Bluegrass Boys
The Not-Too-Bad Bluegrass Band make fun a priority
Brian Lappin, right picks his
banjo at a gig at Rusty's West End Tavern in Bedford Dec. 1 with the
Not-Too-Bad Bluegrass Band. Other players include Brady Stogdill, left,
Doug Harden and Greg Norman.
(Kent Todd not pictured)
Staff Photo by Stefanie Davison |
Maybe it's a stretch to call them men of constant joy. But the five members of south central Indiana's Not-Too-Bad Bluegrass Band are finding that their periodic stage performances are bringing them plenty of pleasure.
Last year's hit movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? has heightened awareness of bluegrass music by reviving such traditional pieces as "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow," "Keep on the Sunny Side," "I'll Fly Away" and "Angel Band."
But an interest in the music genre is, in itself, a constant in the lives of the 'bluegrassers' in the NTBBB.
Four of the five band members — Bedford's Greg Norman, Kent Todd and Brady Stogdill and Nashville's Doug Harden — were brought up in the bluegrass tradition.
"I wasn't," Brian Lappin, the fifth and a founding member of the band, said. "I'm from Buffalo, N.Y., and the musical instrument was the radio, and it certainly wasn't bluegrass on that."
Lappin, broker/owner of a Bloomington real estate company, developed his interest in acoustic guitar and banjo in the early '60s, he said, "when commercial folk music was popular." At folk festivals, the headliners were such artists as Peter, Paul & Mary, the Kingston Trio and Bob Dylan.
But Lappin was drawn to the bluegrass sound after attending a Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island in the mid 1960s, where he was exposed to authentic bluegrass. "I could tell that these bluegrassers … were just way deeper and much more intense." He purchased bluegrass recordings while still in New York. He later went to Tennessee, and in the 1970s, he played music with bluegrass greats Earl Taylor and Jimmy Martin.
Lappin observed that musicians playing bluegrass around Nashville also were doing such day jobs as cleaning carpets. "I didn't think I wanted to do that, so I left," he said, "I came back to Bloomington."
He had been in Bloomington originally because he had met performer Bob Lucas and the two of them were in a band together, traveling throughout the Midwest. Lucas joined Lappin and Harden as members of the Not-Too-Bad Bluegrass Band when it formed in 1987. Others from the original line-up were Jeff White, Rick Ferguson and Lisa Germano.
Members of the band have come and gone over the years, with some of them going on to write for or perform with such big-name acts as Vince Gill, John Prine, Allison Krauss and John Mellencamp. David Steele, formerly of Bedford, is another who played for a while with the NTBBB before going to Nashville.
Various connections have drawn the band members together over the years. The current line-up, with its three Lawrence County musicians on the stage with Lappin and Harden, came about because the performers grew up in a network of families that played music.
So intertwined are their lives that the 23-year-old Todd said, "Actually, I'm named after Greg. His middle name is Kent. He and my dad are best friends."
Todd said, "I was classically trained … I played some country with my dad. He plays guitar and sings."
When Todd, now the fiddle player for the NTBBB, was about 16, Norman took him to the Norman Conservation Club, where bluegrass was played regularly.
"Greg got me started in the whole bluegrass thing," Todd said. He ended up playing in a number of bluegrass circles, including touring with a group out of Louisville for about a year and a half.
Todd and Stogdill, 21, also met at the Norman Conservation Club. Stogdill is the son of the late Dean Stogdill. '"My dad was a real good banjo player," Stogdill said.
"I've known Greg Norman ever since I first started playing guitar," Stogdill said. "That was about 11 years ago, when Dean taught Brady some chords on the guitar. The younger Stogdill established some credentials in bluegrass by touring for a while with young musicians from around the country as part of the Bluegrass Youth All-Stars and performing for the International Bluegrass Music Association.
It was through Norman that Todd and Stogdill came to be involved with the NTBBB.
"They started coming around," Lappin said, "and you could tell right away there was something really good happening. It's only gotten better. They're still young guys, but they're really talented."
Lappin said the band performs an average of two to three times a month at such venues as clubs, corporate functions and Oliver Winery. The NTBBB has an annual engagement at the Mitchell Opera House.
Todd said he particularly likes the venues that are family oriented. Sometimes the setting lends itself to the audience singing along. Sometimes audience members request songs, and the band is prepared to perform songs in the tradition of Flatt and Scruggs and Bill Monroe.
Todd said "Man of Constant Sorrow" is particularly popular now. "It's an old tune," he said. "The Stanley Brothers did it several years ago. It's always been around, but since this movie (O Brother, Where Art Thou?), it's now a bluegrass super hit."
As original band members, Lappin and Harden have worked to sustain the group. But the nature of the performing business ensures there are frustrations.
"To keep the band alive," Lappin said, "you need to be playing venues, environments that are positive for the band members … It's frustrating that you can go from playing a wonderful venue where it sounds good, you're appreciated, maybe the pay was good, as well. … Then you have another gig where it doesn't sound as good. People's energy level may not be up. There may not be much audience support. … By comparison, you walk away feeling differently."
Among the group's latest projects is the release of the group's first CD, which came out in September and features original compositions by Lappin, Todd and Stogdill. It also includes the band's rendition of some bluegrass classics, including the Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs piece "I'll Go Stepping Too" and Gillian Welch's "Red Clay Halo."