HBE FTW KILLS T-MODEL FORD!!??

Keeping Roots Music Thriving - HBE FTW in the Journal Gazzette


http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081019/E...

Keeping Roots Music Thriving
City Part of Network of Concert Promoters
by Emma Downs - edowns@jg.net
Courtesy Photo in paper Joel Faroute

T-Model Ford is a bluesman – a Mississippi native, pushing 90 years old (according to some sources) – known for playing raw and rhythmic Delta blues on the streets of Greenville, Miss.

He sits when he plays; guitar in hand, grinding out two-chord vamps about heartbreak and ruin. According to legend, he's been shot, stabbed and poisoned during his lifetime. And his ankles still bear scars, ragged mementos from his time working on a chain gang.

He's little known outside of blues circles. But on a Tuesday night at The Brass Rail in May, he played for a sold-out crowd of people – most of them one-third his age; most decked out in T-shirts and tattoos.

"T-Model showed up and had two things with him," says John Commorato, owner of The Brass Rail. "A guitar case and his own half-pint of Jack Daniels. And this was about 5 p.m."

Ford performed for nearly three hours to a packed house. ("We were turning people away at the door," Commorato says.) Eventually – thanks to a broken air conditioner and a second half pint of whiskey – Ford passed out and hit the floor.

"But by the time the EMS got there, he was back up, tuning his guitar," Commorato says. "There was no air conditioning. It was hotter than hell. But he didn't want to stop playing, and nobody was leaving."

In other words, a typical Hillgrass Bluebilly show. Freewheeling, raucous, howlin' musical chaos for less than $10.

The T-Model Ford show was one of the first for Hillgrass Bluebilly Entertainment Fort Wayne, a local franchise of a national promotions company based in Austin, Texas. Owned by Brenn Beck (drummer for local blues duo Left Lane Cruiser) and local promoter Jeff Anderson, the local franchise has brought blues and roots acts such as the Legendary Shack Shakers, the Black Diamond Heavies and Joe Buck to Fort Wayne this year.

"We're trying to turn this city into a place bands want to play," Anderson says. "Throwing up the Hillgrass Bluebilly flag lets us do that even better."

Currently, there are four Hillgrass Bluebilly chapters in the United States – Fort Wayne, Austin, Phoenix and Alexandria, La. – and about 50 bands on the company's roster, all of which perform American roots music.

"The goal is to have a chapter in every time zone and every state in the country," Anderson says. "And then world domination after that."

In Fort Wayne, Hillgrass shows – supported by intense grass-roots promotional efforts by Beck and Anderson – have seen standing-room-only crowds from the beginning in January this year.

"We always say we only promote bands that have heart and soul in the music," Anderson says. "Bands where you can feel where they're coming from. I think that's one of the reasons people are digging it so much. They can really feel what those guys are saying."

The success of the Fort Wayne chapter has led Hillgrass founders Keith Mallette and Ryan Tackett to adopt some of the local chapter's techniques and spread the word to other possible chapters.

"Fort Wayne is my favorite chapter," Mallette says. "Just the way they throw shows, their guerrilla style of marketing. If it weren't for Fort Wayne, things might not be expanding for us the way they are."

Mallette and Tackett started Hillgrass Bluebilly in 2004 in the hopes of drawing more bands into Phoenix.

"Phoenix was a really dry town," Mallette says. "Bands would go from Tucson to Flagstaff or just bypass Arizona all together. And that's what we hear from a lot of other towns. That the bands are just the same old same old."

Mallette hopes to start 11 more Hillgrass Bluebilly chapters by the end of 2009. With more than 20 towns on board, touring blues bands will be able to perform on a circuit, from Arizona to the East Coast, bringing roots music to towns that otherwise wouldn't get to hear it performed live, Mallette says.

"The more we grow, the more people will attend," he says. "The venues will get bigger and bigger and hopefully, we'll be able to make people more aware of roots music. My tag line is we're a company that is here to reintroduce you to American roots music. You can take it from there."