Red Meat is a country band that has released the albums "Meet Red Meat" (1997), "Thirteen" (1999), "Alameda County Line" (2001) and "We Never Close" (2007). The last three albums were produced by Dave Alvin, and engineered by Mark Linett. An additional live album, "Live at the World's Smallest Honky Tonk", was released in October of 2010.
The song "Broken Up and Blue" from "Thirteen" is featured on the soundtrack of the 2001 movie "Monster's Ball."[1] The pit orchestra at the Academy Awards played the song when Halle Berry accepted her award for best actress.[2]
The debut album won an SF Weekly "Wammie" award as best roots band. It also produced a top-five single in France with "Texas Texas." [3] Red Meat has since won another Wammie for best country band, along with a "Best of the Bay" award from the San Francisco Bay Guardian and "Best of the East Bay" award from the East Bay Express. [4]
In recent years, Red Meat has also served as the backing band on the West Coast for rock & roll hall of famer Wanda Jackson.
Red Meat formed in 1993 from the remains of the country/surf/polka band The Movie Stars, and the Genuine Diamelles, whose sound was described by their members as a "psychedelic glee club". Though based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the members of Red Meat are almost universally Midwestern, hailing originally from southeast Iowa (Jill Olson, Smelley Kelley), the Missouri Ozarks (Scott Young), Ohio (Michael Montalto), and Oklahoma (Les James).