Certainly, hopefully, all of us have done at least one thing in our lives so significant that we miss it. Perhaps some part of it still defines us to this day.
Well, Paul McCartney missed being in The Beatles, so he made Wings.
(I’m not suggesting any of us have done something as big as The Beatles or should feel bad having not - this is all for the sake of my thesis - calm down.)
McCartney: "Wings were always a difficult idea ... any group having to follow [The Beatles'] success would have a hard job ... I found myself in that very position. However, it was a choice between going on or finishing, and I loved music too much to think of stopping."
Springfield’s own Dr. Jody Bilyeu, who we shall kindly liken to Sir Paul here, had the same problem.
Sometimes you just miss something too much.
Enter….Little Jones.
Assembled from parts of the original membership of Springfield stalwarts Big Smith, and augmented with some very talented friends, Little Jones set out to bring “Hillbilly Music” back into the world.
Per Jody: “I had been missing playing [Big Smith’s] kind of music and suspected there were people who missed hearing it live. I pitched the idea for a series of shows with a rotating cast of players at Tie & Timber. The show went great, so the rotating cast idea got skipped, and that first-show crew (Brandon Moore, Bill Thomas, Rik Thomas, Jay Williamson, and Molly Healey - when she's available) became the band.”
And what, pray tell, IS “Hillbilly Music?”
Jody: "Hillbilly music for us means bluegrass instrumentation, plus percussion, minus the obligatory repertoire and certain genre rules/expectations…. Also, we do not fear the rock."
Awesome.
Wise man that he is, I asked Jody for a bit of “spiritual advice” for listening to Hillbilly Music...
Jody: "I think the spiritual advice is, let's be cousins, especially when the line accompanies a photo of a 19-year-old Beatrix Potter holding her pet mouse, Xarifa."
No notes, doctor. No notes.
If you need a little Hillbilly Music in your life, you can catch Little Jones this Sunday afternoon at Tie & Timber for their monthly residency. Meanwhile, check out "I Need a Miracle", see if you can rediscover something you love (maybe your old overalls), and we’ll see you next week!
