Virginia’s Pride — Nothin’ Fancy Bluegrass Band
Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine
November 2001, Volume 36, Number 5
At any bluegrass festival or indoor shindig, you can always tell when a popular or favorite band is about to appear, by the filling of the seats and the gathering of the crowd. This past February, the seats were all filled and they were standing two deep in the rear of the auditorium and along the walls. The announcer spoke a few kind words of the group that was about to appear and you could feel the intense excitement in the auditorium as he enthusiastically raised his voice: “Ladies and gentlemen, from the Buena Vista, Virginia area. Nothin’ Fancy!” They held the audience in captivity for the next 45 minutes and walked off the stage of Earl Banton’s Cabin Fever at the Ramada Inn in Williamsburg, Va., with two standing ovations.
But standing ovations and encores are getting to be commonplace as audiences from Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Ohio, New York, and North Carolina get to see and hear Nothin’ Fancy for the first time. At a recent booking at the Court Square Theatre in Harrisonburg, Va., they got to take their picture in front of the marquee that read: Nothin’ Fancy—SOLD OUT!
Nothin’ Fancy is a five-piece traditional bluegrass band and most of its members were born and raised along a 100-mile stretch of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley, where old country roads lead to state highways and eventually to Interstate 81. Little towns with names like Timberville and Crimora don’t mean much to a traveler or someone passing through Virginia, but these little crossroads, some with no more than a small post office or general store is where their great-grandfathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers, sisters, and cousins played what was called mountain music, hillbilly music, what we know today as country and bluegrass music. It is these mountains rich with American history, music, and arts that have brought us Nothin’ Fancy. In less than five years, the group has worked from Wednesday and Thursday night kick-off slots at festivals to headlining on prime time slots on Friday and Saturday nights.
Like all bands, though, dues were paid along the way. Mitchell Davis, a banjo player and singer met Gary Farris, who plays guitar and sings lead and tenor at a friend’s house one night at a jam session. But one of the key ingredients was yet to come to complete the unique bluegrass sound that would become Nothin’ Fancy.
Davis recalls, “We were at the Galax festival in Galax, Va., in 1992, Gary and I were picking and a little red-haired boy would come over with his mandolin and sing with us at our campsite. He’d jam with us a while and take off and when we got ready to pick again. I’d tell somebody to run up there and find that little red-haired boy with that mandolin and tell him to come and pick with us and that was how we got together with Mike Andes.”
Mike is the lead singer, from Broadway, Va.. handles the M.C. work and has written some of the original material on their recordings. His songwriting abilities have been picked up by Charlie Waller who recorded Mike’s “Heaven Got An Angel.” Andes continues his full-time job at Merillat Industries, where for the past 15 years, he has worked as a tool technician. “Where,” Mike smiles, “we make the world’s best kitchen cabinets.” Mike started playing when he was ten and it’s always been in his heart to play bluegrass music for a living. He grew up listening to John Duffey and Doyle Lawson. His own style of mandolin playing is distinct and his voice even more so with the sharp delivery that upon singing a single line, you know the voice belongs with the music, and most important, whose voice it is. Andes’ pen work on “If You Don’t” and “Look Out Momma” show his ability to move from a serious song to a funny novelty-type song, the latter being about what could happen to us all if we don’t cut down on the calories.
Mike is married and has two children. His wife Teresa loves the music and supports the group directly by running the tape and CD table. “She is probably the friendliest woman in the world,” Mike adds. While discussing the group. Mike says, “We are not out to show who is the best musician, we are a team, working to compliment each other. I like joking and talking with audiences. I always close the show by telling them I’m coming down from here and shake some hands. Mitchell calls me ‘governor.’ We were at a show in Ohio and I was down in the crowd shaking hands and he said I looked like a politician out there running for governor. But I love the fans and people, you see people that you met at other festivals and it’s great, they are the ones who buy your recordings and support you.”
Gary Farris plays a Martin D-18 Golden Era guitar and sings lead and tenor and does a lot of the booking, promotional, and public relations work. He recalls how the group got its name. “We were about to go onstage at the East Coast Championship Talent Show in Dooms, Va., and the man at the registration desk wanted to know the name of the group. Well, we didn’t have one and so. we had to think fast and Mitchell said, ‘how about Nothin’ Fancy;’ the name stuck.” The band went on to win the contest at Dooms for five consecutive years! Gary lives in Buena Vista. Va., and is a wholesale car broker. Mike says Gary’s car salesman ability has helped land them quite a few jobs. Gary recalls the time he bought an electric bass and Mitchell, himself, and a friend (Dorsey Hostetter) went to a church to play. “The bass had a picture of a naked woman on the back of it. Well, I forgot to take it off and after we played I looked up there toward the pulpit and the back of that bass was turned out this way. Talk about embarrassed, I got up there and turned that bass around.” Dorsey Hostetter, Gary’s long-time friend and next door neighbor, where many a jam session has been played, reflected on the rising popularity and success of Nothin’ Fancy. “You know when you’re around someone all the time, you don’t mean to. but you take them for granted. Don Reno used to come down to a friend’s junkyard and pick with us. It never occurred to me that I was picking with someone who would become as famous as he was. Nothin’ Fancy has it together, to be getting all those standing ovations—I’m proud of them.” Hostetter is a former DJ on WREL in Lexington and has his own band called the Maury River Bluegrass Band.
One of Nothin’ Fancy’s dreams came true in February, and national and international exposure could be just around the bend. Colonel Tom Riggs’ Pinecastle Records signed them to a recording contract. “We are ecstatic about this contract, and it will give our music a chance to be heard nationally. As independent record producers, we are somewhat limited to local exposure, and some radio stations will not play your recordings if you are not on a label. We have three CDs out, and the airplay is probably mostly in Virginia,” Mike said. Tom Riggs, owner of Pinecastle Records says, “I’ve seen Nothin’ Fancy four or five times, and I’m surprised no one has signed these guys up. They are extremely talented. They all are very professional onstage, they know exactly what they are going to do next. There’s a ‘buzz’ within the industry about this band, bands and musicians are talking about them, and that is unusual but good. Ray Deaton, of IIIrd Tynie Out, and others told me I should listen to this group. We’ll get them into the studio to record this fall, and their first release will be in 2002.”
Mitchell Davis plays banjo, fiddle, guitar, and sings bass. Mitchell says he and Mac Wiseman have a lot in common; they are both from Crimora, Va. Mike refers to Mitchell as “our critic. Which is good for he always tells us if the number needs more work before we play it in public.” Mitchell didn’t like bluegrass music when he was a kid. “I liked the banjo, but not the high-pitched nasal singing. My Uncle Joe played the fiddle at square dances and taught me a lot on the fiddle. I started out on the guitar and fiddle and moved over to the 5-string. I got my first taste of bluegrass from the Beverly Hillbillies. I learned a lot from the Earl Scruggs book. I play a Stelling Red Fox banjo, and when backing singers with the banjo and other lead instruments, the placement of the notes is very important. A lot of people put too many in; one well- placed note is better than ten—overplaying is a problem with many bands.”
Chris Sexton of Fairfax, Va., plays fiddle and is a graduate of the Shenandoah Conservatory Of Music in Winchester. Va. He is the newest member of the group. He is a music teacher at Parkside Middle School in Manassas, Va. His classical training on the violin penetrates through the sounds of the band to add a unique bluegrass approach, not often heard in traditional bluegrass bands. Chris played with East Coast Bluegrass before starting with Nothin’ Fancy. His dad, Buster Sexton, also played banjo with the same group. He listened to fiddler Jimmy Arnold and studied his style, and especially likes the fiddling of Vassar Clements; another favorite is Bobby Hicks. Chris said the fiddle he plays has quite a story behind it. “Mike Andes picked it up at a flea market for $75.00. It sounded terrible, but for good reason. It didn’t have a soundpost in it! Mike had a post put in. and I play it all the time now. I took it to a dealer and he told me just by looking at it that it was worth several thousand dollars. It’s a copy of a Guarnerius, who was a contemporary of Stradivarius. It’s a great sounding instrument and I guess I can keep playing it as long as I stay with the group. I love the freedom that exists in Nothin’ Fancy. There are certain standards we have. We try to play just what is on our recordings. So many bluegrass groups today are virtually indistinguishable. You can hardly tell one from the other, and then there are those who record in Nashville using super pickers but out on the road, they sound different.”
Tony Shorter, with a last name that’s surely a contradiction of his physical stature, stands six feet, five inches tall, and the big acoustic standup bass he plays sometimes looks like a guitar under his arms as he carries it to the stage. Tony, born and raised around Lexington, Va., has worked for the Farm Credit Service in Lexington for the past 16 years. He played electric bass with a rock band and a jazz band and has been playing for 20 years. “In my younger days, I didn’t particularly like bluegrass music. My dad and my uncle both played music. I worked with the rock and jazz bands at colleges. I picked up the bass I’m playing now about a year ago. It’s a Kay 1954 F-8. I played a borrowed one until I found this one. I was playing the bass down at the Amelia [Virginia] Bluegrass Festival, and we were rehearsing a number and this huge bug, I mean huge, starting crawling up my arm. I tried to wiggle him off while still trying to play the bass, and I started this wiggling and twisting but he wouldn’t get off. By then, Mike and the boys started looking at me, wondering what was wrong. I then tried turning my neck and blowing the bug off—I finally got him off. Well, Mike tells this thing up on the stage and some lady in the back hollers out, ‘I wish I was that bug.’ Everyone in the audience was laughing. After the show, I gave the lady a big hug.”
Tony hopes the new record contract with Pinecastle Records will get them more festival jobs. For the past two years Nothin’ Fancy has worked every Thursday night at Captain Sam’s Landing in Waynesboro, Va., where the manager, Michelle Laury, has worked at promoting the band. Due to more bookings, however, they have cut down to the last Thursday of every month.
Recently, Eddie Stubbs was interviewing Larry Stephenson and Ralph Stanley on WSM radio in Nashville. Stubbs asked Larry if there was any new talent out there he should be looking for Stephenson replied, “Yes, a group called Nothin’ Fancy.”
Tom West, a fan. promoter, and booking agent for the group has nothing but praise and high hopes for Nothin’ Fancy. “They have that tight harmony and throw in some of those classic standards like ‘Long Black Veil,’ and the crowd loves them.” West and Morris O’Shields, a stockbroker, and bluegrass promoter from Lexington, Va. were instrumental in getting Pinecastle’s Colonel Tom Riggs to listen and see the group perform at Sweet Briar College in Amherst, Va. O’Shields promoted and produced the first Nothin’ Fancy Bluegrass Festival at Glenn Maury Park on September 21-22 in Buena Vista. Va. “With a recording contract in their back pocket, good material, good picking and singing, and a gathering of new fans every where they go, Nothin’ Fancy, in my opinion, in the next year or so will be right up there with the best of bluegrass. As a stockbroker, the market has been down, but Nothin’ Fancy is headed for the top,” said O’Shields.
