Concert Review: Kiwigrass Part 2

More from Rev Orange Peel on his three-day immersion in Kiwi Bluegrass!

Warning: Bluegrass can be addictive. But it is good for your well-being. Many songs of death, revenge, murder and too much alcohol. Throw in unrequited love. Mainstay of Country, Folk and Blues. Bluegrass picks from all of it. From that gumbo you have an elixir of life. Has been a while but this style of Americana has a home in New Zealand now.

The foundation band in this country from 55 years ago was the Hamilton County Bluegrass Band.  But the driving force to establish a Bluegrass festival in New Zealand comes from the Pipi Pickers. A bluegrass quartet from Leigh.

Pipi Pickers

Jenine Abarbanel on acoustic bass is the lead singer. Comes from Colorado, home to the legendary Telluride Bluegrass extravaganza. And other Grasses. She is the (ex-US) President of Kiwigrass and the rest of the band make up a large part of the brains trust.

Nat Torkington a stellar banjo picker who also plays in the hot new Country band You,Me, Everybody. His father Barry Torkington acoustic guitar and Garry Bigwood mandolin.

 They have the classic sound. Tolling and tumbling banjo rolls, matched to seamless and fluid mandolin and guitar picking.

Jenine has a big powerful voice that can be described as Country but easily breaks out into other genres. Some similarity to Rose Maddox who started as a honky-tonk style singer before moving to Bluegrass in the Sixties. Less of an accent but can effortlessly climb to the higher register, a little like former North American Tami Neilsen. Pitched halfway between the two.

The band cover Elton John’s Social Disease. He was an early Country music fan. Come Sail Away by stadium rockers Styx. And a belting soulful version of Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive.

Sung in a smooth easy style so she has a great Pop voice.

The Road’s Salvation by the Lonely Heartstrings Band has a fast and furious banjo with the singer putting in some Gospel emotion.

The classic sound is delivered with song like I’ll Sleep with One Eye Open, My Baby Thinks He’s a Train and Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver’s Sadie’s Got Her New Dress On.

The festival gets a kick-start and then some from the hosts.

The Shindig Trio

The Shindig Trio mine their music from deep in the well of Americana. In a past life, they would be young American Folk Revivalists who religiously studied the famous Harry Smith multi-disc Folk anthology.

David Ward plays clawhammer banjo and sings. The ubiquitous David Khan on fiddle and mandolin and double bass player Eamon Edmundson-Wells.

They start with Cuckoo Bird. An old tune with ghostly spectral tones which they lead on in an extended passage as if they are following the Blair Witch.

Bury Me Under the Willow comes from the founders of Americana The Original Carter Family. They play around with the arrangement. The bass leads halfway through. 

Little Liza Jane I recognise from Huey Piano Smith. The tune is probably much older and goes back to Ireland or Scotland. Music historians when researching original British Folk songs generally found them thriving in close to their original forms in places like the Appalachian Mountains.

Khan brings out the viola for a few tunes and does some ominous drone tones sparking memories of John Cale with the Velvet Underground. On Nobody’s Business but Mine and Dock Boggs Wild Bill Jones.

I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground has been done in so many different ways right up to present times. A mystical powerful death-and-beyond song. Books written and still it remains elusive.

Well received by the appreciative crowd. A band which surfs and rides across the Great Divide that is Americana.

The Barnyard Bangers

The Barnyard Bangers also echo old styles of heartland Americana, with a distinctive Blues tilt. They are led by songstress and singer Catherine Tunks. With her are banjo and beard Gavin Dowling. Krissy Jackson who keeps appearing as every bands favourite fiddle player. And superb guitarist Jimmy Kara who is playing an iconic cigar-box electric guitar.

These are all Cat’s own songs with a few Old-Time classics thrown in. The ringing and tumbling forward rolls of the banjo are matched to warm slide guitar tones. A Southern magnolia sensuous snake sound of Duane Allman-style slide.

I’ve Been Good All Day. Basks in sunshine strapped to a tree with roots. Rose Mountain swings with the fiddle and a soft train-chugging rhythm.

Night Bird is blanketed in sorrow. Dark hours come to take me away/ Know that I can’t stay. The fiddle cries and haunts the song.

I’m Gonna Sleep With One Eye Open. Classic Bluegrass and bounces with sassy spirit. Sassy equals sexy in Southern talk.

The Wayside. Walks through the Hauntland before dawn.

Classic Gospel Country and Blues lament Wade in the Water closes the set with great slide guitar accents.

Hot Diggity

Hot Diggity are an all-female Bluegrass quintet, complete in Fifties Happy Days style dress. American as apple-pie Moms with daughter on the fiddle.

They are Heather Carrigan mandolin and Deborah Mackenzie guitar, the songwriters. President of Kiwigrass and from the Pipi Pickers Jenine Abarbanel acoustic bass. Sue Drake banjo and Krissy Jackson fiddle. Krissy is as ubiquitous as Dave Khan and comes from The Eastern.

There have been many all-women Bluegrass groups in America but few have made it to records. Hunt them down on Rounder Records or Smithsonian Institute. The relatively few times I have seen Hot Diggity they are a fun group and can really lay it down.

Working Girl Blues is the classic sound with yodelling in the chorus.

Shut the Bloody Gate has become well-known as a meme via Tik-Tok. You left the gate open with yer drinkin’ and yer smokin’ . Melody has echoes of Dim Lights, Thick Smoke.

Brand New Sky they call Sexygrass. A Country vocal from Jenine with some Soul phrasing.

Bottle,Memory and Me is a stand-out. Classic crying Country. Back to Bluegrass is vintage Fifties Bill Monroe music which swings with Country vocals.

The Eagle’s Heartache Tonight charged with fast fiddle breaks.

There is an album well worth checking out.

Bluegrass and Beyond

Bluegrass and Beyond are unarguably a classic-sounding quartet but with musical chops to bleed out into other genres.

Peter Parnham on bull fiddle is also Vice-President of Kiwigrass. Cameron Bennett dobro and vocals, a prolific songwriter. John Olding guitar and vocals and Colin Spier banjo.

Start with a classic. Bill Monroe’s My Little Georgia Rose. A cover of Amos Lee’s Sweet Pea is Country with Jazz licks on guitar.

A medley of Doc Watson tunes brings the racing and tumbling rolls of the banjo to the fore.

Bennett sings an original. Hills of Nelson. The story of the Burgess gang and it sounds Irish Folk. This true story going to legend is a topic for other writers too at this festival. Is Richard Burgess the Kiwi Jesse James?

An old classic, You Can Have Her is done Bluegrass style and the band are echoing the version from JD Crowe and the New South. Originally an R’n’B song sung by Roy Hamilton.

Downunderdogs

Downunderdogs are ex-pat Americans who come from the Western Swing tradition. Certainly not a Bluegrass outfit, they have a blend which encompasses Bob Wills to Jimmy Rogers to Hank Williams. Americana is wide and expansive and multi-cultural, like the land.

They are Jack MacKenzie guitar, Peter Dyer guitar and Cathy Dyer acoustic bass. They mix originals and covers.

Bye Bye Blues is skirt-twirling great Western Swing. Eight More Miles to Louisville an old Jug-Band song they play in a Country-Folk manner.

Nice vocals from Peter on Hank William’s Cold Cold Heart, played in waltz time. He is a great yodeller and does several original songs which blend Roots Country, Cowboy and Jimmie Rogers styles.

If you are bit averse to yodels, it has worked its way to the soul of American music. From Rogers to Robert Johnson, Tommy Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Gone Dead Train to Sly and the Family Stone.

Cotton Daisy Backstep

Cotton Daisy Backstep features Helena Faust on clawhammer banjo and voice. Deep dive into American Heartland music.

Fiddle and banjo interplay. Spoons. Irish reels. Echoing Dock Boggs got no sugar baby now. Carter Family Clinch Mountain music.

Music tells stories and preserves history. Four Cent Cotton is the story of hiding whiskey in cotton bales to beat the revenue men.

An original, Zombie Apocalypse about this Year of Covid. It’s America, the Army, Mexicans, we got guns. Zombie dancers appear in front of the stage to do the Shuffle and throw some guts out.

Melling Station Boys

Melling Station Boys are Wellingtonians who are Bluegrass but with lots more thrown in. Irish, Folk, Reels, Jigs and Country.

As well as your classic Bluegrass covers of Flatt and Scruggs, Mac Wiseman, Osbourne Brothers. And Merle Haggard?? They do his classic Mama Tried with a great banjo break. Okay, it is still mostly a Country tune.

Banjo player Todd Foster has a nice Old-Timey voice which echoes Riley Puckett and Vernon Dalhart.

Kaimai Express

Kaimai Express are from Bay of Plenty and have been playing Bluegrass and Americana for close to twenty years. Like the previous band, the train theme is popular as subject matter and for the development of a rhythmic style.

So are mining disasters and some of the best Bluegrass songs are social commentary stories documenting these. They do a particularly good one about not going to the Hillcrest mine.

In Spite of Ourselves. From John Prine and over some swinging Country fiddle they sing Gets it on like an Easter bunny/ Drinks beer like oxygen.

Dixie Chicks to Blue Ridge Mountain Blues. Wide-ranging and expansive.

A great festival and a special privilege to be able to have the opportunity to enjoy top-class New Zealand artists laying it out in a big live venue. The Best Bluegrass Show in the World this Covid year.

And I didn’t mention Duelling Banjos and Deliverance once. Well, you got a purty mouth so why doncha come to the next one.

Rev Orange Peel