"The Heartbeat of UK Bluegrass Music"

Another blistering evening at HOEBV with the Dick Smith and Mike O’Reilly band. From the first note this was going to be a night to remember. This band didn’t need to warm up. Ray Legere’s first mandolin solo would have startled Rip van Winkle. The band was firing on all cylinders. The music was fast and furious but never lost clarity or rhythm. Dick Smith’s banjo was a joy, not only in the solos but also in the musical variety of his support for the others.  How do these great bands sound like a complete orchestra? The harmony vocals were spot on and sustained the variety of intonation which keeps you listening, ‘though you don’t know why.  Blugrass standards like ‘Riding On That Midnight Train’ and ‘Another Night’ were mixed with instrumentals like ‘Dear Old Dixie’ and Ernest Sykes’ solo ‘I Love You a Thousand Ways’. The first session ended with a tornado version of ‘Ragtime Annie’.

 In the interval Ron and Ken showed us their well-deserved awards from the BBMA in recognition of their great contribution to British Bluegrass. A single coloured raffle over and the second session started. Not like the first but with Mike O’Reilly as the Reverend Cashflow obeying a command to save the sinners of Kenilworth with a hilarious combination of music and wit. Ray Legere then treated us to some great Breton fiddling and a marvellous duet with Dick Smith. 

Dan was doing a great job on the sound until a mike died. A miraculous resurrection from the Rev Cashflow and the Archangel Ron got it plugged in and we were off again with Ernest Sykes wonderfully capturing the idiom of country music from another era with ‘Another Place, Another Time’. 

We had the full range of bluegrass songs. Murder with ‘Henry Walker’, a miner’s song with ‘Blow Wind Blow’, a prison song with the Mac Wiseman classic ‘Shackles and Chains’. Even a few songs with that word ‘love’ crept in; these are often apparently requested in the Honky Tonks after a few beers. We were even shown a new dance learned from a man in Scotland out walking his dog. Details and the name escape me. The evening ended with some crystal clear banjo harmonics on the Earl Scruggs classic ‘Bugle Call Rag’. 

Souls may not have been saved but we all went away enriched. This was one of the great nights among many. 

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