Nobody had a better time at the Durango Bluegrass Meltdown in 2005 than performers Danny Paisley and his band The Southern Grass. When not playing their scheduled sets or jamming around the local bluegrass festival, the Mid-Atlantic-based band members were kicking it in Durango establishments, enjoying themselves out while they rubbed elbows with the locals.
The band will once again roll through Durango this weekend, as they are one of the headliners for the Meltdown, which runs through Sunday at various venues around town. Other performers include Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley; Nick Dumas and Branchline; David Mayfield Parade; Golden Shoals; FY5; Stillhouse Junkies; a load of local bands and more.
If you go
WHAT: 29th Annual Durango Bluegrass Meltdown.
WHEN: Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
WHERE: Animas City Theatre, 128 E. College Drive; Durango Arts Center, 802 East Second Ave.; Wild Horse Saloon, 601 East Second Ave.
TICKETS: Weekend pass $150, Saturday $90, Sunday $65.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.durangomeltdown.com.
Danny Paisley and The Southern Grass are a family band; joining Paisley, who plays guitar and sings are Bobby and T.J. Lundy, who currently play bass and fiddle. Those three, who were here in 2005, began playing bluegrass with their late fathers Bob Paisley and Ted Lundy, who started the band as The Southern Mountain Boys in the 1960s. Rounding out the band are Ryan Paisley on mandolin and Mark Delaney on banjo.
“Bobby and T.J., we’ve played probably close to 50 years together, and we see no change in the foreseeable future,” Paisley said. “I can depend on them, and they can depend on me, and we just figure each other as brothers.”
Their brand of bluegrass nods to the style played by the elders Paisley and Lundy; in the 1960s and ’70s Baltimore and Washington, D.C., along with more rural parts of Maryland that stretched around the Chesapeake Bay featured bluegrass bands playing in dive bars, a rough around the edges sound that leaned into honky-tonk country. That’s the sound of Southern Grass, a sound that has taken them well beyond the mid-Atlantic, travels they’re quite proud of as roots-music lovers thousands of miles away have heard of them.
“We were in the Bavarian Mountains in Germany in a very little town out in the middle of nowhere playing a sort of club or hall type event, and people were coming and bringing records,” Paisley said. “And you’re thinking, ‘Now how in the world did they get a record all the way out here?’ And you’ve reached somebody. You have people coming up to you and talking to you in Italy and it’s like, ‘Goodness sake!’ It’s almost scary. It’s very humbling you know, to go around the world and to know you’ve touched somebody.”
That reality of touching somebody can be traced back to the advent of social media, which has helped spread the word of the band. But it’s also through the fact that they remain entertainers and are willing to put on a show, which they do. Bill Monroe was known to tell his band that you play your best, whether you’re in front of an audience of 10 or 10,000. Chuck Dukowski of punk band Black Flag said the same thing. That’s what you’ll also get out of Paisley and The Southern Grass – a solid show.
“We’re there to make the folks happy, the people who pay their money to come out and have a good time. We’ll sing them a sad song that they asked for, or a happy, fast banjo or mandolin tune. Then the next night you might be 500 miles away, and you have to approach it with the same vim and vigor because again, people pay good money to see you. You want to honor what you’re doing. That’s how I look at it,” Paisley said. “I want to be respected by the people. I want them to say. ‘Well, they put on a good show.’”
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
