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Athens Land Trust
Local non-profit organization
offers Affordable House for
first time home buyers
235 N. Rocksprings
Historic Home • Intown locale
-750 sq. ft. • 1-BR/1-BA • CHAC
Near Buses • Hardwooc* floors
New Appliances • Great Yard
SALE PRICE $50,000
(no. payments ~$400)
to Qualified Applicants
Call 706.6l3*0122 or email
HOUSING@ATHENSLANDTRUST.ORG
to view home or to learn more.
www.athenslandtwst. org
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The
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II Athens
Music
Awards
SHOW!
Thursday,
June
Morton
at 8pm
See next week’s
fc issue for category
finalists, show
lineup & ticket
1 information
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Leah Calvert Brings Her
Bluegrass Fiddle To The Forefront
F or whatever reason, the fiddle has long
been considered by the general populace as
a "guy'’ instrument. Maybe it's the hell-
raising connotations associated with the rosin and
the bow. Maybe it's the worldly sophistication
that goes along with the
violin, the fiddle's high
brow doppelganger.
Local fiddler and
singer Leah Calvert is
doing her part to dispel
such assumptions.
Calvert has had her eyes
on the fiddle since
kindergarten, often
honing her chops during
those formative years
with Courthouse Creek,
her father's Atlanta-
based bluegrass band.
"I was around five
years old when I decided
I wanted to play the
fiddle," remembers
Calvert 'My dad had
always been into blue-
grass and played in a
bluegrass band, so I guess that was just subcon
sciously there anyway. So I think, subconsciously
too, he was just out to breed a fiddle player
[laughs]. I also took piano lessons as a kid but
didn't keep up with them. I remember the
teacher used to make these great cream
cheese brownies so that was really my pri
mary inspiration for going. I'd probably have
kept it up if I saw the reward as a much
greater prize than eating free dessert"
C alvert moved from Atlanta to Athens
to attend school in the late 1990s.
She soon found a fitting e<tracurric-
ular gig as host of WUOG's "Folk Scene" pro
gram, allowing for numerous digs through
the dusty stacks of vintage Bill Monroe, Doc
Watson, Ralph Stanley and Vassar Clements.
It was around the same time that Calvert's
first entry into local banddom occurred; she
joined up with world music enthusiasts
Calliope Fair. Playing with the eclectic
troupe allowed for the absorption of newer,
outside elements.
"Even though I still play primarily blue-
grass," says Calvert 'being in Calliope gave
me experience playing many different types
of music. It really gave me a deeper per
spective on other traditional music from
around the world like gypsy tunes, jigs,
reels. Generally speaking, I think something
like bluegrass or old-timey music can be
accepted by just about anybody.
"Still, though, there are these written-in
connotations that always seem to go along
with it For example, a lot of people figure,
t)h, if you like or play bluegrass you must be an
older white Anglo-Saxon guy who goes to church
every Sunday.' Playing with a band like Calliope
Fair was more like a free-for-all. having all kinds
of different people coming in and all different ele
ments feeding into that It was important not to
adhere to any written-in boundaries."
Blues" and "Summertime." Her progression as a
singer is apparent on the self-released disc Rough
Draft, a collection of bluegrass and Appalachian
standards with a couple of Gillian Welch tunes ("I
Am a Pilgrim" and the bootlegging rave-up "Tear
some) Calvert is traditionally nonplussed by the
recordings. She's looking forward to the next
outing and the chance to incorporate more orig
inal material into the mix.
'Rough Draft was really my first time doing my
own sort of thing as opposed to session work,"
she says. "I was realty lucky to get a lot of tal
ented people to play on there with me like [man
dolin player] Mitch Simpson, who also runs the
North Georgia Bluegrass Festival in Cleveland, and
to be able to use the instruments and equipment
that we recorded with. I'm proud of it. but the
fact that it actually got pressed, printed and done
Michael Andrews
WHO: The Greater Atlanta Bluegrass
Band with Leah Calvert
WHERE: Hoyt House Pavilion
WHEN: Thursday, June 9
HOW MUCH: $3
My Stillhouse Down") thrown in. Though Rough
Draft is an instantly comfortable listen helmed b>
Calvert's powerful high harmonies (the type that
should win over any fan of the old high and lone-
is kind of amazing. So, seeing that's possible just
made me want to do another one, hopefully some
thing that's more concerned with original mate
rial I'm gonna try to start recording that in
August or at least that's the plan for now."
As of late, Calvert's
been playing shows with
Athens' Packway Handle
Band. Packway, which
features Andrew Heaton,
himself a former Calliope
Fair fiddler, guitarist Josh
Erwin, bassist Chris
Holliday, banjo player
Tom Baker and man-
dolinist-singer Michael
Paynter, has developed
into one of the premier
bluegrass outfits in the
Athens area. Their funda
mental bluegrass setup
(banjo, guitar, mandolin,
fiddle, bass and harmony
vocals) is the environ
ment where Calvert feels
most comfortable and
particularly excels.
Calvert has also recently joined up with the
Greater Atlanta Bluegrass Band, with whom she's
performing this week. The GABB is guitarist Buck
Peacock, mandolinist Bob Knysz, banjoist Geoff
Hohwald and his bassist son Andy Hohwald;
Calvert's vocal additions add a dynamism to
the group's traditional numbers.
G roup dynamics notwithstanding,
Calverts solo work is gaining
acclaim; she was recently commis
sioned by Atlanta nonprofit organization
Trees Atlanta to record the music for a
short film commemorating their 20th
anniversary. Aside from bringing her tal
ents to a worthwhile cause—Trees is a
beautification project that helps provide
much needed shade and greenery to the
ominous Metro landscape—the project also
allowed Calvert to branch out a little fur
ther and dig into a form of music also
championed by her fiddle hero Vassar
Clements: jazz.
"It was more of a subdued gypsy jazz
thing that we were doing," she says. "The
guitarist and bass player were students at
Georgia State's jazz program so it was really
cool to collaborate on something out of the
ordinary there. I really like branching out
and playing with all these different people
but, eventually, I'd like to settle into one
consistent band.
"When you collaborate with so many
different bands or players, there's little
time to create a definitive style of your
own, I think. So I do eventually want to
establish some kind of cohesive lineup, if only to
avoid being labeled a bluegrass slut!"
D uring her time with Calliope Fair, Calvert
began to focus more on developing her
skills as a vocalist Some of the only
vocalized portions of that band's repertoire fea
tured Leah belting out standards lite "Deep River
24 FLAGPOLE.COM • JUNE 8, 2005