Grayson Capps

Press

“Capps’ Tennessee-Williams-meets-Charles-Bukowski lyrical style is equal parts Southern Gothic and Los Angeles noir. His songs are literate, imaginative, and sometimes magical, his storytelling skills matched by an uncanny sense of musical history that will grow on you like kudzu vine.”

“Take the poetry of Texas troubadour Townes Van Zandt, combine with Steve Earle’s edgy attitude and stir with a little cup of the bayou-blues (think Howlin’ Wolf) and you start to get a taste of Capps’s scrumptious gothic gumbo.”

“New Orleans’ marvel Grayson Capps is alive and well and slowly building one of the most phenomenal songbooks in America today. If ever there were a cat primed to pick up where Lowell George and John Prine have left off, it’s Capps.”

“This fourth album by the Nashville-based native Alabaman and former New Orleanian plays out in the raw Southern milieu of his earlier work, and he again brings that world to vivid life. Supported by his band, the Stumpknockers, and singing in a gruff baritone, Capps spins out simmering backwoods story songs like “Arrowhead” and “Ike” that sound like a cross between Tony Joe White and Tom Waits. That’s when he’s not letting loose with the roadhouse-rocking fury of “Big Ole Woman” or “Big Black Buzzard.”

“When you peel the layers of any song, ultimately it’s that individuals ability to connect with their audience through their words, and the way they play their instrument that makes a lasting impact. I’m often in awe of the process, as much as the performance. So it was a treat to connect with Grayson Capps a man who you will soon hear doesn’t take his craft too seriously, but is serious about what he does.”

“On his latest release, Scarlett Roses, Grayson Capps offers acoustic-based ballads, love tunes, and anthems replete with driving rhythms and distorted guitars.”

“Capps and his accompanists never overstay their welcome on such tracks, so the single time the ensemble stretches out, on the near eight and a half-minute “Taos,” the resulting mood is at once engrossing and disturbing. Which might well stand as a capsule description of Scarlett Roses, an album on which Grayson Capps offers credible solace, but prefers his listeners refrain from becoming too comfortable for their own good.”

“The medications listed in the refrain, pot, George Dickel, and a case of beer, aren’t for drowning sorrows, but for celebrating the survival of life’s trials.”