Just over the crest of the hill, you see a plume of smoke escape. Instead of the low, familiar, chugging sound, however, you hear infectious music, a sound you haven’t heard before. Slowly Old School Freight Train comes into view—and begins to pick up steam.
The band, which is based in Charlottesville, has recently enjoyed some significant recognition. It’s self-titled debut CD, released in February by Courthouse Records, a division of Richmond’s Fieldcrest Music, was listed with 32 others as a potential nominee for Best Bluegrass Album by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. Unfortunately, when Grammy nominations were announced earlier this month, the band was left out.
In any case, “bluegrass” is far too limiting a label for Old School’s distinct sound. The band’s name implies a certain weight and steadiness, along with ties to the past, but with the exception of a few straightforward numbers, the music mostly breaks free of traditional bluegrass licks to encompass many influences, with jazz the most obvious. Several songs also have a distinctly Latin flavor, which adds a tinge of the exotic to familiar lyrics about far-away horizons and balls and chains.
Old School’s five members—Ann Marie Calhoun (fiddle/vocals), Peter Frostic (mandolin), Jesse Harper (guitar/vocals), Ben Krakauer (banjo) and Darrell Muller (bass/lead vocals)—got together in the fall of 2000. Each brings different interests and influences to the table.
“Pete and I were doing bluegrass before the band, and Darrell and Jesse were doing more jazz and funk, and Ann was doing classical stuff,” Krakauer, a UVA music major, says. “So each of us was coming from a different place, and then we all listened to each other’s stuff.”
The group paid their dues playing numerous live shows, mainly in the Richmond area, and soon opportunities began to open up. The group earned second place in the 2001 Telluride Bluegrass Festival Competition, and in 2002 they opened for well-known bluegrass artists like Lynn Morris and the Lonesome River Band. Before long, they decided to take their sound to the studio.
The album is not perfect—Muller’s vocals are serviceable, but his voice is not particularly strong or distinctive, and some of the instrumentals go on too long—but it is a rewarding and interesting first effort.
Krakauer admits that the band feels “really good” about only half of the songs on the first album, saying that in some ways Old School Freight Train was still finding its identity as a band.
“We might like the other ones, but you listen to some of the stuff and we hadn’t totally realized where we were going,” he says. “I think on the next project we want every single song to be totally representative of what we’re trying to do.”
Krakauer says the group already has six or seven new songs for the next release, with seven or eight more to go. He described a songwriting process that is wholly collaborative.
“Any of us can write tunes,” he says. “If you write a tune, you have it and arrange it, and maybe you write parts for other people and maybe not, and then you bring it in and everybody else takes it apart. So it’s like a rough draft, and once we get it into the group it’s like a democratic process.”
Although they missed out on a Grammy this time, the band feels motivated to ride this train much farther. Krakauer says the band has an audition for a record label in Nashville in March (a label he declined to mention, for fear of jinxing it), and is looking forward to taking their show on the road.
“If anything, it’s motivated us that we can make it work,” he says. “I’m graduating this year, and we’re all hoping to be able to travel around and play a lot. It’s a lot more fun to play when people are coming out to hear you than at some bar where you’re just part of the scene, you know? That’s really exciting.”
Old School Freight Train will perform as part of the Mid-Winter New Grass Festival at The Prism on Saturday, January 18. See our music listings for details.