TRANSCRIPT 🔗
ERIC ERDMAN:
Hey, this is Eric Erdman, and you’re listening to Dealing the Mobile Sound, live from the Callaghan’s green room.
Lynn Oldshue approached me about hosting this podcast to spotlight Mobile-area music, and I was happy to do it for two reasons: one, because I love Lynn—and I’ll pretty much follow her down any rabbit trail she wants to take me. And two, because I’m a proud member of the Mobile music scene.
Today’s guest is one of my best friends. He’s also a prolific songwriter, a phenomenal visual artist, and a storyteller—Mr. Abe Partridge. How you doing, Abe?
ABE PARTRIDGE:
I’m good. How are you, Eric?
ERIC:
I’m great. I’m so happy you could be here with us. How have you been? Traveling?
ABE:
Yeah—mostly on the road.
ERIC:
Anywhere specific lately?
ABE:
My last run was about six weeks. I went from here to Texas, then Minnesota, then Massachusetts, and from Massachusetts back down here.
ERIC:
You get around.
ABE:
Yeah. I’ve had a lot of drive time lately.
ERIC:
Well, we’re glad you’re home and able to do this. Thanks for being here.
If you’re wondering why we’re sitting around an old poker table—when Lynn asked me about doing this podcast, we said, “Where should we do it from?” Callaghan’s is a staple in the music community, but we couldn’t do it out in the venue, so we checked out the green room.
The centerpiece of this room is this old, crusty poker table. Untold thousands of set lists have been written on it. It’s probably had more drinks in its lifetime than I have.
ABE:
Right.
ERIC:
As we sat here talking about the podcast, it felt like the poker table wanted to be part of it—so that’s where the name Dealing the Mobile Sound came from.
To include the table, we’re going to start with a section called “Ante Up.” Tell us about the first gig you remember in the Mobile area—and when you started betting on yourself in music.
ANTE UP
ABE:
My first gig was a Gulf Coast Songwriter Shootout in October 2015. That was over in Orange Beach.
ERIC:
That counts.
ABE:
I got off work—I was working full-time for the Air Force as a civilian. I went out and played three songs, and doors started opening.
My first show here in Mobile was a couple months later—in December 2015.
ERIC:
I’m not sure if I was at that exact one, but I was definitely at one of the early ones.
ABE:
You were around early on.
ERIC:
I was blown away immediately. I thought, “This is something special. This is not like anything else.”
ABE:
I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.
ERIC:
Perfect.
ABE:
I was 35 in 2015. I had just… I was new to all of it.
ERIC:
People ask me to speak about songwriting or teach a class sometimes, and I use you as an example. A lot of folks are looking for theory, rules, guidelines—and those are helpful. But they’re not the whole essence.
The uniqueness comes from breaking the rules. I’ve never seen anybody break them as well as you do.
ABE:
Honestly, it’s because I don’t know music theory. I never took a class.
I took a songwriting class once down in Orange Beach when I was in my late twenties. I had just started writing songs—around 25 or 26—when I was in Kentucky pastoring a church. Songs were mostly just me trying to make myself feel better.
I left that class thinking, “I’m never going to be a songwriter. This is a joke.” They were trying to teach how to write hit songs.
When I moved about a year and a half ago, I found an old notebook with notes from that class.
ERIC:
That’s epic. You need to frame it.
ABE:
I followed none of it—but I kept writing for myself. That class made me feel like there wasn’t room for what I was doing.
But I think the mystery is good. We live in a world where we think we have to know everything. Living in the mystery is part of the joy of being alive, and being a creator.
I should probably take more classes—
ERIC:
Please don’t.
ABE:
—but I like being on this side of the curtain.
ERIC:
Don’t mess with the Abe. We love you. All I want is more of what you make.
There are a million valid reasons to create music. But I love that you stay on this side of the curtain.
ABE:
Thank you.
ERIC:
Stylistically, your visual art and songwriting feel like Mobile to me—Mobile’s a gumbo. Everything fits, and it often leans jazzy or bluesy, even when it’s rock or Americana.
You came in with this punk-rock sensibility. It felt like the scene not only accepted you—it needed you.
ABE:
When I started, I wasn’t part of the scene. I grew up in Semmes. I didn’t come down to Mobile for shows when I was young. When I came back, I’d go to the Music Box sometimes, watch punk bands, but I’d never really been to Callaghan’s.
I think I went once to see Pokey LaFarge.
I was raising young kids and working a full-time job.
ERIC:
Well, it feels good to have you as part of it now. You can’t mention Mobile music without mentioning your name. When I think of Mobile music, I think of you.
THE FLOP
ERIC:
Time for the next part of the poker game: “The Flop.”
Tell us about a song you wrote that meant a lot to you—one you thought had magic—but when you played it live, it didn’t hit the audience the way you expected.
ABE:
I feel like we all have songs like that. I write all the time, and most of what I write is… not good.
ERIC:
Even if it doesn’t translate, if it moved you, it’s a success.
ABE:
It is—but something moving me doesn’t always mean it’ll move you. When you perform live, you hope people resonate.
When I started writing, I was only writing for me. I wrote only for me for eight years, never imagining I’d write for anybody else.
ERIC:
That must’ve been wild—writing for yourself, then realizing someone hears it and thinks, “You said what I couldn’t say.”
ABE:
That’s one of the best things. Besides all the bags of money we’re making…
ERIC:
(laughs)
ABE:
It’s wonderful when something that didn’t exist before you made it comes into the world and moves people.
ERIC:
I love so many of your songs. One you played me recently is “JJP from Elba, ALA.” That’s about your grandfather?
ABE:
Yeah. His name was James
Load full transcript
Jewel Paget—my mother’s father. He served in World War II under Patton, went through the Battle of the Bulge, got injured, came home, married my grandmother, and died two years before I was born.
Growing up, I always saw this canteen at my mom’s house. Later, my grandmother gave it to my mom. My grandfather carved it with his initials—JJP—and “Elba, ALA,” plus his unit insignia. On the bottom it says: England, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany.
He got injured in Luxembourg, treated in Germany, then sent home.
After I came back from the desert—after participating in a war myself—my mom gave me that canteen.
I wrote the song, and then I carried the canteen back over to Europe—England, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany—again.
ERIC:
Eighty years later. Unbelievable. Let’s listen to that song now.
[SONG: “JJP from Elba, ALA” — Abe Partridge]
ERIC:
Man… that was great. I love your storytelling. It’s unexpected. You do it in a way I wish I could.
There are times I’m staring at a blank page thinking, “What would Abe do?”
ABE:
Look at the blank page and tremble in fear.
ERIC:
So you’re teaching songwriting classes without knowing it.
THE TURN
ERIC:
At this point—“The Turn”—when did music shift from hobby to something you truly considered professional?
ABE:
I started playing in 2015. I was working full-time for the Air Force Monday through Friday. Then I’d leave Fridays and play Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
I was making decent enough money where I could afford to lose money every weekend—because that’s what I was doing.
I’d go play an open mic at Eddie’s Attic. Or drive to Nashville and play writers’ rounds.
A lot of times I’d play Sunday night, drive through the night, and sleep in the parking lot of the Air Force base. It was brutal.
Then I started showing my art in 2018. I’d been painting since around 2007, but my first art show was February 2018—around when I released Cotton Fields.
By March 2019, I had a record out, good press, and a little crowd outside Mobile—Atlanta, Birmingham, Nashville. I figured it was time to jump.
My wife Kathy supported me. We’ve been married over 22 years. We had three kids. She doesn’t have a straight job with a paycheck, but she works hard.
We saved about three months of expenses. I told her, “Let me try it for two years—making art, playing shows, selling paintings—and see what happens.” And she was down.
Now it’s been six years. I’ve supported my family with art and music.
ERIC:
That’s beautiful.
Let’s talk about your art. It has beauty and jagged roughness at the same time—like your songs. Is that conscious?
ABE:
It’s what came out of me. When I started painting, I was a Baptist preacher in Kentucky trying to survive a collapse—my faith, my relationships, my whole world. I had a wife and kids I loved, and I had to find a way out.
Art helped me find who I was.
Now I’ll talk to art students sometimes, and I think the biggest curse is learning what everybody else is doing. It can rob you of discovering your own
voice—again, which side of the curtain you want to be on.
Young artists struggle with “what to paint.” Kids don’t. As a kid, you sit down and it just comes out.
THE RIVER
ERIC:
Next part: “The River.” You’re going fishing in my backyard—Mobile Delta, somewhere around here. You can bring anyone—artists, family, anyone. Who do you bring?
ABE:
You’ve brought me fishing.
ERIC:
I have.
ABE:
Maybe I need to write a song about it.
I’m proud of the Red Clay Strays boys.
ERIC:
They could hook one too.
ABE:
I guarantee they can. All of them… except Zach. Somebody has to clean them.
ERIC:
Zach was your pandemic drinking buddy.
Abe has a project called the Psych Peas, which has Red Clay Strays members in it. Describe the Psych Peas.
ABE:
It’s an excuse for me to scream and roll around. Folk music can be boring. Punk rock is more animalistic. Sometimes you need both.
The punk ethos informs everything I do. I don’t like rules. I don’t like hierarchies. I like art that challenges people.
I grew up with a lot of rules—church and military. Now I’m just going to be Abe.
I didn’t join that church until I was 18. My life was chaotic as a kid, and I ran into the rules. I went all the way to the end of that road—and it was just as chaotic, it just took longer to get there.
ERIC:
Did you bring your guitar? Feel like playing one?
ABE:
Sure.
ERIC:
You’re about to hear the one and only Abe Partridge. What are you going to play?
ABE:
Here’s a new song I just wrote. It might not be any good. This might actually be the flop.
[LIVE SONG: “I aint scared no more" — Abe Partridge]
ERIC:
Beautiful. If that’s new, it didn’t flop with this audience.
Are you planning on recording it?
ABE:
I’ve got a whole new record. I’m not recording for a while. I recorded about 30 songs.
ERIC:
Who did you record with?
ABE:
I’ve been working with Steve Shelley.
ERIC:
That’s huge. One of your heroes.
ABE:
Sonic Youth was my favorite band growing up. We got connected about a year and a half ago.
JB Boyd reached out and told me Steve was playing my music on his radio show. JB connected us, and Steve texted me. We became friends. I asked if he wanted to make a record—he said yes.
We recorded in Athens, Georgia at Chase Park Transduction with David Barbe. We tracked to tape—reel-to-reel. I’ve got massive reels of tape.
ERIC:
That’s incredible. It’s also been cool seeing you play festivals and have Rolling Stone attention.
ABE:
Tyler Childers has been kind to me. I did paintings for him. He put me on that festival, got me in Rolling Stone. He’s a hell of a guy.
ERIC:
Deserved. I love you. I’m proud of you.
ALL IN
ERIC:
Final part of the hand: “All In.” If you could put all your chips on one Mobile-area musician—someone the world should hear more of—who would it be?
ABE:
There are so many. But I’ll name folks who are newer: Cam Lewis and Garrett Howell. They’re both great. They’ve got something to say, great voices, and real ability.
ERIC:
There you go. We’ll be shuffling for the next episode.
Thank you again for being here.
ABE:
Thanks for having me, Eric and Lynn.
ERIC:
And thank you to everyone listening. We have so many incredible guests I can’t wait to share with you. This thing’s just getting off the ground, but trust me—the well is deep.
Follow along, like, and share our social media. We’ll be hitting you with a new episode every two weeks.
Thank you to Callaghan’s for providing the space. Thank you to Will and The Bushmen for the intro and outro music.
And if you want to hear more music by Abe and all our guests, check out Mobile Bay Radio.
Until next time—this is Eric for Dealing the Mobile Sound.