Aspen Run - Way Back in Time

Kody Norris appeared with Aspen Run in Stewartstown, Pa.

Stewartstown, Pa. 5 November 2011:

Never tell a Singing Cowboy he has to take off his hat. You might have a firestorm on your hands. This is what happened tonight when the Westminster, Maryland band Aspen Run tore apart the American Legion in Stewartstown. Maybe it was the pent-up rage at such an affront. Maybe it worked to make the song "Free-born Man" come across as a good anthem for the evening. For some strange reason, the Legion up there has rule that anyone entering the building has to un-cover (that's what we used to call any kind of a hat in the Fleet Marine Force - a 'Cover'). I'm not a Legion member but I am a card-carrying VFW member. I never heard of such a crazy rule. I guess they don't understand that you never tell a Marlboro Man to take his damned hat off. He'll take it off when he feels it's the respectable time to do so. Sans hats, but still wearing their trade mark white boots (only Aspen Run has the guts to wear them in public) the band joined up with Kody Norris of Tennessee to perform for an amazing four hours.

I have to admit I'd never heard Kody perform or knew very little about him, except for what I had read on the available sources. I knew he had an impressive resume and was making a name for his young self in some not-too-shabby bluegrass circles. But mostly I came out to Stewartstown at the invitation of Herb Martin to experience some unique talent. Oh what a night as the old song-line goes. Aspen Run and Kody Norris first started a riot, then wore down all the customers with a grueling four-hour pummeling of excellent, tight, music and finally set fire to the roof to finish the job. As far as I know they went pretty much through their whole repertoire, but according to Herb, "Oh no. They have a lot more songs in their package!" They had to come back for two extended encores. The audience wouldn't let them out of the building.

What makes the band such a good package is the fact that they're an anachronism. The music stands still in a freeze-frame on the music landscape. Before there was country music there was this. Raw, gut-wrenching beer-drinking music with songs about lost love and she-done-me-wrong. It was the style of music that parents warned us about (but secretly listened to after the kids were in bed). It gave rise to the Salvation Army and birthed many a Sunday sermon. It'll never become a subject of study at the Juilliard. WCKY in Cincinnati and WWVA are long-gone but there is still a public that wants to hear The Real Thing, the real deal that was at the heart of all that became the watered down, overly produced 3-chord fluff that is today's country music. There aren't that many bands out there today who even want to practice this style of music. Maybe because it's too difficult to stay away from unnecessary embellishment. Maybe because this music requires teamwork and ultimate purpose and a lot of deeply held conviction that each musician is staying on the right path. By anyone's performance standards Aspen Run is a young band and relatively new to the bluegrass scene here in the Piedmont and Bay area. The rough edges only add to their authenticity. Kody Norris pushed them this evening, pushed them hard to tighten up and the boys reacted with big smiles and a lot of very funny on-stage banter. Poor old Steve Unkart (guitar, vocals) took the brunt of it and responded by sounding better than I've ever heard him on such numbers as "Wild Bill Jones" and his suitcase full of Jimmy Martin favorites. The house (the American Legion Post in Stewartstown) wasn't the greatest venue for lighting and sound but the assembled audience of Aspen Run fans and family members and the curious from the surrounding area got a rare treat - a four-hour free event that had all the trappings of a private party - and one that included the likes of Kody Norris? How do you beat that?

High Art Out of Low Places

A younger friend of mine who shares some of my own personal tastes in Latin music asked me last night, "I don't get this Ed, how can you jump from Chopin to discussing bluegrass in so few sentences??" He had just read some of my past writings on my old blog-site, which for all intents and purposes is dead in the water. I had to chuckle at the question. He personally hates bluegrass music. But I don't fault his dislikes. That's part and parcel of being young. You either love or hate bluegrass music. I have a lot of friends my own age who still hate bluegrass. Deep down, I'm hoping they're lying to me and are instead, secretly listening to it. What my friends are not appreciating about this particular music form is that it takes as much musical, instrumental, and organizational talent to produce genuine bluegrass music as it does to organize (and play classical music through, ) a string quartet. I can also very much appreciate that 'high form.' Some of us are gifted with the necessary talents to pull the whole thing off. The majority of us (that includes me,) are not.

So it is with bluegrass or what I'd rather call Appalachian Mountain music. It rarely wavers from a few distinct forms in instrumentation and style. It rarely wavers also in the style of songs and singing. The pattern is set, and for the purist hard-core player or audience member, you will not wobble - although there is somewhat of a dotted-line that you're permitted to crisscross once in a while. I was shocked recently when I was invited by my friend Gary Cole to come out and listen to a new bluegrass band (Dirty River), only to discover they had slipped in a couple old rock and roll songs on their new CD and in their public performances. For the Dirty River Band it worked, the audiences love it, and maybe in the final analysis it will prompt younger audience members to learn to appreciate bluegrass. It certainly has worked in their favor, as Dirty River gains in performing exposure and popularity here in our local area.

I still listen to a lot of other kinds of music. My friends are surprised to know that I have a huge collection of Vietnamese music - both high and low, old and new. I met Roger Green a few years ago (guitar and vocals for the Annapolis Bluegrass Coalition) and he's become my resident expert on the Art of Bluegrass. We've shared some interesting e-mails and conversations about 'The Form.' Beside being one of the best flat-pickers around the Chesapeake Bay area, he's a walking wikipedia of bluegrass knowledge and expresses the same on his weekly radio show out of WRYR.FM. Roger told me once (when we were comparing some bands) "I love bands that are good, but still have that 'Edge' to them." I knew exactly what he meant when he said it. You don't have to be the greatest vocalist or the best picker, but if the group effort melds into something so absolutely audience appealing that people won't let you leave the stage, then you know you've reached the goal of the bluegrass business. What I never told Roger (but he'll read this now,) is that my meeting him and talking to him brought me back to a form of music I had long forgotten after years of classical music and opera. I had stuffed away old long-plays, tapes, and guitar chord books after my college days and never learned to appreciate what I had been listening to - or the rampant Hillbilly music wafting out of the West Virginia radio waves that my dad listened to. The musical form has grown a lot since then and we should also expect ourselves to grow in our musical tastes and to learn to be more appreciative of something that was there long before we were born. No bluegrass, No life. No music, No life. Pray for the musically-challenged who walk among us. And thanks, Roger Green for teaching me a lot.