MCB has a copy of the latest from the boys ready to roll to the 5th emailer
Celebrate the Release of Come Back to Louisiana on Vinyl LP
Playing Three Shows in Detroit!
Capturing a rare stripe of Dixiana that crosses the atmosphere of Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show with the Cajun blues of Link Davis and the Creole jazz of Lizzy Miles, Michael Hurtt and His Haunted Hearts have been veering down the road less traveled since 2004, when they came together with the singular goal of resurrecting New Orleans’ once rich, now nearly invisible hillbilly music heritage. A favorite of everyone from Lazy Lester to the late, great Hunter S. Thompson, the Hearts have conquered stages at Austin’s South by Southwest behind pioneers like Texas Playboys steel guitarist Herb Remington and Louisiana rocker Jay Chevalier. The Hearts will celebrate the release of the vinyl LP version of Come Back to Louisiana as they hit the Midwest for a series of shows in late August and early September. They’ll play three shows in Detroit (Michael Hurtt’s home since losing everything in Hurricane Katrina) including a benefit for the venerable dive The Old Miami. They’ll perform Saturday, September 5th on the Hamtramck Labor Day Festival along with Jack Scott and the return of the Big Bash Combo, among other great acts. Sunday they hit the Cadieux Café and Monday they’ll help close out the five day benefit for the Old Miami, taking the stage at midnight. The Hearts salute their Detroit connections (guitarist JD hails from Flint) with a rousing rendition of the Rufus Shoffner rarity “Orbit Twist”, released on 45 as the B side of their “Lonely Mardi Gras” single.
Come Back to Louisiana was engineered live in the studio by Scott Bomar, musical director for the acclaimed films Hustle and Flow and Black Snake Moan. Recorded in forced exile at Memphis’s Electraphonic Studio in that twilight period of suspended animation that immediately followed Hurricane Katrina, the album is as much a product of the storm as it is the Hearts’ contribution to country music’s deep catalog legacy. A rock-a-bayou testament that transcends mere genres, Come Back to Louisiana reminds listeners once again that soul singer Ernie K-Doe hit the nail squarely on the head when he memorably stated, “I’m not sure, but I think, all music came from New Orleans.”
Exploding onto the Crescent City scene with R&B iconoclasts the Royal Pendletons in the early ‘90s, Hurtt had long dreamed of a versatile string band that conjured country music’s hidden history. In Hurtt’s personal mythology, this was a twisted, genre-defying road map that spread from legendary Louisiana labels like Jin, Meladee and Goldband clear up to Detroit’s tiny Fortune and Clix imprints, stopping at Memphis ‘s Sun, Moon and Meteor set-ups, the West Coast’s mysterious Sage and Sand label and Cincinnati’s King Records empire to name only a select few. Armed with a box of scratchy 45s, an acoustic guitar and a clutch of backwoods numbers that he’d penned during a barnstorming European tour as bassist for Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, Hurtt hooked up with like-minded guitarists J.D. Mark and Jason Goodman and began recording in his living room. After recruiting multi-instrumentalist Mitch “Wichita Falls” Palmer—a triple threat on banjo, steel and take-off electric guitar—and upright bass master John “Bacon Grease” Trahey, drums were dispensed with altogether, producing a rural rockin’ string band sound that shifts gears effortlessly from Deep South rockers to Bayou ballads to true-blue hillbilly swing.
Foreshadowing a star-crossed future, their first show took place in Oxford, Mississippi during September 2004, as a hurricane roared towards New Orleans, barely missing the City That Care Forgot. In between the bullet-dodging bookends of storm seasons 2004 and 2005, the Hearts plied their honky-tonk trade throughout the Gulf Coast and Mid-South, making fans of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, Black Oak Arkansas singer Jim Dandy and renegade record producer Kim Fowley, who envisioned a documentary about the band’s exploits entitled Gumbo Confidential. But not even Fowley—or Billy Wilder or Martin Scorsese for that matter—could envision the outcome of the docudrama brought about by the federal levee failures that came in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Come Back to Louisiana kicked off with Jay Chevalier’s 1963 “Come Back to Louisiana,” recently named the state’s official recovery song, but the Hearts’ opening theme since day one. Fittingly, it came to an end with the haunting “Trouble on the Road,” a tale of hurricane exile sparked by Chevalier and Trahey in those first dark days of uncertainty.
The Hearts tour kicks off on the 4th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina: the devastation wrought in the aftermath changed the lives of all residents of the Gulf Coast. Rather than look back to the post-hurricane dark days that produced their album, the Hearts are determined to spread their white hot brew of hillbilly jazz and rock n’ roll to music lovers everywhere, especially in bandleader Michael Hurtt’s adopted hometown of Detroit.
Michael Hurtt and his Haunted Hearts Play Detroit Shows
Saturday, September 5
Hamtramck Labor Day Festival w/ Jack Scott and the Big Barn Combo
4pm – Admission Free
http://hamtramckstar.com/index.php/hamtramck_labor_day_festival_details
Sunday, September 6
Cadieux Café w/ Buck Stevens and the Hi-Q’s
http://www.cadieuxcafe.com/music/
Capturing a rare stripe of Dixiana that crosses the atmosphere of Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show with the Cajun blues of Link Davis and the Creole jazz of Lizzy Miles, Michael Hurtt and His Haunted Hearts have been veering down the road less traveled since 2004, when they came together with the singular goal of resurrecting New Orleans’ once rich, now nearly invisible hillbilly music heritage. A favorite of everyone from Lazy Lester to the late, great Hunter S. Thompson, the Hearts have conquered stages at Austin’s South by Southwest behind pioneers like Texas Playboys steel guitarist Herb Remington and Louisiana rocker Jay Chevalier. The Hearts will celebrate the release of the vinyl LP version of Come Back to Louisiana as they hit the Midwest for a series of shows in late August and early September. They’ll play three shows in Detroit (Michael Hurtt’s home since losing everything in Hurricane Katrina) including a benefit for the venerable dive The Old Miami. They’ll perform Saturday, September 5th on the Hamtramck Labor Day Festival along with Jack Scott and the return of the Big Bash Combo, among other great acts. Sunday they hit the Cadieux Café and Monday they’ll help close out the five day benefit for the Old Miami, taking the stage at midnight. The Hearts salute their Detroit connections (guitarist JD hails from Flint) with a rousing rendition of the Rufus Shoffner rarity “Orbit Twist”, released on 45 as the B side of their “Lonely Mardi Gras” single.
Come Back to Louisiana was engineered live in the studio by Scott Bomar, musical director for the acclaimed films Hustle and Flow and Black Snake Moan. Recorded in forced exile at Memphis’s Electraphonic Studio in that twilight period of suspended animation that immediately followed Hurricane Katrina, the album is as much a product of the storm as it is the Hearts’ contribution to country music’s deep catalog legacy. A rock-a-bayou testament that transcends mere genres, Come Back to Louisiana reminds listeners once again that soul singer Ernie K-Doe hit the nail squarely on the head when he memorably stated, “I’m not sure, but I think, all music came from New Orleans.”
Exploding onto the Crescent City scene with R&B iconoclasts the Royal Pendletons in the early ‘90s, Hurtt had long dreamed of a versatile string band that conjured country music’s hidden history. In Hurtt’s personal mythology, this was a twisted, genre-defying road map that spread from legendary Louisiana labels like Jin, Meladee and Goldband clear up to Detroit’s tiny Fortune and Clix imprints, stopping at Memphis ‘s Sun, Moon and Meteor set-ups, the West Coast’s mysterious Sage and Sand label and Cincinnati’s King Records empire to name only a select few. Armed with a box of scratchy 45s, an acoustic guitar and a clutch of backwoods numbers that he’d penned during a barnstorming European tour as bassist for Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, Hurtt hooked up with like-minded guitarists J.D. Mark and Jason Goodman and began recording in his living room. After recruiting multi-instrumentalist Mitch “Wichita Falls” Palmer—a triple threat on banjo, steel and take-off electric guitar—and upright bass master John “Bacon Grease” Trahey, drums were dispensed with altogether, producing a rural rockin’ string band sound that shifts gears effortlessly from Deep South rockers to Bayou ballads to true-blue hillbilly swing.
Foreshadowing a star-crossed future, their first show took place in Oxford, Mississippi during September 2004, as a hurricane roared towards New Orleans, barely missing the City That Care Forgot. In between the bullet-dodging bookends of storm seasons 2004 and 2005, the Hearts plied their honky-tonk trade throughout the Gulf Coast and Mid-South, making fans of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, Black Oak Arkansas singer Jim Dandy and renegade record producer Kim Fowley, who envisioned a documentary about the band’s exploits entitled Gumbo Confidential. But not even Fowley—or Billy Wilder or Martin Scorsese for that matter—could envision the outcome of the docudrama brought about by the federal levee failures that came in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Come Back to Louisiana kicked off with Jay Chevalier’s 1963 “Come Back to Louisiana,” recently named the state’s official recovery song, but the Hearts’ opening theme since day one. Fittingly, it came to an end with the haunting “Trouble on the Road,” a tale of hurricane exile sparked by Chevalier and Trahey in those first dark days of uncertainty.
The Hearts tour kicks off on the 4th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina: the devastation wrought in the aftermath changed the lives of all residents of the Gulf Coast. Rather than look back to the post-hurricane dark days that produced their album, the Hearts are determined to spread their white hot brew of hillbilly jazz and rock n’ roll to music lovers everywhere, especially in bandleader Michael Hurtt’s adopted hometown of Detroit.
Michael Hurtt and his Haunted Hearts Play Detroit Shows
Saturday, September 5
Hamtramck Labor Day Festival w/ Jack Scott and the Big Barn Combo
4pm – Admission Free
http://hamtramckstar.com/index.php/hamtramck_labor_day_festival_details
Sunday, September 6
Cadieux Café w/ Buck Stevens and the Hi-Q’s
http://www.cadieuxcafe.com/music/
Monday, September 7th
Benefit for the Old Miami
w/ Hurtt’s The Party Stompers and Dale Beavers’ Amino Acids
12am - $5 per day (from 9/3-9/7)
www.myspace.com/oldmiami