Chris Stamey

"For me, traveling south has connotations of traveling into the past, into a land of memory and imagination," says Chris Stamey of Travels in the South, his Yep Roc debut and his first album of new songs in a dozen years. "And, as someone who grew up in the American South, it also means finding a way home."

Chris Stamey is a pivotal figure in the development of American alternative rock. From his groundbreaking work, as founder of the seminal alt-pop combos Sneakers and the dB’s, to his compelling solo releases, to his excursions as sideman with the likes of Alex Chilton, Bob Mould and the Golden Palominos and producer for such artists as Whiskeytown, Caitlin Cary, and Alejandro Escovedo, the North Carolina-bred singer/songwriter/guitarist has spent the past quarter-century building a deeply compelling body of music that supports his status as alt-pop godfather.

As impressive and influential as Stamey’s discography is, Travels in the South marks perhaps his most eloquent musical statement to date. The long-in-the-works album is a musically challenging, emotionally complex song cycle that emphasizes the qualities of melodic craft, lyrical insight and sonic invent that have long been hallmarks of his work, while adding a new level of emotional resonance that reflects the personal nature of many of its songs.

The album features guest appearances from an array of talented friends, including Ryan Adams, Ben Folds, Tift Merritt, Caitlin Cary and Thad Cockrell, as well as fellow Southern-pop kingpins Peter Holsapple and Don Dixon. The album also employs a core group of musicians who've long been part of Stamey’s creative team, including Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster, ex-Jayhawks keyboardist Jen Gunderman, local guitar ace Brian Dennis, ex-Backslider and Trembler Danny Kurtz, and Greg Readling of Tift Merritt’s band the Carbines—a group loosely dubbed "the Mod Squad," in honor of Stamey’s Chapel Hill-based studio, Modern Recording.

"I have to credit Ryan with pushing me to do this record," Stamey notes. "If it wasn’t for his encouragement and relentless enthusiasm for the project, I might never have gotten the ball rolling. I'd been on the other side of the glass a bit too long, and I was forgetting how hard it is to walk up to a mic and declare your intentions.

"I think of this record as being something of a meditation on the late-’60s generation that I was a part of, and as speaking to those folks in some way," Stamey says of Travels in the South. "I don’t know if this conceit holds up in practice, but it was very much in my mind when I was working on this group of songs.”"

But the project’s initial inspiration was a bit more basic. "I was driving in a friend's car and listening to the extra jams on the expanded edition of the Blind Faith album. I thought simultaneously, 'This is a waste of good plastic' and 'It would be fun to just jam a bit sometime.' Songs like "Kierkegaard" and "Ride" grew out of the latter impulse."

The vivid "Kierkegaard" exemplifies Travels in the South's ambitious fusion of muscular rock and idyllic art-pop melodicism. "I was interested in reconnecting with the explosion of musical creativity that happened at the end of the '60s," explains Stamey. "That era, where Time and Newsweek would run cover stories asking 'Is God Dead?' and there were still bomb shelters to be found in your neighbors' yards, when the Summer of Love was turning into the Summer of Drugs and this entire country felt like it was in freefall. That's the time when I first began playing music, a time of endless garage jams and ancient, mystery-shrouded bluesmen."

Stamey's earliest musical inspirations haunt such memorable tunes as "14 Shades of Green," "Ride," "Leap of Faith" and "In Spanish Harlem." The latter song, featuring exquisite harmonies by Tift Merritt, is a riveting dreamscape inspired by the similarly titled Ben E. King/Phil Spector classic, surveying pop music's capacity for inspiring dreams. The lure of dreams also drives the poignant "The Sound You Hear," one of two songs featuring guest vocals and guitar by Ryan Adams.

"The way I see it, my past records have been primarily in the tradition of the confessional, autobiographical songwriter," Stamey comments. "On this record, I think I’ve been drawn more to the big picture—time, death, religion—and not as interested in the trials and tribulations of romantic relationships. I'm less interested in the daily-news and dear-diary side of writing than I am in striving to create something that will last across generations."

The Stamey oeuvre already includes plenty of enduring music. Growing up in Winston-Salem, Stamey made his earliest ventures into recording with a series of homemade avant-garde experiments during his teens. He subsequently launched the early outfits Rittenhouse Square (with his future dB’s bandmate Peter Holsapple) and Sneakers (including dB Will Rigby and future Let’s Active leader Mitch Easter), each of which released acclaimed independent discs. Stamey subsequently moved to New York, where he started his own indie label, Car Records, and played bass in Big Star icon Alex Chilton's band. He also formed the dB’s with fellow North Carolina émigrés Holsapple, Rigby and Gene Holder, releasing a pair of albums, 1981's Stands for Decibels and 1982's Repercussion, that remain indie-pop landmarks.

Despite the band's growing success, Stamey exited in 1983 to launch a solo career, turning out a series of smart, soulful, musically adventurous gems including It's A Wonderful Life, Instant Excitement, It's Alright, Fireworks and the seasonal effort Christmas Time. The Stamey catalogue also includes the experimental instrumental departure The Robust Beauty of Improper Models in Decision Making, a collaboration with guitarist Kirk Ross, and Mavericks, a fondly regarded 1992 reunion with Peter Holsapple.

In the '90s, Stamey returned to his original hometown of Chapel Hill, N.C., where he launched Modern Recording, a homespun facility combining vintage tube and transistor gear with state-of-the-art digital technology. At Modern, Stamey has produced and/or engineered projects by a diverse array of acts including Whiskeytown, Alejandro Escovedo, Le Tigre, Ben Folds Five, Tift Merritt, the Butchies, Amy Ray, Helium, Flat Duo Jets and the Squirrel Nut Zippers, as well as his Yep Roc labelmates Caitlin Cary, Thad Cockrell and the Mayflies USA.

"Travels in the South was mostly made at Modern," says Stamey. "My family lives upstairs, so it was close quarters with the music at times. But I've always done my records in places that felt like homes. It's good to hear a song in your own kitchen; it keeps it honest."