I have told you about the connection that so many of the weekends bands have to the classic bluegrass of their forefathers, it was not escaping me that Nickel Creek and Keller Williams fall outside what most people call Bluegrass. The instrumentation of these bands is consistent with what you would expect to see gathered around an over sized microphone, but the music only starts there. It goes to a place that many longtime attendees at Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival told me was definitely not bluegrass. On Saturday, this continued to show up. Whether in the rapped lyrics over bluegrass riffs when Gangstagrass brought down the house late night, or within the intense drumming of the Carolina Chocolate Drops as they reignited the themes of the African American’s take on Americana in the Appalachian Hills; even the melancholic tones of Elephant Revival showed me that Grey Fox recognizes that with the next generation, bluegrass mixed with other forms of music may become that norm at Grey Fox. But don’t worry folks. When The Del McCoury Band took the stage as the headliner on Saturday night, he reminded us not only what traditional fast picking bluegrass is all about, he showed us that at 75, he shows no signs of slowing down.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 22:18:32 +0000