The Border Band

"The Border Band is a 4 piece group of lead and rhythm guitar, bass and drums. Melvin Litton, yours truly, captains the band, plays rhythm guitar and writes most songs. I began performing nearly half a century ago in Canada and have since played in the northeast, down thru Nashville, Austin, up to Colorado and back to Kansas where I started out and will likely remain. My major influences are Leadbelly, Jimmy Rogers, Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Band, while the juices of a hundred others flavor my music, not to mention the sun, moon, wind and stars, and the devil himself if that's what it takes to make a song. But I mainly rely on the better angels of my nature and 2 good men who've been with me for nearly 20 years, Roger Holden and Dave Melody. They've helped forge the sound and are a great part of what makes the music click.

Roger Holden is a wizard on the lead guitar. Besides his own keen talent he draws inspiration from Hendrix, Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughn and BB King among others. He's played in a dozen bands covering every idiom from classic rock, punk, ska, surf, tex-mex, country, folk and blues. Fast 'n clean, slick as new cards, he knows when to 'hold 'em' and knows when to 'show 'em', and he shows nuthin' but aces.

Dave Melody plays drums but does a helluva lot more than keep time and proves in the act why the drums are a musical instrument not to be denied. He can tap a rhythm soft as raindrops dimpling the dust or boom like thunder rolling down off the mountains in a crash of cymbals and toms to chasm the earth and flood the prairie, all while singing a heartfelt song.

For this re-release of our 'Magdalene' CD, which hasn't been in print for many, many years, I should mention that back in 2003 when we recorded these songs, our bass player was Doc Nelson, a veteran of many road bands. We also had 2 fine guest musicians, the Bennett brothers, Calvin on standup bass and backup vocals, and Cody on fiddle."