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Hit & Run Bluegrass
Beauty Fades
Self-release HRB-01
By Marianne Ebertowski
 It's always a pleasure
to witness a bunch of youngsters having fun playing music as
traditional as bluegrass. It is even better when they are as
good as Hit & Run Bluegrass from the Boulder area of Colorado.
There are five of them, two women and three men: Pennsylvania
born John Frazier, mandolin player, vocalist and songwriter;
Virginia native guitarist Rebecca Hoggan, an awesome flat picker
who also writes and sings; Erin Coats, originally from Wyoming,
upright bass player and vocalist; dobro player Todd Livingston
from Ann Arbor, Michigan, also a composer; and Nebraska born
banjoist Aaron Youngberg, another composer. As individual musicians,
they have already managed to turn a few heads. Livingston, Sally
Van Meter's "finest student," became Rockygrass Dobro
Champion in 2001. John Frazier earned a certain reputation in
Boulder as a songwriter, singer and mandolin player. Rebecca
Hoggan already released a solo-album, Born in East Virginia,
in 2001. Youngberg, a Wyoming banjo champ, and 21-year-old Coats,
who learned to play bass aged nine, did not exactly arrive on
the hilltop from out of nowhere either.
As a band, Hit & Run Bluegrass have only been around for
two years. But in these two years they won Rockygrass in 2002
and Telluride a year later, which is something no band achieved
before them. In July 2002, they met veteran bass player Gene
Libbea, a former member of the Nashville Bluegrass Band, who
became their mentor, cook and coach and even joined them during
the first half of 2003 as bassist and vocalist, while Erin Coats
took a break. The band's debut-album, Beauty Fades, is
dedicated to him. Recorded and produced by former Lonesome River
Band member Tim Austin at his own Doobie Shea Studios in Boones
Mill, Virginia, the quintet, assisted by another youthful talent,
fiddler Aubrey Haynie, offers seven original tunes and five covers
including the country standards "Lonely Comin' Down"
(Porter Wagoner) and " Old, Old House" (George Jones/Hal
Bynum).
The title song, written and sung by Rebecca Hoggan, plunges
right into what Hit & Run Bluegrass are all about, quality
songwriting, perfect musicianship, great vocals music which
keeps a balance between the modern (Alison Krauss, Nickel Creek)
and the traditional style of bluegrass (Del McCoury, Ralph Stanley).
It is John Frazier who is mostly responsible for the traditional
touch. His voice sounds so high lonesome your knees start to
wobble just after a few notes and his compositions sound as if
you have heard them all before a long, long time ago, only you
haven't. Frazier has the unique ability to knead the mass of
traditional song material into new shapes, which is an important
talent in the bluegrass profession. Just listen to his jailhouse
story "Cold Iron Door" and you cannot shrug off the
impression that you have heard this one played by Bill Monroe.
Rebecca Hoggan is an amazing singer, though Dolly Parton's
hit "Lonely Comin' Down" proves to be a size too big
for her (she'll get there). Her guitar picking is impeccable,
her song writing impressive and her choice of material tasteful.
That Hoggan, who is also a mandolin player with a honky tonk
band (uh, well, so I heard), will make her way with or without
Hit & Run is for sure.
Erin Coats, apparently the youngster of the band, is a rock
steady dog house bassist and a great singer, too. She proves
this in her rendition of George Jones' "Old, Old House."
Together with Frazier and Hoggan, she is responsible for gorgeous
three-part-harmonies. Todd Livingston who wrote the instrumental
"Get Outta Town," a technically tough piece of work,
is one of the most promising Dobro talents on the bluegrass circuit.
As for Aaron Youngberg, well, I'm sure Earl Scruggs loves him.
I am also sure Hit & Run Bluegrass will follow in the
footsteps of AKUS and Nickel Creek and show that bluegrass is
still thriving and alive or, as Mr. Libbea once said: "Hit
& Run is destined to go far."
www.hitandrunbluegrass.com
Contact Marianne Ebertowski at ebertowski-at-rockzilla.net
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