On the road......again

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

By Aaron Davis

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-I can think of imitation sugars, imitation designer brands, persons impersonating people – but I can’t think of a substitute for experiences earned by traveling on a shoestring budget.

This fall, I encountered prostitutes, beggars, pimps and midgets, endured a taxi cab accident, had a performance interrupted by a squealing donkey, drank moonshine from a mason jar, walked through barren cotton fields, stood in line for an open mic with 50 other songwriters to play zero songs, and encountered a new Southern dialect I didn’t know existed.

 On Oct.1, I left Jackson, as I often do during the shoulder months, with a full agenda through November. Booking out-of-town gigs in new markets is hard work and very time-consuming. In fact, I hate it. But when I leave Teton County with my instruments, I always look forward to the tour.

This time last year, I toured westerly through Idaho, Oregon, the length of California, and returned via Nevada. This year, a tour of the South, beginning in my home state, Kentucky, made sense. I’d catch up with an old friend, and play 20 shows through North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Texas, all the while looking for some of Appalachia’s best fishing holes.

Themes in my songs have been reflection, stream of consciousness, and the cycle of longing for travel, then being on the road long enough to miss home all over again. The latter, aided by guaranteed adventures and strange characters, drums a creative rhythm that cannot be played at home. New songs are always waiting, miles away, and I can only find them if I’m not looking. Just drive...

Nate Jones and I are considerably different players and writers. He’s an ultra-clean, melodic rhythm guitar player, which I’ve always admired, and collaborating with him is free of ego and baggage, with no cobwebs to dust off and no barriers to break through. We just pick up where we left off.

We became close friends during sophomore year of high school, and a few years later became late-blooming musicians. We were college roommates, 20 years old, when we received guitars as gifts on the same day. We learned a D-chord on the same day; realized how much is too much alcohol to play a D-chord on the same day; how chicks dig the D-chord, and how rock stars have managed to make a dollar off the same D-chord throughout rock and folk history.

Back in Lexington, Kentucky, Nate is a project manager for Habitat for Humanity. He’s been with the nonprofit for five years, and was just promoted last summer. With skills he learned on the job, he builds his own furniture, and he’s remodeling a lake house that he recently purchased with his father. He still manages to play two-to-three shows a week.

A decade after we got those first guitars, Nate and I toured together for the first time, and having toured alone, I think that this is the way to go — squeeze into a car, split expenses, get things done efficiently, catch up and hold off loneliness. We each played a solo set – giving us time to be part of the crowd – then played a third set together.

Dubbed the “Strings and Hooks Fall Tour,” because our hidden agenda was a fly-fishing tour of Southern streams, we prioritized venues adjacent to prime trout territory. We concentrated on the waters of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee — the Watauga and South Holston Rivers — and the Cumberland River in Kentucky. If one day we were stripped of all material goods, you can bet we’d fight damn hard for a guitar and fly rod. 

In Jackson, I’ve become accustomed to escaping to the wilderness after a night of connecting with band mates and audiences, and I found that its possible anywhere – it just takes some effort. In the Hole, finding seclusion on a trout stream or trail takes minimum effort, a map maybe. Finding solitude east of the Mississippi, however, is more difficult, and we learned to tap locals for the best advice.

“If you’d like to come talk to us between sets and turn us on to your favorite fishing hole, we’ll gladly lend our good ear,” we’d say during our set. Nine times out of 10, someone would approach us in a whisper with details, even a hastily sketched map.
My sister, Mandy, and brother-in-law, Jim, arranged the Rose Creek Festival in nearby Barren County on their modest, yet sweet, 15-acre farm, nestled in a wooded holler, the creek being the edge of the property. Around these parts, you’re as likely to see an Amish or Mennonite horse-and-buggy on the road as a car. Here, neighbors still barter goods, trade labor and help one another. Potluck-style barn jams are common.

Music has been important in my family long before I strummed my first chord. My 84-year-old pawpaw is a guitar-playing singer and bandleader who has played country music for the better part of 65 years. My deceased uncle, Gary, was a full-time musician; dad is a strummer; Mandy a budding singer-songwriter; and my brother Matt a concert-a-holic who took be to my first concert (yep, Aerosmith).
At the Rose Creek Fest, all of these fragments come together in a nostalgic way.

The Fest is a new tradition, a modest friend and family reunion, colored by a flatbed trailer for a stage, farm animals, homemade soups, casseroles and pies, moonshine, and a couple of Cornhole sets (a popular lawn game in Kentucky, for which players pitch small bags filled with corn, sand or beans at a hole in a raised platform).

The scene reminds me of the lyrics to  “That’s What I Like ‘Bout the South” (written by Andy Razaf and recorded by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in 1942), which I’ve been performing for a few years:

“Cornbread and mustard greens, hem hocks and butter beans…
Baked ribs and candied yams, basement full of those berry jams…
Make they’re whiskey straight from corn, once in a while they burn down the barn...

Down where they all say “Y’all,” walk on in with that Southern drawl…
‘Cause that’s what I like about the South”

We met a fishing guide randomly in a Wal-Mart in Elizabethton, Tenn. He had guided one summer on the Bighorn River in northern Wyoming. Though he had clients and they were about to hit the river, he set us up – hand drawn maps, phone numbers of friends with possible boat rentals, flies to use, holes to fish. If that wasn’t already enough, he called us later in the day to make sure we caught fish, knew where to camp, and if needed, crash at his apartment. That made our day, Ollie. Thanks.

Southerners sometimes get a bad rap in New England and in the West. Maybe for sounding country, for having deep roots that breed tradition and hardheaded values, but they’re some of the most down-to-earth, friendly people on Earth. It’s an American sub-culture that I can relate to whether in Kentucky or Louisiana, Georgia or Mississippi. For me or any other southern-born transplant, this realization usually comes from travels elsewhere. I concede to lyrics from one of my favorite Tom Waits tunes, “San Diego Serenade”:
“I never saw my hometown until I stayed away too long
I never heard the melody, until I needed a song…
I never saw the East Coast until I moved to the        West…”

The Bluebird Café is one of Nashville’s famed songwriter venues, and was as interesting outside as inside. The venue was to open at 5:30 p.m. Mom was my co-pilot, and we arrived around 4:15, – way too early, right? By 5 p.m., 20 songwriters were in line, by opening time, 50. Does this place even hold that many people?  I happened to be fourth, and man, were there some stories! Some funny, some really sad.  Charismatic vagabonds from Vancouver, a determined mill worker from Princeton, Ky., a businessman from Chicago, a carpenter from St. Louis. Some snazzy Nash Vegas outfits, too. Enough snap shirts to make ya wanna say... “Snap!”

Everyone was nice, but it was almost exactly how I imagined it. Most of the characters were struggling songwriters, stuck in the Nashville songwriting formula — “insert words HERE.”

I can appreciate the formula. It’s Hank Williams, Jimmy Rogers and Patsy Cline. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to write hit songs for big artists, but it was as if that notion alone fueled those songwriters. If one more person sang about leaving their baby and b-lining to Nashville, I was going to puke in my mouth. The few I enjoyed that particular evening brought their hearts to the microphone.

Comparing notes on three music cities
Asheville, Nashville and Austin share one common trait — music lovers of all ages, creeds, and kinds attend concerts to listen, not just to party … something I don’t always experience at the Mangy Moose, the Stagecoach, 43 North, or other popular Jackson watering holes.

Rather than comparing eggs to watermelon, I figure I work on a local level to be more conscious and supportive of the local music scene. Things like going to see a band that I’ve never seen or heard of, or creating an environment where local musicians can gather, share ideas, jam and network is a good start, but the foundation will always be listening.

Asheville, N.C.
For its relative size, Asheville, N.C. is a hoppin’ music town with more funky cafes than gas stations. There’s no ‘Asheville sound’ per se, but close to Appalachia, bluegrass and acoustic music abound. Surprisingly, there were more downtown buskers (street musicians) than Nashville and Austin. The local scene has room to grow and it’s a crossroad for touring bands. According to some local artists, it can be difficult to make a living here, but the location couldn’t be better. (Recommended taste of Asheville: Galen Kipar Project, Tyler Ramsey)

Nashville, Tenn.
Nashville’s pretentious reputation is real, and the plastic, pop-country establishment often overshadows real musicians, but don’t write it off. There’s more digging to be done, far off Broadway to the songwriter joints of the town’s outskirts. Downtown, some of the best live performances are in Ryman Auditorium (former home of the Grand Ole Opry), and clubs like Exit/In, 3rd and Lindsey, and the proclaimed “world’s most popular bluegrass club,” Station Inn, where any of today’s bluegrass greats could stop in for a jam. Then, of course, everyone should experience the historic Grand Ole Opry at least once.

 Though tradition reigns, there’s still an underground movement. Why else would Gillian Welch and Jack White live there? (Recommended taste of Nashville: Stillhouse Hollow, The Steeldrivers, The Time Jumpers)
 
Austin, Texas
Housing more than 8,000 musicians, Austin claims to be the Live Music Capital of the World. Even without the Austin City Limits Festival and massive South by Southwest Festival, that could be a legit statement. Where bands in Nashville might have perfect harmonies, tight arrangements and wear cool outfits, Austin’s grungy clubs emit a more organic, raw approach to performance, with a heavy slant towards country-infused blues-rock. But in a place with as many as four-to-five bands on a bill every night across hundreds of venues, you’re more likely to find indescribable bands in Austin.

On a grass roots level, startup musicians are well organized and supportive towards one-another. There’s a conscious effort to attend one another’s shows and it’s easy to network.  Most everyone gets a chance.

Impressive, too, is the city’s compassion toward musicians. The Health Alliance for Austin Musicians (HAAM) offers low-cost health care services, basic dental care and mental health counseling to professional musicians. There’s also push to have a music department in local government to lobby for venues and working musicians (Nashville already has this). The mayor is a big proponent of ensuring that the city lives up to its reputation, and busy city streets even have signs for musician parking. (Recommended taste of Austin: The Belleville Outfit, Susanna Choffel, T Bird & The Breaks, Warren Hood). PJH

Courtesy photo
On the road...... again with Aaron Davis

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