Reed Turchi & His Kudzu Orkestra - Live At Soulshine (2017)

The night before the show, Art called to say the alternator in his car had gone out, and he was buying a ticket to get the Greyhound out of Memphis the next morning. The morning after the show, Adam called to ask if I knew where his guitar, his shoes, or his bag had ended up. What happened inbetween was pure magic, music like none ever heard before, soaring over the Nashville skyline on a hot summer night, fueled by a bottle of tequila, too many vodka drinks to count (thanks to our sponsor), and a mysterious “Happy Birthday Artie” cake that just coincidentally was waiting for us in the dressing room no relation.

The mission of the Kudzu Orkestra is to spread unity via the relentless power of the monochordal, on-the-one romp groove, and this recording gives testament to its potency. Of the eleven musicians who comprised the Orkestra that night, only a handful had ever been in the same room together, not to mention ever having shared a stage, or having any clue what songs we were likely to launch into.

When you listen to this record, you’ll hear the people and the personalities at play behind the performance exchanges of musical ideas, of mentalities, of perspectives in the truest sense: each player a prism of how they hear and see the world, reflected and refracted, eventually brought together and amplified.

Sound waves are standing waves, and when we think of sound, we far too often forget the physicality of resonance, of what it means to vibrate at the same frequency. As Art said, as we slouched into our booth at the diner post-show, cheeseburgers in hand (or in Adam’s case, staring up at him from the table): “No one else did anything like this here tonight.” Sit back, pour yourself a stiff drink or two, and let yourself get lost in these vines.

Personnel:

Billy Bennett - Synthesizer, Samples, Feedback, Bass
Art Edmaiston - Sax, Interludes
Andy Ellis - 11 String Fretless Oud
Adam Hill - Guitar, Percussion
Lee McAlilly - Synthesizer, Style, Bass
Alex Morgan - One Note Keyboard
Heather Moulder - Keyboard, Vocals
Roderic Maybin - Percussion
Kirby Shelstad - Drums, Percussion
Reed Turchi - Guitar, Vocals
Blair - Drums, Percussion