Hello everyone. Well,
we are past the half way point of the residency with this show. I am not going
to lie, it has been fantastic having this to look forward to each Thursday in February.
I work Saturday and Sunday mornings so I have to squeeze a whole weekend into a
single night. And Pappy and his Pards
make it all worth it. So without further ado, Kempepedia is proud to present
Plentiful Pickin’ for the People : Pappy and the Pards, Live at Nectar’s,
Burlington, VT February 15th, 2018.
Set 1
On and On, Shady Grove, Old Farmer’s Mill, Susquehanna
Breakdown, You Don’t Know My Mind, Back
to the Basics, I Told Them All About You, Goldrush, Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow
Set 2
I’m Walkin’, Sunday 60 Breakdown, Don’t Think Twice, It’s
Alright, Diamond Joe, Rabbit in A Log, Sunset in Vergennes, Little Maggie> Turkey
in the Straw>Bill Cheatum , Poor Man’s Blues
You can stream it
here
Pappy and the Pards are
Pappy Biondo - Guitar/Vocals/Banjo
Doug Perkins - Guitar
Pat Melvin - Bass
Patrick Ross –Fiddle
Adam Frehm – Dobro
The only repeat
performers from the first bluegrass night are Doug Perkins and Pat Melvin. I
have it on good authority that Doug is a Vermont legend. He knows more about
playing the acoustic than few others. Patrick Ross, fiddle genius, is a French
Canadian who lives near the border. I’d love to hear more of his playing to
investigate the similarities between the French Canadian folk music and French
Cajun Creole folk tunes. Catamount Cajun anyone? I would guess that Pappy
played the acoustic guitar at least the time. I love the dobro because it is relative
rare to hear one and Adam looked so chill while laying down cosmic tones.
They open up with
On and On and you can hear the lonesome in Pappy’s voice. Next up is definitely
one of the more well-known bluegrass tunes, Shady Grove. Like so many other
Heads, I too was introduced to this tune through Garcia’s work with David
Grisman. Everyone has a chance to shine on this version clocking in at over 11
minutes. Next up is the Cabinet tune Old Farmer’s Mill. Around the 7 minute
mark, it gets real quiet, just the banjo and the bass talking. Then they really
turn on the jets and the Mill takes off. The Breakdown features some nice back and
forth between Pappy and Patrick.
The rest of the
set features some repeats from the first night of bluegrass. They end the set
with Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow, the old Cabinet standard. Patrick really brings
it with the fiddle on this tune. Everyone is given a chance to jam it out and
they do not disappoint.
One of the things
I love about this recording is hearing Pappy telling the musicians what key the
song is and how they should proceed. One can only do that with top notch
musicians, and these are some of the best in the Green Mountain State.
The
second set starts off with a Fats Domino tune from the 1950’s, I’m Walkin’ with
Doug taking the lead vocals. For those keeping score, both bluegrass nights
started the second set with a tune from the early days of rock and roll. I
really liked Don’t Think Twice. Playing it at a slower pace shows off more of
its melancholy nature. I was rather pleased when they started up Diamond Joe.
It is one of my favorite Cabinet tunes with this version featuring Pappy
playing acoustic guitar instead of the banjo.
Sunset in
Vergennes is a companion piece to another Pappy original, Sunrise in Vergennes,
which I have seen him perform with Gatos Blancos. Little Maggie rocks out as
usual. Now there is one woman you do not want to cross. Little Maggie also
features my favorite dobro soloing of the night. The sound and tone of a dobro sound like
signal from the past, one that no one alive has witnessed. The band also throws
in bits of The Streets of Cairo towards the end of Little Maggie. The transition
into Turkey and the Straw is pretty sweet. Finally it’s the Cabinet classic
Poor Man’s Blues, which describes the cost of living in Burlington very
accurately.
3 shows down and
1 to go. One more night in this historic venue. One more night in this amazing
city. And one more night of Cosmic Country and JJ Cale.
Dave Kemp
BA American Studies
PhD Rock and Roll
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