 It was the album that Nashville
and the music industry didn't quite know what to
do with. On October 17, 1989 twenty-five years
ago today , Mercury Records released the album
Pickin' On Nashville, the debut disc from The
Kentucky Headhunters.
The band originated in 1968 and was comprised of
Richard and Fred Young, along with cousins Greg
Martin and Anthony Kenney. They didn’t look
or sound like any other groups in the business,
they were more comfortable in t-shirts and jeans
and their sound was a hybrid of Country, Southern
Rock, and Blues.
Growing up in Edmonton, KY on a family farm, the
band had played together for over twenty years
prior to their big break. That time period
included a couple of brushes with the spotlight.
Under the name Itchy Brother (Richard Young
recalls the name came from a scraggly lion from
the cartoon Bongo Congo), the group were groomed
by Capricorn Records in the 1970s.
With a lineup that now included bass player and
vocalist Doug Phelps, and his brother, Ricky Lee,
the die was firmly cast for stardom. Having
created a buzz with their live appearances in the
Southern Kentucky area, as well as “The
Chitlin’ Show,” their popular radio
show at WLOC in Munfordville, by 1988, the
Headhunters were ready to take their sound
nationwide.
Richard Young remembers their showcase in
Nashville. As soon as I hit those first chords of
"Walk Softly on This Heart of Mine," it
looked like someone yelled ’There’s a
bomb in here!’ With the exception of the
bartender, waitress and a few friends, we cleared
Douglas Corner. One man was left standing Harold
Shedd, then president of Mercury Records. He took
one of our homemade albums and left. The next day
he called and said boys we may be cooking
hamburgers next year but I gotta try this.
Shedd’s gamble proved to be right on the
money. “Walk Softly On This Heart Of
Mine,” the Bill Monroe classic was released
as the first single, hitting the Billboard
Country Singles chart on September 30, 1989.
Radio didn’t know what hit them, as the
group watched the single move up the charts.
Though the single only made it to No. 25, Stan
Hitchcock at CMT was paying attention and the
video spread the music of the Kentucky
Headhunters around the nation like wildfire.
Pickin’ On Nashville included three more
singles, “Dumas Walker,” “Rock and
Roll Angel,” and their top-ten cover of Don
Gibson’s “Oh Lonesome Me.” When
the dust settled, the disc sold well over two
million copies, and was named as the 1990 Album
of the Year by the Country Music Association, not
bad when considering the group recorded the album
in three days for only $4500, an unheard of
amount of time and money then and now.
The success keeps coming for the Kentucky
Headhunters and never one to be pigeon-holed in
any one specific genre, the group continues to
tour and record. All in all, they have released
thirteen albums including their self-titled disc
this year. They also continue to play to packed
houses here in the United States and abroad.www.KentuckyHeadhunters.net
|
