Hogtown Opry Returns to Gainesville
The brainchild of Gainesville entrepreneur Bill Killeen, Hogtown Opry returned to the University Auditorium on the University of Florida’s campus. As the house band this year, Patchwork opened the night with an original song, “My Heart Belongs to Florida,” and followed it up with a great set, covering traditional gems such as “Gold Watch and Chain,” “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “Roses in the Snow,” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing.” Missing their scheduled fiddler because of illness, Robert Bowlin filled in on a few numbers.
Wil Maring and Robert Bowlin have been playing together for over a decade. Maring is one of the best songwriters anywhere and a vocalist with tremendous range and emotion, as well as being a renowned artist. Robert Bowlin has been a national guitar champion in both fingerstyle and flatpicking and has another unique historical accomplishment: he was Bill Monroe’s last fiddle player. They are the kind of performers that may not garner national headlines, but almost any musician will be aware of their work, and that’s high praise.
Their duo set just happened to include a few of my favorites, including Tom T. Hall’s “That’s How I Got to Memphis” and a beautiful arrangement of “Eight More Miles to Louisville.” Robert pulled out the early 1910 song “Shine,” which has been recorded by everyone from Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald to Dooley Wilson in Casablanca. Maring’s original “Grandmother’s Garden” was combined with a show-stopping version of “Oh What a Beautiful Morning.” They closed their set with another of Maring’s masterful songs, “I Am the Keeper of the Farm.”
After a short break, they were back on stage as The Music City Ramblers, with two well-known Nashville players. Forrest O’Connor has literally been playing since he was a toddler, in part thanks to his dad, the legendary Mark O’Connor. He’s recorded with an amazing list of performers including Paul Simon, Kenny Loggins, Emmylou Harris, Bela Fleck, and Zac Brown. His family band won a Grammy for their album Coming Home, and O’Connor sang a fine version of that song.
Shad Cobb grew up in Wisconsin but moved to Nashville in the mid-90s and rapidly became a sought-after session player and songwriter who has recorded with the Osborne Brothers, Steve Earle and Willie Nelson.  Along with his fine fiddle support (and banjo on one song), Cobb sang several songs, including “Monday Morning Blues” and “No Money.”
Bowlin played an original instrumental, named after a Gainesville landmark, “Payne’s Prairie Sunrise,” and took the lead on “The Sheik of Araby.” Cobb and Bowlin broke out twin fiddles for the old number “Tallahassee.” A really creative and heartfelt arrangement of the Jimmy Martin traditional bluegrass song “Sunny Side of the Mountain” was brilliant. Maring decided to write lyrics for the traditional fiddle tune “St. Anne’s Reel,” and the vocal led into a wonderful back-and-forth jam with fiddle, mandolin, and Bowlin’s fluid flatpicking.
She also played “Bottomlands,” a song about her home in Southern Illinois, that won the Merlefest songwriting competition several years ago.
It was a fine night of music. With forays into bluegrass, swing, Americana, and folk, it was a genre-defying night of great acoustic music for an appreciative and enthusiastic audience. The next Hogtown Opry is scheduled for August 3rd and will feature the Queen of Bluegrass, Rhonda Vincent.
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