By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
This could be a folk song.
Jared Lucas used to play his favorite old time music at home alone. He didn’t know that other people in Bowling Green shared his love of bluegrass, folk, old country.
Then one day at Jimmy John’s he spotted a flyer for the Roots Music Club on campus. It looked interesting, so he checked the club out. “I went to the meeting who found like-minded musicians who played the same music I did. We just hit it off. It was like a dream come true.”
Well, that happy ending may disqualify it as a true folk ballad, but it does capture the spirit of the Roots Music Club at Bowling Green State University. The club has about 60 musicians who share a devotion for that broad swath of music called roots, or Americana, music. They get together regularly, a classroom in Moore Musical Arts serving as their coffeehouse, front porch or smoky bar.
Barry Johnson
They play their own songs, strum traditional tunes and entertain musical guests. The club has even devoted an evening Beatles covers and another to members doing impersonations of some of their favorite performers.
Much of this year, though, they’ve been in the proverbial woodshed, working out the music for the club’s second CD. The Roots Music Club will perform at Grounds for Thought, 174 S. Main St., Bowling Green, April 23 at 8 p.m. as the official release party.
It’s the second recording by the club, said founder Mike Bryce. He said he thought about recording just about the same time he pulled the club together.
That was two years ago. Bryce who likes old Hank Williams and the Punch Brothers said the burgeoning roots scene in the last few years made the club possible. In the 1990s, he said, it probably wouldn’t have happened.
He encountered various fellow travelers at jam sessions at Café Havana and the Hump Day Revue at Stones Throw and decided to bring them together in a more regular and formal way. Some are music majors, like him, most are not. Their tastes are broad, from old-time jazz to blues to bluegrass. Many of them, he said, also write their own songs.
Sean Fahy, drums, and Cory Garbe, guitar.
On the first CD, recorded in a home studio, 15 of the pieces were originals and three were traditional. One of the originals blurs that distinction. “Murder Ballad” by Bryce and Nick Kirk tells the tale in archaic fashion of the fingers in the jar at the Wood County Historical Center. On the new CD there’s only one traditional Irish tune and the rest are originals.
As a club they play various events – occasional shows at the Student Union, WBGU-FM’s Live Wire at the Cla-Zel, concerts at Grounds and a benefit for refugees. They’ve played music to accompany the St. Baldrick’s Shave-a-Thon. On the night before the CD release show, they’ll be at Grounds for an Earth Day show sponsored by the Environmental Action Group. Members still hang out and play at the Hump Day Revue.
Lucas is a utility man who plays guitar, mandolin, dobro and sings. He’s more likely to back someone else up than perform his own song, though he does contribute one original to the new CD.
He just enjoys playing the music of other club members. “It’s so diverse,” he said. The members come from a variety of backgrounds but still shine when it comes to music. “It’s incredible the talent they possess, and it’s really cool to hear it come together.”
As one of his friends observed: “If we didn’t have this club, we’d all be sitting in a room playing our instruments not knowing the rest of us existed.”
