The Twangtown Paramours announce new album

The Twangtown Paramours

The Twangtown Paramours is an award-winning American band, the core of which is husband and wife, Mike T. Lewis and MaryBeth Zamer from Nashville. Mike and MaryBeth are three time Kerrville finalists and winners of Texas’s Wildflower Contest. The Twangtown Paramours are excited to release their new retro Blues and Americana album, Double Down On A Bad Thing. The project represents a new and energetic musical direction for them. This full band album is largely early1960’s sounding and upbeat. Influences of the Beatles and Memphis blues are prominent, but those sounds are re-interpreted and combined to form something new. The Twangers have plans to follow up the album with live band touring.

In Double Down On A Bad Thing, the Twangtown Paramours seem to ask their audience to remember when catchy pop melody and great blues influenced groove served as the soundtrack of a dynamic America and Europe and of forward thinking societies. If positive and energetic music can lead to positive attitude and action in trying times, this is the album to do it. If not, it will at least cheer people up.

Double Down On A Bad Thing is the third album by the Twangtown Paramours. Their first two acoustic albums went to  number 11 and number 2 on the folk charts and received accolades for singing, songwriting, and performance. In contrast, Double Down On A Bad Thing is electric, hard-hitting, and band centric.

The Twangtown Paramours overheard the phrase that would become the title of their new project when they were in Las Vegas a few years ago. They were in acasino walking behind a guy who was a dead ringer for Joe Pesci. On each of his arms was a tall, gorgeous woman with red hair. The Twangers weren’t sure if this Pesci doppelganger was referring to gambling or to the two women when he said, “Tonight, I’m gonna double down on a bad thing.”

The main musicians on Double Down on a Bad Thing are MaryBeth on vocals, Mike on guitars and bass, and Shawn Pelton of SNL band, Shawn Colvin, and Roseanne Cash fame on drums and percussion.

Some of the other featured musicians on the album include Dave Keyes, who is a two time Blues Society Pinetop Perkins pianist nominee, Rave Tesar, music director of the band Renaissance, Steve Conn, pianist for Sonny Landreth, New York session piano player and organist, Ed Alstrom, and horn players Dan Nigro and Vinnie Cutro from Smokey Joe’s Café.

Lead singer, MaryBeth Zamer was a fixture in the Washington, D.C. club circuit for many years. She performed with the band Ignition and sang background vocals for Eva Cassidy. She is also the main author of the some of the most meaningful songs in the Twangtown Paramours back catalogue.

Mike is a session musician, producer, and hit songwriter. He is the author of a #1 platinum pop tune in Korea, which is ranked as the second biggest selling female ballad of all time in that country. He also sometimes plays upright bass for Jimmie Dale Gilmore and does a little TV acting. He has appeared on the Investigative Discovery Channel and as a background actor on CMT’s Nashville.

‘My Gingerbread Man’ is the bonus Christmas track on the album. 40% nice, 60% naughty, this song, like much of the mostly upbeat and retro project, is a harkening back to boom times in America and Europe. This classic sounding song seems like it could be found on AM radio in 1963 or in a playlist of Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ ‘Round the Christmas Tree”, Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock”, and the Chipmunks’ “Christmas Don’t Be Late.” Besides MaryBeth on vocals, Mike on guitars and bass, and Shawn Pelton on drums, it features New York session pianist and Yankees Stadium organist, Ed Alstrom, and Dan Nigro of Smokey Joe’s fame on saxophones. ‘My Gingerbread Man’ is not only being played on digital platforms and terrestrial radio, it is also being programmed by Spectrio radio to play in Best Buy, Staples, Sprint Stores, Carmax, Subway, 1100 beauty salons, some Walmarts, some Whole Foods, and a good selection of malls across the U.S. during the entire holiday season.

“It’s our hope that while listening to this record, people will smile and dance around their living rooms like nobody’s watching”, MaryBeth Zamer declares. “We may be living in difficult and divisive times, but if a good groove and musical energy can help change people’s mindsets to one of positivity and hope, this is the album to do it.”

Adds Mike T. Lewis: “This is the kind of record we’ve wanted to make for a long time and we plan to follow it up with live band touring.”

Artists’ website: www.thetwangtownparamours.com

‘Anyone But You’ – official video:


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