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Here in Colorado things are great…there was about 8-12″ of powder on the hill. If my bed wasn’t trying to kill me at night things would be great. Today’s guest blog comes from Brad Kelley.
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Don’t get me wrong, I’ve listened to a fair amount of bluegrass in my time, but if you would have predicted that I would spend a great deal of time listening to contemporary bluegrass in the past year, I would have given you the look I am now reserving for anyone who predicts that I might be casting a vote for Mike Huckabee this coming November. Oh sure, I’ll go back every once in awhile and pull out a copy of the original Bill Monroe or Flatt and Scruggs recordings, but contemporary bluegrass just holds out nothing…new. If you make bluegrass new (and call it, of course, “new grass”), you get stuff like Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, or Jerry Douglas, and that stuff leaves me cold; that stuff stands to music as an advanced chemistry textbook stands to Faulkner–technically brilliant but not something you want to read again and again. And if you don’t make it new, well, why not just go and listen to the old recordings? That’s the Bluegrass Paradox.(Live bluegrass, I should add, is a different thing entirely. Go see it whenever you can; there are a huge number of incredibly talented bands out there, and the level of musicianship these days is quite high.)

So when my buddy Eddie said, about a year ago, “hey listen to this,” and put on a song by the contemporary bluegrass band the Earl Brothers, I planned to sit quietly until he got to something more to my liking. (Eddie always gets there; after all, he turned me on to DBT.) I was, from the first notes, just stunned by what I was hearing, and after now coming to know the whole Earl Brothers catalouge—a mere two albums–quite well over the last year, I’m still as blown away as I was then. They solve the Bluegrass Paradox, and I still don’t know how. There’s not a lick on here that is new in any way, and though they do mostly originals, having original material is typically NOT sufficient for solving the paradox. Still, it’s somehow different. I’ll let you decide for yourself how they manage it.

Don’t know much about them, and I’ll leave most of that for you to find out (though I just read in doing some research that one of the two songwriters in the group, who is also the high tenor, has left the band). They reside in California and don’t play typical bluegrass gigs, preferring to play rock clubs instead. Or so I’ve heard. What I do know is that the connection between bluegrass and Jesus, historically, is a strong one, but if you look to bluegrass gospel songs to get your Jesus fix, pick up any other bluegrass album and you’ll be fine. Just don’t try to get it with these guys. I don’t know what their personal beliefs are, but somehow a religious reference would be as out of place here as most bluegrass bands would be in rock clubs. These guys sing about, as their first (2004) album specifies in its title, Whiskey, Women and Death, and continue pretty much on those same themes in their second (2006) release, Troubles to Blame.

I kept thinking that cuts from the Earl Brothers would start showing up on music blogs and here at ninebullets without me, but it didn’t happen. So when Autopsy IV gave me this opportunity to do a guest post, I couldn’t think of anyone else who so epitomizes the themes and sensibilities of ninebullets as do the Earl Brothers. Thanks, Autopsy IV!

The Earl Brothers - Been Sittin’ Here Drinkin’
The Earl Brothers - Bender
The Earl Brothers - Hard Times and Heartbreaks

The Earl Brothers’ Official Site, The Earl Brothers on myspace, Buy The Earl Brothers music