GB Roots - Kirby Green and Dave Barber - came together through their unusual love of bluegrass and Americana -- well, unusual for Western Canadians at least. “There aren’t many opportunities to play bluegrass in Canada, but it was my first love,” says Barber. The two met in Edmonton at Grant MacEwan University, where Green studied bass and Barber studied guitar. While in college, both began establishing themselves in the Alberta music scene, but ultimately wanted to start a project that would allow them to write and perform their original music.
 
Thus, GB Roots was born and soon the duo found their debut, 2012's The Key, nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award and charting on the Roots Music Report in both the United States and Canada. Now, the Vancouver-based duo are prepping the release of their new album, Tumbleweed, on March 2nd. Collectively produced by the band and Mitch Merrett, Tumbleweed finds Green and Barber creating an Americana sound that features their highly-skilled instrumentation, contemplative songwriting, and soulful vocals - all of which can be heard on the album’s first single, “Better Get Your Gun”, which TDC is incredibly proud to premiere today.

A story song about an outlaw, "Better Get Your Gun," features a fiercely dark spoken introduction before barreling into the bluesy track which is led by the twosome's soulful vocals, a propulsive back beat, and crisp guitar riffs. A take no prisoners reflection on a life lived, "Better Get Your Gun" relays a story that is individual, yet universal, drawing on life struggles, uncertainty, and making wrong decisions.

The duo had this to say of the tune,
"Better Get Your Gun” is the story of a broken outlaw in the last moments before his death as the gunslinger stands above the trap door with a noose around his neck.  The outlaw looks back on his life of running and how he has lived with and will die with a gun by his side. "Better Get Your Gun" sets the stage for the rest of the forthcoming album, Tumbleweed, as it explores the life and death of an outlaw on the run and deals with the everyday human struggles of good, evil and addiction."

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Album Pre-Order:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/tumbleweed/1329109110 

"Better Get Your Gun" iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/album/id1333841628?ls=1&app=itunes

Spotify: 
https://open.spotify.com/track/3bRb3EafBECONes8RaYSKd

Watch the video HERE

Last year, the Portland, OR-based Blitzen Trapper accomplished a unique feat for a rock band who has been releasing albums and touring for the better part of two decades: a staged musical titled Wild & Reckless that ran for 28 performances at Portland Center Stage.
 
The album Wild & Reckless was born from the stage production that the band spent the better part of a year producing and was released as a companion to their 2008 breakthrough album Furr to much critical acclaim in early December. The half musical, half rock-opera dealt with heroin abuse, desperation, true love and western power structures. The story evoked a bygone era of Portland with this sci-fi love story, featuring a rock-and-roll score that paired unreleased songs with favorites from the band’s catalog. 

Since the release of their second album, Vinyl and a Heartache, Norweigan Americana trio Darling West have brought their music all over the world (including Americanafest), appeared on the Top 100 Country charts in the US, and won a Norwegian Grammy. Now, the threesome - Mari Sandvær Kreken (vocals, mandolin, acoustic guitar, harmonica, dulcimer), Tor Egil Kreken (vocals, banjo) &
Kjetil Steensnæs (vocals, guitar) - are gearing up for the February release of their new ten-track collection, While I Was Asleep, and today share one of the tracks from the record entitled, "Loneliness."

Led by delicate harmonies and a gentle banjo, "Loneliness" also features the telltale sadness of the pedal steel, which aids Mari's airy vocals in conveying the sentiment of heartbreak, experienced for the first time.

"If this is what loneliness feels like
I've never been lonely before
Those letters you so eloquently turned into words
And you left for me one morning on a note by the door"

Tor Egil Kreken had this to say of the song, “It’s one of those songs that took a very short time to write. Sometimes an idea takes days or weeks to develop, but “Loneliness” was written in an hour or two. It just immediately felt right. With classic Darling West ingredients such as banjo, pedal steel and heartache, and a killer drum groove pushing it along, it leaves you smiling through your tears.”

TDC is proud to premiere "Loneliness" which you can stream above.
 
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(Press Release) Nashville-based country/Americana outfit Whiskey Wolves of the West is set to release its debut album, Country Roots, on March 2, 2018 via Rock Ridge Music. With a sound that is something that can only be earned by a thousand nights in smoky bars and a million miles on bald bus tires, the Whiskey Wolves are disciples at what could be the last supper of country music, and.  A concisely focused, seven-track melting pot of an album—with tunes that are high and lonesome, yearning and dark, twangy and gritty and oh-so-satisfying--Country Roots features the dynamic songwriting and performing tandem of Tim Jones (vocals, guitar) and Leroy Powell (vocals, guitar, bass, pedal steel, clavinet, keys, harmonica), two prime progenitors of the new Nashville sound.
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“I feel like the music Tim and I do could easily be put side by side with any of it—we’re not shooting to sound like anybody other than ourselves,” theorizes Powell, a first-call guitarist/multi-instrumentalist for noted Music City producer Dave Cobb who’s backed heavy-hitters Sturgill Simpson and Chris Stapleton in the studio, as well as both Shooter and Waylon Jennings. Concurs Jones, a top-cat Nashville singer/player in his own right who’s worked side by side in a band with Carl Broemel (My Morning Jacket) and had Chris Robinson (The Black Crowes) as a producer and tourmate, “I’m proud to say we’re both making the same kind of music now that we did back when we were starting out. It’s the love of a genre that a certain zeitgeist movement may have briefly captured, but we never left it.”

Nashville, TN – Country music superstars and GRAMMY, CMA and ACM Award-winners Miranda Lambert and Little Big Town announce their co-headlining tour, The Bandwagon Tour, scheduled to hit the road summer 2018.
 
The joint tour kicks off July 12th in Charlotte, North Carolina and will take the country music troupe along the U.S. Atlantic seaboard, Southeast and Midwest regions.
 
Both critically lauded artists, Miranda Lambert and Little Big Town, together tout a combined thirty-six ACM Award wins, twenty-one CMAs, and four GRAMMY’s. Reigning, eight-time consecutive, ACM Female Vocalist of the Year Lambert released her ambitious, 24-song, double album titled The Weight of These Wings in November 2016, making its debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart.
Reigning, six-time consecutive CMA and four-time ACM Vocal Group of the Year, Little Big Town's latest studio album, the Grammy-nominated The Breaker, debuted #1 on the Billboard Country Charts and No.4 on the Billboard 200 to critical acclaim. ​

Widdershins Set For February 23 Release
 
(Press Release) Acclaimed Nashville-based singer-songwriter Grant-Lee Phillips has confirmed the first leg of a U.S. tour in support of his ninth solo album, Widdershins, set for February 23, 2018 release on Yep Roc Records.
 
Beginning March 8 in Boston, the dates include a co-bill with Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses with stops in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, among others, and an appearance at Folk Alliance International’s 30th annual conference in February. A list of dates is below with more to be announced soon.
 
A video for “Walk In Circles,” the third single revealed from the forthcoming album recently  premiered at The Bluegrass Situation. Of the track, Phillips says, “‘Walk In Cirlces’ is a declaration of dependence…on the earth, on peace, and ultimately each other.” Watch/sharehere.