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New wave and old standards shine at Merlefest 2009

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Merlefest Day 2 began bright and early for me this morning, with a rousing performance at the Americana Stage by the DC-based band Scythian. I caught the irony of having a band fronted by two Ukrainian brothers opening up the Americana stage, but that’s the joy of Merlefest and hey, it is a post-Obama election world.

Then came the first great surprise of the morning. I went to the Traditional Stage to hear the New North Carolina Ramblers, but walked in to a packed tent listening in rapt attention to 86-year-old festival patriarch Doc Watson playing a set with old time banjo wizard David Holt.  (It turns out the Ramblers were double-booked and so Doc and Holt were on-call.  And when I say packed, I mean packed.  The picture below was taken from the side because the front was crammed with kids and grandparents alike.) 

Doc was in fine form, playing guitar and singing with lots of strength and emotion. Fiddle tunes (Whiskey Before Breakfast paired with Ragtime Annie) were interspersed with Travis-style picking (Deep River Blues) and even a harp/bones duet. Holt taught everyone the Etta Baker version of Railroad Bill and had us all singing the chorus:

Railroad Bill, Railroad Bill, Lights his cigar with a $10 bill and then rides, rides, rides

Doc Watson (left) playing with David Holt

Watson and Holt ended their set with There Goes the Train That Carried My Girl From Town.  I’ve heard Doc dozens of times over the years (the first at Nashville’s old Exit/In as a college student), but this was a special set and I’m glad I caught it.

After watching a bit of the Welcome Home Super Jam on the main stage, I worked my way over to the Hillside to spend the afternoon. And what an afternoon it was.

The day’s second surprise was my introduction to the band Cadillac Sky. While their instruments gave the appearance of a straight-ahead bluegrass band, it took about 10 seconds to figure out otherwise.

After rocking through tunes such as Everybody’s Got a Good-Bye Story, they would shift gears and have guitarist David Mayfield play a little personal biography vignette that closes with an abrupt ending that suggests you’d much rather be listening to something else.   Mayfield’s stage persona is described on the Skaggs Family Records website as “poetic-demolition derby” and he proved it with a guitar-thrashing but amazingly entertaining solo version of Freeborn Man.  Jimmy Martin he’s not!

The Hillside Stage view at Merlefest 2009

And that’s not surprising.  Cadillac Sky cites influences such as Radiohead and Gnarls Barkley.  Not your typical bluegrass band but part of a new wave of “new traditional” (for lack of a better term)  bands that was very much on display today at Merlefest.  These guys are terrific musicians and lead singer Bryan Simpson has a great voice that’s supported by strong harmony singing by the band.  Check out Gravity’s Our Enemy, their new CD, but most definitely take the time to see them live if you get the chance.

I had heard of the teenage mandolin phenom Sierra Hull when I was at Merlefest two years ago, but I’d never heard her front her band, Highway 111.  She’s an obvious talent and a fluid mandolin player who has – as Sam Bush notes on her website – tremendous potential for future growth.  Her voice is still that of a teenager (a similar issue with the Lovell Sisters), but her mandolin work already shows a lot of maturity and musicianship.  Hull ripped through  Smashville, a new instrumental written by Mountain Heart fiddle player Jim VanCleve.

Wayne Henderson

From the youngsters, the Hillside Stage then turned to someone who was there at the first Merlefest 22 years ago – newgrass vocalist John Cowan.   With his bandmates in the New Grass Revival in the 70s and 80s, Cowan helped redefine bluegrass and also helped set the course for an inclusive, open, and experimental Merlefest.  Cowan started with the old NGR hit Callin’ Baton Rouge and inserted a bit of Blackberry Blossom in the middle.   His jazz-influenced drummer provided a unique percussive setting for the Bill Monroe classic – and Cowan staple – Good Woman’s Love.   All in all, Cowan was Cowan – and I like that very much.

After three hours of sitting on the ground and shifting around to try and stay in the shade, I was ready for a different venue.  I stumbled across guitar builder and picker extraordinaire Wayne Henderson (photo above) in a picker’s tent just playing with festival-goers who had brought along their instruments.  I listened to a bit of the Grascals on the main stage, but I’m not big fan so didn’t stay long and caught some dinner.

But in another surprise, after dinner I came across The Duhks playing in the dance tent.  I love The Duhks, but don’t normally go looking for music in the dance tent.  But the roof was pulsing with the energy coming from the Winnipeg-based band, and so I stopped by.  And that place was rocking! 

The Duhks at the Dance Tent

It was a high-energy show throughout the set, but they took it to another level with an over-the-top version of Whole Lotta Love.  Being from Canada, they even added a verse in French.  Lead vocalist Sarah Dugas has a set of pipes and you haven’t lived until you’ve heard a fiddle, banjo, guitar, and drums blasting out stadium rock.  Wow!

The day ended for me in a rain-marred show by Mountain Heart with special guest Tony Rice.  I entered with the band playing  a surprisingly good version of Whipping Post.  (Everyone at Merlefest wants to be the Allman Brothers, which is appropriate since the late Merle Watson – for whom the festival is named – always cited Duane Allman as his influence on slide guitar.)  After a short opening, Mountain Heart quickly brought out Tony and started working through his cannon.  Most turned out well.  Mountain Heart has a talented lead singer, a wonderful mandolin player (Aaron Ramsey), and the aforementioned Jim VanCleve on fiddle.  When playing straight-ahead bluegrass with Tony, such as Freeborn Man, they sizzled.  But on the Bela Fleck-penned Whitewater, they couldn’t quite match the original, even with Tony playing a great couple of solos.  I know, because I listened to the 20th anniversary jam version of Whitewater on the drive home tonight.  It isn’t surprising they couldn’t top Fleck, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Bryan Sutton, Stuart Duncan, and Byron House.  Who can?

Tonight Tony played a beautiful solo medley of Shenandoah and Wayfaring Stranger (see photo at the top of the post) that led into the band’s version of Tony’s classic Manzanita.  A very satisfying show all around.

Soon after they left the stage, lightening and thunder led to a pause in the main stage activities.  I was tired (it was very hot on this day where we weren’t suppose to see any rain), so decided I’d miss Del McCoury and I’d catch the Waybacks at the Album show tomorrow.  Now that I’ve posted reviews, I’m off to bed to rest up for Day 3 at Merlefest.

More to come…

DJB

Image: Tony Rice by DJB

Jerry Douglas, Travis Tritt, and the Fretboard Journal cap first day of Merlefest 2009

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With just a Dobro, acoustic guitar, and one great country blues voice, Jerry Douglas and Travis Tritt filled the North Carolina night with terrific music at the end of Day One of Merlefest 2009.

I left this morning and drove to Wilkesboro on a picture perfect spring day.  The Shenandoah was beautiful as I drove up the valley: red-buds were everywhere, and the hardwoods were just beginning to green.  Just another reason I treasure my 15 years in Staunton and go back as often as possible.

Wayne Henderson

I arrived at the Wilkes Community College campus — home to Merlefest — in time to catch most of the Lovell Sisters’ act.  I’ve written about the Lovell Sisters before, but they continue to grow as musicians and as a band, with more complex arrangements and beautiful harmony singing.   They ended with a tune by that well-known bluegrass composer Jimi Hendrix.

Wayne Henderson followed on the Cabin Stage.  Wearing his Boston Red Sox hat (see photo at right) and finger-picking on a beautiful Henderson guitar, Wayne and his band-mates put some life into tunes such as the old chestnut Sweet Georgia Brown.  Henderson was also the subject of an earlier post on More to Come… as I wrote last January about his appearance in the Fretboard Journal.    Regular readers will know how much I love that magazine, so I was thrilled to walk into one of the store tents after Henderson’s set and walk straight into the Fretboard Journal table.  I had a chance to thank the editors for producing such a great magazine and to tell them of my quarterly blog posts when their current issue hits my mailbox.  They were kind enough to say they’d seen More to Come… in their Google analytics.

Peter Rowan pulled together a bluegrass band for the evening and featured Stanley Brothers’ guitarist George Shuffler on a few numbers.  Rank Stranger was the highlight – a perfect tune for Rowan’s voice and Shuffler’s guitar. 

The disappointment of the night was Dailey and Vincent.   They are the hottest new act in bluegrass, racking up awards right and left.  The playing was technically fine, but it was all just a little too canned and too contrived – even down to stopping songs, cracking a joke or two, and then picking up where they left off.   I finally wandered off to find some dinner, and only returned when I heard the beautiful voice of Tift Merritt.  Part of the “Tradition-Plus” part of Merlefest, she was new to me and brought a jazzy, singer-songwriter sensibility to the night.

The stars were out on a crystal clear night when the stars of the evening, Jerry Douglas and Travis Tritt, walked on stage a little before 10 p.m.   No band, no contrived jokes – just two very talented acoustic musicians.  After a short instrumental, Douglas and Tritt launched into the Allman Brothers’ Come and Go Blues, showcasing Douglas’ bluesy slide and Tritt’s bluesy voice.  They played for an hour-and-a-half, with each entertainer taking a short solo set in the middle, and the energy and musicianship were high throughout.  They played Tritt’s hits (Here’s a Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares), a song to warm the heart of this preservationist (Country Ain’t Country No More – about the paving over of land for suburbia), and ended with the old Elvis hit T-R-O-U-B-L-E that Tritt has made his own.  Douglas’ electric dobro was making enough music for a full band as they left a satisfied crowd.

Time to put this one to bed and get ready for a full Friday.

More to come…

DJB

Merlefest

It Ain’t Over…

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It Ain't OverAs I’ve written before, I love good baseball writing.  So I almost laughed out loud when reading the Baseball Prospectus’ It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over and came across this passage from a story about the 2003 National League Central pennant race between the Houston Astros and the Chicago Cubs:

The Cub’s opponents going into the final four days were the Reds and Pirates, and the Astros had four games against the Brewers.  The top two teams in the NL Central would battle it out against the bottom three, and whoever beat up the eminently beatupable would advance.

“Eminently beatupable.”  With language like that, you know exactly what he means.

More to come…

DJB

Getting Ready for Merlefest

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Erin's FiddleLater this week I’ll head to North Carolina for four days of bluegrass, blues, and Americana music at Merlefest.  I was reviewing the lineup tonight to begin to get a sense of how to schedule my time among the 14 stages.  In the process, I was reminded of recent stories about some of these musicians on More to Come…:

Tony Rice

Missy Raines and the New Hip

Wayne Henderson and Doc Watson

Jerry Douglas (with two posts)

and the Lovell Sisters.

I’ll be adding reviews and updates from Merlefest later this week, so return to find out what’s caught my fancy.

More to come…

DJB

Scenes from a New Orleans’ Saturday

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New Orleans is a city waiting to be photographed.

This cloudy Saturday in April was shared in the morning with the wonderful stewards of the beautiful homes of the Garden District and then later in the day with the hordes in town for the French Quarter Festival.  Both had their charms.

There are beautiful fountains, gardens, and iron work throughout the Garden District, and we were fortunate to see four homes with wonderful examples of each.  The owners opened their doors to us and shared their love for their homes — with all their quirks — as well as their love for this unique city.

In the free time this afternoon, I made my way down to the French Quarter Festival to hear jazz, blues, and a lot more.  The Hot Club of New Orleans was playing some terrific gypsy jazz with a New Orleans flavor, all the while inspiring the dancers to greater and greater heights.  Big Daddy “O” was rocking Royal Street with his blues.  And Ronnie Kole’s horn section was blasting away in Jackson Park.  Enjoy the photos.

More to come…

DJB

A Different New Orleans

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Jackson BarracksI am in New Orleans with supporters of the National Trust for Historic Preservation on a visit to see how the city is recovering in the three and one-half years since Hurricane Katrina made landfall.  I’ve been in the city many times – and several since Katrina hit – but on this trip I found a couple of gems that tell me that I really haven’t seen all this great city has to offer.

First, an update on our work.  The National Trust had staff on the ground just weeks after Katrina hit, and we still maintain an office where we help homeowners – primarily in the historic Holy Cross neighborhood of the Lower Ninth Ward – rebuild their homes and their lives.  Meeting the homeowners we’ve helped, seeing the way ravaged buildings have been turned back into beautiful homes, and listening to the volunteers and partners who’ve helped us in this recovery is always inspiring and gratifying.   In Holy Cross you can’t walk down the streets without seeing our Home Again signs, or those of Operation Comeback at the Preservation Resource Center and the State Historic Preservation Office’s “Historic Building Recovery Grant Program.” 

Holy Cross SignsIt was especially gratifying to meet up with National Trust Advisor Anne Van Ingen and her partner Wes Haynes at their home at 5516 Dauphine Street in Holy Cross.  Anne and Wes bought this house after an earlier visit to the city.  They are rehabilitating this house with lots of sweat equity from family and friends and then plan to sell it for just the hard costs.  It was a great example of the way individuals have made moral choices to help with the recovery.  You can follow the progress at their web site at www.5516Dauphine.com.

Throughout the visit we’ve heard and seen first-hand of the difficulties in working with state and local governments that often make decisions at cross-purposes and always function without an overall recovery plan.  It remains one of the great frustrations of the recovery work.  Our current battle to save and reuse Charity Hospital – which could be brought online cheaper and quicker AND save the historic Mid-City neighborhood in the process – is just the most recent example.

But just like individual homeowners who continue to battle the odds and bring back neighborhoods in this city building-by-building, there are some segments of the government and an array of nonprofit organizations that are working to help New Orleans recover.  It was my first visit to Jackson Barracks (see photo at top and below), the staging ground for the Battle of New Orleans and then an early military post that includes one of the great collections of antebellum buildings in the country.  Now a National Guard base, the commandant told us that they are committed to rehabilitating these 14 pre-Civil War buildings, and they are fighting FEMA like so many others on the ground.

I was also surprised to learn that New Orleans has a great H.H. Richardson building, which now serves as part of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.  The Ogden is raising funds for rehabilitation of what is the only Richardson building in the South.  This was a different New Orleans than I had come to expect.

Of course, the food remains great.  As I write I’ve just finished a great lunch at Commanders Palace in the Garden District.  Some things about New Orleans never change…and only get better.

More to come…

DJB

Jackson Barracks Panorama

Nashville Cats

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Portraits by Marty StuartIn his 1996 book on the Southernization of America entitled Dixie Rising:  How the South is Shaping American Values, Politics, and Culture, former New York Times Atlanta bureau-chief Peter Applebome compares Charlotte, North Carolina and Nashville, Tennessee.  Much of Applebome’s thesis was turned on its head with the election of 2008.  But one thing he said has always stuck with me and it came back today as I was traveling to New Orleans.

In comparing the two cities he notes that Nashville is a lot like Charlotte – except that its major industry is music and not banking.  And that difference makes all the difference in the world.

I had a layover today in the Nashville airport.  You have to love a city where the airport has live music (in at least two places, including the food court) AND a photo exhibit by none other than Marty Stuart.  Heck, the musicians could have been employees of the Burger King.  The Lovin’ Spoonful’s Nashville Cats immediately jumped to mind:

Well, there’s thirteen hundred and fifty-two guitar pickers in Nashville…And anyone who unpacks his guitar could play twice as better than I will.

The Stuart photos are quite remarkable (see photo above and click on the Stuart link to see a book of his work).  There’s a great Flatt & Scruggs portrait from 1969, their last year together.  BB King and Little Richard represent other strains of music that go together to make country.  Stuart has funny portraits, strange portraits (Bill Monroe), and haunting portraits (Johnny Cash taken just four days before he died).  All in all, a nice small and surprising exhibition.

I never did find the ATM in the airport, but I didn’t have any trouble finding the music.

More to come…

DJB

Partners in Preservation

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Lowell's Boat Shop OarsI was in Boston earlier this week for the launch of Partners in Preservation – a terrific $1 million grant program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express.  For the next five weeks, you can join thousands of others who will go online at the PiP website and vote for your favorite Greater Boston landmark.  The winning site in the popular vote is guaranteed to get a grant of up to $100,000, and the remaining funds will be allocated among some of the other 25 sites who are part of the competition.

Tuesday was a beautiful day in Boston and we were in historic Faneuil Hall for the launch event.  Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino were on hand to help us kick off the program (see photo below).  Representatives of the 25 sites were also there – many dressed out in period clothes to depict the historical era of their site.  One of the more innovative schemes came from the Lowell Boat Shop volunteers (see photo above) who brought oars with “Lowell’s” painted on one side and “Vote LBS” on the other.  Unfortunately, security wouldn’t let them bring the oars into the hall, but they were ready with masks of their shop’s founder.  Very clever group these Bostonians.

The Wall Street Journal called Partners in Preservation the “American Idol of historic preservation.”  I encourage you to click on the link above, Gov. Patrick speaks at opening eventget information about the 25 sites, and “pull the lever” once a day for the next few weeks on the site(s) that captures your fancy.  You’ll enjoy finding out more about some well known landmarks as well as some hidden gems.  And the folks in Boston will appreciate your interest in their historic places.

More to come…

DJB

No Obama First Pitch for the Nats

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President's RaceIt appears that George, Tom, Abe, and Teddy will be the only presidents to appear at Nationals Park tomorrow for opening day.

The current resident of the White House, President Obama, has turned down an invitation from the Washington Nationals to throw out the first pitch for the home opener tomorrow against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Perhaps Obama has watched the Nats lose their first two series of the season, to begin a rousing 0-6 – MLB’s only team still without a win.   Or perhaps he has enough problems to deal with without having to take time out to watch a team that’s still not ready for prime time.

Let’s hope a change in scenery and coming home will help the Nats get that elusive first win.  And we can dream about the time that Washington has a baseball team that even a basketball-loving president would want to see.

More to come…

DJB

Good Friday 2009

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St. Joseph of Arimathea ChapelGood Friday was a day of heightened – and mixed – emotions.  It began with an email from Andrew’s school about the irrational act of a disturbed man that some of the students observed.  In the early evening, Candice and I helped Andrew and Claire’s youth group prepare sandwiches and meals for Grate Patrol.  And while they delivered the sandwiches to the homeless throughout Washington, Candice and I closed out the day with the powerful Good Friday meditation at the National Cathedral.

We’ve been around the Washington National Cathedral for years, but I only discovered this Good Friday service a couple of years ago.  It quickly became my favorite.

Held in the St. Joseph of Arimethea chapel (photo) – the most appropriate of spaces – the service showcases all that is wonderful about the Cathedral.  The stone and marble combine with the vaults and intimate space to send the music on a magical journey to your ears.  And make no mistake – this is a service made for music.

A hauntingly beautiful cello solo – Candice described it as “moaning” – began the service.  Then the first of several Taize chants filled the room.  Cathedral Director of Music Michael McCarthy’s arrangement of the Troparian was stunning in both its passion and complexity.

When he saw that the sun had hidden its rays, and that the veil of the Temple was rent as the Savior died, Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate, pleaded with him, and cried out:  Give me the Stranger who since his youth had wandered as a stranger.  Give me that Stranger killed in hatred by his kindred as a stranger.  Give me that Stranger upon whom I look with wonder, seeing Him a guest of Death….

Mike had the choir repeating the Give me a stranger figure, while a beautiful baritone voice carried the story forward.

Give me the stranger whom envious people estranged from the world.

While the service could have ended on that emotional note, it continued with a meditation, more chants, and then lighting of candles and personal prayer.

A beautiful time for reflection and  rest.

More to come…

DJB