The Brother Boys On The Honky Tonk Highway With The Brother Boys (2-CD)

2-CD (Digisleeve) with 36 page booklet, 51 tracks. Total playing time approx. 157 min.  

Whether in concert or on recordings, The Brother Boys - bandleaders Ed Snodderly and Eugene Wolf and their various bandmates - for more than three decades have created music reflecting the influence of several roots music styles while remaining original, true to their own sound.  

Deeply rooted in the past yet ahead of their time, The Brother Boys have been overlooked precisely because their music is not easily categorizable.  In 1988, Snodderly, Wolf, and some bandmates recorded the group's eponymous debut album for their own label, New Hillbilly Records.  The Brother Boys were steeped in the histories of several musical genres, with a repertoire that drew from - but did not imitate - classic country, folk, old-time, bluegrass, blues, rockabilly, gospel, and singer-songwriter pop.  

What rendered The Brother Boys' music distinctive was its organic blend of ingredients: Snodderly's and Wolf's authoritative lead vocals and adventurous ‘brother duo’-style harmony singing; older but not overly familiar standards mixed with Snodderly's evocative original songs; as well as deft and daring acoustic and electric guitar playing from Snodderly with skilled instrumental support from a merry band of string and percussion wizards. 

‘New Hillbilly Music’ compiles 51 Brother Boys recordings made between 1988 and 2022.  Newly remastered, these recordings include virtually all of the band's ultra-rare debut album, numerous Brother Boys classics from two acclaimed Sugar Hill Records albums, 8 previously unreleased live radio and concert performances, several Brother Boys gems originally found on other albums, and key tracks from the recent comeback album ‘More Mule’.  

Including rare photographs documenting the history of The Brother Boys alongside a revelatory interview with Snodderly and Wolf, this Bear Family Records® album (the third album in the label's ‘On The Honky Tonk Highway’ series) will take the listener on a rollicking drive up and down the backroads of a rolling, and at times majestically mountainous, Appalachian landscape.  Embodying music traditions without being bound by them, these recordings reveal The Brother Boys to be far more than a moldy revivalist act.  

With fans of American roots music worldwide presently acknowledging the 100th anniversary of the emergence of the genre once called ‘hillbilly music’ (i.e., country music), ‘New Hillbilly Music’ showcases songs, sounds, and styles that coalesced in the 1920s, flourished throughout the 20th century, and continue to evolve and inspire in the 21st century.