Bill Kirchen, George Bedard offer "Honky Tonk Holiday" at The Ark

Bill Kirchen, pictured, and George Bedard perform a "Honky Tonk Holiday" concert next Thursday at The Ark.

David Thrower

Kirchen, an Ann Arbor native who moved away 40 years ago this year, comes to The Ark on Thursday, December 10 for “Bill Kirchen’s Honky Tonk Holiday.”

Bill Kirchen has now been doing some variation on this holiday-homecoming show for about “10 or 15 years,” he guesses. Over the years, the show has also included Ann Arborites past and present — like bassist-singer-songwriter Sarah Brown (who’s been based in Austin for many years now), the now-deceased local icon Cub Koda, and George Bedard, still a mainstay of the local roots rock scene.

But “Sarah just came through town over the summer with Dave Alvin” — as part of Alvin’s Guilty Women lineup — “so this year, it’s just me and George,” says Kirchen. Which means the audience will get a big helping of twin-guitar heroics. Bedard will essentially be joining Kirchen’s band for the evening — which will be big fun for Kirchen, who has always lauded Bedard’s guitar-slinging talents.

“We first started doing this show because a few of us were coming home to see our parents for the holidays,” says Kirchen, who first rose to prominence as a founding member of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen — a group that formed in Ann Arbor in the mid-1960s before the members began relocating to California, starting with Kirchen in ‘69.

It was a couple of years later that the Airmen notched their big hit, “Hot Rod Lincoln,” showcasing Kirchen’s high-octane, speedy, twang-fueled guitar runs.

“The whole scene there in Ann Arbor is still very near and dear to me,” says Kirchen, who’s lived in the Washington, D.C. area for many years now. “It’s always a trip down memory lane. I never know what strata from my past I will bump into — someone from high school, or my hippie days, or whatever — that’s always nice, to reconnect with those folks.”

Kirchen also has some great ‘60s-era Ann Arbor musical memories. “I got to see Bill Monroe, and the Kentucky Colonels, on campus,” says Kirchen by phone from his home. “We also played on a bill with The Byrds one year, and I saw Bob Dylan perform at Ann Arbor High School,” as it was called back then.

For this show, “we’ll be doing about half holiday songs, and half original songs (including some Bedard originals). We’ll be leaning on the golden age of country-music classics — songs by Hank Snow, Buck Owens, plus some blues and R&B — any kind of rootsy Christmas songs.”

For Kirchen, roots music has always been a deep well from which he drank up his many influences — folk music, blues, honky-tonk, rockabilly, vintage R&B, Western-swing, classic country…..

“When I first discovered these styles, they just seemed much more immediate than what was going on in pop music. I know these roots folks were trying to sell a song, the same as everyone else, but they hit on the more adult themes, and had more drama and immediacy than I was hearing in pop.”

Kirchen’s guitar style is so steeped in the deep-twang sound of classic country and rockabilly that he’s been called “The King of Dieselbilly” — not to mention “Titan of the Telecaster.” His last album, “Hammer of the Honky-Tonk Gods” displayed his reverence for the great country, roots rock and bluegrass guitar pickers who originally inspired him, like Scotty Moore, James Burton, Duane Eddy, Red Volkaert (from Merle Haggard’s band), Merle Travis and Doc Watson.

Kirchen’s next album, tentatively slated for release in spring or summer of 2010, was recorded in England this year, and finds Kirchen hosting a litany of guest stars.

“For this record, I wanted to get together with a lot of the people I’d performed or recorded with over the years,” says Kirchen. “I wrote a song with Dan Hicks that we duet on, and wrote another one that Maria Muldaur and I sing together, and Jorma Kaukonen does some picking on a tune.”

Sarah Brown co-wrote some tunes for the disc, which also features a vocal performance from Chris O’Connell, from the original Asleep at the Wheel line-up. Elvis Costello sings on one track, Nick Lowe and Paul Carrack duet on a Merle Haggard cover, and Commander Cody plays piano on one tune.

“It’s mostly country, with some rockabilly, and some Western swing,” says Kirchen. “But when I was writing the songs, and when we were deciding on how to present them, I also wanted to honor these people I was singing and playing with. So I also tried to lean in the direction of the style of music that each of these folks already play.”

Kevin Ransom is a free-lance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at KevinRansom10@aol.com.

PREVIEW
“Bill Kirchen’s Honky Tonk Holiday,” with special guest George Bedard.
Who: Kirchen, an Ann Arbor native who moved away 40 years ago, reunites with his guitar-slinging local-hero buddy, Bedard.
What: A mix of twangy originals and Christmas-themed country songs.
Where: The Ark, 316 South Main Street.
When: 8 p.m. Thursday, December 10.
How much: $20.
Details: 734-761-1451 or The Ark web site.