Sunny Sweeney at K'heads: The real new country

Sunny Sweeney likes the old-time country, the kind that comes from people who grew up in it and with it. She also knows how to drink beer and chew gum while she's strumming and singing (but not smoking). Photos by Timothy Finn/The Star

A few songs into a show that would last much longer than scheduled, Sunny Sweeney announced something about her lead guitar player: His show at Knuckleheads on Wednesday was his first gig with her band. The stack of song charts piled on a nearby music stand verified that. A few songs later, she confessed how she'd found him: via a friend who met the guy while "drinking at the pool." Later on, Sweeney spilled the beans on how she ended up one guitar player short of a full band. It had to do with nicotine withdrawal.

She's not Taylor Swift or Carrie Underwood, and she's the better for it. Sunny Sweeney sings country so real Merle Haggard signed her guitar.

By the time she'd finished a long sound-check and strummed the first chords to "East Texas Pines," about 75 people nearly filled the inside room at Knuckleheads, which continues to bring in some of the best country/roots/blues shows in the city. (Lazy Lester is there tonight, with Tater & the Gravy Train).

She would extend her setlist by more than a half-dozen songs, including a cover of "Folsom Prison Blues." Her regular set included a cover of "Mama's Opry," written by Iris DeMent, who is well-known around here. Sweeney didn't mention DeMent or her connection to Kansas City, but she did tangle with the Kansas/Missouri thing. She got it wrong  a couple of times and after the second time she muffed it, she swore she knew the difference because her radio promoter, a KC native who was in the room, had lectured her about the distinction. Then Sweeney tapped her skull, pointing to her blond hair and said, "This is real; it's my real color."

But she's smarter than that. She played most of her debut album, "Heartbreaker's Hall of Fame," which showcases her deep, lustrous East Texas drawl and her skills as a songwriter and a picker of other people's songs, like Jim Lauderdale's "Lavender Blue" and Tim Carroll's Gatling-gun bluegrass rocker "If I Could." She also played some new songs that, she said, will show up on the next album.

Sweeney is from Longview, Texas, a region she honors/laments in songs like "East Texas Pines" and "Ten Years Pass." She sang both Wednesday night, and as she introduced "Pass," a couple sitting directly in front of her said they were from Longview. Then she recognized them: "You used to work with my aunt." She also hammered a cover of "Can't Let Go," a song written by Lucinda Williams, who is from down the Gulf Coast, in Louisiana.

Sweeney switched to singing and songwriting years ago, after a fling with standup and comedy improv. Theater may not be her meal ticket but it helps her stage show. She spars with her four-man band and fills empty time between songs with funny lines about whatever crosses her mind. She mentioned a couple of times that she'd quit smoking more than two months ago and how that has affected her music. For one: It has improved her singing but changed her guitar playing: "I have to ask what key we're in because the keys are different now. I can hit the notes I used-to-couldn't hit when I sounded like a man."

Then she joked about that nicotine-rehab -- and the affect it had on her moods and how her bitchiness during the cold-turkey phase drove away her guitar player. But she wasn't laughing when she said "I ain't kidding."

She has given up the smokes but she is fond of the longnecks: She jacked back more than a  several during her set (and chewed gum all night). Early on, some young gent went up front, handed her a cold one and took away the empty. "Wow, he recycles, too," she said. So does she, but she's delivering something much more interesting and longer-lasting than mass-produced light beer.

| Timothy Finn, The Star

Comments

[Keith in KC]

Sunny has lots of potential and although it wasn't the best show I've ever seen at Knuckleheads, it was pretty darned good. I guess nobody told Sunny's drummer about the new non-smoking ordinance as he puffed away during a few songs.

It was good to see the KC Star represented by you and Hearne Christopher Jr., both enjoying the show. But as always, Hearne walked in after the show had already started and left before it was finished. Good thing HE wasn't reviewing the show.......

[Tim Finn]

... he was back on the patio, chatting up people and stirring up material. The show was ragged in spots. It got better when people shut the hell up and listened.

[Keith in KC]

In addition to many in the crowd holding conversations, oblivious to the actual show that was going on, I noticed that about a good two dozen or more people left before the show ended. I liked much of Sunny's show, although I'm not the biggest Country fan in the world. But even at 90 minutes, the show felt kind of long. She is at least fortunate enough to have a pretty good band behind her.

I will say that Ben J. Tipler, the Minnesota Folkie who started things off with 30 minutes of predictable tales of lost love and drinking was almost unbearable to sit through. Just horrible. In the middle of the bill we got local band OFF THE RECORD, who aren't bad, but hearing them mix Missouri's "Movin' On" (their drummer used to be in the band Missouri) with Journey and Elvis songs was kind of sleep-inducing. For me, anyway.

[Tim Finn]

I missed the opener. I saw that table leave; I think they were ther to see Off the Record. They should have conducted their goodbyes outside.
The guitar player in Off the Record, AJ Cronk (not the Elvis singer), is also in Tater & the Gravy Train, who are playing tonight at K'heads with Lazy Lester. Frank, the owner, told me Tater would be backing up Lazy Lester, but that was news to AJ.