Album Notes

Named after Woody Guthrie's burned daughter, Stackabones was formed in Austin, TX, by two East Coast transplants, Jim Brighton and Butch Zito. A fixture on the Austin scene in the mid-'80s, Stackabones found its way into Deadhead circles when its first single was played in between sets at a Grateful Dead show. Shortly thereafter, the band went into the studio with pedal steel hero Bobby Black to record their first album for Relix Records. Fast forward two decades later and the band is still going strong. The band's strength remains its songwriting, penned by both Brighton, Zito and multi-instrumentalist Scott Cooper.

Whereas other jam bands and musical moons in the jam band genre focus on instrumental jamming at the expense of the Almighty Song, Stackabones writes strong songs that can stand on their own, but Brighton's tasty Garcia-tinged guitar solos and exploratory passages feed the best of both worlds. The band released a second CD in 1996, titled Cathy Ann, on the small California label Sailcat Records, followed by the heralded acoustic-based "This Ribbon of Highway" in 2000.