Saturday, January 21, 2012

Help Me Get My Feet Back On the Ground...


I honestly don't remember when I first met Mac Leaphart, only that it was during a function put on by those champions of local music at Awendaw Green. I do remember two distinct things about that first encounter. First, since it was either fall or winter at the time Leaphart was wearing a denim jacket with sheep wool lining, and nearly every time I saw him perform outside after that he was wearing that jacket. The other thing I remember is how much of a natural he seemed like playing in front of the crowd that night. He'd had plenty of practice up until that point, playing in the local band Five Way Friday before going on to do his own thing. I remember being immediately impressed by his songwriting ability, especially the song "Confederate Roses." He also performed well with other musicians, really any other musician that cared to jam with him. Check out this performance with Occasional Milkshake, Doug Jones and Danielle Howle at The Windjammer a few years back. That's Mac with the acoustic guitar, tearing it up as usual.
I know it sounds like I'm talking about the guy like he's dead. Thankfully, he's not, although there were a couple of things that occurred last year that might very well have brought on death under a certain set of circumstances. First, after having headaches more and more often last year, Leaphart had an MRI done on the advice of a neurologist. The results were like something out of a bad Lifetime TV movie; a brain tumor about the size of a plumb. The thing obviously had been there awhile to be able to grow to that size, but had only recently started physically affecting Leaphart. All parties involved acted swiftly. Leaphart had surgery to remove the tumor late last year, and has been on the mend since. Given that the surgery involved was obviously of the brain variety, there is obviously going to be some extensive down time involved. Given that Leaphart's main source of income is as a touring musician, this latest turn of events definitely puts a crimp in his earning ability. A car accident in the middle of all of this didn't help matters.
Fortunately for Leaphart there is a huge group of fellow musicians and music industry types ready to lend a hand. On January 28 more than a few of those folks will gather at the Charleston Hippodrome adjacent to the South Carolina Aquarium for a fundraiser for Leaphart that celebrates his music via live performances and filmed tributes. The whole thing is the brainchild of two guys who know Leaphart well; Ben Bounds and Joel Frank. I'll be attending, and if you enjoy Leaphart's music - or even if you've never heard of the guy - you should come out to. With a bill that includes artists and bands such as Five Way Friday, Mark Bryan, Shovels & Rope, Jamie Resch, Doug Jones, Danielle Howle, John Wesley Satterfield, Luke Cunningham, Ryan Bonner, and quite a few others, it's going to be a great night of music to honor a truly great guy. Leaphart hopes to be back to performing by this spring, but in the meantime it's heartwarming to see the music community step up for one of their own.


Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Cover me, shut the door and cover me...

I love cover songs. I actually collect the things, and my iTunes account is loaded with various interpretations of artists' songs by other artists. While I'm a huge fan of original music, I also admire someone who can take another artist's music and make it sound new. Jimi Hendrix did it beautifully with Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower," Devo did it weirdly (as Devo tends to do) with The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," and William "Captain Kirk" Shatner did it amazingly bad with another Dylan tune, "Mr. Tambourine Man." I also have to say that I prefer Jill Sobule's cover of Robert Earl Keen's "Merry Christmas From The Family" over Keen's own original take.
I have no problem with an artist putting his or her personal stamp on a song, so long as the original intent of said song stays intact. That doesn't always happen though, which brings me to Cee-Lo Green's recent live cover of John Lennon's classic song "Imagine," in which Green took it upon himself to change some of Lennon's lyrics. You can view a clip here. Yeah, you heard correctly. Green changed Lennon's lyrics "No religion too," to "All religion is true." Now, I've been a fan of Green's since his work with the great Atlanta rap group Goodie Mob, on through his success with Gnarls Barkley, and really dug his 2010 solo release "The Lady Killer," which featured the runaway hit "Fu-," er...rather "Forget You." The guy has street cred and an amazing set of pipes, and the truth is that we probably still haven't seen the guy's best work yet. With that said, Cee-Lo, buddy, what the hell?!? You've taken what is arguably the best song made by a Beatle after the Beatles ceased to be, and completely changed the meaning. Lennon was trying to make a point with this deceptively simple song, and it's a message that has been listened to, loved, and yes, even covered countless times. Then you went and completely changed the meaning in front of a national audience (or at least as many people were watching CNN on New Years Eve). To put it bluntly, it was a dick move on your part. Cover the song, but don't change it. How would you feel if someone changed the lyrics in your most recent hit to "Forget Me?" Kinda changes the whole dynamic of the tune, doesn't it?

Monday, January 2, 2012

Wanna see my smilin' face on the cover of the Rolling Stone...


I can trace my interest in writing about music back to a single moment in time. I was messing around in my father's home office and I came across a magazine. "Oh really," you're probably saying, "did it have a centerfold?"
Nope.
While some kids can claim the time they found their dad's stash of Playboy Magazines, I instead found something much better. The mag initially caught my eye because its cover featured Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca from "Star Wars." I was about eight at the time, and the first chapter of George Lucas's space adventure flick had been released a few months before. I was mad for anything having to do with the Star Wars universe (still am, actually), and so I did what any sensible kid would do; I hid that sucker under my mattress.
Once I was sure my dad hadn't missed the magazine, I took some time to peruse it. First, there was the weird name the mag sported. "Rolling Stone." It seemed quite exotic at the time, and after reading what I could understand of the George Lucas interview (remember, I was in second grade), I looked through the rest of the pages. Oh ho, what was this? Stories about singers and bands with names such as Fleetwood Mac and Ted Nugent? Since at that point my musical upbringing consisted mainly of what my parents played on the stereo (Mom was a Beatles and Willie Nelson woman, while dad favored The Kingston Trio and Simon & Garfunkel), these fairly mainstream acts at the time were all new to me. I continued to "share" my dad's Rolling Stone magazines until high school, when I got my own subscription after dad abandoned his, probably because music's progression into the 80's had left him stymied. I have had a subscription ever since. I didn't realize at the time that Cameron Crowe, whose stories I read as I devoured every issue, was only a dozen or so years older than I was. Years later I saw his semi-autibiographical film "Almost Famous," and realized that I should have started writing way earlier than I did. I actually stumbled into writing about music as a freshman at the College of Charleston in 1992. I had enrolled after finishing a three-year hitch in the army. I had gone to Savannah one weekend to see John Mellencamp (or John Cougar, or John Cougar Mellencamp, or whatever he was calling himself in those days), and while recounting the experience to a friend who worked at the student newspaper, he suggested that I write a review of the show. "Sure," I said, and did just that. I have to admit that seeing something I had written in print was a thrill (still is). The real "ah-ha!" moment though, came when I realized that I could get into shows and get sent free CDs as long as I (wait for it) wrote about what I thought of said shows and CDs.
Really?
Yeah, I'm in.
The rest is history. I've always said I'd do it until it stopped being fun. Twenty years later, I'm still having a blast.
So yeah; Rolling Stone magazine was the gateway drug that led to my addiction to all things musical. The sickness was further intensified by my first rock concert a few years later, but that's a story for another time.