If you, like me, are starting to feel that urge to travel again, you may truly appreciate Willi Carlisle’s guided tour of — well, where exactly? The musical travelogue Peculiar, Missouri claims Peculiar, Missouri, is a real city, but Carlisle’s Peculiar is a pastiche of many rural towns you could find yourself driving through, including his own Hogeye, Arkansas. As Carlisle puts it, “You have been here … even if you have not been.”
Carlisle, like the best kind of artist, is difficult to pigeonhole. A Folk musician, for sure, often in the tradition of social justice-minded Folk singers such as Woody Guthrie: Carlisle’s songs tackle meaty themes such as housing insecurity, colonization and water rights. He lets us know that he feels the responsibility to bear witness and that he is intrigued by Guthrie’s notion that Folk music is about “who has money and who’s hungry.” Carlisle’s storytelling is woven from a wide range of sources, including the Christian Bible (particularly when those stories are recounted by his love) and the poetry of e. e. cummings and Kahlil Gibran. And there is something else still that Carlisle brings to his brand of storytelling, something rich, though harder to name. Philosophy, perhaps.
And so it is a refreshing balance to watch Carlisle go through his day — even a video version of his day — spouting his poetic philosophies against a backdrop of rusting bridges and Ozark sunshine. Carlisle’s love for his home is clear as he spins his stories by way of spirited performances, quiet meditations, family videos and more.
As much as I love his musical performances, which switch between banjo, guitar and button accordion, the moments that stick with me in Peculiar, Missouri are when Carlisle stops and addresses the camera as a friend. These practiced moments feel off-the-cuff. A sense of intimacy can be hard to come by in today’s video-theater productions, but Carlisle manages it more than once.
The musical performances aren’t note-perfect (it’s hard to tell when this is intentional), and the videography has a few audio leveling hitches. However, I appreciate that Carlisle has used the video-on-demand format to bring a visual component to his canny audio craft. In this hourlong show, he achieves visually what his music already endeavors to do: He carries a sense of home from one place to another.
The Cincinnati Fringe Festival takes place June 4-19. For more information, show descriptions, a schedule and tickets, visit cincyfringe.com.
This article appears in Jun 1 – Jul 6, 2021.