The City Slickers

By Dallas Embry

Fans of Gram Parsons, early Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, rejoice! The sound is still around in the form of The City Slickers from Lexington, Ky., who performed at Uncle Pleasant's on Saturday, May 20th.

Matt Patterson (formerly of The Jeeters) on lead vocals and guitar, Sam Gillespie on lead guitar and back-up vocals, Rick Bennett (formerly with Ali Bubba and the Jazz Thieves, and brother of L.A.S.C. member Becky Bennett) on drums, and Matt Renfro on bass, were joined by Velvet Elvis keyboardist Jeff Yurkowski for an evening of country, swing, and rockabilly that had the joint jumping.

In addition to original tunes "Whiskey Colored Glasses" by Matt Patterson, with some rocking piano, and "Speak Up" by Rick Bennett, which had some wailing lead guitar ably played by Gillespie, they played a repertoire of songs by folks like The Louvin Brothers, Buck Owens, The Byrds, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, Ernest Tubb, Little Feat, The Everly Brothers, Johnny Cash, Percy Sledge and others.

Jerry Lee Lewis's "End of the Road," with honky-tonk piano, was a crowd favorite, as was "I Wasn't Born to Follow" (as performed by The Byrds) and Dylan's "From A Buick 6."

The vocal harmonies of Patterson and Gillespie were really nice, whether they were doing them as The Everly Brothers, Little Feat, Charlie and Ira Louvin, or themselves.

The instrumentation was solid country/rockabilly and had me dancing in my chair most of the evening.

The City Slickers hope to be back in Louisville in July. Keep your eyes and ears open; you'll have a honky-tonkin'-Saturday-night good time.