How do you herald the start of an enormous musical experience?
Do you move from the ground up, or from the top down? Bring a thunderous ruckus like Wu-Tang Clan, or testify to “the strength of street knowledge,” like N.W.A.? Do you walk like an Egyptian, smell like teen spirit, dance with yourself? Do you do as Jack Black in High Fidelity and wax philosophical about Stevie Wonder, or do you do as Jack Black in School of Rock and lay yourself at the mercy of the rock gods? Burn out? Fade away? Paint it black? The answer is all of the above.
The second that you opened this paper, C-VILLE Weekly’s new music blog, Feedback, went live at c-ville.com. While Curtain Calls will continue weekly print coverage of arts—including music—in and around the city, Feedback is different—an amplified music blog with constant news and notes on the tunes that matter to you.
 Take your time, hurry up: Jesse Winchester remains tried and true at Gravity Lounge. |
Want to see photos from last night’s Charlottesville Pavilion show? Check out the Feedback Flickr account at flickr.com/photos/cvillefeedback, where you can find concert photos from a variety of gigs in Charlottesville. Want to hear what Feedback is listening to? Head to the Feedback Muxtape (yes, Muxtape) at cvillefeedback.muxtape.com right now and listen to a dozen or so tunes from Feedback’s personal music collection. Want to comment? Do it now.
| C-VILLE Playlist What we’re listening to “When Doves Cry,” by Damien Rice (from Like a Version)—The Irish folk songwriter shows up that couple from Once with this Prince cover, capping it with Led Zeppelin’s “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave you.” “A Song from Under the Floorboards,” by Magazine (from The Correct Use of Soap)—Former Buzzcock Howard DeSoto writes his self-deprecation over creaky arpeggios. Creepiest song of the ’80s. “Apartment Story,” by The National (from Boxer) “Michelangelo,” by Emmylou Harris (from Red Dirt Girl) “Heavy Soul,” by The Black Keys (from The Big Come Up) |
From predicting the rise of Dave Matthews Band to bringing you the first local reviews of albums by Devon Sproule, Jim Waive and the Young Divorcees and more, C-VILLE Weekly has always been committed to pumping up the volume of Charlottesville’s music scene. Feedback is the next step—check it out at c-ville.com now for an exclusive review of the Modest Mouse gig at the Pavilion, as well as the dirt on a new record from Accordion Death Squad.
Leisure suits
Jesse Winchester hurries for no man. The 64-year-old songwriter famously hopped the northern border to wait out the Vietnam War in Montreal in 1967 and stayed put in Canada for roughly 10 years until former president Jimmy Carter granted Winchester amnesty, releasing his first five albums in exile. “Step by Step,” a bluesy tale of cat-killing curiosity, sat in all of its hellfire potency on 1976’s Let the Rough Side Drag until the producers for HBO’s “The Wire” wisely used the song in 2002. His last album was titled Gentleman of Leisure; it was released almost 10 years ago.
“I’m kinda thinking of a record soon,” says Winchester during a phone interview before his July 5 gig at Gravity Lounge. “Exactly when, I don’t know, but it’ll be within the next year, since I’ve already made the business arrangements and written the songs.”
“The record business is in real trouble, as I’m sure you know,” he adds. “Nobody’s in a real hurry to get a record out by anybody, especially marginal people like me.”
Take Winchester’s modesty for what it is—a self-deprecating joke from a man that still considers the occupation “songwriter” to be a blue collar gig and a cultural tradition, not a jet-setter’s hobby horse. And despite his gentle deflection, Winchester is more modern than marginal: He operates within the Do-It-Yourself spirit of genres that identify with the signs of their decade—jazz in the ’40s, punk rock in the ’70s, hip-hop in the ’80s. During a time when album sales struggle to offset a musician’s production costs, Winchester continues to record in his own studio, which he’s done since, well, forever. His output alone—nine records of original material since 1970, but only two during the last 25 years—seems measured against economics as well as creative need.
“I console myself that Stephen Foster [composer of, among other songs, ‘Oh! Susannah’ and ‘Camptown Races’] never recorded a note, and did all right,” says Winchester. “He did die a lonely drunkard in a New York hotel room, but [some say] the lyrics to ‘Beautiful Dreamer’ were in his pocket.”
Half of our 20-minute conversation is devoted to country, blues and gospel music—“My musical tastes were certainly fixed long ago,” says Winchester—and how some types of music stay close to their “cultural roots.”
“That’s sort of why I have stuck with country music,” explains Winchester. “It’s made a virtue out of not changing.”
Winchester’s gig at Gravity Lounge on Saturday is his first in town in some time—his June gig at The Paramount Theater was cancelled when co-headliner Guy Clark broke his leg. But, as Winchester has proved repeatedly, a patient man makes for timeless tunes. Not changing can be virtuous, and marginal performers can be magnificent.
