Washington D.C.-based roots band Junior League, which plays a contemporary indie brand of bluegrass, country and acoustic blues, has a new disc out. So, other than the fact that the hard-working group makes great music, why do we care?
Well, because Milwaukee's Elias Cohn plays guitar for this group with wide-ranging geographic origins.
"I think the way Junior League grew up would make for a fascinating sociological study in itself," says Cohn. "We are based out of D.C., but the current members are from Atlanta, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Baltimore."
Cohn says the group was started by the core of the current band and everyone else found Junior League at D.C. jam sessions and via Craig's List.
"We all share a love for bluegrass and old-time music but all came to the band with experience performing a number of other genres including R&B, jazz, indie rock, hip-hop -- and I think Rob has even been in a couple of metal bands.
"The band took off from there around Lissy's vision. She (singer and banjo player Lissy Rosemont) has been downright tenacious about getting gigs and media attention and has used a combination of old-fashioned Southern charm and Internet savvy to build a following and relationships with all kinds of important people."
Cohn, who grew up in Shorewood with a dad that loves to play fingerstyle guitar, went to college in Colorado and has spent time in Israel, Ecuador, Brazil and Europe. After college he took a job with a foreign policy think tank. So, how did he end up playing guitar in a bluegrass band that spent much of the autumn touring small clubs around the country?
"I came on with Junior League this past June," says Cohn, noting that Junior League's harmonica player Martin Thomas was his landlord and housemate.
"He would throw jam sessions that always ended with 15 or 20 people packed into our living room picking fiddle tunes and drunkenly crooning Hank Williams songs until well after bar time. That's where I met Lissy and Dale (Manning, mandolinist) and heard about Junior League and started making overtures. They were able to resist me for a while but eventually they needed a new guitarist and succumbed to my advances. The next thing I knew, I was in Brooklyn busking on a street corner and they haven't been able to get rid of me since."
Using a little known NPR "extramural" benefit that allowed non-NPR employees to record in the network's facilities, Rosemont brought the band and a clutch of tunes into NPR's Studio 4A in Washington D.C. The result was the 14-song "Oh Dear," recorded before Cohn joined the group.
"Rob Byers, a dear friend and a well known audio engineer in the D.C. area and on numerous syndicated NPR shows, tracked the record," recalls Rosemont. "Most takes were individually tracked, except the bluegrass/fiddle tunes where we recorded the song live all centered around one mic. Johnny Vince Evans, also a famous Washingtonian audio engineer (mixed the disc) ... well-known folk audio engineer Dave Glasser mastered our record."
Those are certainly influential names, but for Cohn, a lot of influence came from his dad, Michael, a Milwaukee attorney with a passion for music and wicked guitar skills about which he rarely boasts.
"My dad's music had a huge influence on me growing up," says Cohn. "From as young as I can remember I watched Monday Night Football and fell asleep at night listening to him play old Delta Blues stuff like Reverend Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt and more contemporary artists by like Duck Baker, Eric Lugosch and Leo Kottke.
"I listen to and have played a lot of different kinds of music but I realized a few years ago that my instincts and sensibilities always seem to bring me back to that dirty southern roots stuff. Junior League leans more towards bluegrass than what I had been playing previously but if you really listen to the record you can hear all kinds of roots influences -- blues, soul, a little Nashville, a little New Orleans. It has been the perfect opportunity to go back to what comes naturally to me and expand on it."
Although Junior League's post-"Oh Dear" tour landed everywhere from Brooklyn to Seattle, Nashville to San Francisco, the group has yet to play Cohn's home town. But, don't worry, he promises we'll get a chance to see JL in action.
"We're working on it. I'm hoping we can still get into Summerfest or some of the other summer festivals near the lake. The East Coast is alright but it is hard to get a descent chocolate malt around here."
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
