Live music best bets: Gov't Mule returns to Asheville, all-star lineup at Guitar Camp

Asheville native Warren Haynes never knows exactly who from his past he will see when he plays a hometown show.

“I’m not always in a position to take notice of everything going on in front of me, but it is pretty bizarre to look out and see so many familiar faces, and I see people I haven’t seen in years or decades,” he said recently.

Haynes and his longtime group, Gov’t Mule, return to Asheville to open its summer tour and will perform at Salvage Station on June 3. The show begins at 6:30 p.m. with local openers Travers Brothership.

The group had to shelve a spring tour after Haynes suffered a shoulder injury. Luckily, it didn’t require the guitarist to have surgery.

“Everyone was chomping at the bit to get back on the road, and we were so excited to start playing, and then to have to cancel shows on top of that was such a disappointment,” he said. “I’m really excited to come back and play at home and that we’re kicking off our summer tour there, which is nice. It’s good to start the tour with a hometown crowd.”

Gov’t Mule spent time during the COVID-19 pandemic writing and recorded new material. The band recorded two albums at once, in two different rooms at the same studio.

The smaller room was filled with vintage gear and small amplifiers, and the foursome, including drummer Matt Abts, bassist Jorgen Carlsson and keyboardist Danny Louis, recorded a blues album titled “Heavy Load Blues.”

In the other room they recorded a more traditional Gov’t Mule record, which Haynes said will likely be released next year.

“I’ve been making a list for years of cover songs that I might want to do when the time came. I’m been thinking of doing a traditional blues album for years,” Haynes said. “Blues is a big part of everything I do and everything that Gov’t Mule does, but we’ve never, for the most part, on record at least, done anything traditional. Even on stage, when we approach blues, we approach it with a Gov’t Mule mentality. For this record, we wanted to pay more tribute to where it comes from.”

The band’s first blues album will be highlighted during its Asheville show, but so will the group’s older songs.

“Our shows are long so there is plenty of time to do a little of everything. We’re play several songs from the ‘Heavy Load Blues’ record and a lot of stuff from throughout our twentysomething years,” Haynes said. “It’s getting close to 30 years, which is scary to me.”

Guitar Camp ends with celebration show

Asheville-born flatpicking guitarist Bryan Sutton is ready to showcase the breath of North Carolina’s acoustic guitar history.

Sutton is hosting the inaugural Blue Ridge Guitar Camp June 1-5 at Brevard College, where 100 campers from across the country, and a few international players, will come to the mountains to learn.

The camp will conclude with an all-star event, the North Carolina Guitar Celebration, at 7:30 p.m. June 4 at the Whittington-Pfohl Auditorium. Included on the bill are American dobro legend Jerry Douglas and bluegrass veteran Peter Rowan, along with camp instructors, David Grier, Courtney Hartman (formerly of Della Mae), Grant Gordy and Michael Daves.

Other guest musicians include Woody Platt and Nicky Sanders of the Steep Canyon Rangers, musician and artist Shannon Whitworth, guitar virtuoso Molly Tuttle and her band Golden Highway, Piedmont blues luminary and Carolina Chocolate Drops founding member Dom Flemons, Grammy-nominated Americana duo Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley, and more.

“Camps oftentimes have camp concerts as part of the festivities, but not quite to this scale. It’s nice to see this blossom into its own thing,” said Sutton, who is a Grammy Award winner and a nine-time International Bluegrass Music Association Guitar Player of the Year.

Sutton will host the night, which he said will have the feel of a variety show with lots of moving parts and musicians moving on and off the stage.

“We are allowing people to do their thing, but we also want to create some collaborative things on stage that will be unique to that moment,” Sutton said.

The plan, Sutton said, is to celebrate acoustic music that has been performed in North Carolina. There will be some educational components to the show, but it will mostly be a fun night of music.

“I’m from North Carolina and I’m a guitar player,” Sutton said, “so let’s turn this into a North Carolina Guitar Celebration where it’s a show but it is also a mini-festival. It’s been fun to find people who represent the diversity of North Carolina guitar music.”

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville live music: Gov't Mule, all-star lineup at Guitar Camp