So how’s this for synchronicity: I woke up this morning with an overwhelming urge to listen to Swamp Cabbage, a great North Florida outfit fronted by Walter Parks, the longtime guitarist for iconic folk singer Richie Havens.
But Swamp Cabbage doesn’t sounds much like Havens. Instead, thanks to Parks’ gritty snarl and grungy blues guitar, they sound like something delightfully nasty just issued forth from the cypress bogs. It’s possible that Parks could make “Somewhere over the Rainbow” sound raunchy. (Check him out performing “Tallahassee” at the Living Room in New York City, where he now lives.)
Anyway, I listened to a couple of tracks from Swamp Cabbage’s seminal 2006 album, Honk (they came through Asheville half-a-decade ago touring that album). And then I looked around for videos of the band. Finding none, I googled Parks’ solo website and then, on a lark, checked his schedule just in case he might get a wild hair and come back to Asheville some day.
Here’s the synchronicity part: Parks will perform at The White Horse this Saturday, March 26 (8 p.m., $10).
Oddly/interestingly/fortuitously/adventurously that performance is a cobill with poet James Nave (above). Nave co-founded Poetry Alive! and, according to his bio, “has performed internationally, working in public radio and competing nationally in the Poetry Slam in the United States. With Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, James has co-produced and co-taught the Artist’s Way Creativity Camp in Taos, NM. He currently leads The Imaginative Storm creativity retreats and writing workshops with fellow writer, Allegra Huston.”
According to White Horse, “Nave is a world renown poet and Walter is an equally renown musician. They’ll perform together and separately. A great show.”
I’m hoping for slam poetry and nasty blues rock. And (in case you’re reading this, Mr. Parks) a solo rendition of “If A Thing Feels Right.”
