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Wet
Grass
By
Glenn Weiser
Grey
Fox Bluegrass Festival
Dodd’s
Farm, Oak Hill, July 17
Remember
all those classic plot lines that you learned about in English
class? You know, bluegrass versus man, bluegrass versus beast,
bluegrass versus society? Last Saturday at the Grey Fox festival
in Greene County, it was bluegrass versus the elements as
festivalgoers endured temperatures in the ’90s, high humidity,
rain showers, and a late-night thunderstorm that shortened
headliner Sam Bush’s closing set. No matter, though—music
this good was not to be missed.
When I got to the main stage shortly before 2 PM Saturday,
the Dry Branch Fire Squad, the festival’s host band, were
playing the last tune of their set, a tasty version of Sam
Cooke’s “Bring It on Home to Me.” With the hot sun bearing
down mercilessly, though, watching a performer in one of the
tented side stages seemed a good bet.
Banjomeister Bill Keith was listed for a 2 PM workshop at
the Grass Roots area, so I watched him give a lesson to a
couple dozen attentive acolytes. After tuning up and playing
12 bars of some of the coolest blues I ever heard on the 5-string,
Keith demonstrated how to find the melody of Carter Family
chestnut “Wildwood Flower” on three different parts of the
banjo neck. Even pickers from bands on the bill were there
to watch and learn.
The next shady refuge was the Masters Stage, which featured
the Professors of Bluegrass, led by the provost of Yale University,
psychologist and upright bassist Peter Salovey. Although this
distinguished scholar is perhaps better known for having pioneered
the theory of emotional intelligence than for his musical
pursuits, he nonetheless capably took his band, consisting
of Yale faculty, students, and community members, through
a list of bluegrass standards. As rain fell outside, Salovey
drew laughter when he dedicated the Del Reeves song “I Ain’t
Broke But I’m Badly Bent” to parents of kids in college, and
fiddler Katie Sharp also delivered a smooth rendition of the
old-time tune “Forked Deer.”
At 5:30, local heroes the Gibson Brothers took the main stage
with songs favoring bluegrass’s traditional side. Guitarist
Leigh Gibson’s baritone voice is well suited to country music,
while brother Eric, on banjo, has a high, if not nasal tenor.
They can harmonize seamlessly together, as they did on the
old Salvation Army temperance tune “Beautiful Brown Eyes.”
With mandolinist Joe Walsh, fiddler Clayton Campbell and bassist
Mike Barber, the Gibson Brothers shined on the hoedown number
“Sally Goodin” and Chris Robinson’s “Red Letter Day for the
Blues.”
Introducing herself as “a recovering country-music star,”
Kathy Mattea debuted at Grey Fox with a set championing the
cause of coal miners. A granddaughter of miners on both sides
of her family, Mattea began with a slow, pensive version Merle
Travis’ “Dark as a Dungeon.” She sang in a rich, throaty alto
and used vibrato, a rarity in bluegrass. Another standout
was Johnny Cash’s “The L & N Don’t Stop Here Anymore,”
which portrayed a small Appalachian town condemned to oblivion
when the shutdown of the local coal mines led to the Louisville
and Nashville railroad line abandoning its stop there.
With heat lightning flashing ominously behind the thunderheads
on the dark horizon, Tim O’Brien of Hot Rize fame played a
brilliant set of mostly original material from his new CD,
Chicken and Egg. O’Brien, an accomplished multi-instrumentalist
with a superb tenor voice and flawless singing technique,
was the single most talented performer on Saturday’s bill.
Joining the list of pickers who have set music to Woody Guthrie’s
unpublished lyrics, he took the Dust Bowl balladeer’s “The
Sun Jumped Up” and effectively used the melody of the old
gospel number, “This Train,” with it.
Newgrass trailblazer Sam Bush closed the show, or rather a
ferocious thunderstorm did. The only artist on Saturday schedule
to use a drummer, Bush led off playing fiddle and nailing
Bill Monroe’s classic “Uncle Pen” before switching to mandolin
for Grandpa Jones’ “Eight More Miles to Louisville.” After
a couple more songs, though, heavy rain and now lightning
bolts had brung down the curtain on him, and the wet fans
streamed out of the grounds.
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