Roger Miller - Live at The Birchmere (Alexandria VA 2/16/91)

"Now wait a dern minute..." I can hear you guys saying, "....I thought this was supposed to be all about the outlaw country?" Well in my opinion Roger Miller laid the ground work for what became known as "outlaw country". "What?" you say....stay with me here....for one Roger shared and apartment with Johnny Cash in the early 60's, legend has it they took a lot of pills and wrote a lot of songs. Another is he's was one of Willie Nelson's best friends. Did you know Roger Miller was the first person to record Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee"?. Not only that but Kristofferson's first couple of records have more than a subtle hint of Roger Miller influence running throughout. Waylon's obviously a fan too, as he covered Been A Long Time Leaving on the previously mentioned Dreaming My Dreams album. He hung with George Jones during those early years, wrote the song Tall Tall Trees for him (later covered by Alan Jackson).

If you're not familar with Roger Miller you are probably familiar with some of his songs. King of The Road has been used in many man movies and commercials, most famously a Burger King commercial from the late 90's. Walking In The Sunshine was used recently for some credit card fast pass commercial that lot's are sure to recognize. Oh yeah and then there was that stint he did in Disney's Robin Hood (probalby my favorite Disney movie), where he voiced the Rooster/Narrater/Balladeer and sang the impossible to get out of your head ooh-da-lally song.

If his song titles don't clue you in, listen to this show and it will become obvious that Roger doesn't take himself too serious. In that affect you could call him the proto-Todd Snider.....definitely a good comparison can be made between the two. Now that we have worked our way up to alt-country, it's worth mentioning that The Sadies & Neko Case have covered his songs, numerous others I can't think of off the top of my head. Anyway, if there is one thing this world needs more of is live Roger Miller...and certainly more Roger Miller talk in the "blogosphere".

An afterthought, in this show, he talks about relaunching his career, sadly he never did as he died a little over a year later on Oct. 25th 1992....RIP

Oh, BTW, this is a killer show, great sound.....when I started listening to it I didn't even realize it was from 1991, I thought it was vintage from the 60's.....his voice sounds EXACTLY like it did back then.

MP3 @ 192

Roger Miller - Live At The Birchmere

Oops, sorry. Here is the missing track: Roger Miller - Don't We All Have The Right To Be Wrong Now And Then

From The Archives: Billy Joe Shaver - Seste Calende, Italy 7/25/97

Like I said last post, nothing better to me this time of year than rowdy outlaw country, and folks it just don't get no rowdier than Billy Joe Shaver. ESPECIALLY if he's got his son Eddie with him. If you didn't get this one the first time around GET IT, GET IT, GET IT! This is one of the best things I've ever posted!



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Here is a damned fine show from Billy Joe Shaver. Recorded in Italy in 1997 almost 10 years ago to the day. Features his late son and guitar virtouso Eddie Shaver, and man does he shine. I've always been a big fan of both Billy Joe's songwriting and Eddie's "Don Rich meets Stevie Ray" guitar style. If your not a BJS fan and you like rockin' country, download this.....cause he is the master......Billy Joe Shaver is a living legend....he IS outlaw country. Without him there would never have been such a thing. Anyway, I could go on for days about how much love and respect I have for this man....just download this show and maybe you will too.

MP3
Billy Joe Shaver - Seste Calende, Italy 1997

Waylon Jennings - Live 1975 - Sugarloaf, Maine 8/2/78

In my opinion there's nothing better to usher in the summer than some rowdy and raucous outlaw country (OK, well maybe Neil Young too). So in that spirit here is a damn fine Waylon show from 1975. Now let's take a look at that date. Waylon had just released what some call his greatest album (that's not made up of Billy Joe Shaver songs :P) Dreaming My Dreams, and was on the verge of releasing the album that would shoot him into popular culture along with Willie Nelson, the seminal Wanted! The Outlaws. That's the backdrop of this show......if that's not the peak of his career it is somewhere damn near it. Great sound on this one, great song selections with just a couple technical problems (during Only Daddy That'll Walk The Line and Clyde) that are easy to overlook, especially since you get to hear Waylon talk shit to a guy in the crowd who threw a rock onstage during Bob Wills is Still The King.

MP3 @ 192

Waylon Jennings - Live 1975

Slobberbone - Acoustic Slobberbone 4/6/96

Here is a cool ass show. Some acoustic Slobberbone recorded shortly before the re-release of thier debut album Crow Pot Pie. The sound on this one is incredible, and it's cool to hear these songs in a more stripped down setting. If your not familiar with Slobberbone, they were one of the seminal Alt Country bands from the mid 90's along with Whiskeytown, Old 97's, Bottle Rockets, Son Volt, etc... These guys probably relied more heavily on their punk influences than any of their peers. Fans of Supersuckers, Lucero, Social Distortion, Two Cow Garage, even The Replacements....if you don't already know about Slobberbone, you should.

MP3 @ 192

Slobberbone - Acoustic Slobberbone

Todd Snider - Marilyn's On K - Sacramento, CA - 2/15/09

"I found a four leaf clover in my yard today, it had one leaf missing off it but that was OK". That's how Todd Snider opens this show, and what a show folks. Superb, superb sound quality, great set list, great stories, Todd's taking requests, great variations on the old songs, and best of all NEW SONGS! This this is worth downloading just for the story about Slash and his "wastelets". It's been awhile since I posted anything new, so I hope this makes up for it folks.

BTW, I spent a few weeks exploring the so called "blogosphere" and I agree with you guys....sharebee sucks....matter of fact when I tried to use it I got a virus warning pop. Nice! So here is my new policy for uploads, if it's under 100mb, it will be mediafire. If it's over 100mb it will be something else....right now I'm trying this Flame Upload site which seems nice to me DL & UL wise. Don't know what the shelf life on the files there will be though....we will see, let me know what you think. Another thing is I always prefer .zips over .rars, only reason I use .rars is when I have to split the files to suite the upload site......Flame Upload allow files up to 200mb, which should take care of most of the things I up.

anyway, enjoy the new Todd, cause I'm enjoying the hell out of it

Read about it over at Eighteen Minutes

MP3 @ 192

Todd Snider - Marilyin's On K

News: Todd Snider, Scott Miller, Wrinkle Neck Mules, etc...

Well there's a lot of stuff to talk about here. First off, that Ribbonpigeon album from the last post, well they emailed me to let me know that they just changed their name to The Only Sons and are working with a label for a distribution deal with that album and the one prior. Can't wait for that.

How about some Todd Snider news? Todd's new album The Excitement Plan is now available for pre-order. Due out on June 6, the $40 dollar deluxe pre-order box set features some cool items. Like each set will be signed and numbered by Todd (limited to 500), a DVD of the Peace Queer movie, a bonus disc of songs, 3 stickers, and even a Todd Snider flag! Pretty sweet.

Now on to Scott Miller. Those of you like myself who got the Appalachian Refugee demo CD AND pre-ordered the new album back in december (or was it november?) may have noticed a glaring omission from the album.....that omission was the sublime song Appalachian Refugee. Well Scott has heeded his fans call and decided to include the song on the street version of the album (due out Next Tuesday). Now here is the cool part, since the folks who pre-ordered the album did not get this track, he made it available for download on his site. This is a highly recommended download. Also while you are there check out his new site, he finally updated it to reflect the computer age :P

Wrinkle Neck Mules....I know there are a few fans of them out there :). Well good news as they have recorded over 30 songs and are thinking of releasing possibly a double album or some kind of box set sometime this year. Read about it here.

Some odds and ends. The new Steve Earle album kicks all kinds of ass, The Steeldrivers are in the studio working on their followup, Magnolia Electric Co. have a 7" EP coming out April 18th featuring 4 unreleased songs, and Jimbo Mathus just put out a new album called Jimmy The Kid that is somehow impossible to buy but you can listen to samples on his myspace page.