OPELIKA, Ala. - On Saturday (March 14), singer-songwriter Grayson Capps saw his calendar being swept clear of work by coronavirus concerns. By Sunday he’d launched a new online venture to replace at least some of the lost income.

The widespread cancellation of public events has caused alarm throughout the music industry. From local entertainers all the way up to established superstars, many depend on a steady stream of live performances to pay the bills. Late last week GQ published an interview with iconic folk star David Crosby, who said “I'm sitting here waiting for them to cancel all my tours this summer and put me in deep financial trouble. … touring is all we got. That's really the only thing that we can do to make any money. And to lose it is just awful. I may—honest to God—I may lose my home.”

While Capps can’t match Crosby’s fame, the Baldwin County native has made a living in music for decades: First in New Orleans with the bands The House Levelers and Stavin’ Chain. Then, as he moved back to Alabama, with the Stumpknockers and the Lost Cause Minstrels. He’s known for solo work as well and he’s part of the coastal supergroup Willie Sugarcapps. He had songs featured in the John Travolta movie “A Love Song for Bobby Long.” His raspy, unvarnished roots-rock has earned him a network of fans that stretches far beyond Alabama’s coastal region.

On Saturday, Capps posted that the past two days “have been devastating.” He said he’d lost most of his gigs for the next month and had made plans to cancel everything else into early April. In keeping with his style as a songwriter, he was simultaneously blunt and eloquent about his place in the current situation.

“The vast amount of contact I have with people playing shows makes me the most dangerous person in the room especially because I am also singing and spraying spit for hours at a time,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “In the bars people get drunk and say ‘f--- the virus’ then they want to hug and kiss on you/me. The prevailing attitude becomes an insensitive petri dish of disdain and complacency that does not adhere to the decency of simple respect for fellow citizens, therefore I plan on starting some live online shows in this brave new world which I will announce accordingly.

“I hope by me not being a conduit that I can be a part of the quelling of this pandemic,” he said.

By Sunday he’d launched a new online venture at Patreon.com. The basic concept is simple: Subscribe for $10, $20 or $50 a month and you get access to a variety of fresh online content.

The first snippet on the page was just a test. “Hey, everybody, it’s me Grayson I’m in the new world, trying to figure this out,” he said in a brief sound clip. “This is a test to see if I can get some audio going here. I thought it was hard pulling a damn treble hook out of a bigmouth bass’s mouth, but good Lord, this is a run through hoops.”

But Capps followed that up with a live-in-the studio performance that gave a taste of the venture’s potential.

“All right, hey, everybody. Weird, weird day. But I’ve got a Cooter Brown brown ale and a Martin double-O-21 from 1963 and I’m in my little writin’ shed. And I haven’t figured out how to do the video thing yet, but I’m going to offer something that kind of soothes my soul. I play it to myself all the time.”

Over the course of a seven-minute clip Capps performed two songs starting with one he called “Today:” “Today while the blossoms still cling to the vine/ I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine/ A million tomorrows will all pass away/ ere I forget all the joys that are mine, today.”

The sound quality is good enough to make you feel like you’re getting a private concert: The guitar sparkles. You can hear Capps tapping out the beat with a foot. You can hear his hand slide up the neck and come to rest at the end of a song.

It’s enough to make one think that maybe Capps had some help from a secret weapon. His wife, Trina Shoemaker, is a Grammy-winning recording engineer and producer. Capps said that wasn’t the case.

“No, she’s busy,” he said, laughing. “That’s my iPhone.”

“Even Trina came in this morning and said, ‘What did you do?’” he said. “I said, ‘I put my iPhone on the table and hit ‘record.’”

He marveled at the simplicity of it. “Man, iPhone is better than what Alan Lomax had,” he said, referring to the folklorist whose field recordings of folk, blues and jazz in the late 1930s and early 1940s had a huge impact on American culture.

Capps gives credit to Shoemaker for helping him set up the Patreon account. “Within 10 minutes I had two subscribers. I was like, ‘Oh, s---, now I’ve got to do something,’” he said.

Even so, he said, figuring out how to upload a simple audio clip tested his abilities. “Yesterday I was cussing up a storm,” he said on Monday.

He said Shoemaker will be in the mix, so to speak, as he explores new platforms. “I’ve got to get a YouTube channel together,” he said. “For me, it’s daunting. Trina’s going to help me out. She’s used to computer-world.”

Capps said he hadn’t been especially quick to embrace online outlets for his music. He had not, for example, turned to Kickstarter to fund projects.

“I never have wanted to go that route, or asking for money, but now I’m forced to,” he said.

In a way, he said, the virus scare was forcing him to catch up. He figures a lot of other performers will be doing the same. He’s focusing on the sense of opportunity and says the Patreon project won’t be the end of it, as he tries new ways to reach out. “I’ve already got people in Italy, Canada, Holland who I’ll be able to interact with more than ever.”

What makes it all the more surreal is that just a couple of weeks ago in late February he was on the roster of the 2020 Cayamo Cruise, a trip that packs a cruise ship with singer-songwriters and their fans. If that trip had been scheduled for late March, it probably wouldn’t be happening. But at the time there was no concern about coronavirus whatsoever.

“There was nothing in Miami or the Caribbean at the time,” he said. He spent the week performing in rotation with artists such as Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Mavis Staples, Shawn Mullins, Aaron Lee Tasjan and Allison Moorer. There was at least one other songwriter who came down with the flu and Capps got that himself. But that was nothing like coronavirus, he said.

“It’s a vicious little Dammit Doll of a virus,” he said of the outbreak causing global concern.

Despite the flu, Capps came off the boat feeling that he could spend a long time just “connecting the dots” of his new connections, scheduling shows in new towns, making new fans along the way. And maybe he can, but now it looks like it’ll be summer or fall before any of that can happen.

With 25 or so subscribers as of early Monday, his Patreon page promises enough income per month to make up for one or two lost gigs. But less than 48 hours in, that looked like a promising start, and hopefully a sign of things to come.

“This is how I’m going to make a living until the smoke clears,” he said. “A lot of people are in the same boat.”

News from © The Associated Press, 2020