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3 posts tagged Ashley Monroe
Video: Ashley Monroe & Brendan Benson Play “On The Fence”
Brendan Benson is still touring behind his latest solo effort, My Old, Familiar Friend, but as we mentioned last fall, the former Raconteurs co-frontman and country singer Ashley Monroe have teamed up for a forthcoming album (after meeting at a certain CMA-nominated “event”). “Brendan and I have recorded fourteen songs,” she said of their unannounced album, which was “about to be mixed” at the time.
Demos to a few of said songs have been available via MySpace for awhile, but we finally have some excellent video footage of the pair’s remarkable chemistry. Watch them sing their new tune “On The Fence” above (via Yewknee.com) and check out 2 other cuts from their Lake Fever Session here.
That one-off recording session between the Raconteurs, Ricky Skaggs, and Ashley Monroe may have been more of an “event” than I gave it credit for when reporting on the CMA nomination it earned for Musical Event of the Year. Although country singer Ashley Monroe was originally there for a much-coveted Jack White collaboration (after running into the the Third Man man at an airport), Raconteur Brendan Benson and she hit it off so well that the pair are planning to release an album together.
“We’ve recorded a record and it’s about to be mixed so… I want to put that out and go on tour with her,” Benson told Glide Magazine (via the Refl’echo). “I’m really proud of the record we made.”
Monroe actually mentioned the project in her recent Q&A with The 9513 and I totally missed it at the time. “Brendan and I have recorded fourteen songs,” she said, adding that they probably won’t get around to finding a label and touring until after her next record comes out and Benson is done promoting his new solo album My Old, Familiar Friend.
The good news for us, however, is that Benson and Monroe have already put a bunch of demos up on their MySpace and ReverbNation pages to stream. Check out “Consider Me,” “Ballad of Pretty Baby,” “On The Fence,” and “Grey” thataway.
Jack White and the Raconteurs were nominated for a “Musical Event of the Year” Country Music Award recently for their filmed collaboration with Ricky Skaggs and Ashley Monroe at a Nashville recording studio. The reason this somewhat random group of musicians got together has always been a bit of a mystery (everything seems to be with Jack), but in a Q&A with 9513, Monroe has provided a few details about her first encounter with White and his band.
Long before Taylor Swift sold a gazillion records and Kanye West made her blush on MTV, helping her to sell another gazillion records, she was still somewhat under the radar, save for the country radio crowd. Well, she was with Ashley Monroe when they spotted White getting off his airplane and here’s how it went down, according to Monroe:
She says, “Hi I’m Taylor Swift.” Everyone recognizes her everywhere, you know. And he’s like, “Taylor…?” He wasn’t familiar with her. And then, I’m like, [sheepishly whispering] “Hi I’m Ashley Monroe.” He looked up and said, “Ashley Monroe the singer?” I thought he was making fun of my name, because it almost sounds like a stage name. It sounds a little fake. I said, “Yeah, I’m Ashley Monroe the singer.” And he says, “No really, did I hear you on the Opry?” And he named the song I sang. He says, “I was listening to the Opry the other day. Oh my gosh, I’ve just been raving about you.”
Years later, after Monroe had been kicking herself for not setting up a collaboration, Jack emailed her out of the blue to set up their CMA-nominated “event.”
I enjoy this story, but I do regret feeding the celeb news beast a “Jack White disses Taylor Swift?!” headline. Besides, Swift still wants to work with him and Jack definitely knows who she is by now.