Nelo - Nelo
Rip Info
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Artist: Nelo
Album Title: Nelo
Record Label: Justice Records
Rip Date: 2008-04-30
Catalog Number:
Genre: Rock
Year: 2008
Source: CD
Encoder: LAME 3.97 -V2 --vbr-new
Quality: 189 kbps avg / 44.1KHz / Joint Stereo
Track List
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01 All Gone To Nothing 4:34
02 Jumping Bean 4:57
03 On Top Of Love 4:51
04 Another Day 3:40
05 Walkin' Around 4:20
06 Goodbye 4:25
07 Footsteps 3:29
08 Alright 5:15
09 You Don't Know 4:54
10 This Time 4:54
11 Roots 4:24
12 Please 5:07
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00:54:50
78.00 megs
Rip Notes
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In today's pop culture world, in which music "idols" are auditioned, judged,
anointed and frequently forgotten within the span of a few months while even
"underground" acts can stir up buzz overnight on the blogosphere, the notion of
a band building an audience by actually working its tail off seems positively
antiquated. So go ahead and call Austin's nelo (rhymes with "hello") just a
little bit old-fashioned. Long before nelo and producer Freddy Fletcher put the
finishing touches on the band's self-titled debut album, songwriter/acoustic
guitarist Matt Ragland and the rest of his crew were already seasoned road
veterans accustomed to playing to packed crowds across Texas and throughout the
South.
In fact, it's a good thing the album is set for national release April 22 (on
the Houston-based Justice Records and producer Freddy Fletcher and Willie
Nelson's Pedernales Records), because all those loyal but hungry nelo fans ù
collectively responsible for more than 200,000 song streams since the band
launched its current MySpace page two years ago -- were getting mighty restless.
Tunes as indelibly catchy as "Jumping Bean" demand to be heard and enjoyed more
frequently than even the most hard-gigging of bands can accommodate -- and
computer speakers just don't do tunes this organically structured full justice.
Ragland can sympathize. For him, the release of nelo is a dream that's been
nearly 10 years in the making, going all the way back to when he first picked up
an acoustic guitar in high school. He was soon writing songs and jamming with
school friends and fellow Dallas natives Stephen Goodson (electric guitar),
Chris Hill (drums) and David Long (saxophone). A couple of years later, while in
college, Ragland was refining his songwriting and performing around Austin with
singer Reid Umstattd while Goodson, Hill and Long were perfecting their own
chops studying jazz at the University of North Texas in Denton. By 2002, they
all reconvened along with another UNT alum, multi-instrumentalist St. Clair
(bass, trombone, trumpet), Mike St. Clair and nelo was born.
Well, unofficially, at least. According to Ragland, nelo didn't officially take
off until August of `05 -- the month he and the rest of the band left Texas for
Athens, Ga. "That was really the defining moment," he says, "when I called
everyone and said, 'OK, I'm ready to really do this. If you want to do it, too,
come and join me.` I wanted there to be that unifying moment where we all packed
our bags and moved somewhere with one goal in mind. It was time to get serious."
Inspired by artists like Dave Matthews, Stevie Wonder and Sting, Ragland knew
his songs were going to require a degree of musicianship beyond both his own
self-taught chops and your everyday garage band. Luckily, Goodson, Long and Hill
all came with similarly demanding influences, ranging from John Coltrane, Sonny
Rollins and Steve Jordan to Bill Frisell, Jimmy Page and Duane Allman. St.
Clair, the last of the instrumentalists to join the fold, came with a Master's
degree in jazz studies and formidable real world experience: prior to joining
nelo, he toured with the Glen Miller Orchestra and played trombone in Dallas`
acclaimed The Polyphonic Spree.
Even before St. Clair joined the band, Ragland knew he had the makings of the
perfect ensemble in place. All he lacked was a proper singer. Enter Umstattd the
proverbial "X" factor. "Reid and I had been going to Camp Longhorn in Texas
together for many, many years from third grade all the way up to college," he
says. The summer before their senior year of high school, they were at a Camp
Longhorn retreat in Colorado, training to be counselors, when somebody pulled
out a guitar and started to strum the opening chords to Jerry Jeff Walker's "Mr.
Bojangles." When Umstattd started to sing along, Ragland was blown away. "I knew
this was the real thing immediately," he explains. "There was some kind of
organic or spiritual connection between Reid's voice and my dream. Only it
wasn't just a dream anymore I knew I had what I needed."
Fast forward a few years, and nelo was well on its way toward firmly
establishing itself on the Athens music scene. But a homemade demo was stirring
up quite a buzz back home in Texas, too so much so that nelo was soon playing to
packed crowds in both states. Among those drawn to the buzz on the Texas side
was producer, studio owner and Willie Nelson nephew Freddy Fletcher, who took in
a nelo show at Austin's Momo's last December and became an instant convert.
"I kept hearing, `You really need to hear this band!'" recalls Fletcher. "There
were people lined up around the door to get in and see them. I thought, `Hmm,
this is interesting..." He loved what he heard and hit it off with the band
right off the bat, striking the deal that quickly led to Ragland and Co. moving
back to Austin and heading straight into the studio to begin work on their
debut. "It may be their first record," says Fletcher, "but these guys in the
studio they're so damn good. And their style is definitely not something you
hear every day."
Maybe not, but just listen to songs like "Jumping Bean," "On Top of Love" and
"You Don't Know" (smartly picked by Justice as the lead single), and it's easy
to understand why Fletcher and so many nelo fans before him became instant
converts. Instrumentally, nelo lays down an eclectic, sinuous groove that belies
the players' jazzy roots, but Ragland's meticulously crafted songs and innate
pop instincts are too sharp to ever be mistaken for mere excuses for jam band
meandering; the solos and arrangements dazzle alright, but it's the melodies
that make you want to return to these songs again and again. Especially as
delivered by a singer as naturally gifted and soulful as Umstattd, whom Fletcher
describes simply as "phenomenal."
But what's most remarkable of all when it comes to this band is the fact that,
for all the years that these guys have played together, for all the thousands of
fans they've already won through literally hundreds of shows and
word-of-mouth-fueled grassroots enthusiasm, nelo's journey has only just begun.
"I have been dreaming, planning, and working toward the recording of this first
record for so long," Ragland marvels. "And though I don't think you can ever be
completely satisfied with something that you've put so much of an emotional
investment into, I will say that I'm definitely excited. I'd like to leave the
judgments to the fans, but I think people are really going to be impressed. We
had some great people working with us on the record, and it came out with a
certain vibe that I'm proud of. But the most exciting thing for me is the
thought of making more records. Suffice it to say that I've written quite a few
more songs, and we've got a lot more music to get out there. The new songs are
all sittin' in the bag... waiting."
Patience, young man. Take it from your fans: Good things come to those who wait.