Flanfire

If you like good acoustic music, just show up at Austin Java at 12th and Lamar (north) at 8 pm on Thursday, October 18th for the THIRD COAST MUSIC SONGWRITER SHOWCASE -- which is of course the revival in small portions of what used to happen every night at the old Chicago House music venue.

This week's featured performers include Miss Shelley King, the fabulous Darcie Deaville, and Tim Henderson -- but the backbone of this music series since its inception is the dynamic duo who moved here in 1994 from the streets of Baltimore -- Jim Patton and Sherry Brokus, also known as Edge City (when playing in full band mode).

Now THIS is a couple from whom many of us could learn a lot about the grace of living, both through Jim's songs and their warm harmonies together and through the way they encourage each other and those around them. Wherever Jim and Sherry go, there always seems to be a campfire burning, guitars playing, and love all around (even when they are playing indoors).

Jim and Sherry are about to release their very first (Austin-made, that is) recording after two Edge City records that feature the whole band sound. But before we get to that, let's review a little history. Way back in 1979, Jim and his brother were playing in a band up in Maryland and this skinny blonde says she can sing and Jim's heart flutters and he breaks every rule of the band and lets her up on stage. She has never gotten off.

I have to admit that my own heyday in the Baltimore-Washington area was a decade earlier, but Jim and Sherry benefitted from airplay on the legendary WHFS-FM (the first to play antiwar underground music in the Sixties) -- and as Jim notes, a single from their very first five-song EP made it all the way to No. 7 on the charts in Pleasantville, New York.

Back in 1994, Butch Hancock's Lubbock or Leave It was still going strong during SXSW, and Jim and Sherry quickly found themselves surrounded by golks like Jon Dee Graham, Joe Ely, and Jimmy Dale Gilmore and the rest of the Chicago House scene that was so shortly afterward to fade away. They also befriended a tall, rangy farm-loving gal named Terri Hendrix and SHE introduced them to the amazing Lloyd Maines.

Lloyd then produced Edge City's first Austin CD, "Mystery Ride," the cover of which includes the band's motto, "Music for those of us who never joined up!" And, yes, that IS a takeoff on the Maryland state flag on the jacket! Players on that disc included David Grissom on guitar, Darcie Deaville on fiddle and mandolin, Glenn Fukunaga on bass, Paul Pearcy on drums, and Chip Dolan on keyboards and accordian -- also featured is Jim and Sherry's daughter Meaghan on harmony vocals (another long story). And, of course, Lloyd himself on lots of music makers.

The second Edge City CD was "Keepers of the Flame," produced by Bradley Kopp and featuring Brad on guitars, Lloyd on dobro and pedal steel, David Webb on keyboards, Glenn on bass, Freddie Steady Krc on drums, Darcie again, my pal Jon Sanchez as guest lead player on two songs, and Lorrie Singer and Brad on backing vocals.

I mention these two CD's largely because they are the source of many of the songs on the brand-new "Plans Gang Aft Agley," which brings Jim and Sherry back to the folk scene that is their monthly venue once again. "Aliceanna Street" and "Finest Hour" date to the Maines recording, while the Kopp-produced CD has band-size versions of "Fortunate Man," "Somewhere Else There's a Promised Land," "Wings of an Airplane," "27 Voices," "Tonight I'm Just Thinking About You," and "Don't Say Goodbye."

Songs ONLY available on the new disc include "Another Pretty Deep Hole," "Tarnished Angel," and "Son of My Father." Ron Flynt produced the new disc, which should open new doors for the laid-back couple who like to tour once or twice a year -- back up east and all over, really. But it is young Warren Hood -- NOT Miss Deaville - who is playing fiddle all over THIS recording!
After running into Jim and Sherry at Flipnotics a while back, where we were all listening to tunes from Mary Battiata (an old friend of theirs from their Baltimore-Washington daze) and the amazing Michael Fracasso (whose new songs may even surpass his older standards), we got together over at Austin Java for a brief conversation that lasted all evening. Jim talked about his approach to the craft - write great songs and make great records are his goals - and about the reality that his songs are stories that are woven from events in his own life and then camouflaged so as to make them universal. He also called his songs snapshots taken from all different angles -- but folks, he is using a unique lens.

Sherry, by the way, has a huge career outside music. Trained as a psychological therapist, she has served the homeless and addicted populations of the streets of Baltimore, the displaced people of New Orleans and surrounding areas after Katrina, and children of all ages who have a history of abuse. No wonder she sings with such compassion and has such a good listening ear.
"Fortunate Man" is in a way Jim's signature song -- I have the fairest of lovers, and I have the truest of friends ... And I have a dream still inside me, and I've got this guitar in my hand ... Measured by that, I am a fortunate man.... " But of course, Jim HAS such good friends because he has been a good friend. "Aliceanna Street" features Sherry's rich vocals (Carol Young of the Greencards sounds a little like Sherry), and talks about being "stuck without a choice" in a hardscrabble life in the big city.

In "Promised Land," Jim tells of a dad who started work at Bethlehem Steel at the age of 16, got married the same year and had a kid -- whom he encourages to get out of here as soon as you can because SOMEWHERE ELSE there's a promised land. BUT the kid did not listen? "Finest Hour" also features Sherry -- and Mister Hood. "Stand" is about the love between a couple through tough and good times -- and the great value of turning "instant love" (as Jim called his first glance at Sherry) into a long-term commitment to each other. Life is complicated, but the rewards of overcoming life's difficulties, at least for these two, have been great!

Flanfire sez: Listen to the whole CD, then listen to Jim and Sherry live, then have lunch or a cuppa coffee with them -- and laugh and cry and walk all over Kerrville and Baltimore and even Austin's hills and valleys with them. You'll be a better and happier person for it.

FOOTNOTE: I have to mention that Michael Fracasso pulled out a 30-year-old song from his youth at the Flip's show -- Gail -- that just washed out all my interest in hearing 1962 or any of the classics that are so deeply ingrained in my spirit. Then there was the biting, "There Goes the Neighborhood!," and "Hurricane," and on and on and on --- and especially the absolutely amazing, "Red White and Blue," a song ostensibly about the Civil War but much much deeper. There were only about seven hundred too few people at this Fracasso show -- Austin had best not forget its real superstars -- and Fracasso is one of the very few people ANYWHERE who could (if he chose) cover Roy Orbison well.

Flanfire -- Bringing LIFE to Austin music.