Cletis Carr
Encyclopedia
Cletis Carr is a singer-songwriter
, guitarist
and record producer
. Carr was a founder of the Pacific Northwest 70's new wave music band Sneakers before embarking on an on-off solo career between forming other bands such as Big Whiskey and Hillbilly Moon.
players, including his father Bob Carr who once toured with Ray Price’s Cherokee Cowboys. His uncles Joe Carr and Raleigh “Curly” Cletis Carr also played during the 50’s and 60’s. In 1961 Carr’s cousin Tom Blair with his band the West Coasters had a Top 40 hit with Dollar Bills. Carr’s family would hold annual reunion weekends where musical instruments were set up and family members performed.
frontman Huey Lewis
had just formed a band in San Franscisco called The News
. They changed their name again, settling on Sneakers.
Teaming up with local concert promotors Allen and Phillip Kovac who were moving into artist management, and local businessman Huck Coleman, the band set about recording their debut album. The Kovacs enlisted ColGems songwriter Roger Atkins, known for his hits with the Animals
and the Monkees
to produce. A record deal was struck with New York based MMO Group, and Ear Cartoons was released late in 1980 to rave reviews, including a Billboard Magazine Pick Of The Week.
After a year of solid touring, the band became disenchanted with their career direction, cutting ties with the Kovacs and their label. Carr left the band in 1981 but returned the next year for a couple of shows and to co-produce their second album, Music From The Sole.
After leaving Sneakers, Carr moved to Portland Oregon and joined Them Roosters, a spinoff band formed by Lenny Rancher of new wave heroes The Malchicks. Carr spent the next three years travelling and performing around the United States and the U.K., with his Cletis Carr Band and with other outfits. He recorded his debut single That Kind Of A Girl / Without You, then followed up with an EP, Visible Tracks.
Carr moved to Australia
in 1986 for an intended holiday with family there. Within days, he had a job at a local music store and had joined two bands. Playing with Lucy DeSoto and Rose Tattoo
legend Peter Wells
’s band, he was introduced to Sebastian Chase whose label was distributed by CBS
(now Sony). He was offered a recording deal and in 1987 began work on his next album, Colourblind which featured the playing of Wells and fellow Tatts guitarist Mick Cocks
. After touring in support of that release, he joined Chris Turner's Big Rock Band, a touring ensemble which featured members of AC/DC
, The Saints and Jimmy Barnes
.
Carr relocated to Melbourne
and released two more solo albums, Tales of Ordinary Madness in 1991 and Wooden Nails in 1992 before joining country-rock band Big Whiskey. He wrote the bulk of their debut album which was released in 1994, then left the band to concentrate on his new project, the “Traveling Wilburys
”-styled acoustic outfit Hillbilly Moon, formed with Wells and platinum-selling recording artist Paul Norton
. The trio were augmented by Norton’s wife, singer Wendy Stapleton
and Wells’ writing partner DeSoto, as well as former Divinyls
and Concrete Blonde
bassist Tim Millikan. Their first album, Volume One was released in December 1994, debuting at Melbourne’s Continental Club to a sold-out house.
The band toured for some time but other commitments soon halted their progress. Stapleton had begun performing in the popular Dusty Springfield
Show and Wells took off for Europe with the reformed Rose Tattoo
. Carr returned to Sydney, where he became a staff writer for Warner/Chappell Music
and produced a series of releases for ABC Music’s new talent program. He teamed rising country artists the Crosby Sisters with Aussie legend Russell Morris
and produced a revamped cover of Russell’s 1972 hit Wings Of An Eagle, winning Duo/Trio of the Year at the 1998 Australian Country Music Awards.
In 1999, Carr moved to Nashville and pursued his songwriting career, cowriting with many notable writers and performing regularly on the circuit at the Bluebird Café
, Douglas Corner, the Broken Spoke and others. He again drifted behind the scenes, assisting his manager pals Greg Shaw (Keith Urban
) and Gina Mendello (Tommy Emmanuel
) as well as landing a job with a couple of New Media dotcoms. A mild heart attack slowed him down and he returned to Sydney in 2001, landing a stint at Liberation Music
.
Through the ‘00s he continued to perform and write sporadically. Brooke Leal’s recording of his song "What About You" was featured over the closing credits of the 2003 hit Australian film, Danny Deckchair
. He co-owned three cafe / music venues and hosted regular Sunday songwriters’ sessions in Sydney
, taking a year out to run an independent record label, Figtree Words and Music for seminal Aussie garage rockers Lime Spiders
. In 2007, he again teamed up with Chris Turner to form the Blues Pirates, an acoustic-driven blues outfit.
, Australia
where he performs at various pub and festival shows. After spending the better part of a decade behind the scenes, Carr has now returned to his writing and recording career, currently in pre-production for his seventh solo album, due in 2011.
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
, guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
and record producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
. Carr was a founder of the Pacific Northwest 70's new wave music band Sneakers before embarking on an on-off solo career between forming other bands such as Big Whiskey and Hillbilly Moon.
Early life
Carr was born into a family of professional country musicCountry music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
players, including his father Bob Carr who once toured with Ray Price’s Cherokee Cowboys. His uncles Joe Carr and Raleigh “Curly” Cletis Carr also played during the 50’s and 60’s. In 1961 Carr’s cousin Tom Blair with his band the West Coasters had a Top 40 hit with Dollar Bills. Carr’s family would hold annual reunion weekends where musical instruments were set up and family members performed.
Biography
After kicking around with various school bands around Oregon, Carr joined a local band called Shaniko, named after a ghost town in Eastern Oregon. A few years, name and personnel changes later, they became The News until they learned that ex-CloverClover
Clover , or trefoil, is a genus of about 300 species of plants in the leguminous pea family Fabaceae. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution; the highest diversity is found in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, but many species also occur in South America and Africa, including at high altitudes...
frontman Huey Lewis
Huey Lewis
Huey Lewis is an American musician, songwriter and occasional actor.Lewis sings lead and plays harmonica for his band Huey Lewis and the News, in addition to writing or co-writing many of the band's songs...
had just formed a band in San Franscisco called The News
Huey Lewis and the News
Huey Lewis and the News is an American rock band based in San Francisco, California. They had a run of hit singles during the 1980s and early 1990s, eventually scoring a total of 19 top-ten singles across the Billboard Hot 100, Adult Contemporary and Mainstream Rock charts...
. They changed their name again, settling on Sneakers.
Teaming up with local concert promotors Allen and Phillip Kovac who were moving into artist management, and local businessman Huck Coleman, the band set about recording their debut album. The Kovacs enlisted ColGems songwriter Roger Atkins, known for his hits with the Animals
The Animals
The Animals were an English music group of the 1960s formed in Newcastle upon Tyne during the early part of the decade, and later relocated to London...
and the Monkees
The Monkees
The Monkees are an American pop rock group. Assembled in Los Angeles in 1966 by Robert "Bob" Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the American television series The Monkees, which aired from 1966 to 1968, the musical acting quartet was composed of Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork,...
to produce. A record deal was struck with New York based MMO Group, and Ear Cartoons was released late in 1980 to rave reviews, including a Billboard Magazine Pick Of The Week.
After a year of solid touring, the band became disenchanted with their career direction, cutting ties with the Kovacs and their label. Carr left the band in 1981 but returned the next year for a couple of shows and to co-produce their second album, Music From The Sole.
After leaving Sneakers, Carr moved to Portland Oregon and joined Them Roosters, a spinoff band formed by Lenny Rancher of new wave heroes The Malchicks. Carr spent the next three years travelling and performing around the United States and the U.K., with his Cletis Carr Band and with other outfits. He recorded his debut single That Kind Of A Girl / Without You, then followed up with an EP, Visible Tracks.
Carr moved to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in 1986 for an intended holiday with family there. Within days, he had a job at a local music store and had joined two bands. Playing with Lucy DeSoto and Rose Tattoo
Rose Tattoo
Rose Tattoo is an Australian rock and roll band, now led by Angry Anderson, that was formed in Sydney in 1976. Their sound is hard rock mixed with blues rock influences, with songs including "Bad Boy for Love", "Rock 'n' Roll Outlaw", "Nice Boys", "We Can't Be Beaten" and "Scarred for Life"...
legend Peter Wells
Peter Wells
Peter William "Pete" Wells was the founder and slide guitarist in Australian hard rock band Rose Tattoo. Wells was previously bassist with the pioneering Sydney-based heavy metal outfit Buffalo in the 1970s....
’s band, he was introduced to Sebastian Chase whose label was distributed by CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
(now Sony). He was offered a recording deal and in 1987 began work on his next album, Colourblind which featured the playing of Wells and fellow Tatts guitarist Mick Cocks
Mick Cocks
Michael Thomas "Mick" Cocks was an Australian musician, most noted for his guitar work with Rose Tattoo. His original sound and style heavily influenced Guns N' Roses, who recorded a cover of the Rose Tattoo song ‘Nice Boys’. He was also a member of Heaven, Doomfoxx, Pete Wells Heart Attack and...
. After touring in support of that release, he joined Chris Turner's Big Rock Band, a touring ensemble which featured members of AC/DC
AC/DC
AC/DC are an Australian rock band, formed in 1973 by brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. Commonly classified as hard rock, they are considered pioneers of heavy metal, though they themselves have always classified their music as simply "rock and roll"...
, The Saints and Jimmy Barnes
Jimmy Barnes
James Dixon Swan , better known as Jimmy Barnes, is a Scottish-born Australian rock singer-songwriter. His father Jim Swan was a prizefighter and his older brother John Swan is also a rock singer. It was actually John who had encouraged and taught Jim how to sing as he wasn't really interested at...
.
Carr relocated to Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
and released two more solo albums, Tales of Ordinary Madness in 1991 and Wooden Nails in 1992 before joining country-rock band Big Whiskey. He wrote the bulk of their debut album which was released in 1994, then left the band to concentrate on his new project, the “Traveling Wilburys
Traveling Wilburys
The Traveling Wilburys were an English–American supergroup consisting of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, accompanied by drummer Jim Keltner...
”-styled acoustic outfit Hillbilly Moon, formed with Wells and platinum-selling recording artist Paul Norton
Paul Norton
Paul N. Norton was an American artist. The son of a railway clerk, Norton painted more than 500 watercolors in his career, and also created many memorable logos for companies such as Dairy Queen, Pella Windows, and others. His paintings can be found hanging in the White House, U.S...
. The trio were augmented by Norton’s wife, singer Wendy Stapleton
Wendy Stapleton
Wendy Anne-Marie Stapleton is an Australian pop/rock singer-songwriter, and musical theatre and television actress. Stapleton has performed as a backing singer, session musician and a solo artist; she fronted various Melbourne-based groups including Wendy Stapleton Band and Wendy & the Rocketts ...
and Wells’ writing partner DeSoto, as well as former Divinyls
Divinyls
Divinyls were an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1980 and featuring vocalist Christina Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee. As the focal point, Amphlett performed on stage wearing a school uniform and fishnet stockings, often using an illuminated neon tube as a prop and displaying...
and Concrete Blonde
Concrete Blonde
Concrete Blonde is an alternative rock band based in the United States. They were initially active from 1982 to 1995, and again from 2001 to 2004, and once again in 2010.-Biography:...
bassist Tim Millikan. Their first album, Volume One was released in December 1994, debuting at Melbourne’s Continental Club to a sold-out house.
The band toured for some time but other commitments soon halted their progress. Stapleton had begun performing in the popular Dusty Springfield
Dusty Springfield
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'BrienSources use both Isabel and Isobel as the spelling of her second name. OBE , known professionally as Dusty Springfield and dubbed The White Queen of Soul, was a British pop singer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s...
Show and Wells took off for Europe with the reformed Rose Tattoo
Rose Tattoo
Rose Tattoo is an Australian rock and roll band, now led by Angry Anderson, that was formed in Sydney in 1976. Their sound is hard rock mixed with blues rock influences, with songs including "Bad Boy for Love", "Rock 'n' Roll Outlaw", "Nice Boys", "We Can't Be Beaten" and "Scarred for Life"...
. Carr returned to Sydney, where he became a staff writer for Warner/Chappell Music
Warner/Chappell Music
Warner/Chappell Music, Inc. is an American music publishing company, and a division of the Warner Music Group. The company traces its origins back to 1811 and the founding of Chappell & Company, a music publishing company and instrument shop on London’s Bond Street that, in 1929, began a rapid...
and produced a series of releases for ABC Music’s new talent program. He teamed rising country artists the Crosby Sisters with Aussie legend Russell Morris
Russell Morris
Russell Norman Morris is an Australian singer-songwriter who had five Australian Top 10 singles during the late 1960s and early 1970s...
and produced a revamped cover of Russell’s 1972 hit Wings Of An Eagle, winning Duo/Trio of the Year at the 1998 Australian Country Music Awards.
In 1999, Carr moved to Nashville and pursued his songwriting career, cowriting with many notable writers and performing regularly on the circuit at the Bluebird Café
Bluebird cafe
The Bluebird Cafe is a music club in Nashville, Tennessee that opened in 1982. The club is famous for intimate, acoustic music performed by its composers...
, Douglas Corner, the Broken Spoke and others. He again drifted behind the scenes, assisting his manager pals Greg Shaw (Keith Urban
Keith Urban
Keith Lionel Urban is a New Zealand-born Australian, country music singer, songwriter and guitarist whose commercial success has been mainly in the United States and Australia. Urban was born in New Zealand and began his career in Australia at an early age...
) and Gina Mendello (Tommy Emmanuel
Tommy Emmanuel
William Thomas "Tommy" Emmanuel AM is an Australian guitarist, best known for his complex fingerpicking style, energetic performances and the use of percussive effects on the guitar. In the May 2008 and 2010 issues of Guitar Player Magazine, he was named as "Best Acoustic Guitarist" in their...
) as well as landing a job with a couple of New Media dotcoms. A mild heart attack slowed him down and he returned to Sydney in 2001, landing a stint at Liberation Music
Liberation Music
Liberation Music is a boutique, independent Australasian record company, started in 1999 by Michael Gudinski and Warren Costello. Its stated aim is to find, nurture and then to develop new talent for a world market while remaining independent in the process...
.
Through the ‘00s he continued to perform and write sporadically. Brooke Leal’s recording of his song "What About You" was featured over the closing credits of the 2003 hit Australian film, Danny Deckchair
Danny Deckchair
Danny Deckchair is a 2003 Australian comedy film written and directed by Jeff Balsmeyer. The majority of Danny Deckchair was shot in Bellingen, a Mid North Coast town in New South Wales....
. He co-owned three cafe / music venues and hosted regular Sunday songwriters’ sessions in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, taking a year out to run an independent record label, Figtree Words and Music for seminal Aussie garage rockers Lime Spiders
Lime Spiders
Lime Spiders are an Australian punk rock band, currently consisting of Mick Blood, Tom Corben, Gerard Corben, David Sparks and Tony Bambach.-Early Days :...
. In 2007, he again teamed up with Chris Turner to form the Blues Pirates, an acoustic-driven blues outfit.
Current
Carr lives in SydneySydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
where he performs at various pub and festival shows. After spending the better part of a decade behind the scenes, Carr has now returned to his writing and recording career, currently in pre-production for his seventh solo album, due in 2011.
Discography
- Soiled Angels / Shaniko (1977)
- Ear Cartoons / Sneakers (1979)
- Music From The Sole / Sneakers (1981)
- That Kind Of A Girl / Cletis Carr (1984)
- Visible Tracks / Cletis Carr (1985)
- Colourblind / Cletis Carr (1987)
- Tales Of Ordinary Madness / Cletis Carr (1991)
- Wooden Nails / Cletis Carr (1992)
- The Distance / Big Whiskey (1994)
- Volume One / Hillbilly Moon (1994)
- Volume Two / Hillbilly Moon (1996)
- The ABC Sessions / Cletis Carr (1999)
- Blues Pirates / Blues Pirates (2010)
- Footsteps / Cletis Carr (2011)
Also Featured On
- 25 Years Of Big Rock / Various Artists (2005)
- Bakers Dozen / Various Artists (2007)
- 30 Years Of Big Rock / Various Artists (2010)
- Annie / Linda Mizzi (2010)
External links
- http://www.cletis.com
- http://www.myspace.com/cletiscarr
- http://www.fbook.me/cletiscarr