Grayson Capps had really blown me away the first time I heard any of his music, and continued to do so with his most recent release, Rott 'N' Roll. Then in August of 2008 I had the chance to spend some time with Grayson on the phone for an interview and that only confirmed all the good opinions I had formed about him from listening to his music. You know how it is, sometimes a person might come across a certain way on record, but then when you talk to them you find out it was only artifice and they aren't anything like what you had heard. Well, that's not the case with Grayson Capps. What you hear on the records is pretty much what you get when you talk to him.
A while back I came across a concert that he had recorded at the Paradiso club in Amsterdam that you could watch online. I had liked it so much that I had gone to the trouble to embed a link to it on the front page of my blog. Unfortunately I went back a short while ago and discovered the link no longer worked as the concert had been removed. Thankfully it turns out there was a good reason for it no longer being available online, as Capps' label, Hyena Records, has now released it on a new DVD, Grayson Capps Live At The Paradiso.
The concert was filmed in May of 2008, and features Capp playing solo and unplugged. Over the course of about 110 minutes he sings 25 songs and regales the audience with stories about people he's known and some of the places he's been. Some of his songs tell versions of the stories that's he's just told us, versions that take us inside the story so that instead of being an observer, all of a sudden we're sitting in that bar with him and Bobby Long on a Saturday afternoon in Alabama ("The Love Song Of Bobby Long").
Watching Grayson Capps perform is almost like attending an old fashioned revival meeting. He's a commanding presence on stage, and not just because he's a big man but because of the force of his personality. Whether he's telling a story, singing, reciting, or leading the audience in a sing-along, he exudes a life force that has to be seen to be believed. He sings with a voice that sounds like its been carved from the wood of a tree that's been around as long as the Tennessee mountains he sings about in his song "Arrowhead". Yet for every rough-hewn song about some strange and tragic character who has crossed his path, there's an equal number of songs that express his joy and wonder at the world.
.jpg?t=20120209092158)
Article comments