Country Music Road Songs

Portland’s Jenny Don’t and The Spurs are on the road promoting their latest release, Call of the Road, out now on Mississippi Records. Guitarist, vocalist and primary songwriter Jenny Connors says her band’s “Western cowboy music” has an outlaw, Wild West attitude, “romanticizing the desert” and “vast openness where anything goes.”

Listen to Call of the Road, and you’ll recall Patsy Cline in Connors’ voice but also alt-country acts like Old 97’s with their twangy yet revved-up riffs. 

Connors writes all the songs, from lyrics to music. And, she says, “we try to get back to the roots of rock ‘n’ roll country music. We all play in rock ‘n’ roll bands but we hate the cliché of like, ‘Oh they’re punk rockers but they play country music.’ That seems a little patronizing,” she adds. “We think of when Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash were playing what they said was country back then, but when you listen to it it’s pretty rockin’.”

More than anything, Connors loves it when an audience comes ready to dance. “We want people to have a good time,” Connors says, “be able to cut loose, be able to get wild. I try to make the songs relatable.”

Jenny Don’t and the Spurs returns to Eugene with local psychobilly band Real Gone Trio 8:30 pm Sunday, July 9, at Sam Bond’s Garage; $8, 21-plus. — Will Kennedy