CAMBRIDGE, MA - September 21--Who is comfortable with risk? Why would creative performers stray from the time-tested receptively successful repertoire, and why would audiences assume as much of the risk as the musical players—enthusiastically, no less?

The combined forces of Ryanhood and Owen Plant concluded their mini-tour of the U.S. Northeast with this sold-out set of shows at the legendary Club Passim. The incredible symbiosis between the two acts surprised even the Passim staff, themselves accustomed to hearing nearly perpetual musical excellence on a nightly basis. As separate units, Ryanhood and Owen Plant do something radically different from a musical standpoint, apart from the acoustic parallelism. Their musical collaboration as a trio shouldn’t work; but it does—and in an optimally synergetic way. This short tour raised that synergy to the next level, culminating in this phenomenal set of performances.

The partnership of Ryanhood and Owen Plant will hopefully continue, even as both become more successful as individual acts. It’s a unique trio. Ryanhood followers are already aware of its power via the song “Around the Sun.” This evening’s performance bested even that tune, with a new collaboratively composed song emanating from their time spent in New York City a week prior to this show. I’ll discuss that at the end of this report, and it’s the only song I’m going to refer to. What fascinates me even more than the songs themselves is the extraordinary relationship between Ryanhood, Owen Plant, and their audiences. It’s something I don’t see between other musical acts and their audiences—at least not anywhere near the level I witness with these two acts, time and again. It’s what allows both Ryanhood and Owen Plant to take bold musical risks, often extemporaneously, and to do so with spiritual results. I’ve been trying to work this out for the four years I’ve followed Ryanhood, and the two years I’ve seriously followed Owen. I think I’ve finally figured it out.

It has to do with strengths, both the performers' and the audiences'; and how those strengths are at once similar and how they build on each other. There seems to be a mutual level of confidence between the players and listeners that allows each to engage in risks. So, again, the question is; who is comfortable with risk? For starters, people who believe they have control over their lives. It would also include people who set goals to guide their actions. Any psychologists viewing this are aware of some research findings involving personality traits. Two characteristics, in particular, are closely related to risk tolerance: personal control orientation and achievement motivation. Personal control refers to people’s sense that they can affect both their environment and the life decisions they make within this environment, and people who believe they have this control have a high propensity for taking risk. Achievement motivation describes the degree to which people are goal-oriented. Risk takers are also goal-oriented, even though a strong focus on goals may or could lead to sharp disappointments.

From the players’ point of view, both Ryanhood and Owen Plant put their faith in the value of their art, rather than in luck. They believe they have control over their environment and, by their decisions, can affect outcomes. Their actions, musical and personal, appear to be derived from carefully thought-out goals, and they are not swept off course by short-term events. As for risk, they understand its true elements and accept the consequences with confidence. In this way I believe they are in sync with their audiences, who, in my estimation, possess the same personality traits.

At this point I’m going to pilfer from Gallup, Inc.’s Clifton StrengthFinder program, and, never forget—as I regularly advise you in these pages—talent borrows; genius steals! If Ryan, Cameron, Owen, or any of their devoted followers were individually surveyed, a multitude of individual strength signature themes would be discovered. Some similarities in the signature themes would exist, to be sure, but everyone as individuals would display a wide variety of primary personality strengths ranging from achiever, strategic, and I’m certain many would show signature strengths in areas of adaptability, the analytical, belief, connectedness, and individualization.

The signature strength themes I believe that Ryanhood and Owen Plant possess in relation and in synchronization with their audiences are context, ideation, and positivity. Here’s how I believe they apply.

Context: they (performers and audience) look back, because that is where the answers lie. They look back to understand the present, which can be unstable and a confusing clamor of competing voices. They become better partners because they understand how they came to be and who they are, and counter-intuitively become wiser about the future because they saw its seeds being sown in the past.

Ideation: performers and audience are both fascinated by ideas, and are delighted when they discover beneath the complex surface an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are. As ideas are connections, theirs are the kinds of minds that are always looking for connections, and so both performers and audience are intrigued when seemingly disparate phenomena can be linked by an obscure connection. They revel in taking the world we all know and turning it around so we can view it from a strange but strangely enlightening angle. Usually they are labeled as creative or original or conceptual or smart. They are creative people, and they appreciate originality. They like free thinking experiences such as brainstorming and discussion groups, and cherish new ideas and concepts.

Positivity: performers and audience are always on the lookout for the positive in the situation. They make others’ worlds look better around them because their enthusiasm is contagious. They find a way to lighten others spirits, celebrate every achievement, and find ways to make everything more exciting and more vital, stimulating people to be more productive and become more hopeful and engaged in a process.

This combination of context, ideation, and positivity between Ryanhood, Owen Plant, and their respective and combined audiences, is evident at every one of their performances, and is in no way an anomaly or chance event. They form the elements that make every one of their individual and collaborative shows exclusive to that particular audience and evening, if even in the slightest and subtlest manner— created just for them, and will never be done exactly that way again. Ryanhood and Owen successfully created a sense of intimacy and immediacy tonight at Passim, and whereas they certainly cared enough about their music and those who were going to listen to it to rehearse and further refine their craft together and to present the best performance they can, they also had the confidence—together with the audience—to take risks.
_______________

Both shows this evening were sold out. Ryanhood and Owen Plant could have stuck to their respective sure-to-please repertoires, to wild applause and reception. Neither act had to engage in any degree of risk; but I believe that all three equate “safe” with “average.”

Both shows concluded with a beautiful new song, composed collaboratively by all three, out of their New York City date. It may be the best song they’ve written together (and it’s hard to beat the excellent things they’ve composed together to date, such as “Around the Sun” and “Put It in a Letter”). The song is titled “Rubia.” To paraphrase what Cameron Hood told the Passim audiences, the song is about a young woman he saw walking on some street in Manhattan in a green and white dress. Cameron complimented her on this dress, and she responded positively. Period. The end. Then the questions arise; would Cameron see her that night again, or ever again? Did he miss the moment, or was he as much a man of engagement and encounter as possible?

Ryan, Cameron, and Owen crafted this marvelous song that amalgamates every musical element indigenous to each individual musical act; the combination is at once unique for the trio musically and beautiful from a listener’s standpoint. The vocal harmonies are gorgeous, and the song’s structure is something novel for both acts. Owen’s folk, roots, and Caribbean influences are evident, and all of Ryanhood’s diverse musical elements are evident as well, except on this song I clearly and distinctively detected Ryan Green’s bluegrass influences. The lyrics may be Cameron’s finest to date. “Rubia” features all three on both vocal and instrumental accompaniment, unlike “Around the Sun,” where Owen Plant sings but doesn’t play.

Here’s where the risk factor enters the picture. The performers were fine-tuning the song and its arrangement from the song’s origins in New York right up to minutes before the first show this evening. They took the risk of performing it on stage in its still embryonic stage, which may not have produced winning results (Owen Plant admitted to the audience that he needed to look at Cameron’s lyric sheet, and indeed set it on a stand onstage). Ryanhood and Owen Plant’s confidence in themselves and the audience prevailed; both renditions of “Rubia” were breathtakingly beautiful and genre-defying, and personified the magic of the moment. If this song is about not missing the moment, then Ryanhood and Owen Plant certainly didn’t miss the moment to debut it at the most suitable of venues—Cambridge, MA’s historic and legendary Club Passim.