"Remember Your Level"

 Tom Reeves, Dave Propst, Ethan Hughes, Todd Stotler, Darren Beachley, and George Osing

(11 January 2014 - Echoes Recording Studios, Sharpsburg, Md.)

11 January 2014

     On the road again. It's a horrible morning of torrential rain and fog  going over the mountains west of Frederick, Maryland. Why do people drive so slow in the left lane? I thought that was an Ohio driving trait. I'm wondering how much water I'll have in my basement when I get home. I'm also concentrating on the word gratitude and wondering how I get roped into these things in my life. This time last year I was in Asia handing out scholarship money to deserving students in the Mekong Delta and I had to turn right around and go right back with a film crew from the NBC Golf Channel. Bluegrass is only a past-time for me. Like Croquet or building model boats. I have to concentrate on gratitude constantly. Few people get to do what I do and I have yet to figure out what that is because it involves going down so many crazy roads. This morning it's going up and down the dense fog and rain-driven slopes of the Allegheny  Mountains. The gratitude part of my life grounds me and serves as an anchor. Driving to this insane bluegrass stuff gives me plenty of  time to think. At least it's incredibly warm for January.  It's so warm I can actually roll my windows down and get some fresh mountain air. Instead of putting Trappist monks in monasteries the church authorities should put them to work driving cross-country Big Rigs. They would have plenty of productive time to silently contemplate God's existence. Which reminds me of a dusty old book store I used to visit in Oakton, Virginia.

     The first thing you noticed about the store was the guy behind the counter. The most unhappy man I ever met. He was rather portly and bearded, and had a bald head fringed with unkempt, long gray hair pulled back in a pony-tail. The store is long-gone now; but at that point in time he looked like a vestige of the drugged-out 60's. The look of him would have frightened children. And he was nasty. Nasty to me, nasty to customers, nasty to anyone who had a question about anything in the store. All of this would have been weird enough. One wonders why he was even attempting to run a business dealing directly with the public. No. The weirdest part was a bluish-gray, aluminum-looking sign on the back wall and above his head which read  "Remember Your Level."  The letters were in bold Helvetica font. It was a statement he was making to the rest of the world of his superior nastiness. Before you deal with me you'd better read the sign above my head. The first time I saw it I laughed, because it fit him to a tee, but I also had a strange thought I'd seen it somewhere before, maybe in a bad dream. I only ever went into the store to search his collection of music books and sheet music. I decided I would make one last stop there and then never stop in again, but the sign still intrigued me. This sarcastic, "Up Yours" to the world made you stop and think about one's level in life, in a democracy where we're taught that everyone is equal. We all know the fallacy of that way of thinking. I couldn't resist it. I paid for the sheet music I needed and had to ask him,
"Say. You know I've seen that sign before but can't place it. Where did you get it?"
"Why?" he almost screamed at me.
"Well it certainly makes you stop and think." I said.
"Do you think it's funny?" he replied, almost snarling.
"Nope. Just asked you where you got it. Simple enough?"
" I ripped it off the wall of the Third Level of the Kennedy Center parking garage!" he snarled.
That's it. Found poetry. Found existentialism. A public reminder that we always have to remember our level no matter what kind of a situation we're in.

     I'm responding to a special invitation to once again, climb those life's levels of special experiences. Gratitude once more. Always focus on the gratitude. I got a midnight message to join Darren Beachley for a recording session in Sharpsburg, Maryland. To say that I fell out of my chair with surprise is an understatement.  There are levels in every artistic endeavor that have to be appreciated. I've always been appreciative of Darren Beachley's music. There is that level of superiority in everything he touches that the crazy, bitter, guy in the bookstore will never, ever understand. Darren was born with a naturally pure, beautiful tenor voice, a sense of humor, and a strong will to promote and use his inate gifts to promote his career. That he plays a mean guitar and Dobro only enhances the first talent - The Voice. Darren's musical accomplishments are well documented in the U.S. music scene.  There is no need for me to re-hash the known facts or the resume. The central entry in the resume is that he was once part of Doyle Lawson's Quicksilver group, cut a number of popular songs with Doyle, and gained national recognition from the touring aspect of his membership in Doyle's entourage. The odd thing for me is the fact that I was introduced to Darren's voice in an entirely different situation other than listening to a Doyle Lawson recording. Some years ago at a performance featuring Bill Yates and the Country Gentlemen Tribute Band, I picked up a CD and I've since worn it out listening to it. (The Country Gentlemen - Bill Yates and Friends, July, 2007). The song list includes "Little Bessie" and it's a duet by Darren Beachley and Dave Propst. The name Dave Propst is going to show up later in this story. Now that bluegrass is being picked apart and being treated like a lab animal in music departments in major universities and colleges for the Arts, this recording of  "Little Bessie" should be upheld as the quintessential bluegrass recording. The main reason is the flawless (and hauntingly beautiful) vocalization of Beachley and Propst, along with the simplistic line of the instrumentation. In introducing my less knowledgeable friends to bluegrass, after they've convinced me that they're serious about learning about it, I've given them copies of  "Little Bessie," and told them to go home and study what they're hearing. I'm never wrong in my teaching tactics. "Little Bessie" is just a sample of what's on the whole album.

     After the sad parting of  Mike Auldridge, Darren Beachley and The Legends of the Potomac drifted apart but Darren remained busy performing here in our region and abroad, and especially remained committed to his special high-calibre concert series in Brunswick, Maryland. Local hero that he is, we all knew what he was doing but the bluegrass world seemed fixed upon this sick fascination of  rumor-mongering about how far into obscurity Darren Beachley had sunk. The truth is, Darren was just simply getting on with his life as we all have to get on with our lives. Those of us who also respect his talent, also know that Darren wasn't remaining in some stage of creative stasis. After the "Legends" he really did quite well in expanding his listening audience and fan-base. He selectively and carefully did a 'pick-and-choose' of the people he wanted to perform with, and the places he wanted to play. The hard-core bluegrass bunch is a fickle crowd, but will always back their icons. Darren Beachley stayed at the top-of-the-mark of reputable artist/performers here in our region and further afield.

     Sharpsburg, Maryland - also known as Antietam. The names are interchangeable with Civil War buffs. The land around the small town reeks of  history. Sad history. Ironically it's also small, and quaint, and actually quite beautiful, even on this dismal January day. Every American citizen should be required to visit the Antietam Battlefield so they can get a handle on how many fellow citizens died here. I was the first to arrive at Todd Stotler's Echoes Recording Studio. It's situated on the very edge of the National Park land.
Todd Stotler and Darren Beachley have worked closely over the past several years. I wanted to get a run-down of the day's proceedings before the musicians arrived. Darren hadn't given me much information, and that's okay, because it was enough to know that Darren was in a production mode again, and whatever happened, it was going to be good. I knew Dave Propst was coming, but hadn't a clue who else would be there. For me, it was like old home week. At 11:00 am Tom Reeves, George Osing, Ethan Hughes, and Darren all came in like clock-work and got busy with little chit-chat and lots of instrument tuning. Two songs would be recorded in six hours of  allotted studio-time. Like a team-manager and team coach, Stotler and Beachley laid out the game-plan. The "Building a House" approach would be the game-plan for the day. Lay a foundation (Darren's guitar, melody, and vocals and Tom Reeves' bass-line) and then layer embellishments with Dave Propst's mandolin, George Osing's banjo and Ethan Hughes' dobro. Now here's the fun part - either an idiot with no leadership capabilities or a nazi martinet can throw your studio rental-time down a long, dark sewer. So my eyes were on Darren and Todd to see how this would play out. Let the games begin - and the winning finale was spectacular.

     In between takes I asked Darren what he was up to. (We're back to that "What's Darren Beachley up to?" question again.)  "I'm just going to float these two songs, eventually build up a final CD-full and go from there," he answered. I thought it was reasonable. Nothing profound in that. Meanwhile, Ethan Hughes, George Osing, Dave Propst, and Tom Reeves have darned-near become regulars with Darren when he's out performing in Darren's recent band configuration known as "Darren Beachley and Potomac." They're all relatively young and have a long stretch ahead of them of producing exceptional music. It was good to see them all that day melded into one purpose.  I  know all of them from other band configurations, and know the level of exceptional music they can make, and have made, at numerous live performances.

     Laying down a professional recording is a lot like the military. A lot of hurry-up and waiting. Go three feet and stop. A nurse in a doctor's office yelling "NEXT?"  It's tedious. There's nothing glitzy about it. There is a lot of  banter about covering up a mistake in live performance and feeling naked in front of a recording device. Some people can handle it. Most people haven't a clue. My bizarre thinking process is back in Viet Nam when I first experienced that combat is about killing each other. Not some video game. I had to decide real fast which level I was on. Here's Darren saying, "It's your turn." the unspoken question being, "Which level are you on?" We're all in the control room listening, evaluating, commenting, and also doing a lot of  laughing and smiling, not because it's hilarious, but because it all sounds so good when it's done professionally. The first song was "Dark Side of the Mountain" written by Paula Breedlove and Brad Davis. The second song was the old Stanley Brothers "Let Me Walk Lord by Your Side." The song choices are excellent. Darren is pleased with the proceedings. George Osing (banjo) had been sitting on the couch with me and Ethan Hughes. Earlier he asked us if we didn't mind if  he did "some doodling." He listened intently to the others while they were each recording and plunked really low-key on his banjo. When it was his turn in front of the mic he went into the attack and added his banjo lines.  Our jaws dropped. Not a word in the control booth. We all looked at each other. There was a ten-second pause before George asked if everything was okay. "Uh, yeah George, you're done," said Darren. George didn't know whether he meant "Hey George. You're fired!" or "Perfection George, no more takes." We all congratulated him when he came back in the Control Room. One of the big reasons why I love this music is you might only hear something once. Something so extraordinary you may never hear it again. It's done live and up front in a big auditorium or maybe some little tavern or bar downtown. Today it was taped for good and will become a part of something for future production. Darren Beachley was at the controls and Todd Stotler provided the right 'Ear' and tech know-how.

     "We won't leave here until everybody feels right and happy with what they've done," said Darren. Now that's saying something about a musician who knows what level he's on. There were a few short re-takes. Some tweaking here and there - nothing major. Two songs were in the can and ready for the application of Todd's magic.