July 21:  Song of the Day.  Larry Keel & Natural Bridge–Buffalo Creek

Late July feels like campfires, hazy mountain sunsets, and a pull from the moonshine jar.  Late July sounds like a sea of crickets and cicadas, a thunderstorm in the distance, and the music of Larry Keel.

The first time I saw Larry live was back in 1995 or 1996 as a member of Magraw Gap (not long after their run through the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in June of ‘95 where they won the best band competition).  The show was at a venue called The Office (which is now Mainstreet Bar & Grill) in Harrisonburg.  Larry on guitar, John Flower on bass, Will Lee on banjo, Danny Knicely on mandolin.  If you’ve seen them live I don’t have to say anymore, but it forever changed my view of bluegrass music.

In some ways those early Magraw Gap shows were for me what it must have been like to see Garcia, Grisman, and the rest of Old & In the Way back in the early 1970’s.  They spoke to the heart of bluegrass and transcended it at the same time.  And just as Old & In the Way before them,  Magraw Gap turned a lot of young folks on to bluegrass music.

[photo by John Rogers]

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Since those early shows at The Office and later at The Little Grill (also in H’burg), I’ve probably seen Keel perform somewhere close to 70 or 80 times.  And that’s no exaggeration.  After Magraw Gap, Larry formed his own band The Experience with his wife Jenny on bass, and a rotating cast of band members that are too numerous to count.  I’ve seen him perform with Tony Rice, Leftover Salmon, Keller Williams, Curtis Burch, and Acoustic Syndicate to just name a few.  The best show I ever saw was in some girl’s kitchen at three in the morning after a Magraw Gap show on a Saturday night in Harrisonburg back in 1996.  I thought my mind might pop as I watched Larry and the gang  picking it out in the early morning hours.

Keel’s latest band, Larry Keel and Natural Bridge, perform Friday, August 1 at Fridays After Five at the Charlottesville Pavilion.  I’ll be there for sure.  Make it 71 or 81 shows and counting….

Buffalo Creek by Larry Keel & Natural Bridge

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