Food and Music – A Perfect Combination!

Music and food is a perfect combination of sensual pleasures, and how better to honor that relationship but to create an album of songs related to food!

Music Maker Relief Foundation and chef Bill Smith have partnered together to compile the new compilation Biscuits For Your Outside Man to be released June 22 on the Music Maker label. It features one previously unreleased song out of 17 tracks.

Among the artists featured are dual Blues Music and Americana Music Association Hall of Famer Taj Mahal, National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellows John Dee Holeman and Drink Small, North Carolina Folk Heritage Fellow Algia Mae Hinton, longtime James Brown sideman Robert Lee Coleman, and Pink Anderson’s son Little Pink Anderson.

Smith has contributed brand new liner notes. ‘Biscuits’ is the 179th album to be released on Music Maker Relief Foundation. Songs range from folk standard “Shortnin’ Bread” to “Hambone,” which inspired the Bo Diddley beat. The album also includes Captain Luke’s baritone rendition of the Elvis Presley hit “Polk Salad Annie,” written by Tony Joe White. Many of the songs are hokum numbers that function as double entendre, using food as a way to talk about sexuality.

Smith is as well-known for his sumptuous take on Southern comfort food as he is for his exceptional food writing—including the New York Times Notable and Food & Wine Best-of-the-Best cookbook Seasoned in the South and his recent book, the bestselling Savor the South title, Crabs & Oysters. He stands out as the only James Beard Foundation “America’s Classic Restaurant” chef ever to have been named a final-five finalist for Best Chef in the Southeast—and twice.

Among the recipes that have become classics are Green Peach Salad (featured in the New York Times), Tomato & Watermelon Salad (featured on the cover of Southern Living), Cheesepork! (the southern schnitzel), Southern Risotto & Tamales and of course his many desserts, including his most famous, Honeysuckle Sorbet and Atlantic Beach Pie (dubbed by NPR the “Oh, My God Pie”).

Biscuits For Your Outside Man Track Listing

1.    Cook Cornbread For Your Husband (Biscuits For Your Outside Man) – Algia Mae Hinton
2.    Shuckin’ Corn – Cootie Stark
3.    Poke Salad Annie – Captain Luke
4.    Shortnin’ Bread – Neal Pattman & Taj Mahal
5.    Livin’ in a BBQ World – Drink Small
6.    Greasy Greens – George Higgs
7.    Cherry Pie – Adolphus Bell
8.    Cook Good Salad – Little Pink Anderson
9.    Down on the Farm – Guitar Gabriel
10.  Cookie Jar – Robert Lee Coleman
11.  Lima Beans – Algia Mae Hinton
12.  Cabbage Man – Sam Frazier, Jr.
13.  Chicken Pie – Mudcat
14.  Shortnin’ Bread – Red Rover
15.  Chicken Raid – Mr. Frank Edwards
16.  Old Bill – Big Boy Henry
17.  Hambone – John Dee Holeman