While Chicago unleashes its music festivals by genre all summer long, Birmingham, Ala., smooshes them all into one hot, glorious weekend called City Stages. Now in its 10th year, the festival draws hundreds of artists (this year 270) from every musical genre to perform on one of its 15 stages in downtown Birmingham.
Once seen as a regional event, the festival has recently started attracting national attention for its quality, diversity and relative accessibility. This year’s program, which ended Sunday night, included acts ranging from the Phil Collins Big Band and the Squirrel Nut Zippers to The Gap Band, Soul Asylum and the New Hope Mass Choir. While the festival offers more than enough to keep fans of classical, jazz, alternative and R&B happy for days, it offers a special bounty for fans of folk, country and roots music.
As early as Friday afternoon, the music had already started with four featured performers playing free, unplugged warm-up shows. This was no sweat for neo-folkies Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, for whom unplugged is a natural state. The duet, playing from their upcoming sophomore album, “Hell Among the Yearlings,” charmed the Southern audience with just about the most authentic imitation of old mountain music happening today.
Speaking of faux hillbillies, the lineup also featured Chicago’s enigmatic “genius” Will Oldham on Sunday and guit-steel master Junior Brown on Friday night. The latter stunned audiences with his breathtaking Hendrix-like stylings on double-necked lead-and-steel guitar and those deep, sexy Ernest Tubb-like vocals. Preceding him were country’s answer to the Spice Girls, the Dixie Chicks, who heated the coolish night with the raunchy blues sound of “Love Me Like a Man” and a Texas swing take on “Stand by Your Man.”
Meanwhile, Jimmie Dale Gilmore played the fest as a duet with Chicago guitarist Rob Jersoe. Plucking a few favorites from his regular repertory, the Texan concentrated mostly on sweet, simple, old-timey covers that he just recorded with Jersoe on a yet unnamed upcoming release. The spare arrangements proved perfect for highlighting the still evening and Gilmore’s clear, lonesome vocals.
On Sunday, Dave Alvin & the Guilty Men greeted dusk on the longest day of the year with his tight standby “Goodbye Baby So Long” as well as the sweet “Abilene,” about a lonely stripper. But the song that best captured the mood of this hot, festive event was his uptempo full band rendition of “Fourth of July.”
