Last night I went to the best concerts of my life, it was so great that it overcame my lethargy and energized me to write. The artist was Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway. I won tickets from WFUV. I invited Ellen to go with me. The show was at Tarrytown Music Hall. I have not been there since COVID-19 started. I knew there were places I liked to eat there but I forgot what they were other than the place that sold poutine. When we got there, we saw it was now a Greek gyro restaurant. Fortunately, I came across what had become my new favorite, PikNik a barbecue joint. It was excellent. I just wrote about that so you’d know this was really me as I now so rarely write. We sat in the front balcony, that’s where WFUV seats always are They are excellent. The people next to us also got tickets from the station.
I hadn’t done any research, so I didn’t know there was an opener. If you can remember from when I blogged regularly, I don’t like anyone, 90% of folk music is crud because 90% of everything is crud. SPECIAL ALERT! The opening act, Two Runner is NOT crud. Two Runner is not good, Two Runner is great. They would be worth the trip to Tarrytown as a headliner. I can’t remember the last time I fell as hard for an opening act. Halfway up the first song I was looking up their website. Where have they been hiding my whole life? Apparently, a small town in Northern California near where Molly Tuttle grew up. One of them, sorry forgot which, has known her since bluegrass camp when they were 12. The band is songwriter/guitarist/banjoist Paige Anderson and fiddler Emily Rose. What caught my eye in the quick scan of their bio was that Emily was mentored by Brittany Haas, which makes them part of my extended musical family. This is not the last we’ll hear about Brittany. That’s called foreshadowing. I still have my writing moves. I just forgot that I’m not supposed to talk about them
I’m usually looking at my watch for the opener’s set, not this time, I could have watched them for hours. I loved everything about them including their outfits, take a look.
Paige’s dress is classic Country, it instantly reminded me of the dress Maura Kennedy wore on the cover of Angel Fire, which previously belonged to Emmylou Harris. I’m sort of surprised I remember that. Emily Rose’s looks like something worn on the Red Carpet at the Academy Awards, not something that a player of trad music would wear. That’s not a criticism, there is nothing wrong in being fabulous.
When their set was over, I ran down to the merch area to talk to them. Emily was there first, which is fortunate as she’s the one I had extra things to say to. First, I told her that Brittany was my friend. But then I pulled a fast one. I told her that I was so impressed with them that I wrote, orchestrated, and recorded a song for her and played Emily Rose for her on my phone. That’s a song by the great Australian songwriter Fred Smith. I spend my life waiting for opportunities like that. Emily gave me a copy of their album, Modern Cowboy to play on Gord’s Gold. You’ll be hearing it and November 28. I can’t remember the name Modern Cowboy, Tiny Cowboy keeps displacing it from my brain. Tiny Cowboy is a fictional band from Phineas & Ferb played by former teen idols, Davy Jones and Peter Noone.
I love Molly Tuttle and have often played her on my show, but somehow had never seen her live. Based on her records I expected greatness, what I got was transcendental greatness. This is in my pantheon. It brought me out the nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. Thanks for the words James Branch Cabell. This was not intellectual appreciation, this was not pure emotion that bypasses the conscious mind and goes straight to our emotions, it was a fusion of both. Every beat was perfect. Her band is perfect. I doubt she remembers me, but I know fiddler Bronwyn Keith-Hynes from her days with the band Mile 12. If the devil was in the audience, he’d have had to give her a golden fiddle. Banjoist (does anyone else say ban-joist to themselves?) Kyle Tuttle’s fingers moved at relativistic speed. I thought that she was so lucky too have such a talented brother to play in her band, she wasn’t. They aren’t related. The other half of the short-sustain section of the band was the magician of the mandolin Dominick Lesley. Molly stole him from the band Hawktail, where he played with Brittany Haas. I told you she’d be back. It’s a very small musical world. I will use the stock phrase that is so often used to introduce bass players, holding it all together on the bass was Shelby Means. I was very happy to find that half of Molly band of virtuosi were women. There are plenty of great women musicians, but they don’t get enough representation as supporting musicians. What I didn’t know just from listening to records was that Molly could hold her own with them picking her guitar. Shredding is a better description. Molly is great at all aspects of music.
As the show neared its end, they played an epic rendition of Dooley’s Farm, as high energy as any song I’ve heard at a rock concert. Everyone really should have had their lighter’s out. That’s how it felt. As we say on Pesach, if she finished with Dooley’s Farm and didn’t do an encore it would have sufficed, Dayenu! But of course, they did do an encore where they were joined by Two Runner. They put everything over the top when they performed a natural song for Molly to cover, my favorite song, 1952 Vincent Black Lightning. This was in every way superior to Del McCoury’s bluegrass version which I have seen live. In bluegrass fashion they took turns on lead. There’s a reason this is my favorite song; when I hear it, I leave the world and enter the world of James Agee and Red Molly. Richard Thompson and Molly Tuttle share the gift of the Elven minstrels, and you see, at least I see, it happening before my eyes. I always cry when I hear the song. This time it started with “shotgun blast hit his chest left nothing inside.” The tears were flowing freely by “But he smiled to see her cry.” By the time they got to the greatest line in any song,
“Said James, “In my opinion, there’s nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl”
My face was soaking wet.
I ran into two friends at the show, John who was one section over and two rows in front. I thought I saw the back and side of his head, but I wasn’t sure till I got up at intermission. I also saw Bruce, a WFUV volunteer. I know there had to be more friends there. I also know that if it is at all possible, I am not going to miss Molly Tuttle or Two Runner.
Writing this reminded me of my true calling, evangelist. I don’t want to spread the word of god who doesn’t even have the common courtesy of existing, but of Molly Tuttle, Two Runner, Lord of the Rings, Original; Doctor Who, the works of James Branch Cabell and Terry Pratchett, and everything else I love. I’ll be trying to convince all the presenters at NERFA to present Two Runner. Hell. I’m posting this on the NERFA Facebook group to spread the good word.
Wise Madness 