BrokeDown Cadillac Up and Coming Country Band at The Mint

Several weeks ago, I spent an evening listening to Country Music at the historic mid-city The Mint nightclub, a bar and small plates restaurant on Pico Blvd. This was an intimate venue to see performers who were just starting out or had been performing for decades. The entire evening had caught my attention being able to see 3 sets of performers, each with unique styles. Opening at 8 pm was Chuck Mead, a multi-decade perfomer with his rockability style, who had recently launched a solo career. Next were the country-punk women, Smith and Pyle, two thirty-something Hollywood actors, creating a parallel music career. And then at 10 pm, and joking about looking to be under 21, Corri English also with a long Hollywood resume, lead singer for BrokeDown Cadillac, a group that had been discovered by Disney in Burbank and then featured in the recent film Race to Witch Mountain. Finally, there was a 4th performer that evening, but I needed to call it a night at 11 pm. I bought a CD from each performer to add to my diverse iTunes shuffled Country Music playlist.

BrokeDown Cadillac reminded me of falling in love with Gaelic Storm, a Celtic band, that gained international exposure, and a major break for their career, in the box-office smash Titanic. This week, Race to Witch Mountain after opening in March 2009 will break $100 million in world-wide box office, which should help BrokeDown Cadillac in building a base of loyal fans. BrokeDown Cadillac is a three year old partnership of Corri English from Atlanta, Georgia, and California native, Randy Dunham. Corri provides the vocals and co-song writing, with Randy writing songs and playing lead guitar. While listening to them, I wondered whether this was the beginning of a group like Sugarland. It was only later after reading Corri's official bio that I learned that she had co-wrote Sugarland's big hit, Fly Away from their debut CD. Corri as an actor has many screen credits that can be found on Internet Movie Database and Randy as an accomplished songwriter/musician has penned several screenplays and novels.

Corri English making use of her native Georgia accent with the country-rock sound provides the signature sound for BrokeDown Cadillac on their same named tune, BrokeDown Cadillac. A song that people should buy and download on iTunes, from their recently released debut CD "Somewhere in America." This was not the first time the five member BrokeDown Cadillac has played The Mint, as you can find several of their prior Mint performances on YouTube with links from BrokeDown Cadillac website. These videos show the great stage prescence of Corri English - must be that training as an actress. However, she did comment, during her May 2009 performance at The Mint, that having to follow Missi Pyle over the top stage performance style, was not going to be easy. Corri then picked up Missi's jacket that had accidentally been left on stage, and asked the audience what they thought? Should I put it on? Then she modeled it, performed with it on, and then set it aside.

I look forward to returning to The Mint for other Country music performances and since BrokeDown Cadillar and Smith and Pyle are both LA based, I suspect they will return again. However, BrokeDown Cadillac, as they become better known, will be seen in larger venues, and their music will begin to appear on mainstream Country radio and TV. You can see all of my photos taken that night of BrokeDown Cadillac, Chuck Mead, and Smith and Pyle on my Flickr pages.