April Birthdays

New Album For Col Millington

I started recording and releasing albums in 1976 and after 34 years I now have over 20 cds and DVD’s available. This album features some of me best original songs starting of with the title track “Down To Mexico”. It is a duet with myself singing falsetto, it is meant to be humorous. The other humorous song is dedicated to my X called “Loving You Was A Nightmare”, I am sure everybody with an X can relate to this song. I have recorded a few country rock songs, my

favourite being “Say That You Love Me”. It has a great beat and will get your body moving. What would an album be without love songs and my pick is “Did Tell You (Yellow Roses), it should get to you, it gets to me. My best country songs are “Smokey, Buddy, Tex & Slim” and “The Ghost Of The Stockman” both a good solute to our past heroes. I have tried to get a south of the boarder influence on this album hence the cover photo, which is not the seashores of Old Mexico but Caldwell North Queensland. I have feature Brass solo’s in several songs, my favourite being “Strictly In Love With You”. I was watching Elvis in “Fun In Acapulco” and locve the music so much I wrote this song. The Brass solo in “Down To Mexico” also gives that Tijuana feel. As a writer I have always tried to write a wide variety and style in song and this album has got just that.

All instruments by Col Millington, except guest artists, Steve Williams – Sax and Ross Ingles Guitar solo’s on “Say That You Love Me”. Phillip Haskins – Guitar solo’s on “We’re Good Together” and Warren Glover – Pedal Steel Guitar on “Smokey Buddy Tex & Slim”, “I’m Not In It For The Money”, “The Tears Will Flow”, Let’s Get Together”, and “I Really Do”.

Col Millington

Tracks on the album are

After listening to this album I consider it to be one of Col's best for awhile, I think Col can get ready for plenty of sales for this album with plenty of variety, good music and a bit of comedy thrown in for good measure. Congratulations on another good one Col.

Joy

Travers Tex Hammond Has A New Album

This new album has 14 tracks on it, Travers is very pleased with it, this his 4th album to date.

A couple of my favourites are "Freight Train Yodel" and "Old Dogs Children & Watermelon Wine". If you are a country fan that likes the older style of country, then you will like this album.

The track listing for the album is

Joy

Doug Bruce # 4 In European Country Music Charts

While stunned by the position it has made in the charts, Bruce always

Doug Bruce

Alan Jackson - Freight Train - In Stores 2 April 2010

Locomotives aren’t much about bluster. They’re more about power, speed, efficiency, rugged beauty, and drive. So is the career of Alan Jackson, which recently passed the 20-year signpost without the slightest stall in sight. The country music superstar cites no particular ulterior motive in naming his new album Freight Train, although he will allow that maybe there’s just the hint of a career metaphor in there. “This title just jumped out at me,” he says. “When you really think about

it, man, we’ve been rolling along here for a lot of years, still going like a train.”

Momentum: you can’t beat it, and Jackson’s still got it. He’s sold more than 50 million albums and had 34 No. 1 hits—three of those off his last album, 2008’s Good Time. As superstars go, he’s one of only a handful of artists who’ve been around for two decades who still regularly top the country chart. And unlike the other veteran smashmakers who can make that claim, he’s the only one who is a true singer/songwriter, penning most of his own material.

Of course, there’s nothing nearly so unusual about his combination of celebrity charisma and artistic craftsmanship when you consider him alongside his truest forebears. “I wouldn’t want to compare myself to anybody,” Jackson says. “But if I was going to say somebody I wanted to be like, of course, the two singer/songwriters in country music that stick out to me are Hank Williams Sr. and Merle Haggard. I don’t know that there are two any better. I just don’t put myself in that category.”

Others might beg to differ, since Jackson’s considerable catalog clearly positions him as a successor to these greats. He’s celebrated the common man in “Little Bitty,” “Where I Come From,” “Little Man,” and “Small Town Southern Man.” He’s spoken to the passing of generations in “Drive (For Daddy Gene).” He’s addressed mortality in “Sissy’s Song.” He’s treated the dream that country music itself represents with respect in “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow” and satire in “Three Minute Positive Not Too Country Up-tempo Love Song.”

He can have hits with songs as heartrendingly meaningful as “Remember When” and hilariously meaningless as “I Still Like Bologna.” He’s spoken for a nation in “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning),” and spoken for the nearest barroom in “Don’t Rock the Jukebox.” He may be the only extant country superstar whose honky-tonk poetry can lead you to answer the eternal question, “Are you sure Hank done it this way?,” with an unblinking, “Yup.”

After penning every number on his previous album, Jackson wrote or co-wrote eight of the 12 songs on Freight Train, again showing the breadth of his emotional range. The opening “Hard Hat and a Hammer” energetically extols the satisfactions of manual labor. The comforts of long-term love and marriage get their due in the closing ballad “The Best Keeps Getting Better.” If you’re indulging a crush instead of a 30-year marriage, he’s got songs for you, too: a cynic finds unexpected love in the frisky “I Could Get Used to This Lovin’ Thing,” which adds a steel guitar to a Tennessee Two-style boom-chicka-boom rhythm (speaking of trains). But heartbreak finds its way into the set, too, notably in a cover of the 1970s Vern Gosdin hit “Till the End,” which unites Jackson with fellow traditionalist, Lee Ann Womack.

“If I had my way, the majority of it’d be sad,” Jackson admits. “I love writing sad stuff better, whether I’m happy or sad, and they make much better records, usually, to me. The sad part about the sad songs is it’s harder to get ‘em played out there! But also, I think about the people out there whose lives are already hard enough, trying to make a living. Everybody wants to hear something fun or that makes them feel good.”

If Jackson has a reputation for writing songs that skew more toward contentment than sadness, that has less to do with satisfying audience expectations than just adhering to the “write what you know” ethos.

“I’m a real visual person, and when I’m writing, especially if it’s a story-type song, I visualize what I know,” he explains. “It’s much easier if you write about something real. If I pick something that didn’t sound like what I’d written or was part of what people think my life is, it probably wouldn’t ring true, you know?”

Which doesn’t mean these are diary entries. “When I write something like ‘After 17,’ you could say, ‘Yeah, he wrote that about his daughter.’ But I try not to write them so specific that it couldn’t be about anybody’s child, so they can read that into their own lives as well. In ‘The Best Keeps Getting Better,’ I did use a lot of images from me and Denise, and everybody can see it’s her in there. But I don’t think it’s so direct it couldn’t be about anybody that’s been married for quite a while.

“Once you start sharing your life in your music, then it’s hard to get away from that. After ‘Drive,’ people started looking at me like every song’s about my family or faith, and I keep telling people, man, you’ve got to go back and listen to all my albums. They’ve always been collections of songs about my life, or my family—and then there’ll also be songs on there that are drinking songs or heartbreak songs. I’ve always wanted each album to be a collection of all the things that to me are country music.”

In a way, Freight Train feels like a Jackson greatest hits set. “Somebody who listened to it who’s close to me said they thought it felt like a mixture of all the things I’ve done for 20 years on one album. Right at the start, ‘Hard Hat and a Hammer’ takes you way back to two or three other working-man songs I’ve had over the years. And then there’s some bluesy stuff, and there’s some family stuff. There’s a couple that even take me farther left, like [the 2006 Alison Krauss-produced] Like Red on a Rose did. ‘It’s Just That Way,’ the first single, and ‘Big Green Eyes’ are not typical country melodies, and they’re maybe a little more edgy for me.”

When Jackson breaks into an oldie in concert, unlike most other current country stars’ cover choices, you can be sure he won’t be picking a classic-rock standard. His respect for the traditions of his own genre continues on Freight Train with “Till the End,” which “was definitely a tribute to Vern Gosdin after he died. That song’s always been one of those that pops up in my head every now and then that I’ve wanted to cover as a duet with somebody. A lot of people won’t know it because it was a long time ago and probably not as big a hit. It gave me the opportunity to finally sing with Lee Ann Womack. It was terrible for me, because I thought I sounded pretty good till she came in! And then she just blew me away.”

Jackson is characteristically humble about where his legacy will go down among those of the greats.

“There’ll never be another Hank Williams,” he says. “As time goes on, there was a Merle Haggard and a George Jones, and then in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, it got like all music and probably other arts in the world: more homogenized, with not as much of an edge anymore. Probably a lot of artists from my generation grow up in a subdivision and go to college, and they just don’t have much to write about. There are very few personalities left that end up being famous that have lived the kinds of lives that those guys did and continue to as adults. Today, we’re all healthy, and half the artists don’t drink, and everything’s nice and sweet and vanilla, and it reflects in the music. Not that everybody needs to be a drunk or dope addict and crazy. But some of that dark stuff and heartache creates some of the best music. It gets softer every generation. You know, I’m not as hard as Merle Haggard, and he wasn’t as hard as some of them before him,” Jackson laughs. “And the ones who come along after me might be softer. That’s what I see happening.”

But therein lies the combination that would make Jackson a singular talent even yesterday, let alone an altogether unique standout today: he sings “hard country” that’s deeply in touch with its softer side. It’s not subdivision-soft, mind you, just firmly rooted in the farthest recesses of the heart. And for Jackson, home is where the heart is, but so is the honky-tonk.

“I think most of my initial hunger came because I grew up with nothing,” he says. “My family were good, hard-working people, and had decent jobs, but they didn’t have any money. It was either just be a working man and get by, or take a chance on the music business. That was what drove me. As far as the relaxed part, that side of my personality comes from being a little shy, and just growing up in the South. My daddy was that way. But I’m not so laid back that I don’t have a lot of energy. I’m very motivated, and my mind’s always going and full of projects.”

Maybe the Freight Train title is an acknowledgement of his more aggressive side. But, as with the rest of his art, Jackson won’t be the one encouraging you to read too much into it.

“I’d been kicking around several songs to title the album after, like ‘It’s Just That Way’ and ‘Every Now and Then.’ But they sounded too much like album titles I’d already had, like Who I Am, and What I Do, and Where I Been,” he says (just joking about that last one, which doesn’t really exist). In typical Jackson fashion, it may have come down to a very simple motive, in the end. “I’ve had about every other vehicle—boats, cars, motorcycles— but I’d never had a train on the album cover.” Maybe a 747, next time? Until then, here’s to contemporary country music’s most reliable engineer.


Freight Train Tracklisting

Emma Smith

Big News From Kel-Anne Brandt

I am excited to announce that I have been Nominated for TWO ‘Mo’ Awards this year!!!

 Female Vocal Performer and Country Performer

Congratulations to all my fellow Nominees!!!!!

Kel-Anne

Eric Bogle’s Small Pot
(Pension Optimisation Tour)

One of Australia’s eminent singer-songwriters to undertake his final tour!

Eric Bogle is probably best known for his song ‘The Band Played Waltzing Matilda’, which confirmed its iconic status by appearing as a question in the Australian version of Trivial Pursuit!  But he is far from being a one-hit wonder. Some of his other songs: ‘No Man's Land (The Green Fields of France)’, ‘Leaving Nancy’, ‘Now I'm Easy’, ‘Shelter’, ‘My Youngest Son Came Home Toady’ and ‘If Wishes were Fishes’ are now beginning to rival “Matilda” in the icon stakes.

After years of non-stop touring, which has included no less than eight tours of North America, 10 times round Europe and multiple Australian shows, Eric has decided that it is time to take it easy.  Eric’s Bogle’s Small POT (Pension Optimisation Tour) will be his last extensive tour in Australia.

With 14 albums to his credit, appearances at every major Folk & Country Music Festival in Australia and overseas including Port Fairy, Woodford, Tamworth, Gympie Muster, Philadelphia Festival, Newport Folk Festival, Toronto, New Orleans, Vancouver, Edinburgh. You name it, he's done them all, and many times as well. A recipient of an Order of Australia medal for services to the entertainment industry Eric was also awarded a United Nations Peace Medal for his efforts, through music, to promote peace and racial harmony.

His songs have been recorded by artists as varied as Joan Baez, Mary Black, Donovan, Slim Dusty, John Williamson, The Dubliners, Peter Paul & Mary, Billy Bragg, The Pogues and The Dropkick Murphy’s just to name a few. The Fureys’ rendition of ‘No Man's Land’ (Green Fields of France) spent 26 weeks on the Irish music charts, including ten weeks at the #1 position.

Country Music Capital News correspondent Jon Wolfe said recently, “I recommend that if you haven’t seen him live, put it on your to-do list and immerse yourself in the majesty of Eric Bogle and his music.”

Proudly presented by Laing Entertainment in association with Square One Entertainment.

Bogleography

Eric Bogle was born in Peebles, Scotland a few months after the D-Day landings in Normandy. One of a set, his twin sister Sandra had her own D-Day about 15 minutes after Eric!s. A particularly annoying, whiney little child, it was prophesied that Eric was either destined to be a politician or a folk singer of protest songs. And so one of these prophesies came to pass.....

However, there was much murky water to flow under the bridge before then. After a fairly rudimentary eductation where he stubbornly refused to learn much of anything, Eric left school at 16 years old and wandered hesitantly into the big wide world.Unsurprisingly, the world was less than impressed with this new addition to an already overcrowded job market, and for the next 8 years or so Eric had a succession of jobs: labourer, waiter, export clerk, bar steward, mill worker, etc. His record as an employee in all those occupations was less than spectacular, and in fact he was sacked from a couple of them for “attitude” problems.This
problem has, unfortunately, never been corrected.

Any talents Eric possessed, certainly in the musical or artistic field, had been pretty well hidden up until he was about 18, when a chance meeting with a friend in a local pub changed his life forever. He told Eric that the local rock band “The Informers” were looking for a new lead singer. Eric went for an audition, and because of his amazing vocal ability and the fact that he owned a Kombi van, he got the job. Fired with an enthusiasm and sense of purpose he!d never experienced before, he set out to make “The Informers” world famous and transform himself into a Rock God.

A couple of years later, with neither ambitions anywhere near recognised, Eric denounced the whole pop music scene as “frivolous and full of bloody wankers!” and turned his attention to folk music. Because of an increasing awareness of and involvement with politics, he!d heard his first folk songs at various protest marches and meetings he!d attended. Soon his interest in folk music had turned to passion, which then turned to love, and which to date has proved to be a life-long, enduring relationship.

However, his personal life continued to go pretty much round in circles. Realising he was in danger of one day disappearing up his own fundamentals, Eric decided that perhaps his future lay elsewhere, and so emigrated to Australia in 1969. In 1971 he met one Carmel Verona Sutton in Canberra, and in 1972 they were married, and they still are, much to their mutual surprise. About this time his long delayed
maturity began to kick in and, starting a Leading Hand in the yard of a scaffolding hire company, he actually started rapidly rising up the firm!s corporate ladder, due in part to his increased self-confidence and work ethic, but also to his ability to drink the company!s managing director under the table. Which skill, apparently, is much admired in the corporate world.

So in 1980 Eric was still very much a young man on the rise. The Queensland state accountant for his company, he was based in Brisbane, with a company car, expense account, big wage, etc. etc. Then one day, for no particular reason, he looked around him and thought “Is this all there is?” Deciding that it wasn!t , he hauled Carmel back to Sydney with him and embarked on the perilous career path of a professional musician.

The rest, as they say, is history. Totally obscure history, but history nonetheless. A compulsive, almost obsessive songwiter for most of his adult life, Eric has written some songs that have pretty much become Australian classics of their particular genre.Probably his best known song is “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda”, which confirmed it!s iconic status by appearing as a question in the Australian version of Trivial Pursuit! Some of his other songs , “No Man!s Land”(The Green Fields of France) “Leaving Nancy”, “Now I!m Easy” “Shelter” “If Wishes were Fishes” etc. etc. are now beginning to rival “Matilda” in the icon stakes. His songs have been recorded by Joan Baez, Mary Black, Donovan, Slim Dusty, John Wlliamson, Billy Bragg, The Pogues and The Furies, just to name a few.

Eric himself has recorded 14 CD!s and, together with his long term partner John Munro, has literally taken his music to the world. He has toured extensively over the last 25 years or so, and this includes 8 tours of North America, 10 Tours of Europe and God knows how many tours of Australia. He has appeared at every major Follk and Country music festival in Australia and overseas: Port Fairy, Woodford, Tamworth, Gympie Muster, Philadelphia Festival, Newport, Toronto, New Orleans, Vancouver, you name it, he!s done them all and many times as well.
He has won quite a few awards along the way including the Order of Australia medal for services to the entertainment industry, and a Peace medal from the U.N. for his efforts, through music, to promote peace and racial harmony.

All this makes Eric sound like a cross between U2 and Mother Theresa. Well, he!s not, he!s just a literate and thoughtful songwiter who can cut to the heart of the matter with some well-crafted lines. He!s also a warm and engaging stage performer who, with his sharp, often self-deprecating wit and shrewd common sense view on the world, communicates well with an audience and draws them in to his performance.

Mind you, all this is only our opinion, and of course is highly subjective. Try and catch Eric in concert and form one of your own

Linda Chamarette

New Album For Allen Karl

This one is callled "It's All Behind Me Now" with 15 tracks I'm sure it will fill in some listening time for you as there are some great cover songs on here.

Tracks are

Queensland Country Music Awards Finalists Announced for 2010

Brisbane singer, songwriter and musician Brendan Radford heads the list of finalists for this year’s Queensland Country Music Awards, scoring a berth in four of the seven categories.

Brendan recently released his debut solo album, Snow, after years performing with the biggest names in Australian country music. He is a finalist for the Male Vocalist, Bush Ballad/Heritage, Instrumental and Vocal Collaboration categories – the last of them with Casey Watt.

Another of Queensland’s hottest new stars, Harmony James, has made the finals in three categories: Female Vocalist, Bush Ballad/Heritage and Vocal Collaboration (with The Flood’s Kevin Bennett), with tracks from her sensational album Tailwind.

A number of major Australian stars are featured in the list of finalists for the Queensland Country Music Awards, including Troy Cassar-Daley, Lee Kernaghan, Adam Brand, James Blundell and Tania Kernaghan.

The list of finalists also features several rising stars who are beginning to carve major careers in Australian country music, amongst them Jayson Watkins (a dual finalist), Brade, Sarah McMonagle, Rose Carleo, 8 Ball Aitken and Shea Fisher.

Artists who received two finals nominations include multi-Golden Guitar winner Troy Cassar-Daley, Dean Perrett, Shea Fisher, Jayson Watkins, The Bobkatz and The Smokin’ Crawdads.

The 2010 Queensland Country Music Awards will be presented on Friday, 30 April as part of the McDonalds Charters Towers Country Music Festival. The awards ceremony – part of the Friday night main stage concert – will feature the talents of internationally recognised guitarist Michael Fix, the legendary Chad Morgan, the very funny Jim Haynes and award-winning singer/songwriter Travis Sinclair. The event will be hosted by broadcaster Nick Erby.

The McDonalds Charters Towers Country Music Festival will take place over the Queensland May Day long weekend, from Friday, 30 April to Sunday, 2 May. The full list of finalists for the 2010 Queensland Country Music Awards follows.

For more information: www.charterstowerscountrymusic.com
Queensland Country Music Awards Inquiries:
Rosie Adsett: 0409 091605 or Meryl Davis: 0419 190395
Media inquiries: Susan Jarvis: 0413 334920

Queensland Country Music Awards Finalists 2010

Mick Martin

Court Yard Hounds - The Coast

Radio Date: April 1, 2010
Album Title: From their forthcoming album

After much chatter and anticipation, Emily Robison and Martie Maguire of The Dixie Chicks, announced that they will release new music under the moniker Court Yard Hounds. The album will be released on Columbia Records/Sony Music, in late April 2010.

"It was time," said Emily Robison. “We had been on hiatus from The Dixie Chicks for about a year, I was getting very restless and needed to be creative for my own sanity.  And at the same time I was going through my divorce so it was very fertile ground for writing.”

“Emily was just writing and writing all of these deeply personal and truly beautiful songs,” added Martie Maguire.  “She was initially going to pitch them to other artists and I kept telling her no, no, you have to save that for you.  It’s too good and too personal.”

Emily took her sister’s advice to heart and held onto the songs, thinking perhaps they could be new material for The Dixie Chicks.  Realizing that The Dixie Chicks hiatus would last longer than originally anticipated, the sisters dove head first into recording what is now the debut album from The Court Yard Hounds.

Emma Smith

Audrey's April '10 News

G'day good people!

I've just had the best time in Florida for the past two weeks.  Life is always better when Mez comes on the road with me. He was overjoyed to discover 'Oyster Happy Hour' in many Floridian towns. 

My shows were great.  I've never had so many outright declarations of love during or after a show! I have definitely made some good new mates down south. I also scored a set of old golf clubs with cart, so had no excuse not to go out and learn to play the game. I've always loved a good walk so this appealed to me. Intersperse that with the chance to

happily bash the crap out of something and call it golf!  I'm sure there are a few Golf Clubs cursing that damned Aussie woman who left the fairway looking like the Tanami Desert road - full of potholes.  Call them "divets" if you will, but don't sprain an ankle on those I created! 

There are so many homogenised strip-malls and franchised business in Florida sometimes I just didn't know where I was - California? Chicago? Florida? When touring I enjoy discovering the "old town" (read "no franchises") areas of American towns.  It was fun to explore that in Key West and we especially enjoyed the free-ranging chickens with chicks and glorious roosters that own the streets of Key West.  I have never seen so many motorbikes in one town before - scooters and Harleys. 

The girl from the southern-most part of Australia got to visit the southern most part of America! Oh beautiful azure waters, so loved by my toes!  OK, so I came home with a raccoon face sunburn (see below) but it was so good to feel the sun again after such a long, harsh winter.

I love returning to the West Coast and seeing my dear friends in California.  I'm super excited to be collecting my big sister from LAX next week and showing her Disneyland, Universal Studios, Santa Monica, Alcataraz and San Francisco. Plus I'm playing shows in beautiful Santa Ynez, Stinson Beach and Sebastopol, then on to Las Vegas to see Cher's show and finally the the Grand Canyon before returning to Nashville.  It's my sister's first trip to America and we'll eventually be joined by my 2 brothers for a huge family reunion with the Mezeras in Wisconsin. Good fun!!

Audrey Auld

Selling Fast, Get In Early To Avoid Disappointment.

Oz Country Music Festival
Be part of
Fiji’s First Country Music Festival

Featuring
John Williamson, Bill Chambers, Felicity Urquhart & Glen Hannah, Jonah’s Road, Ashleigh Dallas Band and more to be announced.

August 1st – 7th 2010
Cost from $2299.00 per person

Twin Share includes:
Return Airfares from Sydney
Return transfers, 7 nights at a 4 Star Resort in Fiji
All Meals, Country Music Festival Tickets
Nightly entertainment, Firewalking Show
Welcome cocktail party
Canapes every afternoon during happy hour
Free Scuba Lesson, Free Snorkel Hire and more.

For more details call Country Music Holidays 1300 799 987

Michelle Costigan & Jenny Haslem

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