Lucinda Williams at Railbird Festival...

I have seen New Orleans's great R&B singer Irma Thomas. I have seen Chicago's Koko Taylor. I have see punk rock princess Patti Smith. Now I can add Lucinda Williams to the list of great female singers and songwriters. 

Lucinda was born in Lake Charles and I love the lazy southern accent she sings in. She released more traditional country blues type music beginning in 1978 but it was 1994 when her music began to encompass sonic rock stylings to go with the roots leanings that has resulted in Grammy Awards that are much deserved. 

y 

She often name drops Lake Charles, Nacogdoches, Slidell and West Memphis. Maybe I like her so much because those are all good places to make bad decisions. I have been to those places and think I have most of her cds. 

The three piece band covers a lot of sonic ground. Did not get these guys names but the bass player turned a hollow body bass up so the could play the back percussively. I'll try that with my acoustic bass sometime. The big old cowboy looking drummer played all kinds of delicate tinkling percusive sounds in addition to the drum set back beat. 

Great guitar player with lots of gear eye candy for us guitar heads. Behind him looks to be a mid 60s Fender bandmaster, non reverb hooked up to a Leslie organ cabinet. That's some sonic goodness. I'm a big bandmaster fan myself since I own a 1968 reverb model. Always good to see someone giving big iron a go. 

Here's a video from last month, same band you would have seen at Railbird. 

9/11 Memorial, New York City...

I've stood at the Alamo. I've walked the old Civil War battlefield at Mansfield, La. I've seen the concentration camp at Dachau. This past May when we visited New York we saw the 9/11 Memorial. 

In all these places people died, lots of them in horrible, tragic, violent deaths. The veil between us and them is thin here and we feel that on visits to their memorials. They whisper to us from beyond. 

"Do your best, be kind, pray, it's not like you think."   

Take these things, go. 

Low Cut Connie at Railbird Festival...

Low Cut Connie is a band we saw at Railbird. They come out of Philadelphia and are fronted by piano player Adam Weiner. Elton John calls the band a favorite and they have appeared on Barrack Obama's list of favorite songs. I suggest you put them on your list also. 

If you imagine Jerry Lee Lewis, the Jon Spenser Blues Explosion and the Mountain Goats delivering a baby in a drag bar that might give you an idea of what this band sounds like. It's the kind of full out pounding rock and rhythm band I'd like to get a chance to play bass in one more time before I die.   

Lot of showmanship to go with good musicianship. Good catchey song lyrics and plenty of piano diving. From the looks of some of the videos I watched of Low Cut Connie they always use the piano and bench they used at this gig. I'm guessing special reinforcement.

Of course we take our shirt off. It's rock and roll. 

Rock out to Low Cut Connie. You can be sure I will. 

Heck yeah, lets have another look"

Live Texas Music at Maklemore's...

Some people went and saw Kiss this weekend. Others saw Charlie Daniels. Those were big ticket shows either in the East Texas area or within striking distance. We met our friends Ann, Suzi and Charlie at Maklemore's in Doches for a meal and to catch a show by Chris Edwards, Johnny Ray Hubbard and J.D. Christopher. 

Here is Johnny Ray on the left with Chris on the right. It was a song swap type gig with each man mixing in covers of familiar material with their own songs. Chris is more in the Texas singer song writer style with story telling between the tunes and Hubbard is a flashy lead guitar player with a really amazing vocal range.  

In addition to their original songs which tell the story of the human condition often with a hint of humor, the covers of such song writer mainstays as Dylan, Todd Snider and Townes Van Zant were given fresh treatments and often graced with Hubbard's slightly fuzzed out guitar solos which lent the songs a new place to set your imagination.   

Of course the cool people, the ones that wear sunglasses in the dark came out to the show. It was a $5 ticket. Remember, in the big city you pay more for this kind of thing. 

J.D. Christopher opened the show. Cathy described his music as "punk acoustic." I'll go with that. It was another mix of original songs and covers. J.D apparently has another project, a band called Pretty Decent because he gave me one of their stickers after his set. Seems the acoustic show was a new thing, he's used to making loud music and he did great with the change of pace.  

I did meet a couple of people face to face that I had only know from facebook. One was Casey who runs a facebook page called Any City Music where you can find when shows like this happen. More local music info can be found at Hannah's page Local Scene Music Production.

Another Day on the Lake...

Since it seems that what the world needs now is not another photo of Cathy holding up a catfish I did not make one yesterday. It was pretty slow going on the fishing anyway. We boated 10 fish, one of them a pretty nice bass I caught from a schooling group that that broke the water near the boat. The rest were our favorite, catfish. 

Seems like our old favorite summer time spot is not producing this year or we are not quite as mad at them as we have been in the past and maybe we are just spending more time cooling it in the water than we are casting to the water. I know the guy at the store where I bought ice acted like I was heading into the desert and was going to suffer terribly during this afternoon fishing trip. 

I had already spent most of the day on yard work and with a nice swim and a fairly steady south east breeze it was great on the water. I bet if I used the guy at the stores comments on the heat as an opening to educate and discuss global warming I might have started the argument as I have seen evidence that there are many who do not believe. 

As I said not catfish photos but I did snap this into to the sun run picture as we headed in. Those catfish will swim in our bellies today.  

Yola at Railbird Festival...

If you check out this week's Rolling Stone Magazine you will find a short profile of Yola right at the front of the issue. We saw her at the Railbird festival a few weeks ago. Now I am not saying I got on to new music first, but in an age where many lament the state of entertainment note that from these photos I am stage front. I am not letting a streaming service or an awards show dictate to me. 

Yola is from England. She has had some success with Dance music, producing, playing in the band Phantom Limb and as Rolling Stone stated :singing uncredited on several hits." Apparently this is good success as she took some time off to retool as an Americana type singer songwriter and relocate to Nashville all while being supported by royalty payments.  

'I liked her bass player and the instrument he used. I'm guessing mid 60s import of some type from an undetermined country. There is no brand on the headstock. It's from a time when brands were not so important. Note the foam stuck under the strings at the bridge to increase the thump. This beast is a rumble in the right key, the holy grail of tuba tone that many bass players don't even know exists. 

Good guitar players in the band that supplied great backing vocals. 

Note these instruments are kind of taped up with stickers stuck on them. You might not do that to your new Les Paul but I like the school of make it sound like you want then break it so it sounds that way all the time. These guys aint going back. 

Check out Yola. 

I have had good luck at finding some decent video of the performances I saw. Here's a clip that looks to have been made by some one standing near me. 

Working Allright...

Sometimes in my work I meet people in entry level positions. They might be young, they might be older but when they are smart it's pretty obvious that they have what it takes to rise higher in the field. I met a young woman like that this weekend at work. She was 18 years old. It was her first job. She was employee of the month. 

Later that day I was combing through some memorabilia and I found this old high school student ID. It's me at about the same age as the young lady I met. I was not employee of the month that month. I probably won't be employee of the month this month either.  

Today as I was driving home from work and passed a drive through beer store. A guy was getting out of a company car wrapped in the logo of a major American brewing company. He had on black trousers and a polo shirt that probably also had the same logo imprinted upon it.  He tucked a clip board under his arm and entered the beer store.

I can imagine the conversation. 

Beer salesmen says, "you need beer?" 

Beer store owner says, "Yeah." 

Beer salesman writes on clipboard.

"I'll send the truck tomorrow." 

"Ok" 

Both those guys are probably employees of the month.