The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show - Prater's Creek Gazette

MY 50 FAVORITE CONCERTS (Cont.)
Irving O Tarbox - Arts and Music Editor

26- The *%$# FACTORY WORKERS (APRIL 1986 EDGAR’S, CLEMSON U, $3 which went to headline act) Brad Rice on Gibson Firebird guitar and vocals, Mike Johns on Gibson Thunderbird bass and vocals, and Todd Brooks on drums made up one of the funniest, coolest, sickest rock bands ever to hit the stage. The best rock band ever from SC. May they live on in infamy.

27- WYNTON MARSALIS (MAY 1986 RIVERPLACE FESTIVAL, GVL, free show) Traditional jazz at his highest level.

28- SURFERS (SUMMER 1987, UPTOWN LOUNGE, $5) Whew!

29- COCKTAIL GIRLZ (1988 BIG D’S BBQ, CLEMSON $3) They were from Atlanta and I had see them open for The Red Hot Chili Peppers a little over a year before. But their sound had gotten heavier since then. When, near the end of the show, the lead singer was shouting “Wait, there’s something coming over my transmitter” and the lead guitarist let loose with some of the most vicious, snarling wall of guitar you ever heard, they took us all “there”.

30- BILL MONROE AND HIS BLUEGRASS BOYS (POWDERSVILLE OPRY HOUSE, POWDERSVILLE,SC $8) I attended this show with The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show. Homer told me it was “a band field trip”. As soon as we walked into the old two-room schoolhouse, Bill Monroe was standing there and we got to meet him. We were all in bluegrass heaven. Tater Tate was playing the fiddle that Drover Cousin Ray now plays, and he played the heck out of it. It was as important an event as my first concert.

31- METALLICA (SEPT 1989 GVL AUD had a backstage pass) I had seen them on this, the Justice For All tour, back in February, in Charlotte. But we were so far away from the stage and, because of some other extenuating circumstances, I did not enjoy the show.

This night in Greenville, The Cult opened the show and I easily got to the front and stayed. Metallica killed. Absolutely killed. METALLICA! METALLICA!!! Grandpa of The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show was with me and he was so inspired he went home and wrote the song “Tomahawk”, which appears on the Drovers’ first CD, that night.

32- JEFF BECK / STEVIE RAY VAUGHN (NOV. 1989 OMNI, ATL) Beck opened the show. He was on the Beck’s Garage tour. As with the album, they had no bass, just keyboards and the amazing Terry Bozzio (Frank Zappa/Missing Persons) on drums. Beck further cemented his place as my favorite electric guitar player of all time that night, yanking and cranking on his foam green Stratocaster. And Vaughn was great and had the whole arena rocking like a small club while he just wore out that old beaten up Strat he always played.

33- JIM & JESSE and the VIRGINIA BOYS (MAY 1990 LIMESTONE COLLEGE, LIMESTONE, SC) During the break, between sets, I asked them if they could play “Rider in the Rain”, a Randy Newman song they had recorded Jim & Jesse style. Halfway through the second set, Jim announced, with a chuckle, that they were “going to do a song by an old folk singer” and they played “Rider”. It was great. I saw them so many times during the 90’s that I was on a first name basis with them.

34- NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE (FEB. 1991 OMNI,ATL) This was the fifth time I had seen Neil, but the first time I had seen him with Crazy Horse, which is Neil Young at his best. It was the Ragged Glory tour and they had brought the big Fender amps they had used as a theatrical props on the Rust Never Sleeps tour.

Gulf War One was going on at the time. Along with the big amps, they had the giant microphone, which a roadie, in overalls, and carrying a giant carrot, put on stage. As the crowd cheered the microphone, the “Farmer John” dude held up his finger gesturing that he’d forgotten something. He came back out with a giant yellow ribbon and tied it to the oversized mike stand. The audience’s cheering nearly blew the roof off of the Omni.

Neil and Crazy Horse delivered the loudest, most “hit you between the eyes” rock show I have ever witnessed. This was not to be a night for “Heart of Gold” or other such mellow tunes. This was Ragged Glory. The high point of the show came when the band launched into “Rockin’ in the Free World”. As Crazy Horse blasted out a sonic wall of ROCK and Neil singing the lyrics, it was the greatest ambivalent feeling. On the one hand the song mocked the first President Bush’s “kinder gentler machine guns” and his “thousand points of light”. But the chorus of “ keep on rockin’ in the Free World”, that yellow ribbon hanging off of the giant mike stand, and wanting the USA to kick Iraqi butt, made it the greatest coliseum rock moment I’ve ever experienced.

35- OPERATION ROCK AND ROLL (FEATURING MOTORHEAD, ALICE COOPER, JUDAS PRIEST) (JUNE 1991 LAKEWOOD AMPITHEATRE,ATL) If you are wondering what about this concert puts it on my Favorite 50 List, then reread the lineup. And Priest was on the Painkiller tour. Let me say that again. Priest was on the Painkiller tour.

36- RALPH STANLEY and THE CLINCH MOUNTAIN BOYS (THANKSGIVING DAY 1991 MYRTLE BEACH CONVENTION, MYRTLE BEACH, SC) Ralph was still playing banjo at the time, but not this night because he had just had surgery. My hero, Curly Ray Cline, was on fiddle and I could not help grinning at the sight and sound of him. When Ralph, who was looking very frail, sang the song about his dear departed brother Carter, I was crying. What a Thanksgiving feast for the soul The Clinch Mountain Boys were that day.

37- The JOHNSON MOUNTAIN BOYS (NOV 1991 MYRTLE B.) Everything you could want a bluegrass band to be. Great solo singing, brother harmonies, trios, old school fiddling and mandolin picking, the mandolin player played the fiddle for a couple of numbers to have twin fiddles on a waltz, while the banjo player switched to mandolin for those songs. And they had an incredible stage presence. They got the place fired up!

38- The OSBORNE BROTHERS (JUNE 1992 DAHLONEDGA BLUEGRASS FEST, AURIRIA, GA) Right before their set, it came up a bad storm. The lightning quit but the rain just got harder and it was being amplified through the PA. The Osbornes came out and opened with “Muddy Bottom”.

39- BILL MONROE and his BLUEGRASS BOYS (JUNE 1993 DAHLONEDGA, GA) Usually, the Thursday of this festival was not as packed as Friday and Saturday. But The Atlanta Constitution had run a big article on Bill that day and it seemed to get more folks to come out the first day. As Bill’s bus pulled onto the grounds, the whole crowd looked past the band on stage at the bus. That day he and the band played the best version of “Jerusalem Ridge” I ever saw them play.

40- JIM & JESSE and the VIRGINIA BOYS (AUG. 1994 CHEROKEE BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL, HAPPY HOLIDAY CAMPGROUND, CHEROKEE, NC) Their bus had broken down on the road and they were running late. The festival organizers moved the schedule around and Jim and Jesse were later than expected. So instead of doing two 45-minute sets, they played one long set. I sat there in the crisp mountain night air, next to the lake with a big cup of coffee and heard the tightest, most brilliant set I have ever heard. And that’s saying something because I was seeing them every other week at someplace or another.

41- BILL MONROE and his BLUEGRASS BOYS (AUG 1995 Cherokee) It rained that whole weekend. It just poured. Bill’s first set was awful. His mandolin was so out of tune. He was in terrible health. My heart was breaking seeing my hero that way. Later that night, it stopped raining for an hour. The emcee was announcing and you could hear some ripping mandolin from backstage. I thought to myself “somebody else is tuning his mandolin for him”. Then Bill and the boys came out and he had the sunburst mandolin that he used back in ’85 when his main one was being repaired. He took more solos in the first two songs than he did in the whole first set. He was fierce. He was Bill Monroe.

I had just gotten a new job and they wanted me to start that weekend. I lied and told my new employers that I had to be the best man in a wedding in PA. I’m so glad I lied and went on to Cherokee as planned. That was the last time I ever saw Bill Monroe. A few months later he got gravely ill and never played again, passing away in Sept 1996.

42- GILLIAN WELCH / DAVID RAWLINGS (The first Handlebar, Greenville, SC) It was a packed house and a storm hit, knocking out the club’s electricity. Welch and Rawlings resumed playing with no sound system and by candlelight. It was beautiful. Not only was this one of my favorite shows, but Gillian’s as well.

43- The DEL McCOURY BAND Anytime I have ever seen this band it has been worthy of any music lover’s top 50. Del and the boys never let you down. The first time I heard them it was at Cherokee and I had never heard of them. They were sandwiched in between The Osbornes and Jim & Jesse and I had sat down in somebody’s chair and was going to stay until they came back from their campsite and asked me to leave. Del’s singing and guitar playing blew me away. He always hits it out of the park anytime you see him and the boys. In a nutshell, this is the best bluegrass band on earth right not. No, this is the best band on earth right now.

44- PARLIAMENT / FUNKADELIC (April 1994 Greenville Memorial Auditorium) I had seen them here in ’84 and the place was not even one quarter full, and the few black folk there were (my best friend, my cousin and I were the only crackers there) were not into them. What was this show going to be like?

Well a lot had changed since ’84. The younger blacks knew of George Clinton and gang through rap songs sampling the band, and rappers such as Snoop Doggy Dogg championing them. Also the younger whites were into them because of bands like the Chili Peppers. The place was packed and I could not talk for three days from singing along with the crowd on the songs. I was so happy to see this band’s legend restored. I walked out of the auditorium believing, and this belief lasted awhile, that the greatest rock band of all time was not The Beatles or The Stones but Parliament/Funkadelic. “Make my funk the P-Funk!”

45- ST. PETERSBURG STRING QUARTET (1996 Brooks Center) So powerful and uplifting. This Russian quartet was as intense as any other musical performers in the world.

46- J.D. CROWE and the NEW SOUTH (OCT.4 1998 SOME CRUMMY BBQ JOINT IN PENDLETON, SC) A beautiful Fall afternoon, all you can eat BBQ, the Sunday paper and the legendary JD Crowe on banjo.

47- PJ HARVEY (NOV 8,1998, THE ROXY, ATL, GA) She had just released Is this Desire? when I got to see her live. She had John Parrish, with whom she had also just released a very Beefheart influenced album, on guitar. And Eric Drew Feldman, who was in Beefheart’s Magic Band, on guitar, bass, and keyboards. I was looking forward to this show as much as any on this list and PJ more that delivered. One of the things I most remember about that show was all of the incredibly beautiful young (Ga. Tech?) coeds in the audience who knew every word of her songs!

I’ve only gotten to see PJ Harvey that one time. She doesn’t tour often, and the last two times she opened the tour in Atlanta, and I didn’t find out until after the fact. She opened for U2 a few years back, and I had tickets, but then she got sick and was off of the tour for a week when I was to see her with U2 in Charlotte. But if I had seen her more, every show I would have seen by her would have made this top 50 list.

Except for maybe The White Stripes, whom I haven’t gotten to see yet (but know that they’re awesome live) PJ Harvey has no peers in rock. And considering all types of music, only Del McCoury and his band are better live than PJ right now.

48- BLACK SABBATH (1999 BILO CENTER, GVL) The original lineup was finally back together. Godsmack opened and the kids were going wild. I thought they were going to tear the building down. Could Sabbath follow this? I mean, they have legendarily been blown away on tours by opening acts such as Van Halen and Metallica.

I had nothing to worry about. They stuck to the first 5 albums and made me 14 again. And I can’t thank Ozzie, Geezer, Tony, and Bill enough for that!

50- The DROVERS OLD TIME MEDICINE SHOW (JUNE 18,2006 HISTORIC NEWRY MILL, NEWRY, SC free show) I was covering the Lost Village Folk Festival for The Gazette that day. Growing up in Prater’s Creek, I’ve seen The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show thousands of times. I have never seen them play a subpar show. I have seen them a few times come off of the stage disappointed in their performance where I’ve had to ask them “What are you talking about?! That was great”. But the show over in Newry that day was one of their best.

They took the stage (which was the front porch of the old company store) in ninety-five degree heat and played an even hotter one hour and forty-five minute set. They drew from their four CDs and performed 8 or 9 new songs. They also did a wonderful tribute to the recently departed Buck Owens. My barber told me the other day that The Drovers’ show had been topic number one all summer in his shop.