Tag: Banjo

The Avett Brothers: Three Perspectives on ‘The Third Gleam’

Posted on by Editor

Back in March, the Avett Brothers — Scott and Seth Avett, along with bassist Bob Crawford — were scheduled to leave their homes in North Carolina and head out West, where their longtime producer, Rick Rubin, was waiting at his studio in Malibu. They were in a prolific place at the top of the year, and eager to keep up the momentum. They had just released Closer Than Together, their tenth studio album, in October 2019, and had written and recorded The Third Gleam, the latest chapter in a series of acoustic EPs. They had also written a ton of new material — enough for another album, by Scott’s estimation — and were all set to move forward with it when the coronavirus hit. Everything, including their flights to California, ground to a halt.

The only thing that’s gone according to plan for the Avetts in 2020 is The Third Gleam, and it’s weirdly fitting — fateful, even — that it’s a homecoming in many ways. The eight-song EP was ushered into a tumultuous time they never saw coming, one that’s forcing everyone to stay put, slow down, and count their blessings more fervently than usual. It’s a return to the sparse acoustic arrangements that the Avetts perfected in their early releases before they teamed up with Rubin in 2009 for their mainstream breakthrough, I And Love And You, which brought them into the rock arena.

The Second Gleam came out in 2008 just before I And Love And You changed their lives and their sound, and though they’ve never strayed from their bluegrass and folk framework, they haven’t returned to the simplicity of Scott and Seth working through ideas with only their guitars and each other for company to this degree in over a decade. (Crawford does join them on The Third Gleam; he wasn’t brought in for the first two.)

The Third Gleam was written long before the world abruptly changed, but it touches on themes that bubbled up from the tension and strife that’s shaped recent moments of violence, unrest, uncertainty, despair, and the embers of resilience, hope, and the pursuit of social justice that smolder in spite of all of the above. Gun violence (“I Should’ve Spent the Day With My Family”), facing the unknown with grace (“Victory”), considering mortality (“Prison to Heaven”), and the deep joys and struggles of the human condition (“The Fire”) are all explored here, in soft tones, plaintive strumming, and the meditative plucking of Scott’s banjo.

Each song is striking in its approachable yet profound sincerity, and this less-is-more approach is one they found to be particularly effective in this fractured time. These issues were on their minds before the coronavirus upended life as we know it, but the Avett Brothers find themselves finding new meaning on The Third Gleam back where they started: at home, in North Carolina, trying to make sense of the world with little more than two voices and two guitars in sharp relief. For Scott, it’s simple: “The smallness of the Gleam — that’s where its power is.”

BGS: When I think of the first two Gleams, some of the saddest songs you’ve ever written come to mind, like “If It’s the Beaches,” but also gems that became fan favorites, like “Murder in the City.” How do The Gleam, the Second Gleam and The Third Gleam stand out to you? What sets them apart from the rest of your work?

Scott Avett: If there was a heart or soul or spirit to everything we do, [The Gleams] orbit a bit closer to that. If there’s layers to an entity or a life, this is kind of at the pure center of it. I’m coming up with this theory for some reason right now with you. [Laughs] At the root of the songs, a lot of the songs on other releases, we have wrung them out — put them literally through the wringer — to see what they want to become, what they can become, what we’re trying to hear and get out of them. Are we challenging them or going too far with them? With these, we don’t ever take that journey. It’s much earlier in the inception of the life of the song that we stop meddling with them. There’s a little more to just be with them, which is at the root of things.

Seth Avett: The series itself sort of represents a simplification across many aspects of this whole thing. It represents the clearing out of many great things, many great tools, and many great advantages we have with our band and our resources, and our possibilities. It simplifies the process of collaboration, the process of artwork. It simplifies recording, mixing, mastering and everything else. Across the board, it’s just a process of simplification and reduction, to where the only real star is the lyrics. I think that we’re still attempting to make something that’s engaging, musically, but it’s no secret: what we put our time into is storytelling, writing words and then sharing them onstage. It’s always at the heart of our songs, and so the Gleam is presenting only the heart rather than the entire body in a way.

Bob Crawford: They’re Scott and Seth’s sketchbooks, really. If you knew these guys as well as I do — and I know a lot of people know them very well, because they put it all out there and they always have — but if you love a great painter’s paintings, and you become a connoisseur of that painter’s paintings, their sketchbooks are widely available nowadays, be it Rembrandt or Leonardo da Vinci. That’s how I look at the Gleams, stitched in with the fabric of all our work: they’re basically more broken down, raw thoughts that they guys have. They’ve always wanted these things to be quieter and less. This is the first one, I think, I’ve played on; normally it’s just Scott and Seth doing these. It’s just a chance for them to get quiet, be alone, and be brothers.

You’ve been very busy between Gleams. How has it been to return to this acoustic space after playing arena-ready roots-rock on Closer Than Together? 

Seth Avett: What it does for me, personally, is it takes a new inventory of our trust, of our brotherhood — my trust for Scott and his trust for me — with no other real considerations. It’s wonderful to be reminded in such a genuine way, with such gravity, that we still trust each other completely, and we’re not moving forward based only on the efforts of others. We still have each other’s trust and care, and we still hold those things in the highest regard. It’s a funny thing: on the first two Gleams and on this one, when we go into the process of finding out what the songs are going to be, and we present them to each other, there’s very little discussion.

All these full-length records, whether one person wrote the whole song technically or not, the other one will have a certain amount of contribution to it. There’s a lot of weighing: “What does it mean?” “Can it be said better?” “Is this too much, is this too little?” We do consider them in a big way, and we consider the songs on the Gleams in a big way as well — but we hardly talk about it. It’s like, “Hey, here’s four songs that are feeling really good to me and things I want to say,” and the other brother says the same, and that’s it. We just do it. It’s cool.

Bob Crawford: These Gleams give them an opportunity to come together and work together a little more than they have in recent years. We’re coming full-circle because of the pandemic. Since the pandemic, they’ve been living very close together and spending more time together. They were always close as brothers and best friends, but closer, approximately, so they could get together. We were actually about to go to Malibu to record the week the pandemic hit, the week of the shutdown. Ultimately, we tried to do it all these different ways; it just didn’t work out, so it turned into them recording demos themselves, sending me the demos, and me recording the bass and sending them back.

Did any of these new songs pose a new challenge you hadn’t confronted in your songwriting before? 

Scott Avett: What’s different about mine — and this is a change for Seth and I — we sort of switched places. Several years ago, I probably would’ve been the one that tended to be more rapid-fire, more erratic. I just chop it up with a lot of syllables and a lot of words. On this one, we switched. We were laughing about it. Seth’s songs have a lot of words and tell stories, they’re narrative, and then mine are very much personal and have a lot less words and a lot more space.

I always look at it that there’s only one character on the record, there’s one character in the story, and the two of us kind of make that character. We would do very different things on our own, probably. There’s a contrast to it, a gemini sort of approach to it I guess. [“I Should Have Spent the Day With My Family”] is a good example of what’s changed for us. It’s minor and subtle to anybody else, but it’s a change for us.

Seth Avett: If you look at The Third Gleam, it’s impossible not to compare and contrast between me and Scott — I know it is, I’m sure all of our fans do it — where the differences between the Seth and Scott songs have never been more laid bare, in terms of the difference of the vibe. Scott’s songs, they just have so much space and breadth in them. I don’t look at “Family” or “Fire” as songs that have a ton of breadth in them; they feel a bit more urgent.

The narratives have a bit more of an agenda. Whereas, “I Go to My Heart,” “Victory,” “Back into the Light,” they have quite a lot of breadth and space, and so I’m seeing a change in him. If we are writing the songs we’re meant to write, and we are giving reverence to our form, then the changes in us are the changes in the song. If you ask, “How have I seen his writing change?” I’m thinking about how he is growing and changing, as a man, as a father, as a brother. It’s all kind of wrapped in one.

The role of advocacy and activism in music has changed, even since you released Closer Than Together, and “Family” is a turning point for you especially, Seth. You mention your wife and child by name in a song about gun violence, and you’ve never done that before. How has it been to anchor the Gleam in this moment in that regard?

Seth Avett: I can’t say that there was a point where I said, “Okay, now I’m going to open the door and start writing these types of songs.” This sort of happened incrementally. A song like “Bang Bang,” there were multiple moments where I’d go to a hotel room, and I’d turn on the television, and it’s just one [show] after the next, from ridiculous garbage to the most eloquent sci-fi — but it’s always the leading man with the gun. It’s always presented with such power, and it’s just ridiculous. The idea of holding a gun to make someone powerful is absurd; it’s preposterous.

I had many moments like that, and then there were many shootings. “I Should Have Spent the Day with My Family” is an obvious, super-literal reaction; “We Americans,” that’s the first four years of a person’s life growing up as an American. I don’t know that there’s one moment where I gave myself permission, but there have been many moments that I consider wholly unavoidable in terms of taking that into the songwriting.

This has been a tumultuous time, so I was curious if you think there’s a connection between that and going back to the foundation with an acoustic EP. Do you find that it was an organic thing to take a step back and retract to that nucleus and get to the root of all things Avett with The Third Gleam, considering everything going on?

Bob Crawford: It’s definitely a time of reflection, and it does make you appreciate all we’ve done, because you don’t know when and how we’re going to do it again. … For me, “Victory” is the greatest song they ever wrote. We only win when we submit; we only find peace when we let go. How do we hold it all together in our hearts at the same time? How do we not lose our minds at that? How do we find true peace inside while there’s chaos flowing back and forth? I think, hopefully, the Avett Brothers can be part of the center of that. If you are the center of that, you’re not polarizing. You can’t alienate anybody. No matter what you know they believe, face to face is how we live the gospel, how we can make real change.

Photo credit: Crackerfarm

Adam Hurt, “The Scolding Wife”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

 Adam Hurt is a banjo player’s banjo player. This role is well known in bluegrass, where almost an entire generation of banjo players, who came up almost immediately during and after Earl Scruggs’ popularization of a three-finger approach to the banjo, continue to go largely unsung outside of five-string niches and circles of Scruggs-style acolytes. Hurt is remarkable, though, because he’s not an acrobatic, up-and-down-the-neck, barn-burning bluegrass picker on the margins of the scene. Instead he’s a clawhammerist — but the musicians and instrumentalists who count themselves followers and fans of Hurt’s pickin’ aren’t just old-time players; they’re everyone.

On his new album, Back to the Earth, Hurt strays still further from “mainstream” banjo playing by returning to its roots: the gourd banjo. Back to the Earth is a follow up to Hurt’s 2010 project, Earth Tones, an album often regarded as a seminal work on the gourd banjo. Despite largely being anchored by solo tunes played on the modern five-string’s precursor (which was brought to this continent by enslaved peoples kidnapped from West Africa), the entire new collection feels firmly rooted in the present. Raw, rustic affectations often found on old-time recordings are missing here, but not to the detriment of the final product or its “authenticity.” These twelve tunes feel simultaneously immaculate and primordial. Hurt deftly follows the gourd banjo’s microtones, warbles, wobbles, and slides as they lead him, rather than the opposite — which might be the most distinctive aspect of his playing, compared to other clawhammer players, other gourd banjo players, and five-string or four-string players alike. 

Ricky Skaggs, Brittany Haas, Paul Kowert, Jordan Tice, Marshall Wilborn, and others guest on Back to the Earth in different groupings, depending on the tune, but on “The Scolding Wife,” Hurt performs solo, a man in dialogue with his ancient instrument, ringing through the millennia to land in 2020. If you aren’t already a fan of Adam Hurt and his playing, Back to the Earth is the perfect, charming, listenable introduction — and you’ll find yourself among the likes of fans including Skaggs, Haas, Kowert, Tice, Jerry Douglas, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Molly Tuttle, Sarah Jarosz, and just about any other instrumentalist who’s ever had more than a passing interest in the banjo and her cousins on the instrument family tree. 

Photo credit: Martin Tucker

LISTEN: Tony Trischka, “Carry Me Over the Sea”

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Artist: Tony Trischka
Hometown: Fair Lawn, New Jersey
Song: “Carry Me Over the Sea”
Album: Shall We Hope
Release Date: January 29, 2021
Label: Shefa Records

In Their Words: “This project began without the intention of making a Civil War album, though I’ve had an interest in the conflict since childhood. ‘Carry Me Over the Sea’ was originally conceived as an instrumental, which I composed on a low-tuned cello banjo. I created the person of Maura Kinnear, a powerful Irish woman who lost her husband in a mine cave-in. After leaving her children in the safe care of relatives, she took a ‘coffin ship’ across the sea to America. Settling in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Maura met the reformed gambler, Cyrus Noble, whom she married and, together, they sent for her children. Cyrus rejected Confederate conscription and ultimately fought for the Union at the Battle of Gettysburg.

“No one but the incredible Maura O’Connell would do to inhabit the character of Maura Kinnear. I first met Maura when she was singing with DeDanaan in the ‘80s. I was bowled over and continue to be to this day. She is joined on most choruses by the equally talented Tracy Bonham.

“A cohesive narrative beckoned, and after a moving visit to a slave graveyard, I adapted the character of John Boston, an enslaved gravedigger in the 1850s. With these three central figures — Maura Kinnear, Cyrus Noble, and John Boston — along with a 1938 reunion of Gettysburg survivors, North and South, I felt I had the elements of a story.

“Shall We Hope, a phrase taken from a Phillis Wheatley poem, evolved to be just that, a story of hope. It was not created to mirror the divisions that currently exist in our nation. However, I would wish that the timeliness of a hopeful message would ring true today, and that, in some small way, this album could bring positivity, healing and hope in these troubling times.” — Tony Trischka

Photo credit: Zoe Trischka

BGS 5+5: Alison Brown

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Artist: Alison Brown
Hometown: La Jolla, California
Latest album: The Song of the Banjo
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Mom (currently trending)

From the Artist: “‘Here Comes the Sun’ is a song I’ve loved for years. But I never thought about playing it on the banjo until I was inspired by stories of hospitals playing it over their PA systems to encourage staff and patients in their battle against COVID. As I started working on it I realized that the tune has a lot in common rhythmically and harmonically with ‘Águas de Março’ (‘Waters of March’), a Tom Jobim classic that’s one of my favorite melodies and recordings. So I put the two together and came up with this mash-up — setting the low banjo against a tapestry of piano and jazz flute.” — Alison Brown

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I didn’t become a musician in one lightning rod moment. It was really more a series of baby steps. When I was really getting into the banjo in the late ’70s there weren’t a lot of successful role models that pointed the way to how you could make a career as an instrumentalist. As much as I loved playing the banjo I really thought it would be a hobby that I would talk about at cocktail parties in my real life as a doctor, lawyer, or another respectable white collar professional. As it happened, I had to spend several years as an investment banker before I got up the nerve to try being a banjo player.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I have so many great memories it’s hard to pick just one. Collaborating with a skratji band on stage at the Opera House in Paramaribo, Suriname, during a State Department tour is one that has stayed with me. Guesting on Brandi Carlile’s collaboration set with the First Ladies of Bluegrass at the Newport Folk Festival last summer with Dolly Parton singing “9 to 5” is definitely another. Playing on the Banjo Stage at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in front of a crowd that reaches all the way down Speedway Meadows never fails to blow me away and is one that always validates my decision to leave my investment banking job in San Francisco’s financial district to play the banjo.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

Since launching Compass Records 25 years ago, my career has had two parallel tracks: one as an artist and the other as the co-founder of a roots-based indie label. When Garry West and I started the label in 1995, literally at the kitchen table, we felt there was a keen need in the market for a record company that was run by musicians. We were driven by the idea that our perspective gained from years of touring would position Compass uniquely in the market. Our goal was to create an artist friendly home for other artists; at the time I was halfway into a multi-album contract with Vanguard Records. Garry and I were, and are still, extremely passionate about discovering new artists and helping to bring their music to a wider audience.

Over the past two and a half decades, we’ve had a chance to help further the careers of an amazing roster of artists across the roots music spectrum and also have had the privilege of carrying the torch forward for some great label imprints through catalog acquisitions. One thing that I didn’t really anticipate when we started Compass was how running a label would inform my own creativity as an artist and producer. Knowing the challenges in the market has been very much of a double-edged sword: sometimes it makes it difficult to get motivated to create new music but, at the end of the day, having a handle on current challenges and opportunities on the business side has made it more natural for me to create music with specific target results in mind.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

For me, studio = food:) When I’m producing, or leading a session, I like to arrive with warm scones or banana bread to start the morning and then make sure there’s a kitchen full of interesting snacks on hand throughout the day. I know it’s not great for the waistline, but for me it adds to the fun of the creative process. I’m also a fan of having slow TV, sound off, running on the monitor in the control room. When I was producing Special Consensus’ record Chicago Barn Dance, we had a Norwegian winter train journey from Oslo to Bergen on a loop while we worked and it complemented our musical journey in a perfect way.

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

Hmmm, perhaps not your typical banjo player’s dream, but how about a simple dinner with Tom Jobim on a garden terrace in La Jolla, California, overlooking the Cove and a menu that includes Jacques Pepin’s roast chicken, haricots verts, and a bottle of Cakebread Chardonnay?

Photo credit: Stacie Huckeba.
“Here Comes the Sun” credits: Low Banjo: Alison Brown; Piano: Chris Walters; Flute: John Ragusa; Bass: Garry West; Drums and Percussion: Jordan Perlson

WATCH: Tejon Street Corner Thieves, “No Good” (Acoustic)

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Artist: Tejon Street Corner Thieves
Hometown: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Song: “No Good” (Acoustic)
Album: Monarch Sessions
Release Date: October 16, 2020
Label: Liars Club

In Their Words: “At first glance, ‘No Good’ is about being a party animal. But a more in-depth look reveals the struggle for acceptance and a teetering battle with impostor syndrome. It’s easier to be hard on yourself than it is to understand why people like you. The song is a reminder to practice a positive self-image even though it takes work. Monarch Sessions combines both audio and video mediums so that we were able to portray our most authentic and emotionally-fueled performance in a time when live music isn’t an option. The video accompaniment allows for an inside look at our own reactions to the songs as we perform them, adding a layer to the album that wouldn’t be achievable otherwise. We put our heart and soul into these songs and you can finally see it through Monarch Sessions.” — Connor O’Neal, Tejon Street Corner Thieves

Photo credit: Gabriel Rovick @F4DStudio

With Hard Banjo Rhythms and Striking Lyrics, This Is the Kit Offers ‘Off Off On’

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Kate Stables, principal of alternative roots outfit This Is the Kit, didn’t intend to write a pandemic album to follow her acclaimed 2017 debut, Moonshine Freeze. In fact, she wrote the entirety of Off Off On well before the term “COVID-19” entered our collective consciousness.

In the way that great art often can, though, the songs Stables wrote for Off Off On anticipated the needs of our current moment. Across 12 tracks, Stables sings of growth-inspiring personal reflection, the “two steps forward, one step back” nature of processing trauma, and continuing to move forward in the face of grief, all explored with deeply felt empathy and sharp insight.

Stables and her band recorded the bulk Off Off On prior to the COVID-19 lockdown alongside producer Josh Kaufman (Bonny Light Horseman, the Hold Steady) at Real World Studios in the U.K. Sonically, the album builds atop the lush, banjo-driven alternative folk of Moonshine Freeze, with complex, often subtle arrangements that offer thoughtful soundscapes for Stables’ striking lyrics.

BGS caught up with Stables via Skype to discuss finding sources of inspiration, writing about difficult personal moments, and living as a musician during the COVID-19 lockdown.

BGS: To start us off, everyone has had their own specific difficulties resulting from the pandemic, but musicians, especially, have been dealt a tough blow. How has that affected you and how have you adjusted to being home more, and not being able to tour this record?

Stables: At first, it was kind of novel and a bit of a relief, almost. For the first summer in living memory, I didn’t have loads of festivals to do. So it was a summer I spent with my family doing family stuff instead. So that was nice, at first. Now that the time for actual touring would have been starting soon but it isn’t starting soon, it feels a bit weird. It’s the longest amount of time I’ve ever gone without playing gigs and without touring. So it feels really weird and I miss doing gigs so much. And I really miss my band. They’re in the U.K. and I’m in France. I’ve never gone this long without seeing them.

With regard to the album, you wrote and completed the majority of it before the pandemic started. What were the origins of the album and how has its meaning evolved for you since you first began plotting it?

I don’t usually have a pre-album vision. It’s normally just me writing songs as and when they come and seeing what kind of shape it all takes along the way. One of the earliest songs that was written for this album was “Started Again.” “Started Again” is almost a bit of a bridge song from the last album to this album, because I feel like it could have gone on either, in terms of what I was thinking about. It feels like it’s connected to my past life, in a way, because I feel like everyone has a new type of life now. The world has passed through this strange portal and we’re all a bit different and have to adapt to things. It’s not an obviously key song on this album… but it’s also a bit linked to my thinking about perseverance and getting through the difficulties and coming out the other side again and again. It’s funny because that’s also what the world seems to be dealing with at the moment. Those are themes that accidentally came out while writing the album, without knowing that COVID-19 was coming.

I read the track-by-track notes that you wrote for the album, and one line that stuck out to me was, “Listening through to these recordings, I hear new COVID-19 references every day.” Could you elaborate on that? I heard some myself when I was listening, but am curious as to which resonated with you.

Partly there’s the “we’ve all got to get through this” that I was dealing with in the album, which now seems like I’m talking about COVID. There are lines like, “Try not to cough.” That is too ridiculous and coincidental. There’s a song about a hospital and the breathing apparatus in the hospital; that felt spooky, now that so many people are in hospitals than ever before. Things that were written with one story in mind and now this new situation has given them another story.

I’ve talked to a few other artists who have had similar experiences. It’s interesting, because obviously no one could have predicted where we are now, but it does make you wonder if you were intuiting that we were collectively going down this road.

Yeah, are we all tuned into something that we don’t know about? It does feel weird. I think also with writing, and you may get this in your work, you do end up with funny coincidences and predicting the future accidentally sometimes. It’s just the way it goes when you’re working with words and language and storytelling, whether it’s journalism or fiction or songwriting. These weird cosmic moments do happen.

One of my favorite tracks, both sonically and lyrically, is “This Is What You Did.” How did you write that one?

Writing it was fun because it was an example of me playing with rhythm, which is my favorite thing to do. I tried to find a banjo-picking pattern that was quite hard, something I almost couldn’t do, and worked until I got it. I tried to find a pattern where I wasn’t using the same fingers every time, something as random as possible. The beats were regular but the strings I was picking were somewhat randomly generated. Then I tried to find vocal rhythms that were difficult for me to sing at the same time. I guess it was like brain gymnastics. I like it when you can’t tell where a pattern starts and finishes. … That repetitive, cyclical nature of the music lent itself to this mind-loop approach with the lyrics.

Reading through your notes about “No Such Thing,” you reference both Jack Kornfield and Jane Austen as inspirations. How do you find inspiration? Do you always have your antenna up?

Language is the material I work in and I really enjoy exploring other people’s work with language. When I hear a phrase that makes me laugh or that sounds pleasing to say out loud, I’m always noting down little quotes of things that make a spark in my brain, even if it’s something out of Bob’s Burgers or something… So I guess I do always have a bit of a radar up for rhymes, assonance alliteration; things like that make my ears prick up.

When you reach the point in your writing process when you’re ready to fully arrange a song, what does your collaboration with your band look like? They’re such fantastic players and it sounds like you’re all quite close.

Sometimes I have a bit of an idea of the vibe or the kind of pace that I was envisaging for a song, but it’s also nice to not say anything until they’ve tried something out. Quite often they’ll find something that’s better than what I had in mind. I’ve ended up with three of my favorite musicians playing in my band, which feels like a privilege and a real kind of fluke. So it’s nice to let them do their own thing as much as possible. I’d be interested to know, though, if they think that’s what I do. Maybe they think I’m really controlling. [Laughs] What I hope I do is let them have space to do their stuff.

Prior to lockdown, you got to spend a lot of time on the road with the National. How does playing as part of someone else’s project inform your work as a solo artist?

In a few ways, but it’s hard to put your finger on one. Traveling is nutritious for me in terms of writing and wellbeing and being inspired. The act of traveling, even just looking out the window while you’re going along the road, is inspiring. But also the fact that you’re going to different places and meeting new people and having these new experiences… Also just seeing how other people work. I found it fascinating to be part of this symbiotic ecosystem that’s going around on tour. Everyone plays an important part and looks out for each other and it’s really fascinating to see how other people tour.

It’s a bit tricky to look too far ahead right now, but, in addition to getting your album out, what are you looking forward to in the coming months?

Because the gigs aren’t there to be looked forward to, I think I’m looking forward to seeing what I can get done instead. There are a lot of musical projects that I’d love to get stuck into, and I hope that I just will. This time, we’re all learning how to be ready for anything and not to assume that something is going to happen, so, ideally, I’ll just be making music instead of touring. I really hope I’ll be able to make music with people, even if it’s long-distance.

Photo credit: Philippe Lebruman

LISTEN: Strung Like a Horse, “Lookin’ for Love”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Strung Like A Horse
Hometown: Chattanooga, Tennessee
Song: “Lookin’ for Love”
Album: WHOA!
Release Date: October 30, 2020
Label: Transoceanic Records

In Their Words: “‘Lookin’ For Love’ is a tune all about that exciting feeling you only get when first falling in love. It’s meant to invoke the joy of a relationship young enough to not be complicated. I know all our longtime fans are gonna be stoked on this one. The strings were cooling off just a little, and we needed to let them open up again and meet their quota. So we took care of business the way we used to — playing live in a room all together with a few mics scattered about. This one is a helluva good time, and I think our excitement for this song made its way through the wires. We all love to fall in love, and that’s the fun part to focus on. If you’re lookin’ for heartbreak, you’re in the wrong song.” — Clay Maselle, Strung Like a Horse

Photo credit: Vincent Ricardel

On ‘I’m With You,’ William Elliott Whitmore Puts Family Wisdom to Use

Posted on by Editor

Over the last few years, William Elliott Whitmore has been thinking a lot about how we – as individuals and as a society – have a tendency to repeat our mistakes, and how we’re always trying not to. Yet the tone of his new album, I’m With You, is still infused with optimism, which often stems from the wisdom he’s learned from his family.

I’m With You is Whitmore’s first album of new material in five years, though its material wouldn’t sound out of place alongside his early songs like “Old Devils” or “Don’t Need It.” As always, his banjo and guitar are central to the album’s sound, while his raspy singing voice remains an effective tool at getting his point across.

Though the album does have some heavy themes, Whitmore often points out the silver lining in a situation, and moreover, he’s comfortable chatting up a stranger — a trait not uncommon to the Midwest. He spoke with BGS by phone from his farm in Lee County, Iowa, where he’s quarantining with his wife and their six-month-old baby.

BGS: There are several family relationships that you reference in the album’s first song, “Put It to Use,” and you’ve had family members as characters in your songs for a long time. Why is that bond with your family so inspiring?

Whitmore: Yeah, the bond with my family has always been inspiring. I’m pretty lucky in that I’ve got a big family that’s close by. Aunts and uncles and cousins. My folks were great people, full of wisdom and just caring, beautiful people, but through different circumstances they passed away when I was in my teens. So, that’s when I started writing songs, and in fact, that’s what made me start doing that — to codify what they had always been teaching me. And as a way to deal with it and not just go off the deep end. They pop up in songs a lot, and have since the beginning.

I don’t have them here, so I just think about their words of wisdom and lessons. I think we all get those lessons from someone, whether it’s your folks and a grandparent or a neighbor or a cool uncle or aunt. That cool person down the block that introduced you to The Ramones when you were a kid. [Laughs] It’s like, “Hey, check out Black Sabbath!” So you go, “I should listen up.” Not just music, but lessons, and we can gather that from anywhere. “Put It to Use” is about, OK, you’ve gathered all this good information. Now, put it to use. And more than just music — let’s try to love each other.

Was it someone in your family that introduced you to banjo?

Yeah, both of my grandpas played the banjo. One of them passed away when I was one year old, so I never knew him, but I actually have his old banjo. And one died when I was in my teens, and he was a banjo picker from the Ozark Mountains down in Missouri. My folks loved country music. My mom loved Willie Nelson and Charley Pride – those were her favorites. And in fact, my parents’ first date was a Charley Pride show at a county fair.

But [my interest in] the old-time stuff, Appalachia music and Ozark mountain music, came from my grandpa, and he played the banjo. When he passed away, I got his banjo because I was into playing guitar. I was like, “Oh, the banjo… it’s not THAT different than a guitar.” And I inherited all of his old records. He loved Roy Acuff and the Stanley Brothers. Again, it’s getting that influence from wherever you can.

Were those records your gateway to bluegrass? How did you become aware of bluegrass?

Yeah, those records. … He had a lot of compilations with 15 different artists on one record. You’d find out about a bunch of different stuff, like how Bill Monroe pretty much invented bluegrass by playing old-time music faster than everybody else. [Laughs] And the subtle differences between that and the old-time, slower stuff. A lot of it does have to do with tempo. The feeling is there for all of it, but Bill Monroe kicked it into that next gear.

It’s this whole rich history that’s really cool, and there’s still a lot to learn about, too. So I took that bluegrass influence, but I also liked Minor Threat and Bad Religion and Public Enemy, growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s. There’s a theme running through all of this — punk and country and bluegrass and blues. Using simple tools to convey a message. No matter where you come from or what color you are, there’s a way to do this.

One thing you do well on this record, in my opinion, is setting the scene. While a lot of songwriters write primarily about themselves, or about love, you are writing about what’s around you. When did you become interested in environmentalism, for example?

That’s a great compliment, first of all. I’m right here on the farm I grew up on, and I’m very lucky to have that. So, the woods and nature and planting gardens — my folks were both naturalists. They wouldn’t have had the word for that, but they loved the land and they appreciated nature. That was passed on to us kids, the appreciation for the trees and the plants and the deer out in the field, and how we live among them and we’re part of it. We’re not above them. The grass in the meadow, the flora and the fauna that we see all around us, we’re just a part of that.

So it just doesn’t make sense to me, as an adult, why anyone would want to pour oil in the water, or level a whole forest, and cut every old-growth oak tree in the forest, just for the money! You want to live in harmony with nature, and sometimes you do have to cut a tree, but you want to be selective and do it in a smart way. … There are so many ways to do it mindfully. That’s my slant on it, and it all comes from living in the woods and living on a farm, and being instilled with those things at an early age.

Listening to your older records, I was struck by how much your singing voice has become more commanding. Did that come from you having to sing on stage, and use it as an instrument? At what point did you sense that your voice was becoming stronger?

That’s another great compliment. I didn’t even know if it was, but you know, it’s funny how things change over 20 years. I first started touring — gosh, it’s been over 20 years ago now. I used to smoke a lot of cigarettes and a lot of weed. … Well, maybe don’t write down “weed.” Oh, whatever, I don’t care. I just had a fucked up voice, but it was all I had. I was like, I wish I could croon like Dean Martin and Morrissey or Ralph Stanley, and have a beautiful voice, and I could never quite get there. So you just work with what you got, right?

So, I quit the cigarettes – and only the cigarettes. [Laughs] My voice changed after that, maybe, but it did come with playing a couple hundred shows a year, for years, and just being on stage, at least in the beginning, where they didn’t know who you are. It’s hard to be a presence when you’re by yourself. I was doing a lot of punk clubs and DIY spaces and bars, where they might not even care that you’re there. So you do have to make your presence known. I had to be more commanding. I am a loudmouth anyway, so it was natural. Put a microphone in front of me and I’ll make you listen! [Laughs] “I’m gonna start singing and you’re gonna wanna listen!” was my attitude, which is funny now.

But that did help me use it as almost a cudgel. Over the years, I’ve tried to sharpen that and make it more of a surgical thing and not a blunt instrument. [Laughs] I mean, I’m only dealing with guitar, banjo, and voice, and a beat — a kick drum now. Each one of them has to count. Any would singer would tell you, you take the time to write these lyrics, and in a live setting they just get lost. You’re just hollering. You have to learn to cut through. … Now it’s a bad habit to break because I’ll be singing in a quiet place, where everyone’s sitting down and listening and no one’s talking, and I’m just yelling like someone needs to hear me ten miles away. It’s those years of screaming over a bar room. I can’t shut it off.

Photo credit: Chris Casella

BGS 5+5: Larry Keel

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Larry Keel
Hometown: Lexington, Virginia for the past 24 years.
Latest album: American Dream, out November 6, 2020
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): My wife and I call each other “Ange” (pronounced “Aynge” with a long “a”) other nicknames are “Doghead” and “Late-night Man.”

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

My favorite memory is standing next to two of my heroes that I had studied all my life up to that point, and getting to collaborate and share in the music we made together on stage… I’m speaking of Tony Rice and Vassar Clements, during a period in my career when both of these iconic musicians played regularly in my band. Other major moments I cherish and will never forget are playing with Little Feat in Jamaica on a beach in Negril, playing Carnegie Hall in New York, playing Red Rocks Amphitheatre, and getting to play live music with my wife and my brother all throughout my career.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?

I truly love to paint! Bob Ross got to me early in my childhood, and he’s still all up in my soul. I paint with watercolors, markers, pens, anything when I feel the urge. I guess poetry also influences my music, because I lean on that literary form for my songwriting. And I’m currently getting more into designing a meal and preparing the food, then plating it artistically.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I knew I had to be a musician when I was little and I started paying more attention to my father and older brother playing (they both played guitar, my father also played banjo and sang). I loved watching them have such a good time and I could see how everyone playing music with them or listening to them all enjoyed it so much. Then, when I was 7, my brother bought me a guitar, helped me get started with chords and positions, and I never set the instrument down…I was hooked from then on.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

The mission is to let the art take me and everyone listening on a journey together, to get us all on the same page for the time we’re connecting through the music. If I had to give myself or a budding musician advice, I’d say be ready to work HARD. Do your music and your business your own way. Let your own instincts and your own style guide your decisions. I’m a big believer in “march to the beat of your own drum…” and, be frugal and be kind.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

I spend lots of time in the garden, right here at my home. It’s such a zen feeling to plant seeds, nurture them, watch them grow and then enjoy the fruits and veggies of mine and my wife’s labor. Fishing and being on any water is another zen-like activity that keeps me grounded. All in all, I try to spend as much time as possible in nature, because it charges up my “feel-good” and gives me a connection to something timeless and eternal. I’m always trying to tap that genuine energy when I write and play music. That’s the goal.

Photo credit: Lyric Photography

Bluegrass Memoirs: Thanks to Eric Weissberg

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

On the morning of March 24, 2020 I learned Eric Weissberg had passed away when a friend posted a long and detailed obit. I found several other substantial ones online — Rolling Stone, Variety, New York Times. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Weissberg’s family had a press release ready; he’d been in decline, suffering from dementia. A few days later Jim Rooney posted a very moving memoir focused on his long-time friend Weissberg in mid- and late years; it shed more light on this influential musician. 

Recently Bob Carlin finished a bio on Weissberg. When we spoke at IBMA’s business conference last fall he told me publishers weren’t interested in a book about a studio musician. Too bad, it’s a good story. In 1972 Weissberg won a Grammy for the banjo hit that propelled the growth of bluegrass festivals, “Dueling Banjos,” the theme from the movie Deliverance. 

I first heard Weissberg’s banjo playing in the fall of 1957. I was an 18-year old Oberlin College freshman who’d gotten into folk music as a high school student in Berkeley, California. This was my first time “back east.” I now had classmates from New York City. One of them, Mike Lipsky, had a new Folkways album, American Banjo Scruggs Style. The final band on the second side was by a friend of his from New York, Eric. 

Weissberg was 17 when he recorded for Folkways, backed by Mike Seeger and Ralph Rinzler. He picked a medley of “Jesse James” and Woody Guthrie’s “Hard Ain’t It Hard,” using Scruggs pegs on the latter. When Lipsky played it to me and my roommate Mayne Smith (fellow Californian and a fledgling banjo picker) he had to explain what Scruggs pegs were. 

Lipsky knew about this music because he was one of a group of New York teenage folk music fans, mainly from elite high schools — Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, Music and Art — who socialized together. They’d networked not only in school, but also at leftist summer camps where folk music, spearheaded by Pete Seeger, was an essential part of the experience. They called themselves “The Squadron” and they gathered regularly in Greenwich Village on Sunday afternoons to hear two members of their crowd, Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman, picking at the Washington Square folk music jams. Weissberg, a student of Pete Seeger, had been playing the banjo since the age of ten.

Lipsky told us Weissberg and Marshall’s fancy picking confounded Roger Sprung, an older banjoist generally thought to be the best Scruggs picker in New York. And he described their banjos — not long-neck, open-back Vegas like Pete Seeger played, but Gibsons! With resonators, too. And on the fingerboard, down toward the body of the banjo, a little block of mother-of-pearl with “Mastertone” written on it.

This weirdness was all new to me. I’d never heard of “Scruggs picking,” and it was only when I borrowed the LP and read its notes, written by Ralph Rinzler, that I learned this music was called “bluegrass.” 

The following March, at spring vacation, my roommate and I went to New York. I stayed with Mike Lipsky, on this, my first visit to The City. Mayne stayed with another classmate. Among our many adventures — we were rambunctious teen tourists — we went one night to a party for The Squadron in a posh upper East Side residence. 

This was a homecoming party. Attending were young women and men most of whom were like us, on spring vacation from their first year as college and university students at a variety of institutions. Lipsky and Karen, another Oberlin classmate who was part of the group, introduced us to their friends. We’d brought our instruments, leaving them in the anteroom and going up a small flight of stairs to the main floor of this elaborate place. Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman, both of whom were freshmen at the University of Wisconsin, did the same. 

Midway through the evening we were encouraged to get our instruments out and sing. Mayne had his banjo — an old Stewart with a resonator — and I, my guitar — a 1943 Martin 000-21. We went back downstairs. This was the nearest thing to a front porch or back room we could find. We did several pieces, and then Weissberg and Brickman came down and got out their banjos. Mayne had taken one or two lessons with Billy Faier, the virtuoso banjoist who’d arrived in the Bay Area from New York the previous August. Faier had introduced him to three-finger picking. Mayne chatted about Scruggs with Eric and Marshall. 

Then they played a banjo duet, a Scruggs tune, “Earl’s Breakdown,” in harmony, with each picking with the right hand on his own banjo while reaching around to fret the strings on the neck of the other’s banjo. This was the first time we’d ever seen anyone play the banjo Scruggs style, much less a fancy stage stunt like that! It was a very impressive tour-de-force. You can get a good sense of what the harmony sounded like from the version on their 1963 Elektra album, New Dimensions in Banjo and Bluegrass (reissued in 1972 as Dueling Banjos from Deliverance) although they weren’t playing the fancy solo breaks in 1958.

Afterwards Weissberg told us that the best way to learn this music was to study Scruggs’ playing on one of his instrumental records like “Earl’s Breakdown” or “Flint Hill Special.” Mastering all those licks note-for-note would take you a long way towards being able to play like Earl.

Weissberg noticed that I was playing the guitar with just two picks on my fingers — thumb and index. He recommended that I add a pick on my middle finger, like he and Marshall used for the banjo. I followed that advice immediately, and the following year, when I began working seriously on banjo, I also took his advice about studying Scruggs closely.

Putting our instruments away, we went upstairs and joined the party. I conversed for a while with Eric. I told him I’d heard Billy Faier in Berkeley last summer, had been very impressed with his music, and was looking forward to his forthcoming Riverside album, The Art of the Five-String Banjo. Eric agreed, Faier is a great banjo player, and said he had collaborated with Billy and another banjo player, Dick Weissman, on an album due out this coming summer called Banjos, Banjos and More Banjos! 

That summer of 1958, Banjos, Banjos and More Banjos! arrived at Art Music on Telegraph in Berkeley where I hung out listening to new folk records. The album was on Judson, a bargain line label owned by Riverside’s Bill Grauer.

Grauer’s Riverside productions catered to the hip college kids of the fifties — a generation that grew up on hi-fi LPs. Riverside reissued historic prewar jazz and blues; released contemporary jazz and folk; and recorded sports car events. This major independent label ended abruptly in 1964 when Grauer, just 42, died. Their catalog is now with Concord Records, which has reissued some jazz recordings on CDs.

Riverside albums were well-produced, with glossy full-color cover art. Back covers — liners — had a standard format: bold head at the top with album title and artist names. Below it, three dense columns giving the playlist along with information about the music and musicians. Lots to read while listening!

Faier’s The Art of the Five-String Banjo liner held a full column endorsement by Pete Seeger, slightly longer notes by producer Goldstein, and Faier’s bio. In contrast the liner of Banjos, Banjos and More Banjos had its playlist followed by three columns of folklorist John Greenway’s flowery history of the instrument, and brief bios for the three banjoists. I bought the album (later reissued on Grauer’s Washington label with new cover and title: Five-String Jamboree: A Treasury of Banjo Music) because Eric Weissberg was playing Scruggs-style banjo on it.

At the bottom of the center column on the liners for both albums was the standard data of the time: 

A HIGH FIDELITY Recording (Audio Compensation; RIAA Curve). Produced by Kenneth S. Goldstein. Cover by Paul Weller (photography) and Paul Bacon (design). Engineer: Mel Kaiser (Cue Recordings). New York: May, 1957.

 Now I look back at the album, listen to it for the first time in years. When I last heard of Faier, about ten years ago, he was busking in Albuquerque. He died in Alpine, Texas in 2016. We’d seen each other and talked at the Tennessee Banjo Institute in November 1990, recalling the summer of 1958 when I guested on his KPFA show and worked as his backup guitarist at an SF coffee house. Dick Weissman, now 85, had distinguished careers: first as a performer, then as teacher and author. He published his memoir, The Music Never Stops: A Journey Into the Music of the Unknown, The Forgotten, The Rich & Famous, the same year Faier died.

These guys must have been in the Cue Recordings studio more than once in May, 1957. Their recordings were made with a single-track tape recorder; no overdubs. Faier made his solo album at Cue with Frank Hamilton playing guitar, and there’s one track on Banjos with that pairing — probably an outtake from The Art. Most of the other guitar on this album is by Dick Rosmini, then considered the hot, young, go-to guitar accompanist.

Weissberg is heard playing Scruggs-style banjo on five tracks, and singing tenor harmony in duets on three of those. One was an old spiritual, “You Can Dig My Grave,” with Faier. With Weissman, Eric harmonized on the old folksong “Chilly Winds.” My favorite was another spiritual, “Glory Glory.” This vocal duet with Rosmini featured great backup guitar and seven banjo breaks by Eric, each a new variation. I played that track a lot for my friends that summer!

He also did a reprise of his 1956 Folkways track, focusing on “Hard Ain’t It Hard” complete with Scruggs pegs, and a cool version of “900 Miles” in G minor tuning. 

Weissberg’s music spoke to me as a young folk fan just getting into bluegrass. He’d mastered the instrument in this new style, and learned the vocal style that went with it. Here he was applying it to music that I knew — Woody Guthrie songs, a tune the Weavers had sung on their famous Carnegie Hall concert album, and familiar Black spirituals. 

The door to bluegrass was newly opened. Eric Weissberg stood just inside, beckoning in. Come on, it’s not that hard, it’ll be fun.

Neil V. Rosenberg is an author, scholar, historian, banjo player, and Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductee.

Photo of Neil V. Rosenberg: Terri Thomson Rosenberg
Photo of Banjos, Banjos, and More Banjos: Neil V. Rosenberg