Valley Showcase is Back! Aztec Two Step Comes to Mad River

I welcome the arrival of autumn in the Mad River Valley for so many reasons, chief among them the return of Bruce Jones’ acoustic music series at the Valley Player’s Theater.

This fall’s lineup is particularly tasty, featuring venerable folk duo “Aztec Two Step” (this week-end), the poignant and hilarious songwriter Cheryl Wheeler (November,) and Kelly Jo Phelps, one of the world’s most gifted acoustic blues performers, rounding out the 2007 portion of the series in December.

If you haven’t yet heard “Aztec Two Step,” the duo of Rex Fowler and Neal Shulman is not to be missed.

The great classical composer Frederick Chopin once observed that “nothing is more beautiful than a guitar except, possibly, two.” This sentiment captures “Two Step” to a T.

Simply stated, “Aztec Two Step” weaves together two guitars and two voices in gorgeous and stripped down fashion, with songs by turns provocative and hilarious. The tunes on their latest musical project, “Days of Horses,” showcase these two at their best – as songwriters, guitarists, and harmony-crafters.

Consider “Days of Horses,” the opening title track – a guitar shuffle, punctuated by subtle keyboards in the background, and words at once wistful and upbeat, crafting a tune that is both a celebration and an ode to the age of the automobile.

Back in the days of horses - around one hundred years?Before Corvettes or Porsches - Henry Ford shifted gears
Add a couple other visionaries - high-octane gasoline?All hail the Motor City - hello/goodbye James Dean

“Aztec’s” genius is their penchant for blending the emotional mood of their twelve strings with the lyrics for each of their songs – as a songwriter myself, this sound easy, but is hard to do across a range of emotions and genres.

Yet, song after song, they manage to pull it off: love songs, funny odes, aspirational numbers, the works.

Listen to track 3 -“Stargazers” - to find these two applying just the right upbeat musical sense, using their guitars and bits of a harmonica and a triangle, to craft a tune about humans through the ages looking to the heavens for inspiration:

Tinker Tailors Soldier Sailors Kings Of Orient Far
The Egyptians The Greeks And Romans All Contemplated The Stars
Turn The Pages Through The Ages To Copernicus From Galileo
To Here And Now And Oh Here’s Their Message For Us

Or the hilarious “Better These Days,” a bluesy number about a prescription-induced lifestyle marked by the ingestion of “pharmaceuticals down to my cuticles,“ and the fun “I Don’t Believe in Jesus (but I sure do like his songs)” – a tribute to the inspiration found in performing old spirituals.

My favorite song on their latest release, though, is “Everybody Knows,” a rousing anthem to the personal peril and promise that accompanies one’s involvement in social change projects, with the wonderful verse:

When its time to go I hope I go down swinging
But I’ll probably end up just like all the rest
Fat, broke, the butt of every joke
But everybody’s going to know that I gave it my best

Indeed.

This is an acoustic duo with tremendous heart, plenty of musical mojo, and more than their fair share of wisdom and humor in equal measure.

Make plans to catch “Aztec Two Step” on Saturday, October 27 at the Valley Player’s Theater. Tickets are $18 in advance, or $20 at the door.

For more information and tickets, call Bruce Jones at 496.8910.

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