Michael Reno Harrell at the Church Street Music Festival
When: Saturday, Oct. 19, at 2 p.m.
Where: Behind the Wineseller Patio
Church Street, Waynesville
Talent: Travelers Club, Marshall Ballew,Wanda Lu Paxton, Steeple Chasers, Michael Reno Harrell, Phyllis Tanner Frye, Blues Stew
How Much: Free


Being simple is such a complicated thing. There’s always a need to add “just one more” spice to the casserole, to inject a touch more fluff to a paragraph, or throw one more horn into a 60-person orchestra. Simple seems so what it is. Most of us ignore the basic equation, believing that if we construct a confusing maze, the answers and admiration will reveal itself.

The salvation may be the sage of simplicity, Michael Reno Harrell. With a lone guitar and a matter-of-fact voice, Harrell has turned the basic into a flowering collage of words that make the head nod in approval. Take his song, “Southern Suggestions” (from his new album, “Southern Son”), which has been the most requested song on WNCW for the past seven weeks. There are no Whitman wanderings or delves into Dante. Harrell basically rattles off some truths about the South, and the masses have clung to it like it’s some writ from the heavens:


“Iced tea ain’t for breakfast and all barbecue ain’t the same

try to eat lunch where the waitresses all call you honey maybe one of these days you’ll think john boy and billy are funny the fact that people make money bass fishin’s amazin (i know it is)

and nascar is kickin indy car’s ass at car racin these aren’t rules it’s just some things that we’ve figured out to make livin easy when you’re livin here in the south”

“You don’t have to feed people with a shovel, you need to feed them with a spoon,” said Harrell from his phone. “My audiences tend to come to my show to be told stories and be entertained. I try to write that way and it just so happens it’s what I like to write. You’re probably not going to find a lot of heavy allegory in my stuff. I’m a simple guy.”


Somehow this uncomplicated man has garnered some hefty awards of late. He just won the 2002 Chris Austin songwriting competition at Merle Fest for “The Baby’s Name” (also off of “Southern Son”) and Creative Loafing Magazine named Harrell Charlotte’s Best Local Songwriter. The singer/songwriter has attracted hordes because there’s not a need to carry around a pocket dictionary when listening to him. Words are never fancy, and the unpretentious quality draws folks in like scented flypaper.

“Most people call me a storyteller, and what I try to do is make people go, ‘Oh yeah,’” said Harrell. “It’s like any other sort of writing, you try to include the listener in what you’re doing. I could talk about somebody going in the bathroom in the morning and looking at themselves in the mirror and opening the medicine cabinet. But on the other hand I could open the medicine cabinet and tell you about the box of band-aids that just fell out and then you could relate to that. If I can tell you somehow what’s in your pocket then I’ve made a connection with you.”

Harrell’s minimalism began on the Tennessee side of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. His family moved there the year he was born, and he spent his youthful years traveling between mountain havens like Del Rio and Hot Springs. His musical upbringing began with Depression Era newspapers and a “White Christmas.”

“My parents were not musically inclined,” Harrell recalled. “My father played the harmonica a little bit; he learned to play the harp when he was selling newspapers on the street in Spartanburg during the Depression. He only played it to get people to come buy newspapers [laughs]. We got a TV when I was 7 or 8, and it had a little phonograph in the bottom if it. My mother went out and bought a box set of 45’s of Bing Crosby. I listened to those records over and over, and [laughs] I love Bing Crosby to this day.”

Despite their lack of musical knowledge, Harrell’s parents were extremely supportive of his career choice, and his extended family seemed to have provided some of the minstrel genes. Harrell’s uncle (dad’s brother) was a bass player for the Louvin Brothers, and he also played with Little Jimmy Dickens. His mother’s father and all her uncles were Carolina mountain musicians from Buncombe County. At first, Harrell wanted to be a drummer in a jazz band, but the Kingston Trio had something different in mind.

“I decided I wanted to play the guitar when I heard the Kingston Trio. My cousin had an album of the Trio and we wore the grooves out on it. At that time all I was concerned with was the jazz drum. But when I heard the Trio, all I wanted to do was play guitar. I turned in my High Hat for a Kay guitar.”

His next step was bluegrass, courtesy of New York City.

“One day, when I was a sophomore, I was sitting on the front steps of my high school,” said Harrell. “I was playing the guitar and playing some Kingston Trio song. A girl came up behind me, got my attention, and said, ‘You need to come to my house, there’s something I need to show you.’ Being a 14-year-old red-blooded American boy, I was ready to go find out what it was. Her name was Sally Richter, she had moved to my hometown, Morristown, Tenn., from Greenwich Village, New York. We got in her house and she had a stack of Vanguard records that was about three feet high. She introduced me to Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, and bluegrass. There were no banjo players in my hometown. I didn’t know what bluegrass music was. It’s funny that I learned bluegrass music from a girl who was from New York.”

The bluegrass bug bit the teen hard; its malaise compelled Harrell to venture off every weekend in search of fiddler’s conventions and bluegrass festivals. He met up with other die-hards like David Holt and Steve Keith. He played music with them at festivals, and he began to experiment with the solo side of things. His travels gave him mountains of writing material, and he soon became a respected entertainer and songwriter. His confidence in his writing led him to Nashville in the mid 80’s.

“If you’re going to be a songwriter (at least back then) your choices were move to New York, move to L.A., or move to Nashville. The kind of material I was writing, there was nobody in L.A. or New York that was remotely interested in it. The only avenue was Nashville.”

Harrell did well in the Music City, with artists like Doug Stone and Perfect Stranger cutting his songs. But, personal fulfillment was lacking.

“People in Nashville were looking for something to play on Top 40 country stations, and I don’t blame them because that’s where the money is and they were there to make money,” Harrell said. “I thought, ‘I can write country music.’”

“You go to publishers down there and they tell you, ‘bring me your really off-the-wall stuff,’” Harrell continued. “‘Bring me the really weird stuff, not the type that will get put on the radio.’ And they say this to everybody. You take them your weird stuff and they say, ‘I think that’s too weird.’ [laughs]. What they really mean by that is, ‘we would like to have the balls to produce something like that, but really what we want is the same stuff you’ve been hearing. Can you write like that?’”

Harrell eventually moved back to North Carolina, and for a couple of years he barely picked up the guitar or penned words. It took a couple of young upstarts to get him rolling again.

“There was this band, The Rank Outsiders (who are now pretty popular in WNC) who was just beginning to write their own stuff, and their bass player, Tom Coon — who was best man at my wedding — wanted to know how to write songs. They were trying to communicate with another songwriter. They would come over to the house and I’d show them what I’d done. We had such a good time that I thought I might try and go solo again after seven years.”

Harrell released a cassette tape in 1995 titled, “There Are No Angels Here” (now in its fifth printing). He then did a compilation, “Known on the Underground” with other Charlotte “Americana” musicians. One of his cuts on the album, “Caroline,” began getting massive attention on the national airwaves. Like “Southern Suggestions,” “Caroline” is merely a list, this one stating all the great things about living in North Carolina. Listeners adhered to the effortless approach, and the South was ready to proclaim a new favorite son.

In 1997 he went back to Nashville and teamed up with buddies Jerry Douglas (dobro master), Byron House (bass player for the Sam Bush Band) and Brent Truitt. The final product was “Ways to Travel,” and the album had a 23-week-long residence on the Gavin Americana Charts, reaching an apex of No. 16. He followed that album with “Second Wind,” which added even more heavyweights like Sam Bush, David Grier, and Suzi Ragsdale. “Second Wind” found a cozy home in the charts for five months, and it stayed perched at No. 11 or No. 12 for six weeks.

For his newest album, “Southern Son,” Harrell decided once again to forget Nashville and stay at home in North Carolina. The album is comprised entirely of N.C. musicians (David Holt and Jack Lawrence being the most recognizable) and one S.C. musician. The album took much longer (six months) than the whirlwind Nashville affairs (two weeks max), and Harrell decided on more of a live sound.

“The other two records I’m really proud of and the band was great. It’s just that we made it here and it sounds live. It really sounded more like something you hear when you come to one of my shows.”

“Southern Son” has been his most popular to date, but it almost vanished in the rubble of 9-11.

“The recording (of ‘Southern Son’) fell right in the middle of 9-11. When it came everything just sort of stopped. People weren’t going out to hear music, so it slowed me down for about three months. I started thinking, ‘do I even want to finish this record?’ Just kind of got the funk like so many people in America did. Through the help of a lot of supportive friends, I decided that, ‘well, Dawgonnit, I might as well finish this thing.’ And it’s really been the most successful album we’ve done so far.”

Harrell is even more proud of his widespread acceptance in Texas, where luminaries like Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, and Lyle Lovett have summoned their pen to do great and honest things.

“It’s one of the high points of my career,” beamed Harrell. “It’s much more important (to me) to be accepted in Texas than it is Nashville.”

The performer also realizes that he must win the acceptance of the audience. Words are one thing, but being able to present yourself in an entertaining and cohesive matter is another.

“When you’re 54 years old, hopefully you know a little about what your audience is. Some songs you got to tell people. You got to look them in the eye and tell them face-to-face what you want them to hear. You can’t sing “Southern Suggestions” with your eyes closed. You got to look at the crowd and give them those lines. You got to deliver ‘em just like a standup comic. You gotta stand ‘em and knock ‘em down.

“Some songs, I can stand there with a guitar and sing with my eyes closed. And everybody in the audience will have their eyes closed, seeing it with me. You let the emotion deliver that song.”

Harrell also realizes that his little bubble must include the crowd. There is a sense of self-satisfaction, but it only comes when the whole is fulfilled.

“These people came and sat down in their chairs for one reason: to see what you could do for them. You’re working for them, you can’t just forget about them. This whole thing is about communication. It’s just a matter of paying attention to the people you’re working for. They’ll tell what they want; all you got to do is look at them. A crowd has a personality just like an individual. But a crowd can get mean. Well not really mean, but you might get booked at the wrong thing. Kind of like a Southern gospel quartet being booked at a biker rally.”

For now, Harrell seems to be booked in the right places (“however, please don’t book me at conventions,” he told me). He can be seen solo, doing writer’s workshops or performing with the No Angels Band. Next spring he will be traveling to Texas for a series of duo shows with longtime friend and collaborator, Jack Lawrence. If you can’t catch him live, throw in one of his discs, and let the difficulties of life scatter.

“There’s all kind of ways to come at this stuff, and if you want to write something complicated then write something complicated, but don’t expect people to get it the first time through. In songwriting workshops, people tell me, ‘I can’t find anything to write about.’ I say, ‘what you need to do is open your eyes because it’s all around you.’”

(Hunter Pope can be reached at w.h.pope@worldnet.att.net)