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Raunch ‘N’ Rollers Rally With Region Bikers |
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by Tom Lounges
You would have had to have lived beneath a rock in 1989 to have
missed the emergence of the Kentucky Headhunters. Their
debut album -- “Pickin’ On Nashville” -- came out of left field to earn
multi-platinum sales, while their gritty “mountain meets metal”
sound was declared as the savior of old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll by
critics near and far who had grown weary of the corporate pop which had
dominated most of that decade.
Though their song, “Dumas
Walker,” was hands-down the best Stars ‘n Bars rocker released
to radio since the Freebird fell a dozen years earlier, the arteries of
the rock scene at that time were way too clogged from too many years of
commercialized schlock for any one band to roto-root alone.
The Headhunters --
though they were/are as rockin’ as any band that’s ever plugged in
south of the Mason-Dixon Line – were exiled to the then still vibrant
country charts.
“Pickin’ On Nashville,” though more authentically
rock ‘n’ roll than anything on the rock charts at the time, took
home a Grammy for “Best Country
Album of the Year” and the band were twice named the Academy Of
Country Music’s “Top New Vocal
Group.”
A short string of hit
singles –– “Oh Lonesome
Me,” “Rock ‘N’ Roll Angel” and “The
Ballad Of Davey Crockett” ––
and a successful sophomore release, “Electric Barnyard,” buoyed
the band for a while longer, but by the mid-‘90s this family-forged
group had fallen between the cracks.
They were too “country” and too real for rock radio, while
they were too “rock” for country radio, which by then was coming to
embrace a legion of cowboy hat wearing clones heralded as “new
country.”
Hailing from a
musically-driven family who would sing at home, at church and pretty
much any time the notion struck them –– rhythm guitarist Richard Young and his drum beating elder brother, Fred
Young –– put together the roots of what would one day evolve
into the Headhunters, when they formed Itchy Brother in 1968 with their
cousins Anthony Kenny on bass
and Greg Martin on lead
guitar.
Extensive touring
developed Itchy Brother enough of a barn-burning reputation that they
were on the verge of being signed to Led Zeppelin’s fabled Swan Song
label in 1980, when Zep drummer John Bonham’s death scuttled the deal.
“We’ve never
thought of doing nothin’ else but music,” said Young while preparing
to leave for Sturgis, where the Headhunters are a favorite live
attraction. “It’s great
to have hits and get awards and all that, but that’s obviously never
been the basis of this band because we’ve never gone away.”
It was when the Youngs
and Martin hooked up with the Phelps brothers -- Doug
and Ricky Lee -- in 1986 that things really began to work out for the
group. It was that
particular line-up that ultimately kicked in the doors a couple years
later and shouted to the world that Southern-fried rock was back!
“The Phelps boys
wanted to do their own thing there for a while,” said Young, referring
to when the pair left the Headhunters after the second album. They pursued a career as
The Phelps Brothers which resulted in two musical solid, albeit
commercially disappointing releases.
“Them leaving hurt
us, because we really lost the momentum we had going there, but we stuck
it out and kept the Headhunters going,” he said.
Cousin Anthony was
brought back to take Doug’s place on bass, along with a childhood
buddy named Mark Orr to
stepped behind the microphone in for the departed Ricky Lee.
“Mark did a great job with us and saved our butts, but he was
honestly too good of a singer to be doing ‘Dumas
Walker’ and ‘Davy
Crockett’,” mused Young. “Mark
was out of his element doing that kind of stuff.
He is more a blues singer.”
That revitalized
line-up released two remarkable albums that sadly came in under the
radar with both the critics who once hailed the band and the general
public who had nearly forgotten them.
Rave On! was a rootsy blues-rockin’ record that moved the group
towards a new sound in 1993 and was shamefully overlooked.
The next year gave us, “That’ll Work,” the Headhunters smokin’ collaboration
with Chuck Berry’s legendary piano man, Johnnie Johnson.
Young recalled that the notion for their writing and
recording those 12-songs with Johnson came about from a comment made by
Rolling Stones string-bender Keith Richard after they had all met up at
the Grammy Awards. Yet when
the day came that Johnson was actually walking up the path to their
Edmondton, Kentucky practice house, Young remembered -- “We was all
peeking out the window and were as nervous as hens.”
Orr was finally his
natural element working with bluesman Johnson.
The rest of the Headhunters had taken a crash course in
boogie-woogie blues prior to the sessions.
“We played together that first night and it was like we was
auditioning,” said Young. “Johnnie
played with us for a while and then he turned and said, ‘Well
boys, I guess we’re gonna make a record!’”
When the Phelps
Brothers project ran out of steam, Doug Phelps rejoined the Headhunters
as their lead vocalist and second rhythm guitarist, allowing Orr to
finally move ahead with his own solo blues career.
Ricky Lee Phelps, though still a beloved member of the
Headhunters inner circle, has never gone back to fronting the group.
“Doug sings all the
old songs just like his brother,” said Young on how having the younger
Phelps behind the mic enables the group to bridge their glorious past
with their promising future. “Having Doug singing with us has allowed
us to go step back towards the sound we had in the earlier days.”
Between Orr’s final
disc, “That’ll Work,” and Phelps returning for the recording of
1997’s “Stompin’ Grounds,” their former label (Mercury Records)
released “Best Of The Kentucky Headhunters: Still Pickin’” in 1994.
That collection helped resurrect many of the old hits on radio
play lists and helped to smooth the way for the newly revamped band’s
return to recording.
Though “Stompin’
Grounds” fared well with their still loyal legion of fans,
major market radio preferred to spin old favorites like “Dumas
Walker” and “Walk Softly
On This Heart Of Mine” instead of the new songs.
“We aren’t making
the kind of country music that they’re playing these days,” scoffed
Young. “We’re playing
Headhunters music. We’re no longer the flavor of the day. But that’s
okay, because even though we can’t get our songs played in the major
cities, the smaller [secondary market] stations have gotten behind us
and have supported the new songs. And
we’re out on the road playing them... so they are getting heard.”
The Kentucky
Headhunters released their last album --
“Songs From The Grass String Ranch” -- for Audium
Entertainment in late 2000. Audium
is an artist-friendly indie under the powerful distribution umbrella of
Koch International Records. Koch
is also home to Charlie Daniels’ Blue Hat Records imprint and several
other notable indies.
“Our last record is
in my honest opinion the very best Headhunters album ever,” exclaimed
Young. “I know musicians
say that all the time about their latest record, but I really do believe
that we clicked better than ever as a band when we was writing these
songs and recording this album. At
the very least, it’s my favorite Headhunters album...”
With the Audium/Koch
team behind them, the Headhunters taped their first music videos in a
number of years for the two singles -- “Louisiana
Coco” and “Too Much To
Lose” -- pulled from Songs...
The former video was filmed at the legendary Hogs & Heffers
bar in New York, the original source of inspiration for the hit film, “Coyote
Ugly.”
“I’d be lying to
you if I told you that we’ve been writing and recording for a new
album,” mused Young. “The truth is, we’ve been having way too much
fun playing shows and playing the songs from the ... ‘Grass
String Ranch’ album to get around to it.
But once summer is over, we are all going to take a couple of
months off, recharge our batteries and get to know our families again
– then we’ll settle in at the practice house and start working on
stuff for our next album.”
Like Charlie Daniels, Elvis Presley and
other famous sons of the South, Young’s band likes to surround itself
with as many family members and old friends as possible. “My sister, Mary
Jane, is our publicist and our crew are a bunch of friends from back
home,” said Young. “When
you hire someone you don’t have a relationship with to do a job, then
it’s just a job to them. When
you have someone from home doing that job, it’s more than a job,
it’s more than just a paycheck...it’s personal too.”
If there is one regret
Young admits to in the band’s 32-year history, it’s that they sold
their old tour bus which once belonged to Elvis Presley. “It was a great old
bus. It had Elvis’ TCB
emblem on it and we drove that thing for years, but it finally wore out.
We should’ve done what any good ol’ boy would’ve done at that
point,” he laughed. “We should’ve taken off the wheels and put it
up on blocks. We’d have a
steady income. Tourists would be lining up for miles to walk through it
for five bucks a head.”
But hindsight is 20/20
and without the King’s rolling highway home to call their own anymore,
the Headhunters are forced to keep on keepin’ on.
“We wouldn’t have
it any other way,” concluded Young, who at this point in his career is
as excited about playing music as any young musician this writer has
ever interviewed. “As
long as the Good Lord keeps us healthy and as long as the fans keep
coming to see the Kentucky Headhunters, we’ll be out there shaking off
the dust and plugging in somewhere.”
‘Nuff said! Kentucky Headhunters will perform an outdoor concert on August 31 at the “3rd Annual Road Hawgs Bike Rally” located at 811 Industrial Blvd. in Crown Point, IN. The Midwest Beat is a proud sponsor of that event, which will raise funds to be split between local veterans and children’s charities. |
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