They say you can’t go home again, but that’s really about the mistaken idea nothing will have changed. What I do think is true, especially as you get older, is there’s something comforting and centering about returning to your roots for a visit. After a stint with Old Crow Medicine Show and recording with the likes of Molly Tuttle and Del McCoury, Mason Via gathered a group of killer bluegrass musician friends and headed to Floyd County, Virginia, not far from his childhood home. They got together in the studio and recorded Via’s sophomore, self-titled record as a live band in the spirit of the fiddle contests and campfire jams he experienced as a kid.
The album opener is Wide Open, a vocal-forward, traditional bluegrass number about the pain of remembering a past lover. But it’s equally inspired by the memories of growing up in the hills and hollers of southern Virginia. Oh Lordy Me is another Appalachian rooted tune featuring Junior Sisk and Ronnie Bowman on vocals. Even more old-timey is Mountain Lullaby, with Rhonda Vincent on vocals. It’s as gentle as the title suggests, with fiddle providing an especially emotional layer, and is dedicated to Via’s godson. Running With You is a traditional bluegrass ballad about loving life on the road until one day you wake up and realize there’s someone even more important to you than the siren song of an appreciative audience.
Via’s wide-ranging musical tastes show up in some of the more progressive cuts, like Melt in the Sun. It’s the story of going after a lost love until “the rocks all melt in the sun.” Falling is an indie-grass story about falling in love while waiting for a concert. The tune itself builds just like the romance blooms across the journey of the evening. There Goes Another One takes off on a speed grass tear as it tells of a desperado running from the law. At one point there’s a faux sheriff on the radio exhorting the deputies to go get him because he’s going not 175 mph, but 175 bpm. The fun the band is having with this one just oozes from the speakers.
Mason Via spent much of his youth going to county fair music festivals and competing in youth talent shows on guitar and mandolin. Having built that foundation of performing traditional bluegrass he rode it all the way to being in one of the apex acts in progressive music, Old Crow Medicine Show. That stoked the desire to return to his roots, and you can hear wonderful pieces of that entire journey on his latest, self-titled record.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.