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IIIrd Tyme Out makes some changes

By Walter Tunis Contributing Music Writer

Working outside the scope of bluegrass tradition has not posed much of a problem for IIIrd Tyme Out. After all, this is the ensemble that dodged convention and expectation more than a decade ago by adding an a cappella version of The Platters' pop staple Only You to its repertoire.

It's not that the members of IIIrd Tyme Out were being disrespectful of bluegrass basics in adopting the tune. How could they? Group co-founder, guitarist and principal vocalist Russell Moore spent six years touring and recording bluegrass gospel music with one of the toughest but most esteemed taskmasters in the business, Doyle Lawson.

It's just that IIIrd Tyme Out was looking for balance — a way to blend bluegrass with musical accents that were audience friendly but, perhaps, not obvious.

”Stretching the ­boundaries and doing some things that are a little outside the bluegrass realm can really be fun for us,“ said Moore, who will lead IIIrd Tyme Out back to the 35th Festival of the Bluegrass next weekend. ”Some people may not consider songs like Only You bluegrass, of course. But you can't be afraid to take a chance sometimes.“

As it turns out, the course on which IIIrd Tyme Out set out this year was far more treacherous than adding a vocal-savvy pop hit to its concert program. At the onset of 2008, the band parted ways amiably with bassist Ray Deaton. Deaton and Moore played with Lawson together and started IIIrd Tyme Out together; they spent more than two decades by each other's sides on bluegrass stages across the country.

Deaton left the band to perform full-time with the bluegrass gospel band led by his fiancée, Anita Fisher. That ensemble will be playing the Festival of the Bluegrass, too.

”Ray has been here since the beginning of IIIrd Tyme out,“ Moore said. ”He and I have been working together, it seems like, forever. Any time you have a change of a band member, it's going to take a while for everything to settle back in. But there was another facet to this change. There was tremendous ­camaraderie between us that's going to be gone.“

Replacing Deaton provided still another challenge. Deaton wasn't just a bass player. He sang bass as well. Picture the band singing Only You or any of its rich, more traditional ensemble tunes without bass vocals, and the loss of Deaton seemed all the deeper.

For a bassist, Moore went to Edgar ­Loudermilk, ­formerly of Rhonda ­Vincent and the Rage. But ­Loudermilk was more of a tenor vocalist. For a replacement bass singer, Moore made a far more unexpected choice.

”As we were throwing ideas around, I heard the guy who helps drive our bus sing bass to a CD,“ Moore said. ”I knew he loved bluegrass and played guitar, but I never heard him sing. So I thought, if he was agreeable to come and sing some bass with us at our shows, then we could focus on finding a good ­harmony and tenor singer that played bass. And that's what happened.“

Enter bass singer and bus driver Doug Driskell to the onstage ranks of IIIrd Tyme Out, which in ­addition to Moore and Loudermilk features banjoist Steve Dilling (a 15-year member), mandolinist Wayne Benson (who played in IIIrd Tyme Out from 1992 to 2004, then rejoined last year after work with The John Cowan Band) and fiddler Justen Haynes (who joined the band in 2005).

Unfortunately, IIIrd Tyme Out's recording schedule couldn't keep pace with the personnel changes. Its recent CD and DVD project, Round III at the MAC, was ­recorded before Deaton left and ­Benson rejoined.

But on the up side, Round III sports the warp-speed instrumental Crucial County Breakdown, a blazing ­showcase for Haynes, and a take of Travelin' This ­Lonesome Road that underscores the complementary ties between Moore's rustic singing and Dilling's blues-saturated banjo work.

And, as Kentucky fans will undoubtedly see, the album continues IIIrd Tyme Out's fruitful working relationship with the Mountain Arts ­Center in Prestonsburg. The band cut two other popular concert albums there, 1998's Live at the MAC and 2001's Back to the MAC.

”That's a place that just loves their bluegrass music,“ Moore said. ”There's an audio studio right there in the building, so everything is piped in from the stage right into the studio. They talked to us about doing a sort of flagship recording there so they could promote their ­capabilities to other bands. So we did. The first one went so well that we had to go back.“

Of course, the MAC isn't the only or the oldest ­Kentucky connection that IIIrd Tyme Out maintains. It plays numerous bluegrass festivals in the region each year but has forged an especially cordial bond with the Festival of the Bluegrass, which Moore played regularly with Lawson.

”Here again, when you're talking about the state of Kentucky, you're talking about one of our strongest areas as far as fan base, audience support and turnout goes,“ Moore said. ”And the Festival of the Bluegrass has been a reckoning force as a festival since before we even started performing as IIIrd Tyme Out. It's just a class operation.

”Hopefully, they know they can count on us to give their audience what they're looking for.“