Cherries Jubilee is a one-of-a-kind event at Wayne-O-Rama, Chattanooga’s history funhouse, featuring three headlining acts: The Cherry Blossoms, Josephine Foster and Wu Fei, on Saturday, May 27, at 8 p.m. This mini music festival, presented by Shaking Ray Levi Society, will also celebrate the new vinyl release of the Cherry Blossoms album The Hank Tapes featuring early songs from 1996 recorded when the late Marc Trovillion (a Chattanoogan and an original member of Lambchop) was the band’s bassist.
Review for the Cherry Blossom:
The Cherry Blossoms are to folk music what the Velvet Underground was to rock and roll: anti-commercial, rebellious, pure and unlike anything else. The group deconstructs folk into a very special experimental music, but its members insist they’re a front porch band. Self-described as “Middle Tennessee’s finest anarchic post neo-skiffle collective specializing in kazoo-exotica,” the legendary Nashville band’s core includes Peggy Snow and John Allingham with percussionists Allen Lowrey and Chris Davis and has charmed audiences across the U.S. and Europe. Specializing in kazoo, 6-gallon bucket, poetry, carefully awry drum rhythms, guitar and vocals that span octaves, melodies and time, the Cherry Blossoms are unforgettable.
Review for Josephine Foster:
The Colorado-born singer/songwriter/guitarist Josephine Foster has built a remarkable career and earned fans across the globe for her folk-infused compositions and hauntingly beautiful voice, garnering comparisons to diverse artists such as Karen Dalton, Tom Waits and Nico. As a teen, Foster honed her vocal skills by singing at weddings and funerals, and while her initial career aspirations leaned toward opera, she was profoundly inspired by early British folk and Tin Pan Alley classics. Impossible to pin down, Foster has tackled varied styles including psychedelic rock, 19th century German Lieder, and children’s songs, and with singer (and husband) Victor Herrera, Foster has covered Spanish folk songs that were previously recorded by the poet Federico García Lorca in 1931.
Review for Wu Fei:
Wu Fei, a native of Beijing and a current Nashville resident, is a master of the guzheng, the ancient 21-string Chinese zither. She was trained as a Western classical composer and a vocalist, and plays beautifully in the guzheng’s vernacular–a musical language which is at least 2,000 years old. She mixes her Western and Chinese traditional sensibilities with a contemporary idiosyncratic, experimental dialect and has collaborated with many artists of different disciplines and genres, from Béla Fleck to avant-garde composer John Zorn. Wu Fei composes for choir, string quartet, chamber ensemble, Balinese gamelan and orchestra, and her worldwide touring destinations include the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing (composition premiere), the MoMA in New York City, and the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville.
Wayne-O-Rama is at 1800 Rossville Ave., #108. Tickets are $20 in advance or at the door. They may be purchased here.
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