Feeling burned out on underground epics after the disastrous Mole Show tour, The Residents decided to postpone work on Part Three of the Mole Trilogy. But they needed a project, and Ralph Records said they had to make some money, an all but foreign concept for a band both lauded and dismissed for its doggedly uncommercial approach to the music business. Typically, after a brief period of reflection, the group decided to go in two directions, both familiar, but in different ways. In retrospect, it was no surprise that The Residents moved back toward the comfort and success they had achieved reinterpreting the music of other composers but, unexpectedly, the new project was in some ways even more extravagant than the overly ambitious Mole Trilogy. Taking the Residential concept of "music about music" to its logical extreme, the band threw itself into a serious, long-term project grandiosely titled The American Composers Series.

Essentially, the concept was a musical exploration of various American composers, two at a time, juxtaposing one against the other, with each featured on opposite sides of an LP. The band would first deconstruct the music then rebuild it around the Residential values of naivete, atonal innocence and playful pretense. By breaking break down the mythology surrounding the celebrated composers and reducing the music to its essence, The Residents purposefully created the lofty goal of imposing their own Theory of Obscurity on other famous musicians. Satisfied with their new direction, the group then announced a goal of interpreting twenty different composers on ten albums over a period of sixteen years, from 1984 to 2001.

The first album, George & James, interpreted the music of George Gershwin and James Brown. The band followed this with John Philip Sousa and Hank Williams on Stars & Hank Forever. Audaciously appropriating the intro of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean, the band released a single based on Williams's 'Kaw-Liga," which shockingly sold in the six figures, making The American Composers Series a huge financial success for The Residents.

The third album in the series was tentatively titled The Trouble with Harrys, featuring the music of Harry Partch and Harry Nilsson, but The Residents unexpectedly abandoned the project in 1986. As LPs lost sales to CDs, the music business was changing; in addition, despite the success of Kaw-Liga, music publishing rights - the fees paid to composers - were getting more expensive. Meanwhile it took longer to record CDs, which held 50-75% more music than LPs, and finally, part of the charm of series was its juxtaposition of one composer against another, a non-existent feature on one sided CDs. In addition the sales of Ralph's other groups were poor. Consequently, the answer to this losing equation was touring so The Residents reluctantly ended the American Composers series and turned their efforts to Cube-E, arguably, their most successful tour.

Quite a few ideas were bounced around during the planning of the abandoned series. The band wanted to include Captain Beefheart, Sun Ra, Smokey Robinson, Bob Dylan, Charles Ives, Stevie Wonder, Moondog, Barry White, Scott Joplin and Brian Wilson in the series, and actually started work on several compositions by Bob Dylan and Barry White for a volume tentatively titled Bob & the Blob. Some of these preliminary attempts were later compiled and released on UWEB's Daydream B-Liver collection.

While critics complained that the series was nothing new for the band, referring to it as "modest," "lacking ambition" and "predictable," the Cryptic Corporation has insisted the series, by design, was never intended to break new ground. Furthermore, they claimed the concept should primarily be viewed as an educational experience for the band; in addition, by binding the work with the Theory of Obscurity, the only needs to be gratified in the project were those of the artist. Regardless, with only two of the ten projected albums completed, the question of the artists' satisfaction relative to The American Composers Series remains unanswered.

It's not been so long ago that I was forced to recall the derivation of a particular Residents' tune, theory, or personification, but it has been a long time since I thought about the origination of the American Composers Series. The Residents' version of ANYBODY ELSE'S music had always made sense to me (Can you recall a time when you didn't want The Residents to do Elvis?). After The Third Reich 'N' Roll, I was always ready to hear The Residents mess with other people's music. A Resident tells me now that coming off the Mole Show tour, the rigors of winding down, and the need to ignore the pressure of producing something entirely from scratch, made them think about what already existed that would be good to attack with Residency. I heard early-on the names of the possible composers to be "done," and was delighted at the first combination: George Gershwin and James Brown. But I was scared about the outcome of GG, what with the stuff being closer to straight music than what The Residents had tackled so far. (You answer: What's the difference between the straightness of "Rhapsody in Blue" and the straightness of "Judy in Disguise?") Contrary to most other projects, I heard the full Residents' Gershwin only after most of the finishing musical touches, and said, "Well, you certainly did it, didn't you?" and meant that the majestic GG was there--plus, it was a young, sexy and non-righteous kind of majestic. For me, appreciating James came more slowly: the evolution of JB/Rez vocals, and getting over JB as a god took time. You answer: Did you go searching for your old 'Live at the Apollo' album after hearing The Residents do JB to refresh yourself re the original growling and timing? The next two, Hank Williams and John Phillip Sousa, were treated less like honored house guests and more like old, beloved flannel shirts that you wear til they're raw, but whose plaids you can't change. So, Stars & Hank Forever is more comfortable in presenting these two as recognizable favorites, rather than brainwashing you into a new opinion.

Yes, you take some of this stuff as cartoonie. Some goes the range from close, hands-on, heart wringing to distance-in-drag; from an exploitation of new recording equipment to dogged determinism to make a release date; from "Great Risks that Work" to belabored, old discordant discord; from sagginess to the very edge of thralldom; from Perfection to the Melmac of Music. (You answer: Do you keep your keyboard by your bed? What do you jot your dreams down on?) The Residents aren't just words slathered on the tongue without benefit of pronunciation: you can tell the difference between the words lying on the salt buds, and the ones lying on the sweet and sour buds, and somewhere along the way, you begin to rely on the peculiar taste. So you want the next American Composer Series Combo to be Allen Toussaint with Moondog, Willie Dixon with Leonard Bernstein, or Charles Mingus with Brian Wilson? (You answer.) I'm asking for Rachmaninov with Perez Prado, no matter what their nationalities.

-Nessie Lessons

George & James consists of covers of works by George Gershwin (1898-1937) and James Brown (1933-2006). The album notes include a brief introduction to the American Composers Series concept followed by brief biographies of the two artists and of The Residents, describing them as "a group of pseudo-artists who freely indulge themselves in the Great American Culture". It was also the first Residents album to use computer-created art on the cover and in the promotional video, It's a Man's Man's Man's World.
The James Brown side is based on Brown's Live at the Apollo, one of the first live albums and the most successful R&B album ever. The Resident's version simulates the live sound of the Apollo concert with crowd noises taken from the Mole Show performance in Utrech, Holland (the same show used for the The Mole Show: Live in Holland recording). James Brown's part is taken by The Residents' lead singer, who transforms the Godfather of Soul into a growling voice reminiscent of the Angakok from Eskimo.

George Gershwin (1898-1937)
George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, New York. At 21 he had his first hit song, "Swanee." At 24, Gershwin wrote a one-act opera, "135th Street," which paved the way for the 1924 premiere of "Rhapsody in Blue." "Rhapsody" combined elements of European classical music with jazz, which was gaining much interest at the time.

One of America's most prolific songwriters, Gershwin wrote for Hollywood, Broadway, and the concert hall before succumbing to a brain tumor at the age of 39.


James Brown (1933- )
Overcoming a childhood of poverty, Brown rows to become America's first successful black artist with his recording of please please please and 1956. 6 years later he recorded live at the Apollo, which became the largest selling R&B album of the time. James Brown has had over 20 singles that sold a million copies and is still regarded as the Godfather of Soul and the hardest working man in Show Business.

Man's World was considered by The Residents as the single from the album, GEORGE & JAMES although it does not appear on that album.

Note: 4000 copies of this release were pressed on white vinyl with a blue "iris" label and clear sleeve with red veins printed on it to achieve an eyeball effect. 300 of these had the labels for the A and B sides switched. 5000 copies were also pressed on black vinyl and referred to as "The Black Single" with no accompanying artwork. The Korova release is on black vinyl with simple white computer type on a black background on the sleeve.

In the notes to this album the band describes themselves as being interested in making music about music because of their respect for music as content as well as form. Here, they cover works by Hank Williams, Sr. (1923-1953), and John Philip Sousa (1854-1932).
Sousaside, the Sousa side of the album, is a simulated marching-band parade. One band approaches, fading in, then fades out as the next fades in. The music is surrounded by crowd noises, airplanes flying over, and the like. The album ends with an anticlimactic fade-out as the last band marches off, just like a real parade. Sousaside combines the trademark Residents covering style with the soundscaping ideas the band first developed for Eskimo.

The Hank Williams songs are handled in a very different manner than James Brown's had been on George & James. The Residents' Brown had been completely unintelligible, sounding much like the shaman character on Eskimo. Hank Williams, on the other hand, comes through very clearly on this album and the songs are much more accessible, more like what most people expect in a cover rather than the extreme deconstruction The Residents usually do. The version of Jambalaya is downright understated. Stars & Hank Forever did much better than George & James had due to a large part to accessibility of the Hank Williams side. Stars & Hank did so well, in fact, that Torso Records in Europe remixed the Kaw-liga track into a couple of singles. The Sousa music, while well done, was not so well received by the critics, probably due to the extreme contrast in style with the Hank Williams side.

Hank Williams (1923 - 1953)
Hank Williams, at the age of twelve, met and became influenced by Rufe "Tee-tot" Payne, a black musician who taught him the rudiments of public performance. Mr. Williams formed his first working honkytonk band at the age of fourteen. At 26 he had his first number one C&W smash, "Lovesick Blues." The reception at his Grand Ole Opry debut required six encores to appease the audience.

Unfortunately, Hank did not handle stardom too well. Over the following three years, with the help of booze and pills, he managed to undo just about everything he had done.

Hank Williams died of unknown causes in the back seat of his powder-blue Cadillac convertible on New Year's Eve at the age of 29.


John Philip Sousa (1854-1932)
Mr. Sousa was born in Washington DC shortly after the end of the Civil War. No doubt as a child he was thrilled by the sight of marching soldiers and military bands. At the age of fourteen he joined the United States Marines Band and became its conductor at the age of 26. He also wrote a few novels, operettas, and a world anthology of national songs, but it was his marches, over a hundred of them, that made Sousa one of the most famous men of his day and earned him the still undisputed title of "The March King.".

The "King" died of old age at 78, rich, internationally famous, and still writing marches.

Kaw-Liga is a cover of the song by Hank Williams, Sr. which originally appeared on Stars & Hank Forever. It was first released as a single, then in various editions of remixes, with most being collected on CD in 1994.

Kaw-Liga (1986)

This was a 2000 picture disk series pressed on transparent red vinyl (though the first 28 were pressed on regular black by mistake). 3000 copies were then pressed on plain black with the picture disk artwork on the sleeve. It contains Kaw-Liga and Stars and Stripes Forever from the Sousaside side of Stars & Hank Forever.


Kaw-Liga Dance Mix (1986)

Contains Prariemix, the original version, and Horrormix. There is also a 3" CD release of this single.


Kaw-Liga Housey Mix (1989)

Contains The Housey Mix, The Stripped Mix, and Nightmare Mix II.


Poor Kaw-Liga's Pain (1994)

This CD release is a collection of the original Kaw-liga, all of the above mixes, a new mix, and a live version.


Kaw-Liga (2013)
A Record Store Day release, this 3-track 12" vinyl is pressed on marbled black and purple vinyl. Tracks are all previously released: Prairie Mix, Original Mix, Stripped Mix

Hit the Road Jack was considered by The Residents as the single from an album in the American Composers Series that was never finished. It would have combined the compositions of Ray Charles with Sun Ra.

Sun Ra sketches made it into "Daydream in Space" from the CD, Daydream B-Liver.