The Golden Globe nominations are out. Heidi and I are pretty big fans of the show Nashville, so we’re excited that Connie Britton got a best actress nod for her role on the show as (fictional) country music superstar Rayna James.

Here’s a little piece from Ann Powers about some of what makes Nashville great. Plus, it has a list of — and YouTube links to — some classic country duets that will make your life more complete.

And here’s the Fresh Air interview from when Britton was on another great show, Friday Night Lights.

- Nell

Singer Darrell Scott Reflects On His Father’s Death

americanroutes:

Here’s another musical collaboration that we couldn’t fit into the show: Darrell Scott, accompanied by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, singing “The Year That Clayton Delaney Died.”

The Tom T. Hall song is actually about a man that Tom knew named Lonnie Easterly, who lived on Clayton Hill next to a family called the Delaneys. As Tom says, “I kept everything on that hill, there in his neighborhood, to keep from losing that reality.”

Tomorrow: Darrell Scott remembers his father Wayne, who died earlier this year in a car accident. We also replay an interview from 2006, featuring both Darrell and Wayne.

Before he became famous, Buck Owens found his voice in Bakersfield, CA.

Rosanne Cash, on her father’s list: ”We started talking about songs, and he mentioned one, and I said I don’t know that one. And he mentioned another. I said, ‘I don’t know that one either, Dad,’ and he became very alarmed that I didn’t know what he considered my own musical genealogy. So he spent the rest of the afternoon making a list for me, and at the end of the day, he said, ‘This is your education.’ And across the top of the page, he wrote ‘100 Essential Country Songs.’”

Since releasing her first solo album in 1967, Parton has become a star in movies and on television. But rock critic Ken Tucker says that her new album,Better Day, returns the focus to Parton’s singing and her frequently underestimated songwriting.

Brad Paisley is admired for his guitar playing, and for the way he mixes elements of country and rock music without pandering to either audience. Ken Tucker says that Paisley’s new album, This Is Country Music, is less a manifesto than an enjoyable way to hear him expand his fan base. [with three tracks from the album]

In 1927 and ‘28, Ralph Peer, a talent scout for the Victor Talking Machine Company, set up recording sessions in a town straddling the Tennessee-Virginia border. The resulting sessions, rock critic Ed Ward says, laid the framework for all of country music.

‘He said, ‘Now, look, you can be a star or you can be an artist. You can be an artist and then become a star, but I don’t think it works the other way around. But they’re both okay. Pick one and get good at it.

— Country music singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell on the best advice songwriter Guy Clark ever gave him. Rodney Crowell’s memoir Chinaberry Dreams is about his rough-and-tumble childhood in East Texas. He performs songs based on that memoir on today’s Fresh Air.

Tomorrow’s guest, Rodney Crowell, performing “Sex and Gasoline”

(Source: youtube.com)

Country singer Charlie Louvin, who died earlier today, was on Fresh Air in 1996, where he explained  that he found it difficult to sing without his brother providing harmony on his tracks: “I’d always believed that any song worth singing is worth putting harmony on. And, of course, I had gotten used to that for the 23 years that my brother and I had worked together. And even today … when it comes time for the harmonies to come in, I will move to my left because my brother and I always used to use one microphone, and so you had to share the mic. And, even today, I will move over to the left to give the harmony room, knowing in my mind that there’s no harmony standing on my right. But it’s just old habits are hard to break.”

Music for your Monday: Keith Urban’s new album Get Closer is streaming on NPR Music (in its entirety) until November 23. Enjoy!

Audio for the interview with Loretta Lynn is now up. Enjoy!

Fake Loretta Lynn songs?

Loretta Lynn’s written songs with titles like “Don’t Come Home A’Drinking (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)” “You’ve Just Stepped In (From Stepping Out on Me)” and “Woman of the World (Leave My World Alone)”

I’m sure we can come up with some awesome should-be-available country music hits about the news. Any suggestions?

Loretta Lynn, on her mentor Patsy Cline: “She taught me a lot about how to dress. She told me to get out of the jeans. ‘Course, I’d wear them till we got to the radio station and then I’d get in the backseat and put on my dress. And I’d take the dress off and go back into my jeans and go to the next radio station.” (from Loretta Lynn: After Strife, A Full Life on NPR’s Fresh Air, 11/10/10)