Alison Brown and Sierra Hull Swap Licks on Classical-Flavored Tune

Two of the most accomplished musicians in bluegrass – certainly two of the most notable women players in the history of the music – have joined together on a mind-blowing chamber-grass duet. Alison Brown, the first woman to win the Banjo Player of the Year Award from the IBMA, and Sierra Hull, the first woman to win Mandolin Player of the Year, joined forces on Brown’s recent album, On Banjo, and a classical-influenced original tune, “Sweet Sixteenths.”

Both Brown and Hull are virtuosic players adept in many styles and “Sweet Sixteenths” shows just how effortlessly they bring bluegrass improvisation and energy into what’s regarded as a more stoic format, creating an exciting, jaw-dropping, impossibly complicated – yet, totally down to earth – sound. Their synchronicity is just as impressive, inspiring a sort of wonder that chamber-grass is well known for: How much of this is planned out, and totally written-through, and how much is off-the-cuff and in the moment?

Bluegrass pickers are so well equipped to confound and delight us with these sorts of questions and that fact is no more apparent than in this live, studio performance video by Brown and Hull. We hope you also enjoy “Sweet Sixteenths.”


 

Alison Brown: Record Label Founder and Bluegrass “Lifer”

When a craftsman pauses to reflect, students of all skill levels benefit from the lesson. Alison Brown’s latest album, On Banjo, released May 5 on Compass Records and is a masterclass; it’s also a study on where the instrument has been and where it’s going.

Brown is a Compass co-founder and a GRAMMY Award-winning artist and producer. A self-described “lifer” in the bluegrass community and an IBMA “First Lady of Bluegrass,” she eagerly explores what the five-stringed instrument can do outside typical genre parameters. The new record is packed with star-studded duets with comedian Steve Martin, mandolin player and fellow First Lady of Bluegrass Sierra Hull, and fiddle legend Stuart Duncan.

The result is a varied, rich track list we couldn’t wait to ask Brown about.

BGS: Let’s walk through some of the tracks and collaborations on On Banjo. What kind of music inspired the duet with Anat Cohen?

AB: Anat Cohen is a clarinetist; she was born in Israel and lives in New York, but she’s well-known in jazz circles for Brazilian choro. I actually watched lots of videos of Anat on YouTube.

I reached out. I said “I know we don’t know each other, but would you consider doing this?”

What’s it like working with a famous comedian like Steve Martin in a musical context?

I’ve had the good fortune to go out and do some shows with him and Martin Short. There’s inevitably some time to jam in the dressing room, so it’s fun to play with Steve in that context, too.

Steve’s a great banjo player with a really beautiful touch and a delicate, sweet tone. He loves playing in double C tuning. Banjo players usually tune to a G, but you can drop the fourth string to a C and tune the second [string] up to a C. It’s an old tuning that clawhammer guys use a lot.

The way “Foggy Mountain Breaking,” came about is I wrote the A section. It was during the pandemic. I asked Steve, “Do you wanna write a B part?” He sent me a perfect B section 24 hours later. We figured out a bridge together. It’s named after a lyric in a John Hartford song and is obviously a riff on “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.”

How does it feel to work with younger bluegrass talents like Sierra Hull? Is it gratifying to have a feminine duo on that track?

I wrote that tune hoping Sierra would be up for learning and recording it with me. I’m a huge fan of her mandolin playing; she’s another one with such a delicate touch. Her fingers just really dance over the fingerboard.

It required her to play every fret on the first string of the mandolin and she did it flawlessly. She said she’d never had a chance to work on such complicated music with another woman. So it’s a really special thing. It’s always a delight to play with Sierra, but to do a duet with her was like chocolate and more chocolate.

How do you balance two strong, independent main instruments like banjo and fiddle together, such as with Stuart Duncan?

Banjo and fiddle are just so complementary. They say a banjo and fiddle make a band, and they do.

I’ve known Stuart since he was 11 and I was 12. We go way back. And on this tune I want to give a tip of the hat to Byron Berline and John Hickman. Growing up in Southern California when we did in the ’70s, those two were the guys that everybody worshiped at the feet of. I wanted to try and capture some of that spirit, and I wanted to do it with Stuart.

Who is this album for, and what do you hope listeners take away from it?

That’s the existential question of the banjo player. And it is a bit of a challenge when you take the five-string banjo and go somewhere else with it. Earl Scruggs perpetuated a style and brought it to the masses that was just so electric. Most people think that’s all the banjo does and they don’t worry about its history before that. There’s a lot of voices inside the instrument; the bluegrass one has become the loudest one most recently.

It’s so interesting because at the beginning of the 1800s the banjo was found on plantations. Then white people appropriated that music in minstrel shows, performing in blackface. It’s deep in terms of what it says about our history and America’s original sin.
It went from being a Black instrument to being a white lady’s instrument. The Black voice of the instrument and the female voice of the instrument were both disenfranchised. There are gorgeous old photos of women in the 1890s holding banjos, and there were female banjo orchestras. I’m excited to see that re-emerging.

You started Compass Records with Garry West almost three decades ago. What’s on the horizon, and what are your goals?

All the labels were run by business people, not musicians. We said, “Why can’t musicians run a label for other artists?”

The other part is really wanting to build a label that can have a cultural impact and Garry and I are both invested in roots music. I’ve been a member of the bluegrass community since about 10 years old. I’m a lifer. The whole economy of the record business has been turned upside down and stirred and shaken eight times. We want to make sure this music not only survives but thrives into the future.

You mentioned growing up in SoCal. How is bluegrass there different from Appalachia?

There would be Eagles’ songs in set lists. It was wide open. When I first came east with Stuart and his dad, we drove around and did the festivals in 1978 or so, but it was rooted in the first generation bands’ repertoire.

On that trip we entered a band contest in Oklahoma and we played something we learned from a Richard Green record. It was a funky fiddle thing in E. I remember somebody coming up afterwards and saying “We don’t appreciate you knocking the music.”

What did you learn while making On Banjo?

The deep dive to find new melodies, and that process of discovery of the instrument, is the process of self-discovery. You get to the end and it teaches you something new about yourself.


Photo Credit: Russ Harrington

WATCH: Special Consensus, “Pretty Kate and the Rabbit” Featuring April Verch, Darol Anger and Alison Brown

Artist: Special Consensus featuring April Verch, Darol Anger and Alison Brown
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Song: “Pretty Kate and the Rabbit (La Belle Catherine/Jack Rabbit Jump)”
Album: Great Blue North
Release Date: May 12, 2023
Label: Compass Records

In Their Words: “In our 47 years as a band, Special Consensus has played countless festivals and venues north of the border and we count many Canadian pickers and singers among our dearest friends. On our new project Great Blue North we wanted to offer a tip of the hat to the immense talent in Canada by recording all Canadian songs and featuring Canadian guests on the record. We always include an instrumental on our records and really wanted to collaborate with Ontario-born fiddler April Verch. Our producer Alison Brown knew the tune ‘La Belle Catherine’ from the great Québécois fiddler André Brunet and April suggested that the Métis fiddle tune ‘Jack Rabbit Jump’ would pair well with it to round out a medley. Et voilà, ‘Pretty Kate and the Rabbit’ was born! We asked Darol Anger to join us on twin fiddle and Alison to jump in on twin banjo and we had an absolute blast shooting the video for this track. Keep an eye out for the interplay of the fiddles and banjos on the second tune — I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed harder! We hope you have as much fun watching this video as we did making it.” — Greg Cahill, Special Consensus


Photo Credit: Stacie Huckeba

Photos: Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, and More Perform at Earl Scruggs Music Festival

Banjo hero Earl Scruggs received a rousing tribute near his North Carolina hometown over Labor Day weekend, bringing together bluegrass stars like Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, and many others. The inaugural event took place Sept. 4 to 6 in Tryon, about 30 miles from the Earl Scruggs Center in Shelby. Scruggs, who died in 2012, was raised in the small Flint Hill community nearby, and remains one of the most pivotal figures in bluegrass.

Enjoy photos from the inaugural Earl Scruggs Music Festival below. (Photos by Eli Johnson unless otherwise noted.)

Darin & Brooke Aldridge


Alison Brown


Becky Buller


Chatham County Line


The Earls of Leicester


Fireside Collective
Photo by Tori Marion


Béla Fleck with Mark Schatz


Andy Thorn of Leftover Salmon


Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway


Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Photo by Ron Pankey


Rissi Palmer


Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley
Photo by Ron Pankey


Jon Stickley


Town Mountain


Unspoken Tradition


Fireside Collective hosts a collaborative performance of the 1972 album Earl Scruggs Revue: Live at Kansas State played in its entirety, sponsored by The Bluegrass Situation
Photo by Toni Marion


Wes Corbett’s Banjo Needs: 10 Songs That Make Him Happy

Wes Corbett is a banjo player who wears many hats. The self-described “musically omnivorous bluegrass musician” is a true multi-hyphenate: 5-string aficionado (having released his solo album Cascade back in 2021), producer, former professor at Berklee College of Music, and musician with the likes of Joy Kills Sorrow, Molly Tuttle, and most recently Sam Bush Band.

Before hitting the road again with Sam Bush, the Washington native shared an exclusive playlist for BGS of “Wes Corbett’s Banjo Needs,” or as he puts it: the official home of all the songs that take him to his “happy place.”

“Fortune” – Adam Hurt


“Sliding Down” – Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Mike Marshall


“Saint Elizabeth” – Kaia Kater


“The Hunt” – Kristin Scott Benson


“Milford’s Reel” – Noam Pikelny


“Your Love Is Like a Flower” – Flatt & Scruggs


“Come Back Darlin’” – The Bluegrass Album Band


“Poe’s Pickin’ Party” – Alison Brown


“The Over Grown Waltz” – Béla Fleck


“Goodbye, Honey, You Call That Gone” – Jake Blount



We’re giving away a Recording King Songster Banjo in honor of Banjo Month! Enter to win your very own RK-R20 here.

Kristin Scott Benson Shares Her Essential ’80s Bluegrass Banjo Tracks

I started playing banjo in 1989 and like most people, once I was hooked, I devoured all the banjo I could find. In my quest for the latest, coolest bluegrass, I ended up covering most of the music recorded in the ’80s. It took years to discover because (brace yourself, kids) there was no streaming or internet to bring it to us. We found music by buying CDs, listening to friends’ CDs, going to shows, and trial and error. In this list, I tried to represent the successful bands and players from the decade, who were recording music just before I fell in love with banjo.

Seeing Scott Vestal with Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver is what made me want to play, so his “Up on the Blue Ridge” is of special significance. I played along with Bill Emerson’s instrumental album, Home of the Red Fox, for countless hours. Sonny’s cut on “Listening to the Rain” (sung by Paul Brewster) is still a bit mystifying. I was sure I had two of these key phrases exactly right, but Sonny never thought I did. Shocking, I know. Thing is, he wasn’t entirely sure how he played them either.

Some of my favorite current music from formative years just missed the deadline, like Alison Brown’s “Simple Pleasures,” which was released in 1990, but I tried to stick with the ’80s only. I love these banjo players, bands, and songs. To this day, if I get sleepy driving in the middle of the night, I can turn on this music and get a second wind. I hope you enjoy these 19 glimpses into the ’80s. — Kristin Scott Benson


We’re giving away a Recording King Songster Banjo in honor of Banjo Month! Enter to win your very own RK-R20 here.

WATCH: Special Consensus and Friends, “Blackbird”

Artist: Special Consensus and Friends (feat. Dale Ann Bradley, Alison Brown, Rob Ickes and Amanda Smith)
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Song: “Blackbird”
Label: Compass Records

In Their Words: “We are super excited to be premiering the video for our new single ‘Blackbird’ with our friends at The Bluegrass Situation. This song has been a favorite of our producer Alison Brown for a long time and, when she suggested it to us, we thought it would be the perfect way to introduce our newest members Greg Blake and Michael Prewitt to the fans. We released the single in early spring on Compass Records and are thrilled to be sharing the new video this week. A big shout-out to our special guests Rob Ickes, Dale Ann Bradley and Alison for joining in on the video shoot, and to Hannah West for standing in for Amanda Smith who was out of town when we filmed. (Be on the lookout for a cameo from Amanda in the video.) ‘Blackbird’ is the first single from our 21st band record which is scheduled for release in early 2023. We are thoroughly enjoying being back to touring and recording with our new lineup and we can’t wait to share our new music with everyone!” — Greg Cahill


Photo Credit: Jamey Guy

MIXTAPE: The Foreign Landers’ Transatlantic Story

Each of us having grown up on either side of the Atlantic, our common interests and musical influences could not have been more similar. All of these tracks hold sweet memories in our years of being a couple, and each artist has definitely influenced our sound as The Foreign Landers. David and I thought we’d share some of our transatlantic story together through a few of our favorite songs. — Tabitha Benedict, The Foreign Landers

Paul Brady – “The Lakes of Pontchartrain”

This is one of our favorite tracks of all time. This version of the popular ballad is from Paul’s album Nobody Knows: The Best of Paul Brady rereleased in 2002. With Paul’s flawless storytelling ability and tasteful guitar playing, it makes it a joy to come back for a re-listen.

Crooked Still – “It’ll End Too Soon”

David and I have been big Crooked Still fans for a long time and they will often be our first choice of car music on any long journeys. Here’s a beautiful song written by banjoist Greg Liszt for Aoife O’Donovan that is just so sweet to the ears. This was one of the last songs they recorded before the band stopped touring in 2012 and it appears on their EP Friends of Fall.

Tatiana Hargreaves – “Foreign Lander”

This is where the inspiration for our band name “The Foreign Landers” was drawn from. Aside from having more of a story behind our name than just that, we both love this old song and especially love this version from Tatiana Hargreaves debut album Started to Ramble released back in 2009.

Alison Brown – “Fair Weather”

This title track of Alison Brown’s album Fair Weather released back in 2000 is a common favorite of ours. Vince Gill features on lead vocals and guitar, Alison on banjo, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, mandolin, and vocals and Gene Libbea on Bass and vocals.

Ron Block – “Ivy”

Well, we knew we had to involve some of Ron’s writing and performing in this mixtape. We love this track, “Ivy,” off his album Walking Song. This is a perfect album for all year round, with guest appearances from a host of our favorite players.

The Weepies – “I Was Made for Sunny Days”

I first was introduced to The Weepies through hearing them on the radio back in Northern Ireland many years ago. My family instantly fell in love with their songs and sound, so I was so delighted to introduce David to their catalog when we were dating. Another favorite for long drives and singing along in the car. Here’s a real feel good song of theirs called “I Was Made for Sunny Days” from their album Be My Thrill released back in 2010.

The Boxcars – “You Took All the Ramblin’ Out of Me”

We just had to stick some good bluegrass in this mix of songs, and we’re so glad we chose this one. When David and I started dating, we would sing this to each other, and it has to be one of our favorites from the Boxcars album It’s Just a Road released in 2013.

Hot Rize – “You Were on My Mind This Morning”

At one of our first-ever performances about three years ago at the well-loved Cantab Lounge in Cambridge, Massachussetts, David sang lead vocals on this track written by Hot Rize. They recorded this on their 2014 release When I’m Free.

Dori Freeman – “If I Could Make You My Own”

We are big fans of Virginia-based singer-songwriter Dori Freeman, and especially love this track of hers from her 2017 release Letters Never Read. We recorded a cover of this song on our honeymoon on the Isle of Skye about two years ago now, so it holds a sweet spot in our relationship!

John Reischman – “Little Pine Siskin”

One of our favorite tunes off John’s album Walk Along John! John had been touring with the wonderful Greg Blake in Ireland back in January/February 2018, right when David took his first visit to Northern Ireland, and right when we started dating. We went to see them at a wonderful show at the Red Room in Cookstown. It was just a couple of days prior to making things “official.” I remember David playing this tune on that visit and it brings back happy memories!

The Foreign Landers – “I’m Not Sayin’”

We discovered this Gordon Lightfoot song from the late great Tony Rice on his album Tony Rice Sings Gordon Lightfoot. We have both loved this song for many years, and knew that when he would start a duo we would definitely be covering this one. We recorded this version on our EP Put All Your Troubles Away that we released in May 2021. We’re so thankful we did and hope you enjoy it!

David Benedict – “Colonna & Smalls”

David released this tune on his solo project The Golden Angle in 2018, named after the specialty coffee shop in Bath, England, back when we were dating. He has the amazing David Grier and Mike Barnett playing on this track with him.

Cup O’Joe – “Till I Met You”

David and I also tour and record with my two brothers in Cup O’Joe, our band based out of Northern Ireland. I wrote this song back in 2018, and recorded it on Cup O’Joe’s most recent album, In the Parting. I wrote this one with David in mind, not thinking that he would be playing mandolin on it a few months later!


Photo courtesy of The Foreign Landers

Double the Banjos, Double the Fun!

Twin fiddles are the bluegrass instrumental duo that get all the attention, but double banjos are really where it’s at. (Is this writer a banjo player? Why, yes. Is this writer biased? Why, of course!) It makes sense that twin or triple fiddling would end up more popular than double or triple banjos, given that fiddles are sounded by bows, so the melodic contours are more like vocal harmony, often longer phrases and bow strokes languidly and charismatically laced together. Banjos, with their rapid-fire sixteenth notes and syncopated, idiosyncratic rolls, are just more difficult to sync up. Hundreds – if not thousands – of banjo jokes devoted to rhythm and timing will certainly back that claim up.

But double banjo is an art form as old as bluegrass itself – and older, by quite a few dozen decades, if you count early American popular music, banjo orchestras, minstrel and vaudeville songs that all centered banjos before and during the turn of the 19th to 20th century.

In bluegrass, twin five-strings are at their most astounding in jaw-dropping and acrobatic contexts such as High Fidelity’s incredible rendition of the Don Reno classic instrumental, “Follow the Leader.” Famous for his steel guitar and chicken-pickin’ Telecaster licks transferred to banjo, Reno’s harebrained and wonky turns of phrase might seem like the last musical context in which one should attempt perfect synchronization, especially on banjo, but Jeremy Stephens and Kurt Stephenson defy reason, logic, and surely physics with their buttery, seamless, double banjo blend. The track perfectly encapsulates the “WHAT IS THAT!?” quality of five-string, three-finger banjo – raised to the second power.

Anyone who grew up tuning in to or has ever binge-watched reruns of Hee Haw knows the beauty of a good double, triple, quadruple, quintuple banjo number, a common feature of the homespun country, comedy, and pickin’ variety show. Roy Clark, the Hee Haw host who could tear through almost any instrument in any style, released an entire album of double banjo music with regular Hee Haw guest Buck Trent in 1978 called Banjo Bandits. “Down Yonder” kicks with all-too-rare (and certainly delicious) bluegrass piano, a delightful intro to a bluegrass, old-time, and American songbook standard that almost sounds like a carnival merry-go-round thanks to the effect of the banjos “in stereo.” Banjo Bandits is something like a bluegrass and country double banjo primer, every track a stunning example of the form.

Like twin fiddling, double banjo lends itself so intuitively to the collaborative, community quality of bluegrass music. Through many a duo album and “featured artist” slot pickers have been using double banjo tunes to bring in their favorites, their mentors, their heroes, and their peers to swap licks, rising and falling, rolling and tumbling in breakneck unison. Alison Brown’s first Grammy Award was won for “Leaving Cottondale,” her double banjo instrumental with Béla Fleck from her also-nominated 2000 record, Fair Weather. In 2007, modern banjo hero Tony Trischka released a 14-track album of all twin banjo tunes entitled Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular. Its roster included Earl Scruggs, Brown, Fleck, Noam Pikelny, Steve Martin, and more. On “Doggy Salt,” a silly, winking instrumental that reconfigures the classic chord progression of “Salty Dog,” Scott Vestal joins Trischka, leaning into the humorous, comedic quality of these sorts of duets — a quality we see in Banjo Bandits and “Follow the Leader,” too.

Do not be mistaken, though, putting together a banjo duet isn’t just a comedic or intra-bluegrass activity! Cross-genre double banjo forays are certainly just as delightful, if not rarer and even more difficult to lock into rhythmic synchronization. Those that can mesh together three-finger’s rolling right hand with clawhammer and frailing’s loping, looser right hand are true virtuosos, defying not one but two genre’s expectations that banjos are intrinsically arhythmic and constantly rushing. Old-time players like Allison de Groot, Cathy Fink, Mark Johnson, Victor Furtado, and others all make it look and sound easy, matching their bluegrass compatriots’ rhythms and syncopations with ease and not just blending in, but counterpointing tastefully as well. One such recording, “Cluck Old Hen” from Pikelny’s Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail project, features Steve Martin, once again, on clawhammer. A less traditional approach, the two play with textures and senses, not striving for perfect unison, but rather exploring what an old-time-and-bluegrass dialogue can look and sound like, expanding our ideas of what twin banjo can be.

No matter the context, genre, roster of pickers, or style of playing, this fact remains true: more banjos equals more fun. (To this writer, at least.)


When Springtime Comes Again: 12 Bluegrass Songs for Spring

We hope, wherever you’re reading this from, that snow, frost, and the cold are truly retreating, giving way to longer days, warmer weather, and the gorgeous, humid, cicada-soundtracked days of summer. But, before we get to full-blown bluegrass season – and, hopefully, our first live music forays since COVID-19 shut the industry down in early 2020 – let’s take a moment to intentionally enjoy spring with these 12 bluegrass songs perfect for collecting a wildflower bouquet, romping and frolicking in the meadow, and pickin’ on the back porch while the evenings are still cool. 

“Wild Mountain Flowers for Mary” – Lost & Found

A classic via Lost & Found, bluegrass certainly does not lack metaphors and analogies for love built around spring and the flowers re-emerging – see “Your Love is Like a Flower” below – but this somewhat melancholy track is an exceptional example of the form. And that banjo solo by Lost & Found founding member Gene Parker will stop you dead in your tracks.


“There Is a Time” – The Dillards

Famous for the rendition sung by Charlene Darling of the ever-popular Darling family on The Andy Griffith Show, this haunting, seemingly timeless folky melody from The Dillards – who also played members of the Darling clan – cautions, “…Do your roaming in the springtime/ And you’ll find your love in the summer sun.” The suspensions in the banjo roll linger on the minor chord, echoing this sentiment and categorizing spring not by its own, shining qualities, but by the darkness in winter and fall. A true classic.


“Little Annie” – Molly Tuttle, Alison Brown, Kimber Ludiker, Missy Raines

A staple of impromptu pickin’ parties and jam circles, “Little Annie” is properly ensconced within the bluegrass canon, but is infused with new life in this application by Tuttle’s lead vocal, a slight queering of the lyric that’s perfectly at home in the hands of this veritable supergroup, assembled by D’Addario at Folk Alliance International’s conference in 2018. 


“Texas Bluebonnets” – Laurie Lewis 

Laurie Lewis is effortlessly, archetypically bluegrass even, if not especially, in applications that infuse other genres into the music, like this Tex-Mex flavored, twin fiddle arrangement of “Texas Bluebonnets” that truly never gets old. Yes, that’s Peter Rowan and Sally Van Meter guesting, and Tom Rozum jumping onto lead during the choruses so Lewis can utter the tastiest tenor harmony vocal. Stick around for the Texas double-fiddle break and do yourself a favor and bookmark the track for easy reference. You’ll be returning to it often, as this writer does. 


“The First Whippoorwill” – Bill Monroe 

The birds returning in spring are a sure sign of the seasons changing and the warm weather returning, though the whippoorwill’s role in folk music has always been as a bittersweet harbinger, never quite viewed without at least some semblance of suspicion, perhaps an acknowledgement of the whippoorwill’s mournful tendency of singing long into the dead of night. This recording of “The First Whippoorwill” is a tasty example of Monroe’s iconic high lonesome sound, with acrobatic breaks into entrancing falsetto woven into the harmonies. 


“Sitting on Top of the World” – Carolina Chocolate Drops

Whether you know this common blues, old-time, and bluegrass number from the Mississippi Sheiks, Doc Watson, John Oates, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, or any other of its many, many sources the fact still stands: Don’t like peaches? Don’t shake the tree. Demonstrably a song for spring, summer, and beyond.


“Roses in the Snow” – Emmylou Harris

Though BGS calls sunny southern California home – and BGS South is relatively temperate and mild in Nashville, TN – we know there are climes across this continent where spring promises snow as reliably as thaw. Emmylou Harris released her iconic bluegrass album in 1980 and its title track is another homage to love bringing warmth, newness, and growth even in the cold: “Our love was like a burning ember/ It warmed us as a golden glow/ We had sunshine in December/ And grew our roses in the snow…”


“Each Season Changes You” – The Osborne Brothers

Love is as fickle as the breeze! There’s a small irony in the song’s central conflict, that the singer’s love changes their mind as often as the seasons change – which, when taken whole, seems like a much more stable, predictable love than most? Even so, and done in so many different iterations, the central metaphor still holds, forever baked into the vernacular of these folk musics.


“One Morning in May” – Jeff Scroggins & Colorado

If you’ve been a bluegrass fan over the past five to ten years and you don’t immediately hear Greg Blake’s voice singing “One Morning in May” whenever it pops into your head, something must be awry. During Blake’s stint with Jeff Scroggins & Colorado, this spring-centered track was a highlight of their live show, a clean, modern rendering of what’s a properly ancient folk lyric. Lost love, war, nightingales, and yes, springtime – it has everything! 


“Your Love is Like a Flower” – Flatt & Scruggs

Perhaps the song that defines the form. Flatt’s languid, lazy phrasing seems to underline the leisure of spring that grows into the laziness of summer. The rhythm of love, tied to the seasons and the budding blooms. Another timeless sentiment, distilled into a favorite, stand-by bluegrass number.


“Springtime in the Rockies” – Lead Belly

You know the film and the country hit, but have you heard Lead Belly himself tell the story of hearing the tune from “Gene” coming by and playing him some music? Worth a listen and worth inclusion on this list, which would suffer if it didn’t include “When It’s Springtime in the Rockies” in one form or another!


“Spring Will Bring Flowers” – Balsam Range

Processing grief and loss through the ever- and unchanging seasons is a common thread through rootsy songs about spring. This more recent recording from powerful North Carolina bluegrass vocal group Balsam Range hearkens back to springy, ‘grassy numbers from across the ages – its intermittent banjo licks a call back to Jimmy Martin’s “world filled with flowers” in “Ocean of Diamonds.” 


Background photo by velodenz on Foter.com