Alan Jackson at the Station Inn

[sunburst]

...reminds of this one...

Wow! That really happened!

[FLATROCK HILL]

And as for his god-given rich baritone voice....

Should have said "God-given". Neglected to capitalize and too late to edit.

[M.Marmot]

This performance by Jackson reminds of this one by a well known Rock Artist a few years ago which has pretty much been forgotten like New Coke. Surround yourself with 6 to 10 of the best superpickers in bluegrass and jump in the middle and sing any song you want and it's going to sound like bluegrass music. Just glad Mr. Monroe was not alive to see this one: PS: Note the mandolin picker they choose. Not a cheap band of pickers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-VZ2mrpBZs

I... I did not know whether to thank you or flag you for abuse for posting that link, wow, that was, it sure was something

[AlanN]

I remember when Tom first posted that link. I feel the same way now as I did then. But, as the man said:

There's no such thing as a bad gig.

[grassrootphilosopher]

This performance by Jackson reminds of this one by a well known Rock Artist a few years ago which has pretty much been forgotten like New Coke. Surround yourself with 6 to 10 of the best superpickers in bluegrass and jump in the middle and sing any song you want and it's going to sound like bluegrass music. Just glad Mr. Monroe was not alive to see this one: PS: Note the mandolin picker they choose. Not a cheap band of pickers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-VZ2mrpBZs

This video clearly shows my point. The superpickers (Barry Mitterhoff on mando?) sort of play a "rock" backup to the song. The singer does his thing while pretending that the pickers take solos. The vocals are bad and the instrumentation is not "bluegrass" by definition. What I mean by that is, that each instrument has its part to play (virtually). The bass does the beats, the guitar does the boom-chick thing (bass note on the beat, strum on the off-beat), the mandolin does the drum (chop), the banjo does the weaving (meanting that it pulls the different instruments together), the fiddle does what the banjo does not (long notes when the banjo rolls f.ex.) etc. etc. This video has all the instruments do the melodic riff that makes the song ("Jump") recognizable. Not much else happens. The mando chop does not work in this kind of arangement and therefore it sticks out like a sore thumb. And did I mention the poor quality of the vocals...

[AlanN]

Mando is Kenny Blackwell, I think.

[Russ Jordan]

or John Jorgenson?

[Caleb]

I don't see what the big deal is. I'm just glad to see ACOUSTIC music being embraced in a larger sense. Many people are trying to connect with something real and historical, musically, and any step in that direction is a good one in my book.

[Timmando]

Boy, Davie Lee Roth could hardly contain himself, indian woops and all...if twerking was invented at that time he would have been twerking all over the place!

[JH Murray]

David Lee Roth was fired from VanHalen at least twice because he suffered from "LSD" (Lead Singer Disease), aka delusions of greatness. He never did learn how to listen to what was going on around him, which is what also got him fired from his bigtime radio show. I'm all for genre bending, and for bluegrass to continue evolving, but David Lee Roth is still 'running with the devil' on this one.

[f5loar]

It's Jorgenson on mandolin. Not sure who or how this band was put together but all are top end pickers. When it came out I was expecting a full bluegrass CD. Did it happen? Or is this just a one off dream come true of Roth to take one more off his bucket list?

[Alex Orr]

Wait, David Lee Roth can't sing?!?!

http://geaky.com/262-David-Lee-Roth-SoundBoard.html

I always thought one of the great wastes of talent in rock history was Eddie Van Halen attaching himself to a good-but-nothing-great rhythm section and one of the great hack front men and songwriters in pop music history.

As far as Alan Jackson... Am I the only one who seemws to think he was playing some really awful bluegrass rhythm guitar? Seemed very strummy, like the guitar was just a prop. That said, I do like Alan Jackson overall. He has written and performed some great stuff that nicely recalled a bit of traditional country, and by all accounts, he is a heck of a nice guy. I don't know if the BG is a cash grab, but I don't think it's a desperate move - the guy still plays amphitheater shows after all. That said, I also doubt the album is going to be all that good. Jackson seems to be a guy with a far better feel for country rockers, bar-room weepers, and neo-honky tonk type stuff. It would be like Lefty Frizzell doing a BG record.

[f5loar]

"The singer does his thing while pretending that the pickers take solos. The vocals are bad and the instrumentation is not "bluegrass" by definition"
Well I have to disagree with that statement. One only needs to think back to when Monroe hired Bill Keith in 1964. His banjo picking style was far from Scruggs yet Monroe made it fit into his style. Scott Vessel is following that mold from the Keith/Thompson styles. Monroe hired Richard Greene in 1966, truly the most underated of the Monroe fiddlers that stepped way outside the "Chubby" box from all his previous fiddlers. Rob Ickes on dobro is nothing more than straight "Flux" style and all Douglas did on dobro was take Uncle Josh to the next level of bluegrass dobro. Brad Davis lead guitar playing is straight off the Clarence White/Doc Watson style. Jorgenson on the mandolin is a cross between McRenyolds and Osborne and a touch of the "Dawg" who all took the Monroe style to a different style widely accepted by Bluegrass as traditional today. The bass guy does nothing out of the ordinary doing basic bluegrass bass runs. By definition this band is what bluegrass today is all about including some "New Grass" which by definition today is categorized as "Old Grass" since it is 40 years or older. And is the singer really that far off from some of Jimmy Martin's songs ("I Pulled A BooBoo", "Dog Bite Your Hide","Poor Little Bull Frog", "I Can't Quit Cigarettes" "Goin' Ape Over You) ? Are you saying the undisputed "King of Bluegrass" is not bluegrass? I think not! Maxwell says "Jump"

[sunburst]

...is the singer really that far off from some of Jimmy Martin's songs...

That clip brought Jimmy Martin to mind for me too. Strange...

[Timbofood]

Sometimes after seeing some videos my thought are "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should" but, yes the DLR video does enlarge the audience. But...

[grassrootphilosopher]

"The singer does his thing while pretending that the pickers take solos. The vocals are bad and the instrumentation is not "bluegrass" by definition"
Well I have to disagree with that statement. One only needs to think back to when Monroe hired Bill Keith in 1964. His banjo picking style was far from Scruggs yet Monroe made it fit into his style. Scott Vessel is following that mold from the Keith/Thompson styles. Monroe hired Richard Greene in 1966, truly the most underated of the Monroe fiddlers that stepped way outside the "Chubby" box from all his previous fiddlers. Rob Ickes on dobro is nothing more than straight "Flux" style and all Douglas did on dobro was take Uncle Josh to the next level of bluegrass dobro. Brad Davis lead guitar playing is straight off the Clarence White/Doc Watson style. Jorgenson on the mandolin is a cross between McRenyolds and Osborne and a touch of the "Dawg" who all took the Monroe style to a different style widely accepted by Bluegrass as traditional today. The bass guy does nothing out of the ordinary doing basic bluegrass bass runs. By definition this band is what bluegrass today is all about including some "New Grass" which by definition today is categorized as "Old Grass" since it is 40 years or older. And is the singer really that far off from some of Jimmy Martin's songs ("I Pulled A BooBoo", "Dog Bite Your Hide","Poor Little Bull Frog", "I Can't Quit Cigarettes" "Goin' Ape Over You) ? Are you saying the undisputed "King of Bluegrass" is not bluegrass? I think not! Maxwell says "Jump"

The instruments are bluegrass of course. Scott Vestal is top notch as are Rob Ickes, the mando guy et. al.

I don´t criticise melodic or other aproaches (think Don Reno) to banjo playing, just as mandolin crosspicking, Clarence guitar style (Clarence White fan here) etc.

But... the techniques have to work together. Have you ever heard a mandolin picker do crosspicking while the banjo player does roll along. Maybe that happens in a (mediocre) jam, but people that know how bluegrass is put together will not do that (except if they are playing harmony to each other). Likewise a guitar player will not noodle while there´s no other backup going on (not saying that Clarence White was "noodling" but they had a rythm guitar player in the 70ies so Clarence could go out on the limb whith his guitar). Indeed Richard Greene is one of the most powerful Bluegrass Boys and I love his fiddle playing (think "Blue Night"). The Jump clip yet showed the instruments mostly harpiing on the "Jump"-riff or weaving around it. The instrumental parts did not in a bluegrass way complement each other. And that, I think has nothing to do with the fact that superpickers were at work. In this case I think it is the fact that someone told them what he wanted and they complied. Perfect bluegrass adaptations of rock songs are done by the Reno Bros. in their Hayseed Dixie projekt as well as "The Cleverlys" do it (think "Walk Like An Egyptian"). While it´s not "Little Cabin Home On The Hill" the "orchestration" works.

Concerning the vocals: The lead singer and the "chorus"-singer were way off. They did not blend nor did they sing harmony, and even the aspired unison sound did not come off well.

I may not be able to express myself well in terms of music theory, but I have a hunch that we are not too far apart in our opinions.

Now when it comes to Jimmy Martin, of course did he whoop and such, but this is not what I disliked about the lead singer in the clip. Jimmy was a good singer, the lead singer in the video not so much (as I said with respect to the "chorus"-singer).

@ Caleb: Of course it´s great when Bluegrass gets exposure. But here (on the Cafe) we have the Bluegrass police (and the music police in general). I just think that - superpickers and all - the song just was not well orchestrated and the singing was off. If this performance pulled one more musician over to bluegrass, it was well worth it.

[Timmando]

Alex Orr posted "As far as Alan Jackson... Am I the only one who seemws to think he was playing some really awful bluegrass rhythm guitar? Seemed very strummy, like the guitar was just a prop."

I agree, not a guitar lick in the whole song, just a prop...he stops playing it altogether there at the end. And since there is no guitar mic, I guess it doesn't matter if he plays it or not. The song is completely without acoustic guitar backup and licks.

He does have his harmony singers there though, back in the shadows...thats a start for good bluegrass.

[Willie Poole]

No, I don`t think Alan Jackson made this CD to make more money, he is not a performer that I was referring to...It seems that some of the older "country" singers are not getting the bookings that they are used to and traveling the routes with the Nashville crowd these days so they cut a bluegrass album and hope to get some spots on bluegrass festivals.....I seen Skaggs get booed off of the stage in Delaware when he came out with a mixture of electric and acoustic instruments, on the next set he was just acoustic and played bluegrass like he can, I also seen J.D. Crows band get booed when they plugged it at Indian Springs here in Maryland a few years back, and one banjo player was playing through a Wa-Wa petal, I guess that is what it is called...when people want bluegrass they expect bluegrass and not some offshoot music that is called bluegrass just because they have a banjo and mandolin in the band...

Olaf, since you say our opinions aren`t too far apart my opinion is that you don`t really know what bluegrass is, I know it is hard to define it in words but I know real bluegrass when I hear it and thrashing a guitar like A.J. did just don`t fit my idea of bluegrass...You can like what ever you want and also call anything you want bluegrass but most of us "oldtimers" know what real bluegrass is....When I hear a song that strays off into a bunch of minor chords and some augmented ones to me that just isn`t bluegrass, a minor chord is just a off shoot of a major and a lot of times they do sound good but when a bunch of them are thrown into a song I don`t need or like them...

I know that when my band plays and we do an "off the wall" bluegrass song that is requested the crowd doesn`t respond as well as they do when we play the old standards...There are plenty of good bluegrass songs that only have two chords and a lot of the newer pickers are even trying to change those by throwing some minor chords...

I hope beyond hope that someone will come up with a name for this modern "Bluegrass" music so that us diehards can still call our bluegrass "Bluegrass" and people will know the difference..

Hope I didn`t ruffle any feathers and I don`t expect a lot of you youngsters to agree but that is not my problem, I KNOW BLUEGRASS WHEN I HEAR IT....I love to listen to most country singers that still have that old country flavor but just because they add a banjo, a mandolin and go unplugged doesn`t make it bluegrass..

I`m done...

Willie

[Mandosummers]

I've been at this bluegrass thing for 40 years now and I have always been amazed at the closed mindedness of some of its followers. We wouldn't even have "bluegrass" if Monroe himself had not been an experimenter and innovator. He even experimented with an accordion in the band for a while. This quoting from the book of Mon and snubbing noses at people taking a different approach and saying "that ain't bluegrass" seems ridiculous to me. The only qualifier I put on music I listen to is whether I like it or not. I enjoyed the concert. Some of the songs are great. I'll buy the album.

[AlanN]

A country crooner can do the bluegrass effectively. There's an Aubrey Haynie record with a guy singing a song, solo, about a preacher man, has the hook "Can I get an Amen", something like that. The vocalist has that deep sonorous Randy Travis thing going on, the song itself is terrifc and works very well in the grass format.

[f5loar]

"Have you ever heard a mandolin picker do crosspicking while the banjo player does roll along. Maybe that happens in a (mediocre) jam, but people that know how bluegrass is put together will not do that (except if they are playing harmony to each other)

I don't think these guys are just jamming along and I hear the mandolin crosspicking with the banjo roll in and out all through the song. And I'm pretty sure these guys know how to put bluegrass together. Are they harmonizing together? Don't know, but it sure sounds sweet to me plus the fact I played mandolin with this banjo picker for 20 years of his short life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vJ5IQoocCQ

[AlanN]

Yowzuh!

[johnhgayjr]

Even the Hag (who I love) couldn't really pull it off in his "bluegrass" sessions...

[johnparrott]

I hadn't heard that Haggard number...I think it's moving, beautiful...can't think of anything that would improve it.

[f5joe]

This performance by Jackson reminds of this one by a well known Rock Artist a few years ago which has pretty much been forgotten like New Coke. Surround yourself with 6 to 10 of the best superpickers in bluegrass and jump in the middle and sing any song you want and it's going to sound like bluegrass music. Just glad Mr. Monroe was not alive to see this one: PS: Note the mandolin picker they choose. Not a cheap band of pickers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-VZ2mrpBZs

Now Tommy, that ain't no part of nuthin'!