Blue Mountain
Oxford’s Ultimate Band Reunites
from The Local Voice #29: Download PDF

Cary Hudson, Frank Coutch, and Laurie Stirratt at Blue Mountain headquarters in Oxford, Mississippi, 1994. Photography by Newt Rayburn.

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When did Blue Mountain start and when did it end, and tell me who was in the band over the years.

Laurie: Blue Mountain started in late 1991 and ended in 2001.We had a series of drummers over the years, seven to be exact. The most memorable drummers were Matt Brennan, Chris Goodwin, Charles David Overton, Ted Gainey and Frank Coutch. Frank had the longest run with us, 7 years.

Tell me about the pre-Blue Mountain days. When did you move to Oxford originally? How did you guys meet?

Laurie: I moved to Oxford in 1988 to join my brother’s brand-new band, The Hilltops. I had been to Oxford before to visit him. I loved it from the start. It blew my mind that so much could be going on in a town so small… that you could walk down the street and run into Willie Morris or shoot pool with Barry Hannah!!

I think the first time I saw the Hi-tops was in 1986 or ’87 at Murphy’s in Baton Rouge and that’s when I first met Cary. They were a cover band that played ‘60s songs and college/underground radio hits by REM, The Replacements, Husker Du, etc. They played frat parties and the college bar circuit in the southeast and were making a killing. I remember visiting John and walking into his room after a frat party they had played and his bed was covered in cash!! He had this vintage guitar collection (they weren’t really vintage then) that was just sick. Anyway, John and Cary were getting tired of playing covers and frat parties so they decided to start writing original material and thought a name change would be good, hence The Hilltops. That is when they called me to move up to Oxford to play bass. Fraternities and college bars still hired us expecting the Hi-Tops and they got something completely different. They weren’t happy when they didn’t get their ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’…

The Hilltops were one of a handful of all-original bands playing in Oxford in the late 80’s. Tell me about playing in Oxford in those days.

Laurie: Oxford was amazing in the late ‘80s because there was creative excitement in the air, which I hadn’t felt before, even in New Orleans. In the 80’s Oxford was very affordable so everyone lived right around the square, so people didn’t have to go far when there was something going on. It was more contained and there was none of the sprawl that unfortunately has become a part of life in Oxford now. The Hoka, The Gin, Square Books, Ireland’s, Syd and Harry’s were essentially the only places to hang out at that time in Oxford but there was always something happening. Square Books brought writers to Oxford that I might never have heard of but was blown away by and some that were well known. One week, Allen Ginsberg would be in town putting on a music show at the Hoka, and the next, The Hilltops would be opening for Alex Chilton at Syd & Harry’s. Afterwards, Alex would come to our house for a late-night and Barry Hannah, who lived right next door to us and occasionally would sit in on our rehearsals with his trumpet, would be there, too. You could see the latest art-house flick at the Hoka. I saw ‘Eraserhead’ there for the first time. They also showed adult films occasionally. Can you imagine? Oxford is so tame these days in comparison. There is still some cool stuff going on but the 80’s and part of the 90’s were the ‘salad days’, before Oxford became gentrified and over developed. Loosing Uncle Buck’s on the square was a huge blow to the music scene although some may not realize it.

You can’t talk about Oxford in the ‘80s without mentioning Mississippi music legends, The Tangents. In addition to Alex Chilton, there were a lot of Memphis musicians and artists in Oxford regularly; Mudboy and the Neutrons, Robert Palmer, musician and music writer, lived here for a time… Bill Eggleston seemed to be here every weekend, A Band Called Bud – soon to be renamed The Grifters - would come down and play.

The Oxford music scene in the 80’s was different from the 90’s in that the late 80’s definitely had a fledgling kind of vibe with alternative bands cropping up in town. There were cool little radio shows like ‘House of Style’ on the college station and they actually played local music!

The 90’s kind of blossomed with Oxford getting its first indie record store, Uncle Buck’s. Lafayettes, which was opened in the late 80’s by Syd & Harry’s booker, Chelsey Pearman and Proud Larry’s both stepped up to the plate as far as booking national acts to come through Oxford and kind of put it on the map as a place to play. Many of the musicians that started playing in Oxford in the ‘80s became forces to be reckoned with by the early ‘90s. Oxford was nurturing a scene. Larry Brown was making a splash in the literary world and Marshall County had R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough and his juke joint, which attracted famous musicians and film crews from all over the world. It was an amazing time with some amazing people and I’m grateful to have been a part of it.

The Hilltops released two albums, right? I know there was the cassette, Holler, and the CD, Big Black River. Was there any other recordings?

Laurie: There were no other recordings. The cassette release, ‘Holler’, was recorded by Fish of the Tangents in 1989 in Jackson, MS, then we recorded ‘Big Black River’ in 1990 at Easley Studio in Memphis. We were the first band to record there after Easley opened up. At that time we were signed to a label called Rockville Records. We were label mates with Uncle Tupelo and toured with them in 1989 and 1990. We had finished recording the record and our label pulled the plug and wouldn’t pay the second half of recording costs. Doug Easley, understandably, would not release the masters to us without paying up. The record was mixed and everything. I’m still not sure what happened but according to the label people it was because of our inexperienced manager. He had apparently pissed them off to no end. I think that they just didn’t have the cash to put out the record or came across something they wanted to do more than our record. Or, maybe they didn’t like it. Basically, we were SOL! That’s why the record didn’t come out until 1993 when Fishtone Records bought the recordings from Easley. We wanted to remix but Easley had taped over our master tapes! So we put it out as it was. It also included some tracks from ‘Holler’. This was our first tough break with the weirdness that is the music industry.

Why did the Hilltops break up?

Laurie: We weren’t getting along.

I know that you guys lived in Los Angeles for a while after the Hilltops. Tell me about those days. Did Blue Mountain form in California? What led to you moving back to Oxford?

Cary: Blue Mountain started not long after the Hilltops broke up, Laurie and I moved to LA with about $300 dollars and guitars and got started working... early experiences included playing small bars with my cousin Jeffrey Hudson and jamming with Winky, the drummer from Weezer... incidentally the first Blue Mountain demo was recorded by Rivers Cuomo a few months prior to them meeting up with Ric Ocasek. After about a year in LA we headed back to Oxford... there were good times in LA, but working full-time to scrape by was pretty unappealing after having made a living at music back in MS, and the heavy vibes that followed the Rodney King riots weren’t exactly pleasant... we lived at Venice Beach and waited tables, made deliveries, schlepped around doing temp work, and occasionally chilled out at Zuma Beach or Joshua Tree.

Cary Hudson, Matt Brennan, and Laurie Stirratt on the Oxford, Mississippi Square
in 1994. Photograph by Newt Rayburn.

Matt Brennan (of the metal band Flinghammer) was the original drummer of Blue Mountain, correct?

Laurie: Matt was a great drummer and a great guy. As I remember it, Flinghammer had split and someone suggested him. We recorded our first CD ‘Blue Mountain’, known also as the ‘Lightbright Record’, in Athens Georgia with Matt. We self released this record on our first little label called 4 Barrel Records. We toured pretty extensively on that record, mostly in the midwest and south. That is when we first met Mitch Ulrich, who ended up coming to Oxford and opening Uncle Buck’s records on the square. He had a club in Manhatten, KS called The Warehouse…

It was not long after the first Blue Mountain album came out that I remember Laurie calling me and telling me that ya’ll had signed a record deal with Roadrunner Records, a large independent label that is primarily known as a Heavy Metal label. Bands that were on your label included Sepultura and White Zombie.

Laurie: We signed to Roadrunner because we had a good friend, Jeff Pachman, who was an A & R man there. We had a history with him as he was working at Rockville Records and had signed Uncle Tupelo and was a big Hilltops fan. Uncle Tupelo was not on Roadrunner, but we did share the same manager at the time, Tony Margherita, who went on to manage Wilco after UT broke up. Since Roadrunner was a metal label, part of Jeff’s job at Roadrunner was to sign bands of other genres. They were the largest independent label, I believe, in the world at the time.

We liked it that they were a successful indie label. The staff they had in place when we signed truly liked the band so we felt it would be a good thing since they could put some muscle behind it.

Was being on Roadrunner a positive experience and good for the band?

Laurie: It was positive and negative. I learned a lot about the music business! Roadrunner really busted their ass on the release of ‘Dog Days’ and the staff was so cool and took us under their wing. We really felt like a priority. Gradually, the people we trusted either left Roadrunner or were fired (our A & R man being one that was fired) and we knew we were in trouble. Their experiment with other genres was not working out. We sold 20, 000 + copies of ‘Dog Days’ and I thought that was great for a first record. They were disappointed. They were used to selling that in one week with bands like Sepultura and Type-O-Negative. So, we became less of a priority. By the third record, it was dismal. All we thought about was getting out of the deal. They finally let us out of our contract. They gave us tour support (which comes out of your record sales, as did every expense the label incurred during the release) They let us do what we wanted for the most part, recording-wise. Overall, we weren’t seeing eye-to-eye creatively and I always felt that they wanted us to play up the hayseed-country-hick-schtick, which was horrifying. They made wardrobe suggestions, etc. They were an indie label that played ball like a major label when it came to business. The contract was old school and we never made a dime from record sales. Our ‘balance’ with them, the last time I got a statement 7 or 8 years ago, was in the six-figure range. Where did all that money go? I have no idea. To this day, they still have the rights to those records. Promotion costs a lot of money, I know first hand from running record labels, but after ‘Dog Days’ it seems the promotion started to taper off. Until we can afford to have them audited, we’ll never know for sure. Having said that, there were a couple of great people on staff who had our best interest at heart.

How did you hook up with Frank Coutch?

Laurie: Frank played with us for 7 years, the longest of all our drummers. We saw him play in a club in Vicksburg and I think we hired him after our first rehearsal together. He had the perfect vibe for the music and the chemistry was there from the get-go. I loved playing with Frank and he is still my all-time favorite drummer to play with.

Ya’ll hired another bass player for a while, George Sheldon. Why did you bring George into the fold?

Laurie: We had been touring hard for years and I had developed a terrible case of tendonitis in my right wrist, elbow and shoulder. I sought medical treatment but nothing was helping. An Oxford doctor, after a 15 second exam said, “Well, I guess you’ll just have to quit playing,” and then gave me a bill for $120.00… Thanks a—hole. That obviously wasn’t going to happen so Cary and I felt that a switch to guitar would be less demanding, which it was. Anyway, George had been around town and we had seen him play numerous times. He had this great, weird, soulful, and truly demented approach to playing any instrument he picked up. George played with us for 2 years, I think.

What led to Frank and George leaving Blue Mountain and joining Tyler Keith and The Preacher’s Kids? Wasn’t Cary the original guitarist for the Preacher’s Kids?

Laurie: I think we were all road weary, especially Frank. We had been touring for so long and had been around each other 24/7 for 7 years. It takes a toll and it wasn’t always happy and fun. Things were getting insane on the road and there was friction between all band members at the time. Cary and I were fighting, George and Frank were fighting…I was knocking George around backstage. Just kidding! Being on the road can be the most thrilling thing in the world but when things aren’t going well, it’s absolutely miserable. I also think Frank wanted to do something different musically. I don’t think George was happy with the situation for his own reasons and I wanted to get back on bass. It’s my favorite instrument and I was bored playing guitar. I had finally received effective help for my tendonitis from an acupuncturist in Nashville. Anyway, we had a band meeting and talked and by the end of the day Frank and George were no longer in the band… it was mutual for the most part.

We all played on the first Preacher’s Kids record, ‘Romeo Hood’. It was a big recording session and it was a blast.

Tell me about your final drummer, Ted Gainey.

Laurie: Ted was awesome. He’s a great person… positive attitude, funny, laid back and a great drummer. He was with us until we broke up. I can’t remember how long exactly… a year and a half, maybe? ‘Tonight It’s Now Or Never” was the only record he played on but he toured with us a lot.

Now, a tough question, “Why did Blue Mountain break up?”

Laurie: Anyone who’s ever been through a divorce knows how awful it is. It’s hard to be around the other person, much less, get along. There is so much to deal with and so many feelings. We managed to stay together as Blue Mountain for almost a year after we split but it was too hard. We played a festival in Canada with Blue Rodeo and after that trip, we parted ways.

Are the current reunion shows a one time deal, or is Blue Mountain going to stay together?

Laurie: We’re going to see how it goes. We’d like to record again. We are all genuinely excited and I look forward to spending time and playing music with Cary and Frank again. I love them both dearly and aside from the musical projects I’ve done with my brother, I haven’t found the same symbiotic thing that we had. We rehearsed last month and I was thrilled to see it was still there. It was weird, like we had never stopped playing together.

Cary Hudson, Frank Coutch, and Laurie Stirratt near Oxford, Mississippi in 1994
Photograph by Newt Rayburn.

Laurie, after Blue Mountain ended, you joined Tyler Keith and the Preacher’s Kids, ironically replacing George Sheldon on bass. Tell me about playing with them and the other projects you’ve been involved in since Blue Mountain.

Laurie: I loved playing with Tyler because he is such a great performer and songwriter. He has a fire that makes him unique and he’s about as real as it gets. He’s been around, playing music and writing in Oxford for ever, since the ‘80s and has made a huge contribution to the Oxford music scene. The Neckbones CD’s are built to last and are classics. ‘Souls On Fire’ is on my desert island list. I can’t imagine him doing anything else.

I moved to Chicago in 2003 and quit playing with Tyler. I needed a change of scenery and was ready for something different. My brother John and I started Broadmoor Records in 2003, mainly as a way to release our own music. We have averaged a release a year including two CD’s by The Autumn Defense, Laurie & John, and Healthy White Baby, a band I had with Danny Black, formerly of The Blacks.

While everyone is really excited and pleased that Blue Mountain is reuniting for some shows, what is the possibility of a Hilltops reunion with John Stirratt?

Laurie: Not likely anytime soon. John is so busy with Wilco and The Autumn Defense. He’s married to a great woman and they have a new baby, who is the cutest baby in the world, so when he is home, he doesn’t want to go anywhere.

Tell me about some of the tours Blue Mountain did. Where are some of the places you played?

Laurie: Well, we played Telluride Bluegrass Festival and Red Rocks in Boulder, CO with Willie Nelson, a music convention with Eddie Money (he said we had a ‘lotta soul’). We toured a lot with Wilco and Son Volt. We did an 8-week tour with Southern Culture On the Skids and a band from Portugal called The Tedio Boys. This tour almost killed me… I’ve never thrown down in a chemical way quite like that before or since. Anyway, one of the guys in the Tedio Boys had a lucky pair of pants that he wore for every show that he would never wash, I guess he thought the stinkier they were, the luckier, too. He was a big-time sweater, so pretty soon, these pants were reeking. You could smell them from across the room… out front during their show! The band stayed with George’s parents in Houston and George’s dad couldn’t take the pants stank so he snuck into Victor’s room and took the pants, brought them to the garage, poured gas on them and burned ‘em! Victor was bummed but everyone else was relieved! That tour might have been the most infamous for bad behavior. George came out on stage during a SCOTS set wearing only a beer box… the original ‘dick in a box’! I could go on and on about the fun we had and people we met. It was a great time.

Talk about your experience in Oxford over the years. How much has this town changed from your perspective?

Laurie: Well, the development has been the most distressing thing about the changes in Oxford. Every time I go to Oxford, numerous places that to me are Oxford, have been torn down… houses, old business, churches, what have you. I lived next door to the Ice House for years. That tear down was really sad to me… that whole area is just gross. I was disgusted that they named the new condo development “The Icehouse”. That’s rich. Look, I know things change and progress and you have to roll with it to an extent. Developers and property owners should be more responsible in their choices and of course, some have been. But if a developer from Jackson comes in and tears down a beautiful old house, crams some crappy-ass condos onto a tiny lot and sells it for a ridiculous amount of money driving up the real estate prices, how does it affect them? It doesn’t because they don’t live in Oxford. They just walk away from it with a pocketful of money. It doesn’t affect the weekend warriors who buy these places for football season and don’t contribute to the community in other ways. I would love to go back to Oxford at some point because it is home to me. I’ve known people there for over half my life and I still love it. Unfortunately, living near the square or even in town is out of the question because I don’t have a half-a-million bucks to throw around. It’s just unfair that people who have really invested in the community long-term can’t afford housing there.

Please tell me about “Hippy Hotel.”

Laurie: It was about the house where (supposedly) Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily” took place in. It was across the street from the Ice House and from where we lived. It was a cool old house and in the ‘70s was a kind of boarding house for students, hence, The Hippy Hotel. Cary was ahead of the curve when he wrote this because of what came to follow as far as teardowns in Oxford.

Laurie Stirratt, Cary Hudson, and Frank Coutch near Oxford, Mississippi in 1994
Photograph by Newt Rayburn.

What is your favorite Blue Mountain song?

Laurie: This sounds like BS but I like them all! I guess a few stand-outs are A Band Called Bud, Generic America, Hippy Hotel, Jimmy Carter, Bloody 98, Let’s Go Running (written by Conway, AK insurance adjuster and Fat Possum artist, Jim Mize).

Tell me about growing up. When did you start playing music? Who were you listening to? Who inspired the music you make?

Laurie: I grew up in Mandeville, LA. My parents encouraged playing musical instruments and my mom gave me her old guitar when I was 15. I started really getting into music at an early age. I was buying ‘45’s at about age 8. I loved rock and roll and was a huge David Bowie fan by 14. I learned the guitar by playing along to records by Dylan, The Birds, The Who, The Stones, etc.

Where do you see yourselves ten years from now? How do you see Oxford ten years from now?

Laurie: I think the development in Oxford may have peaked for the meantime. Hopefully, it will only get better moving forward in a positive way, preserving and nurturing the things that make it unique. No doubt it will get bigger and continue to grow. I’d like to see an independent record store on the square again. I hope artists will continue to come to Oxford and contribute to the community. I see myself still playing, recording and releasing music and moving back down to Oxford. I miss the south. The Midwest is really bland. The south has a flair that is so unique and inspiring.