Five Rising Stars at Grey Fox

Winter has its charms, but let’s face it: they pale in comparison to the joys of sitting around a campsite in yer shirtsleeves, playing with friends. But don’t take my word for it, listen to these folks…

This quintet of young musicians all share an affiliation with Berklee College of Music. We caught up with them last summer at the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival as they were running through some tunes in advance of a Berklee showcase. Here, Eric Robertson leads the group through his own composition, a gospel-tinged beauty called “Take Me Under.”

It’s hard to keep up with these young pickers— and I don’t mean when they’re ripping through “Fisher’s Hornpipe,” though I’m sure that would be true as well. They all seem to be at a stage when the world is spinning in overdrive, and enormous changes are happening almost minute-by-minute.

Exhibit A: In the few months that have intervened since we shot this footage, Robertson has toured the Middle East with his group The Boston Boys. While in Egypt, they took a moment to record a touching performance of Sam Cooke’s “Change Is Gonna Come” with the great pyramid of Giza looming in the distance. The sentiment of the song couldn’t be more timely for both Egypt and the U.S. It gets my vote for Best Video from the whole interminable election circus.

While Robertson & Co. were trotting the globe, Molly Tuttle was making a splash in an altogether different setting. Tuttle hails from the hollers of Palo Alto, where she grew up in a musical family. In October, she and her dad, Jack Tuttle, appeared on that public radio institution, “A Prairie Home Companion,” where they took second place in the show’s duet singing competition.

While still a student at Berklee, the ever-affable Nick DiSebastian established himself not simply as a performer, but as a ringleader for Boston’s young pickers. A natural networker and MC, he toyed for a while with becoming a local music producer and promoter. Eventually, however, the siren song of Nashville got to him. Literally any minute now, he’s due to relocate to Music City. Though featured on bass in the Grey Fox ensemble, DiSebastian is versed in several instruments. “Once in Nashville,” he tells me, “I’m gonna put my efforts towards improving as a player and spending more time on the road playing.” Those of us who have enjoyed his company in Beantown would like to remind Nick that New England summers can provide a comfortable respite from Nashville’s sticky heat.

Another fixture of Boston’s picking scene, banjoist Gabe Hirshfeld, is staying put for the time being as he finishes his degree at Berklee. Throughout the fall, Hirshfeld has been immersed in the music of those fathers of bluegrass, The Beatles. Hirshfeld reports that, along with partners George Clements, Louis Fram, Patrick M’Gonigle and Matthew Witler, “We’ve been taking Beatles songs and playing them as close to the original recordings as possible with the bluegrass instrumentation.”

Sometimes it seems like everyone at Berklee plays with everyone else, sooner or later, and never does that impression ring truer than when you look at fiddler John Mailander’s dance card. In recent months, he has worked with Hirshfeld on an EP called “The TriMountain Sessions” (produced by DiSebastian) and played a number of dates with Tuttle (including a recent gig with Berklee prof Darol Anger and partner Emy Phelps). But that only accounts for half his musical life. Mailander is from San Diego, and he continues to maintain links with the West Coast bluegrass scene, performing in the Bear Republic with Janet Beazley, Chris Stuart and the group Backcountry.

Not sure that I’ve got my cosmology right, but I hear tell of certain “unbound,” high-flying stars that have exited our galaxy. As yet, no one knows where these vagabond bodies are headed. Seems that much the same could be said of the stars grouped in this campfire constellation.

Yer Pal— Curly