Blue Mother Tupelo: BMT Reviews

Blue Mother Tupelo - Heaven & Earth

Some artists just cannot be kept down – they are irrepressible. Their years of traveling the roads of the South, playing anywhere they can and writing and performing some of the best tunes that two people can possibly put together eventually will show even the best critics and record labels that they are truly a force to be reckoned with. So it is with Blue Mother Tupelo, the husband and wife team of Ricky & Micol Davis of Hendersonville, TN. With this CD, self-produced and laden with a couple of friends, they have made one of the finest CDs I have heard this year. For the blues fans out there—you will take the Blues wherever you find it and realize that this music is true and, also, a product of the Southern fried tradition.

While not a Blues album per se, you just can’t get away from the fact that here are some great songs of love, faith, friendship, wandering and longing and beauty. From the mountains of Appalachia to Biloxi, from Clarksdale and Otha Turner’s farm to Tupelo and then to the hills and mountains of Tennessee this work is in the true American songwriting tradition.

These nice people have been together since meeting in Knoxville, Temmessee as college students. Their devotion to each other and to their musical life is so obvious in their songs; this CD proves you CAN DO IT YOURSELF. Produced, engineered and mixed in their home studio, they are true indie singer-songwriters that have put forth a thing of beauty. I predict some great things for Blue Mother Tupelo. Pick up the CD and Do Not miss them when they perform live.

(C) 2009, Gary W. Miller
BluesSource.com

(Available from their website – www.bluemothertupelo.com)
Or Contact me direct at bluessource. We carry it in stock

Sunset Music Series begins June 12

Townsend, TN – Great Smoky Mountain Heritage Center’s Sunset Music Series, now in it’s fourth year, will premier on Friday, June 12. This year’s Sunset Music Series will have seven Friday concerts in the summer and three in the fall to be announced. All the concerts begin at 7:00 pm and are presented in the Heritage Center’s outdoor amphitheater which has new sound and lighting systems, an expanded stage, and a roof over the entire amphitheater so that concerts may be presented rain or shine.

Four of the seven concerts this summer will feature artists making their Sunset Music Series debuts. The Series premiers on June 12 with a performance by the heralded Boston-based stringband, Hokum’s Heroes featuring vocalist Samoa Wilson. The other new bands are the John Myers Band and Y’uns from Knoxville, and three-time national guitar champion, Steve Kaufman, from Maryville, concludes the summer concerts on August 21.


Another national touring act based in Maryville, Sparky & Rhonda Rucker, will be making their second appearance at the Heritage Center after making their debut at last year’s Sunset Music Series premier. Also back by popular demand are Blue Mother Tupelo, formerly from Knoxville and now based in Hendersonville, near Nashville, and Wild Blue Yonder, back for their fourth appearance and the only band to perform every year since the Sunset Music Series began.

Admission to each concert is $4.00 per person at the door, with Heritage Center members admitted free. Tickets may be purchased at the door. For further information, call the Center at 865-448-0044.

Great Smoky Mountain Heritage Center

SUNSET MUSIC SERIES 2009

Friday, June 12 Hokum’s Heroes
String-band music with elements of swing, folk and blues

Friday, June 19 Blue Mother Tupelo
Blues-based Americana and Southern Soul

Friday, July 3 Sparky & Rhonda Rucker
Toe-tapping songs and stories from American folklore

Friday, July 24 John Myers Band
Soul, gospel and country

Friday, July 31 Wild Blue Yonder
Bluegrass-based Americana

Friday, August 14 Y’uns
Jug-band music with elements of country, swing and blues

Friday, August 21 Steve Kaufman
Three-time national guitar champion

Down south jukin': Blue Mother Tupelo stretches for the sky and the soil on new album
By Steve Wildsmith


Listening to Heaven and Earth, the new CD by Blue Mother Tupelo, and it sounds as if the husband-and-wife team that makes up the band, Ricky and Micol Davis, were born in the wrong time.

With another listening, it also sounds like they may have been born with the wrong skin color. Leave it in steady rotation on your music player, and by the time you've scrutinized every note of all 15 tracks, and you'll be ready to swear on a stack of Bibles that there's no way ... just absolutely no way ... that a young white couple can muster up that much soul, that much passion, leastways not without striking a bargain with the devil.

Because Heaven and Earth sounds like it was made by two people who spend their days working under a hot sun, callused hands driving a mule team or swinging a hoe, and spend their nights in a ramshackle juke joint barely visible through hanging moss, a place where smoke and stale beer and pine sweat from untreated boards hang thick while the two beat and wail and share their joy and sorrow and love and anger with whomever will listen.

"It's a spiritual kind of thing when we're on stage," Ricky told The Daily Times this week. "We're just in the moment, and you know you're making good music when you're out of your own body and just kind of grooving with it. It's a tough place to get to, but fortunately we've been able to figure out a way to make it happen. It's not a conscious thing, and sometimes it's hard reaching that plateau if the sound quality isn't right.

"I think a lot of times folks in the audience don't understand the sound engineering aspect of things, because the artist is hearing something different than what the audience is hearing. And if the artist is hearing things good, then we're off in our own little world, and we want everybody to come join us for a while."

Tonight, Ricky and Micol Davis invite their many Blount County fans for the unveiling of Heaven & Earth. It's been a long-time coming -- more than half-a-decade since the group's last studio album, Delta Low, Mountain High, was released -- and when it came time to deliver a new album, Blount County seemed like the best place for the two to do it.

"We probably spent a year talking with fans and friends and family, hashing out where the perfect place would be to have our CD release party, and The Shed (at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson, where the group performs tonight) just felt like the right place," Ricky Davis said. "It's a fantastic music venue, it's outdoors but it's protected by the covering and it's family friendly. Knoxville has a lot of good venues, but the folks in Blount County and Maryville have been good to us, and 'The Shed' seems like a really good place for music in general. They just love music, and we love music lovers."

A love of music is what brought the two together, years ago when they first met in Knoxville's Old City. Both are East Tennessee natives -- Ricky graduated from Doyle and Micol went to Clinton -- and it was a fateful encounter that night. Ricky asked Micol out, and the two ended up dating, playing music together and eventually marrying. They moved to Nashville more than a decade ago to further their music career, and when they released Delta Low, Mountain High in 2001, they didn't anticipate that their burgeoning career would keep them so busy that a follow-up would take eight years.

"There were songs that we had started out with back in 2004 and 2005, and over the years since then, both of us had written other songs that we felt like had to go on there, too," Micol said. "We would come in off the road and take a day or two to settle in and record, and that's a hard thing to do. We just took it day by day, just come in off the road and work on it when we could. It's an adventure, and you've got to keep working at it all the time."

For Heaven and Earth, the two considered renting studio time, as they did for "Delta Low," but the more they discussed it, the more sense it made to do it themselves. They purchased recording equipment, rented what few instruments they didn't already own and set out to make an album.

"I thought, heck, I can play most of the things I want on this record, so doing it like this just felt easier to play the music the way I felt like it needed to be played," Ricky said.

The end result is like a meal of homegrown vegetables -- technically, they're the same as the stuff you've eaten before that's come from a grocery store, but there's something so much fresher, so much more authentic, about ingesting something that's been lovingly cared for and hand-crafted. It's a slurry of sound from a grab-bag of Southern soil -- rich silt from the Mississippi Delta ... thick loam from the cotton fields of north Alabama ... wet peat from Louisiana ... red clay mud from East Tennessee. It's earthy and gritty and celebratory -- it's the sound of two people who aren't afraid to get that dirt beneath their nails, who recognize that callused hands and muddy jeans are hallmarks of a hard-working man or woman to be worn with pride.

"That's what we wanted to come through," Ricky said. "I've listened to this record probably 10 trillion times between laying my parts down and producing it to sitting down with the mastering guy. It's kind of like having a kid in a way -- you hope you raise them right, but at some point you've got to let them out to the world. That's the way it feels with a record -- you've just got to put it out and hope it does well."

"To me, this record feels like it's about accepting and loving humanity, about being OK with life's ups and downs and all of our flaws," Micol added. "That's the earth part, and the heaven part -- that's love, pulling us all through this together. It's the hanging in there with somebody, about not letting go. You can be distracted by so much in life, but when it boils down to it, it's about hanging onto what you believe in."

soulful connection
BLUE MOTHER TUPELO
By Mary Margaret Miller


The couple that plays together stays together.

At least that's true for Ricky and Micol Davis, the husband and wife duo known as Blue Mother Tupelo. Recognized for their genuine demeanor and vivid performances, Blue Mother Tupelo represents two aspects of American life that have become a rarity in popular culture: both a band and a marriage that aren't breaking up.

So what's Blue Mother Tupelo's secret for a lasting relationship both on stage and off? The answer lies in the music, which pulls in listeners like a warm hug from a new friend. In the early years, their blues-inspired repertoire kept audiences on their feet, dancing in reckless abandon. Micol wailing on the tambourine and Ricky igniting the dobro, put excitement and soul back into a lackluster live music scene suffering from the '90s grunge era.

Their 1997 debut album My Side Of The Road quickly gained popularity, and the couple left their Knoxville home and headed for a bright future in Nashville. Among fellow musicians and friends, the couple grew as songwriters and musicians, expanding their range and harkening back to their musical roots.

"Ricky has always played music," says Micol, who was raised in church choirs as a preacher's daughter. "He grew up in a family of guitar pickers and his dad and uncles had a band. For me, playing music was something I knew was a big part of me, but it seemed like a dream; it seemed like a life that couldn't happen to a regular gal."

But Micol's dreams have come true, and in the midst, Blue Mother Tupelo has shared the stage with the likes of Willie Nelson, The Drive-By Truckers, Pinetop Perkins, Lyle Lovett and the North Mississippi All-Stars. Their music has been classified as blues, folks Americana, gospel and "swampadelic," but Blue Mother Tupelo prefers to leave the genre up for interpretation.

"It all comes from the soul," says Ricky. "One magazine said that we are 'a working man's band.' I took that as a compliment because I am a working man, I just make music for a living. I've had other jobs before, but we are working class people and I think that is why people connect to our music."

And connect they do. Blue Mother Tupelo's fan base is almost as passionate as the band's performances. Their 2001 album, Delta Low-Mountain High harvested strong bonds between the fans and music, and folks devotedly turn out to see their favorite songs performed live by Micol and Ricky. If you happen to catch Blue Mother Tupelo at one of their summer 2009 performances in Mississippi, you'll most likely find yourself sharing a table with some followers from North Carolina, Texas, Georgia or Tennessee.

"We feel a connection with the folks that come to hear us," says Micol. "Ricky and I are pretty transparent in that we are honest and open, and we really care about people. It means a lot for us to share our music with the people. We can get down and boogie, but we like to get personal, too."

In addition to their everyday admiration, fans are especially excited about the release of Heaven & Earth, Blue Mother tupelo's 2009 album. Folks are eager to hear the new tunes 9and a few cherished traditionals), and to once again experience the band's soulful energy and their sweet sincere affection for the music. Guest performances by Hattiesburg-based violinist Molly thomas [who is also now a Nashville resident] and North Mississippi fife player Sharde Thomas are also featured on the album.dm

Heaven & Earth will be available on the band's website www.bluemothertupelo.com , at their live shows or on Amazon.com and iTunes in mid-May.

Blue Mother Tupelo CD Release Reach Those Pearly Gaters
By Jewly Hight


Blue Mother Tupelo take their sweet time between albums. The husband-and-wife duo of Ricky and Micol Davis last released a full-length eight years ago, then commenced playing every dive bar and barbecue joint in Tennessee and Mississippi. But when they finally recorded the new album Heaven and Earth, they threw in a little of everything: bare-bones country-blues, hypnotic Mississippi Hill Country jams, starry-eyed duets, psychedelic guitar trips, a cappella spirituals, a chorus of singing kids—even the late Otha Turner. The album title could just as easily refer to BMT’s simpler live shows. They need only their voices—Ricky the soulful everyman, Micol the cayenne-and-sugar belter—his swampy guitar playing, her sanctified tambourine rattling and occasionally a drummer to provide a joyous, earthy sound.

Blue Mother Tupelo Celebrates a New Album and Talks Music
By Matthew Everett


Blue Mother Tupelo’s practically a local band—they formed in Knoxville and return from Nashville regularly—so it’s appropriate that they’re celebrating the release of their new album, Heaven & Earth, with a couple of Knoxville shows. The husband-and-wife duo check in with what they’ve been listening to lately.

RICKY:
Robbie Robertson, Contact From the Underworld of Redboy (Capitol, 1998)
This is a beautiful album. I love the grooves, the stories, Robbie and the American Indians singing on each track.

The Allman Brothers Band, The Fillmore Concerts (Island/Mercury, 1992)
The Fillmore Concerts is the entire Live at the Fillmore East album (which I and many others consider to be the best live rock ’n’ roll album of all time) and extra tracks from the Allman Brothers’ Fillmore concerts. I’ve been listening to Live at the Fillmore East all of my life and I keep coming back to be entertained and enlightened by it again and again.

Son House, Father of the Delta Blues (Sony, 1992)
A former preacher turned bluesman, Son House had Jesus and his demons following at his heels at every turn—something we can all relate to, right? He is just pure beautiful human spirit pouring out through one solitary man’s soul, voice, and hands.

MICOL:
Delaney & Bonnie, Motel Shot (Atco, 1971)
Beautiful and simple, with Leon Russell on a slightly out-of-tune piano and Bramlett friends and family joining in like it’s a Wednesday night after-church singin’.

Johnny Jenkins, Ton-Ton Macoute! (Atco/Capricorn, 1970)
My favorite CD to pop in the boom box when I’m hangin’ on the lake in the hot sun, all gritty and greasy.

The nurturing kind: Blue Mother Tupelo isn't giving up on its baby
By Wayne Bledsoe


... Ricky and Micol Davis, the long-standing core of bluesy rock act Blue Mother Tupelo ...

"We don't have children, so music is our baby," says Ricky in a call from the couple's Nashville home. "I guess some people throw up their hands and give up on their children, but I would never do that. I think I was put here to make music."

Music certainly seems to be part of the glue that keeps the couple together. Blue Mother Tupelo's new album, "Heaven & Earth," is harmonious and heartfelt. Music is what brought the couple together in the first place.

"I was playing the Old City one night when Micol came in," says Ricky. "We were friends from that night for a couple of years."

Micol joined Ricky's band Soulchaser on stage and sang a few songs, and the two became fast friends and musical collaborators.

Both say there was, and still is, nothing contrived about their music.

"I felt like we just sort of let the music just guide us," says Micol.

Both connected with music early.

Micol's father, a Baptist preacher, didn't approve of secular music, though he would sing Jimmy Reed blues songs as lullabies. The family settled in Clinton when Micol was [a teenager]. She later graduated from Clinton High School and earned a degree in music education from the University of Tennessee.

Ricky grew up in Knoxville. His father and other relatives performed in music groups that played at bars in the area.

"My parents said I was singing 'Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head' almost before I could even speak," he says.

Ricky graduated from Doyle High School and attended Middle Tennessee State University where he studied recording industry management.

It wasn't until Ricky and Micol had been married for a year that they decided to form Blue Mother Tupelo. As diehard fans of Van Morrison, Delaney and Bonnie, classic country, blues and rock, the two incorporated the sort of sounds that they both loved - music that was gritty and soulful.

In 1998, Blue Mother Tupelo moved to Nashville.

"I felt like we needed to be closer to a music-business center," says Ricky.

"But we really never thought we'd stay here this long," says Micol.

The move did give the act some opportunities that probably wouldn't have happened in Knoxville.

Blue Mother Tupelo was performing at a party in Nashville a few years ago where they met movie producer Katrina Holden Bronson.

"A couple of months later we got a call from her asking us to come to Chicago to record a song for a movie," says Ricky.

The film, "Daltry Calhoun," was not a commerical success, but the Davises did get to go to Hollywood to see its premiere at Mann's Chinese Theater. Blue Mother Tupelo are also featured in a jam on the album and in a special feature on the DVD.

The group will also contribute a song to an upcoming B-movie called "Sugar Boxx."

"It's a women-in-prison movie," says Ricky.

The two say another perk has been meeting their idols, including spending time with Delaney Bramlett before he died, watching legend Otha Turner dance to their music and telling them to "turn it up," and eating chicken and collard greens with bluesman and Robert Johnson contemporary Honeyboy Edwards.

The two say it would be nice to win GRAMMYs and have hit albums ...

..."We're not living like kings and queens, but we're making a living," says Ricky.

"I'd just like to make enough to take care of my mom," says Micol.

Clarksdale’s Sixth Annual Juke Joint Festival
By Deborah Cole


Clarksdale's Juke Joint Festival is in the planning stages and is coming along as planned, according to Roger Stolle, co-coordinator of the festival. The downtown event begins Saturday, April 18.

Family events will once again include the Monkeys Riding Dogs in addition to the Regions Bank Juke Joint Festival Parade. New to the attractions will be a Duck and Turkey call open to all wishing to try their skills.

Stolle named a sample list of groups and individuals who will be performing during the day including Honeyboy Edwards, Cadillac John, Bill Durham, BLUE MOTHER TUPELO, Reverend Peyton, and Terry Harmonica Bean. “I’m still working out the kinks for our daytime entertainment. We expect this to be one of our best festivals yet,” Stolle said.

“Our local restaurant fare will be spread throughout the downtown area so people will have the chance to sample our best. We decided to have our food vendors throughout downtown rather than putting them in one area,” Stolle continued.

Again, a $10 wristband will give festival goers access to all venues which will be serviced by three buses transporting participants.

Kick-off festival activities will begin with registration Saturday, April 18, at the Greyhound Bus Station for Wal-Mart’s Festival 5K Run. Pre-registration is $12 and $15 the day of the race.

Just a small listing of entertainment and activities include a live WROX remote, peddle power tractors, a Cellular South Children’s Train, a Petting Zoo, rock wall, and the Juke Joint Festival Pig Races.

Strut Your Mutt with dress-up pets will be sponsored by the Clarksdale Animal Shelter and Segways will be available for people to ride. Miss Del’s will host storytelling throughout the festival for children and adults.

For those interested in submitting their creative writing, a Festival Writing Contest on “Keeping the Blues Alive” can be entered either as an essay, a personal narrative, short story or poetry.

For additional information visit www.jukejointfestival.com. Information will be updated as events are finalized.

Rockin', Jammin' and Number Ones
Review by Krista

Blue Mother Tupelo opened the show and it was the first time I'd heard this duo. One word for you...amazing! It was a man (Ricky Davis) and woman (Micol Davis) singing music they classify as "Swampadelic Southern Soul Rock." That is a quite perfect way to explain it.

It was a perfect blend of voices, guitar and tambourine. Micol has this raspy, gritty, soulful voice that digs down to the depths of every song she attacks. Ricky complements that perfectly with a deep, meaningful harmonytastic voice. It is music that speaks to the soul.

I don't want to mention specific songs, because it is important you go listen to them. This music is so feeling-based, words alone will not get the message to you. Just take a sec and listen. This was a great discovery for me. I think you'll love it too. Right Brit?

Jack first met Micol and Ricky at an art show in Nashville. They were art themselves, performing a unique blend of Appalachian southern swamp blues. Blue Mother Tupelo’s writing and performing strikes home in a way that will leave you wondering where they have been all your life.

Blue Mother Tupelo
By Amy Schwartz, Senior Correspondent

Blue Mother Tupelo has a soulful richness that sometimes sounds as if literally created atop an Appalachian foothill or knee-deep in a bayou. Their fans call their sound “Swampadelic.” Micol Davis belts and soothes as she sings soft-yet-soulful and energetic ballads. Ricky Davis brings a southern twist to the vocals as the couple sings both together and apart on their tracks.

BLUE MOTHER TUPELO
By Ron Wynn


Since the mid-‘90s, the husband and wife team of guitarist/vocalist and dobro player Ricky Davis and pianist/percussionist/vocalist Micol Davis have comprised the core of the rock/blues/folk and country band Blue Mother Tupelo.

Initially one of the most popular units in East Tennessee and western North Carolina, their fame spread once they issued a debut CD in 1997 and relocated to Nashville a year later. Perhaps their most popular disc was the 2001 release Delta Low-Mountain High, and their rendition of “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” was featured in the film Daltry Calhoun a couple of years ago.

Blue Mother Tupelo is just one of performers featured in Monday night’s 8 off 8th show at the Mercy Lounge (9 p.m., One Cannery Row, no cover, 251-3020) along with Jen Foster, Alathea, Shake Go Home, Will Champlin, The Loft, Breen and Lorien.

Blue Mother Tupelo
By M.E.


It's been more than five years since Blue Mother Tupelo—the husband-and-wife team of Micol and Ricky Davis—left Knoxville for Nashville. But it's hard not to think of them as a Knoxville band, considering the countless nights in the late '90s and early '00s that they performed their down-and-dirty (and sometimes sweet) take on the country blues on local stages. Micol has a voice like honey, Ricky's a deft slide guitarist, and their songwriting puts it all together. (M.E.)
Blue Mother Tupelo • Saturday, Jan. 12, at 10 p.m. • Barley's

Sounding off about the South
By Joey Guerra


Blue Mother Tupelo knows how to have down-home good time

Hidden among the top-tier acts at this weekend's inaugural Big State Festival are a spate of intriguing gems. Blue Mother Tupelo is one such find. The husband-wife duo makes music that's swampy, Southern and even sentimental. We'll forgive them for living in Nashville.

BMT performs at 1 p.m. Sunday in College Station. Ricky and Micol spoke to Chronicle music writer Joey Guerra about food, fests and George Jones:

Q: Tell us about the inspirational effects of food — collard greens, catfish, hot sauce, pecan pie — which you list as influences.

Ricky: There's hardly anything as fulfilling to my taste buds, and to my soul, as a bowl of collard greens, slow-cooked, with plenty of ham in it. Shake on several dashes of hot-pepper vinegar and Louisiana hot sauce. With a piece of cornbread and a big mason jar full of sweet iced tea.

That's one of the many beautiful things about being Southern and living in the South — wonderful vittles.

Q: What are your favorite festival munchies?

Micol: Funnel cakes, cotton candy and caramel apples.

Ricky: The best festival munchies I've ever had would have to be when we performed at the Juke Joint Festival in Mississippi, where they were serving Cajun-spiced crawfish boiled with new potatoes and corn. Now that's some mighty fine festival food right yonder.

Q: Which Big State acts are on your must-see list?

Micol and Ricky: Leon Russell, Billy Joe Shaver, Los Lonely Boys, Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert, Willie Nelson, Drive-By Truckers, Tim McGraw.

Q: Lyle Lovett and Lynyrd Skynyrd are Saturday's dueling headliners. Who wins in your book?

Micol: No slight to the amazing Lyle, but most likely I'd be ending up at the Skynyrd stage, singing out in reckless abandon.

Q: Outdoor festivals are usually divided into two camps: front-stage standers or lawn-chair islanders. Where do you fall?

Micol: I'm definitely a front-stage stander. When it comes to the music, I'm there. (Ricky agrees.)

Q: Every couple has their song. What's yours?

Micol: George Jones' Walk Through This World With Me. Ain't that such a good song?

Ricky: At our request, my dad sang that song at our wedding. I've loved (it) from the first time I heard it, back in my single days, when one of my favorite pastimes was to pick up a quart of Budweiser and drive my old Ford truck through the backhills and backroads of east Tennessee listening to old George Jones, Van Morrison and Allman Brothers Band cassette tapes.

Q: OK, you're on the spot. Convince folks to come out early Sunday for your set.

Micol: We got the mojo that'll keep you goin' all day long. You won't hear anything like us, so you have no choice. Right after church, with your turkey leg and your lemonade. It'll be yummy.

Ricky: I hope folks do come out early. We're gonna be rompin', stompin' and boogeyin'. We guarantee to touch yer souls and get yer booties a-shakin'.

Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Blue Mother Tupelo to Join Pinetop at Hopson

Just prior to their upcoming performance at The Big State Festival in Bryan/College Station, Texas, with the likes of Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Leon Russell, Los Lonely Boys, Charlie Louvin and Lynyrd Skynyrd among others, Blue Mother Tupelo will be bringing their signature Swampadelic Southern Soul sound to Pinetop Perkins' Homecoming on Sunday, October 7 at the Hopson's Plantation Commissary in Clarksdale, Mississippi. BMT & various performers will join together for a day chocked full of the down home Blues! The event takes place from 2:00pm - 6:00pm.
Sunday, October 7, 2007 Blue Mother Tupelo & Various Artists at Pinetop Perkins' Homecoming at The Hopson's Plantation Commissary Clarksdale, Mississippi The event takes place from 2:00pm - 6:00pm Price: Suggested donation $10

BMT's second consecutive appearance at the annual Pinetop Perkins' Homecoming. The celebration includes performances by the best of the blues. Legends and legends in the making hit the stage for a day-long celebration and dedication to the great Pinetop Perkins, with Mr. Pinetop jammin' along himself!

Featured performers include Willie Big Eyes Smith and band, Bob Margolin, Little Red Clay Swofford, Blue Mother Tupelo and the Paul DeLay Band with many more artists to be added.

The homecoming will be taking place at Hopson's Commissary. Pinetop worked on Hopson's Plantation in the 1940s. Be sure to get there early as this is always a sellout event!

Blue Mother Tupelo To Headline Otherfest
By Sara Coleman


Otherfest offers rock alternative to the usual Delta festival

Sara Coleman
BC Staff Writer
Published September 21, 2007 2:27 PM CDT

Mississippi Blues music is known throughout the world, but Justin Huerta of Cleveland is out to promote another Delta sound — rock. Seven bands from across the Delta and neighboring areas will perform live at Rosedale’s River Resort Sept. 29 at Otherfest, a music festival dreamed up and implemented by Huerta and his friends.
“The goal of the festival is for local bands to be heard and ultimately start a music scene in the Delta,” Huerta said. “I’m a dreamer — what can I say?”
Titled Otherfest in part because it provides an alternative to the blues, the headliner of the event is Blue Mother Tupelo, a southern rock band from Tennessee.
“When we first did the festival, we did it in April and there were a lot of other festivals during that month — like Crosstie and Double Decker. We were trying to get people to come to our festival, so we would say that we were the “other” festival,” said Huerta. “Now, it’s kind of a joke because there are so many festivals around now, but it’s cool that ours is named Otherfest. We have the best name.”
Several of the bands playing hail from Bolivar County, including: A Scarlet Empire, Cobalt Cali and Huerta’s own band Disposable Faces.
Jacqueline Nassar of Clarksdale, and Avenue Hearts and Bo Adams, both of Oxford, round out the line-up.
“The Delta needs a festival that is not blues music,” said Huerta, explaining how the Otherfest came about. “My friends and I also wanted to throw our festival where our own band could play.”
The first Otherfest was held near Cleveland almost two years ago, but this year it will be in Rosedale because of the city’s tie to the musical roots of the Delta.
“We’re holding it in Rosedale this year because it is an awesome place,” Huerta noted. “It’s the home of the blues, which is kind of ironic, since we aren’t having a blues fest.”
Pulling off Otherfest has been a group effort, with many of his friends filling essential roles, Huerta said.
“Weejy Rogers got the bands, Eric Kelly organized the sound and lighting, Peggie Pitts lined up sponsors and Elliott Meador is in charge of marketing. They have helped me so much — without these people, there is no way we could have a festival.”
The gates will open at 11 a.m. and the first band kicks off at 1 p.m. Music will continue throughout the day.
The festival is open to the public of all ages.
An entry fee of $5 per person applies.
“People can set up a tent, if they want to camp out on the grounds,” said Huerta. “We encourage it. We want people to be safe and have a good time. Please carpool as parking is limited.”
For more information, go to www.myspace.com/otherfest.

Blue Mother Tupelo to perform at Flat Rock

Blue Mother Tupelo will be bringing their signature swampadelic southern soul sound to the Flat Rock Music Festival, in Flat Rock, North Carolina on Friday, Sept. 28. BMT performs at 4:45 p.m. on the Main Stage & at 8:30 p.m. Lil Rec Stage.

Ricky and Micol Davis met in Knoxville, Tenn., married and created Blue Mother Tupelo, a mix of roots-rock and Hill Country blues. After positive reviews of their debut release "My Side of the Road," moved to Nashville to pay dues at local venues. They quickly developed a reputation with their fiery stage presence and remarkable sound. In 2001, they released "Delta Low-Mountain High," and more and more people began to take notice of this duo as they toured across the Southeast.

Blue Mother Tupelo was on the Southern fried soundtrack to the 2005 indie film "Daltry Calhoun" starring Johnny Knoxville and Juliette Lewis. Recently, their song "Boogie Blues" was featured on Showtime's "The L Word."

They recently rocked the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic alongside T-Model Ford, Bobby Rush and North Mississippi All-Stars. They will play Big State Festival in Bryan-College Station alongside Willie Nelson, Robert Earl Keen and Drive-By Truckers and are hard at work recording the follow-up to "Delta Low-Mountain High."

Nashville Soulshine In Southern Alabama

Blue Mother Tupelo comes to Pirate's Cove and Callaghan's
By Michael Dumas

As if you needed a reason to get out and hear some live music, Sept. 22 and 23 is shaping up to be a fantastic weekend as Mobile and Josephine welcome the regional powerhouse Blue Mother Tupelo back to its shores. Micol and Ricky Davis, possibly the most exciting husband-and-wife band touring today, bill their music as "SwampadelicSouthernSoulRock" and always bring their A-game.

Parts bluegrass, rock and bayou soul, Blue Mother Tupelo cuts a free and endearing swath through Southern roots music, reciprocating focus between Ricky's acoustic six-string and dobro and Micol's keyboard and writhing tambourine. And the best part of the enthused instrumentation is that laid over it like psychedelic moss are the duo's harmonic vocals, which resonate as though the two had somehow been amiably married forever.

Blue Mother Tupelo is a favorite at Callaghan's, having last played Mobile's Irish Social Club on Sunday, Aug. 12. The house was packed, with spontaneous dancing and revelry breaking out in what few vacant spots there were. Local phenom, Lisa Mills stopped by and looked to be having a blast from her front-row vantage point.

It's all going to happen again on Sept. 23 at 7 p.m.. The cover at Callaghan's won't be more than $5 which, when you kick in another $10 for their album, "Delta Low Mountain High", is more than a bargain.

This visit will also include a stop in Josephine at historic Pirate's Cove the night before at 7 p.m. "Island time" never meant as much as it does at the Cove, providing a perfect opportunity to waft offshore on your boat, or sit in the sand, as you listen to Micol and Ricky make the music that has sustained fans during hundreds of tour dates a year.

Now that the weather has started to show us some mercy, take a couple of nights off and enjoy Southern living with Blue Mother Tupelo. For more information about upcoming shows, pictures and music, visit www.bluemothertupelo.com

Spotlights: Blue Mother Tupelo
By L.C.

I haven't been able to shake the southern reverberations I heard at Blue Mother Tupelo's gig in Maryville not too far back. I arrived knowing little about the group's down-home pickin' and a singin', but left wanting more of Ricky and Micol Davis' Appalachian-infused backbeats. Since forming more than a decade ago, the husband-and-wife duo (with rotating backers) has been filling honky-tonks across the South. Their rendition of the ol' classic “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” was even featured in the 2005 film Daltry Calhoun, starring fellow East Tennessee native Johnny Knoxville. So lucky for you, and me, BMT will be in Knoxville Saturday, Aug. 18, at New Amsterdam on the Strip. It should be a packed house for Micol's smoky vox and Ricky's resonating dobro. Show up early, but leave late, seeing as how domestics, PBR tallboys and the mystery beer are just $2.

*Down-home duo hit the OGD * By Stephen Centanni

Ricky and Micol Davis met in Knoxville, Tenn., married and created Blue Mother Tupelo, a mix of roots-rock and Hill Country blues. After positive reviews of their debut release "My Side of the Road," moved to Nashville to pay dues at local venues. They quickly developed a reputation with their fiery stage presence and remarkable sound. In 2001, they released "Delta Low-Mountain High," and more and more people began to take notice of this duo as they toured across the Southeast.

Blue Mother Tupelo was on the Southern fried soundtrack to the 2005 indie film "Daltry Calhoun" starring Johnny Knoxville and Juliette Lewis. Recently, their song "Boogie Blues" was featured on Showtime's "The L Word."

They recently rocked the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic alongside T-Model Ford, Bobby Rush and North Mississippi All-Stars. They will play Big State Festival in Bryan-College Station alongside Willie Nelson, Robert Earl Keen and Drive-By Truckers and are hard at work recording the follow-up to "Delta Low-Mountain High."

Blue Mother Tupelo By Cecil Abels


Blue Mother Tupelo. This duo is notable for many reasons, the first of which is they are a super soulful and heart-wrangling! Huh? Well, I mean what happens when you have a former Delta Baptist preacher's daughter and hook her up with an East Tennessee country lovin musical hoss? It's like the soul-blues of the Mississippi Delta meets the Appalachian Old School Country-Grass and created a little village of music all their own.... that's kinda like Blue Mother Tupelo. Like Peanut butter and Chocolate or biscuit and 'lasses, a co-joining of flavors that just creates it's own separate world of taste. They so impressed some Hollywood movie producers that they became the featured music on the Johnny Knoxville film: "Daltry Calhoun" from a few years back.

Blue Mother Tupelo By Leah Willis


What shakes more than cherries in a moonshine jar, and isn't much bigger? That would be the petite Ms. Micol (pronounced "Michael") Davis. You've not seen rhythm until you've seen the percussive jingle of Micol's tambourine snake through her body, head to toe, as her husband Ricky licks out expressive slide guitar. Micol's raspy voice pleads: Put your head on my shoulder baby/ Show me that you love me/ Make everything alright. She's all delta soul and siren femininity.

And Ricky responds: Hold me in your arms baby/ Squeeze me real tight/ Show me that you love me/ Make everything alright. He's backroom blues and Appalachian mountain staying power.

... Blue Mother Tupelo creates just the right balance of impassioned vocals and controlled rhythms. It's the confluence of a turbulent, cool mountain stream and a warm, sunny river—that eddy where the water's just right. Dive in.

By Steve Wildsmith


As much as Blue Mother Tupelo performs in Blount County, you’d be hard-pressed to peg the band members as residents of Nashville.

From “The Shed” at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson a few months ago to the “Big BBQ Bash” a couple of weeks ago to Brackins Blues Club (where the band plays regularly) on Saturday night to the Back Hills Cafe on July 28 — the husband-wife duo of Ricky and Micol Davis have carved a niche for themselves as favorites of Blount County music lovers.

“We’re always meeting new people and making friends, and I just told Ricky the other day that I’m really thankful to play in Maryville,” Micol Davis told The Daily Times this week. “I’m thankful for people coming out to see us and that we can play so many different events there. Especially Brackins — we always have a good time there, and we’re thankful we don’t have to strictly do blues when we play there.”

“We like the fact that music lovers show up there to just listen and have a good time,” Ricky Davis added. “That’s our people — music lovers who appreciate all kinds of music.”

That’s a good thing for the Davises, considering the wealth of influences they bring to the table. A typical BMT show is the audio equivalent of going to a pizza place and asking the kid behind the counter to surprise you. You never know what you’ll be served, but you do know this — it’s pizza, so it’s going to be good. Blue Mother Tupelo works just like that — country, bluegrass, blues, swamp-rock ... it’s a grab-bag of rich, rootsy sounds, and it’s all good!

Ricky’s guitar work, whether he’s playing acoustic, electric or slide, channels the blues from the Mississippi Delta as much as it does the fleet-fingered picking styles of the Appalachian hills. With a sweet tenor, he’s a perfect compliment to his wife’s brazen, Bonnie Raitt-meets-Sheryl Crow vocals. At “The Shed” recently, the crowd was an enthusiastic mix of gyrating bikers, politely clapping seniors and kids jumping off the stage and dancing in unison at Micol’s feet.

“We’ve got so many influences it’s almost unbelievable: Definitely the late ‘60s psychedelic bluesy rock stuff; old blues stuff like Muddy Waters; Van Morrison,” Ricky Davis told us in an interview a couple of years ago. “The realness of the Mississippi sound, that Stax Records soulful sound, is really kind of right in the middle of where we come from, as well as old country stuff, like Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell. Any kind of music that’s got grit and soul appeals to us, whether it’s Miles Davis to Jimi Hendrix to all points in between.”

Ricky and Micol Davis first met when the two — both Knoxville natives (Ricky [born in Knoxville and raised in south Knox County] graduated from Doyle and Micol [moved with her family to east Tennessee from the Mississippi Delta, Arkansas & Memphis] went to Clinton) — ran into each other in Knoxville’s Old City, where Ricky was playing with another group. The couple moved to Nashville about five years ago to further their music career, a move that’s paying off despite the corporate climate of Music City.

“In the Nashville music business, you always get strong opinions from different people in the industry — people telling you that you ought to be doing this, that or the other,” Ricky Davis said. “We take it with a grain of salt, because primarily we listen to ourselves. We’ve been in Nashville for eight years now, and we’ve made friends with other songwriters in Nashville, and one of the reasons we’re such a tight-knit family is that we’ve been run through the ringer by the corporate mentality.

“I would love to see some changes made in that sort of thing, because there’s not very much stuff coming out of there that sounds like classic country. Things aren’t country, even though they want to call it that. There are a lot of songwriters in Nashville writing all kinds of music; that town is full of people who are virtually unknown, but they’re excellent. Every one should probably be household names.”

While major-label success and riches would be nice, that isn’t the goal for the Davises, however. More than anything, they want to continue making music and friends and spreading the love they feel for what they do. After six years, they’re close to wrapping up work on a new studio album (the follow-up to 2001’s “Delta Low, Mountain High”). Tentatively, it’s going to be called “Heaven and Earth,” and they hope to get it out by September.

“It really does seem slow-going at times, but it seems like that’s just sort of been the pattern for us,” Micol Davis said. “We’re always growing and learning, always meeting new people and making friends. Our audience is growing, and Ricky and I are getting stronger in a lot of ways too. We don’t worry too much and think too much about what we’re sounding like; more or less, if it sounds good to us, we just do it.

“I think our approach to the new recording right now is that it’s not going to be so diverse as far as stylistic stuff goes. We’re not going to have big horns on a song or stuff like that; it’s going to be scaled down instrumentally, and I think it’s going to be probably easier to categorize as far as more of a rootsy style rather than flirting with a little bit of everything.”

Despite the X-factors still to be worked out, fans can count on one thing — it will sound solid. It will be rootsy. It will be the next best thing to seeing Blue Mother Tupelo perform live.

“We’re always taking our music new places, and lately it’s just a feeling in our gut, knowing that we’ve kind of grown musically,” Ricky Davis said. “We’re really getting inside ourselves and getting our own sound out more and more and more. We just play what we play, and what we play is who we are.”

The Post & Courier

Sometimes no matter how much you listen to something it's hard to describe it.

That's precisely the problem when it comes to Blue Mother Tupelo, check that, it's not a problem in that there's anything wrong with the music they play. It's just that when it comes to describing it, well, it's not as simple as the music itself sounds.

Folk, acoustic, gospel, bluegrass and southern roots all come to mind.

"It's the epitome of Americana when no one knows what else to call it," explained Ricky Davis, who thought psychedelic was just as good a description as the rest. "It used to be called rock and roll music in the '70s."

"We're a southern, soulful American rock and country," added Ricky's wife Michol, who stopped to laugh before continuing, "well, we're not country. … We're earthy, that's kind of what we try to go with."

Be it the Dylan-like poetry, grooves reminiscent of Van Morrison or the soul of Aretha Franklin their influences are rooted in artists, as Michol explained, "you don't forget."

In any case, they would like to think that once you've been introduced to their amalgamation of inspiration that the music actually supercedes categorization.

"It's not Aretha," Michol admitted, "but I always have to put soul in there. It's organic. It's where we come from."

Michol was born in Memphis and raised in Mississippi. The daughter of a strict Southern Baptist preacher, as a child, she wasn't allowed to listen to pop music and instead her family would gather to together to enjoy southern gospel and hymns.

Years before Ricky was born in East Tennessee, at the foothills of the Smokey Mountains, his uncle used to pick with the likes of Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family.

Growing up, unlike his wife, he was exposed to the rock and roll of Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley, honky tonk heroes Hank Williams and Buck Owens as well as the peace-loving '70s rock of The Eagles and Creedance Clearwater Revival, but it was a Jimi Hendrix video from Woodstock that he watched when he was five years old that has resonated all these years later.

"We just want to touch people," Michol said, "touch someone's heart" and "win one heart at a time," added Ricky.

Ricky and Michol managed to win a pair of hearts when they performed at a house party in early 2005 and unbeknown to them Hollywood producer Danielle Renfrew and director Katrina Holden Bronson, daughter of the late Charles Bronson, happened to be there.

Afterward they complimented the husband and wife duo and went to so far as to ask for their contact information.

"We didn't think we'd hear from them," said Ricky, recalling the chance meeting. "A month later they gave us a call."

As it turns out they wanted to use two tracks for their independent film Daltry Calhoun featuring Johnny Knoxville and Juliette Lewis. Executive produced by Quentin Tarantino, Calhoun prominently featured Blue Mother Tupelo's dreamy southern rendition of the Paul Anka classic Put Your Head on My Shoulder during the movie's climatic scene.

Bronson, who directed the critically acclaimed project, also directed a music video for Shoulder that was part of the extra features package for the DVD release of the film.

"That was a huge honor," Ricky said. "It really makes us feel great"

Their efforts and good will again paid of last year following one of their many festivals appearances. This particular one, however, was reviewed in the widely regarded magazine Paste, and ran under the bold headline: Blue Mother Tupelo is Quite Possibly the Best Husband and Wife Duo You've Never Heard of.

"To have it verbalized like that," said Michol with her voice trailing off, "I don't know, it means a lot. It's really cool that somebody would think that.

"We just want to make music, real music that doesn't necessarily, ah, music that means something to somebody, written words that mean something to them."

In any case, Ricky and Michol sure do seem to get around for a duo that we've supposedly never heard of.

They continue touring while they work on a new CD and amidst a schedule of upcoming festival dates they'll make their way to Charleston on Friday, March 23 where they'll perform at Fiery Ron's Home Team BBQ.

"We're very thankful that this is what we're doing for a living. It's a real blessing," surmised Ricky.

Interview by Keith Ryan Cartwright for The Post Courier

By Leah Willis


Blue Mother Tupelo represents the best of what the Tennessee music scene has to offer. From Memphis' soulful blues to the rock-country of contemporary Nashville to the homespun harmonies of Appalachia, wife and husband Micol and Ricky Davis draw on a range of influences—including '60s folk rock and "sweet-iced tea and ice cold beer"—to create a cohesive, truly unique, transgenerational sound. Partners in love and music, they are easily among the best songwriter-musicians ever to call the Volunteer State home. Though they're frequently touring around the Southeast, we're glad Blue Mother Tupelo remembers where they came from; they sing in "Home": No matter where I'm going, I know I'm comin' back. They'll be making a stop at Brackins Blues Club in Maryville on Saturday, Feb. 17 around 9 in the evening. $6.