P.W. Long (aka Pbone aka Preston Cleveland) is the lead singer and guitar player for the bands Wig, Mule and Reelfoot (also known as P.W. Long's Reelfoot). Purported to be the brother of the frontman of the Laughing Hyenas, Long appears to have been born and raised in the Ypsilanti, Michigan area. He eventually ended up in Detroit.

His earliest work was with the band Wig, and it is his voice that you hear on the "Lying Next to You" record. Sometime in the early 1990s, Long began a side project with the Laughing Hyenas' rythmn section, Kevin Munro and Jim Kimball. They put together a rather twisted concoction of field hollers, backwoods legends, hellbilly canon and mixed it with a semi-punk, semi-metallic musical assault that was best described as a rather unholy northern redneck, but intelligent, clamor.

Calling themselves Mule, they released a 7" in 1991 or 1992 containing the song Tennessee Hustler. Their first self-titled album, produced by a Leonard John (purported to be Nirvana producer Steve Albini), debuted shortly thereafter and was truly one of the most unique offerings of the early 1990s.

While it had the raucousness of the Hyenas, and certain punk and alternative sensibilities, Mule was truly a new breed of music. The album opened with P.W. shouting "I left out to the sound of buckshot rain" on the fantastic "Mississippi Breaks," a song about being on the run, wet, tired and just plain old beat-down. Themes we had all heard before, but never this loudly, or with this much odd guitar over a galloping ryhtmn. Come to found out, as P.W. himself later admitted, Long didn't really know how play to guitar when he started with Mule, or at least lot not all that "slickly" to use his word. Instead, he used a variety of open tunings and such, coupled with a just a simple feel for what was right, to create a truly unique guitar sound. Never bounded by the need for classic guitar solos, P.W. still put the guitar at the forefront with innovative melody lines and breaks.

The self titled album continued on with the inspired "I'm Hell," the rawking "What Every White Nigger Knows," the eerie "Drown," the trip into Old NorthWest Folk Music on "Now I Truly Understand," the duet with Kevin on "Mama's Reason to Cry," "Lucky" and "Sugarcane Zuzu," with its admonition from Pbone's grandpappy that "You can wish in one hand, and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first."

Mule's first album ended up on Spin's "Ten Best Albums of 1992 You Didn't Hear" list and prompted endless touring by the band. New songs were always in progress, with PW sometimes simply humming or yoodling the lyrics during live performances over the new music but before lyrics were complete.

Mule followed up with the EP "Wrung," containing four of the most unusual songs ever committed to laser disc. Things started off semi-normal, with "Ass" -- an apparent ode to a stripper who is something of a tease. "We Know You Are Drunk" is a slam-bang rocker with a wry twist -- the band singing to a drunk audience and lecturing them on it.

But it is the last two songs that really cemented Mule's place in the panteon of overlooked rock music geniuses. Or maybe not "rock," because "Searchlight" is not. It is a form of music unto itself. Sparse, haunting, more like a spoken story with guitar accents -- and it works. The song does kick in near the end, but the first two thirds are like nothing you have heard before.

"Rope and the Cuckold" shows what two guys with whiskey soaked voices can do when singing a mad call and response song about being on the porch. As PW says, "She left me broken, halfway to town....."

More to come....

Discography:

http://www.southern.com/southern/band/PWLON/disc.php