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  Horizontal History

  The Horizontal Blues Band began quite by accident in 1992. Guitarist/singer Derryl Garnett Harper and bassist Andy Messer had been playing in a blues trio called Seventh Hour. After a couple of years of gigging in Lexington, Kentucky, Harper and Messer, both of whom actually lived an hour and half south of Lexington, decided to seek new venues in eastern Tennessee. Drummer Mitch Crane, rightly skeptical of the earning potential of seat-of-the-pants touring, opted not to play outside Lexington. Still intent on performing as Seventh Hour but now in need of a “road” drummer, Harper and Messer contacted Wally Robbins, then living in nearby Cumberland Gap, Tennessee. The two had been introduced to Robbins some time before at an Alison Kraus concert, and Robbins and Messer had subsequently played together briefly in another blues band. Robbins signed on initially to fill in for Crane on a job in Johnson City, Tennessee. The musical chemistry between the three players proved so strong, though, that Robbins stayed on to fill the drum chair permanently. (Harper, Messer, and Crane did play one more Lexington show as Seventh Hour, a battle of the bands which they lost to a group that performed a note-for-note remake of the Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus.”)

  The vibe that Robbins brought to the trio setting was so different that a new group identity seemed in order. No new name presented itself until the band watched a home video of an impromptu outdoor show shot by luthier and Spirit of Jubal Musical Instruments founder Paul Rasmussen. For a portion of the shoot, Rasmussen had inadvertently held the camera in such a way that the band appeared to be standing on a horizontal plane rather than a vertical one. And the band had found its name.

  A new musical identity proved slightly more elusive. Seventh Hour had been a power trio in the Double Trouble tradition, covering Stevie Ray Vaughan songs alongside numbers by Otis Rush, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, the Kings (Albert, B.B. and Freddie), Lonnie Mack, Gary Moore, and Tinsley Ellis, as well as performing a smattering of originals in a similar vein. The Horizontal Blues Band kept some of the same repertoire (as borne out by two 1992 appearances on a local cable television show, Thirty Minutes With, in which the band barely stepped outside Seventh Hour territory) but began exploring new musical territories, inspired by Robbins’s jazz-based drumming, a reaffirmed appreciation for Jimi Hendrix’s more experimental tracks, and the alternative rock ferment then transforming the popular music world. From the beginning, the band members aspired to record original songs and garner radio airplay but remained ambivalent as to whether to market themselves as a blues band or as a psychedelic/alternative act.

  The Horizontal Blues Band entered the studio for the first time in March of 1993 with the intention of completing two separate projects: a blues EP and a single intended for college alternative rock radio, with the idea that the relative success of the two recordings would determine the band’s future direction. Several of the blues numbers (“Your Good Looks Should Be a Crime,” “Down to the Bone,” “Hip Shakin’ Mama”) had roots in the Seventh Hour days, “Good Looks” even having been recorded before as a Seventh Hour single. The modern blues/R&B tune, “Porch Light,” rounded out the intended EP. Two more new songs, “Cold Wind Blowing” and “Another Question,” were slated for the single.

  Once again an accident changed the course of Horizontal history. During a few minutes of studio downtime the band recorded a wild, edge-of-control, Hendrix-inspired version of the traditional “Catfish Blues.” After a dinner break, band members instructed engineer Dave Barrick to erase “Catfish Blues” in order to use the tape for another number, but Barrick insisted that they listen to it first. In its grooves lay the connection between the blues and psychedelic sides of the band’s musical persona. The band ultimately included “Catfish Blues,” “Cold Wind Blowing,” and “Another Question” on its debut album, To the Bone.

  To the Bone laid a foundation in support of the band’s claim to all the musical territory out to the blue horizon, with up-tempo shuffles (“Bone,” “Good Looks”), low-down roadhouse grind (“Hip Shakin’”), and up-to-the minute slow-dancing R&B (“Porch Light”). The psychedelic tracks inevitably drew comparison to Hendrix and even Robin Trower, though the effects-laden guitar solo on “Cold Wind Blowing” owed something to the Edge and the droning bass line from “Another Question” was crafted as a nod to Nirvana.

  Though hastily recorded on a miniscule budget and released directly by the band with no real distribution network, To the Bone did in fact garner considerable airplay on a number of public radio stations in the Southeast and Midwest, and the Horizontal Blues Band hit the road in earnest, playing nightclubs, bars, blues festivals, independently promoted outdoor concerts, and even—on two occasions—a Mexican restaurant. The band’s favorite venue during this period was a small reggae club called Bullfrog’s in Knoxville. The money wasn’t much, but owner Dennis Brown (no relation to the reggae singing star) became a good friend to the band and a Dead Head-like scene began to grow there, with tapers showing up regularly and a coterie of whirling dancers (eventually dubbed the Tater Dancers after their fondness for the country blues chestnut “Diggin’ My Potatoes”) turning out for most shows. One of the Tater Dancers eventually listed Derryl Garnett and the Horizontal Blues Band on the acknowledgement page of his doctoral dissertation, crediting Thursday nights spent dancing at Bullfrog’s with pulling him through when stress threatened to overwhelm him.

  The Horizontal Blues Band returned to the studio in early ’94. Too Much Weekend was recorded in two days (as compared to the one day spent on To the Bone) and showed a broadening musical palette with a title track that skirted the edge of neo-rockabilly, jump blues (“Backdoor Man/It’s About Time”), slow blues (the musically heavy but lyrically light “Hell Being Me”; “If I Was a Fool” with its Leslie-drenched guitar and Allmans-influenced swing-tempo solo; and “Leave Me,” with a groove reminiscent of the Beatles’ “Come Together” and a percussion track performed on a gourd), an R & B tune in the “Porch Light” vein (“Somewhere Inside Me,” with a debut lead vocal performance by Messer), Maceo Parker-influenced funk (“Lovesick”) and what can only be described as blues punk (“Somebody’s Talkin”). With the exception of a radio promotion release of “If I Was a Fool,” though, Too Much Weekend would remain in the vault for years to come. A plan to add additional tracks and remix the existing ones remained unfulfilled as Messer went off to graduate school and Harper and Robbins grappled with the question of whether to rerecord the album with the Horizontal Blues Band’s new lineup. The band expanded to a quartet during this period, with Champ Young (formerly of Walter “Wolfman” Washington’s band) adding keyboards and Paul Fisher occupying the bass space. Fisher would eventually be replaced by Dave Nichols (Smokin’ Dave & the Premo Dopes, Jazz Liberation Quartet), and the band would continue to do live performances for some time. With the exception of an unreleased radio transcription from the Bays Mountain Blues Festival, however, the quartet lineup would go unrecorded and would play its last show at Bullfrog’s in 1995.

  The original trio reunited twice—once in late ’94 to record an original Christmas tune, “Somebody Spike the Eggnog,” for Rollin’& Tumblin’ Records’ Santa Is a Bluesman compilation series and again in ’96 to play the Little Chicago Blues Festival at the Down Home in Johnson City—but the Horizontal Blues Band remained mostly silent until 2008, when Robbins combined still photos of the band with the music of “Cold Wind Blowing” to create a youtube video. The original band members had talked for years of creating new music together, but the video seemed to be the spark that reignited their collective interests. In early 2009 they returned to the studio—actually multiple home studios, the internet age having risen to maturity during the band’s hiatus—and began writing and recording new songs, aided and abetted this time by engineer/producer/writer/musical gadfly Thor Bahrman III.

  The Horizontal Blues Band’s musical tastes have broadened in the years since Too Much Weekend, expanding the horizon even farther. The band’s first new studio recordings in fifteen years have thus far encompassed Pat Metheny-influenced guitar fusion, horn-driven funk chants, and even Middle-Eastern cum rockabilly percussion. At the same time, the band is working toward eventual re-release of To the Bone, a first-ever release of Too Much Weekend and assorted bonus tracks, and a video/multimedia retrospective, all of which should eventually be available online.

  Keep watching the horizon for more from The Horizontal Blues Band.