Greetings and a beautiful Springtime friends!
Ras Alan's new record, Mountaintop, and it's 13 original tracks, are now available exclusively on this RasAlan.net website! Over an hour of original Appalachian reggae played live at one of America's longest running music venues, The Down Home in Johnson City, Tennessee. The 5 piece electric band sound of The Lions, Ras Alan's performing ensemble, roars with Rasta rhythm, melodies, harmonies and improvisation. Ras Alan enjoys leading the band through the set with his Les Paul guitar and trusty Fender tube amp, with some hand drums to “up the vibes!” Robert “Brother Bob” Franklin is on vocals, melodica and percussion, Jeremy “Jahremy” Corn on vocals, organ, piano and accordion, Brandon “Firehouse” Renfro on vocals, drumkit and percussion and Ian “New Taters” Feathers on bass guitar. The Lions go from one drop country to regga-billy jazz to Rasta rocking and rhyming with confident ease. Ras Alan produced the album and mixed the tracks, Keith Smith engineered and multi-tracked everything live digitally on The Down Home stage and Mike Caplan at Lion & Fox in Washington DC mastered the Mountaintop album. Total Time 67:03 Release number RPD 256
Ras Alan's Mountaintop CD and digital downloads are available to family, friends, fans and this entire planet through this website. And only this website. All of the profit from the sales of this album and all it's singles will go straight to Ras Alan and his family. I Give Thanks in advance!
I have been exceedingly fortunate to meet, and sometimes play music with, some of my biggest musical inspirations. Mountain flatpicker Doc Watson, Jamaican crooner Bunny Wailer, and Malian master musician Ali Farke Toure are a few of the many. My songs and recordings are preserved in the Permanent Archives of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC as an example of contemporary Southern Appalachian culture and music, as well as in the Archives of Appalachia, East Tennessee State University. A dreadneck from the mountains! Respect!
Here's what folks have to say about my original Appalachian Reggae music:
“Ras Alan is a national treasure!”
“Beautiful, brave and authentic.”
“We invited Ras Alan because his work challenges and invites us to think about Appalachia in a global context”
"The energy was high... Then Ras Alan & The Lions took it up the next step with the revolutionary vibe. "
“It's a mountain stream of consciousness that quenches us all.”
“He told us to Give Thanks… that's what I'm talking about!”
Bob Marley biographer Roger Steffens says, "Reggabilly at its best!"
“Like good bread. Thanks”
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I also love building instruments, and am playing a rosewood herringbone cutaway Orchestra Model guitar I built in the video featured below, "Canoe", recorded by our friends at Echo Mountain Studios and Independent Arts & Music of Asheville, in the mountains of North Carolina, USA, featuring members of Dub Kartel. Give Thanks!
