webcast (which included past blog interviewees Andrew Frelick and Doug Folkins).  If you didn’t see it live, I highly recommend checking out the recording.  It was fantastic!  Be sure to follow this guy on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ivan.daigle?fref=ts&ref=br_tf), on Twitter (@IvanDaigle) and check out his website (www.ivandaigle.com) for all of his upcoming events!  He just posted this song a couple of weeks ago but it so awesome I HAD to share it! Here is “Ready Or Crazy Or Not” by Ivan Daigle:

Posted in Country Fashion, Country Music, Country News | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I’ve Got Country in my Blood

Posted on September 8, 2015 by Susie Krivak

It is CCMA week in Halifax, Nova Scotia this week and yours truly is not there sadly.  Oh well, maybe next year in London, Ontario.  I will make it happen!

Keeping this in mind, this week’s blog posts will pay homage to my home and native land, Canada. If you are from the U.S. or somewhere else and weren’t aware that we had AMAZING talent here, you are about to have your eyes opened.  We are more than just hockey and Tim Horton’s.  Canada has a wealth of country talent, only a portion of which the rest of the world knows.  It is time that changed!

Let’s take a look at what’s going on!

CELEBRITY NEWS:

CCMA Presenters Announced: 

On Friday (September 4th), the presenters for the CCMA Award show were announced.  Among them will be Alan Doyle, Jess Moksaluke, Chad Brownlee, Lindsay Ell, Tim Hicks and Bobby Wills.  Florida Georgia Line will be there not only to perform, but to present the Fan’s Choice Award.  Among this country royalty will be Canadian actors Jonny Harris, Susan Kent and Keshia Chanté.  The show will be aired on CMT Canada on Sunday, September 13th at 10pm ET/7pm PT and will be hosted by Jessi Cruickshank.

Brett Kissel on His Birthday Surprise:

You may or may not know that 25 year-old Alberta native Brett Kissel is going to be a father!  In an interview with ET Canada, Kissel beamed, “It was on my birthday, my 25th birthday and (Cecilia) said, ‘I got something for you,’ and handed me a present.  It was a picture of our dog Charlie…and it says, ‘You’re going to be a Dad!’ You’ve got a pretty proud soon to be parent right here!”  Kissel, who is up for 4 CCMA nominations this year, told everyone (including his family) the good news via YouTube.  Brett didn’t trust anyone to not spill the beans so he and his wife decided to tell everyone at once.  All the best to Brett and wife Cecilia!

Irving Oil Fan Fest:

If you are fortunate enough to be heading out to Halifax for CCMA week, be sure to check this out. This free event will feature 15 of the biggest Canadian country music stars.  Fans will also have the opportunity to meet, greet and have their picture taken with their favorite artists.  Country Music Week and artist merchandise will be available for purchase at the event.  So.  Who will be there, you ask?  Only Autumn Hill, Paul Brandt, Dean Brody, Emerson Drive, High Valley, Wes Mack, Steven Lee Olsen, Bobby Wills, Gord Bamford, Chad Brownlee, Tim Hicks, Brett Kissel, Jess Moksaluke, MacKenzie Porter and Tebey.  Very Impressive.  This is a show that will NOT disappoint!

 COUNTRY FASHION:

If you have ever been to Calgary (or if you have never been to Calgary but have heard of it), you more than likely know that in that city there is an abundance of western clothing stores and suppliers.  The oldest and probably most notable of them is Riley & McCormick.  The store was opened in 1901 to supply Calgary and the surrounding area. Keep in mind, Alberta didn’t incorporate until 1905.  So technically it was there before Alberta was actually there!  In 1912, they started supplying the Calgary Stampede with its animal supplies and has been a fixture there ever since.  The company has a very strong historical and important background:

  • Father Lacombe used to go there for orphanage supplies.
  • They sent military saddles during the world wars.
  • They provided a presentation cowboy outfit for Prince Charles.
  • They provided saddles for Edward Prince of Wales.

Eneas McCormick was also a founder of the Cowboy Protective Association.  This important organization existed to fight for the financial benefit of injured rodeo riders.

They have an online shop as well as their stores in Downtown Calgary and at the Calgary Airport.  They have everything from hats to bandanas:

Calgary White Straw Hat - Click Image to Close  Buckaroos Men's Boots - Click Image to Close

Take some time to check them out:  www.realcowboys.com

COUNTRY MUSIC:

To most people, Doug Folkins would not really be considered a “country” artist.  But it is undeniable that there are hints of country that run throughout his music.  Harmonica, fiddle, acoustic guitar, it is plain to see why Doug is skilled at writing for the country genre.

If you go on Doug’s Facebook page, you will see this description of his music, “Smooth rolling Americana with an Irish chaser.”  I couldn’t agree more!  You have to admit that no matter your musical inclination, there is something about that description that puts a smile on your face.  It certainly did for me.  Moreover, I felt like I instinctively understood what that meant.

Doug has spent over the last decade writing, producing and recording his own music.  He is a member of the CCMA, the BCCMA and he is the Canadian representative for the Global Songwriters Connection.  Not only has he written for his own projects, he has written and co-written songs that have been recorded by several artists.  Though his own endeavours have typically been in the Celtic/ Celtic pop genre, he has been taking some time to focus primarily on song writing, a lot of which has been country.  I was fortunate enough to have a chat with Doug a while back about success, mentors and “showing up”.

Originally from Sussex, New Brunswick, Doug made the move out to British Columbia many years ago, making his home on Vancouver Island.  A forestry grad from the University of New Brunswick, he decided to take a job where there was work.  According to Doug, “We were getting job offers before we were done school.”  So, like many of his classmates, he made the move.  He may have made his life in British Columbia and he openly admits that the weather and the fact there is no snow are huge pluses, there are things that he misses about home. “Family is first and foremost.  And there is a hospitality I’ve never seen anywhere else.”  I smiled when he said this because I know this to be a correct assessment.  There really is a way of life in the Maritimes that others will just never understand unless they visit.

Because of this east coast life, I wanted to talk to Doug about influences and what inspires him to write.  He obviously identifies as a Celtic pop artist, looking toward artists such as Great Big Sea and The Pogues as influences.  He openly admits to having that Celtic inspiration, “Scottish and Irish music are similar but different and they both have some characteristics of country.”  Although these were inspirations when he began and have carried through, I asked him if his inspiration changes as he matures.  He emphatically replied, “Absolutely it changes!”  Based on that reaction I asked how it had changed.  In true story-teller fashion, Doug came back in a softer voice and said, “Now I listen a lot.  It’s more about the conversations with people”.

No matter what kind of artist you are; a writer a painter, a songwriter, there are a lot of things about success that people don’t understand.  Doctors and lawyers go to school, learn their profession, go to work and they are “judged” based on their ability to do their job.  Their work isn’t subjective to taste – they are either good at their job or they aren’t.  Doug and I spoke a little about success, “There is a lot of iceberg under the water when it comes to success that people don’t see.  They see what you’ve achieved, but they don’t see all the things that you don’t achieve.  You get turned down and rejected, the hard work, the things you’re not doing because you’re writing songs, or you’re practicing your guitar or you’re playing shows or rehearsing.   You see that Facebook post that says, ‘A-HA!  You got nominated for a BCCMA this year!’  You see the congratulations but they don’t see all the times you were beating your head against the wall because someone didn’t like your song.”

I wanted to explore this a little further with Doug.  He had been so open and honest.  So I decided to ask him what he does when he isn’t feeling “up to par” (a fitting term because earlier in our conversation Doug had related song writing to golf).  “This is going to seem kind of silly,” he started, “But I have to say you get a little therapy from talking with other people who do what you do.  I call up people who I trust, that I know.”  Doug has such a positive attitude; it is hard to imagine that there are times when he feels down.   He said, “Here’s the thing with songs when you get turned down; sometimes you get turned down by people that are just not qualified to turn you down.”  It takes a thick skin to be in a business where it is subjective to taste.  Doug has his own way of dealing with it, “I think call a co-writer that is going through the same thing and say, ‘Oh man you know, all of this happened.’ And you get another story.  And you pick yourself back up because success could happen next week.  There is no sense in stopping when you ‘re almost there.  You never know when you are almost there.”  We started talking about famous songwriters and some of the challenges they have had and some of the things they have faced.  Tom Douglas was ready to give it all up before he had success with Miranda Lambert’s “House that Built Me”.  Will Rambeaux had a music executive hurl a cassette across a room claiming the song was garbage.  Doug laughed, “Just because someone rejects it violently doesn’t mean it’s not a good song.  If you really believe in it, play it for someone else.”  Incidentally, that song was thrown in disgust was Faith Hill’s first hit “Wild One”.

Keeping all of this at top of mind, I wanted to know how Doug saw his life.  I asked him, if he had to describe the last 10 years, how would he do it?  “About 10 years ago I started writing down goals, so I have been really goal driven.  I don’t always achieve what I write down on a piece of paper but I work toward it. I try to do a little every day to work towards those goals.  In a funny little way it has been a little bit like a ladder or mountain in that you achieve these certain plateaus and then you reset your goals and reset your focus.  You can always go up and you can always go down too.  In 10 years for sure I’ve put out a bunch of CDs and then I decided well it’s no good just putting out CDs for your friends.  It becomes a bit of a vanity project.  So I learned about hiring a publicist and learned about social media and achieving some goals there.  I wanted to get critical reviews on my CDs and understand about that.   Then the next thing I wanted was to get a song recorded by someone else.  To do that, you need to start writing with better people and co-writing.”  He added, “There are strategies and techniques in place so you can get to the next rung on the ladder.”  Although it sounds like Doug has found the magical formula, he laughs and admits, “I haven’t figured it all out.  But I am working on it.”

When talking about goals, achievements and things one has learned, it is almost natural to make a progression in to a conversation about mentors.  Doug is no different. “I also reach out to people too.  I use mentors.  This guy Larry Wayne Clark was a mentor for me.  Larry passed away a few years ago of cancer but he was a legendary Canadian songwriter.  He has written with pretty much everybody.  He took me under his wing.”  He added, “There are also some people I work with in Nashville that I call once a month.”  But you can’t really talk about mentors without talking about advice.  The 2 are pretty synonymous.  I asked Doug what the best piece of advice he had ever gotten was.  He replied, “There are a couple of touchstones I really believe in.  It’s very similar to what Andrew (Frelick) had.  I read is blog but I heard it in a different way.  The thing I have is a bit shorter.  It says that ‘Hard work will trump talent’.  I know Andrew talked around that but I truly believe that and I’ve heard that before too.  The other thing is my Woody Allen thing.  You’ve probably heard it.  It’s ‘90% of life is just showing up’ and I believe the same thing for the music industry.  You need to show up.  You need to show up at industry events because people need to see you and people need to know you’re active.  If you sit back and worry about what everybody else has and what you don’t have, you don’t create a positive vibe for yourself.  No one wants to associate with a whiner.  Who wants to do business with a whiner?  If you’re complaining about some festival director who’s not hiring you, they’re not going to hire you.  That doesn’t improve your situation.  You need to change you attitude.”  Doug followed this up by saying, “Once artists get to that place, then they’ll get hired more.”

It was obvious from the get go that Doug is passionate about what he does.  I couldn’t help but wonder in the 1000+ shows he’s done, what makes a show really great for him.  “There are 2 things that happen at shows that really, really gets me happy,” he started.  “When I am playing with a band, sometimes there is this magical moment when everybody locks in.  The music is good, everybody is good.  But then there is this magical moment where everything is clicking perfectly and you kinda look around at the other guys and you can feel it.  The other thing that happens is when the crowd is just super in to what you are doing.  They are letting their problems and their lives and their issues go for those few minutes and just taking off on what you are doing.”  Clearly there is a certain amount of energy spent to produce that kind of reaction from a group of people.  Doug admits that his winding down ritual is slightly different from his early days, “It has changed over the years,” he laughed. “You get a little older.  I’m 44 now so you’ve kinda been there done that.  But I think in the early days I just couldn’t sleep.  So you sit around and have a drink after.  You tear down your gear or whatever it might be and that was the way I would unwind.  Now I go home and I like to sit.  You just don’t really want to rush off to bed so I just sit in a quiet room, lay around on the couch, put the TV on with no sound and just collect my thoughts.”

Doug is a very light-hearted guy with a great sense of humour.  I knew I could get away with asking some unconventional questions. So I asked him what the first thought he had that morning was.  He told me that he was a pretty ritualistic guy, to the point where he would lay out his clothes the night before.  Then out of nowhere, “Oh!  Actually I wrote a song last night and the first thing I wanted to do was have a listen to it because my co-writer had sent a copy of it so I was anticipating it.  I was thinking about ‘I’m really looking forward to hearing how it came out.’  I know how it came out but I wanted to hear the recording of it.”

You may or may not have noticed that I have one question that I always like to end with and this interview is no different.  I asked Doug what the last photo he took with his phone was.  He replied, “I did a screen capture of Kevin Davison’s CD that has a couple of my songs on it that was released this week.”

Doug has a lot on his plate over the next couple of weeks.  With this week being CCMA week, he has 3 songwriter showcases he is involved with.  This includes MediaWorks’ “Live Off The Floor” which will showcase Doug and 5 other artists (including Andrew Frelick and Ivan Daigle – who we will be discussing on Friday).  Here are the links to the showcase:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mediaworks-live-off-the-floor
https://www.facebook.com/MediaWorksStudioEast.Inc
http://www.mediaworks-studioeast.com/

He also had a couple of co-writes to take care of before leaving and he has some big projects coming up with the likes of Cole Malone, Todd Richard and Rich Cloke to name a few.

I look forward to hearing much, much more from Doug.  He is talented and thoughtful.  Check him out on Reverbnation and on CBC Music.  Follow him on Twitter (@dougfolkins) and please stop by his Facebook page to learn more about him (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Doug-Folkins/50701849654?fref=ts).  Here is a great song by Doug Folkins, “Man of the Hour”:

Posted in Country Fashion, Country Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Girl In A Country Song

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Susie Krivak

FRIDAY!  FRIDAY!  FRIDAY!  And it is a long weekend Friday which makes it even more awesome!

Let me paint a somewhat comical scene for you.  I am sitting in a coffee shop in my neighbourhood.  The coffee shop is notoriously “hipster” (ahem, Starbucks, ahem) and the neighbourhood I live in is well-known in my city for being “alternative”. What does that mean?  You see everything from artists, to business men to squeegee kids. It is a very trendy neighbourhood.  So here I am, in the mecca of urban life, listening to and writing about country music.  The only way I could make this any more of a juxtaposition is if I was wearing my Cabela’s baseball cap and my Browning camo fleece!

Well, everybody, it is Riser Friday and I have one heck of a treat for you so let’s get down to it!

 CELEBRITY NEWS:

In an interview with People, Dustin Lynch said although climbing trees for hunting was within his comfort zone, he had to admit “I’m deathly afraid of heights.”  What prompted the conversation?  Well perhaps it was the fact that the popular singer took some fans to the observation deck of the Empire State Building in New York City following an appearance on NBC’s Today.  From 86 stories above Manhattan, Lynch serenaded the group with acoustic versions of “Hell Of A Night” and “Where It’s At”.  The question was posed to Lynch if he required a little “Dutch courage” to make the trek up there for the performance.  He replied, “Not when I ‘m up that high.  I need all my senses about me.”

There is a lot of negative news out in the world and there is a lot of it surrounding young celebrities.  I think it is important to show that just because you are young and famous does not mean that you are headed on the road to destruction.  Maddie and Tae’s new album “Start Here  dropped earlier this week.  Apparently the liner notes are very telling of where the priorities of these 2 young ladies lie.  The newcomers are said to have openly thanked God in the gratitude portion of the notes.  Both Marlow and Dye thanked God for giving them the gift of song and each of them thanked Him for bringing the other into their life.  This may not be your thing, but you have to admit it is refreshing to see 2 young adults who understand that there is something more to life.

You may or may not know this, but recently Garth Brooks made a visit to Canada.  He was in Saskatoon, to be exact!  However, the country music mega-star left his guitar at home on August 26th.  This wasn’t a concert visit – Brooks was all business.  He was in the city to raise money for the Children’s Hospital of Saskatchewan.  It may seem odd that Brooks would be involved in such a project, but his Teammates for Kids foundation has been providing services and programs to America’s youth since 1999, which includes therapeutic play areas.  There are “Child Life Zones” in 11 hospitals across the US and the one in Saskatoon will be the first in Canada.  Brooks was quoted as saying, “…the greatest thing about the zone is the treatment, you allow children to be children.”  The day was not void of music.  Saskatchewan native and award-winning singer Codie Prevost was on hand to entertain the crowd.  Stay tuned to Red, White and Country to see what Codie had to say about this event and a whole lot more in a chat that I recently had with him.

COUNTRY FASHION:

As far as country/ western boots are concerned, Justin Boots is an industry leader.  Founded in 1879 by H.J. Justin, the handcrafted boots became a “gold-standard” in western style.  The boots, which are not only durable but fashionable, are popular with regular folks and celebrities alike.  Actress Anne Hathaway and Canadian country songstress Terri Clark have both been seen wearing them. A couple of trademark features that make the boots a crowd favorite are the J-Flex Comfort System which provides all day comfort and the Grip-on-Demand feature which allows the wearer control whether they are on land or in the stirrups.  Justin’s come in a variety of styles and some of their more popular collections are Justin Bent Rail, The George Straight Collection and the Justin AQHA Lifestyle Collection.  With an average price of $200-$250 US, these high quality staple pieces are accessible for everyone.  Check these out:

           

COUNTRY MUSIC:

I cannot tell a lie, the first time I heard a song called “Rednecks in the Ryman”, I immediately had to find out who was singing it.  The voice!  The voice was a cross between Josh Turner and Chris Young.  Not only was I struck by the voice of this singer, but the song itself made me want to throw on some camo, a baseball cap, crack a beer and throw my hands up to praise the Redneck gods!  I checked out a couple more of his songs, and much to my delight I loved them all!

At a tall and lean 6’6”, Cody Purvis commands attention when he steps on stage.  With a twinkle in his eye and a smile as bright as Luke Bryan, it is hard to ignore this Virginia native.  Now residing in Nashville to pursue his dream, he is influenced by the classics; Merle, Waylon,  Hank Jr. and of course, we mustn’t forget Toby Keith.  Cody has been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to open for big country artists such as Lorrie Morgan, Lee Greenwood, Rodney Atkins, Scotty McCreery, Colt Ford, Darius Rucker and Trace Adkins.

Not only is he passionate about what he is doing, he is also an approachable guy.  So approachable, in fact, that he took some time out of his schedule to answer some questions.  So, without further ado, here is “5 in 5 with Cody Purvis”:

  1. If you had to describe Nashville to someone, how would you do it?  Cody:  Nashville is known as “Music City”. There is literally music everywhere. The downtown strip, “Broadway”, is famous for Tootsie’s and other honky- tonks where bands play all day long, and you never know when someone famous might show up and jump up on stage and sing.  A lot of restaurants and cafes around town have acoustic shows with local singers and songwriters too. The Ryman and the Grand Ole Opry are country music’s greatest venues where all of the legends have played. In addition to music we have the Tennessee Titans football team and the Nashville Predators hockey team. You just have to visit….there is so much to see and do. The people are so friendly and welcoming, there is so much musical talent, and I am one of the lucky ones that gets to call Nashville home.
  2. What is the first thought you had when you woke up this morning?  Cody:  “Wonder what time Jeff will be at the studio?”  Jeff Silvey is my producer. We just finished recording my 2nd album last week and are very excited about it. This week we polish it up and get to hear the finished product. We have been working on it for 6 months and it will be released this January.
  3. When you are feeling down, what cheers you up?  Cody: Singing! I lost my dad this year and singing is my therapy. It is what makes me happiest.
  4. If you weren’t singing for a living, what would you be doing?  Cody:  I can’t even imagine. I’ve had my own band since I was 15 and music is what I’ve always wanted to do. I moved to Nashville when I was 18.  Things have just worked out for me and I’m so blessed. Last summer the best booking agency in Nashville, Buddy Lee Attractions, signed me to their roster. I’ve been touring this year and it’s a dream come true.
  5. What is the last picture you took with your phone?  Cody:  A picture of my basset hound “Duke”. He’s my buddy and always makes me laugh.

Be sure to take a look at Cody’s website www.codypurvis.com and follow him on Twitter (@CodyPurvisMusic) to see when and where this talented guy is playing.  I will also be on the lookout so I can take in a Cody Purvis show as soon as I can!

In the meantime, here is a bad-ass song for you.  It is “Rednecks in the Ryman” by Cody Purvis:

Posted in Camo, Country Fashion, Country Music, Country News | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Forever in Blue Jeans

Posted on September 1, 2015 by Susie Krivak

Helloooo Tuesday!  I know it is only Tuesday but least it isn’t Monday anymore, right!

Can I just say that I am LOVING writing this blog?  I have had the opportunity to be in contact with so many great people!  I would like to send a big shout out to The Iceman Show for bringing new artists in to the spotlight.  This show has introduced me to so many amazing talents that I normally wouldn’t get to hear on regular radio.  You, Sir, are a champ!  It is really exciting putting my opinion out in the world.  It is also a bit scary because you never know what people will think.  I have to be honest; I was a tiny bit concerned when I made a comment about not liking Miranda live last week.  But you accepted my opinion with open arms.

I know what you are thinking “Blah, blah, blah, you love writing, blah, blah.”  Ok…I get it.

Oh!  One more piece of housekeeping.  Next week is CCMA week in Halifax, Nova Scotia and my blog posts will be ALL Canadian.  If you are Canadian, enjoy!  If you are American (or from somewhere else), well, it’s high time you found out what we are all about!

It’s news time.

CELEBRITY NEWS:

When is the last time you heard about Charlie Daniels?  Well, you are about to hear about him right here.  This year marked the 40th anniversary of the Volunteer Jam, an event held to support U.S. Veterans and their families.  This was the first time in 20 years that the event had been held in Nashville and there was country music royalty there to help him mark the occasion. Eric Church, Ted Nugent, Trace Adkins and The Oak Ridge Boys were just a few of the celebrities that came out to celebrate.  $300,000 was raised for the cause and Daniels is quoted as saying, “It was good to see an old Tennessee tradition come back to life – all for this great cause.”  Charlie Daniels – a true American legend.

Duo Dan + Shay have spoken up on behalf of their fans.  On August 29, they posted an open letter on social media to the people who have been selling their autographs online.  It seems as though they have been seeing some familiar faces in the crowd who keep repeatedly asking them for their signatures, only to turn around and sell them on EBay for ridiculous prices.  The guys are certainly a class act, making their fans a very special offer.  The two wrote, “To our fans: we love you and value the time we get to spend with you.  If you feel you have been taken advantage of by an EBay seller, let us know, and we will personally invite you to a meet and greet or send you something autographed for free.”  A cool move by 2 clearly cool guys.

Season 7 Voice winner Craig Wayne Boyd took to Instagram on August 31 telling the world he is in love.  Boyd proposed to girlfriend Taylor Borland and she said yes!  It is not clear when the big day will happen as Boyd is facing a hectic touring schedule and is currently playing fairs and clubs right through to the end of November.  Congratulations CWB and all the best for a very happy future!

COUNTRY FASHION:

There is really not much better than a pair of jeans that you have worked in and that fit just right.  From Levis to Miss Me, jeans are a staple – not only for country folk, but for pretty much everyone.  You can dress them up or dress them down, at the end of the day, denim is a “must have” for most people.

When you hear the term “Jeans”, it actually refers to the style of the pant.  “Denim” refers to the fabric alone.  Denim fabric was created in France and has been used in North America since the late 18th century.  The “waist overalls” had become popular with gold miners due to their sturdy construction.  There was also the appeal that they did not require much washing – something that lives on in the jeans of today.  Where the pants fell short was in the back pockets.  Latvian tailor Jacob Davis wrote to his denim supplier with his plight.  He, along with Loeb (known as Levi) Strauss patented the idea to add copper rivets to the back pockets, thus reinforcing them for the miners.  And it was then that the 501 was born.

Over the years, the iconic pant was worn in silent films, in westerns, by super models and rock stars.  They come in all price points and are available to well…everyone.  Whether no one can come between you and your Calvin’s, you have a “Fancy Ass” or you are a purist and can’t live without your Levi’s – I don’t believe there is anyone that can say they have never owned a pair of jeans.

      

COUNTRY MUSIC:

Let’s face facts – Luke Bryan has a sex appeal that even the manliest of men can’t deny.  Those eyes, that smile and the fact that he a spokesperson for Cabela’s….amen!  This Georgia native released his fifth album “Kill the Lights” in August, 2015.  The first release from this album, “Kick the Dust Up” was released in May, 2015 and peaked at number one on country radio.

The second release from this album is “Strip it down”. If you think the title alone is pretty hot, the chorus will leave you wanting more:

…Strip it down/Strip it down/Back to you and me, like it used to be/When it was an old back road, with an old school beat/Cowboy boots by your little bare feet/Let it out, tell me right now/Everything I need/In them white cotton sheets/Dirty dance me slow in the summertime heat/Feel my belt turn loose from these old blue jeans/We both know that we lost it somehow/Let’s get it fast/Strip it down, down, down…

It is plain to see what this song is referring to.  But more than being about just sex, it is more about 2 people reconnecting.  I love that he makes a modern reference in the song when he croons “I wanna drop the cellphone now/Let it shatter on the ground/They ain’t holding nothing these two hands/Until they’re holding you again”, making a statement about that third or fourth person in a relationship…the mobile phone.

It is clear to see that with “Strip it Down”, Bryan’s rating on the sexy-meter is about to rise once again.  But I will let you let you judge that for yourself.  Here is the lyric video for “Strip it Down” by Luke Bryan:

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