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The COVID-19 pandemic may have crushed the 2020 touring calendar for Town Mountain, but it didn’t come close to shutting down life and music for frontman Robert Greer.
To get an idea of just how the guitarist and principal vocalist for the popular new generation string band (which returns to Lexington for a two-night stand at The Burl this weekend) dealt with an unplanned year-long break from the road, just take a trip through hyperspace. Here’s the rundown of what kept Town Mountain running online:
▪ April 2020: All five members of the band (Greer, mandolinist Phil Barker, banjoist Jesse Langlais, fiddler Bobby Britt and bassist Zach Smith) convene separately online though the Acapella app to perform John Prine’s “Spanish Pipedream” in honor of the beloved songsmith who has just been hospitalized after contracting the coronavirus. Prine dies only days later.
▪ October 2020: Greer gets married and posts a photo from the nuptials on Facebook.
▪ November 2020: While roadwork is still off the books, Town Mountain reconvenes at The Grey Eagle in the band’s hometown of Asheville, N.C., for two limited-seating concerts that are livestreamed.
▪ December 2020: Honoring Prine again, Greer goes it alone and serves up a solo streaming clip where he performs “Christmas in Prison.”
▪ March 2021: Greer and Barker team with the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky and record an online performance of Pikeville country celeb Dwight Yoakam’s “Throughout All Time” to help raise relief funds for victims of the March floods in Eastern Kentucky.
▪ April 2021: Town Mountain enlists several high profile, cross generational pals, including Jerry Douglas and Jon Stickley, to honor bluegrass guitar giant Tony Rice by covering the bittersweet bluegrass gem “Summer Wages.” Rice died on Christmas Day 2020.
When a bluegrass troupe, even one as stylistically rich as Town Mountain, can accomplish all of that online, imagine what awaits audiences as the band hits the road this summer.
“There’s no substitute for stage time,” Greer said. “We rehearsed quite a bit just to feel like we’re even close to getting back in the saddle for road shows and gigs. So we really woodshedded a lot. We got an Airbnb in town. Bobby came down from Boston (Britt has maintained residence in Massachusetts since attending the Berklee College of Music), we went on the road and then right into the studio.”
Though native to North Carolina, Town Mountain has spent much of the past decade growing up in front of Lexington audiences. With a sound rustic enough to reflect the more driving, rhythmic aspects of traditional bluegrass, its sound has steadily evolved – on 2016’s “Southern Crescent” and 2018’s “New Freedom Blues” albums, specifically – to incorporate shades of raw honky tonk, blues and roots-rock driven acoustic music with drums and piano increasingly augmenting in its string band sound.
“When we started, we very much thought of ourselves as a bluegrass band,” Greer said. “But we had a lot to learn about pretty much every aspect of the music. Somewhere along the way, we started realizing that we didn’t just want to do the bluegrass thing. The material we were writing and creating seemed to be a little more socially driven. I think we started to mature that way into singer-songwriters.
“Town Mountain was always kind of a thrashy thing. ‘Southern Crescent’ was really our last bluegrass record even though there is piano on that, as well as drums. So we were stretching out a little bit more. The ultimate wingspan will be on this new one. It’s got some cool stuff that is very string band-like, but it’s also got songs Levon (Helm) and the boys would have been proud of when they were running around as The Band. It tips a lot of hats.”
Town Mountain will finish work on its new album with producer Justin Francis (who co-produced John R. Miller’s fine new debut album “Depreciated”) following the Burl engagement.
Even though Greer said the band won’t be back to full speed as a working unit until next year, he is enjoying getting back into the performance routine again. Still, he doesn’t shrug off 2020 and the benefits provided by the unintended time-out.
“When the pandemic happened, I didn’t realize it, but I needed a break,” he said. “I was drinking a little too much on the road. I just needed a break. After the first couple of months, I began thinking, ‘This is real. We’re not going to be back at it this summer.’ So it was a great break for me.
“The booking thing doesn’t happen instantly, though. Our shows are booked six months to a year out, so things won’t really be back to normal for us until 2022. But easing back in after a year off that we didn’t have any control over taking has been great. Everybody’s spent more time talking to each other. Everybody is stoked to be here. There is a super supportive vibe. That’s the way it is now going down the road with Town Mountain.”
Town Mountain performs at 8 p.m. July 23 and 24 at The Burl, 375 Thompson Road. Tickets are $20 for each performance. Logan Halstead opens on July 23, Arthur Hancock on July 24. Doors open each night at 7 p.m. For tickets, go to theburlky.com.
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