By Paul T. Mueller –
After a year lost to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cayamo cruise returned in mid-March, rewarding passengers and artists alike with nearly a week’s worth of floating music festival. The chartered cruise, produced by Norwegian Cruise Lines subsidiary Sixthman and held aboard the NCL Pearl, featured more than 40 bands and solo artists and around 2,000 passengers. Cayamo is a happy event in any case, but seemed even more exuberant this year after the unwanted hiatus. It was also an especially poignant year for the festival – the 14th since 2008’s maiden voyage – because of the loss of a number of prominent musicians in the past two years, most notably Cayamo veteran John Prine.
In retrospect, the week is something of a blur of stages, songs and singers. As always, seeing one great show meant missing another scheduled at the same time. Your correspondent was not able to attend every set. But certain moments stand out; here are some impressions from particularly memorable performances.
The Mavericks, Pool Deck, Friday: Cayamoans have been clamoring for The Mavericks for years, and this year they got their wish, with the high-energy band kicking off the March 18 departure from Miami (ports of call were St. Thomas and St. Kitts). The pool deck set was a showcase for frontman Raul Malo’s otherworldly vocals, backed by a very capable three-piece horn section, a tight rhythm section and other instrumentation including guitar and accordion.
Grace Potter and Friends, Stardust Theater, Saturday: The songwriter-in-the-round format has become a Cayamo favorite over the years, and for good reason. It’s highly entertaining to get to see not only artists performing their own songs, but also the reactions of those artists to each other’s performances. Cayamo first-timer Grace Potter’s show featured Malo, the iconic Emmylou Harris, and Taylor Goldsmith, frontman of Los Angeles-based band Dawes. Goldsmith made a big impression with “The Game,” which he described as “my attempt to write a Guy Clark song,” and “House Parties,” an ode to the quiet joys of family vacations. Harris’ selections included a couple of songs from her landmark Red Dirt Girl album – “My Antonia” and “The Pearl (Hallelujah).”
Madison Cunningham, Spinnaker Lounge, Saturday: Singer-songwriter and guitarist Madison Cunningham first played Cayamo in 2020, and this year’s festival was a showcase for her impressive artistic growth since then. Leading an accomplished small band, she played and sang with confidence and joy, with a sound that one observer later described on social media as “Joni Mitchell meets King Crimson.” As is common practice among Cayamo musicians, Cunningham also made several guest appearances during other artists’ sets.
Quitters Coffee Acoustic Mornings, The Atrium, Sunday: The 9 a.m. show, curated by Canadian singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards, was an enjoyable start to the day for those fans and artists able to answer the early-morning call. Edwards, who famously left the music business several years ago to start a coffee shop named Quitters in an Ottawa suburb, recently quit that business, selling the shop in March. Her guests for the show, the second of the weekend, were Robbie Fulks, Steve Poltz, Aoife O’Donovan and John Paul White. Highlights included Fulks’ rendition of Cowboy Copas’ Sunday-appropriate “We’ll Walk Along Together” and O’Donovan’s lovely take on Joni Mitchell’s “You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio.”
Six Questions with Maple Byrne, The Atrium, Sunday: Sixthman staffer Trae Vedder conducted a wide-ranging interview with Maple Byrne, longtime guitar tech to Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller and other Nashville notables. Topics included Byrne’s memories of a late ‘70s tour featuring Steve Martin and Steve Goodman, laundry tips for tour T-shirts (wash them inside out), Byrne’s top 10 Cayamo moments (he’s a longtime veteran of the festival), and his extensive collections of records and musical instruments. It was a fascinating peek behind the curtain with someone who’s played a crucial, if not always very visible, role in the success of Cayamo.
Aoife O’Donovan, Spinnaker Lounge, Sunday: Boston-based singer-songwriter Aoife O’Donovan brought along an excellent band, but for this show – a full performance of Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 acoustic album Nebraska – she was mostly on her own. Notwithstanding the incongruity between her lovely voice and guitar and Springsteen’s often dark tales, O’Donovan delivered a nuanced performance, adding her own twists to the songs while staying true to the album’s roots. She got assists from fiddler and former Crooked Still bandmate Brittany Haas on “Highway Patrolman” and brilliant young mandolinist and singer Sierra Hull on the closing “Reason to Believe.” Audience reactions, aside from pin-drop silence, included not a few tears and too many smiles to count.
Tré Burt, Spinnaker Lounge, Monday: Sacramento, Calif.-based singer-songwriter Tré Burt started off with a nice rendition of John Prine’s “The Late John Garfield Blues” and proceeded through a set of mostly original material, accompanied at times by a young female singer named Levi. Burt’s voice, delivery and lyrics were, to some observers, reminiscent of the early Bob Dylan. A Dylanesque outrage at injustice was certainly evident in “Under the Devil’s Knee,” a pointed commentary on the killing of George Floyd in which Burt called not for sympathy but for action. Burt, who records for the Prine-founded Oh Boy Records label, closed with a sweet tribute to Prine titled “Dixie Red.”
Paul Thorn’s Campfire Sessions, Stardust Theater, Wednesday: This songwriter round, on a stage decorated with fake foliage, a fake campfire and even a fake owl, featured Cayamo veterans Paul Thorn and Richard Thompson along with newcomer Jerron Paxton. Paxton, a California-based artist with Louisiana roots, features an old-timey sound that recalls blues recordings from the early decades of the 20th century. That sound is supported by his astounding command of a variety of instruments, ranging from guitar and banjo to piano and bones. Paxton also dropped one of the best onstage lines of the festival, stopping a song to admonish the audience about clapping along. “The last thing I need is a bunch of white people helping me with my rhythm,” he said with a big grin, earning laughter and applause. Thorn contributed his trademark mix of humor and poignancy, while Thompson applied his virtuosic acoustic guitar playing and expressive voice to “She Moved Through the Fair” and several other songs.
The Mavericks and Friends, Stardust Theater, Thursday: Raul Malo and his merry band opened their cruise-ending set with an impressive rendition of “Us and Them” from Pink Floyd’s landmark The Dark Side of the Moon album. The hit parade went on from there: “Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down” by “stowaway” Jim Lauderdale; a sultry take on “Friday’s Child” by Kristi Rose, accompanied by husband Fats Kaplin (“I think I need a cigarette,” Malo said at song’s end, “and I don’t even smoke.”); Kathleen Edwards performing the Linda Ronstadt hit “When Will I Be Loved?” with high energy and unbridled joy; “Moon River,” with Malo crooning to the accompaniment of Australian guitar whiz Tommy Emmanuel; JD McPherson’s energetic take on Little Richard’s “Lucille,” and Nicole Atkins’ brilliant rendition of The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” complete with professional-grade dance moves and backup vocals (and dancing) by vocal trio Rainbow Girls. The Mavericks and all their guests closed out the set with an extended workout on one of the band’s big hits, “All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down.”
Of course there was much, much more: An all-star tribute to musicians no longer with us; an “All the Best” show featuring friends of John Prine; another Prine tribute dubbed “Souvenirs: Songs of John Prine”; a nautical-themed sailaway show by Punch Brothers, featuring frequent shouts of “Ahoy!” by frontman and ace mandolinist Chris Thile; a Stowaway Reveal Show with “stowaways” Jim Lauderdale and Steve Poltz, featuring an album’s worth of songs written especially for Cayamo; the popular Sunday morning pool deck show, this year called Sunday Soul Session; Brady Blade’s Drum and Music Extravaganza, featuring the seemingly omnipresent drummer; an onstage conversation between Emmylou Harris and Fiona Prine, John’s widow; Cayamo debuts that included Austin blues legend Ruthie Foster, UK folk-rock duo Ida Mae, and others, and too many other shows and events to mention.
Next year’s Cayamo is scheduled for Feb. 10-17, 2023, sailing from Miami with stops at Tortola and St. Maarten.
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