Cowboys in Cyberspace

Here at Cowboys In Cyberspace we’ve always championed the ‘enhanced’ CD. That is, the audio album that also contains extra content to fill up that otherwise spare area on the shiny disc, helping it to fulfil its true potential. After all, while the disc itself may well be ‘compact’, as long as it comes in a regular plastic jewel case, it takes up as much cubic space than the vinyl LP format it replaced. It also takes longer to say “WWW” than it does to say “World Wide Web”, but I’m getting off the topic now!  Back to the Enhanced-CD and three cheers for REBA who has included two video clips on her excellent new album Keep On Loving You. Pop the disc in your computer and watch the official music video for the opening song Strange, plus a live version of Consider Me Gone from a CMT Invitation Only concert special. Follow the link to Reba’s site and you’ll find a lot more to see. Marvel at the range of Reba merchandise on offer; clothing, luggage, footwear and home wares. Bath towels anyone?
www.reba.com

When the self-titled LP by The Blue Ridge Rangers was released in 1973 it was a wonderful collection of country and gospel standards, apparently performed by a five piece group, depicted only in silhouette on the cover photo. In about the same amount of time it took to figure out that Wings was Paul McCartney’s new band, we learnt that The Blue Ridge Rangers was actually the first solo album from John Fogerty, following the breakup of Creedence Clearwater Revival. Fogerty played every instrument on the album and sang all the vocal parts with his distinctive growly twang and the album spawned two hits, Jambalaya and Hearts Of Stone. It was an affirmation of the influence of country on his music (“…Dinosaur Victrola, listenin’ to Buck Owens…”) and you’d be hard-pressed to find a country bar band anywhere that doesn’t include one or more Creedence songs in its repertoire. 36 years on, after an extensive solo career under his own name, we have a follow up album, John Fogerty – The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again. This time he’s not alone, utilising a great bunch of musicians throughout and a couple of celebrity guest duets; When Will I Be Loved with Bruce Springsteen and Garden Party with Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit from The Eagles. It is mostly a seventies era selection of songs and on the bonus DVD that comes with the album, Fogerty explains why he chose many of the songs. There is also footage of him rehearsing two of the songs on acoustic guitar and a tantalising teaser of his soon to be released Albert Hall concert DVD.
www.johnfogerty.com

More recent ‘Deluxe Editions’ of the two disc-set variety include Pop Country Girls – 20 tracks plus 16 videos (including many Australian artists), Steve Forde’s Guns & Guitars – 12 tracks, 5 videos and a ‘Behind The Scenes’, and a double set from Sugarland – LIVE On The Inside – 11 audio tracks and 15 filmed performances (which we will look at in more depth next month).

We leave you this month with a forecast by talk show host Conan O’Brien who predicts that “YouTube, Twitter and Facebook will merge to become form one super time wasting website called …YouTwitFace!”

Until next time, happy surfing!