Della Mae visits the Phillips Performing Arts Center in Gainesville
The Grammy-nominated bluegrass/Americana group Della Mae rarely gets to Florida, but we were fortunate enough that one of those shows was at UpStage at the Phillips Performing Arts Center on the University of Florida campus, and it sold out well in advance. The Center’s large auditorium can be transformed into a small venue where the audience is actually seated on the stage. I’ve been to several shows there, and it’s a great intimate venue and a great listening room.
Della Mae has been in existence for fifteen years, formed in part because members found it difficult to get gigs, so they decided to put together an all-woman band. While there have been some personnel changes over the years, the current lineup of lead vocalist Celia Woodsmith, lead guitar player Avril Smith, and fiddler Kimber Ludiker have been the mainstays of the band since 2011. In 2020, two-time IBMA bass player of the year Vickie Vaughn joined them.
As their website states:
“Della Mae is a woman who pops up in a lot of bluegrass songs and who’s a victim of physical abuse—she done her man wrong, and now he’s gonna get her,” Ludiker explains. “From the beginning, this band has been about reclaiming her story and changing the conversation for women, especially those whose stories haven’t been told.”
Over the years, Della Mae have worked toward that goal by teaming up with the U.S. State Department, and traveling to over 30 countries in an effort to improve opportunities for women all across the globe. “Advocating for women’s rights is the backbone of this band, and we realized that adding public service work to our touring was an important way we could make a difference.”
Celia Woodsmith is one of the leading vocalists in roots music. I’ve heard her cover Jimi Hendrix, Tom Petty, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and Crosby, Stills and Nash without skipping a beat. She’s dynamic on stage and writes many of their songs, and her frequent duets with Vaughn and their three- and occasionally four-part harmonies are killer. Ludiker is a past national fiddle champion winner and has written some fine songs, and Smith is a fine flatpicker and vocalist as well.
Along with some other currently touring bluegrass-oriented groups like Twisted Pine and AJ Lee and Blue Summit, they are unusual in that they do not have a banjo player. That has not prevented them from becoming a highly sought-after festival band. They’ve released six studio albums, with a new one on the way from Compass Records that will be released in October.
Their set kicked off with a bouncy cover of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ “Dry Town.” Much of their set included some new, as-yet unreleased songs, including “My Own Highway”; Woodsmith’s song for her husband, “Best Thing That Happened Today was Nothing at All”; a great description of the challenges of genealogy, “Family Tree”; an ode to coincidence called “Magic Accident”; and an uptempo “Out Run ‘Em.”
The set also included some of their older songs, including “Boston Town,” an exposé of how women workers were mistreated in milltowns.
Oh, they said
What a waste of a pretty girl
To let the labor flag unfurl
I said
What more can you take from me
I own my hands and my dignity
So pass me a match and we’ll strike it on the ground
And we’ll head back down to Boston town
We can start a fire and they’ll never put it out
And we’ll head back down to Boston town
A great cover of “16 Tons” got the audience involved; I once saw them perform this with The War and Treaty, which was a memorable event. Vaughn, who has a great voice as well, took over lead vocals on Don Williams’ “Tulsa Time.” Another song that got the audience heavily involved was their cover of CSN’s “Ohio.” They closed with a great John Hartford song, “You Don’t Have to Do That.”
They are currently in the middle of a national tour, and I was glad to see they will be returning to Florida in the fall for the Suwannee Roots Revival Festival at Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park; they were scheduled to play this past fall, but the festival was canceled after a hurricane caused enormous damage to the park. This is an energetic and talented band, and if you get a chance to see them, don’t pass it up. You won’t be disappointed.
Della Mae
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