The ABGB is a new venue in Austin since August last year, and I had a great evening there last night. First I saw Jane Bond, whom I haven’t seen for many years, and after a quick walk up to Maria’s Taco XPress to see Leeann Atherton, it was back to see Rick Broussard and his band Two Hoots and a Holler.
This year I followed up my favorite SXSW Austin tradition of attending Leeann Atherton’s Barn Dance at her house the Sunday after the festival is over. This year the weather wasn’t as cooperative as the last years, but in spite of the cold, everyone had a great time. The BBQ was good, the music was great, the people friendly – in short – just as it always is at Leeann’s. (Picture above: Hedvig Mollestad and Leeann Atherton)
Guy Forsyth is one of my all time favorite Austin musicians. I have written about him on this blog before, and Friday night I saw him at another pre SXSW late night show at the Saxon Pub. I can’t count all the different settings I have seen and heard him in, everything from solo, with a tuba, with the Asylum Street Spankers to a pop band setting some 10 years go. This time he was reunited with his old compadre George Rarey, and he played one of the best sets I have ever heard from him.
On May 28th is John Fogerty turns 68 and he also releases his new CD, Wrote A Song For Everyone, with 14 songs, 2 new ones. The CD is recorded with many of Fogerty’s musical friends. I saw his concert in March at the SXSW in Austin, and I was impressed.
You have to be short-sighted and with bad hearing to say that Norway have a broad bluegrass tradition. There are a few bluegrass bands and there is actually one bluegrass festival in Norway. But one band have made waves, and that is Lucky Lips. Last night they played at the Continental Club in Austin with their good friends the Carper Family and Brennan Leigh.
A musician’s musician is someone who every other musician and artists wants to play with, but who isn’t always known to the general audience. Buddy Miller is a musician’s musician, but fortunately he has been acknowledged and gained more popularity during the years. Jim Lauderdale is a great singer songwriter who has written songs for artists like Vince Gill, Patty Loveless and other artists, but who also has got more and more recognition for his own work the later years. Now the two have released a CD together, and they played Antone’s during SXSW.
Sometimes I see bands that I have never heard about, and because of that, my expectations are usually quite low. And often the expectations equals the experience. But not in the case of JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound. Their concert at the Continental Club during SXSW was far above my expectations.
If you are interested in guitar playing and also steel guitar, you have to check out Junior Brown. He has played steel guitar with Asleep At The Wheel, he has taught guitar playing, and he has invented the guit-steel, a two-necked combination of a guitar and a steel guitar. On SXSW’s last day, he played at the ACL Moody.
The first time I saw Guy Forsyth was when he was a member of the Asylum Street Spankers, a totally acoustic band with “no demon electricity”, at the Antone’s in 1997. I liked what I heard, and I noticed this guy whose voice could be heard over the late night crowd at the club. Since then I have seen both the Spankers and Guy Forsyth with his own band several times. Last night I saw him at the Saxon Pub.
For 15 years, from 1992 to 2007, Toni Price played every Tuesday night at the Continental Club in Austin. After a two year stay in San Diego where she came back one Tuesday every month to do a gig, she came back to Austin and she took up the weekly Hippie Hour tradition at the Continental. So far she has kept on playing Hippie Hour for 21 years.
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