#matt flinner

[krispyweiss]

Namesake String Band Celebrates a “Kentucky Morning” on Darrell Scott’s Latest “It Must be Sunday” Offering

When a performance outshines the medium on which it’s captured, music makers and music lovers must sometimes sacrifice quality in one for quality in the other.

Such is the case with the Darrell Scott String Band’s Aug. 31, 2024, version of “Kentucky Morning” in Tennessee. Shot on a cell phone or small single camera, the recording suffers from muffled sound until Scott cuts into an acoustic-guitar solo after the first verse and things straighten out a bit.

Flanked by Shad Cobb on fiddle, Matt Flinner on mandolin and Bryn Davies on bass and harmony vocals, Scott tells the story of the rural narrator who gets a good-paying factory job in the city only to find that’s not the life for him.

Oh, your bright lights don’t shine like a Kentucky morning/you can’t hear a whippoorwill out on the street/give me a good piece of land and an old cane back rocker/while life goes on and on and on, Scott and Davies sing.

The quality of the recording is marginal. But the quality of the performance outweighs any negatives.

9/28/25

[krispyweiss]

It Must be Bluegrass, Joni Mitchell-style, for Darrell Scott’s “It Must be Sunday” Series

When Darrell Scott gets the urge for bluegrass, he convenes with fiddler Shad Cobb, bassist Bryn Davies and banjoist (and mandolinist) Matt Flinner under the auspices of the eponymous String Band.

It’s this group that features in Scott’s latest “It Must be Sunday” vault release as the quartet - with Scott on acoustic guitar and lead vocals - put a rural spin on Joni Mitchell’s balladic folk song “Urge for Going.”

DSSB’s arrangement is a dichotomous display with Mitchell’s melancholic lyrics wrapped in a revved-up melody that exudes joy. It’s almost as if Scott is telling the fans who gathered Sept. 24, 2022 at the Carolina in the Fall festival that even if they are dreading winter, they best find some pleasure in it, because, as Mitchell wrote and Scott sings:

I’d like to call back summertime and have her stay for just another month or so/but she’s got the urge for going so I guess she’ll have to go

Which might explain why Mitchell later pined for a frozen “River” upon which to skate away.

Read Sound Bites’ previous “It Must be Sunday” coverage here

12/8/24

[krispyweiss]

Darrell Scott Heads Toward Country with Old Cane Back Rocker

It sounds as if Darrell Scott is heading for the country - music, that is - with Old Cane Back Rocker.

Credited to the Darrell Scott String Band - with bassist Bryn Davies, fiddler Shad Cobb and Matt Flinner on banjo and mandolin - the forthcoming album does not have a release date. But three tracks - Scott’s own “Kentucky Morning” and “Charlie and Ruby” and a cover of Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Southern Cross” - streaming for a limited time on Scott’s website seem to indicate why this group is no longer called the Darrell Scott Bluegrass Band.

For while the bluegrass instrumentation has not changed, the musical output has. This is country music designed to get Scott the kind of mainstream attention that has mostly - quite unbelievably - eluded him. And in that regard fans can only hope it works; Scott deserves every success.

Then, when he lures more people to his gigs, he can hook them with the wide variety of music he does best, including some real bluegrass.

Hear the tracks here before they’re gone.

5/22/23

[krispyweiss]

It Must be Near St. Patrick’s Day

- “Danny Boy” is Darrell Scott’s latest “It Must be Sunday” offering

When music lands in that space between melancholic and mood-lifting, music is at its best.

Darrell Scott found the sweet spot Oct. 5, 2025, in Vermont with his instrumental arrangement of “Danny Boy,” out as the St. Patrick’s Day-minus-two edition of his ongoing “It Must be Sunday” video series.

Playing electric guitar and accompanied by Matt Flinner’s mandolin and John Mailander’s violin, Scott keeps things languid and tender as he and his compatriots hand off low-key solos smoothly with a glance.

This is a deliberate piece of music, each musician aware of his respective role in lead and support capacities and committed to threading the needle between a lump in the throat and a smile on the face. In more than 100 years, “Danny Boy” has never sounded quite like this; Scott in his genius has come up with an arrangement that deserves to be preserved and interpreted by others.

3/15/26

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: Darrell Scott - “Helen of Troy, Pennsylvania” (Live, 2019)

Maybe it’s true; maybe it’s not. But Darrell Scott’s story about “Helen of Troy, Pennsylvania” is a teenage boy’s fantasy come true.

Wildly inappropriate - and depending on the kids’ ages, potentially illegal - the tale of the high-school footballers’ afternoon with a divorced woman twice their age makes for a scintillating song.

Performing on a just-released video recorded at the 2019 Green Mountain Bluegrass and Roots Festival with banjoist Matt Flinner and standup bassist Bryn Davies, Scott, on acoustic guitar, punctuates the bluegrass instrumentation with funky measures and jamband sensibility to show off a small slice of his all-encompassing musical menu.

And it is simply a nibble, as Scott is preparing an album of Hank Williams covers, which he previewed with a low-down-and-dirty rendition of “My Sweet Love Ain’t Around” on New Year’s Day.

Grade card: Darrell Scott - “Helen of Troy, Pennsylvania” (Live, 2019) - A

1/20/20