Jamestown Revival Featuring Hugh Bob & The Hustle/Pete Molinari at Gypsy Sally's - 11/07/14

Fri, November 7, 2014

Doors: 7:00 pm / Show: 9:00 pm

$15.00 - $25.00

JAMESTOWN REVIVAL

At the heart of Jamestown Revival is a friendship that spans over a decade.

Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance grew up together in the small Texas town of Magnolia. From a young age, they shared a love for music as well as the outdoors. About an hour north of Magnolia TX, there was some old family land with a dilapidated ranch house where they spent the better part of their adolescence.

At one point or another, music from Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Everly Brothers, to fellow Texans Willie Nelson, Guy Clark and Stevie Ray Vaughan found it’s way through an old pair of speakers that sat on the back porch. The pair spent the day exploring that thousand-acre plot of land, and when the sun went down they took to the records of the songwriters and bands that inspired them. At the age of 22, they moved to Austin and began to craft a sound of their own. Deeply rooted in harmony, they merged the sounds of the South with classic American and Western rock.

Looking for adventure, as well as a change of pace, they eventually made the decision to head west and make the move to Los Angeles, CA.

HUGH BOB & THE HUSTLE

Singer-songwriter Hugh Robert Masterson grew up in Butternut, Wisconsin - a quaint but fading small town with decrepit mills, dirt roads, farms, beat down bars, and a population of 300. “It’s the kind of place where the silence is deafening and the stars are so bright you can feel nothing but humbled,” says Masterson. His band Hugh Bob and The Hustle and their masterful self-titled debut album brings to life this slice of classic Americana with ruggedly poetic lyrics and sweetly winsome roots rock.

Masterson’s blend of hard luck stories and backwoods whimsy with crisp twang, high lonesome harmonies, and heartland rock n’ roll is an aesthetic called “North Country”. It’s similar in spirit to country in its earnestness and its ties to American folk traditions, but details the plight of folks up North. Masterson has garnered favorable comparisons to Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, John Prine, Alan Jackson, and Dwight Yoakam. A.V. Club Milwaukee praises his debut as: “a warm, affectionate collection of straight-up AM country gold.” Rocksposure gushes “Hugh Bob never strikes an inauthentic note.”The Nashville Scene says: “We can’t help but be naturally suspicious of outlanders appropriating traditionally Southern music, but Milwaukee’s Hugh Bob avoided the pitfalls of the derivative Mumford & Sons bro-grass that has been invading our country by being charmingly sincere.”

After apprenticing as a sideman bassist, most notably with indie darlings Jaill and acclaimed roots rockers The Wildbirds, Masterson recently decided to step out as a singer-songwriter. The 11 songs on his debut are the first he’s ever written. “I just felt like I was finally ready to release something,” he says, assessing his latent creativity. “It was a confidence thing, I was afraid of putting my heart into something and people not liking it.”

Through his stories, and those of Butternut, Masterson has crafted a tender and truthful album. “I’m attracted to realness,” he says. “The natural reality of how hard life is doesn’t go unnoticed where I’m from.” The stunning “Ashland County,” rich with golden harmonies and mournful and shimmering pedal steel guitar, is a poignant snapshot of a crumbling small town. “That’s about where I grew up, it’s depressed, there’s not much there anymore,” Masterson says. His voice is sweetly pristine and vulnerable as he sings: Rivers spillin’ over/Bars burnin’ down/Now they’re planting flowers, all over town Got high on Joint Road/In between the farms/Now they’re all gone, and the mill is shuttin’ down. The gritty Americana of “Butternut” mixes quaint nostalgia with powerful social commentary. Here, with raw emotionality, Masterson sings: I come from a long line of drinkers and boozers, gamblers, we’re all losers where I’m from/Days go by but no one’s ever leaving/No matter how hard I try this town’s got a hold on me/Got a hold on me. Rounding out the album are the cheeky “This Bar Is A Prison” and “Mess With Me,” rowdy good time numbers with quicksilver twang and shit kicking humor.

Live and on record Masterson is aptly backed by The Hustle, a band of friends with telepathic interplay and a unique approach to American roots music. The Hustle is Quinn Scharber, guitar/vocals; Nicholas Stuart, bass/vocals; Bradley Kruse, keys/vocals; and Justin Krol, drums. Masterson and Stuart played together back in The Wildbirds (along with Scharber and Kruse), with Masterson playing a supportive role for Stuart’s singer-songwriter vision. In the Hustle, Stuart returns the favor. “I’ve known Hugh for 7 years, and he’s always had song scraps in his pocket. Never a complete song,” says Nicholas Stuart. “But when he pulled out the basic structures of ‘Blame Me’ and ‘Red, White & Blue Jeans,’ I jumped at the chance to be a part of it. He has a great way of putting the listener in a place that he is, or a place that he’s been. And he just really cares for the song, down to a single lyric. That’s something that impresses me every time.”

Masterson is currently gigging actively with The Hustle, building a strong live profile with their vibrantly authentic musicality, impassioned sincerity, and downhome exuberance. “I remember playing that first show. I had done all this stuff to prove myself. I was sitting there in the basement of the venue and I was so nervous I wanted to run away,” he says. “But when I got onstage, the adrenaline from the people’s response made it all feel so worthwhile.”

PETE MOLINARI

Pete Molinari is fast establishing himself as one of the UK’s most exciting musical talents. Born into a large Maltese, Italian and Egyptian family in Kent, the young musician became fascinated with the 1960s’ folk of Leadbelly, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie. After reading the beat writings of Jack Kerouac, Pete set off for New York where he honed his craft in the blues clubs of the East Village. Then he travelled to Memphis, New Orleans, San Francisco and Los Angeles when he could, before returning home to record his debut album “Walking Off The Map” with the help of Billy Childish. While recording his follow up album, “A Virtual Landslide” at Toe Rag Studios in London, Pete began working with producer Liam Watson, invigorating his sound with a full band, thus uniquely modernising a historic sound.

His previous work, the critically acclaimed “A Train Bound For Glory,” earned Pete an appearance on BBC’s Later With Jools Holland and a nomination for Best Newcomer at the MOJO Awards. Pete was honored to join Yoko Ono on stage last summer when she curated the 2013 Meltdown Festival at the Royal Festival Hall in London. For the festival finale, Yoko and her band performed for the first time ever the John Lennon/Yoko Ono Double Fantasy album, in its entirety. Yoko handpicked Pete to sing the Lennon songs “Woman” and “(Just Like) Starting Over” along with her band. Other featured guests included Sean Lennon, Patti Smith, Peaches, Boy George, Siouxsie Sioux and Earl Slick.

Successful stints in the U.S. brought acclaim from a host of songwriters and producers as diverse as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Ray Davies, Yoko Ono, Dan Auerbach, Raul Malo, Andrew Weatherall and Tchad Blake who have all become fans of the songwriter from Chatham. Pete talks about the support of such musical luminaries with his feet firmly on the ground: “I love what they do as well. I’m thrilled to think they appreciate the substance and content of my music”.

Pete completed his fourth album “Theosophy” in early 2014, recording most of the original album tracks with Jim and Rob Homes at Humbug Studios on the Isle Of Wight, then adding the talents of producer Liam Watson, acclaimed DJ/re-mixer Andrew Weatherall, Grammy award-winning producer/mixer Tchad Blake and guest musicians Dan Auerbach and Barrie Cadogan to the process. It was important to Pete to have the contributions of all of these diverse and creative minds, which meant taking time with the recording was essential.

Along with the mainstay influences of Billie Holliday, Jack Kerouac, John Coltraine and Leadbelly, inspiration for “Theosophy” came from unexpected sources, including The Theosophical Society – an organization formed in 1875 “to promote an understanding of the Esoteric Teachings” and whose interest spans science, mysticism, religion and the arts. “Theosophy” pushes lots of musical boundaries, and with a host of musical allies he was able to explore new creative fields not ventured on past albums. It’s been a journey that has brought Pete to a new level of songwriting, epitomized best by Tchad Blake. As Pete recalls, “Tchad told me he admired my sense of abandonment. I think going off and finding out what he meant by that really summed up the whole record. The sense I got was that I’m not inhibited by anything that’s going on at the moment, whether the present or the past. I just go about things my own way.” That’s Theosophy.