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Bad Livers

Bad Livers
The Bad Livers, October 7, 1994.jpg
The Bad Livers on stage at Old Settlers' Park, Round Rock, Texas, October 7, 1994. Left to right: Mark Rubin, Ralph White, Danny Barnes.
Background information
Origin Austin, Texas
Genres Old-time, Country, Bluegrass, Folk, Blues, Gospel, Polka, folk punk
Years active 1990–2000
Labels Quarterstick, Sugar Hill
Website Badlivers.com

The Bad Livers were a band from Austin, Texas, whose inventive musical style defied attempts to categorize them according to existing genres. The original lineup, formed in 1990, included Danny Barnes on banjo, guitar and resonator guitar, Mark Rubin on upright bass and tuba, and Ralph White III on fiddle and accordion. Barnes composed the majority of the group's original songs. When White left the group at the end of 1996, he was briefly replaced by Bob Grant on mandolin and guitar. Barnes and Rubin then continued to perform and record as a duo until unofficially dissolving the band in 2000. The band has neither toured nor recorded since then, but Barnes and Rubin have played a few live shows with Grant in 2008, 2009, and 2014.

The Bad Livers' music has often been cited for its influence on other groups, creating what The Austin Chronicle described as "an impressive legacy".The Stranger credited them with "revitalizing roots music", and, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, "The Bad Livers helped open the way for old-time and bluegrass bands of today".

The Bad Livers formed in 1990, when Barnes "came up with this idea that it would be great to have a small-format acoustic band that could play different kinds of music [at a] virtuoso level, where they could play any kind of music". He began playing with Rubin and White, and the trio adopted the name Bad Livers in the summer of 1990. They began playing frequently in Austin, including a weekly set at the Saxon Pub. A typical set in 1991 included a wide variety of styles and periods of music, as Rubin later explained: "We were doing Mississippi John Hurt, gospel tunes, Captain Beefheart—anything, really, but it was Motörhead or the Misfits that caught on."


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Wikipedia

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