Living legends Terry Allen and Jo Harvey Allen, along with their children and grandchildren, have announced the self-titled debut album by their new project, Blood Sucking Maniacs, a multigenerational family band, out on April 24th via Paradise of Bachelors. The announcement is accompanied by the release of the album’s title track and theme song, Blood Sucking Maniacs, which is available now as a single.
The band, helmed by patriarch and matriarch Terry Allen and Jo Harvey Allen, spans five generations and 121 years, including (among others) their sons Bukka and Bale Allen; grandsons Kru, Sled, and Calder Allen; Panhandle Mystery Band mainstays Charlie Sexton, Lloyd Maines, and Richard Bowden, and frequent collaborator Will Sexton. The wide-ranging songs collected on their eponymous album are by all accounts miscellaneous and multiplex, comprising everything from heartrending ballads to arch in-jokes.
This is Terry Allen’s first release containing all-new recordings since Just Like Moby Dick (2020). The deluxe gatefold double-LP edition features an insert booklet with lyrics and an essay by Brendan Greaves, author of the biography Truckload of Art: The Life and Work of Terry Allen, a New York Times Best Art Book of 2024. The gatefold single-CD edition features replica LP artwork and an 8pp. insert.
The band’s full line up includes Pauline Allen on piano, Terry Allen on keyboard, piano and vocals, Jo Harvey Allen on vocals, Bukka Allen on keyboards, accordion, B-3 organ and vocals, Kru Allen on piano, accordion and vocals, Bale Allen on drums and vocals, Sled Allen on drums and vocals, Sophie Allen described as a Session Momma, Lucky Marlo Allen’s heartbeat and Calder Allen on guitars and vocals.
Terry and Jo Harvey contribute the greatest number of pieces to the album—five each, if you include their joint rendering, tender and succinct, of the blues standard It Hurts Me Too, here titled When Things Go Wrong (because “the struggle of love, of relationships, is the important part,” Terry says). Jo Harvey wrote Let It All In with their dear departed friend Susanna Clark, a songwriter and artist whose paintings grace the covers of classic albums by Willie Nelson and her husband (and Terry’s fellow Rockin’ Taco), Guy.
The writing and recording process, which took place mostly at Terry and Jo Harvey’s Santa Fe home and a local studio, the Kitchen Sink, was, according to Jo Harvey, “the most joyous time of all of us working together,” a culminating project for these inveterate family collaborators. “You could hear music coming from all over the house … Calder was learning piano from Kru, Kru was learning accordion from Bukka—everyone was learning new licks and just having so much fun. Getting everybody together was like herding cockroaches,” Terry reported.
You can pre-order/save Blood Sucking Maniacs on Paradise of Bachelors from this link.
Blood Sucking Maniacs Tracklist:
A1. Heartbeat (Lucky Marlo Allen) /
Barrelhouse (Pauline Allen) 0:41
A2. Blood Sucking Maniacs 2:06
A3. Bloodlines 4:51
A4. Peaches and Sap 1:00
A5. A Pogo Is a Logo 2:37
A6. Dirt Road 3:34
B1. Down to the River 4:08
B2. Kru Jam 0:34
B3. Just Pray 3:37
B4. Let It All In 3:33
B5. Little Baby Boy 2:03
B6. Mahalabalapurem-poppa-oo-maumau 0:33
C1. Blues (Pauline Allen) 1:23
C2. No Rush to Fly 4:29
C3. Red Leg Boy 2:24
C4. Santa Fe 1:22
C5. Arroyo Nights 4:39
D1. These Four Rocks / Shuck Some Corn
(Jo Harvey Allen) 5:41
D2. When Things Go Wrong 2:10
D3. Kru Jam 2 0:31
D4. Where We Belong 3:59
D5. Family Tree / Heartbeat (Lucky
Marlo Allen) 3:49
