About Brother Ray’s Bar-B-Que Honky Tonk Juke Joint Social Club
About Brother Ray’s Bar-B-Que Honky Tonk Juke Joint Social Club:
This record came about in concept in 2020 during the COVID 19 lockdown. After several weeks at home and the absolute cluelessness of any kind of future in the Arts and Entertainment business I, like everyone else, began living inside my mind. My happiness and sanity were found sitting outside by our fire pit during the early evening watching wood burn and dreaming of places that didn’t exist, as far as I knew. A place where I felt everyone was hoping to find during such an event as that shutdown. The kind of place where people could go to socialize, get great food, and hear the music the way it was while I was growing up as a Gen-Xer. That is to say with ridiculous amount of variety.
A bit of insight into my Gen-X experience.
Punk Rock captured my imagination with its radical musical style, odd fashion, and connection with skateboarding. At the same time, Country and Bluegrass filled the airwaves on family road trips going from one racetrack to the next or off to work with Grandparents tending the garden and farming sugar cane and corn and whatever else plant my Great-Grandfather wanted to plant. Hee-Haw was a staple in Granny and Paw Paw’s home where we shucked corn and shelled peas. However, my cousins and uncles were jamming out to Van Halen, AC/DC, Billy Sqiure, Rush, Billy Idol, Def Leppard as well as Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Beatles, and anything else that had loud guitars and thunderous drums. Music was everywhere we went and I was emerged in all of it. Never said much or sang aloud but I listened so intently to everything I could.
There were a few radio stations in my closest major city (major to a kid from the country) of Mobile, Alabama that would play everything from Pat Benetar, Blondie, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Prince, Sade, Club Nouveau and everything in between. Songs from the 1960s up to the music of the day played back to back with regularity all day long. I remember hearing David Bowie’s A Space Oddity followed by Kim Carne‘s Betty Davis Eyes and then Adam Ant’s Goody Goody Two Shoes. That was normal for rock stations in the 1970s through the 1980s. Country stations would play Hank Williams and then Eddie Rabbit as if there wasn’t 25 years in between the recording being released. Good music got played regardless of its age. I absorbed it all and it was always playing somewhere throughout the day. Then came the night and the left side of the radio dial.
The left side of the dial on FM radio, for those who may be too young to be familiar with analog radios, was the non-popular music stations. Classical and Gospel stations were the farthest left on the dial between 87 and 91. Between 92 and 94 were the stations where I found the music that changed my world view. Those stations in those early days of my coming of age turned to Kool and the Gang, Midnight Star, Ashford and Simpson, Klymaxx, and Soul and R&B singers that made being an adult seem like something a kid could not wait to be. They made falling in love sound like the greatest thing in the world. I remember calling WBLX and dedicating Secret Lovers to my sixth grade crush-turned-girlfriend because that’s what you did to express your feelings, you dedicated songs on the radio.
I had no clue what that song was about. You see, I had a plan and I had to make it work. I called the station from the pay phone at Godfather’s Pizza to make the dedication using the change I saved by skipping a drink at lunch that day at school. The change was not saved for the phone call though. I skipped a drink a few times a week to have enough money to buy a pom-pom or a spirit ribbon for the weekly pep rally. This dedication was more important than a ribbon to me so I made a choice to spend that money. I remember riding in the car with Mom, Dad, & my sister Ginger when that dedication played. I asked the girl to listen that night for my dedication. As we rode home Ginger asked to listen to the dedication hour and I knew she would. Sure as the sun we heard “this next song goes out to Kelli from Dale, here is Secret Lovers by Atlantic Star”. I must’ve been beat red but no one said a word. We just listened. When it was over my mother asked if I knew what the song was about? I told her I did and that it was about two people liking each other but not wanting to say anything to anyone about it because it might be embarrassing. I wasn’t totally off-base but yet completely wrong.
If nights were for those stations then Sunday evenings on the left side of the dial is when the greatest thing in my ten, eleven year old world happened, Rap. Whoodini, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Kool Moe Dee followed later by Run DMC, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J blew my mind and changed me, a generation, and then the world. I was not the only one either. At school we would all try to Moonwalk and Breakdance. We had Beatbox competitions between class breaks. We had dance-offs at the dances after the football games. Kids from 1st grade all the way up to High School were Poppin’ and Lockin’. Music was the great common denominator.
As much as I loved Rap and Hip-Hop and the things that came with it those were just a small part of this story. Of all of those wonderful memories of my youth none are more cherished than the times sitting in the dark with my Dad, Mom, and Sister listening to Otis Redding, Percy Sledge, Merle Haggard, Bob Segar and the originator of my wanting to play guitar, ZZ Top!
This occurred at the home of Dale and Mary Drinkard for as far back as I can remember. We’d all pile in the living room, dim the lights, turn off the TV and just listen to music. We talked some, Ginger and I danced a good bit but mostly we listened. Can you imagine a 7 year old and a 5 year old just sitting still and listening? It happened and with great frequency. As a matter of fact it has happened since our birth and well into our adult life. We still do this today when we all have the chance to be together. We passed this tradition along to my niece. We love our music chill time and it is such a huge part and reason that our family unit is as strong as it is.
Back to life, back to reality.
Sitting there by the fire those lonely, Covid Lockdown evenings during kept taking me back to all of those memories of all of that music that shaped me as a human being and an artist. Combine that with the crazy amount of cooking and baking that was going on because it was all anyone could do at the time got my creative mind thinking.
At this same time I would pass the daylight hours playing guitar in my newly pieced together studio. I had just recently acquired a Desktop Computer with the intent of recording the songs I had been writing for years. I tried recording but inspiration seemed to have gone the way of the Dodo during that lockdown. I just had no desire to create since I had no means of backing up the songs with live performances. I would just sit around and play guitar hoping to break the creative drought. While doing so I discovered that my EVH amp combined with my Gibson SG could get really close to the guitar sound of Billy Gibbons in those 70s era ZZ Top records. I began playing my favorite riffs from ZZ Top and that led to me coming up with a riff or two of my own. Then that led to the idea of recording them. I needed to use that equipment anyway and get familiar with the recording software. This spawned the idea of writing a ZZ Top inspired song from those riffs. So I did just that but as I started doing that I kept coming up with new riffs in that style. I recorded them and made a playlist of the guitar parts and went out to listen and stare at the fire.
Here is where Brother Ray’s Bar-B-Que Honky Tonk Juke Joint Social Club started to unveil itself to me. One of the riffs was based around a Blues in E in the manner of how I imagined ZZ Top would have done Muddy Waters’ Mannish Boy. The groove was there, the guitar sound was there, the rhythm section was as close as I could get it to Dusty Hill and Frank Beard with my limited ability. The song needed lyrics. What would I write about?
Staring into the embers of the slow burning fire I had an epiphany and I saw it as if the place had always existed. A restaurant-music venue in the woods that welcomed everyone. It would be part Soul Food and Barbeque roadside eatery, part Country Style Meat and Three restaurant. It would be a mix of Chitlins Circuit Juke Joint Social Club, a dose of VFW/American Legion Honky Tonk, with a touch of 1980s Dancehall like the ones every Gen-X teen went to or wanted to go. The place would have a jukebox loaded with classics, a DJ spinning records and crossing genres together like the DJs of early Rap and Hip-Hop did to amazing affect and There would be live music. Eureka! “That’s what the song will be about!”
I sat and listened to the riff and groove on loop for hours watching that fire burn. I imagined all of my friends made through the years all meeting up at this place to just hang out and have a good time. I could hear the laughter, see the smiles, feel the warmness of so many like minded folks just being themselves. With this I laughed with delight at the image of what the parking lot would look like when all of these folks showed up at the same time. There would be 4x4s, Harleys, classic muscle cars, street bikes, VW Bugs, drop top Cadillacs, low-ride sudans and coupes, Benz’s, Beamers, Bentley’s. old beat up pickup trucks, Honda Civics with ridiculously big spoilers and exhaust, and whatever else those great people dreamed of driving if the had the money to burn. I mean, this is a dream after all. What a glorious sight it would be indeed!
Then I thought about the clothes that would be donned. There would be Punks, Rockabilly’s, Hip-Hop Heads, Dance Crews, Country Outlaws, Bluegrassers, Swing Dancers, Hippies, 80s Rockers, smooth and stylish fashionistas… The more I stared into that fire the more that dream became clear in my head. Just a bunch of good folks bonding over good food and good music. Then and there the lyrics for that song just poured out of me. I wrote them as they appear in the recording in about as long as it took to type them on my phone. I ran in and threw down a scratch vocal and there it was, Brother Ray’s Bar-B-Que Honky Tonk Juke Joint Social Club.
Now I had a song but I still was coming up with more guitar riffs. Could I do an album? Why not? I had all of the time in the world and a sudden inspiration and a make believe venue to perform them. So I wrote my ZZ Top inspired record over the next two weeks. I uploaded and set a release date 3 weeks later, my sister’s birthday. Four weeks after that, a total of seven weeks, the record finally released.
I did it. Now what?
That little song and record started a project in my mind’s eye and in my heart that I fully intend to work on until my dying day. I will write, record, and release albums inspired by the music that inspired me as a guitarist, as a singer, and as a songwriter to be performed at this imaginary venue. This wonderful place in my mind that I hope becomes a place in your mind that you will come join me at when you need respite from the demands of the daily grind. Just sit back, turn down the lights, turn up the music and let the music and songs take you there to Brother Ray’s Baar-B-Que Honky Tonk Juke Joint Social Club. Once you get there get up and dance with us, rock out with the band, or sit back and enjoy the experience of being surrounded by memories of the good ol’ days and the many more good days to come.
Dale Drinkard, Jr.
Coming soon!
Brother Ray’s Presents: Sabado de Salsa
Music inspired by 1969-1980 Santana