Our Man in Arlington

Arlington’s Michael Barton has added yet another star in Arlington’s performing arts crown. Last week, he came in first in the Dobro competition at the nationally recognized Rocky Glass Bluegrass Festival in Lyons, Colorado.

The first question you might ask is “What on earth is a Dobro?” That is, you would ask it if you were not a bluegrass aficionado. The Dobro has become one of the staples of bluegrass music that helps give bluegrass its unique sound and rhythm. It looks like an acoustic guitar with an ornate metal cone, or resonator, where the hole in the guitar is.

The Dobro started out as a quest for a louder guitar that could stand out against the brass, saxophones, and banjo of the popular music of the twenties. In 1928, John and Rudy Dopyera came up with a wood guitar with a single metal cone and a spider-like bridge. They registered the trademark Dobro, a combination of Dopyera and Brothers. It is played lying perpendicular against the artist’s stomach, one hand fingering the notes on the strings, the other manipulating a bar that moves up and down the strings creating a lilting, hauntingly beautiful sound.

The second question you might ask: Is Michael related to you? Well of course he is! He is my son who is celebrating his thirty-fifth birthday today. I wrestled with the ethical question of whether or not I should write this column for about two-and-a-half seconds before I decided of course I should. This is supposed to be a column about Arlington and Arlingtonians. Michael is a native Arlingtonian and now owns his grandparents house across from Wakefield High School. Why should I discriminate against him just because he is the columnist’s son? It wouldn’t be fair.

Michael began to play electric rock guitar while he was in Arlington’s Yorktown High School. He continued through his college career at James Madison. When he returned to Arlington to begin his climb up the corporate ladder at a major real estate management firm, he began playing with a series of rock bands, appearing occasionally at various open mike clubs around the area.

Then, around four or five years ago, he developed an interest in bluegrass and the Dobro. He bought a Dobro; then two, three, and four of them, now owning at least seven. After being largely self-taught for a year or so, he began taking lessons from the legendary Mike Aldridge, a founding member of the equally legendary The Seldom Scene. Michael’s mother and I discovered bluegrass and The Seldom Scene more than thirty years ago at the original Birchmere, then near the intersection of Walter Read and Four Mile Run Drive in Arlington.

Aldridge announced recently that he had nothing more that he could teach Michael. I guess his win at the Dobro competition is proof of that.

Michael played with various groups, including a couple of gigs with Arlington Commissioner of Revenue Ingrid Morroy, until he joined The Rock Creek Ramblers, a group consisting of young professionals like Michael who had fallen in love with bluegrass. The group has played at Jammin’ Java in Vienna and Bangkok Blues in Falls Church, among others. Unfortunately, the group has recently disbanded, with the lead singer and the mandolin player heading off the Harvard for graduate school. Michael is now playing with a new group that has yet to decide on a name. They will specialize in gospel bluegrass music. I can’t wait to hear them.