SPECIAL BROADCAST - Artist Feature with Grammy Winner John McEuen!

GEORGIA RADIO - Grammy winner John McEuen will released his new
album, TheNewsman, on March 22nd viaCompass Records. And he
joined us to talk about it, plus his incredible music career to
date.


In an unprecedented move for McEuen,the album is 11 spoken word
tracks, all mini movies with his unique style ofmusic behind each
one. From the opening title track, which is a true storyabout a
man who sold newspapers and was a tremendous influence on the
youngmusician in Los Angeles, to the final cut, “Julie’s Theme,”
inspired by JulesVerne telling a friend, in a French cemetery,
about his recently deceased youngwife, McEuen presents an album
filled with stories that will inspire andperhaps bring a tear to
your eye.


The different tracks on the album rage from “Killed at theFord,”
a Civil War-era poem that tells of the death of a young soldier
as heand friends go to meet a picket-guard by a ford. Although no
trouble is expected, a shot isfired from the woods and the young
man is dead. Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellowdoesn’t end the poem
there, but relates how it affects the young man’s familyat home.


“The Cremation of Sam McGee,” one of the most famous poemswritten
by Robert Service, was published in 1907. It is told from
theperspective of the man who cremates the prospector who froze
to death in theYukon while searching for gold.


The Stephen Vincent Benét poem “The Mountain Whippoorwill”was
published in 1925. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band released it on
their album“Stars & Striped Forever” in 1974.


“Fly Trouble” is a Hank Williams Sr. classic from 1949, and oneof
“talking blues” numbers that McEuen has recited many times over
the pastyears.


“Old Rivers” was written by Cliff Crofford andreleased by Walter
Brennan in 1963, while Thomas Monroe wrote “Nui Ba Den”while he
was in Vietnam in 1968. More recent writings are “Pineapple John”
byJohn Carter Cash, Hans Olson’s “I’ll Be Glad When I Run Out Of
Gas” andThaddeus Bryant’s “Red Clay.”


“I have been around the world playing music and collectingstories
for… a long time,” McEuen acknowledges. “As a teenager, well
beforeNitty Gritty Dirt Band, I loved Meredith
Wilson’s The Music Man.Before I started playing I must
have recited “Ya Got Trouble”2,000times! Later, when performing
became part of the life I picked, every now andthen I would do
one of these ‘stories’ (often a Hank Williams talking blues)
onstage, always happy about how well they went over.


“I did The Mountain Whippoorwill for many years with
theearly Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Then, another story would come
along, be learned,and ‘filed away’ for a future date. ‘The
stories’ soon tired of waiting to ‘getdone’.


“So, I did them.”


McEuen credits work he has done on film scores as a
majorinfluence on this album. He especially credits Tommy Lee
Jones, who along with SissySpacek starred in “Good Ole
Boys,” for which he did the soundtrack.


“At this point of my career, film score work (14 cool scores)gave
me the experience of putting background music with words and
picture,without getting ‘in the way’ with music,” McEuen says. “I
learned from TommyLee Jones, while I was doing a score for him,
that when someone says ‘Hey,that’s a great score going on there,’
the music person has failed to supportthe picture. You can’t let
the music dominate, it has to support what’shappening.’ So it
sometimes is with spoken word. This album is a soundtrack
forfilms not yet made.”


McEuen says that watching the Tom Hanks film News of
theWorld made him finish this album. “I feel like that
character, having toread the news to people who have not yet
heard it. And, my first ‘song’, thetitle cut, was about that type
of fellow in a way, and hisstory had tobe told.


“I find in this final year of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, this
albumcomes in a good space. That was a great 50-year run for me,
and now that it hasrun its course, it’s time for The
Newsman!


“I look forward to going out and telling people about those
50years that impacted so many, especially me, playing some new
music, andthrowing a few of these stories in along the way.”


McEuen believes these spoken word offerings can fit on radio.“It
is my suggestion that programmers add one of these cuts in
between othermusic they are playing, finding styles that fit each
– as they are eachdifferent. Listening to The
Newsman from top to bottom is a lot to askof anyone! I look
forward to seeing what people program with various cuts.”


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