At SXSW this spring, there was a show in a church that I went to see one night. I was there to see Kenny Vaughn play with the fantastic band Marty Stuart has now, The Fabulous Superlatives. In the course of the evening, there was a good set by Olabelle. I liked them pretty much, but the part I liked best was the dobro player on stage left. (Okay, she was hot and she was playing her ass off.) Her presence onstage was so solid, so take-charge, without trying to steal any thunder from the singers or the song.
I was looking through the program in the dark, trying to see who that was. When someone got around to introducing the players, and said she was Cindy Cashdollar, I thought "Right, mighta known that...", because one hears her name so often, either on Prairie Home Companion or any of the many records on which the artist appears, including Bob Dylan's Grammy winner, Time Out Of Mind.
With all that she has accomplished and embellished, Slide Show from 2004 was her solo debut. As she mentions, it's a record that keeps resurfacing, and is still and steadily finding its way into the scene and the marketplace. She's too busy playing gigs with everybody under the sun to be spending her time just promoting her own record.
But it's a super disc for lovers of lap steel, pedal steel, dobro, or any and all of the luminaries who appear within: Sonny Landreth, Herb Remington, Mike Auldridge, Marcia Ball, Johnny Nichols, Jorma Kaukonen, Steve James, Lucky Oceans, and Redd Volkaert. That is a star-studded debut in anyone's book.
And what a really nice person Cindy was to talk to, a real peach. When a monster player has a sweet personality, it just makes the music that much more fun to listen to for me. We highly recommend Slide Show, and we know that this conversation with Cindy Cashdollar will make you want to find out more about this fascinating artist.
