The Oliver Reed Band (1993-95) The Peach Truck Republic began in the summer of
1993 when its two founding guitarists, Wes
Dismuke and Eddie
Hord, were brought together through a mutual friend at a series of jam
sessions in Fort Worth, Texas. The pair brought in a drummer by the name of Jeff
Brightwell who in turn brought with him a bass player by the name of Tim
Nixon. These four individuals, the original, founding members of the band,
were regarded by one another as anything but strangers; the fact is that they'd
grown up together during their formative years, as teenage friends, the parcel
and product of a rural lifestyle that surrounded a small town by the name of
Mount Pleasant, Texas. Chance circumstance brought them back together nearly
five years after their respective hometown departures, and it was to the
wonderment of each that he'd come to rediscover the other—four old friends
who'd become four young musicians.
Reconvened and resituated in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, the original quartet
embarked on a headlong pursuit of their music, a reinterpretation of the Delta
Blues origin and its overwhelming influence on first generation British Blues
acts, bands like Peter
Green's Fleetwood Mac, Cream with Eric
Clapton, and Led Zeppelin.
Comparatively speaking, looking back from The Peach Truck of now to the same
band in its original formation, one finds an altogether different sound that was
produced by an altogether different group of musicians. The Peach Truck hadn't
yet gone the full round, but it had made a definite beginning. They called
themselves The
Oliver Reed Band.
Amidst the legions of blues guitarists who were shaped in their imitations of
the late Stevie Ray
Vaughn, Oliver Reed was coming from some very different sources for blues
inspiration. Brash, loud and thereby emboldened, the band often faced a very
mixed reception. Among the blues club crowd of beer drinking forty-somethings,
the band failed somewhat miserably in making a connection, and the times seemed pleased to march on without
them. Absolute in
its convictions, Oliver Reed would remain true to its creed until the end; it
refused to become another cover band.
Peach-key Records, LLC
Reprin
©Peach-Key 2007