Crunchy guitar and a four-on-the-floor drum beat underpinned a song coming from Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion’s Lauderdale Stage on Friday evening.
Lyrics to “Kingsport” laid out the mantra for husband-and-wife rock act Laid Back Country Picker: “Playin’ country music, treatin’ people right.”
At least a couple hundred in the audience were feeling it, cheering with gusto for a setlist that included original songs like “Kingsport” and “Magoffin County Cadillac,” and covers from Blue Oyster Cult and The Ramones.
After blasting through the latter’s “Commando,” singer/guitarist David Prince told the audience, “Nothin’ says country music like The Ramones.”
Rhythm & Roots organizers knew what they were getting. It was Laid Back Country Picker’s second appearance at the festival, which began celebrating its 25th year on Friday. Audiences have known the eastern Kentucky act since Prince and his wife, Honey, opened shows for roots music star Tyler Childers at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium about a decade ago.
Key trivia: David Prince was Childers’ ninth-grade government teacher.
Both Princes are retired teachers and spend all their time these days focusing on writing, performing and recording.
“You know, I think we did our career kind of backwards from most people,” Prince said after the show, as Honey posed for selfies with fans. “We weren’t trying to become rock stars at 17. We got our careers out of the way, and now we get to go do it.
“I think we’re a lot smarter now, too. We don’t do dumb stuff.”
All wild oats long sowed, the pair spends lots of time on the road, with a name inspired by a Waylon Jennings song but a sound that reflects the English rock that Prince fell in love with as a teenager.
“I grew up, my dad was a fiddle player and a banjo player, a bluegrass fan, and that’s the music I was raised on,” he said. “And then I turned 15, and some guy said, ‘Hey, this is Led Zeppelin, check this out.’ So I became a rock and roll guy.
“It’s kind of interesting. I’ve got a country heart and rock and roll in my mind. I’ve got a hillbilly mouth, so everything comes out where I sound like a hick, but we’re playing kind of hard rock. And we just evolved into this. … We’re just rock and roll people who live in the hills, and that’s kind of what we do.”
Prince said he felt like a “fish out of water” musically until he heard the Kentucky Headhunters and the Georgia Satellites, two bands that hit hard but didn’t try to mask their rural voices.
“They were influenced by English rock and accepted into the mainstream,” he said.
Unlike those groups, the duo has carved an independent path free of record labels and built a devoted fan base on its own terms.
“No one’s telling me what I can play,” he said. “I don’t have to impress anybody, except Honey.”
Teresa Prince, aka Honey, played guitar in Laid Back Country Picker, which was a quartet before COVID-19 hit. While they were hunkered down, pandemic-style, she started hitting the drums in their basement.
“‘Oh my God, you can play,’” he remembered telling her. “She’s like, ‘I don’t know anything about it.’
“She didn’t have to. She’s just got a natural feel. She doesn’t know a paradiddle. She just beats the crap out of them.”
California-based duo Meels brought more of a throwback country feel to the same stage after Laid Back had packed their sparse gear into the back of their car and headed out for shows in the Northeast.
Prince said that he had hoped he could stick around to hear Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives, but learned that Stuart’s show wasn’t till Sunday. Los Lobos was an enticing act for Friday night, but the duo had a room booked in Roanoke to get some rest before an early morning drive on Interstate 81 and other highways north.
On the bill for later Friday were Los Lobos, The War & Treaty, St. Paul & The Broken Bones and late-night sets from The Creekers and Organ Fairchild.
As Los Lobos kicked off its 7:30 p.m. Piedmont Street stage set, the Princes stood at stage left. “I couldn’t miss it,” David Prince said, a huge smile on his face.
