Maryland is More Than Crabs and Pretty Horses.

 Blue Train - Tom Lyons, Dave Propst, Tom Reeves, Rick Miller, and George Osing.

3 November 2013
Port Deposit, Maryland

     It's football season and I don't actually care. I'm intrigued to see all the TV sets blazing away on Sunday afternoons in the bluegrass joints I hang out in over here in Maryland. I never got hooked in to the fascination of televised "Team Sports." For one thing, the commercial aspects of the 'spectacle' turns me off completely. All that money, for what? It's entertainment, and if that's how people want to be entertained then C'est la vie. Over here in Maryland, in what I like to refer to as "Bluegrass Ground Zero," my preferred form of entertainment is always in a backroom somewhere, away from the television sets, away from the bar-noise. There are dedicated listeners, women and children, and old friends in the back rooms. They come early to exchange bluegrass gossip, say their howdies, and hopefully get a good seat by the dance-floor. I try to always arrive early so I can get the best photo angles. There's a sense of civility in the back rooms. Rarely have I ever witnessed over-indulgence in any of the places I hang out in, in Maryland or Pennsylvania and I would swear to that on a stack of bibles. These are decent people who have come for one thing - to be entertained with live, acoustical music. Unadulterated. Raw. Real country music offered up by the masters of the art here in rural Maryland just 30 miles outside of Baltimore. They police themselves. No need for a bouncer because rarely will there be a need for a bouncer. The really profound beauty of it is, once the folks start filtering into the back rooms, clustering into their regular configurations, you won't see one bent-over, hunched-back, person glued down to a smart-phone. The folks are actually talking to each other. There's an anticipation in the air, an expectation of what the sessions will be like. There are normally two or three sets of music, depending upon what's been contracted with the proprietor. That's a lot of music for a late afternoon or early evening. For the musicians, it's physically demanding. It's hard work when you're trying to get the best out of yourself and your stringed, acoustical instruments. Tomorrow's a work day. Whatever you do, don't give up your day-job, because few actually make a decent living playing this really obscure music.

     They do it so the folks can get a little excitement in their lives. If the music is really good everybody gets up and turns the dance floor into a party. Nobody cares about how badly you might be as a dancer. What matters is whether you're having fun and whether you're enjoying the music. It's called artistic freedom to enjoy yourself. This style of music has the ability to do that. It's a music of allowance within a subtle, strict set of rules known only by the practitioners, the musicians themselves and those who would pretend toward perfection of the rules. You don't learn the rules in a month or two. It takes years of practice and playing with different practitioners to get the sound or 'tone' as Rick Miller of Blue Train would call it. At 3:00 the regular Sunday local picking and singing session is winding down and the professionals for this particular afternoon are coming in through the rear door of the back room. This will be an interesting afternoon because Blue Train has never played Jumbo Jimmy's Crab Shack before. Rick Miller, Tom Reeves, George Osing, and especially Dave Propst have all played here, but with other bands and other configurations of musicians. It's a test of the highest sort. Is our music going to be good enough to get these people off their feet? There's another test, maybe even more important and it's about tradition. Is the musical offering going to be traditional enough to satisfy a Jumbo Jimmy's audience that has come to expect to hear "The Basics of Bluegrass?" I knew what to expect. I've written about these guys before. I looked around the room and nodded to others I've seen at previous Blue Train performances. If you get around enough you start recognizing the same faces. These are die-hard, hard-core bluegrass lovers who grew up listening to this stuff. I watched them go from table to table, saying things like "watch what these guys do. You're in for a surprise."
or "Yeah. I saw these guys up at Goofy's this summer and they brought the house down." With that sort of anticipation the music started and the energy started oozing out of the first set. You could sense it sliding on to the dance floor and with every crescendo of applause. I mentioned to Dempsey Price, "Only a matter of time before the shouting starts." We both laughed. The second set was better, the third set was a perfect blend of new, old, traditional, even "Harvest Moon" by Neil Young. No kidding. Neil Young - everyone's favorite enfant terrible of the Rock World. Somehow, (mainly through an unbelievable level of talent,) these guys can make it work. Blue Train has made it a habit to wrap up each performance with their rendition of "Will the Circle Be Unbroken."  Sounds hokey, yes, but the pure joy of it works to get the audience paying back that one last big collective smile to the musicians. You've heard it a million times along with "Rocky Top" and "Fox on the Run." But somehow, deep in your gut, you know you love it. This stuff is so old it's refreshing. For me? Another pleasant afternoon and evening spent with the fine folks up in Maryland.

Blue Train plays next at the Williamsburg Inn at White Marsh (Maryland!) on 23rd November 2013. They play from 8 to 12. The Williamsburg Inn is easily accessible off I-95 at the White Marsh Mall exit.

A Note About Jumbo Jimmy's Crab Shack:  Jumbo Jimmy's is located on Bainbridge Road in Port Deposit, Maryland. It serves up good food and traditional bluegrass music nearly every Sunday afternoon throughout the year. There is a local bluegrass 'Jam' in the 'Back Room' every Sunday at 1:00. The key-word here is Traditional.