Merry Christmas from Sons of Bill

Posted December 23, 2009

Though certain members of Sons of Bill are ACLU supporters, we still believe it’s appropriate to wish everyone a Merry Christmas when the season comes around. In that spirit, we’ve dropped a little something in Santa’s bag for all of you to enjoy around your mashed potatoes and platters of ham biscuits (country ham, we hope). Almost six months ago, to the day, our sophomore album One Town Away was released and we celebrated the event with a massive hometown show at The Paramount Theater. We invited up a bunch of old friends to join us onstage and, over the past half a year, we’ve had a number of people ask us if we managed to get any of those guests on tape while they were up there. The answer is a resounding “yes!”, however those tapes have never been made publicly available. ‘Tis the season.

Below you’ll find two tracks from that night. The first is an old traditional featuring our good friends Laura Wortman and Kagey Parish of The Honey Dewdrops doing a four-way duet with Sam and Abe. Although we were recently told it’s not technically a traditional and it has not yet passed into the “public domain”, it’s been played by enough folk singers to safely be called “traditional”, at least by us.) If you like the sound of this one, check out the Honey Dewdrops debut album If The Sun Will Shine. You won’t be disappointed.

The second track will hopefully be considered a traditional someday, but we’re not holding our breath. The tune was penned by the great American songsmith Mr James Hetfield and we are joined on dueling lead guitar by none other than Mr Nick Cordle. Nick has played in a number of great bands around Charlottesville and elsewhere, but he is currently employed melting face with a cute little group called Arsis. If your idea of holiday fun is having your brain blown out of your ear canals and splattered all over the Christmas tree, then check out their albums. They’ve got a new one out in February!

There’s also a secret bonus track from the same show, but you need to be on the email list to get it. You can sign up here and we’ll email that one to you. It’s just as awesome and being on the email list means you get to hear about all things Sons of Bill without eavesdropping on the cool kids conversation during lunch hour.

It also means you’ll hear about our Tour Dates, which include four shows NEXT WEEK in Texas opening for Robert Earl Keen! After that we’ll be heading up to Steamboat Springs, Colorado to play with a bunch of our favorite bands at Music Fest, and then hitting concert halls in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Missouri and other exotic locations on our way back home. Keep an eye on that and we’ll keep you posted as we head west.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
Sons of BIll

Long Black Veil (feat. The Honey Dewdrops)
Fade to Black (feat. Nick Cordle)