BR5-49 Share ‘Little Ramona (Gone Hillbilly Nuts)’ From Upcoming Live Release [Exclusive Premiere]

Lower Broadway may be a safe haven for tourists visiting Nashville today, but back in the mid-'90s, it was an unpredictable and risky strip of asphalt. That being said, much like today, at any given moment back then you could walk down the street and hear some of the best country music around.

Performing at the legendary Robert’s Western World back in those days, BR5-49 made a name for themselves with their high-energy live shows, performing multiple times a week for four or five hours at a time. In 1996, after signing with Arista Records, BR5-49 released a live EP, the aptly titled Live at Robert’s. While the disc only covers a handful of songs from their repertoire, it’s a perfect introduction to what BR5-49 were dishing out on Lower Broadway. Now, nearly 20 years later, they're celebrating an even more robust live release with Bear Family Records, BR5-49: One Long Saturday Night, and we’re thrilled to premiere one of our favorite tunes from the album, "Little Ramona (Gone Hillbilly Nuts)" — check it out in the audio player below.

"Someone asked me back in the late 1980s what happened to punk rockers when they get old," BR5-49's fearless leader, Chuck Mead, tells us. "Before I could answer, another friend behind me shouted over my shoulder, 'They become country musicians!' About 10 years later I was thinking about that and ended up writing the song "Little Ramona (Gone Hillbilly Nuts)," a ditty about a girl who used to have a mohawk haircut and listened to the Ramones and Patti Smith ... but now wears Manuel as she honky-tonks to ol' Hank and Lefty Frizzell all without losing her edge."

BR5-49: One Long Saturday Night was recorded in October 1996 on the German television show, Ohne Filter. The band tore through a nearly hourlong set on the program; as Mead explained when this release was first announced, "We saw it as our duty to bring the spirit of Robert's Western World to every place we went."

The new release includes a DVD and CD, each containing all 19 songs from the Ohne Filter set (the CD also features four soundboard recordings taken from a concert in Japan a week prior to this German gig).

"We found that in our particular circle of friends that rediscovering the country music of our parents fit into the rock and roll attitude as well as anything," Mead tells us. "As it turns out, in Germany, people seemed to latch onto the sentiment, too. Even if they didn't really grow up with country music, it is seen as a unique American art form worthy of consideration -- and dancing sometimes."

BR5-49: One Long Saturday Night will hit the streets on Nov. 20 via Bear Family Records; you can grab more details on the CD and DVD editions of the archival release at this location.

Listen to BR5-49's "Little Ramona (Gone Hillbilly Nuts)" From One Long Saturday Night

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