Matt King "Hard Luck Road"

I don’t know what to make of anything that’s going on right now. It seems to me we are in the midst of a seismic shift. Kids are graduating from college with no place to get jobs.  Veterans of their craft are sitting on the sidelines. People are losing their houses - their hope, and their sense of the Great American Dream. Whole sectors of endeavor have been devalued. Are we turning into a society of lords and serfs? Where are you supposed to go? How are you supposed to make ends meet? Sometimes I don’t know what is more soul crushing, being underemployed, or not being employed at all.  On this Labor Day, take a knee to be thankful if you have a job. And if you don’t have a job, we wish you a speedy resolution to finding one. Here is a pleading note to American business leaders, “We want to work. We want to buy your products; but soon we won’t be able to, and frankly, I don’t know if that benefits anybody!”

Matt King has today’s video for Labor Day from a session we filmed with him solo at MusicFest in Steamboat Springs in January. He absolutely ices the emotions at hand in ”Hard Luck Road,” strumming to keep the devil away and to keep the wolf from your door. Pouring all the emotion into song - though songs don’t sell the way they used to. It doesn’t much matter. Some people were just born to deliver the social commentary for their time, and Matt is one whose time will come. You won’t hear this on pop radio stations; it comes from a deeper place. It is folk music, and that addresses the cyclical, the common currency of the human condition. But there ain’t nothing common about this song. “Hard Luck Road.”

-Jessie Scott

Randy Rogers "Missing You Is More Than I Can Do"

Life is ever strange.  On Friday night I was at The Saxon Pub, sitting at the bar listening to the smooth songs and sweet voice of Mando Saenz, who was accompanied on vocals and bass by Bonnie Whitmore, a tour de force in her own right.  Earlier that day, I was out enjoying happy hour with another band, Beck and Cauthen. At midnight at the Saxon, I was trying to track down a contact for Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. After multiple texting attempts, I made no progress in finding someone who knows her amongst friends likely to have some insight. So much for six degrees of separation! If you have a contact for her reps, by all means pass it along to us.

Did I tell you that when I was flying to Boulder a couple of weeks ago, Randy Rogers was on my Southwest flight?  He was in the first boarding group, and I was in the second, so we exchanged a quick kiss on the cheek as he got on the plane.  I see lots of folks I know in airports, like ships passing in the night, as they say- Reckless Kelly, Jason Boland, and Sunny Sweeney recently. Fellow travelers all, and I love that.  We had a visitation from Randy during our MusicFest at Steamboat sessions back in January.  Since 2004, Randy and the band have continued to kick it hard, and sashay on their own path. SO excited to see the success that they have created.  But the beginning of all that is the song itself, and here is one from Randy by himself, “Missing You Is More Than I Can Do,” which can be found in its original released version on the Burning The Day album.

-- Jessie Scott

Ponderosa "Heather"

Every year 'round about this time, I wonder where the summer went. Well, except for this year. Today and tomorrow it will be upwards of 110 degrees in Austin! However, I am forlorn as I contemplate the coming hallmarks of fall, the kids back in school, summer vacations are winding down. And once again this year, I didn’t make it out to Steamboat Springs, Colorado for the biking and hiking and boating in the glorious mountain air. Soon enough the snow will fly and the ground will be covered in a blanket of white. Not long thereafter, the holidays will come, and the new year of 2012 will start with The MusicFest at Steamboat. Here is a head’s up, Tickets Go On Sale Today! Reservations open up at 9am Central Daylight Time.

But now that I have given short shrift to the rest of 2011, allow me to dial it back. Several years ago, I attended an industry music convention in Lake Tahoe. One day, a gaggle of us girls took off to the Ponderosa Ranch, yes the home of the Bonanza TV dynasty. We toured the set, and then we went for a horseback ride though the trails in the mountains. It was a delicious afternoon. And having that memory, every time I see this band’s name, I think back on that moment. Ponderosa. The band’s music takes me other places, too. Through the south, Memphis, Muscle Shoals, down the Mississippi and through the red dirt to Georgia. They bring the Southern Rock back to a new generation. And I like it.

We have an as yet unreleased track for you today called “Heather,” that we recorded during our Music Fog Marathon at Threadgill’s this past spring, a suitable tune for these sultry days. And here are the tour dates to catch Ponderosa live in the American South.

- Jessie Scott