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LEFTOVER SALMON, "The Nashville Sessions"
and 9/23/99 THE FILLMORE, S.F., CA.
da Flower Punk
Oct. 12, 1999Sitting on a couch, ignoring the virtual chaos in the dressing room going on around him, Drew Emmitt is writing out a setlist for the second set at the Fillmore. The first version had to be changed because the band wound up doing several of the planned songs during the previous set. He finishes just in time for road manager Johnny Pfarr to burst in looking for it; it is his job to get them out on the stage before the band goes back on.
Just then a couple walks in. They are obviously close friends of Emmitt. He rises to hug them. After exchanging greetings, the woman asks about Drew's new baby. "He's doing great," Emmitt says. "Two months old today. He's ten pounds and 22 inches long." As he's saying this his whole stance has grown softer, his eyes are gleaming. There's loving in that daddy's eyes. The couple he's speaking to is smiling so big as they imagine the baby. The lines around their eyes are turned upwards, emphasizing long histories of smiling.
The band disappears to take its place on the stage, but as I wander out toward the floor, I'm still struck deeply by the scene I just witnessed. I'm imagining how hard it must be to be the father of an infant and have to be on the road, away from a new son. "I haven't seen him in three weeks," Emmitt explained, "it's hard. It will be another week before I get home." I know Emmitt has another son, a ten year old, so it's not like this is the first time around this block for him. And Vince Herman has two children of his own. It's the curse of life on the road that one doesn't get enough time to spend with their children. But I'm also struck by the eyes.
Two new songs from Leftover Salmon's new CD, "The Nashville Sessions," (1999: Hollywood Records) pop into my head. "Loving In My Baby's Eyes," sung on the disc by Taj Mahal, suddenly gets a new potential meaning in my mind. Maybe the song's not about a lover, but about a baby. Maybe it's about both. I have to go back and listen to it as soon as possible, I decide. Either way, "Loving In My Baby's Eyes" is not about a casual affair; this is deep stuff, family stuff. And as I glance back at the pretty, auburn haired woman, the Lucinda Williams track "Lines Around Your Eyes" comes to mind. "Something that happens every time you smile...."
It suddenly seems that one of these should be the first single LoS releases from the disc. I had been sure it would be "On The Other Side," a ripping rock number featuring John Popper on harmonica and Reese Wynans (Double Trouble) on organ, which clocks in at exactly three minutes. Unless of course it was "Breaking Through," a rocky grass tune that seems to tell the story of what "The Nashville Sessions" will mean for Leftover Salmon. A record so strong, filled with so many special guests, is sure to mean LoS will be breaking through from the jamband underground to mainstream exposure. But after this minor epiphany, I'm not really surprised to learn later that it's the Taj Mahal track that Hollywood will release first.
It was several songs into the first set before Vince Herman says a word about the new disc from the stage. The first order of business was getting people dancing. They did that right away. They soon do start hitting songs of the new one. I'd known Drew Emmitt was influenced vocally by John Cowan. What "Midnight Blues" reveals is that apparently Del McCoury and Doc Watson have been big influences too. The slide up a fourth here, the delay artfully inserted in the phrasing there, this is classic bluegrass stuff.
Unlike the album, however, which worked the studio for maximum smoothness of presentation, this is the live Leftover Salmon show, full of boundless energy, a rough-hewn sound working the stage for maximum danceability. It was, of course, eminently successful; people are sweating and bopping all around the world famous hall from the get-go; they keep it up all night. Salmon is relentless, breaking out big songs early. I would have guessed that a song like Vince Herman's reading of John Hartford's "Up On The Hill Where We Do The Boogie" would come late in the show; instead it rocks the first set. Not to worry, Leftover Salmon has many, many tricks in its bag. While on the new record LoS plays it relatively straight, on the stage LoS is to straight music what extreme sports are to straight ones. Live this is still slamgrass, no matter how true to tradition the record gets at times, such as on Marc Vann's banjo workout, "Five Alive," where he proves he can pick next to a legend like Earl Scruggs, which he does, and sound perfect there. Just as he does trading licks with Bela Fleck elsewhere on "The Nashville Sessions."
Emmitt makes clear again and again - both on CD and on stage - that he's as good on mandolin, guitar or fiddle as anyone on the circuit, as well as having a far better voice than most. Likewise, not only is frontman Vince Herman a consummate entertainer, he is a great picker of the acoustic guitar in the Tony Rice tradition, which can still surprise you after you hear him scream "FESSTIVAAAAL" a couple of times. It makes perfect sense to hear Emmitt going at it with Sam Bush and John Cowan on the record, or Herman with Randy Scruggs.
It hits me again and again during the course of the night just how stylistically diverse this band is. This song's a Gram Parsons number, that one's a Professor Longhair tune, another is Cajun, then there's bluegrass, old-timey stuff made new-timey, rock, some truly funky improvisation, Calypso, ska, reggae and more. The originals tend to sound as classic as the covers. And most songs fit into more than one category at a time if you want to get serious about even trying to classify them somehow.
I'm not the only one enjoying it. The floor is a writhing mass of dancers. There's a reason why most of the tapers tonight have opted for using microphones even though LoS gives such great board feeds to those who want them. The crowd is participating so much. There's the polyrhythmic clapping thing they get going on as the band jams and Vince Herman extemporaneously goes off about the universes that might be in those balloons being bounced all over the hall, and about time. There's the roar of the crowd when Wavy Gravy hits the stage playing a stuffed fish. Is this where former Jambay drummer Matt Butler sat in? And there is that extended version of "Wake And Bake" at the end of the show that seems to go on forever at the crowd's insistence. Soon it is just Tye North on bass, Jeff Sipe on drums, and keyboardist Pete Sears, who has been sitting in with the band all night. Man that guy can play. And the crowd just won't let them go. Sipe is soon standing, rubbing something on a cymbal that is making fantastic, unearthly sounds, before Emmitt and banjoist Mark Vann find their way back to stage for a rousing finish to a great night at the Fillmore.
I ask Jeff Sipe about what he was rubbing on the cymbal after the show. His eyes light up like a little kid's. "Come on, let me show you," he says, bounding up on stage urging me to follow, which I do, trying to make sure I stay out of the way of the crew packing up amps and guitars. "It's a drum stick, hollowed out a third of the way, with a piezo mike inside," he explains. "I made it myself." I'm fascinated by the instrument, because of the sounds it made, and because of the low-tech nature of the beast. But I'm equally fascinated by the enthusiasm Sipe has in showing it to me. Like the rest of the band, he so clearly loves what he does. There's something about the lines around their eyes.
The concert has been a supreme success. I'm wrung out from dancing, sweating and smiling like only someone at the end of a Leftover Salmon show can be. I talk to Vince Herman about the new record. Which do you think it will break on first, country radio or rock, I ask? "It's all the same thing," he insists, and I suddenly realize he's right; critics have been lamenting the fact that country radio sounds more like rock all the time, but for Leftover Salmon this is a good thing, not a bad one. Leftover Salmon seems so completely American to me all the sudden. Of course both country and rock audiences can get it, so can world beat fans on some of the tracks, like Herman's exhortation to "throw away all of your TVs" and join the festival in "Dance On Your Head" (which features Bela Fleck and Flecktones' saxophonist Jeff Coffin on the CD). It's not so much that Leftover Salmon may "cross over" the market barriers, but more like they are some kind of American "unity rock," suitable for any occasion, in any setting rural or urban, upper, middle or working class. As if to prove it, TNN, the country music cable network, taped an interview and parts of their show at their album release party September 14 in Nashville. (That may have aired by now.) And Phish's Trey Anastasio sat in with the band in Arizona just days before they hit the Fillmore.
"During the show Johnny [Pfarr] stuck his head around an amp and said 'Trey wants to play guitar with you,'" Herman says. But in the excitement and noise of the show, Herman doesn't hear him quite right. He's thinking "Ray"? So he turns to Drew Emmitt and says "some random dude wants to play your guitar." "Fuck no!" Emmitt said emphatically. Until they turn to see it's Trey, not Ray, and their faces lighten considerably, of course inviting the Phish guitarist onto the stage. Anastasio plays for about 30 minutes with the band, something those in attendance said was very fun. Herman didn't know it was the Meatstick dance going on under his nose for a while that night, but "culture's like that. It just keeps popping up all over."
With Leftover Salmon popping up all over the cultural map, with an album as strong as "The Nashville Sessions" just released, and concerts as fun as this one at the Fillmore - and the ones at this summer's High Sierra - I can only imagine it won't be long now before Leftover Salmon becomes a household name.
_____________flowerpunkprods_____________ For more on Leftover Salmon, check out http://www.leftoversalmon.com
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