Thursday night was the second installment of a Molly Tuttle show from The Basement in Nashville with Annie Clements and Megan Jane. Tonight's theme: songs about social change and revolution. It started with Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell) and ended with (What's So Funny Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding (Nick Lowe). In between were numerous tunes challenging the status quo.
There were only few songs about actual revolution, if we are talking about collective action, like Talking 'Bout A Revolution (Tracy Chapman) and We Shall Not Be Moved (Labour Version)(Woody Guthrie). There were plenty of numbers highlighting injustices in the world: Working Girl Blues (Hazel Dickens), Ohio (Neil Young), What's Going On (Marvin Gaye), and War (Bob Marley). Tuttle also covered songs about an individual's challenge to societal attitudes like Rebel Girl (Bikini Kill), Born This Way (Lady Gaga), Not Ready To Make Nice (The Chicks) and The Man (Taylor Swift).
As in her previous show, she brought a virtuosic playing and often a blue-grass feel to the song. Even on her electric guitar, I noticed that her solos tended toward crisp, clean notes instead of the stylings more common to rock (string bends, pedal effects, whammy bar). Her cover of Anais Mitchell's Why We Build The Wall was excellent. Without the swell of voices repeating its verses, it didn't have the thrumming gravitas that electrified me when I first heard it. But on the other hand, Tuttle's solos for that song was outstanding.
On the technical side though, the show was a mess. The sound was excellent but the video was out-of-sync for the whole evening. In addition, many people were unable to log in to watch. So the live chat filled with more complaints than praise. It was distracting like chatty barflies at a venue. The mismatched visuals also detracted from the experience as part of the thrill of seeing Molly Tuttle is to watch her work the frets. Because of these problems, the platform Mandolin offered a 24-hour replay option for ticket holders unlike the first broadcast.
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