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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.”