by ALLISON CASEY
Lifestyles Editor

It’s not often a mandolin player duels with a pedal steel guitar player and a seven string bass is seen on stage with a fiddle.

It’s even less often bluegrass and sacred steel band team up for a multi-state tour.

But somehow, it works to produce a self-described “wall of sound.”

Grammy award nominee Johnny Neel plays the keyboard with the Travelin’ McCoury’s Thursday night at Legends. Neel has also performed with the Allman Brothers and Gov’t Mule among many others. Photo by James Fay.

The Travelin’ McCoury’s played with The Lee Boys Thursday night at Legends for the second stop on their tour.

The bands first played an impromptu set together at Delfest, a music festival in Maryland named for famed bluegrass musician Del McCoury.

“It’s exciting, you know, being able to do something neither one of us have done before,” Ronnie McCoury, son of Del McCoury and mandolin player for The Travelin’ McCoury’s, said. “It’s not fun, we don’t want to do it.”

Del McCoury worked in the timber business, playing bluegrass shows at nights and on the weekends, the same shows Ronnie grew up watching from off stage.

“I never really thought about doing much other than playing music,” he said.

Though vastly different in genre, it’s the same attitude that helps fuse the musical styles of The Travelin’ McCoury’s with The Lee Boys.

The Lee Boys, of Florida, are pioneers of the sacred steel style of music, a genre that stems from the House of God Pentecostal church in which they grew up. 

Growing up listening to everything from Hall ‘n Oates to B.B. King, Alvin Lee and his siblings intertwined their influences back with the traditional sacred steel elements to form a style of music all on their own.

“We were the rebels of the church,” Lee said.

The band started after both Alvin’s father and brother, Glenn, died within the same year. This loss encouraged Alvin and his brother to take the music, “out of the four walls” and on the road.

And there’s been no looking back.

“I want people to know there’s a reasoning behind The Lee Boys,” Alvin said. “We want to spread our message, and I know they’re both smiling on us.”

Alvin, who went to college to be an accountant, said at the end of the day if they can touch one person, their job is done.

“You know, when we get on stage, that sums up any miscalculations,” Lee said.

In December, the bands played together and sold out the Warren Hayes Christmas Jam in Asheville, which was the last time they had seen each other before the tour began.

Because the combination of sacred steel and bluegrass is so unique, the groups admit they’re still working out the bugs, but audiences don’t seem to mind.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Show/Hide comments