Standard-Examiner staff?lbrady@standard.net?

H

alf a decade or so ago, a group of ragtag-yet-talented pals got together periodically in Nashville, Tenn., to play good music and write songs together. ?

Those friends, who called themselves the Muzik Mafia, are still at it. In fact, nearly everyone is far more successful today than they were then. ?Among that posse was a pair of country showmen — Kenny Alphin, who now goes exclusively by the handle Big Kenny, and John Rich, who had already had some successes in the 1990s as Lonestar’s lead singer. ?Also in the mix of Mafia talent was Gretchen Wilson, a fiery, down-to-earth country singer who had paid her dues as a barmaid/singer working roadhouses in the Midwest. ?Big Kenny and John Rich went on to become the platinum-selling duo Big & Rich, and Wilson went on to score pay dirt with her debut “Redneck Woman,” which soared to the top of the country charts.?”The Muzik Mafia is just this crazy bunch of country musicians that really couldn’t get recognized on Music Row — until we got big enough that they just had to pay attention,” said Wilson, calling from her Nashville home. ?The three artists, along with another Mafia member, Cowboy Troy, have joined forces this summer as the Xtreme Muzik Tour, which stops Tuesday at the Utah State Fair. ?

Hanging out creating?

Big Kenny said that the Muzik Mafia, informally founded in about 2001 in Nashville, was always something more social in nature than it was a hard-core business venture.?”It was a group of friends who supported each other in this business — people who had deals and lost them, or who were just getting started,” he said, speaking from his Nashville digs. “We just were writing so many songs, we wanted a chance to hear what they sounded like.”?That early crew also included a lovely songbird bartender — Wilson — and an African-American shoe salesman from Dallas, who drove all the way from Texas to make the scene, and who would become country singer/rapper Cowboy Troy. ?They started meeting once a week, first in Big Kenny and his roommate’s place — the drawback being they had to clean up the next day. But then they found a joint, the tiny Pub o’ Love. ?”With the Pub o’ Love, we did not have to clean up, and it held at least a few more, if not many more, people than our living room did,” said Big Kenny. “Really, we were there just to lift each other up, and play music without prejudice. By that, I mean have a rapper and a country singer and a rock ‘n’ roller on the same stage and making great music together, stuff to get people to dance to and feel joy and be levitated — like all music should do us.”?

Fancy-free?

The origins of the latest incarnation of the Muzik Mafia started when Big & Rich and Wilson were asked to do a song and video for the remake of the movie “Footloose,” due out in October. They responded with the fun-filled dance tune “Fake I.D.,” featured in a key dance-hall scene. As in the first film, the small-town kids who just want to boogie engage in dazzling dance. ?

“The video was a lot of fun and the movie is just great — it shakes your heart and leaves it feeling good at the same time,” said Big Kenny. “And the dancing and music in it is bar-none.” ?From this video and film work came the inspiration for the Muzik Mafia tour. Since their very first tour as the Muzik Mafia, which hit the road like a band of gypsies some five or so years ago, all of the artists involved with the collective have grown and prospered. Both Big and Rich did so well they were able to take a three-year hiatus to address family and fatherhood, and were game to jump back in the ring with talented friends. ?

Said Wilson: “That first Mafia tour, now, it was at the beginning of careers. So it was a little bit chaotic and unorganized. Like, there was too many of us onstage at once, and just crazy stuff. But now, after everyone has had a chance to do their own thing for a while, we learned we can’t have couches and chandeliers and burning candles and be pulling families onstage these days.” She laughed. “That, you know, is a liability! But basically, we got the best of what that scene was, and partnered it with the professionalism we have learned, and applied it to this tour. ” ?Big Kenny says: “It is beautiful, traveling with some of the best singers in the world like we are now. We all grew up learning to sing harmony in little churches around America. You got Cowboy Troy, who is so big and has that barrel voice — but don’t let that fool you, because he is one of the sweetest guys. …?”And Gretchen she is so beautiful, and she can really rock — she can do it all. During the show, John and I will call her out and just ask her to do us a favor and sing a song a cappella. She might do John Prine or Patsy Cline, but whatever it is, she blows them away. And then when we harmonize, too, to hear all our voices together –well, it’s just moving to me. It feels good. And I haven’t seen an audience sit down all night on this tour, so I think everyone else is enjoying it, too.”?Adds Wilson: “This show is so cool, because it has all of us there. We do a Big & Rich song that I am doing background on and then we do a Gretchen song they are singing background on. We are all onstage, and all over each other’s stuff — it is awesome, it is working, and it is exciting.”