Hey everyone just found this great new band out of New Jersey called "The Amboys." I saw them the other night at The Saint in Asbury Park NJ. They are a great live band and there new album is amazing. Everyone should def check them out if they like bands like Wilco, Old 97's and anything in the alt country genre. Here are a few links to check them out that I found just by searching "The Amboys" on google,

www.myspace.com/theamboys

http://www.app.com/section/VideoNetwork#/The+Amboys+CD+Release+Party+at+...

I was listening to the song "Jackson" written by Jerry Leiber and Billy Edd Wheeler, and sung by Johnny Cash and June Carter. Near the end there's a stanza that refers to a "pony keg":

But they'll laugh at you in Jackson, and I'll be dancin' on a pony keg. They'll lead you 'round town like a scalded hound,
With your tail tucked between your legs,
Yeah, go to Jackson, you big-talkin' man.
And I'll be waitin' in Jackson, behind my Japan fan.

I confess that before this song, I'd never even heard of a pony keg. It is in fact a beer keg, one that's half the size of a regular keg, and holds 1/4 of a barrel, or about 29 liters, or 7.75 gallons of beer. That's enough for 62 pint glasses of beer. I note that this is not the same as the "refrigerator kegs" made by Heineken and others.

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CMT: Is the body made of metal? Is that to get a more twangy sound out of the instrument?

SB: Yeah. The National Instrument Company made instruments out of metal back in the twenties and thirties. I was fortunate enough to get my hands on one of these things back in the seventies. I was just looking for a different thing that you could do with mandolin knowledge and apply that to different kinds of playing. I play totally different on the slide mandolin than I would playing with my fingers on my good old wooden Gibson F-5.

CMT: You mentioned recording and playing as a sideman on other people’s recordings. It seems like as a solo recording artist you have eight or so albums. There is a deeper history of you playing on other people’s work, though. How’d that come about?

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Before that even happens, here in a little while, I’m going out to California. Tomorrow night, I’ll be on the Jay Leno show with a country entertainer named Derek Bentley. He’s made an acoustic record, his label calls it his bluegrass record. It’s not, so much. I ended up playing slide mandolin on the lead cut. We made a video for it, which will be on in a few weeks. It is called “Up on the Ridge.”

CMT: Most of your performances are at festivals and various outdoor events?

SB: Yeah, once the warm weather hits, you can count on the end of April through the middle of September probably. Of course, we have some auditorium and theater style gigs, but for the most part outdoors in the summertime. It is a good time of year.

 

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CMT: I am interested in the genre historically when you contrast bluegrass with jazz and blues becoming popular music. And while there is definitely a market for country, it’s still perceived differently than jazz, which is thought of as American classical music by some. When I asked you about notation, I was trying to figure out if that is part of the reason why bluegrass is perceived differently?

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CMT: It is pretty clear that the New Grass Revival was influenced by what gets termed today as classic rock. But where you listening to stuff apart from that and other American at the time you were making those recordings?

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Country Music Talk: You are going to be playing at the Kent Stage at the end of May or beginning of June. Have you performed there in the past?

Sam Bush: June 4^th. I have played there a couple of times over the years with my own band as well as with saxophonist Bill Evans.

CMT: Your performance with Evans was with Soulgrass, right? How did that project come about since he is a pretty huge name in jazz?

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I am trying to find a song from years ago. I can't remember the song title or band name. Part of the song was about stopping for ice cream just to see how long they could drive before it melted. This song was played on CMT quite a lot when it was big. Does anyone remember this one? Please help if you can. Thanks

There’re varying degrees of country music’s appreciation. Of course the radio ready, truck driving Americans that make up most of the factory workers in the States (none of that’s substantiated, but it was in my head) eat up whatever denim clad, beer drinker in a cowboy hat has to offer. And while there’s still a steady stream of grittier, lower profile country acts out there, it seems that there’re folks who reference something like ‘hardcore country’ when speaking on older acts. But distinguishing between Hank Williams and Hank Snow is occasionally problematic. Either way, what that oddly phrased, pseudo genre is attempting to relate is country’s place in relation to rock and roll and its development during the ‘50s and early ‘60s.

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It’s rather difficult to differentiate between traditional bluegrass and what is commonly referred to as progressive. Such an antiquated genre leaves little room for growth or experimentation. Apart from Sam Bush, I’m gonna say that most progressive bluegrass stylings sound only slightly different than a traditional mode.

The Nashville Bluegrass Band are considered progressive and while they offer a good deal more style than most current bluegrass acts, I can’t commit myself to saying that its are beyond the norm – that band’s not moving the genre forward. The group is however putting out really fine recordings after more than two decades in the music business.

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