Knoxville Girls originated in December 1998 when ex-members of the New York country-flavored garage outfit Little Porkchop launched a recording venture intended to discard conventional rock hierarchies and instead let blues, country, and rockabilly traditions speak on equal footing. Guitarists Jerry Teel and Jack Martin assembled the lineup alongside Kid Congo Powers, who had previously played with Congo Norvel, ex-Sonic Youth drummer Bob Bert, and Barry London, once the organist for Stab City. Their self-titled debut appeared in 1999 on the In the Red label. The group took its name from a Louvin Brothers murder ballad and shaped its music around a broad survey of American idioms while also nodding toward the Velvet Underground and the Bob Dylan of the Newport period. Although the band operated without a bassist and relied on three guitars, London’s Farfisa supplied a weighty low end colored by gospel, the Memphis Stax aesthetic, and the style of ? & the Mysterians. The album balanced original material with reinterpretations of admired artists, among them a gritty overhaul of Ray Charles’ “I Had a Dream,” a Stones-inflected treatment of Percy Sledge’s “Warm and Tender,” a vigorous reading of Charlie Feathers’ “Have You Ever,” a revved-up rockabilly version of Johnny Cash’s “I Feel Better All Over,” and a country-ballad take on George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” The project grew from Jerry Teel’s response to Little Porkchop’s dissolution; after Jack Martin relocated to New Orleans, Teel began taping at his Fun House studio in Manhattan’s East Village and soon recruited Barry London. Teel had already met Bob Bert through shared East Village haunts where Teel performed with the Honeymoon Killers and Bert appeared with Pussy Galore. Martin’s prior association with Kid Congo Powers, who had just left Congo Norvel, completed the roster once Martin returned from Louisiana. Material took shape during casual rehearsals, with Teel supplying words afterward. The band’s first live appearance came in 1999 when it opened for Mudhoney at the Bowery Ballroom. A follow-up album, In a Paper Suit, arrived on In the Red Records in April 2001; it contained additional originals steeped in campy humor, blues, and country alongside covers of the Shangri-Las’ “Sophisticated Boom Boom,” Hank Williams’ “’Neath a Cold Gray Tomb of Stone,” and Hasil Adkins’ “By the Lonesome River.”
