One microphone. Melody, high part, low part. Memphis, 1987.
Stompin' Kittens formed in Memphis in 1986. Four women: a rhythm guitar, a lead guitar with a deep reverb tank, an upright bass and a drummer who played standing up. All four sang. Three of them sang at once, around one microphone, in harmonies that could strip paint.
They played the Southern honky-tonk circuit for seven years and built a following that drove two hundred miles to see them. They released two short records and one live set on Creep Show Records. They never made a full-length album. In 1992 they held a residency in Reno, Nevada. The archive does not know why.
Side A · No. 1
Union Avenue
Darla Pruitt and Ruby Vance met in 1985 at a guitar repair counter on Union Avenue. Both were there to have a pickup rewound. Both had been told it would take a week. They waited together, on folding chairs, for most of an afternoon, and left with the same plan.
Lou Ann Tate had played upright bass in a high-school orchestra and had kept the instrument when the school replaced it. Mae Ellison had been playing drums in church since she was nine. She played standing because the church kit had no throne. She kept the habit. The four played their first show in the spring of 1986, at a VFW hall in Millington, for forty people. Thirty-one came back the next week.
Side A · No. 2
One Microphone
Stompin' Kittens sang three-part harmony around a single microphone: Darla on the melody, Ruby above her, Mae below. Lou Ann did not sing. She said the bass was already singing. The arrangement put three faces within an inch of each other for most of every set. Sound engineers on the circuit asked for more microphones. The band declined.
The Heel Down EP was cut for Creep Show Records in two days in 1987, in a converted feed store, on one microphone for the voices and one for everything else. It has four songs. All of them are good.
Side B · No. 3
The Circuit
From 1987 to 1991 the band played the Southern honky-tonk circuit: Mississippi, Arkansas, north Alabama, west Tennessee, Louisiana. They drove a two-tone sedan with the bass across the back seat and the drums in the trunk. Their following was small, devoted and willing to drive. A couple from Shreveport attended forty-one shows.
Stomp This Town came out in 1989. It has eight songs and runs twenty-two minutes. It is the closest thing to an album they made. They toured it that autumn, nine dates, ending at home in Memphis.
Side B · No. 4
Reno
In 1991 the band went into a Memphis studio to make a full-length record. The sessions stopped after four days. The reason was not written down. The tapes reportedly exist, on a reel-to-reel, somewhere in Memphis. No one has gone looking.
In 1992 Stompin' Kittens held a residency at a casino lounge in Reno, Nevada: eleven weeks, five nights a week, the last set at two in the morning. Why they were in Reno is not recorded. The Reno Sessions was taken from the board on the final week. The band played its last show in Memphis in 1993, and then stopped.
The billing
In order of appearance
All four played. Three sang. Nobody sat down.
DPNo portrait on file
No. 1
Darla Pruitt
Lead vocals, rhythm guitar
Sang the melody and kept the rhythm on an archtop. Stood on a chalk X one boot-length behind the microphone.
1986–1993
No. 2
Ruby Vance
Lead guitar, harmony vocals
Hollow-body guitar, spring reverb on full, every night from 1986 to 1993. Sang the high part.
1986–1993
No. 3
Lou Ann Tate
Upright bass
Upright bass, slapped. The only member who did not sing. She said the bass was already singing.
1986–1993
MENo portrait on file
No. 4
Mae Ellison
Drums (standing), harmony vocals
Snare, bass drum, one cymbal, played standing. Sang the low part from behind the kit.
1986–1993
Selections
The jukebox
Three records. Eighteen songs. Every one of them fits on a title strip. Pick a selection to open the record.
Mississippi, Arkansas, north Alabama, west Tennessee, Louisiana. Seven years of Saturday nights. The following drove to them.
Coming in person
Stompin' Kittens
Stomp This Town Tour
Autumn 1989
Tupelo, MS
Clarksdale, MS
Helena, ARNew floor.
Hot Springs, AR
Texarkana, TX
Shreveport, LAShow 23 for the Broussards.
Florence, AL
Jackson, TN
Memphis, TNHome.
Admission at the door · Dancing all night
1988 · A dance hall, Helena, Arkansas
The Floor in Helena
On a Saturday in August 1988 the crowd at a dance hall in Helena, Arkansas, stomped through two floorboards during the second chorus of "Heel Down." No one was hurt. The band finished the song. The owner replaced the boards the following week and mailed the band an invoice for the lumber. The invoice is in the archive. So is the letter that came with it, which asks whether they were free in October.
The floor, Helena, Arkansas, 1988. Two boards from here, there are new boards.
Live musicRenoNightly · 2 a.m. set
Summer 1992
Eleven weeks in Nevada
The band drove west in June 1992 and played a casino lounge in Reno until the end of August. They stayed at a motel at the edge of town. They came home with a live record and no explanation.
1992 · A casino lounge off Virginia Street, Reno, Nevada
The Residency
From June to August 1992 Stompin' Kittens played a casino lounge in Reno, Nevada, five nights a week. The last set began at two in the morning. Regulars included a retired couple who danced to every song and a blackjack dealer who came in after her shift. The band stayed at a motel on the edge of town for the full eleven weeks. None of the four has explained the booking. Asked in 1993, Darla Pruitt said, "We were in Reno."
Why they were in Reno is not recorded.
U.S. 95, Nevada, June 1992. On the way to Reno. Nobody has said why.
Two in the morning, Reno, 1992. The regulars.
Desert Star motel, the last morning, August 1992. The keyboard was not the band's. The archive does not know whose it was.
Archive notes
Kept on file
1991
The Four Days
A recording studio, Memphis, Tennessee
In March 1991 the band booked three weeks in a Memphis studio to make its first full-length album. On the fourth day the sessions stopped. The engineer's log shows eleven songs started and six finished. It does not say why the work ended. The reels went home with someone. See the next card.
reel
The Reel in Memphis
The 1991 session tapes reportedly survive on a single reel-to-reel, in a closet, garage or storage unit somewhere in Memphis. Each member has said a different one of the others took it home. The archive has not gone looking. Neither has anyone else.
standing
Standing Up
Mae Ellison played every show standing: snare, bass drum, one cymbal. She said a stool slowed the song down. Club owners kept bringing one out. The archive counts eleven stools left unused at the side of the stage.
reverb
Reverb Is God
Ruby Vance's amplifier had its spring reverb set to full from 1986 to 1993. A repairman in Tupelo turned it down in 1990 while fixing a tube. She drove back the next day and asked him to put it where he found it.
personnel
Related Personnel
Darla Pruitt's younger brother, Dave Pruitt, worked for the band in 1988 and 1989. He loaded the van, sold records from a card table and carried Lou Ann Tate's upright bass into every room on the Stomp This Town tour. He was not paid. Lou Ann taught him his first bass line in a motel parking lot in Texarkana. He moved to Tucson in 1990 and later played bass in In BRRRRRRT We Trust. Asked about the bass line, Lou Ann Tate said, "He still plays it."
x
The Chalk X
Before every show Darla Pruitt drew an X in chalk on the stage floor, one boot-length behind the microphone. She stood on it all night. Several venues on the circuit left the marks in place.
Bluff City Bop Sheet · Autumn 1989
Stompin' Kittens: "Put Your Heel Down"
Memphis's loudest harmony group on one microphone, one sedan and twenty-two minutes
The band meets us at a diner on Summer Avenue. Mae Ellison stands for the first ten minutes out of habit.
BOP SHEET: Why one microphone?
DARLA PRUITT: Because we're singing one part. It just has three notes in it.
BOP SHEET: Stomp This Town is twenty-two minutes. Is it an album?
RUBY VANCE: It's eight songs. Call it what you want.
BOP SHEET: Will there be a longer record?
LOU ANN TATE: When we have more songs that good.
By Staff
From the dance floor
★★★★★
My husband and I saw them forty-one times between Shreveport and Memphis. We danced to every song. We still have the Heel Down EP. The record player is newer than the record.
— J. Broussard, Shreveport, LA
★★★★★
I worked the floor at the Helena hall in 1988. I helped carry out the boards. I have heard a lot of harmony singing in my life. None of it was that loud.
— W. Tillman, Helena, AR
★★★★★
I dealt blackjack until 1:45 and walked over for the two o'clock set, most nights that summer. They never played to an empty room, because I was in it.
— R. Okafor, Sparks, NV
The dance card
Put your name down.
The band is not touring. The archive is still filing. Join the Sideband Label list for new recordings, merch, and anything that turns up from the reel in Memphis.
