Award-winning Scottish singer songwriter Dean Owens been on the road in USA throughout April and May – a 2 month, 12 state, 10,000 mile tour, taking him from Pensacola to Chicago and Virginia to California, via Nashville, Memphis, Wyoming, and more (with temperatures ranging from a sunny 98+ in Nashville, to a chilly minus 4 (and 4 inches of snow) in South Dakota).
One of the most evocative places for Dean was a trip to Louisville KY – the birthplace of one of Dean’s lifelong heroes, Muhammad Ali (the subject of his song Louisville Lip) – where he guested on morning TV and recorded a session for Kentucky Home Front radio show.
Dean: “I played the song in Louisville where some old school friends of Ali’s were in the audience. They came up to me afterwards and told me their stories about Ali and how moved they were by my song. That really meant a lot to me”.
While touring with The Two Tracks in their home town of Sheridan Wyoming, Dean came across an old boxing gym (and pawn shop) which inspired him to record an acoustic version of the song, filmed by Two Tracks’ Dave Huebner.
Dean: “Dave (Huebner) took me to this old pawn shop/boxing gym in Sheridan, Wyoming. It’s called Cowboy Cody’s Two-Bit Swap Shop and it’s run by an ex-boxer – Cody Quarterman. It just had this brilliant old dusty and sweaty feel. I thought it would be a great place to shoot a video for Louisville Lip”. Watch it below:
As well as a tribute to Ali, Louisville Lip is an intensely personal song, as the singer imagines addressing his hero directly, remembering the impact on a kid growing up in the port of Leith, watching Ali’s career from several thousand miles away, on the other side of the world. Originally recorded for Dean’s Southern Wind, a highly praised album which includes 2 award-winning songs (the title track – UK Song of the Year (AMA-UK 2019) and Love Prevails (International Songwriting Competition) Louisville Lip is regularly picked out as a highlight by reviewers.
Dean explains how he came to write the song, on the day of Ali’s death:
“I was somewhere around Amarillo, Texas (returning from recording Buffalo Blood in the desert) when the news came through that Muhammad Ali had died. I got back to Nashville in the wee hours and wrote this song. Ali meant so much to me growing up and was the reason I wanted to become a boxer. I remember him floating around the ring in those white shorts with the black stripes and thinking ‘I want a pair of those’. RIP The Greatest”.
DATES
As Dean Owens & The Southerners (aka Tom Collison (AMA-UK Instrumentalist of the Year 2019) and guitarist Jim Maving (whose distinguished career includes stints with Case Hardin and as Mick Ralphs’ (Mott The Hoople/Bad Company) go-to guitarist)
7 Jun – Kingsdown Vaults, Bristol
8 Jun – Little Rabbit Barn, Colchester
9 Jun – Eleto Jazz Room, Folkestone
11 Jun – The Stables, Wavendon
12 Jun – St Lawrence’s Church, Biddulph
13 Jun – The Eagle Inn, Salford, Manchester
14 Jun – 81 Renshaw St, Liverpool
15 Jun – Hope and Anchor, Islington, London
16 Jun – Americana Live, The Hawth, Crawley
17 Jun – The Greys, Brighton
22 Jun – High Tide Festival, Twickenham
Scotland:
13 July – Woodside Hotel, Aberdour (solo)
8 Aug – Fringe by the Sea, North Berwick – Dean Owens & The Celtabilly Allstars
17 & 23 Aug – New Town Theatre (Edinburgh Fringe) – A Hatful of Songs (solo show)
Details and links on Dean’s website: www.deanowens.com/live
Photo by David Huebner