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Photos by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Members of the Wednesday Night Special bluegrass band, left to right: Spence Overton on guitar, Jason Throneberry on bass, Jean Cox on guitar and vocals, Keith Davis on mandolin, and Brett Martin on guitar, rehearse in a local barn June 19.
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Photos by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Brett Martin plays harmonica.
In a red barn behind a Linden Street home in Trussville, the music makes the lightning bugs dance.
Wednesday Night Special, a five-piece band, converges on that midweek night to play bluegrass, country and rock classics. Sometimes, they practice their original songs.
The band, made up of Trussville residents Jean Cox, Jason Throneberry, Keith Davis and Brett Martin, as well as Birmingham resident Spence Overton, started playing just over two years ago in Cox’s backyard at Sunday afternoon get-togethers for their kids. Cox began singing along as the rest played their instruments. She’s spent the last couple years learning to play the guitar.
Cox sings and plays the guitar. Overton also plays the guitar. Throneberry is on bass, Davis strums the mandolin and Martin plays guitar and harmonica. As for their day jobs, Cox sells building materials and is a member of the Friends of Pinchgut Creek in Trussville. Overton works with the Freshwater Land Trust, Throneberry works for The Nature Conservancy, Davis is a nurse at Children’s of Alabama and Martin works as an erosion sediment control inspector.
The backyard jam sessions, or the ones under Throneberry’s carport, posed some issues. Kids on skateboards flying between band members. Dogs jumping on them. The kids playing along. All of that is just life, just fun, but when the five-member band began to get serious about playing gigs, they had to find somewhere to escape. Enter the red barn, owned by the Nabers family.
“The smell of this barn to me is like the smell of ‘It’s time to make music,’” Cox said. “I love every smell in the barn.”
The barn is a sensory jackpot. The band faces an orange Kubota LA1065, a large tractor that dominates most of the floor space. Cox strums an acoustic guitar by its detached deck. Overton plays his guitar by a Kubota zero-turn lawnmower. They all try not to trip over their wires. There is a table saw and rusted vice on a work bench beside a Kobalt tool chest.
Photos by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Brett Martin plays harmonica.
Metal shelves hold various liquids that running a large tractor and other outdoor equipment require. There are oil filters, ladders and boxes. A can of Fix-A-Flat is one bumped shoulder away from falling to the floor. The walls are insulated with spray foam, creating a lovely space to jam when the doors are rolled down.
“I love it,” Davis said. “[The Nabers family] has been so generous just to let us come in here. At first I’m like, ‘Are they sure they’re OK with this?’ Especially when we start plugging in just because there’s a noise factor there, and when it starts getting late, I start getting a little more self-conscious about it. But you know what, when they come and they post up outside and just get into it and start clapping and having a good time, that’s awesome for us.”
Throneberry, an Arkansas native, feels at home in a barn.
“This was my growing up,” he said. “There was always this in my life. There was a shed, a barn, a quiet place. This is our kind of quiet space, and it’s got great acoustics, which is weird for just a tin barn with a lot of insulation, but mostly this is just a space where they’re nice enough to just let us come.”
Wednesday Night Special’s first gig was this spring. The group has played in Shelby, at Cahaba Brewing Company, in Leeds and its first hometown gig at Trussville’s Rodney Scott’s BBQ location in June.
“I think it was a resounding success,” Martin said after the Trussville gig. “It was awesome. I love the amount of people that were here. We’re kind of a new group, too, so it’s comfortable for us. Rodney Scott’s BBQ is amazing. They’re always super supportive. I think it went very well.”
Throneberry, like Davis, Overton and Martin, played a lot of music growing up, in orchestras, churches and garages.
“It makes us feel like teenagers,” Throneberry said. “That’s kind of probably why we do it. It gives us time to not only play music, but to have quiet time and talk about stuff we care about with each other. And now, I mean, we’ve become like we’re brothers and sisters at this point. Nobody quits or has egos. We’re all like-minded people. Nobody really wants to stand out. We just all want to do something very well.”
“I just want to play music,” Overton said. “So, the more times we can do that, I’ll be happy. I’ll go wherever we have to go. I’m really happy. We’re all very inspired to play music.”
