The second edition of Music City Connection features Billy Burnette, Raul Malo, Rodney Crowell, and Tommy Lee James. The show will air on April 23rd at 3pm ET.
Billy Burnette, born in Memphis Tennessee, is the heritage of classic American music. He's the son of rockabilly pioneer Dorsey Burnette; along with his brother Johnny, Dorsey blazed the trail for the birth of rock with the Rock n' Roll Trio. Their music influenced everyone from Elvis Presley to the Beatles.
Billy recorded his first record for Dot Records at the age of 7, and by the time he was 11 was touring the world with Brenda Lee. He has made numerous records as a solo artist and as a band member. In 1985 Billy was nominated by the Academy of Country Music as "Best New Male Vocalist."
In 1987 Billy joined Fleetwood Mac and spent nine years in one of the world's biggest rock bands.
As a songwriter Billy has gotten cuts on projects by Fleetwood Mac, Bette Midler, Rod Stewart, Ray Charles, Greg Allman, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Everly Brothers, Cher, Tammy Wynette, Faith Hill, Loretta Lynn, Del McCoury Band, and many more.
Signed to Barbara Orbison's publishing company, Still Working Music Group, Billy is actively writing on his own, as well as with other notable songwriters such as Kostas Lazarides, Rafe Van Hoy, David Malloy, Bekka Bramlett, Dennis Morgan, Robb Royer, Tony Colton and Shawn Camp, just to name a few.
Earlier this year he released an album on Chesky Records entitled Memphis In Manhattan, which was recorded live in one day in an old church in New York City.
Billy has also acted in six movies to date, including Saturday Night Special, Addams Family Reunion, and Not Like Us.
Considered one of the finest singers in the world, Raul Malo has always crossed cultures and blurred musical boundaries, breaking new ground with his distinctive balance of vintage sound and contemporary attitude.
Born in Miami of Cuban parents, Raul is best known as the founder and front man of Grammy-winning, multi-platinum band the Mavericks. He made his mark in the country music world and then drifted into the Latin and jazz arenas via rock n' roll.
Currently Raul is traveling in the US making a short series of unique solo appearances. "Sheer exuberance…Malo mixes lounge crooning with zestful Latin music and adds a dash of country twang," wrote the Chicago Tribune. Each night, Raul delivers an eclectic mix of personal and fan favorites. The set includes stunning acoustic renditions of several of the Mavericks' signature songs like "What a Crying Shame," "Dance the Night Away," "Here Comes the Rain,"and "All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down."
Raul's far-reaching talent and adventurous attitude toward his music has often led to the pursuit of new creative endeavors, and in the last couple of years he has established himself as a solo artist, as a producer and television musical director, and as a member of the super-group Los Super Seven.
Yet, first and foremost, Raul is a singer. "Raul Malo has a voice on par with the best of ‘em: Sinatra, George Jones and Orbison," says Rolling Stone. As the lead Maverick, as a key participant on the last two Los Super Seven albums and as a solo artist, Raul has been making records for more than 15 years, creating a body of work full of surprising stylistic quick turns and unexpected detours -- from country to Tex-Mex rock 'n' roll to joyously kitschy '60s cocktail pop to strait-up, traditional Cuban and South American music.
www.raulmalo.com
My name is Rodney Crowell. I am a songwriter and recording artist. (A Grammy, an ASCAP lifetime achievement award, Rolling Stone magazine's announcing me some kind of ‘can't-miss star of the future' after the release of my first album, and induction to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame are few of the laurels that might decorate my calling card, were I to carry one.)
The place of my birth is Houston Texas. The Crowell/Willoughby blood-lines from which I sprang are of the Scottish, Irish, English and Cherokee blend found in the share-crop farm lands of Western Kentucky and Tennessee.
My mother and father met during World War II at a Roy Acuff concert in Buchanan, Tennessee. Eager to flee the farm, they married and eventually moved to Houston. In the late fifties, my father formed a musical outfit called J.W. Crowell and the Rhythmaires. The honky tonks and icehouses plentiful on Houston's East Side gave my father a format for his particular blend of hardcore honky tonk, Texas swing and Appalachian folk music. It was my colorful good fortune to be, at the age of 11 and 12, the drummer of this illustrious musical combo. When the cute novelty of the child drummer wore off (truth is I couldn't play very well), it was decided I would give up my seat in the Rhythmaires rhythm section.
At the age of 15, with two older guys and a girl drummer my own age, I formed a rock and roll band called the Arbitrators. In high school, I made most of my spending money playing teen parties and legion hall dances with The Arbitrators.
Along with my college roommate, Donivan Cowart and his truck-driving older brother, I began dabbling with the notion of writing my own songs. Donivan and I dropped out of college believing ourselves destined to take our place among the elite songwriters in Nashville. With a few bucks in our pockets we arrived in Nashville on an August night in 1972. It was our good fortune to fall in with the misfit songwriters and self-styled characters who used Bishop's Pub as a combination soup kitchen and open mike stage. Donivan and I averaged five or six dollars a night passing the hat after a 20 minute set. Food and gas money. Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Robin and Linda Williams, Johnny Rodriguez, Lee Clayton, Skinny Dennis Sanchez, Steve Earle, David Olney, Richard Dobson, John Hiatt, Lucinda Williams, Bronco Newcombe, Harlan White, Steve Runkle, Uncle Walt's Band, Steve Young, a singing trapeze artist, a sword swallower and a guy named Johnny Dollar were a few of the regulars at Bishop's Pub.
Townes, Guy and Susanna Clark, and the legendary Mickey Newberry set the bar for what was considered real songwriting in early seventies Nashville. When Guy took an unexpected liking to me, it became a singular goal in my life to write a song he would dub "a keeper." After six months of failure, I wrote a song called "Bluebird Wine." It caused Guy to raise an eyebrow in approval. With Guy's approval, I then set out to win over Townes. This proved to be a difficult task. In the end, I had to settle for a grunt and a "Yeah, but can you do it again" when I played "Til I Can Gain Control Again" for the first time during an all-night drinking and song swapping session. It was a great way to learn the craft of songwriting.
"‘Til I Can Gain Control Again" and "Bluebird Wine" came to Emmylou Harris's attention as she was preparing for her first album in late 1974. She recorded both songs. As a result of this rather fortunate turn of events, it was my good fortune to become a family friend and collaborator of Emmylou's. When she formed The Hot Band in 75, I moved to Los Angeles as her rhythm guitarist, harmony singer and songwriter. Thanks to Emmylou's rising star, I was able to hitch a ride around the world three times over. In the same way it was my great fortune to stumble my way onto the perfect situation to learn the art of songwriting, so it was that, with The Hot Band, I stumbled onto some of the best arranging musicians in all of Southern California. With Glen D. Hardin, James Burton and Emory Gordy splitting their live dates between Elvis Presley and Emmylou in ‘75 and ‘76, I was given a crash course in the art of arranging music for the studio and stage. Thanks to the association with Emmylou, my reputation as a songwriter grew rather quickly. Warner Bros. Records signed me to a recording contract late in 1977, my last year of touring full-time with Emmylou.
Since leaving The Hot Band, I have 11 solo records and a greatest hits package to show for my efforts as a recording artist. Along the way, I produced Rosanne Cash's first five studio albums, Guy Clark, Beth Nielsen Chapman and a handful of others. I was also lucky to have several hundred versions of my songs recorded by an assortment of artists ranging from The Grateful Dead to Andy Williams.... I've done alright.
The Houston Kid was the beginning of a new phase in my career, a re-invention of sorts. The record explored memories of the hard knock East Houston environment where I grew up. With it came a fundamental change in my approach to making records. Fate's Right Hand followed with a quasi-spiritual look at the complexities of living the so-called examined life. With all due respect to those who might have gotten attached to the records I made in the late 1980s, I unapologetically claim The Houston Kid, Fate's Right Hand and The Outsider as the best work I've done as a recording artist.
Born and raised in Roanoke, Virginia, Tommy Lee James started singing and playing the ukulele at the ripe old age of 6, followed by guitar and piano. One of his earliest musical memories, at age 8, is that of watching the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and being so moved by their performance that he vowed to be in music.
Tommy played in local bands from junior high school through college at Radford University (Radford, Virginia), where he was a voice major. After school, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he spent four years playing piano bars at night and refining his songwriting skills by day.
While the southern California music scene of the 1970s was a major influence on the teenaged Tommy, in the ‘80s it was the music of Nashville singer-songwriters – Rodney Crowell, Rosanne Cash, Steve Earle, Foster & Lloyd -- that swayed Tommy to head for Nashville instead of Los Angeles.
The move proved to be the right one for Tommy, and he soon landed his first publishing deal with Reba McEntire's Starstruck Entertainment. After two years as a writer for the company, Tommy was asked to join Reba's band. He would spend two years on the road with Reba, during which time she recorded Tommy's "And Still" and took it to #1.
In 1994, Tommy joined Brooks & Dunn's band, and penned "A Man This Lonely" with Ronnie Dunn, which also reached #1.
Signed to Barbara Orbison's publishing company, Still Working Music Group, in 1994, Tommy has enjoyed more #1 songs: "If You See Him/If You See Her," a duet sung by Reba and Brooks & Dunn; "Wrong Again" recorded by Martina McBride; "What I Really Meant To Say," by Cyndi Thomson, and "She's My Kind Of Rain," by Tim McGraw. Tommy has had additional chart success with "I Wish," recorded by Jo Dee Messina, and "Let's Be Us Again," by Lonestar. Most recently, Tommy co-wrote the critically-acclaimed single by Gary Allan entitled "Life Ain't Always Beautiful."
Other artists who have cut his songs include Cliff Richard, 98 Degrees, Pam Tillis, Blue County, Emerson Drive, Jedd Hughes and Little Big Town.
Tommy has produced Capitol Nashville recording artists Cyndi Thomson, Susan Ashton and Emily West, and Big Machine Records artist Danielle Peck. He is currently in the studio with Cyndi Thomson producing her sophomore album for Capitol.
