“I always say I have short-term memory loss because of my youthful indiscretions,” Peter Holsapple explained as his longtime playing partner Chris Stamey fiddled with some technical difficulties involving a noisy guitar cord. “Chris and I have been playing in bands together since we were 14, 15 years old, and I can remember his songs even though I can’t remember my kid’s birthday.”
Nearly 40 years after those two teenagers from North Carolina began sharing their love for pop music, Stamey and Holsapple are poised for a very good year. Their second album as a duo, Here And Now, is scheduled for release in May, and a long-awaited reunion album by their classic band the dB’s likely will be released in the fall. Taking time out from final work on the duet album, Holsapple and Stamey flew to the middle of the country for a house concert, an in-store appearance, and a nightclub gig in St. Louis.
Rick and Nancy Wood have opened their living room to a series of concerts over the last couple years by such artists as Thad Cockrell & Caitlin Cary, Susan Cowsill, Terry Adams, Steve Wynn, and many more. Pot luck dinners are assembled, and the performers get to mingle in a home environment with the fans.
Stamey and Holsapple didn’t get to spend as much time rehearsing for this weekend as they’d intended, but the occasional missed chord or stumbled lyric couldn’t detract from the musical pleasures they provided. They drew songs from the first two dB’s albums, 1981’s Stands For Decibels and 1982’s Repercussion, as well as their 1991 duo album Mavericks, in addition to seven or eight new tunes that seemed destined to become as beloved as the old favorites.
Though all their records have been made with full-band arrangements, the songs stripped down nicely to just two guitars (or, now and again, one guitar and one keyboard). This is due largely to the masterful craftsmanship both Holsapple and Stamey have applied as songwriters over the years – melodies, lyrics, and hooks are all impeccably assembled.
And then there are the harmonies. Somewhere along a lifetime of joining their voices together, Stamey and Holsapple achieved a blend rare among non-siblings in music. They don’t just deliver standard two-part harmonies, where one always sings a fifth above the other; instead, they weave melodic parts together in ways that sound like one perfect voice. Inspiration comes from the Everly Brothers, Chris Bell, Family, and Byrds songs they covered this evening, but they really don’t sound like anybody but themselves.
It’s hard to get a standing ovation at a house concert – only about twenty people get seats, for one thing – but this was a shared experience between performers and fans that left everybody feeling warm and fuzzy at the end of the night.
The dB’s, back in the day.
