Search - Blinky Moon Boys :: Moonlite Theatre

An engaging project full of energy and steam

J. Ross | Roseburg, OR USA | 09/17/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Playing Time - 52:31 -- The Blinky Moon Boys... what a cool bluegrass band name! I understand that the moniker relates to some happenings at the "Blinky Moon Tourist Court" in Williamsburg, Kentucky in the 1950s. The five members of this traditional band hail from Tennessee, Georgia and Virginia where they also pick with local groups. Their music really twinkles when they all reunite for a show to feature music of Jim Reeves, The Stanley Brothers, Jim Eanes, Johnnie & Jack, Jimmy Martin, and others. They've been regular crowd-pleasers at the Galax Fiddlers' Convention since the late-1980s. This debut album has a cohesive, well-blended sound representative of band that plays much more regularly. The Blinkys' obvious respect and erudite understanding of traditional bluegrass comes through clearly in their arrangements, vocals and instrumental licks. Their heartfelt interpretation of the bluegrass idiom is full of soul and euphonious rewards.



The seed was planted to form the band when Lynn Dugger, Darin Lawrence, David Lowe and Jeff Huss met in 1989 at the Winterhawk Bluegrass Festival in New York. Today, the band includes Lynn Dugger (banjo), Jeff Huss (guitar), Darin Lawrence (mandolin), Tom Brantely (fiddle), and Bill Ledbetter (bass). Jeff , Darin and Tom handle the vocals. Jeff plays one of his own Huss and Dalton guitars born in 2000.



They open with a high-stepping cover of a bluegrass warhorse, Jim Reeves's 1960 hit "I've Lived A Lot." "I Only Exist," a classic heartbreak song written by Ralph Stanley's wife, Jimmie, is offered next. Being Stanleyphiles, the band does an excellent job with "Kitten and the Cat," a Carter Stanley song that has become one of the band's most requested numbers. The Blinkys also serve up tasty renditions of Carter's "Sweetest Love" and "Girl Behind the Bar" and "I'll Just Go Away." The band also goes back to cover a song, "Don't Go Out Tonight," from G.B. Grayson and Henry Whittier, a seminal influence of the Stanleys.



Lynn Dugger's banjo drives the 1-4-5 progression in Jimmy Martin's up-tempo hit, "What a Way to Go," and Tom Brantley's nimble-fingered double-stops give it a unique flair. If you think the band sticks to just familiar traditional material, think again. From a 78RPM record, the band found "Shut Up in the Mines at Coal Creek," a sad tragedy song attributed to "Dick Bell" Green Bailey about a 1902 Tennessee mine disaster in which over 200 men died. The song was written based on notes and letters that had been left for the miners' families because they knew that death was always at hand. Si Kahn's "Go to Work on Monday" has a more leisurely approach with its message for textile mill workers with "brown lung." Covering many musical moods, the ¾-time "What About You" is a good choice for a different feeling. The band's fingers fly with fireworks on two instrumentals, "Bud's Tune" and "Sugar in the Gourd," the former from Tennessean Bud Rose, bandleader for the Country Tune Twisters.



With plenty to enthuse traditional bluegrass fans, "Moonlite Theatre" is an engaging project full of energy and steam. These five consummate musicians succeed in tapping the very consciousness of high-octane bluegrass music. (Joe Ross, staff writer, Bluegrass Now)

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