The

Catt Sirten

Steve Dark

Nancy Raia

Callaghan’s

Eric Erdman

Trigger Root

Chris Cumbie

Ryan Balthrop

B’Beth Weldon

Trina Shoemaker

Willie Sugarcapps

The Mulligan Brothers

Joe Gilchrist & The Flora-Bama

The Frog Pond at Blue Moon Farm

$5 all proceeds go towards supporting The Frog Pond at Blue Moon Farm

writer/publisher Lynn Oldshue

copy editor Janelle Hederman

photographers Michelle StancilChad Edwards Chris Helton

Keith Necaise Kim Pearson

Stephen Savage Catt Sirten

design & layout Jodi LaRue

Therese Vincent

cover photo by Michelle Stancil

www.TheSouthernRambler.comwww.facebook.com/thesouthernrambler

On the Gulf Coast, you can meet an internationally-known sculptor while recycling trash behind the courthouse or make friends with some of the South’s best musicians while attending a house concert on a small farm in Silverhill. Soon one story, one friendship, leads to another. We started The Southern Rambler as an online magazine this year to share these stories and bring attention to the artists, musicians, and culture of the Gulf Coast and it has grown into an annual printed magazine.

My first visit to The Frog Pond at Blue Moon Farm was my door into the world of local music. It was where I met Cathe Steele, Michelle Stancil (my kind, generous, talented partner in The Southern Rambler), Chris Helton, and friends that I now can’t live without. The idea for an online magazine about

art and music started at the Frog Pond and Cathe was one of the first people to give encouragement and help. All of the money from our magazine sales will be donated to the Frog Pond to help buy a canopy so shows can go on even in the rain.

The talents of other people make The Southern Rambler much more than a writing project. Photographers Michelle, Chris, Keith Necaise, Catt Sirten, Chad Edwards, Kim Pearson and Stephen Savage share beautiful pictures and videos that capture the soul and spirit of their subjects often better than my words ever could. My editor and cousin, Janelle “The Butcher” Hederman makes the stories bleed as she pushes me to dig deeper. Jodi LaRue transformed all of these pictures and stories into a real magazine with vibrant fonts, colors, and backgrounds. Therese Vincent designed the logo that looks good on guitar cases and the walls of bars, and Doug Anderson built The Southern Rambler website that brought it all together.

If you are reading this, thank you for caring about culture on the Gulf Coast. Thank you for going to the shows, buying the tickets, art, and CDs, and giving to the Kickstarter campaigns. As Grayson Capps says, “A song without ears is nothing. It takes a performer and an audience to create music. It is the listener who gives life to the song.” Artists, musicians, writers, photographers, and the audience--together we are giving life to art and music and making this a special place to live.

I am looking forward to the second year of The Southern Rambler.

Lynn

Chris Helton Michelle Stancil

Deep in the cotton fields of Baldwin County, music blesses Sunday afternoons at the Frog Pond at Blue Moon Farm. Inspired by the Levon Helms Midnight Rambles in Woodstock, New York, the weekly Sunday Social house concerts bring together songwriters, friends, and fans. This is music in its purist form, springing from interaction and imagination, not a set list.

In a musical ramble, each song is a conversation among musicians with a nod or a call for the others to join in, or the wisdom to lay out when there is nothing else to add. Fingers flick guitar notes, blending chords into new arrangements that reflect the mood of the moment, while listeners weave their own feelings into each song. Musicians say they feel the response from the audience and know what is working, and what isn’t.

“These rambles are a practice of empathy and performers are sensitive to the listeners,” says Capps. “It feels good to be a part of each other.”

Capps encouraged his good friend Cathe Steele to create this musical sanctuary at her home on her 15-acre Blue Moon Farm in Silverhill, Alabama. “These house concerts started with just giving Grayson a place to play for some of his friends and fans on New Year’s Eve in 2010,” recalls Steele. “I knew I wanted to do something to bring musicians together like the Midnight Ramble. However, I wanted to do these at a bar and grill, not at my house. Every time I found a reason not to do it, Grayson would find a reason I could. Finally I had to do it. The Sunday Socials began in September 2011.”

The Frog Pond is the stage that Steele and volunteers built in her backyard from salvaged wood. Shaded by an old cypress tree, the stage is lit by lamps and strings of Christmas lights with a front porch coziness that makes musicians comfortable and puts the audience at ease.

The name Frog Pond is Steele’s reminder of the connection of community. “We all have something to contribute,” says Steele. “Every thing we do, and every choice we make affects someone else. We are all in this pond together.”

photo by Michelle Stancil

photo by Michelle Stancil

JOHN COOK

CATHE STEELE

Steele encourages fellowship through food as well as music. Her kitchen tables are covered with potluck dishes at every Sunday Social. “Each person must bring a dish because sharing brings everyone into the community,” says Steele. “People put themselves into their food. We have had smoked mullet, incredible gumbo, and cheesecakes in the shape of guitars.”

Sunday Socials at the Frog Pond are informal. Guests park in the side pasture, enter through a break in the fence, fill up a plate, and settle in with lawn chairs and coolers just a few feet from the stage. Every seat is close enough to hear the chatter, teasing, cues, and praise among the musicians, and close enough for songwriters to see the movements of the audience.

“I love it when real life happens in the middle of a song,” laughed Nashville songwriter Lisa Carver after ad-libbing a verse about a woman in the back of the audience shooing away a bee, as if the lines had always been a part of her song “Pretty People’s Feet.”

This intimacy and connection through music is the mission of Steele’s Sunday Socials. She sings and plays guitar, but her passion is creating musical experiences for songwriters and listeners. She got her start booking and promoting concerts as entertainment manager at the Pirate’s Cove Yacht Club in Elberta, Alabama.

“I have always been a watcher, and I paid attention,” says Steele. “I learned what audiences like and how to book shows that gave people a reason to make the long drive to Pirate’s Cove.”

Grayson Capps was the first act that Steele booked at the Pirate’s Cove. “That rompin’ stompin’ night in January 2005, began it all,” she says. “It was the start of a lifelong friendship with Grayson, and it brought me here.”

Capps is a songwriting storyteller from south Alabama. His bluesy tales of southern life and simple truths, along with over twenty years of touring and live performances, have attracted a widespread and loyal fan base. He is on the road most of the week, but plays at the Frog Pond every Sunday. “I travel so much that I wanted to nurture something like this so I can be at home on Sunday with my family and still perform to a good crowd,” says Capps. “I love this place. Playing on the front porch with other musicians and sharing the spotlight is relaxing for me. It is the joy of playing together.”

Guitarist Corky Hughes also plays at every Social. His lap steel, acoustic, and electric guitars provide hooks that bring attention to a song. Steele fills in the rest of the stage with talented local favorites as well as regional and national songwriters. The music is different every Sunday, and anything goes from blues and jazz to folk and funk.

“Playing in a ramble like this puts many of the musicians in a position they have never been in and playing with people they don’t know, but I try to put people together who complement each other and make each other look good, “ says Steele. “They have to let go of what they know and step out of their comfort zone.”

“Performing at the Frog Pond is a dynamic experience,” says Mobile-based singer-songwriter Lisa Mills whose powerful voice can belt anything from blues to spirit-filled gospel. “I usually play by myself where there is more control and the performance is all about the audience. In a ramble, other artists are part of the equation and there is cross-pollination and sharing ideas. It is a good connection as a musician to meet people who can spark your imagination or someone who could become a partner for you.”

Partnerships and even bands are formed at Blue Moon Farm. Steele brought together Will Kimbrough, Grayson Capps, Corky Hughes, Anthony Crawford and Savana Crawford as Sugarcane Jane, and a Sunday Social grew into Willie Sugarcapps, a hot new band that is playing venues and festivals around the South. They recently released a critically praised debut album “Willie Sugarcapps.”

Songwriters may be playing together for the first time or unfamiliar with each other’s songs, but good musicians only need a key and a chorus to join in. By the second or third round, the players relax and the music builds momentum. There is forgiveness for unavoidable technical difficulties, bad notes, and starting over.

“I like to hear how other people perform my songs,” says Jon Cook, a songwriter from Orange Beach known for his soulful, raspy voice that rolls along the melodies of his Taylor guitar. “Musicians are music fans too. We listen to each other and take the songs to heart. Just like the audience, we feel the magic in the moments when it all comes together. We are all here for the same purpose.”

Sunday Socials at the Frog Pond are more than concerts. They pulse with music that performers and listeners create together. A song begins as words and melody in the mind of a songwriter, but comes to life when musicians give it harmony and an audience gives it heart. The notes and lyrics are invisible, but the community they create is real.

“Cathe has worked so hard to build the Frog Pond, and what she has done there has gone beyond my imagination,” says Capps. “She loves music and this environment she has created. Do what you love and everything will take care of itself.”

photo by Michelle StancilGRAYSON CAPPS, CATHE STEELE

These lines form the title track of Andrew Duhon’s new album “The Moorings” and tell of a man leaving his love to return to the sea. Inspired by his travels and the infatuation with both love and loneliness, Duhon calls this song his thesis for the past five years.

“Every songwriter has a niche or one thing that they do well,” says Duhon. “I think mine is traveling, picking up the pieces along the way, and turning them into songs. I am sure one day I’ll find the notion of settling down more appealing, but right now it is as if I crave loneliness as much as companionship. A home life doesn’t inspire me as much as being alone and walking the streets of an unfamiliar town at 5 AM. For me, it’s about eliminating the familiar and going somewhere I have never been or seeking help from someone I have never met and discovering the humanity in that process. Traveling alone seems to take me to where the story begins. I love going from small town to small town and telling what I just saw back there, playing a song about a place just back that way.”

Duhon records his travel stories in journals and shares them as a personal travelogue with pictures on his website. “These journals have been a good friend in keeping those memories around,” says Duhon. “Not every experience fits into a song, or sometimes the song just hasn’t come along yet.”

The Moorings will be released nationally on April 30. It is the third album for the 27-year-old songwriter from New Orleans. Duhon describes The Moorings as an honest snapshot of his life and travels during the three years since his last release, Dreaming When You Leave. “I have the same muses that I had on past albums, but picked up new ones along the way. England is one of those new muses,” says Duhon. “I thought there might be a good sharing experience in taking my music, which is rooted in the place where I come from, to another shore with rich folk traditions of its own. For once in my life, I was exactly right.”

Oh my darling my dear, I have

reason to fear that you know not

the man you’re adoring, from the

dark salty sea, I found refuge in

thee, but I’m soon to be loosening

my moorings... A convicted fool

I am, chained to the pen in my

hand, and my darling I must

serve this sentence.

Andrew Duhon, “The Moorings”

photo by Chad Edwards(FRONT TO BACK) ANDREW DUHON, LEE YANKIE, GRAYSON CAPPS

Duhon defines his music as folk music because it follows the tradition of capturing the life and times as he experiences them. He grew up in Metairie, Louisiana reading poetry and listening to Texas and Mississippi Delta blues and Greenwich Village folk music. “A blues song can be as simple as a handclap and a voice, but it can encapsulate so much. It showed me how simple and effective art can be. Simplicity is my favorite style, but it is also a necessity for me because I am more of a writer than a musician.”

When Duhon first started playing guitar and singing at home, he remembers hear his sister giggling at him as he practiced 90s pop songs, but that was before he learned how to fill his voice with his emotions. “Back then my voice was terrible, but I kept singing and playing and eventually what came out in my voice was pretty close to what I was feeling in my soul.”

After high school, Duhon discovered the music of New Orleans while working as a custodian in exchange for a room at an old convent in the city. He mopped the floors during the day and wandered around New Orleans at night, playing his guitar at open mic nights. People began to tell him with conviction that they were feeling what he was singing, and he began to feel comfortable with songwriting and communicating through his music.

Writing songs is now what he does best as he tells stories from his imagination or his own life in simple, poetic lines. He starts with a guitar, with or without an idea for what comes next. “I usually just start playing chords that make sense,” says Duhon. “If there is no lyrical idea, I’ll just sing words simply to fit the melody, which can be surprisingly effective in coming up with lyrics.

Singing words that fit the melody created Duhon’s song “Evelyn” (The Moorings). “I realized that after having written so many songs, I’d never written one in a minor key,” says Duhon. “There was no particular reason why I hadn’t, so I started playing a simple minor progression, and the first words that came out were ‘Come on baby, why you wanna wait?’ That phrase became the chorus. The line ‘Find a more original sin’ came to me when I was driving across Mobile Bay.”

“Evelyn is a kind of allusion unbounded by time,” explains Duhon. “It became a world where the first woman, Eve, and I were in a relationship. Could I steal Eve from Adam and start this whole thing over again?”

“Just Another Beautiful Girl” was inspired by a friend’s mother. “My friend’s mother was a religious person and always tried to impart her religious wisdom,” says Duhon. “She called me once and asked why I don’t write more songs about Jesus. That day I wrote ‘Just Another Beautiful Girl’ about why I don’t write more songs about Jesus. It was really just a love story.”

The title song, “The Moorings,” begins in a slow English and Scottish cadence that is built on the theme of many old English folk songs about the sea--I love you and you have been good to me, but I am pulled by the ocean and I don’t know if I will come back again. “There is a beautiful English sense of being a seafaring man and the mooring is the physical place where you tie off,” says Duhon. “For me, it is also about untying that line and leaving your lover because you are pulled somewhere else and don’t know if you will ever return.”

Duhon went in to the recording studio in September 2012, with 20 songs and narrowed them down to twelve. “Time in the studio can be nerve-wracking,” says Duhon. “It is the immortalization of my songs and I have to surrender to it. When the red light goes on, I never sing it the same way as I do in my bedroom. There are so many possibilities in production and I am just trying to create what is the most genuine thing.”

Duhon is touring with his band in March and April, performing at release parties in some of the towns that have been good to him including New Orleans, Ocean Springs, Fairhope, and Mobile. “I love playing along the Gulf Coast because there is an acceptance here that gives you room to live and breathe and perform,” says Duhon. “Maybe it is the bay breeze or the Jimmy Buffett effect, but people down here seem to like a guy with a guitar and a story.”

Duhon will consider the “The Moorings” a success if it simplifies his life and gives him more time for songwriting instead of spending most of his time on bookings, promotions and social media. “Getting songs on the radio isn’t the stepping stone or the trophy anymore,” says Duhon. “I want this record to do well enough to give me more time to pick up a guitar and write songs. I spend so much time on the business of being a musician that I don’t have enough time to write, which is unacceptable to me. Having time to write better songs is all that matters.”

Time for travel and change also helps Duhon write better songs. When he does the same thing over and over, it is harder to listen to himself or to hear if his music is good or truthful.

“I can get to a point that I am over the music because I have heard it all over and over before,” says Duhon. “But if I try an instrument that I can’t play, I can write a song in five minutes because change shakes you up and everything starts to make sense again. Change an instrument, change a chord, change a town, and the music starts to become truthful again even though it is as simple as it was before.”

As a songwriter, I know the fatigue that comes from the creation of a line that fully expresses a heartfelt thought. Simple songs can be the hardest to write because the simple truths can be very elusive. The mind and the spirit must be receptive to the delicate words a writer’s soul demands.

Johnny Cash introducing Mickey Newbury on “The Johnny Cash Show” (March 17, 1971)

Lyrics and melody spring from the soul of a songwriter, but it is the listener who gives life to the song and a good bar that brings them both together. For 35 years, songwriters have made the Flora-Bama more than a beach bar. For 35 years, Joe Gilchrist and the Flora-Bama have given songwriters a stage to sing their own songs to appreciative crowds. Together, they created a singer/songwriter culture that started on the state line and spread across the Gulf Coast.

In the beginning, the Flora-Bama was a small package store on Perdido Key that was surrounded by only tall sand dunes and the Gulf of Mexico. The Tampary family from Pensacola built the Flora-Bama in 1964, after the completion of the Perdido Pass Bridge provided access to a beautiful, but isolated strip of sand the family owned on the Florida-Alabama state line.

At that time, Alabama had tighter liquor laws than Florida, so the Flora-Bama was built on the Florida side of the line. The bar became an oasis for fishermen and locals, but the new bridge soon brought development and tourism to Perdido Key and more customers to the Flora-Bama. The Tamparys added a small bar and operated the Flora-Bama for fourteen years until they sold it to Joe Gilchrist, a family friend.

Buying the Flora-Bama wasn’t easy for Gilchrist. He had only $100 in the bank, so he borrowed $10,000 from his family and friends to buy the bar. The Flora-Bama became his on April 17, 1978, his 36th birthday. “The timing to buy the Flora-Bama was perfect because the community was growing,” says Gilchrist. “I wanted to create an environment where people came together to have fun, and music was a part of that. Word spread quickly and in less than two months, we had 70-80 people here each night and we were working hard. During the first six years, I worked 80-100 hours each week to keep it running. Failure was not an option because I had to pay back my loans. “

Gilchrist’s determination to build a successful bar while giving people a good time and good music changed the Flora-Bama from a small liquor store into a popular beachside roadhouse. As the crowds grew, so did the Flora-Bama. Like a western boom town thrown together with boards and nails during a gold rush, the Flora-Bama added wood stages, decks, and bars to make room for more characters--Gilchrist’s name for almost everyone who comes into the Flora-Bama. Graffitti messages of love, hate, and

SEC football were scribbled across the floors, walls, and bathroom stalls. Bras were tossed across beams and rafters. Bushwackers became the Flora-Bama’s specialty drink, and mullet tossing grew into the biggest beach party of the year.

The rowdy crowds created the Flora-Bama’s roadhouse reputation and the bars made the money, but Gilrchirst’s favorite addition was the listening room where songwriters sang their stories to respectful audiences who listened to the lyrics. The audience had to pay attention or Gilchrist would politely escort them to a louder part of the bar. “In the listening room, we created a separate world where people can listen to the best poets and still drink a beer with friends,” says Gilchrist. “It is a room that creates interpersonal relationships between the musicians and the characters in the

audience and everyone has a good time.”

Live music has always been a main attraction at the Flora-Bama, even when the first stage was in a small, un-airconditioned shack behind the store. Ken Lambert was the first songwriter hired to play at the Flora-Bama, and as people stopped in to make a purchase at the liquor store, Gilchrist walked them to the back to hear Lambert play.

“That first summer was a lot of fun and it felt good right off the bat,” remembers Lambert. “There were not many places to go besides the Flora-Bama, and Joe would bribe people with a drink to get them to stay and watch me play. Soon, a large audience started showing up. The crowds were wonderful and we were just playing and having fun. There was everyone there from bikers to politicians, and the mystique grew around that. There was not much of a police presence, so things were wild and free and a bit unlawful. We shot bullets in the sand just to watch sparks fly. We had no idea we were setting the stage for what the Flora-Bama would become.”

The next year, Gilchrist added Jimmy Louis as a regular player at the Flora-Bama. He met Louis at a bar in Destin and when Louis ended the show by mooning the unappreciative crowd, Gilchrist immediately hired him to play at the Flora-Bama.

Lambert and Louis, as well as local Flora-Bama legends such as Jay Hawkins and the late Rusty McHugh, helped Gilchrist build the Flora-Bama into a home for songwriters. They also started the long-lasting relationship between Nashville songwriters and the Flora-Bama. As a struggling singer/songwriter in Nashville, Lambert became friends with future-songwriting legends such as Shel Silverstein, Larry Jon Wilson, and Buddy Cannon, and the three friends regularly came down to play at the Flora-Bama.

“Playing down here was different,” explains Louis, who turned down Nashville recording contracts, fame and fortune because he didn’t want music to become a business. “It was about the atmosphere Joe created and the people that were open to any

35 YearsSUPPORTING SONGWRITERSof

photo by Matthew CouglhinJOE GILCHIST

sort of genre. You could write a song in one afternoon, play it that night, and receive an immediate response. There was a sharing between the songwriter and the audience at the Flora-Bama. There were people in the crowds that I never got to meet, but I can still remember their faces.”

Louis credits Gilchrist for creating this appreciation for songwriters. “Joe is the simplest, easiest boss you could have,” says Louis. “He was the fifth guy in the band who understood every note and why we did it, but he never told us what to play. He just said ‘I’ll pour the whisky and you pour the song’.”

Gilchrist is not a musician, but he is a music fan and pays attention to every word of a song. Mickey Newbury was one of Gilchrist’s favorite Nashville songwriters and late at night, Gilchrist and Lambert listened to Newbury’s songs on the reel-to-reel tape player at Gilchrist’s house, wanting to know the man who could write songs with such emotion. Newbury finally came to the Flora-Bama, became close friends with Gilchrist, and stayed with Gilchrist at his beach house for months at a time.

Mickey Newbury was just one of the many songwriters who attached themselves to the Flora-Bama and stayed for more than a show or a vacation. “Dean Dillon came to town and introduced me to Hank and Susie Cochran, Red Lane, and many other Nashville legends who became lifelong friends and came here often,” says Gilchrist. “A lot of musicians come here to play and end up staying here. Our local music scene is much stronger because these great musicians don’t leave.”

For almost 30 years, songwriters have flocked to the Flora-Bama during the first two weeks of November to play their songs at the Frank Brown International Songwriter’s Festival. Named after the late Frank Brown, the respected night watchman who watched over the Flora-Bama for 28 years, Gilchrist financed the first years of the festival with his own money. The festival grew into one of the country’s biggest and oldest tributes to songwriters with over 200 songwriters playing at over 30 local venues. The festival has featured some of the best songwriters from Nashville and the Gulf Coast, including Larry Jon Wilson, Whitey Schafer, John Prine, Guthrie Trapp, Bo Roberts, Rusty McHugh, Jody Payne (Willie Nelson’s lead guitar player), Pete Fontain, and the late Harland Howard.

“The songwriter’s festival is a chance to listen to other people’s songs and hear the stories of how the writers came up with them, but for the musicians, the best part of the songwriter’s festival happens after the bars close,” says Rick Whaley, a popular singer/songwriter at the Flora-Bama who moved to Orange Beach from Nashville almost 20 years ago. “Joe has many of the songwriters over to his house and we pass the guitar around and play until the

sun comes up. No other club owner does that. Joe is a true lover of music.”

Influenced by the Flora-Bama’s success with songwriters and the culture it created, many bars and restaurants now provide live music for tourists and locals. More venues creates more work for a growing community of singer/songwriters. There are now more choices for a beer and music, but only the Flora-Bama has live music 365 days a year on up to three stages and annually hires over 300 singer/songwriters.

“Joe created and still upholds the southern singer/songwriter tradition in our area,” says Beverly Jo Scott, who grew up in Baldwin county and was 17 when she started playing at the Flora-Bama. She now lives in Brussels and is a successful singer/songwriter in Belgium and France. “That damn bar has been the source of many emotional encounters, songs, and, stories--good and evil. The Gulf Coast would not be as soulful today without Joe Gilchrist and the Flora-Bama.”

Over the past 35 years, the Gulf Coast has changed and so has the Flora-Bama. The bar has survived hurricanes, oil spills, and even bankruptcy. Some of the legendary songwriters have passed away or moved on, and new songwriters have taken the stage. Gilchrist admits that it is hard to pass down the history and traditions of the Flora-Bama, even if he helped create them. “Today people see things from a different point of view and may not know how we began, but the ideas and beliefs that I had when we started this bar still hold true,” says Joe. “A bar can still be a good model for how to treat each other with respect. Respect and music transcend all generations.”

KEN LAMBERT

photo by Matthew Couglhin

Catt Sirten’s smooth, calm voice is known across the Gulf Coast, but he is much more than warm-toned words flowing through the speakers of cars, homes, and boats. For thirty years Sirten has been a part of music in Mobile, playing the soundtrack for driving to work, relaxing on Sundays mornings, or unwinding at the end of the day. He still introduces new songs and artists through his Sunday Jazz Brunch and Radio Avalon shows, plays the music of local musicians and brings attention to them through his own photography. Each year he presents over 100 concerts, such as the Brown Bag and Sunset Concerts series, which are free to the public. “Somehow I found the place where I fit and was at home,” says Sirten. “When I joined the radio station 92 Zew in Mobile, I was in the right place at the right time. It is unusual to have the creativity and freedom on radio that I have, and I don’t take that for granted. My goal is to always tell a story. In radio and photography, I start with the world, narrow the focus, and remove everything that distracts from the story I want to tell. Everyday the story is different.“A life built on public speaking did not come naturally for Sirten. He was born tongue-tied and his speech was a handicap that he had to overcome. When he was five years old, doctors clipped a ligament in his tongue to help fix the problem. “I didn’t know I had a speech impediment until 8th or 9th grade when I heard myself recorded on tape,” says Sirten “I immediately asked a neighbor ‘Do I talk funny?’ and he said ‘Yes, you didn’t know that?’ I didn’t know I sounded funny. I just sounded like me.”The speech impediment defined and labeled Sirten in school, but it was also a subconscious motivation to succeed in radio. “The first person I met who worked in radio had a great resonant voice that was so impressive compared to the way

Telling Stories withSongs and Photographs

everyone else talked,” says Sirten. “I wanted to talk like that, so I practiced being on the radio by talking into a tape recorder and listening to every word I said. I may speak more clearly today, but I still don’t like to listen to myself. It’s like looking in a mirror and seeing your faults. If I mispronounce a word, I have to stop myself and go back and correct it. I do that all the time.”Sirten grew up in the late 60’s and early 70’s in the country in Limestone County, Alabama. He picked cotton, dug postholes, chopped wood, milked cows, and helped his dad build the first bathroom on their farmhouse. His contact with the outside world was three television channels and the radio, and this is where his love of music began. “I innocently thought that radio was about the music, and that is where I wanted to be,” says Sirten.Sirten’s first radio job was playing country, pop, oldies, gospel, and big band on a station in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1973. At night, when the station’s owner was asleep, Sirten played the Allman Brothers and the Marshall Tucker Band as country music. The name Catt began in 1978, when the station he went to work for wanted him to be a rock-n-roll animal. “My full radio name became Cartwright Stone and they called me Cat for short,” says Sirten. “I hated the name Cat Stone, and I dropped Stone as soon as I could. I kept Cat, and added the extra t. My mom said it fit because when I was a kid, she always looked for me up in a tree or on top of the barn. I have been Catt for 35 years. My brother even calls me Catt.”It was video, not radio, that brought Sirten to Mobile, and it was not love at first sight with the Port City. “When I first moved to Mobile, I hated it here,” says Sirten. “After a year, I had enough of Mobile so I moved to Phoenix, Arizona with my best friend. However, she is from Mobile and she missed it, so we moved back. “After his return to Mobile, Sirten was hired as program director at the radio station 92 Zew and worked this job three times between 1984 and 2009. He helped the station introduce now-famous artists that the rest of the record industry wasn’t supporting, such as Tracy Chapman and Bruce Hornsby. Sirten was the first person to play Melissa Ethridge on the radio. “I listened to Melissa Ethridge’s cassette while I was driving down Dauphin Street. Her song ‘Like the Way I Do’ was so passionate, it was her soul coming out. I was enthralled with her, and the next morning I played every song on it. Someone heard it and wrote Melissa the first fan letter she ever received. The next day I got a call from Melissa thanking me for playing the album. She called back every week for a while. Even now, she still has a soft spot for Mobile.”While Sirten was program director, 92 Zew was awarded 18 gold or platinum albums by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for the advancement of musical artists careers for Etheridge, Chapman, Tom Petty, Bryan Adams, Georgia Satellites, Suzanne Vega, Bruce Springsteen, and others.“Catt knows quality music and he goes to the mat for it,” says Mobile singer/songwriter Eric Erdman. “He is completely about helping promote music and musicians. He has even produced CD’s of local musicians and much of this support has come out of his own pocket. He is one of the reasons we have so many talented songwriters in our area. I have played around the world and I know that you don’t have Catt Sirten’s everywhere. “Through Catt’s Sunday Jazz Brunch and Radio Avalon, Sirten is on the air almost every day of the week. “Every day I get to play what I think the audience wants to hear, expects to hear, and more importantly what they don’t expect to hear,”

says Sirten. “Introducing new, unheard music is one of the reasons I got into radio, and there is a critical aspect to finding new songs. Does it fit what I am trying to do? Is it musically intelligent? Will the audience like it? Why should I play this one instead of another one? It is exciting to play music you feel confident that other people will like and chances are at that moment you are the one place in the world playing that song.”Each show is a new story for Sirten to tell, but he never writes down a rough draft or a set list of songs. “I don’t have a clue before the show about what I am going to play, but there is always a structure and a foundation,” says Sirten. “I take a minute before it begins and a song will come to me based on the weather or how I feel. Who knows where it comes from, but it always comes. The next piece is related but different. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, and there is always a piece that fits next, I just have to find it. Sometimes I may go through a dozen pieces and I use every bit of the three minutes of the song that is playing to find the next song. By the end of the program, I hope we have painted a picture with that music. There are usually about three programs a year where I feel like I’ve really said something.“During his shows, Sirten envisions what people are doing as they listen. His favorite image is a couple that has been married for a long time and may be past the point of communication. Life is mundane at home and they may be in bed or at the table reading to themselves, but a piece of music comes on and one asks the other to dance. “That does happen, and music affects people’s moods and what they do,” says Sirten. “People tell me that I am not just playing music, but these radio shows are a part of their lives. It is all connected.”It was this visual imagery that finally connected Sirten to photography. He was 45 when he first picked up a camera and has been director of photography for 18 years for Mobile’s BayFest music festival. His photography is included in nine books including “Mobile Bay Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.” “Photography is a parallel endeavor to music,” says Sirten. “Both try to elicit an emotional response from a viewer using only our senses. Whether it is photography, video, or music, my goal is always to tell a story. Photography, video, radio, dealing with people, picking cotton, it is the same life and affects itself.”Sirten believes Mobile is the one city where he can earn a living doing the things he loves. “The reward of my work is not the money, because I am certainly not getting rich,” says Sirten. “The reward is getting to do all of this. If success is waking up each morning and loving what you do, then I am the most successful person I know. If I don’t screw it up, I will get to do it again tonight.”

photography by Keith Necaise and Kim Pearson

Trina Shoemaker knows music. She is a record engineer with an ear for the tone of each note and a passion to make well-crafted songs that sound good in high fidelity. She is the first woman to win the Grammy for Best Engineered Album and now works in a small studio she built behind her house in Fairhope, Alabama to have more time with her husband, singer Grayson Capps, and her eight-year old son. Shoemaker has engineered, mixed, and/or produced over 100 singles and albums for artists such as the Dixie Chicks, Sheryl Crow, Brandi Carlile, and the Indigo Girls. She recorded Neil Young singing on Emmylou Harris’ album, Wrecking Ball, and won her third Grammy in 2005, for Stephen Curtis Chapman’s All Things New. She is also the producer for Willie Sugarcapps' debut album, Willie Sugarcapps, that will be released on August 20.

Even though Shoemaker has worked with some of the biggest names in music, her cozy, guest-cottage mixing room gives only a hint of celebrity connections. Hanging on a pine-paneled wall next to rows of neatly coiled cables is a black and white photograph of Shoemaker sitting on a motorcycle. The small inscription says "Happy Birthday Motorcycle Girl. Bruce and Patti." The motorcycle belongs to Bruce Springsteen and he took the picture while Shoemaker was producing an album at his home studio for his wife, Patti Scialfa. Shoemaker worked for six months in the Springsteen studio and became friends with Bruce and Patti. She rode in Springsteen’s SUV cavalcade to Giant Stadium for The Rising tour (2003), had backstage access, and was given a personal bodyguard just because she was seen with Bruce Springsteen.

“There are some cool perks with my job, but my life isn't that,” says Shoemaker. “I am not a millionaire. I am not a rock star. That was not my world, but I got to dip my toe in it."

Shoemaker was raised by her father in Joliet, Illinois, far away from the music industry, but her path always pointed to the music studio. “Very early, I had an obsessive interest in music, but not as a fan,” explains Shoemaker. “When I listened to music, I didn't think about the singer or the band. I thought about what made the music and how it sounded in my headphones. I was enthralled in the process, but I didn't know why. I studied the album jackets of the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix just to see the pictures of their control rooms."

Shoemaker's father was a dispatcher for Midwestern Gas and he worked in an underground control room filled with big boards, lights, knobs and meters. It was the same environment as a

studio control room. “That room was soundproof and it felt safe,” says Shoemaker. “While you were in that room, the rest of the world didn't exist."

When Shoemaker turned 18, she moved to Los Angeles to turn her dream into a career. "My dad thought I was going out there to fix stereos," she says. "I had never been anywhere and I didn't know how to find a studio. I was just trying to find the picture I had seen on the album cover." She found the studios but became a secretary at Capital Records because no one would hire her to work in a control room. An engineer let her watch a session and there she understood that mixing and editing song tracks was what she wanted to do. “I was determined to do whatever was needed to become a record engineer,” Shoemaker says.

After five years of office work at Capital, Shoemaker realized that record labels did not hire women to work in recording studios. "Recording studios were traditionally a male-associated job," she explains. "There was some sexism, but at that time most women weren’t interested in working in a control room with long hours and no time for a family. Being a woman made me more focused.”

Shoemaker quit Capital Records and moved to London where a bartending job connected her with popular English singer Hugh Harris. He was the first person who took her seriously and gave her a chance. “Hugh had a studio in his basement flat,” says Shoemaker. “He let me in, handed me the headphones, and showed me how to record his vocals. He taught me that recording is just volume and amplitude; you turn it up and you turn it down."

Despite this recording experience, London’s studio doors remained closed. Shoemaker left England, hitchhiked alone through Istanbul, Israel, and Thailand, temporarily moved back to Los Angeles, then made an impulsive decision that started her music career and changed her life. "I had never been to the South, but I moved to New Orleans with $312 and my guitar,” she says. “I applied at every studio in town and got a job at UltraSonic Studio as a maid. Cleaning was my first official job in a studio. I cleaned toilets. I cleaned vomit. Whatever I had to do, I did it. That was a hard time and I went through some abuse, but I learned there is nothing you can do to me that will stop me from going after my dream."

Shoemaker’s persistence was finally rewarded with late night access to an empty control room. She learned to mix and edit by making new versions of her favorite songs such as the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter. “Editing tape is a specialized skill that takes tremendous focus and steady hands,” says Shoemaker. “It put me in demand and led to my job as chief engineer at Kingsway Studios."

Daniel Lanois' Kingsway Studios, a 12,000-square foot mansion in the French Quarter, was a legendary recording studio in the late 1980s and early 1990s when some of the biggest names in music flocked to New Orleans to record Grammy-winning albums. In 1995, Sheryl Crow booked the studio to record her self-titled second album, Sheryl Crow. By then, Shoemaker was an independent engineer, but she was hired to set up Crow’s recording session because Crow’s engineer/producer quit in a dispute on the second day of production. Shoemaker’s relationship with Crow began as an anonymous set up of mics

The Right Notes

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and a recording of “Home” that Shoemaker made as the band worked through the song. "Sheryl was impressed that I recorded that track,” says Shoemaker. “She liked my work and asked me to stay. They used that recording of "Home" on the album and she was the first famous person who made me her engineer." The Sheryl Crow album produced four hit singles, but “Everyday is a Winding Road” was Shoemaker’s favorite. “The bongos in that song were my idea,” she says. “I bought the drums in Metairie and begged her to put them in."

Shoemaker engineered Crow’s music for ten years and she is the only other person who knows the true identity of Crow's My Favorite Mistake. Crow’s records received critical praise and Shoemaker won two Grammy's for Crow's third album Globe Sessions, including Engineer of the Year. "That is the first trophy that I ever won in my life,” says Shoemaker. “It was nice to win that one, but I don’t have to do it again. I had my chance to wear the fancy Dolce and Gabbana gown."

Shoemaker and Crow parted ways in 2005, after Shoemaker became pregnant. That was also the year that five feet of Katrina floodwater destroyed almost everything in Shoemaker’s New Orleans home. "That was a hard year,” says Shoemaker. “I left Sheryl, my main source of income, so I could have more time for my family. Then I lost everything in Katrina, from nail clippers, lamps, and furniture, to my house and all of my recording gear."

Shoemaker and Capps relocated to Nashville, then moved to Fairhope in 2010, to be closer to Capp’s family. Far away from Nashville, Austin, and other major recording cities, Fairhope is an inconvenient location for a recording engineer. "There are advantages and disadvantages to living in Fairhope and making records,” Shoemaker says. “This is not a music city, but there is a huge advantage to being a mom in Fairhope. I can pick up my son from school and he can be around his grandparents. Grayson has work here and Fairhope is a town that I love. I can mix and be creative wherever I live."

Despite the distance, Shoemaker works on four or five albums a year and mixes many more singles from artists around the world. Surrounded by black speakers on her studio wall and a large computer screen filled with song tracking data, she finds the truth in every note. "It is not an accident when a song sounds good,” says Shoemaker. “I am more than an auto-tuning service. I spend hundreds of hours on the subtle shifts in music and

balance in a song. I want it to sound exactly right whether anyone notices it or not. It is like a sculpture and I manipulate notes until it sounds perfect and evokes the right mood.”

Singers trust Shoemaker to bring out the best in vocals and instruments as well as maintain the perspective of the listener. "In the studio, we play a song over and over until we get vertigo and aren't sure which way is up,” says Andrew Duhon, a New Orleans songwriter who plays regularly around the Gulf Coast. “Trina rights the ship and reminds us of our direction. Recording is nerve-wracking because we are creating the version of the song that everyone will expect to hear every time we play it. There is no going back and changing it on another record. I trust Trina to immortalize my songs."

Shoemaker's uncompromising ear was shaped by the music of the 70's, but she has to adjust to the sounds of today. "In the 70s, they made well-crafted records with warm, fat, gorgeous sounds," says Shoemaker. "Today's records are mixed to computers and earbuds and a hit song just has to be catchy. I use Adele, Ray LaMontagne, and Ryan Adams as reference points to keep myself contemporary so I am not mixing too dark or too big."

In 2012, she engineered Brandi Carlile’s Bear Creek album. The record reached the Billboard top ten and still receives radio airplay, but there is no hit like The Story, Carlile’s 2007 masterpiece. “Bear Creek was a wonderful, beautiful record that the band loves and that I love,” says Shoemaker. “But the label doesn’t care about the art of it because it didn’t produce a hit single. I want that hit too, but I care about the art and the singer. Through this I became friends with Brandi and we will make another record together.”

Shoemaker still has a wish list of music legends that she wants to record, including Bonnie Raitt and Paul Rogers (formerly of Bad Company). However, some of her favorite recent albums were for Duhon and Louisiana songwriter Dylan LeBlanc. "The bigger records pay the bills, but I love making records for people I care about,” says Shoemaker. “We put so many hours of devotion into these songs and it breaks my heart that more people won't hear them. No one makes much money on these smaller records, but we do it anyway because we believe we can raise the bar and

introduce people to better music. I can’t accept mediocrity because I care too much about the musicians and the music."

Mobile musician Ryan Balthrop writes songs about the afterlife, respecting the past, social strife, and a dog kept on a running line. His characters leap from trees and into marriage or get dumped at the Greater Gulf State Fair. They find consolation in beer and chicken wings or a piece of heaven in a coldwater flat with a bed in the back. Balthrop calls his music southern eclectic rock, but the bald, burly, sometimes bearded, singer doesn’t slide easily into any category. His flexible voice is a bit Gregg Allman, John Prine, Paul Simon, and Ziggy Marley. His vocals can be warm and relaxed with an acoustic guitar or charged with energy as he pushes song lyrics above the drums and guitars of his band.

Balthrop’s music may be hard to classify, but it is clear where his musical influence began. His mother, father, brother, sisters, aunts and uncles sing and play instruments, both of his grandfathers were storytellers, and his grandmother wrote poetry and short stories. In the summers, the extended family would spend a week at a house on the bay with days filled with singing, stories, crabbing, and Texas Hold’Em. His family taught him how to laugh, sing, love, and eat.

Despite growing up in a house filled with music, Balthrop learned how to swing a tennis racket before he could play a guitar. “I was obsessed with tennis and I did not own a guitar until I was seventeen, but I still listened to a lot of music,” he says. “My earliest musical influences were the bands my older brother listened to such as REM, The Violent Femmes, They Might Be Giants, and the Pixies. My tennis coach introduced me to The Doors and Velvet Underground, and I listened to a lot of Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers, and Van Halen. I went through a deep David Lee Roth phase for three weeks. I cut a hole in my football jerseys, wore pink and green spandex pants, wrist bands and tassels. We played hide and seek and I was always ‘it’ because I was fluorescent.”

Balthrop sang in church and school choirs, but he first sang publicly at a talent show at Mobile’s St. Pius Catholic School. “Ryan was the class clown at St. Pius and music gave him the attention he was looking for,” says his mother, Angele Calametti Balthrop. “He has always been wide open, full of life, and at ease in front of people.”

Improvisation with words and voices is a natural part of Balthrop’s personality. “My earliest memory of Ryan was his ability to imitate people,” remembers Ryan’s father, James Balthrop. “He can imitate voices and use his own voice in many ways. He has a spontaneous stage personality and sees the humor in anything. Ryan has fun and entertains himself and that leads to entertaining the audience.”

Balthrop attended the University of South Alabama in Mobile, and majored in nursing to become a nurse anesthetist. His career plans changed his sophomore year when he became the lead singer of a band that evolved into Slow Moses, a successful college band that played in the Southeast during the mid-90’s.

“That was a great music scene in Mobile and a time when big crowds turned out to see bands,” says keyboardist Chris Spies who played in pubs and clubs with Balthrop. “That was a fun time for bands and we made good money. Ryan was able to stick with it, sharpen his sound, and develop a following on his own while still playing in bands like The LowDown ThrowDown. He is a southern storyteller in his songwriting and these songs are easily played as solo acoustic.”

The Voices of RYAN BALTHROP

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Balthrop’s sound was also shaped by living in The Virgin Islands and touring with Hatch, a reggae, rock, blues, and hip-hop band. “That was one of the best times of my life,” he says. “We toured the Caribbean playing beach bars, regattas, and full moon parties. I got into reggae, and listened to a lot of Peter Tosh and Steel Pulse. The Virgin Islands are one of the most beautiful places in the world and that is where I understood that there is a spiritual side of nature.”

His songs tell the stories of growing up in Catholic school and questioning what is on the other side, or living and playing music by the water, but his best writing comes out of trouble and heartache. “Every songwriter is somewhat bipolar and can feel symptoms of manic depression if they are writing about anything of substance,” he says. “I write the best and the most when I am not feeling right and songwriting is how I let everything out. ‘Way Down Low’ is about the daily struggles we face within ourselves that only we can control.”

Songwriting can lead to low, dark places, but Balthrop enjoys collaborating and working through ideas with other writers. Balthrop wrote “The Nature of the Beast” at the St. John’s Songwriter’s Festival. “There were 25 songwriters from all over and they randomly put us together to write and record,” says Balthrop. “It was a life-changing week for me to be with amazing talents who were focused and methodical about songwriting. ‘The Nature of the Beast’ was written in a session with Chris Aaron from Colorado and Danny White from Nashville. We all have a beast inside us and sometimes you have to let it run free to have balance. You can’t always keep it locked inside.”

Balthrop wraps some of his deepest lyrics in the reggae rhyme and melody of “Obstacle Illusion.” The song speaks out against the social strife, inequality, and oppression that starts with individuals. “We all put up walls,” says Balthrop. “‘Obstacle Illusion’ is about getting through the mental blocks that start in our own minds and affect others.”

Known for his singing and songwriting, Balthrop is developing as a musician. He plays guitar and ukulele in public and the banjo when he is at home. “Switching instruments is a good change and stirs up new ideas, adding different textures and different moods,” he says. “I try to focus on creating new music, but learning new cover songs opens up new progressions and new ways to build structure. I get stuck a lot, thinking that an idea sounds too much like something else. But the message is the most important part.”

Balthrop has played music for 20 years, half of his life, and he is still firmly rooted in relationships with his family and friends. He can still be the class clown, but songwriting gives him a deeper and sometimes darker voice. “I have been doing this a long time, and I play almost every night of the week, but I still like the energy and unpredictability of playing in front of an audience,” he says. “I try to put myself into every song and express my ideas the best way I can.”

There is only one yesterday, there’s only one tomorrow. It’s best to take it day by day when you’re sifting through your sorrow. Sometimes it takes a dirty floor to help you find that open door. Our fragile minds cannot endure when our hearts are so impure. Are you tired of being so unsure? Go find what your looking for, way down low.

“Way Down Low”

The beast is hidden deep within the dark. There’s a beast waiting behind every man’s heart. You live half your life hoping to tame the rage. Just to realize that you just can’t keep it caged. The human heart don’t have no walls, until the beast comes crashing down from on top of his wrecking ball.

“The Nature of the Beast”

There are many things that make us different, and different things that make us sick. All our conflicts of interest, all our interest in conflict.

With the evening sun we mellow, and with the morning sun we rise. We face the darkest hour with a light that burns inside.

Yes, there lies a clear solution to the mental ties that bind. Control the mind pollution before it controls your mind.

There are many things that make us suffer – these are things that make us great. We could reach out for each other, or we could sit back and wait. Are we ten billion strangers? Are we one family? If we could look inside each other’s minds we could help each other see.

“Obstacle Illusion”

The Underhill Family Orchestra is not a family or an orchestra, they don’t even listen to the same music. None of the members is named Underhill and most of them grew up in other places before they moved to Mobile. They are six talented musicians who are unified in their commitment to their music and to each other. Together, they write their own songs, wear face paint and vintage clothing onstage, and survive life on the road as a six-piece band.

Where did you get the name The Underhill Family Orchestra?Steven Laney: At one point we had nine members, so it felt like an orchestra. We were all good friends, so family felt right. I looked through my family tree and found the name Underhill and that sounded like a good, old-fashioned name.

Brian Wattier: We all took on the last name Underhill and we have a whole backstory for our Underhill family.

How did The Underhill Family Orchestra begin?Steven: We started as a three-piece band with Brian, Joelle, and me. We added drums and bass, and it has been an evolution. Most of us met at the University of Mobile, except for Jeremy.

Jeremy Padot: I met them at the coffee shop. I knew they were about to go on tour and I was trying to find a way to weasel myself in. I was going to learn their songs on banjo, but one thing led to another and I ended up becoming their drummer. I had to learn all of their songs in four days.

Explain the war paint that you wear at each show.Steven: We played together for about a year and then we quit. We even played one last show. After that, I went to Germany to a performing arts institute. By the third week, I realized there was something that I would much rather be doing back in Mobile. I came back, and we all got back together. We started wearing the face paint as a symbol of solidarity that we are all in this together. Our music is nothing compared to the brotherhood that we are.

Brian: We had a show in Jackson, Mississippi and forgot our face paint. We thought it would be fine and went on without it. The show was horrible, one of the worst shows we have ever played.

Ben Cook: We didn’t know how important that face paint was until we didn’t have it. We realized that the face paint unifies us. It sounds silly to say that, but it is true.

Steven: Ben once said you go into a crowd of people you don’t know with five other people wearing face paint, at least you have five people who you can relate to. You have family there.

How does living in Mobile influence your music?Steve: It is how we are thinking or feeling while we are living here that affects the mood we create in our music. It is the history of this city of six flags and everything going on here, but it also the people. 90 percent of our songs are about people we meet, the good and bad.

“Sam” is about a traveling preacher character who is a total hypocrite. You can meet people like that here, but at the same time there are also people who are going through the same things that we are, that we can relate to. People get our songs because they have been through it. They know what it is like to have an awful girlfriend or boyfriend. People understand the lyrics because it happens to them. We all go through the same things.

How do you write songs together?Brian: People sometimes bring in whole songs to the group. Some songs come in with just a hook and a chorus and we sit in a room and write for hours until we have a song. Writing together is fun and it is the best feeling when we finish a song.

Steven: We don’t have the same musical influences, and we don’t listen to the same music. We disagree on a lot of music, but we are all together in the music we make together.

Ben: That is part of the magic of our songwriting. We have six people from very different musical places, but we all come together. No one’s feelings are hurt if an idea doesn’t work.

Steven: We all have side projects. If a song doesn’t work as an Underhill song, then it will work as an individual project.

Your last show was on New Year’s Eve and you are taking time off from touring to write and record your next album. What are your plans for this album?

Steven: We are getting into a focused version of what were were doing on our last album. Some of it has a tribal chant feel and a progression of what we were doing already with four-part harmony. We have organized our chants into something melodious and pretty.

Ben: This album will also be different from our past albums. It wouldn’t be interesting if we put the same thing out every time. It has to move and it has to change.

Jeremy: You change and your grow and your music changes with you. That is what we are going through now.

How do you pick which songs will be on the album?Ben: It is usually obvious which songs we like and which songs should be on the album. We aren’t selfish and we know that the music is not only for us. It is about performing the songs and for people latching on to them and enjoying them.

The Underhill

What is it like when the crowd connects with your songs at a show?Brian: That connection is the greatest feeling for a musician and it is why we do this. There are times when it gets really hard with bad jobs and little money, but we play a show and life immediately gets better.

Ben: The first time we played a show in Panama City was one of the best shows we ever had. We looked out and there were 20-30 people singing our songs back to us. They had listened to our songs beforehand and it was so great to hear them singing our songs.

Brian: The last song we played at that show had the chant “Come on, come on, come on, let’s go.” We tried to stop and they wouldn’t let us, so we had to keep playing it.

What is your day job?Brian: I work at AutoZone.

Ben: I wait tables at Mellow Mushroom.

Steven: I am a bartender at Alchemy Tavern.

Jeremy: I am a coffee roaster at Serda’s Coffee.

Steven: Joelle is a photographer and we aren’t sure what Jimmy does.

What was the song that made you want to be a musician?Brian: The first song that made it click for me and made me realize that I wanted to play the electric guitar was “Saturday Night” by Elton John. The buzzed out electric guitar on that track is killer.

Steven: .38 Special is important to me because I listened to them with my dad and brother. I remember going to a scout meeting with my dad and listening to the “Robin Hood Suite” by 38 Special. “Party” by Boston is my standard.

Ben: “Clarity” by Jimmy Eat World. It was the only music I knew when I was living in Canada, but it was one of the simplest albums I’ve ever heard. On song repeats a simple line over and over, but everything else changes. I had never heard music like that before and it opened up my mind to what defines a song. It doesn’t have to be verse, chorus, verse, chorus, and the song is over. There are more ways to construct a song. “Clarity” is what made me think about writing music and understand that I could make it interesting.

Jeremy: There have been different phases of listening and wanting to play music in my life, but it started with my dad. He was a drummer with a big personality and was very animated when he played drums. My family was strict about the music we listened to and we couldn’t listen to secular music. But there was one song, “Two Princes” by the Spin Doctors, that I got to hear. I would sit on my dad’s lap and hold on to his hands while he played the drums on that song. When I became a teenager, the protective bubble was popped. My neighbor listened to heavy metal and he gave me my first 2 CD’s, “Kill ‘Em All” by Metallica, and “Rest in Peace” by Megadeth.

How does listening to other music affect the music you create?Steven: I have to go see live music about ten times a month, or I feel like I wasted that month. I am always trying to take in music. I don’t want to be jamming on the same songs the rest of my life.

Ben: If you aren’t listening to other stuff and broadening what you are listening to, you are just going to regurgitate the same songs over and over. I have to listen to other types of music.

What do you drive to your shows?Brian: We used to have the best-looking and worst-operating van. We once bought a bunch of cans of spray paint, handed them out at a show, and told them to go for it, the van is your canvass. There were parts of the van that turned out good, and parts that didn’t. We had friends who were graffiti artist put on specific things that we wanted on it. However, the transmission and almost everything else blew out on it about a month ago. Now it is in a junkyard.

Steven: I am going to miss that van. It was like rolling around with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.

Ben: We got many reactions to that van. Many weren’t good, and someone once rolled down his window and asked if we were the Illuminati. We have also had people flag us down and pull us over because they saw our name on the van, looked us up on YouTube, and wanted to buy cds.

For The Underhill Family Orchestra, touring is one of the best parts of their music. Along with memories of good crowds and cracking jokes on each other, there are stories of eating bad food at gas stations, shows at strange venues with even stranger people, and sleeping in the homes of people they have never met. The Underhill Family Orchestra may never become an orchestra, or Underhills, but through life and music they have become family.

photo by Michelle Stancil

Family Orchestra

(LEFT TO RIGHT) BRIAN, BEN, STEVEN, JEREMY

Unlike Mississippi blues or New Orleans jazz, there is no label that easily defines Gulf Coast music. Jimmy Buffett will always be our favorite son, but we are much more than Margaritaville. Local musicians can build a following based on their individual songwriting and music style without playing Lynyrd Skynyrd cover songs. From the flamenco jazz of the band

Roman Street to the rural southern storytelling of Grayson Capps, there is diversity in our music. “Music on the Gulf Coast is organic and community based,” says Mobile singer Lisa Mills. “It is rooted in actual living and people knowing each other. It is a musical melting pot of blues, soul, gospel, folk and country. It is all the things that are truly southern.”

Our music venues and radio stations provide stages and airtime for a wide range of local musicians. “This is an exciting time because the public cares about the quality of music,” says Catt Sirten, host of Radio Avalon and Catt’s Sunday Jazz Brunch on 92 ZEW. Sirten has introduced new music, promoted local musicians, and provided the soundtrack of the Gulf Coast for almost 30 years. “Live music is becoming more than just the background for the bar scene. You go to an art museum to look at art and now we have music venues where you go to listen to music. Musicians are appreciated as artists with something to say. There is so much talent here and our musicians are as good as any place in the world.”

Good music is easy to find any night of the week. Clubs on Dauphin Street in Mobile, storm-battered restaurants on the Causeway, beach bars, neighborhood pubs, and barbecue and blues joints help support a community of full-time musicians. “The Gulf Coast is a musician’s dream,” says Anthony Crawford of Sugarcane Jane and Willie Sugarcapps. A Nashville musician for 25 years, Crawford played with Neil Young, Steve Winwood, Dwight Yoakam, and Vince Gill, but left Nashville to get away from the demands of the music industry. “The music community is alive and thriving on the coast because there are many people who want to hear music,” says Anthony. “We get to play for people that visit from across the country and around the world, but still get to stay close to our families and sleep in our own beds at night. Playing music here is about life and reality, not the business of music. There is a social interaction with an opportunity to make friends that genuinely care about you. That kind of appreciation can’t be purchased.”

The Gulf Coast singer/songwriter culture began almost 35 years ago when Joe Gilchrist bought the small Flora-Bama Package and Liquor Store and hired singer/songwriters to play in the shack in the back. In 1978, the Flora-Bama was in the middle of nowhere, but the crowds grew quickly. “It was the people of the Gulf Coast who made it possible for songwriters to play here,” says Jimmy Louis, one of the Flora-Bama’s first songwriters. “They were willing to listen to the songs we wrote and would listen to any genre. That is why songwriters from Nashville and other places gravitated down here. It wasn’t just about the Flora-Bama, it was about the people in the audience.”

On the Alabama Gulf Coast, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting writers, musicians, painters, sculptors, folk artists, and photographers. Many of these are known across the country for their work, but here, they are neighbors, friends, or the parent of a student in your child’s class. They are just another one of us who grew up here or moved here to be closer to the water and an easier way of life.

Some people call it (Fairhope) an artist’s colony, and that is true, since you cannot swing a dead cat without

hitting a serious-faced novelist.- Rick Bragg “Fairhope, Alabama’s Southern Comfort”

for Smithsonian.com, June 2009photo by Stephen Savage

From The Mobile Museum of Art, The Coastal Art Center of Orange Beach, and the Eastern Shore Art Center in Fairhope, to Mardi Gras floats, outdoor park sculptures, and storefront windows, art is always present on the coast. It is chandeliers, evening dresses, and jewelry blowtorched out of old 55-gallon oil drums. It is photographs of vibrant sunsets leaving pink, purple, and orange reflections on breaking waves.

It is shrimp, jellyfish, and crabs painted on tar paper in art therapy classes at the Regional School in Mobile.

“We have many different types of artists on the coast, but there is a connection or a new inspiration that comes from meeting each other,” says Nancy Raia, Director of Outreach at the Eastern Shore Art Center. “Art is about those connections and sharing our stories. There is so much here that feeds your soul.”

The natural beauty of the bays, rivers, Mobile Delta, and the Gulf provides a peace and calm that relaxes artists, but also stirs their thinking. Artists describe this peace of mind as the only way to hear the voices in their head and unlock their imagination.

“Without peace of mind, you don’t have anything. Here I can get quiet enough to listen to the ghosts of the driftwood and old farm metals as I fit them together,” says Bruce Larsen, an internationally known sculptor and special effects designer. “I moved from Atlanta to Fairhope because I had to be near the water. Fairhope is like a little campfire that draws in artists and people that appreciate the arts. It is also a good place to drop off the map. You can make your art and do your shows and still be normal.”

Writers, musicians, and artists gather bits of our world and lay them out in ways that we understand. They take the everyday ups and downs and give them back to us in stories, songs, and visual art. This creative impulse lives not only in our artists and musicians, but also in the imaginations of our teachers, entrepreneurs, chefs, shipbuilders, art patrons, fishermen, parents, and students. We share a spirit of discovery, a desire to experience something new. These discoveries often spring from the music, art, and writing of where we live. The Alabama Gulf Coast brings out the artist in all of us.

The Gulf Coast has a long tradition of attracting and nurturing writers. Writing clubs are popular and books by local authors fill two walls at the Page and Palette bookstore in Fairhope.

“Writers always say they like to be in such a lovely place because the beauty of the landscape itself and the water are a kind of inspiration,” says Pulitzer prize-winning author Rick Bragg. “I think writers just like to be where it’s easy, and this is an easy, easy place. Pretty, certainly, and calming. I have always said it is a place where I can draw a breath because it’s easy.”

Some of the country’s best writers, such as Bragg (All over But the Shoutin’), Winston Groom (Forrest Gump, The Aviators), and Fannie Flagg (Fried Green Tomatoes, The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion) live here or have homes here. They have collectively sold millions of books, but they are our voice when they write essays about life along our coast.

A town of about 17,000, Fairhope sits on bluffs that overlook the bay. It’s not some pounded-out tortilla of a coastal town – all tacky T-shirt shops, spring break nitwits and $25 fried seafood platters – but a town with buildings that do not need a red light to warn low-flying aircraft and where a nice woman sells ripe cantaloupe from the tailgate of a pickup. This is a place where you can turn left without three light changes, prayer or smoking tires, where pelicans are as plentiful as pigeons and where you can buy, in one square mile, a gravy and biscuit, a barbecue sandwich, fresh-picked crab meat, melt-in-your-mouth beignets, a Zebco fishing reel, a sheet of hurricane-proof plywood and a good shower head.

- Rick Bragg “Fairhope, Alabama’s Southern Comfort” for Smithsonian.com, June 2009

Water has always defined the city. Right above Mobile Bay is the delta, nearly four hundred square miles of pristine cypress swamps, marsh bays, rivers, and bayous, and the domain of swamp creatures from eagle to alligator. It’s all a sportsman’s paradise, with speckled trout, white trout, redfish, and tarpon in the bay and its tributaries, and green trout (or bass, as Yankees call them) and bream in the delta. In the fall there’s duck hunting, and still some respectable dove shooting out from town. In the upper reaches of the delta, deer and turkey abound, and for you hog shooters and squirrel barkers – have at it, we got more than the Lord allows.

Winston Groom “Why Life is So Good On Mobile Bay,” Garden and Gun February/March 2011

photo by Bruce Larsen

“I am thinking of a favorite day in my life. What were you wearing on your favorite day?” With this simple question, Nancy Raia, art teacher and Director of Outreach at the Eastern Shore Art Center, draws out stories of childhood, personal accomplishments, and simple pleasures from her class of adults who have suffered memory loss and disabilities. Raia uses affirmative memory techniques, such as avoiding the word remember, to stir forgetting minds until once-familiar moments become almost clear again. Paint brushes slowly fill in pieces of the past--a St. Louis Cardinals jersey worn to baseball games with his son, jeans ironed into straight creases again and again for her children, cut-off pants worn fishing the day after the Army finally set him free. Lives lived before Alzheimer’s. Before the stroke.

“Nancy takes our people back to things they can remember, a time when they had clarity,” says Leisa Richards, director of Shepherd’s Place in Fairhope, a daily program that provides care and activities for adults with memory loss or physical needs. “They relax and their personality comes out. They show who they were before, when they weren’t fearful or insecure. Nancy’s art projects give them things to take home and display, and it builds their self-esteem.”

Raia is a natural artist, but majored in finance at Emory University and worked in banking, television, insurance and, acting. While voluntarily teaching art classes at her daughter’s elementary school, Raia rediscovered her own creative roots and found her calling. Twenty years later, Raia was named the 2011 Art Educator of the Year for Special Needs by the Alabama Art Education Association. She is also an award-winning artist specializing in acrylic and watercolors. She designs her own line of uplifting pen and ink greeting cards and motivational products that are sold at the Eastern Shore Art Center and Private Gallery in Fairhope.

Raia’s creativity and contagious energy help her connect with any person, no matter the artistic skill or disability. She is an expressive teacher with a personality as cheerful as the yellow or pink shirts that she often wears. As she gives instructions, encouragement, or shares a story, it is clear that she sincerely cares about each person around her.

“I am a communicator first,” Raia describes herself. “I like to use art and humor to communicate. We all speak the same language through art, no matter the situation, illness, or disability. Art is about connection and showing that everyone has a story. I love to tell these stories and I lobby for people who don’t have as loud a voice.”

Fairhope is a natural place for Raia’s uplifting and healing art. Founded by artists in 1894, the town is still a thriving community for artists, and Raia’s work is symbolic of the artistic spirit of Fairhope. Each month, Raia and her volunteers teach over 100 children and adults with disabilities or chronic illnesses in classes at the Regional School in Mobile, The Brennity assisted living in Daphne and Fairhope, and Shepherd’s Place. They also teach art classes and art camps for children and youth groups such as the Fairhope Rotary Club’s youth program and the Snook Boys and Girls Club in Foley.

“Whatever the population is, Nancy is able to pin it down. It is her soul and she loves what she does,” says Susan Wright, Raia’s treasured volunteer assistant. “She reads a room and watches how they interact with each other, then makes adjustments. If there is a problem or hesitation, she immediately shifts to find another way to get their attention.”

“I draw a line, you draw a line, and our conversation begins.”

The Eastern Shore Art Center (ESAC) does not charge for the outreach classes and it provides all of the class materials. The Center is funded by private donations,

grants, membership dues, and art sales, but it does not receive money from the city of Fairhope or taxes.

Additional funding is always needed.

To make a donation to the Eastern Shore Art Center, call 251.928.2228 or mail the donation to ESAC Director

Kate Fisher at 401 Oak Street, Fairhope, AL 36532.

photography by Perri Farlow

Marion Peters, 57, is one of Raia’s students at The Brennity in Daphne. A former nursing instructor at The University of South Alabama, Peters has Huntington’s disease, a neurodegenerative genetic disorder that causes a breakdown of nerve cells in the brain and a decline in physical and mental abilities. “This disease is something that gets worse and it causes depression and high anxiety,” says Peters. “My penmanship is bad, but painting is something that I can still do with my hands. It makes me feel good that I did it.”

It’s that sense of accomplishment, the chance to let go of problems and express thoughts and feelings without the barriers of disabilities,that proves the healing powers of art. Helping people connect with their emotions and express themselves is Raia’s biggest reward.

“All you need for my class is a sense of humor, an open mind and willingness to paint,” says Raia. “I draw a line, you draw a line and our conversation begins,” says Raia. “We share a lot together and at the end of the class I feel completely fulfilled.”

The Mulligan Brothers self-titled debut album begins with a mournful fiddle supported by the steady undercurrent of bass and drums. As Ross Newell begins his haunting tale of forbidden plantation love, it is clear that the song will end in death and heartbreak, but well-written songs don’t need a catchy chorus or a happy ending to win over an audience or to be played over and over again.

The Mulligan Brothers, from Mobile and Baton Rouge, is Newell on lead vocals and guitar, Gram Rea on fiddle, mandolin and harmonica, Greg DeLuca on drums and Ben Leininger on upright suitcase bass (all four can sing lead or harmony). They are not brothers, but the name represents a second chance for the four musicians who finally found the combination that is right for them. "A Mulligan in golf is a ‘do over’ and that is what this band is for us," says Rea. "We wanted a chance to figure this out the right way."

Their music crosses borders between folk rock, Americana and country, giving Newell the unhurried space to sing about escaping the miseries of life with a soul that isn't worth much these days, a woman he loves who calls him by another man's name, and pleading with God to bring tomorrow to wash away today.

This is the band of my dreams," says Newell. "This is the music that I heard in my head when I wrote the songs. I have always been a fan of Americana and acoustic music but many musicians would rather be in a rock band. It is hard to find a bass player who will pick up an upright or a drummer willing to play with restraint and add just what the song needs. Part of the chemistry of a band is agreeing on the type of music you want to play."

In an age of downloads and disposable singles, “The Mulligan Brothers” is a whole album of straightforward narratives with concise original lines and metaphors. There is no reverb, no distortion, and no clichés, just Newell’s honest, sincere voice cutting to the heart in songs that seem as much to himself as to the listener as the meaning of the chorus deepens after every verse.

“There is no better album that has been released this year, and I get albums from around the world every day,” says Tony Plosczynski, host of 92 New that introduces new music on 92 Zew in Mobile. “The Lumineers, Jake Bugg and The Mulligan Brothers are my top three albums of the year.”

The lyrics set the songs apart but it is the rhythm and string melodies that grab attention. Rea started playing the violin when he was eleven years old, was classically trained through high school, and attended college on a music scholarship. “Fiddle players are a dying breed, but I can play everything on the fiddle,” says Rea. “I have been a musician for 26 years and have played all types of music, but this past year I finally stepped into myself.”

The songs needed upright bass so Newell, who has grown up “using cool stuff to build less cool stuff,” built a bass out of old suitcases and the neck of a bass guitar and gave it to Leininger. “I am an electric bass player that played hip hop,” says Leninger. “I had never played the upright bass, but I wanted to be a part of this project. I listened to bluegrass and learned new notes. The upright has different, natural tones, but it is harder to play because the fingering is more precise and needs more hand eye coordination. Playing a bass made out of suitcases is a little more difficult, my right hand plays the stand up bass while my left hand plays electric bass, but playing any kind of music is getting away from the stresses of real life. It is a natural high for me.”

DeLuca had to prove that the band needed a drummer. “I promised I wouldn’t take over with my drums and I have kept my promise for the most part,” says DeLuca. “I don’t always have to do something great because the songs are so good on their own and they make it easy to lay back and have restraint. I like to speed up the beat and then drop off for Ross to build it back up. Playing together is like a team sport.”

On stage, they have set positions in a crescent moon formation as songs sweep out and stir the crowd to dance. Wearing a gray flatcap and black glasses, Newell stands behind his mic and guitar, anchoring the left side of the stage while Leininger and DeLuca provide the dynamics and punctuation from the back. Rea calls out the songs from the right before he drifts and sways along the edge, leaning into his fiddle or drawing cheers as plays it like an electric guitar. The band plays every song from the album mixed in with covers that sound like their own, but the original songs such as “Lay Here” and “Kaleidoscope” are shouted in request or written on dollar bills left in the tip jar.

“There is a synergy with The Mulligan Brothers,” says Catt Sirten who was the first to play The Mulligan Brothers on his Radio Avalon show in Mobile. “All of the musicians have played around town for years but somehow it came together for them in this band. I play them on the radio, but I also listen to them in my car. Knowing them makes you like their music even more. They are part of a unique sound that is developing in Mobile.”

The Mulligan Brothers began in 2011, as an acoustic side project with

Second Chances for the

She was born into subjection. She was born without a say.

He was her first and only revelation that she might not die that way.

I will love you all the seasons. What you want is what I’ll be.

I’ll be your rock, I’ll be your reason.

Just set me free. Oh, just set me free.

“Cecilia”

photo by Chris Helton

Rea, Newell, and Les Hall, who later moved to Nashville for his own music career. "We started as an acoustic band and I was comfortable with that vibe,” says Rea. “I wasn't looking for a change, but we added Greg and Ben a year ago and it was immediately right. They make our music better."

Before the Mulligan Brothers, Newell almost recorded some of the songs as a solo project. "Several times I had talked myself into and out of recording these songs, probably from paranoia, but this was the right time and the right way to do it," says Newell. “Gram, Ben, Greg and I played together for the first time a year ago at my house and it was immediately right.

The songs seemed to pick themselves as the arrangements evolved and expanded from rehearsal to recording. "We had three months of preproduction and that gave us time to rehearse, play the songs live, figure out the tempo, and create the parts for fiddle, bass and drums,” says Rea. “There were parts that we played spontaneously from the heart during recording and we had to go back and learn them. 'Lay Here’ was very different when we added drums and bass and sped it up with four on the floor tempo. There was a temptation to add more instruments during production but we wanted to reproduce the songs on stage every night. If we can't play it live, we didn't play it on the album, and that shaped our sound."

"We are still creating our own sound because we don't want to be like anyone else," says DeLuca. "We are also learning our songwriting process and getting everyone involved. Ross wrote all of the songs on the first album and we want to take some of the writing pressure off of him for the second album. However, we are playing so much right now that there is little time to write and be creative.”

Newell knows it is time to write again. “Writing songs is one of my favorite things but I take a while to write a song,” he says. “If a line seems forced or anything but honest, then I have to scrap it. I have to live through something or feel strongly about it to add authentic details. Fortunately the songs take on a life of their own and people are willing to listen and read more into the lyrics than what was said.”

Unlike most singer/songwriters, Newell does not tell the stories behind each song. He wants listeners to take their own meaning, however, some songs make a stronger connection because of the

stories behind them. He wrote “Thrift Store Suitcase” about working as a union electrician at the state docks on a coal conveyor job. “It was miserable, boring work,” says Newell. “I had been romanticizing about being able to play music for a living. If I could just book a few more gigs, then I would have my ticket out of town and get away from everything familiar. One night I walked out of the coal dust area and a guy was holding a sign saying he needed a ride to the gas station. The song is his story. We walked to my truck and he said, ‘I know what you are thinking, I look like Jesus, right? I get that all of the time.’ He had a child with a woman in New Orleans and loved them, but she was from a wealthy family and they gave her an ultimatum to leave him and they would take care of the bills. He left them for the good of his family.”

Song by song, The Mulligan Brothers are gaining fans but there are still nights when the lines in “Too Soon to Say” are personal, and pouring out heart and soul on stage is a lonely place to be. There’s a boy in a bar plays behind his tip jar all night long. No one seems to care that he’s always playing the same old song. Seems

there is blood on the floor that you all seem to ignore somehow and you’re all pacified with your upcasted eyes aren’t you now? “Those are the nights that we play for each other and work on the subtleties that you can only hear on stage,” says DeLucas. “Those nights are paid rehearsal.”

Lessons learned in first bands and slow nights create an appreciation for this second chance and their future together. “We have learned from the mistakes we made in other bands such as overproduced albums, or arranging songs when the individual music styles don’t fit,” says Rea. “Now every show is part of building a career playing music as The Mulligan Brothers. We don’t know where this is going to lead, but we want to play together for a long time and keep making songs that people care about.”

The old man looks like Jesus, says I get that all the time.

If I were I’d leave the coast and throw away my cardboard sign.

Said I looked like an old friend that he’d lost somewhere down the line.

That if I were his friend and if he were The Lord he’d turn the ocean into wine.

Said I had a family down in New Orleans that just lived beyond me means thought I’d

just go out and find my scene.

“Thrift Store Suitcase”

Mulligan Brothers

photo by Michelle Stancil

Eric Erdman Colors the Silence

Dying his dark hair blonde and shaving his beard down to a goatee for a retro reunion gig seemed like a good idea to singer Eric Erdman ‒ until he looked at himself in the mirror the next morning. Unimpressed, he shaved his head, because bald was better than blonde. That should have been the end of it, but then he dropped his wallet into the brackish water of Mobile Bay during a sailing trip. “Now I have to get a new driver’s license with the picture of my bald face and bald head,” says Erdman. “This is not a look I want to see each time I pull out my license. My life is bit of a circus, but I always give myself something to write a song about.”

Tall and gregarious with blue-green eyes that flash with laughter, mischief, and kindness, Erdman is a natural entertainer and draws listeners in to his songs and stories like he is sharing them with old friends. “I am a happy and optimistic guy and I love the interaction with people,” says Erdman. “When I am on stage, I am telling stories to the audience, I don’t want to be just talking to myself. If the audience is paying attention, and getting the punch lines and the meanings of the lyrics, we are in it together. In each show, I look for who is listening so I know where to aim the songs, even if it is for only two people in the back while 98 others have their backs turned.”

Erdman was three years old when he made his first public performance. "I was the ring bearer at my cousin's wedding," he says. "During the reception the band took a break and I took this as a sign that they needed help. I climbed on stage, but I was too small to reach the microphone. The band backed me up on the only two songs I knew, 'Zippety Doo Dah' and the theme song to

the Dukes of Hazard. I was trying, and failing, to win the attention of the flower girl, so since the age of three, I have had a similar effect on women with my music."

Music was passed down from his older brother. “I always wanted to be my brother,” says Erdman. “If he played the violin, I played the violin. He played the guitar, so I started playing the guitar. I got my first bass guitar when I was 12.”

Five years later, Erdman played in bands at parties, and a friend’s dad gave him the chance to play at Southside in Mobile (now the Alabama Music Box). “They liked our music and we started playing at Southside on weekends,” says Erdman. “We got lucky and one gig led to another and all of a sudden I was playing 30 gigs a month either solo or with the band The Ugli Stick.”

Erdman was more than a musician in high school and college. He was also a self-described math and science nerd and earned a degree in math and statistics from the University of South Alabama. “I started playing in bands in college,” says Erdman. “The economy was good and it was a great time to be a musician in Mobile. By my junior and senior year I was making more money that I would have made with a real job. By then, I knew I was going to be a musician and I would never use my degree, but I had caused my brain so much pain that I had to finish.”

Today, he is a full–time singer/songwriter who takes his guitar everywhere he goes and writes music every day. "It is easy to write songs when you have a first love, or your parents get divorced, or you go through a cataclysmic event," explains Erdman. "But I also want to be affected by the smaller things like when someone cuts me off in traffic. There is always something to write about because there is something that affects me every day, funny and happy or serious and sad. I like to write songs with punch lines because they provide a spark in a song, especially when I am playing them for an audience. I am working on one now with the punch line ‘I married her for her looks, but not the ones she is giving me lately’.”

Erdman is a life-loving optimist with a knack for punch lines, but he can fill any song with the pain of heartbreak or the joy of revival. His warm, honeyed voice is filled with melancholy shadows, bluesy turns, and country ache that can still soar over harmonies. He sings every line with a sincerity that feels like an intimate confession of a man sensitive to the emotions of life.

photo by Michelle Stancil

Eric Erdman Colors the Silence

Cancer almost silenced Erdman’s music before it began. When he was fourteen, he rolled his ankle and it would not heal. Doctors told him he had a cancerous tumor and he would not survive it. After surgery, the doctors told him the leg would not grow anymore and it would be shorter than the other leg. But the leg grew, and the next year Erdman led his baseball league in stolen bases.

“Cancer gave me a new perspective on life,” says Erdman. “I would not be close to the same person I am now. I can poke fun at life and myself. Relationship drama is not life-ending because I have already lived through death. Bad gigs, broken cables, and busted amps are no reason for stress because it ain’t bone cancer.”

Erdman's new album, Color the Silence, was recorded early this year while touring in Australia. He tells stories of breakups and complicated relationships, but the title song is one of Erdman's few songs about the giddiness of love.

“Color the Silence" is about the infatuation stage of a relationship and staying on the phone all night talking about nothing when you should be sleeping. The song was co-written in Nashville with Dale Drinkard, Jr. and Amanda Williams. "The idea for that song was sparked when the three of us were looking at the stars and Dale said what colors the silence matters more than what is being said. The story then presented itself. “Color the Silence” is a unique song in my catalog. I have a lot of break up songs about this is how she done me wrong and good riddance. I can get four songs out of one breakup, but I don't have many sugary sweet songs. The song also has a double meaning about taking the mundane and adding some spark to the way you view the world."

Getting to know you and longing to show you what I am thinking ofSuch a fine conversation goes without saying a word and the hours fly by us

It's not what we say, it's how we color the silence

“Hard to Get (Rid Of)” is about a girl who was playing hard to get and now she is playing hard to get rid of. “That song is about the girl, but it is also laughing at the skewed perception of myself,” says Erdman.

I swear anything I said about wanting her you can disregard.No, I changed so quickly I am in a state of shock.I remember begging her to come to my house and now I am trying to change the lock.

Erdman is developing his voice as a songwriter, even if he has to use a little profanity to make his point. "Lucky (El Paso)” tells of an “Asshole from El Paso, an SOB from Tennessee” in his observation that not all Yankees are bad and not all southerners are nice. "You can't change the words or tone it down,” says Erdman. “'I know this not-so-nice person from El Paso' doesn't sound right and doesn't

make sense. It has to be 'Asshole from El Paso' or it doesn't fly. To me, funny trumps everything, and when it is funny like that, I've got to say it. Because of this song, the album was tagged with a warning for explicit lyrics. I never intend to offend, but if I would say it, I will also sing it."

Singing and songwriting are different skills and Erdman gives himself to both. "Songwriting is a way to get your emotions and ideas out," he says. "Singing is the application and seeing how people connect with your ideas. You take a song from nothingness to form a concept and then put it out there to resonate with other people. It still gives me chills to hear people sing those songs back to me and it makes me feel at one with my surroundings. Whatever ways we differ, we are all connected together in that moment."

Color the Silence is the second album in his solo career but he has played with the Mobile band Ugli Stick for almost fifteen years. "Solo singer-songwriter is my essence, but I put that on the back burner for many years to play with the band," says Erdman. "I am now happier that I get to play with the band and play on my own and be two different people. With Ugli Stick I get to jump around and get loud and rowdy and rap. I even get calls to rap on other people’s albums such as the song “Old Shoes” on Sonny Bama’s latest album.”

Fulfillment in different styles of music reflects Erdman’s need for variety and change. He calls himself a road dog and enjoys seeing the world through touring, still studies science to learn something new, and is not afraid to change his hair and clothing style. “I am an explorer and adventurer,” says Erdman. “However, the older I get the changes become less drastic.”

One thing Erdman won’t change is his hometown of Mobile. He writes about the city in his songs and creates music projects here like Port City Rising with his good friend Catt Sirten. "My whole family is in Mobile and the people of Mobile have been so supportive of me from the very beginning," says Erdman. "They have been my backbone which allows me to generate enough money to write songs and tour. I can risk booking shows in places like New York where I don’t have a fan base yet.”

The new album is a new opportunity for Erdman to travel with his music. During the rest of the year he will tour the U.S., Belgium, Germany, and return to Australia.

"It is mind-boggling how many places this guitar has taken me and I try very hard to stay on the moment and not to take it for granted," says Erdman. "Even the slightest, smallest gig is incredible when I am playing in Australia. I don't have much money and I am the brokest of all my friends, but when I look at my life experiences and the places I have been, I have it pretty good. I am only broke in money. For me, I am in the most successful time in my life. Every gig, every recording project, every person I play with makes me as happy as I can be.”

photography by Michelle Stancil

LONNIE RICH shapes rock, wood, and smooth round stones into sculptures that seem to dance in the wind, cradle a child, or bow in silent prayer. With the calm, patient voice of a man who spent years explaining art in front of a classroom, he gently picks up his statues to point out details—the delicacy of a rose knot that once anchored a limb, black wood charred by fire, the circle around a wishing stone that keeps wishes protected. “She Danced Along the Shoreline.” “Warmed by the Winds of Love.” “Angel in the Whispering Wind.” One by one, he reads the titles of sculptures like the lines of a favorite poem.

Rich works from his home on the East Bay in Navarre, Florida, living on the edge of land and water where the forces of nature provide materials for his “Listening to Wood and Stone” sculptures. Between his back door and the shore are stacks of driftwood bleaching in the sun like dried bones. There is a small, colorful quarry of granite, marble, and stone slabs from around the world that are organized by size and color. He runs his hands over a pile of white river rocks, fingering them like prayer beads. The touch and immediacy of these materials gives him comfort and stimulation.

Nature has always been the inspiration for Rich’s art. He grew up in a clapboard house near the bottomland of the Tennessee River where he collected pockets full of rocks and imagined forms and shapes in the branches of trees. His family drew water from a well and lived off what they grew in the garden. There was little money for art supplies so his mother made art paper from brown paper grocery bags. "My mother gave me the opportunity to draw and explore my imagination," says Rich. "While other kids were playing ball, I was drawing. I took care of our chickens and I learned about their physical characteristics, the curves, angles and feather textures, and I brought these details into my childhood drawings."

Receiving the Outstanding Artist Award at his high school graduation transformed Rich’s art from a childhood hobby into a ticket to college. “That award made a big difference in my early life,” says Rich. “It was confirmation that I am an artist and I didn’t have to work all of my life in the local garment factory. I worked in that factory every summer and I didn’t want to go back.” He attended Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee beginning his collegian career with an art scholarship. From there he worked for almost 30 years in art education as a graduate student, an art teacher, a gallery director, and the Chairman of the Art Program at Lurleen B. Wallace Community College, before he retired in 2005 to become a full-time artist. Today, he continues to receive awards for his art. In 2012, he won the Best of Show Award at the Destin Festival of Art and the Heritage Arts Award of Excellence at the Great Gulf Coast Art Festival.

Rich’s sculptures are richly colored and visually striking reminders of the beauty beyond windows and walls. He favors windswept lines and dynamic shapes, particularly pieces that take the form of raised arms or arms wide open. He includes the imperfections, the knots, and the rough edges. “A large part of my work revolves around taking what nature gives me and working within its boundaries,” says Rich. “I can’t create a dolphin if a dolphin isn’t there. If an artwork is forced from its materials, it can appear contrived and overworked until the content is no longer expressed by the form.”

Rich built his current artistic identity on wood and stone, but he was a painter until 2004, when a 14-foot storm surge from Hurricane Ivan destroyed his basement studio, washing away a lifetime of paints, brushes, and materials. "Losing my painting studio was a creative blow," says Rich. "It was something I had wanted for so long, but after the hurricane I could not afford to replace all of the materials that I had collected over thirty years. Gradually, I began to focus my attention on setting up an art studio again, but I had lost my sense of creative direction. I was waiting on a flash of insight or divine inspiration."

He found that revelation while collecting the debris of broken trees that the hurricane left behind. He experimented with wood and stone combinations for many years, but did not give them his full attention because he thought changing forms would betray his years of academic training in painting. “Losing everything forced me to change my direction from a two-dimensional

artist focused on height and width creating the illusion of depth, to a three-dimensional sculptor that works all sides of a piece. It wasn’t easy. I had to make adjustments physically, emotionally, and creatively."

Currents and tides still deliver driftwood to Rich's doorstep. Much of this pine, cedar, and cypress hardwood are called "original wood" by foresters because they were living trees when Columbus discovered America. Rich also boats into bays and rivers to find submerged trunks and branches.

Touch and emotional connection are the keys to picking wood, so Rich keeps a clear, undistracted mind when he inspects each piece. "There is an inner spiritual connection that happens at the moment I sense the energy in the wood," says Rich. "Spirituality is a major part of what I do. It's not religion, but a connection of the spirit with nature. I can feel the wood speak and move and vibrate, showing the direction I need to go. That moment of discovery is almost an addiction, but I don't find that connection with every piece of wood. There are many pieces of wood that I never pick up because they do not seem to have a voice."

Each sculpture begins with cleaning away the sand, rocks, grass, and roots from the wood’s surface with water, then chiseling away the pieces that are too soft and show signs of decay. Rich often removes portions of the outside edges to enhance a curve or to create a directed swoop that guides the viewer along the edges of the artwork.

“My impressions of the wood lead me to explore color, texture, and weight to see how they can be used to enhance the wood's orientation as an art form,” says Rich. “I want the finished form to maintain nature's work as well as the creative work that I do to show the wood grain with its many colors and textures. However, I have to work slowly and take the time to feel my way through my processes because removing too much material will ruin the form.”

Using a wood chisel as a paintbrush, Rich carves into the layers of the wood to bring out luminous colors in the grain and the sap, choosing what to take out and what to leave in. “The layers of sap tell the narrative of the tree,” says Rich. “If it was a good year, the sap is a deep orange color, but a thin, yellowish layer indicates a drought. I like working with the layers of transparent color. I accentuate the lines, but I don't perfect it too much and detract from what nature has already provided. The beauty of the wood is what has happened in the life of the tree.”

Bringing out the character and life energy of the wood can take hours for small pieces and weeks for large pieces. "There is usually more than one way to show energy," says Rich. "A tight vertical orientation can be a little more passive, but turn it horizontally and it may open up to become windswept. Tilt it on a diagonal and suddenly it has a very dramatic, visual energy."

Wood is the dominant element that gives movement and texture to each sculpture, but a small white headstone creates the human quality and personality. "Once I put the headstone on, it brings a broader view and response," says Rich. "There is life in these stones and just changing the position of that rock to looking back, looking up, or looking down changes the mood of the piece.” The tilt and the angle of the headstone enhance the sculpture’s emotional impact, but these pieces of expression are invisibly held together with drilled holes and metal rods between the rock and the wood. The original tilt and attitude of the driftwood must be maintained throughout the form's development or the original feelings and impressions from the driftwood are lost.

Rich anchors the sculptures on stone bases that he buys from local landscapers. Travertine from Chile, midnight stone from North Carolina, and plum wood stone from New Mexico share the memories, character, and culture of their land. Their rich colors, undulating lines, and smooth or jagged edges allow him to stage settings that range from canyons, mountains, and deserts. The texture can reveal rippled surfaces of rivers and shorelines, while others suggest distant horizons for sunrises and sunsets.

In the sensitive hands of Rich, the energy from wood and stone is reborn in the form of angels, dancers, and humble souls expressing a joy for life. “Some people just see a rock on a stick, but there are others who put their hand on their heart as they breathe each piece in,” says Rich. “People draw from their own past experiences when they look at my art and they may see a different form than the one I created. They haven't been where I have been and I haven't been where they have been, but we learn from each other. That is powerful.”

on

The band WILLIE SUGARCAPPS was born in front of an audience. It was unplanned, unexpected, and easy. It began as Grayson Capps, Corky Hughes, Will Kimbrough, and Savana and Anthony Crawford as Sugarcane Jane played music together off the cuff and in the moment, discovering a connection that would grow into friendships, an album, and sold-out shows in towns around the South.

Cathe Steele brought the five musicians together for the first time to play in the round at her Sunday Social at Blue Moon Farm in Silverhill, Alabama. “I have listened to Will and Anthony for a long time,” she says “They had never played together, but both of them have an intense energy level, and I knew that instrumentally all hell would break loose and they would have fun doing it. Grayson, Corky, and Savana filled in all of the gaps, and the music was even better than I expected it would be.”

Under pressure from talented fingertips, mandolin, banjo, acoustic and electric guitars, bass, and ukulele come alive in a swirl of sweat and strings with a tambourine and shaker on the backbeat. Hughes draws listeners in with the twang, wail, and moan of his lap steel guitar as songs charge between country, blues, folk, and rock. But it is the harmony that blends together each voice to create the heart of their music: Sugarcane Jane’s Appalachian high timbre that cuts through the surrounding notes; Capps’ low, swampy blues and grit; and versatile Kimbrough in the muddy middle.

Willie Sugarcapps became a band so naturally that it feels like the five members have always played together. Singers and instruments take turns in the lead, the right lick is played at the right time, and good musicians push each other to play better together. The interaction is instinctive, but it was shaped by the bands and musicians that came before Willie Sugarcapps.

Kimbrough played with Will and the Bushmen, Hughes played with Black Oak Arkansas, Anthony played with Neil Young and the International Harvesters, and Capps played with the Stumpknockers and the Lost Cause Minstrels. Collectively, they have toured, played, and written songs with Neil Young, Rodney Crowell, Jimmy Buffett, Todd Snider, Steve Winwood, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, Mavis Staples, Dwight Yoakum, and Bo Diddley.

“Willie Sugarcapps formed as easily as a band can come together, by playing music with friends,” says Kimbrough. “I have been a musician for 31 years and at this stage it is hard to find peers with experience and enthusiasm who enjoy playing with each other.

Playing with Grayson, Corky, Anthony and Savana was an instant cohesion that felt like déjà vu. I felt like I was at home even though I was somewhere I have never been.”

“We didn’t know we were forming a band,” says Capps. “Playing together was just fun as shit. I love having four-part harmony with call and response. I have never had that in my music and it is an incredible energy when four voices lock together to make a chord.”

Willie Sugarcapps has four singers and five guitars players, freeing Kimbrough and Anthony to play the instruments that they usually leave at home. “I play acoustic guitar with Sugarcane Jane, so this is opening a whole new world of playing other instruments,” says Anthony. “Grayson plays acoustic, Corky can make a lap steel sound like a pedal steel, and Will has mandolin and banjo covered. I have been playing bass, but I will bring in other instruments that aren't taken like piano and fiddle. It is exciting for me to play something new on instruments that I usually don’t play.”

Their musical styles are different, but expressive, fast-fingered instrumentals create songs that are rough-edged, rustic, and driven

Misery laughing at you, laughing while you are crying, it’s a terrible thing. Sickness

hiding in the bedclothes, hiding he’s a coward but he’s on your trail. Live for the moment every minute of the day. Live for

the moment it’s the only way.“Trouble” by Will Kimbrough

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by thumping bass lines. “We all have a similar aesthetic and we could play any song and put our signature on it and it would sound good,” says Capps. “We grew up listening to old blues and country, Hank Williams, and rock and roll. We are all from Alabama and have deep-rooted musical taste.

The band’s debut album, Willie Sugarcapps, was released nationally in August 2013. Recorded in eight hours on Anthony and Savana’s dogtrot porch in the middle of 2,000 acres of pinewood, the album came together so quickly that there was no time for rehearsal. Lyrics, bass lines, and vocals were learned minutes before recording, creating the freedom and energy of live, face-to-face music with verbal cues in songs about death, the meaning of life, and leaving family behind to go on the road one more time. Lapping and loose, “Mud Bottom” rolls along Dog River as Hughes’ steel guitar riffs skitter by like mud squeezing out of toes. Savana’s voice soars with longing to return to the mountains and high places in “Colorado.”

The album is a collection of songs written by the members of Willie Sugarcapps. Sugarcane Jane and Capps contributed three songs each and Kimbrough added four. “Will sent out the first six songs and I listened carefully because I thought those songs would be on the album,” says Savana. “Harmony and vocals are my biggest contribution to the album, and I wanted to know the words to each song. But I learned to wait for the final list because Will is a prolific songwriter and he eventually sent us fifty songs to consider for the album and they were all good enough to be included.”

Kimbrough wrote “Trouble” while driving I-65 back to Nashville after a Willie Sugarcapps performance. “I wrote ‘Trouble’ to sound like an old time song with haunting harmonies that addresses sickness, dying, and death,” says Kimbrough. “When we are young, those seem so far away. But you get to the middle of life and mortality is real. Our parents are getting older and we are getting older too. The only thing definite is death and you have to make friends with life and death.”

“I had to learn the bass line for ‘Trouble’ as we were recording it,” says Anthony “It was like someone handed me a Rubik's cube and I had no idea what to do with it. Fear of failure drove me to figure it out because I didn't want to let the other members down.”

Even established songs received last minute revisions. Before recording began, Anthony changed the music on “Energy,” a song he has played for almost 15 years. “I have recorded that song five different ways with five different chord patterns, but the words allow me to use different moods from a Pink Floyd production to Tony Rice bluegrass,” says Anthony. “The song went to the bluegrass level when we set the mic levels. It sounded good, so that is how I played it.”

Grammy-winning record producer Trina Shoemaker of Fairhope recorded, mixed, and engineered the album. Section-by-section and note-by-note, she shaped the master tracks giving the songs structure and clarity so that every instrument is clearly heard. “I produced the album, but my production didn’t make them geniuses,” says Shoemaker “They are stunning musicians and talented people who write great songs. I just edited together performances that make them sound as good as they are. “

This album gives Willie Sugarcapps common songs to perform together for bookings that are spreading across the South. They are still getting to know the songs, stretching them out, and adding vocals. “We play the album in the first set of our show and play renegade songs or try out new songs in the second set,” says Anthony. “That is the beautiful thing about this band, we could play anything and people will

never know that we haven’t been rehearsing for months. It’s like being at a track meet with people who can anticipate the gun and take off. No matter where something goes, we have the anticipation level to chime in. The level of musicianship provides a foundation for each other to come in and play.”

Willie Sugarcapps sprang from successful musicians who weren’t looking for another band but together they created music that they are proud of. Music they could not make without each other. “Willie Sugarcapps is something we all stumbled upon,” says Kimbrough. “There is a trust in what everyone else is going to do play, so that gives us room for experimenting and recklessness when we play. It is a fun thing and we are joyous about where it is taking us. We have only scratched the surface of the music we can make together.”

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CORKY HUGHES

Broken tape measures. Animal bones. Busted pliers. Rusted tin cans. The smashed porcelein face of a cherub doll. One by one, useless, discarded objects become art in the hands of Fairhope artist Chris Cumbie. Black and white piano keys fuse into the skeleton of a fish. Stiff bicycle tubes bloom into a metal bouquet of flowers, and rusted shovels form the webbed feet of a four-foot tall pelican. Cumbie is more than an assemblage artist. He is a carver, painter, welder, and an illusionist. Bringing different genres and mediums into one piece, he recycles, refinishes, and redesigns ordinary objects, and gives them new life.

By rescuing antiques, driftwood, and other people’s junk, Cumbie not only makes art, he preserves little pieces of history, presenting them in ways that are surprising and unexpected. Climbing into dumpsters, he roots through garbage to find thrown-away treasures. He searches abandoned houses and farm sheds for household items and farm tools that were left

behind. On Sunday nights, he drives through town

looking for

furniture and odd pieces left at street curbs to be picked up on trash day.

“It is rewarding when I find something I can use and get to create a picture of the history behind it,” says Cumbie. “Many of the items I find, like old farm equipment, have been untouched for a long time and I want to preserve them because they aren’t made any more. I like to think about the past usage and who owned them and create my own stories about them.”

Cumbie’s own story began on his family’s 300-acre farm in Little River, Alabama, north of Bay Minette. Growing up in the country with a creative family gave roots and spirit to his art. His parents are both artists; his dad welded practical things for the house and his mother painted country folk art. His grandfather was a retired fisherman, and if he didn’t have something, he made it himself. Living forty minutes away from the nearest town, the Cumbie family made use of what they had and reused everything. When he was a little boy, Cumbie watched his father and grandfather take apart and salvage a house that had been on the family property since the 1800s. They

saved every nail, shutter, board and brick, and used them on their own home. Cumbie still uses some of those nails in his art.

By age 17, Cumbie was carving deer antlers and attaching them to the primitive masks that he

made. He attempted to major in art in college, but it wasn’t

the right fit, so he moved to the beach and worked restaurant

and construction jobs to pay the bills. He moved from Gulf Shores

to Fairhope in 2000 to be closer to the artist community and started a

customized tile and stone flooring business. Nine years later, he sold his first pieces of art at a market show in New Orleans. “Until then, I just gave away my pieces to family and friends

and whoever liked them, but my wife Carissa is also an artist and she made me take some pieces to the market show,” says Cumbie. “I couldn’t get over people liking my work enough to buy it. That show paid for our weekend in New Orleans.”

Soon after his success in New Orleans, Cumbie became a vendor at Windmill Market in Fairhope. He sold almost all of his pieces during his first weekend and met artist and art patron, B.J. Cooper. “B.J. helped me get my own art show at the Eastern Shore Art Center in 2011,” says Cumbie. “If it wasn’t for B.J., I would still be doing art, but I wouldn’t be where I am now.” Today, Cumbie is winning awards at art festivals, selling his art as fast as he makes it, and is close to becoming a full-time artist.

“Chris uses every inch of his brain. Right, left, center, and front, he uses it all,” says B.J. Cooper. “Chris sees things in an object that the rest of us don’t. I gave him a wine rack and he made it into the wings of a pelican. I have watched him develop as an artist from making simple people into creating more sophisticated and complex pieces with vivid details. He is becoming more creative and imaginative as he becomes more confident as an artist.”

Cumbie can find inspiration in any object, and he builds ideas from shapes, designs, form, and color. He studies art history, anatomy, chemistry, works of other artists, and books about tattoos and the drawings of Dr. Seuss. Always experimenting with better ways to enhance definition and texture, Cumbie gives personality and purpose to any item he finds. With his favorite tools — tin snips, a wood block, and an ice pick — he shapes old pieces of tin, round washers, and looped metal wire into expressive eyes for colorful wooden faces and combines them with unusual facial features such as a water faucet nose or a mouth made from a door hinge painted with lips and teeth.

Before the assembling begins, Cumbie sketches ideas in the small notebook that he keeps in his pocket. Each pencil sketch is a work of art. “I used to draw quick scribbles and stick figures, but I discovered that detailed sketching gives me the movement and the feeling of the motion I need to get started,” says Cumbie. “However, the final piece never looks exactly like the sketch.”

As Cumbie’s imagination takes off, his creative mind locks down into full concentration. He moves into his workshop where bins overflow with gears, nozzles, bolts, colanders, tin cans, and nails. Hubcaps line the walls, and coat hangers, coils, tubes, and chains hang down from the ceiling. Hammers, pliers, screwdrivers, sandpaper, torn pages from an old dictionary, and tubes of paint are scattered on the floor around his small work stool.

“For me, creativity is a tunnel, and when it starts I have to drop everything else,” says Cumbie. “I become totally focused on my art and I like to work at night when it is quiet and there are no distractions. Some of my best pieces come from accidents I make late at night.”

Cumbie used to make six or seven pieces in one day, but he has slowed down to put more time and effort into each piece. “I am having more fun and not putting as much pressure on myself,” says Cumbie. “I don’t stop working on a piece until I feel like it is done and I am happy with it. If I am happy with it, there is a better chance of someone else liking it.”

Cumbie cares about every detail that goes into his art and making the pieces flow together. “I don’t want my work to look like I just threw something on,” he says. “I spend hours and hours trying to find the right piece, down to the screws, nuts, and bolts. I could easily run down the street to the hardware store and buy what I need, but that defeats the purpose of why I am doing this. It is important to me to find the right rusted screw, even if I have to dig around my shop for hours and drive myself crazy trying to find it. My art is real to me when even the smallest piece is authentic. At the end of the day, I have to be happy with a piece, no matter what anyone else thinks.”

photography by Kim Pearson

Trigger rooTJimmy Lumpkin lives in a cabin on the edge of a swamp where trees grow tall in the murky water of the Fish River and leaves break sunlight into shade. It is also where Lumpkin and his southern blues jam band Trigger Root pick out new guitar licks, write songs, or drink a beer. Inside, Dave Howell’s drums are tucked under the loft stairs between the kitchen and den. Mics hang down from the rafters, and Lumpkin’s harmonica, tambourine and handwritten lyrics wait on a black music stand in the corner.

In a burly beard and an Overlander hat that his wife bought for $3 at a yard sale, Lumpkin is the lead singer of a band that shares his need to start with something old to create something new. The band’s gritty romps are driven by Dave Howell’s drums, Eric Jones’ bass, Tom Haase’s electric guitar, and Lumpkin’s soulful, haunting, country voice. “The core of Trigger Root is we want everything to be real and true to who we are,” says Lumpkin. “Our songs come from the life we live and we blend old styles together into the music we want to play. We use vintage amps for natural tone and distortion.”

The name Trigger Root is to inspire the band to listen to older music like Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie. “The name was also subconscious for me,” says Lumpkin. “I had been living in Colorado and playing in and out of bands. It was time to stay in one place and grow roots. I want to make music with these guys for a long time.”

The stomping, driving music is based on real people and places and connects with audiences. “Trigger Root sings about places you know and places you have been and that is why people love them here,” says Bobby Kirkpatrick, owner of My Place Downtown in Fairhope where Trigger Root often plays. “They are an acoustic band, but rub in a bit of dirt, a dash of cusswords, a shot of whiskey, and that is Trigger Root. Jimmy looks like a hippie, but he sings with a southern drawl. After you hear him sing, you know him.”

To hear their music is to know all of them. It is what they love and all that they want to do. “Music is inside me and has to come out,” says Haase. “There is no way I can go through the day and not play music.”

“I gave up music for a marriage a few years ago,” says Howell. “I sold my drum set and quit. It ended up ruining my marriage because I went crazy without music. Playing music is a release and I have to get it out. Even if it is just jamming with the guys in a room.”

Lumpkin, Haase and Howell are three of the four original members of Trigger Root. They came together in 2009, and practiced for a year before they played in public. "In the beginning we were more jamming and bluesy and we figured out which of our songs meshed together,” says Lumpkin. “Our music has become more natural with folksy, bluegrass, swamp country, but that will continue to change. Dave was a hard rock drummer, but he has scaled back to one foot in blues and one

foot in rock. Tom's influences are Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Robert Johnson. His lead guitar paints a color and sound that bleeds into everything else."

The band recorded its first album, "Sun of a Gun," in 2011, but the bass player left soon after the album was released, and the band lost its way. "That was a fragile time for us," says Howell. "We had a hard time finding the right bass player and we didn't know if Trigger Root was going to survive."

The band found it’s missing piece in a songwriting guitar player when Lumpkin met Jones in a songwriting contest sponsored by the Alabama Department of Tourism. "Eric beat me because he kept looking at the judges," laughs Lumpkin. "I met him again at the LA Songwriter's Festival in Fairhope and we became friends. Eric is a guitar player, but he learned how to play bass so he could be in the band."

It took time for Jones to catch up with the band and feel comfortable playing solos on the bass. "It has gone from being simplistic and just trying not to make a mistake, to playing myself out on a limb and finding my way back,” says Jones. “We play a few Led Zeppelin songs and we used to play them at the beginning of the show before I had a few beers because those songs scared me. Now those songs are nothing to play."

The rejuvenated band built a foundation in its mix of wood, steel, voices, harmonica, and drums to create songs that are hard, strong, and soaring. Each member has the freedom to explore the music they are feeling and songs like “Funky Feeling” and “Back Seat Driver” are stretched with improvisation. “There are times when someone goes off on a tangent with hotshot licks and we step back and let him go,” says Lumpkin. “I like to push them and see where they will take us. The more we play together, the tighter it gets. When I take a song it becomes a part of me. The other guys do it with their instruments. What brings us together is an understanding and appreciation of each other.”

The band’s second album, “Trigger Root,” was released in August, but they have written enough songs to fill at least two more albums. Songs often unfold during jam sessions where Haase or Jones plays a riff and Lumpkin makes up the words as they go. Ideas and chords are saved to an iPhone for rewinds and rewrites. Guitars and drums work through bridges and stops as Lumpkin adds more lines. "It is kind of like building a road," says Howell. "We build it in pieces. We get so far, stop, and go back to the beginning.”

Haase and Jones also write songs for the band. “Having multiple songwriters gives variety to our music so we aren’t limited to one voice,” says Haase. “Every song sounds different and it feels good to write and explore the music with them.”

"I go into veins and streams of songwriting," says Lumpkin. "Sometimes it is my love for my wife or a 'good time Charlie' song. Right now I am in a dark writing vein that is bridging the good times with accepting things aren't the way I used to think they are. Sometimes the reality of that takes me into a dark place and songwriting is the way I come out. It is why I write songs."

Memories and places grow into songs such as "River Song" and “Shady Grady.”

Way down in the hollow where life is simple and sweet. It's the perfect place to ease your mind and set your spirit free. Go down to the river and watch your worries slowly drift away. Funny how that river seems to brighten up your darkest day. We'll be sipping whiskey, smiling, laughing, music playing, hands are clapping. It's all right. "River Song"

"Eric wrote 'River Song,' and when I hear a song like that it takes me away on a trip even though I stayed right here," says Lumpkin. "It makes me satisfied with here even if I am not always satisfied with being here."

"Shady Grady" is about a man who lived at the end of the dirt road where Lumpkin grew up. "Grady’s house looked haunted and I was afraid to go in the yard,” says Lumpkin. “I was skittish to him until I was about 17 and we became friends when he let me drink some of his beer. I wrote the song a year after that. It is a sad story about the tragedies he went through, but you have to listen to the words because I sing it happy.”

Sometimes their music comes back to them in unexpected places. “I was sitting in my kitchen and heard the bass from ‘Crank Up Your Truck’ cruising down the road and into my house,” says Jones. “My neighbor was listening to our CD as she was driving home and it sounded good. Music is about being able to create something and enjoy what you create.”

The band is ready to play their songs on bigger stages. "We are at the point where we have to be our best at every gig we play," says Jones. "We are trying to get more of the right gigs for the band. There are places you can play for 50 or 100 people but only two are listening or the venue isn't set up for bands. We are excited to play at BayFest in Mobile again this year. It feels so good to be on the big stage with a soundman who makes us sound good and the music reverberates off all the buildings. We want to play more festivals like that."

Several times the band has felt the hopeful brush of bigger success. "There have been a couple of times when we felt like we were right there, ready to go to the next level, and the stars lined up but nothing happened," says Haase. "You are almost there and then you aren't. That keeps us pushing toward the goal. We want to play our music together but still be able to pay the rent and keep the lights on. Dave doesn’t ever want to eat macaroni and cheese again.”

(LEFT TO RIGHT) JIMMY LUMPKIN, TOM HAASE, DAVE HOWELL, ERIC JONES

photo by Michelle Stancil

How were you selected to play at the Hangout Festival?COREY PARSONS: We entered the contest a couple of days before the deadline and MTV liked us and put us in the top 10. We have dedicated fans who were persistent and helped us get here.

JEFF SALTER: That festival was a big deal to us, we have never had this kind of exposure before.

STEPHEN PIERCE: There is a beach just for the artists at the festival where they hand out towels and Red Bull and great art like a crazy life-size cyborg antelope that was the coolest thing I had seen all day. Most of the time we are lucky to get half off our bar tab for watered down drinks.

All of you are from Birmingham. Did you go to the Alabama beaches for your vacations?MARY BETH RICHARDSON: My family were dedicated beach-goers and I have stayed in half of the condos here. I haven't been back here in years, but now there is this great music scene with the Hangout Festival.

What were you day jobs before Banditos became full time?JEFF: A lot of us were working 40-50 hours a week at jobs and trying to play music. I did guitar tech work and Randy taught drum lessons at the shop I was working at.

DANNY VINES: I worked at the music store too, but I am very happy to be outside and playing music.

COREY: Half of the time I was slinging drinks in a bar in Birmingham and the other half I was working maintenance at Oak Mountain Amphitheater in Pelham.

STEVE: I worked in maintenance and operations at Oak Mountain Amphitheater. It is fun now not to be the guy in the yellow jacket setting up the cones and barricades, instead, they are being moved for me. At the festival I saw some guys that I worked with in the union and they asked me where my gloves are.

MARY: I worked for a while cutting hair in Birmingham. We moved to Nashville four months ago and we have been playing so much that we have been able to afford living there without having to get a steady job yet, but I have $1 in the bank account right now. We are making it on Ramen noodles and tuna, but we got to play at a festival like that and it was all worth it.

How did you find each other?RANDY WADE: We have all known each other for at least ten years. I met Jeff skateboarding when we were fourteen. Some of us played together in other bands.

MARY: Corey and Stephen bussed on the streets of Birmingham for a while. One night they drank a bottle of whiskey and wrote songs and we all joined in.

STEPHEN: This band is almost an accident. We had been doing this for fun and then it exploded. But a road trip to New Orleans trip changed everything. We had wanted Mary to sing with us for a long time.

MARY: Stephen, Corey, and I took a trip to New Orleans together and it was life-changing for us. I had been in a three-year relationship and I hadn't played music in three years. They suggested that I sing with them in a show when we got back, so I wrote the lyrics down in a Gideon Bible that I stole from the hotel. I learned the songs on the way back from New Orleans and on stage I held that Bible and sang the lyrics.

Explain the name Banditos.COREY: This is the family friendly answer, Steve and I had the name before we had the band. We called each other banditos and it was the name of our friendship.

JEFF: As the rest of us joined in, we all became banditos. Now we have our own nicknames and speak in our own language and it is hard to relate to anyone else.

Why did you move to Nashville?RANDY: The signs pointed to Nashville and we knew that to progress and get better we had to jump in to the music industry and dig at it to see what we could come up with. A few months before our lease was up we decided to save up and go for it. We got lucky and found a really cool house in Nashville.

The members of Banditos were friends in Birmingham long before they ever played music together. They worked at the same music store, or in maintenance jobs at Oak Mountain Amphitheater, or skateboarded together when they were fourteen. A road trip to New Orleans and song lyrics written in a Gideon Bible changed their lives and turned them into a band. They recently moved to Nashville and will soon release their first studio album, The Breeze, that was recorded at Bombshelter studio where the Alabama Shakes recorded Boys & Girls, one of the best albums of 2012.

Banditos recently played at the Hangout Festival, the biggest show of their career and one that could open the door to many more.

Rambling With

Banditos

photo by Michelle Stancil(LEFT TO RIGHT) JEFF, MARY BETH, COREY RANDY, STEPHEN

MARY: It was bittersweet leaving Birmingham and moving to Nashville. We knew it was time to go for something bigger and everyone in Birmingham was so supportive. We adore Birmingham and all that we came from and we appreciate our friends there.

How has moving to Nashville already affected your music?COREY: It is humbling to go to a bar and see five dudes that are better and that can outplay you blindfolded. That makes us better musicians because we have had to step up our game a little bit.

STEVE: Nashville was supposed to be hard to break into. We thought we were going to move there and start over again as a new band who no one knew about, but we didn't have to go through that. Moving to Nashville has been a completely positive experience and everyone has been so supportive. We have no regrets.

MARY: The Alabama Shakes have been very supportive of us and we are humbled to be able to work with artists that we adore. We listened to Sam Doores and Riley Downing and The Tumbleweeds years before we ever met them. Now we are friends and Riley drove us down to the Hangout Festival this weekend. We thrive on being in that creative environment in Nashville and we are influenced by people in all different genres, so this is an exciting time for us.

You all have different musical taste and styles. How have you learned how to write songs together?JEFF: We don't stick to one genre. We all listen to old country, folk, blues, and rock and roll. We even listen to jazz and rag time. We pull from a lot of things and of our songs are collaborative with riffs, drumbeats and funky baselines. We could write a song that starts off as country but ends up a psychedelic ragtime tune. It never feels like we are stepping too far out of the box.

STEPHEN: When we first started writing we realized we have six people playing together and what are we supposed to do with then? We are just now figuring it out.

COREY: We still have no idea what is the right way to sit down and write songs together. It is different every time.

What is the story behind the song "No Good"?MARY: Jeff came up with the Riff and I liked it, so we started working on it in the flooded, moldy basement of the house we used to live in. I wrote the lyrics while having a couple of beers at The Garage in Birmingham. The mindset of it is us being pegged for being up to no good and trouble makers, which isn't entirely wrong because we do like to have fun.

I want to make my own decisions about someone and not judge them first. It is also a female empowering song. Being the only female in the band with these dudes, it is hard to hold my own. It was my way of saying that I have chops too.

Being in a band is much more than playing music together. Do you also have to learn how to live and tour together?

RANDY: We live together in Nashville, but it is more of a commune than a house. We are still learning how get along, when to stand your ground, and when to fold 'em, but nothing is ever malicious.

Tell about your next album.JEFF: The first thing we did when we moved to Nashville was make an album. Andrija Tokic was our engineer. He has worked with friends of ours like Hurray for the Riff Raff, Clear Plastic Masks, and the Alabama Shakes. We just got the masters back and it sounds great. We are playing songs from it and are ready for it to be out.

DANNY: We named the album “The Breeze” after our van which we call “The Breeze” because we do a lot of driving at night and breeze in and out of shows.

Are you releasing The Breeze through a label or by yourselves?STEVE: We are releasing the album ourselves. We are also booking our own shows and trying to do everything ourselves for as long as possible.

Booking your own shows leads to strange venues. Where is one of the strangest you have ever played?RANDY: We booked a venue in New Jersey and we knew it was an old rockabilly club with burlesque dancers, but we thought that sounded like a good place for us.

JEFF: It was my birthday and there was no better way to celebrate than with burlesque dancers at a rockabilly roadhouse in New Jersey. They also called and said there was going to be a model shoot, so my birthday stated sounding better and better.

RANDY: We pull in to the parking lot and there is a Medieval LARP (live action role play) with the swords and the shields and there is also a pancake breakfast. The only burlesque dancer there was a woman named China Doll who weighed no less than 350 pounds. We played for only two people the whole time and had to act like everything was normal.

Moldy basement, burlesque honky tonks, or music festival stages,for Banditos, playing music is just about having a good time together and helping everyone else join in.

photo by Chris Helton

The power and teamwork of polo are captured by the paintbrush of Fairhope artist B’Beth Weldon, the Official Artist of the 25th Annual “Polo at the Point.” These paintings vibrate with the thunder of hooves or the crack of the mallet.

I love to watch polo,” says Weldon. “My mother and I would sit on a blanket with her friends and watch the polo club matches in Point Clear. Later, I even played in a few ladies matches in Virginia.”

This is Weldon’s second time to be named the Official Artist at Polo At the Point. She was also the Official Artist for the Providence Hospital Foundation’s 2013 Festival of Flowers. “Being the Official Artist is a fabulous honor. I am so thankful for the exposure and these opportunities,” says Weldon. “It gives me the chance to talk with people which often leads to commission work. Growing up, I sold charcoal drawings of horses and people when I needed extra money. Now I frequently get commissions to paint horses or personal portraits and it is wonderful to work with people who want something so dear.”

Her broad knowledge of horses began as a young girl who was always in the barn. “B’Beth has been riding since she was four years old,” says veterinarian Albert Corte. “Every time I moved, that girl was under my feet. She grew up with horses and they were one and the same. She has been

hooked up with them for so long that she understands their demeanor and temperament and can get them to do whatever she asks. This lets her capture the horse’s personality and attitude at any moment. Her understanding of her subject transfers to the canvass. It is unusual to see someone rise up from shoveling horse manure to becoming a respected artist.”

Weldon still has that little girl’s love of horses and for many years she made a living breeding and training horses, not painting them. “I have jumped, raced, and trained horses all of my life, “ says Weldon. “I have foaled and even artificially inseminated them. I know their moods, how their legs move, and what they look like in motion.”

After her daughter graduated and moved away, Weldon sold and donated her horses, changing careers to become a full time artist. “I got out of the horse business and never looked back,” she says. “I had no idea that I would love painting this much. “

Weldon was selected as the Official Artist for “Polo at the Point” because of the life she captures in her subjects as well as the life she lives in the community. “B’Beth is a talented artist in many mediums with her portraits, landscapes, and horses,” says Linda Lou Parsons co-chair of the event. “She is respected and liked in the community and the arts. She gives back in many ways and represents us well.”

Weldon teaches art and holds her Gifted Masterpiece Workshops for children with special needs. Each child paints a piece for the “Polo At the Point” silent auction. “Children

Polo ponies dash across the

field. Rider and horse lean

in for a hook shot. Quarter

and chest muscles tense

and strong, a pony stops

short and spins.

from toPonies Painting

photo by Stephen Savage

come with their therapist and paint three or four paintings at a time,” says Weldon. “These kids and their creations take my breath away. I love their eye, their innocence, and their excitement. For those who can’t speak, you can tell they are about to jump out of their chairs when we look at their work. The money raised through their auctioned art will be part of the money donated from ‘Polo at the Point’ to USA Mitchell Cancer Institute and Thomas Hospital’s Pediatric Rehab. The money goes back into programs that will help them.”

Weldon is a family-trained artist. She is the only child of Margaret Weldon, a talented painter who had art studios in their homes in Mobile and Point Clear. Her mother’s friends were also artists and they were a creative influence and extended family for B’Beth. “I grew up surrounded by art and artists,” says Weldon. ”My mom painted polo ponies and did commission portraits long before I did. She was a colorist and I learned from her. Color is important to me and I am constantly learning how colors work together. It doesn’t have to be bright, but I like things to pop with vibrancy.”

“B’Beth understands completely her palette and composition,” says Fairhope photographer and friend Stephen Savage. “Her use of color is expressive and her brush work is very gestural and simple. Even in a vase of a few flowers, there is a sense of excitement and life. It is very organic beauty. It is her spirit coming through.”

Weldon’s style has evolved from the precise early paintings with the sharp detail of a photograph to the loose but measured brush strokes she uses today. Landscapes with blurred edges or faces with limited features leave room for the viewer’s imagination. “I usually paint three canvasses at one time because it gives me a fresh eye,” says Weldon. “I want the essence of the soul to come out in my work so I don’t overwork a painting. It’s like overcooking a cake and if I continue to paint, I’ll mess it up.”

She paints with purpose, not to get every detail perfect, but to capture the mood and feeling of the moment. “I like motion,” says Weldon. “When I paint I don’t like to look at the canvass because the hand is trained to follow the eye. If I have to stop and think, the paintings start to have hiccups

and they have to go into time out until I have the vision for them again.”

A backyard cottage beside the vegetable garden is Weldon’s studio and gallery on her 40-acre ranch. Paintings of barns, horses, boats, and river valleys hang on the walls, waiting for the right buyer. Tall easels holding unfinished canvasses stand in front of a wall of windows overlooking live oaks, flowering trees, and her flock of Blackbelly Barbados sheep. Next to the easels, there is a rolling cart is stocked with rows of oil paint--tubes in reds, blues, and yellows.

Painting often begins before the sun rises. “My grandmother used to say in the wee hours of the morning, the giants whisper,” says Weldon. “The giants are the only truth you may have. Early mornings are a godly time and a very creative time.”

Weldon’s art flows out of her joy of life and adventure. “I have had a life full of great experiences and these come out on canvass,” says Weldon. “I raced sailboats so I paint boats with sunlight reflecting off full sails. I fished with my dad in father/son bass tournaments and the rivers and ponds in my paintings feel like the places where I have been with him. I can paint a horse to look like a horse. Once I get their head and eyes then the rest of the body is easy. My goal with each painting is to capture the essence of the moment.”

Painting is more than sharing the images in Weldon’s head and the places she has been. It fills her need for learning, excitement, and connecting with people. “Painting gives me the freedom to fly and finishing a painting is the same rush as jumping a fence on the back of horse,” says Weldon. “I hope my paintings speak to people and share good memories and emotions. I want people to feel the energy of life in a powerful horse or in a simple vase of flowers.”

ConnectingMobile to Music

For 13 years, Lawrence Specker has been the entertainment editor at the Mobile Press Register.

His music reviews take readers from the stages of venues and festivals to new albums by local musicians.

His stories wipe away the stardust to share the human side of his subjects, giving readers reasons to care and appreciate the

talent in their back yard.

“I write these stories because I want people to consider the wealth of talent around them,” says Specker. “With Pandora and Spotify, you can listen to anything

in the world, but there are people around the corner who will amaze you. We have rock, country, rap, and singer-songwriters who are making music that should be the fabric of our lives. Willie Sugarcapps sings ‘Mud Bottom’ about Dog River and Trigger Root sings about ‘Fish River.’ These are the places we live, fish, and play, and these songs should be a part of our soundtrack.”

Specker is proud of Mobile. He raises his kids here and does his best thinking as he bikes through downtown. He knows the history, the people, and the personalities and cares enough to be the voice that speaks out. “Mobile has the reputation of being the city of perpetual potential and we have a lot of potential right now,” says Specker. “Our music scene has blossomed and there are great happenings that could grow into something bigger, but we don’t need to wait for that. We should all get out and enjoy it right now because right now it is really good.”

There is always something new to cover on the coast and Specker does it all in person. He knows the musicians beyond their bios. “Lawrence actually listens to our music and can talk about musicians with authority,” says singer-songwriter Will Kimbrough. “Many of us don’t have a publicist so it is a big deal that he gets the word out about what we are doing. Word of mouth is the best way to let people know where we are and what is going on and Lawrence is the biggest and best mouth that we have.”

Photography by Michelle Stancil

These are songs about enjoying life and love despite their pitfalls; songs about moving forward, knowing that there are no guarantees and sometimes hope has to be its own reward. This is uplifting music, packed with moments of gentle elation.From Specker’s review of “The Mulligan Brothers” self-titled debut album June 4, 2013

ConnectingMobile to Music

Lee Yankie’s husky tone and phrasing let him summon up a wistfulness reminiscent of Ray LaMontagne, with flashes of Van Morrison’s emotional nimbleness. It’s sometime subtle, but the thing he uses to lash his country and R&B leanings together is the blues… More than just a good album, it’s one that seems to capture some uniquely coastal aspects of life’s ebb and flow, without ever being obvious about it. What does it sound like? It sounds like the Gulf Coast.From Lawrence Specker’s review of Lee Yankie’s debut album “The Leavin’ Sound” June, 2012 in the Mobile Press Register

Kimbrough, who’s spent his career finding his own way through rapidly shifting terrain, can rest easy that the last time he came to a crossroads, he made the right turn.Specker on the success of Kimbrough’s Kickstarter campaign. July 29, 2013

After years of writing previews and reviews of tours that pass through town, Specker can’t remember every person he has interviewed or even guess how many interviews he has done, but he remembers the good ones, the questions and answers that turned into real conversations, and Bill Cosby was his best. “They gave me an hour to talk with Bill Cosby and he was as real and personable as he is on TV,” says Specker. “His inquisitive mind wanted to know about Mobile and find the best place to get a hamburger. I don’t talk to the Bono’s or Lady Gaga’s because they don’t come here, and that is ok. For me, good interviews are the ones like John Taylor from Duran Duran who are open, generous, and articulate and have something to say.”

Specker grew up a reader and winning a $50 prize in an essay contest in his middle school in Florence, Alabama convinced him he had a future as a writer. Experience as a high school reporter, editor of the Crimson and White newspaper at the University of Alabama, and a journalism internship in Germany led to his first job as copy editor at the news desk at the Mobile Press Register in 1994. “I became the features copy editor and eventually the editor of the section,” says Specker. “I had done some movie reviews in high school and college, but I never thought of myself as an entertainment writer. I was a utility player and could do anything but develop color film and sell ads. I still see myself as the utility player.”

He is not a musician and does not have a musical background. He grew up listening to top 40, rock and jazz, but he learned about the power of live music at his first concert, Def Leppard’s Hysteria Tour. “That is where I learned that music can be as loud as I hear it in my head, but it was Egan’s Bar in Tuscaloosa that sent me on the road to ruin with music,” laughs Specker. “It is a hole in the wall and bands play in the back of a small, narrow room. You had to walk through the band to get to the restroom. Music doesn’t get more intimate than that. It was being close to the band and seeing the interplay and communication between them. The crowd squeezed in and became a part of it.”

Specker writes from the heart as he introduces readers to new music. “I try to stick to the sixteen crayon box to get across what is appealing and be mindful of the readers,” says Specker. “I go through the lyrics line by line and balance the nuts and bolts with emotion and try to find something concrete, a turn of phrase, or an element of music that anyone can relate too.”

“Lawrence is the big golden ribbon that binds our music community together,” says Cathe Steele of the Frog Pond at Blue Moon Farm. “He has relationships with the musicians and the venues. He is the herald and the force that keeps it spinning. Without him, this music community wouldn’t work.”

A favorable review or praise from Specker often increases attendance at the show and means a good night for the venue. “Lawrence spreads the word, but if he doesn’t think it’s worthy then he doesn’t write about it, which is the way it should be,” says John Thompson, owner of Callaghan’s Irish Pub in Mobile. “When Lawrence writes a story about an event at Callaghan’s, I can almost guarantee a sell out, but he doesn’t do it to help me, he does it because he believes in the show.”

Specker has posted over 2,000 entertainment stories online, but some of his best writing happens when he gives himself room and permission to speak his mind or take off on “flights of fancy.” Stories about lyrics or politics told with feeling and conviction. He recently praised the “coastal lunacy” of Bayfest organizers who refused to let Hurricane Karen shut down the festival and silence the music.

“It was a good festival rain, and yes, I have to be a little nuts to say that. It was a rain that was just heavy enough to scare off the lightweights, just heavy enough to make the rest of the audience focus hard on the reason they were there. It was a quiet rain, one that hushed the distractions rather than becoming one.

It was a beautiful moment, because Mobile didn’t let it slip away.

It was a moment that said that sometimes, we’re still the right kind of crazy.”

~ Lawrence Specker October 8, 2013 Bayfest 2013: A Proud Milestone in a Legacy of Coastal Craziness

Rambling WithSt Paul and

Broken BonesThe

Paul Janeway steps on the stage wearing a suit, bow tie, horn-rimmed glasses, and combed-over hair. The drum pounds and the horns blow. With hands raised to heaven, Janeway slams down the first note, and St. Paul and the Broken Bones take off with the frenzy of a religious tent revival.Janeway looks more like an accountant than the lead singer of a southern soul band, but he sounds like Sam Cooke, moves like James Brown, and wails like Stephen Tyler when the spirit grabs hold of him. "I need your help. Come on with me. Come on, come on," he commands as he motions for the audience to sing louder, pulling out their congregational energy and giving it right back. The crescendo builds until he is running in place, and the crowd, horns, drums, and guitars match him step-for-step and note-for-note. He waves his hands like a preacher fighting off the fire and brimstone.Janeway uses his whole body to express his emotions, and he would have been just as good delivering the message behind a pulpit--he was groomed as a teenager to become a Pentecostal pastor. But St. Paul and The Broken Bones is much more than the Janeway's voice and showmanship. Jesse Phillips (the only Canadian in the band) on bass, Browan Lollar on guitar, Andrew Lee on drums, Allen Branstetter on trumpet, and Ben Griner on trombone supply the soul, rhythm and blues that drive the music.

Photograhpy by Chris Helton

PAUL JANEWAY

ALAN BRANSTETTER (L), BEN GRINER (R)

BROWAN LOLLAR (L), PAUL JANEWAY (R)

How did St. Paul and the Broken Bones begin?

JESSE: The band accidentally came together less than a year ago, but Paul and I have been friends for years and sometimes played together at parties or coffee shops in Birmingham. Les Nuby of Ol’ Elegante Studios pushed us to do something with our music, so we went in the studio off and on. We had ideas for 15 songs, but the four songs that stuck ("Greetings from St. Paul and the Broken Bones" EP) were the ones that dictated the direction of our music. Browan and Andrew come in at the end to fill it out, and that is where we had the idea to form this band.People started asking us to play before we finished recording, so we did some fall shows and a short tour in December. Ben Tanner from the Alabama Shakes asked us to make a record through his record label. It was a crazy holiday as we tried to write songs before we went in the studio in January.PAUL: We are still trying to figure out what it means to be in a band and what we are supposed to do. We are still flying by the seat of our pants. Browan has been in a couple of bands before, such as Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, so he is our Moses guiding us through the darkness.

When did you sense that attention was turning to your

music?

PAUL: We realized something was going on when we sold out a show at the Bottletree Cafe in Birmingham. That is one of our favorite places to play and we played there several nights in a row and the audience kept growing until we sold it out. Another good night was at Callaghan's in Mobile. We played that afternoon at the SouthSounds Festival and played a second show at Callaghan's. There was so much energy and excitement that night and we felt like we were on top of the world.BROWAN: It changed for me when we went into the studio to cut a few songs and came out with something really good, something I would listen to. That is when it started to become real.

Where did you get the name St. Paul and the Broken

Bones?

JESSE: When we named the band, Paul and I were just messing around with music and we didn’t take a long view of what could happen. St. Paul is because Paul doesn’t drink or smoke, and broken bones is because we liked the alliteration of two b’s. Broken bones felt like the fragmented parts of a whole and sounded like a name for an old-school soul band. The name began as an inside joke, but it started showing up on the Internet and that was it.

You are still a new band, how did you get on the Hangout

line-up?

PAUL: We were supposed to play one of the Hangout kick-off shows in April, but it was rained out. Everything for the festival was already booked but they made a point to find a place for us and we are very appreciative.

What are your day jobs?

JESSE: Paul was fired from his job as a bank teller for missing too many days when we played the South by Southwest

music festival in March, so he is now full-time with the band. Ben and I work at a music store, Andrew works at a restaurant, and Allen just graduated from college and doesn't have a job yet. Browan is a graphic artist and he does some house painting on the side.

Tell about your your upcoming album.

BROWAN: We wrote the songs in a moldy practice room. We would bring in ideas, flesh it out. sing, record and adjust from there. It feels like a Birmingham record. The songs are influenced by and about places in Birmingham. There is a growing arts community there and it is very supportive. We want to stay in Birmingham to keep it going and bring positive attention to the city.JESSE: One of my favorite songs on the album is “It’s Midnight.” Everyone gathered around the mic with an out of tune piano and an upright bass, and it sounds like a jazz combo. It is the last song on the album and it shows a different, acoustic side of us. There were a few mistakes, but we kept them in because it feels like real people singing. We want our music to sound natural.PAUL: We recorded in January and we are ready for this album to have a name and to be released. We are already performing most of the songs, so by the time it finally comes out, it will be time to start working on the next album.

What is the story behind "Sugar Dyed Honey Pants"?

JESSE: We wanted to do something fun and lighthearted with a classic Motown song. It is the story of being overtaken by a woman, that initial moment when someone gets to you. The name “Sugar Dyed Honey Pants” was a joke name when we made it, but it stuck. It will be just "Sugar Dyed" on the album.

As the bookings and the attention grows, what are some

of the sacrifices?

PAUL: The sacrifice is that we are getting so busy. We are starting to be booked all of the time. We have a show in New York City in June and people are already buying tickets. That is crazy to us.It is also tough to transition from work money to band money and make enough off music to pay the bills.

What do you think about when you are on stage?

PAUL: Reading the audience is what we love to do. If it is five people or five hundred, we are going to have a good time. Making this connection and sharing the music is why we do this.BROWAN: Paul gets more adamant about it if there is a smaller crowd or they aren't into it the way he wants them to be."Playing this music and performing like this is something that I have always wanted to do, I just didn't believe it was possible,” says Janeway. “We get to play music that is dark and deep, but it also uplifting and cathartic. Music is meant to be heard and shared. Music can be a religious experience."

Clay chickens wear hats and saddles or play the bassoon, and a glazed magician looks up to see the rabbit climbing out of his hat. Empty flower pot heads with painted faces wait for plants and a ceramic alchemist with four jagged teeth and one long fang wears a crooked wizard's hat and the planet Saturn painted on his chest.

For over twenty years, Dark has stretched and rounded lumps of clay into creatures from his imagination and fired them into life. Inspired by Appalachian folk jug pottery, he adds mischievous and playful features such as bulging eyes, twisted teeth, hats, and costumes to stir revelation for reflection. "I always have the desire to create but I don't make many functional pieces like mugs and plates," says Dark. "My work has to be expressive and it is usually a narrative with storytelling. People either get my work or they don't. If they have to ask what they can do with it, then it is not for them. People who relate to these pieces are strangely attracted."

Dark is known for the ceramic skinny dippers with faces and bare shoulders that he sets in the Intracoastal Waterway and swamps. “I made the skinny dippers because they were building many shopping malls and condos in Gulf Shores, but no one was putting up public art, so I started making my own,” says Dark. “I put them in the swamps and canals. At high tide they are mysterious, but at low tide the skinny dippers are a bit risque. Barnacles now grow on them and an ecosystem is a byproduct of the art.”

Ideas come from a poem or a song, a headline, the price of eggs, or whatever is on his mind when he starts. Themes are about love, lust, and various vices colored by Dark’s dry humor. The base of one of his chicken statues, Looking for Love in the Wrong Places says, "True love is something you should not turn down. Not ever. Even If I am driving? Well, do what you want, but I would at least pull over."

"I have made about 400 chickens," he says. "I waited tables at night and made pottery all day. The chickens were a metaphor for myself because I was afraid to quit my job and work full time in the arts.

The chickens have been waiters, cowboys, vampires, and musicians in symphonies."

“Steve’s work shows his great sense of humor and inventiveness as he takes traditional folk forms and updates them,” says Donan Klooz, Curator of Exhibitions at Mobile Museum of Art. “His casual attitude gives him the freedom to be inventive. He is locked into the expression, not the craft. You might not get his work at first, but it sticks in your mind. People often come back by a second and third time.”

Before the potters’ wheel spins and clay splatters on the studio wall and window, each piece begins with a pre-measured block of stoneware, porcelain, or terra cotta clay that Dark kneads and wedges until it is homogenous and smooth. “I am tuned in intensely when I am working because I don’t have time to waste before the clay dries out,” says Dark "I will make a series of six to eight dogs, pigs, or chickens at a time. The first ones will be ok, then I will get overwhelmed by the ones at the end because I am running out of time. The fifth one may not get as much love as the first ones, but the fifth one could be totally off for better or worse. Sometimes I make an accidental discovery such as surface textures and expressions that I can use again."

With strong, square hands covered in red clay that dries to gray, Dark forces an evolution in each piece because he doesn't make the same piece twice. “Each piece has its own character development, and I meander around and let it unfold,” says Dark. “That is the fun for me as I make changes and find ways to solve problems. If the head tilts while the clay is still soft, it becomes the character's disposition. The faster I work, the looser and more expressive my pieces will be. It helps unlock some of the mysterious part that I couldn't unlock on my own. If I labor on it too much, it doesn't look free."

There is freedom in Dark’s imagination. "I am more concerned about expression than likeness," says Dark. "I have done thousands of faces, but I have never tried to make one look like anyone. It is easy to make a likeness but it is the spirit that is hard to catch. People ask me to do their pets, but you can't capture someone's love for their dog."

Dark grew up in Detroit then moved to Las Vegas when he was 18. On a vacation to Gulf Shores two years later, he was hooked by bonfires on the beach and immediately moved to the coast with what he packed on his motorcycle. A self-described beach rat, he repaired mopeds, waited tables, worked in construction and on oil rigs, and apprenticed with potter Steve Burrow in Gulf Shores who introduced him to clay and encouraged him to go to college. Dark was the first in his family to go to college and graduated from South Alabama with an B.F.A. in arts and ceramics and an M.F.A. degree in ceramics and printmaking. "It takes a lifetime to learn this," says Dark. "I have two degrees and I am still trying to figure it out."

the clay world of

STEVE DARKIn a small house in Gulf Shores, ceramics potter Steve Dark's shelves are covered floor to ceiling with sepia-colored faces that are laughing, scared, confused, or bizarre, but never the same.

Pottery requires geology, math, chemistry, creativity, and learning from mistakes. "Maybe my lack of engineering is where I make discoveries," says Dark. "I could have three bad discoveries before I have a decent one. Planning things out in advance is probably the smarter way to go with more disciplined problem solving, but I like the idea of accidentally stumbling into things that I could never imagine."

Pieces begin with a rough idea in a sketchbook and consideration of size and temperature. "If it is too big, it won't fit into the kiln," says Dark “It would be more efficient to make everything the same size, but if everything was uniform and standardized it would all look the same."

After the shapes and pieces are formed on the wheel, the color and texture is created with ash, glazes, and intense fire of his kiln. “Adding glazes is like cooking, and I have to know in advance what temperature will set the glaze and seal the work and make my formulas from there,” says Dark. “I should write down every formula and every adjustment I make. However, my record keeping isn’t always good and I do things sporadically. A year later I will want to do something like that again, but I will have to start over because I didn’t take good notes.

A potter can have a plan, hopes, and dreams, but he can’t control how the piece will look when it is removed from the fire. Colors are created by chemical combinations and the pieces are painted by the flame. “A river of fire runs through the kiln and decorates the pots,” says Dark. “I can’t dictate the color or where and when those glaze drips will happen. I have to be accepting of whatever happens in the kiln.”

Breakage and fragility are two of the limitations of clay and the reasons it has only recently been considered a fine art. “If clay falls or breaks, it is finished,” says Dark. “Even I accidentally break my own pieces and should probably fire myself. I could have worked with other materials, but I can add and subtract with clay. If you are chiseling stone, all you can do is subtract.”

Dark has more creativity with clay, but behind the studio is a growing shard pile of broken pottery pieces that didn't turn out the way he planned. "Sometimes the pieces look good and sometimes they don't,” says Dark “I save up the pieces that don't go well and when I am having a bad day, I smash them up. A lot of pieces get smashed up.”

Dark makes his art for himself and hopes that other people will like it. “I rarely cater to public taste, but sometimes I have to do things for money,” says Dark. “I could make things that are cute and fuzzy with baby ducks and hearts and I would have a nicer car or a better air conditioner, but I choose to do things differently. I have to find the balance and make the pieces that pay the bills so the rest of them time I can make whatever makes me happy.”

Photography by Michelle Stancil

POURING MUSIC AT THE PUB

photo by Chad Edwards

photo by Keith NecaiseThe wood panel walls at Callaghan’s Irish Social Club in Mobile are covered in photographs. Black and white memories of faces from the past or vacation shots of patrons from the present. There is just enough room for Irish flags, Mardi Gras beads, neon beer signs, an old Irish curse, and a green t-shirt that advises “you can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning.” A shuffleboard table against the wall by the door becomes seating on a busy night and the mirror behind the bar reflects all of life at Callaghan’s.

Callaghan’s is a pub hidden in the historic Oakleigh neighborhood of 19th century front-porched houses. It’s hidden, but it’s not a secret. In 2007, Callaghan’s was voted The Best Bar in America by Esquire Magazine. It is also the favorite venue of almost any musician who has ever played there.

GRAYSON CAPPS

JASON ISBELL

“I love JT and the whole staff at Callaghan’s and I can’t imagine touring through the southeast without making a stop there,” says Nashville songwriter Andy Combs who was recently featured in Southern Living’s The Daily South as the Next Big Thing. “We need more places like Callaghan’s. Venues that support real, authentic music and treat the musician like they are worth a damn.”

JT is John Thompson, the owner and the heart and soul of Callaghan’s. He bought the business in 2002 with partner Richie Sherer and added lunch, simple music and bigger crowds, but the flat white building that stretches between Charleston and Marine Streets has been a place to buy a beer since Woodrow Callaghan opened the pub in 1946. “The building was a meat market before that, maybe it still is,” laughs Thompson. “The Callaghan's family ran it as a working man's lounge and you had to knock on the door to go in and drink a beer. There was a buzzer to be let in and a lot of people had their own keys. I always thought it was a neat place, but I rarely went there. When I bought it but I had no idea it would turn into this and morph into music.”

In the beginning, Thompson didn’t know music, but he knew how to run a bar. He bartended his way through college at Auburn and kept pouring during his career selling medical supplies in Mobile. “I remember JT bartending every Friday night at Heroes,” says Gina Jo Previto, owner/manager of Vet’s Bar & Grill. “He wasn't the best bartender, but everyone loved him and he had a great following. Owner David Rasp would let the bartenders make a special drink of the day and JT would serve drinks like tequila & milk shots for $2.00. He was being funny but people still bought them. When he took over Callaghan’s, it was no surprise that he packed it out with great friends and music. The place has a warm feeling like smooth bourbon.”

“Bartending was fun and social and it was the best training for sales,” says Thompson. “You have to relate to everybody from lawyers to people who fix cars and mow grass. I enjoy meeting and talking with different people. You can’t fake it.”

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina was the turning point for music at Callaghan’s. The destruction forced Grayson Capps and his band The Stumpknockers to move from New Orleans to Fairhope and they needed a new place to play. “Grayson and the Stumpknockers created their own hurricane right here when they started playing on Sundays,” says Thompson. “They played here thirty times over the next year and soon other people wanted to play here too.”

“Callaghan’s was similar to New Orleans bars and we felt at home here,” says Capps. “We started Hangover Sundays and had 200-300 people. There is a reciprocated energy and back and forth with the crowd that can turn into a little bit of mayhem when we play there. Callaghan’s is still my favorite place to play in Mobile and JT has been selfless in his support of us. We have helped each other out at times when we both needed it.”

The Sunday night concerts started with Capps but they have grown with the bar’s reputation for presenting up and coming musicians such as Jason Isbell and Justin Townes Earl. “There is no rhyme or reason to the music we book here,” says Thompson. “I listen to internet radio and suggestions from customers and my employees. One of our cooks suggested the Alabama Shakes six months before they played here in November, 2011. Then they were just called the Shakes. They were on Letterman three nights later and then went to Europe where it blew up for them in Paris. If I had really been on the ball we could have had them three of four times before it happened. We now get a lot of calls from bands that want to play here. “

Thompson presents musicians who are unknown in Mobile. “We get bands that many people have never heard of and the first show may not have many people here but it has a great vibe,” says Thompson. “It catches on and crowds grow each time the band comes back.”

The crowds may grow but only 60 people can cram into the bar, even if some are standing on tables. Birmingham soul band St. Paul and the Broken Bones now draws 300 people and the crowd fills the street. “Size is our limitation and a lot of bands are hesitant to

come because we are small,” says Thompson. “Once they come they love it here because of the reaction they get from appreciative crowds. There is no pretending and no disconnect because everyone is on top of each other. We treat them well, feed them, give them way too much beer, and turn off the tvs when they play. Bands are comfortable here.”

Thompson is a fan of music but he can’t quote lyrics or play an instrument. “I don’t focus or memorize lyrics so I don’t know why I like singer-songwriters so much,” says Thompson. “Some of my favorite shows are from locals but we take them for granted because they are from here.”

“JT may not be a musician, but he has an ear for good music,” says musician Ben Jernigan from Mobile. “If he sends me a text message that I need to check someone out at Callaghan’s, they become my new favorite band such as Shovels and Rope or Rayland Baxter.”

Mobile’s location at the intersection of I-10 and I-65 helps with bookings bands from beyond the coast. “Bands are driving home through Mobile from weekend gigs in New Orleans or Florida,” says Thompson. “They can add on a Sunday night and get a good meal. Sometimes I miss something when I book too far ahead because there is no way to know who is passing through. Few places book on Sunday nights any more, but that is the best night of music for us.”

There is no stage at Callaghan’s. Bands play in the tight corner and on a busy night, there is no place to dance, but people dance anyway, close and tight with one hand in the air, the other hand holding a beer. Servers squeeze through the crowd with full trays of drinks balanced on one hand. “There is a system to the way we deliver drinks,” says manager and server Cheryl Shifflet. “We get everyone drinking on the band’s rhythm. We know the names and favorite drinks for most of the crowd and that helps us all feel comfortable here. Some of the employees have college degrees and could be doing something else, but we want to work here. We want to work for JT. He gives back to the community and charity the same way he gives to bands and his employees.”

Thompson is still happy working behind the bar, but he is even happier at home. “I love my job, but I don’t want it to rule my life,” says Thompson. “I would probably be rich and successful if I spent all of my time working, but I want to spend time with my family. My favorite thing in the world is coaching my kids’ soccer or baseball games.”

Despite Callaghan’s success with music and food, Thompson refuses suggestions to expand or make changes that would affect the atmosphere. “The feel of the place hasn’t changed, which is important to me,” says Thompson. “People suggest putting up a big screen or tearing down a will to make it bigger for bands, but they don’t get it. Expanding or making changes would rip out the heart of this place. We take care of our customers and the musicians and we don’t have to reinvent ourselves.”

photo by Michelle StancilJOHN THOMPSON

LONNIE RICH

photo by Michelle Stancil

ERIC ERDMANphoto by Keith Necaise

UNDERHILL FAMILY ORCHESTRAphoto by Michelle Stancil

CORKY HUGHES (L), GRAYSON CAPPS (R)

photo by Michelle Stancil

CHRIS CUMBIE ARTphoto by Kim Pearson