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Stapletons
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A few months back, an e-mail came into the CityBeat offices with a question about an upcoming concert. In the description for a Robbie Fulks show, the genre was listed simply as "Roots."
The e-mailer was interested in going to the show, but had absolutely no idea what kind of music CityBeat was trying to say Fulks plays.
So what the hell is "Roots" music anyway?
"Man, I get that question at least once a week," says Dave Purcell of the Roots Rock band Pike 27, who, along with wife Amy Purcell and Jeff Roberson of Len's Lounge, started Uprooted, the production company that's putting together Saturday's Uprooted Music Festival at the Southgate House.
"My answer varies depending on who I'm talking to," Purcell continues. "Generally, I'd say it's music that falls between the borders of Rock, Country, Folk and Bluegrass. The problem is people often have really strong, and generally unfounded, prejudices against the latter three 'Oh, you mean that real twangy stuff?' -- and then they go on to imitate a bad Country singer.
"When I'm describing Pike 27, I try to draw them in with a comparison to someone they might like. I've used everyone ... 'Stones, Tom Petty, Springsteen, Dylan. It's not being disingenuous. There really are pieces of all those guys that fit."
From the Mountains
If you have even a passing knowledge of Cincinnati's music history, you know that the current strength of the city's purveyors of Roots music (or whatever you want to call it) isn't exactly an "explosion" or "resurgence." It's more a result of a slow burn built up over the course of nearly a century.
The current scene is a culmination of years of rich musical history and, equally importantly, the city's proximity to Appalachia and all of its Bluegrass heritage.
King Records put a focal point on the region, recording and releasing "Hillbilly" music alongside R&B; classics. Local radio station WLW also helped push the gospel of Appalachian music via locally produced radio programs like Midwestern Hayride and Boone County Jamboree. This was the 1940s, around the same time that a large number of people began migrating to the Tristate in search of jobs.
In the '60s, venues like The Kenmill and King's Row thrived, bringing in touring acts and serving as a haven for local musicians as well. In the '70s, the focus shifted to Aunt Maudie's in Over-the-Rhine, which became ground zero for the local Bluegrass scene.
Ed Cunningham, who has led Bluegrass acts like Prospect Hill and Ohio Valley Rounders and currently fronts the New Radio Cowboys (another participant at Saturday's Uprooted fest), joined the Aunt Maudie's scene toward the end of its heyday in the mid-'80s. Regarded by many in the Roots community as a major proponent of the current scene -- "Make him a saint if he's Catholic," Roberson says -- Cunningham recalls playing the venue and soaking up both the communal aspect as well as the opportunity to play with the true "mountain men" of Bluegrass.
"There was a sense of being a part of a rich, historical musical heritage while enjoying cold draft beer from a Ball mason jar," Cunningham remembers. "Those guys were the real McCoys, mountain men not far removed from pioneer settlers. The mountains from whence they came were like a time capsule. The people 'stayed put' because the mountains were hard to cross. Their ancestors brought fiddles, mandolins and banjos from Ireland and Scotland and figured out how to play them their own way, and they taught their children. And there I was with the direct descendents on stage at Aunt Maudie's."
When Maudie's closed, Cincinnati's "College Rock" and Punk/Indie scene was on an upswing. Over time, popular bands like The Libertines, The Ass Ponys and Wolverton Brothers showed a variety of contemporary influences, but there still was a distinct tinge of Appalachia twanging up their sound.
Jeff Roberson came to Cincinnati after a stint traveling around the country as a folksinging busker. In 1985, upon arriving in town, he helped form Bovine Militia and began gigging regularly on the local Punk/Post-Punk circuit. (He went on to form Len's Lounge in 1992.)
Roberson agrees that some of the local bands of the mid-'80-to-early-'90s, no matter how much they mixed in other influences, still had the mark of where the musicians were coming from geographically.
"You can't live in Appalachia without it affecting you," Roberson says. "While it can be argued that Cincinnati is not in Appalachia, so much of its culture and heritage is informed by those who are first generation Appalachians out of the rural areas, including myself. Libertines, Highwaymen, Wolvertons and The Ass Ponys (are) good memorable examples of how the indigenous music or culture permeates the music."
That Appalachian and Roots influence persists to this day, not only in the music of the various Uprooted fest performers, but in some of the city's biggest musical exports. The influence, of course, isn't apparent in every band from here -- but from the light Folk twinge of Over The Rhine's dreamy Pop, to the occasional Southwest-ern Ohio twang of Afghan Whigs singer Greg Dulli's voice, to the Country bounce of Blessid Union of Souls' singles like "Oh Virginia," Cincinnati's Roots background is the common tie in much of the city's diverse music scene.
"Cincinnati is a small town in a big dress," says Brian Ewing of the folksy duo Messerly and Ewing. "A lot of the area has a very rural feel. Even people living in the city now have been exposed to the pseudo small-town life of Cincinnati's suburbs.
"Roots music says something to people that sounds familiar, even if they're not sure why. That's why so many people are playing Roots here. It feels true. And if you're going to play music for yourself, you have to play music that feels right to you."
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Matt Borgerding
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Len's Lounge
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Digging Up Roots
Pike 27's Dave Purcell describes himself as a "Punk/Indie Rock snob" when he first became drawn to the more organic, rootsy sounds of Jason & the Scorchers. That led him to a love for like-minded punkish Roots acts like Green on Red and The Blasters as well as "new traditionalist" acts like Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakam.
Purcell's band at the time was Carload of Sheep, which he describes as a "Replacements-y kind of mess." Before moving to Chicago for a stint, he became infatuated with more rootsy music and wanted to move in that direction as a musician. The problem, he says, was finding artists who had the neccesary skill.
"That's one of the tough things about this kind of music -- to do it right, you have to find guys with Rock & Roll hearts, but the kind of instrumental chops you find more often in Country or Bluegrass," he says. "To be honest, I probably wasn't a good enough singer or songwriter then to deserve playing with that level of musicianship. So I kept working to get better and kept moving further in that direction, from an X-type of sound to a more Stonesy vibe.
"I finally got there with my last band in Chicago, which had lap steel, fiddle and mandolin. It was where my heart was all along. I just had to put it all together, you know?"
Ed Cunningham, who spent his youth listening to Rock & Roll from Aerosmith, The Who and The Ramones (and later Jazz by Mose Allison and Lionel Hampton) says that what drew him to Roots music was its purity and honesty.
"Hard Country, Blues, Bluegrass and other 'Roots forms' affect me on a more emotional and cerebral level," Cunningham says when asked why he chose to pursue Bluegrass and Country as opposed to other forms. "When someone unaccustomed to Hard Country hears a strong, well-sung, old-time country song, they may feel embarrassed -- or embarrassed for the singer -- due to the direct shot to the human condition Country delivers. In fact, I confess myself that when I was immersed in Rock & Roll I couldn't stand Country. I considered it music sung by ignorant, whiney hillbillies to be avoided for sure.
"Country music is ancient though, going back to the balladeers and bards who sing in a high, loud tenor voice, passing stories of the common people, traveling from town to town. It's about musical storytelling. After all, music is considered a form of communication as well as entertainment. I've found that Jazz and Rock & Roll are not as good a medium to communicate the basic truths and stories of life as Roots forms."
Pruning the Branches
The steadiness of Roots music's popularity in Cincinnati over the past decade or so is due to several factors. In the '90s, artists like Uncle Tupelo, Lucinda Williams and Wilco spurned the so-called "No Depression" movement -- named for the central fanzine of the genre -- and helped expose Roots Rock to a wider audience and draw musicians into the music's far-reaching history.
"The latest Americana/ No Depression movement helped draw in younger guys like (local Roots rockers) The Stapletons, but it's also given new energy and attention to folks who've been around for a while, like Ed Cunningham, Jeff Roberson and The Warsaw Falcons," says Purcell, who also runs the online 'zine The Riverside (w3.one.net/~newport/riverside.htm), which is dedicated to Roots music's varied forms. "A lot of folks have been around for a long time, and all the sudden they have a movement to hang their hat on and possibly draw in a new crowd."
The momentum the No Depression bands helped create was eagerly built upon by not only local artists but businesses and other outlets as well. Ahead of that curve, then-local DJ Dan Reed moved from the AltRock station WOXY (97.7 FM) to the Northern Kentucky University's public radio station WNKU (89.7 FM), where he transformed the station and helped pioneer the "Americana" radio format.
"(Reed) invented a format that I can use to market our records," Roberson says of his band. "I can get a list of Americana stations in the U.S., call their music directors and ask that they play Len's Lounge. Before that, it would be more like call the music director, ask who plays this music, find out it's the jock who has a show Sunday afternoons and call him. Do you realize how easy it has become for you to get spins and reports to Galvin if you have just one good song? The Americana radio format is everything to the national life of this music."
John and Brenda Madden's Magus Productions -- currently booking shows at the Southgate House -- have also been instrumental in bringing national and regional Roots acts to town who previously might have passed over the area. Record stores like Shake It (also a label that's home to Roots and Garage acts) and Phil's (whose Phil Breen has paid to bring artists like Mike Ireland and Shaver to town for shows) have been valuable retail focal points. And Blue Jordan Records, which leans more towards the Folk end of the Roots spectrum, has released some great albums and organized massive Roots/Folk festivals year in and year out.
The Comet in Northside is also cited by the scene's heavies as a key factor in keeping the scene going. Owner Dave Cunningham, Ed's nephew, gave Roots groups like Len's Lounge a live outlet when no one else would book them. And the Sunday jam sessions at The Comet feature a wide array of Roots players who get together to play and socialize every week.
On top of that, Dave and Ed Cunningham have started B-Side Records, which released Bluegrass Sundays: Live at The Comet, a collection of recordings culled from the watering hole/restaurant's Sunday sessions.
Keeping It Real
The most important elements in making the Roots scene thrive locally are the artists themselves. Big In Iowa, currently on tour in Europe, are helping spread the Roots Rock love all over the world now, and The Ass Ponys are continually lauded in the national press.
The Uprooted production company has been key in helping to maintain a cohesion to the community and to further the scene's momentum. The Purcells had long talked of starting a series of shows to spotlight local Roots music, and they promoted a couple of national shows (Vigilantes of Love and Jason Ringenberg).
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David Wolfenberger
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The idea blossomed this year, however, when Roberson came on board and "gave the whole thing a big kick in the ass," according to Dave Purcell. The three currently are hosting a weekly showcase at the Southgate House, where they try mixing and matching bands from the Roots scene with various other acts.
It's that sort of cross-pollinating that Roberson says keeps healthy not only the Roots scene but the local music community in general.
"Good relationships and lasting scenes are built on reciprocity, and that's what a lot of the newer bands are discovering," he says. "It's not about climbing over one another to get the best time slot or to get on that label showcase. It's about lifting each other up and sharing what you got. It's not 'We play Pop and you guys don't.' It's 'I've got Big Star in my collection, I've got Townes Van Zandt, and I love them both. So why can't we do shows together?'
"Fans love music -- they don't love the categories bands get dumped into to make it easier to sell records and get radio play. It's not glad-handing and it's not cheerleading. It's love of music and basic human relations."
The non-competitive edge evident in the Roots community is something all musicians should look at. In the long run, promoting the whole music scene and looking for ways to further it can only be more beneficial for the individual pieces.
"The willingness and overall participation of the people involved in the Roots movement in Cincinnati is a 100 percent effort," says Newky Stapleton, guitarist for The Stapletons. "Roots covers a vast spectrum of flavors, like any other genre in Cincinnati. The communal aspect ties into the fact that the spokes involved in this 'big wheel' seek to find what unifies their music to other artists versus what alienates them from other artists."
And the relative isolation of Cincinnati allows bands to be less career-minded and more in it for the love of the music.
"No one, except the occasional fluke -- i.e., the Stray Cats -- ever gets rich doing this music," says Messerly and Ewing's Mark Messerly. "If you remove the specter of 'making it big,' you remove so much of that competitive vibe. Not to say that the Roots bands aren't ambitious. Everyone would love to be the next Whiskeytown, but, again, it's unlikely to create a feeding frenzy of A&R; guys talking about Cincinnati becoming the next Austin."
Cincinnati might not become the next nationally spotlighted hotbed for Roots music, which is probably a good thing, at least for the integrity of the music and its players. But when it comes to talent and musical output, Dave Purcell believes that Cincinnati's Roots scene stands up to almost any other city's except perhaps Austin or Nashville.
"The difference between our scene and others, like Chicago's, is that I think it's more real here," he says. "Lots of people will argue that you need to separate the artist's intentions from the art and, in this case, I couldn't disagree more. I think growing up with the music or hanging out with those who did and having a deep understanding of it is going to result in deeper, richer music and certainly a more lasting scene.
"The Chicago Roots scene, with Robbie Fulks and the Waco Brothers, will all die out when they get bored and move onto something else. We'll still be playing Roots music here. They're jumping on the No Depression bandwagon because it's the latest thing, it's fun to dress up like hillbillies and add fiddles to your act. It's bullshit. The Roots bands here are far better, but they don't get the same press because they're in Cincinnati."
THE UPROOTED MUSIC FESTIVAL features The Warsaw Falcons, The Stapletons, Pike 27, Greg Mahan, Messerly and Ewing, Jake Speed, Star Devils, The Ass Ponys, Ma Crow's Medicine Show, Len's Lounge and New Radio Cowboys on Saturday at the Southgate House.
