Metro Pulse/Music/Donna the Buffalo

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What:
Donna the Buffalo

When:
Friday, Oct. 19 at 9 p.m.

Where:
Blue Cats

Cost:
$10/$12

Donna the Buffalo brings the Americana sound

by Clint Casey

Roots-rockers Donna the Buffalo have worked to create a sound all their own. No single genre shines through, and very few are left out of the mix. Influenced more by styles than artists, the upstate New York group fashions rock, bluegrass, folk and reggae into a rollicking Americana blend.

Guitarist and vocalist Jeb Puryear explains, "All of us started playing old time music and I started when I was a kid. We just kind of had a community where we played music together a lot, and then when we started playing different kinds of music we kept playing with the same people. It has a lot of different influences, but you wouldn't be able to pick one. It's kind of a natural. Whatever we've heard just kind of winds up in there somehow."

The group's line-up includes Jeb Puryear, Tara Nevins (fiddle, accordion, vocals), Jim Miller (guitar), Richard Stearns (keyboards), Tom Gilbert (drums), and Jed Greenberg (bass). With lyrics that range from profound to goofy, the primary singing and songwriting responsibilities are shared by Puryear and Nevins. Although endearing, Puryear's vocals sound slightly nasal, if not scratchy. Nevins' soaring soprano, however, is a charming, woozy blend of Iris Dement and Lucinda Williams.

If you can believe it, the name was conceived while the band was brainstorming over whiskey. Someone suggested the solemn-sounding "Dawn of the Buffalo." The suggestion was misheard as "Donna the Buffalo," and the result is a playful testament to the band's charismatic sound.

They bask in a cult following of disciples dubbed the "Herd," akin to the fanbase commanded by the Grateful Dead. Puryear mentions that "people use it as an excuse to go to different places. It's a good excuse to hit the road." Run a search on the Internet, and you'll be greeted with hundreds of fan sites that meticulously, if not obsessively, archive setlists and pictures and afford the Herd an avenue to trade bootleg copies of its namesake's shows.

The six-member band takes every opportunity to spread their groove-oriented folk-rock, playing over 100 shows in a given year. Traveling the country in a classic 1961 tour bus (think Almost Famous), Donna the Buffalo thrive on performance.

"If there's a good crowd and things are happening, the best kind of live show just all turns into one big party, and then you're just at the party along with everyone else," Puryear suggests.

Playing festivals North to South, East to West, they host and headline the Finger Lakes Grassroots Festival staged every summer in Trumansburg, N.Y. The four-day event benefits arts, education and AIDS programs in upstate New York. Sharing the stage with such like-minded artists as Blues Traveler, King Sunny Ade and Burning Spear, the band is well respected within its musical community.

Though the music does go on an occasional tangent, Puryear winces at a jam-band comparison. The songs are message-oriented, and the format is a little more traditional. "It makes it a little different than the straight jam-band thing where you just have 30 minutes of guitar riffing. We do a little of that, but not a whole lot. It's just song after song and get the whole thing rockin'," Puryear explains.

After a brief stay on Sugar Hill Records, the group is enjoying the freedom associated with releasing and owning rights to albums on their Wildlife Music label. "We decided to go and do our own thing. We have a lot of people around that have the energy to do it. Nobody is as motivated to do it the way you want to do it as yourself," Puryear says. "Sugar Hill was great. We felt like we needed to do something energetic on our own."

And like a 16-year-old with a shiny, new driver's license, they have yet to waste a second of their newfound freedom, releasing both the 2-CD Live from the American Ballroom and the video documentary On the Bus this year. Live from the American Ballroom was recorded at different New York venues and captures the band's stage presence and energy in its upstate element. The release is an upbeat sampling of tracks recorded during their Spring 2001 tour. On the Bus, however, is a dizzying compilation of band interviews and performance clips that makes Dramamine necessary. (Think Blair Witch Project with fiddles.)

Since 1987, Donna the Buffalo has steadily evolved from a group of friends playing living rooms to a full-fledged touring phenomenon. On the heels of the recently released Live from the American Ballroom, Donna the Buffalo roams the Knoxville Old City Friday night. I don't know if I am quite ready to wax Bohemian and enlist in the Herd, but I'm willing to give the group a chance to try to convert me.