Nobility Comes to the Big Top

Steve Wagener
Community Member

For nearly as long as I've been a photojournalist, writing about the performers that come into our region, I've been a very big fan of Steve Earle. Okay, fan might not be the word my spouse Michele uses in describing my followings and ravenous consumption of anything to do with my self-proclaimed hero, Steve Earle. From my perspective, Steve Earle isn't cut out of the same cloth as most performers. Most performers that I've covered, I find I have little in common with. That's not the case with Steve Earle.

Steve Earle and his band, The Dukes (and Duchesses) featuring Allison Moorer, came to The Big Top on Friday, July 22 and played their prescribed two set performance. Earle and "court" then rewarded the nearly packed tent with three enthusiastically received encores. The end result? A singing and instrumental deluge that started at 7:30 and lasted beyond 10:30. After the show, Steve and the band came out on the grounds to meet with fans and sign books, t-shirts, CDs and DVDs that were for sale in the concession area of the Big Top grounds.

The Big Top is an all canvas pearl grey tent than can comfortably hold 900 people. It is "pitched" each spring with volunteers and Big Top Chautauqua staff at the foot of a winter ski run of Mt. Ashwaby. From June, when the tent is set up, until it is taken down shortly after Labor Day, there are many star studded acts that come from all over the planet to perform. The Big Top is also the venue for WPR's year-long Tent Show Radio program featuring Michael Perry and the Blue Canvas Orchestra. This year's acts include: John Prine, Ricky Lee Jones and Taj Majal, but if you think you've got the full picture of the type of entertainment this Chautauqua has to offer, let me then include Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion and Michael Feldman of WPR's nationally broadcasted program "Whad'Ya Know". So all summer this pleasant spot, located north of Washburn and three miles south of Bayfield, Wisconsin, that overlooks Lake Superior's Chequamegon Bay and the Apostle Islands, is an entertainment showcase of Wisconsin.

The bulk of the song selections in the first set came from Earle's latest CD titled, "I'll Never Get Out of this World Alive," that he recorded with his band cleverly named The Dukes (and Duchesses). Earle's naming of his band members the Dukes goes back to Steve's first Grammy nominated album titled, "Guitar Town" (1987 - Best Country Male Vocalist and Best Country song - Guitar Town). Therefore, with the addition of his wife and mother of his one-year-old son, Allison Moorer, along with Eleanor Whitmore (violin, mandolin, guitar), the "(and Duchesses)" add-on was used in billing the band. As Steve noted in an introduction of Moorer, she can out-sing and play everyone else out on the stage. Her harmonies with Steve, the other duchess Eleanor and guitarist Chris Masterson bring more to the song but only a slight taste of her skills. The final three songs of the first set featured Allison and the broad range of talent she brings to any stage.

With the peculiar "lake effect" midsummer temperatures exceeding 90 degrees most of the afternoon of the concert, one can only guess how long it takes to cool down a big canvas tent that's been acting as some sort of thermal oven. As with most events I cover, I try to get all my pictures taken in the first three songs. Working directly in front of the stage it didn't take a weatherman to tell me that conditions on the stage were almost unbearable. During the intermission break the band and hundreds of stoked-up fans went "outside" to get cooled in the post-sunset breezes. The cool breezes also made their way into the tent with the sides rolled up above most everyone's line of sight when standing around the canvas venue. Later, in talking with Duchess Eleanor, she stated that when they came back to the stage for the second set it was at least 10 degrees cooler. I'm not so sure it was still 10 degrees cooler after the third encore that featured more songs from Earle's new CD as well as covers of Bob Dylan, Hank Williams and Earle's hero, Townes van Zandt. The band also played the 2002 released song "Jerusalem" from Earle's Grammy winning and critically acclaimed album by the same name.

I find Earle's career and life interesting, but more importantly I find many common areas of cause, determination and social awareness. It could be explained by the fact that Steve and I went to different schools together, with Steve only being a few months younger than me. Or it could simply tell a story about how the social and political environments of our youth placed us on a timeline continuum that helped shape our beliefs and thus our social conscience. To put it simply, Steve and I should have a couple of beers together some time.