Biography

(photo by Damian Morgan)

Born in Fayetteville, Arkansas to a college professor and a homemaker and raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and the mid-western plains of Missouri, Suzy Elkins moved to Hattiesburg, Mississippi as a twelve-year-old and still calls it home. Coming of age an hour away from the Gulf Coast and two hours away from New Orleans gave some respite to the southern shade tree ennui of a small Mississippi town and life in the Bible belt.

Hattiesburg, Mississippi is cited in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock n Roll in the third paragraph of chapter 1 ("Rock Begins") as the possible birthplace of rock n roll. The Graves Brothers (Blind Roosevelt Graves and Uaroy Graves) along with piano-player Cooney Vaughn made the first rock n roll recordings in 1936 as the Mississippi Jook Band in the railroad hub city. "Their 'Barbecue Bust' and 'Dangerous Woman' featured fully formed rock n roll guitar riffs and a stomping rock n roll beat."

It's in the dirt. It's in the water.

Suzy's early influences combined the roots music of her home state and the radio signals tuned in from Chicago, Shreveport, Little Rock, and New Orleans which eventually brought the sounds of British rock to the south as well as the rest of the country. "Irma Thomas played at my first dance. I was also listening to The Beatles, The Stones, Marianne Faithfull, and Marty Robbins' gunfighter ballads." R.S. Field has sometimes called the melding of southern roots music with British invasion the "have mercy beat" or "mod-a-billy."

Her main influences continue to be a group of musicians who came out of this birthland and eventually migrated out of Mississippi to larger markets. This group includes Omar Dykes, Webb Wilder, R.S. Field, and Gerry "Phareaux" Felton.

(photo by Damian Morgan)

"Phareaux taught me to play rhythm guitar with the snare drum and to use heavy strings for tone. He also turned me on to Django Reinhardt, Tony Joe White, and Waylon Jennings. Webb Wilder turned me on to Gram Parsons, The Rock n Roll Trio, and later Rockpile. Omar turned me on to Howlin' Wolf and Asleep at the Wheel. R.S. Field turned me on to The Band. It's not like I wouldn't have discovered this music eventually, but I got to learn about it from real fans - people who knew about it and cared about it. It was infectious. We used to sing and play all night. We were young, and those were good times full of music."

Many of them later moved to Austin, Texas. Suzy, Webb Wilder, Phareaux, and Rick Zachary made up a progressive country/rock/swing band called Eveready.

Austin seemed like the perfect place. "We weren't really country enough for Nashville but were too back roads to fit in somewhere like LA or New York. Besides, Austin was the 'Live Music Capital of the World,' and we wanted to play!" Suzy spent a total of eleven years in Austin, not including a three-year break back in Mississippi with a band called The Drapes which also included Webb Wilder, Rick "Casper" Rawls, Gene Brandon, Mark Hagg, and Bruce Tinnin. The Drapes released a four-song ep, The Drapes, on Sharp Circle Records. Her main Austin band was The Commandos with partner and co-writer, Phareaux. The Commandos released several cuts including an album, Edge of Town, on Austin Records (and toured Finland), a cut on the Ten from Texas: Herd It through the Grapevine compilation album for Elektra, a Halloween 45, The Commandos, on Jungle Records, a cut on the Live at the Continental Club compilation album for Profile, and the title cut on the Halloween compilation album, Haunted Motel, for Boffo Records. "Austin is my second home. It was a great place to play live and hone my skills. It's also a place that nurtured originality."

As a songwriter, Suzy has written songs covered by Nanci Griffith, Webb Wilder, RRAF (R.S. Field), Toni Price, and Alan Rhody as well as her own projects. She signed with Bluewater Music in Nashville as a writer and artist.

After the birth of her son, Suzy moved back to Mississippi where she still plays shows both electric and acoustic, but before leaving Austin she recorded the tapes that would become the cd, GLASS SLIPPERS (Just Hurt My Feet) (Vertical Records), a division of Bluewater Music, produced by her long-time pal and co-writer, R.S. Field. "I'm very pleased that this could come out and hope someone will want to dance along or just howl at the moon or cry with the sad notes! It rocks out very nicely, I think."