American music has its roots in fusion. As the diverse immigrant and slave populations became more compressed into industrial cities during the 19th and 20th Centuries, the cultures of these populations merged and formed amazing hybrids that no one could have predicted. Through the years, music fashioned by fusion has had its successes and failures, but all of it remains distinct and loyal to its origins.
Railroad Earth is a fusion band, a group that has adapted the best elements of rock, bluegrass, and folk. The band, which hails from the lower Kittatinny Mountain region of New Jersey, pays homage to a number of master fusionists, including The Band, The Grateful Dead, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and the New Grass Revival. Its newest release, “Elko”, is a live album recorded at various festivals around the country. Throughout the album, the group prove themselves to be a worthy jam band much in the tradition of their progenitors, with many of the songs clocking in at ten minutes and over.
Railroad Earth features Todd Sheaffer on lead vocals and acoustic guitars, Tim Carbone playing violin, John Skehan on mandolin, Andy Goessling on a number of stringed instruments and sax, Carey Harmon on drums and Johnny Grubb on upright bass. They produce joyful, beatific melodies which support Sheaffer’s amazing storytelling gifts. Like the Grateful Dead, Railroad Earth’s essence cannot be captured in recordings. Machines can catch aspects of the deep emotional undertow musicians dig down to for inspiration, but they cannot trap the intense magic of live interaction, those intuitive moments’ musician and audience share that can only be described as reverential communication. It’s apparent after a few listen of this disc that this is where Railroad Earth truly excels. The crowds they play become enrapt by the charismatic interplay of the band, each musician listening for places where color can be added or taken away for effect. Unlike so many other live performers these days, it feels like the dynamics Railroad Earth uses in its live shows changes with each performance, keeping the band fresh. The group is smart in keeping true to the improvisational nature of their particular hybrid, sowing the seeds for future renditions of their songs.
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