July 22, 2007
The Nashville Bluegrass Band played at Randy Wood’s little stage last night and it was a refreshing dose of quirky roots acoustic music of the sort the NBB have been doing for nearly 30 years. With the fantastic pipes of Pat Enright, the easy virtuosity of Stuart Duncan, the rhythmic stylings of Mike Compton and the encyclopedic knowledge of American song shared by the whole band they have the ingredients for excellent ensemble music.
They’ve kept their focus on the blues aspects of Bill Monroe’s music. One hears the influence of black musicians more explicitly in their style than any other modern bluegrass band I can name, whether its the Piedmont blues that fascinate North Carolinian Alan O’Bryant or the Delta blues that Meridian, MS native Mike Compton brings to the band one hears the same blending of cultures that led to rock and roll. Their rocking version of Blue Yodel made me consider a possibility new to me, that Jimmy Rodgers was an Elvis of his generation, bringing elements of black music into the white mainstream and helping to create a new genre.
Randy Wood is a wonderful feller and south Georgia is lucky to have him. Not only for his fine craftsmanship but for his warmth and generosity and genuine caring for music and musicians. He told me last night he’s been friends with our friend Claire Lynch for 35 years, that he had introduced Eddie to Martha Adcock, and that he’d all but been present at the creation. Alan O’Bryant gave him a heartfelt tribute from the bandstand that sounded like what every musician that mentions him says, that he’s real good people. He’s built a tiny little venue adjacent to his shop and has had a succession of great acoustic performances there for the last two years. The sound reinforcement is always unobtrusive and excellent and it makes for an intimate performance that is very rare in this modern world. Thanks Randy!
For me, to be able to see Stuart Duncan in such a setting is a real privilege. Surely one of the best sidemen of our generation even some one who goes to as many bluegrass shows as I do rarely gets a chance to see him. NBB does very few shows, who knows how they keep it up. They were instrumental, as it were, in my return to the bluegrass fold in the late eighties when I recorded a couple of performances of theirs off of the radio and played them over and over. That they’ve stayed so consistently true to their vision of acoustic music is a good and reassuring thing.
