Monday October 8, 2001 

Bluegrass artists sift through tunes from the past in making new music

By Marty Rosen, Special to the Courier-Journal

The blissful anarchy of more than 30 formal -- and dozens of informal -- performances Saturday and yesterday at the International Bluegrass Music Association Fan Fest could hardly be reduced to a single theme. But wherever music was being played in the Galt House East, from the Main Stage, to the Merlefest Roots & Branches Stage, to the Bluegrass Now Master's Workshop Stage, it seemed that the best emerging artists in the genre were sifting the music's depths, and finding freshly powerful ideas everywhere they looked.

On the Main Stage Saturday afternoon, the association's emerging artist of the year award winner Karl Shiflett & Big Country Show (a group that includes among its members Andy Ruff, and outstanding young dobro player from Jeffersonville, Ind.) mixed comedy shtick, virtuoso instrumentals, and robust old-timey harmonies.  Later that day, The Old Time Opry Variety Show, featuring 18 artists like the Case Brothers and old-timey banjo player Leroy Troy, recreated a radio barn dance circa 1940 that included a hilarious version of "Bicycle Wreck" ("I was comin' down the mountain doin' 90 miles an hour when the chain of my bicycle broke..."). 

David Peterson & 1946, who closed the Main Stage yesterday, after playing nearly nonstop showcases throughout the weekend, were haunting and evocative as they sang the deathly Appalachian harmonies of "The Butcher Boy." And when Peterson unleashed his extraordinary voice on Jimmie Rodgers' "Blue Yodel Number 3," every hair in the room must have stood. 

The association's entertainer of the year, Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, turned in a fast-paced set capped by a diabolically brilliant "Orange Blossom Special" featuring fiddle player of the year Michael Cleveland. The Henryville, Ind. Native combined double stops, swooping glissandi, and startling percussive attacks as scary as anything in a Paganini concert etude.

The best bluegrass artists in the world were on hand, and there wasn't a slacker in the bunch, but standout performances came from Bob Paisley & The Southern Grass; Rock County, a new group fronted by Don Rigsby and master fiddler Glen Duncan, blaced through Tom T. Hall's weird serial killer saga "Turn It On, Turn It On, Turn It On." Red Wine, a group from Genoa, Italy, sang bluegrass in both Italian and English, including a sweet cover of Kate Wolf's "Across the Great Divide." 

But perhaps the most startling performance of the weekend came in the wee hours yesterday morning in the California Bluegrass Association hospitality suite when the banjo player for Washington, D.C.-based Big Hillbilly Bluegrass Band launched into a fierce, muscular "Pretty Polly." His take on the murder ballad had the kind of scary intensity one seldom sees and long remembers.