black diamond heavies: Press

"Headlining blues rockers the Black Diamond Heavies, who have never failed us live, return to town. The group is now a duo, and reportedly even better than before."

With an earthy blues-soul-jazz-punk credo feeding every inch of the rhythm and shake, the band lurches between foot-tappin' freedom on "Fever in My Blood" that resembles the sweaty and spine-tingling moments of Memphis garage'n'roll purists the Oblivians. Yet, the Heavies' palate is not one dimensional or stuck on the ratty and raunchy gutter tunesmith treadmill, for the old-fashioned preacher man soul delivery of "All to Hell," with its smoke-encrusted, red shag carpet ambience could be a Stax cut from the 1960s. The horns make it that much more authentic and pregnant with slow swaying redemption. In turn, the big drum bombast of "Leave it on the Road" pipes past the Tom Waits-esque exorcism of the devil, who had been chasing the narrator's ass. Not by surprise, there's a gritty Fat Possum records chill and distortion to the amblings of "Poor Brown Sugar," which makes it a reptilian cousin to the Stones song by the similar title. Meanwhile, angels, pill-poppers, and a buttoned-down narrator sauntering under the alias Jesse James show up for the barroom crawl of "Stitched in Sin," while the thrust and torment of cocaine gets unraveled and stabbed at on "White Bitch." She may kill friends, steal wills, and keep the singer on the floor, but he's got to wrestle with her, like a crazed snarling dog, damnit, less he becomes a helpless victim of that serpent eye she keeps trained on him, keeping his upside-down world baited, barbed-wired, and wrecked. The song is punchy and profound due to this thermal and toxic emotional core. "Guess You Gone and Fucked It Up" wraps up the disc, and it is a burning rendition of the Paul "Wine" Jones song, who is a former Delta cotton gin worker and welder described as having "a dexterous manner of subsuming rhythm and lead functions in to a guitar style with the momentum and unpredictability of a runaway steamroller." Luckily, Black Diamond heavies do right by him, preserving that unbridled, steam engine stoked, catapulting sound right into the dead silence of the end. If you think sound verite, lo-fi, or a hands-off technology is the road map to an unembellished sonic freedom, then this is your pork skin and chitlin plate of goodies.

When you think of 'bluesy garage rock,' blaring electric guitar coming out of an overdriven amp is usually the key musical ingredient. But the Tennessee duo who goes by the name of Black Diamond Heavies completely forgot use of a six string, as a Fender Rhodes electric piano takes its place throughout their debut, 2007's 'Every Damn Time.' Surprisingly, the move results in a down n' dirty good time. Gravely, whiskey soaked vocals straight out of the Tom Waits songbook (courtesy of John Wesley Myers) are on display throughout -- but especially on the album opener, "Fever in my Blood." Elsewhere, "Poor Brown Sugar" contains a strutting riff that sounds like a direct descendent of "Spirit in the Sky," "Leave it in the Road" proves once and for all that Fender Rhodes can be one of the funkiest instruments on the planet, while both "All to Hell" and "Stitched in Sin" are soulful -- almost gospel-sounding -- ditties.

eing a fan of unrefined punk rock, I was won over by "Every Damn Time" the first listen. The album begins with "Fever in my Blood", a song that gets the album started on a good note with furious drumming and uninhibited yelping vocals before introducing the bass keys and classic Fender Rhodes electric piano, that's right no guitars on the entire recording. The album changes pace with "All to Hell" which is slowed down and has a soulful touch reminiscent of Ray Charles and Sam Cooke. Other album highlights include the upbeat "Poor Brown Sugar" with its 12 bar blues influence and album closer "Guess You Gone and Fucked it all Up" which when played loud is sure to get any party started. Fans of classic garage rock including the Mummies, the Sonics, and Booker T and the MGs take notice of this one.

Black Diamond Heavies @ Retro Bar, Manchester
By Stu Gibson

In the wake of The White Stripes, stripped-down rock'n'roll duos can seem a tired idea, with copyists and chancers pushing those who have long held true to the concept ever further out to the margins.

But Tennessee's Black Diamond Heavies are a towering example of a real two-man soul and blues freakshow.

Singing keyboardist John Wesley Myers has the fervour of the righteous and blessed. Clad in boots, faded jeans and white vest with long hair flowing, Myers is every inch the diabolical cult leader from Trailer Park Mansions, Texas.

Veins bulge from face and arms and there's a palpable intense aura as he pumps the keys like a possessed Pentecostal preacher channelling Ray Charles through the medium of Tom Waits.

Drummer Van Campbell steers the crowd through the sea of grinding blues with instinctive and free-flowing rhythm patterns, providing an ebb and flow from despondency to redemptive exultation.

If it is true that Myers is the son of a preacher man then this helps explain the gospel feel to the music but, as with the best blues music, there is a whole heap of dirt track dust in there.

The organ distorts with the drama of Deep Purple, The Doors and Iron Butterfly and the gritty delinquency and devilry of Monster Magnet.

And despite pile-driving psychobilly legends The Meteors playing across town the same night, the curious and queasy are here in force to bear witness these arcane musical curios.

Another triumph for Manchester's best monthly underground night, Club Voodoo.

10:24am Saturday 29th April 2006

Every year, staffers from all four Creative Loafing and Weekly Planet papers dig through mountains of hype, buzz, website addresses and word-of-mouth recommendations to come up with 10 rising, overlooked or just plain amazing Southeastern acts for your perusal. Here's this year's yield:

Black Diamond Heavies. Rev. John Wesley Myers -- keyboardist, preacher's son and exactly one-half of Nashville blues duo Black Diamond Heavies -- launches charm attacks with such fervor as to enslave you. He speaks and sings like a young Tom Waits, and slinks across the keys like a coked-up baboon with nothing to lose. Myers' energy alone is enough to elicit jaw-drops from audiences, but the music is what he's pinning hope on. You Damn Right, the Heavies' 2005 EP, sports grooves like a gorge and an unmistakably dirty quality. The EP features Myers sharing vocal duties with slide guitarist/harmonica player Mark "Porkchop" Holder, a big ol' white kid who co-fronted the band until recently. "He didn't want to be away from his lady," says Myers of the amicable departure, officially announced just weeks ago. Now touring as a two-piece with beat destroyer Van Campbell (and occasionally his other band, the Immortal Lee County Killers), Myers looks to baptize the nation -- nay, the world -- via ass-shaking jams. -- Mark Sanders

Fans of Fat Possum, the peerless primal modern blues and rock label responsible for introducing the world to Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside among others, should take note of an excellent band making Fat Possum-ready noise on the East Side, the Black Diamond Heavies

Nashville's Black Diamond Heavies specialize in a righteous Fat Possum groove steeped in the blues and shot through with punk rock.

Guttural, juke-joint blues songs -- the kind that shake the moonshine from your ass pocket and transform your fists into the devil sign -- aren't immune to the trite sway of nostalgia and romanticism. We like our Southern blues-rockers bestial and destructive; if we can't have that, then mullets, bandanas, and a Skynyrd or Stevie Ray lick will do. Though they've shared the stage with quasi-hippie jammers like Gov't Mule and the North Mississippi Allstars, the Black Diamond Heavies pound harder and bathe less, slamming together piano, harp, slide guitar and drums, growling and spewing with as much poison as bourbon in their blood. Their sound is homicidally distorted, a junkyard-assembled Econoline stalking the back roads from Chattanooga (their native turf) to Abilene, swerving and jerking as the bandmates fight over which 8-track to play next: John Lee Hooker, Led Zeppelin or Black Flag. Highly anticipated is the release of their to-be debut album "All to Hell" Those jonesing for no-bass electro-blues could do much worse than the Heavies, but consider yourself warned: By comparison, the White Stripes are a hipster minstrel show.

They tore it up last night at the Cabin at City Museum, then they killed at the tail end of the hoot over at Frederick's Music Lounge - both sets were damn near un-plugged. By the time you read this they will have burned the place down at full electric capacity at Frederick's for the second night in a row. I am out of words, you have to see these guys live --- Dont even try an'stop them!!!

Saw Calexico a couple of weeks ago and they were fantastic. There's also a great band here in nashville called The Black Diamond Heavies that I just saw and really liked. Seems like there's always something interesting around, you just have to look a bit sometimes.

12/3/04 The Black Diamond Heavies, Frederick’s. Bob Reuter was real jazzed by this Nashville trio when they played here a while ago for only a handful people- he’s been playing them a bunch on his radio show and introduced the band to a much bigger crowd tonight.

The Black Keys might be a starting point in describing these guys- they apply fat and funky electric guitar (a big guy with a baby face who plays sitting down) and simple but emphatic drums to songs inspired by old-school rural blues. To this, add a skinny, long-haired dude on soulful, surging Rhodes keyboards. I think southern evangelical churches and heroin addiction figure into the unauthorized bio of this band.

They kept things varied along the way- sometimes the guitar player played sleazy/greasy slide, at other times his fingers squeezed out some firey lead runs. In addition to the manic, balls-out blues thing (one original was about Robert Johnson), they covered the Velvet Underground’s "Waitin’ For My Man", putting their own hypnotic spin on it. Both the guitar player and the keyboard player sang, the latter in a gravelly voice that worked well on Tom Waits’ "Down, Down, Down". This is the shit.

Review of “You Damn Right” EP ----- from The State Journal Register, Springfield Ill.
3.5 Stars of 4
R Kelly got 2.5

“There won’t be room enough on the Underground City Tavern’s stage for the rail-shaking train of blues-rock hybrid music coming into town this Wednesday with the Black Diamond Heavies. Sure, its just three guys, but the Tennessee trio of Mark Holder, John Wesley Myers and Van Campbell packs the sonic energy of a fully erupting band into its six-song, half-hour EP. Think a roadhouse-style live show mixed with the rock bombast of The Doors, all recorded with lo-fi fuzziness. That is evident on the propulsive ‘Hambone’, and the piano-and-harmonica plunk of ‘Poor Brown Sugar.’
The sole blues-only track comes with the chunky guitar epic ‘No Doctor’ and there’s even a bit of whiskey-soaked rasp a la Tom Waits on the album. It’s in the band’s wicked cover of his ‘Down Down Down’ as well as the rowdy talk on ‘Leave it in the Road’”.

--Nick Rogers

East Nashville's Black Diamond Heavies combine the best New Blues traditions of artists like Kenny Brown and Elam McKnight with Jimbo Mathus' 'shine fired bottom-of-the-hill country blues and the Black Keys aural sonic senses and backroom basement know-how. Their new six song blues thesis earns a ow and easy 22 carat A+. Now, I gotta admit on average I got about as mush use for a keyboard tickler as I do a harmonica blower. Neither one to my experience knows when to shut the hell up and let it breath. I now stand corrected. By gawd if The BDH's john Wesley Meyer has not opened my ears that I might see. J.W. rolls the ivories around the dirt floor barrelhouse one song, spreads out a sweet b-3esque spackel where wanted on another or so and takes it to wednesday night meetin' when the service calls. Strap that to a ten pond tin of Port Arthur Texas-sized whoopass and you got yerself a problem you can make work. Drummer Van Campbell hails from Kentucky and All Hail a drummer that doesn't bore me nor piss me off. The man is one a few i've heard in some time that understands the drummers secret is one foot on the edge of the grave and the other down on the metal pedal pounding through like Henry's hammer. Ol' Mark Holder knows for damn sure how to squeeze every drip of lemon and greasy fat butter out of that guitar then knock you in the damn head with the dish (or tub depending on the knock needed). He'll sneak up behind y'all to do it too! A tough soulfull singer that honors his rural Tennessee raising. The disc trots the line from track one Hambone (which hangs in one of our top 3 songs of the year here) a hell raisin' shout-out to Black Betty (Bamalam!), Ol' Black Mattie and a Ass Pocket of whiskey to a cover of Tom Waits Down Down Down (which I guarandamntee you will be the soundtrack to monkey knife fights country wide) and a head peelin' slide workout called No Doctor. We all had some suit try and sell the year of the blues back to us. I'm sure some non-player got paid. But I reckon we got some celebrating to do still with outfits like The Black Diamond Heavies, Gravel Road, Jimbo, Elam, Hill Stomp, Chris Cotton, Snakedrive and the rest of our world-wide brothers and sisters makin' damn sure it's Not The Same Old Blues Crap. I must hope and believe these new folks have and will come to be the blues world's Nirvana ridding the blues once and for all of the SRV aping white-boy overbitin' leather britches wearin' wankstas. Black Diamond Heavies are off to a bigass start and will no doubt rank within' the top five records of the year in my world. -Rick www.homestead.com/ricksaunders

To most, the blues are an outmoded art form, characterized by hackneyed three-chord riffs with a well-known formula and selections from a standard canon ("Mannish Boy," "Hoochie Coochie Man," etc.). Why else are blues jam nights at local bars more prevalent than, say, heavy metal jam nights, or bebop jam nights?


That's not a condemnation. Just don't expect to find the Black Diamond Heavies trolling the clubs, looking for a place to plug in and play with the Stevie Ray wannabes. Their style of blues is at once more progressive and more tradition-conscious than most of their counterparts, eschewing the clichés that have become synonymous with the idiom.


Perhaps it has to do with upbringing. Mark Holder, the rotund, charismatic singer-guitarist for the Heavies, was raised in the tiny hamlet of Birchwood, 50 miles north of Chattanooga. As a child, Holder picked tobacco and the guitar, and found his love for music in part through church. The spirit moved him then, just like being onstage does now. Church was a place, Holder says, where the impulse was either to let something out, or to let something in a communion, of sorts, that converted easily to his love for the blues. Joined by Texas native (and fellow ex-gospel musician) John Wesley Myers, Holder continued his sojourn, playing the blues with something personal at stake.


Holder sometimes treats performances like church revivals, at others times like exorcisms. Sitting onstage with his guitar propped on his gut, he picks the bass notes with his thumb while howling about what sounds like a lifetime's worth of trouble and ecstasy. Meanwhile, the rest of the band--keyboardist and singer Myers and drummer Van Campbell--flail away in the spirit of blues greats (John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters) and great proto-punks (the Stooges and the Velvet Underground).


Holder considers the Black Diamond Heavies--and the East Nashville scene in general--a reaction to what's happening on Music Row. He admits that his band's blues revivalist style, along with the absence of a bassist from their ranks, guarantees that they aren't likely to be playing showcases at the Wildhorse anytime soon. Not that they, judging by the music on their six-song EP You Damn Right, care for such things anyway.


The Heavies' disc, which they put out themselves, was recorded at Church Street Sound in Murfreesboro, but you couldn't tell that by listening to the songs. The guitars are awash in reverb, and are sometimes barely distinguishable from Holder's anguished yelps; the album sounds less like a studio creation than what you'd hear at one of the band's shows. Campbell's drumming is a study in what John Bonham might've done had Led Zeppelin stuck to their bluesier inclinations. And Myers, whose gruff singing voice is a tonal scrap yard to Holder's new car lot, compliments the big guy's vocals amiably.


Perhaps what's most remarkable about You Damn Right (if not about the Heavies themselves) is how the record honors the group's influences without pandering to them. The traditional blues number "Hambone," which has as much sex and violence in it as any thuggish rap, could be the band's anthem. Their own numbers, particularly mid-tempo songs like "No Doctor," are rich in grooves and pockets of rhythm. Maybe best of all, the Heavies aren't afraid of teasing out a note, a phrase or a cymbal crash, maybe to their audience's patience, if not their own.

Critic's Pick-Thursday, October 21st 2004
BLACK DIAMOND  HEAVIES The Heavies play the blues like a steam-engine train, barreling forward with such a persistent, chooglin' rhythm that it sounds like they're trying to get the stage to start rolling down the line. The bass-less trio prefer down 'n' dirty grooves over flashy pyrotechnics, meaning they're more Savoy Brown than Stevie Ray Vaughan, and meaning they want you to move rather than stare. Powerful, rough-voiced frontman Mark Holder coaxes a fuzzed-out tone from his slide, drummer Van Campbell brings the thunder and keyboardist John Wesley Myers likes funky counterpoint and sustained notes, and occasionally lightens the mood with boogie-woogie piano straight out of a New Orleans brothel. Nashville transplants from Chattanooga, the trio will set the mood for Kenny Brown, the longtime R.L. Burnside sideman now touring with his own quartet. Radio Caf?Michael McCall