Jamie Dyer said he’d be at Miller’s early—at least an hour or so before the Hogwaller Rambler’s Tuesday night gig with guitarist Jamal Millner. When I got there, Dyer was nowhere to be found.
“What time does the music start tonight?” I asked the bartender.
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Jamal Millner and Jamie Dyer cover a few decades of Charlottesville music history between them, and make some more of their own with their blues duo, which offers a good mix of melodic and local lore. |
“Music usually starts at 11pm.” Thought it was 10pm. Then again, so did Dyer. Which prompted a second question.
“Who’s playing tonight?”
“Christian Breeden.” There we have it. Check, please?
The bartender pointed me to Mono Loco (“Jamie told me to send everyone over there”), and I tipped her to tell my photographer the same. When I arrived at Mono Loco, I found Dyer and Millner on the patio, each holding a Martin acoustic guitar and a Budweiser—the bare essentials. Dyer said that his Martin was “beat to shit,” then added that he bought it that way.
Millner laughed, then asked “Do you also buy torn jeans?”
Among many locals authentically worn by the Charlottesville music scene—not worn out, mind you—this pair of musicians may be more tireless than most. Dyer and Millner have been playing blues together since summertime, although they met 20 or so years ago. Dyer has led the Hogs, our local roots act most deserving of the genre tag, for nearly 20 years; Millner, a former student of John D’earth, is a strumming scholar wise enough to drop melodic wisdom with Dave Matthews Band, R.L. Burnside and Corey Harris and the 5 x 5. Like many of their longtime scene colleagues, they’re each a local institution, and a set with the pair was better savored later than never.
Both Dyer and Millner are great resources for people who pass through. Before their set, we talked about James Brown’s 2006 gig in Charlottesville, and the pair told me that Brown’s drummer lived here. They reminisced about odd configurations of local musicians, including one that also involved a metal group from New Jersey.
And they’re rich resources for one another: During the last six months, Millner also kept busy with the Powerhouse Trio, along with Houston Ross and longtime local drummer Johnny Gilmore, who died last Thursday evening. (See more on page 55.) Millner has a surplus of solo inspiration to draw from—Delta blues, South African rhythms, Charlie Christian’s bop guitar restlessness. And Dyer has as many wit-drunk blues tunes to try out, a lyric to match each of Millner’s licks.
The pair’s next semi-local gig is in Louisa on October 30, but Dyer and Millner have plenty of shows to catch before then, including regulars like the Hogs’ Sunday night stand at Fellini’s No. 9. Musicians like Dyer, Millner and Gilmore are the relentless beats of our city’s heart, metronome men that help us to keep stable and celebratory tempos. For a man like Gilmore to go silent is an occasion to pay tribute to those who long kept a beat with him.
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Photos of Johnny Gilmore lined a table during a memorial event at Fry’s Spring Beach Club in honor of the late drummer, who died last Thursday night. |
Keep the beat for Johnny Gilmore
Roughly a week after Feedback attended the set by Dyer and Millner, local drummer Johnny Gilmore died after a fire erupted in his Fifth Street apartment. Gilmore long kept things steady from behind his drum kit with the likes of locals including Dyer, Millner, Ross, Matthew Willner, George Melvin, Eames Coleman, Matt Horn and countless more. Last Sunday, many who shared a stage with Gilmore or joined a crowd to hear him play gathered for a memorial celebration at Fry’s Spring Beach Club. Click here for more from the event.
