Jason Ringenberg is a pioneer from the past that continues to light up the present. Endearing, charismatic and entertaining start the description rolling, but there is so much more when he fills a room with stories, music and a taste of blazing a trail. There surely can’t be a politer old punk around, one forever grateful that folks are still hanging in there. Merging the fizz of punk with a blast of rhinestone rock stamped Jason and the Scorchers’ mark on both sides of the pond in the 80s. However it was country music and the Nashville air that bound things together, mind you going against the grain was core to the Scorchers development. You could say they were country’s crazy cousin. All this was boldly put in front of a Birmingham audience once again. Jason Ringenberg loves the Kitchen Garden and the faithful from across the ages love him back.
The recovery from a frenetic three minutes may take longer, but moves, fire and an accentuated style still remain.. A rhinestone shirt change mid-gig is a slice of subtle theatre and a second half of obscure requests spices up a show. If the latter seems a touch odd, a finale of the ‘hits’ including ‘Broken Whiskey Glass’, ‘Shop it Around’, ‘Harvest Moon’ and ‘Absolutely Sweet Marie’ send you off home humming.
Jason Ringenberg got to the South as soon as he could and has now spent 43 years in Nashville. He represents the social conscience side of the city and is heavily storied in Tennessee’s ills and the wider Civil Rights Movement. He mixes the curiosity of a modern historian with the bones of an old rocker to serve up an individual take on a musical melange.
From anecdotal pasts (‘God Bless the Ramones’) to Farmer Jason classics (‘The Tractor Goes Chug Chug Chug’ and ‘Dyson the Bison’), the set tonight at a bated Kitchen Garden was diverse and revealing. Songs like ‘The Freedom Riders Weren’t Free’ and ‘I’m Walking Home’ followed lengthy but engaging stories. Associations in the industry were rife as exemplified by writing ‘Bible and a Gun’ with Steve Earle and linking up with crack Nashville writers like Bob DiPiero.
The highly flung label-signed days of the Scorchers was celebrated alongside more solo and satisfying recent achievements generating from the Artist-in-Residence stint in California that led to 2019s memorable STAND TALL album. All the recollections ooze with gratitude, a trait that runs right through the Jason Ringenberg persona.
Two sets and over an hour and three-quarters of interaction heralded a Birmingham return to a venue that has served him well in the past. The exchange for a committed support is the unveiling of one stylish cool cat. If you fused the essence of punk and the panache of the Nashville Sound to spearhead alt-country in its heyday, you have every right to stand tall. Jason Ringenberg does that at every gig. Although, always in reach of his audience who hang on every song, word and movement.