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Bonnie Bishop "Almost Like Home"

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She is blond. She is beautiful. She is undeniably talented. Now, you could be jealous, but that would be a sheer impossibility! She is Bonnie Bishop, and she is sweet, and accessible. She is a recent transplant Texas to Nashville, and before you turn your nose up....she moved there to make the music SHE wants to, to make a difference, to swim upstream. She sings with a heartbreakingly beautiful bluesiness. She takes note of the journey through life, represented in her songs. She is not a tourist, but a traveler. We taped Bonnie a couple of weeks ago in Alexandria, VA, as she is readying a new CD "Virginia"coming out August 11th. Here's one that was originally released on Bonnie Bishop and Friends; Live at Magnolia Avenue from 2006, and which will be on the new album too! Almost Like Home...

-Jessie Scott

2009 Americana Music Festival Artists Announced

From the Americana Music Association:

Americana Week "Festival showcases will be held Wednesday September 16th-Saturday September 19th at five downtown Nashville venues including: The Mercy Lounge, The Cannery Ballroom, 3rd & Lindsley, The Station Inn and The Basement.

Cross Canadian Ragweed, Will Hoge, J.D. Souther, Marty Stuart, Those Darlinsand W.P.A. are among the incredibly talented and diverse roster of artists set to make the 10th annual event a must attend for all fans of great music.

The lineup solidifies and showcases Americana's vibrant and essential place in today's musical landscape.  The Americana genre continues to thrive, most notably gaining recent recognition from The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) in the form of a "Best Americana Album" Grammy Award for 2010."

You can read the entire news release here.

"The Wiyos" Profile

TheWiyos The Wiyos are named after the late 19th century NY street gang The Whyos. Of course they spell it a bit different, after all, they are a different kind of gang.  

They are infused with authenticity, which owes as much to Broadway as it is does to vaudeville. They are engaging in person as well as on stage. They are as earnest in telling their story as they are purists about their deep well of roots music. They play over 20 instruments, I couldn't get an exact number. 

Me, I loved the shoes and socks lined up on the ground, the colorful sleeping bags stowed in the back of their van. That they care about eating right on the road and they care about touring green. That they can park with pride next to the array of buses from Mellencamp, Willie and Dylan. That they have figured out how to keep it going and that they are doing it their way: with four part harmony, chapeaux, and a hat rack which serves triple duty, to stake out their turf, sanctify the space, and, of course, to hang up the hats!

-Jessie Scott