Every genre records here. After all, compared to New York and L.A., Nashville is an extremely livable place to spend weeks at a time putting together an album. The talent is available, you can do some cool songwriting while you are here with world class songwriters, and the down-to-earth environment sparks a lot of creativity.
So from a musicianship standpoint, we've got the 99% flawless studio musicians -- the guys who can play a song to the upper echelon of perfection the first time through. Then there are the touring musicians who use Nashville as a home base. These are the guys who can play a song to connect with a crowd. They tend to have a high boredom threshhold (since they have to play the same set over and over every night all summer long) and they can usually play a song to the middle to high echelon of of perfection by end of the second time through. (Editor's note: hate to burst your bubble, but these are not the guys on the record. Hardly ever.)
And then there are the Up and Comers -- the guys who have put all of their eggs in the Nashville basket and are trying to make it up the ladder. In any other town in America they would be stars and could easily make a living doing nothing but music. Here they struggle, and often have to supplement their income with a mundane job out in the real world. Over time, some of these guys assimilate and become working stiffs who happen to like music. The alter egos of these guys are the local working stiffs dedicated to an actual career but who also dabble in music...because the resources and creative impetus to do so are so omnipresent.
And then there are the musicians who have already worked their way up the ladder. They have done the gigs, written the songs, toured with the best, taken over the session scene and now they are producers -- the guys who can hear what perfection ought to sound like before it happens. Because they can speak to world class musicians in their language they are able to achieve this audio "vision."
All of that to say, a cover band in Nashville is, more often than not, a stellar group of talent not found in cover bands any place else in the world. Because here, a cover band is just some extra bread and butter money for musicians who love to play.
With that paradigm in mind, I want to give you a spectacular example of what this phenomenon can look like in The Diggy Band. I recently saw "The Diggys" at Sambuca, a fabulous fusion cuisine restaurant in The Gulch area of downtown Nashville. Sambuca has music 7 nights a week and I have never heard bad music there. In fact, I have never even heard mediocre music there. Whoever is booking talent either has an ear or knows who to talk to.
But The Diggys are something special, precisely because at heart they are not a cover band at all. We were there for a celebratory dinner for a friend's 40th birthday, so like most diners, we weren't listening exclusively to the music. And in fact, they may have played some of their originals (which I'm sure are spectacular) but I wouldn't know it. When diners are engaged in conversation it is the sound of a familiar song played especially well that catches the ear. And on this night my ear was frequently "caught."
They started out the set establishing their chops in R & B, and then came out with an old Simon & Garfunkel song that has been one of my favorites for decades!!! "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her" is sheer poetry and not a song you often hear in commercial venues. And The Diggy's did it proud. So while I can't say I was surprised at finding an amazing cover band at Sambuca, I did pay a bit more attention after that.
Their Beatles medley defied the obvious, their version of "In Your Eyes" pulled at the heartstrings, and their version of "Halllelujah" was richer, more melodious and more engaging than Jeff Buckley's.
Let's face it, these guys are awesome, anyway. Among their collective experience are a variety of very successful tours in regional bands and solo performances, and all of the other hallmarks of a successful career in the upper ranks of musicians.
Diggy, in addition to much solo success in his own right has had opening gigs for The Wallflowers,Tori Amos, Chris Whitley, Gov't Mule, Duncan Sheik, Jars of Clay,
Keb Mo, Alejandro Escavedo, Chris Whitley, legendary folk singer Eric Andersen, The Maryjanes, and Those Darn Accordions. He has also worked with producers who previously earned their keep with Bruce Hornsby and the Range, and with Bonnie Raitt.
Rick Elias' music appeared in the 1996 hit movie That Thing You Do, Dawson’s Creek, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, as well as numerous other albums, independent films, and TV shows. Rick has also produced artists such as Rich Mullins, Amy Grant, Aaron Neville, Michael W. Smith, and many others. Rick's work has been nominated and awarded by the GMA, UCMVA, and the Nashville Music Awards, and his first solo record was voted as one of the top 100 greatest albums in Christian music by CCM magazine.
Mark W. Winchester played bass on the multi-million selling, Grammy-winning, "Jump, Jive, and Wail" and became a full time member of the Brian Setzer Orchestra from 1997-2001. Throughout his tenure with the Orchestra, Setzer encouraged Mark W. to step out front, even asking him to sing his own composition "Rooster Rock" on the Setzer release "Ignition" (surf dog). Emmylou Harris enlisted Mark W. to "slap" the upright bass in her Grammy Award-winning all acoustic band, the Nash Ramblers. He is also an accomplished songwriter with several cuts including Randy Travis' recording of his song "Would I?" which ranked in the top 20 of the Billboard Country charts.
I can't find a website for the 4th guy, or I'd detail his resume for you, too. But the long and the short of it is that you don't find cover bands of this caliber in other places. It is part of the magic of Nashville. The bottom line is that we are a little spoiled...and we like it!
Coming Soon:
The Diggy Band at Sambuca
July 10-11
July 24-25
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