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Bluegrass Band Has Rx For Success

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By CURTIS ROSS The Tampa Tribune

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 4, 2008

Updated:

Pickford's Sundries was more than a drugstore.

The Tampa institution, which closed in 1998, was as much a cafe and general store as it was a pharmacy.

Likewise, the Tampa band that took its name from the establishment is more than a bluegrass band.

Pickford Sundries knows and plays the traditional bluegrass repertoire but takes it to new places with its free-ranging improvisations.

"We started out with all traditional songs and slowly started interjecting original ideas," says Jason Pate, who plays mandolin for the Sundries.

And while Pate says he and his band mates "try to pay homage to the originals," they "don't rework them to where they're unrecognizable." He adds that they also like to "leave melody and structure behind and try to feel out sound and see how it goes.

"That seems to work out well, especially live," Pate says. "People can feed off it."

Small wonder, then, that Pickford Sundries has become one of the Tampa area's most popular live attractions, appearing at Skipper's Smokehouse and the Oldsmar Tap House as well as at its monthly matinees at New World Brewery.

The Sundries will make an after-dark appearance at the Ybor City venue tonight.

"The New World Brewery has kind of been our home base," Pate says.

The quintet came together when Pate, who relocated to Seffner from Georgia four years ago, held a bluegrass workshop at Music Showcase, the Brandon music store where he works as a stringed-instrument technician.

Through the workshop, he met Jeff Jones, a mainstay of the local bluegrass scene. Jones told Pate he knew some musicians looking for a mandolin player.

Pate teamed up with Tug Winthrop on dobro and vocals, Tony Caruso and Fred Donovan on guitar and vocals and Brian Lane on bass. Caruso, Lane and Winthrop had played together in an earlier Tampa bluegrass group, The Rivercone Ramblers.

The Sundries currently are recording their debut album, which will necessarily differ from the band's live approach.

"With the album, we want to keep the songs all short, although there will definitely be some solos," Pate says. "It will be a condensed version of what we'll do live. Not everybody wants to listen to a 10-minute jam."

Live, however ...

"We try to just keep the jam going," Pate says. "Several songs are short and sweet. Most of them are 10-minute journeys."

And if the band's instruments suffer from too many 10-minute journeys, Pate is the man to whom they turn. Besides playing guitar, mandolin, banjo and bass, he also repairs them.

"You name it, I've fixed it," Pate says.

ON STAGE

Pickford Sundries

WHEN: 8 p.m. today

WHERE: New World Brewery, 1313 E. Eighth Ave., Ybor City; (813) 248-4969

COST: $3

Curtis Ross can be reached at cross@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7568.

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