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The Mercy Lounge and its even bigger venue sister downstairs, the Cannery Ballroom, combine to provide great music venues. There’s lots of space on stage and off, but wear your comfortable shoes, as seats are few. Downstairs, you can sit on the other side of a brick wall to the Ballroom, a wall perforated with open windows to let the music through, and rest your aching mules while sinking in to a broken down vinyl seat at a table. There’s a whole string of ‘em along the wall.
We started our final evening of the American Music Fest diggin’ the Duhks, a powerfully talented stew of young Winnipegians. Watching this good looking group of young people started me thinking about how I (KZ of the SZ/KZ team, that is) like the food on my plate. (This will make sense in a moment.) See, I like to mix things up. To the embarrassment of my mate when we dine at restaurants, I’ve gottta stir, swirl, and glop it all together—deee-lish!
That’s what the Duhks are like: a plate full of all the good stuff, all mixed up. You’ll get rock (with a violin that sounds like an electric guitar), cabaret (with that tinge of the dark, somewhat perverse, rather intellectual approach which makes for the best of cabaret), foot-stomping Celtic, and a spicy bit of Afropop (wherein the fiddle becomes a thumb piano). Sarah Dugas’ versatile pipes can belt out gospel with the best of ‘em, followed by some good ol’ Louisiana Cajun. Sarah and Tania Elizabeth will sing to you in French and sing to you in English, but the band’s instruments sing in more tongues than any mere multilingual human can.
Their rousing finale merged into Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”, no doubt a nod to Robert Plant, who’s been making the rounds at the American Music Fest this year. He and Alison Krauss won the Album of the Year for Raising Sand. As for “Whole Lotta Love”, we rather liked the Duhks version of this rock classic better. Sorry, Robert.
For those of you who like the piles on your plate all neat in their own places, think of the Duhks as a belly-busting buffet—you get it all, however you like it. Dig in.
Downstairs for the Glen Campbell tribute—with Jim Lauderdale, Chuck Mead, Raul Malo and many others—wherein the man himself came out and sang not only some of his own stuff—songs with that melted, gooey cheese dripping all over them—that is: songs that everyone loves (and everyone sings along with). The country star covered Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Live)”, as well. The man looks and sounds good. Indeed, he seems like he’s hardly changed over the years - such is the nature of old souls, aged yet ageless, somehow.
We squeezed our way back upstairs for Buddy Miller, who’d bring on Bonnie Bramlett for some rocking harmonizing. Standing right up front, tempted to take a sip from that cool, bottled water at Buddy’s feet, we were experiencing the Mercy Lounge/Cannery Row at its best: hot, crowded, and friendly. (The guy behind me was a hootin’ and hollerin’ in the manner of fan appreciation. Now that’s good company, unlike the guys at Day 1 at The Basement.)
At Mercy and Cannery, the bartenders are friendly, the fellow out in the parking lot collecting the $3 parking fee is friendly (swear it’s the same guy as last year), the musicians who make their way unassumingly amongst you, give a nod and let you through, or mutter a simple ‘scuse me, when making their way—all unassumingly polite. You are in good company in these places.
Day 3 at the 3rd & Lindsley, Jim White sang that a bar was just a church that serves beer. Well, down here in the buckle of the Bible belt, we never set foot in a church - technically speaking, that is—but we shared hours and hours of sweet fellowship with the music-loving faithful.
God looked down and saw that it was good.
* * *
Our wish list for next year’s Americana Music Fest:
Give Casey Driessen a showcase (we caught up with him on our volition).
Bring Trent Summar back, and give him a Friday or Saturday night showcase. The few who saw him on a Wednesday, we think it was, last year, enjoyed him mightily. More Dale Watson too, please. You can never get enough Texas honky tonk. Less quiet, mellow stuff and more barn burners would liven these nights up even more.
Invite the stellar musicians that comprise BeauSoleil. Perhaps a Cajun night with the Red Stick Ramblers might be in order. Marcia Ball would fit in nicely there too to broaden the taste of the Louisiana stew.
And finally, we hope that Nashville doesn’t run out of gas at next year’s Fest. Driving downtown to meet up with folks, we passed lines of cars blocks long, waiting to fill at gas stations that were pumping painfully slowly. Cops were guiding traffic. People were standing outside their cars, waiting. It was a site reminiscent of the ‘70s gas crises, though unlike many of our compatriots who had to hitch rides to showcases, we were lucky that we had enough in the tank to get us to Kentucky, north of the crises, come the time we had to leave this lovely land that is Nashville, Tennessee.
