Making 'sweet' music

Making 'sweet' music

Posted: Sep 6, 2008 08:10 PM CDT

Updated: Sep 6, 2008 09:54 PM CDT

Video Gallery <1|2> Making 'sweet' music 2: 00 Hear the song 'Hello Moon' 5:23 Listen to 'Whiskey Breath' 3: 06 Mama Sweet's 'Storm is on its way' 6:31

Mama Sweet is from Norman Oklahoma, but they have fans around the world.

Mama Sweet's music is a mixture of different types of music from blues to country ballads.

MORE LINKS Mama Sweet Web site

By Christian Price, News9.com INsite Team

NORMAN, Okla. -- Their sound is as unique and different as their name. Mama Sweet is a band from Norman who changes people's perception about the kind of music made in Oklahoma.

Lead singer Aron Holt is tired of trying to explain the band's eclectic sound.

"It's kind of getting to the point where I'm tired of trying to come up with an answer to that question," Holt said. "I have no idea what it sounds like because we're making it, we're not listening to it."

Mama Sweet's sound is a mixture of blues and country, with a dash of Floyd and Hendrix. They believe they sound more like outlaw country.

"It's an off shoot of country music and contemporary mainstream music," Holt said. "It was all just about drinking whiskey, shooting pool and chasing women and all that fun stuff."

The drummer for Mama Sweet, Giovanni Carnuccio, credits Holt with writing music that spans multiple categories.

"A lot of guys write songs that are the same style, and on and on and on," Carnuccio said. "I know he listens to a lot of different types of music and mixes it up with some blender in his head."

The band believes that if people outside of the state would give Oklahoma music a chance, they'd be surprised.

"I think if a lot of the country could get turned on to some of the sounds that comes out of Oklahoma, it be beneficial."

Mama Sweet believes Oklahoman's should get out and support local musicians more often.

"We've got a lot of things that people on the coast and the rest of the nation right now would die for," Carnuccio said. "We don't have a housing crisis. We're not hurting financially. We're growing leaps and bounds."

Whatever it is that Mama Sweet is doing, it's working. They have been nominated in TOSSM Radio's Listener's Choice Awards for "Favorite Texas and Red Dirt up and coming Artist/Band," and "Favorite Texas and Red Dirt male vocalist."

Visit their Web site for future show dates.

Singer-actor Jerry Reed dies at the age of 71

By JOHN GEROME – 56 minutes ago

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Jerry Reed, a singer who became a good ol' boy actor in car chase movies like "Smokey and the Bandit," has died of complications from emphysema at 71.

His longtime booking agent, Carrie Moore-Reed, no relation to the star, said Reed died early Monday.

"He's one of the greatest entertainers in the world. That's the way I feel about him," Moore-Reed said.

Reed was a gifted guitarist who later became a songwriter, singer and actor.

As a singer in the 1970s and early 1980s, he had a string of hits that included "Amos Moses," "When You're Hot, You're Hot," "East Bound and Down" and "The Bird."

In the mid-1970s, he began acting in movies such as "Smokey and the Bandit" with Burt Reynolds, usually as a good ol' boy. But he was an ornery heavy in "Gator," directed by Reynolds, and a hateful coach in 1998's "The Waterboy," starring Adam Sandler.

Reynolds gave him a shiny black 1980 Trans Am like the one they used in "Smokey and the Bandit."

Reed and Kris Kristofferson paved the way for Nashville music personalities to make inroads into films. Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Kenny Rogers (TV movies) followed their lead.

"I went around the corner to motion pictures," he said in a 1992 AP interview.

Reed had quadruple bypass surgery in June 1999.

Born in Atlanta, Reed learned to play guitar at age 8 when his mother bought him a $2 guitar and showed him how to play a G-chord.

He dropped out of high school to tour with Ernest Tubb and Faron Young.

At 17, he signed his first recording contract, with Capitol Records.

He moved to Nashville in the mid-1960s where he caught the eye of Chet Atkins.

He first established himself as a songwriter. Elvis Presley recorded two of his songs, "U.S. Male" and "Guitar Man" (both in 1968). He also wrote the hit "A Thing Called Love," which was recorded in 1972 by Johnny Cash. He also wrote songs for Brenda Lee, Tom Jones, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole and the Oak Ridge Boys.

Reed was voted instrumentalist of the year in 1970 by the Country Music Association.

He won a Grammy Award for "When You're Hot, You're Hot" in 1971. A year earlier, he shared a Grammy with Chet Atkins for their collaboration, "Me and Jerry." In 1992, Atkins and Reed won a Grammy for "Sneakin' Around."

Reed continued performing on the road into the late 1990s, doing about 80 shows a year.

"I'm proud of the songs, I'm proud of things that I did with Chet (Atkins), I'm proud that I played guitar and was accepted by musicians and guitar players," he told the AP in 1992.

In a 1998 interview with The Tennessean, he admitted that his acting ability was questionable.

"I used to watch people like Richard Burton and Mel Gibson and think, `I could never do that.'

"When people ask me what my motivation is, I have a simple answer: Money."