025-King of Country-Western Troubadors

INCREDIBLE show. Unknown Hinson is the gonzo guitar player every singer wants to be, writes awesome hellbilly songs, and looks like some unholy cross between Eddie Munster and Brian Setzer. He absolutely tore it up. Ron said he'd have been happy to drive the whole way here just to see this show. And talk about stage presence, at one point, Hinson encouraged people to sing along but not too loudly because, "Womens need to hear the golden larynx of Unknown Hinson." Hank III actually has a tattoo of Unknown Hinson--how cool is that?

024-The Fox Hunt

Saw The Fox Hunt at the Blue Plate Special and liked them so much we decided to go check out their gig tonight. Where else but Knoxville could you go to a Japanese restaurant to see a bluegrass band? They played an awesome acoustic show.

023-Appalachian Museum

The Metro Pulse (Knoxville's equivalent of the ArtVoice) had an article on the Appalachian Museum and its incredible founder who has committed his life to preserving the artifacts of everyday life among regular people living in this area from about 1850s to 1950s. It's an incredible assemblage of buildings, furnishings, documents, tools, and much more. One of the highlights is the cabin of Mark Twain's parents, see above.

022-Our last Blue Plate . . .

Gonna miss these Blue Plate Specials--what a great way to start the day. Today we saw 80+ year-old, left-hand fiddler Charlie Acuff, a string band from North Carolina called The Fox Hunt (which started out as a punk band and still have that attitude), and The Bearded (seen above). The Bearded are led by the usual host of the Blue Plate Specials, Matt Morelock, who is seen here rocking out on the banjo.

021-Everybodyfields

After a nice walk around downtown Knoxville and lunch at the Tomato Head restaurant (Barbara--Yes, it's as good as we'd imagined!), we headed out for Cookeville, TN, for a concert we've been really looking forward to: The Everybodyfields. Saw them last year at Grassroots in Shakori Hills and fell in love. We've been listening to their albums all year. The show was on the campus of the Tennessee Technical University and turned out to be free! The opening band, Danger and the Steel Cut Oats were fine, but The Everybodyfields were wonderful and played for about two hours. Had about a two hour drive back from the show and are just turning in now, at about 2:30am.

020-Another Blue Plate Special

Another great Blue Plate Special today--Jennifer Nicley, Kevin Gordon, and David Olney. All were wonderful, but David Olney (see above, right) really tore the place up. Had to buy a CD from him.

"...part Baptist PREACHER, part caustic COMEDIAN, and part existential BLUESMAN...Olney shouted, moaned and howled his SHARPLY OBSERVED HARD-LUCK TALES and quirky character studies." - MTV's Urge.com

019--Forgot the Blue Plate!

Forgot to mention that we finally got to check out a Blue Plate special live at the WDVX studios--a one-hour live music show they do every weekday at noon. We listen to them on Internet radio all the time, so it was pretty surreal to be sitting there in person, listening to Matt Morelock and Red Hickey (seen in the photo with the WDVX logo) introducing the band (today, the Red Stick Ramblers). Planning to go back tomorrow and Friday. The studio is half a block from our hotel and there's a nice little lunch shop adjacent to the stage area, so it's a good start to the day.