Mark Bilyeu - First One Free (2005)

Recorded just outside the little town of Monticello, Mississippi, these sessions gave the Big Smith guitarist/singer/songwriter cause to pick up the electric guitar and rock a little and a lot. Bilyeu had ample support in the way of the Delta+Appalchian guitar work of Mississippi native Cary Hudson, frontman of Blue Mountain, the band that rightly shares co-invention credit of the Alt-Country genre, Punk and Americana’s prodigal child. These two lead guitars converse and quarrel and party in and amongst Bilyeu’s lyrics, a texture reminiscent of Clapton and Allman, as they decorate a solid frame constructed by drummer Ted Gainey and bassist Bill Thomas - capable, confident, competent. They had fun, these musicians, forging friendships while learning what an ensemble half Ozarks and half Deep South might could possibly sound like, all the while keeping in view what brought them together, there in Monticello - always the songs.