Sunday, January 27, 2019 2:30 PM
Stonefield Cellars WineryStokesdale, NC
Featuring:
Goodfellers
Expect the unexpected when it comes to the GoodFellers. Their award-winning traditional bluegrass just doesn’t tell the whole story. With a sound shaped by a variety of musical backgrounds and highlighted by rock flavored vocals, they move seamlessly through different styles, making each GoodFellers’ show unique, fun and entertaining.
From John Lawless in Bluegrass Today: The Goodfellers are a hard-driving bluegrass band from Pinnacle, NC, who make much of the gangster theme implied in their band name, though largely in a lighthearted fashion. It’s a clever, down home play on the title of the 1990 film, Goodfellas, considered a classic of the mob genre starring Robert DeNiro, Ray Liotta, and Joe Pesci. Ladies often miss the charm of this category of movies which their menfolk find so compelling, but I think anyone can get a chuckle out of a bluegrass band calling themselves The Goodfellers.
The guys have a new, self-titled album which combines their own original songs with a few well-chosen standards to showcase their contemporary sound. The four members have long experience in bluegrass, but also allow influences from outside to mark their music. You’ll hear chord changes and vocal stylings that may seem more at home in rock or newgrass, but they make it fit right into their bluegrass approach. A first single from the record is starting to get played on bluegrass radio, Blue Eyed Caroline, written by Jason Shore, who Carolina grassers may recall from the Shady Grove Band out of Chapel Hill some years back. Jason is the cousin of Goodfellers mando man Ralph McGee, and when he shared the song with the band, they decided to cut it. It’s a lost love/leavin’ song with a bluesy feel. In addition to Ralph on mandolin, The Goodfellers are Teddy Barncastle on guitar, Hersie McMillan on banjo, and Tim Hill on bass.
The GoodFellers offer a unique proposition, one that shatters that line between the trendy and the traditional. They pay little heed to the need to tow any one side of the line. Granted, their frenetic instrumental assault might simulate an old Appalachian sound, but the melodies boast a modern sensibility that obviously appeals to today’s audience. As if to prove the point, Goodfellers draws its material from distinctly diverse sources. Carter Stanley’s Last Goodbye finds a comfortable fit alongside a rousing take on Don Henley’s Dirty Laundry, segueing seamlessly in the process. Indeed, the band tastefully taps its sources, with songs from Clint Black, Rodney Crowell and Hal Ketchum inserted among their originals.
