someone else's review of the Greg Brown show

GREG BROWN solo, 2/15/2008Stuart's Opera House, Nelsonville OHSET 1: Trouble In Mind (Richard M. Jones...see below)What Happened? (Merle Haggard...see below)Ever Since The World Ended (Mose Allison...ended with a Cheshire cat grin)KokomoOily BoysMy Home In The SkyA Little YouThe Train Carrying Jimmie Rodgers HomeOne Wrong TurnSET 2:Pound It On DownVerona RoadHey Baby HeyChinaThe Evening CallLouisiana 1927 (Randy Newman)Blues Go Walkin'Slow FoodENCORE: Jesus And ElvisOf these 18 songs, I'd only seen 5 live before (A Little You, One WrongTurn, China, Blues Go Walkin' & Slow Food) in 4 previous Greg Brown shows. So the other 13 songs were all new experiences for me. The three greatopening covers were cool, and just as I was thinkin', "you know seeingGreg do a show of all covers wouldn't be half-bad at all, 'cause thesethree tunes sound great," he starts in with Kokomo and Oily Boys and we'reoff. People yelled a lot of approval at him during Oily Boys.Two songs from Iowa Waltz! Never imagined I'd see My Home In The Skyperformed. Does anyone know: has he been doing that one at other showslately, or not hardly ever, or what?Popped a G-string 3 minutes into One Wrong Turn, so after finishing thesong he said it had suddenly become a 2-set show, and he'd go change itand be back for another set. Which he proceeded to do. Highlights forme: During Hey Baby Hey, thinking of the person on the GB-list who'dcalled that his/her Valentine song...Louisiana 1927, the great RandyNewman song which lots of folks have covered lately, done up right Iowahillbilly-style. ..and Slow Food, which turned into a splendid rant about(paraphrasing here) "yeah, it's great, it's great, everybody's able to doa lot of things all at the same time all the time, and all those gizmos andscreens and buttons and such, it's great, and multi, multi, multi, multi,multi, multi, multi-fucking- tasking and all this and all these peoplehavin' a good time sittin' by some box somewhere doin' some shit. And it'sgreat, and you can see television Everywhere.. .in the airport, in thehotel, in the department store, it's everywhere, and it's always the samefaces and the same story inside the boxes and it's great and you know what,I don't give a shit."At least I think that's basically what he was saying. A rather vehement,um, colorfully-stated expression about that state of mind rathar polarlyopposed to Slow Food, before singing some more about the good juices andthe greases with all the love cooked in. Mmm-mmm good.And then encoring with a bouncy, jumpy rendition of Jesus And Elvis. Singingthat verse about Jesus saying wine would be better yet and what happenedwhen Elvis picked up a guitar three times, and practically wailing "made allthe women wet" on one of them, with his head moving all around the microphoneas he sang it like a newly-touched bobblehead (Hey there's an idea, GBbobbleheads! I forgot how much his head moves around when he plays.)I tried to approach him after the show, but learned Greg was real tiredafter a long day in delayed airplanes, so he was on the road about 20minutes after the show, presumably up to Kent OH, site of Saturday's show.No visiting with anyone in Nelsonville tonight. I later learned (1) thatGreg had only arrived in Nelsonville at 7:40, had a quick sound check andthen started the show at 8:23, and that (2) Bo's cancellation (he was onthe poster and originally supposed to appear with Greg) was due to the birthof a newborn that has become Greg's new grandchild.. .Greg didn't mentionthis at all by the way but, of course, this is hopefully a wonderful thingfor everyone concerned.At one point Greg had fun commentary, persumably prompted by his longtravel day from wherever he woke up this morning, about how "you gotta giveit to the airline people," mimicing how, as he said, they lie so well,saying things like, "well, we're presently delayed because the weight ofour stowed baggage doesn't conform to regulations from Austin." Then hesaid he sometimes wishes everyone would just constantly tell the truth fromnow on, and even though that might not be easy, at least you'd know it was thetruth. Like, "well, we're gonna sit here till we get some more asses inthe seats of this plane so the flight will be more cost-effective for us.""I could handle that," he said. Then he asked us to imagine if politicianswould just tell the truth, say, 30% of the time...and if husbands and wiveswould tell the truth, okay, maybe 70% of the time..."the world would bedifferent," he said.Since I know some of you care: Boots, blue jeans, tight black pullover shirt(kinda sheer, Speedo? something like that), black leather vest, blackbandanna around his neck, dark shades, one circular ring in each earlobe,graying mustache and goatee, and a certain kind of big fluffy gray wintercap on his head the entire show (not sure what it's called, maybe atoboggan? a head muffler? Russian headgear? I've no idea what you call thatkind of hat).All in all, a pretty darn good night seeing Greg channel the spirit in agreat intimate small theatre. Wish I could see him in Kent. Anyonegoing? Anyone else here go to Nelsonville tonight? If so, what'd youthink? I was particularly happy that he *was* solo, much as I love Bo'slicks, because Greg's personality kind of shines when he's carrying the ballall by hisownself.I also thought during the show about how, by whatever stroke ofhappenstance that drew me into my first Greg Brown show almost 20 years ago,I've since been turned on to *so much* in the way of his music and the othermusic it spirals around, the tunes he covers, people he's played with, etc.And then also finding out about this list and how people like Shirley andRamcey and Stute and Fern and Jan and Ian and Bill Pringle (has he mentionedCheryl Wheeler here?) and Australian Greg fans and Italian Greg fans andall you other folks even *exist* (and though I've never mentioned herbefore, there's also a wonderful Hoosier Hottie somewhere in this worldand I'm very thankful that she exists, and offer another prayer for her healthand wellbeing).. .and having this talented dude singing from behind theshades to thank yet again for all that and more. I hope I don't sound like I'm just gushing with stars in my eyes and justhyping him to you through my rose colored specs. It's just that I waskinda disappointed by his previous Stuart's appearance's lack of strongrapport (as I saw it) with the audience, a show where I felt like it wasthe kind of mostly-dark- blues show recently discussed on this list. Not*bad*...just not wow-can-you- believe-that! ?! Tonight was closer to thelatter. The dude is exceptionally strong guitar-wise. .."oh yeah, the boycan play"...and I noticed that while the blues factored in a bunch of thesesongs, it was like an interesting and exhilarating blues sound, not as muchof a depressing desperate blues like some of his also-great-but- darkertunes like Ballingall Hotel and such. No, this was Hey Baby Hey and PoundIt On Down and A Little You and a trip to China and back, with the sound ofJimmie Rodgers' Train rolling by as One Wrong Turn loomed, with it's G-stringready to snap from Greg Brown's exquisite pressure.It's late, and I'm waxing far too eloquent. Better shut 'er down. Hopeyou enjoyed this review, such as it is, happy to share what I can. Merrymelodies, all. Steve Zarate, Athens OH*******Not sure Greg sang these exact lyrics, but he did start with the firstverse as it appears below. I found the following info at www3.clearlight. com/~acsa/ introjs.htm? /~acsa/songfile/ TROUBLEI. HTMTrouble In Mind Lyrics: Richard M JonesMusic: Richard M JonesPlayed by Jerry with the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band. Not to be confusedwith I'm Troubled, also played by Jerry Garcia. ChorusTrouble in mind, I'm blueBut I won't be blue alwaysYou know the sun's gonna shineOn my back door some dayI'm going down to the riverTake my old rockin' chairIf the blues don't take meGonna rock away from here[chorus]I'm gonna lay my headOn some lonesome railroad lineAnd let the two nineteenSatisfy my troubled mind[chorus]You know the sun gonna shineIn my backdoor some dayJerry Garcia Recordings Date Album Recorded By 31 Oct 1987 Pure Jerry: Lunt-Fontanne Jerry Garcia Band OriginsThis is often listed as "traditional" but is a jazz standard originallywritten by Richard M Jones in the early years of the twentieth century. It hasbeen covered by a huge range of jazz, blues, rock and country performers.The recording on "Pure Jerry: Lunt-Fontaine" lists the title as "TroubledIn Mind" and the composer as "James Roots." This is a mistake: that is acompletely different song, recorded by the Pilgrim Travelers.Some Dead Base setlists (eg 29 August 1987) list "I'm Troubled" when thesong played was in fact "Trouble In Mind."*******These are some incomplete lyrics to "What Happened?" It's apparently from a4-month-old Merle Haggard release called "The Bluegrass Sessions." Iculled these together from some articles found with a quick yahoo search. Until Greg said it was a Merle H. tune after he played it, I thought I waslistening to a brilliant followup to "I Want My Country Back" and "OilyBoys." Has anybody else heard Greg sing this before?It used to be Andy and Barney Fife,Now it's Howard Stern and a brothel lifeToo much crap can drive the world insaneWhat happened? Does anyone know?What happened? Where did America go?I remember the morning the towers fellI fell back asleep and dreamed of hellTruth that stood for years is down the drainWhat happened? Does anybody know?What happened? Where did America go?What happened, does anybody know? What happened, where did America go? Everything Wal-Mart all the time, No more mom and pop five and dimes What happened, where did America go? Where did America go?