By Lisa Provence
Month: August 2019
By Susan Sorensen
Lorenzo Dickerson is always chasing down stories that he heard as a kid. “Stories I heard who knows when,” he says, local stories he now feels compelled to share with local audiences. His fifth documentary film, 3rd Street: Best Seats in the House, tells one such story—that of the Third Street side entrance to The Paramount Theater, when the theater was (legally) segregated. Black moviegoers were forced to use a side entrance and sit in the balcony (though those seats offered the best view, local artist Frank Walker notes in the film).
A tour of the Paramount in fall 2017 sparked the idea. A guide mentioned that the theater wasn’t sure how to best tell the story of that entrance, but Dickerson knew immediately. He shot more than 20 hours of interviews with black Charlottesville and Albemarle County residents, and combed through interviews conducted by Jane Myers in 1995 that have sat, unused, in the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society archives. Dickerson’s film premieres at the Paramount on Thursday. In advance of the screening, he sat down with C-VILLE to talk about the film, and what he hopes it can accomplish.
C-VILLE: When did you first hear about the Third Street entrance?
Lorenzo Dickerson: As a child. My father loves westerns, and his favorite film of all time is a western, Shane. The first time he saw it was when my grandmother took him to the Paramount to see it. He was 6 years old or so. [He told me] that he went in through that entrance, sat in the balcony, and saw that film.
When you started the project, what was your idea for the film?
The initial idea was really for people to tell their stories. What was it like to use that entrance?…And also, what segregated spaces were like in Charlottesville in that time period: The Lafayette Theatre, the Jefferson [Theater], the Woolworths, Timberlake’s. The University Theater, where you couldn’t go at all.
How did you decide who to interview?
I was trying to find people who could tell different stories, not only about that segregated entrance but about what that experience was like. For my previous film, Albemarle’s Black Classrooms, I interviewed Marcha Howard about her going to and teaching at Burley [which was Charlottesville’s black high school during segregation]. During that interview, she mentioned going to the Paramount and looking over her shoulder into the balcony after it was desegregated, sitting in the bottom, feeling weird about that. I always had that in the back of my mind.
Bernice and Kenneth Mitchell tell their love story, how they would go on dates at the Paramount, and how Kenneth at one point passed for white. …Phil Jones talks about coming in from Albemarle County on the back of a dump truck with eight other people or so.
The Reverend Nate Brown—I’ve known him my entire life, and to me, he’s the greatest storyteller ever—he has [used] a wheelchair his whole life. And at a family funeral, I had this moment, like, “Whoa. If you were handicapped in any way, and African American, what would you do?” So I asked him. He never went, because he couldn’t.
It’s likely that these people will be familiar to the audience watching the film.
That was the point, really, for people we know to tell these stories. …I hope that by watching it and being in that space, that you would think of it differently as you leave the theater that evening. And the next time you go to any of the shows at the Paramount, that you may think about that space differently, [that it’s not] just a theater on the Downtown Mall.
Think about it differently how?
What did it feel like to be sitting there watching a film where you were forced to sit in the balcony due to Jim Crow, and you were never watching anyone that looked like you there on the screen? You may have gone to Timberlake’s to get ice cream before the movie—and you could purchase it. The person working there, or making the food, may have been African American. But then you had to come outside to eat it.
I’m hoping that people will really feel, even just for a moment, what that experience was like. To understand that the experience that we have now is nothing like the experience they had at that time. Billy Byers mentions that he didn’t know that the front door even existed. Or that there were seats under the balcony, because [up there], all you can see is what’s forward. Your experience is completely different if you’re African American. It’s not simply, “you’re sitting up here instead of sitting down here.” It’s a lot more to it than that.
What got cut from the film that you wish you could have kept in?
I was going to interview a [black] woman and her white friend, and the friend had some type of health stuff going on. But they were going to be on camera, together, talking about walking to the Paramount, together, as friends, then getting to the Paramount and having to go their separate ways. And then after the film, getting back together and walking back home.
Lorenzo Dickerson premieres his fifth documentary, “3rd Street: Best Seats in the House” Thursday, August 29 at the Paramount Theater.
Categories
This Week, 8/21
Though the weather still says summer, August 21 is the first day of school, and the new academic year brings some changes.
Less than a year ago, a New York Times/ProPublica story shone a national spotlight on some uncomfortable facts about Charlottesville City Schools: that black students are overrepresented when it comes to suspensions and underrepresented in gifted programs and honors classes; that only half of all black students read at grade level (compared to 89 percent of white students); that all of these problems have been going on for a very long time.
In some ways, the story’s focus on Charlottesville felt unfair—the racial achievement gap is a national problem, and the inequities here are similar to those in other liberal college towns like Berkeley and Ann Arbor. The article, clearly occasioned by the 2017 Unite the Right rally, failed to consider the relationship between Charlottesville and Albemarle County, which has a wealthier, whiter student body but still grapples with similarly troubling statistics (roughly 1 in 9 white students in the county are identified as gifted, compared to 1 in 55 black students).
But as T. Denise Johnson, a Charlottesville native and the city’s new supervisor of equity and inclusion tells us, some things happen for a reason. And whether it was the ProPublica story, our new awareness of systemic inequalities, or simply the fact that conversations that have been happening for decades had finally reached a tipping point, Charlottesville City Schools seems ready to make some changes.
The city is overhauling its gifted program and extending honors-option classes, in which students can pursue honors credit without being funneled into separate classes,
to Walker and Buford (they already exists at CHS).
Johnson, who grew up in city schools and comes to the position after leading City
of Promise, is clear-eyed about the systemic nature of these issues—the schools don’t exist apart from the community; our problems, and solutions, are intertwined. But she’s also optimistic and eager to dig in. “I live in hope,” she says. We do, too.
When T. Denise Johnson was growing up in Charlottesville’s Westhaven neighborhood, she was one of the few black kids in her honors classes at school. Decades later, that’s a disparity that hasn’t changed—the city’s public school system has one of the widest racial achievement gaps in the nation. In both Charlottesville and Albemarle County schools, black students are less likely to be selected for the gifted program and more likely to be suspended or held back a grade, and these inequities have persisted for decades.
Last October, a damning article in The New York Times and ProPublica brought national attention to Charlottesville’s disparities. The city responded by holding a series of community forums, and has begun making significant changes.
These have included revamping its gifted program, Quest, and hiring Johnson to be its first supervisor of equity and inclusion. Johnson had returned to her hometown a few years ago to run City of Promise, an education-focused nonprofit that supports children in the Westhaven, 10th and Page, and Star Hill neighborhoods. We sat down with her before the school year began to talk about her own experiences in city schools, and the daunting challenge ahead.
C-VILLE: What’s the scope of this new role?
JOHNSON: As supervisor for equity, I’m charged with looking at all of our practices, policies, and procedures, and making sure that they are serving all of our students to max capacity.
So that’s pretty broad.
Yeah, it’s pretty broad (laughs). A lot of it looks like partnerships and facilitating. It’s so broad because it’s about creating a culture. I think Dr. Atkins and CCS were very intentional about not making it feel separate, because really and truly, equity is a way of life, it’s a culture, it’s something that everybody has to be practicing. So I sit at the table with a lot of different people doing various things, making sure we look at everything through an equity lens.
You grew up here.
I did!
What schools did you go to?
I went to Burnley-Moran, Walker, Buford, and CHS, Class of ’98.
That’s really great. To have someone in this position who actually went through the schools.
I call it a perfect love story, when you’re able to come back and serve the community that raised you. I consider myself forever indebted to Charlottesville, especially CCS. So when I got the opportunity to come back home, I was committed to making sure that I was able to serve those that were coming after me, it was very important.
What was your experience like as
a student in Charlottesville public schools?
I had a fantastic experience. I was in the Quest program, and an athlete—I was a cheerleader and ran track. I was one of the few students of color in the honors-level classes. That has remained consistent. But I also had relationships of various races, ethnicities, upbringings, things like that. The beauty of my education, I received so many relationships and opportunities, but also growing up in the Westhaven area, I was able to witness those that didn’t have the same opportunities. I know they were no less intelligent or capable than I was. So I’ve seen the greatness that education can be, and I’ve also seen those who weren’t able to be as successful as I was. And so I think that’s part of the work that I see myself doing, making sure that everyone is able to connect.
Why do you think it was different for you versus some of your peers?
I had some educators who became role models. I think it’s important to have people tell you that you can, in a space that gives you a lot of messaging that you can’t do certain things and that certain things aren’t for you. When you’re able to find a mentor or model in your space who says you can do these things, and not just you can, but let me show you how, I think that was what was able to leverage me to a different place.
I did have parents that cared, but they were working, and they worked hard. My mother was a Head Start teacher [when I was] growing up. But it was also those outside supports that were able to support me, even to this day.
Who were some of those supports?
I had a fantastic cheerleading coach, her name was Jackie Estes; she was the one that actually introduced me to the college I eventually went to for undergrad, Virginia State.
Also Reverend Alvin Edwards, who was my best friend’s father, really was pivotal, just watching his leadership and his work within the community just model what leadership looked like. Being able to be around their family’s system of love and expectation was important as well.
And then there were so many others. We had a strong cohort of African American leaders during that time. There were just many people who were intentional about the expectations that they had of us, and me in particular, and there were those that challenged me when I wasn’t doing the best that I could.
Looking back, is there anything the schools could have done differently, either for you or others?
That was when tracking was huge, and I think Dr. Atkins is working really hard to address that. There were moments when certain cohorts of students would go one direction and another set would go a different direction. Kids early on learn expectation, and what we as adults believe that they can do. And so I think the higher the expectation, for all students, the more that students will accomplish.
Do you see the changes in the Quest program as helping to address that?
I think any time all students are able to receive a high level, what we call a gifted quality, of education, it would be for the greater good of every child. I think the intention is to make sure all our children are receiving that same enrichment and resource. And that’s never a bad thing.
You were a school counselor in Richmond for many years. How do think that informs your work or your perspective?
I’ve always been drawn to youth that needed more support. And so part of the reason I got into school counseling was because I wanted to be that person that I needed growing up.
I grew up not knowing about colleges and college readiness and things like that, but knowing that I wanted those opportunities, and I just needed someone to show me how to get there. I wanted to be that for other youth. So as a school counselor, I naturally worked with youth that reminded me of who I was growing up. And not just those children but all children, just making sure that I was able to have conversations that made them feel like they could be successful in the way they wanted to be.
Obviously, both city and county schools have struggled with equity issues for a long time, but the Times/ProPublica story brought national attention to these issues. What did you think about their coverage?
I think that story was a mirror for some of the work that needed to happen. When I was a director at City of Promise, we received a grant based on some similar disparities. But coming on this side, it made me see the work that had been happening, and also that we were ready to be intentional about working to fill those gaps that we knew were going on. And so I have seen both sides of it.
I think everything happens for a reason. And it’s not just that the article threw us into the forefront, it’s what happens after that. Anytime you are confronted with something it’s about what happens afterwards. And I think there could have been several ways the school system chose to handle it, but I think they handled it to the best of their ability. And making sure that there are a ton of positives that come out of that situation.
What was the reaction to that story in the Westhaven community?
It varied. I think overall there were many people that could see Zyahna’s point of view, that had lived and experienced it, not just current kids but people that had gone through the school system. I think that a lot of people could understand what she was saying and how she was saying it.
In general, you’ll find that a lot of adults’ perspectives have to do with their own personal experiences they had as children, and so we have to work for those people that don’t necessarily have great relationships with the school system.
I always say that people should expect action; trust is something that is earned through action, through doing exactly what you say you’re going to do. And so I think this is a time for the system to build and rebuild trust that may have been lost along the way.
Why did you think these inequities have been so persistent?
When you’re talking systems, and systemic issues, one thing isn’t in isolation. Systemic issues in education aren’t in isolation from affordable housing, from justice issues—it’s all tied together. And so I think looking at the history of Charlottesville, there’s always been a system of inequity in some form.
We’ve had these conversations before. Does it feel any different now?
It feels different to me. I believe that with the amount of students that we have, there’s no reason for us not to be able to make the systemic changes that we need to make. I’ve seen on the school side the leadership is being very intentional, and aggressive about the work and bold about the work they want to have happen, and so I am trusting that we’ll be able to accomplish the goals that we’re setting.
I always say that for me it’s not about pointing fingers. And I think it’s important to say it’s not about what the school system has done wrong. The school system is made up of the community and its members. And so while we are continuing to hold the schools accountable for their work, I think we all have to take ownership in making sure our kids are successful.
It’s seems like a potentially very daunting position to be in.
Yeah, but I’m so thankful for it. Under no circumstances did I ever imagine I’d be in this position, to be able to effect change in the way that I can. But I am incredibly blessed because of it. And I don’t consider it daunting, I consider it amazing work, that I feel privileged to do. And so I think as long as I have that perspective and know that I’m doing all that I can, I can feel comfortable in what we’re doing and being a part of the CCS team.
Do you think in terms of the other pieces, like housing and justice issues, do you see that also changing from when you were growing up here?
What I know is that everyone is working really hard to make things right. I’ve worked at a lot of tables to try to break down these inequities and figure out what we could be doing differently. So I know the intention is there, the desire is there. I want to believe the right people are at the tables to make the necessary changes moving forward.
I feel like oftentimes wealthier, white parents inject themselves pretty strongly into the debate, so how do you make sure everyone’s voices are being heard?
That’s what it comes down to—no matter whether you’re wealthy and white or not, you just want your voice heard, and so the key will be bringing everyone’s voice to the table. And what I’ve found is that when parents didn’t have great relationships with the school, it’s because they didn’t feel like they were being heard. So just making sure that we’re being intentional about hearing everyone and taking into account how they feel, and using it to better the school itself.
And what does that look like?
It’s not just about electronic communication. A lot of times I just serve as a reminder about basic fundamental relationship things, like having verbal conversations with people. There’ll be a set of our parents who prefer surveys, a set who will benefit from text messages and phone calls, and there will be a set of our families who will benefit from door-to-door, community engagement.
We’re being very intentional about community engagement early on. We’ve started even this summer with back to school registration and making sure that we’re going into communities to engage with people. And also just having conversations with families about what method works best for them.
Are there any other things you were working on at City of Promise you could see bringing this to role?
One of the initiatives that I’ve brought over is going to be a division-wide mentoring and tutoring program, the Bring Back the Village network, which is rooted in the African proverb that it takes a village to raise a child. I know the importance of having a mentor, someone who is there to support you, to check on your grades, to make sure you’re doing well in school, not just academically but emotionally, and just being that liaison when you need them. And tutoring is important; at City of Promise we had started to build out after-school tutoring programs, but that’s something I wanted to carry over to make sure every school has their own tutoring hub.
Another big thing I learned on the City of Promise side is the need for partnerships—not just with the school system, but with other nonprofits and organizations in the city. There are so many people doing amazing things in Charlottesville, so on this side, creating a Community Care Coalition—that’s what I’m tentatively calling it—where all of our nonprofits and organizational players in the city are coming together to discuss the youth development that’s happening and support the kids.
There are so many different issues around equity—what do you
see as the most important things to address?
All of it. All of it. One of the things I also learned is that you can’t treat any one symptom in isolation. In order to effect real change, we have to do the hard work of fixing all of it, or attempting to address all of it, to do the work that we need to do.
It seems like you are pretty hopeful.
Yeah, I live in hope. I don’t think you can do the work we do without rooting yourself in hope. We all are in this field because we hope to instill in our kids that hope for a better tomorrow and making sure that they are equipped to handle the world that we leave for them. There’s no reason why any child, whatever their background, can’t be as successful as they want to be.
The highly anticipated reopening of the Blue Moon Diner is still…highly anticipated. A call for applications to restaff the West Main Street restaurant, which closed in May 2017, went out a few weeks ago, noting that employees would be strapping on aprons sometime in August.
Now comes word that the Brooklyn-based duo, Charming Disaster, has been booked to play at the Blue Moon at 8pm September 26. We could not confirm the exact reopening date (the answering machine at the diner still says “hopefully this August”) but it better be before September 26!
Charming Disaster is a fitting act to kick off a new chapter for the quirky spot, where vinyl was always spinning behind the bar and musicians periodically played gigs. C-VILLE Weekly described the reopening band’s music as “folk tunes with a cabaret twist,” and a press release notes inspirations including “the gothic humor of Edward Gorey and Tim Burton, the noir fiction of Raymond Chandler, and the murder ballads of the Americana tradition.”
Cheerfully dark, a little theatrical… Just like the Blue Moon.
Open-and-shut cases
As C-VILLE Weekly first reported via Instagram and Twitter, a new Mexican restaurant run by Benos Bustamante, who recently left his post as front-of-house manager at Mas, will open at 816 Hinton Ave. No date has been set (we sense a theme), but Comal is currently testing recipes—and if the food tastes as good as it looks on Instagram, we’ll be there on opening night, whenever that is. Comal takes over the space recently vacated by the clearly misnamed No Limits Smokehouse. Also reaching its limit: Seafood at West Main, which has announced it will close up shop at the Main Street Market on August 31. Owner Chris Arseneault says he’s moving upstream to Jessup, Maryland, to join the sales team at Reliant Fish Company.
Ready to pick some grapes? Awesome. But before you tap the date into your iCalendar, there’s something those feisty, ripening clusters want you to know: Your schedule means nothing to them.
“One year we picked vidal with a 30-minute advance notice,” says Karl Hambsch, the winemaker at Loving Cup Winery in North Garden. “When I woke up, the forecast had suddenly changed to boatloads of rain, so I called the family and said, ‘We’re picking nowAs a volunteer, you probably won’t be rousted out of bed, but wineries will appreciate it if you keep your schedule flexible as they determine the window of opportunity to harvest, often just a few days in advance.
Pitching in to pick grapes loosely reflects the rural European tradition of villagers helping with—and then celebrating—the harvest. This is still common in many wine-producing areas, notably in Italy and France, and popular enough to support its own category of tourism.
In Virginia, sustained heat this summer has led to early ripening, so picking will commence at some wineries one to two weeks earlier than usual. Many producers rushed to rent refrigerated trailers—to store the fruit before the crush—as early as August 19, according to Steve LeSueur of Worldwide Trailer Rental, which supplies Horton, Jefferson, and Barboursville vineyards, among others. “Last year, they wanted them just before Labor Day,” he says.
Regardless of the weather, picking schedules vary. Debby Deal, owner of Palmyra’s Cunningham Creek Winery, says she’s looking for volunteers now through the end of September, while David Foster, owner of Mountain Run Winery, in Culpeper, needs help September 1 through early October.
The tangible rewards vary—a meal with wine is often served—but the real payoff is bonding with others who pitch in their time for a unique agricultural experience.
Five Oaks Vineyard, Barboursville
The winery is a relative newcomer to the area, but owner Robert Shepard’s vines date back to 2011. Volunteers will be picking medal-winning chambourcin, as well as traminette, vidal blanc and cayuga. Breakfast is provided, and pickers take home a bottle or two of wine. Contact: info@five oaksvineyard.com.
Glass House Winery, Free Union
Owner Jeff Sanders jokingly calls his volunteer opportunity a “hard-labor fantasy camp.” But there’s always plenty of interest, so while all are welcome to apply, Glass House Wine Club members get first dibs. Picking starts between 6:30 and 7am, and shifts run three to five hours. The winery provides snacks, cold drinks, and usually lunch and wine. Bottling volunteers are also needed during the year. Contact: jeff@glass housewinery.com.
Loving Cup Winery, North Garden
Plan ahead if you want to pick grapes at Loving Cup Winery, the sole organic vineyard and winery in the state. “Only our Wine Club members get to work harvest, and you can’t buy your way in—you have to work your way in,” Karl Hambsch says. Eight hours in the vineyard, usually completed in two four-hour shifts, get you into the club. Volunteers can pitch in year-round with everything from shoot thinning to picking. Shifts often end with a cold glass of sangria on the veranda, shooting the breeze with Hambsch. Sign up at lovingcupwine.com/wineclub.html. Contact: info@lovingcupwine.com.
Mountain Run Winery, Culpeper
At Mountain Run’s three vineyards—in Aldie, Hume, and Fredericksburg—grape gathering starts just after dawn, and shifts last as long (or as short) as you’d like, followed by a light breakfast. Ever wanted to foot-stomp grapes? You’ll get your chance here, and home winemakers can even purchase fruit to bring home (BYO buckets!). Contact: mountainrunwinery@gmail.com.
Cunningham Creek Winery, Palmyra
Owner Debby Deal has two jobs for harvest volunteers: picking and sorting. Picking generally starts soon after dawn, depending on the weather. Sorters work inside, assembly-line fashion, separating the good grapes from the detritus. Plan to spend two to three hours as a sorter, or about four hours as a picker. Volunteers get a special harvest T-shirt and a bottle of wine after six volunteer hours. Contact: debby@middleforkfarm.net.
Volunteer tips
Picking: Wear comfortable closed-toe shoes or boots, dress in layers, and bring a hat, gloves, and a water bottle (it gets hot among the vines).
Sorting and bottling: Mostly done under cover or indoors; wear comfortable shoes and clothes you won’t mind getting stained, and carry a water bottle.
The child performers in Good Boys are quite good, and the jokes can be very funny, but what do you do with a movie that forces you to compare it to something better? It’s Superbad for sixth graders in almost every way: Produced by Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen, and Jonah Hill, Good Boys follows three friends on a quest to the big party so they can make a move on a crush. There’s some gross stuff, some sweet stuff, an encounter with indifferent police at a convenience store, and a few hard lessons about friendship and growing up—but with sixth graders.
Co-writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky come primarily from TV, most notably “The Office,” and that show’s trademark balance of sweet and silly can be seen here. Our three heroes, Max, Thor, and Lucas (Jacob Tremblay, Brady Noon, and Keith L. Williams), collectively known as the Beanbag Boys, do everything together. The group’s unity is tested when Max is invited to a kissing party thrown by the coolest kid in school, Soren (Izaac Wang). Max’s crush Brixlee (Millie Davis) will be there, so skipping the party is not an option, but neither is going without his friends, who weren’t directly invited.
The mission becomes learning how to kiss in time for the party. The movie becomes an odyssey of trying to replace a broken drone, returning accidentally stolen MDMA from high school seniors, beating up an entire fraternity, selling a sex doll, and lots and lots of misunderstood uses for sex toys.
Good Boys
R, 100 minutes
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
The overlap with Superbad is substantial, but the main difference is that those teenagers know what sex is, they just haven’t done it yet. These kids know there’s a concept called sex that grownups do, but have no context for any of the details. Googling “porn” is no help. Finding their parents’ dildos, bondage mask, anal beads, or sex swing doesn’t register. The only things they know about drugs are what they learned in D.A.R.E., and they don’t know the difference between Molly and heroin.
The movie shines when the kids get to be kids, and silliness triumphs over repetitious gross-out gags. Thinking anal beads are nunchuks is funny. Making the same joke about how they smell, even with slight variations, is a bit boring, and can smother the emotional investment we had in these kids. To compare it to “The Office,” imagine if an entire episode was Dwight jokes. Even if he’s your favorite character, it wouldn’t be fun.
There are ways Good Boys is more mature than Superbad. There are no real villains here. The teenagers might be an obstacle, but they understand that this whole thing could have been a lot simpler if the kids knew anything about the world. The closest thing to a bully relents when he’s shown up. The only actual bad person is a manipulative college guy who doesn’t respect his girlfriend’s independence or intelligence (he gets his in the end). Consent is also a major part of everyone’s actions, and though it plays a role in some jokes, it’s never a punchline. These kids know what consent is and how crucial it is before they even know what kissing is. We’ve come a long way since Revenge of the Nerds.
Good Boys is sometimes very funny and often sweet. The performances are terrific, particularly Williams as Lucas. But with redundant jokes coming too frequently, it’s all a bit too familiar to really resonate in the same way as its spiritual predecessor.
Local theater listings
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 375 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056.
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213.
Violet Crown Cinema 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000.
There were moments, Derek Trucks admits, that he wondered how Tedeschi Trucks Band—the electrifying 12-piece Southern roots outfit he leads with his wife, powerhouse blues vocalist Susan Tedeschi—could continue. In February, the band’s keyboardist/flute player Kofi Burbridge passed away after battling heart disease, and a couple months prior, longstanding bassist Tim Lefebvre had left the group to pursue other projects. Two years earlier, Trucks, a former member of the Allman Brothers Band, also lost his uncle, ABB’s drummer Butch Trucks, and the band’s leader, Gregg Allman, who both died in 2017. Ultimately, the ace guitarist, who’s also toured with Eric Clapton, persevered: “The only way we know how to deal with things like this is to play through it,” Trucks says, during a recent phone chat from his home in Jacksonville, Florida.
On February 15, the same day Burbridge died, Tedeschi Trucks released its fourth studio album, Signs, a dynamic roots-driven effort shadowed by grief. The group had also just finished headlining its fifth straight Wheels of Soul Tour, an amphitheater trek featuring a rotating cast of like-minded artists. This weekend, the band tops the bill on Saturday night at Lockn’, where they will be joined by Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio, who in kind will welcome Trucks for a set with his solo band on Friday.
C-VILLE Weekly: You just finished Wheel of Souls for the fifth straight year. What do you enjoy about the collaborative tour?
DT: It’s good for the band to see how others operate. When you go out for six weeks, you really get to know people. The first few years it was mainly people we were really familiar with—Doyle Bramhall, a close friend, and Los Lobos. This year I didn’t know the Blackberry Smoke guys or Shovels & Rope very well, so before we started the tour in Jacksonville we had a big cookout at the house. We ended up having great chemistry. There was zero drama, which is usually impossible with 60 people on the road for that long. The sit-ins were really good, and I think we made some lifelong friends.
Signs, understandably, has heavy- hearted moments that address your recent losses. Has playing the songs live this summer helped with the healing?
We got ultimately tested the day the record came out, which is the day Kofi passed away. That’s the closest we ever came to canceling a gig. Playing has been super therapeutic and cathartic, but also really hard. There are certain tunes, every single night, where I’ll remember a part that he wrote or not hear his flute in a certain place, and then it really hits hard. You can hear it in the whole band, and notice when someone on stage is having a Kofi moment.
For such a large unit, the band sounds really unified on the record, and you and Susan give the other members moments to shine. After a decade, has it gotten easier to figure out how to showcase your deep talent pool?
It gets easier, but then it gets harder, when you lose someone. When Kofi got sick, [keyboardist] Gabe Dixon stepped in with a beautiful mindset, and the band had to mentally recommit, and everybody pulled really tight together. It’s shocked me how far the band has come this quickly and how healthy it feels, musically. Everyone is digging a hell of a lot deeper, because there’s a new sense of purpose.
Is there anything you learned playing with Gregg Allman or Eric Clapton that you apply to your role as a bandleader?
I’ve learned that if there’s anything keeping the engine from running clean, you have to confront it and clear the air. Things don’t have to be perfect personally, but if you’re not in it for each other, there are hang-ups that prevent you from exploring and playing your best shit. You have to create a space where people feel comfortable. In this band when something doesn’t feel right we wear it on our sleeves, and that makes it easier to fix.
You’ve become regulars on the Lockn’ lineup. What keeps bringing you back?
At first it was the family reunion vibe—running into Phil Lesh, Jimmy Herring, and my brother (Duane Trucks of Widespread Panic). We don’t do a ton of festivals on purpose, but familiar faces always made this one feel good. Then when we did Mad Dogs with Leon, and that was just a magical few days; it was a heavy lift to learn all that material, but it was one of those collaborations that exceeded expectations and really felt like it mattered. I heard from a lot of people that it was an important reconnection for Leon, since it was near the end, and it felt good for us to be a part of history being passed down. That wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for the festival.
And this year you’ll be swapping sit-ins with Trey Anastasio. What do you admire about his guitar playing?
Trey is a really thoughtful player, and he listens. I like playing when you get to a place when you’re thinking intelligently, almost like working on a puzzle, and Trey is great at finding those places. I’m looking forward to finding that space, where the playing almost has a playful dialogue. There are a lot of good ideas bouncing around, and everybody on both sides thinks this is going to be really fun.
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ARTS Pick: Dwight Yoakam
Hollywood hillbilly: Americana superstar, SiriusXM disc jockey, and accomplished actor Dwight Yoakam tours the songs that have earned him nine platinum albums and 14 Billboard top-10 hits. On his 2016 album, Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars…, he dug into the bluegrass he listened to as a child in Kentucky and applied it to songs from his catalog. It’s a collection that NPR’s “First Listen” called a “convincing case for the hipness of hillbilly sens-ibilities.” Nashville-based rising star Jordan Brooker opens the concert.