美国国家公共电台 NPR Just Off Music Row, Nashville's R&B Scene Thrives

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

All right. Let's play a little word association. I say Nashville, you say country music. Because that's what the city is all about, right? There was a time though when Nashville had a lot of R&B going on - nightclubs, record labels, radio stations and TV shows with rhythm and blues¹ at the center. There's now an effort to bring back some of that musical diversity to Nashville. Here's Jewly Hight of member station WPLN.

JEWLY HIGHT, BYLINE²: These days, it's a rare treat to catch Jason Eskridge, Mike Hicks and Emoni Wilkins on one bill. They're each so busy that they have to cram³ a last-minute rehearsal⁴ of their show's finale into a sound check.

EMONI WILKINS: (Singing) Make it rain.

(LAUGHTER)

JASON ESKRIDGE: You can do it. Let's let it...

WILKINS: Oh, cool.

ESKRIDGE: Once we hit the B note together...

HIGHT: That's Eskridge offering direction. When he started taking singing gigs two decades ago, he was a NASA engineer by day, commuting⁵ from Huntsville, Ala.

ESKRIDGE: As soon as I got off work, I would drive to Nashville from Huntsville. And I had friends who were in the hip-hop industry, friends that were in the CCM industry, friends that were even in the country industry. Any time somebody asked me to sing, I would do it.

HIGHT: In addition to hip-hop and contemporary Christian⁶, Eskridge eventually found himself harmonizing behind roots-pop guitarist Johnny Lang, the jammy Zac Brown Band and swinging country singer Lyle Lovett.

LYLE LOVETT: (Singing) You know, I wake up early in the morning.

ESKRIDGE: (Singing) In the morning.

LOVETT: (Singing) And you know I work until my day's done. And you know when I come home late in the evening I'm a happy son of a gun, yeah.

HIGHT: Eskridge got his foot in the door partly thanks to friends like Shannon Sanders and Tommy Sims, African-American producers who were already bridging genres⁷ in town. After that, it was up to Eskridge to apply his wide-ranging instincts.

ESKRIDGE: You just have to continually recreate yourself in a way that allows you to keep working because the music industry just - it's not a 40-hour a week thing that every week it looks the same. It's not set up like that.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

ESKRIDGE: (Singing) Sunrise open my eyes. I know today's the day. Blue skies, going to be all right, tell everyone I'm on my way.

HIGHT: Eskridge left Rocket City for Music City 17 years ago. Emoni Wilkins moved down from Chicago in 2013, seeking new outlets⁸ for her gospel-trained soprano.

WILKINS: Yup. And I also have this. I put a scripture⁹ up once a month.

HIGHT: Since then, she's had to convert one wall of her suburban¹⁰ Nashville apartment into a chalkboard to keep track of her schedule.

WILKINS: It makes it so much easier. Like, I know the dates are in my phone. But if I'm getting up in the morning, I'm like, oh, yeah, you know, this is coming up Wednesday or Tuesday.

HIGHT: Some nights, Wilkins draws big crowds at a downtown Nashville blues bar. Others, she'll back gospel star CeCe Winans or learn Dolly Parton songs for a tribute show. And an appearance on "The Sing-Off" lead to tours with acapella groups.

WILKINS: The amazing thing is that we all do different projects with other artists. Jason and Mike both have, you know, projects. But I think they're prime examples of not forgetting to embrace the music that's inside of them.

HIGHT: And so is she.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALONE TOGETHER")

EMONI AND THE KAHUNAS: (Singing) I don't want to do this on my own. And you shouldn't have to be alone. I would rather be alone together.

HIGHT: One of the people who helped Wilkins find her footing in Nashville was Mike Hicks. When he isn't out on the road playing keyboards for Keb' Mo' or Little Big Town, he's liable to camp out at this Fender Rhodes piano in a friend's studio and work on his own songs.

MIKE HICKS: (Singing) Bright-eyed, smart little child. Brown skin, a snaggletooth smile. At night, her imagination would run wild.

HIGHT: Hicks' sideman work lets him hire talented peers to play in his own recordings¹¹.

HICKS: The money that you make out there, you bring and you pour it back into the folks who believe in you enough to help out with music.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

HICKS: (Singing) And I'll make sure that the bills are paid. But every now and then, I may be a day late. And when it comes to sticking to the plan, I try to do the best that I can.

HIGHT: Hicks is also quick to champion others in the same boat, those making hip-hop, R&B and soul music with minimal¹² support from Nashville's Music Row infrastructure¹³. Several years back, his friend Jason Eskridge launched a twice-monthly gathering¹⁴ called Sunday Night Soul at an East Nashville bar. Both Hicks and Emoni Wilkins are among the many regulars.

WILKINS: That's where all the working musicians from all walks of life would come to get like a refill musically and just have a good time.

HICKS: (Singing) Baby.

(APPLAUSE)

HIGHT: Jason Eskridge acknowledges that Nashville is a highly competitive scene, and that can be a plus.

ESKRIDGE: But I think when you're a small thing like the soul music community in Nashville is, it's important that competition kind of go out the door and it be more of, all right, we're working together to build this thing to let people know, to have a voice, you know, that can be heard and not diluted¹⁵.

HIGHT: The size of the crowd may be modest but what these musicians are up to is no small deal. They're forging unbounded careers while helping¹⁶ foster a scene that stands on its own. For NPR News, I'm Jewly Hight in Nashville.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SWEET LOVE")

ESKRIDGE: (Singing) Early in the morning, in the afternoon or late at night.

1 blues   

n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐

参考例句：

• She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
• He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 cram   

v.填塞，塞满，临时抱佛脚，为考试而学习

参考例句：

• There was such a cram in the church.教堂里拥挤得要命。
• The room's full,we can't cram any more people in.屋里满满的，再也挤不进去人了。

4 rehearsal   

n.排练，排演；练习

参考例句：

• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。
• You can sharpen your skills with rehearsal.排练可以让技巧更加纯熟。

5 commuting   

交换（的）

参考例句：

• I used the commuting time to read and answer my mail. 我利用上下班在汽车中的时间来阅读和答复给我的函电。
• Noncommuting objects are as real to the mathematicians as commuting objects. 对于数学家来说，不可交换的对象与可交换的对象是一样真实的。

6 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

7 genres   

（文学、艺术等的）类型，体裁，风格( genre的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Novel and short story are different genres. 长篇小说和短篇小说是不同的类别。
• But confusions over the two genres have a long history. 但是类型的混淆，古已有之。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

8 outlets   

n.出口( outlet的名词复数 )；经销店；插座；廉价经销店

参考例句：

• The dumping of foreign cotton blocked outlets for locally grown cotton. 外国棉花的倾销阻滞了当地生产的棉花的销路。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They must find outlets for their products. 他们必须为自己的产品寻找出路。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

9 scripture   

n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段

参考例句：

• The scripture states that God did not want us to be alone.圣经指出上帝并不是想让我们独身一人生活。
• They invoked Hindu scripture to justify their position.他们援引印度教的经文为他们的立场辩护。

10 suburban   

adj.城郊的，在郊区的

参考例句：

• Suburban shopping centers were springing up all over America. 效区的商业中心在美国如雨后春笋般地兴起。
• There's a lot of good things about suburban living.郊区生活是有许多优点。

11 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

12 minimal   

adj.尽可能少的，最小的

参考例句：

• They referred to this kind of art as minimal art.他们把这种艺术叫微型艺术。
• I stayed with friends, so my expenses were minimal.我住在朋友家，所以我的花费很小。

13 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

14 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

15 diluted   

无力的，冲淡的

参考例句：

• The paint can be diluted with water to make a lighter shade. 这颜料可用水稀释以使色度淡一些。
• This pesticide is diluted with water and applied directly to the fields. 这种杀虫剂用水稀释后直接施用在田里。

16 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。