The Mission

NOAH EARLE

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CD – This is the Jubilee
CD – Six Ways to Sunday

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The jubilee is a season for celebration, an occasion for the freeing of slaves, or a song about deliverance from tribulation. It’s a time to memorialize the mixed bag of events that led to the present, looking toward a future that holds no small measure of promise. It’s precisely this spirit of hopeful revelry that permeates the tone of Noah Earle’s newest release, This is the Jubilee, available April 13th on Mayapple Records.

“My parents always said I was born smiling,” says Earle, as he demonstrates that very expression. Despite this reputed natural sunniness, Earle has been known to delve into the dark side of human nature and experience. Both of Earle’s previous albums, Six Ways to Sunday (self-released, 2004) and Postcards from Home (Mayapple Records, 2007) found him digging up the roots of his family’s musical traditions, along with the detritus of human frailty and hardship. Kelly Knauer of Time Life Books likens the songs on Postcards to “an MRI scan of a troubled brain, or a seismograph of a really bad day in Mr. Richter’s world.” “As a songwriter,” says Knauer, “Earle is a brilliant documentarian, a Ken Burns of the ordinary, a chronicler of American life who turns his unrelenting gaze on small conflicts rather than epic battles.” Jubilee, by contrast, finds Noah using his own voice to express a love of life that is contagious to the listener, while avoiding heavy-handed sentimentality and without ignoring the gritty reality that lurks in the shadows.

Indeed, This is the Jubilee stops short of heralding a golden era in which all wrongs are righted and past wounds forgotten. In fact, Earle freely explores such themes as love and loss, religious intolerance, and the end of the world in this collection of songs. Its unmistakable message, however, is that life is worth living despite its vicissitudes. The titular jubilee is not only a proclamation of this fact, but of Earle’s having come into his own as a songwriter and musician. “It’s strange…I stand by my other records and music I’ve made in the past as having been sincere and authentically me, but in some ways I feel like I’m just now finding my own direction,” he says, “and it’s really about time.”

Earle was born in Topeka, Kansas, “a good place to dig potatoes.” Surrounded by a musical family, he absorbed various strains of influence. His musical involvement began in early childhood when he would listen to the traditional country and country-gospel music that his family would play and sing at their gatherings. When asked about this period, Earle says “I was too shy to sit in the circle with the grown-ups, so I’d hang out in the corner and follow along quietly with my little nylon-stringed mariachi guitar.” Between the ages of about 5 and 18 he underwent classical training for piano, voice and violin, and was also exposed to blues and jazz by his dad and another uncle, both of whom performed in a number of bands. By the age of 7 or 8, he had decided that he wanted to write songs, like his uncle and grandfather.

“I really value the Midwestern musical roots that my family gave me as well as the music I discovered on my own” Earle observes, “but I guess the challenge for any songwriter is forging something original that’s still solidly rooted and pays due homage to one’s forbears. That was my intention with Jubilee…I wanted the earnest joy and clarity that I feel at this time in my life, musically and otherwise, to come through in the music without thumbing my nose or flying any flags.”

This ethic is also reflected in the album’s production, for which Earle decided to take the reins himself. The instrumentation was recorded in 6 different places, with varying levels of input from the songwriter. “I wanted so many people to be a part of this record who I could never have gotten into one room,” he says, “and thanks to the wonders of technology and a few good ears, we were able to get them all on there and still make it sound human.”

For the painstaking task of editing and mixing tracks from so many locations into a cohesive whole, Noah called upon veteran recording engineer and central Missouri musical icon Pete Szkolka. “Pete and I spent so many hours together hammering this thing into shape, and my little boy was there for every bit of it, sleeping through endless playbacks or crawling around and trying to pull on all the cables attached to the soundboard. In short, he was indispensable to the whole process,” jokes Earle.

Once the editing and mixing were done, Noah sent the tracks off to Brad Sarno in St. Louis, MO, who has a solid regional reputation for the warmth and immediacy of his analog masters. “We could have tweaked the mixes for another year and I wouldn’t have been any happier with them, besides getting tired of the songs themselves. Once everything was in Brad’s capable hands, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I was really pleased with the job he did, and I consider it a good sign that these songs are still fun for me to play.”

STEVIE TOMBSTONE

http://youtu.be/j7LWX1pERww
https://youtu.be/e5_nBo59MWE

After a chance meeting with Roy Acuff, Stevie (then, a young man) was certain he would always be a musician. Born in rural Georgia, Stevie learned the ropes playing country, gospel, and blues. Rebelling against his roots, he immersed himself in the world of rock and the underground music scene of the 80s in Atlanta but never lost the twang of his childhood. Almost three decades later, he has become an accomplished performer and songwriter. Stevie has now released five solo albums and several music videos, produced music with his 1980s swamp rockabilly band, The Tombstones, and made appearances on compilations all over the damn place. In his early days, Stevie penned the college radio anthem and regional hit “Nobody”, which was later recorded by rock icon, Stiv Bators. After separating with The Tombstones in the 1990s, he toured as the supporting act for Jason & the Scorchers in Europe, which opened the door for his solo career. Taking a more serious approach to songwriting, he then began to write with as many accomplished song-writers as he could find in every realm of the music world, from street poets to music row regulars.

Bouncing between Atlanta, Nashville, and Austin, Stevie recorded Second Hand Sin (1999) and Acoustica (2000) and then settled in Texas. His full-length debut CD, 7:30 am (2003), showcased his singing ability and continuing growth as a songwriter. The CD spent six weeks in the top ten of XM Radio’s Channel 12 (X-Country) charts, including two weeks at #1. During this period, Stevie worked as a sideman for several respected Texas acts, including acclaimed songwriter, Rich Minus, and songstress, Texacala Jones. 2004 brought the Cash tribute/compilation, “Dear Johnny”, featuring Stevie’s version of “Folsom Prison Blues”, which received airplay and great reviews. Stevie followed up with a number of West Coast gigs with Supersuckers’ front man, Eddie Spaghetti, in support of the disc. 2006 found Stevie briefly back at the helm of the Tombstones for a national tour to support the re-release of the band’s earlier material. Leaving the band for the final time, he married Tombstones’ bassist, Melissa “Killene” Tombstone, returning to his solo work and fatherhood. In 2008, his sold-out show at the Red House Arts Center was broadcast in its entirety on XM’s “Wired In” series.

Stevie’s band mates, over the years, have been a veritable who’s who of underground and nationally recognized players, featuring members of Circus of Power, Wilco, the Georgia Satellites, and Jason & The Scorchers. Priding himself in his ability to cross genres, he has also had the honor of sharing the bill with the likes of Leon Russell, the Stray Cats, Greg Allman, Willie Nelson, Drive By Truckers, Johnny Bush & the Ramones, just to name a few. After living in Austin off and on for almost 10 years, Stevie relocated to Atlanta, the Ozarks, and most recently, Upstate New York.

RALPH WHITE

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Ralph White Website
https://youtu.be/v3dKTtY657g
https://youtu.be/jSmE1tq6-po
https://youtu.be/SvWKFSTBNPI

A roots musician in the truest sense, Ralph White channels his love of traditional American genres (folk, country, blues) through a variety of instruments; without retreading old paths, makes music that is at once in the moment and seemingly of times long past. He is, as the Austin Chronicle puts it, “a [self-taught] master of ethnomusicology.”

Ralph White has played & traveled around the US and the world, toured with the Butthole Surfers and played in numerous outfits including the legendary Bad Livers.

“From banjo and fiddle to kalimba and mbira, Ralph White is a master of ethnomusicology, and it’s all self-taught. The 56-year-old troubadour served as fiddleman in Austin punk-grass legends the Bad Livers. He toured with the Butthole Surfers, played with the Gulf Coast Playboys, traveled to Africa and Australia, and finally settled here at home. Off the road is just his style. Since 1999, White has played solo, and it’s indescribable. The blues mentality mixed with Outback echoes and safari serenades echoes off 2006 release Navasota River Devil Squirrel. His solo shows, as well as those he plays with new Austinite Amy Annelle as the Places, are stocked with hipsters, old-timers, music professionals, and doe-eyed fans. He matches old-school with new-school, kids with elders, and the line doesn’t cross down the middle. Close your eyes, and listen to a million decades coalesce into one eerie, beautiful one-man band, with one foot on a chuck of wood and hands full of sound. There’s nobody in the world like Ralph White.” – Darcie Stevens