For Immediate Release:  August 26, 2010

Town & Country
“Everybody Wants to Say I Do”

Town & Country (T&C), the brainchild of singer/frontman Rob Shapiro and songwriter/producer Brian Woodbury, challenges the idea that country music must adhere to a particular ideology.

The first single on their upcoming self-titled collection takes on the subject of marriage, including gay marriage.  “Everybody Wants to Say I Do,” which Shapiro and Woodbury wrote together, addresses the hot-button topic not as agit-prop but in the country story-telling tradition, appealing to the universality of “I will love you for the rest of my life.” To hear this, and a few more songs from their forthcoming album please visit www.townandcountryband.com.

Coming from a couple of straight guys, the message is free of any hint of identity politics. “We focus on the universal message, which is basically one of freedom and all-men-are-created-equal – can’t get any more American than that.”

Says Shapiro, “We think that country music belongs to the whole of the country, not just one region, one ethos, one politics.  It’s about picking and grinning, players really playing, and singing honest open songs about love, life, troubles, family and the thousand little details of our time.”

“Frankly, we’re both proud American children of the late 20th century, who love our national sound. We think it’s either weird or an oversight that our viewpoint is rarely reflected in the current Nashville output.  So we want to wave our red white and blue the best way we know how – in song,” says Shapiro.

Rather than dismiss the new Nashville sounds in favor of old country like Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, T&C loves modern pop country like Brad Paisley, Toby Keith and Jo Dee Messina. “Yeah, modern country is slick and commercial,” says Woodbury, “but so was Patsy in her day.  Nashville’s putting out great pop music.  It’s our national capitol of song.  How we sing ourselves to sleep is dreamed up on Music Row.  And they’re singing about real stuff. We’re singing about real stuff, too, just from a slightly different perspective.”

T&C will release the “Everybody Wants To Say I Do” single for digital download, with accompanying video, in October, donating a percentage of the proceeds to organizations promoting marriage equality.

Like a lot of other LA country acts, Town & Country comes to country as music scene veterans. Shapiro has a resume of playing all kinds of music literally as wide as the nation itself, from early years in the Los Angeles Paisley Underground scene playing surf and garage rock, to the Eighties in Minneapolis (where he learned tons of country, stealing guitar double-stop lines from Gary Louris) playing with indie-rockers Thunderbats and Uncle Was, to NYC in the Nineties playing art-rock in 2.5D, to playing all over California and Texas with his critically acclaimed band Populuxe. He has performed in front of audiences ranging from drunken bikers immediately following a strip show in Northeast Minneapolis, to moonlit romantics in a Bora Bora lagoon, to sweaty masses crammed into Texas roadhouses. In the other parts of his life, he is a voice over artist (Books on Tape, radio comedy, etc.), actor, and (of all unlikely things) business consultant with clients spanning the globe.

Woodbury has an eclectic background, but has always loved country, “My favorite instrument is the pedal steel guitar.” His Variety Orchestra album features post-modern big band jazz compositions infused with bluegrass instrumentation.  Woodbury has played both coasts with his bands Some Philharmonic and the Popular Music Group.   A prolific TV writer, Woodbury has written Saturday morning cartoon theme songs (Pepper Ann, Teacher’s Pet) and written for numerous Disney projects.  He orchestrated Najma Aktahr’s Forbidden Kiss, an album of Bollywood covers.  He also works in musical theater.  Currently he is developing four musicals. Ghost(s), a comedy based on Ibsen’s Ghosts, will have a reading in New York in 2011.  His songs have been sung by Lisa Loeb, Jill Sobule, Nathan Lane and Terre Roche of the Roches.

The CD, due out early 2011 was recorded mostly in Woodbury’s studio in Silverlake, and features the mighty assist of many well-seasoned talents:

• Marc Muller (Shania Twain, Shedaisy, Elton John, Carly Simon) – guitar, pedal steel, mandolin, banjo (and some fiddle)
• Dan Schwartz (Sheryl Crow, Roseanne Cash) – bass
• Dan Lutz (Gladys Knight, Aimee Mann, Andy Summers) – bass
• Andy Sanesi (John Zorn) – drums
• Joe Berardi (Fibonaccis, Stan Ridgway) – drums
• Gabe Witcher (Chris Thile, Beck, Willie Nelson) – fiddle
• Jim Kimo West (Weird Al Yankovic) – guitar
• Eli Brueggemann (Louis Belson, Bennie Maupin, Flea) – piano
• Marc Doten (Stew, Double Naught Spycar) – piano
• Mark Pardy (The Trammps, Populuxe, Lion King) – drums
• Chris Phillips (Squirrel Nut Zippers) – drums
• Dan Levine (They Might Be Giants, Frank Sinatra) – trombone
• Khalil Sabbagh (The Backboners) – vibes
• Moira Smiley, Kathi Funston, Elma Mayer, Bill Burnett, Joe Moe, Dudley Saunders, Paul Perry, Sean Altman – background vocals
• Among Brian Woodburys co-writers on the album are: Rob Shapiro, Michael Webster, Peter Lurye, Bill Burnett, and Elma Mayer.

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For more information, photos, Mp3s, or to set up interviews please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Tejada (née Hasty) at 213-840-1201 or lynn@greengalactic.com.