CREDIT: Jacob Blickenstaff - Brooklyn, NY - October 5, 2015 - The Record Company (Alex Stiff, Chris Voss, Marc Carzorla)
The Lockn’ Festival returns to Arrington this week, bringing four days of music to Infinity Downs Farm from Thursday through Sunday. The jam-friendly festival is largely returning to its foundational roots, with headlining slots featuring Bob Weir and Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead, Widespread Panic, The String Cheese Incident and Gov’t Mule, which will perform a special collaborative set with Ann Wilson of Heart (see page 39). Looking deeper, the festival’s roster has plenty of new faces—bands from a range of genres that will bring touches of bluegrass, country, folk and blues to the big improvisational rock party. Here are five acts appearing at Lockn’ for the first time.
The Avett Brothers
It was a bit of a surprise that The Avett Brothers decided to forgo their near-annual sellout at the Sprint Pavilion in favor of a set at the jam-centric Lockn’. But the high-energy outfit, led by brothers Scott and Seth Avett, has demonstrated an affinity for the Grateful Dead. Notably, last fall the group joined guitarist Warren Haynes to play a full show of Jerry Garcia tunes at an arena in northern Virginia. At Lockn’ the band will also likely play the Dead, as its Sunday headlining set will feature a guest appearance by Bob Weir.
Since forming in the early 2000s, the group has expanded from a primal acoustic trio, known for heartfelt, ragged harmonies, into a seven-piece folk-rock machine that has headlined huge rooms, including Madison Square Garden. The Avetts have stated in recent interviews that they’re currently working on a follow-up to last year’s Rick Rubin-produced, Grammy-nominated album True Sadness.
Margo Price
Margo Price (left) turned heads in 2016 with the stunning debut Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, which blended reverence for vintage country with hearty, soulful grit. A longtime working-class singer-songwriter in Nashville, Price’s solo debut, full of intensely honest songs like the standout single “Hands of Time,” was released on Jack White’s Third Man Records and soon after catapulted her on stage with the likes of Kris Kristofferson and John Prine. Ahead of her highly anticipated next record, Price dropped a surprise EP, Weakness, last month. The new effort offers a nice sample of Price’s honeyed voice moving between lonesome ballads, old-school honky-tonk and rowdy rockabilly. In between tour dates with Chris Stapleton and Willie Nelson, she’ll perform with her band on the Lockn’ main stage on Sunday.
Marcus King Band
At just 21 years old, blues-rock wunderkind Marcus King has already hit enough musical milestones to make most veteran players jealous. Last year’s eponymous debut by his Marcus King Band was produced by Warren Haynes and features a guitar assist from Derek Trucks. This past Saturday, King and his crew opened for Haynes’ band, Gov’t Mule, at Colorado’s famed Red Rocks Amphitheatre. The weekend prior at the Peach Music Festival in Pennsylvania, King participated in an all-star tribute to Gregg Allman and Butch Trucks, two founding members of the Allman Brothers Band who both passed away earlier this year.
At a time when many Allman Brothers fans are feeling a void, King, who plays the Blue Ridge Bowl stage at Lockn’ on Friday, is a refreshing new face. As the son of a South Carolina blues man, the young musician has fierce guitar chops and a husky, soulful voice—talents he uses to lead his band through a mix of experimental R&B, Southern rock grooves and country porch songs.
The Record Company
Fast success has been found by this Los Angeles-based power trio (pictured above) that delivers full-throttle blues-rock. Lean-and-mean arrangements propel the songs on the band’s 2016 debut, Give It Back to You, which notched a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album. At times, the group channels the minimalist thunder of recent predecessors The White Stripes and The Black Keys, but lead singer-guitarist Chris Vos occasionally dips into a clean falsetto that gives songs like “Off the Ground” an R&B-pop heart. After a recent stretch opening for John Mayer, the band leads off the main stage lineup on Sunday.
Greensky Bluegrass
This year the Lockn’ lineup is a little light on the acoustic side of the jam scene, so anyone seeking a bluegrass fix should catch the Saturday set by this adventurous quintet. Now into its second decade, the Michigan-formed group uses nimble string picking to embark on psychedelic tangents, but that’s only part of the band’s musical equation. The group’s de facto frontman, mandolin player Paul Hoffman, sings like a wise and weathered troubadour and has a knack for writing insightful lyrics. Both anchor the impressive roots-based songs on the band’s latest album, last year’s Shouted, Written Down & Quoted, which was produced by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos. Beyond originals, the band likes to showcase an impressive array of covers in the live setting, offering inventive, acoustic takes on tunes by Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen and Pink Floyd, among many others.
Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Pokey LaFarge headlines the final day of the Red Wing Roots Music Festival on Sunday. Photo by Nate Burrell
“Things might get kind of weird in the background,” Pokey LaFarge says when he answers the phone for an interview in late June. He’s taken the call, despite being stuck on the highway in Ohio, trying to find a way to get to a gig in Cleveland, because his bright yellow tour bus is now headed for the shop. “Nothing I can do about it,” LaFarge adds, deadpan, sounding a little defeated. “I usually like being on the road.”
Despite the setback, LaFarge has a lot to celebrate this summer. After more than a decade of touring relentlessly and releasing eight albums, he’s now headlining large rooms and getting key slots at roots-minded festivals. LaFarge’s latest record, Manic Revelations, came out in May, and it’s easily his most cohesive effort to date.
Since he emerged in the mid-2000s, much of the focus on LaFarge—birth name Andrew Heissler—has been his retro sound, a revivalist blend of jump blues, western swing, early folk and foundational country. With a look time-hopped from the onset of the Opry and a head-turning lonesome tenor to match, the St. Louis-based tunesmith started as a busker, often playing on street corners in random towns and self-releasing music like his 2006 debut album, Marmalade. For a brief time, he played as a member of the Hackensaw Boys, the Charlottesville-formed string outfit that LaFarge says he “grew up idolizing,” but he ultimately decided to focus on his own songs and started enlisting backup players.
LaFarge’s support on Manic Revelations, the seven-piece Southside Collective, gives his latest album a robust soul-rock edge. Upbeat lead track “Riot in the Streets” has a spry bass line, shiny horn blasts and a steady, dance-ready groove. At first, the celebratory sound makes it tough to realize the song has a serious message; it’s a protest anthem written about the social unrest in LaFarge’s hometown following the shooting of Michael Brown in summer 2014. LaFarge says he was trying to “think about what The Clash would do” when writing the song.
As the album’s 10 tracks progress, more of LaFarge’s thoughts are revealed. He contemplates tumultuous relationships (“Must Be a Reason”), self-improvement (“Better Man Than Me”) and finding peace of mind (“Going to the Country”).
“A lot of the songs were written within a month or two-month period, so I think there are some general working themes,” LaFarge says. “I don’t know how many things are intentional when it comes to songwriting. Life moves pretty fast, so I take it (songwriting inspiration) any way I can get it. I’ve got plenty of notebooks, but there are also scribbles inside pages of novels and on napkins and coasters. It’s all part of the manic state of the writing process.”
In the vintage R&B ballad “Silent Movie,” LaFarge flips the script and sings about giving an anxious brain a rest from the surrounding noise: “I don’t read the papers / don’t watch the news / and if I did, tell me what good would it do?”
“It was written around election time, a direct response to a lot of the noise on social media,” LaFarge says of the song. “I was thinking about children and how they get caught up in the bullshit of future generations.
“It’s hard to know who you’re talking to in a song and what your meaning is. You just kind of follow a feeling and if it helps people out then all the better.”
As LaFarge has stayed focused on his craft, mounting opportunities have increased his time in the spotlight. In 2012 he contributed a song to the soundtrack of the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire,” and the same year he and some of his bandmates played on a track on Jack White’s album Blunderbuss. He also recently tried acting, playing country great Hank Snow in the new CMT series “Sun Records.”
Currently, he’s focused on getting his bus back on the road, so he can finish his summer tour, which ends on the West Coast in August.
This weekend he joins the lineup at Red Wing Roots Music Festival, along with the Americana gala’s nearly 40 acts, including host band The Steel Wheels, Steve Earle & the Dukes, Lake Street Dive, Tim O’Brien, Sarah Jarosz, Mandolin Orange, The Cactus Blossoms and Larry Keel.
“We’re experienced playing everything from fish fries to funerals,” LaFarge says when asked about the increasing size of his crowds. “In the recent past I think it was a challenge to carry our music in front of a large audience, but now we can put a show on anywhere.”
The Revivalists will headline the Blue Ridge Bowl at Infinity Downs Farm in Arrington on
Saturday with support from People’s Blues of Richmond and Moogatu. Photo by Travis Shinn
In 2013, Dave Frey and his partner, fellow music promoter Peter Shapiro, started the Lockn’ Festival, a multi-genre musical blowout that takes place in late summer on the sprawling Oak Ridge Farm in the Nelson County town of Arrington. Over the past four years the event has brought an array of heavyweight acts in roots, jam and classic rock, including Tom Petty, Phish, the Allman Brothers Band, John Fogerty and members of the Grateful Dead.
With Lockn’ in place as an annual happening, the organizers are expanding their ambitions for the festival site with Infinity Downs Farm. The new venue (briefly called Nelson County Preserve before being renamed this year) encompasses 387 acres adjacent to Oak Ridge and holds the Blue Ridge Bowl, a small amphitheater that’s used as a secondary stage during Lockn’. Frey and Shapiro purchased the land in 2014 and will use it to host a range of events, including concerts, day festivals and races.
Following important infrastructure investments—drilling wells, adding power sources and installing a 56,000-gallon water tank to have a reliable supply of clean water—the owners of Infinity Downs are opening the venue this weekend, starting with a show by New Orleans-based, soul-rock band The Revivalists on April 22.
“Once we got through the improvements, we took a breath and then started to plan the next phase, more programming,” says Frey. “Now we’re ready to get back to what we do, which is promoting shows. We also want to be ambitious and pair different things with music.”
Indeed, some creative plans are in the works for the new venue, which sits right off Route 29 about halfway between Charlottesville and Lynchburg, and, according to Frey, can be scaled to hold between 1,000 and 12,000 people. A week after the April 29 opening concert, the farm will be the site of A Day at the Downs, a uniquely paired Wine and Wildlife Festival. The day benefits the Arrington-based Wildlife Conservation Center, and will blend tastings from a variety of Virginia wineries with the opportunity to view rare and endangered animals like the bongo antelope. The musical offering comes from versatile piano ace Bruce Hornsby, along with opening sets from local artists Michael Coleman and Erin Lunsford.
More regional artists will play Infinity Downs on June 17 at Community Day, another day-long event that features local food vendors, family activities and the Rockn’ to Lockn’ band competition, with six independent Virginia bands competing for three open slots on the main stage at Lockn’, which is set to return on August 24-27.
“That’s something I’m really proud of,” says Frey. “There are so many great bands in Virginia, but few opportunities for those just starting out.”
Beyond the upcoming music-focused events on the Infinity Downs schedule, which includes The Festy Experience on October 5-8, the venue will also be the site of a new craft beer festival—the inaugural Brewmasters Ball on June 2 featuring Keller Williams—and a two-day Reebok Spartan Race on June 3-4. With plenty of open space, overnight camping will be offered at most events.
Frey says he wants to add more endurance races and organized outdoor activities in an effort to get more people on the property’s seven miles of onsite hiking and mountain biking trails, blazed with help from pro trail builder Dave King, who’s sculpted bike courses for the X Games and BMX.
Besides the seven events currently on the schedule, Frey says one or two more could potentially be added at Infinity Downs this year.
“This isn’t a place where we have to have 30 events a year,” he adds. “This will be a destination. We’re going to have special events that we can build over time and hopefully grow into evergreen events.”
Get down at the Downs
When you first hear about a band called The Revivalists from New Orleans, certain sounds come to mind. Jazz and funk? Sure, bits of both are in the mix, but this Crescent City septet is more focused on blending its influences into a well-rounded rock sound. Formed in 2007, the group found fast favor in the jam band world, after an endorsement from guitarist Warren Haynes and opening slots with Gov’t Mule.
But the band’s taut grooves—colored with horn blasts and spacey pedal steel fills—often give way to catchy pop-minded hooks. Case in point is the breakout single “Wish I Knew You” from the group’s latest album,Men Amongst Mountains. The tune, which cruises with an infectious, jangly strut, hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Songs chart last fall, and the band performed it on “Conan” back in December.
The dynamic outfit gets a big boost from frontman Dave Shaw, a vocal powerhouse who delivers dance-ready earworms with an arena-ready soulful howl.
The Festy Experience returns this weekend for the seventh straight year, taking place Friday through Sunday at its new home, the Nelson County Preserve in Arrington. Once again, the festival will feature an impressive mix of national acts and local bands—focusing on some of the best in bluegrass, Americana and roots rock. Especially intriguing this year are the unique collaborations taking place between acts on the three-day bill. Here are five essential sets to catch.
The Infamous Stringdusters: Ladies and Gentlemen
Earlier this year bluegrass expansionists The Infamous Stringdusters—The Festy Experience hosts—released Ladies and Gentlemen, a collaborative studio album with an impressive cast of some of the band’s favorite female vocalists. A handful of the album’s high-profile participants—Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lee Ann Womack, Sara Watkins, Abigail Washburn and Nicki Bluhm—are on The Festy line-up and will likely join the Stringdusters during the band’s Ladies and Gentlemen set on Friday evening. After the Stringdusters’ three-hour, two-set headlining slot on Saturday night, the band’s fiddle player, Jeremy Garrett, will lead an acoustic gospel set on Sunday at noon.
Mary Chapin Carpenter. Publicity photo
Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen
An undisputed highlight from last year’s Festy was the joint set featuring Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt—two iconic troubadours sitting side by side, trading songs and stories with coffeehouse-style intimacy. On Sunday, Lovett will return to the festival to revive the duo format, this time performing with Texas tunesmith Robert Earl Keen. While both performers have decades of material to mine, expect to hear a version of Jimmie Rodgers’ “T for Texas,” a song the pair sang together on Keen’s 2015 album, Happy Prisoner: The Bluegrass Sessions.
North Mississippi Allstars and Anders Osborne
On Saturday, the North Mississippi Allstars team up with New Orleans singer-songwriter-turned-electric-guitar ace Anders Osborne, revisiting a project unveiled last year with the album Freedom & Dreams under the name North Mississippi Osborne. The Allstars use traditional hill country blues as a launchpad for fuzzy psychedelic tangents, while Osborne is a swamp rocker with a crafty, lyrical mind. Expect a hard-driving journey between the Delta and the bayou with plenty of guitar fireworks along the way.
Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn
Best known for jazz-meets-bluegrass explorations with his longtime band the Flecktones, banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck has lately been concentrating on a duo project with his wife, fellow plucker and songwriter Abigail Washburn. The pair will take The Festy’s main stage under the afternoon sky on Friday, playing banjo duets that move from old folk songs to more complex instrumentals.
Jim Lauderdale
Prolific songwriter and Grand Ole Opry veteran Jim Lauderdale recently received some serious props when he was given the WagonMaster Lifetime Achievement Award at last month’s Americana Honors & Awards. Although not a household name, Lauderdale has written country hits for the likes of George Strait, who presented him with the award, and recorded albums with Ralph Stanley and Robert Hunter. Lauderdale will be The Festy M.C., and likely have his guitar in tow to play some tunes with other artists on the bill.
Neal Casal may be the hardest-working guitarist on the jam scene. He will play four sets with three different bands over the four-day festival. Publicity photo
For the fourth straight year, the Lockn’ Festival will return to the Oak Ridge Farm in Arrington. Once again, the musical marathon will offer a deep roster of heavyweights in the worlds of jam and roots rock, boasting big sets by Phish, My Morning Jacket, Ween, Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead and Tedeschi Trucks Band, among many others. While watching such sonically adventurous acts, the crowd is bound to witness plenty of guitar acrobatics-—from established veterans to younger upstarts, these are the fleet-fingered players guaranteed to deliver lingering leads and peak solos, creating the transcendent moments that make festivals unforgettable.
The incredibly versatile Trey Anastasio leads Phish through four sets over two nights at Lockn’ this weekend. Photo by Jay Blakesberg
Trey Anastasio
Lockn’ organizers nabbed a big one when they secured jam legend Phish to headline two days of the festival. The group, scheduled to close the main stage on Friday and Sunday with two sets each night, rarely plays multi-band events, but as Lockn’ has become the country’s premier jam summit, it seems appropriate for the quartet to make an appearance.
After more than three decades together, Phish has established a massive fan base that continues to flock to its lengthy live shows. While the group is comprised of four highly skilled players—each integral to the band’s exploratory sound—guitarist Trey Anastasio is clearly the leader. Through 30-plus years on stage, Anastasio has secured his place as the jam scene’s preeminent axe wizard. His nimble fingers guide Phish through an undeniably impressive mix of complex compositions, dance-ready grooves and improvisational journeys. When not navigating one of Phish’s intricate, orchestrated passages in double-digit epics such as “You Enjoy Myself” and “Fluffhead,” Anastasio uses his Languedoc guitar for full-throttle rock assaults and open-ended exploration.
Phish casts a wide net when it comes to genre inclusivity, and the band’s sets are often peppered with interesting covers. It’s not uncommon to hear Anastasio picking a bluegrass solo in an electric version of Bill Monroe’s “Uncle Pen,” ripping blues licks in Son Seals’ “Funky Bitch” or slicing funk chords in Stevie Wonder’s “Boogie On Reggae Woman.”
Anastasio, at 51, clearly is still interested in expanding his range on his instrument. Last summer he was tapped as lead guitarist for Fare Thee Well, the Grateful Dead’s five massive stadium concerts that were billed as the last time the band’s remaining original members would all play together. When asked by Rolling Stone about his intense, six-month preparation for filling the role of the Dead’s iconic frontman, Jerry Garcia, Anastasio said: “The cool thing is it got me back inside the guitar.”
Gary Clark Jr. rips up the blues and sews it back together in kick-ass modern style on Sunday. Photo by Frank Maddocks
Gary Clark Jr.
Gary Clark Jr. grew up loving the blues. As a teenager in Austin, Texas, he started hanging out at the famed Antone’s Nightclub and ended up being mentored by guitar ace Jimmie Vaughan (brother of Stevie Ray). While being educated in the traditional scales of the blues he was also absorbing sounds of the ’90s FM dial, becoming an open-minded fan of everything from grunge to hip-hop. As a result, a variety of musical styles have influenced Clark, as he continues to hone a sound that blends fuzzy, snarling riffs with soulful modern song craft.
Clark’s breakout moment came in 2010 at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival. With the exposure came a heap of opportunities for a young player used to the grind of small clubs. He’s traded licks on stage with Clapton and sat in with the Rolling Stones on multiple occasions, and this past February he honored the late B.B. King at the Grammy Awards with a crisp reading of “The Thrill is Gone” beside Bonnie Raitt and Chris Stapleton.
Clark has released two major-label albums on Warner Brothers, the latest being last fall’s The Story of Sonny Boy Slim. A mix of slick production and raw energy, the record does plenty of genre-hopping, from dance-friendly party funk in “Can’t Sleep” to throwback soul in “Cold Blooded” to shred-heavy rock in “Grinder.” Clark, though, seems to save his real guitar fireworks for the stage. His pulsing, atmospheric mash-up of Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone from the Sun” and Albert Collins’ blues tune “If You Love Me Like You Say” is live-show dynamite.
Tedeschi Trucks Band, featuring the most powerful couple in the blues-rock business, takes the stage on Saturday night. Photo by Manuel Nata
Derek Trucks
At age 20, Derek Trucks started a 15-year run handling the slide licks in the now-retired Allman Brothers Band, a role he seemed predestined to fill as a young guitar prodigy who happens to be the nephew of the Allman’s Butch Trucks. During this time, he also fronted his own Derek Trucks Band—a group built around fiercely ambitious explorations into expansive Southern blues, free jazz and rollicking instrumental gospel—and also managed to squeeze in a two-year stint in Eric Clapton’s touring band.
These days he’s focused full-time on the Tedeschi Trucks Band, a 12-piece beast of a soul-rock outfit that Trucks fronts with his wife, blues songstress Susan Tedeschi. The band, playing Lockn’ on Saturday night, hustles between global rock grooves, swampy Southern jams and vintage R&B. The stylistic versatility centers on the interplay between the bandleaders, as Trucks, now 37 and considered a master of his craft, swirls lyrical inventive notes around Tedeschi’s soulful singing.
Neal Casal
Neal Casal will be a busy man at this year’s Lockn’ Festival. Between Friday and Sunday, the guitarist is playing four sets with three different acts. On Sunday his main band, the Chris Robinson Brotherhood, has back-to-back slots, the second a special collaboration with Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. During a recent phone interview, Casal broke down the bands that make up his upcoming quadruple duty.
Back in 2010, former Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson decided to start a new band (Chris Robinson Brotherhood) to indulge his interest in psychedelic rock, and he asked Casal to play lead guitar. Casal had spent the previous decade and a half releasing a dozen solo albums as a singer-songwriter and doing a stint in Ryan Adams’ Cardinals, but joining the Brotherhood changed the course of his music career. “This band started another life for me as a musician with a different focus as a guitar player,” Casal says. “It was a real shift that’s taken a lot of work. I’ve expanded in ways that I never would’ve imagined. Chris needed a guitar player to fulfill his vision, and he lovingly pushed me into it.”
Three years ago Casal was tapped to join the super group side project Hard Working Americans featuring Nashville folk singer Todd Snider and Widespread Panic bassist Dave Schools. Initially supposed to be a short-lived affair, the band, which also features Panic drummer Duane Trucks, now reconvenes on a semi-regular basis and recently released a second studio album, Rest in Chaos. With a politically charged cosmic country-rock sound that offers tastes of distorted grit and expansive jamming, the band will play Lockn’ on Saturday afternoon.
“I met all of these guys for the first time when I walked into the studio to start making our first record,” Casal explains. “This was supposed to be a one-off project, but we quickly developed a rapport that made us want to do more. We have a lot of respect for each other, and every time we get together we feel like we have more to explore.”
Last summer Casal was asked to compose instrumental set-break music for the Grateful Dead’s Fare Thee Well stadium concerts. He formed Circles Around the Sun for a quick jam session that included his Brotherhood bandmate Adam MacDougall on keyboards and created some captivating impromptu tunes in the spirit of the Dead’s roots-based psychedelia. The results were so well-received that the songs were given a proper release, Circles Around the Sun, and Casal and company will perform the music live for the first time on Friday night at Lockn’.
“We recorded all of this music in two days, and it was entirely improvised,” Casal says. “With little time to think about it, we caught lightning in a bottle.
“When it comes to doing it live, the idea is to approach the show with the same spirit that we brought to the recording—hold your breath and jump. We’ll have little time to prepare, so we’re going to capture the vibe with a lot of adventurism.”
Casal has previously played with Phil Lesh and Friends in different incarnations of his rotating Friends groups. In a special set on Sunday, the entire Brotherhood will act as Lesh’s band and also welcome a sit-in by Gary Clark Jr.
“I’ve learned more from Phil Lesh than almost anyone I’ve ever played with,” Casal says. “He still carries the original spirit of the Grateful Dead—be the best musician you can be, but also be ready to go for it and jump off a cliff. When you play music in that way there can be rough moments, but you always rise to glorious heights.”
Best of the rest
For nearly two decades, Umphrey’s McGee has fostered a sizable fan base under the mainstream radar with a jam-heavy prog-rock sound that’s largely driven by the twin-guitar attack of Jake Cinninger and Brendan Bayliss. The band’s skilled axe duo engages in dynamic interplay, as they move between frenetic shredding and trippy wandering throughout a catalog of songs designed for extended improvisation.
Mickey “Dean Ween” Melchiondo and Carl Broemel both provide the lead guitar muscle in their respective bands, Ween and My Morning Jacket. The former gets the headline slot on Thursday and plays a second set just before Phish on Friday, while the latter headlines Saturday night. Coincidentally, both Melchiondo and Broemel are releasing solo albums this fall.
Tom Hamilton first surfaced in the electronica-rock act Brothers Past, but at Lockn’ he’ll be turning heads in Joe Russo’s Almost Dead (playing late-night sets Thursday and Friday). The side project led by drummer Joe Russo (Furthur, Benevento/Russo Duo) delivers high-energy, wildly improvised takes on Grateful Dead songs, often giving Hamilton the opportunity to go gonzo on Jerry Garcia’s familiar guitar parts.
Two more guitar aces worth watching: Duke Levine and Kevin Barry—both accomplished session players who’ve backed the likes of Mary Chapin Carpenter and Emmylou Harris. At Lockn’ they’ll be playing in Peter Wolf’s band, the Midnight Travelers. On Friday Levine and Barry will flank the 70-year-old Wolf, former lead singer of the J. Geils Band (see interview on page 31), as he works through old hits and material from his soulful new album, A Cure for Loneliness, which came out in April.
Warren Haynes Band breaks ground on the first night at the new Lockn’ festival in 2013. Haynes has been a fixture on the schedule for the last three years. Photo: Jay Blakesberg
Back in September 1977 Jay Blakesberg caught his first Grateful Dead show in Englishtown, New Jersey. He quickly became a die-hard fan, and as a hobbyist shutterbug started bringing a camera to shows as he followed the band around the country.
Nashville songwriter Chris Stapleton has penned hits for Adele and Tim McGraw. He plays songs from his first solo album, Traveller, on Saturday at the Jefferson. Publicity photo
Chris Stapleton is putting together one of those cool careers in Nashville that every artist envies. His work as a songwriter is both authentic and accessible. He’s found success among the underground and the mainstream.
Since moving to Music City a decade and a half ago from his native Kentucky, Stapleton has penned a handful of No. 1 hits, including Luke Bryan’s “Drink a Beer,” Kenny Chesney’s “Never Wanted More” and George Strait’s “Love’s Gonna Make It Alright.” He also spent three years as the lead singer of the lauded bluegrass outfit The SteelDrivers, and during his time with the band it was nominated for three Grammy Awards.
Now Stapleton is fully stepping into the spotlight with last month’s release of his debut solo album Traveller. While the sonically inclusive country rock record full of heartfelt introspective lyrics is certainly something to celebrate, it was initiated by darker times. In October of 2013 Stapleton’s father died, and his one-off single “What Are You Listening To” was falling off the charts.
“That was a pretty terrible month for me,” Stapleton says during a recent phone interview with C-Ville Weekly. “But in retrospect those things are all a part of life, and they get you to positive things, this record being one of them.”
To lift her husband’s spirits during his struggles, Stapleton’s wife Morgane bought him an old Jeep in Phoenix. The couple flew to Arizona and drove it back to Nashville.
On the road trip Stapleton wrote his new album’s title track, which moves with a dusty, windows-down groove. He also started thinking about some of the songs he’d written in the past that would work for his first solo release. Soon a full set came into focus.
“On that trip I wanted to think a lot about things my dad would’ve liked to have heard on a country record, and the things that I enjoyed as a kid,” Stapleton says.
With his father on his mind, Stapleton decided to include the poignant “Daddy Doesn’t Pray Anymore,” a front-porch tearjerker about watching a parent age. Stapleton wrote the song back in 2005 after visiting his dad and noticing him skip his lifelong ritual of saying grace before a meal.
With some definite heartache moments, Traveller also has many additional moods. Stapleton, who looks like a burly outlaw troubadour but comes across as kind and soft-spoken in conversation, sings with raspy power through a diverse range of styles, including the R&B he loved growing up. He turns “Tennessee Whiskey,” a song made popular by George Jones in the early ’80s, into a soulful slow jam, while “Sometimes I Cry” has classic blues delivery. There’s also the gritty roadhouse rock of “Parachute” and some cowpunk edge in “Might As Well Get Stoned.”
“I don’t ever want to put labels on anything,” Stapleton says of his sound. “It’s certainly going to be country because of who I am and where I grew up. I’m from Kentucky and my dad’s a coal miner. But it’s also going to be R&B and rock, because I listen to that stuff. Hopefully there’s some kind of thread that runs through it when you put all of those influences in a pot.”
Helping Stapleton give the album continuity was producer Dave Cobb, who’s been on a serious hot streak with his recent work on Jason Isbell’s Southeastern and Sturgill Simpson’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music.
When it came time to record, Stapleton joined Cobb and his longtime rhythm section— bassist J.T. Cure and drummer Derek Mixon—at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A. With additional help from Waylon Jennings’ pedal steel player Robby Turner, Willie Nelson’s harmonica player Mickey Raphael, keyboardist Mike Webb and Morgane singing harmony, the album’s team would convene at the studio after typical business hours for sessions Stapleton describes as having “an off-the-clock, hanging out and playing music kind of vibe.”
The album in turn has the spontaneous vitality of a live show—the result of using familiar musicians in a laid-back atmosphere, all serving the many avenues of Stapleton’s extensive songbook.
While his work as a solo artist may be new to most people, Stapleton’s prolific output as a tunesmith is well known in the industry. He spent his first few years in Nashville writing constantly, at least three or four songs a day, and to date he’s had more than 150 songs cut by other artists, including Adele and Tim McGraw. Whether he’s writing for himself or someone else, he never alters the process.
“I don’t feel like I have to change,” Stapleton says. “You should always be trying to write the best song that you can at any given moment. I’m still trying to learn as much as I can about that process and what makes certain songs connect with people.”
Following the release of Traveller, which debuted at No. 2 on Billboard’s Country Album’s Chart, Stapleton is turning to the road. He just spent time opening arenas for Eric Church, and through the rest of the summer he’ll be playing festivals and headlining rock clubs, including the Jefferson Theater on June 20.
Accomplished actor and playwright Jeff Daniels has six albums to his credit and plays guitar every day to stay “creatively alive.” He appears at the Southern (with his son Ben) on Sunday. Publicity photo
Jeff Daniels has a deep resumé on screen. His acting work dates back to the early ’80s when he broke out in films like Terms of Endearment and extends to his recent Emmy Award-winning lead role in the HBO series “The Newsroom,” which ended late last year after three seasons. Lesser known, though, is Daniels’ prolific output as a singer-songwriter. He’s penned (by his estimate) 400 songs and released six albums since 2004. His first record benefited The Purple Rose Theatre Company, which Daniels opened in his hometown of Chelsea, Michigan.
Also the author of 15 plays, Daniels takes the craft of songwriting seriously. He’s shared the stage with John Hiatt and Keb’ Mo’, and his latest album, the December-released Days Like These, delivers a satisfying set of acoustic-based modern country-folk that will please fans of Lyle Lovett. With lyrics that are both thought-provoking and humorous, Daniels is currently playing songs from the new album on tour, backed by his son’s group the Ben Daniels Band. The show comes to The Southern Café and Music Hall on Sunday night.
C-VILLE Weekly: When did you first get the songwriting bug?
Jeff Daniels: I wrote some really bad songs before I went to New York in 1976. When I got to New York and started at the off-Broadway theater company Circle Rep [the now-closed Circle Repertory Company], from day one I was in front of playwrights. I didn’t know anything about their process and was immediately fascinated by it and wanted to learn about it. The safest place for me to learn and fail was songwriting. I had always been attracted to the lyrics of Arlo Guthrie and James Taylor, but [at the theater company] I was with guys going, “If you want to write, just write.”
I’d go back to my apartment, pick up my guitar and try and get better. It took years.
Days Like These features a mix of folk, blues and bluegrass. What inspires you to take your songs in an acoustic direction?
I wanted to center Days Like These around the acoustic guitar. I’ve studied guys like Stefan Grossman and Doc Watson. Guys that devoted years to getting good at it and never reached for the Telecaster.
With the simplicity of the acoustic guitar you’re limited in a way, but in the same way it opens things up. I like that. There are few effects, and when you pair it with the mandolin, fiddle and upright bass you get real interaction with the instruments from 3′ away. It puts more pressure on the playing and the content of the lyrics. You’ve got to be saying something and saying it well.
Tell me what the audience at the Southern can expect in this collaboration with your son’s band.
It’s a joy. The whole father-son aspect is just great. This will be the third time we’ve gone out. It started with me giving Ben some of my songs and seeing if his band could incorporate them into what they do, and it really worked.
This isn’t an actor up there navel-gazing. These guys can really play, and if they aren’t feeling one of the songs, then we cut it. The show is also upbeat and funny. It becomes a combination of good songwriting, great musicianship and entertaining as hell. I know expectations are pretty low when an actor comes out with a guitar. My job is to make sure everyone has a good time, and if that doesn’t happen, I’ve failed.
Where does music fit into your overall creative equation?
It’s the one thing I do all the time. I write plays when my theater company needs me to, and I get to go act when the phone rings. I don’t consider myself a musician first, but the woodshedding on the guitar happens every day. That keeps me creatively alive. Jim Carrey and I were talking during the [promotional] tour for Dumb and Dumber To, and he told me he has to create something every day. I’m the same way. He paints and he sculpts. I have a guitar and a theater company. That’s what I do when people aren’t calling me to act.
During your three-season run on Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom,” you spent more time as Will McAvoy than any other character in your past work. Was it bittersweet letting go of a role that was so respected?
It was bittersweet, but it was a lot of work. We were controversial, which I enjoyed, but it was a big load. Every two weeks Aaron had to turn in 80 pages of brilliance, and it was hard. For me, it was a great role, and a great three years with Aaron, but when it ended my weekends cleared up, as did my head. I no longer had 80 pages of Sorkin-ese up there floating around, waiting to be spoken.
You postponed this upcoming show at the Southern back in January for an acting role. When will we see you next on the big screen?
I got called to do Steve Jobs [the upcoming film written by Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle]. I had to go to San Francisco for a week and there was no getting around it. That’s the reason for the reschedule. I’m also part of the Divergent trilogy that Shailene Woodley is doing, so I’ll be working on movie number three. I could be busy acting for the next year and a half, so I’m really looking forward to this tour and the stop in Charlottesville. We’ll be there with bells on.
Jeff Daniels & the Ben Daniels Band play at The Southern Café & Music Hall on May 17.
Texas singer-songwriter James McMurtry quiets down on his new primarily acoustic album, Complicated Game. He performs at the Southern on Wednesday. Photo: Shane McCauley
Two years ago, Texas tunesmith James McMurtry was playing a solo showcase at the famed South by Southwest Festival in his hometown of Austin, when his friend, producer CC Adcock (Robert Plant, Neko Case), introduced him to publishing executive Francois Moret, who was in the process of starting a new record label.
That evening set the wheels in motion for McMurtry’s long-awaited new album, Complicated Game, his first in six years. Moret was blown away by McMurtry’s edgy story songs and immediately signed him. Later that year, at the end of 2013, McMurtry joined Adcock to record in New Orleans, ceding his usual self-production duties.
“I was tired of producing myself,” McMurtry, 53, said during a recent phone interview. “I’d run out of tricks and was starting to repeat myself. I used up everything I’d learned from (John) Mellencamp and the other guys I’ve worked with before.”
Mellencamp was an early champion of McMurtry’s work. He produced the troubadour’s 1989 debut, Too Long in the Wasteland, the first of many critically lauded albums that have subsequently made McMurtry one of Americana’s most celebrated songwriters. His talent is spinning tales about hard luck underdogs from Nowheresville, U.S.A., into four-minute vignettes with vivid literary depth.
McMurtry, who’s released nine studio albums including efforts for Columbia and Sugar Hill Records, undoubtedly picked up a thing or two from his novelist father Larry, who wrote Terms of Endearment and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove.
Like Steve Earle, McMurtry is a gruff native Texan who’s not afraid to share his left-leaning political views. Arguably his best-known song, the social justice anthem “We Can’t Make It Here” from 2005’s Childish Things won Song of the Year at the Americana Music Awards and in a column for Entertainment Weekly Stephen King called it the “best protest song since ‘Masters of War.’” In it McMurtry sings about the epidemic of shuttered textile mills, unfair tax loops and a homeless Vietnam War veteran, who lost a leg, panhandling on a street corner, not getting his due from the underfunded Department of Veterans Affairs.
“Most of them I do piecemeal over the course of years,” McMurtry said when asked about sketching characters for his songs, which he insists are always works of fiction. “I get two lines and a melody, and then hopefully I can come up with a character that would say those lines. Then from a character I can get the story and the rest of the song.”
Similar themes surface in Complicated Game, but this time the slant is more personal than political. “South Dakota” is a stunner about a former soldier surrounded by empty opportunities. In the opening blue-collar ballad “Copper Canteen” the small-town protagonist, who is stuck in a marital rut and losing business to encroaching big boxes, only wants to be left alone to hunt and fish. McMurtry starts the song in his dry drawl with the disarming line: “Honey, don’t you be yelling at me when I’m cleaning my gun.”
There’s more American angst in the album’s lead single “How’m I Gonna Find You Now,” which is propelled by rollicking banjo rolls. At the South by Southwest show Moret saw McMurtry play acoustic, so he wanted that sound to dominate the record. McMurtry admits it was tough for him not to lean on the electric grit of his preferred Telecaster, but fans have also asked him to surround his songs with quieter instrumentation in the past.
“It’s what a lot of people have wanted from me for a long time,” he said. “I like to plug in and be louder.”
While mellow folk rock strumming is prevalent throughout, the album still gets filled in the right places, thanks to an all-star cast of special guests. Acclaimed multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell appears on various tracks, adding an array of colorful string work on violin, mandolin and banjo. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ keyboardist Benmont Tench deepens the desperation of “Carlisle’s Haul” with thick Hammond B3 fills, and Derek Trucks kicks in some ripping slide guitar to the swamp boogie of “Forgotten Coast.”
When asked why it took him six years to release a new album, McMurtry candidly said that the current state of the recording industry has dampened his desire. He instead chooses to spend most of his time playing live shows, chasing a decent living.
“We make most of our money off the road now,” McMurtry said. “My draw was holding up pretty good for five years. Then it started to taper off, so it was time to make a record. Now we make records so we can fill the clubs; it used to be the other way around. Since record sales aren’t what they used to be, we’re not getting the mailbox money.”
James McMurtry plays at the Southern Café and Music Hall on April 15.
Jason Isbell credits sobriety for his recent award-winning album and a renewed passion for playing live that has grown his audience. He performs at the Paramount on Monday. Photo: Michael Wilson.
Jason Isbell is enjoying the afterglow of redemption. The lauded country-rock tunesmith is still touring behind his career-defining 2013 album Southeastern, an effort that earned overdue recognition for an artist who turned his demons into a poignantly captivating sonic statement. Ubiquitously praised by critics, the album led to Isbell taking top honors at the Americana Music Awards, where he was spotlighted among genre heroes including Jackson Browne and Loretta Lynn.
Isbell’s road to greater success, though, was long and at times personally arduous. After spending six years as a key contributor in the Drive-By Truckers, alcohol-fueled discord resulted in his departure from the band in 2007. He’s since released four studio albums under his own name, but Southeastern is a step above the previous three.
Isbell gives the credit to a clear head. In 2012 he quit drinking with help from friends, including Ryan Adams, and his soon-to-be wife, fiddler and fellow songwriter Amanda Shires, and shortly after he wrote the songs that would become Southeastern’s starkly confessional 12-song set. An Alabama native, who grew up near the musically rich town of Muscle Shoals, Isbell delivered the album with his endearing husky drawl, shrouded in a blend of dusty rock and front porch soul, as he reflects on regret through personal revelations and vivid character sketches. Since the album’s release, Isbell and his band the 400 Unit have graduated into bigger venues. Last fall he sold out three straight nights at Nashville’s venerable Ryman Auditorium, and Monday night will mark Isbell’s first appearance at The Paramount Theater.
C-VILLE Weekly: Why do you think Southeastern had greater impact than your previous work?
Jason Isbell: The longer I go as a songwriter the more I realize that the craft goes a long way. I think people attribute their connection to the record to the subject matter, but I think it comes down to the songs being well-written. The amount of time and focus that was spent refining the songs made for better quality.
Also, the personal story that went with that time period for me resonated with a lot of people. It was kind of a perfect storm, as far as songwriting goes, because I had something to talk about.
Has the success affected the way you approach songwriting moving forward?
Everything I do in my life is different now, because I have more hours in the day. Before this record I was going out and drinking a lot. I no longer have to spend a few hours getting over a hangover every morning. I was never really working and drinking at the same time. I would drink so much that I couldn’t really read anymore, so I surely couldn’t write. Now I put more work into everything that I do, and that’s more rewarding for me.
What’s the status of a follow-up album?
A dozen songs are almost done, and we’re going to record in March. As far as content of the songs or themes, I try to stay away from focusing on that while I’m in the process of writing them. Once the record comes out, I’ll start to see things emerge and figure out exactly what I’m talking about. While I’m writing the songs, I just demo them for myself so I don’t forget them, and then I put them away and go to another one. I like to go into the studio with that kind of freshness. I have to relearn the songs along with the members of the band and work from scratch.
When not busy with your own work, you and your wife, Amanda Shires, play in each other’s bands. What’s it like collaborating with your spouse creatively?
I can trust her opinion. It’s important to have somebody around you that will call you on bullshit and won’t just say ‘yes’ to everything. A lot of creative people get less creative as they get more successful because they eliminate those folks from their lives and they get no constructive criticism. My wife is a good person for giving me a straightforward opinion on the work that I’m doing. That helps me keep from being complacent. On the other side, it’s just fun to make music together. That’s the thing that made us friends in the first place, and it’s still our favorite thing to do.
How did you adjust to playing big rock shows completely sober?
It was the opposite of what I expected. When I go back and watch YouTube clips from when I was drinking, it’s like (hearing) fingernails on a chalkboard for me now. When you drink, your hearing goes. That’s why everyone gets louder and louder in a bar as the night goes on. If you can’t hear, you can’t really sing too well, so I used to have monitors blaring and still not be able to hear the pitches I was trying to hit.
I also have a lot more energy now. The whole band does, too. When I quit drinking they all cut way back, out of respect. Everybody is in really good spirits. I enjoy playing more now than I ever have.
Last summer you reunited with your old Drive-By Truckers bandmates Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley to play a benefit show in Muscle Shoals. How was it?
I had a great time. I keep in contact with those guys regularly, especially Patterson. I miss playing those songs, so it was really nice to have a night to go back and revisit that material. I believe the work that we did together was really strong, so it was a joy to go back and do it again.
