The Connells Release Live Acoustic Version of 'Running Mary' From 30th Anniversary Reissue of Breakthrough Album 'Ring'

Craft Recordings is celebrating the 30th anniversary of The Connells’ breakthrough album, Ring, with its first widely available vinyl reissue and a bonus-filled CD. Today the group has also shared a previously unheard live acoustic version of “Running Mary” which is featured along with other recently discovered versions of tracks from Ring on this bonus-filled release.

The track is currently streaming via Popdose who writes that the song provides, "a moment which takes the listener back even further, placing them in a moment that feels like what it must have been like to be in the room as the songs were taking shape during the writing process."

"For me the songwriting process can be somewhat accidental..." writes guitarist and songwriter Mike Connell. "And often times, it's only long after the fact that I realize that I really like a song. That was the case with 'Running Mary.' It's become one of my favorite songs to perform live."

“Running Mary” (live acoustic version) follows the release of previously unheard demos for “Carry My Picture” which premiered with BrooklynVegan, and the album’s hit single “‘74-’75.”

In stores August 11th, and available for pre-order now, the album includes the North Carolina band’s enduring Top Ten international hit, “‘74-’75,” plus such favorites as “Slackjawed” and “New Boy.” Both formats of the album have been newly remastered by Brent Lambert at Carrboro, NC’s The Kitchen, and include 21 bonus tracks, including rare B-sides and 12 previously unreleased demos. Rounding out the packages are new liner notes by the Raleigh-based journalist and author David Menconi, featuring new interviews with the band. A very limited run of yellow LP pressings of the album are also available to pre-order exclusively through the band’s store.

Long heralded as one of North Carolina’s most successful indie rock bands, The Connells carved out a niche for themselves in the early ‘90s alt-rock scene with their special brand of introspective jangle pop. The band was formed in Raleigh in the early to mid-80s by brothers Mike Connell (vocals, guitar) and David Connell (bass), and soon expanded to include Doug McMillan (vocals), Peele Wimberley (percussion), and George Huntley (guitar, vocals). They played their first show ever in September of 1984, and in 1986, the band released their debut LP, Darker Days, followed by the Mitch Easter-produced Boylan Heights (1987). They continued to build momentum, entering the Billboard 200 with 1989’s Fun & Games and 1990’s One Simple Word, and scoring a string of college radio hits like “Something to Say,” “Stone Cold Yesterday,” and “Get a Gun.” 

After three years of steady touring, the band (which now included keyboardist Steve Potak, who joined the band in the Fall of 1990) entered Woodstock’s Bearsville Studios with producer Lou Giordano – whose future credits would include the Goo Goo Dolls, Paul Westerberg, and Taking Back Sunday – to record their fifth LP, Ring. Building upon the success of their earlier albums, The Connells delivered a supremely catchy collection of radio-friendly songs, blending power pop, bittersweet lyrics, sweeping harmonies, and rootsy guitars – particularly on favorites like  “Slackjawed” (a Top 10 hit on Billboard’s Alternative chart), “Doin’ You,” “Carry My Picture,” and “New Boy” (also issued as an EP).

Released in the fall of 1993, the album is perhaps best remembered for its pensive breakout hit, “‘74-‘75.” Steeped in nostalgia, the song finds Mike Connell reflecting on failed relationships, and the fleeting nature of time. The single’s poignant video, directed by Mark Pellington, was inspired by Michael Apted’s Up documentary film series and focused on graduates of Raleigh’s Broughton High School Class of 1975 (attended by several members of the Connells), juxtaposing new footage against their yearbook photos. In 2015, to commemorate the class’s 40th anniversary, nearly everyone involved reunited to shoot an updated visual. In celebration of the reissue of the album, the video has been remastered from the original tapes and is available to view now in HD for the first time ever.

While “‘74-‘75” has long remained an underground favorite in the US, it became a massive hit abroad nearly two years after Ring’s release, landing in the Top 10 in 11 European countries, including Sweden and Norway, where it hit No.1. In the UK, meanwhile, it peaked at No.14, while it ranked at No.23 on Europe’s year-end chart for 1995. The album found success as well on the charts – breaking the Billboard 200 and landing in the Top 40 in the UK and across Europe. After the release of Ring, the band embarked on extensive international touring, including a show in Rome supporting the legendary Def Leppard, before a crowd of 100,000.

Over the decades, The Connells and Ring have frequently received fond words from the press, including Trouser Press, who hailed the album’s “brilliant pieces of pop songcraft.” Reflecting on the record, AllMusic praised Ring as the band’s “strongest effort to date,” adding that it “established the Connells as the forerunners in the group of jangle pop bands that had previously lived largely in the shadow of R.E.M.” In another retrospective, American Songwriter declared, “The Connells are a thinking person’s band, flush with a sobering attitude even in the midst of spawning their rock and roll revelry. Theirs is a mostly pensive perspective, one that adds extra emphasis to each of their songs.”

In the years following Ring, The Connells released three more albums (1996’s Weird Food and Devastation, 1998’s Still Life, and 2001’s Old School Dropouts) before taking a hiatus from recording. In 2021, the band – which currently includes the Connell brothers, MacMillan and Potak, plus guitarist Mike Ayers and drummer Rob Ladd – returned with their first album in a decade, the acclaimed Steadman’s Wake. 

Watch the new acoustic visualizer here:

Photo Credit: Ed Morgan

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