THE
DUFFY BROTHERS
At the HEART OF ENGLAND BLUEGRASS VENUE 12 DECEMBER 2003
A great night of humour and music was advertised and that’s exactly what we got. The Duffy Brothers have been very professional, accomplished performers for many years and know just how to warm up the audience with their humour while playing tremendous bluegrass. As the set progresses the humour recedes and the music takes over. Their intentional wrong chords for the sake of humour must be pretty tricky to achieve. The version of ‘Duelling Banjos’ was funny and impressive as the responses became ever more preposterously complicated.
Their professional
approach extends to their stage costumes. Leo
in his customary super-smart white jacket, frilly shirt and black bow tie;
Ray in baggy striped shirt, jeans and baseball hat with an enormous peak.
They change these at the interval to mingle with the audience and wear
them again in the second half.
The humour gives an
initial impression of messing about – how very wrong this impression is.
The whole performance is skilfully worked out and timed to perfection
without ever seeming slick. I just
felt I didn’t want it to end, as every item was a joy to listen to.
Ray specialises in guitar and banjo playing while Leo can turn his hand
to fiddle, mandolin and guitar. Both
brothers sing well.
Leo played some
brilliant cross-picking mandolin in ‘Footprints in the Snow’.
His mandolin was also superb in ‘Boston Boy’ and ‘Amelia Earhart. I
hadn’t heard any of Ray’s songs before and he sang two – ‘The Thought of
It’ and ‘Caithness’. These
are wistful, poignant songs reminiscent of Nick Drake’s style of song writing
but Ray has a stronger style of singing – they’re really beautiful.
There were some great fiddle tunes:
‘Cotton Eyed Joe’, a Cajun song ‘Louisiana’, ‘Orange Blossom
Special’ with lyrics and a great version of ‘Uncle Penn’. Banjo tunes too
including Earl Scruggs ‘Randy Lynn Rag’ and Merle Travis’s ‘Cannonball
Rag’. ‘Drifting Too Far From
the Shore’ was my favourite gospel song of the evening.
A great evening which
really proved to me that however many times you see the Duffy Brothers there’s
always something new and special about each performance.
I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!
Janie Darley