This is Why I Live in the City

Posted on March 23, 2011 Written by Leave a Comment

Actually, this won’t be a manifesto listing all the reasons, complications and negotiations involved in a decision that big, but I just had the kind of night that can’t be had outside a city. Maybe specifically a small city. If I lived, as I used to, in the suburbs, I would have stayed home tonight. Maybe I would have caught a little television, fallen asleep in the chair.

View of the 2nd Floor, Preservation Pub, from the bar, Knoxville

But I do live in the city, write a blog and have great readers (some of them brothers-in-law) who give me tips about amazing music, good people and a life outside my small walls. Today I got a tip from said brother-in-law who is a very good song writer in his own right about two song writers in town and playing at the Preservation Pub in what has apparently been christened the “speakeasy room,” AKA “upstairs.”

Preservation Pub, View from the Stage toward the bar

The room has been advertised as “smoke free,” and I find this a stretch. No one smokes in the room, which is great, but, of course many people are smoking just below the floor and smoke doing what it will regardless of policy, arrives upstairs. Still, I appreciate the effort. It is more bearable for a longer period of time than the first floor for someone not used to inhaling the hazy carcinogens. The second floor is also beautiful. The ceiling is covered with gorgeous stamped-metal tiles, the floor is new hardwood and the tables and bar were made with wood from the floor joists. The stage is roomy and the entire room is built more for listening to music than the bottom floor ever imagined, though plenty of great music has happened over the years downstairs.

Jon Byrd with Amelia White, Preservation Pub, Knoxville, March 2011

Amelia White with Jon Byrd, Preservation Pub, Knoxville, March 2011

The entertainment for the night, playing a mercifully early shift (6:30 – 9:30) for aging working people like myself, was Jon Byrd and Amelia White currently of Nashville. Jon lived his early years in a place called Frisco City which sounds poetic and conjures up images of San Francisco, but which is, in actuality, a bend in the road in the deep woods of south Alabama.

Amelia White with guitar and harmonica rack, Preservation Pub, Knoxville

Amelia White, Preservation Pub, Knoxville, March 2011
Taking turns and sometimes singing together, the duo displayed their craft and their art to a small, but attentive audience that included Tim and Susan Lee (who I wrote about here). Amelia, who’s played the Blueplate Special and the Time Warp Tea Room, opened with a set playing on her 1979 Martin guitar, which she got when she was twelve. She later brought out a hollow body electric Guild guitar which she used to great advantage to attain a more ominous sound.
Amelia White, Preservation Pub, Knoxville, March 2011
Blessed with a delicate angel’s voice which she pairs with barbed-wire lyrics, her music evokes comparisons to other great songwriters such as Shawn Colvin, Mary Gautier and Marshall Chapman. The fact that the one cover song she performed was by Lucinda Williams is no accident. Her live sound is more folk than Jon’s (and that isn’t a bad thing for me, though Jon doesn’t want to be called a folk singer), but the most recent recording, her 2009 album Motorcycle Dream has a lot more bite than the work “folk” generally conjures. I particularly enjoy “Morning Song” from that CD and the edgy video for the title track is included below.
Jon Byrd, Preservation Pub, Knoxville, March 2011

Jon, who also has performed on the Blueplate, took the stage after Amelia and performed a range of songs which, as I mentioned, he politely requested not be called “folk.” I wouldn’t have, anyway. He has about as pure of a classic country sound as you’ll get on stage these days. Sometimes favoring Willie Nelson in vocals, the style reminded me more of Ray Price.

Jon Byrd, Preservation Pub, Knoxville, March 2011

Some of the highlights for me included “In a Perfect World” and “One Final Round” from his album “Byrd’s Auto Parts.” His soon-to-be-released CD will be titled “Down at the Well of Wishes” and includes favorite tracks “A Fond Farewell” and “Easy to be Free,” both of which he performed tonight. Amelia joined him for the new song “When It Starts to Rain,” adding a haunting harmony vocal to the chorus. I’ve included a video below that includes, of all things, a great cover of the Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down” followed by his song “Reputation.”

Jon Byrd and Amelia White at the Preservation Pub

So, it’s Tuesday night, I have to go to work on Wednesday morning and I’m out listening to great live music. I could be watching American Idol, manicuring my lawn in the suburbs or going to bed early. Instead, this early spring Tuesday night contains the essence of why I live in the city.

Filed Under: Amelia White, Downtown Knoxville Blog, Jon Byrd, Knoxville Blog, Music, Preservation Pub

Civil Wars Erupts in Knoxville

Posted on February 23, 2011 Written by 3 Comments

Not the Civil War – the Civil Wars. Never heard of them? You must be really old. Like maybe twenty-six or seven. Judging from the audience assembled for their performance, the demographic definitely skews young. If that’s the case how does an over-thirty bloggaman find out about them? From his friend’s twenty-something, much-cooler-than-we-are daughter, that’s how. She encouraged her father to catch the 9:00 show at the Pilot Light, but he found that there was a 6:00 show at Disc Exchange, which is much better for aging working men.

The duo, comprised of Joy Williams and John Paul White have enjoyed a couple of very big breaks. First, their song “Poison and Wine,” was featured in its full version on Gray’s Anatomy which resulted in a surge of itunes sales. Next, Taylor Swift called them her “favorite duo” and they were on their way. Their first full length CD, Barton Hollow, just came out and debuted at number twelve on the Billboard Charts and sat at number one on itunes for a week.

I listened to them on itunes and I wasn’t that taken. I could hear the good harmonies, but I didn’t hear enough of the edginess that I like in my music. Their sound definitely tilts in the direction of Americana, with a sort of alternative twist on folk music. At first it hit me as the Peter, Paul and Mary end of the folk spectrum as opposed to the Dylan extreme.

There were probably a hundred or more people gathered at the Disc Exchange for the live WFIV broadcast, which is a pretty big crowd for a space not built for crowds. The couple arrived at showtime and after a brief sound check and an extended guitar tuning adventure (it looked like a very old Martin – maybe a classical model similar to Willie Nelson’s famous guitar), they moved into the music.

Both their mannerisms and their vocal styling is more than a little quirky. In turns belting out harmonies and then, quickly shifting to delicate falsetto harmonies their music virtually demands intense concentration. And they got it. Throughout their set, hardly a stir was heard until the final, often very soft note. They seemed like a warmly genuine young couple (as in a couple in a group, not in a romantic couple – they are each married to someone else), staying in the store to smile for pictures and sign copies of their CD.

I’ll leave you with the video for “Poison and Wine” so you can form your own opinion. Sometimes for reasons I cannot control, blogger does not display video properly. If that happens when you are viewing the video, you can see it properly here.

Filed Under: Civil Wars, Disc Exchange, Downtown Knoxville, Knoxville Tennessee, Music, Pilot Light

Fred Eaglesmith with High Kotton at the Blue Plate Special

Posted on January 24, 2011 Written by 1 Comment

How could you improve the live radio concerts hosted weekdays at noon on WDVX for several years now? Add a weekend show, that’s how. Many of us can’t be downtown at noon, but judging from the crowd in the visitor’s center Saturday, virtually everyone can make it on a weekend. The room was packed nearly an hour before showtime and people kept coming. By the time the broadcast began, there was hardly room to breathe. Red Hickey said it was almost without doubt the biggest crowd in any visitor’s center any where in the country that day. I’m not sure other visitor centers are as cool as ours to have regular concerts, but it was a very big crowd.

Fred Eaglesmith, WDVX Blue Plate Special, Knoxville, January 22,2011

As I said in the last post, I would not be able to see Fred Eaglesmith at the Shed, so I jumped at the chance to see him at WDVX on Saturday. I’m not as familiar with his work as I will be within the next few days (I’m buying in big), but I’d heard enough on WDVX to get me pretty excited. If he’d never written anything beyond Alcohol And Pills that would be enough reason to go down and listen.

High Kotton, WDVX Blue Plate Special, Knoxville, January 2011

The opening act was a local group, High Kotton, who told me they have only “been together since October” and, if I understood them correctly, they have “practiced seven times.” Some of them have been friends for a longer time, but the group and vocalist Wendy Crowe found each other through Craigslist. This group, to have been together such a short time displays amazing potential. Wendy’s face is set to default to “smile” and her charm as the front of the band combined with her great country voice and the rich harmony produced by her along with very talented multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Amanda Thomas and other band members will take the band far. It’s hard to imagine how good they can be after they’ve put in the hours required to make a band tight.

Fred Eaglesmith, Knoxville, January 22, 2011

So it was a good opening for the main course of the noon concert: Fred Eaglesmith. I had no idea what to expect. His most recent album Cha Cha Cha features the sound from the David Letterman video below and it was this seductive groove that he brought to the Blue Plate. The sound is augmented and elevated tremendously by The Fabulous Ginn Sisters who are excellent recording artists in their own right. Filling out the band wasKori Heppner on drums, Justine Fischer on bass and Matty Simpson on banjo and guitar.

Fred Eaglesmith, WDVX Blue Plate Special, Knoxville, January 22, 2011

Matty’s banjo playing provides another whole topic for conversation. The banjo looked about as beaten up and down as if it might have been one of the first banjos cobbled together somewhere in Africa. It alternately sounded vaguely like a banjo and entirely like a fuzzy guitar on a smoky night at 3 AM.

Fred Eaglesmith, WDVX Blue Plate Special, Knoxville, January 22,2011

The ragged backing vocals gave the performance almost a gospel feel. The distorted lead banjo and guitar gave the music an element of 60′s garage rock. The rhythmic foundation keep the train on the track and Fred’s gravely, but sure-voiced vocals seeped into the mix to produce a sound unlike anyone I could name. Steady throughout was the excellent song-writing. It was not country music, for the most part, it was what country music should have become. I could imagine Hank Williams being happy to walk the length of Gay Street from the Andrew Johnson Hotel to hear this music which is completely different from anything from his era, yet, I think he would recognize it immediately.

Fred Eaglesmith, WDVX Blue Plate Special, Knoxville, January 22, 2011

Fred played Thirty Years Of Farming which was a number one bluegrass hit for James King, but it was the sound of the new music that was so intoxicating on this day. Delivering the goods was a man who knows his place and feels good about it. He will never be a hit on contemporary country radio, but as he says on his web site, he can draw a hundred or two hundred people almost anywhere in the world who are willing to pay twenty bucks to see him and that suits him perfectly. He also told wry jokes and mentioned his fascinating oil paintings, which are for sale on his excellent web site.

I’ve found an artist I plan to enjoy getting to know very well. Thank you, one more time, WDVX.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Filed Under: Fabulous Ginn Sisters, Fred Eaglesmith, High Kotton, Knoxville Tennessee, Music, WDVX

Young People Playing (Very) Old Music, Part Two

Posted on January 20, 2011 Written by 1 Comment
 Hilary Hawke and band, Knoxville Visitor’s Center, January 2010

The second artist I heard recently at the Blue Plate Special was Hilary Hawke. She and her band are from upstate New York and their sound is more western swing, with close harmonies and mid-tempo rhythms. Of course, her lilting voice soars above it all. She also plays a very nice banjo. Red Hickey (host of the Blue Plate) asked her how she came to the banjo living in New York. She pointed out that the Adirondacks are far removed from the city and said she grew up listening to old country music and particularly mentioned being a fan of Earl Scruggs.

Hilary Hawke, Knoxville Visitor’s Center, January 2010

Even with the western swing sound and a frequent banjo solo there was still an alt-twist. The band members certainly looked as if they could be in an alternative band and there was more to it than that, perhaps an undercurrent of intensity as a slight counterpoint to the bounce of the music. More so than Woody Pines, there seemed to be a slight modern edge to this music, though on the surface it remained very traditional.

The vocals are also a bit more quirky than Bob Wills would have expected. Hilary’s charm and personality shine through in every song and that combined with her songwriting talent should serve her very well as her career progresses. There was a little something that reminded me of Hot Club of Cowtown.

Hilary Hawke, Knoxville Visitor’s Center, January 2010

She and everyone in the band were exceptionally friendly and warm with anyone who wanted to talk with them. I regret that they hit town during snowy weather and had such a small audience. They invited me to their show at the Preservation Pub that started at 11:00 on a work night! Maybe when I was younger.

You can hear a few of their songs on their MySpace page. You can buy Hilary’s solo album Goodwill by following that link. The latest by the band is available on their website (first link above). I’ll leave you with a video for your viewing and listening pleasure. Check them out.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Filed Under: Blue Plate Special, Bob Wills, Downtown Knoxville, Earl Scruggs, Hilary Hawke, Music, WDVX

Young People Playing (Very) Old Music, Part One

Posted on January 19, 2011 Written by 1 Comment

Thanks to the snow, I was able to catch a couple of Blue Plate Specials recently. Both featured young bands fronted by talented, personable singers. They also featured very retro-music. I talked about this a bit last week when I featured Katy Free. Katy’s music leaned more heavily in a jazz direction, but her song selection never ventured much beyond the nineteen sixties. I guessed at the time that perhaps two or three of the songs were written in her lifetime. And that’s OK with me. I like finding younger people who appreciate the great scope of American music for the treasure that it is.

Woody Pines, Knoxville Visitor’s Center, January 2010

The two acts I was fortunate enough to catch this week leaned more heavily in an old time country direction. Woody Pines is the name of the leader and the of the first band I saw. Currently working out of Asheville, their web page proclaims they are a four person band, but only three were present for the Blue Plate. I think that fact turned out to be very important. If you follow the link above or listen to their latest album  Counting Alligators you’ll hear a great deal more of a ragtime sound than was in evidence at the Knoxville Visitor’s Center. The only time my interest waned was when they did songs like Chew Tobacco Rag, which came across more as a novelty.

If you listen to the song Satisfied, which I completely encourage, you’ll hear more of the sound I heard that day: Country Blues. I’ve posted a video performance of the song below. I kept thinking of Mississippi John Hurt. That song, along with several others have that steady flowing finger picking, modest, lilting melodies and haunting lyrics. The other artist that has to be virtually blood-kin to these guys is Justin Townes Earle whose Harlem River Blues made a number of “best of” lists at the end of 2010. (Stunning side-note, the MP3 version is on sale at Amazon from that link for just $5 – Buy It Now!)


So, is there a movement afoot of young artists singing throw-back songs or new songs in an older style or am I just running into them because of WDVX and because I appreciate them so much? It’s hard to say. The only certainty for me is I’m glad it’s happening. I’m glad there is an alternative to the vapid music on contemporary country stations which is passed off as country, but is actually overproduced formulaic pop tripe. I’m also glad we live in a town where we can hear great music. For a city this size, it’s stunning.

Filed Under: Downtown Knoxville, Justin Townes Earle, Music, WDVX, Woody Pines
«Older Posts
Newer Posts»