BR549

Infobox Musical artist
Name = BR549


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Background = group_or_band
Origin = Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Genre = Country
Years_active = 1994-present
Label = Arista Nashville
Lucky Dog
Dualtone
Associated_acts = Hillbilly Casino
URL = http://www.br5-49.com
Current_members = Don Herron
Chuck Mead
Mark Miller
Shaw Wilson
Past_members = Gary Bennett
Geoff Firebaugh
"Smilin'" Jay McDowell
Chris Scruggs

BR549 (originally spelled BR5-49) is an American country music band founded in the mid-1990s in the city of Nashville, Tennessee. Their music, referred to as alternative country or neotraditional, contains elements of western swing and rockabilly. They eschew modern Top 40 pop-country for a more raw, honky-tonk sound, with songs about 50s pin-up/dominatrix Bettie Page and The Ramones. They took their name from a telephone number regularly used in a Junior Samples sketch on the television show, "Hee Haw." Overall, the band has recorded six studio albums and two EPs, and has charted three singles on the "Billboard" country charts.

Biography

Before moving to Nashville and forming BR5-49, Chuck Mead led the legendary Homestead Grays, a roots-rock outfit based out of Chuck's home town, Lawrence, Kansas. Named after a Negro League baseball team, the band recorded a full length CD entitled "El Supremo" along with a vinyl-only EP entitled "Big Hits". Notorious for their raucous live shows at midwestern clubs and campuses in the mid to late 1980s, Mead and the Homestead Grays began to draw crowds in Kansas City, Minneapolis and Chicago.

In 1995, Mead and the members of BR5-49 came together to play at Robert's Western World, a clothing store turned honky-tonk in Nashville's eclectic "Lower Broad" district. Upon the release of their debut album in 1996, the new band BR5-49 was named as one of the hottest bands of 1996 by "Rolling Stone", and gained a wide audience in 1997 when they made their singular appearance on the PBS music television program, "Austin City Limits". [ [http://www.pbs.org/klru/austin/artists/program78.html Mary Chapin Carpenter followed by BR5-49] , Austin City Limits, 1997]

BR549 (the hyphen was dropped in 2001) has toured with Bob Dylan, The Mavericks, Junior Brown, The Black Crowes, and Brian Setzer. The band is currently on hiatus. Multi-Instrumentalist Don Herron is touring with Bob Dylan, and lead vocalist Chuck Mead is performing with the honky-tonk country supergroup The Hillbilly All-Stars, along with Robert Reynolds and Paul Deakin of The Mavericks and solo recording artist/actor Mark Collie.

Former co-lead vocalist, and co-founder, Gary Bennett released his solo debut, "Human Condition", in February 2006, and former bassist Geoff Firebaugh is a member of the Nashville based rockabilly outfit Hillbilly Casino.

Members

* Chuck Mead - guitar, vocals
* Shaw Wilson - drums, backing vocals
* Don Herron - fiddle, steel guitar, mandolin, dobro, banjo
* Mark Miller - bass, vocals

Former members

* Gary Bennett - guitar, vocals
* Smilin' Jay McDowell - bass
* Chris Scruggs - guitar, vocals
* Geoff Firebaugh - bass

Discography

Albums

ingles

*^APeaked at #11 on Country Singles Sales.

Contributions

*"Song of America" (2007) - "Sweet Betsy From Pike"

References

External links

* [http://br5-49.com BR5-49 official web site]
*allmusicguide | id=11:hnfexqqgld6e