Emmitt-Nershi Band–New Country Blues–SCI Fidelity
Few musical styles are quite as polarizing as that of jam bands. The haters deplore the never-ending and meandering solos, the emphasis on instrumental improvisation over singing and melody, and the conspicuous uniformity of the fans, with their emphasis on drugs and identical dancing. The lovers argue for the unmistakable musical prowess of the players, the exciting unpredictability of the never-the-same-set-twice aesthetic, and the unmatched fun-loving and free-spirited vibe that connects the band and the audience. What’s interesting is how few people are on the fence with regard to jam bands. The haters want nothing to do with them, and the lovers are often literal followers who listen to little else. Sure, I’m generalizing, but just try insulting someone’s favorite jam band by, say, writing an unfavorable review of Phish’s new album.
If you’re among the haters, there’s no band more egregiously jammy than String Cheese Incident, who took modernist, rock-influenced bluegrass (“newgrass”) and stretched songs into loose, jazzy, extemporaneous roots-psychedelia (“jamgrass”), on which the band would noodle around for 15 minutes or longer per song. For true believers, the band’s eclecticism and first-rate musicianship was thrilling, but others felt mauled by it all. On the other hand, even the haters, in this case bluegrass purists, could get behind the other powerhouse jamgrass band of the late ‘90s, Leftover Salmon. Like String Cheese Incident, Salmon were capable of broad musical diversity, but they generally reigned in wayward jammy-ness in favor of working more songs into each show, many of them fun and surprising covers, led by one of the great frontmen and party-starters in roots music, Vince Herman.
Both Leftover Salmon and String Cheese Incident have been on hiatus for the last few years, although both bands occasionally reunite for one-off shows. In their absence, two of their respective key members have joined forces, Salmon’s mandolinist/singer Drew Emmitt and String Cheese’s guitarist/singer Bill Nershi. They’re cleverly named the Emmitt-Nershi Band for New Country Blues, a set of tunes, most of them freshly-penned by the pair. So what will this new configuration do to appeal to both the lovers and the haters? Drive impressively down the middle, toggling between fairly traditional bluegrass on one song and idiosyncratic vanguard jams the next. Conventionalists will be happy to hear the album open with a good, fast, banjo-driven barn-burner, the title song. While the band will take plenty of turns off the beaten path, they announce with their opener their intention to keep things within the great New Grass Revival continuum with one foot reverently in bluegrass history and one foot in progressive experimentation.
The other thing that’s clear here is that these two newgrass heavy-hitters have mighty recruiting power to bring in the hottest young pickers in the game. The Emmitt-Nershi Band is technically a quartet, with official members Andy Thorn on banjo (the most dynamic banjo discovery since Noam Pikelny) and guitarist/bassist Tyler Grant. In additio
