Honeyboy & Boots
Honeyboy and Boots are a husband and wife duo from Starkville Mississippi by the name of Drew and Courtney. This guitar/cello duo plays a blend of old blues, folk, country ballads, and originals that are straight from the heart. Americana, folk, alt-country, and blues can all be used to describe their sound, which is always changing and growing.
Drew was raised on blues, old country, and folk music. This is apparent in his writing, guitar and singing style. Courtney is a classically trained cellist who began at the age of 3 ½. She likes to take the cello “out of the box” by playing groovy bass lines and soaring lead parts, while adding harmony to Drew’s bluesy vocals.
This past year they have played over 200 shows from Birmingham, Jackson, Nashville, Franklin, Hattiesburg, Natchez, Tupelo and surrounding cities! They have shared the stage with Grayson Capps and joined performers such as Cowboy Johnson, T-Bone Montgomery, and John Cook at the Frank Brown international Songwriting Festival.
Courtney moved the South in 2009 and started playing around Mississippi at any open mic or singer/songwriter night that she could. Drew and his band, The Old Memphis Kings, happened to be playing in the same place and that is how they met. They crossed paths doing what they enjoy – playing music.
Drew gave some background on how he received is nickname ‘Honeyboy’. He got because he always has been “big into the blues and I have a blues band.” There have been a couple of bluesmen who have used the Honeyboy moniker including Honeyboy Edwards. Courtney’s nickname is due to the fact that “she always wears boots and does country line dance.”
“Those are both our nicknames and we thought…shoot why don’t we put both of them together?”…. And from there, the band name Honeyboy and Boots was coined.
Drew states he is the primary songwriter but once a song is mostly put together, Courtney figures out what is needed to be complete it. “Courtney is really good at picking up on harmonies or beautiful cello parts that I could never think of. I kind of come up with the bare bones songs and then she adds everything else to it.”
Drew describes the band’s sound as “folk and blues, with kind of a twang.” He also adds that “It is kind of a little different with the cello in there.”
Courtney describes the beginning of their shows by saying that, “Everybody that sees us pull out a cello and guitar and thinks how is that going to work? Or how is that going to sound together?” Courtney believes that the audience almost has to open up, because it is something that is different and not usually seen. Drew adds that because the cello is kind of a mid-range instrument, it really works well for the sound. “Courtney can play the bass line and then drop down and play a really awesome solo that almost mimics what a violin solo would be. It is kind of the best of both worlds,” says Drew, “because you can get a lot of those low end notes in there, but can also have those beautiful solos.”
Honeyboy and Boots just released a new album, Waiting on a Song, on January 20th. “We are really excited about it, we recorded it in Birmingham. We are just trying to take this as hard as we can go with it. We had a really great year last year and we are hoping this year will be the same. We are trying to spread out to new areas. We are just excited to see how far we can go with this thing, it is something that we both love and are passionate about.”
Drew Blackwell Original song “Kick Off The Band”
http://www.honeyboyandboots.com
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