The Border Band

Thanks to the originality of Gram Parsons and loose noodling of The Grateful Dead, country music is no longer limited to big hats, A-chords and pedal steel guitars. Now meet The Border Bands "Hard West," a 26-song collection of low-down, mid-west, between the ditches country rock....
While there are a few covers here, the lion's share of originals are due to singer/guitarist Melvin Litton. Rearrangements of "In The Jailhouse Now" and "St. James Infirm'ry" are done sweet justice. Typically I would approach Dylan covers with a suspicious eye, especially those lifted from "Blood On The Tracks," but a bluesy cover of "Meet Me in the Morning" is included for your listening pleasure, and have no fear, Zimmy is held to the highest standards....
There isn't a lot of wavering in the elemental sound across the board, but this is merely chalked up to "doing what you do best" rather than what is expected from label execs. The sound quality far exceeds most DYI releases but exudes the confidence of a band with the sole intiention of playing whatever it damn well pleases....
The Border Band holds one truth to be self-evident: Country is the only genre to make it clear that two minutes in any relationship is the difference between a shot of whiskey and a beer to kill the pain. With titles like "If Wishes Was Horses," "Fishin' in the Wrong Hole" and "Taco n' Wine," it's easy to see that being from Kansas has had a rather genuine impact....
Give me an old Roadhouse saloon with a silent, mysterious hunk named Dalton watching the door, chicken wire protecting the stage and these guys cranking the soundtrack to one hell of a drunken stupor, and that's the America I know! -- Dereck Blackman - Indie-Music.com -- 11/5/05

Where does all the good music come from? - I sometimes ask myself. Rootstime in particular knows where to find the increasingly popular genre, roots-Americana. Now I don't mean to imply by this that The Border Band's third release (already!) is a typical Americana disc. No, Melvin Litton and his band do more than just that....
"Hard West" is a primarily melodic album with infectious rhythms, varying from uptempo songs through to a mesmerizing sound. Here and there a Coast to Coast rhythm surfaces, in "Jam in Nam," and then they let loose again with the roots rock ballad "Quittin' You." The traditional home base is to be found in "Same ol' Song." It may seem obvious that The Border Band draw on diverse influences, but the conspicuous link to the blues, "Red Rose Blues," I would call remarkable. Just the combination and changes in the final cut, "Champagne in the Saddle," is in itself the invention of true professionals....
I get a certain feeling from them, as if being brought under hypnosis. To soothe the heat of Lawrence, the Rockies and the Badlands, the guys have pooled their talents and come up with one of the better singer-songwriter albums of our time. The music has exceptional class. Again, not really an Americana disc, but certainly a gem.... -- Freddy Celis - Rootstime.be -- 10/23/05

This new two-disc set is what we call hard country. It has edge with both the music and the lyrics. It's mostly originals with a few cool covers including Bob Dylan's "Meet Me In Then Morning." This Midwest band has managed to stay under the radar screen the past few years but that's all about to end with this career making disc. The hats on these guys is likely to be a bit dusty and have more than a couple of spots of blood and sweat... -- Bill Lavery - Village Records -- 10/19/05