Dennis Ludiker, Brian Beken, Noah Jeffries, and Matt Mefford call themselves Austin’s Art-Folk-Progressive Acoustic String Band.  The band (so their bio says) actually got its start in the northern climes of Idaho, where principal songwriter-multi-instrumentalist Noah Jeffries grew up playing bluegrass and gospel in his family’s band and started writing amazing tunes at age 14.  Jeffries moved to Austin and moved in with fiddling champion-mandolin player Dennis Ludiker, whom Jeffries had met long ago when both were kids competing in the National Old-time Fiddle Contest in Weiser, Idaho – as well as the young Brian Beken, who also would ultimately join the band.  With the addition of bass player Matt Mefford, who was in South Austin Jug Band with Ludiker and Beken, the band was complete and became MilkDrive.  AND THE REST IS HISTORY — if you can keep up with the finger pickin’.

Afterward, it was on to Flipnotics for Sweet Bunches of Daisies, the brainchild of fiddler, cellist, and keyboard player Danny Levin, who among other things was a founding member of Asleep at the Wheel (and, yes, I hardly remember seeing a fiddle player in the band when they played those shows at Emergency! on M Street in Washington, DC, back in 1970). Tonight’s players included Dennis Ludiker, Phoebe Hunt, and Noah Jeffries — plus special guest on mandolin Dominic Leslie, down visiting from Berklee School of Music in Boston but actually from Colorado. Smiles galore and audience gasping sometimes for breath the music was so fine! With free admission you just dug deeper into your pockets to show your gratitude. The group is playing again on March 14th at the Tequila Mockingbird pre-SXSW soiree at 306 W. 16th Street (near the Clay Pit).

I really love this bunch, maybe in part because my grandfather, who was in his eighties when I was born, was the Dennis Ludiker of his day a century earlier and more — which is to say he was a Texas champion fiddler and with his cousin won many a fiddling contest in north Texas and parts unknown long before my father was born. So I guess the love of the fiddle is in my blood. John Henry Flanakin (grandson of Old Three Hundred pioneer John Henry Isaiah Flanakin — and yes I do have a copy of the original land grant, which is housed at the University of Texas) went to Add-Ran Male and Female Christian Academy (the forerunner of TCU) after losing his father and mother by the time he was eight years old. He was a barber by trade and a restaurant owner and musician by night – raised nine children and stayed married to the same women for 62 years.

Next I trekked across the street to Romeo’s (thanks, Aly Tadros, for the Facebook reminder) to catch Brian Hudson and Raina Rose (Jack Wilson sat on on two songs), and chowed down with yet another fiddle genius, “Dr.” Sick (who is turning 30 this Friday). Raina to me is my favorite female songwriter since Joni Mitchell. Enough said!
Then it was back to Flipnotics for the final half of Mo McMorrow’s Living Room Sessions with special guests Charlie Faye and Ben Mallott (who has been hibernating of late). Lots of friends were in the house, including my pal Darwin Smith whom I had not seen in far too long! Charlie says she is about to go into the studio to mix the tracks she did all over the USA last year with a different band in each of ten cities. We can hardly wait. And Mo — what an international treasure! And to think she did not begin her professional singing career until very nearly her 40th birthday and yet her songs are some of the best (even her rooster song!). Great weather, a day at the park, and all of this music (plus pizza and pumpkin pie!). I am ready for what tomorrow brings!

THE TEXAS SAPPHIRES – As He Wanders

Billy Brent Malkus is a true Southern gentleman, and I fondly recall the startup of a “side project” (that is, away from Nathan Hamilton and No Deal) with old friend Rebecca Lucille Cannon of the punk rocker band Sincola.  The Sapphires (Texas was added because of an old soul band with the same name) went through a bunch of players until one day Brent and Lucy realized they had a headlining act.  The band’s debut CD, “Valley So Steep,” was just killer, and the studio followup, “As He Wanders,” picks up where the debut left off.  The band today is Brent, Rebecca and Slim Bawb Pearce, generally Scotty Matthews, and whoever else shows up. 

The new CD is chock full of “whoever shows up,” including Billy Dee (Donahue) playing bass, Nathan Fleming on pedal steel (often found with Jesse Dayton), Tommy Detamore on dobro, Justin Kolb on upright bass, and the incomparable Dennis Ludiker on fiddle (well, he IS the 2008 and 2009 Texas State Champion).  Fleming shines just about every time he is on a track, starting off with “Nashville Moon,” written by Brent’s Baltimore buddy Arty Hill.  Ludiker’s fiddling is always “ludicrous-ly” good.  Brent, who grew up on a Maryland hog farm, does not have to fake it to be a kicker icon — it’s in his blood!

“190,” the first of many Malkus cuts, features Rebecca on vocals, is another old-time country “standard” (notably because of the style of pedal steel Fleming uses here, and you have to realize the kid is still on the short side of thirty!).  “Riddled Days” is a Malkus standard that features Detamore’s dobro and Slim Bawb on mandolin — this waltz is just good songwriting.  “Stunt Double” gets back to honkytonking — and a great idea for a two-timing man who wants to avoid his woman’s wrath.  Rebecca ( aka Lucy) wrote “Teardrops or Rain,” an old style country ballad light years better than the “songs” Taylor Swift primps through on CMT.  I just LOVE THIS SONG!

It’s back to honkytonking with Brent’s fun song, ”How Did I Get So Sloppy Drunk (When I Was Drinking Neat)?” and back to Rebecca on Brent’s ballad “Make Him Make Me” (yup, she’s singing the harmony parts too).  Another great song with some great instrumental breaks … CLASSIC!  Just play this on every radio station that ever called itself country and the Texas Sapphires will suddenly be on the bigtime rodeo circuit and the Opry on the side. 

Next up is “Baltimore Cage,” which opens with Slim Bawb on mandolin and Dennis on fiddle — this is a song about being in jail.  Another great one to hear live (as I did at the band’s Continental Club CD release party a few weeks back).  Then it’s Slim Bawb’s “Farmers Tan,” a song that also appears on Pearce’s own CD (reviewed here earlier) — one that tests the ability of the human ear to keep up with (super?)human fingers.  Back to Rebecca on vocals on “Spirits,” and then “Freiheit Rag,” with Brent and Slim Bawb picking and Justin Kolb thumping away, before you get to “Pure Land,” the destination of choice.  This song cries out against littering, potholes, and other evidences of human debris that show our failure to appreciate the gifts we have been given by the Great Spirit.  This is a gospel song much moreso than “Bring Out the Bible (We Ain’t Got a Prayer)” from “Valley So Steep.”

The Sapphires are on tour in Colorado and New Mexico until March 18th, when they play a SXSW party at the Whip In (and play again at Roadhouse Rags on the 21st of March).  These guys (and gal) are the real deal!

HANK & SHAIDRI ALRICH with DOUG HARMAN — Carry Me Home

Hank Alrich is an Austin legend if for nothing less than his service managing the original Armadillo (taking over from longtime buddy Eddie Wilson), even though he left town decades ago and moved to California where he raised a passel of daughters and son.  The Austin American-Statesman quotes Wilson as saying that, “Hank is a hero.  If not for Hank, the Armadillo would have been closed in two years instead of open for 10.”

Just one of Hank’s many daughters is the quiet Shaidri, whose talent is just off the chart.   Doug Harman makes it a trio on cello.  I will defer all of the GOOD details about Hank and Shaidri to my pal John Conquest — you should really read HIS review of this delightful recording at Third Coast Music.  This is old timey music … I can only say I am grateful to get to hear Shaidri when her dad comes to town and that I am still hopeful that she will get out more (or that Hank will just start playing a LOT more shows here), because her voice (and her fiddle and guitar playing) takes you back to a simpler, sweeter time — even when she is singing the sad ballad, “The Death of Ellenton,” about a town “that’s gone forevermore.”  Conquest reminds us that Shaidri was winning fiddle contests at age 6 and that “she glows in the dark.”  I WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE!  The trio cover songs from Utah Phillips, Peter Rowan, and others but include four Hank Alrich originals, including “Austin City Limits,” which opens the CD.  You get a taste of Shaidri’s Celtic music prowess on “Blarney’s Ghost Medley,” six minutes of pure joy.  Hank’s vocals shine on ”If I Don’t Get You” and Shaidri’s glisten on “Carry Me Home,” just two of the many songs Hank has written over the years.  This stuff is Carter Family good — and Shaidri joyously is beginning to get out more into the Austin music community, a light destined to shine VERY brightly over our city.

Now Hank is promoting a second valuable release — In this, the 40th Birthday year of Armadillo World Headquarters, Armadillo Records will release Taking Turns, a song swap from Austin artists, musicians, engineers and studios. It has always been Armadillo’s mission to present a wide range of quality talents, musicians and styles to satisfy and provoke the adventurous and discriminating tastes of our audiences.  Leading off this new CD is (who else?) Shaidri Alrich, but the CD also includes songs from Beto y los Fairlanes, Denim, Michael Durbin, Tommy Elskes, Greezy Wheels, Lindsay Haisley, Mady Kaye, Maryann Price, Shake Russell, Craig Toungate, and Elizabeth Wills.  Fans of old-time Austin music will line up to get this jewel.