Vol. IV. Issue 6

September | October Vol. V Issue 1

Guitar Town FEATURING

Audley Freed | Sam Williams | Keith Gattis | Jamie Rubin | Jim Oblon | Ted Drozdowski Joe McMahan | Richie Owens | Tim Carroll | Jay Rutherford & Wojtek Krupka | John Jackson John Mark Painter | Reeves Gabrels | Will Kimbrough | Paul Niehaus | Jay Joyce Jack Silverman | Jonas Stein & Kingsley Brock | Kevin Edlin | Joe Pisapia Sept | Oct 2014

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17 menu items 36 craft beers 612 combinations Good thing we open at 11:30am Pair a fresh salad, some piled-high nachos, a hot dog on a pretzel bun, or delicious ice cream with a broad selection of porters, pales, sours, wits, and ciders sunday - thursday 11:30am - 12:00am friday - saturday 11:30am - 1:00am

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PUBLISHER Lisa McCauley EDITOR Chuck Allen COPY EDITORS Nicole Keiper, Daryl Sanders

CALENDAR EDITOR Emma Alford

DESIGN DIRECTOR Benjamin Rumble

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Chuck Allen

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Stacie Huckeba

ADVERTISING DESIGN Benjamin Rumble

SOCIAL MEDIA Nicole Keiper

ILLUSTRATIONS Benjamin Rumble, Dean Tomasek

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Emma Alford, Ellen Mallernee Barnes, Melissa D. Corbin, Timothy C. Davis, Warren Denney, Randy Fox, James Haggerty, Eric Jans, Daryl Sanders, Brett A. Withers, Tommy Womack CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Eric England, Melissa Madison Fuller, CJ Hicks, Kathryn M. Johnson ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Jaime Brousse, Nikkole Turner INTERNS Victoria Clodfelter, Autumn Jade Monroe ADVERTISING SALES Lisa McCauley lisa@theeastnashvillian.com 615.582.4187

www.theeastnashvillian.com Kitchen

Table Media Company Est.2010

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©2014 Kitchen Table Media P.O. Box 60157 Nashville, TN 37206 The East Nashvillian is a bi-monthly magazine published by Kitchen Table Media. This publication is offered freely, limited to one per reader. The removal of more than one copy by an individual from any of our distribution points constitutes theft and will be subject to prosecution. All editorial and photographic materials contained herein are “works for hire” and are the exclusive property of Kitchen Table Media unless otherwise noted. Reprints or any other usage is a violation of copyright without the express written permission of the publisher.

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SPECIAL EDITION: GUITAR TOWN

31 INTRO 32 REEVES GABRELS 34 WILL KIMBROUGH 36 JAY JOYCE 40 JACK SILVERMAN 42 AUDLEY FREED 46 JIM OBLON

By Chuck Allen

By Daryl Sander

By Tommy Womack

By Daryl Sanders

By James “Hags” Haggerty

By Randy Fox

By Timothy C. Davis

48 JOHN MARK PAINTER 62 JOE MCMAHAN 50 TIM CARROLL 64 JOHN JACKSON STEIN & KINGSLEY BROCK 66 JOE PISAPIA 53 JONAS KEVIN EDLIN 69 TED DROZDOWSKI 56 PAUL NIEHAUS 71 RICHIE OWENS 57 74 JAMIE RUBIN KEITH GATTIS 58 SAM WILLIAMS 76 RUTHERFORD 60 JAY & WOJTEK KRUPKA

By Timothy C. Davis

By Timothy C. Davis

By Daryl Sanders

By Randy Fox

By James “Hags” Haggerty

By Daryl Sanders

By Timothy C. Davis

By Warren Denney

By Randy Fox

By Randy Fox

By Timothy C. Davis

By Randy Fox

By Daryl Sanders

By Chuck Allen

ON THE COVER

FEATURE

79 MOM AND HER BOYS

Jim Oblon Jaime Rubin Tim Carroll Reeves Gabrels

Stars, sidemen and songwriters – they all had a home at Mom Upchurch’s rooming house

By Randy Fox

The Family Wash, August 2014

Photo by Stacie Huckeba

Visit

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM for updates, news, events and more!

CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

Sept | Oct 2014

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EAST SIDE BUZZ

IN THE KNOW Your Neighbor: 22 Know Dan Einstein

16 Matters of Development 16 Firehouse Centennial 18 Zoning, Zoning, Zoned

By Eric Jans

Ellen Mallernee Barnes

By Emma Alford

in Profile: 24 Artist Manuel Delgado

By Brett A. Withers

by Timothy C. Davis

COMMENTARY

83 Cookin’ in da Hood

12 Editor’s Letter

85 East Side Calendar

By Melissa D. Corbin

By Chuck Allen

By Emma Alford

14 Astute Observations 112 East of Normal

PARTING SHOT

By James “Hags” Haggerty

By Tommy Womack

Guitar Town

Photo montage by Chuck Allen

Photographs by Chuck Allen, Eric England, & Stacie Huckeba

Visit

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM for updates, news, events and more!

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EDITOR’S LETTER

A

Letting “It” Go

s you already know, this issue is dedicated to guitar players. Not just the guitar players featured on the following pages, either. On the contrary, this issue is dedicated to all the guitarists out there, young or old, from novice to master. For in the process of putting this issue together, I was reminded of those somewhat intangible things that all guitar players share: the first time we picked up a guitar, and, trying to make something other than noise come out it, thinking, “I’ll never be able to figure this out” — but something drove us to keep trying; finally

“

No matter what your passion, life has a way of piling up garbage around it, of sucking the joy out of something that by its very nature should be joyous. This process happens so slowly and incrementally that it’s barely noticeable until, one day, the magic is gone. The preoccupation with finding it again makes it even worse — or at least it did for me. At some point along the way I decided to just let it go and see what happened. Again, I’ve had this conversation with a lot of musicians, and it seems to be a common thread.

Personally, I think it has to do with the self-limiting

”

If music is like an ethereal river with no beginning or end, then we’re just a vessel into which some of that water is poured so that it can be shared with the temporal world while we walk upon it.

being able to play an F chord without unintentionally muting some of the strings; playing that first bar chord and then learning inversions; figuring out that first song by ear, which turns into a lifelong obsession; getting together with friends for the first time to jam.

The list goes on. It’s like a secret handshake. It’s … well … magic. And it’s something we all share, from the kid taking lessons over at Fanny’s straight on through to Jimmy Page.

I’d be lying if I said I’d forgotten it, but those feelings had, to an extent, gone into hibernation within me. Having the incredible opportunity to just hang out with the guitarists in this issue awakened me from my slumber. I’m by no means special, or victimized by the circumstances of my life in this regard; it seems that more than a few of the musicians I’ve known have been through a similar experience.

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construct of what we think we are that allows all the garbage to pile up, and the reason it seems to pile up around the very thing we love the most is because we become so accustomed to self-identifying that way: “I am a musician” or “I am a doctor” — it doesn’t matter, because you’re not. At least not at the spiritual humanbeing level.

If music is like an ethereal river with no beginning or end, then we’re just a vessel into which some of that water is poured so that it can be shared with the temporal world while we walk upon it. And when it’s time for us to go the water returns to the river. We were never “it” and “it” was never us.

All of which is another way of saying that needing a reason to play makes about as much sense as needing a reason to breathe.

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ASTUTE OBSERVATIONS James “HAGS” Haggerty

G

Guitarists and Their Woobies

reetings once again, dear readers of The East Nashvillian magazine. I hope you all had fun at the Tomato Art Fest this year and are enjoying the waning days of summer. Have any of you tried my spaghetti sauce recipe yet? It’s great in the fall, trust me. But on to more pressing matters.

Hey Chuck Allen, Mr. Editor, it’s me, James Haggerty, the astute observer. Congratulations on this latest issue. Guitarists and their instruments are something that we really don’t hear enough of or read much about here in Nashville. So thank you for helping to fill the void!

Could you do me a favor, Chuck? Would you look over to the top left-hand side of this page? Do you see that drawing? That’s me. Do you see that thing around my shoulders? That’s a bass. Dean Tomasek drew that picture. He’s a bass player too.

He did a good job. What’s a bass, you ask?

It’s that instrument in the rhythm section along with the piano and drums that is actually playing the song correctly. We’re the cats behind you guitar types onstage, laying the foundation for your solos.

You know, while you wait for the first verse and chorus to go by so you can learn the changes before you make your tasteful, restrained entrance? We’re the folks playing them. You’re welcome.

You can have your guitar issue, Chuck. This is the rhythm section column — equal time, my friend.

I’ve got a couple of questions for you, sir:

How many guitarists does it take to cover a Stevie Ray Vaughn tune? All of them, apparently.

In the next century, how many guitarists will it take to change a light source? The answer is five, Chuck. One to change it and four others to reminisce about how much better the old tubes were . . .

But seriously, Chuck, what’s up with you guys?

Always fretting over your pedal board. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) Something is always breaking on it — right before the gig starts. You’re sweating, cursing, down on your knees, banging these little boxes against the floor and then apologizing when you realize you forgot to plug the power supply in or something. Calm down. Is that pedal board your security blanket? Your electronic woobie? Chuck, I think it’s time to give up the woobie.

And the endless conversations about string gauge, picks, cables, and tone circuits. This amp, that amp. You’ve got an entire issue devoted to just that! Good lord man, just plug it in and play it!

What would Malcolm Young do?

You know what a conversation between two bass players sounds like, Chuck? “That bass sounds good.” “I think so too. Can’t go wrong with an Ampeg amp.” “Nope.” “Wanna get a beer?” “Sure.”

It’s cool though, Chuck. We’ve got your back.

It’s what we do. We need each other. You guys just keep jumping around doing your windmills and whatnot. We’ll be behind you playing the changes.

You’re welcome.

Having been fired from The East Nashvillian for insulting the editor’s fragile sensibilities, Hags is now a fulltime bass player again. Unfortunately, the editor isn’t the only guitar player capable of holding a grudge, so Hags is having a hard time finding a gig. Thankfully, his old friends in Joe, Marc’s Brother sympathize with his plight and hired him for their residency at the 5 Spot on Tuesdays in October from 6-8 p.m.

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EAST SIDE BUZZ

More Matters of Development

FIVE POINTS PIZZA HAS FINISHED their walk-up area to the west of the restaurant space. They converted a former salon space into a to-go bar and late-night window. Hours are 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. for dine in service. The counter side is open until 1 a.m. Sun-Thurs and 3 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

Otis James, a craftsman of handmade ties and caps, is moving his operation from Marathon Village to 519 Gallatin Road, between Barista Parlor and The Fuselage.

2616 is a resale boutique that is part of the YMCA and features women’s clothing, accessories, and shoes. 2616 Gallatin Pike Koi Sushi and Thai at 923 Main Street is coming along. They are set to open in September or early October.

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Café Fundamental has closed. It had been rumored to be a temporary shut-down, however, Porter House Bistro recently opened in its place. Chicago chef Drew Bryant plans to be open Tuesday through Friday serving lunch and dinner, with brunch and dinner served weekends. 1115 Porter Road.

Chef Jamie Watson from Café Fundamental has opened Palmier, a wholesale bakery in the former space of Olive & Sinclair Chocolate. It will be a commercial bread and croissant bakery with a retail counter.

At the 5th and Main building, The Vine will be opening in the corner space formerly occupied by Feast. Server modern American food, with 25-30 wines available by the glass, Owner Greg Swafford describes it as being “between a Morton’s and a J. Alexander’s.”

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM Sept | Oct 2014

They plan to be open by October, seven days a week for lunch and dinner, with brunch served Saturday and Sunday. Stafford has been in the restaurant business for over 25 years with companies like Texas Roadhouse and Landry’s.

Kaleidescope at 3107 Gallatin Pike has closed and has been replaced by Onyx, a unique shop featuring vintage items and jewelry. Oh yeah, and also a drive-thru coffee shop! They also fix jewelry and replace watch batteries. What a concept. —EJ

Firehouse Centennial

THE EASTSIDE’S QUAINTEST FIREHOUSE, J.B. Richardson Engine Co. 14, turns 100 years old this fall. In celebration the Nashville Fire Department (NFD) will host an open house for the centenarian from 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 1. As East Nashville’s neighborhood landscape continues to change and evolve with brightly colored, dubious duplexes appearing overnight, along with the influx of new businesses and transplants to the area, this historic staple has remained the same. Situated at the corner of Holly and 16 th Avenue, Station 14 still looks much like it did a century ago, despite costly renovations made to it over the years.

During the open house, local officials and NFD members will give speeches on the history of the building, which happens to be the oldest active fire hall in the city. At the time it was erected in 1914, horse-driven steam engines were still being used in fire control.

Fire Deputy Chief Danny Yates said, “When Station 14 was built, it was constructed as the NFD’s first to house a gasoline-powered fire

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ESB engine.” Yates grew up in East Nashville and served as the station’s captain in the ’90s.

On top of a quick history lesson, attendees will also have a chance to check out some antique fire engines and slide down the last remaining brass fire pole in Music City. They will also allow you to tour the firehouse in its entirety.

It is through the work of Lockeland Springs neighbors and Nashville’s Metropolitan Historical Commission that Engine Co. 14 has made it to its hundredth year. Not only has the fire hall survived a number of natural disasters, in the ’70s it resisited efforts to demolish and rebuild in a new location. It has since been

given the Preservation Award through the city’s historical commission. Yates also noted that the area’s sense of community is vital to the station, which makes for a pretty noisy neighbor.

Yates said, “Holly Street is different because it isn’t like the other cookie cutter stations. It’s unique, and people around there are always friendly. They stop in; they wave at you as you go by. During the six years I spent there it was obvious right away that people were happy that you were there, and they appreciate you. That makes our job even better.” —EA

Zoning, Zoning, Zone

DURING THE SUMMER OF 2014, Nashville witnessed zoning issue debates that were hotter than the temperatures.

The Council public hearing on July 1 witnessed a Conservation Zoning Overlay filing for West Nashville’s Sylvan Park neighborhood that prompted over two hours of public debate on that one bill alone with the pro- side wearing green armbands and the anti- side donning pink tee shirts. At the end of the impassioned debate, Council Member Jason Holleman asked the Council to defer the bill indefinitely and implored the two opposing sides to seek common ground.

By contrast, later that same evening the Lockeland Springs neighborhood’s second Conservation Zoning Overlay expansion of 2014 passed with literally no opposition expressed. The Lockeland Springs Neighborhood Association board and volunteers had already spoken to their neighbors to determine the level of support for this second CZO expansion prior to requesting CM Peter Westerholm to file the rezoning. After passing this public hearing on July 1st, the second Lockeland Springs CZO expansion was finalized on July 15 and went into effect a few days later. Building permits issued prior to the Overlay’s effective date are still valid for six months from their origination date, so Lockeland Springs may still experience a few nonconforming building projects this Fall.

The same July 1 Metro Council hearing also included debate about the East Greenway Park Specific Plan (SP) for the intersection of Eastland and Rosebank Avenues in the Rosebank neighborhood. Proponents cited the addition of sidewalks on and adjacent to the site, the inclusion of a tree save and a greenway connection as community benefits of the development. Representatives from the Rosebank Neighborhood Association expressed residents view that the benefits offered in the SP did not offset concerns about traffic and quality-of-life changes that would be brought about by the addition of 18

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ESB 62 residential units and the insertion of a corner commercial use in the low-medium density residential area. CM Westerholm reiterated the benefits of the SP proposal as he requested and received Council approval for this rezoning.

A third bill that was heard at the July

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1 Council public hearing was for a Landmark Overlay District rezoning for 1627 Shelby Ave in Lockeland Springs. The Landmark Overlay District identifies a structure as a community landmark and grants additional land uses such as office, retail or recording studio uses to that parcel as a preservation incentive

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM Sept | Oct 2014

for retaining that unique structure. The owners of properties with this kind of zoning must acknowledge that the additional land uses are conditioned upon the preservation of the landmark feature and that demolition or removal of that feature will result in the loss of the additional land uses, which may be contrary to the residential-only land-use policies set forth in the Community Plan.

In this case, 1627 Shelby Ave is a house with an attached corner structure that originally served as the Simpkins Grocery but for the last several decades has been zoned residential only and has previously been excluded from expansive neighborhood corner commercial use considerations. The property owners leased the building to Andrew Clancey, who moved to East Nashville from New York City and expressed an interest in opening a fashion retail store called Any Old Iron at the site.

Several nearby neighbors expressed opposition to aspects of the retail use included in this property’s Landmark Overlay District rezoning at the July 1 Council public hearing. But CM Westerholm requested and received Council approval after indicating that he would work with the applicants to craft a final site plan that addressed neighbor concerns about specific uses, hours, parking arrangements and other details.

The follow-up Planning Commission hearing in August witnessed a final impassioned debate on this application. The property owners and rezoning supporters cited the unique nature of the structure and the benefits to the immediate neighborhood that a corner retail offering would bring.

Opponents countered that the recent Conservation Zoning Overlay expansion protected the historic structure and removed the threat of its demolition from any bargaining agreement. They also argued that the majority of the supporting letter writers did not live in East Nashville — or even Tennessee — and provided a statistical and mapped analysis of letters received by the Planning Department staff which demonstrated that all letters written by nearby neighbors within a one-block radius were in opposition to the request.

Neighbors who spoke in opposition went on to state that retail uses in general and Any Old Iron in particular are welcome in East Nashville, but that the specific constraints of this particular building and intersection make retail use there inappropriate, although some neighbors acknowledged that other limited commercial uses might be feasible and acceptable at that corner. LSNA president Eliz-

ESB abeth Smith cited a lack of advance communication on the part of CM Westerholm and the property owners as reasons for opposing this corner retail rezoning application, which she said should have been approached with careful community planning but instead resembled capitulation to random individual property owners.

At the end of the testimony CM Westerholm stated that he “respectfully disagreed” with the immediate neighbors and requested and received Planning Commission approval for the final site plan to allow the retail use. After the hearing, some neighbors who testified against the rezoning congratulated Andrew Clancey and welcomed him to the East Nashville business community regardless of how the rezoning was achieved.

In addition to these specific zoning efforts, East Nashvillians participated heavily in ongoing efforts over the summer to pass countywide infill housing reform bills.

Passage of BL2014-769, which expanded eligibility to build Detached Accessory Dwelling Units (apartments over garages or “mother-in-law apartments”), was covered in the July|August edition of The East Nashvillian.

BL2014-770: Two-Family Dwellings (the “duplex bill”) has been deferred due to significant developer opposition, and community meetings to debate the amendments are being scheduled before the bill is brought up for a final reading. At press time, the amended bill would disallow building permits for umbilicalcord duplexes countywide and would allow the removal of such connectors on existing buildings. The bill would require that 20feet or 80 percent of the building’s length — whichever is greater — attach “attached duplexes,” starting at the front facade. In the case of detached duplexes, the bill would limit the height of new structures to no more than 1.6 times the width, although up to three feet of foundation height would be excluded from that height calculation. Finally, the bill’s current amendment proposal would ban front-loading garages and front parking pads on duplexes and instead require rear or side garage access. The final bill language is still being determined at press time.

BL 2014-771: Contextual Overlay District had been previously deferred until August 19 when it passed its final hurdle thanks

to a county-wide grassroots letter writing campaign urging Council approval of the creation of this Overlay option in spite of prominent real estate investor opposition. The Council deliberations culminated in the bill’s sponsor, CM Walter Hunt, holding up reams of countywide supporting constituent emails and calling for a vote. CM Hunt’s motion carried with a comfortable 29-6 margin.

The Contextual Overlay District is now an option that is available to neighborhoods across the county who wish to work with their Council Members to apply for it. This kind of an Overlay does not prevent demolitions and does not require design reviews, but it does limit the size of new construction homes or additions to existing homes to be no more than a certain percentage larger than the average of the four neighboring properties. At press time, the Metro Zoning Administrator is preparing guidance for calculating these measurements for building permit applications as neighborhoods begin evaluating whether or not this new tool meets their objectives. —BW

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his is a story about love and chocolate cake. It’s about a midlife career-path pivot, and it’s about breakfast sandwiches. It’s about Dan Einstein, though Dan insists it’s just as much about Ellen Einstein, with whom he just celebrated 10 years of owning and operating East Nashvillle’s Sweet 16th bakery and 20 years of marriage.

“We met over a hot wok, and the rest is history,” says Einstein, referring to that first encounter with his now-wife in a Los Angeles cooking class decades ago. Then, he was still neck-deep in the music industry as one of the co-founders of John Prine’s Oh Boy Records.

The Einsteins (not yet married at the time) would later move to Nashville with the label, and in Music City, the Connecticut native would spend a period of several years wading out of the industry he’d “accidentally” gotten into and stayed in for 22 years.

“There comes a time when it’s time to change, time to leave the party,” says Einstein (who, yes, can claim a distant relation to Albert). After the tornado outbreak of ’98 tore through East Nashville, the Einsteins watched the neighborhood rebuild itself and became determined to open a business that would give back to the community they loved.

Ellen had already established herself as one the city’s most sought-after bakers, having helped open Café Crossroads (now Mad Donna’s). She also ran a popular from-home catering and food styling business, which responded faithfully and beautifully to any attention applied to it.

It was Ellen’s father, a Holocaust survivor, who encouraged the couple to have the chutzpah to buy a ramshackle building in

Lockeland Springs, tear it down, and open a brick-and-mortar bakery. Says Dan, “He kept saying, ‘If you don’t try it, you’ll never know,’ and he was absolutely correct. Especially coming from the background that he did, he considered every day that he was alive a bonus, so it was a good lesson to learn. Here we are now, 10 years later, with a wonderful community business.”

It may be a community business, but it’s

“ There comes a time when it’s time to change, time to leave the party.

one that has earned national recognition. In 2012, Food & Wine rhapsodized about Sweet 16th’s $2.95 breakfast sandwich in its “Best Breakfast Sandwiches in the U.S.” feature, writing, “In addition to creative desserts like an Elvis-inspired peanut-butter-and-banana layer cake, the 1950s-style bakery offers a single savory breakfast item: a doubly cheesy sandwich composed of a cheddar scone and a hunk of egg-and-cheese casserole studded with green chiles.”

Savory items have increasingly popped up on the Sweet 16th menu over the years.

“The menu has slowly but surely evolved and grown in an organic way,” says Einstein. “We

Photo by Kathryn M. Johnson

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THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM Sept | Oct 2014

have a very creative staff, and some days when we introduce a new item it’s like when you pull a pin on a grenade and you throw it out and you duck. But for the most part we listen to our customers. And the menu changes with the availability of local ingredients. We have relationships with certain farmers who have been very kind to us, so these things factor into our changing menu.”

For all the success of the savory items, the sweet stuff remains the bakery’s bread and butter. “The whole business started on my wife’s chocolate cake,” explains Einstein, who lists their daily pastries and coffee cakes as other big sellers. But Ellen wasn’t the only one to bring a love of baking and cooking to the table. Dan, who calls Julia Child his mentor, had worked in kitchens on and off as a teenager and has enjoyed his own lifelong love of cooking. But he says it’s his love for the East Nashville community that feeds him as much as the craft itself.

“When we first moved here [in ’93], we were the young kids on the block,” says Einstein. “It was a little bit of an older crowd, but the beauty of that is you had people who had established a really tight community.

Now, having lived here 20 years, we’ve seen a lot of people stay here, and the schools have gotten better, which means that families are not moving to the west side when they have kids that are school-aged. I’m happy to see the neighborhood with a lot more kids. It’s good for stability. It’s good for business and for the community. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed — everybody in East Nashville is fiercely proud of their neighborhood.”

While the rest of the neighborhood is asleep, each day the Einsteins rise at 2 a.m., having gone off to bed by 7:30 p.m. the night before. “Probably some of the kids at Lockeland Elementary have later bedtimes than I do,” says Dan. “But this stuff doesn’t bake itself. We’ve got to be in here at three.

We’re still a small-batch bakery, so things are baked to order. We’re not cranking out factory orders. That’s the way we intend to keep it.”

That indecently early wakeup call is the only downside that Dan can think of to running Sweet 16th alongside his wife and their team of valued employees. “My favorite thing is our contact with our friends, our customers, here. That’s what makes the day that much happier. And the sense of community here — that’s huge for both Ellen and myself.

We’ve really found a great balance. Not every couple can pull this off and work together.

Thankfully we’ve managed through some interesting times. It’s a lot of fun working with her — it really is. I can’t get enough time with my wife.”

Dan Einstein

KNOW

your

NEIGH

BOR

Story by

Ellen Mallernee Barnes

Photo by Melissa Madison Fuller

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A P

rtist in rofile

Manuel Delgado

by Timothy C. Davis

Photography by Kathryn M. Johnson

Sept | Oct 2014

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he inside of Manuel Delgado’s new custom guitar shop is a mess. Located in a tiny, nondescript industrial park right off Gallatin Road near Eastland Avenue, the new digs are coated with a fine sheen of sawdust and the regular, garden-variety stuff that accumulates on its own.

Today, the dust is from construction — and the mess is evident — because Delgado is working feverously to begin the next chapter of the Delgado Guitars story.

Mind you, he’s skilled at building and renovation, as one might expect from a boutique guitar luthier who spends his days choosing the perfect woods and crafting them into playable pieces of art. There’s an area he’s clearing to receive shipments of wood — he offers a choice of literally dozens of varieties — or any of the various materials (abalone shell, motherof-pearl) he uses to make inlays or fretboard markers. He’s also expecting his first shipments of his La Tradición guitars from a partnership he entered into with West Music to provide a more affordable guitar (still signed off on by Delgado) for people who’d balk at paying lowto mid four figures prices for one of his custom designs.

How he’s arrived at this place, askew as it is, is a story all its own. It’s illustrated in a parable of sorts he was told some time ago: If you make a dot on the ground and trace it exactly one mile, you’ll have a straight line; if you place another dot an inch from the first dot, but vary the angle by even a single degree, you’ll end up a mile later with two dots hundreds of feet apart. Which is to say, a little corner-cutting here and there in your work (or your personal life, Delgado says) might not seem like much at the time, and indeed, most people would probably never notice.

But little things can become bigger things with the passage of time. His grandfather, who he called Papa Pilo, had a saying for when things got rushed around the shop: “Despacito, por que llevamos prisa.” Which, translated, means: “Take your time, because we are in a hurry.”

Indeed, family is so intertwined with his guitar making that Delgado has long since stopped seeing what he does as work, preferring to see it as of a sort of communion with those he loves.

He makes guitars today much the same as his grandfather did way back in 1928. His grandfather, later aided by his great uncle and father, built guitars by hand, from scratch, first in Torreón, Mexico, and then Juarez, Mexico, and from there in East Los Angeles. Soon, word got out. Andres Segovia owned a few of the

family’s guitars, and Delgado still has pictures and a letter from Segovia, who wrote a glowing recommendation for the still-growing company. (To put that into perspective, having Andres Segovia praise your work is the classical guitar equivalent of having Albert Einstein really dig on your new theorems, or Ted Williams telling you make a mean baseball bat.)

To that end, Delgado makes guitars (and steel-string acoustics, resophonics, bajo sextos, requintos románticos, requintos jarochos, jaranas, guitarrones and vihuelas) the old-fashioned way, completely by hand, not to stake a claim to any artisanal, back-to-the-olden-ways-if-notthe-olden-days street cred, but rather because he’s still convinced it’s the best way to make a guitar. If he only makes 15 or 20 guitars a year — along with a few smaller instruments, like ukuleles — so be it. He still makes a pretty penny on those, to be sure. But even after you factor in the cost of materials, the man still isn’t retiring in the Hamptons anytime soon.

It’s not uncommon for Delgado to spend 15 hours across a couple of days on a single ornamental rosette, or hand-sanding the inside of a guitar for hours on end to provide the guitar’s future owner — whether Jackson Browne, Jose Feleciano, or Jimmy from Little Hollywood — as flawless a sound machine as he (and his family again, remember) knows how to make.

“I like to say, if the power went out for a month, I could still make you a guitar,” Delgado says.

D

elgado’s father, Candelario “Candelitas” Delgado, was born March 1, 1944. By the time he was 11, Candelitas was working in his father’s store, learning to repair instruments and learning the fundamentals of luthiery. By 1958, he’d built his first guitar.

By 1968, he’d married a young lady. By the early ’70s, he’d had children: Monica, Thomas, and Manuel.

After the death of his brother, Papa Pilo and his son Candelitas continued the business for some time. Eventually, the young Candelitas took over the business outright. Young Manuel would be there, chisel in hand, if he wasn’t attending his studies, boxing classes, or a school-related function.

He dusts off some photos of his family, and shows me a picture of a younger version of himself, a proud look affixed on his face.

“I was 12 here, and that’s my first guitar I’m holding. First one I made, that is. My father was 14 when he made his first guitar. I wanted to beat his record so bad! And so I did.”

I asked if he still had the guitar — he did.

Admittedly, I’m no authority on the subject, but it looked and played just fine for a 30-year-old instrument made by a 12-year-old. Better than that, in fact — it looked like something J

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A INP you might buy at a chain store for a few hundred bucks. Which is not meant as any sort of insult to the 12-year-old Delgado’s work — most of us, if we’re lucky, pick up the guitar at 12, not make one — but in this case meaning low on flash, but solidly built.

I referenced the stacks of wood sitting in the next room, and wondered aloud what the young Delgado would think if he were told he’d still be making guitars 30 years later. He shows me a picture of his father that he’d recently found again, noting how he was struck that, in the image, his father reminded him of himself.

Turning the picture over, he said, he found an inscription with his father’s age at the time: 42, just like Delgado is now.

“You know, in many ways, so little has changed,” Delgado says. “We’re really blessed.

We’ve been doing it for so long that even the suppliers I work with are often with the son or the grandson of the person that my father or grandfather dealt with. It helps with that feeling of continuity.”

The family history of luthiery is such that Delgado says that newer suppliers often come looking for him — another way, he says, that looking after the family legacy keeps that family looking after him.

“Now, with the Internet, I’ll get calls from

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people saying, ‘Manuel, we have quarter-sawn Honduras mahogany,’” he says. “Or whatever it is that they may have. All these little things are instructive to the final piece. Electric guitar makers, cabinetmakers, they use flat-sawn wood, not quarter-sawn. With the quarter-sawn, your grain is going to match up, and have that book-match grain [where, say, on the top of a guitar, the wood grain on the left-hand side of the guitar is a perfect match to the righthand side].

“Another thing is that a lot of steel string builders — and classical builders, frankly — will build a guitar with an extra joint at the neck. It’s cheaper to build them that way. It’s extra work for me, but I will cut the neck and the headstock out of a single piece of wood.

All my necks are one piece. They’ll use all this marketing lingo to justify that decision, saying things like ‘a two-piece neck is a stronger neck,’ but that’s not the case.”

He laughs. “If that’s the case, I mean, why even stop there? Why not an 18-piece neck, to make it really strong?”

He shows me an intricate inlay he’s doing on a custom guitar. After sitting down with the buyer months ago to get his likes and dislikes — but, moreover, his story, as Delgado puts it, so that his guitar might also tell a story — the

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pair decided on an fretboard inlay that featured a ropey, vine-like motif. Delgado loves little challenges like this, and shows me, his pride evident, how he has painstakingly designed the inlay to make it look like the ends of the rope overlap each other. The result is impressive, and evidences a seamless quality that, say, a well-built luxury car might boast. It may not affect the sound in the slightest, but it shows an attention to detail that lets the would-be buyer know that no corners have been cut anywhere along the way.

I asked him if any of this ever gets tiring – spending a day on fretboard markers, say, or fine-sanding the inside of a guitar, way down there where no human eyes will never see anyway.

“No,” he says flatly, but amiably. “But I know where you’re going with that. I just really love what I do. If I did use mass-produced rosettes or pre-made necks or plastic binding or otherwise cut corners, I just wouldn’t enjoy it. It would feel like a disgrace to everything my father and my family worked for all those years.”

He leans forward, cradling the guitar.

“My father was a man I admired more than anything, you know? I feel closest to him and my grandfather when I’m in here, making an instrument. All the traveling I do, all the computer work with the other [La Tradición] division, I don’t enjoy that. I enjoy working with the kids in the schools. But I hate all the airports. I hate all the standing around. I hate missing my family. But when you see a young kid playing a musical instrument that you helped get in their hands — not only that but you helped get them the materials that might help them play that instrument — then it’s all worthwhile. I always say that I never do anything for the money. I do what I do because I love it. It might sound like a cliché, but so be it. It’s the truth.”

I asked Delgado if he was ever tempted to do anything else (or, indeed, wanted to do anything else) with his life, knowing, for instance, that he spends weeks each year speaking to children and teenagers about the importance of education, and helps with pro-music-education programs.

“With my life? Or with my ‘work’? Not really,” he says. “I’ve done other things, but this has been my overwhelming passion since I was a kid,” he says. “I was going to be a police officer, because my dad used to train us in boxing, and he used to train the L.A.P.D. boxing team.

From the time I was in fifth grade I was boxing, and being around that, I thought that I wanted to be a cop for a while. I was in the academy with the LA County Sheriff ’s Department when my dad was diagnosed with cancer, and at that time I decided to go back to the shop.

And I’ve been here ever since.”

“Here” didn’t mean Nashville until early in

2005, but “here” is relative to Delgado. “Here” is wherever his family is, he says. There were a couple of lean years when he first arrived here, he said, years before our “It City” began celebrating people who spent time doing things more for the love of them than for the money they could generate. He had fledgling agreements with a few well-known instrument retailers in town, agreements that, for one reason or another — usually money, or the retailer’s inability to make money — never quite came to fruition.

“I tell my daughters — well, my 6-year-old, as my other daughter’s only nine months — that we are very lucky to be able to open up the cabinet and have a choice of the cereal we want to eat. Or if we don’t want cereal, we have eggs. Growing up, I never went without, but my folks came from very, very little. My mom lived in a basement with dirt floors. She used to remember the family upstairs, and they had a little girl who would look through the cracks in the floors to try and see the people — my mom and her family — living down there.

“I didn’t have any of that. We had a house growing up, and our own bedrooms, and my parents bought me my first car, a 1967 Ford Mustang that I still have. My mom stayed at home, and my dad worked his tail off. I wish he was around today. But I still don’t know sometimes how he did it.

“Our generation wants to be more involved in our kids’ lives. Back then a man did what he had to do to take care of his kids and his wife.

We came from the housewife era to an era of stay-at-home moms and stay-at-home dads.

Our focus is more on our kids than keeping up appearances, and making sure every sheet is folded.”

He gestures upstairs, where unfinished guitars, some merely faint suggestions of guitar shapes crafted out of pieces of solid wood, sit waiting for his attention. This is where Delgado is setting up his workshop, where he will be every day.

“Upstairs, I don’t know if you noticed, I let my little kid paint on the walls. I told her to go for it. I’m the only one in here, and I don’t need to keep up appearances. It reminds me of why I do this, you know? It ties everything back together.”

Delgado says he believes that the stories we tell are as alive as we are, and says that the only way he’d ever stop making instruments is if, in some way, it affected his family. But the two things are so intertwined, he says, going back generations, that the two constantly inform each other.

“There’s a French poet, I don’t know the name, who said, ‘With morality and with art, you have to draw a line somewhere.’ My dad used to say when we were kids — and this was

way before Stephen Covey and ‘The 12 Habits of Highly Successful People’ or whatever it was called — he always used to say, ‘Son, you start with the end in mind.’ So if you come to me and say ‘Hey, Manuel, I want you to build me a guitar,’ I would ask you what you were looking for, get any specific details. But then I will literally write everything down, and construct the entire instrument in my head. And then we’ll

put it down on paper to discuss certain details — maybe the scale or something. But before I ever pick up a piece of wood, the guitar is basically done, if that makes any sense. The same thing goes with my marriage, with my friends, my faith, with anything that’s important to me in my life. You have to know where it is you’re going if you ever want to have any hope of getting there.”

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Guitar Town Chuck Allen

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he first incarnation of the modern guitar appeared during the early 19th century.

Its long, fretted neck with six strings distinguished it from its forebears, which usually had 4 or 5 strings. One could argue that its roots were formed over 5000 years earlier, when stringed instruments such as the tanbur and the bowl harp first appeared in the modern record. The acoustic guitar as we know it today came from the development of bracing, which allowed for the production of larger, more robust bodies, techniques which saw major advances throughout the 19th century. Steel strings first made an appearance on the scene around the beginning of the 20th century; previously strings had been made out of hair or animal intestines (gut strings). The modern equivalents of gut strings are made of nylon.

The guitar’s popularity grew, and by the 1920s there was increasing demand to make it louder. This just so happened at a time when advances in electronic circuitry were taking place — particularly through the use of tubes, or “thermionic valves” as the British called them — leading to the development of early amplification. George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacker invented the first pickup around 1931, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The electric guitar was an immediate success, and players from all genres took to it. Nashville guitarists played an important part in the evolution of not only the style of playing and techniques utilized with electric guitars, but also the sonic landscapes that can be created by playing an electric guitar through an amplifier. Some of these early contributors lived at Mom Upchurch’s, which is profiled at length in the companion piece to our cover feature.

The time frame from invention to ubiquity is a relatively short one if you think about it. From 1931 to February 9, 1961 — the date The Beatles made their debut under that name at The Cavern Club in Liverpool — is only 30 years. The ’60s saw the guitarist move from sideman to cultural icon, and spawned a generation of guitar-driven garage bands.

Today there are dozens, if not hundreds, of boutique guitar manufactures, amp makers, pedal builders, and so on.

Tones for this and tones for that and whatever. But if you ask any of the players featured here, to a person they’ll tell you none of that really matters at the end of the day. Great playing comes from the heart. Period. End of story.

In pulling this issue together, I didn’t have a “hierarchy” of whom to include or whom not to include. To cover all the players on the Eastside — much less Nashville — worthy of recognition would take far more space than we have. I’ve known or known of most of these guys for years. I felt like the best approach would be to focus on the essence — what is it that inspired this very diverse group of individuals to start playing the guitar, and how has that shaped their playing and their lives.

I’d like to thank all the players for being involved — without hesitation I might add, and the writers for “getting it” and helping to keep this thing on track.

I especially want to thank Jay Joyce for his down-to-earth, no-bullshit encouragement; Eric England for hanging in there as my spiritual visualizer; and Stacie Huckeba for a killer cover shot.

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Reeves Gabrels

The Family Wash

By Stacie Huckeba

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Reeves Gabrels Daryl Sanders

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t’s the last Saturday in July, and The Cure’s Reeves Gabrels is standing onstage at The Family Wash playing his gold signature Reverend Spacehawk guitar. With his left hand, he unleashes a flurry of fretted notes; with his right, he flips a kill switch on and off to create a truly out-of-thisworld sonic barrage.

After the show, a well-known East Nashville guitarist is talking about Gabrels, and how his guitar work differs from the playing of the many roots-based guitarists in the city. “Yeah, Reeves is more of an astronaut,” he says with a laugh.

It’s true: The New York City native’s enormous talent launched him into rock’s stratosphere. He worked just over a decade with David Bowie as a guitarist, cowriter and producer, beginning with the formation of Tin Machine in 1988. After he left Bowie’s band, Gabrels moved to Los Angeles, where he recorded with Ozzy and Mick — yes, that Ozzy and Mick — among others, including David Coverdale of Whitesnake and rap legends Public Enemy (the latter on a track for the Spike Lee film He Got Game).

Another memorable moment in L.A. involved a last-minute invitation to sit in with George Clinton and the P-Funk AllStars. “They had me come up and play an encore, and I thought it would be three minutes or whatever. It ended up being like 45 minutes, and George kept giving me guitar solos,” Gabrels recalls with a chuckle.

In high school, he used to sneak into R&B and funk clubs. He remembers one guitarist who would go out to the parking lot after each set for a drink or two. Gabrels followed him outside one night and saw he was drinking blackberry brandy, so Gabrels went to the local liquor store where he could buy alcohol underage and bought a bottle of blackberry brandy.

“I went back a couple of nights later and I waited for him to go outside,” he recalls. “I started asking him questions and he was kind of blowing me off. So I showed him I had a bottle of blackberry brandy and he said, ‘Well, come and sit in my car with me.’ I went and sat in his car with him, and drank blackberry brandy, and asked him how to do like these sliding ninth chords and stuff I didn’t know how to do at that point.”

Gabrels’ earliest influences included Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Stephen Stills, Leslie West and Jimi Hendrix. “Basically, it was a

lot of guys who were in a blues-rock vein, but had that deep, iron-cello kind of guitar sound, almost like a saxophone,” he says.

“I remember seeing an interview with Clapton — I think it was on The Mike Douglas Show — and [Douglas] was asking him what he listened to, and he was talking about B.B. King and Freddy King. So I went and found B.B. King and Freddie King records.

“I got this sampler record — I guess it must have been in 1970 — that A&M Records put out that you could order for a dollar. On one side was rock stuff and the other side was folk stuff; but the rock side was The Move, Humble Pie, early Mott the Hoople, Free, and Long John Baldry. I think in a lot of ways, my taste hasn’t veered too much from that. Strangely enough, my roots are remarkably rootsy.”

That is remarkable, considering Gabrels is well-known for his sonic experimentation. His

The illness had seriously weakened him.

“I had to switch to lighter strings on my guitar and I didn’t have the stamina to do gigs,” Gabrels says. “When I started getting better, that’s when I moved to Nashville. I kind of got my sea legs back playing on Lower Broadway, just laying low, and trying to get myself back in order.”

He also began playing regularly on the East Side — mostly at the Wash, with Rubin’s band and with his own group, Reeves Gabrels & His Imaginary Friends, but also at fooBAR with his blues-rock collective, The Blues Episode, which included Audley Freed.

In the spring of 2012, another old friend, Robert Smith of The Cure, asked him to join the band’s summer tour as a second guitarist, and that led to an invitation at the end of the tour to join the legendary group full-time.

“When everything happened with The Cure, it all happened so fast. The nature of the music business is not a straight line — at its best, it’s like a sine wave; it has peaks and valleys. To get back on the merry-go-round in my 50s was kind of a surprise, because I was just trying to find a way to gracefully ride out to my death,” he says, laughing.

“I joined one of the coolest bands ever, one of the most identifiable and idiosyncratic bands — they sound like nobody else. For them to welcome me into that, and to welcome whatever sonic variation I can bring to the band, is really nice.

“Whatever I brought to it, I’ve made a conscious effort to support the vocals, which I don’t think always happened in the band. I’m pretty comfortable in my own skin. I’m not trying to prove something, I’m just trying to do the right thing for the music. But it is nice to catch a smile from Robert onstage when I try something that I’m not sure if I’m getting too weird, or not weird enough, or just trying something out,” he adds. “It has been very welcoming.”

When he’s not busy with The Cure, Gabrels is immersed in other projects. Fantastic Guitars, a record he did with Bill Nelson of Bebop Deluxe fame, was released in July, and his fifth solo album, Reeves Gabrels & His Imaginary Friends, is scheduled to drop in October.

“I don’t do the solo thing because I’m not satisfied with what I’m doing with [The Cure],” Gabrels says. “I do the solo thing because I’ve always done my own thing.”

“” I don’t do the solo thing because I’m not satisfied with what I’m doing with [The Cure].

I do the solo thing because I’ve always done my own thing. experimental side may have been nurtured by the cartoons he watched as a kid. “I loved Bugs Bunny,” he says. “So all those Carl Stalling and Winston Sharples scores for that certainly got in my head.”

Cartoon sound effects also made an impression on Gabrels. “The thing you try to do is find that crux note, that one note that makes people’s hair stand on end; but the other thing is one of the ways to bring people into music is to make a funny sound, to make an unusual noise,” he explains. “A really good example of it is King Crimson’s ‘Elephant Talk.’ It’s almost a novelty record in that he makes the elephant sound, but it’s a really complex piece of music at the same time — it’s inviting.”

In 2006, while in the midst of recovering from a bad case of Lyme disease, Gabrels moved from L.A. to East Nashville at the suggestion of Family Wash owner Jamie Rubin, an old friend and former bandmate from the days when they both lived in Boston.

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Will Kimbrough

The Porch

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By CJ Hicks

Will Kimbrough Tommy Womack

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he Buddhists have a practice called Sati, which translates to English, roughly, as mindfulness. It’s the practice of living in the moment completely aware of your ever-changing situation, focused on what you’re doing right now as well as on what’s coming up in the future. It’s sort of the opposite of ADD, and if you aspire to be, say, a great guitarist, as well as a great singer and songwriter and producer and performer and session man, plus husband, father, and traveler, it might behoove you to bone up on it. Read Pema Chodron and Tich Nhat Hanh, like Will Kimbrough has. And eat your Zen Wheaties.

Since the spring of 1992, I’ve taken about 500 guitar lessons from Will. I’ve never paid him a dime and in fact I’ve often been paid for taking the lessons, which have amounted to watching him and listening to him at rehearsals and at the shows we’ve played together.

I remember the first time we ever jammed, at Tommy Meyer’s place at 310 Chapel. Will set up in the basement with a Stratocaster, a beatup Fender Deluxe and a Rat pedal, and became Richard Thompson and Jimi Hendrix made flesh, right in front of me. I was standing there with my useless Telecaster around my torso, a Budweiser in my hand and my jaw on the filthy carpeted floor as William Adams Kimbrough III single-handedly shut down every excuse I’d ever wanted to make for why my picking technique wasn’t better, or why my tone was foggy, or why my rhythm was sloppy, or why my guitar didn’t sound big enough, or professional enough.

Before meeting Will that day in April ’92, I’d always thought, “Gee, I bet if I had a good tube compressor, then my sound would be smooth and shimmery.” Now there’s Kimbrough sounding smooth as glass without such a toy. Gee, if I had the right expensive humbucker pickups, I’d get that big tone I’ve always heard in my head.

Nope, there’s Kimbrough, four feet in front of me, with stock single-coil Fender pickups, and he’s making that sound. Gee, if only I had an expensive amp and a Marshall 4x12 cabinet. Nope, there’s … you get the picture.

It’s one thing to be in the crowd at a big concert and hear the guitar hero wailing on the stage, or to see such an animal on television. It’s quite another to be standing right in front of the guy and hearing the same type of transcendent noise happening right there in real time. It suddenly makes it all sound possible, like I should be able to do that too. I’ve been trying now 22 years to do that — what Will Kimbrough does.

It’s made me a better player, but I’m still not worthy of licking his boots.

A fan several years back started making and selling T-shirts that say, “Will Kimbrough is an alien.” That’s convenient thinking, because positing that he’s from another planet can excuse us mere humanoids for not measuring up. And hell, maybe he really is an alien. There are other reasons to think so, not just the guitar playing.

For one, Will Kimbrough works harder than the president. I’ve watched the process with amazement. Will is about as in-demand as a person can get — for session work, road work, producing, songwriting — and he often works a month without a single day off. It is an entirely typical event for him to step off a plane from a three-week tour of Sweden, kiss his wife and children, immediately have to revamp his pedal board, change the strings on his Gibson and leave for California at 5 the next morning, not to be home for six more days. And when he arrives back from that trip, he starts work in the studio the next day for a 10-day album project. I’ve watched it happen. After about 35 to 40 days of this, his head explodes, and once that happens, he takes about 24 hours to collect himself, putters about picking up the fragments of his head and piecing it all back together, and then it all starts up again. I’ve heard him vow many times that he’s not going to work this hard anymore, and then he works another 31 days.

Will first picked up a guitar at the age of 12 in 1976, in his hometown of Mobile, Ala. His birthday present that year was a red Alamo Fiesta (the off-brandest of all off-brand guitars ever) with a little practice amp. It set his parents back $20, and adjusting for inflation, that’s still a fricking cheap guitar. Having had piano and violin lessons as a younger boy, he was already versed in the basics of music theory. With that schooling in his pocket, he attacked the Alamo Fiesta with resolute determination. (Everyone who’s ever lived with him can testify to how he can practice well into the wee hours of the morning.) Almost immediately, he joined a band: a southern rock group called the Henry Guinn Band. At the age of 16 that band gave way to a more new wave-ish group called Ground Zero. While other kids were stocking grocery shelves or flipping burgers after school, Will was playing in bars he wasn’t old enough to drink in yet, playing until 1 a.m. and running a track meet at school the next morning.

When Will was 19, Ground Zero moved aside for his first band to gain national prominence, continued on 102

Will & The Bushmen, who made four records in the ’80s and ’90s. Midway through their career, the band moved en masse to Nashville.

A deal with SBK Records came their way, the MTV video was shot, the gigs went nationwide, and — as happens so often in this town — it all looked like things were going to come together and sprout fame and glory. But it didn’t happen.

What did happen, however, was that the band garnered a devoted following throughout the South. Will supplemented his Bushmen gigs with solo acoustic shows. One night I was playing in Oxford, Miss., with Government Cheese and Will was solo next door. The marquee said: “WEDNESDAY 6-9 P.M. WILL.” Not “Will Kimbrough,” just “Will.”

“I remember being really turned on by Jimi Hendrix,” Will says, “and there was a period where I really woodshedded on Duane Allman and his bottleneck-slide style. If there were anybody I’d have to rate at the very top of my influences, I’d have to say the Mick Taylor/Keith Richards era of the Stones. For me, Mick Taylor was the peak performer of the British Gibson blues and rock sound. And then when I heard Richard Thompson, he was a door opening to dissonance and Indian quarter tones.”

I met Will right as the Bushmen were folding up shop in 1992, and we formed a band together called the bis-quits, with Michael “Grimey” Grimes on bass and the aforementioned Tommy Meyer on drums. Our two years together were some of the best times of my life. We made one eponymous record for John Prine’s Oh Boy! label, and it’s a guitar feast.

In September of ’94, the bis-quits called it quits and Will took a job that would define him for years to come and expose him to a nationwide audience: taking Doug Lancio’s place in Todd Snider’s band. And that’s when he kicked off a noteworthy stretch of road work for a who’swho of national acts: Todd, Rodney Crowell, Emmylou Harris, Jimmy Buffett, Josh Rouse, Kim Richey, Marshall Chapman, Adrienne Young, Lisa Oliver Gray, Brigitte DeMeyer and on and on.

Will’s rising star got another bump in 2004 when he won “Instrumentalist of the Year” at the Americana Music Awards, knocking aside serious competition from the likes of Sam Bush and Buddy Miller.

Since his solo debut disc, 2000’s This, Will has released a half-dozen well-received records, as well as a couple with a band he has with me called Daddy. He also has a fairly recent

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Jay Joyce

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By Eric England

Jay Joyce Daryl Sanders

O

ver the past four years, no producer in Music City has been hotter than Jay Joyce. He has twice topped the Billboard 200 with albums he produced for Eric Church (Chief, The Outsiders), and reached No. 2 twice with a record for Cage the Elephant (Thank You Happy Birthday) and one for Little Big Town (Tornado). In addition, he helmed about half of Gary Allan’s Set You Free, which also hit No 1. Four other albums he produced during that time reached the chart’s upper echelon: It Goes Like This for Thomas Rhett hit No. 6, Trouble for the Randy Rogers Band went to No. 9, Melophobia for Cage the Elephant reached No. 15, and Hard Bargain for Emmylou Harris made it to No. 18. That’s a lot of gold and platinum.

But before Joyce became an in-demand, chart-topping producer, he was a go-to session guitarist, Nashville’s number one rock guy. He recorded with an array of artists, including Iggy Pop, The Wallflowers, Macy Gray, Crowded House, Nanci Griffith, Shawn Mullins, Radney Foster and Gillian Welch. Even now, when he is best-known as a producer, he still gets calls to add his six-string savvy to other people’s productions.

“It all starts with guitar still,” he says early one morning at St. Charles, his spacious East Nashville studio which is housed in a beautiful, former church building. “I’ve got to sit down and play that thing — or I just forget everything and start going around in circles. Any of my ideas, any of the production, the sounds, it all starts there.”

Although he doesn’t like to make a big deal of it, he often plays guitar on the records he produces, as well as other instruments. “I play guitar all the time,” he says. “I’m all over the place on records.”

Growing up, Joyce remembers his family having an old acoustic guitar. “It seems like we always had a four-string, five-string beater guitar sitting around the house, so I always knew how to hold it and pretend like I was playing it,” he says.

But the Ohio native didn’t get serious about playing the instrument until his teens.

He remembers the defining moment when he knew he wanted to be a guitarist. “I grew up in Cleveland in a black neighborhood, and I heard some noise coming from the school

across the street from where I lived,” he says. “I snuck in, went down the hall and looked into this room, and there were these three black dudes with Afros playing [Sly & The Family Stone’s] ‘Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey,’ over and over and over — and I had never heard that song [before] then. They just played that riff over and over, and it was the most amazing thing I had ever heard or seen in my life. I was like, ‘That’s what I want to do right there.’ That was it for me, man. I was in.”

Joyce got his first real axe, a Japanese Stratocaster copy, not long thereafter. “It was bone white like Hendrix’s,” he says. “I was off to the races then.”

He recruited his younger brother Tommy to help him practice. “I wanted to play fast. I didn’t even learn chords — I was just off jamming. I taught my brother to play like three

“”

things I do, probably I could have been taught an easier way to do it. But because I started mentally in that way, I think it gave me a little bit of a style.”

When it comes to his axes, Joyce says, “I traded and switched around a lot of guitars I wish I had hung onto. I don’t really like Strats or Les Pauls now. My main guitar which I have really used all these years is a Fender Tele Deluxe. The head is a Strat headstock, so it’s kind of an odd one.

“You know, I’m an addict, man, with guitars and amps,” he says. “I’ve just got so many it’s ridiculous. I have to be able to reach over and have a lot of options at my fingertips soundwise — because of the variety of what I do. I do everything from straight-up punk to about as country or folk as you can get.”

In his early 20s, Joyce was living in Cincinnati for a while, playing with a blind bluesman.

As the holidays approached, he visited Nashville to catch a ride back to Cleveland for Christmas with his brother Mike, a professional bassist in the city.

“He was doing session stuff, so I went to a session with him and I was just blown away that that was how it was done,” he says of the demo session he attended. “Some guy played the songs, they all wrote charts out and they recorded the songs. Before that it was a mystery. The veil was lifted, and I was like, ‘All right, I know how it’s done now.’ I just wanted to get back down here and start doing that, you know.”

Back in Cleveland, he ran into an acquaintance, Emma Grandillo, who asked him to do a gig with her. That led to them forming the punk/new wave trio In Pursuit. They soon moved to Music City, and within a year of their arrival, the band had landed a recording contract with MTM Records, a subsidiary of Mary Tyler Moore’s MTM Enterprises which had major-label distribution through Capitol Records.

“Yeah, we came down and right away started playing Cantrell’s a bunch,” he recalls. “Then we heard about this label in town and they came to see us, and boom. It was pretty quick.”

In Pursuit was one of the more successful bands to come out of the Nashville rock scene in the mid to late ’80s. They released an EP (When Darkness Falls) and an album J

It all starts with the guitar ... chords over and over and over, so I could just solo. I would kick his ass if he stopped — his fingers would be bleeding and shit,” Joyce recalls with a laugh. “He totally knows how to play guitar because of that,” he adds, then laughs again.

It wasn’t long before Joyce was playing with other people. “I got kicking around with some kids, just kind of playing in the basement, learning stuff, just jamming around,” he recalls.

“As I got into it, I started to realize the important thing is the groove, and the rhythm.”

Although he does mention a few guitarists like Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young and Carlos Santana, he says as far as his influences go, “I never had one guy — it was all over the place for me.”

Joyce never had any formal training on guitar, not even lessons at the local music store.

“I’m self-taught. I never studied or anything,” he says. “I know quite a bit about music theory now, just from playing and working in studios, but I still don’t know the number system when they do it here. I just learn the song. It’s only three-or-four chords anyway.

“I think I learned it probably the wrong way, but made it right,” he continues. “I probably went the hard way, you know. Some of the

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(Standing In Your Shadow), had music videos in rotation on MTV and appeared on the network’s New Music Awards Show, toured with A-ha, and opened for R.E.M., Starship, Nick Lowe and Mr. Mister. But when MTM Records was bought and absorbed by Capitol, the members of the band went their separate ways.

“There was no breakup or anything,” he says.

“The label folded and we just got busy with other things.”

In the early ’90s, he made demo recordings of some new material with two former members of The Questionnaires, guitarist Doug Lancio and bassist Chris Feinstein. “We did a few gigs as an unnamed band, I think it might have even been my name,” he says. “MCA just happened to be in town, and saw [a show], and heard the demos. Again, we ended up signing it pretty quickly.”

The band, which ended up being called Bedlam, released an eponymous EP and an album, Into the Coals, on MCA. “That one we didn’t have as much luck,” he says of the fulllength. “The entire promotion staff was fired the day it came out. Typical scenario where it wasn’t very long-lived, you know. It never really had a chance.”

Although Bedlam didn’t sell a lot of records, Joyce’s work with the band earned him a lifelong fan in director Quentin Tarantino.

Tarantino used two tracks by the group — an original by Joyce and a cover of the Steppenwolf classic, “Magic Carpet Ride” — in his debut film, Reservoir Dogs, considered by some critics to be the best independent film of all time.

“Somebody called and said he wanted to use this song — an original acoustic thing of mine called ‘Harvest Moon,’” Joyce recalls. “He was nobody then, he was just some crazy dude from Knoxville.

“I started getting into sessions around the time of Bedlam,” he says. “I started working with a lot of other people and getting into studios.”

Joyce and Feinstein put together another band with drummer Brad Pemberton called Iodine, and released two albums, Maximum Joy and Baby Grand, on independent labels in the mid to late ’90s. The group toured the Eastern half of the U.S. in support of the records, but with the release in 1998 of Patty Griffin’s Flaming Red, which Joyce helmed, his career as a producer began to take off.

Over the next decade, he worked with a number of critically acclaimed artists, including John Hiatt, The Derek Trucks Band, Tim Finn, Shelby Lynne, Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise, Jack Ingram and John Cowan, lending his guitar to the music whenever it was appropriate.

He began working with Eric Church in 2006 and the success of their collaboration put him on the radar of other country artists who “want to do something different.” And

that something different which Joyce brings to a record almost always starts with his guitar work — the riffs and the soundscapes which are his signature.

“Honestly, Nashville has some of the worst guitar players ever because they’re all trying to be the best guitar player, you know what I mean?” he says. “There is something about rock ’n’ roll — it’s just not the guy who learned, it’s not the guy who went to school, it’s not the guy who studied and knows all the right notes

to play. It’s the guy who just grabs it and plays how he feels.

“But it’s all schooled now, man,” he continues. “Fucking rock ’n’ roll is a curriculum now.

Kids in school have rock ’n’ roll class — and they don’t see the danger in that.

“I’ve spent years in basically getting back to the point of not knowing anything. I’m better off just not trying to make everything so fucking difficult. The simpler, and the more basic, and just straight from the heart the better.”

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Jack Silverman

At home

By Eric England

40

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM Sept | Oct 2014

Jack Silverman James “Hags” Haggerty

T

he Dead Set, Jim Hoke, Christy Rose and Fats Kaplan, Jason White, Byron House, The Jack Silverman Ordeal. These are some of the bands and musicians that Jack Silverman has played his jazz/rock blend of guitar with around town since moving to Nashville 15 years ago.

I’ve had the pleasure of playing bass with Jack and drummer Adam Abrashoff for the past few months at The Ordeal’s Monday night Family Wash residency. The sets feature Jack’s instrumental compositions, a whole lot of improvisation, and a bit of Monk and The Dead thrown in for flavor. Really what I’ve been doing is trying to keep up with Jack’s free-flowing, never-ending wellspring of creative, improvised ideas.

We recently sat down pre-gig over a plate of gorgonzola potato chips to have a chat about Jack’s love of music and of course, the guitar.

I wondered how he found the guitar or how the guitar found him.

The moment came over the sound of beer-soaked quarters bouncing into glass. Nineteen-year-old Brown University sophomore Silverman heard someone wailing along to a Santana record at a party.

“I just remember hearing that and knowing right away, I want to do that.”

A 1979 Fender Stratocaster and a lot of dorm room jamming followed. “I was too loud and not very good,” he says. “I wore out the needle on my turntable learning Duane Allman’s solo on ‘Hotlanta.’ At one point one of my neighbors asked, ‘Is he killing a cat in there?’”

By the time he finished college, Jack could play along with the solos of his heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, and Jerry Garcia.

Solos. But what about chords?! Where’s all that jazz coming from?

“I figured I better start learning some of this chord stuff or I’d never get a gig,” he laughs.

Sticking around Providence for a few years after graduation, he did just that. Touring and gigging in town with a blues rock outfit called

The Magneetos, he found the right teacher in Paul Murphy: a true rhythm guitar player who filled in occasionally in Albert King’s band and as full-time rhythm guitarist in Duke Robillard’s band for many years.

“He told me the most important thing musically that I’ve ever heard and I still think about it and go back to it. He said, ‘There are two components to playing any note: the rhythm and melody. The rhythm is more important than the melody.’ He told me, ‘You can play the right note in the wrong time and it will never sound good and you could play a wrong note in the right time and it will sound much better.’ That got me thinking about what

“

horizontally and not vertically. To be able to play the whole scale on one string, to be fluid and not locked in to any one position.”

Practicing four hours a day and working in restaurants, living the downtown life in the village, Jack’s playing was developing. The effortless improviser that I know was taking shape in the belly of the Big Apple, in dive bars and Alphabet City flotsam. He worked as a waiter by day and played late-night gigs for little money in bands with names like Lord Demos And The Gangster Rock Nation. “Bohemians, NYU students, drug dealers, hookers — all in an after-hours bar called Billy’s 746 club grooving to The Gangsters. The best-worst gig I ever had,” he says.

In 2014 Jack Silverman is a seasoned Nashville veteran and an endless experimenter whose playing blends jazz and rock into an amalgam of both. He will kick on an overdrive pedal and rip a solo on a Les Paul or play a country waltz on a hollow body.

Adam and I will be holding down a groove and Jack will be playing in a mode I’ve never heard, improvising freely, using his pedal board as an instrument, and looping guitars in harmony with the band.

“I love to improvise, that’s what got me into playing to begin with, the excitement and the magic and the telepathy that goes on when you’re playing with other people. You’re on the tightrope, in the moment.

I’m more about an inspired moment than perfection.

“I have a weakness for certain old guitars.

You pick them up and they have a vibe. You wonder about the people who have played them and where they are now. You can almost feel the history in them. I love the way the strings resonate when you hit them. I love everything about the guitar,” he says.

I asked him why the he and the guitar have stayed together all these years.

“Nothing makes me as happy, the world feels right when I’m playing guitar. I do it because I have to.”

I can dig it, Jack.

I have a weakness for certain old guitars. You pick them up and they have a vibe. You wonder about the people who have played them and where they are now. You can almost feel the history in them.

”

my right hand was doing and not just my left,” Silverman says.

Moving to New York City and living in the Village on St. Marks Place, Jack started listening to more jazz. Stuff like Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. He would go see Mike Stern at the 55 bar. And began studying jazz guitar in the late ’80s with Stern’s wife, Leni, and later with Emily Remler.

“Emily Remler was one of the greatest jazz guitar players that ever lived, and she taught me so many technical things about jazz and its chord structures — how to really play over those changes. That really stretched my mind but, to put it simply, she was all about the passion — she lived for the guitar,” Silverman remembers.

“Leni Stern taught me to think of the neck

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Audley Freed At Home

By Stacie Huckeba

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Audley Freed

A

Randy Fox

udley Freed doesn’t have an easy answer or a pithy quote when asked to sum up the philosophy behind his art. He tries to answer the question, starting down several pathways of thought, before abandoning them only to set off on another road. It’s a hard question for anyone, but especially for an artist whose chosen means of expression is through a guitar rather than words.

He pauses, then speaks with dead certainty.

“I’ll tell you what I have thought about a lot.

It’s sitting in my bedroom, at my parent’s house when I was growing up, listening to records and practicing the guitar, moving that needle back.

After all this time, how did this happen? It’s kind of crazy. It makes me really, really thankful, that it’s still going.”

Freed’s career has followed a path from the bedroom of his parents’ house — where he was aping the guitar leads of songs like Led Zeppelin’s “Celebration Day” or Aerosmith‘s “Toys in the Attic” — to sharing a stage with the men that created that music. That might sound like a tale of pure rock ’n’ roll magic, but the rock-star flash was more born of talent, hard work, miles on the road, persistence, and ... OK, maybe a little magic.

Freed spent his early years living the transient life of an Army kid, but by the time he was entering his teens, his father had retired and the family settled in Burgaw, N.C., a town of fewer than 2,000 people in the southeastern corner of the state. The guitarist’s memories of growing up in a small Southern town in the 1970s are pretty idyllic; he never felt the drive to revolt against the world he was in or the need to escape his surroundings. But there was a connection to a bigger world that Freed couldn’t ignore.

“I grew up listening to the radio during what was a golden age of rock music, soul, and pop,” he says. “Once I discovered that music was something that spoke to me, radio was my window into a different world, even though I loved the world I grew up in. That music coming through the airwaves was a kind of magic. I can look back now and recognize that it meant more to me than just a way out or something one could do for a living. I wanted to find out what playing that music and being in a rock ’n’ roll band was all about.”

It’s hard to comprehend now — after decades of reissues, deluxe CD box sets, and practically

the entire history of recorded music being available through the click of a mouse — but access to music for most teenagers in the rural South of the 1970s was pretty much limited to what could be heard on the radio or found in the record department of the local K-Mart.

“I didn’t know anybody that had any blues records,” Freed says. “There was a Marine base in Jacksonville, about 30 miles away. They had a rock station, and there was also an FM station in Wilmington that played a lot of ’70s soul and R&B. Those two stations were what I heard the most.”

There was another influence, but one that no self-respecting teenage Zeppelin or Skynyrd fan would admit to at the time. “My dad had a lot of George Jones, Johnny Horton and those Dave Dudley truck driving records,” Freed says, “which I liked as a child, but as I got older I kind of ran away from that. At that time it was

“

By the time Freed had finished high school, the guitar had become his main passion. But as he prepared for college, the idea of pursuing a career in music never crossed his mind. “I won’t say there were few options to play music for a living in Burgaw. There were zero options. It wasn’t an oppressive environment. It was just something that nobody did. The idea of playing music for a living wasn’t a real thing. I didn’t even think it was possible.”

Freed spent four years attending the University of North Carolina Wilmington, obtaining a history degree, but also spending a large portion of his time playing in rock bands. It was a gradual process of learning what he didn’t want to do with his life, until the previously unimaginable was the only option left.

“When I got out of college, I got a gig with a cover band for about three years,” Freed says.

“We traveled around to frat parties and had week-long engagements in various bars. It was a good education — three sets a night, three to four hours a night, six nights a week.

Your calluses are always strong. I quit that in the late ’80s, got off the road, got a job in a music store in Raleigh, taught guitar lessons, and played for weddings on the weekend. But at the same time, we put the band Cry of Love together.”

Formed in 1989, Cry of Love was a breath of fresh and familiar air to hard rock fans in the early ’90s. Their debut album, 1993’s Brother, combined a hard-workin’ Southern-rock ethos with a back-to-basics ’70s classic-rock sound. It was no-gimmicks rock ’n’ roll and fans ate it up, as the band scored a No. 1 hit on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart with the song “Peace Pipe.”

Although Cry of Love’s second album, 1997’s Diamonds & Debris, fell short of the success achieved by their debut, Freed’s reputation as an inventive and first-class guitarist was now well established. That became evident when he got a call the next year from the Black Crowes.

“A couple of friends recommended me to them,” Freed says. “I knew [lead singer] Chris Robinson, and my band had just run its course.

I felt like I understood where they were coming from and that I could give them an honest day’s work. Their music was something that I could relate to as a listener, but because of the way I played guitar I could also contribute something.”

Joining the band in March 1998, Freed J

Once I discovered that music was something that spoke to me, radio was my window into a different world, even though I loved the world I grew up in.

That music coming through the airwaves was a kind of magic.

”

not cool to be into it, even though there were a lot of rock bands that were drawing from that same music. But they had long hair and bell-bottomed pants, so they were cool. If you were my age, you tried to distance yourself from your parents’ music, but somewhere inside me that music resonated.”

It didn’t take very long for Freed to make the connection between the magic sounds he was hearing on the radio and the tools required to make those sounds. “My parents signed me up for guitar lessons in Wilmington, which was about 25 miles away,” he says. “I took lessons for a couple of years and then taught myself off records. There was one guy in the next county named Ernie Johnson. He was probably around 21 at the time, but he took a lot of time to show me some stuff and turn me on to some good music. He was very inspirational at a formative time for me.”

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played with the Black Crowes for the next 3 1/2 years, appearing on the studio album Lions (2001), as well as the concert album Live at the Greek (2000), a set that saw Freed sharing the stage with a living legend of rock music, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page.

“We got the chance to back him for a charity event in London,” Freed says. “I wound myself up so much for it, after the first rehearsal I totally spun out. It was almost like an anxiety attack.

It’s certainly not an understatement to say it was a big deal to me. I had the Circus magazine poster from the 1977 tour on my bedroom wall as a teenager. Icon doesn’t do him justice. It was like he was a superhero, and he created all this great music. For me, he’s right at the top.”

Other than Freed’s initial anxiety over meeting his hero, the concert was a huge success, and Page soon offered to join the band for a U.S. tour of three cities: New York, Boston and L.A. “The very first night of the very first show at the Roseland in New York was something else,” Freed says. “You have to remember that most people hadn’t seen him play live for many years, so the electricity in the room was something that you don’t experience that often. And to be on the stage experiencing it — I’ll never forget that first downbeat on ‘Celebration Day.’ It took my breath away.”

At the end of 2001, the Black Crowes took an extended break from performing, with the individual members going their separate ways.

Although Freed may have temporarily been out of work, factors were converging to open a new chapter in his career.

“After the Crowes split up,” Freed says, “I didn’t know what I was going to do. It’s kind of been my life plan just to stumble through. In 2002, I got a call from Ken Coomer. He was working on a record, and I came to Nashville to work on that and stayed with him for two weeks at his old house on McGavock.

“I’d barely been in Nashville. I’d maybe played two shows here in all my travels. The next four or five months, I kept coming to Nashville to do different things. I had never considered moving here, but it was like connecting the dots, and they started connecting quickly and were very close together. My wife and I had been looking to relocate [from Raleigh, N.C.]. We had looked around in L.A. and Austin. L.A. was super expensive and Austin didn’t feel right as a place to live even though I love that town. There was just something about Nashville. I was running on instinct, but it made total sense.”

Relocating to Nashville in 2003, Freed and his wife first settled on Stratford Avenue, before buying their current Inglewood home. “Just to have this great community here is a blessing,” Freed says. “Being able to call up my buddy Jamie Rubin at the Family Wash and ask if I can have a Wednesday night to do whatever. Or for him to call me and say, ‘Let’s do a night of Neil Young songs.’ That’s really awesome, because it’s a community. It’s a gift to be able to go down 44

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM Sept | Oct 2014

the street and play music with your friends.

That’s one of greatest things about living here.”

In addition to his casual music endeavors, the last decade has been an incredibly busy time for Freed’s professional pursuits. That rich soil of musical influences from his childhood — rock, soul and country — gave him a versatility that has led to working with artists across the musical spectrum. He’s worked on projects, co-wrote songs or recorded with Gov’t Mule, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Job Cain, New Earth Mud, Aerosmith lead guitarist Joe Perry, the Wreckers, the Dixie Chicks, Lynyrd Skynyrd and more. He’s also played with or toured in support of the Dixie Chicks, Peter Frampton, Paul Stanley, Gregg Allman, Jakob Dylan and many others. Since 2012, Freed’s steadiest gig has been touring with Sheryl Crow. He’s also taken some time out for a side project band, Big Hat, which features the all-star line-up of Freed, Keith Gattis, Peter Stroud, Robert Kearns, Fred Eltringham and Ike Stubblefield. When asked about the well of talent he’s worked with over the years, Freed’s Southern-boy modesty takes center stage.

“I don’t want it to sound like I’m just dropping names,” he says. “They’re all great musicians, and you get to learn a lot when you’re around really good musicians. When I toured with Jakob Dylan, his record was all acoustic, and we played with a pretty mellow style. It was really different from playing with a loud rock band, and I had to find my place in a trio. I’m learning something all the time.”

That same modesty is apparent when Freed is asked about his plans for the future. “I think it’s just human nature to feel like, ‘Well, that was fun but that’s the end of that,’” Freed says. “I’m always expecting it to ramp down, but one of the biggest blessings is that I’m still getting calls to work on really exciting projects. The past few years I’ve been really busy, and I’ve had a lot of opportunities to do amazing things.”

Freed’s enduring sense of wonder at the life he’s lived through music makes sense, as you trace it back through the years to a small town boy’s bedroom in North Carolina, where he was wearing down the grooves of Led Zeppelin records, attempting to unlock the magical secrets of Jimmy Page’s guitar solos.

“I never heard about a ‘five year plan’ until I was in my 30s,” Freed says. “People talk about five year plans or 10 year plans, but I just kind of stumbled through this somehow, and it’s all worked out OK up to this point. I wish I could explain it, but I guess I don’t feel so alone when other people say they’ve done the same thing.

“That’s not to say there’s any substitute for dedication and hard work though. There are a lot of guys that have a lot more natural ability than I have and are more obsessed with it than I am. I’ve had to work really hard for some things that come easy for others, but that’s OK. You just can’t let the hard work get in the way of it being fun.”

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Jim Oblon fooBAR

By Chuck Allen

46

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM Sept | Oct 2014

Jim Oblon Timothy C. Davis

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ver heard of a “relic’d” guitar? It’s a guitar that has been taken to with a belt sander, maybe a lit cigarette and some gravel, in an attempt to make said guitar look “lived-in.” More often than not, it’s a guitar that has been professionally finished originally to last for decades — see early ’50s Fender Telecasters that look like they were made yesterday — which is then un-finished by the relic’er, to make it look like whoever owns the thing has played more shows than he’s lived days in his life.

For around 3,000 clams, you can have the nicest used-looking, used-car-price guitar on the block.

Jim Oblon, a monster guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, comes by his (and, one supposes, his guitar’s) wear and tear naturally: by living. Backing folks like Paul Simon (with whom he plays guitar and drums, and sings) gets Oblon a lot of the press attention when he’s playing outside of Music City. But folks who only know Oblon’s sideman work need to hear Sunset, an album he recorded with a power trio that includes organist extraordinaire Larry Goldings (Maceo Parker, Jack DeJohnette, Pat Metheny, John Scofield) and legendary drummer Jim Keltner. (Oblon describes Keltner this way: “Basically, everything he’s on is cool. That’s all you need to know.”)

Oblon’s playing mixes equal parts lithe power and an impressionist’s sense of tone and placement. His playing isn’t flashy, but it is accomplished, and his technical prowess never seems to get in the way of the song. Those skills are the result of an early and complete immersion in music and musical instruments.

“My first guitar was actually a bass which my uncle had given to me,” Oblon says. “It was a 1972 Fender Precision Bass. ... I learned a lot of basslines off of records in those days. The weird thing is, that was the first instrument which was mine, but there was always a guitar around. There were organs, a Hammond B3, Moog synthesizers. My parents were music education majors. There was my grandfather’s banjo, and I had one uncle who played concertina, and another played accordion. There was never just one instrument – it was just a plethora of all kinds of shit.”

Children pick up foreign languages faster than adults; it’s said the same is true about learning instruments.

“If you’re a child, I think you naturally make connections,” Oblon says. “I remember, and

this is with language, but having some ‘ethnic’ albums around the house and listening to them and learning what they were singing and just singing along with it in whatever dialect that it was. As an adult, maybe you start to split everything up. Perhaps we overcomplicate it.

The bass, piano, guitar and drums, they’re all considered rhythm instruments. They’re all kind of all the same instrument, as far as I’m concerned. It’s all a membrane, and then you have to strike it, and then the membrane vibrates and it makes a sound. Unlike say a wind instrument, where you have to blow air from your own body into. And that’s a completely different way to make a sound.”

In the same way that Keltner’s long and impressive resume made their collaboration appealing, Oblon says his coming to Nashville was itself due to liking the way Vance Powell — who’s worked with the likes of Jack White and Kings of Leon — mixes records (the vast majority of which Oblon says he owns).

“Vance Powell had mixed all the records I liked, so I sublet a place there [in Nashville] and mixed the record with him. Then, after few weeks, you start to feel out a place. It just dawns on you at some point, you know? ‘I’m going to stay here for a bit and settle down and see what’s up.’”

In the same way that Nashville just felt like the thing to do, Oblon says that his regular fooBAR residency gig (which has since morphed into an 8 p.m. slot at Music City Tippler beginning Sept. 3) came about instinctively.

“It just felt right,” he says. “One of the hardest things to do playing on radio is that you have 20 minutes to play something, and by the time you get used to the sound … it’s over. One of the cool things about playing a place every week is getting to know the sound and the PA and all that coming in. I was just in fooBAR having a drink and thought, ‘You know, this would be a cool place to play.’

“I liked the whole vibe. It’s just cool to have a chance to play in front of other people, but not with the pressure of a showcase or oneoff. You’re not pressured as to whether people are going to show up,” he says, laughing. “This being an industry town, there’s a lot of showcasing that goes on out there. You’re supposed to let it all hang out from the beginning, but sometimes the best stuff doesn’t pop out until halfway or three-quarters of the way through the set. It’s a lot of improv going on when we do these residencies. I love it. It’s using these continued on 103

old tunes as a vehicle to get somewhere else.”

Although industry-town technical ability and loose, live improv — what Annie Clark of St. Vincent calls the “athletic school of guitar playing” versus the more opaque, instinctive things called “soul” and “feel” — can seem mutually exclusive, Oblon sees some ambiguity.

“Not to get too artsy-fartsy, but I think you have your artists and your craftspeople, and there’s all sorts of people in between,” he says.

“And there’s someone like Jimmy Page, who I always really dug, because he was kind of the best of both worlds. He was a craftsperson, a studio guy, and a session guy, and a live guy.

And sessions back then were different than they are now. Back then, you didn’t have many electric guitarists to choose from. Like three.

You had the country guy, the jazz guitar player, and the rock guitar player … and they all pretty much played the same guitar. [It’s the] same with drums and bass. Now there’s a whole rig that goes along with it. If you’re a metal guitarist, there’s a whole rig that goes along with it. If you’re a jazz guy, there’s a whole rig that goes along with it.

“There are all these categories now, and it’s not always easy to see where a guy like me fits in. But I think it’s important to stay true to who you are. Which is not to say don’t constantly try new things. But, if you become too much of a chameleon, you can lose yourself a little bit. The sessions I do get called for, at least in Nashville, they want my thing. Whatever it may be.”

Oblon keeps that thing, at least in the gear sense, pretty simple, since he figures sometimes things that might seem in the beginning as gateways can turn into obstacles.

“I don’t really use a distortion pedal, for instance,” he says. “My thing is maybe more from the D.C.-area Roy Buchanan/Danny Gatton school of things. Roy Buchanan typically just plugged into a [Fender] Vibrolux with his Tele. I like a very simple path straight into the amp. Then it’s all up to your fingers and what you do with them as opposed to relying upon other sounds. I don’t mean this in a negative way at all. It’s just an assessment. It’s just that if I think about it, all of my favorite records weren’t made with overdrive pedals or distortion pedals. And I think all that sort of stuff is a byproduct of a ‘boom – I need a jazz sound,’ easy-fix [sort of mentality].

“We’re never guaranteed another day,” Oblon says. “For me, it’s just, ‘How do I want

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John Mark Painter I.H.O.F.

By Eric England

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John Mark Painter Timothy C. Davis

J

ohn Mark Painter lives in a tasteful bungalow near the Five Points community in East Nashville. He’s near multiple coffee shops, an artisan butcher, watering holes both dainty and dive-y, and various and sundry Hair Worlds. It’s a lovely house, somehow cozy yet roomy, and with a fine, tree-canopied front yard that is tastefully landscaped. When your reporter remarks about the Pleasantville feel of the street (and its attendant, ever-rising mortgages), how quiet and quaint it all seems, Painter smiles and retells a story about how, way more recently than you would think, the street’s operative artisanal products were measured in rocks, keys, and quarter bags. How he knows what a S.W.A.T. squad looks like. He then says it’s home, it was then and it is now, and it is indeed that: homey and sun-dappled and warm.

Warm, and smelling of coffee. Painter is something of a coffee connoisseur, and has French presses, and great small-batch coffees, and more than a couple of other coffee-making implements. He has high-end coffee filters that take a while to filter water, but produce a hell of a cup of coffee. He’s recently begun roasting his own beans. It is something he does with things that interest him: He follows them to the source.

Painter lives here with his wife, Fleming McWilliams. McWilliams, you may know, is the “Fleming” to Painter’s “John” in the popular band Fleming & John. Formerly signed to Universal Records, they released two fulllength platters, 1995’s Delusions of Grandeur and 1999’s The Way We Are. If you’ve ever heard the song “I’m Not Afraid,” the name there on the page will have it in your head for the rest of the day.

On this day, Fleming is in the kitchen with a friend, discussing lawn-cutting arrangements.

She’s a smiling, affable presence, the kind of person who instantly makes you feel comfortable. “At home,” if you will.

Our coffee suitably percolated, we headed outside, to Painter’s office.

Painter’s studio, which is in a separate building in his back yard, is a two-story structure he helped build. It’s a handsome brick thing, with the requisite ivy overleaf and tasteful wear pattern. Inside, well, it looks like a recording studio. There are instruments galore. There’s a vintage Fender Precision Bass. There’s a doubleneck Epiphone guitar, which from a short distance is a dead ringer for the famous “Jimmy

Page” Gibson model of same. There’s an Indianmade stringed instrument or two (Painter says he’s been itching to buy a sitar). There are keyboards, and a Rickenbacker lap steel. There is a computer and recording software and tasteful wall hangings and a steel thermos of yet more coffee. There’s Painter’s favorite guitar, a leather-clad Les Paul (think Waylon Jennings’ famous Telecaster as seen at the beginning of The Dukes of Hazzard, but with the cowhide leaving the Les Paul’s beautiful sunburst finish visible) that he bought at a pawn shop “in the days when you could still find a bargain in a pawn shop.” He forgets what he traded in on it — some brightly-colored, flashy something or another of the sort popular in the late ’80s and early ’90s — but he remembers that the owners of said establishment snickered when he broached the subject of a trade. Not snickering at what he was trading in, mind you, but what he was trading for. (It’s instructive to remember here that the vintage guitar market 20-some years ago was nothing like it is today, even for Les Pauls.) To further stick it to pawn shops, Painter offers your reporter the pricing code for a popular pawn shop chain that will remain unnamed here (okay, so there’s CASH in there somewhere, which should narrow it down exactly none), but notes cheerfully that there’s not nearly as much choice gear to be found in this day and age of the Google search.

Here in the studio is home within home, where Painter works his magic. A musical polymath who plays all the instruments above and more (the would-be sitar he’s not so sure about, but gives himself a puncher’s chance), he’s the kind of guy you learn is a musician, and, when you ask him what he plays, he doesn’t always know what to answer. He’s first and foremost a guitarist, probably, but more succinctly a musician, in the broader sense of the word. He plays instruments that play music.

Painter often says that he loves his job, whether in print, or to a reporter, or in his frequent blog posts. One of the things he loves most is that he gets to take this love of music and apply it to an equally broad array of projects. You know about Fleming & John (or do now), but while attending Belmont and collaborating with his fellow Bruin, he also began his Nashville rite of passage, session work with the likes of Nancy Griffith and Jewel. He’s since performed with the likes of Ben Folds, Sixpence None The Richer, Owsley, Sevendust (!), Fear of Pop (including that band’s notable continued on 102

first/last live performance on the January 22, 1999 edition of Late Night with Conan O’Brien, with none other than William Shatner on lead vocals). He records folks in this studio, nicknamed I.H.O.F., or International House of Fleming, and often works on movie scores, a particular love, but at the moment he’s working on arranging: specifically, arranging a grouping of string players, mostly from Nashville, to go up to Chicago to play some string parts he’s written, for Kings of Leon, at Lollapalooza.

Kings of Leon have had strings on records before (Painter was the one who arranged them), but had never met the string players Painter plucked, much less tried using such a troupe in a live setting. It seemed to go off with nary a hitch: a recent Rolling Stone listicle called the encore one of the highlights of the festival.

What allows him such a diverse workload, says Painter, is knowing the language behind music, whatever form it may take on that particular day.

Painter says that he learned music theory at a very young age. When he got it down enough for it to become second nature for him, all the theory fell away, leaving him free to hear a piece of music — either someone else’s, or his own, maybe a melody stuck in his head — and transcribe it, preserving it for posterity.

That theory, learned all those years ago, has stuck with him. On the day we spoke to Painter, he was going over some string arrangements he’d written for the aforementioned Kings of Leon show, shuffling a stack of handwritten charts that looked written in something like the famed “Nashville Number System” — a sort of simplified, on-the-fly musical notation shorthand. He’s then able to email these charts to his players to familiarize themselves with, while he busies himself with the technical aspects and logistics of the gig.

Much of Painter’s work these days is telecommuting. He’ll get a call about a gig, like he did with the Kings, and get to work. Even playing on other people’s records these days doesn’t require travel, more often than not.

A file can be sent, parts added, and then sent back, with little — if any — discernible difference in sound quality, and, thanks to modern recording software, patched in seamlessly. It might raise the hackles of some old-timers, but, if a record’s being recorded piecemeal, part by part at a studio and not recorded full band, live to tape, is there anything really lost? Do one’s ears cease to work just because they’re not

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Tim Carroll

Logue’s Black Raven Emporium

By Chuck Allen

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Tim Carroll Daryl Sanders

O

f all the notable guitar slingers in Guitar Town, Tim Carroll is a rarity: He got his professional start as a punk rocker.

While still in his teens, Carroll was asked to join the pioneering Indiana punk-rock outfit The Gizmos, whose sonic assault got them banned from almost every venue at which they appeared. After loudly wearing out their welcome in the Hoosier State, the band moved from Bloomington to the Big Apple in 1980 and became part of that city’s thriving punk scene. The Gizmos gigged regularly in New York City over the next year, including three memorable appearances at the legendary punk club CBGB, but with no record deal in the offing, the band broke up near the end of 1981. Carroll took a short break from music, then moved in a different direction, ultimately pursuing his own brand of heartland rock. But to this day, the spit and fire of punk rock inform his sound and his playing. “It’s part of this energy I’m able to get across,” he says.

“There are very few [guitarists] around that when I watch them play I think, ‘This person has a great deal of punk rock influence in what they’re doing,’” Carroll adds.

If you happen to stop by The 5 Spot on any Friday evening during happy hour, you can hear punk’s influence on Carroll’s guitar work, as he and his band perform 2 1/2 hours of nonstop rock ’n’ roll. He plays with a nasty swagger; his raw, biting tone and controlled feedback echo his punk beginnings.

Carroll remembers when he first fell in love with guitar. He was about 7, and had never been around a real guitar before.

“My dad came home from work one day and he had an acoustic guitar with him,” he recalls. “When I walked in the house, I saw this guitar and sort of raked my fingers across it, and I just thought it was magic. Since that moment, I’ve been hooked on guitar.”

His first electric was a Teisco, which he played in a couple of bands in high school.

Over the years, he has used a variety of axes, mostly Stratocasters and Les Pauls. His current favorite is a Les Paul. When he first arrived in Nashville, Carroll was playing a Telecaster, which he still owns.

When asked about his early influences, he immediately says The Beatles. “I never knew who was playing what. Now we know even Paul McCartney played some of those leads.

At the time, we probably thought it was all George Harrison, but it was him and John [Lennon], and Paul.”

Carroll also found inspiration in the playing of hard-rock heavyweights like Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, Ace Frehley and Ronnie Montrose, as well as punk six-string aces like Steve Jones and Johnny Ramone, and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s three-guitar attack of Gary Rossington, Allen Collins and Ed King.

“Jimi Hendrix was also [an influence], except he was so over-the-top good and so experimental, it was hard to learn from him,” Carroll says. “But it was inspiring.”

Carroll’s love affair with the guitar has taken him a long way since the day his father brought home that acoustic. After The Gizmos broke up, he was living in Hoboken, N.J., and began playing with a friend at a hole-in-thewall country bar there, just to have a musical outlet. That led him to form the pioneering NYC roots-rock group The Blue Chieftains, Diesel Only recording artists who had a two-year, weekly residency in the early ’90s at the Continental club in the East Village.

It was in The Blue Chieftains that Carroll began to get recognized for his songwriting.

In 1993, he moved to Music City, where he was instantly celebrated for having one of his songs — the whimsically wishful “If I Could” — recorded by songwriter extraordinaire John Prine. Carroll was part of the Lower Broad revival in the mid to late ’90s, regularly performing his roots-rock material upstairs at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge. Like a number of other acts working downtown in those days, he landed a major-label recording contract, signing with Sire Records, a subsidiary of Warner Bros.

Since then, Carroll has released a series of full-length albums of original material on indie labels, and is set to release another — Pure As Coal — early next year on Lamon Records, with the first single, “Don’t Make Nothin’ in the USA,” dropping in September. The new recordings showcase his superb guitar work — he plays both acoustic and electric rhythm guitars, as well as electric lead. Like his well-regarded songwriting, Carroll’s axe work reflects his wide musical travels, which have taken him from Indiana to the Big Apple to Music City, from CBGB to Tootsie’s, from Syd to Merle — just like the heroine in his classic Blue Chieftains single, “Punk Rockin’ Honky Tonk Girl.”

Thursday, July 24

Thursday, July 31

Friday, August 8

Monday, August 18

Wednesday, August 27

with JESSIE

BRIDGES

Saturday, September 6

Monday, September 15

Friday, September 26

Saturday, September 27

Wednesday, October 29

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THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM Sept | Oct 2014

Jonas Stein & Kingsley Brock Daryl Sanders

T

urbo Fruits front man Jonas Stein, aka JoNasty, hammers out a series of vicious, distortion-drenched power chords as he struts across the stage at Riverfront Park. Suddenly, he leaps in the air á la Pete Townshend and lands next to band mate Kingsley Brock, who is in the midst of a blistering solo. Stein and Brock comprise one of the city’s most dynamic guitar tandems, and together, they make a big, joyful noise.

Still only in his mid-20s, budding rock star Stein is already a legendary figure in local rock circles, having been the guitarist for the seminal Nashville garage-punk outfit, Be Your Own Pet. He formed Turbo Fruits as a side project in 2005; after BYOP broke up in 2008, he focused entirely on Turbo Fruits. There have been a few lineup changes over the years, but the current group has been together since June of 2010, when Brock, whom Stein has known since high school, joined the band.

Stein’s current axe of choice is a Gibson SG, a gift from the manufacturer after he agreed to use it in a Be Your Own Pet music video.

It features a custom-painted, American-flag motif by David Johnson, which was inspired by the American-flag Fender Stratocaster played

by Wayne Kramer, guitarist for MC5, a band Stein counts among his influences.

“I was walking through a guitar shop one day in New York and I saw Wayne Kramer’s guitar on the wall,” he says. “I thought maybe I could do something really similar for my own. I was thinking about my SG and I hadn’t seen an American flag on an SG before.”

It’s a durable guitar, which is a good thing because he gives it a real workout over the course of a show. “It’s seen some tough days,” he says and laughs. “I’m not the type of dude to baby my shit. I want to respect it, but I’m going to use it how I want to use it.”

One of his earliest influences was Led Zeppelin. “My brother turned me onto Led Zeppelin when I was 11 or 12 years old — he gave me the record Led Zeppelin II,” Stein recalls. “I would listen to ‘Whole Lotta Love’ on the way to the ice rink to get pumped up. I’d be head banging in the backseat while my parents were driving me to the hockey game.”

In his early teens, he was introduced to punk

rock. “I was really interested in the culture behind it,” he says. “Looking at all those old photos would just make me feel something, like there was something special going on.

“So I was listening to The Clash, and the Buzzcocks, and The Ramones, and the Rezillos, and Television. Television’s Marquee Moon was something I listened to all the time for at least a couple of years.

“I would say the whole punk culture was most responsible for me playing music,” he continues.

“You look at these dudes and you recognize they are not that great on their instruments, but they are singing songs that are cohesive somehow or another, and they have melodies, and hooks. So someone who is not that skilled on guitar, it gives you hope: ‘I might be able to do something like that.’ And then you start going for it. So I definitely have a place in my heart for the ’70s punk scene.”

Inspired by the punk ethos, Stein decided he wanted to go for it. “I kind of jumped the gun, man,” he says. “Before I really knew what the hell I was doing on guitar, I was like, ‘I’m going to start a band.’ So I started a two-piece punk rock band — that’s the kind of music I was into at the time. I was yelling at the top of my lungs and there were lots of power chords. But standing up in front of people and playing whatever little minute-and-a-half punk song I wrote did me good. I wasn’t good at the time, but looking back on it, it was an important move to make — going for it.”

That two-piece punk band was the genesis of BYOP, and in many ways, of Turbo Fruits as well. At this point, Stein is a veteran recording artist, but he is humble about his guitar playing.

“I still don’t feel very good on the guitar,” he says. “Whatever skills I have now have just come over time from doing this. A lot of my practicing — aside from just goofing off in my living room — has been from touring. I’ve gotten better at guitar from playing 200 shows a year, becoming more comfortable with it, more familiar with it.”

Brock echoes that in regards to his own playing. “I didn’t really start focusing on playing guitar until right before Jonas asked me to join the band,” he says. “I was always focused on playing rhythm and singing. My lead playing

— I was only really doing it for maybe about six months to a year when I joined the band. But as soon as I joined is when I really started to actually progress because I was practicing with these guys so much or playing so much live that it really helped speed up that process.

“It was like, ‘OK, here’s the part where you’re going to solo when we’re playing this show, and you’re either going to nail it or totally screw it up.’ So there was enough of that, just being in front of people and being forced to learn how to play.

“In a lot of ways, Jonas was the one person who gave me a shot to do what I always wanted to do,” he continues. “One day, he came over to the house, and we were just sitting there hanging out, and he was like, ‘Hey, would you be interested in going on a two-week run?’

“I had never toured. I was always doing shows, but I had never had the opportunity of going on a tour. So I went out with them for 10 days or 14 days, or something like that, and around the middle of it, they sat me down and asked if I’d be willing to be a full-time member.

I immediately said, ‘Yes.’” Brock usually plays Gibsons, either a Les Paul Deluxe or a Firebird. “With Jonas playing that SG and Dave [McCowen] playing that bass with those humbuckers, if I want to get a lead to cut above a mix, I have to be playing a guitar like a Les Paul or a Firebird, something with humbuckers that has a little more output to get above everything, or at least to cut through.”

He cites a variety of influences, including Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and East Nashville’s Jim Oblon, whom he considers the best guitarist he’s ever seen. But Brock also draws heavily from classic rock: Jimmy Page, Tony Iommi, Keith Richards and his “favorite of all time,” Ritchie Blackmore. “Most of the stuff I listen to is older,” he says.

Watching classic rock clips on the Internet, and seeing six-string wizards like Oblon perform live, fuels Brock’s creative fire. “It inspires me and pushes me to try to over time figure out my style and figure out what I’m capable of, and find my voice on guitar — which I haven’t done yet,” he says. “I want to do that, it’s what I’m here to do.”

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“

Before I really knew what the hell I was doing on guitar, I was like, ‘I’m going to start a band.’

”

— Jonas Stein

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Jonas Stein & Kingsley Brock

McGavock Pike, just east of Punk Nirvana

By Eric England

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Ted Drozdowski Warren Denney

T

ed Drozdowski is a conjurer. With a burning guitar in his hands, fronting his rocking blues band Scissormen, Drozdowski calls out for the dark, joyous and seething spirits, and not just any shadow, but the lowdown, nasty devils you can find in the dirt and the mud and along the back roads of Mississippi. He summons the phantom blues of the Hill Country and the Delta.

Through a radiant guitar, and a laid-back and haunted vocal approach, Drozdowski — tall and mutton-chopped, and capable of bringing gutbucket guitar heat — calls forward those ghosts.

Drozdowski could be little else than a shaman when you consider his path. He was born in Pennsylvania into a family one generation removed from the coalmines, and moved as a boy to Meriden, Conn., in the industrial center of the state. Somewhere along the way he developed a love for old, classic movies, especially of the horror variety, and would hang out in blue-collar Polish bars with his grandfather. After attending the University of Bridgeport, he took a job in Boston with Purchasing magazine, a trade publication for purchasing professionals. Not the prototypical trail for blues work, but Drozdowski did understand the working life.

“Before I moved to Boston, my friends and I were already into Muddy Waters, Ike & Tina Turner, Aretha, Sly & The Family Stone — anything we thought was cool, and anything punk,” Drozdowski says. “I had discovered, and fallen in love with the magazine Musician. Shortly after I was in Boston, I found the book Deep Blues by Robert Palmer. I’d always been a fan of his — he was the top critic for The New York Times — and I liked the first chapter so much that I went and bought every used LP I could find out of that chapter. And that’s how I went through the whole book. After reading it I had about 200-something really good blues records. I just immersed myself.”

Ultimately, Drozdowski would write about music. He’s been an editor at Musician and the Boston Phoenix, and he has written for many magazines including, Guitar World, Premiere Guitar, and Musician. He was a consultant for PBS’ Martin Scorsese Presents: The Blues, and he co-authored Billboard’s Jazz & Blues Encyclopedia. Among other honors, Drozdowski received the Blues Foundation’s Keeping the Blues Alive Award for Journalism in 1998.

Though Drozdowski would be ushered into the world of a living and breathing blues player by none other than R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, he is steeped in rock, punk and psychedelia. He cut his teeth in the 1980s, carving a place for himself in the Boston music scene.

“I was getting better and better on the guitar — jamming with friends,” Drozdowski says. “I started playing out with punk rock bands in Boston, kind of coming up the ladder. I figured I was way behind the curve at that point. I didn’t really get into trying to learn other people’s songs at that point. I was kind of just developing my own vocabulary.

“I just loved the sound of the guitar, how expressive it is, and I always really liked the slide. I was into that early on. I always thought of music as texture. I was into the avant-garde thing. I was into that whole Knitting Factory school. I was a regular commuter to the Knitting Factory while I was living in Boston. It was about a fourhour drive, but I would make a show and be back at work in the morning. It was the epitome of the creative guitar world at the time.”

Still, for Drozdowski, it was all about the blues.

“I kind of thought of every band I’d been in as a secret blues band” he says. “I was in a punk rock band, but pretty much playing blues licks. Really nasty. We’d do our own material, but also things like Ernest Tubb’s ‘Thanks A Lot.’ We’d approach the song the way X might.”

It was through the bands Vision Thing and Devil Gods that Drozdowski began to

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Ted Drozdowski & Richie Owens The Family Wash

By Staci Huckeba

Richie Owens Randy Fox

I

n April of this year, Richie Owens moved his music shop, The Old Time Pickin’ Parlor, from Marathon Village to the small retail space at 307 N. 16th St. in Lockeland Springs; he was hardly a Johnny-come-lately looking to cash in on some East Nashville cool.

“I first moved here in 1978 and lived here until 1984,” Owens says. “There were a bunch of us that were living here then because we loved the old houses, and we could get them cheap. Musicians and artists have always migrated to this side of town.”

In fact, you’re standing on pretty shaky ground if you accuse Owens of being a trend-follower in any aspect of his life or career. Looking back over the last five decades of Nashville’s music history, Owens keeps turning up: his cousin Dolly Parton babysitting him shortly after his family moved to Nashville in 1964; his first TV appearance on the Ralph Emery Show; leading a bluegrass band at the age of 15; his rock bands The Resistors and The Movement, each an integral part of Nashville’s alternative rock scene in the 1980s; and the current incarnation of his genre-fusing band, Richie Owens and the Farm Bureau.

Owens’ ancestry, life, and career are intertwined with Music City history.

Music was a deeply ingrained part of Owens’ heritage, too. His greatgreat-great grandfather, Henry Grooms, was the inspiration for the murdered fiddler in the historical novel and film Cold Mountain. Owens’ grandfather, the Rev. Jake Owens, was a prominent preacher, songwriter and the basis for the 1970 Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton hit, “Daddy Was an Old Time Preacher Man.” Louis Owens, Richie’s father, was a musician, manager, publisher, songwriter and producer. Although Richie was born in Knoxville, his mother and father relocated their family to Nashville when Richie was 4 years old. “Basically, I’m from here,” Owens says. “I grew up playing that Eastern Tennessee three-finger picking style. By the time I was 8 years old, I was singing on the radio.”

Drawn to playing the lap-style resonator guitar, Owens was leading his own bluegrass band as a teenager and soon secured a part-time job crafting guitars at the Sho-Bud Guitar Company. “I got to work around a lot of great players,” Owens says. “I worked with a guy named Charlie Collins who played with Roy Acuff, and he would take me down to the Old Time Pickin’ Parlor all the time where I could see all these great musicians play and play myself. It was a wonderful time.”

Randy Wood’s Old Time Pickin’ Parlor on 2nd Avenue North was a meeting place and unofficial clubhouse for Nashville’s acoustic music scene in the 1970s. Established in 1971 by Randy Wood, Grant Boatwright, and Tut Taylor as a music shop, the retail business soon became secondary to its main focus. “The bottom level was a music venue,” Owens says. “Everybody hung out there – Vassar Clements, Roy Huskey, Sam Bush, Mark O’Connor, John Hartford, Butch Robins, and guys like the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, George Harrison and others would show up when they were in town.”

Soaking up those varied influences in his formative years led to a wide-ranging musical career for Owens. Grabbing on to punk’s spirit in the late ’70s, Owens was one of the founding fathers of Nashville’s rock scene. He also worked as a songwriter, backup musician, bandleader, session man, engineer and producer, helming Dolly Parton’s acclaimed 1998 album, Hungry Again.

Drawing on his early experience in building guitars, he became deeply involved with instrument design and manufacturing during the ’90s and oversaw the continued on 104

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Keith Gattis

Pioneer Town Studio

By Eric England

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Keith Gattis Randy Fox

S

itting on his porch in Inglewood, Keith Gattis recalls the moment when he knew a career in music was what he wanted. It was July of 1988, and the band he organized from his school’s Future Farmers of America chapter had made it to the Texas state talent contest finals.

“When I stepped out on the stage, there were 8,000 kids out there in the arena,” he says. “I’ll never forget hitting that first chord and hearing it ring through that place. It was the coolest sound I’d ever heard in my life. We started playing and the kids were getting into it — screaming and going crazy — it might as well have been the Beatles. That’s when I got the bug. It was amazing. I didn’t even know such a thing existed.

I’d already played bars, but it hadn’t been like that.”

Gattis pauses, and then laughs before continuing. “Now I’d rather play the bars.”

That frank honesty and appreciation for simple pleasures is something that’s immediately evident in Keith Gattis. Since first rolling into Nashville in 1992, he has travelled down all the well-marked paths that the guidebooks say lead to country music stardom: struggling through bar gigs, record deals with major labels, working as a sideman, hitting the “Americana” market through independent releases, getting his songs cut by others and more.

Although his degree of success on each these paths have varied, none led to stardom. Instead, they led to something even better.

Born in Austin, Texas in 1970, Gattis didn’t turn his attention to playing music until he was almost in high school, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t soaking up influences at a much younger age.

“Until I started playing, I didn’t realize how much I was steeped in really traditional country,” Gattis says. “All that stuff came naturally for me. I figured out later how much I was influenced by my dad taking me to the bar when I was four or five. He’d set me up with a cherry Coke, and he’d have a couple of Pearl beers, and I’d hear all those songs on the jukebox.”

After an apprenticeship of playing the Texas bar scene, Gattis hit the road to Nashville. “I had 800 bucks and whatever I could fit in my pick-up truck,” he says. “I wanted something

bigger, but I really didn’t know what that was.”

For the next eight years, Gattis navigated his way through the Music Row meat grinder — playing in bars, writing songs, getting signed by RCA, recording a critically acclaimed album that flopped in sales, and being dropped by his label. “I was completely naïve,” he says. “I just knew I was going to be a giant star. I was recording really hardcore country music, because that was all I was around. I got away with recording it, but that was about it. I ended up bitter and burned-out. I just felt like Nashville didn’t have anything to offer me or

“ ”

I thought I was going to be a star, but I never really wanted that. I wanted a great career so I could play music for the rest of my life, and that’s what I’ve ended up with. And if I need to blow off steam, I’ll just go play The Family Wash. me to offer it.”

By 2000, he needed a change. Determined to expand his style in a rock direction, Gattis set his sights for the west coast. L.A. may have looked like a rock ’n’ roll town from Nashville, but once Gattis arrived he found a natural fit for his honky tonk instincts. “I got there and immediately started playing in country bands,” Gattis says. “The L.A. country scene had a completely different feel. It was inspiring.”

Revitalized, he wrote, produced and self-released the album Big City Blues in 2002. As he began promoting the record, he received

an offer he couldn’t refuse. “Dwight Yoakam would show up frequently at my shows in L.A., and he asked me to play guitar for him on some Christmas shows in 2002.”

The success of those shows led to Gattis joining Yoakam as his lead guitarist and bandleader, working with him in the studio and on the road between 2003 and 2005, but that unsatisfied feeling persisted. “It was a hard gig to leave,” Gattis says, “but I still wanted to pursue my own thing. So I finally decided to jump off.”

Gattis returned to Nashville in 2006, thanks to a new record deal with Sony Music, but the meat grinder had a few more cranks left in it. Corporate restructuring led to him getting dropped again, before a record was ever released. He quickly signed with another company that promptly went belly up, leaving him in contractual limbo for almost three years.

Gattis was broke and homeless, couch surfing from one friend to the next, when country singer Randy Houser called with an offer to join his road band for a tour.

That musical lifeline gave Gattis enough time and money to re-think his priorities. Returning from the tour, he decided to take his friend Audley Freed’s advice and rented a house on the Eastside. Squirrelled away on a quiet Inglewood street, Gattis concentrated on his songwriting and the hits started flowing. Since 2010, Gattis has written three Top 40 country hits (“El Cerrito Place” and “When I See This Bar” by Kenny Chesney, and “I Got A Car” by George Strait) and a string of album cuts by Gary Allan, Kenny Chesney, Randy Houser, Kid Rock, Willie Nelson, George Strait, Randy Travis, and more.

“I got lucky and had a little success,” Gattis says. “It got me enough money to pay off debts, get square with the tax man [and] put a down payment on my house.

“There were a lot of good reasons to give up,” Gattis says. “It’s butt kicking to say the least. I thought I was going to be a star, but I never really wanted that. I wanted a great career so I could play music for the rest of my life, and that’s what I’ve ended up with. And if I need to blow off steam, I’ll just go play the Family Wash.”

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Jay Rutherford & Wojtek Krupka The Bomb Shelter

By Eric England

Jay Rutherford &

Wojtek Krupka Chuck Allen

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When stepping off into the land of Los Colognes, one should always be prepared to expect the unexpected and accept the fact that facts no longer apply. “Oh shit! You guys are looking for guitars players to be in this issue?” cracks Krupka.

“I thought you were looking for models.” There are no straight answers, although the jokes are usually set-up with a straight face. Which may be why the intrepid guitarists of LCs (which is much easier to text) might make one forget that they’re ... guitar playing freaks!

Wojtek Krupka — the “t” in Wotjek is silent, unless the jokes on me — and Jay Rutherford — who doubles as the combo’s lead singer — make up the tandem onslaught of intricit guitar work that defines Los Colognes. Listening to their ability to weave a tapestry of sonic bliss encourages the impression that they put every ounce of seriousness in their beings into one thing: Playing the guitar.

Originally hailing from the west side of Chicago, Jay Rutherford accidentally moved to Inglewood with LCs drummer Aaron “Mort” Mortenson — well before the Eastside became the Mecca of all things cool it purportedly is today.

Along with partner in fretwork Krupka, Gordon Persha on bass, and keyboardist Micah Hulscher — and occassionally second keyboardist Chuck Foster and guitarist Zach Setchfield — they formed Los Colognes.

Most lines of questioning with regards to the origins of their

“

Sure, I’d been listening to The Beatles and Michael Jackson.

And Green Day. introduction to the guitar descend into three-dimensional Python-esque one-liners like: “What do you get when you cross Yanni with the Sex Pistols? Yanni Rotten.”

They were forthcoming from time to time, though. “My dad bought me a Fender Squire Strat with a little amplifier Christmas of my 7th grade year,” remembers Rutherford. “It was on a stand and it had a blanket over it. I thought it was golf clubs. I had no idea what was coming. I didn’t even ask for it.” Had he been to music prior to that moment? “Sure, I’d been listening to The Beatles and Michael Jackson.” Then, after an insanely long pregnant pause setup, “And Green Day.” Was there a song that made him want to learn how to play his Christmas present? “Probably like ‘Come as You Are’ by Nirvana. Maybe ‘Basketface’ by Green Day.” Krupka interjects with, “That song ‘Zombie’ by The Cranberries.”

Rutherford continues, “I just played along to MTV vidoes and figured out the chords. I had like a DOD multi-effects pedal, where every effect was way over the top and horrible like jet flange, super bad rock chorus, really shitty distortion.”

Did he use this to mimic the sounds he was hearing on MTV? Krupka offers, “It’s to cover up the sound that your actually making. (laughter) Sounds like shit — put that flange on there and it’ll sound great!”

Krupka then takes the lead: “I was playing piano, and my dad kept saying, ‘You gotta learn to read music, you have to read music,’ because he was always saying guitar players weren’t actually musicians because none of them read music. And so, he’s like, ‘Here, start reading music,’ and I think he got me that Cranberries thing [sheet music] and I realized it was way easier to read the numbers at the bottom. The I played it for him and I was reading the tabs at the bottom, but he thought I was reading music so he bought me a guitar.”

And now, here they are.

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“

I felt like a bit of an outsider throughout my childhood, and then when I discovered music it felt like, okay, this is where the outsiders go!

Joe McMahan Wow & Flutter

By Eric England

Joe McMahan Timothy C. Davis

J

oe McMahan’s an affable sort of guy, an easy conversationalist, the sort of guy who’s into all sorts of stuff: music, art, food, philosophy, you name it. The producer/guitarist/Luella and the Sun co-founder’s many divergent interests — and the friends such openness and eagerness engenders — no doubt helped him recover from a disastrous fire to his studio (and home) last June.

McMahan, who’s manned the dials for releases from the likes of Webb Wilder, Patrick Sweaney, Kevin Gordon and others, lost most of the control room of his studio, but the rest of his house — including his

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guitars, which were stored opposite the control room — sustained only moderate (i.e., fixable) damage. Then as now, he says, friends and music — and having a friendship with music — helped him through what could have been a much darker time.

Born in Hot Springs, Ark., McMahan traces his considerable love of music back to his childhood, when he remembers hearing artists like Al Green and Marvin Gaye being broadcast through Memphis’ many soul and R&B stations. The music, if you’ll forgive the analogy, sparked something within the young farm lad.

“I don’t know that there was a single ‘moment,’” he says.

“But I can distinctly remember being a little kid, 3 or 4 years old, and being given a plastic guitar, and strumming the strings, and it was just mesmerizing. It wasn’t even in tune — it was just the strings resonating. It was hypnotic.”

McMahan says he moved often while growing up, which often meant having to make new friend. Soon, he says, music became his most trusted sidekick, following him wherever he’d end up, there whenever he needed someone to listen, to make sense of it all.

“I felt like a bit of an outsider throughout my childhood, and then when I discovered music it felt like, okay, this is where the outsiders go! I took guitar lessons from people and wasn’t even sure why — it just seemed like a fun little game to play. I had a guitar teacher — I went through about a half dozen, none of whom I connected with, I guess you could say — but then I got a guy named Ron Roskowske outside of St. Louis, and he had a Les Paul, like an early ’70s Deluxe. I didn’t know anything about brand names at the time, but you could just tell that was a real guitar. My first lesson, he asked me, ‘Do you know about Eric Clapton? The Allman Brothers? Jimi Hendrix?

Jeff Beck?’ And I had to get him to hold on while I jotted them down, because I didn’t know any of those names.

Not long after that, my mom took me to a record store, and I bought Hendrix’s Are You Experienced and dropped the needle on whatever shitty stereo it was that we had at the time, and the music just entered my spine, you know?”

At this point, McMahan contracted his first case of G.A.S. — online shorthand for the deadly affliction known as “Guitar Acquisition Syndrome.”

“Not long after this, I ordered a guitar that had a bunch of effects built in from the Sears catalog for $129, and an amplifier,” he says. “On the day it arrived, we had to drive 30 minutes to the Sears store to pick it up. And they bring out this box, and put it on the counter, and I’m shaking because I’m so nervous, and they open the box, and it’s broken! They had to send it back and order another one.

And for a kid that age, two weeks is like two years.

“It was the same way with getting a record. The nearest store was about 30 minutes from where I lived, so I would go in there with a list — whenever I could get a ride — and maybe if you were lucky they’d have one of the four or five you wanted. Until then, you just had to imagine what it must be like, what it sounded like. The world is just so much different now. I think the energy you had to put into it then, and the imagination, helped you value it more as such.”

With his producing — as with his guitar playing — McMahan says he still aims to “score the song”: to remain unobtrusive but supportive, lending a hand when needed, but also being self-aware and confident enough to know when to leave well enough alone.

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John jackson Little Hollywood

By Stacie Huckeba

John Jackson

F

Randy Fox

or John Jackson, the matter of choosing his life’s vocation was settled pretty early. “I was lucky,” he says. “In third grade I knew I was either going to play guitar or basketball. I loved those two things and from then on that’s all I wanted to do. In high school I stuck with the guitar and ditched basketball.”

A quick glance at Jackson’s resume confirms that he made the right choice. He’s been making a living playing guitar for over three decades, and accumulated an impressive list of employers: Kathy Mattea, Lucinda Williams, Shelby Lynne, Bob Dylan, Tom Jones and many others. But the true secret of Jackson’s

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success goes beyond the steady paycheck or the notable job references. He’s been having fun the whole time.

A native of Nashville, John Jackson picked up his first guitar at the age of 8. While neither of his parents worked in the music business, the rich Southern culture of music seemed to seep its way into his playing. “I’ve always been drawn to what they call Americana now – that ‘roots’ style of playing,” Jackson says.

Coming of age in the late 1970s meant that Jackson was in the right spot and time when the local Nashville rock scene exploded. “All through the late ’70s and into the early ’80s I had my own band, John Jackson & the Rhythm Rockers,” Jackson says. “We played Bogie’s, Phrank ’N’ Stein’s, Cantrell’s, Exit/In, 12th & Porter — we were at one of those probably three times a month.”

Other than a short stint with the power-pop combo Practical Stylists, Jackson primarily focused on the Rhythm Rockers and their rocking live sets. “We were a party band,” Jackson says, “and everyone just had a great time. I love to play music that I like and that worked for me. Even today people will recognize me and come up to me and say, ‘That was the best time of my life, just coming to see you play.’ That makes me feel great. There were a lot of fun bands, and it was a good time for Nashville.”

Jackson’s reputation as a live guitarist soon brought him to the attention of Music Row. “I toured with Kathy Mattea, Sweethearts of the Rodeo, Terri Gibbs and Jo-El Sonnier,” Jackson says. “Somebody would come out to a show and see me play, and I started getting offers.”

Jackson also received calls for session work, but it didn’t take long for him to figure out where his main passion was. “I don’t pick stuff up really fast, and I hate going into a session and having to come up with something quick. I can do it, but it’s not enjoyable for me. I have tons of friends that do a lot of session work. I admire what they can do, but you’re not getting the immediate satisfaction of a reaction from an audience, and that’s something I think I need.”

Jackson’s prowess with the guitar soon drew attention from beyond Nashville. “I was on tour with Jo-El Sonnier and Bob Dylan happened to be at a show in New York at the Lone Star.

Tony, his bass player, who I had met before, came on the bus and said that Bob liked my playing and could he get my number. I said, ‘Yeah, sure, tell him to call me if he needs a guitar player’ — kind of joking. Two years later I get a call from out of the blue from Bob’s office. I didn’t know how long it was going to last, if he would like me or if I would like him. I went to New York, did three rehearsals, and we were on tour in Europe.”

Jackson toured with Dylan from 1992 to 1997, playing on the MTV Unplugged album and also backing Dylan on studio tracks for several tribute albums. It’s a period of Dylan’s career that is beloved by many fans for exciting and varied live sets.

“It was a fun band,” Jackson says, “and it wasn’t real structured.

I learned an incredible amount of music while I was with him.

I think we may have played over 700 different songs. People weren’t getting the exact same set list every night. I think the fans got something exciting out of it, and Bob got a new appreciation for playing and writing. Eventually it just ran its course and it was time to go.”

Returning to Nashville, Jackson had little time to rest before he joined Lucinda Williams’ road band in support of her breakthrough album, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. The M.O. of providing the live support for a critically acclaimed album repeated itself when he joined Shelby Lynne’s band immediately after the release of her 1999 album, I Am Shelby Lynne. “I love it,” Jackson says. “I get to play great parts, but I had the freedom to add to what’s on the records.”

Jackson’s traveling days came to a temporary halt in 2002 with the birth of his son. “I took off 2002 to 2005 to care for my son,” continued on 107

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Joe Pisapia

Middletree Studios

By Eric England

Joe Pisapia James “Hags” Haggerty

J

oe Pisapia arrived in Nashville in the early ’90s along with his brother, drummer, Marc Pisapia. Their band, Joe, Marc’s Brother, showcased their love of harmony and adventurous pop as only siblings can play and sing it, while introducing the Nashville community to Pisapia’s songwriting and guitar playing.

These days, Pisapia is a sought after producer, engineer and arranger. Recent productions include Sing It Loud, the new record by k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang, which also features his songwriting, as well as the most recent Ben Folds Five record.

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But for Pisapia, it all starts with the guitar. “There are so many things to love about guitar, the way the pick feels against the strings, the way the strings feel under your fingers,” says Pisapia.

“You can take it anywhere. It’s a portable box of fun.

“Growing up, my brother and I shared a room. We had a stereo in there, and we would play Legos or Matchbox cars on the rug in front of the speakers,” he remembers. “I was 9 years old when I got my first guitar — a Yamaha acoustic. There were kids in the neighborhood into guitars. We would show each other songs like ‘Smoke On The Water’ and ‘Iron Man.’ Stuff you could play on one string, it was like the oral tradition of riff in the neighborhood.”

Pisapia’s love of guitar began as a kid growing up in Rahway, NJ. “I remember listening to WPLJ one night, and this song came on. What I was hearing was blowing my mind. I was transfixed. It was like, ‘Put the toys down, what’s that?’” he laughs. By age nine the outro from Derek and The Dominoes “Layla” had become a favorite. “I remember thinking, ‘how do I do something that sounds like that?’ I taped it off the radio and listened to it over and over.”

That Lego-dropping moment provided the inspiration to go from one-string songs to those that used all six. Pisapia soon

“ ” There are so many things to love about the guitar ...

It’s a portable box of fun.

began lessons with a local teacher, but that didn’t go so well. “He was burnt out and bitter and would belittle me because I couldn’t play ‘Rondo’ out of the Mel Bay book.”

His next teacher was a much better fit. A chain-smoking wedding band guitar player with great tone and jazz chops who introduced Pisapia to a broader musical spectrum. “He would teach me the songs he had to learn for his wedding band, the pop hits of the day — stuff like Stephen Bishop, Hall & Oates, Christopher Cross. Those songs had composition. They weren’t just simple pieces. I loved those chords, the way they sounded,” recalls Pisapia.

“All my friends wanted to play Zeppelin and stuff, which I liked, but I remember thinking, ‘Why would you just want the Crayola 8 pack when you can have the 64 pack with the built in sharpener?’” Which is when he decided he needed an electric guitar.

“I had to have a Gibson Les Paul. That was the guitar,” he says. “I convinced my dad over a period of 6 or 8 months that I needed this guitar. He wanted to make sure that if I got an electric guitar that I would stick with it, not like the skateboard in the back of the garage. I remember saying, ‘no, I’m really into it,’ and how I would be able to get all these other sounds that I couldn’t get from the acoustic.

“I convinced him,” says Pisapia. “I remember the salesman trying to sell me a lesser model. I said, ‘No. It has to be a Les Paul.’”

Thirteen-year-old Joe Pisapia became the proud owner of a Cherry Sunburst Les Paul Custom that day.

“It’s the heaviest guitar I’ve ever played, I was this tiny little kid with this big guitar. I remember taking it out of the case, the strap, the coil cord, the picks. I walked all around the house with it, stood in front of the mirror, the whole bit. It was a big day,” he remembers.

“I was never one to just sit and practice,” he says. “I had gotten a few pedals, a distortion, an analog delay and a flanger. I would sit in front of the amp for hours, plugging things in and out, trying different combinations, making different sounds. It was continued on 107

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Kevin Edlin Timothy C. Davis

K

evin Edlin’s resume would paint him as a freelance recording and live sound engineer, and an audio and recording engineer with Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music and the Schermerhorn Symphony Center and Nashville Symphony Orchestra. But if you ask him, Edlin will tell you that he is first and foremost a guitarist.

As with most guitarists, Edlin loves talking guitars: the makes, the models, and most of all that harmonizing feeling one gets when a certain instrument’s outer vibrations allow the player to more fully harness his innermost ones.

“My first guitar was an old acoustic of some sort, just a beater,” Edlin says. “But my first electric guitar was a red, Japanesemade Stratocaster that was given to me by my Dad out of the blue one day. I put punk rock stickers all over it. I still have it, and I always will.

“My favorite guitar that I own right now is my white Gibson SG. From a distance it just looks like one of their regular Standard models. But I’ve had it modified for a low, baritone tuning. I use a custom set of really heavy strings on it for that. It’s in an open fifth tuning to a low B natural — that’s a step and a half lower than drop D.” For those unfamiliar with guitar tunings, that’s gut-rattlingly low. Edlin’s familiar with such unorthodox tunings, having spent years in industrial metal outfit Cryogen Second, an act he left in July. He’s working now with D. Ryan, helping foment an infectious, laid-back, groove-oriented sound. It’s one of the things he loves about the guitar: its seemingly endless supply of sounds, suitable for whatever music one hears in one’s head.

“Starting out, you’ll find yourself picking it up and playing when you should be doing something else, but you’ll play the guitar anyway because it’s just more fun. I think it’s important to learn in lots of different ways. There’s nothing like having a real person sit next to you to watch what you’re doing and hear you play, and maybe correct you of some bad technique and show you better ways of doing things. I think it’s also good to listen to recordings of your favorite songs and play along. It’ll start teaching you to listen — and I mean really listen — which will make you better. Picking up the guitar and stringing a few notes or chords together was like magic for me in the very beginning. And when I was able to pick out the parts to songs I loved and play along, there was suddenly this whole other connection. I just love [everything about] it.”

While he makes most of his bones these days behind the scenes, Edlin says that his rock ’n’ roll background still informs his classical work, and on a daily basis.

“Sometimes I co-write or play on tracks, like a lot of other people here in town,” Edlin says. “But I record classical music more than anything these days, which is just a whole different world.

Recording a full orchestra by yourself is a challenge. I really enjoy chamber groups and small ensembles the best, things like string quartets and such ... probably because it’s more or less similar to working with a band.”

Kevin Edlin Lake Watauga

By Eric England Sept | Oct 2014

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Paul Niehaus Randy Fox

I

n the early ’90s, Paul Niehaus had an encounter that tuned him in and turned him on to a different realm. Rather than a Matrix-shattering red pill, it came in the form of six raised strings. “I was working at a bagel shop on West End with a steel player named Steve Blazek,” Niehaus recalls. “He would tout the virtues of steel guitar all the time, but I just didn’t get it. He said, ‘You should at least get a lap steel. Steel is the rockin’est thing that you could imagine.’

“I eventually took his advice. I went down to Gruhn Guitars and I found a cheap, old Airline lap steel for 60 bucks. I didn’t know how to tune it; I just made up my own open tuning and would play blues, and I got a delay and would do my Pink Floyd impersonation.”

Although he didn’t realize it at the time, Niehaus had taken his first step down the rabbit hole of steel guitar-dom, a realm that dominated his career for the next two decades.

Through his steel guitar work with artists as varied as Lambchop, Paul Burch, Yo La Tengo, Vic Chesnutt, Silver Jews, Bobby Bare Jr., Calexico, Iron & Wine, and many others, he has been at the forefront of a younger generation of steel guitarists who have brought the ethereal sound of steel to a new prominence.

Growing up in Florissant, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis, Niehaus played music in school, but his musical passion didn’t fully manifest until college. “I went to the University of Missouri at Rolla’s engineering school to major in physics, but I missed playing music a lot. After the first year, I took an old guitar that had belonged to my dad, and I just started learning chords out of a Mel Bay chord book. Pretty soon I knew I didn’t want to be in physics anymore.”

Niehaus moved to Nashville in August of 1983 to pursue music-related studies at Belmont. “At first I was thinking I could somehow use my knowledge of science and physics as a recording engineer,” Niehaus says, “but I ditched that idea pretty quickly and fell in love with performing.”

Niehaus joined the blues and cowpunk quintet PJ and the J

“ ”

Paul Niehaus

Eastside Manor Studios

By Eric England

So we [Lambchop] hunkered down in our own little world, and we made some pretty cool and weird records that are really beautiful.

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Dusters in the spring of 1984. Two years later, piano-pounder Jerry Dale McFadden left the band for a solo career and Niehaus followed him as his lead guitarist. For the next few years, Niehaus worked with various bands in Nashville (in addition to the bagel shop) until experiencing his steel epiphany.

Niehaus’ eureka moment came when Kurt Wagner invited him to a practice session for the band Posterchild, who were on the edge of transforming themselves into the alt-countrypolitan WTF assemblage Lambchop.

“Kurt already had a couple of guitar players,” Niehaus says, “so I brought the lap steel.

The band was going through a change and the lap steel seemed to really fit in.”

In addition to the way out flights of steel he was playing for Lambchop, Niehaus also soon received a schooling in classic honky-tonk style. “I started playing with Greg Garing at Tootsie’s in the fall of ’94,” Niehaus says.

“I had to learn some proper tunings on the lap steel. It was a crash course in honky tonk, but it really helped me a lot. I played that for about four years and then got the nerve to get a pedal steel.”

Niehaus quickly discovered the complexities of the pedal steel. “It’s more of a full body coordination that you have to get used to,” he says. “With guitar you’re mainly using your hands to translate to the fret board, but with the steel you’re also using both feet and your knees. You’re using all parts of your brain. I’ve heard some people describe it like flying a helicopter, which I have no desire to do. I’ll stick with the steel.”

Although he was mastering the pedal steel, he never abandoned regular guitar playing, and his ability to switch between the two has been particularly valuable for his long-running gig with the country Tex-Mex mariachi mash-up band Calexico and his recent work with singer and songwriter Justin Townes Earle.

“It goes back and forth,” Niehaus says.

“With Justin it’s a little more guitar heavy, but it’s a challenge to play both. When you concentrate on one, the other seems to slide a bit in your mind and in your fingers. I’m constantly woodshedding on one or the other to get the groove back.

“I think most people know me for my steel work. I’ve been told that I have a style, but I’m not sure what that is. Some people say ‘ethereal.’ I just try to take it to somewhere else. I try to step outside my roots. It’s almost a spiritual idea of plugging into a different plane and finding something that resonates.”

Since settling in East Nashville in 1998, where he shares a home with his wife Katja and their 8-month-old son, Niehaus has fallen in love with the East Side. “I found a house close to the Diesel College that I really loved,” he says. “It had a big yard, a nice basement and

was in amazing original condition. Where I live, there are still a lot of old timers living there, and I love that. One of my neighbors is 60 and was born in the house he lives in.

He’s lived in East Nashville his entire life. He has such great stories. I hate to see the whole thing change.”

Although changes to the neighborhood may be as inevitable as the slide of a steel guitar, Niehaus’ experience in the constantly changing Nashville music scene has taught

him that what’s good can continue to resonate.

“There were so many times when it seemed like the whole Nashville scene had run out of steam.” Niehaus says. “You had to make something happen yourself. That’s why I liked playing with Lambchop. The early and mid’90s was a slow time in Nashville. It didn’t seem like there was a whole lot going on. So we hunkered down in our own little world, and we made some pretty cool and weird records that are really beautiful.”

Expect more imagination.

Every musician begins with a creative spark. That’s one of the main reasons Regions is so committed to supporting the arts in our communities. It’s also why we focus on making banking so easy. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice the fun and excitement of your dreams just to make them come true. So we put our imaginations to work each day, finding the best ways to help you reach your goals. Imagination might not be what you expect from a bank, but maybe we can help change that.

1.800.regions | regions.com © 2014 Regions Bank.

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Jamie Rubin Timothy C. Davis

T

he Family Wash has been many things over the last 10 years or so: a bar, a clubhouse for wayward musicians, a magnet for overzealous Metro Codes enforcement, a refuge from the road. It’s a place to hear a new voice, perhaps making his or her on-stage debut. It’s a place to hear old favorites with resumes that include playing with some of the heaviest hitters — David Bowie, The Black Crowes, Bob Dylan, The Jayhawks — around. What’s more, it also serves what many think is the best (if the only?) shepherd’s pie in town.

The lead laundry man at the Wash is one Jamie Rubin. As with many folks who own their own businesses, Rubin wears a lot of hats. He takes care of the books. He tends bar. He plays arbitrator whenever there’s a rock trivia question to be answered. He also takes the stage every week with his rock ’n’ roll collective featuring some of the finest players in this or any other town.

“

”

Find a guitar that you connect with, and learn the songs that speak to you. And even if it seems like it takes an eternity, stay with it, and don’t quit!

Jamie Rubin

The Family Wash

By Chuck Allen

“It’s called Carpetbaggers Local 615, and we play at the end of the night every Tuesday,” Rubin says. “We’ve got a rotating lineup of Pete Pulkrabek, Marc Pisapia, Paul Slivka, Chris Autry, Tyson Rogers, Reeves Gabrels, Goffrey Moore, Audley Freed, Tim Carroll, Eric Fritsch and Roy Agee, just to name a few. We’re trying to figure out how to make a record with all that are involved, something that speaks [to] the songs we play week in week out.”

Like many of the guitarists featured in this issue, Rubin took to the guitar at an early age.

“My first guitar was a Harmony folk guitar, which we had altered with a trapeze bridge so I could rock on the steel strings,” Rubin says. “The first song I learned was ‘Blackbird’ by The Beatles, and the riff to Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love.’”

Rubin’s main axes these days are a 1966 Epiphone Texan acoustic and a 1953 Fender Telecaster that he notes “is not with me right now.” He’s able to salve some of that pain, he says, by playing the best “new” guitar he’s ever owned, a Reverend Manta Ray 390 Limited Edition which features three P-90 pickups. “It was given to me by the Reverend guys, whom I absolutely love,” says Rubin. His dream guitar?

Another Telecaster.

Rubin says he can’t imagine a life — especially his own — without music. It’s part of why he opened the Wash in the first place, he says.

“Playing music and listening to music offers me the same thing. It’s the feeling of euphoria and The Unknown. It’s life and beauty. I knew by the time I was 6 or 7 years old that I had to do something with music.

It just spoke to me.

“It’s not all that hard. Find a guitar that you connect with, and learn the songs that speak to you. And even if it seems like it takes an eternity, stay with it, and don’t quit!”

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Sam Williams Outside the studio

By Eric England

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Sam Williams Daryl Sanders

Y

“

All I ever really wanted was to play like Wilson Pickett’s records

ou typically don’t hear the lead guitar player in a young rock band name-checking ’60s soul records as major influences, but then Sam Williams of The Weeks is not your typical lead guitar player.

“All I ever really wanted was to play like Wilson Pickett’s records,” Williams says during a break in the recording sessions for the band’s forthcoming full-length album, their second for Kings of Leon’s Serpent & Snakes label.

The native of Florence, Miss., goes on to mention other influential recordings by Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and also Bruce Springsteen, none of which feature much lead guitar; sax players usually handled the lead parts.

“A lot of my solos are really what I would tell a sax player to do,” he says. “But we don’t have a sax player, so I just try to do it myself.

I like making the guitar sound like another instrument, more than a loud guitar.”

Williams’ father Dwight is a professional bassist who not only introduced his son to Southern soul, but also turned him onto the Allman Brothers and other acts on Phil Walden’s Capricorn label, as well as The Band. Not surprisingly, the younger Williams’ first instrument was an electric bass — a gift from Dad at age 10. But in 2006, at 14, Williams switched to guitar, just a few months before he and three friends would start The Weeks.

“Much to his chagrin, I upgraded to the six strings,” he says of his dad’s reaction, with a laugh.

Williams also counts a number of contemporary Mississippi guitarists among his strongest influences, most notably Joshua Clark of Living Better Electrically and Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars.

“Luther Dickinson, that’s the number one, he’s the king,” Williams enthuses. “I never saw Hendrix, I never saw Stevie or Duane, but I’ve seen Luther Dickinson with my own eyes, and as far as I’m concerned, he’s the greatest that ever lived. He does things with that guitar that I can’t fathom — and I’ve been watching him since I was probably 12. We toured with them a good bit years later, so he’s been sort of an indirect mentor.”

“Bizarre” is how he describes his own style. “I broke my left thumb when I was a kid, so the wingspan of my left hand is a solid inch more than my right, and my left thumb is all bowed out.” he explains. “My fret hand is bizarrely bigger than my other, so I use a lot of thumb wrap. I also like to use the pick with my thumb and forefinger and use the other three for fingerpicking.”

Since he first switched to guitar, Williams has almost exclusively played Fenders. “I’ve got a Deluxe Telecaster and a Thinline Telecaster,” The Weeks’ axeman says. “But Gibson is letting me hold on to a traditional Les Paul right now, and I’m kind of loving it. I’ve never played a Les Paul before, but I’ve kind of taken to it.

“I don’t know anything about guitars really,” he confesses. “I know how they work, I know all the music side, all the theory stuff. But the actual electronics of it and all that shit, I have no clue. I don’t spend money on guitars. I bought a Deluxe when I was 15 for like 400 bucks, and my action is raised with a McDonald’s breakfast wrapper that’s probably like five years old.”

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“W

Around the supper table in the ’40s Don Davis, unknown, Shorty Boyd, Mom Upchurch, unknown, unknown

e got to Nashville about 2 or 3 in the afternoon.

Curtis Gordon, the guy I worked with all summer, knew his way around … and he said, ‘ You go to Mom Upchurch.’

He gave me the address. He said, ‘It’s in East Nashville.

She’ll take you in. That’s where all the musicians go.’

“So, that’s where we arrived. About 3 that afternoon, we walked in the front door. [There was] a table that had a record player on it, and there were three or four players standing around it. It was Jimmy Day, Big Ben Keith, Don Davis, and Howard White, the four of them standing around listening to this record over and over as we walked in the door. It was Spade Cooley’s Dance-O-Rama album.

It had an incredible Joaquin Murphey solo. Nobody could understand how this guy could play this brilliant stuff.

“I didn’t know who Joaquin Murphey was. I’d never heard of him until that moment. I got entranced. That was the first thing I saw or heard when I walked in the door at Mom Upchurch’s was this Joaquin Murphey solo, which I later learned, by the way.”

— Lloyd Green

Mom and her Boys

Stars, Sidemen, and Songwriters They all had a home at Mom Upchurch’s rooming house

Photograph courtesy of Ruth White

T

By Randy Fox

hat brilliant steel guitar solo from Joaquin Murphey would be far from the last music that steel guitar player Lloyd Green heard or learned at Mom Upchurch’s rooming house. Between 1945 and 1972, the unassuming, two-story stone and stucco house at 620 Boscobel Street in East Nashville served as a home, way station and business office for scores of Nashville musicians.

“They were coming to town with no money, no jobs and no friends,” Mom Upchurch once told a reporter. “They needed someone to give them a place to stay and sort of look after them until they got started, someone to give them a home.”

The story of how a family home in East Nashville was transformed into “Hillbilly Heaven” began in the final year of World War II and is interwoven with Nashville’s transformation into Music City U.S.A.

D

elia Jones was born in Gainesboro, Tenn., on August 10, 1891, the daughter of a Texas farmer who relocated his family to the Volunteer State. In October 1909, she married Louis K. Upchurch and a son and daughter soon followed, and the family eventually relocated to Nashville. In 1943, with both of their children grown and out of the house, the couple moved from their home on 8th Avenue North to a five bedroom, one bath house at 620 Boscobel Street.

At the time, the primary reason for country music musicians to be in Nashville was the Grand Ole Opry. Broadcast over WSM radio every Saturday night, musicians spent the rest of their week either working on a variety of local, daytime radio shows or hitting the road for marathon five- or six-day tours, burning up the roads to theaters, school gymnasiums and baseball parks all over the South. The Opry required

their stars to be in attendance every week if they were to keep their coveted spots on the show, so no matter how far they roamed, it was vital to make the trip back to Nashville every Saturday, unless special permission was obtained to miss an Opry performance..

One of the most popular Opry acts was Pee Wee King and the Golden West Cowboys.

King, a Polish-American accordion player who had joined the Opry in 1937, was one of the first acts to bring the sophisticated sound of Western Swing to the Opry stage. One challenge for the individual members of the six- to seven-member band was finding affordable housing, especially when they were only in town two or three days each week. Living arrangements became even more complicated with the shortage of housing brought on by World War II. Musicians soon found that they could work out arrangements by the week with families who had a spare bedroom or even just an extra bed.

It was probably through that type of arrangement that Golden West Cowboy fiddler Sylvester “Shorty” Boyd moved into one of the Upchurches’ spare rooms on Boscobel Street in 1945. With the rent just $5 a week and a reasonable walk over the Woodland Street Bridge to the WSM studios or the Ryman, it was the perfect arrangement for a young musician. Shortly after Boyd’s arrival, his bandmate, steel guitar player Don Davis, joined him. In February 1946, fiddler Redd Stewart returned from the Army, rejoined King’s band, and moved into the Upchurch house with his new bride Jean. In just a few weeks the house had another border with the arrival of 32-year-old country singer and comedian Louis Marshall “Grandpa” Jones who joined the Opry on Pee Wee King’s recommendation.

Jones found more than just living

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Janie Dunn, Mom Upchurch, unknown, Shorty Boyd Boscobel St., East Nashville, 1950s

accommodations for himself. Ramona Riggins, a female singer and fiddler who Jones had worked with before the war, soon arrived and found a room with the Estes family next door. After living on Boscobel for a few months, the pair married and moved into their own apartment in October 1946. Ramona Jones recalls Pee Wee

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of which were being cut in Nashville by three WSM engineers who used the radio station’s studio for late-night, after-hours sessions.

By the middle of 1947, the three engineers left WSM to launch Castle Studios, the first Nashville-based commercial recording studio.

By that fall, Decca Records moved their country recording sessions from Chicago studios to Castle. Other major labels followed, and a flurry of small independent record labels – Tennessee, Dot, Speed and others – were soon setting up business in the city. In just three years, Nashville went from being one of several cities where hillbilly musicians might find a job to the unofficial capital of country music.

As musicians poured into Nashville, Mom Upchurch’s became the first stop and sometimes the extended home for many of these young pickers. They ranged from future stars and songwriters like George Morgan, Carl Smith, Faron Young, Roger Miller, Stonewall Jackson, and Hank Cochran to accomplished sidemen like Hank Garland, Grady Martin, Bob Moore, Jimmy Day, Butterball Paige, Lightnin’ Chance, Shorty Lavender, Buddy Spicher, Dale Potter, Buddy Emmons and many more.

Mom Upchurch always limited her tenants to musicians. As she told Tennessean reporter Roque Fajardo in 1967, “They don’t mix too good with people in other livelihoods.” With rent running from $5 a week in 1948 to $8 a week by 1970, and Mom willing to extend credit to most of her tenants, the rooming house remained affordable for even the most downon-their-luck musicians.

Guitarist Ray Edenton moved into Mom’s in 1962. He recalled the accommodations for writer Diane Diekman. “The bedrooms were two double beds in each room and you were allowed half of that double bed,” Edenton said.

“You never knew who was going to be in the other part when you woke up the next morning; it might be a total stranger, or it might be

Photographs courtesy of Ruth White

Strollin’ Tom Prichard & Howard White 1950s outside Mom Upchurch’s

King and other members of his band frequently dropping by the Upchurch house for jam sessions. “I used to hear them playing music out in the yard at night” she says. “There was always music going on at Mom Upchurch’s place.” Opry banjo player and comedian Stringbean was another frequent visitor to the Upchurch house, and he often went on fishing trips with Pop Upchurch.

In the late summer of 1947, Pee Wee King decided to leave the Opry to move to Louisville, Kentucky. Around the same time, Don Davis left King’s band for an offer to join Tex Ritter for a tour of the west coast. Within days of losing her tenants, tragedy struck Mom Upchurch when her husband died suddenly on October 7, 1947 at the age of 57 from a heart condition. Davis did not find out about the death until he returned to Nashville in the early months of 1948.

“I came back to Nashville, and mom was grieving,” Davis says. “I settled back in and talked her into letting other musicians move in and rent her rooms. I knew she could use the income, and I figured a bunch of hillbilly pickers would cheer her up.”

Neither Davis nor Mom Upchurch realized that Nashville was about to experience a flood of hillbilly pickers as the music industry exploded. In April 1946, Red Foley took over Roy Acuff ’s spot as the primary host of the Grand Ole Opry. Foley’s smooth singing voice and congenial personality pushed the Opry to a new level of popularity, cementing its position as the premier country music show in the U.S. That same month, Jim Bulleit, a Nashvillebased talent booking agent launched Bullet Records, the first record label to be based in Nashville. From the beginning, Bullet was releasing pop, country and R&B recordings, most

somebody coming in off the road.”

The surprise bedmate was the result of Mom Upchurch’s frequent practice of renting out space on a temporary basis when a musician would be on the road for days or weeks at a time.

In addition to the three shared bedrooms, she kept one room for herself that none of the boys were allowed to enter, and one single occupancy room that the other tenants were constantly jockeying to secure.

She also served breakfast and supper each day, costing 75¢ and 85¢ respectively. Served at a large table in the main dining room of the house, her tenants had to take turns saying grace over each meal, and she brooked no free snacks, keeping a watchful eye on the refrigerator in between meals.

Stoutly built and standing just 5’4”, Mom Upchurch could nevertheless be an imposing figure when scolding one of her “boys” for some infraction of the rules. A devout member of Eastview Church of Christ, Mom Upchurch allowed no alcohol in the house (other than her personal bottle of Mogen David wine that she kept for “health purposes”), no female visitors in the rooms, and kept a “swear jar.” As steel guitarist Lloyd Green recalled to Eric Brace, “You didn’t say ‘God damn’ in the house.” Green said.

“You got fined a dollar or something like that, reprimanded, and threatened with holy damnation – all kinds of stuff. And if you didn’t believe in God, that was cause for total excommunication [from the house].”

Although Mom Upchurch strictly upheld most of her rules, there were a few occasions where she bent one for special circumstances.

In June 1950, she allowed the Carter Family (Maybelle, Ezra, and daughters Helen, June and Anita) to stay in the single room for a few weeks until they could find permanent accommodations. In 1957, fiddle player Buddy Spicher also received a special waiver for his wife and daughter.

Beyond Mom Upchurch’s rules, the atmosphere at 620 Boscobel was filled with freewheeling fun, frequent jam sessions, practical jokes, and Mom constantly enduring teasing from “her boys” which she took in stride. Many non-tenant musicians frequently dropped by for the nightly jam sessions and with one telephone in the hallway and a note pad beside it, the house also became an important business hub, as Don Davis recalls. “There were always other musicians or writers hanging out there.

The artists, bookers and studios in town knew just where to call when they needed a musician.

Somebody was calling every day.”

For Christmas 1967, several of Mom’s former tenants, including Carl Smith, presented her with a special plaque that read, “In appreciation for the many contributions you have made to country music and for the home you have provided for many po’ hillbilly boys.” After recovering from a broken hip Mom stopped serving meals to her tenants, but she was still renting the use of beds for $8 a week and keeping a watchful and motherly eye on her “boys.” In 1971, Mom Upchurch turned 80 and an era came to an end as the last of her tenants departed. The house on Boscobel Street was sold in 1972, and Delia “Mom” Upchurch passed away on September 1, 1976 at the age of 85.

In 2008, steel guitar player Howard White, Mom’s Upchurch’s longest continuous boarder (1952-1965), began gathering pledges from former tenants to place a historic marker at 620 Boscobel. “We were on our way to doing it when Howard died,” his widow, Ruth White says, “but someone ought to.”

Almost 70 years after the first hillbilly musician moved into 620 Boscobel Street, the story of Mom Upchurch and her “boys” remains an integral part of the story of Nashville’s transformation into Music City U.S.A. It’s a reminder of the important part that one person can play in shaping history, no matter how insignificant

their contribution may seem at the time. As Don Davis told music writer Walt Trott, “She kept us all, stars, sidemen, bookers, promoters, whatever. Hell, it was home. In fact, it was damn near a status symbol to stay at Mom’s.”

Special thanks to Eric Brace, Brenda Colladay, Dan Cooper, Peter Cooper, Don Davis, Kathy Copas Hughes, Ramona Jones, John Rumble, Eddie Stubbs, and Ruth White for their assistance with the research for the story.

Sources • Brace, Eric – Unpublished Interview with Lloyd Green March 25, 2014 • Davis, Don with Ruth White – Nashville Steeler: My Life in Country Music, Schiffer Publishing Co. 2010 • Diekman, Diane – Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story, University of Illinois Press 2007 • Fajado, Roque – “Scores of Stars at Home with ‘Mom,’” Tennessean, December 1967 • Hawkins, Martin & Colin Escott – Tennessee Jive: Country Music on Nashville’s Independent Labels 1945-1955, Bear Family Records 2000 • Hemphill, Paul – The Nashville Sound: Bright Lights and Country Music, Simon and Schuster 1970 • Kingsbury, Paul, ed. – The Encyclopedia of Country Music, Oxford University Press 1998 • Rawlins, Bill – “Country Music is Spawned at Mom’s Boardinghouse,” Associated Press, May 29, 1970 • Trott, Walt - “Mom Upchurch and her Legendary Nashville Rooming House,” Country Music People, April 2002

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NASHVILLE HOME ENERGY Proudly Calling East Nashville Home

Owner Jeff Middlebrooks holding insulation made of recycled newspaper and cardboard

Nashville Home Energy is Nashville’s most experienced home performance company. We specialize not only in making Nashville’s built environment -- our homes and businesses -- more energy efficient, but we solve comfort and indoor air quality issues as well.

Give us a call and find out why so many of your neighbors have turned to Nashville Home Energy to upgrade their home’s energy efficiency, comfort and health.

615.788.6408

www.NashvilleHomeEnergy.com Jeff@NashvilleHomeEnergy.com ENERGY EFFICIENCY • COMFORT • HEALTH

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Van Halen Crock-Pot Candy

V

an Halen was the first band ever to take 850 par lamp light rigs around the country. Older arenas such as the Spectrum and Maple Leaf Gardens were not really equipped to handle these guys and their “big rigs.” Van Halen singer David Lee Roth refers to the promoters back then as “a little bit more cowboy.” The promoter often wouldn’t read the contract’s rider, which contained important information on safety issues when

it came to rigging the lights and sound for the show. Van Halen’s contract rider was often much larger than other bands, and within it they would hide certain “secrets,” the most memorable being a clause that read, “There will be no brown M&M’s anywhere in the backstage area or the promoter will forfeit the show at full price.” If brown M&M’s were indeed found backstage, the road manager was alerted to the fact that the contract rider may or may not have been thoroughly read, therefore, serious safety issues might be present with the rigging. Roth definitely didn’t want to find himself yelling, “Somebody Get Me a Doctor!” The story gained legendary status in the annals of rock ’n’ roll after a show in Santa Fe, N.M. The arena there had just installed a brand new rubberized floor for their basketball team, and the promoter had clearly not read the contract. As you’ve probably guessed, there were brown M&Ms backstage.

Roth trashed the dressing room — estimated damage: just under $200. Meanwhile, the Van Halen stage sank about 6 1/2 inches into the brand new floor, causing $470,000 worth of damage. Once the story had spread through what Roth refers to as the “media-mulching machine,” reported damages by Roth totaled

Cookin in da ’

’HOOD Recipes from East Nashville favorites

By Melissa D. Corbin $500,000. Yet the negligent promoter was left holding the bill. “Who am I to stand in the way of a great rumor?” joked Roth.

M&M’s are the source of many such legends — remember the one about the green M&M’s and their connecting to frisky feelings? There was a 10-year ban on Red Dye No. 2 due to its link to cancer; that’s when the orange ones were added to the bag. As it turns out, the brown ones are even dyed. Why would you dye chocolate brown? Do you feel like you’re “Runnin’ With The Devil” yet?

In the spirit of Halloween, we used a CrockPot classic to showcase M&M’s. It “ain’t the worst that you seen,” and you’ll find that “ev’rybody wants some.” “When push comes to shove” this candy will make you “Jump!”

Ingredients

Directions

Adapted from Home Cooking with Trisha Yearwood • • 1 lb. salted dry-roasted peanuts • 1 lb. unsalted dry-roasted peanuts • 4 oz. German’s sweet chocolate • 12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips • 2 1/2 lbs. white chocolate chips • 1 cup of M&M’s (chocolate or peanut)

Layer first 5 ingredients in Crock-Pot starting with nuts and ending with white chocolate. Do not stir. Cover and cook on low for 3 hours. Meanwhile, “Dance the Night Away.” Once candy is melted, stir thoroughly with wooden spoon and drop 1-2 tablespoons into cupcake liners.

Decorate with M&M’s. Let cool completely before storing in airtight container.

We like these even better refrigerated!

The Woodland Wine Merchant pairing: Not a Tennessee whiskey fan? Tyler Zwiep from Woodland Wine Merchant gives us this tasty pairing option: Van Halen bass player Michael Anthony held Jack Daniel’s in high regard. He even played a Jack Daniel’s bass from time to time.

A “pint-sized, whiskey drinking mother f$#@*%” is how David Lee Roth once referred to Anthony. Jack Daniel’s and our candy make a playful pairing. One that we would like to wish you “Bottoms Up!”

Broadbent Rainwater Medium Dry Madeira

Often overlooked and misunderstood, good Madeira wines excite almost the full range of our taste and work magic with many foods. It is one of my favorite pairings with dishes that play on the sweet salty dynamic, especially if the dish contains nuts.

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For up to date information on events, as well as links please visit us at:

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

UPCOMING MUSIC RISES IN THE EAST ROOM

Avant-garde, Metal-Jam-Jazz Fusion Show Friday, Sept. 12, The East Room

We’re not really sure what avant-garde metal-jamjazz fusion means either, but we do know that if you go to The East Room you can figure it out.

Lobo, Season of Arrows, and Organic Androids will be performing. 2412 Gallatin Ave., 615-3353137

Metal Show

Saturday, Sept. 13, The East Room

Bring your earplugs for this one. Drunk Dad, Honduran, Sheep Shifter, REALEYES, and One Beggar Sun will perform. 2412 Gallatin Ave., 615-335-3137

FOR THE KIDS

Holly Street Rocks Fundraiser

6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 13, The Building

Everyone knows how expensive having kids can be, and finding quality daycare for those little tykes stretches a budget even further. East Nashville’s Holly Street Daycare has been looking for ways to help families who can’t always foot the bill for child care services, and their annual Holly Street Rocks Fundraiser and Silent Auction raises money for “Jamie’s Fund,” which helps provide tuition for families who need assistance. This year’s event includes the aforementioned silent auction, as well as a beer and wine tasting. Tickets are $50 for the event in advance and $60 at the door. Holly Street Daycare has helped families in East Nashville for years, come out to help them continue this good work. 1008C Woodland St.

EAST SIDE C A L E N D A R Emma Alford Calendar Editor

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD

GOD BLESS AMERICANA

Americana Music Association Festival and Conference

Nashville Neighborhoods Celebration

10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 13, Germantown

So, we know you love East Nashville, obviously, but it’s time to share the love with all the different neighborhoods of this city. The Neighborhoods Resource Center is hosting a street soiree in Germantown to celebrate all the nooks and crannies of our metropolis. There will be a neighborhood chili cook-off and a showcase to allow different organizations to show off what they have accomplished for their neck of the woods over the last year. They’ll have live music and plenty of free activities for the kiddos. Show pride for your kingdom.

3rd Ave. N., between Monroe and Taylor Streets

MUSIC FOR MEDICINE

My Health Affair Presentation

6 p.m., Wednesday Sept. 17, East Nashville Family Medicine

Singer-songwriter Corley Roberts doesn’t just sing tunes, she’s also an exercise physiologist and fitness coach. She believes in approaching health and medicine with a patient treatment plan that incorporates exercise to manage chronic disease in the adult and senior population. For this free presentation, Roberts is combining music with her fitness mantra to create songs for some good ole “edutainment.” The MyHealth Affair presentation will kick off Corley’s three-month pilot program of offering free fitness coaching to eligible patients of East Nashville Family Medicine. 801 Woodland St.

Sept. 17-21, citywide

It’s ‘Merica-na time again: The Americana Music Festival and Conference will take place over four days, with educational sessions by day and oodles of artists (more than 170!) taking the stage in various venues across the city by night. Along with the panels, seminars and lectures with top music biz professionals, musicians including Holly Williams, Leo Bud Welch, Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars and many more are set to take the stage. If you want to check out a long list of performances, you might want to invest in the fest’s wristband, which gets you into all the shows (unless the place is packed out to capacity). Otherwise, individual tickets are available for $20. For those looking to get educated at the conference, you’ll need to register online. Fanny’s House of Music will be hosting its own Americana showcase at Pavilion East on September 18 at 6:30 p.m.

YES IT’S LADIES NIGHT

Americana Ladies Night

5:30 to 8 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 18, The Pavilion East

Fanny’s House of Music is hosting its own Americana Music Association-endorsed showcase as part of the festival at The Pavilion East. In keeping with the Fanny’s mission, the lineup features all women in a free, full-on femme fest. Artists showcased include Hannah Aldridge, Lilly Hiatt, Anne McCue, and Margo and the Pricetags. Can we say girl power? 1006 Fatherland St.

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Music City’s

d n a B t s Bigge

Your Nashville Symphony | Live at the schermerhorn WORLD PREMIERE

WEST SIDE STORY in HD with the Nashville Symphony

September 5 & 6 Nashville Symphony performs Bernstein’s score live while the film classic plays on the big screen.

THE FOUR TOPS

JOHNNY MATHIS

September 11 to 13

September 14

with the Nashville Symphony

The Motown legends will have you dancing to “Baby I Need Your Loving” and “I Can’t Help Myself.”

with the Nashville Symphony

“Chances Are” you’ll get “Misty” when this crooner performs his hits with the orchestra.

AMERICAN MASTERWORKS

with the Nashville Symphony

September 18 to 20

Conni Ellisor and Victor Wooten perform a groundbreaking Concerto for Electric Bass & Orchestra.

JUST ADDED

FOREIGNER September 21

Smash hits like “Juke Box Hero,” “Feels Like the First Time,” “Urgent,” “Cold as Ice” and “I Want to Know What Love Is.”

YO-YO MA

with the Nashville Symphony

October 1

The world’s greatest cellist returns to perform Elgar’s Cello Concerto with the Nashville Symphony.

JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA

THE MUSIC OF MICHAEL JACKSON

October 5

October 10

with Wynton Marsalis

This remarkable group is made up of 15 of the finest soloists, ensemble players, and arrangers in jazz music today.

with the Nashville Symphony

Get ready for a “Thriller” of an evening when the Nashville Symphony, a full band and vocalists pay tribute to the King of Pop.

with support from

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ESC WE’RE JAZZED

SUPPER, SONGS, AND STORYTELLERS

Jazzy Bottoms Sunset Soirée Part II

7 to 11 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19, Top O’ Woodland

They tried this out in August and loved it so much they’re bringing it back for another go. Local band Gilded J is returning to perform some jazz classics

An Intimate Evening of Americana Song and Story In the spirit of the Americana Music Fest, Top O’ Woodland is hosting its own special evening of music, away from the hustle of and bustle of the fest. Shelby Bottom String Band will serenade the crowd while Appalachian natives Herman and Patsy Hatfield Lawson share stories about growing up in the mountains of East Tennessee. There is no cover, but bring your best dish and drink for this potluck if you care to share. 1603 Woodland St. 615-228-3868

7 to 9 p.m., Friday, Sept. 26, Shelby Bottoms Nature Center

along with their own cool-cat originals. Bring out the family (pets welcome, too) with blankets and a picnic. They’ll have refreshments and crafts for everyone to play around with. Get jazzed. For more information call 615-862-8539

IT’S A BEER FEASTIVAL

4th Annual Nashville Beer Fest

Noon to 6 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 20, East Park

Nashville’s annual beer festival has smartened up and they’re headed to our side of the river.

More than 45 craft brewers will be on-site kegging their best beers, alongside plenty of your favorite food trucks and vendors. A variety of activity booths are planned, too, with everything from free caricatures and airbrush tattoos to pretzel necklaces and football viewing. This is Music City, so it probably isn’t necessary for us to tell you about the live bands. Nashville Beer Fest has also invited home brewers and microbreweries to come out and talk hops with everyone. Tickets have sold out every year, so early bird gets the worm on this one. Tickets are on sale for $45, which will get you unlimited tastings and a souvenir sample glass. It’ll cost $60 for the VIP package with early entrance and access to the private tent with food sampling.

They also offer discounted tickets to all designated drivers. Dogs get in for free, as long as they’re friendly when they drink. Proceeds from this event will benefit the Phoenix Club of Nashville, an organization that has been helping disadvantaged youths for over 13 years.

700 Woodland St.

WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?

Dog Day Festival and Music City Mutt Strutt, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 20, Centennial Park

It’s time to round up your pups and head to the park: Nashville Humane Association is once again hosting the Dog Day Festival and Mutt Strutt. Register your pup to walk the dogwalk while raising money for the furry friends at NHA. Register for $25 on the day of the festival ($20 for ages 11-17, free for the kiddies). After the Mutt Strutt, the Dog Day Festival kicks off, which no K9 wants to miss. They’ll have a shopping pavilion decked out with doggie goods, contests, a pet portrait booth, and even arts and crafts activities for Picasso pooches. Oh, and there will be some music and food for the homo sapiens onsite too.

You’re dog-gone crazy if you don’t go.

2600 West End Ave.

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Specializing in small business accounting, business set-up and tax preparation.

Now serving the Eastside 615 Main Street, Suite 122 Nashville, TN 37206 615-982-1334

Over 50 Years of Experience peacockfinancial.com PeacockFinancialInc

STACIE HUCKEBA

PHOTOGRAPHY & FILM PRODUCTION THE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME FOUNDATION, THE AMERICANA MUSIC ASSOCIATION, SONY MUSIC GROUP, YEP ROCK MUSIC GROUP, REDEYE DISTRIBUTION, GOLD MOUNTAIN ENTERTAINMENT, MIKTEK AUDIO.

USA TODAY, ROLLING STONE, VINTAGE GUITAR, COUNTRY WEEKLY, SOUND ON SOUND, THE HUFFINGTON POST, TNN, CMT

+1 615.516.4664 // stacie@staciehuckeba.com

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You may remember her hits from the ’70s: “Brand New Key,” “Candles in the Rain.” Yep, that’s the Melanie we’re talking about. She’ll host an evening of music this fall at The Pavilion East that includes a local wine and cheese spread in an intimate table setting. If you want to catch one last outdoor event before winter sets in, buy your tickets at Fanny’s.

1006 Fatherland St.

1.21 GIGAWATTS?!

Food, Flicks, and Fun

6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 9, Bass Park

Time travel makes us hungry. Join Marty McFly and Doc Brown for a trip back to the ’80s as they screen “Back to the Future” in Bass Park this October. Don’t worry, you wont need a DeLorean to score Jeni’s, Yayo’s OMG, and Crankee’s Pizza while you’re there. This is a free event, but you should bring some scratch to support the food trucks and a blanket so you can get extra cozy with McFly. 1604 Holly St.

SMASHING THE ARTS

CultureSmash Festival

Oct. 16-17, Music Valley Event Center

Pumpkin Carving Party

6 to 8 p.m., Friday, Oct. 17, Shelby Bottoms Nature Center

BYOP (Bring Your Own Pumpkin) to Shelby Park for a pumpkin carvin’, picture watchin’ party at the Nature Center. They’ll have some snacks for you carvers, popcorn and apple cider for everyone.

Haul out your prettiest pumpkin for this carving party, or you can buy one from the nature center for a $10 suggested donation to their educational fund. They’ll be watching a “spooky nature movie” that’s appropriate for all ages. Come show your Jack-O-Lantern skills. To register, call 615-8628539

CANINES AGAINST CANCER

American Cancer Society’s Bark For Life

11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 18, Pavilion East

You may have heard of Relay For Life, but have you come across Bark for Life yet? It gives cancer survivors an opportunity to bring out the

6 p.m. to 12 a.m., Friday, Oct. 24, Headcorders (Home of Jared and Kristyn Corder)

Sorry Charlie Brown, this pumpkin patch is for adults only. EN Underground creators Jared and Kristyn Corder are opening up their home again for the second annual Pumpkin Ale Patch Party in their backyard. They will have seasonal beer (yes, that pumpkin ale you’ve been craving since last December is back), fall games, sweet tunes, and a scary movie. What Halloween is complete without seeing Michael Myers and his favorite kitchen accessory? Twiggs, Churchyard, and Justin Kalk Orchestra will perform with the movie screening to follow. Five bucks gets you in the gate, with pumpkins and seasonal beer available to the first 125 folks. Actual Food Nashville will be rolling up their gourmet street tacos. Feel free to wear your favorite costume and BYOB. 1604 Shelby Ave.

PIT PIT HOORAY!

Pit Bull Awareness Day

11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 25, The Pavilion East

Pit Bulls are pooches too! The Nashville PITTIE (Pit Initiative To Transform Image and Educate) organization is hosting a Pit Bull Awareness Day to help create a positive image for the breed as loyal and loving dogs. They’ll have live music, pet vendors, and food trucks (for you humans).

Nashville PITTIE will provide free spaying/ neutering for pit bulls, and they’ll even have some of their own Adopt-a-Bulls there for you to meet if you’re looking for a new friend. Bring your dog out for this free pup party; all breeds are welcome.

1006 Fatherland St.

DRINKING CREATIVELY

Paint Nites

Fat Bottom Brewery and Rumours East

Let your inner artist come out and play. Paint Nite hosts paint parties, where artists take you step-bystep through an entire painting. They provide all the goods you need to get going: brushes, paints, and even a smock. Artist Sara Beigle is bringing her brushes to the East Side, and she’s even offering a $20 discount for you East Nashvillians if you enter the coupon code “eastnash20” when buying tickets online. Grab a drink and release all inhibitions; it’s time to make your masterpiece.

October dates TBA. Rumours East: September 17 Fat Bottom Brewery: September 30

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IT’S THE GREAT PUMPKIN

Pumpkin Ale Patch Party hosted by East Nashville Underground

Slow & Steady don’t always win

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CultureSmash is an equal opportunity type of arts gathering — meaning they’re giving time for all types of art, from musical to visual, over the course of the two-day “arts first” event. They will feature a live music showcase, an art gallery, and a short film festival, and between musical acts or film screenings, you can step into the lobby to view pieces on display. To purchase tickets or check the full lineup of artists and films, log on to the CultureSmash website. 2416 Music Valley Dr., Suite 144.

PUMP, PUMP, PUMPKIN IT UP

M

An Evening with Melanie Safka

7:30 to 9 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 2, The Pavilion East

four-legged friends that helped get them through their battle for a one-mile pup strut. Sign you and your pooch up for this event to help the American Cancer Society raise funds for their continued work. There will be live music and plenty of fun activities for your family, plus you’re guaranteed to make some new furry friends. 1006 Fatherland St.

D

O

SOUNDS OF SAFKA

D

. C O N S N A

Book your holiday party now! events@maddonnas.com 1313 Woodland St 615.226.1617

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ESC ART AT THE PARK

Opening Reception: Shelby at Dusk

On display through Oct. 31, Shelby Bottoms Nature Center

Artist Jake Wells is bringing his own artistic interpretations of the park to… what better place: the park! Inspired by his own treks through Shelby Park at sundown, Wells has developed a series of paintings that capture the park at this time of day. As the sun falls, the lay of the landscape looks different, and Wells has encapsulated this phenomenon in his work. For more information, call 615-862-8539

DASH ’N BASH

East Nash Dash

9 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, Nashville Running Company

Here’s a race for us East Siders: The East Nash Dash, or E.N.D., is a four-mile trek through the heart of East Nashville that helps raise funds for Progress Inc., an organization that aims to aid senior citizens and adults with disabilities. Get there by 7:30 a.m. to register on-site, with the run kicking off at 9 a.m. Come for the run and stay for the after party, where a handful of your favorite East Nashville vendors and restaurants will help you celebrate with food, drinks, and awards. Kids 12 and under run free, and registration comes with a free bag and complimentary East Nash Bash refreshments. For more information, contact Race Director Stephanie Toone at s.toone@progress-inc.org or 615-5774717 1105 Woodland St.

MAS TEQUILA POR FAVOR

Day of the Dead Festival

6 to 10 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 1, The Pavilion East

Spirits are rising… and pouring. Pavilion East is holding its own Día de los Muertos festivities.

There will be spooky good music, food trucks, painted faces, and most importantly, tequila.

Tickets are $30, which includes over 20 samples of the finest tequilas. 1006 Fatherland St.

TENNESSEE TITANS @ LP FIELD

12 p.m. Sept. 14 vs. Dallas Cowboys 12 p.m. Oct. 5 vs. Cleveland Browns 12 p.m. Oct. 12 vs. Jacksonville Jaguars 12 p.m. Oct. 26 vs. Houston Texans

TSU TIGERS

2 p.m. Sept. 20 vs. Tennessee Tech (Hale Stadium) 6 p.m. Sept. 27 vs. Florida A&M (LP Field) 2 p.m. Oct. 11 vs. Jacksonville State (Hale Stadium) 2 p.m. Oct. 18 vs. UT Martin (Hale Stadium) 2 p.m. Nov. 1 vs. Eastern Kentucky (LP Field)

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RECURRING ANSWER ME THIS

Trivia Time!

8 p.m., each week, 3 Crow, Edley’s East, Drifter’s

East Siders, if you’re one of the sharper tools in the shed (or not, it’s no matter to us) stop by one of the East Side locales to test your wits at trivia.

They play a few rounds, with different categories for each question. There might even be some prizes for top scoring teams, but remember: Nobody likes a sore loser.

Monday @ Drifter’s Tuesday @ Edley’s BBQ East and Edgefield Sports Bar and Grill Thursday @ 3 Crow

TAKE ME TO THE PICTURE SHOW

Grassy Knoll Movie Nights

7 p.m., second Sunday of each month, side lawn @ Bongo Java East

We know you’re tired of paying $11 to sit in a stuffy movie theater, so bring your own blanket, relax and enjoy the show: Grassy Knoll Movie Nights will be playing our favorite cult classics for a few more weeks until winter rolls in. It’ll only cost you $5 to watch, or $4 with a canned food donation to Second Harvest ($1 for the kiddies).

Food trucks and local brews will be on standby, so you won’t go hungry or thirsty. Check Grassy Knoll Movie Nights’ Facebook page for what they’re showing each month. 109 South 11th St.

FEELING JAZZY

UnBound Arts Presents Second Sunday Jazz

3 to 5 p.m., second Sunday of each month, The Building

UnBound Arts is bringing the boogie to The Building. The second Sunday of each month they’ll have jazz performances from prominent vocalists and musicians on the local jazz circuit.

Contact unboundartsnashville@gmail.com for further information. 1008C Woodland St. 615262-8899

HIP-HOP AT THE SPOT

The Boom Bap

9 p.m., fourth Sunday of each month, The 5 Spot

Once a month, 5 Spot brings the beats and you bring the moves. Think of it as a hip-hop roundtable. A mess of DJs — resident hosts and guests — spin their favorite tracks, rotating throughout the night. Let their records bring the ruckus to you. This soiree was so popular it’s spread to other cities, but catch it where it started here in East Nashville. 1006 Forrest Ave., 615-650-9333

ESC RAVEN FOR PICKIN’

Picking Party hosted by Old Time Pickin’ Parlor 1 to 5 p.m., Sundays, Logue’s Black Raven Emporium

Itching to pick? Nobody knows pickin’ better than the Old Time Pickin’ Parlor and they’re hosting their pickiest picking party at Logue’s Black Raven Emporium. So, all you strummers and hummers grab your strings and jam with the best. Parking and entrance located at the back of the building.

2915 Gallatin Road, 615-562-4710.

FROM THE LIPS

A Night of Free Speech

7 to 11 p.m., second and fourth Tuesday of each month, Logue’s Black Raven Emporium

Local author Honest Lewis hosts an evening dedicated to fully exploring your First Amendment right in the comfort of the Subterranean Lounge.

Be it poetry, prose, rants, diatribes, or manifestos, the mic is open to all forms of haranguing. This is a first come, first read kinda night, so arrive in time to sign yourself up if you’re looking to spout your words. Entrance and parking are located at the back of the building. 2915 Gallatin Road, 615-562-4710.

ON THE GREG-GARIAN CALENDAR

Greg Garing with Tim Carroll

7 p.m., Wednesdays, Logue’s Black Raven Emporium

Honky-tonk sultan Greg Garing is continuing his Black Raven residency with the help of some friends. Opry-house veteran/dive bar dabbler Tim Carroll will be joining Garing, plus some other friends are bound to show up from week to week. Come out for this trippy hillbilly hoedown.

Parking and entrance located at the back of the building.

2915 Gallatin Road, 615-562-4710.

ARTS FROM EAST

Arts Over the River!

6 to 9 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 25, Main Street Gallery

We don’t call it Artober for nothin’. To warm you up for Nashville’s month-long celebration of the arts, Main Street and Red Arrow Gallery have got you covered. The two neighborhood galleries are sculpting an event to celebrate art that’s east of the Cumberland. The evening will kickoff with a silent auction featuring works chosen from the two galleries, along with pieces from Art & Invention, Bryant Gallery, John Cannon Fine Art and Nashville’s Community Darkroom. However, they’re not just visually exploring the Eastside, they’ve got some local flavor to satiate your palate as well. Tastings on deck will come from Eastland Café, The Loving Pie Company, and Rudies Seafood and Sausage (hailing from Mitchell’s Deli creators). Grab your tickets online. All proceeds will benefit art programs at Nashville Classical Charter School and Warner Enhanced Option School. 625 Main St.

MONEY IS FOR NOTHIN’, MUSIC FOR FREE

Nashville Symphony’s Free Day of Music

9 a.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 27, Schermerhorn Symphony Center

Nothing in life comes for free. Except maybe music in no place other than Music City at the Schermerhorn. The Nashville Symphony is hosting its annual “Free Day of Music.” This year they’re bringing over 20 performers to four different stages, playing a wide range of musical tastes.

They’ll feature a bit of everything, from classical to bluegrass. You can bring your little Beethovens to the kid’s area from 11 to 4 p.m. from some family-friendly activities. Look online for the full music schedule. One Symphony Place.

WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE

Holly Street Fire Station’s Centennial Celebration

10:30 to 12 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 1, Holly Street Station

East Nashvill’es favorite little firehouse is turning 100. Station 14, situated in the heart of East Nashville at the corner of Holly and 16 th, is ringing in it’s centennial year with a celebration of its unique history. There will be an open house so you can tour the station in its entirety. You will even be able to fulfill that childhood dream of sliding down the fire pole if you wish (word is, it is the last remaining brass fire pole in the city).

They will have a few speeches from Nashville Fire Department members and other local officials.

You can also scope out two antique fire trucks they’ll have on display, but lets leave the firefighting to the professionals.

1600 Holly St.

BLACK RAVEN EVENTS

Thursday, September 4, 11, 18, 25 –26 Mando Blues presents: Matt Tedder and Friends Saturday, September 20 – Cody Brooks Saturday, September 27 – Dutch Whisky

FOND OF MOVIES?

Fond Object Backyard Movie Nights

7:30 p.m., Sundays, Fond Object

Backyard hangs, BYOB, and a movie for free? It’s the best cheap date you can take anyone (or just yourself) on. Every Sunday Fond Object hosts a movie night in their backyard. We can’t really tell you what kind of movies to expect with any degree of certainty, only that sometimes they’re scary, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and sometimes awesomely bad. Check their interwebsite to see what is screening. Bring a six-pack and a blanket, lay back and enjoy the show. Enter through the back gate off of Riverside Drive.

1313 McGavock Pike. 615-499-4489.

BRING IT TO THE TABLE

Community Hour at Lockeland Table

4 to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, Lockeland Table

Lockeland Table is cooking up family-friendly afternoons to help you break out of the house or away from that desk for a couple of hours.

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ESC hours that includes a special snack and drink menu, as well as a menu just for the kiddies. A portion of all proceeds benefits Lockeland Design Center PTO, so you can feel good about giving back to your neighborhood while schmoozing with your fellow East Nashvillians. 1520 Woodland St. 615-228-4864.

FARM FRESH

East Nashville Farmers Market

3:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays, Shelby Park Amqui Station Farmer’s Market: 12 to 3 p.m., Sundays, Amqui Station, Madison

The East Nashville Farmer’s Market will be concluding its market season on October 29, so be sure to stop in and get your favorite fruits, vegetables, and other artisan products — and meet the farmers who make your food — before they close up shop for the winter. Don’t forget they’ve moved things over to Shelby Park near the baseball diamond. Amqui Station will host its final market on Oct. 26, for those of you further down Gallatin. Take a detour from your usual trek to Kroger and stop by these markets — they offer the ”cream of the crop” in locally grown organic and fresh foods. Peruse the local cheeses, milk, breads, herbs, fruits, vegetables, jams and jellies, even handmade good, such as soaps, candles, pottery, and jewelry. They also accept SNAP (food stamp) benefits. Grocery shopping has never been this fun, or homegrown.

EAST ROOM HAS JOKES

SPiFFY SQUiRREL Sundays

7:30 p.m. Sundays, The East Room

The East Room is making a name for itself in Nashville’s comedy scene in part through SPiFFY SQUiRREL Sundays, started up by East Room head honcho Ben Jones through NashvilleStandUp.com. Hosted by local comedian Chad Riden, the shows bring in an array of national and local funny guys and gals, and it’s quickly become one of the best places in town for up-and-coming comics to flex their funny bones. If you’re looking for a laugh, check it out. Five bucks gets you in the door. 2412 Gallatin Ave., 615-335-3137

STOP, SHOP AND SWAP FOR THE SONGSTERS

Nashville’s Musician’s Swap Meet

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. the first and third Sunday of each month, The Building

If you’re among the sea of musicians and songwriters in Nashville, you might want to drop in on the monthly Musician’s Swap Meet at The Building in 5 Points. The musically inclined gather to buy, sell and trade their gear, and there’s always a smattering of various musical odds and ends: guitars, drums, amps, fiddles, horns — you name it. You’ll also find vinyl, artwork, clothing and other music-related memorabilia. This folky flea market of sorts is free and open to the public.

Stop by, grab a coffee at Bongo Java, grub down at Drifters and check out the musical arsenal. If you’re interested in renting a booth for the swap, contact Dino Bradley at 615-593-7497. 1008-C Woodland St.

I’M WITH YOU IN ROCKLAND

Kerouacs Beat Mondays

8:30 p.m. Mondays, Performing Artist Co-op

The Performing Artist Co-op (a.k.a. the “Purple Theater”) has given a forum for lovers of the Beat generation to share their own writing, and they’re calling all you Dharma Bums to bring out your prose, poetry, or music to this laid-back listening party. It’s reminiscent of a 1950s lounge setting — the kind of joint you might have seen Burroughs stumble into on a hard night. Five bucks gets you in the door and a strong brew of coffee or tea. If you require some other type of liquid courage, it’s BYOB. 107 N. 11th St.

HIT THE OPEN ROAD

Open Road Monday

8 p.m., Mondays, The Building

The Building’s four-year tradition of “Open Road Monday” rambles on. It’s a weekly show that features one or two different bands every week, promptly followed by an open mic sesh. It’s just a $5 cover and BYOB. Check out some of the budding talent the Building is showcasing over here on the East Side. 1008 C. Woodland St. 615-262-8899

SHAKE A LEG

Keep On Movin’

10 p.m. until close Mondays, The 5 Spot

For those looking to hit the dancefloor on Monday nights, The 5 Spot’s “Keep on Movin’” dance party is the place to be. This shindig keeps it real with old-school soul, funk and R&B. Don’t worry, you won’t hear Ke$ha — although you might see her — and you can leave your Apple Bottom jeans at home. If you have two left feet, then snag a seat at the bar. They have two-for-one drink specials, so you can use the money you save on a cover to fill your cup. 1006 Forrest Ave., 615-650-9333

RINC, Y’ALL

Scott-Ellis School of Irish Dance

4:30 to 5 p.m. ages 3-6, and 5 to 5:45 p.m. ages 7 & up, Mondays, Eastwood Christian Church Fellowship Hall

You’re never too young — or too old — to kick out the Gaelic jams with some Irish Step dancing.

No experience, or partner, required. Just you, some enthusiasm and a heart of gold will have you dancing in the clover before you can say “leprechaun.” 1601 Eastland Ave., 615-300-4388

UKE IT IF YOU GOT IT

Nashville Ukulele Monthly Jam

6 to 7:30 p.m., Third Monday of each month, May 19, Fanny’s House of Music

Fanny’s calls in all the uke-heads once a month for a jam night at their House of Music. They invite players of all skill levels and anyone else who might just want to drop in for a listen at this ramble. 1101 Holly St. 615-750-5746

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FAT BOTTOM FOR YOUR BUCK

11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Thursdays, Beyond the Edge

4 p.m. until close Tuesdays, Fat Bottom Brewery

East Nashville Crime Prevention meeting Join your neighbors to talk about crime stats, trends and various other issues with East Precinct commander David Imhof and head of investigation Lt. Greg Blair. If you are new to the East Side, get up to speed on criminal activity in the area. If you are a recent victim of crime, they want to hear your story. 112 S. 11th St., 615-226-3343

$10 Pint and Entrée Special

Ultimate Comedy Show by Corporate Juggernaut

Q: What’s better than a craft beer and a tasty meal? A: Cheap craft beer and a tasty meal. At Fat Bottom Brewery you can grab a pint and an entrée for just $10 on Tuesdays. Peruse their beer garden and pick a brew; they’ve got plenty of options for the seasoned beer drinker, and they’re always kegging fresh batches and pouring cold ones.

900 Main St.

HAVE YOUR PIE AND DRINK A PINT, TOO

TELL ME A STORY

6 p.m. to midnight Tuesdays, The Family Wash

7 p.m. the first and third Tuesdays of each month, Mad Donna’s

$11 Pint & Pie Night

Every Tuesday night at The Family Wash, you can score a pint of beer and a shepherd’s pie for just $11. The reigning music venue on the East Side, The Wash is home to an abundance of good music, and on Tuesdays, the club plays host to the long-running songwriter series, Shortsets, hosted

by Cole Slivka. They offer a wide selection of craft beer, and they even have a vegetarian shepherd’s pie for herbivores. So sit back and enjoy the show, along with your pint and pie. 2038 Greenwood Ave., 615-226-6070

NO LAUGH TRACK NEEDED

East Side Storytellin’

Looking for something to get your creative juices flowing? East Side Story has you covered. They’ve partnered with WAMB radio and Mad Donna’s to present a regular event that’s part book reading, part musical performance and author/musician interview. They host this lovely event twice each month; check the East Side Story website to see who the guests of honor will be for each performance. The event is free, but you’ll have to reserve a spot by calling ahead. 1313 Woodland St., 615-262-5346

8:30 p.m. Tuesdays, East Room

Local jokesters have taken up residency in the East Room for Corporate Juggernaut, a weekly series of open-mic comedy shows put on by Gary Fletcher, Jane Borden and Brandon Jazz. Brad Edwards is your host and his backing band is The Grey Grays.

You can always expect to see fresh material and new talent. Doors and sign-up are at 8 p.m. Get out and help support Nashville’s growing comedy scene. 2412 Gallatin Ave., 615-335-3137

DOWN THE CORNHOLE

Cornhole Wednesday Nights at Fat Bottom

5 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays through October, Fat Bottom Brewery

Each Wednesday, Fat Bottom Brewing and Lightning 100 partner up at Fat Bottom’s headquarters for a cornhole tournament. If you think you can sink ‘em, head over to pound a few brews and bags. Each week features different prizes, like VIP tickets to local shows. The cornholin’ evening is hosted by Lightning 100 darling Wells Adams.

900 Main St.

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YOUR FRIENDLY EAST NASHVILLE INSURANCE AGENT

Jans Eric INSURANCE 615.478.7146

ericjans@ericjans.com www.ericjansinsurance.com health insurance life insurance disability insurance supplemental insurance long-term care health savings account (hsa)

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ESC TOAST TO MOTHER EARTH

East Nashville Green Drinks

6-9 p.m., third Wednesday of each month, Village Pub & Beer Garden

Tired of talking sports and gossip every night out? Village Pub has something in mind for the greener East Nashvillian. Once a month they host an evening for environmentalists to sit down for a drink and discuss ideas for a more sustainable future. Just think about it like this: You’ll be saving the planet, one drink at a time. 1308 McGavock Pike, 615-942-5880

seeks out intriguing artists and displays their work while musicians play a few sets of their best stuff.

Think of it as a hybrid art opening/rock show.

UnBound Arts hopes to promote camaraderie, collaboration and fusion between the various disciplines of the arts. Come join in on this artistic amalgamation.

1008 Woodland St., 615-262-8899

SING ME A SONG

SoWN 8 p.m., last Thursday of each month, The Building

Once a month, The Building calls in the best and brightest songwriters of the city to showcase and connect with industry professionals. Songwriters know how difficult it is to cut their teeth in this Music City; a good place to start might be right

ART IS FOR EVERYONE

John Cannon Fine Art classes

6 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 to 4 p.m. Saturdays, The Idea Hatchery

If you’ve been filling in coloring-book pages for years but you’re too intimidated to put actual paint to canvas, it might be time to give it a try. Local artist John Cannon has been teaching intimate art classes at The Idea Hatchery since last year, and the small class size keeps the sessions low-pressure and allows for some one-on-one instruction. If you’re feeling like you could be the next Matisse with a little guidance, sign yourself up. 1108-C Woodland St., 615-496-1259

COMEDY AT THE UNDERGROUND

Hopefully Funny Open Mic Night

6:30 p.m., Thursdays, Cult Fiction Underground

Every Thursday the Cult Fiction Underground (located beneath Logue’s Black Raven Emporium) puts on its own open mic comedy night, hosted by local funnyman Josh Inocalla. Sign-ups start at 6:30 p.m., the show begins at 7 p.m. and each comic gets four minutes. The Underground’s unique gothic style bar and classic theatre-style seating are reason enough to check out this standup night — plus, beers are cheap and there’s no cover to sweat. 2915 Gallatin Rd., 615-562-4710

BLUEGRASS, BEER, BURGERS

Bluegrass Thursdays with Johnny Campbell & the Bluegrass Drifters

8 p.m. until close on Thursdays, Charlie Bob’s

To celebrate your post-Hump Day, head to Charlie Bob’s and bring your axe along. Watch North 2nd Street’s own Bluegrass Drifters kick things off, then join in on the pickin’ party afterward. Have a burger, buy a few beers and add a little ’grass to your life. Oh yeah: It’s also dollar hot dog night.

1330 Dickerson Pike, 615-262-2244

TROUBADOURS AND VIRTUOSOS UNITE

UnBound Arts Presents: Third Thursdays

7 p.m., Third Thursday of every month, The Building

UnBound Arts has come up with a unique way to combine the worlds of visual, and musical artists together in one evening. Each month UnBound Sept | Oct 2014

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ESC here on the East Side. An open mic follows each showcase. Don’t forget to BYOB. 1008 C. Woodland St., 615-262-8899

GUFFAW AND GET DOWN

PALAVER RECORDS POW WOW

The East Room always has you covered for Friday nights. You’ll be able to get all your giggles and grooves in one spot. At 7 p.m., Luxury Prestige III — a scripted comedy competition where the audience chooses the winner — kicks off. Each month features live sketch and scripted video competitions for prizes, plus a musical guest. Pay $3 to get yer kicks. Starting at 10 p.m. after Luxury Prestige III, East Room will have bands playing until 1 a.m. 2412 Gallatin Ave., 615-335-3137

Palaver Thursday Showcase

9 p.m. Thursdays, FooBar Too

Looking to hear some fresh new tunes without paying a pretty penny to do it? Head over to FooBar on Thursday nights — East Nasty-based record label Palaver Records hosts a weekly showcase to promote both local and traveling acts.

It gives them a chance to scout performers, bands an opportunity to promote themselves, and gives music lovers a cheap show to catch during the week (only $3 at the door). You can see an array of different genres from week to week, and the beer always flows easy at Foo with $3 drafts. 2511 Gallatin Rd.

STOP AT THE SPOT

Tim Carroll’s Friday Night Happy Hour 6 to 8:30, every Friday, 5 Spot

Your local watering hole has Tim Carroll’s Rock n’ Roll Band playing their way through happy hour every Friday. It’s a great Spot to grab a beer and hear some tunes to kick off the weekend — drinks are discounted and the music is free. 1006 Forrest Ave., 615-650-9333

SHAKE YOUR FOOBAR

Sparkle City

10 p.m., Friday, fooBAR

Foo’s best dance party with their freshest DJs happens every Friday night. Spinmasters David Bermudez and Jonas Stein drop the needle on vinyl all night with only the numbers that’ll make you shake what ’yer mama gave you. 2511 Gallatin Rd.

DO THE JITTERBUG

Jump Session Swing Dance Classes

8 to 12 p.m., Fridays, DancEast

Grab your partner and swing on over to Jump Session’s Swing dance classes at DancEast. They’ll be dipping and hopping all night long to 1920s-1940s jazz. Pull out the poodle skirts and give it a twirl.

If you’re a newbie, they have a beginner lesson from 8 to 9 p.m., with the full-on dancehall party starting after. You can hit the floor for just $7, or $5 if you have a student ID. 805 Woodland St.

CAN’T FORCE A DANCE PARTY

Queer Dance Party

9 p.m. to 3 a.m., third Friday of every month, 5 Spot

On any given month, the QDP is mixed bag of fashionably clad attendees (some in the occasional costume) dancing till they can’t dance no mo’ at the 5 Spot, which was coincidentally named the second-best place to dance in Nashville. Help pack out the cozy club, shake a leg, slurp down some of the drink specials, and let your true colors show.

1006 Forrest Ave.

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Luxury Prestige III

7 p.m., Third Friday of Every Month, The East Room

WHOSE EAST SIDE IS IT ANYWAY?

Music City Improv

8 p.m., third Friday of each month, The Building

Music City Improv proudly puts on their high-energy show at The Building in East Nashville each month. Every month’s show is different, featuring a healthy mix of short- and long-form improv, plus live and video sketch comedy. Think of it as your own local “Saturday Night Live” on a Friday night. This gig tends to sell out, so buy your tickets in advance online. 1008 C. Woodland St.

THERE’S A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING…

First Time Stories

7 to 10 p.m., first Friday of each month, Actor’s Bridge Studio

We all have our firsts, some better than others.

Whether it’s a story about that first prom night (when you weren’t crowned king or queen), your first concert, or maybe that first kiss, these stories are the stuff of the stage. Actors Bridge hosts an open mic night for which such soliloquies are made. They call it “storytelling karaoke,” and they only ask that you tell it straight from the heart in less than five minutes. Bring your first and it won’t be the last time you make it out. Admission is $5 (bring a few extra bucks for the cash bar). 4304 Charlotte Ave.

GET YOUR CREEP ON

The Cult Fiction Underground Movie Nights

8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, Logue’s Black Raven Emporium

The Cult Fiction Underground, housed beneath Robert Logue’s Black Raven Emporium off Gallatin Road, hosts screenings of rare and classic horror and cult films under the shop every weekend they for $5. The dim basement creates an intimate gathering space for cult and horror fans (it looks like the kind of place Edgar Allen Poe might’ve stumbled out of 150 years ago), and you can socialize and have a drink before (or after) the film in their gothic-style bar and lounge.

The entrance is behind the building and parking is free. Check out Black Raven’s Facebook page to see what films they’re screening each week. 2915 Gallatin Rd., 615-562-4710

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ESC WELCOME TO THE PLEASUREDOME

Desire/Desire/Desire

9 p.m., first Saturday of each month, The East Room

If you’re looking for a place to shake it out to some tunes that don’t include the latest and greatest from Billboard’s Top 100, The East Room fits the bill. They host a dance night solely dedicated to only the most dark and sensual tunes of years past.

This party, created for “electric youth and dream warriors,” blends all types dark pop including (but not limited to) Italo disco, freestyle, synthpop, lazer soul, hi-NRG, and electro-hop. DJs Baron Von Birk, Grey People, and HYPE will be laying down the tracks for the evening. 2412 Gallatin Ave., 615-335-3137

NEIGHBORHOOD MEETINGS & EVENTS

SHELBY HILLS NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION 6:30 p.m. third Monday of every odd numbered month, Shelby Community Center

401 S. 20th St., www.shelbyhills.org

CLEVELAND PARK NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION 6:30 p.m. second Thursday of every month, Cleveland Park Community Center

610 N. Sixth St., www.facebook.com/groups/ClevelandPark

INGLEWOOD NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION 7 p.m. first Thursday of every month, Isaac Litton Alumni Center

4500 Gallatin Rd., www.inglewoodrna.org

MCFERRIN NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION 6:30 p.m. first Thursday of every month, McFerrin Park Community Center

301 Berry St.

ROSEBANK NEIGHBORS

6:30 p.m. third Thursday of every month, Memorial Lutheran Church

1211 Riverside Dr.

HENMA

6 to 8 p.m. second Tuesday of every month, location varies

6 p.m. fourth Monday of every month, Metro Police East Precinct

HENMA is a cooperative formed among East Nashville business owners to promote collaboration with neighborhood associations and city government. Check the association’s website to learn about the organization and where meetings will be held each month. Contact lisa@theeastnashvillian.com with your questions. www.eastnashville.org

EASTWOOD NEIGHBORS

DICKERSON ROAD MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION

1601 Eastland Ave., www.eastwoodneighbors.org

936 E. Trinity Ln., www.dickersonroadmerchants.com

GREENWOOD NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION

MOMS CLUB OF EAST NASHVILLE

MAXWELL HEIGHTS NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION 936 E. Trinity Ln.

6:30 p.m. second Tuesday of every other month, Eastwood Christian Church

6 p.m. second Tuesday of every month, House on the Hill

909 Manila St., www.greenwoodneighbors.org

EAST NASHVILLE CAUCUS

5 p.m. first Wednesday of every month, Metro Police East Precinct

The East Nashville Caucus provides a public forum for East Nashville community leaders, representatives, council members and neighbors. 936 E. Trinity Ln.

CHAMBER EAST

8:15 to 9:30 a.m. first Wednesday of every month, location changes monthly

The Chamber East meets every month for a networking coffee to discuss community updates and how to grow and improve the East Nashville area.

4 p.m. last Thursday of every month, Metro Police East Precinct

10 a.m. first Friday of every month, location varies by group

MOMS (Moms Offering Moms Support) Club is an international organization of mothers with three branches in the East Nashville area. It provides a support network for mothers to connect with other EN mothers. The meetings are open to all mothers in the designated area. Meetings host speakers, cover regular business items of the organization including upcoming service initiatives and activities, and also allow women to discuss the ins and outs, ups and downs of being a mother. Visit www. momsclubeast.blogspot.com to determine which MOMS group your residence falls under.

Inglewood: 10 a.m. (email inglewoodmoms@ gmail.com for location) Lockeland: 10 a.m. East Park Community Center, 600 Woodland St. Eastwood: contact chapter for time and location

If you have an event you would like to have listed, please send information about the event to calendar@theeastnashvillian.com. For more up to date information, be sure to visit us at theeastnashvillian.com 100

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Will Kimbrough CONTINUED FROM 34 (and successful) band with Grayson Capps called Willie Sugarcapps, who just won the “Best New Band” in the Independent Music Awards.

He’s produced a long line of records for other artists, probably most notable among them being Todd Snider’s seminal East Nashville Skyline.

Will’s four years of having played lead guitar for Todd showed in his ability to bring out of Todd what is probably the most fully realized work he’s ever done.

Along the way, Todd’s association with Jimmy Buffett led to Jimmy appreciating Will’s abilities to the extent that he’s recorded several songs Will wrote outright as well as flying Will to the Caribbean to write songs together. (Nice work if you can get it.) Little Feat recorded “Goodnight Moon” (written by Will and Gwil Owen).

Will is the farthest thing from a guitar snob. He doesn’t own a slew of vintage electrics that he dares not take out of the house. His goto arsenal consists of a stock Gibson Les Paul Special, a stock Fender Telecaster, a Fender Stratocaster, a Gretsch Tennessee Rose, and a slew of cheap off-brands, including an Aria Les Paul copy that would fetch nil in a pawn shop but sings in the hands of the master. They’re not hallowed trophies; they’re tools, to be used as such. For acoustic gigs he actually does have a rather valuable 1947 Gibson J-45 outfitted with a Fishman Rare Earth pickup. This replaced a Martin D-18 that was persecuted repeatedly by the airlines, and a Yamaha that was his closest companion for over two decades. For amps, he prefers small 1x12 combos in the 18-22 watt range, preferably without a master volume, and low wattage enough that he can crank the power tubes up to an agreeably creamy level which he can back down to a clean tone with a volume pedal on the floor. For Willie Sugarcapps gigs — in which he

switches between acoustic guitar, mandolin and banjo — Will employs a Seymour Duncan DTAR preamp interface that helps him adjust the various output signals from those instruments.

His playing style is marked by precision and economy. Most all guitarists are guilty of “ghost notes,” the faint buzz of knocking against the G string on your way to hitting the B string you intended to strike. Will doesn’t do ghost notes. The result is a clarity and coherence to everything he plays. He has an uncanny ability to sit in with other artists and play songs he’s never heard before. He was born with this ability, but it is also perhaps the best example of his mindfulness; in 20 years of playing with him, I’ve learned only one trick from him on how to do this: Whatever key the song is in, hit the fifth note (say you’re in the key of E, then you would play a B note) and let it ring, then stand there and look cool. It works every time. One other asset to his fretting hand is that his pinky stays in place, uniformly adjacent to the rest of his fingers, not flying away akimbo. That skill took six months of painstaking practice decades ago, and is a vital ingredient in his chording style now.

Will has never viewed his records (or other people’s) as vehicles for hot-dogging. (If that’s what you want, the Eric Johnson records are filed under J.) The old Nashville adage is, “Don’t play your instrument. Play the song.” The end result is that record lovers who fall for Kimbrough over spare, elegiac songs like “Wings” and “Hill Country Girl” come to the shows, and then they get treated to extended middle sections of fretboard wizardry, bursts of liquid lightning fills, and outros that serve as his platform for stretching out and playing lead passages that tell stories.

Rodney Crowell has said that when he grows up, he wants to be Will Kimbrough. “I just want to keep doing what I’m doing,” Will says. “I’m very lucky that I get to do what I love and can support my family by playing shows, playing sessions, producing other artists and — through all that — make a living in Nashville.” He will continue to make that living, juggling multiple projects, and maintaining a serene Zen mindfulness about the whole twangy ball of wax.

John Mark Painter CONTINUED FROM 48 in the same physical space as the other players?

And if the part that needs to be played is recorded in a backyard studio just as modern (if not more so) than the one in which the original tracks are recorded, a studio that is likely to make the player (in this case, Painter) feel more at home, and feeling open and creative — for it is his home — isn’t that preferable?

Isn’t the finished product blasting out of your headphones or car stereo all that matters, not

the audio engineering, impressive as it may be, that went into the recording of it?

Painter thinks so, and most of the people he works with these days — moviemakers, musicians both well-known and up-and-coming — seem to think so too. The recording center that is Nashville in 2014 is plenty about great players, great gear, and great studios, but it’s also about being able to grab a cup of coffee or a bite of hot chicken to discuss projects, to

Ted Drozdowski CONTINUED FROM 56 realize himself as a guitar player.

“I realized I had my own thing,” he says. “A style that was my own sound as a guitar player. Tectonic blocks of sound that collide and come apart. Sometimes they form melodies.

Sometimes they are dissonant. Then the whole slide thing really started happening in the Devil 102

Gods in the early ’90s.

“I saw Deep Blues [the film from brothers David and John Stewart, in collaboration with Robert Palmer and the acclaimed roots music filmmaker and documentarian Robert Mugge] around then, and I saw Junior Kimbrough.

I thought, ‘That guy is the best rhythm

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discuss ideas for projects, to talk songs.

There’s nothing that’ll ever replace a person or persons sitting down with instruments and crafting some songs, of course. Music is a social art, even for your lone troubadour/one-manband types. Music is made to share a feeling or emotion with others, whether one person in particular or the world at large. How that music gets to your ears, however, is a matter — much like music itself — open to interpretation.

Not up to interpretation: The provisions have run out, along with our words.The yard man has come. Thermos suitably drained, we exit the studio, head back to the house, and let the man go back to living his life again.

guitar player I’ve ever seen.’ And R.L. Burnside.

I thought, ‘I’ve got to figure out how to get down there.’”

Although he didn’t realize it at the time, Drozdowski and the Scissormen would one day become the subjects of the film Big Shoes: Walking and Talking the Blues, produced by Mugge.

Working as a front-line editor at Musician, Drozdowski got an interview with Palmer that would change his life. Forty-five minutes turned into three hours and a friendship forged

Jim oblon CONTINUED FROM 46 to spend the time?’ I used to make lists of what I liked the most, and sometimes it was, ‘I like the way my guitar sounds through a Fender amp, slightly distorted.’ Regardless, it’s all about that search, and those times when you’re playing, and it’s like ‘Poof !’ and you’re out of the gravitational pull, and the amp is responding to exactly what your fingers are doing, and it’s a really groovy thing to have happen.”

For Oblon, the key to those unique and personal “Poof!” moments is searching for and coming by them naturally, too.

“We live in a time where there’s so much information about how to get this sound, or that sound,” he says. “But sometimes that sound just sounds like information, more than it does music, at least. It’s like taking information and placing it in different areas, instead of writing a song.

“I think playing guitar is kind of like being a hunter.

Are you going to be the kind of dude with a high-powered scope, and then you are you going to shoot the animal and then have razorblade-sharp tools to dissect it, or do you go after it like a lion? One is raw, and one is kind of surgical, but there’s also a lot of finesse and grace in the lion. And that’s where I think I want to be, where I want my playing to be. I want my playing to be – and this sounds corny – but like a gazelle being taken down by a lion. There’s a lot of blood in the fur. It’s really kind of violent, but within that violence there’s thousands and thousands of years of evolution.”

The reporter notes with regret that most of his tape recording is inaudible. Then he remembers what he and Painter had been talking about for the previous three or so hours — about listening, about the wondrous abilities that the human brain has for memory, for recall, and for creativity. About how the finished product is technically nothing more than the sum of its parts and somehow everything more all at the same time.

And about how the ability to reconcile this seeming dichotomy is one of the first keys to understanding art.

Plans are made for dinner, goodbyes proffered. In a few days, John Mark Painter will be standing on stage in Chicago, watching the fruits of his labors, along with tens of thousands of his closest friends.

For now, he’s just another East Nashvillian in search of another cup of coffee.

through the love of the blues. “I became friends with him,” he says. “One of the great pleasures of my life.”

Palmer connected Drozdowski with Matthew Johnson of Fat Possum Records in Oxford, Miss. He and his wife soon found themselves in Junior Kimbrough’s juke joint in Holly Springs, watching and listening to R.L. Burnside. Three years would pass before the two discovered Drozdowski played guitar. Then, at a gig in Boston, recorded for the House of Blues radio hour, Burnside invited him onstage to play.

“I came off stage and my legs kind of gave out, and I felt like something important had happened,” Drozdowski says. “After that, I played with them any time I could. And doing so really Sept | Oct 2014

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made me get my shit together. R.L. opened the door, and then kicked my ass through.

“I felt connected to Mississippi blues. I didn’t feel the same connection with Texas blues or Chicago blues, though I love them both. But hearing the North Mississippi blues, I made a connection to that immediately, and with psychedelia, which I’m way into. To me the blues down there feels like the mud and the dirt — it’s incredibly rooted and deep. It’s like a natural resource.”

As a songwriter, Drozdowski has been the

primary force on all the Scissormen originals, a band entering its 10th year, which includes bassist Sean Zywick and drummer Pete Pulkrabek in its present incarnation. He has co-written songs with others, including blues guitar great Ronnie Earl, which were cut with Irma Thomas and Kim Wilson.

“With writing songs, I’m feeling like I’ve finally hit my stride,” Drozdowski says. “I’ve written some good ones, I think, over the years — even had some other artists cover some of my songs — and I’m always trying to grow and

evolve as an artist.”

The latest Scissormen record, Love & Life, to be released this year, has powerful material throughout. “Beggin’ Jesus” is a searing blues prayer, and especially haunting are “Let’s Go To Memphis” and “The River,” the latter a song Drozdowski wrote from the spirit-laden view on a rusted-out bridge in Mississippi. “‘The River’ is a Mississippi ghost story,” Drozdowski says. “We were driving down from Junior’s place to Oxford, and I stopped on an old rusted railroad bridge going over the Tallahatchie River, and there was fog everywhere, and like gauze and muddy water — that song is what I took away from that.”

For a descendant of Polish coal miners who found a natural home deep in the hallowed ground of the Mississippi blues, being drawn toward the spirits of the past is only natural.

Richie Owens CONTINUED FROM 57 manufacture of his own line of Owens resonator guitars from 1999 to 2003. He also gained a reputation as an accomplished resonator steel player and bottleneck-style guitar player.

“I consider myself very blessed,” Owens says.

“This is such a hard business, I like to think I’m a survivor because I’ve been able to pull it off on one level or another. I’ve always been connected with music, whether it’s working with instrument manufacturing, in the studio, or going out and playing.”

Recently Owens has been concentrating on his own music through Richie Owens and the Farm Bureau, a group that has gone through several incarnations since it was first formed in 1992, and one through which Owens has been able to combine the varied threads of his influences. Their most recent album, Tennessee, features 10 songs inspired by his home state and Owens’ family history. Joining him in the current version of the Farm Bureau are longtime friends and veterans of the Nashville rock scene of the ’80s, Brian O’Hanlon and John Reed.

“I’ve played with these guys longer than any other lineup,” Owens says, “and I don’t think that’s going to change. I’ve finally found that brotherhood.”

In 2011, Owens reopened the Old Time Pickin’ Parlor. He had been involved in a previous incarnation of the shop/venue in 2000 and purchased the rights to the name after it closed in 2002. “I’m still designing instruments.

I’ve done two signature model resonator guitars, a mandolin and an autoharp for Washburn.

So I needed a place to do this stuff and rather than an office, why not have a store where I can showcase what I’m doing?”

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Matt Dunlap by email at mdunlap@nfcn.org or by phone at (615) 250-1140, Ext. 190.

But the reasons for reviving the welcoming setting of the Old Time Pickin’ Parlor run deeper than mere utility, as Owens explains. “I had such wonderful memories from when I was a teenager. I wanted to have those opportunities for other kids. I wanted it to be where a professional guy could come in and try stuff out, but some kid that’s just trying to figure it out could be in a good environment that’s conducive

John Jackson CONTINUED FROM 64 Jackson says. “My wife had a great job, so she would work and we’d go to the park or the zoo every day. It was great to be with him.”

Unable to leave the guitar behind completely, Jackson soon found a new calling. “When our son started classes at the Montessori Centre I asked if they had a music program. They didn’t have anybody, so I offered to come in and do something for them.” Jackson has continued to teach the guitar classes, fitting them in around his other work. “I do a music class and guitar lessons for 4- and 5-year-olds,” he says. “It’s amazing. I love being with kids, and I get to show them that music is fun. It’s just basic techniques of strumming and having fun singing the songs they like. You can tell they’re so happy to be there. They want to learn and have fun.”

Jackson also frequently backs poet, novelist, and essayist Minton Sparks, composing and playing the soundtracks for her spoken-word performances. Recently, he’s been playing occasional sessions for his many friends and hitting the road, albeit for shorter stints, like a recent

Joe Pisapia CONTINUED FROM 66

really meditative, kind of a release for me. Just like it is today.

“I never wanted to follow the rules, I was kind of a punk-ass about it really,” he laughs.

“I wanted to see what I could do, what I could make with the guitar. I love bluegrass but it has a lot of rules, and I love jazz, too, but there are a lot of rules. That’s what I love about pop, it’s the mutt of music. It’s where everything ends up. I like to mix it all up and see what I come out with.”

“Some of my favorite musical moments were at Joe, Marc’s Brother shows where we would get into these long improvised jams, where we were creating something spontaneously, the sum was greater than the parts. Band and audience being taken for a ride in the moment.”

“When I’m producing, I always start by learning the songs on the acoustic. That gives

to learning. Instead of it indoctrinating people into buying an instrument, it indoctrinates them into the love of an instrument. I wanted that no-pressure setting of just sitting down and playing. That’s important to me, and it’s an important part of Nashville. That’s why everyone still comes here, even the latest wave of people.

It’s to be a part of that circle that remains unbroken.”

tour with one of the great good-time party singers, Tom Jones. In addition to his family, he’s found another reason to stay close to home.

“When we started looking for a house, my realtor said, ‘If you could live in any style house what would it be?’ I used to walk my dogs in Sylvan Park and there was a little hacienda, Mexican/California-style house. I sent him a picture of it, and said if you can find one like this I’ll be interested. A week later he sent me a picture of a house in Little Hollywood.” The unique East Nashville neighborhood of Spanish-revival houses near Shelby Park immediately captured Jackson’s heart. “I had lived here my whole life and never known about it. I drove over here and I loved it, and that’s where I am now. Don’t tell anyone about it,” Jackson adds, with a laugh.

Asked about his philosophy of music, Jackson doesn’t hesitate, delivering his answer with the same certainty of purpose that he discovered as a child with his first guitar. “Do what you love, make sure it’s real, and enjoy it. I’ve been very lucky. I’ve gotten to play with amazing people, but sometimes just sitting around with a bunch of friends, playing and singing at a party, you realize that’s what it’s all about. That’s why I started playing guitar and why I still play guitar.” me an understanding of the basic road map,” Pisapia says. “If I’m arranging harmonies around a chord, I’m picking the notes out on the acoustic.”

“I really think of guitars as their own string section, the baritone guitar is the cello, the bass is the bass. The acoustic guitars and the high string are the violins and violas and the banjo is like the ugly cousin or something,” he laughs.

Pisapia will often be called upon to play an overdub while producing. “I don’t play lap steel like David Lindley or pedal steel like Paul Franklin. I’ll never be as good as Paul Franklin. But at the very least, I know I’m trying to be creative and honest. You can never be bored with a guitar, if you get stuck in a rut, just change the tuning and you have all these new sounds and chords to come up with new ideas,” he says. “You could sit for an hour and just play different intervals and listen and feel something different.”

It is a portable box of fun, after all.

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SEEKING AVID EDITORS Knoxville, TN based production company seeking experienced Avid Media Composer editors.

Must have long form and documentary and/or reality experience. Staff position.

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EAST of NOR M A L By

Tommy Womack

Stella & Vicky

Y

our first guitar is like your first kiss, your first date, your first bike, the first record you really loved. No guitar will ever sound quite like it, or smell like it. And if you’re destined to be any kind of guitarist at all — professional or otherwise — you’ll hold that first guitar in your arms and fall in love like it’s your firstborn.

I was staying overnight at Layne Alan Smith’s house in my hometown, Madisonville, Ky., in the fall of 1977.

I immortalized him and his older juvenile-delinquent sister, Vicky, in my song “Vicky Smith Blues” (which he likes but I don’t think she does). But while I mentioned plenty about Vicky in that song, I neglected to cite the most important thing: her guitar.

I remember Layne was playing “Bohemian Rhapsody” on his stereo and, for some reason, Vicky’s guitar was in the room. It was a small-scale, 18-fret Stella. Years later, I’d find out that Stellas were the first guitars for many folks, not the least of whom was Muddy Waters.

At that time in the ’70s, all us teens had big, widetoothed, tortoise-shelled combs with big plastic handles that stuck halfway out of our back pockets. They were ideal for combing back feathered hair. As Queen played on the stereo, I sat Vicky’s guitar flat on my lap, rested the straight end of the comb on the strings, and plucked a sound.

I dragged the comb across the neck toward the bridge and the note climbed higher. (BRRRRRRRRRRREENG!) I plucked again, moved the comb the other way, and the sound went lower. (BRRRRRRRRONG!) I did that over and over. Lower (BRRRRRRRRONG), higher (BRRRRRRRRRRREENG), lower (BRRRRRRRRONG), higher (BRRRRRRRRRRREENG). I was utterly hooked.

I was already a manic rock ’n’ roll fan, but the notion of owning my own guitar hadn’t even occurred to me yet. First off, I wouldn’t know how to play it. Secondly, how would I pay to get one? I got a weekly allowance of (I kid you not) 50 cents. Fifty 1977 cents. Adjusted for inflation, that still adds up to jack shit.

But I started saving my allowance. It was the first time in my life I recall saving up for anything. Fall became winter, winter became spring, and I was still saving. And then, one Saturday in June of 1978, I had $18.

I approached Vicky Smith. Actually I approached Layne Alan, because I was slightly afraid of Vicky. He acted as intermediary. My rationale was this: Since Vicky never, to my knowledge, even so much as touched the guitar, I would actually be doing the instrument a service — I could take it into my home, feed it, walk it, pet it and give it hugs.

I went over to the Smiths’ house and blew my life savings: 18 George Washington dollars, for an 18-fret Stella. A dollar a fret. With a Mel Bay instruction book thrown in.

Thus became my lifetime obsession. I had a hypothesis which turned out to be valid: I reckoned that, since we all walk around with a mouth in the front of our face all the time, and we see other people use theirs, we learn how to talk. So I began walking around my house with the guitar around my torso, all day, every day, with a length of kite string for a strap. Whenever someone was on television playing guitar, I was riveted. This went on for years. And 36 years later, it still goes on. I have 11 guitars now. And hanging on a hook in my music room: Vicky Smith’s Stella. You never forget your first. Thank you, Vicky.

— Tommy Womack is a singer-songwriter and author, and a former member of both Government Cheese and the bis-quits. His memoir, Cheese Chronicles, has just been released as an e-book by Amber House Books. Visit his website at tommywomack.com and keep up via his popular “Monday Morning Cup of Coffee” series. His column, "East of Normal," appears in every issue of The East Nashvillian.

He is currently working on both a new memoir and his seventh solo record.

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PARTING SHOT

GUITARIST EXTRAORDINAIRE JIM

OBLON

FOOBAR, JULY 2, 2014 PHOTOGRAPHED

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