From Bristol Sessions to Bessie Smith, East Tennessee Is Rich in Musical History

Posted on by Editor

The Volunteer State has long been at the center of the music world, and East Tennessee destinations like Bristol, Johnson City, Knoxville and Chattanooga all have their own unique history and stories to tell about their roles in evolving the American music experience.

To shine a light on these musical destinations sometimes overshadowed by the behemoth of Nashville to the west, we’ve gathered over a dozen attractions worth visiting from Bristol’s Burger Bar to Knoxville’s Blue Plate Special and Chattanooga’s Songbirds Vintage Guitar & Pop Culture Museum. Spanning the realms of country, bluegrass, folk, hip-hop, blues and more, each stop is guaranteed to empower, inform, inspire and excite the music fan in every one of us.

Bristol

A couple years after the Grand Ole Opry launched in 1925, Ralph Peer of the Victor Talking Machine Company ventured to Bristol in 1927 to record sessions that would later be referred to as the “Big Bang” of modern day country music. Participating artists like the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and the Stoneman Family are featured throughout the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. The brand new exhibit titled I’ve Endured: Women in Old-Time Music is on display now through 2023.

Located just on the Virginia side of the state line, the space digs into the circumstances that brought the sessions to Bristol in 1927 along with the artists included in them, how the sessions have and continue to shape country music in the present, and more. It also explores how festivals, the church, radio and Hollywood have helped to further propel country music into the mainstream way of life through displays, interactive exhibits, short films and more. With the museum having just been awarded over $1 million in grants to help fund expansion, visitors can expect even more from the space in the coming months and years.

Speaking of festivals, since 2001 the museum has also produced the popular Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion festival on the streets and in bars around the small mountain town. Over 30,000 music fans flock to the area every second weekend of September for the event honoring not only Bristol’s history as the “Birthplace of Country Music,” but the future artists that are helping to guide and redefine country and roots music in the present. Its 2022 gathering lived up to that and then some with performances from living legends like Tanya Tucker, Del McCoury and Rosanne Cash, and rising stars like Sierra Ferrell, 49 Winchester and Molly Tuttle.

A couple blocks away from the museum nestled on the corner of State Street and Piedmont Avenue you’ll find the renowned Burger Bar. In addition to serving up the best burgers and chili dogs in all of Bristol, the diner is best known for being the last place Hank Williams was seen alive. Williams was in the process of riding from Montgomery, Alabama, to Canton, Ohio, to play a show on New Year’s Eve 1952 when he died in the back seat of the car transporting him not long after leaving Bristol.

A short walk west down State Street will lead you to another tribute to the twin city’s claim as the Birthplace of Country Music, this time in the form of a 30 x 100 foot mural. First painted by artist, musician and radio host Tim White in 1986, the mural depicts the aforementioned Rodgers, Carters and Stonemans alongside Peer as musical notes flutter up the brick wall between them.

Less than a five minute drive from downtown Bristol you’ll stumble upon “Tennessee” Ernie Ford’s birth home. Born in Bristol in 1919, Ford went on to become a world famous singer, TV and radio star. The home, now owned by the Bristol Historical Association, is open for tours and houses countless personal items and memorabilia from the town’s most cherished son.

Johnson City

Twenty-five miles south of Bristol in Johnson City is another East Tennessee mainstay, The Down Home. Founded in 1976, the listening room style club has played host to artists like Kenny Chesney, Alison Krauss and The Dixie Chicks prior to them making it big. Bigger named acts like “Pancho and Lefty” songwriter Townes Van Zandt, bluesman Willie Dixon and A Prairie Home Companion collaborators Robin and Linda Williams have also performed there. More recently other local artists like Southwest Virginia’s 49 Winchester have continued that legacy by performing in the iconic space regularly, which hosts live music anywhere from two to four nights per week.

Knoxville

If Nashville is the center of music in Middle Tennessee, then Greater Knoxville is the center in East Tennessee, and it all begins before you even get into town. Located about 20 miles north of downtown, the Museum of Appalachia houses a pioneer village, historical relics and a Hall of Fame. The latter includes everything from Native American relics to collectibles from regional political, military and everyday figures along with musicians like Roy Acuff, Bill Monroe, The Carter Family, John Hartford and Redd Stewart whose music came to define the region.

Upon arriving in Knoxille proper, I’d recommend stretching out with the Cradle of Country Music Walking Tour. Comprised of 19 locations with an estimated completion time of an hour, the self-guided tour includes stops everywhere from the Tennessee Theatre (the official state theatre of Tennessee and site of the first public performance of Roy Acuff) to the Andrew Johnson Hotel (the original home of country music variety show The Midday Merry-Go-Round and where Hank Williams spent the last night of his life), to Market Square (where Sam Morrison of Bell Sales Company helped to launch Elvis Presley’s career in the 1950s by promoting “That’s All Right, Mama” on the loudspeakers).

Along the path of the walking tour you’ll also come across the Knoxville Visitor Center and WDVX 89.9 FM. Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and on Saturday from noon to 1 p.m., the independent radio station hosts its signature program, the Blue Plate Special, in front of a live audience. Hosted by Red Hickey and Sean McCollough, the show features music and conversation from a variety of up-and-coming roots musicians. Past performers have included The Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show and Chris Stapleton. However, when we visited the featured artists were Portland-based A.C. Sapphire and Kendall Lujan, along with Sierra Leone-born, Nashville-based Senie Hunt.

Once that wraps up you can finish off your musical escapades just down Gay Street at the Museum of East Tennessee History. Operated by The East Tennessee Historical Society, the building is home of everything from the Knox County Archives to the Museum of East Tennessee History, the latter of which houses an epic collection of artifacts and music memorabilia from Dolly Parton, Billy Bowman, the Bristol Sessions and more.

Sevierville and Pigeon Forge

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention Dollywood in a story about East Tennessee. After pulling over for pancakes at family-friendly Flapjacks, start your day in the town square of Sevierville. It’s impossible to tell Dolly Parton’s life story without speaking about her reverence for the Smoky Mountains and Sevier County especially. At the courthouse, you’ll want to snap a photo with the Dolly Parton statue on the courthouse lawn, created by sculptor Jim Gray.

For years, the Chasing Rainbows Museum at Dollywood has told Parton’s rags-to-riches story — and in her case, those rags led to the famous “Coat of Many Colors.” Parton herself revealed that the museum is being reinvented as the Dolly Parton Experience, set to open in 2024. (Cue: “Here You Come Again.”) One of the best breaks in the park is maybe sharing a loaf of cinnamon break in the rocking chairs in front of the grist mill. Still hungry after that? Dolly Parton’s Stampede provides a memorable, show-stopping experience and a four-course feast, sometimes served with forks.

Chattanooga

Just over an hour and a half southwest of Knoxville you’ll find another music-friendly city in Chattanooga. Located along the Tennessee-Georgia border, the city’s roots run deep in country, blues, hip hop and more, all of which you can learn about at the Bessie Smith Cultural Center and Chattanooga African American Museum. Inside you’ll find displays highlighting all of the city’s Black history including music with displays honoring hometown heroes like Usher, Kane Brown, The Impressions and the building’s namesake, Bessie Smith.

The Tennessee Aquarium draws most of the crowds downtown, while Rock City and Ruby Falls beckon tourists to Lookout Mountain. The city also has a terrific greenway system with artistic mile markers along the river. One of them just might be a silhouette of Bill Monroe. Speaking of bluegrass, drop in for breakfast at the Bluegrass Grill in downtown Chattanooga. Just around the corner you’ll find a brewpub, a chocolate shop, a distillery, and an ice cream store, all with local ties.

After singing a few lines about the famous Chattanooga Choo Choo, located on the grounds of a historic hotel, you can trace the modern history of the guitar at the nearby Songbirds Vintage Guitar & Pop Culture Museum. Much like the Bessie Smith Center, the museum recognizes local heroes while also wielding an insane — and growing — collection of vintage guitars, amps, and pedals. Current highlights on display when I visited included guitars from Duane Allman and Merle Travis, who is also featured at the Muhlenberg Music & History Museum mentioned in our previous story on Kentucky’s top music tourism destinations.

An hour northwest of Chattanooga — and just barely inside the confines of East Tennessee for the purpose of this story — sits The Caverns. The sought after getaway takes musicians and concertgoers alike underground for an unparalleled live music experience. The gritty grotto is most notably home to PBS television series The Caverns Sessions (formerly Bluegrass Underground), which has already announced performances from Sierra Ferrell, Allison Russell, The Lil Smokies and more in 2023. Guided tours of the cave system are also available seven days a week. If the timing lines up, consider checking out the Big Mouth Bluegrass Festival (July 1-2, 2023) or CaveFest (October 6-8).

For more information on tourism destinations throughout East Tennessee, visit TNVacation.com.

Photo Credit: Tennessee Tourism/Andrew Saucier

The Show On The Road – The Deslondes

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, the show is back in New Orleans for a special talk with Sam Doores, one of the talented founders of well-traveled roots-rockers The Deslondes. We dive into their newest LP Ways & Means and how California-born Sam — who plays various instruments from electric guitar to keys, and sings in seven bands and counting throughout the Crescent City — collected many of its slow-burn soul-adjacent songs like “Five Year Plan” while holed up in a storage unit studio squat, questioning his place as an adult with real responsibilities who also happens to be a soul-searching artist criss-crossing our beautiful (or crumbling) almost-post-pandemic world.

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Imagine if you will, you walk into a saloon lost somewhere between 1930 and 1975. The band onstage has three distinct lead singers, and the songs feel like hard lived-in tales that could live in a TV western or the soundtrack to Boogie Nights, with vibes that would inspire both Ray Charles and Woody Guthrie, Tom Waits and The Beatles. If you’re confused, good. Algorithms can force music upon you at any time these days and I’ll admit, Spotify wants me to listen to The Deslondes, at all hours. They’re not wrong. If I have one job in this podcast it’s to share the music that lights a fire in me as a fellow songwriter and has me grasping for genre-descriptor straws. I have no idea, clearly, how to describe this band. I will say, songs like “Howl at the Moon” make me feel like I’m somehow still proud to be an American, plying my trade somewhere in the still kind of Wild West.

Starting with their charmingly ramshackle and bluesy self-titled debut in 2015, the band, which formed in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, has always made a point to write democratically and spread songs around to their singers. Sam for one, Dan Cutler (bass) for another and notably the always compelling Riley Downing, whose ancient deep drawl sounds like it should be its own character in Yellowstone — and all harmonize gorgeously together. Downing and Doores also both have duo and solo albums which are lovely, but what they create here in The Deslondes — especially in timeless story songs like “South Dakota Wild One” about Riley’s wandering youth — are special in the way accidental supergroups make music that somehow shouldn’t exist.

It was a pleasure getting together with Sam for a rare in-person chat just off Frenchmen Street. If there’s one thing I love most about New Orleans, it’s that it creates new artists that seem to follow the beat of their own drummer, genres be-damned. Give Ways & Means a spin — it might transport you somewhere you need to go.

Photo credit: Bobbi Wernig

Basic Folk – Brett Dennen

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Brett Dennen is a songwriter, painter and summer camp enthusiast. His camp experience was instrumental in developing his musicality. He attended Camp Jack Hazard in the Sierra Nevada Mountains where young Brett was enamored with the music his camp counselors would play on guitar around the campfire. He was introduced to Paul Simon, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and John Denver thanks to his counselors and his parents. He really developed as a songwriter in college at UC Santa Cruz. After school, he wove himself into the LA songwriter scene, which in the early 2000’s was a haven for musicians like himself, Alexi Murdoch, Damien Rice and Josh Ritter. He developed a large fanbase that remains loyal to this day.

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Brett talks about running his own summer camp, Camp Dennen, which allows him to create community through nature and art. He shares his experience of writing and thinking about being a dad and how that relates to the reality of fatherhood. And he talks about decidedly not being in the cool crowd and also not caring about it … well, not caring about it as much as he used to. Brett’s written some of my favorite songs of the 21st century. It was an honor to have him on the pod!

Photo Credit: Elli Lauren

WATCH: Oshima Brothers, “Last Minute Lover”

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Artist: Oshima Brothers
Hometown: Portland, Maine
Song: “Last Minute Lover”
Album: Dark Nights Golden Days
Release Date: April 1, 2022

In Their Words: “While driving three thousand miles, playing shows along the way, we found moments to film this music video. I directed and edited it and my brother held the camera. It’s a chapter from our 45-minute visual album out on April 1st. As for this song, I’m hopeless and arrive late to everything. But I truly try my best and am a fairly competent boyfriend. I can always cook a last-minute gourmet dinner. The beautiful rose I show up with, however, will most likely be from the neighbor’s front lawn.” — Jamie Oshima

Photo Credit: Oshima Brothers

BGS 5+5: Lauren Morrow

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Artist: Lauren Morrow
Hometown: Hometown is Atlanta, Claimed town is Nashville
Latest Album: People Talk
Personal Nicknames: “LoMo”

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

When I was 15, I won a contest to sing with a band called Marvelous 3 (now defunct, but formally fronted by Butch Walker) at a massive Atlanta festival called Music Midtown. I think there were something like 90,000 people there, and I was blackout nervous and a total mess the whole day, but as soon as I stepped on the stage, it was like I was possessed. I’d been interested in playing music for a little while before this, but from that night on, it was all I ever thought about — how to recreate that feeling, how to create my own songs that would move people the way music moved me. I guess I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since. Butch and I have been friends since then and I’m eternally grateful for this mentorship on this journey.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

I was an English major in college with a minor in British & American cultures, so literature (specifically British literature) is a big influence on my music and my writing. It’s not so much that I write specifically about books or stories I’ve read, but I’ve always loved to write, and I’ve always loved words. I spend a lot of time on my lyrics — I want them to make sense and have a point, not to be an afterthought — and I know that comes directly from my love of the written word. I want my lyrics and the melody they’re encapsulated within to feel fluid like the two things are fused together, and I want them to be relatable like you’re reading a book about my life and experiences that you can find yourself within.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

I think navigating these last few years with a completed album during a pandemic has taught me the power of surrendering and expecting less. I don’t mean for that to sound depressing — it’s actually quite freeing when you think about it. There’s only so much you can do for yourself as an artist, and I advocate for myself and this record every single day. I do what I need to do, and I work really hard, but at the end of the day, there’s not a whole lot I can control. When you fixate on those things (“Why didn’t that journalist write about me?” “Why wasn’t I asked to play that festival?” “Why wasn’t my song included on that playlist?”), it can really drive you insane and make you miss all of the great things that are happening for you everyday. So much of this industry is controlled by things that are outside of your control, so I just try and put my faith in myself, my product, my team, my tenacity, and the Universe (or God or Source or whatever you choose to call it.) Everything else will fall in line the way it is meant to.

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

My favorite band of all time is U2 — a fact that shocks most people when they hear it, but I’ve been obsessed with them since I was a child. Over the years, I’ve gotten a lot of shit for being such a big fan of theirs (thank you Apple album upload!), but I don’t care — their songs, melodies, ideas, shows, all move me in ways that are hard to describe in words. It feels bigger and deeper than me. Sure, all of it reminds me of my childhood, but their songs are huge, anthemic, and meaningful, with something new to discover in every listen. I tried to recreate some of that vibe with People Talk.

What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?

My old band, The Whiskey Gentry, toured heavily with the band Cracker, and my husband Jason and I became very close with their lead singer, David Lowery, and his wife, Velena Vego. Both are veterans of the music industry, and they offered us some great advice through a really tumultuous and confusing time in our careers. Personally, I was in a place in my life where I thought I’d paid enough dues and I felt like success was something that I’d already earned (little did I know about the years of invaluable growth that were still to come), but David and Velena were both very adamant that Jason and I have other jobs and side-hustles to help us make money while we were pursuing our dreams. This, coming from people as successful in music as David was/is in Cracker and Velena who has booked the legendary 40 Watt Club in Athens for almost four decades. Jason has always had a successful residential/commercial painting business, and I always worked jobs or helped him, and that’s how we’ve been able to keep our mortgage paid, stay on the road, and self-fund the release of People Talk on our own label, Big Kitty Records. I believe there will come a time when we won’t have to hustle so hard in other areas of our lives, but we aren’t there yet. And even if we don’t ever get there, we know the value of hard work and where that’s taken us in our lives thus far.

Photo Credit: Jace Kartye

WATCH: Matthew Logan Vasquez, “Odysseus”

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Artist: Matthew Logan Vasquez (of Delta Spirit)
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “Odysseus”
Album: As All Get Out
Release Date: April 7, 2023
Label: Nine Mile Records

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Odysseus’ while I was stranded in Vermont, unable to get to my son’s birthday party. I used the story of Odysseus to parallel that sense of longing. When we made the video, things got a bit deeper for me personally. I’m depicted drinking in a bar while my son is fantasizing about me being there with him — I had lived that scenario out far too many times, I was completely helpless. I’ve been sober now from drugs and alcohol for four years. With the help of my higher power, my wife, and the 12 steps, I chose life with my family. Becoming a dad has been the most purposeful thing I’ve done or will do in my life. I don’t want to miss any more amazing moments. I’m so grateful to be here.” — Matthew Logan Vasquez

Photo Credit: Brynn Obsorn

LISTEN: Broken Compass Bluegrass, “Fool’s Gold”

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Artist: Broken Compass Bluegrass
Hometowns: Grass Valley and Chico, California
Song: “Fool’s Gold”
Album: Fool’s Gold
Release Date: March 31, 2023

In Their Words: “‘Fool’s Gold’ is a song about giving way to change and breaking expectations. Part of the song’s journey is stopping and really appreciating the things that you have right in front of you, like your family and close friends, or possibly your current situation, even if it’s faced with challenges. The other side of ‘Fool’s Gold’ is about taking risks, even when you don’t know exactly where you’re going. In life, I can be very specific and sometimes proceeding too carefully where roadblocks such as anxiety can scare me out of doing things, especially if I’m not clear on every last detail. So, I wrote this song to reflect on all the great times I’ve had from pressing forward past the internal conflict and opening those new chapters.” — Kyle Ledson, “Fool’s Gold”

Photo Credit: Patrick Ball

On ‘Simple Things,’ The Band of Heathens Find Hope in a Heartless Year

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Even with more than a dozen releases that have accumulated over 400 million streams, The Band of Heathens are adamant that their best work still lies ahead, and with their latest album Simple Things it’s easy to see why.

Split between Austin, Texas, and Asheville, North Carolina, band members Ed Jurdi and Gordy Quist turned the pitfalls of a crippling pandemic into ten of their most hopeful and inspiring songs yet for Simple Things, released on their own BOH Records. They sing about everything from not letting the bad times beat you down (“Don’t Let the Darkness”) to an appreciation for the little things in life (“Simple Things”), hanging on when nothing seems to be going in your favor (“Heartless Year”) and the importance of family (“All That Remains”), all the while helping to chart a better path forward for themselves and society as a whole as we navigate a new normal.

The group’s sustained success for nearly 20 years is even more significant considering the Band of Heathens have operated independent of a record label the entire time. Without anyone pulling the strings and dictating what they do behind the scenes, the group has been able to focus on creating the music they want on their own terms, ultimately thriving in the process.

Speaking on Zoom from Austin, Jurdi and Quist spoke with BGS about the band’s recipe for success, the inspiration behind the new songs, and how bluegrass influences their music.

BGS: Tell me about how your “Remote Transmissions” live streams and ensuing “Good Time Supper Club” Patreon community have helped to grow your fans and spark your own creativity?

Quist: The Patreon is an extension of what we did during the pandemic when we began a weekly livestream over Facebook. We were all spread out in different cities at the time and couldn’t play music together so we made what we could out of the situation. We did everything from individually trading songs to trading verses on the same song, reading Shakespeare and even fitting in Grateful Dead segments. It became this strange variety show that we did every Tuesday night for 52 weeks. Through it we discovered an amazing community online who looked forward to the show every week, so when touring began to pick back up we moved the show to Patreon where we continue to host weekly chats, live streams, give early access to new songs — including many on the new record — and other behind-the-scenes looks from our creative lives.

Jurdi: The pandemic really forced us to improvise in a way we never had before. The irony with the online variety show we were doing was that it’s the closest thing we’ve done in a while to the origins of the band when we had a weekly residency in Austin. Those shows were almost entirely improvised, so returning to that was a very cathartic and full circle experience.

Given the community and successful careers you’ve built up over the past two decades, what advice would you give other independent artists trying to make it in the age of streaming and social media?

Quist: We started out right as labels were beginning to lose their grip on the power structure and being gatekeepers of distribution, but we were never a part of that system. That made being independent out of necessity to begin with. We ended up being offered a record deal on our second album but were wary of becoming indentured servants to some corporation for potentially our entire careers. We turned it down and used the opportunity to instead double down on ourselves, always looking out for new technology and investing in things that further allowed for us to make music on our own terms. We weren’t afraid of streaming and we weren’t afraid of downloads, we embraced it all.

Jurdi: The idea is to be creative making music and to build a community that you can always come back to which, in a strange way, is more accessible than it ever has been due to the technology now at our disposal. At the same time I think more work goes into it than ever before, not just in making music but promotion and all the other aspects of operating a business.

One of my favorite songs on the new record is “Stormy Weather,” which I saw [Ed] play solo during the day party for Warren Haynes’ Christmas Jam last December in Asheville, as well as with the full band on CBS This Morning. Can you tell me a bit about the song and how it came to be?

Jurdi: That’s a song we’d worked out a while back for another record that didn’t end up making the cut. There’s always a million reasons why that happens, but the song itself was always one that I really liked due to its imagery and overall theme. In a weird way it’s almost like the band’s theme song. It really represents our spirit, our struggles, being able to overcome the obstacles put in our path and, in some capacity, triumphing over them. Whenever we got to work on this new record, that song crept back into my head. We ended up taking the bones of it and putting a new arrangement on it that helped to change the feel and give the song a new look. Within five minutes of reworking it we knew we were onto something.

Are there any other songs on Simple Things that you reworked or had in your back pocket for a while?

Quist: Nope, “Stormy Weather” was the only older tune. Even it’s so far from where it once was that it’s practically new, too. Everything else was freshly written for this record.

As for the rest of the songs, this is very much a pandemic record. Can you describe the band’s emotions when getting back into the studio to work on these songs after being away from each other for so long?

Quist: It was joyful to be back playing rock ‘n’ roll together again. The inspiration for the songs largely came from that feeling when something gets taken from you how it makes you appreciate it a whole lot more. Throughout the record you can definitely feel the excitement in the room. There was very little analysis and thinking going on and a whole lot more inspiration and playing.

Jurdi: For us art has always been cathartic. Gordy and I are both optimists, always looking toward the future, but at the same time there’s no concept of the future without first being very present in the moment you are experiencing now. For example, the first verse of “Don’t Let the Darkness” talks about all this stuff that’s gone on in the past that you can’t do anything about other than putting your best foot forward, showing up and being available now. The most magical moments that have ever happened to me have come when I’ve been open and available to that.

In terms of your music, how would you say that bluegrass impacts your creative perspective, if at all?

Jurdi: The foundation of The Band of Heathens explores the roots of American music while aiming to carve out our own voice within it, and bluegrass certainly plays a part in that. You can hear it on “Single in the Same Summer,” which is a very acoustically driven song with a string band-like melody. How it sounds on the record doesn’t have a huge bluegrass feel to it, but the melody and roots of it absolutely do. It’s reminiscent of the mountain music of Appalachia. Living in Asheville the past ten years or so it’s seeped its way into everything. It’s the indigenous music of the region.

Quist: The improvisational nature of the band when we play live has been informed by bluegrass along with blues, jazz and country. That spirit is definitely something that is part of our live approach to playing in terms of taking solos and trying to say something on your instrument as well as within a song.

What kind of challenges or opportunities have come from a decade of being split between Austin and Asheville, two very music-forward cities in different corners of the country?

Jurdi: In a weird way I think the distance has actually helped in terms of appreciating the time we do have together to the best of our ability. Sometimes things that might be perceived as a weakness or a disadvantage can be turned into a strength. In our case we’ve found a really good way to make it work and have grown closer because of it.

Photo Credit: Alysse Gafkjen

LISTEN: Bobby Rush, “One Monkey Can Stop a Show”

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Artist: Bobby Rush
Hometown: Jackson, Mississippi
Song: “One Monkey Can Stop a Show”
Release Date: March 24, 2023
Label: Deep Rush Records/Thirty Tigers

In Their Words: “Nearly 30 years ago, I wrote and cut the record ‘One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show’ which is about a woman threatening to leave me. Though if she leaves me, I’m going to find someone new. This time, ‘One Monkey Can Stop a Show,’ is in a similar direction, but it means that the woman is not going to let me go. I need to change my actions and treat her better. She’d rather see me dead than see me go. Why I cut this song is because the song ‘Keep on Rollin” is so big with the R&B artist King George today. He’s saying, ‘if you leave me, you ain’t gonna stop nothing, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. This train is going to keep on rolling.’ I was talking about in my song, she was so devastated she will stop the train and you. Not only does he call out my song ‘One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show’ in his song, but he also inspired me to come back to the table with a new version of my original.” — Bobby Rush

Photo Credit: Bill Steber