Big Shoes – King Size
13 songs – 47 minutes
The seven members with a huge background of playing and songwriting for other performers decided to bring their own music to the forefront. When asked who the band members have played with, their answer is “We just tell ’em the list of who we haven’t is actually shorter”. The band started as a Little Feat tribute band but quickly changed to playing their own music. They initially self-released two early albums with a third released in 2022 on Qualified Records, which is producer and eminent keyboardist Kevin McKendree label. The band members are Rick Huckaby on lead vocals and guitar with fellow guitarists Will McFarlane, Mark T. Jordan, and Kenne Kramer, bassist Tom Szell, keyboardist Mark T. Jordan, drummer Lynn Williams, and percussionist Bryan Brock. The Muscle Shoals Horns also guest on a few cuts.
The album opens with a funky “Halfway to Memphis”, a musician’s dream of making it in the city noting ” I want to be just like Elvis”. He asks “Can I Take You with Me” “where the sun shines all of the day” in a boogie. He declares “It’s like talking to a cold brick wall, you don’t care about me at all. I’m going to shut this powerline down “Right About Now”. Mark. T. Jordan’s piano is a standout in the mix with the guitars.
The guitarists battle it out on the title cut as the vocalist tells a tale of a kid sent to buy his mother “King Size” Chesterfields but is tempted by a king size ice cream cone. He proclaims” I Don’t Need Nobody” trying to run my life. I got to walk down my own path baby, play my own drum and fife.” Mark gets a piano solo amidst the guitar and horns. “Hurry Up Slowly” is a slow, countrified song as he states, “let the good times roll”. ” I will bring the wine and pour us a glass, treasure each moment as the hours slip pass. Start with a toast to the way that we knew the magic between me and you”.
“If I’m telling the truth “Every Song I Sing” is for you” with a recitation of the various styles of music he sings and notes “some takes you back, back home in blues somewhere in Dallas, somewhere in my youth where I first got the blues”. “Some make you dream, some make you sober.” He tells her to “put all of your tears in the past “’Til He’s a Memory” as she contemplates leaving a bad relationship and urges her to come to him. He determines “You Just Know” when you find the right one that led me where I had to go”.
The band jumps back into a full funk mode with a cover of Buckwheat Zydeco’s “Make It Easy on Yourself” with the Memphis horns chiming in. He invites “Yvette” to take a ride in my new Corvette. We’ll take a ride up to Lover’s leap, park the car and hop in the backseat, and fool around a while”. Not sure about the gymnastics that might be required for that, but okay if he says so. Mark’s rollicking piano drives the song with some rock ‘n’ roll guitar. He declares there are “Too Many Bees” buzzing around this honey” as his hopes are dashed as he tries to charm “a pretty thing…but then the line starts forming”. Slide guitar gets the buzz going. He notes that “she is like a needle in my brain “She’s a Pain” in a final cover of a song written by Jesse Ed Davis.
Shades of Little Feat still float in the band’s sound with a mix of modern country and a dollop of funk from the Muscle Shoals Horns. This is a band that seems destined for popularity with several songs that would most likely fit on the country charts, and sound like would be a hit on the festival circuit.
