The Black Lillies are inextricably connected to Rhythm N’ Blooms—the band’s manager is the festival’s organizer, and they’ve played the festival three times. In 2010, in fact, the Black Lillies ended up as accidental headliners when Ben Sollee was stranded in England by that year’s volcanic event in Iceland. The Lillies are busy this spring, though, completing a new album for fall release, so frontman Cruz Contreras will host a night of Knoxville- and East Tennessee-themed music from an all-star lineup of local and regional bands and solo performers (with a little assistance from Virginia and Nashville).
The Midnight Merry-Go-Round is a nod to the old Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round, a long-running series on Knoxville radio station WNOX that featured up-and-coming country music acts like Roy Acuff, Archie Campbell, Kitty Wells, Chet Atkins, Don Gibson, and the Louvin Brothers. The difference is that this will be a late-night jam session with a loose format and even looser musicians exploring decades of local music traditions.
“There’s such a rich music history here,” Contreras says. “All kinds of music has come though here and made its mark, especially with a lot of the old radio shows. We wanted to do something late here, a high-energy show.”
Contreras has rounded up a backing band to join him for the midnight set—Black Lillies drummer Bowman Townsend, bassist Clint Mullican, former Lillie Tom Pryor on pedal steel, and fiddler Kimber Ludiker of Della Mae. They’ll be joined, at various points, by Contreras, Scott Miller, Jill Andrews, Mike McGill, Cereus Bright, Subtle Clutch, Josh Oliver, ex-BR549 frontman Chuck Mead, Johnson City singer/songwriter Amythyst Kiah, and Nashville’s Margo Price. The only rule is that none of the performers can play their own songs.
“Everyone is probably going to do two songs a piece,” Contreras says. “We’re all coming up with different ideas. I don’t really want to say exactly what it is—a lot of it is still being worked out. … There’s some songs where the artist will bring up their own band and we’ll just step aside. Some groups we’ll collaborate with and some groups we’ll back up. We’ll definitely have to get a few songs where everybody gets up there—jams like this, you can plan it how you want, but that stuff just ends up happening. We want everybody to have a good time, hang out, and if there’s a song where they want to jump in, just get in there.”
The Midnight Merry-Go-Round takes place at the Standard on Saturday, April 11, at midnight. Read all our Rhythm N’ Blooms coverage here.
Senior Editor Matthew Everett manages the Knoxville Mercury's arts & entertainment section, including the comprehensive calendar section—Knoxville’s go-to guide for everything worth doing in the area. You can reach Matthew at matthew@knoxmercury.com.
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