Sunday evening, I checked the weather and headed out to the Double Door Inn for the Alejandro Escovedo “Benefit for a Friend.” The show was due to be held about a month ago, but nasty winter weather forced a reschedule. Luckily, last week’s massive snow melted in time for folks to make it out to this show, or else someone was going to have to hold a benefit concert for the benefit concert.
Seeing as the show was a fundraiser for a man suffering from Hepatitis C, I figured I better not use the guest list to get in free, unless I was going to persuade them that I was actually Escovedo himself. Seeing as it’s hard to fake the whole Hispanic thing (and the skinny thing, for that matter), I laid down my ten-spot and even bought a couple of raffle tickets.
No major overriding theme seemed to present itself this evening, which made writing this column a bit tougher. No loud drunks (no loud, interesting drunks, at least). No naked body parts. Nobody getting in my face and accusing me of being cynical.
It was, however, a damn good show. Tres Chicas, a band featuring Lynn Blakey from Glory Fountain, Tonya Lamm from Hazeldine, and Caitlin Cary, ex- of Whiskeytown, killed with their three-part harmonies. The Houston Brothers put on a set that made it hard to conceive that another local band could possibly be any better. The Triangle’s Kenny Roby put on a short acoustic gig that put to rest any thoughts that his standing in Americana circles has anything to do with that area’s insufferable hype machine. Patty Hurst Shifter were entertaining, even as their artfully disheveled look and sound came across as rather “21 Punk Street.” (Interestingly, the lead singer of the Shifter announced that he was “happy to be here…and I just got married today.” Dude, if you’re happy to leave her and play music not yet a day into it, you might be looking at problems down the road!)
Last up were Horse Thief, who announced that they were more influenced by Escovedo’s work in the 70s punk scene. The Thief sound something like a dumptruck downshifting, and I mean that in a good way. The five or six folks that stuck around seemed to dig them too. “This is where the wheat gets separated from the chaff!” the band announced, referring to the people streaming out the door. “Which are we?” an audience member inquired.
“Why, the chaff, of course. You’re watching us!”
The Levine Museum of the New South is one of my favorite local treasures. Ably directed by director Emily Zimmern and historian Dr. Tom Hanchett, it’s too often overlooked, even by otherwise well-meaning Charlotteans. The museum not only presents history related to the post-Civil War South, it more often than not synthesizes it as well, becoming less of a depository for artifacts and something more like a center of research. Toss in Hanchett’s unparalleled knowledge of all things Charlotte, and you have a hell of a resource for learning about the area in which you live (for you younger readers, this kind of thing used to be more popular, back before SUVs and pre-made gourmet meals from the grocery store).A good example is the new Courage: The Carolina Story That Changed America exhibit, which runs through August 15. Half a century ago, country preacher Rev. J.A. De Laine and his neighbors in Clarendon County, SC, filed suit against the segregation their children encountered in school. It was the first of five such lawsuits, all of which would eventually lead to the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled racially segregated schools unconstitutional.
Did you know about this? Probably not. I didn’t, either. But hopefully more people will take the time to see Courage, and take in the rest of the Museum of the New South while they’re at it. Hell, just going to see a history museum exhibit in this day and age almost qualifies as courage, in and of itself.
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2004.
