Jerry Douglas has been playing Dobro since he was a child in eastern Ohio. In 1971, at age 15, he became a regular member of his father’s bluegrass band, and two years later joined a leading “newgrass” revivalist outfit, the Country Gentlemen. Since then he’s worked with a long list of roots-music stars, including J.D. Crowe, Ricky Skaggs, Earl Scruggs, and Alison Krauss; he’s also released critically acclaimed albums under his own name on MCA, Rounder, and Sugar Hill, establishing a distinctive combination of harmonically daring playing and solid folk structures. And as if that weren’t enough, he’s also one of the most in-demand producers on the new-trad country scene, with clients such as Tim O’Brien, the Nashville Bluegrass Band, and Del McCoury. He even had a role in the O Brother, Where Art Thou? phenomenon: he helped recruit artists for the film’s best-selling sound track, performed on three of its cuts, and traveled with the subsequent Down From the Mountain tour. Despite all this, though, he still doesn’t have much mainstream recognition–perhaps in part because he doesn’t sing–and this summer he’s touring to support a disc of his own, Lookout for Hope (Sugar Hill), doubtless with an eye toward raising his profile. On “The Wild Rumpus,” Douglas’s contrapuntal lead line tumbles all over itself in a tone that’s the slide-guitar equivalent of a hillbilly drawl; his melodies sound country fried too, but his subtle, dexterous shifts in meter and timbre give his playing an urbane sophistication. “Patrick Meets the Brickbats” showcases his stuttering, rapid-fire bluegrass picking, which he intensifies with a pitch-warping shimmer that evokes both the so-called blue note and the tonal play of electric rock guitar. The title tune, a Bill Frisell composition, opens with a series of percussive chords chopped off so crisply it’s almost hard to pick out the notes; Douglas then unravels them into shape-shifting single-string slide lines that wend slowly upward. And “The Sinking Ship” earns its title with vivid sonic imagery: a bass drum pounds portentously in the background, like struggling turbines in a flooded engine room; Douglas’s leads quiver and undulate like waves; and his serpentine, caterwauling free-form solo toward the song’s end sounds like the captain’s last desperate soliloquy as the waters close in. Sunday, June 2, 4 and 7 PM, Old Town School of Folk Music, 4544 N. Lincoln; 773-728-6000.
