Lake Eden Arts Festival
Camp Rockmont, Black Mountain Friday-Sunday, May 13-15

There are only so many leads you can write on the LEAF festival, and over the years, I’ve tried most of them. You can play it straight, with an honest history of the festival, a local institution now in its tenth year of bringing music, dance, and the healing arts to western North Carolina. You can play it scenic, talking about the lovelier bits of the Camp Rockmont grounds, laced as they are with cool blue lakes, gentle green hillocks, and a few honest hiking trails. You can riff on LEAF’s signature vibe, a sort of New Age meets the mountaineer overalls-and-tarot-card feel, with a little faded hippie and committed eclecticist thrown in for good measure. You can celebrate the arrival of festival season, and wax poetic about folding chairs, beer from plastic cups, and the greater glories of music al fresco. You can have a little fun with the Healing Arts portion of the show, dropping gratuitous references to rolfing, reiki, and the Mayan Calendar. If you’re desperate, you can always conjure up a bit of sensory impressionism, whether it’s the bump-and-trundle of the shuttle bus from Owen High, the signature aromas of fresh-roasted corn and unbathed campers, or the rhythmic thump of contra dancers wheeling around the Brookside Dance Hall.

If all that fails, you can talk about the music. (“Oh yes, the music,” would be an appropriate interjection here.) Early press materials listed Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown as the headliner, but the legendary Louisiana guitarist had to cancel due to health problems. In addition to lung cancer, the 81-year old Brown suffers from blocked arteries and emphysema. (Gatemouth has always been a proud tobacco man, never far from his collection of pipes.) He has refused medical treatment and had hoped to “go down swinging,” playing gigs to the last, but at this point, he’s too ill to take the stage. Good luck, Gate. It’s been a hell of a run.

In Gatemouth’s place, LEAF has booked Shemekia Copeland, daughter of Johnny Copeland, a scorching vocalist in her own right and 26-year-old heir apparent to the title Queen of the Blues. In a fitting tribute to Brown, her set should be smokin’. Other headliners include the folk icon Richie Havens, Rwandan star Samputu, musical hash-slingers Donna the Buffalo, and prominent sons Ralph Stanley II and Donald Harrison, Jr. Sleepers on the long list of performers include Wayne Henderson, George Higgs, and Dexter Ardoin and the Creole Ramblers—and don’t forget to give some love to local faves Snake Oil Medicine Show, Menage, and Enter the Haggis. All that and much much more, yours for the taking, now and again this fall.

Day passes are $30 on Friday, $40 on Saturday, and $30 on Sunday. Weekend passes (including nights) are available for $120. Kids 10-17 get a discount, and those 9 and under are free. Call 828.686.8742 or visit www.theleaf.com for more info.

The Black Keys
Friday, May 13, Orange Peel

I haven’t heard the Black Keys’ third release Rubber Factory yet, but I hope I will soon: the All Music Guide calls it “the most exciting and best rock & roll record of 2004,” the LA Times settles for “brilliant,” and Spin sez the Keys are “six inches away from absolutely awesome.” (They don’t say which six inches.) Heady stuff indeed for the twenty-something Ohio garage-rockers who take their blues unvarnished, complete with raw guitars, scorched-earth vocals, and a taste for finding their rust and reverb down in the roots.

Tickets are $12 in advance and $14 at the door, and the show starts at 10 p.m. The Hentchman opens. Call 828.225.5851 for more info.

Also Playing in Asheville

• Valorie Miller, Westville Pub, 5/12

• Curtis Stigers, Diana Wortham Theatre, 5/12

• Talkin’ Roots Tour, Grey Eagle, 5/13

• Firecracker Jazz Band, Jack of the Wood, 5/13

• Cathie Ryan, Diana Wortham Theatre, 5/14

• Gigi Dover, Westville Pub, 5/14

• Crooked Routes, Grey Eagle, 5/14

• The Duhks, Stella Blue, 5/14

• Blue Merle, Orange Peel, 5/17

Three Good Songs by Shemekia Copeland

1. “Ghetto Child,” from Turn the Heat Up (1998)

2. “Whole Lotta Water,” from Wicked (2000)

3. “Happy Valentine’s Day” from Talking to Strangers (2002)

They Said It

“After a while I thought, ‘Why do I have to be one of these old cryin’ and moanin’ guitar players always talking bad about women?’ So I just stopped. That’s when I started having horns and pianos in my band, and started playing arrangements more like Count Basie and Duke Ellington, rather than some old hardcore Mississippi Delta stuff.”

— Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, relating his evolution away from the blues, as quoted in Guitar Player