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SALEM -- Dulci-More: Folk & Traditional Musicians will host Bare Bones at 7 p.m. Friday in the Meeting Room of the Dale Shaffer Research Library of the Salem Historical Society, 239 S. Lundy Ave. Parking is available in the municipal lot across Lundy. The building is handicapped accessible. Admission is $10 with an additional $5 covering all children in a family with a responsible adult.
Sometimes All You Need is Three Notes and a Beat.
No guitars. No piano. No drums. Just voices, wringing a remarkable amount of music out of three notes.
Great harmony and rhythm are hallmarks of Bare Bones.
Rebecca Kimmons is the lead singer, with a strong contralto voice that can deliver a powerful punch of emotion or amusement. Bill Kimmons, her husband, has a memorably deep, resonant bass voice that anchors their sound, and Dock Cutlip's supple tenor can reach high to falsetto, or down to baritone, to add whatever color notes are needed to express the moment.
"You sound like 10 people!" a kid in a Montessori school audience once exclaimed.
The three singers bring distinctly different musical influences to create their sound.
Rebecca has been a student of old-style Appalachian unaccompanied singing since she was a child, listening to her Summers County-born grandmother sing in the manner of the Primitive Baptists. If you visit the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, you can hear the same singing style today in their churches.
Bill grew up singing in choirs and musicals, holding down such roles as Balthazar in Amahl and the Night Visitors, and Huckleby in The Fantastiks. He was introduced to old-time music when he came to West Virginia in 1977.
Dock Cutlip grew up in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, singing with his family and steeped in old-time gospel harmonies. Thanks to curiosity and his mother's short-wave radio, Dock also has a broad range of knowledge and appreciation of American pop music traditions. He is an accomplished guitarist, finger-picking in open tuning. Dock joined Bare Bones as their tenor in September, 2021.
Bare Bones, with Becky and Bill as the core, has been performing in various configurations since 1981. The trio has performed on Mountain Stage, at Tamarack, at Charleston's FestivALL, at the Vandalia Gathering on the grounds of the State Capitol, and has taught harmony singing at Augusta Heritage Workshops' popular Vocal Week in Elkins, West Virginia, in several summer sessions over a 30-year period. They have produced five albums of music on CD, showcasing the broad range of songs in their repertoire, from the music of Blind Alfred Reed to Ry Cooder to The Golden Gate Jubilee, and on to Smokey Robinson and Natalie Merchant.
"All we need is good harmony potential and a beat, and we're off on an a cappella adventure," Rebecca says. "We like to think we strip a song down to its soul."
While in the area for the Dulci-More Concert, Bare Bones will also present a concert for Joshua Dixon Elementary School as part of Dulci-More Concerts for Schools sponsored by Dulci-More and Folknet.
Since its founding in January of 1993, Dulci-More has met twice a month to enjoy playing and singing. The group occasionally performs for festivals, fairs, schools, churches, clubs, nursing homes, and others. The group also presented its Dulci-More Festival for 25 years featuring national, international, regional, and local musicians. The Dulci-More Spring Concert Series will continue with a Mike Lenz on Friday March 22, Dave Haas on Saturday, April 20, and Sparky & Rhonda Rucker on Sunday, May 12.
No advance tickets or reservations are needed for the concert series. Free refreshments are available during the intermission. Everyone is welcome to attend. For more information or directions, contact Bill Schilling at 234-564-3852 or bill@dulcimore.org or check on the web at www.dulcimore.org for more information about the club.