Life has many crazy ways of taking you away from your passions, but if you do not take care of yourself physically then you cannot take care of your passions, make sense? So sometimes I do have to take long takes away from the keyboard to take care of doctor shit and the likes of that. I am currently on the tail end of an almost 2 week vacation and I have a lot of wonderful music related things to tell you in other articles that will appear later on.
I got the chance to go down to their Saturday lineup of their Spring Awakening function, they do a fall and a spring Campout every year and they feature many of the bands that I love and also my fellow Muddy Roots family loves. The folks that own and the entire event venue have become beloved members of our family and their friends like me have no problem spending money on the acts that play there.
You know I spent more time being a fan this year more than anything and I really enjoyed just being there. I tried to take everything in on pen and paper but I had so much enjoyment in just being a fan. Just being one of the guys at the merch table..like this blog has a slogan. “I am just a guy with a website”. I could only attend one of the two days on this event and I had a wonderful time and I wanted to tell you all about it.
Once again I got to see Kitty Dearing and the Dagnabbits in my many travels, I believe she is still based out of the Memphis area and this was a really good sized set I got to see, so I was glad to see this. I don’t get West of Nashville as much as I would like to to be honest. Just to get to see all of the different people and all of the different communities that branch off from the other genres of music I love.
I really like to involve myself in many genres of music like Red Dirt and Bluegrass and with those other communities there exist a wide range of really fun and interesting people that frequent that type of music, and some of these folks I get to see at other types of music shows too. I can go from Otis Redding to The Dead South very fast! So can my friends, because she covered songs like “You Ain’t Woman Enough” from Loretta’s 1966 same title album. They also did the classic “Fox on the Run”.
Tonight she had her band with her which included Jade Arrow (whom I also wrote about last year at Heart In Hands), the man himself Sean Hanson from one of my favorite bands Black Tarpoon,Matty Matchsticks from the Pentegram String Band. Also included was Alan Benest.Together, they played a bunch of her originals from her 2025 album “Hungover and Heartbroken”. I wrote a shit ton of articles on her, and you need to check her out as well as all of these other bands.
“Oh Darlin’ Jackaroe” was one of her original songs she played from the album as well as “Self Centered Boy”. The other two originals I wrote down were “Mostly the Moonshine” and one of my personal favorites “Ain’t Getting Laid”. Her songs are basically all ice cream sprinkles and rainbows, is that not evident? Because one of the reasons I like this community so much is the fact that many of the bands sound TOTALLY different in genre or type, if that makes sense.
Hypothetically speaking, if I go to a Red Dirt festival, they’re all going to sound almost similar because of the structure of that genre. The smaller bands do not have to even have a structure to make it good music. So let’s switch it over to Dylan Walshe, who brought out my buddy Matt to play harmonica and I have it buried in my lists somewhere and want to include it.
He played many of his greatest hits which some of them he wrote and some of them are old long lost traditional songs that are endeared by many many generations of beautiful people from all over the world. Someone needs to contact him and tell him that he needs to make a Greatest Hits album with a poster that says go “Straight To Hell Boy”. You can pretty much get tanked up as much as you want, and you can still sing along to this one here.
I watch old videos of him like one of him doing “Who Carried You” by Malcom Holcombe is amazing, and you see the music flowing through his soul. Folks, this man just flat out gets it. His music has taught me so many things and that is why I love him like I do, it’s just flat out REAL. When you listen to songs like “At Sea” you will see what I mean….and of course “Ye auld Raggle Taggle Gypsy”. Aye.
River Shook is one hell of an artist, and I can fully respect calling the album a debut. having been beating and banging on the road for over a decade now, and has contributed many sleepless nights and loss to the grind of becoming known in the music business. I have a bunch of stories of past shows I saw in extreme cold and heat, man one year at Muddy Roots it was insanely hot, and Sarah Shook just blasted out a good show.
Listen people, I am not going to blow smoke up anyone’s ass. There are other websites out there that have released some banger reviews of the new album and why it is so integral to becoming River. All of them have really helped me formulate my knowledge of this project. I get it. Because I too, am an addict and an alcoholic and I am seven years sober now. I have worked the twelve steps many times to heal and a re start is sometimes needed. I was wondering if River was going to perform only songs from the self titled debut and not the Sarah Shook and the Disarmers albums. Songs from both of them were played however they were played with a new sense of ambiance. Rebirth and a clean slate. I love you River and I wish sobriety and growth. I want to buy tickets to see you play the Ryman, because BUYING tickets is a dopeamine rush too!
I did not get the chance to write down every song here like I did with so many others but I do remember the first song being “Good As Gold” from the second Bloodshot release called “Years”. Another song from the first album called “Nothin’ Feels right But Doing Wrong”. Additionally, two other songs were in the beginning from the River Shook album. Those two songs were called “Fading” and “Country Angel”.
Songs like “Beater Car” was one of the high points of this album because it made the overall theme of the album represent growth for me through self judgment and change. Change and new beginnings can be a good thing and her remembering the past is why River spoke to me as an action, while maintaining a relevance for songs like “Fuck Up” and “Dwight Yoakam”.
The Yawpers….what can I say? They are one of the jugernaut bands that Bloodshot Records brought forth into the underground so many years ago. They were discovered at South by Southwest festival in Austin Texas around 2014 or 15. I love their name, which came from a Walt Whitman poem and I LOVE his poetry.
They played “Dancing on my Knees” from the 2019 Human Question album and they played a song they never recorded but play prevalently called “Mr. Clean”. It does not appear on any live or studio recording, but you can see it live on YouTube along with many of their new songs from their upcoming album called “Teething”. Our Spotify single release playlist has their new song “Starting Over”.
IV and the Strange Band are currently on tour and her Joe Perez from the Godamn Gallows is contributing his banjo wizardy to his songs. TRUST ME Joe Perez is an underground OG which Coleman grew up with, and I know for a fact HE looks up to Joe like I do. But right now I wanted to tell you about his set here this weekend.
I know I went out of order but everyone was just so equally enjoyable and hearing him play songs like “Why I’m Walking” sung by Stonewall Jackson and he also wrote it with Melvin Endsley in 1959. He also at the same time did a cover of “Sailin’ On” by Bad Brains. Their self titled 1982 debut is a classic to me. His affection to these bands and for these bands gives me so much joy supporting him. Take my money, all of the family. I am just a big fan of it all.
“Son of Sin” and “Deep Down” were from his first album called “Southern Circus” produced by Jason Dietz from the Hardin Draw, and others. I have been a big fan of his from day 1, and then when he followed that with his second album called “Hang Dog” and that was produced by Shooter Jennings.
I have seen him perform many shows through the years and I enjoy his music every year he plays this event. He is a staple act at this event and many other events as well. Right now he is currently on a short tour and ramping up future plans. I currently want to explore more of the grounds when I go up for Muddy Roots.
