A mere day after the festival should have ended, Charm City Bluegrass (and a bunch of wonderful co-hosts) held a Corona-era special Digifest live from The Gordon Center. While none of us traveled to Druid Hill Park to take in the folk and bluegrass that has come to define the city’s most popular festival, many of us found ourselves watching our screens and listening to some of Maryland’s finest.
Charm City Bluegrass courts community – which, as readers surely know, is the defining characteristic of Baltimore’s music scene – and that love of the city’s charms shone beautifully on Sunday.
Five bands beamed from our screens, playing originals and timely covers alike – a few nods to John Prine, and one surprise Pink Floyd jam – but as is so often true, what defined Digifest was the relentless closeness and interactivity. Nobody clapped audibly, but the audience felt real.
A wildly creative LEGO reinterpretation of Druid Hill Park started events, and then an introduction by WTMD’s inimitable Sam Sessa led to 19th Street Band. 19th Street Band played one of the day’s Prine covers, but most importantly, they shared their easy synergy, their voices playing beautifully off each other. Caolaidhe and Megan played as a duo, leaving their drums and bass at home (one assumes, in the wake of the coronavirus, that this was to reduce risk), lending their songs an almost-haunting ethereality, with their voices as the most constant backbone.
Between sets, Charm City Bluegrass played clips from past festivals, showcasing Billy Strings with The Seldom Scene, Jeff Austin’s late-night set at the 8×10, and so many other moments. Additionally, they featured advertisements from co-partners, including the constantly-relevant discussions on mental health led by CCB-emcee John Way of The VA Way, reminding us to watch those we love closely and to provide them support, though paying special emphasis to the soldiers in our society.
Transitions between acts took a little longer than planned, as the staff ensured safe social distancing and sanitization practices. The High and Wides followed, proving why they continue to carry that old Maryland bluegrass torch, celebrating history while still blazing new trails. They can pick and play with the best of any band, but their gift for harmony and steady grooves exemplifies their sound. They featured many songs from their newest record – Seven True Stories – released in December, or something like a lifetime ago. They engineered and recorded it themselves, capturing some of Maryland’s waterways in the atmosphere of the songs, but perhaps more importantly, they write songs that feel lived-in, honest, and a little rebellious, like all of the best bluegrass.
After The High and Wides, Ken and Bran Kolodner – two scions of the entire bluegrass scene, not just Maryland (though we claim them as ours, and proudly so) – absolutely stunned the digital audience with their duets on dulcimer (sometimes mbira) and clawhammer banjo (sometimes gourd). Their playing is fluid and constantly beautiful, but also rewarding and challenging; they’ve created something that feels like a place captured by sound. It is easy to be transported by their music.
They recently released Stony Run on March 13th (what feels somewhat like the beginning of the current state), a nod to Baltimore and her influences. Both Ken and Brad gave in to their tendencies to teach, sprinkling their set as liberally with music facts as with wry and humorous comments about the world at large. In truth, I found their set one of the most beautiful and inviting I’ve watched this entire quarantine.
The Honey Dewdrops followed, encouraging participation in the comments, and playing their beautiful songs. I’ve written much about them previously, and could continue to write endlessly. At the end of the day, however, the most important moments of a Honey Dewdrops set are Kagey and Laura’s shared smiles, their constant invitations to commune with them, and the way their deft playing twangs the heart as easily as the ocean-deep songs they sing. They offered a few new tunes for the audience – “The Heart Knows What the Heart Knows” (?) and “Holy Hymn” (my goodness, what beauty) – and a few deep cuts, like “Hills of My Home” (ugggghhhhh, made me so happy!). In all, they just altogether proved why they should be the most-known roots music duo this side of Gillian and David.
Caleb Stine – another Baltimore favorite who encourages community – closed the night. He played a handful of his classics, some new songs, along with more than a few of my frequent favorites (“Handyman” and “Butter”, the latter of which he donated to the Greenmount School), and altogether engaged with the audience like the masterful storyteller he has been for years (both natural talent and honed on The Stoop).
Caleb invited Laura Wortman of The Honey Dewdrops to come onstage and sing with him on the heartwrenchingly perfect “Come Back Home”. This continues to be one of my favorite collaborations in all of the Baltimore music scene. He treated the audience to a special cover of Prine’s “Christmas in Prison” and fluidly slipped into a pained and beautiful rendition of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”. Towards the end of the night, he invited Kagey Parrish of The Honey Dewdrops onstage with him to chop and pick on the mandolin while lending his voice to classic tune “Midnight Moonlight”.
Before his last few songs, Caleb grabbed his cowboy hat for some country songs, gave a thanks to Adam Kirr and Phil Chorney of Charm City Bluegrass, and “doing things like this sure helps the time pass a little better. Gosh, what a great thing here at the Gordon Center.”
What a great thing this was. It sure helped the time pass and keep away the pains of aloneness and loneliness. Make sure you donate to Charm City Bluegrass, if you can and enjoy the live-stream below!
Here’s a link to their PayPal: paypal.me/charmcitybluegrass
