Del McCoury brings his legend and natural style to Lancaster

The Del McCoury Band

To experience one of Del McCoury’s concerts is like spending time with a family member — one that you like, that is. His demeanor is that honest, inviting and endearing. Sure, he’s got enough bluegrass credentials to circle the globe, from his 1960s tenure in Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys to the band bearing his name that has rightly been viewed as string-music royalty over the past two decades. His mountain tenor, the torch-bearing standard of the fabled High Lonesome sound, is one of the most authoritative voices you will hear from any musical genre, but the attitude beneath it is even more remarkable.

At age 77, McCoury is one of the few upper-echelon artists to whom the joy of performance simply doesn’t seem to dissipate. What Tony Bennett is to jazz and traditional popular music, Del McCoury is to bluegrass. Look at him onstage today and you witness someone so infatuated with the art of performance that it seems like a natural extension of his personality.

Of course, why wouldn’t McCoury be happy with life on the road? The long-running Del McCoury Band sports sons Ronnie and Rob McCoury, award-winning instrumentalists on mandolin and banjo, respectively. Along with Ashland-born fiddler Jason Carter and bassist Alan Bartram, they form a bluegrass unit rooted in tradition with a level of instrumental prowess that borders on the virtuosic.

As sterling as that traditionalism is, the McCoury Band has continually broadened the scope of source material for its repertoire. They have made songs by Tom Petty, Robert Cray and Richard Thompson seem like bluegrass standards. McCoury’s popular version of Thompson’s decidedly British “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” won song of the year in 2002 from the International Association of Bluegrass Music.

Look at McCoury’s concert history — in terms of venue and stylistic setting — and you discover just how far the generational reach of his music has extended. In 2008, the McCoury Band was part of a Sunday bill with Dr. Dog, The New Mastersounds and ekoostik hookah at Forecastle in Louisville. In 2009, the band headed to Harrodsburg to perform with mostly newer generation jam-grass acts at the Terrapin Hill Harvest Festival. By 2010, McCoury and company were in Frankfort, refocusing on their roots with a two-set show at the Grand Theatre (part of the region’s extensive celebration of the World Equestrian Games), half of which was devoted to the songs of onetime boss Monroe. One of his more unexpected but most richly satisfying visits came in 2011, when the McCoury Band played a collaborative concert at Cincinnati’s Aronoff Center with New Orleans’ famed Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

All of that doesn’t even include the times McCoury and his band performed in Lexington separately. Father Del teamed with J.D. Crowe, Bobby Osborne and brother Jerry McCoury in a tradition-minded alliance dubbed The Masters of Bluegrass (proudly self-referred to as The MOB) at the 2013 Festival of the Bluegrass. Not to be outdone, the remaining members of the McCoury Band, under the working moniker of The Travelin’ McCourys, played locally in 2014 on a bill with the jam-savvy Yonder Mountain String Band at the Lyric Theatre and as part of the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Festival with Town Mountain at the Robert F. Stephens Courthouse Plaza.

What’s on tap for another visit by the full McCoury Band this weekend in another city and venue, namely the Lancaster Grand Theatre? How about a new album titled “Del and Woody” that presents McCoury as the latest in an esteemed line of artists asked to fashion new music for previously unpublished lyrics by vanguard folk artist Woody Guthrie?

“The entire album goes back to a place and time that these days are an almost forgotten era,” son Arlo Guthrie wrote in a news release for the recording. “But Del’s high bluegrass voice brings it all back into focus. It’s amazing how little the human condition has changed.”

This story was originally published November 3, 2016 at 1:10 PM with the headline "Del McCoury brings his legend and natural style to Lancaster."