MAE: MAKING MUSIC AND MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Funny how things work out sometimes. 

Take the altruistically-inclined Virginia-based alternative rock band Mae, for instance.

 It was a confluence of major band events that sparked what has now become an integral part of the band’s overall mission: to not only make great music for their fans and grow their base, but also to make a difference by encouraging that base to support their impressive variety of wide-ranging charitable endeavors, and thus, walk hand in hand with the band in their efforts. 

“In this relatively small pocket of time, we lost two original members and we were without a record label”, Mae guitarist Zach Gehring told me from his hotel room in Pittsburgh. “So we really had to sit down and ask ourselves why we were going to continue, what reasons do we have to go on. If you’re going to continue writing music that you think people should hear, we feel you have to have a reason to continue to do so, otherwise I think people can pick up on the ‘trite creativity for recreation’ kinda thing.”

So after splitting with Capitol Records in 2008, Mae, which stands for “Multi-sensory Aesthetic Experience”, a course taken by the band’s drummer at Old Dominion, found themselves with a startling, albeit daunting new found sense of freedom. And after a month of soul-searching, Mae’s core mission became clear: make a tangible difference in people’s lives while also continuing to create new music. 

“We found ourselves in this one moment where because we weren’t beholden to a record label, we were not only able to do whatever we wanted, but at the same time we recognized what we could do with our fan base and with our music, which is to use it for something good”, Gehring continues. “It’s all been a combination of us being in a position where we were able to do what we wanted to do with the music without answering to anyone, as well as harnessing the power of music and our fans and giving back as much we could.”

Part of this “giving back” is Mae’s current “12 Songs, 12 Months, 1 Goal” project, where all proceeds from digital downloads of one of their songs every month for a year go to whatever humanitarian-based cause they are funding at a given time. It’s pretty simple: you buy one of their songs online, you get some good tunage, and the money goes to a good cause.

But they aren’t stopping there. Mae won a contest on ideablog.com, with their fan base’s support, where the winner got $10,000 to put towards an “idea”, and Mae’s “idea” was to use the money to help build a home for a family in need in Newport News, VA in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity. Now they have another “idea” they hope to win with: “50 States, 50 Schools In Need”, which has the band working with donorschoose.org to help fund an educational project in every state, to give teachers the supplies they need to make a difference in their student’s lives. You can go to ideablog.com and see what it’s all about, and if you like it, you can vote for Mae’s “idea.”

And at a gig in Salt Lake City recently, Mae worked with The Road Home, a Utah-based social service agency, encouraging their fans to bring toiletries and other personal items with them to the gig so they could be donated to the homeless.

 But at it’s core, Mae IS a rock band, so how has this ‘feel good’ philanthropy affected their relationship with their fans?

 “I think what all of this has done is that it’s emphasized the symbiotic nature of the band/fan relationship,” Gehring said. “A band is often up on a pedestal and the fans are looking ‘up’ to that, looking for any scrap they can get from the band. We wanted to do away with those barriers, we really wanted to focus on the fact that without our fans, we couldn’t do what we wanted to do, with our music or the other things we do. We wanted to involve them in a way that makes them much more necessary in our process.”

 “We’ve had fans donate $500, we had a fan in Arizona fundraise and raise a thousand dollars. So to have your fans do that, and be that committed with you, it just shows how devoted and loyal they are, and how much they do care about things other than the typical ‘fan fare’ that happens between a band and their fans. It puts them right there with us, in our goals, and our motivations, and our mission.”

 Mae plays the Black Cat in DC on Sunday November 8^th.

 Check Mae out at http://www.whatismae.com.

A 21ST CENTURY RENAISSANCE…FOR RENAISSANCE

Renaissance's Michael Dunford and Annie Haslam circa their 1970's heyday.

The “reunion tour.”

The term can strike fear in the minds of true fans of bands whose best days are long since past.

Sometimes, reunion tours work. The bands still have the chops, and the songs take fans back to their youth and remind them of why they followed the band in the first place. It can even rejuvenate faded careers.

But sometimes, it can be a miserably embarrassing last gasp for a group of old musicians who are trying to hang on to glory days that simply can’t be conjured up, no matter how good they used to be. It can even ruin what’s left of a good thing.

For the folk-classical-prog-rock band Renaissance, whose heyday coincided with the 70’s heyday of FM radio, and whose original lineup included members of the famed Yardbirds, this “reunion tour” day of reckoning has arrived.

Annie Haslam hits just the right note in her early days with Renaissance.

Two of the band’s earliest members, lead singer Annie Haslam and guitarist/songwriter Michael Dunford, have decided to regroup and take their almost 30 year-old music out on the road for a nine-city tour of theaters, all to try and recapture the magic of the days when “Carpet Of The Sun” and “Northern Lights” were regular staples on the FM dial, and performed on Saturday night episodes of “Midnight Special” (who remembers that age old live music TV gem?).

Deciding to do their shows in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic where legendary FM stations like WHFS in Bethesda, WMMR in Philly and WNEW in New York played them endlessly and helped them make their name, “Renassiance 2009” gets underway at the Rams Head Live in Annapolis on October 6th, and makes a stop at the Birchmere in Del Mar on October 12th.

Can they truly harness the magic of yesteryear with this 40th anniversary revisit? Guitarist Dunford thinks they are off to a very good start. “We’re coming up to the end of the first week of rehearsals and it’s going brilliantly,” Dunford told me this week from a hotel near the band’s rehearsal studio. “I must admit, it’s much better than expected. And judging by what we’re seeing on Facebook and myspace, the word’s really getting around, which is really nice.”

Check out the seventies British rocker and his social networking acumen.

After it’s best successes in the 70’s, Camera Camera was the band’s final album to chart in the US, where it reached a paltry #196 in late 1981. There were a few brief Renaissance machinations including an acoustic version of the band in the mid 80’s, a partial reformation in 1998, and a short full band tour in 2001, but there hasn’t really been a real Renaissance out there since then.

Renaissance’s Annie Haslam thanks the crowd during her 2005 solo tour with jazz pianist David Sancious.

So why do this now, when you run the risk of not being able to recapture the right sound and feel and possibly alienating whatever fan base they have left?

“Annie and I have always been in touch, we’ve spoken at various stages about ‘should we get Renassiance together,’’ says Dunford, “and it didn’t seem appropriate. I called Annie about year ago, and said hey look, you know, let’s see what we can do. She said she’d be OK with that, as long as we can get our former management company involved (led by the legendary music impresario John Scher) and they seemed responsive, so they did a bit of research, and said yeah, OK, let’s go for it. I think the timing now is right.”

Haslam and Dunford contacted some players that backed them on their brief 2001 tour in Japan, those guys contacted some players they knew who they thought would fit in nicely with the current lineup, and “Renaissance 2009” was born. According to Dunford, “it’s just going great.”

And what are they really trying to accomplish with this tour?

“What we’re trying to do is simply play some of the most popular songs that we did,” Dunford continues. “Hopefully the audiences are out there, and they like what we’re doing. It’ll obviously be a slightly different interpretation because there are some different players, but we’ll mostly be sticking to the original arrangements. And hopefully, the fans of the band will flock to see us.”

For a band trying to see if the ashes of a career from way back in the day are still burning, Renaissance has to be given credit for being gutsy enough to give it a shot.

WAITING FOR SPRINGSTEEN

Anticipation. We all feel it in some way, from the day we’re born.

My first real memory of anticipation is the kind I felt waiting for my father to get home from work. My dad – a man full of sweetness and fun – would drive in the driveway and I would be elated, running to greet him and his wonderful hug and fatherly smell at the front door.

As the years have gone by, I have experienced many different levels of anticipation – waiting to pitch in the big game, waiting to see the first sight of the beach on a summer vacation, and these days, waiting to see my wife when I return home from work.

And although the anticipation of the birth of my children outweighs every other form of anticipation I have ever felt, the anticipation I feel as Bruce Springsteen’s appearance here in DC on his current tour draws near is very exciting and special in it’s own unique way. 

Mr. Springsteen, who is 60 to my 48, is an old friend (not a personal one, but you know what I mean), and he has been by my side for over thirty years, longer than I have known virtually anyone I still keep in touch with or know today. He has seen me through the most joyful of times, and has helped me endure the most sorrowful ones. The emotions he conjures up with his words and music give me so much joy, that the level of anticipation I feel as tonight’s Verizon Center show approaches is simply exhilarating.

The experience of seeing Springsteen live began for me in the last row of Madison Square Garden in New York in 1978. Even high up in the rafters of that cavernous arena, he touched my soul with his evocative lyrics and exhilarating presence, and it’s been like that at every one of the many shows I have seen him perform since. It’s hard to describe a Springsteen concert if you haven’t seen him, or aren’t familiar with the power and glory of his music.

But deep down, it goes way beyond just a concert. In fact the thirty years of being a Springsteen fan have been about way more than just his music. It’s about the unique intimacy he feels towards us as fans, and what we give back to him.

“At this point, I’m in the middle of a very long conversation with my audience,” he said recently in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. “It’s an ongoing dialogue about what living means. I can’t do it by myself. I need my audience. It’ll be a lifelong journey by the time I’m done.”

And that’s what it’s been, virtually a lifelong journey with Bruce at the wheel, and me riding shotgun, talking the whole way. And when he pulls into town tonight, it will be great to sit in the front seat with my old friend, and turn the radio up real loud again.  It might be the last time we ride together, there are rumors that this tour may be the E Street Band’s last. And if that is the case, he has given me some of the greatest joy I have ever felt in my 48 years. And I still have the upcoming show to look forward to.

Anticipation. Isn’t it great?

THIS GUIDING LIGHT KEEPS BURNING

This week, the CBS soap opera Guiding Light will fade to black after an unprecedented 72-year run that began as a radio serial in 1937 (it was first broadcast five days after FDR’s inauguration), and then moved to TV in 1952.  The show still gets around 1-2 million viewers per episode, but that’s not enough for CBS executives, and the residents of the fictitious town of Springfield are being asked to pack up and move on. The show’s last episode is this Friday.

Who do I think of most as this television institution is drawing to a close?

My mom, of course.

Lynn Houk was a Yale-trained actress who had quite a resume of leading performances in local and regional theater during her acting run, as well as an encyclopedic knowledge of movie history. And because of this acting base, one of her great joys was spending thousands of weekday afternoons, cigarette in one hand and often an iced coffee or tea in the other, watching the CBS soaps, with Guiding Light as the 3pm anchor leg to the 3 1/2 hour slate of programs.

For those of you who think soaps are vapid, overdramatic and ridiculous, well, given the outrageous plot lines, they often are. But especially on the CBS soaps, the acting is strikingly good, and that is often backed up by the many Daytime Emmys that CBS soap actors take home every year. It’s a fact that many well-known actors and actresses got their start on soaps, including the likes of Alec Baldwin, Meg Ryan, Kevin Bacon, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mark Hamill, and many more; hey, even Leonard Nimoy was on a soap before he donned the pointed ears and played that guy on the Enterprise. Jonathan Frid, the vampire-like character on the ABC gothic soap Dark Shadows was one of Mom’s Yale classmates, and she had many other theatrical acquaintances that were soap actors.

And that’s why my Mom appreciated the soaps so much. Sure, she laughed and even cringed at some of the more outlandish plot lines, and the way characters could die a violent death only to return six months later to wreak havoc amongst the still-mourning survivors. Or maybe they were so disfigured from their “accident” that they would have plastic surgery and return as another actor.  Or how soap kids seem to grow three times as fast as real kids.

But it was really because of the acting that Mom watched Guiding Light every weekday that it was on from probably 1970 or earlier right up until around the time of her death in 2004. She developed her stable of favorite actors and characters, and was never shy about conveying her feelings about the characters, or the acting. Comments like “Oh no!” or “That’s not fair!” or “Come on!” would echo from the living room during the afternoon soapfest. Heck, she had a right to criticize, she could have played any one of a hundred of the soap divas she would cheer for or against. I remember thinking she could have assumed the role of Alexandra Spaulding or Vanessa Lewis, two of Guiding Light’s main characters, very easily.

Now it may sound kinda depressing that she spent so much of her time watching TV, inside, watching these soaps, and maybe, well, it kinda was. There were so many other things she could have been doing. But hey, it was a true joy for Mom to dissapear into the towns of Oakdale, Genoa City, and yes, Springfield, every day, analyzing the performances, becoming in tune with the nuances, watching the actors go through their paces. I’m sure she secretly wished she was down in NY or out in LA on the sound stage running through scene after scene as one of the cast.  In fact, I’m sure part of the allure of watching these shows was dreaming she was doing just that. And ya know, she woulda been great at it.

But part of it was also the comfortable routine of it all, her knowing that not long after the soaps ended for the day, and she did a little housework and made sure the cats were all fine, that my Dad, the love of her life, would come bounding through the door, mix the martinis and the next part of the day, the night, her favorite time of day, would begin. There’s something to be said for that kind of routine and comfort. Not for everyone, but it worked for my Mom.

So, as the hugs and tears intermingle between the members of the Guiding Light family this Friday, setting the sun on a 72 year tradition, I’ll think of my beautiful Mom, watching the closing credits, putting out her cigarette, taking a last sip of that iced coffee, shooing the cats into the kitchen with her, and waiting for her husband to come home, so they could be each other’s…..Guiding Light.

FRAMPTON STAYS ALIVE!

There are three words that most accurately sum up my high school years in the late ‘70’s.

Not “the big play.”

Not “the senior prom.”

Not even “the back seat.” Although it sure was fun back there.

No, the three words that bring back the most treasured and nostalgic memories from those formative years are: “Frampton…Comes…Alive.”

The British superstar’s momentous live album, released in 1976, is an infinitely symbolic soundtrack of those times for millions of us late-Boomers who grew up back in the post-Watergate years. For a lot of us, every song on the record is immensely evocative, and indicative of the spirit of the magical moments from way back when. When I play it now, I’m right back standing around the keg in Bob Funnell’s backyard junior year, or in the front seat of Johnny Kaz’s Dodge Dart, driving around the back roads of my home town, not a worry in the mind, or a care in the world, other than which party to go to. Yep, it brings it all back.

And thirty three years later, as “Frampton Comes Alive” sits as one of rock’s all-time top selling live albums with close to 20 million units sold, Peter Frampton, who appears at The Birchmere Sept 2^nd , is still yes, very alive, and very well, thank you. And he’s very happy to talk about things other than his landmark disc, which includes being invigorated by not only producing records for up and coming stars like Davy Knowles and Back Door Slam, but is also rooted in the reception for his brilliant instrumental record, “Fingerprints”, which won him a best Pop Instrumental Album Grammy in 2007.

“The fact that ‘Fingerprints’ has been accepted the way that it has, it’s made a huge change in my career for the better,” Frampton, 59, told me in an interview a few months ago. “It definitely gives me the feeling of acceptance as the musician, finally. ‘Frampton Comes Alive’ is an amazing legacy that seems to still be barreling on from generation to generation, which I am absolutely over the moon about, but we can actually talk about something else. I’m not putting it down at all, it’s a wonderful thing, it’s just I’ve got ‘Fingerprints’ to talk about now, and it’s wonderful.”

What does Peter Frampton feel about receiving his first Grammy so many years after the staggering success of “Frampton Comes Alive”?  ”Well in the end I’ve been nominated four times”, he said, “and most people probably thought I got one for ‘Comes Alive’, but the Eagles got it that year for ‘Hotel California’ which was right. But you start thinking because you haven’t got one, ‘Well they don’t mean anything’, and then you get nominated for one, and they all of a sudden start meaning something. Overall, it’s an incredible feeling. I’m humbled by it, not only the fact that I got a Grammy, but what I got it for, which is for my musicianship, and that probably means more to me than anything. My wife told me ten years ago, wouldn’t it be funny that when you finally get a Grammy, it’s for an instrumental? And she was right. She knew what it meant to me, what guitar playing means to me. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike anything that I do, I just have a passion for guitar playing, I always have, and to get overlooked in the onslaught of ‘Comes Alive’ was a bit of a downer, there was so much other good stuff going along for me at that point. So it might be 30-plus years later, but yeah, I’ll take it.”

“Fingerprints” is a brilliant showcase for Frampton’s exceptional guitar work, which has grown even stronger since the days of “Do You Feel Like We Do.” He lists some top-shelf rock players as collaborators on the record, including former and current Rolling Stones Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts, Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready and Matt Cameron, and Warren Haynes, the gifted singer/songwriter and guitar ace from the Allman Brothers and Government Mule. How did Frampton gather such A-List talent for the sessions? Maybe it’s simply because he is who he is.

“It was all pretty much by accident, and a wish list, obviously. I knew of Warren, and we’d met a couple of times just touring and stuff. I knew how wonderful he was, and I just asked him and he said yes, and then we set up the session. He said ‘Come in a day early to New York because I’m playing with the Allman Brothers, you know we’re doing our yearly 13 or 14 gigs straight’, and asked me to come sit in. At the time I didn’t realize he was the bandleader of the Allman Brothers. So I sat in with them and did two numbers, and it was amazing. I’ve been a huge fan of theirs since their inception, from the first time I heard ‘Live at the Fillmore.’ And then the following day in the studio, he and I continued the musical conversation.”

With Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready and Matt Cameron,” Frampton continues, “I knew Mike as a by product of doing (the film) ‘Almost Famous’, and then they invited me to play when we were trying to get rid of our President mid-term on the Vote For Change tour (Frampton has been an American citizen since shortly after 9/11). So I’m up on stage with Pearl Jam, Neil Young and Tim Robbins, and it was amazing. And that next day, I asked them to play on the record, and they said ‘Yeah, alright!’ We were only planning on doing one number, and then we did end up writing one too, and that was fantastic.”

Frampton’s grandmother could certainly get extra credit for helping jump start his illustrious lifelong career. He found a “banjolele”, a combination banjo and ukelele, in her attic when he was six. “I think there was a method to her madness, I think she gave it to Dad and stuck it in the attic and said that maybe one day the boys will pick this up. The funny thing is, we’d always go up to the attic, my brother and I would, to get the suitcases down for vacation, and the first year I said ‘What’s that?’ and we opened it up and looked at it, and we closed it and left it there. The second year when I was seven, I said ‘You know what, I think I’ll take that down, Dad.’ He showed me a few chords, and the next thing I knew I was playing ‘We’ll be comin’ round the mountain when they come’, you know.”

As for the mechanics of learning how to play, he endured early lessons only to get some of the basics honed that would help him later on. “I learned by ear, as they say, and then after I’d been playing for about four years, my parents decided that this was obviously serious, and they said that I had to go take classical guitar lessons, so that’s what I did for the next four years. I hated but loved it at the same time. I felt it was a waste at the time, I was not able to use that time to play Shadows numbers or Ventures numbers and rock and roll, but I realized afterwards that it gave me the fundamentals of the guitar and to be able to decipher on paper, printed music for guitar.”

Frampton had astounding musical company early on in grammar school, counting David Bowie as one of his early school mates, and jamming with the future Ziggy Stardust on covers in the school cafeteria. He was influenced by not only the likes of The Beatles, Cliff Richard and Buddy Holly, but also by Hank Marvin of The Shadows, who also plays on “Fingerprints”, as well as the brilliant gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt, the latter thanks to his late father Owen. In fact, Frampton dedicated the entire “Fingerprints” record, and two moving odes on it, “Oh When” and “Memories of Our Fathers”, to the artistic man who quietly supported his growing success.

“My parents never guided me musically, they did only when I showed interest early on, and I was pretty good from the start, and they would be very encouraging, but not wishing to push me into the music business, which I did myself. But my father…he was an artist, a painter and an illustrator, he did just about everything, and I guess I got his work ethic. He never stopped, and I don’t ever stop. But there was something special about the way he would encourage me…it wasn’t really spoken, it was just something we had together. I did play him ‘Black Hole Sun’ (the Soundgarden cover for which Frampton was nominated for a 2007 Rock Instrumental Grammy), so he did get to hear it before he passed, and he said, ‘Well, that’s very different!’ He never heard the finished ‘Memories of Our Fathers’, which is the very last track we did on the record. It was a labor of love for my father, that was. When I went over to England for his funeral, “Oh When” is the piece I played. I ad-libbed the piece on guitar, it was just a little instrumental intro that I did at the funeral, and I remembered it and recreated it as soon as I got back to the States. In fact, I got back, cancelled the sessions at my house and on the following Monday, I came down and said ‘Just stick a mike up, I gotta go do this now’ and then I did three takes, and then said, “Let’s all go home, I can’t do any more.” I just was fresh off the plane basically from England, but I got that down in the spirit mentally that I was in at that point, so it’s very important to me, that track, even though it’s so short.”

As for what caused his epic 1976 live opus to gain a place in rock and roll history, Frampton says it’s all about the live vibe versus the studio one. “Live is the perfect forum for me. I just absolutely love it. I think Elton John said it best, he said, ‘You never know when it’s gonna be a great show.’ Elton said, ‘I have been so well rested, exercised, eaten well, got on stage that night…and it sucked. I just didn’t enjoy it, nothing happened right. And then other times I’ve had 103 fever, felt like cancelling the show, went on stage, and it was the best show I’ve ever done, or I’d done in like six months.’

“When you’re in the studio playing something to a pane of glass, with people behind it, you pour your heart out, and then at the end of the song, whether it’s a solo or a vocal or whatever, you go ‘So what do you think?’ and they say ‘Well, that’s good, let’s try it again’, it sort of takes the excitement from it. Live, there’s no take two, it’s always take one, and it’s always different, every show is so vastly different, every audience is different. I think that’s what I like about it the most, is that anything can happen. Whereas everything’s so planned in the studio. I like things off the cuff, as much as possible.”

Do you feel like I do? It’s guaranteed you will, Sept. 2nd at the sweet Birchmere.

DAVY KNOWLES: A MANNISH BOY BURSTS FROM THE ISLE OF MAN

The Isle Of Man, located in the middle of the Irish Sea between Britain and Ireland and just below Scotland, is not a place where you’d really expect the next potential king of blues guitar to hail from.

Yeah, the Bee Gees were born there, so there is an iota of musical heritage, but after that, it’s certainly not a mecca of fame.

 But regardless of it’s remote location, music still made it’s way there like anywhere else, and about a dozen years ago when “Sultans of Swing” wafted through the car speakers and into the ears of an 11 year old, it sparked what could possibly become one of the most illustrious blues-guitar driven careers ever.

 “My Dad played it for me in the car and I got home and I asked my Dad to show it to me on the guitar, “says 22 year old blues prodigy Davy Knowles. “I mean, as soon as we got home. It completely and utterly blew my mind, it still does.”

 Well, whatever Mark Knopfler did for Davy Knowles that day, it was the catalyst of a talent that some critics say with time may even reach the level of the greats; names like Stevie Ray Vaughan have been bandied about, or as one critic put it after seeing him play, “I saw the spirit of Jimi Hendrix tonight.”

 Knowles’ staggeringly brilliant talents on the guitar, as well as a memorable blues-fueled voice that evokes many more miles traveled than a 23 year old might normally put forth, have gotten him rave reviews since his debut on the scene in 2003.

 Since then, he and his band Back Door Slam (taken from a song from one of his blues heroes, Robert Cray) have toured with rock greats, established a dedicated following, and just recently, they released Coming Up For Air, a collection of accessible yet grittily bluesy songs that will undoubtedly help Knowles reach an even bigger audience. Knowles and BDS are just now hitting the road on a headlining tour after a successful opening act run for the hard rock supergroup Chickenfoot, with a stop at the Birchmere in Alexandria on August 25th.         

 So with all the guitar styles he could master, why the blues?

 “It’s the freedom it gives you,” Knowles told me by phone recently. “There’s also something about being able to put your own stamp on something that I really love. It’s such a wide genre, and from a guitarist’s point of view there’s so much you can do. There’s a lot of room to express yourself within it. You just keep throwing our own ingredients into it. It’s always been evolving and adapting.”

 Knowles’ latest record was produced by the legendary Peter Frampton, who has called Knowles “the gunslinger guitarist of the 21^st century”, a major kudo considering peers like Derek Trucks, John Frusciante, John Mayer and the great Warren Haynes are out there wailing, too.

 Frampton and Knowles became fast friends during the recording process (Knowles calls Frampton “a lovely man and mentor”), and it was while recording the George Harrison-penned tune “Hear Me Lord” that Knowles felt the profundity of where he sits in his young career, playing and recording next to Frampton.

 “We were sitting in the overdub studio and he’s got his acoustic guitar and I’ve got mine, and we’re just about to go through doing an acoustic take, and Peter looks over at me and he goes, ‘You know Davy, 30 years ago I was sitting in a studio kinda like this, with a guitar kinda like this, and where you sat…was George Harrison, and we were doing the acoustic tracks to this song.’ And I look over at him, and say “Peter, how the hell do you expect me to play after THAT? You coulda told me afterwards!’ Gosh, it was wonderful.”

 And what about those comparisons to the greats like Stevie Ray and Hendrix?

 “It’s a really flattering thing. but it’s completely crazy. It’s really nice and they could be saying a lot worse things, but I found it weird. Those are the guys…damn, they’re the reason I’m playing. That’s a really strange kind of concept.”

 Get used to it, Davy.

http://www.davyknowles.com

CROSBY, STILLS and NASH: FROM ONE SWEET MEADOW TO ANOTHER, FORTY YEARS LATER

In August of 1969, right after the astonishing Apollo moon landing and right before the lowly Mets would shock the sports world with a World Series win, a half a million strong would converge along with some of the world’s greatest rock musicians (and musicians-to-be) on Max Yasgur’s 600-acre farm in upstate New York, to celebrate life, love and peace…oh yes, and to hear some really great friggin’ music.

The Woodstock Music & Arts Fair became a timeless symbol of the tumultuous yet hope-filled sixties, and along for the ride were four very talented young men whose acoustic and electric sets were a highlight of the famous festival; performances that were at the dawning of a multi-decade and multi-faceted career that would ultimately land them in the upper pantheon of popular music.

Almost exactly forty years to the day, on another August evening like that remarkable one so many years ago, three of those young men – Mr. Crosby, Mr. Stills and Mr. Nash – will make their way to another beautiful meadow when they play the Filene Center at beautiful Wolf Trap this Friday.

And if history is any indication, their unparalleled harmonies and timeless songs will once again send chills down the spines of those in attendance, just like they did all those years ago at Woodstock.

David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash are three names absolutely synonomous with beautifully written and performed, almost perfect rock music, and these days, forty years after they met, they aren’t slowing down, on the road or in the studio. In the midst of a worldwide tour, they were recently inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, to add to their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame laurels, are working on a brand new Rick Rubin-produced record, and recently honed a new collection full of CSN rarities simply called Demos.  

How did it all begin? Depends on who you ask. It was either in Joni Mitchell’s living room, or Mama Cass Elliott’s dining room, but wherever it was, something special, something profound, was definitely happening. CSN recorded their first album early in 1969, adding Neil Young later that year. The four would make history early on with their seminal album Déjà Vu, then play their stirring sets at Woodstock, and then over the years would bandy about between machinations of the four of them, solo and together, creating more and more classic music by the armload, and continually adding to their oh-so impressive canon.

Young would eventually make his main strides as a solo artist with his band Crazy Horse and without, and CSN would keep their own sounds alive, recording several highly successful records together over the years. The four would reunite once or twice for stirring reunion tours and a top selling record, but like Young solo, CSN together have stood the test of time, and continue to blow away audiences worldwide.

The key to CSN’s enormous success has been a mixture of both emotional magic as well as political consciousness, connecting to their audience in both the head and the heart. The three have championed many a cause during their many years in music, from protesting war to protecting the environment.

But it is those voices, those three amazing, unforgettable voices, that have found CSN a permanent place in the hearts and minds of millions over the last four decades. Do they have the same range as they did in their sixties heyday? No, who does?

But rest assured, when their wooden ship docks at Wolf Trap this week, those voices will still resound through the Virginia meadows with the same beauty and power they had all those years ago, in that other meadow, on that farm, up in Bethel.

Who knows…maybe Guinevere or Judy Blue Eyes will even show up.

CSN appears at Wolf Trap Friday August 14^th at 8pm. Tickets available at www.wolftrap.org

DEREK TRUCKS: SLIDING INTO SUPERSTARDOM ON MUSICAL ROOTS

Any kid named after the title of one of rock music’s most heralded supergroups clearly has their future vocation established pretty early on.

Derek Trucks’ first name came from “Derek and the Dominos”, the short-lived 60’s supergroup that included rock legends Eric Clapton and Duane Allman, and spawned one of rock’s most epic tunes, Layla. Pretty awesome legacy to live up to, eh?

Well, Derek Trucks began living up to that legacy from the get go and he hasn’t slowed down since. He picked up a guitar for five bucks at a yard sale at age nine, and began playing professionally at age 11. Didn’t hurt that his uncle Butch was (and is) a drummer for the Allman Brothers Band, so the young Trucks was already playing sessions and live shows by age 11. Before he was 20, he had played with legends like Bob Dylan, Stephen Stills and Joe Walsh among others.

These days, Derek Trucks is a phenomenal double threat, playing his scorching brand of guitar with the Allmans as well as his own band, The Derek Trucks Band, the latter appearing at National Harbor on August 6th, and is widely considered one of the most talented guitarists in music today. His specialty, although that’s hard to pin down when you have someone of such deep talent as Trucks, is the slide guitar, which bled into his psyche due to the early influence of, yes, Duane Allman, and Elmore James, two of music’s most influential slide players, on his early playing. He has become part of a slide guitar legacy of sorts with the Allmans, given the slide acumen of Allman guitarists like Duane Allman, Dickey Betts, and these days, the great Warren Haynes, whose “other” band Government Mule also played the Harbor at the end of July.

Trucks appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in 2007 as a member of the crop of “New Guitar Gods.” Nicknamed by the magazine as the “Jam King”, fellow “God” John Mayer described Trucks’ playing as “making the guitar sound like a female singer from the 50’s or 60’s, just belting it out.”

Why is he so adept at the slide, which is not an automatic skill for even the best of guitar aces? Trucks has explained that when he was learning to play as boy, the strings were painful, and his small fingers were too sensitive to adapt quickly, so the slide made it easier for him to advance his skills. Trucks has also adapted the use of a bottleneck slide made of a form of plastic, which produces a sound resembling the kind Allman made famous on songs like Layla and other classic rock tunes.

Music also runs deep in Trucks’ current family, his wife is well-known singer/guitarist Susan Tedeschi, and the couple has a recently completed home studio where Trucks recorded his latest album Already Free, which is climbing up the blues and Internet charts. The two do their best to spend time together despite rigorous touring schedules, often in excess of 300 shows a year, even molding a side project called the Soul Stew Revival that highlights both of the talents.

And speaking of legacies, their two kids are named for sax legend Charlie Parker and a John Coltrane song. Seems to me that they are already on the right track for a stellar musical career, if they so choose. Just look at Dad’s family history.

DIGGIN’ SHANE HINES and HIS MUSICAL TRANCE

When DC-area based singer/songwriter Shane Hines talks about stepping in the door of Abbey Road studios, the hallowed musical home of his idols the Beatles, to actually record music, his feelings of awe are still palpable.

 

“That was friggin’ amazing. I’ve been there twice and the second time, I wasn’t like, completely, utterly in shock, so I got to take more of it in. Beatles is my band. That’s the one for me, so to walk in there, and it’s not just the Beatles, you walk in and there’s the Dark Side Of The Moon speakers that they mixed that through. But the coolest thing is that you think, ‘Hey, music brought me here.’ ”

Like most of his peers, Shane Hines could only imagine Beatle-type success at this point, but the good buzz surrounding him and his alt-rock band alter ego The Trance, as well as the clear passion he has for his music, are all palpable in their own right. In fact, Hines has developed such a great cult following that fans helped him pay for his last album. Judging by the roll this guy is on, he won’t need their help again.

The Fairfax native and Annandale HS grad is now out on the road playing both regional and further-away gigs consistently, including a number coming up in Northern Virginia and Maryland, has two full length records in his canon with another on the way, and above all, has some great songwriting chops that all aspiring musicians need, to really have a shot.

“As soon as I started playing a guitar, I started writing songs. I don’t know why but I just felt compelled to do it. Over the last five years, I’ve really honed in on it. Honing in on the craft of it. I’ve also been doing a bunch of co-writing in Nashville, and just really thinking that this is how I want to make my living. I feel so lucky.”

Hines plays quieter acoustic shows where the venue calls for it, usually with longtime sideman Brian Keating on bass, or he’ll turn up the volume with Keating and other of his collaborators for rousing rock shows. They’ll even do what he calls “Split Personality” shows, like one upcoming at Vienna’s Jammin’ Java on July 24th, where he’ll do both shows in the same day at the same venue; one at 7pm and one at 10pm.

“The shows are the polar opposite. The 7 o’clock show is gonna be chill, seated, and then the 10 is just like, we bring it in the band show. It’s so fun ‘cause I love both sides of it, I love it all. And to be able to do it in one night? I’m really looking forward to that.”

Hines’ sound is familiar yet also remains refreshingly original, with thoughtful songwriting amidst crisp indie-rock hooks and melodies. There are hooks that you might even hear in a ‘Gen Y’ TV show or movie. And that’s not an accident, Hines’ music has made it to the soundtracks of successful shows like The Hills and Real World.

“Our whole thing is that TV is our radio. The radio playlists are so small these days, the thing with TV is that they’re much more open to independent artists. We hope they like us of course, but we know it’s partly because if they want to license a Coldplay song for a hundred grand, you know what, they’ll go get song that sounds like Coldplay for five grand. So yeah, TV’s our radio and we really focus on that. I’m hoping that we should have some pretty cool things with TV and films coming up that we’ve been working pretty hard on.”  

Above all, Hines’ acutely optimistic attitude and a true dedication to his craft are what could end up securing his future in a very tough industry. I mean, you just tend to believe him when he says, “This is what I do. This is it. And I’m gonna do whatever I can do to make it happen.”

Yeah, I admit it, I’m in a Trance.

THE PIANO MEN HIT A HOME RUN AT NATIONALS PARK

Typically in an event on a baseball field, early errors cost you.

But when it’s two rock idols on the field, you rally, and you win.

Elton John and Billy Joel both played center field at National Park on Saturday night, and despite an epic equipment malfunction, it all fell into place, because hey, you know what, they still got the chops. These two guaranteed Rock and Roll Hall of Famers pieced together a truly wondrous collection of piano-fueled rock classics proving that these days with the right kind of double bills coupled with the right kind of material, you clearly get what you paid for, and more.

After the two piano legends opened the show at dueling rising pianos, playing Face To Face (the tour’s moniker) versions of John’s Your Song and Joel’s Just The Way You Are, a jammed piano pedal on John’s piano halted the proceedings. As his is nature, Joel kept things light by playing filler tunes like Glory Glory Hallellujah and Yankee Doodle Dandy, and even crawling under John’s piano himself to try and fix the problem, see the picture I took below of him crawling out after doing his best repairman act. Joel even said, “This is king sized f–k up”, but to this adoring crowd, even a stuck pedal couldn’t phase their excitement.

 

John stewed long enough, ultimately dissapearing underneath the stage and giving way to Joel’s truly excellent band, which launched into a rousing Angry Young Man that made the crowd forget the stuck pedal and remember why they were here: to hear truly legendary piano-driven rock music. Joel’s letter perfect versions of Movin Out, Allentown (the unemployment-related tune that Joel prefaced by saying how “very happy we are to have a job”), Just Like A Woman and Don’t Ask Me Why were followed by an utterly gorgeous version of his epic Scenes From An Italian Restaurant, which seemed to render everything before or after irrelevant. Joel’s tender and pointed anthem of dating, marriage and it’s aftermath, highlighted by the touches of ace saxophonist and veteran Joel bandmember Mark Rivera, was delivered in utterly perfect homage to it’s vinyl (yes vinyl!) original, with the crowd reciting verbatum the exploits of Brenda and Eddie and the innocent beauty of yeah, that sweet little Italian restaurant.

Later, John let his earlier frustration peel off, delivering a stirring solo set of his own, opening with the Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding prologue from his defining album “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, then getting the Saturday night crowd going with Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting. John then delved into a fabulous Burn Down The Mission and Tiny Dancer. The high fives and dancing bodies witnessed during these two epic songs reinforced his place in the hearts of those who hold John in a position of revery.

A high point of John’s set was a stellar version of his FM hit Rocket Man, with an extended jam that illustrated his willingness to let his band of flawless musicians show their best. It was a smart move by John and it clearly paid off.

The two masters returned to the stage for their “encore” and threw out remarkably adept duet versions of John’s Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me and a singalong finale with Joel’s Piano Man, that reminded the audience of the magnitude of these two tremendously talented guy’s influence on modern rock music.

Say what you will about 60 year olds still trying to conjure up rock and roll memories…amidst the field of dreams where the Nats continue to struggle this summer, several home runs were hit and many musical dreams were realized tonight by these two unabating music legends.