The Wooten Brothers, Lillie Mae and More Show Out During 615 Indie Live

Keeping an independent venue alive and thriving has never been simple, despite how important these spaces are to the music and cultural ecosystem in cities around the world that are lucky enough to have them. Even years after COVID lockdown, it still seems harder than ever for indie venues to keep doing the valuable work they do in Nashville. Last year, data backing up that intuition was published in two studies, the Nashville Independent Venues Study and the Greater Nashville Music Census. To shine a spotlight on mom-and-pop venues at work, the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp and Music Venue Alliance Nashville teamed up to put on 615 Indie Live, a festival featuring some 50 artists — running the gamut from hip-hop to punk to soul to Americana to soul and beyond — onstage at 17 venues on Saturday, Feb. 1, and we caught a few of the sets.

Shows that were part of the fest began at noon. By 8 p.m., when The Wooten Brothers started their set at Rudy’s Jazz Room — the Gulch-area hotspot named for their late brother, saxophonist Rudy Wooten — the line extended from the entrance to the end of the block. Bless the door guy: He had to explain to those in line that the venue was already at the “one-in, one-out” part of the night since many of the patrons who showed up for the 5:30 set (from a group led by saxman Jeff Coffin) were sticking around to see the storied Wootens. At the back of the line, I was puzzling out how to navigate this situation, but the damp and the near-freezing temps did my work for me. Would-be guests made the call to go instead to one of the other shows their wristband would get them into, and my showgoing buddy and I found ourselves inside before too long.

Well, inside the door, that is. Few were inclined to leave while the Wootens — keyboardist Joseph Wooten (aka “The Hands of Soul”), guitarist Regi Wooten (aka “Teacha”), bassist Victor Wooten and drummer Roy Wooten (aka “Futureman”) — were cooking, and we listened to the first half of the two-hour performance from the hallway while we waited for seats to open up. Having seen the group several times in the past 27 years, I knew what to expect: the lock-groove tightness of a family band who’s been jamming on the one together for more than five decades. We were escorted to two seats in the front row, and I found myself with the headstock of Victor’s bass just two feet from my face. 

Watching the skill, intensity and sheer joy of these masterful players is always such a pleasure. Their set was perfectly tailored for a festival, giving new fans the full arc of their legacy. The highlight for me was their original composition “Consuela Smiles,” a spacious number that unwinds into a meditative groove. The piece is an ode to their college jazz instructor Consuela Lee, a Fisk alum and composer who once penned music for her nephew Spike’s movie School Daze. The brothers amped up the funkiness later with a James Brown medley and their own 2023 single “Sweat,” a track reminiscent of Earth, Wind & Fire’s slickest work. Wrapping it up at 10:15, the quartet made the evening well worth the wait.

Meanwhile over at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge, there was also a full house waiting to see Lillie Mae, and that seemed appropriate for an artist who bends genres with ease. Dee’s has become a hotbed of bluegrass, post-bluegrass and singer-songwriter Americana over the past couple of years. Since she moved to Nashville with her family 25 years ago, Lillie Mae Rische has built up an amazing list of credits. She’s worked with late producer and Memphis-to-Nashville legend Cowboy Jack Clement, and toured and recorded with Jack White. She’s currently working with Jim Lauderdale and the Game Changers and playing fiddle on tour with Post Malone. She’s an adventurous singer and commanding musician, and she knows how to lead a band.

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With her brother Frank Rische on electric guitar along with sisters Grace McKenna Rische and Scarlett Rische, Lillie Mae played folk-rock-country during her set. Second guitarist Craig Smith paired with Frank Rische to insert perfectly rendered, Allman Brothers-style twin guitars on a couple of songs. The band turned “Pretty Polly” doomy while rocking it out, and their versions of songs from Lillie Mae’s 2023 album Festival Eyes — “Cherry Pie” was delivered with panache — were brilliant. The band closed with a cover of Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly’s “I Drove All Night,” which stood up to the familiar versions by Roy Orbison, Celine Dion and Cyndi Lauper.

Turning the singer-songwriter template into an infinitely flexible medium is what Lindsay Lou, who closed out the night at Dee’s, is about. Her 2023 album Queen of Time also partakes of the timeless English-folk-meets-Nashville feel that Lillie Mae favors, but Lindsay Lou comes across as more contemplative. With Kyle Tuttle joining her on a few numbers, Lindsay Lou switched from guitar to banjo, quipping, “Just in case anybody needed an opportunity for an exit, we are going to have two banjos onstage now.” No one minded, and she played the new album’s titular tune and “On Your Side (Starman),” a pop song David Bowie might have envied. When she sang “The River Jordan,” which appears on her 2015 album Ionia, you felt like there might be room for the right kind of religion in this world.

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