Throwback MP3 of the Week: BR5-49, “Me ‘n’ Opie (Down By the Duck Pond)”
Lord, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss BR5-49. Now, to be fair, the world’s greatest hillbilly band wasn’t really local. Chuck Mead had fronted Lawrence’s Homestead Grays, and was in fact from Lawrence, but BR5-49 was really based out of Nashville.
The band’s first release, the Live From Robert’s EP, has a fairly fantastic story. The band got their start at the western wear store, playing for nothing but tips every night for years. When it was released back in 1996, Rolling Stone listed the band in its “Hot issue,” giving them a high profile.
BR5-49 released a full length live album later in their career, but their debut was probably the high point. Featuring covers of songs by Doc Watson and the Stanley Brothers alongside the band’s originals, as well as a healthy dollop of clever stage banter (“plugs” abound, both for tips and to get people to buy some boots), Live From Robert’s is one of those albums that leaves the listener wanting more, and whet my appetite for the band’s full-length.
My favorite number on the EP is “Me n’ Opie (Down by the Duck Pond),” a true story of “drug abuse and sexual deviance,” also known as the untold story from the Andy Griffith Show. Led by its military cadence, it certainly bears more than a little musical resemblence to Jimmie Driftwood’s “The Battle of New Orleans” — although the lyrical content is more akin to Homer & Jethro’s “Battle of Kookamonga.”
Interesting fact: 1/3 of the writing credit goes to Kief’s Downtown Music’s (and former member of Ricky Dean Sinatra) Mark Roseberry.
