By: Cyn Collins
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Foghorn String Band - Publicity Photo
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The boys of Foghorn Stringband tore it up at the Cedar Cultural Center on Wednesday, a stop on their 12-day tour with The Wilders. Despite its members hailing from disparate parts of the country, the five blend their vocals and strings so tightly and perfectly in sync with each other, it’s downright eerie.
The self-proclaimed “ass-kickin’ redneck stringband music” quintent, based out of Portland, Oregon, consists of fiddle player and vocalist Stephen “Sammy” Lind, mandolin player and vocalist Caleb Klauder, singer and guitar player Kevin Sandri, banjo player Rev. P. T. Grover, and upright bass-player Brian Bagdonas.
The group contrasted slow songs like the Louvin Brothers (“Satan’s Jewel Crown“) and Carter Family (“Grave on the Green Hillside,” “Gospel Ship”) with wildly fast, old-timey Appalachian tunes. Grover quipped, “The difference between songs and tunes, is with songs there’s singing. With tunes there isn’t.” A 3-year-old was called up to clog to the fiddle tunes, and was then joined by young girls ranging between 3 and 6.
Even though the audience - including many longtime Foghorn family, friends and fans - stayed seated during most of the performance, it was hard not to stomp and whoop a little in our seats to the intensely exciting music. Their sound is beautifully warm with spine-tingling mournful harmonies and a locked in, enormous sound - created around one mike (the traditional way of performing and recording old-time). All of them were former rock or punk musicians, a phenomena which happens often; in old-time it isn’t necessary to lug around heavy equipment and plug in, and yet the same driving percussive rhythms and wild spirit drive the music.
Lind is a phenomenal fiddler, technically skilled with an easy-going, joyful soul. He loves the fiddle because, “there's nothing it can't do. It's the complete expression of whatever you're feeling at the time." Former Dickel Brother, Bagdonas, was interactive and energetic on the upright bass, with great inspired runs and a punk sensibility. Klauder has a strong, full singing voice; and Grover plays masterful three-finger banjo, which he says he chose because he liked “the way that the rhythm works … it's a syncopated groove."
To introduce one song, Grover announced, “We’re going to do a traditional old-time tune. Those are often about marriage or pigs, or in some cases, both. This one’s called ‘Pig in the Pen.’” His quips throughout the evening were met warm laughter from the audience.
The Foghorn Stringband closed with Carter Family’s “Sow ‘em on the Mountain,” a graceful tune about comeuppance and featuring anti-war lyrics. The sing-along, stick-in-your-memory song was made all the more poignant with the recent passing of Janette Carter. As Portland, Oregon’s old-time dance caller Bill Martin said, “There is a sobering finality to losing the last living member of the original Carter Family.”
Foghorn Stringband plays next at the Winter Bluegrass Weekend in Plymouth, March 3-5.
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The Wilders
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The Wilders
As their name suggests, The Wilders played a set of high-octane, head-boppin’ honky tonk and old-time songs. Fiddler Betse Ellis was on fire, grinding out the fiddle tunes at freight train speed and adding vocal harmonies; while Ike Sheldon’s lead vocals and guitar were warm and heartbreaking. He sang Hank songs, such as “Hole in My Bucket” and “Honky Tonk Blues,” with uncanny similarity in vocals and energy, as well as a somewhat weird “Cash on the Barrelhead” by the Louvin Brothers.
Sheldon performed an incredible St. Louis blues song on the piano, with sensitivity and raw finesse. Banjo/dobro/mando player and singer Phil Wade glued the group together, even when the banjo was swiftly kicked out of the band for acting up. Upright bass player Nate Gawron had a great punk energy as he plucked and spanked the bass within an inch of its life. The band made it nearly impossible to sit still, even though the Cedar was packed to the hilt and there wasn’t much room.
Between songs the band tuned and the audience demanded more, craving fast fiddle tunes such as “Give the Fiddler a Dram.” Occasionally they’d let Ellis catch her breath and Sheldon would sing high, lonesome songs like “Ramblin’ Mind” and “Honky Tonk Habit,” which sounded straight out of the Hank repertoire. Ellis showed her own songwriting skills with a gopher inspired “Rock in the Woods.”
Sheldon appealed to the Statler Bros. fans in the audience with the raucous “Fourth Man in the Fire,” which they performed almost better than the Statlers, and it was a whooper. “Let the Whole World Talk about You,” a song about two lovers with disreputable, troublemaker pasts, who come to love each other and become good could make a good wedding song (Sheldon agreed). The Wilders’ old country and honky-tonk hokum act - replete with cowboy hats, boots, and old-timey radio show costumes - is still as campy and wild as ever. I realized that The Wilders, already a favorite of mine, have really matured over the past three to four years.
The two bands performed a few tunes together at the end, ripping up the stage and closing the show with a carousing spirit.
Location Info:
Cedar Cultural Center
Artist Info: Foghorn String Band, The Wilders
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