Lynn Healey and Patsy Stephens - keeping authentic country music alive in the Washington/Baltimore metro region and beyond.
5 April 2014: Bowie, Maryland
I'm out to pasture. No, not the Maryland music scene. Actually, in comparison to a lot of localities the Maryland music scene is especially alive and well. I like my bluegrass and I like it hardcore and traditional; but you all know that about me and some of the people I write about. I'm out to pasture now. Getting as old as a lot of the old-timers I see sitting in chairs and on picnic benches. They nod their heads every once in a while when somebody mentions Don Reno or Jimmy Martin. The crowds are thinning out, a fact noted by a lot of writers who want to give traditional bluegrass an early death certificate. There are commentaries too, about the music we know as bluegrass never fading out of existence. Will bluegrass music as we know it eventually go away? It's an interesting argument and one that I try and stay out of. You may as well argue about religion or basketball; both assume just about that much importance to me. I might be losing my appreciation faculties also. I might have to see a counselor. My last couple outings have been so abnormal that it's worrying my friends. Here's some bad symptoms: I've made a special effort to see (and thoroughly enjoy,) the
Blue Moon Cowgirls. Last night I broke every promise I ever made to myself and went to an old country/western hang-out and caught
Patsy Stephen's act: Patsy's Honky Tonk Torch and Twang in Bowie, Maryland. I hate country music. I 'll repeat that for emphasis: I hate it. I hate the nancy-boys in torn jeans and tank-tops. I hate the mumbling, whining chicks who look like the painted ghouls who sit at the Macy's cosmetics counter up at Tysons Corner Mall. But wait. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm out to pasture. I stopped listening to country music around 1970. So that lets you know how old I really am. I listened to Patsy Cline and Merle Haggard. Out in California I hung around the National City section of San Diego and actually made it to Bakersfield. I have to confess that I listened to more rock and roll than country, but I know I'm not alone. A highlight of my life was meeting Freddy Fender and Porter Wagoner one time in Japan. The reason I listened to more rock and roll was because I had no appreciation of the people back then who were to become today's Masters of a particular genre of American music
It's today, and musicologists are cataloging the Masters, picking them apart like lab rats, and arguing about whether this or that buckaroo or this or that 'Oakie' was a part of the original Bakersfield Sound. What constantly interests me is the number of hardcore bluegrass fan-friends of mine who also keep a side collection of Merle Haggard, Patsy Cline, George Jones, and a number of other old-timers who sang about lost love, bad drinking, and women lost to the honky tonk life. And jealousy and rage. I always like the part about the jealousy and rage - forever committed by a man who can't understand his own stupidity. The themes were always so simplistic you can't exist on a steady diet of it. We can go back though, and pick and choose the one who stood out and made great songs and great music, or had a style that was unmistakable. When George Jones died last year I went back and listened to a lot of his music - more re-listened to his music. You have to do this to gain any appreciation of the work of the Masters so you can then gain an understanding of the stage they set for future generations. I'm always on a quest to try and sort things out - like the kid who wants to tear apart his old man's wrist-watch, or take apart a bird's nest.
This odd turn of affairs that drove me back in the last couple of weeks to old country music actually began a few years ago when I met
Lynn Healey (of
the Blue Moon Cowgirls) at the Moose Lodge in Vienna, Virginia. She was part of a huge benefit for Warren Blair. The line-up of notable bluegrass musicians and bands that afternoon were mostly from Maryland. I remember Lynn's singing that day and I also remember hearing that she was involved with a group known as the Blue Moon Cowgirls. I remember that she was outstanding and holding her own with a lot of her friends in the business. In my sordid brain I also recollect dismissing the possibility that I would ever plunk down money for a group called the
Blue Moon Cowgirls. Here comes that Macy's cosmetic counter image again, and maybe even some comic references to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. I mean I have my standards to live up to, as macho as I am. Our paths continued to cross frequently at bluegrass shows and venues around Maryland and Virginia. Lynn would always give me a big hug and a howdy and then add, "You'll have to come out and see the Cowgirls next time!" Yeah, Lynn in your dreams. Stick to Bluegrass.
I love this music business and the folks involved. It goes byzantine at times sending me down strange pathways and dark hollows. I end up getting lost trying to find addresses that are wrong on Google, roads that are wrong. All this technology and the best navigational tool I keep in my glove compartment is a $9 Swedish compass I bought years and years ago at K-Mart. It's the first thing that goes in my carry-on when I'm traveling overseas on my various assignments. The labyrinth of Maryland bluegrass and social media, and the connection to Lynn Healey, led me to two other women who are an important part of this crazy story. I'll mention their names now: Karen Collins and Pat (Patsy) Stephens. I knew Karen Collins had her own country band called "
Karen Collins and the Back Roads Band." Some friends had recommended I see them some time. Patsy and I had connected mysteriously through Facebook just because I'm interested in anything going on musically in Maryland and her name, and the name of the band, came up on shared schedules in some of the venues I hang out in. Patsy and I passed some messages back and forth and I promised to "come out some time and take in a show." I was serious about the comment. I'm a Patsy Cline fan as much as I'm a Jimmy Martin fan. It turned into a comedy of errors. A busy Fall, 2013 bluegrass season. A terrible 2014 winter of crazy unpredicted snow and ice storms. On a final attempt to see Patsy over in Rockville, Maryland a Semi overturned on the Cabin John Bridge and stopped traffic between Maryland and Virginia for six solid hours! I surrendered. Gave up on ever spending an evening covering a country band that specializes in Honky Tonk music. The pathways are strange indeed.
Another "dicey" night recently wherein the gods of winter were still threatening. I had my sights on a bluegrass band in Maryland on a Saturday night but the more I looked out the window the more I was deciding not to push my luck getting stuck in Baltimore somewhere. I checked my calendar and noticed the Blue Moon Cowgirls were playing at the Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Herndon, Virginia. It takes us 20 minutes to get there from Vienna, and besides we hadn't been there in a while. Almost at the last minute I said to Connie, "Let's Go!" It was a totally objective decision just to get out of the house and do something different and we had no expectations of what we were about to witness or hear. I had one knowable - Lynn Healey was part of the group, so they must be pretty good. It had been a long time since we had, had so much fun sitting back and enjoying ourselves, and shock of all shocks, I got to hear and then meet
Karen Collins, a diminutive slip-of-thing with one of the prettiest voices I've ever heard. It wasn't so much the purity of her styling as it was the sense of country authenticity and passionate conviction. The range of song selections was huge; from old country, to honky tonk, to commercialized country, to mountain southern gospel. The harmonizing was seriously superb as was
Ira Gitlin's guitar back-up.
Ann Porcella rounded out the group with a beautiful mid-soprano. Midway through the first set I was hooked. It's really fun to sit down without any preconceived notions of what to expect and then be pleasantly surprised. That's the joy of live music entertainment as opposed to wasting money in a movie theater and getting nothing in return except scatological references and smarmy remarks that are supposed to pass for humor, and an insight into how our society operates. It was nice to hear Lynn's singing again. But it was the unit that was important. The beautiful blend of four entirely different voices and the simplicity of the whole package. That's what good bluegrass is supposed to be about; the simplicity of the whole package. This kind of music (bluegrass, church gospel, back-porch singing, etc.) had its origins in poverty and simplicity and the human desire to express one's self. Ed and Connie's joyous evening ended and I said a final 'so long' to Lynn Healey, Karen Collins, Ann Porcella, and Ira Gitlin. They rode off into the sunset with a rousing chorus of Roy Roger's "Happy Trails" that got the audience up on their feet with wild applause; and there was nothing corny or hokey about it. It was the perfect fit. The perfect ending.
Maryland really is a beautiful state once you get beyond Urbia and Suburbia. Like Virginia, it's got beautiful mountains, seashore, the Chesapeake Bay, and miles and miles of rolling hills and forests and rivers. I've had a wonderful time exploring the back roads in the past few years. I use the exploration as my "Out to Pasture Time." One can get jaded quickly trying to live the upwardly mobile urban life-style based on wasting your life away in hours of traffic jams and sky-rocketing taxes. On top of all that stuff is my wanting to escape from the whiners and complainers and cry-babies who add to the general malaise and the scandalous rise in human beings permanently hooked on depression drugs. Big Brother is here. He's watching. He's trying to steal what little money we have in the bank through pandemic consumerism. There is an alternative, a way out, and that's to seek out and return to our traditional American selves. My escape valve at this point in my life is bluegrass music. God knows how I ever got hooked on it. I look back in wonder at my upbringing, my liberal arts training in the finer things things in life, my love for Ballet and Opera and a particular mania for the Baroque and Romantic periods in art and music. My mind boggles as I'm wending my way around the Beltway and I'm scanning the signs for the proper exit to Bowie, Maryland. I have a date with destiny. I finally get to see Patsy Stephens and her band, "Patsy's Honky Tonk Torch and Twang." What a great name for a band. You have to consider everything the name implies. I've never been to Bowie, Maryland. I really had no idea what I would find. A few miles beyond our infamous Beltway and into old Maryland country; swaths of pasture and forest and then suburban developments feeding all the commuter traffic onto the asphalt arterial systems surrounding Washington, D.C. that great humbug on the Hill, the City of smoke and mirrors and petty war-lords protecting their special interests and campaign coffers.
Beautiful. Google has once again given me the wrong site and I go three miles out of my way trying to find the Old Bowie Town Grille. Nothing to do but go back in the opposite direction. Where Google fails me the railroad lines never do. I followed them back and found the Grille. I was a half hour late. I hate being late for anything. Entering the upstairs area, I encountered a guy with a goatee who eye-balled me. I asked him if he was looking to get paid for a cover charge. "What's your name?" he asked. I told him, and then he invited me in. That was rather odd, I thought, and later I found out "Bobby Joe" would be an integral part of this tale. Patsy Stephens was already into her first set. She gave me a nod of recognition from the band-stand and a big smile. The Old Bowie Town Grille is an artfully refurbished building smack dab in the middle of Old Bowie. The upstairs area can hold 90 to 105 people and is arranged with long tables for seating. The flooring is perfect for a dance crowd. Unlike most bars and restaurants I'm accustomed to for bluegrass, the Grille is roomy and well-lit. I watched "Bobby Joe" work the crowd and later found out he was the owner and proprietor. "
Patsy's Honky Tonk Torch and Twang" is
Pat 'Patsy' Stephens, the
Hall Brothers (
Chris and Chick),
Mike Toole, and
Tommy Auldridge.
Alan Oresky sat in as guest-fiddler. All the waiting had paid off. All the miss-fired dates that had gotten screwed up. I got my fill of Patsy Cline and a host of other great songs by female country stars pre-1970. Not only that genre, but old hits that blurred the mind with memories. Patsy and the band are walking juke-boxes of good, old-time country, rock and roll, and easy-listening.
Midway in the evening Patsy invited "Bobby Joe" up to do a few numbers. He launched into Buck Owens' "They're Gonna Put Me in the Movies" and organized bedlam followed, along with a crowded dance floor. Then Conway Twitty's "Only Make Believe." The crowd begged for three more. I had to meet this guy and talk to him. I suspected there was more to him than meets the eye and I was right. He's a Marine (no such thing as an ex-Marine or a former Marine). He has his own band and his actual name is
Robert J. Thompson. He goes by the name "
Bobby Joe Owens." He enthusiastically put two CD's in my hand and talked on and on about bringing good, live music to Bowie. He was quite happy with the turn-out for Patsy's group. I got so pumped up talking to him and Patsy that I left that night not paying for my three Sprites. I sent him a message later and promised I wasn't trying to swindle him and that I would give him a couple of bucks the next time I was in Bowie. Like MacArthur, I told him I was coming back.
A lot of good things happen when you decide to put yourself out to pasture. Go slumming. Get away for a while from the humdrum of life. I was having such a good time and watching everyone else have a good time that I nearly missed seeing an old friend in the room. I walked over to her and she gave me that wide-eyed look she's famous for. Good Lord! Of all people it was
Lynn Healey. It's a small world connected with a lot of fascinating stories. Lynn was there to help celebrate a Birthday for Andy Bryson. The audience was treated to Birthday Cake. I walked out without paying my tab. I was humming "Crazy" by Patsy Cline. I met some nice people along the way and made my way back to the City of Smoke and Mirrors.
