They played like summer would never end
The 500 or so Summer Sessions fans who stayed to the end of this year’s final concert by the Henhouse Ramblers and the Songs From The Road Band saw one of those Physics Circus demonstrations designed to make complex scientific phenomena entertaining and easy to understand by an audience of non-scientists. In this case, it was the phenomenon of inertial confinement fusion. Or maybe it was simply spontaneous combustion. Whatever you chose to call it, when the Road Band and the Ramblers joined forces on stage, the result was unbounded energy.
Saturday was a perfect evening for wrapping up the 2022 concerts produced by ORNL Federal Credit Union. The air was as calm and reflective as Melton Lake at dawn. The setting light was golden, burnished. The more the sun neared the horizon, the more its corona radiata reached toward the crowd in front of the stage, to draw all attention to itself. The audience was happy and familiar, some dancing in a swirl of bubbles. And the music danced with them.
The Henhouse Prowlers spent an hour entertaining the audience with their erudite and very personal take on traditional tunes, like Earl Scruggs’ “Silver Eagle,” plus mostly original tunes, like the band guitarist Chris Dollar’s “Who Cares If It’s a Little Out of Tune?” for their banjo player Ben Wright, who is a newly minted member of the Board of Directors at the International Bluegrass Music Association.
They also played several pieces showcasing what they have learned and how they have broadened their musical horizons as cultural ambassadors for the U.S. State Department, traveling to and performing in more than two dozen countries in the last decade.
There was a Pakistani tune, a Namibian song, and an overall openness in their show that put the Prowlers in a class of their own. They even had an original a cappella gospel song, inspired by a tour to Israel. You sense that they aren’t on stage to prove anything, to preach, or to teach you something. Quite the opposite. They’re up there to learn from you.
And while they’re at it, they cook up the most fascinating and weightless jams I’ve ever heard from a bluegrass band. They’d never call themselves a jamgrass band, but on their original tune “Breakin’ New Ground,” the interplay and exploration was so intuitive and liberating, I thought they might just levitate and float around the stage.
The Songs From The Road Band are a very experienced group of super talented musicians … but something wasn’t clicking about them. Maybe it’s just me, but there was a sameness to everything they performed. I had the odd sense that I was watching a Zoom meeting, that each of the band’s five virtuosi were in different locations.
I can’t put my finger on why their show struck me that way, but it did. Their cover of an Osborne Brothers song sounded a lot like their cover of Tom Petty. How is that even possible? Their hippy schtick just wasn’t doing it for me.
Until the end.
About halfway through the Road Band’s set, mandolinist Mark Schimick said the Henhouse Prowlers might join them for a high-powered jam to end the evening, but when the time came, the Prowlers were slow to emerge from backstage. It seemed like they might have had second thoughts. But after a bit of prodding, they finally appeared. (Well, three out of the four Prowlers came out. Bassist Jon Goldfine stayed backstage. The beer’s free back there.) And right off the bat it was instrumental fireworks.
The combined eight-cylinder engine lit into a pair of instrumental pieces I can’t tell you the name of, and the tachometer hit the red band before you could say “Richard Petty Lives.” The two guitars, Chris Dollar and Sam Wharton, the two mandolins, Jake Howard and Mark Schimick, and the two banjos, Ben Wright and Gabe Epstein, paired off like entrained free electrons, and the flow of crackling electrical current was immediate. It was chain lightning at eye level.
And then, as if it hadn’t already been played at Neyland Stadium 27 times Saturday night while the Vols crushed Akron, the Road Band/Prowlers super group sent the crowd home with a version of “Rocky Top” they’ll never forget.
And it was all free. No parking fees. No admission fees. No service charges. It was all free, thanks to the ORNL Federal Credit Union’s civic minded bluegrass-lovin’ board of directors and their CEO Colin Anderson.
The Summer Sessions series was free-spirited thanks to the programming help of WDVX, 89.9 FM, East Tennessee’s own award-winning listener-supported radio broadcaster. And it was freely enjoyed, because that’s how Wildcats roll.
Thanks to everyone involved with these concerts, for all you have done for this town. Special thanks to Jonathan and Wendy Maness and their AnteFlow audio crew. Let’s figure out a way to do concerts through the Fall, Winter and Spring. What a year it has been. Alex Leach’s band. Dan Tyminski in Kingston. Jim Lauderdale. Mollie Tuttle. SFTRB and Henhouse Prowlers. What a shame not to keep this momentum going.
John Job is a longtime Oak Ridge resident and frequent contributor to The Oak Ridger.
This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Songs from the Road Henhouse Ramblers
