Album Notes

“If there’s going to be a live record, there ought to be some kind of adventure.”
Ronny Elliott
February, 2005
Springs Theater, Tampa FL

"For all that he says 'I never much liked live records,' Tampa-based Elliott, with his band The Nationals, does a pretty damn good job...Elliott stands alone as a brilliantly incisive commentator on the backwaters of popular culture." John Conquest, 3rd Coast Music (September 2007)

With the release of Live, fans worldwide will experience first-hand the delight of a night with Ronny Elliott and The Nationals: bassist Walt Bucklin, drummer Harry Hayward, harmony vocalist Natty Moss Bond, guitarist Steve Connelly and lap & pedal steel player Jim McNealon.

Joined by guests Drew Farmer on piano and Roswald Darby on trumpet — neither of whom had ever played with The Nationals prior to the concert — Live is a soaring anthology of ten tales drawn from the archives of rock ‘n’ roll and the mysteries of the heart, with a bit of politics thrown in for good measure. In between, the stories & musings bring the concert home.

John Stephen’s recording and Steve Connelly’s mastering bring unusual warmth and clarity to this remarkable work. Truly, the next best thing to being there. And don’t miss the hidden track.

MOJO: "Craggy but literary country blues like Jerry Lee Lewis if he were a beat poet or Townes Van Zandt with a Ph.D."

Billboard: "He was insurgent country before insurgent country was cool."

No Depression: "This is stirring stuff."

Billings Gazette: "Half the songwriters in Nashville would sell their mother's soul for even one of the songs that Elliott seems to toss around like peanut shells."