10.12.2018 | GREENVILLE JOURNAL | 39
COMMUNITYJOURNALS.COM “Way Back When” and “Used Me Again (Now Lose Me Forever).” There’s also a disco-style track that should come with its own spinning mirror-ball (“Overwhelming”) and an epic final number that brings mindbending psychedelia into the mix (“Call Out My Name”). It wasn’t a direct sequel, in other words, and that’s just how the band wanted it. “The first album was a little too close to a retro-inspired sound,” Velle says, “and it put us in this box of playing this soul music from the ’60s and ’70s. I love that sound, and I grew up on that stuff, so I don’t think that was a negative thing, but it gave us less of an ability to explore different sounds. So ‘Shape of All Things’ takes on different genres within the soul spectrum.” In fact, Velle says she sees it as the band’s responsibility to develop their sound, no matter how well-received their older work has been. “We as artists are supposed to evolve,” she says. “We’re supposed to meld different sounds together. And I think that’s something we strived to do on ‘State of All Things.’” Velle and The Soulphonics will be playing many of those new songs when they perform their headlining set on the Iron Hill Brewery stage at BB&T Fall for Greenville on Friday night, and she says that on stage is still the best place to see what the band can do. “There are moments when I’m onstage just enamored of the musicians I’m surrounded by,” she says. “We’ve always been a band I encourage people to see live, because meticulousness in the studio can be overwhelming. There’s a certain level of celebration when you just get out there onstage and make it happen, and I live for that moment.”
RUBY VELLE & THE SOULPHONICS WHEN 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 12 WHERE Iron Hill Brewery Stage, BB&T Fall for Greenville INFO https://fallforgreenville.net/
fall for Jerry Douglas brings his GREENVILLE Grammy-winning bluegrass, jazz, blues-rock sounds to Fall for Greenville VINCENT HARRIS | ARTS & CULTURE WRITER
vharris@communityjournals.com
When Grammy and IBMA-award-winning Dobro player, songwriter, and bandleader Jerry Douglas is touring as part of Alison Krauss’ band Union Station, there’s a phrase he likes to use for a night when he feels like working a lot of high-wire improvisation into his playing. He tells his bandmates that “it feels like Tuesday” to let them know to get ready for some curveballs. The other members of Union Station are skilled enough at their bluegrass-country-folk hybrid music to handle Douglas’ wildest playing, but they’re not as game for it as Douglas’ namesake band, who will perform the headlining Sunday night set at BB&T Fall for Greenville this year. “With my band,” Douglas says with a laugh, “it’s always Tuesday, that’s for sure.” A quick spin through The Jerry Douglas Band’s 2017 album “What If” bears that out in spades. With Douglas’ quicksilver Dobroplaying leading the way, his ensemble flies through high-speed jazz (“Cavebop”), heavy blues-rock with a dash of New Orleans brass (“2:19”), and a shimmering folk ballad (“Go Ahead and Leave”), trying on different styles like clothes and playing up a storm. The album is simply further proof, if any were needed, that after appearing on more than 1,600 albums as either a sideman, producer, or leader — yes, you read that correctly — Douglas obeys no rules other than his own. His foundation after more than 40 years as a professional musician remains bluegrass,
The Jerry Douglas Band | Photo provided
though, even as he stretches and bends the genre into something new. And it’s not just because he loves that music. “The thing about bluegrass is that it’s improvisational music,” he says. “That’s why some of us were able to move it towards different genres. We changed the substance and the chord structures but still used these instruments that are based in bluegrass.” The “we” Douglas refers to are his musical peers, such as banjo player Bela Fleck and mandolin player Sam Bush. They’ve all pushed the boundaries of bluegrass, and acoustic music in general, for decades. “That’s been our modus operandi,” Douglas says. “It’s closer to jazz, in that I’m making a statement in the front of the song and then the gates are wide open to where you want to take that as long as you get back to where you started.” The Fall for Greenville performance will be the band’s first show together since midJuly, and Douglas says he’s looking forward
to diving into the musical unknown again after a long stretch with a more traditional group. “I just finished a long stretch with the Earls of Leicester (pronounced ‘Lester’),” Douglas says, “and that’s just the opposite of this. It’s a dyed-in-the-wool bluegrass band that plays all Flatt and Scruggs material. We don’t go too far outside of what was originally stated by the guys who created that music. So when I get back with my band it takes me a few minutes to give myself the OK to just go. We all get on this wild ride together, and we shake our heads and laugh at the end at what’s just taken place.”
THE JERRY DOUGLAS BAND WHEN 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 14 WHERE Carolina Chevy Stage, BB&T Fall for Greenville INFO https://fallforgreenville.net/
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