Tommy Womack - Now What!

Happy Mardi Gras. Party up today, for lent is nigh. It is the season of discipline, not indulging in something you love until Easter. Can you give up meat or cigarettes, or a luxury of some sort, for the forty days of the Lenten season? Yikes, discipline, my dear! But today, you have to get it all out of your system. Party until midnight, when Cinderella’s coach turns into a pumpkin at day’s end. Have you ever been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans? They take this revelry thing mighty seriously, ya know. And you can go from a refined dinner with the family; pearls and dinner jackets; to frontal nudity in the street. To each his own.

Tommy Womack would be fun to take to New Orleans. His eccentric observations would be quite worth the price of admission. His might even be the voice of reason, the counterpoint to the debauchery. Tommy’s new CD comes out today. It is the sequel to There I Said It!, and is called Now What! Music Fog had the great good fortune of doing the intro video for it, which you can watch above. And we had the honor of filming Tommy at Folk Alliance in 2010, which you can enjoy below. (By the way, the Folk Alliance is just kicking off in Memphis this week.) So we bring you the Music Fog recording of one of the songs that you will find on the new album. “On & Off The Wagon,” one from the Fog Bank, with Lisa Oliver-Gray. Maybe the “wagon” starts at midnight. Forty days, huh…?

- Jessie Scott

Bonnie Bishop "Lucky Ones"

Valentine’s Day requires advanced notice, if you are to do it justice. This is a head’s up that you have a week to get it done, whatever ‘it’ is. I am just doing my civic duty. I am not in love, bah humbug. What’s on the list? Candy, liquor, flowers, diamonds, dinner out, champagne...have at it. His and her spa days for treatments, ooh, and massages, or a weekend getaway at a lux hotel. The main thing, though, is that you have to plan ahead for this stuff. You have been forewarned. Of course, for my money, things always go better with music. The fine folks at Thirty Tigers have the right idea, releasing a love song album today called Hearts Across Texas a week before Cupid shoots his arrow. It features the likes of the Josh Abbott Band, Kevin Fowler, Casey Donahew Band, Aaron Watson, a previously unreleased cover of “Leather and Lace” by Elizabeth Cook and Aaron Watson, plus a brand new song from Jack Ingram called "Miss You."

It also contains a Bonnie Bishop tune called “Lucky Ones,” and since we recorded a session with her doing that song, at the MusicFest 2010 in Steamboat Springs, we just couldn’t help but bring that to you again. Bonnie will be hitting the road at the end of the month, and coming down to Texas for a while. She is going to play my School Night Sessions concert series at Threadgill’s WHQ on March 5th, and here are the rest of her dates.

From the Fog Bank (archives), this is a beauty; Bonnie Bishop with keyboard wizard Michael Webb.

- Jessie Scott