American Pickers

In the beginning, God placed six strings across a fretted plank and attached them to a resonating box of wood shaped like a woman. Good idea. Okay, actually it was the Spanish, and we here in the U.S.A. should be forever in their debt, because inadvertently some guys back in the 16th century gave America the instrument it needed to rewrite the history of music from the ground up in the 20th century. The guitar has been America’s muse and its most companionable musical friend. You can take ‘em places. You can play them solo or in a group – electric, acoustic or somewhere in between. You can pick them like Doc Watson or strum them like Dolly Parton with four-inch fingernails or stroke them with a bare thumb like Wes Montgomery. People will it seems never run out of fresh ways of playing this deceptively simple box.

Girl Power

Last week, I realized I was discriminating against our lone female act of the week, the fabulous Amy Black, when I titled my essay “Soul Men” and focused on the Bo-Keys and some of the other dudes who were getting set to play. Amy jokingly called me on it after the show, and that was fine. I apologized for the way the editorial cookie had crumbled. This week the wonderful band Frontier Ruckus is gonna be the overlooked minority in the room when they make their return. Because besides their manly selves, our lineup is made up of a bunch of talented, vivacious women. And I just gotta talk about them.

Soul Men

Well this week may be a case of almost, ALMOST too much of a good thing. We’ve got a six-act night just packed with renowned talent and legendary figures. It’s hard to know where to start, but it wasn’t hard to know where to finish. When you’ve got an eight-piece, horn-driven band from Memphis with veterans of shows and recordings by Isaac Hayes, B.B. King, Rufus Thomas and other soul greats, they’re gonna close the show.

Award Winners

David Letterman used to say before Stupid Pet Tricks segments, “It’s an exhibition, not a competition, please no wagering.” And that’s true for music too. It ain’t sports. Even though we have charts and Grammy Awards, it’s safe to say that when you’re listening to a transcendent performance getting carried away, you’re not sitting there thinking “wow, she’s gonna WIN!” That said, the world of music is full of contests from American Idol down to the local high school talent show, and sometimes they can be telling.