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| Doug Meek - Clayton Martin - Danny Paisley - Marshall Wilborn - Mark Delaney |
30 March 2013 In Stewartstown, Pa.
It'll eventually spoil you. Music won't sound the same anymore. Those forms of music you once considered unique or interesting take on a lackluster, boring sameness. I'm talking about being addicted to bluegrass, or as I prefer to call it, the 100% pure Hillbilly music I'd really rather listen to. I still like my Jazz, old rock and roll, and opera, but the more I listen to pure bluegrass and old-time hardcore Hillbilly, the more I realize I haven't listened to all of it or enough of it. I'm sitting here tonight in Stewartstown, Pa. getting a full evening of Danny Paisley and Southern Grass. Danny is belting out the lyrics of songs from his latest CD and I mean belting them out, almost howling, but there's an emotion and conviction that speaks a truth immediately recognizable by those who follow this brand of music. Paisley has a voice and style that most 'music professionals' would consider hard to take, but this is pure and about as pure as it's going to get. He's probably in the middle of his tenure and I think about how much he's risen in popularity just in the past five years, and how much further he's going to go before he becomes one of the Grand-Daddy's of Bluegrass. No secret that his recently released CD "Road Into Town" is now Number Four on National Bluegrass Charts.
A good bluegrass entertainment package is not about one person. Maybe the closest thing to bluegrass is the teamwork it takes to form a good classical string quartet. Everything in the music has to come out of the acoustical stringed instruments involved. This is the most rampant misunderstanding of bluegrass, as opposed to the rampant electrification of popular "country" and rock and roll. Rule Two: no drums, no percussion, or else you get kicked off the stage. Hooted out of the Hall. Every element of the music has to come out of those stringed instruments. These thoughts are moving through my brain as I'm listening to three of the best players in bluegrass. Danny nods to Doug Meek to kick up his flawless fiddle. Then to Mark Delaney for a few flawless banjo runs. Normally, Eric Troutman is on bass, but was absent this evening. Standing in was one of the legends - what a surprise - Marshall Wilborn. I missed Eric Troutman's high-tenor vocals. When Eric and Danny are singing together it's the reason why I sometimes feel spoiled rotten on bluegrass. There was another change too, in Clayton Martin (mandolin) standing in for Danny's son Ryan. Normally all these changes would have lent chaos to a performance. But all these guys are professionals, extremely young by bluegrass standards, and they all played on to one of the best shows I've yet to witness up to this point in 2013. Were there hitches and imperfections? Of course. But Danny always has that smile on his face. That infectious smile that brings out the spirit hidden in the strings
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It's Easter week and I'm at my local parish watching the parish youth perform a version of the Passion Play. An electric piano is jacked up to max and drowning out a young lady who has a magnificent voice. There are two electrified acoustical guitars along with a regular electric guitar. The song interludes are long and tedious and drowned out by electrification. The young man singing is trying hard to do a Bob Dylan imitation and keeps referring to the audience as "You guys." You might wonder why I'm mentioning this. Yeah. It's the folly of youth and I see it at clubs, open-mikes, or the same attitude with young people who are trying to make it on the stage as "Newgrass" groups. They just don't get it. Destroy a good thing (I felt sorry for the girl with the talented voice) by thinking that talent is naturally going to come out of a control box. They need to listen to, and study the Masters more closely. And most of all, realize that climbing to the top of any kind of musical or performing ladder requires hours of rehearsal and lessons in how to present yourself in front of an audience - in a professional manner. It's an art.
