Jerry Lee’s Music Store Sponsor at St.Marys Mardi Gras Festival 2017

The St.Marys Mardi Gras Festival 2017 attracted many folks from South Georgia and Northeast Florida to a day of sun-filled, waterfront partying. Starting out the morning with some health related activities, at 10am the Parade took off and by noon everyone was ready for music and food. As always Jerry Lee’s Music gets involved in some function or another when it comes to promoting our little part of coastal Paradise, especially where it involves attracting national celebrity music stars. The event is organized by Downtown St.Marys Merchant Association and K-Bay Radio.

This year the entertainment spotlight was on country-rock recording artist James Otto, a singer/songwriter with a Southern rock heart, and Atlanta based Confederate Railroad, a country/southern rock band founded back in 1987, with more than a handful of 80s and 90s hits to their name.

43 Year old James Otto was born at Fort Lewis Army Base in Washington State and played violin and saxophone before getting his first guitar at age 13. He began his career on Mercury Nashville Records in 2002, charting three minor singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts and recording his debut album Days of Our Lives. As a member of Nashville’s MuzikMafia, a group of country musicians known for their “country music without prejudice”, he signed in late 2007 to Warner Bros. Records. His second album, Sunset Man, was released in April 2008. It was produced by John Rich (of Big & Rich) and Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts fame and Otto’s brother-in-law. The lead-off single to Sunset Man, “Just Got Started Lovin’ You”, became Otto’s first Number One hit, as well as the Number One most played country single of 2008 according to Billboard and raised Otto’s national profile considerably, leading to several co-writing gigs including authoring Jamey Johnson’s “In Color,” which won Song of the Year at the 2008 Academy of Country Music Awards. Otto returned with his third album, Shake What God Gave Ya, in the fall of 2010 and stays recording and performing all over the country. Otto delivered a great 2 hour show full of his own work and other popular country rock tunes with his bluesy, muscular voice and dynamic stage presence.

The pause between performers between 2 and 3 pm, gave just enough time to sample some of the great street food varieties and bbq available from many stands at the St.Marys Mardi Gras Festival 2017 and get an impression of arts and crafts displayed for sale in the more than 100 vendor booths.

At 3 o’clock sharp it was time for the ‘old’ rockers of Confederate Railroad to show their chops…..and that they did.
This country rock/southern rock band was founded in 1987 in Marietta, Georgia by Danny Shirley on lead vocals and rhythm guitar and Wayne Secrest on bass. They are the only two founding members still active in the band that started out as a bar-band in Greater Atlanta (I remember seeing Danny with a pre-cursor of the Railroad play at Timothy Johns in Marietta). After serving as a backing band for outlaw country acts David Allan Coe and Johnny Paycheck, the band signed to a recording contract with Atlantic Records, releasing their self-titled debut album that year. Since then Confederate Railroad has released more than half a dozen studio albums, while more than twenty of their singles have entered the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts.

In 1993, Confederate Railroad was awarded Best New Group at the ACM awards. In order of release, these singles were “She Took It Like a Man”, “Jesus and Mama”, “Queen of Memphis” (their highest chart peak, at No. 2), “When You Leave That Way You Can Never Go Back”, “Trashy Women” and “She Never Cried”.
Notorious, the band’s second album was released in 1994 and also became certified platinum, at which point founder Danny Shirley reputedly remarked:”Our success has now officially outranked our talents. Everything from here on is icing on the cake!

Confederate Railroad’s novelty numbers, such as “Trashy Women”, show that same tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, that until today still receives huge audience approval. A reviewer for New Country magazine wrote a while ago that they are “one of the few bands who can pull off a song about how they prefer trashy women and sound like they really mean it”. They are still having fun. I was happy to also be connected to a more serious side of the band: their ballads.

An attendance of well over 20,000 people came to see the Mardi Gras Festival and Parade on this February 25, 2017, leaving with a renewed admiration for the staying power of good outlaw country music wrapped in southern rock stage performances.
Jerry Lee’s Music Store is happy to be a sponsor of the St.Marys Mardi Gras Festival 2017.