Chattanooga Pulse

It seems that September 11th sneaks up on me every year.  Maybe that is a subconscious thing that I can’t explain.  Maybe I’m just typically busy and take everything a day at a time.  Maybe nobody knows.  Regardless, it never fails to amaze and sometimes amuse me, the way that people choose to acknowledge or remember the date.

I know some people who hole away into their dark houses and listen to their favorite sad albums, drinking away an evening in an attempt at remembrance.  Others go on like it is any other day; barely noticing that the date reflected on their calendar is the very same day that America watched its towers fall.  Still others celebrate in the streets and the bars, toasting whoever can hold their glass for those that were lost and those that risked their lives to help the situation.  Some are just stoked about the red, white, and blue-blooded war on terrorism.

I can say that I mainly just sit back and watch, observing our collective coping methods.  However, this particular September 11th offers a very appropriate outlet for coping, celebrating, forgetting, or memorializing, depending on your inclination.  Nightfall is hosting two very well known artists that go about as hand-in-hand as an eagle might with a flag.  Those artists are Carlene Carter and Roger Alan Wade.

Carlene Carter hails from the long line of country royalty, considering she is the daughter of June Carter Cash and Carl Smith.  Her parents divorced when she was merely two years old, and she spent many years growing up on tour with the Carter Family.  It wouldn’t take too much of a stretch of the imagination to see how such a lifestyle gives one no choice but to take up music as a passion.

Musical immersion, since birth, appears to have taken hold of Carlene, as country music is quite evident in her roots and influences her sound.  I can’t grasp what it must have been like to hear lullabies from the likes of June Carter, or spending an Easter listening to Johnny Cash strum on the guitar after dinner.  I would venture to guess it was probably really close to badass.
Carlene even served alongside her stepsister, as a backup singer for the Carter/Cash tour.  Maybe a little twinge of Cash’s influence can be heard in some of her guitar licks.  Throughout her career, Carlene Carter has danced the fine line that separates country music and rock and roll, sometimes blurring the line into a pretty rocking gray area.  If you grew up and toured with one of America’s greatest rebels, you would probably pick up a thing or two, as well.

Her debut album was released in 1978, and her follow up, Two Sides to Every Woman, was supported by The Doobie Brothers.  In the interim, Carlene Carter has had a few hits or misses on both the country and the rock charts, but it wasn’t until the very early ’90s that the country music world started to take notice of her again, with her fifth attempt, I Fell in Love.  As Hank Williams, Jr., may have said a time or two…”It’s a family tradition.”  Carlene is currently signed with Yeproc Records, with the likes of Reverend Horton Heat, and she is currently supporting a new album, Stronger.  I would suggest coming out to see her, even if you don’t like this kind of music, because she is a living, breathing part of music history.

Her local opener will be none other than Roger Alan Wade.  If you can’t get into some Roger Alan Wade, then you might not be American and you definitely aren‘t from Chattanooga.  Call it a guilty pleasure, call it your dirty little secret, but let it be known that even I can get down to some backwoods country rock.  A song about fighting, a song about drinking, and a song about drinking and fighting over that damn cheating wife, and you have got yourself a full night of Roger Alan Wade.

I am not a new country fan.  I like Johnny Cash.  I like all the Hanks.  I like that sense of storytelling that comes with the older quality country music.  Roger Alan Wade writes music that takes me back to listening to Roy Orbison in my dad’s truck.  He has Southern Americana sweating out of his pores, and it’s always a good show, no matter who you are, or who you’d like to be.  So I suggest, instead of being glum this September 11th, go out and celebrate life at Nightfall, with Carlene Carter, Roger Alan Wade, and a little bit of America.  You can’t beat it for the price.

Carlene Carter with Roger Alan Wade (Nightfall)
Free
7 p.m.
Friday, September 11
Miller Plaza, 850 Market Street
(423) 265-0771.
www.downtownchattanooga.org