The Chart Show: Hometown hero is back on top
by Mark Wheat
February 13, 2014
Lots of love this Valentine's week for local hero Jeremy Messersmith who captures the top spot ahead of his sold out show next Saturday at First Avenue. He's added another night and there are still tickets available for Friday's show. Tomorrow Jeremy will be at the wonderfully named Belly Up Tavern in Solona, CA with The Hold Steady!?! What a magical double Minnesota bill that is!
NPR's giving him a lot of love, too. Look for him to be featured on their list of love songs this week; there's a few candidates on the new appropriately named Heart Murmurs album which came out last week, and you can still read Program Director Jim McGuinn's review.
There's a really good one on Jake Bugg's Shangri La, too which also has an apt title, "A Song About Love," with a cool new video on his site. Next week he'll play the biggest gig of his young life so far at the Royal Albert Hall in London. More astonishingly, however, he'll lead some songwriting master classes on the day of those gigs with teens who'll be only a couple of years younger than him!? He turns 20 years old on Feb. 28.
The Avett Brothers are inducted into our Chart Hall of Fame for the sixth time. That equals Mumford and Sons, with The Black Keys holding the record of seven entries.
Some big name new entries this week. After releasing a sheet music album last year Beck is back to the good old audio albums. The first single, "Blue Moon," off his forthcoming record Morning Phase is the highest new entry. And also after years away from touring due to a back injury, which literally made it hard for him to even play guitar, Beck is back with a bang at Coachella in April and the massive Bestival Festival on the Isle of Wight in Sept. There'll surely be more dates to fill that gap soon.
Amazingly enough this is the first time that The Boss has ever been on our chart, but it's only been around for 4.5 years. Looks like Bruce is gearing up for another mammoth world tour; he's starting in Australia this week and will begin the USA gigs planned so far in April in Barb Abney's old home town Cincinnati. No Twin Cities date yet.
It's also the first time Actual Wolf have made an appearance on our Chart. Eric Pollard and company will be spreading the love of MN music on the west coast this week and will be one of many local artists representing us at the big SXSW festival next month in Austin, TX.
And Jim James is back with a soulful take on a Bob Marley tune which is on our CD of the Week just in time for Valentine's Day, Sweetheart 2014.
Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Hope you can share some radio listening time with your loved ones when we play nothing but love songs on Friday, Feb. 14 from 6 to 10 p.m.