Plea for help got Austin performer first Memphis gig

Austin-based singer Meagan Tubb performs Sunday at the Hi-Tone Café and, Mr. Handy's Blues Hall.

In the old days, a performer like Austin-based roots singer-guitarist Meagan Tubb might have had trouble breaking into a market like Memphis without the help of a booking agent.

But instead, when Tubb began piecing together on her own the winter tour that brings her to town Sunday for a pair of shows -- a late afternoon appearance at the Hi-Tone Café and an evening slot at Mr. Handy's Blues Hall on Beale Street -- all she had to do was turn to Facebook.

"I was trying to get a gig in Memphis and just wasn't finding anything," Tubb recalls of getting her first Memphis booking. "I wrote on my Facebook status: 'Come on Memphis get us a gig.'"

One person who heard her cyber-cry for help was Darren Jay Fallas, a Memphis-based singer and guitar player who fronts a blues band that plays regularly on Beale Street. Fallas and Tubb have never met, but they became friends through the social media site when Fallas checked out the buzzed-about, statuesque guitar slinger online.

"She can play," Fallas says. "Her music is great. I listened to all her tracks that she has posted, and it's just very well thought-out, put-together music."

After reading Tubb's Facebook post, Fallas reached out and helped her book her Memphis shows. To thank him, Tubb offered Fallas and his band, The Delta Souls, the opening slot on the Hi-Tone show.

"Whenever I can, I try to help musicians from out of town who are coming through," Fallas says. "And with her it was easy because she's so good."

Tubb's winter tour brings her back to a region of the country she knows well. She grew up in Wildwood, Mo., outside St. Louis, beginning piano lessons at age 5 and guitar at 14. Her art teacher mother nurtured her creative side, and her early musical sensibility was shaped by her parents' blues, rock and soul record collection.

Tubb began gigging at area coffeehouses in high school and formed her first band while attending the University of Missouri at Columbia where she minored in piano. After graduation, she followed a friend to San Diego, where she quickly formed a new band and recorded her first EP. She lived there for three years, struggling with the anemic music scene as well as the high cost of living. On a trip to Austin, her eyes were opened to both cheaper living as well as a vibrant creative culture teeming with musicians.

"You can't live someplace and not be influenced by what's around you," she says. "You write from what you know. You write from what you experience. You can still be within the same genre, but maybe you're writing about something different."

Since arriving in Austin, Tubb has blossomed as an artist. In 2006, she and her group won a battle of the bands held at Poodie's Hilltop Bar & Grill, a legendary joint owned by Willie Nelson's late stage manager, Randall "Poodie" Locke. The prize package included $1,000, 20 hours of recording time, and a slot opening for Nelson.

"That's probably been the biggest thing that's happened to us," says Tubb, who has since opened for Nelson a second time. "I think everybody who's a musician dreams about that at some point."

In 2008, Tubb recorded her full-length debut at Nelson's Pedernales Studios in Spicewood, Texas. The record proved to be a turning point, with the song "Let Me Believe" winning best blues song at the 2009 Independent Music Awards.

Tubb's latest release, Cast Your Shadow, has been the band's calling card as they have expanded their touring reach, including their recent first foray into Europe.

"We went to Switzerland and played a few dates over there, which was exciting because I had no idea there was such a demand for our kind of music over there," says Tubb, who at 5-foot-10 cuts a striking figure on stage that once earned her the honor of being Miss May in a calendar of Austin musicians. "We were playing this one place in Bern, and we got done and they wouldn't let us leave. We had to play two more songs while they were yelling, 'Yeah, Austin. Yeah, Texas.'"

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Meagan Tubb & Shady People with Darren Jay & The Delta Souls

4 p.m. Sunday, Hi-Tone Café, 1913 Poplar. Cover: $5 at the door. For more information, call (901) 278-8663, or visit hitonememphis.com. 8 p.m. Sunday, Mr. Handy's Blues Hall, 182 Beale.

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