Music Review: Lonnie Holley @ The Local Saugerties 1/16/24

To say that Lonnie Holley’s background is hardscrabble is a true understatement.

• Born as the fifth of 27 children in Jim Crow Alabama.
• Stolen by a nurse and traded for a bottle of whiskey when he was 4 years old.  
• Spending several years in the infamous Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, for which “slave camp for kids” would be a better term.-Working many menial jobs such as picking cotton and digging graves.

In 1979, Holley’s sister lost two of her children in a fire and did not have enough money for their tombstones. He sculpted two headstones from scrap sandstone left over from foundry castings. This began his life as an artist with found materials, starting with sandstone and advancing to other materials such as scrap metal and wire.

Holley began to explore other mediums such as painting, photography and video, and gained nationwide recognition for his work. In 2012 at the age of 62, Holley began making and recording music. He has shared the stage with Bon Iver, Dan Iver and Berber band Tinariwen, among others, and has traveled the world and appeared at music festivals such as Big Ears in Tennessee.
Holley is self-taught in all these media.

The focus of Holley’s Jan. 16 appearance at The Local in Saugerties was a series of unique performances. And I do mean unique. Each piece of music along with lyrics is improvised on the spot and never played again.

Accompanying Holley was a trio of musicians consisting of a guitarist, trombone player and drummer, along with various electronic stomp boxes and effects.

It was fascinating to watch Holley’s keyboard technique. He is self-taught. His fingers are flat on the board and many of the notes produced are made by rolling his hand.

Holley opened with some quasi-blues.The rhythms were downbeat, the music earthy,  immediately grabbing the attention of the full house of listeners.

In sharp contrast to the opener, the next piece was focused on space. Almost Sun-Ra like, bringing the listener deep into space, swirling notes on the keyboards and trombone, with guitarist Lee Bains listening and watching closely adding to the atmosphere, Dave Nelson floating along on drums,
The journey continued, uniting our souls to space with the chant “We are the light.”

The music then invited the audience to look within, almost lullaby-tender and personal, gradually evolving to the spiritual jazz of Alice and John Coltrane.

Then a sudden jolt occurred. Wild shredding and power chords by Bain filled the air, with rock drums by Nelson joining in followed by Holley singing words of anger and pain. He then got up from his seat behind his keyboards and began to dance around the stage. The built-up tension was suddenly relieved by the music stopping. Holley stopped to briefly talk and quipped, “I just showed you I can rock out.”

He ended the show with the band playing and him having the audience chant, “Thumbs up for us and the world,” completing an approximately hour-and-a-half journey through despair, searching, tranquility, anger and hope.