I bet these guys colored outside the lines when they were kids! That is, when they weren’t working in the orange groves or on the cattle ranch. The migrant Jamaican workers were a key influence on their music, as well as their father, Homer, who was a musician and a big fan of country music. This combined with the British invasion of the 60’s gave the Bellamy Brothers their unique style.

David & Howard have a great way of mixing music with their own brand of social commentary. Songs from this new album such as, ’Over the line’, ‘Slow Hurry’, ‘After Glow’, ‘Catahoula’, ‘Mama likes to Reggae’, will soon blend in with their songs that have become timeless standards in the dance clubs around the world, such as ‘Redneck Girl’, ‘Let Your Love Flow’, ‘I’d Lie To You For Your Love’, ‘If I said You Had A Beautiful Body’, ‘Reggae Cowboy’, and the song that both brothers say is still their favorite, ‘Old Hippie’. Howard said, "It started out as an autobiographical piece, then I added in bits of people I knew. After seven or eight verses, I had to edit it to make it more of country song. It was harder to edit than it was to write, so with what was left over, I decided to make another song. So ‘Old Hippie’ and ‘Kids of the Baby Boom’ were written in the same day."

Howard isn’t the only one writing hits that were semi-autobiographical. David’s first big hit as a writer came when he was 17. David said when they came home late from a night on the town, they would hole up in the bunkhouse, so they wouldn’t wake up their parents. "We slept on top of hay bales, and one morning I woke up with a chicken snake in my sleeping bag. He just came flying out of that sleeping bag! That gave me the idea for (I don’t Like) ‘Spiders and Snakes’, which Jim Stafford cut, and sold 3 million copies. When the song became a major pop hit, the brothers moved to Los Angeles. Howard became Stafford’s road manager & the brothers moved into Stafford’s home. .

David & Howard kept writing, and with access to Jim’s studio, they demoed a lot of songs. David said one day Jim’s business manager, Phil Gernhard, called and and ask, " Have you and Howard ever thought of being a duo?" "We are a duo!" David says. "So all of sudden they ‘discovered us’. The rest of the world also discovered them, when ‘Let Your Love Flow’ hit #1 on the pop charts in 10 countries. It became the first of their 14 #1 hits! Howard said, "Our first big tour overseas, we did 60 concerts in 63days." Some things have changed in the 20 years since that first #1. The Bellamy Brothers have had more nominations for "Duo Of The Year by the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music than any other pair in history. When I asked them about their latest tour, they both laughed. Howard said, " People are always asking us if we’re ‘on tour’, we’re never ‘off tour’. We don’t take 2 or 3 months off, we take 5 or 6 days off, fly home, check on the cows, the kids, make sure everything at the ranch is okay, then we’re back on the road. This summer we went to Australia, Denmark, Scotland, Germany, and New Zealand. I ask if they saw any strange animals while they were there. "David & I have always been into weird animals. I was actually going to be a vet when I grew up! Australia is known for having the most poisonous snakes & spiders, so we tried to befriend the Koala’s and Wombats. "We actually got to see a Tasmanian Devil", Howard laughs, "it kind of looked like David when he gets up on a bad morning!"

"We got back in time to do as many fairs & festivals in the U.S. as we could this summer. We normally do 200-250 dates a year. It’s really great when you’re on stage & you’ve got people in the audience from teenagers to grandparents, and they’re all singing along, and they know every word to our songs!"

They’ve come a long way from Darby, Florida, without ever leaving the ranch. Three generations of the family now live on the 2500 acre ranch. Howard & David oversee the cattle business themselves. They made their first public appearance at the San Antonio Rattlesnake Festival in 1968. In 1989, they initated their own event called the ‘Snake, Rattle, & Roll Jam’. This is held in conjunction with the Rattlesnake Festival, in San Antonio, Florida. This year it’s being held the weekend of Oct. 18th! See ya’ there!