new cd – DIXIE LULLABIES
Southern Rock Legends
Kentucky HeadHunters During the Americana Music Conference in Nashville, I had the pleasure of visiting with RichardYoung of the Kentucky HeadHunters. We set up a time to do an interview for the Americana Gazette to discuss the new CD they just released. Before we get into the meat of the interview, here is a little background information taken from their website. Two days after Christmas,The Kentucky HeadHunters rolled into their Practice House near their home in Edmonton, a remote area in South Central Kentucky. Built in the early 1900s, the house has no insulation, no running water, and only two small oil heaters inside.And the snow was just beginning to fall. Over the next 11 days, while Mother Nature continued to dump ice and snow across the Bluegrass State,The Kentucky HeadHunters recorded 14 new originals that would comprise their 12th release, Dixie Lullabies.“There were 30-inch icicles hanging from the eaves on the front porch,” laughs guitarist RichardYoung."We invited some friends and neighbors to hang out and party and also create some body heat. Believe me it was COLD! It was the first time the HeadHunters Richard Young (rhythm guitars / lead vocals),FredYoung (drums / vocals),Doug Phelps (bass / lead vocals) and Greg Martin (lead guitar / vocals) — had recorded a release at their infamous“Practice House,” where they — and renowned rockers Black Stone Cherry — write and rehearse unique brands of Southern Rock that reflects their charming, somewhat "off the cuff" lifestyles. Dixie Lullabies covers a vast territory,Young continues, from the way we were, the way we are and where we're headed. It's our first all originally-written studio album since 2003. Even though we tour constantly, as of late we’ve been feeling the earth move under our feet and something in the air that gave us the spirit to write and record new albums for our souls and anyone who cares to listen. The Kentucky HeadHunters have continued to blend sounds from a deep well of influences that includes Alternative, Blues, Country, English Rock, Rockabilly, Jazz, and, of course, Southern Rock. The Practice House has been at the center of the band's work since they began in 1968 as Itchy Brother.After 20 years of playing the rock club circuit in the Midwest and The Deep South, the group survived the loss of multiple rock record deals brought on by Presidential Elections, plane crashes, the death of a record executive and disco, but most of all, their ages.The train hauling the heyday of Southern rock had come and
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gone. Itchy Brother never got to ride the train, but they never gave up. By 1989, the band had morphed into The Kentucky HeadHunters when they came to the attention of Mercury Records Exec Harold Shedd. "He called and said we might be cooking hamburgers next year, but we gotta do this," Young recalls. Mercury released the multi-platinum Pickin’On Nashville later that year.“It blew up like an atom bomb and changed our lives forever,”Young says.In the 20 years that followed, The Kentucky HeadHunters influenced countless artists and maintained a huge cult following by playing thousands of shows, all the while staying true to themselves. Twenty years after being the biggest thing there was, it appears the Kentucky HeadHunters are on the verge of being what they were meant to be: a slamming rock/roots band that fears no corner at any speed. Like the old blues guys, they ain’t afraid to sweat or make it moan.We should all take that lesson to heart. The HeadHunters were spurred into recording not only by musical compatriots, but also by longtime friend and fellow Kentuckian Ben Ewing, GM of Red Dirt Music, a subsidiary of Progression Music. Richard Young describes Ewing as "an entrepreneur, smartass, great guy.We need somebody like him. He's successful, and we're not, in business. We're musicians." The 14 songs on Dixie Lullabies bottle undistilled HeadHunters: from the backwoods boogie of the title cut, to the Rolling Stones-esque "Tumblin' Roses," to the loping first single "Great Acoustics" and hard-charging "Just Believe." When the band debuted several of the songs at a packed August showcase at 3rd and Lindsley in Nashville-its first date in the city in five years-Nashville music writer Holly Gleason wrote,"Twenty years after being the biggest thing there was, it appears the Kentucky HeadHunters are on the verge of being what they were meant to be: a slamming rock-roots band that fears no corner at any speed." Whatever "Dixie Lullabies" is, the album owes its life to the Practice House. "This house is the reason we're doing this," Richard Young says. "Every record we've made, that's what we were supposed to be doing at the time.This has got us back to being a roots band.We're not chasing our tail anymore for anybody." Richard Young was a delight to speak with and I could have talked to him for hours. In fact we did talk for quite sometime and here is a little bit of how our conversation went: w w w. a m e r i c a n a g a z e t t e . n e t