Blues harmonica master JD Wilkes and his wife Jessica have revamped their rootsy band The Dirt Daubers by “going electric.” 
 
Wilkes insists that “plugging in” is no sin, and true fans will agree.  In fact, fans of CCR, The Black Keys, X, and the Blasters are bound to appreciate the band’s new swampy rock ‘n roll and classic R&B sound. 
 
With smoky, baritone sax grooves provided by Tom Waits’ sideman Ralph Carney and piano played by Wilkes himself, the band delves deeper into the bluesy recesses of American music.  Jessica Wilkes emotes pained lyrics about life, love and loss on tunes like “No More My Love” and “Apples and Oranges, while J.D. continues his southern storytelling style on “Angel Crown” and the title track “Wild Moon”.
 
Meanwhile, Atlanta-based band mates Rod Hamdallah and Preston Corn lay down a tasteful yet hard-driving guitar-and-drums combination.  In fact, twenty-three year old Hamdallah is poised to become one of the great, soulful guitarists of his Millennial Generation.  St. Louis sax-player, Kelly Everett, joins in the fray as well.
 
Yes, it’s a far cry from the Dirt Daubers’ previous string-band incarnation, but followers will be relieved to hear surviving elements of melody, lyrical wit and sass.  The band might have come “down from the mountain” (only to land square in the Mississippi Delta!) but the heart and soul of the Dirt Daubers remain in tact.
 
That said, “Wild Moon” marks a true sea change for Wilkes, as he combines forces with the feminine foil to his “gothic preacher” persona.  The results are dramatic and drenched in an ethos all their own. 
 
It’s dark.  It’s deadly.  It’s sultry and even cinematic.  For JD and Jessica Wilkes it’s a match made only in the light of a “Wild Moon.”

JD Wilkes & The Dirt Daubers - Drive

After leading several popular ‘80s cult bands in and around his hometown of Lawrence, Kansas, Chuck Mead landed on Nashville’s Lower Broadway where he co-founded the famed ‘90s Alternative Country quintet BR549. The band’s seven albums, three Grammy nominations and the Country Music Association Award for Best Overseas Touring Act would build an indelible bridge between authentic American Roots music and millions of fans worldwide. With BR on hiatus, Chuck formed The Hillbilly All-Stars featuring members of The Mavericks, co-produced popular tribute albums to Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings, guest-lectured at Vanderbilt University, and became a staff writer at one of Nashville’s top song publishers. In 2009, he released his acclaimed solo debut album, Journeyman’s Wager, and toured clubs, concert halls and international Rock, Country and Rockabilly festivals with his band The Grassy Knoll Boys.

As Music Director for the Broadway smash Million Dollar Quartet, Chuck began crafting the music arrangements during the show’s original Daytona and Seattle workshop productions, supervised the musical performances for its 2008 Chicago opening, created new music material for the show’s Tony Award-winning Broadway run, produced the original cast album, and oversaw the music for its smash 2011 premiere at London’s Noël Coward Theatre. In 2013, MDQ broke the Chicago record for longest running musical.

Chuck’s acclaimed 2012 release, Back At The Quonset Hut, was recorded at Nashville’s legendary Quonset Hut Studio where Patsy Cline, George Jones, Merle Haggard Roger Miller, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash and more cut some of country’s greatest tracks. Produced by original BR549 producer Mike Janas and with the participation of students from Belmont University’s College of Entertainment and Music Business, the album of classic covers features surviving members of Music Row’s original ‘A Team’ studio musicians as well as guest appearances by Old Crow Medicine Show, Elizabeth Cook, Jamie Johnson and Bobby Bare.

2014 ushers in Free State Serenade, the new Chuck Mead & His Grassy Knoll Boys release on Nashville-based Plowboy Records. Produced by long-time ally and friend Joe Pisapia (kd Lang, Ben Folds Five) and featuring BR549’s Don Herron, Old Crow Medicine Show’s Critter Fuqua, Alan Murphy, Will Rambeaux, and Mark Andrew Miller, Free State Serenade is Chuck Mead’s strongest effort yet.

“It’s been incredibly liberating to do all these things I’ve never done before. I’ve already gone from the bars of Lower Broadway in Nashville to the Broadway stage, and the upcoming album is one of the most unique and rewarding projects I’ve ever been a part of. I’m looking forward to where it all brings me next.”

Chuck Mead - Ten Light Years Away

JIM ED BROWN SET TO RELEASE FIRST SOLO ALBUM, IN STYLE AGAIN, IN 30 YEARS

CD features duets with Vince Gill, The Whites, and reunites The Browns

Nashville, TN (September 18, 2014) – Country Music fans have a good reason to look forward to 2015.  Longtime fan favorite Jim Ed Brown will be returning with his first solo recording in three decades with the January release of IN STYLE AGAIN, his debut project for Plowboy Records.  “I love new music.” said Brown about his new disc.  “I guess the whole world does.  It’s always good to hear a new song.  I love what I do.  People have always been great to me.  They have accepted me into their homes and lives.  It’s unreal what radio and television has done for me.  I am a very blessed man.”
 
One of the most timeless voices in Country history, Brown has the distinction of having hits on the chart as a member of a trio (His recording partnership with sisters Maxine and Bonnie as The Browns earned them hits with “I Heard The Bluebirds Sing,” “Scarlet Ribbons,” and the 1959 million-selling “The Three Bells”), a solo artist (with hits like the iconic “Pop A Top,” “Southern Loving,” and “Morning”), and as part of a CMA Award winning partnership with Helen Cornelius (The two recorded many classics from 1976-1981, including “I Don’t Want To Have To Marry You,” and “Lying In Love With You” - which was one of the first major hits penned by Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member Dean Dillon.)
 
IN STYLE AGAIN neatly brings together all phases of Brown’s historic career.  “When The Sun Says Hello To The Moruntain” features the distinctive harmonies of his sisters.  Brown says reuniting with his sisters is a dream come true.  “I’ve had a song in mind for all those years.  In fact, I had a copy of it that I picked up when I was in Europe that I have kept for so many years.  I thought ‘Why don’t I see if I can’t get them to record one more time with me?”
 
The album also features 12 solo performances from the singer.  But, when an artist as important as Jim Ed Brown steps into the recording studio, other artists naturally want to follow.  He is joined on “Tried and True” and “You Again” by fellow Grand Ole Opry members Vince Gill and The Whites, respectively.  He also reunites with Cornelius on the Carl and Pearl Butler chestnut “Don’t Let Me Cross Over.”
 
All but one of the cuts on IN STYLE AGAIN were produced by veteran journalist Don Cusic, while the title cut was produced by longtime Brown friend Bobby Bare.  “Last year, we were talking, and I said ‘Bobby, I want you to produce a record for me.’  He had been doing some things with his son and some other people.  He said ‘Give me a call,’ so I found this song, and I called him. He did a great job on it.”
 
IN STYLE AGAIN teams Brown up with Shannon Pollard and Plowboy Records.  The partnership makes musical sense as the label takes its name from Pollard’s grandfather, “The Tennessee Plowboy,” Eddy Arnold.  Brown’s warm and tender style has often been compared to that of Arnold, whom he has shared many a stage with.
 
Brown is also familiar to audiences through his extensive work in television, with his Country Place syndicated series in the early 1970s, Nashville On The Road from 1975-1981, and You Can Be A Star and Going My Way from the 1980s.  Brown was also the commercial spokesperson for Dollar General Stores for well over a decade.  Since 1963, Brown has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry.  His weekly radio show, Country Music Greats Radio Show, is heard on over 200 radio stations per week.  The first single from IN STYLE AGAIN will be released soon.
 
www.JimEdBrown.com
www.plowboyrecords.com


01 When The Sun Says Hello To The Mountain

Nashville's Plowboy Records just announced the signing of Blackfoot Gypsies, a raw rock and roll band that joins an already eclectic label roster of Chuck Mead, Jim Ed Brown, Austin garage duo The Ghost Wolves and more.  'Handle It,' Blackfoot Gypsies' second full-length album, will be released April 14th.   

The band, originally a guitar/drums duo, has grown to a quartet for 'Handle It' and drink from the same deep well as Zeppelin, The Stones & The Faces: delta blues and the foreboding ghosts of country music's past.  They blast out raw, classic rock & roll all dolled up in feathers, sequin jackets, vintage bell-bottoms & cowboy boots. And their wild shows have landed them on stage with the Alabama Shakes, White Fang and more.

Founding members Matthew Paige, who “makes Keith Richards’ riffs sound clean by comparison” (Creative Loafing) and drummer Zack Murphy have rounded out their sound with bassist Dylan Whitlow and Ollie Dogg on harmonica for this album. The 10 tracks showcase their “bombast of reckless experimentation” (The Downcast) with American music; “Under My Skin” bursts with bluesy psychedelia and “Spent All My Money” echoes 'Desire'-era Dylan with finger-picked guitars and violin.  

‘Handle It’ is the latest release on the Plowboy label, formed by punk legend Cheetah Chrome, professor/music historian Don Cusic and Eddy Arnold's grandson Shannon Pollard.  The Plowboy catalog includes new albums from Bobby Bare, Cheetah Chrome and many more.  The label was established to promote the legacy of Eddy Arnold and to provide a home for projects that focus on American music regardless of genre.

Blackfoot Gypsies are kicking things off with an interview and performance on Music City Roots Wednesday, January 28 at 7 PM (CT): http://musiccityroots.tumblr.com/post/109113304831/it-might-get-loud-er-mcr-1-28-15 

“Meaty, swaggering and devoid of irony” - Nashville Scene

TRACK LISTING
1. Scream My Name
2. Pork Rind
3. Under My Skin
4. Too Bad
5. Spent All My Money
6. In Your Mind
7. Dead On The Road
8. Snake Charmer
9. So Be It
10. Call Me After Midnight


02 02 Pork Rind

I Am The Hunter

Deep South Blues Again

Beaver Creek Mansion

Re-imagined, refined, revived are the words that best describe Marty Brown and his new album, AMERICAN HIGHWAY, on Plowboy Records. After a two-decade self-imposed “break” from major recording, Marty Brown hit songwriter and producer (I’m From the Country/Tracy Byrd, When I Stop Loving You/Trace Adkins, It Ain’t Me If It Ain’t You/Brooks & Dunn) returns with a tour de force co-produced with the revered Jon Tiven 
(B.B. King, Wilson Pickett, Waylon Jennings) who co-wrote nine of the disc’s 10 songs with Brown, and one with the addition of Marty Brown, Jr.  The result is an embrace of - and homage to - Country’s foundational genres. From Gospel to Blues to traditional Country, Rockabilly and beyond, Brown has pulled these various threads together and created a tightly woven masterpiece.  
 
Brown views AMERICAN HIGHWAY as his “Rembrandt” or “Michelangelo,” an achievement that marks his far-reaching and creative best. Like Rembrandt’s use of light and shadow to focus the viewer’s eye, Brown’s songwriting and vocal stylings create contrasts to draw in the listener.

One song best represents Brown’s current mindset: “I’m On A Roll (Better Than It’s Ever Been)” is a happy song that validates the contentment found in facing challenges and coming through to the other side. Topics vary throughout the project, from the fun and funky of “Casino Winnebago” to the world-aware “wokeness” of “Mona Lisa Smiles.” From the big-city vibe of “Umbrella Lovers” to the raw, Springsteen-esque channeling found in the title track, the disc is an iron fist in a velvet glove that grabs on immediately and gives a knockout punch. The deceptively simple “Kentucky Blues” offers a counterpoint to the surprising globalism found in “Shaking All Over The World,” while hearts grow and then separate in the reality of “Velvet Chains.” Marty’s voice is honest and on point; he nails every performance with nuance and grace. This is an album for everyone who loves honest music.

 
ABOUT MARTY BROWN 
This proud Maceo, Kentucky native enjoyed success as an artist on MCA Records, and as a songwriter of hits for Trace Adkins, Brooks & Dunn, Tracy Byrd and others in the 1990s. When he was eventually dropped from the label after three albums, he chose to disappear from the public eye. Though he still traveled to Nashville occasionally to write, Brown spent most of his time with his family in Kentucky, fishing, working on cars, and building bird boxes. That all changed when his wife Shellie booked him to sing in a steakhouse in Bowling Green. As word spread, Marty’s dedicated fans started coming from across the country just to hear him. Then Shellie surprised Brown by taking him to Nashville for an audition on America’s Got Talent in 2013. His touching performance of Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love” went viral, generating over 11 MILLION views on YouTube. The rest, as they say, is history. His Top 10 AGT finish convinced Marty that she was right, and it was high-time he got out of the backwoods and back into the spotlight.  Since then, Brown has performed at the historic Ryman Auditorium, returned to the Grand Ole Opry, and signed autographs at CMA Music Fest. Now, AMERICAN HIGHWAY is set to once again establish Marty as a Country artist with something to say.

02 Marty Brown - Umbrella Lovers

ecorded at the historic Sam Phillips Recording Studios in Memphis, Tenn., the album was produced by acclaimed Memphis recording engineer and producer Matt Ross-Spang. “It's probably the least-country record I’ve ever made,” Mead says, “but at the same time, it’s really a country record.” Mead has been upending expectations and walking the line between hardcore country music and raucous rock ’n’ roll for the better part of 25 years. As a member of the alternative country music quintet BR5-49 in the early 1990s, Mead fused rock ’n’ roll excitement with the soul of the Music City’s honky tonk heritage, sparking the rebirth of Nashville’s Lower Broadway music scene. Over the course of the late ’90s and the early 21st Century, he recorded seven albums with BR5-49 and spread the gospel of neo-traditional country music around the world, garnering the band a CMA Award for Best International Touring Act and three Grammy nominations.
 
Mead subsequently released three well-received solo albums and served as the Musical Director/Supervisor/Producer of the hit Broadway musical Million Dollar Quartet, as well as the companion CMT dramatic series, Sun Records. The time he spent in Memphis during the production of the TV series led to Mead’s change of recording venue for his new album. By the time Mead was ready to record, Ross-Spang had earned a reputation as one of the top engineers and producers in the Americana and roots music scene, and had moved from Sun to Sam Phillips Recording, the Memphis studio built by Sun Records head Phillips in 1960. Ross-Spang, hailed by Rolling Stone as “one of the most trusted arbiters of the modern Memphis sound,” has worked with a who’s-who of roots artists, among them 61st Grammy Award nominees John Prine, Jason Isbell and Margo Price.  Grinding traditional musical forms together and watching the sparks fly was an integral of Phillips’ genius and the “Memphis Sound.” The process led him to create transcendent and transformative records from Howlin’ Wolf, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and many others, a tradition continued by producer Ross-Spang. The opening track of Close to Home — the grungy, hillbilly rocker “Big Bear in the Sky” — exemplifies one of those unexpected directions. It’s a song Mead describes as “Johnny Horton fronting the Sonics."
“The song is based on a Miꞌkmaq Indian folk legend about the Ursa Major constellation,” Mead says. “I wanted it to be a Johnny Horton-style history ballad. I had recorded an earlier version for an anniversary album for the German reissue label Bear Family Records, but it wasn’t quite where I wanted it. I wanted to rock it out in the studio and Matt pushed me to take it to an entirely new level.” Then there’s the title track, which Mead allows is “pretty heady for a country song,” explaining that “it’s about those weird instances where you think of a person or mention them and suddenly they present themselves. Or maybe you’re experiencing some sort of event in your life and suddenly there is a book or a song or movie that lines up perfectly with the situation. It's not quite synchronicity … But it’s something that makes it seem there’s some cosmic frequency that we're all on and the possibility that there is some sort of order to the universe.”
 

 
http://www.chuckmead.com

HEAR NOW: Rolling Stone Country premiered the title track: http://bit.ly/2OrOwV3

For more information about Chuck Mead’s Close to Home, please contact Conqueroo:
Cary Baker • cary@conqueroo.com  (national) 
Julie Arkenstone • julie@conqueroo.com (tour)

Close To Home

Chuck Mead - Close To Home

Plowboy Records proudly announces Paul Burch’s 11th album Light Sensitive coming out April 17, 2020. Recorded in Nashville with his longtime band the WPA Ballclub along with guests Luther Dickinson, Robyn Hitchcock, Amy Rigby, and Aaron Lee Tasjan, Light Sensitive sounds both modern and instantly classic and punctuates Pop Matters’ declaration that Burch is “one of the best damn songwriters operating today.” Burch makes music for the here and now but the fervor or rock & roll is always just beneath the surface, as if the secret son of William Faulkner had traded his typewriter for an electric guitar. 
Light Sensitive takes place in the modern south where past and present shoot dice on the future and just wishing for something good has spectacular costs. The album’s spirit of dislocation and lost opportunities was inspired by a visit to Burch’s one-time hometown of Oxford, Mississippi.  Burch’s previous album, critically acclaimed Meridian Rising (with Billy Bragg, guitarist William Tyler, and a horn section led by Prince alumni Roy Agee) imagined the life of legend Jimmie Rodgers. This time, Light Sensitive keeps listeners in the present with a cast of characters living in a modern monkey’s paw-world where the word timeless has sinister implications. Co-produced with a light touch by Burch and GRAMMYTM winner and T-Bone Burnett collaborator/bassist Dennis Crouch, Light Sensitive features Burch’s WPA Ballclub, which can conjure beauty and bedlam in the same measure with a palpable chemistry that comes from two decades together.  “Most of the members have played with me since I came to Nashville. We fall right in together and make a good racket.” In Light Sensitive, rhythm is both a weathervane and a hurricane eye. And at the center is Burch’s late 50s Harmony Hollywood archtop (a gift from Bobby Hebb, writer of the classic “Sunny”).  In “Jean Garrigue,” the archtop howls and claws, refusing to let go of her departing spirit. In “Love Came Back” concentric loops portray new love as a hall of mirrors. 
Light Sensitive also continues the WPA Ballclub’s long tradition of including guests who share their sense of musical adventure. Aaron Lee Tasjan harmonizes on the “The Tell” and Amy Rigby leads a chorus of ethereal sorcerers in “Prince Ali’s Fortune Telling Book of Dreams.” Luther Dickinson adds his trademark slide guitar to “Fool About Me” and Robyn Hitchcock provides harmony and disharmony to a hapless traveler’s airport dystopia in “Flight to Spain.” For the album’s highlight ballad “Marisol,” longtime music partner Fats Kaplin’s viola takes the song’s treatise on unrequited love to the edge of madness and back again. For more than two decades, Burch has blended an indie rock ethos with a personal vision of roots music that has attracted collaborators from punk to honky tonk including the Waco Brothers, Lambchop, and R&B legend Candi Staton. And his duet with Ralph Stanley on the Stanley Brothers classic “Little Glass of Wine” inspired legendary rock critic Chet Flippo to declare: “At the risk of being impeached by the bluegrass purists, I think Burch is the best duet partner Ralph Stanley has found since his brother, Carter Stanley, died in 1966.”  
Peter Guralnick, author of biographies of Sam Phillips, Elvis Presley, and Sam Cooke, wrote about PB & WPA Ballclub for the album Still Your Man:
I'm a Paul Burch fan.  How could I not be? His music never fails to achieve its purpose, what Sun Records founder Sam Phillips has deemed the unequivocal purpose of every kind of music: to lift up, to deepen, to intensify the spirit of audience and musicians alike.

04 - Paul Burch - Fool About Me

The Bad Signs "Vinyl Underground"

Plowboy's founders are Eddy Arnold's grandson and musician Shannon Pollard, author and music historian Don Cusic, and punk legend Cheetah Chrome.

Watch this video of Cheetah, Shannon and Don discussing Plowboy Record's mission: http://youtu.be/bIMOaNL83j4

Plowboy President Shannon Pollard is a veteran musician, a partner in a commercial real estate firm and the grandson of Eddy Arnold. He fondly recalls listening to albums with Arnold in his Brentwood, TN office, the same space where Plowboy Records is headquartered today. Pollard has also taught History of the Recording Industry classes at Belmont University in Nashville.

Plowboy Director of Special Projects Don Cusic has taught classes on the music business since 1982. He has published 22 books including an Eddy Arnold biography and two novels.

Plowboy Creative Director/A&R Director Cheetah Chrome is a founding member of Rocket From The Tombs, The Dead Boys and The Batusis (w/Sylvain Sylvain) and an acclaimed author. He has lived in Nashville for the past fifteen years.
http://www.plowboyrecords.com
http://shorefire.com/clients/plowboy/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Plowboy-Records-LLC/163805283687223
 


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