Chris Ramey (guitar)
Billy Krause (guitar, banjo)
Michael Perry (vocals, guitar)
Molly Otis (violin)
Chuck Roll (bass)

"First time I ever heard Waylon Jennings," says Michael Perry, "was on an 8-track tape in a four-wheel drive truck doing sixty miles an hour down a Wyoming hay meadow. We were running late for Bible study." The songs on Tiny Pilot (Perry's latest musical release with his band the Long Beds) are a direct reflection of that experience. Ranging from straight-up twang to churchly harmonies and populated by characters drawn straight from rural and small-town America, they launch from places like the overpass outside Perry's beloved hometown of New Auburn, Wisconsin (population currently 562), a gospel service in a granary, and the kitchen floor of a woman about to drop a world of hurt on her drunken husband. "I was raised by farmers and preachers and tough country women, and I suppose my songs reflect that," says Perry. "Then again, certain wisdoms are available only from whistlers, frauds, and sinners, so I try to slide them a line or two as well."

Raised in a church so austere that hymns were sung with no choir, no accompaniment, and no church (the congregation met in a farmhouse and sat on straight-backed wooden chairs) Perry and his brother learned to sit side-by-side and work out harmonies on the fly. Those Sunday mornings instilled in Perry a love of singing "clear and pure" that can be heard throughout Tiny Pilot - most especially on the songs, "842 Miles," "If They Give You Wings," and "Sweet Edge of Time." Conversely, anyone introduced to Ol' Waylon by means of a four-wheeling 8-track is bound to shoot for some boogety-boogety now and then, as Perry and the Long Beds do on "Undone," "Somewhere South of Sunday," and (in a respectful nod to Ol' Hoss himself) "After Waymore's Blues."

While the music made by Perry and the Long Beds has been variously described as 'country folk,' 'roughneck folk,' 'folk-twang,' and Americana, they prefer the description given by an audience member after a benefit concert in Perry's old high school gym: "You sound just like Gordon Lightfoot... only zippier!" Nice - but there are limits. "Zippy or not," says Perry, "when 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' comes on the radio, we sit down, shut up, and listen."

*For a complete bio click here.


Photos:
all photos by: Drew Kaiser & Michael O'Brien.