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Brooklyn Cowboys Brooklyn Cowboys BiographyBack in the late sixties, the term "supergroup" started to be heard. It may have been overused at times, but there were certain "rock " bands -- Mike Bloomfield's and Jimi Hendrix's, among others -- whose members were in fact so accomplished that they actually did have more to offer than most. The Brooklyn Cowboys could bring about a resurrection of the term, because they truly are a supergroup.
The Cowboys include classic songwriter Walter Egan, who has also sung and played guitar or bass in many bands, from a surf group called the Malibooz to the jazz-rock ensemble Spirit; steel guitarist Buddy Cage, who replaced Jerry Garcia in the New Riders of the Purple Sage; bass player Jeff "Stick" Davis from the hit-making Amazing Rhythm Aces; Knoxville, Tennessee's Brian Waldschlager, who is remembered (not to say notorious) for his work with the bands 5 Bucks and Shinola, and Michael Webb, who, having worked with Stacey Earle, B.J. Thomas, and Allison Moorer, among others, is one of Nashville's top session and touring keyboardists.
Keeping the Cowboys' beat going and campfire burning is Brooklyn native son and resident Fredro Perry, percussionist and songwriter extraordinaire. In 1996, when Egan met Perry, their synergy resulted in the band as well as its name.
In the beginning the Cowboys were brought together by their mutual love for playing classic rock & roll and country music. Of their first CD, Doin' Time on Planet Earth, one critic said, "the band sounds as authentic as if they were born and raised on a back road in the South." They did sound that way, but they really weren't a band yet, and they knew it. Now they've been doing road gigs together for a year and a half, they really ARE a band, and they know that, too.
The first CD's songs were written, basically, by Egan or Perry, each working separately. 'Dodging Bullets' consists of four songs by Walter, four by Fredro, two by the two of them, three by Brian, and one enigmatic little ditty called "Waycross Stables," an evocation of Gram Parsons' lost Georgia boyhood, by Fredro, Walter, and Brian together. The Cowboys are a well-integrated unit now, and every track on Dodging Bullets reveals this.
As Brian puts it, "On our first record, it felt like we were a group of hired guns. We did not know each other very well. Now, we have a real appreciation for each other and we're now a "band" in the truest sense of the word. The writing and vision draws a definitive chalkline that connects the span of influences within the band while remaining true to the Cosmic American form."
An unforgettable fact about Walter Egan -- even more interesting than his having been at Georgetown University two years behind Bill Clinton -- is that Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris sang together for the very first time in Walter's kitchen. He also wrote "Hearts on Fire," which Gram and Emmylou perform so memorably on the album Grievous Angel. Egan's singing voice possesses a gentle quality rather like Parsons', as the track "Someone You Can Live With," a duet with Joy Lynn White, reveals.
"The O Brother, Where Art Thou? phenomenon waked people up to the value in tradition," Egan said. "The great thing Gram did in his day was take traditional models and transfuse them with the psychedelic music of the time. Dodging Bullets grows out of that process. That's what Americana music is about -- American forms and their descendants. That 's what the Brooklyn Cowboys are about."
With the release of their new CD "Doin' Time on Planet Earth", The Brooklyn Cowboys pick up the torch that Gram Parsons lit over 30 years ago.
Uniting elements of the best country-rock sounds of the 1960's with today's alt-country and Americana scenes, The Brooklyn Cowboys make music that is both familiar and refreshingly new, featuring melodic songs with cutting lyrics and a hard rockin' beat.
The band was born in 1996 when singer, writer and guitarist Walter Egan met writer and drummer Fredro Perry in that hotbed of roots and alt-country known as Brooklyn, New York. Egan (best known for his five solo albums, his mega-smash hit Magnet and Steel, as well as his song Hearts on Fire recorded by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris), was engaged by Perry to help him record some of his award-winning songs. The sessions went so well that the were soon rehearsing weekly to prepare material for public display. When Egan jokingly suggested they call themselves the Flatbush Cowboys Fredro shot back "No, The Brooklyn Cowboys!" Such is the stuff of which legends are made. Soon the Brooklyn Cowboys were making waves on the country rock circuit throughout the Northeast, with their newest member Buddy Cage, legendary pedal steel player from The New Riders of the Purple Sage. Their rise was short-circuited in the summer of '97 when Egan departed for Nashville, Tennessee.
But the sounds were too strong to be kept down. The Brooklyn Cowboys reformed in Music City with an expanded lineup of all-stars. On bass guitar: Supe Granda of the Ozark Mountain Daredevils; on acoustic rhythm guitar and vocals: the wonderful Joy Lynn White; on keyboards: Michael Webb, doing what he's done so well for the likes of Stacey Earle, Neil Coty and the Dead Set. The Cowboys were joined in the studio (incidentally the same one Roy Orbison used to record) by the consummate fiddle player Vassar Clements; hot picker from Merle Haggard, Redd Volkaert; and the stunning young vocalist from the 5 Bucks, Brian Waldschlager. On top of all this, the revered player and producer Al Perkins (Burrito Bros., Gram Parsons, Manassas) produced them.
As if this firepower wasn't enough, included on their debut disc is the last song of the patron saint of alt-country, Gram Parsons. It is a co-write between Parsons and Egan dating from the days just before Gram's death, and is called Carolina Calypso.
The Cowboys have already started the buzz in Nashville and will be taking their "Doin' Time Tour" on the road to your town soon. Either be there...or as the Brooklyn Cowboys say ... "Fugeddaboudit... y'all". |
