Many in the full house at Rams Head Tavern arrived at the Annapolis club with the same question in mind: Could the
possibly be as good as before without their original lead singer? After all, Chris Stapleton's grizzly-bear growl had been the most noticeable element on the bluegrass quintet's live album, two studio albums, and four contributions to the soundtrack for the film
Get Low
, the Robert Duvall picture that also featured the SteelDrivers on screen. It was as if Howlin' Wolf had joined the New Grass Revival, and it was the most innovative development in bluegrass since Alison Krauss' early albums in the mid-1980s. Adding to the challenge confronting Stapleton's replacement, Gary Nichols, was the fact that the movie and the second studio album,
Reckless
, were both released more than six months after the newcomer had joined the group. Even fans who loved the albums had no idea what Nichols sounded like. So when he took the Rams Head stage in his dark blue pullover, his boyish face hidden behind dark bangs and a sort of beard, he had a lot to prove. He didn't sound like Stapleton, but who could match that bottomless rasp? Nichols did, however, have that Southern R&B testifying. And he preserved the basic concept of the SteelDrivers: a bluesy singer belting out hillbilly roadhouse numbers with a new-grass band. He didn't sound much like Howlin' Wolf, but he did resemble Dave Prater of Sam and Dave, a sweeter soul singer able to harmonize more easily. Providing the Sam Moore high parts in those harmonies was the SteelDrivers' founding fiddler, Tammy Rogers. When she and Nichols converged on the stage's single vocal mic, sometimes joined by bassist Mike Fleming, they attacked the melody as if they were trying to bite it. The band performed most of the songs from its 2008 studio debut,
The SteelDrivers
, and its 2010 follow-up,
Reckless
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. Black-hatted Mike Henderson, who co-wrote most of those songs with Stapleton, reinforced the blues with sliding notes from a resonator guitar or pushed the rhythm forward with choppy chords from a mandolin. Richard Bailey, the banjoist, wisely emphasized melodic parts rather than sheer speed, often contracting his percussive phrases against the fiddle's sustained cries. Whether it was older songs such as "Drinkin' Dark Whiskey" or newer songs such as "Guitars, Whiskey, Guns and Knives," the new lineup earned the respect of the most skeptical in the crowd. The SteelDrivers are still in the running to become a crucial factor in the history of bluegrass.
