Shurman "Back to Texas"

Denise is road tripping, driving to the West Coast with Sharon Ely on a Holy Posole run. Sharon’s Holy Posole is taking off, from initially being something she prepared as a Christmas gift for friends, and is now starting to appear in HEB stores in Texas. It is available on Amazon, too. It is magical soup, good for what ails you.

Denise texted me from Lubbock a couple of days ago, a place where I spent a bit of time in the mid-80s. When I was there, it seemed like time had been standing still for decades. The town felt as if it was in black and white, and hadn’t gotten to Technicolor yet. An old fashioned soda fountain in a pharmacy was even still in business back then. I haven’t returned to Lubbock since I moved to Texas. One of these days, I just have to get back there.

It might be a perfect time to do just that, as the band Shurman heads to The Blue Light in Lubbock this Saturday night. More Texas dates are in store, as they are still celebrating the February release of their new album, Inspiration, which came out on their own label, Teletone Records. Cool, too, that there is even limited edition 180-gram vinyl. Aaron Beavers, Mike Therieau, Harley Husbands, and Craig Bagby were in fine form when they came to visit us during the Music Fog Marathon at Threadgill’s WHQ in Austin a few weeks ago. The release of this album is the culmination of some pretty radical twists and turns through the last few years. I am proud of their perseverance, and on top of that, congratulate the Shurman guys for just how good this CD is. Here is the Music Fog version of one of the songs on the new album, “Back To Texas.”

- Jessie Scott

Buddy Miller With The McCrary Sisters "Fall On The Rock"

Here is Buddy Miller with the McCrary Sisters from the Universal United House of Prayer album. “Fall On The Rock,” Happy Easter from Music Fog.

-Jessie Scott

Matraca Berg "The Dreaming Fields"

Ponder if you will, what farm life is like. The work never stops, every day, dawn til dusk, rain and cold or heat and relentless sunshine. There are things to tend to. A rural friend fretted to me in 1975 that the kids were leaving, that they didn’t want to embrace the lifestyle they were born into. They were city bound. This migration from the family farm was illuminated further for me by the Farm Aid Concerts I covered for XM. I have a much greater understanding for this from time spent during Farm Aid with the families, the farmers, and the workers, each with a different skew on this vast subject.

Matraca Berg put out her latest album, The Dreaming Fields, last year. At last, she has done a video for the title track, which is an elegy for her grandparents’ dairy farm. It actually has footage Matraca provided to illustrate.

She says, “The story of the small family farms struggle is so heartbreaking. When my grandparents were too old to work and were forced to sell it off, I felt compelled to write this song. My childhood years at the farm were my happiest and the most magical. I wanted to write a tribute to Elmer and Inga Berg for all their hard, hard work all those years, and for all the big love they gave their family. I will miss that place. A big part of who we were feels gone now.”

Beautiful. Sad.

-Jessie Scott