Delta Reign | Journal

on 3/28/08 said:
Benita's Blog....

We’re back!

I’m so excited!... after this long hiatus, I feel like we’re finally gettin’ goin’. We did our first show March 1st with our new incarnation; newest member, Dennis Gould on bass, Tom Morley on fiddle, Pat on banjo, and me on guitar. It was for the USM Roots Reunion at the Saenger theatre in Hattiesburg, MS. It was a packed house and I was a bit nervous, back on guitar for the first time, but overall, I think it went off better than we all anticipated. Got a lot of very positive feedback and made some great new friends. (check out our first You Tube video from Roots Reunion, just from a camera...hope to be getting some more up...

click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCCJU1g2J84)

We are all really pumped about the future of the band. Dennis has never played bluegrass before and he’s all fired up about this new genre. He’s looking up stuff, listening to bluegrass, wanting to practice a lot, even confessed to his friends that he’s crossed over to the dark side and is playing bluegrass... I think we’ve created a monster! Good for us...he’ll keep us on our toes...I just hope we won’t bore him to death!

Our original plan was to continue recording... but right now we’ve put it on the back burner briefly, until we can bring Dennis up to speed on all of our Delta Reign material. THEN, we can’t wait to start recording the new stuff with creative input from Dennis and Tom. Dennis can also engineer in the studio...he does all the pro tools stuff so Pat will be glad for help with the load...(someone else to take the blame besides Pat!)

We’ve been having some creative practices with Tom and Dennis. I’m back on the move with booking and promoting the band and hope to soon be filling up our calendar. I know it should already be full, but I really needed that hiatus... and it paid off! I’m rearin’ to go.

We do our first home town gig next Friday, March 28th, at our local haunt, the Hurricane Brewing Co. on Dauphin St. in downtown Mobile. So if any of you locals can, come on out and hang with us. Bring 68 of your closest friends, get some food, harrass the banjo player and the new bass player! I’ll help. So until then, take care,

See ya,

Benita

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on 7/11/07 said:
CD Review from "Bluegrass Now" Magazine, July issue, 2007 reposted with permission

Delta Reign, Delta Reign Down on the Delta
by Don Kissil

Circumstances being as they were, for a few days I found myself in Mobile, Alabama and that's very far from my home in New Jersey. Down there is where raw oysters, which I love, cost only 25 cents a piece, (they call 'em nude oysters there) while up in NJ, they go for more than 10 times that price.

There, I meet this classical fiddler, Tom Morley, and he says..."If you like bluegrass, you need to hear these friends of mine. I'll send you their CD. It's self produced, and it's good."

So like that famous mandolin player often says "I told you that, to tell you this" ... in between my dreams of nude oysters, here's my review.

Delta Reign consists of only three people. Benita Murphy is on upright bass and lead vocals, her husband, Pat Murphy sings, plays banjo and sometimes fiddle, and Norman Jeter plays guitar and harmonizes too. Their Gulf Coast music fuses traditional bluegrass with Western Swing and features lots of jazzy guitar licks that really stand out. Benita's singing is strong, resonant, deep, clear and ...to my ear, a perfect female bluegrass voice.

She does some nice and different arranging of some traditional tunes like "Darlin' Cory" and "Don't You Hear Jerusalem Moan'." Pat wrote a "feel-good" song that reflects his upbringing called "Down on the Delta."

Most notably, instead of crowding their first CD with originals like first albums often do, they include lots of country covers, ("Folsom Prison Blues," "There'll be no Teardrops Tonight" and "I Can't Get you Off My Mind."), some folk, ("Southbound" and "Wayfarin' Stranger,") and even the bluegrass classic, "Train 45." All of this they do in their patented "Delta-Grass" sound.

Norm Jeter provided some outstanding, innovative licks on the guitar. Although they lasted only about one verse and a chorus, they seemed to last much longer---kind of like a jazz player's break.

This is a good first CD and I hope to hear more from Delta Reign.

DK ~ Bluegrass Now Magazine, July issue, 2007 reposted with permission

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