Code Blue

What's it take to keep a bluegrass band thriving in Virginia's Tidewater, a region known more for beach music than banjos fiddles and guitars? The experts on the subject might be The Code Blue Bluegrass Band, which formed in 1995 and is still going strong. Part of the secret may be their broad catalog of songs.

"Down in this area, we found you have to kind of do that because it's not such a staunch, hard-edge bluegrass area," says Bud Finch, who sings, plays guitar, and does most of the emcee work in the band. "If we were from Kentucky, I don't know that we would get by with some of the stuff we do. They probably wouldn't want to hear 'My Girl' or something like that. But you have to set your music as to what the area calls for."

Code Blue is a seasoned bluegrass band with breakdowns and spirited fiddle tunes in its set. But it's also known for its tight harmonies, strong singing, and engaging stage presence.

"We feel our strength is in our arrangements and in our presentation," Finch explains. "We're able to relate to a crowd and connect with people. You have to put on a show. But I think it's got to be an honest show. It can't be conjured. An audience can read through that."

Other members of the band include E.T. Firth (mandolin, guitar, vocals), Mike Beaver (banjo, vocals), Paul Anderson (fiddle), and Bucky Beauchamp (bass, vocals). "Other than Bucky, who's been with us seven years now, we've all been together for the last 24 years," says Finch.

Learning how to relate to the audience goes beyond the music. Finch says their presentation on stage reflects who they are.

"I just think it's the makeup of the people that are in the band. I come from a sales, and marketing, and business background. It's what I did in my career. Michael, the banjo player, has been a real estate broker by trade for 40 years. He's a very outgoing guy. He comes from a family of commercial watermen here in the little town where the two of us live. The main prerequisite for joining the band is that we want you to be a good person, and I think all that shows when we're on stage."

Audience members may be surprised that a Virginia Tidewater band that includes "Under the Boardwalk" and "Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye" in its shows also plays bluegrass standards such as "Roll On, Muddy River" and "Big Spike Hammer" with authority.

"I get asked a lot, 'How do you sing bluegrass as well as you do when you don't really come from bluegrass?' Well, I don't think you necessarily have to come from those rural roots in order to feel the music and get the message," says Finch, a longtime Tidewater Virginian. "I think bluegrass is soulful music. I used to listen to Temptations-type music all the time. I just think if it's heartfelt music and if it comes from the soul, it's relatable."

Code Blue shows might remind listeners of earlier bands that stretched the definition of bluegrass to include songs with a folk or rock pedigree. Finch also cites the influence of The Bluegrass Album band and Tony Rice.

"We can get traditional. No doubt about it. But if we're playing to an audience that we think is not strongly rooted in traditional bluegrass, we'll just stretch it out a little bit and do 'Great Balls of Fire' or 'Love the One You're With' or something that we think they can relate to. And then, as we kind of get them circled in, we can throw the bluegrass back in there."

Finch says the band has seven or eight festivals booked for the coming season. They play most of their gigs in Central Virginia, with occasional trips to Maryland and North Carolina. They've had opportunities to play elsewhere, but Finch says they like staying close to home and that traveling is too big of an expense." The lure of being on a stage just for the sake of being on the stage went away in about the first five years we played. We've been at this for 24 years now, and we all had careers. So it's got to make sense from a financial standpoint to be worth our time. So that does limit us."

As the band members reach the age where other people retire, they, too, sometimes discuss Code Blue's future.

"Every year for the last five or six years, we look at each other and say, 'Guys, are we going to give this a go again? And then by the end of the year, we've already got seven, eight, nine, ten things on the books for the following year. I take a lot of pride in the fact that the places that we do play, well, I don't know of many that we've ever played that we don't get requested back. We enjoy entertaining, and we enjoy each other. So I guess we'll just keep doing it as long as we can do it!"