Club Red: Langhorne Slim & The Law, 6/9

01 Jun Club Red: Langhorne Slim & The Law, 6/9

Beyond the Groove is pleased to present Langhorne Slim, returning to Telluride perform at Club Red in the Telluride Conference Center, Mountain Village Show takes place Friday, June 9. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; show time is 8 p.m. Tickets are $25-$35 here. Facebook event here. All ages. 

“Club Red in Telluride was voted the second-best ski-country venue by Skiing magazine. To get to the venue, take the Telluride Mountain Village Gondola up the mountain to arrive at your musical destination. On June 9, Langhorne Slim & the Law offer up bluesy and soulful tunes sure to please all rock lovers’ palates,” wrote Westword.

Scroll down for a sample of Langhorne Slim in action.

All shows at Club Red are produced by Denise Mongan of Beyond the Groove Productions, with major support by Telluride Ski & Golf, the Telluride Conference Center, Inn at Lost Creek, and the Peaks Resort and Spa. For more information, go here. 

Club Red

Artist-writer Langhorne Slim is proudly sober. The man. Not his legendary performance style.

Langhorne has been tearing it up for years with his Holy-roller, bluesy showmanship. In the universe that includes Planet Telluride, the man is a star.

Langhorne Slim

“Langhorne Slim expertly walks the line between the sublime and the subterranean. At once raucous and reverent, his old-timey country blues is tempered with the occasional outburst of punk rock insolence indicating that there may just be an anarchy sign on the back of his guitar and a little more than constant sorrow on the brain of this charismatic troubadour,” St. James Tothe.

“Langhorne Slim uses his own homemade bred-out-of-loneliness technique of flat picking, molding the classic sounds of Doc Watson and Lester Flatt, formulating a bluegrass nightmare that you just do not want to end. His stage performance must be seen to be believed,” PMC Magazine.

Two years ago, in August 2015, Langhorne released The Spirit Moves, an attempt to refine his wildness. The result was (and is) an effervescent collection of his now-signature, cinematic, joyful noise, rooted in folk, soul, and blues– or as Langhorne onces described his sound: “sweet love and caramel popcorn…”

The Spirit Moves is also a stunning portrait of Langhorne’s life in transition, the now 37-year-old,“born to be in motion and follow the sun” rambler found a home in Nashville, Tennessee. While now attached to a place, the man is unattached to a person, single for the first time in recent memory. Overall, The Spirit Moves is a beautiful glimpse into bold beginnings and risks taken to create an ode to a better life and to the vulnerability needed to live his new life in integrity.

“I went to battle with my demons and I’m still doing it,” Langhorne says. “My brothers stood beside me and kicked ass on the record.”

Langhorne Slim & The Law, by Todd Roeth.

Three of Langhorne’s ” brothers” are The Law: Malachi DeLorenzo on drums; Jeff Ratner on bass; and Casey McCallister on keys, the trio performing with him in Telluride.

Langhorne Slim has been writing and touring with The Law for about five years. Before working with this band, however, as a well-respected solo artist, he says he never thought he was the most talented person in the room.

“I’ve always surrounded myself with people who I felt were musically more talented than me. I hope that I have a talent for words and for melody. I’m not the greatest guitar player or the greatest musician and never tricked myself into thinking that I was. I have had a need to create songs and express myself through art and music, ever since I was a kid. My band is not a hired gun group of guys,” Langhorne says. “They are my band and they are uniquely spectacular.”

A clear-headed Langhorne is, in general, a whole lot happier these days:

“I had a problem with drugs and alcohol from the time I was 15 until I quit on my 33rd birthday,” Langhorne says. “I had been hitting my head against the ceiling. I knew all I had to do was quit, and my head would burst through that ceiling. I didn’t really know what would be there, but I knew it’d be something greater.”

“…Blues and folk artists have been writing songs to push through the difficulties of getting sober since the late pre-war era. John Lee Hooker, Leadbelly, Sonny Boy Williamson, Memphis Slim, James Taylor, Coco Montoya, John Mayall and Eric Clapton – one could go on and on listing the various artists who have written lyrics and music that confront the demons of addiction. Folk and blues songs have a long tradition as a creative cure for suffering or a clear lens through which one views an otherwise blurry life…” wrote No Depression in an interview with Langhorne.

But you won’t find any themes of addiction or recovery in Langhorne Slim’s lyrics. Music is the outlet he uses to celebrate life and love, and with reverence, he speaks of creating music with his band as his inspiration to achieve a more “extreme” existence.

In other words, for Langhorne, “something greater” includes making the best music of his life right now.

“By opening myself, I’m vulnerable and I’m fearful, but I start to get real. And in that realness, there is immense strength that I wish for everybody,” Langhorne says (in the same No Depression story.) “Maybe everybody’s scared to be a freak. But when you live as a freak –” he laughs –it’s so much more fulfilling.”

Optimistic and focus, an upbeat Langhorne is moving forward, but enjoying each step on the road.

“I mean, there’s a darker side to us all,” he told No Depression. “I’m still riddled with fear and doubt sometimes. Music helps me with that, serves that truth, and it exposes that. It brings me the greatest joy, but at times the greatest challenges. If I seem optimistic, it’s because I’m a hopeless optimist and I am full of faith and hope. And I think that keeps me going and trying to challenge myself. I don’t think I’ve gotten closest to where I want to go. I hope that my best writing, my best work, and my best shows are ahead of me.”

Telluride’s Club Red is Langhorne’s second stop after Fort Collins on Langhorne Slim & The Law’s international summer tour.

Should be one of those “best shows” ahead of him.