This song has been in the pool of songs of my favorite radio KCSN, and I don’t think I would have known about them otherwise,… or may be I would have since NPR is premiering their official video right now. I am talking about the song ‘Katie Queen of Tennessee’ by The Apache Relay, a band I knew nothing about.
The tune is a dynamic and sweet earworm, with an obvious of retro charm, and apparently an anomaly for this folk rock band from Nashville. I have listened to the rest of their album and nothing sounds like this ascending-strings-wrapped gem, it’s way more pop than folk or rock or country, and it’s catchy as hell. According to American Songwriter, the title of ‘Katie Queen of Tennessee’ is a shout-out to The Boss’ ‘Mary, Queen Of Arkansas’ – they are big Springsteen fans – but there isn’t an ounce of the boss in this tune, which seems to come out of some Phil Spector’s dream.
The video featured a troupe of 40 young dancers from the Nashville Dance Center, but according to NPR, these kids aren’t dancing to the music of The Apache Relay at all, but a medley of hair metal songs:
‘The story goes something like this: When director Hayley Young was thinking of how to make a video for the song, she wanted dancers from Nashville to be part of the act. A search online brought her to a routine by the Nashville Dance Center set to music from the musical Rock of Ages. She turned the hair metal down, cranked up the tune from Apache Relay’s new self-titled album and — like The Wizard of Oz meeting Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon for the first time — discovers a match that was simply meant to be.
Hayley Young figured that all she needed was a big space, and she found one. Turns out married singers Amy Grant and Vince Gill are connected to the Nashville Dance Center, and they loaned the group their 18th-century barn for filming. Surrounded by dancers, the band set up and played “Katie Queen of Tennessee” on a makeshift stage while a boom box simultaneously played the metal medley. The result is unforgettable.’
Indeed! It’s quite miraculous the same choreography could be used for this song. So listen to it and tell me it isn’t the song of the summer!
