Country Gentlemen – The Early Rebel Recordings: 19621971

Though the urban folk revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s provided an audience for some of the first generation of bluegrass musicians — Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, and the Stanley Brothers, for starters — it didn’t provide a home for them, nor were their sensibilities naturally attuned to it. To find the first significant bluegrass act with a relationship as organically connected to that movement as to the audience created by Monroe et al., one must look at Washington, D.C., group the Country Gentlemen.

From the very start, the Gents stood astride the sometimes broad, sometimes narrow gap that separated the two, and in so doing established themselves as a uniquely powerful force on the bluegrass scene. Formed in 1957, the band did not so much fuse as mix the tastes and talents of its members: guitarist Charlie Waller, mandolinist John Duffey (son of a D.C. opera singer), banjoist (and sometimes rock ‘n’ roll guitarist) Eddie Adcock and bass player Tom Gray.

Waller’s voice was a beautiful, clear instrument, with a wide range and faultless enunciation modeled on Hank Snow’s. Duffey’s high tenor craftily rode the line between a natural and falsetto voice; with Adcock’s full yet sensitive baritone voice, the Gentlemen had a trio capable of taking the full-throated sound of the Osborne Brothers (whose WWVA broadcasts they eagerly tuned in) and applying it to what grew to be a dizzying array of material.

The band was no less versatile instrumentally, with Gray’s strenuous bass walks and Waller’s equally busy rhythm riding under Duffey’s wild tremolo and bluesy bends, while Adcock ranged from Sonny Osborne-like midtempo rolls to unexpected, exciting chordal and single-string work that bore a close resemblance to Don Reno’s playing at its most creative.

By 1965, when they settled in with the D.C.-area label Rebel (a brief stint in 1962-63 had yielded eight tracks between recordings with Starday, Folkways and several other labels), bass duties were being handled by Ed Ferris, a longtime friend of label owner Dick Freeland and a player whose work was, if less ornate than Gray’s, perhaps a surer anchor for the rest of the band’s flights of fancy.

Hitting the ground running with “Bringing Mary Home”, a fantastically popular ghost story, the Gents recorded frequently for the label, amassing some 110 cuts (including those first eight) by the time they departed for Vanguard in 1972. These sessions are unmatched for the way in which the vocal and instrumental virtuosity of the band was married to a succession of songs that roamed across the entire span of popular music — and even beyond: Dot Swan’s gospel “Let The Light Shine Down” was followed by Bob Dylan’s “Girl From The North Country”; Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” by Mel Tillis’ “Matterhorn”; Patrick Sky’s “Many A Mile” by Red River Dave’s “Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight”; and (my favorite juxtaposition) the “Theme From Exodus” by the Louvin Brothers’ “Love And Wealth.”

Classical, pop, bluegrass, folk, blues — all were grist for the Country Gentlemen’s mill, even though there were often disagreements as to their suitability (as documented in Gary Reid’s brilliant liner notes, which don’t glide over these matters).

Despite the material, and despite personnel changes over the years that left Waller the only member of the “classic” lineup still present by the middle of 1970 (the band’s very first banjo player, Bill Emerson, returned that year; hence, the “classic” lineup, not the “original”), the Gentlemen had a consistent sound. It was built around Waller’s voice, which only strengthened over the years while deepening slightly; a full-bore tenor voice — Duffey’s, then Jimmy Gaudreau’s, then Doyle Lawson’s — that could handle high-lead trios (where both harmony parts are under the melody, rather than the usual one above, one below arrangement); and a strong baritone one. Their instrumental talents, meanwhile, were broad enough to find just the right approach to match each of the songs.

Indeed, though the band has been through a raft of personnel changes since the end of the period covered by this set, Waller and his sidemen still display these attributes, and still look for material far beyond the normal range of the bluegrass repertoire. It’s a remarkable achievement.