THURSDAY, 11 MAR 2010: HAYTI-FLORENCE
Posted on March 11, 2010
By this morning, T-shirt weather had well and truly arrived, in astonishing contrast to the blizzards that had marred the first week of the tour. We spent a beautiful sunny day driving across the Mississippi River and south through Tennessee, listening to the equally sunny sounds of Lily Allen, Hayseed Dixie and the Beatles emanating from Martin’s iPod.
Along the way, we stopped in Walgreen’s so that I could buy a CD mailer and Martin could buy a Mother’s Day card for his mum. Mother’s Day in the US doesn’t happen for another few months (in the UK it’s this coming Sunday), so there were no Mother’s Day cards to be had, but he found a lovely all-American birthday card with “No. 1 Mom” and hamsters draped in American flags on the cover and was well pleased, especially as he’d missed her birthday back on February. He also found a terrific present for his son, but I dare not say what it was, as said son might conceivably read this and the surprise would be spoilt.
Our next stop was at a rather cute little post office eight miles further up the road, so that Martin could mail his card and I could send off CDs, and then we continued along for another hour or so until it was time for lunch and:
Martin’s Chainspotting Corner!
No. 11: Arby’s
Emblazoned on the drink cups at Arby’s are the words: “Never fried. Never greasy. It’s the burger done better.” And the window signs brag that their roast beef sandwiches have 1/3 less fat and fewer calories than the Quarter Pounder. We approve. Martin had the All American Combo -- roast beef in a burger bun with mustard, mayo, pickles and salad, plus curly fries and a soft drink. I had a toasted roast beef sandwich on a sort of panini roll with horseradish sauce and “French Dip” -- a little bowl of French onion soup to dip your sandwich into -- and a Jamocha milkshake. Yum. Just as we were finishing our food, a charity bingo game broke out and we had to make a quick escape.
Martin says ... “Arby’s. A name you can say while belching.”
Shortly after 4pm we arrived in Florence, Alabama, a really pretty college town that’s been known since its inception as a centre for the arts -- hence the name, taken from the Italian city that the founders saw as its model. On the other side of the Tennessee River is the much newer and brasher Muscle Shoals, home to the legendary FAME Studios, where a host of classic tracks have been recorded over the years -- including Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode To Billie Joe”, as I learned after I sang the song in that evening’s concert.
Organiser Scooter Muse met us at the venue, a lovely old house that the neighbouring Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts uses for concerts and meetings. I did a quick soundcheck and then we settled into our lodgings in a cosy carriage house directly behind the venue, where I changed my strings and my clothes while Martin watched Wendy Williams on the telly.
On our way up the road to get some takeaway spaghetti and meatballs from a local Italian restaurant, we saw a charming little shop -- no time to browse, alas, but I did take a photo:
The gig was lovely, although the painted-shut windows made the heat levels a bit hard to take -- if this was March, I’d hate to be there in August! Happily, two strong singers were there to join me on the canon: Dorlea Rikard, who teaches music at Florence High School, and Marie Lewey, a renowned backing vocalist for the Muscle Shoals recording industry who’s toured with Ronnie Milsap among others (see http://marielewey.com for more info about Marie). That’s Dorlea in the middle and Marie on the right in the photo. The other pic is of myself with Scooter Muse, who runs the Shoals Celtic Concerts series and is quite the guitarist himself; both he and Jil Chambless, host of the following night’s house concert, play in a local band called Henri’s Notions (http://www.henrisnotions.com).
Post-gig, we polished off our spaghetti (during which another chunk of my tooth tried to break free -- I managed to wedge it back into place, more or less, but really needed to make sure not to chew on that side of my mouth for the rest of this tour), had a couple of beers and watched a hilarious TV show called “Discover The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross”. Bob Ross proved to be a rather sweet, soft-spoken bearded fellow with a carefully groomed pouffy Afro-style hairdo, who churns out formulaic schlock art with a pallette knife while murmuring gentle instructions: “Then just put some happy little bushes in. As many as you like!” The iPhone photo doesn’t quite do him justice, but here he is.
