In a rare treat for his Irish devotees, Grammy winning dobro meister Jerry Douglas took to the stage on a balmy summer night in the beautiful harbour village of Dún Laoghaire, on the south side of Dublin. Long sold out, he was playing to a well informed audience, who fully appreciated the legend that was before them.
He kicked off with a medley of bluegrass tunes, followed by a short history of his instrument, also known as the resophonic guitar, which started out as ‘a louder way to play Hawaiian music’. One of his big influences was Josh Graves, who introduced the instrument to bluegrass in the 50s, and Jerry explained that his father exposed him to this music when he was ten or eleven, and he has been obsessed with it ever since. Following two very fast Uncle Josh tunes, he surprised us with another very different influence - while touring with Allison Krauss in 2006 he discovered the Tom Waits’ album, ORPHANS: Brawlers, Bawlers, & Bastards and fell in love with the tune ‘2:19’, which he played and sang for us. Not particularly known for his singing, he showed that he indeed has a good voice, but it’s only usually heard on his own Jerry Douglas Band albums. We were also treated to his vocals on a rousing version of the Hendrix’s covered song of freedom, Hey Joe, where he used loop pedals to good effect. We heard hilarious anecdotes about his first time visiting Ireland, brought to Clare by his friend Maura O’Connell, who was dating Béla Fleck in the 80s. This lead to introducing his first surprise guest, Donegal fiddle player Ciarán Tourish (Altan etc), who joined Jerry for a slow air followed by a livelier one. But that wasn’t the end of the surprises - to the great delight of the audience, he brought on none other than the legend himself, Paul Brady. More hilarious stories were followed by two Brady songs, Marriage made in Hollywood (covered by Jerry on Glide in 2008) and the much loved ballad Follow On.
Another beautiful long instrumental piece, Route Irish (which he performed on the Transatlantic Seessions, of which he is co-director) ran the gamut of darkly dramatic sequences, through to a relatively peaceful resolution. Joshua Burnside, the Belfast folkie who was also the opening act, came back to perform his song Louis Mercier, one which they had performed together on the 2023 Transatlantic Sessions.
For the inevitable encore and standing ovation, Jerry gave us his moving version of Dónal Lunny’s Tribute to Peadar O’Donnell, his self-penned Lil’ Roro, Duane Allman’s Little Martha and he closed with his tribute to his Transatlantic Sessions friend and co-director, Sir Aly Bain.
Fans will be talking about this gig for a long time.
Review and photo by Eilís Boland