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Underhill Rose: moving musical mountains

Underhill Rose: moving musical mountains

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North Carolina roots duo brings live album to Tybee Post Theater
By Anna Chandler/ConnectSavannah
Underhill Rose

Tybee Post Theater

Friday, June 29, 8 p.m.

$18 adults, $10 children via tybeeposttheater.com

FOR ALMOST ten years, the duo Underhill Rose has shaken up the Americana scene with melt-your-heart melodies, luminous arrangements, and unforgettable live performances. Featuring Molly Rose on guitar and Eleanor Underhill on banjo, the North Carolina band has gained international recognition since its formation.

In the last four years, Underhill Rose has independently released two albums in the top of the Americana Music Association Airplay Chart and Roots Music Report Chart; their second record, Something Real, peaked at number 18 on the AMA Charts, was named an AMA Top 100 Album of the Year, and even scored in the top 25 of the EuroAmericana Chart, Freeform Americana Radio, and The Alternate Root “Roots 66” Charts. Underhill Rose celebrated their third record going number one on The Roots Music Report’s Progressive Bluegrass Album Chart for over nine weeks in 2015.

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PHOTO BY SANDLIN GAITHER
Photo by Sandlin Gaither
The band returns to Savannah with a new album in tow. Underhill Rose Live showcases the band’s strengths in a stripped-down environment where stories are told, instruments are played beautifully, and inimitable chemistry is witnessed by lucky audiences.

We caught up with Underhill and Rose to chat about their college jam sessions, their brave decision keep it indie, and the inspiration behind their songs. Read More

Tybee City Limits returns

Tybee City Limits returns

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Abe Partridge and The Train Wrecks offer raw Americana/country at Post Theater
By Anna Chandler/Connect Savannah
It’s back! Tybee City Limits continues to showcase local and touring talent at the historic Tybee Post Theater. For June’s performance, Savannah’s own The Train Wrecks will join Alabama singer-songwriter Abe Partridge.

The Train Wrecks remain one of Savannah’s favorite groups—Connect Savannah readers just voted the band Best Local Americana/Folk/Roots Band in the 2018 Best of Savannah Awards.

Mobile, Alabama’s Abe Partridge comes to town with a highly-lauded new album, Cotton Fields and Blood for Days, released in January 2018.

Partridge grew up with a piano-playing mother, eventually finding solace in the raw rock of Nirvana. After graduating high school, he studied at Bible College, graduated, and became the understudy of an Appalachian preacher. He began finding the spiritual blues of players like Robert Johnson and Son House before rethinking life, joining the military, and working as an avionics tech on C-130s.

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Now, Partridge is one of his home state’s most in-demand songwriters, fusing the spirit of punk and the deep narrative quality of Southern musical tradition. With ragged vocals landing somewhere between Lucero’s Ben Nichols and Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood, Partridge is a captivating writer and performer. Though Cotton Fields and Blood for Days is a mere eight songs, each punches listeners in the heart and leaves a mark.

For his return to Tybee Post Theater, Partridge will be accompanied by cellist Courtney Blackwell.

We talked with the singer-songwriter about his new album, his early performance days, and establishing a connection with his listeners.

Coming off of the release of your first record, what was it like writing for Cotton Fields & Blood For Days?

The second record kind of came about, honestly, as an accident. I’m a songwriter—I don’t really specifically write for records. I was just hanging out in Nashville with a producer friend of mine…we were going to record a 7″ with the song “Colors” and “Alabama Blues.” It just kind of progressed from there, and the next thing you know, I had a full record’s worth of material.

What was the process like in choosing what material to use?

I play a whole lot of shows, and in my shows I kind of feel out what the audience likes. The songs that get the best response when I’m playing live are usually the ones that end up on the record.

You’ve been playing out since 2015—you had quite the very first show.

Yeah! So I played a songwriter contest in Gulf Shores, Alabama in October 2015, and that was the first time I had the gall to really play anything I had written in front of anybody. I ended up winning that night and meeting this other guy who was a contestant and we’ve become best friends. He’s produced both of my records—it’s kind of magic.

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The Train Wrecks’ Jason Bible
The Train Wrecks’ Jason Bible
How has performing changed for you since then?

I’ve just gotten better. I played The Listening Room here in Mobile, my hometown, play it once a month and I’m learning how to interact with audiences. I’m making sure the stories and lyrics are getting heard. I’m trying to communitate, trying to take music to the level, take my songs to a place where they are communicative more than trying to communicate a message. They tell a story…mainly, what I’ve grown in is trying to do that.

How do you try to connect with people in lyric and tone?

I never took a class on songwriting and I’m probably doing it all wrong. But I was a preacher for a long time, and that’s kind of I guess where I’m coming from when I write songs. I don’t have the same message I always had, but every song contains some type of truth, some type of emotion. I just try to put in a lyric that is easily grasped.

You had some great guests on this record. What was it like to take those solo songs and make full-bodied, recorded tracks?

Primarily, I play solo…Courtney Blackwell plays cello with me, we’ve hit the road a lot. But hearing your songs surrounded by a band of confident players really takes them all to a different level. It’s almost a spiritual experience when you’re able to hear these songs and find them toned up.

You’re doing this while still being in the military?

Yep, I’ve got my military boots on right now! I’m an Air Force reservist. I work for the Air Force during the week, I’m not an active member but I work at a job as an Air Reserve Technician.

How’s it been working with Skate Mountain Records? You were one of their early artists.

Yeah, it’s run by Scott and Kate Lumpkin, they’re longtime filmmakers and movie producers and they started a record label a couple years back. I was their fourth or fifth addition, and they’ve been wonderful. I’ve gotten my music to a much broader audience and it helped me get into that next-next echelon of touring. I’m still trying to progress to the point I can be full-time, but I’m definitely a lot further down the road to that goal than I was before Skate Mountain.

What are you working on, do you have a lot coming up this summer?

Oh boy do I ever! I am working on something all the time. I’m painting a whole lot—I create visual art that has really taken off, I’ve sold 22 paintings. That’s been good. I’m putting my punk rock band back together, we’re doing some punk shows, I don’t know if it’s going to be anything to tour with in the future. I’m just kind of branching out and experimenting with digital loops and stuff. I always got my hands on something! I’ll probably be recording another electric album in the line of Cotton Fields and Blood For Days. Hopefully I’ll have another record out through Skate Mountain.

CS
Tags: Music Features, Tybee City Limits, Abe Partridge, Train Wrecks, Tybee Post Theater

Tybee City Limits

Tybee Post Theater

Saturday, June 9, 8 p.m.

$15 for adults, $5 for children via tybeeposttheater.com

‘Southern Songbirds’ showcases Georgia natives Caroline Aiken and Jill Knight

‘Southern Songbirds’ showcases Georgia natives Caroline Aiken and Jill Knight

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By Joshua Peacock/SMN
The “Southern Songbirds” showcase at Tybee Post Theater on Jan. 26 will feature two veteran singer-songwriters and Georgia natives returning to their old stomping grounds.

Caroline Aiken and Jill Knight both got their start busking on River Street in Savannah, along with clubs all around the Lowcountry and Georgia. Over their three decades of songwriting, the two have shared stages, and individually played with the likes of Muddy Waters, Doc Watson, Bonnie Raitt, The Indigo Girls, John Prine and India Arie. Read more:

Malcolm Holcombe’s Pretty Little Troubles

Malcolm Holcombe’s Pretty Little Troubles

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Singer-songwriter returns to Savannah with new album

By Anna Chandler/ConnectSavannah

THE VOICE of Appalachia will resonate through Tybee Post Theater this weekend.

Singer-songwriter Malcolm Holcombe brings his timeless, Southern-steeped sound back to Savannah. The North Carolinian has spent his career capturing the character and cracks of his Blue Ridge Mountain home, spinning stories of callused hands, struggles, and seasoned experience with a warmly ragged voice and authentic, spellbinding poeticism.

Born in Asheville and raised in Weaverville, North Carolina, Holcombe played as a member of several regional bands as a young man, shifting into a solo career later on. Later, he teamed up to perform in a trio with Ray Sisk and released an album, Trademark, in Sam Milner.

The 1990s found Holcombe in Nashville; in 1996, after performing at countless open mic nights, he signed with Geffen Records. He released his debut record, A Hundred Lies, in 1999 through Hip-O Records.

Over the years, he has released 13 total solo albums, composed for Jonah Smith and Jonathan Edwards, and contributed to several compilations. Throughout his career, Holcombe has shared the stage with performers like Merle Haggard, Leon Russell, Cat Power, Richard Thompson, Wilco, Shelby Lynne, and more.

Currently, Holcombe is touring in support of his latest album, Pretty Little Troubles, released on April 7, 2017 through Gypsy Eyes Music.

Holcombe entrusted Darrell Scott, a friend of around 27 years, to produce the record. A prolific singer-songwriter and member of Robert Plant’s Band of Joy, Scott offered a keen eye and trusted intuition for the project.

“I just wanted some camaraderie with brains,” Holcombe says of the collaboration. “We’d just pick each other’s brains, hang out, sit and play some music, and have a good time. We’re friends. We work together when we can and try to exist on the planet like everybody else. We got together, Darrell brought the engineer, we did some pickin’, and we just tried to put some chords to these baby dolls.”

“We’re all songwriters,” he continues. “Everybody’s a songwriter. And we’re all storytellers, even the old cave paintings. That’s about what we’re doing these days–making up stories, trying to keep each other on the planet. Some of are trying to hep each other while the other ones are destroying each other. It’s a yin and yang thing, the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

Pretty Little Troubles unique, shadowy Americana is flush with banjo, violin, Celtic musings, and bluesy moments. A master storyteller, Holcombe creates a portrait of the hardships of his home over the album’s twelve tracks.

Holcombe wrote the contents of Pretty Little Troubles over the course of a few months.

“I would get up every morning, chain smoke, drink coffee, and go from there,” he says of his process. “I eat a couple eggs, try to get out of bed, open my eyes, and take it from there.”

He credits his wife with selecting the album’s centerpiece song as its title track.

“She’s a god title picker,” he attests. “I always bounce ideas off of her. It’s good to have someone you trust grease the frying pan a little bit, you know, trying to cook up an idea.”

Holcombe looks forward to returning to Savannah, where he’ll take the stage with Jason Bible of The Train Wrecks.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he says. “My wife’s coming with me — we love the area.”

Legendary Americana singer/songwriter David Olney to perform at the Tybee Post Theater

Legendary Americana singer/songwriter David Olney to perform at the Tybee Post Theater

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By Linda Sickler/SMN
David Olney has worked as a professional musician for more than four decades.

“Early on, I saw that I had a knack for it and that it kind of really grabbed my interest like nothing else did,” he says. “Even before I was playing gigs, I was thinking about music a lot.

“That was just playing. When I found I could write songs, it became the main part of my life, the thing I could do the best.”

An Evening with Americana Legend David Olney will be presented Aug. 18 at the Tybee Post Theater. Read more….

The Accomplices, Dangermuffin @Tybee Post Theater

The Accomplices, Dangermuffin @Tybee Post Theater

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By Anna Chandler/ConnectSavannah
Since teaming up for The Accomplices’ unforgettable EP release show at the Georgia State Railroad Museum, The Accomplices and Folly Beach’s Dangermuffin have become regular collaborators and bill-sharers. Now they’re back, with a special performance at Tybee Post Theater.

For eight years, Dangermuffin has been a folk favorite, blending roots rock with Americana, jam, and Lowcountry easy-livin’ vibes. On their latest album, Songs for the Universe (2014), the band employed pitch shifts and frequencies that are considered to be harmonious with the human body. The band of vegans value a respect for our planet and its healing powers. Keller Williams fans won’t want to miss “Little Douglas,” a collaboration that features the guitar virtuoso on bass and backing vocals.

Saturday, September 10,

8 p.m., $20, all-ages