Author Archive: Gregory McNamee

Radney Foster Brings Words and Country Music to Town

If you’re a fan of country music, you know Radney Foster. Even if you don’t know that you know Radney Foster, by way of hits like “Nobody Wins,” “Crazy Over You,” and “Just Call Me Lonesome,” you know versions of his songs sung by Holly Dunn, Keith Urban, Tanya Tucker, Sara Evans, and other top artists. Altogether, as of this year, Foster has penned eight number 1 hits, two of them performed by him, and plenty of lesser-charting tunes, some with the help of backup singers like Mary Chapin Carpenter and Kasey Musgraves and a host of marquee players.

Foster will be making his next Tucson stand alone—“just me and my guitar,” he tells Zócalo—performing from across his catalogue, but especially from his last album, For You to See the Stars, which has a book of stories of the same title to go along with it. That book was an unexpected gift from a time when he lost his voice for six months. “You go for a month and the doctors say you still can’t speak,” he recalls, “and you start second-guessing what the hell you do for a living. Anyway, I wrote a note to my wife—I wish I still had it, or I’d frame it—and told her I was going to write a short story based on a song of mine called ‘Sycamore Creek’ just to keep myself from going crazy,” he says. “She picked up and pen and wrote, ‘You should, because you’re driving me crazy.’ And thus began my literary career!”

That literary career wrapped around the music nicely, because once he’d written a few stories that weren’t based on already written songs, he realized he could reverse-engineer the process by writing songs inspired by the stories. The two-way method worked, and once the album and book were assembled, Foster realized that he had an ideal situation as compared to most authors: “I can go out and play 75 gigs in a year, and that’s like doing signings at 75 bookstores—with me being the bookstore.”

It’s not the first time Foster has been to Tucson. One of the first gigs he played with his duo Foster & Lloyd, in the 1990s, was at Old Tucson, while, on going solo, he found his way to the Maverick on several occasions. “But it’s been a minute or two—well, maybe ten years, anyway—since I’ve been to Tucson, and I’m looking forward to it.”

For all that, his connection to the Old Pueblo is, by serendipity, many decades old now. The Del Rio, Texas, native says, “When I was a kid, I used to ride my bicycle down to the record store on Saturday mornings. The very first 45 I bought, way back in 1967, was ‘Different Drum’ by a band called The Stone Poneys”—a band fronted, of course, by Tucsonan Linda Ronstadt, singing a song written by Foster’s fellow Texan Michael Nesmith.

For a preview of coming attractions, here‘s Foster and band performing the title song from his book and album. The stories and songs will continue on Friday, November 17, at 8:00pm at 191 Toole. General admission tickets are available here.

Get Your Yacht-Yachts Out: Yächtley Crëw Is Hoving into Town

Back in the 1980s, when downtown was a pretty quiet place, I lived across the street from a fellow who would open his doors and windows, turn up a Christopher Cross album—if you don’t know, you may not want to know—and play his drums along with it at maximum volume. I’m not sure if there were noise ordinances back in the day, but I retaliated by opening my doors and windows and playing The Clash and Dead Kennedys a decibel or two louder. The phantom drummer seemed not to mind.

Today, The Clash has attained grand old band status. Christopher Cross, meanwhile, has gone from ironic to iconic—at least, that is, among lovers of what has come to be called “yacht rock.” The music may stretch back 40 or 50 years, but the phrase dates only to 2005, when an online video series called Yacht Rock paired music taken from the soft rock, smooth jazz, and easy-listening slots on the radio with the image of idle-rich Californios plying the waters off Los Angeles. The show’s theme, naturally enough, was called “Sailing,” a song written by none other than Christopher Cross.

Enter Yächtley Crëw, a SoCal septet that has been gleefully celebrating the yacht rock genre for the last seven-odd years. So successful has its homage to squishy sweetness been that the band is crafting tunes of its own on an album to be released in the spring on Jimmy Buffett’s Mailboat Records, with an advance single, “Sex on the Beach,” earning airplay around the country.

Expect none of that on January 14, though, when Yächtley Crëw will bring its maritime magic to the Rialto. Instead, the band will play its favorites from a long setlist (with, one supposes, something by Mr. Cross lurking somewhere in it). Expect nothing tongue in cheek, either: the band is serious in its love for the genre.

“I had the concept of this doing yacht rock because I had started listening to it at home a lot. I was tired of listening to rock ‘n’ roll,” says the band’s bassist, who goes by the nom de musique Baba Buoy. “I mean, I love rock ‘n’ roll, but you can only hear it so many times, and then I started to go back toward the music from when I was a kid.” He brought aboard a drummer friend who goes by the moniker Sailor Hawkins, then turned to the Los Angeles iteration of Craigslist to recruit musicians who had played in a variety of bands from metal to jazz and had similarly come to embrace the—well, sunny side.

It took a year of auditioning to pull it all together, topped off with the arrival of its lead singer, Philly Ocean, who the friend of a friend had heard wowing the crowds at a karaoke bar somewhere in the Valley. “We finally got it going and down the road,” says Baba, “but I insisted that we had to do more than just stand there and sing, so we’ve got some pretty fun choreography in there, too.”

Along with the dance steps will be renditions of hits by the likes of Michael McDonald, Robbie Dupree, the Gerry Rafferty of “Baker Street,” and other yacht rock leviathans. Don’t come with requests, though. “We come out like Bon Jovi,” says Baba. “We play our set, walk off, and do an encore. It’s fun and funny, and people really seem to like it. It makes us feel like rock stars.”

Yächtley Crëw will be making its maiden voyage to Tucson at the Rialto Theatre (318 E. Congress St.) at 8:30 pm on January 14. Doors at 7:30. Tickets are $30 general admission and are available here.

Large-Scale Sculpture Show Opens

You may have driven by it dozens of times without noticing, but for the last several months a corner of Brandy Fenton Memorial Park, on River Road and Alvernon Way, has been made into a Sculpture Garden. Come Saturday, December 17, and you may not be able to miss the fact as sixteen large sculptures are inaugurated there, easily visible to passing traffic. With a range of artists that includes Joan Waters, Pamela Ambrosio, Greg Corman, and Anuar Portugal represented under the aegis of Sculpture Tucson, the Sculpture Garden will feature the show until May 27, 2023.

The show will formally open on December 17 between 10am and 2pm, when the artists, juror Kim Boganey, and representatives of Sculpture Tucson will be on hand to celebrate the occasion. We’re all invited to join them—and, promises sculpture garden manager Robin McArdle, there’ll be coffee and doughnuts on hand to go along with some spectacular art.

Local Blues Band Mason Launches Its Sophomore Album

The blues come in many flavors and tones, from the muddy depths of Skip James’s “Devil Got My Woman” to the soaring heights of Henry Thomas’s “Bulldozer Blues” all down the line to the blistering Stones and Winters and Wolfs—Howling and Peter, that is. There’s the bouncing lilt of Freddie King’s “Get Out of My Life, Woman,” the bright top notes of B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone,” the rumbling menace of Albert King’s “Born Under a Bad Sign”—and that’s just the Kings. It’s a genre that forgives experimentation while valuing tradition, one that eludes easy definition but that, as the saying goes, you know when you hear it.

When you hear Mason, you’ve landed on the more modern variations on the form. The band’s second album, My Kind of Trouble, hints at pyrotechnical origins: “Electric Kisses” has undertones of Hendrix, “Hey Sally” of the Clapton-era Delaney & Bonnie, back in the days before Clapton turned into a paleocon antivaxxer, that is. But, nodding to the ancestors aside, the album is also a fresh take on blues rock, supported by virtuoso musicianship and smart songwriting chops. So surefooted are Mason that they recorded most of the 11 songs on the album in a single take, laying them down in two live sessions of 4–5 hours apiece at Waterworks Studios here in Tucson.

The quartet’s pedigree isn’t that of your ordinary barroom blues band. Jacob Acosta, lead guitarist and vocalist, started out as a jazz saxophonist but then, while attending school on the East Coast, picked up a guitar and began writing songs. Returning to Tucson, he took a degree in music education while founding bands devoted to alt rock, shoegaze, acoustic rock, Americana, and, of course, blues while teaming up with deep house artists and, to date, releasing 16 albums. “I love constantly having my music interest and styles evolve,” says Acosta, and his résumé proves the point.

His bandmates are just as versatile. Drummer Andre Gressieux has played in symphonies and off-Broadway in a production of Pippin, as well as in a long string of bands. Like Acosta, he switched instruments, starting off on violin before picking up the drumsticks. Barry Young, the band’s bassist, was a trumpeter at first and didn’t find his first four-string until he hit 30, when he took off with a range of bands playing grunge, desert rock, metal, and prog. Jason Allen, who plays rhythm guitar, played piano, trumpet, and even marching-band tuba before settling on bass and, after moving to Tucson in 2011, joining Acosta in various musical configurations.

The group makes a righteous racket, and, as Acosta points out, isn’t confined to the blues—indeed, My Kind of Trouble includes hints of surf, sixties rock, and even reggae, though never losing the thread that runs back to three chords and the truth. They’ll be celebrating the release of the CD at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:00 pm) on September 9 at Hotel Congress (311 E. Congress). Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 at the door. Tom Walbank opens. Promises Acosta, “Our sound goes best with a little bit of pageantry and fun, and if you come out, you’ll see we throw a good party.”

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Hits the Rialto

Fifty-five years ago, a group of Southern California folkies had an unexpected hit with a country-tinged song called “Buy for Me the Rain,” one of a dozen songs on their debut album, with two of the others penned by a then-unknown composer named Jackson Browne. With that self-titled debut and its charting single, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was off and running, on the way to perfecting its trademark blend of bluegrass, country, folk, rock, jug band music, and Delta blues.

Founding member Jeff Hanna, who sang lead on “Buy for Me the Rain,” remembers the time well. “We were six guys who had a fondness for folk music,” he tells Zócalo, speaking from his home near Nashville. “Some of us had older siblings who got us into early rock ’n’ roll—Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly. That was a great foundation. But then we got deeper into the roots, listening to Doc Watson, bluegrass bands like Flatt & Scruggs, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Mississippi John Hurt. We came from this diverse sort of gumbo, a big mix of all this great music. Well, we had our hit record, but by the end of ’68 we were burned out, so we took a hiatus and then came back together for another album, this one with a song called ‘Mr. Bojangles’ on it, written by our friend Jerry Jeff Walker. By that time we had become a California country rock band, drifting closer, like Poco and The Byrds, to country.”

During a performance at Vanderbilt University in 1970, the band met legendary banjoist Earl Scruggs. They’d recorded one of his songs on that breakout record, Uncle Charley & His Dog Teddy, and, Hanna recalls, “on his way out the door Earl said, ‘I’d love to get in the studio with you boys.’” One thing led to another, and over the course of the next few months the band recorded with musical heroes such as Doc Watson, Roy Acuff, Mother Maybelle Carter, and Merle Travis, each legendary country artist bringing others into the fold. The result was the triple album Will the Circle Be Unbroken, released 50 years ago.

Some of those musicians, and certainly the country music establishment, were suspicious of the longhairs from California. They had reason to be. Says Hanna, “We were considered a rock & roll band back then, touring with Aerosmith, Johnny Winter, ZZ Top, and the like. That’s where we showed up. We weren’t touring with Faron Young or George Jones.” Still, the album came together, and when it did it was a hit, exposing many listeners to bluegrass and country music for the first time. With the passage of 50 years, too, the hard edges of genre and lifestyle have blurred. I was at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville just last month, and there in its extensive museum was a display case devoted to the album and its blend of musicians, hippies and country folk side by side.

Bob Dylan, of course, had gotten there—to both country music and the Hall of Fame—a little earlier than the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and he’s been another touchstone, so much so that the group’s newest release, The Dirt Does Dylan, is a collection of Dylan covers. The band—with founders Hanna and Jimmie Fadden joined by Hanna’s guitarist/singer son Jaime, keyboard player Bob Carpenter, fiddler Ross Holmes, and bassist Jim Photoglo—is now touring to promote the album. Expect to hear a joyous mix of Dylan, some Dirt hits, and some country classics. “We’re really grateful,” says Hanna. “We love playing live, and we’re excited to be coming to Tucson.” Tucson, to be sure, shares the feeling.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band will play at the Rialto Theatre (318 E. Congress St.) at 8:00pm on August 28. Tickets are available here.

A Few Words on Bruce McGrew

by Paul Gold

Bruce McGrew had an immersive approach to teaching art—many of his students felt a vigorously personal pull toward him, an orbit that closely cemented relationships. In interviews in 2006 and 2007, Rick DeMont recalled the power the “McGrew effect” had on him. “I got to U of A as a junior, majoring in art, and one of my first classes was with Bruce—I found him fascinating—he spoke in parables and riddles, like a poet, and in his speech, there was always something between the lines, and it just tuned me in. I was very curious to learn more about this guy—I knew I wanted to know what he knew—there’d never before been a person like that for me, in art or out of art. I had no idea what his art was like. I just knew I wanted to know what he knew, because he knew, and I knew he knew. As abstract as that may sound, that was how it hit me, and from that point on, moments with him were in many ways magic—that’s what he was all about—magic. I don’t know what he thought of me as a student—but that was the beginning of a pretty long relationship.”

“I was already very much of a landscape person when I got there, and I was more into oils at that time, too, but he got me painting outside, and it wasn’t long until I was painting with him outside—I don’t know exactly for how many months. I was also taking classes with [Doug] Denniston, who was also a plein air guy. This was the spring of 1977. When I saw Bruce’s paintings, I was like, ‘Okay, here’s something that adds up to way more than its pieces.’ It still gives me goosebumps to talk about it, because I was so profoundly affected by it visually, and I couldn’t get his paintings out of my head probably for ten or fifteen years. It was just to the point where, ‘Let me exorcise these images, so I can move on with life.’”

“Bruce was really tactical about his approach and where he wanted you to go and what he thought maybe you should be open to. He was pretty delicate—it was the velvet hammer. As soon as I graduated, I moved to the ranch. That was 1979, and so what happened next—I sold this big oil painting at the Gekas Nicholas Gallery. It gave me more money than I thought I deserved, and I took that money and went out to the ranch to live and try to paint, and my life kind of developed from there. I was there for eight years. I loved living out there, but … I realized I would come out with nothing but a great place to live—I needed a little bit more than that, so that was why I left. I came into town, bought a house and started my own thing.”

DeMont’s affection and admiration for McGrew reflect the nearly infectious charisma he had with seemingly everyone he engaged. “Any day with Bruce was just a fantastic day, watching the time pass. He could bring magic into eating food or just walking down the road. He’d just break things down to its core essence, and he lived his life that way, day in and day out, walking around in the core essence. He could find beauty in anything, in any place. And time—he was very connected to that spirit, whatever you wanna call it—the core essence are good words. Maybe some guys would call it bones. I’ve never met a person who was more real than Bruce McGrew—it’s the opposite of hokey. It’s the other direction, floored as far as the road goes.

Excerpted from Paul Gold, Bend in the Wash: The Rancho Linda Vista Artist Community (Tubecat LLC). The book is available for sale at http://interstice.us/paul-gold/index.htm. It is also available at Deadwood Framing and the Tucson Museum of Art.