The Vespers At Eagle Hill Cultural Center

It began as a delicate and subtle seeking of a fragile melody on the dobro by Bruno Jones. It was shattered as the group’s hoyden, Callie Cryar, stepped to the microphone and let loose with a reframed version of blues legend, Son House’s, "Grinnin’ In Your Face.” 

(Videos of renditions by both Vespers and Son House appear at the bottom of this review)

Don't you mind people grinnin' in your face.
Don't mind people grinnin' in your face, O Lord,
Just bear this in mind, a true friend is hard to find.
Don't you mind people grinnin' in your face.

They'll jump you up and down.
They'll carry you all around and 'round.
Just as soon as your back is turned,
they'll be tryin' to cut you down.
But just bear this in mind, a true friend is hard to find.

Don't you mind people grinnin' in your face...
Don't mind people grinnin' in your face, O Lord,
Just bear this in mind, a true friend is hard to find.
Don't you mind people grinnin' in your face.

Your mother, she'll talk about you.
Your brothers and your sisters, too.
Yes, don't care how you're trying to live,
They'll talk about you still.
But just bear this in mind, a true friend is hard to find.

Don't you mind people grinnin' in your face....
Don't mind people grinnin' in your face, O Lord,
Just bear this in mind, a true friend is hard to find.
Don't you mind people grinnin' in your face.

While the opening stanza was a shock, volume-wise to the audience it also rocked us with an emotional impact and at conclusion reaped enthusiastic applause.

With only a small hesitation and backed by the full band, Callie then delivered their own reflective composition “Jolly Robber” and the Hardwick audience as a whole was caught up in the band’s net.

Vespers is a contemporary string band out of Tennesee, and at its core embodies traditional mountain music forms and motifs as well as spiritual values. Said values never rise to preaching, but are always present even subtley as part of the moral content of their songs, but is no more intrusively so than it was with the music decades ago of the iconic, Carter Family.

Two sisters, the older and more demure, Phoebe, and the free spirited Callie Cryar make up one half and two brothers, Taylor and Bruno Jones, the other. All members of the group are instrumentally competent and there is so much switching off of instruments during and between numbers I wonder they don’t have to have a choreographer traveling with them. Callie’s integration of the ukulele shades the sonic scope of the group enough to add to their signature sound.

Vocally, the alto voices of the girls are near identical, but the harmonies are often hard edged occasionally threatening but never achieving dissonance. The voices of the Jones’ boys are so underplayed that they add only a barely distinguishable base against which the distaff harmonies can beat.

The arrangements constantly surprise incorporating within any given composition dramatic changes in tempo, melody, phrasing and key. Their ability to incorporate ideas from contemporary pop, country, rock and jazz genres without abandoning their mountain roots adds to the distinctiveness of their performance.

In many ways, the badinage and tuning patter is mindful of Grand Ole Opry and similar hoedown stylings, yet modern.

The first half of the concert was the stronger. After the intermission, they led off with the pop flavored "Flower," but following that, while always interesting, I had the sense that they were not always as confident of what they were trying to accomplish instrumentally. That is however a minor quibble and I felt, as did the majority of the audience that the program was too soon over.

Finally coaxed back for an encore, they rendered an “a capella” hymn in which for the first time the voices of the Jones brothers became more than a background murmur. I would like to hear a bit more from them as well as many more performances by The Vespers.

 Grinnin' In Your Face by Son House

 Grinnin' In Your Face by The Vespers' Callie Cryar