On stage, there’s not a slacker in sight. I believe everybody dabbles in writing music and lyrics. Lewandowski, mandolin, like I said Laura Orshaw, fiddle Jasper Lorentzen, bass Jerome Brown, banjo and Big Josh Rinkel, guitar. The record was recorded at Sound Biscuit Productions. Never Slow Down was co-produced, engineered, recorded, and mastered by Paul Blakemore. A re-mastered recording of “God’s Love is So Divine,” a tune first recorded by the Po’ Boys in 2018, has been released to raise much needed funds for flood rescue and relief efforts. In addition to all this headline-making stuff, PRB slipped a most grace-filled gesture under the radar to help our brothers and sisters in southeast Kentucky. And Po’ Ramblin’ Laura Orshaw is up for New Artist of the Year for what she has added to PRB with her fiddle, her voice, her song arranging insight, her performance élan, and her just-one-of-the-Boys self. They’re also nominated for Collaborative Recording of the Year for “East Bound and Down” on Sound Biscuit with the twin fiddles of Bronwyn Keith-Hynes and Jason Carter. The group is nominated for Entertainers of the Year. But the album isn’t the only object of awards attention from IBMA. Lewandowski, PRB’s founder and mandolinist who writes the best liner notes since the days of RCA Victor heavy black vinyl, is a dang genius, and Never Slow Down is the most recent result. Every bit of what they’re reaping this year is 100% earned from good honest work.Ĭ.J. They all wear fabulous threads and hats from Rockmount. What’s not to like about the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys? They started in a moonshine distillery not far from Dollarwood. Before the jam begins, you can see Jerome Brown tuning his banjo, and somebody calls out “What’s the difference between a banjo and an onion? …When you cut up a banjo, nobody cries!” At that, with half a shit-eatin’ grin, Jerome rips into “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” and jaws all around him splash in the mud. Luckily, several people shot really good video of it all from right in the eye of the hurricane, which has been quite the viral phenomenon over there on YouTube. They had just had enough of social distancing. With the sound crew scratching their heads, Sierra led her band straight out to the middle of the audience, and PRB followed her, and in a minute or two they were tuning up for an impromptu unamplified al fresco jamfest surrounded by 100’s of white hairs and overalls. Then Sierra Hull and her band came out, but half way through her set, something completely unexpected happened.Īpparently she had planned this with PRB. The presenters (ORNL Federal Credit Union) and the hosts (radio station WDVX-FM) said “Let’s do it,” and PRB opened. It poured all day until an hour before the show. 410’s to the wood pile ‘cause copperheads are everywhere in Morgan County. And the audience that day was the typical Oak Ridge crowd: grey-haired retired physicists, chemists, and school teachers, with a smattering of folks from the surrounding counties who actually wear overalls every day, own hound dogs, and carry. The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys came to Oak Ridge, TN with Sierra Hull in July 2021 for a late afternoon show at Summer Sessions, a free concert series in what the locals call the “Secret City,” a relic of the Manhattan Project that has a population demographic that’s an upside-down bell curve… lots of people over 60 and under 16, with very few in between. It’s as real as the moment we’re balanced on. If I had to survive for a year on a deserted island or in Portland, OR, someplace like that, and could only take one album from the five listed above to listen to all year in exile, the Album of the Year is obvious. The IBMA’s Album of the Year will be decided in Raleigh at the end of September, and it’ll go to Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, Danny Paisley, or Bela Fleck. It’s stiff competition at the top of the heap. Never Slow Down: The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys and The Eternal Importance of Bluegrass
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |