Willie Watson Folks the House

Higher Ground 11.2.17

Watching Willie Watson do his solo show for the second time at Higher Ground in South Burlington last night, I was impressed by the change in his performance in two short years.

The last time he came through town he was greener to his new life as a solo performer with Folk Singer Vol. 1 — following a breakup with Old Crow Medicine Show.

Since then he's added stage presence.

He's added schtick. He tells stories, so capably Arlo Guthrie kept coming to mind. Ketch Secor, his former bandmate, and Dave Rawlings — his producer, friend, and fellow bandmate currently — kept popping into my head, too.*

His singing is better, not that it had much room to grow. I hailed him as one of the all-time folk music greats the instant he went solo, right up there with Pete Seeger and the rest.

His opening song ("Leaving Blues"?) from Folksinger Vol. 2** was a revelation. Who can render a folk song any better than that?

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*and my friend from college (sorry, Larry).
**the first volume did indeed come out with "Folk singer" as two words and the second volume is titled "Folksinger" one word.

Get Her to Sing "Julie"

If not for a Devon Sproule fan who sat by himself at the closest table to the tiny corner stage at Little Grill Collective,* I might have missed an amazing musical experience.

I took him to be a James Madison University student. Where or how he first heard the song, I don't know, as it was not yet released.**

When Devon asked for requests, this intensely-focused fan shouted out "Julie!"

Having never performed it live, his request posed a bit of a challenge. Devon turned her back on us for a moment, gathering the lyrics and chords.

When she turned back, she gave what was for me a transformative musical experience, like being at the Dawn of Music — like watching All of Music being created right before me.

I have since been the intensely-focused fan shouting out "Julie!" when I get to see Devon Sproule live.

Having finally listened to the recording of the song on  Don't Hurry for Heaven,*** I can say you must hear it live to get the full effect.

Go see Devon Sproule, and shout out "Julie!" You're in for quite a musical experience.

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*on July 6, 2007.
**she wrote the song based on a letter sent to a radio station, responding to some sort of on-air contest.
***which I purchased at a house party in Hartland, Vermont on May 17, 2016 (and listened to over-and-over again till I wore out the CD).

June Pichel Cook's "Cabin Fever Follies" Review: Hardwick Gazette (2.18.15)

READ: "The Day God Invented Bluegrass"

WATCH: Roger Waible sing "I'm My Own Grandpa" at the show.

BONUS: to first person who can define "multi-varietal".

Such is Old Crow’s Magic

"Such is Old Crow’s magic. They make brand-new songs sound like traditionals and traditionals sound like songs you’ve never heard before. Every album has something you can’t wait to hear live, even if a new song sounds a lot like an old song. The Lumineers might land a hit with the greatest song they ever wrote as part of one nine-song release, and Mumford might have earned themselves a spot on that Grammy show thanks to two releases in six years, but Old Crow is the standard the string-band revolution should be judged by, and they aren’t nearly done making great songs. Not nearly."

The Portland Phoenix

Willie Watson Takes Vermont

Willie Watson stormed into the Green Mountain State last night at Higher Ground and took all the hearts and minds with him when he left. He has not only redefined himself as a folk-singing solo act—something he never saw himself being—but, if he keeps it up, he could well become one of the major voices in American folk music.

Up there with bigs like Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie. But his voice pulls from previous sources, from way up in the mountains. Not only his interpretations—his stylings—but the sheer force of his pipes hollers down at us from Appalachia. From before the time of microphones and amplification.

There's no doubting his authenticity.

His song picker is singular, each choice jammed with urgency and feeling. Going back to earlier, lesser-known versions of songs—like Lead Belly's take on "Midnight Special"—is gutsy. But he creates whole new song experiences that are already developing devoted followers.

When Willie sings a song you hang on every word to see what will happen, to get the meaning, and to seek release from the pain the writer was in when he sat down to write it. Women turning men into mules, men shooting women with shotguns, Mexican gold, racehorses named "Stewball"—it's all there for folk song lover in us all.

Catch Maryse Smith When You Can

". . Smith’s songs have a feel all their own. They’re simultaneously downers and uppers. They celebrate the quiet power of a melancholy mood . . She’s especially adept at the hardest thing for any young musician to master—writing a song that can feed your head, break your heart and touch your soul."

Burlington Free Press

Alfa Romeo 4C Takes on Porsche Cayman

Salvador Dali Parton Supergroup to Play Nashville Saturday Night

They wrote their first songs Thursday. They rehearsed the first time Friday. They perform their first shows Saturday, October 26. Six shows, that is, all over Nashville--in honor of Halloween.

Salvador Dali Parton is a supergroup made up of Jake Orrall (JEFF the Brotherhood), Mike Harris (Apache Relay), Winston Marshall (Mumford & Sons), Justin Hayward-Young (The Vaccines), and Gill Landry (Old Crow Medicine Show) who will perform . .

• 6:45 p.m. at The High Watt
• 8 p.m. at Exit/In
• 9 p.m. at The Stone Fox
• 9:45 p.m. at Springwater
• 11 p.m. at Coyote Ranch (house show)

A sixth show will be announced day-of.

What will they sound like? "We'd love to tell you," says their release.* "But the band hasn't even practiced together yet." The group plans to record the Saturday night gigs and release a live album of the best of it.

Rolling Stone review

Salvador Dali Parton disbanded just after 1 a.m. Sunday morning at East Nashville’s fooBAR. (an officially unannounced stop?) "ending a debauched six-hour career" that included six performances. Old Crow’s Gil Landry, reflected during a brief break after the first gig: "A debacle, a glorious debacle." 

Salvador Dali Parton, intended as a one-off joke, featured Marshall and Landry on guitar, Apache Relay’s Mike Harris on bass, and JEFF the Brotherhood guitarist Jake Orrall on drums. Vaccines’ singer Justin Hayward-Young, who fronted, declared: "I don’t know when it all began, but this is the end."

SPD’s six songs, written Thursday and rehearsed once Friday, "sounded like a (predictably) sloppy, sludge-y early Black Sabbath ground down into Dadaist shambles." Or "something like Spinal Tap’s taking on Neil Young and Crazy Horse." 

Last year Marshall tapped Landry, Harris, and members of Matthew and the Atlas to form the Anal Beatles, a "similarly jocular hardcore punk outfit" that lasted "one tiny, drunken club show." Though the one-night supergroup did play a house party at "Nashville power-punkers Diarrhea Planet’s crash pad", as predicted, a rumored seventh show at Jack White’s Third Man Records "turned out to be a hoax."   

SEE: Nashville Scene and Rolling Stone

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*from Nashville label Infinity Cat, whose artists include Jeff The Brotherhood.

The Americans: Concept ('A'), Writing ('B-')

'You thought I'd stabbed him?'

With Russian enemy agents operating in the United States as Americans when Ronald Reagan takes office, of course I'm going to watch the premiere of The Americans on FX--especially with the months-long promotion featuring the comely Keri Russell kicking car doors and such (she does it so stylistically I was sure she was a dancer, which she proves out to be). And, yes, I like the hammer and sickle Communist symbol in place of the 'c' in Americans in the ads (other than that it's a super-dull title for a show, no?).

The actual writing, filled with bad clichés as it is, may get a B-, but with an A (or maybe even A+) concept like this, it's a  must-watch for me. As a writer, I'm even a little surprised I didn't think of it myself.

Of course, female victimhood has to drive the whole story, no matter what else might have been going on in 1960s Soviet Union (or in 1980s Washington, D.C. suburbia). I can see her KGB trainer taking advantage of her as a young 'cadet', but making that the reason he dies all these years later? Would a man really say such things to a 13-year old girl in front of her father and his own woman--all at the check-out counter in a shopping mall?

The silliness of keeping the just-kidnapped Soviet defector--the one who'd taken advantage of her during training all those years ago--alive in the trunk of a car parked in their garage, as they rent a muscle car to drive the family around. The 'coincidence' of an FBI counter-intelligence agent moving in with his family across the street. His breaking into the befriended Russian's garage to peer into the well-scrubbed trunk (did they repair the bloodied, bashed-in wall panel, too?). Does the KGB general have to be named Zhukov?

The writing, flat and predictable, is saved somewhat by excellent casting.  This Matthew Rhys guy not only gets the Russian vibe, but also adds a hint of Russian accent behind his Welshman-doing-a-Yank.  Did I mention Keri Russell is a fox? Let's just hope, even as attractive as she is, she doesn't play the whole thing in that stern, nagging vibe. They've even got Richard Thomas as a Fed (okay, that's a little weird, too).