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To her staple of love-and-loss songwriting, Iris DeMent has added deeper musings on politics and social hypocrisy. She plays Tuesday in San Juan Capistrano By John Roos, Special to the Times Los Angeles Times Monday January 19, 1998 Orange County Edition Calendar, Page 2 Singer-songwriter Iris DeMent understands the value of good old-fashioned storytelling. With her stirring, slice-of-life tales, she has gained the admiration of peers including Nanci Griffith, David Byrne, Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, Natalie Merchant and Michael Stipe,…

  August 19, 1997 TRIBUTE HONORS RODGERS’ DEEP INFLUENCE by Tony Norman “The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers: A Tribute.” Various Artists (Egyptian Records) ***1/2 stars Most music fans don’t need a tribute album to point them in Jimmie Rodgers’ direction. The hard-playing, hard-yodelling “Father of Country Music” is revered wherever folks can gather enough soul to play music on back porches by the light of the moon. Long nicknamed “The Singing Brakeman,” Rodgers managed to record seven years’ worth of…

  August 17, 1997 Musicians honor a father **** by Rick Mitchell JIMMIE Rodgers, the first “Father of Country Music,” would have been 100 years old on Sept. 8. This tribute, due Tuesday on Bob Dylan’s new Egyptian Records, celebrates Rodgers’ enormous influence on 20th-century American music from country to folk, blues and rock ‘n’ roll. Rodgers, who was born in Mississippi and spent his last years in Kerrville, was best-known for his “blue yodels.” These featured sly and bawdy…

    August 10, 1997 Singing the Brakeman’s Praises Jimmie Rodgers, the neglected giant who brought country music into the pop mainstream, is saluted by an eclectic lineup of his ’90s heirs on a tribute album conceived by Bob Dylan. by Richard Cromelin Two notable things happened on Oct. 7, 1927: Babe Ruth hit a World Series home run and Jimmie Rodgers’ first record went on sale. Even though Ruth was at the pinnacle of his fame and Rodgers was…

Bluegrass, country artist to perform at State Theatre Al Kaufman Contributing Writer The State Theatre will present an evening of bluegrass music Thursday night. Iris DeMent will join Leo Kottke for a musical evening. Dement said of all the things she has been called, she does not like to be called wholesome. “People use ‘wholesome’ or ‘old-fashioned’ to describe me all the time and I don’t understand it,” she said. “I keep thinking they mean boring, but I guess they…

Feature: Iris DeMent @Country February 1997 by Craig Harris Acoustic folk and country music are merged through the songs of Iris DeMent. In the past, critics have compared the petite, blonde songstress to The Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and Loretta Lynn. With her third album, The Way I Should, DeMent adds electric instruments and rock and pop influences to create a more modern sound. A factor in DeMent’s evolution has been her growing interest in the music of Merle Haggard,…

SINGER-SONGWRITER BLAZED OWN QUIRKY PATH Karla Peterson, Arts Writer San Diego Union/Tribune August 19,1993 She has toured with Nanci Griffith, recorded with Emmylou Harris, and written sweet, sad songs that made John Prine weep into his pork chops. For an up-and-coming artist, singer-songwriter Iris DeMent has a surprising number of admirers in high places. But it took the granddaddy of them all to say the words this Arkansas original really needed to hear. “When I met my first famous person,…