“Well, about 4 years ago, I was on my way back from Knoxville, and I hit a cow,” I overheard the man say while I was eating a forkful of potato salad in the backstage lunch area. “Yep. Totaled my car. And the farmer wouldn’t even own up to it when he came down. ‘That’s not my cow,’ he said.”
And then I knew—If I’d had any doubts up to this point—that there was no mistaking it. I was at a bluegrass festival.
Day 2 of Merlefest began with a bit of excitement, as I watched Gillian Welch (pictured right) and David Rawlings get golf-carted away to their first performance of the weekend. So I hurried over to the Austin Stage—with its seats that run up a steep hillside—and found myself a spot right up front.
Welch and Rawlings make some of the most graceful music I’ve ever heard. Their performance was quiet and beautiful, subtle acoustic-guitar interplay ringing tastefully through the Appalachian air. Looking up at the lush, green foliage, you couldn’t help but be consumed by the thought—this is the kind of place this music was supposed to be heard. Close your eyes and you could be at a county fair circa 1935.
The duo had an innocent, understated sense of humor on stage, telling nerdy banjo jokes between songs, smiling, enjoying the moment. Rawlings played his ancient acoustic, the one with f-holes like a violin, and strands of Welch’s red hair hung down over her pale shoulders as she picked banjo and sang sweet and lonesome. The two of them are so spiritually in tune with each other that they often play as if they’re one person.
On the way to see Mindy Smith, I caught part of renowned acoustic-fusion guitarist Tony Rice’s pretty-picked set of introspective jazzgrass. You can really lose yourself in Rice’s music and, as I walked past, I let my mind wander.
(Gillian Welch and David Rawlings photos by Steve LaBate)
Hidden on the edge of the festival grounds, Smith (pictured right) is a few songs into her set at the Creekside stage (read: mosquito-infested swamp stage). But the playfully sarcastic spitfire waif makes the best of her less-than-glamorous surroundings. Her songs are beautiful, intelligent and moving, and she sings them with a voice ten times as big as she is. Her musical partner, Lex Price, waxes thoughtful on the mandolin, making for near-perfect accompaniment.
When Smith breaks into her hit single, “Come To Jesus,” you get a feeling in your gut like when you hear an old Ledbelly recording of “In The Pines.” There’s a bleak desperation in her voice that cuts to the bone.
Later in the afternoon, I’m a bit worn out, so I catch a nap on a narrow wooden bench backstage. Somewhere between wake and dream, I hear the voice of one our interns, Andrew. “Steve, are you okay?” My eyes open and slowly begin to focus. Welch and Rawlings are standing in front of me, chatting it up. Andrew sits down next to me on the bench for a minute, while I shake the sleep from my mind. “Hey fellas,” says Americana heavyweight Jim Lauderdale as he walks by. It can get a bit surreal back here at times.
After the sun goes down, Newgrass pioneer Sam Bush hits the main stage with his band in tow. They rock it mountain style with Bush’s smooth-screamin’ fiddle front-and-center. The bassist, playing upright electric, locks into what I like to call the “redneck march”—that foot-stompin’ 2/4-time bass line that anchors so much of country and bluegrass. The band plays not only the traditional, but various forms of bluegrass and rock fusion.
Bush, with his curly mop of brown hair, wire-rimmed glasses and loud Hawaiian shirt, picks up a mandolin and starts playing it with a guitar slide. The band members are having a great time on stage and it shows. They play a tune Bush says was inspired by Little Feat, and then—on the next number—add a healthy dash of bluegrass’ hipper, subtropical cousin, reggae, to the already potent melting pot of musical styles.
After the day’s official festivities are over, myself and my crack squad of Paste interns—Andrew, Katie and Cory—pile into the car and head out for the Sugar Hill Records after party. About 20 miles deeper into the country, atop a majestic mountain peak, we find the multi-story log cabin we’re looking for, and a little more than we expected.
In the living room, members of newly signed Sugar Hill group, The Duhks, are sitting in a circle playing one of the finest folk jams I’ve witnessed. It was great to see them off stage, amongst friends, making music in such an informal setting. They’re definitely a group to keep an eye on.
As I’m sitting on the couch tapping my beer can to the music and joining in on harmony vocals here and there, an older British-looking chap with slightly graying light-brown hair sits down on the arm of the easy chair to my right. Mandolin in hand, he joins the fray, picking up a storm to everyone’s delight. Some of the guys from Reckless Kelly join in, beaming. After all, it’s not every night you get to jam with John Paul Jones. The legendary Led Zeppelin bassist, multi-instrumentalist and sought-after producer and studio musician, is a huge bluegrass fan, apparently. He was at the festival and wasn’t staying far from Sugar Hill’s rented cabin, so he decided to drop by for a bit.
After a few numbers, one of the players breaks into Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere, and Jones and the rest of us join in, trading verses and solos in between, all singing together on the catch-penny chorus, “Oooooh ride me high / Tomorrow’s the day my bride’s gonna come / Oooooh are we gonna fly / Down in the easy chair.” It was certainly the highlight of my night and, from l what I gather, most everyone else’s there, too.
(Mindy Smith photos by Cory Albertson, Sam Bush tour-bus blur and live photos by Steve LaBate)