All it takes is a quick glance at the song titles on Leah Seawright's new album, Country Girl 101, to realize you're dealing with a new kind of country girl--not simply one who grew up poor (which she did) but one who also grew up very smart, emotionally sure-footed and with lots to say. From the light-heartedness of "Don't Take My Lexus" and "Soft Abs Hard Arteries" to the somber empathy of "Strong," "Over The Storm" and "Feeling You Gone," Seawright's songs are like intimate conversations with a close friend. The thoughts and attitudes are authentically her own. She wrote or co-wrote 13 of the album's 14 songs.
A native and still a resident of Fort Payne, Alabama--the home lair of the supergroup Alabama--Seawright was immersed in music from birth. "I guess I was predestined to do this," she says. "My mom and my dad are both musicians and singers. As far back as I can remember we'd have people over on the weekends. Mom would sing and dad would play the guitar. In fact, he could play just about anything he picked up."
We released our first album Scarred But Smarter in 1986 on 688 Records. 688 was the center of the underground Atlanta rock scene in the 1980's. Bands as diverse as Husker Du, Rank and File, Lords of the New Church, The Residents and a week-long stint by Iggy Pop graced the hallowed walls of that now-defunct night club. If you drive down Spring Street today, there's just a doc-in-a-box where the punk rock used to be.
I met Tim Nielsen just after I moved to Atlanta from Milwaukee. One night I was playing in a pickup band with Die Kreuzen, my good friends from back home.(Check out their Touch and Go records produced by Butch Vig.) They were staying on my floor, just passing through on tour. We played a lot of shows together a couple of years back when I was in a punk band called The Prosecutors, so we figured what the ? Let's see what happens.
The Guess Who, the band that became Canada's first international rock music superstars, began in 1962 in Winnipeg as Chad Allen & The Reflections. Including members Randy Bachman (guitar), Jim Kale (bass) and Garry Peterson (drums), Chad Allen and the Reflections had become Chad Allen and the Expressions by the time they recorded a cover of "Shakin' All Over", released by Quality Records in 1965. The song was a #1 single in Canada and reached #22 in America. Burton Cummings joined the group that same year, replacing the keyboard player and sharing lead vocals.
Quality Records released the group's first single and album, Shakin' All Over, in a plain white record jacket with only the question "Guess Who?" written on it. The marketing ploy capitalized on curiosity and the promise of another British Invasion band. It worked. After selling two million copies the band had its trademark name: The Guess Who. Following the success of Shakin' All Over, the band toured the U.S. as part of Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars Road Revue and in 1967 they landed a regular spot on the CBC- TV show, Where It's At.
Sugar Ray turned out several of the most breezily infectious summer singles of the late '90s, hitting on an appealing combination of sunny pop, lightly funky hip- hop grooves, and reggae lilt. Pegged as likely one-hit wonders after their 1997 breakthrough smash "Fly," Sugar Ray managed to maintain their career momentum far longer than many observers expected.
Sugar Ray was formed in Orange County in 1992 after guitarist Rodney Sheppard, bassist Murphy Karges, and drummer Stan Frazier had been playing parties together in a hard rock/heavy metal cover band, Shrinky Dinx, since the late '80s. Mark McGrath became the lead singer of Shrinky Dinx after jumping up on-stage to perform one night, and they soon began collaborating on original material. The band played around the L.A./San Diego area, building up a following, and got one of its friends to finance a music video for one of its original tunes; it wound up getting them a deal with Atlantic in 1994. The threat of legal action by Milton Bradley, which owned the rights to the original Shrinky Dinks toy, forced the band to change its name to Sugar Ray (after boxer Sugar Ray Leonard). Around the same time, they began augmenting their live shows with the turntables of Craig Bullock, aka DJ Homicide, who later became an official member of the group.
Born on May 4, 1959, Randy Bruce Traywick was the second of six children. His father Harold, raised turkeys, bred horses, and ran a construction business, and his mother Bobbie, worked in a textile plant. Randy's father always wanted him to become a country singer, filling the house with the sounds of Hank Williams and Stonewall Jackson albums. Harold bought his four sons western outfits and guitars, and promoted them locally as the Traywick Brothers. By the time Randy was ten years old, he and his brother, Ricky, had their own duo, playing throughout the South at fiddler's conventions, private parties, VFW halls and anywhere and everywhere they could draw a crowd. Even at his young age Randy's voice startled people with its resonance. He dropped out of school in the ninth grade, and after that-fast cars, drinking and drugs lead to a series of scrapes with the law.
At age 16, Randy entered a talent show hosted by Country City USA as a soloist. After winning the competition hands down, he was invited by the club owner, Lib Hatcher, to play regularly at the famed night spot. He then relocated to Charlotte. It was a stint that lasted the better part of five years with Randy first performing on week-ends and eventually full-time. Hatcher took over management of the fledgling singer and in the late 70's Randy recorded two singles for Paula Records, "Dreamin'" and "She's My Woman" with Joe Stampley producing.
"My next record will continue to reflect my love of my country, my family' my faith and the emotional journey I'm on," he said during a recent interview from a recording studio behind his home that he shares with his wife and three young children. "I moved my family to Nashville six years ago and that change is now reflected in my music."
"I've always been a family man," Bice continued' referencing his feelings for his mother' a gospel singer who infused him with a love of music at an early age. "My mom remarried and moved our family to England when I was just a kid. But before I finished school, I knew I wanted to be in a band and I returned to Alabama to continue that process."
I only want to be wanted by you," belts out 20-year-old Georgia stunner Jessica Rose James, better known as newly minted pop diva Jessie James, on "Wanted," the first single from her Mercury Records/Island Def Jam Music Group (IDJ) debut album, and it's love at first listen.
A big talent in a petite, power-packed package, James has been ready for her close-up since she was the age of two, when the self-described, well-traveled "military brat," (with a little bit of Greek and Italian thrown in there), born under the fiery Aries sign in a field hospital in Italy, started singing into a toy microphone and tape recorder, a gift from her mom. By nine, she was composing her own songs on a plastic guitar (the first called "It's Gonna Be Alright"), performing as a youngster at events like the opening of Sea World and the Republican Convention, and working with a string of significant writers in Nashville at 15.
