I can say unequivocally, without hesitation, with favorable bias, and with complete transparency that I am a Tommy Womack fan (web | Twitter). For dang near 30 years, I've listened to his music repeatedly - first as a member of Government Cheese, then (and now) as a solo artist, and in his other bands such as The Bis-Quits and Daddy.
Tommy's songs aren't generally ones you'll crank at an outdoor, tailgate, societal type of soiree. Though if you and your pals are long-time Cheese fans, you can probably still rock Camping On Acid and Fish Stick Day for the masses. Otherwise, I generally advise folks to absorb Tommy's lyrics like a topical ointment - frequent application with slow but predictable and steady results.
In the Cheese days, I drank a lot of beer, laughed a ton, tried to make a move on the gal I eventually married, and talked throughout the shows. In Womack's post-Cheese career, I don't do any of those - at least to an excess.
Those who know me best know I like to talk. A lot. I'm not the best listener - never have been, likely never will be. Yet for whatever reason, Tommy Womack can alter my natural inclinations. I listen to his lyrics intently.
I do still laugh along with lyrics to many of his songs.
Some of his songs have made me - and still do - tear up a bit. (Don't believe me? Listen to Willie Perdue 3x, and we'll meet over an uncut onion to see who is really real.)
Some have made me say with relief Whew, glad I've met him, but I'm damn glad I live MY life.
Some have dropped my jaw and made me ask How in the world man...., and long to give him a comforting hug.
Womack's latest album NAMASTE delivers a bit of all of the above. The album has a true arc of intensity. Near its beginning and end are are songs about hair and hot flashes. In the middle sits a couple of songs with messages as thick as a Carnegie Deli sammich.
After the album's opener Angel, Tommy jumps right in the humor with both feet with Combover Blues. I'm not there - yet - but many men of similar age will likely relate and commiserate.
As a complementary track, Womack again offers up a healthy dose of humor - this time for his female listeners. Hot Flash Woman is the second to last song on the album.
As Combover Blues ends, Womack takes the tone up a notch with two back-to-back serious but enjoyable songs: End of the Line and It's Been All Over Before. For those familiar with his discography, the two songs remind me a bit of If That's All There Is To See and She Likes To Talk from his previous albums, There, I Said It! and Stubborn, respectively.
NAMASTE then hits its apex of relevance at the middle of the album.
I first heard God Part 3 a couple of years ago during an in-the-round, songwriter's evening at a now-departed West Nashville bar. After I re-hinged my jaw, I've been looking forward since that evening to hearing it as an officially released song. On the recorded version, Womack is backed with a rhythm section with a sound similar to the Tennessee Three - an appropriate sound considering Johnny Cash was another songwriter and performer who tussled regularly with his beliefs.
Back around 2007, I was at The Basement on 8th Avenue in Nashville for Tommy's record release show of There, I Said It. The album was (and still is) incredible. He'd just been featured on the cover of the Nashville Scene, he was sporting an out of the ordinary beard, his voice was hoarse ... and he hugged me as he came into the place that night. I recall greeting him and offering him a handshake with congrats. He gave me a hug instead. That was fine and all, but I did chuckle in surprise. Only recently did I - and others - learn he had hit a wall about a week earlier. Badly. Little did we know...
Out of that experience followed I Almost Died. Musically, the song is an enjoyable listen. The transparency and pain of the autobiographical lyrics, however, makes it very challenging to absorb.
After the listener is left clearing his or her throat, rubbing his knee caps and looking around the room, Tommy does return you to the comfort of your couch and a good laugh with When Country Singers Were Ugly and the aforementioned Hot Flash Woman.
He then combines humor and sarcasm in the shaken-AND-stirred, jazzy, spoken-word commentary Nashville. Not a lot to watch here - just listen, visualize Music City, cringe and laugh.
NAMASTE will be available far and wide for sale beginning this Friday, June 24, through just about every conceivable channel. I recommend it at whatever max metric floats your boat.
Last year, I learned about National Train Day for the first time. Fortunately, I wasn't too far behind as Amtrak started it in 2008. For 2013 NTD, I blogged a handful of train songs ranging from funny to introspective to downright swampy. So how's about we do so again in 2014?
I'll lead with Graveyard Train by Doug and Telisha Williams who now record and tour as Wild Ponies. This one is included on Doug and Telisha's album, Ghost of the Knoxville Girl. Ghosts? Graveyards? Lonesome train whistles? Oh yeah, be afraid - very afraid - but still rock!
Next is Southbound Train by The Newton Gang. I stumbled across this one quite by accident. The song was included on the compilation CD Brooklyn Country Vol. 1 sent to me by Uncle Leon & The Alibis - who were featured in last year's set of train songs.
Songwriters like Guy Clark come along maybe once in a generation - perhaps even every two or three. Texas 1947 ranks among my favorites from Guy's long list of great songs. And it just happens to include a story about a train!
OK, so Boxcars by Eric Brace and Peter Cooper as a train song might be a stretch. But c'mon, it's got boxcars, freight trains, a Nashville Sounds baseball jersey, and a sad love song ballad by two of TMC's favorite songwriters ... and people.
Speaking of favorites, Tommy Womack sings the next one. Willie Perdue continues to stun me each time I hear it. Many of Tommy's songs make me laugh, smirk, tap my foot, laugh some more, nod in approval, cross my arms as I get pissed off, etc. But Willie from Tommy's 2000 album Stubbornmakes me sit still ... and intentionally listen. A post-high school jock with a fascination for trains chooses to hop a boxcar one summer evening...and then his life in the small town will never be the same.
I couldn't rustle up a YouTube clip of the song. Nor do I have a boot of it from any of his shows. But he did play it at the Family Wash one night a couple of years ago at my request. The patrons collectively had the same reaction as me when I listen to it. Not silence, quietness. And he honored my request again by allowing me to share the album's song here for you.
Wreck of the Old 97 is based on a true story and has been recorded by many for almost 100 years. I really dig this version by The Osborne Brothers.
Last year I featured six songs. This year I think I'll share seven. And I'll close with Driver 8 by R.E.M.
I started listening to Government Cheese in the late 1980s. Through the wonders of the www and e-mail, I connected with Tommy Womack from the Cheese. In turn, Tommy introduced me to the music of Todd Snider when he mentioned a gig where he agreed to play bass in Snider's band, The Nervous Wrecks. Bada-bing, bada-boom, I then started listening to Todd's music...a lot. Soon I found my way to the Todd Snider List-Serv (aka The Sh*t House Wire) where I've met a few kindred spirits sharing a common interest in similar types of music that I prefer.
Michelle, one of the lifers at The SHW, recently completed and uploaded a one-hour video documentary project she did for a degree course. In her words:
It's a discussion about communication between artists and audiences with some of the guys from Daddy (Will, Tommy and Dave - and Michael Webb, who recorded At the Women's Club.)
While Daddy may not be a household name as a band, its pedigree is solid. The full band line-up is Womack, Will Kimbrough, Dave Jacques, and Paul Griffith. Depending on travel schedules and location, Womack and Kimbrough often play together just as a Daddy duo.
Tommy's background is well established with his time in Government Cheese, his solo releases, songwriting with Jason and The Scorchers, and a one-release deal with The Bis-quits. Jacques is perhaps most recognizable as the long-time bassist for the legendary John Prine.
I first started listening to Kimbrough in the late 1980s or so when he fronted his band, Will and The Bushmen. More recently, he has released a handful of solo records. In his 'spare time', he has played with Todd Snider (and produced some of his early records), Jimmy Buffett, Rodney Crowell, and Emmylou Harris - just to name a few.
At The Women's Club was the debut release for Daddy back in 2005. They followed up with a second release in 2009 titled appropriately enough For A Second Time. I was fortunate enough to attend the in-store release performance at Grimey's for that one. (Trivia time: Did you know Mike 'Grimey' Grimes was the bassist in The Bis-Quits along with Tommy and Will?)
If you aren't familiar with Slide It In referred to in the first portion of Michelle's video, here is a full performance of it. Though a great performance in its own right, its not the same version referred to in her documentary.
Great work Michelle!
And if you are wondering about the Six Seconds of this entry's title, you've got to at least watch the portion of Michelle's doc around the 3:00 to 6:00 section.
Thought I might try this theme beginning today and on Saturdays to follow. Songs with U.S. cities in the title. With this being the inaugural post in the series and my being a native Tennessean, songs about cities in the volunteer state seemed the logical place to begin.
I'm open to suggestions. Multiple songs about a specific city? State? Region? Single artist - multiple city songs? Solo artists or bands? Comment away.
For this entry, I specifically made sure the song was available on YouTube. Clearly not all songs are represented there. So some weeks I may just have a link to the audio. Who knows - let's just see where it takes us.
In June 1987, I began my first professional career in Chattanooga, TN and immediately built some new friendships - a few that still exist to this day. In June 1988, a young lady began at the same office, quickly hit my radar and later lowered herself to marry me. From mid-1987 and into 1989ish, my friends, my girlfriend and I spent many Friday nights listening to cover bands and drinking beer at a long-since-gone joint called Yesterdays.
In 1988, Michelangelo's Pizza opened near Yesterdays. It was a good lunch place for us during work hours, but that was about it. Until. The manager started booking bands - regional, touring bands with original music. We loved the vibe of Yesterdays, but I really started getting into Michelangelo's as they booked such bands as The Connells, Stealin Horses, Royal Court of China and ...
The band then ...
My girlfriend / later wife and I have never really seen eye-to-eye (or heard ear-to-ear as the case may be) on the same type of music. As a general rule, I'm a below-the-radar, not-on-radio music fan. She's always been about the top 40 pop crap and can listen to the same drivel over and over and over and over and over. But she even liked Cheese cuts such as Fish Stick Day, Mammaw Drives the Bus and Yellow Cling Peaches.
A former roommate of mine, she and I saw the band a second time in Nashville. The band opened for Guadalcanal Diary at The Cannery Ballroom. Its one of the most ironically-named music venues in the city as its just a big ol' warehouse room with columns in it. But that night, I remember the place was PACKED. The columns were our oasis. If a bit of breathing room was needed, you just shuffled over to a column because each one seemingly had its own personal buffer zone that folks respected.
The third and final time I saw them (until last Saturday) was at a Chattanooga pool hall called Shooters. (The place ran a very dumb ad: Come see your favorite sporting events on the area's largest 10' TV screen.) I don't remember a lot about the show except they had the band on a platform stage a good bit above the main floor level. It gave singer Scott Willis all the room he needed to leap from the stage with his microphone and sing amongst the crowd below before climbing back up to re-join his band.
Then they were gone - or maybe I was. The band lasted another half-dozen years I think, but I didn't get the fourth opportunity to see them. In recent years, however, the internet played out a wonderful scenario. I Googled the band, found lyricist-singer-guitarist Tommy Womack, cold-emailed him, revisited some of my memories from those shows, and closed with something lame to the effect of "well, thanks for reading".
To my surprise, he replied within a day, said he remembered those shows and thanked me for contacting him. That led me to purchase all of his CDs and see him perform live probably about a dozen times and counting. I also credit him for introducing me to the music of Todd Snider about 7 or 8 years ago. He was headed somewhere to play bass in a band to back Todd. I had no idea at the time who Todd was but figured I'd give his music a shot. A pretty good tip TW.
About 20 years later, I got the opportunity to see the Cheese a fourth time. Late last year, Womack released a 2-CD anthology of Cheese music - songs from their four commercial releases, alternate recorded versions and live tracks from a show in Kentucky in the early '90s. In support of the CD, the band reunited for a World... err... Nationwide... umm... I-65 Tour consisting of... well... just two dates. One for each of the CDs I suppose. The first gig was in Bowling Green, KY, and the second and final one was last Saturday night at The Rutledge in Nashville.
I intended to take good show notes for this entry. I took a pre-printed "set list" of Cheese songs in alphabetical order and planned to number them as the night progressed. Apparently, however, the pen fell out of my pocket on the way from my truck to the front door. Feeling it was a sign to ease-up, I simply did my best to remember what happened and just enjoy the night.
After procuring a Yazoo pale, I walked into the room and was able to land a spot at stage left near bassist Billy Mack Hill and guitarist Chris "Viva Las Vegas" Becker. It wasn't long, however, before "the eclipse" moved in - a good size feller who shoe-horned his way in front of many of us blocking our view as he head-bobbed for the early part of the show. Once he bulled his way in, it created a leak in the dam where another 8 to 10 folks forced their way in as well with the simple exchange of "Hey, you mind if we get up here? Thanks. Hey y'all, come on up here too!" But it was the Cheese, I was up front, and nothing was going to derail the fun times.
With very little banter, the band hit us right in the mouth by opening with Oh Yeah.
After months of planning and rehearsing for the two shows, Tommy apparently got really sick on game day. He donned his rally derby and soldiered on to the show. As a hedge, ringer guitarist and pleasant surprise to all, the band brought in Warner Hodges, the legendary guitarist from Jason & The Scorchers. From what I gathered, Warner had planned to join them on a couple of songs. As it turned out, he seemed to have a genuinely good time and played on about a third of the setlist.
Tommy Womack
For the third or fourth song, the band kicked off Underneath the Watertower, the second track from their EP, C'mon Back To Bowling Green And Marry Me. About half-way through the song, Willis seemed to forget the lyrics, seemed ready to bail on the song and was ready for the band to re-start the song. But there is no crying in baseball and no mulligans in rock-and-roll. The band kept their rhythms, the crowd chanted their support, Scott smiled and gathered his thoughts and they forged their way through the rest of it. He apologized when the song ended saying he moved it up in the setlist to get it out of the way early and hedge against forgetting the lyrics. But no one cared.
Scott Willis, Viva Las Vegas and Joe Elvis
With only a minor hiccup or two, the band ripped through their first pretty tight and VERY LOUD set. I glanced over at one point and noticed a guy half my age with ear plugs in his ears. I dismissed him as a complete FAIL. After another song or two though, Willis asked someone to grab him some napkins so he could stick them in his ears. Sure enough, someone soon fetched a stack of about 100 for him.
He wadded up a couple, crammed them in his ears and gave the rest to the crowd saying "You may need these. We're turned up to 11." Hopefully my fellow middle-agers got the Spinal Tap ref. As for me, no way was I going for the ear protection. I didn't wait two decades to hear a clipped MP3 version of the Cheese. Who cares if everything on Sunday sounded as muddy as a Polygram cassette tape? (Surely some of you are similarly aged to appreciate how awful pre-recorded Polygram cassettes sounded back in the day.)
Twenty years ago at a Cheese show, alcohol flowed in prodigious amounts and cig smoke hung in the air like a San Fran fog. In 2011, though the room was packed, the bar wasn't overly busy and smoking is almost non-existent anymore - at least on a club floor. Most folks seemed to claim their spot and stay there much of the night. Once the first set ended, I downed another couple of Yazoos quickly and figured I'd stake out a new spot as folks took bathroom and smoke breaks. Sure enough, I eased to the opposite end of the stage and secured a great spot. I laughed a bit as I talked to a youngster standing next to me saying "I'm guessing you weren't around much for the first go-round of Cheese." The kid said something to the effect of "they were around in 1985 but I wasn't born until 95." It then dawned on me it was Tommy's son. His mother, Beth, settled in behind him. As Tommy noted in his write-up of the show, his son finally got to see his dad in the rock-and-roll glory he'd only heard about as he's grown up. Tommy references his son's drumming skills in his solo song, Alpha Male & The Canine Mystery Blood. I jokingly needled Nathan a bit by suggesting he ask for a chance to drum on one of the songs. But smartly I suppose, he was content to stay at the lip of the stage and just absorb it all.
Scott Willis & Billy Mack Hill
Tommy Womack and Warner Hodges
The second set picked up right where the first one ended. Included was one of my faves, Billy Mack's The Shrubbery's Dead Where Danny Used To Fall. Its hardly an uplifting song, but I've enjoyed it since day one for a couple of reasons: One, lyrically its the complete opposite of some of the Cheese's more comedic songs. Two, the visual created by the song's title made me laugh in a whacked sort of way from the first time I heard of it. Three, being a Monty Python fan, the word "shrubbery" always brings a smirk to my face - even in the midst of the dark subject matter of the song.
Another example of how the show of Saturday wasn't the show of 20 years ago. As the second set peaked, a near 50-year-0ld Willis pulled a stage dive several feet to the right of where I was standing. Rather than be prepared to catch him, the aging audience with their iPhones and Droids in hand shrieked a bit, parted ways and barely broke his fall.
A beer-soaked playlist
As mentioned at the beginning, I didn't keep notes about the setlist. But I know the following songs were played. Other than opening with Oh Yeah and closing with the Jim Carroll cover People Who Died (are you listening Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen?), I'm not going to pretend to remember the exact order or set.
Oh Yeah (TMC video'd) Rebecca Whitmire Underneath The Watertower Stay With Me Mammaw Drives The Bus I Wanna Be a Man A Little Bit of Sex (less Tommy's 10-minute Gene Simmons story he generally tells in his solo shows) No Sleeping in Penn Station For the Battered (TMC video'd) Face to Face Nothing Feels Good I Can't Help Myself Single Yellow Cling Peaches Camping on Acid Sunday Driver I Can't Make You Love Me Cattle Prod > American Band (TMC video'd) The Shrubbery's Dead (Where Danny Used To Fall) (TMC video'd) C'mon Back to Bowling Green and Marry Me Fish Stick Day (TMC video'd) > My Old Kentucky Home
Encore: Bathtub He Asked Folsom Prison Blues Jailbait Skinny & Small > People Who Died
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These days, I prefer a chair at a small, round table or perch myself on a bar stool in a small room listening to a singer-songwriter over arena/stadium concerts or ridiculously loud rock shows in a club. But if the Cheese reunite in another 20 years, I hope I'll be there to see them - even if it means turning my hearing aid up to 11 to enjoy the show.
In the late 1980s, amidst my post-college, early professional years, I was introduced by a friend to the band Government Cheese. As I recall, I don't remember his having any recordings by the band. He had just heard them on local rock radio while on a visit back to Nashville. (We shared an apartment in Chattanooga back then.) So during one of my own family-visit trips back to Nashville, I picked up a cassette of the Cheese's four-song EP C'mon Back to Bowling Green...and Marry Me.
Shortly thereafter, I bought their Three Chords, No Waiting "live" cassette. (I learned much later the producer piped in live audience part of the release during the mix.) I was fortunate to see the band live three times - twice as headliner in Chattanooga and once in Nashville as the opener for Guadalcanal Diary.
Over time, I didn't hear much more about the band. I relocated back to Nashville in the mid 90s and simply continued listening to new and established artists and bands. However, I remained curious what happened to the Cheese but didn't have much way to dig into it.
Then a wonderful thing happened - [sarcasm] Al Gore invented the internet! [/sarcasm]
A night of Google searches landed me on tommywomack.com where I learned the band's guitarist was alive and well, had released a couple of solo CDs, and had written a book about his time in Government Cheese. An e-mail sent. An e-mail received. Ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing, a correspondence dialog began, and I was back to listening to my old cassettes and learning about the days of the Cheese.
I've had the good fortune to see Tommy perform many times in different venues around Nashville: The Basement, Exit-In, Grimey's New and Pre-Loved Music, The Melrose (now closed), the Belcourt Theatre, and even the parking lot of Sam's Sports Bar in Hillsboro Village. My favorite spot to hear him perform, however, is the Family Wash. Its a pretty small club seating about 100 people in East Nashville - home of Tommy as well as Todd Snider. Its the part of town where the motto is East Nashville: We'll Steal Your Heart...and Your Lawnmower.
Its not the Bluebird Cafe. Its not Tootsie's on lower Broadway. Its East By Cracky Nashville.
Last Saturday was my first opportunity to visit the Wash in a couple of years. Tommy's set was part of the Wash's concluding night of "10 Years of Short Sets" where several local artists get to perform a handful of cuts. While likely tough for the artists/bands to set-up for only a half-dozen songs or so, its neat for the audience to hear a diverse range of talented Nashville musicians and songwriters.
Before Tommy began his set, he was preceded by Tom Mason - a long-time talented performer around Nashville. As he got ready to perform, it dawned on me I'd met him about three years ago at the Wash when he was in a band called The Big Happy with his wife and Nashville performing and producing couple, Billy and Jill Block. I reminded him of that show, and he remembered it. Mason is quite the showman with no two songs sounding quite the same and his hamming it up during the brief set list. Three songs stood out to me from his set:
Chano Pozo's Shoes - An exceptional song based loosely on the true story of a conga player who introduced jazz great Dizzy Gillespie to Afro-Cuban rhythms.
The World is Drunk - Mason said the basis for the song is his opinion about the world's appetite for oil. Politics aside, it really is a neat song. During the song, he set down his electric guitar and picked up ... a trombone. He then roamed around the room playing it and playfully bounced the slide against ornamental balloons hanging from the ceiling.
The Pirate Song - A completely unexpected closer for me titled simply enough, The Pirate Song. All of us were encouraged to yell "We'll all go down / we'll all go down / we'll all go down...with the ship. Argh!" at the appropriate time.
You can listen to all three of these songs - and several others - on the music page of Tom's website.
Over the last several years, I've seen a number of talented musicians back Tommy. Yet, he's always been billed simply as "Tommy Womack". Saturday, however, he introduced himself and the band as Tommy Womack and The Rush To Judgment. The ensemble featured Paul Griffith on drums, Dan Seaborn on bass, Mark Robinson on guitar, and Lisa Oliver-Gray on backing vocals. An accordionist from Tom Mason's band, Michael Webb, also sat in on a few cuts.
Having memorized the lyrics from most of his songs, I can generally mumble along to them as he sings them. Saturday night, however, he introduced several new tracks, and I wasn't familiar with any of them. That was fine though as I just kicked back, enjoyed my Brooklyn Brown Ale, and tried to absorb the new cuts he offered.
With the number of years Tommy has under his belt - from Cheese days, as a solo performer, as co-writer with Jason and The Scorchers, playing with Will Kimbrough as Daddy-The Band, and/or as a sometimes member of Todd Snider's band - he's developed a loyal core of fans who attend his shows. However, the age demo of the audience continues to climb with each gig! Lots of gray hair, bi-focals, and paunches were in attendance. The days of moshing in the front of his stage... well, I think that ship has sailed. But the huge upside though is the folks largely listen to his performance vs. talking all the way through it as is too often the case in a lot of clubs.
Because he was the final act of the Short Sets evening, Tommy didn't play as long as I would have liked. Yet the songs he did perform in his allotted time were great - especially the new ones.
Set list:
If That's All There is to See
Play That Cheap Trick (new)
A Nice Day
Indy - A new, a cappella, spoken-word 'rap' with only Griffith laying down a drum riff. The lyrics are so new Tommy had to read them from a sheet. He told me afterwords the song is based on a true story - though its not one of which he's proud.
It Doesn't Have to be That Good (new)
On and Off the Wagon (new)
Guilty Snake Blues (new) - The song includes the line "I've met my share of reptiles..." I found the lyric interesting for two reasons. One, its not often the word reptiles is worked into a rock-and-roll song. Two, the record label's name for Government Cheese back in the day? Yep, Reptile Records. A connection? I don't know, but I'm just wonderin...
Honest I Do - featuring Lisa on vocals. I've heard Lisa many times on backing vocals. She's got such a great voice, and I was glad she got the stage to sing lead vocals.
Alpha Male and the Canine Mystery Blood
With that, the show was over. I'd just ordered my next Brooklyn thinking Tommy had another few songs to go. But in keeping with the short sets theme of the evening, the show was done. Dan and Mark packed their guitars, and Paul started his drum kit tear-down. I took my freshly poured beer and went to Tommy to talk a bit before I headed out. I patiently waited as a couple of other folks talked to him. Patiently. Hit the bathroom. Returned. Waited some more. Patiently.
About the time I was going to talk to him, a woman slid in front of me and said "We drove from Columbia, South Carolina to see you. We'd love to hear more." So Tommy being one to accommodate his audience said "Uh, OK. Lisa you ready?" So with many having already left, Paul disassembling his drum gear, and the Wash's staff bussing tables to shut down for the night, Tommy and Lisa returned to the stage.
He encored with:
I Need a Cigarette
I'm a Coackroach After the Bomb
Wishes Do Come True (new)
I'm Too Old To Feel That Way Right Now (new)
There's No Sex Addicts Anonymous (new)
After those 3 song fragments, he quipped "Pardon me, I'm having kind of a Ryan Adams moment here." I thought the line was hilarious. However, some woman off to the side clearly didn't get it and bleated "CUTS LIKE A KNIFE!" He directly but with good humor responded "Get out! Get out you!"
He closed with two final ones:
Pot Head Blues (new)
Bye & Bye
About two years ago, Tommy purchased the masters of Government Cheese's recordings. After a large investment of time, effort, and money, he recently released the 2-CD anthology Government Cheese: 1985-1995. If you haven't experienced the Cheese, I highly encourage you to add this one to your Christmas wish list. Also, be sure to watch the Behind The Cheese videos on his YouTubechannel. Some very funny anecdotes about the days in the band, inspiration for songs, etc.
Also, as we now enter this season of Thanksgiving and Christmas where we give thanks for our blessings and go above and beyond to help others, I'd like to do some of that myself. I've got a handful of bootlegs of Tommy's shows from over the last few years I could provide for the low, low price of FREE. Please contact me if you'd like to know more. You're a smart reader - you know how to contact me.
The set list from the stage - though clearly many modifications were made on the fly based on the time he was allotted to perform.
Daddy released their second CD "For a Second Time" on June 16. To kick it off, they had a free in-store performance at Grimey's New & Pre-Loved Music in Nashville. I captured video for 3 songs and took a couple of pics as well.
Here is Mike "Grimey" Grimes getting the show started. For the un-initiated, Grimey was in a band along with the two frontmen of Daddy - Will Kimbrough and Tommy Womack - in a band called The Bis-Quits about a decade ago.
I beg your forgiveness on the audio. It sounded fantastic there, but the little mic on my Canon camera was overwhelmed. As for video editing, what I saw is what you get. No multi-camera. No fancy editing. Just fresh from SD chip to PC to YouTube to you. Raw as a fresh piece of celery.
The band opened with the first track of their new CD - Nobody From Nowhere.
The next track they played was a song Tommy penned titled Early To Bed, Early To Rise.
The other track I captured was from Daddy's first CD "From The Women's Club" - You Made Your Bed.
When he isn't jamming as part of Daddy or doing daddy-duty, you'll find Will Kimbrough as a guitarist in Rodney Crowell's band or touring with Todd Snider.
Off to Vegas for rest of week. Doubtful much blogging will take place from there. After all, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?
So to bide the time until I return here's a couple of vids from Daddy (primarily Will Kimbrough and Tommy Womack) from Nashville's Lightning 100 studios. They were sharing two songs from their upcoming 2nd CD to be released on (appropriately) Father's Day 2009.
Tommy Womack Family Wash East Nashville USA February 21, 2009 9:00 PM
So who's with me? Come one, come all! Well, not all can attend. The Wash isn't that big. But if you are a Tommy fan, you already know you should be there. If you've begun to taste the TW Kool-Aid I've been serving to anyone who will read or listen, then you too should spend part of your Saturday evening in East Nashville.
Here's hoping he'll include Early To Bed and Willie Perdue in his set list (hint, hint TW if you're reading this).
Just received! Daddy is Tommy Womack, Will Kimbrough, John Deaderick, Paul Griffith, and Dave Jacques. Their second album is near completion, and Daddy has accepted an invitation to play at South By Southwest (SXSW) in Austin in March. Tommy previewed one of the new tracks from the record at Norm's River Roadhouse on December 20. I dare you to try not tapping your toes on this one. Its pretty obvious from this cut the new record will be one to get in 2009.
