Nashville's Got the Blues
Music City is perhaps best known as the home of country music. There's certainly a lot of country and western music in Nashville, but I'm pleased to report that Music City's got the blues in a big way.
There's a thriving downtown nightclub district, called The District. The District roughly stretches from the Cumberland River to the East to 6th Avenue North to the West, and Charlotte Pike to the North, down to Franklin Street to the South. The thriving club scene along Broadway Avenue boasts such longtime legendary spots as Tootsies, 2, and 3. Whether or not you're a fan of country, Ernest Tubb's record store is worth a visit as it contains 150,000 releases (on vinyl and on CD).
Last month, the planets aligned and I caught a free show on the banks of the Cumberland River in the Dancin' in the District summer concert series. This Thursday night series, sponsored by Southwest Airlines, Coca-Cola, and the Buzz local FM rock outlet, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and some of the more popular line-ups can fill the riverfront park with 14,000 people on a hill that gently slopes down to the stage.
When I went Dancin' in the District, I saw acoustic bluesman extraordinaire Keb' Mo,' the legendary Flatlanders, North Carolina's Jupiter Coyote, and a young Nashville rock outfit, Pheromone.
[All photos below are courtesy of the Dancin' in the District website, and were taken the day of the show reviewed below, July 11, 2002.
Keb' Mo' sat down and surveyed the feisty crowd. He opened with "Come On Back" from his 2000 Sony/Okeh CD, The Door. During his hour-plus set on the river, he alternated between his six string and a National steel guitar, and when the song called for it, Keb' made his guitars scream with his able slide. Mo's long-time sideman, Clayton Webb, joined in on banjo, guitar and mandolin throughout the evening, too. The Door continues to be one of my favorite Keb' Mo" releases as it puts Keb' Mo' all over the blues map as a singer and as a songwriter. That night, his forceful "Gimme What You Got" and "Stand Up (And Be Strong)" directly contrasted with the plaintive ballad of "Loola Lou."
Keb' Mo' is a perfect introduction to the blues, but he's made America's most original art form his own with a very positive take on love and loss. Instead of moaning at midnight (like Chester Burnett, AKA Howlin' Wolf), Keb' sings a very different kind of blues. Songs that are positive and forward-looking. I'm not dissing the Wolf (or Muddy, or Elmore or B.B.) here, I'm just saying that Keb' Mo's blues are different than those of his forebears in the blues. When he delights in "Muddy Water," from his 1998 Grammy-winning CD, Slow Down, you can feel the joy that Keb' felt as he discovered the blues in Mississippi. That discovery was not lost on those who were Dancin in the District with me, either
When I first heard "You Can Love Yourself" and "That's Not Love" six years ago on Just Like You, I knew in my gut that an artist like Keb' Mo' would catch on. That night, he breathed new life into those positive and uplifting original songs, and I was very surprised and pleased that he unwrapped two presents from his 1994 self-titled CD, "City Boy" and "Angelina."
This month, Keb' Mo' continues to tour solo. If you like solid acoustic blues, you'll love Keb Mo. For more information, go to www.kebmomusic.com. Keb' Mo's first-class set capped off an exciting evening of music.
The Flatlanders didn't waste any time in taking us down to Lubbock, Texas. Their brand of West Texas-influenced country music is one of my favorites as it's built on strong storytelling and finely-wrought acoustic strumming and picking. They play in the style of, well, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, and Joe Ely, and I'll take that over the big hats and neon lights that have overshadowed the country music market any day. I'd add some others to that constellation of players, too. Folks like James McMurtry, Emmylou Harris, or Mary Chapin-Carpenter.
For most of the past three decades, The Flatlanders have developed their own careers apart from each other, with Jimmie Dale Gilmore releasing a string of classic country records and Joe Ely rocking with The Clash. Songwriter Butch Hancock has penned "She Never Spoke Spanish to Me" for Joe Ely as well as the Texas Tornadoes and "If You Were a Bluebird" for Emmylou Harris. I've enjoyed Jimmie Dale, Joe, and Butch as solo artists over the years and together, The Flatlanders have earned supergroup status bestowed upon them by the likes of Rolling Stone. They've reunited for a 2002 tour and CD on New West, Now Again, and I was in the right place at the right time to experience their reunion in Nashville, Tennessee.
Over thirty years ago, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock and Joe Ely recorded More A Legend Than A Band as an 8-track tape. This tape made the rounds in Nashville until it landed on vinyl, courtesy of London's Charly Records in 1980. Rounder released it stateside ten years later, and it remains a treasure trove of traditional country, the kind country and western musicians made before big hats and big hair, and electric guitars, appeared on the Nashville scene.
At Riverfront Park, Butch fit his neck rack harmonica for "Yesterday Was Judgement Day." During "Right Where I Belong," Butch, Joe, and Jimmie Dale were surprised when the Gaylord Opryland's General Jackson Showboat slowed to take in the concert. The majority of The Flatlanders' set came from the Now Again CD, including Butch Hancock's "Julia," and the group's shared efforts in "Right Where I Belong," and "I Thought The Wreck Was Over." Butch, Jimmie Dale, and Joe shared the mic at centerstage on a rollicking "Pay the Alligator," tales of what it costs to be your own boss in the music business. Check them out at www.theflatlanders.com.
Jupiter Coyote warmed the stage for The Flatlanders, and this North Carolina-based jam band extraordinaire knitted songs together with fiddle, bass, guitar, sax and drums for 15-minute explorations that invoked jazz, blues, rock, and country. Jupiter Country plays over 200 live dates a year, and they've released seven CDs on their own. Live on the banks of the Cumberland River, they showed me that it's very hard to pin a Southern band down. Guest fiddler Beth Wood joined them on a couple of songs, and then retired to watch the show from the couch at stage left. They've sold over 150,000 music CDs largely at merch tables at their live shows or online through their website at www.jupitercoyote.com.
Dancin' in the District kicked off with an energetic set by local rockers Pheromone. They recognized four generations of family in the audience and thanked Grandma for all the memories made in her attic. Their upcoming EP will be called Four Star Attic, and when they sang about "Andrews Palace," it was more than a history lesson set to a rock beat. They're a good opening act, and I hope that original songs like "Walk Away Unscathed" or "Lemonade" attract the ears of some of Nashville's brightest talent scouts. The band's website, just like the band, is a work in progress at www.pheromonemusic.com.
After all, Nashville's not just country. It's Music City, USA, and when I return, I'm going to check out the Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar, featuring Stacy Mitchhart & Blues-U-Can-Use, and a host of nationally-known bluesmen like Eric Sardinas, Michael Burks, Bobby Rush, and Sam Cockrell, among others. Bourbon Street Blues is smack-dab in the District, in Printer's Alley, right in the heart of the District.
Until I get back, go play some Keb' Mo (or Flatlanders, or Jupiter Coyote, or Pheromone).
