Song Review: Tim O’Brien & Friends - “Maggie’s Farm” (Live)
Fairly shouting, Tim O’Brien had just a touch of Bob Dylan in his voice as he led his Friends through “Maggie’s Farm” at the 2024 Green Mountain Bluegrass & Roots Festival.
It was a big band, steered by the twin fiddles of Brittany Haas and Shad Cobb, anchored by Mike Bub’s bass and leaving room for solos on Andrew Marlin’s mandolin, O’Brien’s guitar and Justin Moses’ banjo.
O’Brien delivered Dylan’s words expertly as Jan Fabricius added harmonies with help from a lyrics sheet. She wasn’t the only one winging it, as O’Brien called solos and extra measures from the fiddlers and tossed in a line about not workin’ on the railroad either.
Such looseness would flummox lesser musicians. Tim O’Brien & Friends thrived on it.
Grade card: Tim O’Brien & Friends - “Maggie’s Farm” (Live) - A
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Song Review: Tim O'Brien & Friends - “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning” (Live, 2024)
As traffic cop and onstage coach, Tim O’Brien made sure all his Friends got their licks in when the temporary band played “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning” at the 2024 Green Mountain Bluegrass and Roots Festival.
Playing mandolin and flanked by Jan Fabricius and Aoife O’Donovan at the mic, O’Brien kept things moving along by calling out verses and solos and, as the just released pro-shot video demonstrates, proving a talented amalgam such as this doesn’t need to be rehearsed to be excellent.
“All right, everyone,” O’Brien decrees after Tristan Clarridge takes a cello solo and with he and fiddlers Brittany Haas and Shad Cobb sawing, Justin Moses sliding on his Dobro and Mike Bub holding it down on double bass, the joy in the old spiritual emanates through the ages.
It’s not quite perfect. But this “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning” is perfection.
Grade card: Tim O'Brien & Friends - “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning” (Live, 2024) - A+
The best way to immortalize one’s favorite sports team in song without resorting to cornball cliché is to take the instrumental route, as Max Wareham did on his paean to the Boston Bruins.
“The Black & Gold” finds the banjoist trading riffs with mandolinist Chris Henry, fiddler Laura Orshaw and Punch Brothers guitarist Chris Eldridge while bassist Mike Bub and drummer Larry Atamanuik keep the song moving at a rapid, slap-shot-appropriate pace.
The track comes from Wareham’s Peter Rowan-produced debut, DAGGOMIT!, arriving Feb. 21.
And while ice hockey and bluegrass might seem an incongruous pairing, Wareham hears things differently.
“For the perfect balance of grace and power, drive and agility, bluegrass and hockey are two peas in a pod,” he said in a statement.
Song Review: Old & in the Gray - “Midnight Moonlight” (Live, July 21, 2001)
By the time 2001 rolled around, an Old & in the Way reunion was impossible. So guitarist Peter Rowan, mandolinist David Grisman and fiddler Vassar Clements recruited Herb Pederson (banjo) and Mike Bub (bass) to step in for Jerry Garcia and John Kahn, respectively, and got to work as Old & in the Gray.
Someone captured the reconstituted band performing “Midnight Moonlight” at Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival that year. And limitations of the video notwithstanding, the just-surfaced bootlegged footage confirms this was not a wasted effort.
Older and grayer to be sure, the three principals are clearly happy to be back together. There’s a joy in Rowan’s lead vocals and the harmonies shared by all, save Clements, who is all about the playing.
After two verses, everyone - including Bub - solos. And though Rowan bookended the lengthy round-robin, instrumental passage with jazzy runs on his acoustic guitar, Clements was the busiest musician on stage, taking a minutes-long turn in the proverbial spotlight (it was a daytime gig) and sawing for nearly the entire quarter-hour runtime.
Rowan takes the final verse, the band harmonizes on the chorus and the fastest 15 minutes spent on YouTube is over almost as quickly as it began. Until the listener begins it again.
Grade card: Old & in the Gray - “Midnight Moonlight” (Live - 7/21/01) - A+
Song Review: Tommy Emmanuel feat. Billy Strings - “Doc’s Guitar/Black Mountain Rag”
Put Tommy Emmanuel and Billy Strings together and unplugged sparks fly.
The premier acoustic guitarists of their respective generations paired to record “Doc’s Guitar/Black Mountain Rag” for Emmanuel’s Accomplice Two. The instrumental collaboration/Doc Watson tribute is out as the third and final single ahead of the LP’s April 28 arrival.
With Mike Bub providing sonic glue on double bass, Emmanuel and Strings are free to fly about their fretboards with abandon. Which they do. The magic is that they never abandon the melody in the process.
Grade card: Tommy Emmanuel feat. Billy Strings - “Doc’s Guitar/Black Mountain Rag” - A
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Billy Strings gave himself the 30th-birthday present he’s always wanted: an album with his pops.
“As long as I can remember, I wanted to make a record with my dad,” Strings said in announcing Me/and/Dad, a joint with Terry Barber that comes out Nov. 18.
“I’ve been burning up and down the highways the last 12 years, and as time slips away, you start thinking, ‘I need to make time.’ It’s … something I’ve been afraid I wouldn’t find the time to do. And that scared me; not doing this record scared me.’”
Strings announced the LP Oct. 3 - his 30th birthday - and released two singles, the traditional “Long Journey Home” and George Jones’ “Life to Go,” recorded with a band that includes Mike Bub (bass), Ronnie McCoury (mandolin), Rob McCoury (banjo) and Michael Cleveland (fiddle), plus guest spots Jerry Douglas on Dobro and Jason Carter on fiddle.
Strings sings the former, set to a rip-tide arrangement that finds him singing in harmony with Dad and trading solos with the McCoury brothers.
Barber takes the mic on Jones’ prison lament, which features Douglas prominently and is the strongest of two strong tracks. There’s every reason to think Me/and/Dad will be a knockout when it lands.
“We’ve done these songs forever,” Strings said of himself and Barber. “ … I can’t play with anyone like I can play with you.”
Said Pa: “And I can’t either. I’ve tried, and forget about it.”
Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band
The Mountain
1999 E-Squared
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Tracks:
01. Texas Eagle
02. Yours Forever Blue
03. Carrie Brown
04. I’m Still in Love with You
05. The Graveyard Shift
06. Harian Man
07. The Mountain
08. Outlaw’s Honeymoon
09. Connemara Breakdown
10. Leroy’s Dustbowl Blues
11. Dixieland
12. Paddy on the Beat
13. Long, Lonesome Highway Blues
14. Pilgrim
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In showbiz, the audience is known as the “house” and while showbiz people are always hoping for a full house, certain nights bring more gravitas and anticipation than others. As a team and a Roots family, we were certainly hoping for a good crowed for our first Thanksgiving Eve show in Liberty Hall. Would the magic of our late November homecoming tradition translate? Would command performances by John Cowan and Mike Farris have the same hearth glow?
Well I’m very happy to report that not only was the house full, but so were our hearts and speakers. Four artists meshed together to craft a diverse and meaningful night of music and camaraderie. Then we enjoyed the sweet segue from Roots Wednesday to Thanksgiving Thursday, from “house” to home, from musical cornucopia to family feast. It felt as real and rewarding as ever. If gratitude was gravy, we’d be pouring it on thick.
The acoustic guitar duo has been one of my favorite formats for bluegrass/folk music ever since I was turned on to Tony Rice and Norman Blake (you need to own THIS), and so what a treat to kick this show off with Tony’s brother Wyatt and his long-time musical compadre Richard Bennett. They integrated two lacy lines of flatpicking into a breezy tapestry, and Bennett sang in a cool, pure baritone reminiscent of Tony and his hero Gordon Lightfoot. Then it was on to country music made in a warm family way from Todd Grebe and Cold Country. The singer/leader and fiddler/vocalist Angela confirmed on stage that they’re indeed pregnant and that just added to the glow of a set already rich in strong songs and comfortable twang. “Luckiest Man Here On Earth” showed his witty, spirited side. “Criminal Style” had murder and prison. And “Here’s Wishing To You” was more character driven with lines worthy of John Prine. AND they brought along Roots MVPs Mike Bub to play bass and Larry Atamanuik on drums. All in the family baby.
Mike Farris is usually a maximalist, having fielded some of the larger bands we’ve seen at Roots, but this year he’s been working on a duo with an acoustic guitar and organist/keyboard dervish Paul Brown. The interplay between them was magical and subtle. Mike, who usually strides around, gave off more energy seated with his six-string than most artists do standing. Yet his performances evoked multiple standing ovations. Same for Cowan. The audience was just completely with him, but hey, in addition to John’s clarion tenor, which goes higher, louder, longer, clearer than most anyone, he brought a shockingly great band with Rory Hoffman (guitar, keys, harmonica) and Stuart Duncan (fiddle). They seemed to hit every genre imaginable in six songs. The melody against the complex groove of the Darrell Scott co-composition “Six Red Birds In A Joshua Tree” just slays me. He let Rory take charge on the instrumental classic “Avalon,” and between him and Duncan soloing, it was as fine a jolt of jazz as we’ve had on the show. Then, for his final song, John sang “I Feel Like Going Home,” which has one meaning, but the hand-off to all of us as we headed home for the homiest of holidays was too perfect.
As for this coming week, we’ve got a hot night planned with some cool young guns of Americana music, including two who, by a very nice coincidence, were flagged in a recent Rolling Stone Country list of must-hear new artists. We’ll be welcoming back to the show singer and songwriter Margo Price, but while her last time was with hippie-shakey Buffalo Clover, this week she’ll be fronting her country band, The Price Tags (was there ever a nicer, subtler nod to Minnie Pearl?). This vivacious East Nashville talent was cited by RSC for her “deeply personal and painstakingly crafted tunes, evoking the weeping willow vibe of Hank Sr. but pairing it with the realities of modern life.” Meanwhile Cory Branan earned plaudits for his “left-leaning roots music that owes more to the rhythmic whiplash of Memphis' Sun Records than the poppy, polished twang of Nashville's Music Row.” His debut album The Hell You Say turned my head in the early 2000s, and his 2012 release Mutt proved a really infectious, curious and enthralling listen. Now he’s back, on the Bloodshot label, with No Hit Wonder. Is he quietly suggesting that maybe the world pay closer attention to his music? Or is he happily proclaiming (as he is with his kick-back snoozing album cover photo) that he’s happy in the slow, smart lane?
Another songwriter returning to Roots without the band that previously backed them is Kevn Kinney, long-time leader of Southern rock stalwarts Drvin’ N’ Cryin’. His raspy voice can be muscular or tender, and he writes about quirky subjects as well as the holy trinity of love, politics and the road. In the cryptic, poetic notes to his most recent solo album, 2012’s A Good Country Mile, Kinney writes of his mission: “We show up for the show and wade through a crowd as diverse as the music we’re gonna play tonight.” Whether with D&C or as a solo artist, Kinney’s been doing that very thing for decades, and he’s one of the sharpest and most unassuming artists you can see. He’s a living tribute to the timeless value of the gig, the fan, the drink and the venue. And when he blends country music with his deep-down passion for rock and roll, great things happen.
New to me this week will be Tumbleweed Company, a large-ish band from Music City that claims inspiration from The Band, Dylan, Wilco and Radiohead. (I love contrasty mash-ups.) The core folks met one another while attending the Berklee College of Music in Boston and their new project Village was produced by local hero Ken Coomer. So with the harvest feast behind us and a few weeks of jingle jingle ahead, come dive into the holiday spirit with us. We’ve got the Blackstone beer and some great music. Oh, and we’ve got a new BUS that can deliver you Nashville-bound folks who’d rather not drive I-65 to our door step. No excuses now! See you in the house.
