Greensky Bluegrass commenced Friday activities at All Good in the campgrounds with a 10:15 a.m set on the Grass Roots Stage. As at nearly other stage in the campgrounds, a sloping knoll provided a natural amphitheater for observing the performance. It was mostly filled with seated spectators in the beginning, but dancers crowded in from the sides as the show progressed. “I think I’m finally awake now,” guitarist and vocalist Dave Bruzza eventually told the crowd. “I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a Friday morning than right here with all these good people.”

Greensky's cover of “We’re an American Band” by Grand Funk Railroad ended with a slight change to the lyrics:

As I discovered when Greensky visited Indianapolis last month, the band prides on being rooted in traditional bluegrass. But they're no strangers to improvisational rock that ventures into psychedelic territory. At 10 in the morning, the perfectly balanced set was quite possibly the best way to officially kick off the day.

An awesome rendition of “Stop That Train” steered far from traditional bluegrass when each member took their turn with an extended instrumental solo. Listeners got lost in the music as the band collectively guided them through the jam. The tempo increased and increased until the band unexpectedly jumped back into the song's structure: Stop that train; I’m leavin’! Before its conclusion, Bruzza switched gears to something slightly bluesy and nearly scatted out line after line repeatedly: Sendin’ a message of love to my people back home and I’m missin’ you more! Missin’ you more!

• Rob Staub Photography

Nearing the end of their set, Greensky Bluegrass invited fans to meet up with them after the show. They announced that they would be around for the whole weekend and requested maps to campsites so they could find new friends later. They closed with a fun cover of the Talking Heads classic “We’re on the Road to Nowhere” and then the band realized they had ten extra minutes, to which they all randomly interjected their excitement:

“Oh shit! That clock is fast! [to the audience] You guys hangin?”
“Well, that makes things real interesting.”
“That’s All Good, right there people. That shit never happens.”
“That’s good news. Alright!”
“I was already missing you more.”

During tuning for the final song, Greensky thanked the audience for coming out so early in the morning to see them. “Or so late at night, whichever way you want to look at it.” They used the entire 10 minutes to play just one song, complete and satisfying with heaps of improvisational picking.

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Later that day, I met up with Paul Hoffman (mandolin) and Dave Bruzza (guitar).

NUVO: So, how’s it going so far at All Good? You guys are staying and camping out for the rest of the festival?
Paul: We usually don’t camp, because it’s kind of complicated with our gear. But since we had the weekend off, we wanted to enjoy the music. *assumes country accent* It’s a big drive to get off this countrysiiide and get to a ho-tel.
NUVO: I hear that. It took us almost 4 hours to get in yesterday. When did you guys get here?
Paul: We came in Thursday night. Definitely had the “secret way”. We drove through the magic mirror. It’s about 20 miles away; you drive through it and then it just teleports you to the front gate.
Dave: Like Star Trek.
Paul: Or like Quantum Leap.

NUVO: So did you get any maps to peoples’ campsites after the show this morning like you asked for?
Paul: I did get a few maps. I’ve been walking back and forth, running into people and they’re like “I don’t have a map, but I can tell you where it is.” Pointing like, “see that flag, turn left there.”
Dave: Maps are required. The best map I got is REAL far away from our site, though. I feel bad for [Paul] Devol, our bass player. It’s gonna be a pretty big hike for him.

• Rob Staub Photography

NUVO: Now… your banjo player. Is he going to be doing any of his special late night dance moves?
Dave: Wow. You are privy to some info.*laughs*
NUVO: I wanted to ask for a little preview at Birdy’s, but I didn’t get the opportunity to talk to you guys that night. Captain Adventure, they call him?
Paul: Captain Fun.
Dave: Yea, there’s a video of that somewhere.
Paul: It’s been like, 4 years since that happened.
Dave: We were at The Hoxeyville Festival up in Michigan. BoomBox was playing.
NUVO: Yea, I talked with them at Summer Camp.
Dave: Oh, cool. Yea, he got on stage with them and totally did the whole dance move thing. Everyone was dancing on stage. It was really cool. It was like a solo dance with BoomBox.

NUVO: What is there to talk about in the way of Greensky news?
Dave: We just released a double-disc live CD called “All Access”, the first of many volumes. It’s the whole show, it’s a great thing. It’s not like making a regular record. And it’s high quality so it sounds great. You can put in in your CD player and hear the whole thing from start to finish.
NUVO: Is it just one show?
Dave: Yea, the one we have out right now is a show that we did in November in Three Rivers, Michigan at The Rivera Theater.

NUVO: I noticed that all members of the band are currently playing instruments other than their “native” instrument they began with. Do you switch back often?
Paul: I still play guitar alot. Not in the band at all, but I do a lot of writing on the guitar and occasionally mess around with other musicians. Dave plays drums with another band at home sometimes when we’re not living in our van.
NUVO: How does a side project like that fit into your schedule with Greensky, being on the road all the time? Does it pose any challenges?
Paul: Well Hoxeyville (that we just mentioned) is promoted by one of the guys that’s actually in the other group with Dave so that’s one of the few times where he gets to play drums with Airborne Aquatic. Occasionally we have time off around the holidays and I’ll do something with guitar at a little bar or whatever. It’s rare but, we do it occasionally.
Dave: Paul and I have been known to do our own country band called The One Night Stand Band where we have a drummer, a bass player, and a pedal steel player. I’ll play electric guitar and Paul will play acoustic guitar. That’s another side project. It’s fun.
NUVO: Where does that go down?
Dave: Ah… pretty much just around home. *laughs* Bells Brewery.
NUVO: I’ve heard a lot about that place.
Dave: It’s awesome. You should come check it out.
NUVO: I think Midwest Hype plays up there a lot.
Paul: Yep. They do.

NUVO: So with your recently announced fall touring schedule, what’s got you most excited?
Dave: I was excited for last weekend. The Nateva Festival up in Maine. Next weekend will be the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in upstate New York. All the festivals we’re doing this month are festivals that we’ve never done before. It’s really cool, especially because being from Michigan, we don’t play in the east very often. But the chance to explore this part of the country and play all these really cool festivals is pretty exciting.

NUVO: Well, thanks for you time, guys. I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend at All Good. I just want to make sure I find Captain Fun later tonight.
Dave: He’s in RV Camping right now. I’ll let him know.

• Rob Staub Photography

Sisterhood of Uke

Music is a way of life for many families. In my family, it wasn’t unusual for my dad to spend the better part of a Sunday afternoon picking tunes on his guitar, strumming hymns and teasing us with a little Johnny Cash. If more friends and family stopped in for a visit, it wasn’t unusual to find ourselves in the midst of an impromptu “singing”. In my dad’s family, every male played banjo, guitar, mandolin or all three. It was always the men I recall seeing unpacking their instruments at family reunions.

Geoff Davis’s family was exactly the opposite. Until he came along, it was the women in his family who fueled the musical heritage. And, the instrument of choice wasn’t guitar, banjo or even piano. It was the ukulele. You can listen to folklorist John Kay talking to the Geoff Davis about the ukulele tradition in his own family here:

http://www.artisanancestors.com/

He says one of the songs his grandmother played on the ukulele was OH BY JINGO. I have my own fond memories of that song; I’m still trying to figure out how a song about a girl from San Domingo could have such Middle Eastern rhythms, but that’s how it goes. Here’s the incomparable Spike Jones orchestra showing how it’s done:

OH BY JINGO

ALL GIRL BAND

New families can be built around music. A person would be hard-pressed to find a better substitute for a family in the works than the group that is evolving around Indianapolis musician Cara Jean Wahler’s latest brainchild, Alice Chalmers and the Stick a Cork in Your Jug Band. Whenever the group gathers at Cara’s house, there are pastries served on her grandma’s china, lemonade in a punchbowl, girly aprons, and, finally: music.

When she asked me to play ukulele in the all girl band that she was putting together for the Indiana State Fair, I had no idea that I would find myself amidst so many amazingly talented female musicians. There are plenty of times when I find myself just sitting and smiling as the rest of the girls show their terrific stuff; I fear I might be slightly out of my league here, but the other women are helpful, supportive and nonjudgmental. The group includes not only the amazingly talented Ms. Wahlers on guitar, but also gifted musicians such as Stasia Demos, fiddler Holly Smith, Miss Nora Spitznogle on typewriter, Tammy Lieber and the one and only Ms. Jude O’Dell.

Jude O’Dell is a bawdy banjo player who can also squeeze the blues out of her ancient tenor guitar like no girl I’ve ever met. I am thrilled enough to just be around her, let alone have the opportunity to actually play music with a musician and performer of her caliber. She spends most of her time working as a visual artist and playing in Geoff Davis’ Third Satchel Novelty Jazz Band, and she simply bubbles over with gutsy female talent. She can slap and pluck and strum that tiny guitar while she is belting a Memphis Minnie tune, and every one of us is lost in another place for awhile. When she stops singing, we all declare that we want to be just like her. She warns us, Oh no we don’t, but the spell can’t be broken so easily.

There’s another girl who can belt the blues like Memphis Minnie. Ukulele playing Eden from Eden and John’s East River String Band shares Jude‘s affection for Minnie’s ME AND MY CHAUFFEUR BLUES.

East River String band, featuring the fabulous Eden on her resonator ukulele:

UKE IN THE FAMILY

What started as a personal passion has blossomed into a family institution. When I first picked up the ukulele two years ago, I thought I’d fiddle around with it, learn Five Foot Two, Ain’t She Sweet and a handful of Beatles songs and be done with it. But, my enthusiasm couldn’t be contained; by the following Christmas, my cousin, Laura had a uke of her own.

My cousin and I have always been close. Throughout childhood, we shared many passions, took trips with each others’ families, read the same books and enjoyed the same movies and music; as adolescents, we fell obsessively in love with the Beatles and took Nashville and Disney World by storm. Our mothers bought us matching outfits and we wore them without shame. It only made sense that as adults, we would find something new to consume us.

Now uking time is critical time for us. Whenever we get together, we find a way for our four children to entertain themselves, then, out come the ukuleles. While we sometimes find ourselves strumming our own tunes in different parts of a room, there isn’t anything better than when we decide to build on a song together. Such was the case during our most recent visit, when we decided to explore TONIGHT YOU BELONG TO ME, an old 1920s song that was made famous to a new generation when Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters sang it in THE JERK.

We tried the song in three different keys and puzzled over second position chords. In the end, we were strumming it on her screen porch, singing uninhibitedly and harmonizing, too.

Here’s the clip that made the song famous. You need to know that, although Steve Martin is a gifted musician in his own right, he is not playing the ukulele in this scene. That job was given to ukulele jazz pioneer, Mr. Lyle Ritz.

Of course, this all-in-the-family business isn’t reserved just for the girls. My cousin’s husband, inspired by her love of the uke, decided to teach himself how to play guitar. And, my own husband has taken up the ukulele, completely on his own. Armed with a few chords that he learned from our son, and a stack of chord charts, he finally found the song that made him want to give it a try: WILDWOOD FLOWER. It’s a song that is close to my heart: my Kentucky father played it Carter Family-style on his guitar when he was courting my mother.
Our version simply includes the chords (C, F, G7), but it’s the thrill of being able to play a well-loved recognizable song that finally got to my husband. Here’s the fantastic ukulele player, Ken Middleton, playing his own interpretation of the traditional song:

With that one sweet song, family things keep coming back to us.

One evening, not too long ago, as we sat around, holding our treasured ukes, my cousin said: “Here we are, approaching our mid 40s, and all of us trying something new. I think we should promise ourselves that 40 years from now, we’re going to try something else that is new and different, too.” I think that’s a great idea.
In the spirit of all this ukulele playing in our 40s, and in honor of anyone who is bold enough to pick up a new instrument and give it a try, here’s a delightful original song from my Ukulele Underground pal, Mike (a.k.a “lambchop):

MIDDLE AGED GUY WITH A UKULELE:

UKULELE -RELATED HAPPENINGS AND OTHER GOOD THINGS

Indianapolis Ukulele Fans will meet next on Saturday August 7 at the Sam Ash store in Castleton, from 10 AM to 12 noon.

Tuesday, August 10 is Blue Stone Folk School Day at the Indiana State Fair. You’ll get to experience Alice Chalmers and the Stick a Cork in Your Jug Band as well as Geoff Davis’s own Third Satchel Novelty Jazz Band and possibly a performance by Pholly. It will be like old time/ukulele heaven, right in the middle of August! Best of all, it’s also Turkey Hill's get in for two bucks day, so there’s really no excuse not to get there early and stay late, just print this voucher from Turkey Hill’s website: http://www.turkeyhill.com/indianastatefair/2-Tuesday-voucher.pdf

The Blue Stone Folk School Ukulele Society meets the second and fourth Thursday of each month, from 7-9 PM. The next meeting will be Thursday, August 12, at the Judge Stone House, 107 South 8th Street, Noblesville. Bring a uke, a friend and a song.