Coming home for the summer
Currys delight fans during family reunion
It was a two-week respite for the Currys to come back to where all three first got started playing together, a pair of Port St. Joe brothers and their cousin from upstate New York.
At a family house on Cape San Blas, about 40 or so members of the extended family, anchored in Gulf County by physicians Tom and Elizabeth Curry, came from as far as New York and California, Virginia and Texas, for a traditional summer reunion.
Two new little ones have joined the clan in the last year-and-a-half, and it was one infant’s first one. “Numbers are growing, baby!” said bass player Galen, the upstate New Yorker who a decade and four albums ago interlaced into a trio with his Port St. Joe cousins, Tommy and Jimmy, in Charlottesville, Virginia to go full tilt with the musicianship they first began sharing together as boys.
The verb interlaced aptly applies to the sweet, finessed harmony the three bring to their sound, which began professionally in the folk-rock music festival circuit.
“Three-part harmonies lends itself to folk music,” said Galen. “As we evolved we kind of just write songs and they’re whatever we want them to be. We all have input in all our songs. We’re not that worried if it falls into a certain genre, into a certain group.
“We write a song and try to serve the song as best we can, especially now that we have extra members in the band who play with us and record with us,” he said. “If the song is good, then we can make it work.”
A year ago musicians drummer Sebastian Green, guitarist Sam Whedon and Alex Rees on keyboard joined the Currys for their fourth studio album, Keepers, which was released in October. Next week, for their next three concert dates, in Cherry Valley, Keeseville, and Lake Placid, New York, Green, Whedon and Rees will join the Currys live on stage.
The Apalachicola Yacht Club in Apalachicola was packed July 25 for the Currys’ first local appearance in a while, the audience swelled by a number of young relatives who were on hand, including young cousins from the San Francisco area.
Cousin Scott Curry, a younger Bay Area hipster, offered his assessment of the Currys music, which differs in more ways than one from the Psychedelic Bass variety, as played by such electronic and indie bands as Chmura, Of The Trees, Saturna, Goth Babe, Still Woozy and Dayglo, that he prefers.
“If it’s not about love, it’s good. If it’s about love, it depends,” said Scott.
“I don’t hold that opinion,” interjected Sonya, another cousin.
That’s probably because Sonya has listened to, and Scott perhaps not, the song “Man In Love With You” on Keepers, a whimsical take that deftly captures the deepened freedom that ensues when maturing love stands on its own two feet and stops dancing around easy definition.
Or the simplicity and assertiveness of the title track of Keepers, whose refrain proclaims:
“Honey, you’re a keeper
I know you know it’s true
Life’s a little cheaper
When I’m away from you
You’ve made a true believer
Of this lonely-hearted fool
And I’ll keep on keepin’ up with you
‘Cause honey, I’m a keeper, too.”
“We like to hide our true emotions,” joked Galen. “We don’t like talking about emotions; we’re all very repressed.”
Tommy, the same age as Galen, has been married going on three years, and younger brother Jimmy’s engaged to fiance Hayley Twyman, who was in the audience at both the Yacht Club and the July 30 appearance at the Indian Pass Raw Bar.
“We used to play on the porch over there,” said Galen, pointing out the way the raw bar was configured when the Currys were first starting out. “It was a fun scene.
“Jimmy Mac (the late Jimmy McNeill) was very generous in letting us play here all the time in every different formation, as solos and duos. He basically gave us free range to play whatever, even when we were terrible,” said Galen. “And now that we’re slightly less terrible they let us come here whenever we want, which is very nice. This is our hometown spot.”
Cousin Maya Curry, who plays with a band in the Santa Rosa, California area, joined the trio on stage at the raw bar for a few numbers, and offered a very adept flute accompaniment.
“We come from a big family of artists and creators, a lot of writers and teachers and academics and actors so people are in the arts,” said Galen. “We criticize each other all the time.”
Even beyond the Currys’ extended family there’s a large and growing fan base in the area, such as Apalachicola’s Linda Allen, who attended both appearances.
“She loves them. She’s got the CDs. She comes and watches the shows,” said granddaughter Camille Williams, who together with her friend Rosie Davis, joined her grandmother and her sister and sister-in-law at the raw bar show.
Allen said she first heard the Currys at an outdoor concert on Commerce Street 10 years ago at the corner of what is now WaterCraft Brewing, and was smitten.
“Anytime they’re anywhere I can get to by car I go see them, down here at the raw bar, the Haughty Heron, at the yacht club, in Tallahassee at the folk festival,” she said. “I’ve been married for 50 years and I’ve always loved music and listen to it every day, new music, old music. I like all the new stuff. I just enjoy it, it makes you feel good, it makes you happy
“I love that they write their music; I love the words to their music. I love the way they interact with each other and with the crowd. I just appreciate all that,” Allen said.
For Davis, it was the first time seeing the Currys in person after hearing a few of their songs.
“I thought they were great in person,” she said. “They do really good covers. Sometimes when people do covers they try to put their own spin on it and they do a little too much but I thought they were fantastic. They did a great job.”
After a series of appearances from now through the end of the year, wrapping up with a pair of Christmas concerts in the North Florida area, the Currys will be making a return trip in January to Cuba after a first-time journey last year guided by a friend who does birding trips.
“We led a great trip last year,” said Galen. “Two weeks of trips to Havana and the Bay of Pigs and this year we’re going to Santiago on the east coast.”
The trip stays only in privately-owned homes, not in government facilities, as per U.S. rules, and still has slots open for the January 2025 trips, which offer a week in Cuba, and one in Guatemala, or both.
“Everyone we met was super nice,” said Galen. “We played some music for our group, met a bunch of farmers, toured some farms and ate a lot of good food.
“They’re not doing great there,” he said. “They were very appreciative. Tommy brought a bunch of guitar strings and strings for the quatro. A lot of people were on the street playing there and they’d be missing a string and they were very appreciative to have new strings.
“People wanted shirts; basic necessities aren’t as available there,” Galen said. “They’re not doing great but it’s not the people’s fault. Once the Soviet Union broke up, they had some rough times in the ‘90s in Cuba.
“When people are wanting basic necessities, I don’t think the form of government that exists in your country is necessarily at the forefront of your mind. If there was a communist regime and everyone was well-fed, most people would be fine with it and the same if there was a functioning democracy,” he said.
“But I’m not an expert on any of this,” added Galen. “I just sing silly songs and play the bass. It’s the guitar with only four strings; it’s the easiest one.
“They’re Fisher-Price strings,” he said. “They’re huge.”
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.