Gregg Wright - Black and Loud Festival, Bossanova Ballroom, Portland OR - April 6, 2024

 

This event happened because we were so impressed by the performance of Down North’s lead singer on the morning news – he spun, he struck poses, he bellowed – we dubbed him ‘the Black Jack Black.’ We didn’t get to see his band but ran into him in the audience. He told me got his moves not from Jack Black but from JackiE Wilson, Michael Jackson, Prince. He nodded to the performer preparing on the stage and said he used to used to play with Michael Jackson – dammm!

Gregg Wright: [New Jersey] A cowboy-looking blues-singing cool cat. Elaborate guitar neck. The watery eyes of an old man. The backing band wasn’t his band – to the extent that he nodded to them to ‘follow me’ before a song. Their investment didn’t seem sincere. The investment of the punk girl in a kilt and leggings jigging her body at the front of the stage, on the other hand, was sincere. The proliferation of professional photographers also created a façade of legitimacy. Lots of guitar solos. I think it was all covers? “Born Under a Bad Sign” by Albert King. My teacher mentor from my middle school math days still sends me music and books – a recent one tells the tale of The Broken Spoke, opened in 1964 and "Last of the True Texas Dancehalls" (The Broken Spoke: Austin's Legendary Honky-Tonk by Donna Marie Miller). This wasn’t a venue I went to frequently but certainly one I respected – and anything that incorporates music and/or Austin gets interest leniency from me. Because the modern/punk takes on roots music Austin celebrates baffled me as a West Coast transplant (where everybody says “I like everything but country”), I was struck by this quote from Doc Watson in the book: “Watson had coined the name “Ameripolitan” as a new genre of music that includes country, honky-tonk, western swing, rockabilly, outlaw, and roots categories.”