Once you see, you'll believe

By Kristin Day
kday@coxnc.com

Thursday, April 30, 2009

They say you won't believe it until you see it live.

When you tune in to a Lipbone Redding CD, you can hear the trumpet and the trombone, but you'd never suspect there were no brass instruments in the studio.

The sound from the horns is in fact coming from the lips of Redding himself. But you'll have to see it to believe it.

Son of Greenville and former Pirate Lipbone Redding played two shows in Greenville April 18 with his two-man Lipbone Orchestra: at noon during PirateFest on the Buccaneer Bash Main Stage, and at 8 p.m. at the Tipsy Teapot, 409 Evans St.

Redding's history in Greenville dates back to the early 1950s, when his family moved here so his grandfather could work for DuPont. He grew up as a Southern gentleman, even attending Ramona Van Nortwick's cotillion, he admitted over the phone with a laugh. After graduating high school and attending ECU for a bit, he realized something was pulling him away.

“I had been in Greenville and Pitt County all my life and I knew there was this big world somewhere else,” Lipbone said from his new home in New York. “I wasn't convinced that the options given to me there were all there was.”

He moved to New York City in the early '90s, lived their for a while and then moved to San Francisco before traveling to India and South Africa before moving back to NYC around 2004.

And one day, it just happened.

“I remember I decided I wasn't going to work a 9-5 job — ever,” he said about the day he became a subway musician. There, he discovered his ability to imitate a musical instrument with his mouth. The trick would gain attention from the likes of the “Hartford Advocate” and “Time Out NY.”

“I just started playing music and it just kind of erupted,” he said. “Those sounds kinda came out. … Basically, there's a soloist inside of me that had to come out.”

Being a subway musician also taught him a lot about human behavior, life and his own expectations.

“It's hardly glamorous,” he said. “It's more of a place to develop your spirit and perseverance,” which, he added, is most important. “The world we live in, it's so easy to get distracted.”

He continued playing underground and since has released two full-length CDs, “Hop the Fence” and “Party on the Fire Escape,” as well as his 2009 EP, “Science of Bootyism.”

“Bootyism,” of course, being a play on words for Buddhism and an inside joke describing the groups mystical ability to make any crowd dance by the end of the night.

Lipbone says he comes to Greenville a couple of times a year to visit, but he was especially anticipating this trip.

“I'm really looking forward to sharing my stories with people I haven't seen in a while,” he said. But did he plan to partake in the pirate festivities, as well?

“Sure. Why not?” he said. “Gotta stop and see my grandma, though. That's one of the important things. And I have to get my skateboard from there.”

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