Last week’s country music theme, plus the added presence of a world-class acoustic guitarist, is neatly replicated this week.
Book-ended by the star attraction, Marty Stuart, who plays Sage Gateshead’s Hall 2 on Saturday night and Nashville-based hot-shot guitar-picker, Richard Smith, at Live Theatre’s Studio venue on October 13, the week has lots more in between.
Few, if any, current country musicians are better placed than Mississippi-born Marty Stuart to chart the course of the enduring music form since the 1950s.
He has played, literally man and boy, with many of the titans of country music in a range which covers bluegrass, traditional country, rockabilly, honky-tonk and country-rock.
Marty Stuart was a precociously gifted child and joined the band of the renowned guitarist/mandolinist, Lester Flatt, when he was a mere 13 years old.
Like Flatt (later one half of the famed Flatt and Scruggs duo), Stuart majored on guitar and mandolin, plus vocals, and learned whatever it took to become a true showman.
After career-building stints with fiddler Vassar Clements and iconic guitarist, Doc Watson, Stuart became a member of Johnny Cash’s band (Stuart married JC’s third child, Cindy and later produced the “man in black”) and toured Europe with three quarters of the Sun Records “million dollar quartet” of Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, (Elvis being replaced by Roy Orbison for the tour).
On that tour Stuart, presumably from a safe distance, referred to the often volcanic Lewis as “uncle Gerald”.
He’s a multiple Grammy winner and has received numerous other forms of recognition in his storied career. For the last 20 years he has been married to country singer Connie Smith, whom he has also written for and produced.
Stuart has over 20 albums (including compilations) to his name and numerous chart singles among his 30-odd releases. He had his own national TV show and could summon just about any country act he cared to call.
Marty Stuart is a living repository of all things country – he is, for example, the proud owner of guitar great Clarence White’s ‘50s Fender Telecaster, a genuinely sought-after collectors item – and he and his band, the aptly named Fabulous Superlatives, are constantly in demand around the US.
Trips to this side of the Atlantic are all too rare (I interviewed him on his last visit here in 2010) and the chance to catch him and his crack band – with the brilliantly twangful Kenny Vaughan on lead guitar – should not be missed.
Grammy-winning act, the Kentucky Headhunters (Image: Publicity Picture)
On Monday night, the Cluny welcomes another Grammy-winning act, the Kentucky Headhunters.
The four-piece country-rock/southern-rock/blues outfit won the coveted Grammy award for their Pickin’ On Nashville album and have been in existence, in one form or another, for 40 years.
There have been relatively few personnel changes since the brothers Richard and Fred Young formed the band, originally called Itchy Brother, all those years ago.
The Headhunters toured alongside Hank Williams Jr and Delbert McClinton shortly after the success of that much-vaunted album. Once described as “guitar-heavy, rambunctious music” the quartet also attracted glowing praise from one (US music bible) Billboard critic who described the band as “arguably the most consistent and durable Southern-rock outfit on the planet”.
Given the band’s propensity for diversity, they delve into all manner of musical byways. Bill Monroe to Bob Dylan and Jimmy Reed to the Beatles sit easily alongside the songs of Roger Miller or Hank Williams but their sound may frequently bounce between ZZ Top and the Rolling Stones, too.
They have recorded with some top-class musicians, too, and high on the list is the piano-work of Johnnie Johnson (on two albums) who was the long-time sidekick to Chuck Berry.
The Kentucky Headhunters were last here as late-night guests at the 2016 SummerTyne Americana festival but their trips here are, like Stuart’s, in the “grab ‘em while you can” category. On the night, the Headhunters have assembled a classy multi-bill with Norwich five-piece, Bad Touch, and the local blues-rock trio, Broken Levee, making it a must-see line-up.
Guitarist Richard Smith (Image: Publicity Picture)
The world-class guitarist is the Nashville-based Englishman, Richard Smith, and he is at the Live Theatre’s Studio venue next Friday night. Born in Beckenham, London he has played guitar from the age of five.
Inspired by the multi-layered finger-picking technique of Chet Atkins, Merle Travis and Jerry Reed, Smith was so technically proficient that, at the age of eleven, he joined Atkins on stage in London when the man who created the “Nashville sound” was appearing there.
For a while the Richard Smith Trio included his brothers Sam and Rob before he moved to Nashville (to marry US cellist, Julie Adams) nearly 20 years ago.
Since then, he has played in a jam-band with other noted session guitarists like Bryan Sutton, Pat Bergeson and John Jorgenson and with fiddler, Stuart Duncan.
Smith has also recorded with the hugely gifted Django-style gypsy-jazz phenomenon, Joscho Stefan and toured frequently with Tommy Emmanuel and Doyle Dykes.
He has won numerous finger-picking accolades and has reached the top of his profession where he is firmly ensconced in the “guitarist’s guitarist” category. His wit is also as quick as his fingers!
Sitar player Rooper Penesar (Image: Publicity Picture)
Elsewhere across a very bust week there are choices galore. Sage Gateshead has a tasty Indian bill on Saturday night when Gem Arts present Rooper Penesar (sitar) and Bhupinder Chagger (tabla) in their on-going Riverside Ragas series.
That show is in the Northern Rock Foundation Hall.
On Sunday night, the same venue has Dweezil Zappa and his virtuoso band in Hall 1 and more country music in the shape of Jolie Holland and Samantha Parton in Hall 2.
Folk fans are not forgotten, however, as there are a couple of top-notch combos in rural Northumberland. Tuesday night has the folk string-quartet, Methera, at the Coquetdale Music Trust in Thropton (near Rothbury) while down in Haydon Bridge, the ever-popular Faustus have a show at the Community Centre.
Jolie Holland and Samantha Parton (Image: Publicity Picture)
Finally, back at the Ouseburn, Cluny has slide-guitar driven Wille and the Bandits making one of their regular calls in Cluny 2. Upstairs in the larger room is the New York-based Texan troubadour, Jarrod Dickinson, who has built-up quite a following in these parts.
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