Here, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, is that new universe: Big & Rich, Horse of a Different Color. Two guys, thirteen songs. The kind of genre-hopping, fence-busting, gully-whumping statement of purpose that doesn't bust out of Nashville or New York, or L.A., or anywhere else-too often these days. It may well be that true rarity in the music business: something new under the sun. "Country music without prejudice," they call it.
The universe of Big & Rich is a rollicking moveable feast inhabited by a cast of indelible characters, starting with Messrs. Big and Rich themselves. One's a six-foot-three former carpenter with a rep as Nashville's universal minister of love and a backlog of songs ranging from country laments to psychedelic rockers to something called "Disco Ball." The other's shorter, slyer and younger, a Texan with an angelic voice and a wicked gleam in his eye.
And surrounding Big & Rich is a batch of remarkable sidekicks: the Wild Bunch meets the Rat Pack, you might say. There's Cowboy Troy, the world's only six-foot, five-inch, 250-pound black cowboy rapper, who throws down in three languages and has a degree in economics to boot. There's Limo Larry, once a homeless drug addict and now a local legend who uses his limousine to ferry off-duty strippers and inebriated musicians around Nashville every night. There's Tim the Electrician, a tough little guy with a big mustache and a beer-swigging red macaw named Santana who clings to his owner's shoulder while Tim practices the sport he's invented, championship chair riding. (Apparently, it's harder than it sounds.) There are songwriters and drifters, millionaires and ne'er-do-wells, punk rockers and bluegrass pickers and young ladies in Catholic schoolgirl outfits. There?s the reigning queen of country music, Martina McBride, a fan and a friend, and there's a truckload of unknowns who might well make it big themselves someday.
The scene is chronicled in the songs on Horse of a Different Color-in the vow of brotherhood that runs through "Wild West Show," in the heartbreaking "Holy Water," and in the roadhouse lament "Kick My Ass," which asks a question we've all pondered on occasion: "Why does everybody want to kick my ass?" Big & Rich are throwing a party, and it's important to them that you understand everybody is invited. Big & Rich can be wild and wooly and uproariously funny, but there's a method to their madness: these guys aren't always serious, but you're selling them short if you think they're always kidding.
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