October 29, 2023

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, JON BYRD lived his formative years in small town America, deep in the piney woods of south Alabama just one county over from the birthplace of legendary country artist Hank Williams. In the 90s Jon became pivotal in Atlanta’s storied Redneck Underground music scene. Always a featured sideman, Jon’s first solo recording didn’t come along until after migrating to Music City nearly 20 years ago. Jon’s fourth solo album DIRTY OL’ RIVER harkens back to the first Byrd’s Auto Parts record: up-tempo country songs, lots of pedal steel, and some really strong country covers. Jon’s originals “I Get Lost” and “If Texas Is So Great” will be heard for years to come.

When Jon was just eight years old, his dad was diagnosed with TB and began singing the immortal Jimmie Rogers’ song “TB Blues” all around the house. That same year Jon saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and his obsession with the musical tension between country and rock ‘n’ roll was born. Less than two years later he was conscripted into the drum corps of his tiny high school’s marching band and played Booker T. and the MG’s “Green Onions” while the majorettes held the cymbals and danced. There was no turning back.

After touring nationally with jangle-pop purists Tim Lee and the Windbreakers, and Birmingham’s Primitons in the 1980s, the 1990s saw Byrd attempting a Ph.D. in American Studies at Emory University in Atlanta… all while becoming a central figure in Atlanta’s storied Redneck Underground music scene as lead guitarist for the seminal and legendary country band Slim Chance and the Convicts (Letters to Mama, 1993, and Twang Peaks, 1996). He also formed the hard country band the Ratchet Set as a musical outlet for his love of old trucking songs and two chord honky-tonk gems.

In 1998, after 7 years of teaching and no diss, Byrd helped country traditionalist Greta Lee record her first full-length record This Ain’t Over Yet. In 2001, he co-produced and again handled lead guitar duties on Lee’s follow-up You Must Be Present to Win. That same year, Byrd relocated to Nashville, Tennessee where he quickly made a name for himself in Music City as a singularly authentic country singer and Telecaster slinger recording with such fine artists as the soulful Davis Raines, Texas country singer Buck Jones, folk-rock songwriter Stephen Simmons, and the rockabilly whirlwind Suzette Lawrence.

Doors at 4pm, music at 5pm, $10