Single release: 'Send Me Home' by Jeremy Edwards

Singer-songwriter Jeremy Edwards has released 'Send Me Home', which has already featured on ABC TV's Two on the Great Divide with John Doyle and Tim Flannery.

Jeremy has co-written, recorded and toured with The Voice winner Karise Eden, played on and co-produced albums for alt. country singer-songwriters Cyndi Boste and folk rocker Toni Swain, and was a feature artist with The Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson tributes. In short, he knows his stuff, and that is evident on this beautifully composed, bittersweet song.

Listen to 'Send Me Home' on Soundcloud or watch an earlier live version below.



www.jeremyedwards.net

This Crazy Life tour: Gord Bamford

The Wolfe Brothers are headlining a new tour - more like a mini-festival - in October and they have a host of good talent with them, including Canadian-Australian country star Gord Bamford, who recently played the Gympie Muster. Gord has headed home for a few weeks, and then he'll be back - I asked him a few questions ahead of his return.

You have possibly the best country music name ever - is it real? 

Well thank you, yes it is!


You are Australian-Canadian - just how are Australian are you? Since you're about to tour here, I have to ask.

I was born in Austrailia and my mom and dad split up when I was 5.5 years old. My mother then brought my sister and I back to her home land in Alberta Canada. My dad and half-sister and two half-brothers stayed in Australia. I feel even though I left at a young age I am just as Aussie as when it happened. Lots to catch up on. 


You're now living in Tennessee – what do you miss about Canada?

I moved to Tennessee to continue to write songs,when I'm not on tour. I write for a publishing company called 'ole', miss lots about Canada but also have the great opportunity to see different parts of the world with my job. 


You're joining the Wolfe Brothers on tour - as well as some other Australian acts - have you met them before?

Yes, I have met the Wolfe Brothers, as well as a few of the artists that will be part of the tour. The brothers actually played in my band while we did the Gympie Muster. They are great people and musicians. 


When were you approached about the tour and how long did it take you to say 'yes'?

I have been very fortunate to have met Steve White and to have ABC Music sign me up. It's a great opportunity to see the country I was born in as well as get my music out to all the passionate country fans down under. It took 2 seconds to except the invite. 

You're also playing the Gympie Muster - how long will you be in Australia in total?

Gympie was fantastic, and I had a very heart-warming response. Was a quick trip as I head back for shows in Canada and the Canadian Country Music Awards before returning back for the month of August. 


Are you looking forward to any destinations in particular while you're in Australia?

I'm looking forward to all of it, it's a dream come true. 


You have a foundation – how did it start and what work does it do?

The Gord Bamford Foundation is currently in its 10th year and it started based around a charity golf tourney. It has raised just over 2.8 million dollars for youth and multi-use facilities right across Canada. It is 95% youth based and helps support things  like the Children's Hospitals, Make A Wish Foundations, Ronald McDonald Houses, Big Brothers and Sisters. Sports facilities, wheelchair accessible playgrounds as well. It's the most gratefully and single important thing I have ever been a part of and I am very proud of it. 

www.gordbamford.com

THIS CRAZY LIFE TOUR DATES

Friday 7 October 2016 | 8pm

Wrest Point Entertainment Centre, HOBART TAS

1300 795 257 | www.tixtas.com.au

Saturday 8 October 2016 | 8pm

Hotel Tasmania, LAUNCESTON TAS

1300 795 257 | www.tixtas.com.au

Friday 14 October 2016 | 8.30pm

Kay Street Entertainment Complex, TRARALGON VIC

(03) 5176 0463 | www.kayst.oztix.com.au

Saturday 15 October 2016 | 7.30pm

The Palms at Crown, MELBOURNE VIC

136 100 | www.ticketmaster.com.au

Friday 21 October 2016 | 8pm

Evan Theatre, Penrith Panthers, PENRITH NSW

(02) 4720 5555 | www.penrith.panthers.com.au

Saturday 22 October 2016 | 8.30pm

Wests New Lambton, NEWCASTLE NSW

(02) 4935 1200 | www.westsnewcastle.com.au

Friday 28 October 2016 | 8pm

Twin Towns Services Club, TWEED HEADS NSW

1800 014 014 | www.twintowns.com.au

Saturday 29 October 2016 | 8pm

Empire Theatre, TOOWOOMBA QLD

1300 655 299 | www.empiretheatre.com.au

Nimbin Roots Festival: Paul Greene

Paul Greene has been entertaining Australians in all corners of the land for several years now - and he's bringing his considerable talents to the already impressive line-up at Nimbin Roots Festival, which takes place on 17-18 September 2016. If you're still considering whether or not to go to the festival, read what Paul has to say about why he's looking forward to not only playing there but seeing other acts.

How excited are you about going to Nimbin?

Very! Very excited. I haven’t been on the road for quite a while, so I will be back on the road and anything that involves a large number of independent, weird and wonderful musicians is something that is always going to get my interest, and I know it’s going to be a fun time.

I like your categorisation of ‘weird and wonderful’ – could you elaborate?

I don’t have many friends that are accountants or even tradespeople. I just find that people who dedicate their life to art are great people to be around. They may not have much stuff but they’ve lived their lives and I learn from them, and I love being around people who have lived extraordinary lives.

This is slightly off topic, perhaps, but are there people you’ve met who you would consider mentors?

Definitely. I think every musician that I’ve come to know and respect has taught me something. It might be someone who’s just starting out who’s just a mind-blowing, gifted songwriter. Rob Hirst from Midnight Oil is one of my mentors. I played in a band with him years ago – we put out an album in 2004 together – so getting to work with him was pretty amazing. James Blundell is a real mentor of mine. He’s a great friend and I recorded an album, produced an album, for him a few years ago and we’ve stayed in touch. He’s had an amazing career and so I’ve learnt a lot about the choices I make and the things I do from his experiences. Having been through all sides of the music industry from number one on the charts to down and out in the media, hunting him down, he’s really lived it. The other thing with James, having got to know him, is that he’s such an artist – he’s had an artist’s life.

Which is contrary to his public image, I think.

Well, that’s the thing – his writing, as a songwriter and artist, is amazing. He’s done such an amazing body of work. He’s known for doing the Dingoes cover ‘Way Out West’ but he’s still loved for a lot of his other work like ‘Postcards from Saigon’ and ‘Kimberley Moon’. For me, anyway – and I think that this is something that would be echoed by many of the artists who are going to be at Nimbin Roots – it’s not always about people’s public awareness of you. It’s more about finding people or letting people find you who get what you do and appreciate what you do. Because it’s art. Everyone’s different. Everyone’s got a slightly different perspective on it. What does tend to cheese me off is artists who are just focused on the publicity, on the poster and the photos and it’s not enough about the music itself, which is the most important thing.

And if you’re only focused on the poster and the photos, it can only take you so far. If the work’s not there to back it up it falls over pretty quickly.

I don’t know – you’d be surprised [laughs]. Those things as well as having a ruthless and very good manager, and a big record label, they will make you very well known and make you a lot of money. They don’t necessarily make you a great artist. A lot of the people at the Nimbin Roots Festival are not those people. But people who are that way inclined and they’re looking for some substance and they’re looking for something a bit more than just what mainstream has to offer, I think [Nimbin] is the perfect destination for them, because I can personally guarantee that anyone who goes there will walk away having discovered an artist who’s going to impact their life – someone they’re going to love and buy their albums and go to their shows.

The word you just used – ‘discovered’ – was on my mind because the thing with a big publicity machine is that it makes the artist more discoverable, and of course that is the challenge for artists who don’t have that behind them: how people hear about them when they’re less inclined to go out to shows and everyone is always nervous about new things, really. But that’s the great thing about a festival like this – Lou’s intention in putting it together is … I’m not going to say ‘pure’, because that makes it sound twee, but she’s got a real sense of mission.

She definitely has. She always has. And she’s not afraid to ruffle feathers and she’s not afraid to question the establishment – and thank god someone’s doing it. I’m happy with my career. I’ve been an ARIA finalist, I’ve toured and made a living from music for 15 or 20 years, I have a really great mob of people who love what I do and who will buy my albums and come to my shows. But people don’t know who I am – the general public doesn’t know who I am. I’ve got a past career as an Olympian and I’m a world record holder but I don’t need that to identify what I do as an artist. I’m not making any apologies or excuses for the music I make, and I want people to choose it because they like it, not because they’re told to. And this whole festival is about that – it’s about people who put their time and energy into creative pursuits, and into music, and into the craft of songwriting. And this is an ancient craft. Folk music is still alive and well – the stories people tell about the land, about their travels, about the government. Making up songs about Tinder, you know. That’s what music’s about – it’s about sharing collective experiences and connecting with each other through the music and those collective experiences.

As I like to say, country music – which is a large umbrella – is our storytelling in song. There’s no other genre – if I include all those genres related to country – that’s providing that. I can’t think of any rock song that makes me say, ‘That’s a story I had to have.’

Exactly. There’s these stories in these little pockets of Australian history that are being captured by people and they’re probably not even aware of it – that’s not what they’re trying to do, necessarily. It’s just their passion and their way of expressing. What would you rather have: a multi-trillionaire what you need to know or someone you’ve never heard of who just makes up songs because they like it? Who would you rather trust? We’re all making our own history and musicians and songwriters are documenting it.

Yes, and they have a really direct channel to the audience. In live performance your audience is right there, which harks back to how stories were originally told – sitting around a fire, telling a story.

That’s it. It is a very pure and very honest form. I think the fewer people you have between that artist who’s telling the story and the audience that’s making their own decision about whether they like it or not, the better. Because music is an industry – it’s a multi-billion-dollar industry – and really statistically very few people get a majority of the cut of the pie, but it doesn’t necessarily invalidate people who aren’t. In fact, I think sometimes they’re more valid. They’re sometimes people you’ve never heard of. Nick Drake is a great example of someone who didn’t make lots of money when he was alive. Wasn’t really acknowledged for what he did. However, he has influenced musicians for a couple of generations now and will continue to. That’s success: someone who influences their peers and inspires people to keep going and keep creating music. The paradigm of being rich and everybody knowing your name as ‘successful’ is false.

Every time I go to Tamworth I see how engaged the audience is, whether it’s listening to someone they’ve never heard of on Peel Street or in a pub, or it’s a big show. You can see on their faces how much it means to them that those people are there and they’re performing for them and telling stories for them. And it’s really moving, actually.

The experience of live music itself is still so powerful. From touring for years, getting to know people in a town and come back six months later and play again. And this happens over 10 years, so I’ve got whole crews of friends who are in places like Warracknabeal, Goodna and Perth, Fremantle. Some of the little pubs and things I used to travel to, after being there a few time and playing at the bar with an acoustic, they’d ask me to play unplugged. I wouldn’t even set up a PA, I’d just sit at the bar and play and tell stories. The less you can get between the music and the listener, the better. At the same time, not everyone who’s undiscovered is amazing. There are some amazing people who are undiscovered but there’s a lot of shit out there too [laughs].

Given that you have travelled extensively, I imagine you’ve played in the Nimbin area if not in Nimbin itself in the past.

I don’t actually think I’ve ever played in Nimbin before. I’ve played around. I’ve played in Uki, I’ve played Byron, I’ve played Ballina and Tweed and I played Murwillumbah Country Roots Fest last year.

How was that?

That was brilliant. Having been doing this for a long time and still having the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I’m watching other artists perform, I’m grateful for that. I’m so glad I’m not bitter and jaded and sick of the whole thing. There’s many people are who have been doing their job for twenty years. I still love it and I’m still grateful for every opportunity to play my music.

Of course Lou [Bradley] was the artistic director of that festival too. Did you have to make a submission to be in the festival?

I did. But I’ve known Lou for coming up to ten years now. I live down the south coast of New South Wales and when she’d come down here I’d help her find some shows and get gigs down here, and she’s done the same for me. And she’s moved up now and organising festivals, as I am as well – I’m booking festivals and booking events round near where I live as well. But she always comes to my gigs and her kids come to my gigs. She gets that I’ve been doing it independently as well and trying to stay clear of the bullshit, and just trying to make good music and do it honestly and organically and play it to people. And not everyone loves it but just be there for those who do and you try to make good records.

Are there any artists in particular who you’re looking forward to seeing play in Nimbin?

Jodi Martin – she is an amazing songwriter and she’s been travelling and doing the hard yards for a really long time. She’s from Ceduna, out back of South Australia. She is a magnificent writer so I’m looking forward to seeing what new material she does. She’s one of those people who’ll get up on stage and say, ‘Oh, I wrote this one this morning and I’m going to play it now.’ Just so unaware of her brilliance. She doesn’t walk around like a rock star – she’s mostly walking around going, ‘What am I doing here?’ It’s just who she is and she does it so well, so I always look forward to seeing her perform. And I haven’t studied the programme because my favourite way to discover new artists is to just wander around and bump into stuff, or just follow my ears – if I hear something that sounds good I’ll just go and look at it. I’m sure that I’ll walk away from this festival with another dozen or so favourite artists and a bunch of new CDs to listen to on the drive on the way home.

Which is so exciting. And something you said just a few minutes ago, that you haven’t become jaded – it is so easy to shut your brain off to new things and I think that spirit of enquiry and constantly looking for and enjoying new material is terrific.

I think a lot of people have got the wrong idea of wealth. They’ve been hoodwinked into thinking that having a lot of things is wealth, but I think having good life experiences is what wealth is about. Having a wealth of experiences. If you cut yourself off to those new experiences or to trying new things … I love watching TV as much as the next person, but it’s not going to bring you any wealth of experience, is it? [laughs] A great movie is another thing. Great film is an art form just like great performers and songwriters. So [Nimbin] is one of those opportunities to look behind the screen and see something that’s without the hype and is a real snapshot of roots music, folk music and country music in Australia at this time.

Are you still doing some producing?

Yes. I choose my projects carefully. I’m producing an album for Spy V Spy – I sing in Spy V Spy, I’ve been with that band for a few years. They called me in – they were looking for a singer and asked me to do it and I happened to be a huge fan. A bit of a theme of anti-establishment songwriting – Spy V Spy fits straight into that. I’ve been recording with them and helping them release a new album. And I’ve got my studio set up, I’ve been recording – the last collaboration has been with a mechanic who’s a poet and he just had all these lyrics. He came to me and said, ‘I want to make these into songs’, so I put the music to them and we recorded them, and he’s done a whole album. That’s been amazing, working with someone who’s just a pure artist – so pure an artist they don’t even know they’re an artist. [I’m also] co-writing with different people and working on some of my own stuff when I get a chance.

So my last question is: I saw something on your website about a fake Paul Greene. There’s someone going around saying he’s Paul Greene and he’s not.

[Laughs] There’s a guy whose name’s Joe Zammit. He naturalised as an Australian citizen in 1980-something and he gave himself the name Paul Greene He performs under both names, but he’s been recently contacting venues in my local area. I’m not quite sure what he says but the venues seem to think it’s me. So I’m playing at this pub up the road that booked this other guy and he was terrible, apparently, and they said they’d never have him back and I said, ‘I’m sorry that the other Paul Greene got there first but I’d be happy to come and play for you, and we’ll play on this spin that this guy’s been hijacking my name’. I think he must get a better fee.

How frustrating!

It really sucks. I imagine the people who haven’t been to one of my shows see this guy playing, turn up, they don’t know it’s not me and they walk away saying, ‘That was horrible.’ He plays to midi files, apparently. I’ve confronted this guy and said, ‘It’s not good for me and ultimately it’s not good for you’ – because I actually registered Paul Greene as a trademark so no one else can perform as a musician under that name legally. But the other side of the coin, I think the guy must be really desperate if he’s wanting to use my name. Why doesn’t he use Michael Jackson or John Lennon or Bob Dylan?

He probably really likes your music – he might have seen you play and thought, I want to be that guy!

In a sense I pity the guy that that’s the best option he got, using my name. He must have had a pretty dismal career and he must really need the help.

And as the saying goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

That is true, and there is the side of me that goes, ‘Poor guy, just give him a break – let him be Paul Greene for a couple of hours. If he has to do that, the rest of his life can’t be all that fabulous.’

www.paulgreene.com.au

www.facebook.com/PaulGreeneMusic

www.nrfest.com 

Single release: 'Happy Ever After' by Amber Lawrence

Amber Lawrence's fan base continues to grow, and that is no surprise: she consistently delivers great albums and she goes out of her way to connect with fans and support community organisations. Her songs are carefully crafted works full of emotion - and lovely melodies.

Ahead of the release of her new album, Happy Ever After, on 30 September 2016, Amber has released the title track as a single. You can watch the video below.




You can pre-order Happy Ever After on iTunes. 
www.amberlawrence.com.au

Single release: 'Frontier Lullaby' by Alesa Lajana

Australian singer-songwriter, guitarist and banjo player Alesa Lajana has released the wonderful title track of her album Frontier Lullaby. The story told in this song was inspired by the events surrounding the Hornet Bank Station Massacre that took place on Jiman (sometimes referred to as Yeeman or Iman) country, near Taroom Queensland in 1857.

 You can watch the video below.




Find Alesa on Facebook.

Dolly Parton talks about rhinestones and love songs with Katie Couric

Dolly Parton's new album Pure & Simple has been an immediate hit, and Dolly is in the middle of a huge American tour (Dolly in concert is a singular - and singularly amazing - experience) but she sat down with Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric to chat about a range of things, including the fact that she 'never leaves a rhinestone unturned'.

Watch the interview here:

dollyparton.com

Gretta Ziller is on the hunt for ... a new album

Gretta Ziller's debut EP, Hell's Half Acre, which opens with a cracker of a track, 'Hunt for Love'. Now Gretta is on the the hunt for Pozible sponsors so she can create her first album. If the LP merely produces ten songs of the same standard as the songs on the EP, it will be fantastic, but there's every chance Gretta will do more than that.

One of the great things about crowd-funding campaigns for albums is that it's essentially just a pre-order - so you know you'll get something tangible at the end of the process.

Support Gretta's Pozible campaign here.

grettaziller.com