Feb 18
Interview: Erik Vincent Huey on working with Eric Ambel, Appalachian music and more @erikvincenthury @deviouspdv @americanahighways #newmusic2026 #fortdefiance #musicianinterviews
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Interview: Erik Vincent Huey on working with Eric Ambel, Appalachian music and more @erikvincenthury @deviouspdv @americanahighways #newmusic2026 #fortdefiance #musicianinterviews
Show Review: Erik Vincent Huey at Pearl Street w/ Starbelly and Eric Ambel @erikvincenthuey @the_ericambel @thestarbelly @pearlstreet.dc @americanahighways @mlaarons #livemusicphotography #concertphotography #showreviews #americanahighways #rocknroll
Interview: Tommy Womack Invites You To Rock Out and "Live a Little" @tommywomackmusic @the_ericambel @americanahighways @hannah_meansshannon #newmusic2026 #americanamusic #americanahighways #livealittle #musicianinterview
REVIEW: James Deely "The Nashville Sessions" @cusdestor @americanahighways #newmusic2026 #thenashvillesessions #americanahighways #americanamusic
Video Premiere: James Deely “When It Rains” @cusdestor @americanahighways @ericambel @docholiday #newmusic2025 #americanamusic #americanahighways #whenitrains #videopremiere
API 2448 at Cowboy Technical in Greenpoint, Brooklyn
“The Lie That Had to Be Told”
Swamp Dogg - the nome de plume of R&B journeyman songwriter & producer Jerry Williams - put out so many records on so many labels, that it was almost impossible to keep up with all of them until he got ahold of all the rights in the early 2010s. But the time If I Ever Kiss It... He Can Kiss It Goodbye! (and yes, he was talking about exactly what you think he was talking about), he’d released 13 albums since his 1970 debut (as Swamp Dogg) Total Destruction To Your Mind and that isn’t the recording, songwriting, and producing he’d done as “Little” Jerry Williams.
This floats large in my world because I came across it during one of my regular visits to Wuxtry Records, ever on the look for something new but with the Southern Soul I loved. Same thing with country music and, as it turns out, Swamp Dogg wrote the Johnny Paycheck Number Two Smash “She’s All I Got,” but that’s another story. So, I looked him up on the internet and came across another name I was interested in at the time: guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer, Del Lord, Blackheart, Duke, & Yayhoo Eric Ambel. He covered “Total Destruction To Your Mind” on his solo debut Roscoe’s Gang.
So, it’s off to Limewire I went. At the time, the Ambel record was out of print and the Swamp Dogg album was only available on CD as part of a two-album collection with his sophomore effort, Rat On, as The Excellent Sides Of Swamp Dogg, Volume One. Another aside, he released all his hard-to-find albums as Excellent Sides and then re-re-released them as individual albums for reasons known only to Swamp Dogg. In any event, you can listen to all the Swamp Dogg.
It’s important we’re all on the same page here about just what makes Swamp Dogg something special. He’s a serviceable Southern soul singer, particularly when you consider he considers his roots more country than R&B. He regularly comes up with some killer groove and nasty funk, but what sets him apart is his lyrics.
The whole point of Swamp Dogg is that he could say whatever he wanted, so he did. He sings of the variances of the human heart not unfamiliar to soul music, maybe a little nastier than you might expect (or maybe exactly as you expect). However, he applies that same sort of fearless vulgarity to politics and social issues, and he does not give a fuck if it offends someone. His views are all over the place, too, so he’ll probably wind up offending you while making the deepest funk possible.
The general critical consensus is that Swamp’s records fell off in quality after his 1981 effort for Takoma Records (a roots imprint of Chrysalis) I’m Not Selling Out -- I’m Buying In! (The man was not ashamed of exclamation points). That was also his last major label effort and, apart from a 1991 album on a resurrected Stax/Volt label, the last time the Dogg would mess with another label until 2009. Even then he kept his cards close; he knows where the bodies are buried, after all.
He’s still recording and releasing records at 82, and it looks like he’s finally getting his flowers. Though I really didn’t dig it, his 2018 release Love, Loss, & Auto-Tune made him a hipster darling and his excellent country record Sorry You Couldn’t Make It from 2020 featured the last recordings of John Prine before the songwriter’s death due to COVID-19. Fuck you, Donald Trump, yes, I’ll blame you. Dogg’s latest release is a bluegrass album on Prine’s Oh Boy label and is called Blackgrass: From West Virginia to 125th St. because why the hell not.
I think this song belies the idea Dogg was dead musically and lyrically until his 2014 renaissance The White Man Made Me Do It. A cool, minimalist groove with some of the most boldfaced cheatin’ dog lying I’ve ever heard that didn’t involve a steel guitar. When people wonder how I can like old country music and Southern soul, they really don’t understand how connected they truly are deep down where it matters. If they listened to more Swamp Dogg, they’d understand it perfectly.
Interview: Kasey Anderson "To The Places We Lived" Marks a Satisfying Milestone
Interview: Kasey Anderson "To The Places We Lived" Marks a Satisfying Milestone @leasdef @americanahighways @Hannah_meansshannon @theericambel #totheplaceswelived #nowherenights #americanamusic #musicianinterviews
Kasey Anderson photos by Matthew Leonetti Kasey Anderson To The Places We Lived Marks a Satisfying Milestone Portland, Oregon-based artist Kasey Anderson will be releasing his solo album, To The Places We Lived, on October 4th, 2024, as a “spiritual sequel” to a much-loved 2010 album, Nowhere Nights. He describes it as his last commercial release, a turn in his trajectory as a creative person…