John Hiatt to Receive BMI Troubadour Award

Songwriter becomes only the third recipient of the performing-rights org’s highest honor

Singer-songwriter John Hiatt, whose songs have been recorded by a wide range of artists from Bonnie Raitt and Willie Nelson to Bob Dylan and Iggy Pop, will be honored next month by the performing-rights organization BMI with the presentation of its Troubadour Award.

At the private ceremony in Nashville on September 9th — the week of the Americana Music Festival & Conference — Hiatt will become only the third such honoree of this particular award, after 2015 recipient Robert Earl Keen and John Prine, who received the award in 2018. The honor, according to a statement from BMI, “celebrates writers who craft for the sake of the song and set the pace for generations of writers who will follow.”

Late last month, bluegrass fiddle player Michael Cleveland released a cover of Hiatt’s “Tennessee Plates,” with Sam Bush on lead vocal. The track is just one of several cuts Hiatt introduced on his 1988 Americana classic Slow Turnin’, an album that also generated a smash country hit for Suzy Bogguss (“Drive South”), a Grammy for blues legend Buddy Guy (for his version of “Feels Like Rain”), and a memorable 1989 cover by Emmylou Harris with “Icy Blue Heart,” featuring Bonnie Raitt.

Hiatt is currently on tour, with a string of upcoming shows in Colorado that begin in Grand Junction on August 10th.

CREDITS: By STEPHEN L. BETTS /Rolling Stone Magazine

Johnny Cash’s Kitchen & Saloon Serves Up New Nashville Tourist Treat

John Carter Cash and Carlene Carter were among those performing at the spot’s 31 July opening.

A new destination for country music fans in Nashville’s downtown district has opened in the form of Johnny Cash’s Kitchen & Saloon. Cash’s son John Carter Cash and Carlene Carter, his stepdaughter by his wife June Carter Cash, were among those performing at the spot’s 31 July opening.

The restaurant is situated next door to the Johnny Cash Museum, which opened in 2013 on Third Avenue South, and is being designed to acknowledge and celebrate the personal tastes and heritage of both Johnny and June Carter Cash. Billboard Country Update reports that the steps to the new eateries second floor feature the lyrics to ‘I Walk The Line,’ and that everything in the bathrooms is appropriately black. Upstairs, there’s a replica of the front porch of the so-called “Cash Cabin.”

The interior will have log cabin settings and a sitting room with a large fireplace, aimed at recreating the feel of the home that Johnny and June lived in from the late 1960s until they both died in 2003. Catering will be by the family-owned Swett’s restaurant, which has served the authentic “meat-and-three” Southern cooking loved by Cash, such as collard greens, cornbread and fried chicken, for 65 years.

At the opening, John Carter Cash and his wife Ana Cristina Cash sang ‘Jackson’ on the venue’s stage, while Carlene sang ‘Ring Of Fire,’ and Johnny’s siblings Tommy Cash and Joanne Cash Yates took part in the collective version of the Carter Family’s ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

“They were sweet as can be to each other,” said Carlene Carter. “People love a good love story. They love a story where people come out ahead when they’re drowning, and they come up for air. And I think the whole romantic idea that mom helped save Johnny’s road, I do think she had a lot to do with it.”

“Dad was up and down these streets his whole life,” John Carter Cash told Billboard. “I feel him in these walls, I feel him in the heart of Nashville, and it’s great to see how the legacy has endured.” Bill Miller, who owns both the Kitchen & Saloon and the Cash Museum, said at the opening: “Go anywhere in the world and say, ‘Nashville.’ They say, ‘Johnny Cash.’ Let us not forget what a great man [he was] and what a great impact he had on this town.”

By Paul Sexton / Udiscovernusic.com

Photos From 'Jim Marshall: Show Me the Picture' by Amelia Davis

'Jim Marshall: Show Me the Picture' by Amelia Davis

One of the most iconic photographers of the rock era with an eye for bringing out the humanity in oft-mysterious stars, Jim Marshall was the chief photographer at Woodstock, shot the Beatles' final ticketed concert and captured one of the most beloved Bob Dylan photos of all time. Amelia Davis' new book, “Jim Marshall: Show Me the Picture” includes legendary shots and some previously unseen photos from the late talent. There is also a documentary of the same name which will be shown at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Credits: Billboard Magazine