FEBRUARY 11, 2010 ISSUE
Woody Pines Plays Boone Saloon February 20
Asheville-based four-piece Woody Pines will bring a high-energy show to Boone Saloon on Saturday, February 20. Photo submitted
Ready for some “ragtime country blues” to liven up the winter? That’s how Woody Pines of the band Woody Pines describes his band’s “high-energy, danceable music.”
The group explores and melds together jazz, swing and blues—and you can hear for yourself when the Asheville-based four-piece plays Boone Saloon at 10:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 20. The cover for the 21-and-up show is $5.
The group consists of Pines on guitar, harmonica, cord organ, kazoo and banjo, Zack Pozebanchuk on bass, Nathan Taylor on drums and Darin Gentry on fiddle.
“[This] new group solidified in the last year [and] it feels good,” Pines said, adding that “it has been really exciting lately” because all band members have started contributing background vocals.
The group’s record “Counting Alligators” was released last November, he said, and was produced in Asheville and Nashville, Tenn., in between touring.
“We recorded with members of Old Crow Medicine Show,” Pines said, explaining that the group’s banjo player co-produced the record and the fiddle player played on two of the songs.
The new record “has been getting pretty good reviews in England,” Woody Pines has been getting airplay on WNCW and the past three shows in Asheville have sold out, Pines said.
“The ball’s kind of rolling for us,” Pines said. “We’re all committed.”
The group is about to embark on its first U.K. tour, Pines said, adding that the three-week tour includes shows in London, England and in Scotland and begins in mid-March.
The group is currently in New Orleans, and will play Bristol, Tenn., Ohio and then Boone—“the final show of this two-week tour,” Pines said.
The tour began in Pensacola, Fla., and also included stops in Mobile, Ala., and Baton Rouge, La., he added.
“We spend a lot of time in Louisiana,” Pines said. “I lived in New Orleans for four years. I cut my teeth down here.”
Pines played on the street, he said, and learned from a number of great musicians there.
“The city oozes music. You ride around with your windows down and hear jazz,” he said.
“We’re North Carolina boys, but we have great friends [in Louisiana],” Pines said.
“There’s some sort of connection between the mountains and here.”
Just as bluegrass and old time music are firmly entrenched in mountain culture, “music serves a working purpose in society” in New Orleans, he said.
The name of the group’s recent record was actually the result of a drive between Lafayette and New Orleans, he said.
“One time, we were bored and [we were] literally counting alligators along the road,” Pines explained.
A friend in Lafayette created the album cover art for “Counting Alligators,” he said, adding that she also did the artwork for a Grammy-winning project, among others.
The four musician-friends all met at fiddle festivals in Mount Airy, Pines said.
Pines “moved up to Ohio to join another band,” but when that band fell apart, he readjusted his focus to “the songs I’ve always done—solo finger picking,” he said. He added an upright bass, then drums and a fiddle to form the current outfit, and it has been “about one year with the current lineup.”
And the group doesn’t just live together when on the road in the van.
“We all rented rooms in the same house in Asheville, and we grow our own chewing tobacco,” Pines said.
“Nathan Taylor and Zack lived in Boone for two years before moving to Asheville, after one too many times of making that drive,” he quipped.
The group is looking forward to playing in Boone, Pines said.
“This is our third time at Boone Saloon,” he said. “We played Black Cat Burrito one time when they had bands [come in].
“I think the sound system in Boone Saloon is top-notch,” he continued. “People usually get wild, dance [and] have a blast.”
For more information, click to www.myspace.com/woodypines or www.woodypines.com.
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