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Railroad Earth are fronted by former From Good Homes songwriter Todd
Sheaffer on guitar and lead vocals; the sidemen are Tim Carbone on
fiddle, John Skehan on mandolin and bouzouki, Carey Harmon on drums,
Johnny Grubb on upright bass, and Andy Goessling on acoustic guitars,
banjo, mandolin, and saxophones. Although neither Carbone nor Skehan
were slouches on their axes, Goessling stood out with his stylistic as
well as instrumental versatility: He could play sassy swing lines on sax
as well as full-tilt bluegrass on at least three fretted instruments.
They
opened with a bounding Bill Monroe instrumental, “Old Dangerfield,” and
you could see why they’ve been playing top bluegrass festivals—their
picking was spot-on. Next was their “Dandelion Wine,” sung by Sheaffer.
His tenor vocals were quite nasal, but clothespin-on-the-nose singing is
after all an old bluegrass tradition. Throughout the set, however, only
occasional lines of Sheaffer’s mumbled lyrics could be made out, and I
doubt anyone hearing Railroad Earth for the first time knew what many of
the songs were about.
Still, their fluid, energetic playing was a pleasure to hear. “The
Forecast” and “Stillwater Getaway” had roomy space sections, and “Birds
of America” was an affably goofy tribute to ornithology. They ended with
a peppy old-time fiddle breakdown, “Little Rabbit.”
Opening the show were Elephant Revival, a Colorado-based acoustic
quintet whose music tended toward the vacuous and whose laconic chops,
with the notable exception of fiddler Bridget Law, failed to excite. The
jewel of the band, though, was the lovely alto Bonnie Paine, who, when
she got her all too few turns at the mic, proved to be the best singer
of the night. Elephant Revival ought to give her the lion’s share of the
vocals and let her shine as the leader of the pachyderms.
—Glenn Weiser
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