{"id":6349,"date":"2016-04-21T11:54:29","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T16:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/?p=6349"},"modified":"2016-06-30T17:36:02","modified_gmt":"2016-06-30T22:36:02","slug":"songs-and-stories-156-blackie-farrells-cold-country-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/songs-and-stories-156-blackie-farrells-cold-country-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Songs and Stories #156: Blackie Farrell&#8217;s &#8220;Cold Country Blues&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_4860\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-6349-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/songs_and_stories\/www.michaelgaither.com\/podcasts\/songs_and_stories156.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/songs_and_stories\/www.michaelgaither.com\/podcasts\/songs_and_stories156.mp3\">http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/songs_and_stories\/www.michaelgaither.com\/podcasts\/songs_and_stories156.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/songs_and_stories\/www.michaelgaither.com\/podcasts\/songs_and_stories156.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/?powerpress_pinw=6349-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/songs_and_stories\/www.michaelgaither.com\/podcasts\/songs_and_stories156.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"songs_and_stories156.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/podcasts\/songs_and_stories156.mp3\" target=\"_blank\">Click here to listen to the interview with Blackie Farrell<\/a> (time = 40:15)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Blackie-Farrell.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-6351\" src=\"http:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Blackie-Farrell-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Blackie Farrell\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.davealvin.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dave Alvin<\/a> says &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/blackiefarrell.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Blackie Farrell<\/a> is absolutely one of America\u2019s great undiscovered national treasures.&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gurfmorlix.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Gurf Morlix<\/a> calls Blackie&#8217;s long-awaited debut record, <a href=\"http:\/\/blackiefarrell.com\/store\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Cold Country Blues&#8221;<\/a>, a &#8220;master class in songwriting&#8221;. Few would disagree. Blackie has spent the last 40 or so years leading his own bands and having his songs <a href=\"http:\/\/www.allmusic.com\/artist\/kevin-blackie-farrell-mn0000079754\/credits\" target=\"_blank\">covered\u00a0by other performers<\/a>, but it wasn&#8217;t until this year that he finally went into the studio\u00a0(with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.billkirchen.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bill Kirchen<\/a> and Gurf, no less) and recorded his first record. (He jokingly says, &#8220;I waited this long so I could avoid having to do a comeback album.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/cold_country_blues_web.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-6352\" src=\"http:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/cold_country_blues_web-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"cold_country_blues_web\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>I first talked to Blackie and Gurf about a year ago on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/songs-and-stories-147-gurf-morlix-and-blackie-farrell\/\" target=\"_blank\">episode #147<\/a>. At that point in time, they were just starting work on &#8220;Cold Country&#8217;s Blues&#8221;. I caught up with Blackie recently &#8211; with record in hand &#8211; after he played live on <a href=\"kpig.com\" target=\"_blank\">KPIG radio<\/a>, and we talked about how difficult it was to choose 11\u00a0songs for one record &#8211; he&#8217;s been writing since he was 13. He knew he had to include\u00a0&#8220;Mama Hated Diesels&#8221;, which was a hit for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0BoyEHeID8U\" target=\"_blank\">Commander Cody<\/a>, and &#8220;Sonora&#8217;s Death Row&#8221;, which was recorded by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=52gzhQS0dg4\" target=\"_blank\">Robert Earl Keen<\/a> and Dave Alvin, amongst others. He&#8217;s now talking about his next record. We can&#8217;t wait.<\/p>\n<p>A storyteller both in song and offstage, Blackie&#8217;s a fascinating guy. This episode features a live version of &#8220;Sonora&#8217;s Death Row&#8221;, which I continually argue is the greatest story song ever written. Blackie also tells the story behind the song, which might surprise you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Have comments on this episode?<\/strong><br \/>\nI\u2019d love to hear from you. Call and leave a message at <strong>(831) 288-2226<\/strong>, and I\u2019ll play your comments on-air during the next show.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net\/WebObjects\/MZStore.woa\/wa\/browserRedirect?url=itms%253A%252F%252Fax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewPodcast%253Fid%253D216646993\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/subscribe-with-itunes.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.michaelgaither.com%2Fhome%2Fsongs-and-stories-156-blackie-farrells-cold-country-blues%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;&amp;width=800&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:800px;height:30px;margin-top:5px;\"><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Click here to listen to the interview with Blackie Farrell (time = 40:15) Dave Alvin says &#8220;Blackie Farrell is absolutely [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-podcast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6349"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6472,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349\/revisions\/6472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}