After parking at the gravel lot near the foot of Byron Reece Memorial Trail, I started off, startled at the weight of my backpack (30 pounds? 40?). Large icicles hung off exposed rock, but they were dripping slightly. Even though I’ve been working out for the first time in years, the climb up was extremely tough and exhausting with that load. I was expecting to hear ambulance sirens for the fallen motorcyclists, but none came.

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After .7 miles of huffing and puffing up the Reece Trail, it was time to take a right and start zigzagging up Blood Mountain via the AT. The climb is very strenuous and steep, a large segment of it a lot like climbing a skyscraper stairwell. But just when you’re sure you’re gonna collapse, the trail levels off, and eventually leads you to the summit at 4458 ft, a 1500 foot rise from your car in just two miles of walking.

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I was so glad to see the Blood Mountain shelter, even though it looked a little bit like the abandoned house from the Blair Witch Project (without the bloody handprints, thankfully). A grizzly but nice older man who said he was on his way to Maine stopped by, briefly.


The shelter has two rooms. The one in the front has a fireplace, and I tried to use my dryer lint and shreds of twine to start a fire, but the twigs and sticks I collected were just too damp from the rains a few days before to get it going. I read the shelter’s log: Someone said the mice there were very cute, but I didn’t see any.

I set up my tent in the shelter to cut the wind whistling through the pane-less windows, and had asparagus soup and an albacore filet for dinner.

I wanted to be distracted from my alone-ness, so I had downloaded a movie, “Wanted” with Angelina Jolie, onto my ipod – the first time I have ever watched video on it. It worked pretty well, but the movie was grossly gratuitous and amoral, so I didn’t finish it. I clicked off my little electric lantern and slept pretty well in the 27-degree night air.



Breakfast of peaches ‘n cream low sugar oatmeal, instant coffee, and orange slices was very enjoyable. (My obsession of late with powdered and portable food – Coffee Mate, Crystal Light, Wendy’s Chile sauce, etc., etc., - was really paying off!) I didn’t bring enough water, though, so I had to melt icicles – a lot of work for about six ounces of liquid. My lower back was hurting from sitting Indian-style so much, but I was feeling fantastic otherwise as I broke down the tent, re-stuffed and re-strapped my supplies onto my back, and started making my way down at about 11 in the morning.



The trek down took an hour and twenty, as opposed to about two hours going up. This segment of the AT must be pretty popular, for I said howdy to at least two dozen people who were on the way up for a day trip. I felt extremely satisfied driving home, and turned The Black Keys fantastic CD Rubber Factory, full of low-fi fuzzy guitar white-boy blues, all the way to eleven.

These Adirondack chairs were my first project (1993). I used to work for a Blake’s Antiques, a furniture refinishing shop in Lawrenceville, Georgia – he had an Adirondack chair sitting in pieces for awhile, and I offered to put it together for him so I could use it as a model to make my own set. (This was a few years before you could buy a similar set made in China for $125). I think the footrests are my own design. I’m sure the table is. I made three or four additional sets for friends of friends and made a bit of profit.

My mother-in-law wanted an arbor (1993), but it didn’t end up being installed at her house because her sprinkler system would have to have been rerouted had I installed it (my mistake, not hers). It is a very substantial piece, the angled segments forming the arch made of 4X4 pressure-treated pine. All I had to cut the segments with at the time was an ordinary Black and Decker circular saw, so I had to flip each 4X4 over and cut it twice, which was very tricky, then screw them all together using humungous wood screws. I was surprised the assemblage turned out as well as it did. Unfortunately, because I didn’t consider the installation requirements, this huge arbor had no home, so, naturally, my mother bought it from me. Later, she buried one of her dogs under it, which was sad but very flattering.

Starting out, I did not refer to books to learn how to construct things, as when I built this bed frame and end tables (1994). Its construction was pretty absurd, and I was lucky it turned out as well as it did. The posts are each made of two construction-grade 2X4’s, glued together, cut so as to accept the runners. It was extremely challenging to draw and cut out the arch on the headboard made from three glued together 1X12 planks, the middle skinnier than the rest to create a groove to accept the vertical slats. The end tables were ridiculous: I thought it would be sound joint it together by ripping a 2X4 in half then groove each 2X2 on two sides and slide the side panels into those grooves. The drawers were held in place with these ripped 1×1 sticks of wood that I just screwed in without much planning. Over the years, the cabinets got a bit shaky so I had to reinforce them with wood screws, but they held up pretty well after that. I was actually able to sell these pieces at a garage sale for $125, which is pretty amazing considering I built them with zero furniture-building experience.

Being a DINK (Double Income No Kids) can be good: I found this cherry-red 1965 Chevy pickup for sale down the road (1995), thought about buying it for only a day or two, and actually got the okay from my without any real debate. Now, I have no experience working on cars, and this beast had its problems, but I was able to drive it to work, the north Georgia mountains, and to downtown Atlanta before it started to give me real trouble. I loved that truck for awhile, though, and installed a wood plank bed in the cargo area, and this custom oak dash in the cab, including handmade knobs for the wipers, lights, and turn signals. Yeehaw! Even though it never ran all that well, I was able to sell it for $500 or so dollars more than I bought it because of the custom work.

What an ego-boost this project was: A customer came into Blake’s Antiques with a medium-sized box. Inside were the remains of an old rocking chair that was completely smashed (1995). Three or four of the spindles were snapped in half; five or six were missing tips that had to be completely reconstructed, and the seat was split in two.

After spending about three hours reassembling the back of the chair, Chris, my boss, suggested I finish it at home. I was proud of the outcome because, not only did the rocking chair become fully functional again, it looked and rocked just as it was supposed to, symmetrical and balanced.

Chris Blake laid me off (1996), and I lost the most enjoyable job I’d ever had. Wanting to pursue something would train me in furniture building, I got a job working for Nottingham Antiques in downtown Atlanta, a manufacturer of high-end antique reproductions for high-end customers. Brian Young, the owner, a Georgia Tech grad, and Clive, who was from the UK, gave me an opportunity to work in their shop even though every single other craftsman in their shop was Vietnamese and spoke little or no English. My understanding of cabinetry building exploded thanks to all those kind people. My work for them was satisfactory, I feel sure, though I was slower than the most. I don’t know if my production rate was the reason Brian pulled me off the main line and had me make this table, but I’m sure glad he did, because it was a tremendous learning experience. Cabinetry-type woodwork is relatively easy when it is based on the box principle and 90-degree angles, but this bean-shaped table had none. The sides are thin maple-veneered pressboard bent and glued onto blocks, but the curves of the front and back panels, and the drawer had to be cut out of three-inch thick maple planks on a jigsaw. The whole of the cabinet was glued together using a biscuit jointer and a band clamp. Brian had me deliver the piece to their showroom, probably because he could see how proud of it I was, and his wife, the store manager, gave me this very folky-looking, hand-carved crow, imported from Guatemala, that I still have on my desk today. I love that wooden bird; my wife doesn’t.

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A chest for silverware my uncle asked me to restore (1997). I got lucky on this one, because I had no experience replacing the felt interior, but it still turned out fine. The exterior is finished with paste wax, the same humble finish that Nottingham Antiques uses to make perfect their very fine and expensive antique reproductions. Every home woodworker should know about the joys of paste wax: It is no more challenging to use than shoe polish, and produces a mellow luster that can be rejuvenated with a light reapplication when needed.

I came upon this non-working floor-model Philco radio at an antique store in Monroe, Georgia (1997). The innards were a mess, but the outside looked alright, so I got this crazy notion to turn it into a liquor cabinet. I tore the radio apart and created the shelving with wine bottle holders, played with various hardware to make the “wings” open up properly (very tricky!), then had my old boss at Blake’s Antiques spray the finish on it for me. The results, as I hope you can see, were pretty cool.

I was so proud of this piece that I actually thought I could build a business making similar cabinetry with other unrestorable electronics. Problem was, I could not sell the thing to save my life. I actually rented a booth at the Atlanta Antiques market, juggling it along with my son Case, who was only four months old at the time, and sat with him for two eight-hour days while the piece was almost completely ignored by passers-by. No one seemed to understand it. Later, I found an antique dealer in Buckhead who agreed to display it in a corner of his store, but they got no bites either. Finally, my liquor cabinet got sold at a charity auction for maybe four hundred dollars, the final, but needed, blow to my ego that taught me I was not going to be able to make a living creating my “art”. I would cut off my left ear if I could have this piece back again. Maybe it’ll need repair someday and whoever has it will call me – my name is written in pencil on the back.

A customer had a set of dining room chairs that she really wanted to hold on to, but one was damaged, so she hired me to cut a new detailing on the chair back, and stain and finish it to match (1998).

While waiting for my radio/bar to sell, I had the bright idea to convert this old pump organ into a secretary (1998). Two old guys dropped this thing off at Blake’s Antiques, where I was working on and off again, and asked if I wanted to take it off their hands. I think I gave them $20 for it. The pump organ had been painted white, and these fellows were in the process of removing the paint and the finish beneath it, but had given up, so the organ was covered in dried white goo. I took it home, stripped it completely by hand (getting white paint out of corners and oak grain isn’t easy), ripped out the insides, and made the conversion.

The face below the keyboard hinges down, allowing you to push back the keyboard and pull out a writing surface. The sheet music holder hinges up, revealing some drawers I installed, detailed to match the organ’s design. A panel below the keyboard is now the face of a letter-sized hanging file drawer. I hauled this to the Atlanta Antique Mart, too, but no one was really interested – they just didn’t get it. Finally, my father bought it from me; today, it sits in his foyer. Thanks, Dad.

A set of twin beds commissioned by my mother (1999). By this time, I had purchased an HVLP system to spray lacquer onto my work. My old boss, unfortunately, had never taught me how to spray on finish because he thought, if he did, I’d have all the skills required to run a furntiture refinishing business of my own, and would break away from him, so I had to learn using trial-and-error (read: lots of errors). The books I had on finishing furniture were very poorly written: A common problem with finishes encountered by the inexperienced sprayer is called “orange peel”. I read those words again and again, wondering what it meant, but didn’t understand until I covered these beds with a poorly-applied finish that was smooth yet bumpy, just like the skin of an orange. It was only then that I understood what “orange peel” was, since the books named it but never described it very well. I never was able to master the spray application of laquer. Sometime my finishes would be excellent, sometimes not. There were just too many variables I had not learned to control.

I guess you could call this entertainment center (1999) my masterpiece, at least for now. It was commissioned by my brother-in-law and his wife, and it is a very nice piece. The drawers are held in place with this really expensive Swiss hardware that make them slide open smooth as glass even if they were to be filled gun ammo. The finish is colored paste wax; you can see the swirls in its application, which may be off-putting for someone who is used to seeing furniture made in factories, but I think of it as a proof that it was made by hand, and very endearing.

The piece breaks down into a top half and a bottom half, and weighs a bloody ton. It was installed in a room with an eighteen foot ceiling, and there is a walk on the upper floor that allows you to look down on this room. When I did this, I realized, to my horror, that the top of the piece, having no finish at all, was plainly visible, so I had to come back and stain and finish the top, which was very stressful and probably annoying to my brother-in-law. If I could do whatever I wished for employment, I would be making furniture like this piece.

In 1999, my second child was came into my life, so my workshop got much quieter, and the few projects I undertook were for my kids, such as this bookshelf, with a design that I ripped off from Pottery Barn or somewhere, and this toy box, with a sliding top like the one I had when I was a kid. Toy boxes, I’ve since learned, are overrated: They become a receptacle where all of the thousands of pieces from a hundred pawed-at toys get all mixed up into one big salad. Take my advice and purchase bookshelves for your child’s toys; s/he and you will be obligated to stay more organized, and you can use them to store books later.

The second commission from my Mom – a game table with chess board inlay (2001). It has a cute “hidden” drawer on the side.

A tower for holding photographs (2001); the idea was stolen from a high-end photography catalogue. I made one for my parents and one for my in-laws as a Christmas gift.

I worked awhile for a friend of my brother-in-law, Ron Hyman, a super guy who asked me to build some cabinetry for an architectural firm (2001). The counter top so long that it wobbled and bounced out of the back of my minivan like it was a diving board; I was sure it would snap in transport, but it didn’t. I ran paint through my HVLP system to finish it, which you’re not really supposed to do. I’m really proud of the grid shelving on the right, which holds rolled-up blueprints. It is constructed with fiberboard cut to fit together like the cardboard separators that protect the bottles in a case of wine. The results were dead-precise, like it was made by a machine. Yay, me.

A commission from my mother-in-law (2001). She had a pre-exiting desk (on the left side of the photo) and wanted me to construct an extension that matches in color and style. The results, as you can see, weren’t too shabby!

This table was my last major project before I had to get serious about finding a real job to support my family (for four-plus years, I had been a stay-at-home dad to my two children, and that had allowed me some time to putter in my shop). I had always wanted a thick, farmhouse-style oak kitchen table substantial enough to park a Volkswagon on, but had never seen one in the furniture stores, so I made my own. The 2” thick oak planks for the project were from Suwanee Lumber. Buying lumber from a supplier like Suwanee Lumber is not like buyng from Home Depot – the wood they sell is a less uniform, and might be slightly curved or warped (that’s not a negative; serious craftsmen who buy their stuff have the skill to modify their products into something usable). The oak planks I took away from them weighed hundreds of pounds, and they were so wide that I had to take them to a nearby sawmill to have them ripped to a more usable size (the foreman at the mill was very cool and stopped a large cutting job his crew was working on to help me). Even though the planks, after the help, were of a dimension that I could actually carry them around, it was a huge job to square them on my planer, and rip them to the exact needed widths. The pieces are joined together with biscuits, but I came behind with my Delta mortising kit to create these square-peg holes, simulating how these planks might have been jointed had they been assembled a few hundred years ago. My family and I still use this table today, though I’ve been wondering when my wife will finally say we need to move on to a table of a different style. Never, hopefully.

The above pic has been altered to make A.P. is look straight into the camera, and Sara (gasp) smile. That ain’t right. Googling around tonight, I was shocked and dismayed to see that almost all the copies of this photo on the internet are the touched-up version.

In the original, A.P. is not looking into the lens, and Sara has a flat affect.
Perhaps Maybelle’s face has been messed with, too, - it’s weird. Since Sara is now smiling (in the above version), Maybelle looks like she’s smiling, too.

So what, you’re probably saying. Well, I was just upset to see these touch ups, because the real photo, to me, is so iconic. A.P. was always distracted, searching for the next song to adapt for recording, and neglecting Sara, his wife. Sara was never a happy woman, eventually dumping her marriage, her children, and recording career to be with the man she really loved. Maybelle, perhaps more focused on making her mark in country, stares right into your eyes with some degree of confidence.

The real photo just represents the three so well.

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I went to the show at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, and was pretty let down. Each casual conversation I struck up, no one was very familiar with the new album, and the one that was was very lukewarm on it. The crowd at the show was weak, not very tuned in or appreciative. I slunk home, dejected.

So, Athens was next. I drove over early because I was hoping I could catch her at sound check, get an autograph, and tell her how well her buddy Charlie Sexton did on Dylan’s Love & Theft (you know, gotta plan what you are going to say to alleviate the awkwardness).

I got lucky, sort of. Me and a half dozen fans, watching through the smeared glass panels on the Georgia Theatre’s front doors, watched her sound check. When she put her guitar down and exited stage left, I darted around to the door next to which the tour bus was parked, and waited. Lucinda and her band, who circled her protectively, came out. I called to her, CD and Sharpie in hand, and she gave me a look that burned a hole right through my abdomen. Still, she came over and signed it. I tried instead to tell her how I was in Atlanta last night and was looking forward to tonight, but she wasn’t really interested. She gave me my CD back and got back on the bus.

Because of everything that had happened up to that point, I was feeling pretty crushed, even though I got the autograph. I felt like a total idiot fanatic. I didn’t even want to go to the show, but I talked myself into it anyway. Paid $30 (!) again to give it another chance.

Turns out Lucinda was absolutely ON FIRE that night, and the crowd was just hysterical, too. She kept adding and adding songs they hadn’t intended on playing (I assume this is true because the Lu & Bo kept having these little huddles between songs). It was pure pandemonium!

The show finally ends, and I walk out completely drained and elated. I look over to my right, behind the theater, and there’s Lucinda, sitting on a brick wall, with a big ol’ smile on her face, chatting it up with her fans. This completely free-of-charge meet and greet lasted a solid hour. There were sober, polite people talking with her, and there were drunk-ass people there, too, really laying it on thick. But Lucinda was super-nice to everyone. She seemed like she was really trying to make everyone feel good. (I was amazed to hear she hadn’t heard the new Dylan record).

So I guess the lesson I learned that night is: Players only love you when they’re playing (and immediately afterward). Which is fine - I’ll take it.

Then, in a recent Rolling Stone interview, he says: “I remember what that Napster guy came up across, it was like, ‘Everybody’s getting music for free.’ I was like, ‘Well, why not? It ain’t worth nothin’, anyway.’ I don’t know anybody who’s made a record that sounds decent in the past twenty years, really.” I love Bob, though I know you really can’t take anything he says at face value. Still, I’m floored by the ignorance of his statement, because there are so many artists worth hearing now. I find his lack of awareness depressing.

As the Alicia Keyes thing indicates, Bob only seems to know the music of people he sees at award shows. His understanding of music today must end there. (Anybody remember Dylan had a similar fascination with Fiona Apple in the 90’s?)

Dylan’s words are the quips of a man in love with his own guile. “The stuff that trained me to do what I do, that was individually based. That was what you heard – the individual crying in the wilderness, so that’s kind of lost too. I’m talking about artists with the willpower not to conform to anybody’s reality but their own. . . .I don’t know who else does it beside myself, to tell you the truth.” Bob, I wish I could show you that there are individuals crying in the wilderness everywhere. They’re ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Bob also said in that interview, “I own the sixties.” Of course, he’s right about that. But he doesn’t own this day. Instead of being a spokesman for the luckless, the abandoned, and forsaked, he is, at this point in his career, just a spokesman for himself, and that’s too bad.

The show was a half-house setup, and only two-thirds full - about 900 people, tops: Regular folks, maybe with a child or grandchild in tow. What I was hoping to see, alongside these people who have supported Loretta for so many years, were younger, punk-ier fans who looked like they might have been there because of Loretta’s genre-busting 2004 LP Van Lear Rose, or because they’d been living on a steady diet of Hank, cigarettes, and whiskey, and knew what real music is, but I didn’t see much of anyone like that.

Anyway, the show started, so I sat myself down on the floor in front of the sound board, taking notes and clicking pictures. Apparently there was someone I couldn’t see in the front row who was, in his enthusiasm for Loretta, sticking out from the rest of the well-behaved crowd. A player in her band, reacting to this person, quipped,” Loretta, this is your kinda crowd – drunks!” It wasn’t an overt, premeditated act, but it still felt like he was trying to shame the guy into sitting still like everybody else. (Curious about this fan, I tracked him down after the show. He was an effusive, gushing, gay Loretta Lynn fan, very open and full of good humor.)

A little while later, two women on the floor decided to stand and shake it a bit - the only fans standing in the whole arena. Hellbilly-types, they were: One had dyed-red hair, while the other had a bit of the sex-icon Bettie Page thing going on, with the hairstyle, eyeliner, and painted red lips. In a crowd like that, though, if you stand up, you’re gonna stand out, so pretty soon they sat down.

Beyond the folks who, upon Loretta’s call for song requests, hollered “Portland, Oregon”, there was no real evidence that anyone was conscious of Loretta’s recent work to revitalize her recording career. Van Lear Rose, her 2004 album produced by rock icon Jack White, won Loretta her first Grammy, but seems glaringly out of place with her fans and her touring band.

For starters, The Coal Miners just aren’t equipped to present the VLR material very well. Not that it should be held against them - there is no place for Jack White-style soloing in traditional country. But why is there no place in the Coal Miner’s repertoire for the simple beauty of Van Lear Rose’s “Miss Being Mrs.” or “Family Tree”?

Even beyond the Coal Miners, it’s clear that Loretta’s handlers are not geared toward revitalizing her career in the manner Johnny Cash managed to do, and that’s a shame. Johnny Cash played the Viper Room and eventually won over a new generation of fans; Loretta, meanwhile, continues to play the casinos. It’s the hardcore fan’s fault, too: They idolize her so much that’s it next to impossible for her to be anything other than the same Queen of Country they need her to be.

The problem of keeping country music vital extends way beyond Loretta Lynn, too, though her concert represented that problem fairly well. The chasm lying between the older, more conservative folks who love real country and the younger, more rebellious fans, the tattooed, drinking, smoking kids who love that same country sound, is so vast. Falling into the chasm is the music of many of today’s musicians who, true to the blueprint laid out by artists like Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams, and George Jones, struggle to find an audience.

It’s up to the fans to close the gap: Conservatives and liberals, the old guard and the young punks, need to co-exist better. They need to have more mutual respect. As it exists now, the audience for good country music is not regenerating at a rate that will allow it to survive.

Loretta Lynn, April 22, 2007

Anyway, the wife and I are old farts, so we were disappointed to learn upon arrival that there was an opening act, from Japan no less – “Silver” something or other – so we were going to get even less sleep that night than we originally thought. Eight O’clock rolls around, this mystery band starts to take the stage, and I notice they are all wearing suits. Interesting. When they stepped up to their mics, I saw they were also wearing familiar-looking black leather boots. “Hey, wait a minute, these guys are. . .” I whispered, and they broke out with a marvelous, spot-on cover of The Fab Four’s “Drive My Car”! “Asked a girl what she wanted to be / And she said baby can’t you see / I want to be famous / A star of the screen / But you can do something in between. . .” Yeaaaaaaah! It’s Beatlemania bliss!

So it turns out the Silver Beats are a Beatles tribute band. . .from Japan! All four players were great: Yukinobu Kabe (Ringo), Tadaaki Naganuma (Paul), Hajime Kubo (George), and Hidemasa Mabuchi (John) sang to us in the Queen’s English, then cut up with the crowd between songs in Japanese, to hilarious effect. Hajime/George, who stood front and center, was playing a Telecaster, kind of compromising the overall visual effect, but I guess that doesn’t really matter when you can nail the licks like he did. Mabu/John, who knew the most English, even spoke with a Liverpoolian accent. If you go by their website, you can see how much Mabu looks like John, even in the face. Eerie.

For this set, the Silver Beats concentrated on the earlier half of the Beatles career: “Day Tripper”, “I Feel Fine”, “All My Loving” “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”, etc., which was appropriate for their costumes. But they also nailed “Don’t Let Me Down” (the fellow who helped the Silver Beats get their visas sang lead on that one, and he was killer) as well as “Come Together”. Their set-ending “Sgt. Pepper (Reprise)” was the perfect capper, stirring me way, way down, reminding me of what made me a music fanatic in the first place. I must not have been the only one, since the crowd gave the Silver Beats a stomping standing ovation when it was time to go. (Another blogger who saw them at the Ryman in Nashville said they got a standing ovation there, too.)

So, thank you, Silver Beats, for giving me such an unexpected, wonderful experience. Please come back at my town someday!

Here’s the Silver Beats website:

http://www.silverbeats.com/english/about.html

Here’s the (mediocre) vid I shot of the Silver Beats performing “Come Together”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLx-ZMyLPuE

Anyway, as you probably know, Karen Carpenter, the band’s main singer, died of anorexia nervosa in 1983 while still in the public eye. In the latter half of their career, the Carpenters were able to revive record sales by starring in three television specials. These shows were enjoyed by millions of people, but those millions also witnessed Karen becoming thinner and thinner without any understanding as to why. It’s a fascinating story - how a person could just wilt away like that in front of everyone.

These days, probably thousands of people suffer from anorexia nervosa, but, in 1983, when Karen died from it, the disease was largely unheard of. In the past, my reasoning for this phenomenon would be, “Well, that’s just another example of the media shedding some much needed light on a problem the public should know about,” but my perspective is changing. Perhaps it is mass media, and television in particular, that actually spread anorexia nervosa. Anorexia is not viral; you can’t get it from shaking someone’s hand, or from breathing their air. Anorexia is a disease of the mind. Anorexia is an idea, that, when planted in a vulnerable person, grows just like a virus.

Television is the way ideas, good and bad, healthy or unhealthy, are most widely and efficiently spread, so it could be argued that the media, and television in particular, through the airing of the Carpenter’s television specials and details pertaining to her death, effectively unleashed anorexia upon the world.

Karen Carpenter’s music is slipping from our collective memory, but anorexia is here to stay.

Postscript: Poking around the internet, I discovered the eerie, sometimes terrifying 1987 cult film about Karen (one of only two films banned in the United States, according to Wikipedia) has been uploaded by the filmmaker for streaming at Google Video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=622130510713940545

Please don’t misunderstand - I feel very sympathetic toward Karen Carpenter. But maybe Sympathy is the Devil’s lure.

I, like everyone, I’m guessing, go to shows seeking that moment of transcendence when the audience and the band meld into one big ball of happiness and agreement. That moment came at the end of Chatham County Line’s second set when they covered the Monroe Brothers’ “What Would You Give in Exchange for your Soul” and followed with their fantastic original “Dark Clouds”. The barflies in the back finally got quiet and instead drank up Chatham County Line’s wonderful bluegrass brew. It was a sight, I tell you.

I got the feeling CCL could have kept everyone happy all evening if they had simply chosen to play the Old Favorites for this tough crowd made largely of pickers and their buddies who were there for the informal jam session preceding CCL’s set (you knew the audience had to be musicians, cuz the clap-along that broke out during “Dark Clouds” stayed strong all the way to the end and kept perfect time). But the bulk of CCL’s show was originals from their debut CD and their new “Route 23”, due next month. Yes, they played mountain-mens’ versions of Gillian Welch’s “Elvis Presley Blues” and Wilco’s “End of the Century”, but they did it out of love for those tunes, not to reel people in. And right there’s the beauty of CCL - how they are working to distinguish themselves within the rigid, conservative standards of what makes a good bluegrass band. They wear the suits and crowd the single microphone, but they don’t want to merely replicate an ideal already realized by others. Their deep respect for the bluegrass tradition is right out there for all to see, yet they work hard to make their own unique imprint on the genre.

With the North Carolina state flag hung behind them, Dave, their guitarist and unassuming lead singer, spoke kindly of their home and invited the crowd to check out all the great music to be found there. Apparently, the Chatham county line was the place they’d find themselves when they would have to admit they were lost, searching (in their early days) for their practice space – hence the name.

John Teer is a force to be reckoned with. When Dave, Greg, the bass player, and John would harmonize, either John stood twice the distance from the mike as the others or, if he got closer in, would hold the mandolin flat at neck level and sing into it so the sound of his voice would bounce off the instrument and into the mike (I swear, for an instant, I could hear the resulting reverberations of the vibrating mandolin, but I probably just imagined that.)

CCL are exciting to watch: Typically, bluegrass pickers’ fingers fly, and perhaps boot toes are tapping, but that’s about it as far as movement goes; CCL, on the other hand, bob and dart before the mike like moths at the flame, and, although they looked a bit crowded at times, making it harder to watch their fingerwork, the interplay was quite affecting. I can’t recall watching bluegrass played where the energy came from the movement of the players, and not just the music. All in all, it was just very thrilling to witness niche-carving as it happens.

CCL are John Teer (fiddle, mandolin), Chandler Holt (banjo), Greg Reading (bass), and Dave Wilson (guitar).