AUGUSTA, GA – It’s taken me more than two years since I first heard of this place, but I’m finally here at the Country Club. Even with the address in hand and a Google map printout, I almost missed the place, tucked in an old shopping center behind a Hooter’s on Washington Road. The signs are faded, so it doesn’t show up well while the sun’s setting on a Saturday evening.
The policewoman at the door checks my ID (a move always appreciated, although at my age, I doubt they think I’m under-age). I pay my $5 cover charge – accompanied by a chorus of “honey” and “darlin’” and an apology that I have to pay extra because there’s a live band tonight – and walk inside. It’s a typical cowboy-themed honky tonk: wooden walls, a wooden fence around the polished dance floor, three bars and the typical Western motif touches on the walls.
It’s 8:15 and weekend dance lessons are still in progress. Less than 20 folks are on the floor – mostly women, mostly 40s to 60s, but all trying to learn the steps through all the repetitions. I hunt for my first beer of the evening. The bartender says it’s $3 for a Miller Lite (luv that!), but cash only because she doesn’t have change or a credit card yet. So I take my first frosty bottle of the night and take a position along the rail next to the dance floor, close to the where the band is tuning their instruments. After the lesson ends, the Electric Slide brings out the jail bait.
Like most places, it’s still early here, but I like to come in before the crowds so I can check out the setting and get a feeling for the mood of the place. There’s maybe 50 people here and lots of tables, but more folks are filing in as show time approaches. There must be a prom tonight; limos pull up outside, and pimply boys in tuxes and blonds in sundresses pile in. (Aren’t they too young for this?) But the crowd is mostly hairless GIs from nearby Fort Gordon or big ole Georgia boys, all sharing tables with their ladies.
The band is called Deepstep (named for the town in Washington County that some of them call home, I learned later), and their repertoire is amazing. They open with “Honky Tonk Woman” and go straight into “The Race Is On.” Any band that can open with Stones and Jones is all right with me. There’s a bluesy version of Conway Twitty’s “Goodbye Time” that really blows me away. The girls in prom dresses crowd the stage for “Redneck Girl” and “Little More Country than That.” An older bald guy with a Confederate battle flag for a shirt comes out for the oldies. But everyone in the Country Club – which is standing room only by 11:00 – finds something they can dance to.
Everyone except me. I’ve made the fatal mistake of coming without a dance partner, and this place is packed with couples – college kids, GIs or big bubbas who I’m not going to cross. I usually come honky tonkin’ with a crowd but it’s worked out that none of my usual Honky Tonk Angels can join me tonight.
When the band takes a break, I hit the wall. I’d love to stay, but I’ve been on the road in Arkansas and now Augusta for seven days, and I’m exhausted. And a little lonely. Even with a friend in Louisiana emailing me and another sending Facebook messages while she huddles in the bathroom to avoid tornadoes, it hits me that I’m the only one here solo. So I head back to the motel for some much-needed rest.
But I’ll be back to Augusta later this summer – and I’m giving notice now to my friend across the river in Edgefield, S.C., and my new acquaintance from the next morning that my third trip to Augusta is 2010 will not pass without us dancing at the Country Club!
Showing posts with label country bars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label country bars. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Johnny Cash's 'San Quentin' Guitar
Speechless and humbled and honored.
That was my reaction recently when I stumbled across the guitar that Johnny Cash played during his historic 1969 concert at San Quentin Prison. Part of my surprise was that it was totally unexpected. I wasn’t at the Country Music Hall of Fame, or even the Cash Museum in Hendersonville, Tennessee. At this particular venue, I was caught off guard.
If you recall the movie Walk the Line, Cash’s Folsom Prison concert revived his career after drug abuse and personal problems. Certainly the song “Folsom Prison Blues” is much better than “San Quentin,” which he said he penned 24 hours before that concert. In fact, you can easily find the Folsom concert CD at Wal-Mart or Best Buy, while I had to order “At San Quentin” online to get a copy. (My LP was worn out decades ago.)
But I’ve always been more partial to “At San Quentin.” One reason it caught my attention while still in high school was the profanity. At that time, most people knew Johnny Cash as a network musical/variety show star who sang gospel with Billy Graham. “At San Quentin” showed the “real” Cash – the anger, the anti-establishment attitude, the darker side ABC kept hidden. On the album and the British documentary, you felt what Cash was really like on stage. You heard (or saw) him antagonizing authority figures from cameramen to prison guards. He performed the songs he wanted to do, not what the TV producers told him to sing. He did “A Boy Named Sue” uncensored and cursed San Quentin prison in its namesake song. (He got such a great response from the prisoners to that song, he sang it twice – and put it on the album twice back-to-back, another middle finger at Columbia Records.) From start to finish, “At San Quentin” was authentic Cash – a voice seldom heard again until the “American” recordings just before his death. When he sings ballsy ballads like “Sam Hall” and “Tear Stained Letter” on “American IV”, the words “You can all go straight to hell” echo “At San Quentin.”
So, when our tour guide pointed to a beat-up wooden guitar in a glass display case and said, “That’s the guitar Johnny Cash played at San Quentin,” I was awe-stuck. It wasn’t just because it was a Cash guitar – I’ve seen the cool one over the door at Stages in Nashville, signed by the Highwaymen – Johnny, Willie, Waylon and Kris. It’s because it was THE San Quentin guitar.
The guide showed my group how the guitar was modified so the “Man in Black” could still play it despite the arthritis that had already damaged since fingers in the 1960s. He talked about the concert and Cash’s life. He asked if we knew who was in the audience at San Quentin, and I alone knew the answer: Merle Haggard.
At first I wondered why the “San Quentin” guitar was here – at the Hard Rock Café in Gatlinburg. But it makes sense this one hangs next to guitars from Pete Townsend and Jimmy Page. Cash started in rock ‘n roll with Elvis and Jerry Lee and the others. While he eventually settled into a conventional country and gospel groove, his attitude remained firmly grounded in rock.
In Nashville, the “San Quentin” guitar would be lost in the crowd of artifacts. But it both stands out and belongs at the Hard Rock.
That was my reaction recently when I stumbled across the guitar that Johnny Cash played during his historic 1969 concert at San Quentin Prison. Part of my surprise was that it was totally unexpected. I wasn’t at the Country Music Hall of Fame, or even the Cash Museum in Hendersonville, Tennessee. At this particular venue, I was caught off guard.
If you recall the movie Walk the Line, Cash’s Folsom Prison concert revived his career after drug abuse and personal problems. Certainly the song “Folsom Prison Blues” is much better than “San Quentin,” which he said he penned 24 hours before that concert. In fact, you can easily find the Folsom concert CD at Wal-Mart or Best Buy, while I had to order “At San Quentin” online to get a copy. (My LP was worn out decades ago.)
But I’ve always been more partial to “At San Quentin.” One reason it caught my attention while still in high school was the profanity. At that time, most people knew Johnny Cash as a network musical/variety show star who sang gospel with Billy Graham. “At San Quentin” showed the “real” Cash – the anger, the anti-establishment attitude, the darker side ABC kept hidden. On the album and the British documentary, you felt what Cash was really like on stage. You heard (or saw) him antagonizing authority figures from cameramen to prison guards. He performed the songs he wanted to do, not what the TV producers told him to sing. He did “A Boy Named Sue” uncensored and cursed San Quentin prison in its namesake song. (He got such a great response from the prisoners to that song, he sang it twice – and put it on the album twice back-to-back, another middle finger at Columbia Records.) From start to finish, “At San Quentin” was authentic Cash – a voice seldom heard again until the “American” recordings just before his death. When he sings ballsy ballads like “Sam Hall” and “Tear Stained Letter” on “American IV”, the words “You can all go straight to hell” echo “At San Quentin.”
So, when our tour guide pointed to a beat-up wooden guitar in a glass display case and said, “That’s the guitar Johnny Cash played at San Quentin,” I was awe-stuck. It wasn’t just because it was a Cash guitar – I’ve seen the cool one over the door at Stages in Nashville, signed by the Highwaymen – Johnny, Willie, Waylon and Kris. It’s because it was THE San Quentin guitar.
The guide showed my group how the guitar was modified so the “Man in Black” could still play it despite the arthritis that had already damaged since fingers in the 1960s. He talked about the concert and Cash’s life. He asked if we knew who was in the audience at San Quentin, and I alone knew the answer: Merle Haggard.
At first I wondered why the “San Quentin” guitar was here – at the Hard Rock Café in Gatlinburg. But it makes sense this one hangs next to guitars from Pete Townsend and Jimmy Page. Cash started in rock ‘n roll with Elvis and Jerry Lee and the others. While he eventually settled into a conventional country and gospel groove, his attitude remained firmly grounded in rock.
In Nashville, the “San Quentin” guitar would be lost in the crowd of artifacts. But it both stands out and belongs at the Hard Rock.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Wild Bill's brings an urban flair to the honky tonk scene
The crowd at most bars and honky tonks tend to reflect their surroundings, and at Wild Bill’s in Duluth, Georgia, is no exception. Located next to Gwinnett Place Mall in Duluth, just off Interstate 85 north of Atlanta, the partiers tend to be young, urban, well-dressed – more of a hip nightclub crowd than a country bar. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a good time here – just make sure you dress a little better than you would if you were going to the Floramaba, and do your smoking in the parking lot.
The venue bills itself as America’s largest dance hall and concert hall, and this weekend’s line-up shows its drawing power. On a recent Friday night, $10 got you in the door to see Jake Owen – and you could take home latest CD as well, free of charge. The CD, “Easy Does It,” includes the recent hit, “Don’t Think I Can’t Love You.” Owen topped the charts with “Staring With Me” in 2008, his first Number One hit.
The follow evening featured “Big Redneck Weekend”, a Saturday night special event headlined by Colt Ford that blended Southern country and hip-hop to produce a unique sound. Opening for Colt was Trailer Choir, whose video “Off the Hillbilly Hook” was featured in Toby Keith’s “Beer for My Horses” straight-to-DVD film.
The last time I was at Wild Bill’s, Montgomery Gentry was the headliner and the place was packed. Better yet, the opening act was Atlanta’s own Lost Trailers and their breakthrough hit, “Holler Back,” had just hit the Top 10. Fortunately I got there early – once it’s crowded, you don’t have time to explore the unique memorabilia on the walls and the little nuances at the various bars scattered over multiple levels. This is probably the most pristine honky tonk I’ve seen since the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville – a great place for good, clean fun.
To check out the upcoming concert and event schedule, visit www.wildbillsatlanta.com.
The venue bills itself as America’s largest dance hall and concert hall, and this weekend’s line-up shows its drawing power. On a recent Friday night, $10 got you in the door to see Jake Owen – and you could take home latest CD as well, free of charge. The CD, “Easy Does It,” includes the recent hit, “Don’t Think I Can’t Love You.” Owen topped the charts with “Staring With Me” in 2008, his first Number One hit.
The follow evening featured “Big Redneck Weekend”, a Saturday night special event headlined by Colt Ford that blended Southern country and hip-hop to produce a unique sound. Opening for Colt was Trailer Choir, whose video “Off the Hillbilly Hook” was featured in Toby Keith’s “Beer for My Horses” straight-to-DVD film.
The last time I was at Wild Bill’s, Montgomery Gentry was the headliner and the place was packed. Better yet, the opening act was Atlanta’s own Lost Trailers and their breakthrough hit, “Holler Back,” had just hit the Top 10. Fortunately I got there early – once it’s crowded, you don’t have time to explore the unique memorabilia on the walls and the little nuances at the various bars scattered over multiple levels. This is probably the most pristine honky tonk I’ve seen since the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville – a great place for good, clean fun.
To check out the upcoming concert and event schedule, visit www.wildbillsatlanta.com.
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