Bob Dylan is trying to break up BR549. No, it’s not quite like what Yoko Ono did with The Beatles. Instead, Dylan has recruited multi-instrumentalist Don Herron from the Grammy-nominated country act ...

It was the "new" BR549 that played the Birchmere on Thursday night, but an old strategy -- a crackling blend of honky-tonk, hillbilly swing and rock-and-roll energy -- proved it remains one of the ...

When Chuck Mead started his job as expert rock 'n' roll technician and all-purpose rockabilly-lick adviser to a Broadway musical — even one about a celebrated event in the annals of Sun Records, and ...

Chuck Mead makes a virtue out of relaxation on his new full-length Journeyman's Wager, but the narratives have a knockabout air, and the former BR549 leader sounds like he's learned to roll with a few ...

BR549 GOT ITS start 11 years ago in the then-seedy neighborhood around Ryman Auditorium. Since then, however, the area has transformed itself into the Nashville equivalent of Georgetown, a change ...

In the music manufacturing town of Nashville, groups such as BR549 stand apart. The band’s sound is decidedly retro, the songs a mix of classics and originals. How good BR549 is on disc depends on how ...

There are two kinds of country music. First, there’s the overly earnest empty-hat variety endemic to country radio and embodied by the likes of Tim McGraw or Shania Twain. The songs sound too slick, ...

Like Dorothy and Toto, Chuck Mead may not be in Kansas anymore, but Kansas is still in him. That's why Mead's latest album, "Free State Serenade" features a seam of songs all focused on the state and ...

In the alt-country sphere, BR549 has long been a standard-bearer for a kind of imaginary Nashville that never forgot the lessons imparted by the hardcore honky-tonk values of Bakersfield, and stood by ...