Blood Feud released by Dave Adkins, with Larry Cordle

Mountain Fever Records has released a first single from their upcoming album from Dave Adkins, Right Or Wrong.

The song, Blood Feud, is a retelling of the familiar story of the deadly discord between the Hatfield and McCoy families during the Civil War era. The two sides fought bitterly for a generation about divisions over state and North-South loyalties, not to mention family honor and political connections. The McCoys of Kentucky and the Hatfields of West Virginia battled each other for three decades, with at least a dozen killed between the two families.

When Adkins and Larry Cordle were planning to write together recently, the topic of the feud came up. Both men hail from eastern Kentucky, and Cord says that he wanted in from the moment Dave shared the idea with him.

“After our initial conversation about the song idea and Dave singing me what he already had, I just was hoping, HOPING that I’d get a chance to co-write the piece with him. We had done our homework. I bought four books on the feud from Amazon and Dave had a script that his daughter played the tragic part of Roseanna McCoy in. We read the whole play and all the books before convening the writing session. We were prepared.”

Once it was complete, Adkins asked Cord to join him in the studio, and with Terry Baucom on banjo and Adam Steffey on mandolin, they feel like they have created an iconic track.

Dave says that working with Larry was a special experience for him.

“Writing Blood Feud with Larry Cordle was a dream come true. To have him sing this song with me on my new record is a check off of my bucket list. Thankful, blessed, and grateful are just a few of the words to describe how I feel about having Larry’s help in bringing life to this song. The time we spent researching, reading, and discussing the story was so worth it to me and I hope it is to everybody that hears it.”

Blood Feud is now available for download purchase from popular online sites, and to radio programmers via AirPlay Direct.

The full album is set to drop on March 9.

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About the Author

John Lawless

John had served as primary author and editor for The Bluegrass Blog from its launch in 2006 until being folded into Bluegrass Today in September of 2011. He continues in that capacity here, managing a strong team of columnists and correspondents.