The Lazybirds Play this Friday’s Concert on the Lawn

Story by David Brewer

Veteran High Country quintet the Lazybirds will make their debut appearance at the Watauga Arts Council’s Concerts on the Lawn this Friday. The band will perform at Boone Saloon following the show. When you visit the website of longtime High Country roots music purveyors the Lazybirds, you’ll hear the personal endorsement of perhaps the most convincing voice in all of mountain music.

“Hello, I’m Doc Watson. I’ve listened to the music the Lazybirds play and I think it’s a good variety of blues, jazz and the good old ragtime sound and you hear the flavor of that in anything they play. If you want some good music, have these boys come out and play for you. I guarantee you’ll enjoy what they do.”

This Friday, June 15, the Lazybirds will take to the Jones House porch for the first time ever at the Watauga Arts Council’s Concerts on the Lawn. The concert begins at 5:30 p.m.

Recently marking their tenth year of playing music together, the Lazybirds consist of Jay Brown on guitar, drummer James Browne, tenor guitar and banjo player Andy Christopher, Mitch Johnson on bass and Alfred Michaels on fiddle.

Billing themselves as a country, blues and jazz quintet, the Lazybirds have distinguished themselves with High County audiences throughout the last decade by playing real down-home roots music that brings together the best sounds from the American musical traditions of the first half of the 20th century.

From the original country music of the Carter Family and Hank Williams to the blues of Mississippi John Hurt and Big Bill Broonzy and the jazz of electric guitar innovator Charlie Christian, the Lazybirds are well versed in the bedrock of Americana. The band has also added a number of fiddle tunes to their extensive repertoire, even veering into Russian folk songs on occasion.

The band has also been known as a talented backing band, lending their talents to live performances and recordings by Matt Rue, Brian Yerman and Kally Price. It was Yerman, one of the band’s first acquaintances who turned them on to the sounds of Appalachia.

Though the band has been taking it easy during the last few years, the Lazybirds are swinging back into action with the release of multiple CDs. Collaborative recordings with Yerman and Price, as well as a disc featuring only the core lineup are due before year’s end.

Following the band’s performance at the Jones House, the Lazybirds will play a show at Boone Saloon. Singer-songwriter Amy Steinberg will open the show at 9:00 p.m. For more info on the band, click to www.lazybirds.net.

The 2007 Concert on the Lawn series is sponsored by Bernhardt Furniture, the Downtown Boone Development Association, the Hayes Performing Arts Center and High Country Bank. For a complete summer schedule, click to www.watauga-arts.org, or call 828-264-1789.