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Travis Tritt
“Dude, I knew you could sing, but I had no idea you could do that blue-eyed soul thing!”
Producer Randy Jackson paid that compliment to Travis Tritt, after recording a duet between Tritt and soul man Sam Moore for Moore’s 2006 album, Overnight Sensational. Then he made a suggestion. “If you ever want to do an album that puts a bigger spotlight on that,” Jackson said, “I’d love to work on it with you.”
The end result of that conversation is The Storm, Tritt’s widely-praised 2007 release. Tritt and Jackson teamed up to create a powerhouse collection of songs that emphasize the irresistible soul side of Tritt’s singing. It’s a card that has always been in Tritt’s stylistic deck, but one that has often been overlooked by listeners unfamiliar with the deep musical links between country and R&B, particularly in the South.
And in Jackson, Tritt found the ideal collaborator. Before he gained acclaim for his role as a judge on “American Idol,” Jackson had played bass with artists ranging from Aretha Franklin to Journey. Demonstrating that type of range is precisely the aim of The Storm.
“Growing up just outside Atlanta, to the north of us you’ve got the Grand Ol’ Opry in Nashville,” Tritt explains. “A little bit South you’ve got Macon, Georgia – home of the Allman Brothers, the Marshall Tucker Band and Capricorn Records. And off to west you’ve got Delta blues. Sprinkle Southern gospel over the top of that, and you’re talking about where I came from. I loved all of that music.”
To make that point, “You Never Take Me Dancing,” the first single from The Storm, opens with Tritt’s bluesy moans and a seductive acoustic slide guitar, before settling into the funkiest groove this side of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” The song was written by Richard Marx, who also collaborated with Tritt on “Doesn’t the Good Outweigh the Bad,” a rollicking relationship song that grew out of Tritt and his wife’s experience building a new house. “You know how they say that if your marriage can survive building a house it can survive anything?” Tritts asks, laughing. “That is absolutely a fact.”
On another note, Tritt finds all the anguish in Hank Williams, Jr.’s “The Pressure Is On,” the soulful tale of an affair that nearly brings a man to his emotional breaking point. “You can cut the tension in that song with a knife,” Tritt says. And the propulsive riff of the title track, in Tritt’s words, amounts to “a cross between Stevie Ray Vaughan’s ‘Cold Shot’ and the Allman Brothers’ ‘Whipping Post.’ I don’t think I’ve ever written a song like that in my whole career. Once that chord change came to me, the song took off on its own.”
Blues guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd joined Tritt on a torrid version of Shepherd’s “Somehow, Somewhere, Someway.” “That song is right in my wheelhouse,” Tritt says. “I said to Randy, if our goal is to get everybody that hears this album to have the look on their face that you had after you heard me sing with Sam Moore, this is the kind of song we have to do. And nobody can play the licks on that song except Kenny Wayne Shepherd.”
But, as The Storm makes undeniably clear, country-soul is a road that travels two ways. It would be hard for anyone to miss the twang in “High Time for Getting’ Down,” which features Charlie Daniels blazing on fiddle and celebrates a raucous night on the town: “The honky-tonk is hoppin’/And a cover band is rockin’ to some dude named Tritt!” And a clutch of gripping ballads – “What If Love Hangs On to Us” (which Tritt co-wrote with Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty) and “I Don’t Know How I Got By” and “I Want to Feel Too Much” (both written by Diane Warren) – find Tritt exploring the risks and intricacies of love with the unbridled passion that has become his signature.
Tritt has sold more than 25 million albums, and earned two Grammies and three CMA awards over the course of his storied career. The Storm finds him bold and invigorated, at the very top of his game. But his ambitions as an artist haven’t really changed over the years – just his skills at achieving them.
“Regardless of what kind of music you’re doing, if you can have a song that someone listens to and instantly thinks of a situation they’re going through, that’s a special connection,” Tritt says about his aim as a songwriter and performer. “That’s when music becomes more than something you just tap your toe to – it becomes the soundtrack to your life. You don’t need a poetry degree to understand this stuff – it talks about your life on a day-to-day basis. That’s where I try to come from. That’s when you’re hitting home”
And on The Storm, that’s exactly what he accomplishes.
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 One Horse Town
Co-singer/songwriters Janet Emma Garbe and Julia Kasdorf came together in May of 2000 to discover they had a knack for harmony singing and alternately penning and arranging songs together.
Rounded out by stellar “high lonesome” pedal steel man Lynn Kasdorf, and later joined by the inimitable lead guitarist Stuart Martin, OHT is joined by DC's busiest bassist Rico Petrocelli, and talented and versatile drummer Danny Schwartz of Band House Gigs!
ONE HORSE TOWN performs in the VA/DC/MD region regularly, and began touring nationally in 2007. OHT has been blessed to have shared the stage on several occasions with Nashville up and comers Last Train Home, DeadReckoner Kevin Welch, Rickie Simpkins, Orrin Starr, Jimmy Gaudreau, John Starling, Austin Cunningham, Marshall Tucker Band, and recently, the entire stellar DC music community for the Bob Dylan Tribute at the gorgeous Strathmore Music Hall!! Thanks to Ronnie Newmeyer and the folks at Band House Gigs for what was a most magical evening!
Venues such as the renowned Jammin’ Java, Iota Club and Café, Ashland Coffee and Tea, and the State Theater have welcomed OHT for repeat performances. Popular international music magazine No Depression published a stellar review of OHT and the debut release in the Jan/Feb 2007 edition of Hot Wax submitted by DC area journalist/reviewer Buzz McLain. Mike Joyce of the Washington Post gave an amazing review of OHT and of debut cd Dawn Will Deliver on Friday, June 29th, 2007. We were blown away. Thanks, Mike.
Three years in the making, OHT’s debut release Dawn Will Deliver reflects a deep love of music, especially roots, alt country and bluegrass, and a commitment to carrying the torch for the greats who came before like Buck, Emmy Lou, Johnny, Merle, the Louvins, and more recent heavies like Kevin Welch, Steve Earle, Kelly Willis, Patty Loveless, Patty Griffin, and Buddy and Julie Miller.
Jon Carroll of the Mary Chapin Carpenter Band and Starland Vocal Band skillfully produced the project. Jon’s profound instrumental and vocal contributions are accented by the artful mastering touch of Mr. Bill Wolf at his studios in Arlington, Virginia. Bill has worked with Tony Rice, Emmy Lou Harris, Willy Nelson, and pop music favorites Eddie From Ohio!!
Rhythm monsters and OHT buddies Martin Lynds and Jim Carson Gray came aboard for the debut recording on loan from alt-country heroes Last Train Home. Cool cd jacket design by Stilson Greene, Leesburg, VA. (Troy Tyree of WICN 90.5 in Worcester called OHT's debut release one of the Top Ten roots records April AND JUNE of 2007!) Other Stations spinning "Dawn Will Deliver": BBC Scotland, WYPR 88.1, WAMU 88.5 FM, WRYR 97.5 FM, KNBA 90.3 FM (Anchorage!), WRYR 97.5 FM, WICN 90.5 FM, WRRW Williamsburg, and several internet radio shows based in US and abroad!
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