Every week, Milwaukee Music Premiere connects the city’s artists with our listening audience. If you’re an artist with a track you’d like us to debut exclusively on Radio Milwaukee, head over to our Music Submission page to learn how.
If you’re wondering what’s in store for you with a Milwaukee Music Premiere called “Country Rock ‘N’ Roller,” you’re trying too hard.
Like the listening experience, the song’s title is a straightforward exercise from Milwaukee band Convoy. It is country. It is rock and roll. It is exactly what it claims to be and spends zero time trying anything else.
That becomes clear in the first 10 seconds with a determined guitar riff, shouts of “oh yeah” and “alright,” and a schmear of harmonica thrown in for good measure. They’re the sounds you’d expect from a band making a sonic move just down the block, from old school honky tonk and trucker songs to Southern/country rock.
In the midst of that gentle evolution, Convoy added a couple new members and, as the band’s Paul Robbins put it, “started to feel some energy while playing together that wasn't there before.” With the fuel in place, they needed a tank to put it in and found it in a Cadillac Coupe DeVille — well, sort of found it.
At the time of the song’s writing, Robbins had long been searching Facebook Marketplace for a Cadillac to finally provide the hood for the longhorn ornamentation he already found (also on Facebook Marketplace, of course). In that regard, “Country Rock ‘N’ Roller” is a heaping helping of wish fulfillment as Robbins sings about the hallmarks of the genre: Willy Nelson and Waylon Jennings on the radio, a 10-gallon hat on your head and bills you can’t pay at home.
Metaphor? Symbolism? Existential dread? You won’t find any of that here. Just climb in your car (Cadillac or otherwise), crank down the windows and hit “Listen” in the player at the top of this page. Or, if you can time it right, catch “County Rock ‘N’ Roller” on 88Nine today (7:30 and 11:30 a.m.; 3:30, 7:30 and 10:30 p.m.). Longer term, you’ll find Convoy playing with Max & The Fellow Travelers and Grain Elevator at Shank Hall on Jan. 4.
