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Event
Malcolm Holcombe with Shawn Williams
Malcolm Holcombe is possessed by a singular sort of solitary genius that, like the novelist William Faulkner, is yet the voice of an entire region the South--and even of a generation, though somehow transcendent of it, timeless. If true greatness moves from the particular to the universal, his music speaks for all of humanity while remaining entirely his own.
A North Carolina son of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Holcombe belongs to a tradition of bardic singer-songwriters that includes such legends as Townes Van Zandt, Blaze Foley, Gurf Morlix and David Olney. He is an acclaimed contemporary of Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle and has shared the stage with Merle Haggard, Richard Thompson, John Hammond, and Leon Russell. Yet Holcombe stands apart, his soul-stirring lyrics are hill country high poetry, the music pure back roads. His musicianship is uncanny, like no other, as though he had invented the guitar.
In a very real sense he is a latter day Elizabethan poet troubadour of barrooms, ragged towns and coal miner shacks. His intimate, poignantly etched lyrics invite you in, sit you down, speak directly to you. Listening to them, you are befriended.
joseph marta seven kids/i know them names by heart/ your mother's father worked the mines/ petersburg to charleston/ st petersburg to charleston
ol wringer washer's on the porch/ thieves done stole him blind/ one empty bottle rot gut wine/ cotton worked the mines/ ol cotton worked the mines
Holcombe not only knows these people intimately, but offers you direct witness to their tragedy:
fifty cents a bloody day/ no child labor laws/ most them lil' babies died/ disease and alcohol/disease and alcohol
From Good Ol' Days:
Holcombe's guitarwork is always masterfully spontaneous. On stage, edgily rocking his chair, his finger-flying fretwork and strum spin the theater like a roulette wheel, while his granular voice takes us aboard an Americana folk bus that is a ravaged speeding palace of bad luck and hurtles us down the blacktop road of no return where chain gang blues mingle with Celtic madrigals resonant with hardbitten lives.
But also there are is the gentle echoing of the early Irish ballads of yore and you know that what you're hearing is like nothing that you've ever heard:
a pint er two in belfast/ burns the eyes o' josephine/ an irish girl forever curls/ around your heart o' glass
shattered blowin' into town/ shattered goin' back/the nightshift calls your council/ pittance in your pockets
the wretched poor o' poison blood/the government the hospital/ they snitch and laugh and never smile/straight jackets for the crooked mile"
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LocationDyson House Listening Room @ Christian Street Furniture (View)
7474 Corporate Blvd
Baton Rouge, LA 70809
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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