Last night I went out to hear music in New Orleans. Imagine my surprise to see a mandolin player on stage. Super bad cover band, not anything like the “Traveling Griswalds”. At the break I asked the mandolin player if he knew Sam Bush, he said “Who is Sam Bush?” I was speechless for a few seconds. After I caught my breath I insisted that he look him up. That’s like saying you like Rock and Roll and don’t know who Jimmie Hendrix is. Still, I just had to share that with you. It was odd because it was the first time I had seen/listened to live music in this city that had no trace of New Orleans soul or funk in it. Such is life, still had a good time. Maybe because we left that bar and went to two others.
Luckily, happily, Sam was playing with Dread Clampitt for us just a bit down the road in Seaside on the 4th. Stage got rained out, so they played acoustic into two amps with mics under what was to be the FOH tent.
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e53/rosenrosen15/Sam-Dread7-4-10.jpg
That’s who Sam Bush is… :thumbsup
Sam comes from a cadre of musicians and artists from the same time and place in important musical history. They played together in numerous bands and groupings. Many of these artists, Sam Bush, and the Newgrass Revival were developing exciting and new evolving musical forms. They were pushing their genre’s boundaries – Bluegrass music – in several different directions at once. It was called Newgrass music. As they were doing this, they would showcase their risk-tasking musical styles, improvisational skills playing their instruments, some very lovely and soulful singing, impressive arrangements, and energy-filled performances. Audiences everywhere were thrilled to see exciting new things for the first time ever. This was a lot like the Grateful Dead. The rest, as they say, is history. Take a good look.
Sam Bush in a cadre of musicians and artists from the same time and place
http://www.archive.org/download/ba75-09-23.sbd.flac/TheBluegrassAlliance-alumni.jpg
Grateful Dead’s cadre - 1967
http://www.dead.net/sites/deadbeta.rhino.com/files/images/196702xx_0135.jpg
Pete Seeger’s cadre - 90th birthday bash at Madison Square Garden in 2009
http://imgsrv.wcbs880.com/image/DbLiteGraphic/200905/4302768.jpg?1241638647