A life in the music business promises nothing, and most often delivers just that.
All the talent in the world can’t beat bad luck, bad timing, bad people or all of the above. But sometimes, if players hang around long enough and cultivate friendships along the way, they find the nexus of good luck, good timing and good people.
In more than two decades of performing, recording and touring, PJ George has seen multiple aspects. These days, he is a multi-instrumentalist with Grammy Award-winning Americana band Old Crow Medicine Show, which headlined Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion’s State Street Stage on Sunday.
George, 44, had just given up his Nashville apartment and considered himself on hiatus about four years ago, “kind of unsure what was going on,” he said. He was back living at the home he owns in Salem, where he’d grown up and had graduated from Salem High School.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t playing.
One day he was loading into a gig in Roanoke, at a place where the folks drinking craft brews “might not be listening to me,” he remembered. His phone rang. On the other end was Mason Via, an old friend in music and at that time part of Old Crow Medicine Show, which had built its roots-music fame in the early 2000s on the foundation of “Wagon Wheel.”
Via told George that the band might be looking for a new member, and should he put his name “in the hat”?
“‘Yes, of course. Are you kidding me? Yeah, put my name in the hat,’” George said he told Via.
Soon, he drove to Nashville and auditioned. Three weeks later, Old Crow played in Roanoke and invited him to sound check.
“That turned into a second audition, on that show,” he said. “After that, they offered me a position. It’s been a weird, crazy journey since then.”
But a good one, three and a half years and running. George auditioned as a drummer who could play other instruments. Dante Pope got the drum throne, but his work on other instruments scored George a spot with Old Crow.
Band members were aware of George’s upright bass skills, so when longtime bassist Morgan Jahnig had health issues that forced him to miss a tour, George filled the spot. When Jahnig produced OCMS’s most recent album, “Union Made,” he had George handle the upright.
After Pope left the band to tend to his growing family, George took over on drums, splitting time behind the kit with Cory Younts. They switch off between drums and piano, George’s first instrument.
He also has played banjo, accordion, mandolin, fiddle and guitjo with Old Crow.
“We both have a different flavor for our drumming and our keys playing, are both sort of very different from each other,” George said. “So whatever song fits our individual flavor, we just decide for the moment who’s going to play.”
George’s many Roanoke-area gigs in the early 2000s included The Pace Brothers Organ Trio, which found him on drums. He played electric bass with the Jordan Harman Band.
By 2010, he and Harman band drummer Drew Lawhorn were on the road with Nora Jane and the Party Line. Five years later, George was part of Lindsay Lou & The Flatbellys. Gigs with East Nash Grass, The Stray Birds and Bearfoot are on his resume as well.
Several of his old colleagues — multi-instrumentalists Oliver Bates Craven and Joshua Rilko, bassist Geoff Saunders and drummer Matty Meyer — are touring with Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion’s top-of-the-bill headliner Sierra Ferrell.
George caught up with them Sept. 8, the Tuesday before the big Bristol weekend, when he drove from Salem to Charlotteville to catch Ferrell’s show at Ting Pavilion. He, Rilko and Meyer had been with Lindsay Lou. He played with Craven in The Stray Birds. George and Saunders both held down the bottom end for East Nash Grass.
“All those guys are really close musical connections over the years,” he said. “It was great to see them.”
All of them have seen their musical careers elevated in recent years. George has returned to Nashville, where he bought a house that’s almost ready for a move-in. Meanwhile, OCMS tours consistently, with recent trips to Spain and the Netherlands to promote “Union Made.”
Original member Willie Watson is back in the band for a lot of dates, and things are feeling and sounding great, George said.
“It’s kind of effortless, and then with the vibe with everybody, it’s like I’ve been in the band the whole time,” he said. “I feel really good about the situation, musically, personally, and I can only hope that the band continues to want to stay out there playing. And I think as long as we want to keep doing it and we’re having fun, then the longevity is going to be there. Feels like the most job security I’ve ever had.
“Trying to keep things going, keep it all rolling as long as I can. Super grateful to have gotten to the point where it’s like this.”
