It is always important for anyone who may have a great product to have a marketing plan just as strong.  That is what I have tried to do with the Album, Kowbelle, and some people are really talking about a very special and unique car.  Kowbelle's 'rolling billboard on wheels' is a 1988 Lincoln Towncar and is in nice condition inside, outside, and under the hood.  This is no ordinary Towncar, but one that makes heads turn and children laugh and smile.  It is a happy car and one that serves an important role as Kowbelle's true representation.

  About four years ago, I was looking for a used white Lincoln Towncar (preferably 1988) to replace another one I had that had been crushed a year earlier.  This unfortunate car was a victim of someone who fell asleep at the wheel at 10 in the morning.  My Towncar was parked at my mechanics, a business located on the side of and close to the westbound lane of the main road going into town.  This car was only parked there for less than a day, and when the sleepy driver roamed off the road, he had hit my mechanics truck and sandwiched my car between the truck and a SUV.  Needless to say, the Towncar was not only totaled, but the back seat area was caved in about halfway from the force of the bumber of the large truck.  Two good newses here.  First the sleepy driver was unharmed, and second, my insurance paid me about $600 over what I invested in this car.

  I was not even thinking about writing and coordinating a country music album at the time, but had the itch to find another Lincoln about a year later.  The Summer of 2009 found me in Maryville, Tennessee looking at a Lincoln, much similar to the one that got crushed and forgotten.  This one had a real nice interior and seemed to be in better shape as far as the body and paint.  I went ahead at bought it for $1,000, and drove it in the pouring rain at night for two hours until I got home.  For the next week or so, I detailed the inside and outside of the car and was quite pleased until the transmission gave out.  I decided to stick with it and got the tranny rebuilt.

  I was always curious how a pair of bullhorns would look like mounted on the hood of a Towncar of this style.  Usually they worked well with any Eldorado of the mid Seventies.  I asked my Mom for some horns for Christmas in 2010 and she found a nice pair saying, "Here you go son.  But I have no idea what you want to do with them".  I hung the horns on a wall in my cabin and they stayed up there for a good year and came down after we finished the Album in December, 2011.  About a month later, it all came to me, but all along I may have been thinking subconciously.  The bull horns got mounted on the hood of the Towncar, and the black patches came about another month later.  In April, a specialized car horn was installed so the this car would 'moo'.  (This horn also boasts 9 other animal calls and ten different sounding sirens as well).  And there it was, the perfect advertising tool for Kowbelle.

  These days, the KattleKar grazes mostly in the Chattanooga area and can be seen downtown on occasion,  cruising along a scenic country road, or hanging out at car shows and cruise- ins.  There is a nice restaurant with a large outdoor eating area close to the street where I like to drive by slowly with this mooing car.  The best thing here is that kids love this car and it brings smiles to their parents.  One of Kowbelle's missions is to make people happy, feel good about things, and appreciate great experiences.  I try do do this through our music and with the humor and wit behind this KattleKar.

  Hopefully this car will become a famous 'celebrity'.  He has so much personality and appeal already.

Check out the before and after pictures below!

Lou Ross

 
This is a classic Saturday Night Live clip with Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken that will keep you laughing from beginning to end!
 

  Writing an entire country music album was a wonderful experience and a great opportunity to get to know myself better.  Three of the songs were true, in every detail, of my personal account of certain events.  Eight of these songs were written in a six week period as I was experiencing a writers "rush".  What worked for me in song writing was to think of a neat story and think about it for a day and play around with rhyming words related to the story.  When I was ready, I would sit down and write the whole thing almost without pause.  The words were written in my head already and found their way onto paper rather easily.
  

  4th of July weekend in 2011 found me in Houston visiting a good friend.  I had to write 3 more songs in order to offer a full-length Album.  I wrote 2 of them on the 3rd, and had one left to go.  The next day we went to Surfside Beach where I did my most favorite thing, bodysurfing.  I love the water and I love to swim.  We rode our bikes on the beach for a couple of miles and on the way back, I saw something amazing and just yelled to my friend to "Stop!".  And there it was.  Spelled out on the sand, very neatly and large, was the phrase, "I Love my Family".  The 'word' Love was in the shape of a heart. 
 
  As my friend was taking pictures of this amazing creation, a little girl, no more than 9 years old, runs up to us and proudly said that her Mom made this.  The girls name was Casey and I told her that  I had a golden retriever with the same cool name.  The rest of her family came down to greet us; Mom, Dad and her little brother.  We all chatted for quite awhile and I told them how wonderful and how impressed I was with this arrangement of shells.  I finally looked at Casey and asked her what was the most important thing in life.  As I expected, she beamed and shouted out "Family".  I told her that when she has a family some day, maybe it would be a great family tradition for them to spell out this phrase in shells every time they go to the beach.  The family assured me that that was a good idea and plan to start this tradition.

  My friend and I eventually left and rode our bikes away.  Within a minute, I told him that I finally have my last song.  That night I wrote this song in about 40 minutes.  The song writing part of the album was done and I was relieved, tired, and excited all at the same time.

  I never told Casey and her family that I was working on a Country Music album, but wished I had.  I think about Casey now and then and hope one day she will hear this song, because when she does, she will know that those shells were hers.  I hope some day I can meet the family and thank them for the inspiration that they gave me to write this song and finally finish the album. 

  Three points I want to make here.  First, family is so important and we all must not take our families for granted, but to love each and every one every single day,  Second, it is amazing how life can always bring people together perhaps coincidentally and maybe only briefly, but in a way where each one gains inspiration from the other.  Where that person that you may run into actually touches your life in a special way.  And last, although writing lyrics for a song can be challenging, sometimes a story or idea can just fall into your lap magically.   Perhaps that is the the most fun and rewarding aspect to writing songs.  And when someone may have 'writers block', that can all be resolved with a single and powerful experience.  Just look around and you will see that there is so many really neat things out there to be discovered and appreciated.  And maybe Casey knows that more than most of us. 


Lou Ross



 

  As hurricane/ tropical storm/ depression Isaac winds down, its remanence somehow making its way back to the northern Gulf as of yesterday, we can only be reminded and teased of this awful storm.  It lingered in the mid Mississippi and Ohio Valleys and dumped lots of rain on drought stricken areas, but just too late for many farmers who have already suffered huge crop losses.  Central Kansas saw little to no rain and remains one of the worst drought areas.  Isaac spawned more tornadoes, flooding and frustration.  Haunting images from Isaac's unrelentless wrath keep pouring in, including a picture of two cows stranded on a strip of land in Louisiana.  When it comes to animals in a flood situation, it seems that we see either cows stranded somewhere or dogs confined to a rooftop.  Everyone likes animals and these images are disturbing along with what storm victims and communities have gone through as well. 


  I  have to admit that, although natural disasters can be devastating overall, I am fascinated by climatology, meteorology, and environmental science, the latter being a concentration of study for me in college.  I always felt that I would make a great weatherman but never got there.  However my interest in weather phenomena is still strong.  I watch the Weather Channel at least 20 hours a week.  I do not "look forward" to seeing natural disasters occur, but just realize that they are going to happen one way or another, and are a part of nature and the Earth's natural balance.  If any natural disaster happens in the future, I am going to process it and write about it in this Blog; you can bet on it.

  As part of my Kowbelle album, "Our Red Cross", I wrote a song about a scary and awful time over the South last April 27, 2011.  It is a true song about the monumental and deadly tornado outbreaks over the region.  The song refers to a "back cover of a Cullman, Alabama phonebook"  that I found in my back woods the following day.  It had traveled 110 miles and landed here.  I have spoken to alot of locals since and some have all reported finding things on the ground, some things such as invoices or utility bills with Cullman printed on them. 

 After intense investigation, I concluded eventually that the F-3 tornado that hit Cullman midday, carried lots of debris and dumped it over the Tennessee Valley 3 hours later.  I will never forget the day when I saw the sky raining with debris that afternoon.  Perhaps it may be a good time to refer to the song and video, "Our Red Cross" which you can view below.  It really is a tearjerker and may really get you to think about things and that some thing in life, and life itself, should not be taken for granted.

 I want to just take a moment to tell you that I have been recently certified in Disaster Assessment for the local Chapter of the Red Cross and it has really been an eye opening experience.  This was a great opportunity to learn more about the organization and about myself.  I do volunteer occasionally in various ways when I have time, but want to do more when I can.  The Red Cross can always use more volunteers and they are great to work with.  They are like a family full of compassionate individuals waiting to do whatever it takes to help those in need. 

 Lets try to always think about those people who have suffered through and rose above these disastrous events, and especially to those that we have lost.  And lets never forget that we as individuals have a responsibility to reach out to the weak when we may be strong.

Lou Ross