The Kentucky Headhunters are an American country rock and Southern rock band from Edmonton, Kentucky. The band's members are Doug Phelps (bass guitar, vocals), Greg Martin (lead guitar, vocals), and brothers Richard Young (rhythm guitar, vocals) and Fred Young (drums, vocals). Martin and the Young brothers began performing in 1968 as Itchy Brother, a group which also included Anthony Kenney on bass guitar and vocals. Itchy Brother performed until 1982, with James Harrison replacing Martin from 1973 to 1976. The Youngs and Martin began performing as The Kentucky Headhunters in 1986, adding brothers Ricky Lee Phelps (lead vocals, harmonica) and Doug Phelps (bass guitar, vocals) to the membership.
With the release of their 1989 debut album Pickin' on Nashville via Mercury Records, the band charted four consecutive Top 40 country singles. A second album for Mercury, Electric Barnyard, did not do as well commercially, and the Phelps brothers left after its release to form Brother Phelps. Kenney re-joined and Mark S. Orr took over on lead vocals for 1993's Rave On!! and a compilation album entitled The Best of The Kentucky Headhunters: Still Pickin' before the band exited Mercury. Orr left and Doug Phelps rejoined in 1996 as lead vocalist for the album Stompin' Grounds. He also led on the Audium Entertainment albums Songs from the Grass String Ranch and Soul, as well as Big Boss Man and a second compilation, Flying Under the Radar, on CBuJ Entertainment. After Kenney's departure, Doug once again became the band's bass guitarist by the release of Dixie Lullabies, in 2011.
The Kentucky Headhunters have released ten studio albums, three compilations, and twenty-three singles. Their highest-peaking single is a cover of the Don Gibson song "Oh Lonesome Me," which the band took to number eight on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts in 1990. In addition, the band has won three Country Music Association awards, an Academy of Country Music award, and a Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, won in 1990 for Pickin' on Nashville.
History 1968–1982: Itchy Brother Richard Young, his younger brother Fred Young, and their cousins Anthony Kenney and Greg Martin began performing music in the Youngs's and Kenney's hometown of Glasgow, Kentucky, in the 1960s.They founded a band called Itchy Brother, named after Fred's favorite cartoon character, from King Leonardo and His Short Subjects. The original lineup consisted of Richard Young on rhythm guitar, Fred Young on drums, Kenney on bass guitar, and Martin on lead guitar. Itchy Brother achieved regional success in Kentucky in the 1970s, including at least one single, "Shotgun Effie," which they wrote about the Youngs'a grandmother, Effie. It was released in 1973 on the King Fargo label. That same year, Greg Martin left the group to play in another band in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. In the meantime, guitarist James Harrison took his place. Martin returned to the group in 1976.
Itchy Brother was almost signed to Swan Song Records, an independent label founded by the band Led Zeppelin, in 1980. The label closed after Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham died, and Itchy Brother never recorded a full album on Swan Song. Itchy Brother broke up in 1982. After their disbanding, Richard started writing songs for Acuff-Rose Music, and Fred became a backing musician for country singer Sylvia, who at the time was recording on RCA Records. Martin played bass guitar and sang backing vocals for Ronnie McDowell, then a recording artist for Curb Records, and Kenney stopped performing, although he continued to write songs with the Young brothers.
1986–1990: Pickin' on Nashville Martin reuinted with the Young brothers in 1986. As Kenney declined to join the three, Martin invited Missouri Bootheel native Doug Phelps, also a member of McDowell's band, to replace Kenney, and Doug brought his older brother Ricky Lee to sing lead vocals. The band decided to name themselves The Headhunters, taking the name from the term "headchopper," which blues musician Muddy Waters used to indicate that he had supplanted another band in a gig. After discovering that other bands existed with that name, the band added "Kentucky" to its name and thus became The Kentucky Headhunters. The Kentucky Headhunters began performing together the following year, playing twice monthly on the 90-minute Chitlin' Show, a radio program on WLOC in Munfordville, Kentucky.
The Kentucky Headhunters borrowed $4,500 to record a demo album, which included seven original songs, plus covers of Bill Monroe's "Walk Softly on This Heart of Mine," Henson Cargill's "Skip a Rope", and Don Gibson's "Oh Lonesome Me." Originally intended to be sold at the band's live shows, the demo tape came to the attention of the Nashville music community. Although Martin said that the band had not seriously considered signing a record deal, the band pursued one through the suggestion of its manager, Mitchell Fox. Harold Shedd, a record producer who was then the head of Mercury Records, helped sign The Kentucky Headhunters to the label in 1989.
Mercury released the demo in 1989 as The Kentucky Headhunters's debut album, Pickin' on Nashville. The album produced four singles, all of which reached top 40 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs) chart. The first of these, the "Walk Softly on This Heart of Mine" cover, peaked at number 25 in December 1989. After it came "Dumas Walker." According to Doug, Mercury Records was initially reluctant to release the song as a single: "[The label] thought it was too regional, and that no one outside the area would get it, but what they didn't see, was the reaction we got to it every night that we played it in front of a crowd, and it didn't matter where we were playing either." The single peaked at number 15 on the Billboard chart.
Following "Dumas Walker" was the "Oh Lonesome Me" cover, which accounted for the band's highest Hot Country Songs chart peak at number eight. Finishing off the single releases was the number 23 "Rock 'n' Roll Angel", which Richard wrote. Pickin' on Nashville also earned the band a Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, Best New Vocal Group award from the Academy of Country Music (ACM), and Album of the Year and Vocal Group of the Year awards from the Country Music Association (CMA). In addition, it earned a double-platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipping two million copies in the United States. William Ruhlmann of Allmusic gave the album a four-and-a-half star rating out of five, saying that the band was "all the better" for having a sound closer to rock than country. After the success of their debut album, The Kentucky Headhunters began touring with Hank Williams, Jr. and Delbert McClinton.
1991–1992: Second album and departure of the Phelps brothers In 1991, the band released their second album, Electric Barnyard. Although the album earned a gold certification from the RIAA and a second CMA award for Vocal Group of the Year, its singles received little airplay compared to the band's previous releases, with none of the four singles reaching the top 40 on the U.S. country charts. The album's first single was a cover of "The Ballad of Davy Crockett," which was released on the 155th anniversary of Davy Crockett's death; the single shipped to radio with promotional coonskin caps. It spent eleven weeks on the charts and peaked at 49. "With Body and Soul" was the next single released, peaking at number 30 on the Canadian RPM country charts but reaching number 56 in the United States. The third and fourth singles were the original composition "It's Chitlin' Time" and a rendition of Waylon Jennings's "Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line," at numbers 63 and 60 respectively. Norman Greenbaum's 1969 single "Spirit in the Sky" was covered on this album as well.
This album was met with mixed reception from critics. Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly gave it an A rating, saying that it "skillfully blends raw wit, the working-class energy of sweat-stained factory workers jamming between shifts, and musical styles as diverse as the corny Tennessee Ernie Ford and the creamy Eric Clapton." Allmusic critic Brian Mansfield, who gave it three-and-a-half stars, called the band a "top-notch Southern rock band with a sense of humor," and said that the covers on Electric Barnyard were highlights, while the originals were "adequate, offbeat filler." Randy Lewis of the Los Angeles Times called the band "ZZ Top lite" and said that most of the songs on the album had a "party-hearty sound."
Later in 1991, The Kentucky Headhunters performed with Roy Rogers on the song "That's How the West Was Swung" from his Tribute album, and covered Canned Heat's "Let's Work Together" for the soundtrack to the film Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. In addition, Martin played lead guitar for Canadian synthpop band Men Without Hats on its 1991 album Sideways and filled in for Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Ed King on that band's 1992 tour, as King was injured at the time.
Ricky Lee and Doug departed in June 1992 due to creative differences. According to Richard, Ricky Lee's tenure as lead vocalist was "a bad time" for the band given his opposition to Richard's opinions, although Richard was still surprised to hear of the brothers' departure, and said, "I tried everything I could to get them to stay." Ricky Lee, meanwhile, said that he "was a country singer more than anything" and wanted to eliminate most of the band's hard rock sounds. He and Doug then founded Brother Phelps, which had a more mainstream country sound than The Kentucky Headhunters did. Brother Phelps released two albums for Asylum Records and charted in the country top 40 with "Let Go" and "Were You Really Livin' ," which peaked at number 6 and 28 respectively.
1992–1994: New line-up and lack of success Kenney rejoined in 1992 as bass guitarist, and Charlotte, Michigan, native Mark S. Orr took over on lead vocals. The first album to feature Orr and Kenney, the more blues rock-oriented Rave On!!, was released in 1993. Although the band drew attention by touring with then-labelmate Billy Ray Cyrus, Rave On!! sold poorly and failed to produce a successful single among its three releases: "Honky Tonk Walkin' ," "Blue Moon of Kentucky" and "Dixie Fried," the latter two being covers of Bill Monroe and Carl Perkins, respectively. The album also included a cover of The Lovin' Spoonful's "My Gal". "Honky Tonk Walkin'" and "Dixie Fried" respectively reached numbers 54 and 71 on the country charts, while the "Blue Moon of Kentucky" cover did not chart.
Mansfield gave a two-star rating for Allmusic, where he wrote that the band had "devolved into a redneck boogie group." Nash's review for Entertainment Weekly gave it a C− grade, and called it "warmed-over blues" that lacked the "outrageousness, wit, and brilliance that distinguished their earlier albums." Steve Morse of The Boston Globe called it an "irresistible car-stereo album," and Rolling Stone critic John Swenson said that the album was more rock-oriented than its predecessors, also saying that it "sounds like a hell of a blueprint for a summer concert tour."