Pirates of the Mississippi

Pirates of the Mississippi were an American country music band founded in 1987 in Nashville, Tennessee. The original members were Bill McCorvey (lead vocals, guitar), Rich Alves (lead guitar, background vocals), Jimmy Lowe (drums), Pat Severs (steel guitar, Dobro), and Dean Townson (bass guitar, background vocals). Severs quit in 1994 and was briefly replaced with Greg Trostle. The band recorded for Capitol Records, Liberty Records, and Giant Records between 1990 and 1995. They also charted nine singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, the most successful being "Feed Jake", which went to number 15 in 1991. After disbanding in 1996, both Alves and McCorvey went on to write songs for other artists. In 2006, the two reunited under the Pirates of the Mississippi name, releasing an additional album titled Heaven and a Dixie Night before disbanding again. Pirates of the Mississippi are known for a country rock sound, and they received significant media attention for sociopolitical messages in some of their songs. Bill McCorvey, founder of Pirates of the Mississippi, had moved from Montgomery, Alabama, to Nashville, Tennessee, in the 1980s with the intent of pursuing a career in country music. When he was initially unable to do so, he supported himself financially by working various jobs. These included building houses and filling envelopes in a warehouse. While doing so he befriended Rich Alves and the two began writing songs together. Their original intent was to provide "up-tempo" material for Conway Twitty to record, but most of this material was not selected by him. Because of this, McCorvey and Alves decided to recruit other musicians to form a band and play the songs themselves. McCorvey served as lead vocalist, with Alves on lead guitar and backing vocals. Completing the original lineup were steel guitar and Dobro player Pat Severs, bass guitarist and backing vocalist Dean Townson, and drummer Jimmy Lowe. The five members began performing together in 1987. Severs had played in Eddie Rabbitt's band before becoming a session musician, Lowe was a computer programmer, and Townson worked at an aviation factory. The five of them began rehearsing in Lowe's basement at night and decided to pursue a full-time career as a band after noting that neighbors would come over and listen to their music. They began performing at various events across the Southeastern United States. The band originally took the name The Cloggers after they were entertained by a group of dancers wearing clogs at a gig in Smyrna, Georgia. The Cloggers were discovered in the late 1980s by an artists and repertoire (A&R) agent for Universal Records, then a new record label owned by record producer Jimmy Bowen. Executives at the label disliked the band's name and suggested that they change it. They chose the name Pirates of the Mississippi after a song they had written about Lowe, whom they thought resembled a pirate. The band's debut album was finished by 1988, but its release was delayed until 1990 due to Universal being bought out by Capitol Records' Nashville division. In the meantime, Alves co-wrote the singles "Time In" by The Oak Ridge Boys and "Southern Star" by Alabama, the latter of which went to number one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts in early 1990. He and McCorvey also co-wrote "Karma Road" for the group Trader-Price (who were also signed to Capitol by way of the Universal merger) on their 1990 debut album. In June 1990, after the merger of Universal was completed, Capitol released the band's self-titled debut album. Alves produced the album with James Stroud. Pirates of the Mississippi produced four chart singles on the Billboard country charts between 1990 and 1991. The first single selected was a cover of Hank Williams' "Honky Tonk Blues". According to McCorvey, the cover of "Honky Tonk Blues" was not originally intended to be on the album but was added because label executives thought the other songs on the album were not strong enough to serve as a lead single. The band members chose "Honky Tonk Blues" because it was the first song they had performed together. Upon release, this song peaked at number 26 on the country charts. Although the follow-up "Rollin' Home" peaked outside the top 40, the album's third single "Feed Jake" became the band's biggest hit at number 15. The song received a music video directed by Deaton-Flanigen Productions. This was one of the first country music videos not to show the artist in it at all. "Feed Jake" was the band's most popular song with fans and was described in 1993 as their signature song. "Speak of the Devil", the last single from Pirates of the Mississippi, also made the country top 40. Pirates of the Mississippi accounted for two awards for the band. These were Top New Group from Radio & Records in 1990 and Top New Vocal Group award from the Academy of Country Music a year later. Brian Mansfield wrote in Allmusic that the album "is a cross between Alabama country and Southern rock...There are a few twists, though, namely a Guy Clark song...and a surf-country instrumental." Pirates of the Mississippi was certified gold by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (now known as Music Canada) in 1993, a certification which at the time honored shipments of 50,000 copies. In the United States, the album sold over 370,000 copies. 1991's Walk the Plank was the band's second album. Alves continued to produce, doing so with Bowen this time. Lead single "Fighting for You" peaked at number 41 on the country charts upon release. According to Robert K. Oermann of The Tennessean, this was due to radio programmers considering the song "too downbeat". Follow-up singles "Til I'm Holding You Again" and "Too Much" (the latter written by Guy Clark and Lee Roy Parnell) were minor chart hits. Between the band's first two albums, the members performed all instruments themselves except for the synthesized strings on "Feed Jake" and "Fighting for You". These were performed by John Kelton, also the sound engineer on those albums. McCorvey thought the songs on Walk the Plank were "stronger" than those on the first album and that the production was closer to the sound of the band's concerts. Mansfield said of Walk the Plank that the "Allman Brothers cops are more exciting than their stone-country material, although that's certainly competent enough." He also thought that "Til I'm Holding You Again" showed influences of soul music. Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly praised the band's sense of humor, but thought that the album's sounds and influences were inconsistent. After a restructuring of Capitol Nashville, Pirates of the Mississippi were transferred to Liberty Records, where they would release their third album A Street Man Named Desire in 1992. The title track charted at number 56 on the country charts that same year. Members of the band told the Regina Leader-Post that they received calls from representatives of Bill Clinton, the Democratic Party nominee for President of the United States in the then-upcoming 1992 United States presidential election. Said representatives wanted the band to endorse Clinton because they thought the song's lyrics would be appealing to his constituency. Severs refused, as he knew that the band members had differing political viewpoints from each other and did not want to involve the band in political matters. Conversely, the song received negative attention from representatives of the Republican Party. Severs stated that an unnamed radio station in a larger market was playing the song regularly but withdrew it from rotation after "a close personal friend" of President George H. W. Bush called the station and asked them to do so. The only other single from the album was "Don't Quit Your Day Job", a song about the band's attempts to combine their music careers with their commercial jobs in their early years. Jack Hurst of Tribune Media wrote that the band "possess a swingy ear-friendliness as well