High Octane is On a Roll

 Doug Ross, Marv Ashby, Beardie Bassman, and Robby Benzing at Barns of Rose Hill, Berryville.

9 February 2013: Barns of Rose Hill, Berryville, Virginia

     It's billed as a CD Release Party for High Octane's latest effort Morgan County, and it really has turned into a party. There's barbeque from the Berryville Grill being served up in the Art Gallery and a drink stand in another gallery serving up moonshine concoctions. I passed on that since I'm a teetotaler, but the reports coming in say the moonshine was pretty good. Marvin Ashby is making a lot of jokes about it onstage. A nice crowd is showing up on a really cold evening and Marv and Beardie are making everybody feel at home in this beautiful playing space out in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley. Robby Benzing (Banjo) is being his usual reserved self. Just once I'd like to get a smile from him as I work the room and take a lot of pictures. Well, he's awfully young, and after all, he's one of the hottest young banjo-pickers in this neck of Appalachia. There's a lot of great talent in this valley extending up into the West Virginia Panhandle. Robby may not smile a lot because he's all business when you put a five-string in his hands. I've been told he's just as slick on a guitar, too.
     They don't call themselves "High Octane" for nothing. Marvin Ashby is making a name for himself with his hard-driving guitar style, while "Beardie Bassman" (Doug Moats) pushes both Marv and Robby with a driving, flogging, style of rhythm on stand-up bass. Vocals are supplied by Ashby and Moats. "Beardie" is particularly gifted with a wide assortment of old Jimmy Martin favorites (OK, you just made me a fan, Beardie,). I love to hear these guys play together. If there is anything not quite up to snuff, it's the vocals. It's sometimes very difficult to understand the words and phrasing, even when I know the songs they're playing. Maybe it's just me and my being crippled with an English Degree. I can be a snob about such matters as diction. But the playing? Well, these guys are full-throttle dynamite. And it wouldn't be fair if I didn't mention that High Octane is straight-on, real, By-God mountain music played in the right style to placate any egg-head musicologist or folklorist who might be reading this or making a study of such matters. You don't need to study these guys, just watch the audience reaction. This is potent stuff right out of the mountains and lost a long time ago on the radio waves.
     On this evening they were joined by an old friend, Douglas Ross on mandolin. Doug Ross plays regularly with Dry Mill Road (Winchester, Va.) and both groups have shared stages together throughout the Panhandle, Maryland, and Virginia. Doug Ross was having a lot of fun trying to keep up with High Octane, and often, this music is about pushing the limits. Beardie ceded one of his favorite numbers to Doug, ("Freeborn Man") and that's a class-act sign of professionalism. It's about fun and showmanship. High Octane and the crowd got into the celebration. Instead of "Morgan County West Virginia" they should have named the CD "Morgan County West Virginia - Authentic"