Sunday September 15, 2024
The usual early morning walk to Dose for coffee and this morning an egg omelette with ham on a biscuit (which is really a scone). On my return to the hotel I met a couple of English chaps, one of whom is a promoter of Americana artists, and we had a great conversation. It is their first visit to Americana and I assured them that they would enjoy it. In the afternoon, I moved across to Anne McCue’s AirBnB in Inglewood, East Nashville. It’s the Koala Motel and I can recommend it. (You can see it below).
We went and got some supplies at Kroger’s and then Anne dropped me over to the City Winery where Emmylou Harris had the first night of her Woofstock Festival, to aid shelter animals. I was lucky to get tickets to both nights, having got up at 3.00am some weeks ago to do so. Tonight’s guest was Aoife O’Donovan, tomorrow it is Ricky Skaggs.
The evening opened with Emmylou accompanied by guitarist/backing vocalist Daniel Tashian doing a beautiful cover of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘My Hometown’, from Born In The USA, which brought a few tears to my eyes.
Then Emmylou introduced O’Donovan explaining that they were going to perform Springsteen’s Nebraska album in full, as Aoife had done on record and on tour recently. Harris said she was so impressed with the interpretations, being a song interpreter herself, that she felt moved to invite O’Donovan here.
What followed was a sublime hour of music, with O’Donovan taking the lead on many songs and Harris performing several, including at least one, ‘My Father’s House’, for the first time live.
This was a complete surprise and I am sure I didn’t read about this beforehand. It delighted the Brit sitting next to me, Steve from Birmingham, who had flown in from Baltimore where he had seen Bruce just a few days earlier! (Bruce’s shows are now cut down to 3 hours he explained while we waited). A huge Emmylou fan, he had flown in specifically for this show and received an unexpected bonus.
Harris spoke about the strength of Springsteen as a country singer, something that hadn’t occurred to me prior to Western Stars five years ago. Listening to Nebraska in this new light was certainly revealing.
O’Donovan started with the title song ‘Nebraska’, then moved into ‘Atlantic City’, one of my favourite Springsteen songs. Then Emmylou picked up her guitar and took lead vocals for ‘Mansion On The Hill’ before handing back to O’Donovan for ‘Johnny 99’ (after which Emmylou expressed admiration for the fact that Aoife could recall all the lyrics), ‘Highway Patrolman’, ‘State Trooper’ and ‘Used Cars’. As O’Donovan sang and played guitar, Emmylou added harmony vocals and Tashian supplied electric guitar and backing vocals as well. Emmylou then explained that while she had recorded a version of ‘My Father’s House’ (Thirteen, 1986) she had never played it live. The closing ‘Reason To Believe’ saw the trio again collaborating.
Finally, Harris talked about Tashian and how she had known his father Barry and recorded with him early in her career, whereupon she launched into the Gram Parsons-Chris Hillman Flying Burrito Brothers’ classic ‘Juanita’.
The album ended with lovely rendering of another Springsteen song’ The Price You Pay.’
Seems like the price I paid for this night was worth every cent. This was a sublime evening and one of those events that make you feel as if it has more than justified the cost of the airfare. Plenty more of those to come I hope.
When I got back to the Koala Motel I was surprised when I spoke to Karen to find out that there had been another assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I completely missed that and no one was talking about it at the gig – and why would they, I guess? So, it was a shock. It makes me fearful for the next 50 days prior to the election.