Author: L. Kent Wolgamott

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Ruthie Foster Brings Her Multi-genre Music to Memphis

It’s fine to call Ruthie Foster a blues artist. She has seven Blues Music Awards sitting on the shelf at home, and she’s been nominated for the Best Blues Album Grammy three times. But she’s not really a blues artist. She’s a blues-folk-pop-rock-gospel and even a little country artist. “That’s entirely fair to see me that way,” she tells me in a recent phone interview. “Those are all genres I grew up listening to. Like everybody’s record collection, I have a little bit of everything. I enjoy all those genres of music. That’s why you hear so many different genres, even in my live shows.”

Foster’s mix of styles and powerhouse church-rooted singing, reminiscent of Aretha Franklin and Mavis Staples, has been with her since she was a little girl in the tiny town of Gause, Texas. “It comes from growing up in rural Texas, being exposed to a lot of gospel music. That seems to be the root of what my music comes back to,” she says. “Blues, my dad would listen to blues, and he’d make me tapes of Lightnin’ Hopkins, Muddy Waters, and old soul — Sam Cooke and all of those.”

Ricardo Piccirillo

Ruthie Foster

A shy kid, Foster wanted to play guitar and piano more than stand in front of people and sing. But by 14, she was a soloist in her uncle’s choir and seemed to be headed toward a career in music. Then, after going to school in Waco, where she added reggae to her musical mix, she made an independent, distinctly non-musical turn that got her out of Texas. “I’d just graduated college,” she says. “I went into the Navy and spent a year away from music. I went into a helicopter squadron. That’s where I picked up a lot of rock. That’s what the guys there listened to.”

The next adventure came after Foster got out of the Navy, landed in New York, and began playing in folk clubs. Atlantic Records got wind of the talented singer and offered her a record deal. But the label wanted to groom her to be a ’90s pop star. As Foster explains, Atlantic “wanted an Anita Baker. I used the time to get to know a lot of songwriters. I used the time well, learning to sit in front of people, maybe just two people, and entertain them with just my voice and guitar.”

After three years, Foster left behind New York and Atlantic to return home. “My mother wasn’t doing good, and I was homesick for Texas and needed a little simpler life,” she says. “Music was getting to a point where it had burned me out. So I came back, joined my church. I’d studied broadcasting in the Navy, so I got a job at the local TV station. Then I stumbled into another popular band. We were playing every weekend.”

When Foster’s mother passed two years later, she decided to pursue music full time, releasing her first album, Crossover, in 1999. Another self-released disc followed in 2001. Then Foster teamed up with Houston independent label Blue Corn Music, on which she has released six albums — three of them Grammy-nominated.

Joy Comes Back, her most recent record, is an aberration for Foster, with only one original. The rest include “What Are You Listening To?” by Chris Stapleton; her take on the Four Tops’ “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever”; and a single blues track: Mississippi John Hurt’s “Richland Woman Blues.”

Still, more surprising covers are infused with the blues. As Foster says, “I was playing my resonator [guitar], and that’s what led to my twisted version of [Black Sabbath’s] ‘War Pigs,’ slowed down and done like Son House. Sabbath fans might call it sacrilege. But I know Ozzy’s a blues fan.”

Naturally, her acclaimed live sets continue to favor her many original compositions, in all their trademark diversity. “That’s the joy of having so many genres and putting out records that are all over the place,” she says. “I’ll only pick a couple from Joy Comes Back. I see that as more of a singer/songwriter record, and I want my live show to be more exciting.”

Ruthie Foster appears at Acoustic Sunday Live! The Concert to Protect Our Aquifer, with Maria Muldaur, Dom Flemons, Guy Davis, and Doug MacLeod. Sunday, December 8th, First Congregational Church, 7 p.m. Proceeds go to Protect Our Aquifer.

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Music Music Features

Mac Sabbath: This is Your Brain on French Fries

Mike Odd has a tough job. He’s the man in charge of Mac Sabbath, the world’s greatest drive-through metal band that’s made up of twisted doppelgangers of McDonaldland inhabitants led by a creepy clown who’s got a problem with fast food and sings about it via Black Sabbath songs.

An instant sensation after Black Sabbath posted its video for “Frying Pan,” a reworking of “Iron Man,” on Facebook and Twitter in 2015, Mac Sabbath burst out of Southern California and has been wreaking its fries-meet-heavy-rock havoc around the world since then.

“When you’re a weirdo, you hold certain things near and dear,” Odd said in a recent phone interview. “Black Sabbath invented heavy metal, punk rock, goth, everything that’s cool. In the late 1960s, there was nothing as creepy and ominous as Black Sabbath. They’ve really influenced everything you love if you’re a counterculture weirdo. And there’s no bigger weirdo than Ronald.”

Paul Koudounaris

Mac Sabbath

Ronald would be Ronald Osbourne, the twisted genius behind Mac Sabbath, who bears a striking resemblance to a certain clown from the fast-food chain that shall not be named — for copyright infringement purposes — and shares his last name with Black Sabbath’s star, Ozzy.

He’s joined in Mac Sabbath by cheeseburger-headed guitarist Slayer Mac Cheeze, gumdrop-shaped bassist Grimalice (who may or may not be related to Grimace), and drummer Catburglar, a particularly twisted cross between the Hamburglar and The Catman from Kiss.

Their repertoire consists of Black Sabbath songs repurposed for Ronald’s campaign to free the earth of fast food. So “Paranoid” becomes “Pair-a-Buns,” “Sweet Leaf” is, in Mac Sabbath’s hands, “Sweet Beef,” and “Never Say Die” becomes “Never Say Diet.”

“A lot of people look at it and think it’s a pro-fast food culture thing,” Odd said. “In the same way they look at Black Sabbath and think they’re doing a commercial for evil at large. Then you break down the lyrics, and they were making a warning about evil. This is a warning about fast food and the evils it will do to your soul.”

The band started out playing small shows. Then came the social media posts from Black Sabbath.

“That’s what really made it happen,” Odd said. “You’ve got to give it up to Black Sabbath, not just for influencing the band, but for promoting the band. It wouldn’t have gotten to this level if they didn’t get the joke and support it.”

The Black Sabbath post landed the band an invitation to play England’s Download Festival, along with Kiss, Judas Priest, and Mötley Crüe. Returning to the U.S., Mac Sabbath got out of California and has extensively toured, continuing to connect with fans around the country.

“There’s something that happened with these characters and Black Sabbath,” he said. “I guess it’s the way they work together so well. They’re both so psychedelic and 1970s and creepy at the same time. There’s something about the nature of people who like Black Sabbath that relates to the cheeseburger culture as well.”

For now, Mac Sabbath exists only on stage, with Grimalice shredding and Osbourne being Osbourne.

“You’re talking about a disturbed clown who maintains he’s traveled in the time/space continuum from the 1970s to warn us about the evils of fast food,” said Odd of Osbourne. “So you have a person — I don’t know if person is the right word — you’re looking at an entity who is constantly battling technology.”

What it ultimately is is good, clean, loud-rocking fun for the whole family — at least that’s how Odd sees it.

“One of the most amazing things about it is it looks like this big, scary, gnarly thing with these laser-eyed skull clowns and this heavy, creepy music,” he said. “When you break it all down, everything he’s doing is a kid-friendly, family thing. There’s no R-rated stuff. No sex or drugs. Ronald doesn’t work blue. It’s an entertaining thing the family could enjoy.”
Mac Sabbath plays the Hi Tone Tuesday, September 3rd at 9 p.m. $20.

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Music Music Features

Vandoliers: Texas Sounds, Recorded in Memphis

CREDIT: Cowtownchad

There’s only one way to describe the sound of the Vandoliers —Texas music. That’s because the six-man band mixes up genres — punk, country, Tejano, psychedelia, folk, and blues — that could only have come from the Lone Star State. And on Forever, their Bloodshot Records debut, they do so with confidence, verve, and their own sense of style.

“That’s exactly what we were trying to accomplish,” Vandoliers’ leader Joshua Fleming says of the “Texas music” tag. “We’re big fans of the Texas Tornados, Alejandro Escovedo, Joe Ely, and Robert Earl Keen. But there’s a lot of different sounds in Texas. The Austin scene is where psychedelic music started in the ’60s, with the 13th Floor Elevators. There was a big punk scene in Austin. When I found out The Clash backed Joe Ely, that was kind of the vibe I was working at — taking the sounds of Texas and adding my story to it. The older you get, the more you realize you’re a product of your environment. We’re a Texas band. There’s no other genre.”

Cowtownchad

The Vandoliers

Fleming, a native Texan, put together The Vandoliers four years ago, and the group released two albums on indie label State Fair Records — Ameri-Kinda (2016) and The Native (2017) — before signing to Bloodshot. But Fleming was far from a beginner when he started the Vandoliers. “I played my first show when I was 12 in an original-music band,” he says. “I’ve been playing in bands for 17 years. The last band I had, The Pulses, was the first band to tour and be signed. I’m not saying it worked out because it didn’t.”

In fact, the punk-rock lifestyle of The Pulses almost destroyed Fleming, who, among other things, had an eye ailment that left him nearly blind for months after the band broke up. But it was that downturn that led him to the music that became the Vandoliers’ musical foundation.

“It got dark, and I needed a lifestyle change,” he says. “It got really dark. I got attuned to the music of Marty Stuart, it was kind of rockin’ country. That sent me down a wormhole of my dad’s record collection, listening to the stuff I’d heard my whole life.

“When I was doing the punk stuff, I heard it and thought ‘I could do that.’ The same thing happened with country music. I took my stuff and moved from electric guitar to acoustic guitar, minor scale to major scales.”

Such influences come more to the fore with the new album, which was produced and recorded by Memphis’ own Adam Hill (Low Cut Connie, The Bo-Keys, Deer Tick, Don Bryant, Zeshan B) at American Recording Studios.

Recording in Memphis helped give Forever that perfect raw mix of defiant punk, rugged Red Dirt country, and vibrant Tejano. The full-length’s 10 songs blend emblematic rock-and-roll with bold horns, violin, and a slather of twang. Meanwhile, the band — bassist Mark Moncrieff, drummer Guyton Sanders, fiddler Travis Curry, electric guitarist Dustin Fleming, and multi-instrumentalist Cory Graves — have honed in on a blend that’s uniquely their own, equally informed by the country and Tex-Mex sounds of their home state and the unbridled music of their youth. And, as the Vandoliers have taken up the Texas music mantle, with the fiddle, trumpet, and pedal steel helping to cover the stylistic range, Fleming has cleaned up his act.

“It’s a lot less sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll and more me getting married and having a cocktail with my buddies,” he says. “Right now, I’m not drinking. I lost my voice the last time we were on the road. I didn’t want that to happen again. So I’ve done even more lifestyle changes. I’m kind of boring now, but I feel great.”

Not only does Fleming feel great. He’s grateful. “I’m grateful I have the opportunity to be on a label like Bloodshot,” Fleming says. “I’m grateful I get to go out and play in towns I’ve never been to.”

The Vandoliers play at the Hi Tone on Friday, August 9th, $10.

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Low Cut Connie Brings Raucous Rock to Minglewood

CREDIT: courtesy Missing Piece

Pounding and standing on the piano he calls “Shondra,” Adam Weiner cranks out some serious rock-and-roll with his band Low Cut Connie. A Jerry Lee Lewis-meets-Little Richard-on-Broadway showman, Weiner comes by his brand of distinctly American music naturally.

“When I was 13, I bought a Lead Belly album,” Weiner says. “My music listening has been chronological, almost. I got into country blues, then blues, then Elvis, Jerry Lee, and the Sun stuff, Little Richard, and the New Orleans piano guys, and then Ray Charles. I grew up in New Jersey, so Springsteen in the 1980s is a big touchstone. Then Bob Dylan. What’s the bottom line in all this? American rock-and-roll.”

courtesy Missing Piece

Adam Weiner of Low Cut Connie

So what exactly is American rock-and-roll? “Boogie, soulful,” Weiner says. “It should touch your heart, making you want to dance. And it’s about freedom. Free your body, free your mind. What was Prince’s music about? Freedom of spirit, freedom of sexuality. More than being cool, it’s about letting go, being free.”

In other words, something like what’s captured on Dirty Pictures (Part 2), a joyous 10-song ramble Low Cut Connie recorded along with its predecessor — Dirty Pictures (Part 1) — at Memphis’ legendary Ardent Studio.

Adam Hill, who worked at Ardent at the time, recalls, “Adam Weiner worked for Beale Street Caravan years ago, when he was going to U of M. Early on, they played a show at The Buccaneer that was recorded by Beale Street Caravan, and they liked my mix, which led to us making Dirty Pictures (Part 1) and (Part 2). I’ve been engineering for them the past year, working on their next batch of songs in various locations. The band is tight and loose, in all the best ways. We’ve been cutting basic tracks live with everyone in the same room.”

Dirty Pictures (Part 2) starts with the taut, driving “All These Kids Are Way Too High,” which finds Weiner looking out at zombies standing at a show rather than dancing up a storm to the rollicking piano and the big beat. It’s his job, Weiner says, to get the walking dead to put away their phones and get moving. And that’s a different challenge every night.

“Every city has a different culture,” he says. “Every country has a different culture. Daytime versus nighttime, outdoor versus indoor. Do they know our songs, or do they have no idea who we are? Every show should be different. You try and make people free, to put them in the moment. I’ve got to be aware of what’s going on in the moment … what’s going on outside the walls of the club. I’ve got to bring all of that into the moment.

“At the end of the day, I try to give people what they really want,” Weiner says. “They’re in a communal situation, they’re part of the moment. They feel their feeling and release that feeling. It’s not a total escapism, but a tension and release.”

This winter and spring, Weiner will be getting the crowds going with a run of headlining dates in the U.S. that extends into May, before heading to the United Kingdom and Europe. It’s the latest series of shows in what has become a never-ending tour for Low Cut Connie. It’s the kind of work that needs to be done by a band that, little by little, is breaking out.

Formed seven years ago, and named after a waitress who wore low-cut tops, the band released its first recordings as Get Out the Lotion, and followed that album with 2012’s Get Me Sylvia and 2015’s Hi Honey — all critically acclaimed.

The band got its biggest shot of attention in 2015, when President Barack Obama put “Boozophilia” — a 2012 song Rolling Stone described as “like Jerry Lee Lewis if he’d had his first religious experience at a Replacements show” — on his Spotify summer list.

That got Weiner a White House visit. Earlier this year, he had another summit meeting, talking with Springsteen after attending one of his Broadway performances. The Boss, it turns out, is a Low Cut Connie fan — which thrills the New Jersey-born Weiner.

The attention, the recordings, and Low Cut Connie’s never-less-than-great live shows are now paying off, bringing the band an ever-larger audience. “The word is spreading,” Weiner says. “The tent is expanding. We’re a cult band and people are finding us, coming to see us.”

Low Cut Connie plays the 1884 Lounge at Minglewood with the Klitz and Louise Page on Saturday, March 9th, at 9 p.m.