Truths in Storytelling with John Prine and Todd Snider at the Paramount, Seattle WA 9/22/18

In 2015, I saw John Prine with his mentor Kris Kristofferson in San Diego. I wrote a little blog about it called,  The difference of 10 years and heroes with the premise that our heroes or mentors come from the immediate preceding generation.

On Saturday night, Mary Kit and I had the pleasure to see Todd Snider and John Prine in Seattle thanks to the warm invite from our old Santa Maria friends Ken and Vicki Forman whose daughter Emily lives in Seattle with her family.  Mary Kit's three kids and their families also live in the greater Seattle area. So the four of us decided to meet up here, spend the day together and see the concert.

Before the show at dinner, Ken was telling me how John Prine took Todd Snider under his wing and that Todd has opened many shows for John over the years and helped build his career as a singer-songwriter. For me, it was a perfect connection of mentorship from Kristofferson to Prine and Prine to Snider.  These unique individuals all have the gift of storytelling in their songwriting.  It is a gift that reveals the plain and simple truths about men and women, working people, people living in a simpler time, injustice, the amusing, the open and shut doors, and the wide open spaces.

Todd opened the show with his stories and songs and I don't think I've ever seen such a perfect opener for the main attraction. If you have never seen or heard Todd Snider, he is funny as hell but can turn that emotion around quickly with a darker perspective. His gift is his balance between stupid funny, serious satire, and folk singer. I became a convert in a sold out theater of the Todd Snider faithful with a lot of hoots and a standing ovation at the end of his set. Thanks to Ken and Vicki for the introduction.

Now John Prine at 71 has 20 years on Todd Snider, and the master came out ready for spit and fire. He has a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, which had me at the title before I even listened to the album when it came out in April. Prine backed by his fantastic band moved through the new songs intertwined with his famous standards and I felt the audience embrace every song like a winding stream. (Here is the setlist.)

So why does everyone love John Prine these days? I think we are all needing real stories, stories John Prine communicates through his songs of our shared humanity to love and respect each other.

For me, Saturday night was a range of emotions from laughter to tears. This is something you go to a theater for when you see a play. It was an Americana Folk passion play of plain truths about ourselves, past and present. In our current times, where bullshit and hate have become king and queen on our national stage, truth has mostly taken a back seat.

The audience at the Paramount on Saturday night was ready to be entertained. They came to see a couple of their heroes who represent genuine honesty, humor and truth in song. I walked into the building to be entertained too, and I was.  But what I came away with more than anything, was the wonderful feeling that it was simply nice to escape from the news of the day and hear from a couple of authentic Americans on a very friendly stage.

Here's a little mix of Todd Snider and Americana Music Awards 2018 Artist of the Year Award, John Prine. Note - I found several phone videos from the tour the night before in Portland, Oregon and thought that close enough to Saturday night.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit at the San Diego Copley Symphony Hall, 10/1/18

photo source

On Saturday night, I got to see Jason Isbell in my own backyard at the San Diego Copley Symphony Hall. It was special on several fronts. First, it was my first time seeing Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit live. Second, Amanda Shires who is Jason's wife and has her own solo career (and currently on tour) was in the band for the night. Third, Jason's and Amanda's daughter turned three that day, and came out for a song with the band as the entire audience sang Happy Birthday to Mercy Rose.

During the set up between opening act Aimee Mann and Jason's band hitting the stage, I saw a roadie bring out Amanda's violin and set it up on it's stand next to a smaller microphone stand to the left of Jason's center mic. I turned to my wife Mary Kit at that moment and told her, "It's going to a great night!" This past week, as I poured through a bunch of Isbell videos onYouTube, I listened to how Amanda's violin and harmony singing completes Jason's voice and the 400 Unit's sound.

By the way, guess what the '400 Unit' means? My guess was- it was some kind or type of farming equipment. The name actually comes from the annex of the "the psychiatric ward of Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital in Florence, Alabama." The things you learn on Wikipedia.

If you spend anytime looking into Jason Isbell you will learn he was born in Alabama and who's mother was only 17 at his birth. On my playlist this week, check out Children of Children and you'll get an insight to where and how Jason's songwriting developed with his upbringing.

In 2001, Jason joined the Drive-By Truckers and established himself as a solid songwriter and performer. However, with a long history of substance abuse he was kicked out of the band in 2007.

In 2012 with help from Amanda Shires, her manager Traci Thomas and Ryan Adams, Isbell entered a treatment center in Nashville. In 2013, Jason and Amanda were married by Todd Snider, who I'll be seeing September 22nd with John Prine in Seattle. (I had to throw that in, in my continuing game of '6 degrees' of rock 'n' roll.)

I'm happy to say, the happy ending is always a daily process, but it's really exciting to see that happiness on stage right in front of your eyes. Jason, Amanda, and Mercy Rose have the world in front of them, with a lifetime of love and song.

That brings me to Jason's song, If We Were Vampires, from his 2017 album, The Nashville Sound. If We Were Vampires is in my opinion one of the best love songs of the 21st century. I can't get enough of the lyrics and watching these two artist's sing this song live facing each other made this a special evening indeed.

If We Were Vampires

It's not the long, flowing dress that you're in

Or the light coming off of your skin

The fragile heart you protected for so long

Or the mercy in your sense of right and wrong

It's not your hands searching slow in the dark

Or your nails leaving love's watermark

It's not the way you talk me off the roof

Your questions like directions to the truth

It's knowing that this can't go on forever

Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone

Maybe we'll get forty years together

But one day I'll be gone

Or one day you'll be gone

If we were vampires and death was a joke

We'd go out on the sidewalk and smoke

And laugh at all the lovers and their plans

I wouldn't feel the need to hold your hand

Maybe time running out is a gift

I'll work hard 'til the end of my shift

And give you every second I can find

And hope it isn't me who's left behind

It's knowing that this can't go on forever

Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone

Maybe we'll get forty years together

But one day I'll be gone

Or one day you'll be gone

It's knowing that this can't go on forever

Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone

Maybe we'll get forty years together

But one day I'll be gone

One day you'll be gone