Alt. country artists

Of course this is Wanda Jackson. With, on the right, my wife. I remember picking her up at Brussels Airport, after a vacation in Greece, where it was very hot, going to the Loreley Germany, where it was pretty cold, and she wasn't properly dressed.

At the Loreley something very peculiar happened. I had a long interview with Wanda, and when I was through she checked with the other guys for the next interview but it turned out that I had asked all the questions, and everybody made a "bootleg" of my interview.

I'm glad I saw Buck Owens once in Ludwigshafen Germany and I even got an interview, although I only wanted him to do some liners for American Music. Before he finished the show we went to his dressing room along with his wife, and we were talking when Buck came in. He was exhausted, but I'e never seen a man recover that fast. It took him a couple of minutes. And when we were talking, "Big" Jack McFadden, his manager, came in, asking what we were doing in the dressing room of Mr. Buck Owens. But Buck's wife said it was ok, because we were friends (although only for 5 minutes).

Buck and I were talking about country music in general, and agreed on a lot of things. And suddenly, he said: "Let's talk for the radio". So he talked about his own radio station and the fact that he and Merle were alternative, and so on...  Later on we found out that because of "Big" Jack, keeping everybody out of the dressing room, I had an exclusive interview.

Jimmy C. Newman has retired now, and that's a pity.

I guess someone who adds an extra dimension to his music, is very creative. He gave the world cajun country, and that was fine with me. I still love to play his old records. But more important was that he turned out to be a fine storyteller and a nice guy.

We did this interview with James Burton in Amsterdam. Not visible is Peter Verbruggen, writer of "King of Belgium", a terrific book about Elvis. He's holding the mic, asking everything about the KIng. Later on I had a lot of questions about Rick Nelson.

Twenty-five years doing their job, playing hard-core country music, writing intelligent songs, and keeping their promises. Howard and David are about the most reliable people in the business. Thanks for twenty-five years feeling good with Bellamy Brothers music. Click here for the Bellamy's website.

When the Tom Russell Band was travelling from Switzerland to Norway, I convinced the people of Merselo Holland to bill the band. Ever since Tom Russell has become a house hold name. The year was 1987.

Although from Brooklyn New York -in fact, he's a Brooklyn Cowboy- no one writes better songs about western life than Tom Russell, the super storyteller.

Many fans regret that he abandoned his band to perform solo with guitarist Andrew Hardin, because the Tom Russell Band was the best you can get. The guy that plays accordeon (next to steelguitar, fiddle etc.) is Fats Kaplin, now married to Kristy Rose and can be found on many a Dead Reckoning album.

Rosie Flores more or less invented cow-punk with her Screamin' Sirens at the time that the puppy rock of the Bangles was popular. After a real honky tonk album for Reprise she returned to her roots, which is rock-a-billy.

This picture is from '89. At that time Rosie couldn't understand that someone would play Sreamin' Sirens, George Jones, Fabulous Thunderbirds and The Eagles in one show. But she liked the idea. I'm doing this for 20 years, and now there's Americana.

Talking about mutual feelings, I think Katy Moffatt and I both felt good when this picture was taken. Although she deserved better she never made it big, except for my show.

Links to some of these artists websites can be found on my links page.