The Old Bowie Town Grille Launches Bluegrass

 Gerry Stover, George Fehlner, Evan Clark, and Bob Graber on Bass

24 August 2014 - Bowie, Maryland

     There were other places I could have been, but I didn't want to miss this. It's not every day you get to see a new band do its first-ever paid gig in front of a live audience. It may not sound like much to you if you're not a part of the entertainment business, but I know what's at stake for the entertainers. This is the point where you can either prove or disprove that you've got the stability and cajones to get up in front of people and belt out a song or play an instrument with any amount of gumption. You hope they applaud and like you. Or you hope to God there isn't some drunk in the back who's going to boo you. The majority in the audience (unless they're musicians or performers themselves,) wouldn't dare get up there and do what the entertainer is doing. They're paying money for the entertainer to do it. The majority in the audience simply lacks the guts to do it. Dale Carnegie made a fortune in the 20's and 30's off a fact he discovered early on in his successful business career. People would rather die than get up in front of a room-full of their peers  and deliver a talk; a speech, or a sales pitch. Carnegie discovered this simple dynamic, this human foible, long before the pseudo psycho babblers of the 70's and 80's attached pseudo psycho names to it. How about good old stage fright? Yeah. That'll work. There's this air of scary apprehension. Failure, success, or worse yet, polite, soft clapping of  hands, like the soft, muffled sound of 80 or 90 cats pawing each other on the head.

      It wasn't only the debut of a new bluegrass band called The Cypress Creek Bluegrass Band. Bobby Joe Owens, owner/proprietor of the Old Bowie Town Grille had a lot riding on this gig, too. The venue has a reputation for keeping a sizable audience of regulars happy with a steady diet of good food and classic rock and roll and classic country. It's one of the last bastions of classic country. None of that pretty-boy new country stuff (I call it California Male-Model Country). No. I'm talking Merle, George, Conway, and Patsy. Some months ago I was in the Grille to hear some country and Bobby Joe and I got to talking. He was pumping me with questions about bluegrass. I knew something was on his mind. Then he showed up more than a few times at some of the bluegrass venues I hang out in. Now I knew he was up to something and I suspected he was doing field research. More conversations ensued and he told me he was going to launch a bluegrass program. Test the waters. See what happens. Bobby Joe is a former Marine. I'm a former FMF Corpsman (Third Mar Div and First Mar Div infantry rifle companies, thank you very much!) so we hit it off right away. We were taught to always look at the Big Picture. I knew from conversations that Bobby Joe was staying continuously focused on The Big Picture. He had set a date and had a band lined up. It would be August 24th and it would be a new band with no website, no CD's, nothing but a hope and a prayer that yes, indeed, they would play bluegrass. I asked him numerous times who they were, because I might know one or two of  them or maybe all of them. He couldn't give me much information, just that they were a couple local guys. One notable name popped up. Gerry Stover, the son of  Don Stover, who's known far and wide in the local and national music scene. Gerry had his own musical career going but had taken an eight-year sabbatical from performing to raise a family and establish himself. Born and raised and still living in Bowie, Gerry had played on and off with the other members around Bowie and Hagerstown. But decision time came as it usually does for any musician. Do I keep doing this or do I take care of myself and my family?

      It's 4:15 and after getting lost again (the third time I've gotten lost trying to find "Old Bowie." Some day I'll figure out where I keep going wrong.) I showed up in plenty of time. The upstairs bar and performance room was empty except for Bobby Joe sitting alone with an i-Pad. No customers. No band. I felt more than a little rattled. I hate these Washington/Baltimore suburbs and should move out of this hell-hole  but my housing values keep going up. Anything can happen. Traffic jams, football games, shootings, killings, hazmat catastrophes, anything to upset the best laid plans of mice and men. The emptiness gave Bobby and me time to talk. Ten minutes before five the band showed up and got to work tuning up and testing sound equipment.  At one minute to five the place filled with customers and Bobby Joe went to work glad-handing and greeting old friends, some musician friends and regular customers. I was relieved to see some familiar faces; and not just familiar faces but some of the most solid bluegrass supporters in Maryland. There were lots of seniors and families too, with children; a real mixed bag of curious customers who stayed most of the night and had fun. It was like any bluegrass audience I was so used to being with at other venues.

      At 5:03 pm Cypress Creek did an obligatory instrumental opening to test the equipment and get warmed up. Evan Clark, lead vocalist and guitar, took charge. I've got him pegged. He's a real buckaroo and showman. He's from Davidsonville, Maryland. The first official song was "How Mountain Girls can Love" followed by 19 more songs before they took a break. They pulled out all the old saws; "Sing Me Back Home," Tall Pines,"  "Lorena," "Kentucky Girl," "Black Diamond," an endless list of old chestnuts. The message was clear. They were traditional bluegrass following fixed and rigid boundaries, but the fun was only beginning. The second set included audience-recognizable and audience-familiar stuff  like "Fox on the Run," "Man of Constant Sorrow," and yes, even "Rocky Top" (wherein everybody started screaming at the tops of their voices.) I had to smile at that one. I appreciated that they used a play-list and stuck to it. Nothing worse than watching a group up on stage yammering and saying "Well, what are we going to do Boys?" We had a name for that kind of disorganization in the Marine Corps. It was called a Goat Rodeo. Save that for the high school Sock-Hop or a gratis appearance at your girl friend's graduation party. Evan Clark's take-charge attitude payed off in spades with extremely tight vocals, along with George Fehlner (Burke, Virginia) and Bob Graber (Hagerstown, Maryland). The musicianship was excellent and adequate. No real flash or hot-dogging. There weren't any major disasters, only a seriously dedicated purpose, and that's another piece of  the evening I appreciated. I experienced only two drawbacks and they're mine personally: they could have used a fiddler to punctuate and drive some of  the material (which was a good choice of material, by the way,) and Evan Clark got a little long-winded on some of the jokes. But that's a personal thing with me. Timing and pacing is an entertainment science full of dangerous pit-falls. The excellent vocals and instrumentation would have been enough to keep me happy.

      And I'd also be very happy to see them again at the Old Bowie Town Grille. I'd like to see them with a dancing crowd. I have a feeling there's a whole wealth of song-material packed away in their saddle-bags that wasn't even tapped into. It was an excellent launch and I'm looking forward to seeing how far Cypress Creek Bluegrass Band wants to carry this on into the future.

Evan Clark:  Lead vocals and guitar
George Fehlner: vocals and mandolin
Gerry Stover:  Banjo
Bob Graber: vocals and bass