What was once a collection of over 150 field recordings captured in various locations throughout New Orleans with a borrowed reel-to-reel, Mashed Potato Records is now a serious music collective and is releasing its label debut, a double-compilation album, on August 9.
The original mission of MPR, led by musicians Duff Thompson and Bill Howard, was to capture the sound of New Orleans’ popular underground Americana scene. Thompson and Howard found the sound they were searching for in myriad places throughout the city–varied locations like dive bars, house parties, the French Quarter, the Lower Ninth Ward and more. With groups of New Orleans musicians specializing in Americana successfully located, Thompson and Howard set out to record these performers in backyards, living rooms, vans or pretty much anywhere they could.
When songwriter and musician Sam Doores became involved in 2016, Thompson and Doores formed MPR with the hopes of exposing the world to their recordings, many of which took place at Doores’ house, where he happily joined many of the sessions. The sessions recorded in 2016 are featured on the upcoming Mash Potato Records Vol I. The 12 songs on this record comprise the first-half of MPR’s debut.
In 2017, they set up an analog home recording studio, near the Mississippi in the Holy Cross neighborhood. With upgraded equipment and a proper place to record, local bands–like Tuba Skinny, Esther Rose, Chris Acker & The Growing Boys, Jackson and the Janks and other non-fixed lineups–recorded their songs for Mash Potato Records Vol II, over the course of 40 days in April and May that year.
MPR released two singles from the upcoming albums–“Run Wild,” one of the first songs recorded by Doores’ band (The Deslondes) and singer-songwriter Twain using Thompson’s reel-to-reel in 2016, and “Stumblin’,” Jackson and Janks’ song about a bad night gone worse. With these two albums, MPR’s start is both promising and ambitious, building on the legacy of underground Americana music in New Orleans, with the help of talented local artists.
For more information on Mashed Potato Records, click here.
