Newgrass Revival

[Sam Bush Fan!]

I Am Trying To Learn All I Can About "The Newgrass Revival" .
Unfortunately I Came A Little To Late To See Them.
I Do Have Some Of There Recordings But That Is It.
So I Was Wondring What You Know About The Great Band?

[Fretbear]

Curtis Burch and the late Courtney Johnson recorded and played some of the finest acoustic stringband music ever. With Sam Bush on mandolin and fiddle and first Ebo Walker and then John Cowan on electric bass they rewrote the rules and then tore them up, all in perfect time and with impeccable execution. One of my favorite recordings of all time is the last NGR with the original cast entitled "Commonwealth". Their recording of John Hartford's "Steam powered Aeroplane" is the kind of music that makes you want to jump up out of your chair and holler......

[John Rosett]

One of the great bands! I still listen to all their old albums.
There are quite a few videos on youtube for those that never got to see them live.

[Charley wild]

I only got to see them once. Butch Robbins (sp?) was playing bass at the time. It was a bar gig in Bowling Green, KY. They were great! I was in Nashville at Tut Taylor's the next day and Sam, Curtis and another guy (not a band member) walked in and when I told Sam I'd caught them the night before, he wanted me to give him an entire rundown of what I thought about certain songs they did, certain arangements, etc. He was real inrense about it in a real friendly way. They jammed with Tut ( who, at the time, owned the fabled Loar A5 and was showing it to me when they walked in) for a couple hours. Sam played guitar and apologized for his lack of ability on guitar. He sounded fine to me! Norman Blake dropped by and joined in. Tut literally tossed the A5 to him! ( I got to play it a bit later that day) Great fun! I digress. They were great to see and hear. Connected with the audience very well. It was the first "newgrass" band I had ever seen in person and they were very impressive! And in closing I have to mention that Sam is one of the nicest people I've ever met. Showbiz or otherwise!

[Fretbear]

Sam would have been stoked, he was playing his hometown of Bowling Green.
He is a rabid baseball fan as well.

[AlanN]

The last time I saw them was at the Staten Island BG Festival, must have been 1986 or so. They opened with Big Country, the J L Ponty tune, very cool. Jimmy Arnold was at this same festival, he played solo, and I was struck by his arms, which were totally covered in tattoos.

And someone mentioned Commonwealth as their last recording as a band. Wasn't it Friday Night In America, with Let's Make A Baby King and I'm Down?

[mandotopia]

One of the greatest bands I've seen. I have a couple bootleg tapes from the Birchmere in the late 80's. They have a live Album (CD) from that era. Thier albums are good but they were awesome live. Pat Flynn on guitar, Bela Fleck, Sam Bush and John Cowans vocals. I would see them 2 nights in a row every 6 months (they played the Birchmere alot)and they were great every single time. I cannot think of another band that could be that Jaw dropping every single time. Consistently great. Three thumbs up. There are websites that specialize in live performance recordings and I bet some NGR tapes are there. Definately worth tracking down.

[Sam Bush Fan!]

I only got to see them once. Butch Robbins (sp?) was playing bass at the time. It was a bar gig in Bowling Green, KY. They were great! I was in Nashville at Tut Taylor's the next day and Sam, Curtis and another guy (not a band member) walked in and when I told Sam I'd caught them the night before, he wanted me to give him an entire rundown of what I thought about certain songs they did, certain arangements, etc. He was real inrense about it in a real friendly way. They jammed with Tut ( who, at the time, owned the fabled Loar A5 and was showing it to me when they walked in) for a couple hours. Sam played guitar and apologized for his lack of ability on guitar. He sounded fine to me! Norman Blake dropped by and joined in. Tut literally tossed the A5 to him! ( I got to play it a bit later that day) Great fun! I digress. They were great to see and hear. Connected with the audience very well. It was the first "newgrass" band I had ever seen in person and they were very impressive! And in closing I have to mention that Sam is one of the nicest people I've ever met. Showbiz or otherwise!

I Live In Kentucky, And That Is So Cool I Wish I Was There (But I Was Not Born Yet). I Just Heard Of The A5 Loar From Curtis, How Did It Sound?

[TonyP]

If you look close Alan, Fretbear says the last recording with the original cast. So I think that's right.
I was more a fan of the last vs of the band. And the one time I was going to see them live was at Strawberry in '85. But like a dummy, I'd sat out in the sun almost the whole day before, it being so nice and cool, I got tricked. I went back out the next day and was sitting in my usual place out in the sun and started feeling sick. I'd gotten sunstroke I guess as I got sick as a dog. We went back to camp and could hear perfect, while I lay in the shade. As sad as I was I couldn't see them(they were the reason for my being there), they sounded as good if not better than the albums. Quite a feat in my book. Not many of my hero's sounded as good or better than their albums live, but NGR did. What energy. NGR was instrumental for me to "soften" up my ear to be appreciate traditional bluegrass.

[Sam Bush Fan!]

I Know Danny Jones And Curtis Burch And I've Met John Cowan And I've Also Met Sam Bush A Cople Of Times And He Is My All Time Hero,So I Guess I Just Want To Know More About Them (NGR).
And Also Do Any Of You Know About The Bluegrass Alliance?

[Charley wild]

Issac, I wasn't that great a player back then or now. I just chopped some chords while Tut picked a couple of tunes and I stumbled through a couple. To quote another forum member when he played a Loar for the first time (not this one) "It sounded like a nice old mandolin". I hadn't played many F hole mandolins of any kind back then. I'd had some A's and an F2 so I didn't have much to compare it to. It just sounded nice. That's about the best I can do.:)
It was one of those great days in my life that happen very seldom. To hear those guys going at it. Sam was very gracious and he kept trying to get me to play. I knew better. lol I just sat there and took it all in.
Again, I was so glad to see them the night before. It was a happy accident. I stopped in Bowling Green for the night and their name was on a small marquee at a bar right across the street. I got there early and got a great seat, and stayed the whole night! Anyway, I'm rambling.....

[Tom Mylet]

I was in school in Bowling Green, KY from 9/67-1/70 and knew Sam and Wayne Stewart. I recently saw a post here by Wayne. Maybe he'll see this and chime in.

[Sam Bush Fan!]

Issac, I wasn't that great a player back then or now. I just chopped some chords while Tut picked a couple of tunes and I stumbled through a couple. To quote another forum member when he played a Loar for the first time (not this one) "It sounded like a nice old mandolin". I hadn't played many F hole mandolins of any kind back then. I'd had some A's and an F2 so I didn't have much to compare it to. It just sounded nice. That's about the best I can do.:)
It was one of those great days in my life that happen very seldom. To hear those guys going at it. Sam was very gracious and he kept trying to get me to play. I knew better. lol I just sat there and took it all in.
Again, I was so glad to see them the night before. It was a happy accident. I stopped in Bowling Green for the night and their name was on a small marquee at a bar right across the street. I got there early and got a great seat, and stayed the whole night! Anyway, I'm rambling.....

I'm Enjoying Your So-Called "Rambling":grin:

[viv]

aahhhhh....ngr....makes my heart sing. DO check youtube for some truly superlative vids--you can find ngr, you can find ngr with leon russell (now there's some snappy tunes....) you can find bela and sam and john, you can find sam, you can find john (whom i often refer to as TVMO, or The Vocally Magnificent One), you can find some sam AND john that will make you melt--DANG they sound good together!!

enjoy.

[fatt-dad]

The first time I saw NGR would have been summer of 1972 or 1973. Sam was playing an A5 mandolin. It would have been at the Culpeper (72) or Culpeper-Warrenton (73) bluegrass festivals. When I went off to college (Colorado State University) I volunteered to work on the entertainment committee at the Student Union, where we had a 3.2 beer hall. One of the upper classmen asked about NGR and said we could go check them out a bar in Denver. So, a few of us drove down there and booked them (next day) to play at the Student Union. I ran the lights. They have since returned to Fort Collins, Colorado many times (not that I had anything to do with that, I was just there for their first performance). I also saw NGR at the Telluride Bluegrass festival one of those foggy years in the '70s. In all honesty, I kind of got cool on the NGR when Cowan joined the band although that was sometime in the mid-70s and I've seen them alot with him in the band. I never really cared for his voice and that's herasy to many - no accounting for taste, eh (mine, that is).

f-d

[Fretbear]

I saw them at Telluride with Bela. At one point Bela spun his right hand like an electric dynamo, and making a continuous curving motion with his fretting hand, drew out a perfect musical helix of (seemingly) every note from the first fret to the last fret of his banjo......it was a really good day not be a banjo player (even more than usual.) The reason I loved "Commonwealth" so much was that it was the perfect fully-realized musical expression of whatever the original band had originally set out together to express, and any virtuosity displayed (which was a lot) was just a by-product of what was required to play the music, rather than an end in itself, which gets old fast.

[Wayne Stewart]

I was in school in Bowling Green, KY from 9/67-1/70 and knew Sam and Wayne Stewart. I recently saw a post here by Wayne. Maybe he'll see this and chime in.

Hey Tom, long time no see or hear. for me to chime in I'd need to learn to type with more than 2 fingers <}:-) but if folks have questions, I'll do my best to answer. You could say I was one of the original members of NGR. In 71 I played a few show dates with the BGA between Tony Rice going with J D Crowe and Curtis B coming on board. Lot's of fond memories of my bluegrass years.

good seeing your name