"Yeah, The Kentucky Headhunters live," said guitarist Greg Martin with a laugh. "We’re alive and well; some people think we disappeared back in '91-'92 but we've never stopped. We've worked every year except for 2020 but we released a brand-new album back in October of last year called, "That's a Fact Jack!" so, it's actually been out for a while. You know how things work now, I mean it's not like back in the old days where they have you going to the label months before the release and you'd be working things; you'd be working radio, you'd be working print and after doing that you'd have a video; it's just a different time different way of doing things now. I mean, even though the album was released in October, we're still working it pretty active now and well, because a lot of people think we went away because there was an abandonment back in '92 when the Phelps brothers left and went to do their own thing, we kept going but a lot of folks think we just disappeared. Nope, we never went away, we released several albums since 1992 and this album; the last studio album we did before this one was in 2016 called "On Safari" and then just a little bit later we released a live album that was recorded in England but yeah man, we've been very actively working but you're right, I mean, you're not the first to say you thought we were not together, so don’t feel bad."
The Kentucky Headhunters roots extend back to circa 1968 when Martin, brothers Richard and Fred Young along with Anthony Kenney formed a band known as Itchy Brother and like most groups they evolved into something else through personnel changes, musical tastes and directions and according to Martin; the roots are definitely "Down-home."
"Itchy Brother," he chuckled once again, "I'll take you back to that; there was a character in a cartoon in the '60s on a cartoon called "The King and Odie" which was on "Underdog" and King Leonardo was the good lion and Itchy Brother was his evil brother who was always trying to overthrow him; like the Disney movie "The Lion King." Well, Itchy Brother and his accomplice, Biggie Rat were always trying to overthrow the Kingdom of Bongo Congo and so when it came time to name the band; we ran with it and man, I can't say that we really ever broke up, we just put it on the shelf in my mind. That band is Richard, Fred, myself and our cousin Anthony but you know, we went off to do the Headhunter thing and the Kentucky came about and how we became called the Headhunters; we named ourselves after a book written by Robert Palmer; not the singer but a writer named Robert Palmer. He wrote a book called "Deep Blues" and there was a chapter about Muddy Waters moving from the Delta to Chicago and he put a little band together with Jimmie Rodgers, Little Walter and different people to play house parties but they also got to play the clubs and they would ask to have other players join them and they were usually from the band playing there or that played there and they become known as "Head-Choppers." So, when we read that chapter in "Deep Blues" we thought it was a great name. I know there was a group called Cannibal and the Headhunters but we were not talking about chopping bodies literally but it's based on the Chicago "Head-Chopping" which was when two guitar players were going up against each other in a good way of course or two harmonica players and so we were The Headhunters until we signed our record deal and we found out there was another Headhunters. Herbie Hancock had a group called Headhunters so we had the idea to add Kentucky onto it and it just made sense and that’s it."
Over the years the band has had hits in the country realm, rock, even borderline folk and has proved as adaptable as could be but when asked where they consider themselves to "Fit in," Martin found it somewhat amusing.
"I can't say that we're not really a staunch country band because our roots are from the country," he said with an undeniable tone. "We grew up in rural areas, every member grew up with country music all around us but we also grew up on a steady diet of rock and roll. I mean, it really changed our lives back when we were youngsters to hear The Beatles on Ed Sullivan and Led Zeppelin and stuff like that but it was not just country music we grew up on. We all love and respect Merle Haggard, we love George Jones, we love Buck Owens and stuff like that because it was all around us. We'd go to town on Saturday; I grew up with Richard and Fred in Metcalfe County and we had a town square which had a local restaurant called Jim's Grill. They had a jukebox and you'd walk in and you might hear "Mama Tried" by Merle Haggard, then the next song could be "Kentucky Woman" by Deep Purple or later on you might hear "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin and that really turned our cranks as kids but it was that first Led Zeppelin album and albums like "Disraeli Gears" by Cream that influenced us too but the country was and is just all around us. Look, it's in the way we talk; I mean, we have that in our voice; you know? It's where we come from and so, to just classify; it's just American music with a nod to the UK because we love The Stones and we love The Beatles but it's just a tight rock and roll band with Country, Blues, Soul and rock and roll sensibilities; you know?"
So; how does a band with those influences make the adjustments in today's very different music/business climate?
"Social media," he began once again with a laugh, "You know it's such different terrain than it was back when we really first started. When we released our first album, "Pickin' On Nashville" in October of 1989 it was just so different back then; TV was king, radio was king, the internet had just started to rear its head; little did we know what was coming a few years later and yeah, things have a very short shelf-life. I hear stuff all f the time; I'll be with my son Eric and hear something on the radio and I'll say, that sounds like a new song and he'll laugh and say, "Dad, that's like 7 years old or eight years old." I grew up with Led Zeppelin, "Led Zeppelin ll," you know when I heard that; I mean, it still sounds as fresh today as it did when it was released. So, you know what I grew up with, you know I heard The Beatles when they first hit in 64 and then I was around for the folk-rock revolution of 65 with The Byrds and The Turtles. I remember when the "Rubber Soul" album hit in 1965 or 1966 and 1967 it was "Sgt Pepper's" and also that same year we had "Are You Experienced" from Jimi Hendrix, we had cream "Disraeli Gears," we had The Doors first album; it was just such a revolution of music that I grew up with. In '69 I got "Led Zeppelin," their first album in a trade. I was in a record club and I got "Deja Vu" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and I love the album but another friend in school had bought the first Led Zeppelin album and he wasn't crazy about it and I loved the band but when I got home and put it on and "Good Times Bad Times" came on; side one, track one, I went; what in the name of God is this? It was outrageous and you know, take it back a little bit because that's what I grew up with. I was around when Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" came out, "Mr. Tambourine Man" by The Byrds and all that stuff that is still around today; the stuff that has stood the test of time."
"That's a Fact Jack!" is their latest effort and in their tradition offers some straight-forward rock and roll with southern overtones. Martin talks about it and touring again with great enthusiasm.
"There's 12-tracks on the new album and yes sir, it's called "That's a Fact Jack" and that's the title track. Richard Young, the rhythm guitarist and the fellow who sings; his dad used to say things and preface them with that or you'd say something like and end it with, that's a fact Jack. So, what I'm saying is, it's been around for years but I've been around for years and if you listen to the album that track right there; it's just talking about how the world is crazy; you know? Especially when Richard was writing the songs, I'm guessing 2020 I think it was. I mean, it was just a confused mess, we didn't know what was going on and you know we got back out there in 2021 touring again and did about 45 dates and you know we did an album last year and we did the album as you know going into this year and things crazy again! I mean we've got wars going on; thank God the COVID thing is kind of dying down but it has been nuts! Talking about the album; I think everybody could have a different interpretation of the material and that is the beauty about music in general and the album. Everybody used to listen to Bob Dylan and you can put five guys in a room and you'd get five different answers as to what he was saying but it's pretty obvious what Richard is talking about and it's about the world, the turbulence, the lack of brotherhood; I'm not gonna get into any political stuff, I don't do that. Instead, I watch westerns, I watch "Mannix," I don't watch the news. I do know what's going on a little bit but I do think our songs are very relevant for what's going on right now."
"We are always on tour," he went on, "The only time we didn't get to tour was in 2020. We did nine shows before the end of 2019 but we usually work around 75 shows a year; we're not one of those bands that stays out 250 days a year. We worked four shows in 2020 at the beginning of the year and we worked at The Birchmere in Alexandria, VA mid-February and then we were going to have three weeks off and then plan later on in the year to get together and work on songs from the album but as we got home after The Birchmere; about a week or two later we started getting notices from the agency that different places and dates were falling out and dates were moving places and then we're locking down and we thought initially it would be best for all for two weeks or whatever and so touring went by the wayside except for maybe five or six dates. Then at the end of November, I ended up getting COVID, not a really bad case but I went down. I had to isolate for like 10 days but that ended up being two weeks and by then it was Thanksgiving. So, we knew we couldn't really do an album because we were getting into the holiday season and so we did the album early last year and we toured and so to answer your question yeah; we'll be out touring this year and will be promoting the album. Our first date was in Indiana with The Marshall Tucker Band and then after that we'll gear back up into normal. The summers get pretty busy and we'll be out there on the road at some fantastic festivals and the such. We do very little clubs anymore; every now and then we'll play a club but we'll do festivals, we do bike rallies, we do a lot of different deals; we're lucky that we still get to work after all these years."
One of those festivals is The L.E.A.D. Fest in Mercer County Park located in West Windsor, NJ as they open for that same Marshall Tucker Band on July 2 on the main stage but Martin keeps himself busy in another way and that way is; radio.
"I grew up listening to radio in the late '50s and early '60s in my dad's car, an old Plymouth. He would listen to an AM station out of Louisville called WTMT which was a country station. I was always enamored with the DJs back in the '50s and how they all sounded the same and I was always wondering; is this same guy? How could he be on 24 hours a day? It was just something I thought in my mind; I didn't realize that they were just trained to talk a certain way. I listened and as I grew, I remember hearing that radio when I was a kid in dad's car and we had a table-top radio that sat on top of the refrigerator in the kitchen and it was either on WTMT the country station or my brother had a rock station on and I just had a love for radio. I think it started about that time and when I would take trips to downtown Louisville as a kid to visit my grandparents. I'd go down 4th St. to go to guitar stores and record stores and WKLL had a showcase window on Chestnut St. and I loved watching the DJ do his thing with the two turntables, cart machine and it was just amazing. So, the seeds were being planted more or less by a bunch of these guys that I heard on the radio and then late in '66 my dad decided he wanted to move us out to Metcalfe County which was a very great thing to happen for me because I met Richard there but we moved down there away from the radio stations and it was funny because there on those stations, you would here Johnny Cash right next to Cream and Led Zeppelin but late at night the stations were low powered stations and at they would have to cut their power. So, that meant at night, there were other stations; one from Chicago, Nashville, New Orleans, Fort Wayne, and sometimes New York City and I just ate it up. I listened mostly at night; you might hear "Daydream Believer" one minute and then you go to the next station and you might hear "Sunshine of Your Love" or "Light My Fire" by The Doors and the cool thing is, out of Nashville we had WLAC which was the R&B station and Big John was the DJ. Then we were hearing Slim Harpo we were hearing Wilson Pickett, James Brown. Jimmy Reed, B.B. King and stuff like that and all that listening just planted the seed. I really didn't have the confidence in my 20s to pursue radio but around 1986 I did my first stint in radio at a little station; it didn't last, like, six months because I was out on the road with a country singer by the name of Ronnie McDowell. Then in 1997 I was offered a slot at the station in Campbellsville KY where they wanted me to be doing a southern rock show and I told them; can we do this as a Blues show? I stretched the genre a little bit so we could do a little southern rock, the songs that had a blues feel and that way we could also play some soul music; '60s soul. So, I started in 1997 and I put in about two and one-half years in there until my engineer quit in April 2000. Then I took a break from radio but I was offered another gig at the current station, WDNS in Bowling Green and I started there in November of 2001 and we just celebrated 20 years of the "Lowdown Hoedown" and when we started it was just on terrestrial radio, 93.3 FM here in South Kentucky but maybe a year or two later it started streaming online."
To discover more about the Kentucky Headhunters or "That's a Fact Jack!," please visit http://kentuckyheadhunters.com/
That's it for this week! Please continue to support live and original music and until next week....ROCK ON!
