Red, Hot and Bluegrass

Last year's Songstreet Bluegrass and Folk Festival was a turnaway sellout. With local newgrass star Northern Lights, folk-pop icon Jonathon Edwards and old-time big name bluegrass great The Seldom Scene all playing, the show offered local bluegrass fanatics a night of inspiring music.

For this year's show, Songstreet Productions brought back the same three acts with equally wonderful results. And the addition of local folksinger Les Sampou, who sang a couple of bluesy tunes as a warm-up act (she sounds just as good on her last album, Sweet Perfume) added a touch of gritty Southern sexiness that was conspicuously missing from the night's main acts.

The addition of Sampou was not all that had changed since last year. While Jake Armerding, age 15, last year joined his dad (mandolist Taylor Armerding) on stage as Northern Light's guest violinist, this year he returned as a full-time band member--his picture is even on the back of NL's great new release, Wrong Highway Blues. And The Seldom Scene have replaced long-time lead singer John Starling with the youngish Moondi Kline.

But the night's numerous continuities ultimately belied the assorted changes. Northern Lights still have one of the best sounds in bluegrass today: their combination of three-part harmonies with jazz rhythms and virtuosity beautifully reinforces their frankly emotional and oftentimes starkly depressing lyrics. Jonathan Edwards, (who here, as always, made painfully too many attempts at comic humor) once again communicated moments of passion mixed in with his eclectic numbers, such as the doowoppish "My First Kiss."

And The Seldom Scene continued to try to sabatoge their collective amazing picking style and mournful harmonies with painfully stupid comments--at one point, when his microphone drooped over in his stand, mandolist John Duffy muttered, "Must have seen Lorena."

It was The Scene this year, as last year, who headlined the almost fivehour show, an most of the crowd was there to see these bluegrass stalwarts. The Scene have been together for twenty-two years (although lead singer Kline is just 30), and continue to challenge themselves with both lightingfast arrangements and slower, subtler ballads. Dobro player Mike Auldridge, mandolinist Duffy and banjoist Ben Eldridge play beautifully together, alternately combining amazing speed with a relaxed, confident knowledge of their repertoire.

The Scene were joined onstage with Edwards for a couple of songs, harking back to the days when Edwards and The Scene recorded several popular albums together, but Edwards really shone during his own set. He remains as enigmatic a performer as anyone on the folk circuit today, and since his quirky humor is not captured on his albums, local Edwards fans eagerly anticipate his shows for a chance to catch his act. The older crowd at Saunders loved his attempts at self-depracating slapstick--Edward's got the biggest laughs of the night when he parodied the music his children listen to with a mildly pornographic rap that he accompanied by humping the air.

Despite the infectious joy of both Edwards and The Scene, it was Northern Lights who were the stars of the show. Highlighting material from their latest release, the Lights' ninesong set dealt with largely new territory after the opening trademark "Out on the Highway." And, while some crowd favorites--Peter Rowan's "Rainmaker" and a mind-boggling quick version of the Eagles' "Heartache Tonight," for example--were missing, tunes from the new album, such as the jazzy "Sunny Side of the Blues" and the title track, "Wrong Highway Blues," showcased all of Northern Lights best qualities: accessible melodies, great playing and great lyrics.

The show climaxed when the night's performers joined together on stage for two encores. After everyone except Sampou (who was already doing another gig in Somerville) crowded on stage to do the bluegrass classic "John Hardy," a boisterous standing ovation brought them back for one last loose cover of Eric Clapton's "Lay Down Sally."

Local folk and bluegrass freaks who missed Friday's show should not despair: this spring's folk lineup features a suprising number of worldclass masters. This year's Women in Folk Rock show at the Somerville Theater is March 12, and Northern Lights will be playing April 30 along with The Austin Lounge Lizards and Ranch Romance, also at the Somerville.

But the show of the year will be, without a doubt, the March 20 engagement featuring the best guitarist on the bluegrass scene today, Tony Rice. Rice, who has vacillated back and forth for almost twenty years between intensely jazzed-up acoutic instrumentals and more traditional bluegrass, has not played in Boston for three years and is coming to Somerville with his instrumental outfit, The Tony Rice Unit. Joining him is master dobroist Jerry Douglas; Southern Rail, perennial local favorites, complete this not-to-be missed triple bill.