The Alternate Root - Serving the online Roots Americana music community since 2007. We are an interactive music magazine featuring all genres of traditional American roots music including, Americana, Alt-country, Blues, Rockabilly, Folk, Bluegrass, Roots Rock, traditional country, music video, interviews, reviews, feature stories, online store and everything Roots Americana music.
The Alternate Root Americana Roots Magazine Features For January 2010
BAND OF HEATHENS -ROOTS MUSIC'S BEST NEW HOPE - BY: DANNY McCLOSKEY
Band of Heathens are not completely without a faith in something bigger than themselves. For the Austin-based group, the higher power is Band of Heathens. That devotion is not based on ego, it is grounded in the knowledge that their success is based solely on the band and the team built around the organization. On a recent early morning after a Park City, Utah gig we got a chance to speak with Gordy Quist, one of the three vocalists in Band of Heathens. Given the late night before, the dedication to the big picture came through in Gordy’s attention to getting up and taking care of business while the other band members made the choice of staying in bed rather than fulfilling on the wee hour promises of snowboarding in the morning light. Gordy’s words supported the common knowledge and drive that course through of Band of Heathens. CLICK HERE TO READ THE FEATURE STORY
ALTERNATE ROOT TV SETS IT'S SIGHTS ON THE AMERICANA FORMAT - Staff What to do with over 70 hours of filmed interviews and acoustic performances with some of the biggest names in the roots Americana format? I know...how about a TV show with interviews, in-studio guests, acoustic performances and music videos? No one else is doing it and it just might help to further the noble cause of trying to give independent roots and Americana musicians a voice they desperately need. Well that’s somewhat how the conversations went when The Alternate Root magazine began to compile, edit and produce Alternate Root TV, a weekly one hour show that is currently being syndicated to Cable Access Television stations from coast to coast.
There have been a number of logistical obstacles in the way not the least of which is trying to produce a television show with a non-existent budget, a lack of music video content in a format where music video content is mostly non-existent to begin with and you don’t have anyone to host said television show. Well that’s ok they said we couldn’t do a magazine either a few years ago and today the Alternate Root is the fastest growing online music magazine in the country...we’re used to overcoming obstacles, we feel like were supposed to overcome obstacles. It’s what we do.
We started putting the shows together in November and quietly started to solicit the CATV stations around the country at the beginning of December. Interest started to materialize almost instantly in Boston, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Portland and more. Today we’re ready with the first 4 weeks of programs with another 12 weeks in the works. Roots Americana music has a TV show. And it’s coming your way.
Listening to many recent releases, I’m finding, as you likely are, that much of today’s blues obscures or offers only snippets of the gut-wrenching emotion the originators poured out. Fortunately there are still enough artists who are naturally playing with passion. Look no further than these five releases: Tail Dragger’s down and dirty Chicago blues Live at Rooster’s Lounge, Mose Allison’s unique, sardonic wit on his first album in twelve years, The Way of the World, and the group often dubbed “the best bar band in the land”, The Nighthawks, with Last Train to Bluesville. Blues and gospel mingle on Luther Dickinson and The Sons of Mudboy’s Onward and Upward and a new one from the Vancouver- based trio, The Sojourners.
Tail Dragger (aka James Yancey Jones) is Howlin Wolf’s appointed heir to the deep electric growling blues. He holds court every Saturday night at one of the last remaining blues clubs on Chicago’s West Side, the tiny Rooster’s Lounge. The DVD really captures the charismatic Tail Dragger working the crowd as he’s backed by a solid band performing some classic blues tunes and some Tail Dragger penned tunes in never-stealing-the-spotlight fashion. Similarly, the Nighthawks prove they need no gimmicks as they acoustically render ten classics live at the Sirius/XM Radio studios. Veteran co-founders Mark Wenner (vocals and harp) and drummer Pete Ragusa handle the lead vocals along with bassist Johnny Castle. Together now for almost four decades they crank it up at bars and festival gigs, but here settle in for a genuinely casual picking session that demonstrates their deep feel for the blues.
PUBLICIST MARTHA MOORE OF SO MUCH MOORE MEDIA- By: DANNY McCLOSKEY
Over the past 30 years, Martha Moore has worked with artists from every genre of music, including: Johnny Cash, Jerry Reed, Joe Cocker, Sylvia, Kathy Mattea, Loretta Lynn, George Strait, Todd Fritsch, Don Williams, Zane Lewis, The Oak Ridge Boys, Karen Taylor-Good, Brenda Lee, Hank Cochran, Becky Schlegel, The Amazing Rhythm Aces, Randy Thompson, Jeff Griffith, Burrito Deluxe, Brooklyn Cowboys, Lantana, John Cougar-Mellencamp, KISS, Tears for Fears, Lisa O’Kane, Sammy Sadler, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, BarKays, Big Al Downing and many more.
Martha Moore is president of so much MOORE media, Her “cottage” industry has become a multi-market media force, offering clients services that cover international and national marketing, public relations, and artist development campaigns for album, tour and internet publicity. She also coordinates client imaging, photo shoots and more. With a diverse client base, Martha is unwavering in her principals: she never takes on a client she doesn’t believe in – and she never stops working for that client once they’re on-board.
The Alternate Root (TAR): You started out in a label environment when you began work in publicity. Were you always drawn to the publicity side of the business?
Martha Moore (MM): Actually, I always thought I would have my own little advertising agency. I majored in advertising and minored in marketing at UT/Knoxville. My first paying gig in the entertainment industry was as copywriter at WKGN Radio/Knoxville (Top 40) for 30 days while the long-time copywriter was on vacation. $50 a week…big bucks for a college student at the time!!
After graduating, I moved to Nashville – and worked at WLAC Radio (TOP 40) – doing AM Promotion and FM Traffic (logging in commercials…not riding in a helicopter.) When a position opened at ABC/DOT Records for publicity manager – I got it—mostly because I was a good bowler (but that’s another story) – and got a crash course in Country Music with cool acts like Don Williams, Amazing Rhythm Aces, Jimmy Buffet.
ANNE McCUE BALLAD OF AN OUTLAW WOMAN By: DANNY McCLOSKEY
Anne McCue has recently been included along with Bob Dylan, the Byrds, Patty Griffin and other great artists in the collection '4 Decades of Folk Rock' and was a special guest at the International Guitar Festival. She released her latest album "East Of Electric" in August 2008. McCue recorded and produced the album at her own Flying Machine Studio in Nashville. It was mixed by Mike Esser at 16 Ton Studio and was mastered by Ray Kennedy at Zen Masters.
Her two previous albums were recorded at Dusty Wakeman's Mad Dog Studios in Burbank, California and were released on the Messenger Records label. McCue and Wakeman co-produced the albums. Going in with the philosophy of some of Anne's favourite three piece bands, on 'Roll' she played the guitars, Dusty played bass with Dave Raven on the drums. The three jammed on the material. Carl Byron added keyboards. The album has received critical acclaim from such publications as Billboard, Entertainment Weekly and XM Satellite Radio (Top 5 Album of the Year) and was picked by Bob Harris of the BBC as his favourite album of
2004.
Offered the chance to play music in Vietnam for a year Anne found it, "an unbelievable experience and it really changed my life. It also gave me the chance to hone my lead guitar playing." Anne rode a 1965 Vesper and toted her guitar around on the bike 'just like the locals'. After playing in all kinds of bands almost every night it was time to return to Melbourne where she frequented the blues jams. She continued recording her original songs but took the opportunity to become a member of a group which was soon signed to Columbia Records giving Anne the opportunity to tour the U.S. and Canada as part of the "Lilith Fair." This experience brought her on stage with many of the greats such as The Pretenders, Emmylou Harris and Sarah McLachlan and took her to Los Angeles. The band proved to be creatively frustrating for Anne, so she left the group to pursue her interrupted solo career.
THE GOOD LISTENERS LA BY WAY OF PORTLAND By: DANNY MCCLOSKEY
To be a good story teller, performer, songwriter, you have to be a good listener. To take on that claim as a band name, you have to be really committed to the task. The Good Listeners take on the role and raise the bar. Mostly their own bar. On past album efforts the ‘Los Angeles by way of Portland Oregon’ duo have created and recorded songs in one day. That model helps to keep things fresh and to not have the process clogged with over-thinking. On the latest release, ‘Don’t Quit Your Daydream’, the bands take their self-imposed methods and take things on the road. The Good Listeners took a day to record and a day to travel for each of their songs, logging twenty four days and coming home with twelve songs as souvenirs of the trip.
The Alternate Root (TAR): Was the recording process planned out well in advance of the trip?
Clark Stiles (CS): The first three stops were a result of research before we left Los Angeles. Once we completed recording in Madrid, New Mexico, we would do a two or three day advance of where we were going and with whom we would collaborate. We only secured funding for the project on the day before we left.
TAR: Was that the idea all along?
CS: Something like this, creating songs in collaboration and then recording, is very difficult to plan. I don’t know if it is a function of being a rational or creative being but personally, I don’t think that there is anything better than an accident. In music, accidents are the best gift ever.
THE SOJOURNERS - BY: REB LANDERS I was first turned on to the Sojourners on the tribute to The Mississippi Shieks, ‘Things About Comin' My Way.’ Their version of 'He Calls That Religion' was one of the highlights on an album filled with a multitude of highlights. When I listen to Gospel blues, in the vein of The Sojourners, I'm not immediately turned off by the message as I am with contemporary Christian music. The message seems more subtle, more open to a vast array of interpretations, more about the common sense of justice and tolerance than for the common furthering of a particular religious belief. I'm sure there's contemporary Christian music that is open for similar interpretation, I just haven't gone that deep into it. Enough on that. The Sojourners eponymous release, their second,is a brilliant recording that celebrates that common message of justice, equality and tolerance in harmony with a trio of skillful vocalists backed by a band of superb players.
The Sojourners actually formed in 2006 by accident. As the legend has it Canadian blues staple Jim Byrnes was in need of some heavy backing vocalists during a recording session. He phoned Marcus Mosely and asked him to round up a backing trio. Mosely, a Texas native living in Vancouver, contacted two friends Will Sanders and Ron Small to join him in the session. Byrnes dubbed them The Sojourners, the name stuck and well for lack of a less cliche sentiment, the rest is, or will be, history. Magic is magic and The Sojourners have it.
What to do with over 70 hours of filmed interviews and acoustic performances with some of the biggest names in the roots Americana format? I know...how about a TV show with interviews, in-studio guests, acoustic performances and music videos? No one else is doing it and it just might help to further the noble cause of trying to give independent roots and Americana musicians a voice they desperately need. Well that’s somewhat how the conversations went when The Alternate Root magazine began to compile, edit and produce Alternate Root TV, a weekly one hour show that is currently being syndicated to Cable Access Television stations from coast to coast. 
Listening to many recent releases, I’m finding, as you likely are, that much of today’s blues obscures or offers only snippets of the gut-wrenching emotion the originators poured out. Fortunately there are still enough artists who are naturally playing with passion. Look no further than these five releases: Tail Dragger’s down and dirty Chicago blues Live at Rooster’s Lounge, Mose Allison’s unique, sardonic wit on his first album in twelve years, The Way of the World, and the group often dubbed “the best bar band in the land”, The Nighthawks, with Last Train to Bluesville. Blues and gospel mingle on Luther Dickinson and The Sons of Mudboy’s Onward and Upward and a new one from the Vancouver- based trio, The Sojourners.
Over the past 30 years, Martha Moore has worked with artists from every genre of music, including: Johnny Cash, Jerry Reed, Joe Cocker, Sylvia, Kathy Mattea, Loretta Lynn, George Strait, Todd Fritsch, Don Williams, Zane Lewis, The Oak Ridge Boys, Karen Taylor-Good, Brenda Lee, Hank Cochran, Becky Schlegel, The Amazing Rhythm Aces, Randy Thompson, Jeff Griffith, Burrito Deluxe, Brooklyn Cowboys, Lantana, John Cougar-Mellencamp, KISS, Tears for Fears, Lisa O’Kane, Sammy Sadler, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, BarKays, Big Al Downing and many more. 
Anne McCue has recently been included along with Bob Dylan, the Byrds, Patty Griffin and other great artists in the collection '4 Decades of Folk Rock' and was a special guest at the International Guitar Festival. She released her latest album "East Of Electric" in August 2008. McCue recorded and produced the album at her own Flying Machine Studio in Nashville. It was mixed by Mike Esser at 16 Ton Studio and was mastered by Ray Kennedy at Zen Masters.
To be a good story teller, performer, songwriter, you have to be a good listener. To take on that claim as a band name, you have to be really committed to the task. The Good Listeners take on the role and raise the bar. Mostly their own bar. On past album efforts the ‘Los Angeles by way of Portland Oregon’ duo have created and recorded songs in one day. That model helps to keep things fresh and to not have the process clogged with over-thinking. On the latest release, ‘Don’t Quit Your Daydream’, the bands take their self-imposed methods and take things on the road. The Good Listeners took a day to record and a day to travel for each of their songs, logging twenty four days and coming home with twelve songs as souvenirs of the trip. 
I was first turned on to the Sojourners on the tribute to The Mississippi Shieks, ‘Things About Comin' My Way.’ Their version of 'He Calls That Religion' was one of the highlights on an album filled with a multitude of highlights. When I listen to Gospel blues, in the vein of The Sojourners, I'm not immediately turned off by the message as I am with contemporary Christian music. The message seems more subtle, more open to a vast array of interpretations, more about the common sense of justice and tolerance than for the common furthering of a particular religious belief. I'm sure there's contemporary Christian music that is open for similar interpretation, I just haven't gone that deep into it. Enough on that. The Sojourners eponymous release, their second,is a brilliant recording that celebrates that common message of justice, equality and tolerance in harmony with a trio of skillful vocalists backed by a band of superb players.
