The opening track of 500 Miles to Memphis' 2007 album Sunshine in a Shot Glass starts with a fiddle and feet stomping and bottles clinking, and then an arena-sized power chord jumps in. While most folks have heard fusions of country and punk for decades, it's a little startling to have them not blended but standing next to each other, their identities clearly intact.

The Cincinnati-based band, playing at the Redstone Room on Tuesday, is led by singer/guitarist/songwriter Ryan Malott, and all aural evidence to the contrary, he didn't grow up with alt-country acts such as Uncle Tupelo and the Old 97's.

He would hear those comparisons and think, "Who the hell are these guys?" he said in an interview this week. "Had I heard those bands before I started 500 Miles to Memphis, it might sound different. ... I might have been more cautious with what I wrote and how I sounded."

Malott's influences were more direct: outlaw country (Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings, for example) and punk. Those opening 10 seconds of Sunshine in a Shot Glass, then, illustrate from where the band came.

The benefit compilation CD Moondances Chapter One begins with a song Ellis Kell wrote in memory of his daughter, and it ends with one written following his father's death. The second track, "You Can't Hurt Us Anymore" was penned for Sheltering Kevin, a documentary by Carolyn Wettstone about domestic violence.

That suggests a generosity not only of time and art but of spirit. Kell is not merely sharing his talents but also his difficult experiences and his heart. "I've always tried to draw something positive out of when these things happen, whether it was my daughter's passing or my father's passing," he said. "And we share these things with other people."

One of the label mates of John Brown's Body is the Easy Star All-Stars, and that outfit has presented albums by Pink Floyd, Radiohead, and the Beatles in a reggae style. Surprisingly successful, these recordings manage to retain the identity of the original songs while staying true to the reggae style -- an artful translation.

What John Brown's Body does is more like a fusion of reggae with other styles. Reggae is the primary ingredient -- "On top of that is where we really start to inject our flavor and our influences," said drummer and band co-founder Tommy Benedetti in a phone interview last week -- but the tastes include hip hop, funk, and progressive rock. And while the base -- the drums and percussion, the bass, and the horns -- is unmistakably Jamaican, its variety and skillful blending defy pigeonholing.

The band -- which will perform at the Redstone Room on May 12 -- began as a roots-reggae ensemble but has gradually shifted to something more amorphous. The death from cancer of bassist Scott Palmer in 2006 spurred several lineup changes, most notably the departure of founding singer/songwriter Kevin Kinsella.

The transition from traditional reggae was already underway by then. Kinsella was the only credited songwriter on the band's 1996 debut, but by 2005's Pressure Points, singer Elliot Martin was the dominant creative force.

Benedetti said that while he will always love traditional reggae, Martin's contribution of "33 RPM" to 2002's Spirits All Around Us was "one of the watershed change moments that we really had. ... When we started rocking that tune live, it was a whole new ballgame."

The shift was a "natural progression" from there, he said. "Elliot ... was really pushing the sonic barriers and really into making more cutting edge -- ... darker grooves, different textures, different sounds.

"Scott's passing was definitely the catalyst for ... people wanting to step out. ... The wheels were in motion. The band really needed a breath of fresh air at that point."

He and Martin "wanted to re-focus the band and the sound," Bendetti said. "We had a lot more music to give and to play."

Because Martin had been gradually taking a larger role, last year's Amplify, the band's first album since Palmer died, isn't a significant departure from its predecessor, he added. It's more like a continuation. "I think our fans realized that the band was evolving," he said. "The sound of JBB when Kevin left didn't drastically change. ... The essence of the band and the live show and the sound we've created over all these years ... was definitely intact."

The album is first and foremost a showcase for Martin's strong melodies and voice, but the instrumental textures are often scintillating. "The Gold" starts with horns that could be drawn from a Mexican gangster movie, and the song documents a life on the lam, with Martin's voice gracefully skating a tricky line between singing and rapping. "Ghost Notes" was written for Palmer, and it's a lovely, soulful, blossoming lament with a detailed instrumental bed under Martin's soaring voice, which sustains an almost frightening emotional fervor.

The closer you listen, the more Amplify reveals, and the reggae core ensures its instant accessibility. Benedetti said that John Brown's body will never abandon its Jamaican-music roots, but its goal is to stretch the boundaries: "We're just trying to breathe life into reggae."

John Brown's Body will perform on Tuesday, May 12, at the Redstone Room (129 Main Street in Davenport). The bill also includes Passafire, and the show starts at 9 p.m. Tickets are $12 and available at RedstoneRoom.com.

For more information on John Brown's Body, visit JohnBrownsBody.com or MySpace.com/johnbrownsbody.

Railroad Earth mandolin player John Skehan notes that most recording studios are set up so that even when musicians are isolated from each other in separate rooms, they can see each other.

But when the New Jersey-based bluegrass/jam band convened in a three-century-old farmhouse owned by Todd Sheaffer, the band's singer and chief songwriter, the setup was different. As they tracked last year's Amen Corner mostly live, the sextet didn't have the benefit of body language and visual cues. Bass was in the kitchen. The drums were in the dining room. Multi-instrumentalist Andy Goessling was stuck in a bathroom.

"We had a little headphone system where everybody could control their own individual level and everybody else's level," Skehan said in a phone interview last week. "And we pretty much barely had eye contact. We just went into our individual little rooms and put our ears on, and that was the extent of the interaction. ... It does put you in a place where you're just listening."