A couple of hours before their set at the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion this month, Darrell Scott’s Electrifying Band grabbed dinner at the Burger Bar on the Virginia side of this state-straddling city. Legend has it that this tiny, wedge-shaped eatery at the corner of Piedmont and State Streets was the last place anyone heard Hank Williams speak.
The set’s second song was Williams’s “The Blues Come Around,” done as a blues-rock stomp with Scott’s sunburst Les Paul guitar adding cardiogram spikes to the beat and Reese Wynans’ B-3 organ flooding the empty spaces. “I think Hank is a blues singer,” Scott told the crowd, “though no one calls him that. I also think he’s a singer-songwriter, though no one calls him that either.”
The other Hank-related original, “One Hand on the Wheel,” is from Scott’s new string-band album. It’s a story song about a down-on-his-luck guy trying scrape together the bus fare to Shelbyville, Kentucky, where his brother might have a line on a job. Before he goes, however, he’s going to stop at the local tavern, where the juke box is free till noon. “ I always play Hank Williams,” the song’s narrator says, “just like my daddy did, where it’s laid out on the table, and the meaning never hid.
For poor rural Americans, the dilemma is often this: Do we stay where we are, close to the family and nature we love, or do we move to the city and its better opportunities? The album’s opener, “Kentucky Morning,” originally recorded by Bobby Osborne of the Osborne Brothers, tells the story of one who stayed home, who is happy with “a good piece of land and an old cane back rocker” and the morning call of the whippoorwill, even if the car and the porch are always on the verge of collapse.
“I have the same division. You’ve seen where we live out in the hills. At the same time, we still have our place in Nashville, and I know how to jaywalk and find good restaurants and museums. I’m still a touring musician who’s on the road much of the year.” That’s why the Steep Canyon Rangers’ Graham Sharp contacted Scott during the pandemic. The bluegrass band is best known for its collaborations with comedian/banjoist Steve Martin, but their own recordings and concerts have earned a devoted following. But in early 2022, the Rangers were in crisis. Lead singer and co-founder Woody Platt was leaving the band to spend more time at home , and the rest of the band were seeking a way forward.