Quiet Times of a Rock and Roll Farm Boy

With Nashville duo Big & Rich, "Big Kenny" Alphin created a startling, everything-but-the-kitchen sink brand of pop-country music that took the charts by storm and became one of the aughts' most unexpected success stories. Though Alphin had recorded one solo album prior to joining up with John Rich, his label shelved the disc until after he and his partner hit it big, making the follow-up THE QUIET TIME OF A ROCK AND ROLL FARMBOY the first Big Kenny record created and released on the ground breaking singer-songwriter's own terms. Interestingly, the album largely forgoes the eclecticism of both LIVE A LITTLE and his work with Big & Rich, instead emerging as a consistent, finely-crafted, emotionally direct set of contemporary country and roots rock. From the John Mellencamp-like heartland rocker "Long After I'm Gone" to the hard-driving, thrashy Southern rocker "Happy People" much of the material is positive and upbeat, often seeming like a musical embodiment of Big Kenny's trademark slogan "love everybody."