Back to music via Beale Street

Courtesy Signal Flow Public Relations

Patrick Dodd Trio: Landon Moore, Patrick Dodd, Harry Peel

The clubs along Beale Street are filled with seasoned performers who have been honing their craft for decades in one of the most demanding musical settings around. So it was something of a surprise recently when the Beale merchants bestowed upon Patrick Dodd, an upstart blues musician who has been playing the street about three years, the honor of 2011 Entertainer of the Year.

"He's one of the acts that stands out as far as tourists, locals, musicians -- everyone loves him because he's an amazing musician," says Carson Lamm of River City Management, owners of two Beale clubs, Rum Boogie Café and Mr. Handy's Blues Hall, where Dodd and his blues-rock trio perform regularly.

While Dodd may be new to Beale, however, he is certainly not new to music. In fact, his suddenly surging blues career -- which includes his trio's debut EP, Future Blues, the release of which will be marked Saturday with a show at The Blue Money in Midtown -- is the unexpected second chorus in a song Dodd himself thought was over.

A native Memphian, Dodd was 15 when he first started jotting down song ideas in journals. Soon afterwards, he picked up his father's guitar and began to accompany himself, finding inspiration that year in two box sets he got for Christmas, one by Delta bluesman Howlin' Wolf and another by songwriting patron saint Bob Dylan.

Dodd played coffeehouses through high school and after graduation started the Patrick Dodd Band, a group that reflected the major influences of the late '90s, including the Dave Matthews Band. Led by its 20-year-old namesake, the Patrick Dodd Band, which did count one, seldom played blues song in its repertoire, released two well-received albums of alternative rock on the local Rockingchair label.

But by the turn of the millennium, Dodd had tired of the life of a musician.

"My wife and I had just started a family," says the father of three. "I kind of had that feeling that I wanted to be at home and be a dad and be around for them. So I went to work."

Dodd made his living as a landscaper, and except for occasionally writing songs at home that no one ever heard, essentially gave up music.

"My wife was sort of disappointed that I stopped playing music," Dodd says. "She always wanted me to play at least as a hobby because music had been such a big part of my life. Even as a kid, I was always moved by music. So I promised her that once the kids got a little older and I had some free time that I would give it another shot."

Dodd's return to music started in 2008 when he picked up the guitar again with the aim of building his chops.

"I wasn't really a guitarist back then," says Dodd of his early work on the instrument. "I was just a singer who kind of fiddled on the guitar. But then about five years ago I just got the urge to actually learn to play the guitar, and I just dove deep into it."

After two years of woodshedding, Dodd got a chance to show off his newfound six-string skills when a friend called him to substitute on a Beale gig. That date led to another and pretty soon, he had quit his day job and was gigging six nights a week under his own name with the rhythm section of drummer Harry Peel and bassist Landon Moore.

"I don't think I realized how badly I missed it until I actually got out and started doing it again," Dodd says. "I think that I had just put that part of my life behind me and just kind of locked it away and forgot about it."

Mentored by such Beale pros as Kirk Smithhart, Josh Roberts, and Greg Gumpel, Dodd, who estimates he's played over 610 shows over the past two years, has become one of the bigger attractions on the street thanks to a magnetic stage presence. Lamm was so impressed that he took the unusual move of recording one of Dodd's shows for a live CD that is sold in the clubs.

"The thing about Patrick is his voice is super strong and raspy," says Lamm before comparing the young upstart to one of Beale's most legendary performers. "He's got this kind of soul thing going on that's different from anybody else on Beale Street. He's almost like a white, young James Govan."

Fans might be in for a surprise when they hear the Dodd Trio's first release, however. In contrast to his live shows, which are liberally peppered with the kind of time-worn blues standards tourists expect, the seven-song EP combines Dodd's newfound musical muscle with his always strong, original songwriting

"It's very heavily blues influenced but its not traditional blues music," he says. "There's one shuffle song on there, but it's not a blues album. It's more of a rocking type thing. I was real nervous about that, but I wanted to at least give it a shot doing my own thing."

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Patrick Dodd Trio EP release

9 p.m. Saturday at The Blue Monkey-Midtown, 2012 Madison Ave. Cover: $3. For more information, call (901) 272-2583 or visit patrickdoddtrio.com.

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