On Friday, Sept. 21, Bruce Molsky’s old-time American string band trio, The Mountain Drifters, performed in Wellin Hall. The performance featured Molsky on fiddle, Allison de Groot on banjo, and Stash Wyslouch on guitar. After forming a little over three years ago, The Mountain Drifters have toured in Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, and New York.
Before becoming a Grammy-nominated artist and a renowned Appalachian-style fiddler, Bruce Molsky was a self-described “street kid” from the Bronx who bailed on college and big-city life for a cold-water cabin in Virginia in the 1970s. While working as an engineer for many years, he made music in his spare time. When he turned 40, Molosky took the leap into the life of a full-time professional musician.
Today, he is a familiar name to anyone with a passing interest in folk music. He has made frequent appearances on the Transatlantic Sessions TV series and regularly plays with well-known performers from all over the country. In addition to being a fiddle master, Molsky is also a talented banjoist, guitarist, and singer.
De Groot is one of Canada’s top banjo players. She combines love and passion for old-time music, technical skill, and a creative approach to the banjo to form her own sound that is unique and full of personality. With her own bands, The Goodbye Girls and Oh My Darling, she has toured all over the world from the United States to London to Denmark. In 2012, de Groot was awarded the Slaight Family Scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where she studied intensively with Molsky.
Stash Wyslouch is one of Bluegrass’ great, young, genre-bending pioneers. Coming over from the punk-metal world, Wyslouch brings real sensitivity and emotion to the trio, along with some superb guitar and vocal chops.
The program at Wellin Hall kicked off with “Spring of 1865,” an upbeat drinking song that featured Wyslouch on vocals. Wyslouch was originally a rock musician and is known for his work with The Deadly Gentlemen, which was a highly-entertaining band that combined bluegrass with rap and rock elements.
Following “Spring of 1865” came an unexpected change of pace with a plaintive version of Billy Bragg’s “Between the Wars,” which began with the trio singing acapella before introducing delicate fiddle, banjo, and guitar accompaniments. The group slowed it down further with a rendition of Gary Davis’ “There’s A Bright Side Somewhere” before Wyslouch left the stage for Molsky and de Groot to sing a duet to the drinking song “North Carolina”.
Featuring the vocals of all three artists, “Meeting is Over” had the whole trio singing acapella, with additional whooping sounds coming from Molsky. “Across the Plains of Illinois”, an emotional variant on the “Girl I Left Behind” theme, also had some beautiful harmonies in the final verse. The group closed the show on a fun and light-hearted note with Earl John’s “I Get My Whiskey From Rockingham,” which had audience members clapping along to the rhythm.
Molsky transported audiences to another time and place with his authentic feel for the uncovering of almost-forgotten songs from the southern Appalachian region. From tiny folk taverns in the British Isles to huge festival stages to his ongoing workshops at the renowned Berklee College of Music, Molsky attracts audiences with a combination of rhythmic and melodic skill and relaxed conversational with — a uniquely humanistic, down-home approach that can make Wellin Hall feel like a front porch in the summer.
