Real Music
October 13, 2001
The tour crew and local stage hands have worked most of the day setting up for an evening show: Patty Loveless and her tour band. But otherwise the twenty-five-hundred-seat theater is empty when the eight performers arrive on stage at three-thirty for sound-check. There’s no audience to impress and the band is dressed in shorts, jeans, tee-shirts, sandals, and sneakers. Patty herself wears jeans and a green brush jacket. When they play, it’s all easy-going and carefree, but you can’t help noticing this band is tight, as are their 3- and 4-part harmonies. They’re playing mostly from her latest release, Mountain Soul, more traditional bluegrass and mountain tunes that harken back to eastern Kentucky where she was raised (truly a coal miner’s daughter).
The road crew drum-tech, Dave, is focusing the stage lighting. In blue overalls, a ball-cap,and glasses, he traverses the floor, speaking into a radio to Liz, a local hand located way up on the theater’s catwalks. You can’t hear what he’s saying over the music but he flings one arm high and the other wide and pointing, and a swath of orange light shifts back and to the left to bathe the drum riser. He nods vigorously then crosses to stage right, the orange clicks off and the stage turns magenta.
Patty and two other women, who play fiddle and sing backup, form the band’s front line.Centered behind them, the drummer and his kit sit sixteen inches off the floor on a riser. Two other risers, one on either side, support the keyboard and steel guitar players. And sandwiched between these risers, two more musicians play guitar and bass.
In the midst of “Soul of Constant Sorrow” one of the girls in front launches into a haunting fiddle solo. She leans into her work, knees bent and eyes closed, Patty and the rest of the band watching and playing behind her. After a little, she turns and giggles, lifting her bow from the strings, and the music trails off into the odd chord and drum-beat and “Yeah, well,you—“ brraaang— “No, really, I—“ plink— ploonk. They clown around some and begin another song. This being sound-check, they don’t need to play each piece through.
The band’s stage manager and guitar tech, Jay, has been working since before noon to setup the show, wearing shorts, tee-shirt, and sneakers. But now his bare legs and sneakers appear beneath a long, black cape, fashioned from a left-over scrap of drape and knotted below his chin. Someone has labeled him “J” with white tape on his back. The band pays no attention as he strides across the stage. Buffoonery is part of the backstage scene.
Twin fiddles kick off, banjo and base take up, and the band lights into a rousing kick-up-your-heels tune. Patty sings, “Gather round ladies, gather round/ Hear the news that’s comin’ down/ The ships are in and the sails are down/ The boys are back in town.” The guitar player slides in close to her left, sharing the mic, and the fiddle girls to her right, and they sing harmonies on the chorus: “Well the boys are back in town/ Your true love can be found/”—the music quits abruptly, and Patty alone hits the next line a cappella—“Gather round the old playground/ The boys are back in town.” In the next verse the blond girl plinks through a pretty mandolin solo.“Gonna raise some hell, ‘cause don’t you know/ The boys are back in town.” The two girls turn face to face, playing dueling fiddles, then link right arms and skip in a tight circle when the music breaks off into laughter. Patty grins and turns to speak to the slide guitar player behind her.
This afternoon she’s just a great girl singer—she might as well be on the playground herself. But tonight you’ll notice she’s a tallish blonde, with styled hair falling to her shoulders on the sides and a little longer in back. The jeans and brush jacket will give way to stylish attire:sparkly sequins on snug lamé slacks, her sandals replaced by heels, and the brush jacket by a fancy ruffled blouse. The rest of the band will change to shiny boots with heels, and the girls will wear tight white pants and pretty blouses, one with bare shoulders. This afternoon their music turns to play; but no clowning tonight. Patrons in high-dollar seats will expect more. Tonight, blinded in the lights and introduced by the lieutenant governor, they’ll stand straight and dignified, professionals.
But night hasn’t darkened anything yet. Five clear notes on an acoustic guitar lead to a brisk a cappella harmony, the last tune for sound check. Twin fiddles, banjo, slide guitar—the works—and Patty’s off into “Shady Grove, pretty little miss/ Shady Grove, my darlin’/ ShadyGrove, pretty little miss/ Goin’ back to Harlan.” Dave, finished with focusing, does a chicken walk across the stage. “But every time he calls my name/ It nearly drives me crazy/ Shady Grove,pretty little miss/ Shady Grove, my darlin’.” Patty beams as she sings, with a hand across her heart, eyes closed and face uplifted.