The Eastside Bowl in Nashville is hosting fundraisers for well-known sound engineer Frank Sass, best known for his work at the Exit/Inn. The first, held this afternoon and evening, featured Gretchen Peters, Bill Lloyd, Kim Richey, Dave Pomeroy, the Shazam and Homemade Sin.
The second, set for August 20 beginning at 2 p,m., will feature Tommy Womack, Tim Carroll, Walk the West, Dave Coleman, the Raelyn Nelson Band and the Sour Ops. It’s great music for a good cause.
By Paul T. Mueller —
Gretchen Peters, wrapping up a long touring career, gave her fans in Houston a fine show to remember her by. The prolific singer-songwriter and her husband and musical partner, Barry Walsh, performed for a nearly full house at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church on June 22, the final show in the church’s Coffee House Live spring concert series.
Peters fittingly opened with “The Show,” a ballad about the life of a touring musician. The next few songs included some dark stories of violence and death, including “Wichita” and “Blackbirds” (she introduced the latter by noting, “There’s always a high body count at my shows”). The murder tales eventually gave way to gentler fare, including a lovely rendition of Tom Russell’s “Guadalupe” and “When You Love Someone,” one of the dozens of songs Peters has written with Canadian singer Bryan Adams.
Walsh alternated between piano and accordion and provided vocals on most of Peters’ songs. He got a turn in the spotlight mid-show, performing the instrumental “Belgian Afternoon” from his album Silencio. Peters returned for a lovely rendition of “Say Grace,” a call for compassion and forgiveness from her 2018 album Dancing With the Beast. Other highlights included a fine performance of “Independence Day,” with Peters accompanying herself on piano, and a sweet version of “On a Bus to St. Cloud,” with a callout to the late Jimmy LaFave, who memorably covered the song.
Peters closed with another song appropriate to the occasion, “To Say Goodbye” (she has announced her retirement from touring, although she does plan to play some festivals and other gigs). After a standing ovation she sat on the edge of the stage and crooned an excellent rendition of the Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer classic “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road),” accompanied by Walsh’s excellent piano. After the show she and Walsh stayed to sign autographs and share memories with their many fans and well-wishers.
By Ken Paulson –
John Prine’s music – and life – have always been marked by courage, compassion and integrity.
Now imagine a music festival just like that.
All the Best, a Prine-curated Sixthman festival in the Dominican Republic, wrapped up tonight after four days of inspired and inspiring music from some of the top songwriters in the world, including Prine, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Gretchen Peters, Lori McKenna and Brandi Carlile.
More important, the performers at this festival were hellraisers and truth tellers, just like their host. When you write a line like “Jesus Christ died for nothing, I suppose,” you don’t invite the meek to your festival.
Kentucky songwriter Kelsey Waldon said it was a treat to perform where “people care so much about the lyrics . . . awesome.”
12 special moments:
There was much more, including fine sets by Emmylou Harris and the Red Dirt Boys, Courtney Marie Andrews, Jason Wilber, Lucinda Williams, Rita Wilson, Senora May, Ruston Kelly, Kristi Rose and Fats Kaplin.
Prine later joked that it took 40 minutes to play the album and another hour for him to talk about the songs. Of course, that’s what made it so special: A great American songwriter standing steps from the ocean, exploring his groundbreaking first recording under a full moon. Now that’s Paradise.
By Paul T. Mueller
Things musicians say between songs are sometimes funny, sometimes profound, sometimes both. Here are some notable quotes from the stages of Cayamo 2017.
“I don’t have any songs about boats. I do have a lot of songs about death, so we’ll just do those.” – Gretchen Peters
Lee Ann Womack
“I’m here to do country music!” – Lee Ann Womack
“Are you often told you’re too young to be writing that well?” – Glen Phillips to 21-year-old Christian Lopez after the latter presented a new song in their songwriters-in-the-round show with Will Hoge
“Glen and I were 21 when Pearl Harbor happened.” – Will Hoge (who’s actually 44) to Lopez after Lopez described singing on an aircraft carrier
“Damn, I’m having a good time! Resistance is fun!” – Gretchen Peters, in the “Songs of Protest” show she hosted
“The dues-paying in Nashville is never-ending.” – Angaleena Presley
“There’s a responsibility to protect the repertoire.” – Luther Dickinson, on the North Mississippi Allstars’ approach to playing the blues.
“Cayamo, I just found out, is an old Spanish word for ‘We printed the lineups too small.’ “ – Will Hoge, on the tiny type used on the show schedules provided to passengers
“Y’all just sit there and judge us? If we make you cry, do we get a prize?” – Aoife O’Donovan, a guest performer in the Secret Sisters’ “All the Girls Who Cry” show, to the Sisters, Lydia and Laura Rogers (who were in fact sitting, judge-like, at the side of the stage)
“How cliché are we, crying at our own show?” – Lydia Rogers, after a particularly sad song
“Oh, my god! Holy sh*t! I was worried! Thanks for voting for me! I never win anything!” – Sarah Potenza, who earned her spot in the lineup partly through passengers’ votes in the “Soundcheck” competition
“We’re songwriters. You can’t hurt our feelings.” – Lori McKenna, in a Love Junkies show
BJ Barham
“Thank you so much for cultivating this kind of community… It’s just as much fun as everyone told us. It’s a family reunion!” – BJ Barham of American Aquarium.
“We went from a latte president to an Orange Julius president.” – “stowaway” Chuck Cannon, on his new song “Tangerine Jesus,” sung to the tune of “Paperback Writer”
“It’s ‘Skunk’ time all over again!” – Loudon Wainwright III of “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road” fame, on the expected success of “Meet the Wainwrights,” a musical introduction to his extended family
“If Elton John had had a baby with Tom Petty…” – Patty Griffin, introducing guest Aaron Lee Tasjan, before a lovely duet on Petty’s “Insider”
“You will always have my heart.” – Rodney Crowell to Emmylou Harris in their duet show
“Same back atcha!” – Harris to Crowell
“I’m going to keep singing this song until I die or it comes true, whichever happens first.” – Steve Earle on his optimistic “Jerusalem”
By Paul T. Mueller
Mary Gauthier
The tour is billed as “Three Women and the Truth,” and that’s, well, the truth. There is a whole lot of truth in the songs of Mary Gauthier, Gretchen Peters and Eliza Gilkyson, and the trio presented it straight up to a capacity audience at the first of two April 23 shows at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck in Houston. The format couldn’t have been much simpler – three women, each with an acoustic guitar. But the writing and performing skill on display were anything but simple.
The trio took turns, each performing five songs, with occasional vocal and/or instrumental support from the others. The subject matter included such themes as death (Peters’ “Hello Cruel World”), romantic difficulty (Gilkyson’s “Think About You”) and social inequity (Gauthier’s “Sugar Cane”).
Gretchen Peters
But while the tone was a bit dark, the performances were dazzling. Particularly affecting were Peters’ “The Matador,” an ambivalent love story full of rich imagery; Gilkyson’s “Easy Rider,” a touching tribute to her father, folksinger and songwriter Terry Gilkyson, one of whose groups was The Easy Riders; and Gauthier’s classic “Mercy Now,” which earned one of the set’s most enthusiastic responses.
Accompanying the music was a generous sprinkling of between-songs banter covering such topics as the sometimes alarming honesty of Dutch audiences, Gilkyson’s skills with onstage electronics (when something went wrong, she was able to make a quick repair), and
Eliza Gilkyson
Gauthier’s prowess at parallel-parking large vehicles (she got a big laugh when she referred to that skill as “kind of a lesbian pride thing”).
After what seemed like a much-too-short set, the trio took a bow, conferred briefly and sat down again to alternate verses on a beautiful rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom.”
Gretchen Peters and Barry Walsh
By Paul T. Mueller
At her Aug. 30 show in Houston, Nashville-based singer-songwriter Gretchen Peters seemed a bit surprised but very pleased to be playing to a near-capacity audience on a Sunday evening. She and Barry Walsh, her husband and musical partner, rewarded the crowd at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck with an excellent performance that drew heavily from her most recent album, Blackbirds, but also included older material, a few covers and even a solo turn by Walsh.
Acknowledging that much of Blackbirds deals with heavy subjects, notably death, Peters promised to get the dark material out of the way early. And so she did, leading off with “When All You Got Is a Hammer,” a tale of domestic discord; the murder-ballad title track; the angst-ridden “Pretty Things,” and “Black Ribbons,” an elegy for the oil-fouled Gulf Coast after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
The mood lightened – a bit – with renditions of Tom Russell’s “Guadalupe” and “My Dark Angel,” a sweet if unconventional love song. Nashville veteran Walsh took the spotlight for “Belgian Afternoon” from his 2014 album Silencio, before an interlude of squeezebox jokes as Peters retuned her guitar (Walsh alternated between electric piano and what Peters described as “a $200 Craigslist accordion” throughout the show). Responding to a request, Peters reached back nearly two decades for the title track of her debut album, The Secret of Life. The rest of the show included a couple of covers – Jimmy LaFave’s “Revival” and David Mead’s “Nashville” – as well as several songs from Peters’ 2012 album Hello Cruel World and a couple more from Blackbirds.
Peters and Walsh have been at this for a while; they’re seasoned performers, at ease with the audience and well versed in the mechanics and dynamics of live performance. Despite Peters’ claim of being “loopy from the road,” her singing, and the intricate interplay between her acoustic guitar and Walsh’s powerful piano, showed no trace of sloppiness. They wound down the set with the quiet drama of “Five Minutes” before rocking out on the exuberant “Woman on the Wheel.”
Abandoning the overdone cliché of leaving the stage after the 90-minute set (at the Duck, this requires an awkward walk through the audience and back), Peters and Walsh finished with the lost-love ballad “On a Bus to St. Cloud” and a rousing duet on John Prine’s “In Spite of Ourselves.”
Americana Music News – The Americana Music Association has announced an impressive line-up for the Americana Music Festival & Conference September 12-15 in Nashville , with more performers to be named later.
As usual, the roster includes a good mix of accomplished veterans and emerging artists.
Among the biggest names: Billy Joe Shaver, the Punch Brothers, Brandi Carlile, Richard Thompson, Sara Watkins, John Hiatt, Steve Forbert and Rodney Crowell.
Also booked are newer artists who have enjoyed extensive airplay on Americana music radio, including honeyhoney, John Fullbright, The Deep Dark Woods, Shovels & Rope and Eilen Jewell.
The full list: American Aquarium, Amy Helm, Andrew Combs , Angel Snow, Anthony da Costa, Bearfoot, Belle Starr , Bill Kirchen, Billy Joe Shaver, Black Lillies, Blue Highway, Blue Mountain, BoDeans, Brandi Carlile, Brennen Leigh, Buddy Miller, Buxton, Caitlin Harnett, Chastity Brown, Corb Lund,Cory Branan, Darrell Scott, The Deep Dark Woods, Della Mae, Derek Hoke, the Dunwells, Eilen Jewell, Felicity Urquhart, Fort Frances, Gretchen Peters, Holy Ghost Tent Revival, honeyhoney, Humming House, Immigrant Union, Jason Boland and the Stragglers, Jill Andrews, Jim Lauderdale, Jimbo Mathus and the Tri-State Coalition, John Fullbright, John Hiatt, Jordie Lane, Julie Lee, Kasey Anderson and the Honkies, Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson, Kevin Gordon, Lera Lynn, Lydia Loveless, Mandolin Orange, Mary Gauthier, the Mastersons, Max Gomez, McCrary Sisters, Mindy Smith, Nicki Bluhm and The Gamblers, Phoebe Hunt, Punch Brothers, Reckless Kelly, Richard Thompson, Robert Ellis, Rodney Crowell, Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside, Sara Watkins, Shovels and Rope, Sons of Bill, Sons of Fathers, Star and Micey, Starr Anna, Steep Canyon Rangers, Steve Forbert, Teresa Williams, Larry Campbell, Tift Merritt, Turnpike Troubadours, Two Gallants, Wheeler Brothers, Whitehorse, The WoodBrothers and The World Famous Headliners.
You’ll find more details on the Americana Music Festival on their home site.
Follow Sun209: Americana Music News at @sun209com.
It’s an unusual week on the Americana music airplay chart, with no new entries in the top 40. The Chimes of Freedom Dylan tribute and Gretchen Peters’ Hello Cruel World are among the biggest gainers, with both breaking into the top 10.
The real action is on the most-added list with Anais Mitchell’s Young Man in America, Otis Taylor’s Contraband, the Chieftains’ Voice of Ages, Amos Lee’s As the Crow Flies and the Punch Brothers’ Who’s Feeling Young Now? picking up airplay.
Singer-songwriter and occasional Sun209 contributor Tommy Womack’s new Now What! has been added to seven stations, tying Bruce Springsteen. Pretty good company.