The Bearded Pigs

Delivering The Song

Turns out the woman I was having lunch with is a voice teacher.   I had mentioned something about being a musician and it set us off talking about the differences between operatic singing and the kind of singing that I do (call it rock, on any given day, or folk, or even pop).  Her main point was that regardless of the style, there is a "correct" way to sing, that properly uses all the muscles in your torso and protects your vocal cords.  A voice virtuoso uses that control of the lungs and all of those muscles to get incredible volume and sustained tone, but even if you're not going for that, you don't want to shred your vocal cords.

I've never had a great vocal instrument, and while I know about the things that she was talking about, I'm not great about putting them into practice, although I think I've gotten better and more disciplined over the years.  But I can still get overexcited and strain my voice -- as I've done on a couple of Pigs gigs.  It frustrates me when I do that, because I also know that when I am paying attention I can sing for hours and hours without running into any problems.

These days, in anticipation of the spring gigs, I've been trying to get down to my practice room for at least half an hour or forty-five minutes every day.  I've been working on a few new songs, and I'm always trying to find a better approach to the ones I've been doing regularly for years.

For the kind of singing that I do, expressivity, phrasing, and emotional tone are what matters.  The actual tone color of the voice is least important.  Somewhere, recently, I was talking with somebody who mentioned how badly Joni Mitchell's voice had degraded and what a shame it was.  I was polite and said nothing, but I think she's singing better now than ever before.  While it's true that her voice doesn't have the sheer beauty that it did twenty-five years ago, the age in it (and the life wisdom that she can bring to a song) gets her deeper into the songs than she was capable of when she was much younger.

That's the endless debate about Dylan as a vocalist.  Lots of people think he's a terrible singer because they can't get past the tone color.  It doesn't sound like they think a singing voice ought to sound.  Then there are people like me who think that he is one of the best rock singers ever, and that he can pack more emotional punch into his delivery than just about anybody who has ever hoisted a guitar behind a microphone.  And as his voice has gotten older and weirder his singing just gets better and better.  Of course, I think Tom Waits is an excellent singer as well, and even I find him difficult to listen to on some cuts.

Dylan is tough to cover because he's so distinctive.  I've been working on "Thunder On The Mountain."  It's a long process.  There are enough similarities between our voices that it's very easy for me to fall into the trap of simply mimicking his delivery.  He teases with the melody on virtually every line, so no verse is sung in quite the same way.  I have to figure out what the underlying consistent melody actually is, and then find my own way into the song so that I can be expressive and interpretive without just doing a pale copy.  I'm getting there.

Sometimes it takes a very long time to find my way into a song.  The first time I heard the Lucinda Williams album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road I was particularly taken with the song "Can't Let Go" (ironically, one that she didn't write).   So I tried to figure out an approach to it, but I couldn't quite find my way -- everything I tried sounded too forced and off.  Periodically over the years (the album came out nine years ago!) I'd come across that lyric sheet and give it another try.  Same thing.  Then, a week or so ago, while I was sorting through the song sheets it came up again and I nailed it.  Now I've been singing it every day and I feel comfortable with it and like it's finally my own.

That's always the goal.  To make the delivery so real and so true to the song, that it's as if I'd written it myself.  There is nothing that pleases me more than to have a song that I typically do come up on the radio or the iPod in its original version and have Lynn listen to it and say, "Not bad.  But I think your version is better."  Sometimes I even agree with her.

Pig History Part 4: Busted In DC

Duke was particularly keen to be playing in the same hotel where Jimi Hendrix had played when he'd come to DC.  The MLA meeting in 2004 would be our first time playing as The Bearded Pigs and we didn't quite know what to expect.  We still wanted to stay below the radar, but to generate just enough buzz so that we'd have a little bit of an audience.  We arranged with the conference organizers to make use of the meeting room that the International Visitor's Reception would be held in -- it's down a long corridor and away from any sleeping rooms, so we wouldn't have to worry about the noise.

We decided to make just one poster to put up on the message board.  We'd see if that, along with word of mouth, could generate a bit of interest.  We'd try for Sunday night, the one evening when there isn't a major conference event planned.  Maybe a few people would stop by after dinner.

We'd looked into the cost of hosting a cash bar, but we'd've had to guarantee several hundred dollars for bartender and setup.  We weren't sure if anybody was going to show up anyway, so it didn't seem worth the trouble.

But people came, indeed.  And when they saw that there wasn't anything to drink in the room, they just headed down to the hotel bar and brought drinks back.  And then someone asked at the front desk where the nearest liquor store was, and headed out and brought back six packs and started handing them out for a buck or two.  A group of teenage boys were drawn down by the noise and sat right in front of Bruce as he wailed away on his Clapton solos.

It was the night that TomCat came in to complete the band.  He'd mentioned some time earlier that he played a bit of guitar, so I invited him to sit in, thinking that he'd join us for a song or two.  He played all night, and by the end of it, he was in.  (He'd even grown a beard for the occasion!)

Two days later, I was in the exhibit hall when Carla came up and said, "Would you go talk to Paul about your little event the other night?  There's apparently some dispute with the hotel and he'd like to get your side of the story before he figures out how to handle it."  Paul works for the company that we contract with to manage the conference.  I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

It's true that we hadn't really done a very good job of cleaning up after ourselves.  And there were a number of beer bottles and cans scattered around the room.  Possibly a large number.  And maybe an empty whiskey bottle or two.  But I was still rather shocked when Paul told me that the hotel had claimed that we "trashed" the room, and that they were going to charge MLA an additional $8,000 for cleanup.

I gave Paul my version of what had happened.  As always, he was calm and cool and seemed mildly amused at the situation.  It takes a particular type of temperment to do his job.  And that was the last I heard of it (I did find out from Carla much later that the charges had eventually been waived).  Personally, I was mortified.  I felt terrible about causing trouble for the organization, although Carla, Paul & Ray all assured me it was no big deal.  I was determined that if we ever did this again, I'd work more closely with the hotel to be sure there were no more "misunderstandings."

On the other hand, I couldn't help but be secretly pleased that on our maiden voyage, the Bearded Pigs had trashed the Washington Hilton....

UPDATE:  Duke sent me a copy of the poster from that famed Hendrix in DC concert, so I'm including it here.  He says, "At one time back in DC, I had an original which got ripped off from one of my temporary residencies.   I wasabout 10 feet back from the stage the entire concert.    Forever etched in my memory."

Singers With Guitars

Guy Clark was back in Nashville with the stomach flu, and we all wished him well and were disappointed that he wasn't in Birmingham.  But his mates made the best of it.

Who knew that Hiatt was such a damn fine guitar player?  Brilliant songwriter, of course.  Utterly distinctive, passionate, and witty vocal stylist -- it goes without saying.  But the only time I've seen him live was last summer and he had Luther Dickinson playing guitar for him.  Who cares what Hiatt was doing on that baby blue Strat when you've got Luther to listen to?

But last night, when the Songwriter's Tour came to the Alabama Theater, it was Hiatt's guitar playing that was the standout of a standout show.  He's got a great loping rhythm style on that Gibson SJ-200, but he played wonderful lead lines all night long as well.  He'd break out into something in the middle of his, or one of the others', songs and he'd get real serious as he was burning up and down the neck.  He'd hit that last note of his solo and his whole body would rear back...  the audience would roar and he'd look out at 'em with the expression on his face -- what're you all doing here?  And then he'd burst into a huge grin.

Lyle Lovett & Joe Ely came along, and the three of them sat on straight-backed chairs and took turns picking songs out of their vast catalogs.   As Ely & Lovett both found opportunities to point out, they do this with no set lists, no plan -- each one figures out what he's going to play based on what the guy before him played, and what coincidences that tickled.

So when Hiatt's first turn came, he was thinking about the Daytona 500 that had just run that day, and how Mark Martin had come just this close to winning, and that put him in mind of a song he wrote coming home from Daytona one time twenty years ago...  Lovett followed that thought up, and dedicated one to the aforementioned Mark Martin -- "Let's have a hand for that young cowboy....  and wish him better luck next time...."   The night was like that.  After every song, the audience would start shouting out suggestions to the next singer -- "Oh, yeah," said Lyle, quickly taking the capo back off. "Thanks for asking for that one..."  And off he went.

I've seen Lovett several times, and Hiatt that once -- but seeing Joe Ely was a real treat.  He's never pursued that "career" the way the other guys have.  Likes to stick close to home (but has a book and two CDs coming out this week.)  So his guitar playing & his singing were the most rudimentary of the three (rudimentary -- as in, when I'm having a really good day, I can almost play like that...), such wonderful songs!!

Lovett was actually a bit of a surprise in that he didn't do more with his guitar playing.  He had on those damn fingerpicks that he always uses, but he did very little picking.  When he's with the large band, you don't notice that he's really just a great rhythm player.  He loves putting the capo way up -- ninth, tenth frets -- to get the high ringing sound.

Three guitar players, three different guitars -- three completely different styles.  So I learned a bit from each of 'em last night.