{"id":3000,"date":"2020-10-15T07:47:12","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T06:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=3000"},"modified":"2020-10-15T07:55:05","modified_gmt":"2020-10-15T06:55:05","slug":"capital-for-capital-creatives-part-four-of-our-five-piece-paul-simon-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2020\/10\/15\/capital-for-capital-creatives-part-four-of-our-five-piece-paul-simon-special\/","title":{"rendered":"CAPITAL FOR CAPITAL CREATIVES: part four of our five-piece Paul Simon special"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CAPITAL  FOR CAPITAL CREATIVES<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Norman Warwick<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sidetracks & Detours fully explored the incredibly devastating effect Covid 19, and the subsequent lockdown it caused, had on the finances of the city in our article \u00b4South By South West Suffering\u00b4 still available in our archives. Within days an emergency concert was mooted with plenty of star names promising to take part and with Willie Nelson and Paul Simon named as the presenting partners. Then, within hours of the concert closing a comprehensive, positive and grateful review was posted in The Austin Chronicle by Kevin Curtin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He opened his review with a look at the audience,\u2026or lack thereof !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Paul Simon<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

 \u00b4Thank you… no one\u2019s here,\u00b4 clowned Paul Simon on Wednesday night, arms outstretched to soak in silent cheers after singing Me & Julio Down By The Schoolyard. Later, ATX\u2019s Gary Clark Jr. similarly enjoyed a one-person ovation while playing from the stage of an empty Antone\u2019s. \u00b4Thanks for clapping,\u00b4 he said. \u00b4I been all by myself playing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Virtual concert, A Night For Austin\u00b4 saw 30 remotely recorded performances, from famous townies\u00b4, said Curton, \u00b4and tangentially connected national acts drumming up funds for the city\u2019s creative community.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A ticker on the bottom of the screen, broadcast via a regional CBS livestream and an ACL Radio simulcast, saw donations climb past a half million dollars during the two-hour show. Those monies were banked into a fund managed by Austin Community Foundation to be dispersed to six beneficiaries including the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, the Red River Cultural District, and Six Square, a non-profit organisation benefitting artists and entrepreneurs of colour who\u2019ve lost income as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Lukas Nelson (photo by Doug Freeman)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/em><\/strong>The sequence of home-recorded songs made for a night of great music, and regardless of the whole thing being by way of a good deed, the concert stood on its own two feet and roared. The highlights were plentiful. Lukas Nelson, (Willie\u00b4s son now established as a fine artist in his own right) unwittingly duetted with a loquacious bird while performing Just Outside Of Austin, while a stuffed crow flanked the typically mystical piano sage Terry Allen, playing his profound Sailin\u2019 On Through. My own band Lendanear used to play Terry\u00b4s Gimme A Ride To Heaven Boy back in the eighties, but hey, he can\u00b4t be held responsible for that !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Black Pumas performing on A Night For Austin
(photo by Doug Freeman)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Black Pumas core duo Eric Burton and Adrian Quesada were anthemic and uplifting with a powerful, stripped-down version of Colors. They contrasted the old-guard line up along with fellow up-and-comers Kalu & the Electric Joint and David Ramirez, who both shoneo brightlt on their segments. Meanwhile, one of the great veterans of Texas music, Flaco Jim\u00e9nez, turned in a great performance of Ay te Dejo en San Antonio backed by Los Texmaniacs, who also supported his Texas Tornados band-mate Augie Meyers doing the immortal Hey Baby Que Paso.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charlie Sexton, a ubiquitous figure round these parts, was the event\u2019s musical director and he linked with his onetime Arc Angels band-mate Doyle Bramhall II for the night\u2019s best socially distanced mingling of guitars \u2013 a blues song advising us to \u00b4roll with what you got\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Edie and Paul (photo by Doug Freeman)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Co-host Paul Simon and his Texan better-half, Edie Brickell, served as the connective tissue to some of the event\u2019s bigger stars, including James Taylor, who delivered a pitch perfect never-heard-before cover of Simon & Garfunkel\u2019s America. One of the telecast\u2019s best moments came when Brickell led Simon in a light-hearted cover of the Bobbettes\u2019 1957 single \u201cMr. Lee,\u201d the former nailing the track\u2019s quirky slide-downs on her Collings guitar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those local luthiers got a lot of love on A Night For Austin, which interspersed music sets with a roll call of Austin businesses like Sam\u2019s BBQ, Waterloo Records, and the Austin Motel, plus guest host segments from actors. Woody Harrelson called Austin \u00b4a city I will one day move to\u201d and Ethan Hawke, who described his greying beard as \u00b4a north Texas grey squirrel invited to live on my face,\u00b4 duetted with young daughter Indiana on a lovely version of Willie Nelson\u2019s Too Sick To Pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Willie Nelson at A Night For Austin
(photo by Doug Freeman)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Willie, the paterfamilias, whose relatives\u00b4 promotion company Luck Presents facilitated the concert, closed the show with a solid rendition of On The Road Again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Thank you for joining us in the mission of getting the city back on its feet\u00b4, he said at the song\u2019s conclusion. \u00b4We all need each other and we all need music\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was made more than evident by a guest list that included Bonnie Raitt, John Hiatt, Norah Jones, Lyle Lovett, Ray Benson & Asleep At The Wheel, Shawn Colvin and Vince Gill. The thespian world was well represented, too, by Ethan Hawke, Owen Wilson, Renee Zellweger and Woody Harrelson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

we all need each other and we all need music<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13,45,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aata","category-literary","category-music","category-performing-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3000"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3010,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3000\/revisions\/3010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}