For Release March 11, 2005
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David Lovett & Friends Release New Album
(KNOXVILLE, TN) Knoxville-based banjo player David Lovett is releasing a new
CD entitled “David Lovett and Friends: Five Miles From Town.” The
music is mainly of the foot-stomping, yee-haw variety, but with a broader range
of influences and genres than your average folk album. Lovett calls the album
“an indulgent extravaganza of vernacular styles and musical friendships”
Two things set “Five Miles From Town” apart from Lovett’s
previous releases. Instead of working with a band, he chose the material and
arrangements on his own. “I’ve always had ideas that were a little
too kooky for bands I was in, so I sort of put them in a box on the shelf. For
this project, I took the box down and started unpacking it.” In production,
some ideas really didn’t stand up to the light of day and were discarded.
The album is based on the rest, including a country song about a Star Trek character,
a Grisman-influenced fiddle tune inspired by a TV theme song, an old-time rendition
of a song from a classic children’s movie, a set of Irish reels played
barn-dance style, a Scottish style ballad about a NASCAR fan’s dream girl,
and a couple of what Lovett calls “simultaneous medleys.” Instead
of one tune after another, Lovett stacks and interweaves songs from different
genres: an Appalachian hoedown joins forces with a Motown classic, and a Jay
Ungar fiddle tune is played over a Miles Davis bassline. Framing these cross-pollinations
are more original instrumentals and a selection of Lovett’s personal favorite
old-time tunes.
Once the tune list was set, the second step in the creative process was to enlist
friends for the recording sessions. “I’m an ensemble musician, not
a soloist,” Lovett says. “I’ve met and played with so many
great musicians over the years. So often I’ve said, if I ever got the
chance to get them in the studio, I’d love to do it.” He first called
Greg Horne to co-produce
and sit in on a variety of instruments ranging from tenor guitar to Wurlitzer
electric piano. The two started combing Lovett’s rolodex and planning
sessions early in 2003. “It was like we got all these songs around a table
and asked them, ‘who do you want?’” laughs Horne. “One
would say ‘I want Hector
Quirko!’ A couple said, ‘We want Evan
Carawan and a guy
who plays Brazillian percussion!’ One of them said ‘Ooh! I want
eight old-time fiddlers and a bell choir!’”
In the end, 25 players joined the project. Many were organized into bands for
live sessions; some dropped in for overdubs; and some whom Lovett and Horne
hadn’t expected to get were recruited on the fly while passing through
the area. The production changed with each new performance. “We had mapped
out arrangements for all the ensemble numbers, but every time people came in
to record, they responded with new ideas and with brilliant playing,”
says Lovett. “Everyone really took the project seriously and gave me their
best. It was awesome to see the music take flight. It was very affirming for
me, and the results far exceeded my expectations.”
Featured musicians include Mike
Bryant, Dale Stansberry,
Rex McGee, and Cailen
Campbell on fiddle; Chris
McMahon, Rick Wolfe,
Will Byers, and Jeff
Hersk on bass; Lovett, Horne, and Tom
Whyte on vocals and various instruments; Evan
Carawan on hammer dulcimer; Doug
Klein, Jim Roberts,
and Teilhard Frost
on percussion; and Hector
Qirko, Morgan Simmons,
Terry Phillips, and Marcia
Bryant on guitar. Tyler
Andal, Gayle Brown, Don
Cassell, Michael
Ginsburg, Ellen Lovett, Lewis Lovett, and Helen
Shiflett also contributed.
“I could go on and on about the talent and experience of these amazing
players, and about how they got connected to the project,” says Lovett.
(He is putting up a website at grinningdeer.com to cover some of that territory.)
“But one of my favorite stories has to be the day we finished Beam Me
Up.” The song is a tongue-in-cheek tearjerker about a wanderer trapped
in a hostile world (and who hasn’t felt like one at times?). After the
band was recorded, Lovett and wife Ellen invited a houseful of friends to their
annual fall party. In 2003 it happened to fall on the night of a dramatic lunar
eclipse. After the eclipse, the whole party stood in a circle and recorded the
song’s refrain. “That number has always been a singalong,”
says Lovett. “At the end of the take the group burst into laughter, which
we left on the record at Hector’s insistence. It’s priceless.”
All of the session were recorded at Lovett’s Grinning Deer Music Company,
mainly in the first half of 2003. With the exception of a handful of overdubs
(including the living-room Beam Me Up session), it lay gestating until Thanksgiving
of 2004. Lovett and Horne then went back into the studio and the mixes were
put to bed by the end of January. David Glasser of Airshow Mastering in Boulder,
Colorado, handled the mastering. Lovett designed the cover using a photo shot
at a 280-year-old log cabin at Froggy Bottom Farm, home of Morgan and Ruth Simmons,
where early rehearsals for some of the tracks were held.
David Lovett, “Knoxville’s banjo contrarian,” has two previous
CDs, one by the Back Porch Rockers (voted Knoxville’s best bluegrass band
two years running) and one by the Atomic City Rhythm Rascals. Lovett has played
in 18 states at events ranging from the New
England Folk Festival to the South
Florida Folk & Acoustic Music Festival, and closer to home at First
Night Kingsport, Chattanooga’s Riverbend
Festival, the Dogwood
Arts Festival, Lake
Eden Arts Festival, and many others. He plays with Mountain
Soul, New Lost Weasel
Concern, and the Feral
Brothers.
“I hope that as a musician I can bring a little more joy into the world,”
Lovett says. “That’s my pupose.” He says that although the
CD incorporates humor, it’s not meant to be a novelty album. “I
hope it stands on its own. I have honestly enjoyed producing it and hearing
it. It’s just music I like, played the way I like.”
Lovett will celebrate the release with a concert and dance at the Laurel Theatre
on Saturday, March 12. A number of musicians from the sessions will play, and
for the second half of the night, they’ll clear the floor for an old-time
barn dance with Darlene Underwood of Cincinnati calling. Ticket information
is available from Jubilee Community Arts (522-5851). The album will be on sale
at Disc
Exchange starting March 15.
Tighter than the stitches on Grandma’s quilt
David Lovett has been a force in Knoxville’s acoustic music scene for many years, both as a multi-instrumentalist and a producer. It’s no wonder that the “Friends” credited on the disc include some of Knoxville’s best players. While this disc is strictly old-time acoustic in feel (there are a few electric instruments sprinkled in), it’s plenty ambitious, with surprising covers and some unusual instrumental pairings. Sometimes free and loose, sometimes tighter than the stitches on Grandma’s quilt, it all holds together. It’s “out-there,” but always tethered to old-time, and Lovett’s string band reworking on the classic Temptations hit “Just My Imagination” (paired with “Whiskey Before Breakfast” and “Shenandoah Falls”) is solid proof. The hammer dulcimer/cowbell-driven take on Miles Davis’ “It’s About That Time” (which segues into “Vladimir’s Steamboat” by Jay Ungar) is, amazingly, terrific.
The sound of the recording is as eclectic as the music — ranging from crisp to muddy. Lovett’s voice is not exactly a thing of beauty (and he doesn’t use it too often), but his spirit certainly is.
— Wayne Bledsoe, Knoxville News-Sentinel 4/17/05
A glorious racket
Some music scenes are like hyper-charged magnets on a refrigerator. You arrange its players in an orderly, expectable fashion, and the next morning they’re all glommed up in the middle, like a party of positive and negative charges. They’re magnets, er, I mean musicians. They really can’t help it. And David Lovett’s new CD, a display of Knoxville’s best pickers, fiddlers and the like, is proof that such behavior should be encouraged.
Billed as the product of “David Lovett and Friends,” Five Miles from Townfeatures 25 players of about as many instruments, creating a glorious Irish, Scottish, old-time, barn-dance racket that reveals the musicians’ sheer thrill of performing—and Lovett’s knack for tweaking tradition. Lovett says songs like “Beam Me Up,” a quirky ode to Star Trek and “Red is the Color (of My True Love’s Truck)” were a smidgen too kooky for his former bands the Back Porch Rockers and the Atomic City Rhythm Rascals,and his current gig in Mountain Soul. Some of these tracks are certainly outside the box—musically, conceptually, and lyrically. As anyone familiar with Lovett’s work with the contra dance band New Lost Weasel Concern knows, some fiddle tunes have a way of veering into wacky terrain, and that you’re not hallucinating if you suddenly hear the theme from Gilligan’s Island. Fellow Rocker and Weasel Greg Horne co-produced the disc and played multiple instruments. Other players include Evan Carawan on hammer dulcimer, Dale Stansberry and Mike Bryant on fiddles, plus a heaping helping of other Friends of Lovett, the bulk of whom are familiar to the old-time and contra dance circles in town. Blues guitarist Hector Qirko even lays down some feisty licks on Lovett’s original “Walland Gap.”
The CD’s release will be marked by an on-air concert on WDVX (102.9 FM) on Thursday, March 10, at 12 p.m., and a full-fledged hoedown on Saturday, March 12 at Laurel Theater. After an extra-long set, dancers will push the chairs aside for an old-time barn dance with calling byDarlene Underwood of Cincinnati. Yee-haw!
—Paige Travis, Metro Pulse 3/10/05
Who’s Who on
Five Miles From Town
Greg Horne was my
fellow conspirator on this project from the word go. The arrangement of Sandy
Boys, on which he plays guitar and piano, is really his vision of my favorite
tune to play. (We end almost every dance with it.) Greg is an all-around pro
— multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter, master teacher, and studio
producer. He and I have played in many groupings together over the past ten
years, and I hope our musical friendship will continue deep into the future.
Mike and Marcia Bryant
and Morgan Simmons
are all members of the award-winning old-time band the New Dixie Entertainers.
Mike has also taken individual honors at Clifftop. It is a pleasure to bookend
the project with stripped down, hard-driving music the likes of which you may
hear in Morgan’s home if you’re there on the right day.
Chris McMahon
and I have logged tens of thousands of miles touring with the Atomic City Rhythm
Rascals and other bands. His bass playing taught me the meaning of the word
groove, and his friendship is one of my greatest treasures. I’m thrilled
that we are gigging together again (as the Feral Brothers) after a harrowing
accident that nearly silenced Chris’ music.
Dale Stansberry
is a young fiddler who gets stronger every year. His traditional playing has
an urgency and power that drives me wild, and he contributed generously to several
of the experimental musical cross-pollinations on the project. He helped name,
and is part of, New Lost
Weasel Concern.
Evan Carawan is
another long-time playing partner, both with Atomic City and the Weasels, and
one of the true master artists of the hammer dulcimer. I have gotten addicted
to the way he swings the music. I couldn’t resist sprinkling his zesty
flavor liberally over these tunes.
Rex McGee is one of
the most gifted and hard working people I know playing roots music. He travels
with the likes of Vassar Clements, John Cowan, and Footloose. Our banjo duet
on Star of Munster recalls a wonderful weekend he spent with Chris, Evan, and
me in Harbin Hot Springs, CA.
Tom “T-Bone”
Whyte would be on my short list if I were to spend the rest of my days on
a desert island with one other person of my gender. He sings and plays harmonica
and ukelele. I met Tom in 1981 and we have been in several bands including the
Tall Boys and Alaric & the Smokey Mountain Visigoths, based in Boone, NC,
where Tom and his family live.
Rick Wolfe is a fine
individual who also happens to be a powerful and creative bassist. He and I
were fellow members of Deep Fried Possum, an edgy bluegrass band from whose
ashes rose the Back Porch Rockers. Guitar genius Terry Phillips, who has played
bass with me for years, was also a founding Rocker. Teep saw the Beatles live
and went to Woodstock.
Jim Roberts is a
master of Afro-Cuban drumming and percussion in general, and has played with
great bands like the Horseflies and Footloose. We met in Durham, NC, where I
went to school and later returned for various musical adventures. Jim rocks.
Cailen Campbell
is a fiddle prodigy who went from classical to jazz to bluegrass to old-time,
in that order. We started playing contra dances together (with Chris
McMahon) when he was a teenager. This project features Cailen on He Be G.B.,
recalling an early spring sunburn earned some years back while jamming on this
tune at the stone house in Boone.
Will Byers used to fiddle with Atomic City, and he plays music of various traditions
on flute, but here he plays bass on one medley. I snagged Will when Don
Cassell, with whom he plays in Strange Company, brought him into the studio
to play on Don’s
CD. While I was at it I snagged Don for the mandolin rhythm on Vladimir’s
Steamboat. Don plays with the Dismembered
Tennesseeans and is the father of quite a few boys.
Michael Ginsburg
is one of those people, like Evan
and Will, that awed me when I first moved to Knoxville. I never thought I’d
be playing with them. Michael is an encyclopedia of world music and has mastered
a number of instruments, including the fiddle and pennywhistle he offers here.
Hector Qirko is
a fantastic guitarist, performer, anthropologist, and human being. If you ever
get a chance to hear his blues band, don’t miss it. Hector is a member,
along with drummer Doug
Klein, of Knoxville’s beloved Lonesome Coyotes. Doug is now music
supervisor for several tv networks. Zowie.
Jeff Hersk is a really
fun bass player who recently relocated from Nashville to Asheville, NC. We met
at Split Tree Farm in north Georgia, and have played a number of dances together.
He still plays for contra dances when he isn’t booked solid with jazz
gigs.
Teilhard Frost,
from Ontario, plays percussion, didgeridoo, and other mysterious objects with
some of the top contra bands on tour. He added his feet to the project while
stranded here by a snowstorm.
Tyler Andal is a
teenage fiddle phenomenom I met at the Swannanoa Gathering and subsequently
gigged with as a fellow member of the band Shady Groove, based in White House,
TN. He wins contests and recently made his Carnegie Hall debut.
Helen Shiflett
plays saxophone in the Pride of the Southland Marching Band. We borrowed the
baritone sax from Ken Austin of Webb School, where she was band captain when
my son Lewis Lovett was new in the band. Lewis later went on not only to be
band captain in his own day, but also to play cowbell on Vladimir’s Streamboat.
Gayle Brown is a friend from the Mt. Airy Fiddler’s Convention who made
her octave banjo-uke (she calls it a “puke”) in the shop of her
brother, master banjo craftsman Mike Ramsey.
And last but not least, Ellen Lovett is my beloved and long-suffering wife who
not only put up with this whole crowd traipsing through our home but also played
tuned percussion in a Mt. Airy-inspired version of Ding-Dong that explores the
inner meaning of the tune. Thanks, Ellen!
Additional vocals for Beam Me Up were recorded at the Grinning Deer Harvest
Ball, 2003 (immediately following a total eclipse of the moon) by Darrell &
Nancy Acuff, Jessie Acuff, Sophie Askew, Nathan Barrett, Jamey Dobbs & Gary
McCracken, Tony Cabbage, Fay Campbell, Andre Hayter, Betsy Hooper, Steve Kopp,
Ellen Lovett, John & Lizzie Lovett, John & JoAnn Parrott, Keith Thompson,
and Herb & Kathleen Williams.
1 Goin’ To Town (2:04)
traditional (from Charlie Acuff)
2 Whiskey Before Breakfast (6:18)
traditional
Just My Imagination
by Norman J. Whitfield & Barrett Strong
(Stone Agate Music, BMI)
Shenandoah Falls
traditional
David—lead vocal, banjo, guitar
Dale—fiddles
Evan—hammer dulcimer
Gayle—octave banjo-uke
Greg—backing vocal, electric piano
Jeff—bass
Jim—congas, djembe
T-Bone—backing vocal, harmonica
3 Mariner’s Fling (3:47)
by David M. Lovett © 1998
(Grinning Deer Music, BMI)
Chris—bass
David—banjo
Evan—hammer dulcimer
Hector—acoustic guitar
Rex—fiddle
4 Walland Gap (5:18)
by David M. Lovett © 2000
(Grinning Deer Music, BMI)
Sandy Boys
(traditional)
Chris—bass
Dale—fiddle
David—banjo, tamboura
Evan—hammer dulcimer
Greg—guitar, electric piano
Hector—electric guitar
Morgan—banjo-uke
Teilhard—feet
5 It’s About That Time (4:05)
by Miles Davis
(Jazz Horn Music, BMI)
Vladimir’s Steamboat
by Jay Ungar
(Swinging Door Music, BMI)
Chris—bass
David—banjo, electric guitar, mandocello
Don—mandolin
Evan—hammer dulcimer
Greg—Wurlitzer electric piano
Helen—baritone saxes
Jim—percussion
Lewis—cowbell
Rex—fiddle
6 Ain’t Got No Honeybabe Now (2:05)
traditional (from Frank Blevins)
7 Two Steps Back (2:04)
by David M. Lovett © 2000
(Grinning Deer Music, BMI)
8 Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead (2:28)
by Harold Arlen & E.Y. Harburg
(EMI Feist Catalog, ASCAP)
tracks 7 & 8:
Cailen, David, Greg, Michael, Rex, and Tyler—fiddles
David—banjo
Ellen—handbells
Greg—guitar
Jim—congas, rico-rico
T-Bone—harmonica, uke
Will—bass
9 Red is the Color (Of My True Love’s Truck) (1:42)
by David M. Lovett © 2005
(Grinning Deer Music, BMI)
David—vocal, bass harmonica
10 Beam Me Up (4:08)
by David M. Lovett © 2002
(Grinning Deer Music, BMI)
Cailen—fiddle
David—lead vocal
Doug—drums
Greg—backing vocal, Wurlitzer electric piano
Hector—electric guitars
Rick—bass
T-Bone—backing vocal, harmonica
Teep—acoustic guitar
11 He Be G.B. (2:44)
by David M. Lovett © 1998
(Grinning Deer Music, BMI)
12 Over The Mountain / As The Crow Flies (4:01)
both by David M. Lovett © 1998
(Grinning Deer Music, BMI)
Chris—bass
David—banjo
Evan—dulcimer
Greg—tenor guitar
Jim—percussion
Michael—pennywhistle
Rex—fiddle
13 Three Scones Of Boxty / Star Of Munster (3:52)
both traditional Irish
Dale—fiddle
David—clawhammer banjo
Evan—hammer dulcimer
Jeff—bass
Jim—percussion
Rex—three-finger banjo
14 Five Miles From Town (2:25)
traditional (from Clyde Davenport)