Jerry Douglas – The Duke Of Dobro

By John Voket

Jerry Douglas is blessed with the kind of celebrity that allows him to glide into a crowded room without much notice. But it may be a bigger tribute to his talent when folks brought to his concerts — those with no real interest in Douglas’ unique brand of music — leave the show weighted down with CDs and a newfound admiration for this duke of the Dobro.

Douglas, who was elevated to marquee status thanks to his prolific work with Allison Krauss & Union Station, is also among the most widely utilized Dobro player on the session circuit. The uplifting twang of his instrument graces more than 2,000 musical projects, and countless other commercial recordings.

So chances are, when you hear a Dobro guitar anywhere from a Garth Brooks record to a new car commercial, it’s likely to be Jerry Douglas doing the playing. And if you have no clue about Jerry Douglas or the Dobro guitar, a quick perusal of some of his videos online showcasing his easy smile and effortless but complex manipulation of this metal plated, upside-down guitar will captivate even the most peripheral of music fans.

According to his bio, Douglas started his professional career when he was 16. The son of a steelworker living in Warren, Ohio, he started like so many others, playing his instrument of choice in bars.

He spent his early years developing an eclectic style of playing and composing for the Dobro and other subspecies of resonator and slide guitars. His most clearly audible source is bluegrass, the genre in which he started.

He has also seamlessly stitched elements of jazz, country, Indian sitars; Native American modal melodies; the sonata-allegro structures of classical music; Hawaiian music, Celtic, New Orleans, Dixieland’s brassiness, gospel; and the blues into his somewhat demure guitar case and applied them all liberally throughout his storied career.

He has played for or beside the likes of Ray Charles, James Taylor, Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Earl Scruggs and The Chieftains to name but a fraction. And to his credit, the 12-time Grammy winner has held his own when it comes to moving his own product, with his eleventh solo release, Glide, destined for the marketplace August 19.

During a chat with The Newtown Bee prior to a recent stop at the Ridgefield Playhouse, Douglas said growing up, he was influenced as much listening to the likes of Scruggs and other great bluegrass artists, as well as The Beatles, The Stones, and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

“This stuff all slammed together and that’s what I am,” he said. “I was listening to radio stations out of Cleveland that were heavy rock stations, and waking up to my mom and dad playing [Lester] Flatt and Scruggs – the pioneers – every morning. Not every kid in my neighborhood was doin’ that.”

Douglas said he loved making Glide, but he’s even more excited that he can listen to it again and again, now that it’s mastered and ready for release.

“If I can sit down once it’s done and listen to it and not cringe, everything is gonna be alright,” he said.

He said he set down to create his new album like making a movie.

“I set down and write a select group of songs,” Douglas said. “I write this stuff and I find the place for them – I cast the songs for the record.”

While Glide features a Rodney Crowell ballad, “A Long Hard Road,” which Douglas said was among the songs he “cast” in the pre-production process, after he completed the sessions, he felt he was still missing one important piece.

Enter long-time friend and collaborator Travis Tritt.

“I got to the end of the record and I said ‘I’m not finished, I need something else.’ So one day I was driving along and turned on the radio and ran onto a country station somewhere in Alabama, and this Travis Tritt song comes on that I played on,” Douglas said. “And it was a revelation – we had such a great track record of hits together. And at the same time this song, ‘A Marriage Made In Hollywood,’ went through my head.”

Douglas said he called Tritt and told him he had a song if the country crooner was willing to come and play.

“He just breezed in one day, my band and I cut the track live in one day with him singin’ along and, BAM, we had a hit. That kind of thing don’t happen in the music business very much anymore,” Douglas said.

Another highpoint on Glide is a number, “Route Irish,” which conjures up images of America’s soldiers cruising the route by that name between the Baghdad airport and the Green Zone in Iraq.

While the release of a new album may be as exciting as it gets for many music industry professionals, that occurrence is dwarfed by the honor Douglas received just a few weeks ago when he was named an Artist in Residence at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum with four appearances scheduled through September 30.

The opening show, set for August 19 – the day that Glide is released – will feature a celebrity packed showcase celebrating Douglas’ latest release.

“The first show is the album release party,” Douglas said. “Lloyd Green will be there, Travis and Rodney will be there. It will be a live version of the new album.”