INsite Atlanta March 2021 Issue

MARCH 2021

C

INSITEATLANTA.COM

9 YEARS! 2 G N I T ELEBRA

VOL. 29, NO. 7 FREE

Jesse Dylan Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Petula Clark

Saint

PATRICK'S Day CELEBRATE WITH VIRTUAL & OUTDOOR EVENTS

CONTENTS • MARCH 2021 • VOLUME 29, NO. 7 music at

the fred 2021 concert season presented by:

LIMITED TICKETS AVAILABLE FOR 2021 SOCIALLY DISTANCED CONCERTS YACHT ROCK REVUE SATurday, May 1 RUMOURS - A FLEETWOOD MAC TRIBUTE Friday, May 21 BLACK JACKET SYMPHONY – MUSIC OF THE EAGLEs Saturday, June 26

&

GEORGIA RHYTHM TRIBUTE - THE MUSIC OF THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND Saturday, july 10 DEPARTURE - THE JOURNEY TRIBUTE BAND Saturday, July 24 NATURAL WONDEr - The Ultimate Stevie Wonder Experience and BOGEY THE VICEROY saturday, august 21

&

FACE TO FACE - A Tribute to Elton John Billy Joel saturday, september 18

29 R AT I N G CELEB

FOR DETAILS VISIT www.amphitheater.org

Atlanta’s

Entertainment Monthly

INTERVIEWS 06 Crystal Renee Hayslett 07 Petula Clark 08 Crack The Sky 09 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band 10 Jesse Dylan 11 The Local Honeys 12 Arc of Life 13 Warner Hodges

06

11

FEATURES 04 March Madness Dining

12

COLUMNS 03 Around Town 05 Station Streaming 13 Album Reviews

&

ABBA REVISITED saturday, october 2

YEARS!

13

insiteatlanta.com STAFF LISTING Publisher Steve Miller steve@insiteatlanta.com Art Director / Web Design Nick Tipton nick@insiteatlanta.com Managing Editor Lee Valentine Smith lee@insiteatlanta.com Local Events Editor Marci Miller marci@insiteatlanta.com Music Editor John Moore john@insiteatlanta.com

Contributing Writers / Interns: Alex. S. Morrison, Dave Cohen, Benjamin Carr, Demarco Williams Advertising Sales Steve Miller (404) 308-5119 • ads@insiteatlanta.com MAILING ADDRESS P.O. Box 76483 Atlanta, GA 30358 WEBSITE • insiteatlanta.com Editorial content of INsite is the opinion of each writer and is not necessarily the opinion of INsite, its staff, or its advertisers. INsite does not knowingly accept false or misleading advertising or editorial content, nor do the publisher or editors of INsite assume responsibility should such advertising or editorial appear. No content, i.e., articles, graphics, designs and information (any and all) in this publication Jesse Dylan may be reproduced in any manner without written Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Petula Clark permission from publisher.

MARCH 2021

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PG 2 • March 2021 • insiteatlanta.com

INSITEATLANTA.COM

VOL. 29, NO. 7 FREE

S! TING 29 YEAR CELEBRA

Saint

PADTRayICK'S CELEBRATE WITH VIRTUAL & OUTDOOR

EVENTS

Around Town SATURDAY, MARCH 13

St. Patrick’s Day Run / Walk Colony Square in Midtown

Atlanta’s St. Patrick’s Parade is on hold again this year due to Covid and permitting restrictions. e St. Patrick's themed run/walk is still taking place at Colony Square in Midtown. ey will be adhering to covid precautions of spaced starting groups, socially distancing before and after the run/walk and mask requirements when not running or walking along. Afterwards enjoy a lively post event celebration with DJ, raffle prizes, drinks, finisher medals, Irish dancers and bag pipers.

FRIDAY, MARCH 19

The Fred 2021 Season On-Sale

Peachtree City, GA; Amphitheater.org The Fred Amphitheater is an award winning 2,500 seat venue tucked away in a forest setting. The Peachtree City facility is only a 45 minute drive from Atlanta.

They are celebrating their 30th season in

Socially Distanced Events taking place this Month

2021 with a season of socially distanced limited capacity concerts. Tickets go on sale to recurring series ticket holders Wednesday, March 17 and to the general public on Friday, March 19.

The season line-up has been announced.

Yacht Rock Revue opens the season on Sat, May 1. Rumours - A Fleetwood Mac Tribute will perform on Friday, May 21. Black Jacket Symphony presenting the Music of The Eagles including the album Hotel California in its entirety takes place Saturday, June 26. Georgia Players Guild presents “Georgia Rhythm” – Hits of Georgia Artists & Tribute - The Music Of The Allman Brothers Band on Saturday, July 10.

Departure - The Journey Tribute Band plays on Saturday July 24. Natural Wonder – The Ultimate Stevie Wonder Experience with Bogey & The Viceroy perform Saturday, August 21. Face to Face – A Tribute to Elton John & Billy Joel takes place Saturday, September 18. ABBA Revisited closes out the season on Saturday, October 2nd.

All 2021 concerts at the Fred will offer

only a limited number of tickets to facilitate social distancing. Your designated seats will be spaced away from other patron groups. Due to social distancing guidelines, the box office will not be open for the on sale of these events. All sales transactions will be conducted online or via phone. Visit www.amphitheater.org for the full schedule details and ticketing information.

SATURDAY, MARCH 27 Trout Tournament

Alpine Helen, GA; Helenchamber.com

City of Helen is teeming with Trout and has been known to produce Trophy Native Trout. They will also be stocking the river with trout during the tournament. A Georgia fishing license and trout stamp are required.

Helen is only 20 miles from the head-waters of the Chattahoochee River. The crystal clear shimmering water of the Chattahoochee flows from tiny streams & tributaries in the National Forests & the Appalachian Watershed surrounding Helen. When you are not fishing, there are great shops, restaurants & hotels for the entire family to enjoy in Georgia’s Alpine Village of Helen. For Lodging, dining and tourist information call (800) 858-8027.

SATURDAY & SUNDAY APRIL 17&18 Kennesaw Big Shanty Festival

Kennesaw GA, KennesawBusiness.org

Come on out to Alpine Helen, GA on Saturday March 27th; 6:00 am – 2:00 pm for the 32nd annual Trout Tournament.

There will be over $4,000 in prizes for tagged fish. Participants receive an official Helen Trout Tournament T-Shirt.

There is a $20 entry fee per participant.

Register by mail with postmark by March 19 or online at helenchamber.com until 10:00pm Wednesday, March 24, or in person at the Helen Chamber Festhalle on Friday, March 26 from 4pm to 7pm & Saturday, March 27 from 6am to 9am. For additional information & Registration Forms visit HelenChamber.com or call (706) 878-1908.

This beautiful stretch of the Chattahoochee that flows leisurely through the

Featuring over 200 arts and crafts booths, 20 food booths, 20 general booth spaces and admission is free. The festival attracts over 60,000 people from all around North Georgia. There are two entertainment stages, all types of children's activities, and plenty of food. The Big Shanty Festival will begin with a parade through downtown Kennesaw at 9:30 on Saturday morning April 18 featuring North Cobb, Kennesaw Mountain, Allatoona, and Kell High School marching bands.

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C E L E B R AT I N G

29 YEARS!

Check out our new website at insiteatlanta.com insiteatlanta.com • March 2021 • PG 3

MARCH MADNESS Dining Guide Dine-In, Take-out or Cater for the Basketball Tournament Baldinos Giant Jersey Subs

Marietta 80 Powers Ferry Rd; 770.321.1177 Doraville 5697 Buford Hwy; 770.455.8570 baldinos.us Baldinos serves up the best sub sandwich in the South.

The rolls are baked in-store every day and all day. Each sub is sliced fresh as ordered. Hot subs are grilled, not nuked or pressed, and only the freshest produce garnishes every sub as ordered. Salads, soups and delicious baked goodies compliment a true value menu. Check out Baldinos $3.99 Daily Special offering a different sub for each day of the week.

Having friends over for the tournament?

Call Baldinos and ask for their Party Subs.

Harry’s Pizza and Subs

2150 Powers Ferry Rd. 770.955.4413 harryspizzaandsubs.com Harry’s Pizza & Subs has been a community favorite in North Atlanta since 1989. This family owned and run restaurant specializes in New York style pizza but they are also known for their chicken wings, oversized salads, and mouthwatering sandwiches.

Harry’s offers daily specials on menu items and always has a special on draft beers. They

offer plenty of seating with multiple screens making Harry’s is a great place to catch all the tournament action. Bring the family and meet up with friends. Harry’s is open for dine-in and committed to keeping a clean & safe dining experience.

Twin Peaks

3365 Piedmont Rd. Buckhead 404.961.8946 TwinPeaksRestaurant.com Twin Peaks Restaurant, the rugged mountain lodge in Buckhead, is famous for its ultimate man cave setting and beautiful Twin Peaks Girls. They are also known for their award winning burgers and wings in addition to great sandwiches, salads and comfort foods. Twin Peaks has an extensive selection of ice cold draft beers served from 32 taps. This is a perfect place to meet up with friends and coworkers during those early round games.

rants. Get free chips and salsa upon arrival and two for one appetizers at the bar nightly from 5 pm – 7 pm. Sign up for email alerts through their website for great dining deals & event info. Agave has two vaulted airy dining rooms as well as an enclosed heated patio.

Johnny’s NY Style Pizza

Over 50 Atlanta area locations Order online at JohnnysPizza.com

Agave

Johnny’s Pizza is synonymous with great pizza and subs in Atlanta. The secret to their success is in the preparation, using only the finest ingredients. Johnny’s specializes in NY style pizza, which is thin in the middle and thick around the edges.

Johnny’s also offers subs, salads, sandwiches and other popular Italian dishes including calzones, strombolis, and lasagna. All their restaurants offer dine-in, take-out, delivery and online ordering. Go to JohnnysPizza.com to find the nearest location to you.

Agave blends eclectic southwestern cuisine, extensive tequila bar and wine list coupled with exceptional service, to make this one of Atlanta’s top restau-

Chastain 404.255.4460; Smyrna 770.575.4884 WingFactory.com If you are serious about wings, you need to get to Wing Factory. The undisputed king of the wing year in year out. Wing Factory is a local favorite. A neighborhood spot to grab a beer, catch the game and of course, chow down on some chicken.

242 Boulevard 404.588.0006 agaverestaurant.com

Wing Factory

FEEDS 6-12 People 8-16 People 10-20 People 16-32 People 20-40 People 24-48 People

PRICE $31.50 $42.00 $61.50 $82.00 $98.00 $117.00

Atlanta's BEST SUBS 14 Years Running!

PG 4 • March 2021 • insiteatlanta.com

Mo’s Pizza

3109 Briarcliff Rd. 404.320.1258 MosPizza.com Mo’s has been serving up great pizza in Atlanta for over 40 years! But the menu isn’t limited to pizza: sandwiches, subs, wings, nachos and salads ensure that anybody who comes here can find something they like.

Mo’s Pizza is currently open for Dine-In, Take-out and Delivery. Inside tables have been removed and spaced out. Catch all the tournament action on one of their large screens. Check for daily lunch and dinner specials. They have a huge dog friendly deck to hang out on and plenty of screens offering great views from any table. Mo’s is one of the longest running pizza joints in Atlanta, come in and see why they are one of the best.

Your Neighborhood Pizzeria!

March Madness is HERE!

SIZE 3 FEET 4 FEET 6 FEET 8 FEET 10 FEET 12 FEET

Atlanta’s best wings and some killer burgers, salads and more.

Chastain and Smyrna are both open for takeout, delivery and safe, in-store dining with enhanced sanitizing protocols. Trivia and Bingo are popular here but limited due to Covid. Visit them online at wingfactory.com for nights and times offered.

Atlanta’s Favorite Pizza!

Multiple Atlanta Locations: JohnnysPizza.com

TV

Station Streaming

SOCIALLY AWARE PERIOD PIECES

BY BENJAMIN CARR

CLARICE (CBS)

F

OR THOSE OF YOU WHO DIDN’T learn history the first time, several new television dramas now allow you the chance to repeat it. Setting their action in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, three series explore the past with varying degrees of success at informing and entertaining audiences.

Through period examinations of workplace sexism and the AIDS crisis, it is interesting what these new dramas have to say about the way we live now.

Firefly Lane

FIREFLY LANE (Netflix)

Based upon the Kristin Hannah chick-lit novel about a female friendship spanning decades, the Netflix series starring Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke in a variety of truly horrible wigs and period outfits is a terrible, oddly addictive piece of fluff. Spanning from 1974 to 2005, Firefly Lane feels like a femalecentered ripoff of NBC’s This Is Us. It is heinous. All ten episodes will make you hate yourself, while you won’t be able to tear your appalled eyes away from it. It makes Netflix’s other cozy series Virgin River and Sweet Magnolias look like Shakespeare.

Heigl, playing journalist-turned-talk show diva Tully Hart, is the best thing in this garbage. Granted, Heigl once won an Emmy for Grey’s Anatomy, and then she had to play a scene on that show performing emergency surgery on a deer. She knows how to elevate weak material. And she deserves better.

Chalke, who is a knockout from Scrubs, Roseanne and How I Met Your Mother, is saddled with a character named Kate, who is supposed to be mousy and unattractive.

The show communicates this by giving her character a giant pair of ill-fitting glasses and a Farrah Fawcett wig. The campy, terrible wig looks like it came from a touring production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Along the way, the girls end up in a love triangle with a hunky Australian journalist, played by Ben Lawson. His wig is worse than anyone’s. Seriously, somewhere between 1984 and 2003, his hair changes direction.

It ended on a cliffhanger. But seriously if Netflix doesn’t give audiences a return trip to Firefly Lane it will be a blessing. It was awful.

Clarice

FBI Agent Clarice Starling returns to screens in the new CBS crime drama bearing her name, set one year after the events of The Silence of the Lambs. Rebecca Breeds takes on the role and Jodie Foster’s West Virginia accent. But this Clarice doesn’t have a Hannibal Lecter to match wits with, for this series does not have the legal rights to even say that character’s name.

And without Hannibal, Clarice Starling is bristling without a foe. Breeds does an effective impression of Foster, but Clarice doesn’t yet feel like a fully formed character in the first two episodes of the series. She deals with some 1990s sexism. She deals with PTSD. She avoids the other survivors of the Buffalo Bill killing spree. And, as a result, she’s not particularly compelling. The series is all premise with no plan, evoking the atmosphere and the aesthetics of the Jonathan Demme film without a storyline giving it much drive.

What does Clarice do now that the lambs have stopped screaming? Not much. She solves a case-of-the-week mystery like some garden-variety Matlock. It’s really, really disappointing.

If you want to have fun with a CBS show that’s about a badass woman taking down criminals, watch Queen Latifah in The Equalizer. It has more energy and spirit. Unlike NBC’s Hannibal from years back, Clarice is a dud.

DINE-IN! Vaulted Dining Rooms & Enclosed Heated Patio Sign up on website for email alerts on great Dining deals & Event info

It’s a Sin

IT’S A SIN (HBO Max)

The jewel among these backward-looking series is this British production from producer-writer Russell T. Davies, exploring what it was like to be young and gay during the earliest days of the AIDS epidemic in London.

It’s a Sin is heartbreaking and beautiful, exploring how a climate of shame surrounding homosexuality led to the disease being spread in secret.

Though Olly Alexander, Omari Douglas and the adorable Callum Scott Howells portray the characters who kick off the series by coming out in 1981, It’s a Sin pulls no punches by having death arrive unexpectedly and often.

As a result the most powerful performances in this show belong to actresses Lydia West and Keeley Hawes. West portrays Jill, a young woman drawn into the role of caretaker when all her friends start dying young. Hawes playing a mother who learns all at once that her son is gay, sick and dying, delivers a startling, even villainous turn in the final episode of the series.

It’s the best series of 2021 so far and its timing, reflecting upon one outbreak during another, gives it an added punch. insiteatlanta.com • March 2021 • PG 5

TV

“THIS IS YOUR MOMENT”

From Capitol Hill To Prime Time, Actress Crystal Renee Hayslett Enjoys the Ride

BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH

F

ANS OF BET’S SISTAS KNOW Crystal Renee’ Hayslett as her popular character Fatima - but her evolution from a hopeful small-town cheerleader to a featured role on prime-time television is an improbable and inspiring journey.

Born in Martin, TN, she attended University of Tennessee in her hometown and before graduation she was invited to Washington, D.C., to work for a Senator Lamar Alexander.

From there, she moved to Atlanta to follow her dream of acting and music.

When she arrived at Tyler Perry Studios, she worked her way up, from Production Assistant to stylist to a featured role on one of Perry’s most popular television productions.

INsite spoke with the effervescent actress by phone during a break from filming a new Instagram segment.

What was your childhood like in Martin, Tennessee? I’ve actually been there and I know it’s a small town.

I grew up as a competition cheerleader. Martin was a big cheerleading town. I think we learned to flip before we even learned how to walk. I grew up a pageant girl. But, like you say, it was a super small town. Everyone knew your business and you couldn’t get into too much trouble because somebody would probably tell your mom all about it.

there was at the front desk so anytime constituents would come to the Senate, I would help with tours, or run papers for the staff. It was exciting.

What do you think about the recent insurgence and upheaval at the Capitol?

It was a tragedy and really surreal. I still have friends that work there. The police officers greeted me every day when I went to work. It definitely hit home and it was a bit traumatic for me. I was thinking that some kid who was my age when I worked there could have very well been giving a tour or just running something to the Senate when that happened.

Fast forward to 2009 when you moved to Atlanta.

I left DC to pursue music and acting and I came here literally with no job. 2013 is when I started I LEFT DC working at Tyler Perry Studios. I finally got a TO PURSUE position as a Production Assistant and within months I started dressing the backgrounds.

MUSIC AND two Within a year, I begin dressing the main cast.

ACTING AND I CAME HERE LITERALLY WITH NO JOB.

How did you go from Martin to Washington, DC? My political science teacher told me that Lamar Alexander had an internship for college students in Tennessee. I was selected as one of three students to go to DC for a semester. I just fell in love with the city.

Was it a culture shock moving to the big city of DC? Definitely. I’d walk down the street and say good morning to people. They would look at me like and I was an alien or something. It took me a minute to get used to not talking to people and just having tunnel vision. People in DC are focused on where they’re going, not on what everyone else is doing.

I learned that very fast. That was 2006 and then I left for Atlanta in 2009.

Did you work in the Capitol Building?

I worked in the Hart Senate Building and Dirksen Senate Building. I was in the Capitol all the time. One of my first jobs

Then Tyler Perry called.

Yeah, one day I got a call from him, completely out of the blue. He said, ‘Hey, I need help revamping my wardrobe.’

What does that job entail?

I didn’t even know that it was a job at first. I just thought I was brought in to revamp his casual wardrobe from his closet in Los Angeles. Pretty soon, I was helping him get some looks together for TV appearances. I became his official stylist.

You mentioned his closet in Los Angeles. Obviously it’s not like a regular person’s closet.

It was huge! It was more like a store than a closet. The cool thing about Tyler is that he allowed me to be creative within the realm that he’s comfortable with. But sometimes he’d be like, ‘Oh I don’t know about this one, Crystal.’

How long did that last?

It actually lasted a long time, from 2015 until 2020. Last summer we shot season two of Sistas and he called me asked if I still wanted to do wardrobe. But I was ready to ask him if he thought I was good enough to really pursue this acting thing.

He was like, ‘This is your moment, you’ve got it go for it.’

Did you have to audition for the role on Sistas?

I was a Consulting Producer so I was around from the very inception of the show. I was reading the scripts but I had not auditioned since I started working for him. But as I was reading the scripts, I was like, ‘Oh there are stories that I would love to share with him.’ Because he doesn’t know what it’s like for a 30-year-old woman to be dating in Atlanta. He said he thought I had raw talent for the show. But he said, ‘I’m not gonna give you anything big, I’m gonna give you a small role and see how you do with it.’ He said it was up to me what to do with it. I said, ‘Sir I will not let you down. By season two I became a series regular. There are a lot of new storylines that I can’t talk about quite yet, but it all just keeps on elevating.

He said he wasn’t going to give you anything to go on.

Did you have to come up with your own backstory for the character?

Yes he’s allowed us to come up with our own backstories.

Because I work in a law firm on the show, I brought what I’d learned when I worked on Capitol Hill. I like to bring a bit of reality to it and pull from real places and real feelings.

So when you see it on camera it’s like, ‘Oh I see - yeah, she’s really done that.’ I was lucky to have actually worked with lawmakers, so I already knew how to carry myself in a law office setting. Then on the second season, when he started writing he was like, ‘I want to see more of Crystal, let’s bring a in different element to the law office.’ I think once he saw what I could do, just from season one, it allowed him to be more creative and sort of open things up a bit. He wanted more of my personal sass and attitude and look. I’m so happy that it’s been received really well with the fans. That makes it all super exciting for me.

Has the cast boned into a family?

PG 6 • March 2021 • insiteatlanta.com

It really is a big family. I’m actually reading some group texts right now. Every time that we have some time off, we get together, we watch the shows, or we’ll go out and do things.

We’ll have chefs come cook dinner for all of us and just have a really good night with friends. So being together doesn’t stop when we wrap the season, it just continues because we’re all so bonded now. It really goes beyond the studio walls which is super special. Now whenever we have to leave it’s sad. I really do hate leaving these people that I love. So we text all the time and check in with each other. We do a lot of mental checks, just to make sure everybody’s good. Mental checks are very important, especially these days.

Were you able to actually work during the pandemic or did production shut down?

We were one of the first productions to go back to work last year, actually. They built a bubble for us. They’ve built an actual hotel where everybody can have individual rooms. So when we’re working, we all sort of live in this big bubble together.

Once you check in, you get tested and if the results come back negative you can come out and go to the food truck and commune with the fellow cast members and friends. There’s a lot of precautions we have to take but Tyler has literally left no stone unturned and he even included Emory Hospital and the CDC to help make sure that we were doing all the different things in the right way and to make sure that we were completely protected. So far, we haven’t had any issues at all.

Have you finished season three yet?

Yes season three is now in the can but we don’t have a final confirmation on any air dates just yet. But I think we’ll know soon. I miss it already but I’m staying busy with Instagram, doing cooking demonstrations, styling demonstrations and home interior designs. That’s keeping me pretty busy. So I’m here and working on that while my team and I are working on other brand ideas. It’s a lot of things to keep up at once but I love it. I think it’s going to be a busy year.

Sistas airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on BET, check your local cable guides for more information.

MUSIC

LIVING FOR TODAY

Legendary Hitmaker Petula Clark Stays Busy, One Day at a Time

BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH

P

have to keep yourself up. I’ve just finished writing a song, funnily enough. I wrote the music for a French song. A gentleman sent me a really good lyric but it took me weeks to get ‘round to doing it. I think there’s something in the air that’s somehow making it very difficult to create. It’s a very strange thing.

ETULA CLARK WAS A successful recording artist and actress long before she became a seemingly overnight sensation in Anglo-obsessed America in the mid-‘60s. The single and accompanying album “Downtown” changed her life in the first quarter of 1965, breaking through the fickle American market and One thing I’ve always admired about you firmly establishing her place in the British is that you continually write and record Invasion and music history. new music. Many of your peers seem But rather than recycle her greatest hits, content to recycle their greatest hits or just Clark has remained a busy performer, retire and take it easy. writing, recording and acting in every I enjoy it. You know at one time when decade of her 80-plus years of life. She Tony Hatch was writing all those great recently released a single and video with hits for me, all I had to do was sing ‘em. I The John Williams syndicate called “New do enjoy singing other people’s songs, but Flag,” her classic Royal Albert Hall concert there’s quite another thing that happens is getting the deluxe reissue treatment and when you’re singing your own song. It’s until the pandemic hit, she was hard to describe but something wowing audiences in a revival I THINK THAT’S else very different is going on of “Mary Poppins” on stage in HOW MY LIFE HAS inside you. It’s coming from your London.

ALWAYS BEEN. I heart, from exactly who you are.

INsite spoke with the DON’T EVER TRY Since you mentioned Tony, I legendary singer-songwriter by phone from her home in TO SIT DOWN AND definitely want to discuss one of Geneva, Switzerland on the SORT OF MAP IT those great songs. “Downtown” anniversary of Downtown’s ALL OUT. IT’S ALL was number one right about this arrival at number one on the BEEN A SERIES time in 1965 and it remains one American music charts.

OF HAPPENINGS, of my favorites.

Mine, too. It’s one of those INCIDENTS AND As with everyone, the songs that just goes on and on.

ACCIDENTS. pandemic seems to have As soon as you hear that piano changed your performance introduction, well that’s it! When schedule a bit.

I sing it in concert, people are singing it Quite a lot, really. I was playing the along with me. Of course, he wrote many Bird Lady in Mary Poppins. It was an other great songs but “Downtown” seems to enormous success; a new production at a have a life of its own. It’s amazing, really. huge theater. I was doing my makeup for the show, I can’t remember if it was on Many artists have tried to cover it, but a Sunday or a Monday, and there was a they never quite seem to get it right. knock at the door. They said, ‘Would you Yes even Dolly Parton tried to have a come down to the stage, Miss Clark?’ I go at it. That was cute. But you’re right, thought, ‘Well now that’s very strange.’ So there’ve been all kinds of versions. Sinatra down I go and everybody’s there - the cast, even recorded it but that didn’t work out production and everything. ‘There’ll be no too well. There are certain things you just show tonight.’ I piped up and said, ‘Well can’t do with “Downtown.” You can’t make it how about tomorrow night?’ ‘No.’ Little swing. It just does not swing. But it’s like an by little they slowly broke it to us that all old friend to me now. the theaters in London were closing that night. And that was it. We didn’t know for Mr. Hatch says it wasn’t even finished the how long. I remember thinking, ‘Oh that’s first time you heard it. nice, we’ll have a couple of weeks off. I can Right. I was living in Paris and doing a go over to New York and see my daughter lot of recordings in French. Tony used to and to Miami to see my son. But that didn’t supervise my sessions and we recorded in happen either. I’ve been back in Geneva London. One day he came to Paris to talk ever since and my new gig here is doing about the next French session and he said, the cooking. It’s not my forte at all but I’m ‘You really should be recording again in practicing, practicing, practicing and I’m English.’ I said, ‘Well, find the song and I’d finally getting better at it. love to.’ I was extremely busy at that time. I was touring all over Europe and I had two Even though you’re home, it seems small children. I had enough to think about. like you’re staying busy. The new John He said, ‘I’ve started writing this song but Williams track is a great song.

I haven’t finished the lyric.’ He played it That was easy, I did it across the street for me at the piano and that was the first from here. I’m staying as busy as I can be time I’d heard the music. Of course, I loved with everything on hold. I have my Albert it. I said, ‘If you can write a lyric up to the Hall concert, which is out as well. And standard of the tune, let’s do it.’ We went in I have a single called “Starting All Over a couple of weeks later and we recorded it Again,” which I wrote the lyrics for, just live with a big orchestra. I have to tell you, after 9/11. They decided to put it out now when I had that band playing that tune, I and I think it’s good timing because it is couldn’t wait to get up to the microphone actually the exact sentiment of now. After and thing it. all this, we’re going to have to start all over again. Everything is closed down here in Legend has it that it was very quick Geneva except the basic essentials. I really session. miss being able to go into a little joint for It was. We had a great band with the a cup of coffee. I never thought I’d miss crème de la creme of London playing it. that! It’s a depressing time and mentally you The orchestration was perfect and we had a

great sound engineer who did all those great Tony Hatch sessions with me. So it just was like falling off a log, you know.

An incredible batch of studio musicians including a young Jimmy Page, correct?

Yes! Every time I see Jimmy, he says to me, ‘I remember those sessions! They were some of the greatest times in my life.’

Quite a compliment but those records became some of the greatest songs of the ‘60s. And “Downtown” quickly established you as a big part of the British Invasion.

Yes and it was a little bit of a surprise, really. None of these things are ever planned. I was living in France I had a huge career going for me in all the Frenchspeaking countries and Italian and German as well. I certainly wasn’t expecting to have a hit in the States. I didn’t do much to have it, I just recorded the right song. It clicked with the American audience and that was it - we were off and we had hit after hit. It changed my life. Having a number one hit in America is something that many people dream of and it just happened so fast.

For every European artist I’ve ever talked to, the US is the great destination.

That’s true. But you just can’t force yourself on the American audience. I mean, they either like you or they don’t. But I think ‘Downtown” worked because it’s an English song about a very American place.

At that point, it seemed like America was fascinated with anything coming from England.

Oh yes, the fashion, the accents, Liverpool, everything. But let’s face it, all this music is basically American. We in Europe had been listening to American music always. It just got into our system, if you like, and then we sort of regurgitated it back to you. But anything truly great seems to just happen. You can’t plan it, you just have to live within it.

It’s like your recent album title Living For Today.

Yes, that’s exactly it. There’s no big plan.

When they offered me the role in Mary Poppins, my first reaction was to simply say no. I didn’t think I wanted to do it. But I spoke to my kids about it and they said, ‘Oh, you should take it. You’ll be in London and you’ll have fun with all your friends.’

So I said ‘OK, well in that case I’ll do it.’

And it was such great fun - until everything stopped. But I think that’s how my life has always been. I don’t ever try to sit down and sort of map it all out. It’s all been a series of happenings, incidents and accidents.

Petula Clark: A Valentine’s Day Concert At The Royal Albert Hall is available from the United Music Foundation unitedmusic.ch and via petulaclark.net. insiteatlanta.com • March 2021 • PG 7

MUSIC

PROGRESSIVE JOURNEY

Forty-Six Years On, Crack The Sky Continues to Challenge, Create and Rock batch of songs.

It’s impossible to not be influenced by what’s been happening. It’s such an incredibly powerful time, certainly in a negative way most of the time, but it’s an unbelievable thing to watch. You’re smashed with it from every side. Every day on the news, there it is. Then it’s on everyone’s mind so there’s no way I could avoid it, really. I pretty much had to address these issues and the result is what you hear on this album.

BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH

D

ON’T CALL THEM A PROG BAND, though plenty of critics, fans and labels often use the term.

Undeniably progressive in approach, execution and content, Crack The Sky hail from ground zero of challenging ‘70s rock, 1975.

Currently celebrating the release of Tribes, their eighteenth studio album, John Palumbo (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Rick Witkowski (guitars, vocals), Joey D’Amico (drums), Bobby Hird (guitars), Glenn Workman (keyboards) and Dave DeMarco (bass) continue to expand the parameters of modern rock and roll.

The new album is the latest chapter in the Carry On Music campaign to introduce the band’s music to a new generation of listeners. Thirty-five years’ worth of the Weirton, West Virginia-born band’s classic material - fifteen albums total - have been digitally released over the past few months.

INsite recently spoke with Palumbo by phone from his home in New Jersey.

The relevant subject matter on Tribes sounds as if you recorded it just a few days ago.

We did this one at least a year ago, but it was scheduled a while back by the record company to come out now. We decided to just go ahead and stick to the schedule because, as you say, it’s relevant. It seems like now is a really good time to put it out.

For a band that’s over four decades old, it’s rare that you’re still making music at all and rarer still that it’s applicable to modern times.

(Laughs) Yeah, I guess we’re still paying attention to the world around us. But how can you not? Plus, I have a very low threshold for boredom so I’m always trying to push myself when I write. Every time I start a new one, I try to go outside of what the previous record was all about.

It makes sense to me to just keep going.

I’d hate to just keep doing the same things PG 8 • March 2021 • insiteatlanta.com

over and over. I couldn’t stand to listen to it and I don’t think our fans would want to hear it.

Too many heritage acts - artists we both know and appreciate - are living in the past.

Oh, believe me I know. I’m not sure why, though. I guess their record companies are making them do it or they’re just lazy and can’t come up with anything new. I mean, we did that once with a thing called Crackology [a retrospective collection from 2018] but that was as far as we’d ever go with it. We went back and rerecorded songs from over 40 years of stuff with this lineup and it was actually a lot of fun to bring new life to them. But I didn’t stop writing new stuff.

It’s not easy to create new material for a specific sound.

That’s very true. But I work every day. That doesn’t mean I can come up with a song every day. I do it to keep it fresh. But in the middle of it all, if I hear something I’m doing that sounds reminiscent of something we’ve already done, I’ll just toss it and start over.

It’s the only way that I know of to really move forward. Otherwise, boredom sets in. With me, it sets in pretty quickly. I don’t even mind using loops or whatever.

It’s all music, when you get right down it.

It’s just how you play it.

Obviously, the atmosphere of the moment must’ve influenced the themes of this

I wrote that last year and I can feel it right now. You can feel it coming and it’s scary. I think it’s on the way, with all these outside groups that are around us. Somebody’s gonna bang heads here, pretty soon.

That’s job of the artist, to bring these matters to light and maybe solve a few issues along the way.

Well, you’d hope so. I certainly hope it helps for people to hear this and go, ’Yeah, now I see it.’ Maybe it would help if they stopped and listened to a song like this one. But I think the core of the problem is nobody’s listening. Closely anyway.

Which means that nobody is changing their mind. So no matter what kind of a debate you might possibly have, each side is kinda closed up. Closed their minds to what could be better for everyone. Maybe they’ll listen to this record. Who knows, right?

If the record company can get it out there then maybe it’ll help with the issue. They haven’t even picked a single yet, so that’ll be interesting.

You’re definitely not stuck in the ‘70s even though some of these issues were a part of the Vietnam era as well. The title track is a good example.

Oh yeah, well some of these problems are as old as the world, I think. For “Tribes,” it was a look at the whole ‘us and them’ mindset. The way we present it is, I like to think, just an observation. I don’t think we’re really taking any sides, we’re just taking a look at how divided we all are. I do think it’s increased in intensity since the ‘70s, but it’s an ongoing thing.

The divisiveness in the country is just What song would you pick as the unbelievable right now. That, I guess for first single? me, is probably the scariest thing. We’re I think “Quick.” It’s like nine minutes all so divided. There’s so much hatred. If long, but that doesn’t you watch or read the news, matter anymore. Radio is every day there’s something BUT AT THE END pretty much not happening popping up that’s even more but that song has crazy than the day before.

OF THE DAY, WE’RE anyway, been getting a lot of positive Really every day it seems to JUST A ROCK BAND feedback. Satellite radio has increase. So for me, writing very cool with it, you “Tribes” was pretty easy. It THAT TRIES TO KEEP been don’t have to have to do a just came pouring out.

THINGS INTERESTING. short edit anymore, you can As you see more of the THAT’S ALL WE ARE. just let it rip. insanity and add a As the main force behind the few more years of life band, how does it feel to still be around experiences, has your songwriting style and making vital music. changed at all?

Well it’s a band. Every one of us has a The actual mechanics of it haven’t changed. I’ve pretty much been writing the job to do and I’m just a part of it. But to be honest, it does feel good to be able to carry same way for a while now. I tend to write on for so long. Just as importantly, it also the music first and then the lyrics come feels good that we still have people who still next. That’s usually the process. Unless I want to hear it. You know, they called us a hear something that I instantly think, ‘Oh prog band but we’re really not a prog band that’s a great title or that’ll make a great at all. hook.’ If that happens, then Historically, in almost every description of I’ll try to go with it but lately Crack The Sky, the first sentence inevitably when I’m writing contains the words “prog band.”

(Laughs) I know, just about every lyrics I think time! But it’s certainly not an insult by I’m beginning any stretch. to concentrate more on Why has that happened for so long? trying to say I think it’s because of the time changes something a and subject matter. I guess since it’s little differently. not straight-ahead rock and roll, I don’t Like I say, I get think people have ever found a place to uninterested in pigeonhole us. Which can be good, I things pretty believe. But for most people, anything that’s fast. So I want just a little bit out of the norm is instantly to work on labelled as progressive. something that speaks to me and Anything that makes you think, it must also speaks to what I’m seeing. be prog.

Right! I don’t mind, though. But at the end I didn’t always do it that way. Like we were of the day, we’re just a rock band that tries talking about, some of these people just to keep things interesting. That’s all we are. keep rotating the same old stuff over and over. I guess it works for some people, but Tribes is available from all major retail it doesn’t for me. music platforms and via Carry On carryonmusic.com.

The second track is also a very of-themoment rumination, “Another Civil War.”

MUSIC

A-CHANGIN’ WITH THE TIMES

NGDB Revisit a Classic Anthem, With a Little Help from Their Friends

BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH

S

INCE THEIR FORMATION IN California in 1967, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band have written and covered a number of classic songs. They can easily play a long evening of music with a basic greatest hits set, but co-founder/ vocalist/guitarist Jeff Hanna says they still enjoy adding new “transfusions” to their considerable repertoire.

The latest addition to the NGDB catalog is a special rendition of Bob Dylan’s anthemic “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” initially recorded last year before the pandemic shut-down. Finally completed this past January, the song is currently available via most platforms as a digital single - with proceeds supporting Feeding America (www.feedingamerica.org) - a nationwide network of food banks and hunger awareness initiatives.

The galvanizing track - produced by industry veteran Ray Kennedy with guest verses from Jason Isbell, Rosanne Cash, The War & Treaty and Steve Earle - bristles with the same urgency and communal unity the songwriter’s original revelation intended - a mere fifty-seven years after its initial performances.

The current line-up the Dirt Band - Jeff Hanna (vocals, guitar), Jimmie Fadden (drums), Bob Carpenter (accordion), Jim Photoglo (bass), Jaime Hanna (guitar), Ross Holmes (fiddle, mandolin) with percussive assistance from Fred Eltringham (Sheryl Crow, Wallflowers) and Hanna’s wife, singersongwriter Matraca Berg, on harmonica and harmonies - all contribute to the spirited session.

Last month, INsite spoke with Hanna by phone from Nashville on the day the track made its digital debut.

How are you handling these changing times?

We’re sticking around home, pretty much.

Matraca has been writing via Zoom and I’ve been the studio a little bit. Since the pandemic hit us, literally everything in terms of our business has pretty much shut down and the band is here and there. My son Jamie, our fiddle player Ross, our bassist Jim, we all live around Nashville - but our drummer Jimmie lives in Sarasota and Bob lives at Los Angeles. I’ve not seen either of those guys since March 12th of last year.

We’ve had some Zoom calls but everything is kind of on hold. We’d just gotten some recording started last year when everything shut down. But I think in the next few weeks we’ll try and figure out a way to get back to work a little. The recording studios here in Nashville are up and running. Not 100 percent yet, but they’ve figured out pretty well how to stay safe. So there’s certainly a lot of music being created around here, which I’m very happy about.

This era must be your longest downtime from the road.

Ever, seriously. Ever! I mean, the upside is I love my wife and I love to spend time with her but being at home this much, there’s a certain kind of Groundhog Day feeling to it.

We tried a little socially distanced duo show this past summer outside a craft brewery here. People were pulling up in their cars and flashing their lights and honking. That was kinda interesting but it sure was fun to actually play for people 100 yards away

instead of looking at a computer screen.

lyrics took on a whole lot more meaning.

The song is such a part of my DNA it just felt like putting on a comfortable shirt. When I was a teenager, Dylan played a high school across town from where I went to school in Long Beach. A bunch of us went to see him and it was just him with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica rack. The record was out that year in January of ’64 and the concert was December 5th. So it was still pretty new at the time but it left an indelible impression on me. It came very naturally and the guys fell right in and played great on it.

In these strange days, bands seem to be getting along because it’s the first time they’ve actually had a chance to finally miss being around each other.

That’s really funny and it’s so true! Early in the pandemic, Rosanne Cash wrote a piece, I think it was in The New York Times. It was titled something along the lines of ‘the things I thought I’d never miss.’ She was talking about things like standing in a cold parking garage at two in the morning, struggling with a guitar case and a roll-on bag, waiting for the van to the airport to get to the next town. At the time she said she was thinking she was too old for that kinda stuff but now she’s like, what I wouldn’t give to go play in front of 1000 people in a beautiful theater. I can definitely relate. You know, they ALL THESE YEARS LATER, say the music and the I HOPE THAT’S WHAT concert industries were the first to shut down WE’RE DOING AGAIN, and they’ll probably be TRYING TO BRIDGE SOME the last to really open.

When did you decide to bring in the special guests?

I’d been talking to Jason for a while about doing something together and he was really open to the idea.

Late last fall, he did a verse and played a really beautiful slide part on there. Then the War and Treaty, two of my favorite people in the world, came in and just raised the roof.

After that Ray Kennedy, our producer, got really GAPS AND MAYBE BRING busy for a couple of People are hungry for on some other SOME PEOPLE TOGETHER months live music. projects. But he’s been THROUGH MUSIC. Trust me, musicians producing Steve for a are missing it as much as while and during that the fans. time he able to get him on tape singing his verse at Electric Lady Studios. Then the final Let’s talk about the new version of “The piece of the puzzle was Rosanne Cash. We Times They Are A-Changin’.” A number of sent her the track and she said, ‘Oh yeah I’d artists have tried their hand at it - but you be honored to be a part of it.’ We were really and company have actually managed to flattered and grateful. Her husband John make it sound fresh and interesting. How’d Leventhal recorded her in their home studio you select the tune? in New York. Then Ray and I got together, Back in March before the curtain came went through the various stuff and kinda down, we were looking for a couple of things pulled all the parts together. that would be fun to record. It just came up.

With everything going on, the weight of the Your band is known for cool interpretations

but covering an iconic anthem like ‘Changin’ is a monumental task.

Look, you’re really biting off a big chunk when you choose to do a song as iconic as this one. But the times are clearly changing and the song has an incredible relevance right now.

It’s unique in that it always sounds connected to current events.

That’s exactly right. I heard a version a few years ago when the Parkland shooting happened; all those kids took to the streets for the March For Our Lives. It was a beautiful moment and Brandi Carlile did a great version of this tune. In addition to Dylan’s version, those are the two that are really inspiring to me.

Fifty years later, I see some distinct parallels to the Dirt Band’s first Will The Circle Be Unbroken album; the new track has the same feeling of artistic camaraderie, born of an incredible time of change.

Yeah that was right at the height of the Vietnam War so there was a lot of distrust from both sides, musically and culturally.

Back then we were hippies from California essentially thought of as a rock band, which was especially accurate in ’71. But we really loved country music. We all grew up on it.

Now they call it Americana, but then was all roots music. So for these furry rockers from California to get together with the icons from country music in Nashville was a big thing for us. Of course, once we got in the studio everything was fine. There were some really open minds among almost all the participants, especially Earl Scruggs and his sons Randy and Gary. Friends have told me stories over the years how that record was a bonding moment for them and their parents. It sorta bridged a generation gap.

That’s what it’s all about. All these years later, I hope that’s what we’re doing again, trying to bridge some gaps and maybe bring some people together through music.

For more information and to donate for download, visit Nittygritty.com and Feedingamerica.org. insiteatlanta.com • March 2021 • PG 9

FILM

DYLAN DOES SOROS

Filmmaker Jesse Dylan’s New Documentary Looks at the Man Behind the Myth

BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH

T

WO SURNAMES THAT CARRY a lifetime of weight are “Dylan” and “Soros.” Both have become known as international brands for their own idiosyncratic mythology.

In the new documentary “Soros,” filmmaker Jesse Dylan takes a rare look at the man behind the controversies and presents an enthrallingly balanced portrait of the reclusive philanthropist. The film may be the only occasion to see such diverse lightning rods as Tucker Carlson and Kofi Annan in the same movie. The result is a look at a complicated character, a man whose experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust led to an enduring campaign against authoritarianism.

Dylan, son of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, is founder of Wondros, one-stop think-tank agency for art, commerce and film projects. INsite spoke with him before “Soros” screened at the 2021 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

How has the pandemic impacted the Wondros agency?

I’m working on a lot of insoluble problems, so the business doesn’t get directly affected but a lot of people are hurting now and that isn’t great. So we’re just trying to keep helping people and to be of service in areas where we feel it could be most useful. It is interesting, as a company everybody’s learned that they can sort of work from home now. I don’t know that we’ll ever get back to work in the same way.

Wondros does a lot of work within the medical field. Do you have an inside track on how the pandemic is panning out?

Where are we at this point, from what you hear?

I don’t know if we will ever go back to semi-normal because things don’t go backwards. I do think we’re gonna be living with this for a long time. If we can get the vaccine out there, I think there’s a good chance that maybe by the fall it could start to really recede. But I don’t think we’ll be going out without masks or anything for a while.

The pandemic has certainly stuck film festivals. I mean, who would have ever thought “Soros” could play at a drive-in?

Exactly. There is something kind of nice about being able to go to a Film Festival and stay for a few days, to wander around, meet people, talk about movies and see films that you might have never seen otherwise. Meeting new people is definitely difficult these days, but you know the flipside is I have a little podcast that I do and literally you can interview people all up from all over the world now because they’re available.

One thing I’ve noticed about your oeuvre is that no matter the subject matter or tone, the core is good storytelling.

I tend to gravitate toward people who’re trying to do good things in one way or another and that could be in any field, obviously. That’s what I spend most of my time doing. The stories that I tell generally try to affect people in positive ways.

Since you’ve done shortform, longform, PG 10 • March 2021 • insiteatlanta.com

I THINK WITH THIS MOVIE, WHAT I’M TRYING TO SHOW IS WE SHOULD JUDGE HIM ON WHAT HE ACTUALLY DOES AND NOT WHAT YOU MIGHT THINK HE DOES.

music videos and commercials as well as feature films, is it more difficult to tell a story in a short amount of time or when you can just open up and fill 90 minutes?

I’ve found all the mediums have different cadences. I don’t think of any one as particularly harder or easier. If you’re gonna take a photograph for record cover, for example, that has a certain set of things that are important about it, things that are needed. Or if you’re gonna do a picture for a magazine there’s a different set of things needed.

So a music video is different than a commercial.

You just have to be listening and observe what the rules are for that particular medium. I just go into it with an open mind to try and make what I’m working on at that moment as good as possible.

At the core of it all is the art of storytelling.

Sure - but it’s a very, very old thing that people have been doing for 70,000 years or however long it’s been. Since man sat around a campfire, they’ve been telling stories. The thing is just trying to understand your point of view of the material you’re working on. You can interview someone and see not only them but yourself reflected in what they’ve said.

The key is to just know who you are and know what the subject is - and from that, it all works.

Another key is not to get in the way of the story.

Yeah you’ve gotta be listening. You have to be able to tell it as economically as possible so that other people will get excited about it and be interested in it.

That brings us to the matter at hand.

“Soros” is a thoroughly entertaining documentary. One that you actually want to see more than once, which is very rare.

I think this because he’s a very complicated guy. Ultimately I think what’s so interesting about George Soros is that he was able to express on a giant level what we all individually can express on a much smaller level. That’s really the lesson of it, for me anyway, that we can all do things. We just have to decide how we’ll engage with the world.

Like you, he’s all over the place with a myriad of projects. As we discussed, you’ve worked in a number of mediums - whether it’s shooting an album cover or a music video or directing a comedy or a drama and now a new documentary. An art teacher once told me I should focus but I never did. Obviously, you haven’t focused either.

I don’t think you have to focus. You have to get good at whatever you’re doing but

you don’t I have to keep doing the same thing over and over. You can approach it with an open mind, combined with the opportunities that you can get and how best to do them. My work is constantly changing and that keeps me interested in it.

For an artist, variety is the most potent fuel.

I think we all have the freedom to do a variety of things, we just have to decide that’s what we want to do. A lot of times, it does seem easier to focus - like the teacher said - but why? The only thing to focus on is what makes you happy.

How did you become acquainted with Soros? Did his foundation approach your company?

I’ve told a lot of stories for foundations and we had just started to work with his Open Society Foundations when I filmed George initially. I didn’t know much about him and I didn’t know much about the foundation. As I started to get to know him, I found him really fascinating. I found what he was trying to do was interesting.

The thing that was really exciting about George was that he would just go to a place and say, ‘Let me find the people who live here who know the most about what changes need to be made and I’ll invest in those people.’ Then I just kept filming and filming him. After a few years, it sort of came into my mind that I should make a movie of this. It took a couple of years to get his permission but I was happy I was finally able to do it.

In your Director’s Statement, you note that he was not excited about the project at first.

That’s true! To his credit or not, he had never taken much credit for anything he’d done so when we started working with him, to tell the story of his foundation, he was a little reluctant. He just wants to do the work. I don’t think getting credit for the work really means anything to him.

But there’s a lesson in that. So he finally acquiesced and let me do it. It took a long time to really construct it in a way so that people could make sense of it. There were a lot of pieces to assemble because he’s a multi-dimensional guy.

This is an important documentary because the name Soros has been vilified by so many, on both sides, to become some sort of scary boogeyman or mysterious villain.

Yeah and that’s what I really couldn’t understand after I started working with him. Basically, he’s funding so that people can have a voice in the societies they live in.

He’s become this incredible lightning rod for anger and hysteria. It seems like people don’t really look into what he actually does.

I think with this movie, what I’m trying to show is we should judge him on what he actually does and not what you might think he does. If we can get people to focus on that rather than all the conspiracy theories, then they can make up their own minds. And again, that’s the true nature of storytelling.

For more information and a streaming link for “Soros,” visit sorosfilm.com.

MUSIC

OLD SCHOOL AND PROUD OF IT The Local Honeys Carry on the Kentucky Tradition

BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH

“W

AY DOWN IN THE HOLE where he earns his pay, it’s dark and unforgiving. Digging this coal and digging his grave, he’s dying to make a living.”

The Local Honeys are the soulful antithesis of modern studio trickery. They’re old school and proud of it. The Kentucky natives are so steeped in tradition, their latest release is a not-so-subtle dig at the coal industry.

“Dying To Make A Living,” side one of their new double-single release from La Honda Records, depicts the dangers coal miners have often faced on a daily basis. The other track, “Octavia Triangle,” aptly illustrates the two sides of their love of old-time, hillbilly music – their guitar and banjo instrumentation is roughly framed by their plaintive vocal delivery.

The Local Honeys aren’t trying to be top forty or even break into the snobbishness of corporate Americana charts, they simply carry on the traditional sound of their Appalachian roots. They embody the authentic retro style of authentic folk and mountain music, with a decidedly sassy delivery and good-natured humor.

Linda Jean Stokley and Montana Hobbs spoke with INsite by phone from Kentucky on a recent winter day.

Touring isn’t safe yet, but how have you been dealing with the pandemic?

Montana: It’s probably not all that different from anybody else who is a part of the music industry. It’s just a time in both our lives and careers where everything seemed to just stop.

But we have had a lot more time at home to focus on things that aren’t really road related.

Today has been even more unusual because my power is off and my dog jumped into the frozen pond. My hair is still wet from last night. So it’s not glamourous, but it’s a new year and we’re both glad 2020 is over.

The single is from 2019, did you record any last year?

Linda: Montana was against it, she said she didn’t want to have anything with 2020 on it at all. So our next recording will be this year. We had a great 2019 and went on several tours.

At the beginning of 2020 was our most recent tour and we went all over the UK and Europe headlining and with Tyler Childers. That was a big one. So we have done a few things. I think my favorite thing was signing to La Honda Records How about live streams?

Linda: So many of them are so badly lit and the sound is so bad, it’s kind of frustrating to watch them. We’ve tried it, but I’m kind of against them. I love to play music and see my friends play music. But I’m the kind of person that would much rather hang out and play music in somebody’s living room or just sit in someone’s living room while they play music. I really don’t want to watch that on my computer.

It’s missing something, as far as I’m concerned.

The idea of soliciting money from the people who are watching is so vulgar to me. It’s not enjoyable to see people try to talk to their virtual audience, and if you want to see the replies, you have to look real hard at the screen to see what they’re saying. It’s just not very becoming.

Tell us a little about the 2019 sessions.

Linda: I think the single tracks were done in October of 2019. That was from a time when

we were looking to change our sound just a little. We weren’t trying to get away from the traditional music at all, but just sound bigger. A year later, this past October, our friend Jimmy McCowan suddenly passed from a heart attack.

He’s on one of the songs. I think he was what helped us to release these songs, really. This was right after the Harlan County blockade, where five men walked out of the mine down in Cumberland, Kentucky and stopped a million dollars worth of coal from coming out of the mountain. Which I think is one of the most badass things I’ve ever heard about. We were so enthralled and impressed by their grit. We were able to use that song and connect with people from around the world.

These aren’t the standard themes of a modern single by any means.

Linda: I’m glad that we can draw attention to these things. In July of 2019, there was a blockade in Harlan County and over a thousand miners in central Appalachia were put out of work, because of the Blackjewel mining company. They went bankrupt but they didn’t tell anybody. It’s just not right and it’s completely unlawful. We liked the song and we started thinking about it as a way to get the story out about all of this pain and hurt that the miners and their families had to deal with.

Montana: We knew the song from the band Foddershock, but we felt like when you have the place to speak out about on things like this, you should because it’s important to us. In England, we shared the story but we also heard their own stories of their tragedies, too. It’s a post-coal society, somewhat like we are. Even when we’d do our song “Cigarette Trees,” which is about

the strip mines, people would come up to us after the show and say, “They do that here too and we don’t like it, either.”

Linda: So they’re dealing with all these strange parallels that we’d had no idea about. Then we’d go and perform and sing and share all these stories. We’d have people say how prevalent it had been there, too. Sharing these feelings really creates a dialog and a real sense of bonding – over not only music, but of a shared history.

Is “Octavia Triangle” also a true story?

Linda: It is. This was a true story that happened in Pike County, Kentucky. We were trying to find something that would go with “Dying To Make a Living.” So I thought it really told what it’s like to live and work in the coalfields. And it really goes along with our idea

of using the platform that we have to be able to speak out on broader ideas. It gets people to thinking. When we perform, we’re trying to keep it as non-egotistical as possible. We like to keep it more about getting people to think on something about their own community. People are really resilient and sharing our stories just reinforces that feeling.

Montana: I like to think we’re just like the oldtime musicians, but we still want to be known as songwriters, too. So we carry on with that storytelling tradition but we try to balance it with what we think about in what’s going now too. In the time and place we’re from. That’s one of the biggest connectors in music in general just saying, ‘We see you and we are here and you’re not alone.’ It feels good to be a part of something bigger. Sometimes bigger than we even realize.

Being relatable is a big part of the folk music tradition.

Linda: It is. We always find so many relatable things to talk about. I think we really see it even more when we tour in the UK. Touring is part of our platform to connect with people. I mean, people from around the world - that are dealing with the same pain, the same hurt and the same joy, too. I think we’re activists. Montana said the other day, our performances are platforms for our activism and I think that’s a really great way to sum it up.

Montana: Storytelling and passing on the songs of traditional music is a big part of the folk tradition, too. A big thing for us is sharing it with other generations. Traditional music would not have had a leg to stand on, had folks not passed it on and played it and actively taught it to other generations. Linda and I both cut our teeth on field recordings as a way for us to learn traditional music on our own. It’s the best way to learn, from the source.

Linda: Not only learning and teaching, but music is a really good for us to be friends with people of all ages. I think that’s one of the coolest things about being a musician, is getting to learn from other people. I learn from some of the kids I teach. For us, being younger and in a place to help inspire is just a part of the process of learning. We’ve learned from people much older than us and from people a whole lot younger than us. It’s really cool to be able to explore and collaborate and learn. Traditional music has no age limit.

For more information and to order music, visitthelocalhoneys.com and lahondarecords.com. insiteatlanta.com • March 2021 • PG 11

MUSIC

JUST SAY YES

Arc Of Life Is A New Project from Key Members of a Classic Band

BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH

A

RC OF LIFE IS A NEW PROGRESSIVE ROCK band featuring three key members of the current lineup of Yes. Vocalist/guitarist Jon Davison, bassist/vocalist Billy Sherwood and drummer Jay Schellen with Dave Kerzner on keyboards and Jimmy Haun on guitar comprise the band. Does it sound like Yes? Due to the fabric and history of the band, definitely. Not that it’s a bad thing. The complex arrangements and heady vocals on their self-titled debut recall the best of ‘70s prog with lavish elements of ‘80s and ‘90s experimental pop and jazz.

INsite spoke with band co-founder Sherwood by phone from his home studio.

I’ve read you’ve been doing a lot of online lessons during the pandemic.

I have. you know when we lost the Yes Cruise, things started getting really serious, then we lost the European tour. I’d been getting messages from people. ‘Hey, can I get a lesson.’ I’d never had time before but I thought that maybe now’s the time if anyone’s interested. So I’ve been doing music lessons for fun online and meeting folks and helping some people out. It’s been quite cool to see, especially the younger musicians, improving and it’s nice to be a part of it.

Let’s talk about Arc Of Life. How’d it come together?

I’m very proud of it. It’s been a real labor of love, that’s for sure. It actually started in 2017 when I was on the Yes tour. Jon and I shared a bus and every time we had some down-time we’d work on some tracks - after shows and soundchecks or whenever we could kick some song ideas around. We started making these tracks and pretty soon they began to sound really cool. We thought that maybe we should take it to another level and see what happens.

That’s when we really started thinking about putting a band together. Jay Schellen was an obvious choice because he had been with me in Conspiracy and Circa and on my solo stuff - and obviously from playing with Yes. Then Jimmy Haun was in Circa and Conspiracy as well. He was actually in Lodgic with me on my first record, so he seemed like the right person for guitar. Then we added Dave Kerzner, who is a solo artist in his own right. He has that band Sound Of Contact with Simon Collins. That’s the band. Once we had all that together, it was like, ok great. The timing of it all just naturally happened. We weren’t able to work on it a ton because we were on tour with Yes a lot. It took a while to actually develop it.

When you and Jon were working on the ideas initially did you think, ‘Maybe we should pitch this as a Yes project’ or did you just decide to keep it for ourselves?

After we had a few things and played them next to each other, it seemed that even though it does have a Yes vibe to it, being who we are and what we do, but beyond that, it seemed to be turning into a different thing completely.

Comparisons are inevitable due to your connections to Yes, but there’s a whole separate vibe going on as well.

Yeah, we bring to the table the DNA that just comes with us due to the career that we’ve had. Yes is obviously a big part of it for me and for Jon, too.

That’s gonna come by proxy. But the arrangements, the way we PG 12 • March 2021 • insiteatlanta.com

approach the drums, the different angles of attack on the construction of the things, it’s its own unique and new thing.

Who came up with the band name?

I did. Naming a band is always a pain. You’ve always got it on your mind and your buddies are always pipin’ in with their names and you have all these lists. It’s just a nightmare. Somewhere, from sitting out looking at the view from my backyard, I started thinking about the arc of things – the arc of a career and the arc of a life. And how there’s a definitive beginning, middle and end to every.

The arc of all these processes somehow comes together. I mentioned it to the guys in the band and it just stuck. But even after that, I kept throwing out other names at them. I was still thinking we weren’t quite there yet. But they said, ‘No this is the one. Let’s just go with it.’

You should trust their judgement; you’ve spent most of your life with these guys.

Oh yeah you’re right. Jimmy and I go way, way back.

He used to babysit me! His parents and my parents were entertainers in Vegas at the same time, so he became family. I feel like I’ve known him forever. Jay and Dave, too.

Jon is actually my most recent acquaintance because I met him when we were doing the Heaven and Earth album with Yes. So it’s nice to have a band of brothers who can enjoy each other and laugh and hang out, have a beer and play music. That’s what bands are supposed to do, right?

Sometimes they don’t, as we both know.

All too well. But bands are complicated!

The promo materials call it a supergroup, but those are usually sort of thrown together by a record company.

This one seems much more organic.

Yeah, I’m not a huge fan of that term, actually. People are gonna say what they’re gonna say. It doesn’t really bother us. We’re just trying to be the coolest thing we can come up with, amongst the five of us. Selfishly it’s like, ‘Are we convinced and digging this? Ok, cool. Now let’s release it to the world.’

Once the lineup was in place, did it feel like a democracy, or do you and Jon still call the shots?

At first there wasn’t much time to get together as a ‘five-piece band’ but that said, once this is out and

we move forward, we’ve already discussed the concept of getting together in a studio and jamming old school to see what we’ll come up with as a band. Then that would be the democracy because that way we can really expand the way we write. Everyone in the band is a talented writer on their own, it’s just how this first album came to be.

And it came to be in the middle of a dark time.

I think the cover actually speaks to that because it’s looking outside from a dark cave to a beautiful landscape. I just can’t wait to get to that beach you see on the cover. It’s turned into a positive message even though that wasn’t the original case. There wasn’t even a pandemic when we were writing this record.

It seems as if you anticipated the times with a few of these songs.

I know, it’s strange how that turned out. The song, “Until Further Notice” was written about a completely different topic, it wasn’t about these days at all.

“Lock Down” was certainly on the money.

That’s right, but again that wasn’t about being locked down during Covid. It’s weird how it’s worked out this way and how the songs sort of fit the times. I think we probably wrote that around the tail end of 2017.

You also anticipated the isolation of these times with “Talking With Siri.” That’s what some of us are down to at this point.

True. It’s funny how that one came about. I was on tour with Yes in Europe. I was going back to my hotel room having enjoyed hospitality at the gig. Back at the hotel, I asked Siri to set my alarm to 7:30 a.m. or whatever it was, for the flight out. She answered back, ‘Your alarm’s set.’ I said, ‘Thank you’ and she said, ‘My pleasure.’ So I started bantering back and forth with this thing, just to be silly about it. Then I started asking it questions. When she replied with a Vonnegut quote and I was like, ok now wait a minute. So I started writing some things down and basically came up with the bulk of the lyrics and the groove that same night.

Maybe you can get a sponsorship deal with Apple.

It could be the perfect little ad. All you need is about ten seconds of it, you know what I mean? I actually wouldn’t mind it. But Jimmy Haun is the jingle guy in the band.

They call him the Jingle Jedi because that’s one of his things, he’s a master of jingles. He actually wrote the Yahoo jingle. Do you remember that one?

(Sings) ‘Yahooo!’ That was Jim! You can throw that into the live set now.

(Laughs) Exactly! We’ll put “Yahoo” in with “Talking With Siri” and have our own little Jingle Jam. Some acts have a Motown medley but that’s much cooler.

And it’s much shorter!

Before we let you go, any Yes news on the horizon?

I’m sworn to secrecy but all I can say is the fans are going to be very pleased.

For more information, visit @arcofliferockband and frontiers.it

MUSIC

MUSIC

GUITAR GUNSLINGER Warner Hodges “Just Feels Right”

BY DAVE COHEN

H

AVING REACHED A crossroads with Dan Baird and Homemade Sin deciding to cease touring, and a world-wide pandemic bringing bands tour schedules to a grinding halt, we fans found out that it’s going to take a lot more to keep “The Gunslinger,” Warner Hodges down and on the sideline. As it turns out, a respite from being on the road allowed Hodges and Co., The Warner Hodges Band, including Ben Marsden on guitar, Jason Knight on bass and John Powney on the drums, to record and put out a great record back in late-2020, called Just Feels Right.

Hodges has also recently reconnected with former Jason & The Scorchers bandmate Jeff Johnson to form their new band De Piritas along with Jonathan Bright. INsite recently spoke with Hodges during a break in the action in Nashville.

Album Reviews

REVIEWS BY JOHN B. MOORE

Antagonizers ATL Kings

said, “Well, what about interviewing you and Jeff (Johnson)? I kind of laughed and said “Hell yeah. I’d love to do something with Jeff. It made sense. Jeff was a key figure in the local Nashville scene in those days. One thing led to another. We ended up doing the interview. It was wonderful and now we’re sitting on 75% of a record being done.

As someone who is a professional touring musician and who earns their living playing music in a live environment, how have you been managing the pandemiccaused downtime?

That part of it has just been horrible for me. I have not played a show since I got off the Outlaw Country Cruise last year. I guess Some people from the outside looking in we got home in early February. I went into making sure I got my record done (Just Feels might see you and Jeff working together again and think it’s going to result in more Right), had a European tour on the books Jason & The Scorchers for May and June and then, sounding material. obviously all hell broke loose. We had tornados here I HAVE PUT TOGETHER It isn’t like that all. Jeff was originally the creative force. in Nashville followed by the A PRETTY BAD-ASS I kind of let him run with it.

COVID shutdown and then I’ve done a lot of records in BAND. THE LAST the bombing at Christmas. I did nine months on the road STUDIO RECORD WAS the last 15 years, as you well know, and I just thought in 2019 and didn’t do any THE FIRST TIME I WAS that since I have not worked touring in 2020. with Jeff in a long time, ACTUALLY ABLE TO he’s playing some rhythm Dan Baird and Homemade UTILIZE USING MY guitar, I’m just gonna let Sin was a great band. Was it him run and see where this a fork-in-the-road situation BAND TO CUT goes. It’s really a rock and when Dan said he did not roll band. Quite honestly, want to tour anymore after when we got the first song completed with the last European tour?

Jonathan singing, it was like, “Whoa, we’ve Mauro Magellan (DBHS drummer) and I had been talking about it for a few years. We got a different kind of thing here,” which is really cool. For the last fifteen years I’ve knew it was coming. Dan had been talking either heard Jason Ringenberg, Dan Baird, about that for five or six years. That’s why I Joe Blanton (Bluefields) or myself singing started doing the solo records and putting on all the music so it was nice to hear a new together the solo band so that I would not voice. JB’s got kind of a Robin Zander-esque be at point zero, starting over, when Dan power-pop type of thing going. I knew the retired. I did not know if was coming when chemistry with Jeff and I would be fine. it came. Both if us thought we had another He gives me room to do what I do and I year with Homemade Sin before Dan called give him room to do what he does. It’s like it a day. the chemistry we had with Dan Baird. It just happens.

How did you reconnect with Jeff Johnson and eventually start this new project, At the same time, even though you recently De Piritas? released Just Feels Right, are you always De Piritas. It actually translates to “Of Pirate Blood.” (Laughs) We didn’t want to call working on new material for The Warner Hodges Band? ourselves The Pirates but when Jeff said it’s Always. Until we can get together to cut “of pirate blood” I went, “well, that’s exactly it’s not going to go anywhere but I’m always what we are.” Jonathan Bright, a buddy of writing. Always thinking about it. I have mine for years, and Frank Sass, contacted put together a pretty bad-ass band. The last me. They were using the Exit/In club and studio record was the first time I was actually wanted to do this series of interviews about able to utilize using my band to cut. The the old days of Nashville. He originally band guys are actually on the record. Usually contacted me and Jason (Ringenberg) to do all my solo records I’ve hired Nashville guys, a Jason and the Scorchers interview. Jason Dan Baird, Brad Pemberton, and even Tom wasn’t sure if he wanted to do it and I was hem-hawing about it too. I told him if you’re Petersson (Cheap Trick). The Just Feels Right going to go back that far, there’s two or three record is a band record. It is the Warner E. Hodges band. years pre-Scorchers to talk about and he

.

(Pirate Press Records) If you ever doubt the powerfully addictive international pull of Oi music- that fantastic late ‘70s punk rock export from England – just know that a band from Atlanta (ATLANTA!) has just released an Oi record that would make Cock Sparrer beam with pride.

Kings, the band’s follow up to their debut, Working Class Street Punks, was five years in the making. And it’s everything you’re looking for in a street punk album: quick bursts of ferocity, wrapped in soaring gang vocals that stick with you for hours.

Across 10 tracks, the six piece churns out a blistering, raucous record filled with surprisingly optimistic lyrics.

Crammed with themes of overcoming obstacles, drinking and sticking together, Antagonizers ATL aren’t exactly breaking new ground lyrically, but on tracks like “Black Clouds” and the wildly infectious “Trouble” they prove they really don’t have to. The album is a huge step forward for the band and they have found the ideal home at Pirates Press Records.

Classic Ruins

Forget About It

(Rum Bar Records) Following up their last album in just under 15 years, Boston’s Classic Ruins make it easy to forgive when the music is this damn good. Forget About It is a whirl wind of classic, dirty rock. The band’s tight garage punk rock rhythm section is punctuated with Frank Rowe’s distinctively nonchalant, but cool ass vocals. The band runs through some remarkable songs, like the stellar title track, the sly “Little OCD”.

The bulk of the album is comprised of covers - three, surprisingly, instrumentals

by Link Wray (“Rawhide”) Charlie Chesterman (“Theo’s El Camino”) and Lennon and McCartney (“Please Please Me”) - and the strongest one is a fantastic sped up version of Dr. John’s “Light’s Out”.

The album ends with a decent version of Larry Williams “Bad Boy,” that grows on you after repeated listens.

Even though the band took two decades between their first and second albums, Forget About It proves to be worth the wait.

Richard Hell And The Voidoids Destiny Street Complete

(Omnivore Recordings) As one of the godfathers of New York punk rock, Richard Hell’s legacy is rock solid, even if his output over the past few decades has been, well, almost non-existent.

Even when he was fronting the brilliant Richard Hell & The Voidoids, they only managed to put out two records and those were spaced five years apart. That’s partly

what makes Destiny Street Complete so engrossing. Thirty-nine years after the 10-tarck Destiny Street was initially released, this two-disc offering from Omnivore Recordings includes the initial album as it first sounded nearly four decades ago, along with a “repaired” version that reflects how Hell intended the album to sound. The second disc includes 11 remixes of the record along with a dozen demos and live versions of songs from Destiny Street.

Fixing the album’s mix had been of a goal of Hell’s for decades but he was told the masters were lost long ago. Miraculously some of the masters were rediscovered in 2019, so Hell brought on Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ guitarist/ producer Nick Zinner to help him fix the record. The album is being released on a 2-CD deluxe edition and on vinyl.

“I’ve been working on this release for 40 years. Long road! Three different versions of the same 10 songs, from the same basic tracks by the same four musicians. I couldn’t help myself and I’m glad, god damn it.”

Oberon Rose

Holographic Blues

(ThouART Records) Over the course of three records, Nashville’s Oberon Rose has been consistent in avoiding being pigeonholed by a specific sound.

The band – build on the songwriting team of Tommy Oberon and Rebecca Rose – has cobbled together a specifically unique brand of psychedelictinged pop music (think Big Star, Badfinger, Wings and The Posies) while also giving nods to garage rock vets like The Flammin’ Groovies and The Kinks on previous records. Their latest still draws on those influences while also opening the tent flap to let in folk and country inspirations as well.

The big difference being that Holographic Blues is their most cohesive record yet, with all those disparate influences blending together nicely. A slew of British Invasion bands can also be heard through the guitars on this album.

Though Rose writes all of the band’s lyrics, she doesn’t play on the album. Oberon does however, playing guitar, singing and producing the record. The band is fleshed out with Glen Metcalfe on drums and Chris Listorti on bass and synth.

The opening, driving track, “Sinner” is highly addictive with its strong power pop vibe and the band hardly lets up for the next 30 minutes. Part of the band’s appeal is the stellar backing vocal, once common place on rock albums, that seem pretty rare nowadays.

The album drags slightly in the middle thanks to the droning “Loser Of The Year” and “Chinese Whisper,” two songs that aren’t necessarily bad but just don’t fit in with the vibe of the rest of the record. The album gets back on track with the psychedelic “Falling Up” and finishes strong. insiteatlanta.com • March 2021 • PG 13

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