The Musical Box

To say the first annual Elk Creek Jazz Festival features the smooth grooves and tropical fusion music of The Rippingtons as the headline act is certainly correct. Though a regular visitor to Lexington for a time, the ensemble has largely been absent from the area for much of the past decade.

But as most any fan of the band will tell you, its official title is The Rippingtons featuring Russ Freeman, a nod to the guitarist, principal composer, leader and mainstay member who brought The Rippingtons to life over 22 years ago. But to have the event promoted as the Elk Creek Jazz Festival featuring The Rippingtons featuring Russ Freeman? Nope. Just two many “features” in there, folks. But rest assured, Rippingtons fans, Freeman will still be at the helm when the band hits Owenton on Saturday.

Owenton? Hmm. The home of Elk Creek Vineyards, which requires roughly a half-hour drive on I-75 North through some pretty significant interstate construction (although don’t expect that to tie up traffic much on Saturday afternoon), seems far removed from some of the locales Freeman references in his predominantly instrumental compositions. Among his titles: Villa by the Sea (actually a track from a 2002 Freeman solo album called Drive), Life in the Tropics, Aspen, South Beach Mambo, Seven Nights in Rome, Morocco and One Summer Night in Brazil.

Perhaps the epitome of the exotic escapism behind Freeman’s music is Weekend in Monaco, a breezy 1992 album whose cover art depicts a Cheshire cat complete with hip beret (the cartoon mascot can be found on all Rippingtons albums) behind the wheel of a yellow sportster as its navigates ocean-side curves enroute to some posh getaway.

OK, so it’s not the same as a weekend getaway to Owenton. But Freeman and Elk Creek are going to be doing their best to bring a little of that lavish spirit to Kentucky on Saturday, along with performances by Cincinnati’s Randy Villars Band, the University of Kentucky Faculty Jazz Quartet and Alma y Clave. The music begins at 4 p.m. The Rippingtons are scheduled to play at 8.

In a field of more organically designed smooth jazz bands, The Rippingtons share a close stylistic kinship with Spyro Gyra. Both groups share a preference for sunny, tropical rhythms that emphasize saxophone and percussion, although Freeman’s guitarwork obviously serves as a lead voice for The Rippingtons.

Both design music rich in melodic appeal drawn as much from pop as jazz. That explains why the title tune to The Rippingtons’ 1996 album Brave New World is featured on Smooth Jazz II, a sampler record released earlier this month. The link between the album’s soft-focus tunes is the fact they have all been used as background music for forecasts on the Weather Channel.

“Yes, and the chance of precipitation in Monaco tonight will be…”

Most of all, though, The Rippingtons and Spyro Gyra have shared bass players. When the latter band was a frequent performer at the old Breeding’s on New Circle Road in the early ‘80s, bassist Kim Stone proved an engaging and energized foil for saxophonist/leader Jay Beckenstein. Similarly, Stone’s Bob Goes to the Store, a jam inspired by the bassist’s dog, was a highlight of those shows.

But for over 18 years, Stone has been rolling with The Rippingtons, where his finger-popping bass work has been regularly featured on the set-closing High Roller (from Weekend in Monaco).

These days, Freeman is something of his own boss. Admittedly, that’s always been the case with the band itself, whose personnel has regularly revolved under the guitarist’s stewardship. But Freeman also co-founded Peak Records in 1994, which today oversees all Rippingtons albums and Freeman-related recordings as well new music by as a roster of pop/jazz/R&B notables that includes Lee Ritenour, David Benoit and Regina Belle.

The most recent Peak project for The Rippingtons is 2006’s 20^th Anniversary. Despite a celebratory title that suggests a retrospective, the album is actually full of new recordings that feature numerous band alumni (including drummer Tony Morales) and a few guest vocalists (including R&B crooner Jeffrey Osborne, who concludes a finale medley with an update of The Spinners’ I’ll Be Around). Freeman dedicated the album to the late vocalist Carl Anderson, the voice that ignited The Rippingtons’ hit 1989 album Tourist in Paradise (where the trademark Cheshire is surfing on the cover).

Little of the 20^th Anniversary material figures into the band’s current concerts, though. Many recent performances still revolve around crowd favorites, including the title tracks to the Tourist in Paradise, Welcome to the St. James Club (1990) and Black Diamond (1997) albums as well as High Roller and an occasional Freeman take on Jimi Hendrix material.

So what, then, if a weekend in Owenton doesn’t have the same vacation poster appeal as Weekend in Monaco? With Freeman and company back in the region on Saturday, Elk Creek is bound to become a Kentucky getaway with its own jet-setting charm. They could even design a new album cover for the occasion with the Cheshire in a basketball uniform. Works for me

The Elk Creek Jazz Festival featuring The Rippingtons begins at 4 p.m. Saturday at Elk Creek Vineyards, 150 Hwy 330 in Owenton. Tickets are $20-$200. Gates open at 3 p.m. Call (502) 484-0005. For more information, visit www.elkcreekvineyards.com

Sandy Denny: Live at the BBC - The great British songstress Sandy Denny died 30 years ago last April. As this superlative four disc set of BBC recordings (including a DVD of 1971 performances) underscores, no one has yet matched the poetic directness of her writing or the gorgeously understated finesse of her vocals. The first disc offers the essentials without the orchestral excess of her later solo records. But a bootleg-ish 1971 take on Blackwaterside with Richard Thompson typlifies the treasures here.

Sly and the Family Stone: Greatest Hits - When is a greatest hits album more than just an assemblage of popular tracks? In the case of this 1970 Sly Stone anthology, it is the opportunity to show off non-album hits - Hot Fun in the Summertime and Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) - along with such muscular album title-tune singles as Stand! and Dance to the Music. The result reflects the soul-pop serenity and rich earthy funk of the Woodstock era’s most industrious and enduring R&B rockers. Perfect summer music.

Ronnie Earl: Heart and Soul - Another sterling sampler from one of the most underappreciated blues stylists of our age.  Compiled from albums released between 1983 and 2003, including his extraordinary Black Top recordings, the one-time Roomful of Blues guitarist delivers loads of tasty, piledriving grooves. But when the attitude cools, as on I Smell Trouble (with Fabulous Thunderbird Kim Wilson on vocals) and Catfish Blues, the blues mood of Heart and Soul positively glows.

Sun Ra: Nothing Is - Sun Ra loved to tell audiences he and his band were from outer space. But as the wonderfully animated playing on this 1966 scrapbook of New York college performances attests, Ra’s music was further out in space than Ra himself ever was. The bits of broken bop, ragtime twists, chants and symphonic deconstruction sound as confrontational on the two-minute Imagination as they do on the 13 minute Shadow World. What Frank Zappa was to rock ‘n roll, Sun Ra was to jazz.

Old 97s: Blame It on Gravity - Rhett Miller and company remain indie-rock’s great Americana-drenched recyclers on Gravity. The album zooms instantly to life with a frenzied electric strum that could pass for an El Paso version of Pinball Wizard. Even crazier is the rockish tango with a zooming intro that sounds like a cross between Dick Dale and Rush. There are bursts of pure pop ingenuity, too, like Ride. But Miller still provides a hapless undercurrent to it all as an inviting, restless and slightly over-anxious host.

Near as I remember, I met Dave Pegg sometime in the fall of 1987. I had journeyed to Cincinnati for a performance by Fairport Convention, the landmark British folk-rock band Pegg - “Peggy,” as he is called by everyone - has played bass guitar for since 1969.

I had written a short piece in the Herald-Leader for the occasion, as it was the first time Fairport had played anywhere in the region in nearly 15 years. In the lobby, a friend and I chatted a bit before showtime. “What did your editors think when you proposed writing about Fairport Convention?” she asked. Before I could answer, a low, thick and distinctly British voice from behind me replied, as if on cue, “He probably got sacked.”

It was Peggy. That’s how we met.

Over the years, I’ve written about Peggy numerous times. He doubled, from 1979 to1995, as bassist for Jethro Tull. So when either Fairport or Tull were in the area - and by this time, both were regular visitors to Cincinnati - we would chat a bit by phone for a story or column item and usually meet up briefly after the performances. A subtle friendship developed to the point where I would often take a drive to Cincinnati, Columbus or, in one case, Detroit to meet up with him.

We’ve chatted backstage following Cincinnati Tull gigs at Riverbend and what was then Riverfront Coliseum (now US Bank Arena). We met up in a church office amply stocked with libations after a Sunday afternoon Fairport concert in a Columbus chapel. There was a band celebration at a bizarre Mexican restaurant/disco in New York following Fairport shows at the now-demised Bottom Line. Best of all was a lunch shared at a stunning old-world pub called The Falkland Arms in the gorgeous British greens known as The Cotswalds when I went over to see Fairport’s annual August festival in Cropredy in 1990. And, yes, there was one night where Peggy was on my turf: namely a late night dinner at the Cheapside following a Fairport set for the WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour in 2002.

Peggy hasn’t been on North American soil in nearly four years. Then, out of the blue last month, a longtime Cincinnati friend called to say Peggy was playing a private house concert with guitarist PJ Wright (of the similarly progressive British folk-rock troupe Little Johnny England) on an upcoming Saturday and that my presence, from my bassist pal, was requested.

It was, briefly, a difficult call. The performance fell on the Saturday night of The Dame’s final weekend of business. But as plans were already in place to review the club’s Sunday night closing, I journeyed to Cincinnati, shared a joke and fine conversation with Peggy along with a very loose, relaxed evening of songs (with Peggy playing mandolin and acoustic guitar instead of electric bass) that included music he and Wright had cut for a fine album called Galileo’s Apology. Also in the set was fare from Fairport, Tull, Little Johnny England and nods to skiffle champ Lonnie Donegan (Mark Knopfler’s Donegan’s Gone) and Buddy Holly (a lightly colored guitar/mandolin arrangement of It Doesn’t Matter Anymore).

But it was the billing of Peggy’s tour with Wright that struck me: “A Night off with Peggy and PJ.” And, for me, that’s exactly what it was. This wasn’t a work assignment. This wasn’t review fodder. This was a very informal evening of acoustic fun with zero frills (and zero PA system, for that matter) and some lively talk with a chum whose first view of my profession was that I had been fired because of the music he made for a living.

(above: Dave Pegg, left, and PJ Wright)

“Next time you see me, I’m going to smile for the camera like some wild man from Pompei,” muses Alejandro Escovedo in the midst of Swallows of San Juan, a tune of quiet but powerfully reflective fortitude featured on his new Real Animal album.

That’s Escovedo, for you - an artist of tremendous musical depth and grace who can’t help but get his hands dirty as he tells a tale. Perhaps that’s because, for all his gifts at turning a poetic phrase, Escovedo remains a rocker at heart

For Real Animal, a potently electric album that takes considerable stock of an often extreme rock ‘n’ life, veteran David Bowie and T. Rex producer Tony Visconti brought Escovedo back to Lexington, where he has maintained a feverishly devout fanbase for over 12 years, to record 13 new songs co-written by fellow rock/pop stylist Chuck Prophet at Saint Claire Recording Company on Spurr Rd.

The wonderful local twist to Real Animal aside, the album acknowledges two of Escovedo’s former bands in song. The San Francisco-based, punk-bred Nuns are chronicled in the aptly-titled Nuns Song, although the tune works just as well as a more generalized rock club snapshot with Escovedo’s usual flair for party-crashing choruses and rock ‘n’ roll strings. A booming Visconti mix then peppers on some warped Sir Douglas Quintet-style keyboards while lyrics of fitting obstinance (”We don’t want your approval”) embellish the mood.

Later, Chip n’ Tony pumps up the backbeat as it reflects on the more Americana-savvy ‘80s days spent with Rank and File. There’s also a keen nod to Iggy Pop, whose I Wanna Be Your Dog has long been a hearty staple of Escovedo’s live shows, on Real Animal’s title tune.

At times, the Visconti touch pushes points in songs that don’t need the salesmanship, as in the odd macho backup chorus that intrudes on the nocturnal New York grime of Chelsea Hotel. But that’s nitpicking. Add in the more pastoral revelry of Escovedo’s youth depicted in both Swallows and the album-closing Slow Down, and you have an engaging and complete portrait of a rock ‘n’ original cut in a city that has long been taken by his vibrant animal language.

That Real Animal hits stores the same day as Party Intellectuals is unexpectedly fitting. Take the darker narrative of Escovedo’s Chelsea Hotel, fatten the groove factor and then warp, distort and extend the instrumental vocabulary, sometimes to the point of melodic anarchy, and you have a sense of where New York guitarist Marc Ribot is coming from on this debut disc with his extraordinary new power trio, Ceramic Dog.

Opening with a brutally unrecognizable cover of The Doors’ Break on Through, Party Intellectuals flirts with thick, uneasy electro-funk on its title track before the guitar fire recoils into a ocean of static, percussive chatter and spoken word dissonance (”You did alright in jail; you turned out to be quite a punk”) on When We Were Young and We Were Freaks.

Ribot has long been a wily and versatile improviser (he has shifted, just over the last year, from recording sessions with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss to performances with John Zorn). Somewhat suitably, Party Intellectuals reflects similar extremes in the summery globetrotting adventures of Todo El Mundo Es Kitsch, the Cuban strut of For Malena, the bouncy synth-driven funk of Pinch and the disconnected thunder and plump power chords of the 10 minute Midost.

While its musical view is often global in scope, Party Intellectuals is like driving through the darker recesses of New York after midnight on a balmy summer evening. The windows are down, the sounds are rich and all the ragged, roaring harmonies that result make for one sublime joyride.

In many ways, it was an evening both bittersweet and unexpected.

On one hand, when The Hot Club of Cowtown became, around 10:45 p.m., the last band to take the stage at The Dame, the party became full blown. The crowd filed in, the string blasts of Bob Wills’ Western swing classic Ida Red filled the room and all seemed perfectly merry for a club that was just hours away from extinction.

But in some ways, this was a cordial, almost relaxed send off to what has been one of Lexington’s most beloved nightspots of the past five years. Maybe it was the fact that The Dame was in the home stretch of a farewell party that had actually started Friday night with a Wax Fang/Whigs performance that lasted into the wee hours of Saturday.

The mere fact The Dame chose a Sunday night to close down, of course, muted any real scenario for a blowout. But the mix of Hot Club’s vintage jazz and wild Western swing sounds also managed to keep this sign-off on the cool but spirited side.

From the barnyard swing of Cherokee Shuffle to the more summery stride adopted by fiddler Elana James for ‘Deed I Do, the Austin, Tx. trio displayed a rustic string sound that was refreshingly free of retro dressing. In fact, much of the Hot Club’s music boasted considerable rootsy vitality.

The James original Twenty Four Hours a Day was a case in point. From James’ mad fiddle dashes to Whit Smith’s equally agitated guitar romps to Jake Erwin’s fat, percussive string bass colors, the tune was half romantic escapde/half runaway car chase.

Up to that point, though, it was a calm night that differed from most other evenings of business at the club only in that some of the seating had already been removed and most of the posters had been stripped from the walls.

Another tip off that The Dame’s last call was at hand came after an hour-long opening set from The Swells that gave a sweaty New Orleans makeover to music by everyone from Duke Ellington to The Kinks. During intermission, numerous patrons stood outside the club and snapped photographs of the marquee as final keepsakes.

One soul that seemed almost cheerfully unmoved by the whole downtown drama surrounding The Dame was James’ dog, Eva, who followed the fiddler from the concessions booth to make herself at home onstage as if it were a living room floor. Only a momentary blast of bass feedback during Chinatown My Chinatown seemed to startle her.

Hot Club’s high spirits grew hotter as the evening wound down. Another Wills classic, Stay a Little Longer, complete with The Swells’ Chris Sullivan and Warren Byrom adding clarinet and trumpet respectively, concluded the set proper. But encores happily tacked on another half-hour to The Dame’s final performance.

The last live song played on The Dame’s stage: Fuli Tschai, an exuberant, Eastern flavored fiddle tune that sounded like Orange Blossom Special retooled by gypsies. Many patrons in the crowd waltzed to the tune.

Sunday, as it turned out, probably wasn’t the best time to gauge what The Dame’s demise will mean for Main St. as most of the surrounding businesses were closed for the evening anyway. A better example might come tonight. With The Dame’s doors closed for good - at least, at this location - the real sound of downtown silence will settle in. 

(above, The Hot Club of Cowtown: Whit Smith, Elana James, Jake Erwin) 

The Hot Club of Cowtown performs again at 7 tonight for the WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour at the Kentucky Theatre. Admission is $10. For reservations, call (859) 252-8888.   

In order to appreciate the current game plan of Hot Club of Cowtown, you have to review some previous box scores.

First, there was the dispersal. After seven years, five albums and who-knows-how-many performances, the Austin, Tx. trio, designed as a nexus between the ‘30s and ‘40s Western swing adventures of Bob Wills and the pre-World War II “hot jazz” pioneered in Europe by guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli in the Quintette du Hot Club de France, disbanded.

But when Cowtown fiddler Elana James later hit the road to support a self-titled debut album, she thought of no finer guitar foil for her band that longtime Cowtown mate Whit Smith. When James’ bassist then relocated to Chicago, she signed up stringman Jake Erwin, who just happened to be the bass player on Hot Club’s final two albums.

Then the realization hit. The very band James had on the road was the very Cowtown lineup that busted up in the first place.

 ”We had been playing together, the three of us, under my name for nearly a year,” James said. “After awhile, it was like, ‘We should call ourselves what we really are.”

Thus began what she terms “the re-launching” of Hot Club of Cowtown, which James and Smith first formed in 1997.

“It’s a rare thing for the three of us to have musically developed when and where and how we did,” Smith said. “Somewhere in all of that there was just a connection. We were coming from more of the same place than just the fact we have a lot of the same records.”

While relentless touring in the wake of 2002’s Ghost Train album yielded a high spirited concert recording (2003’s Continental Stomp), it also saw friction in the band ranks. But the resulting split came without any lasting animosity.

“We got to the bottom of everybody’s character and saw that we still liked each other,” James said.

The reconvened Hot Club of Cowtown returns to Lexington tonight to serve as the final band to play The Dame. The trio will stay over to perform for the WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour on Monday.

Then on August 19, the Shout Factory label will release a 20-song anthology assembled from the band’s five Hightone albums. Aptly titled The Best of the Hot Club of Cowtown, the album is a mix of originals (Smith’s Emily, James’ Secret of Mine), standards (Stardust), swing favorites (the Wills staple Ida Red) and global string summits (Fuli Tschai). There is also a Ghost Town cover of the ‘70s-era Aerosmith obscurity Chip Away the Stone that wraps three part harmonies around Smith’s guitar/vocal lead.

“I always think you should be allowed play the music you like,” Smith said. “We’re very lucky in that we get to do that. Some people get so tired of the material they’re forced to play. I mean, could you imagine writing Margaritaville and then having to play it every night?”

A new studio album for 2009 is also in the works. While it will feature predominantly original music, the Cowtown crew has already recorded another intriguing cover: Tom Waits’ Orphans nugget Long Way Home.

“The thing that’s cool is we don’t really sound like anybody,” James said. “We don’t sound like Stephane Grappelli. We don’t sound like Bob Wills. We’ve been inspired by that stuff, but we’re not aping it at all. This is a band with a sound of its own

“Whether we’re playing an Aerosmith song or a ballad by the Hot Club of France, to have consistent character throughout the music is something I’m very proud of.”

(above, The Hot Club of Cowtown: bassist/vocalist Jake Erwin, fiddler/vocalist Elana James, guitarist/vocalist Whit Smith)

The Hot Club of Cowtown performs at 8 tonight with The Swells for the last night of downtown business at The Dame, 156 West Main. $7. (859) 226-9005.

Hot Club also plays at 7 p.m. Monday with Takeharu Kunimoto and the Last Frontier for the WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour at the Kentucky Theatre, 214 E. Main St. $10. (859) 252-8888.

Deep in the dead of the first winter weathered by The Dame, then-manager Cole Skinner  concocted a promotion to attract patrons on weeknights when no live music was booked. He called it “Kung Fu Motorcycle Monkey.”

The idea was for a guy in a gorilla suit to serve as a deejay for the evening after making an especially flashy entrance. When the event made its debut in February 2004, Skinner, most of his staff and a handful of bewildered patrons were peering out the Dame windows awaiting the arrival of “the monkey.” Then, roaring down Upper St. came one of the oddest sights you will ever hope to discover downtown - a man wearing a gorilla suit underneath full karate regalia riding a motorcycle. Skinner opened the doors and in rode the monkey, cycle and all, to the middle of the club’s dance floor.

Another night at The Dame was underway.

Here’s another snapshot. When a Saturday night performance in 2005 by Austin, Tx.’s Asylum Street Spankers concluded at the ripe evening hour of 9 p.m., the band moved its fans, and the ensuing party they had created, out onto Main St. No, the liquor was not brought outdoors. But the piano was. So any curious motorists driving downtown that night were treated by another fantastic image: a Texan playing ragtime on an upright piano on a Main St. sidewalk.

Admittedly, monkey suits and pianos aren’t what longtime fans of the downtown music club will have on their minds when The Hot Club of Cowtown winds up the last evening of operation for The Dame on Sunday. But they do reflect just a few of the celebratory occasions that gave the club its character.

For many, The Dame meant an astonishing performance lineup of national acts that included X, Alejandro Escovedo, Man Man, The Rev. Horton Heat, North Mississippi All-Stars, Dirty Dozen Brass Band and literally hundreds of others. To some, it’s where local music was nurtured and fanbases were built. But above all, The Dame has been a neighbor. Now part of a decimated downtown entertainment corner and with relocation plans still uncertain, Sunday will officially mark last call for one of Lexington’s most heralded nightspots.

“As far as music goes, I think The Dame has put Lexington on the same level as Louisville and Cincinnati,” said Nick Sprouse, The Dame’s general manager and primary talent buyer. “Even though we have a much smaller population, we have gotten a lot of the same acts to play here.

“Granted, there has been a lot of amazing stuff that has gone on in Lexington over the years at UK, Rupp Arena, the shows Michael Johnathon has brought in and especially Lynagh’s (Music Club). But I think over the last few years, everything has really come together at The Dame.”

Lexington guitarist Willie Eames, who has played The Dame countless times with several local bands - including The Tall Boys and Club Dub - as well as a solo performer, sees the passing of The Dame as unfortunate but somewhat inevitable.

“It’s sad,” he said. “There’s just not that many places to play in Lexington for people who want something different, people who are into a scene other than, say, going to Applebee’s. But I’ve been playing long enough now that I’ve seen several clubs come and go. That’s part of the scene, too. These things are bound to happen. A club can’t go on forever. But it’s still sad when one comes to an end.”

Robby Cosenza, another multi-tasking local musician (he is a member of, among other bands, The Scourge of the Sea and The Apparitions), has also played regularly at The Dame as well as the Main St. club’s previous incarnations as The Blue Max and Millennium.

“But those places never compared to how it’s been with The Dame,” Cosenza said. “I’ve played in a lot of different cities, as well, and there just aren’t a lot of venues like it - places that have the same capacity or the same really open minded, cool staff. It’s been great to have The Dame here.”

Of course, what is making news this summer isn’t so much the actuality that The Dame is closing, but rather how it’s closing. Most clubs that shut down are simply failed businesses. The Dame had its lease bought out as part of the controversial CentrePointe project which, if approved and funded, will level all buildings on the block The Dame now stands on for construction of a 40 story hotel and condominium tower.

Formal plans for CentrePointe were announced in March. But rumors have been flying, literally, for years that the buildings where The Dame and adjacent businesses like Buster’s (which closes tonight) and Mia’s (which has already relocated) resided would close to make way for some kind of downtown redevelopment. And that speculation has weighed heavy on Sprouse.

“For the last two years, it’s been really tough,” he said. “It’s been tough on business, for one thing. Customers say The Dame is going out of business, but so many things they heard weren’t true. The customers wound up not knowing whether we were open or not. Even after the 700^th time we were asked if we were closing, no one really knew what was going on - including us.”

CentrePointe’s formal announcement didn’t clear the air much, either. Sure, plans for the project were officially on the table. But The Dame’s relocation was - and still is - up in the air.

“I’ve had to turn down so many bands that wanted to play here in August, September and October because we just didn’t know what was going to happen.”

One thing is certain, though. Even if The Dame finds a new home and signs a lease today, it could be months before a new venue would be renovated and equipped enough for the club to resume business.

“I could use a little bit of a vacation,” Sprouse said. “It would be nice to get over to Al’s Bar and other spots to see what else has been going on in town. I haven’t been able to see shows as a customer for years.

“But honestly, I’m kind of numb to it all right now. This has been going on for two years. I’ve been talking about it for so long that I’m out of words to even explain myself.”

For everyone else, though, the squeeze of not having a live music venue in town on the level of The Dame, will be swiftly felt. Audiences haven’t experienced that kind of pinch since Lynagh’s Music Club closed in 2002.

“I think it’s going to hurt for awhile,” Cosenza said. “The big loss will be that the national touring bands will have nowhere to come to that’s smaller than Rupp Arena. The locals will find places to play. They always do. But for everyone, it’s going to hurt.”

“A nice sense of community has grown around The Dame over the years,” Sprouse said. “For a lot of people, going out, seeing music and even playing meant The Dame. Now all of that’s gone. It’s like a family member has died and we don’t know what to do.”

at top: The Dame on the night of the sold-out CD release party of local hip-hop stylists CunninLynguists. The date: June 22, 2007 - exactly one night before The Dame’s final night of downtown business. photo by Herald-Leader staff photographer David Stephenson… above, left: Vice Mayor Jim Gray outside The Dame last spring before walking the site of the proposed CentrePointe project

The wall next to the beer-only bar at Buster’s tells quite a saga.

The ties to its next door neighbor, The Dame, are emphasized through a series of flyers for performances there - most of which took place months ago. But older postings that have been stapled over tell of local theatre, film and dance events. And near the bottom, almost undetectable, are remains of posters for shows at High on Rose, a longtime local bar and music spot that closed three years ago.

But the most revealing poster is plastered en masse all over the place, especially on the windows that look out upon the late night comings and goings along the corner of Main and Upper.  The five words that dominate the poster’s black and white design explain the inevitable: “The End of Busters… as we know it.”

Today, in a day-long farewell that begins at noon, the mainstay bar, music joint and pool hall, which would have turned 18 years old this Halloween, closes down as part of planning for the proposed CentrePointe project. Like The Dame, Buster’s is looking to relocate. But the end of the downtown Buster’s, coupled with the already vacated Mia’s on it’s Upper St. side and the Sunday closing of The Dame to the right on Main, foretells the end of one of Lexington’s most frequented corners of downtown nightlife.

“It’s going to be interesting to walk around that corner real soon,” said Johnny Shipley, a bartender for seven years at Buster’s and the principal organizer of the bar’s intimate local music performances. “There won’t be anything there.

“It’s disappointing, of course. A lot of people that come in Buster’s may be turned off by the music on the jukebox or that we only have beer. But others really appreciate it for what it is and the character that is has. Countless times, someone comes in from New York City or Chicago or Los Angeles - any big city, really, with a lots of bars - and goes, ‘This is one of the coolest bars I’ve ever been in’ or ‘I wish LA had a pool hall like this.’ And they’re saying this about a little bar stuck in the middle of Main St. in Lexington.

“For those kinds of people, this is going to be a big loss.”

(above photo of The Dame, right, and Busters from www.preservelexington.org)

Throughout his near-life long tenure with Exile, J. P. Pennington figured there was only one instance when his nerves didn’t act up before going onstage. Peruse the specifics of that performance, though, and the veteran guitarist, singer and songsmith would have been well within his artistic rights to be terrified.

The occasion came last March - St. Patrick’s Day, to be exact. Convening for a concert at The Blue Moon in Chevy Chase for the first time in nearly 23 years was the ‘80s lineup of the Richmond-raised, Lexington-bred Exile that was once a mainstay of the country music charts.

There have been, of course, scores of Exile lineups before and since. Shoot, Pennington even fronts a completely different version of the band that continues to play clubs, festivals and fairs. But this was the band that gave Exile a lasting, national visibility. Together again for a benefit performance, it was about to play in a hometown club that sold all allotted tickets before the concert could even be advertised.

“It may have been the only time in my life that I went onstage and did not get nervous,” Pennington said. “We realized that not only did 90% of the people in the audience - maybe more, really - know us, but they knew each other. So nobody there was going to scrutinize much what we were doing. We were playing for friends.”

“I remember telling the guys that night, ‘If you do this again, don’t do it in a club,” said J.D. McHargue, co-owner of The Blue Moon who also booked Exile into the long-defunct Breeding’s on New Circle Road during its ‘80s heyday. “They need to play in a place with 800 to 1,000 seats, like the Opera House or the Kentucky Theatre. They need to do it in place where the boomers that were fans of the band 25 years ago can sit down and enjoy themselves.”

So this week we have a second, more public reunion of the early ‘80s Exile: Pennington, co-vocalist/guitarist Les Taylor, bassist/vocalist Sonny Lemaire, keyboardist/vocalist Marlon Hargis and drummer Steve Goetzman. The band will perform Thursday at the Kentucky Theatre and may collaborate on further dates and perhaps even a new recording down the road. But for now, the focus is simply on accommodating local fans of a Central Kentucky pop and country favorite that became, for a time, a national sensation.

“We went through a lot, these five guys,” said Goetzman, who, like the other members of Exile, save for Pennington, has long since relocated to Nashville. “Most of it was great. Some of it was horrible. But we’re family. And now, all these years later, the history is just part of us - as is our friendship. That friendship, especially, becomes a major part of these shows.

“When we got back onstage for soundcheck last March, I tell you, it was magical.”

The last thing Pennington considered when the first version of Exile formed as The Exiles in 1963 was that it would be a living, beating band some 45 years later.

“We’re talking here about when I was 14,” he said. “Back then, I didn’t think a whole lot past 7 o’clock that night.”

The Exiles began as a strictly rock ‘n’ roll unit in Richmond, toured as part of the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars in 1965 and eventually relocated in Lexington. Hargis was on board by 1975. Goetzman and Lemaire joined in 1977.

The first major break came at the height of the disco era with a sleek pop single called Kiss You All Over. It became a No. 1 hit during the summer of 1978. Taylor replaced founding singer Jimmy Stokley the following year, just as Exile was approaching a creative crossroads.

While there was no serious pop hit to replicate Kiss You All Over’s popularity, two other Exile tunes - The Closer You Get and Take Me Down - were gaining interest in Nashville circles. They were eventually recorded by an up-and-coming country-pop combo called Alabama.

“That opened the doors for us,” Pennington said. “Country music was a little more wide open then and lent itself more to the pop side of things than it ever had. But it was also a scary time for us. We faced a decision of either breaking up as a pop band or trying the country music route and giving things one last shot. Luckily, it worked out good.”

It did a lot more than just work out. After modestly tweaking its sound (”We put an acoustic guitar on everything and just kept writing pop-oriented songs,” Pennington confessed), Exile signed with Epic Records and in 1983 began a string of popular country singles with High Cost of Leaving. They hit No. 1 in 1984 with four hits (including Woke Up in Love and Give Me One More Chance) and added another six by 1987. By then, though, the cracks were visible.

Hargis left in 1985. Taylor split during the summer of 1988. By the end of that year, Pennington, the lone link to the original Exile, had clearly had enough.

“I was so burned out,” he said. “We had gone up and down the road for so long. I had a family at home with two young children, but the demands just kept coming for more and more songs. I was worn out and the guys knew it.”

+ + + + +

At the onset of the ‘90s, much of the band’s songwriting and vocal duties shifted to Lemaire. With Goetzman still on board, Exile shifted labels to Arista Records, cut two more albums and scored several additional hits including Nobody’s Talking and Even Now.

“On one hand it was terrifying,” Lemaire said. “But on the other it was quite exciting. J.P. was the heart and soul of everything Exile did. But the door was now open for me to go creatively in a slightly different direction with the songs I wrote for the band. But looking back on it now, no matter how good the new Exile seemed to be, it simply wasn’t what it was.”

“We went past two years without a record deal,” Goetzman recalled. “The crowds were falling off. Sometimes we played to 5,000 people a night. Sometimes it was 10 or 12. One day Sonny called a band meeting and said, ‘Guys, I can’t do this anymore.’ And, frankly, all of us had been thinking the same thing. So what it came to was, ‘Let’s get out while we have some dignity.’”

So Exile spent five months fulfilling performance and business obligations. In February 1994, it quietly disbanded. Sort of.

Re-enter Pennington and Taylor who formed a new Exile band in 1996 and maintained a healthy performance schedule without new recordings. Taylor left again in 2006, although Pennington continues to perform with that Exile lineup even as the reunited ‘80s crew plots a future course.

“It keeps you on your toes,” Pennington said of his life in two Exile bands. “With the reunion band, for instance, I may be singing totally different harmony parts than what I’m singing with the current lineup. It’s tricky.”

For Goetzman, who has worked in music management companies (”the business side of the business”) since leaving Exile and went nearly 11 years without as much as touching a drum stick, the prospect of reuniting the ‘80s Exile is exhilarating.

“None of us are anticipating doing a lot of shows,” he said. “But the reunion, for me, has been a bit of a life saver. I don’t mean financially, so much. Just emotionally. Spiritually.

“The music business today is horrible. It’s really, really bad. It’s difficult to do well and even more difficult to have fun. In a tanked industry where you’re always looking for what little fun that’s still out there, working with the guys again is a real shot in the arm.”

“Exile was one of the greatest things to happen in my life,” Lemaire added. “The music is so much fun to play. It takes me back to when I first joined the band, to when I was playing music just for the fun of it. Period. That’s what this reunion feels like.”

(at top Exile 2008: Les Taylor, J.P. Pennington, Sonny Lemaire, Steve Goetzman. Photo by Carla Winn.; above, Exile 1983: Taylor, Marlon Hargis, Pennington, Goetzman, Lemaire)

Exile Reunion Concert: 7 tonight at the Kentucky Theatre, 214 E. Main. $19.50, $24.50. Call (859) 231-7924.

Wadada Leo Smith’s Golden Quartet: Tabligh - A co-founding member over 40 years ago of the AACM, the famed Chicago improvisational music collective, Smith shifts modes to a more atmospheric and discreetly groove-driven sound on the new Tabligh. The music recalls In a Silent Way-era Miles Davis. Gorgeously emotive, edgy and spacious jazz with a high melodic risk factor.

Sam Phillips: Don’t Do Anything - The amazing Ms. Phillips borrows a few lessons in how to warp elemental rock and folk melodies from ex-husband T Bone Burnett, adds a dash of Tom Waits surrealism, layers her tales of unrequited love in thick, humid guitar melancholy (the album’s title tune) and jangly unease (My Career in Chemistry) and tops it all with the voice of a squeamish chanteuse. Smashing stuff.

The Byrds: Live at the Royal Albert Hall 1971 - A newly unearthed concert document featuring the neglected ‘70s quartet version of The Byrds. The guitar sparring between Roger McGuinn and Clarence White propels this ragged but wildly compelling performance through forgotten Byrds gems (Lover of the Bayou), bluegrassy acoustics (Black Mountain Rag) and the hits (a truly psyche-ed out Eight Miles High).

The Strawbs - Just a Collection of Antiques and Curios - A largely acoustic, largely live 1970 record that sounds like a cross between The Moody Blues and Fairport Convention. Dave Cousins dressed later Strawbs albums with more glammed up psychedelia. But with help from a 21 year old Rick Wakeman, Antiques and Curios is half-hippie haze and half- Old England. A gloriously dated but wonderfully organic sounding prog-rock blueprint.

Return to Forever: Romantic Warrior - A cornerstone fusion album that allowed RTF to exist as a thrillseeking quartet instead of an electric vehicle for keyboardist Chick Corea. A case in point: Sorceress, a tune boasting one of Corea’s most dramatically paced piano solos. Yet the song was penned by drummer Lenny White. RTF is touring this summer for the first time in over 30 years. May its travels one day extend back to Lexington.