(photograph by Wayne Sides)


Alabama Dust (1999) – Bare Knuckles – After a year of traveling the countryside performing, Sides and Berry composed a new set of songs drawn from their experiences and from the stories of the people they met along the way. For this recording they expanded the band to include Max Russell on electric, slide and steel guitars, Penny Qubeck on mandolin, J. J. Fago on piano, Keith Henry on electric guitar and backing vocals, Chris Mansell on percussion and Richard Curtis returned to deliver more of his unique brand of scat singing. The CD begins and ends with Wayne Sides singing of ancient wandering and calamity. In between the band covers an American landscape where every joy is a cause for celebration and no sin goes unpunished. This is the sound of contemporary folk music with no ambition beyond expressing the natural truth of the human condition. To download the tracks “Alabama Dust” and “Protection” click here.