Uncle Rocky
The group, clockwise from top left: Bobby Batyko, Lonesome Willie Jones, Matt Beefus Amati, Brad Astor and Rin Q. Ribble.
Lester Flatt-style flat picking is an underappreciated bluegrass weapon, due in part to the fact that the five-string banjo is generally the alpha in a bluegrass ensemble. Its Gatlin-gun fusillade of notes has audience members all but diving out of the way. Between the banjo and the percussive, ringing chop of the mandolin, the guitar can easily become a backseat rider.
Not so on the new release from Madison bluegrass band Sortin’ the Mail. Longtime Madison bluegrasser Bobby Batyko proudly carries Lester Flatt’s torch as he lights up the 13 tracks of Ringin’ the Doorbell, mostly recorded in concert at the Barrymore Theatre last winter. Batyko can be heard busting fat rhythm strokes then flatpicking breaks redolent of his heroes Doc Watson and Norman Blake.
If bluegrass music in Madison had a family tree, Batyko and his bandmate, “Lonesome” Willie Jones, could be found on multiple branches. Batyko’s SpareTime Bluegrass Band is as solid as it gets. Mandolin player Jones is best known for his decade-plus with another of Madison’s most popular bluegrass acts, Oak Street Ramblers.
Though it wasn’t the cause of his departure from the Ramblers, Jones says Sortin’ the Mail started when new material he was coming up just didn’t fit Oak Street.
“I had some racier songs, and the Ramblers were a little more family-oriented,” Jones says.
“God is real but climate change is fake,” is the first line of the refrain in “The Climate Change Song.” For sure, not a number for the traditional folding chair bluegrass festival crowd.
The band does play some traditional numbers on Ringin’ the Doorbell. Their version of the Dillards’ “There is a Time” is old-time gold, as sung by fiddle player Rin Ribble. Batyko’s lead vocal on John Hartford’s “In Tall Buildings” is burnished and rich, and the band’s arrangement is a ballsy down-tempo take on a waltz that was already slow enough.
There are more tongue-in-cheek songs like “Climate Change,” and two numbers written by former Madisonian Bobby Steeno: “Gimme My Dog Back” and “He’s Just a Paycheck to Me Now.”
Matt Amati’s banjo is fast and fluid in all the right places, especially on the opening title track. Brad Astor plays bass and sings as well.
James Taylor and The Beatles aren’t the first artists who come to mind when you think of
bluegrass music, but there they are counted as primary influences by Batyko and Jones. It becomes a little more likely when you listen to them sing together. “I learned to pick out harmonies from Beatles songs as a kid,” Jones says. Jones and Batyko’s actual first musical encounter was playing a Beatles song, “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” during an informal jam on State Street after Busking for Books more than 10 years ago.
Jones adds that the 1970s country music TV show Hee Haw also factors into his cracked country sensibility. His discovery of the Dillards also has its connections to old TV shows: The band appeared in multiple episodes as the Darling Family in the old Andy Griffith Show.
Sortin’ the Mail marks its official evolution from a side project to a front-and-center affair when the band plays in support of The Travelin’ McCourys, arguably the most powerful bluegrass unit on the planet, at an Aug. 14 Session in McPike Park. They’ll have their game faces on for sure, but they aren’t so serious as to defy the band’s slogan: “putting the ‘ass’ in bluegrass.”
