Sellout's Steal of the Week: Shannon Yarbrough

Over the next week, seven (7!) Max Recordings bands will play shows in Little Rock. Here's your chance to get caught up on (almost) all things Max. . .

Max Holiday Shows:
Wed 12/21-- The Chinese Girls (Downtown Music)
Wed 12/21-- The Easys (Sticky Fingerz)
Thur 12/22-- The Big Cats and Kevin Kerby (Sticky Fingerz)
Fri 12/23-- Trusty and Sugar and the Raw (Vino's)
Tue 12/27-- Boondogs (Whitewater Tavern)


Shannon Yarbrough | Unknown Brooklyn

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Also, check out the show on Shannon (and his influence on the record label) at Arkansongs.

More on Max at maxrecordings.com.

Sellout's Steal of the Week: Jim Mize

So Red Chuck and I have been playing with Jim Mize for about a year and a half now. We're just about finished with his new record, but we've yet to play a gig with him. That changes Friday night, as Jim Mize and the Fence Jumpers debut at the Whitewater Tavern.

His last record featured the Oxford, MS band Blue Mountain, and resulted in praise in all kinds of national press outlets (Billboard, Guitar Player, etc). Someone said "Jim Mize writes songs from Larry Brown's south-- full of southern weirdos, infidelity, booze and violence." Someone else called him "a Southern Springsteen at the height of his powers."

Okay, so I said those things (couldn't find any of the press clips), but in any case-- I'm really glad to be involved in this new record. We recorded half of it in Mississippi with Bruce Watson, and half of it here in Little Rock. It's supposed to be out early next year.

Here's one of my favorites:

Jim Mize | Promises We Keep (advance mix):

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Note: this makes the 2nd Steal of the Week in a row that I recorded and played bass on. I promise I won't make it a habit. Next week we'll come up with something less narcissistic.

I Stand Corrected: WWJCD?

In 1993 Johnny Cash sang "Happy Birthday" to me on my 21st birthday. This was before the Rick Rubin records came out-- he was playing the Wayne Newton Theater in Branson. Not the coolest gig, and though officially of age, I was several generations younger than the busloads of retired vacationers filling the seats around me. In any case, JC managed to transcend the setting-- under normal circumstances there is nothing cool about Branson, MO, but Johnny Cash managed to be very cool.

In the same way Walk the Line is so much better than it should have been. On paper (and in the trailers) it looks like a horribile Hollywood creation. But simply put, the movie is fantastic. It's not perfect (Ms. Witherspoon doesn't do June Carter's wackiness justice, and parts of the story were a bit tidy), but its faults are easily overlooked in the face of everything it does right.

At the Branson show 12 years ago, JC sang a "new" song. He didn't introduce it-- didn't say his ex-son-in-law wrote it for him-- didn't say it was going to be on a new record.. In fact there was no mention of a new record, although the first American Recording must have been in production at that time. In any case, the song stuck with me that night. Here it is:

Johnny Cash | The Beast in Me:

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Sellout's Steal of the Week: The Easys

In honor of the Easys bold return to the internet, here's a track from the first record. All apologies to Al Green.

The Easys | Let's Not Stay Together:

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Visit the Easys online at:
theeasys.com
myspace.com/theeasys

MP3 courtesy of Loudmouth Mastering.