Celtic Connections

Special Consensus

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Rob Adams

five stars

BLUEGRASS has moved on since Special Consensus formed in Chicago in 1975 as younger generations of musicians raised in the music’s traditions have sought new routes for their roots. There is still, however, innate potency and excitement in the foundations of a branch of country music that has maintained its acoustic values, and if ever an example were needed, this was it.

Its blend of raw expression, sophisticated musicianship and collective vigour has sometimes led to bluegrass being described as Virginia bebop and this became very close to the literal truth as sole founder member and banjo player Greg Cahill, guitarist Rick Faris, mandolinist Nick Dumas and bassist Dan Eubanks tore through and extemporised on Irving Berlin’s Blue Skies as many jazz musicians have done before them.

Songs closer to the spirit that bluegrass godfather Bill Monroe exemplified and the music has come to embody, a kind of walking of a line between losing at love, finding a friend in Jesus and seeking solace or just sheer profit in moonshine, found Faris and Dumas singing with earnest bluesiness and all four musicians coming together in full-voiced harmony before breaking off on solo improvisations that didn’t get passed on like a relay baton so much as a hot coal.

Even a broken string couldn’t put the brakes on Faris’s flatpicking locomotion and as they returned for an encore the individual features that preceded the song itself – Dumas’ mandolin picking reaching improbable liquidity; Eubanks playing with superb eloquence and mobility while honouring the blues – showed they have more than enough adventure, invention and creativity to succeed in the more contemporary bluegrass forms should they so wish.