ED HENRY: Choose One Direction and Then Stick to It: Northern Connection Continues On The Right Path

Traditionalist: Dee Gunter making an extraordinary appearance at Port Deposit, Maryland on 14 September 2014 with Frankie Short & Northern Connection Bluegrass Band.

15 September 2014 -

      I'm going through my notices for upcoming shows, fall programs, etc. I start getting them in mid-august. Fall and winter is such a busy time for the entertainment business and all the major concert halls in my neck of the woods. The competition for the almighty entertainment dollar is fierce. I know it sounds crazy, but if you're a professional band or entertainer and you haven't lined up your holiday gigs yet, you better go into a marketing mode. The smart ones are already contacting me and letting me know where they're playing for New Years. Time flies when you're working, in demand, and having fun. I'm sitting here looking at a schedule for an artsy-craftsy kind of place over in West Virginia that is promoting an Americana band that describes itself in the following genre (category? definition?): "New Orleans Gypsy Brass Circus Rock." Now, folks - this is why I refuse to pay money to see bands that advertise themselves as Americana. I won't publish the name of the band. I don't need to. I just wanted to point out either an identity crisis of monumental proportions or a bad marketing ploy to be cute. I can easily imagine a future Grammy Award given to the year's best band in the New Orleans Gypsy Brass Circus Rock category. Not.

      While I'm looking at this piece of promotional humbug, and not really casting aspersions, but rather pitying the people who printed it up, I'm still reeling from the Sunday performance at one of my favorite haunts. Let's get authentic. Let's ditch the manufactured names of musical forms just to bamboozle another sucker into buying a theater seat. Of course I'm prejudiced. I never claimed I wasn't. Just as my love for authentically produced traditional bluegrass music is sincere and honest, so is my honesty in not lying about my prejudices against fake bluegrass music. Or pretentiously fake bluegrass music. Or worse, pretentiously fake bluegrass music that parodies authentically traditional bluegrass music. I had the opportunity (once more with feeling) to see and hear Frankie Short and Northern Connection play at Jumbo Jimmy's Crab Shack in Port Deposit, Maryland. Little did I know that one of the Grand-Daddies of Maryland traditional bluegrass would also be there, on hand, to be invited up to join Frankie and the band in the small performance space. Dee Gunter, known far and wide for his contribution to the history of Maryland bluegrass music, sang four songs mostly dedicated to Jimmy Martin. Professionalism and talent is getting up from your seat at the drop of an invitation, grabbing the microphone, and allowing three other singers to join you in delivering four perfect pieces of bluegrass music. Time and again I've tried to explain that this is why I love this stuff. You don't have to manufacture fake labels or lie-filled press releases for it. The orthodox bluegrass true believers in the audience know it when they see it. Dee Gunter has done it so much he's got it down right; down to a fine art; the styling and the phrasing and just the right emotion. He makes it sound so easy; as if he's not working at all, but having a great time watching the audience experiencing a great time..

      Like a lot of working musicians in Maryland, Frankie Short follows in the footsteps of his father who was also a recognized practitioner of the art of bluegrass. I first met Frankie when he was playing exclusively with Baltimore Bluegrass, which as far as I'm concerned, was one of the best bands in Baltimore. They officially disbanded last year and played their last gig on December 15th at Jumbo Jimmy's. Of course the performance was brilliant but also not without its sadness. Two days before that Frankie suffered a serious heart attack and it's a tribute to his popularity and a tribute to the Maryland Bluegrass Community that everyone I talked to was sincerely pushing and praying for Frankie's recovery. In honor of that, the last performance was packed with Baltimore Bluegrass fans. Frankie recovered and the band played one more time at the annual Christmas Party at Jumbo Jimmy's. I mention all this because on January 19th of this year (2014) Frankie emerged with another configuration called Northern Connection. No surprise that the direction would remain sure and steady and always the same; traditional bluegrass in the Maryland style. The band consists of Frankie Short, T.J. Lundy, Mark Seitz, Steve Streett, and Brian Eldreth. I've been watching them closely. I like what they do. All, are excellent musicians in their own right and often put their talents to work with other configurations. Northern Connection will celebrate its First Anniversary on January 19th, 2015.

In a period of time when observers of the bluegrass scene in the States are proclaiming a critical near-death situation for the continuation of hard-core traditional bluegrass, bands like Northern Connection carry on. When I'm discussing the bluegrass music 'health' situation with others I like to point out that here in Maryland we've seen the establishment of not only Northern Connection but also Bluetrain, The Cypress Creek Bluegrass Band, Special Blend, and The Rocks Bluegrass Factory Band. They're all working, they're all getting paid gigs, and all are building up their local followings at the clubs, bars, and fire hall dances. There are probably more that I don't even hear about working the non-paying street fairs and carnivals and what I like to refer to as the Pumpkin Fest Circuit. I'll always stick with the traditionalists; the bluegrassers who decided to go down the narrow path of traditionalist exactitude. There are but a few who exemplify it: Dee Gunter, Danny Paisley, James King, Marvin Ashby, Harold Tipton, Scott Brannon, and more. But it's enough of a traditionalist army to keep the music pure and authentic for at least several more generations. I won't really care what the music sounds like after I'm long dead and gone. But for today, I'll prefer to listen to the guys who've kept the music focused on a very narrow path. Somehow, quite mysteriously and magically, the music sounds a lot better in the hands of Dee Gunter - and not Robert Plant.