Who'll Stop The Rain?

Nat Dove rolls those 88s on The National Mall

It was supposed to be The Funk Brothers Night on the National Mall.  The Motor City tent was packed. Members of the Funk Brothers, the sound behind every single Motown record from the 60s and early 70s, were taking the stage. But then, the director of the Motown City tent approached the microphone, saying "I never speak unless it is bad news.  There's a powerful thunderstorm approaching with up to 70 mile-per-hour winds. We've got 30 minutes to evacuate the mall.  Sorry about this, but safety has to come first. We'll be back tomorrow."

But even though The Funk Brothers performance was a washout, there had still been excellent music earlier.

Swamp Doggs sways the National Mall crowd.

While my wife traveled through the Columbian craft village portion of The Folklife Festival grounds, I caught part of a set by Nat Dove. Dove, a 72-year-old native Texas and renowned blues/boogie-barrel house pianist and singer, definitely had the crowd's toes tapping, heads swaying and bodies bouncing.

Dove's stellar show was reminiscent of that of another lesser known Southern soul artist Swamp Dogg, who I saw perform earlier in the week. Dogg, a"soul genius that time forgot" according to British music critics, kept the smoldering Soulsville tent mesmerized as he performed an extended 20-minute version of the Bee Gees' hit "I've Just Got to Get a Message to You," divorcing the song from its Australian pop roots and shaping it into a gospel, gumbo, get-down.  As his band intoned the chorus "I've just got to get a message to you, hold on, hold on" over and over and over, Dogg stolled through the crowd, grasping the hands of every single person in the tent.

The Stax Music Academy sings the legacy.

Following Dove was the Stax Music Academy, a talented group of youngsters who are being schooled to keep the Memphis Stax/Volt sound alive.  As the 4-piece band, 3-piece horn section, and 4 front vocalists ran through a repertoire of company hits from Rufus Thomas' "Walking the Dog" to The Barkays' "Soul Finger" to the Sam and Dave standout "Soul Man" it was difficult to internalize that these sounds were coming from a group whose ages ranged from 13 to 17.  The Academy was joined by Stax songwriter and recording artist William Bell to perform a series of his songs. "Aren't these kids something," Bell told the crowd. "This is what we mean by keeping the legacy alive."