The Waybacks at the Reeves

After the show in the lobby at The Reeves

Album Hour fan Mike Reevis wearing a classic Hillside t-shirt,

The merchandise table.

Reeves theater co-owner Erik Dahlberg updating The Reeves marquee.

I'm writing a book:

Are You Ready For This?  MerleFest's Album Hour with The Waybacks & Friends

Below is a rough draft of the beginning of Chapter 8 

The Waybacks at The Reeves, Part 1

 

Anticipation for my first non-Album Hour show with The Waybacks had been building since the first week of May, 2023, when I discovered the band would perform in Elkin at The Reeves Theater that August. I immediately went to the Reeves’ website and ordered tickets.

The first time I visited Elkin was in 1977 as a member of a PlayMakers Repertory Company touring show. In 1983 in January, I was in Manhattan, but soon had to leave New York after a project that seemed promising was cancelled. I took that loss hard and floundered to find traction the next six months.

In November of 1983, I was hired by The Tribune in Elkin to become its one-man sports department. I lived in that quaint village until the spring of 1985 before getting a similar position with a bigger newspaper in Eden.

Elkin had been a turning point. The job was difficult, and I was still in mourning for the opportunity that had evaporated. I recall one afternoon I packed my car to leave. But as I was driving across the bridge out of Elkin to Jonesville, I realized if I kept running from myself, I’d never stop. So I went back to the newspaper office, and the decision to return to my desk helped me rediscover the dividends of hard work.

 When I lived in Elkin, The Reeves movie theater had become one of those buildings in a small town with a distant past and very little hope for a future, other than demolition and a sad version of Joni Mitchell’s paved parking lot.

I wondered what had happened. Why would a band at the level of The Waybacks be interested in performing at The Reeves?

I ventured onto The Reeves’ website and found a 30-minute documentary titled, “Reeves: A Home for Music.”

I watched this wonderful, engaging film and soon had my answer. Debbie Carson, her husband, Chris Groner, and Erik Dahlberg had a vision, and their persistence, as well as the countless hours of work involved, turned a relic into a vibrant force. The space was refurbished, as the title of the film reveals, into a space for music to be heard.

It is impossible with written words to convey what has been achieved. You need to hear the sound in the reincarnated Reeves, a movie theater built in 1941 by Dr. Reeves, an optometrist with 20-20 foresight. It’s easy to imagine that, once a movie had been shown, the spirits of those in the cast might choose to gather in the building. Maybe John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara found a spot in the balcony and chatted about their many shared triumphs, or Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre recalled that movie shoot that wound up becoming one of the great films, “Casablanca.”

In my view, The Reeves’ cinematic past remains in spite of the theater’s new purpose of presenting live music. It’s fun to believe the Hollywood icons hung around for the chance to hear the spirits of songwriters and musicians whose work is performed on a stage now shaped like a guitar. Elkin is in the heart of what many feel is the home of folk and acoustic music; and throughout the region on all levels where live music occurs, Doc Watson songs are played. I’m certain Doc would have cherished this theater.

Late at night, long after the space has gone dark, maybe Doc Watson saunters over to where John and Maureen are hanging out and plays them a tune. Maybe Maureen sings harmony while John taps his right boot.

 The Waybacks played Nanci Griffith’s “Listen to The Radio” on Aug. 5, 2023. Perhaps later that night after everyone had gone home, Doc joined Nanci for her first set at The Reeves.

Music has profound power to transform, transport, and provoke memories long tucked away. A space such as The Reeves provides a living link. You still have the radio, but now you also have The Reeves.

More Reeves information can be found in the appendix of this book.

When I parked the first night that I went to see a live performance at The Reeves, I wanted the space to be excellent. But would that be the case? My short walk to the theater prompted a recollection of the film, The Shawshank Redemption, and the advice Andy Dufresne gave Red.

Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. 

When I heard the first notes of acoustic guitar in The Reeves, I knew Andy told the truth. No good thing ever dies.

The Reeves was alive and well, and after the Aug. 4 shows with Brooks Forsyth and Cristina Vane, my anticipation for The Waybacks increased. I knew the space was tremendous. But I had another issue on my mind.

I’d printed and bound the preface and first seven chapters of this book. Debbie Carson was kind enough to place four copies in The Reeves Green Room for The Waybacks, I hoped, to peruse.

When I arrived at the theater for The Waybacks’ show, Debbie told me that she’d given the band the manuscripts, and that James Nash had already started reading. My head was in a thousand places when I went to row C, seat 9 and checked my phone for messages.

There was an email from James Nash, who wanted to meet me after the show. Maybe Doc was grinning in the balcony because I had a smile I could feel.

My mind went in a zillion directions in time, and space, a tennis ball bouncing and bouncing and bouncing. Would it ever stop?

When Chris Groner announced that the show would soon begin, everything slowed down. Within seconds, I was in that room at that time. 

And I stayed in the moment. 

Moment to moment to moment.