If you missed Cherryholmes at Sanders Theatre yesterday, I have two thing to impart to you: 1. Tough luck, you missed a tremendous performance, and 2. Buck up, they will undoubtedly visit Eastern Massachusetts again. They are too good not to.
Here are a few probably self-serving impressions of the performance:
Cherryholmes was everything promised and more. Like the best and most ambitious recording groups, they stay ahead of their recorded output. They performed a considerable amount of music that one would not have heard by listening to their CDs alone.
Cherryholmes played beautifully sung originals and classic covers, Django Rienhardt, Celtic music with convincing step-dancing (which is saying something since we're putting The Chieftains' cast of thousands on the Symphony Hall stage in a matter of days), and good old-fashioned country yodeling. All the kids are complete players, right down to the fire breathing solos which any of them can unleash. Is there anything this band can't do?
Jere Cherryholmes, Dad, sang a bit and kept the simple bluegrass bass lines thumping along - with excellent time, I might add - but his real contribution was as MC. Right out of the gate he told us, "yes, the beard is real, so that answers that question, yes these are all our children, so that answers that question..." His unassuming, charmingly rambling delivery seemed to win everyone over, tying the whole package up with a down home bow. Not that Cherryholmes needed much help getting over.
Jere tread lightly around political issues when introducing daughter Cia Leigh's new song tribute to soldiers and their families (sorry I missed the song's title). The song was especially poignant for being played in Memorial Hall (the building Sanders Theatre is in), whose walls are lined with the names of members of the Harvard community killed in the Civil War.
Another moment in which Jere's straight forward delivery made potentially rough sledding easier, was in his unvarnished recitation of the band's endorsed products. From mandolins, guitars, banjos, strings to transducers ("if you don't know what a transducer is you probably don't need one") and a brand of chili which bears the band's photo ("the family size"), Jere spoke chapter and verse as, no doubt, was required, but made it fun. Of course, there were a lot of musicians in the audience, too, who probably would have asked about the group's instruments.
Since this isn't a review, I won't parse the quality of individual performances. It wouldn't matter anyway, since it is clear that no matter the individual talents, Cherryholmes is about the sum of its parts - its a family thing.
