“The Black Lillies are fronted by the best-matched male-female vocal duo since Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris,” says the website News OK. It sounds like an overstatement – unless you’ve heard the Black Lillies. Then it sounds like a reasonable claim. The Black Lillies are a country band for the ages, not the slick, soulless country that seems to get most of the radio airplay, but rich roots music performed with as much heart as technical virtuosity. The band’s third and latest album, Runaway Freeway Blues, made Best of 2013 lists from American Songwriter, No Depression, Folk Alley, WNCW, the Alternate Root, and many others.
Back in 2008 band leader Cruz Contreras was making a living as a truck driver, contemplating leaving the music business behind, when a night of singing around a campfire changed the picture entirely. He started harmonizing with Trisha Gene Brady, also from East Tennessee, on songs by Bill Monroe, Jimmy Martin, and the Carter family. “To me,” says Cruz, “that’s the essence of it. There are a lot of ingredients to what we do as a band, but that was the spark of it, that type of music, that feeling. It’s a regional, east Tennessee, mountain, and Appalachia music culture – there’s a wild energy to it.” The band beautifully captures that energy, with Cruz and Trisha sharing vocals, Tom Pryor on guitar, Robert Richards on bass, and Bowman Townsend on drums. In a few short years, they’ve played Bonnaroo and South by Southwest, been featured on NPR and PBS, won an Independent Music Award, and played the Grand Ole Opry more than any other independent band. Their music is breakneck, brazen and beautiful, rooted in east Tennessee but full of the spirit of the open road, heading down the highway and not about to stop anytime soon!
“The Black Lillies are fronted by the best-matched male-female vocal duo since Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris,” says the website News OK. It sounds like an overstatement – unless you’ve heard the Black Lillies. Then it sounds like a reasonable claim. The Black Lillies are a country band for the ages, not the slick, soulless country that seems to get most of the radio airplay, but rich roots music performed with as much heart as technical virtuosity. The band’s third and latest album, Runaway Freeway Blues, made Best of 2013 lists from American Songwriter, No Depression, Folk Alley, WNCW, the Alternate Root, and many others.
