By Brent Thompson

In a career spanning 18 albums and more than 30 years, David Wilcox has melded James Taylor-like storytelling with the dazzling, open-tuned guitar sounds of Michael Hedges into his own unique style. Along the way, Wilcox has garnered an extremely loyal fan base that has few rivals. On Friday, March 9 (his 60th birthday, no less), the singer/songwriter will return to Birmingham to perform at WorkPlay. Recently, he spoke with us by phone from his Asheville, N.C. home.

Birmingham Stages: David, thanks for your time. Where are you right now?

David Wilcox: I leave tomorrow. I’m home right now in my studio and we have a gentle rain here. I not only have a new riff that’s just kicking my imagination, [but] in the shower I got an entire chorus [laughs]. The lyrics are all there and I transcribed it on my phone and I can’t wait to write this song. It’s going to be so fun.

Birmingham Stages: In looking at your touring schedule online, it seems that you have a found a nice balance of time at home versus time on the road.

DW: That has always been the case and I really have to attribute it to my lovely wife, Nance. When we first got together, she said, “You have to be home more than you’re away – otherwise, it can’t work” and she was right. I look at all my musician friends who have tried to do it other ways. Unless they’re actually playing music with their spouse onstage, the relationship won’t work if they’re out more than half the time.

Birmingham Stages: You have a large catalog of songs at this point in your career. How do you go about determining set lists for each tour?

DW: That is a spectacularly good question [laughs]. What I’m looking at it is the set list that I just drew up for this next run – I’m going to Denver. What I do is browse through 10 or 20 set lists that I have archived on my computer. Not the sequence of songs that I play, but a collection of songs that I’m just curious about and curious what they do to my heart. They can be old songs, but I go through a bunch of set lists and I think, “What are the songs that move me?” So I put those songs down and be sure that I know them because some can pop up that I haven’t played in 20 or 30 years. On my set list now – which is why I’m laughing – is a song from my first record, The Nightshift Watchman – and I haven’t played it in 30 years. It’s amazing [laughs]. What’s wild to me is I came back to that song now because my dad died a few months ago so I have this song suddenly full of this new intensity, so that song feels like an important song for me to play. I think I’m a better person when I’m reminded of that song and what it does to my mind and heart.

So, I have this collection of songs on a list and right now I have 65 songs on this list. In a given night of music, I can play 22 if I don’t talk a lot but that’s a two-hour set. I can glance down and every song would be an excellent choice. In terms of how I weave the set together in a given night, I’m finishing a song and singing the last few phrases and I let my mind wander to, “Where do I go from here?” I glance down at my list and one of them will jump out at me and I’ll go there. It’s interesting how the song before sets up this current song that I’ve chosen and I realize that each time I put songs in a new order there’s a different story line. I’m lead to see things in different ways. Sometimes the same song can serve very different purposes in the set. I love stepping into that place where a song is holding me accountable to a vision that I had about how I want to see the world and that’s what the songs are good for.

Birmingham Stages: How would you describe your writing process?

DW: The way it works now is I have a steady practice of taking whatever idea is on my phone and sitting with it – trying different melodies and imagining all the different ways it could go. It’s sort of like playing Chess 10 moves ahead – you’re thinking of the strategy and how could it be arranged. Who’s the character? Who’s speaking to who and why? That’s the heart of every song. I love collecting these little seeds and fragments that might turn into a song or they might just be silly. It’s a practice of catching those seeds and seeing what I can make out of them.

Birmingham Stages: If you will, talk about your “Custom Songs” program that provides personalized songs for your fans.

DW: That started with a request. There was someone who really was moved by a lot of my songs and he had a really tragic childhood in the first 12 years of his life. He’d done the work with therapists and journaling and he wanted me to re-frame these events with a different story to it that wasn’t such a dead end. I worked on it and I got the information and I found a way to re-frame that story and I delivered it to him. He said, “What does that cost” and I said, “I have no idea what this worth. I could just tell you the time I put in – it was four days of working at it.” It’s such a privilege to be trusted with someone’s vulnerability and to trust that the music will have some beautiful evolution and healing that we hadn’t anticipated. I told some people about it and people started saying, “I want a song, too.” So it sort of became a thing one person at a time.

David Wilcox will perform at WorkPlay Theatre on Friday, March 9. Tickets to the 8 p.m. show are $20 and can be purchased at www.workplay.com.

Photo Credits: Jack Hollingsworth & Lynne Harty

By Brent Thompson

Photo Credits: Amy Grantham 

The phrase “a man that needs no introduction” is overused, but it’s befitting of Graham Nash. A two-time inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (let that sink in for a moment ) as a member of Crosby, Stills & Nash and The Hollies and a 2009 Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee, Nash has stamped his tenor vocals on numerous Classic Rock staples. But beyond his membership in two iconic groups, the singer/songwriter has a noted solo career and Nash released his latest outing, This Path Tonight [Blue Castle Records], in 2016. On Sunday, March 11, Nash will perform at The Lyric Theatre. Recently, he spoke with us by phone as he prepared to embark on his current tour.

Birmingham Stages: Graham, thanks for your time. Where are you right now?

Graham Nash: I’m home rehearsing. I live in New York City  – I’ve lived here for two years. I lived for 40 years in Hawaii – I just traded jungles [laughs]. My life changed tremendously a couple of years ago. I divorced my wife, Susan, after 38 years. I hope that time will heal but it’s a little difficult with my kids. I wasn’t in love anymore and neither was Susan so we decided that we would divorce. I changed my life and here I am in New York City. I live with this incredibly beautiful artist, Amy Grantham, who’s a painter and collage artist. I have a beautiful apartment here and a studio I can do my music in and dabble in painting. I’m having a good time with my life and I’m really looking forward to coming on the road.

Birmingham Stages: We are glad that Birmingham is a stop on this tour.

GN: In the early ’70s we were on the road and one of our roadies was an African-American and he was sensitive about going to Birmingham. But the South has changed a lot in the last few years. I mean are you kidding? Democrats winning in Alabama?

Birmingham Stages: If you will, talk about the creation of This Path Tonight.

GN: I must confess, I think it’s a fine piece of work. Shane Fontayne – my lead guitar player who will be with me in Birmingham – we wrote 20 songs in a month and it was all about my emotional state which I just roughly explained to you and the songs were fantastic. We only used 10 [songs] on the album  – 13 if you bought the deluxe version on iTunes – we still have seven that we love and we’re writing all the time and I’m going to try to find time this year to make a new record.

Birmingham Stages: How did you and Shane begin working together?

GN: We have a friend, Marc Cohn, who’s a brilliant American songwriter – he did “Walking In Memphis” – and he was doing a show at the El Rey [Theatre] in Los Angeles and he called me and David [Crosby] and asked us to come sing, so we did. He had a band with him and Shane was his guitar player. The Crosby/Nash Band had Dean Parks as its guitarist – Dean is one of the most sought-after session men in Hollywood. If you’re not available every day for a couple of months, you tend to lose your place in that queue so Dean couldn’t go on the tour with that me and Crosby had planned. Shane Fontayne learned 36 songs in a week and he came with us and he’s been playing with us ever since.

Birmingham Stages: Given the catalog of songs you’ve amassed – The Hollies, CSN and solo material – how do you comprise your set lists when you go on tour?

GN: It’s always been a delicate balance because you’re really planning an audio journey. It’s the same thing with LPs – it used to be six hits and six B-sides but John Lennon and Brian Wilson realized an album could be an audio journey and that’s where we get Sgt. Pepper’s and where we get Pet Sounds from. A live concert is exactly the same. My choice of music is however I feel. There’s a skeleton of a set list but we make so many left turns. I’ve got to tell you I’m having a fabulous time.

Birmingham Stages: Over the course of your career, how have you determined which songs belong on your solo albums and which ones belong on CSN albums?

GN: I have a feeling that every writer writes only for himself. What happens with CSN is we have what we call the “Reality Rule.” It goes like this – if I sit David and Stephen [Stills] down and play them a song and they don’t react to it, they never hear that song again. If I play a song to David and Stephen and they say, “I know what I can do in my harmony part,” now we’re talking. That’s the “Reality Rule.” We only have recorded songs that all three off us truly love and we’ve never stopped doing that.

Birmingham Stages: With your music career, photography and painting projects and humanitarian projects, how do you find time in your schedule to do all that you do?

GN: I just have a tremendous energy. Every day I have to do something constructive and positive in my life and I have a lot of tools to be able to do that – music, photography, painting and poetry. I’m a lucky kid, man.

Birmingham Stages: I assume the ability to still create and perform is something you don’t take for granted given all the incredible artists we’ve lost in the past couple of years.

GN: Stunning – it’s stunning. It’s overwhelming.

Birmingham Stages: How would you describe your writing process?

GN: I have a great relationship with the muse of music – she knows that I’m open anytime she wants to come visit. I have to feel something before I can start to write about it. If I’m falling in love, if I’m pissed off at cops, if I’m upset about the way that Trump is dealing with America – particularly women’s issues – I have to be there as an artist to tell the truth and reflect the times in which we’re living. That’s how history has been written – by poets, composers and musicians. We have to talk about the times in which we live and there’s no end to the songs that could be written about what’s going on in America right now.

Graham Nash will perform at The Lyric Theatre on Sunday, March 11. Tickets to the 8 p.m. show are $40.50 – $70.50 and can be purchased at www.lyricbham.com.

On Sunday, February 25, Michael McDonald performed at the Alys Stephens Center’s Jemison Concert Hall. The singer/keyboardist/guitarist’s setlist was filled with mega-hits from his solo catalog (“On My Own,” “Sweet Freedom,” “I Keep Forgettin'”) and Classic Rock staples from McDonald’s time in The Doobie Brothers (“What A Fool Believes,” “Minute By Minute”). In addition, he tossed in two cover songs (“What’s Going On,” “What The World Needs Now Is Love”) that he described as relevant in today’s times.

Photos by Brent Thompson

By Blake Ells

Photo Credit: Leslie Ryann McKellar

Shovels & Rope is the duo of Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent who had been performing as solo acts and – on a fateful evening in the Magic City – decided to become one. The duo just released Busted Jukebox, Vol. 2 which features cover collaborations with an impressive roster of their peers that includes Brandi Carlile and John Moreland.
Before their return trip to a sold-out show at Iron City, Hearst and Trent talked about that night in Birmingham that was the genesis of the band, what the song of the same name meant to them, the new record and about leaving Nashville to make it in the music business.

Birmingham Stages: The first major hit you broke through with was named after our city. Has that affected your relationship with the City of Birmingham?

Michael Trent: People get really excited when we play that song in Birmingham. Anytime you play a song that mentions the name of a place at that place people get very excited.

Cary Ann Hearst: It’s always awesome.

MT: If we could do that once for every state, we’d have it made.

CAH: We have a storied history with Birmingham. Hell, we came up and we played at The Nick. We played at the BottleTree. We played at the Zydeco. We played a lot of great venues as we came up through the ranks over the years. Our band was basically formed out of a gig that we played with Deer Tick and J. Roddy Walston. I can’t remember…

MT: I think it was at Zydeco.

CAH: Yeah, it was Zydeco. On the way to that gig, we had talked about how we were gonna suss out what we were gonna do. Is this a good idea? Should we give it a shot? So in that sense, the connection we have to this city is very sentimental. It’s not so much about the song as it is the experience that song kind of ended up being about and somewhat alluded to—Birmingham’s a trip, man. It’s got a storied history and it seems like it’s changing and my best friend is living there right now. We’re looking forward to getting down there and seeing Duquette [Johnston] and his wife.

Birmingham Stages: I didn’t think it would be possible to top Busted Jukebox, Vol. 1, but you may have done it with Busted Jukebox, Vol. 2. How did you curate those records? How did you choose the artists that you’d cover them with?

MT: We did do it! We topped it, right?

CAH: [cheering]

MT: Those records were really fun to make because there was absolutely zero pressure behind it. We started just doing it for fun as a creative exercise and we’re always thinking about artists that it would be fun to collaborate with on a song that nobody would expect. It probably just gets more and more out there as we go. We kinda went for it with the asking this time; we asked some people that we were probably too scared to ask the first time around, and people said yes. That’s not to say that we’re not excited about the people that are on the first one. But you know, we had meant Rhett Miller along the way; we had friends of friends of Nicole Atkins. We’ve known Lera Lynn since…

CAH: Way back.

MT: …way before we were even a band. We just kind of decided to take it into space.

Birmingham Stages: How did you choose the songs?

CAH: It’s fun to choose a song that’s definitely not an obvious choice; a great song from your past that you have some kind of connection to. All of the songs are songs that you have some kind of connection to; it can’t be just finding a deep cut or finding one that you know is gonna work. If you find the right combination of a song—a random, great song that you love and that you actually have a cool vision for—then it goes with a certain artist that you happen to be friends with or at least you’re friendly enough with them that you are comfortable asking them to collab—and these collabs happen across the internet from city to city. It’s not like we’re getting in an intimate…they’re alone in a room and I’m alone in a room and we have that exchange.
It’s just a little bit of kismet in that regard; songs that we’re attached to. Both of us love the song “Epic.” I remember having kind of a transcendent experience as a young kid listening to Faith No More’s “Epic.” The production had a bit of datedness in it…

MT: Oh yeah…

CAH: But a good song is a good song, and you can put a dress on it and…

MT: I feel like maybe our ‘90s are showing a little bit on this record [laughs]. If we have a personal connection to it, it doesn’t even matter. The opening song—probably 100 people had heard that song before this. It was written by a friend of ours that’s basically just a great songwriter—he doesn’t go out and tour. He’s a teacher. But it’s a really cool song, and it gave us a chance to get a powerhouse like Brandi Carlile to sing this guy’s song, and that’s really satisfying for us. [Note: The track is a cover of Bill Carson’s “Cleanup Hitter.”]

Birmingham Stages: Similarly, you’ve curated the High Water Festival in Charleston. How has that festival impacted your city economically?

CAH: That’s a good question. I don’t know what the direct economic impact has had on North Charleston, which is the third largest city in the state of South Carolina and it’s the next city over from Charleston itself. That community was super cooperative with us. They were excited to work with us and believed that it could bring—I’m not going to say much needed business, because they are doing business. North Charleston is great to do business with. But they were eager to have whatever economic impact it would bring to the area. And Charleston isn’t short on tourism, but I think the hotels in North Charleston were definitely full of people that came from out of town. Of the metrics that we do have among 9,000 tickets, 6,000 of those were local Charlestonians, but 3,000 of those came from out of town. And they spent a lot of money. So that’s good. I hope it’s had nothing but a positive impact. The people that pay to see it enjoy its positive impact, and we’re also conscious of the environmental impact we have. It seemed like no one had anything to lose and everything to gain from the festival, and that’s good for us.

MT: The problem with a lot of festivals is that they start off being really great and then people want to make it bigger and bigger. “That was great! Let’s make it…twice as big next year!” Quality goes down because people begin trying to cut costs. It becomes a corporate thing where the fans usually aren’t benefitting. It was a surprise success last year and we just sort of want to keep it the same every year. It was a neat thing to be able to bring a lot of those bands out to Charleston. The people out here were really excited about it.

Birmingham Stages: Cary Ann, I think that you and Justin Townes Earle may be the only artists that are actually from Nashville, and you moved away. Why did you choose to leave?

CAH: I’ve had a quippy saying about that forever. I always say, I left Nashville to make it in the music business; Nashville is an awesome place to grow up—and I can’t speak to Justin’s upbringing, we met when I was in college, actually. The band that I grew up playing with became his band later. The reality is that it is replete with talent and everybody is chasing the same dream. There’s a lot of great people there and there’s a lot of…

MT: Traffic.

CAH: …there’s a lot of traffic [laughs]. Charleston, South Carolina has everything to do with the artist that I developed into being. I’m too lazy. I wouldn’t have made it in the business because it would have been too hard for my fragile little ego. I never would have been able to swallow my pride. I wouldn’t have had the grit to have survived in the industry there.
But I did have the time and the charisma and was paid adequately to justify that I could have gigs in Charleston, just playing music in bars almost every night of the week and have the best music people in the world to play music with. This town is insane for good music and good musicians. I’m definitely happy that I left Nashville to make it in the music business.

Shovels & Rope will perform at Iron City on Friday, February 9. Doors open at 7 p.m. and showtime is 8 p.m. For more information, visit www.ironcitybham.com.

By Brent Thompson

Photo Credits: Graham Dodd

Singer/songwriter Thomas Csorba is a student at Baylor University but his music, experience and influences belie his age. To the 20-year-old Texan, performing live doesn’t just mean playing to locals and fellow students – it means traveling extensively and recording albums with crack studio musicians. In 2017, Csorba released From The Foxhole, his third album and first full-length recording. Drawing on the sounds of his home state’s legendary troubadours, Csorba’s music possesses a timeless quality. On Thursday, February 8, he will make his debut Birmingham performance at Seeds Coffee Co. in Homewood. Recently, Csorba spoke with us by phone from his Waco home.

Birmingham Stages: Thomas, thanks for your time. How are you able to juggle performing, traveling and life as a student?

Thomas Csorba: It takes a lot of discipline and some understanding friends. I wouldn’t be able to do it without folks that wanted me to do it.

Birmingham Stages: We are looking forward to your first show in Birmingham.

TC: I’m really excited. We were going to play in Auburn that night and it ended up not working out. I got hooked up with the folks at Seeds. I haven’t spent much time in Birmingham but I’m really excited to be there for a couple of days.

Birmingham Stages: Your music possesses a timeless quality. If you will, talk about your influences.

TC: It was a lot of “Outlaw” Country as a kid – Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard. Also, Townes Van Zandt really stood out to me – he’s a distant relative of mine. Half of the family thinks of him as a disgrace – the Southern Baptist part of my family – and me and my brother think it’s the coolest thing that we share a little bit of blood with this guy. I dove into Townes’ stuff really young and that led me to 1930s Blues – Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mississippi Fred McDowell and a bunch of those guys. My brother is six years older than me and forced me to listen to that stuff and I’m glad he did. 

Birmingham Stages: How would you describe your songwriting process?

TC: When I was 15 or 16 I had a buddy that was in a band and he told me, “If you want to write, it’s a discipline.” He taught me it’s something you have to work at – it’s not a gift, it’s something that’s earned. For my first EP, I brought the producer 15 tunes and we decided to do five badass tunes instead of 15 half-assed tunes and I think that’s a smart way to do things. For the most recent record – my first full-length – it’s very much a concept record so that on had more direction. The record was written over the span of a year with themes I tried to dial-in on.

Birmingham Stages: How do you view the musical climate today in the age of iTunes, Youtube and satellite radio? How do you separate yourself from among the crowd?

TC: When The Beatles and The Eagles were putting out records, their tours would promote their records. Nowadays, it’s completely backwards. We’re putting out a record to give people a reason to come to a show. As a kid, sitting in the same room and watching someone pour out their heart and soul was a big deal to me. That’s what I want to do. I rarely have an epiphany listening to Spotify, but being in the same room as an artist is a sacred thing. You experience something different than the person sitting next to you. People want to feel like they’re part of something.

Thomas Csorba will perform at Seeds Coffee Co. in Homewood on Thursday, February 8. Showtime is 7 p.m. For more information, visit www.seedscoffee.com. 

By Brent Thompson

Photo Credit: Dave Long

Often times, the musical term “experimental” doesn’t equate with a listener-friendly experience, but Marco Benevento takes us on his sonic flights without forgetting we are on board for the ride. For more than a decade, the pianist/vocalist/producer/record label founder has melded Rock, Jazz and Electronica to create his own unique sound. In addition to his extensive solo output, Benevento has lended his talents to a number of projects including Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, Garage A Trois, Benevento/Russo Duo and even the Led Zeppelin tribute band Bustle In Your Hedgerow. In 2017, he released the live Woodstock Sessions, recorded in his adopted home of Woodstock, N.Y. On Friday, February 9, Benevento will make his debut Birmingham performance at Saturn. Alexander Isaiah will open the 9 p.m. show. Recently, we spoke to Benevento by phone from his Woodstock home.

Birmingham Stages: Marco, thanks for your time. If you will, talk about the setting and recording of Woodstock Sessions.

Marco Benevento: It’s two miles down the road from my house so it’s close by. It’s like a barn studio – a big live room and a control room. They squeeze about 100 people in there and they have a barbecue beforehand and we played two sets of music and we picked the best ones from the two sets. I wanted to put it all on the record but it was too long. It was a great experience. They’ve had other bands come to do [live sessions]  – Bad Brains, John Medeski, Nels Cline. It’s a pretty rich musical community around here.

Birmingham Stages: Had you been to the venue before you played it?

MB: I had worked there on some other records so I’d been there a bunch, but this was my first official in-studio live gig to be recorded. Everybody played great and it was the last night of the tour so we were all warmed-up and happy to be home.

Birmingham Stages: If you will, talk about your record label – Royal Potato Family – that you started with co-founder, Kevin Calabro. In addition to your recordings, the label has released albums by Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, Grayson Capps, Neal Casal and The New Mastersounds among others.

MB: It was conceived about eight years ago. I was working on my second record and people from [record label] Verve showed a lot of interest in putting out our record and it was cool to get support from a major label. When we were ready to move forward, they just vanished – I don’t know what happened. My manager, Kevin, said, “Verve or no Verve, let’s put your record out and start our own label.” So that’s how Royal Potato Family started. We got a little boost of confidence and we brought a lot of our friends into the label.

Birmingham Stages: In addition to your solo career, you stay busy with other musical projects.

MB: With Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, we do about 40 shows a year and just play the music of the Grateful Dead – you can’t go wrong with that. Garage A Trois – I don’t what’s happened – it’s sort of disintegrated. I keep busy – I play around Woodstock when I’m home and it’s a great community. [Levon Helm’s daughter] Amy Helm has Levon’s barn and it’s still happening and they have shows there. The tradition of the [concert series] “Midnight Ramble” has faded but they do have shows there.

Birmingham Stages: How do you find time to do all that you do?

MB: I don’t know [laughs]. I go back and look at my calendar and I’m like, “How in the heck did I do that?” Its tough but I just do it. I love playing music so that’s the big thing and it pays the rent. It’s tough – I have two kids but my wife holds down the fort here.

Marco Benevento will perform at Saturn on Friday, February 9. Doors open at 8 p.m. and showtime is 9 p.m. Advance tickets to the 18+ show are $12 and can be purchased at www.saturnbirmingham.com. 

If Top 40 radio of the ’70s and ’80s meant something to you, if you consider “Baker Street,” “Rosanna” and “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” standards and if you like this music played note-for-note to a packed house of enthusiastic fans, then a Yacht Rock Revue show is for you. On Saturday, January 27, the Atlanta-based septet performed in the WorkPlay Soundstage to a sold-out crowd and we were there to capture the event.

Photos by Brent Thompson

By Brent Thompson

A scan of the satellite radio dial is all it takes to grasp Michael McDonald’s impact on Pop music. The vocalist/keyboardist/composer can be found on multiple Sirius XM channels including The Bridge, 70s, 80s, Classic Rewind, Yacht Rock Radio and Classic Vinyl. As a solo artist, frontman of The Doobie Brothers and session musician, McDonald has amassed numerous hits including “What A Fool Believes,” “Takin’ It To The Streets,” “Sweet Freedom,” “On My Own” (with Patti Labelle) and “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near).” In 2017, McDonald released Wide Open, a 12-track collection and his first new album in nearly a decade. On Sunday, February 25, the five-time Grammy-winner will return to Birmingham to perform at the Alys Stephens Center. Recently, McDonald spoke to us by phone from his home in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Birmingham Stages: Michael, thanks for your time. Where is your home base these days?

Michael McDonald: Nashville has been my home base, musically, for a few years now but I live in Santa Barbara these days. We kind of live a little bit of everywhere. My wife – I don’t know who’s more of a gypsy, her or me. We seem to be all over the map in the last 20 years. Right now we keep a home in Santa Barbara and I have my studio in Nashville, so I get down there quite a bit.

Birmingham Stages: We are looking forward to your return to Birmingham. The last time you played here you performed at Iron City and your son, Dylan, opened the show.

MM: That was a great venue. We are a fortunate generation in that there’s Classic Rock radio and more venues that cater to music than existed when we were younger. You were either in a nightclub with sawdust on the floors or old auditoriums.

Birmingham Stages: We are really enjoying Wide Open. If you will, talk about the creation of the album.

MM: It was a record born out of circumstance in the sense that a lot of [the songs] were demos that I had cut during the Motown records. I did these demos with the guy who wound up producing the record, Shannon Forrest, a drummer out of Nashville. He’s a world-class, A-list drummer but also a producer. He and I were co-oping on space in a building where I stored a lot of my old keyboards and my old gear. He had a vintage console, so we combined our stuff and put together a haphazard recording situation where we could make some decent analog records and we are both fans of old gear. So, he was working out of there pretty regularly and doing sessions and I would come back into town and – if I had a song idea I’d thrown down on my iPhone – I’d call him up and say, “Hey, if I buy you a pizza, will you make a demo with me?” So that’s what we would do after-hours a lot of times. He’d be done with his day and, rather that let the poor guy got home and see his family, I would ask him to stick around and play drums. It sounded pretty good so there were some fairly decent starts for tracks, even though they were just two-man demos.

He built another studio and, when he did finish it, he used those old files we’d recorded and replaced the drums he had done in my studio. When I came over to see his new studio, he told me he’d been using those files as a reference to record the drums to hear the sound here as opposed to over there. He said, “They sound pretty damn good – I think you have the start of a record here.” So he played them for me and we started pulling in musicians to help build the tracks around the original demo vocals that we’d done and those are still largely the vocals on the record  – the original demos we did at my place. We found that, to a great degree, we were well into this project before we even knew we’d started it. It was nice to have a jump-start.

Birmingham Stages: With a lengthy career so full of hits, how do you comprise your set lists these days?

MM: I try to look at it from the audience’s perspective because that’s what we’re there for. We’re getting up to play for them, so I try to keep that foremost in my head. It’s a lot of trial-and-error but I try to keep a good cross-section of older stuff that I think people will want to hear the most along with older stuff that I think the most ardent fans would appreciate us pulling back out. We compartmentalize the show to address all of those different things and then play as much of the new stuff as we can get away with.

Birmingham Stages: When you play fan favorites – so many including “What A Fool Believes” and “Sweet Freedom” immediately come to mind – how do the songs stay fresh and relevant to you after you’ve performed them hundreds of times or more?

MM: Along the way, when you play a song long enough, it morphs and certain things become part of the arrangement almost accidentally. We kind of fashion the songs as we go because there’s no better place than a live performance on stage to see what a song can do. But what keeps a song fresh to me more than anything else is the audience reaction. When you play a song you’ve played for years, it might be boring if there was nobody in the audience to listen. But when the audience recognizes it and they show the enthusiasm of being able to hear a song that’s familiar to them, it becomes that moment and experience unique to itself and it’s unlike any other time you’ve played the song.

Birmingham Stages: Is there any chance we will get to see The Dukes of September – your project with Donald Fagen and Boz Scaggs –  again?

MM: I would love to think we would. That’s Donald and [Fagen’s wife] Libby’s franchise that started as The Rock & Soul Revue that we just played around New York. We took it on the road and it became The Dukes Of September and it was great fun to play with that band – such a stellar group of musicians. It was great to be onstage with Donald again and being onstage with Boz, I always love touring with him. I hope it happens again. I don’t know that it will, but I’d certainly be up for it again. I never dreamed in my wildest dreams that when I was in my twenties onstage with Steely Dan that I’d still be working with those guys all of these years later.

Michael McDonald will perform in the Jemison Concert Hall of the Alys Stephens Center on Sunday, February 25. Tickets to the 7 p.m. show are $59 – $85 (limited $10 student tickets are available) and can be purchased at www.alysstephens.org.

David Rawlings and The Lyric Theatre made for the perfect artist/venue combination on Wednesday, January 24. Though the touring names may change (David Rawlings, David Rawlings & Gillian Welch, The Dave Rawlings Machine), any five-piece string band that includes Rawlings, Welch and Willie Watson gives the audience a satisfying night of music. Of the course of two sets, the quintet played old and new favorites, including songs from Rawlings’ latest release, Poor David’s Almanack.

Photos by Brent Thompson