Premiere: Captain Howdy & The Sunset Serenaders’ take on ‘Little Sadie’ is a killer

Captain Howdy And The Sunset Serenaders. // Photo Credit Andreas Braz

Murder ballad “Little Sadie” has seen a slew of versions over the years, with Canadian band The Sadies even taking their name from it, and now it’s time for Lawrence country psych rockers Captain Howdy & The Sunset Serenaders to take their turn. Their version echoes the energy found in the Sadies’ take, but hews more honky-tonk than rock ‘n’ roll, thanks to a rollicking fiddle part from Isaiah Sibi-Hackney from The Lost Keys. The end result feels like you could put this on a mix right next to The Charlie Daniels Band’s “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” without anyone raising an eyebrow. Check it out below as a Pitch exclusive before it hits streaming services this Friday, July 25.

When speaking to the allure of covering “Little Sadie”, Captain Howdy shares, “If there’s one thing old-time American musicians got really good at, it was writing murder ballads. Whether it’s the music or the stories behind them, American murder ballads have a grip on me like no other. ‘Little Sadie’ is a tune that has been played by most everyone, but I found that there wasn’t really a rocking version of it yet.”

Seeing an incredible opportunity in updating the track in a very specific way, the band explains, “We also began realizing, for a Western-themed psychedelia band, we didn’t have a single ‘cowboy’ tune in our repertoire. Our goal with this version of  ‘Little Sadie’ was to approach it like it was going to be in a spaghetti-Western film or Gunsmoke or The Andy Griffith Show. Featuring the fiddle of Isaiah Sibi-Hackney of the Kansas State Champion band The Lost Keys, we hope that ‘Little Sadie’ melts some faces and finally makes our cowboy hats worth something.”

You can catch Captain Howdy & The Sunset Serenaders as part of Lawrence Psych Fest at the Bottleneck on Saturday, Aug. 30. Details on that show here.