Kai Crowe-Getty Album Release, Part 2: Merch Table Talk with Rebecca Porter.
Part 2 of our 3-part report on Kai Crowe-Getty’s hi-point-of-the-year-so-far album release show marks the exciting (or hopefully at least interesting) debut of Merch Table Talks. These informal chats are a chance to meet up with artists after their shows at the merch table where they work so hard to somehow make ends meet.
*Spoiler alert* In the vid, Rebecca tells us she’s playing Kennedy Center!—the Kennedy Center!—on July 3rd as part of their Social Impact Series! It’s a big part of the exciting build up to her Roll with the Punches August 1st album release.
Give it a watch, get to know Rebecca better, and then come back and we’ll talk about the show. I’ll get a bowl of Cap’n Crunch while you watch.
Ok. Welcome back. It’s fitting that we launch by talking with Rebecca Porter, a writer and singer who as a busy mom, is fighting like hell to make her way in a tough, competitive business.
To recap, this night of incredible song writing started with Genna Matthew tearing down the “Ten Year Rule” in Nashville. We now turn to a writer who gives clarion voice to folks who work too hard, make ends meet on too little, and too often wind up on the receiving end of somebody else's bullshit. Folks who somehow still keep their eye on that chance that they can, through shear force of will, create a better life for their families.
Let’s site examples.
Laundry Pile takes on the emotional and physcial exhaustion of trying to do it all with no help. All y’all who grew up rough know how much more work it is to gather up the laundry and push it in some crappy cart down to the laundrymat than it is to drop it into the Maytag top loader in the laundry room.
It’s one hell of a thing to feel like you’re one basket from losing your mind.
The lie that I continue to tell myself is that I’ll take care of it today
…But that shit ain’t getting put away
Or how about Payday loans? Here she writes about a diabolical invention designed by bottom feeder financial institutions to take advantage of low wage workers when the money runs out before the end of the month. It allows workers to borrow against their next paycheck at usurious rates intentionally trapping them in a cycle of debt from which they will never be free.
Payout now, payback later
What could go wrong…
Is all the fine print even worth the trouble?
The cash comes fast just in time to double
Your worries and your strife
Clockin In speaks to anyone who comes to the sinking realization they are stuck in a dead end job.
Danny danced in the neon lights every night
A queen on stage kept them bills paid
But there was no end in sight
Always clockin in but never out
But you learn to make do some how
Kai Crowe-Getty joined Rebecca tonight on guitar and (Bluegrass + Old Time player and member of the Valley’s Ridge Ramblers) Lizzie Cahalin locked down the bottom end on bass along with Rhinestone Roses’ Jacob Briggs on drums. Jason Summer spanked it on steel guitar.
A high point for us was when the band ripped into an absolute banger off the new album called No Evil. While the supporting cast was a bit different, the writing and themes stay on point as Rebecca belts out a new anthemic battle cry in the refrain:
My existence defies
A problem you live to create
Hatred rounded up into lies
My existence cannot be erased
My existence cannot be erased
These are every day, bread and butter, kitchen table, working class issues. The kind of themes that make great Honky Tonk songs. The kind of concerns that can, If you speak to them in an eloquent way and earnestly work to alleviate them, get you elected State Senator after an illustrious music career, Ms. Porter.
Just sayin.
OK, Old Hank’s getting all Norma Rae here, and no one wants to see that. Join us tomorrow for the finale: Kai Crow-Getty’s amazing record release set, and writing that can only come from one magical place.
Nelson County.
Old Hank
