Band Of Heathens

Hot Tuna, Band of Heathens, Broken Bells and Britney Spears

Get me, I’m back in the blogosphere. I’m looking to catch up in a big way over the next few weeks, but like Grandma always said, if you want to make God smile, tell him your plans. Let’s really give the Old Man a real laugh and see where we go this summer ... good stuff below, so dig in.

If Uncle Tupelo taught us anything, it was that two incredibly talented and hypercreative personalities will find it difficult to co-exist within the same band structure. Apparently, the principals of the Band of Heathens didn’t bother to learn that particular lesson, as their Austin quintet is that rarest of all musical entities; a band with three distinct frontmen. Since meeting at a mutual residency as solo acts on Austin’s fabled Sixth Street five years ago, Ed Jurdi, Colin Brooks and Gordy Quist, singers, songwriters and multi-instrumentalists to a man, have had no trouble conceding the spotlight to one another in the context of Band of Heathens’ classically inspired Americana hymns and anthems.

On their third full length, Top Hat Crown & the Clapmaster’s Son , the Heathens continue to channel the spirits of some of American music’s most powerful personalities; the swampy Rock gumbo of Tony Joe White (“Medicine Man,” “Enough”), the inclusively freewheeling embrace of the Band (“Should Have Known”), the funky Blues swing of Leon Russell (“The Other Broadway,” “Hurricane”), the heartland Rock ethic of Tom Petty (“Gravity”), the Folk/Blues/Jam jump-and-run of the Grateful Dead (“I Ain’t Running”) and the bayou translation of CSNY’s harmonic brilliance (“Gris Gris Satchel”). Along with the skilled touch of producer George Reiff (Chris Robinson, Courtyard Hounds, Ray Wylie Hubbard), the Band of Heathens have crafted Top Hat Crown , the new Hot Tuna album, is on one level something of a numbers game. It’s been 20 years since the last Tuna studio recording, 35 years since the band’s commercial/critical heyday and over 40 years since guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady first conceived Hot Tuna as an electric Blues side project from their psychedelic day jobs with Jefferson Airplane.