Robin and Jimi Davis make music that sounds like it’s a hundred years old. It’s not. While Robin could likely sit in with anybody’s roots or rock band, he specializes in acoustic music. It’s old-time music, a style rooted in bluegrass that sounds as if it was born in Appalachia a century ago.
Robin has been making music with his wife, Jimi, for the last decade. There’s been different configurations: They made progressive bluegrass as The RD Unit, which featured Robin on acoustic guitar and Jimi on bass; while Dreem Machine was a plugged in, psychedelic and stoner, roots-rock outfit that had Robin on electric guitar, Jimi on bass and Matt Cottle on drums.
The most recent project of the husband and wife team is once again stripped down and acoustic. The Robin Davis Duo, with Robin on fiddle and Jimi on clawhammer banjo, just dropped “Starin’ at the Mountain,” produced locally with engineer whiz Scott Smith at his recording studio Scooter’s Place. It’s a 10-song blast of raw acoustic music that sounds 19th-century old, and as fresh as next week.
“It’s brand new. That’s kind of our thing, we call it ‘original old time,’” Robin said. “We like playing original songs, but we also love old-time, so we’re just doing both at the same time.”
The beauty of their old-time debut in “Starin’ at the Mountain” is its rawness. Many festival acts of the string-band variety come a bit clean with an air of overproduction. This release is down and dirty, a DIY effort delivered with some audio grit.
Robin’s voice is gruff, Jimi’s light and soft; together, it’s a dynamic pairing that floats over Jimi’s driving banjo and Robin’s ripping fiddle-fills.
It’s also a release that comes on the heels of some new music enthusiasm thanks to Robin and Jimi picking up new instruments, as the fiddle and banjo are relatively new in the hands of them both.
“When I finally decided to pick the banjo up, I just didn’t want to put it down,” Jimi said. “I just love it.”
That banjo has also helped kick her songwriting into high gear. Living in rural Archuleta County, Jimi finds herself knocking around the mountains on random hikes. It’s those walks that put melodies in her head, and the effort to get those melodies from head to instrument to structured song has come easier using banjo over bass.
“It’s been fun having her on banjo,” Robin said. “It’s done a lot for her songwriting; she started cranking out all these songs when she started playing. I just think it’s a more melodic instrument.”
Switching from guitar to fiddle has also been a plus for Robin, who is a musician who is able to master just about anything with strings. Aside from it being lighter and easier to take from show to show, the fiddle is something he is having fun playing.
“It’s a powerhouse of a little instrument. I was just playing electric guitar before this, with high gain, so you have that sustain and light strings, it reminds me a lot of that actually,” he said. “It’s a lot easier on the fingers than an acoustic guitar. It’s just fun switching up and adding to our skill set.”
In addition to adding to that instrument conquering skill set, Robin and Jimi are happy with keeping things simple. The independent music world has plenty of one-time electric-guitar players enjoying unplugging and going acoustic for the physical ease that comes with no longer carting around amplifiers. Dreem Machine was a full-blown power trio, and the Davises are enjoying the lighter load.
“We were hauling around a full drum set, and two full stacks. Now we just have a fiddle and a banjo,” Robin said. “It’s ultralight, and pretty fun.”
Their next live appearance will take place at the Tico Time Bluegrass Festival outside Durango. Their set will take place at 2 p.m. May 18.
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
