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Violinist takes classic approach to blues


By LAURENCE
WASHINGTON
Camera Music Writer


Lionel Young has made a career out of surprising people.
When you walk into the Catacombs during the Monday Night Blues Jam, you'll see the 37-year-old musician sawing his violin playing hot blues.
"I get these really weird reactions from people, because I play the violin," Young says,"It's almost like they're shocked. But that can be all right, be cause then you have a hook"
Young, an established concert performer, walked away from an orchestra career which enabled him to travel around the world. He wanted to play the blues.
"I still play classical music," Young says. "I play in a string quartet. I don't know if it's going bad-it's almost as if you have a calling. I see it in a lot of the musicians I play with."
No one was more surprised than Young's National Repertory Orchestra conductor in '87 after he instructed Young to form one of several small groups at Denver's Brown Palace Hotel and play chamber music. Instead, Young started drawing a crowd playing bluegrass.
Young played with the orchestra from '86 to '88 and was actually encouraged to continue his blue-
IF YOU GO
WHO: Lionel Young, part of the Monday Night Blues Jam
WHEN: 9 p.m. Monday
WHERE: Catacombs at Hotel Boulderado, 2115 13th St., Boulder
TICKETS: No cover; 21 and up
CALL: 443-0486
grass as a shtick for the orchestra.
However, the classically trained violinist had a yearning to go a step further - blues full-time.
Full-throttle.
"I started a band eight years ago called the Last Fair Deal," Young says. "I named it after a song by Robert Johnson called 'The Last Fair Deal Going Down.'
"When I started playing the blues, I was a lot less comfortable than I'm now. It's very difficult - coming from a background in classical music - and seeing those weird reactions from people because I play violin."
Young explains that most of the time the blues audiences see guitars, pianos and saxophones. However, he has researched the history of the blues and discovered the violin was a big part of the genre.
RHAPSODY IN BLUE: Violin virtuoso Lionel Young prefers blues over the classics, but he's adept at both.
"I had listened to recordings and read books," Young says. "My drive was to find out what happened before me. What I found out helped a lot. You don't get taught that type of music in school. Why?"
Young took a jazz-and-improvisation course during the early '80s while attending college in Pittsburgh which opened up a lot of avenues for him. And has been hooked on playing the blues ever since.
"I heard music that my
parents played when I was kid," Young says. "Soul music. It made a lot of sense to me. Whenever I got the chance, I'd try and pluck it out of the violin. Little did I know that I would be doing it for a living later."
At the urging of friends, Young recently released his debut CD, As the Sun Goes Down (Flio). "I've recorded a lot of music," he says, "but I really haven't done a CD. I never thought what I had done was good enough."
 
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