Mettle Over Metal

Blevins was spending his teens tapping and torturing a pilfered guitar in a heavy-metal band. So hell was where he was headed, at least if Paul Westerberg of The Replacements was to be believed -- a leap of faith that admittedly was an iffy proposition.

Westerberg loathed heavy-metal guitarists and their two-handed note-tapping -- it has been described as being like two drunk spiders mating on a guitar neck. Hence, his pronouncement/prediction: "Any guitarist who puts his right hand on the neck of a guitar, except for Johnny Cash, is going to hell."

Granted, Westerberg, a serial miscreant, was no preacher. But he did know a thing or two about hell.

Why take chances? Blevins didn't really like heavy metal. He just wanted to be in a band. Perhaps it was time to stop trying to play those finger-tangling flurries of notes that made the tube-topped girls scream.

"I am," he said, "a sensible guy. And I love Johnny Cash."

Blevins found he liked the intimacy of a warm melody. He began to be drawn to singers who sounded as if they were singing to him. And he enjoyed writing poetry -- about feelings and real people, not about Norse gods or girls of questionable character. He also couldn't help but notice that when he heard songs by Cash, John Prine, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, even The Judds, the music stirred his soul.

So he put down the electric guitar, picked up an acoustic, and learned to fingerpick. It was a natural fit.

"It's the new cliche, but one day I heard (alt-country darling) Ryan Adams, and it suddenly hit me -- I can do that," Blevins recently said. "He was putting poetic lyrics to music I could relate to -- and more importantly, that I could play."

At 23, Blevins started writing songs and found he was good at it. It became an obsession.

"I became determined that I would write 100 songs by the time I was 30." He laughed at the notion, easy and friendly. "Well, I'm 30. I've only written between 26 and 29 songs -- and that's including the bad ones."

Forget the bad ones. Many of the good ones -- and they are real good ones -- make up the lion's share of Heirloom, the debut CD by Old Stone Revue, one of Winston-Salem's most engaging groups. Blevins, who plays acoustic guitar, is one the quintet's three singers and songwriters, the others being Brandon Knox, who also plays harmonica, and electric guitarist Chris Lord. Bassist John Holder and drummer Adam Moses round out the band.

Blevins said that the band formed on New Year's Day, 2006. The various players, singers and songwriters had informally met some time before, and they had discovered common artistic and musical ground. "We decided that we would meet New Year's Day at a certain place, and whoever showed up would be the band," Blevins said. "It sounds crazy, but I just believed it would be right.

"They showed up, and we had a band."

Bass players and drummers came and went, but Blevins, Knox and Lord coalesced into a solid creative core, with Blevins' more reflective and gentle material offsetting Knox's grittier voice and more rollicking sensibilities. The band's harmony-laden music is contagious, good-time fare, smartly written and performed with a pronounced rustic edge that recalls elements of the Dirt Band, Pure Prairie League or, in an odd coincidence, Blue Rodeo, a popular Canadian roots band that Blevins has never heard.

Live, the band draws in crowds through Blevins' natural charisma, and through an appealing, wholly approachable style of playing that is at once relaxed and intense, loose-limbed and casually tight. The band's sound reflects the salt-of-the-earth vibe exuded by the band members, all of whom are happy and comfortable in what they do. Nothing sounds forced, nothing seems contrived. It's good songs played by good people.

"We started out with the idea of playing under the huge umbrella of Americana," Blevins said. "The only thing I knew was that there would be acoustic guitar, because I played acoustic guitar. There are elements of traditional music, but it's not traditional music. There are elements of country music, but it's not country music. I guess its really Southern music, in a geographical sense, in that it reflects a variety of Southern musical traditions and values.

"I love The Band, and while we don't sound like The Band, I do think that we share a common quality -- that we can't really be defined or pigeonholed."

Heirloom was recorded at Ovation Sound, one of Winston-Salem's best new studios. The disc was produced by Bill Stevens, who had nothing but praise for the band's professionalism, abilities and positive approach to making music

"Old Stone was probably the most prepared band we have had come in," Stevens said. "They had the songs down when they arrived, but they were open to the creativity that comes when you are recording songs that have been perfected playing clubs. They didn't want to reproduce the live show so much as to make a record of how these songs could sound in the studio."

Blevins laughed when told of Stevens' appraisal. "We had played Winston-Salem to death, and we had gotten nowhere but on people's nerves," he said, joking. "We went in wanting to capture the live sound, and I think we did that -- and more.

"Now we have to sound like the album, which is a good problem to have."

Key to the album's artistry is Blevins' songwriting. He has the rare gift of giving value to the commonplace, creating easy-flowing lyrics that work on various layers. As a result, his songs can touch everyone on some level. It takes no stretch to understand the values and personality that Blevins attaches to his songs.

He never sounds sanctimonious, and he elevates the mood of anyone with whom he comes into contact.

"It is gratifying when people connect with what we do," Blevins said. "It's especially nice in that we really didn't come to it with any great plan. Old Stone is just a reflection of who we are"

He laughed. "We didn't intend to do it. It just came up and fell in our lives."

If you go

Old Stone Revue will perform at 10 p.m. Friday at The Garage. Hot Politics and Slow Gun Showcase will open the show. Admission is $7. Visit www.the-garage.ws or call 777-1127.