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< Music ~ Nashville, an editorial of sorts ... and travel guide. |
| kg |
 Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 2:28 pm |
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*Data Miner*
Joined: 30 Jun 2007
Posts: 3427
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I don't know who might have written this, but he or she seems to know Ketch well enough to be invited to his home. Worth the read!
From: http://travelnewsguide.com/travel-news/The-Talk-Nashville-s-Band-of-Outsiders/
The Talk: Nashville's Band of Outsiders
22.09.2007 - The city's other music scene, with an unexpected and darkly fascinating sound, is taking center stage.
This is my confession: I live in Nashville and I don't listen to country music. It is not such an uncommon state of affairs. Carrie Underwood's album has sold over six million copies, and yet I don't know a single person who owns it. Of course I like the old country music — Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, Hank Sr. But I cannot connect the dots, in fact I believe there are no dots, between Patsy and Carrie.
That said, if you poke around anywhere in my hometown you will discover an endless assortment of small clubs and cafes where musicians prove nightly that the coolest music scene today is in Nashville. In the same way that ingenious independent films get made in Los Angeles, the city that is at this very moment no doubt working on “Die Hard 15,” Nashville in its spare time is making, dare I say it, art — unexpected and darkly fascinating music whose renegade spirit has been learned from everybody and is beholden to no one.
Maybe you didn't notice; it's easy to move under the radar when the radar is set by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. But Nashville is a place where musicians of all kinds come to work and to live. Like New York and Los Angeles, it's an American city of dreams — where you go when you decide to put everything on the line and bet on yourself. For that reason, it's also a city with plenty of pawnshops and cheap bars. Seven nights a week the downtown strip is a weird combination of tourists, T-shirt shops and truly inspired singing. Finding a good music club in Nashville is about as challenging as finding good pizza in Sicily. Throw a rock in any direction, you'll hit one: the Mercy, the Basement, the Station Inn, the Bluebird Cafe.
I learned to see all this when I ran into an old college friend of mine in the gym not long ago. Diana Jones and I went to school in New York, and when I knew her she was the coolest girl around. She played guitar and sang rocking Joan Armatrading covers in the coffeehouse. Now she lives in Nashville and writes her own songs, which she sings in such a haunting high lonesome that one can't help but wonder if she isn't the lost daughter of the Carter Family. “You can't live as cheaply in Austin or any of the artsy centers anymore,” she said when I asked why she'd moved here. She used to live in Austin. She used to live in a lot of places. She came here from Northampton, Mass. “I'm a songwriter. I go to bed at 2 a.m., I get up at 10. The community wasn't there.”
Diana lives in East Nashville; it's where she bought what may well be the last $38,000 house in history. In fact, most of the people who are making the music I've come to love are living in East Nashville. It's what you'd call up-and-coming, which is to say there are lots of fabulous old brick manses that look like they belong on the cover of a Lemony Snicket novel, all turrets and bell towers and leaded windows, and in between those fabulous manses (some renovated, some not), there are plenty of ratty bungalows. It isn't the side of town where people tend to play (although I hear there are quite a few secret recording studios, hiding behind closed doors because of zoning laws). This is where they sleep and go to the grocery store and hang out in bars and coffee shops like the Family Wash and the 5-Spot, working on songs. There's now even a CD of those songs, called “The Other Side: Music From East Nashville.”
It's where Todd Snider came to live 10 years ago. “When I got here, it felt like Austin in the '70s,” he told me. “Everybody on your street's a musician, too. It's as close as I'll get to Greenwich Village, or that fantasy I had about it when I was a kid. We talk about songs. We don't talk about the money around songs.”
Everybody, in my opinion, should be talking about Todd Snider's songs. The man is the troubadour for our times, an inventive cross of Dylan and Kristofferson with just the right dash of Tom Petty thrown in. He likes to play the Belcourt, an old theater that often hosts music while showing art-house films.
It is possible to walk back and forth between the two theaters and see a local band like Brother Henry and a showing of “The 400 Blows” at the same time.
It's hard to know exactly what to call this genre that sounds sort of like old country music and nothing like the new country music. But in the last few years, most of it has gotten swept together under the heading of Americana, a label that is broad and blurry enough to welcome everyone who isn't getting played on mainstream radio. Jed Hilly, the new executive director of the Americana Music Association, says the music honors, and is derived from, the traditions of American roots music. That, he tells me, encompasses everyone from Gram Parsons and the Band to Lucinda Williams and Lyle Lovett. People who you would think are the very cornerstones of country music — Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash — are now called Americana, and in that case Americana is what we'd loved all along. Of course it's also what Nashville has made for decades, and it's the reason this city keeps drawing in talented folks from the fringes of the radio dial.
Jeff Burke and Vida Wakeman of the Jeff and Vida band came here from New Orleans to try and make it big, and even if that hasn't happened yet (and it should happen soon), Nashville is working out fine for them. In a city that values its rhinestones, they are managing to make music that is real and true, the thing itself as opposed to a parody of the thing. Theirs are the songs you long to hear late at night on the interstate, in pool halls and smoky whiskey bars. Jeff and Vida like to play at the 12 South Taproom and Norm's River Road House, the kind of bars that sound like they could be names of their songs.
Ketch Secor, who plays in the band Old Crow Medicine Show, has moved back to Nashville after a few years away. When I talk to him, he's sitting in his backyard in East Nashville listening to Woody Guthrie. He says he's glad to be back. If it was up to him, he thinks his music should be called country and country music should be called Americana. “I think the small and belittling label should be given to country music,” he says. That, of course, is a genius solution. The word Americana seems to fit Carrie Underwood (Americana Idol?), whereas country would be a better fit for Old Crow, which is doing something that has all the raw energy and seeming spontaneity of the Smokey Mountain Boys but with the archness of the Rolling Stones singing “Far Away Eyes.”
It feels like the music that happens when talented country folk get together, as opposed to the music that happens when talented producers hire pretty girls. When I ask him where he likes to play, Ketch points out that the Grand Ole Opry House, the bastion of that other country music, “has one of the best-sounding stages I've ever been on.” It surprises me that it would be his kind of place, but when I mention it to Gillian Welch, she concurs. “That stage loves Ketch's harmonica,” she says.
Every stage loves Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, from the bluegrass heaven of the Station Inn to the brand-new Schermerhorn Symphony Center. Gillian and David are the universal donors; no matter what genre of music you like or don't like, you'll love what they're doing. Gillian was the person who was able to explain to me why Nashville came to be Music City, USA, something I should have known, seeing as how I've been here most of my life. It turns out it was all a matter of geography.
“It's amazing where you can get to in a car in 12 hours,” she said. “Hank Williams knew this. You can go out, play your gigs, and still get to the Opry. Of course that's not why I came. I had this really romantic notion of the music that was being made here. Little did I know I'd be arriving 30 years too late.”
Even so, I give Gillian the most credit for turning back the clock, or taking it way ahead, depending on how you look at it. And whether she's really too late or positively cutting-edge all depends on how you're listening on any given night. After all, the best of Nashville is so out-of-date it's new again.
ESSENTIALS: NASHVILLE
The Americana Music Festival & Conference will be held from Oct. 31 to Nov. 3. You can go to the music industry panels during the day, but you're better off sleeping through them so you can stay up all night traveling from one club to the next. A $30 wristband lets you into the clubs. Go to www.americanamusic.org.
Music
The Basement ,1604 Eighth Avenue South; (615) 254-8006. Belcourt Theater, 2102 Belcourt Avenue; (615) 846-3150. Bluebird Cafe, 4104 Hillsboro Road; (615) 383-1461. Douglas Corner Cafe, 2106-A Eighth Avenue South; (615) 298-1688. Mercy Lounge, 1 Cannery Row; (615) 251-3020. Norm's River Road House, 7695 River Road Pike; (615) 356-6314. Station Inn, 402 12th Avenue South; (615) 255-3307. 12 South Taproom & Grill, 2318 12th Avenue South; (615) 463-7552.
Bars and Restaurants
Family Wash, 2038 Greenwood Avenue; (615) 226-6070; entrees about $7 to $15. 5 Spot, 1006 Forrest Avenue; (615) 650-9333; entrees $6 to $8.
Hotel
The Hermitage. This recently restored beauty is the most luxurious option in town and a refreshing alternative to Nashville's numerous chain hotels. 231 Sixth Avenue North; (615) 244-3121; www.thehermitagehotel.com; doubles from $249. |
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| Kitty |
| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 8:51 pm |
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*Mrs. Kitty*
Joined: 23 Oct 2006
Posts: 2344
Location: Durham, NC
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| kg - you have struck gold.... again. This was a good read. |
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| krazykarl |
| Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 7:09 am |
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Old Crow
Joined: 12 Dec 2004
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| kentukblue |
| Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:34 am |
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Raisin' a Ruckus
Joined: 17 Sep 2007
Posts: 66
Location: Muhlenberg County....Kentucky
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| yep...a $30.00 wristband might just be in the works! |
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| kg |
| Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 9:49 am |
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*Data Miner*
Joined: 30 Jun 2007
Posts: 3427
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| mountain_plucked |
| Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 9:30 am |
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Raisin' a Ruckus
Joined: 20 Mar 2007
Posts: 111
Location: ...went to the mountaintop, but it wasn't there
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I haven't been here in forever, and it's good to finally see something new that I haven't read!! Thanks!!!  |
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I guess dollar signs flashing in your eyes makes you do crazy things. |
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| kg |
| Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 6:02 pm |
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*Data Miner*
Joined: 30 Jun 2007
Posts: 3427
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I hope people think this is worth posting. At least the boys are mentioned here!
http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Arts/Music/2007/09/27/The_Power_of_Pickin_/#
The Power of Pickin’
Dale Ann Bradley, Cherryholmes and Chatham County Line lay it on the line during IBMA week
By Jewly Hight
It’s sometimes taken for granted that bluegrass is an ancient musical form handed down and pristinely preserved in the hills and hollers—so old that no one who originally played it could still be alive—and that its practitioners and audiences hold to tradition with such a white-knuckled grip that nothing new could ever make inroads. And that perspective makes some sense in light of the fact that the ’90s—at least according to VH1’s I Love the ’90s series—are already retro.
But in reality, 1946—a mere two generations back—is often considered the birth year of the bluegrass style, making it old (barely older than rock ’n’ roll, in fact) but definitely not ancient. When bluegrass started, it was a hot new innovation—an energetic synthesis and transformation of acoustic styles in the hands of Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, Lester Flatt and others. (For the record, Scruggs is still alive.) And, like rockabilly and Western swing, it was an alternative to country music that’s never been fully absorbed into the mainstream. But, unlike those two genres, bluegrass still has a healthy, ever-evolving scene with a life of its own.
In some ways, bluegrass lurks at the edge of musically savvy twenty- and thirtysomething consciousness (not that that’s anything new for the genre). Annual bluegrass and folk festivals have dotted the landscape for decades, but Bonnaroo is a nearby example of the capability of bluegrass acts such as the Del McCoury Band to hold their own alongside those who plug in their guitars—and the fiery bluegrass instrumentals are far more focused than any jam-band noodling. Plenty of indie acts have flirted with the old-time aesthetic of late—Sufjan Stevens’ banjo playing and the twin fiddling on Bright Eyes’ Cassadaga are cases in point. Old Crow Medicine Show may not exactly play bluegrass, but the band’s raucous, punkish take on string-band music has found an appreciative young audience.
Creative tension between old and new in bluegrass works against homogeneity. The music might be traditional (meaning that it sticks fairly close to Bill Monroe’s original hard-driving formula of mandolin, fiddle, banjo, guitar and bass with high lonesome harmonies), pop-smoothed (like Alison Krauss and Union Station) or a progressive fusion of bluegrass and outside influences (i.e., newgrass). The variety extends to the kinds of people drawn to the music, from far right to far left on the political spectrum, and the songs they sing—from corn-liquored rowdiness to gospel fervor.
When the International Bluegrass Music Association makes its annual descent upon downtown Nashville for the World of Bluegrass—a weeklong conference with an awards show and showcases day and night—some surprisingly good musical moments occur in hotel hallways when unknowns spontaneously whip out their instruments and play on the spot. It just goes to show that there’s room for both professionalism and DIY.
Dale Ann Bradley, Cherryholmes and Chatham County Line—all of whom are performing during the IBMA’s World of Bluegrass—capture the genre’s breadth, fluidity and common threads.
Among more traditional approaches to bluegrass, rural-Kentucky-born vocalist Bradley is the epitome of a glitz-less, down-to-earth performer. A former member of the New Coon Creek Girls who now fronts her own band, she takes the stage unapologetically as-is.
“When I started out I just wore what I wore to school basically,” says Bradley. “Of course, my mother just couldn’t hardly deal with that—‘we got to doll you up.’ She’d try her best—bless her heart—with the best intentions. And then when I came to Renfro Valley [the Renfro Valley Barn Dance is a long-running musical variety show—Kentucky’s Grand Ole Opry], I had big old earrings that gave me a headache, and high heels. I couldn’t hardly walk in them. It was always against my nature. That just wasn’t me. It’s not really a rebellion. It’s just sometimes you’ve got to be who you are.”
Bradley’s lure is her voice—a pure, pleasing instrument, gently swooping, trilling and bending notes with a natural emotiveness to rival blues and soul singers. In fact, she recorded a double-time version of Ann Peeble’s classic soul lamentation “I Can’t Stand the Rain” for her most recent album, Catch Tomorrow. It’s one of many covers Bradley has handpicked from decidedly non-bluegrass sources.
“ ‘I Can’t Stand the Rain,’ that’s bluegrass lyrics—‘I can’t stand the rain against my window bringing back sweet memories,’ ” says Bradley. “That’s a Bill Monroe song right there.” She’s even included a U2 song in her repertoire (“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” on 1997’s East Kentucky Morning), which suggests that the relationship between bluegrass and other forms of popular music is more fluid than one might think.
At the opposite end of the traditional bluegrass spectrum are Cherryholmes, a six-member family band who quickly rose to popularity with their polished live show, incorporating dressed-up stage clothes, Irish stepdance, joke-telling and family patriarch Jere Cherryholmes’ jovial emceeing. Youthful vitality didn’t hurt either. Half of the four Cherryholmes kids—Cia Leigh, B.J., Skip and Molly Kate—still have “teen” attached to their ages.
As their two most widely released records, 2005’s Cherryholmes and this year’s Cherryholmes II: Black and White, attest, they’re all skilled musicians now—and virtuosity is a prized commodity in bluegrass. But they’d only just picked up their instruments when Cherryholmes (then called Cherryholmes Family Band) got their first gig eight years ago.
“It’s kind of interesting, because we were forced into something out of necessity and it turned out to be something that became an actual persona for us,” Jere says. “We didn’t have the veteran pickers in the group. So we supplemented the whole show with good flow, not a bunch of dead spots that leave people just sitting there. We just decided we were going to entertain people.”
Over the course of a Cherryholmes show or album, every member takes a turn singing lead—treating audiences’ ears to a shifting array of vocal ranges, timbres, phrasings and styles of emoting, or as Jere puts it, “clearing the people’s palate off.” Emotional range also governs their song selections. “If you can link up emotional words with emotional tunes then you can really reach inside of somebody,” he says. “When we look at the song list, we purposefully try to take it up and down. We want to engage the audience and have them experience something rather than just listen.”
North Carolina quartet Chatham County Line are colored by a different pair of elements—rock and bluegrass, respectively. The first acoustic music that truly caught frontman Dave Wilson’s ear was Steve Earle’s Train a Comin.’ Wilson also has a rock band called Stillhouse on the side, which served as an incubator for some of the songs that will appear next year on Chatham County Line’s fourth album. “There’s something about playing with a drummer, that rhythm that’s established,” Wilson says. “You can create over top of that a little easier than if the four of us jam acoustically.”
That parallel musical stream lends Wilson, John Teer, Greg Readling and Chandler Holt a loose, devil-may-care feel that goes over well in bluegrass settings and rock clubs alike. “It’s a product of who we are, really, because we’re not into the traditional bluegrass scene as much, we didn’t grow up with it,” Wilson says. “We come from the rock ’n’ roll background, so it seems like a natural extension to be a part of something that will appeal to both of those audiences. I think we’re kind of a gateway drug for bluegrass for some people.”
When Wilson sings and the rest of the band harmonizes, it doesn’t have the penetrating vocal sound of traditional bluegrass—their vocal blend is closer to the hazy, reverb-drenched quality of the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo. “I was a product of classic rock,” says Wilson. In fact, he’s prone to describe the band—and its effect on audiences—as that of an acoustic rock band. “I think they see the energy and the passion that we put into the show,” he says.
Besides acoustic instrumentation and varying levels of bluegrass roots, what Bradley, Cherryholmes and Chatham County Line have in common are verve, emotion and a desire to entertain audiences that isn’t at all veiled with irony or aloofness.
Bradley, for one, sees a kinship between bluegrass and other visceral, emotive musical forms past and present. “It’s just the same guts, the same heart and guts. We may be in different bodies but those insides are the same. Bluegrass lays it on the line.” |
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