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Sam Bush to bring ‘newgrass’ to area
Sam Bush is one of busiest men in bluegrass, and, according to information found online, he’s also one of the nicest.
Based on the list of albums he’s played on and musicians he’s teamed with, it would be hard to argue the former statement; based on a recent telephone interview, I’d say the second part is true as well.
Bush, a fiddle player and mandolinist, cut his chops on traditional music but also played a role in creating what’s come to be termed “newgrass” (bluegrass “stepchild” that features “rock ’n’ roll grooves and extended virtuoso jams”) when he co-founded the acclaimed Newgrass Revival, which he led for 18 years in the 1970s and 1980s. He was then band leader Emmylou Harris’ Grammy-Award-winning Nash Ramblers for five years before starting his own band a decade ago.
Touring this spring in support of his upcoming CD, “Laps in Seven,” Bush will bring his particular brand of blulegrass/newgrass to our area on the opening night of next weekend’s Smilefest, set for Friday through Sunday, June 2-4, at LakeToxaway’s Gorges Music Park.
As an ardent Harris fan, I watched Bush perform seven or eight times while he was with the Ramblers. It was always amazing to see his ease at switching between mandolin and fiddle, and I remember wondering which one he liked the best.
“I’m most comfortable with the mandolin,” he answered.
Mandolin-master Sam Bush, who founded New Grass Revival and led Emmylou Harris’ Grammy-winning Nash Ramblers before starting his own band, will perform Friday, June 2, at Lake Toxaway’s Smilefest. His next CD, “Laps in Seven,” is due out June 13.
Bush, who has played professionally since he graduated from high school in 1970, started learning that instrument when he was about 11 and began with the fiddle two years later. The two are tuned the same, and notes are made the same way, he said. Adding the bow makes fiddling more of a challenge because “it’s hard to keep the bow from squeaking,” he said.
Bush said he likes the versatility that the different instruments offer.
“The mandolin is more percussive, while the fiddle is more sustained and bends more like a voice,” he said.
Growing up in Bowling Green, Ky., Bush spent a lot of Saturday nights backstage at the Grand Old Opry in Nashville, Tenn. His father, also a fiddle player, had gotten acquainted with a band that often visiting Bowling Green, which gave him and his son access to the inner chambers of the old Ryman Auditorium – the “Mother Church” of country music – where the Opry was then staged.
“I got to know Jerry Rivers, who had played fiddle for Hank Rivers, and I me a very young Peter Rowan, who was playing guitar for Bill Monroe,” Bush said. “ I was just a kid standing around and watching Bill Monroe play that mandolin.”
Bush drew on all his varied musical experiences and his ability to make his mandolin mimic other instruments when he joined Harris’ band in 1990, when the singer switched from her famous Hot Band to the acoustic Nash Ramblers.
That change gave Harris’ hits a fresh sound, but at the same time, certain songs retained their familiar sound.
One I particularly remember is Harris’ version of the Buck Owens classic, “Together Again,” which she took to number one in 1976. During a 1991 show in Dollywood, Bush’s mandolin sounded like the original recording’s piano, and I asked him if that was intentional.
“She started the band with the idea of changing her sound – of playing familiar songs with different instruments and arrangements,” Bush said. “But we wanted to keep certain licks on certain familiar songs to give her audiences something to grasp on to. And I personally loved that Glenn D. Hardin piano solo, so I tried to do that.”
My favorite Sam Bush/Emmylou Harris memory is from October 1992. Richard and I went to a club in Buckhead, Ga., to hear Harris and her band. As concert time came and went, the crowd began to get restless.
Then the announcer apologized for the delay and said Harris was out at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” for the seventh game of the National League Championship Series. All of a sudden, there she was on the huge television screen, standing on the infield in a red dress, accompanied only by Sam Bush on guitar, singing our national anthem. Beautifully.
I asked Bush if he remembered that particular show.
“It was the first time I’d stepped onto a major league baseball field,” said Bush, who describes himself as a huge baseball fan. “It was very generous of Emmy – she was perfectly capable of hitting her own chord, but she knew how much I wanted to go out on the field.”
That night’s show, when it started, was excellent, and it was nearly 11 p.m. before the last encore ended. The show was over, but the drama on the baseball diamond continued.
Bush and Harris had kept up with the ballgame during breaks in the show and got to see its dramatic conclusion, he said. As the Braves batted in the bottom of the ninth inning, pinch-hitter Francisco Cabrera’s two-out single sent Sid Bream lumbering toward home to score the run that sent Atlanta to the World Series for the second year in a row.
“It was a great night,” he said.
No matter what instrument Bush is using or what stage he’s on, he’ll likely have a smile on his face.
“The man lives to make music,” according to the Smilefest Web site (www.smilefest.com). “It’s not the kind of music that matters to Bush. It’s the fun factor.”
Bush himself echoed that sentiment last week.
“Come on out,” he said of the Lake Toxaway event. “It’s not your grandpa’s bluegrass – it’s ‘newgrass’ with positive bluegrass energy and fun onstage.”
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