On the Road with Greg Brown

by Richard Davis wehideandseek@yahoo.com

[Note: This month, we have a guest writer with a story about a Roadtrip with Greg Brown. If you are interested in contributing a Roadtrip story, please let me know before you take your trip, to give me time to get you on the schedule. Even if you just have questions about what is involved, feel free to email me at ira@jambands.com. And, I'd love any feedback on this or past Roadtrips! Thanks, Ira]

I believe that every taper on every tour is a grandchild of Alan Lomax, hitting the Blue Highways of this nation with happy feet and a dharma like mission to preserve the arrangement of random notes that accumulate in our hearts and fuel our dreams. We chase and record these experiences and they in turn provide us with insight and patience for this ever-darkening world. Touring alone allows for pause in motion; to reflect, recharge, empower and remind myself that music, beyond all other sensory delights, is what links me to the universe. In the most solitary of states, hundreds of miles from friends, family and familiarity, I can create a connection with the Unknown. It is here that a single song has the power to define a sense of place and forge a template in my mind that can be accessed any time I need comforting.

On October third, after a full day of work and crisis at the women's shelter, I drove home exhausted, yet exhilarated at the prospect of four shows in two states. A week on the trail of the most personable and invigorating troubadour performing these days: Greg Brown. Mr. Brown is a poet masquerading as a grizzled songwriter, accentuated by an acoustic guitar and twenty-odd years on the road. Born to an electric guitar playing mother and a Pentecostal preacher, his voice sounds as if he, "swallowed a distant thunderstorm". Brown's songs contain the most poignant, thought provoking, and humorous lyrics you have yet to hear. His is the tape that follows Widespread Panic's as the drive home enters the single digit moonlit hours.

Greg channels the culmination of the human experience through a jazz imbued up-tempo rhythm and blues aesthetic oft mislabeled as
'folk'. He has a catalogue of well over one hundred songs and with each performance he mixes up the lyrics and song structure while performing a different set from the previous night. Greg welcomes tapers and most nights there are at least a couple of rigs in the audience while a soundboard patch is generally available. There exists a network of traders both off and on line and a database (a GregBase of sorts) of his performances is chronicled on his web site (www.GregBrown.org). His current tour is of significance because Greg'll take at least a year off after December. He has been a constant road warrior and this will be his first real breather since packing up his guitar and strutting out to NYC at the ripe age of eighteen. For these dates Greg was joined by his erstwhile electric gunslinger and Midwestern blues-rock legend, Mr. Bo Ramsey (www.boramsey.com ). This lanky picker is currently producing the great Lucinda Williams' next album. The mini-tour was: 10.04.00 @ Kingsbury Hall, Salt Lake City UT. 10.05.00 @ The Avalon Theatre, Grand Junction CO. 10.06.00 @ Teikyo Loretto Heights Theatre, Denver CO, culminating on 10.07.00 @ Sunset Nightclub, Fort Collins CO.

I finished cramming my pack as the first presidential debate dragged on into infinity. Salmon pink clouds receded over my cabin with the sunset. I sped out of Flagstaff on 89 North in my '83 blue Volvo wagon. Lightning darted across the horizon, the wheels hummed, and Toklat the wolf-pup curled up for the haul. Rain threatened, but didn't deliver until midnight when we entered the Arizona Strip, that wondrous netherland of the Colorado Plateau. At the turning of 230,000 miles on Simba's odometer brilliant bolts illuminated the profiles of elk grazing along the road. Drowsiness turned to nods so I rolled down the windows for this ride's last hour before sputtering into Bryce Canyon National Park. Simba revealed her first signs of strain that would eventually cripple us as we stalled into a trailhead parking lot. I crawled into my sleeping bag, readily succumbing to slumber.

I awoke, shook the frost off and careened down a trail into the Fishbowl Formations; towering orange and white hoodoos that define Bryce's otherworldly landscape. The spires sparkled in the dawn's splendor as I jumped over a crevasse. Gasping in amazement, I touched a dear friend's turquoise necklace as pine boughs bent to brush needles across the gap. This is the reach of music's arm, the filling of a void otherwise impenetrable. My breath, heavy with anticipation of that night's show, clouded out in the chill morning air. A jay darted between solitary hoodoos and rose like my heart, ecstatic to be back on the pavement and gravel, chasing the muse. With trepidation the blue car sparked up and we were off, out of the wild and headed towards the Concrete Jungle.

Simba jerked to a halt in the city and refused to start. I hopped out and echolocated the venue with show radar coupled with murky directions from clueless students. Kingsbury Hall rises along a quad on the outskirts of the University of Utah; a grassy oasis after circling the spaghetti street plan of SLC. It's interior is resplendent; with guilded moldings, a stage flanked by colorful murals, and a ferocious balcony that overhangs half the floor. During the soundcheck this pretty architecture made for a nasty slapback. Not even the capacity crowd could eat up this reverberation, clearly audible on the otherwise pristine soundboard.

For the soundcheck the dynamic duo treated the soundman and I to a rare Come Back Baby and a Driftless, neither to be heard again during this tour. James Keelaghan, one of Canada's finest songsmiths warmed up the attended faithful w/ a set of songs peppered with smokejumpers, rodeo barrel racers, and tales of secretive love. Greg and Bo's set was as follows:

Blue Car, 'Cept You And Me,Babe, In A Town This Size (Kieran Kane), Betty Ann>only One Wrong Turn this tour, the only Lord, I Have Made You A Place of the week, Down At The Mill, the lone Vivid of the tour, Living In A Prayer, this tour's only Samson & Delilah, Waiting On You, only Good Morning Coffee of the run, Slow Food, River Will Take You, Like A Dog, only Sadness of these sets, Never So Far. Encore 1 Marriage Chant. Encore 2 Billy From The Hills (only appearance this tour). Blue Car, with the line, "it's good for one more trip to you", became my anthem of this tour, possibly Simba's last. Coupled with its farewell lament to a lover, this song distilled a decade of roadtrips in my Volvo and the recent departure of a soulmate overseas into a powerful aural elixir. A perfect opener as I grappled with the conundrum of where I would go if I got Simba running again; back to Flag or on to Colorado. But no good would come of these mental tortures, so like a wayward mind on a strange trip I refocused on the experience at hand.

Greg compared SLC to Pleasantville, "This town looks so nice, it's like people went out and picked up each leaf as it fell from the tree". Such mild ribbing continued in the religious-content songs smirking heavily in the set list. He prefaced Lord by deadpanning, "I suppose I would be remised if I played SLC and didn't o a religious number". Before Mill began he recounted growing up, "in the church and around sawmills.a good rounded education for a boy.", and describing the bawdy environs of a mill; comparing the drunken brawls within to the speaking in tongues and fainting of an open-bible service. "This life is brief, we have no idea of where we're going, we're just kind of flopping around.flopping around is good for people.it's kind of my whole start on things". When Samson wailed and pounded it railed against organized/impersonal religion and I too wished to "tear this old building down". Greg then introduced his most recent cover, Town. Some covers shine light on a performer's personality at times obscured in their work, but this selection compliments Brown perfectly. Dog wound up barking each show and to close it out, Greg would howl and then the audience would erupt in a cacophony of canine clatter. After the encores I packed up my gear and ran out to release Toklat. I bet she heard the din of Like A Dog erupting out of the venues every night. We ran a few laps around the park and collapsed in front of Simba's grill, sweating and muttering prayers to the auto goddess. I slapped on a new fuel pump relay, smudged the 240-DL with sage, eased in behind the wheel, closed my eyes and turned the key. To my surprise she fired right up and at that instant I knew Colorado was destination. Forget all the tickets in hand; the show was just so damn good, I would gladly risk breaking down in the middle of nowhere to see the next one!

It took forty-five frustrating minutes to crawl through SLC and reach I-15. Those crazy Mormons had closed down all the on ramps due to construction. Simba was fed up with the Stop Go traffic and had just begun to falter when we finally connected with the Interstate. She performed better with the increased speed and straight-ahead route. Exhausted, I pulled off outside the Fishlake Mountains and slept like the dead. I had planned to climb the San Rafael Knob and cool off in the Green River between UT and CO, but the trip had turned into a mission: No turning Simba off, even to refuel (No, I didn't smoke at the pump), until at the next venue, tape the show, camp, and start all over again.

The Avalon was easy to find, standing prominently along the quaint promenade of Main Street. It is a refurbished movie theatre that, judging by its Star Wars era upholstery, was remodeled as 1979 turned into 1980. The sound engineer this night was the most technically savvy of all this tour. He had toured with Harry Belafonte for seven years and his attention to dialing in Greg's complex voice was unwavering. The dat board of this night is easily the most enjoyable of the run. The soundman gave me a beautiful XLR connection (made possible by a last minute dash to procure cables at the local guitar shop, still open only because Greg and Bo had just left it) and went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that I was happy.

Steve Forbert, another 'singer/songwriter' icon, opened with a stunning set, winning me over as a new fan. Unfortunately he did not permit me to tape, and I willingly complied with his wishes (not even busting out the Sonic Studios and stealthing). His stance was probably due to the fact that he had two live CDs for sale in the lobby. Greg and Bo's set:

Your Town Now> River Will Take You, Like A Dog, Rexroth's Daughter, A Little You, In A Town This Size, Hey Baby Hey, Slow Food, Betty Ann, Never So Far, Blues Go Walking, Lullaby, Almost Out Of Gas, InaBell Sale, The Days Of Courting (a song just debuted in Alaska earlier in the week), Letters From Europe, Blue Car, Encore 1 Whatever It Was, Encore 2 Sleeper.

Greg and Bo were possessed as they ripped through the first four songs without more than a second's pause. Just as with a Dead first set this hinted at a tight, hot evening. Rexroth's, off Covenant, is Brown's current lyrical Holy Grail and contains two favorite new lines; " i would have followed you anywhere but hello rolled into goodbye." sums up many a tourheads' emotions. And, "what is real but compassion as we move from birth to death." is sublime in its understated wisdom. The other highlights were the only Hey, Letters, and Sleeper of this run. Letters From Europe is a rarity, having only popped up a handful of times since its appearance in 1986. It manifested another moment of synchronicity: my old love is over there and it's refrain, "We said we know its weird here, but it weird there too.and if you miss the USA, well sometimes I do too", surmises our nation's (and my heart's) current state. Slow Food, an anthem of simplicity half Wendell Berry and half Albert King, was precluded by a spirited and scathing rap on today's SUV driving, cell-phone blabbing, screw-the-environment consumer economy and mindset. Bo's solos throughout this night were of such a caliber that Greg was constantly grunting out
'ahs' and
'oohs' of amazement. Whatever came off the blocks at a breakneck pace; a departure from its usual mid-tempo arrangement. Sleeper invited those of us with itchy feet to, "come and go with me", as another mesmerizing night eased to an end.

I floated out to the lot to play roulette with Simba and won. We camped that night alongside the laughing Eagle River, under a clear sky sparkling with star showers. Stopping early that night turned out to be wise. The first snow hit that evening, leaving ice and accidents on the high mountain passes up the road. In the morning I discovered a gas leak in the back of my fuel line, adding to my car's woes. 'This trip brought to you by Duct Tape'! We eventually crossed the thawed elevations under the afternoon sun and frolicked in the fresh snow during a brief stop on Vail pass. After the descent from peaks to 'big shitty' I got lost around Englewood. I turned a corner and Columbine slapped me in the face as we drove by its entrance. I paused, shuddered, turned up Big Bill Broonzy and continued in search of the venue. The peace and honesty in Greg's music is no small part of a cure this society needs to embrace if we are to move from violence to empathy.

A few minutes later I found the elusive Teikyo college campus. Having arrived well before load in, I stretched out under a stand of pine beside the theatre, sheltered from the drizzle which around the Chief Hosa exit on I 15. I fired up my MSR, cooked some dinner, and was about to put spoon to mouth when an ancient security guard ambled up the slope towards me. His superior had spotted this riff-raff and sent him out to investigate. I told my story honestly, he joined me, and we shared laughs at the expense of 'rules and regulations'. Steve Forbert opened again. Digi cable problems sent me scurrying to the balcony to run my Sonics. They would do fine in this room the size of a high school assembly hall. But by the time they were hung the soundman thought he had the problem solved. Unfortunately the signal was full of hiss and I would have made a cleaner tape upstairs. Oh well, tape under the bridge. I was joined in taping solidarity by a D-7 patched out of my M1 and a little 909 ECM running from the fourth row. The list was as follows:

Small Dark Movie (a tune inspired by the Cohen Bros' Fargo, Your Town Now, River Will Take You, the only Mattie Price of the run, Rexroth's Daughter, Like A Dog, Just By Myself (the anthem of single life), A Little You, Marriage Chant, Lullaby, Living In A Prayer, InaBell Sale, Never So Far, Encore 1 In A Town This Size, Encore 2 If I Had Known.

Greg was in a fine mood and joked, "A little nicer weather on the other side of the mountain today. People out there, along the highway, fishing.assholes". This echoed my frustration of not always being able to stop everywhere (or anywhere!) while on tour. Highlights included the seductive Lullaby in which Greg channels a hillbilly Barry White (I know, I know, just work with me here!) and the stellar If I Had Known. This was delivered with a faster-than-normal tempo, with a soaring Bo solo at the end. Hands down his best fret work of the tour. As Brown repeated the refrain, "some things just get better and better." Bo spiraled out ascending runs, ratcheting the intensity notch by notch until the audience erupted. Mr. Ramsey smiled and nodded as the tune ended, a rare show of emotion for this reserved gentleman/accompanist. Greg threw his big arm around Bo's shoulder as they walked offstage, true comrades deservedly proud after a solid show.

At the start of the night the promoter stated that Greg and Bo would play in Boulder tomorrow afternoon; an in-store appearance at 'Bart's CD Cellar' on Pearl Street. YES! An additional moment of guaranteed wonderment. I slept outside of Nederland that night and in the morning found the record shop and cloned the Avalon for the store's owner. The P.A. arrived but no one on hand knew quite what to do with it. My suggestions, at first haughtily dismissed by the promoter (not Bart), got it running and the sound tech did do a wonderful job of dialing in Greg, Bo and their subsequent surprise guest, David Williams (who played on an early Brown release, Iowa Waltz). The aisles were packed and a longer than planned set ensued: 'Cept You & Me,Babe, Blues Go Walking, Betty Ann, Lullaby (in which Greg sang the UB40 'red red wine' refrain and brought smiles all around), Down At The Mill, the only Real Good Friend, and Speaking In Tongues* of the shows, Two Little Feet*, Like A Dog*, Your Town Now*, Encore China*. The highlights were the last four tunes with David on mandolin and the only appearance of China (Mr. Williams on fiddle). The board was a tiny thang so I ran my deck out of the submix and ran Bart's deck out of the 'tape out'. The vocals came out a touch low, but no complaints here. After tearing down the PA I ran out to the car, flung the parking ticket off of the windscreen, and drove to the Flat Irons to pounce through the powder with Toklat. We then headed north on I-25, stopping just shy of Wyoming in the outpost town of Fort Collins.

The Sunset Nightclub has a railing-enclosed stage that, paired with it's teal drum riser and puke green roller rink paint striping along the walls, resembles the bridge of a spaceship on some bad BBC sci-fi serial more than a
'nightclub'. Another friendly sound engineer provided me a healthy patch and my friend with the Sony 909 mic was sidestage. Set list: The Days Of Courting, Rexroth's Daughter, the only The Way My Baby Calls My Name, Like A Dog, the only Why Do You Even Say That?, Two Little Feet, the only Ballingall Hotel, InaBell Sale, River Will Take You, Almost Out Of Gas, the only Shit Out Of Luck, Your Town Now, Slow Food, the only Hillbilly Girl, In A Town This Size, the only Laughing River, Lullaby, Just By Myself (which New Mexico's favorite jam band, ThaMuseMeant, covers), the only Think About You, Encore the only Brand New '64 Dodge.

Brown deviated from the heavy mixing up of his sets this tour, working many gems from his new albums Covenant and Over & Under into each night's list. This was far from unwelcome for when a song popped up again, Bo's solos were markedly different, the lyrics had changed a hair, and sometimes a whole tempo shift had occurred. Days opened things on a mournful note, acknowledging the end of this tour through the mountains. It was a bittersweet postcard from this all-too-brief honeymoon with the road; the hard reality of a romance cut short. Two had a reggae chinka-chank to it that kept our feet tapping. In fact this show had me up and dancing the whole time, and not just because of the crappy fold out seats. The GregAndBoShow threw down the serious rhythm this night. Gas brought my mind back to Simba's leak and whether we would burst into flames before the 16 hour drive home was over. Your Town's line, "where are all the young bands gonna play .and not before some corporation bow" in this anti Wal-Marting of America anthem holds painfully true in this day of SFX and other chain-operated venues. With his own label and hip booking company (www.flemtam.com) Greg shows the way for future generations through his small but righteous actions. '64 evoked a remembrance of times long gone, a lesson in the experience of a moment through the act of mindfulness, and was the perfect selection to end a perfect trip. Just By Myself had Greg scatting over Bo's gritty leads, sounding like Professor Longhair in a rocking chair on a back porch in Iowa.

Sipping whisky silently with Greg as fans descended on him after the show, one new convert saddled up next to me and said, "this was my first show and I can't get over how he expresses melancholy and happiness in a single line, how does he do it, what is that?!?". To which I just grinned, gulped the rest of Jack, and replied, "Life".

I strode out of the bar and into the crisp autumn air and grabbed Toklat. We walked down a rail yard, forgetting the hours ahead of us, rejoicing in streetlight lit leaves falling to the grass. The rolling hills of northern New Mexico were our pillows that night and as I pulled into work the next day, to begin a double, there was not a tired bone in my body. Memories, both digital and cerebral, were forever catalogued. Miles had made good their promise of patience and insight. Marrow had been replaced by music and inspiration coursed deep blue through my veins. And my Blue Car had delivered me safely home, with the possibility of future journeys still alive within her.