#br5-49

Remember when we hung in the low places in 1979?

We used to think that it mattered to the man with the money

Where we spent our time

Well, I knew a little gal with a mohawk hairdo

And a chain around her neck

But you'd never recognize her if you saw her now

She done something that you'd never expect

She done traded in her Doc's for kicker boots

Safety-pinned tee shirts for Manuel Suits

Her hair's grown out and it's piled up high

She only shows her tattoos one at a time

She ain't ashamed of the way she was

She hears old Hank, she can't get enough

Her punk rock records are gathering dust

'Cos little Ramona's gone hillbilly nuts

Thrashin' dancin' still out there, the bodies piled up high

She used to mosh in pit with the best of them

You could see those elbows fly

Well now she's drinking Blue Ribbon and jitterbuggin'

To the honky-tonkin' beat

Get that line dance outta here man

Give her room to move her feet

You see her in thrift stores everywhere,

Hardly ever at a shopping mall

She acts just as tough as she always did

She just looks a little country, that's all

She's got Emmylou Patty Smity on a 90-minute cassette

'Cause where do you go after the end of the world

When you still ain't been there yet?

Little Ramona's gone hillbilly nuts

BR5-49  announced that the band has been nominated for a Grammy! Best Performance By A Country Group or Duo for “Little Ramona (Gone Hillbilly Nuts)” from the 2015 album, “Live At the Astrodome.” How cool is that!?

Beatlemania: “A term that originated during the 1960s to describe the intense fan frenzy directed toward British rock band The Beatles during the early years of their success.”

BR5-49mania certainly doesn’t have the ring to it that Beatlemania does, but that’s the only way to describe what took place in my childhood bedroom on a summer day in 1997.

I’d waited for what seemed like months for BMG Music to send my package in the mail. My brother had joined the music club earlier that summer and nothing would do till I received my 12 CDs for the price of one. 

When the day finally came, I ran from the mailbox to the kitchen and grabbed the first knife I came across. I carefully but hurriedly ripped the box open as if what I was holding in my hands was the biggest box under the tree on Christmas morning. I rifled through the CDs looking for the one with the simplistic cover — a white background with a rotary-dial telephone baring the glorious name, BR5-49. 

I ran up the stairs as fast as my short legs would take me, with the CD clutched tightly in one hand against my chest, my other arm covering it for added protection. I carefully laid the CD on my bed and ran into my brother’s room to swipe his CD player.

Once inside my bedroom I grabbed a hair clip and dug into the cellophane covering the album and ripped it open. 

I thought about Bro. Ronnie and his Sunday morning sermons when I closed the lid on the CD player. I thought about his words on secular music and dancing, but the steel guitar and the lyrics, “Sometimes you gotta do somethin’ even if it’s wrong” got under my skin.

I twirled, danced, shook, jumped on my bed, twisted and shouted “hey-ho-A-lina!” at the very top of my lungs.  

This was the coolest thing I’d ever heard. BR5-49, I decided, would always be my favorite band.

Within a few weeks of going back to school that fall, my notebooks were covered in hearts with BR5-49 written in block letters in the middle of them. 

When the first show and tell rolled around, dressed in my brother’s hand-me-down flannel shirt tucked into rolled up jeans, I proudly shoved my beloved CD into my classmates’ faces and explained how this was the greatest album ever by the greatest band ever.

In music class on Fridays, when it was my turn to play a song of my choice, I remember a few of my classmates sticking the tips of their fingers into their ears and making disgusted sounds when Ms. Shelton turned on BR’s “Little Ramona (Gone Hillbilly Nuts).” 

During the dawn of the boy band craze of the ‘90s, I knew that despite what my classmates were telling me, that Chuck, Gary, Jay, Don and Hawk could really play and sing. And I was certain within my heart of hearts that Chuck Mead was a lot cuter than Justin Timberlake. 

***

To this day when I put on a BR5-49 album, the excitement I felt as a little kid is still there. It was all I could think of Thursday night while watching the original lineup on Music City Roots. And you can be sure that I wasn’t sitting still.

I made it through the remainder of my school years with pictures of BR hanging in my locker every year and waiting for the bus with their albums blaring through my headphones. I watched and listened as my peers went through a variety of musical phases. The music that sounded so good to them one day was outdated and uncool the next. 

As for good country music, I say it’s timeless. I might not have been around in the late ‘40s, but I know that when you put on a Hank Williams record in 2014, it sounds just as good as it did in 1948. And I know for certain that BR5-49 sounded just as good the other night as they did 17 years ago. Hillbilly Beatnik Music will never go out of style. 

Americanafest 2014 – Schedule Announced

  The Avett Brothers will headline Americanafest 2014 at

Riverfront Park in Nashville, TN on Saturday, September 20.

More artists added to already packed lineup bringing total festival showcases to 175+

Schedule of Performances Released

  New Additions Include:  Aaron Lee Tasjan, BR5-49, Holly Williams, Joe Fletcher & the Wrong Reasons, Luther Dickinson, Michaela Anne, Paul Burch, Sharde…