“If there was a love child between Lester Flatt and Hank Williams, it would be Shawn.” “I always wanted to put have a band that sounded like Lester and Earl,” Douglas said recently in an interview. “If I was to put it together, [Charlie and Johnny] are the first two guys, because they are the clones of Earl and Paul Warren. “I originally was thinking Del McCoury was gonna be Lester and Tim was going to be Seckler, and I would do Josh Graves,” Douglas said. “But Del was so busy with his own band, and he was in the band with the Masters of Bluegrass; he was doing so many things. So I was thinking about another Lester and my wife, Jill, said, ‘What about Shawn?’ It hadn’t occurred to me, but she was exactly right, and it was perfect. For his part, Shawn said he was thrilled to be a part of the project, but a little overwhelmed, too. “It’s just mind-blowing to look around and see all these great pickers,” he says, still amazed nearly a year after the project’s began. “The first night of rehearsal was up above Jerry’s garage. Tim wasn’t able to make it, but the rest of the band was. We kicked into something and I just had to stop them and was like, ‘I can’t believe I’m standing in the middle of you guys!’” Camp said the resemblance between the band in Jerry’s garage and the classic band felt almost supernatural. “It’s just shocking,” he said. “It’s as close to Flatt and Scruggs being in the room with me that I’ve ever been involved with.” Douglas understood from the beginning that it might be tricky to put together a Flatt and Scruggs band, without it being a “tribute” project, or a mere cover band. It is much more. Despite the talent contained in the band, there are no show-off extended breaks, no left-field licks. Instead, all the songs are played exactly like the Lester, Earl and the Foggy Mountain Boys played them. Camp determines to sound as close to Lester in both singing and speaking voice as he can, without going over-the-top into caricature. The Earls of Leicester, as best they are able, are attempting to actually present, and represent, this crucial slice of bluegrass history. “We are trying to play the exact same solos,” agreed Douglas. “We tune sharp,
because Flatt & Scruggs tuned sharp, but not on purpose. They tuned to Lester’s guitar, and whatever Lester took his guitar out of the case, wherever that guitar was, that’s what they all tuned to.” “We do everything like them. The arrangements, we don’t stretch ‘em out. They weren’t a jam band. That wasn’t even thought of. We’re really trying to honor the time period of what they did. We also want to let people know what the impact of their music was on the music the rest of us are playing now, every day.” Listening to the Earls of Leicester can be a very important history lesson, if one pays attention. “They are sort of a generation that new
It’s an honor to try to represent their music as closely as we can. It’s all out of respect. Hopefully, we’re getting close.”
“There is such a wide impact that every song seems to have by doing it the original, ‘right’ way. If you do improvisation with your picking, it’s kind of like you’re getting off the path,” Camp said. “The strength in the melody is sometimes playing it the ‘right’ way. So when you’re in there, playing it with these guys, there’s just no doubt that you’re doing it ‘right’ because you can feel that music moving across the crowd.”
bluegrass people are skipping past now, people who are just learning about bluegrass and how to play bluegrass. They think that Alison Krauss and Union Station is the first thing they should listen to, and Alison will tell you it’s not. And I’ll tell you it’s not, and J.D. Crowe would tell you it’s not. Everything he came from was from Earl Scruggs. New people need to know that, and that’s another reason that I started the band, to just educate.”
Douglas sums it up this way: “Flatt & Scruggs is not new; it’s been done. [The Earls of Leicester are] not trying to be better, do the songs better than them, because it’s impossible to do that. We’re just trying to educate a little bit, and show how a band works. For some, it will be an introduction and we’re saying, ‘Look, this something you missed that you’re gonna wish you had seen. After you see us do it, think about them doing it, because they invented it.”
Camp knows that while there is great risk to an undertaking like the Earls of Leicester, there is also great reward. “People have been trying Flatt & Scruggs ever since that band was together, but there are very few that do nothing but Flatt & Scruggs,” he said. “Yeah, it’s pretty intense. The focus is intense on trying to do it right. It’s an honor to try to represent their music as closely as we can. It’s all out of respect. Hopefully, we’re getting close.” {PULL QUOTE}
In the end, for Douglas, it’s all about the music and who you play it with. “We’re not doing this to be Flatt & Scruggs clones; we’re doing it because we love it. There just happens to be this vibe in the band that I’ve never heard anyone else be able to do.” Note: The Earls of Leicester expect to record an album later this year, with a few supporting tour dates.
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And there’s an art to doing it the right way; no frills wanted here.
www.ibma.org
International Bluegrass
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