Scott Tady: Beaver County musicians shined on CBS-TV; Rochester stage returned to life
Their smiles were contagious, their skill rousing.
Charles Wesley Godwin and his Beaver County backing band crushed it last weekend on "CBS Saturday Morning."
I can't recall the last time I saw such a fun and remarkable network television debut, as Godwin and his band, The Allegheny High, soared through three new alt-country delights, "All Again" "Another Leaf," and "Family Ties," the title track from a September album the group will support on the road next year, opening stadium shows for Luke Combs. Some CBS markets, including Pittsburgh only showed two of the song performances ? hey, got to squeeze in all those KDKA-TV news breaks ? but it's easy to watch all three songs online, and I imagine many viewers did go back to experience more of the band's tight, tasty twang set to Godwin's heartfelt ruminations.
As the CBS show explained to viewers, Godwin, a West Virginian, draws songwriting inspiration from his Appalachian roots.
He recorded his debut album at Music Garden Studios in New Brighton, hiring studio owner Al Torrence as his band's musical director and adding a batch of other Beaver County-ites ? Nate Catanzarite, Eric Dull, Max Somerville and Joe Pinchotti ? to forge the group that's backed him on recordings and on coast-to-coast tours the past few years, including sold-out support dates for country star Zach Bryan.
The big studio stage for CBS' "Saturday Morning Sessions" let the seven musicians, including Pittsburgh pedal steel ace Read Conolly, all stretch out and jam. The network's cameras emphasized how the full band packs palpable chemistry, dexterity and a joy for music that was a blast to watch, certainly putting Godwin on the radar for many viewers. My Facebook feed was lit up with Beaver County folks excited about seeing a bunch of their friends, neighbors and ex-students basking in the limelight.
And the good news keeps coming.
Apple Music's "Country Riser" choice for October, Godwin's cover of Gillian Welch’s “Winter’s Come and Gone” appears on the soundtrack for "The Hunger Games" prequel, "The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes," out Nov. 17.
Snobby Pittsburgh radio stations keeps ignoring them, but I guarantee more prominent TV time lies ahead for Godwin and The Allegheny High.
Riverfront stage returns
The rain never relented, and once the wind kicked up and began driving those chilly raindrops sideways, The Jaggerz canceled their Oct. 29 Oktoberfest performance at Rochester Riverfront Stage.
Opening act Tony Barge's Honkytonk Heroes doggedly played its full set, getting damp toes tapping and hooded heads bobbing among an audience of a few dozen likewise hearty souls who braved the elements to witness live music on a stage that's sat dormant for a decade.
As always, the Honkytonk Heroes sounded strong, blazing through hits by Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Creedence Clearwater Revival and a set-closing romp through Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" where you practically could feel the steam emitted by guitarist Tony Lang's fleet-fingered fretwork.
Augmented by vendors selling pizza and crafts, and community groups dispensing information at their tables, that rain-soaked Oktoberfest gave a glimpse of what we can look forward to next spring and summer, if Rochester follows through with plans to book bands regularly on that stage tucked along the Ohio River under the Monaca-Rochester Bridge.
Rochester built a new parking lot near the stage that should accommodate big crowds.
Though I'd hope to see a heartier effort by the borough to publicize shows there, as I could barely find any social media announcements for The Jaggerz' headlining performance.
And given local weather patterns, I'd also recommend bumping up any future Oktoberfest events there to early or mid-October, not the final weekend of the month.
Valentina gets everyone dancing
Even space aliens can't resist the disco beats and modern pop-funk feel of Valentina Cherico's new single, "Dance Until The Sunrise."
Wait till you see the out-of-this-world dance moves in the music video for the Rochester recording artist's ready-to-be-a-club banger track, streaming now on major music sites.
“'Dance Until The Sunrise' was written with the premise to unite everyone of all ages and backgrounds through the power of music and dance," Cherico said.
Cherico's smooth, welcoming voice conveys a Dua Lipa-ish carefreeness accentuated by a music video that begins with a spinning, lit-up UFO rising above a tree line.
"My music video shows a crowd of people dancing and having fun in a Studio 54/Soul Train party setting, at which point, aliens from space crash the party," Cherico said. "Everyone is terrified, and then the aliens feel the beat of the music and start to dance, signaling to everyone that music is a universal language."
Released Oct. 29, her YouTube video notched over 13,000 in one week, and many Spotify curators have picked it up for their playlists with glowing reviews.
"Dance Until The Sunrise" also has been added to the playlist of Roku/AppleTV/online station Music From The 412 (which maybe needs to add the 724 area code to its title, too.)
Cherico will perform "Dance Until The Sunrise" at Beaver Light Up Night on Nov 24 with her family's band, Casanova. Also singing at Beaver's outdoor holidays kickoff: Christian Beck and Troubled Saints.
More: Hootie & The Blowfish to headline Pavilion at Star Lake
Spiritualized at Smalls
Forty-five minutes into its Millvale set Thursday, U.K. rockers Spiritualized had played just four songs.
And it was riveting.
Often a chatty venue, Mr. Smalls Theatre spectators stood silent and mesmerized by Spiritualized's richly textured neo-psychedelic explorations.
Frontman-founder Justin Pierce sat the whole time, angled toward the main door facing his five bandmates in a two-thirds enclosed circle, as three female backup singers stood in a back corner, infusing the spaciness with celestial soul.
The band didn't smile or utter the briefest of hellos for two hours, until it was time to leave the stage for the encore, yet Spiritualized connected with a crowd swept up in the heady mix of guitar pedals, keys and Kevin Bales' drum flourishes that periodically surprised with a rat-a-tat-tat quality.
Spiritualized launched with "Hey Jane," a 2012 single emlematic of the band's shape-shifting, tempo-switching sound. Reminiscent of Lou Reed's Velvet Underground, but more jammy, the band continued with the full sonic "She Kissed Me (It Felt Like a Hit") then the tuneful "Shine a Light" boosted by a soft, catchy organ intro. A subtle piano riff guided the end of "I'm Coming Home Again" fueled by Pierce musings like "Kind've had it with philosophy/ 'cause I'm thinking I am, but I'm failing to be."
Given the sheer volume of the show, Pierce's easy-to-hear vocals were impressive (see, it can be done.)
Shimmering guitars and melodic choruses continued for "Always Together with You" and "I'm Your Man." Bluesy slide-guitar highlighted "Best Thing You Never Had" and stood out in "Damaged."
The most stirring sequence happened amid "The Morning After," which started out danceable, then added harmonica, and shuffled into a Kinks-ish mode before the entire band suddenly turned the volume down from like a 9 to a 3. For maybe 40 seconds or so, the band played at that quiet, vocal-less level, as if daring anyone in the audience to yell something. No one in the crowd did. Then Pierce got to the part where he matter-of-factly sings ? in a pop-rock mode ? "Janey had a revelation on the way to school/Said she's going to hang herself up the bathing pool/She's really gonna lay it on them because she always knew/That every mother wants to die before her children do."
Whoa, that was intense; as was the hypnotic "Let It Bleed (For Iggy)."
The second and final encore pick, "Come Together" got fans' heads bobbing and bodies twisting as they celebrated that track from 1997's "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space," one of that era's most highly acclaimed rock albums.
Spiritualized members finally smiled at the start and finish of the encore.
Grateful audience members did, too.
Scott Tady is entertainment editor at The Times and easy to reach at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Tady: Beaver County musicians shined on CBS; Rochester stage returns to life
