Virtual Gallery | February 2021
Hey Friends!
In light of this new unknown living, we are all in now, and in an effort to try and keep some consistency in my life, I’m taking my weekly residency into the Virtual Gallery! Every week I will have a new virtual friend join me and Stephanie via the interwebs, and this time at a more reasonable time frame of 8:30pm to 10pm. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Stephanie Marlar, you have no idea how lucky you are about to become!! She’s the ringleader, the hero, the rebel, and the sass to every gallery show I do and she’s also a helluva bartender. She’ll be my copilot on these shows as long as her country ass internet works!
So here's how it's gonna work: Contributions = a number that reflects the combined amount of what you would pay at the door + Stephanie’s Tip Jars. Right now, we’re using RSVPify to sell General Admission tickets for the low, low price of $7. You’ll notice at check-out that there is an option to add a donation to your GA ticket. Each week, the contributions will be shared between my guest, our virtual bartender Stephanie, and me. After your ticket is purchased, you will receive an email with instructions on how to access the Virtual Gallery via ZOOM. Here you will get to see, chat, and listen to all your favorite songs by me and my friends! We are asking for you not share the access link with others. This is one of the many ways we are trying to avoid losing our homes over the next few months and to be able to keep you entertained during these uncertain times!
I’ll also share the info and etiquette tips of these new spaces. Much like the Continental Gallery, this is still a live room in which we all share it together. So for example, if you un-mute yourself and speak, you will be interrupting the show for every single person watching! We’ll also include tips on how to optimize your viewing experience, and any other details you'll need in order to log-in and enjoy the show. This platform we’re using is free to sign up for, AND there is also an option to watch within your browser in case you can’t download the app. We will also welcome your feedback and know we will be working out the kinks as best as possible. We want to make this the best experience we can.
Purchase a Virtual Gallery Pass to attend all five weeks for just $25!
Here’s our very real, virtual schedule:
Thursday, February 4th - Susan Gibson
One of the reasons Susan Gibson always keeps a banjo close at hand, be it in the studio or at every show she plays, is because she likes the "lift" it brings to counterbalance a particularly heavy lyric: "Almost like it's got a smile attached to it," she says. But as much as she loves the instrument, the fact is, she really doesn't have to reach for it that often. Not because she shies away from such material, but because her naturally buoyant melodies and warmly reassuring, conversational singing and writing voice more often than not provide all the lift she needs to light up any song, room, or mood. For proof, just listen to The Hard Stuff — the award-winning Texas songwriter's seventh release as a solo artist and her first full-length album since 2011's Tight Rope. Much like the EP that preceded it, 2016's Remember Who You Are, the aptly-titled The Hard Stuff is rooted in grief; Gibson wrote the album in the midst of coming to terms with the death of first one parent and then the other in the span of four years, a time during which she says her career became far less of a priority to her than her family. But it was that very period of slowing down for emotional recalibration that ultimately pulled her out of the dark and back into the light. As she sings on The Hard Stuff's disarmingly playful title track, "Nothing lifts a heavy heart like some elbow grease and a funny bone" — and even when Gibson's not laughing at herself, her refreshingly clear-eyed perspectives on matters of life, love, work, and loss (sometimes all within the same song, as in the invigorating opener "Imaginary Lines" and the deeply moving "Wildflowers in the Weeds") illuminate the whole album with a spirit-charging current of resiliency. Of course, anyone familiar with Gibson's music knows that she's had that in her all along, from her salad days in the beloved Amarillo, Texas-based Amerciana band the Groobees back in the ’90s and from the get-go of her solo career with 2003's Chin Up. It was even all there at the very beginning, when she wrote a little song in college called "Wide Open Spaces" that grew up to become (with a little help from the Dixie Chicks) one of the biggest country songs of all time. Turns out all she had to do to rediscover it and get herself back on the road to embracing both life and art was to heed the best advice her father ever gave her, three little words that millions of Dixie Chicks fans (and a whole lotta Susan Gibson fans over the years, too) sing along to at every show: "Check the oil!"
Thursday, February 11th - Emily Gimble
The best storytellers always do a careful dance. Details offered, details withheld. Drawing you in one raised eyebrow at a time, whispering here, bellowing there. Are you listening? These are secrets being told, not to mention joys, sighs, even – if you can detect them – sly bits of advice. Lean into it. Close your eyes. They’ll carry you softly home.
It’s a dance singer-songwriter Emily Gimble performs on her debut album “Certain Kinda,” with songs as soulful as they are winsome, broody as they are beautiful. It makes sense for a woman who grew up with music in her blood, singing and playing on-stage since she was seven years old. Maybe it couldn’t be helped: when your dad is Dick Gimble, beloved guitarist and upright bass player, and your grandfather is Johnny Gimble, one of the most beloved fiddle players of all time, there’s really no choice but to play, is there?
Piano beckoned Emily early on – in fact, the Austin Music Awards named her “Best Keyboards” of the city three times (2013, 2014, 2018) – as did another instrument, full of natural range and feeling: her voice. “A Case of the Gimbles,” the 2005 album she recorded with her father and grandfather, showcased her vocals and launched Emily on a national family tour, playing folk festivals and charming audiences across the country.
Thursday, February 18th - Butch Hancock
A world traveling troubadour with a long string of recorded songs and albums, Butch Hancock has been called "one of the finest songwriters of our time" and is acknowledged by his peers and critics alike as one of the premiere singer songwriters Texas has ever produced. His tunes evoke mystical visions of wind swept dry plains and his lyrics are profoundly imaginative, often displaying for his listeners, the miracles that occur in the ordinary through creative irony and metaphors. His lyrical style has often been compared to that of Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie and his songs have been covered by the likes of Emmylou Harris, Jerry Jeff Walker, and The Texas Tornadoes. Hancock is also a member of renowned alternative country supergroup, The Flatlanders, along with his lifelong friends, Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, a band they formed in 1972.
During his acclaimed career, Hancock has written and recorded several landmark albums, some of them sparse and simple, others as big as the West Texas sky. After moving to the progressive country hotbed of Austin in the mid 70s, he started his own label (Rainlight) and released the quintessential West Texas Waltzes and Dust Blown Tractor Tunes in 1978. In the years that followed he continued to release albums steeped in meaning and memory, a foundation that cemented his worldwide reputation as a master wordsmith. In 1990, Hancock and more than two dozen musician friends staged a Guinness Book of World Records worthy event entitled No Two Alike and played six straight nights of live performances in Austin's famed Cactus Café, recording 140 of his original songs without repeating a single song. He released the staggering output later in the year as the No Two Alike Tape of the Month Club.
A multifaceted artist, Hancock has also received critical acclaim for his ballpoint pen drawings and photographs. Award winning artist and songwriter Terry Allen says of Butch, “He’s made his life completely about the making of amazing things ... photographs, film, video, outlandish architectural propositions, elaborate ballpoint drawings, handmade journals filled with writings, sketches and scrawls ... and always, the songs.”
Thursday, February 25th - Tom Freund
Over the course of his career, singer/songwriter and Americana artist Tom Freund has released more than a dozen records, collaborated with legends such as Elvis Costello and Jackson Browne, pulled a half-decade stint on bass for alt-country pioneers The Silos, and has shared bills with everyone from Matthew Sweet to Guided by Voices. Freund’s intimate, heartfelt new solo album, East of Lincoln, chronicles a personal journey along the path from self doubt to enlightenment. “Time to take the wheel and turn this thing around / Time to make a deal and see what’s going down,” he affirms on “Runaround.” Freund takes his time and lets these new songs simmer, and that—along with memorable guest spots from longtime friend and collaborator Ben Harper and an all-star cast of session players—is a big part of record’s charm.