Tag: Minglewood Hall

For most bands, touring the country in a big, old, blue, not-entirely-reliable bus might be a bit out of the ordinary, but when it comes to transportation, the Portland, Oregon, folk-pop outfit Blind Pilot don’t follow the indie-rock norms of cramped vans and U-Haul trailers. In 2008, the group toured the West Coast by bicycle, rigging trailers to carry their equipment. Not only was it environmentally sound, it was good exercise. In the years since then, Blind Pilot has grown from a two-piece into a sextet. So they bought a bus.

“We toured with a 15-passenger van for a couple of years,” says singer-songwriter Israel Nebeker. “It wasn’t so bad, but not being able to sleep wears you out after a while, and you never have your own space.”

The enormous blue bus, which suggests a more conservative equivalent of the vehicles made famous by Ken Kesey and the Partridge Family, seats all six band members comfortably, with room left over for a sound tech, driver, and gear, which makes the long hauls between gigs much more bearable. On the other hand, it often breaks down. “Luke [Ydstie], our bass player, is usually the one who tinkers and finally fixes,” Nebeker says. “Usually it’s only a minor problem. There’ll be a hose that blows, and then you have to replace it.”

Blind Pilot’s music is bound up in the notion of travel, and Nebeker’s songs address exploration and wanderlust as their primary subject. “I’ve always been drawn to writing about place and the meaning of place,” he says. “The band was born in that atmosphere of traveling for the sake of traveling, although we’re much more about the music than the mode of transport.” There is, of course, a downside to travel: “For the past three years, I’ve been away from home a lot longer than I’ve been at my home in Oregon,” he says. “So that is always on my mind, feeling that absence of a home.”

Back at home, the band is at the forefront of the Pacific Northwest’s burgeoning folk-pop scene, which includes Norfolk & Western and Horse Feathers in Portland and the Head and the Heart in Seattle. These artists are distinguished by a love of old American music, although their engagement with the past can be alternately reverent or sincere. Perhaps because the band travels so intently or perhaps because they’re simply better at integrating their influences, Blind Pilot don’t sound like they’re self-consciously drawing from a trendy set of influences.

“Any music you make is of course influenced by everything you’ve heard,” Nebeker says. “I totally admire people who sit down and say ‘I’m going to write a Paul McCartney song or a Spoon song’ and can actually do it. I’m just much more comfortable trying to make something that doesn’t sound like something else. And if it starts to sound like something that I know about, I’ll try to steer it in a different direction. We all have a love for old roots and country music, but I don’t think we ever purposefully try to make a song sound a particular way.”

In 2008, Nebeker and longtime friend Ryan Dobrowski, who plays drums, recorded the basic tracks for Blind Pilot’s debut, 3 Rounds and a Sound, then brought in friends to help flesh out the austere acoustic tracks. Those friends were eventually absorbed into Blind Pilot. When Nebeker began writing songs for their second album, We Are the Tide, he found himself writing for six people instead of two. “I was more comfortable having space in the songs, and I even tried for that,” he explains. “Usually in the past I’ve written what sounded good with me playing guitar and singing, and this time around, I was thinking about how it would be orchestrated and what would sound good.”

Nebeker did much of the writing about as far away from Portland as they could get: the coast of North Carolina.

“Ryan and I went in the off-season when it was stormy, and we were alone on the beach,” Nebeker says. “A lot of the images from ‘Half Moon’ came from walking up and down the beach. ‘Colored Night’ was also written there. There aren’t a lot of big cities out there, so there were more stars at night than I’d ever experienced. That song came from seeing these brilliant colors in the sky.”

Away from that setting, Nebeker and the rest of Blind Pilot recorded the songs in Portland.

“We’d been playing the songs on our own in a live setting, but there was a point in the studio when we were able to explore more,” Nebeker says. “It took a bit of experimenting trying out different instruments on different parts and seeing what worked. We had to make a choice: Are we going to keep the songs as we play them in our practice space, or are we going to do things that we might not be able to replicate live? We didn’t stray too far out, but we definitely were trying things that we didn’t expect.”

For Blind Pilot, traveling to new places ultimately is integral to their creative freedom, and vice versa. Or as Nebeker sings on the title track to We Are the Tide, “Our time is ever on the road, the ride is in what we make.”

Blind Pilot, with Brett Dennen

Minglewood Hall

Tuesday, October 18th

8 p.m.; $20

Wanda Jackson started performing with “Wild Side of Life” singer Hank Thompson when she was a teenager, but her early recordings — now considered essential — were never more than regional hits.

That changed in 1958 when she charted “Let’s Have a Party,” an Elvis Presley cover. It was especially appropriate since it was Elvis who had encouraged Jackson, a country singer, to give rock-and-roll a chance.

Fifty years later, Jack White, who produced the fantastic Van Lear Rose album for Loretta Lynn, also encouraged Jackson to try something new. The result is The Party Ain’t Over, a diverse collection of covers ranging from lush, horn-laden versions of songs by the Andrews Sisters and Amy Winehouse to a lean American Recordings-style take on Jimmie Rodgers’ “Blue Yodel #6.”

Jackson plays Minglewood Hall on Thursday, May 26th. Here’s what rock’s first lady had to say about the latest phase of her career.

Flyer: I’ve heard that Loretta Lynn would cook for Jack White.

Wanda Jackson: Would she?

I think so, yes. And she’s always struck me as the jealous type.

Oh really?

Did she ever give you the stink eye?

Stink what?

You know, did she ever try to take you to “Fist City” for making a record with Jack?

Oh no. I never see Loretta. I probably haven’t seen her in 10 years.

I’m kidding. But I was listening to The Party Ain’t Over and to Lynn’s Van Lear Rose, and they couldn’t be more different. Jack’s arrangements, and especially his guitar playing on songs like “Portland, Oregon,” put Lynn’s voice in a completely different context. Your performances are less surprising somehow because you’re already singing rock-and-roll and have recorded with everybody from the Cramps to Elvis Costello.

That’s right. But Jack pushed me hard to get those performances. My only real fear going into the project was that he might want me to sing in a more current style. If that’s what he wanted to do, we were going to butt heads. I worried if I work with him, will my longtime fans even want to hear that? Then I met Jack, and he played some tracks he’d put together for me, and they sounded so good. He said, “Wanda, I’ve been a fan since high school. I don’t want to change your sound. I want to give you fresh songs.”

So you feel like he got something special.

He pushed me all the way into the 21st century. He kept saying, “Push harder.” I didn’t know what he meant at first. Push harder? I’m already a belter.

The last time we spoke, you told me about singing with Hank Thompson, who was a honky-tonk singer with a flair for jazz. You said the most exciting thing about being a girl country singer then was that you had to learn to yodel. And you close The Party Ain’t Over with Jimmie Rodgers’ “Blue Yodel #6.” That takes you back to the beginning of your career.

I guess that does bring things full circle in a way. A couple of songs we recorded didn’t come off the way we wanted, so we were trying to think of new songs. I was talking to Jack, and my husband said, “You do know she yodels, don’t you?” He said he’d like to hear, so I got a guitar and sang “Blue Yodel.” Then he started playing it, and for a while we played it together. Then I thought it’s ridiculous for me to be playing when I’m here with Jack White.

It’s probably my favorite track on the CD. I like how simple it is. Did you feel at home with all of the material?

I never thought I’d record a Bob Dylan song. “Thunder on the Mountain” was a challenge because the words come so fast. His recording is slower. And it’s also 10 minutes long. Bob and Jack have been friends for a long time. Jack says he has three fathers: his heavenly father, his biological father, and Bob Dylan. When Jack asked him which of his songs he’d like to hear me sing, he didn’t hesitate. He knew it had to be “Thunder on the Mountain.”

Has this project changed how you tour? You’re playing bigger venues.

Yes, I’m playing more theaters and fewer clubs. And I have four bands that I play with depending on what part of the country I’m in. That way I’m not always having to rehearse with new bands, which takes a lot of pressure off. And the money’s better. And I’m going to be playing shows in Canada with Adele. She’s had the number-one record in the country, and she asked me to open for her. That’s going to be really strange, but I think I can handle it. I just hope I can win over that kind of audience.

Do your shows touch on every period in your career or do you focus on the new stuff?

I do it all. I open with the older material. Then I throw in a yodel, which the crowd loves. I could encore with the yodel. I do a tribute to Elvis and close out with gospel.

The night after hosting one regional roots-music legend and groundbreaking female performer — rockabilly/honky-tonk queen Wanda Jackson (see page 24) — Minglewood Hall welcomes another in Mavis Staples, the onetime Stax stalwart, who, with her Staple Singers family band and solo, blended soul, gospel, and pop into some classic music during her heyday. An erratic recording artist in the ’80s and ’90s, Staples hooked up with roots-rehab specialist indie label Anti- a few years ago, crafting two well-received albums, 2007’s We’ll Never Turn Back and last year’s You Are Not Alone, the latter produced by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy. Staples will be joined this week by some old Stax compatriots and a newer generation of Memphis aces, who together form the R&B band the Bo-Keys. The outfit, led by bassist/producer Scott Bomar, is readying a new album, Got to Get Back, for release next month. Mavis Staples and the Bo-Keys play Minglewood Hall Friday, May 27th. Showtime is 8 p.m.

Athens, Georgia, band Of Montreal boasts quite a stylistic range over the course of their 10 albums. But from the group’s early, straightforward psychedelia to their mid-career glam-funk frenzy to their most recent turn to exuberant, dance-oriented pop, a few mainstays have been the driving force: frontman Kevin Barnes’ buoyant harmonies, overtly descriptive lyrics, and hypersexual appearance. The man’s got panache.

On stage, Barnes plays the self-absorbed hero of a colorful, dystopian world played out through theatrical performances, typically guiding both band and audience through career highlights, crowd-pleasing without fail. Dive into an Of Montreal album and you’ll find plenty of material to deconstruct, but Barnes has succeeded in crafting those layers with a large dose of immediacy. He’s built an empire that jumps straight from his creative brain to the stage. Of Montreal plays Minglewood Hall on Thursday, May 19th, with Painted Palms. Showtime is 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 in advance and $22 at the door.

If guitar virtuosos are your thing, this week provides a chance to catch back-to-back performances by two extraordinary talents whose dissimilar styles show off the instrument’s versatility. Memphis’ own Eric Gales makes an increasingly rare hometown appearance at Minglewood Hall on Friday, March 25th, while Raul Midon, a player who’s not easily pigeonholed in any identifiable genre, brings his act to the Bartlett Performing Arts & Conference Center on Saturday, March 26th.

Like so many child prodigies, Gales has had more than his share of troubles as an adult performer. Drug problems and subsequent legal problems dogged him throughout his 20s and 30s, and Gales’ 2010 arrest for cocaine possession only days after being released from a three-year prison sentence left many fans wondering if the man who’s been described as the second coming of Jimi Hendrix would ever get his act together. While that may be the headline-grabbing story, more interesting for music-lovers is Gales’ almost imperceptible evolution from a young shredder to a mature artist whose songs have the emotional intelligence and depth to balance all the flash and psychedelic sizzle. Relentless, his ninth CD and his third for Blues Bureau International, finds Gales riffing on his history as a “Bad Lawbreaker” and living up to the Hendrix comparisons with songs like “The Liar” and “On the Wings of Rock-and-Roll.”

Raul Midon’s nimble tenor and gift for melody earns comparisons to Stevie Wonder, but his guitar playing is seldom if ever compared to other artists because there aren’t any other players like him. Midon’s heavily percussive approach to the guitar brings Latin influences, sophisticated jazz harmonies, and smooth R&B to bear on richly detailed songs that reflect his personal struggles and boundless love of life. Blind from birth, Midon worked as a session singer and player for artists like Julio Iglesias, Shakira, and Jose Feliciano before launching a solo career.

Eric Gales is at Minglewood Hall, Friday, March 25th, at 9 p.m. Tickets are $10. Raul Midon is at the Bartlett Performing Arts & Conference Center on Saturday, March 26th, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20. — Chris Davis