I started listening to Texas Music in my teenage years as I grew up in Wisconsin, and I became infatuated with the south and all of it’s culture and music. This band is one of my core influences when it comes to who I am, and why I began this website. There were many bands from many different genres and scenes that composed the core of my existence as a music fan, and as a writer.
For many years as a teenager I stayed in my room and spun records while reading the sleeves, and reading books on music and the people that made it happen. I studied it all from Mr. Ernest Tubb to Mr. Rusty Weir, and I studied many different genres from all over America, Mowtown, Memphis, the Louisiana Hayride and many more.
Later on in life I began to study what would become a national phenomenon called “Red Dirt”. I cannot tell you how many books I have read about this subject and this type of music, or how many countless hours of videos I have watched on these bands. I moved to the Nashville area around 1996, and in 1999 I began finding many of these bands when the internet came around.
When I went through my divorce in 2006 I started to escape my problems by delving into underground music like Roots Music and Red Dirt. At that time there weren’t many but Reckless Kelly was indeed one of them. I have about 100 albums that heavily influenced me as a man, and “Wicked Twisted Road” was one of my Top 20, and one of the reasons why I like this album so much. The songs “Broken Heart”, “Motel Cowboy Show” and the title track of that album are also on this album here. Now remember these songs were recorded way before they were released on the albums I speak of…
In 2003 they released an album called “Under The Table And Above The Sun”, which boasted three of the songs on this album called “Snow Fall” and “Sound Of Free”, and another called “Willamina”.
Back when these songs were originally recorded, there was only two of the Braun Brothers and their drummer Mr. Jay Nazz, and they only had two albums in their catalog. They went into an Austin Texas recording studio to make this album here, and as they set up shop, they learned of the terrorist attacks. They ultimately decided to continue the session, and record these demos but they didn’t come into fruition together on the original album until now.
Their friend and former guitarist Mr. Dave Abeyta helped bring this album into the forefront, which features four songs previously unreleased until now. Those four songs being “Me And My Baby”, “I Hate That Guy”, “Million Reasons” and “By The End Of The Night”. To be honest, those four songs really didn’t do as much for me as the other songs that ended up on previous albums, but as a fan overall, it still was exciting to hold in my hands and hear them.
Here is the press release:
20 years ago, on September 11th, 2001, Reckless Kelly was scheduled to record at Arlyn Studios in Austin, TX. When we woke up that morning, we had no idea how the day would end, but we decided to keep our session on the books. The band recorded 16 songs, in-between hours spent glued to the television. Most of the songs would eventually be re-recorded and find their way to an album or two, but the original demos were never released and sat untouched for 20 years, including four tracks never previously released
This year, with the help of our old friend and bandmate, David Abeyta, we’ve dusted them off, digitized them, and we’ll be releasing the entire session on 9/10/21, in honor and remembrance of the lives lost that day. All songs are sequenced in the exact order they were recorded.
