We headed up to Maine for a weekend of music and a little bit of outdoor photography — the latter will be covered in another journal entry.
On Friday night we listened to a great Celtic duo: Liz Carroll and John Doyle. Liz is based in Chicago and apologize for the weather that keeps following her around. She’s also a very impressive fiddle player who wowed the audience with back to back reels and the occasional hornpipe. John makes up the other half of the duo and both accompanies Liz with her instrumentals and plays/sings ballads and songs from Ireland (and, I’m sure other countries). John is from Dublin and is obviously well-educated in the history and craft of songwriting and singing - and he’s pretty handy with the guitar as well. The two have been playing together as a duo for a few years now and they work very well together. If you have a chance to see them, do so!
For a change of pace we stayed at the Admiral Peary House in Fryeburg, Maine. Yes, it is the home of Admiral Richard Peary the first person to reach the North Pole in 1909 (hey, next year will be the centennial - they’re probably filming the National Geographic specials already). The owners, Derrek and Hilary, have a great bed and breakfast arrangement there and we are certain to return one of these days. (The inn’s management team is apparently a couple of cats, but we didn’t make their acquaintance.) We slept in the “North Pole” room, which is at the very top of the house. Breakfast is prepared daily by Derrek. Baked apple and cheese blintz on Saturday morning; a fruit soup followed by sweet potato hash on Sunday. Yum! The kitchen is open to the dining area and it creates a great opportunity for conversation between the hosts and guests.
Saturday night was the Duke Levine Band. We heard Duke and his band play at SMAC back in August and they gave everyone a taste of a new album that was in the works. “Beneath the Blue” was released in December and this was the Maine “CD Release” concert. The first song of the evening was “Lava”, from the album of the same name released in 1997. That’s the kind of guy Duke is.
When it comes to the guitar, Duke is what you would call a virtuoso. What he is not is a showman, or more accurately a “show off”. The whole band, including Duke, is composed of so-called “side men” - those people that everyone has heard on any number of albums or movie soundtracks, but only a few know their names. If you grew up in the 60’s and 70’s you probably remember the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Duke would fit perfectly into that show’s NBC Orchestra — a band consisting of the top-flight instrumentalists who were masters of their craft and exceptional at improvisation. The emphasis of this type of musician is on the music, not the theatrics that often accompany concerts. As a person who is most comfortable working behind the scenes, I can identify with them. They walk on the stage with a shyness that betrays their skills as true performers.
Duke Levine’s bandmates for the evening were Kevin Barry (guitar), Mike Rivard (bass), and Per Hansen (drums). The album/movie/tour credits for these guys combined would probably fill a book. Kevin is Duke’s “wing man” — he’s also exceptionally skilled at the guitar and complemented Duke’s Telecaster (the only guitar Duke played tonight) with acoustic, electric, and lap steel guitars.
The first half of the show was all instrumental. In the August show, about 20 minutes in, Duke commented during a break that “you all know nobody up here sings, right?” A combination of music from old albums and the new one, plus other tunes. Like all great masters, Duke doesn’t just play the guitar - he is a student of the great players who have come before him and he pays homage to those roots musicians who created country, soul, R&B, rock and roll, and probably a dozen other variants that I’m ignorant of. I don’t know if Duke has taught at Berklee, but I’d bet he would do well there.
The second set was nothing short of amazing. First Duke brought Chris Cote on stage and they proceeded to blow the roof off the hall. Not unlike the other band members, Chris walks on stage with the same near reluctance that the other band members have. But then he starts singing. Chris is an amazing vocalist and he just got better and stronger as the night went on. For Robby Robertson’s classic tune “The Weight”, Duke welcomed Mason Daring and Carol Noonan to the stage. Three powerful singers and a killer band… This was going to be trouble. Mason is another one of those “guys behind the scenes” having numerous movie and TV credits as a composer and performer. He also was the producer of Duke’s first three albums. Perhaps the highlight of the show was a song by “The Falcons”, an influential R&B group in the early 60’s. Unfortunately I’m not well-versed in all forms of music and I don’t remember which tune it was … didn’t matter. It was phenomenal! The electricity from the performance simply permeated the audience. I think after this number Duke noted that “perhaps this instrumental stuff isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be”.
For the final song of the encore Mike and Per left the stage and Duke and Kevin ended the evening with an unnamed composition that exemplified the grace and skill of these two artists.
Exhilarating is the only word that describes the evening.
My thanks to Duke for allowing me to photograph his show. Without the music the photographs are a bit empty - but for anyone who was there they should bring back some smiles.
Links:
• My photos from the January 19, 2008 Duke Levine Band performance at SMAC.
• Duke Levine
• Stone Mountain Arts Center
• Liz Carroll
• John Doyle
• Admiral Peary House
Yes, it’s another evening at the Stone Mountain Arts Center.
A cautionary tale featuring a rather inebriated Disco Santa sung to the tune of the Animals “House of the Rising Sun”…