Little Brown Jug band shares distinctive sound

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By JEFF KORBELIK / GZO

The music drew a crowd to the northeast corner of the parking lot at 16th and South streets.

In the middle of the throng jammed the Little Brown Jug, an old-time string band.

They were prepping for their time on stage at Meadowlark Coffee’s open mic night.

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Members of the Little Brown Jug Band, Nissa Evenson, on the fiddle, and Randy Adams, on the guitar, play old-time string music during the 2007 Stransky Park Concert Series, on June 28th. (Kainaz Amaria)

Members of the Little Brown Jug Band, Nissa Evenson, on the fiddle, and Randy Adams, on the guitar, play old-time string music during the 2007 Stransky Park Concert Series, on June 28th. (Kainaz Amaria)

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Little Brown Jug

Watch the group perform at the recent Celebrate Lincoln festival. (Jeff Korbelik / JournalStar.com)...

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The foursome already was off to a hot start.

People bobbed their heads, tapped their feet and clapped their hands to the infectious music.

And when fiddler player Nissa Evenson looked up from the instrument perched under her chin and smiled, you knew the quartet was having just as much fun as its audience.

“Us four have a rapport,” said Randy Adams, the band’s guitar and banjo player and a dead ringer for Willie Nelson. “We’re kind of family. We all love it, and we have fun while we’re doing it.

“I think it comes across.”

Indeed, it does.

Within the past year, the string band has become quite popular in Lincoln. You can find the foursome on a stage somewhere in the city just about every week.

Tonight, Little Brown Jug will be at Mo Java Cafe in north Lincoln.

The band is made up of Evenson, Adams, fiddle player Bill Adams (Randy’s son) and Manuel de la Torre, the stand-up bass player and Evenson’s fiance.

The four met at a fiddle contest in Fort Calhoun a little more than two years ago.

“It was love at first sight,” Randy joked.

From there, Nissa, Bill and Randy got together in Nissa’s basement to play old-time tunes.

Seeing how much fun they were having, Manuel, a keyboard player, picked up the bass — an instrument he had never played before — and joined in the fun.

They play old-time music with a twist. Their repertoire includes such oldies as “Watermelon on the Vine,” “Battle of New Orleans” and, of course, “Little Brown Jug.”     

Evenson even has started writing some pieces for the group.

“The main thing is we’re not afraid to show people what we do and what we got,” de la Torre said. “Our energy is noticeable on stage.”

The band is unique because it features two fiddles instead of one. Bill and Nissa often take centerstage, whipping their bows back and forth across their instruments in a frenzy of fun.

“People are not used to having fiddles lead everything,” Bill said. “It’s kind of unique to them to hear that sound.”

 The band took a hiatus shortly after its conception in November 2005 when construction workers Randy and Bill headed south to Louisiana and Florida for employment.

They returned in April 2006, only to find Evenson and de la Torre planning a move to Colorado at the end of May.

But after a couple of revitalizing jams, Evenson said she began to second-guess the move. Plus, her violin studio was starting to take off. She and de la Torre decided to stay.

And now the band is beginning to take off.

The group self-produced a CD and is planning to do another. The musicians continue to learn new material.

“We’re definitely not just leaving it to fate,” de la Torre said. “We’re working hard on it, finding new venues and expanding our horizons.”

Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.