The Folk Singer

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette:

The Prairie Canaries: Ursula Davis and Casey Cagle – at the Emporia Farmers Market, June 17.

THE FOLK SINGER

“Those scratchy recordings from the early days of American music really resonated with me,” Casey Cagle said.

“It wasn’t always smooth and pretty by today’s standards, but there was something hauntingly honest about it.”

Cagle, 26, plays guitar and sings in the Emporia area. You might catch him strumming “Bummin’ an old Freight Train,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” or a Woody Guthrie tune. Folk music is where he leans first, but he also likes playing old-timey music and bluegrass.

Recently at the Farmers Market, I heard Casey Cagle and Ursula Davis sing as the Prairie Canaries. Then Derrick Doty showed up with a fiddle and Cagle and Doty performed together.

After enjoying his music at the Farmers Market, I decided to learn more about Casey Cagle, the Prairie Canaries, and the local music scene. So I asked if he’d meet me for coffee.

“Ursula (Davis) and I first sang together about three years ago,” he said. “I had been singing by myself at open mike nights and bluegrass jams and she was a welcome addition. It seems like she just kind of wraps her voice around mine.

“I was really impressed with her talent, how naturally she could pick up on people’s inflections and how she could enhance them.”

Davis is from Emporia. Cagle was raised near Parsons and came to town about seven years ago. He works at the Granada Coffee Co. where, he says, he gets “to meet and serve coffee to some of the most interesting people in Emporia.”

And he spent three years helping to restore the Granada Theatre, doing everything from making decorative plaster, to painting stencils on the ceiling, to sweeping the floor.

Cagle grew up around guitars and music (his dad and older brother played), but he didn’t really play the guitar himself until he was an adult.

His dad passed away when Cagle was 14; taking up the guitar was a way for him to feel close to his father.

“I’ve always loved the old music,” he said. “My parents listened to bluegrass and vintage country. I’m the youngest of six, and my parents were older than those of my peers, so I listened to different music than other people my age.”

Sometimes he performs with Josh Thuma, a bass player. In July, they’ll play at an event called Acoustic Vacation in Noel, Mo. “He’s a lot of fun,” Cagle said of Thuma. “And he has a great stage presence.”

Cagle, along with Derrick Doty of Council Grove and Kelsie and Ashlie Koehn of Burns, have often played together as group called Instant Grits.

Derrick Doty and Casey Cagle

Instant Grits is more of an old-timey string band, he said, adding that they’ve performed at barn dances around the state. “A lot of people don’t realize this, but Kansas has a thriving barn dance community.”

Cagle has played at Emma Chase Café in Cottonwood Falls, and often attends jam sessions at Derrick Doty’s barber shop in Council Grove.

“When I met (Doty), he was 19, owned his own business, and could play fiddle, mandolin, banjo, piano, trumpet, and many other instruments,” he said. “He was my hero.”

Jam sessions at the barber shop helped Cagle hone his guitar skills. Those evenings became “the soundtrack of our lives,” he said. “No matter what was going on for each of us, we could go there and everything would be fine for awhile.”

About local musicians, Cagle says that “Everyone knows each other and keeps pretty close tabs what others are doing. And the DeWayn Brothers have done a lot to bring other bands to town and to get people out to shows.”

One of the reasons Cagle likes Emporia is because of his friends and fellow musicians. And he was impressed by how well the town supported the Granada Theatre project. “We were so lucky. I’m so glad the community believed in it.”

He also enjoys the variety of small local events.

“People talk about how boring Emporia is, or Kansas is, and I just don’t understand how people can think that,” he said. “There’s so much going on that I can’t go to all the things I want to.”

Copyright 2009 ~ Cheryl Unruh

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE:  Casey recently got confirmation that he’ll be opening for Nick Charles at the Granada Theatre on September 15, 7:30 p.m.

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You can hear music by the Instant Grits on their MySpace page.