‘Fear the Beer: A Musical Salute to the Milwaukee Brewers’
$10 digital/$12 CD
All proceeds will go to the Wisconsin Humane Society
Nate Gibson fell in love with the Milwaukee Brewers through the sounds of the game — specifically the team’s iconic play-by-play announcer, the late Bob Uecker.
“The best call guy in the country happen(ed) to be right here in Wisconsin,” said Gibson, a Madison-based musician and audio-visual preservation archivist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison library system.
The Brewers are set to start the postseason with the best record in baseball. Gibson, who co-hosts “Back to the Country” on WORT/89.9FM, decided to commemorate the occasion by making a country album.
Nate Gibson was partially inspired to make his Brewers celebration album by the rallying songs made to cheer on the Brewers in the 1980s.
Photo courtesy of Nate Gibson
As a sport played before the ubiquity of television, baseball has a long history with sound, including music. Gibson’s album, called “Fear the Beer: A Musical Salute to the Milwaukee Brewers,” includes 12 songs that cover the different eras and cultural touchpoints of Brewers lore.
These include the sixth inning Famous Racing Sausages (“The Sausage Race is On”) and the multiple seasons that country star and pro baseball player Charley Pride participated in spring training with the team (“The Jackie Robinson of Country Music”).
The album, released on Sept. 26, is available on Bandcamp. Digital copies are $10 and CDs are $12. All proceeds will go to the Wisconsin Humane Society, a tribute to Hank the Dog, the Brewers’ unofficial mascot, who passed away in September 2024.
The Brewers will play their first postseason game on Oct. 4 at American Family Field. They’ll play the Chicago Cubs — Gibson is excited for the two teams of the I-94 rivalry to face off in the first round of the postseason. “I feel like in order to win it all, you’ve got to go through your rivals,” he said.
Nate Gibson has recorded albums both solo and with bands, including Nate Gibson & the Stardazers.
SHARON VANORNY
Gibson has released albums solo and with his band, Nate Gibson and the Stardazers. For him, this new album is a joyful expression of a historic moment for the team. He finished the entire album in four weeks, eager to get it done before the postseason began.
“I find joy in country music,” Gibson said. “I find joy in baseball, and I find joy in projects — completing an idea, envisioning something, and seeing it through.”
‘King Vaughn’s bat and Johnny’s ghost’
Nate Gibson called recording his Brewers country album a “bedroom studio project.” He recorded vocals in his niece’s bedroom and the album was mixed by his nephew, Ethan Gibson of the metal band FAHR.
Photo courtesy of Nate Gibson
According to Gibson, country music and baseball go hand in hand. He links the growth of country radio programs like the Grand Ole Opry to the golden age of baseball, roughly from about the 1920s to the 1950s. When people weren’t surfing the radio waves for the broadcast of the New York Yankees vs. the Brooklyn Dodgers World Series, they might be listening to songs from stars like Johnny Cash or The Louvin Brothers.
The current iteration of the Brewers arrived in Milwaukee in 1970, following the Milwaukee Braves’ departure in 1965 (now in Atlanta). That’s when Charley Pride began hanging out with the team, thanks to new manager Dave Bristol.
“Dave was friends with Charley Pride, and so they invited him to spring training,” Gibson said. Pride was already a country music star — the first Black singer to perform at the Grand Ole Opry — but never officially played for the team.
Gibson said he saw photos of Pride suited up for the Brewers, which piqued his interest. A trading card-style photo of Pride is included in the album art.
Country music star Charley Pride suited up for — but never officially played with — the Brewers in the 1970s. Nate Gibson saw this as one of the many parallels between the team and country music.
Photo courtesy of Nate Gibson
The connection between the Brewers and country music continues to this day. The Brewers’ triple-A minor league affiliate is the Nashville Sounds.
“I started to posit that the reason (the players) are so successful is they had to come through Nashville amidst all these country music bars,” Gibson said.
The Brewers host a country music night, and while the team’s unofficial mascot, Hank the Dog, was named after Hank Aaron, Gibson said country music is “filled with famous Hanks.”
He singled out players whose walk-up songs are country tunes, like pitcher Jared Koenig (Cody Jinks’ “Loud and Heavy”) and first baseman Andrew Vaughn (Johnny Cash’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”).
One tune is called “King Vaughn’s Crown and Johnny’s Ghost.” Gibson sings that since Vaughn was traded from the White Sox in June, “we’ve won the most/thanks to King Vaughn’s bat and Johnny’s ghost.”
What rhymes with Brewers?
Before discovering these parallels, Gibson initially set out to write only one or two songs. With a bit of digging (and some tiny seeds of doubt from friends that there was no way he could make an entire album of songs), he had a 60- to 70-page document with notes, including “70 words that rhyme with brewers … I did not realize there were that many.”
The album’s first song, “Fear the Beer,” is composed solely of lyrics that rhyme with “Brewers” (with words like baby Bluers, accruers, new tattooer and pooper scoopers). That song “was just taking all the unused Brewer rhymes,” he joked.
Nate Gibson recorded “Fear the Beer: A Musical Salute to the Milwaukee Brewers” in four weeks, just in time for the postseason.
Courtesy of Nate Gibson
Gibson called the album a “bedroom studio project.” He recorded all the vocals in his niece’s bedroom as his nephew, musician Ethan Gibson of the Nebraska-based metal band FAHR, helped record and mix the album.
He had friends contribute their musical talents, like Randy Finley on the fiddle and Art Stevenson on the harmonica, with whom Gibson co-hosts “Back to the Country.”
Gibson was a Cardinals fan “until April 1 of 1987, when they traded my favorite player, Andy Van Syke,” and lived in Boston for 12 years, adopting the Red Sox. Now, he finds the Brewers easy to root for. They’re perennial underdogs, playing in the smallest MLB market.
Although “Fear the Beer” is a solo album, Nate Gibson asked friends to contribute, like Andrew Harrison, who played guitar for the Brewers record.
Photo courtesy of Nate Gibson
According to the song “Down on the Farm in Nashville,” the team found success “with a payroll less than a third of the Mets.”
His album builds on a history of songwriting and joy that comes with having a winning team. Part of the collection of UW-Madison’s Mills Music Library is a dozen or so records and 45s of Brewers’ jingles and sing-along songs, primarily recorded in the 1980s (the Brewers went to the World Series in 1982, but have never won).
Most, Gibson said, are cheers with lines like, “We’re going all the way. We’re gonna win it all.” He wanted his album to be less of a rallying cry and more of a celebration of the Brewers’ most successful regular season of all time.
“This is a historic, epic season that we should all be celebrating, and it’s been fun. So let’s have a soundtrack to the playoffs.”
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