Americana? Folk? Old-timey? Bluegrass? It’s all rock-n-roll to me

4 p.m. July 27, Lyons – It was an old-timey Americana  afternoon at Rockygrass although not a traditional one. “Old timey” is both the “country” music that preceded bluegrass and a genre that co-exists in that string band universe. The hypnotic clipclop of the clawhammer (versus the Scruggs-style five string) separates old-timey from bluegrass.

First up today was I Draw Slow, a jaw-dropping Irish band with an unmitigated reverence for Appalachian music inflected with the Celtic music that immigrants brought from the islands to the American south. It results in powerful original music with roots rock punch.

The second act was the Old-Time Kosmik Trio with fiddlers Bruce Molsky and Darol Anger and Rushad Eggleston, who is the only standup cellist we know of in any musical genre. Their twang-on-acid tunes  take the traditional and happily twist them through jazz, classical and a side of Bill Monroe.

Next up at Rockygrass: Sam Bush & Del McCoury, Carolina Chocolate Drops, and Jerry Douglas’ Earl of Leicester.

* Tickets to Rockygrass are sold out. Information: bluegrass.com. KGNU (88.5 FM, 1390 AM, kgnu.org) will air portions of Rockygrass 9 to 1 p.m. July 28. Highlights from the 2012 Rockygrass including Ralph Stanley, Punch Brothers and Infamous Stringdusters can be streamed at: kgnu.org/rockygrass.