Concert: Human voice celebrated 02/17/02
JOHN FOYSTON
O, how we sang -- 2,500 people joined Ralph Stanley and two dozen musicians at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, all singing "Amazing Grace."
It was the best way to end the sold-out Down From the Mountain concert Wednesday night. Possibly the only way, given the crowd's apparent willingness to just stand and applaud, wanting more even after two and a half hours of superlative music.
It was a fitting end to the show, too, because the concert was devoted to music on the most intimate and human scale.
By having us all stand and sing that lovely old hymn, bluegrass patriarch Ralph Stanley reminded us that there was once no line between singer and listener; certainly nothing like the chasm that separates modern-day music consumers from the multinational corporations that provide the music. Until the advent of recording technology, if people wanted music they made it. As we did Wednesday night.
It was like standing in the middle of a giant pipe organ as a couple thousand voices resonated R1 and swelled -- it was the definition of vox humana. Stanley stood as straight as if his backbone were chiseled from granite, dignified in suit and tie and swept-back white hair, leading us through three or four verses by singing each phrase to the crowd first so we all knew the lyrics.
It was a form from an earlier age, from a time when people gathered and sang in churches, at weddings and funerals, on porches. Stanley himself seemed not so much from an earlier time as timeless. Especially when he sang "O Death," the a cappella lament used to such devastating effect in the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"
"Norman, hit me a big ol' G chord," he said to guitarist Norman Blake. When he had his note, Stanley simply stood and sang, staring unflinching out into the dark. His voice swooped and darted in microtonal quavers, surged in up-holler modalities more ancient and emotional than the foursquare rationality of Western scales. How else could he have sung of the universal human tragedy -- that each of us will die and that we know it? But his voice also reminded us that the knowledge of our own mortality is the source of all faith.
The evening celebrated the human voice as the original and most compelling of musical instruments, from the Nashville Bluegrass Band leaning in to the microphone for close harmony on "Po' Lazarus" to the diminutive Peasall Sisters chiming in on an angelic "I'll Fly Away." Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Patty Loveless sang beautiful harmonies on "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby." Loveless was the surprise of the night with a voice so vivid and real that the hall could barely contain it as she sang the heartbreaking "You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive."
Emmylou Harris was her usual stunning self on a gorgeously sad version of "Red Dirt Girl" accompanied just her own and Buddy Miller's guitars (he was playing the 1938 Gibson L-4 he bought earlier in the day at Pioneer Music). Her voice soared like yearning given substance, with Miller sketching in snips of harmony on the chorus and somehow making it sound fuller as a result. His musicianly restraint was the rule among these monster players. There was no grandstanding.
Dobro player Jerry Douglas -- who had the most stage time during the show -- was the closest to flashy. He was simply amazing, tickling out quicksilver glissandos and liquid phrases from the resonator guitar slung at his waist, especially in a couple of instrumentals, including one of his own called "Monkey Let the Hogs Out."
The show progressed as a number of segments separated by narration from songwriter Bob Neuwirth, who spoke from a lectern at stage right. The Nashville Bluegrass Band opened, then Norman Blake put his unassuming voice and beautifully supple flatpicking style to the service of "Big Rock Candy Mountain," then his wife, Nancy, joined him to sing "You Are My Sunshine," then Alison Krauss & Union Station came out to some of the evening's biggest applause to sing the first of a couple versions of "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow."
So it went. Bands were fluid as players formed and reformed in different combinations. The staging was artful simplicity: Musicians entered or left a darkened stage, empty save for several microphones, which stagehands were constantly resetting for the various combinations. Overhead, two rows of stage lights cast the stage in simple monochromatic washes.
The show was a world removed from modern country extravaganzas, such as Shania Twain's idea of a bare-bones stage: "We'll have hydraulics, of course, but no pyro," she said in an interview a few years ago about a back-to-her-roots tour.
The phenomenal success of the film and soundtrack, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (more than 4 million CDs sold to date) and the Down From the Mountain concerts (most of the 25 cities sold out well in advance, as Portland did) have prompted a new awareness of roots music in the mainstream.
It's not the first instance of popular music returning to this deep well for a drink. But this time seems somehow different -- more permanent. "This isn't like 'Bonnie and Clyde' or 'Deliverance' " said bluegrass musician and promoter John Malloy. He was talking of two earlier popularity blips for traditional music.
"I was sitting there last night with Steve Reischman (also a musician and promoter), and we talked about how five years ago, this show couldn't have sold out the Aladdin Theater (about 500 seats). Those weren't all bluegrass people last night: I know most of them from my shows and there's maybe 200 of 'em -- on a good night." You can reach
John Foyston at 503-221-8368 or by e-mail at johnfoyston@news.oregonian.com. ---