Wink Keziah is an urban hillbilly. His sound nourished by moonshine, draped in kudzu and road-tested in clubs and barrooms sprawled across the country. On his second CD, Working Songs for the Drinking Class, on the Charlotte, N.C.- based independent Great South Records, Keziah and his band, Delux Motel serve up a double shot of hooch, a potent blend of country and rock that’s as hot as a hill country honky-tonk on a scorching summer night.
Distilled through years of playing and paying his workingman dues, Keziah’s Working Songs For The Drinking Class is a 10-track tour de force of pure outlaw country, with plenty of passion on tap and a frothy head of Southern soul.
Produced by Mark Stuart of The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash, the album was recorded and mixed by engineer Mark Williams at Mitch Easter’s Fidelitorium Recordings. On it Keziah delivers a truly down-home perspective on the essential human experience, more often than not with a rye sense of humor and raucous fun that belies his hardscrabble upbringing in Charlotte’s “redneck ghetto.”
With the release of Working Songs For The Drinking Class, Wink Keziah is on the go, like a bootlegger at midnight, ready to transport his 100-proof, high-steppin’ honky-tonk rock to the masses. “I’m in the only genre in America where you can be an old shit and people still think you’re cool.” He says. “I don’t need to be a big star, I do this for my own reasons. It’s about living up to the gift of being able to write songs and play music.
“I’m just determined as hell,” he adds of his long and varied path to this point. “I’m like a bad damn case of psoriasis. I am not going away. I am going to be here making music until I fall over dead.”
In the meantime, drinks are on the house.
Wink Keziah and Delux Motel are proud members of The Americana Music Association, The Roots Music Association and ASCAP.
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