Carol Young is animated—her eyes sparkling and face radiantly lit—completely immersed in that rapturous exuberance that comes from playing to a wildly receptive audience. “We just had a really great gig,” she enthusiastically relates, still basking in the afterglow of that afternoon’s event at the Ringwood Public Library in Ringwood, New Jersey, just northwest of New York City. “Sunday afternoons the library stops being a library and becomes a music venue. We had more than two hundred people there today. The place was sold out. I like it when people go out of their way to make a community event out of a concert. This kind of music lends itself to that.”

That music is, of course, the rootsy, bluegrass-driven, usually indefinable, but always instantly recognizable sounds, of The Greencards. Carol has played bass since founding the band, a scant four years ago, with mandolin master (and fellow Australian), Kym Warner, and British fiddler, Eamon McLoughlin. “We don’t have a banjo in the band and I play electric bass, so I guess that really does change the way we sound,” Carol suggests, still somewhat perplexed why so many have labeled the band as musical innovators. “Initially, I thought it was the ‘foreigner’ thing that intrigued people. Growing up [overseas], we’ve been influenced by a lot of British and European music. We don’t have a traditional sound, but we do still play some traditional songs. We can play Ralph Stanley and Bill Monroe tunes all day long, although we tend to get away from those when we do our shows.”

It was those archetypal sounds—especially the tough-edged harmonies—that exerted an irresistible pull on Carol. “For me, in bluegrass, it’s the harmony,” she reveals, almost swooning at the mention of the gritty, achingly primeval vocal interplay between Ralph and Carter Stanley. “The Stanley Brothers had some great songs, but their harmonies were just unbelievable.”
Although country music wasn’t popular in Australia, Carol was captivated by the old country sounds of George Jones, Tammy Wynette and Merle Haggard. However, she always sensed there was something more. “I kept looking,” she confided as she unveiled the details of her musical quest. “I said, ‘O. K. [traditional country] is great, but I hear something a bit more high, lonesome and traditional.’” Then, at age seventeen, she had a serendipitous encounter with Vince Gill’s Here Today project. “I heard that recording [and exclaimed] ‘that’s the sound! That’s what I’ve been looking for! Give me more of that!’ I didn’t even know it was called bluegrass.”

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