Biography
Listening to Victor Mecyssne (pronounced muh-sess-nee) perform, listeners would not suspect that this guitarist, singer, and songwriter hailed from Nashville. Certain respected critics have labeled his approach unclassifiable, yet he actually performs every variety of American vernacular or indigenous music, spanning blues-based jazz and ragtime through jazz-flavored country and Western swing. Reviewers have drawn parallels between Mecyssne and Lyle Lovett, Leon Redbone, and Tom Waits, although he himself simply calls his music Southern.
His father ran a store supplying jukebox operators with 45-rpm recordings, giving the young Mecyssne exposure to abundant music that ranged from contemporary Top 40 hits to country, jazz, blues, and early 1960s rock & roll. As with many children, he received piano instruction yet lost interest once he reached junior high school. Among the figures who shaped his outlook are prominent blues and jazz artists including Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and Professor Longhair (aka Henry Roland Byrd); he likewise acknowledges the influence of American photographers Robert Frank and Elliot Erwitt on his musical perspective. In notes accompanying his Sweetfish Records album Hush Money, Mecyssne states: "Four great musical forms were born and bred in the South -- blues, jazz, country, and rock & roll. While all these forms are now global, their genesis, physically and spiritually, was in the American South. Throw 'em in a pot, turn it up on high, and stir it all together."
Throughout much of the 1990s he performed in Nashville and toured the South and Midwest alongside his band the Ragtops. Nashville’s studio environment nevertheless restricted how often he could travel with his fellow musicians, most of whom worked regularly as session players. Although he had played guitar for years, Mecyssne did not mature as a songwriter until 1993, when a return to Nashville revived his creative drive. His compositions naturally reflect the musical predecessors named above. The albums he has issued comprise Personal Mercury (1995), Hush Money (1998), and Skinnybones (2001), of which Hush Money remains the most readily obtainable. In 2004 Mecyssne adopted the surname Anthony. The singer/songwriter, photographer, musician, and actor relocated from Tennessee’s Cumberland County to British Columbia, Canada, in 2007 and continues building new audiences through performances across the province.
His father ran a store supplying jukebox operators with 45-rpm recordings, giving the young Mecyssne exposure to abundant music that ranged from contemporary Top 40 hits to country, jazz, blues, and early 1960s rock & roll. As with many children, he received piano instruction yet lost interest once he reached junior high school. Among the figures who shaped his outlook are prominent blues and jazz artists including Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and Professor Longhair (aka Henry Roland Byrd); he likewise acknowledges the influence of American photographers Robert Frank and Elliot Erwitt on his musical perspective. In notes accompanying his Sweetfish Records album Hush Money, Mecyssne states: "Four great musical forms were born and bred in the South -- blues, jazz, country, and rock & roll. While all these forms are now global, their genesis, physically and spiritually, was in the American South. Throw 'em in a pot, turn it up on high, and stir it all together."
Throughout much of the 1990s he performed in Nashville and toured the South and Midwest alongside his band the Ragtops. Nashville’s studio environment nevertheless restricted how often he could travel with his fellow musicians, most of whom worked regularly as session players. Although he had played guitar for years, Mecyssne did not mature as a songwriter until 1993, when a return to Nashville revived his creative drive. His compositions naturally reflect the musical predecessors named above. The albums he has issued comprise Personal Mercury (1995), Hush Money (1998), and Skinnybones (2001), of which Hush Money remains the most readily obtainable. In 2004 Mecyssne adopted the surname Anthony. The singer/songwriter, photographer, musician, and actor relocated from Tennessee’s Cumberland County to British Columbia, Canada, in 2007 and continues building new audiences through performances across the province.
Albums
