"Миссисипи Қарақшылары: Америка елді музыкасы"

the Western film
American country music band

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. 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 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. "Feed Jake" was the band's most popular song with fans and was described in 1993 as their signature song. 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. 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. 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 as a gift for the occasional stunning lyric." After this album, Severs injured his back when a light display fell on him during a concert. The album included a cover of Hank Thompson's 1952 single "The Wild Side of Life". Mark Wright produced the album and co wrote two tracks on it. Unlike their previous albums, it included a number of outside writers such as Roger Murrah, Craig Wiseman, Dickey Lee, and Robert Ellis Orrall. The only charted single off Dream You was its title track, which reached number 63 and accounted for the band's final appearance on the Hot Country Songs charts. "Save the Wild Life" was also a single, but it did not chart. An uncredited article in the Victorville, California, Daily Press praised the album for its use of steel guitar, as well as the variety of writers. Despite the critical reception, the album was commercially unsuccessful. The editors of Country Music: The Encyclopedia attributed this to the large amount of new musicians on the scene at the time drawing attention away from the band. Because of the album's failure, Liberty dropped Pirates of the Mississippi in 1994 after releasing a greatest hits package titled The Best of Pirates of the Mississippi.

Later in 1994, the band began recording new songs with Stroud. the song failed to chart and did not appear on an album. The band's next single release for Giant was "Paradise" in 1995. A review in Billboard described the song's lyrics as "simplistic" but praised McCorvey's singing. This would serve as the title track to their only Giant album, Paradise. By this point, Trostle had left the band as well, and session musician Paul Franklin played steel guitar on the album. Other contributing musicians included guitarist Dann Huff, pianist Johnny Neel, and backing vocalists John Wesley Ryles and Curtis Wright. David Malloy produced the album, collaborating with Stroud on seven of the ten tracks. The album's closing track was a live rendition of "Feed Jake". Shawn Ryan of New Country magazine praised the album for its "upbeat romps" and "songs with a keen eye for detailing the heart of blue collar life with respect and affection". Writing for The Ottawa Citizen, Susan Beyer praised the "everyday attitudes" of the lyrics, also calling McCorvey's singing voice "capable of great tenderness and power". Pirates of the Mississippi disbanded in 1996 due to the band members tiring of their constant touring schedule. Prior to their retirement, they were playing about 250 shows a year. McCorvey did a number of shows that same year in Montgomery, Alabama, with a new set of musicians called the Bill McCorvey Band. Most of these shows were charity concerts for the American Cancer Society. After the band broke up, both McCorvey and Alves continued to work as songwriters in Nashville. McCorvey co wrote Montgomery Gentry's 1999 hit "Lonely and Gone". Trostle continued to work as a session musician and sold handmade furniture.

In 2006, Alves and McCorvey decided to reunite as Pirates of the Mississippi. The two of them thought that reviving the band had potential due to a rise of rock influenced country in the intervening years. Jason MacNeil of AllMusic gave the project a mixed review, praising McCorvey's voice and the country rock influences of the more uptempo tracks, but also criticizing other tracks as containing "typical country music fodder". Pirates of the Mississippi played shows in local venues in Alabama and Tennessee before disbanding again in 2007. McCorvey founded an acoustic trio called Buffalo Rome before retiring from music in 2010 to open a liquor store in Brentwood, Tennessee. Dean Townson died of unknown causes on March 25, 2010, at the age of 50.

quote box|quote=Now if you get an ear pierced, some will call you gayBut if you drive a pickup, they'll say, "No, you must be straight"What we are and what we ain'tWhat we can and what we can'tDoes it really matter?|source=Pirates of the Mississippi, "Feed Jake" (1991) Bernard Pilon of The Leader Post described McCorvey as having a "gravelled edge reminiscent of blues man Jeff Healey", with Pete Swanson of the Great Falls Tribune noting the "no frill three part harmonies" provided by Townson and Alves. Many of the band's songs feature sociopolitical themes in the lyrics, although Severs said this was not a primary intention of theirs. The song's video portrays a relationship between two men, one of whom dies at the end. Because of this storyline, some viewers thought the video portrayed a gay relationship, while others thought the man who died was a soldier in the Gulf War. Representatives of Deaton Flanigen Productions stated the video was not intended to have any individual meaning. McCorvey wrote "A Street Man Named Desire", which is about a man who becomes homeless upon losing his job, after noticing fans who attended meet and greets at radio stations would often say they were unable to afford going to the band's concerts because they had just lost their jobs. Despite the song's failure at radio, the band performed a number of charity concerts to assist homeless and low income individuals.