Mountain Times Feature

Traveling the globe for musical inspiration
Durham’s Bombadil at Canyons of the Blue Ridge Friday

By Jeff Eason

 

Bombadil returns to the High Country this Friday with plenty of new songs from its upcoming album A Buzz, a Buzz.

Some bands have an international sound. Others embrace the regional music of their hometowns. Bombadil is a North Carolina-based band that manages to do both. Sometimes it will delve into the Piedmont blues of its hometown of Durham, while at other instances it will go on an international exploration of the music of Europe or South America.

Bombadil will return to the High Country for a concert at Canyons of the Blue Ridge in Blowing Rock on Friday, January 11th. The music starts around 10:30 p.m.

Bombadil includes Daniel Michalak, Bryan Rahija and Stuart Robinson. The band will release its first full-length album, A Buzz, a Buzz, on Ramseur Records this spring.

The band has its embryonic beginnings when Michalak and Rahija met for the first time in Bolivia. Both were smitten with the ballads, waltzes and dance music indigenous to the region and began writing songs that incorporated the style and instruments of the area.

Upon returning to the United States, the pair began to combine elements of Bolivian music with Piedmont blues and psychedelic rock. When Robinson brought his experience as a classically trained pianist to the table, Bombadil was born.

The band spent much of 2007 on the road playing in clubs and on college campuses. The result is an ever-growing fanbase that connects with the band’s unique musical expression. During any given song, at any given show, the guys from Bombadil are likely to play odd combinations of instruments such as xylophone, saxophone, charango, glockenspiel, recorder or zampona, in addition to the standard live music tools of guitars, keyboards and drums.

For more information on Friday’s show, call Canyons of the Blue Ridge at (828) 295-7661.