The Stapletons

East County Jailhouse

Before the major label creations of the present, Cincinnati’s Stapletons were four brothers playing their hearts-out rock roots every weekend in the tri-state area. They had new songs every show. Their sound grew over the years this review covers. Jody, Lance, and them released three albums, adding a fifth brother on the Hammond keys, and getting close to getting signed. But only close. A tough blow to the scene. The band split up from the stress of this, perhaps over who was able to go on tour for nothing and who couldn’t, among that which only money fixes. But until then fifty times a year they let us know something of the way that life in that valley could be. It wasn’t city, high or low, or expressways as though they’d always been there. It was country in a way that allowed for a commendation. It was the antidote to a lot of what was broadcast locally in a place that liked to make newsreaders into mayors.

In these years Nick Clooney ran for office cross the river. Generationally the people there looked up to the Clooneys. Nick gave them the news, and his sister Rosemary was in the movies and had lovely xmas records. On election day though the people went for some Tartouffe.