Wine and Song, a mid-week event that Los Angeles-based songwriter Brad Colerick started in 2009 at the Arroyo Seco Golf Course in South Pasadena, presents Nashville band Wild Ponies and Pasadena singer-songwriter Chauncey Bowers, with special guest Michael McNevin on Wednesday, March 30, opening at 6:30 p.m.
Temporarily, Wine and Song will be at the tent at Mamma’s Brick Oven, at 1007 Fair Oaks Ave. in South Pasadena, until The Blue Guitar room at the Arroyo Seco Golf Course gets City approval to reopen.
Although based in Nashville, Wild Ponies have always looked to Southwest Virginia for inspiration. That’s where bandmates Doug and Telisha Williams were both born and raised, and where, in mountain towns like Galax, old-time American music continues to thrive, supported by a community of fiddlers, flat-pickers, and fans.
Wild Ponies pay tribute to that powerful music and rugged landscape with their 2017 album Galax. The Williams took some of their favorite musicians from Nashville – Fats Kaplin, Will Kimbrough, Neilson Hubbard and Audrey Spillman – and met up with revered Old-Time players from Galax: Snake Smith, Kyle Dean Smith, and Kilby Spencer. Recorded in the shed behind Doug William’s old family farm in the Appalachians, the album returns Wild Ponies to their musical and geographic roots.
Dr. Chauncey Bowers, research scientist, singer-songwriter and philosopher, writes songs that probe and examine subjects from unexpected angles, contemplating their inherent properties. But they’re also informed by his earthy wit, something he developed when he apprenticed to a shady repo man in Georgia, before he left the South’s dualistic culture for the bohemian enclaves of Cambridge and San Francisco and, later, Pasadena. His worldview was further colored by attending grad school, playing folk clubs and festivals, falling in love, earning his PhD, getting some radio play, getting married, and yoking himself to his job 15 hours a day. Music was slipping away, and he didn’t touch a guitar for 20 years.
In 2009, Bowers found himself stepping away from his job and remembering how much he loved playing guitar. His fingers became reacquainted with calluses as he began frequenting an open-mic night and eventually became a regular performer at Kulak’s Woodshed in North Hollywood. After much encouragement from friends and fans, he recorded and released the Rumors of Reason album in 2013. He debuts Circus on Wednesday night.
Special guest Michael McNevin is a seven-time winner of the “Song of the Year” contest for West Coast songwriters. He grew up in the train town of Niles, in the San Francisco Bay Area. He started out playing underage in East Bay bars, mixed in a six-month stint busking the streets and subways in New York and has since logged 25 years on the U.S. songwriter circuit.
Tickets for Wine and Song are $15, or you may leave a donation at the door.
For more information, call (323) 769-3500 or visit www.blueguitar.club.
If you can’t be there, you can also donate via Venmo (@bradcolerick), Zelle (brad@deepmix.com) or PayPal.me/bradcolerick.
