Let no one accuse Karen Carrier of thinking small. When she opened The Beauty Shop Restaurant in 2002, she brought the legendary Wild Magnolias from New Orleans to celebrate. Five years ago, they were back for the 15th anniversary. For her brainchild’s 20th anniversary on Saturday, August 6th, she’s still thinking big and keeping that NOLA flavor with a second line and the Lucky 7 Brass Band, followed by Jack Oblivian. But Carrier really moved heaven and earth to get the night’s closing act, Harlan T. Bobo.
Some of us feared we’d never see the ragged-but-right troubadour play again. “When that last record came out [2018’s A History of Violence], we did a little tour, and that’s when I got sick,” Bobo recalls. Indeed, the singer and guitarist found he was losing the use of his left hand. Since then, he’s been riding it out in his adopted home of Perpignan, France.
“I had a lot of nerve damage in my hand from lupus,” says Bobo. “I pretty much thought I was done. I can’t do construction anymore, and I just assumed that I was done playing music. Even my physical therapist thought I was done.” And yet, it was through that very practice that Bobo kept the guitar in his life.
“A year ago, I was figuring out how to cut meat, how to use a knife and fork,” he recalls. “Then I started playing guitar as physical therapy. Just to see what I could do with my fingers. And it’s still a little weird, but I’ve got two fingers that work. By doing a lot of weird tunings I can get a pretty full sound.”
That in turn led him back to the craft of songwriting. “And through that two-fingered approach, I wrote new songs, with which I just finished a bunch of demos, and I’ll probably come back in the spring to record,” he says, sounding amazed that he can play again at all. “And then when Karen offered me that show, I said okay. But when I sat down to play the old songs, I realized, ‘Fuck, I’m only using two fingers!,’ so I had to completely change things and [learn] how to manage those songs.”
Reinventing his approach to his own music, Bobo did a trial run in France. “I just did a show in Perpignan as preparation for The Beauty Shop’s anniversary. God, it felt good to do that! I hadn’t done it in so long, but surprisingly enough, it worked. I think I played a kooky Halloween show three years ago, and I almost died doing that.”
He emphasizes that he’ll be playing his older material at Bar DKDC, complete with some familiar faces in his band. “I’ve got Bunny on guitar, Tim Prudhomme on drums, and possibly Jonathan Kirkscey on cello. I can’t resist getting together with all of my buddies. I’m just trying to do songs people will know. The new stuff is weirdly moody and super quiet and acoustic, and I don’t think it’ll be good for that night. It’s gonna be a party there. And we’ll still be super mellow for a party, but the new stuff would just be painful.”
Yet we can still hear his weirdly moody, super quiet side, thanks to a new album, Porch Songs, arriving on August 5th via Goner Records. Bobo will be celebrating that release at an in-store show that evening at 6 p.m. Though recorded before Bobo’s battle with lupus, the songs offer a stripped-down version of his songcraft. “Around 2016, I went to see this guy in Perpignan who’s got an old 8-track set up,” he says. “It sounds very Sun Studio-y. I just sat down for a day and recorded, like, 20 songs I had around, but never knew what to do with. I think there’s 13 on the new record. It’s mostly just guitar and voice, and drums on a couple of takes.”
Now, on the verge of a homecoming, Bobo reflects on his recent show in Perpignan. “Before that, I hadn’t played any Harlan music in ages. It just felt good to know that I could stand up and entertain a crowd. It was something I had kind of forgotten. It was like, ‘Oh, I can do that!’ And I can still handle drunks from the stage.”
The Beauty Shop 20th anniversary show featuring the Lucky 7 Brass Band, the Jack Oblivian band, and Harlan T. Bobo will be at Bar DKDC August 6th, beginning at 8 p.m.