Bill Mallonee - The Power and the Glory (album stream)

Bill Mallonee is an Athens, Ga. Americana artist with 40 plus albums, spanning a 20 year career. He was voted by Paste Music Magazine #65 in their prestigious "Top 100 Living Songwriters" poll. He fronted the band Vigilantes of Love from 1991-2001. Mallonee (pronounced "Mal-o-knee") has worked with other great artists such as Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris, and Peter Buck from REM.

"Dylan-tinged vocal and introspective lyrics that spin out big-picture stories imbued with chilling small details." ~Billboard

"Bill Mallonee... [has] remained fascinated with the shadowy emotional toils and struggles inherent in the American experience, compelling, insightful, [he] continues to probe through Americana rock an roll proving that sometimes the only story worth telling is that of the journey." ~Rolling Stone


Noisy, jangle-y, lush, passionate, Rickenbakers, hooks, 60s, 70s... cobalt blue skies.

all songs by Bill Mallonee
administered by BMI

released 02 October 2011
Bill Mallonee: vocals, guitars (electric, acoustic, hi-string) harmonicas
Muriah Rose: vocals, piano, organ, mellotron
Bert Shoaff: bass
Kevin Heuer: drums, percussion

--

Paste Music Magazine, in a poll conducted by both writers and artists, listed Bill Mallonee as 65 in their "100 Greatest Living Songwriters Poll." "At the end of the day, it's about the story living under your own skin. In my work, I've just tried to chase that story down and put something of a frame around it for a spell."

Mallonee, (pronounced MAL-O-KNEE) the lyrical and musical source behind the late Vigilantes of Love, started playing music in Athens in the late 80's. Mallonee learned guitar quickly and the post-punk-pop of the La's, XTC, Joy Division, the Clash and Echo and the Bunnymen. Great college scene bands that passed through Athens, Georgia during that time were Athen's own R.E.M., the dbs (with the great Chris Stamey and Peter Hosapple), Mitch Easter's 'Let's Active. These were also big influences. Each of those bands proudly wove indebtedness to the first "British Invasion" into their musical flags.

Still, Bill's deeper love for music and lyricism of artists like Dylan and Neil Young left an indelible mark on his writing and vocal delivery. "Being a son of the South, it's hard not to be surrounded by the beauty of things fractured and incongruous...that's the stuff of real songs...and that's what I learned on the road doing 180 shows a year from 1995 till about 2002... What came out was my own version of what I deeply loved in the work of those two." [Dylan and Neil Young] Mallonee's love for all things folk-rock and raw-boned acoustic won out over these early influences. The "4- guys-in-a-van-with-no-safety-net-beneath-us" dynamic of life on the road left a profound imprint on Mallonee's way of looking at his life...and is deeply woven in the sound and feel of his music. "The work of folks like Flannery O'Conner, Thomas Merton, Kerouac, and a fella named Frederick Buechner helped me make sense out the road. We made 24 records over 16 years. It all played out, very unglamorously, on the asphalt and in the clubs. I gravitated to the old soul of folk and country artists because it seemed like what we (VOL) were doing and how we were doing it lent a measure of authenticity to the art." He says,"I tend to be a heart on the sleeve fella. I figure it'll resonate with someone somewhere...we're all made outta similar stuff, I think."

Whether writing Americana or trippier stuff, Mallonee seems equally at home with both. He says, "I think there were always huge connections between the Brits and their affinities for '60's west Coast psychedelia...the Byrds being an obvious example. But for now Muriah and I are just content to play as a duo, the sound being folkier." With Vigilantes of Love behind him, Bill is focusing on the solo artist gig. He's back to being "just a guy from a college band from Athens, GA." He's been doing about 2 albums a year since 2002, touring and performing with his wife, keyboardist and vocalist, Muriah Rose.

BONUS: Bill Mallonee/WPA - Songs For The Journey & Beyond



~ SONGS FOR THE JOURNEY & BEYOND ~
(New Years Eve)
"THE LAY OF THE LAND"

"Road songs" have become "Life songs" for me. Travel from "A" to "B" seems to have a way of unlocking deeper parts of my spirit.

Having lived the better part of the last 20 years on the road as a "band in a van" or as a troubadour, I became immersed first-hand in what historians & writers have called, the "American Experience."

Those variables of limited resources & hard luck, when fused with faith, courage & (often) sheer "pluck," were vital to transforming this great country. The idea that we could all dream and find ourselves a "lil' part of Heaven," initially "looked good on paper." We had, so to speak, a lot to work with here. The grandeur and resources of such a land as ours is, to my mind, unrivaled in the world.

We all play out a certain drama:
We learn the ropes of life.
In doing so we learn of our own gifts and our weaknesses.
We are thrown back (like it or nay) on something larger than ourselves.
We try to bet on hope in the face of grief.
We champion courage while attempting to keep despair at bay;
...and we take a stoic stock in a sober faith that "it's all going somewhere."
Those ancient stories and myths you try to make your own.
Call it naive. Call it infantile; Call it uninformed, it is, nonetheless the "Faith" we have cobbled together from our American Experience.

It is this "faith" that attracts me to a guitar, and the possibility of a song being born. Of something coming to life.

If we "dare to look it in the eye," this raw energy of our individual lives, dreams, and struggles, we will have more than enough "grit" to make for great songs. Whether it's themes of heroes, thieves, lovers, villains, misers or the "down-&-out," it has been such experiences that have informed my world without...but mostly my world within;

Early on in my life, i was deeply aware of a universe that was full of great beauty, joy & hallowed-ness. Still, such beauty (earthly or heavenly) comes to us in fits and starts. It introduces itself in such fragility and vulnerability that it appears tentative, even disposable.

We are victims of all that seen (as opposed to the unseen, even in ourselves.) Fear drives us to soul-less solutions. People get hurt. In our mad rush towards materialism as "individuals" we are easily seduced at the altars of wealth, success and violence. People and things are deemed, "expendable." Even our relationships become defined in terms of "Gain vs. Loss."

Having lost touch with things of Spirit, we tend to devalue that hallowed-ness in the world. We miss such hallowed-nes in our neighbor and sadly, even in ourselves. We miss Spirit, ignore it and (often,) ruin it, by our own devices. Though outwardly we appear to "have it made," we are often become living beings, lacking a pulse...running on empty.

I count myself in such a category, punctuated with the occasional "mini-epiphany." Perhaps we all live at such address.
That "almost but not quite" aspect of our lives.

And, if by chance, we should wake up to that "larger, brighter world," embrace it, cultivate it and above all: Chalk it up humbly to grace.
And that "not of thyself."

And for those of us who still walk wounded, lingering in the twilight? Well, "be ye kind, tender-hearted & forgiving" to the rest of us.
Such displays of virtue may be the only "sighting" of that larger, brighter world we "unbelievers" will ever see.

Maybe that's what these songs for the journey & beyond are all about.
Joy & courage on yours, dear friends,
bill mallonee

New Years, 2012

Credits
released 01 January 2012
Bill Mallonee: vocals, guitars, elec & acoustic, harmonica, bass, piano, drums.
Muriah Rose: piano, vocals.

Links
http://www.billmallonee.net/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bill-Mallonee-Music/184717971538363
http://billmalloneemusic.bandcamp.com/
http://myspace.com/billmallonee