Unhand The Monster

Named by the Chicago Tribune as One of the 50 Most Significant Folk Artists of the Past 50 Years, Danny Schmidt has kept the sound of vintage folk music alive, and in a sprawling conversation right in the heart of Houston, Danny offers a series of candid, insightful comments concerning everything from music to religion to politics - and even to Big 12 Football...

A staggering lineage of folk music enthusiasts and documentarians have paved the way for Texas Monthly writer John Nova Lomax: a complicated, uncompromising, ball-peen hammer of a man. John gets passionate when discussing the legitimacy of certain pieces of music, so when he visits Ferrill's house in Mobile (after something of a long, spiritual journey), he speaks of the necessity of regional music, and how it paints the all-important portrait of a city, a town, or a neighborhood...

Husband and wife duo Oh Jeremiah have clocked in with perhaps the latest birth years of all the comers, but they arrive at the interview with philosophies squarely in tact, as surefooted tackling big questions about government, society, generational wars, and particularly the field they are most passionate about...music...as they can be. So, how do they keep afloat in such perilous times, as they face a system that breeds cynicism and wears down the working songwriters, left and right? Well, it's with an undeniable talent for constructing tight indie-pop tunes, as well as an unparalleled dose of relentless and unending optimism...

Crystal and Pete Damore (of the husband/wife duo Ordinary Elephant) won Artist of the Year at the 2017 International Folk Music Awards. Their road to it, however, was anything but typical. Crystal shunned a life of veterinary medicine (and all the training and education that comes with it), while Pete left a career programming software for Big Oil companies in Texas. Together they travel the world playing music to packed listening rooms as they soak up the culture of every city and every region...

On the heels of a killer writeup in Rolling Stone, mild-mannered Jackson Emmer, the smooth-sounding songwriter from Carbondale, CO, played an inaugural round at McGonigel's Mucky Duck in Houston and Ferrill was there to meet him. The two talk art, music, poetry - even talking to God on a golden telephone.

Easy-as-the-breeze Matt Harlan - Singer/Songwriter of the Year at the 2013 Texas Music Awards (and also known as a "Houstonian Treasure" by journalists who have followed his career there) is armed with a soapy-warm voice that sweetly delivers machine-gun-blasts of tight, serrated lyrics. In this episode, Matt is kind enough to give Ferrill a few tips on the fascinating town he calls "home," and unveils its undeniable record for incubating musicians...

Intro to Season 2... Spurred on by a series of tumultuous life-events that occurred off-the-mic in Season 1, Ferrill now finds himself moonlighting in a brand new city: Houston, Texas. With virtually the same climate, a historically rich place, and one that sits on a bustling bay just like Mobile does - somehow, with all its vast resources and culture, it's also known to be musically inferior to its sister city: Austin. Now, Ferrill finds himself there (by all ways) carried off by a song.

On the season finale of Unhand The Monster, Ferrill interviews Kristy Lee – a Mobile songwriter whose career shot off like a rocket… before she was even ready! The big-voiced, soulful singer/songwriter also describes a medically-induced hiatus from music that left a reverent soul-search in its wake, forcing her to wonder who she actually was  without music...

Veteran guitarist (of Neil Young fame) Anthony Crawford returns to Alabama to form a band with his wife Savana: the harmony-laden, sweet-sounding duo, "Sugarcane Jane." Together they tour relentlessly while raising their kids on the Alabama Gulf Coast...  

Brent Busby is a guitar prodigy, recruited by grown-ups to play in bands around Mobile even in his mid-teens. Now, after parlaying his musical talents to become Sound Designer and Composer for Adult Swim in Atlanta, he still strives to write the perfect song with his faraway bandmates.

Ever since she was a child singing in her great-grandfather's church in rural Mississippi, Lisa Mills always knew she had a gift. But, over a sprawling career that has taken her to Los Angeles, around the world, and always back home to the Gulf Coast, this fine artist has finally processed her roots, forging a career in polished songwriting and spirited performance...

Molly Thomas has been a fixture of the Mobile music scene since the mid-90’s. Though classically trained on violin, Molly was eventually recruited by jam bands in the early days to supply fills for songs such as “Ants Marching” and "Porch Song." Now, after so many years playing in the background, Molly has emerged as a smooth front-woman, bringing an elegant originality of her own & pulling no punches in the process with her searing, heartfelt lyrics.  

Since the early 90's, Mobile's Ryan Balthrop has enchanted the flip-flop sensibilities of the Alabama Gulf Coast, crafting songs of beach life and carefree living. However, his journey as an entertainer led to a spiritual awakening of sorts, beginning in the Virgin Islands. Today, its aftereffect lingers on as Ryan mounts a campaign to make Mobile a cleaner, more beautiful place...  

This week, the beloved Eric Erdman - a champion of the local arts scene and an unabashed fan of his hometown of Mobile - sits with Ferrill to discuss the state of education in Mobile, the "strange" and broken guitar chords he likes to forge and make melodic, and the eye-opening realities of his facing death as a teenager... 

Ross Newell is the lead singer and songwriter for Mobile's uber-popular band, The Mulligan Brothers. This week he sits down with Ferrill to discuss the biggest issues that a small, entrenched, southern town can face - and does it with the same sort of gentleness he uses when composing his beloved, Southern-Americana music...

Grayson Capps, a cultural instigator from Mobile, travels the world taking the sounds of his hometown to a scattered but loyal fanbase. Sometimes he even takes it to the streets...  

Rick Hirsch first arrived on the scene in 1969 with the Mobile band Wet Willie, and soon after he found himself in Los Angeles and ultimately coveted as a guitarist and writer by acts such as Cher and Gregg Allman. Years later, when the dust would settle, Rick would return to his beloved city of Mobile, Alabama to become a divining rod for Mobile's emerging music scene...

In the mid eighties, Will Kimbrough launched from Mobile with his much heralded, all-original band, "Will And The Bushmen." Ever since, he has made a strikingly normal (and highly successful) life of original music.

The soft-spoken - but distinctly outspoken - balladeer from Mobile, Alabama offers his thoughts on the state of the art scene, how it is improving, and what is left to improve.

Liftoff! Alabama songwriter Ferrill Gibbs outlines his plan: to interview all the songwriters responsible for Mobile, Alabama's original music renaissance...