Spotlight on...Will Nash

Author: Zach Hecht-Leavitt

Associate Professor of American Literature & Civilization Will Nash plays bass in the Doughboys, Middlebury's all-faculty band which will be rocking the Grille scene tonight from 9:00 to 10:30 p.m.



The Middlebury Campus: How did the group start?

Will Nash: We started playing together in the fall of 1998 - the first time was at a party at [Associate Professor of Computer Science] Daniel Scharstein's house, where we wandered down to the music room and just started playing. He and Steve Abbott [Associate Professor of Mathematics and Ross Commons Faculty Co-head] had written some songs together before that night, and at some point, we played some of those and it just kind of clicked.



The Campus: How did you decide on the name?

WN: It's a name that we have because of the spellchecker on Microsoft Word. When we were writing the set list for our first show and planning to play a Doobie Brothers song, the computer spit out "Doughboy" as an alternative to "Doobie." We figured it was a sign, I guess, and we adopted the name.



The Campus: What styles or eras do you cover? Do you do any original tunes?

WN: We do some Motown, sometimes some Santana, some blues and R & B type things and some contemporary pop-rock. Our original music has been described as "Vermont-orican happy rock," which I think refers to the fact that we have two drummers, one playing Latin percussion and one who anchors with a pretty up-beat, groove-oriented sound. I don't know who to say we sound like, though - I think we've got our own sound, really.



The Campus: Did you play in a group in college?

WN: Not in college, but right after college and for a little while in graduate school. In those bands, I always played guitar, and I sang some too. Now I get to stand back a bit, which I like a lot more.



The Campus: Who are some of your favorite musicians, and why do you like them?

WN: I have pretty eclectic tastes in music, and all of my favorites are people I think are both very technically accomplished and very expressive and passionate. Some of the people I most admire and who really move me are the jazz bassist Ray Brown, the Motown session bassist James Jamerson, singer-guitarist Richard Thompson, the blues giants Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Buddy Guy and Eric Clapton, especially around the time of Derek and the Dominoes and again when he did From the Cradle.



The Campus: Do you see any connection between your musical interests and your work as a professor of American literature and civilization?

WN: Yes, I do. It happens that my master's degree is in folklore, and I did my thesis on North Carolina blues. One of the great benefits to me of doing that project was that I had funding for a year to go around and record blues guitarists - and occasionally I got to play with them too. I learned an awful lot doing that. And since I've been at Middlebury, I find that particularly in my African American studies courses, I do a lot of work with music. My course on Black culture in Chicago, for instance, has a section on blues and a section on jazz as part of the syllabus. I'm hoping in the near future to work up a course on African American music that will let me fuse these interests even more.



The Campus: Any particularly memorable shows that you'd like to talk about?

WN: I'd say that playing President Liebowitz's inauguration, with full stage and professional sound and light crews, and a big crowd dancing in Nelson, is one for the memory book. Actually I came off the stage that night and said to the other guys, "We have to quit now, because it's never going to get any better than this." But we've had some great shows since then, too, and I hope we don't quit any time soon.