ORBO & The Longshots "Highway Tears"

My houseguests left on Monday. When you live in Austin, Texas, you always have houseguests during SXSW®. It’s kind of like living in Orlando, where you always have guests that are heading to Disney World®. And I have to say, that there is a certain similarity in that Austin actually becomes a theme park of a sort this time of year. The theme is music. In retrospect, I am sifting through magazines and websites to read the raves on bands I missed, of which there are many. The Dunwells were terrific, Brown Bird wowed them, and JD McPherson was on everyone’s lips as well. Maybe we will see them all on the next Music Fog Marathon! But today we dig one event back, to October’s sessions held during Americana Fest in Nashville, at Marathon Recorders.

ORBO & The Longshots got its start in the year 2000, by singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer Ole Reinert Berg-Olsen aka ORBO. They have six albums under their belt, and won the Norwegian equivalent of the GRAMMY® Award, Spellemannsprisen, for their 2008 album High Roller. Ten years of endless touring means this band has learned their craft the hard way---on the road. In fact they will celebrate their one-thousandth live show this year. ORBO & The Longshots have recorded their albums all over the world, from the mountains of Norway, to the legendary Sun Studio in Memphis, TN. Their new album Prairie Sun was recorded at Prairie Sun Studios in Cotati, California, and features special guests Delbert McClinton, Fats Kaplin, and John Jorgenson. We bring you a tune today as yet unreleased in the States, which we recorded during our October Music Fog Marathon, “Highway Tears.”

- Jessie Scott