'Gonna Turn You Loose Like an Old Caboose'

The 2022 Summer Sessions concerts kickoff at 6 p.m. Saturday, June 18, with Bill & The Belles and the Hogslop String Band at the Oak Ridge Civic Center's outdoor stage in A.K. Bissell Park. Produced by ORNL Federal Credit Union in association with East Tennessee's WDVX 89.9 FM.

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In the late 1960s, Bob Dylan’s evolution from acoustic folk music to electrified Americana was abetted by a more-or-less anonymous group of backing musicians consisting of four Canadians and a good ole boy from Arkansas named Levon (accent on the first syllable, long “e”). They hung out in West Saugerties, N.Y., not far from Woodstock, and lived like dorm rats in a tract house called Big Pink.

Those five musicians then started writing, recording, and performing all original material of their own. They wrote a new chapter in the history of American music under the simplest name possible. They called themselves The Band.

Like a meteor, The Band streaked across the English-speaking, vinyl-collecting cultural landscape with breath-taking creativity. They combined homegrown influences from the four corners of the North American continent and perfected what Levon couldn’t pronounce without a big grin stretching across his face: “Rock ‘n Roll.”

In one very short decade, from 1967 to 1977, The Band achieved something lasting, permanent, and secure, both in the art of songwriting and in the lives of their fans around the world. But in our time, in this blasted Internet age, The Band would not be possible.

In their stead, we have the Hogslop String Band (HSB), who are on the same arc pioneered by The Band. They have only one focus. The music. Only one love. Writing and playing the music. Only one aspiration. Being the music.

Listen to the HSB’s version of The Band’s classic, “Rag Mama Rag.” There’s not another band worth their salt on stage these days that could pull off “Rag Mama Rag” with an ounce of authenticity. But Hogslop nails it.

Singer/fiddler Kevin Martin was disarmingly honest about the song when I talked to him the other day.

“'Rag Mama Rag’ is a really weird song. You know, nobody can really tell you what it’s about. If you think about it ...”

Whoa. Stop right there. Can’t think about a song like “Rag Mama Rag.” If you do, it gets all over you like BBQ sauce that's not thick enough. If you don’t think about it, if you just do the dang song, it takes you home … with Lee-von.

“We could be relaxin’/In my sleepin’ bag/But all you want to do for me, Mama/is rag Mama rag.”

I hope Hogslop String Band starts their Summer Sessions show with “Rag Mama Rag.” That’ll keep the world going around for me.

ORNL-FCU and WDVX-FM are really going out on a limb kicking off Summer Sessions with a headlining act most Oak Ridgers have never heard of, but the smartest critters in the woods can be found way out on a limb. Possums, raccoons, lightnin’ bugs, wildcats .... So don’t let Hogslop’s name throw you off. It’s a very serious band. They have a lot in common with energetic Americana circus acts like Old Crow Medicine Show, and they trace their dedication to the art form back to Flatt & Scruggs and Doc & Merle.

But there’s one big difference. The Watsons and the Foggy Mountain Boys reveled in watching their audiences’ jaws bounce off the floor at their unbelievable string mastery, but they never let the audience see ‘em sweat. They were cool like that. Like George Strait, James Taylor, or Frank Sinatra. Did you ever see Sinatra sweat? Of course not.

By contrast, the Hogslop guys want you to see ‘em sweat. They’re hot like that. They’re workin’ hard. Like Ketch Secor, the Chili Peppers, or Elvis.

E pluribus unum sweatinum.

HSB’s press material says they combine a reverence for tradition with a bold irreverence, enabling them to walk a tightrope that qualifies them to be “punk purists.” They have a motto that predicts “It only gets weirder from here.”

Well, I don’t know about that. Cultivated weirdness has the shelf life of warm milk. And punk predilections, unless you’re Patti Smith, are extremely short-lived phenomena. Ask Johnny Rotten, Jello Biafra, and Sid Vicious.

Hogslop’s most distinctive quality argues against the band’s punk presumptions, and that’s the great respect they show to those who have gone before them. Their performance covers of songs by Doc Watson and John Prine, for instance, are sincere, honest, and delivered with the highest intentions. Nothing punk about it.

HSB consists of the combined talents of Will Harrison, Gabriel Kelley, Daniel Binkley, Kevin Martin, and Casey McBride, also known as “Pickle,” who will be celebrating his 40th birthday on the Summer Sessions stage.

Don’t begrudge these incredible musicians the funny name they perform under. Hogslop. The best dance company on the planet is named Pilobolus, which is the name of a tiny fungus that grows on cow pies. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and the Hogslop String Band by any other name would still blow your mind.

This is how summer begins.

Opening the show for Hogslop is a string band of a different vision, called Bill & The Belles, from Johnson City, Tennessee. (Are you humming “Wagon Wheel” in your head now?) Where Hogslop can come across like a moonshine still about to explode, Bill & The Belles are more like a cellar full of aging barrels of bourbon.

They have a sound that’s at once vintage, mellow and unthreatening, with a sort of Lawrence Welk smoothness, a Mills Brothers friendliness, and an ironic Lennon Sisters sweetness. It's music that would sound great coming from a gramophone. But you better listen to their lyrics, ‘cause they’re unpacking quite a load.

Take their song “Happy Again.” Kris Truelsen, the “Bill” in this band, is anything but happy in this, his ode to getting divorced.

“I used to walk tall/I had a skip in my step/But now I am drowning/In a sea of regret/I lost all ambition/The day that you left/I wish we’d never met.”

Or his song “That’ll Be Just Fine.”

“Said that she found someone new/Came as no surprise/Smiled and then I wished her well/As she walked out of my life.”

Gone, gone, gone. Boy howdy.

On the bright side, when your intimate life (let's call her Sally) walks into another guy's bedroom, it can wrench some really good songs out of your heart. Especially if the interloper has spent about 30% of his sorry life in federal prison, then gets your Sally in a family way, as they say in Mossy Grove.

It's a time-honored bluegrass tradition to go down the "killin' song" route, rather than actually killin' somebody. It's not as messy. Pays better too. Ask the Louvin Brothers. Or the Avett Brothers. Have you ever heard "I Killed Sally's Lover"? I think I know Sally, come to think of it.

Heartache is the heartbeat of pre-rock pop music, and that's the bottomless vein Bill & The Belles are mining so skillfully. And you know, sooner or later, the aches fade away and someone new comes along. Plenty of songwriting promise there.

Come on, Bill. You've got The Belles on either side of you. Open your eyes. As for that ex you're moaning about, just turn her loose like an old caboose.

Kris Truelsen's cohorts in Bill & The Belles are Aidan Van Suetendael playing banjo, Andrew Small on bass, and Kalin Yeahle, fiddle.

Kris said this of the band's eclectic approach to writing and performing: "We evolve with every record we put out. We're influenced by a lot of different musical styles, and we wear some of those influences on our sleeves. 1960s girl groups. Leon Redbone. The Kinks. Fats Domino. Riley Puckett. Chuck Berry. They're all connected.

"What inspired us is working outside genre boundaries. I'm proud that our music is uniquely ours. It's a worthwhile journey, and a lot of fun. We're never sure where we'll end up."

Then came an unexpected clue to their old timey sound. Kris said, "My grandfather sang tenor on a Chicago barbershop quartet called the Abbott Medicine Men. They recorded for RCA in the early 1950s. I was surprised by how much I sound like him."

And what about y'all and WDVX?

"I've had the pleasure of working with Tony Lawson on my job as program director at Radio Bristol," Kris said. "He and Red Hickey have been incredibly supportive of our band over the years. They've shaped the musicscape of this whole region. Can't wait to see them again in Oak Ridge."

This is going to be a very memorable debut for Summer Sessions. Come be part of it!

John Job is a longtime Oak Ridge resident and frequent contributor to The Oak Ridger.

This article originally appeared on Oakridger: 2022 Summer Sessions concerts kick-off Saturday, June 18