Metro Pulse/Music/Eye on the Scene

Sweet New POV

Don't miss PBS's POV series this Tuesday night at 10; it's the national broadcast of Sweet Old Song, a documentary about one-time Knoxvillian Howard Armstrong, the one-of-a-kind fiddler and mandolinist whom astonished music writers tend to label as blues mainly just because he's black. He's really more of a proto-bluegrass string-jazzman, sometimes called "the last surviving musician of the black string-band genre." The film, shown in previews in Knoxville during Armstrong's visit and sold-out performance at the KMA early last week, is the second PBS documentary about Armstrong to be made in the last 20 years.

But it's very different from Terry Zwigoff's uninhibited 1985 classic, Louie Bluie, which portrayed a randy, sometimes demonic bachelor swapping barbs with his appreciative chums. Armstrong has fewer peers to joke with now, but he's married, finally settling down at 93. This documentary, by young Boston director Leah Mahan, is about the married Armstrong and his wife, 60ish artist/musician Barbara Ward (who turns out to be nearly as big a part of this film as he is), and the fiddler's nostalgic homecomings to his old hometowns of Knoxville and LaFollette. Despite Armstrong's occasional on-camera crankiness, it's a quiet, gentle and rather willfully feminine look at the man whose collection of pornography and off-color stories were memorable parts of Zwigoff's take on him. Armstrong is a complex character, and Sweet Old Song is the yin to Louie Bluie's yang.

We might wish for more music, and more of his astonishing life, which connects his pawn-shop busking days in pre-radio Knoxville and LaFollette, and his first broadcasts and recording in Knoxville, circa1930; and reuniting in the '70s with his fellow former Tennessee Chocolate Drops as Martin, Bogan, and Armstrong; with his Hawaii years, and his presence at the bombing of Pearl Harbor somewhere in between. But the hour-long film is worth a look for such recent scenes as an East Knoxville church, a visit to a LaFollette high school, a WDVX interview and an affecting visit to his family graveyard.

Go.

Thursday: Two for the price of... none? See Seven Nations for free on Market Square, hang on to your wrist band, and see Pat Ramsey gratis at Sassy Ann's. Better than a bargain!

Friday: Is this a great town to be skint, or what? Swampy stompers Blue Mother Tupelo, like every other act at Barley's, costs nada.

Saturday: Look, I can't make all the decisions for you. Read the articles and decide which act you'd rather see: Jucifer or Leslie Woods.

Sunday: Music fans of all stripes will be wowed by Patty Griffin at the Laurel Theater.

Monday: And if you didn't dig Patty, you must be the type for Andrew W.K. at Blue Cats.

Tuesday: Polish up your resume and cover letter at the Knoxville Career Center.

Wednesday: Cut your hair and get a job. You need the beer dough.

—Emma "Throw me a frickin' bone here" Poptart with Jack Neely