Last night at a packed house at the Dahmen Barn, I got a preview of the concert Co-op patrons will enjoy – or have already enjoyed by the time they read this – on Tuesday November 11. Forgotten Freight, a five piece bluegrass band firmly stuck together by Tim Kinkeade of Moscow, has a focus on fun and fine vocals. In traditional bluegrass style, their music is the kind that is passed around at campgrounds, churches, and living rooms, such as the one where the members of this band gather twice a week to rehearse. As your intrepid and fortunate Co-op listener, I recently had the chance to drop in on one of these rehearsals and get acquainted with the members of Forgotten Freight. In a preview of the preview, I was kindly invited by Tim to be present at the band’s rehearsal on Oct. 12, the day after their performance at the Latah Trail fundraiser.

From my musical anthropological perspective, Tim Kinkeade is the leader of this group of happy-fingered pluckers. He sings, plays guitar, and writes some of the group’s songs. Tim met banjo player Lenny Johnson in church and persuaded him to get together for secular musical pursuits. Lenny is a retired UI forester who has been playing since high school, when he bought his first banjo at Sears and Roebuck. Susan Firor on bass, like many others in the band, is from a musical family and never took formal lessons. She grew up playing the guitar and switched to bass when she cut her finger, an act of fate to which she attributes her unique two-fingered style. J. D. Wulfhorst plays dobro and endures Tim’s jabs about being gone for a year in Costa Rica. The youngest member of the band is Stuart Osborne, a former student of Mabel Vogt with loads of talent on fiddle and guitar. For the most part these are self-taught musicians in the traditional style, where songs and licks are passed around at family and communal gatherings. Band members trade off singing and harmonizing, sharing a single mike at rehearsal in an intimate and egalitarian style. The package is a relaxing, back porch style of music that is fun and very accessible.

The band does a little bit of gospel, a lot of traditional numbers, contemporary country covers, some Hank Williams tunes, and just about any song that the band likes, including a few which are “folked-up.” They have been together for a few years with previous names such as “Hard to Please,” and “Rattlesnake Pie.” Thanks go out to Dan Maher for preferring their current name! Forgotten Freighters enjoy poking fun at themselves and at Tim, well, mostly at Tim, for dumb band names and dumb ideas, such as “Everybody has to wear a white shirt.” This suggestion by Tim was soundly rejected by all the other musicians at rehearsal. I gather too that there is a history of debate about the band’s reliance on a music stand, shared just like the microphone, which helps Forgotten Freight to avoid forgotten lyrics.

I did notice that all the band members except Susan wore cowboy hats at their Dahmen band performance. And the same type of playful banter that I witnessed at rehearsal was used in concert to leverage the evening’s entertainment. The band has a spontaneous style that engages the audience, and by rotating soloists and leads they present a lot of texture. I particularly enjoyed Tim’s original song, a rather dark murder ballad, as well as a traditional song about sitting on top of the world featuring J. D. on vocals. Watching and listening to Forgotten Freight as they encircle the mike to blend country-twanged vocals, expressing songs of joy, sorrow, love, all that good stuff, it is easy to see how the band members have grown to be such good friends.

The band does not yet have a CD, and members shrug modestly when asked when to expect one. So in order to sample the picking, strumming and singing of Forgotten Freight, you will have to settle for something even better – a live performance at the Co-op on Tuesday, November 11, from 6-8 p.m. Happy Listening!