In Texas, the legends grow tall. And who could walk taller than Brother Ray Benson of Asleep At The Wheel? Only Willie Nelson. The titans teamed up for the Willie and The Wheel album just out a few months…I mean the name sounds like it should be etched in stone: Willie and The Wheel. It's just timeless...as is this performance that the Wheel camp is kindly allowing us to share here on Music Fog: Hesitation Blues. Run, do not walk...

-Jessie Scott

Every time our strange crew travels together to an Americana music event...weird stuff happens. And it usually happens as a direct result of our own Jessie Scott. She puts us into that place that's just a sliver between reality and dreamland. We call this "The Jessie Scott Vortex."

Yeah, we decided to do a documentary about our experience at SXSW 2009, and it got us an Academy Nomination (yeah...not really). Anyway, we'll have the full video up sometime in May. In the meantime, please enjoy the trailer. This video is from the heart, and it's what Music Fog is all about...

This is a Music Fog Pictures presentation...

-Ben Krech

by Jim McBean

All I remember is arriving at an address just off Dupont Circle in Washington DC.  It was raining and I was on time (9:30am).  The building was an old brownstone with a small brass sign on the door that said “The Mansion."  Jessie Scott was scheduled to meet me there to discuss this weekend’s taping of Jesse Winchester.  Honestly, I heard The Addams Family theme running through by head as I cautiously approached the rusty doorbell/intercom. 

I pressed the button and a voice instructed me to wait outside.  No sign of Jessie as I waited in the rain with my soaking cigarette.  This just couldn’t be the place I thought.  But this was Jessie’s deal and I’ve learned that what you see on the surface just isn’t the case.  For all I knew, I was either about to be hooked-up to car battery and probed in a musty basement.  Or...I was going inside to smoke dope with a 3rd world dictator.  There could be no “in between."  So I waited... 

When the door finally opened, there was a kind gentleman who showed me inside to a room he referred to as the “amnesia” room.  I had only taken 6 steps inside the door!  And I found myself in a room surrounded with wine, stuffed cherubs, guitars, books on selling your business and paper flowers.  There was stripped-down music playing.  By that I mean familiar music in a very un-produced form.  It was Jimi Hendrix trying to figure out how to present the song Foxy Lady.  Where in the hell did this come from?  The kind gentleman had disappeared just as soon as I sat down.  I thought he must have gone to get the car battery and some bare wires.