WSLR Presents: Malcolm Holcombe

5500 St Elmo Ave,Chattanooga TN 37409

11 September, 2021

Description

Malcolm Holcombe record release show! Malcolm Holcombe is releasing a new record, "Tricks of The Trade" on August 20th. He will be joining us at The Woodshop on September 11 for a live, record release show. Limited Seating! Only 40 tickets available. Early Bird tickets are on sale now for $25. Doors at 7, Music at 8. In February of 2020, just days before the world was infected both literally and figuratively with the plague, Malcolm Holcombe spent a week recording what will be his next album. Tracked at Seven Deadly Sins studio just outside of Nashville, Tricks of the Trade will be officially released on August 20th of 2021 on the Need To Know label. Preceded by the release of a limited edition vinyl album sampler and an amazing video for the first single, “Money Train” which was made by acclaimed songwriter Emma Swift, Tricks of the Trade will finally be available on CD and on all streaming platforms. Produced by the team of Brian Brinkerhoff, Dave Roe and Jared Tyler, Tricks of the Trade finds Malcolm’s trademark growl and impeccable lyrics surrounded by a great studio band that includes Roe on bass and longtime musical cohort, Tyler on electric guitar, dobro, and background vocals. With Holcombe’s uncanny ability to tap into the collective consciousness of a nation that is currently starving for anything that can latch onto and help soothe its soul, these songs are among the best in his illustrious catalog. Adding to the depth and beauty of the album are special guest vocalists, Mary Gauthier and Jaimee Harris. Renowned songwriter, poet and writer RB Morris writes of the record in Malcolm’s new bio: "To know Malcolm is to know stories, the stories he tells in his songs and the stories people love to tell about Malcolm. And Lord knows some are legendary. The story that's got my attention right now is he has a new record coming out, TRICKS OF THE TRADE. Malcolm’s an amazing recording artist in that he’s able to catch the fire of his live performances in the studio. He’s put out 16 or more records since the mid-90’s, but since 2015 he’s put out six full length albums and a separate series of singles. He’s had a big flow going hardly hampered by near death health crises, or pandemics, or the verities and vicissitudes of whatever the biz is, just a steady stream of brilliant original work. TRICKS OF THE TRADE comes at the crest of this wave, Malcolm at full throttle and surrounded by his main accomplices, Dave Roe and Jared Tyler. Malcolm’s been recording with Dave Roe since 2007, and Jared Tyler goes back even further, at least to Malcolm’s 1999 masterpiece, A HUNDRED LIES. These guys understand Malcolm and understand his music, and serve as producer and co-producer of TRICKS OF THE TRADE, along with Brian Brinkerhoff who’s been the label/producer of this late flow of Malcolm records. And the record was made at Dave Roe’s Seven Deadly Sins Studios in Nashville. You can feel them owning that atmosphere on this one. Jared has always been like the musical shadow of Malcolm on dobro, mandolin, and vocals, but on TRICKS OF THE TRADE he has jumped on the electric guitar and muscled up the grooves of a few of these tunes. I believe Malcolm could walk right outta hell with Dave Roe playing bass beside him and the devil'd be dancing and wouldn’t even know they were gone. I saw Dave and Jared play with Malcolm through a thunderstorm flood and tornado one night when I personally feared for my family's life and had no escape. By some miracle we all survived. Somebody must have parted the seas. To keep it in the blood, Dave Roe’s son, Jerry Roe, sits behind the drums for most of the songs. Miles McPherson takes the rest. Along with Malcolm, Dave, and Jared, that’s the band. Ron de la Vega makes a special cello appearance on lenora cynthia. Malcolm has on recent records received some wonderful vocal support from Iris Dement and Greg Brown, and here Mary Gauthier and Jaimee Harris add their voices to a number of songs, including higher ground, to bring home its reckoning: I got freedom to choose/I got freedom to lose/I got freedom to choose/higher ground. Malcolm comes of many musical traditions, folk, country, rock, bluegrass, blues, gospel, it’s all there somewhere rolled into a mix of his own declaration. And much has been made of Malcolm’s western NC mountain and hill country roots that seem to orient and flavor his rendering. It’s all of that, but more as well. I’m not sure what his bloodlines might reveal in the way of clues, but I’ve known a lot of ole boys from that part of the country, musicians and otherwise, and none of them bear the same qualities of perspective and insight that Malcolm offers in words and music. There’s mystery in Malcolm’s songs like there’s mystery in life. Everything’s not spelled out, the songs take their own shape as much as being worked to a form. Side stage at one of our Liberty Circus benefit concerts listening to Malcolm play his set, David Olney and I both affirmed that Malcolm’s lyrics are often like reading Rimbaud in translation. A certain light shines through his words even when you don’t follow all of his meaning, a kind of endowment of meaning that’s given to the expression: there’s a rumble in the/paper walls/and the early morning questions fall/ from frigid winter lips/they call/into the sunlight we belong…why the tossin’ turnin’/nights/far from younger open eyes/to the aging starless skies…/she’s saving kindness to be/ strong/and into the sunlight we belong. Like any songwriter, Malcolm sings universal themes. And when he sings of love it comes from a deep place as in lenora cynthia, and through his own personal visions: reach over to the mornin’/speak softly passin’ by/the prison in my head/must live and never die/the floor is hard as nails/ramshackled broken steps/I stumble in your arms/lenora cynthia. Or sometimes, like in the country song, misery loves company, he has a hard but humorous take on love, I’ve tasted and I’ve wasted/the good life that I had/my poor selfish drinking/made a rich ol man go mad…I passed out and I cried out/my God what have I done/she’s gone… I oughtta be on tv/with a guitar strummin’/smile/cause misery loves/company/when the neon’s burnin’/bright. In the end Malcolm sings foremost the plight of the poor, the lesser and oft forgotten, as in on tennessee land, or at the border where families are separated in your kin, or Appalachian poverty in damn rainy day where you learn pretty people and bossy people are better than you. He’ll let you know right away his state of affairs, it rained forty days/it rained forty nights/there’s a skunk in the well/and snakes in my mind. I gotta broken heart/fit to be tied/to a tree on the banks/of the river I cried. The album is infused with takes on national crises and situations, but always filtered through Malcolm’s personal language and perspective. Everybody’s deal is with the money train, and good intentions and crazy man blues lets you know what’s going down on a national level. The hierarchy of the rich and powerful are never far from Malcolm’s configuring, towers of money from la/to london/your formidable foes/multiply. And he lets you know he comes from a different place, heat bill’s paid and the tv/works/good enough but my back/still hurts/bend over they gotta cure… The title track of TRICKS OF THE TRADE lays bare the carny deceptions and illusions of the big top and connects directly to the kickoff track money train, its late verse: pt barnum said/a sucker’s born ev’ry/minute/I’m standin’ in line/cause I got a ticket/for the money train… I gotta hot tub, a bathtub/a solar powered guitar/I clean up pretty good/and I turn it up louder/for the money train. He does turn it up a little louder on this record. Malcolm rolls deep and wide and lets you know how it is with him and the world, but he always paints a picture of determination. On the last song, shaky ground, he pretty much lays it out for us, what it is and how to do: let the rain do the job let the rain fall on down and wash away the walls standin’ tall on shaky ground." The Woodshop is an intimate live music venue and neighborhood pub on the outskirts of the historic St. Elmo neighborhood.  Since 2015, our goal has been to assemble and host a network of musicians and makers who are local to or traveling through the area. With our resources, they are able to create, present, or record their work in front of an appreciative audience.