 Guy Clark at the 1999 festival. Photo by Jack Kotz |
 Festival underway at Eaves Movie Ranch. Photo by Jennifer Esperanza |
2000 Musicians
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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 |
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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." |
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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. |
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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." |
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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. |
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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. |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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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Thirsty Ear Festival P.O. Box 29600, Santa Fe, NM 87592 505-473-5723 email: info@thirstyearmagazine.com Check out the on-line magazine at www.thirstyearmagazine.com. |