Knoxify

WDVX’s monthly live broad­cast, Ten­nessee Shines, is now estab­lished as the go-to venue for great, some­times eclec­tic, music. The lat­est install­ment was a con­cert with no real sin­gu­lar high­lights, just per­for­mance after per­for­mance that proved to be con­tin­u­ally lumi­nes­cent, with every musi­cian at the top of their game.

Begin­ning the night [other than Jim Laud­erdale and the house band led by Dave Nichols, which we will dis­cuss later] was Dave Alvin, fea­tur­ing Cindy Cash­dol­lar and Christy McWil­son. Alvin’s almost 30 years in the music indus­try and mas­ter­fully steady gui­tar abil­ity explain his ever-present swag­ger. Hell, the man’s earned it. But did he have to start off with two songs about Cal-i-for-ni-a? Heh. Gotta give credit to the Alvin for that joke. He expounded on how odd it was for a guy from Cal­i­for­nia to open up with two Cal­i­for­nia tunes in East Ten­nessee, the first of which, was the rous­ing [in a sub­dued way] “King of Cal­i­for­nia.” In addi­tion to the sea­soned abil­ity of Alvin, the back­ing of Cindy Cash­dol­lar and Christy McWil­son was a warm addi­tion. Cash­dol­lar was strapped with a dobro, adding sub­tle touches through­out. McWil­son, on some songs, pro­vided more of a lead per­for­mance. Though on the tracks where she acted solely as a back­ing vocal­ist, a tremen­dous dynamic was cre­ated by her float­ing affect over Alvin’s deep bari­tone. A shin­ing exam­ple was on the trib­ute “Potter’s Field.” Alvin and McWil­son traded leads, leav­ing the view­ing audi­ence in such a state of awe that you could hear a pin drop.

Next up was the lovely Sara Watkins, of Nickel Creek fame. Shar­ing the stage that very night was her brother Sean, also of Nickel Creek, on gui­tar and Sebas­t­ian Stein­berg, of Soul Cough­ing, on bass. A seem­ing trade­mark of the Nickel Creek era, Sara opened with an instru­men­tal. From there, she moved on to the lead track on her epony­mous solo effort, “All This Time.” But it was the two clos­ing tunes that really brought the house down in com­pletely dif­fer­ent ways. Watkins busted out the ukulele for my favorite track on her album, “Where Will You Be.” Seri­ously, I had chills run­ning up and down my spine. The final num­ber was a sur­pris­ingly head-bobbin’ cover of John Hartford’s “Long Hot Sum­mer Days” in which Watkins turned in to an audi­ence accom… accomp… an audi­ence sing-a-long.

After a short break, Tyler Ram­sey, of Band of Horses, took the stage. Flank­ing his solo effort was a wide array of gui­tars, just lying around in open cases like coffins at a wake. Only in this instance, each gui­tar was turned in and turned on in a warm, robust way. Set­tled into a chair cen­ter stage, Ram­sey began his per­for­mance with “Long Dream” off of his sec­ond solo effort, A Long Dream About Swim­ming Across the Sea. Ram­sey emphat­i­cally proved how insanely tal­ented a gui­tar player he truly is, mak­ing one of his many gui­tars sound like both a bass and gui­tar simultaneously.

Fin­ish­ing off the night was the fas­ci­nat­ingly talented-despite-her-youth Saman­tha Crain, who had been on the road since Feb­ru­ary. Ten­nessee Shines, as she informed us, was her last show until next Feb­ru­ary, when she’ll be join­ing the likes of Emmy­lou Har­ris, Lyle Lovett, Buddy Miller on some sort of musi­callyawe­sometas­tic cruise. But, for that very night, Crain decided to begin with “Songs of the Night,” which fea­tured a kazoo, of all things. Just when you thought whip­ping out a kazoo couldn’t be topped, she and her two band mates per­formed a three-part har­mon­ica solo. You heard me cor­rectly — three-part har­mon­ica solo. Her back­ing band looked equally as youth­ful. At one point, her bass player came out of his flip flops to hit the night notes on back­ing vocals. If that’s not com­mit­ment, I don’t know what is.

Finally, much praise should be heaped upon both Jim Laud­erdale and the house band led by Dave Nichols. They really pull things together each and every month, time after time. Jim’s anec­do­tal humor and abil­ity to bring some of the musi­cians out of their shell is a nice addi­tion to the truly tremen­dous monthly occur­rence that is Ten­nessee Shines.