Mandolin Player Lynn Nicholson, formed up a band while still at Homestead High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He recalls discovering underclassman John Swain’s guitar playing skills and just being blown away. “I need to play with this guy.” Along with Swain and Nicholson, the band features two fiddlers, the seasoned studio musician, Sean Hoffman, and the up and coming, Lauren Blair. Chandler Cashdollar, plays bass, Michael Earle Newsome, sports the banjo, and Ellen Coplin fills in some of the bottom-end with her marvelous cello – helping to make the music bow-heavy and symphonious. It’s a mix that is exploited well throughout the five songs they present on the show. The songs presented are surprisingly different and like most newgrass, inventive musically and lyrically. The first song, speaking metaphorically about life, also describes the evolution of song within the up-schooling of a bluegrass band: “It takes time to come around, we all get lost until we’re found, and though we all get burned, one by one, you take a turn.” The steam rises with their second piece, Never Gonna Be the One to Let me Down, a defiant break free of life’s prison-making song. The piece features a relentless drive and super tight solos from all the instruments – and John’s assertive voice calling out – the back and forth of the instruments driving the breaks in remarkable synchrony until he sings, “Never gonna be the one – to walk like a ghost in the Midwest sun.” This really is bluegrass and country storytelling at its best–delivering a story at remarkable speed and using the music to punctuate the drama of the telling. Powerful stuff! The chorus of the next song is centered on advice for our times:
You can’t go back and change a thing,
You change everything it takes to be here.
You can’t go on and know the way,
Take it slow and day by day,
Try not to be scared.
This tune also spotlights a remarkable fiddle/guitar break by Sean and John that is memorable in its feel and a brilliant display of musical virtuosity.
The fourth number is a hard luck number, about society’s curious addiction to the internet:
And if you like my post,
Maybe I’ll like yours too,
But I feel like a ghost,
When I’m scrolling through.
How ‘bout you?
Unusual to the Radio Show format, and at request, the Debutants provided us with one more song to round out their time on the show. The song, “It’s Just a Joke,” about a relationship going bad has Lynn singing, “It’s just a joke–the kind that kicks you in your teeth & puts you in your place. But please don’t let me be the punchline.” The song provides a beautiful excuse for intricate solos from John, Lynn, and Sean, and the opening up of that big orchestral sound of all those strings bowing together.
Performing at the break is singer-songwriter and graduate of Culver Academies and the Berklee School of Music, Russell Jamie Johnson. He performs a beautiful and heartfelt lament on voice and guitar, “I Gotta Get Myself Out to L.A.” The show also features Matt Scutchfield delivering the Shoot the Moon game show with questions about the Embassy Theater in Fort Wayne, the merchant marines, Homestead High School, and the legendary newgrass artist, John Hartford. All this and more, on the Wild Rose Moon Radio Hour, “A Home for Humans.” Although, we’ve heard a Golden Retriever, named Red, is tuning in.