Paul Songs: Broken Bones & Pocket Change

St. Paul & The Broken Bones: Broken Bones & Pocket Change
[purchase] 

When a musician leaves the stage and heads into the crowd, you never know what is going to happen. That’s probably why you don’t really see it very often, and when it does happen, there’s usually a phalanx of security guards to protect the musicians from bodily harm. I’ve written about one time that I saw The Decemberists leave the stage in Amsterdam to reenact the 1667 Battle of Chatham, and another time that Buddy Guy jumped off the stage in Central Park and eventually approached my wife and I, and our two-month-old son, who was at his first concert (not including a couple he attended in utero). And I recall seeing the Blind Boys of Alabama do it, also in Central Park. I’m sure there are more examples, but the only other one that I can specifically recall was when I saw St. Paul & The Broken Bones at the Capitol Theatre in 2019.  Although I feel like that is something that Bono has done on occasion, and we all know what his real first name is, right?

I’ve mentioned in passing before that I occasionally blog about shows at the Capitol Theatre, the storied venue in Port Chester, New York. When they announce shows, I can request a ticket, and if I am chosen, I get to go for free, and write about the show. They then post what I wrote, usually with a bunch of nice pictures taken by a professional photographer, on their website, in a section called the “Squirrel Blog.” Squirrels are important to the Cap. I blogged that show, so let me borrow from what I wrote back then, when it was fresh in my memory: 

After Janeway introduced and thanked the band, they launched into the emotional “Broken Bones & Pocket Change,” as Janeway plunged into the crowd before walking upstairs, singing from the side boxes, traversing and nearly climbing off the balcony, and ending the show from the boxes on the other side. 

You can see a video of that part of the show here. I don't think you can see me in the video, but I'm standing in front of the soundboard, because someone once told me that it was the best place to stand.

The “Janeway” that I referred to is Paul Janeway, the titular "St." Paul, who had trained as a preacher before eventually turning to music. The band’s name came from our featured song, the first that Janeway wrote with bassist and co-founder Jesse Phillips. They formed the group in 2012 in Birmingham, Alabama, and soon became an 8-piece soul band that included guitarist Browan Lollar, who had been part of Jason Isbell’s band The 400 Unit and keyboard player Al Gamble (whose brother Chad is the drummer in the 400 Unit). Their first full album, Half The City, which contained our featured song, was released on Single Lock Records, which I only mention because one of the owners is John Paul White (of The Civil Wars), and then, only because we are focusing on “Pauls.” 

Here's how I described their performance that night: 

Janeway regally commanded the stage, a shiny cape over his shoulders like Solomon Burke, and the crowd was in his hands from the start. 

Good performers feed off the energy of the crowd—great ones take that energy and send it back, magnified, and that’s exactly what Janeway and the band did, holding nothing back through the hour and a half set. His voice is a freak of nature, rich and soulful—think Al Green or Otis Redding—with an otherworldly falsetto that thrilled the crowd. 

It was a great show, I got to see it for free, the lead singer left the stage and climbed into the balcony, and nobody got hurt. If that's not a great night, I don't know what is.

Gravity: Gravity by Barnaby Bright

Barnaby Bright: Gravity
[purchase the Gravity EP]
[purchase The Longest Day (which also has the song)]

Last weekend, I was sitting in a church meeting room listening to two musicians make truly wonderful music. This experience was shared by 25-30 people, and between sets, we were able to chat with them, and ate pot luck snacks. Tomorrow night, the Grammys will honor, for the most part, music that isn’t nearly as good as what I heard from Barnaby Bright last weekend, much of it made by acts that play before tens of thousands of fans at each performance. I know that music isn’t really a competition, and I know that the vagaries of fame has been a common theme of my writing here, but I guess it just galls me that bands such as Barnaby Bright are traveling around, playing churches and small venues, sleeping in fans’ houses to save money, while lesser talents have their own jets and probably complain about the thread count in their hotel’s sheets.

What does this have to do with gravity? I could try to argue that there is gravity in this situation, but that would be a stretch. In fact, I thought of this theme at the show last weekend, when Becky Bliss, one of the married couple that make up Barnaby Bright, introduced this song, and joked that every band has a song called “Gravity.” And while that may be hyperbole, I have 13 distinct songs with the word in the title in my iTunes library, which is a pretty fair amount.

The members of Barnaby Bright are originally from Kansas, who came together for good, personally and professionally, in New York, which is why you sometimes see them referred to as being from Brooklyn (I guess that also gives them some hipster cred. Maybe they would be more famous if Nathan Bliss grew a big shaggy beard, and they wore vintage clothing). Becky has a simply beautiful voice, and when I saw them, she also played keyboards, harmonium and baritone ukulele. Nathan sang harmony, played the guitar and percussion and managed all of their many effects. I understand that he also plays many other instruments. They write separately and together, and their songs have won many prestigious songwriting contests. At the show, they mentioned that they were moving to Nashville, and maybe that will help them get more notice.

“Gravity” is a wonderful song, written by Nathan. It was a finalist in the 2012 Mountain Stage NewSong Contest, which led to a performance on that venerable and respected syndicated radio show. It uses gravity, and related concepts such as falling and weight, as a metaphor for the experience of breaking up.

I’m sure that most people who read this blog—you know, the kind of people who are interested enough in music to read unknown writers opine about the subject—have played the game where you think of a favorite, lesser known band that sounds kind of like a more famous band, and wonder why their levels of popularity are so different. Playing here, I thought of The Civil Wars, a fine act, which like Barnaby Bright, features a man and a woman who write beautiful songs, and perform them beautifully. And I suspect that if I randomly played Civil Wars songs and Barnaby Bright songs for you, you might be able to tell them apart by sound, but not by quality. (It turns out that I’m not the only one—Google the bands’ names together and you will find a number of other people making the comparison).

In fact, The Civil Wars’ excellent breakthrough, Barton Hollow and the Barnaby Bright EP Gravity both appeared on Amazon’s Best Albums of 2011, a great achievement for any artist, when you consider all of the albums released each year. But Barton Hollow was number 5 (and won 2 Grammys) and Gravity was number 91. Interestingly, Barton Hollow has a song called “Falling,” which has a similar theme to “Gravity.” To these ears, both of these songs are of a similar, high quality. What do you think?