Brownwyn Keith-Hynes
Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge
Nashville, TN
Jan. 8, 2024
As I walked in the door, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes was stepping off the mic after taking a solo and handing it off to bandmate Reed Stutz, wearing a blue jumpsuit appropriate for space travel. The perma-Christmas lights, party streamers, and ’70s wallpaper were all geared up for a night of bluegrass.
Fiddler Bronwyn Keith-Hynes spent the better part of last year touring in bluegrass star Molly Tuttle’s band, but for the month of January, she can be found every Monday at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge with her band of local heavy hitters and surprise guests. This past Monday was the first installment of the residency, and it kicked off with over two hours of ripping fiddle tunes, bluegrass standards, and her and her band members’ original songs.
Nothing is more Nashville than the January residency. Artists are at home for the touring “off-season,” and that means all of their hired guns are in town as well. It’s one of the best times of year to catch a good show in town because you can see some of the best at their craft in action, especially instrumentalists. More often than not, they’re experimenting with their own projects that have to take the back burner the rest of the year, so you can catch some one-of-a-kind shows.
Keith-Hynes’s first night of her residency was a perfect example of just that. The band was made up of six musicians who, like Keith-Hynes, spend most of the year touring with major bluegrass and country artists: Wes Corbett (banjo), often with Sam Bush Band; Reed Stutz (mandolin), with Bruce Molsky; Vickie Vaughn (bass), from Della Mae; and Frank Rische (guitar), of Jim Lauderdale’s band. The repertoire was comprised of music you probably won’t get the chance to hear very often. The fiddle tunes and songs they played from Keith-Hynes’s past and upcoming albums, for example, haven’t had much of an opportunity to get played live yet, and during the bluegrass standards, the band members flexed their respective chops and unique voices in their solos.
I’ll be honest, it’s a little hard to evaluate in great detail exactly what was happening from instrument to instrument during the show, mainly on guitar and banjo, because it was quite difficult to hear them in the mix at times, but the big picture was one of a very high level of musicianship and an exciting diversity among personal playing styles. Vickie Vaughn, who was recently named “Bass Player of the Year” by the Bluegrass Music Association, provided the rock-solid rhythmic backbone of the band with her energy and satisfying beat placement. Reed Stutz’s Monroe-style mandolin playing fit into her groove like a glove. The fiddles were a major highlight, as Keith-Hynes and this week’s guest, fiddler Jason Carter, got up to some of the best twin fiddling around. You could hear the joy they took in it during each tune they played together.
Keith-Hynes also shared a number of her original songs, and the ensemble did not shy away from three-part harmonies. Vaughn and Stutz’s harmony singing, steeped in the bluegrass tradition, provided another highlight, and anyone who stuck around for the second set was lucky enough to hear Carter sing a few, as well.
Dee’s Lounge is a staple of the local scene in Nashville. Almost every Nashville-based project passes through its doors at some point because of its role as a place to touch base with the community. The pressure is low because the listening is usually pretty light, and people are moving freely between conversation and tuning into the music. This can be frustrating if you are a Serious Listener, but you just have to know that that’s what you’re getting in advance and enjoy the social experience and opportunity to hear musical experiments. Dee’s accommodates residencies often, which is where you can really hear people branch out, as they pull in guests and stretch for material. The remainder of Bronwyn Keith-Hynes’s residency this month is sure to offer more such surprises and fiddling adventures.
