Station Inn, Station Union, Station Sirius FM and Great Scott!!

USA Music Tour 2015 Day 28

Nashville Tennessee 17 September

There were six super Americanafest events I wanted to go to at around noon, all at different locations around the great city of Nashville, ridiculously good!

Quicksilver Productions was hosting three terrific bands at the venue closest to our house, The Station Inn.  As well, and this was the clincher, one of the performers Frank Solivan was cooking chilli for the audience.

Three acts with thirty minutes each.

First up, The Stray Birds, a trio from Lancaster Pennsylvania.  I’d seen the band at the IBMA Festival in Raleigh North Carolina in 2013 and love their last record Best Medicine.  While the band could be described as folk, the material doesn’t fit rigidly into that genre, they have more strings to their bow.  A joy to see the band again, this time closer up and at the iconic Station Inn.  They have new songs developed, a couple we heard today, and the band is currently sorting out recording logistics for an upcoming album.

It was time for lunch, prepared by Frank Solivan himself.  Pork from happy Berkshire pigs, hatched chillis and Japanese rice, with a delicious sauce with mystery ingredients.

Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen are something special.  Hailing from Washington DC, the band is Grammy-nominated and winner of the IBMA award for best instrumental band of the year (against a stellar field).  Band member Mike Munford has also won recognition from the IBMA as best banjo player.  As well as being a super group of musicians, they have great songs with complexities that rise above the traditional Southern bluegrass standard, and they infuse their work with great harmonies.  Songs today included “No Life In This Town” a chilling (no pun intended) rendition of the title track of the band’s recent album Cold Spell, a cover of the Stanley Brothers’ “Gonna Paint The Town” (with Caleb Klauder) and a lightning quick version of the classic “The Letter”.

From Portland Oregon, the Caleb Klauder Band is a traditional country honky tonk outfit with easy listening original songs.  Some of the set is from an EP that I picked up today that’s essentially a taster for a forthcoming album.  Songs included “Sick Sad and Lonesome Tonight”, The Last Time I Saw You” and “Just A little”.  Klauder is a charming and affable man, his joy at being on stage and playing is evident.  “The Last Of My Kind” “Comin’ On Strong”, “Innocent Road” and “There’s A Hole In My Heart” closed off the set.

Two pm had struck, I caught up briefly with a couple of today’s players and we were gone, walking to downtown past Union Station

and grabbing some coffee at Dunn Bros on Church St.  Everyday in Nashville so far the same – warm, clear blue skies and a gentle breeze.

The next stop was to Sirius FM (Outlaw Country) studio for a radio interview with Ray Wylie Hubbard.  The station is housed at the top of an annexe to the Bridgestone Arena building right on the busy thoroughfare that is Broadway.  There’s a small viewing area I’m told.  We lined up for thirty minutes before the scheduled start.  It was going to be touch and go if we would fit in, as there were quite a few ahead of us and apparently only a thirty-seat capacity.

Would you believe it! Our group of four was the first ones to be denied access.  Ah well, we have a chance to see Hubbarb tonight if the stars align.

Back up the hill, we decided on an early dinner on the patio at Pucketts Restaurant on the corner of Church and 5th Ave. It was a strategic positioning as we were overlooking the Downtown Presbyterian Church’s front steps as the line outside the locked doors started to form for the Darrell Scott show.  We would therefore know when to join the line.

As so it proved to be.  We saw the doors open at 5.15, paid the check and got a seat in the central pew area, six rows back.

I first saw Nashville-based Darrell Scott in Robert Plant’s Band Of Joy, along with Buddy Miller and Patty Griffin, impressive friends.  Ensuing exposure with his work with roots stalwart Tim O’Brien, followed by hearing a couple of his solo albums and finally a live set at Zac Brown Band’s Southern Ground festival in Charleston last year.  Every encounter an incremental appreciation, maybe the end point being chairman of his fan club?!

I was to appreciate yet another guise of musical abilities tonight.  Two songs on the piano, the menacing “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” and his cover of the song that was on the Band of Joy’s tour set list “Satisfied Mind”.

Moving to a guitar, a song from his new album 10: Songs From Ben Bullington – “Country Music I’m Talking To You” and an older tune “The Ballad Of Martha White”.

Introduced as “One of the finest drummers on Plant Earth”, Kenny Malone joined Scott on stage, with a bongo, snare drum and cymbals.  Malone has played with some pretty hefty names – Merle Haggard and Ray Charles to name just two.  His style maybe could be described as jazz acoustic folk, with the lightest of touch imaginable.  All of a sudden, Scott’s playing went up a notch, seeking and finding a level of masterful spontaneity.

“Shattered Cross”, “Hank Williams’ Ghost”, an interesting jazzed-up version of Hank Williams’ “Ramblin Man”, a breathtaking “River Take Me” and an exceptional “old Joe Clark”.  Two standing ovations.  A supremely gifted talent.

The next act at The Church was Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn, but having seen them perform twice last year, I wanted to move on.

We squeezed into an extended motor kart and arrived at The Cannery Ballroom, saw most of the set from Gill Landry who has just released his third album out on ATO record Never Coming Here Again.  Upstairs to the Mercy Lounge to just catch the final two songs from The Legendary Shack Shakers, who were whipping the crowd into a frenzy.

By this stage dear reader I was done in.  Time to call it a night.

Tomorrow, a bunch of Aussies on Brian Wise’s Off The Record Radio Show from 2 to 4 pm.  From there? To be determined.

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