Thursday, March 28, 2019 at 8:00PMย and Friday, March 29, 2019 at 8:00PM Doors:ย 7:00pm |ย Show:ย 8:00pmย Tickets:ย $25-$48ย Stateside at the Paramount presents David Ball & That Carolina Sound featuring Warren and Marshall Hood Byย Peter Blackstockย Posted Marย 25,ย 2019ย atย 12:05ย PM Flash back, for a moment, beyond the just-finished South by Southwest to last yearโs SXSW. Its 10-day run had just kicked off when, in a show that wasnโt even part of the festivities, Nashville songwriter David Ball joined cousins Warren and Marshall Hood at the Saxon Pubย to revisit the music of beloved 1970s-โ80s Austin trio Uncle Waltโs Band. Marveling at the magic brought back to life, listening to the sincere testimonials and lovely guest-vocal turns by Uncle Waltโs Band devotees Kelly Willis, Marcia Ball and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, I wondered how I could see anything for the rest of SXSW that would be as good as this. And I didnโt. An encore at a larger venue was well-deserved. It comes this week, when Ball and the Hoods, along with bassist Nigel Frye and drummer Scott Metko, set up shop at Stateside at the Paramount for a two-night stand Thursday and Friday. (The Friday show sold out quickly, prompting the added Thursday show.) And now thereโs more Uncle Waltโs material from the vaults to celebrate. Last yearโs show coincided withย the release of a 21-song anthologyย on the renowned archival label Omnivore. This week, Omnivore reissues the bandโs self-titled first album and doubles its length by adding 11 previously unreleased tracks, a combination of studio demos and live recordings. In the 1990s and 2000s, Ball had a handful of top-10 country hits (including โThinkinโ Problemโ and โRiding With Private Maloneโ), but many Austinites still remember him most fondly as the upright bassist joining guitarist Walter Hyatt and fiddler/guitarist Champ Hood in Uncle Waltโs Band. Relocating here from South Carolina in the 1970s, they quickly became one of the best bands ever to call Austin home. Mixing folk, country, jazz and swing styles, all three members wrote original tunes that highlighted the perfect blend of their tenor voices. As Gilmore reminisced last year at the Saxon, โThe three best singers in Austin were all in the same band.โ They eventually went their separate ways. Both Ball and Hyatt moved to Nashville, pursuing solo careers with major record labels. Hood stayed in Austin and played regularly with Gilmore, Toni Price and many others while touring occasionally with Lyle Lovett. Any possibility of Uncle Waltโs Band reunions ended when Hyatt was killed in the ValuJet plane crash in Floridaโs Everglades in 1996. Hood died of cancer five years later. But soon to follow in Champโs footsteps was his son Warren, whoโs now in his mid-30sย and is one of Austinโs most accomplished musicians. Meanwhile, Champโs nephew Marshall moved here from South Carolina in 2005, playing guitar for years with local group the Belleville Outfit. The Hood cousins have long included some Uncle Waltโs Band tunes in their own repertoires, and theyโd done a few UWB tribute shows over the years. But this new opportunity to play these songs with the groupโs lone surviving member is something special. โThis is the coolest thing I could imagine doing, and I think Marshall feels the same way,โ Warren said on a mid-March morning with his cousin at Cosmic Coffee. Warren has been playing there semi-regularly on Tuesday nights in recent weeks, complementing his long-running Wednesday residency at ABGB. Marshall learned to play much of the Uncle Waltโs Band catalog when he was still in high school. โI spent many, many hours sitting there and watching as many videos as I could find of Champ playing, watching where his hand was and figuring it out,โ he said. All that practice paid off in spades a couple of years ago when Ball was in Austin to play a house concert for Daren Appelt, a music gear manufacturer who recorded dozens of Uncle Waltโs Band shows at venues such as the old Congress Avenue location of Waterloo Ice House. Warren and Marshall were at that house concert, and Ball eventually called them up to join him. โWhat was supposed to be an hour show wound up being about two hours as David just started calling Uncle Waltโs Band songs,โ Warren recalls. โHe didnโt really know that Marshall and I knew ALL of them. And theyโre not easy songs to learn. โMarshall really blows my mind with all the chords and stuff. I play some guitar and I pretend to know about music, but this guy sat down and learned all the songs, and they are hard. So we started singing them and playing them, and Davidโs eyes grew big and we were having fun.โ Ball has known the Hood cousins for all their lives, but until recently, their interactions were more a matter of โseeing them off and on over the years,โ he said by phone from Nashville last week. โWe never did really do that much playing, so this is a great opportunity. These guys can swing just right, and itโs a joy. โItโs funny, because Marshall reminds me a lot of Champ. He acts like him and looks like him; heโs always doing something that reminds me of him. Whereas Warren is kind of like Walter AND Champ. Heโs a little more serious.โ Like his father, Ball says, Warren is โa naturalโ at playing fiddle, but heโs also taken the instrument to another level. Formal training at Bostonโs prestigious Berklee College of Music helped Warren better understand and appreciate how the music of his fatherโs band was well beyond what most Austin pickers were playing in the clubs back then. โA lot of the music that they wrote and played, you canโt just write a chord chart out for it and be like, โOh, thatโs G6, or C, whatever,โโ Warren said. โThere was a specific voice leading a melody hidden in the chords. So the hand shapes are not conventional hand shapes; theyโre really intricate. Thatโs why the songs are so hard to learn. Itโs like learning Bach, and then singing on top of that. Every part is a melody.โ Ball concurs. โIt wasnโt really acoustic fiddle music. They had a lot of that kind of stuff, but at the same time, the music went a lot further beyond that. Itโs very hard music to pick; itโs not like a back porch, sitting around, plucking on an acoustic guitar thing.โ Perhaps thatโs why many of their peers appreciated the trio so much. โThe great musicians in Austin responded to what Walter was writing,โ Ball said. โThey took to us because there were three guys singing together and we had this harmony thing going. It was kind of like the Kingston Trio or Peter, Paul & Mary format, but we really werenโt like that at all (musically).โ Among those drawn in by the Uncle Waltโs Band sound was a young Lyle Lovett, who has sung the groupโs praises for decades and frequently plays their music on the house PA system as concertgoers arrive for his show. Both Ball and the Hoods hinted that Lovett might well be around for the Stateside shows. Might he sit in for a song or two? โLetโs make this an open invitation,โ Ball said with a laugh. โWe donโt want to apply any pressure.โ Lovett first brought Hyattโs song โIโll Come Knockinโโ to wide attention when he recorded it for his 1998 album โStep Inside This House,โ a tribute to Texas songwriters who influenced him. The original Uncle Waltโs Band version of the song finally surfaced on last yearโs โAnthologyโ collection. The bonus tracks on the reissue out this week attest to the thorough archival work of Heidi Hyatt, Walterโs widow, and reissue co-producer Mark Michel. โA lot of these songs I didnโt even know about until a couple years ago,โ Warren says. โItโs really obscure Uncle Waltโs Band material that even the die-hard fans donโt have live recordings of.โ At the Stateside, the focus will be on Uncle Waltโs Band material, but Ball and the Hoods will also play some of their own songs. Ballโs big hits โThinkinโ Problemโ and โRiding With Private Maloneโ are likely selections. His new record, โCome See Me,โ includes a song called โLittle Rancheroโ that Hyatt and Hood used to play when Ball would go see them in Spartanburg, S.C., just before Uncle Waltโs Band formed. Warren says that part of the joy for him in these shows is drawing a line for fans of Ballโs country hits back to the trioโs work. โThereโs a lot of people who are big David Ball fans who have no idea about Uncle Waltโs Band,โ he said. โAnd if you play the two side by side to them, they canโt believe itโs the same person. But for me, because Iโve studied the whole thing and been there for most of it, I can hear the connection.โ In Austin, itโs easier to find the die-hard Uncle Waltโs fans โ to a point. โThereโs a handful of people who are still here who were there and remember the live shows,โ Warren said. โWhen we sold out the first night (at the Stateside), that was basically the 300 people who remember. So what weโre trying to do with the second show is to reach some of the people who had never heard about it who would get into it, and should know about it.โ A tantalizing question lingers: Have Ball and the Hoods written any new music together? โWe have not,โ Ball said, โbut that would be fantastic. I would welcome doing something like that. We could do a whole new record of new music.โ Perhaps it could lure Ball back to Austin for a spell. โOh, I would love it,โ he said. โI miss Texas all the time. Maybe I could find my old flip-flops that I left down there, and eat some Mexican food. That sounds perfect to me.โ Event Parking Information Secure covered parking is offered to patrons at the 600 Congress parking garage. For additional parking information, pleaseย click here.ย Personal Items Policy The Austin Theatre Alliance is taking measures to increase the safety and security of its patrons and staff. We have instituted aย No Large Bag Policyย at all shows and events at the Paramount and State Theatres. Read more information on banned items, permitted items and our full policiesย here. |
