The Subdudes
Encyclopedia
The Subdudes are an American
roots rock
group from New Orleans. Their music is a blending of American folk
, swamp rock, New Orleans rhythm and blues, Louisiana blues
, country
, cajun
, zydeco
, funk
, soul
and gospel
with harmonic vocals. Their sound is notable for the band's substitution of a tambourine player for a drummer.
The Subdudes often credit their songwriting to the group as a whole, although the primary songwriters are Tommy Malone (brother of The Radiators
guitarist Dave Malone
) and John Magnie. Current members of The Subdudes are Malone, vocals, acoustic, electric and slide guitars; Magnie, vocals, accordion, keyboards; Steve Amedée, tambourine, drums, other percussions, and vocals; Tim Cook, percussion, bass and vocals; and Jimmy Messa, bass and guitar. They are an Americana
band with a rock-based sound that also shows soul
, gospel
, blues
, cajun
, country
, and other American roots music
influences. Their former bass player was Johnny Ray Allen, who has not been with the band since the band's 1996 farewell tour (documented the next year on the Live at Last CD). Willie Williams also contributed to three albums: Annunciation, Primitive Streak and Live at Last as a second guitarist.
After regrouping in 2002 (first as The Dudes but then re-adopting the name 'subdudes' in March 2003), Bob Dylan
's guitarist Freddy Koella helped produce Miracle Mule. The album Behind the Levee
(2006) was produced by bluesman Keb' Mo'
and yielded a minor hit, "Papa Dukie and the Mud People" (better known by its refrain, "Love is a Beautiful Thing"). Released in late 2007, the album Street Symphony was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee
at Blackbird Studios during March 2007 and was produced by George Massenberg, who has worked with Little Feat
. Released in late 2008, Live at the Ram's Head is available on CD or as a two DVD set, with one disc being the live show from "The Ram's Head" in Annapolis, Maryland
, and the second DVD being Unplugged at Pleasant Plains, with interviews and live studio footage from the recording of Street Symphony in Nashville.
Most recently (2009), the band's self-produced Flower Petals was recorded in Magnie's basement studio then mixed in Miami, Florida
by The Albert Brothers
and Steve Alaimo
. The album was a departure for the band, much more country
-oriented than previous releases. The cover art was by William Matthews, a Denver, Colorado
artist well-known for his Old West-style paintings. Flower Petals was originally slated to be recorded as the follow-up to Miracle Mule in 2004 but was nixed by the band's record company at the time, Back Porch Records
. Five years later, the band members financed the recording themselves then shopped around the completed tapes.
The Subdudes' stature as New Orleans musicians has recently been reflected by their inclusion individually and as a group in the HBO series Treme.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
roots rock
Roots rock
Roots rock is a term now used to describe rock music that looks back to rock's origins in folk, blues and country music. It is particularly associated with the creation of hybrid sub-genres from the later 1960s including country rock and Southern rock, which have been seen as responses to the...
group from New Orleans. Their music is a blending of American folk
American folk music
American folk music is a musical term that encompasses numerous genres, many of which are known as traditional music or roots music. Roots music is a broad category of music including bluegrass, country music, gospel, old time music, jug bands, Appalachian folk, blues, Cajun and Native American...
, swamp rock, New Orleans rhythm and blues, Louisiana blues
Louisiana blues
Louisiana blues is a genre of blues music that developed in the period after World War II in the state of Louisiana. It is generally divided into two major sub-genres, with the jazz-influenced New Orleans blues based around the city and the slower tempo swamp blues incorporating influences from...
, country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
, cajun
Cajun music
Cajun music, an emblematic music of Louisiana, is rooted in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada. Cajun music is often mentioned in tandem with the Creole-based, Cajun-influenced zydeco form, both of Acadiana origin...
, zydeco
Zydeco
Zydeco is a form of uniquely American roots or folk music. It evolved in southwest Louisiana in the early 19th century from forms of "la la" Creole music...
, funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
and gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
with harmonic vocals. Their sound is notable for the band's substitution of a tambourine player for a drummer.
The Subdudes often credit their songwriting to the group as a whole, although the primary songwriters are Tommy Malone (brother of The Radiators
The Radiators (US)
The Radiators, also known as The New Orleans Radiators, are a rock band from New Orleans, Louisiana, who have combined the traditional musical styles of their native city with more mainstream rock and R&B influences to form a bouncy, funky variety of swamp-rock they call fish-head music...
guitarist Dave Malone
Dave Malone
Dave Malone born August 29, 1952 in New Orleans, Louisiana is best known as the guitarist/vocalist, and sometimes songwriter, of The Radiators. He has also worked with a wide variety of other musicians, in and out of New Orleans. He has recorded more than a dozen albums with the Radiators,...
) and John Magnie. Current members of The Subdudes are Malone, vocals, acoustic, electric and slide guitars; Magnie, vocals, accordion, keyboards; Steve Amedée, tambourine, drums, other percussions, and vocals; Tim Cook, percussion, bass and vocals; and Jimmy Messa, bass and guitar. They are an Americana
Americana (music)
Americana is an amalgam of roots musics formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the American musical ethos; specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and other external influential styles...
band with a rock-based sound that also shows soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
, gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, cajun
Cajun music
Cajun music, an emblematic music of Louisiana, is rooted in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada. Cajun music is often mentioned in tandem with the Creole-based, Cajun-influenced zydeco form, both of Acadiana origin...
, country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
, and other American roots music
American Roots Music
American Roots Music is a 2001 multi-part documentary film that explores the historical roots of American Roots music through footage and performances by the creators of the movement: Folk, Country, Blues, Gospel, Bluegrass, and many others....
influences. Their former bass player was Johnny Ray Allen, who has not been with the band since the band's 1996 farewell tour (documented the next year on the Live at Last CD). Willie Williams also contributed to three albums: Annunciation, Primitive Streak and Live at Last as a second guitarist.
After regrouping in 2002 (first as The Dudes but then re-adopting the name 'subdudes' in March 2003), Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
's guitarist Freddy Koella helped produce Miracle Mule. The album Behind the Levee
Behind the Levee
Behind the Levee is the 6th studio album by The Subdudes, released in 2006. As usual for the band their music combines rock, folk, R&B, soul, funk, gospel, blues, cajun, zydeco. The album was produced by noted blues musician Keb'Mo...
(2006) was produced by bluesman Keb' Mo'
Keb' Mo'
Keb' Mo is an American blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter, currently living in Nashville, Tennessee, United States.-Early life:From early on he had an appreciation for the blues and gospel music...
and yielded a minor hit, "Papa Dukie and the Mud People" (better known by its refrain, "Love is a Beautiful Thing"). Released in late 2007, the album Street Symphony was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
at Blackbird Studios during March 2007 and was produced by George Massenberg, who has worked with Little Feat
Little Feat
Little Feat is an American rock band formed by singer-songwriter, lead vocalist and guitarist Lowell George and keyboardist Bill Payne in 1969 in Los Angeles....
. Released in late 2008, Live at the Ram's Head is available on CD or as a two DVD set, with one disc being the live show from "The Ram's Head" in Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It had a population of 38,394 at the 2010 census and is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C. Annapolis is...
, and the second DVD being Unplugged at Pleasant Plains, with interviews and live studio footage from the recording of Street Symphony in Nashville.
Most recently (2009), the band's self-produced Flower Petals was recorded in Magnie's basement studio then mixed in Miami, Florida
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
by The Albert Brothers
The Albert Brothers
The Albert Brothers are two recording engineer brothers, Ron Albert and Howard Albert, who are best known for their work on various recordings at Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida, founded and owned by Mack Emerman...
and Steve Alaimo
Steve Alaimo
Steve Alaimo was an American teen idol pop singer in the early 1960s who later became record producer and label owner, but he is perhaps best known for hosting and co-producing Dick Clark's Where the Action Is in the late 1960s...
. The album was a departure for the band, much more country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
-oriented than previous releases. The cover art was by William Matthews, a Denver, Colorado
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
artist well-known for his Old West-style paintings. Flower Petals was originally slated to be recorded as the follow-up to Miracle Mule in 2004 but was nixed by the band's record company at the time, Back Porch Records
Back Porch Records
Back Porch Records is an Americana/Roots rock label owned by EMI Music. The label was started in 1997 as joint venture between Virgin Records and Milwaukee-based Narada Productions. The labels initial releases, including the popular I-10 Chronicles compilations, were produced by Virgin Records...
. Five years later, the band members financed the recording themselves then shopped around the completed tapes.
The Subdudes' stature as New Orleans musicians has recently been reflected by their inclusion individually and as a group in the HBO series Treme.
Discography
Discography Source:- 1989: The Subdudes — East West
- 1991: Lucky — East West
- 1994: Annunciation — High Street
- 1996: Primitive Streak — High Street
- 1997: Live at Last — High Street
- 2000: The Subdudes (a greatest hits package) — KRB
- 2004: Miracle Mule — EMI/Back Porch
- 2006: Behind the LeveeBehind the LeveeBehind the Levee is the 6th studio album by The Subdudes, released in 2006. As usual for the band their music combines rock, folk, R&B, soul, funk, gospel, blues, cajun, zydeco. The album was produced by noted blues musician Keb'Mo...
— EMI/Back Porch - 2007: Street Symphony — EMI/Back Porch
- 2008: Live at the Rams Head — Biographica
- 2009: Flower Petals — 429 Records