You Can Go Home Again

When I was growing up in Maine, I never stopped to consider whether the state offered me enough resources as a dedicated music fan. It definitely didn't provide enough financial stability; I left in 1999 to pursue my current job. But had it adequately sustained me as a music lover?

I thought it had. I worked in a record store during high school. I spent my spare money on records, CDs and concerts. After almost seven years in northern Virginia, I'm not so sure. So many entertainers pass through this area that you have to make tough decisions to keep from breaking the bank. Sometimes only logistics save your wallet. A couple of weeks ago, Old 97's and Jon Dee Graham were playing at different clubs on the same night.

The pace of life, the cost of living and the traffic in the Greater Washington D.C. area have made me consider going back home more than once. So last week, during one of my semiannual visits, I made a conscious effort to survey what Maine would offer a music fan with my relative taste and interests. I'm pleased to say that the results were promising.

Guitars � We spent much of our time in Turner, where my parents live. Only 20 miles south, in my hometown of Lewiston, there are three guitar shops. When I was in high school there were four, but three is nothing to sneeze at in a town with fewer than 50,000 residents.

Lewiston also is where some of the finest acoustic guitars in the world are built by Dana Bourgeois and his crew at Bourgeois Guitars. Haven't heard of them? Don't feel bad. I ran into a friend who's been playing for about 20 years, and still lives in the area, and he hadn't heard of them. You don't have to take my word for it, though. Here are a few musicians that might reside on your shelves or in your iPods who play Bourgeois guitars: Ricky Skaggs, Cody Kilby, Bryan Sutton, Steve Earle and Sean Watkins. Bourgeois builds about 400 guitars a year, and I was ready to place my order for one of them after taking the tour of the shop. Instead of trying to get my down payment, though, they encouraged me to go out and try all the other guitars out there. If I don't decide to have my acoustic built there, you can bet I'll remember their honesty when I refer other people to them.

The Bourgeois tour would have satisfied my need to be surrounded by guitars, but as luck would have it I would get to see many more. The Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville was sponsoring an exhibit titled "The Player's Art," which showcased vintage, rare and handmade guitars that had connections to Maine. There were dozens of guitars, and it was eye-opening to discover instruments built by several Maine luthiers. Even if you don't play, they're pretty to look at. I was a little disappointed that the curators didn't provide a little more in-depth information about two of Maine's most notable guitar players: Lenny Breau and Clarence White, both of whom were born in the Pine Tree State.

Breau took the Merle Travis/Chet Atkins style of playing a constant bass line with the thumb while picking a melody with the other fingers to dizzying new heights in the jazz world before his tragic drowning death in 1984. White carved out a reputation as one of the greatest flatpickers ever before being killed by a drunk driver in 1973. Both players were represented in the exhibit, but there were no instruments and little memorabilia associated with them in the gallery.
Breau's brother, Denny, still lives in Maine, and he's no slouch when it comes to playing fingerstyle guitar. My mother, my wife and I were fortunate enough to see him perform with his wife Ann Breau on flute and bassist Frank Coffin in a small church. The evening began with a Gordon Lightfoot cover ("That's What You Get For Lovin' Me") and ended with Breau picking a medley of Atkins tunes. In between, the trio touched on country, blues, classical, jazz, bossa nova and even a hint of southern rock. Did I mention the show was $5?

Music � The truth is that there's more live music in Maine than you might think. I've always had eclectic taste, but when I was in my teens and early 20s I was primarily interested in the blues. Since there were a couple of blues clubs in Portland and an annual blues festival on the coast, I never felt shortchanged. Bluegrass, country and alt-country take up more of my time these days, but all are relatively easy to locate around my old stomping grounds.

The Internet makes it easier to find most everything these days. A quick Google search led me to the Bluegrass Music Association of Maine, which in turn led me to drop a lot of my assumptions about the land of my people. There's a lot of bluegrass in Maine. The BMAM site has flyers posted for about a dozen festivals, including the 27th Thomas Point Bluegrass Festival in Brunswick from Sept. 1-4 that's being headlined by Earl Scruggs and Doyle Lawson. Not bad for a place known for lobster rolls rather than banjo rolls. The site also posts national bluegrass news and links to bands, jams and picking parties. If I ever moved back, I'd get in touch with these people pronto.

Maine has long had a better local music scene than it gets credit for. David Mallett is as talented a singer-songwriter as you are likely to find anywhere, and he's got the songs covered by artists such as Emmylou Harris to prove it. He also proves that no region of the country has a monopoly on country and folk music. Other Maine songwriters who have risen to prominence in recent years are Ellis Paul, Patty Griffin, Slaid Cleaves and Ray LaMontagne. There's more where that came from. For the past five years, Cornmeal Records has produced a series of local compilations titled "Greetings From Area Code 207." The most recent one, Volume 5, contains a number of acts that would appeal to readers of this blog, including LaMontagne, Cleaves, Steve Jones, The Coming Grass, Don Campbell, The Muddy Marsh Ramblers, Darien Brahms and Her Calico Chaps and Sara Cox. As an added incentive, there's a bonus disc that includes tracks by John Eddie, Pete Yorn, The Thrills, Ellis Paul, Guster, Stereophonics, Bodeans and Cowboy Junkies, all of which were recorded live at 98.9 WCLZ-FM in Portland. The bonus disc is icing on the cake; $15 is a small price to pay to discover a thriving local scene and get a jump on bands that could well be appearing in No Depression soon. There's actually a short review of "GAC 207, Vol. 5" in the new issue of ND.

Record stores � No evaluation of a music scene could be complete without a look at the record stores. Maine met my needs then, and it still does. Bull Moose Music, a local chain, has a store in Lewiston with an inventory that runs the gamut from classical to punk. They get a lot of the indie-store-only releases, they sell used CDs and their prices are reasonable. I can't ask for more than that. Same goes for the South Portland location of New England chain Newbury Comics. I grabbed The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Will The Circle Be Unbroken," The Notting Hillbillies' "Missing ... Presumed Having a Good Time," and Hank Williams Jr.'s "Greatest Hits Volume 2" out of the used bins at Bull Moose. At Newbury, I found both Hem CDs, Muddy Waters' "Folk Singer," and "Essential Charlie Daniels Band" for less than $40, and the CDB disc was new.

As much as I love listening to music, I love to share it even more. So the most gratifying part of the trip was giving my father Tony Rice's "Church Street Blues" CD for Father's Day. Dad wasn't familiar with Rice, but was immediately mesmerized by his fluid, powerful flatpicking. It pleased me even more to talk to him on the phone Tuesday and have him tell me that he'd listened to the disc "about a dozen times" since the wife and I left on Monday. A fan is born.

I don't know if I'll ever go back to Maine for good, but it's encouraging to know that good music still transcends all economic and geographic boundaries.