Darrell Webb’s bluegrass career started the year before I was born. Since then there has not been a time without Darrell Webb holding a spot in one of the major performing bluegrass acts, which makes having a detailed summary about the journey of modern bluegrass without mentioning him impossible. Despite his undebatable status in the bluegrass world, Webb has never strayed away from the bluegrasses’ straight and narrow. When you play with the likes of Michael Cleveland or Rhonda Vincent there’s no need to change routes due to artistic or economic reasons. What Webb brought to those bands, along with his stint with Wildfire, and now his own self- titled band, is the roughly twenty-year tradition of mash grass. Like Blue Mafia and their recent album ‘Hanging Tree’, the Darrell Webb Band’s project ‘Lover’s Leap’ also leans on the recent, more energetic take on traditional bluegrass. To delve further, Blue Mafia is in many ways a contemporary of the sound Webb has honed in for more than twenty years now. This leads to a contrast in song choice as well as instrumental and vocal prodigiousness that shines light on the nuanced artistic differences between these seemingly similar groups.
Review: New Darrell Webb album on Mountain Fever Records, ‘Lover’s Leap’
After a listen through both projects it is clear who has more connections to the bluegrass music industry. The simple material choices give a distinct advantage to Webb’s new project. While Blue Mafia had a few in-house originals, most of their artistic creativity came in re-vamping traditional tracks like “Body and Soul” to fit their specific sub-genre. Webb has numerous songwriters getting their voices heard on this album including the closing track “Forty Acre Blues”, written by Jeff Barbra and Thomm Jutz. The latter has had his songs recorded by the likes of John Prine and Junior Sisk and was also credited for Terry Baucom’s “Around the Corner” and Irene Kelley’s “Carolina Wind”. Despite the star power in the song writing department, Webb’s own originals stand out from the crowd. “Lover’s Leap” was written with his wife, and is by far the most sonically adventurous song on the album as well as the most story oriented one. Though the best of Webb’s songwriting comes from one piece that I assumed must have been a country song from the golden 50s and 60s era. “There’s Nothing Like a Woman to Bring You Down” tells a simple story, but the phrasing and simple 1-4-5 give life and emotion to the song that could have easily sounded like a run-down concept.
Instrumentally each band presents strengths and weakness. While discussing ‘Hanging Tree’ in my previous review (see Bluegrass Breakdown, April 2017) I went to great lengths just to describe how near and dear the guitar playing of Tony Wray was to me and other fellow guitar players due to his being the most clever and varied soloist in the business. Cody Looper’s banjo also needs to be close to the top in any discussion of the most unique and driving banjo players. Webb’s band has a solid group of soloists, but none up to the level of these two. A crude and brief description of Webb’s mandolin style could be “Alan Bibey lite”, while the guitar of Jared Hensley is always strong, but never novel or spectacular. Tyler Collins and Collins Miller, on dobro and banjo respectively, are both unlikely candidates to get more than a moderate applause for their solos due to their restrained styles. But the consistency and professionalism of the Darrel Webb band could easily be seen as a better performance model than simply having two instrumentalists that take the lion’s share of breaks. Webb’s lengthier time in the business must relate to his desire of having a group of equally talented, but non-transcendent players. When one remembers this was the guy who had been instrumentally outshined by Michael Cleveland in one band and Alan Bibey and Phil Leadbetter in the other, it starts to make sense. Another advantage for Webb’s band is the bass playing style of Jeremy Phillips. Unlike the tamer performance of Mike Gregory in Blue Mafia, Phillips is never afraid to be louder and farther ahead than the rest of the band. While this sounds out of place in numerous acts, the mash-grass sound becomes exponentially better when the bass isn’t afraid to take control of the groove and blast it into overdrive.
Obviously the vocals of Blue Mafia is where their bread is buttered, and Webb’s band is limited by more straightforward vocal harmonies and a lead singer who, in my opinion, is much better served as a supporting lead, but mainly tenor vocalist. Regardless, Webb’s professionalism, songwriting connections and adventurous arrangements make ‘Lover’s Leap’ just as strong as ‘Hanging Tree’ if not better depending on one’s specific desires in the bluegrass sound.
