On a Sunday night on Turnbury Drive, the sound of a banjo permeates the air, echoing off the surrounding buildings and parked cars.

While the nearby shops and eateries slow down in business, weary from the weekend and preparing for Monday morning, A.J. McMurphy's is winding down with its latest tradition: folk-rock band Those Meddling Kids.

TMK, in their latest incarnation, line up each Sunday in the restaurant's renovated dining area: Todd Jenkins at left, dancing his signature sway with a standing bass, next to banjo-picking Johnathan Sawyer, whom they call “Bacon” because “he makes everything better,” then Eric Benson with the acoustic-guitar swagger and, finally, Jack Bowen at the end, leading the group with a microphone and electric guitar.

A former fully electric group now reformed into a folksy-rock act, the band represents an evolution of live music in Greenville, where unplugged acts rule the pride. Of course “unplugged” in these instances loosely describes the talent emerging today who use less sonance, more substance.

“It's hard to speak for others going acoustic, but I would guess it has a lot to do with the resurgence of folk/Americana music,” said Nick Bailey of Nick and the Babes, who perform half of their shows acoustically. “Acoustic guitars, banjos and mandolins all play a large part in creating a sound recognized as that genre. I think it's a trend that has helped to spawn a lot of honest music without the crutch of synths and noisy rock guitars.”

Perhaps they're also following the lead of the Avett Brothers, who spent much of their beginnings playing acoustically in Greenville clubs and restaurants. Now signed with Columbia Records, the band made of former East Carolina University student Scott Avett, his brother Seth, and friends Bob Crawford and Joe Kwon, regularly sells out stages nationwide.

“It's neat how you see Avett Brothers and Mumford and Sons at the Grammy Awards,” Benson said, “and there's this whole genre of music that's been around, you know, ever since I've been here. I'd go see Avett Brothers at Peasants Cafe; I'd go see them at a house party, when they were still called Nemo or Back Porch Project. So it's been around forever and it's kind of neat that it's making a resurgence.”

A natural thing

Jim Avett, who just turned 64, is the patriarch of the Avett family. Not many understand the admiration for an acoustic guitar like him.

“I have a guitar collection,” he said by telephone from his farm in Concord. “There's between 60-70 guitars upstairs. I doubt that more than maybe 10 percent of them are electric. I don't have a great interest in electric guitars. I think that sometimes people lean on electricity instead of talent.”

That's something Bailey says Nick and the Babes discovered when they started playing acoustic. They unplugged when they began playing more intimate settings or with other acoustic acts, like Jim.

“The acoustic versions gave a different life to the material,” Bailey said. “There were no tricks to hide behind.”

Jim grew up in a house of music — his mother played piano and the violin and his father, a Methodist preacher, sang gospel songs — and he raised his children under the same influence. Daughter Bonnie and sons Seth and Scott all learned how to play the piano, but the boys eventually picked up the acoustic guitar (the banjo, too, for Scott) and never let go.

“There were always guitars around and it just sort of felt as a natural thing to play,” Jim said. “It felt as a natural thing for them to play it.”

With Scott and Seth on the road, Jim is busy with his own tour these days, including stops at Greenville's Tipsy Teapot. He released his latest CD, “Tribes,” about a year ago and spends much of his time producing music. On the day he spoke with The Reflector, he was going to hang out with his friends: “Tonight, I'll pick with a bunch of drunks and rednecks. They really don't care whether it's right or whether it's wrong.”

But he still teaches his boys what matters when it comes to music, especially when Seth started asking how they would ever pay the family back for all the time and money they put into their little band.

“The whole point in writing a song is to affect people,” Jim said. “... I said, ‘I'll tell you how you're gonna pay me back. If I come to one of your shows, if you see me down in front of the audience, in front of the stage, I probably won't be looking at you. I'll probably have my back turned to you or at least my side. Because I'm looking out into the crowd, for that girl who's swooning and dancing away. Or that guy who's deep in thought over a song that you're singing. Because that's the way you pay me back. The whole point of making music is to affect people's lives. Now, chrome teeth and purple hair will do it for a little while, but good music is what's going to last.'”

A bigger (cheaper) deal

Acoustic acts sem to have at least one advantage over hard rockers: they can book more gigs in Pitt County.

Kristina Williams, co-owner of Christy's Euro Pub, brings TMK into her venue on the last Tuesday of every month to host an open mic night.

“The first three months, we really didn't know what we were doing,” Williams said. “Now, even students come and play their own songs. Since Eric and Jack have taken over, they play a lot of their songs and get people inspired. It's become a bigger deal.”

Plus, Williams adds, her patrons can talk above the music.

Williams says that having live acoustic acts there helps her business, as do Bill Stom and Shannon Neuhoff, owners of A.J. McMurphy's. They've hosted live music — even full bands — since they opened.

“People work all week and they want a place to relax,” Stom said. “They want a friendly environment, nothing too crazy; a place where they can go get entertainment, get something to eat, get a couple beers and what-have-you, and just relax.”

One of the biggest stages in town, Tie Breakers, recently decided to stop booking full bands and is making room for acoustic acts. After renovations between now and May 7, low-key acts will perform on a corner stage during weekends, as the venue moves to become less “night club” and more “restaurant.”

It's a decision owner Brayom Anderson says he didn't come to easily, and he expects sparser weekend crowds. In the end, it didn't make sense to spend so much money on big productions without a suitable financial return.

Of course, there's a risk to pulling the plug on the big bands. Joe Tronto of Attic Enterprises, an entertainment consulting firm that works with Tie Breakers, says acoustic acts aren't capable of bringing in the energy a full band offers.

“And let's face it,” Tronto said, “at the restaurant/nightclub level, not the concert level, you need lots of energy to sell your night time product: alcohol. If you don't believe that, ask any establishment in town how successful they would be without their liquor license.”

“Am I nervous about it?” Anderson said. “Absolutely. Anytime you make a change, there's always a doubt that creeps into the back of your mind that, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?' But that is why I have methodically looked at it with my CPA for the last year and a half. I'm taking emotion out of it.”

Back from the dead

As more venues close their doors to full bands, more musicians have responded by unplugging or, at least, turning down the volume.

TMK played their last fully plugged in set in 2008, after which Bowen moved to Charleston, S.C. There, Bowen collapsed and discovered he had an aortic dissection. During his three surgeries, Bowen died twice and suffered a stroke that damaged nerves throughout the left side of his body. He didn't think he'd ever touch a guitar again — and he didn't for a year.

That is, until Benson convinced him to play at one Blue's Night (Tuesday nights at Chefs 505). Soon after, Bowen found himself guitar-in-hand and next to Benson at an open mic night at Christy's Euro Pub. By September 2010, Bowen and Benson were hosting the event, and they invited their old bandmate, Jenkins to play. Sawyer filled the void for a banjo player and when Jenkins decided to try out his old electric standup bass, viola! Those Meddling Kids reemerged as a new “unplugged” act.

Bowen only sticks to his electric guitar because, without much sensation in his left side, it's easier to play it using muscle memory.

“We're able to blend it (electric and acoustic),” Benson said. “So there's some electric in there but it's still mostly acoustic.”

“The first time we sat down and played with all four of us, it was so incredible,” Bowen said. “It was like, holy cow! It sounded so good.”

With less decibels, bandmates agree they're better off. It's not that electric has something lacking, they say; just sometimes, you don't need all of that noise.

“I'd say it's less about ‘acoustic' and more about the emotion,” Jenkins said. “It's just more of an acoustic emotion that we're playing.”

“We had played for a couple of years,” Bowen said, “playing some of these same covers. Playing ‘Hey Ya' our way or whatever else it may be. Then all of a sudden we had (Sawyer) playing (the banjo) with us and it's like, ‘Oh, OK, wait a minute.' We have now, this new element. There's a new variable to the equation. ... I'm happy to be alive, for the aforementioned reasons, and I couldn't be any happier with what we're doing now. It's just like everything is roses to me.”

“Everything's going well with this,” Benson later said, “we don't even have the urge to do the electric thing.”

Contact Kristin Day at kday@reflector.com or 329-9579.