Desperados: Waitin' for a Country Songwriter Night

 



from left, Robby Hopkins, Channing Wilson and Martha Ann Brooks



Hot off two weeks of music from Detroit,  Dad and I found ourselves back at Charles & Myrtles Coffeehouse in Chattanooga, Tennessee for Country Songwriter Night.  The featured performers:  Martha Ann Brooks, Channing Wilson, and Robby Hopkins. 

 

Martha Ann Brooks

 

Martha Ann Brooks is a terrific songwriter and a great friend as well.  I remember the first time I saw her, in a similar singer-songwriter setting, in Dalton, Georgia.  Brooks is an infectious performer, always plucking the right heartstrings, or setting the perfect tone for dry humor in her lyrics, and also for pulling out the happy songs and her beautfiul smile. How many times have I listened to her sing her songs?  Countless times, and I still love the old ones, still get excited about the new ones.  Tonight she sang some of both while telling her audience stories of how she thinks of songs walking with her dog and digging in dirt, and how she came to love country music.  Those included one of my favorite of her melodies, "Dead or Alive," about dealing with addiction.  When she sang "Reintarnation," she told a story I do not believe I've heard before - that she stole the word from a contest for making up a new word.  The winner's word was defined as dying and coming back as a hillbilly.  In Brooks' song the word refers to the same old fight coming up again and again - and it was probably a doosey!   And for the second time this year I heard one of her newest songs, now titled "One More Time." 

Brooks suggested each songwriter do a cover of a country artist who influenced them and she produced a medley of Patsy Cline's "Crazy" and Hank Williams' "Your Cheatin' Heart."   Channing Wilson proclaimed that he just didn't think he "could be anything else" other than country.  He then gave us another Hank Williams tune, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and Guy Clark's "Desperados Waiting for a Train."   



Channing Wilson

It is difficult to pick a favorite from the songs Channing Wilson played tonight.  There was the beautiful song about his Grandfather, who was the oldest living firechief in the country when he died.  The perfect tribute in a lyric with a perfect hook - "The way I was raised / I guess you could say / I was Grandfathered in."  Wilson's song lyrics really stick, "I'm an old country song," "Another morning / coming home" and from "Poor Man's Cocaine," "Black, white, rich, poor / there's only one class to ride on the devil's train." 

In the round, songwriters produce a lot of banter about such things as their shared experiences and Brooks' Bird of Paradise capo.  They also feed off each others' themes and so from Wilson's story of his Grandfather being a veteran, we moved to Brook's song about a man suffering post traumatic stress syndrome.  And not to be left out of songs that bring a tear or songs about Daddy, Robby Hopkins touched us all with his tribute to his father, "This is Gonna Hurt Me."


Robby Hopkins

Robby Hopkins has the real country formula, the voice to go with it, and importantly, the boots.  I don't mean pointy-toed fancy boots.  I mean real boots, like people actually wear to the barn or the stable.   With his lovely wife, he also has seven kids, which gives him a lot of songwriting material.  Hopkins sang some beautiful songs, and some fun ones, like "She's Countrier Than Me" and "She's a Little Redneck, Too!"  He did a great song about the birds and bees, singing "Birds do it / they fall in love / bees do it too / can't get enough."  For his country influence, we heard a perfect rendition of Vern Gosdin's "If You're Gonna Do Me Wrong, Do it Right."



There are moments when you just know you are in the right place, hearing the right song, nodding your head to the right words.  Channing Wilson sang, "I'dve never done what you did to me, to you."  Boy am I glad I was was there tonight to hear those words. 

For more on these singer-songwriters, visit their web sites:

http://www.marthaannbrooks.com/fr_home.cfm
http://www.channingwilson.com/fr_home.cfm
http://www.robbyhopkins.com/