Malford Milligan and Tin Cadillac Acoustic Live at The Cactus Cafe!

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Malford Milligan is an American, Austin, Texas-based soul, blues and gospel singer who has been compared to Otis Redding, Al Green and James Carr. He is an eight-time award-winner as “Best Vocalist” at the annual Austin Music Awards (last awarded in 2015).

In 1994, he helped form and fronted the Texas supergroup, Storyville, with guitarists David Holt, David Grissom, and the rhythm section from Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble, which included bassist Tommy Shannon, and drummer Chris Layton. The band released three albums: Bluest Eyes (1994), A Piece Of Your Soul (1996) and Dog Years (1998). As a session singer, Milligan was in great demand. He toured and worked on albums together with other outstanding musicians, including Doyle Bramhall II, Marcia Ball, Alejandro Escovedo, Sue Foley, Eric Johnson, Stephen Bruton, Chris Smither and Hal Ketchum. During this period he also expanded his horizons from strictly secular music, releasing the two Gospel albums The Gospel According to Austin (2000) and The Gospel According to Austin, Vol. 2 (2001). For several decades, Malford has been the lead-singer at the weekly Blue Monday nights at the legendary Antone’s Nightclub, in the house-band that was (and still is) lead by Derek O’Brien, one of the most respected blues-guitarists all through Austin’s musical history.

Malford appeared on Live And Beyond, by Alien Love Child featuring fellow Austin guitarist Eric Johnson, in 2000. He can be heard on “Once a Part of Me” and “Don’t Cha Know”. That same year he also contributed vocals to Throw Me A Bone, by local band Neighbor’s Dog, on “Sister Sister”, “Bridge To The Other Side” and “Today”. In 2001 a remake of the Joe Tex classic “I Want To Do Everything For You” was recorded as a duet with Toni Price, and was released on her Midnight Pumpkin album. That same year Malford was also featured on two songs on the Double Trouble album Been A Long Time (“Cry Sky” and “Skyscraper”) plus the nationwide tour that followed the release of that album. Milligan also fronted ex-Was Not Was guitarist Randy Jacobs’ band The Boneshakers in 2001-2003, releasing the albums Pouring Gasoline in 2001 and Put Some Booty On It in 2002. He left The Boneshakers to form his own group in Austin, confusingly called The Malford Milligan Band (like its Dutch predecessor), which self-released Rides Again in 2004 [3] and No Good Deed Goes Unpunished in 2006.

In 2002 Milligan recorded and released the critically acclaimed Sweet Cherry Soul album, backed by a band from The Netherlands that was put together by Milligan’s friend and Dutch musician/producer Jack Hustinx. The album contains original material written by Milligan & Hustinx as well as a blend of known and obscure Soul, Rhythm & Blues and Gospel classics. Also two songs written by Milligan’s close friend Stephen Bruton were included. This band, The Malford Milligan Band, played three very successful tours in The Netherlands in 2002-2003, as well as a tour in and around Milligan’s hometown Austin, Texas in 2003. In 2007 Milligan performed, alongside a stellar cast of musical friends of Stephen Bruton such as Delbert McClinton, Bonnie Raitt, Kris Kristofferson, Joe Ely and Ruthie Foster at the big “Road To Austin” concert in Austin, which was later released as a concert-movie and DVD in 2015. Also in 2007, Malford embarked on the M-P-TU project, together with guitarist Phil Brown, bass-player Mark Andres and drummer Pat Mastelotto. The band released an album entitled M-P-TU in 2008. During that time (2007/2009) Milligan was touring with Greg Koch, a multifaceted electric guitarist capable of fluently playing a gamut of musical styles, as well. Together they formed a band called Nation Sack — drawing their name from the lyrics of a Robert Johnson song entitled “Come On in My Kitchen” — who released an album under the same name in 2009 which includes a blending of electric blues and rock styles. When performing live, Nation Sack is known to cover songs from Jeff Beck and Led Zeppelin, such as “Hi-Ho Silver Lining,” “Rock and Roll,” and excerpts from such classic tracks as “Dazed and Confused” and “Heartbreaker.” With Greg Koch, Malford released two albums: Live On The Radio (2007) and Nation Sack (2009).