Bentley's New Album's Got A Lot More Kick

Dierks Bentley may be riding high on the acclaim his bluegrass-influenced Up on the Ridge album has earned — including multiple Grammy nominations — but the country star isn’t resting on his musical laurels.

Bentley and his producer Jon Randall Stewart have set up shop at a recording studio in Asheville, N.C., and plan to start work on a new album this coming week.

“I’m going to use the term kick (butt) to describe it,” Bentley said of his new material. “Everyone is asking me, ‘Is it bluegrass or country?’ I think you’re asking the wrong guy because I thought the last record was a country record with bluegrass influences. The simple answer is it just has a lot more kick. It will complement the other side of my career, the more commercial, fun, rocking stuff.”

Bentley said that while he normally writes the bulk of his own songs, he personally reached into the local songwriting community to find material for the new project.

“I’ve listened to at least 2,000 songs for the new record,” he said. “I feel like a Nashville (producer) right now because I’ve heard so many songs. I get people in my e-mail, where they send me a song and I listen to it on the spot and I send them an answer.”

Don't forget to visit dierks.com starting Sunday, January 30 to sneak a peek at Dierks in the recording process through a 24-hour live video-feed.

Source

Watch Dierks Perform Live or Online Super Bowl Sunday

At our fan club Meet & Greet Thanksgiving weekend in Cherokee, NC, Dierks Bentley told us, "Except for the Super Bowl, we don't go back on tour until March."  Until today, we weren't really sure what that meant.

Apparently, during Super Bowl weekend (Feb. 3-6), Bud Light is turning a Dallas, Texas hotel into "The Bud Light Hotel" and Dierks and Jack Ingram will be closing out the four days on Sunday afternoon of all genre artist performances in the parking lot, just before the big game.  It will be known as 'Texas' Largest Tailgate' party.

Fans who are unable to make it to Dallas will be able to watch it live online here.

"My favorite sport to watch is football," Dierks tells CMT. "[I] love the Titans. Everyone in this band loves watching football. Mostly pro football, but we watch a little college football, too."

Dierks and the Travelin' McCourys "Fiddlin' Around"

Photo courtesy Carrie Srebro

As part of the press release regarding Dierks Bentley heading to the studio in Asheville, NC and streaming the entire recording process live for fans, Capitol Nashville sent out a video for "Fiddlin' Around," one of the fine songs from Bentley's critically-acclaimed Up on the Ridge album. 

The video, posted today at The 9513 (thanks, Brady!), shows Dierks, Ronnie, Rob, Jason,  Alan, Tim, and Steve during a couple of stops on the Ridge tour (including Charlotte, where DBC-NC Rep Laurie and DBC-SC Rep Lissa can be seen during some Meet & Greet footage!). There's also a great shot of a signed DBCongress shirt! The video's closing shots appropriately include the "Pretty Much Nailed It!" banner that tour assistant Brittany made during the tour last year. I'd say they did!  

Video grab courtesy Nici

Watch the video here.

~ Carrie S. (DBC Rep/Chart Reporter ~ NC)  

Critics Poll Gives Dierks High Praise

The 11th Annual Nashville Scene Country Music Critics Poll was published today, and with it came numerous accolades for our Prez, Dierks Bentley:

• #2 Album - Up on the Ridge
• #12 Single - Up on the Ridge
• #2 Male Vocalist
• #4 Live Act
• #9 Songwriter
• #4 Artist of the Year

And the praise didn't stop there. Here is what Nashville Scene had to say regarding DB in their write-up:

Johnson and Lambert joined forces with Dierks Bentley to share the three-way lead vocal on "Bad Angel" from Bentley's Up on the Ridge, the poll's No. 2 album. Backed by some of Nashville's best bluegrass pickers, the trio employed the lyrics' religious imagery not to dismiss sin but to warily respect its dangerous allure. Bentley isn't the first country star to make a string-band record — Parton and Patty Loveless have both had success in this poll with similar projects — but Bentley is the first since Emmylou Harris to abandon Music Row's standard operating procedure for an acoustic album while still enjoying hit singles.

Bentley was as convincing as Harris, Parton and Loveless because he too came by bluegrass honestly. When he first arrived in Nashville from Phoenix in 1995, he hung around The Station Inn with Del McCoury's sons as much as he could. You could hear that brush with Appalachia in the humor and liveliness of Bentley's early albums, but the echo dwindled as he played it safer and safer on his later records. So it was a welcome surprise that he was willing to gamble his new-won stardom on such a left-field venture. He won that gamble — with the critics at least. The title track got only as high as No. 21 on the Billboard singles chart. Maybe Bentley isn't just along for the ride. Maybe he, too, will have a say in where country is going.

I certainly hope that Dierks has a say in where country is going, and he's set to start writing another chapter in his country music story when he heads to Asheville, NC later this weekend to begin the recording process (and don't forget he'll be streaming the recording process for all to see). 

Your Congress is eagerly awaiting new music, Dierks, and we congratulate you on all of the critical praise Ridge garnered! Hopefully a Grammy is in the very near future ...

~ Carrie S (DBC Rep/Chart Reporter ~ NC)