Tag: Artist of the Month

From Death Metal to a Fishing Boat, How Billy Strings Finds Renewal (Part 2 of 2)

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Billy Strings has had his foot on the gas since he was a teenager, bringing his prolific picking to hundreds of shows around the country each year and winning over a throng of devoted fans in the process. His bluegrass bona fides may be obvious from the outset — he’s quick to cite such greats as Bill Monroe, Doc Watson, and the Stanley Brothers as some of his first musical influences, and no honest spectator could deny his talent on the guitar and mandolin — but astute listeners will also note elements of rock, jam bands, and even heavy metal in his performances, especially as Strings bounds around the stage.

The Nashville-based, Michigan-raised musician’s latest album, Renewal, comes on the heels of an exceptional year: His Rounder Records debut, Home, won the 2020 Grammy award for Best Bluegrass Album. And even as much of the music industry was grounded from touring, his innovative approach to livestreams and digital performances moved the Pollstar Awards to dub him the Breakthrough Artist of the Pandemic. But that breakthrough was more than a decade in the making, and the forces that shaped Strings as a prodigious young picker are still at work today, pushing him creatively in the studio and on stage as well as calming him at home between gigs. Here, in the second half of our BGS Artist of the Month interview, Strings tells us about his upbringing, his latest influences, and the way he unwinds between shows.

Editor’s Note: Read the first part of our interview with Billy Strings.

BGS: Tell me about where you grew up. How do you see its impact on your work today?

Billy Strings: I was born in Lansing, Michigan on October 3, which is my grandpa’s birthday. My mother, who lived in Kentucky at the time, had gone up to Lansing to visit her dad on his birthday, and that’s when I decided to show up. [Laughs] So that’s why I was named Billy as well, because that was my grandpa’s name — I was his little birthday gift.

We lived in Morehead, Kentucky, for a couple of years before coming back home to Michigan, where I really grew up. I grew up in a little town called Muir, population 600. My dad is an incredible guitar player, so he taught me how to play. He was always showing me music when I was a little kid: Doc Watson, Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, Jimmy Martin, Larry Sparks, and stuff like that — a lot of good bluegrass. We’d hang out at this little campground and play music next to the river by the fire. That was my childhood, man, just sitting there picking by the river.

It was real good until I got to be a teenager and started to turn sour. I had to run off and figure out a new life. I took what my dad taught me when I was a little kid, and all of a sudden I realized that bluegrass is actually pretty sweet and people love this shit — that maybe I could do something with this; that it’s not just something that I do with my dad that I should be halfway embarrassed about.

Who are the artists that you feel really inspired by right now? And are those different than the ones that you feel like you were listening to a lot when you were a kid?

For the most part, it’s still Doc Watson — he’s the main nerve — and Bill Monroe, and Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley and Carter Stanley, the Stanley Brothers. But I listen to a lot of different shit. I listen to death metal, and lately, I’ve been getting into this music from Mali that Béla Fleck was showing me — some really amazing stuff. And Memphis trap: I’ve been listening to Young Dolph a bunch. There’s just an energy to it. I grew up around crack houses. I’ve seen that shit that they’re rapping about. It just gets me hyped: He’s talking about coming out of nothing and becoming a self-made millionaire. I listen to it before the shows sometimes to get myself hyped up.

You played in rock bands in high school — groups with music that might not sound a lot like what you’re doing today. Is there any lesson or anything from that time that you feel like you still turn to or still apply to the music that you make?

Yeah, performing live. I never learned how to perform in a bluegrass band. I learned how to perform in a metal band. I learned music by playing bluegrass when I was a little kid, but by the time I was doing it on stage it was in a metal band — we were headbanging and running all over the place — and I still can’t help but get into the music like that. I can’t just stand there and play.

You have been in Nashville now for a little while. Has anything that has surprised you about it, good or bad?

I really love Nashville. A lot of your favorite musicians, that’s where they live. You’ll see your favorite singer in the grocery store. I get calls for sessions, and it’s from people who I grew up listening to and who I’ve idolized for my whole life. Like Béla Fleck’s record just came out, and I played a handful of songs on that. I was so honored to play with David Grisman, and Chris Thile, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, and Edgar Meyer — all these cats that are just… well, I don’t feel like I’m really in that league. It really was an honor. And there’ve been several things like that! I went from listening to these cats on a record to being on a first-name basis with them… texting and being friends. It’s a trip.

What’s one thing that’s brought you joy recently?

Fishing. I love bass fishing. I grew up doing that with my dad as well, but I didn’t do it for a long time because I was so busy. When the pandemic hit, I started fishing again. I go out there in rain or shine. I just like it for the solitude. Last night, I was in front of thousands of people, and to come home and go out on my boat and be alone in nature — to check out the blue herons and the fucking ospreys, eagles, fish, everything doing its thing — it’s brought me a lot of joy, brought me down to Earth. I put my boat in at 5 o’clock in the morning when the sun is just coming up. I like being out there alone at that time of day. It’s just good for my mind.

And yet it’s so clear from your performances that interacting with listeners gives you a certain joy, too. What are the forms of feedback that you value most from your audience when you’re playing live?

Sometimes when we finish a solo, everybody starts cheering real loud, the whole place gets real loud. That feels good. But sometimes I look out there and I look around and I see individual people and I literally play to them. Last night, we played in Montana and I was looking around and there was this one dude just standing there with his beer just completely still. I didn’t even know if he was enjoying it or not. So I just walked up to the front of the stage and stared directly at him and I just started playing right to him. [Laughs] So he started laughing, and then he took a drink of his beer and started bobbing his head a little bit. I think he just started getting into it by the end of the show.

I’ll look for things like that. The audience is really in control of how I’m feeling up there. Sometimes, when they’re just on fire, I can’t help but have a good time. They feed us the energy, and we give it back to them. It’s reciprocal.

Photo credit: Jesse Faatz

Billy Strings Draws a Line in the Sand with Sobriety, Not Bluegrass (Part 1 of 2)

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From carving out a name for himself on the road as a teenager to winning a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album (2019’s standout Home), the prodigious 29-year-old guitar player Billy Strings has cultivated a devoted following and collected an impressive list of accomplishments along the way. His latest Rounder Records release, Renewal, capitalizes on the confidence and artistic growth those experiences have delivered, with experimental new instrumentation, contemplative lyricism, and trademark picking. Produced by Jonathan Wilson (Roger Waters, Father John Misty), the sixteen-track opus offers a glimpse at an artist who is continuously rediscovering himself.

“I’m going through a part in my life where I’m looking through the windshield instead of in the rearview,” he says. “I think of a new day, the morning light, a spider molting, or a snake shedding its skin: It’s a renewal.” In the first of our two part BGS Artist of the Month interview, we caught up with Billy Strings about those new beginnings — on the stage, in the studio, and in his day-to-day life.

BGS: Renewal is mostly acoustic, but it pulls from a lot of different sources of inspiration — and not all of those are necessarily bluegrass. Is there any particular moment on the record where you noticed the influence of a genre that may be unexpected to some listeners?

Billy Strings: “Hide and Seek” is a song that maybe draws more from my influence of playing in metal bands — trying to write a song that’s more like a metal song, but with acoustic instruments… using odd time signatures, diminished chords, and avoiding the major scale. I grew up listening to a lot of death metal, and a lot of that music is just not verse-chorus-bridge, verse-chorus-outro. The songs are like 10 different parts. They’re hyper-composed, and that stuff’s sort of neat.

Was there anything that you did in the studio that took you out of your comfort zone?

I mean, I wouldn’t say it was uncomfortable, but it was different playing synthesizers and different instruments hands-on. I think I gained a little confidence when I won that Grammy — the next time I went into the studio, I was the one calling the shots: “Hey, do you have a triangle? Let’s all come together and do a singalong.” I was the one coming up with the creative ideas and feeling confident in myself to do that. On “Heartbeat of America,” I’m playing some old synthesizer, playing with the pitch wheel and stuff. That shit’s fun.

“Hellbender” stands out as a reasonably upbeat, fun song when you’re listening to it, but the lyrics are… kind of dark. What was going on in your head when you were writing that?

That song’s about a real bad headache and a real bad hangover — being lost in the demons of alcohol, not knowing where to stop, saying, “Fuck it, I’m going to drink until the night’s over.” I haven’t drank in over five years: I haven’t had a sip of alcohol because I had a real bad headache one day. So it’s not really about me, but I wouldn’t really call it a fictional song either. I have been there and done that: woken up like that. It’s about a guy who can’t freakin’ stop.

“Know It All” on the new album talks about learning from your mistakes. Has there been any kind of a difficult learning experience that you feel shaped you as an artist?

Well, maybe that headache I was talking about.

Oh yeah?

One day we had this awesome gig. A lot of people showed up, and we sold a bunch of merch, and I thought we were fucking rock stars. I had been up all night and drinking beer and liquor and a bunch of shit. We got to the bar after and I was all, “Old Fashioneds! Get one for everybody, on me!” I was raring and tearing. But the next day, we barely made it to our gig, because I was puking every 10 minutes. We made it there in time to set up our stuff and play — we had to set up our gear in front of the audience. This was at a time where my career was really starting to take off, and I saw that as an opportunity to draw a line in the sand.

How so?

I think it’s about being conscious of my surroundings, being aware of the vibe that people are giving, and also being aware of the vibe that I’m putting off. I don’t want to be a drunk asshole when some fan comes up to me and says, “Hey man I really enjoyed the show.” I want to be there. I want to be able to say, “Thank you, man. Thank you for coming. I fucking appreciate it.” I just came off four gigs back-to-back. We played Spokane, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Seattle; and then somewhere in Montana. And right now I’m on my way to Salt Lake City. I can’t do that if I’m drinking. It’s all I can do to take care of myself. There’s no time for that shit.

You won Breakthrough Artist of the Pandemic from Pollstar —probably the first time anybody was awarded something like that. What motivated you to try new things when you lost your outlet on stage? Was there anything that struck you as a special moment even remotely connecting with your fans?

I’ve been doing this since I was 19 and I went on my first tour across the country. It’s all I’ve really known, just keeping this going. I’ve been “striking while the iron’s hot” for 10 years. [Laughs] So when all of a sudden I don’t have anything to do, it’s like, “Well shit. We need to keep doing something to engage the fans. We can’t just stop.” We started doing little streams at my house, and then that moved to doing a streaming tour around venues and stuff, and then eventually the whole Capitol Theater run, which was six nights, including this whole experiment where we tried to interact with our fans through telekinesis. That was really special. Even though there wasn’t anybody there, it felt like we were really connected with the audience.

You are out there day in and day out, and I’ve also seen you talk candidly about having anxiety and nerves before going on stage. Is there anything in particular that you do to manage that?

I mean, it’s been a journey. I hit the road when I was 19, playing 200 gigs a year, and for a while there, I was invincible, untouchable. I thought I could drive the van, sell the merch, book the hotels, settle up at the end of the night, write the songs, perform the shows, do everything. It was all on my shoulders. But I hit a wall where all of a sudden, instead of being confident, strong, and untouchable, I was fragile and scared of the world. Anxiety really fucked me up. I started having these crippling panic attacks where my whole body would go into convulsions.

I’m not trying to be a tough guy. I’m trying to be an honest guy. It’s uncomfortable for me to pretend like I’m feeling any way that I’m not, so if I’m angry, sad, anxious, mad? You’re going to know it because I don’t want to hide that shit. I’ve been going to therapy ever since 2019 and it’s helped me a bunch. I had a lot of trauma from my childhood that I had to sort out so I could keep moving forward and stop looking back. That’s what Renewal is all about.

Editor’s Note: Read part two of our Artist of the Month interview here.

Photo credit: Jesse Faatz

Billy Strings and Del McCoury Team Up for “Midnight on the Stormy Deep”

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Simple and strong, this live performance of “Midnight on the Stormy Deep” encapsulates so much of what we love about bluegrass. A style-defining voice and top-shelf front man, Del McCoury sings tenor and strums his signature rhythm guitar on the tune as Billy Strings leads from behind a mandolin — a lesser-known instrument for the fiery flatpicker whose name and music have become synonymous with modern bluegrass.

A timeless bluegrass standard, McCoury and Strings’ fresh take on “Midnight on the Stormy Deep” is reverent and quietly respectful of the music’s traditions. The breaks and fills are baked into the sound of bluegrass while the forward, bright vocal tones of the two friends could be the textbook definition of traditional harmonies. Some might say that McCoury and Strings could hardly be any more different as artists, but their mutual respect and appreciation is evident in this figurative, bluegrass passing of the baton. Don’t miss their in-studio performance of “Midnight on the Stormy Deep.”

Photo courtesy of Rounder Records

Artist of the Month: Billy Strings

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Billy Strings takes things up a notch for Renewal, a long-awaited collection of original songs produced by Jonathan Wilson. But is it bluegrass? Or is it rock ‘n’ roll? Perhaps more on the psychedelic side? Truly there’s no right (or wrong) answer to these questions. As Strings himself puts it, “I’ve learned, you’ve just got to let the song do its thing. So that’s what I try to do — write songs and let them come out however they do.”

Billy Strings is no stranger to the festival circuit, bluegrass or otherwise. His career trajectory over the last few years has netted him international acclaim, a handful of IBMA Awards — including Entertainer of the Year at this year’s IBMA Awards show — and even a Grammy for his 2019 album, Home. A Michigan native who now lives in Nashville, Strings says, “I called my last record Home, and then a few months later that’s where we all got stuck. Right now, we’re heading back into opening back up, and doing some more touring with real concerts and real shows. Hopefully we can renew everything. I think it’s an interesting word. It reminds me of how every morning is a renewed day and another chance.”

With Renewal, Strings seizes upon the opportunity to surprise his listeners and to expand his own musical horizons. By winning the Grammy, he discovered a newfound confidence to consider every creative path that presented itself. Because he’s bringing in his touring bandmates Billy Failing (banjo, vocals, piano), Royal Masat (bass, vocals), and Jarrod Walker (mandolin, vocals, guitar), as well as guests John Mailander (violin), Spencer Cullum Jr. (pedal steel) and Grant Millikem (synth), Renewal is far more than just a singer-songwriter record, even if it exposes his own mindset more than any of his material to date.

“I listen to this album now and it’s emotional,” he says. “I could sit there and tweak it forever, but there’s a point where it’s like building a house of cards. Yeah, I could add an extra tower on top, but it might collapse. I’ve always doubted myself, and I still do, but this album makes me think, ‘Hey, you’re doing all right, kid. You just need to keep going.’”

Read our exclusive two-part interview with Billy Strings here, and enjoy our BGS Essentials playlist below.

Photo credit: Jesse Faatz

With Béla Fleck, Opera Star Jamie Barton Finds Her Way Back to Appalachia

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At BGS, we are well aware of the immensely talented folks that have come out of Appalachia. Countless celebrated pickers, singers, writers, and performers have come from the mountainous heart of the American east. Jamie Barton is one of those singers, but her inspiration and voice led her to an entirely different realm of music than her neighbors tend to find. Barton is an acclaimed opera singer whose mezzo-soprano voice and commanding artistry have paved the path for her work with top-level ensembles like the San Francisco Opera, the Chicago Opera Theater, and the Metropolitan Opera.

Originally hailing from the foothills of Appalachia in Georgia, Barton’s roots are in bluegrass, old-time, gospel, and classic rock ‘n’ roll. The singer retains her those roots off stage as well, regularly using her platform to champion issues of social justice, sexuality, and body positivity. The all-around badass that she is, Barton is featured in a San Francisco Opera featurette called In Song: Jamie Barton, in which she returns to her musical roots in performances with Béla Fleck, who knows a thing or two about Appalachian music traditions. Produced in partnership with Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the short film is both heartwarming and eye-opening. And it’s always a treat to see two musicians of the highest caliber perform together. Take a look.

Photo credit: Taylor Ballantyne

The BGS Radio Hour – Episode 219

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Welcome to the BGS Radio Hour! Since 2017, this weekly radio show and podcast has been a recap of all the great music, new and old, featured on the digital pages of BGS. This week we have a previously unreleased live performance from Emmylou Harris and the Nash Ramblers, as well as Béla Fleck’s return to bluegrass, a conversation on songwriting with Rodney Crowell, and much more.

APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY

Béla Fleck – “Round Rock”

Our current Artist of the Month recently gathered an incredible crew of bluegrass power pickers for a live rendition of “Round Rock,” a tune that he included on his recent album My Bluegrass Heart, but that he had in his back pocket for nearly 20 years. He had been saving the piece for the right band to come along, and with this lineup, he has certainly found the players up for the task.

The Kody Norris Show – “Farmin’ Man”

Kody Norris’ “Farmin’ Man” is a true-life account of the American farmer – from the perspective of Kody himself, who grew up in a tobacco farming family in the mountains of east Tennessee. “I hope when fans see this they will take a minute to pay homage to one of America’s greatest heroes…”

Katie Callahan – “Lullaby”

Katie Callahan wrote “Lullaby” on the edge of the pandemic, before anyone could’ve imagined the way parenting and work and school and home could be enmeshed so completely. The song became a sort of meditation for her amidst the chaos.

Della Mae – “The Way It Was Before”

For Della Mae’s Celia Woodsmith, the process of writing “The Way It Was Before” was one of the toughest. [The song] “took Mark Erelli and I six hours to write (three Zoom sessions). Half of that time was spent talking, looking up stories, getting really emotional about the state of the world. We wanted to make sure that every word counted, so we took our time and tried to honor each of the characters (who are actual people). The pandemic isn’t even behind us, and yet I keep hearing people say that they can’t wait to get back to “the old days.” There’s so much about “the old days” that needs changing. After everything we’ve been through in the last 18 months, I found that writing a song like this felt impossibly huge. I may not have finished it if it hadn’t been for Mark.”

Ross Adams – “Tobacco Country”

The inspiration behind singer-songwriter Ross Adams’ “Tobacco Country” came from the idea of always staying true to your roots and remembering the people who helped you follow your path and dreams.
It’s a track paying tribute to the South.

Swamptooth – “The Owl Theory”

Savannah, Georgia-based bluegrass band Swamptooth wrote this jammy, energetic tune based on a Netflix series and true crime mystery with an unlikely theory that involves an owl. Read more from Swamptooth themselves.

Emmylou Harris & The Nash Ramblers – “Roses In The Snow (Live)”

A September 1990 performance by Emmylou Harris and the Nash Ramblers at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville had been lost to time, but now, Nonesuch Records has released it as a new live album, which features a slew of songs that were not performed on the iconic At the Ryman record.

Jon Randall – “Keep On Moving”

“‘Keep On Moving’ started with a guitar lick and a first line,” Jon Randall tells us. “Once I put pen to paper, I never looked back. That’s exactly what the song is about as well. Sometimes I wish I could just get in the car, hit the gas and keep going. I think we all feel that way and probably hesitate to do so in fear of finding somewhere you don’t want come back from. What if there is a place where nobody gives a damn about where you come from and the mistakes you’ve made? That would be a hard place to leave.”

Fieldguide – “Tupperware”

“Tupperware” came to Canadian singer-songwriter Field Guide all at once in about 20 minutes. It’s a song about his early days living in Winnipeg, but it’s also more generally about the beautiful parts of life that aren’t meant to last forever, and coming to terms with that.

Rodney Crowell – “One Little Bird”

Courage and truthfulness. Those qualities permeate Rodney Crowell’s new album, Triage; in fact, it’s safe to say they’ve guided Crowell’s entire career. In our latest Cover Story, we spoke to Crowell about the new project, making amends, mortality, and so much more.

“I learned a long time ago,” he explains, “If it’s coming from my own experience, there’s a good chance I’m a step closer to true. And I can mine my personal truth, but confessional only goes so far. I’ve tried to walk that line; if I can carefully write about my own experience and put it in a broader perspective, then [for] the listener, it becomes their experience…”

Triage, as specific and particular as it gets, feels like it contains truth that belongs to each and every listener. “That’s why I feel like I have to be really careful; if I make it too much about my experience, then I start to tread on the listener’s experience.”

Suzanne Santo – “Mercy”

In a recent edition of 5+5, Suzanne Santo shared her thoughts on the emotional alterations of cinema, the gift of playing music for a living, taking long, rejuvenating walks, and much more.

Jordan Tice (featuring Paul Kowert) – “River Run”

Hawktail members Jordan Tice and Paul Kowert collaborated on an original tune, “River Run,” during lockdown. According to Tice, the song “started with a little lick I had been carrying around in the key of D — a speedy little cascading thing that felt good to let roll off the fingers that I’d find myself playing in idle moments.” The end result evokes the lightness and constancy of a swiftly moving river as it passes over rocks, rounds curves, and speeds and slows. “[I] hope you experience the same sense of motion while listening and are able to glean a little bit of levity from it.”

Skillet Licorice – “3-In-1 2 Step”

Skillet Licorice combined a few different old-timey, ragtime, swinging melodies into a sort of parlor song medley that feels like it came straight out of Texas, complete with banjo and mandolin harmonies.

Photos: (L to R) Rodney Crowell by Sam Esty Rayner Photography; Emmylou Harris by Paul Natkin/Getty Images, circa 1997; Béla Fleck by Alan Messer

Béla Fleck Explains How ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ Set Him on a Bluegrass Path

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Béla Fleck came to the banjo in quite possibly the oddest way imaginable — via The Beverly Hillbillies when he was a kid. Hearing Scruggs-style banjo on “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” while watching television, he was instantly smitten and fell in love with the sound. But he chose not to tell anyone.

“It would have made no sense to anybody else why I liked it so much, but it just took my breath away,” Fleck remembers. “It was this odd moment at my grandparents’ house, watching TV with my brother even though he doesn’t remember it at all. I never thought I could actually play that. It seemed impossible, not within human grasp.”

Afterward, Fleck got his mom to teach him enough guitar to play folk songs casually. He liked playing guitar, although it did not fire his imagination. But after his grandfather saw him playing guitar, he came upon a banjo at a garage sale and bought it for his grandson, who was 15 and about to start high school.

“Just this flukey thing,” Fleck says with a laugh. “’Here, you like stringed instruments, this was at a garage sale.’ I would never have had the nerve to buy one myself, and he bought it for me not even knowing my interest in it. Bringing it home on the train, I ran into a guy who asked if I knew how to play. I didn’t, so he tuned it in G, handed it back to me and I never put it down. Got a Pete Seeger book and got to work. It was a really profound thing and I became Type-A obsessed. Still am. I’m always thinking about it.”

That work ethic never changed, either. Bob Burtman was an early roommate of Fleck’s in Somerville, Massachussetts, in the late 1970s and recalls Fleck as the perfect roommate.

“Either he was off making money, or he’d be there endlessly practicing,” Burtman says. “He was so dedicated, you just knew how good he was gonna be. There was a mattress on the floor and he’d sit there playing scales for hours. Not typical scales, either — diatonic, weird Eastern European, just everything. Up and down, up and down. Word got around and people started hearing about him and dropping by to jam — people like Tony Trischka, Mark Schatz. I got to hang out and listen, which was fabulous. Béla soon moved on to bigger and better things, like his own apartment.”

Over the decades, Fleck has covered a lot of ground both literally and figuratively. He traveled to Africa to explore the African origins of banjo with the 2008 project Throw Down Your Heart and has also played jazz and classical as well as bluegrass with groups including New Grass Revival and his own Flecktones, winning 14 Grammy Awards. His most recent Grammy Award came in 2015, claiming best folk album for Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn, made with his spouse and musical fellow traveler.

Strangely enough, however, he actually hasn’t done all that much straight-up bluegrass over the years. His latest album My Bluegrass Heart is a star-studded affair featuring notables old and new including Sam Bush, Michael Cleveland, Jerry Douglas, Billy Strings, Chris Thile, Molly Tuttle, and Sierra Hull. It’s just his third bluegrass album, and first in more than 20 years. But the timing does not feel coincidental.

“I always thought there’d be a time when I would want to do more bluegrass,” he says. “Growing up, it’s a great training ground before you spread your wings. Any great bluegrass musician has done that, pushed the edge, but they tend to want to come back when they realize how special the basic root is. Well, we had some family issues, my son got sick and we almost lost him. Once we knew he’d be okay, what to do then? Maybe it was feeling a lack of control, but I wanted to play music where I knew what to do rather than explore the unknown. I needed to connect with where I’d started, and the bluegrass community is one of the most beautiful things. You’re never alone when you play it.

“You know, I remember seeing Ricky Skaggs after he’d become a big country star, coming back to a bluegrass festival,” he adds. “He was this legit big star, and he played with eight bands that day. Bluegrass was still a part of him and servicing that part of himself and that community was important to him. That made a real impression. It’s important to me, too.”

Editor’s note: Read about more about our Artist of the Month, Béla Fleck, here.

Photo credit: Alan Messer

Béla Fleck: “It’s Clear to Me That Bluegrass Is Still My Defining Element”

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Novelist Thomas Wolfe famously declared that you can’t go home again. But then again, Wolfe is not remembered as a musician who played bluegrass, a style that’s all about going home again.

So it is that Béla Fleck’s new album is a homecoming, and an ambitious one at that. A third installment in Fleck’s long-running bluegrass trilogy, My Bluegrass Heart (Renew/BMG Records) is his first bluegrass album of this century. It’s a double-disc effort with an all-star cast – from old hands like Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas to new stars including Sierra Hull, Molly Tuttle, Chris Thile, Billy Strings, and more – with a running time not much shorter than the first two volumes put together.

“It’s hard to get around,” Fleck says. “As much as I may pretend to be something else, I am bluegrass at heart and that’s okay. It’s something I’m proud of and have come to embrace more as time goes on. Part of that is aging – do something when you’re young and you may not want that to be what defines you. Bluegrass just seemed like too obvious a pigeonhole for a banjo player when I was starting out and there was so much other music I loved, too. But after a lot of exploring, it’s clear to me that bluegrass is still my defining element.”

The album title of My Bluegrass Heart is actually a riff on an unexpected source, the late jazz pianist Chick Corea, a sometime collaborator of Fleck’s. One of Fleck’s favorite Corea albums was 1976’s My Spanish Heart, an ironic title because Corea was of Italian rather than Spanish descent.

“He was a guy from Boston with a natural affinity for Latin music, which was central to who he was even though he did not have legit entry in terms of ethnicity,” Fleck says. “That resonates for me. I’m from New York, of Eastern European and Russian descent with no natural connection to folk or bluegrass. So I’m defining myself with music that’s not necessarily my heritage, but being an outsider helps you bring new things to the idiom. When I go off to study Indian music, I can come back and write this album’s ‘Vertigo,’ which has very Indian rhythmic devices. Finding a way to insert Indian music or jazz or classical into bluegrass is very satisfying.”

The roots of My Bluegrass Heart go all the way back to Fleck’s first bluegrass album, 1988’s Drive, which he made with a core group including Bush, Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Mark Schatz, and most notable of all the late great guitarist Tony Rice (to whom the new album is dedicated, along with Corea). That same cast appeared on the 1999 follow-up, The Bluegrass Sessions: Tales From the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 2.

Had Fleck had his way, the same crew would have convened for volume three, and it would have come out many years ago. But the holdup was Rice, the troubled but brilliant guitarist who died in 2020 on Christmas day after years of health struggles.

“Playing bluegrass with Tony Rice was such a profound, dramatic upgrade from anything I’d ever experienced before,” Fleck says. “I wanted to do it again and reached out a lot over the years, but there was no response. I was puzzled and disappointed. Hurt, even. But come to find out that a lot of his other friends were going through the same thing with him as he started to isolate. He was not confident about playing anymore, so he shut it down and withdrew. And at a certain point, I heard about some close musician friends of mine who were starting to have hand problems. I thought, ‘If I don’t do this soon, some people I want to play with might not be able to anymore.’”

To that end, Fleck convened the surviving cast from his first two bluegrass forays, while adding young guns like Strings and Tuttle as well as other longtime pals including Tony Trischka, David Grisman, and Michael Cleveland. There’s plenty of firepower throughout these 19 tracks, especially on “Slippery Eel” — the first-ever studio work featuring the pairing of Strings and Thile. Fleck did his best to come up with something that would challenge those two, but notes that, “Of course they made it look easy.”

All 19 tracks are instrumentals, with a conservatory feel akin to Punch Brothers (several of whom appear) or the Kruger Brothers. But there are vocals of a sort, between-song quips and jokes by various players.

“This is such a community record and I thought it’d be cool for people to know this bluegrass community through these voices,” Fleck says. “You know, Sierra Hull talking, Tony Trischka and Jerry Douglas laughing, Sam Bush being silly, David Grisman being David Grisman. I think people in the bluegrass world will know every voice. When I’d play the record for people, they would always tell me, ‘I hope you keep that stuff in. It really humanizes it.’ I’m really excited and satisfied with everything about this record. The community aspect, hearing everybody play and talk, makes me happy. It’s like a love letter to the bluegrass community. If there’s ever been any doubt I love this music, there’s this.”

Editor’s note: Read about more about our Artist of the Month, Béla Fleck, here.

Photo credit: Alan Messer

The BGS Radio Hour – Episode 218

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Welcome to the BGS Radio Hour! Since 2017, this weekly radio show and podcast has been a recap of all the great music, new and old, featured on the digital pages of BGS. This week we have a vertigo-inducing bluegrass whirlwind from our Artist of the Month Béla Fleck and an all-star lineup, we take a listen to some energetic and ethereal — yet totally traditional — bluegrass banjo from Jeremy Stephens, we dive into the latest from Watchhouse’s new release, and much more!

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Watchhouse – “New Star”

We’ve watched Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz go through quite a few changes throughout their career in music, but one of the most joyful to watch has been their journey as parents. Even with COVID-19 halting touring for more than a year, their young daughter Ruby has already been to 34 U.S. states and nine different countries!

After their pandemic hiatus, the family of three is back on the road again as Watchhouse, the duo formerly known as Mandolin Orange, touring their new self-titled album. And Ruby, now a toddler, has perhaps transitioned back to road life even more smoothly than her father, who admits he’s still “struggling to find my sea legs.” For a recent Cover Story we spoke to Marlin about their name change, their new album, creativity through the pandemic, parenthood, and oh so much more.

Bobby & Teddi Cyrus and Billy Ray Cyrus – “Roll That Rock”

Husband and wife duo Teddi & Bobby Cyrus are joined by Bobby’s cousin, Billy Ray Cyrus, on “Roll That Rock,” a grooving bluegrass gospel song that they wrote together. According to Billy Ray, “When I started singing ‘Roll That Rock’ my inner spirit said Bobby Cyrus will know exactly what to do with this. He did. He wrote the gospel truth and then sang the daylights out of it with Teddi and a killer bluegrass band reminiscent of Earl Scruggs and Bill Monroe.”

AJ Lee & Blue Summit – “Monongah Mine”

A new favorite of BGS, California-based bluegrass band AJ Lee & Blue Summit tell the story of the 1907 Monongah, West Virginia mining disaster in this new track.

Béla Fleck – Vertigo

20 years since his last bluegrass album, Béla Fleck just returned this past week with My Bluegrass Heart . Home is where the heart is, after all! All September we’re celebrating Béla as our #ArtistOfTheMonth! Hear tracks from the new project — featuring an all-star lineup — and more on our Essentials Playlist, including this song featuring Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, Bryan Sutton, and Edgar Meyer.

Paul Thorn – “Sapalo”

In this track with an R&B groove, Mississippi’s Paul Thorn turns the contents of a YouTube video of James Brown high on PCP into a song of redemption. Yes, you read that right! As he puts it, “It’s about being optimistic with whatever time you’ve got left.”

Elder Jack Ward – “The Way Is Already Made”

Elder Jack Ward puts his God-given talents to work on a new album that’s full of joyful gospel and sacred soul — as evidenced on its title track, “The Way Is Already Made.”

“If you’ve got that God-given gift you can do it — your choice if you want to sing rock ‘n’ roll, blues, gospel — but I choose the right side.”

The Grascals – “Maybelle”

“Maybelle” is a song that sounds like it came from deep within the mountains — exactly what The Grascals were looking for. From the haunting words to the clawhammer banjo and fiddle, “Maybelle” will grab your attention.

Hiss Golden Messenger – “Sanctuary”

On a recent episode of The Show On The Road, host Z. Lupetin dials in to North Carolina to chat with Grammy-nominated songwriter MC Taylor, who for the last decade and a half has created heart-wrenchingly personal and subtly political music fronting Hiss Golden Messenger.

The Way Down Wanderers – “Everything’s Made out of Sand”

The Way Down Wanderers recorded “Everything’s Made Out of Sand” in one take, belting and stomping into one antique microphone. The song’s lyric, music, and sonic landscape all capture the inspiration they gathered from the temporary nature of all things.

Seth Mulder & Midnight Run – “Carolina Line”

Seth Mulder & Midnight Run recorded “Carolina Line” with an Osborne Brothers-inspired arrangement that represents many of their various musical influences.

Matthew Fowler – “Going Nowhere”

In a recent edition of 5+5, Matthew Fowler spoke on the bold authenticity of Glen Hansard, a memorable birthday show in his hometown, Orlando, putting himself in the “hot seat” of a song, and much more.

The Felice Brothers – “To-Do List”

The Felice Brothers chose the very first take of “To-Do List” as the keeper, capturing the loose, playful quality of the group just getting the tune under their fingers. “The song was originally a slow waltz with the lyrics: ‘Into the fire that burns them/that’s how the idiots run,’ but I didn’t know where to go from there. I had written down a to-do list on the adjacent page and began to sing it and it seemed to work well with the phrasing. I wrote down many pages of ridiculous things and chopped them up into the melody. This is how the song came into being.”

Mike Younger – “Killing Time”

The lyrics of Mike Younger Music’s “Killing Time” take comfort in the remembrance of past friendships forged in the fire of struggle. Younger believes that artists have nothing to lose by speaking their truth and doing so unapologetically through song. “I greatly admire those writers and creative people in general, who, through their work, have lent their voices to the struggle for equity in our society, like John Lennon, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, and others.”

Jeremy Stephens – “Sockeye”

Banjo player and multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Stephens (co-founder of High Fidelity) has an old school, traditional approach to bluegrass that’s anything but backward. His new solo album, How I Hear It, includes several instrumentals that demonstrate this fact. “Sockeye” captures the energy and ethereal quality of Stephens’ live playing in a way many more sterile bluegrass albums, and purposefully more modern sounding records, can only aspire to.

Photos: (L to R) Béla Fleck by Alan Messer; Watchhouse by Shervin Lainez; Hiss Golden Messenger by Chris Frisina

WATCH: Béla Fleck, “Round Rock” (Live)

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Béla Fleck
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Round Rock”
Album: My Bluegrass Heart
Release Date: September 10, 2021
Label: Renew Records/BMG

In Their Words: “I’ve been saving this tune for a long time, looking for the right band to play it — but nothing seemed right ’til this project. Then it seemed real right! I think it’s at least 20 years old, but I certainly spruced it up as the recording dates loomed closer, writing a pair of bridges — and at the last minute, the night before the session — an intro and outro sequence with apologies to Ravel and Debussy. The title references the circular chord progressions, and with these two bands, it rocks!” — Béla Fleck

Editor’s Note: Filmed by Abigail Washburn, this video features Michael Cleveland, Sierra Hull, Justin Moses, Mark Schatz and Bryan Sutton. The album version features Cleveland, Jerry Douglas, Cody Kilby, Paul Kowert, and Dominick Leslie.

Photo credit: Alan Messer