Bill McCorvey, founder of Pirates of the Mississippi, had moved from
Montgomery, Alabama, to
Nashville, Tennessee, in the 1980s with the intent of pursuing a career in
country music. When he was initially unable to do so, he supported himself financially by working various jobs. These included building houses and filling envelopes in a warehouse. While doing so he befriended Rich Alves and the two began writing songs together. Their original intent was to provide "up-tempo" material for
Conway Twitty to record, but most of this material was not selected by him. Because of this, McCorvey and Alves decided to recruit other musicians to form a band and play the songs themselves. McCorvey served as lead vocalist, with Alves on lead guitar and backing vocals. Completing the original lineup were
steel guitar and
Dobro player Pat Severs, bass guitarist and backing vocalist Dean Townson, and drummer Jimmy Lowe. The five members began performing together in 1987. Severs had played in
Eddie Rabbitt's band before becoming a
session musician, Lowe was a computer programmer, and Townson worked at an aviation factory. The five of them began rehearsing in Lowe's basement at night and decided to pursue a full-time career as a band after noting that neighbors would come over and listen to their music. The Cloggers were discovered in the late 1980s by an
artists and repertoire (A&R) agent for
Universal Records, then a new record label owned by record producer
Jimmy Bowen. Executives at the label disliked the band's name and suggested that they change it. They chose the name Pirates of the Mississippi after a song they had written about Lowe, whom they thought resembled a pirate. the latter of which went to number one on the
Billboard Hot Country Songs charts in early 1990. He and McCorvey also co-wrote "Karma Road" for the group
Trader-Price (who were also signed to Capitol by way of the Universal merger) on their 1990 debut album.
19901992: Pirates of the Mississippi and Walk the Plank In June 1990, after the merger of Universal was completed, Capitol released the band's
self-titled debut album. Alves produced the album with
James Stroud.
Pirates of the Mississippi produced four chart singles on the
Billboard country charts between 1990 and 1991. The first single selected was a cover of
Hank Williams' "
Honky Tonk Blues". According to McCorvey, the cover of "Honky Tonk Blues" was not originally intended to be on the album but was added because label executives thought the other songs on the album were not strong enough to serve as a lead single. The band members chose "Honky Tonk Blues" because it was the first song they had performed together. "Feed Jake" was the band's most popular song with fans and was described in 1993 as their
signature song.
Brian Mansfield wrote in
Allmusic that the album "is a cross between
Alabama country and
Southern rock...There are a few twists, though, namely a
Guy Clark song...and a
surf-country instrumental."
Pirates of the Mississippi was certified gold by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (now known as
Music Canada) in 1993, a certification which at the time honored shipments of 50,000 copies. In the United States, the album sold over 370,000 copies. McCorvey thought the songs on
Walk the Plank were "stronger" than those on the first album and that the production was closer to the sound of the band's concerts.
Alanna Nash of
Entertainment Weekly praised the band's sense of humor, but thought that the album's sounds and influences were inconsistent.
19921994: A Street Man Named Desire and Dream You After a restructuring of Capitol Nashville, Pirates of the Mississippi were transferred to
Liberty Records, where they would release their third album
A Street Man Named Desire in 1992. The title track charted at number 56 on the country charts that same year. Members of the band told the
Regina Leader-Post that they received calls from representatives of
Bill Clinton, the
Democratic Party nominee for
President of the United States in the then-upcoming
1992 United States presidential election. Said representatives wanted the band to endorse Clinton because they thought the song's lyrics would be appealing to his constituency. Severs refused, as he knew that the band members had differing political viewpoints from each other and did not want to involve the band in political matters. Conversely, the song received negative attention from representatives of the
Republican Party. Severs stated that an unnamed radio station in a larger market was playing the song regularly but withdrew it from rotation after "a close personal friend" of President
George H. W. Bush called the station and asked them to do so. The only other single from the album was "Don't Quit Your Day Job", a song about the band's attempts to combine their music careers with their commercial jobs in their early years. Jack Hurst of Tribune Media wrote that the band "possess a swingy ear-friendliness as well as a gift for the occasional stunning lyric." After this album, Severs injured his back when a light display fell on him during a concert. The album included a cover of
Hank Thompson's 1952 single "
The Wild Side of Life".
Mark Wright produced the album and co-wrote two tracks on it. Unlike their previous albums, it included a number of outside writers such as
Roger Murrah,
Craig Wiseman,
Dickey Lee, and
Robert Ellis Orrall. The only charted single off
Dream You was its title track, which reached number 63 and accounted for the band's final appearance on the Hot Country Songs charts. "Save the Wild Life" was also a single, but it did not chart. An uncredited article in the
Victorville, California,
Daily Press praised the album for its use of steel guitar, as well as the variety of writers. Despite the critical reception, the album was commercially unsuccessful. The editors of
Country Music: The Encyclopedia attributed this to the large amount of new musicians on the scene at the time drawing attention away from the band. Because of the album's failure, Liberty dropped Pirates of the Mississippi in 1994 after releasing a greatest-hits package titled
The Best of Pirates of the Mississippi.
19941996: Paradise and disbanding Later in 1994, the band began recording new songs with Stroud. the song failed to chart and did not appear on an album. The band's next single release for Giant was "
Paradise" in 1995. A review in
Billboard described the song's lyrics as "simplistic" but praised McCorvey's singing. This would serve as the title track to their only Giant album,
Paradise. By this point, Trostle had left the band as well, and session musician
Paul Franklin played steel guitar on the album. Other contributing musicians included guitarist
Dann Huff, pianist
Johnny Neel, and backing vocalists
John Wesley Ryles and
Curtis Wright.
David Malloy produced the album, collaborating with Stroud on seven of the ten tracks. The album's closing track was a live rendition of "Feed Jake". Shawn Ryan of
New Country magazine praised the album for its "upbeat romps" and "songs with a keen eye for detailing the heart of blue-collar life with respect and affection". Writing for
The Ottawa Citizen, Susan Beyer praised the "everyday attitudes" of the lyrics, also calling McCorvey's singing voice "capable of great tenderness and power". Pirates of the Mississippi disbanded in 1996 due to the band members tiring of their constant touring schedule. Prior to their retirement, they were playing about 250 shows a year. McCorvey did a number of shows that same year in Montgomery, Alabama, with a new set of musicians called the Bill McCorvey Band. Most of these shows were charity concerts for the
American Cancer Society. After the band broke up, both McCorvey and Alves continued to work as songwriters in Nashville. McCorvey co-wrote
Montgomery Gentry's 1999 hit "
Lonely and Gone". Trostle continued to work as a session musician and sold handmade furniture.
20062007: Heaven and a Dixie Night In 2006, Alves and McCorvey decided to reunite as Pirates of the Mississippi. The two of them thought that reviving the band had potential due to a rise of rock-influenced country in the intervening years. Jason MacNeil of AllMusic gave the project a mixed review, praising McCorvey's voice and the
country rock influences of the more uptempo tracks, but also criticizing other tracks as containing "typical country music fodder". Pirates of the Mississippi played shows in local venues in
Alabama and
Tennessee before disbanding again in 2007. McCorvey founded an acoustic trio called Buffalo Rome before retiring from music in 2010 to open a liquor store in
Brentwood, Tennessee. Dean Townson died of unknown causes on March 25, 2010, at the age of 50. ==Musical styles==