NEW ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Drew Davis Band
By Bob Doerschuk
© 2008 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.
Neal McCoy isn't easily impressed. But when he heard the Drew Davis Band doing sound check before opening for him one night, the celebrated entertainer decided instantly that they were "the best live act ever."

They impress nearly as much on paper as onstage, with a lineup that includes frontman Drew Davis, who built his intense vocal style through gigs back home in Missouri that included opening for Roy Clark, Grammy-nominated keyboardist Roger Malinowski, Malibu-born and bluegrass-bred guitarist Loren Ellis and USC-music-professor-turned-groove-machine Mo Levone on bass.

Though they sound as if they have paid long dues on the road, the DDB rocketed to prominence just three months after coming together in L.A., when they took top honors in the Colgate Country Showdown. They have been seasoned since then, having warmed up the house for Brooks & Dunn, Dierks Bentley, Craig Morgan, Tanya Tucker, SHeDAISY and other headliners, while rocking countless clubs on their own and, eventually, recording Crossroads, their debut album on Lofton Creek Records.

Grand Ole Opry Trust Fund Serves Music Community
By Bob Doerschuk

© 2008 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.

Alan Mayor is one of the best-liked photographers in Nashville, known for the extensive catalog of candid photographs of Country Music artists he accumulated since moving to Music City in the mid-1970s.

Yet not long ago, others noticed something that had slipped his attention — and nearly cost him his life.

“I was in Key West, shooting the BMI Songwriter Fest in May 2006,” he recalled. “And in front of all my friends whose pictures I was taking, I collapsed. Everyone was going, ‘Alan? What’s happening?’”

What was happening was that Mayor’s liver was beginning to fail, the result by his own admission of a longtime drinking habit. He was hospitalized and later given extensive treatment at Metro General Hospital in Nashville and Fort Sanders Sevier Medical Center in Sevierville, Tenn., leading in November 2007 to a kidney transplant at Vanderbilt Medical Center.

The process, though ultimately successful in bringing him back from the precipice of death, was excruciating. His first six days of hospitalization added up to nearly $20,000 in medical bills. Eventually, he would face charges of more than $100,000 — all of which, as an uninsured patient, was his responsibility.

SAMMY SADLER Speaks Freely About 'Murder On Music Row' on 'The Dallas Morning News'

Sammy Sadler speaks freely and calmly to Mario Tarradell of the Dallas Morning News today about the incident, which is known around the world as the "Murder on Music Row." Excerpts of the story are below and available here.

"I don't want people to look at me as just a country music singer, because I'm a survivor, too," says Mr. Sadler while sitting backstage at Johnnie High's Country Music Revue. "By the grace of God I'm still here. God left me here for a reason, and he saved me, and I feel like it's to sing and entertain people. We're not going to go away. We're back. We're trying to get our music to the people. I love singing. I love entertaining people. If my music and what I've lived through can help somebody else, that's what I hope that it does."

"Even though we finally got closure," he says, "I mean, I just look at my arm and it brings me back to that night immediately. It never goes away. It's always there."

Sammy Sadler [www.sammysadler.com] was 22, Nashville-based, married and had just signed a recording contract with independent imprint Evergreen Records. He had a handful of singles that charted and was working on his debut album. But he had a spat with his wife on March 9, 1989, and wanted out of the house. So he called up his friend Kevin Hughes, chart director for music-industry magazine Cashbox, who usually worked late on Thursday nights.

Seventeen tracks, produced by Mark Neill, are self-released by Hammond on the “Hammond family label,” Humminbird Records.

Country artists taking on pop standards wasn’t a new idea when Willie Nelson released the ten tracks of 1978’s Stardust LP. Ferlin Husky had released an entire album’s worth on 1957’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams, and other country stars regularly drew from the Great American Songbook. Nelson himself had recorded “That Lucky Old Sun” two years earlier for his The Sound in Your Mind LP. What made Stardust so audacious was the confluence of Nelson’s iconoclastic career and the times in which the album was released. Where his outlaw compadre Waylon Jennings had directly confronted Nashville, Nelson vented his subversion by retreating to Texas, and waxing concept albums like “Phases and Stages” and “The Red Headed Stranger.”

As Chesnutt’s hit-making years wound down at the end of the ‘90s, his MCA releases crept away from the neo-traditional honky-tonk that originally made him famous By the end of his tenure, and on his one album for Columbia, he was neither true to his country roots, nor finding crossover material that could catch the fickle ears of country radio. That all changed with his reemergence in 2004 as an indie artist. “Savin’ the Honky Tonk,” with its front cover nod to Waylon Jennings’ “Honky Tonk Heroes,” found Chesnutt rededicated to the sort of music that first energized his career: two-steps, shuffles and twangy ballads about loving, cheating, drinking and all manner of behavior in between.

Vocalist, songwriter and group co-founder Chris Gaffney’s passing in April 2008 can’t help but retint this third studio album as a memorial to the group’s fallen leader. And while there are plenty of sad songs here, and some lyrics that eerily presage Gaffney’s departure, the album is filled with life, particularly in Gaffney’s singing. The group once again worked with Muscle Shoals songwriting and producing legend Dan Penn, but with his input limited to five tracks, there’s a stronger honky-tonk vibe here than the country-soul heard on 2006’s “What’s Wrong With Right.” The group’s co-leader, guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Dave Gonzalez, picks tasteful twangy leads, David Berzansky bends the strings of his pedal steel, and the band’s rhythm section (Hank Maninger on bass and Dale Daniel on drums) count off two-steps, shuffles and Western swings with enthusiasm. On top of it all, Gaffney’s rough-edged, occasionally wavery vocals are packed with emotion.

Like their labelmate Andy Griggs, The Road Hammers play a nitro-boosted brand of funky modern country rock that’s drawn in part from the Muzik Mafia stylings of Big & Rich. The group’s playing and production is solid, and their vocal harmonies are tight, but what really provides distinction is their slate of blue collar truckin’ tunes. But unlike Dale Watson’s “Truckin’ Sessions” this isn’t a throwback to earlier truckin’ sounds, and the group’s originals aren’t your daddy’s lonely songs of haunted, pill-popping, one-arm tanned long-haul truckers. Instead, the band lives up to its name with swaggering, full-throttle performances of originals and tunes borrowed from the pens of John Rich, Chris Knight, Jerry Reed and Lowell George.

Having gravitated to one another’s live sets at Momo’s in Austin, Texas, songwriters Colin Brooks, Gordy Quist and Ed Jurdi (together with bassist Seth Whitney and drummer John Chipman) formed The Band of Heathens and released their 2006 debut as, unsurprisingly, “Live at Momo’s.” More unusually, their follow-up was also a live disc, and it wasn’t until this 2008 release that the quintet settled down to record in a proper studio. Their combination of country, rock and blues has a distinctly southern flavor, venturing towards Southern Rock and stadium-sized energy of John Mellancamp’s heartland singalongs, but remaining rootsy throughout. There are numerous antecedents here, including the bluesy melting pot of Little Feat, the 1970s rock-goes-country Rolling Stones, the eclecticism of Commander Cody and NRBQ, and the rustic sentiments of The Band.

Bill Anderson - Unplugged

Whisperin' Bill Anderson, who has built a six-decade career out of writing and performing
legendary country songs, plans to take those tunes -- and the stories behind them -- on an
extensive acoustic tour of Canada this coming September.

Billed as "A Night With A Legend" , the show has been designed to present Anderson in an
intimate conversation-style setting and will feature acoustic performances by Les Singer,
James Freeze, and Lisa Manning. All three musicians are regular members of Anderson's
award-winning Po' Folks Band, which continues to perform concerts throughout the U.S.

Offering each audience a personal glimpse behind the births of the songs he calls "his
children", the Country Music Hall of Famer will share stories about such Anderson classics
as "City Lights", "Still", "Mama Sang A Song", "Saginaw, Michigan", "8X10" , "Once A Day",
"Whiskey Lullaby", "Give It Away", and many others.

Booked by Nick Meinema at The Agency Group in Toronto, "A Night With A Legend" runs
90-minutes in length and is currently scheduled for nine different venues in September.
Cities include Marmora, ON (13th); Spencerville, ON (14th); Winnipeg, MB (19th); Winkler,
MB (20th); North Battleford, SK (23rd); Saskatoon, SK (24th); Moose Jaw, SK (25th);
Regina, SK (26th); and Sherwood Park, AB (28th). Additional dates will also be finalized
in the near future.