Agents of Good Roots

Agents of Good Roots was a band out of Virginia that never quite made it. They toured with Blues Traveler and Dave Matthews Band, and they had (and still have) a following in Virginia where they occasionally get back together to play a club like Alley Katz or Friday Cheers.

They had one studio produced/major label album, "One by One" on RCA, but there is quite a lot of live stuff available for free downloading.

Some of their best songs are Come on, Upspin, I'll Be Back, The Ballad of Hobby and the Piano, Mercury Jones, and their best known song, Smiling Up the Frown.

On most songs the lead singer (and writer) is Andrew Winn, who has a very distinctive raspy voice, the result of a serious ski accident when he was a child that did permanent damage to his vocal cords.

Overall the band's sound is heavily influence by jazz and blues riffs and some of the laster Dave matthews stuff sounds a lot like Agents (Joyride, in particular, is almost exactly like an Agent's song).

The members fo Agents of Good Roots where Andrew Winn, Brian Jones, J.C. Kuhl, and Stewart Myers