We went to see David Grier at Baldwin’s Station Thursday night. David is an old school-mate of ours and several folks from the old neighborhood were there to hear him. He put on a fantastic show and we really enjoyed it.
Baldwin’s Station is a cool little restaurant in Sykesville in a building that was formerly a train station. The trains still run through there regularly (not through the building but it sounds like it…) and a few went through during the evening, laying on the whistle. Too bad none of them were in the middle of a train song, but it was cool anyway. The concerts are put on by Uptown Concerts, a local non-profit and they do a nice job. The venue holds about 50 people and you can be seated for dinner up to 90 minutes before the show starts, but service proceeds all during the concert, though at somewhat reduced frequency of wait-staff visits to the table. The room was pretty full for David’s concert, only a couple of seats were empty. We had a great meal and a great dessert too.
I hadn’t seen David in years, since high-school I guess, and it was great to see him again. His picking was just extraordinary, very crisp, fast at times, and just great to listen to. David played several well known tunes as well as quite a few of his own compositions. They ranged from the hauntingly melancholy “Road to Hope” to the sparking beauty of “High Atop Princess Cove”. David’s seemingly endless ability to produce variations on a theme was a marvel, it encompassed so much deep knowledge of the structure of music and tonality and was just a delight as the variations would keep rolling along. At some points so much music was coming out of the guitar that he seemed to be just giving the instrument little shakes on his knee to shake out even more things, like shaking powdered sugar on top of pancake syrup or something — good on good, you know. I really enjoyed how David used the guitar to play counterpoint and harmony with itself. It was a real treat to hear someone of his caliber in such a small setting, feeling that we were right up close to the action.
We heard some about David’s youth during the concert, and thankfully he didn’t mention any of the bad stuff any of us did with him (or to him) during high school. David’s dad, Lamar Grier, played banjo with Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys. Yep, the Father of Bluegrass himself might have been in Maryland City at one time sitting on David’s back porch just picking away. It’s hard to take, since I like that kind of music, that I never knew any of this until years later. It is surprising how little you can get to know people during school hours.
Now if only he would have played some tunes that I know so I could tell if he was any good or not. : - )
So run right out and buy David’s CDs if you like bluegrass and good picking. They are really nice.
