Madison’s Harken Hall, open less than a year, may be a little off the beaten path for a Nashville area music venue, but with its lovely stone-and-wood-beamed construction and ample free parking, the hall offers an attractive and comfortable setting for live music. On Wednesday, October 22, bluegrass legends Sam Bush and Tim O’Brien played their first-ever two-man show.
The array of instruments might have indicated a number of special guests, but with the exception of two songs on which they were joined by Jan Fabricius, O’Brien’s wife, the two musicians played as a duo on a full range of stringed instruments. Rather than an opportunity to showcase new recordings, the evening felt more like a chance to listen in on two friends enjoying a chance to pick together.
O’Brien, referring to Bush as one of the busiest men in music, admitted that finding time to rehearse was a challenge. They needn’t have worried. The music and the repartee flowed naturally all night.
Opening with “Shady Grove,” the pair swapped leads and stories, playing some of their own songs, but returning most often to the music of their heroes with whom they had the fortune of playing—Doc Watson, John Hartford, and Bill Monroe, pioneers of the genre.
O’Brien recounted their first meeting in Telluride in 1975, where Bush played with New Grass Revival, the first band from outside of Colorado to take the stage, and O’Brien played with the Ophelia Swing Band, before forming Hot Rize.
Their set ranged from the bluesy Ed Snodderly’s song about a shoeshine man “Majestic” to James Brown’s “Get Offa That Thing.” They played from the New Grass Revival’s catalog, “Hold to a Dream,” as well as “Walk on, Boy,” one of the first songs Bush recalled playing with Doc Watson.
They wove in stories of their interactions with Watson and with Grandpa Jones, as they introduced “Eight More Miles to Louisville” with stories about Jones and his wife Ramona. And they played with the pure joy fans have come to expect from these musicians.
Fabricius joined the duo for Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm” and “Back to Eden,” which O’Brien and Fabricius co-wrote with Tom Paxton.
The pair demonstrated their virtuosity on a range of instruments—including Bush on guitar and a resonator mandolin and O’Brien on a bouzouki (which he said was Greek for “out of tune”). Highlights of the evening had the pair playing double fiddles on a medley of “Arkansas Traveler,” “Whiskey before Breakfast,” and “Fisher’s Hornpipe” and double mandolins on “New River Train.”
O’Brien and Bush closed the night with “Gentle on My Mind,” then encored with another Hartford classic “Tall Buildings.” With the sensory aesthetics of the venue—including velvet loveseats and high-top tables in the balcony—the show had less of a festival atmosphere than the feel of a special night in a listening room.