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The first weekend in July once again, saw the biggest American
lifestyle festival, Notts Americana,
which I believe is in its 22 year. After a worrying rain-filled
Friday that saw the main stage having to close down and the bands
re-locate to the Lady Eastwood Pavilion, the sun came out and made
the Americana 2002 on of the best
festivals I've had the pleasure of attending.
My main interest was to check out the rockabilly and gospel
shows. But, first a word about the band that opened on the main
stage Friday afternoon. Number 2 stage (rock 'n' roll stage) has
always been compared by a character we all know as Looney Chris. A
very good friend of Chris Jackson, he has performed at Americana
over the years with his own band Badaxe.
For the first time, Badaxe had the great pleasure of playing on the
main stage and though I didn't arrive in time to see Badaxe, several
people said that they had given an excellent performance. Funnily
though, it was only after their performance that the heavy rain
rolled in!
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Lynette
Morgan & The Blackwater Valley Boys
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Lynette Morgan & The Blackwater
Valley Boys were on stage on Saturday afternoon.
Formally known as Lynette Morgan & The Tennessee Rhythm
Riders, this band has played the Americana on several occasions
over the past 3-4 years. An excellent five-piece band, their
style is more in the mode of the 40's - 50's bands playing
hillbilly music, western swing and a little blues. I spoke
to Lynette about why the band changed their name and what
they will be doing in the future.
"The drummer (Mark Richards) and bass player (Gary Boller)
had families and wanted to get mortgages etc; so we decided to
disband…it wasn't going to be the same without them! We decided to
do something a little bit different and go out on our own. So we did
it without the drums and went to the five-piece. I suppose we have
gone a little more rootsy. We want to do a bit of everything. We're
still trying to build up a repertoire, we've got a couple of hours
of music there and if we were to play for a couple of hours, we'd
cover a lot more rockabilly stuff, a lot more Louvin's harmony stuff
and throw in a bit of country blues. Just the stuff that we
like."
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Nick Willett
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Nick Willett is
a 25 year old raising star who wowed them at the Hemsby
Rock 'n' Roll Weekender in May, drawing many of their crowd
to the Americana. On stage Nick thrills with his supercharged
stage presence, energetically moving around the stage injecting
his pelvic wiggles very much like a young Elvis Presley,
without trying to be any sort of Elvis impersonator. His
highly charged enthusiasm spills over into the crowd, getting
the crowd on their feet and dancing. In the words of one
musician that I spoke to, "he stole the whole weekend".
Definitely someone to watch and not to miss next time around.
I spoke to Nick after his show when he explained how a young
man in his early twenties is drawn to the music of 40 years
before.
"I just want to say: You know my pop brought me up with
Rick Nelson, Roy Orbison, The Patters...Presley stuff. The thing is,
I probably would never sing a note in my life if it wasn't for
listening to that music.
What I identify with the Presley style, type of thing was; he
was his own man and I plan to be my own man as well, as far as
material, vocal style and everything. Because if you don't have a
vehicle to get from one point to another to even start singing, then
I wouldn't have been singing. So I would kind of sing along with
things, just the rhythm and feel of that music that I really
identify with. But I mean to strive to be my own man. I liked guys
like Dean Martin and Jackie Wilson and things like that.
So that's my taste of music and it seems like that raw pure
rock 'n' roll, rhythm and blues that fits music with feel. Even when
I'm playing, things don't have to be right on the money or picture
perfect notes play-wise. Because if you can play the song perfect
with no feeling, it doesn't mean anything, because you don't feel it
and the crowd doesn't feel it. So that is what I aim to do with my
live shows as well."
On stage two Johnny & The
Jailbirds had the early evening spot. Formed in 1973,
this five-piece rock 'n' roll force write their own music and had
the arena rocking, with the jivers taking up the open spaces. Johnny
says that his song "Clickety Clack", which is getting
plenty of airplay in the clubs and is about to be recorded in
Memphis by the great Haden Thompson.
Last act on Saturday night on stage two, was one of
rockabilly's greatest female artistes. Billboard named her, the
"Most promising Female Vocalist for 1956". Capitalising on
Elvis Presley's success, Janis Martin was
dubbed, "The Female Elvis". Janis announced that this was
her first outdoor performance in 50 years and went on to completely
thrill with the likes of Roy Orbison's "Ooby Dooby",
"Cracker Jack" and drawing on her own songwriting, she
performed "Hard Rocking Mama" a song she wrote in 1986,
which she said described her own life, spawned by the devil! Janis
also gave tribute to her RCA label mate with "My Boy
Elvis". Certainly a riveting performance to end the night.
Sunday at Americana is famous for it's morning Gospel Show.
This year it was Paul Overstreet
who
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Paul Overstreet
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drew the massive crowd. Never a preaching type show,
Paul offered a light-hearted tale of how as a youngster
he was often marched out of church by his mother for fooling
around with his brothers and instructed to cut his own switch
for the punishment to be delivered. The quandary was; if
you chose a switch to thick it might break your back; if
it was too thin you would be sent back to pick another,
therefore it was sense to pick one just right. Paul also
told of his own fight with drink and stronger drugs and
of his turn to Jesus in the 1980's.
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Jenny Anne Bulla, Paul Overstreet
& Al Perkins
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Paul Overstreet is now strongly involved with the New
Christian Country music and produced the CD for Suzie Luchsinger
(Reba McEntire's sister). We were treated to some excellent
music form Paul and his band. Fiddle and mandolin player
Jenny Ann Bulla included some sensational vocals both on
back-up and taking lead vocals for a couple of hymns. A
very talented young lady who has been with Paul's band for
the past three years. The rest of the band comprises of
Mike Chapman - bass guitar, Tom Hemby - electric guitar,
Rich Kij - drums and Al Perkins - steel guitar. To add to
the high profile performance, a children's choir from Doncaster's
Kirksandall Junior School joined Paul and the band on stage.
Saying that the children said that they didn't have a name
for the choir; Paul christened them the Rich and Famous
Choir, which seemed to go down well with the young girls.
Maybe we'll see them again next year, watch for them!! A
mention must also be made of Looney Chris and Badaxe performing
their own alternative gospel show on Stage 2. Unfortunately
I didn't manage to catch any of it.
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John Lewis
Rimshots
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Following on was another top rockabilly trio. From
Pembrokeshire Ian Cal-Ford & The
Brakemen (Ian also goes out as the Railmen). Ian and the
band backed Tommy Cash on his last trip to Europe and Ian is hoping
to get Tommy back over her again in the near future. On Sunday Ian
and the Brakemen gave us a high-fired performance with numbers that
took us back to the early rockabilly career of Johnny Cash.
Another top rockabilly band from Wales is Cardiff based
The Rimshots, offering
another high-energy performance. The Rimshots are popular
regulars at the Americana and have appeared in their own
right and as the band backing Narvel Felts over the past
few years.
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Don Herron
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One of the most popular hillbilly - rockabilly bands
to court the British country fans is BR549.
They first came over to the UK in 1996 and have returned
several times over the years. One of the best bands to grace
the Americana stage; BR5-49 started out playing for tips
at Robert's Western World in Nashville. John Michael Montgomery
once offered $25 for every Hank Williams song that Chuck
Mead could sing. It cost Montgomery $600 and he called it
a day after his wallet gave out well before Mead did. Two
of the original band members (Garry Bennett and Smilin'
Jay McDowell) have left for personal reasons and to pursue
other careers, being replaced by Chris Scruggs (son of Gail
Davies) and bass player Geoff Firebaugh. I spoke to Don
Herron after the show, and he explained what was happening
with the band.
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| Geoff
Firebaugh & Chuck Mead |
"Jay has gone doing some film editing…working in
movies and videos. Gary has got a publishing deal and
is writing songs and stuff. They came off the road, is more
or less what happened! They decided that they wanted to
stop living a carnival life (laughs) and have maybe a wife
and some kids. You can't blame a person for that! We had
a lot of fun with them, we got to do a lot of things and
see the world with those guys. It'll be something that I'll
never forget. But these two guys we've got now are a blast
to play with…Chris Scruggs and Geoff Firebaugh."
What are we going to see with the band for the future?
"A new CD, The Best of BR549 has just come out (see our
CD review page). We are glad that it did! It worked out perfectly
for this run. We'll be back in the studio and doing some recordings
and be back out with an album real soon. With these guys, we've been
talking about making two trips to Europe a year and hopefully we'll
get that started within the next six months."
I'm sure the British fans will be pleased to hear that!
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Chuck
Mead & Chris Scruggs
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"Oh it's great to play for them!!! They are a lot
of fun. We played Dingwall's (London) this time and now
we've just played the Americana festival. We've just played
Spain this time, Norway, Sweden and played a couple of festivals
in Holland that went really well. It's been a great tour!
We've been out here for three weeks and it's been a lot
of fun. We can't wait to come back. It went by so fast it
felt like it was just one week. (laughs)"
There are a lot of BR549 fans out there that can't wait for
them to come back (I'm one of them)! The whole weekend was a blast
at the Americana. Perfect weather (after a poor start) and perfect
music!!!
This year's Americana was one of the very best; with a huge
crowd attending even though rain had been forecast over the weekend.
The big man in the sky smiled down on us once again, making
Americana 2002 a highly successful event. A very big thank you as
always to Bev & Chris Jackson who
suffer the heartaches and tribulations of putting on an event of
this magnitude. Without people like these who take a gamble on the
unpredictable British weather, life would be a little less
exhilarating. Thanks again!!!
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