Memphis fine-tunes duo's sound

Montgomery Gentry sharpens its rock edge

By John Gerome Associated Press

NASHVILLE — Montgomery Gentry has always looked to classic rockers for inspiration, but the country duo never took things quite this far.

For their seventh album, Back When I Knew It All, they holed up at Memphis' Ardent Studios, where Led Zeppelin, the Allman ­Brothers, ZZ Top and Bob Dylan recorded.

The pair — Central Kentucky natives Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry, who got their start in Lexington clubs — were looking for a meatier sound after their last release, the more subdued Some People Change.

”We purposely stepped up the tempo,“ Gentry said recently while backstage at the Grand Ole Opry. ”It was one of the conversations we had with (Sony/BMG ­chairman) Joe Galante when we sat down to talk about this record. He said one of his favorite productions on us thus far was the My Town record. So we were trying to get back more to that sound and feel.“

It didn't take them long. They called in Blake Chancey (Dixie Chicks) to produce and Chuck Leavell (Rolling Stones, Allman Brothers Band) to play piano and organ.

And, of course, they soaked up the vibe in ­Memphis, where blues, ­country and gospel converged to help create rock 'n' roll.

The city on the Mississippi has been a musical mecca ever since, with Ardent ­Studios one of its cornerstones. It's where ZZ Top cut Tres Hombres, Zeppelin made Led Zeppelin III, James Taylor did Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon and Steve Earle Copperhead Road.

”Their ghosts were in there all over it, man,“ ­Montgomery said.

The group's last disc produced three Top 5 singles, including the No. 1 Lucky Man. But Galante wasn't happy with the sales figures, so he urged them to toughen up their sound.

”There are a lot of people in that space of the pop sound they had on the last ­record,“ Galante said. ”On the rock edge, there are very few because very few have the chops to pull it off like they can. I can think of only two or three in this format. This plays to their strength.“

The first single, the title track, is the fastest-rising song of their career and has cracked Billboard's Top 10. It's a mid-tempo tune about the folly of youth and growing wiser with age that recalls John Mellencamp's heartland hits.

But the best might be Roll With Me, a soulful track with organ and bluesy guitar.

”I think it's the best performance I've ever heard from my brother over here,“ Montgomery, 44, nods toward Gentry, 41. ”Emotionally, you can tell when he sings it. It's from the heart.“

The two men go back a long way.

They started singing together in the 1980s in a band that included Montgomery's younger brother, the future country star John Michael Montgomery.

Since their 1999 debut, Tattoos & Scars, the duo has charted 13 top 10 hits with songs that would have fit easily beside Lynyrd Skynyrd and Tom Petty years ago. Mostly, though, they're thrilled still to be having hits.

”If you're lucky enough to get a seventh album, and the first single off that seventh ­album is the fastest-rising song in your history, it's pretty cool,“ Montgomery said. ”It means you're still climbing that mountain and haven't gotten to your peak yet. You don't want to be at the top because there's only one way to go when you're at the top.“