Jerry Douglas

continued

the player to execute a variety of slides and bends. The Dobro stands at the center of that 1930s confluence of country and blues from which rock 'n' roll emerged. Its sound is as quintessentially American as one can imagine, and Jerry Douglas is its modern master.

Douglas has appeared as a session musician on an enormous variety of recordings, both within the country field and beyond. Chances are, when you hear a Dobro, you're hearing Jerry Douglas. He is one of those musicians so attuned to others' aims that he can seamlessly incorporate his own playing into widely varying projects — the coolly eclectic yet sentimental albums of Alison Krauss and the stone traditionalism of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? sound track, to name two recent examples.

Many musicians who excel in supporting roles lack the commanding quality for solo work, but Douglas has released nine albums, and he keeps getting more and more experimental. His current tour supports his latest, Lookout for Hope. The album, all acoustic with a small accompanying band, goes farther afield from Douglas's bluegrass roots than anything else he's ever done. It's a real tour de force — not because Douglas is terribly virtuosic (though he is in a few places) but because he seems to have reflected on the Dobro as an idea. Think of it as a study of why this mixture of Europe and Hawaii, of wood and metal, should have so insinuated itself into our culture.