Rett Madison recently played a set at Permanent Records Roadhouse, opening up for Valley Queen. (If interested, I did a Valley Queen write-up a few months back, which you can read here.) I've seen Rett Madison a couple times prior. I first saw a set back in 2019 at the Bootleg Theater. During our online lives of 2020, I caught another set via a WFNM showcase. I did happen to mention in another blog post that I nearly caught a set back in 2018, but my arrival time was off by 30 minutes or so.
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| Rett Madison at Permanent Records Roadhouse |
Her solo set was only six songs, which allowed time for her amusing storytelling skills. The first three songs were unreleased material (though she mentioned that "Eleven Wednesdays" will be released in March). The final three songs were from her music catalog. Her music was filled with Americana-folk sounds.
What about those stories? She started to tell her story for "Eleven Wednesdays" before shifting gears, because she noticed that the Sunday crowd that was filled with the lovers of the get home by 9 p.m. types were being a bit too standoffish. "Anybody ever . . . I like where it sounds in the middle of the room as an audience member. There's no pressure on your ears. If you want to come closer, I'm not going to hurt you. I got a guitar." I don't know about that, I suspect a guitar can be used as a nice attack weapon, if needed. It was a nicely packed crowd to catch her set as well as Valley Queen and Jean-Luc Eldenwood and one could hear Valley Queen giving Madison a shout out for helping break the audience shyness.
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| Rett Madison at Permanent Records Roadhouse |
But what about that story told in her West Virginia accent? The song "Eleven Wednesdays" is about picking up her ex-significant other at the dentist. The eleven is the number of weeks that had passed since she moved out of their shared house . . . actually, fourteen as there were three weeks she slept on the couch.
The story behind "Levi's In the Dresser" is about putting away clothing with the expectation of finding a hidden engagement ring, but instead finding a breakup letter. Was this a personal story? Her response left it up to interpretation, "Not my story . . . exactly." She used the song to highlight her vocal powers.
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| Rett Madison at Permanent Records Roadhouse |
"Flee Market" was the first of her three released songs. It was about going to a flee market and finding a most ugly leopard print shirt, but then realizing that her mom would have loved wearing that shirt. The song can be found off her sophomore album "One for Jackie" which was shaped by the grief of losing her mother.
The most amusing story, at least for me, was her song "Pin-Up Daddy" and that makes it my song spotlight. The song is about gender fluidity, but the inspiration behind the song is about being a failed pageant queen. She mentioned that at the age of 15 she lost a pageant so badly that she decided to toss in the towel. There was a catch; however. She had signed a contract with her coach that required her to pay him $100 if she ever quick doing pageants. The coach responded, "You better go down to Taco Bell and give my boyfriend a hundred dollars." Why he wanted her to give the boyfriend the hundred dollars was not explained, but her mother initially decided that they weren't paying a hundred dollars until a Google search was done and they found out that the coach had a criminal record.
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| Rett Madison at Permanent Records Roadhouse |
'Cause I'm a pin up daddy
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