Muse bar gaithersburg1/14/2024 Two young guys-Happy Acosta and Joe Triplett-were getting ready to perform as a freshly minted duo in front of a barroom audience. The name poked fun at the ridiculous City-in-a-Box that Rosslyn, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from D.C., was becoming in the 1970's. Of course there's no such thing as the Rosslyn Mountains. He's also unpredictable enough to leave audiences anxious to find out what he will choose and where he will lead them. But he should be back in front of audiences because, much like America, he is wild with potential, flirted with by the angels. Audiences can't turn away from his antics on stage because it seems almost beyond him to direct where his muse will lead.Īlthough he still sings every day-"I've always got something in my head"-it's mostly to the horses and to the hills. Triplett, it turns out, is as much actor as singer, which is a tremendous asset given that his strongest material- hard-core honky-tonk from the '50's and '60's-is essentially 3-minute moral dramas. Though he concedes that his voice has lost some of its power and stamina, he still brings an alluring uncertainty to the stage, which is what kept the audience hanging around at the State Theater on the Saturday after New Year's. No longer formally in the music business, he remains the helpless vessel of an admittedly intermittent muse. Joe, now a gentleman farmer-"I do everything a farmer does, except actually farm"-is busy these days building a house on property that has been in his family since the early 19th century, near Front Royal, Virginia, at the head of the Shenandoah Valley. His country-rock band was going to out-soar the Eagles and the Byrds and finally establish Washington as the peer of England or California as a font of Top 40 hits. He was going to be the next George Jones, the next Roy Orbison. for a charisma that could bring audiences to tears one moment and leave them giggling the next. These folks tend to agree that the band should have been known and loved from California to the New York islands, rather than from Gaithersburg, Maryland, to Alexandria, Virginia.īoth a singer and songwriter, Triplett was legendary in 1970's D.C. Triplett is, by all accounts, exceedingly modest, which goes some distance to explain why today, only dedicated fans still remember the Rosslyn Mountain Boys. I don't think I've ever enjoyed them more." Triplett's unhinged embodiment of staggeringly good times pushed the show from the status of rewarding blues warrior reunion to Honky Tonk Heaven.Ī month later, looking back at the show, Triplett admitted he had fun, but wanted to talk more about how much he had enjoyed the Nighthawks, who have been a Washington institution for close to 40 years. All three bands crowded the stage for the encore, but it wasn't until Triplett-summoned from a quick rendezvous with his girlfriend in the balcony by Nighthawks harmonica player Mark Wenner-wound his way, drink in hand, back to the stage that things took off. The State gig was another of the periodic reunion concerts put on by the RMB, who shared the bill that night with Washington's perdurable Nighthawks and the Charlottesville All-Stars. The last thing you would have imagined is that Triplett, a Flat Natural Born Good Timin' Man if there ever was one, has not appeared regularly on stage since the early eighties. 3 at Falls Church, Virginia's State Theater, he had not only shaken, rattled and rolled a delighted audience, but also decimated any perception that the 63-year-old singer had lost any of his ability to incite riot in the hearts of those who loved the band he fronted in the 1970's, the Rosslyn Mountain Boys. When Joe Triplett mock-staggered off the stage following an encore version of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" this past Jan. Rossyln Mountain Boys at Columbia Station, 1978 Joe Triplett Could Win Back His Audience Perfect Sound Forever: Joe Triplett, Rosslyn Mountain Boys Rosslyn Mountain Boys
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