Fredd Young isn't your typical musician. When I came up to the stage in prep for the Kentucky Headhunters show, Young was standing by the the side of the fence, he had a hat on, blue jeans pretty much like everybody else there but what made him stand out is his long flowing sideburns. Bald on top but Young is the electric drummer of this band and it would have been so much fun to go up and bullshit with him and ask him about his old time looking drumset but I thought I would let the man be and let him check out the opening act Chocolate Krackers which was I'm guessing one of the better cover bands up around Waterloo. They weren't bad but they may have overstayed their welcome as the crowd was waiting for the Headhunters to appear.
The Kentucky Headhunters are not country, they are pure rock and roll with the love of blues but they managed to go under the radar and became the Up And Coming Country Artists of 1990 with their number one hit Dumas Walker. They were country via Ricky Phelps's twangy vocals, he would later leave with his brother Doug to form Brother Phelps, while Anthony Kenny and Mark Orr replaced them to make Rave On and That'll Work a album with the late great Jimmie Johnson. Brother Phelps made two albums and Ricky became a preacher while Doug returned to the Headhunters for the BNA album Stompin Grounds, their last attempt to reconnect with the country crowd. When that failed they moreorless went back to a rocking boogie blues to this day remains their bread and butter.
I have tried to see them in recent past, one in 1996 when they were at the Great Jones County Fair and at another county fair but bad weather came from the latter and the former unexplained reasons. I caught wind of them being at the Fourth Of July Party up in Waverly/Shell Rock, which is about a half hour drive from Waterloo which is a hour drive from my place. Had I known that 380 was down to two lanes I would have taken another rain check but since I made it up that far.
I don't know who the guy that introduced the band was, I think he was some DJ at some new country station across the Minnesota border and introduced them as a country act but we all know the Dumas Walker that he is wouldn't play their new album on the radio. It's not truck country or telling scantly clad chicks to shake it to the boom boom speakers. Dixie Lullabies has more in common with real southern rock than country, but when they took the stage in the 85 degree temps, Fredd Young had his trademark coonskin cap on to start the show. It didn't stay on very long; I think after two songs. It was hot, it was humid and even I was covered in my own sweat.
I had a bird's eye view of Fredd Young and the dude may be 60 years old but he tore it up on the double bass drums to which as one point during Spirit In The Sky, Young was fighting his high hat was falling upon his lap and he was still keeping a beat. On Have You Ever Loved A Woman, Young managed to drop one of his drumsticks but still kept the beat while fishing for another stick in the drummer bag. During the drum solo which preceded Oh Lonesome Me, he was bashing away using his hands aka John Bonham, which I kinda figured that the drum solo was coming up when he slip a portable tambourine on the high hat. To which the guys from the band came off stage and chatted a few fans and signed autographs and Greg Martin kinda looked at me and smiled. As if to say it sure gets hot around here. This year it has.
Richard Young at times takes over the vocals for Doug Phelps on the blues song Have You Ever Loved A Woman and Louisiana Coo Coo to which his frog croaks on that songs was fun rock, while Doug added a bit of woo hoo for counterpoint. Richard also did a song off the new album Tumbling Roses, and I do believe they also did Dixie Lullabies which the title track of the hard to find latest album. Most of the songs did come from Picking On Nashville but my favorite moment was when Phelps belted out Big Boss Man a song he mentioned got some airplay on CMT, back when CMT was showing videos. But that song has more in common with Bo Diddley then Country. Yeah they did their share of country covers, Walk Softly On This Heart Of Mine, Oh Lonesome Me they also did House Of The Rising Sun, incorporated Eleanor Rigby in the medley of Spirit In The Sky (to which Doug sang Yes I'm a Sinner and I have sinned but I got a friend named Jesus the way Ricky did it on Electric Barnyard) which the Headhunters went straight into Dumas Walker.
But they weren't done yet. They did The Ballad Of Davy Crockett before concluding the show with Don't Let Me Down by The Beatles. To which by then the crowd started gathering by the Shell Rock River to witness an half hour's worth of fire works. Greg Martin, crazy from the heat walked on past heading for a tall cool one, and the wellwishers were chatting up a storm with the Young dudes, Richard lightning up a old stoogie for pleasure and some dude was chatting with Fredd Young about his son who plays drums or something to that effect. Ready to walk on, I got to meet face to face with Doug Phelps and got to shake his hand and told him they put on a great show.
He gave me a big smile and put his other hand on my shoulder and said thank ya brother!
Perfect ending to a rocking show.
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