Critics' Picks at Big Ears '23

Last night Ann Powers and I shared our festival recs. Here's the rundown.

Greetings from Knoxville, where the Big Ears immersion is well underway! My flight landed yesterday afternoon, and within a couple of hours I was at Jackson Terminal for my first panel: a Critics’ Picks Roundtable with Ann Powers, who’d also just arrived, from Nashville. (Geoff Dyer did not join us for the panel — I’d been misinformed — but we’re both hoping to catch one of his readings this weekend.)

Ann and I had done some prep in advance of our talk: scouring the festival schedule, comparing notes, filling in a doc with our picks. We agreed not to pick any artist or band that we would be interviewing or formally conversing with over the weekend — i.e., no Cécile McLorin Salvant or Rickie Lee Jones for Ann, no Mary Halvorson or Antonio Sánchez for me. We chose three recommendations apiece, and I put together a playlist that I could cue up during the talk. Just before I walked on, the stage manager, Chris, offered a shot of whisky. As Ann quipped: “Welcome to Tennessee!”

Our outline included a series of blurbs, so with Ann’s blessing, I thought it would be cool to share them here. Our conversation naturally branched off in other directions,

but we adhered to these picks — and took our own advice, heading from the talk straight to our first recommended show, by Lonnie Holley with Mourning [A] BLK Star, which was soul-stirring in every way. The rest of the shows we picked are still up ahead, so if you’re on the ground in Knoxville, you can use this as a field guide.