MUSIC

With new EP, Salty Dogs set off on ‘whirlwind tour’

The Salty Dogs have come to realize they are too old to fight. Well, they seem to have never actually fought, at least with each other, but the four-man central Arkansas band has named a new recording Too Old to Fight.

The recording, a six-song EP, will be officially released today. And just to make sure fans of the band have a chance to hear for themselves, the band has scheduled a “whirlwind tour” of Pulaski County this week, with appearances ranging from one side of the Arkansas River to the other.

“It seems like the older we get, the harder it is to ditch our responsibilities,” says Brad Williams, the band’s lead singer, referring to the band’s settling for a six-song EP rather than a full-length album. “There was really no rhyme or reason for making an EP, but we didn’t want to wait another year or two to get more songs, so we went with this approach. We love playing music and have a great camaraderie doing it.”

The Salty Dogs have been around for close to a dozen years, and owe their choice of a name to a musician who was supposedly part of the original lineup, but somehow never chose to appear at any of the band’s shows. So without him, the group, with Williams singing and playing rhythm guitar, originally consisted of Nick Devlin on electric guitar and other instruments, Bart Angel on percussion and Mike Nelson on bass. Nelson departed four or five years ago and was replaced by stand-up bassist Brent LaBeau, well known in central Arkansas musical circles as the barefoot bassist in The Gunbunnies.

Williams reckons the Salty Dogs really began in earnest when the members decided to enter the 2003 Arkansas Times competition for “Best Original Band in Arkansas,” which the group won.

“What we might have originally intended as a joke turned into a serious effort,” Williams says. “We had to have 30 minutes of original music, so I wrote some songs and we recorded a demo and that became our first album, Salty Dogs and Friends, in 2004, as it turned out. Since then, we’ve also put out CDs named Autoharpoon and Brand New Reason, in 2007 and 2010, respectively.

“Most of what we do is original, where I write something and take it to the other guys and we’ll flesh it out from there. On Too Old to Fight, I wrote five of the six songs, with the other one being an oldbluegrass/country gem, ‘Nine Pound Hammer,’ by Merle Travis.”

Bluegrass music is what Williams cites as his original influence, thanks to his father’s collection of music by the Stanley Brothers, Bill Monroe and the Osborne Brothers. Eventually, he took a shine to music from the Sun Records studio era in Memphis, especially Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. Merle Haggard has come to the fore of late, with Williams noting that he traveled to Tunica to see Haggard six months ago and he will also attend Haggard’s April 2 concert at Robinson Center Music Hall.

One of Williams’ favorite musical accomplishments was tracking down Elvis Presley’s drummer, D.J. Fontana, and inviting him to play on a song, “Starting Now,” that was on Autoharpoon.

“I found an email address for him, and sent him a request, and he replied,” Williams says. “He invited us to come to a studio in Nashville, and the engineer was Roy Orbison’s old guitar player.”

On the new recording, Williams says, there are several guest artists: “Ken Williams, my uncle, who was on the Louisiana Hayride and played with Don Gibson, plays pedal steel; Ken Crouch, fiddle player, is now out with Alan Jackson on his bluegrass tour; and I do a duet with Caitlin Cary, who was in Whiskeytown and has a group, Tre Chicas.”

Besides the traditional club gigs, the Salty Dogs also have found a niche playing at the Tales From the South gatherings at Starving Artist Cafe in North Little Rock, where, Williams says, the band is proud to be a part of the festivities.

“They open the doors at 5 p.m. and the band plays at 6 p.m. for an hour,” Williams says. “After that, the featured author gets up and tells their story. It’s a pretty neat thing, and we go there, or I do a solo show, about twice a month.”

The band will also be featured during the Good Morning Arkansas show from 9 to 10 a.m. today on KATV, Channel 7.The Salty Dogs

6 p.m. today, Tales From the

South, Starving Artist Cafe,

411 Main St., North Little

Rock

Admission: $7.50 (food and

drinks from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

bought separately)

(501) 372-7976

talesfromthesouth.com

7:30 p.m. Wednesday, South on Main, 13th and Main streets, Little Rock

Admission: free

(501) 244-9660

southonmain.com

9:30 p.m. Friday, White Water Tavern, West Seventh and Thayer streets, Little Rock

Admission: $7

(501) 375-8400

whitewatertavern.com

Style, Pages 29 on 03/25/2014

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