Who: The McCoury Boys featuring Jeff White
Where: The Grey Eagle Music Hall and Tavern 828.232.5800
When: Thursday, Dec. 13; The McCoury Boys begin at 10 p.m.
How Much: $15 — tickets can be bought at The Grey Eagle, or by visiting www.greyeaglemusic.com

Footsteps are not my forte. My ski-sized feet have bungled the handful of times I’ve tried to tread in the same likeness. Once in Colorado, my friends and I got caught in a snow patch that sunk like a Louisiana bog. There were marks of footsteps everywhere, signs of an intrepid traveler who knew how to conquer the quicksand snow. I tried in vain to follow these bootmarks. My ankle either gave out, or my gigantic pedal would overstep the mark, and I would sink to waist level.

I guess I should have taken cues from mandolinist marksman Ronnie McCoury. His father, Del McCoury, is the reigning daddy of bluegrass, a silver-haired fox of a fellow whose golden tenor has pierced the hearts of the bluegrass faithful. Del has won entertainer of the year by IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Awards) in 1996, vocalist of the year in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1996, and his Del McCoury band (with sons Ronnie and Rob and bassist Mike Bub and fiddler Jason Carter) has won entertainer of the year in 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, and instrumental group of the year in 1996. Del’s albums (1994’s “Deeper Shade of Blue” won IBMA album of the year in 1994) are blueprints for young stalwarts to map out. The footsteps Ronnie (and brother banjo player Rob) have to follow are gaping, and any unsure moves mean remarks like, “well he’s good, but he’s not his daddy.”

Ronnie has yet to hear unfavorable comparisons; his daddy’s feet have left sure-footing and navigable climbs for the younger, and Ronnie’s even left little marks for his dad to scale. If he was in Del’s shadow, then Ronnie is soulmates with it, garnering such praises as winning IBMA’s mandolin player of the year from 1993-2000. The 1995 album, “Ronnie and Rob McCoury,” a side project for the Del McCoury band, featured Ronnie’s silky lead vocals on hit versions of Bob Dylan’s “Walk Out in the Rain” and Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Another Place, Another Time.” The picking on the album was so blistering that it won 1996 IBMA Instrumental Album of the Year honors.

Ronnie was born in York County, Penn., on March 16, 1967. His father had already staked a claim as a stellar musician, performing a short stint in the early 1960s with Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys (it was Monroe who convinced Del that he had a voice that could woo the masses).

While his sons were growing, Del worked in a sawmill and performed music on the weekends. The insatiable desire to pick was always on the forefront of Del’s lobe, though, and that hunger melded into the young McCourys. Del never pushed the boys; his philosophy was to let them develop their interests without a third party badgering them.

“Growing up around it, being around it, hearing it all the time, it was natural for us to pick something up and play it,” Ronnie told Austin City Limits. “Dad was never forceful, never asked us to practice. He just would mainly show us the basics of it. Holding a pick, and rhythm, things that take some people long time to learn on their own. We learned that right, the first month. So you kind of go with it from there, and pick it up and move with it.”

Ronnie’s first instrument was the violin, but the call of the dirt and the hardwood was too much for the youngster to deny.

“When I was nine or so, I played violin in the school orchestra,” he told the Berkshire Eagle’s Seth Rogovoy. “I always called it the fiddle. I played that for two years, and then I had to decide my after-school activities: orchestra rehearsal or basketball. I was bored with orchestra because we’d only learn a few tunes all year. It was really slow paced. So I jumped to basketball and baseball, and laid down music ’til I was 13.”

Then a fellow by the name of Bill Monroe came to town. Del was playing a gig with Monroe and a slew of others at the Lincoln Center. The deity of bluegrass handed down his mandolin to Ronnie and the younger’s fingers absorbed it like a needy sponge.

“Bill really took a liking to Ronnie and let him play his mandolin,” Del recalls in his bio. “It must have made an impression on Ronnie because when we got home, he wanted to play the mandolin.”

Ronnie was primed enough after the first year to play rhythm. At 14, he started playing in Del’s band, the Dixie Pals. Robbie joined in 1987, first on bass, and then moving to banjo. The boys became the caulk in Del’s gaps, and Del was soon persuaded to change the name Dixie Pals to the present Del McCoury Band. Bassist Mike Bub and fiddler Jason Carter completed the regal Roundtable of Bluegrass, and the sounds were as pure as geyser water. Albums like “Don’t Stop the Music” and “Blue Side of Town” swiveled ears in their direction. The high demand for the band prompted Del and the boys to move from Pennsylvania to Nashville in 1992.

Del was (and still is) the star, but folks began to recognize the mandolin player with a voice eerily reminiscent of his father’s. It was like the two had been mythically blessed on the same day by some fantastical nightingale. The twining of their voices was like listening to sharp honey. And when it was time for Ronnie to spotlight, the picking could get really out of hand. Ronnie’s solos resemble his façade — smooth and well-kempt, with a little of the devil underneath.

The elder approves all the material, but as time has stretched on, Del has given the boys plenty of room for valuable input. Ronnie was strictly bluegrass until he was 16. At that age, he began being exposed to genres that continue to lend imagination in his present repertoire.

“But when I was 16, I started to get rebellious,” he told Rogovoy. “All my friends were listening to everything else, and I went to my first rock concert, which was the band Rush. I couldn’t believe all that music was coming out of three guys, because they had lots of keyboards. It was pretty amazing for the first time.

“My friends turned me on to other kinds of music,” he continued, “and I started listening to everything: the Allman Brothers, Molly Hatchet, lots of Southern rock, and the Grateful Dead. Everybody kept saying you like bluegrass, and they’d mention the Grateful Dead, so I had to figure out the connection between the two. I went to a concert of theirs in Philadelphia. Bob Dylan was also on the bill, so I saw them both. This was only my second concert.”

Ronnie’s experiences with the Dead got him interested in mandolinist David Grisman, who had a close association with the Dead’s guitarist, Jerry Garcia. Ronnie had known about Grisman and Garcia forming a bluegrass band called Old and In the Way, and that Grisman had played with Del back in the early 1960s. He began listening to Grisman’s albums, which were considered cutting edge (and sacrilegious to the staunch traditionalists) for bluegrass at the time.

“They steered me into another direction, his music, with more jazz influence,” Ronnie told Rogovoy. “And I started listening to more rock and roll. I’m a roots person. When I hear something I want to find out where it comes from.”

Ronnie’s searching led him back to Grisman, and McCoury began thinking of putting an album out showcasing the plethoric sounds of the mandolin. The record’s intent was to give an introductory lesson to those who were curious about the dwarfish instrument. He brought the proposal to Grisman, who owns his own Acoustic Disc label. Grisman wholeheartedly approved, and the duo brought together names like Sam Bush, Del McCoury, Frank Wakefield, Bobby Osbourne, Ricky Skaggs, Buck White, and Jesse McReynolds to create a 34-song album that spanned five decades of mandolin goodness. For four days, the group played solos, duets, trios, and octets; covering songs like “Wayfaring Stranger” and “Boston Boy.” Each song is immaculate and done with intricate detail. The appropriately titled “Bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza” was named IBMA’s instrumental album of the year for 2000.

Of course, this openness to new things is also evident with Ronnie’s “day job.” Ronnie and Robbie’s prodding has opened Del to a slew of covers that many a traditionalist would shy away from. Their newest album, “Del and the Boys” starts off with “1952 Vincent Black Lightning,” a classic song by Richard Thompson, who is perhaps the greatest singer-songwriter alive.

“I was aware of Richard Thompson from playing a show or two with him, but I had never heard him do that song,” he told Barnes and Noble.com. “I thought we were going to do it on the last record. I had played it for Dad one time when we were traveling down the road, but I don’t think he heard it very well because he didn’t say anything right then about it. But for this record, he knew right away; he said, ‘You know, that’s a real good story-song.’ And he used to have an Indian [motorcycle] years ago; I think it was a ‘48 Indian he had in the late ‘50s. He wishes he had it now, that big bike. But he really liked the whole song, and I was hoping he would, because the first time I heard it, I thought it would be a great song for Dad .... We’ve heard through the grapevine that Richard Thompson is tickled that we cut the song.”

Ronnie also has an instrumental on the album entitled “Goldbrickin.’” Ronnie’s penchant for knitting the traditional with the neo is obvious on this tune. It begins as a mournful Irish ballad before plunging into a sweltering pick session that borders on progressive. Even Dad has warmed up to it, and it has provided a challenge for the elder’s nimble fingers.

“I was playing the melody of it, and I liked how Jason was learning it, playing it real slow like you hear it on the album,” Ronnie told Barnes and Noble. “It has that Celtic sound to it. I got him to start it off that way and we all jumped in as a band. It’s a little tricky, a little different for us, because it moves a lot; the chord changes are pretty quick on some of it for Dad. But as soon as he gets it, it’s embedded. But every night he’ll say, ‘I think I missed a few on that one.’”

The youthful glow has splattered onto Del, and his boys (with Del’s admission) have kept their father from getting bored with the music. Their following encompasses all ages, and there’s even been sighting of “Del-Heads,” tie-dyed clad youths who have embraced bluegrass with fervor reminiscent of the Dead days. This can be partly attributed to the band playing onstage with Phish, a quartet (presently on hiatus) which prides themselves on open-ended jams and taking the music in unforeseen directions.

Ronnie is also looking to the horizon. He just put out his solo debut “Heartbreak Town,” which was met (a no-brainer here) with critical drooling. Guests like David Grisman, Bela Fleck and Jerry Douglas sprinkle the album with their own input, but the supernova is Ronnie. Dazzling instrumentals, high and lonesome vocals, and splendid covers (check out the Hoyt Axton classic, “Evangeline”) create what many feel is the strongest debut by a bluegrass musician in many moons.

Keep it up, Ronnie. Your footing is true, and the fortified path you’ve made individually has held up well in the strenuous world of picking and grinning. Just don’t make it too hard for the next one to follow.

 

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