Concerts

You’d Never Cry Again – An Album and Concert Review: John Fullbright

It’s been 97 days since John Fullbright’s last Washington, D.C., concert, and I’m finally sitting down to write this review. In fact, he’s back in D.C. tonight at the 9:30 Club opening for Shovels & Rope – and if you’re looking for something to do, I can’t recommend him enough. His album “Songs” is one of the best of the year and the concert was amazing, so late or not, no blog would be complete without this coverage.

John Fullbright at DC’s Hill Country, 06-16-14

Bottom line: The June 16 concert, held in the Hill Country bbq market basement, was phenomenal. It was just Fullbright on piano and sometimes guitar, no band. Actually, I think the real word was “captivating.” He had the audience in the palm of his hand all night.

Fullbright’s two albums have very different feels from one another, so one thing that struck me was that the D.C. concert had the vibe of the older album rather than the one it was actually promoting. 2012’s “From the Ground Up” is Oklahoma country, whereas this year’s “Songs” feels more like a singer-songwriter project – and the Hill Country show was very much a country performance. I asked him about that after the show, and he gestured around the room and said, “I mean, look at the venue!” He had a point: There was a giant Texas flag made of denim behind the stage, dozens of framed Texas Monthly covers adorning the walls, and barsigns for Shiner and Lone Star. That means that Fullbright can tailor the same setlist to whatever the environment and audience calls for – a mark of a highly adept, perceptive, and intelligent performer.

Mike Seely wrote a review last week of a Sturgill Simpson concert, held in a small Washington State city park. Given Simpson’s meteoric rise this year, Seely called the show “Sturgill Simpson’s Last Small Stage.” You might be able to say something similar about Fullbright and Hill Country. He’s on tour with Shovels & Rope – hardly the same as the Zac Brown Band but still legit – and he’s racking up the awards and high-profile appearances, even appearing on Letterman last month. Saving Country Music said “Songs” is worthy of being mentioned alongside Tom Waits and Bob Dylan, proclaiming that “John Fullbright sets the standard by which all other songwriters will be measured by in 2014.” And Lynne Margolis of American Songwriter said wrote, “Neil Young was 24 when he released After the Gold Rush. Joni Mitchell recorded Blue at 27… John Fullbright’s Songs could take its place in that same pantheon of hallowed musical masterpieces.” (When I mentioned the AS review to him after the show, I believe his words were “Fuck that noise.” Gotta love a man able to shrug off the pressure and keep focused on the music and writing that matter most!)

My favorite song was the poignant “When You’re Here.” It’s a true masterpiece, but the song that’s probably gotten the most coverage so far is the first track, “Happy” (the one he sang on Letterman), which flips a lot of country songwriting on its head. Instead of dwelling on a breakup’s sadness and using it to fuel his craft in the stereotypical ways we Americana fans selfishly demand, he says he wants to end the fight with a lover instead of winning it, simply asking, “What’s so bad about happy?” Another one that makes me pause is “She Knows” – its list of things only his lover knows about him makes a fun juxtaposition with Ray Charles’ “You Don’t Know Me,” especially since some of Fullbright’s other melodies remind me just a little of that Charles song.

There aren’t really any anthems here, and other than the whistling on “Happy,” nothing really sticks in your head for hours on end for musical rather than lyrical reasons. But that’s not the point. The lyrics are deep and poignant and make you freeze in place, even for friends who were hearing them for the first time in a live venue. This man really knows how to capture those emotions we all feel at rare but powerful moments in our lives, and pairs the lyrics with exactly the right melodies for them – which is precisely what music should do: Take my hand so we don’t get lost // I spent the coin I used to toss// And never knew what luck would cost// Until I bet it in the end // Never claimed to soar so high// That I forgot that I could fly // If you never knew what never was // You’d never cry again

I met him after the show, and we talked a bit about the state of Nashville today and our shared love for the songwriting of Bruce Robison. Fullbright’s tone was genuine and admiring when he spoke about the Texas country singer/songwriter: “Wow. If there was any justice in this world, that guy would be famous in his own right and a millionaire several times over!” Very true, and Robison is a great influence to have. If Fullbright keeps it up, he’ll find at least the same songwriting success Robison has found with three #1 hits, and hopefully also the on-stage success that we agreed Robison – and now Fullbright – deserves.

4.5 whiskey bottles out of 5 for 2014’s “Songs.” All I can really say is, buy this album, and if Fullbright comes to your town, you should go see him.

VIDEO: Chris Thile reacts to Bach and Radiohead the same way

Nathan Empsall and Chris Thile, the 9:30 Club, May 4 2014

A very blurry photo of the writer meeting Chris Thile last month

The other day, a friend told me how surprised she was to find herself enjoying the mandolin at a bluegrass concert. I replied that if you think you don’t like the mandolin, it’s probably only because you haven’t heard Chris Thile yet.

I went searching for some great Thile clips to show her, and came across this one from last year where he jams on multiple genres as part of an interview with the Wall Street Journal. I LOVE this point that he makes: Classical music isn’t any more staid or somber than rock or pop; it’s the AUDIENCES that are more reserved. But not the music or the artists! He compares a riff from Bach to a riff from Radiohead – both on the mandolin – and says they’re both “super intense!” and deserve similar reactions. Sounds good to me! What is music if not a portal into your emotions and your soul?

What do you think?

I see the cornpone, but where’s the beef? – A Concert Review: Dailey & Vincent, 05-30-14

If the Steep Canyon Rangers gave us a great performance at the Library of Concert last night, then Dailey & Vincent put on a good show – and that’s the key difference between the two bands. Performance vs show, an entertaining focus on music vs a musical focus on entertainment.

I don’t say that to sound dismissive. Cornpone and schtick aren’t my thing and weren’t what I was in the mood for, but that’s a pretty subjective statement. I do wish Dailey & Vincent’s show hadn’t overshadowed the music, because there was a lot of talent up there that could have spoken for itself and held its own. But if you like old-timey cornpone fun, you’ll love Dailey and Vincent. The presentation felt like a cross between the Grand Ole Opry and Hee Haw. Jamie Dailey was an obviously but well-rehearsed (and self-promotional) MC who came across as much the earnest host as he did the star. Sure enough, their very first paying gig as a duo was at the Ryman.

The band is fronted by bluegrass musicians and tenors Dailey and Darrin Vincent. The’ve got quite the credentials: Dailey was the lead singer for Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, and Vincent was part of Ricky Skaggs’ Kentucky Thunder. It shows. They’re definitely good musicians – but this is a concert review, not an album review, and music just wasn’t the main focus of their show.

Their bluegrass roots always showed, yet they successfully straddled many genres. There was an electric guitar. The fiddler, BJ Cherryholmes, was very talented, and played as much in a country style as bluegrass. The Gospel influence was felt throughout the show, especially in the a capella quartets. They kicked the show off with a bombastic cover of Phillip Phillips’ “(Make this Place Your) Home” and an audience singalong of John Denver’s “Country Roads.”

The two best things I can say about Dailey & Vincent are first, the band is a worthy musical heir to the Statler Brothers. When all of them sang at once and actually put the emphasis on the music, that’s exactly who they sounded like – and they do in fact have an album of Statler Brothers covers I might well buy.

Second, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard someone sing as low AND as clear as bassist Christian Davis. That young man has an AMAZING voice! And the band knows it, showcasing his deepest notes often (even when it didn’t make sense to do so). Davis gets a lot of credit; I just wish the instruments hadn’t all but drowned out his big solo on the finale.

They were all quite talented, not just Davis. When the front duo of Dailey and Vincent performed a duet – Dailey on guitar, Vincent on mandolin, and both harmonizing as high tenors with some falsetto – it was classic bluegrass and great music.

But it was easy to loose sight of that given the fun, hoopla, and ra-ra jingoism the rest of the show was engineered to get us all caught up in. Take a look at the set they use in this video – that visual captures a lot. Of course I love America, but if every other sentence talks up freedom, praises vets, and gets in your face about red white and blue, it starts to feel forced – more like cheap, jingoistic nationalism than true country patriotism.

It wasn’t all jingoism. Some of it was schtick. Singer and mandolin player Jeff Parker is a real ham – no weight pun intended. He came across as a goofy extrovert who loved to have fun. And that’s not a bad thing, if you’re into schtick! None of this, aside from the nationalism, is objectively a bad thing; it’s just a question of personal preference. If you like cornpone – and I don’t – you’ll love Dailey and Vincent. And if you don’t but you still enjoy Gospel and/or bluegrass, you might still like their albums. There sure was a lot of musical talent up there, and I really look forward to hearing it when there isn’t an act to overshadow it.

Dailey & Vincent are Jamie Dailey, Darrin Vincent, Jeff Parker, Christian Davis, BJ Cherryholmes, and Jessie Baker on banjo, Seth Taylor on lead guitar, and Bob Mummert on drums. They are signed to Rounder Records.

They Tore It Up! – A Concert Review: The Steep Canyon Rangers, 05-30-14

A FREE show from one of my all-time favorite bands just a half mile from my house? Yes, please!!!

Last night, the Steep Canyon Rangers gave one helluva bluegrass performance to close out the Library of Congress’s free concert season. (No, the brilliant Steve Martin wasn’t there, but let’s remember – the Steeps were nominated for a Grammy with him, but won one without him!) Also performing were Grammy nominees Dailey and Vincent, whom I will review in a separate post, and Irish traditionalists Donna Long and Jesse Smith.

Though I’d heard a little from the Steeps before last January, they didn’t really come to my attention until then. I was going through an extremely hard breakup with the woman I thought I was going to marry, and was working about 70 hours a week. I needed an escape – badly – so I threw work in the trashcan for an evening and went with a buddy to see the Steeps at the Birchmere.

For those few hours, everything was okay, everything felt right again — it was the first time in months that I had been truly happy for more than a few minutes. As I noted in the essay that kicked off this blog, music has always been there for me in my tough times – and for their part in that, the Steeps will forever hold a special place in my heart.

This weekend marked my fifth Steep Canyon Rangers show in 16 months, and that feeling of truly being at home during them has never gone away. By that, I don’t just mean it feels comfortable; it’s more than that. It feels right – like coming home after travel. When an SCR show ends, instead of saying “Time to go home!” I say, “But it’s too late to go out again!”

Steep Canyon Rangers fiddler Nicky Sanders with the author, Nathan Empsall. April 2013.

Even with lasting sadly less than an hour, last night’s concert was as phenomenal as ever. The LOC crowd was the first I’ve seen that didn’t laugh at the opening line of the opener “As I Go” – “I always try to do what’s best, I’ve mostly done the opposite.” But by the finale, when Nicky Sanders tears up “Auden’s Train” with the best damn fiddling you’ll ever see, they sure were howling at his classical music riffs. Graham joked that Nicky was going to steal one of the Library’s famous instruments – “Stradivariuses? Stradivarii?” All of the band is amazing at what they do, so I hate to single out any one of them as the most talented – but as grave an injustice as that is to the rest of the band’s superb talent to say, it would be an even graver injustice to Nicky NOT to say it.

There are a lot of great coal songs out there, but “Call the Captain” is probably my favorite – plus it does a great job showcasing Woody Platt’s smooth vocals. Speaking of Woody, his guitar broke a string at one point, but he compensated extremely well for the rest of the song. Bravo, sir.

I’ll even applaud the band’s drums. What? Drums in a bluegrass band? Well, yes – the Steeps are a great cross between bluegrass and newgrass, pushing the limits but still respecting the genre, and in that spirit Mike Ashworth joined on drums last summer. They worked particularly well as retroactive additions to “Rescue Me” and the instrumental “Knob Creek,” and are an integral piece of the latest album’s title track, “Tell the Ones I Love.”

When all was said and done, the Steeps received a thunderous standing ovation that didn’t let up until they all came out for a well-deserved curtain call.

The author, Nathan Empsall, with Steep Canyon Rangers banjo player Graham Sharp. May 2014.

I only have two small negative things to say. The first is that I think the bass was mixed a little too loud, especially in the beginning. (Also, it’s just now occurring to me that the Charles, also a prolific and talented songwriter, doesn’t get that many bass solos – hopefully that will be corrected on a future album!) Second, I really wish they had played “Between Midnight and the Dawn,” which was actually a runner-up for the title of this website. But the show was free and those are minor quibbles – the first and perhaps only negative things I’ll ever say about a Steep Canyon Rangers show!

If you’ve never seen the band life, you MUST. Obviously many groups are better live than recorded, but it’s amazing just how true that is for the Steeps. Don’t get me wrong, I love their albums – Nobody Knows You absolutely deserved that Grammy – but the two best things about the band just don’t come through as well in the studio. That’s how amazing Nicky Sanders is on the fiddle, and how wonderful Woody Platt, Graham Sharp, and Mike Guggino’s vocal harmonies blend together. Go. See. These. Guys.

The Library of Congress as a venue was a good thing, too. The band seemed truly honored to be there, including talking in the lobby afterwards. It certainly helped lift my spirits a little bit once I got to thinkin’ about it. By day, I work in politics, and I’ve grown a lot more cynical since moving to Washington. But sitting there in the middle of the Capitol complex, experiencing great American music with a diverse and appreciative crowd right in the historic place, everything that’s wrong with our society ceased to matter for a little while as the best things about what makes us us were put front and center. That’s what music does.

The Steep Canyon Rangers are Woody Platt on lead vocals and guitar, Graham Sharp on vocals and banjo, Nicky Sanders on fiddle, Mike Guggino on mandolin and harmony vocals, Charles R. Humphrey III on bass, and Mike Ashworth on drums.

The Washington Folk Festival is this weekend!

If you’re in the Washington, D.C., area, be sure to check out the 34th annual Washington Folk Festival this weekend, just outside the District at Maryland’s old Glen Echo amusement park! The festival runs from noon – 7 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday. There are all sorts of crafts exhibitors, a storytellers’ stage, and a Spanish ballroom, but more importantly for this writer and website, dozens of musicians stretching many genres, particularly bluegrass and folk. I’ve been before, and it’s a great time.

I was reminded of the festival a couple weeks ago when I walked to Eastern Market after church. I was in a bit of a hurry to get to afternoon events, so I thought I was going to just hit up the butcher counter and get out of there – but then I heard blugrass strains wafting across the plaza from the flea market, and dammit the weather was just so nice. So thanks to King Street Bluegrass, I spent about half an hour longer on 7th Street NE then I intended to.

They played a little bluegrass and a little blues, and let us all know that they’d be at the upcoming Folk Festival. They may not be the Steep Canyon Rangers* (I mean, who is?), but if every city had a bluegrass band like King Street Bluegrass, we’d all be sittin’ a little higher on life’s hog. These are the folks you want playing at whatever event it is you’re holding, so be sure to check them out this weekend (3:15 on Sunday at the Cuddle-up Stage) along with all the other performers at the Washington Folk Festival in Glen Echo.

*Speaking of the Steep Canyon Rangers, they’ll be in D.C. tonight too – for free, along with duo Dailey & Vincent and Celtic performers Donna Long and Jesse Smith! WHY is this not the headline of the post? Because while it’s a sold-out show at the Library of Congress, there is a limited number of FREE rush tickets available at 5pm for the 7pm show – and I don’t want you to beat me there to get them. ;)