That evening we headed across town to
The Factory in Franklin, TN, for Jazzmania 2015, a posh jazz workshop fundraising event, as guests of Dave Pomeroy, President of the Nashville Mu- sicians Association. It was an unexpected delight to dine next to Dave and start exploring areas of common ground. It turned out that Dave had re- cently been to where I work (in Birmingham, UK), as long time bassist and friend of Don Williams. I naively asked whether that kind of bass paying was pretty unchallenging, or words to that effect, and then continued my basic educa- tion for the next few minutes that followed. As often on this trip, I wish we'd had hours rather than minutes to chat... maybe another time. The following evening we headed down-
Peter visited the local library while in Nashville.
found Bekka to be just how I’d imagined over the years, from lots of first hand tales, press articles and YouTube – a whirlwind of spontaneous, exu- berant and unguarded expression! With a friendly “Mi casa es su casa”, Bekka showed my around her colourful home, which was bursting with musical instruments and personal memora- bilia. In a colourful studio with room for a small drum kit, computer desk and not much more. Bekka described a recent session there with John Oates. I asked to hear Bonnie’s unreleased cover of George Harrison’s “Something,” which I knew Bekka had worked on a few years ago for a John Lennon tribute album. Bekka happily obliged but treated me first to a moving story of how she nervously approached that first experience of producing Bonnie, who is well known to have a strong mind of her own and not altogether reti- cent about sharing it. It all worked out a treat, however, and someone should be exiled to Eng- land for not including that song in the final selec- tion.
town to Nashville’s Soulshine Pizza Factory, from where guitarist Kenny Olsen hosts open jam ses- sions, culminating in a blistering show with his own crew. We arrived just before Kenny’s set and next thing I know, Bekka’s up there on stage too, cranking the band up still higher for improvised covers of “Space Captain” and “Hey Joe.” You could sense the band and audience’s enjoyment and excitement at Bekka’s energetic performance. She knows her territory well and that voice… well, take a good listen rather than read. We’ll cover the Muscle Shoals leg of my
road trip in a later issue but there were still a cou-
Bekka and Quincy Meeks, Soulshine Pizza.
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