Jack Ingram "What's A Boy To Do?"

I just went through an excruciating exercise of rating some tunes from a variety of genres for a website, and I am happy to return here, to the music I love. Music that wraps its warmth around you, that isn’t screaming at you insistently, demanding you pay attention. I like Americana, what can I say, and I'm not alone, just last week the word, in its musical sense, was included in Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. Americana joins Tweet, m-commerce and around 100 other words whose use is now widely recognized enough to be considered a part of the lexicon. According to the dictionary's editors, Americana is: "a genre of American music having roots in early folk and country music." Simple enough, and now you have a concise answer to the question “What is Americana,” should anyone ask. We are excited to be making preparations to attend this year’s Americana Music Festival, from October 12 to 15, that will be headquartered in Nashville at the Downtown Sheraton Hotel. It was a blast last year, and we will be announcing our plans soon.

Music Fog’s most recent excursion was to Cherokee Creek Music Festival near Llano, Texas in May. While we were there, Jack Ingram came by to play an as yet unrecorded song for us. He wrote it during last year’s CMA week with Mando Saenz, who we have now mentioned three times this week. That might mean we need to get together with him for a shoot soon – wonder if he will be at the Americana Fest! It’s all Jack Ingram right now, though, and it’s beautiful, “What’s A Boy To Do?”

- Jessie Scott

Bonnie Whitmore "Tin Man"

So this week, I have met and hung with two musicians from Denton, Texas, and I don’t think they know each other.  A couple of nights ago, Rodney Parker came to play my new Threadgill’s WHQ series, The School Night Sessions.  They happen on off nights, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, in air-conditioned comfort in the back room at Threadgill’s on Riverside and Barton Springs in South Austin.  They grew out of our Music Fog Marathons in March during SXSW.  I am very comfortable in that back room, I love the intimate vibe, and the great new sound system.  I wish the Music Fog crew lived in Texas so we could bring this great music to you, but you'll have to wait for our next trip will to Nashville for the Americana Fest in October.  More about that in the near future.

On Friday night, I found myself watching Bonnie Whitmore sing and play bass with Mando Saenz. Bonnie is one of those people that just seems to have moonlight shining on her. She is part ingénue, part vixen, and 100% musician.  We had the family trifecta during our Music Fog Marathon in March, when Bonnie brought her sister Eleanor and brother in law Chris Masterson to play with her.  Chris and Eleanor have been on tour with Steve Earle and Allison Moorer, and The Dukes and Duchesses. Bonnie's second album is Embers To Ashes, and this is one of those ‘burn them down’ tunes, from the girl from Denton, TX, “Tin Man.”

- Jessie Scott

Tin Man - Embers to Ashes

Peter Case "Walk In The Woods"

I wish I was walking in the woods. That sounds like a cherry assignment compared to what is going on in my house right now. I can’t go into my kitchen because there is a rodent in there. I saw him run through the living room a couple of nights ago. So I got some of those glue trays, and put one under the kitchen counter, in an indentation near the dishwasher. When I got home last night, the bloke had surfed the tray all the way into the middle of the kitchen. I fantasized about the velocity that it would have taken to move that thing ten feet, but since I had been home for a while, I started hearing the tail lash against the floor, and I was hoping the bugger couldn't get loose and come after me in the middle of the night. Wanna come over to my house and get this thing out of here? Will he be dead, or exhausted by today? What if he gets loose?

Photo by Greg AllenYesterday was quite the day, I crashed my phone, then someone hit my car in a parking lot, and now this. I might just take a “walk in the woods...and never come back.” But seriously, there is something so mysterious about this song. Is it an alien abduction? A childish prank, or something more sinister? Or something more committed, like running away for love, being misunderstood? Read the lyrics - oh the ambiguity! Love, love, love Peter Case. This song comes from his 1986 solo self-titled record. Last year he released the raw and rocking album Wig!, then The Case Files, a collection of demos, outtakes, live tracks and other odds and ends from his solo career, appeared this year. Peter is about to take another run at the road in starting September 9th. We caught up with him at Americana Fest in Nashville last year. It was intense. Yes it was.

- Jessie Scott

Walk In the Woods - Peter Case