Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
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Friday, October 6, 2006
By SHAWN HOPKINS - Bulletin Staff Writer
The audience at The Sam Bush Band’s concert Sunday at Martinsville High School will hear bluegrass, but what “new grass” musician Sam Bush has to offer is wider and more eclectic than that.
“It is different in that what we do is, we use somewhat traditional bluegrass instruments to play what we would call contemporary music,” Bush said Thursday. The music has a recognizable bluegrass influence and sound, but there are bits of country, reggae and rock intertwined.
“It is more varied. And while we do play the occasional bluegrass number, we don’t want to portray us as just a bluegrass band,” said Bush, 54, who lives in Nashville.
Bush has been stretching the boundaries of what a bluegrass musician can be since he was a teenager, when he was one of the founding members of New Grass Revival in 1971.
He and other members of the band started by taking rock ’n’ roll songs and adapting them to bluegrass instruments, but eventually they developed their own material.
Bush said that when he started playing in the early 1970s, traditional bluegrass venues and country/rock venues did not mix.
In 1971, New Grass Revival was greeted with the puzzled “look of a dog staring at a ceiling fan,” Bush said, but now bluegrass bands that have mixed styles are more widespread and accepted.
“I think we influenced young, up-and-coming players to want to play that type of style,” he said.
Although he’s called the “king of new grass,” Bush does not take sole credit for the style, pointing out that the band was called New Grass Revival in part in deference to other musicians who already had departed from the traditional style, such as Jimmy Martin.
Bush said he has not played in the Martinsville area since the 1970s, but he owes his initial interest in bluegrass to seeing a festival near Roanoke when he was a boy.
“I started coming to Virginia when I was 13 in 1965 in what was called the Roanoke Bluegrass Festival,” he said, which was held at a farm in Fincastle.
“Boy, did I get bit by this bluegrass bug,” he said, and he “never looked back.”
Bush said he developed his varied tastes growing up in Bowling Green, Ky.
Bowling Green is close enough to get Nashville television stations, so he watched Nashville programs and listened to the Grand Ole Opry. He also listened to R & B radio from Nashville and followed the Beatles, Creem and Jimmy Hendrix. Bush said he also was influenced by reggae, especially Bob Marley.
“I was just exposed to so many types of music,” he said.
Like one of his major bluegrass influences, Bill Monroe, Bush describes himself as a mandolin player first. He was named International Bluegrass Music Association mandolin player of the year in 1990, 1991 and 1992. But he also is an accomplished fiddle player and said he was named a national junior champion in fiddle playing more than once in the 1970s.
Bush said he is not overly introspective, but his music draws from his life and his experiences.
“It’s all a reflection,” he said.
For example, on his latest album the title track, “Laps in Seven,” was inspired by his dog, Ozzie.
“I was listening to him drink his water and realized that he’s got a rhythm going, and there’s seven beats per measure,” he said.
Working with this initial sound, Bush collaborated with other musicians to write the song.
“You’ve got to grab inspiration where it comes,” he said.
New Grass Revival ended in 1989. Bush has released a variety of solo projects and worked with other bands including working as musical director of country singer Emmylou Harris’ acoustic band, the Nash Ramblers. He also plays a number of festivals and has played the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado for 32 years, which Bush said has led to his loyal following in the West.
Those who aren’t particularly interested in bluegrass still may have heard Bush play. He’s a popular session musician who has played with Garth Brooks, Steve Earle, Dolly Parton and Neil Diamond.
He also played on a song on the “O Brother Where Art Thou” soundtrack, and Brooks has covered some of New Grass Revival’s songs, including “Calling Baton Rouge,” which was a hit for Brooks. In fact, Bush said, Brooks brought New Grass Revival members in to play music for that song.
When asked which albums people interested in his music should check out, Bush suggested “Icecaps: Peaks of Telluride,” which collects years of material from the festival.
“That one’s got all of the live energy. It’s rough and ready,” he said.
He also is proud of his latest effort, “Laps in Seven.”
“This current album I feel is pretty well-rounded,” he said. It includes a collaboration with Shaun Murphy called “I Want To Do Right,” which is a tribute to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and collaborations with Harris and Jean-Luc Ponty.
At the concert, Bush promised a “positive-energy-style show,” an experience that, overall, is intended to be uplifting.
“We want to make joyful noise for people,” he said.
The Sam Bush Band also includes Scott Vestal on banjo and banjo synthesizer, Stephen Mougin on acoustic and electric guitar, Byron House on acoustic and electric bass and Chris Brown on drums, and all of the members sing harmonies, Bush said.
The band will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in the Martinsville High School auditorium.
The show is the opening concert of the 2006-07 season of Piedmont Arts’ On Stage! concert series. Tickets are $28 reserved, $18 adults, $10 seniors and $15 for high school students and younger, and are available at Piedmont Arts, 215 Starling Ave., online at www.piedmontarts.org, or by calling 632-3221.
More information about Bush can be found at his Web site, www.sambush.com. |
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