Nashville: Day Two (Friday March 29th)

1) Mary Gauthier

The impetus for my trip to Nashville was to see Morrissey perform at the Ryman Auditorium on the Friday night. Of course, Moz yet again cancelled his tour due to illness, the second time this year he has done so.  While the cancellation means that I cannot strike Moz off my must-see concert list, it did give me the chance to see Mary Gauthier perform at the Blue Bird Café.

I had never heard of the Blue Bird before last week, but it is a well-known venue whose mission is to promote songwriters, mostly up-and-comers. The list of well-known artists who got their start/'were discovered' here is impressive. It is a very intimate joint, roughly 35' by 45', which seats roughly 100.

Mary Gauthier gave a strong performance, mixing some of her older, more popular material (she led off with 'I Drink' and ended with 'Mercy Now') with newer songs, a lot of them having to do with trains for some reason. She was joined on stage by Mickey Raphael , Willie Nelson's long-time harmonica player, because she ran into him at the grocery store earlier that week and asked him to join her on-stage. (Gotta love Nashville.). His contribution added a very different feel to Gauthier's songs, adding a bluesy element at times.  She was backed up by two young Winnipeggers, Joanna Miller on drums and vocals and Scott Nolan, on guitar and keyboards. They actually opened the evening with several of their own numbers (nicely written songs, with a decent beat) and got a very positive reaction from the crowd. Mary Gauthier was also raptually listening to them from the back of the room.

So thanks, Moz: I ended up having a great night due to your cancellation...

Random celebrity sighting: 'Bunny Colvin', who attended the show. (Well, OK, the actor who played Bunny Colvin. I don't know his name. Look it up...)

2) The District

The bar count for yesterday: 5.

 - Broadway Taphouse and Mojo. The bar features over 70 beers on tap, roughly half of them (if not more) from American craft brewers. I had a couple of local pints from Jackelope Breweries, an APA, which was nicely hoppy (but not overwhelmingly so) and a Red Rye, which was OK.

- Rippy's BBQ, for dinner, a passable smoked chicken, which had a nice tang to it. This is more of a music club than a BBQ joint, as they feature a number of stages.

- The Wheel.

- The Whiskey Bent Saloon.

By this time, I'd figured out that most bands play a variation on the same theme: country and classic (bluesy and county-ish) rock covers. What sets the bars apart is the ratio of country to classic rock. The band at The Wheel played mostly classic rock, with a sprinkling of country, while the band at the Whiskey Bent were at the other end of the spectrum. (Although I did hear the first 'Sweet Home Alabama' cover at the 'Bent' around 1 AM. It surprised me it took that long.) I was ready to give up on hearing anything different ans out of that particular norm on Broadway until I stepped into...

- Robert's Western World. They had an honest-to-goodness 'classic' country band, complete with stand-up bass, fiddle, a couple of cowboy hats and a sequined shirt and they were damn good. Featuring older performers than the other bands I have seen, they were extremely tight. They played traditional country songs with obvious respect for the source material, which, it git me last night, is really its own brand of American folk music.


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