Game Plan

Fix me up a double shot
Two barrels of espresso, hot
Pour it down my throat at dawn
And drag my ass out on the lawn
Stick a shovel in my hand
I swear I'll till up half the land

Mack the Nerd

Mack the Nerd was a man of few words,
his wife was a woman of plenty.
Wherever they went he would nod his assent,
and speak two or three words to her twenty.

-Jesse

Elizabeth Cook

"El Camino" my new favorite song:


we met these folks at the Albino Skunk Bluegrass Festival in SC last weekend, but actually we heard the song on the radio a month or two ago, and just didn't know who did it.
-Jesse

Sam Chatmon

No commentary needed. As Doc would say, "we turn now to the blues."
-Jesse

Doc Watson

I can't believe I never saw this before. That's all I have to say. That and "how the @#!& does he do this?"

-Jesse

Americanarama

We just got back from a great trip to Nashville, where we performed at the Americana Music Association Conference. We were honored to play a set at the World Famous Station Inn. I just found a Youtube video from our set (Thanks, HomerMFishbulb!).



And here are some other fabulous artists we met down in Music City.

Our soul sister, Nora Jane Struthers. She can write 'em and wail 'em:



A bunch of Nashville legends decided to make a band. They call themselves 18 South and they do it right. We'll be playing with them at the Albino Skunk Bluegrass Festival in October:



British-American-Scottish-Canadian bluegrass band, the Coal Porters:



Stalwart of Nashville's Lower Broadway music scene, Paul Burch:




Yeeee haw!

-Emily

Ross's new song!

I just stumbled across a You Tube video from our show in Chicago last month. It's the first ever video of Ross's new song, The Heart of My Mind. The song is gorgeous, as is Zara's singing.

Enjoy!



-Emily

Frank Wakefield

Frank Wakefield is at least as crazy as he looks. And he looks pretty crazy. He's also largely responsible for my all-time-favorite bluegrass album "Red Allen with Frank Wakefield and the Kentuckians."

The first (and only) time I met him I spoke to him for 20 minutes, during which time he "backed talkwards" consistently without clarification. Then he handed me his nearly priceless Lloyd Loar mandolin (the one he famously baked in an oven and painted white) and disappeared for half an hour while he got changed for the show.

He has almost 200 videos on his youtube channel. I settled on this one because it happens to be the most recent. Check out some others for more pithy observations like "This microphone sounds more like it does than it did a while ago" and (to the audience) "This was fun, I hope you get invited back."
-Jesse

Some gems we've met this year...

This has been a whirlwind year for the Sweetback Sisters. We've traveled to west to California, Colorado, Michigan and south to Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina. We've eaten in a lot of gas stations, slept on a lot of couches, and met a lot of amazing musicians along the way. Here's a sampling of music from a few of the folks we have encountered so far in 2010. Enjoy!

We met Eddie Stubbs (in Nashville) and David McLaughlin (in West Virginia) of the Johnson Mountain Boys:



We met Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum in California:



We chilled with the Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars at the Green River Festival in Greenfield, MA. And then they proceeded to kick some serious ass on stage:



We spent a lot of time with various members of Lake Street Dive, especially our lovely sister Bridget Kearney:



We didn't actually meet him, but Robert Plant did make a brief appearance at our Music City Roots show in Nashville. Someone told us that she overheard him saying he liked us. But he might have been talking about the biscuits...:



OK. That's just a start. More awesome videos to come.

-Emily

Jesse Polka

This is totally going into the Sweetback Sisters' repertoire. You have to watch both videos. They really are the same tune!

Exhibit A:



Exhibit B:


-Emily

New River Train

After perusing dozens of youtube videos of various individuals performing "New River Train" I pronounce this guy the winner:



Andy Griffith gets an honorable mention:



Tony, Doc, Norman, et al... better luck next time.

Why am I watching hours worth of videos of this song? I'm glad you asked. I spent the week in Eggleston, VA recording an album at JoeBass's house, which is right next to the New River and its associated train. We occasionally had to wait for it to pass by before starting a take. I didn't record this song, but I did record two others that mention the New River Train (aka, the C&O Railway.)

-Jesse

Censorship

I wrote an awesome poem today,
At least I saw it that-a-way.

My Girlfriend thought it was too rude,
The subject matter base and crude.

It was coarse, I will concede,
Perhaps a bit too much to read,

For persons of a tender age,
So you won't find it on this page,

My private thoughts, however witty,
Concerning the town of Johnson City.

-Jesse

High Plains Drifters

Colorado's flat and dry, with mountains in the western sky.
Kansas is just flat and hot with no tall features I can spot.
Next we cross into Missouri. After that it all gets blurry.
Iowa? Then Illinois? That whole Midwestern ball of joy.

-Jesse

the Primitive Quartet

For a moment I thought these guys had traveled back in time 30 years and stolen our arrangement of stormy waters, but it turns out it's a different song.

Great name too. I'm assuming they're Primitive Baptists, but maybe they 're just really old school guys?
-Jesse

Very Exciting News!

We just spent a couple of days in Philly cutting a single at Turtle Studios. Signature Sounds says they'll press it on 7" vinyl when it's done, (do we have the coolest record label or what?) but you 21st century types can also download it from the internets.

Just give us a few days to finish mixing and mastering, and then a month or so to get it pressed.

Let's see... oh yeah, the songs:
1)Be Back Home Tonight
2)I'll Show You Things You've Never Known

By the way I can't recommend Turtle highly enough, they did a great job, and it also happens to be Ross's main stomping ground, so if you need scorching electric guitar on your record (and trust me, you do) it won't be far away.

-Jesse