Twisted South Radio welcomes Belle Brigade, Billy Eli and Brandon Jenkins

The Belle Brigade is a band from Los Angeles consisting of siblings Ethan and Barbara Gruska. Inspired by Barbara and Ethan’s love for Fleetwood Mac, Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles, and Stevie Wonder, the album’s artfully arranged, freewheeling songs brim with breezy, California melodies and bracing pop harmonies, fueled by the driving rhythms Barbara plays on drums. A longtime fixture on the Los Angeles music scene, Barbara is a sought-after live drummer who toured with Inara George and Jenny Lewis, among others, before she picked up a guitar and formed The Belle Brigade with her singer-songwriter younger brother Ethan two years ago. Billy Eli plays country that rocks and rock that’s country, delivering songs that are vivid slices of real life lived to the fullest and chased down with a stiff shot of whiskey. With a style that’s rooted in his small town Southeast Texas origins that transcends the Lone Star State to achieve an international reach, the Austin, TX-based singer and songwriter has been compared by critics to such stellar American music artists as Tom Petty, Steve Earle, John Prine and John Mellencamp, to name a few. Brandon Jenkins With a voice as big as Texas and guitar chops (and beard) that would make Billy Gibbons proud, Jenkins takes his rightful place as one of the shining stars of not only Red Dirt, but American music. “I’ve always thought Red Dirt was less about a sound, and more about a brotherhood of musicians with a common goal; not only to make music, but music with a message,” says Jenkins. “Bob Childers, Jimmy LaFave, Tom Skinner, The Great Divide and so many others have helped to shape and form this rapidly growing genre, bringing in the convictions of Woody Guthrie, and the swank and swagger of the Outlaw Country and Southern Rock movements”.