Bryan Marshall and the Gone Wrongs
Westville Pub, Saturday, Jan. 15

It worked better when he was bustin’ stumps, puttin’ in time at the Riverside Stump Dump on the banks of the French Broad, drawing his paycheck from his time behind the wheel. There, in the noise and sweat and sawdust, you might find yourself a country singer. You could find one on the long haul too, in the cab of an 18-wheeler on a cross-country run, chewin’ up the interstate and fallin’ asleep so damn far from home. Marshall did that, too.

Now? Now Bryan Marshall works in a beauty salon. Takes reservations, swipes credit cards, sweeps up the hair clippings when the going gets slow. It helps that it’s the hippest salon in West Asheville — Beauty Parade on Haywood Street — and that his wife owns the joint. It helps that the atmosphere is laid back and that sometimes he can slip the classic country station onto the satellite radio.

But it doesn’t quite fit the country profile: you don’t spend too much time courtin’ fate when you’re answering phones at the beauty parlor. Heck, you can’t even lose a finger. But Marshall ain’t complainin’.

“I worked hard to get to where I don’t have to work so hard,” he says with a grin, adding that he has no desire to return to a life behind the wheel.

Instead, he’ll stay closer to home, working at the beauty shop and playing gigs with his band of three years, the Gone Wrongs. They’re a classic country five-piece, a slice of straight honky tonk delivered from somewhere west of here. Marshall sings and plays rhythm, while leads are taken by Jack Dillen on guitar and Howard Clontz on the pedal steel. David Gay and Mike Baker handle bass and drums, respectively.

“We play songs as straight as we can,” Marshall says, “just like they’re meant to be played. We don’t jam out on anything. Word for word. I don’t try to emulate the singer’s voice, but I [do] try to really honor that era of classic country music.”

Marshall’s list of influences reads a little different from your average thirtysomething. It starts with Buck Owens and Charley Pride, and moves on to include Wynn Stewart, Conway Twitty, Webb Pierce, Ray Price, and Roger Miller. You’ll hear a bit of all of those on Saturday night, and some Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings besides. But you won’t hear any Bryan Marshall tunes: the Gone Wrongs are a full-on cover band.

“I’ve tried to write songs, and I just realized I’m not a very good songwriter,” Marshall allows. “I’m terrible at it. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

It’s a brave admission, and one that a few more would-be songwriters might heed.

My first exposure to Bryan Marshall and the Gone Wrongs was at the Westville Pub, in the midst of the Orbit DVD/Beauty Parade One Year Anniversary Show. “Short sets of bad music,” Rod Murphy had promised me, but he was wrong. Most of the sets were short, true, but the music was not bad. Not bad at all.

One of the best sets of the night — or most not bad, if you’d rather — was delivered by the Gone Wrongs, a band I’d seen in club listings but never seen with my own two eyes. It was classic country sure enough, straight from the roadhouse, built from steel guitar, Telecaster riffs, and Marshall’s big baritone voice singing songs of 100-proof heartbreak. From the first lonely wail of Clontz’s pedal steel I was hooked, whisked back to the nights I spent tucked away in Austin honkytonks, hands wrapped around a cold Lone Star and ears filled with those sweet sounds. My wife remembered too, and more than once we found ourselves on the pub’s tiny dance floor, trying to remember the moves we had mothballed so many years ago.

Looking back, I want to say it was terrific, and probably it was, but now I can’t be sure if it was genuine honky tonk heaven or I just wanted a taste of it so bad that I fell for the first band I saw with a pedal steel player and a vintage Western shirt or two. Either way, I went home happy.

So I’ll put in a word for Bryan Marshall. I’ll put in a word for him as Asheville’s greatest beauty-store country singer, a man who traded in his work gloves for a push broom, giving up the wheel to spend a little more time with his wife and a little less time bustin’ stumps. There’s a song in there somewhere.

Cover is $4 and the show starts around 9:30 pm. Call 828.225.9782 for more info.

Also Playing in Asheville

• The Codetalkers featuring Col. Bruce Hampton, Stella Blue, 1/14

• GFE, Orange Peel, 1/14

• Sons of Ralph, Jack of the Wood, 1/14

• Firecracker Jazz Band, Jack of the Wood, 1/15

• Steep Canyon Rangers, Orange Peel, 1/15

• Stephanie’s Id CD Release Party, Stella Blue, 1/15

• Jen & the Juice, Emerald Lounge, 1/15

• David Olney, Grey Eagle, 1/19

Three Good Honkytonk Tearjerkers

1. “My Son Calls Another Man Daddy,” Hank Williams

2. “Long Black Veil,” Lefty Frizzell

3. “Holes in the Wall,” Dale Watson

They Said It

“Country music is three chords and the truth.”

— Harlan Howard