Thursday, January 6: Organizational Meeting; upstairs at LBC; 7:30; Everyone welcome!
Friday, January 14: Rachael Davis + Otis Gibbs; Duncan Hall-tickets on sale now.
Saturday, February 5: Greg Brown + Jason Wilber; Duncan Hall
Saturday, April 30: Wayne "The Train" Hancock; Lafayette Brewing Co.
Please help us spread the word!!!You can go to our website-www.friends-of-bob.org-and
download posters for our Rachael Davis and Greg Brown concerts. Or forward this
newsletter to friends you think might be interested.
If you're a fan of fine singer-songwriters, our first show of 2005 is one
you'll enjoy. We're presenting two really talented young Midwestern artists:
Rachael Davis and Otis Gibbs.
While she is a very good writer, what is most striking about Rachael
Davis is her incredible voice. It's a stunner. Dynamic, soulful, rich,
astonishing…she'll break your heart. Critics often compare her to Ella
Fitzgerald and Eva Cassidy. Her set is equal parts her own material and her
beautiful interpretations of standards and contemporary songs-a Cole Porter
here, a Joe Henry there. She grew up in Michigan and moved to Boston in
2001; just 7 months later she snagged a Boston Music Award for Best New
Singer-Songwriter. She will have Brett Hartenbach, her regular guitar
accompanist with her, and also Jake Armerding. Jake is traveling with
Rachael as her opening act but at Duncan Hall will appear with Rachael since
we are so keen to present Otis Gibbs. Jake is an exceptional fiddle,
mandolin, and guitar player, as well as singer and writer with lots of
bluegrass credentials.
If you don't yet own Otis Gibbs' 2004 release One Day Our
Whispers, there's a good chance you'll pick it up at the show. Otis is such an
entertainer-witty, engaging, a compelling songsmith-that you'll likely
succumb to his charms. And you won't regret it-it's a fine disc that gets
better and better with repeated listens. The writing, playing, and singing are
all powerfully good. The "Americana" label fits his songs and persona
perfectly.
Rachael Davis
www.rachaeldavis.com
with Brett Hartenbach and Jake Armerding
plus special guest
Otis Gibbs
www.otisgibbs.com
Friday, January 14
Duncan Hall, 619 Ferry St., Lafayette, IN
A smoke-free, all-ages show
Showtime: 8:00 p.m. (doors open 7:30)
Tickets: $8 (advance); $10 (day of show) Von's Records, JL CDs, Klaverenga, and McGuire. [Advance by
mail $9; checks to FoB, Box 59, Battle Ground, IN 47920; please give name, address, phone, and email.]
"Commands a voice older that her years, an instrument that is equally sure expressing strength and
vulnerability and her songwriting is fearlessly eclectic."
The Detroit Free Press
"Her music is built around her voice, a shimmering and versatile thing that trips lightly through Ellaesque jazz lines, growls and belts and glides."
Ann Arbor Review
"[Otis] Gibbs' real roots lie with Woody Guthrie, early Bob Dylan, and Nebraska-era Springsteen. Like
Guthrie, though, Gibbs isn't just a pamphleteer, and he's perfectly capable of writing catchy
throwaways like 'Daughter of a Truck Drivin Man' and fine story-songs like 'Get Me Out of Detroit.'
With a deep roots sound, One Day Our Whispers may end up in the country section of the local record
store, but that's just because there's no category called socially conscious folk." All-Music Guide
More Davis/Gibbs reviews later in this newsletter.
&
Greg Brown tickets will go on sale at the ticket outlets on January 1. To
present Greg is a big deal for us. We've brought some giant songwriters beforeRichard Thompson, Billy Joe Shaver, Iris DeMent, and so on-and Greg is in that
league, even though he opts to keep things low-key and close-to-home in both
his songwriting and career moves. This will be a show for FoB's history books.
We thank LDB Farms (Shelley and Jess Lowenberg DeBoer) for assistance in
making this show possible.
Greg Brown www.gregbrown.org
plus
Jason Wilber www.jasonwilber.com
Saturday, February 5
Duncan Hall 8:00 (7:30 doors)
Tickets $16 (advance); $18 (day of show) $17 mail order
Available at outlets Jan. 1st; see details for Rachael Davis show.
"[Greg Brown] is one of the great singer/songwriters of our day" CMJ New Music
Report
"the preeminent singer/songwriter on the contemporary Midwestern folk scene" PBS.org
"a wickedly sharp observer of the human condition." Rolling Stone
"as much an authentic creature and interpreter of the Midwest as Lucinda Williams is of
the South… (Greg Brown) is a vivid reminder that as the business gets bigger and more
Darwinian, at its ragged edges a thousand strange flowers continue to bloom."
New
York Times
"With his sandpaper-coarse but sensitive baritone, Greg Brown offers keen insights into
the realities and foibles of modern life tinged with a hefty dose of common sense." AllMusic Guide
&
We are very disappointed to say that our eagerly awaited April
concert with Barbarito Torres and his band has been cancelled. Their entire
tour has been cancelled. Earlier this year the Bush administration tightened
its sanctions on Cuban artists performing in the U.S.; after the presidential
election, Torres's agent realized that the situation would make any tour
impossible.
&
2004 was a banner year for Friends of Bob-our 10th season of
bringing live music. We had 289 dues-paying members-our highest total
ever-and really great attendance at our shows. We thank you wholeheartedly and ask you to maintain that support in '05. Your support is what
keeps this cooperative venture alive and flourishing. Without FoB, Lafayette
would not have experienced the wild and wonderful likes of Huun-Huur Tu
or the Chandler Travis Philharmonic, the swirling rhythms of Donna the
Buffalo, that truly astonishing evening with the Holmes Brothers, or great
evenings with Neil Innes and Jon Langford, The Waifs and Oh Susanna,
Väsen and Myshkin, Steve Forbert and Paul Burch or Teada. It was a very
good year.
&
Membership dues are by the calendar year-2005 dues are due!
Dues pay for this newsletter and provide a safety net for when admission
charges don't cover expenses. Our venues are small and our prices are as low
as we can make them. Please help us keep the music coming. Become a Friend
of Bob! Since our last newsletter, the following people have sent in their
2004 dues:
Rebekkah Aaron 04
Donna Bourne 05
Claude Caddell 04
Brian Capouch 05
Scott Frankenberger 05
James & Dixie Hermiller 05
Bruce Lehman 05
Nancy Marshall 05
JoAnn Miller 05
Erin & Jon Munn 05
Sandy & Zippy Ostroy 04
Barry Rubin 05
Linda Vanderkolk 05
We've tried our best: if there are errors or omissions, please let us know. (567 2478 /
randm@insightbb.com)
Wanna join? There is a membership form at the bottom of this
newsletter or go to How Can I Help? at www.friends-of-bob.org
Other live music to get excited about:
LAFAYETTE BREWING CO. 12/31 Natives of the New Dawn; 1/8 Strawberry Larry;
1/15 Bonepony www.lafayettebrewingco.com
KNICKERBOCKER SALOON 12/31 Jakob's Best Outfit
www.knickerbockersaloon.com
CHECKERBOARD 12/31 Dr. Fine & d'Gleet
TIPPECANOE CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY An Afternoon with Trio Amabile.
Duncan Hall Sunday, February 6, 3-5 www.TippecanoeChamberMusic.org
On the brink of stardom: Michigan-bred Rachael Davis takes her place at
Ann Arbor Folk Festival
by BEN EDMONDS
DETROIT FREE PRESS
Though it possesses a musical history as wide and deep as any city on the planet, Detroit has yet to propel
a folk singer-songwriter into the international spotlight (a young Joni Mitchell's brief residence here doesn't
count; neither does Jewel's year up north at the Interlochen Arts Academy).
If the buzz on the contemporary folk grapevine is to be believed, that could change with the
emergence of Rachael Davis. The Lansing-born singer moved to the East Coast 18 months ago, but when
she returns to perform at Saturday's sold-out Ann Arbor Folk Festival show at the Michigan Theater -shoulder-to-shoulder with Taj Mahal, Kate and Anna McGarrigle and Patty Larkin -- it will be as a
Michigander on the verge of greater things.
The 22-year-old Davis grew up in Cadillac, one of four children of musicians who worked as
teachers during the school year and toured with their folk group, Lake Effect, during breaks.
"Our living room was choked with musical instruments," recalls Davis. "There were more
instruments than people, and the house was always full of people."
Lake Effect, with whom Davis toured the Midwest between ages 8 and 18, maintained an all-purpose
repertoire -- traditional folk songs, some originals and an assortment of children's songs for kids' concerts. It
was the kind of group that exists below the music-business radar but generates enthusiasm for music in
places the industry usually passes by.
After one of Davis' first shows with her parents' group, she recalls, the Irish folk singer Maura
O'Connell grabbed her and told her, "Never stop doing it for the love of it."
Those years on the folk circuit, and O'Connell's advice, inform her recent album, "Minor League Deities,"
which is far more mature and self-assured than most debuts. Its positive reception has been bolstered by
the new "Respond II" compilation, on which the newcomer appears alongside Dolly Parton, Joan Baez,
Sarah McLachlan, Ani DiFranco and others to benefit the Domestic Violence Prevention Fund.
Davis commands a voice older than her years, an instrument that is equally sure expressing
strength and vulnerability, and her songwriting is fearlessly eclectic. "People always comment about how
different my songs are from each other," says Davis. "The album goes from a jazzy tune to a banjo song;
there'll be a screaming slide guitar blues and a gospel-ish a cappella number, then some sweet singersongwriter stuff and an old-timey waltz. Some might say I can't commit to one genre, but all these things are
part of me. I follow my songs wherever they lead."
Folk veteran and "Prairie Home Companion" regular Claudia Schmidt remembers "this tiny little pipsqueak with long braids and a wonderful voice, even then . . . Rachael amazed me early on when she
learned my arrangement of the Bill Withers song "Grandma's Hands" off one of my old albums and
performed it for me. We still sing it whenever we get together.
"She has an inherent musicality that a lot of young musicians lack. Watching Rachael blossom has
been a delight, because that gift is only going to get better and deeper as the years go by."
Growing up, Davis recalls, she was able to attend only one Ann Arbor Folk Festival. "We sat up in
the very back row of the top balcony of Hill Auditorium," she recalls, "so I'm looking forward to a better seat
at this one."
All-Music Guide Review by Ronnie D. Lankford Jr.
Otis Gibbs has a gritty vocal style that seems to automatically give his music an air of authenticity. Like
Steve Earle or Tom Waits, this gives the impression of a man who carved his songs from hard-lived
experience. The folk-country arrangements, from twangy steel guitars to backwoods mandolins, deepen
these impressions on One Day Our Whispers. But Gibbs, like Earle, isn't just a good old boy, and has a
thing or two to say about the world we all live in. "I Wanna Change It" gives a good impression -- at first
glance -- of some rootsy, good-time love song with the refrain "I wanna change it with you." But the "you" of
the song is the listener, and Gibbs' song finally ends up as a rustic, post-millennium version of "I'd Like to
Teach the World to Sing." "The Peoples Day" makes this connection even more obvious with allusions to Big
Bill Hayward, Mother Jones, and Sacco & Vanzetti, leading one to realize that Gibbs' real roots lie with
Woody Guthrie, early Bob Dylan, and Nebraska-era Springsteen. Like Guthrie, though, Gibbs isn't just a
pamphleteer, and he's perfectly capable of writing catchy throwaways like "Daughter of a Truck Drivin Man"
and fine story-songs like "Get Me Out of Detroit." With a deep roots sound, One Day Our Whispers may end
up in the country section of the local record store, but that's just because there's no category called socially
conscious folk.
Americana into down-home territory C.E. HANIFIN / CINCINNATI
ENQUIRER
Otis Gibbs only spent the first six years or so of his life in Middletown, but that's where the singer-songwriter
received his initial intoxicating taste of the troubadour lifestyle, at a tavern called the Chatterdine. "When I
was a little kid, my uncle would take me over there and sit me up on the bar and have me sing Hank
Williams or Jimmie Rodgers songs," he says. "Some of the local drunks would give me money, and my
uncle would drink on the money. "That's where I first got exposed to being around music. Of course I loved
it."
Gibbs, 38, who grew up in Wanamaker, Ind., and now lives in Indianapolis, says that spending his
formative years in a small town has helped sculpt his view of the world, and therefore his music. "We spend
our childhood trying to get out of whatever our home life is, and then we spent the rest of our lives trying to
get back to it in some way," he says.
Those rural roots wind through Gibbs' new album, One Day Our Whispers, a collection of witty,
wistful tales about a "Small Town Saturday Night" and the "Daughter of a Truck Drivin' Man." The vocalist
and guitarist was joined in the studio by several veteran musicians, as well as former Wilco drummer Ken
Coomer who contributed to several tracks.
With the tour Gibbs just launched, he's venturing deeper into down-home territory than most artists who fall
under the Americana umbrella. He's planned numerous stops at unconventional venues such as rural feedand-seed stores, including the 160-year-old Rabbit Hash General Store in Boone County. The idea of taking
his music to businesses that sell farming supplies struck Gibbs last year. "I just thought, 'Wouldn't it be fun?'
It fits into my value system; if I have an aesthetic, it probably fits into it in some way," he says. He also hopes
that he'll catch the ears of people who don't frequent the bars he usually plays.
One Day Our Whispers, which was released in July, has already captivated quite a few listeners
with its unembellished melodies and plainspoken, populist lyrics. The album recently became one of the top
five additions at radio stations around the country that play Americana music. "It's an optimistic record with a
theme of everyday folks making power in their own hands and making things better for themselves," the
musician says.
2005 Friends of Bob membership dues are now due. Please do
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