Randy Weeks "Can't Let Go"

I had some friends in from out of town recently. Austin is a hard place to plan an evening's festivities, just because there are so many choices. So many different directions to go in. It's an embarrassment of riches, for sure. So we started at Gueros for some kickass Mexican food, with some New Bohemia Beer as a complement. Then a trip to The Broken Spoke, for some honest to goodness honky tonk, with an amazing amount of two steppin' audience participation. And then it was off to a place called Sam's Town Point. I had never been. We turned off the main drag onto a road that looked to be nothing but suburban houses. And then on the left, there was a parking lot, rag tag, with a couple of biker dudes just getting ready to leave. We walked in, and lo and behold, there was Ramsay Midwood on stage, accompanied by none other than Randy Weeks. And in the audience? BettySoo, Stoneyhoney, Jesse Dayton, and Jimmy Lafave. It felt like home. What can I say?

Several weeks back, Randy came onboard the Music Fog Bus from Celebrity Coaches, and played a classic that he wrote, and that Lucinda Williams included on her Grammy award winning CD Car Wheels...yes, of course, it's "Can't Let Go."

-Jessie Scott

Sahara Smith "The Real Thing"

This is what totally blows me away about what we at Music Fog get to do. It was an impromptu meeting during Folk Alliance with Mike Meadows, a trusted source, and he asked if we had room during SXSW. I said yes, and he proceeded to tell me this amazing story about an artist I had never even heard of, Sahara Smith. Mike said she was being managed by Kevin Wommack, with whom I have had a long association as he also manages Los Lonely Boys, and that T Bone Burnett had produced her forthcoming CD. That will hit the street this fall, but in the meantime, Sahara Smith is busy building buzz here in Austin and beyond. It is time to embrace young artists who can weave a spell, create a mood and captivate. It's one of the things we like to do most: introduce you to someone who brings something special. Sahara Smith.

-Jessie Scott

Gordie Tentrees "Mercy or Sin"

When a song hits the spot, it's transformative. A good song evokes, entices. It can be our rally cry, our voice against oppression, our way out. It can be the fastest conduit to our deepest emotion and the only source of clarity for a head full of confusion. It transports us out of the mundane and plants us smack in the middle of another time in our lives, perhaps with a past love or among the hopes of a new one.

Canadians Gordie Tentrees and Jennie Sosnowski co-wrote a sweet transformative gem as the title track of the latest album, Mercy or Sin. It's about two young lovers' desire for each other and the anticipation of what that love will bring. Yukon boy meets Prairie girl. I listen to that lighthearted, loping beat throughout and it pulls me right along with them, "hoping for mercy, hoping for sin."

We were lucky enough to nab this recording (including Gordie, Jennie, and Ken Hermanson) on the Music Fog bus at the Folk Alliance. We've since learned that "Mercy or Sin" is a finalist out of 15,000 entries in the Americana music category of the International Songwriting Competition. How cool is that?! Voting takes place next month by an esteemed panel of judges including Tom Waits, Jeff Beck, Loretta Lynn, Jerry Lee Lewis, Robert Earl Keen, James Cotton and Ray Wylie Hubbard. Ready to slip away?

-Denise