Up and coming Bluegrass fusion band “?Barnstar!” which began as the brainchild of Roanoker Zachariah Hickman (who has also performed as bassist for Josh Ritter and musical director for Ray Lamontagne) is bringing the bluegrass supergroup back to the Star City.
The band features some of the Boston area’s finest musicians and songwriters including Mark Erelli (guitar), Jake Armerding (fiddle), Taylor Armerding (mandolin) and Charlie Rose (banjo).
Barnstar! debuted in 2011 with C’mon!, a mix of distinctive originals and unexpected covers (Neil Young, Dawes, The Traveling Wilburys) cut live in the studio. Despite juggling various high-profile sideman gigs behind other artists, the group managed to cause a stir in the industry with relatively few appearances.
In February 2015, Barnstar! unleashed its sophomore release Sit Down! Get Up! Get Out!, which sports a more richly textured sound than its predecessor.
Sit Down! Get Up! Get Out! is the sound of a band stretching out, exploring darker themes and finding the joy amidst life’s trials and tribulations.
“We got our start by showcasing our newfound chemistry and how excited we were to take a break from supporting other artists to work on our own project,” says Erelli of their self-released debut. When it came time to go back into the studio, band members actually brought new original material written specifically with Barnstar! in mind.
According to Hickman, “this record feels like a conscious move away from the novelty of being a band, toward finding our voice collectively.”
Some of the new originals branch out into new musical and geographical territory for the band, like the Cajun drone of Jake Armerding’s “Delta Rose” or Charlie Rose’s Appalachian mining lament “Cumberland Blue Line.”
Other new contributions serve to celebrate and reaffirm the band’s New England roots. Mark Erelli’s “Barnstable County” is a murder ballad that relocates the drama of Knoxville Girl from the mountains of Tennessee to a Cape Cod salt marsh, while “Country John” honors John Lincoln Wright, a honky-tonk legend who never really made it big outside of Boston.
The cover selections on Sit Down! Get Up! Get Out! reinforce the band’s musically omnivorous reputation, transforming songs by Josh Ritter, The Hold Steady, Patty Griffin and The Faces into something that sounds distinctly like, well, Barnstar!. Studio versions of mainstays from the band’s live performances sit comfortably alongside selections like Chris Moore’s “Six Foot Pine Box” or “Trouble” by Cat Stevens.
The breadth of these selections alone proves that while Barnstar! may be bluegrass in spirit and instrumentation, the song is their muse, not the soloing.
Ultimately, Sit Down! Get Up! Get Out! is most compelling as a showcase of the combined virtues of innocence and experience. Each of the group’s members is a multi-instrumentalist, but with each member limiting himself to his native instrument they can make a song roar and soar, or whisper and lilt with equal intensity.
Collectively the group shares over 80 years of professional experience, and it is exciting to hear a group of seasoned musicians coming to a new project as equals, sharing lead vocal duties and switching harmony registers to cover whatever part is needed.
The group may have been best known by the company they have kept as sidemen and accompanists, but in short order, Sit Down! Get Up! Get Out! could very well turn the narrative upside down making Barnstar! the next household name.
Show information: Date: January 30, 2015
THE JEFFERSON CENTER
