Another Gray Area

Jerry Douglas wasn't the only hometown star performing last weekend

It started Friday at Warren Community Amphitheatre, as a nearly full house turned out despite the constant threat of rain to welcome home 12-time Grammy Award winner Jerry Douglas. The show was Douglas’ first Trumbull County gig in about 20 years, and the dobro master didn’t disappoint.

Backed by his equally capable band, Douglas dazzled with his intricate picking and beautiful melodies. He added a twang to progressive jazz with his cover of Weather Report’s “A Remark You Made.” “Glide,” which Douglas said would be the title track to his upcoming CD, had a gorgeous heartland melody that sounded like an Aaron Copland orchestral piece stripped down for a quintet. And there even were some vocals in the mostly instrumental concert with fiddle player Luke Bulla singing Johnny Cash’s “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town.”

Douglas seemed touched by the size of the crowd and the number of old friends and classmates who came out to see the 1974 LaBrae High School graduate. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait 20 years for a return appearance.

The next night I was at the Oakland Center for the Arts in Youngstown for a recital by the vocal students of Liz Rubino, who teaches my older daughter Anna. I promise this blog isn’t going to turn into the gushing of a proud father.

Any parent who has sat through a school concert or recital knows the usual drill. You anxiously wait for your kid to be on stage and then bide your time until they come back on stage or ponder how you can make a discreet exit now that they’re done. Instead, I spend the evening awe struck by the uniformly strong performances of about 20 area students ranging in age from 9 to 17.

Reading the bios of the students in the program, nearly every one of them dreams of being a star on Broadway, on “American Idol’’ or in the movies. The odds are against any of them getting that far. But celebrating the hometown roots of a musician at the top of his field like Jerry Douglas, seeing someone like Niles McKinley High School graduate Gary Lehman make his Metropolitan Opera debut, following the diverse acting career of Warren native Austin Pendleton and the film directing successes of Champion native Chris Columbus and Niles native Dominic Sena lets them know that it is possible.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if someday I’m following the careers of some of the kids I saw Saturday the way I chronicle the achievements of Douglas, Lehman, Pendleton, Columbus, Sena and many other hometown stars in the pages of Ticket.

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Dschweck
06-04-08 9:44 AM »Report Abuse	Should have been ADVERTISED more.There is more about the show after the fact in the Tribune and local news stations then,prior to the event.Promote the good more Tribune!

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