Revival

"The other hand was raised out to God as if I was Hallelujahing. I haven’t felt this moved by a band since I saw Tom Petty’s last show here in Nashville."

Yesterday, at St. Augustine’s, the sermon was on the Parable of the Sower from Matthew 13:1-23. Now, I grew up very very Catholic. The kind of Catholic where I have clear memories of Sister Aunt Louise pushing me on a backyard metal swing at my Baltimore home on Maplewood Drive across from the cornfields on Route 99, singing a song about berries in her flying nun habit. Long black dress with the long rosary. Did she wear the hat with the wings with us or am I just remembering the black and white photos we have of her? My grandmother brothers were priests, and my mom’s cousins were priests and my grandmother’s sisters were nuns and I grew up with that as a career option, terrified of getting “The Call.” Also, it meant, as a Catholic, that I never really read the Bible. Because, as I joke in my show, Catholics don’t read the Bible (“We have it read to us while we’re sleeping in church” is my punch line in the show). True.

So, I haven’t read Matthew and the most I knew about a Mustard Seed was that it’s the name of a pre-school I knew of in Greenwich Village. Yesterday in church, I listened raptly to this new story for me. The woman (a guest celebrant) spoke about cultivating community and cultivating our collective imagination. She preached the parables are directives. That when religion is at its best, it gives us a direction and tells us something is required of us, something is beyond us and something is ahead of us. She explained that a mustard seed is small, the smallest seed a farmer can plant, and it gets planted in rocky soil. But grows into a large plant, 6-10 feet tall, ugly, maybe, with big branches that provide shade for the other plants. The tiniest thing provides what the rest of the garden needs. And so, faith is what is planted. Our job is to just plant the damn little seed. Faith is our work. The growth? The outcome? Not our business. The seed gets planted and that the rest is God’s work. We plant. All that is required of us to plant the seed. That it grows is the something that is beyond us. She said, “religion at its best allows us to rest in the mystery of God.”

This is me and Will Hoge and Christopher Griffiths his bass player

On Friday, I played a 30-minute show at The Eastside Bowl here in East Nashville. The incredible artist Will Hoge created a 2-day event called The Eastside Ramble. Months ago, his agent Alex reached out to my agent to invite me to play a set. I know Will Hoge, but not well. I’m a huge fan of his music and every interaction with him I’ve had makes me just want to hang with him more. He’s a good guy. Jamey is buddies with him. They played golf together. Will was at Jamey’s bachelor party hang. So, Will is kind of in the family circle even though I’ve never had the chance to spend time with him or his family. But still, I had NO idea Will even knew my music. To me, he’s at a completely different echelon. His song “Even If It Breaks Your Heart” is one of my top 10 favorite songs of all time (his version, not the country #1 hit version). He’s got a catalogue of incredibly hit-worthy rock songs. I’ve seen him play solo in passing at festivals. We both were playing 30A a few years back and I made a point to see his solo show to say hi. I didn’t expect he knew much of my stuff. I was really honored and touched to be invited. I knew it was a family friendly 2 day multi-stage event he put together and I didn’t know many of the artists on the lineup, and I was excited that I could bring Huck. I love the Eastside Bowl. It’s a multistage huge space with an arcade and pool tables and bowling and good food and GREAT music and one of the owners, Jamie Rubin, is an old buddy who booked me years ago when I was still in NYC at the original Family Wash, which was THE East Nashville musician’s hang. Half of my first friends in Nashville came from just going there on Tuesday nights to hear their new music series and eat Shepherd’s Pie bc Tuesdays was Pint and Pie $10 night

Friday when I got there, Alex told me Will wanted to introduce me (Will was running from stage to stage introducing everyone and making sure everyone felt welcome). The acts were staggered so the audience would go to everything. I played early, but the room was full and it wasn’t people I recognized. And Jamey came and Huck was there. I invited Dave Coleman, my friend and amazing guitar player, to play with me. Will jumped up on stage and said in his intro something like I’m the kind of writer that makes other writers want to rewrite their songs. And I was stunned. Like, totally stunned. I think I started the show in complete awe and gratitude and even said something like “Wow. Will, can I put that on a T-shirt so I can read it on my bad days?” I had more fun on that 30-minute show than I’ve had in a long time. I remembered what it was like, again to play with others, to play with a band (even though this was just a duo). It is how I felt in June when Dave and I played The Kerrville Folk Festival. More in a conversation than me just monologuing. It felt like flying. So many people who had never heard me were so kind and now are fans. My original plan was to just take Huck to the pool afterwards, but we stayed. We played pinball. We played pool. We listened to all the other artists. Who were incredible. Great writers. They all watched my set and said kind things, and I met new friends and potential collaborators. I met couples who were long-time Will fans that had flown in for the weekend. Many of the ticket holders were like them. It was almost like Cayamo Cruise but in a big East Nashville venue for one weekend.

Will and his band went on in the main room at 8 and Huck and I stayed. That was the point, I see now. Will could offer a space for parents to bring their kids to a rock show. He joked about wanting them to hear good rock and roll, not the shit their friends were going to expose them to in school later. We stood up in the balcony, and I danced and sang along and Huck listened (but also played Minecraft on his tablet…it was way past his bedtime and I knew I was pushing it). The band was incredible. As good as anything I’ve seen from my favorite bands (The Heartbreakers, Jason Isbell, even Springsteen). I watched the choreography of it all, when Will played acoustic (a J45 like mine) and started the song by himself, letting the band come in at the bridge of the song to rock it out. When the band left the stage if left Will at the microphone with his keyboard player, playing a song that would be perfectly in line on any Randy Newman record. Every song was like an encore, which is what I love about a Springsteen show. He gets you in the rock and roll feels from the start and doesn’t let go until about song 5 or 6 and then you can take a breath. That’s what Will does. You’re on a rock and roll ride. But the lyrics are literary, astounding, brave, very very Americana in the best sense of the word. He’s a great soul singer. He’s gritty and has gravity. He’s in his 50’s and is dancing like a kid. Dark jeans. A great t shirt. Redwing boots. A straight mic stand like the old rock and rollers. I was transported and I hope Huck saw or may remember someday his mom dancing like a 20 something in her 90’s Lollapalooza days, sweating and smiling and just joyful. So joyful.

I had to come back on Saturday to see more, so Huck and I went early to hear a new band of kids (Will’s son is the drummer and my friend Sarah Jane Nelson’s son is the guitar player) and again, I was nodding along like it was 1993 and I was wearing fishnet stockings over a skirt and Doc Martens with my pixie blonde hair cut and nose ring (yes, that was me). It was exhilarating. I wanted to be there to hear the band, but I also wanted to be a part of this thing that Will had created. It was feeling more than just a two-day show. Later that night, I stood again in the balcony with Sarah Jane as Will closed out the festival with his band. His gratitude to everyone for coming and to the fans and the artists and the people at the Bowl. His manager and agent. He brought a birthday cake out for his dad who was there and I started to cry that my own was gone now. This time, I rocked and danced and sweated and felt all the rock and roll feels, but I also took notes, because by this time, I knew I wanted to get back to playing with a band like I used to when I started this career. When he played “Even If It Breaks Your Heart” I was filming with one hand singing out loud and the other hand was raised out to God as if I was Hallelujahing. I haven’t felt this moved by a band since I saw Tom Petty’s last show here in Nashville.

Will ended the show by getting the band offstage and moving to the center of the room to sing a song in the center of the audience. I used to do that myself when I played with my band The Tearjerks. I’d unplug and jump off the stage with my guitar and walk to the center of the room and start off mic. Sometimes the band would join me. Sometimes I’d make my way back up onstage to finish on mic with them. It was never planned. Never choreographed. First time it happened was because the sound started to buzz and get wonky (probably a bad cable) and rather than fight it, I threw the cord off my guitar and jumped off the stage. It worked. It was a “thing” and I did it again.

He ended the show onstage again, inviting all the artists up to sing “Rockin’ in the Free World” and I danced barefoot with his guitar player, Will’s son took over on the drums, his dad was up there too dancing, I’d made friends by then with his band and some of the other artists, and it was just so much fun.

I’ve lived in the folk world for so long and I’ve loved it and developed my craft as a solo artist. Acoustic guitar and piano. Stories. It’s a whole thing and very different than the band days. It’s cheaper too, to be honest. Just me and my own stuff to haul. One hotel room. One flight. No complicated tech rider. I used to drive in my minivan around the country with The Tearjerks. We played rock clubs and folk rooms, house concerts and colleges, dive bars and churches. We played a huge room in Laramie, Wyoming with a mechanical bull in the back where people expected to two-step dance to our songs and I told Rich my guitar player to just play everything a bit faster and extend the solos. They all danced. We played a biker bar in Durango, Colorado and made friends with the Harley club there. We played a festival at a nudist colony in Paw Paw, West Virginia and the band took their clothes off in solidarity during my song “The Real Thing” (Matt, my bass player, hilariously lowered his bass to cover his junk and put his hat back on). I had funding help or else it would not have been possible to do this, but I paid those guys almost nothing and we slept on couches and in fan’s kids’ rooms with train sheets. To make up for it, I’d create moments in between. I’d find the hot springs hole somewhere along the way in Colorado or we’d go on cool hikes or I’d foot it for a super expensive dinner in Palm Springs. We were a family (very dysfunctional for sure) but those guys were hilarious and great musicians, and it was a great hang. I was just talking to my friend Chris, a drummer here in Nashville who was in NYC in the scene during those days and he said to me, “Yeah, Amy, you had one of the best bands out there. All the musicians would come to your shows. You were a big thing back then with that band.” I didn’t remember that. But yeah, each of the guys in that band had personality and we’d rehearsed so much that we had it down. We played all the time. At times, I’d have two guitar players on stage with me. I played a Gibson SG for a while. I wanted to be a rockstar. NPR called me a young Lucinda Williams during those days.

Of course, playing with a band is expensive and, I moved to Nashville and the band had fallen apart due to personal reasons (I wasn’t exactly the healthiest human … I was in active alcoholism, and the dysfunction was 85% me). And, I was writing differently, exploring my voice more, new kind of writing, working with Neilson Hubbard. Long ago, I discovered the folk world (and they found me) and it’s home and I’m grateful because it has sustained a long career of being able to tour and make a modest living independently. And stayed with me from one label to the next to being dropped to being the next big thing that never happened to just sticking around and still being here making music. My folk fans don’t give a shit if I’m on Thirty Tigers with the cool kids. They just want good songs and a good story and a good hang.

Photo: John Mazlich NYC

But. Watching Will. The gears were churning and after church, I did go to a guitar store and start to play around with electric guitars and called up Chris to play drums for me and talked to Dave about needing a bass player that can sing and who are we going to get on keys and I started writing a song that I can hear more of a rock and roll band sound. Sheryl Crow meets Tom Petty meets Jason Isbell meets Will Hoge meets me. Whatever that sound is.

Will Hoge talked about community. About family. About wanting to create a space this weekend that included family. He said he handpicked the artists for a purpose, that he cultivated this dream of a festival that was more than just a show. Now, I don’t know how it did financially. Or how Will feels two days later and I hope he took yesterday off to just sleep. But I felt a part of something bigger. And not just because I played. But because I was there and had brought Huck and he was there. I felt like it was a kind of rock and roll dreamfever. That I was in a greater conversation about what art does to our souls. How it brings us together. All ages. How it’s not about who draws the most, who is the “It” person, who’s cool and who’s not. The fans weren’t just people who bought tickets. They were people I sat and talked to and got to know a bit. I literally dropped my 1956 Gibson J45 and it cracked (the reason I don’t bring it out of the house much) and Will came running over and dragged me over to meet his friend who was married to his manager who happens to work for Gibson and she’d seen my set and was kind and nice and offered to help me out. So now, I have someone at Gibson in my world. Which I didn’t have before. And not because I had to be the cool kid or have a manager do any asking. But because I was there and she was there and Will, this connector of humanity, helped me out. And next to her is her best friend who happens to be a social media person (who I need). And Will’s bass player is a great singer and he says, “let’s play a show together” and I was literally just texting Dave my guitar player like “who plays bass who is a great singer.”

David Plakke NYC photo

After the show, I picked up Huck from my friends’ house and put him to bed and picked up my guitar and wrote a chorus about wishing my father were still here to watch Huck grown up and I think the last line is “I wish I had more time.” And I cried. Ugly cried. I don’t remember the last time I cried, it’s been that long. And I was a professional crier. I don’t cry anymore. But Saturday night I did. I cried hard. I missed my dad. Will’s dad being on stage and his son being there….I missed my own. And I felt part of something I didn’t even know I’d been missing. Maybe I felt validated. It was a real honor to know that Will Hoge even has heard my songs and I’m grateful he included me. But honestly, I got way more than a gig out of this.

Kate Gale , my publisher at Red Hen Press, who is another tornado of talent and humanness, talks about being a good Literary Citizen. About giving back. Cultivating community. I’ve been hosting a Songwriting Salon in my home since 2010, every Monday for a decade and now it’s once a month, but that’s been my way of planting a seed. I started it for selfish reasons. I’d just moved to Nashville and didn’t know many people so I created this thing I’d learned from Jack Hardy’s Songwriter Exchange in NYC and opened my door and 16 years later the door is still open. I’ve started another regular hang with some artists to just unwind and talk community and share songs and food. Kate Gale’s directive to be a good literary citizen has me thinking what can I do for those poets I admire so much, how can I invite them into my world where people open their homes and invite 70 people to hear me play music in a “house concert.” How can I invite a poet the stature of Major Jackson or Maggie Smith into my world. What can I offer them? Not what can I get from them.

Back to the mustard seed. Religion, at its best, offers 3 directives. Something is required of us, something is beyond us and something is ahead of us. Will Hoge did that this weekend for a community. He planted a small seed. And that ugly plant grew and created shade and I got to grow up right next to it and his kid’s band too and the people that flew in from Omaha for the weekend too. In the New Testament in James: “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”

I think what happened this weekend was way more than a two-day cluster of shows. It was a Revival. In the largest most profound sense of the word. And for me, it concluded with an Episcopalian service led by all women (the male pastors happen to all be out of town), putting all of what I was feeling into words. And I ugly cried in church. Again.

May everyone be lucky enough to have someone like Will Hoge in their midst to cultivate a revival of the spirit. I am full of gratitude and inspiration on this beautiful Monday morning. And, lying next to me on this couch on my porch, is my vintage Gibson ES150 that has just hung on my wall for years as décor, but is now plugged into my Vox amp with a shit ton of tremolo and a little bit of distortion. I think it’s time to get the band back together.

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Amy Speace is an award-winning Americana folk singer and songwriter discovered by Judy Collins. Her songs have been recorded by Ms. Collins and many others and she has won International Song of the Year from the Americana Music Association (UK). Her writing has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, Working Mother, and Salon.com. She received her MFA from Spalding University and teaches English at Cumberland University. She resides in Nashville, Tennessee, with her son, Huckleberry, and her dog, Dusty Springfield.

The Cardinals, coming Sept 1st with Red Hen Press , is her debut poetry collection.