The Musical Box

Few businesses throw open their doors for live music during summer holidays quite the way that our pals at CD Central do. But for the Fourth, the festivities head downtown - specifically, Phoenix Park - for its annual Independent Music on Independence Day celebration.

This year, the predominantly local lineup includes the electronic soundscapes of Casino Versus Japan (10:30 a.m.), pop stylist Matt Duncan (12 noon) and pop rock fave Chico Fellini (1 p.m.). The music takes a break at 2 p.m. for the downtown parade and resumes with Nashville jam band Moon Taxi (3:15 p.m.). Independent Music on Independence Day concludes with the neo-minimalist sound sculptures of Lexington’s Tiny Fights (4:30 p.m.).

WRFL-FM and The Morris Book Shop are co-sponsors with CD Central of the event. For more information, call (859) 233-3472.

holly williams performs as part of the annual July 4th celebration red, white and boom - an event that just happens to be headlined this year by her father, hank williams, jr. photo by autumn dewilde.

Take a look at the promotion Holly Williams has undertaken since her new Here With Me album hit stores two weeks ago.

She has performed on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, played San Francisco’s prestigious Fillmore club and received glowing reviews from The New York Times and Chicago Sun-Times. Not exactly the flight pattern a country artist normally takes when releasing a new record.

But then, who said Williams is a country artist? Sure, there is the undeniable heritage to consider. The iconic Hank Williams is her grandfather, the rowdier and rockier Hank Williams Jr. is her dad and country/metal hybrid Hank III is her half-brother. And, yes, when you notice how the singer is being marketed (her label is Mercury Nashville) and the artists she is opening for this summer (Sugarland being at the top of the list), you can’t help but think country is unquestionably her calling.

“What I do is still singer-songwriter music, though,” said Williams who returns to Lexington this weekend to perform as part of the Red, White and Boom celebration downtown - a Fourth of July event, by the way, that will be headlined by father Hank Jr. “So I hope country music has a place for a female singer-songwriter.

“I mean, there is no Mary Chapin Carpenter, no Emmylou Harris on country radio right now filling that void. I would like to do that. But I would also still hope to play on a Steve Earle tour and than maybe a Keith Urban tour. At the end of the day, I’m singing these simple songs that I feel can be played to any audience.”

The tune that sits at the stylistic crossroads of Here With Me is Mama. Lord knows there have been enough tunes written for country music mothers over the years, although most have been penned from a male perspective. Williams’ song is more of a family matter. Its inspiration draws from childhood years when the singer’s father was away touring, leaving mother Becky Williams as the primary inspiration - musical and otherwise.

“My dad was touring 300 nights a year when we were young. We knew he loved us, but sometimes we would go two months without seeing him. So my mom was my everyday influence - even from a musical standpoint. She would play classical piano every night and was always singing in the house. She also always had this incredibly positive attitude. My parents eventually split, but she never talked down about my dad. So this was my thank you song to her.”

In the five years since the release of Williams’ debut album, The Ones We Never Knew, there was a major life interruption - specifically, a severe automobile crash in 2006 that also involved sister Hilary Williams. The experience is reflected on a Here With Me song titled Without Jesus Here With Me. The title suggests where her inspiration came from. But there was another influence at work - that of Hank Williams Sr., the grandfather she never met.

“Hank’s words taught me everything,” Williams sings. “Thank God I saw the light for me.”

“The accident wasn’t necessarily life changing in a spiritual sense,” Williams said. “I was raised in the church. But from a personal standpoint, when you’re in the hospital for a long time, you realize how much in your life you take for granted. I had broken bones in my arms and wrists but, really, I was spared physically. If you saw what happened to my car you wouldn’t imagine being able to come out of that in one piece.”

Ironically, Williams tends to distance herself professionally - but not personally - from father Hank Jr. these days in order to enforce the stylistic differences in their music. This summer, maintaining separate camps has been tough. For example, Here With Me was released the same day as a new Hank Williams Jr. album titled 127 Rose Avenue. And then there is the little matter of father and daughter Williams winding up - albeit in different sets - at Red, White and Boom.

“Musically, I don’t think there is a role for him to play with my music other than just being a supportive dad. We have always kept our musical lives unbelievably separate.

“In the beginning, I found clubs to play on my own, I found management on my own and I made Nashville contacts on my own. It was never like we were at some record company party with dad introducing me. He would never go to any of those parties anyway.

“So being on the same bill in Lexington is just a random thing, really. Every now and then I’ll get onstage and sing Family Tradition with him. Mostly though, he’s not giving me any more advice than any father would give their kid.”

Red, White and Boom begins at 4 p.m. on July 4 at the Cox St. parking lot behind Rupp Arena. Gates open at 3 p.m. Tickets are $20, $40 and $98. Call (800) 745-3000.

bill mallonee, right, with wife and performance partner muriah rose.

At the close on our interview, Americana songsmith Bill Mallonee apologized for not speaking in “short, pithy sentences.”

As a wildly prolific solo artist as well as the past and present chieftain of the newly reformed Athens, Ga. collective Vigilantes of Love, Mallonee was genuinely concerned. Yes, he spoke politely in lengthy, detailed narratives about his philosophies of music, his life in music and the very music itself, which accumulates at such a staggering rate that Mallonee needs multiple myspace pages and websites to make it all available.

But maybe the main reason Mallonee, who returns to Lexington on Wednesday for a performance at The Dame, has so much to say about his music is because the music itself is so worth talking about in the first place.

“I’m a real believer in the idea that if you love something, you just do it for the passion and not necessarily for the coins,” Mallonee said. “I mean, obviously, you don’t want to be living under a bridge, although we’ve come close to that over the past few years. But then, I’m 25 albums into this working life. I don’t even know if I can actually do anything else.”

Mallonee released his first Vigilantes of Love album, the indie project Jugular, in 1990. His first solo record, Fetal Position, followed two years later. The musicians he teamed with came from the fertile Athens music scene, entering and exiting his projects in revolving door fashion. His music reflected, in varying degrees, a soon-to-be flourishing alt-country movement, a solid Christian faith and an epic folk-rock album that continues to inspire him to this day.

“I always harken back to one of my favorite acoustic rock records, Neil Young’s Harvest. I’ve probably listened to that 1,000 times. I still put it on and am still moved by it.

“The lineups of the Vigilantes were revolving door in nature right from the very beginning. The version, I guess most people would remember is the one that played on the album we made with Buddy Miller, Audible Sigh. That was back in ‘99. We made a few records after that were very grounded in two guitars-bass-and-drums Americana stuff.

While Athens musicians stocked Mallonee’s rotating roster of bandmates, the city’s fabled music scene was essentially indifferent to his music at first.

“There wasn’t much superstructure in Athens for a band to get of town when Vigilantes first hit. We couldn’t get a date to play at the 40 Watt Club (the reknown Athens music haven), so we started playing out of town. We signed our deal in Austin and then hit radio in Atlanta shortly after that. Then the main clubs here in Athens said, ‘Oh, you’ve got to play here.’ Local scenes can be really fickle.”

Commerical success never fully greeted Vigilantes although albums like 1995’s Blister Soul (the finest of its major label recordings for Capricorn) and Audible Sigh earned Mallonee considerable critical praise. But after 2001’s more psychedelically inclined Summershine went largely unpromoted, Mallonee and the band called it a day.

“We were out there doing 180 shows a year, just four guys in a van. It became a formula for demoralization.”

For the following six years, Mallonee stepped up his ultra-indie solo career, writing songs at a more furious pace while touring as an acoustic duo with his wife, one time Lexingtonian Muriah Rose.

In recent years, Mallonee has issued demo-style EP discs of his songs on his website (www.billmallonee.com) as well as on a myspace page under the project name Works Progress Administration. The former also boasts a 2009 live recording by the reformed Vigilantes that features country inclined versions of Blister Soul and String of Pearls as well as a cover of Neil Young’s Harvest gem Out on the Weekend.

 ”I guess I just wanted to play in a band again,” Mallonee said of returning Vigilantes to active duty. “I wanted to see what would happen, but I wasn’t holding my breath as to whether the music would actually gel or anything.

“I even went ahead and booked a gig before we ever started rehearsing. I’m not saying that the show was all that tight. But it was fun. After we all got back in the van, I asked, ‘Well, do you want to this again.’ And everybody said ‘Sure.’”

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Wednesday’s Dame concert was originally to be a Vigilantes show but has been re-scheduled as a double bill performance featuring Mallonee and Rose with Texas song stylist Guy Forsyth. Tickets for the 8 p.m. performance are $7. Call (859) 231-7263.

wilco (the album)

You could have fun all summer long just with the titles to Wilco’s seventh studio album, especially seeing how the leadoff track of Wilco (the album) is Wilco (the song). Both are about as whimsical as Jeff Tweedy and company are likely to get on a recording. Luckily, the music inside is just as inviting and summery.

It could be argued that Wilco (the album) is the band’s first record that doesn’t take a defining step forward. As usual, it wraps itself around Tweedy’s alternately sleepy, wide-eyed and demonstrative singing. Just as predictably, the music still revels in allowing an attractive pop melody to melt and morph before our ears. And when the music even begins to suggest static frustration, Tweedy marches out his two prime aces in the hole: guitarist Nels Cline and drummer (and University of Kentucky graduate) Glenn Kotche.

Cut in three sessions - the first and third being held in the band’s Chicago digs while the second took place at Neil Finn’s studio in Auckland, New Zealand (following collaborations with the Crowded House chieftain’s 7 Worlds Collide project) - Wilco (the album) bears a temperament similar to 2007’s Sky Blue Sky with melodies that are light and lyrics that suggest the same but usually veer off into darkness.

Deeper Down, for instance, dances between vintage Brit pop and psychedelia. Chiming guitars mimic harpsichords as assorted, distorted ambience rumbles in the background. It’s kind of like hearing Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd in a Merseybeat mood. It’s a fun, summery listen, for sure. But, as always, there is restlessness in Tweedy’s hushed singing, especially in the way the lyrics parallel plumbing the depths of one’s psyche to the way a prizefighter is stalked for a knockout punch.

You Never Know, though, is something of a pop smorgasbord. Where do we start with on this one? The China Grove-style piano pounding? The George Harrison-like guitar flourishes? How about the lyrical devices Tweedy employs both as a scolding in the first verse (”C’mon children, you’re acting like children”) and as a lunatic sing-a-long chorus of “I don’t care anymore” that ups the danger element in this solid, summer pop.

Lyrically, the skies darken on Country Disappeared and especially during the romantic detachment of One Wing. The former is played essentially straight with echoes of vintage, mid-tempo pop-soul. But One Wing brings Cline and Kotche to the forefront with punctuated rhythms that jump start and cruise under Tweedy’s vocal despondency. Cline’s arsenal of squalls, twang and string tricks are artfully let loose from there.

Finally - well, actually, firstly, since its kicks off Wilco (the album) - we have Wilco (the song), which sounds like the coltish offspring of David Bowie’s Heroes with a hearty guitar hum and grand vocal hooks. And let’s not forget the chorus: “Wilco will love ‘ya, baby.” Eat your heart out, Telly Savalas.

There are also sonic textures throughout Wilco (the album) suggesting the layered, late ‘60s turns Brian Wilson fashioned for the Beach Boys that underscore the record’s prime selling point: that Wilco (the album) is, at heart, a masterful summer listen.

Now if Wilco (the album) would only incite Wilco (the band) to play Wilco (the song) on Wilco (the tour). Maybe that might even bring Tweedy, Cline, Kotche and the gang back to Lexington (the city). That would sure make me (the critic) one happy fellow.

steve earle

By way of explaining the depths of his affinity for the music of Townes Van Zandt last night at Memorial Hall in Cincinnati, Steve Earle had to also describe the kinship of their demons - specifically, their respective drug addictions. In doing so, Earle outlined a point in the early ‘90s when he was a near-destitute junkie. Curiously, Van Zandt was called in to help. “You know you’re in trouble when Townes visits you for a temperance lecture.”

With that, Earle launched into Marie, a harrowing song of love and death Van Zandt recorded for one the final albums released before his death on New Year’s Day 1977. Last night, Marie was one of the eight Van Zandt songs Earle performed from his new Townes album (an additional Van Zandt tune not featured on the recording, Rex’s Blues, was paired with the Earle original Fort Worth Blues). Some were near classics (Poncho and Lefty), some more obscure and whimsical (Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold) and some were surprisingly uplifting (To Live is to Fly, Colorado Girl) for someone usually branded as a black sheep among Texas songwriters.

Earle told the crowd one of his goals in making Townes was to illuminate the lighter side of Van Zandt’s writing. Of course, he used that bit of chat as an intro to one of his idol’s most ghastly songs, Lungs. “If this song doesn’t scare the (expletive) out of you,” Earle then admitted, “then you’re probably over medicated.”

The nearly two hour solo acoustic concert delivered in Memorial Hall’s un-air conditioned swelter sported a few early Earle favorites, too - including a still stark and devastating Goodbye along with more recently topical fare such as The Mountain, Rich Man’s War and City of Immigrants. The signature hits Guitar Town and Copperhead Road were served dutifully as encores.

But Earle clearly outlined the performance as a celebration - vindication, even - of Van Zandt’s music. In the evening’s finest tribute, Earle stirred a guitar-and-harmonica fire under the bluesy Brand New Composition - a tune of hopeful redemption despite a lyric about the singer’s new love having “arms just like two rattlesnakes.”

The devil is never far at bay in Van Zandt’s music. Leave it to Earle to make that gap seem both cheerfully and squeamishly thin.

some girls (released june 1978).

During the summer when disco duked it out with punk, The Rolling Stones played double agents by co-opting both along with pop soul (Just My Imagination ) the band’s own boozy, riff-savvy rock ‘n roll (When the Whip Comes Down) and purposely outrageous country music (Far Away Eyes). The hits were plastered all over the airwaves, from the dance club friendly Miss You to the maggot-ridden punk picture post card of New York Shattered. The album’s original cover art work incorporated portraits of several female celebs - including, in the third row, the late Farrah Fawcett. Nearly all objected to being viewed as the Stones’ “girls.” Topping it all, the Stones played Rupp Arena that summer in their last States-side swing as a truly dangerous band.

dr. john performed last night at the kentucky theatre.

It didn’t initially have the makings of Mardi Gras. In fact, the party Dr. John held last night at the Kentucky Theatre seemed a fairly relaxed affair with the veteran New Orleans pianist known more informally as Mac Rebennack opening Crescent City funk, pop and roll up to a far larger pop environment.

For the diehards of New Orleans soul, there was Rebennack’s famed cover of Professor Longhair’s piano party anthem Tipitina and its deep, rumbling keyboard whimsy. Equally tasty was the Meters-style funk of the 1973 Dr. John original I Been Hoodooed.

But Rebennack, dressed in a purple suit, hat and shades, also had a flair for pop standards like Candy and Makin’ Whoopee. He additionally discovered a fun intersection for past pop and jazz generations with his 1992 version of Do You Call That a Buddy? - a Louis Jordan hit long ago reimagined by Louis Armstrong.

From there, the Leadbelly staple Goodnight Irene became a showcase for swing while My People Need a Second Line was served as a bittersweet requiem for the dead lost in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. There was also an unexpected nod to Dr. John’s “night-tripping” music of the late ‘60s with Mama Roux, although the tune dealt less last night with gris-gris mysticism than it did with efficient, modern pop soul charm.

Through it all, the Mardi Gras spirit in the audience was limited to a few dancers in the aisles waving handkerchiefs. Then the spiritual jubilation of Lay My Burden Down bled into the signature 1973 hit Right Place Wrong Time. That, in turn, slid straight into the New Orleans carnival staple Big Chief.

Then, in the middle of the crowd, a black umbrella popped open and began to twirl as an audience content on sitting politely began to stand and groove. Sure, the umbrella was a necessity of the evening, given the summer thunderstorms raging outside. But inside, it was a catalyst - the firing pin of a subtle, seasoned Mardi Gras parade with the good Dr. John as its uncontested big chief.

michael jackson

During a late night dinner with a friend at Ramsey’s following last night’s Dr. John concert, a waitress posed this question.

“What do you think about MJ?”

At that moment, I had no opinion. I didn’t know what she was talking about. But the omen wasn’t good. There is only one reason a server brings up Michael Jackson before even asking for your order.

Sure enough, Jackson had died hours earlier. He was 50. But since the singer spent nearly 4/5 of his life as a performing artist, he seemed much younger. Befitting his often mercurial life, no one last night could confirm the cause of death.

I respected Jackson as an artist tremendously. He also infuriated the daylights out of me. As giant as his talent was, it could never match the out-of-all-bounds persona that surrounded him. He was a genius. He was a star. He was as commanding a presence as pop music has ever known. But his fallibility seemed to be that he recognized all of those attributes before becoming obsessed with them.

Now is not the time to go into that, though. This is an honest tragedy. Whatever the cause of his death, Jackson will always be as much a victim of pop’s grandest excesses as an architect of some of its most lasting commercial hits.

More on this later.

tim krekel

Tim Krekel never broke things open in Lexington the way he did at home in Louisville. There, he was, justifiably, a revered pop/folk/Americana favorite who caught a glimpse of national fame as a one time member of Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band and a collaborator and musical chum of everyone from Sam Bush to Bo Diddley to Delbert McClinton.

But Krekel was also a friend to the rock ‘n’ roll faithful in Louisville. Catching him at a festival there was always a blast. But hearing him within the then-smoky walls of the Air Devils Inn was less a performance situation than a relaxed evening among friends.

Within the past year, it looked as if Lexington might be beginning to take more notice of Krekel. There were two splendid but modestly attended shows at The Dame. Then came a Friday evening at last fall’s Christ the King Oktoberfest that had Bush and Krekel making cameos in each other’s sets. When Krekel came out late in the evening to harmonize with Bush on All Night Radio (a song the former wrote and the latter popularized) the sense of camaraderie was almost intoxicating.

That’s when you sensed good things were ahead for Krekel. But then, with musical pals like Bush at his side along with a devoted hometown fanbase following that was just beginning to creep to Lexington, some of that goodness had already been won.

Krekel died yesterday at his Louisville home. He had been battling abdominal cancer since the spring.

“I may just be happier now than I’ve been in my whole life,” Krekel told me prior to a Dame concert in March 2008. “Maybe that just comes from years of doing this. But my expectations these days are all in the right place.”

For more of our interview, click here.

daddy: tommy womack and will kimbrough. photo by joshua black wilkins.

The question this weekend won’t so much be “Who’s your daddy?” but “Who’s this Daddy?”

Daddy, as it pertains to a pair of regional performances on Saturday, is the name of a very resourceful Americana outfit fronted by Will Kimbrough and Sturgis native Tommy Womack. Both have been regulars at Lexington clubs, from Kimbrough’s rocking dates at The Dame over the past four years to Womack’s days in and out of Government Cheese that extend back decades to downtown shows at the long defunct Wrocklage.

Daddy, though, is a different beast. It’s a looser, earthier ensemble with strong elements of twang, soul and gospel cool. There is also a healthy roster of inspirations figuring into the band’s new For a Second Time album.

Nobody from Nowhere, for instance, is a moody everyman rocker that recalls the narratives of Steve Earle and Chris Knight while Wash & Fold cooks up a groove fueled by vintage Little Feat-style slide guitar and a crisp Bo Diddley beat. The killer, though, is Hardshell Case, which grooves with a slow, determined Southern glow and a guitar hook that sounds like Creedence Clearwater Revival. Keyboards then pepper the tune with a spiritual air that almost takes the music to church.

Kimbrough and Womack will perform as an acoustic duo at Midway College’s Francisco Farm Arts Festival on Saturday afternoon (5 p.m., $5) while the full band (rounded out by keyboardist John Deaderick, bassist Dave Jacques and drummer Paul Griffith) heads to The Brick Alley, 25 St. Clair St. in Frankfort for a Saturday evening performance (8 p.m. $10).

Call (859) 846-4049 for info on the Midway duo show and (502) 875-2559 for the full band Frankfort set.