By Candice Ludlow
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkno/local-wkno-939150.mp3
Memphis, TN – Memphis is so full of music that you can easily miss some even if it's really good. Dan Montgomery is an Americana songwriter, and he's been living and making music in Memphis since 2001. He's about to release his third CD, You'll Never Be A Bird. Candice Ludlow takes a listen.
Montgomery was born in Philadelphia and raised in South Jersey. But the rolling stone has finally settled down in the birthplace of rock and roll.
"I used to think that I came here and I reinvented myself, but I think I got to really be myself," Montgomery says.
Montgomery has the keen ability to create characters. Some are autobiographical, like We went to the world's fair."
"When I was a little kid, my parents went to the 1964 World's Fair and it was a big deal because me and my brother got to stay with my aunt. My sisters got to stay at home. It was the biggest thing they ever did. You could say we went to Hawaii. They'd say, well, we went to the world's fair, ya know, 64," Montgomery explains.
That same boy felt a chill in the house one winter. And that chill caught up to the adult Montgomery and changed how a song was performed.
"And then a lot of happy accidents, like the winter we didn't speak." Montgomery continues, "I had this really bad summer cold and it wasn't going to work, and Kevin Cubbins the producer, I told him to put up a mic and indulge me. And I did the spoken word thing, at first he found it interesting. Then he grew to really like it."
But the whole point of that song is at the end when he says, "Honey I'm home." Spring broke. Something changed.
And that short moment where something happened is the detail Montgomery is interested in.
"Because to me the whole point of what I'm interested in the stories in these songs, is just what people do in a moment. Not why or the fallout if something bad. Do you go left or do you go right or do you just fall down and go nowhere at all?"
And sometimes the story isn't about a person at all, like The Girl With A Broken Bell
I have this theory that Philadelphia, where I was born and I spent a lot of time, even though I grew up in South Jersey, I was five minutes from Philadelphia. All the music shows you went to was in Philly. I love that city, but it has that attitude. It's interesting that Philadelphia's logo to the world is a broken bell."
The release party for "You'll Never Be A Bird" is Friday night at Nocturnal, 1588 Madison Avenue, Memphis.