Nobody seemed to notice the fog that had crept in until it started drifting past the stage lights…
creating an atmosphere vaguely reminiscent of a Prince video. Seeming to read my thoughts, Russell Johnson strummed his mandolin between songs and spoke into the microphone: “I bet you’ve never seen a fog machine at a bluegrass show before.” A ripple of chuckles spread over the crowd, which was surprisingly large, I thought, on such a chilly night outdoors.
I sat with my dad and some friends in the outdoor patio of Mac’s Tavern, a friendly, low-key restaurant and pub off of Walnut Street in Cary. On first glance it seemed pretty typical, until I stepped out the side door and into a large enclosed patio with a covered wooden stage, across the back of which a large green-and-white banner displayed the logo of the Grass Cats. The popular bluegrass band plays there once a month to a reliably enthusiastic audience. I could feel the pull of fandom myself, though this was my first Grass Cats show and, outside of Allison Krauss and my marriage to a Kentucky native, I didn’t know that much about bluegrass. As I was to discover, it would be literally impossible not to at least bob my foot in time to the music.
Of the five men on stage, two were familiar to me, both being from my home town of Four Oaks: Russell Johnson, lead tenor vocalist and mandolin player, and Bailey Coe, guitarist and vocalist. I’d known Bailey from church for years but had yet to hear him sing until that night. Bailey is the youngest member of the Grass Cats and also the newest, having joined the band six months before.
Back at the microphone, Russell introduced the rest of the band: electric bass player and member for over 13 years, Tim Woodall; fiddle player Chris Hill; and Rick Lafleur, banjo player and physicist (for real – he’s got a PhD in physics) who hails from Ontario, Canada and yet, as I heard that night, sings a pretty darn convincing Johnny Cash during the band’s rendition of “Ring of Fire”. Every one of them sings, and sings very well.
Two days earlier, I had sat down with Russell in the lobby of Sloan Communications on Main Street in Four Oaks. News around town was that the Grass Cats had a current number-one song on two different bluegrass charts and that that song, “The Old School Road”, was named after a familiar road into town. I wanted to discuss the roots of both the band and the song and so I went straight to the source with the band’s founder and the song’s writer.
Russell came to bluegrass early, starting with a guitar for Christmas at the age of ten. “My brother Hal came home from college with his roommate who played banjo,” he said. “Hal played guitar. They’d come home and they’d play bluegrass on the picnic table – I can see it in my head right now as plain as when it happened. That might’ve been the first live music I ever saw besides at church. I loved it.” He smiled at the memory. “When I got to [the University of North] Carolina in the fall of ’81, my brother and his old roommate and I would get together and we would have these jam sessions on the weekend. After awhile, I wanted to switch it up and play another instrument so I got a mandolin on February 14, 1982. I remember when my dad bought it at what used to be the old drugstore at 42 and Ten-Ten Road. Anyway, that’s how I first got exposed to making music.”
Russell’s been part of one bluegrass band or another since 1989, starting with two guys he’d met and jammed with at Hoffman’s Stringed Instruments in Raleigh. They formed a group they called The Uncut Grass. They were chosen to be an International Bluegrass Music Association showcase band in 1991, and subsequently discovered another band had a similar name. They then changed their name to New Vintage. After several years and multiple awards, a side group evolved from jam sessions with guys from several other bands. This side group ultimately became the Grass Cats.
“I always try to keep something else going musically besides the main band, just for the creative part of it and to work with other people,” he explained. “I have a band with my wife Kandis, Emily Kirsch, my cousin Spencer Mobley, Matt Hooper, and Julie Elkins called Diamond Creek (www.diamondcreekbluegrass.com). It’s a super band. Great musicians. It is straight-up bluegrass, but it allows me to play music with Kandis, who plays upright bass.” He paused with a grin. “So we’re figuring out if we can play music together and not kill each other.”
I asked about Emily Kirsch, whose name was familiar. She had played in a bluegrass band called Supper Break with Bailey Coe (her cousin), hired to play at the reception of my wedding in April of 2011. It had turned out to be the infamous “Day of All the Tornadoes” and Supper Break had saved my first dance with my new husband at the reception when, due to the power outage, my pre-recorded song of choice couldn’t be played on the sound system. The band had jumped right in, playing an acoustic song that was just perfect and, given their young voices and the surreal circumstances, sweetly poignant.
“Emily was a student of mine and one of the best singers I’ve ever been in the same room with,” Russell said. “Her grandmother came to me to give her guitar lessons the summer after her seventh grade year and now she’s a sophomore at Campbell [University]. I included her on my solo project when she was 14 years old.”
Unaware that he’d given lessons, I asked him what that had been about for him.
“I think everybody takes lessons in hopes of creating music with other people – at least I hope they do,” he said. “It’s a powerful thing when you first stand in a circle with other people and you’re playing music that works together.”
Curious, I asked how Bailey had come to the Grass Cats.
“Bailey was a former student of mine. When he went to college, we didn’t completely lose touch but I wasn’t around him like when I was giving him lessons. I knew he was a good musician and that he’d started singing. His mother and I go to the same gym and she told me about some YouTube videos he’d done and gave me a demo. He was playing guitar then and I had taught him mandolin. I heard him sing and I was like ‘oh my gosh’”.
He paused in thought before continuing reflectively. “His voice sounds a hundred years old and he’s just twenty-two. And when I say a hundred years old, that’s a good thing.” He smiled. “It sounds like he just rolled out of some coal-mining town in West Virginia and he’s already lived the hardest life you can imagine. That translates to bluegrass tremendously.”
My curiosity finally got the better of me and I asked to hear the story behind the Grass Cats’ latest hit, “The Old School Road”, the chorus of which had been stuck in my head for the past two days.
“It was named ‘Old School Road’ because there used to be an old school on our farm,” Russell said, speaking of the road itself. “It was called the Old Royal School. The last year that it operated was 1929.”
He smiled at my raised eyebrows. This was a bit of history I wasn’t familiar with.
“The songwriter in me was thinking, ‘Old School Road…there’s got to be a song or a hook there’. So I came up with ‘You can’t go wrong when you’re raised up right on the Old School Road’. To ‘grow up right’ meaning right on the road itself or just ‘growing up right’.” He looked briefly at the ceiling, thinking. “It’s very truthful. My mother passed away when I was 18. She was only 48 and had a massive heart attack. I go back and I think about all the things my parents tried to instill in me. But when you’re 18, it doesn’t matter what they say, you’re just so defiant and think you know everything. Boy, as I’ve gotten older, I have really figured out that they meant the best in the world and everything they told me has come true. So the song’s about a way of life. And even though it sounds like it’s an old country way, I think it can be that way of life in today’s society and during today’s times. It’s the upbringing and instilling values in your kids. That song really does mean something to me, just because I lived it.” His broad smile returned. “And I’m not going to lie – it was a good hook. You can’t go wrong…” He chuckled. “It wouldn’t have mattered if it would’ve never charted. I liked the song so much I’d still want to sing it.”
“But it did chart,” I remarked with a grin.
“It did chart,” he said, still smiling. “Went to number one on the Power Source music chart, number one on the Bluegrass Today chart…it got as high as number two on Roots Music Report.”
It’s a fourth number-one hit for the Grass Cats.
There were a lot of happy people at Mac’s Tavern that chilly night two days later as the Grass Cats continued their show. They included a few covers (Bob Dylan, Alan Jackson, Johnny Cash) and a gospel song called “Somebody Touched Me”. The second set was wrapping up and despite the fog, the smiles and claps never abated throughout the show. During the break between sets, there were hugs and some catching up with Bailey and his family, some handshakes and introductions. I was cold and the napkins on the table were droopy with the moisture in the air, but stars blinked periodically through the fog and no one seemed anxious to go inside; conversation and laughter filled the patio. It had been a good night. Thankfully, there was still more show to come.
“We’ve got some special visitors from Four Oaks out here tonight,” Russell announced from the stage, to cheers and claps from my table. “We’d like to get them up here more often.”