By Chip Chandler — Digital Content Producer
The Annie Moses Band, as seen on a pair of popular PBS specials, will give a free concert Sunday in Amarillo.
The concert is set for 6 p.m. Sunday at First Baptist Church, 1208 S. Tyler St.
I spoke recently with band leader Annie Wolaver Dupre (no, there's no actual Annie Moses in the band) and with its youngest member, Jeremiah Wolaver, about life on the road in a sibling band; narrowing down the list of classic love songs the band would cover on its new album, The Art of the Love Song; and who the coolest sibling is.
Some highlights:
- "When you're 4 and everybody in the family is doing (music), it's kind of like the thing to do," Jeremiah Wolaver said. But he wasn't about to follow exactly in his siblings' footsteps. "I played violin for, I think, two weeks," he said. "When I actually made a sound, I told my mom, 'Nope. I can't do that.'"
- It was very freeing to leave Juilliard and strictly classical music behind, Wolaver Dupre said: "The classical world is very much about kind of reinventing the creativity of the past, and so stepping into more of a commercial space and incorporating everything from fiddle music and Americana to pop elements was very refreshing and very fun and gave us a lot of creative freedom."
- "I'm always trying to get songs that sound like Paul Simon wrote the lyrics and Radiohead wrote the music," Jeremiah Wolaver said. "That's my goal in life."
Here's the audio of my interview with Jeremiah Wolaver:
And here's the audio of my interview with Annie Wolaver Dupre:
The group is comprised of six siblings — Wolaver Dupre, Alex Wolaver, Benjamin Wolaver, Camille Rose Da Silva, Gretchen Wolaver and Jeremiah Wolaver — who are the children of Nashville songwriters Bill and Robin Wolaver. (Annie Moses, for whom Wolaver Dupre was named, was Robin's grandmother.)
The parents formed the band in 2001 with the oldest three siblings, breaking through with 2008's This Glorious Christmas. Christmas with the Annie Moses Band debuted on PBS in 2009, followed this year by The Art of the Love Song.
The concert originally was scheduled to be held in the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts, but was moved to First Baptist in late September. Refunds are available through PanhandleTickets.
Chip Chandler is a digital content producer for Panhandle PBS. He can be contacted at Chip.Chandler@actx.edu, at @chipchandler1 on Twitter and at www.facebook.com/chipchandlerwriter on Facebook.
