"A Touch of Grey" Follows the Malpass Brothers | Eastern North Carolina Now

As Remembered to us by the Grateful Dead, and now the Malpass Brothers

    I have attended two free shows at the Turnage Theater recently - a few months ago where about 30 folks attended a free show, and then just recently where a couple of tickets were extended to me to experience the Malpass Brothers. It's not that I only attend free shows; it's just that the free bargain is how I found out about the shows, and if free is the Turnage's big draw, their best promotion idea, then I'll take advantage of it every time unless I am not pressed to complete a project.

    Saturday night, March 28th, 2015, with no project imminent, my date was with my wife and the Malpass Brothers, and to my great surprise that night, the Turnage Theater was full of people, gray haired folks ... even more so than me. By comparison, my wife and I probably appeared like the relative 'spring chickens' in the great hall, and I don't experience that often anymore. Did all of these folks get free tickets? How did they find find out about the show outside of the Beaufort County Arts Council's long standing closed loop promotion policy?
Father Malpass (left) on bass, and Chris Malpass (right) on accoustic guitar: Above.    photo by Stan Deatherage     Click image to expand.
    It did not take long before I got my answer as to how and why these gleeful gray haired fans were here to be the primary audience to these young Country coiffured purveyors of a melodic motif long since exited from the stage of today's more common auditory art.
The Malpass Brothers - Chris (left), Taylor (right) on electric guitar: Above.    photo by Stan Deatherage     Click image to expand.
    First, these folks bought their tickets as were the ones given to me, and simply by the generosity of others I was in attendance. Furthermore to better explain the large crowd of these great haired Country and Western aficionados, the answer quickly came to my attention, when Chris Malpass asked: "How many of you Folks ever have come to our shows?" The room was full of enthusiastic hands raised. And then it came to me: These folks follow the Malpass Brothers not unlike those that follow the Grateful Dead. Like that grand experience of mass migration toward a musical experience, these Malpass Groupies would have traveled anywhere regionally to see their musical heroes, and they know where and when they are playing, regardless of any closed loop promotion policy.
Johnny Ridge scoured the fiddle fret to bring forth some masterful notes - hot and fast: Above.    photo by Stan Deatherage     Click image to expand.
    These folks were here to experience those Country and Western standards that they have long loved, and enthusiastically, they did applaud songs by the likes of: Hank Snow, George Jones, Hank Williams Sr., Marty Robbins and Merle Haggard, who both Chris and Taylor Malpass are reported to have toured with. I was a little surprised to not see these Grayheads, like the Deadheads, doing a wild dance in the isles, but, still, their enthusiasm for the Malpass Brothers was notable.

    Lloyd Taylor from the Chocowinity area, an attendee of this show who did restrain himself from dancing in the Turnage Isles, explained his experience with the Malpass Brothers as: 'The Malpass boys, Chris and Taylor, are some fine young men. They play music that I like, they tell funny stories. I have known Chris and Taylor since they were teenagers, when they played for an event I organized. They are good boys'.
Chris Malpass (left), Johnny Ridge (center) on acoustic guitar, and Taylor Malpass (right) on mandolin tries some Bluegrass on a responsive crowd: Above.    photo by Stan Deatherage     Click image to expand.
    As per Lloyd's assessment, the sum of these young men communicates viscerally to older folks, many who literally came from the Land, the dirt that sustained them and comprises the core of their essential values. Accordingly, these Country and Western troubadours express the values that is the sum of their music which well documents lives well lived.

    These Country and Western troubadours hail from eastern North Carolina, Wayne County, and are not only the creators of fine melody, but are the ad hoc leaders of a local movement of folks; a group who are as comfortable watching early Andy Griffith reruns as they would be in helping your young daughter change a busted tire along the side of a dark country road. Moreover, these Malpass Brothers's faithfully represent a world that is growing increasingly diminished, yet remains a sociological construct that has long been the fundamental backbone of our Republic. Predominately, these are the Americans that grow our food, repair our cars, fight in our wars, and sacrifice for the freedoms that so many now take for granted.
Chris Malpass (left) on acoustic guitar, and Taylor Malpass (right) on mandolin: Above.    photo by Stan Deatherage     Click image to expand.
    Alternatively, on this night in Beaufort County, the Malpass Brothers were not taken for granted, and as a holder of a complimentary ticket, I was treated to a fine show of Country Western and Rock-a-Billy renditions spanning through the periods of 1940's through the 1980's; Marty Robbins's Cowboy Ballads extending to Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley.

    For the Grayheads, the show was spectacular. For this former Deadhead, I was remarkably impressed, and would consider attending another show, buying my own ticket next time, should the Beaufort County Arts Council see fit to alert folks like me of such.