Widespread Panic

Heirs to the Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers Band, Widespread Panic was born in Athens, Georgia, in 1986. Friends since high school, singer John Bell and guitarist Mike Houser were joined by bassist Dave Schools, drummer Todd Nance, percussionist Domingo Ortiz and keyboardist John Hermann. Their first album, Space Wrangler, was released in 1988 on the independent Landslide label, before they signed with Capricorn, who released Widespread Panic in 1991, which sounded like a new departure. From then on, the releases followed one another, particularly the concert tapes the band was so fond of, which accumulated at a frenetic pace: no less than seventy-five live albums followed one another over a quarter-century. Although more restrained in the studio, the Southern band that flirted with hard rock on Ain't Life Grand (1994) made a comeback on average every two years with Bombs and Butterflies (1998), 'Til the Medicine Takes (1999) and Don't Tell the Band (2001). During the annual American tour, Mike Houser had to give up after a month, only to be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which proved fatal on August 10, 2002. His replacement, George McConnell, took part in the sessions for Ball (2003), followed by Earth to America (2006) and Free Somehow (2008), with new guitarist Jimmy Herring. After Dirty Side Down in 2010, it's Todd Nance's turn to leave the band due to health problems. The band recruited one of the Trucks musical family in Duane Trucks and recorded Street Dogs (2015), before Nance's death on August 19, 2020. Since then, the albums Snake Oil King and Hailbound Queen(2024) have been released in the same year.