IN THE COURT OF THE McCOURTS: The reclusive Pulitzer-winning author of Angela’s Ashes and his actor/memoirist brother team up for a booksigning and an extemporaneous public gabfest in "An Evening with Frank and Malachy McCourt," whose proceeds will benefit the Thompson’s Island Outward Bound school in Boston Harbor, where the students include Malachy’s grandson. The charming Irish-American duo won’t be nailed down as to exactly what will occur on stage, but readings, storytelling, question-and-answering, and — Lord help us — singing are all distinct possibilities. It took Oprah five years to get Frank into the same room; you can have the pleasure of the evening for $25, or for $100 the privilege of a private reception as well. That’s on February 12 at the Seaport Hotel, 164 Northern Avenue. Call (617) 275-1647.
SINISTER URGES: Just last month, Rob Zombie was on the road with Ozzy Osbourne. But having finished up an arena jaunt with the metal icon who wouldn’t die, metal’s reigning king of the undead is already plotting out a tour with punk rock’s eternal Hell-bound gothic minstrels the Damned. Look for Zombie and the Damned to play two shows at the Palladium, 261 Main Street in Worcester, on April 16 and 17. Tickets to the first show go on sale this Saturday at 10 a.m.; call (800) 477-6849.
NEXT WEEKEND:
‘Down from the Mountain’
The most surprising success in the music industry last year — one dominated by teen pop, rap metal, and hip-hop, all of which are made with the help of computers — was the soundtrack to the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Mercury Nashville), an album featuring faithful acoustic renditions of string-band country music from the 1920s and ’30s. With more than four million copies sold, the album has spawned a cottage industry. A concert featuring the musicians from O Brother was filmed by D.A. Pennebaker for the documentary Down from the Mountain, which spawned its own soundtrack. And the "Down from the Mountain Tour," which comes to the Wang Theatre next Saturday, is already shaping up as a kind of Lollapalooza of bluegrass and old-timy roots music. Most of the tour’s stars have been participants in O Brother or its sequel. But others, like Patty Loveless, are hoping to introduce the O Brother audience to a vibrant back-to-basics country-music tradition that has existed, if not always flourished, in the shadow of Nashville for decades.
"There’s always been a real support for the music, but certainly not the huge groundswell that it is now," says Denise Stiff, a long-time manager whose clients include Krauss and the Peasall Sisters, and who was part of the team that assembled the talent for O Brother. "I think it’s a wonderful thing. The music has always had the ability to attract people, but not that many people have been familiar with it."
In the wake of the commercial popularity of pop-crossover country stars like Garth Brooks and Shania Twain, the success of O Brother offers hope to those who complain that Nashville has gotten away from its roots. But will Nashville listen? "You have nay-sayers," says Stiff. "But I think everybody’s paying attention. And I think eventually [country] radio will pay attention. It’s kind of been a slap in the face to radio — not to say there haven’t been some stations that have embraced it. But they have to pay attention to what people like, as opposed to what they think people like. Already you’re seeing a move toward more acoustic-based sounds. The Dixie Chicks brought in banjos, and Patty Loveless’s new record is more bluegrass, which is true to her. What I don’t think will work is if someone who doesn’t have any sort of history or respect for the music tries to do it just to jump on the bandwagon. That’ll defeat the purpose, because they’ll come across as being false, and the songs will sound contrived, and no one will like it. The reason people like it is because it’s real and it’s genuine, and it touches those emotions, and you can’t fake it."
You can’t fake it, but you can teach it. And if there’s a touchstone for the future of old-timy music to be found on the "Down from the Mountain" tour, it’s the Peasall Sisters. The three young girls from White House, Tennessee, provided the singing voices for George Clooney’s children in O Brother, and they’ll be selling their freshly recorded debut — First Offering, a sweet country-gospel set with pop overtones released by their own Peacehall Records — from the stage of the tour. "To tell you the truth, we had never been into bluegrass or country music," says Sarah Peasall, at 15 the oldest of the trio, of their experience at the original "Down from the Mountain" concert. "We always listened to contemporary Christian. So I really didn’t know who any of those people were. I’m still educating myself on that. But now that I look back and I know who some of the people were, it was really great to get to meet all those legends."
The "Down from the Mountain Tour," with Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Union Station, Bob Neuwirth, Chris Sharp, Chris Thomas King, Norman and Nancy Blake, Patty Loveless, Ralph Stanley, the Whites, and the Peasall Sisters, hits the Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont Street, next Saturday, February 2. Call (800) 447-7400.
BY CARLY CARIOLI
