Okay I know some of you out there are asking yourselves “Who the heck is Clay Russell?”. Fair question. i had not been been a Clay Russell fan until very recently. What’s even cooler is that some of you out there in the CBA bluegrass community maybe do know who Clay Russell is already because you are lucky enough to have heard him in person.
Allow me to explain my fascination with a musician most of you have never heard of. Every second Sunday I am obligated to come up with a welcome column to entertain you and anybody else who happens to be web surfing. Most of the time it’s easy to crank out something about the music we all love (or anything else really; there’s no rule that welcome columnists confine themselves to the music).
Sometimes the muse just doesn’t come and I realize I don’t have anything good to write about. On such occasions I take a page from my friend Mark Varner who wrote welcome columns for many years. Mark would find a birthday boy or girl and write a column celebrating the music they had given us. Well the muse wasn’t there this week for me and I realized that I had to go searching for material. I Googled birthdays and I found my topic. Thanks Mark.
The only problem is I googled March 9 (the day of my panic) instead of today March 10 when the column runs. But I found something good. Happy belated nineteenth birthday Clay Russell! Clay hails from Troutdale Virginia and started playing banjo when he was 4 years old. He went on to compete at Galax, Fries, Union Grove, Elk Creek and other fiddler conventions. He and his band were featured on the Today show from IBMA in Raleigh a few years ago.
Clay plays in a band called ShadowGrass. The band formed from a bunch of guys who attended fiddle contests in the southeast. We need three finger banjo pickers especially if Bluegrass music as we know it is to survive and Clay is a good one. He and his band have travelled all over. Maybe bands choose to call their stuff Roots instead of Bluegrass these days but it still sounds good. Listen to their stuff on YouTube and enjoy. Good as they are I’d stack some of our own California young generation up against them any day.
Youth is the future of the music we love. Local bands like Pacific Drive and Blue Summit are stacked with young talent. Those are just two bands that come to my mind because I have heard them a couple of times. I invite you all to educate me and nominate the other young bands I could be hearing instead of wallowing in the old guy stuff i have gravitated to in the past. Music played by people my age and older unfortunately has a limited shelf life. Old recordings are great but at some point we need to hear live music.
Maybe i should ask Marty Varner, Mark’s son who still writes a regular column. The Varners have eclectic tastes but they have good radar for new bands you will like as well as ones you might not.
The last time I used Mark’s formula was exactly one year ago. I made a Sunday for Saturday switch with fellow columnist (and banjo picker) John Karsemeyer so that I could honor my idol Norman Blake on his eightieth birthday. Today of course is Norman’s 81st. Happy Birthday Norman!
