New Orleans rockers Cowboy Mouth, still anchored after 40 years by wildman drummer Fred LeBlanc, will play The Windjammer on Aug. 17.
Expect to hear the band’s biggest hit, the knockabout rocker “Jenny Says,” as well as a grab bag of favorite songs from a new album called Cover Yo’ Azz!. It includes Cowboy Mouth’s passionate, garage-rock version of The Replacements’ gem “Can’t Hardly Wait” and a bluegrass version of Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls” that’s a lot more fitting (and funnier) than you’d think.
But Cowboy Mouth is only a piece of the puzzle the Windjammer weekend. The band is part of a two-day celebration called the Hazelnut Hang, a sort of mini-festival created by the Gainesville, Fla., band Sister Hazel.
Sister Hazel had its biggest mainstream hit back in 1997 with “All For You,” the bouncy pop-rocker with the familiar chorus of “Hard to say what it is I see in you.” But it has lasted long past that one hit because it has cultivated a devoted, familial fanbase called the Hazel Nuts.
This fanbase has grown over the last three decades that Sister Hazel created an event to celebrate these folks. And thus the Hazelnut Hang was born at The Windjammer back in 2006. This year, Cowboy Mouth and Georgia favorites Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ share the bill with Sister Hazel over two nights.
Cowboy Mouth and Sister Hazel essentially spent the 1990s and 2000s touring the same region. The members know each other well. Fred LeBlanc said that while he’s only played the Hazelnut Hang once before, he loves what Sister Hazel has accomplished.
“First off, they’re very nice people,” LeBlanc told the Charleston City Paper. “We appreciate them on a one-to-one level. But over the years, they’ve also shown themselves to be as creative in business as they are musically, and they’ve created their own world so they could thrive. So I’m happy to hang with them.”
LeBlanc said he is also happy to be returning to The Windjammer. Back in the day, the band played there often.
“Some of our fans actually make our Windjammer show a pilgrimage for their summer,” LeBlanc said. “It’s a really good vibe, because (Windjammer co-owner) Bobby Ross and his family are really good friends of mine. They were generous to us. They’ve been generous to generations of bands.”
Under the ‘Cover’
As for the new Cowboy Mouth album, LeBlanc still can’t believe that no one had thought before to name a covers album as Cover Yo’ Azz!.
“I got really lucky there, right?” he said, laughing. “It started when we were trying to learn a version of ‘The Real Me’ by The Who at sound check one day. And I asked (singer/guitarist) John Griffith, the guy who I founded the band with many years ago, ‘Do we want to do this as a single down the road?’ And he threw out the idea of making a whole covers album. And my response was less ‘Why?’ and more ‘Why not?’ ”
The result is a fun collection of deep cuts and big hits. It kicks off with a surprisingly earnest cover of the Sinatra chestnut “My Way,” recast as a combination acoustic jig/hardcore punk hybrid. Then there’s the vaguely nu-metal version of Cher’s “Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves.” And that’s before deep dives into the back catalogs of R.E.M. (“Perfect Circle”) and Cowboy Mouth’s old pals Hootie & The Blowfish (“City By A River”).
LeBlanc handled the song selection and his criteria was simple.
“I love all of those songs,” he said. “There’s not a song on there that I don’t know by heart.”
And now LeBlanc is anxious to get onto The Windjammer stage and use those covers to do what Cowboy Mouth has done since 1990.
“Our focus has always been on putting on the most intense and best rock and roll show possible,” he said. It’s about that moment of losing yourself. We’re losing ourselves in the music, and hopefully so is the audience.”
IF YOU WANT TO GO: Doors open at 5 p.m., Aug. 17, The Windjammer, 1008 Ocean Blvd., Isle of Palms. Tickets are $25 in advance, $30 at the door: the-windjammer.com
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