Hellhound started in 2006 as a music rehearsal studio and has since expanded to provide a whole spectrum of entertainment and performance services to clients all over the tri-state area.

 

As we've grown and expanded our repertoire, we've maintained our commitment to providing the same level of personal service that our clients have always enjoyed.  Indeed, it's personal satisfaction that motivates us to treat every event or performance we are privileged to contribute to as if it were our own production.  We also enjoy being stroked, therefore flawless performance is the name of the game.

   

To that end, we have been careful in our associations; have put in the time and given the necessary diligence to hand-picking the professionals who will provide services under our banner.  Our standards are high, hence an endorsement from us is hard earned.

   

What we offer is a single point of contact for a multitude of services performed in excess of your requirements.  We seek to acquire long term, professional and mutually beneficial relationships. Our approach has served us well in achieving that aim.  Use us once, and you'll use us again.

  

A Bit of Sentiment

  

In the early days, we were first and foremost, in service of the local underground scene.  Indeed, that commitment to the underground remains the same, for those roots run very deep.  It was the virtuoso geniuses of the underground who inspired us to bring Hellhound into being in the first place, and the very same who've made it what it is today.  We will never forget where we started and why.  Our appreciation for, devotion, gratitude and loyalty to the musicians of that scene is without limit.

  

   

Behind Our Name: a Little Blues Folklore

  

"Play like a legend without selling your soul."

  

The story of Robert Johnson's infamous "deal with the Devil"

was the inspiration for our name.  For the benefit of those who are not familiar,

we've included that story here, enjoy.

Hellhound on My Trail

"Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911 – August 16, 1938) is among the most famous Delta Blues musicians. He is an inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Considered by some to be the "Grandfather of Rock-and-Roll," his vocal phrasing, original songs, and guitar style influenced a range of musicians, including Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers Band, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton, who called Johnson "the most important blues musician who ever lived."
  
Of all the great blues musicians, Johnson was probably the most obscure. All that is known of him for certain is that he recorded 29 songs; he died young; and he was considered one of the greatest bluesmen of the Mississippi Delta.
  
In 1936 and 1937, Robert Johnson recorded such immortal blues classics as I Believe I'll Dust My Broom, Sweet Home Chicago, Come On In My Kitchen, Crossroad Blues, Traveling Riverside Blues, Love In Vain, Hellhound On My Trail, and Me And The Devil Blues. Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, in 1911 and died under still-mysterious circumstances in Greenwood, Mississippi, in 1938.

According to legend, Robert Johnson went down to the crossroads (some believe this is the intersection between Highway 61 & 49 in Clarksdale, others say it's near Dockery Plantation where Dockery Road crosses old Highway 8, between Cleveland & Ruleville), where they say he struck a deal with the Devil.  Fellow bluesman Tommy Johnson (no relation) said, "If you want to learn how to play anything you want to play and learn how to make songs yourself, you take your guitar and you go to where a road crosses that way, where a crossroad is.  Get there, be sure to get there just a little 'fore 12:00 that night so you'll know he'll be there. 

You have your guitar and be playing a piece there by yourself.... A big black man will walk up there and take your guitar, and he'll tune it. And then he'll play a piece and hand it back to you. That's the way I learned to play anything I want." (As told by LeDell Johnson to David Evans and quoted from Peter Guralnick's Searching for Robert Johnson, copyright © 1982, 1989.)
  
It's said that Johnson displayed uncanny growth in musical skill in a very short amount of time. He had only left Robinsonville for just short of two years (1931-33) and had returned a master of songwriting and the guitar. Rumors (believed to be started by Son House), began to spread  that Johnson had traveled to the crossroads in Mississippi, and in a Faustian sense, had sold his soul to the Devil for musical talent. His songs seemed to lend truth to the rumors with their frequent hellish references to the devil, hell and the crossroads. Robert Johnson, unlike his contemporary Tommy Johnson, who explicitly claimed to have signed a deal with the devil, never substantiated the theory.
  
He also makes references to hoodoo in his songs, such as "hot foot powder", (Hellhound on My Trail), a woman's "nation sack" (Come on in My Kitchen), and a "Mojo bag" (Little Queen of Spades).  Hoodoo was a religious practice of African Americans in the Deep South. Its rituals could be used to acquire skills or knowledge from Legba or other African deities believed to visit the crossroads, but they do not require one to deal one's soul to a god. It is suspected that he may have been a practitioner of hoodoo, using the rituals to acquire his musical skills. The Devil is often falsely equated with Legba in literature, but the Euro-American Devil seems to embody not just the traits of the trickster-god Legba, but also the sum of traits of other African deities. He could have tried to perform a ritual to any of these deities, including, but not limited to Legba. Acquiring his skills from any of the hoodoo gods could have easily been construed as striking a deal with Satan himself."

Hellhound On My Trail

Recorded on Sunday, 20 June, 1937 in Dallas Texas (his last recording date)

   

Watch Video

      

I got to keep moving, I got to keep moving
Blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail
Mmm, blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail
And the day keeps on remindin' me, there's a hellhound on my trail
Hellhound on my trail, hellhound on my trail
  
If today was Christmas Eve, if today was Christmas Eve
And tomorrow was Christmas day
If today was Christmas Eve and tomorrow was Christmas day
All I would need is my little sweet rider
Just to pass the time away, to pass the time away
  
You sprinkled hot foot powder, mmm, around my door
All around my door
You sprinkled hot foot powder, all around your daddy's door
It keeps me with ramblin' mind rider
Every old place I go, every old place I go
  
I can tell the wind is risin', the leaves tremblin' on the tree
Tremblin' on the tree
I can tell the wind is risin', leaves tremblin' on the tree
All I need is my little sweet woman
And to keep my company, hey, hey, hey, hey, my company