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All in the family — An interview with Tom Smothers

2005-02-24 Features

All in the family

An interview with Tom Smothers

February 24, 2005

In 1959 Tom and Dick Smothers began as a singing duo before evolving into one of the most enduring comedic teams of all time. “Mom always liked you best” was Tom’s most often repeated charge in the long-running, put-on feud with brother Dick. Their first national television appearance was on Jack Paar’s show in 1961. In 1967, CBS decided to give the Smothers Brothers a shot at the “kamikaze hour,” the 9 p.m. time slot opposite NBC’s “Bonanza.” Nine shows had gone down in flames attempting to break “Bonanza’s” seemingly insurmountable hold on television ratings. CBS hoped that “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” would appeal to a younger audience, but Tom and Dick assumed that they would fail as others had. According to Maureen Muldaur’s documentary Smothered: The Censorship Struggles of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, the team had nothing to lose, but the brothers hoped to get at least half a season out of the deal and then “go fishing in Mexico” the rest of the year.

If Tom Smothers was going down, he was going down throwing his best punches. He demanded that the network give him complete creative control. The result was an hour of political satire that caught network executives and the nation off-guard. The reactionary youth movement of the 1960s had been defined by hippies, Black Panthers, and other insurgent characters, so no one expected a pair of short-haired, clean-shaven brothers to take on the Vietnam War, racial integration, and other social issues of the day. The show reached number one in the ratings as CBS observed with horror the subversive monster it had unleashed. Frank Stanton, the president of the network, often watched the program with President Lyndon Johnson at the White House, which resulted in Monday morning messages to Tom and Dick to tone down the controversy. By the second season, CBS was censoring the show and eventually canceled it halfway through the third year because a script was supposedly turned in too late to be reviewed. The brothers later won a $30-million lawsuit against CBS for breach of contract.




The Smothers Brothers: Tom and Dick. (click for larger version)

In 1988, CBS invited the brothers to do a “Comedy Hour” reunion. The network requested that the pair be as cutting edge and controversial as they had been two decades earlier, but Tom and Dick refused to comply. They decided to stick to just being funny. The Smothers Brothers will appear with the Alabama Symphony on Thursday, March 3 at the BJCC Concert Hall. Tom Smothers even promised to perform his astonishing yo-yo tricks.

No one expected a pair of short-haired, clean-shaven brothers to take on the Vietnam War, racial integration, and other social issues of the day. When “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” reached number one in the ratings as CBS observed with horror the subversive monster it had unleashed.

B&W: I’m having trouble picturing the Smothers Brothers performing with a symphony.

Tom Smothers: We do about eight or 10 symphonies a year, and we think they are the most fun of all the jobs we do. We do about 75 to 100 dates a year.

B&W: What makes the symphony dates so much fun?

Smothers: There’s something about the formality of a symphony. For a comedian, the easiest place to get a laugh without any effort is a schoolroom, courtroom, or a symphony hall (laughs). There’s something formal about it, and comedy kind of breaks that little formality. We always put monitors in back so that they [symphony members] can hear the dialogue and stuff—and I always turn around and look, and they are always laughing. They have the best time. It’s like having an audience behind us and an audience in front of us.

B&W: Are you and Dick the longest-running comedy team?

Smothers: We are the longest-lived comedy team in history. That form is very difficult to do. The kids today all do stand-up, you know . . . Being in a comedy team is like a marriage. It’s very complicated, and that’s why they don’t last very long, ’cause you get in each other’s face (laughs). Dicky and I had couples’ counseling about six years ago. Eighteen hours of these people. It cleared up a lot of stuff. [The therapist] said, “Stop treating each other like brothers and grow up, and treat each other like professionals.” Someone asked, “How do you guys get along?” Dicky said, “Well. It’s like an old marriage. A lot of fighting and no sex.”

B&W: I used to feel sorry for Dick because you were the one getting all the laughs. Did he ever want to be the funny guy?

Smothers: We’ve tried it before, but he’s very comfortable with being the straight man. In the early days, I got more attention than he did. The comic always did. It was 1978 or ’79, and we were watching Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and Martin and Lewis, and I realized the straight man does most of the talking. Bud Abbott is doing all the talking, and that’s where the balance came in. If the audience believes the straight man, they’ll believe the comic. In the early days of vaudeville, the straight man was paid more money because it was a skilled position. It was the most difficult one, because a good straight man can bring people out of the audience and up on the stage and get laughs off of them. So Dicky and I understand that now, so there’s no problem with who recognizes his place. He’s basically keeps the tempo; he’s the rhythm section for the comedy. And he’s really good. Dicky ranks up there with Bud Abbott and Dean Martin and Dan Rowan and George Burns. He’s really that good.

B&W: Were you two ever tempted to work as a more raunchy act?

Smothers: Never. We started in the era of working clean, so it was very easy to keep it going. And now it’s darn near a point of difference—there’s not that many comedians that work clean. We get the same laughs but even better, and don’t have to use the F-word. Offstage, when I’m not working, sometimes I say, “What the f**k’s going on here? Give me the f**king hammer. Who f**ked this up?” Because that’s the way I talk when I’ve had a couple of drinks. My wife goes, “Ooohhh.” I’ve got a nine-year old and an 11-year old. Occasionally I’ll let out a word. I’ve got a swear jar. It’s got about 150 bucks in it now.

We started in 1959, we were fired in 1969, so we had 10 years of unparalleled success. Everything we did was ripe. And then in the ’70s, we could hardly get a job after that. We were untouchable.

B&W: “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” had an impressive list of writers (Mason Williams, Steve Martin, Rob Reiner, Bob Einstein, among others). I only knew Mason Williams for writing and performing the song “Classical Gas.”

Smothers: We [introduced] that song on the air. He’s also the one who wrote the Smothers Brothers theme. He was a major moral compass for me. We were roommates at the time we started the show. We were both single and we’ve got a television show, and Mason would read the script and he’d say, “That’s bullshit.” Then I’d go to the meeting and pretend it was all my idea. I’d go, “This doesn’t seem to work.” The whole thing was that we were trying to make some comedy that was at least relevant or had some factual background or something of interest or educational or something, so we tried to insert that kind of stuff into the “Comedy Hour.” Bob Einstein [comedian Albert Brooks' older brother, who is better known as comedic stuntman of sorts, Super Dave] was 21, Rob Reiner was 21. We had all these young writers. Dicky was 29, I was 30 during that time. It was a fun time; it made an impression. We started in 1959, we were fired in 1969, so we had 10 years of unparalleled success. Everything we did was ripe. And then in the ’70s, we called [those years] the dark ages (laughs). We could hardly get a job after that. We were untouchable. Very little eye contact in Hollywood. So we all moved away, and Dicky started a winery up in Sonoma, in northern California. He started racing cars and I did some theater. Then we started doing dinner theater, and then we ended up doing a Broadway show for about two years. And then we started working again in 1980 as The Smothers Brothers. It was like starting from scratch, but there was a residual respect that we got from that firing. We never wore out our welcome because we were on for so short a time. Then the winery started happening, so we’re in the food section (laughs). Then when we went to court with CBS, we were in the legal section. Then we would occasionally get another television show, so it was a pretty good career.

B&W: The show had an unusual mix of music. You’d have the Jefferson Airplane one week and Kate Smith the next.

Smothers: (Laughs) We had a rare opportunity to have one foot in the past. So we got the Jimmy Durantes and the Kate Smiths and Betty Davis. So we always had those rock groups and contemporary groups and classic old traditional stars, which was a great combination. We loved that. Music was our first thing. Dicky and I started off as musicians first, and the comedy just slowly edged its way in. And then when the Kingston Trio started working, folk music started happening. And I said, “Oh boy, this is really good stuff. Good stories.” So that’s when the comedy started happening, and Dicky started talking a little more and a little more, and pretty soon there was the comedy team.

B&W: Were you as shocked as everyone else when The Who played the “Comedy Hour” and Keith Moon got blown off his drum kit at the end of “My Generation”?

Smothers: (Laughing) It was a surprise to everybody. The union guy put the charge in, then Keith Moon went and put another charge in, and the first charge hadn’t gone off. There were three charges in that thing. So when that went off, man . . . Peter Townshend still can’t hear (laughs).

B&W: Was it prearranged when Townshend smashed your acoustic guitar?

Smothers: Yeah, I knew he was going to do that. We bought a much less expensive guitar that looked like mine. His ears were ringing, and I was looking around to see if anybody was injured. He staggered over to me because he knew he was supposed to take my guitar (laughs). And it looks so real because I was distracted, I was so concerned. When it first happened, I thought Moon’s drum had exploded, but now I look back and it didn’t. There were limiters on the microphones or else it would have blown out all the mics and everything.”

B&W: The current FCC crackdown is focused on profanity, exposed breasts, and other things of a suggestive nature more so than the political comedy that got you and Dick fired by CBS. Do you see any parallels at all?

Smothers: During the time that we were on in 1968 and ’69, there was a Senator Pastori, who was a raving, crazy man about the terrible stuff that was going on in television back then (laughs). So when we were on, we couldn’t say the words “sex education,” we couldn’t use the word “pregnant.” All the censorship was set up, basically, to protect the people from bad words and sexual innuendos. We didn’t do that. We were talking politics. So on April 4, 1969, we were fired from our show. We were fired for our viewpoints on Vietnam. People would come up to us before this last FCC and Janet Jackson stuff happened, and ask, ‘Don’t you wish you were on television, because now you can say anything you want?’ There’s that illusion that sexual content and violence and scatological talk is freedom. But there was nothing being said except sophomoric focus on the crotch. People would say, ‘We’re free, we’re free!’ and I would say, ‘No, no. Political criticism and satire since that time has been relegated to the fringes of television, which is cable, “Saturday Night Live,” at 11 o’clock where the viewing audience is way, way down and [the show] doesn’t create a big issue.’ So things have gone backwards, I think . . . The thing that offends me the most is that Howard Stern has become the poster boy for First Amendment rights. What a crock. Of all the people to pick, a guy that just talks about lesbians and tits and ass and stuff, and that’s the free speech thing? What a contradiction of values (laughs). I was at one time a poster boy for First Amendment rights. I was chosen. I didn’t volunteer.

B&W: Were you and Dick constantly getting pressure from CBS to tone down the controversy on the show?

Smothers: Oh, yeah. It was constant. I didn’t even know I was saying anything important until they said, “You better stop.” It’s amazing. It’s been over 35 years since that show was on the air. It was only on for two and a half seasons, but it made a pretty big impression. Because it’s still a point of conversation. I look back on these old shows and I kind of cringe a little bit. We did some shows in ’88 and ’89 for CBS where we introduced the Yo-Yo Man and stuff, and that was some of the best work that Dicky and I have ever done, next to our albums. The performances on the original show were not up to snuff, because I was so busy producing and worrying about other stuff. Everything except Dicky and I.

B&W: What was the final straw that made CBS cancel the show?

Smothers: David Steinberg did a sermonette . . . But it would have been something else. Nixon had just gotten elected and wasn’t going to listen to The Smothers Brothers criticize Vietnam policy (laughs). We became a threat (laughs) . . . The truth is what you persuade other people to believe. I’m so depressed. (Speaking in a weary voice). People aren’t thinking clear. But I’m kind of a liberal progressive, so I’m always on the other point of view, and I haven’t changed. I just turned 68 two days ago on Groundhog Day. There’s a Chinese proverb that says, “Old age is anyone 20 years older than you.”

B&W: I’ve seen photographs of Richard Nixon at the Grand Ole Opry playing with a yo-yo, and he looked like he was pretty good. Would the Yo-Yo Man philosophy apply to Nixon?

Smothers: (laughs) Well, yeah . . . The philosophy is basically a perserverence. And the yo-yo, if you miss it, you just get right back on and you keep practicing. Your failures are what head you toward success. Around the World [a yo-yo trick] is like you go out every day and do stuff, and sometimes we fail and we have to try it again and never quit. It’s got a nice philosophy to it. The Yo-Yo Man does not talk, and Dick is kind of the play-by-play announcer. So with the yo yo, I don’t make every trick every time the first time sometimes. Dicky will say, “Oh, the Yo-Yo Man is out of his groove. Come on, Yo-Yo Man, concentrate. Don’t give up. Tom has made a lot of mistakes; he’s learning a lot. He’s working on his doctorate (laughs).”

B&W: Did you and Dick make Nixon’s enemies list?

Smothers: No, we were his first success. It was after that he said, “Hey, let’s make a list.” The plumbers were setting us up with drug busts and all kinds of stuff. It was dirty. I didn’t know what hardball was. It was right after we were fired. We were also doing a movie; it was called Another Nice Mess. This was 1970, and it was a movie with Rich Little and a guy named Herb Bolen, and we dressed them up to look exactly like Nixon and Agnew. But they talked and acted like Laurel and Hardy, and Nixon was always looking at Agnew and going (imitates Oliver Hardy), “That’s another nice mess you’ve gotten us into.” So out of the midst of that, I had a friend who was a former Marine and later worked at the CIA who called me and said, “Tom, I met a guy down at the federal building who asked me, ‘Do you know Tommy Smothers?’” And my friend said, “Yeah.” The guy then said, “I thought I’d tell you that if he’s a friend of yours, there’s a drug bust being set up for him. Tell him to have someone with him at all times, have his car sent to the car wash everyday.” So I got the word, and I started looking up all my friends and let them know that they better clean up their act. So I’m supposed to be on a plane coming up to San Francisco where I was living with my grandfather at the time. I missed the flight. I was busy doing some editing. At about nine o’clock, he called and said, “There’s a bunch of guys here, federal and state narcotics people going through the house.” That was an exciting time of my life. I hid out for a week. I had smoked some grass, but my house was clean as a whistle because I was warned in advance.

B&W: Would you like to have another TV show to take on the conservative establishment these days?

Smothers: It’s not the conservative establishment; it’s a question of fairness and common sense. When you look at stuff and kind of criticize things that don’t make sense, it doesn’t matter what side it comes from—left or right. The problem is that we’re at the age now where we’re age-discriminated against. We’re a little too old. They have MTV for the kids. When are they going to get a network for the adults so we can have some interesting and smart stuff? Then we’d be on!

B&W: I read that you have a lot of respect for Ralph Nader. Did you take issue with him when liberals complained that he drew electoral votes away from Gore?

Smothers: No. I happen to have more than respect for him. He’s one of the rarest people in the world. He never compromised standing up for the little people. His whole thing is standing up for the consumer. Where everybody jumped on him for supposedly throwing the election to Bush, that’s all bullshit. People ask, “Why would you vote for Nader? He’s not going to win.” I say, “Well, when you vote for a Republican or a Democrat, one of them’s not going to win either.” You vote for what you believe in. You never hear him yell, you never hear him talk dirty, you never hear him get angry with people. He keeps this real calm demeanor, and he makes absolute sense. I haven’t voted for a Republican or Democrat in 18 years. Both those parties are so corrupt now. It’s a joke. I mean, they’re all bought and paid for by corporations.

B&W: What’s it going to take to break the stronghold the two parties have on American politics?

Smothers: It’s going to take a revolution (laughs). I think the biggest problem is that since the media has become so consolidated . . . I think we should make an amendment to the Constitution, the First Amendment—freedom of speech—we should add “freedom of hearing.” Some smart things are being said, but we don’t get to hear them. They don’t come out through the microphone. So this country remains ignorant. You have to really get out there and dig to find the truth. I’m still pissed off. But it’s not in our show. Our show’s pretty darned middle-of-the-road. It’s a family show, and we make a few social comments in there that aren’t pointed enough, but people get it.

B&W: Lots of people are referring to the war in Iraq as another Vietnam.

Smothers: Well, it is! It is. What was the Vietnam war about? Well, we’re going to stop the domino thing. And over in someone else’s country, fighting for the hearts and minds. And we’re going the same way. There’s no exit strategy. Rumsfeld and McNamara are the same people. And they look alike, too! It’s amazing how collective memory just went away. You saw it coming from a mile away . . . God, you know when the Dixie Chicks said that thing about Bush? They disappeared. No stations would play them. People are scared to death. You can see this totalitarian thing, militarism. If anybody questions anything, it’s treason. We’ve gotta keep our sense of humor, because last time I lost it for about two years. I was just a dreadfully dull dude (laughs). Finally, I saw Jane Fonda on television one time and she was just . . . eyes all crossed and angry. I was watching her and I said, “Oh man, I’m starting to look like that. I better stop that. Find the joke again (laughs).” &

The Set List — Roberta Flack

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By Ed Reynolds and Bart Grooms

Roberta Flack has made a career singing boring pop that has about as much passion as Liza Minelli or Phoebe Snow. So it’s hard to fathom that a breathtaking song on Flack’s debut album First Take that Clint Eastwood demanded be included on the soundtrack of his film Play Misty for Me rates as a true 24-karat masterpiece. “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” is nothing short of spellbinding, an awe-inspiring, hypnotic slice of musical history that rarely fails to make one stop whatever they’re doing and simply listen. To her credit, Flack told music big shots and producers overseeing her career to take a hike when told to speed up the tempo. Instead, her voice approaches each phrase with a delicate caress. Too bad she couldn’t pull off that neat trick again with “Killing Me Softly,” “Where is the Love [with the late Donny Hathaway],” “The Closer I Get to You,” and, of course, the thoroughly irritating “Tonight I Celebrate My Love for You.” (Saturday, January 22, at the BJCC Concert Hall) —Ed Reynolds




	Roberta Flack (click for larger version)

Regina Carter




	Regina Carter (click for larger version)

Although she later received classical training, violinist Regina Carter began the way many of her jazz forbearers did—playing by ear. She later mastered written music and theory, but as she puts it, “I think that kind of experience has freed my playing up a lot more, so I’m not stuck on the page. A lot of people are afraid not to have a piece of music in front of them.” She sees her mission as expanding the profile of and approach to her instrument, and to this end she plays in an aggressive, often percussive manner that recalls the great Stuff Smith’s bluesy swagger more than, say, Stéphane Grappelli’s more refined style. “Instead of being so melodic,” states the fiddler, “which I can be, I tend to use the instrument in more of a rhythmic way, using vamp rhythms or a lot of syncopated rhythms, approaching it more like a horn player does. So, I don’t feel that I have a lot of limitations —I feel like I can do anything.” Indeed, what she can do is pretty striking, and her quintet’s ASC concert on Saturday, January 22, at 8 p.m. will give us an opportunity to hear for ourselves. Until then, her beguiling duet album with master pianist Kenny Barron (Freefall, on Verve) is highly recommended. Tickets are $46, $36, and $26; For more information call 975-2787 or visit www.alysstephens.org. —Bart Grooms

Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present

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Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present

Liberace, the Chipmunks, and the Vienna Boys’ Choir as Proustian moments? The author makes a compelling case.

By Ed Reynolds

write the author

December 16, 2004

The best thing about Christmas music is that it has a three- to four-week life span, so before you grow completely sick of the songs, they’re gone—at least until next year. Holiday musical offerings exist in every genre imaginable, and a new batch is cooked up every year to generate cash flow for somebody somewhere. Most of the current stuff is boring and predictable—either too happy, too rocking, or too sentimental. The traditional elements are severely lacking. And while it might be a stretch to include Christmas favorites like “The Chipmunk Song” and Liberace’s version of “Silver Bells” as anything remotely traditional, they’re among a handful of favorites that keep impostors off my record player this time of year.

“The Chipmunk Song”

(Click Here to listen to this song)

The first time this song made a real impact, with its circus carousel-invoking melody and high-pitched voices singing, “Me, I want a Hula Hoop,” was one July spent at the home of family friends in Cocoa Beach, Florida, not far from Cape Canaveral. (The distant sky would glow through their living room window when rockets were launched at the Cape.) Not being very fond of the water, much less what might be lurking on the ocean floor, I spent much of my vacation time with their teenage daughter’s collection of 45 rpm records. “The Chipmunk Song” soon became my favorite, which made me the object of the girl’s endless ridicule. She repeatedly told me that if I knew anything about music I’d be listening to Nat King Cole’s “Ramblin’ Rose.”




	(click for larger version)

The Chipmunks became a Christmas obsession. The evolution of their creator, Ross Bagdasarian, is an interesting pop music footnote. Bagdasarian, who played a songwriter in Hitchcock’s Rear Window, also composed “Come On-a My House,” the 1951 hit that made Rosemary Clooney a star. (Mitch Miller convinced Clooney to record the song despite her objections that it was a silly novelty tune, a genre in which Bagdasarian proved his expertise during the ensuing decade.) Singing as David Seville, Bagdasarian made the pop charts in 1958 with “The Witch Doctor” (the chorus: “ooh eee ooh ah ah; ting tang wallah wallah bing bang”).

This was Bagdasarian’s first time to experiment with recording himself at normal speed, then speeding up the tape to create what later became a pop phenomenon, The Chipmunks. Bagdasarian’s original notion was that the sped-up recording emulated rabbits and butterflies, until his young children convinced him that the voices sounded like chipmunks. In 1958 he introduced Alvin, Simon, and Theodore singing the Christmas classic, “The Chipmunk Song.”

As an adult, I would probably choose the catalog of Nat King Cole over that of The Chipmunks. But if it comes down to a single song, I’ll take “The Chipmunk Song” over “Ramblin’ Rose” any time of year.

“In the Bleak Mid-Winter”

(Click Here to listen to this song)

The a capella recording of this traditional ode to the tortuous cold of winter by Birmingham’s Independent Presbyterian Church Choir is the most breathtaking version I’ve ever heard. Oddly, the melody first came to me in the form of Muzak at a thrift store in Midfield one Christmas season around 15 years ago. It was the perfect soundtrack for mingling with the lower class in a secondhand clothing and appliance store.

A couple of years later I discovered the IPC Choir’s rendering on their mid-1980s album The Joyous Birth. The composer of “In the Bleak Mid-Winter” was indicated as Gustav Holst. But a recent conversation with retired IPC choirmaster Joseph Schreiber, who directed the choir and played the organ at the church for 34 years (including during recording of the song), revealed shock on his part that Holst and not Harold Darke was listed as the writer. A web search indicated both men listed as the composer, among several others [Darke in 1911, and Holst in 1906]. The lyrics originated half a century earlier in a poem by Christina Rossetti. Still, Schreiber insists that Darke is the true writer. “It’s gorgeous, kind of haunting,” Schreiber describes, obviously touched by the memories of his choir’s performances.

“Haunting” is an understatement. The first couple of phrases, “In the bleak mid-winter, frosty wind made moan. Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone,” paint a desolate picture that sends chills down the spine when accompanied by the eerie but exquisite melody. As for that Midfield thrift store, now known as America’s Thrift Store, it remains a Christmas favorite as well.

“Silver Bells” by Liberace

(Click Here to listen to this song)

My mother forced piano lessons down my nine-year-old throat, insisting all the way that I would thank her one day. Of course, years later I realized she was right and I was wrong. But before she was right, whenever neighborhood kids found out I was taking piano I was taunted with “You’re a queer like Liberace!” “Am not,” I replied. Nevertheless, the taunts were humbling and embarrassing.

Twenty years later I came to appreciate Liberace, entertained as much by his feminine ways as his sentimental, crescendo-laden runs up and down the keyboard. But what’s so intriguing about his version of “Silver Bells” is his vocal styling. Naturally campy yet irresistibly sincere, his voice is anything but pretty. It’s tough to describe. He sounds so . . . Liberace.

Placido Domingo and The Vienna Choir Boys

(Click Here to listen to the Schubert arrangement of “Ave Maria”)

The Vienna Choir Boys was the first live musical act with which I recall being smitten when I was about eight. A version of the Choir Boys came through Selma one Christmas, and I was forced to attend with my mother because my father refused to go. It was like an epiphany the first time I heard them in person. I was astonished that a bunch of kids my age could sound like angels. Their interpretation of “Silent Night” was stunning.

The recording with Placido Domingo remains a Christmas favorite. They perform both the Bach-Gounod and Schubert renditions of “Ave Maria” in addition to “Adeste Fideles (Oh Come All Ye Faithful).” I had another epiphany while listening to the Choir Boys this Christmas: they sound a lot like The Chipmunks.

All On a Wintry Night by Judy Collins

(Click Here to listen to Collins’ version of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”)

I discovered this collection when it was released in Christmas 2000 because I was doing a story on Collins’ performance at the Ritz Theatre in Talladega. Included here are Collins’ lovely originals “Song for Sarajevo (I Dream of Peace)” and a duet with actress Tyne Daly on “In the Bleak Mid-Winter,” a song Collins told me she was not familiar with until Daly brought it to her attention.

Christmas of 2000 was one of the more memorable ones due to the political climate. Controversy surrounding the Florida vote tally after the presidential election consumed attentions usually given to the holiday spirit. Forget peace on earth; it wasn’t even going to exist in America that holiday season. Collins was scheduled to perform in Florida’s Broward County the night after the Talladega concert, and I’ll never forget prompting a hearty laugh from her backstage after the show when I asked to whom she would dedicate “Send in the Clowns” the following evening. &

Staff writer Ed Reynolds thinks The Chipmunks could have been as big as Elvis if they’d only had better management.

Benefit for Gulf Shores Musicians

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2004-11-04 Music

Benefit for Gulf Shores Musicians

By Ed Reynolds

write the author

November 04, 2004

On November 17, the Moonlight Music Cafe will host a benefit for Panhandle musicians who performed at the fabled Flora-Bama Lounge in Gulf Shores. The ramshackle bar was made even more so after Hurricane Ivan huffed and puffed to blow the place down in September. Among the performers at the Sunday afternoon benefit (2 p.m. to 8 p.m. as of press time) will be Rock Killough, Rusty McHugh, Gove Scrivenor, The Larry Wilson Trio, Elaine Petty, and others. Proceeds will also be donated to various Gulf Shores charities. For more information, call 205-822-1400.

The Set List — 9-09-2004

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2004-09-09 Music

By J.R. Taylor, Ed Reynolds, and David Pelfrey

September 09, 2004

Janis Ian

Janis Ian was the first musical guest to appear on “Saturday Night Live,” where she sang her ode to lonely, unattractive teenage girls, “At Seventeen.” With its verses about “ugly duckling girls like me” and “inventing lovers on the phone,” one could almost hear the universal sobs emanating from the bedrooms of acne-plagued adolescents. It’s rather odd that she found such a natural connection singing about the younger set, because her teenage years were anything but normal. She had her first hit at 15 with “Society’s Child,” a tale of interracial teen love. Needless to say, she had parents drenched in cold sweat as they perused their children’s albums to find out what other mischief their kids might be getting into. (Friday and Saturday, September 10 and 11, at the Hoover Library Theater; 8 p.m. $20) — Ed Reynolds

The Damnwells

You’d be enjoying a proper interview with The Damnwells if they weren’t the most publicity-averse band in New York City. I used to blame the Epic label for trying to bury this Brooklyn band’s Bastards of the Beat—despite the album being loaded with earnest plainspoken tunes whose lack of pretension is their biggest charm. Smooth and sparse tracks are contrasted with others that work up convincing heads of steam, all brimming with stylistic atmosphere and sheer musical invention.

And if any of those descriptions sound reliably dull, it’s because I lifted a bunch of misleading praise from the Trouser Press reviews for BoDeans and Grant Lee Buffalo. The difference is that you won’t be embarrassed to someday still own a Damnwells album.

The guys in The Damnwells won’t mind that gag, either. They’ve already had to endure plenty of more insulting comparisons—although the real high point was when the indie mag No Depression accused them of sounding like “poor man’s Americana.” It was a bad review, too, which should leave all of us wondering exactly what’s missing from the logic there.

Most likely, what’s missing is the $20 that certain No Depression critics charge for providing positive reviews. Anyway, The Damnwells have recorded one of those Albums of the Year that you’ve never heard of. Actually, it’s kind of refreshing how that’s their own damn fault. (Wednesday, September 15, at The Nick, $7) —J.R. Taylor

Paul “Wine” Jones

Listening to Paul Jones’ raucous, haphazard vocals and runaway train guitar licks, it’s easy to start wondering how he got the nickname. Make that stop wondering. This isn’t juke joint or front porch blues so much as falling-off-the-porch blues, egged on by adult doses of getting-tossed-out-of-the-joint, Mississippi back-roads skronk. It’s a glorious mess, but Jones’ lack of technical proficiency is matched by an appealing lack of pretense; song titles such as “Roll That Woman” and “Guess I Just Fu**ed It All Up” suggest that this artist is what is sometimes referred to as “the genuine article.” If it were possible to isolate the basic elements of Delta and Memphis music, toss them into the trunk of a big ’78 Bonneville, and then get liquored up for an all-night drive to Memphis, you might not recreate Jones’ sound, but you could get dangerously close to his style.

In one respect, someone actually has isolated the elements of Jones’ particular style. A remix of his song “Goin’ Back Home” adds jazz samples and electronic flourishes to Jones’ gritty number, sounding like The Fall and Gang of Four covering Canned Heat, with John Lee Hooker’s vocals. That won’t happen at the live show, but this stunning track can be heard on Jones’ 1999 Fat Possum gem Pucker up Buttercup. (Wednesday, September 15, at Club XS, Tuscaloosa and Tuesday, September 21, at The Nick; $6) —David Pelfrey

The Pierces

It was a strange day when the mail brought The Pierces’ debut CD in 2000. I’d never seen ballerinas from Birmingham who’d grown up to be anything but waitresses and/or heroin addicts. It certainly wasn’t their fault that gorgeous harmonies and ethereal beauty were about to become old hat. The record was pretty impressive, but it was kinda obvious that it wouldn’t age any better than your average Christina Ricci performance.




	The Pierces (click for larger version)

And nobody could’ve complained if The Pierces’ long-delayed follow-up was a commercial contrivance. Instead, Light of the Moon is even more unrepentantly gorgeous than the first album, with producer Brian Sperber carefully anchoring their languid sound to a true heart of darkness. Maybe everyone in Birmingham has been enjoying this maturation, but idiots in NYC didn’t have any idea what the gals have been doing lately. Oh, wait—the Strokes guitarist, right? (Wednesday, September 15, at Workplay; 8 p.m. $8) —J.R. Taylor

Billy Joe Shaver

Perhaps the greatest country music outlaw since Johnny Paycheck, Billy Joe Shaver has never strayed far from the working-man ethic embraced by his more famous buddies Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and the late Waylon Jennings. Shaver played Zydeco several years ago in a quartet that featured his son Eddy assaulting patrons’ ears with a bulldozer guitar attack. Despite his son’s electrified licks, the elder Shaver’s songs retained their stark lyrical and melodic charms. After the show, the band immediately hit the bar to drink and carry on with unattached women. Not Billy Joe. Having been sober for quite a few years after a lifetime of hard drinking and drugging, the ever humble, unpretentious Shaver carried on with business as usual as he broke down and packed up everyone’s gear, including the drummer’s equipment. And he didn’t mind chatting with a stranger while he worked, talking endlessly about how much he missed his dog back home.

Billy Joe Shaver found a way to whip his demons. Unfortunately, his son never did. Eddy Shaver died of a heroin overdose on New Year’s Eve 2001. Devastated, the elder Shaver found solace that night by enlisting Willie Nelson to take his son’s spot in the band at an Austin club in what must have been the most emotional performance of his career.

In a world of boring, generic singer/songwriters too numerous to list, Billy Joe Shaver is the last of a dying breed. Widely regarded as a cowboy poet laureate after Waylon Jennings recorded an entire album of Shaver songs (except for one) on Honky Tonk Heroes, Shaver nevertheless continues to labor in virtual obscurity. And he does it his own way. Who else would record a song written after Kurt Cobain’s suicide and end it with a shotgun blast? (Wednesday, September 22, at Workplay; 7 p.m., $20) — Ed Reynolds

Gene Watson

Like musical legend George Jones, Gene Watson is admired throughout the country music industry as a “singer’s singer” for his smooth but unique vocal delivery. It’s country in the truest sense. Watson spent a decade touring Texas honky tonks before hitting the charts with “Bad Water” in 1975. His only number-one record was the catchy “Fourteen Carat Mind.” But the real diamond in his repertoire is the tearjerker “Farewell Party,” the greatest funeral dirge since the Carter Family sang “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” It’s the ultimate song of self-absorption and self-pity, as Watson sings from the perspective of a corpse peering from his casket, watching his friends bringing him flowers one last time while his true love has the time of her life “at my farewell party.” More creepy than tragic. (Thursday, September 23, at the Cullman County Fair, Cullman) — Ed Reynolds

Marc Broussard




	Marc Broussard (click for larger version)

Remember when we used to complain about bands whose soulful roots were as deep as the theme-park camps of Orlando, Florida? At least those kids had an excuse. Marc Broussard is genuinely depressing as the product of both a fine musical heritage and an industry that was supposed to spare us from pop pap. This guy grew up surrounded by some of the best musicians in Louisiana. He was also helped along by the same crappy Americana industry that’s hyped soulless acts such as Ryan Adams. The result has been a major-label career that’s left Broussard fitting in perfectly on bills with Maroon 5 and Gavin DeGraw. The new album’s called Carencro, and it’s just more of a beautiful R&B voice singing useless crap. (Thursday, September 23, at Workplay; 9 p.m. $12) —J.R. Taylor

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The Set List

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By J.R. Taylor and Ed Reynolds

July 14, 2005

Carole King

Alongside Bob Dylan and Hank Williams, Carole King ranks as one of the great American songwriters of the 20th century. Unlike Williams and Dylan, who relied more often than not on singing their own hits to create their legacies, King’s reputation was launched in a tiny cubicle with a piano in New York’s famed Brill Building, writing for others. Her credits include “One Fine Day” by The Chiffons, “Up on the Roof” by The Drifters (Neil Diamond and Dean Martin also did interesting versions),” “Pleasant Valley Sunday” by The Monkees, “Oh No, Not My Baby” by Dusty Springfield (absolutely stunning), “Go Away Little Girl” by Donny Osmond, “Hi-De-Ho” by Blood, Sweat, and Tears, “Don’t Bring Me Down” by The Animals, “The Loco-Motion” by both Little Eva [her baby-sitter] and Grand Funk Railroad, and “Chains” by the Beatles.

Her legend as a performer was sealed in 1971 with the release of Tapestry, a remarkable album featuring “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?,” “So Far Away,” “Natural Woman,” “It’s Too Late,” and “You’ve Got a Friend.” The record made soft rock hip, a California-besotted sound that was eventually turned to mush by less talented writers like the Eagles, Poco, James Taylor, and a slew of other post-hippies who tried to substitute with electric and acoustic guitars what King had done on a piano.

To witness Carole King sing from her astonishing catalogue is a rare treat. Stage fright (and no doubt an endless supply of money earned over her career) kept her from live performances for years. Recently, she has undertaken extensive tours armed with only a piano and a pair of guitarists. Perched behind the grand piano, King’s fingers pound the keys aggressively as her bouncing head of curls and endearing smile exhibit a childlike enthusiasm. If she’s scared, she doesn’t show it. Her voice has aged to a soulful rasp, and despite her 63 years, she’s still as easy on the eyes as ever. (Thursday, July 21, at the BJCC Concert Hall) —Ed Reynolds

India.arie

There was a time when India.arie was going to be the supreme mix of Sade and Joni Mitchell. Now she’s just a perfectly reasonable presence on the soundtrack of Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Arie didn’t exactly come unhinged between Acoustic Soul and Voyage to India, but she certainly sustained a certain meltdown. It was all foreshadowed by self-obsession that went past navel-gazing and straight to the masturbatory—and you know there’s something seriously wrong when that’s a turn-off from a soul sister. It’s been several years since an actual album, but Arie’s voice holds up even when her melodies don’t. You’ll still want to ignore those lyrics. You’re better off trusting a U.N. oil-for-food program when it comes to advice for the downtrodden. (Friday, July 15, at the Alabama Theatre; 8 p.m. $39-$45) —J.R. Taylor




	Kelly Clarkson (click for larger version)

American Idols Live

Everybody knows that it’s Dick Clark’s “Caravan of Stars” on the short bus. You can also consider it a missed opportunity to shoot a superior reality show, since Bo Bice, Carrie Underwood, Constantine Maroulis, and the rest must be miserable on this obligatory summer tour when they could be pushing their solo careers. At least nobody’s going to be straining their voice while sharing a bill with nine other acts. It’s also a considerate way of cramming plenty of novelty acts onto one bill without having to pay Dr. Demento—or William Hung—as an emcee. (Friday, July 15, at the BJCC; 7:30 p.m. $37-$47) —J.R. Taylor

Kelly Clarkson/Graham Colton Band

Wait five days, skip this year’s models, and marvel at how a gal who chirps like a generic cell phone ring tone went on to win Idol and become . . . well, probably a cell phone ring tone. That slutty new makeover isn’t very believable, but who cares? Neither is Breakaway—although it’s really fun to hear her making a bold move from her pop past that still fizzles out with generic ballads. In a few moments, she almost rocks as hard as Quarterflash, though. File this as another fun cultural moment, and you’ll have a good dopey story when you’re sitting around reviewing the decade in 20 years. People might also remember Graham Colton as the Tab Hunter of mild jam-band pop, except Tony Perkins wouldn’t go to the movies with him. (Wednesday, July 20, at Boutwell Auditorium; 7:30 p.m. $25-$40)—J.R. Taylor

18 Visions/He Is Legend/The Black Maria

And here’s the point where post-thrash-punk-whatever becomes album-oriented rock. 18 Visions and The Black Maria are both perfectly fine and impressive acts whose songwriting uses every dopey trick that’s ever been utilized by Styx, REO Speedwagon, Heart, and other bands that you’re not supposed to like but you really do. (Well, in the case of REO Speedwagon, up to around 1978.)

The Black Maria is in especially good shape coming off of Lead Us To Reason, and it’s baffling that they’re stuck in the opening slot here. Meanwhile, I Am Legend is a mainstream metal act coming off of the surprising ambition of I Am Hollywood. The noise can venture towards more prog than punk, and there are a few other self-referential layers that make Legend the Thomas Pynchon of lit-rock—except they know how to keep it short. (Saturday, July 23, at Cave 9; 7 p.m. $10)—J.R. Taylor

Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk

He should be a rock legend just for having been told by Keith Richards that he really needed to straighten out his act. And now he’s eight years sober and still stuck with a family heritage that—outside of New Orleans—is good only for scoring lots of free drugs on the jam-band circuit. Dumpstaphunk, fortunately, is a smart strategic intervention that imposes plenty of song structure on a quality band that could actually get away with jamming. They’re not the new Meters, but Dumpstaphunk also has Ian Neville to make it even easier to be the next best thing. They’re also smart enough to rely on other people’s songs—including at least one Meters cover. (Wednesday, July 27, at Zydeco; 8 p.m. $10, 18+) —J.R. Taylor &

Loretta Lynn

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By Ed Reynolds

Loretta Lynn has always cherished her role as a rebel in the country music industry. In perhaps the oddest collaboration in Nashville’s storied history, Lynn’s newest release, Van Lear Rose, was produced by rocker Jack White of The White Stripes (the band dedicated its third album, White Blood Cells, to Lynn, and White has called her the greatest female singer/songwriter of the 20th century). The result is the most gloriously unrefined recording of Lynn’s long career. White’s signature guitar is evident throughout the CD, especially his red-hot slide work. He even joins Lynn at the microphone on “Portland, Oregon,” a charming duet about a drunken one-night stand, an endearing track since White is 28 while Lynn is 70 years old.

An afternoon telephone conversation with Lynn that took place before her new album was recorded reveals a woman completely unaffected by notoriety. Lynn sounds as though she were still a Butcher Holler farm girl, speaking in a rural dialect that contradicts her stardom. The singer doesn’t pull any punches. Hit her once and she’ll hit back twice. Her husband Doolittle’s (Doo) philandering and chronic alcoholism provoked more than a few violent episodes during their 48-year marriage. She knocked two of his front teeth out one night, pleased as she could be that his cheating was put to rest until he could get new teeth. Their marriage is tumultuously detailed in her second autobiography Still Woman Enough, an entertaining but brutally honest account of Lynn’s life as one of America’s greatest country music performers.

. . . Lynn told Sinatra it was the worst song she’d ever heard and suggested they sing “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man.” Sinatra told her when she had her own television show she could sing whatever she wanted.

Lynn literally defines country. The names of her children read like a hillbilly sitcom: Betty Sue, Ernest Ray, Patsy, Cissie, and Jack Benny. Married at age 13 in Kentucky coal-mining country, Lynn and her husband moved to Washington State a year later so Doo could pan for gold and Loretta could pick strawberries. Though noting there were anecdotes in her autobiography that she couldn’t have written if her husband were still alive, Lynn is unwavering in her devotion to the man directly responsible for her success. Doo convinced Loretta to sing in Northwest honky tonks despite her severe stage fright. Lynn began to build a following in Canada but noticed that her most loyal fans were suddenly absent for a couple of months. When she finally confronted them about where they’d been, they explained that they had given up Loretta for Lent. The singer said the only “Lent” she was familiar with was the kind that gets on your clothes. Doo later chauffeured her on a blitz tour of radio stations around the country to convince disc jockeys to play her first single “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl.” And it was her husband who got her on the Grand Ole Opry after her first record entered the charts. She was invited to sing on the Opry for the next 17 weeks, receiving $18 per night (with three additional bucks if she sang an extra song).

Being an Opry star didn’t change Lynn much. She continued to slaughter her barnyard chickens for dinner and shop for material at the Salvation Army thrift store to make her own stage outfits. She was once chastised by a ranking Opry official who saw her coming out of the store. He told her it “cast a bad light on the Opry when local folks saw the show’s singers acting like poor people.” She didn’t know how to use a credit card until Conway Twitty instructed her in the late 1970s.

Influenced by nothing more than Saturday night Grand Ole Opry broadcasts and her delight in rhyming words with siblings as a child, Lynn displayed a remarkable ability for writing songs. “Doo got me a book that showed how you wrote ‘em. It was called Country Roundup, I think. I just looked at the songs and I said, ‘Anybody can do this.’ The first spanking Doo ever give me was because I rhymed a word. And it rhymed with door—you know what it was—and I didn’t know what it meant. It was raining and cold and he let the door open and I said, ‘Shut the door you little. . . .’ And I got a whippin’ for that—and he’d promised Daddy he’d never put a hand on me. And that was the next day after he’d married me. He throwed me over his knee and busted my butt.”

In 1963, the singer was asked by her childhood idol Ernest Tubb to record a series of duets. “I never dreamed I’d ever sing with him, ’cause when Daddy had that little radio, we’d listen to the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday night and the news, ’cause the war was goin’ on. But I’d start to cry when Ernest Tubb started to sing. And Mama would say, ‘I’m gonna turn the radio off if you don’t quit cryin’.’” Tubb was instrumental in establishing Lynn as a country institution. “When I come to Nashville, MCA Records, which was Decca at the time, they asked Ernest to record with a girl. And he said he wanted to record with me. He did so much for me. The last time I sang with him, it was like standin’ up by a big monument. I even went to Billy Bob’s [famed Fort Worth bar, the largest honky-tonk in the world] and did a show for him to buy medicine with, ’cause he had run out of money. He helped everybody in Nashville, but no one would go help him.”

But it was her series of duets with Conway Twitty that placed Lynn on the same “classic duo” pedestal occupied by George Jones and Tammy Wynette. “Yeah, I loved Conway. He was like a brother, and he would give me advice. If he thought I wasn’t doing things right, he’d tell me, ‘This is how you do it,’ and I’d say, ‘No, that’s how you do it. This is how I’d do it,’” she laughs. Their string of soap-opera-style hits included “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man,” “You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly,” and “Backstreet Affair.” In a strange twist of fate, Conway Twitty unexpectedly died with Lynn at his bedside in a Missouri hospital in 1991 after Twitty was overcome with a stomach aneurysm while touring the Midwest. He was rushed to the nearest hospital, where Lynn happened to be waiting as Doo recovered from open-heart surgery. She thought that Twitty had decided to drop by to visit her husband. “I watched Conway’s bus come off the exit. I run downstairs to let him know what room Doo was in, and they come draggin’ him in. Blood’s comin’ out of his mouth and his eyes was tryin’ to focus on me and he couldn’t. I almost fell out right there. The chaplain came in and told me that Conway would not live through the night, so he told me if I wanted to see him I should go on back there. I went in his room and patted him on the arm and said, ‘Conway, you love to sing, honey, don’t you leave me.’”

Staunchly defiant, Lynn was a fly in the conservative ointment of the Nashville music industry. She was the first to write and sing about women’s issues. “The Pill” was the first of several of her songs to be banned, but Lynn was smart enough to recognize a marketing opportunity as women flocked to her side. “It’s all because I’d get down and talk to the women. All of ‘em were taking the pill and they weren’t wearin’ bras [pronounced 'braws']. Everybody was taking the pill, why not talk about it. Everybody was havin’ kids just like I was, why not say, ‘One’s on the way.’ I couldn’t understand why the public was worried about my songs. And when ‘Rated X’ come out, just the title of it, they started banning the record. And they didn’t listen to it. It was about a divorced woman. Nothin’ in it was bad. When ‘Don’t Come Home a-Drinkin” come out, the big 50-watt [sic] station in Chicago didn’t play it, ’cause they thought it was dirty. It went number one, they started playin’ it.”
Loretta Lynn’s music was a stark contrast to Tammy Wynette’s songs that advised women to stick with their man, regardless. Ironically, Wynette went through five husbands, while Lynn’s only husband was Doo. “Tammy Wynette was outspoken about standing by her man, and I’d done hit mine over the head with a rollin’ pin,” Lynn laughs. “Tammy said, ‘I’d be afraid to sing that, afraid they wouldn’t play my record.’ But it didn’t hurt me. They’d ban ‘em and they’d go number one.” Lynn took Wynette under her wing when she arrived in Nashville, just as Patsy Cline had done for her when Lynn first moved to town as an unknown. “Oh, Tammy was my best girlfriend. First girlfriend I had, except Patsy. I never did get that close to all the artists. All of ‘em have their own way of doin’ things, and I think they kinda stayed away from me because of the songs I wrote. They shoulda liked ‘em, they might’ve rubbed off on ‘em. They could’ve wrote their own.”

Lynn also didn’t think twice about crossing racial divides. “When Charlie Pride won Singer of the Year, I was the one that was supposed to give the award. So they said, ‘Loretta, if Charlie wins, step back one foot and don’t touch him.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearin’ ’cause I’d been livin’ on the West Coast for 13 or 14 years,” Lynn remembers, still appalled. “Charlie is just another singer to me. When it comes to color, I’m colorblind, ’cause I’m part Cherokee. So when Charlie won, I stepped up and hugged him and kissed him. They got a little upset about it. I thought, ‘Well, Charlie shouldn’t even sing for ‘em if that’s the way they feel about him.’”

One of her champions in Nashville was the Carter Family, who at one time asked her to join the group. Lynn refused because she felt she couldn’t sing their harmonies properly. She remembers trying to get a sulking Johnny Cash on stage. “Poor little ol’ Johnny. They couldn’t get him out on stage. Johnny Cash has always been good to me. He was the first one that took me out of Nashville on a tour. Him and the Carter Family, we went to Toronto and Ontario [sic]. He was not having too good a night. Mother Maybelle, June . . . they were all mad at him. I said, ‘Come on, baby, it’s time for you to go on.’ He jerked his coat down and there was a bottle of pills—a hundred-aspirin bottle of pills, but it wasn’t aspirin. I didn’t know what they was ’cause I’d never seen a diet pill in my life. And they went all over the floor and they was all different colors. And Johnny said, ‘Don’t leave any,’ and I sat down on that floor and picked up every pill and put them back.”

Refusing to sway from her convictions, Loretta Lynn has remained her own woman. Her forthright honesty provoked a showdown with Frank Sinatra, who invited Lynn to duet on what had been his first hit, “All or Nothing at All.” She told Sinatra it was the worst song she’d ever heard and suggested they sing “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man.” Sinatra told her when she had her own television show she could sing whatever she wanted.

Her simple approach to life and refusal to bow to showbiz expectations also left a lasting impression on Dean Martin. Martin had been so taken with the Carter Family’s performance on his show that he asked them to recommend another Nashville artist. They suggested Lynn, who refused to sit in Martin’s lap, as was customary when he sang duets with female performers. Instead of being offended, Martin decided her spunk was the perfect ingredient to spice up the “Dean Martin’s Celebrity Roast” show featuring Jack Lemmon. Lynn picks up the story in her autobiography: “Well, I’d never heard of a ‘roast.’ I thought Dean Martin was inviting me to dinner with his Hollywood friends. So I dressed up real nice. They made a special dress for me out of material flown from Paris, France. I couldn’t understand why they wanted me to eat in that fancy dress. They made me read from a Teleprompter and I told Dean I was scared to death and didn’t read so good. But I didn’t have a choice. I was stuck. Making me feel worse, I started in saying the most awful things about Jack Lemmon. I didn’t know they was jokes. So each time I said something, I turned to Jack and said, ‘I didn’t mean that, honey. I don’t even know you. I’m just saying what’s on that there card.’” &

Loretta Lynn performs at the Blockbuster stage on Sunday, June 20, from 8:40 p.m. to 9:55 p.m.

Editor’s note: After this issue went to press, Loretta Lynn cancelled her tour due to back problems. She will not appear at this year’s City Stages.

The Set List — 2004-03-25

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2004-03-25 Music

The Set List

By J.R. Taylor, Ed Reynolds

Shades Mountain Air featuring Glenn Tolbert
Shades Mountain Air is a local bluegrass/gospel combo led by Gary Furr, pastor of Vestavia Hills Baptist Church and a former guitar student of local bluegrass picker Glenn Tolbert. The group will be joined by Tolbert for an evening of bluegrass standards and mournful gospel favorites. Tolbert, who currently teaches guitar to employees at U.S. Steel in Fairfield, is looking forward to performing some of the more tragic sacred tunes. Anyone who has heard him sing can testify that Tolbert’s nasal tenor is tailor-made for such distressingly hopeless songs. He’s particularly fond of a funeral number called “Who Will Sing for Me?,” a lonely lament that prompts Tolbert to reflect on his many years of performing, and, ultimately, the day he is laid to rest. He’s so moved by the lyrics he can’t resist reciting a verse during a recent telephone conversation: “Oft I sing for my friends, when death’s cold hand I see. When I reach my journey’s end, who will sing one song for me? When crowds gather round and look down on me, will they turn and walk away? Or will they sing just one song for me?” (Tuesday, March 30, Moonlight Music Café, 8 p.m. $8.) —Ed ReynoldsThe Marshall Tucker Band
No band better epitomized Southern rock during the late 1970s than The Marshall Tucker Band. It was the era of the “extended jam,” when the most endearing route to an audience’s heart was an eternal guitar solo, song after song. Marshall Tucker’s contribution to the genre was the lightning fast, bare-picking thumb of guitarist Toy Caldwell, who soared through jazzed-up country leads that seemed to go on forever. Caldwell doesn’t play those long solos anymore because he’s dead, just like his brother Tommy, with whom he started the group in 1972. Singer Doug Gray is the lone original member remaining in the band. His belting vocals will no doubt create nostalgia for those nights when Tucker classics like “Can’t You See,” “Take the Highway,” “Fire on the Mountain,” and “24 Hours at a Time” filled Boutwell Auditorium’s rafters, right along with the aroma of dope. (Friday, April 2, The Yellow Rose. $15.) —E.R.

Lonestar/Jimmy Wayne
We’re coming up on 10 years of Lonestar, meaning that they’ve outlasted their contemporaries in *NSync. They were much cuter back when they all dressed like the Cowboy from the Village People, though. Sometimes, you should just ignore Q”ueer Eye for the Straight Guy”‘s Carson Kressley. So, let’s see . . . boy band comparison, made fun of their clothes . . . oh, yeah, they actually remade Marc Cohn’s “Walking in Memphis” into the kind of manly street version that made Cher’s version sound, in comparison, like it was sung by Bob Dylan.

But, of course, Lonestar’s greatest sin is that they give guys such as Steve Earle and Elvis Costello the chance to bitch and whine about the country scene. But those guys are just envious that they’re not as handsome as opening act Jimmy Wayne, who believes his rough childhood allows him to sound really manly as he pleads with you to love him. (Friday, April 2, Alabama Theatre, 8 p.m. $39.50.) —J.R. Taylor



	The Marshall Tucker Band (click for larger version)

Slipknot/Fear Factory
I prefer bands patterned after the film 2000 Maniacs rather than Neon Maniacs, but you can’t help what those suburban kids once stumbled across on cable back in the early-’90s. At least it’s easy to believe that the members of Slipknot could also be killed by water. They bring some nice hooks to their plundering of death metal. And you have to go see them live, because you’ll feel stupid cranking them up in your car stereo anytime before 3 a.m.

Fear Factory, however, is an unjustly overlooked act that probably gave Slipknot the idea of toning down the ambition and upping the wardrobe. They’re (mostly) back after a very short break-up, more than likely spurred by the realization that few musicians share their commitment to finding beauty among the “possessed demon” vocal sound of which death metal bands are so fond. (Friday, April 2, Sloss Furnaces, 7:30 p.m. $29.50) —J.R. Taylor

Amy Rigby
Nobody had a bigger audience to tap than Amy Rigby in the mid-’90s, as her albums Diary of a Mod Housewife and Middlescence examined the plight of aging hipsters torn between the lure of traditional happiness and the restraints of a fabulous lifestyle. The suddenly single mom didn’t have to revamp her style, either, since she’d spent the ’80s as a pioneering urban-country popster. Rigby simply had to grow into the shambles that she once adored. A move to Nashville, however, has reduced her to being great only on every third song. Until the Wheels Fall Off managed to be one of last year’s best albums, but she’s clearly outgrown the Americana handbook. Rigby is still underrated as a vocalist, though, and her sharp wordplay remains more honest than clever. (Saturday, April 3, Moonlight Music Cafe, 8 p.m. $10.) —J.R. Taylor

Emerson Hart (of Tonic)
Well, the billing is certainly a good way to teach people the name of the lead singer of Tonic. That band was so faceless that nobody even noticed when they attempted a big sell-out with their Head On Straight album in 2002. Emerson Hart had already relocated to Nashville, too, which is usually a move made by songwriters who age more gracefully—like, you know, Seals & Crofts. Anyway, Tonic is still a band, and remain best known for forgettable ballads that bask in big rock settings. Those songs touched many people, and $5 is certainly a reasonable price to hear how those tunes sound better in stripped-down versions. (Tuesday, April 6, The Nick, 8 p.m. $5.) —J.R. Taylor

Kate Campbell
Her narrow view of the South guides Kate Campbell’s assurances that you are truly, truly stupid—unless, of course, you’re in her audience, in which case you are assured that you’re nearly as fabulous as Kate Campbell. Why, you can even watch her marvel at just how pathetic people are with their miserable little dreams. This former Samford University student doesn’t like how Birmingham looks, either, but who cares? Campbell’s the kind of woman who’ll show up in your living room and complain about how your Bible isn’t dusty enough. One of her recent lousy albums is called Monuments, and has tombstones for sale on the cover. (Thursday, April 8, Workplay, 8 p.m. $20.) —J.R. Taylor &

The Set List — Azure Ray

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2003-11-20 Music

The Set List

By Ed Reynolds

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Dick Dale

A decade before Jimi Hendrix began plucking magical, otherworldly sounds from his Fender Stratocaster, Link Wray and Dick Dale were wailing away as the true pioneers of psychedelia with innovative genres known as “psycho billy” and “surf guitar,” respectively. While Wray would go on to leave his mark in rock history as the first musician to have an instrumental song so trashy (“Rumble”) that it was banned from the airwaves, Dick Dale was conferring with electric guitar innovator Leo Fender to invent a sound effect known as “reverb,” an electronically produced echo effect. Dale said that the reason he sought to create such an effect was to augment his vocals with some form of sustain, as his voice has no natural vibrato whatsoever.

Aside from Dale’s role in increasing the popularity of the electric guitar, there is nothing remotely intellectual or scientific about experiencing Dale in the flesh. His animalistic attack on his Stratocaster is an ear-grabbing, eye-popping event. His explosive guitar style creates rolling tones eerily reminiscent of waves crashing on a beach. He has a primordial virtuosity. In other words, he rocks like a motherfucker. And if his three-year-old son, who has an endorsement deal with Zildjian cymbals, shows up to play drums with the old man, you may find yourself speaking in tongues the next day. (Thursday, November 20, The Nick, $10 adv.)




Birmingham’s Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink, a.k.a. Azure Ray (also once known as Little Red Rocket), will perform with Crooked Fingers (Eric Bachmann of Archers of Loaf) at Zydeco on Monday, November 24.

Moonlight Over the Mountain
The latest addition to live music “listening rooms” in the area is the Moonlight Music Cafe in Vestavia. Smoke-free and charming with a soothing lavender decor and acoustic shows that usually end by 10 p.m., the Moonlight Music Cafe is the perfect night on the town for the middle-aged, former rock ‘n’ roll animal who has decided to forgo the hearing loss due to loud guitars and has grown weary of smelling like stale cigarettes the morning after.

Local guitar hero Don Tinsley played the Moonlight Music Cafe a couple of weeks after it opened, and the usual glitches that crop up with a new joint were nowhere to be found. “It’s a good sounding room, sort of a neat crowd that comes to it, and it’s non-smoking, which is real good for me, because I don’t smoke.” Tinsley brags about how cozy the room is not only for patrons but also to performers as well, making their job that much more pleasant. “It’s new and clean, and it sounds great from the stage.”

The Moonlight Music Cafe is as easy to find as it is comfortable; it’s on Highway 31 in the old part of the Vestavia City Center near SteinMart. For more information call 822-1400 or go to www.moonlightmusiccafe.com for details. &

Six Flags Over Birmingham?

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Six Flags Over Birmingham?

By Ed Reynolds

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August 14, 2003

It may be hard to fathom, but In its earliest days Birmingham was an entertainment magnet attracting seekers of frivolity. “Developers were eager to cash in,” explains Regina Ammon, assistant archivist at the Birmingham Public Library, as she previews her August 20 Brown Bag Lunch Series lecture, “Birmingham’s Turn-of-the-Century Resorts” at the downtown library. “It seemed the way developers worked then was that they found some sort of scenic spot and made that the core of the new neighborhood.” As a result, such fancy retreats sparked a population boom, as Birmingham’s resident count jumped from 3,000 in 1880 to more than 26,000 by 1890. Ammon will include an in-depth presentation of 50 slide images as she recounts the glory days when posh resorts dominated Avondale, East Lake, West Lake, and Lakeview Parks.




	A turn-of-the-century photograph of of a young girl enjjoying a swim at East Lake Park. This former resort area and others will be discussed at the Birmingham Public Library’s lecture, “Birmingham’s Turn-of-the-Century Lake Resorts,” on August 20.

Today, Highland Golf Course occupies what was once Lakeview Park. By damming up springs in the area, a lake was formed that included an island where operas were staged. The dam is still visible directly behind the water hazard at the top of the course. The resort’s centerpiece was the Lakeview Pavilion, featuring a swimming pool in the basement beneath a dance floor, skating rink, and bowling alley. A 72-room, two-story hotel was built in 1887, and visited by Presidents Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison. Later, the hotel began to lose patrons when visitors started flocking to East Lake Park. It eventually closed and became the Southern Female Institute, which burned to the ground a year later. The pavilion was finally torn down in 1900 to make way for the golf course.




	The Lakeview Trolley

East Lake Park’s growing popularity centered around its proud billing as “Dixie’s Most Popular Playground.” A 34-acre lake, originally dubbed Lake Como, was added in 1887. Between the late 1880s and early 1950s, East Lake Park offered a zoo, a hotel, a roller coaster, a miniature railroad, and an amusement ride called the “human roulette wheel,” which featured giant cup-and-saucer seats.

Located on the Bessemer Superhighway, West Lake Park was reportedly an early 1900s gambling mecca. It included the Pineview Resort Beach, which is said to have been as breathtaking as anything along the Gulf Coast. Avondale Park was the site of Birmingham’s first zoo, which included an elephant named Miss Fancy that reportedly escaped from her cage occasionally. Legend has it that Miss Fancy could be found hanging around Avondale School as thrilled children fed her their lunches.

The lecture is free and begins at noon. Call 226-3610 for details. —Ed Reynolds