Just listen. More below the fold:
It aches, don’t it? That’s Kate Tayler-Hunt and Doc Dailey. You can hear these two songs and more on Doc Daily & Magnolia Devil’s indie CD Victims, Enemies, and Old Friends — available for download at Amazon, so I’ve included the widget at the bottom of the post. I’m also including it in the widget bar on the right of the post column for a while so we can see how that works. The upper widget is music local to the Shoals area, or within a two-hour drive not including Nashvegas. (The second widget is for harder stuff; I like to rock out when I’m exercising.)
I took in this music in an off-campus coffee bar in Florence, Alabama, good walking distance from the birthplace of the blues. Without blues, nothing. It is in the water down here, in the land where giants still record. You can walk into any of three local music studios and encounter session musicians with platinum albums.
Somehow, this region stays a secret, lying in a rough triangle between Nashville, Memphis, and Birmingham. Lots of music you’ve heard comes from here, and in fact popular American music started here. But when I’m in the car, this is a perfect antidote to Big Radio. It also plays remarkably well at intimate parties.
Doc Dailey’s voice and music are as native as the cotton growing in red clay soil. “The Only Reason That I Know” is about hyperlocal culture:
You’re the only reason that I know
To go to Ohio
Not only is this blog slowly returning to themes I didn’t think I’d ever reach in a blog, I’ve come to the realization that local sound is the solution to big media noise. Victims, Enemies, & Old Friends deserves to be in more music collections. The CD is a great introduction to the emerging local sound; many musicians have shared musical projects with Doc, and the Magnolia Devils include the spook-out influence of Pine Hill Haints frontman Jamie Barrier.
Katie is a capable and classically-trained violinist, but here she goes full fiddle:
Did I mention there’s an annual music festival here?
You can download Victims, Enemies, & Old Friends below:
