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."
Monday, October 26, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
Monday, August 3, 2009
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.
I really enjoyed meeting this very talented auteur and his girlfriend, Carolyn.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
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 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
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
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.
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
Monday, July 28, 2008
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.”
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.’”
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.’”
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