With over twenty years of performing and recording together, Tommy Malone of the subdudes and Ray Ganucheau, a founding member of the seminal roots rock band the Continental Drifters, are releasing their eagerly awaited debut, “Muddy Water,” as the Batture Boys on Friday.
The six song EP was produced by Grammy winner Jim Scott, best known for his work with Wilco, Tom Petty, and the Tedeschi Trucks Band.
Malone and Ganucheau’s songwriting has always touched on the distinct emotions associated with being a sensitive human being. Tunes on the release relate to the drug-related death of Johnny Ray Allen, one of the original members of the subdudes and the composer of some of their most classic songs.
Malone and Ganucheau’s co-written “Send the Bones Back Home” is a poignant ballad about our roots and the choices we make on the road of life.
“I believe that how he always felt inside,
Was though he had to go and win the golden prize,
And I think he was just lookin’ in the wrong place,
It was right there, sparklin’ in his children’s eyes”
The album also reflects on life in South Louisiana. The “batture” of the band’s moniker is the occasionally contested no-mans-land between the levee and the Mississippi river. The area is remembered as a playful place away from the prying eyes of parents on “Papa Dukie and the Mud People,” a tune by the subdudes off the 2005 release, Behind the Levee.
On the new album, “The Mighty Flood” and “Deepwater Horizon” expose the inherent contradictions of living so close to such a powerful force. Ganucheau said, “It was surreal living through the BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill of 2010 from a local perspective.”
A recent set at the French Quarter Festival showed the close connection between these two musicians. As on the EP, their voices merge into one and they share the complex emotions of their long friendship with the listener.
The Batture Boys will be appearing at the Louisiana Music Factory on April 21 at 4 PM.
