Tune In For a Live Marty Brown Concert Online

One of the many bad side-effects of the current pandemic is its impact on performing artists. As many artists have tried to adjust to the streaming music era by earning a living doing live shows, now the coronavirus has taken away their main way to reach fans. So, many artists, like Marty Brown, have turned to reaching their fans online.

Country music singer-songwriter Marty Brown is using the platform StageIt.com to give a show to his fans on Saturday, April 25, 2020 at 9 pm EST (8 pm CT; 6pm PDT). For much less than a regular concert ($5), you get direct access to a live show. The platform also allows fans to interact through real-time written comments.

Marty Brown has been writing great songs and making great music for decades. His live shows feature a range of music from a likable engaging performer. Hopefully, he’ll play “Whatever Makes You Smile,” one of his first releases after his successful run on the television show America’s Got Talent that began with an amazing audition singing Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love.” And fans may get some great songs like “Mona Lisa Smiles” from his most recent outstanding album, American Highway (2019). Brown is also known for “I’m From the Country,” a song he wrote that was a hit for Tracy Byrd.

We hope he also will dig into his back catalog from the 1990s, which includes songs like “Every Now and Then,” “Wild Kentucky Skies” and “The Day the Bootlegger Died.”

Whatever he plays, it is bound to be a great show, taking advantage of technology to reach fans in these troubled times. So head over to StageIt for your Marty Brown tickets — and to check out and support other artists with online shows!

Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    John Prine is Goin’ to Town in Heaven

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    We are very sad to hear that John Prine has passed away from complications related to the coronavirus at the age of 73. As the pandemic takes the lives of so many, we grieve for all of the horrors that it has brought to the world. And the loss of John Prine, who Rolling Stone calls one of America’s greatest songwriters, just adds to our national and worldwide grief. (I hope Bob Dylan is locked up somewhere safe in isolation until there is a vaccine for the virus.)

    I was fortunate to see Prine live as he toured for his final album, The Tree of Forgiveness (2018). Although he had battled health problems in recent years, he toured up until the very end and was full of energy.

    The Tree of Forgiveness found Prine contemplating life and mortality. One of the songs prophetically recounted Prine’s version of what he would do when he got to heaven. Of course, Prine being Prine, the song was full of humor and love (and forgiveness) for his fellow creatures on earth.

    Prine first really came into my life with his album The Missing Years in 1991. I had heard some of his songs before that, such as tape recording a live cover of “Sam Stone” by John Mellencamp off the radio in the early 1980s. But The Missing Years was the first John Prine album that I bought and played endlessly.

    Many others, of course, already knew the secret of John Prine’s music, such as one of my co-workers at the time, Hal (who passed away himself many years ago even as Prine’s songs remind me of him). But I was glad I found Prine when I did, soon delving into all of his previous and later albums with some guidance from friends like Hal and a later co-worker, Sid.

    I have many “favorite” John Prine songs, including some we’ve already written about on Chimesfreedom, such as “Lake Marie” and “Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow).” One of the songs on The Missing Years that I loved was “Picture Show.” The song is featured below in a video that also includes the late Tom Petty.

    Damn, he was good, and I loved that his songs also revealed a man with joy, humor, and love of his fellow creatures (much like another singer-songwriter we lost not long ago, Greg Trooper).

    RIP John Prine. I hope you are sipping that cocktail right now.

    What is your favorite John Prine song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Adia Victoria: “Horrible Weather” (Song of the Day)

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    Singer-songwriter Adia Victoria added to the lists of wonderful songs about the weather when she released “Horrible Weather” on her 2016 debut album Beyond the Bloodhounds. Of course, like most songs referencing the weather, there is something else going on besides what is up in the sky.

    In the song, Victoria sings about trouble coming her way. And that trouble is not really in the form of clouds, but in the form of a relationship.

    Well the rain don’t fall, sun don’t shine;
    At least your black thunder cloud is the same as mine;
    It’s the horrible weather that ties me together to you.

    Adia Victoria was born in South Carolina and currently records in Nashville. In 2019, she released the album Silences.

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    Dylan Releases “Murder Most Foul”

    Dylan Kennedy

    Amidst the spread of coronavirus in the U.S., with Americans huddled indoors, Bob Dylan has sent us a message — or at least a little entertainment. The release is a nearly 17-minute epic “Murder Most Foul.”

    The song “Murder Most Foul,” full of pop culture references, centers around the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Although originally recorded for his 2012 album Tempest, Dylan is releasing the song now as a standalone track. The timing seems intentional, releasing the song about a troubled country during our current troubled times.

    Dylan offers little explanation for the timing, only announcing on his website: “Greetings to my fans and followers with gratitude for all your support and loyalty across the years. This is an unreleased song we recorded awhile back that you might find interesting. Stay safe, stay observant and may God be with you.”

    The Guardian notes that the main point of the song is the dense and intriguing lyrics, adding that the “JFK assassination looms large in Dylan’s history.” It is a fascinating song, and the rest of us will be listening and thinking about it throughout our current crisis and beyond.

    Check out “Murder Most Foul” below.

    What do you think of Bob Dylan’s “Murder Most Foul” Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)

    Kenny Rogers passed away last night in Georgia at the age of 81. Rogers song like “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In).” Most tributes will begin with references to songs that we heard many times on pop-country radio through the years like “The Gambler,” “Lucille,” “Don’t Fall in Love With a Dreamer” and “Islands in the Stream.” Yet, I often forget that early in his career he recorded “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In” with The First Edition when he was more of a hippy than a silver-bearded pop singer.

    You may recall the Kenny Rogers song from a dream sequence in the movie The Big Lebowski in 1998, but it first became a hit in 1967. “Just Dropped In” was written by one of Kenny Rogers’s former high school friends — Mickey Newbury, who also composed “An American Trilogy,” discussed in a previous post.

    “Just Dropped In” sounds unlike “Coward of the County” and the other pop songs Rogers recorded later in his career. Even his voice sounds different. And the lyrics deviate from the literalness of most of his hits:

    I pushed my soul in a deep dark hole and then I followed it in;

    I watched myself crawlin’ out as I was a-crawlin’ in;

    I got up so tight I couldn’t unwind;

    I saw so much I broke my mind;

    I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.

    According to some sources, “Just Dropped In” was written as a warning about using LSD. But such drug rumors surround many songs from the era.

    A 2000 Billboard article “The Story So Far,” however, quotes Rogers explaining that Newbury did not intend the song to be taken completely seriously. “Mickey wrote a quasi-psychedelic song with elements of humor,” he explained. “It’s a tradition in country music to have your tongue in cheek, and that’s the case here.” (“The Story So Far,” at K-2)

    One additional piece of trivia: the late great Glen Campbell played the guitar on the original recording.

    Check out this psycedelic video from The Smother Brothers Hour. Kenny Rogers was always cool. RIP.

    What is your favorite Kenny Rogers song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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