Brad Hayden lays out the road to Blackbird Hour.

"Jeff Buckley, right?" a friend asked last night at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Blackbird Hour were performing, and while Brad Hayden's not writing or doing Jeff Buckley, they clearly share inspiration. 

At the moment, the band is semi-homeless. It formed in Oxford, Mississippi, where Hayden met former Kudzu King Dave Woolworth, but Hayden currently lives in Maryland. They started playing together as a guitar and bass duo, sometimes with drums, but Woolworth's bowed acoustic bass parts often hint at what a string section would do on a song. In fact, you can hear them clearly enough to fill in the blanks yourself. 

Before the show, I talked with Hayden about getting started.