Well, well, well... I had the musical experience of a lifetime last night, and I am still trying to wrap my mind around the awesomeness of it all.
First of all, the evening started at Live on the Green which is a free live concert series put on by Lightning 100. The Dunwells took the stage around 6:30. I made my way up to just behind the barricade in front of the stage. The Dunwells are young band, that included the Dunwell brothers, from Leeds in the England. The sunset while the Dunwells were playing, so it grew darker as Delta Spirit hit the stage. I was really impressed by the energy this band has live. I had to bale at the very end of the Delta Spirit set to get to the Basement for an Americana Music Association Festival showcase. This was no small task since during the Dunwells set as Delta Spirit was setting, a seemingly endless crush of humanity.
So, I eventually pushed my way through the crowd and made my way over to The Basement in time to see Angel Snow's set. We wrote about Angel Snow last year. She has an incredible and unique voice and along with her usual musical partner, Viktor Krauss (Allison's brother), she writes great songs. Viktor wasn't present for this set because he was playing with Jerry Douglas. Angel Snow has a new album due out in a couple of weeks.
I left The Basement after Angel Snow's set and there my night took it's first and only hiccup. I was intending to go see Mary Gauthier and Richard Thompson at The Station Inn. Unfortunately, two things happened. My mind did a timewarp thing, and I totally spaced on where The Station Inn is located. See, up until a few years ago, The Station Inn was located right inside 'V' where 12th Avenue South and 11th Industrial split off. At that time, the area was pretty desolate otherwise. The Station Inn has not moved, but the area is totally transformed. Anyway, by the time I finally made it to the club, a line had formed indicating the building was at capacity. I figured the odds of enough people leaving between Mary and Richard Thompson for me to gain admission was not good, so I decided to head straight to The Rutledge, and truthfully, I'm really glad I did. I got to that club just in time to see The Bo-Keys take the stage for some authentic Memphis Soul. The band is made up of people who helped shape the Memphis sound including folks who played with Isaac Hayes and Al Green including members of the Hi-Rhythm section, plus a truly awesome vocalist named Percy Wiggins who has a long and storied career of his own.
Oh yeah, and while waiting for the Bo-Keys to play, I started seeing some familiar and famous faces....
The night ended (and the morning began) with a star-studded tribute to Big Star. This set deserves and will get a post of it's own, but suffice it to say, this was a musical high-light of my entire life. It was enough that as billed, Mike Mills of R.E.M., Chris Stamey of The Dbs, and Jody Stephens of Big Star were part of this bill, but that was really just the tip of the iceberg.
Needless to say, I'm running on just over 2 hours of sleep and a 1/2 bottle (so far) of 5 Hour Energy that I got at Live on the Green.
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And yes, even with all that, we do have a shuffle this morning. We've skipped the last couple of weeks of Featured Friday simply because we've had a bunch of Featured Artists show up throughout the week, but that has not been the case this week, and I kind of feel like I've been neglecting my Featured Artist... so I decided to shuffle up a playlist of songs from these artists.
First up we have Nashville's own Korby Lenker with Lovers and Fools.
Here's a video of Korby and some friends in the Lightning 100 studios
Next, we have Florida-based singer/songwriter Alex Bennett with Jesus Blues off his fantastic One Way Train album.
Couldn't find a video for Jesus Blues...
And finally, we have And the Giraffe who were kind enough to explain the Nashville connection we alluded to on the Featured Artist page. Josh Morris who is 1/2 of And the Giraffe now lives in Nashville - so there you have it.. We have Magic 8 from 2011s Something for Someone.
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