This audio preview produced by the festival gets you ready for the upcoming Joshua Tree Roots Music Festival. It features clips from Peter Case, Carrie Rodriguez and The Belleville Outfit (pictured). Stay tuned for more podcasts after the event.
Here's a festival I've been wanting to attend the last two years, and now I'm on the fence for the upcoming Joshua Tree Roots Music Festival. It's on October 18-19 in the high Mojave desert, and once again it presents a great lineup of rootsy, mostly acoustic jam bands along with some very fine individual folk-roots voices.
In my book, Peter Case is among the finest songwriters of his generation, as was demonstrated by the recently released all-star tribute album of other artists playing his songs. He is also a compelling performer when he pays tribute to great bluesmen of the past Mississippi John Hurt and Sleepy John Estes. I fell hard for Carrie Rodriguez when she was paired with Chip Taylor a few years back, and I'd love to see her solo act. Among jamgrass outfits, South Austin Jug Band and Trampled By Turtles are two of the best. Plus there's Dusty Rhodes & The River Band, The Devil Makes Three, Elephant Revival, Hillstomp, The Belleville Outfit, The Stairwell Sisters, Nathan and plenty more—too much fun. Read more »
It's getting late on Wednesday and I'll have to shut down soon to get ready for my flight to Charlotte for MerleFest. There are a lot of Old Settler's items I'm not going to get to today. Hopefully, I get back to posting on many of these topics overlapping with my upcoming MerleFest content.
* report on the Vassar Clements tribute
* Peter Rowan interview
* Austin prodigy Sarah Jarosz
* interview with Mike Phelan of Marley's Ghost
* impressions of Todd Snider
* Sharon Gilchrist does double duty
* Kat Edmonson is the cat's meow
* campground vignettes, more
I did want to get in one more report on Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez, since they'll be playing again Friday and Saturday at MerleFest. They played the last set of the festival on Sunday afternoon at the campground stage. It was a family affair for Carrie, as her grandmother, novelist Frances Nail, and other members of her family watched the talented fiddler and vocalist put on a very entertaining set of music.
Taylor and Rodriguez showed off their duet vocals on "Sweet Tequila Blues" and others, Carrie's feisty solo on "Never Gonna Be Your Bride," great lead guitar from John Platania, and Taylor's greatest hits including "Wild Thing." Rodriguez is an Austin native and Taylor had considerable success locally as a part of the Armadillo scene in the 1970s. Also, their set included a number of Austin-related songs, so the whole thing had a homey, Sunday afternoon feel to it.
I sat down with Chip for a quick interview before leaving to make my flight out of Austin. We agreed to pick up the conversation at MerleFest. Which is also where I am going to pick up the conversation on this blog beginning Friday morning. MerleFest has a real press facility on site and I expect to be able to file reports throughout the festival. See you then.
