Hacienda Brothers & Hollisters Spawned Stone River Boys Set Album Release

The Texas-based quintet features the talents of two well-traveled roots music practitioners � guitarist Dave Gonzalez, formerly a driving force in the Hacienda Brothers and the Paladins, and vocalist Mike Barfield, "The Tyrant of Texas Funk" and onetime leader of the Hollisters. Together, Barfield and Gonzalez have fashioned a gutsy crossbreed of country and R&B they've labeled "country funk."

The Stone River Boys' sound extends the direction of Gonzalez' previous band, the Hacienda Brothers, who recorded three studio albums with producer and country-soul legend Dan Penn. Gonzalez was partnered in the Haciendas with Southern California-bred singer Chris Gaffney.

After Gaffney was diagnosed with liver cancer in early 2008, Gonzalez organized a benefit tour for his ailing bandmate, drawing musicians from Austin's fertile talent pool. One of the principal members of the touring group was Barfield, whom Gonzalez had known since the early '80s, when he fronted the top Southern California rockabilly band the Paladins and Barfield led the Houston bands the Rounders and the Hollisters.

Gaffney succumbed to cancer in April 2008, but the tour went on. "We went and did it anyway, and sent the money home to his wife Julie," says Gonzalez. "A buddy of mine had a recording studio up in Nebraska, and while we were out on tour he invited us to come over there. We went in and cut a couple. I said to Barfield, 'If you want to do a record, I'd love to, man.' And we just started making a record."

Barfield says, "We really naturally just started keeping it going. The name of the band came from the first place we rehearsed for that trip, in this little subdivision in deep South Austin, on a street called Stone River."

Gonzalez recalls, "When I hooked up with Barfield, he had a whole pocket full of tunes. I felt, 'We need to record these things right away.' We wrote a couple right on the spot together. He had a few that were unfinished I kind of helped him with. But he wrote the majority of the material on the record."

Produced by Gonzalez, the album was recorded during several sessions in 2008-09 with a band that included bassists Scott Esbeck (formerly of the way-out instrumental combo Los Straitjackets), Hank Maninger (Hacienda Brothers) and Kevin Smith (Dwight Yoakam), pedal steel whiz Dave Biller, and drummers Justin Jones and Damien Llanes. It extends the seamless fusion of country and soul influences essayed by both the Hacienda Brothers and Barfield, whose over-the-top funk shows at Austin's Continental Club have become the stuff of legend.