The Perlich Post

Sunday, May 17, 2026

Remembering singer/songwriter Jesse Winchester on his birthday

Raising a glass to singer/songwriter extraordinaire Jesse Winchester with a few interviews and performances.

Gary Stewart pre-RCA archival comp due from Delmore in July

Delmore's new Gary Stewart rarities disc One Track Mind makes an ace companion for Jimmy McDonough's new biography of the late honky tonk hero.

Previously unreleased, pre-RCA recordings by the once, future and forever King Of The Honky-Tonks. For nearly two decades, we obsessively scoured the vaults of multiple publishing houses along Music Row, and the endless archives of Gary's closest friend, Tommy Schwartz, all in search of elusive performances rumoured to exist. One Track Mind is Delmore's third deep dive into the Gary Stewart legacy, which began with the Grandma's Roadhouse LP in 2010.

One Track Mind (out July 17 via Nashville's Delmore Recording Society) finds Gary toward the beginning of his career as a songwriter—newly arrived in Nashville from Fort Pierce, Florida, signing first with Cedarwood and then Forrest Hills publishing. Working primarily with early songwriting partner Bill Eldridge, several tunes heard on this collection would be recorded by luminaries of the genre, including Del Reeves ("One Track Mind"), Cal Smith ("You Can't Housebreak a Tomcat"), Jack Greene ("There's a Whole Lot About a Woman (A Man Don't Know)") and Nat Stuckey ("The Snuff Queen”). But no one sang these songs like Gary Stewart.

Also included are a handful of stripped down departures from the Nashville sound. Recorded in Gary's Williamson County, TN trailer, "Beautiful River" is a gorgeous, solo ballad, complete with his signature whistling. Alongside it is a guitar-vocal demo of "The Snuff Queen" -sourced from a beat-to-hell acetate disc- that puts an altogether different country-blues spin on this early Gary classic. (The studio version of "The Snuff Queen", was released as a B side by Kapp in 1970, and later included on the 1975 MCA compilation LP, "You're Not The Woman You Used To Be"). The LP culminates in a jaw dropping, early recording of "Williamson County", which is unlike anything Gary recorded before or since. A singular performance that needs to be heard to be believed, and almost unrecognizable from the polished version recorded for 1975’s Out of Hand, Gary’s debut LP for RCA. The whereabouts of the other songs Gary recorded that day remains a mystery.

What isn't a mystery is that Gary sings every song here with everything he's got. Whether you're new to the powerful artistry of Gary Stewart, or a long time obsessive, there's much to love within these fully loaded grooves. Delmore couldn't be prouder to have the opportunity to bring more Gary Stewart music into the world.

The digital / CD release contains four bonus tracks, including the complete legendary Mowtown session. Delmore released the first two Motown numbers as a Record Store Day vinyl only single in 2018. Gary's demo of the Four Tops classic "I Can't Help Myself" (Sugar Pie, Honeybunch), is heard here for the first time, and all three are making their digital debuts.

Last month, a definitive biography, Gary Stewart: I Am From the Honky-Tonks, was published by Jimmy McDonough (author of the New York Times bestseller Shakey: Neil Young's Biography). Read more about Jimmy McDonough's Gary Stewart biography on The Perlich Post right here. And check out an interview with Jimmy McDonough over here.

Is the Country Music Hall Of Fame next? It's about damn time.

Pre-order a copy of Gary Stewart's One Track Mind via Bandcamp right here. Check out a short documentary on Gary Stewart following the track listing below.

Gary Stewart – One Track Mind

1. One Track Mind

2. Kings And Queens

3. Woman Will Tear The Heart Right Out Of A Man

4. Big Bad Train

5. Living The Life Of A Dog

6. Don't Put A Poor Hand On Me

7. Her Apple Pie

8. My Mind Is On You

9. Iron Bar Motel 02:46

10. The Bottom Of The Pile

11. There's A Whole Lot About A Woman (A Man Don't Know)

12. If You Come Back Darling

13. You Can't Housebreak A Tomcat

14. The Snuff Queen (acetate)

15. Beautiful River (trailer demo)

16. Williamson County

Saturday, May 16, 2026

Brown Horse @ The Monarch Tavern, Saturday

Promising UK country rockers Brown Horse hit the Monarch Tavern with the well-crafted songs from their Total Dive album out now. Doors at 7 pm!

Here's the scoop...

Brown Horse is a Norwich-based country rock band. Rooted in a collaborative approach to songwriting, the six-piece mix guitar-driven 90s alternative rock with the folk and country sounds of the 70s.

In April 2026 Brown Horse released their third album Total Dive on Loose Records. Their strongest and most grounded work to date, it showcases a new level of skill and assurance in the Norwich band’s thoughtful lyricism and musicality. Leaning away from the playfulness and eclecticism of their previous works, Total Dive sees Brown Horse step forward into the darkness with a cautious optimism. With songs from each of the four members (Patrick Turner, Nyle Holihan, Emma Tovell and Rowan Braham) the writing charts a world of small revelations and painful changes. As they move confidently between searing noise and delicate reflection, Brown Horse take time to note the beauty and agony of the mundane; the death rattle of a vending machine, headlights flashing in the eyes of a road-killed fox, the heather-pink of a winter sky.

The new album is the clearest expression yet of Brown Horse’s unique sound - somewhere between Jay Farrar's darker impulses of Uncle Tupelo's country rock, the raw intimacy of early Cat Power, and the haunted landscapes of Magnolia Electric Co., while embracing the self-possessed noisiness of alt rock trailblazers like Built to Spill and The Breeders. Bolstered by the playing of Norwich drummer, Ben Rodwell, and the vocal harmonies of Leeds-based musician, Neve Cariad, Total Dive is the sound of a band coming fully into their own. These are songs inhabited by wide Norfolk skies, thousands of shared miles on the road, the noise of heartbreak and humour, and the echoing silence of long hours spent in strange in-between places.

Tickets for Brown Horse's much-anticipated Toronto show at the Monarch Tavern (12 Clinton) tonight (Saturday, May 16) are $27.75 and available here. Doors open at 7 pm. Check out a couple of Brown Horse's videos after the impressive title track from their Total Dive album below.

Happy 80th Birthday Robert Fripp!

Celebrating the 80th birthday of guitarist Robert Fripp with a few interviews and more. Cheers Robert!

Tom Waits & Kathleen Brennan's compositions get the spotlight on new multi-artist comp

Ace Records has gathered 19 stellar covers of songs by Tom Waits & Kathleen Brennan for Where The Willow and The Dogwood Grow.

Here's the scoop...

With undeniable cultural gravity, the team of Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan join luminaries such as Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, Randy Newman, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Leonard Cohen, Lee Hazlewood, Brian Wilson and Laura Nyro in Ace Records’ long-running series of multi-artist compilations celebrating the great American songwriters of the modern era. Hundreds of artists from all walks of music have recorded songs from Waits and Brennan’s matchless catalogue, 19 of the finest of which comprise the hand-picked selection Where The Willow and The Dogwood Grow (out May 29th), including many chosen by the songwriters themselves.

Few artists have remapped the terrain of popular music, and culture at large, like Tom Waits. Over the course of five decades, he has forged a singular aesthetic that defies genre and turns the marginal into myth. His work is neither fully inside nor outside the mainstream tradition but moves restlessly between them, drawing from vaudeville, blues, jazz, folk, theatre – and just about anything else that catches his ear – to craft something wholly his own. His influence reverberates not just through the underground and avant-garde, but across theatre, film, literature, and visual art. With his long-time creative partner and wife Kathleen Brennan, he has dismantled and reassembled the idea of song itself, crafting works that exist as both raw expression and high art. This collection honours not only the extraordinary versatility of Waits and Brennan’s songwriting, but the importance of an artist who continues to haunt and inspire from the edges inward.

Ace’s selection is sequenced chronologically by song, opening with Bruce Springsteen’s live recording of ‘Jersey Girl’, Waits’ ode to Brennan from 1980’s Heartattack And Vine, and closing with folk matriarch Joan Baez’s version of Waits and Brennan’s anti-war ‘Day After Tomorrow’ from Waits’ more recent Real Gone. “All the great things that came out of New Jersey don’t hold a candle to Kathleen Brennan, at least not in Tom’s eyes,” Bob Dylan said on his Theme Time Radio Hour show. “She rescued me,” reflected Waits in an interview for The Guardian. “Maybe I rescued her too, that’s often how it works. Upshot is that we both got into the same leaky boat. Everybody knows she’s the brains behind Pa, as Dylan might have said. I’m just the figurehead. She’s the one who’s steering the ship.”

In addition to “steering the ship”, Brennan became Waits’ songwriting partner. The couple’s first-released joint composition, ‘Hang Down Your Head’ from Rain Dogs, is heard here in a raunchy rendition by country-blues heroine Lucinda Williams. Elsewhere, performers from the worlds of jazz, blues, gospel, soul and rock put their own stamps on great songs with which Waits devotees will be familiar on Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs, Franks Wild Years, Big Time, Bone Machine, Mule Variations, Real Gone and Orphans. Pride of place – because it’s a particular favourite of Waits and proved incredibly challenging to license – goes to the heart-wrenching recording of ‘Down There By The Train’ from Johnny Cash’s late-life masterpiece American Recordings.

Made with the blessing, approval and involvement of Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, Where The Willow And The Dogwood Grow is an essential collection for any fan of this remarkable artist’s unique work.

Where The Willow and The Dogwood Grow:

Words & Music by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan

1. JERSEY GIRL - BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND

2. 16 SHELLS FROM A THIRTY-OUGHT-SIX - BOB SEGER & THE SILVER BULLET BAND

3. GIN-SOAKED BOY - SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY & THE ASBURY JUKES

4. JOCKEY FULL OF BOURBON - LOS LOBOS

5. HANG DOWN YOUR HEAD - LUCINDA WILLIAMS

6. TEMPTATION - DIANA KRALL

7. YESTERDAY IS HERE - BETTYE LAVETTE

8. WAY DOWN IN THE HOLE - THE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA

9. STRANGE WEATHER - MARIANNE FAITHFULL

10. I DON'T WANNA GROW UP - RAMONES

11. DOWN THERE BY THE TRAIN - JOHNNY CASH

12. HOUSE WHERE NOBODY LIVES - KING ERNEST

13. PICTURE IN A FRAME - WILLIE NELSON

14. HOLD ON - MADISON CUNNINGHAM

15. THE LONG WAY HOME - NORAH JONES

16. 2:19 - JOHN HAMMOND

17. DIAMOND IN YOUR MIND - SOLOMON BURKE

18. TRAMPLED ROSE - ALISON KRAUSS / ROBERT PLANT

19. DAY AFTER TOMORROW - JOAN BAEZ

Get a copy of Where The Willow and The Dogwood Grow directly from Ace Records right here. Check out a few alternate performances by some of the artists included.