Dobro king Jerry Douglas brings Alison Krauss band to hometown

October 6, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

WARREN

Proving you can take the boy out of Ohio but not the Ohio out of the boy, Jerry Douglas — Nashville’s highly sought-after dobro player extraordinaire — returns to his hometown of Warren on Friday with Alison Krauss and Union Station to play a sold-out benefit concert.

“I just love playing in Warren, and I love recognizing faces that I haven’t seen in 20 years,” said Douglas, a Leavittsburg native and 1974 LaBrae High School graduate.

Douglas said AKUS is taking time out of its touring schedule to book a series of hometown benefit shows for its band members. Proceeds from the Warren date go toward local charities The Camelot Center, Warren Family Mission and his alma mater’s The Jimmy Franks & Jim Hillman scholarship fund.

“It’s just my way of being in a position to bring this circus to town and generate a lot of cash and to give it to these people who really need it,” Douglas said. “It wasn’t like that when I grew up there; the steel mills were booming and everyone knows what the difference is between those times and now. So I just want to help in any way I can to see this place get back on its feet. I know it’s trying.”

These are exciting times for Douglas. While he recorded the recently released “Paper Airplane” with AKUS, that act had been on hiatus while its singer Krauss spent a few years exploring Americana music with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant. During the interim, Douglas found plenty of high-profile work touring with Elvis Costello and James Taylor. He also was busy with his own solo project, the Jerry Douglas Band, which spent a year opening for Paul Simon.

There’s no denying Douglas swims in some pretty big circles. For years, he worked as a studio musician, adding his unique dobro style to more than 2,000 albums, including discs released by Taylor, Phish, Paul Simon, Bill Frisell, Earl Scruggs, Ray Charles, Lyle Lovett, Bill Evans, the Chieftains and the 8 million-plus selling soundtrack to “O Brother, Where Art Thou.”

But even though Douglas is no stranger to big gigs, he is committed to what he feels is his day job.

“I’d say that the AKUS world is home,” Douglas said. “Everything else is sort of a side job to that. That’s my ground zero, working with this band.”

More so, the notion of AKUS members leaving the nest and exploring the landscape only to return wiser and more experienced is something Douglas hears when listening to the material on “Paper Airplane.”

“I don’t think it’s so much a departure of where we were going; I just think we’re better at it,” Douglas said. “We’re better at finding songs and developing the groove and the arrangements. I think with all of us going in all of these different directions, we’re bringing a lot more things back to the table; just learning from these different scenes and settings that we put ourselves into. I was playing rock ’n’ roll with Elvis Costello, and I brought a completely different sensibility back with me that I didn’t possess when I left. So it’s just harder edged and quicker, older and wiser.”

As one of the industry’s most respected dobro players, Douglas is revered by his peers. He has more than a dozen Grammy and International Bluegrass Music Association Awards to his credit. And it sounds like he better be making more space on his mantle soon.

“Right now I’m up for Country Music Association’s Musician of the Year, and for a couple of International Bluegrass Music Association awards,” Douglas said. “I’m also getting a lifetime-achievement award from Americana Music Association. So it’s award season. Who knows who will win?”

Whether his name is announced or not, you kind of get the sense Douglas is already a winner.

“It’s a pretty nice thing,” he said. “Life is good.”