MSM 90s: Smooth, Monkee Wammack
9/9/26
By Monica Collier
The Muscle Shoals Meets annual philanthropic concert sets the bar high, friends. It’s absolutely astonishing how the world-famous Fiddleworms keep establishing these ridiculously lofty goals for themselves and MSM. Yes, the bar gets higher and higher each year and time and time again, the Fiddleworms achieve their goals.
Bar? What bar? I can hear Russell Mefford, Mitch Mann, Scott Todd, Clint Bailey, Steve Vickery, Michael Dillon Curington, David MacKay and all their MSM friends laughing at that silly bar.
Listen … do you hear that? It’s the sound of two special needs playgrounds being built – one at Brooks Elementary and one at L.E. Willson Elementary. This year’s MSM coffers were blessed with a surplus that went to The Healing Place, too, so you may hear a cha-ching adding some rhythm to the (playground) construction sounds. How’s that for spreading the MSM love around?
I don't want to open a can of worms ... or, do I? (If they're Fiddleworms, yeah, I'll open that can all day and all night.) In all seriousness, let's take a minute to think about how the 1990s were a golden age for technology. We started the decade still using cassettes, then we (somewhat reluctantly) shifted to CDs, and before the 90s were over, we were downloading MP3s.
The rise of the internet was fun, y'all. Those early years were kind of like the wild wild west. Yep. The 1990s challenged our beliefs about the consumption of music. From copyright infringement and artist compensation to the viability of record labels and physical media, the 90s were the best and worst of pretty much everything but, you know what? At least we knew what was real. Mercy, friends.
Y'all! Travis Wammack Jr., Monkee, is our anti-AI hero. Ain't no artificial intelligence bot that can do what Monkee does. Bet. He’s the realest of the real and he’s our very real pied piper of all things real and true. That goes for Mitch Mann, too. And, for that matter, all the Fiddleworms and friends and every legitimate artist who’s worth their salt and is courageous enough to be real. There. I said it. Fight me on it.
This third from last performance of the first set of Muscle Shoals Meets the 90s was a perfect representation of everything great about the 1990s. It also showcased all that's forever great about the Shoals. It was everything I never knew I needed in an MSM performance. Honestly, I still can’t seem to get enough of the Santana and Rob Thomas collab, “Smooth.” What a perfect song, y’all. But then, Monkee and Mitch were serving the same cool – SMOOTH – vibes as the original but with Shoals flavor. So good.
The horns were out, y’all, and Brad Guin, Drew White, and Ricky Burks were giving us the groove. Cissy Guin was keeping time, and I think Eddie Martin and Malcolm Singleton were on backing vocals duty. I think (maybe) Steve was singing backup, too. I may be wrong y’all, but was Ben Tanner on keys? One thing I know for sure is Mitch’s ax was on fire in the most fabulous Carlos Santana way imaginable. Love me some Santana.
The 90s are over, y’all. I don’t know about you, but I’m done with being like Mike, IYKYK. In these late 2020s, I’m going to be like Monkee and live life out loud. I don't want or need artificial intelligence to do anything on my behalf. I prefer to actually live my life instead of giving over the reins to some chat bot. That's just me, though.
Be like Monkee, friends.
Stay tuned. More to come.
Dig Worms.
Photo by Devona Hawkins
Is this not the coolest photo you've ever seen?
