Articles & Reviews

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September 3, 2007 - Four decades, thirty-five states, seven countries, and hundreds of songs ago, Patrick Weathers cut his teeth on the barrooms of New Orleans... With his old Martin guitar, a set of harmonicas and a blistered thumb, he is back to the starting point.  Patrick is a must-listen.  If you take this critic's word for it (i.e., me), he is a veritible musical genius.  Masterpieces like "The Girl From Dixie" and "Opelousas Jamboree" and "Vicksburg" are some of the finest songs recorded since Dylan and Neil Young.  Listen up.  This guy is friggin' great!   Charles Dillingham drinkingworld.com

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The road to fame for hipster, Bohemian, Americana singer/songwriter/poet extraordinaire, Patrick Weathers, has been full of detours. The prodigal son of Tupelo, Mississippi and French Quarter barrooms has, opened for the Meters, jammed with Bob Dylan, written and performed on Saturday Night Live and National Lampoon, studied acting under Lee Strasburg, swapped late nights stories with Truman Capote and Robin Williams at Studio 54, collaborated with Francis Ford Coppola in Hollywood and played Elvis on Broadway. His careers as author, singer/songwriter, actor, comedian and bathroom attendant have taken him from New Orleans to NY to LA and back again.

 

His sophomore release "Hound Dog Diaries" is a brilliantly woven narrative of Weathers life and times - Southern gothic tales of woe, staggering drinking songs, acerbic period pieces and a memorable encounter with The King. Like Dylan with a hot Cajun band, Weathers' penchant for penning telling tales is matched only by the excellent musicianship of his crack backup group. Southern roots music with a jigger of Country and a dash of Cajun spice on the rocks... this is Americana at its finest!

 

Track List:

ANGELI (2:57)

YANKEES A'LOOSE IN THE Vieux Carre (2:48)

THE GIRL FROM DIXIE (4:57)

VICKSBURG (4:12)

DOUBLE DIP GRANDE (3:25)

THE KING LIVES ON (5:18)

WOMANLESS WEDDING (2:59)

I WAS AN ALCOHOLIC BEFORE AA GOT COOL (2:33)

TRAILER PARK GIRLS (2:09)

ALL THE THINGS THAT YOU LOVE (3:10)

HARD TIMES ARE HERE AGAIN (2:10)

WAITIN' ON BETSY (3:33)

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Thursday, May 13, 2003 / By Chris Rose

Live! From New Orleans!

It's 'Saturday Night Live' alum Patrick Weathers, whose singing-songwriting-acting career has taken him from N.O. to N.Y. to L.A. and back again.

 

The guy in the black suit and the never-quite-right haircut doesn't convincingly cut the profile of an art dealer.

In fact, standing there in those dark, natty duds, smoking a cigarette in the doorway of the Bryant Gallery on Royal Street, he looks kind of like Neil Young at a funeral.

But he is happy. If life is measured by the contours of the journey and not necessarily the destination itself, then Patrick Weathers has acquitted himself just fine.

A Mississippi lad who started noodling around on a guitar when he was 3, Weathers followed his muse to New Orleans, where he befriended and then toured with the Meters and Professor Longhair in the 1970s.

From here, he made the move to New York City to seek his fame and fortune as a singer/songwriter but instead wound up a bathroom attendant at the famed and decadent Studio 54 and then became a cast member for perhaps the least memorable season in the TV history of "Saturday Night Live."

Then it was off to L.A. to seek his fame and fortune as a singer/songwriter but instead he wound up seduced by the film industry. After 10 years of going nowhere -- a handful of bit parts and a million great ideas all winding up in that Hollywood netherworld called "development" -- he moved back to New Orleans.

He came here to seek his fame and fortune as a singer/songwriter but instead wound up managing a tony art gallery in the French Quarter.

Funny, the places life will take you, the detours you never saw on the map, the way stations where you stopped to take a break or get a drink of water and you never got back on the highway but then, you didn't really care.

Musing on this notion, Weathers says: "Yeah, it's been a long road and an eventful road. But, looking back on it, all in all, it's been a fun life. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, and she was telling me about her retirement plan for New Orleans, which consisted of getting up around noon, going to Port of Call, drinking all day long, having a great big hamburger, going home, going to sleep and getting up around noon the next day and doing it again.

"I mean, some guys would rather go fly fishing in Montana. Me, I'd rather have a burger and a beer at Port of Call. I just wrote a song about coming back to Dixie to live and die. Not that I don't ever want to go anywhere else, but New Orleans is my home. Being back in New Orleans energizes my creative juices."

He moved back for good last year, got the gallery job and rented a shotgun in the French Quarter. And so the city reclaims a prodigal son, another profoundly talented artist who lives and walks among us, finding his spirit intact, if not his rightful place in the pantheon of notable singer/songwriters.

On this notion, he applies his general candor: "I've become famous in New Orleans, but only for very small groups of people for a very limited amount of time; I think what I need is to become famous for a larger amount of people for a larger amount of time. And maybe I could do that some time."

Maybe Friday night will lead to that. Weathers will be performing in the Parish Room at the House of Blues. Or, if fame remains the elusive Holy Grail, there was the grand journey:

He starred in a Broadway show, wrote for the National Lampoon, studied at the Actor's Studio with Lee Strasberg. There were long, late nights with Truman Capote and Robin Williams. There were the Elvis impersonator years. Collaborations with Francis Ford Coppola. The unrequited love with squeaky-voiced actress Joey Lauren Adams.

And always the guitar. And the songs. The songs are the stories of Patrick Weathers' journey of triumph and defeat. As he sings in a new composition called "Girl From Dixie":

"I thought I had hit the Big Time, but the Big Time hit back twice as hard."

He's 49 now and doesn't look a day over 55.

Born and raised in Hattiesburg, Weathers traveled to and from New Orleans often in his youth. He moved here the first time when he was 21.

He was working the nightclub circuit, doing mostly musical impersonations; Dylan, Elvis, etc. One night, he met the Meters at Jed's music club on Oak Street, a jumping scene back in the '70s, and they invited him onstage.

"Then they invited me to come along with them on tour and be the opening act," he says. "Through them I met Professor Longhair and got to know him. It was quite an experience for me. I really cut my teeth during those days."

After the Meters tour, Weathers worked as an Elvis impersonator at the Playboy Club in the Quarter. Decked out in gold lame, he would draw a pearl-handled revolver out of his belt and fire blanks into the ceiling.

This was not the future he had envisioned for himself. So he moved to New York City to be a star. On his very first day in town, a friend introduced him to the owners of Studio 54, where the society boys and social butterflies surrounded by their bodyguards, dope dealers, boy toys and sycophants was positively smitten by Weathers' Southern accent. He was hired on the spot.

That's how he wound up trading breath mints, Dunhills and Halston cologne for outrageous tips in the men's room.

What about cocaine and other illicit treats? "They didn't need a bathroom attendant for that," he says. "Everybody already had their own."

How about other "services"? "My Mississippi upbringing wouldn't allow such things," he says with a laugh.

At Studio 54, Weathers mingled with Bianca Jagger and hung out in the DJ booth while Truman Capote performed social experiments with music. "He used to say: 'Watch how I can manipulate these boys,' and then he'd change the record and everyone would start grinding to a new beat."

Working the comedy circuit, he met Robin Williams, who confided once -- at 4 in the morning -- that Weathers was the only guy he'd ever met who had as much energy as he did.

But he was just spinning wheels. "Everything was disco at the time and I'm a singer/songwriter," Weathers reasons. "So a guy I know goes: Hey, why don't you audition for 'Saturday Night Live'? And I did and it's one of those things I've never been able to live down."

It was 1981, the program's sixth season and the first season after the final purge of the original cast members, legends all.

"It was a really bad season," Weathers says. "We were trying to replace these icons -- these gods! Nothing we could do was going to be good enough. It was kind of like replacing Goldie Hawn on 'Laugh-In' without the blonde hair and the figure.

"It was a very political environment; you had a lot of people who were hired from the East Coast and I never did find any of them particularly funny. They were the predecessors to what we would eventually call yuppies. And they were very politically correct before political correctness was cool and they didn't go for the Bad Boy stuff that the original cast did -- the stuff that made the show so groundbreaking and revolutionary."

But there were moments: "Because my last name begins with W, I was the last name that Don Pardo would call out and they'd just gun the applause meter up, and everybody's clapping and yelling but nobody knew who I was."

Joining the illustrious cast of nobodies were Charles Rocket, Yvonne Hudson, Ann Risley and a bunch of other people you've never heard of. Joe Piscopo and Gilbert Gottfried also started that year, but it was another rookie who would steal the show and rise to the top.

"Eddie Murphy and I were hired the same day," Weathers says. "I look back on it from time to time but I don't have any regrets or any what-ifs. I don't go sit in the audience at 'The Nutty Professor' and look at Eddie in a fat suit and say: That could have been me!"

Weathers was let go after that one season. He bounced around the city, noodling at the music career, but that was a dead end: "I used to play at the Mud Club in New York -- the definitive punk club in New York at the time -- and the whole idea of a gig there was to dodge the bottles."

He wrote for National Lampoon and then the Fire Sign Theatre. Then he was cast in a Broadway show called "Rock and Roll: The First 5000 Years."

It was a blast. The cast rotated characters throughout the show, playing pop music's great masters onstage -- 68 acts in all. It was a spectacle, but there was one problem, a familiar circumstance in the life of Patrick Weathers: He was Elvis again.

He moved to L.A. While writing songs and hanging with old Mississippi friends out there, he dabbled in TV and movies, working on projects for Coppola and other titans of the industry but nothing came of it.

He ran around with the actress Joey Lauren Adams, the object of affection in "Chasing Amy" and a childhood friend from Mississippi, but it never worked out. So he exorcised that problem by writing a song about it and then putting a photograph of her mother -- in a beauty queen tiara -- on the cover of his record.

The record -- his only one to date -- is called "The Queen of Tupelo." Released on Louisiana Red Hot Records last year, it's a brilliantly woven narrative of Weathers' life and times.

The songs are all stories. "They're all either autobiographical or filled with metaphors about actual events and places that I've experienced," he says.

Hence the moving and melancholy "Bye Bye, Baby Jo" about the actress. Or "Watching Marita," about a strip club patron who, quietly and alone, falls in love with a dancer. Or "The Opelousas Jamboree," which casts an Acadian festival in a Carnival light. Or "The Drinks Are On Me, But Her Mind Is On Him," which hardly needs an explanation.

"They call the style of the record Americana," Weathers says. "It's rock leaning towards country with a dash of Cajun spice. My feeling is that it's just Southern roots music. It has a sense of geography to it."

And it has a philosophy as well: "The closer you get to water, the better the music is. I think my home state of Mississippi -- my geographical origins -- are a great example of that. When you're along the river, when you're in Natchez, or when you're down on the Gulf, people tend to be singing and laughing and having a lot more fun than they do out in the piney woods, where life can sometimes be harsh and stressful and hot without the feeling that water gives you.

"When you're on the Gulf of Mexico, you feel like the whole world opens up to you. Even though the chance of getting there may not be good, you get the feeling you could just get in your boat and go anywhere in the world."

Patrick Weathers never got married, never had kids. "You know," he says, "I always told myself that when I made it to the Big Time, I would settle down."

But you know what they say about hitting the Big Time. Hits back twice as hard.

"I don't feel particularly bitter about anything, though," he says. "I feel happy. I've still got a lot of creating to do. And waking up every day and walking to an art gallery is not a bad way to spend the day.

"I think New Orleans is the most happening city in the world. All the cultures -- all the things I love about the South -- come together here. Also, several times a day, my mind turns to eating."

Pause.

"You know, I've been thinking about it and I now realize this is the way it all happened: Whenever I moved in my life -- to New Orleans and then New York and then L.A. -- I moved there to work. And when I moved back to New Orleans this time, I moved here just to live."

Patrick Weathers Live

What: Weathers is the featured act for "15 Minutes," a monthly acoustic showcase at the Parish. Eight other acts are scheduled.

When: Friday, 9 p.m. / Where: The Parish Room at the House of Blues / Cost: $5.00 / Call: 529-2583

Patrick Weathers

The Queen of Tupelo

Louisiana Red Hot Records

By Dan Willging

Though it hasn't been exactly yesterday, a few New Orleanians may still recall Patrick Weathers doing his musical comedy/impressions opening for the Meters and Professor Longhair. He didn't do it for long as next up was a Saturday Night Live stint where, among other things, he portrayed a young Dylan at Woody Guthrie's deathbed. Stops at National Lampoon, Fire Sign Theater, Broadway musicals and writing screen plays all followed before reaching burnout and a cathartic return to Weathers' first passion, music.

 

Maybe Weathers' storied past explains these proceedings. As the finely crafted arrangements mine a southern-rooted, country-folk vein, Weather spins quirky yarns that are much like sonic versions of SNL-Lampoon-styled vignettes. His myriad voices symbolize various characters like the bassy macho dude who advises abandoning your lover solely for the sake of being 'strong' ("You Got To Move On"). His characters often wind up in wacky, sometimes perilous situations. On "House Party," a love-struck guy follows a young thing to a house party only to find her dancing buck-naked to a bizarre audience of bald-headed boys resembling Mr. Clean ("House Party"). Another drives a shiny red Miata into a Cripps neighborhood never to be seen again.

 

Better yet, Weathers never falls short on memorable lyrics such as 'The drinks are on me, but her mind is on him' or 'How Can I tell her around these drunk fellers that I love her so?' On "The Opelousas Jamboree," another one of Weathers' protagonists is understandably magnetized by the approaching 'clicky-clicky of high heel shoes and wishy-wishy-wishy of a big pair of boobs.' Indeed, it's hard not to miss with lines like that. No doubt Weathers is one twisted puppy and it's too bad there aren't more like him.

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Patrick Weathers: The Queen Of Tupelo

AMERICANA'S NEWEST SINGER/SONGWRITER/POET EXTRAORDINAIRE

The fertile musical fields of Mississippi have again sprouted an amazingly tuneful talent - Americana's newest singer/songwriter/poet extraordinaire - Patrick Weathers! Raised on The King and Hank Williams-style Country, Patrick Weathers spins brilliant yarns of rich folks, po' folks, back roads, barrooms, tales of love gone wrong, resigned loss and survival. Like the best works of Guy Clark, Jimmy Buffet and Jerry Jeff Walker, Patrick's songs come alive with heartbreak and humor on his national debut, "The Queen of Tupelo".

 

Weathers began honing his resonant, multifaceted voice, ranging from Dylanesque to Johnny Cash depths, during his early years of carousing in New Orleans where he opened for such acts as the original Meters and Professor Longhair on Bourbon Street. Later, he moved to New York where he studied at the Actors' Studio with Lee Strasberg while working nights at Studio 54. Within a year Patrick joined the cast of "Saturday Night Live". His portrayal of a young Dylan at Woody Guthrie's deathbed is considered one of the classic sketches in the history of SNL. Weathers went on to star in the Broadway production of "Rock'n'Roll: The First 5,000 Years" where he played out wicked imitations of Elvis, Dylan, Lou Reed, Levon Helm and others and later toured the world in "Elvis: An American Musical". While a regular contributing editor to "The National Lampoon", Weathers performed in Lampoon stage shows and appeared in various other film and stage projects. His voice (or voices!) became familiar on New York-based radio comedy shows (including The Fire Sign Theatre). Throughout it all, Weathers continued to write and sing his own songs. For the past few years, he's lived in Los Angeles, writing screenplays and performing his songs on the West Coast.

 

On his first nationally distributed recording, Weathers leans toward Country with an occasional dash of Cajun spice, but the recurrent Little Feat/Mark Knofler-style guitars give "The Queen of Tupelo" a rocking edge. An impressive array of LA's best side musicians assist, including Zig Modeliste (of the original Meters) on drums; Eddie Baytos on squeeze box and piano (formerly with Bob Dylan); guitarist Frank Recard (from Emmylou Harris), Bob "Boo" Bernstein (Freddy Fender) on dobro, slide and steel, bassist James Intveld (formerly with Dwight Yoakam); fiddler Eric Gorfain (Rod Stewart); trumpeter Bill Churchville (of Tower of Power); and Jim Smith on mandolin (from Frank Zappa's original Mothers of Invention). Background vocals are provided by gospel's greatest duo, The Perri Sisters, as well as Deborah Sharpe -Taylor (from Andre Crouch).

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"This cat's unique writing style puts him up there with Springsteen, Dylan and the best of the inspiring 'underground' country writers out there." - Bruce Springsteen On Mp3

 

"This great writers' unique style of writing would have made John proud. Recently featured on FreeAudioPlayers 'Best Of The Newcomers' series." - John Lennon on Mp3

 

MP3 says: "KILLER WRITER!!" Da Mayor's Favorites Volume 1 - Best of The Best on Mp3 Amazon.com: 5 Star Consumer Review

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Click On The "nola.com" Box For

The Complete Audio or Video

Chris Rose Chat With

Patrick Weathers

(Aug 6, 2002)

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The Biloxi Sun Herald Marquee

May 9, 2002

By Mike Lacy

Patrick Weathers and his band plays Cajun, country and rock and have been influenced by Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, the original Meters and Professor Longhair.  Patrick Weathers is a reknowned poet, songwriter, screenplay writer and radio/TV personality.

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SOUTHERN CITIES MAGAZINE

May 2002

By Sam Adams

Former Saturday Night Live performer and writer Patrick Weathers spins yarns of rich folks, po' folks, back roads, barrooms, tales of love gone wrong, resigned loss and survival. During his early years in New Orleans, he opened for such acts as the original Meters and Professor Longhair on Bourbon Street.

      

On his first nationally distributed recording, Weathers leans toward country with an occasional dash of Cajun spice, and recurrent Little Feat/Mark Knofler-style guitar. An array of LA's best side musicians assist, including Zig Modeliste (of the original Meters) on drums; Eddie Baytos on squeeze box and piano (formerly with Bob Dylan); guitarist Frank Recard (from Emmylou Harris), Bob "Boo" Bernstein (Freddy Fender) on dobro, slide and steel, bassist James Intveld (formerly with Dwight Yoakam); fiddler Eric Gorfain (Rod Stewart); trumpeter Bill Churchville (of Tower of Power); and Jim Smith on mandolin (from Frank Zappa's original Mothers of Invention).

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Mississippi Singer/Songwriter Unveils New Disc Tonight

Friday, April 26, 2002

By Clay Morgan, Managing Editor

Singer/songwriter Patrick Weathers will unveil his new CD tonight at 9 at Morgan Freemans' Ground-Zero Blues Club. Titled The Queen Of Tupelo (Louisiana Red Hot Records), the CD marks Weathers' first national release. The 12 sides, all original, lean toward country with an occasional dash of Cajun spice, but the recurrent LittleFeat/Mark Knofler-style guitars give The Queen Of Tupelo a rocking edge.

 

An impressive array of musicians assist the award winning poet on the release, including Eddie Baytos, who played with Bob Dylan on squeeze-box and piano; Emmy Lou Harris, guitarist Frank Recard, James Intveld, who played bass for Dwight Yoakam, fiddlers Mark Indictor and Eric Gorfain with Rod Stewart, Jim Smith, a member of Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention, on mandolin and the legendary Zig Modeliste of the original Meters on drums.

 

Weathers honed his rootsy style, rich vocals and amazing story telling abilities during his early years of carousing clubs in New Orleans where he opened for such acts as Professor Longhair, Gatemouth Brown and The Meters. Later, he moved to New York, where he studied at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg. Within a year, Weathers joined the cast of Saturday Night Live and went on to star in Broadways' Rock-n-Roll: The First 5000 Years and Elvis: An American Musical .

 

More recently, he's lived in Los Angeles, writing and performing his original songs.  These days, Weathers is everywhere.  You can catch him tonight at the crossroads.

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The Breakdown - April 2002

Patrick Weathers - From Hattiesburg to Hollywood

By Clinton Kirby

WUSM FM 88.5, Hattiesburg, MS

Patrick Weathers has made a career of playing some big names: Elvis, Dylan, and Johnny Cash, to name a few. These days, however, he's cast himself in the role of performing and recording songwriter Patrick Weathers, the part he wanted in the first place. His debut album, "The Queen Of Tupelo," was recently released on Louisiana Red Hot Records.

 

"I got to a point where I decided 'Hey, I'm going to do what I started out to do, which is write my music and record it and everything else be damned," Weathers said, referring to his roughly two-decade long journey from being a cast member on Saturday Night Live to becoming a touring musician.

 

Weathers was born in Hattiesburg, and studied theater at the University of Southern Mississippi. While in college, he played a number of long-gone local clubs such as The Homestead. He remembers Hattiesburg in this mid-seventies period as being "a remarkable pool of talent," fostering such notables as Suzy Elkins and Omar Kent Dykes of Omar and the Howlers.

Weathers also ventured to New Orleans to play, and found himself onstage one night at Jed's at a Meters show, performing while the band took a break. He did some of his impressions and musical comedy numbers he'd developed over the years, like the "duet" between Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash in which Weathers sang both parts to great effect - a bit he still does. "I started doing some of my 'special stuff'," he said, and the band enjoyed it so much that he ended up opening for The Meters and Professor Longhair in New Orleans and throughout the Southeast.

After his stint in New Orleans, Weathers decided to make a go of being a serious musician in New York. It seems he did almost everything but that, aside from playing in Greenwich Village songwriter clubs some nights. Weathers almost immediately found employment at the famed Studio 54 club, where he worked three nights a week. He also "ended up" with the Agency for the Performing Arts, which led to his signing with Saturday Night Live.

 

"They [the agency] said, 'you want to be a singer-songwriter,' it's a long shot and these auditions are coming up for Saturday Night Live. You do these impressions and we think you're a funny guy, so why not give it a shot. And I did and got it," said Weathers.

 

Weathers got back into music somewhat following his Saturday Night Live days, but other opportunities came knocking. He was cast in the Broadway show "Rock & Roll: The First 5,000 Years," in which he played Dylan, Elvis and others. He also wrote for the "National Lampoon." He played the middle Elvis in the touring production of "Elvis: An American Musical." "All through this time, though, I was writing songs," said Weathers.

Around this time, Weathers wrote a screenplay with a friend, and a production company expressed enough interest that he moved to Los Angeles. However, said Weathers, "I just reached a point where I was sick of movie deals ­ you end up going to a lot of lunches, and you make a little money, [but] you have very high expectations and very low realities." He did have the good fortune to meet Eddie Baytos, who produced and played on "The Queen Of Tupelo." Baytos and Weathers put together a band called the Timber Sheiks, and the favorable response the group generated convinced Weathers to focus on music and release an album of original songs.   

"The music was always there­that was always my objective," said Weathers. "But you know, at the same time, I needed to eat and the money was good in these little jobs that came along. And they came along frequently enough that it tended to sidetrack me for quite a few years. But eventually I got enough of it and I just reached a point where I said, 'Hey, it's now or never."

 

Weathers now spends most of his time on the road, playing either solo or with musician contacts he has made across the country. He maintains a presence on the Internet at patrickweathers.com, where you can listen to his music and check his tour schedule. And if he keeps at it long enough, maybe some gifted young mimic will one day catch a big break doing Patrick Weathers impressions.

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International Country Music Association

Nashville, TN

March 2002 Update

Music Reviews: Rhett Ashley

Mississippi, Patrick Weathers, "The Queen Of Tupelo," 12 sides, If you put Bob Dylan with a hot Cajun band, you'd get something similar to this album. 4 Stars

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The Mobile Register - Bay Weekend

Friday, February 8, 2002

Cover Photo: Ty Donaldson

From LA to L.A.

Trip from Los Angeles to Lower Alabama will feel like a journey home for guitarist Patrick Weathers

By Lawrence Specker

Entertainment Reporter

Patrick Weathers will take you for a ride, if you give him half a chance. The veteran musician does it on his solo album, "The Queen of Tupelo", in which each song seems solidly grounded in the particular patch of American terrain that inspired it. He's ready to do it in person, too, with gigs this week at two Gulf Coast venues. Tonight and on Fat Tuesday, Weathers and the Louisiana Bushwhackers will appear at the Flora-Bama Lounge and Package in Orange Beach. Sunday will find them putting on a post-parade show at O'Rourke's Irish Pub on Dauphin Street.

Never mind that he's coming from Los Angeles to make his Joe Cain Day appearance in Mobile. Weathers, who grew up nearby in Mississippi, knows full well what he's getting into. "Mobile was like a second home," he said, thinking back to time spent with relatives here in his childhood and teen years. "I did my first recording sessions in Mobile, when I was 14 or 15. I still have a tape of that somewhere."

That was the start of a ramble that has covered an amazing amount of territory. During a musical apprenticeship in New Orleans, he opened for Big Easy stars including Professor Longhair and the Meters. Then he moved to New York, where he was a member of "Saturday Night Live's" 1980-1981 cast, among other stage, screen and radio projects. More recently he's lived in Los Angeles, working as a musician and writing screenplays on the side.

Small wonder, then, that "The Queen of Tupelo" sounds like a journey. The title track starts things off with the thump of a New Orleans second-line drumbeat. The second track, "Watching Marita," represents a distinct step westward into Texas, to a dusty border bar where guitar mingles with accordion. Weathers' gifts as a songwriter, already apparent, begin to become obvious. Somehow, in telling the tale of a man infatuated with a dancer, he manages to downplay neither the romantic feeling nor the inherent sordidness of the situation.

How can I tell her/'round all these drunk fellers/that I love her so?

Now I'm contented/to sip on this Remy/while Marita takes off her clothes.

The third track, "You Got To Move On," finds Weathers in a pure classic country rumble worthy of Johnny Cash:

When you love somebody a little too long,

That's the time you got to move on.

That's the time you got to move on.

Weathers stays in Nashville with track four, "The Drinks are On Me, But Her Mind Is On Him". Skip ahead to the sixth track and you find the warped mariachi ballad

"Red Miata", a story that could happen only in Los Angeles.

He visits plenty other places before the album is done, and makes himself sound like a native of each. Such a mix of styles and influence could easily ring false, but Weathers avoids that pitfall. Partly it's his experience. Partly it's the flexibility of his voice. Mainly it's his belief that songs must be well grounded. "The songs are all real Southern in flavor to me," Weathers said. "They all have to do with a certain geography. I call it Southern roots music," he added. "My idea is, the closer you get to the water, the better the music gets."

The album, distributed by Louisiana Red Hot Records, has been gathering strong reviews. Weathers said his inspiration was modest. "When I reached a certain age I said, man, it's now or never."

And so, as impressive as Weathers' career has been so far, it doesn't seem to be anywhere near its end

USM HOSTS VOCAL PERFORMANCE BY PATRICK WEATHERS

Released February 15, 2002

HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- The University of Southern Mississippi will present the southern sounds of Patrick Weathers, Hattiesburg native and USM alumnus who recently released his first national CD, "The Queen of Tupelo."

Sponsored by the University Activities Council, WOOS and USM Dining Services, Weathers will perform Feb. 19 from 12:15 - 1 p.m. at Seymour's in the Union.

"We are really glad he remembered us during such an important time in his life," said Mary Beth Banks, student activities coordinator. "We are so lucky to have such talented and devoted alumni."

Prior to his musical success, Weathers gained recognition in New York writing for the National Lampoon and portraying a young Bob Dylan on Saturday Night Live. He also performed in the Broadway production of "Rock n' Roll: The First 5,000 Years" and recently wrote screenplays in Los Angeles.

The singer/songwriter's gruff vocal sounds and colorful lyrics have often provoked listeners to compare him to Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. His album's mixture of rhythm and blues, Cajun and country ranked number two on John Sheldon Ivan's Top 21 and is available in USM's University Bookstore.

While in Hattiesburg, Weathers will appear on Wed's Midday Feb. 21, and later that evening he will hold a CD release party at The Thirsty Hippo.

"Planet Weekly"

Jackson, MS - Dec. 12-19, 2001

What has Patrick Weathers not done?

by Jesse Yancy

Cover Photo: James Patterson

Playing with the Meters, jam sessions with Bob Dylan, hanging out in the Village with Jersy Kozinski, writing for The National Lampoon and Saturday Night Live. Weathers seems to have done it all. Now Weathers is coming out with his first nationally released CD, "The Queen Of Tupelo". Weathers premiered his CD at Musiquarium earlier this month and the singer/songwriter is bringing his gruff vocals and his Cajun-steeped sounds to Hal & Mal's Saturday, Dec. 15th. The material on the CD, an eclectic blend of country, Cajun and rhythm and blues, is composed of both old and new material. "I did an independent CD that had a lot of the same material as The Queen Of Tupelo called Double Wide." Weathers said. "I was in the process of doing another album, so I started to record in California with all the same guys.  I wrapped it up in April and went to Seattle. They loved Double Wide (Louisiana Red Hot Records) and were going to put it out as it was until they heard the new material. All those songs have a lot of stories behind them. I've always wanted to write a "second line" song with New Orleans style of drumming where the rhythm comes out like a military band.  You had so many armies that came through here (Louisiana & Mississippi) playing the fife-and-drums all the way from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War and that's how those rhythms got picked up.  I've always dug the New Orleans second line, Ninth Ward and all that stuff." Weathers is also booked in Tupelo at the Rib Cage Dec. 26th and in Oxford and at the end of the month.  He has play dates in Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.  But he is working around a New Orleans release.

"My idea is to stay down South and go to Mardis Gras," he said, "and then I'm going to head out to California and stay there through the spring, then on to the Northwest." His record is selling well and came out number two on John Shelton Ivany's Top 21 CDs earlier this month.  According to one fan, "Weathers is unique and original and he puts on quite a show.  I bought The Queen Of Tupelo recently, and I was pleased to see/hear that the CD had all the magic of one of his performances.  The lyrics are colorful and well written and the music is way beyond original.  It's obvious this guy is going places."  If you enjoy music that defies categories and labels, then catch Patrick Weathers. You'll be glad you did.

Michael Simmons - The LA Weekley, Bam, Rollingstone, Vanity Fair

MUSIC OF NOTE

The Clarion-Ledger Weekend Supplement

Jackson, MS - Dec. 13-19, 2001

by Lori Herring

Mississippi native Patrick Weathers calls his new CD, The Queen of Tupelo, Southern roots music. "It's rock leaning toward country with a dash of Cajun spice," says the man who believes that the closer you get to water, the better the music gets. "It's the culture and the geography," he says of the magic proximity to water creates. "It sets a certain mood for a good time." And Weathers is all about a good time. He's spent his life playing music, acting, writing and entertaining folks.  Three years old was his break-through age when he got his first guitar from Peavey's in Meridian and, he says, "I've been playing music ever since." Weathers was 10 when he wrote his first song, Old Blue, about a horse --- "the oldest horse in town" --- according to the maestro. Since then, he's studied at Actor's Studio with Lee Strasberg while working nights at Studio 54. He's been in the cast of Saturday Night Live. His portrayal of a young Bob Dylan at Woodie Guthrie's deathbed is considered a classic. He's starred in the Broadway production of Rock 'n' Roll: The First 5,000 Years where he portrayed Elvis, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and others, and he went on to tour the world in Elvis: An American Musical. "I played the middle Elvis --- I was one of three Elvi," he says.  "It was pretty wild." Right now, Weathers lives in L.A., but is touring nationally - and right now, the South - to promote his new record. "The record tells the stories and woes of a good ol' boy who's been to the city and seen and done it all," Weathers says. "Some of the songs are tear-jerkers and some are funny.  I like to write a song that has a sing-along quality, one that tells a story.  I try to mix humor with pathos and survival," says Weathers of his song-writing tone.

Musicians on the record include Zig Modeliste (of the original Meters) on drums, guitarist Frank Recard (from Emmylou Harris' band), Bob "Boo" Bernstein (Freddy Fender) on dobro, slide and steel, bassist James Intveld (with Dwight Yoakam) and others.

"The Daily World of Opelousas"

By Alain A. de la Villesbret, Staff Writer, Oct. 28, 2001

She say, "Come with me and we can drink for free, Where the water run clean through the tall oak tree, And we'll dance all night, hand-in-hand, And listen to the laughter and the Cajun band." At the Opelousas Jamboree, There were honeysuckle bushes and baggy briefs, Ripe red T-bird, Sunbeam sweets, At the Opelousas Jamboree . . .

The Opelousas Jamboree is gaining national attention through a record distribution deal that is making a music star of singer-songwriter Patrick Weathers. What is the Opelousas Jamboree? Who is Patrick Weathers? Glad you asked. Weathers is one of those 30-year, overnight successes: guys who do good work while toiling on the edges of celebrity until something sparks and stardom shines. He put himself through college playing bars and honky-tonks and has worked on stage, television and screen. The Opelousas Jamboree is a smart song in a collection of clever stories set to catchy beats on his new CD, "The Queen of Tupelo". "I call it Southern roots music," Weathers said in a phone interview. He is touring California to promote the CD. "It has dashes of country, the blues, rock-a-billy, Cajun and zydeco. It has influences from Mississippi and Louisiana. You know, the closer you get to the water, the better the music gets." Originally from Hattiesburg, Miss., Weathers graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1976 and took a long, strange trip to becoming a national recording artist.

While playing around the South, he opened for the Meters and Professor Longhair on Bourbon Street. He went to New York City in 1979 to find a music career. Instead, his creative energies were channeled in other directions. He wrote for the National Lampoon and studied acting at the Actors' Studio with Lee Strasberg while working nights at Studio 54.

In 1980, Weathers joined the cast of Saturday Night Live, earning high praise for his portrayal of a young Bob Dylan at Woody Guthrie's deathbed in a classic sketch. He penned a Broadway production of "Rock n' Roll: The First 5,000 Years" in which he did versions of Elvis, Dylan, Lou Reed, Levon Helm and others. Weathers also performed in Lampoon stage and film productions and did voices for commercial radio and radio comedy shows, including the well respected FireSign Theatre. More recently, Weathers moved to Los Angeles where he has been writing screenplays and performing his songs up and down the West Coast. Through-out the various twists and turns of his career, Weathers continued to write songs. "Because that was my original goal," he said. "I feel like my career is on-track now. I have never felt more centered and focused and together in my life as far as my art and my music are concerned. I'm finally doing what I was meant to do." The new CD came about when he was performing in Seattle. A local promoter introduced him to a record company representative, who put him in touch with the Louisiana Red Hot Records label. He cut his CD with LRHR and obtained a national distribution deal with Virgin and Tower Records.

His voice has been described as resonant and multifaceted voice with comparisons to Dylan and Johnny Cash.

"I like to do a lot of different things with my voice," he said. "I like to create characters for each of my songs. I don't mind my influences showing through, as long as I come out sounding like myself. I grew up listening to Hank Williams and Elvis and the Beatles, and, of course, the three Louies: Jordan, Armstrong and Prima. In the end, it always comes out sounding like me."

Like most creative artists, Weathers has no set process for writing songs. Some just pop into his head. Some come to him in bits over months or years. He prefers songs that are structured, have good verses and a sing along quality, a good hook and a bridge, and tell a story.

"The Opelousas Jamboree started out as a poem in free verse," Weathers said. "I wrote it when I was in college. I met a girl from Lake Charles who was a big influence on me. We visited Opelousas together. I carried that song a long time, and it has survived. Every time I play it, something interesting happens (with the audience). "I wanted to come up with a song that was kind of mystical but conveyed a good time," he continued. "So I put in a lot of images of things I liked as a kid. Sunbeam sweets, porch swings, a red T-bird, dancing the two-step, and ending up going to a fais-do-do. I love the idea of being in a place where you are away from all of your troubles and having a good time."

"At the end," he said, "I wanted to do something different for the play out. I had a great drummer, Zig Modeliste of the original Meters, doing something great, and I've always liked New Orleans-style, no-depression drumming. So we had this great play out and I decided to put in the carnival barker saying things like, "Spanish dolls and lava lamps."

Zig is not the only top musician on the CD. Others include: Eddie Baytos on squeeze box and piano (formerly with Bob Dylan); guitarist Frank Recard (Emmylou Harris), Bob "Boo" Bernstein (Freddy Fender) on dobro, slide and steel; bassist James Intveld (Dwight Yoakam); fiddler Eric Gorfain (Rod Stewart); trumpeter Bill Churchville (Tower of Power); Mark Indictor (formerly with Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks); Jim Smith on mandolin (Frank Zappa's original Mothers of Invention), and gospel singers The Perri Sisters and Deborah Sharpe -Taylor (Andre Crouch) as background singers.

Please return to this site often for future articles and interviews.

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