Editor’s Word: All reporting and images are from Saving Nation Music contributor Jason W. Ashcraft except in any other case famous.
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To the unknowing thoughts, The Kentucky Headhunters identify itself would possibly conjure up a barely unfavorable stereotype of some harmful backwoods fugitives who would behead outsiders. Nonetheless, the fact is the exact opposite.
The Kentucky Headhunters is the chosen identify for one of many Bluegrass State’s most humble, beloved and celebrated nation, blues and southern rock household bands of all time. They proudly hail from the small farm city of Edmonton, Kentucky, and from a state that’s undoubtedly wealthy in its contributions of a few of the best songwriters and recording artists on the worldwide stage.
the names already. Invoice. Loretta. John. Dwight. Ricky. Patty. Keith. Tyler. Chris. Sturgill. Shall I preserve going? Now add The Kentucky Headhunters to that listing in your thoughts from at the present time ahead.
The core basis of the Headhunters is brothers Richard and Fred Younger, cousin Greg Martin, and pal Doug Phelps. Richard and Fred first started taking part in music collectively in 1967 on their farm.
On a lonely nation highway outdoors of Edmonton exists what is just identified worldwide and among the many Younger household because the “Follow Home.” It’s is nothing greater than a dilapidated home, nevertheless it’s precisely what it appears like, surrounded by plush vegetation and cow pastures, and the within partitions are lined in images with the band’s historical past and people they collaborated with over time.
It’s the inventive area the place many years price of the Younger Brothers household bands, together with Black Stone Cherry, have come collectively since 1968 to hone their sound, discover themselves as musicians, and write their songs, all in the course of nowhere, Kentucky.
“We’ve all the time been thinking about rock music, even once we had been youngsters earlier than we even began taking part in,” Fred Younger remembers. “Our cousin Anthony Kenney additionally performed, and us three began as a band in 1967 referred to as Truce.”
The Younger brother’s Truce band in 1968 would evolve into Itchy Brother after one other cousin, Greg Martin, moved from his hometown of Louisville to Edmonton, to hitch the band. They started performing primarily in Edmonton and Glasgow, together with regionally round Kentucky, and all through the south and Midwest. Round that point, Greg Martin was additionally performing within the Younger’s household band whereas additionally balancing a touring profession with Curb Data artist Ronnie McDowell.
“The primary evening, [Greg Martin] got here to remain all evening with us, and we jammed out and every little thing,” Fred remembers. “He introduced NRBQ’s first album, and ‘Disraeli Gears’ by Cream. In order that’s the sort of stuff we had been listening to.”
Nonetheless, it wasn’t till 1986 when The Kentucky Headhunters namesake was first established. The Younger brothers, together with cousin Greg Martin recruited Doug Phelps to make up the core of the band as we all know it as we speak. Doug’s brother Ricky Lee Phelps joined the band briefly as effectively.
Over time, The Headhunters have constructed their musical fame and methodologies by doing issues their very own manner, and never bowing down to straightforward trade norms, formulation for achievement, and as a substitute remaining true to their rock and blues musical roots all through their longstanding careers.
But regardless of doing issues their very own manner, The Headhunters did discover mainstream success with their landmark 1989 album Pickin’ On Nashville, recorded at Sound Store in Nashville and launched by Mercury Data after being signed by President Harold Shedd.
The album would thrust the band from the Kentucky underground and into the mainstream. Catchy, hook-laden songs which style hopped between nation, blues and southern rock made up the album, main with their self-written feel-good anthem “Dumas Walker.” Intelligent renditions of Invoice Monroe’s “Stroll Softly On This Coronary heart Of Mine,” and Don Gibson’s “Oh Lonesome Me” propelled the album and produced a number of Prime 40 placements on Billboard’s Sizzling Nation Songs chart together with a Prime 10.
The album additionally achieved RIAA licensed Double-Platinum standing, and landed the band their first GRAMMY Award in 1991 for Greatest Nation Efficiency by Duo or Group with Vocal. They’d additionally take residence award brass for the ACM’s Prime New Vocal Group in 1990, and was the CMA’s winner for Vocal Group of the 12 months in 1990 and 1991, and Album of the 12 months in 1990. Undoubtedly, this humble little Kentucky nation rock band had arrived quick and livid onto the worldwide stage.
The band’s second Mercury Data imprint launch of Electrical Barnyard in 1992 didn’t obtain the industrial success of Pickin’ On Nashville, however songs like “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” “With Physique and Soul,” and covers of Waylon Jennings’ “Solely Daddy That’ll Stroll The Line,” and Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit In The Sky,” gave followers extra of the fun-loving musical attraction that made them family names simply two years earlier than. The album did earn a RIAA Gold certification, peaked at #3 on Billboard’s Prime Nation Albums chart and earned them a second consecutive CMA award for Vocal Group of the 12 months.
The Headhunters launched 1993’s Rave On album with the introduction of Mark S. Orr and cousin Anthony Kenney taking the lead on vocals. The album didn’t fare in addition to their earlier two because the band continued to evolve and develop as recording artists. Singer and bassist Doug Phelps and guitarist Richard Younger have continued to entrance the band into the fashionable period, and collectively they’ve launched 13 studio albums since 1989, in addition to three reside albums.
Because the early 2000’s, Richard Younger has additionally had his fingers within the success of different artists by means of administration, most notably his son John Fred Younger’s massively standard southern onerous rock band Black Stone Cherry. Richard additionally co-wrote a number of of Black Stone Cherry’s first few songs on their first two albums.
With Black Stone Cherry rising into its personal contained worldwide musical power, he’s extra lately found and managed The Georgia Thunderbolts, one other promising southern rock band nonetheless to start with of their profession as musicians. Richard additionally manages the property of Rock Corridor of Famer Johnnie Johnson who was Chuck Berry’s Pianist, and with whom the Headhunters had recorded albums with over time, together with their 1993 album, That’ll Work and 2015’s Meet Me In Bluesland.
In 2013 the Headhunters had been inducted into the Kentucky Music Corridor of Fame, an honor they particularly cherish as a result of they had been being inducted into the identical class as two of their different in-state musical heroes and influences, Exile and Jackie Deshannon.
In 2021, they launched their thirteenth studio album That’s A Truth Jack, which contained songs written nearly totally by The Headhunters, and recorded at Barrick Studios in Glasgow, Kentucky. One track, “How May I” was co-written between Richard Younger and Black Stone Cherry, marking the primary recorded collaboration between Richard and his son John Fred and his bandmates for a Kentucky Headhunters report.
The Headhunters had additionally been ready within the wings for greater than 30 years to obtain their invitation to carry out on the Grand Ole’ Opry stage, which lastly occurred on Dec 04, 2021. Within the early ’90s when the Headhunters launched their debut album, Pickin’ on Nashville, Invoice Monroe approached Roy Acuff about having the group carry out on the Opry stage.
Recalling how Invoice Monroe had approached Roy Acuff in 1989 about having the Headhunters carry out on the Opry, Richard stated “And Roy stated, ‘effectively, they’re in all probability good boys and would do a fantastic job. However let’s go get them some garments and get them a haircut earlier than we do it.’ Properly, clearly, that was the top of that dialog. So, all these years handed from 1989 to 2021. And so they lastly requested us to be on it once more.”
“I need to say The Kentucky Headhunters needed to take a deep breath, twice, when our publicist Don Murry Grubbs referred to as to say we had been requested to be on the Grand Ole Opry stage for the primary time,” Richard remembered.
Now, the Kentucky Headhunters are looking forward to their upcoming efficiency within the thirty second annual Grasp Musicians Competition, going down July 11-12 in Somerset, Kentucky. They’ll be headlining together with Jamey Johnson and a slew of each seasoned and up-and-comers artists like Buffalo Wabs and the Value Hill Hustle, Hunter Flynn, The Creekers, Cody Lee Meece, amongst others.
Grasp Musicians Competition has a longtime monitor report of bringing a few of music’s masters to its levels over time. And it all the time retains its deal with giving artists hailing from the Bluegrass State a spot on their levels. It’s performed host to the likes of John Prine, Willie Nelson, Jason Isbell, Steve Earle, Nitty Gritty Dust Band, Billy Strings, WYNONNA, Dwight Yoakam, Previous Crow Drugs Present, Nappy Roots, amongst a slew of different established and up-and-coming singer-songwriters and recording artists of all musical genres.
Independently operated and ran by a non-profit board led by Government Director Tiffany Finley, the pageant grounds are nestled inside the campus of a small group school tucked away within the coronary heart of Southern Kentucky’s Cumberland Valley within the foothills of Appalachia.
As fellow Kentucky author and journalist Hunter S. Thompson as soon as wrote, “Purchase the ticket, take the experience.”
