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Former American Press sportswriter Carl Dubois blogs about the games people play, in and out of sports, and the people you meet between and outside the lines.

Carl is an award-winning reporter and columnist living in the Willamette Valley in northwest Oregon, near Portland. He is sports editor of the News-Register newspaper in McMinnville, Ore.

Shameless plug: My nephew will be on ‘Conan O’Brien’ tonight

Posted December 23, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Filed Under People | Leave a Comment

BATON ROUGE — If you’re up at 11:37 tonight (Central time) and can’t think of anything to do, you could turn on NBC and watch “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.” My oldest nephew, Gill Landry, will be performing with Old Crow Medicine Show.

Gill is in his second tour with Old Crow Medicine Show, and tonight’s appearance on “Conan” is another special moment for all of us in the family.

He and the band played this fall at the season premiere of “A Prairie Home Companion,” my all-time favorite radio show. That was … well, surreal is the word that comes to mind, whether or not it fits. Gill phoned me from offstage, and I was as envious of him as I was proud.

He lived in Lake Charles from birth until his family moved to New Jersey when was 12. I remember in December of one of his grade-school years he was part of a class choral group that sang “Up On the Housetop” for a school assembly. One day he sang it for me in my room as I held a microphone to his face, recording it on a standard cassette tape. When he was done, he waited for me to stop.

I didn’t.

He looked at me, grinned awkwardly and said, “Carrrrrrl.”

Years later I found the tape, partially erased, and gave it to my sister as a keepsake. Maybe one day I’ll get to hear it again. I hope she’s tucked it away in a safe place.

I’m not going to tell you his life story, but he’s been around and seen a lot. He’s been to Europe and Asia and intimately knows the streets of the French Quarter from busking for the tourists — which is where he met the guys in Old Crow Medicine Show in 2000, when they were hitting the streets themselves.

Tonight they’ll play on “Conan.”

OK, now that I’ve promoted him here, I’m going to tweak him a bit.

Touring to promote his CD, “The Ballad of Lawless Soirez,” Gill did a radio interview I listened to on the Internet. The host asked if he grew up in a musical family, and he responded with a no.

“Not a note,” he said.

Ahem. I guess he forgot about his guitar-playing uncle, who was perhaps mistaken that he’d inspired the boy to pick up the guitar and learn how to play it. Hello, Gill? A reminder?

But anyway …

I’m sure he meant his immediate family. Gill once told me his grandmother, my mother, sounded like an angel when she sang and when she hummed, and I reminded him of that after she died in 2006. His oldest aunt would go on to sing at mass at the church where our mother was also a member of the choir. Another aunt was a member of the same church’s folk group in the 1970s, later joined by the previously mentioned uncle: me.

But, back to Gill’s immediate family. He blazed a trail. A younger brother became involved in various aspects of the music business, learning the bass and helping with all sorts of things for a group of musicians in the Seattle area after the family moved there.

Perhaps because I was the only guitarist with whom he was intimately acquainted, this younger nephew of mine, Brad, pronounced the instrument’s name as a “guitarl” (rhymes with Carl), something I’ve reminded him about many times.

The youngest brother, Jake, teams with Annie Ford and others in the musical group Slim Pickens, which has expanded since the story linked in this sentence was first published.

And lest I forget, one of Gill’s younger cousins — Elizabeth — continues to become more proficient on the piano.

Gill came up with the title of “The Ballad of Lawless Soirez” after seeing a grave at a cemetery in Erath, where my mother grew up.

A promotional photo from the label that released his CD is in a prominent place in my apartment in Baton Rouge, and it’s part of a poster that announced a Lundi Gras show in 2007 at Checkpoint Charlie’s in New Orleans. I moved heaven and earth to get back from Florida in time to see the show, and it was worth it.

Gill has twice filled in for an original member of Old Crow Medicine Show. The first time, his buddies asked if Gill could play banjo. He said yes, and then promptly went to a music store and taught himself to play one.

Long ago he ran lap after lap around anything I ever did on the guitar. Part musicologist, part encyclopedia and in large part a student of countless finger-picking styles and of anything with strings on it, Gill is all but a chameleon of the fretboard, and it’s been enjoyable to watch him evolve.

Dobro? Banjo? Guitar? Piano? Accordion? Oh, and harmonica? Yes, he can. What do you want him to play?

OK. That’s enough proud uncle blogging for one day, I suppose.

The family will be watching tonight in Lake Charles. I’ll be with them in spirit, then join them tomorrow for the holidays. Maybe I’ll see you around, friends.

Hey, Gill, if you read this before the taping, tell Dustin Hoffman I’m a big fan of his work, am one of the people who admits to loving “Ishtar” and agrees that “telling the truth can be dangerous business.” He’ll know.

This is the Gill Landry public relations and communications office, Baton Rouge division, signing off for now. Merry Christmas.