Norman Wright Archives - Bluegrass Today

Searching for a Home – Ethan Hughes

Many students studying mechanical engineering may only be interested in the latest and greatest gadgets, but at least one undergraduate at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania isn’t. Having just released his first project entitled Searching for a Home on Patuxent Music, sophomore Ethan Hughes is all about music.

While flexing his excellent dobro skills, sharpened vocals, and solid songwriting capabilities, Hughes’s new release exists as a compilation of twelve tracks old and new. Additionally, the talent displayed by accompanying artists validates Hughes’s musical prowess. Joining him are Russ Carson (banjo & rhythm guitar), Nate Grower (fiddle), Marc MacGlashan (mandolin), Sav Sankaran (bass and vocals), Frank Solivan II (guitar and vocals), Wally Hughes (tenor vocal), and Norman Wright (tenor vocal).

Hughes has drawn from twenty years of listening to his parents’ Wednesday night practice sessions to record a project filled with both familiar and obscure tunes. The album’s opener and title track, Searching for a Home, was written by Hughes and sets the tone for the album as traditional music played with an ear open to the future. Tasteful versions of tunes such as the swinging sounds of Panhandle Rag, complete with a walking bass intro and solo, fit well next to other, as do more familiar, tracks like the upbeat song Ain’t it Funny and the Drumm/Goble composition Poet With Wings. Other noteworthy numbers include Bill Monroe’s Stay Away from Me and the traditional public domain piece Never Let Your Deal Go Down.

A young artist at the age of 20, Hughes is no stranger to the bluegrass music scene. In fact, both he and his father have played professionally (Wally currently performs with Bill Emerson and company), which hasn’t been an easy feat for a guy who recently described his first dobro as “something my dad had gotten out of the trash can at a pawn shop.”

Since those pawn shop dobro days Hughes has done quite well for himself and fans may now recognize him from his time spent with Darren Beachley and the Legends of the Potomac. Hughes is just getting started with a new act, Mercury Rising, who recently obtained a slot at the Wilmington Wintergrass Festival in Delaware.

Simply put, if you like music played tastefully, you’re probably going to like Hughes’s new project on Patuxent Music, Searching for a Home. For more information regarding Hughes’s work, check him out at www.pxrec.com, or at CD Baby.

A tribute to bluegrass heroes

On Friday night, while Vince Gill was playing a gig in the Washington D.C. suburbs for $110 a ticket, Norman Wright was finishing up a shift at his day job and doing some work on his son’s car before making a long, late-night trip down a lonely stretch of Interstate 81 so he could play a couple of sets and participate in an early morning workshop at FiddleFest in Roanoke, Va.

After his show, Gill was quoted in the Washington Post about why he stepped away from bluegrass when he was a young picker. “If I kept playing,” he said, “I would never own my own home.”

I didn’t see Vince’s show, but I’m sure it was good. I did see Norman’s two performances with The Travelers on Saturday, and I guarantee you he had more fun. During both shows, and in a between-shows rehearsal in a cramped dormitory room at Hollins University, a big smile never left Norman’s face. His love for the music was evident, as was his talent. The former member of the Bluegrass Cardinals and the Country Gentlemen is clearly thrilled to have another chance. You may not know about The Travelers, who are working on a CD that should come out later this year, but you will.

Bluegrass fans are fortunate that the Norman Wrights vastly outnumber the Vince Gills. We owe a debt of gratitude to those who play – and play exceptionally well – more for the love of the music than for the money.

The list of these folks is endless, but I want to mention a few special examples. Claire Lynch, one of the top two or three female vocalists in bluegrass, once turned down a gig with a major talent because she was nursing one of her children at the time, and she took a break from the road for several years because she decided her children were more important than her career. Claire never complains about any of this. She goes out with a great band and, show after show, plays and sings as well as anyone. That’s what a professional does, regardless of the size of the paycheck – or the crowd.

This was driven home to me in early 2010, when I saw Missy Raines and the New Hip play a gig near Columbus, Ohio, for the gate. After the band arrived, a heavy fog rolled in. The band ended up playing for six paying customers, which had to be dispiriting. But it remains one of the best shows I have seen.

The same thing happened a few months ago in Washington, D.C. Mike Conner and John Miller, half of The Travelers, booked a gate gig at a small venue, but before the show date rolled around, the promoter quit. The performance was, unintentionally, a well-kept secret. For about the first hour, my wife and I were the entire paying audience. No matter. They played their hearts out.

It’s a rough business for songwriters, too. Some of the very best write at nights and weekends while working a day job to pay the bills and provide benefits. With many bands printing just 1,000 or 2,000 CDs, and a royalty rate of just over 9 cents per unit, the cost of making a demo and registering a copyright can quickly eat up most of the “profit.”

But don’t feel sorry for those who will never amass a fortune. Be glad they do what they do, support them when and how you can. Buy their music, of course. But even a simple thank you can go a long way.

Saturday at FiddleFest, after a show in 90+-degree heat left the players looking like they showered with their clothes on, one fan stopped by The Travelers table with ice cream. That gesture left everybody smiling.

The Travelers on WDBJ

The Bluegrass Blog posted earlier this year about the reformation of The Travelers, and their upcoming album on Patuxent Records.

The band is based around noted bluegrass sidemen Norman Wright and Kevin Church, who toured with that name in the 1990s. With Wright on mandolin and Church on banjo, the two have teamed up with John Miller on guitar and Mike Conner on bass for a return of The Travelers.

The band is booked at this weekend’s Roanoke Fiddlefest, and visited Roanoke’s WDBJ 7 television studios over the weekend to promote the event. Long time bluegrass fans will recognize those call letters, as WDBJ was once the home of both Reno & Smiley and Flatt & Scruggs at different points in the 1950s.

Here’s a look at The Travelers doing How Could I Love Her So Much, a hit for Johnny Rodriguez in 1983 and which Wright recorded recently as a member of Darren Beachley & Legends of the Potomac.

Documentary film on Carroll County Massacre

Everybody in bluegrass and old time music loves a good killing song, right? Throw in a good courthouse shootout, and it’s a sure thing.

Just such an incident took place in 1912 at the Carroll County, VA courthouse, where the locally-celebrated Allen family had it out with the judge, commonwealth’s attorney, sheriff, and a juror in a deadly gun battle inside the courtroom. Folks in Carroll County are still divided over the incident; some say the Allens acted in self defense, others say in defiance of the law and government of the time.

What came to be known as the Carroll County Massacre made news across the world, with sensationalized coverage continuing throughout the Spring and Summer of 1912, particularly the manhunt for Wesley Edwards and Sidna Allen who were captured in Iowa six months after the shootout. Five were killed in the shootout, which also left Floyd Allen, father to Claude and Sidna, wounded.

Now, in preparation for the 100th anniversary of the massacre, filmmaker Rick Bowman is finishing work on a documentary that will examine the many conflicting reports over the episode. Hillsville 1912: A Shooting in the Court is a 70 minute film that will be presented to The History Channel and PBS, and entered in film festivals across the US.

Bowman grew up in Hillsville, VA where the county seat is located, and has nurtured a life-long fascination with this story. Living now in San Diego, he has spent much of the past seven years putting the film project together, and has called on his cousin, southwest Virginia native Mike Conner, to help create the Appalachian-themed score. Working with his musical partner John Miller, the score will be based on Hobart Smith’s 1942 rendition of The Ballad of Claude Allen.

Conner told us that he recalls hearing talk of the Carroll County Massacre when he was growing up.

“I remember the discussions of these events, and how it was spoken of in hushed, quiet tones whenever the subject came up. It was a bit eerie as a young child to hear the adults speak at times in tones bordering on fear about something that happened so long ago.

I contacted John Miller (Conner & Miller, The Travelers, Eastman String Band) first to discuss the project, how we would record it, and his ideas on the different versions of the song we’d do. John has a real talent for arrangements, engineering, and production and since we’ve worked together on so many projects over the past 4 years, I couldn’t imagine working with anyone else on it.”

The song will be presented in a variety of settings throughout the film. There will be a sparse old time version close to the Hobart Smith recording, a number of old time and bluegrass instrumental takes, and a full-on bluegrass treatment by Conner, Miller, and their band mates in the newly-reborn Travelers, Norman Wright and Kevin Church. Nate Leath will provide fiddle for the many different versions, being tracked now at Miller’s studio, The Tone Room.

A trailer for the film can be seen on Bowman’s web site. He is planning for a Summer 2011 release.

The Travelers return

He’s been a Bluegrass Cardinal, a Gentleman and a Legend. Now Norman Wright is ready to be a Traveler again.

The Travelers, which Wright and best friend Kevin Church put together in the late mid-1990s, are back together, booking shows and sifting through material for an album on Patuxent Records. “It’s more than being in a good band,” Norman said during a meeting with the band in the living room of his Falls Church, Va., home. “It’s being in a band with people that you like and who will work together.”

Kevin, the son of banjo stalwart Porter Church, was an obvious choice, and the first person Norman approached after Darren Beachley and Legends of the Potomac suddenly disbanded so Beachley could team up with Barry Scott. Kevin and Norman were in the Country Gentlemen together, quitting on the same day in 1991 to form their own band, which in 1996 became The Travelers. Their 1998 release, Ridin’ the Lines (Hay Holler Records) is still sought after for its poignant writing and smooth harmonies.

But that earlier incarnation couldn’t survive a series of departures and inconsistent commitments, so Norman and Kevin moved on. Neither had trouble lining up gigs as sidemen, Norman on the mandolin and Kevin on banjo. But when the Legends dissolved, after one album, Norman was looking for one more shot to reclaim the magic.

Shortly after the first of the year, Norman and Kevin met with guitarist/arranger John Miller and bass player Mike Conner, who toured together as Conner and Miller and as part of Blue Star, an all-star gospel band including Steve Gulley, Jesse Brock and Dale Ann Bradley. All four wanted to see if something clicked. It must have because a week later they were doing a photo shoot and working up arrangements for studio time that had already been booked.

“Within an hour, it was like an old coat. It was just comfortable,” Mike said about the first meeting. They talked and jammed, and Mike remembers not getting home until 5 a.m. The decision for The Travelers to hit the road again was natural.

John explained:

“When the road is calling you, you have to go. We’ve all seen enough failures to be happy when we see the potential for success. I’m here because of the potential to create some really cool music.”

At the second meeting, which I was invited to attend, Norman made clear that The Travelers were four equal partners, not two best friends and two other musicians. “You’re welcome here as long as you want to be here,” he told John and Mike. “We value your opinion just like we do each other’s.”

Kevin said he enjoyed his years with the Country Gentlemen and with the Gentlemen tribute band, but couldn’t pass up another chance to make music with Norman. “For me, it’s the friendship first, the musicianship second, and being able to play the songs that you like. Everything is working out for the best.”

Here are a couple of audio samples from their upcoming Patuxent CD.

When The Judgment Comes (Rick Lang): [http://traffic.libsyn.com/thegrasscast/judgefinalabrev.mp3]

Born with the Blues (Merle Haggard): [http://traffic.libsyn.com/thegrasscast/born_final_abrev.mp3]

Booking inquiries can be directed to Norman Wright or Mike Conner.

Darren Beachley & Legends of the Potomac – Takeoff

Takeoff is a fitting title for the debut release from Darren Beachley & Legends of the Potomac. There has been great interest in this assembly of bluegrass veterans since they first got together just over a year ago, and their first CD is due to take off March 27 on Patuxent Music.

As we commented last year, billing a band with Legends in the name might be seen as a tad presumptuous, but the moniker really fits this bunch. After 12 years performing with a number of DC-based bands (including Bill Harrell & The Virginians) before joining Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver in 2005, guitarist and lead singer Beachley started putting the group together after leaving Doyle in 2008. He brought on mandolinist and tenor vocalist Norman Wright, who had worked with both The Bluegrass Cardinals and The Country Gentlemen, and a pair of founding members of Seldom Scene, Mike Auldridge on resonator guitar and Tom Gray on bass. Mark Delaney completes the group on banjo.

Darren says that the whole band is pleased with this first effort, and eager to get it out there.

“We are really happy with the way Takeoff turned out, and feel that this project will establish what our approach to music is all about.

I have to say that I am so happy with the work ethic all the guys displayed on this CD. We had Rachel Johnson and Ray Legere do some guest fiddlin’ on the CD, and Nate Leath added a little percussion. Tom Mindte and all the folks over at Patuxent work so hard for us… I know we were really being picky at times but Tom hung right in there with us and never let the music be anything but us.”

They will be celebrating the release with a concert at the The Old Lucketts Schoolhouse on March 27th just north of Leesburg, VA.

“I like old things with personality and history, and the old schoolhouse surley has that. I have been seeing music there and performing there since the 70’s. It’s gonna be a great time and I do encourage those who are coming to get there early, there are no advance sales and it will sellout.

It was rumored that Jamie Dailey would be making an appearance, and I have given strict instructions to The Virginia State Police that he is to be arrested and taken straight to the Kung Pow Chinese Buffet!” 😉

A few audio samples are available on the Legends of the Potomac web site. Promo copies are going out to radio and print media next week, and we’ll have more to say when we’ve had the chance to give it a good listen.