Culture

Because, frankly, from Afghanistan to Texas to the corridors of Whitehall and the Bank of England, it's been a pretty bleak week it's appropriate to bring Saturday Morning Country forward by a few hours. This Lyle Lovett song - If I Had a Boat - always cheers me up. Added bonus: with its dreams of boats and ponies and ifs and ans and all the rest of it you may also read it as an arch critique of the promises politicians feel compelled to make and that we, because we want to believe, choose to take at more than face value. Not merely boats for all, but ponies on each and every boat too...

Elvis Presley once said that the Louvin Brothers were his favourite country musicians. But he nver recorded one of their songs. Perhaps because, like almost everyone else who ever had any dealings with the Alabama-born and raised brothers, he'd been cussed out by Ira Louvin.  Charlie said that his elder brother was all kinds of messed up by religion. Perhaps. But whether they were singing gospel, traditional murder ballads or their own compositions there were few better examples of harmony singing than Ira and Charlie Louvin. Here they are performing I Can't Keep You in Love With Me. Which was, for Ira anyway, kinda true: after he tried to strangle his third wife with a telephone cord, she shot him five times with a .22 pistol.

Yes, that would be Steve Earle's boy and yes he's named after the great Townes van Zandt. One of the things I like about country music is it that, in the end, it's all one big family. Granted, a family that sings about heartbreak and loss and the endless miseries of life quite a lot, but a family nonetheless. So it's good to see Steve's son following the family tradition. And the kid can play and sing and write. He's good, in a reflective, acoustic fashion that differentiates him from some of his old man's more rock-influenced stuff. There's a certain mischief too. Consider this song, Mama's Eyes, from his sophomore album Midnight at the Movies that was released earlier this year. This is one for Norm's Momma'n'Daddy collection for sure.

How is it possible that this series has, until this point, failed to include Willie Nelson? A mystery, folks, a mystery. Now Willie has some odd views and is perilously close to being a 9/11 Truther but, frankly, we don't hold that against him. The music's the thing and he's written enough and done enough to earn our forebearance. Plus, you know, there's something of a Texas shaman about old Willie. Which explains quite a lot, really. In truth I'd be lying if I said that Willie was or is one of my super-favourite country stars but there's no gainsaying his contribution to the Church of Country. The man has done more than just some service. Nonetheless, I think Nelson a better songwriter than performer so here he is performing the song that, via Patsy Cline, made him famous.

Somehow or other I missed the 60th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen's birth this week. The Boss turned 60 on Wednesday and if that seems oddly perturbing then, I suppose, at least it's not as cor-blimey a thought as realising that Martin Amis celebrated his 60th birthday last month. Aye, the times are racing on right enough. So, by way of belated thanks, here's the great man performing Mansion on the Hill, from his wondrous trip along the darker roads of Americana, Nebraska.

The New York Times actually paid someone to write this about a new video game: Luckily Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with the widows of George Harrison and John Lennon, seem to understand that the Beatles are not a museum piece, that the band and its message ought never be encased in amber. The Beatles: Rock Band is nothing less than a cultural watershed, one that may prove only slightly less influential than the band’s famous appearance on “The Ed Sullivan  Show” in 1964. By reinterpreting an essential symbol of one generation in the medium and technology of another, The Beatles: Rock Band provides a transformative entertainment experience. In that sense it may be the most important video game yet made.

The Church of Country is a broad brotherhood (and sisterhood) and it's fair to say that Lyle Lovett, like many others, has sometimes left it to worship elsewhere. But, again, like others that sometimes stray, he's always welcome back for the Church of Country is a forgiving house that espouses tolerance, an open mind and equally generous hearts. Anyway, Lovett is always interesting. And often charming too. Consider his Hymn to Having It All If I Had A Boat  with its splendid refrain: If I had a boat, I'd go out on the ocean/ And if I had a pony, I'd ride him on my boat/And we could all together go out on the ocean/Me upon my pony on my boat. And here he is singing an old Delmore Brothers tune called More Pretty Girls Than One (which is, frankly, reassuring).

From the Department of Criticism: the Irish Times handed my old Dublin University Players contemporary Peter Crawley the unenviable task of reviewing Chris de Burgh in concert. It's fair to say that his notice was less than generous... Certain toes will never uncurl after this experience, but it is almost admirable how unaltered de Burgh has remained by the flow of time. You may have grown out of seeking epic significance in the portentous verses of Spanish Train, you may greet Patricia the Stripper with the same mortification as a faded photo of yourself. This is because you’ve changed. Chris de Burgh has not.

Iris DeMent has only made four albums. And since the latest, 2004's Lifeline, is a gospel record it's fair to say that she ain't on the trendy side of Nashville. In fact her style could harly be further removed from the country-pap that you hear on country radio stations and the teevee. DeMent is proper old-school you see. Her songs are often filled with wistful sentiment and sometimes with outright melancholy in the grand old country tradition. But they're always humane and heartfelt. Plus, of course, her voice has got that terrific Ozark twang to it. Here she is performing at a Transatlantic Session (with Emmylou on backing vocals and Aly Bain on the fiddle) and singing her lament to small town life: Our Town.

If we could choose to sound like anyone, Waylon once said, we'd want to sing like George Jones. And frankly, not too many people have ever bothered to disagree with Mr Jennings' verdict. And like Waylon and so many other country greats, the Possum has not always had his troubles to seek; rather he's plunged head-first into them. For years he was known as "No Show Jones"; these days, happily, George Jones seems pretty content. Still playing, still getting as much satisfaction from keeping his lawn in perfect condition as he does from entertaining his fans. But the voice is the thing. The Possum can take something corny and distil proper country liquor from it.

Dolly Parton is a lady and Emmylou Harris is a dame, but Patsy Cline was a broad. A rootin' tootin' bar-room broad as fond of cussin' as she was of a beer and a good time. You gotta have her in this series sooner, rather than later. Unusually for a singer, she'd hang out with the songwriters - including Harlan Howard, Willie Nelson and Roger Miller - at Tootsies Orchid Lounge in Nashville; equally unusually she'd thank them for writing the songs that made her famous. Nelson, of course, wrote Crazy, the song that became Cline's signature. Her style evolved from cowboy hats and country dresses to cashmere and pearls. Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray, for instamce, was a song for surburban betrayal, not down-home country disappointment.

One of my favourite blog features is Norm's Friday blogger profiles. This week he profiles Willie George Haggard and, frankly, its a doozy. It reminds me that I've been a little slack in posting Saturday Morning Country lately. My bad. And I can't quite believe we've got this far in the series without featuring Merle Haggard himself. Time to rectify that. So here, below the fold, is Merle singing his great song Mama Tried. Course she did; she's your mama. But would you listen? Well, that's the point of the song isn't it? Note too the extraordinary set which seems to have come from a Saturday morning kids' programme and makes the song seem even more of a cautionary tale...

A shocking hiatus had turned this weekly tour along the dirt tracks of American folk and country music into just a more-or-less-weekly series. But we're back this week and back with a good 'un. I can't believe it's taken this long to get round to featuring Alison Krauss and her band Union Station. I know there are some people who find Krauss's crossover appeal irritating and who'd prefer her to return to her bluegrass roots. But her collaborations with the likes of Robert Plant are interesting and just another string to her fiddle. Heck, AKUS are so good they can make even Genesis songs sound good. But here they are performing the great Every Time You Say Goodbye in concert last year a few years ago*... *Thanks, Tal.

Way back in carefree college days in Dublin, I had a friend who considered Dwight Yoakam one of the great artists of the late twentieth century. Since the glory of country music had yet to be revealed to me, I scoffed at this. Not that I was alone in doing so, mind you. Another friend earned much mockery for his devotion to the late John Denver. The rest of us were all far too sophisticated for all this hillbilly music. How wrong we were. That being so, it's time to take leave Nashville and Texas and take a quick trip to California to pay homage to the west coast strain of country music. Specifically, the Bakersfield sound made famous by the likes of Buck Owens. The purest modern expression of that style is, I think, the splendid Mr Yoakam.

Steve Earle belongs in the first rank of the great tradition of Texas singer-songwriters and he's been in great form since his two-year "vacation" in the early 1990s. The good news is that he shows no signs of slackening off: his new album, Townes, is a loving15-track tribute to his friend and mentor Townes van Zandt. And the even better news is that Earle is touring Britain (and Ireland) later this year. Hurrah! Anyway, here's a clip from way back in the day when the Hardcore Troubadour was earning his nickname The Hard Way.

You can't have a country music series without acknowledging the contribution church music has made to the genre. The thing about the gospel music that sprang from the this topsoil of the Appalachian mountains is that, for, or rather because of, all its desperation, there remains an essential glimmer of hope that, in the next world at least, things will be better and more comfortably arranged than they are in this. It's the contrast between the fatalism of the present and the promise of the future that gives it a mighty, if mournful, punch. And one of the most famous of these hymns is "I'll Fly Away" which has been recorded by Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Randy Travis and a host of others. It also featured in the soundtrack to Oh Brother, Where Art Thou.

A slight disruption to the schedule this week postponed Saturday Morning Country by 24 hours. But not to worry, here's the great Waylon Jennings in barnstorming form to make up for it all and get your sabbath off to a braw and brawlin' start. So this was recorded at  the "Lost Outlaw" concert from back in 1978 and this is Waylon singing about how I've Always Been Crazy. Ain't that the truth? But you wouldn't want it any other way, would you? Previously: Dolly, Emmylou and Townes.

First we had Dolly Parton and then last week we featured Emmylou Harris singing Pancho & Lefty so this Saturday it makes sense to put Townes van Zandt in the spotlight. This video comes from towards the end of his life by which time his voice was even more ragged than it ever was. Then again, it's not the voice that matters so much as the songwriting and the haunting, elegiac, melancholy that makes Townes van Zandt one of the great American songwriters of the past 50 years. In any genre. Here he is then, performing the classic Tecumseh Valley.

Last week it was Dolly Parton in this (newly created!) slot; this Saturday it's the turn of another great country diva, Emmylou Harris. I saw her at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow last year and, truth to say, it was probably only a 6/10 gig. I think Norm's assessment of her performance in Manchester on that tour is pretty fair. I also think you should read his album-by-album review of her fabulous career and his ranking of her albums here. Anyway, after the jump, here's the great lady singing a great song by another great artist, Townes van Zandt. Yes, this is Emmylou Harris performing Pancho and Lefty on The Old Grey Whistle Test way back in 1977. Great stuff.

Matthaüs-Passion Barbican ‘God save us...it’s just as if one were at an opera!’ a woman is quoted as saying at a performance of Bach’s Matthaüs-Passion in the 18th century. If she meant that it is hard to imagine a more intensely dramatic experience — it is other kinds of experience, too, of course — then she was right. It was fashionable 40 years or so ago to say that the St Matthew Passion is less dramatic than the St John Passion, a view argued by Britten and his acolytes. I think they were wrong: the Matthaüs-Passion is at least as dramatic as its shorter twin, but it has other elements, too.

The super-talented Lisa Hannigan and her band gather in Dick Mac's pub in Dingle, Co Kerry for a charming wee session that is just the ticket for a lovely spring weekend...