The Cox County Clappers, self-described World’s Finest Purveyors of Mountain Rock, return with their latest single “Tully Jackson’s Hill”, a hard-driving, unflinching track rooted in Appalachian struggle, environmental resistance, and the enduring will of people who refuse to be pushed aside.
Blending Mountain Rock, Southern Rock, and Dark Americana, the song channels the raw grit of coal country through snarling electric guitars, thunderous drums, and wailing harmonica. Fans of Tyler Childers, Drive-By Truckers, Marcus King, and the Black Crowes will feel instantly at home in its resolute tone and lived-in storytelling.
Led by guitarist and songwriter Matt Rhoden (Acme Giants), Cox County Clappers is a collaborative project featuring a rotating cast of Nashville heavy-hitters that has included members of the group Fuel Injected Legends–Pat Meusel, Matt Fuller, Reggie Las Vegas and Viva Las Vegas. Additional musicians include Rebecca Weiner Tompkins (violinist with Patti Smith), vocalist Leigh Hetherington (solo artist and Broadway performer), and Grammy-winning producer Johnnie Truesdale. “Tully Jackson’s Hill” features harmonica virtuoso, Gwen Holt.
“Tully Jackson’s Hill” targets mountaintop-removal mining, a process of blasting off a mountain’s top to get at the coal. In the aftermath of these explosions, silt and debris wash into waterways and disrupt life for the people below. Tully Jackson is one of those people.
“This song is about mountaintop removal and its aftermath,” says Rhoden. “It’s also about people that don’t back down so easily.”
That refusal to back down defines both the song and the larger Cox County universe. Drawing from Appalachian history, labor wars, moonshine culture, and pushback against heavy-handed government men, the Clappers’ music feels timeless and urgent, grounded in place but mythic in scope.
Cox County Clappers exists within a fully realized fictional setting: Cox County, a mythic Appalachian landscape created by Rhoden, populated by feuding families, musicians, and outsiders navigating class, labor, environmental, and business struggles.
As Rhoden explains, “The Informational wells haven’t been poisoned in Cox County. It’s a place that is separate from modern life, which is hopefully what makes the stories both mythical and clear-eyed.”
With this release, Cox County Clappers continue to carve out their own lane, where storytelling, resistance, and hard-rocking Americana collide in the hills.
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