{"id":46054,"date":"2018-04-25T12:04:27","date_gmt":"2018-04-25T18:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=46054"},"modified":"2018-04-26T07:51:57","modified_gmt":"2018-04-26T13:51:57","slug":"the-unique-southern-sound-of-liz-brasher-band-hits-double-decker-arts-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-unique-southern-sound-of-liz-brasher-band-hits-double-decker-arts-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unique Southern Sound of Liz Brasher Hits Double Decker Arts Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Friday, April 27<br \/>\n6 pm<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Liz Brasher<\/strong> makes her <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lizbrasher.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">own kind of southern music<\/a> \u2014 one that&#8217;s caught halfway between the garage, the church, the bar, and the bedroom. She&#8217;s a soul singer. A guitar-playing rocker. A one-woman girl group. A gospel revivalist who sings the praises of secular bands like <em>The Box Tops<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It&#8217;s a diverse sound rooted in the influence of Brasher&#8217;s two homes: her adopted hometown of <strong>Memphis<\/strong>, where she recorded her debut LP, <em>Painted Image<\/em>, for <strong>Fat Possum Records<\/strong>; and her childhood stomping grounds in rural North Carolina, where she was raised in a musical, multi-ethnic household.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;I&#8217;m half Dominican, half Italian, and also Southern,&#8221; says the songwriter, who grew up singing Baptist hymns in an all-Spanish church. &#8220;It&#8217;s a different type of southerner, and that&#8217;s why the music I make sounds like a different type of the south. By nature, I&#8217;m mixed. That&#8217;s been my whole life \u2014 having to reconcile two different cultures, or the religious and secular world, or the different genres that have all influenced me. From the time I was born, I realized I was going to be a big mix.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zV8LsZHXEso\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Brasher&#8217;s musical horizons expanded as she grew older. Raised on everything from the spirituals of <strong>Mahalia Jackson<\/strong> and harmony-heavy hooks of <strong>John Lennon<\/strong> and <strong>Paul McCartney<\/strong>, she moved to Chicago during her late teens. There, as a college student living far north of the <strong>Mason-Dixon line<\/strong>, she gained a new appreciation for the sound of her southern roots. She dove deep into the early icons of<strong> American<\/strong> music, from <strong>Stephen Foster<\/strong> to Delta Blues heavyweights like <strong>Geeshie Wiley<\/strong> and <strong>Leadbelly<\/strong>. That led to an appreciation for latter-day pioneers like <strong>Bob Dylan<\/strong> and the <strong>Staple Singers<\/strong>, two acts that modernized old-school American traditions to suit a new generation. Inspired, Brasher taught herself to play guitar, then began writing songs shortly thereafter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">After a move to <strong>Atlanta<\/strong> brought her back south, Brasher began playing shows, fronting her lean, three-piece live band \u2014 later championed by <em>Rolling Stone<\/em> as a &#8220;soul power trio&#8221; \u2014 for the first time. A love for the music of the 1950s and 1960s eventually convinced her to relocate to Memphis, where labels like <strong>Stax<\/strong> and <strong>Sun Records<\/strong> had shaped popular music during the previous century. She felt at home there. Like her, Memphis was a melting pot of influences, its internal soundtrack filled with music that crossed generation gaps and genre lines. Perhaps it&#8217;s no surprise, then, that her songwriting flourished in the new town, inspiring the material that appeared on Brasher&#8217;s <em>Outcast<\/em> EP \u2014 released in April 2018, not longer after her acclaimed appearance at <strong>SXSW<\/strong> \u2014 and that summer&#8217;s full-length album, <em>Painted Image<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Both releases showcase not only Brasher&#8217;s robust voice, but her guitar playing and songwriting chops, as well. Inspired by everyone from <strong>Pops Staples<\/strong> to surf guitar icons <strong>The Ventures<\/strong>, she approaches her electric guitar from a melodic, moody perspective, often using tremolo and reverb for big, bold effect. She cranks up the fuzz for <em>Outcast<\/em>&#8216;s rock &amp; roll title track, then makes room for sweeping strings and swirling organ on <em>Painted Image<\/em>&#8216;s soulful standout, &#8220;Cold Baby.&#8221; Meanwhile, she attacks the instrument with rhythmic stabs on tracks like &#8220;Body of Mine,&#8221; underscoring her own melodies with blasts of chugging attitude. Just as wide-ranging as her musical influences are her song&#8217;s story-based lyrics, which tackle everything from Biblical themes to heartbreak. No wonder <strong>NPR<\/strong> became one of her earliest champions, honoring Brasher as a buzz-worthy &#8220;slingshot artist&#8221; months before Outcast&#8217;s release.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;I don&#8217;t like rules, and I don&#8217;t like to be put into a box,&#8221; says the singer, songwriter, guitarist, and bandleader. &#8220;I make music that&#8217;s garage rock meets the Delta blues meets gospel meets soul. It&#8217;s southern music \u2014 my version of southern music.&#8221;\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/TheLocalVoiceLigature-25web.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"25\" height=\"16\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14544 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/TheLocalVoiceLigature-25web.jpg?resize=25%2C16\" alt=\"The Local Voice Ligature\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friday, April 27 6 pm Liz Brasher makes her own kind of southern music \u2014 one that&#8217;s caught<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":46055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[321],"tags":[6422,3557,12284,5,642,4,846,3,753],"class_list":["post-46054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-localfestivals","tag-double-decker-arts-festival","tag-fat-possum-records","tag-liz-brasher-band","tag-mississippi","tag-ms","tag-oxford","tag-thacker-mountain-radio","tag-the-local-voice","tag-tlv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/2018-04-25-Liz-Brasher.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}