Insofarasmuch

Collection Contents

#		Title	Length
1		Insofarasmuch	5:13	Play
2		Bunkhouse Blues	3:18	Play
3		Sonny's Ride	3:31	Play
4		Alabama Blues	3:56	Play
5		All Day	4:51	Play
6		Somewhere Between	4:44	Play
7		Thanks Norman	2:28	Play
8		You Can't Run Away From Your Feet	3:12	Play
9		Dang, Howdy!	3:54	Play
10		Old Grey Mare	3:32	Play
11		The Old Place	3:06	Play
12		River's Risin'	5:45	Play

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Description

On paper, the Two High String Band doesn't appear to make a whole lot of sense. For lack of a better catch-all term, they play "bluegrass" music, albeit without two of the genre's staple instruments, banjo and fiddle. They perform the old-fashioned bluegrass way -through microphones - but they don't really play strictly "old-fashioned" bluegrass. Given their druthers, they'd play exclusively intimate listening rooms, and yet they shine at festivals and do just fine for themselves on a large club stage playing before hundreds of noodle-dancing jam band fans. They happily base themselves in Austin, Texas -the self-proclaimed "Live Music Capitol of the World," albeit one better known for blues, progressive country, singer-songwriters and roots rock than bluegrass and acoustic string bands. Oh, and there are four people in the "Two" High String Band. A minor quibble, that, but you get the point - nothing seems to add up right.

Except that it does - beautifully. Because when Billy Bright ( mandolin, vocals), Bryn Bright
(upright bass), Brian Smith (guitar, vocals) and Geoff Union (guitar) line up on stage or come together in the studio, the results are magic. Whether they're tearing through a traditional bluegrass rave-up, one of their own hard-driving instrumental or vocal originals, or indulging in a little light hearted whimsy a la John Hartford' s "You Can't Run Away From Your Feet" (or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, nailing Bob Dylan's "Tangled Up in Blue"), the Two High String Band prove themselves to be up to the formidable task of bringing bluegrass into the 21st century without diluting its purist soul. And they aren't a bad bunch of pickers, either. The music itself proves that, but so does the company they keep: bluegrass legends Vassar Clements (fiddle) and David Grisman (mandolin) both contribute guest appearances on the Two High String Band's forthcoming Blue Corn Music debut, and Billy and Bryn Bright have toured for years with none other than Peter Rowan and Tony Rice.

"Since we began playing with Peter, we've played with almost everybody that we've ever wanted to play with," marvels Bryn. "He's introduced us to a lot of great people, and he's done a lot to bring us into the scene. "

Not bad for a band that originally came together as no more than a tension-releasing good time just seven years ago in Boston, where Brights Billy and Bryn (then Davies) and Brian Smith first met while attending the prestigious Berklee College of Music. They came from different corners of the country - Billy from the bordertown of El Paso, Texas, Bryn from the Northern California town of Livermore and Smith from Mill Hall, Pennsylvania. Their Berklee classes would teach them much about the finer points of music theory, but their real education came from obsessively listening to bluegrass records and jamming together after class. "None of us liked Berklee while we were there," confesses Billy. "I mean, it's a school about playing music, and there's always going to be issues about that. This band started as a party release session every night in the apartment Brian and I shared. Then we got a gig in Boston in the fall of '95, and we started playing every Friday and Saturday night, but it was still just our party band." Bryn, a jazz major living downstairs at the time, was none-too-pleased with all the stomping around and racket ... until they invited her up to join them on bass. "I had never heard bluegrass before I met Billy and Brian, but I went upstairs to play with them one night and was hooked," says Bryn.

After college, the trio moved south - playing for a spell in Florida and Colorado before settling down in Austin. "We just kind of ended up here," Billy explains. "I had family here, and there was a lot of unpaved territory for us here. The Bad Livers were the last bluegrass band to have a big impact in Austin, and they were done right about the time we came here." Although they continued to play as the Two High String Band when the opportunity allowed, they each divided their time into a variety of other projects. Smith farmed his vocal, guitar and drum talents out to a number of different bluegrass and country ensembles in town, while Billy and Bryn -who were married in 2001 - hooked up with Peter Rowan at a festival in Colorado and found themselves touring the country with him in different all-star lineups. The couple also backed acclaimed folk newcomer (and fellow Blue Corn artist) Caroline Herring, who was voted Best New Artist in the 2001 Austin Music Awards, and began playing with Fayetteville, North Carolina transplant Geoff Union - a collaboration that yielded the 2002 instrumental collection Bright. Guests on the album included Rowan, Vassar Clements, Tony Rice, Danny Barnes of the Bad Livers and Eamon McLoughlin.

"Eventually we decided to start doing more work as the Two High String Band, and we figured that the smartest way to do that was to just bring Geoff in" explains Billy. "We'd do the instrumentals we'd been playing with Geoff, and all the tunes we'd been doing with Brian for years." Adding Union as an extra guitarist to the Two High String Band served the dual role of freeing up the group to play a broader range of material and to tighten the overall focus. Overnight, the long-running, casual "party" jam became much more of a priority - and a real band.

"We've probably done more shows together in the last two months than we have in the last several years," notes Billy backstage at Austin's La Zona Rosa after a Two High String performance opening for the Yonder Mountain String Band. "Right now it feels like the band is really becoming a band, instead of a trio with different people occasionally sitting in. This just seems to be something that can grow more. It's nice to have a group together that feels right instead of different people every time, because we can get used to playing with each other."

"What's cool about this version of the band," chimes in Union, "is the variety of styles and subgenres of the music that we can play. We can do lots of different things, from the more traditional to songs that are more modern sounding." There's also, as the band's name implies, a pronounced old-time string band influence, as well as elements of country blues in the tradition of Mississippi John Hurt and, courtesy of Smith, the occasional country waltz. They've also been known to flirt with funk, Latin and more freewheeling jam band styles, though such variations have always been about the band's own fancy, not about catering to any particular crowd or market. "It's just all the styles of music that we like," says Smith.

In the winter of 2002, the Two High String Band convened in Union's home studio in Austin to begin recording their first album together as a quartet. Comprised of traditional and original instrumentals as well as vocal tunes (with Billy and Smith handling most of the vocals lead vocals and Bryn singing one), the album is slated for a spring release on Blue Corn Music.



www.highstring.com www.billybright.com www.bluecornmusic.com