Hank Williams

Queer as Folk's Thea Gill will star as Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire, to be staged this summer by Victoria's Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre. The production, directed by Brian Richmond, will also feature Stratford Festival veteran Tim Campbell as Stanley, Celine Stubel as Stella and Jacob Richmond as Mitch. It runs July 6 to 18.  

Emit Bloch is the sort of dude who you might expect to have been born on a cattle ranch in Utah, where he learned guitar on a porch watching a cowboy pluck Hank Williams songs. Then you hear the story about him recording his album for £6 on a dictaphone and the myth of a wild guitar-wielding backwoodsman begins to grow stronger. But then you find out that he's lived in London for the past six years.  

Way down in the Southland in Old Alabam,' we lived in a place that they called Chapman Town, and late in the evening when the sun was low, way off in the distance, you could hear the train blow . . ." Butler County's most famous native son, Hank Williams Sr., penned those words, lyrics from a song called "Log Train," written in 1952. And the train whistle was that of Engine No. 14, driven by Hank's dad.

The log trains and lumber companies are a big part of Butler County history. Many, many people worked there over the years and of course, we have Hank's family ties to this, too   -Margaret Gaston

 

Jamey Johnson has the appearance and the style of a classic country music outsider. He writes story songs. He sounds like a old-fashioned honky-tonker and looks like a fella who might whallop you upside the head in a bar fight.

People can have their own interpretation of an artist's credibility, but the simple fact of the matter is I simply couldn't give a (expletive) about what somebody thinks about my credibility   -Jamey Johnson

 

While I might not be "a nice young lady with journalistic aspirations and big blue eyes" like they requested on their MySpace page, I do know when I like someone's sound and as a result, I really like Uncles. Their debut album, due April 22, is called Replacing Words with Other Words and we've got two gnarly tracks for you to dig into: "Settler's Song" and "Where Does It Sleep", both of which sound equally like Country Western forefathers (Hank Williams, Merle Haggard) hopped into bed with some of my fav  

I f you loved Hank Williams and Hank Williams Jr., then you will like Hank Williams III, who brings his own irreverent blend of country and punk music to Nakai Hall on Sunday. "We're going to bring our version of country music and some high energy punk with my band Assjack," Williams said in a telephone interview on Saturday from San Antonio. "Music is music and I believe that music has always helped people get through some of the trying times that they are facing," he said.

We're going to bring our version of country music and some high energy punk with my band Assjack   -Hank Williams III

 

If you close your eyes during a performance of Jason Petty's "El Paso," you might think you're at a Marty Robbins concert. Petty, who was wonderful in a tribute called "Hank and His Honky Tonk Heroes," which came to Temple Theatre a couple of years back, doesn't disappoint in this tribute to Marty Robbins and some of his heroes, which included Roy Rogers and Gene Autry as well as Eddie Arnold and Hank Williams Sr. He has won rave reviews from all of the major critics including The New York Times, Varie  

The man who founded the Hank Williams Museum has died. Cecil Jackson, a lifelong fan of Williams, collected a massive amount of memorabilia before starting a foundation and opening the museum in downtown Montgomery. Jackson's funeral will be held Wednesday at the Brookside Funeral Home in Millbrook.  

Brooks & Dunn are about to embark on their Last Rodeo tour, bringing to an end their 20-year career as one of the most successful country music duos of all time. For those fans who have been taking notes for the past two decades, it's mind-blowing to realize that Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn won the CMA Vocal Duo of the Year award every year between 1992 and 2006, except for 2000 when Montgomery Gentry nabbed the prize. Their ACM awards were also numerous, with the pair claiming Top Vocal Duo honors 16 ti

That first station that was country music all the time ... there's this heritage, there's over a thousand stations that play our music, and it allows us to be a part of what country music used to be   -Kix Brooks