Randy Weeks and the Silent Treatment
Summary: Weeks spent three decades as a member of the L.A. scene that included Lucinda Williams, Dwight Yoakam, Jim Lauderdale, Rosie Flores and Buddy Miller, and helped revive country rock while launching the Americana movement as a member of the legendary Lonesome Strangers. His song, “Can’t Let Go,” became the sole cover and biggest hit on Lucinda Williams’ Grammy winning album, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road and has since been recorded by Robert Plant and Alison Krause. Weeks’ songwriting and subject matter spans from the deep and poignant to the light and airy. He can take you from crying in your beer to dancing on the bar.
Detail: Hailing from Windom, Minnesota, Weeks grew up on a steady diet of the music of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals and The Kinks. California dreams lured him away from the Minnesota winters, and he spent nearly three decades as an integral member of the Los Angeles music scene.
As part of the scene that included Lucinda Williams, Dwight Yoakam, Jim Lauderdale, Rosie Flores and Buddy Miller, Weeks helped revive country rock and launch the Americana music movement as a member of the legendary Lonesome Strangers. The Strangers became the stronghold of California Americana, recording three influential albums, (two of which were produced by Pete Anderson (Dwight Yoakam) which, not only earned them a Top 40 Billboard hit, but thrust them into the surge of the Americana Music Scene uprising.
In the late ’90s Weeks struck out on his own, recording four highly celebrated albums. The first, Madeline (Hightone), is still considered among the most timeless albums of our generation. All Music Guide hailed Madeline as “a great album” while Salon.com called it “maybe the best breakup album since Chris Isaak’s Forever Blue.” His song, “Can’t Let Go,” became the sole cover and biggest hit on Lucinda Williams’ Grammy winning album, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (Can’t Let Go has also been recorded by Robert Plant and Alison Krause).
Not one to sit back on his laurels, Weeks followed Madeline with a series of exceptional albums: Sold Out At The Cinema, Sugarfinger and, most recently, Going My Way. Sugarfinger scored Weeks’ biggest hit with “Transistor Radio.” Described by CMT.com’s Craig Shelburne as “easy to sing, impossible to get out of your head,” this indelible tune became popular on L.A. taste-making radio stations KCRW and Indie 103.1 before spreading across the nation on terrestrial and satellite radio stations.
Upon the release of Going My Way, The Los Angeles Times named Randy Weeks the “Artist to Watch,” raving “[Weeks] puts together a batch of consistently evocative, witty lyrics that he sings in a distinctively wry Lou Reed-meets-Willie Nelson voice.”
Weeks’ albums have consistently drawn rave reviews and made the “Top 10” lists of the likes of former Billboard Magazine music editor Chris Morris, No Depression’s Peter Blackstock. In addition, he’s had songs featured in several movies and commercials, including Shallow Hal, Sunshine State and Say It Isn’t So.
Ever so cooly, Weeks’ songwriting and subject matter spans from the deep and poignant to the light and airy. It’s been said that “Weeks can take you from crying in your beer to dancing on the bar.”
