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Austin bluegrass musician credits his cool parents

Kids sometimes have to admit that their parents have good taste in music.

It doesn’t happen everywhere. I’ve seen some of the record collections of people my age, the 40-somethings that still dig into their bad pop music from the 1980s and have never moved past Van Halen’s “1984.”

Plenty of people pushing 60 who were and are into punk rock, early independent music, underground stuff and even traditional American bluegrass have kids, and surely those kids (at least some of them) dig on what their parents are listening to.

It is cool to have your parents turn you onto a Stanley Brothers song. It is cool to know a murder ballad about an unfaithful lover and that lover’s demise. Even cooler is to write songs and dive into a genre your parents turned you on to after they dragged you to festivals as a kid. It worked that way for Trevor Smith, banjo player for the Austin bluegrass band Wood and Wire.

Wood and Wire will play tonight at the Balcony Backstage. Joining Smith are Tony Kamel on guitar and vocals, Dom Fisher on bass and Billy Bright on mandolin.

“My parents turned me onto bluegrass when I was about 13 and bought me my first banjo at my first bluegrass festival,” Smith said in a recent phone interview. “It’s been with me for a long time. It took a while. They tried to get me to go, and by the time I was 13, I said, ‘Fine, I’ll go with you guys,’ and immediately fell in love with the style of music.”

Wood and Wire is coming here via the Rockygrass Festival. Lyons and Durango are eight hours apart, yet every third weekend of July, plenty of Durango locals make the trek northeast, and more often than not, one of the up-and-coming bands makes its way southwest for a local post-festival show.

Steep Canyon Rangers, Town Mountain and Chatham County Line have all done so, establishing local friendships and taking a career step forward, and now it’s Wood and Wire’s turn.

Their 2015 release, “The Coast,” showcases all the traits of American bluegrass – ripping instrumentation, a waltz or two and classic high and lonesome vocals with lyrics that rip at the heart.

Bluegrass bands have received a great shot in the arm from the jam crowd. Wood and Wire likely is no different, yet their sound is less like a Yonder Mountain String Band and more like a Hot Rize. The sound and style constructed by Bill Monroe and carried by traditionalists remains intact.

“What drew us all together more than anything is our love for traditional bluegrass, the older stuff,” Smith said. “It’s not necessarily (that) we’re trying to sound like that, it’s just naturally what comes out.”

liggett_b@fortlewis.edu. Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager.

Bryant’s best

Friday: Bluegrass with Wood and Wire, 9 p.m. $5. The Balcony Backstage, at 600 Main Ave., 764-4083.

Saturday: Country with Dwight Yoakam, 7 p.m. Sold out. Sky Ute Casino Resort, 14324 Colorado Highway 172, Ignacio, 563-7777.



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