Old-Time Country’s Just Fine With the Boys of BR5-49

Nashville, Tenn., was all black hats, slick hair and slicker pop when members of BR5-49 started performing together at a downtown boot shop a couple of years ago.

At the time, the commercial prospects for old country songs by Moon Mullican and Ernest Tubb were just about zero.

“Ten, 15 years ago, if you’d tell people you’re into Hank Williams, you were looked down on,” says Don Herron, who plays steel guitar, mandolin, dobro, fiddle and acoustic guitar for the band.

At a time when surviving legends such as George Jones and Merle Haggard were having a tough time commercially, those who played decades-old tunes were looked upon as novelties--if they were looked upon at all.

Still, folks got wind of what BR5-49 was doing at Robert’s Western Wear. Lines formed around the block. Eventually, the store got rid of clothes to make more room for the crowds (although they kept selling the boots).

“Man, that was a blast,” Herron recalls, over the phone from Athens, Ga.

Without worrying about making it big, getting a record contract or fitting in, five guys who shared a fondness for old-time music began drawing crowds as diverse as their own musical backgrounds--from gospel to punk.

The gig had an odd start. The clothing store--on Nashville’s lower Broadway, down the block from the back door of the former Grand Ole Opry house, three doors from Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge--initially hired acoustic acts to stand in the window and draw in nighttime customers.

Gary Bennett, who grew up in the American Northwest, where he played in a country gospel band, was hired to sing solo there. He brought in a friend, Chuck Mead, who had played in punk bands in Lawrence, Kan. They traded songs and combined voices into old-time Delmore Brothers harmonies.

Mead knew drummer “Hawk” Shaw Wilson from his Kansas days; he in turn knew a stand-up bassist, “Smilin’ ” Jay McDowell, from the band Hellbilly, who brought a rockabilly bounce to the band. Herron rounded out the band with some fiddle and steel guitar.

Like the others, Herron had learned to love the music early in life and was astounded to find like-minded musicians.

“I played for square dances when I was a kid,” Herron says. “My folks were into it and had all the records, Kitty Wells and everybody.”

Plus, being raised in Virginia, he had an ear to the country on clear-channel WWVA from Wheeling, W. Va.

“It was really strange to meet people who knew who Ernest Tubb and Hank Williams, Ray Price and the Delmore Brothers were,” says Herron. “I thought: These are the kind of people I need to be around.”

The excitement of the boot store gigs was captured in an EP, “Live From Robert’s,” that preceded the band’s major label studio debut, “BR5-49” on Arista.

Soon, the band was playing places where boots were not the main thing sold.

BR5-49 went on the road, opening for everyone from Rose Maddox to the Black Crowes. And they started getting a big following of traditional country fans.

Contemporary country radio tends to scratch its head at its retro style--the group’s first single, a revival of Moon Mullican’s “Cherokee Boogie,” stalled in the Top 40. The group’s second single, “Even If It’s Wrong,” has just been released.

And programmers ought to be even more confused by the next single, an original ditty that tells of a punk fan turned hillbilly fan, “Little Ramona.”

“Some of them have played us, but some of them are a little nervous,” Herron says of radio stations.

But maybe it’s better to have a slow start, he says. “If we go in and expect to kick butt right away, maybe we’ll get up and go away just as fast. I’d rather have them say, there’s something, let’s watch it grow.”

Even without a Top 40 country hit yet, the band garnered a Grammy nomination last week for best country vocal group. “We never figured this at all. We all went down to Nashville because maybe we’d be able to play music we liked and make a living,” he says. “We never expected this.”