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Article from the San Antonio Express-News.................

Hillbillies meet the Symphony

By Jim Beal Jr. San Antonio Express-News Web Posted : 11/15/2001 12:00 AM

If Arthur Fiedler and "The Orange Blossom Special" get their hooks into you right after you've been doing something like, say, watching "The Wonderful World of Disney" on TV, your career path might take some nontraditional turns.

Billy and the Hillbillies will join the San Antonio Symphony Pops orchestra for 'Red, White and Bluegrass' this weekend.
Courtesy photo

Red, White and Bluegrass
What: Symphony Pops concerts featuring Billy and the Hillbillies
Where: Laurie Auditorium, Trinity University
When: 8 p.m. Fridy-Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday
Tickets: $16-$56 at symphony box office, (210) 554-1010; or Ticketmaster

Take Billy and the Hillbillies, for instance. Most days of the week, the quartet does a bluegrass-meets-comedy show at Disneyland's Golden Horseshoe Theater. But when the band isn't at Disneyland, it might well be on stage with a symphony orchestra.

That's exactly where the Hillbillies will be this weekend when they join forces with guest conductor Michael Krajewski and the San Antonio Symphony Pops orchestra for "Red, White and Bluegrass." The concerts at Trinity University's Laurie Auditorium will be at 8 tonight and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets cost $16-$56 at Ticketmaster outlets or the symphony box office. Donate four cans of food to the San Antonio Food Bank and you can get a ticket for $15 at the symphony box office and at the Laurie box office.

Billy and the Hillbillies all have stage names: They're all named Billy. But the members of the group, multi-instrumentalists all, also have birth names: brothers John and Evan Marshall, Dennis Fetchet and Kirk Wall. Among them they play fiddle, guitar, upright bass, mandolin and no telling what else.

The Marshall brothers grew up in Southern California.

"In 1972 we were watching Arthur Fielder's 'An Evening at the Pops' and Chet Atkins was his guest," Evan Marshall, Hillbillies' arranger and an acclaimed mandolinist, said. "He essentially had a bluegrass band backing him.

"John and I were studying classical violin at the time. When the fiddler played 'The Orange Blossom Special' we looked at each other and our jaws dropped. We said, 'You can do something this much fun with a fiddle?' That left an indelible mark on my brain as one of the most exciting concerts I've ever seen."

The Billy and the Hillbillies show started at Disneyland in 1988.

"We're the Monkees of Disneyland," John Marshall said with a laugh. "We all answered a casting call. Evan was in Nashville at the time and joined Kirk, Dennis and I later. In 1992, they turned the theater over to us. It's a beautiful venue. We've done 10,000 shows and played to over a million people.

"Instead of going on tour, people go on tour to see us. We get to do a theater show for over 1,000 people a day, five days a week year-round and go home every night," Evan added.

Since 1997, the Hillbillies have been hitting the road several times a year to do symphony pops concerts.

"In 1996, the maestro, Michael Krajewski, came to Disneyland as a guest," Evan said. "He asked if we'd be interested in being guests at pops concerts. We said, 'When do we start?'"

Stepping away from Disneyland now and again is not necessarily a stretch for Billy and the Hillbillies. John has been a guest fiddler with several orchestras. Evan, who's responsible for the bluegrass-meets-symphony charts, has released several mandolin albums on the Rounder label and worked with an array of artists.

Wall, the group's primary vocalist, also is a stage, screen and TV actor. Fetchet plays regularly with bluegrass band the Grateful Dudes and toured for years with Hoyt Axton.

"What makes the pops concerts work is finding the common ground between the two art forms," Evan said. "There are musicians who focus on the stylistic rules and musicians who focus on the passion factor. We focus on the passion factor."

The Marshall brothers characterize the group's humor as the great icebreaker.

"If people aren't sure they should enjoy themselves, once they start laughing, they will enjoy themselves," Evan said. "I work pretty hard on the arrangements. I show respect for both traditions. If people listen with their ears and not with preconceived notions and they're ready to have a good time, they'll have a good time."

jbeal@express-news.net

11/16/2001

Article appearing in the San Antonio Symphony Program.......................

Tonight’s appearance of Billy and the Hillbillies with the San Antonio Symphony is a celebration not only of peaceful coexistence, but also for a night, the actual blissful union of two styles of music. The Hillbillies have brought their "Classgrass" concerts to stages all across the United States, including performances with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Long Beach Symphony, Houston Symphony, Wichita Symphony and Tulsa Philharmonic.

They are also celebrating their tenth year in their own theater at Disneyland, where they have performed shows to well over 2 million park guests.

The Hillbillies are Founder Billy, who, enrolled under the name John Williams Marshall, received his musical degree from Occidental College in Los Angeles. Trained as a classical violinist, he served as concertmaster of the Occidental-Caltech Orchestra. He began violin lessons at age 10 with the famed pedagogue Ervin Kleffman.

Always balancing his serious music pursuits was a love of fiddle music. Inspired by the TV show Hee-Haw, and Buck Owens’s fiddler, Don Rich, John formed his first bluegrass band in high school. Two years later, the same group won first place in the instrumental combo division of the Hollywood Bowl Battle of the Bands, an honor previously awarded to Karen and Richard Carpenter. In 1981 John’s group recorded an album of classically influenced bluegrass entitled Classgrass. Years later, John returned to the Hollywood Bowl as fiddle soloist in a Los Angeles Philharmonic "American Music" Concert conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. John resides in Southern California with his wife and three children.

Kirk Wall [a.k.a. "Billy"] is an all around artist, who has performed everything from comedy to drama, from opera to rhythm and blues. The hillbilly band is a great vehicle in which he can use all his talents and skills. Kirk cites as his major influence his father, A. V. Wall, an excellent tenor and choral conductor. While other fathers were tossing balls to their son, Kirk’s father was teaching him to sing. Born in Lubbock, Kirk and his musical family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he started playing violin at age 7 and started singing solos in the church choir in junior high. Kirk attended Eastern New Mexico University on a full vocal scholarship, then transferred to the University of New Mexico, where he studied acting, opera and played in rock bands just for fun. In 1988, he joined Billy and the Hillbillies assuming the name "Billy." Kirk resides with his wife in Fullerton, California, where he "jams" on guitar with his daughter, Grace Ann.

Evan Marshall [a.k.a. "Billy"] possesses an uncanny mandolin technique, which the Raleigh-Durham Independent called "superhuman" and the Washington Post called "truly dazzling". Mr. Marshall’s accomplishments are legendary among other artists of the plucked string: Chet Atkins called him "one of the great musicians of our time"; David Grisman put it simply, "the world’s fastest mandolinist." Evan has toured extensively in the United States and Great Britain, performing at venues ranging from symphony concerts to music festivals, appearing with a wide variety of other artists, from the Los Angeles Philharmonic to Don Everly. Rounder Records recently released his third recording; Evan Marshall is the Lone Arranger, which follows his album, Mandolin Magic. Evan recently founded the Bridges of Orange County; a chamber orchestra featuring bowed and plucked strings. Evan resides in Southern California with his wife and daughter, Julia.

Dennis Fetchet [a.k.a. "Billy"], a native Californian, began violin lessons at age 8, but a year later was lured away by the baseball diamond. In his mid-teens, the music again became part of his life, as the bluegrass band, The Dillards made a big impression. Basically, a self-taught player, Dennis, in addition to having violin as his main instrument, is also well-versed on mandolin, guitar, and harmonica. Dennis extensive credits include decades of world touring with country star, Hoyt Axton, Byron Berline’s L.A. Fiddle Band and the Bluegrass Cardinals, as well as dozens of album and movie credits and his own fiddle album. Dennis has worked extensively at Disneyland since 1986. As Dennis says, "Music is my life."

Review From the San Antonio Express-News, Sunday November 18, 2001......................

Pops delivers all-American fun

Billy and Hillbillies Charm the Crowd

by Jasmina Wellinghoff

Combining humor, fine musicianship and a spirit of patriotism, "Red, White and Bluegrass," the current San Antonio Symphony Pops offering, was warmly welcomed by its Laurie Auditorium audience Friday night. Though planned long ago, it seemed the perfect solace for a time of national anxiety.
Conducted by Michael Krajewski, the orchestra set the all-American tone of the evening with a Sousa march and a ragtime arrangement, but then contented itself to play second fiddle to its colorful guests, Billy and the Hillbillies, a bluegrass band that hails "from the mountains of Santa Monica." Well, they may never have seen the Blue Ridge Mountains, but, boy, can they play those fiddles and mandolins. Having performed 10 years in Disneyland, they also know how to entertain a crowd.
The band’s four members bounded up in stage in their "formal" black coveralls and proceeded to prance, joke, evoke Elvis, mix Mozart and Beethoven with "The Eyes of Texas" and Chuck Berry, play with their instruments and generally raise wonderfully undignified mayhem throughout the night.
But there was no fooling the crowd. The four – who all like to be called Billy – are accomplished multi-instrumentalists who dazzled with speed, precision and brilliance. Possibly the most impressive moment can when Billy Mandolin (Evan Marshall) took over in a solo tour-de-force rendition of the William Tell Overture. I, for one, have never heard a mandolin produce such rich, multidimensional sounds. Billy Fiddle (Dennis Fetchet) got the listeners virtually dizzy with his speed fiddling in the "Orange Blossom Special," and the entire quartet took up violins for the final tribute to "Riverdance," scaled down for the occasion and renamed "Puddle Prance." The show – uh, concert – was emceed by Billy Elvis (Kirk Wall), the comedian, singer and guitar player of the group while band founder Billy Bass (John Marshall) added humorous and astonishingly skilled "weight" to the proceedings.
The concert repeats today at 2 p.m.