CALDWELL COUNTY CONVICT CHORUS

     The Caldwell County Convict Chorus is a group of part time musicians from Northwest Missouri who get together occasionally to record songs intended to be funny. Once in a great while they succeed, depending on who you talk to.

     The original members were all in different working bands in the mid 1980s, but would gather on Sunday afternoons in Cameron, Mo, at the Settlement Inn Lounge to jam with each other. These jam sessions always attracted a crowd, but since they weren't paying gigs, the musicians often picked obscure songs they liked rather than the music they played when they were "working". It was discovered that a few of the guys were writing funny songs, and eventually the "funny song set" was a highlight of the Sunday afternoon jams.

      Norman suggested that the group should get together and record the tunes, so on Labor Day weekend of 1987, the Caldwell County Convict Chorus set up a homemade studio in an empty rental house and recorded for a week. The following summer they gathered to record again, and 13 songs were finished between both sessions, more than enough to make an album. Unfortunately, the reel to reel tapes were lost before a final mix was ever made. Bootleg tapes with rough mixes of the songs made it into circulation, however, and the group developed a small underground following. 

   Frustration over the loss of the tapes resulted in the group's inactivity for 24 years, until Norman approached Jon with the idea of doing another Convict Chorus album in 2010. The pair ran the idea past the original members that were still living in the area, and most of them agreed to help record another album. After Norman and Jon sent demo tapes of the new material to the old gang, some of them quit answering emails and wouldn't return phone calls. A few weren't spooked, however, and with the addition of some new musicians (who WEREN'T sent demo tapes previous to the recording sessions), the Caldwell County Convict Chorus hit the studio and recorded "Number 2" in 2011. This time the recordings weren't lost.

(The band offers their sincere apologies about that.....)