LISTENING TO A COUPLE of tracks from Joan Baezs second ...
Back then, I wasn't listening for Baez, I was listening for the Greenbriar Boys, who were providing guest backup. And they're timeless, as close to perfection as music gets.
An unlikely city-boy bluegrass trio that started out in Washington Sq., they're sometimes credited with reviving bluegrass when it was almost terminally ill. I'm not sure I believe that?their albums never became actively popular?but they gave it a new spirit and direction. And they did win first prize at the 1960 Union Grove Fiddlers Convention, a testament to their acceptance by traditionalists.
Watching them live was a wondrously strange experience. Guitarist/lead singer John Herald, with his classical high cheekbones and shock of black hair, sang in an aching high tenor brimming with emotion, but his eyes looked like he wasn't quite there. Banjoist Bob Yellin, who picked up contest trophies like Cracker Jack prizes, would wander around the stage with a goofy little smile belying the stupefying sounds from his instrument. Ralph Rinzler on mandolin, with his long, sober face and receding hairline, seemed to have come from a different country and generation.
So how was it they produced such close-knit, flawlessly integrated music? Listening to the CD re-release I found at Tower?The Greenbriar Boys: Best of the Vanguard Years?I think Rinzler was the key. Which is odd, because he thought of himself more as a musicologist: He did extensive field recordings for Folkways and left the Boys after their second album to head the Smithsonian's new Institute of American Folk Life.
The mandolin isn't exactly an assertive instrument, but Rinzler had a way of weaving his musical line at a slightly oblique angle that sewed up the whole fabric. For their third album, Better Late Than Never, Herald and Yellin teamed up with the terrific traditional bluegrass mandolinist Frank Wakefield, who played a more straightahead line. A fine album, especially with the addition of fiddler Jim Buchanan, but slightly different.
The group split up in 1966 when Yellin went to Israel. Rinzler remained a major power for folk music at the Smithsonian (he died in 1994). Only Herald kept on the circuit, fronting a series of small bands that never really got anywhere?a couple of my Philly friends played with him, along with a scarily good female fiddler, but there was nothing like the old spark.
Yet in their own three albums (plus a collaboration with someone named Dian James), they left a legacy that couldn't be improved on. My one regret with the two-CD "best of" is that it isn't a three-CD "complete," because there's not a single song on their Vanguard albums that's less than superb. (An added gem on the CDs is Herald's sky-high vocal of "Stewball.")
The Greenbriars had the rare ability, as outsiders, to play subtle games with the genre. The traditional bluegrass artists I've seen, despite their lively rips, tend to be pretty serious people. The Greenbriars put a lot of humor into their music without ever stooping to condescension or camp. "Rosie's Gone Again," "Amelia Earhart's Last Flight," "Alligator Man" and (especially) "Chicken" explode with simple, screwy delight. On the other hand, though Herald never sang in a straight "country" voice, his rendition of "At the End of a Long, Lonely Day" could make stones weep.
The Greenbriars never made it big, for whatever reason, and it seemed they might have: Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys "appropriated" Herald's version of "Different Drum," note for note, and made it a hit. There ain't no justice.
What's Out There: The two-CD set is generally available, and amazon.com lists another set with some of the missing tracks plus previously unreleased work.