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A Conversation with Bo Ramsey (continued)
PM: Kevin Gordon, another proponent of the Iowa scene, how did you guys run into each other, and how much playing have you been able to do together over the years?
BR: Well, we were in a band together.
PM: Ah.
BR: Yeah. I first ran into Kevin when he lived in Iowa City, and he came here as a part of the Writer's Workshop in Iowa City. He's from Monroe, Louisiana. I heard him at a blues jam. I think I either had a band, or I was getting ready to put one together, and I heard him. And I talked to him about putting a band together--I had a band, a working band, and I kind of got him involved. We played together for, I think, a couple years, two or three years, in a band together. And then I've worked with him since. He eventually moved to Nashville. And then I've worked with him as one of the producers of his record Down to the Well.
PM: An unbelievable record. [see our review]
BR: Yeah, I'm really proud of that one.
PM: That is a hell of a record. And he's one of my favorite guitar stylists. I mean, he's got a real style, that guy.
BR: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he can flat out play and write.
PM: All that rock 'n' roll in open tuning, and he's got crazy, crazy riffs and chords in that open tuning, it's just fantastic.
BR: [laughs] Yeah.
PM: Yeah, I really like that.
[When we asked Sandy about the name of the band (for possible use in a caption), she said, "The Kevin and Bo image was taken in the early-90s on stage at Gunnerz in Iowa City--maybe mid-90s--I don't think Kevin was in the band at this time, but they did play together that night. That band name changed every few years--I think when I met them, in 1981, it was called Bo Ramsey and the Third Street Sliders. Then I think it went to Bo Ramsey and the Sliders--and then to Bo Ramsey and the Backsliders. Tricky to know what name, when! Wonder if Bo even knows... Much later, he changed the band name to Bo Ramsey and the Middle of Nowhere Band. He liked to quit every once in a while and then, when he returned to the scene, he would have a different band. Liked to mix it up." Sandy didn't have a band photo with Kevin in it, but she sent these shots of a couple of incarnations of the Sliders.]
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