Nashville's Emily Nenni, Dylan Earl @ The Drake Underground, Saturday

California-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter Emily Nenni revels in the honky tonk side of country music. Check the clips! 

Here's the scoop...

Emily Nenni has a confession: she didn’t always plan on being a performing artist. “I thought I was just going to be a songwriter,” she admits. Clearly, life had something else in store. The singer and guitarist has emerged as one of the freshest and most electrifying voices in Nashville, with a sound rooted in classic honky tonk and spiked with serious country, soul and rock ‘n’ roll fire, and sweet-and-sassy lyrics that chronicle hard living, hot nights, heartbreak and other universal truths about the human condition. Over the past several years she’s enraptured audiences across Music City with sizzling sets in smoky bars and clubs, honing her command of the stage, perfecting her skills as a band leader and sharpening an already astute world view, all of which are on full display on her newest studio album, Drive & Cry. 

The record is a marked departure from her previous full-length, 2022’s acclaimed On the Ranch. Whereas that effort saw Nenni uproot herself to lend a hand – and write – while assisting at a ranch in southern Colorado, Drive & Cry drops the listener smack in the middle of her boisterous and bustling Nashville world. The album kicks off with “Get to Know Ya,” a honky-tonk rave-up that celebrates the end of the work day and the beginning of a music-filled, come-what-may night. Nenni busts out her biggest hoops, jumps into the jeans she can “really only stand up in,” and heads to the local bar. “Play ‘til the sun’ll come / when the daylight’s done,” she sings as the instrumental accompaniment races in step behind her.

 From there, Nenni leads into “Greatest Hits,” a pedal-steel-inflected Dolly Parton-style number in which she tips her hat to underground honky-tonk venue Santa’s Pub, a dive bar squeezed inside a double-wide trailer that has become her home-away-from-home in Nashville. “When I first came to town, I was 21 and singing at clubs with folks who were twice my age,” Nenni recalls of moving to Music City from her native California. “Then a buddy of mine said, ‘There's a place where people are making this music that are actually your age, and where you'd really fit in.’ And that was Santa’s Pub. It’s where I learned that music doesn't have to be perfect – everybody is just having fun and there’s no judgment. You can show up however you're feeling that night, have a good time and be surrounded by friends.”

You can get tickets for Emily Nenni's Toronto show at the Drake Hotel Underground on May 17 via Ticketmaster right here. Watch Emily perform her version of Terry Allen's "Amarillo Highway" and a few more clips below. 

Happy 80th Birthday Terry Allen!

Cheers to singer/songwriter deluxe Terry Allen on his 80th birthday. Here are a couple of his classics and two documentaries.

LINKS

Aquarium Drunkard An interview with Terry Allen

Watch a short film about Terry Allen's Lubbock (on Everything)

Terry Allen discusses his 1979 classic "Lubbock (on Everything) reissued by Paradise of Bachelors. 

Here's the scoop...

Legendary Texan artist Terry Allen occupies a unique position straddling the frontiers of country music and visual art; he has worked with everyone from Guy Clark to David Byrne, and his artwork resides in museums worldwide. Widely acclaimed as a masterpiece, his deeply moving (and hilarious) satirical second album, Lubbock (on Everything) – originally issued in 1979 – is a complex memory palace to his West Texas hometown of Lubbock. 

The Paradise Of Bachelors' reissue of Lubbock (on Everything) was produced in collaboration with the artist and meticulously remastered from the original analog tapes. This is the definitive edition: the first to correct the tape speed inconsistencies evident on all prior versions; the first U.S. vinyl reissue; the first CD to restore the full track listing; and the first to contextualize the record within Allen’s 50-year career. 

Deluxe 2×LP package includes tip-on gatefold jacket with lyrics, printed inner sleeves, download code, and 28 page book with related artwork and photos, an oral history by Allen, and essays by David Byrne, Lloyd Maines, and PoB. 2×CD edition features replica jacket, sleeves, and tipped-in 52 page booklet. 

Get a copy of Terry Allen's Lubbock (on Everything) right here. Watch the short documentary followed by an interview about his songwriting origins and performances of a few songs from the album including "New Delhi Freight Train" from 2016 along with "Amarillo Highway" and "My Amigo" for KUTX from 2017 below.