HAYSHAKER

(2006)
MUSIC ::: COUNTRY ::: GRAM

Hayshaker emerged from Waycross, Georgia—the railroad town at the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp where Gram Parsons spent his formative years. Built around the husband-and-wife partnership of C.C. and Laurie Rider, the band combined pedal steel, heavy guitars, Southern storytelling and the volatile chemistry of two voices joined in harmony. Imagine AC/DC colliding with X, with John Doe and Exene Cervenka trading verses once reserved for Johnny Cash and June Carter. Hayshaker inherited the geography of Cosmic American Music, but its grit, velocity and dark humor belonged entirely to the band.

Released by Shut Eye Records in 2007, Black Holiday in Mexico City announced that sound with seven songs that refused to remain inside a single genre. “Laurie’s Song” transformed drinking, suspicion and marital retribution into a startlingly destructive country duet. “In the Snow” leapt from honky-tonk guitar into near-heavy-metal bombast, while “Dirtkick” stretched into seven minutes of roadhouse combustion. Surf, folk, Southern rock and flashes of hard rock passed through songs that retained country souls. One contemporary reviewer called Hayshaker “a gem” capable of restoring faith in music for anyone exhausted by stadium country and its oversized hats.

The independently released Tin Roof Snare deepened the formula. Its vivid lyrics, carefully constructed instrumentation and beautiful husband-and-wife harmonies earned comparisons to the way Parsons blended seemingly incompatible traditions into Cosmic American Music. Songs such as “Merle Haggard” acknowledged the lineage, while “Swamp Country” brought the entire Hayshaker world together: humor, regional character, an irresistible melody and C.C. and Laurie singing as though harmony were both an embrace and a confrontation. Motherlode discovered Hayshaker in 2007 and played “Dirtkick,” “Laurie’s Song” and “In the Snow” relentlessly. A decade later, those songs became part of the trail that carried us from Miami to Waycross. Hayshaker was the first signal. Eventually, we followed it home.