WoodyFest 2007, Part II:  Arkansans Singing for Woody

Numerous musicians from Arkansas were featured performers at this Festival, and still more played the official Open Mic.  Some of the featured performers this reporter was able to catch up with included:

The Conway-based Happenstance electric folk trio consisting of Dan Clanton (center) on guitar and vocals, Doug Coppock (right) on guitar and vocals, and Brooks Walthall on bass and vocals, turned in a beautifully put-together set at the Brick Street Cafe official Festival venue.  Included was Clanton’s Hard Way To Go, Red Hot Lovers and I Can Run; Coppock’s Stranger In A Dream, Time, and Not Guilty; and Walthall’s Southern Belles, all from their 2005 CD “Happenstance.” 

Their WG song Deportee was lavishly arranged, with trading off leads, English and Spanish verses and three-part harmony on the chorus. They were also invited to perform an additional set at Brick Street when rain forced the large and well-attended Friday night show inside.

Emily Kaitz of Fayetteville played a gaggle of nine whimsical treats at her Brick Street set on the morning of the worst thunderstorm, causing this reporter to miss her act.  So she reports that she treated the audience to Living the Wrong Way, Away From Myself and Maintenance Nightmare from her 2004 CD “Living the Wrong Way;” A Stranger on My Own Home Page and Tornado Season in Tulsa from the 2001 “Twang, Twang, Twang” CD; If I Saw You All The Time from the 1998 “Yuppie Scum” CD; When I’m Dead Dress Me In Drag from the 1995 “Terminally Trendy” CD; and two of my personal favorites, Dial & Drive and The Scrabble Song.

The Likely Stories group from Fayetteville featured four of the town’s talented artists at Brick Street.  Susan Shore played mandolin, guitar and mandocello, and sang lead on Michael Fracasso’s Back to Oklahoma and Steve Earle’s The Devil’s Right Hand.  Phil Lancaster largely played banjo and some guitar with a sprinkling of kazoo and plenty vocals, and the group performed his You’re On Your Own.  Acoustic bassist John Johnston sang spirited leads on two Keb Mo songs, Lou La Lou and Don’t You Know.  Authoress Alison Moore on guitar and vocals sang the lead for Jeff Talmadge’s Take A Drive and introduced Ezra’s Lullabye, co-written with Lancaster for their traveling Orphan Train act, with Lancaster taking the lead.  The group’s nod to WG was in performing his arrangement of the traditional Fox.

In addition to playing with Likely Stories, and her considerable duties for the Festival as emcee at Brick Street, Susan Shore played her own Brick Street set.  She sang two WG songs, I Ain’t Got No Home In This World Anymore and Deportee, the latter with beautiful vocalization.  Shore performed two of her own songs, Oh Susannah (Is A Hard Luck Tale) and No Drop of Rain.   From her CD “Book of Days” she played the Nathan Bell song, Hightailed.  Her covers included Moore & Abner’s At My Front Door, Gordon’s Pauline and Reynolds’ What Have They Done To the Rain?

Also from Fayetteville, Effron White played a classy, ten-song set with his now-opened-up new guitar made for him at Fayetteville.  He opened with an old standard, WG’s Ramblin’ Round.  From his recently released CD “Paradiso Loco” he played Big Northern Murder Ballad, Transcontinental Railroad, and Black Window.  With Susan Shore backing on mandolin and vocals, he delivered On the Road Somewhere from the "Day In The Sun” CD.  And from his “Yankee Dime” CD came the eloquent title song no one ever tires hearing him sing, and also Nothin’ To Lose.  Also performed were Starving Artist, Desiree and Texas Heaven.

Washington County has been proudly claiming Jack Williams as its own for several years now, and he was introduced for his set at the Crystal Theater as an Arkansan from West Fork.  In a nod to the WG times, Williams sang two songs he wrote about Josh White, a contemporary of WG who frequented the hootenannies at The Almanacs’ house in NYC.  The son of a black southern preacher, and a native South Carolinian like Williams, White sang, played guitar and acted, at times with WG, Leadbelly and other luminaries of the day.  Natural Man is Williams’ memorial to White, and he sings in remembrance of White when performing This Moment Is Mine, a story about escape from slavery.  Both are most recently from Williams’ 2006 “High Cotton” CD of live performances, as was Waterbug, music written for bugs to hear, and the rich Mama Lou, “written for my mother about love, growing up in the Deep South, and Southern food.”  Williams had opened the set with the title song from his 1997 CD “Across The Winterline,” and sang one of this writer’s favorites, A Good Heart Shows, also from “Winterline.”  Dylan’s Buckets of Rain from his 2005 “Laughing in the Face of the Blues” CD was the only cover.  He also played the title song from the 2003 “Walkin’ Dreams” CD, and also from that compilation, the heart-rendering border song En La Noche (el Rio Grande).