On a sultry August evening in downtown Fairhope, when the First Friday Art Walk spills onto the sidewalks and every gallery and shop along Section Street throws its doors open, one of the best seats in town is inside The Book Cellar, the event space behind Page & Palette. That is where the Leavin’ Brothers have turned an ordinary Friday night into something close to a hometown holiday: brothers Evans and Charles Davis on acoustic guitars, with Dr. David Trice on bass guitar alongside them, playing a style they have branded, only half-jokingly, as Southern Gulf Grass Music.
By a quarter past six on the night in question — a good half hour before the band was scheduled to start — the room was already packed. Regulars know the routine. Arrive early, claim a seat, order a cool libation, and settle in for harmonies, humor, and the kind of between-song banter that has made the duo one of the most beloved acts working the coastal Alabama circuit.
A Fairhope Bookstore That Doubles as a Music Hall
The Book Cellar has quietly become one of the Eastern Shore’s most versatile rooms. Tucked behind Page & Palette — the family-owned bookstore that has anchored downtown Fairhope for six decades and bills itself as the South’s oldest continuously family-owned independent bookstore — the space hosts author talks, wine tastings, and a steady calendar of live music. On this particular Friday, the marquee carried a double bill of hometown culture: early in the evening, travel writer Rinker Buck was set to appear and tell tales from his Mississippi River adventures chronicled in Life on the Mississippi, followed by the Leavin’ Brothers’ set later in the night.
That pairing — a nationally known author at six o’clock, a hometown band at six-thirty — says a great deal about how Fairhope consumes its culture. Nothing here is scheduled at a polite distance. Audiences wander from a book signing into a concert without ever leaving the block, and the musicians on stage are as likely to be their neighbors as touring professionals.
From Nashville Dreams to Mobile Bay
The Leavin’ Brothers’ story runs through Music City. In the mid-1990s, Evans and Charles Davis moved to Nashville to chase songwriting careers, and it did not take long for the band they formed — then known as the Leavin’ Brothers Band — to start opening for major acts and land a recording contract with Javelina Studios and HoriPro Entertainment. For five years they toured across the South, living the musician’s life the way thousands of aspiring songwriters do: one gig, one highway, one motel at a time.
Then they did something unusual. They slowed down. The brothers relocated to Point Clear, settling into a quieter existence on the shores of Mobile Bay — a move their friends might call trendsetting, given how many creative types have followed the same path to Baldwin County since. The songwriting never stopped. Their original songs draw on life along the Gulf, and they land with an audience precisely because the details ring familiar: the water, the weather, the small towns, the people who never quite leave.
What Southern Gulf Grass Sounds Like
Call it bluegrass with a coastal accent. The brothers trade lead vocals and tight harmonies over acoustic guitars, with Trice — their self-described “other brother from a different mother” — anchoring the low end. Their catalog leans heavily on songs they wrote themselves, many of them local favorites that audiences sing along to without prompting. The show is lively, engaging, and unpretentious: a good time waiting to happen, as one early reviewer put it.
On the Friday night in question, the performance doubled as a live recording session. There were a couple of slip-ups along the way, the kind that will make a mother wince — but only briefly — when the album finally plays back. The imperfection is part of the charm. Live records capture what studio sessions cannot: a room full of people agreeing, all at once, that they are exactly where they want to be.
Music With a Message
The band has also put its stage time to work on behalf of Clean Water Alabama, an effort dedicated to finding solutions that keep the region’s waterways clean enough to swim in. It is a cause that fits the band’s identity. The Leavin’ Brothers write about a place defined by its water — Mobile Bay, the rivers that feed it, the beaches that draw the crowds — and they have chosen to promote the stewardship of that same resource from the stage.
For audiences, the connection is easy to feel. The same bays and bayous that inspire the songs are the ones everyone in the room swims in, fishes, and boats on. Supporting the band’s shows becomes, in a small way, a vote for the place itself.
Where to Find Them
The Leavin’ Brothers play regularly across the coastal area, from Fairhope and Point Clear to venues up and down Scenic 98 and beyond. Their schedule lives on the band’s Facebook page, which is the surest way to find their next gig. For anyone planning a First Friday in Fairhope, it is worth checking whether The Book Cellar has music on the calendar — and worth arriving early regardless, because the good seats go fast and the authors start at six.
There is a lesson in how the evening unfolds. Show up for one thing — an author, an art walk, a glass of wine with friends — and you may stumble into a concert by two brothers who left for Nashville, came home to the bay, and turned a decade of touring into songs about the place they were always meant to be. In Fairhope, that is not a detour from the art walk. It is the main event.