The Week That Was

Nancy Griffith married, then unmarried him. Townes Van Zandt "borrowed" horses at night from a neighboring ranch with him. Donald Turnupseed ended up in one of his songs. Jeff Spevak wrote an article about him. Scott Regan blogged him. Most importantly, Rick and Monica Simpson brought him here from Texas for a House Concert last Sunday night.

Eric Taylor showed up and kept his part of the bargain, as did Rick and Monica. They provided a living room full of listeners, he provided two solid sets of entertaining acoustic, bluesy folk songs. Eric plumbs the depths of human relationships, especially the disfunctional ones, with a poet's touch. He's not shy with his lyrics. After finishing the first song, which contained 'strong sexual content' as it were, he remarked, "Well, they're not Sunday school songs." There's nothing like the intimacy of a living room to listen to someone like this. Kudos to RicMon31 Productions for pulling this off.

[photo by Mike Hanlon - http://www.hanlonphotographic.com/]

Tuesday John called to say he had a couple of free tix to Sonny Landreth and the Campbell Brothers at Water Street. I had never seen either act so it was like scratching an itch. The Campbell Brothers really rocked it - they got everybody sweaty right off the bat. They don't screw around, they get right to it. Chuck campbell's pedal steel absolutely flies, and Phil Campbell's guitar rocks pretty damn good for a guy who was originally a drummer and is supposedly a better bass player than he is a guitar player. There were no skinny people on stage save for the lanky white bass player. The drummer was strong - you gotta be to fuel that train. Sonny Landreth played with them for their last tune and blew the the band away as much as the crowd. Phil Campbell kept looking in amazement at Sonny's hands.

Sonny came back out in power trio form and proceeded to shred conventional notions of how guitars are supposed to played. He picks and plucks and whaps and slides and slashes like a madman, but always in perfect technical control. Never takes the bottleneck off of his left pinky. Extemely LOUD. Scott Regan and Sue Rogers had extra space at their table in the front row for Sonny's set so I was just a few feet from him and mostly heard the music from the stack behind him rather than the PA. He seems to better understand, and coax more from the harmonics of vibrating steel strings than anyone I've ever heard. But as John and I agreed afterward, its not just self-serving technical tricks for tricks' sake - he's got southern white-boy soul.

Friday night it was back into the woods in Huntington Hills for another House Concert. Paul and Peggi had coerced Pete LaBonne into giving up an hour of his brief visit with Shelly to Rochester to do a solo set in their own living room for about 20 people. Pete is a musical treasure who operates mostly in obscurity. He plays guitar and fronts the Milltown Bastards who can be occasionally spotted around Saratoga Springs. He also plays piano with the ethereal groove unit that is Margaret Explosion (a name he coined) when the timing works out. He plays bass. Accordion. Probably spoons. But most of all, he's a writer and lyricist like you've never heard. I defy you to show me someone who has even a slightly similar approach to writing songs. And he's not lazy - he's got a large body of work. I can't do his work or style justice with a few sentences here. Spend some time at the link above and get to know the "metabolic unit in a sporty driftwood hat."

[photo by Paul Dodd]

Three shows in six nights, each one a gem in its own way. It was a great week.