Louvin: The night the lights went out at Spaceland
Kevin Bronson on
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[Friend of Buzz Bands Doug Kresse was on hand at Spaceland on Saturday night and passed along this account:]
By Doug Kresse
Not even a power outage a half-hour into his set could sap the energy and heart from 81-year-old country music legend Charlie Louvin on Saturday night at Spaceland. With a backing cast of local musicians and guest turns from the likes of Lucinda Williams, Louvin carried on in the dimness of emergency lights and delivered a heartfelt set rich in the art of storytelling.
After sets by Frank Fairfield and local treasure Mike Stinson and his band (who would become Louvin’s backup band), Louvin took the stage in front of a packed house about 11:15 p.m. Plenty of fellow musicians populated the crowd, including Chris Isaak. With occasional turns from guest vocalists, Louvin sang a lot of his great gospel hits, and classics like “I Don’t Love You Anymore.”
Then, around 11:45, the lights flickered and everything went black inside the club. Emergency backup lights kicked on, and the Spaceland crew scrambled to keep the show on the road (somehow the sound system was not affected). Working with little light, Charlie and the band shifted to working without the reliance of the sheet music.” At one point, bassist Rob Douglas attempted to scan the sheet music, trying to get the chords down, but Louvin just told Douglas not to worry. He helped the bassist and Stinson along, and the set went on in conditions that may have rattled many musicians – but not these.
Later, Louvin welcomed Lucinda Williams on the stage to sing with him. But one of the things I’ll remember most were the stories Charlie told between songs.” He connected with the audience, recounting a life of great memories.” One was the time – long ago – that he and a band had just finished a long set, were packing up to go home, then saw some miners, just getting off their shift, who suggested it’d be wise to play some more. Louvin honored their request. He also told of the times when club patrons who talked during a set and disrupted it (not an uncommon occurrence in Eastside environs) were “carried out.” His anecdotes spanned several decades.
It’s clear Charlie Louvin has created a rich history of music – and added to it with Saturday’s show. In the midst of what to him was a minor inconvenience, he showed true class.
Wasn’t there myself, but I heard he told some racist jokes about Obama and others. Is that true?
It was a great show, though the Obama “joke” towards the end kind of put a damper on things. :/
My correspondent did not hear the joke, but he admitted that he was standing among some chatty people and didn’t catch all the stage banter. If that’s indeed the case, it’s too bad.
I was there and Charlie did crack a racist joke about President Obama. It killed the buzz.
Just to elaborate: I heard tonight from two different sources, both of whom I consider reliable, that it was not a racial joke Louvin told, merely an anti-presidential one (like the ones we used to make about Bush). Neither party remembered the exact wording, but it was something about Obama going down in plane crash. He got jeered. Louvin also remarked that he was counting on Rush Limbaugh to get us out of this mess. If anybody was taping, please chime in.
I was there for the whole show and had a great time. The “joke” in question went something like this:
A classroom is learning about the definition of “tragedy”. President Obama is passing by the school and the teacher asks him to come in and talk about the subject. He asks the class if they can give an example. The first kid talks about a family getting into a car crash. Obama says no, that is an “accident”. The second kid talks about a school bus full of children going over the side of a mountain. Obama says no, that is a “great loss”. Finally a third kid says it would be if a plane carrying Obama, his wife and children was struck and crashed. Obama says that is correct, that would be a tragedy and then asked the little kid how he knew it would be such. The little kid says it would be a tragedy because it certainly wouldn’t be a great loss and certainly wouldn’t be an accident.
It really wasn’t funny but it certainly wasn’t racist. As Kevin said, if he had told this same joke a year ago and replaced “Obama” with “Bush” it would have been applauded instead of jeered. Even as such the audience handled it fairly well and he moved on. A good example of why you should know the audience you’re playing for.
I saw him play in 2007 at the Mint and he told a lot more “grandpa” jokes at that show and stayed away from the politics. That show seemed to flow a lot better as well since he had a touring backup band with him to play all the gigs. Mike Stinson and his group did as good a job as you could ask them to with only what was likely a day to practice the songs.
Hey there. I was at the show and just wrote up my own version of the night over here:
http://whenyouawake.com/2009/02/10/in-living-color-charlie-louvin-lucinda-williams-and-benji-hughes/
In regards to the joke, I think it was more anti-Obama than racist (though I did half miss a line at the beginning that may or may not have mentioned a “knocked up” black girl—did i hear that right anybody?).
Anyways- the rest of the “joke” went something like this (i am paraphrasing here so please correct anything that’s wrong–it was pretty hard to hear in there):
Obama went into a classroom where the kids were doing an exercise where you give them a word and then they have to put that word into a sentence. Obama gave them the word “tragedy.”
A little girl stood up and said: “a mother and her family are driving in a car and they get into a horrible car accident and all die. That’s a tragedy.”
Obama shook his head and said : “No, that’s not a tragedy. That’s an accident.”
Another little girl stood up and said: “a bus full of children looses control and kills everyone onboard. That’s a tragedy.”
Obama shook his head and said : “No, that’s not a tragedy. That’s a catastrophe”
Finally, a little boy stands up and says: “Obama and his entire family (wife, kids) are flying a plane and a nuclear missile goes off and hits the plane and kills everyone.”
Obama said: ” Yes! You got it. Now that’s a tradegy.”
To which the kid responded: “No. That’s neither a tragedy or a catastrophe…”
There was nothing said about a “knocked up black girl”. He did make reference to the teacher in the joke being black but it was simply stated as, “a black teacher”. Again, nothing at all racist about the joke, simply anti-Obama.
His joke wasn’t racist but it was definitely anti obama combined with his faith in Rush Limbaugh made me realize that he’s an old style hardcore conservative. I can’t fault him for that, that’s his beliefs. Lucinda Williams commented on how he made jokes against Hilary Clinton in Arkansas. He is from a different era, he made several comments about the girl that he brought on stage to sing that were blantantly sexist and he called Lucinda Williams, “the blonde witch”. I’m not sure we can really blame him for any of it because he is 81 and grew up in the South and is probably so republican that he it will never leave him. He grew up in a time when things like this were accepted. We can’t expect every country artist to be as awesome as Willie Nelson.
^ ^ frank, about the sexist comments, i was that girl and i have to say i honestly wasn’t offended at charlie louvin calling me sexy. 🙂 in fact i think i now have a permanent smile.
[…] to end the show which was the best song of the night.” Somehow a fitting way to end things.” And for the last time he didn’t tell a racist joke.” An anti-Obama joke is not inherently racist […]
Hey Doug,
Great job! I think Buzzbands might have a new correspondent.