Chuck Mead, Not Taking A Holiday

Unless you've got pyrotechnics at your disposal, playing in the Washington area on the Fourth of July is kind of a bad idea. At Chuck Mead's Iota gig, barstools outnumbered patrons even though the performance's start time was pushed back an hour to accommodate fireworks watchers. However, the 20 or so in attendance were in for quite a show.

Mead, frontman of honky-tonk revivalist band BR549, has stepped out on his own with the solo effort "Journeyman's Wager," an album that sounds like a road trip through the past 40 years of American music, from the hillbilly humor and R&B horns of "She Got the Ring (I Got the Finger)" to the rootsy weeper "Up on Edge Hill."

If Mead was disappointed by the paltry turnout, he never let on, performing each song as if it were a packed house. Supporting him were the Grassy Knoll Boys, his three-piece band anchored by BR549 bassist Mark Miller and freakishly talented multi-instrumentalist Carco Clave, who's played with Asleep at the Wheel and Tex Ritter.

Mead and the Boys ripped though nearly three dozen songs in two hours, mixing tracks from his new record with BR549 originals and a wide variety of covers, including songs by 50 percent of the Beatles (George's "Old Brown Shoe" and Paul's "Sally G"), a revved-up version of Johnny Horton's "The Battle of New Orleans," and Ernest Tubb's "Waltz Across Texas," dedicated to a couple celebrating their first anniversary.

This show may not have been the most popular one in town, but it sure beat braving the masses congregated on the Mall. The soundtrack was better, too.

-- Juli Thanki