Trenton Ayers – Taking It To The Mountain
9 Tracks – 35 minutes
Trenton Ayers was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi where he was immediately surrounded by the Hill Country blues. His father, Earl “Little Joe” Ayers played bass for Junior Kimbrough. And family outings found him at events surrounded by the likes of R.L. Burnside, Robert Balfour, and Jesse Mae Hemphill. He says that he was always surrounded by guitars and if he picked it up, there was always someone there to give a new lesson. He naturally took to playing the guitar starting at age 3 and by age 6 he played his first gig, a birthday party where he earned $370 in tips. By age 12, he joined his first band, The Burnside Exploration with Kenny Kimbrough and Gary Burnside. At age 14, he toured with the Slick Ballinger band and opened for BB King at a Lexington, Kentucky show. In 2016, he worked with Cedric Burnside and his uncle, Gary Burnside, on Descendants of Hill Country, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Blues Album.
Over the years, he toured across the country and made multiple European tours through 22 different countries. His travels introduced him to multiple guitar styles from Prince to Roger Waters. He has been a frequent collaborator with G. Love. In 2022, he teamed with Alvin Youngblood Hart, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, R.L. Boyce, Jontavious Willis and others to release a hip-hop blues record, Philadelphia Mississippi.
In 2023, Trenton recorded his first solo album, A Father – Son Legacy. While he and his father and played together frequently, they had never recorded together. As he recognized his father was aging, he wanted to record something showing the Ayers musical heritage for future generations.
For his second solo album, Jimbo Mathus (Squirrel Nut Zippers) convinced Trenton to come into the studios to record. Jimbo produced the album and played drums, keyboards, and guitar. Trenton is of course on lead vocals and guitar with Kirk Russell on drums and guitar, John Kveen on bass with backing vocals by The Crimestoppers. The album was recorded in Music Maker’s new “Freeverb” chamber., a new echo chamber that builds on the hill country sound.
He opens with “Blues So Bad”, with some funky guitar lead and says, “Don’t say things that hurt my mind”. “Most people think I’m crazy, some say out of my mind.” ” I have the blues so bad.” He then says, “Let the band “Play On”, everybody play on”. “Run Leo” is an instrumental featuring Trenton’s guitar bursting out with Jimbo adding B-3.
On the title track, Ayers exclaims, “Don’t let me think about it. Goin’ to the river, I’m “Taking it to The Mountain”. “Me and my people are going to have a conversation”. The song’s backing vocals offer declarations of “higher” that will bring to mind Sly and The Family Stone. But his guitar certainly moves the song into a different level. He declares “When times are “Getting Funky”. we have no rules. We will show you how funky we can get.” and he clearly demonstrates that direction. He tells her “Come to me, baby. I need your “Insight”, I need your knowledge”.
On “Snake Hips”, he rocks out as he urges her “Come on baby, now snake hips, now wiggle when you want to”. ” Slide to the left, now crawl, now slid to the right”. All delivered in what he calls a Hill Country rap. He declares “Long Time No See”, It’s about time, ain’t nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for you.” He closes with “Thang Going On” as he proclaims, “I cried and cried, cried all night long as my baby is up and gone”. “You know I love you baby, doing the things you make me do. We got a thang going on”.
Trenton’s vocals and base music definitely delivers the expected Hill Country sound, but he turns it up a notch with a slightly more modern sound adding some funky and frequently rousing guitar riffs. He embodies his heritage but fleshes it out with his influences over the years developing his own style.
