March 19–26, 1998

critic pick|country

roots

Jerry Douglas

In the Nashville Universe, there are a million singer-songwriters, electric guitarists, pedal steel players and keyboardists all competing at the same dreadful open mike night, waiting for the call. When the call goes out for dobro players, however, there's only one guy that makes up the entire A-list, and that's Jerry Douglas.

During one week in February when I stopped in Nashville, Douglas was in the studio producing the Lonesome River Band during the day, gigging with bluegrassers Tim and Mollie O'Brien at the Station Inn at night, and getting ready to fly off to Los Angeles to record some songs with Lyle Lovett. He's the dobro's one-man cottage industry.

This Friday at the Tin Angel Douglas shares the stage with the only other dobroist usually mentioned in the same breath. In the early '70s, Mike Auldridge, most notably as a member of the D.C.-area bluegrass band the Seldom Scene, was already acknowledged as a tasteful master when a teenage Douglas began shaking things up with his blazing style. Often pitted against each other in meaningless "who's the best?" arguments, they have both taken this strange lap-slide instrument into some uncharted territory. Auldridge, who has left the Seldom Scene to form the band Chesepeake, has delved into swing and pedal steel and Douglas has played on a thousand recordings, with everyone from Reba McEntire to Bill Frisell (Douglas' new solo project is due out this summer on Sugar Hill records.) The sets at the Tin Angel could go any number of directions, but, as Auldridge said recently, "you gotta really love dobros for this one."

The "guitar with a hubcap on it" is actually called a resonator, or resophonic guitar, and was invented in 1926 by John Dopyera, a Slovak immigrant. Together with his brother Rudy, Dopyera developed the first metal-body National guitar, and later the dobro, the name of which (from DOpyera BROthers) has become the generic term for a resophonic guitar. The instruments were hugely popular in the '20s and '30s due to their great volume and sustain. At the time, unamplified guitarists couldn't compete with the horn sections in bands of the period.

Playing the instrument lap-style comes primarily from Hawaiian music's sweet, crying slide technique. Country music accepted the dobro quickly, but it wasn't until former Bill Monroe sidemen Flatt and Scruggs decided to include Josh Graves in their band in the 1950s did slide guitar become part of bluegrass. Both Douglas and Auldridge are devotees of Graves' bluesy playing. The history of the resonator guitar is main reason for the rare teaming of these two virtuosos. If you'd like to check out

On Saturday night, the two will journey across the state to play the Erie Art Museum which is now presenting Loud & Clear: Resonator Guitars & The Dopyera Brothers' Legacy to American Music, which runs through April 15. They will be accompanied on both nights by stellar guitarist Russ Barenberg (who collaborated with Douglas on Skip, Hop and Wobble) and upright bassist Viktor Krauss (Alison's brother who joined Douglas on Bill Frisell's Nashville). Acoustic music gets no better than this.

Jerry Douglas and Mike Auldridge, Fri., March 20, 8 & 10:30 p.m., Tin Angel, 20 S. Second St., 928-0978.

-Mike Brenner