The 2000 Festival was a great success!
Guy Clark at the 1999 festival
Photo by Jack Kotz
2000 Thirsty Ear Festival
September 1-3
JW Eaves Ranch
Santa Fe, New Mexico
In a relatively short time the Thirsty Ear Festival- a two-day,
outdoor/indoor musical blowout- has established itself as one of the most
unique musical events in America. In 1999 Guy Clark, Corey Harris, James
McMurtry, Paul Wine Jones, and dozens more filled the streets of an Old
West town with the finest roots music America has to offer. This year we
once again held the festival at the J.W. Eaves Movie Ranch, where John
Wayne, Johnny Cash, and countless others have filmed. Music lovers drank
microbrew in the same saloon as Clint Eastwood, perched under the general
store portal where the Silverado bunch hung out, ate BBQ in the rustic
streets, camped in the high-desert fields near the Santa Fe ranch, and dug
the finest folk, blues, and country music America has to offer.
Festival underway at Eaves Movie Ranch.
Photo by Jennifer Esperanza
This year we featured larger acts and expanded our attendance, while
maintaining the down-home feel that made this year's festival so special.
Some of the talent featured this year: Texas hero Joe Ely; blues greats
Corey Harris and Alvin Youngblood Hart; RL Burnside sideman and slide
guitar fiend Kenny Brown; insurgent country's Damnations TX; Louisiana's
edgiest singer-songwriter, Mary Gauthier; slide bouzouki master Chipper
Thompson; Santa Fe jam band ThaMuseMeant; acid-blues-rock guitarist Key
Frances; Alex "fingers" Maryol's blues band; and singer-songwriter Aimee
Curl.
Joe Ely (Austin)
"There is nothing at all gentle about Joe Ely's music," says TIME Magazine
in a glowing profile on the Texas legend. "Ely's songs are bleak and
wistful and angry, awash in the colors that Joe picked up on all of his
magical misery tours. ...His songs are what country music used to be before
it became a main tributary of show business." Over the course of three
decades and umpteen albums, Ely has joined Guy Clark, Steve Earle, Townes
Van Zandt, and Stevie Ray Vaughan as one of the Lone Star State's most
revered heroes. And his unique blend of country, rockabilly, Tex Mex, and
even Cajun influences has confounded critics and created an ever-expanding
cult following. Raised in flat, dusty Lubbock with its endless landscape
and vast horizons, Ely has been inspired to fill up all that empty space
with a raw kind of foot stompin' music that conjures rivers and ranches,
high plains and flamenco bars, smoldering passions and sad laments. Whether
he's playing with his Lubbock buddies Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore
in their legendary trio, The Flatlanders; cranking out the best roadhouse
music in America with his own band, which proves nightly that an accordion
or pedal steel guitar can pack the same sonic punch as an electric guitar;
or delivering stripped-down singer/songwriter poetics, Ely offers some of
the finest music to be found. Anywhere. www.ely.com
Corey Harris (Virginia)
When folks first hear Corey Harris' timeless voice and deep-blues guitar
playing, they think they're listening to one of the old blues masters. The
rising star of Alligator Records (he's recorded four critically acclaimed
discs on the Chicago label), Harris sings and plays with a depth and power
that belies his relatively young age. B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and other icons
who have invited Harris to tour with them have been as impressed with
Harris as Thirsty Ear Festival audiences were last year. Rolling Stone, in
a four-star review of Harris' blues-ragtime-African musical stew, Greens
From The Garden, called the Denver native's music "a rainbow unto itself,
from the silvery plunk of his National steel guitar and the brown-dirt
honesty of his singing to the scuffed-gold horns blowing behind him. As a
bluesman, Harris walks the same winding road as Taj Mahal, drawing from the
multiple traditions and hard truths of American black experience.... Harris
fashions both great entertainment and strong revelation."
Alvin Youngblood Hart
Hart is one of only two or three young African-American bluesmen (among
them, Corey Harris) who combine a love and deep respect for tradition with
an experimental side that is taking the blues form to new heights. Winner
of numerous prestigious blues awards (including Living Blues and Downbeat
album of the year awards and a recent WC Handy Best New Blues Artist
honor), Hart literally represents the future of the blues in America. His
latest disc on the Hannibal label, Start With The Soul, combines elements
of blues, soul, jazz, and power-chord rock & roll. You will not find a
more compelling mix of soulful vocals and musical versatility on the scene
today. A bona fide original. Hart will bring out his full electric trio
this summer, as well as play a few more traditional acoustic tunes.
Damnations TX (Austin)
The Damnations TX take barroom earnestness to the nth degree. Harmonious cowpunk might best describe the most impressive and popular insurgent country act to break out of Texas last year. "The Damnations follow country music's history of harmonious family duets, but this Austin band is hardly made up of steadfast traditionalists," wrote Rolling Stone of the band's excellent '99 debut, Half Mad Moon (Sire). "Led by sisters Amy Boone and Deborah Kelly, the Damnations mix gamy Appalachian rowdiness, raw punk-rock passion, soulful honky-tonk and simple, immediate songwriting.... They tuck old-style backwoods references to Jesus, the devil, and drinking into their songs. The Damnations post their influences-the Carter Family and X-like markers on an open road, but they make the ride all their own."
Butch Hancock (Lubbock)
The "Lubbock mafia" is well represented at this year's festival. Along with
his buddies Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock makes up one
third of the legendary Texas band, the Flatlanders, which is often called
"more a legend than a band." While his musical co-conspirators tour
constantly, Hancock has been known to drop out of the music scene
altogether, as his mood suits. Or he might show up just about anywhere -
could just as easily be a music hall as a campfire- sporting his guitar and
a batch of down-home Texas songs that have been covered by
singer-songwriters far and wide. The question for fans of Texas music is:
Will Hancock join Ely onstage Saturday night? The answer is that we don't
know. Regardless, you don't want to miss Hancock's knock-dead solo acoustic
show on Sunday.
Kenny Brown Band (Memphis)
He's been called America's best slide guitar player, and if you've seen Brown live or heard him play on records by R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and any number of Mississippi bluesmen, you know that's not an exaggeration. In concert and on his own critically acclaimed disc, Goin' Back To Mississippi, Brown delivers a ripping brand of rock & roll that marries the Mississippi Hill Country stomp he's created with R.L. Burnside to the country-inflected sounds of the early Stones. When the rain hit for half an hour and folks crowded into the saloon at last year's festival, they might have expected a quiet microbrew. What they got was an impromptu incendiary set by Brown that many have said was the highlight of the festival. Let's hope for another half-hour monsoon.
Mary Gauthier (Boston)
In a recent Billboard article, Mary Gauthier (pronounced Go-Shay) explained her self-proclaimed country noir style of music simply: "It's about telling the truth and making it rhyme." A high school dropout and generally a misfit who bounced back to study philosophy and become a successful restaurateur, the Louisiana native tells stories about "the people I have met along the way, including those who have taken me in. I'm trying to expose the humanity of those whom many consider to be society's rejects. They are the people I find interesting, maybe because I have considered myself to be one." Her unfaltering directness, soulful voice (she's been called a folkier Janis Joplin) and solid melodies have landed her on the stages of many of the country's most prestigious festivals and garnered excellent reviews of her latest disc, Drag Queens In Limousines (Groovehouse/In The Black). Comparable to a very good but unsettling movie, Gauthier crafts folk music with a serious edge. www.marygauthier.com
Chipper Thompson (Taos, NM)
Chipper Thompson lives in Taos, New Mexico, but he grew up in the heart of
the Tennessee Valley-a microcosm of the Old South with both cotton fields
and Appalachian foothills-where he was well grounded in the musical
traditions of his Scots-Irish ancestors, as well as regional blues.
Thompson's deft handling of guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, dulcimer, and banjo
make him a viable threat, whether cranking out his own brand of "folk &
roll" or teaming with other musicians for bouts of Appalachian/Celtic folk
songs. "We wanted to play and record songs with the same intensity and
near-apocalyptic passion we'd heard on old field recordings," says Thompson
of his latest disc, Am I Born To Die. "So often folk music has a flowery,
sweet image, but that's not how it's performed by the old-time singers in
the pubs in Ireland. We want that smoldering sound." www.folk-n-roll.com
Photo by Jennifer Esperanza
ThaMuseMeant (Santa Fe)
Santa Fe's best jam band has had a busy year. They signed with High Sierra Records, a national label, and released Grow Your Own, an acid-folk, jam-rock extravaganza that stands as their strongest effort to date. They've toured incessantly throughout the country, appearing at a number of prestigious festivals (including California's High Sierra Festival with Los Lobos, Leftover Salmon, and the like). And their fan base, from the Carolinas to California, has grown by leaps and bounds. Here's a chance to catch them on their home turf for an afternoon main-stage appearance. And don't miss the band's late-night jam session in the saloon on Sunday. www.thamusemeant.com
Key &
The Players (San Francisco/Santa Fe)
An dedicated psychedelic warrior who uses his guitar to zap audiences into Dr. Strange-like nether dimensions of sound, Key's eclectic mix of guitar-based funk, blues-rock, and psychedelic crooning is as eccentric as the fiery-haired guitarist's stage presence. Inspired to embrace the guitar as a spiritual weapon after seeing Buddy Guy in concert, Key started out playing between sets at Robert Cray gigs. After a stint as a Motown session player in L.A., and time spent in London and New Orleans, he headed to Austin, where he often split sets with Ian Moore and Chris Duarte. After Stevie Ray Vaughan's untimely death, Key teamed with drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon of Double Trouble fame for an album of original music. He's since recorded two more sonically charged discs- '97's Cosmic Garage and Tiny Sparkles in '99. He currently splits his time between San Francisco and Santa Fe. In addition to his main-stage set, lovers of guitar-based blues-rock are encouraged to check out Key's saloon gig on Saturday night. www.keyplaysmusic.com
Alex
Maryol Blues Band (Santa Fe)
The most impressive guitarist of the talented young crop of Santa Fe players, Maryol and his band pound out a set of original, Chicago-meets-Stevie Ray Vaughan electric blues numbers. At age 19 Maryol is uncommonly advanced on his ax, showing both great technical ability-the guy can wail-and the equally important ability to restrain himself where appropriate, as is apparent on his '99 debut, They Call Me Lefty. One to watch in the coming years. www.audiogalaxy.com/bands/alexmaryol
Aimee
Curl (Santa Fe)
Aimee Curl has made her reputation playing bass and singing with Santa Fe's best jam band, ThaMuseMeant. But in the past couple years she has begun appearing solo, armed with only an acoustic guitar, a batch of great folk songs, and a knock-dead voice that "sounds as if she's channeling the ancestors," in one critic's words. And she can yodel too! Curl opened the second day of the festival last year with a gorgeous set. She's been busy writing songs ever since, many of which we'll hear during her Saturday afternoon appearance. www.thamusemeant.com
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