“I got beer and Scotch. If you want something else, you gotta bring it,” said George McConnell.
So I grabbed a bottle of Old Granddad and headed over to his studio to talk with him about his current musical endeavor. And boy did we talk. Over the course of the two-and-a-half hour conversation, we covered the evolution of the Oxford music scene, McConnell’s childhood days in Vicksburg, his travels around the world, his Beanland, Kudzu Kings, and Widespread Panic days, and the sights ands sounds that contributed to his musical education.
McConnell grew up working on his grandmother’s beer truck. “I was just a little kid in short pants walking into the roughest honky tonks and juke joints you’ve ever seen,” he recalled. “I just got a crazy education: people smoking dope, loose women.”
McConnell might not have realized it at the time, but those days on the beer truck were molding him as a musician and artist: little bits of Merle Haggard and snippets of blues riffs were becoming part of his musical mindset.
“Leg in the east, leg in the west. I’m in the middle where I like it best,” he said, laughingly recalling a little blues ditty he picked up at some beer joint as a kid.
“You just cannot deny growing up in the South,” said McConnell. And he doesn’t, musically (or otherwise.) His new project features “country elements, blues elements, and soul elements.” The project also marks McConnell’s departure from playing with bands to focusing on his career as a solo artist, which he describes as both “scary” and exciting.
On his “first solo album ever,” he’s had the luxury of taking his time, focusing on individual songs. The recording process began nine months ago with Winn McElroy, owner of Black Wings Studio (at the old Fat Possum locale) in Water Valley.
The whole thing began with McConnell’s decision to “finally get back to [his] projects” after a four-year stint with Widespread Panic. So he started recording acoustic demos with the intention of shopping his songs around and was soon getting together a backing band. His old partner Daniel Karlisch, who he’s played with for years as the acoustic duo Drunk and Disorderly, joined him on guitar; and it was through Karlisch that he found drummer Kenny Graeber and bass player Tommy Touran.
Sometime during the extensive recording process, McConnell started thinking about the old days when he shopped for vinyl at Dr. Rockin’ Records in Yazoo City. “You’d go buy one song and you got whatever is on the B-side,” he remembered.
Then it struck him: how about combining old-school 45s with the technology of the Internet? And that’s exactly what he decided to do. His new record will be released as “virtual 45s.” Starting November 4, he’ll release four songs, virtual A and B sides. After that another two songs will come out every two weeks.
“Then when I get the first 20 [songs] down, we’ll cull together a full album,” he said. McConnell describes the album as his “redneck Dark Side of the Moon,” full of outtakes from recording sessions and him quoting lines from one of his favorite movies, Little Big Man. This time he hopes to release the record on vinyl, because it’s something he’s always wished Beanland had done and also because album covers are a great way to “clean your reefer.”
For now he plans to keep just writing songs and to continue recording throughout the next year. “The project will keep going until I run out of songs,” he said. But running out of songs doesn’t seem likely. “I just listen to my antenna,” said McConnell of his sole songwriting technique.
McConnell will celebrate his solo endeavor with a show he’s calling “An Evening with George McConnell.”
“I’m just going by my name this time,“ he said, “And November 7 at Larry’s will be my debutante ball…I’ve got a real pretty dress picked out.”
