Folks who have been around the local music scene for awhile might want to check out the show at Barking Legs tonight. Drew Sterchi and Blues Tribe, with Burnard Tate, Milton Hamrick and Ran Adams, are the headliners, but they will be joined at times by Sterchi's daughter, Virginia, and special guest Taylor Caldwell.
Caldwell is visiting from Alaska, where he now lives with wife Debbie. While Caldwell has played with all of those guys for decades, "and I've watched Virginia grow into this blues angel," he says he's never been inside Barking Legs.
Barry Courter"I called Drew and told him I would be in town and could we play there," he says. "We'll do the first half of each set with some acoustic stuff and then the stuff from his latest album, ["Left Here With the Blues"] which I produced, and then we'll see."
This is the first return to the city since friends threw a benefit for Caldwell three years ago to help defray medical costs when he was diagnosed with cancer.
* In the next seven months, the Tivoli Theatre will host My Morning Jacket (Oct. 26), Bob Dylan (Nov. 13) and Brian Wilson presents "Pet Sounds: The Final Performances" with Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin (May 7).
In between will be shows by ZZ Top (Oct. 25), Gillian Welch (Dec. 30), comedian Ron White (Jan. 13), Tedeschi Trucks Band (Jan. 28) and comedian Brian Regan (April 23).
Not bad. In fact, the first three, well, MMJ and Wilson really, as Dylan has been here a couple of times in the past, represent a bit of a corner turned for us, in my opinion. These are shows that for the most part have chosen to go elsewhere in the past.
The others mentioned above are an interesting mix of acts that have been here and done well over the years, which gives promoters confidence to bring the bigger, more-expensive-to-produce shows.
February will mark the anniversary of the city essentially getting out of the business of running the Tivoli and Memorial Auditorium and a little over a year since AC Entertainment out of Knoxville was contracted to run them and book shows there.
There is still work to be done. Both need structural work, and it will take time, as predicted, to change people's minds and attitudes about the beautiful old venues, but these kinds of shows definitely help.
My Morning Jacket sold out fairly quickly, and hopefully Dylan and Wilson will as well. If those do well, we should get other first-rate shows.
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.