Country Music Awards in France coming up

Didier Cere and the Bootleggers at Equiblues festival, St. Agreve. August 2012

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The Fourth French Highways country music awards will be announced on Nov. 7 in Paris, and I have friends in the running.

Voting takes place until Oct. 7 -- there are awards for best foreign artists and best French artists.

My friends Steve & Heather -- the France-based French-American duo -- and the Bootleggers, fronted by my friend Didier Cere -- are both up for best French group.

Hmm... you can only vote once.....

In the French solo artist category, the rockabilly-country singer Eddy Ray Cooper, whom I interviewed a few years ago, is up for best male singer.

Good luck, guys!

Country Music -- French Duo Steve & Heather to perform during CMA fest in Nashville

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

My friends, the French country due Steve & Heather, will be featured next month in Nashville at global artists events  during the Country Music Association  Festival, June 6-7.

The husband-and-wife act are actually a  French-American duo, as Steve is French and Heather is from the US -- though she has lived many years in France.

It's a particular recognition for Steve & Heather -- who perform in French as well as English and are a mainstay of the many country music festivals and events held throughout the year in France -- as all the other international acts on this year's roster come from English-speaking countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK) that have produced many country acts and even some big name international stars (Hank Snow, Keith Urban, etc).

(Nashville, Tenn. – May 9, 2011) Eighteen Country artists representing five different countries have been announced for this year’s annual Global Events showcases, held June 6 and 7 during CMA Music Festival week in downtown Nashville, Tenn.
Chevrolet Presents The CMA Global Artist Party is held Monday, June 6, at The Stage on Broadway. Kicking off at 6:30 PM/CST with a special performance from legendary guitarist and Australian native Tommy Emmanuel, the evening also features performances from Kaylee Bell (New Zealand), Dean Brody (Canada), Chad Brownlee (Canada), Diana Corcoran (Australia), Luke Dickens (Australia), McAlister Kemp (Australia), O’Shea (Australia), Raintown (UK) and Marlee Scott (Canada). Aussie husband and wife duo O’Shea is hosting the event. Sponsors include Chevrolet, CMA, The Stage on Broadway, Billboard, AristoWorks, and Four Seasons Coach Leasing.

The AristoMedia Global Show is held Tuesday, June 7, at noon/CST at famed downtown honkytonk The Second Fiddle. Hosted by Australian sister trio The McClymonts, performers at the AristoMedia Global Show include High Valley (Canada), Brett Kissel (Canada), Ryan Laird (Canada), Mike & Ashley (New Zealand), Craig Morrison (Australia), Six West (Canada), Springfield (Australia), and Steve & Heather (France). Event sponsors include AristoMedia, CMA, The Second Fiddle, Billboard and Four Seasons Coach Leasing. A free lunch will be offered for attendees.
“This is the fifth year for our Global Events showcases,” says AristoMedia President and CMA Board member Jeff Walker, who organizes the two shows each year. “These shows are a great way to help kick off CMA Music Fest, and it provides a valuable opportunity for some of these fantastic artists to be heard. The talent pool of international Country acts is very deep, and this year’s events are a good balance of up-and-comers and established veterans.”

Past Global Events performers have included Troy Cassar-Daley, Jasmine Rae, George Canyon, The McClymonts, David Bradley, Adam Gregory, Doc Walker and Jessie Farrell, among others.

Matt Watkins is handling event logistics, while Nashville-based record producer Mark Moffatt is handling music coordinator duties for both Global Events. AristoMedia is serving as the executive producer. Four Seasons Coach Leasing is providing artist buses and green rooms for each show.

For more information about the Chevrolet Presents The CMA Global Artist Party, please contact Bobbi Boyce at bboyce@CMAworld.com. For more information about the AristoMedia Global Show, contact Christy Watkins at (615) 269-7071 or Christy@aristomedia.com.

France -- Country Music from France; Steve & Heather

My friends Steve & Heather, a country music act in France, have a new video with excerpts of their Country Party shows, filmed at several leading country venues in France. (Heather is American; Steve is French.)

France -- a new video from Steve & Heather

Here's a new video of French country music from my friends Steve & Heather, a husband-and-wife duo (he's French, she's originally from the U.S.). I met them at the Country Music Rendez-vous in Craponne a few years ago. Heather was very helpful to me in discussing the French country scene, as she had prepared a survey and history of country music in France as a masters paper.

It was filmed at "Two River City" -- a Wild West village in the Alsace region -- the first I know of in France, though I am sure there must be others, given the widespread appeal of line-dancing and le musique country.

More on Charlie McCoy and also Czech Texans

Days of Texas poster, Roznov pod Radnostem, CZ, 2005. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

As I reported earlier, the virtuoso harmonica player Charlie McCoy is being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. An article about him in a Ft. Myers Florida paper describes him as

one of the most recorded, most influential musicians in Nashville. And he’s virtually unknown outside Music City, USA.

Read full article

I write about Charlie on this blog because he is quite wellknown in the country music scene outside the USA. He tours regularly in Europe and elsewhere, and he makes a point to play with European bands (like my friend Steve & Heather in France and Druha Trava in Czech Republic) and also records with them.

I met him back in 2005 when he was touring with Druha Trava -- the concert I saw was at a "Days of Texas" festival in the little town of Roznov pod Radnostem, in eastern CZ.

Texas quilts in Ethnographic museum. Roznov pod Radnostem, CZ. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

As I wrote in the International Herald Tribune (the link has expired), the setting was the Wallachian Open-Air Museum,

a sprawling complex dedicated to the preservation of local folk traditions and architecture. And the festival highlighted the fact that from the mid-19th century until World War I, thousands of people emigrated from Roznov and other towns and villages in the region to the Lone Star State. Today, Texas has the largest ethnic Czech community in the United States.

There were demonstrations of 19th century farming customs used by the emigrants, and performances by American-style Czech country-western groups as well as by local folk groups performing Wallachian songs and dances. An exhibition of quilting featured local designs as well as a big patchwork quilt reading "Texas," hung prominently from the upper floor of the old Roznov Town Hall.

I felt an immediate connection. My own great-grandfather immigrated to Texas from Lithuania in the 1880s, my mother and grandmother were both born there, and I had relatives who lived in some of the heavily Czech Texan communities.

Near Roznov, I made it point to visit the village of Lichnov, where a private little museum documents the Wallachian exodus with an exhibition called "Hope Has a Name -- Texas." It is a genealogist's paradise of archival records, photographs, maps and memorabilia tracing family histories on both sides of the Atlantic.

It was rather poignant to see how the immigrants, building new lives in a new world, named raw new prairie settlements after their ancient Czech hometowns and, in many cases, maintained at least some of their native customs and even a command of the language.

Indeed, the then-Mayor, Vaclav Mikusek, recalled his surprise when he first met descendents of Wallachian immigrants to Texas about 15 years ago. "There was one man whose ancestors had come from a village near Roznov, and when he started to speak Czech, it was like I was hearing my grandfather," he told me. "He was using the same words, same expressions. We were discussing it in the museum," he said. "Anyone who wants to hear a pure Wallachian dialect must go to Texas."