New Trail Coaching, Scott Malyszka

Gordon Bok singing “Sabin the Woodfitter”

Tuesday we saw Gordon Bok at a restaurant in Herndon. I have adored Bok’s 12-string playing and singing for several years, but this was my first chance to hear him live.

Bok was friendly and casual with the audience during the show. It took two or three songs for his voice to warm up and for the audience to quiet down. Bok had told the sound guy to keep the volume “as low as you dare.” The songs were mostly unfamiliar to me, but the quiet and charming presentation drew me in. Bok’s voice was not as strong as on his CDs, but he still sounded OK to me. The songs about hard-working people on farms and ships told good stories, and the love songs were sweet. The sincere performance was a treat, and the flowing guitar lines made it all sound good.

Living in the northern Virginia suburbs does not automatically connect a person to the older music traditions of that state. Last night a few folks at a Reston house concert found that connection with the music of the Whitetop Mountaineers, and the effect was as refreshing as the first apples of autumn.

A video of the Whitetop Mountaineers live in Australia

The Whitetop Mountaineers are Martha Spencer and Jackson Cunningham, a young couple from southwest Virginia. From the start of the show, the duo sang strong, clear vocals with uplifting harmonies on “Just Got To Heaven And I Can’t Sit Down,” with Martha playing clawhammer banjo and Jackson on flatpick guitar. They played casually through a few more songs and tunes this way, trading lead vocals and improvising the set list. Martha told the audience how she had learned to play, sing, and dance from her family and neighbors as part of her rural upbringing. Jackson talked about building his own instruments with advice from many other builders in that area.

Then they started swapping instruments, with Martha on guitar and Jackson ripping through some Monroe-style mandolin on an instrument that he had built. When I hear someone play real Monroe style, it just keeps in my head for a long time. Loud, strong, melodic tremolo, and lightning-clean on the dance tunes.

Next Martha got up to do some flatfoot dancing while Jackson played the banjo. She was kicking high and stomping hard and had the audience loving it all. All energy and fun.

The instruments kept passing around, with Martha on fiddle and Jackson touching everything else at some point. To old-time music lovers, the hour-long set was mostly familiar stuff: “The Cuckoo,” “Let Me Fall,” etc. The timing was absolutely always there, the vocal harmonies free and light, and the instrumentation spot on the melody booking straight down the road without a swerve.

This duo is a subgroup of the full family band known as the Whitetop Mountain band. They are playing as part of Virginia’s Crooked Road music programming, so folks in Virginia will get many more chances to hear them if they keep an eye out.

For me, I love hearing people who live in one of the musical traditions that I dabble in myself. Martha and Jackson play southwest Virginia music that goes back generations and even centuries. I usually describe my suburban version of fiddle music as “old time,” or “music from Appalachia and New England.” I’m not apologizing for my postmodern surveying of old-time and contra styles, just pointing out the contrast between folks deep in a tradition and a city-billy who respectfully borrows a touch of that.

Food: Texas pit barbecue beef sandwich with grilled onions, fries covered with melted processed cheese food product and no fork within miles, homemade lemonade

Music: Robin and I hung out all day at the fair with our friend Susan. First off we sawMelissa Branin solo for the last thirty minutes of her set. Powerful, clear vocals with plugged-in acoustic guitar. She sang some interesting originals, including a very stirring song about choosing directions in your life called “Fork In The Road.” She had a contemporary folk style but she dug into older topics like the nastiness of war. Melissa lives close to us in Reston, and she does house concerts, so hopefully we’ll see her again soon.

Second, we saw the Harley String Band play an hour set. The band is a trio of folky songwriter guys. I say folky because they definitely have a sixties and seventies feel to their originals, plus a little Appalachian traditional flavor. Most of the songs were arranged with acoustic guitar plus octave mandolin, banjo, or mandolin. The only problem we had during this set was that we sat in the early afternoon sun for an hour listening to them, which drained us a bit. But lemonade did help.

Third, we caught the last song of a set by Melissa Branin again on another stage, but this time with her Big Guise Band. They did John Lennon’s “Come Together,” and Melissa rocked the vocals real good on that one.

Last, we saw One Eye Closed, a trio with our friends Stephanie and Les Thompson plus Wynn Walk playing Dobros. I had never heard the trio do a full set before. They have a strong Appalachian feel, with lots of clawhammer banjo and slide guitar with upright bass chugging beneath it all. The harmonies were real sweet, with all three taking turns. They did several gruesome songs with betrayal and killing and lots to mop up afterward, which is not quite my taste. But they also did some great originals with on more everyday sentimental topics. They played with all the instruments plugged in, which made the sound a little muddy and soupy to me. I’d love to hear them play their Appalachian sound miked up just to get more air and wood in the instruments’ sound. Totally a great group, and I hope to hear them a lot more in the future.

Looking forward to day two. I realized last night that out of the thirty acts performing at the fair, I could not find another fiddler. Am I the lone fiddler? Wow, I should get a special badge just for that. I’ll have to ask the entertainment maestra next time I see her.

I went out with friends twice in the past month to get some grub and to catch some live music. Both times we couldn’t get into the music because it was just too stinking loud.

I won’t name names or venue,s but i’ll point out the necessity of good sound. A rock band in a small restaurant just needs to keep the volume down. Rockers like to lean on volume to create excitement, but groove is what creates excitement. I’ve been listening to the Stones a lot the past few weeks, and Keith Richards’s guitar parts are so sexy and stunning. And he plays so much with a fairly clean sound, just a touch of dirty. Overdrive in its place and time, but make sure your group is blending.

For acoustic performers, it’s OK to be a little quiet. You’ll draw people in if you sound good, so don’t crank up the system just to get everyone’s attention. I’d rather have people leaning in to hear better than leaning away because the sound is too harsh on the ear.

Just speaking as an audience member here. Hopefully I translate these opinions over when I’m on the other side of the mike.

It’s tedious when musicians try to play in new genres. I say, “try to play,” rather than just play. Yeah, I have spent time at home playing through Coltrane changes or working through some quaint little classical guitar etude. But hopefully I don’t force an audience to listen to me trying to force square pegs out of a round guitar soundhole. (Speaking of forced, maybe I should take out that square-peg cliche. Nah!)

Some musicians just play, no matter what, and they just blow through different styles. Garcia and Grisman do a sweet job on Miles Davis’s “So What?” Richard Greene’s string quartet did Guns & Roses and the Doors pretty good. But there are plenty of rockers trying to play bluegrass, plenty of bluegrassers trying to play swing, plenty of folkies trying to play rock. Trying way too hard sometimes.

Then along come the Waybacks. They’re a four-person band: drummer, bass, fiddle, and guitarist. They play hot honky-tonk country, Celticky acoustic rock, fiddle tunes, some western swing, just all kinds of good stuff. They played a sweet show last night at Jammin java in Vienna. These guys sound great on their CDs, and they sound just super live. Lots of lively, fast jamming from all the guys in the group. Dynamics kept changing, styles kept changing. Each song sounded different from the previous. The audience was raucous and having fun. Except for one fuzz-crunch rocker that I found a little flat and monolithic, the hour-plus set was awesome.

There were two opening acts, each a solo songwriter. The first one didn’t do anything that I found memorable or interesting. But the second one was Devon Sproule, who played some poetic stuff with lots of attitude. She was a little rough and raucous in her singing, but that added a lot to the punch and feel of her songs. Lots of interesting word pictures. She played a big old Gibson hollow-body, and it sounded great. I have been thinking a lot about those old twangy hollow-bodies since hearing buddy Miller live a couple months ago. so I may need to look around for one of those nice Gretsches or gibsons.

so jamman java put together a nice night of music. I knew the Waybacks would be awesome, and it was a treat to hear some great new music from Devon sproule.