An incredible journey. Across the Atlantic ocean to the fatherland of folk songs and fighting spirit, Ireland. We were told West is best, so we rambled down the coast to county Clare, to the small towns of Doolin and Liscannor. It was off season for tourism and bitterly cold. The […]
John Davey is a songwriter’s songwriter. He writes poetry set to music, paints pictures with his words and is modest all the while. No easy feat when folks like me have your lyrics tattoo’d on their body. He was one of the first artists on GemsOnVHS, the videos still in […]
Ben came down to Old Hickory, Tennessee to play a new tune for us, just before the pandemic swept the nation. In some sort of premonition of events to come, we talked a little bit about how it is the duty of an artist to go into the darkness and […]
Jesse Daniel is a hard working, hustling honky-tonk troubadour from the land of the tall redwoods, way out West. When I first met him, he’d invited me to his hometown out in the forested backwoods hills of Ben Lomond (not the Scottish one, where I went with Josh Okeefe), in […]
I’ve always thought, personally, that Ben’s best songs are love songs. The temperament of his love songs usually ranges between playful and painful. Someone is usually leaving, or left and came back. They’re asking for forgiveness or dealing with pain. Grace’s Casket is my personal favorite, and the list is […]
Before this trip to Toronto, the farthest north in North America i’d been was Marquette Michigan, filming my friend (and talented songwriter) John Davey (https://youtu.be/KeZcGEL73Mk). I’d even ventured to Niagara Falls with Jeremy Quentin (of Small Houses) once. Never had I ever dared to cross that border though, partly because […]
When we set out to create the Gems in the Rough contest (https://youtu.be/RXld_ZEtnfA), we had no idea what to expect. It really is a crazy thought; to put a video on the channel inviting the audience (y’all) to submit songs, and have the community (also y’all) vote on who they […]
We headed down to New Orleans to catch up with Esther Rose and her band. I’m not as well versed in the various parishes of the Big Easy as Esther is, so I had no idea where we might end up when she invited me to come record some of […]
One of the first artists ever to grace the GemsOnVHS stage (virtual stage?) is/was Erin Rae McKaskle. We go way back, and reminisce fondly about a Nashville that feels long-gone. Back when we’d sit for hours in the summer, late into the AM hours of the next morning, on Cafe […]
Y’all know I’m a Tennessean for life. One of my favorite vistas in Tennessee, if not the world, is a mountain rising into the clouds, larger than life. Roan Mountain offers some of the most spectacular views along the Appalachian Trail, straddles the border with North Carolina and holds a […]
