Country Fried Rock

Shonna Tucker emerged from self-imposed music exile to play bass for Chris Porter‘s final album, Don’t Go Baby It’s Gonna Get Weird Without You. After she left the Drive-By Truckers, she formed a band and released a great album that we featured on a previous podcast. Later, she questioned whether she was meant to play music,...

Friendships run deep when you are a musician. Friends with whom you can pick up right where you left off, after months on the road, become family. Chris Porter forged deep, fast friendships with people in every town he toured, but especially with his tight-knit chosen family of fellow “lifers.” Eleanor Whitmore and Chris Masterson of...

Will Johnson (Centro-Matic, South San Gabriel) produced Chris Porter‘s final album, Don’t Go Baby It’s Gonna Get Weird Without You, as well as his previous record, This Red Mountain. Johnson produced both albums. Britton Beisenherz engineered and mixed them at Ramble Creek Studio in Austin, Texas. The bands differed in each project, as did Porter’s...

Andrea Juarez never planned to release an album. The hair stylist and makeup artist made it happen to honor her fiance, Chris Porter, who passed away on tour October 2016, when their van was rear-ended on the interstate. Mitchell Vandenburg also was killed, and Adam Nurre miraculously survived the horrific wreck. Porter mostly finished tracking...

Sally Jaye launched Cafe Rooster Records with a legendary guerrilla party at AmericanaFest 2016 in Nashville, TN. The cooperative record label began with friend and co-founder, Darrin Bradbury’s album, Elmwood Park. They quickly added a vinyl release of Jaye’s band, Ladies Gun Club, a vinyl re-issue of her solo album, Amarillo, and a digital release of fellow co-founder Brian Wright’s album, The Sneak Ups. Within the first year, Cafe Rooster released their first two albums “outside” the family, Jon Latham’s acclaimed Lifers and a collaborative record, Strange Freedom: Songs of Love and Protest, to benefit Planned Parenthood. Keeping with the DIY ethos of the artists, the label promotes limited edition, hand-made art, rather than typical merch. With a revived touring schedule of her own (playing in Ojai, CA, and Los Angeles this week), Jaye may be the busiest record label executive in the business.

Boo Ray recently released Sea of Lights on vinyl, the debut release from Kindercore record pressing in Athens, GA. With a fresh mastering for vinyl and successful showcase at AmericanaFest 2017, Boo Ray and his band continue to tour the US with his distinct brand of Jerry Reed-inspired rock and roll. He’s a heckuva picker and performer and just as laid back and easy-going as you could imagine, laughing at his own jokes because they’re funny.

Catch the podcast below, or in the iTunes and other links. Essential production support for this program provided by Jay Burgess.

I first got to know Chad Cochran, known online as CowtownChad, through the defunct Twitter event, Couch By Couchwest. Cochran’s photographs and mixed media art featuring haunting landscapes and abandoned buildings held titles from songs by musicians featured on our show. Through the magic of social media, we became friends and hung out at AmericanaFest in Nashville one year, and then he came down to South Carolina to cover the Country Fried Rock 4th-ish Anniversary party, where Caleb Caudle played in our rural school house, a magical, slightly decrepit place that is made for singing.

At the urging of Lydia Loveless, Cochran has expanded his photography to include concert shots, with a specialty for stage images and raw portraits. In this podcast, we talk about many of the bands he has “shot” recently (Charles Bradley, Old 97s, John Moreland, etc.) and festivals from Nelsonville to High Water. I also put him on the spot about a “wish project” that I hope he accomplishes, with your help.

As most of y’all know, our friend, Chris Porter, passed away in a terrible car wreck while on tour (along with touring partner, Mitch Vandenburg, and survived by drummer, Adam Nurre). I’ve been going through my old hard drives to the early days of this show, when it was a daily feature on select country stations across the country, with a brief excerpt of my interview with one song from the band, called the “Daily Plate of Country Fried Rock.” Here’s the excerpt. I also found the full interview from around 2010, and I also have a long, un-aired interview with Porter — including video — from September 2015. I have offered that audio and video to the people who will hopefully be releasing his recently completed record, if they choose to use it.

Please support Porter’s surviving fiancee, Andrea Juarez, Adam Nurre Rehabilitation Fund, or the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians in his memory.

XO,

Sloane

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Here was my original post following this old conversation:

Much like it never occurred to us that iced tea could be “out of season,” it never once crossed our minds that someone might not know what “Back Row Baptist” meant.  These Birmingham, Alabama musicians chuckle (politely, of course, to themselves) every time someone asks about the “Backroad Baptists” or where “Bagrow” is.  The Ole Miss Center for the Study of Southern Culture is the academic authority on phrases, food culture, religion, and history in the Deep South, so that’s where we turned for a definitive explanation:

I can’t immediately find an answer to who, if it’s possible to identify anyone, first started using the term. I think it’s theologically meaningful, because the Baptists have so much emphasis on going forward to the altar–you can’t have “back row” Episcopalians or even Presbyterians. It’s also important because unlike other groups that emphasize going forward and making a commitment or testimony, various pentecostal groups for example, Baptists have a reputation for conservatism, so staying in the back is a way of being in between the action at the front and staying out of it altogether.  (Source:  Ted Ownby, personal email, 22 June 2010)

The Back Row Baptists bring together political controversy and kickin’ country music much like Lynyrd Skynyrd did.  Throw into the mix multiple lead singers, including the amazing jazz-influenced Sarah Green, and you’ve got crank it up, party down country rock that you will love, even if it might make you think or tick you off.  It’s hard to narrow down their standard three-hour live show to one CD, but their first label-backed release allowed them the luxury of a horn section and a less rushed atmosphere.  They are influenced by the subversive lyrics and themes of Boston underground hip hop, the multi-instrumentation of

Sadler Vaden released his debut full length solo album in August 2016. His DIY effort morphed and was scrapped then re-imagined and recorded over a few years. What ultimately became this upbeat, pop influenced rock record demonstrates Vaden’s expertise gleaned from fronting his own band in the early 2000s for 8 years, playing for Drivin N Cryin, and most recently for Jason Isbell. Even his cover of John Moreland’s song, “Nobody Cares About Songs Anymore,” becomes Vaden’s own, filtered through Big Star and Vaden’s own sensibilities.

Buy Sadler Vaden here on Amazon or here on iTunes.

Vinyl, CD, and digital available.

Decided to do a quick podcast update from my 3 favorites at AmericanaFest 2016. Lots more video to come, but here’s a taste of my favorite band that I did not previously know: Ladies Gun Club (Sally Jaye/Sarah Roberts). I also dug a #CFRalumni band that I had never seen play live and the band all my music friends most-suggested to me. Tons of great music all week!

Listen for a feature on Ladies Gun Club soon.