BR5-49

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BR5-49
Origin	Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Genre(s)	country
Years active	1994-present
Label(s)	Arista Nashville, Lucky Dog, Dualtone
Website	http://www.br5-49.com
Members
Don Herron Chuck Mead Mark Miller Shaw Wilson
Former members
Gary Bennett Geoff Firebaugh "Smilin'" Jay McDowell Chris Scruggs

BR5-49 (sometimes spelled BR549) 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.

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 magazine, and gained a wide audience in 1997 when they made their singular appearance on the PBS music television program Austin City Limits. ^[1]

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 of 2006, and former bassist Geoff Firebaugh is a member of the Nashville based rockabilly outfit Hillbilly Casino. Despite shows in Europe in 2007 it's unclear if the band will return to its capacity as a full-time touring band.

1 Members
2 Former Members
3 Discography
- 3.1 Albums
- 3.2 Singles
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Members

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

[edit] Former Members

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

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

Year	Title	US Country	US Heat
1996	Live From Robert's (EP)
1996	BR5-49	33	11
1998	Big Backyard Beat Show	38	23
2000	Coast to Coast	46
2001	This Is BR549	54
2003	Temporarily Disconnected (EP)
2004	Tangled in the Pines	58
2006	Dog Days

[edit] Singles

Year	Title	US Country	Album
1996	"Cherokee Boogie"	44	BR5-49
1997	"Even If It's Wrong"	68
1997	"Little Ramona (Gone Hillbilly Nuts)"	61
1998	"Wild One"		Big Backyard Beat Show
2001	"Too Lazy to Work, Too Nervous to Steal"^A		This Is BR549
2004	"That's What I Get"		Tangled in the Pines
2004	"Way Too Late (To Go Home Early Now)"		Tangled in the Pines
2005	"After the Hurricane"		Dog Days