Playing to Her Own Beat: A Conversation with Valerie June

It’s impossible to unhear the sound that issues forth once Valerie June opens her mouth to sing. It’s a voice at once ancient — arisen from some sepia-toned past — and startling modern. From its color to its timbre to its texture, there exists something powerfully original about her primary instrument. But if June were just another singer with a distinct set of pipes, this wouldn’t be an article worth reading, and she wouldn’t be an artist worth covering. It’s how she employs her voice, and the fun she has blending and blurring genres that showcases her pioneering talent.

The multi-instrumentalist and Tennessee native returns this month with her sophomore major label release, The Order of Time. Arriving four years after her debut, Pushin’ Against a Stone, saw her perform at the White House, make countless television appearances, and become a festival staple, the album indeed took some time. June didn’t let her success dictate her writing schedule and rush her back into the studio. Instead, she read poetry, danced, cooked, and languished, allowing the music to unfold on its own schedule rather than hemming and hawing about hers. Thanks to that patience, she’s pushed her own boundaries even further.

The Order of Time spans blues, bluegrass, soul, folk, rock, and more, gathering pieces from each to build a kaleidoscope, of sorts, that showcases the long undercurrent of history running through each. Banjo appears in greater measure throughout the album, calling to its African heritage on “Man Done Wrong” and showing off its rhythmic pacing on “Got Soul,” while “Shake Down” borrows a few branches from June’s family tree. She gathered her brothers and father — who passed away in November — in Tennessee to record the raucous and gritty jam. And then there’s the viscerally thrilling “If And,” which layers an array of heavy tones, including bass saxophone, bass clarinet, and harmonium, to create an almost unholy riff. Have fun not getting chills.

So much of this album deals with time and abiding by its rhythms. How do you cultivate patience?

I don’t have any at all.

That’s fair.

It’s pure torture, honestly. I just want it to happen. It’s like getting a new plant: You’ve been to the nursery, you bought this gardenia, but it’s not flowering yet. You put it in the perfect sun and give it the perfect water and all of that, but it’s still not flowering weeks later, and you’re just like, “Oh my God, I really want the gardenia to flower, because it’s the best smell in the world and I love it. That’s why I bought it — for the flower — not for this green plant.” A lot of patience has to happen, but you don’t have it. You’re forced into it. And then, one day, it does flower and you’re really excited about it. That’s what it’s like.

I love that analogy. Building off it, how much of patience is, perhaps, about distraction?

It has to happen that way.

So what do you distract yourself with?

So many things. Life happens, people call and want me to do something, or it’ll be time to eat. [Laughs] I dance a lot. I have routines for distracting myself, and dancing is a big part of it. You have to have systems set up, you know, to keep you from dwelling in frustration. So whatever your things are that you love to do, you have to do those things. It’s almost like you have to be like, “I’m frustrated! Stop everything. Okay, now it’s time to dance. Nothing matters but dancing right now.”

It’s the physicality of it. It seems that when creatives get too caught up in their mental state, it helps to do something physical to calm that animal side of their brain down.

So true and, once every part of the body is moving, your mind is the last thing. You don’t even think about that part. It does take a minute, though, once the dancing starts. First, you’re still thinking, so your body — you’re moving it — you’re thinking, you’re thinking, and then, by the time you work the neck and the legs and the head and get the whole body going, you’re like, “Whoa!’ You’re gone man!” And it just takes one little moment of being gone to shift some ol’ thing.

So are we ever going to get a Valerie June workout video?

I don’t know. That would be really ’80s and fun. I’d have to get some leg warmers, for sure.

And neon.

I love legwarmers. That seems like a good excuse.

What do you dance to?

So many things. I like dancing to Davie Bowie, and Spoon is a really fun band to dance to — it’s so upbeat and insane. And Fever Ray and Fela Kuti, Cass McCombs … so many things. Sometimes I dance to blues music. It just depends on what I need to shake out.

I can see how these all dancing moments influence your music.

It’s all there.

Turning to the album, “Man Done Wrong” brought to mind the personal lamentations you’d hear in Ma Rainey’s and Bessie Smith’s blues. Can you take me through writing that particular song?

It started on the banjo. I was just playing that riff, again and again, for a few days, and then I heard the chanting, and when I first started to hear the chanting, I thought, “Well, this is very tribal to me.” It’s a different way for the banjo to be, for me. In my own mind, I had certain parameters that the banjo was allowed to go — for it to lean toward old time or bluegrass — and the fact that it was getting outside of its lane and it was doing something that seemed African or tribal to me was like, “What the fuck is this?” [Laughs] When I started to receive that, I was like, “Wow, I can’t fight that.” I can’t fight what comes to me in a song; I have to accept it all because, once I start to fight it, I close the door and I shut off these voices. I have to make them all feel welcome in order to receive the entire song, so I just went with it and got into it, and started to hear the actual singing, and I was like, “Well, okay.”

All these ideas I had about the banjo and the way it was supposed to be played and the way it was supposed to be fit into this box, they had to go out the window. It was like, “I guess it is an African instrument.” I learned a lot trying to play that song, about the banjo being as innocent an instrument as any other instrument and it having a voice that can fit with any style of music. It wants to be free; it doesn’t want to fit within any parameter. It just wants to be an instrument and play around in the playground of music and sound. It opened my mind and it opened my thoughts about what it should do in the world, and how I should feel about it when I see somebody get up in front of me with one. Just because you see a trumpet, do you think, “They’re going to play jazz. They’re going to be Miles Davis”? No. When you see a trumpet, it could be marching band, it could be jazz, it could be anything. A banjo is the same.

It has this strong association with bluegrass, but there is that tradition of Black banjo players who were never recorded and so, in many ways, that history has been erased.

It’s true. It’s such a historical instrument. It keeps getting deeper and deeper, as much as you try to see where it’s going. It’s been a vibrant instrument in the past and going into the future.

Do you think these voices in any way are trying to communicate that lost history with you?

They are communicating so many things. I can’t even get my head wrapped around it because, as soon as I get one thing that they were saying, then it starts to change, like a good poem. You read this poem and when you’re younger — and I read Robert Frost’s “Two Roads” when I was younger — it meant one thing, but as I get older, it means something different. The songs are like that. They change like they are living; they live with you and they change the meaning.

What other poets are you currently quite taken with?

I like Wendell Berry a lot. I could read that all day long, and T.S. Eliot and e.e. cummings, but Wendell Berry is really huge. I don’t even know how to describe what he does to me, but by the time I get to the end of one of his poems, I can be in complete tears and gratitude for all of life, for the earth, for everything. And the short stories are the same way.

He’s one of my favorites, too. I’m always so grateful for Wendell or, really, any poet who articulates the experience of living, especially when you haven’t found the words yourself yet.

That’s the shocking part. The ability to articulate it is like, “Wow!” I felt it, but I just couldn’t put it into words. You did it! You did it! [Laughs]

But you’re tasked with that same hurdle as a songwriter.

I don’t really feel like I have any kind of control over these things. I mean, I wish I could. I wish I wrote that way, where I could have a theme in my head and write something that fits the purpose, but the times I try, it doesn’t hit me as much as when I hear the voice and I just follow it. But I do try sometimes. I’d like to learn to write that way. I feel somebody like Toni Morrison or Zora Neale Hurston, they would have these thoughts going on in their minds about the world, about being a Black woman growing up, or things like that that they wanted to put into their writing, and they were able to articulate them through their craft. But, for me, I can’t do that. I don’t write that way.

There are so many different ways to approach it. Every writer has a different way.

I love writing with other writers because, when I do that, then I steal some of their style. I’m like, “Oh, that’s how you tapped into that.” They’re my teachers.

What a great way to learn. Well, lastly, I was curious about the song “Shake Down” and recording it with your family.

My brothers’ and my dad’s vocals were tracked in Tennessee. It was great because my dad’s not really a singer, but he was in the room and I was like, “You gotta sing.” And now he’s gone and so all I have is him singing that part. I have pictures, but I don’t have his voice anymore and I never will again. That really matters to have somebody’s voice after they’re gone. That really is something, so I really feel fortunate for that song.


Photo credit: Danny Clinch

Banjo Man John Bullard Marries Southern and Baroque Influences on Latest Album

The banjo isn’t typically the first image that comes to mind when one considers classical music. For Virginia banjo player and teacher John Bullard, however, the banjo is just as suited to Mozart as it is to mountain music. Last Fall, Bullard released Classical Banjo: The Perfect Southern Art, his third full-length album of banjo interpretations of classical music. The album is an impressively rendered collection of 25 tracks, parts of which Bullard has worked decades to master. 

“[The project] came out of me having a discussion with Jayme Stone, who was the producer and is also a banjo player and has some great albums out,” Bullard says. “He asked, ‘When was the last album you did?’ And it was a long time ago. He ended up being interested in being the producer, so it ended up that we did it together.”

Stone — known for, among many other things, his 2015 Lomax Project — worked on the album with Bullard from its inception, lending a hand with recording, of course, but also with what Bullard considers to be one of the most difficult parts of his musical endeavors: exploring ways to play complex classical pieces on an instrument viewed by many to have limited capabilities. Stone and Bullard found novel approaches to counter such issues, like experimenting with various conversations of backing instruments to make certain arrangements easier to play.

“You’re trying to make the banjo do some things it doesn’t normally do, like sustain a note for a long time,” he explains. “In bluegrass, you pluck a note and it’s a 16th-note and there are a zillion more following it, and it doesn’t matter what happened with that one note so much. But in the classical stuff, sometimes you have a half-note or a whole note, and you have to figure out what you have to do to make this note last and sound okay. It’s really different.”

The pair recruited a number of skilled musicians as well as an eight-person choir to bring Bullard’s vision to life, part of which was for each of the album’s pieces to remain as loyal to their original counterparts as possible. The album also features a solo performance from Bullard, one that was truly decades in the making.

“The fugue, which is the only solo banjo piece on there, which is from Bach’s ‘Sonata No. 1’ for solo violin, is one of my favorite pieces that I’ve ever heard in my whole life,” he says.”I’ve always loved it. I’ve been working on that for, gosh, around 20 years. I initially transcribed it and figured out what key I thought I could play it in — it was written in G-minor and I do it in C-minor on the banjo. I’d done that and, two or three different times, had gotten to where I could play through it very slowly, but it was really hard and I would just say, ‘I think this is too hard,’ and I would put it down and forget about it for a year or so. Then I would pick it back up. I did that a few times. Then it was weird: When Jayme and I decided to work on this project, I picked it back up and finally I could play it. It just, all of the sudden, seemed to come to me. Maybe it needed to percolate for a few years.”

That Bullard was able to pull off playing such intricate pieces on an instrument that has long been excluded from traditional orchestras may seem like a massive stretch to some, but he doesn’t believe that the banjo is that far removed from the sounds of Baroque and Romantic music. “When I first started doing this, what really struck me is that the harpsichord and the lute, to me, sound a lot like the banjo,” he explains. “They’re in a different context, but they’re plucked instruments. So it seemed like a natural thing for me.” 

He also believes classical music has just as large a place in Southern culture as the banjo does — an idea reflected in the album’s matter-of-fact title with hopes of both deterring cultural gatekeepers and inviting new listeners into the fold. “It’s the perfect art form for Virginia gentlemen,” he says. “You’re playing this genteel music, but you’re playing it on the banjo. The banjo puts a different perspective on the standard repertoire of the classical world and lets people get a different perspective on the music. I think and I hope that it will bring some folks into the music that maybe wouldn’t take the time to listen to classical music, and they might decide they like it.”


Photo courtesy of the artist

WATCH: Amilia Spicer, ‘Fill Me Up’

Artist: Amilia Spicer
Hometown: Back woods Pennsylvania
Song: “Fill Me Up”
Album: Wow and Flutter
Release Date: April 28, 2017
Label: Free Range Records

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Fill Me Up’ minutes after picking up a banjo for the first time. Sometimes not knowing what you are doing can be very freeing. An old, oddly tuned banjo was sitting around the studio and, as soon as I found a few chords on it, words came pouring out. They took me back to my rural country roots, scenes of wandering through forests, following trails that seemed magical, looking to the sky in wonder. Of course, the lyrics were also infused with a much more current plea to the universe to fill me up and heal what seemed broken. It turned in to a rather spooky, impassioned tune with a train beat. Go figure. The video was shot by my childhood home.” — Amilia Spicer


Photo credit: Virginia Conesa

STREAM: Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, ‘Get Up and Do Right’

Artist: Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer
Hometown: Silver Spring, MD
Album: Get Up and Do Right
Release Date: February 10, 2017
Label: Community Music Inc.

In Their Words:Get Up and Do Right is our 45th recording and our first recording that is primarily of duets. We love the intimacy of a duet — which is the primary configuration we perform in. We love the combination of five-string and cello banjo, cello banjo and ukulele, two guitars, five-string banjo and ukulele, and vocal harmonies. Alice Gerrard’s song, ‘Get Up and Do Right,’ is a perfect anthem for the social justice activism that we are engaged in right now. Pete Seeger’s inspiration shows up in ‘Had I A Golden Thread’ and “Well May the World Go,’ along with the ‘Letter to Pete’s Banjo’ that I recite during that track. And, in these crazy times, playing music and making art to share is a big part of getting up and doing right. For us, this is the right album at the right time.” — Cathy Fink

LISTEN: Daniel Koulack, ‘Hummingbird Waltz’

Artist: Daniel Koulack
Hometown: Winnipeg, Manitoba
Song: "Hummingbird Waltz"
Album: Frailing to Succeed
Release Date: December 9
Label: Little Giant Music

In Their Words: "Recording with this group of great musicians (and wonderful old friends) was an incredibly rich and indescribably fun experience! The music has its own personality and an element of humanity to it that I am very proud of. It is jazzy, but not really jazz: When I write, I explore the banjo within its confines as a modal instrument playing things that really make sense on the banjo. I then build out from there using other instruments to highlight, play counter melodies, create harmonic movement, and solo. So, rather than hearing banjo playing jazz, you are hearing wonderful musicians playing and improvising on instruments associated with jazz … but they have been tricked into playing banjo music! The album title, Frailing to Succeed, was named by a friend who came up with the title of my first recording, Clawhammer Your Way to the Top (1992)." — Daniel Koulack

3×3: 3hattrio on Sherlock Holmes, Desert Musk, and the Importance of Good Hair

Artist: 3hattrio (Eli Wrankle, violinist)
Hometown: Toquerville, UT
Latest Album: Solitaire
Personal Nicknames: Bad Dog

 

3hat impressions #3hatcdreleasetour #3hattrio

A photo posted by We Are 3hattrio (@3hattrio) on

If Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, and Mohammed were in a band together, who would play what?
Jesus would play drums because of his long hair head-banging abilities. Buddha would probably be very quietly playing a chapman stick. Krishna would be on keys/synth because she's the quiet one. And Mohammed would be the lead singer because he gets all the ladies. 

If you were a candle, what scent would you be?
Desert Musk

What literary character or story do you most relate to?
3hattrio relates best to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. We have our dark, mysterious side, along with our playful, energetic side. The characters themselves also work well for us, too. Greg is very much Sherlock: His ways are slightly unconventional and mysterious, but he always comes out at the end with a solution. Hal is sort of the opposite — Dr. Watson. He is very good at what he does, and keeps Sherlock from going too far over the edge. I (Eli) bounce between the two characters, depending on the situation. I can either swing toward Sherlock or Watson, and I think this provides a healthy balance in the band.

 

Hal and Eli enjoying a little down time #3hatcdreleasetour #3hattrio #hisandhers

A photo posted by We Are 3hattrio (@3hattrio) on

How many pairs of shoes do you own?
Approximately 5 1/2

What's your best physical attribute?
My hair (Obviously)

Which is your favorite Revival — Creedence Clearwater, Dustbowl, Elephant, Jamestown, New Grass, Tent, or -ists?
Elephant Revival, for sure. The washboard/violin combo is fantastic.

 

Photo shoot last night for our new music video! Be sure to check it out! @cheriesantiago thanks for shooting it!

A photo posted by We Are 3hattrio (@3hattrio) on

Animal, mineral, or vegetable?
Animal because I'm fairly innocent most of the time, but can be aggressive in my music.

Rain or shine?
Rain, for sure. I look way better in a coat than a swimsuit.

Mild, medium, or spicy?
Medium. I like to ride that line between too hot and not hot enough.

LISTEN: Lisa Loeb featuring Ed Helms, ‘Wanna Do Day’

Artist: Lisa Loeb (featuring Ed Helms)
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Song: "Wanna Do Day"
Album: Feel What U Feel 
Release Date: October 7
Label: Furious Rose Productions

In Their Words: "The song 'Wanna Do Day' is a song about too many things to do in a day and the pressure and stress of all of those things, and not enough time to do what 'I wanna do.' The song was a rambling song, to represent the feeling of that kind of day — perfect for a banjo. Ed and I saw each other recently at a TV show premiere in Los Angeles, and we talked about playing together. So, all of the stars aligned, and he came in and played the rambling banjo for me and now the song sounds like there’s a lot of activity going on!" — Lisa Loeb


Photo credit: Frances Iacuzzi

WATCH: TRAD PLUS, ‘Blind’

Artist: TRAD PLUS (Chris Pandolfi of the Infamous Stringdusters)
Hometown: Denver, CO
Song: "Blind"
Album: Interference

In Their Words: "'Blind' is one of my favorite tracks from the record. Like a lot of TRAD PLUS music, I used some samples and live vocals to create a deep bed of sound for the melodies to sit atop. Those melodies evolve as the tune moves along, as do the sounds underneath, to create a musical journey from one place to another, as opposed to the more repetitive forms that are so common in acoustic music. And, at the heart of it all, is the natural tone of the banjo.

I shot the video last Winter in some beautiful places in Puerto Rico, and then laid on some editing effects to create a more psychedelic imagery that fits the vibe of the music." — Chris Pandolfi

3×3: Nathan Bowles on Hot Pepper Chocolate Pie, Gulf Coast Sunsets, and Adulting the Crap out of Emails

Artist: Nathan Bowles
Hometown: Suffolk, VA
Latest Album: Whole & Cloven
Personal Nicknames: Van name has been "Bowlesy" for a while now, thanks to Jim Elkington. 

What was the first record you ever bought with your own money?
Pearl Jam's Versus, Genesis' I Can't Dance, or Michael Jackson's Bad. I can't remember. 

How many unread emails or texts currently fill your inbox?
0 on all fronts because I stay on top of my shit like an adult.

If your life were a movie, which songs would be on the soundtrack?
Just the Bob James "Taxi" theme on repeat.

What brand of jeans do you wear?
Whatever fits right.

What's your favorite word?
It might be "word," actually, based on how many times a day I say it.

If you were a liquor, what would you be?
Drunk

Fate or free will?
Same diff

Cake or pie?
Hot pepper chocolate pie from Arnold's

Sunrise or sunset?
Gulf Coast sunset


Photo credit: Brad Bunyea

Different Strokes: Kaia Kater in Conversation with Nefesh Mountain

The cultural contrasts between Kaia Kater — the singing, Canadian, clawhammer banjo player of Afro-Caribbean descent — and Nefesh Mountain — a northeastern, husband-and-wife bluegrass duo made up of Jewish musicians Eric Lindberg and Doni Zasloff — are immediately obvious. But once you get them all on the phone together and begin to wade into the favorite topic of virtually every artist — music-makers they admire — commonalities quickly emerge.

For starters, Kater and Lindberg, who also plays banjo, share a deep admiration for the musical curiosity of Béla Fleck. Kater was captivated by watching Fleck mix it up with his peers on the Banjo Masters stage at Grey Fox, hold his own with Questlove during a one-of-a-kind live jam, and retrace the banjo’s roots to West Africa in the documentary Throw Down Your Heart, while Lindberg has closely followed Fleck’s virtuosic pivots from progressive bluegrass to jazz fusion, classical, and a dizzying array of other stylistic territory. Fleck could easily “coast on how well he’s doing,” Kater marveled, “but I feel like he’s always into new things and discovering different parts of the instrument or its history.” “That, for me, has broken down any mental barriers that I’ve had,” Lindberg concured, “and maybe in some ways has helped me say, ‘It’s okay to do this,’ and kinda be fearless in it.”

They bonded, too, over their encounters with upright bassist Mark Schatz, who played on Nefesh Mountain’s recently released self-titled debut. “Did Mark show you any of his hambone?” Kater wanted to know. “Oh yeah!” Zasloff enthused. “He clogged and hamboned on the record.”

Kater’s latest album, Nine Pin, also has a track featuring percussive dance. But that’s hardly the most significant similarity between her output and Nefesh’s. Both artists are incorporating their multi-faceted identities and voices into string band music in compelling ways, and they had plenty to say about what it takes to win over an audience when you're coming from an unexpected vantage point.

Doni and Eric, meet Kaia. Kaia, meet Doni and Eric. I presume you’re new to each other’s music.

Eric Lindberg: Nice to meet you.

Kaia Kater: I just checked you guys out. You sound amazing. I just love it.

EL: Thanks! You, too.

Doni Zasloff: Likewise.

Let’s start with your encounters with preconceived notions about bluegrass music — who makes it, who it’s for, what it sounds like. My understanding, Kaia, is that, at some point after you picked up the banjo, you came to recognize that women of color are not well-represented in bluegrass. How did that shape your decision about what direction to take your banjo playing?

KK: I started playing the banjo, I think, at a time when it wasn’t very popular, so I didn’t tell many people. I started when I was maybe 12. I grew up going to bluegrass festivals. Like, I went to Grey Fox for a long time. I mean, that was before even the Chocolate Drops [were well known]. I sort of thought that it was a white instrument, and I just really liked it, which is why I picked it up.

I distinctly remember the Chocolate Drops showcasing at Folk Alliance and, at that point, they were just a bunch of rag-tag college kids who met their mentor, Joe Thompson, and realized the importance of bringing Black string band music into the musical dialogue. So I was obviously very inspired by what they were doing. Over the last 10 years, I [found] Valerie June — she’s a Black artist in string band and old-time music — and Leyla McCalla, who plays string band music.

McCalla’s collaborated with the Chocolate Drops at times.

KK: Yeah. So I think in terms of Black women playing old-time string band music, there’s never been a better time. I feel like we have critical mass now, which is a funny thing to say, but it feels good.

For a long time, I didn’t really wanna bring race into my music. I didn’t really brand myself as any type of Black music. I had a lot of influences who were Black women … like Nina Simone and Lauryn Hill were great influences of mine. I’m still coming to terms with what it means to me. I was talking to Leyla about it: There’s this understanding that the music you play is largely for white audiences. My cousins, they listen to Fetty Wap. They don’t listen to Abigail Washburn or anything like that. So, at a young age, I knew that my musical interests were a little bit different. I think I’m still trying to find my place within that and who I want to be and what I want to say.

Doni and Eric, you’ve pointed out that bluegrass typically exists in non-Jewish contexts. And I would add that there’s often been a perceived connection between bluegrass and white, protestant, Christian gospel traditions, as seen in the repertoires of Ralph Stanley, Doyle Lawson, Ricky Skaggs, Dailey & Vincent, and others. What made pushing against that perception appealing?

DZ: I would just start by saying, because it’s always been a vehicle for spirituality, it felt almost natural. We loved this music always. From our background, it was like, “Of course it’s gonna make sense for this.” It’s always been that vehicle in a lot of ways.

EL: I’ve loved everyone you just mentioned deeply since I was a kid, especiall Ricky Skaggs & the Kentucky Thunder Band and Ralph Stanley. If you’re going to put genres on it — which we all kind of hate using genres these days, because it’s all so cross-cultural — it was never religious music, per se. To me, it was just American music, but it always had this Christian undertone, which is not a bad thing in the slightest. But it just wasn’t one that I connected to in Brooklyn growing up. So it was just a little inward struggle. I felt so powerfully connected to my American heritage through bluegrass and old-time.

Our band and our music is very much by accident. We both are huge bluegrass fans, and when we were writing our music, this is what came out. It wasn’t like a purposeful endeavor to try to go out and blend stuff. As an artist, it really makes me feel good to try to follow my truth. And Kaia, we have some common ground here, where it’s not the norm; it’s not what people would think.

We’re on the road now. Whenever we’re traveling in airports — this just happened, like, two days ago: Someone came up to me and saw a banjo and said, “What do you do?” “Oh, we play bluegrass.” “What kind of bluegrass?” “We play Jewish bluegrass.” And then there’s a roar of laughter.

DZ: They can’t control it. They laugh.

EL: Like it’s a joke. Of course, you’ve gotta kinda look at it like that. Mel Brooks kind of set a tone for Jews being funny in the Old West and stuff like that.

DZ: But that’s not what we’re doing at all. It’s very soulful and it’s very authentic. I would say a preconceived notion is definitely something we face. But the minute people hear us and see where we’re coming from — and it’s this really authentic and spiritual place — they get it. But it does take a little bit of laughter and, “Wait. You’re doing what?”

You’ve pointed out an overlap between the instrumentation of bluegrass and Klezmer music.

EL: Yeah. Obviously, all over the world, the violin is played pretty commonly, especially in Klezmer. You have guys like Andy Statman, who can do the cross-pollination of taking a mandolin and playing Bill Monroe tunes and also play in a Klezmer context. Beyond the instrumentation, the overall feeling and drive of bluegrass, like a slight bit ahead of the beat, [is shared by] bluegrass and Klezmer. The same thing that makes Jews get up and dance the Hora [makes people] dance in the round to old-time fiddle tunes.

DZ: We actually experience that when we do these concerts. A lot of the audiences may not have had experience with bluegrass, some of the Jewish audiences. And the minute we start playing this music — there’s a Hebrew word called “ruach” which means spirit, and that spirit is in Klezmer that a lot of the Jewish community has felt — and they absolutely feel it the minute the bluegrass starts.

You’ve all made conscious choices about how you want to present yourselves as musicians, how you want to frame what you’re doing. Kaia, you straddle trad performer and singer/songwriter territory. Why is it important to you to do both, and emphasize that you do both?

KK: I think it comes with what Eric was saying about genres and how sometimes it is easy to get stuck in a genre. I think you can be and do whatever you wanna do. But for obvious reasons — for marketing reasons — people tend to categorize. You were talking about people asking you in the airport, "What do you do?" You get that question so often, and it’s a frustrating question.

I’ve always been drawn to the lyrical side of things, and I think it’s what keeps it interesting for me. It’s a way that I feel like I can grow. It’s been a little bit challenging to [step forward] more as a songwriter, because my first album was very heavy on the trad stuff. [For Nine Pin] I wrote a song called “Rising Down,” which was about the Black Lives Matter movement, and I had a little bit of apprehension: “How are people gonna take this?" Maybe people just want me to be a trad artist that plays West Virginia music or something. But it’s been really well received, which I’m really thankful for.

So this airport encounter that’s come up twice now … that’s a moment when you introduced yourselves explicitly as a Jewish bluegrass duo. What, to you, is the difference between placing the Jewish descriptor right out front like that and calling yourselves a bluegrass duo made up of two people who are Jewish?

EL: That’s a good question. I don’t present it that way. I don’t come out and say, “Jewish bluegrass.” Usually what I say is, “We play bluegrass.” We’ll show up in Denver and someone goes, “Oh, you’re in Denver. Are you playing [this or that venue]?” And we’re like, “No, we’re actually playing at a synagogue.” And then they go, “Huh?” And I go, “Well, we play Jewish bluegrass, and we’re leading a bluegrass Shabbat service tonight with a congregation, and then we have a big community-wide concert the next day.” And they’re still like, “So you’re not playing at Red Rocks?”

When Doni and I set out to make this record, I think we both felt really strongly that we wanted to make a bluegrass record from the perspective of two Jewish Americans.

DZ: One thing we’ve definitely come up against is the word “Jewgrass.” We don’t have a problem with it, but again it’s this question of, “What does Jewgrass imply?” So actually, I love saying “Jewish bluegrass.” I love to say it, because that’s what we’re doing. It’s just a matter of being authentic and owning who you are and celebrating your background, our background. I don’t know the best way to say it — I guess I’m just trying to be it. I’m not really sure of the language yet.

Kaia, your mother has been involved in organizing folk festivals for years, and you grew up attending them. I know you’ve also pursued formal studies in Appalachian music and, in fact, just completed your degree. Moving through those contexts, how have you made space for yourself?

KK: Doni, I really liked what you were saying about past all the labels “Is this Appalachian? Or is this bluegrass? What is it?” I feel the same. I think, at the end of the day, you just want people to hear your music for what it is. It can be many different things — things that, to a lot of people, seem contradictory or just not the norm.

Just speaking from a very recent experience, I spent four years in West Virginia going to school. There were a lot of experiences for me as a Black person going to West Virginia, which is not really Southern, but I think a lot of West Virginians think of themselves as aligning more with a Southern sort of mentality. There was so much richness there, and I learned an incredible amount, spending four years in a community and meeting people and going to square dances. You know, there are a lot of old timers that are pushing 80 who won’t be with us much longer, and them being willing to impart traditions on a Black Canadian, which I was very thankful for. There was a lot of beauty in moving to a region whose music I’d admired for such a long time.

If 70 or 75 percent of the time it was a wonderful experience, there was also that other part of the experience where I did encounter some racism, or I witnessed racism. I felt the racial divide very strongly, more so than in Canada. … I toured with a string band and a percussive dance team, clogging and flatfooting and Appalachian dance styles. I was with 15 other people from the school. It was myself and a Black tap dancer named Katharine Manor. We performed and then we were standing together at intermission. Nobody came up and talked to us. Like, nobody. And we would even try and talk to people. They weren’t really responding to us. We looked around and our friends, our dear friends, who are white, were getting such positive responses from some of these people. It didn’t cut us deeply, but the tension as palpable. At that point, I realized, “Yeah, you’re gonna perform for people that won’t get it, or that don’t understand your place in this type of music. That’s okay, because the majority will.”

When I’ve poured my heart and soul out for 45 minutes and I’m not getting any sort of response, at that point, you just have to do it for yourself. You have to understand that, some people’s hearts, you can’t change. Coming back from that experience, I think I’m much more Zen about the whole thing. I will try to change to change hearts where I can, but it’s not my problem if people aren’t open to what I do or what I have to say.

Eric and Doni, what does your performing life tend to look like? How often are you playing to an audience who shares a religious and cultural identity with you but is unfamiliar with bluegrass?

EL: Our shows are all over the map. We play for only-Jewish audiences sometimes, and for everybody. The gig changes from day to day.

One really bright note since we’ve launched the record and started to hear back from people [is] how many Jews love bluegrass. This is something I’m really proud to say I think people needed. It’s so gratifying to get an email from someone that says, “I’m a Jew who lives in Memphis, and I never thought this could be done.” Jewish audiences are really receptive to it, as well as non-Jewish audiences, who are really eager to learn about how Jews consider their spirituality. There are so many universal themes in what we write about. When we sing to non-Jewish audiences, there are so many themes that everyone can hold onto.

DZ: It does feel like an equalizer and a connector. We were just in Idaho and it was a mixed audience. I’m sure there were some Jews in the audience, there were some non — lots of different backgrounds. It’s like we get on the stage and just sing and be us. What was amazing was, by the end of the show, everybody’s up and dancing and celebrating together. It’s so beautiful, really.

You’re uniquely positioned to be able to play at a Shabbat service or a folk festival or other kinds of venues. What’s different about what you bring to the context of a Shabbat service, where people aren’t expecting to be passive members of a concert audience so much as participants?

EL: When we do a Shabbat service, it’s interesting because everyone in the Shabbat service generally knows the prayers that we’re singing — although we’ve written our own melodies and arrangements, the whole song behind these age-old Jewish prayers. But what we can lean on and make people aware of is the genre of bluegrass, spreading the love of the music, playing banjo, and having our fiddle player Gary and our bassist Tim — whose last name is Kaia, incidentally. It’s really thrilling to help people feel that lonesome Appalachian sound through connecting our worlds. We play in American Jewish synagogues and we’re playing American Jewish music.

You were saying, Kaia, that for a long time you weren’t sure if you wanted to bring race into your music, or how you would do it. You mentioned your song “Rising Down,” and there’s another on your new album called “Harlem’s Little Blackbird.” How did you move into telling stories in your songwriting that speak to experiences of people of color?

KK: Going back to what Eric and Doni were saying, I think most of us don’t go into trying to write an album or song by being like, “Oh, I’m gonna write a song about the Black experience in America.” You draw on your life or you feel inspired by something and it comes out. The songs that I put on the record were taken from moments of inspiration, rather than just trying to grind out a song because I’m Black and I should write a song about being Black.

I mentioned Katharine Manor, the tap dancer. Because we were the only two Black arts students at the school, I think the dance and music department decided to commission a piece from both of us, and also our professor. We were asked to get together every Wednesday night and try to come up with a piece about the Black experience [Laughs] which is, like, the opposite of what you want to do. It was like, “Great, we have to do this now, because someone said that we had to.” Our inspiration came from looking at the news and talking about what was happening. We ended up talking a lot about state violence and state racism. … Then, in December of 2014, Tamir Rice was shot in Cleveland, and I remember going into class the Wednesday after that happened and we were talking about it and we just broke down, because he was 12 years old. It was horrifying. … So I sat down and thought about what I was feeling, and then I came back with the lyric, “Your gun, it’s always at my temple.” I worked off of that and I wrote “Rising Down.” So we created a dance piece around that.

It’s been a very long process for me to work up the courage to talk about it, and it’s not something I take lightly. Actually, I’ve only presented the song live in my own shows about twice. I don’t know if you guys experience this, Eric and Doni, but when you start talking about things that are really close to your heart with an audience, it’s a very intimate bond that you create. And it is very hard as a performer to put that out into the world, into the audience, and let them catch you. You’re not doing something that’s part of the majority — it’s not Christian; it’s not white; it’s something that talks about hurt. I’m still trying to figure that out: How do you create that bond with your audiences?

EL: I love that image of a musical trust fall, kind of going out on a limb and just jumping off, hoping that the world is good enough to catch you. I think that what you’re talking about, Kaia, in racial issues and religious differences and all of these things that put up dividers between all of us, are hard things for people to deal with, but they’re also real things. You’re singing about real things, and we’re singing about real things. Your stuff sounds great. It feels like you. And our hope is that ours sounds like us. The best compliment that anyone could give us after a show is, “You really sound like you mean it.”

DZ: That goes a long way, being authentic. That’s all we’ve got, really.

Kaia, some years back you made a far more obscure recording called “Rappin’ Shady Grove,” a hip hop-style tweaking of a traditional number. Was that an early experiment with how you might bring disparate stylistic elements together?

KK: That was my very first EP recording. I think I was 17, and Drake was just coming out. Toronto was really proud. I was listening to a lot of Drake, and he was just telling his story. I just admired what he was doing. So I was thinking, “What’s my story?” I just decided to rap, but I think it was more like spoken word. I have listened to a lot of hip hop and rap, and that’s where I get a lot of my inspiration. So I just did it and put it out there and I felt like, “Okay, I’ve told my story in a way that feels authentic to me.” And I haven’t felt the need to do it again. But maybe in the future. Who knows?

EL: Within the last year, we’ve been playing a combination of songs live. It’s not on the record. A Nigun is a melody that you just kind of “Yaida dai.”

DZ: You repeat.

EL: [It’s that combined] with “Shady Grove.”

KK: That’s awesome.

DZ: Sort of mixed the two together.

EL: We kind of weave in and out of them. We put them in the same key. It’s an old Jewish melody. If you play it with Jewish instrumentation, then it might sound more Klezmer-y or maybe more Eastern European, but if you play it with clawhammer banjo, which is how I choose to play it, it had a really lonesome, haunting “Shady Grove” kind of sound.

Doni, I know you recorded “Singin’ Jewish Girl” — your version of Lily May Ledford’s “Banjo Pickin’ Girl” — which I first heard from Abigail Washburn. Was that a way of owning your musical space, placing yourself at the center of your musical story?

DZ: That’s exactly what I feel when I sing that song. Not to over-share, but you know, Eric and I fell in love writing this music together. So Eric actually wrote that song for me. When you meet somebody who really understands you and celebrates who you are, it’s just an amazing gift. Singing that song, not only do I feel I’m being authentic and being myself, but I feel this connection with him and this love of the music that we play.

I listened to some recordings that you made with your other group, the Mama Doni Band, and they’re very playful, funny, and kid-friendly. Bluegrass was one of many styles in the mix — along with reggae, disco, and lots of other stuff. You mentioned that you naturally went in a bluegrass direction with this songwriting. Have you reflected on how or why it became an outlet for more serious expression from you?

DZ: I think as a person, as an artist, and as a woman, you grow, you change, and you evolve. I’m continuing to find myself in my story and my life with my voice. I started out sharing Jewish culture with kids, and I wanted to share it, as you said, in a playful and fun way. That’s how it was expressed. I think as we wanted to go deeper with it, that’s where the bluegrass came in. When Eric and I came together was really when Nefesh Mountain came out. Again, it wasn’t planned. It’s just kind of what happened to us together. Bluegrass has the most pure and honest sound.

There are some fine pickers in the Northeast. Why was it important to you to come to Nashville and get A-list musicians like Rob Ickes, Scott Vestal, Sam Bush, and Mark Schatz?

EL: So much of what happened with the record, I feel like we’re still catching up to why it all happened the way that it did. It’s almost like we were being told by the universe what to do. Those guys are our heroes, so to play with Sam and Rob and Mark Schatz and Scott Vestal and our friend Gary, who played with us, was really the thrill of a lifetime, being northeastern Jews from the New York area who wanted to come down. I really wanted to make a bluegrass record that had the sound of a bluegrass record — not just people picking. If I could have Sam Bush play mandolin, that’s the sound of bluegrass. I mean there are a ton of people, now more than ever, who are playing in the New York area and New Jersey, but it really meant something to me to have some of these guys who, themselves, have redefined the genre. So it was important to me to have them help craft this sound and put a stamp on it. This is an American record; this is a Jewish record; this is something that has that sound, what they bring.

KK: Mark Schatz is awesome, and so is Sam Bush. Stellar lineup of musicians there. Nice work.

Kaia, how did you assemble your circle of collaborators?

KK: I have recorded only in Canada. Mostly because the Canadian government offers pretty generous grants to musicians — Canadian musicians — to record albums. You are eligible for more money if you record in Canada, which makes sense because they want to keep the economic growth within the country. You can work with a U.S. producer, but you have to fly them in.

I think what was important to me was to have some instruments on the record that were maybe not typically considered to be old-time instruments. I felt, because my lyrics are different and my songs are different, it would be fun to give them a different feel. So we brought in a trumpet and flugelhorn player, Caleb Hamilton, and a bass player, Brian Kobayakawa, and my producer Chris Bartos plays five-string fiddle and baritone electric guitar. I played banjo and a little bit of piano on the album, too. We also put in a little bit of Moog. I was interested in doing something a little different. I think, like Eric said, you want to keep the music exciting to you.

Is there any chance you all might be playing the same festival sometime this year?

KK: Are you guys going to IBMA?

DZ: Yep.

KK: Cool! Well there’s one.

EL: Are you playing?

KK: Yeah, I’ll be there.

EL: We should hang.

KK: Totally, totally.


Illustration by Abby McMillen. Photos courtesy of the artists.