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SuperBuzz

Outback Jamboree: Back porch pickin' for 20 years

Alan Rogers

Francis Stinson of Newton and Clyde Stellings of Hildebran dance the two-step at the Outback Jamboree.

WHERE IS THIS PLACE?
2209 Buffalo Shoals Road, Catawba
From Hickory, take Interstate 40 east to exit 132. Turn right onto Thornburg Drive, NE/N.C. 16 South and follow N.C. 16 for 5.2 miles. Turn left to stay on N.C. 16 and drive for 5.7 miles. Turn left onto Buffalo Shoals Road and drive 1.4 miles. The Out Back Jamboree is on the left behind a red brick house.

DETAILS
7 p.m. Tuesdays: Jam night
6:30 p.m. Thursdays: Open mic singers, usually featuring Judy Goode and Levi Jones
7 p.m. Saturdays:: All acoustic night
Cost:: $5 (“Duke Power don’t run the lights for free,” says owner Russell “Fred” Shook.)

By Ragan Robinson | Hickory Daily Record

Published: June 11, 2009

Catawba - The sun is a little bright outside for the strains "I'd Just Love to Lay You Down" escaping the walls of the Out Back Jamboree. But inside, the ambience is just country enough for Conway Twitty in the early evening.

Red-checkered tablecloths drape the long tables, with chairs in the color of a 1970s kitchen, avocado green, harvest gold, faded ivory. On concrete floors, patrons dance in the dim light of the barn-sized building, two-stepping, keeping time to the mostly classic country music emanating from the gray-carpeted stage.

This is the kind of place where people whisper a joke if it has the word "damn" in it.
"It's just like hanging' out at home, ain't it," says Judy Goode, who replaces the "hell yeah" in "Redneck Woman" with "heck yeah.

She's a regular Thursday-night performer, along with Levi Jones, a tall black man in a spotless white suit whose country stylings invite the invariable comparison to Charlie Pride.
Jones' voice, the one you can hear from the grassy field that serves as a parking lot, may be more resonant.

The Out Back Jamboree is Russell "Fred" Shook's place, a private club in his back yard.
He grew up with a family full of front-porch musicians. All his uncles and cousins played bluegrass and country on guitars or mandolins.

"I went to sleep a many nights on the couch with my cousins and my uncles still pickin'" Shook says.
In those days, Gene Autry songs scored his dreams. He still keeps the old-time music close.
"This is what you call back porch pickin' right here, I guess."

Thursdays are open mic nights. Saturdays are all acoustic. Jam night is on Tuesdays.
Here, you'll hear the songs they don't play on country radio.

Jones does a Cal Smith cover of "The Lord Knows I'm Drinking," even though the only thing they drink at the Out Back is 50-cent cups of coffee and $1 soft drinks.

Judy, on a more standard note, might throw a little country into her version of "The Twist."
"Lord, it goes like this," she sings with a little-girl giggle.

Rob Chambers of Lincolnton comes on open mic night.

"I think all over America, this is probably the kind of place keeping traditional music alive," he says.
"Songs years ago were written from the heart, from life experience. Then the corporate engine stepped in."

The Out Back Jamboree has been around long enough to watch country take on a pop tinge. And it's seen bluegrass go from your grandpa's music to the stuff of top 40 hit-makers.
It's been there almost 21 years.

Shook, once an upholsterer, put up the building thinking he would buy and re-sell factory-outlet seconds.

Instead, he tried making it into an auction house.

"That wasn't doing too good so we started pickin' and grinnin' in it," he says.

He was used to having a house full of players. People would come from Hickory, Cherryville, Maiden, to play old bluegrass hymns – "some of the prettiest music there is," Shook insists.

They just moved into the building out back. Before long, Shook started bringing in other bands.
He says he battled with the county for years for the right to keep the place open, and spent $30,000 in attorney fees along the way.

The Out Back can hold around 200 people, although it's been a long time since that many came.
That's OK with Shook. He'll keep playing host — the Out Back doesn't need a bouncer — as long as folks show up at all.

Why go to all the trouble?

"The same reason you go to the table and eat," he says. "You love it and you can't keep on without it."