Carole Perkins Blog

Uncommon Folk, Our State Magazine

2011-02-27T08:17:00.000-08:00

October 2010
By: Carole Perkins

Songs of Water combines multicultural sounds and anchors them in North Carolina’s rich musical traditions.

Stephen Roach pulls bells, whistles, and noisemakers from a green suitcase propped atop a chair on a small stage at The Green Bean, a coffee house in downtown Greensboro. Grabbing his djembe, he pounds his hands in a primitive rhythm. Drummer Michael Pritchard answers with a polyrhythmic beat. Pound, beat. Pound, beat. Pound, beat. The audience grows restless with anticipation.

I scrape my chair back for the third time to make room for the burgeoning crowd until I’m almost sitting in the lap of Laura Galloway, a self-professed groupie who travels all over North Carolina to hear Roach’s band, Songs of Water.

“I think I’m addicted to their new CD,” I tell Galloway. “I have to listen to it every day.”

“I know; me, too,” she says, relieved to know another woman of a seasoned age shares her obsession.

Finally, classically trained violinist Marta Richardson adds her elegant strings to the pounding beat as Roach teases the hungry crowd.

“Are you ready to take off?” Roach asks. “All right, let’s see what happens.”

The band and the audience share a tangible bond. The musicians prefer playing to hometown crowds, basking in the love and support of family and friends. It feels right to give back to a community that offered support for so many years, Richardson says. “It’s a mutual understanding that we belong together, that we come from the same place and are on a journey together.”
Musical experiment

Songs of Water began about eight years ago as Roach’s vision to take traditional, multicultural sounds and combine them in an American, experimental fashion. He took his idea to friend and co-writer Jason Windsor. The two began collaborating and then invited Richardson to come on board. Richardson and Charlotte cellist Sarah Stephen bring sophistication to the folksy sound with their talent on the strings. Pritchard’s rhythm strikes a middle ground between tradition and innovation, while bass and guitar player Greg Willette echoes the distinctive Piedmont style, similar to Doc Watson and Etta Baker.

While on tour in California, the band’s serendipitous meeting with Luke and Molly Skaggs, son and daughter of bluegrass icon Ricky Skaggs, added even more variety to the band’s sound. Luke contributes with the Irish bouzouki, violin, and vocals, and Molly plays the accordion and banjo, reflecting her studies of Appalachian mountain music.

“We didn’t originally think, ‘Let’s start a band with electric folk instruments and pursue this as a vocation,’ ” Roach says. “We soon realized that we had stumbled upon a very unique sound that needed to be heard by a larger audience.”

For two years, the band worked on its recently released CD, The Sea Has Spoken, which includes guests Ricky Skaggs and tuba player Mark Daumin, of the Chapel Hill band Lost in the Trees. While Skaggs provided Skaggs Place Studio in Nashville, Tennessee, for recording, North Carolina’s tight-knit music community buoyed the effort. Wake Forest University opened its doors for additional recording sessions and the use of percussion instruments. Joel Khouri, from Charlotte’s Bright City Studios, co-produced the album with the band. He made the long trips to Nashville and, in the end, pulled everything together from the various recording sessions.

Although listeners will hear more than 30 instruments on the new album — from dun duns to doumbeks — the songs still ring familiar. Traditional sounds from the hammered dulcimer, banjo, and acoustic guitar reflect North Carolina’s musical roots. All the musicians credit their North Carolina heritage for influencing their music.

“From Appalachia to Albemarle, from bluegrass to beach music, North Carolina’s rich musical history found its way into my heart and my fingertips,” Windsor says. “I’m continually grateful to have grown up in a state so passionate about art and music.”

On that small stage at The Green Bean, the band plays the last song of the set. Some of the band members close their eyes and lift their faces toward heaven, seeming to hear something meant for their ears only. But the crowd appreciates the privilege to listen in.

Carole Perkins is a freelance writer in Greensboro.

Show me your guitar

2011-02-27T08:16:00.001-08:00

Thursday, February 17 (updated 3:00 am)
By Carole Perkins

Throughout history, musicians have revered their guitars, at times giving them names or assigning them human characteristics. Keith Richards slept with his guitar, and George Harrison’s gently wept.

We asked Triad musicians to share their stories about their own pride and joy.

For these eight musicians, their guitars have become old friends or fond memories of loved ones. They’ve survived brawls and rainstorms and have provided inspiration and companionship.

Every musician has his own story to tell, but they have one thing in common: They love their guitars.

Here are their stories:

Herb Stephens, 54, Winston-Salem
Guitar: 1979 Mighty Mite Stratocaster electric guitar

“I became interested in the guitar at the age of 14. In 1974, I met a drummer and bass player Herbie and 'AppleJack’ Robert Walters on bass.

“They asked me if I wanted to start up a band. We formed the band Human Blood, 'HB Productions.’ One very busy day, I accidentally backed over my guitar. It was like running over a child. I got it fixed eight months later and use it on 70 percent of my gigs.

“It’s a great guitar. I just love it. Sometimes I’m so mentally drained after work. But when I walk in and see my guitar, I feel this calmness come over me. I pick it up and play it for a while. I forget about my troubles and my 9-to-5 and just sail on.”

Dr. Kami Rowan, 46, Greensboro
Rowan's website
Guitar: 2003 Concert Classical De Jonge (handmade by Sergie de Jonge)

“My Garcia was my gateway guitar into the classical world. I played an Oribe for 25 years; we had a commitment. My father used some of my grandfather’s black lung check (he was a coal miner) to pay for the instrument. Along the way I stumbled upon my Takamine. Damaged in the factory and originally intended to be sold in Europe, I got the deal of the century. Finally, five years ago, I found my De Jonge. A small, chocolate-sounding guitar, it fits me like a glove. The hours spent playing my guitars have been the most rewarding journey of discovery, expression and growth. My guitars are my friends and my tools for spiritual and emotional grounding. They have enabled and allowed me to always be who I am.”

Patrick Lui, 45, Winston-Salem
patrickluiguitar.com
Guitar: 2007 Thucea classical guitar (handmade by Andrea Tacchi)

“When I was 15 years old, my father decided to get me a summer job working in a bra factory. I spent the money I made there on my first guitar. It was clear from my first lessons that music would be my career. I bought my first classical guitar with the money left to me by my grandmother (Lilly), who I was very close to.

“Maintaining a balance between teaching and performing is a real challenge. I still maintain a concert career performing from small colleges to large concert halls. I play a very unusual instrument made by Andrea Tacchi from Italy. The instrument is lyrical, colorful and sings with absolute clarity. It has a voice all of its own and yet is completely ready to compromise with you. It has become an old friend that I know will never fail me.”

Benjy Johnson, 43, Greensboro
benjyjohnsonmusic.com
Guitar: 1986 Charvel Model 2 electric guitar

“My 1986 Charvel Model 2 was purchased with money earned from working construction with my father the whole summer of 1985. We worked in sweltering heat six and sometimes seven days a week that summer, but all the while I had that new Charvel in my sights. Over the years, he was always proud of the fact that I used that money to buy my first real guitar, and he loved to hear me play. My father recently passed away in July, and although I hadn’t played that guitar much lately, something made me get it out and string it up to complete my new instrumental CD. It sounded perfect for the last three tracks. Now, every time I get that guitar and hear those tracks, it reminds me of my dad, how cool he was and all the hard work we did that summer.”

Jeffrey Dean Foster, 50, Winston-Salem
jeffreydeanfoster.com
Guitar: 1966 Fender Telecaster electric guitar

“My first guitar was a Telecaster I found for sale in the paper. It was road-worn and a real player. The fellow who sold it to me said he had played for Billy 'Crash’ Craddock for years. That guitar has been all over the country with me and has survived club brawls, gun play and rainstorms.

“Once while recording in Memphis, Tenn., I noticed a man playing my Telecaster. After he left, I asked who he was. They said it was Paul Burlison of The Paul Burlison Rock and Roll Trio. Once, while we were in New York City, Mick Taylor of the Rolling Stones came by the studio and picked my guitar up and played a few licks on it. He then left the studio with a Zero candy bar of mine. No lie!

“That guitar is still my main guitar. I’ve accumulated a lot of them over the years, but my original dream guitar is still with me.”

Molly Miller, 23, Greensboro
ameliasmechanics.com
Guitar: 2010 Thinline Telecaster electric guitar

“My relationship with guitars began at a young age. I preferred spending my designated practice time making 'instruments’ out of old Tropicana boxes, rubber bands and bits of gravel for tone. My first guitar, a Gibson J-160e, was a beautiful, kind and euphonious speaker and was so light to pick up that he was never a strain on my shoulders. Had my guitar been born a human, he would have been Gandhi. But as the fate of many greats, my first Gibson met an untimely death on a cement floor in Jamestown . I now refer to that evening as 'The night my light went out in Jamestown.’ But as horrible as I felt driving home with my shattered Gibson in his case-turned-coffin, my relationship with music was able to evolve because of the accident. I went out a few months later, bought a Thinline Telecaster and haven’t looked back. Guitars are still my favorite, but like any relationship, sometimes you need a change.

Lorenzo “Logie” Meachum, 58, Greensboro
logieworks.com
Guitar: Circa 1931 nickel- plated Johnson acoustic guitar

“Children in schools call it a hubcap guitar because it looks like it could be an automobile accessory. It’s a silver, shining, Dobro-style guitar made by Johnson. It is very special to me because of the way people are attracted to it whenever I pull it out of the case and start tuning it. I’ve played it in the streets of several cites, a few yard parties and several events at the Greensboro library, and it’s always a star. I often believe my playing skills don’t do it justice, but every now and then, the two of us make musical moments that give great pleasure. “As a gentleman once told me, 'Man, that song gave me chicken skin!’

“Whenever I feel like playing some real blues, I pick it up, tune it and find a glass slide. If I’m lucky, I find that sweet spot on the strings that just transports your ears and your mind to somewhere way down Highway 61.”

Ted Lyons, 58, Winston-Salem
Guitar: 2005 National Reso-phonic Radio Tone “Like most professional guitar players, I have several instruments I use and treasure. However, my main road guitar is a 2005 National Reso-phonic Radio Tone fitted with a Lollar Telecaster-style pickup. Although not an expensive instrument, the Radio Tone is a rare guitar. My style of playing is highly percussive and often somewhat unorthodox. I like to pop and smack the body of the instrument to drive the rhythm. I often scratch my fingernails along the fret board and pound the strings with my hand in an effort to achieve bell-like chords, echo, hum and other interesting and unpredictable aural contrasts. The Radio Tone’s unique internal resonator system and allied electronic pick-up chime and reverberate and allow me, if I’m lucky, to coax from the guitar mysterious, ancient tones and send them out into the air all around.”

Bruce Piephoff, 61, Greensboro
reverbnation.com/brucepiephoff
Guitar: 1968 Martin D-35

“I started playing the guitar around 1968 while a student at UNC-Chapel Hill. I have a 1968 Martin D-35 that belonged to my father. After some wild and reckless years in my youth, I decided to go back to school and get my Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at UNCG where I studied with Fred Chappell and Bob Watson. When I got the MFA in 1984, my dad was living near the Grand Canyon in Arizona, drove his pickup truck from there to Greensboro and presented me with his guitar as a graduation gift. It was gratifying and quite a pleasure to make him proud of me by getting my MFA. Kind of like when Johnny Cash gave Bob Dylan his guitar. (Those were two of my dad’s favorite artists.) He was accepting that I’d chosen to be a writer and a musician.

Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com

Creators of children's book click over music

2011-02-27T08:15:00.000-08:00

Thursday, February 10 (updated 3:00 am)
By Carole Perkins

There is something special about Stephen Roach, co-founder of the band Songs of Water and author of his first children’s book, “Satchel Willoughby and the Realm of Lost Things.”

His friends describe him as “saintly” and “full of grace,” but Roach would probably scoff at such terms, preferring instead to be described as having “Wink Zangley Doo.” It’s a term Roach created for the main character of his book. It means something that shines from within.

The idea for the story, Roach says, came from his father, a pack rat whose possessions accumulated in piles scattered across his backyard.

“If you asked him if he had a particular item, he would say he had 12 of them ... somewhere, if only he could find where he had put them,” Roach says.

Over the span of eight years, Roach mulled over the idea of where lost things could go, daydreaming and jotting down notes in the notebook he keeps in his back pocket.

“I began considering all the things a person could lose, from trivial items like car keys to more serious personal losses. I realized I had stumbled upon a treasure trove of a concept,” he says.

The idea “snowballed” into a story he says he knew he had to tell.

As serendipity would have it, Roach met a kindred spirit, Vesper Stamper, who illustrated the self-published book. Stamper and her husband, Ben, (who together form the duo Ben + Vesper) were on tour when they met Roach at the Local 506 in Chapel Hill. When Roach discovered Stamper was an illustrator, he sent her the story and a connection sparked between them.

“Vesper sent me some samples of her interpretations of the characters. When I saw her work, I knew she had captured the heart of the story,” Roach says.

Stamper, a graduate of Parsons School of Design in New York City, comes from a family of artists and taught herself to draw as a child by copying the pictures found in her favorite books. Stamper says that meeting Roach through music gave them an instant common ground.

“Working with Stephen was a fantastic experience because he completely trusted me with his vision,” says Stamper, who lives in New Jersey. “It just clicked. His story was so descriptive in itself it made my job easy.

“Music informs art and poetry and everything else. Things like pace, cadence, dark versus light, these are musical concepts as well as visual/literary ones.”

In “Satchel Willoughby and the Realm of Lost Things,” Roach’s writing and Stamper’s illustrations weave together a story with spiritual themes that underlie the quest of young red-headed Satchel (whom Sampler modeled after a young Roach) as he searches for his Wink Zangley Doo.

In what appears to be their time to shine, Roach and Stamper will combine their creative talents with book signings and concerts featuring Songs of Water and Ben + Vesper. They’ll perform Sunday at a house concert in Greensboro. Roach will also read selections from the book.

Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com

Nu-Blu's sound innovative, yet comforting

2011-02-27T08:14:00.000-08:00

Date: January 27, 2011
Source: CAROLE PERKINS

When I was a teenager, the band at my high school dance broke into a rendition of the classic bluegrass song, "Tennessee Stud." Unexpectedly, the cutest guy in school hooked his arm with mine and swung me around in a dos-a-dos. I mentally clicked my heels up in the air like a lucky leprechaun, savoring every moment. I felt the same sense of elation listening to the CD "Nights," the first release from the husband/wife band, Nu-Blu. With Carolyn Routh on bass and vocals, Daniel Routh on guitar and vocals, Levi Austin on banjo and vocals, and Kendall Gales on mandolin, Nu-Blu of Siler City creates a unique sound that is at once comfortably traditional but at the same time freshly innovative.

Radio and media have embraced the 2010 release of "Nights" as evidenced by its debut on the Euro Americana Chart at No. 10, spending more than five weeks on the Americana Music Association's Top 40 chart and staying on the Roots Music Bluegrass Report's top 50 songs for more than 5 months. And in 2010, Pinecastle Record artist Nu-Blu won the coveted Carolina Music Award for Country Band of the Year, and their single, "Christmas in Dixie," an Alabama cover song, hit No. 1 on the Airplay Direct Top Bluegrass Album Chart.

The road to these successes wasn't exactly an easy one.

A few years ago, Carolyn suffered two strokes. Her right side was paralyzed, and she was unable to speak.

It began with the headaches.

Carolyn didn't think too much about them, but as they worsened, she ended up in the hospital taking blood thinners to control what the doctors thought were migraines. On Thanksgiving morning 2001, Carolyn's neurologist was standing by her bed as she first lost her ability to speak, then suffered the first of the strokes due to a blockage in her brain. Quick medical care insured no permanent damage, but with the inability to speak and under a fog of medication, Carolyn didn't know that. In her nightmare of silence, Carolyn thought she caused the stoke by neglecting her diabetes.

"My doctor had warned me over and over to take better care of myself because I could cause permanent damage. I thought it was my blood sugar and that I had done this to myself," Carolyn says.

Carolyn regained her speech within days of the strokes but needed physical therapy to learn how to use her right side again. Carolyn's best friend, Daniel, was with her through it all.

The two met in 2001 when Carolyn needed a bass player for her contemporary Christian band, Faithful Journey, and Daniel stopped by to eat lunch at her family's restaurant, Johnsons, Siler City. Carolyn mentioned she needed a bass player for an already existing band, and although Daniel didn't know how to play bass, he said he could learn. Thus began the beginning of a life-long commitment to each other and to a dream becoming a reality.

Their friendship grew as they tried various genres of music, with a stab at a Christian rock band, then classic rock and finally bluegrass with Nu-Blu.

In the early part of 2006, Daniel started teaching Carolyn how to play bass, a skill that she learned quickly with the same determination she used to regain the use of her right side.

"From the time she put her hands on a bass she played five weeks later in a show," Daniel says, in admiration.

Perched on a stool in their recording studio, Red Squared Studio, in Siler City, Daniel reflects on the years since Carolyn's strokes and recovery and says he believes everything happened for a reason. Creating the band allowed them to reach out to people through their music, especially through some of their Gospel songs. He shares how determined Carolyn was to regain use of her right hand and how she was released from physical therapy early because she was doing so well.

"Even before she was released from the hospital everything she was told she wouldn't be able to do she was already pushing herself to do," Daniel says.

Back at home, Daniel helped Carolyn with her physical needs, bringing her food and medication when her head hurt too much to sit up or even watch TV. Daniel slept in a recliner and set his alarm for every two hours to make sure Carolyn's blood sugar didn't drop too low. He got up early every morning to go to work and called Carolyn every chance he got.

"I really don't know what I would have done without Daniel," Carolyn says. "He was my nurse, cheerleader and drill sergeant who pushed me hard to reach the next level, but was also there when I needed a shoulder to cry on."

But most importantly, Daniel was the person who pushed her to succeed with the goals she had set for herself.

An eternal optimist, Carolyn said she kept striving to take the next step to recovery because she really wanted to do everything she had been able to do before, especially with their music and Nu-Blu.

Within several months, Carolyn regained the use of her right hand and made a full recovery.

"The only side effect is her memory loss," Daniel says, as Carolyn pretends to knock him off of his stool. (Carolyn never actually suffered memory loss.)

In 2006, Carolyn and Daniel married in a no-frills ceremony: no rings or proposal, just a trip to the magistrate one morning and the newlyweds attending a show at a biker bar on their honeymoon night so Daniel could run sound for the band.

"It didn't really hit me that we were getting married until Daniel introduced me at work as his fiancée," Carolyn says. "It just started with the music, and we became best friends."

While Carolyn, Daniel and Austin are all songwriters, the majority of the tunes on "Nights" were written by national songwriters they connected with at bluegrass festivals.

The Rouths say they like to pick the best songs available that fit their style but also fit with the flow and direction of the project.

Part of the magic of Nu-Blu's sound is the exemplary style of Austin's banjo playing. Influenced by bluegrass greats such as Earl Scruggs and Sammy Shelor, Austin has won numerous banjo and guitar awards, including The Galax Fiddler's Convention Award in 2007, the nation's longest-running fiddler's convention. During that trip to Galax, Va., Austin got a call from Carolyn saying she had a dream he played a certain song and that he'd won. Austin chose to play the song in Carolyn's dream, the instrumental bluegrass classic, "Sled Ride," earning him the award.

Together with Gales' mandolin playing, the group creates a different sound that turns former nonbluegrass lovers into fans.

"The No. 1 compliment that we get is when someone says they really don't like bluegrass, but they really like us," Daniel says. "We work hard and play together a lot."

Austin says that being close-knit helps because they can be critical of each other's work without hurting feelings.

As they currently work on a new CD to follow "Nights," the trust they share is evident. Carolyn is laying down a vocal track while Daniel and Austin engineer. Then, they all switch places and offer helpful criticism.

"When I'm in the booth playing my guitar, I listen back to what I play, but it's more about what Levi and Carolyn say," Daniel says.

The success of Nu-Blu comes not only from their music but from hard work and smart marketing strategies. In the bluegrass world, Nu-Blu is known as the band that introduces new techniques such as online marketing and social networking , which directly connects Nu-Blu with their fans.

Carolyn and Daniel have hopes for a European tour in 2011, but in the meantime, they are excited about a planned 2011 tour starting in North Carolina and ending in Canada.

As best friends and constant companions with a lucrative music career before them, they are savoring every moment, and no doubt kicking up their heels like lucky leprechauns.

"There's nothing sweeter than taking the stage with your best friend and love standing right beside you," Carolyn says. "I'm having the time of my life!"

Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com Want to go?

Friends join hands against depression

2011-02-27T08:13:00.000-08:00

Date: January 16, 2011
Edition(s): News & Record
Page: D2
Section: Life Column: Personal Adds
Source:CAROLE PERKINS

Recently, I dreamed I was riding on a go-cart with my friends of many years, Joy and Jill. We laughed and whooped as the sweetest smelling wind possible blew back our hair against the backdrop of a robin's egg-colored sky, anchored by a carpet of purple and yellow flowers. We rounded a corner and the go-cart tilted, catapulting us into a pit with slippery red clay walls sinking into inches of brackish water. The smell was the overpowering stench of dead water moccasins on hot asphalt. I clung to a ledge and drew my feet up in horror as a snake slithered underneath. Joy and Jill seemed nonplussed, having landing feet first in the pit, but they jumped to action when they saw my distress by making a human ladder with one on top of the other's shoulders. I climbed on top and pulled myself out of that pit as fast as I could.

Now, it doesn't take a Freudian dream analyst to decipher this dream of a beautiful day in heaven flipped to a nightmare in hell. I'm no expert in matters of depression, but I do know the serious grip of that python who tries to strangle its victims, sometimes successfully.

A while back, I found myself sitting in the pit in the dark with my legs drawn up to my chest. I knew I wasn't alone. Heck, even Johnny Cash once fell into a burning ring of fire and Kevin Gordon sang that he ain't going down to the well no more 'cause he'd has his fill, as Lucinda Williams chimes in about the time "he broke down to the core and threw his black Stratocaster through the plate glass door."

Whew! That's really hitting rock bottom when you start throwing Stratocasters around, and it was of great comfort to me to know I had my girlfriends who meet on Wednesday mornings to talk, pray, laugh and sometimes cry.

A few years ago, one of my friends in the group, Karen, was also doing time in the pit. Somehow, I reached my hand out in the blackness to try to get my bearings and my hand brushed against hers. We held on tightly for dear life in that dark time.

Then, one day I wiped the muck out of my eyes and spit great clods of red clay from my mouth and marveled to hear birds chirping in the morning. Karen wasn't too far behind.

A few years passed and our group continued to meet on Wednesday mornings. Then Karen, who is no stranger to tragedy, having lost her young son in a car accident, got slapped with an ALS diagnosis. We all watch, as if stuck in a dream where you run in slow motion away from harm, as Karen's tell-tale limp requires a hot pink cane and sometimes the luxury of a wheelchair for transportation.

I haven't tiptoed down to the pit to see if she's hanging out down there. Like Jimmy Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock's suspense thriller "Vertigo," I'm afraid if I stand too close to the edge, I might get dizzy and fall in.

But Karen is an amazing woman of great faith who always finds something to laugh about. And if she starts slipping down that hill, I hope she finds a ledge to cling onto, a place to draw up her feet in case a serpent sneaks by, in which case her strong group of friends will build the tallest human ladder possible to lift her up.

And if she holds out her hand in the darkness grasping for bearing, I'll find it. And I'll never let it go.

Carole Perkins is a freelance writer in Greensboro. Contact her at CPGuilford@aol.com.

Sam Quinn learns to laugh at life's little problems

2011-02-27T08:12:00.000-08:00

Thursday, December 9, 2010 (updated , 2010 3:00 am)
By CAROLE PERKINS

I first met Sam Quinn, the crooning storyteller for the now-defunct band, the everybodyfields, in 2007. Dressed in his signature brown pants and sporting neatly trimmed mutton chops, he and his former girlfriend and band mate Jill Andrews cuddled in a booth across the table. My hands shook as I took notes during their interview. I felt I was in the presence of musical geniuses whose whimsical songs from their three albums enamored me from the first notes.

Within the year, Quinn and Andrews parted ways.

Andrews embarked on a solo career, and Quinn stayed with Ramseur Records and started his own band: Sam Quinn and Japan Ten. In May 2010 the band released a CD, "The Fake That Sank a Thousand Ships" whose jacket Quinn illustrated with pastel rainbows and smiling dolphins. Quinn, who is an artist as well as accomplished musician, chose an interesting contrast to his morose but brilliant compilation of songs whose music and lyrics cling to your heart like barnacles slapped by life's salty waves.

The Tennessee native takes a tongue-in-cheek attitude towards the album, recognizing the heavy weight of the songs needs to be put in a lighter perspective. He says it amuses him that it's so over the top.

"You have to laugh at yourself and all the little problems that you have when someone hurts your little heart," he says.

Raised by a largely female clan of sisters, mothers and grandmothers, Quinn started playing music as a young man as a place to escape the fate of working at Duracell or the local chair factory. He attended the East Tennessee State University, majored in English and met Andrews working as a camp counselor at a local Christian camp.

With the everybodyfields, Quinn's musical career took off playing in venues like The Kennedy Center, and in 2004, his song, "T.V.A.," won best in the bluegrass category at MerleFest.

As a solo artist, he starred in a YouTube video for a media push for the Avett Brothers' latest CD. (Quinn says that video is by far the most watched internet clip that he has ever been a part of, "which is cool because I was only doing what any other mildly trained chimpanzee could pull off shortly after waking up from a long winter.")

And now with Japan Ten, he recorded a live DVD in 2009, and their debut album won accolades from celebrity Lance Armstrong, who tweeted about the CD.

But Quinn says a while back he hit a juncture in his life and had nothing to lose by just seeing what happened when he let something go completely. (He does not elaborate.) He let his hair grow long and his beard grow bushy, looking something like a wooly booger, a Southern term for a hairy, scraggly creature. He found solace in being hidden and less approachable. (See photo inside the new CD.)

"I asked a girl to marry me, and she said, 'Yes,'" Quinn says. "I made her a ring from beating a silver dollar for days and damn near breaking two fingers and a thumb in the process.

"Now I can't get her to answer the telephone. That's real life. Who wants to live there?"

Recently, Quinn appeared in a music video with Andrews singing "Something Happens When We Talk," a Lucinda Williams tune. In what could be perceived as a symbolic return from a difficult time, Quinn's hair is neat and his mutton chops trimmed back to respectability.

Earlier this year, Quinn hit the road gigging after an extended stay at home in Knoxville, Tenn. That trip became meaningful in several ways.

"I hadn't been out like that in a long time," he says. "It was an immense brain-scrubbing session and an all-together conscience--shifting experience. I was weathered and blown free like a banner of equal parts hope and desperation."

With the last of his money from his trip, Quinn bought a pair of moccasins, drove through Wisconsin, sang doo-wop from a roof in Indiana, went to his niece's first birthday party and told his best friend Ryan that he loved him. He says he had a day so great he couldn't bring himself to tell his guitar guy, Nick, the best news he had ever heard for fear that it would turn everything around to talking about himself.

Then his van blew up. And he didn't even really care that much.

Quinn hopes the upcoming year will bring winning lottery tickets, a 65-degree winter and no hernias.

Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com.

Flatiron's Open Mike Matures

2011-02-27T08:10:00.001-08:00

Thursday, November 11, 2010 (updated , 2010 7:38 am)
By Carole Perkins

GREENSBORO — Matty Sheets wears a lot of hats around town: musician, bartender, artist, soundtrack composer and songwriter.

But the hat that is most appreciated by local musicians, poets, beat-boxers, comedians and the occasional heavy metal guitarist is host and master of ceremonies to open-mike night at The Flatiron. It’s the place where nervous newbies and seasoned songwriters are welcome to perform.

Open-mike night is the brainchild of Sheets and friend Harvey Robinson, fellow bartenders who had a vision eight years ago to evolve The Flatiron into a music venue.

Beginning with a tiny PA system and borrowed gear, Sheets and his friends took turns introducing each other and playing music in an atmosphere of mutual support. In 2004, Sheets became full-time host to open-mike night, which averages 10 to 25 performers per week.

The venue has a full sound system now, and as the weekly event grows, so does the sense of community shared by local musicians, some of whom have gone from singing from scraps of paper to forming full-fledged bands. Local groups Eating the Invaders and Big Red Rooster cut their chops at open mike as did musician Emily Stewart and the Baby Teeth and Hanging Thread.

Stewart recalls her early days at open mike when she used to try a few tunes with the band she started, Our Horse Jethro. She had never performed in front of an audience and had only been playing for a few months. One night, as Matty was setting up the microphone, he noticed Stewart with a guitar.

“I remember Matty saying, 'I didn’t know you played guitar, Emily,’ ” Stewart recalled.

She replied, “I don’t.”

“Now, that might have been enough to discourage anyone else from allowing me onstage,” Stewart said, “but Matty has always had faith in those who can’t seem to find any faith in themselves.”

Local musician Stephen Corbett says open-mike night has always been the best place to try new tunes or to practice with new groups. His old band, The Radials, got its start there, and his new band, Hanging Thread, came together at an open mike with their first acoustic set.

“A good chunk of the audience is made up of musicians, so people actually listen,” Corbett says. “There isn’t background noise, so it makes it much easier to tell when you have a clunker and when you have something that works.”

On any given open-mike night, Sheets whips his notebook from his back pocket and peers through his round glasses to see who he needs to prompt to the microphone. He double-checks the sound system for each act and hops on stage to announce the next performer, all the while trying to keep morale high.

A self-proclaimed “performance addict,” Sheets rides a 1990s Schwinn bicycle (he sold his car to buy a guitar amp) to practice daily with his two bands, Matty Sheets and the Blockheads and Come Hell or High Water. His dedication to open mike and the outlet it provides local musicians to hone their craft is due in part to his desire to give back to a community that has supported him. A few years ago, Sheets had some legal trouble and put on a show to raise money for a lawyer. He was surprised by the results.

“I was shocked at the musicians who turned out to help me,” Sheets said. “Some of them I didn’t even know. It was very moving. That’s why I do what I do. It’s about them. It’s all about the bands.”

Stewart, who now also plays banjo in Matty Sheets and the Blockheads, says she is pleased to be a part of Greensboro’s incredibly supportive community through open mike.

“If you’re going to live in a town that is bursting at the seams with music, there has got to be someplace to catch it,” she said, “and The Flatiron’s open mike seems to be the place.”

Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com

Filthybird Spreads Its Wings

2011-02-27T08:09:00.000-08:00

Thursday, October 21, 2010 (updated , 2010 3:01 am)
By Carole Perkins

GRAHAM — While local music aficionados have dubbed Filthybird as the one Greensboro band to watch, they really aren’t a Greensboro band anymore.

That’s what vocalist Renee Mendoza explains over the strumming of an old Martin acoustic that her husband/guitarist Brian Haran is fixing in their recently acquired guitar repair shop, Fret Sounds, in downtown Graham.

With bass player Mike Duehring and guitarist Sanders Trippe in Greensboro and percussionist Jim Bob Aiken in Raleigh, Mendoza and Haran made a conscious decision to leave the Gate City and spread their wings in Graham.

Filthybird, whose name comes from a Robyn Hitchcock song, “A Happy Bird is a Filthy Bird,” has been a staple of the local music scene for a long time — for better or worse.

“It’s almost like being cursed to be a band out of Greensboro,” Mendoza explains. “There’s tons of talent there, but it’s like not having a rocket or propulsion to zoom out of there.”

Of late, the band is honing its sophomore release, “Songs for Other People,” an eclectic kaleidoscope of Mendoza’s songs, the psychedelic hues of Jefferson Airplane and cosmic vibe of Gram Parsons.

Haran’s resounding guitar seemingly has its own voice, as it intertwines with the warm, buttery timbre of Mendoza’s vocals. From the acoustic lullaby, “Pick Me Up,” to the somber “Feather Down,” each song paints a narrative portrait in which each character is artfully framed.

That’s quite a departure from their first effort, “Southern Skies,” an album Mendoza says was essentially “blatantly charged songs obviously about myself.”

Local singer/songwriter and belle of the Greensboro music scene, Molly McGinn, says Filthybird is the band that everybody’s watching, no matter where they live.

“The punks steal lines and swagger from Duehring’s bass face. Guitar nerds watch Haran’s mad scientist take on tone and solos. And if Aiken didn’t hold the whole sound down percussion-wise, they’d all just levitate. Then Mendoza ... writes these lyrics and melodies that give emo kids something to feel good about.

“Altogether it’s a sound you’ve never heard before and wish to hell you’d created.”

Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com

A New Generation Guitarist

2011-02-27T08:07:00.000-08:00

Thursday, October 14, 2010 (updated , 2010 3:00 am)
By Carole Perkins

Bruce Piephoff pauses midway through the set he’s playing at the Tate Street Festival Sept. 25 in honor of his recently deceased musician friend, Dakota Joe. Lowering the microphone, Piephoff invites 11-year-old Ranford Almond to play a couple of songs while he repairs a broken string on his acoustic guitar.

The crowd surrounding the stage grows silent as Ranford strums the first chords of Townes Van Zandt’s classic song “Greensboro Woman.” Camera’s flick and videos roll as Ranford sings about “Texas lovin’ laying heavy on my mind.”

The audience grows by the time Ranford sings the Piephoff-penned “Rosalita.”

One encore later, Almond exits the stage to the roar of “One more song!”

UNCG student Lauren Plank, 22, points at the bumps on her arm.

“He’s good not because he’s so young but because he’s so GOOD!” she exclaims.

Although there is a 50-year age difference between Piephoff and Ranford, their love of music transcends generations. Music instructor Rex Griffin, who taught violin to Ranford for years, recognized his student’s interest in songwriting and nudged him to study with master songwriter Piephoff.

Piephoff, who has 20 CDs to his credit, knew Ranford had something special from the first song he played and invited him to appear onstage at some of his shows. Their relationship has grown from student/mentor to one of friendship.

Sitting on the front porch of their Browns Summit home, Danielle and Dave Almond reminisce about how much their son has always loved music. Dad calls his son an “old soul.” Mom believes he was like that even in the womb.

“Every time I played Jerry Garcia, he’d start moving all around in my belly,” says Danielle Almond, motioning with her hands above her stomach. “He sang his first song, 'Hand Me Down Your Walking Cane,’ when he was 4 years old riding in his car seat.”

Ranford sways on the porch swing, tapping his flip-flops to the rhythm of Piephoff’s song “Big Foot in the Door,” which he has just learned. Piephoff prompts him kindly when Ranford trips on a lyric.

“You’re sounding good kid,” Piephoff says. “Nice instrumental work there.”

Ranford moves to a stool while Piephoff takes the swing. They chuckle as they attempt to find a key that’s not too high for Piephoff or too low for Ranford.

Danielle Almond rushes to grab her video camera, pleading for them to wait until she returns.

Too late. Piephoff is already singing.

Ranford, strumming his own rhythm, sings the next verse.

Now that they’ve started, they don’t want to quit. They’re two old souls singing about prison, love and weariness. They’re happy to share a penchant for songs that evolved in the 1960s with poet/songwriters such as John Prine, Guy Clark and Kris Kristofferson.

As Piephoff packs his guitar away for the night, he caresses the supple leather on the strap. Billy Ransom Hobbs had given this to Dakota Joe before he died two years ago. Joe, in turn, passed it along to Piephoff before he died.

“The beauty of music is that you can always take it with you,” Piephoff says. “I feel like I have a wealth of experience I’d like to pass along, and Ranford has already experienced the gift of giving back to people through music.

“It’s a gift he can enjoy the rest of his life.”

Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com

Eternal Optimism Musician Brian McGee has it

2011-02-27T08:06:00.000-08:00

Thursday, October 7, 2010 (updated , 2010 3:00 am)
By Carole Perkins

Asheville rocker Brian McGee kicks the leaves that accumulated in his backyard while he was honeymooning in Italy and Spain. Tons of coffee mask his jet lag and fuel his energy to play at a popular music festival the next day.

McGee has plenty of time to travel and play gigs these days, having been laid off last spring from his job as a woodworker in a custom cabinet shop. But not even the stress of unemployment can dampen the spirit of his eternal optimism, a theme woven into every song on his new album, “The Taking or the Leaving,” due out Oct. 18.

Looking the part, McGee’s James Dean combed-back hair and long sideburns reflect his love of 1950s rock ’n’ roll as well as his what-you-see-is-what-you-get attitude on his new album. In a hybrid ’50s style of rockabilly with a little bit of country and a whole lot of rock ’n’ roll, McGee revs the engine of his all-American Springsteen-style songs about everyday struggles conquered with hope.

With galloping rockabilly romps such as “Hold Sway,” with lyrics “Well if we hold and sway/ We’ll go round and round ’til we beat everyday/ If we hold and sway and hold,” and a voice-cracking ballad “Walking Back to Love,” McGee cuts to the quick, wearing his heart on his sleeve with songs about overcoming desperation, finding love and welcoming new celebrations.

“I like this album because most of the songs are short and concise and get straight to the point,” McGee says. “It’s like Tom Petty once said, 'Don’t bore us, get to the chorus.’ ”

McGee picked up his first guitar at age 12 and played in punk rock bands in the 1990s until he discovered the banjo and started leaning toward the music of Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie.

When asked about his evolution from punker to rocker, McGee says it doesn’t matter what you call it, he just plays what he likes.

“I like upbeat, downbeat, three-chord music, whether it’s Hank Williams, The Ramones, Wanda Jackson or Sam Quinn,” he says. “That’s what I like, so sometimes things get louder than others, but the soul is still intact.”

Produced by McGee and Pete James of The Honeycutters, McGee was joined in the studio at Echo Mountain Studios (The Avett Brothers, Band of Horses, Smashing Pumpkins) in Asheville with a star-studded cast of friends, including Sam Quinn, former front man of the everybodyfields, on backup vocals on McGee’s dream-inspired song, “Fire.”

Quinn says he was en route from Charlotte to Knoxville, Tenn., when McGee called, asking him to stop by the studio. Quinn says he was really sick but agreed because McGee is a friend.

“The first thing you should know about Brian is that he’s handsome,” Quinn says. “The other thing you should know is that he’s the salt of the earth, a very solid dude, and that’s why I like him.”

Also contributing to McGee’s sophomore album are Mary Ellen Bush from Ménage, Amanda Anne Platt of the Honeycutters and Pete James on lead guitar.

With a November tour planned from Nashville, Tenn., to his home city of Philadelphia, McGee is taking this time as an opportunity to sink his chops into his music full time. Putting a spin on a otherwise desolate situation, McGee is making the most of it.

“Not having a job means playing music is my full-time job now,” he says. “It’s a gamble, but we’ll see how it settles in the end.”

Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com

A Band of Brothers

2011-02-27T08:05:00.000-08:00

Thursday, September 16, 2010 (updated , 2010 3:00 am)
By Carole Perkins

Mark Dougherty reaches over the table to pet an 80-pound mutt as the three members of his band, The Lake Isle, sit politely waiting their turn to speak.

Dougherty, a Greensboro-based singer/songwriter has declined a one-on-one interview. He has performed alone too long, finally finding peace and unity in this band of brothers.

After years of playing Greensboro as a solo act, Dougherty yearned to be in a band.

Once his music label fell apart, Dougherty began playing with an acoustic group that saw early success.

So Dougherty moved on with a firmer resolve to take his music more seriously.

That eventually led to Dougherty reinventing himself.

“I gave myself a rebirth under the name The Lake Isle, after Yeats’ poem about a man searching for his inner peace in a world of chaos — the theme of all my music,” Dougherty says.

He had a band name. Now, all he needed was some members. And on a night last spring, he found the first one.

That’s when Dougherty met Shawn Smith, drummer for Filthybird, which was playing its last gig together.

One of the band members mentioned that Dougherty was looking for a group so Smith approached him, and they started playing.

Smith recorded Dougherty’s guitar and vocals and later added drums, bass and keyboards.

“I had no real direction in mind, just trying to let things float out of me, and we kind of created a sound,” Smith says. “We tried a few guitar players, but they weren’t willing to take that leap into that sonic realm.”

Hoping to make the songs more interesting, Smith decided to play guitar himself.

Andy Foster, formerly with the Raving Knaves and Manamid, came on board as a percussionist. Chris Micca, a longtime bass player and backup vocalist to bands such as Crystal Bright, completed the group.

During a recent rehearsal, Foster can’t constrain himself between songs, ripping his drums every chance he gets.

“Andy’s a loud drummer and we will have to base everything behind that,” Smith deadpans.

Foster’s sticks clack as Dougherty steps to the mike to sing the lyrics to the haunting “Steel Rails,” the first track on the band’s new album, “Wake Up.”

“I should know, oh I should
that it’s all about letting go
but these old ways, oh they burn
these lies that come over and over me.”

With Micca’s expansive harmonies and tight thumping bass, the band is creating the “warm, sonic pallet,” that fuels Dougherty.

Micca and Foster exchange smiles as the song ends.

“The songs get better and better all the time, especially the new ones,” Smith says. “It’s working, it’s really working.

“S’working,” Foster says, nodding.

Dougherty says the difference in being in a band like The Lake Isle versus playing solo is that there is no agenda other than to play the music.

“It’s about looking around at every person practicing music in this room and seeing a look in their eyes that says they love this music.

“I call it a brotherhood. It’s something really magical and great.”

Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com

Departing for college: It's tough on moms

2011-02-27T08:03:00.000-08:00

Sunday, September 5, 2010
(Updated Monday, September 6 - 6:18 am)
By Carole Perkins
Special to the News & Record

It’s Sunday morning on the day our oldest daughter, Caroline, is moving into her college dorm. My husband is behind the wheel of our red Suburban. I ride shotgun, and our middle daughter sits in the back. Caroline and her boyfriend drive her SUV, packed with the staples of college dorm life: a desk light, fan, office chair and clothes.
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We meet just outside Raleigh, where Caroline will be a freshman. She glances at me over the sub she is eating and says, “What’s wrong? You’re acting funny.”

Tears well in my eyes. I swallow hard, unable to speak lest the dam breaks, despite having taken a snippet of a “mother’s little helper” to get through this day.

“This is hard on your mom,” the boyfriend says, explaining the obvious.

Up and down we ride, packed like sardines in elevators filled with excited young faces. In the hallway, a mother brushes away tears like annoying gnats. I’ve planned my crying time in the car on the way home after months of staying so busy I wouldn’t think about Caroline leaving home.

To me, it symbolized an end of an era when the family was always together. A chapter of my life as a mother was ending. Tomorrow, I will set two places at the breakfast table with Nana’s rosebud china instead of three.

The boyfriend is taking this harder than anyone expected. Caroline pulls him over to a bench and pats his knee, whispering consoling words. Finally, we get into the car to go back to Greensboro. The boyfriend sits in the back and puts his head in his hands saying, “I can’t believe this day is finally here.”

I turn around in my seat to look at him. My voice shakes, and I plead, “Please don’t get me started.”

My plan to cry all the way home is thwarted. With the boyfriend so upset, I assume the role of the stoic parent. Besides, I have never mastered the fine art of weeping in a ladylike fashion. No, sir. If I am going to cry, I will sob, snort, and pound my chest. So, mentally, I stick my finger in the hole in my heart like the legendary Little Dutch Boy did to stop the dam from overflowing.

I travel to Raleigh the very next day under the pretext of taking our youngest daughter to visit. I go back on Wednesday to take Caroline to lunch. A week later, I return with her freshly washed and folded laundry. The following week I’m back with her boyfriend’s laundry that I shamelessly offer to wash.

And so the fall of freshman year passes. I learn the fine art of gentle weeping. I might be in Harris Teeter studying soup labels and the tears will roll down like a sprinkler on a timer. One day after wandering the town in such sadness, I run into a friend whose daughter has gone to college that fall.

“How are you?” I ask, touching her shoulder like a comrade in arms.

“Oh, I’m fine,” she chirps. “Lauren loves college, and she’s really happy.”

Cheated out of a bonding moment with another mom in misery, I drive away muttering to myself. How can she be so chipper, so positive about how happy her daughter is? Doesn’t she have a hole in her heart, too?

Christmas break for Caroline’s school is almost a month long. She fills the house with her friends and her big personality . One day toward the end of the break, I actually find myself for half a second relishing the thought of having our house just a little calmer. It is getting easier to let her go.

Two years later, our middle daughter, Virginia, is a senior in high school. One day while looking through some old photos for her senior page, some unforeseen force punches me in the stomach with the realization that she, too, will leave for college in a few short months. I sink to my knees and sit cross-legged on the floor, tucking my muffin top into my jeans as unconsciously as tucking my hair behind my ear.

I hold the photo of Virginia’s first day in kindergarten, standing with her sisters in front of the woody station wagon dubbed The Old Gray Goose. I smile through my tears at her as a toddler sitting in our driveway with a plastic shopping cart upside down on her head. The Beatles song “She’s Leaving Home” plays in my head as I imagine myself as the mother in the song “standing alone at the top of the stairs/she breaks down and cries to her husband/Daddy, our baby’s gone.”

Most of Virginia’s friends have left by now. I have a few precious days with her until we pack her up and move her almost three hours away to Spartanburg, S.C. It’s too far for lunch or laundry runs, and I’ll have to figure out how to manage a maddening condition whereby one’s buttocks kill after sitting any longer than an hour.

Such is the passage of time. One minute, all three daughters are piled in the bathtub at the bewitching hour of 5 p.m. Fresh, clean-smelling little girls in matching cotton nightgowns snuggle on the sofa watching Wee Sing tapes, and the next minute Father Time plucks them away one by one to lead lives of their own. As it should be.

So, when Virginia goes to college, I’ll try to celebrate a new chapter in her life as I struggle with painful buns, a spreading muffin top and a fresh hole in my heart. I will kiss her and hug her and turn for one last look. She’s leaving home. Bye-bye.

Carole Perkins is a freelance writer living in Greensboro. Contact her at CPGuilford@aol.com

The Brand New Life

2011-02-27T08:01:00.000-08:00

Thursday, August 12, 2010
(Updated 3:00 am)
By Carole Perkins
Special to the News & Record

Standing outside The Green Bean in Greensboro on a steamy summer night, four musicians from The Brand New Life serenade downtowners with flute, sax, tuba and bells. Luring the gathered crowd inside, they take the stage with the rest of the seven-piece band to create a primeval rhythm that stirs couples to jitterbug and dancing girls to sway hips with arms overhead.

As saxophone players Casey Cranford and Walter Fancourt find their groove, Jared Mankoff's sonorous tuba invites the audience to listen. Congas player Evan Frierson (performing barefoot) creates African beats accompanying Daniel Yount's pulsating drums. Ben Ryle's electric guitar riffs slide over Seth Barden's thumping upright bass.

A few gray-haired audience members bob and do the chicken-neck jerk, but most of the crowd reflects the youth of The Brand New Life, whose ages range from 18 to 23. They're also all graduates of Grimsley High School.

According to Cranford and Fancourt, two people were instrumental in forming the band: Fancourt's neighbor Devin Foust, a musician whom Fancourt describes as having a "spirit that is indefinable," and Grimsley band director Stephan Stuber, who taught six of the seven members. Stuber described them as hard workers with supportive parents.

"They were very self-motivated and a special group of guys," Stuber says. "It's very rewarding to see them play together."

The Brand New Life's instruments, improvisations, solos and musical influences such as Sun Ra, Miles Davis and John Coltrane might suggest a jazz band, but don't be fooled. Its new self-titled CD, due out this month, was recorded at Hillcreek Studio in Asheville with Russell Anders, as well as at Greensboro's Quetzal Recording Studio. The album is a confluence of African and European music traditions with funky instrumental rhythms and occasional psychedelic overtures. Jungle calls and trills combined with indecipherable words and indefinable instruments spell adventure.

"We have a great time together on and off stage," Yount says. "We are always hanging out, trying to be creative. Our material is all original. You might hear us play a cover, but it will probably be obscure or maybe humorous like 'Yackety Sax,' by Boots Randolph."

When the discussion shifts to musical technique, Cranford and Fancourt grow serious. Cranford demonstrates a polyrhythm, a technique where one rhythm is played over another, by beating his fingers on a coffee table in Fancourt's living room.

"We tie syncopation in with polyrhythms," Fancourt says. "It gets people going crazy."

Although The Brand New Life, whose name came from a song written by Mankoff with the lyrics, "Open up your head/Clear out your eyes/This is now your brand new life," has steady gigs around the Triad and is booking its own shows across the state, its goal is to expand its touring range and play larger festivals such as Shakori Hills in Silk Hope. Although the band has played in smaller festivals, including Fun Fourth Festival and Summer Solstice (both in Greensboro), Cranford and Fancourt say it is a daunting task to organize seven young members, adding that they could use some help with booking and management.

In the meantime, The Brand New Life's goal is to have fun sharing its music and getting people up on their feet.

"I think the idea is to get down or sit down," Fancourt says. "You can sit and enjoy our music, which is fine. But the more people moving around and going crazy the better we play. Sharing with people and giving them a good time is what it's all about."

Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com

Songs of Water wants to thrive in hometown's creative scene

2010-08-08T11:39:00.001-07:00

Thursday, June 3, 2010
By Carole Perkins
Special to Go Triad

Although Songs of Water packs theaters in Charlotte and fans in Norway and Sweden feast on their CDs, Greensboro has been deprived of their delightful smorgasbord of music, featuring instruments such as the Irish bouzouki blended with bluegrass icon Ricky Skaggs' fretless banjo.

But that's about to change.

This summer, Songs of Water returns to their Greensboro roots for the release of their second album, "The Sea Has Spoken," featuring guest appearances by Skaggs and tuba player Mark Daumen from Chapel Hill band Lost in Trees.

"The Sea Has Spoken" is a brilliantly crafted musical journey where indigenous sounds from myriad cultures blend in otherworldly harmonies that are somehow familiar.

Founder Stephen Roach is a self-taught hammered dulcimer player, guitarist and African percussionist, as well as vocalist and songwriter. His blood runs rich with musical DNA from a large family of bluegrass musicians. His cousin, Tony Rice, played with Skaggs in the 1980s, inspiring the song "The Family Tree," about the coincidence of Roach playing with Skaggs some 20 years later.

"I had a conglomerate of musical backgrounds that I wanted to do something with," says Roach, who started playing and writing with his friend and co-founder of the band, Jason Windsor, in 2002. "I had the idea to do an instrumental album using all these instruments and cultural backgrounds, so we did our first album together, and the band came out of that."

Roach met Skaggs' son and daughter, Luke and Molly Skaggs, on tour in California, and Luke Skaggs joined the band, taking it to a new level. Ricky Skaggs became a big supporter and offered his studio, Skaggs Place Studio in Nashville, Tenn. Most of the main tracks were recorded there by Charlotte producer Joel Khouri who finished the album at his Bright City Studios. Wake Forest University allowed the band to use its instruments for the recording.

"We worked on this album almost two years to get it the way we wanted it," Roach says. "We wanted 'The Sea Has Spoken' to be a work of art. Like classical music, it has different movements inside of one larger body of work. You almost have to listen to it as a whole work. It's such a journey from beginning to end."

The eight members of Songs of Water are as eclectic as their music. Classically trained violinist Marta Richardson, cellist Sarah Stephens and guitarist Windsor complement Roach and Luke Skaggs' folk, bluegrass and world music studies. Guitar player Greg Willette offers Eastern European gypsy influences; Molly Skaggs contributes Appalachian folk music roots. Michael Pritchard's polyrhythmic drum textures anchor the band with a tasteful and experimental style.

"We're constantly searching out new sounds and new ways to express creativity in our art and music," Roach says. "But the music is not so much world music as it is American music in the truest sense because there are so many cultures represented in this area, it's a natural transition to incorporate those sounds and then employ them into instruments. We'll do some old spirituals from the Appalachian Mountains but then accompany it with something from Africa."

Roach says the band's live performances are where most of that energy comes to life by causing audiences to fall silent while playing in theater settings or whipping them into a frenzy at larger festivals.

Because 75 percent of the music is instrumental, the audience is invited to create their own story about what the song is about. Some of the songs are named by the audience members who sometimes bring their own canvases or writing journals to express what they hear.

Songs of Water continues to stretch musical imaginations with national attention on the top 20 list on the NPR syndicated radio program "Echoes" and guest appearances on several local radio shows, including WFDD (88.5 FM). But Roach says they want to focus on becoming a voice in their hometown of Greensboro.

"We love Greensboro," Roach says. "Most of the band is from here, and we really believe this place thrives with music and art because there are so many creative people here. I think people are looking for something new and different, but they are also looking for something authentic. That's what we want to give is an authentic expression."

Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com

Where poets meet

2010-08-08T11:38:00.001-07:00

Thursday, April 22, 2010
By Carole Perkins
Special to Go Triad

Alfred Harrell steps onto a small, square stage tucked in the back corner of Tate Street Coffee House.

"All right, everybody," Harrell says into the microphone. "Tone down your adult language. We have teens speaking tonight, and this meetup will be family-friendly and upbeat. This is your home, your play house, so let's go."

Tonight, a record-breaking crowd of 28 people have gathered to read their poetry as part of Triad Poetry Meetup.

Harrell holds his poem on a clipboard in his left hand and gestures emphatically with the other. His nervous laugh is replaced with the deep voice of a seasoned orator as he reads his poem about his desire to be free from his jobs to spend more time as a poet and community volunteer.

"To myself I say NO MORE," he says as his cell phone rings in his pants pocket.

"Here I am the host, and I can't remember to turn my own cell phone off," he says, shaking his head.

Harrell is the organizer of Triad Poetry Meetup, a social network group where participants can freely express themselves through poetry or the written word without criticism.

He also organizes Triad Teen Poetry Meetup where young people can improve their self-esteem through poetry readings.

By day, Harrell works as a sanitation worker for the city of Greensboro, but by night, he is a poet and blogger of Verbal Xpression (www.verbalxpression. com).

"My jobs are what I do for money, but what defines me is the work I do concerning meetup-related issues," Harrell says. "In any given day, I wear the hat of critic, organizer, adviser, planner, shoulder to lean on or just plain poet. Poetry is the cooling rain of my life."

* * * *

Harrell's day begins at 5 a.m. when he checks e-mail concerning the poetry groups before heading out at 7 a.m. By 7:30 a.m., he is slipping on rubber gloves and slinging garbage bags of yard waste into the back of the sanitation truck.

In addition to his day job, he works two nights a week in the produce department at Wal-Mart in Greensboro. He then stays up late at night posting on his blog or writing poetry.

Harrell uses his own money to cover expenses from the meetup groups. Though he would like to find sponsors, Harrell volunteers because it's his passion.

"I do this willingly in the volunteer spirit set by my mother who, when she was alive, was always there for other people, even when she was in dire straits," he says. "She was not a writer, but her love for people is written in my soul."

Harrell joined the original Triad Poetry Meetup in 2008, and after a few personnel changes, he took the helm last June. Inspired by Piedmont Slam, a similar group in Winston-Salem, Harrell and then co-organizer Janelle Strickland had a vision to improve the lives of others through poetry and reading.

"For me, Triad Poetry Meetup is an extended family with whom I express my greatest joys and sorrows through the form of poetry, which gives me great peace of mind," Harrell says.

Harrell wrote his first poem in high school as an escape from domestic violence and sexual abuse in his home.

He worked manual labor jobs after graduating high school, and his tenure as a firefighter inspired him to write a poem about being part of the rescue of a little boy.

In 2002, Harrell started writing seriously, finding courage and comfort in his religious beliefs. He drove faithfully from High Point to attend poetry meetings in Greensboro.

"I decided to use my pen like a surgeon's scalpel to start a true personal healing and to make a difference in my life and in the lives of those who would read or listen to my words," he says.

* * * *

Tonight at Tate Street Coffee House, Harrell is saddened with the news of a death in the family of one of the members. He has spent most of the afternoon making phone calls and sending e-mails to alert other members before the meetup. He also asks the crowd for a moment of silence to pay respect to the family.

Sitting in a corner booth like a queen on her throne is assistant organizer Deborah Streeter, otherwise known as the "Princess of Poetry." With a dignified walk, she approaches the mike to break the silence.

She recites her poem about lying in a hammock in the sunshine.

"I enjoy performing in front of crowds and meeting poets to share our works of art," she said. "Poetry gives me time to vent what's on my mind on any given day."

Sean Dowell, 34, a classically trained poet and executive vice president of Cushman and Wakefield real estate company, read his poem "But Memories."

As a teenager, Dowell was attacked by a gang at his school. Aspirations to be a professional artist were ruined after the attack, so Dowell turned to poetry as a way to express himself.

"I associated the rage and injustice I felt with art, so I never picked up a paintbrush again," he says. "I started writing poetry because I needed a way to get those feelings out. I've taken it to the next level now by studying poetry as a craft and not just writing because I need to.

"At the end of the day it's who else you can help. Poetry is lonely. To get affirmation through poetry in the dark night of your soul will keep you going."

Rosalyn Marhatta approaches the mike with the gentle air of a librarian. In her breathless voice she recites "Sculpting Shayna," a poem about an ice sculpture devoured by the sun. Marhatta, who says she started writing poetry seven or eight months ago, had never performed her poetry until she joined Triad Poetry Meetup. Formerly an assistant organizer, Marhatta works on computers at N.C. A&T and developed the idea of a critique group for the meetup.

"Poetry is about the beauty of words, it's almost like music. I get my feelings out and make it make sense to others," she says. "Coming to Triad Poetry Meetups keeps me wanting to write new stuff. It keeps me going.

"Alfred Harrell has been a force for poetry and uniting poets in the Triad. He has been personally encouraging to me about my poetry and I'm writing a lot more than I used to."

Harrell returns to the stage to recite a poem about sexual abuse. He says he chose the poem because he sensed someone in the audience needed to hear it.

"Writing poetry is a healing for some of us," he says. "My vision is to unite myself and other people who have had the same experiences I've had and uplift them."

"It's his passion, his calling," says Dowell. "Alfred is the voice of the community that brings people in."

But Harrell is quick to credit his volunteer staff for the overwhelming success of Triad Poetry Meetup and Triad Teen Poetry Meetup.

"We have a strong team of unrecognized men, women, and teens who open their hearts through poetry to make it all possible," Harrell says. "I'm just the choreographer who goes without sleep to orchestrate this dance."

Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com.

The Bayonets are moving forward on their new album

2010-08-08T11:36:00.002-07:00

Thursday, April 15, 2010
By Carole Perkins
Special to Go Triad

"Snake River Canyon" is the album Caleb Caudle and the Bayonets needed to make.

After critical acclaim for their first release, "Red Bank Road," Caudle and brother Kyle hit a detour with their second album, "Stay On."

"Snake River Canyon" rivets the band back on track with a combustive package of urgent songs stoked with themes of moving forward and leaving the past behind.

Sitting outside a Winston-Salem restaurant on a Saturday afternoon, lead singer and guitarist Caleb Caudle sips on a margarita as he reflects on the band's journey.

"We really liked our first album, but we were frustrated with the second one and just wanted to have fun," he said. " 'Snake River Canyon' is the album that kept our band together."

The first track, "So Gone," best reflects the mood of the album and marks the moment when Caudle stopped thinking about writing songs and just did it.

"Repossess my heart baby and reassess my time/I'd change a few things about myself if I could throw it in rewind/But now I'm moving forward, forward with the wind/Each breath that fills my lungs reminds me how to start again," he sings.

"I started jamming on a blues riff down in the basement, and it gave Caleb a format to play," says Kyle Caudle, bassist and backup vocalist.

"It opened things up so I could write constantly instead of just verse/chorus, verse/chorus," Caleb Caudle says.

Interspersed between 10 hard-driven songs punctuated by Chad Newsom's pummeling drum beat and Philip Pledger's fire-powered guitar licks nestle two heart-wrenching gems. "Skeleton Tree" and "Weightless" are written as if Neil Young and the late Gram Parsons whispered in Caleb Caudle's ear.

"And I'll fly away from the skeleton tree/With my glory and the wind beneath my wings/Cause I'd rather fly away with the falcons/Than fall with the thousands of leaves," Caleb Caudle sings.

"We wanted this album to reflect all our musical influences and break away from the alt-country tag. It's more like Cosmic American Music," he said, rolling up the sleeve on his plaid shirt to reveal a tattoo with the title of Parsons' signature song, "Hickory Wind," on his right bicep.

Recorded at Echo Mountain Recording Studio in Asheville and co-produced by Jon Ashley, "Snake River Canyon" showcases Caleb Caudle's vocal range stretching to Roy Orbison falsetto heights and dipping to Frank Sinatra's deep-chested purr.

"This album was by far a band effort," Caleb Caudle says. "We each brought something different to the table. As a bass player, Kyle is more into rhythm, and I'm more into melody. We all had the same vision and everyone's opinion mattered. We have enough musicianship now so when everyone is listening to each other we can be innovative without stepping on each other's toes."

With a tour planned from Athens, Ga., to Boston by manager Andy Tennille, Caleb Caudle and the band are ready to roll.

"Usually by the time an album comes out, I'm tired of singing the songs," Caudle says.

"On 'Snake River Canyon,' the songs still sound fresh to me, and I'm excited about people hearing them.

"This is an album that makes people get up and move. It's the album we needed to make."

Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com

'A rousing revue with a wink and a smile'

2010-08-08T11:36:00.001-07:00

Thursday, March 25, 2010
By Carole Perkins
Special to Go Triad

Eight years ago, while performing on a ship for Celebrity Cruise Lines, dancer Jim Weaver lifted his partner adagio style into the air and immediately felt a searing pain rip down his lower back.

The former "Fosse" performer and choreographer to Dolly Parton and the Mandrell sisters finished the show -- and his contract -- in agonizing pain.

His surgery and move to Greensboro changed his life, but also opened a new door.

"After having surgery, I was nervous to return to dancing, which I had done my whole career," said Weaver, who moved back to Greensboro to be with family. "... so I decided to pursue something else until I was completely healed."

Weaver worked a series of managerial jobs, including one at Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores in Greensboro, but also stayed creatively busy helping write plays and working with Joe Nierle at The Open Space Cafe Theatre in Greensboro. Each step led him closer to his dream of creating his own "Fosse"-inspired show, "Brouhaha Revue."

"From the beginning I told everyone I spoke with about this idea I had to do a show with a sort of cabaret element with burlesque and comedy, too," says Weaver, seated on a sofa at his brick duplex. "I got interested in the idea because I did 'Fosse' on tour and was fascinated with everything Bob Fosse did."

Weaver offers two versions of his show: "Club Brouhaha," a 45-minute set for nightclub venues, and "Brouhaha Revue," the two-hour full production for theatrical settings. The March 13 performance at Warehouse 29 in Greensboro sold out by show time, making it the third out of four shows to sell out.

"The Brouhaha Revue" will be presented again Saturday at Warehouse 29 in Greensboro.

"The show moves from pop opera to classic burlesque as well as 'Chicago'--style production numbers," Weaver says. "The show has a lot of different elements to it, and we want to make it clear since in the beginning the word burlesque got mentioned and people thought there would be nudity, but there's not."

The cast consists of Weaver, his sister Tiffani Gosserand, who performs in the show when she's not managing bands and designing Web sites, and co-choreographer Katrina Delisi, a classically trained ballerina and student at UNCG studying modern dance. Weaver first met Delisi when he interviewed her for a job at Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores.

"In walks this beautiful girl," Weaver recalls. "I knew immediately that she was a dancer by the way she moved and the way she dressed.

"We went to lunch, and I told her this idea. She had a lot of her own ideas to add, so that's where it all started to form."

A 30-minute sold-out show on Halloween night last year at The Open Space Cafe Theatre convinced them that the Triad was ready for "a rousing revue with a wink and a smile."

"It's taking the classical styles of what burlesque, vaudeville and cabaret brought to the theater and putting a new spin on it," Delisi says. "I do aerial dancing, and [I] dance with fans and fabric sweeps. We use glowing hula hoops and even have a fire breather. We're thinking of doing pole dancing, which is very hard."

Gosserand pulls a pair of black satin shorts and a red corset from a makeshift closet next to a mannequin named Brou-hilda, who stands in the center of a stage Weaver built in his home.

"This is what I wear when I do the Grand Finale, 'Hey Big Spender,'" says Gosserand.

"Oh, and look at this," she says, stroking a fake red fur coat. "I wear this until the end of the show, and no one knows I'm wearing the corset and shorts underneath."

Aside from the sexy outfits, Weaver adds that the recession has also helped attendance because it offers an escape.

"Once you get in that theater you can forget everything," Weaver says. "It's an answer to a prayer and a dream come true. The best part about it is it is a cumulative kind of effect of all of us coming together with our passions. We didn't know when we started this it would be part of a trend ---- although what we're doing is different."

"And better," Gosserand interjects. "Like the time you were dancing with the mannequin and her wig came off."

"And you rubbed her head," Delisi said with a laugh.

"I finished the number and rubbed her bald head while pointing at my own saying, 'Who am I to judge?' " Weaver says. "The audience loved it."

Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com.

Thacker Dairy Road journey

2010-08-08T11:35:00.001-07:00

Thursday, February 25, 2010
By Carole Perkins
Special to Go Triad

Rebecca White, co-founder of local band Thacker Dairy Road surveys the cupcakes she's baked for bassist George Smith's birthday.

Decorated with large cylinder--shaped dollops of chocolate, the dessert is disturbingly anatomical in appearance. White shrugs her shoulders and says they still taste good even if they look weird.

That's the same spunky resilience that has kept Thacker Dairy Road a band since 2004, despite numerous personnel changes and miles of distance between band members.

On a recent Sunday afternoon in Winston-Salem, members of Thacker Dairy Road are practicing for their CD launch party in a blue room with padded walls and coils of black cords that give the floor the illusion of a snake-pit.

Lead singer, 25-year-old Andrea Thorne, is having technical difficulty with her microphone. She calls to engineer Charlie Starr, who pops out of a room like a Jack-in-the-Box to help.

"Yeah, we keep him in the closet until we need him," Josh Casstevens deadpans, cradling his bright blue Fender Telecaster guitar decorated with pastel flowers.

The band nails the song, "Making Me Feel," with serious verve as 5-foot-1-inch tall Thorne belts out the lyrics, "Take my hand, make me understand myself better than before/Alleviate the pain, take away the game I thought I was winning."

"Jonathan, you've got to hold that beat until I'm done," Thorne says.

"Don't worry, I will for the launch party," says drummer Jonathan McMillan.

"You can steal my thunder," Casstevens says. "And you can steal George's thunder, but don't mess with her thunder," he says, teasing Thorne.

"Are you saying I don't have thunder?" White asks, pointing her fiddle bow at Casstevens. "Do I need to go buy some thunder?"

"Yeah," Thorne quips. "You can get it at the same place you got those cupcakes."

The original Thacker Dairy Road band hatched six years ago by White and co-founder Jeff Yetter in southeast Greensboro. Their vision was to have a different sound but one that people could sing and dance to.

About a year and a half ago, former lead singer Molly McGinn left to start her own band. The existing band needed a new lead singer, so Thorne, who had sung in church and in school choirs, decided to audition.

White says, "After Andrea (Thorne) left the audition, my husband Jeremy said, 'Well, I guess you've just hired your new lead singer."

With the band complete, Thacker Dairy Road began practicing for its first album. While the songs are penned by White, Thorne and Casstevens, the whole band gets credit for song arrangement.

The result is an eclectic and musically accomplished compilation of 11 tunes ranging from sultry, "Sugar," to remorseful, "Regretful Seeds," to a heavenly duo sung a cappella by White and Thorne at the end of track 10, "Sweet Silence."

"Our band has been through a lot, but we're stronger for it and better musicians," White says. "We've tried to be there for each other, and that kind of commitment makes me proud."

This spring, White will play fiddle with Jim Avett at MerleFest. She plays on his new CD, "Tribes," and Thorne also sings harmony.

White also will move four and a half hours from Greensboro to Highlands, where she is "choosing to be with my husband, the love of my life, and commute to Greensboro for my passion."

In the meantime, the members of Thacker Dairy Road are psyched about their first album and release party. Another CD is already in the works, and they hope to find management soon and book tours.

"I feel like we're looking over the edge of a cliff," White says. "We feel like at our launch party, we'll just jump off and open our parachutes and fly."

Contact Carole Perkins at cpguilford@aol.com

A little luck, and a lot of heart and soul

2010-08-08T11:33:00.000-07:00

Thursday, February 11, 2010
By Carole Perkins
Special to Go Triad

Molly McGinn fingers the necklace dangling around her neck, a dog-tag-shaped emblem inscribed with the name Amelia Earhart. A gift from a friend, McGinn thinks it may be a good-luck charm, a harbinger for good things to come.

McGinn's new band, Amelia's Mechanics, is playing to sell-out crowds and hawking a debut CD, "North, South," to rave reviews. The band was voted one of the "Best of 2009" on WUNC's "State of Things" radio show.

McGinn settles her tall frame into an easy chair, crossing one boot over one knee. Her signature curly hair springs over her high cheekbones as she positions her cell phone to answer an expected call from Scott Avett, of the nationally acclaimed band The Avett Brothers. Avett's father, Jim, produced "North, South" and has urged his son to share his opinion on the CD.

Jim Avett and McGinn met a couple of years ago when she was singing and playing guitar in the band Thacker Dairy Road. McGinn released a solo CD in 2007, "Girl With a Slingshot," from which two songs are on "North, South."

"Jim told me I needed to add someone to harmonize with and to add some strings," McGinn says. "Molly Miller opened for me for a show at Triad Stage a couple of years ago, and I knew Kasey Horton from open mike night. The three of us had all just gotten our hearts broken, and we decided to start a band."

In February 2009, McGinn, Miller and Horton wrote and played songs inspired by Earhart, Ernest Hemingway, a suicide bomber and a female moonshine runner.

Horton, a violist and student at UNCG majoring in music, grins mischievously as she describes their music as "vintage country with a moonshine concerto."

Miller, an anthropology major at UNCG, plays electric guitar.

"We all come from very different backgrounds," she says. "I've always loved country, and Kasey is classically trained, and Molly is a free spirit. I guess you could call it free country classical?"

" 'North, South' was supposed to be a five-song EP," McGinn says. "In the studio, every time we'd play a song for Jim, he'd come out of the glass and say, 'That's great. Play another one.'

"Jim's hands are very much in the CD. He had us all sit around one microphone and sing and play. That's what lends this CD to a hand-made sound. It's three musicians sitting around looking at each other and connecting. It's true to our sound, and what you see is what you get."

McGinn's phone rings. She grabs it and says, "Hello."

"This is Scott Avett, and my dad made me call you," the caller says.

McGinn laughs, and they spend a few minutes extolling Jim Avett's virtues. Scott Avett tells McGinn that "there's a lot of good stuff on the CD, and the quality of musicianship is very much there."

"Oh, thank you," McGinn replies. "I've been listening to a little bit of what you're doing, and you're all right."

"Well, I appreciate that," Avett says, laughing.

McGinn's blue eyes sparkle as she hangs up. "He wants to hear more and see what comes out next," she says. "That means a lot to me because people who come out to the Avett Brothers' shows leave wanting to be a better person. That's what we want to accomplish with Amelia's Mechanics. We want to write songs that will lift people up, fix a broken heart or pick someone up when they're lying on the floor."

Lucky charm or not, lady luck is riding shotgun with Amelia's Mechanics. They recently hired manager/promoter Neal Davis, who has worked with Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead and with B.B. King. And they're planning a second CD release in July.

"I never thought I would play in an all-girl band," McGinn says. "But I love being a part of this band, and our goal is to keep doing it and learning. It's kind of like waking up and finding out it's Christmas every day. It's the thing I've been wishing for all my life, and now it's happening."

Actor/model would prefer to be rapping

2010-08-08T11:28:00.000-07:00

Thursday, January 14, 2010
By Carole Perkins
Special to Go Triad

Taylor Swift fans may know him as the heart throb in Taylor's video, "Fifteen."

But what millions of teenage girls don't know is that he is a rapper with lofty musical ambitions and a former basketball player who helped lead Greensboro Day School's team to victory in the Little Four Tournament in 2006.

Alan Fox is a New York City-based actor/model from Greensboro, who in the span of about a year has appeared on billboards, in television commercials and department store fliers and has bared his six-pack abs in his underwear for the clothing store Abercrombie & Fitch.

He takes classes at Hunter College in New York City and acting classes with Seth Barrish, a renowned acting coach who has been influential in the career of actress Anne Hathaway.

It's all pretty heady stuff for the 21-year-old former jock who thought basketball was his ultimate career.

Fox sits on the edge of a chair, fiddling with tufts of brown bangs that stick out of his toboggan worn as if to disguise his all-American good looks. The hat only accentuates his striking green eyes and straight brow.

"I thought I would play basketball or coach the rest of my life," Fox says. "I got injured my senior year in high school and ended up having surgery my freshman year at UNCG. After my surgery, I had to re-evaluate my life and figure out something else to do."

Encouraged by his mother to try modeling, Fox traded in his basketball shoes and signed with Greensboro-based modeling agency, Directions USA.

"Modeling seems kind of silly, but it offered me an opportunity to travel and explore parts of my life I wasn't used to," he says.

After three months of "modeling boot camp" in Florida, Fox moved back to Greensboro and traveled back and forth to New York City to model, a fact he hid from his friends.

"I was kind of embarrassed, you know?" he says. "All my friends were going to college, and here I was at loose ends. I was aware that I couldn't model forever. I had acted in the school play my senior year on a bet and found I really liked acting. So I moved to New York City to get serious about acting and to be the best I could be."

Right before the move in November, Fox's agent called to tell him he was being considered for a part in the Taylor Swift video "Fifteen." Fox drove to Nashville, Tenn., and landed the role of the boy who seduces, then rejects, Taylor's best friend Abigail, who is also Taylor's best friend offscreen.

"Playing that character was the most difficult acting I've ever done," he says. "I didn't want to be too cliché like the part always portrayed in high school movies, but at the same time, everybody knows that kind of guy. It's like I told my parents, I'm just a pawn in this much greater machine which is Taylor Swift. My philosophy was that it was a really small part but you have to start somewhere.

"Taylor is the most intelligent and well-spoken 'star' I've been around," Fox says. "She's very sweet but at the same time has this very intelligent, sarcastic wit about her.

"She has this incredible ability to verbalize all these emotions that teenage girls feel, not that I know how teenage girls feel," Fox says, laughing.

He says he'd like to "parlay this whole acting/modeling thing" into his passion for rapping, a hobby he started in middle school that escalated into a fan base eager to buy his self-released CDs. Fox leans back in his chair, visibly relaxing as the conversation turns to music

"I was always a minority on the basketball teams. I got a kick out of making words rhyme so I could fit it," he says." I can't sing, but I like to express myself musically. If I could write the perfect song it would be to convey all these feelings I can't put my finger on. I try to write in a way that captures emotions in songs."

He refuses credit for his accomplishments, politely handing any success over to "the best parents in the world."

"I can't take a lot of credit for what I do," he says. "I'm not entitled. Monetary gain or seeing myself on television doesn't concern me as much as how I can affect other people. I've had so many people support me and affect me positively. My goal is to affect a million people in the same way."

Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com

Hope For Agoldensummer

2009-12-09T14:08:00.000-08:00

"A Sister's Bond Beyond Music"
By: Carole Perkins
Published by: Go Triad
Thursday, November 12 2009

From the deep Southern roots of Athens, Ga., where resurrected bottles of Milk of Magnesia line weathered porch railings and rocking chairs sway with the cadence of katydids, comes a band whose music is as enchanting as their name.

Hope For Agoldensummer is a folk trio comprised of sisters Claire and Page Campbell and friend Deb Davis. While the acoustic guitar is the center of their music, whimsical instruments ring and whistle, from xylophone to singing saw to slide whistle and some occasional knee-slapping. Claire's and Page's harmonies float together effortlessly as they conjure images of the South: drinking on rooftops and dancing with the moon, shooting Coke bottles and driving I-85, and writing goodbye love letters.

"Page and I are very close," Claire said. "We don't have to communicate with words much on stage. Part of that is because we are sisters, but it's also partly because we've been playing together for eight years. After a while, you don't have to say things on stage. You can just look at each other and know where you want the harmony to go."

The Campbells' father played in various bands in Georgia and encouraged the girls to play guitar early. Page started playing guitar about age 14 and Claire, at 16. Claire says she "finally picked up a guitar when my dad stopped trying to get me to play." She eventually put a solo album out, "Golden Summer."

"I was having a terrible summer, so I guess the name was sort of sarcastic. I formed another band for a couple of years and when it broke up I started Hope For Agoldensummer. At that point is wasn't about being sarcastic; it was about real hope."

In addition to making her own lye soap and swinging on low-flying trapezes for strength and flexibility, Claire's favorite activity is being a doula, a "precursor" to a midwife who helps women during and after childbirth.

Claire writes songs only about three or four times a year when "real inspiration strikes like major events that are tragic or happy," she says. "Or, I'll hear someone else's story and be inspired by that. I do a lot of plagiarizing from my friend's letters. I'll take phrases and turn them into songs. I consider anything anybody says to be fair game."

Claire is 32 years old, a six-year difference between younger sister Page, who idolized Claire growing up and wanted to do everything she did, including playing the guitar.

"It's great working with my sister," Page says. "I can't imagine what my life would be without her because she's always been there. I think I kind of took her for granted until we started making music together, and then it all happened so naturally."

When Page isn't working her day job at a coffee shop, swinging with Claire on trapezes, or baking vegan cookies, she plays in two other bands, Creepy and Sea of Dogs. She is also working on a musical project tentatively called Rising Sign with her "man," Dan Donahue.

Despite Page's musical gifts, she says her proudest accomplishment is creating a video called, "Katelina," soon after leaving art video school in Chicago. In the video, quasi-psychedelic images paint the story of the sisters' close relationship.

"I never intended to do anything with that video when I wrote it," Page says. "Then some years later, a friend said he wanted to make a video of us so we pulled it out and made it into a music video.

"I think it's about finding ways to take care of each other and being women who need each other."

I addition to their two other albums, this month Hope For Agoldensummer will release a live CD, "Hours in the Attic," recorded mostly in Claire's attic.

"We had friends come over to act as a studio audience," Claire says. "It has 16 songs, mainly the ones most requested in our shows plus a couple of new ones."

In the spring, the band will tour extensively to promote a studio CD.

Jill Andrews: She's confident, and it shows

2009-10-26T13:14:00.000-07:00

Thursday, October 15 (updated 8:26 am)
By Carole Perkins

Jill Andrews stands like an apparition in the spotlight's orb on stage at The Neighborhood Theatre in Charlotte. She takes her time adjusting the strings on her acoustic guitar as she introduces herself and band member Josh Oliver.

Andrews is wearing the same boots she wore as former lead female singer for the everybodyfields band, but she has shed her timid demeanor of the girl next door. Stepping to the mike is a confident woman with a new husband, baby, band and EP in tow.

With a voice so angelic and voluminous it seems to fill the empty spaces in the rafters, Andrews sings:

"Say you're tired/ say you're busy/ you can lie to me/ it should come easy/ for you have been doing it for a while/ look away when I'm talking/ please don't say what you're thinking/ you have been thinking for a while."

The lyrics to "Worth Keeping" set the tone for her new self-titled EP, a stirring compilation of quintessential Andrews' penned songs, redolent in somber imagery and resonating with the universal vassals of loneliness and unrequited love. Josh Oliver delivers a stellar keyboard performance, while Robert Richard's lead guitar, Vince Ilagan's bass and Chad Melton's drums meld into a unique sound that becomes first cousin to the everybodyfields.

Back in the dressing room, Andrews sits on a sofa and talks about starting over with a new band.

"I feel humbled," she says. "It drives me a little bit and gives me more ambition because I know I have a lot of work to do. With the everybodyfields, we worked so hard and toured so much we didn't even have friends. I don't necessarily want that life again at all because now I have a family."

Andrews and her husband/manager, Clinton, met at an everybodyfields show in Knoxville, Tenn., where they now live with baby boy, Nico, almost 5 months old.

"When I first saw him, I thought to myself, 'I have to meet this guy,'" Andrews says. "He was wearing some pretty standout clothing. He had really tight jeans and a really, really tight shirt. So I went up to him and said, 'Hi, I'm Jill Andrews.' He looked at me and said, 'I know who you are.' Then we just started hanging out. He's a great guy."

Andrews and Sam Quinn, former lead male singer for the everybodyfields and Andrews' ex-boyfriend, created three artistically compelling CDs as the everybodyfields, amassing a loyal fan base that was crushed to learn of the split. Their last official show was New Year's Eve. Deciding not to release a fourth album as the everybodyfields, Andrews took her songs and used three on her new EP.

"With the everybodyfields, we kind of knew it was the end, but we waited to tell everybody else. Our personalities were as different as our voices, and we couldn't agree on most things except how much we loved singing together," she says of the duo whose dovetail harmonies have been compared to Emmylou Harris and the late Gram Parsons.

"It's a lot like divorce; it's very hard. But at the same time Sam and I are still very much in contact. He sent me a text message while I was on stage tonight," she laughs.

"I definitely wish the best for him. Sam is incredibly talented, and I've always known that."

Andrews says she's definitely not opposed to a future reunion, although right now she wants to "see what's out there."

"We've only gone out on one tour," she says. "Nico was with us and I swear, he is just the best baby in the world. He sleeps through the night and hardly ever cries. Everyone in my band is so helpful. Like, we'll stop at a gas station and I'll take Nico out of his car seat to feed him and everybody will say do you need anything?" Andrews says. "My family is very supportive of me and they're going to be on the road with me. We're going to make it work as much as we can."

She says natural childbirth when Nico was born gave her more confidence as a woman ---- and a singer.

"I feel like I've found my voice," she says. "I haven't had it long, maybe for about a year. I really don't know where it came from because I was so timid with my voice and my personality. It was probably everyone's encouragement. It just builds and builds."

Clinton walks into the room and perches on the armrest, snuggling in while Andrews talks about her new life.

"I'm really proud of her," he says. "You can tell she's really captured her own voice, and she's ambitious enough and strong enough to do something about it. I think her heart has a lot to share, and I'm proud of her for doing it."

Asked if the love song, "City Noise," from her new EP was inspired by Clinton, Andrews just smiles.

"I feel like the ceiling is going to fall in anytime now. I am lucky," she says. "I am so lucky."

Preview to the Avett Brother’s CD, I and Love and You. Original Copy

2009-09-17T19:43:00.000-07:00

Carole Perkins

Sept. 14, 2009

Since signing to record label, American, in July 2008, The Avett Brothers have hurdled like juggernauts; as opening act for the Dave Matthews Band, named a Best New Artist to watch by Rolling Stone, gracing the cover of Paste Magazine, approved by Oprah Winfrey, mentioned in Vanity Fair , extolled by writer John Grogan of Marley and Me and actor Rainn Wilson who plays Dwight Shrute on NBC’s, The Office.

North Carolina’s own Concord boys aren’t straddling a wooden fence anymore, one foot gripped by an adoring claque of fan comprising the Avett Nation, the other foot testing the star- studded street of Los Angeles. Their new CD, I and Love and You, is the magnum opus that catapults the Avett Brothers into notoriety with Grammy Award winning producer Rick Rubin spit shining and polishing harmonies and orchestrations to lip smacking perfection.

Paradoxically, the glory of worldly fame is not celebrated in I and Love and You. The onus to perform and the inevitable vicissitudes of success resonate in the lyrics to their songs, ruminations of weary travelers whose peregrinations have left them disillusioned and exhausted. Ten of the thirteen songs lie heavy as wet wool blankets sodden with themes of self-doubt, loneliness, and the ugliness of greed.

While Scott Avett plays banjo in only three songs, his twangy picking is distinctive and succinct. Joe Kwon delivers an exemplarity cello performance as notes weave and linger with ethereal luminosity. Scott’s younger brother Seth’s guitar adroitly channels velvety classics such as James Taylor’s Fire and Rain, Bob Crawford’s thunking stand- up bass anchors the tracks.

The Avett Brother’s 2007 Ramseur Records produced CD, Emotionalism, serves as harbinger to I and Love and You. The title track, I and Love and You, implores Brooklyn to take them in much in the same vein as Emotionalism’s lyrics to Salina where they are “down on their knees” for Kansas.

A heavy piano solo, shades of the Beatles, Let It Be, accompanied by a stellar cello performance by Joe Kwon opens the song.

Oh Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in/ are you aware of where I’ve been/my hands they shake my head it spins/ oh Brooklyn, Brooklyn, let me in.

What you were then I am today/ look at the things I do/ dumbed down and numbed by time and age/ your dreams the catch the worlds a cage/ the highway sets stage/ all exits look the same.

A return to more traditional Avett roots is Seth’s endearing love song, January Wedding. Scott’s banjo converses with guitar ala the prelude to Dueling Banjos before diving into a crashing crescendo of strings and snare.

And I was sick with heartache and she was sick like Audrey Hepburn when I met her/ but we will both surrender/ true love is not the kind of thing you turn down/ don’t ever turn it down/ and in January we’re getting married/ yeah in January we’re getting married.

Head Full of Doubt, Road Full of Promise, commences with a powerful hymnal style piano baseline and sinuous cello notes.

There’s a darkness upon me that’s flooded in light/ in the fine print that tell me what’s wrong and what’s right/And it comes in black and it comes in white and I’m frightened by those who don’t see it./

There was a dream and one day I could see it/like a bird in the cage I broke in and demanded that somebody free it / and there was a kid with a head full of doubt so I’ll scream ‘til I die or the last of those bad thoughts are finally out.

Rat a tat tat, rat a tat tat drums shake the fourth track, And It Spead. Abruptly, the din is softened with gentle guitar and Seth’s sunny voice.

There was light in the room then you left and it was through/ then the frost started in my toes and fingertips. And it spread and it spread into my heart/ then for I don’t know how long, I settled in to doing wrong and as the wind fills the sails come the thought to hurt myself.

The Perfect Space is part mournful symphony and part full- out rock with Scott’s wistful voice singing:

I wanna have friends that I can trust that love me for the man I’ve become not the man that I was/ and I want to have friends that let me be all alone when being alone is all that I need/ I want to fit in to the perfect space, fill natural and safe in a volatile place.

Ten Thousand Words is a brilliant epic featuring heart wrenching cord changes and a light guitar melody Seth’s impeccable harmony floats like a summer sheet over Scott’s gravely voice.

And after we are through ten years and making it to be the most glorious debuts/I’ll come back home without my things ‘cause the clothes I ware out there I will not wear around you/ and they’ll be quick to point out our shortcomings and how the experts all have had their doubts/ ain’t it like most people, I’m no different, we love to talk on things we don’t know about.

With a signature chortle and caterwaul, Seth lightens the tone with Kick Drum Heart. He borrows a stuttering ruse from Emotionalism’s, Will You Return?, and a dash of Jamaican laced flavor from Pretty Girl from San Diego.

F-f-f-footprints over the snow/ the fabric of the lonely/c-c-c- covering only the fables and hands/ the rest is out in the cold holding the last of the season f-f-f-freezing/Yeah/ my my my heart like a kick drum.

Thump…thump thump thump….thump thump the song ends with the kick drum sounding like a heart beat.

While watching Scott in a live show whip the crowd into frenzy, beckoning with his arms to “take you all for a ride,” is a very different experience than listening to the smoother more melodious version, Laundry Room it is no less titillating. The band kicks their heels up at the end in an unexpected hoe-down circa 2003 Carolina Jubilee.

Don’t push me out/just a little longer/ stall your mother/disregard your father’s words/ keep your clothes on /I’ve got all that I can take/ teach me how to use the love the people say you make.

Close the laundry room door/tiptoe across the floor/ keep your clothes on I’ve got all I can take/teach me how to use the love that people say you make.

Break this tired old routine and this time don’t make me leave/ I am a breathing time machine/I’ll take you for a ride.

Ill with Want summons a piano funeral dirge with Scott conjuring shades of Gram Parsons, In My Hour of Darkness, from GP/Grievous Angel.

I am sick with wanting and its evil and it’s daunting /now lay to waste/ I am lost in greed this time it’s definitely me /I point … fingers but there’s no one there to blame.

Tin Man, makes the cut to CD with it’s a smoothly orchestrated drum and guitar set.

You can’t be like me but be happy that you can’t/ I see pain but I don’t feel it I am like the old tin man. I’m as warm as a stone I keep it steady as I can/ I see pain but I don’t feel it /I am like the old tin man.

Slight Figure of Speech accelerates the mood with a fast paced guitar rhythm reminiscent of Elvis at a clambake with bikini clad girls dancing the” Jerk” Inserted in the middle is a stattcato rap- tinged refrain similar to Talk on Indolence from Four Theives Gone-The Robbinsville Sessions.

They say you gotta lose a couple of fights to win/ it’s hard to tell from where I’m sittin. They say that this is where the fun begins/ I guess it’s time that I was quittin.

A slight figure of speech, I cut my chest wide open/ they come and watch us bleed/ is it like I was hoping now.

They said I hope that you will never change/ I went and cut my hair/ they said don’t take your business to the big time/ I bought us tickets there.

It goes On and On is Seth sincere sonnet imbued with a strong Darling influence (Seth recorded 3 CD’s under the name Darling in the bedroom of his childhood home in Concord.)

I lost my fear in your arms/ I lost my tears in your car/ I lost my will in your candle lit eyes and my love in you yard.

The last track, Incomplete and Insecure, features Scott’s voice serrated with discouragement accompanied in sympathy by Joe’s cello. Scott’s reference to his insecure nature is in direct conflict to Emotionalism’s I Would Be Sad lyrics where he sings about his “easy confidence.” The Second Gleam’s song Murdered in the City is also given a nod to lyrics in this song where Scott acknowledges the value of family.

I haven’t finished a thing since I started my life/ I don’t feel much like starting now/ walking down lonely has worked like a charm I’m the only one I have to let down

I can go on with my insecure nature I can keep living off sympathy/ I can tell all the people that all of the success is a direct reflection on me/ but watching you makes me think that that is wrong/ what is important what’s really important am I not to know by my name/ will I ever know silence without mental violence Will the ringing at night go away.

Veteran Avett fans raise your arms in a collective cradle, a mosh pit to bolster Scott, Seth, Bob, and Joe. Then rejoice and wrap your arms around the new Avett Brother’s converts that I and Love and You will hook. Welcome them to Avett Nation, it’s the perfect space to gather and celebrate.

Harvey Robinson's Kitchen

2009-08-03T13:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.yesweekly.com/article-6785-harvey-robinsons-kitchen.html
I really enjoyed meeting this very talented auteur and his girlfriend, Carolyn.

Homeless for the Holidays:Amber's Story

2008-12-16T11:15:00.000-08:00

Amber and her 10-year-old daughter Brooklyn sit in the hard plastic chairs that circle the round table, a centerpiece in their one-room home. Two sets of bunk beds line opposite walls. A double bed, carefully made with a blue and white quilt, nestles in the corner near the large, blinded window. Nine-year-old Shannon stops fidgeting with his soccer ball for the first time in 15 minutes and gazes with rapt attention out the window as leaders from Girl Scout Troop 1449 stir homemade Brunswick stew in a cauldron large enough for Shannon to swim in.

“I’m not eating that stew!” Shannon declares.

“You don’t have to eat it, but be polite about accepting it,” his mother warns. TeVin, Amber’s oldest son, sits on the double bed strumming mellow chords on his electric guitar, seemingly oblivious to his younger brother’s whirling dervish or the excited chitter-chatter of his mom and sister. A dedicated vegan for the past few months, he’ll also politely decline the stew, the only lunch he’ll see today.

“We love our church,” Amber says. “We’ve been going to Potter’s House for eleven years. We have an outreach program where we go on Saturdays to feed the homeless and give them the word.”

“My Daddy grills food for them,” Brooklyn says proudly.

“My husband has such a desire to go and help the homeless, especially since being here. It’s given him a different outlook,” Amber says.

Amber and her family are homeless. They’ve been living at Pathways, an outreach of Urban Ministry in Greensboro that provides temporary shelter for homeless families.

Mark Sumerford has been director of Pathways for the last 26 years. His eyes cloud when he describes the growing epidemic of families without homes.

“It’s horrible,” he says. “We recommend that families call us every day to see if there’s space for them. When this center was built six years ago, we’d have fifteen to twenty families on the waiting list. Last month we had 43 families waiting for one of the sixteen rooms we have here, now we have 53 homeless families waiting for a place to live. “You can hear the frustration in their voices when they call day after day and there’s no room for them,” Mark continues. “Sometimes they become angry because we can’t do anything to help them. It’s tough for these families, especially the victims of abuse. Where do we stay tonight? Where will my children stay?”

Amber and her family are the luckier ones who found shelter at Pathways several months after losing their home and sleeping on the floor of Amber’s mother’s house.

“I miss riding my bike and playing with my cats,” Brooklyn says about her old neighborhood. “I wish we didn’t have to give our Jack Russell terrier, Bandit, away,” Amber says. “We couldn’t bring him with us. I held onto him as long as I could.”

Amber’s father, a violent and abusive alcoholic, lined Amber and her brothers up to watch as he beat their mother. He had just thrown her down the steps as Amber played outside with her red ball. Running for her life, Amber’s mother grabbed the 3-year-old and hid her behind a tree.

“Stay here,” she commanded before running back inside to grab her brothers. “I can’t leave without them.” Seeking shelter at the homes of relatives, Amber’s mother eventually rented a trailer. Amber’s life became like that one long moment when the elevator plunges downward, leaving the rider suspended and off-kilter, waiting for the landing.

Molested as a child by a family member while other teenage boys watched, Amber kept her tongue even as she was forced to hug her abuser when family arguments always ended in “make-up” time. She dropped out of school by the 8 th grade and bore her first son at 15. “I went into the same abusive situation I swore I’d never be in,” she says. “I wanted a way out. I just didn’t know how to get up. I ended up in Charter Hill’s Hospital after I had my son. DSS threatened to take my son away. It broke my heart. All I ever wanted to be was a good mother.”
Amber took out life insurance at 18, convinced she would never see the light of the next day. “I made a decision to move from the abusive relationship and found shelter at Clara’s House,” Amber says, a home for abused women. “He tried to shoot me there so I moved into public housing, where he kicked my front door down.” Back at Clara’s House, Amber connected with an advocate who helped her go to court. The abuser ended up on probation with 10 month’s jail time. “I felt violated and had no voice,” Amber says. “I was so angry for everything that had happened to me.” One night when Amber was 20 years old, she and a girlfriend played a drinking game with a male college student in the neighborhood. Amber’s girlfriend left to go back to her apartment and Amber followed later, passing out on the living room floor.

“I awoke to being carried back to the apartment where we had played the game. I had no physical control over my body; it was if I had no voice or strength. I couldn’t fight or verbalize what was happening as they raped me. So I had to make my mind go somewhere else so I could make it through. Afterwards, I literally blocked out the events of that night so I could make it. I was so angry at myself. I felt like I was worth nothing all over again. I hated that feeling.”

“I went to bed every night with a bottle of liquor and woke up with it in the morning,” she says.
“One day I looked at my son and quit drinking and smoking cold turkey. That January I gave my life to the Lord. For the first time, I felt like somebody."

When this center was built six years ago, we’d have fifteen to twenty families on the waiting list. Last month we had 43 families waiting for one of the 16 rooms we have here, now we have 53 homeless families waiting for a place to live.
— Mark Sumerford, director of Pathways

Eighteen months ago, Amber and her husband were excited about buying their first home. The loan was approved. They were building their credit. Her husband worked second shift Monday through Friday, leaving Greensboro at 2 p.m. and returning home at 2 a.m. On Saturdays he worked from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. They purchased a van and provided for their children on $32,000 a year. “Sundays were the only days my husband was home,” Amber remembers. “I was feeling overwhelmed with him being gone so much. Our youngest son has encopresis, a slow transit bowel disease and pelvic floor dysfunction, an illness that causes him to miss a lot of school and keeps him in the hospital a lot. He also has ADHD. So my husband took a position in Greensboro which paid $10.50 an hour and the promise of overtime options and some benefit packages. We went back to our mortgage lender and discovered that we could not buy a house because my husband had switched jobs in the middle of the process. No one had ever told us that.”

“We ran across a young couple who were divorcing and wanted to rent their house with an option to buy. All they wanted was for us to pay the mortgage which was $850 a month and that was it. So we moved into the home and discovered we had a gas bill, light bill and car insurance.

Our van was breaking down right and left, so I got a job at a convenience store working third shift. I wanted to do anything to keep us in the house. For the first time, my daughter had someone else to play with. My kids could finally go outside and play in the front yard and be safe.”

Then the van broke down again. Amber’s husband walked to work, rain, sleet or snow, never missing a day. Amber quit her job because of her son’s medical condition. Next, a letter came from their landlord informing the family that he was filing Chapter 7. They had 45 days before the house would be repossessed.

They made the decision to move in with Amber’s mother and apply to Partnership Village Apartments, a lower-rent housing option designed to transition the homeless back into permanent housing.

“My first application to Partnership Village had gotten lost so I went back
to fill out another one. My mother was getting ready to move and the van was broken down again. We couldn’t afford to get it out of the shop. We were paying my mother money for utilities and going to the laundrymat three to four times a week to wash my son’s clothes, sheets and towels. The apartments we were trying to get into never received the paper work so they gave the space to someone else,” Amber explains. She called Pathways every day to see if there was a vacancy. On a Tuesday night last July, Amber and her family became residents.

“We knew we had to get our life back together,” she says. “The programs they offer here have taught us how we can better budget so when we do go into a home we aren’t faced with this situation again. “I think God lets things happen for a reason,” she continues. “Since we’ve been here we’ve been able to save our money and pay off some debt. But most importantly, our family is stronger. Whereas my oldest son used to run track and be going in a million different directions, now I know we’ll all be sitting down to dinner every night as a family. It’s given us back our perspective of what is really important to us. A lot of people come here with only the shirts on their backs.”

The hearty Brunswick stew is served in white Styrofoam bowls with Saltines on the side. Amber’s husband joins the family for the noonday meal. “Sometimes I can get here for lunch if there’s enough gas in the van,” he says. If not, he works his 10-hour shift without. Amber takes Shannon’s untouched stew back to the room to store in the scant shelves of their refrigerator.

“This is a nice place to stay,” says TeVin. “I don’t like to just sit around so I hang out with my girlfriend or play music with my friends. It’s not bad unless you have a little brother running around,” he teases.

The hardest part for the family is the time-restriction rule. Everyone must be in their rooms by 9 p.m. Children and teenagers can never be left alone. When Shannon goes to Brenner’s Hospital, Brooklyn leaves school because there is no one to be there when she gets off the bus. Amber’s family has been there much longer than the average 90-day stay at Pathways. An unexpected childsupport check from TeVin’s father placed the family in a higher income bracket Partnership Village allows.

They are having trouble finding a home in a decent community because they are overqualified for specific assistance programs such as Section 8, a governmental program that offers vouchers to qualifying landlords and provides assistance with rent.

“I didn’t grab anyone’s coat when we came in July,” Amber says. “One morning a couple of weeks ago, it was really cold. There was a burgundy windbreaker on the cart beside the door where anyone can get take what they need. It did look like an old man’s coat but I told TeVin to wear it because I didn’t want him to be cold.” “I don’t want to wear that coat,” TeVin protested, storming out to the bus for school.

“I look out the window and halfway to the bus, there’s no coat. So I do what any typical parent would do and ran out in the freezing cold in my pajamas,” says Amber.

“Put the coat on, you are so grounded. No phone, no girlfriend!” “Right then, tears started falling just like puddles,” she says. “Mama, please don’t make me wear this coat. They’re already picking on me because we live here,” TeVin pleaded.

“I went back to our room and just fell apart. ‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘How long have they been teasing him?’” “Later that day, my friend took TeVin and me shopping and bought TeVin this super-cool leather coat. He just stood there and grinned ear to ear. He was so grateful. It was the perfect ending to a day that had started so bad.”

Last Thanksgiving Amber had to lay down their cherished dog, Hero, for health reasons.

“He was the coolest dog in the world,” Brooklyn says. “He used to lick me awake every morning. It was the worst Thanksgiving ever.” This Thanksgiving, Amber and her family will have their meal served by youth from Our Lady of Grace Church at Pathways, along with fellow pilgrims in their hardscrabble journey. They are not without hope as they gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing.

“It’s not where we eat Thanksgiving dinner that’s important,” says Amber. “It’s about being with my family.”

Originally Published in Yes! Weekly 11/25/08

Avett Family Album

2008-07-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

The Avett Brothers career trajectory, from playing gigs in their hometown of Concord, NC on sidewalks hot enough to cook pig jowls to the plush, brightly lit stage of the Grand Ol’ Opry, is like watching a big piece of pink bubblegum pursed between lips, blowing, expanding until it pops and their faces are splattered across national newspapers and stuck all over websites.

The brothers are riding the cusp of a tsunami , propelling them to a shoreline riddled with acclaim: winning the Americana Music Award Association duo/group of the year and new emerging artist of the year in November, making their national television debut on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” in May, watching their CD Emotionalism, reach No.1 on Billboard Top Heatseekers Album chart, and having their song, “If It’s the Beaches”, featured on the NBC drama “Friday Night Lights.”

Further buoying their journey is the July 6 signing with American/Columbia Records. Under the helm of Grammy Award-winning producer Rick Rubin, they plan to release a new CD within the year. The Avett Brothers band germinated from Scott Avett’s college rock band, Nemo. Younger brother Seth joined later, co-writing original music and helping to create the sound. Their efforts spawned a rabid fan base. Bass player Bob Crawford completed the threesome in 2002, adding notches to a belt that includes eight CDs, two EPs, three solo CDs by Seth and one CD by Bob.

The Avett Brothers lyrics are rife with the coterminous bonds of the common man and are almost naked with truth; the weight of lies, red Trans Ams and ragged Thunderbirds, boatloads of shame, dreams of paranoia and finding God in a soft woman’s hair. Their sweet love sonnets swaying with Carolina’s hickory winds are dichotomous, with a few howling cacophonies pelted with spontaneous rebel yells.

Scott’s accomplished, loose-handed style of old-time banjo twanging squires hand in hand with Seth’s dexterous guitar playing and piano virtuoso. The steady throb of Bob’s bass holds fast as the anchor.

Consummate Southern gentlemen, the Avett Brothers publicly thanked Dolphus Ramseur, who mined, polished and tumbled them into the prosperous hands of Rick Rubin.

“It is our sincere hope, in regard to this news, that our ongoing relationship with Ramseur Records is understood. There have not been, and will be, no hard feelings or abandon-based resentment from either party involved. The Avett and Ramseur camps remain strongly and truthfully connected, both personally and professionally. There has been no change in these matters through this momentous transition,” the Avett’s website reads.

“We have recently begun working on a new, full length album with Rick Rubin. The recording process has been, and will no doubt continue to be, an experience defined by heightened levels of commitment and conviction. It is our distinct pleasure and honor to be in such fine company as we build and bring this most current chapter of songs to fruition.”

Photo By David Butler

Originally Published in Yes! Weekly

The Avett Brothers conjure Carolina magic in Tennessee

2008-07-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

Scott Avett starts the set solo with guitar while Seth moves across the stage empty handed, with vocals that ride piggy-back on Scott’s, as only a brother can do. Seth’s hand subconsciously strums his invisible guitar.

Bob Crawford joins the ensemble, whirling and dipping his upright bass like a dance partner, as “Shame,” from 2007’s Emotionalism, stirs the voracious crowd into a frenzy of arms swaying like the snakes on Medusa’s head

The Avett Brothers stomp and chomp at the bit with unbridled energy at this Saturday night show at the Paramount Center for the Arts in Bristol, Tenn. Scott and Seth’s right legs paw the ground, breaking into the signature Avett dancing gait. Bob bounces to the close, tight rhythms, heaving ecstatic fans into a kinetically executed momentum reined in by the next song. Stepping back from the mike, the crowd is calmed by a long interlude, pacification until the next song, “Signs,” released on the 2004 CD Mignonette.

Joe Kwon bounds in for the fifth song, holding his cello in the air and mouthing words to “Distraction # 74” from Four Thieves Gone, released in 2006. “It’s so nice to be down South with you all,” Scott says. “We love you, Avett Brothers!” the crowd sings back in unison.

Scott’s voice is wicked like a long pull of Southern Comfort, Seth’s a heady, clear sip of moonshine from a glass canning jar, as they sing “Living of Love,” from Emotionalism.

Later in the set, Scott sings the lyrics to one of the three unreleased songs, “Laundry Room.” Ever the quintessential artist, Scott motions with his hands and paints pictures in the air. “Ya’ll are just some sweet people, you know that?” Seth asks the crowd.

“Pretty Girl from Chile,” from Emotionalism, showcases Seth dancing a rumba with his guitar before giving Joe a quick hug, moving to the drums. Bob and Scott sizzle on electric guitars as Seth reaches his drumsticks to the heavens as the crescendo climaxes.

“I want to thank you guys for keeping us going,” Scott says, thumping his heart with his hand to signify love. The Avett Brothers exit the stage as the throng roars ear-splitting screams, hands bang the stage like a bongo, tribal chants of “Avett Brothers, Avett Brothers, Avett Brothers!” “Thank you so much,” Scott says as they return, Seth smiling beside him. “We’d love to play another song for you. We have a new record coming out in a few weeks and we’re going to play a new song for you,” He says. The crowd is rocked into a trance as Seth sings his tender-hearted song, “Tear Down the House,” from The Second Gleam.

“I love it already”, a fan yells, piercing the silence.

Not so fast,” Scott grins.

The rollicking song, “Go to Sleep,” from Emotionalism, ignites fans once more as Seth and Scott kick their legs into the air while Bob and Joe spring up and down, their instruments like pogo sticks.

One of Scott’s banjo picks slips from his finger. An ebullient young lady snatches it as it rolls by, turns it over and over in her hand as if discovering the Holy Grail.

Seth strides to front stage, claps his hands in the air as the crowd follows him like a game of Simon Says, clapping and singing the last verse to the song, “ La La La La La La La.” The fans continue singing the verse until the Avett Brothers return for a second encore, junkies needing just one more fix. The last song, the unreleased, “Late in Life,” ends as Scott braves a quick handshake with a few fans, narrowly escapes being kidnapped, and exits the stage behind Seth, who skips like the Pied Piper. Bob stays behind a few minutes, his aquamarine eyes glisten as he shakes hands and call the fans by name. Outside, hopeful fans hover near the tour bus, hoping and praying for autographs. Justin, a fan from Johnson City, Tenn. who designs posters for some of the Avett Brother shows, talks to a lingering group about an encounter with Scott.

“Scott said, ‘Well, it’s a real honor to have you do this for us,’” Justin says with astonishment. “Like it was him honoring me, instead of the other way around.”

Avett family home a storehouse for memories

2008-07-28T09:45:00.000-07:00

An antiquated yellow lab and a frisky doberman pinscher are vociferous escorts to the front steps of the modest, wooden house se cured by a towering brick chimney standing sentinel to Jim and Susie Avett, parents of Scott and Seth. The living room is an humble assortment of the lares and pennants of Jim and Susie’s 40 years together. Scott’s oil portraits of he and his wife adorn the wall perpendicular to the bookshelf lined with Jim’s collection of vintage tomes. The 1930s upright piano where the Avett children practiced their lessons anchors the room, its high shelf supporting framed photographs of weddings and grandchildren.

A black woodstove squats catty-cornered, the backdrop for the “shows” that Scott, Seth and their older sister Bonnie rehearsed in their bedrooms and performed to their parents’ delight in the halcyon days of their childhood.

Jim Avett, a gifted singer/song writer himself and loquacious doyen to the Avett clan holds court in a chair in the middle of the room. “Our house is a refection of what’s im portant to us,” Jim says. “It was always important not to stifle the children’s creativity, which we may have overdone,” referring to walls sketched with portraits and song lyrics like hieroglyphics on primitive caves.

Jim removes Seth’s hand-drawn portrait of the family from the wall, all five family members smiling with their arms around each other. It is inscribed in Seth’s childish handwriting as “the best family in the world.”

“Family is the only thing that lasts over the years, and it should be the first,” says Jim. “Strong family ties are the best thing a parent can give a child. From those ties comes a life that will reach its potential.”

Jim and Susie moved to Concord from Wyoming to this rustic refuge ensconced by canopies of trees, given to them by the former tenant for “tax evaluations and lawyer’s fees.” Seth, the youngest of the Avett children, was four months old when they moved, “scraping his little legs on the concrete floor back before we had carpet,” Susie smiles.

Upstairs in Bonnie’s former room is a collection of Jim’s vintage guitars stacked like sardines, tagged like toes in a morgue with complete information about the purchase.

Jim unfolds one from its black case and holds it to his chest like a beloved child, strummming “My Grandfather’s Clock” before crooning Willie Nelson’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.” “After forty-five years of playing the guitar, you’d think I’d be good at playing it,” he says self-effacingly. “I know a lot of songs, love to sing, and that’s why Scott and Seth let me hang around.”

The guitar evokes a sense memory. “I used to play the guitar for the kids a lot,” he recalls, “and one day Seth said, ‘Daddy, how do you do that?’ I taught him three chords; he went back in his room and shut the door. After a while he came running out saying, ‘Mama! Mama! Come listen to this!’” Seth bought his first electric guitar with the $30 he made picking three gallons of blackberries he sold for $10 each.

Jim says their passion for music started in their home. “We sang in the car, in the yard and in church. One Sunday, Scott was supposed to sing in church.” “The same church where their piano teacher went,” interjects Susie. “Well,” continues Jim. “Scott had a bad cold and we were wondering who was going to sing. Seth raised his hand up and said, ‘I’ll do it!’ He’d been listen ing to Scott practice and he just got right there and sang his little heart out.”

Jim says Scott started with the piano, then the guitar, then the banjo.

“Scott doesn’t play like Earl Scruggs; he plays how he wants to play. This is how music progresses. We don’t all play or think the same way — the music comes out of our instruments. If the music’s bad, we’ll pick on the front porch. If it’s good, people will seek you out to hear it. “We wanted the kids to be influenced by Southern gospel because it’s the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, the most absolute, accurate and correct way of living,” says Jim, the son of a Methodist minister. “Last Christmas we sat here in the living room and for three days we had people come in and out to record seventeen gospel tunes. So when we’re dead and gone the children can master it down and keep it for posterity. Seth is in charge of it now.”

The first gig as the Avett Brothers with Scott, Seth and Bob Crawford was performed on a steaming slab of concrete with bandanas tucked in back pockets to wipe sweat from their brows at the local Wine Vault. Jim recalls, “The first night the owner paid them fifty bucks, the next time they played to a larger crowd for about two hundred. Scott and Seth said they’d come back to play but wanted four hundred.

“The guy said, ‘Nobody in Charlotte is gonna pay you four hundred dollars.’” Scott said, “We’ll see, you may be right.” “My sons are not presumptuous,” Jim says, “but the next gig they did paid five hundred dolllars.

“A couple of years ago, they played for a group of music executives in Nashville,” Jim continues. “They said it was the first new music that’s come to Nashville in the last thirty years. They compared their harmonies to the tight, close harmonies of the Louvin Brothers and the Everly Brothers. It was the finest compliments as far as harmonies go. “Scott and Seth’s tight harmonies come from being brothers with the same DNA. You can hear and match up better than anyone. You have the same stuff in your blood. Growing up, you could see the glee in their eyes when they were hitting it.”

That creative strand of DNA comes from Jim, who plays music every Tuesday and Thursday nights in Concord. He occasionally appears on stage with his sons singing the song “Signs,” recorded with Greensboro’s legendary guitarist Scott Manring in 1972 in an abandoned house off Friendly Avenue in Greensboro.

“Seth came in one day and asked me if I had a copy of ‘Signs.’ I said I didn’t. He asked if I could write the lyrics down, so I did sitting right there at the kitchen table. He used that with my block handwriting on the jacket cover with the songs they wrote on Mignonette,” Jim says.

Outside in the sweltering July heat, Jim and Susie stroll to the colossal barn, a bucolic backdrop to the property they just handed over to their children a couple of months ago. Corpulent cows moo as Jim schleps in barnyard muck, pointing to an upstairs room where Scott and Seth jumped as kids into fragrant stacks of hay.

Scott’s old, white pickup truck hunkers underneath the other side of the barn, the back window garnished with an ECU sticker opposite a Nemo insignia.

Scott was an arts and communications major at East Carolina University. Seth majored in printmaking at the University of Charlotte.

Back-tracking past the house Jim and Susie turn by the chicken coop, constructed be cause Scott and Seth’s wives declared, “If we are going to live on a farm we should have chickens.”

The family’s RV stoops beside a tall, brown building that houses Jim’s tools from his welding business where Scott and Seth worked summers when they weren’t scrapping commercial jobs with landscapers and carpet cleaners.

A large, grassy field is dotted with a veritable car show: A blue 1967 Impala crouches under an awning sharing company with Seth’s ’64 Ford; a senescent emerald-green van plastered with peeling stickers and a metal Jesus emblem rests after years of road trips with the band. “I like old music, old cars and old women,” Jim jokes.

“Bout twelve to fourteen years ago Seth and I went to an auto auction and I bought a 1964 Ford, mainly because Seth liked the car at least as much as I did. After much effort was put into the old car, it began to be a pleasure to drive, which Seth did daily, although he had a pretty ragged 1963 Ford of his own. Somehow he ended up owning my really solid ’64, and I ended up with his less-than-solid ’63 model. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Sitting back in his chair in the living room, Jim reflects on the Avett Brothers’ decision to sign a deal with American/ Columbia Records, working with nation ally acclaimed producer, Rick Rubin. “You have to position yourself to move on, to be in the right place at the right time and strike when the iron is hot,” Jim explains. “The idea is to move on toward the goal, which has always been getting the band’s music ever more refined and presentable to the audience. The next rung on this ladder is working with the absolutely best in the busi ness, and they are lucky to be doing just that. We’ll always be grateful for the successes the band has had and the continuance of this journey. Seth wanted to write something online so their fans don’t think they sold out. These days’ record companies have keys to doors where you don’t even know where the door is. They can grease the tracks. They got what they wanted in terms of protect ing the integrity of the band,” Jim says.

Jim and Susie say there’s been some talk about a possible Pacific Rim tour, including Australia and Japan.

“Susie and I always tried to expose them to life choices — you don’t know what you’re missing until you see the world,” Jim says.

Recently, after a show at Bonnaroo, Seth, Scott and Bob stayed over night so they could eat at the legend ary Pancake Pantry in Nashville. “There was a girl who’s a friend of theirs talking to them. She walked away and country singer Keith Urban stopped her, and said, ‘Hey, are you with the Avett Brothers?’” says Jim.

“A couple of years ago Seth asked me how he and Scott could ever pay us back. ‘Boy,’ I said, ‘I’m not keeping a running tab. If I die right now, you’ve paid me back,’” says Jim. “’Every time I see someone out in the audience that really listens to you, it pays me back.’”

Miles of conversation on the road with the Avetts

2008-07-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

The low, steady rumble of tour-bus tires on the highway is white noise, a smooth and steady backdrop to Seth Avett’s easy laugh and languid Southern drawl.

The Avett Brothers are headed to New York, traversing a route from West Coast to East Coast, miles away from the red clay of their stomping grounds in Concord.

On Tuesday the Avett Brothers released their new EP, The Second Gleam, a glittering gem with slow, meandering songs that tumble through a stream of nostalgia, sentimentality and most of all, love. The Second Gleam supersedes its older sibling, The Gleam, released in 2006, in the compelling nature of the songs, solid and thoughtful hallmarks to the men who’ve experienced both joy and sorrow. Though, like brothers, they are each special in their own way, The Second Gleam and The Gleam are perfect bookends.

The first song, “Tear Down the House,” is one Seth says is “about seeing changes around you.” The lyrics exclaim: “Tear down the house that I grew up in/ I’ll never be the same again.”

Though the house where the Avett children — Bonnie, Scott and Seth — grew up in still stands, Seth says the song “is more about how the older you get the landscape of your life changes, history come undone.”

Seth’s older brother, Scott, sings the second track, “Murdered in the City,” a song about how much Scott would want his family to know he loves them if he should die. “I wonder which brother is better,” Scott sings. “Which one my parents loved the most. I sure did get in lots of trouble; they seemed to let the other go.” Seth laughs about being the baby in the family, saying, “Well you learn a lot from those who come before you. You learn what to do and not do.” “Bella Donna,” a poignant love song sung in Seth’s high, lonesome voice, “was definitely inspired by someone. It was definitely written from experience. You have a better chance of clarity because it’s something you’ve been through. It’s rooted in personal experience.”

“Bella Donna” was originally released in 2005 as “Darling,” on one of three CDs Seth recorded, on a cassette player in his bedroom. Seth says the decision to include it on The Second Gleam is “because we try not to put songs in shackles. We try to allow the songs to become what they’re supposed to be without us being in the way.” Seth adds that there are plans to re release the “Darling” CDs in a “more masterful way.” Scott sings the fourth song, “The Greatest Sum,” his voice gravelly with emotion as he vows, “Not even the clouds, not even the past, not even the hands of God can hold me back from you.” Five out of six songs on The Second Gleam are about love. In “Tear Down the House,” Seth sings about crying over a girl who broke his heart, “not just crying but collapsing and screaming at the moon.

“Love is very obviously the most important thing,” Seth explains. “Hopefully it comes from some sort of blessing of clarity. Love is the good side, where the light comes from. We try to appreciate that and communicate it as well as we can, There are enough facets of love to write it in a number of songs. We feel it should be championed to the fullest extent possible.”

The last song on the EP, “Souls on Wheels,” is sung by Seth. “Souls like wheels/ turning, taking us with wind at our heels/ turning, making us decide on what we’re giving/ changing this way we’re living.”

Seth says this song’s “aim is to be presented as a transition song, a desire for rebirth, a major chance to put your old self away and allow your new self to come in. It considers experiences that are fiery and very intense that make you question what you’re made of, who you want to be, and how you’re going to change.”

The Avett Brothers are in a prolific period of songwriting, like cauldrons of hot water, spilling songs faster than the heat can be turned down. “We have a lot to draw from the well,”

Seth says. “At the moment there are a lot of songs occurring. That may not always be the case and we want to take advantage of it while we can. It’s important to have the tools to finish an idea. You have to write it down then record it or you’ll forget it. We try our best to dedicate the time to our ideas. All three of us write anywhere and everywhere. We always carry sketchbooks and journal recordings.”

Seth says he was talking to his wife on the phone one day and “a melody cameto me in the middle of the conversation. I asked my wife if I could call her back. She said that would be fine. So I wrote it down real quick and called her back.” All three Avett Brothers are married and spend about a hundred days on the road. “We’re doing well with it now, but in the future we’d like to get it down to about sixty days away,” he says. “We spent the first seven years on the road in very uncomfortable cars or riding in vans with trailers hitched to the back,” Seth says. “We’re glad and proud to ride in this lifestyle.”

Ramseur Records triples up, loses a headliner

2008-07-16T08:45:00.000-07:00

Dolphus Ramseur, head of Ramseur Records in Concord, N.C., has hit the pay streak with the July 22nd, 2008 release of the Avett Brothers new EP, The Second Gleam, along with Samantha Crain and the Midnight Shivers first EP, The Confiscation, and Sammy Walker’s album, Misfit Scarecrow.

Dolphus is a prospector of bands, mining his claims with extremely fertile hands, picking gold from crevices with knives and spoons, picks and shovels.

He discovered the bedrock band of Ramseur Records, the Avett Brothers, playing an outdoor gig in their hometown of Concord, a serendipitous meeting that shifted the plate tectonics of Ramseur Records.

“I knew the Avett Brothers had something special,” Dolphus says. “I felt we could help each other out.”

Dolphus’ path from mill town to gold mine began when an early talent for
tennis lowered the moat and opened the castle door for this young man whose parents were the first of three generations to escape the drudgery of mill work.

Traveling the world in the 1970’s as a one-time junior tennis champion, Dolphus visited every record store he could, collecting music and developing relationships with the people who worked there.

A big fan of 70’s and 80’s post-punk music, led to a fortuitous meeting with English singer/songwriter Martin Stephenson who was interested in artists from North Carolina such as Doc Watson and Charlie Poole.

Martin visited Dolphus in Concord, recording with North Carolina musicians such as Sammy Walker, Etta Baker spawning hobby in 2000 that became Ramseur Records in 2000 with their first release, a spiritual collection by Charlotte based songwriter David Childers.

Sadly, the death of Dolphus’ father-in-law, with whom he’d been working with coincided with the Avett Brothers first release, A Carolina Jubilee.

Dolphus decided to make Ramseur Records his full-time career. Taking out a $15,000 line of credit, he knew he had to “sink or swim.”

“I was doing it all,” he says” I was putting out the records, booking all the shows, and moving furniture on the side just to put food on the table.”

“One day Scott Avett called me on the phone while I was moving furniture. He could hear me huffing and puffing. I had to confess that I was doing it just to make ends meet.”

“Scott said something like, “Well now I’m fired up! We’ll all keep working hard and we’ll make it. He put a lot of faith in me.”

Dolphus and the Avett Brothers struck gold when they were selected to play at Merlefest in 2004.

“I knew if I could get them to the festival people would remember three words, The Avett Brothers.”

“I like bands that are honest and real with songs people can connect with,” he says. “If something sort of touches me or moves me, I want to share it with others.”

Dolphus works like a cradler to his bands, rocking and guiding the everyday chores of the cradle box with one while pouring the sluice of total artistic freedom with the other.

“If they want to bark in a trashcan, we’ll put it out,” he laughs. “I trust them to put it out and they do.”

Ramseur Records is unique in the rapprochement Dolphus has created with his bands and with the people he works with whose lucky heads have been knighted by Dolphus’own brand of Excalibur.

“My label hasn’t been as lucrative as some but I’m in a great position of surrounding myself with people I really like and want to be around. Sadly, a lot of people work with people they don’t really like all of their lives, never seeing their families. I’m in a good position to be with people I really want to be with.”

Dolphus and his wife Dana’s two young sons help Dolphus out during the day, whistling to tunes like “Traipsing through the Aisles,” by Samantha Crain, the newest and youngest member of the Ramseur family.

“I trust their ears better than mine,” Dolph says. “Kids can usually cut to the core and spot something good.”

Dolphus’ eyes widen as he describes the anticipation Ramseur Records three new releases in July 22, 2008.

“All three projects are special because they’re so different in nature, but are all heartfelt music.”

“Sammy Walker is a forgotten folk singer, Samantha Crain is young and hungry, and the Avett Brothers have kept the ball rolling.”

Dolphus says that although the success of the Avett Brothers has “been a plus, we still conduct business the same Ramseur way by winning over one fan at a time.

Ramseur Records will continue to manage the Avett Brothers and is supportive of their decision to sign with American/Columbia Records.

“We are much honored to be joining the team over an American/Columbia. With Rick Rubin producing, I feel that we have found a great home for the guys in which they can expand on their artistic creativity. With the Avett Brothers and Ramseur Records, it has always been and will always be about the art. We have never put our billfolds in front of the artistic vision that we have shared. We are very lucky to have someone like Rich who also wants to share in this vision and help with his vast knowledge and experience,” says Dolphus.

Originally Published in Yes! Weekly

Samantha Crain parks at the Garage

2008-06-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

Stepping across the street from the Garage in Winston-Salem last Friday night to discuss her new EP, The Confiscation, Samantha Crain, is stopped at the door by the bartender.

"I'm sorry," he says. "We don't allow children in here."

Blinks of surprise follow reassurances that Crain, a petite, full-lipped beauty with a brunette braid coiled around one shoulder, is indeed 21 years old.

She is the youngest and newest member of Ramseur Records, a Concord, NC-based record label managing stanchion bands such as the Avett Brothers and the everybodyfields. She and her band, the Midnight Shivers, are also recipients of the Oklahoma Gazette's 2008 Woody Award for best folk band. Further lifting the wings of this phoenix of a band is the honor of having a day officially dedicated to Samantha by the mayor of her hometown, Shawnee, Ok.

"It was really cool to receive the award in the spirit of Woody Guthrie because he is the epitome of Oklahoma," says Crain.

She has been writing stories since she was a child in composition notebooks her parents supplied.

"As soon as I could write stories about people, I did. I was quite the little liar and exaggerator and still am," she says with a smile.

The Confiscation is a compilation of five short stories Crain wrote and turned into songs. Each song has a different narrator expounding themes of betrayal, redemption and good versus evil.

In the process of taking the EP to the next level, she e-mailed Dolphus Ramseur, president of Ramseur Records about the possibility of opening for the Avett Brothers.

As the winds of fate and serendipity blow, Crain says she and Dolphus Ramseur, head of Ramseur Records, "found each other."

"We just started talking and everything fell into place," she says. "He's more interested in the long career than the fast buck."

Jacob Edwards, on drums, coined the name the Midnight Shivers, "because they needed something that evoked nighttime whisky drinking and front-porch smoking." He's joined by Andy Tanz on bass and back-up vocals and, for the tour, Nate Hendrix on electric guitar. The Midnight Shivers anchor the traditional folk-rock rhythms and steer Crain's Dylanesque acoustic guitar and harmonica duets.

Samantha's youthful appearance is in direct contrast to her velvety, sonorous voice thick with flavors of dark chocolate, licorice and nutmeg, melded with a unique blend of round vowels.

"As a child I had a lisp or a speech impediment," she explains. "I was from a family that was either very eloquent of had a very Southern drawl.

"When I sing I can make up words that sound like how I want them to be. Words are things that I experiment with. I can rhyme and mold anything together and I never sing the same song the same way. The tone and timbre is me but it's a whole new game each time.

Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers' 12-song set struck all the right notes, fusing a palpable collaboration of bands such as the Grateful Dead, Radiohead, Bob Dylan and the Band, all musical influences.

Four songs from The Confiscation were featured beginning with "Beloved, We Have Been Expired," a weary resignation of love's flame burning low, of "being the forgotten change in the pocket of your old winter coat." Crain explains the verse of this song: "The floors I sleep on at night, they speak to me. Their strange voices tell me all thing true.They say if something's dead, it's dead. There's no reviving it, just bury it and move on."

"Two years go when we started touring we slept on floors anywhere we could," she says. "I would lie on the hard floor and think about everything. I had really good therapy sessions, imagining hands coming out of the floor for a massage. Floors were the source I could go to to figure things out."

"Traipsing Through the Aisles," is a pulsing, surprisingly happy-go-lucky, shrug-of-the-shoulders song despite the theme of remorse as thick as a wet wool blanket.

"I'm lost inside my home and my clothes, in the rows of my mind and I know it's not a sign I just messed up this time.

"I did something wrong." The tenth song plays possum with the crowd, the band pretending to fumble for a song as the singer's back is turned, when in fact she swivels around with harmonica to lips, blasting the audience with all the vehemence of a Southern Baptist preacher pummeling his fist on the pulpit and spitting warnings of fire and brimstone.

"The River," conjures grim images of a man around town that discovers little girls playing beside a river.

"When he finds them the rest makes me shiver, he holds them down when their feet won't reach the ground and he waits for the struggle to end." Crain says this song was inspired by a Flannery O'Connor story of the same name that she and two friends read and decided to write their own version. Crain decided for her story that the man is purged of guilt and repents by agreeing to be baptized in the river where, "the preacher holds him down when his feet won't reach the ground and he waits for judgment to come, yes he waits for the Lord's will to be done."

"Writing is a meditation for me," she says. "I sit down and the chord progressions just sort of happen. The melodies are in my head. I keep journal entries in images. The best songs are the ones you can feel, see and smell."

When asked why only five of the twelve lyrical miracles performed Friday night were released as an EP instead of a complete CD, she responds with a lightening bolt of bare truth.

"I only had five-hundred dollars," she says. "That's how much it costs to record five songs.

Originally Published in Yes! Weekly

Sam Quinn's Posthumous visit with Gram Parsons

2008-05-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

Sam Quinn and his band, the everybodyfields, recently stayed at The Joshua Tree Inn, where legendary singer/songwriter Gram Parsons died from an overdose of drugs and alcohol in 1973 at the age of 26.

Sam , Jill Andrews, Josh Oliver, and Tom Pryor, comprise the everybodyfields, whose music has been described as, "a fresh set of fingerprints in the archives of bluegrass, country, and folk, music." The band was touring the west coast, or "left coast", as Sam likes to say , when Sam and Josh found out they were booked to stay at The Joshua Tree Inn.

The Joshua Tree Inn is a simple but mythical motel in California, about 140 miles east of Los Angeles.It was popular in the fifties for Hollywood rabble rousers and trendy in the seventies for rockers and celebrities. These days, the main attraction is room number eight, where thousands of fans pilgrimage every year to pay homage to Gram Parsons.

"I've been a huge Gram Parsons fan since I was eighteen," says Sam, who turns twenty-eight in April, 2008. "It was really far out to find out we would be staying in the Joshua Tree Inn. I had just waked up in our van about a mile away. I knew we would be in the vicinity, but sharing a wall with Gram, no, not a chance."

"We walk in and the lady at the front desk, gives me a key to room number 7, the room next to the one Gram died in," says Sam. "There was a concrete slab in front of room number eight with beer and liquor bottles, an old busted up guitar, and Mexican candles on it."

"The room was the same as when Gram died in it. It was like a shrine to him with CD's and a log book where could write notes about Gram. There was a painted sign that said, Safe at Home. (Safe at Home was the title of Gram's one- album novelty with The International Submarine Band.)

The Joshua Tree Inn is said to be "the final resting place" of Gram's spirit. Global traveler's leave tales in the eulogy book attesting to "feeling" Gram's spirit in the room or experiencing odd incidences. One guest recorded, "Richard asked Gram to give us a sign, and the radio came blaring at us with country music at 2:39 a.m."

Possibly the most moving entry is that of Gram Parsons daughter, Polly, whom he saw little of during the seven years he was her father, wrote, "I know your beautiful angel wings must reach far across the desert when you soar…for here you will always be truly safe at home."

"I closed my eyes and thought about all the things that led up to his death,' says Sam. "I thought, man, there's been some abuse in this room. It was kind of creepy being in a room where somebody has died."

Sam didn't put any tokens on Gram's shrine but "went back to room number 7 and drank lots of beer. I figured Gram would want me not to waste beer."

Gram Parsons "cosmic American music," a blend of country and rock, inspired musical giants such as The Eagles, Jackson Browne, and Dwight Yoakum. Thirty three years after his death, Grams' genius ripples through time, influencing bands such as the everybodyfields, the Jayhawks, and Wilco.

Gram Parsons was born Ingram Cecil Connor III, in Waycross, Georgia, on November 5, 1946. His family was extremely wealthy and cursed with tragedy.

Gram adored Elvis Presley as a boy, the Journeymen as a teenager, and Merle Haggard and Buck Owens as a young man.

He was a beautiful boy with an inordinate intelligence, dangerous charisma, and a passion for music. The girls loved him.

Gram made a single-record with The Byrds, two albums with the Flying Burrito Brothers, and two solo albums, GP and Grievous Angel. All sold poorly during his life but gained notoriety after his death.

Gram's posthumous fame was due partly to the media attention of his "partial cremation," in the Joshua Tree National Park, where road manager, Phil Kaufman, stole Gram's casket, took it to Joshua Tree National Park, and ignited with kerosene as a pact he and Gram had made.

Sam and Tom were bewitched with the Joshua Tree National Park.
"Spending time out in that desert was some of the most amazing times I've ever spent. It ups the ante for being out there, the terrain and the atmosphere trying to take your moisture out of you."

In the biography of Gram Parsons life, Twenty Thousand Roads, author David N. Meyers describes the desert as "like no other." "Joshua Trees are large, slow-growing yuccas that are remarkably humanoid in shape and evocation. Dotting the Park are enormous piles of softly rounded boulders that, like the Joshua Trees, seem somehow animated. They form phantasmagorical shapes against the Park's infinite blue sky and deep silences. Joshua Tree feels like the end of the world, but a benign one."

Sam says that he and Tom" went out for two days in a row, hiking and sitting on rocks so high that the trees in the desert looked like nipples. Every now and then we'd run into a purple cactus. It was so magical. We were both completely floored. It was beautiful, so much light. Everything wanted to stick, poke, or bite you."

"Being there was like a re-start button on life. People were so laid back. It is an artists' community. We could hear crows out there and you could hear the wind off their wings."

"When we left, we got back in the van and rode for ten hours. I took a lot of notes and got some tunes together. It was the right place and right time for every thing to gel. I could clean out the cobwebs instead of getting marred down in the things that don't matter."

Gram Parsons often visited the desert to fuel his creativity and find solace from the many demons that tormented him. Suicide, depression, and alcoholism ran like threads on the underside of a tapestry through his family, weaving generations of dysfunction.

Like the lyrics to Sam's song, "Aeroplane," from the everybodyfields CD, Nothing is Okay, "what holds me up is going to burn me in the turn around," so did Gram's final hours at the Joshua Tree Inn surrounded by the desert he so loved.

"I have a big spot in my heart for Gram," says Sam. "GP and the Grievous Angel was my favorite CD. The more I listened the more I found to listen to. "We'll Sweep out the Ashes," was a big one."

"I was coming to grips from growing up in Eastern Tennessee. I was trying to shake that off, getting out of "Po-Dunk," town. It hit me around the time I left there that I was ashamed that I thought that for so long. It was a rite of passage."

Gram Parsons made country music cool in a time when some people considered country singers on the same level as white trash red-necks.

"Gram was a piss and vinegar kind of guy, a show boat who had a lot of issues, but when he opened his mouth, he really showed up", Sam says. " He was such a good singer. He wrote some amazing chord changes. The song, "She," was such a vocal showcase for Gram. This performance of this song is insanely good."

"One time somebody came up to me after a show we did. I was standing next to Jill, who's usually the one who people say her song really touched them. This guy comes up to me and said, "Yeah, that song really touched me. You've become everything to be a country music singer. It was one of the best compliments I've ever had."

Sam says, "It's the soul that comes out, not the notes or timbre. That's what Gram had. It resonates with me. Those twangy songs spoke to me on a primordial level. They got under my skin. He is so cool and always will be."

The Joshua Tree Inn is for sale for two million dollars.

Interview with the everybodyfields

2008-01-21T08:34:00.000-08:00

TheEverybodyFields, a band from Johnson City, Tennessee, lead by Sam Quinn and Jill Andrews, literally shushed the usually rollicking crowd at the Garage in Winston Salem, N.C., last Friday night, enchanting the beer drinking, stogy- smoking lot .

Like a fresh set of fingerprints in the archives of bluegrass, country, and folk history, the conjugal synchronicity of Sam and Jill’s voices carve a new niche in the music genre, as if they dashed a sprinkle of special Eastern Tennessee seasoning to make a brand new recipe.

Jill’s harmonies lilt like liquid silver, as serene as a Nightingale, dovetailing in perfect concord with Sam’s ardent crooning.

Their lyrics are potent poetry, masterpieces quilled by erudite masters who have tasted the bitter bile of a broken heart, throbbed with desire in newfound love, and fallen headfirst into the dark, black abyss of loneliness.

There is an underlying current of electricity between the 27ish duo. Jill places her hand affectionately on Sam’s leg and they hug with genuine care. They also banter and barb with that “you know I’m kidding but I’m half serious”, sparring about Jill’s old boyfriends and Sam’s girlfriend whose photographs he forgot to credit on their last CD.

Sam and Jill met as camp counselors in 1999 in Johnson City, Tennessee, where Sam was already playing the guitar and singing.

“I was envious at his ability to NOT be a camp counselor and play the guitar around the campfire with his friends because he didn’t want to hang out with the kids,” Jill explains.

“I had pigtails and hair down to my butt,” chimes Sam, who coined the name TheEveryBodyFields from the backyard of his home in his early 20’s, where “we hung out with people and drove around drinking beer with our eyes closed.”

“I liked that the name included everybody,” says Jill. “Everybody and fields aren’t usually put together in one space.”

The band toured the East coast in the early years behind the wheel of their Buick Rendezvous, booking gigs under Jill’s pseudonym, Ellen Y Larson.

The first song together was, “We’ll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning,” as performed by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris.

Inspired by artists like Gram Parsons, Joni Mitchell, Wilco and the JayHawks, Sam and Jill write their own songs, with the exception of one.

“Sometimes our song writing is a collaboration, but most of the time it’s his song or my song,” says Jill. “Or, we’ll take a song to each other and say, “Hey, can you help me out?

"For me,” she continues, “when the feeling isn’t there, I can’t do it. I have to be alone. I put on these “weed eater” earphones when we are traveling in the car so I can think.”

“I stop a lot of songs to sit on them awhile,” Sam grins. “It’s tough to be your own boss when your fiends are all slackers or border line losers.”

Sam and Jill’s first release, “ Halfway There: Electricity in the South,” featured the song written by Sam about the plight of the victims of progress in the Roosevelt Era , “T.V.A., which won first place in the Chris Austin song writing competition at the 2005 Merlefest in Wilkesboro, N.C.

“And God, the Father, said,”Jesus Christ, I don’t know about this electricity. They use the day to steal the nights and made my waters rise, and trying to take my job away

Jill’s song, “The Silver Garden,” from the same release is a profound, though somewhat impatient promise to her sweetheart.

“There’s a part of you, deep inside of me, not the part that hides, not the part that leaves. You’ve loved me for years, I won’t ask you again. There’s nobody else, don’t ask me again. And I’ll go to the Silver Garden to be with you.”

Their second release, “Plague of Dreams,” in 2005 features the song, “Magazine, in which Sam writes that he’s, “two feet knee in doubt, a round of bases and at home I’m out. But if you’re never home, I doubt, that you’ll ever see me out. The parking lot is a hiding place, ‘cause under the cars you can’t see my face.”

Sam actually did hide underneath his family car when he was a boy playing Little League and got tagged out.“Everyone hated me because we lost the season because of me, so I went out to the parking lot and hid underneath our car,” he explains.

Unlike the first two releases which features Sam and Jill on vocals, bass, and guitar, former member David Richey on dobro, and guest musicians on fiddle, Sam and Jill’s third masterpiece, “Nothing is Okay,” expands the usual musical line up with lap steel instead of dobro, keys and drums.

Outstanding on this CD is Jill’s song, “Wasted Time, a desperate bargain with her lover, co-written by Megan McCormick , is a two- in- one song bridged brilliantly by an interlude that ends with Sam’s repetitive and reassuring words, “It’s not your problem”

“Hey, it’s me. I know it’s 3:00 a.m. Saying please, pick up the phone, I’m all alone and need a friend. I’m so grateful, and you’re so tired of me. If you hold me now, I promise to let go when you leave.”

On stage at the Garage, Sam and Jill play two riveting sets, trading bass and guitar back and forth like proud parents of new babies.

Jill’s beautiful, unclouded face is unperturbed as she closes her eyes during each song.

Sam, with his quirky, curly brown hair and thick muttonchops, turns his head sideways, almost grimacing with emotion as he sings, the perfect contrast to Jill’s tranquility.

He takes a step back and nods his head in steady affirmation while Jill stills the crowd to silence with, “Wasted Time, accompanied by Josh Oliver on keyboards and vocals and Tom Pryor on lap steel.

Pausing between songs, Jill tells the audience wryly, “Sam has this cryptic way of telling us what we are playing next. He plays the G cord and he thinks we should know what the next song is.”

Sam takes a sip of red wine and slams the house down with “Don’t Tern Around.”
He likes to misspell words on purpose because he thinks it looks “neat.”
“Terd looks better than turd, don’t you think,” he muses.

They close the second set with another new song,“That was my favorite show I’ve ever seen these guys do,” says David Butler, a 50ish volunteer DJ for WQFS 90.9 from Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C.

“I love TheEveryBodyFields. I find them totally unique. I’ve never been to the Garage where you didn’t hear loud conversation and beer bottles breaking. There were a couple of numbers where it was “whisper quiet.”
David Butler and countless other fans believe Sam and Jill will be quite famous.

“I wouldn’t want to work for someone else,” admits Sam. “I’d just like to keep making records with 100% artistic freedom.

“I’d like to be widely respected and to have enough money to build a house,” says Jill. I’d want to be like Gillian Welsh, who can still walk down the street unnoticed.”

Their upcoming tours include gigs on the West Coast, the Midwest, as well as their well traveled route along the East Coast.

In the meantime, Jill says her dog just died and she thinks about her all of the time.

“I cried in the car coming here today,” she says.
Sam looks surprised. “I was asleep,” he says.
“No,” corrects Jill gently, “You were in the back seat.”

Visit the everybodyfields' website

It’s sad to see family business closing its doors.

2005-03-10T08:37:00.000-08:00

I open the glass door framed on either side by two large windows displaying living room and dining room furniture. A bell jingles as I step into a brick building with high ceilings on East Market Street in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Walking down the narrow, rubber covered aisle flanked by more furniture stacked in tiers along the walls, I make my way to the desk in the back where the proprietor of Dabbs Furniture Company sits watching my approach.

It’s 1981 and I’m 20 years old, a student at Guilford College. I’ve come to announce my intentions to a man I haven’t seen in a long while.
“I’d like to learn the family business,” I say.
“Great,” replies my father, Bob Dabbs. “You’re hired.”

Selling furniture and keeping accounts was a sweet deal for a full-time college student. I had flexibility to leave for classes and during slow times, I studied, struggling to stay awake as the steady hum of the tall, oscillating fan stirred the air.

A few months later, my adored, older brother, Steve, announced his intentions to join the family business.
“Great,” replied our Dad, delighted to receive the heir apparent.

Steve and I laughed away the tedium of slow summer afternoons entertained by a steady cast of characters which included the young, charismatic Reverend Michael King, and the lady who talked so fast her teeth clacked. We never could understand what she said.
My father’s loyal co-worker of several years, Bob Oakley, a/k/a “Snook’ums,” so named for the cartoon character with the lock of golden hair across his forehead, served as mentor and translator.

I became accustomed to seeing street people relieve themselves and take sips from mysterious bottles wrapped in brown paper bags in the alley that separated the building from the huge, spooky warehouse where most of the furniture was kept.

Working in the family business was not always easy. Emotional baggage had to be checked at the door at 9:00 am and retrieved after hours. During more than one Thanksgiving family meals, the carving knife danced almost telekinetically in each of our hands, as if to carve someone or something other than the turkey.

I resented being the first to express interest in the business only to be shoved aside when the male heir arrived, automatically earning a higher salary and securing his place as future owner.

“Well, after all,” my father explained. “You’ll want to quit working and raise a family one day, right?”

Three years later, I graduated from college and took a giant step across the street to sell advertising at the Greensboro News and Record. It was a hard decision but the right one.

In 1986, Dabbs Furniture moved to a larger location on Lee St. Joined now by my younger brother, David, a photographer by trade and mountain man at heart, the Dabbs Dynasty was complete.

As accurately predicted, I happily married and retired to raise a family.

Eleven years after moving to their final destination on South Holden Road, the daily grind of managing a “Mom and Pop” store combined with heavy competition from overseas has taken its toil.

The Dabbs boys have spilled blood and sweat and cried tears, but they’ve run a successful and lucrative” b’ness,” as my southern father often inflects. They are tired, but the burden has been lifted. The store is closing in March of 2005.

Looking now at the glass windows covered by signs announcing “Going Out of Business Sale,” I am saddened. Reels of film thread through my head as I struggle not to cry.

I am four years old, sitting in our black Valiant with my brothers and our mother, Jackie, at Rex Anderson’s Esso next to Mitchell’s Clothing store on East Market Street, having just visited our Dad two doors down, letting the “Tiger fill our tank.”

I am six, in a plaid dress and white bobby socks, skipping down the aisle at Dabbs Furniture, thrilled to be watching my first color television program, The Wonderful World of Disney.

I am twelve, fetching a glass of grape juice for my Dad who is sprawled on the den sofa watching Sunday football on one of his three televisions, stacked crudely but effectively on an early version of the now popular wall unit assembled with bricks and plywood. He is exhausted from working six day weeks.

I am sixteen at Southeast High School, laughing when the boys yell, “Hey, will a Little Dab really do ya?”, referring to the radio commercial we ran at the time.

Thirty years later, I am watching my daughters visit their beloved “Grandabbsy” at the store on South Holden Road. The girls are fascinated by the 1958 R.C. Allen typewriter their grandfather still uses to pound outraged letters to newspaper editors, government officials, and anyone else who gets his goat.

Uncle Steve cracks them up making announcements about them on the P.A. system. Uncle David rests his feet, shattered by a fall from the roof of his log cabin a few years ago, making long stints on the concrete floor agonizing painful.

The girls never leave empty-handed. There’s always a hand fan, a ruler, or a pen with the Dabbs Furniture logo. More often, their doting grandfather slips them a little cash. They like that best.
They’ll have lots of souvenirs and memories, most notably tapes of the television commercials they often starred in.

There are no heirs now. Our sons Max and Ross lead golden lives at Duke University. Our daughters Caroline, Virginia, and Emily are too young for the passing of the torch. Steve and David have no children. I have no time.

Though I’ve often teased my husband, Robbie, that he only married me because I’m heiress to the Dabbs Furniture Empire, there remains a yearning , put aside so many years ago by the young girl who first announced her intentions to run the family business, growing stronger now in the woman who dreams of resurrecting a new furniture company sprung from the roots of grandfather Henry Dabbs fifty-four years ago, and perhaps one day propagated by his great, great grandchildren.

Like a tongue that can’t resist probing the gap where a lost tooth once was, I return to the idea again and again. I can’t help it. It’s in my blood