Red Molly and Tenbrooks


So, how does a late 20th century English-style ballad about death and motorcycles become the 2002 International Bluegrass Music Association Song of the Year?  This is how.  Dick Bowden, a friend of Del McCoury and his son. Ronnie McCoury, came across the song on a radio program in the New York City area, and passed the song on to a surprisingly willing group of interpreters in the form of the Del McCoury Band.





“1952 Vincent Black Lightning” performed by the Del McCoury Band (Spotify)


McCoury provides an account of his first encounter with the song in this interview on PRX (listen from about 28:45 to about 36:00).  In essence, Del said he liked it, picked the tempo and the key, and Ronnie worked up the arrangement.  The banjo arrangement is spot on, as far as I’m concerned, as a translation from RT’s signature fingerstyle guitar work.  I don’t mean that it’s a note for note copy, but is the right approach for bringing the song into the bluegrass genre.

The Del McCoury Band

What made the translation to bluegrass possible?  One factor was our heroine, Red Molly, which put Del and his associates in mind of “Molly and Tenbrooks.”  (This Punch Brothers performance is downright incandescent, so give it a listen.)  The other was the adaptability of “down to Box Hill” to “down to Knoxville.”  Voila! Folk process and “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” has joined its brethren in the ranks of American appropriations of British-based ballads. 


But, what made translation of that placename necessary?  It’s not entirely clear to me that it overrides the Britishness of the Vincent itself, or invites listeners to contemplate the paucity of cafes in the greater Knoxville area, at least those frequented by leather-wearing motorcycle enthusiasts.  Perhaps it was driven by place and the strong identification of the bluegrass genre and the American context, perhaps it was driven by the motorized modernity of the song.  


Nevertheless we have a new bluegrass standard.  I was amused by the anecdote narrated in the link above, where Bowden’s sister-in-law exclaims what wonders this will do for introducing Del McCoury’s music to new audiences.  Who succeeds in lifting whom out of obscurity is a matter of perspective, I suppose.

The Mammals

There are now more bluegrass and string band covers of “1952 VBL” than you can shake a stick at, but with no disrespect to the musicians, they mostly depend on the strength of Ronnie McCoury’s arrangement.  Although I can’t verify that the Del McCoury Band was the first bluegrass band to cover the song, I’m virtually certain that they were the most prominent bluegrass band to record it by 2002.  


You can now find examples by The Mammals, Acoustic Blue , the Bean Creek Bluegrass Band, Grizzly Peak, and High Range, to name but a very few.  You can do a YouTube search for “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” and “bluegrass” and get a range of professional and amateur efforts.  Since my main point is to lift up artists who have made a distinctive contribution to the song, I won’t go into an exhaustive list of the performances.


I will, however, single out for special mention these two young men, who provide a very effective duet arrangement in a session recorded at 2011’s Swannanoa Gathering.  These guys completely win me over.  I confess that I like their performance better than Del’s, and they definitely win the category of best performance by artists who are younger than the song (there’s another fine contender, perhaps in an upcoming post).  That’s normally a much more competitive category for us, but I still think they’d hold their own.  I don’t normally lift out performances that aren’t made at a concert or some public setting, but I think it’s worth making an exception in this case.  (I could make it in others.)  Ladies and gentlemen, I present Carson McKee and Josh Turner.






So, there’s our bluegrass review of Thompson’s masterpiece.  Knowing full well that bluegrass fans are a highly diverse lot, I will add that it gives me no small amount of pleasure to imagine that someday what will be seen as one of the most influential bluegrass songs of the early decades of this century will be one written by a folk-rocking British Muslim of Scottish descent, who lives in Los Angeles.


Lone Star

Reckless Kelly

To take a slight turn from bluegrass arrangements, the flagship performance of “1952 VBL” in the country genre for my money comes from the Americana/Texas Country band Reckless Kelly, who perform the song on their 2006 DVD release, Reckless Kelly Was Here.  It’s a credible band arrangement (perhaps proof that it can often take two very talented guitarists to take up the work of one Richard Thompson), with building intensity, and trades strongly on lead-singer Willie Braun’s delivery.  A good move, I think.






Next Up


A few more solo and ensemble renditions.  We’ll start with some of the first artists to cover the song, and then move to some artists who, like the Del McCoury Band and Reckless Kelly, have taken the ballad into some new genres.  After that, a focus on what this ballad just might have in common with “Matty Groves.”