Tag: Bill Monroe

CBC’s Tom Power and BGS Partner on New Bluegrass Podcast, ‘Toy Heart’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

A familiar voice across Canada’s airwaves, Tom Power hosts CBC Radio’s q, an all-encompassing public radio talk show that perhaps best compares to NPR’s Fresh Air or PRI’s Studio 360. Though it does air on some public radio stations in the United States, Power is best known to the north, not only as a radio personality, but as a musician — he’s an accomplished guitarist with remarkable prowess in Irish and traditional Newfoundland musics — and musical scholar.

As it turns out, he’s also a diehard, lifelong fan of bluegrass. As a teenager he picked up the five-string banjo and took lessons (which had a much broader reach than just banjo techniques) from once Blue Grass Boy and now Bluegrass Hall of Famer Neil Rosenberg, who just so happened to live nearby in Power’s native Newfoundland. Though his work as host on q reaches far beyond his home island and his favorite chosen folk musics, his ethnomusicological expertise still centers on bluegrass — and he is a devout and starry-eyed fan.

BGS is proud to partner with Power and his co-producer Stephanie Coleman to present Toy Heart: A Podcast About Bluegrass, a platform for bluegrass storytelling and an examination of the true narratives that gave rise to this singular genre. Over eight episodes in its inaugural season Power will interview Grammy Award-winning, IBMA Award-winning, and truly earth-shattering artists in bluegrass about their lives, their stories, and their songs.

At Folk Alliance International in New Orleans last week BGS and Tom Power unveiled the first five minutes of the first episode of Toy Heart, which features Del McCoury accompanied by his sons Ronnie and Rob. Listen to that trailer right here on BGS, and read our interview, where Power discusses the pros and cons of his status as an “outsider,” the never-before-heard stories he unearthed in his recordings, and much more.

Our BGS audience, being largely American, might not have an understanding of who you are already. Then the audience there in Canada will know who you are as an interviewer and on-air personality, but maybe not that you are a dyed-in-the-wool bluegrass nerd of the best kind.

[Tom laughs]

How does it feel being the person executing these interviews, creating this podcast, and being in the center of that odd Venn diagram between really traditional bluegrass and folks who love it, and your more outward-facing persona on the radio in Canada and, to a lesser degree, here in America?

Tom Power: I am a little apprehensive and a little scared, but I also know that the things that are making me scared about this are making our podcast good. I feel like I have a lot of bona fides in this music, in terms of my knowledge of it. I’ve been obsessed with it since I was about fifteen years old, studied it extensively, did a lot of work on it. When I went down to Nashville and met the community there I started to understand that I was an outsider, that I was not someone who was part of that community. I’m from a very different group, I play very, very different music.

I’m kind of a new member, [everyone has] been very welcoming, but it’s a little intimidating. That being said, I think the perspective I have allows me to ask different questions, or at least think differently about the music than someone who’s in it. In this case I’m on the outside looking in, which allows me to ask different questions, allows me to have different conversations. I wouldn’t know the history of say, Ricky Skaggs and Bill Monroe as well as others. I know the history of how they got together, but I was able to look at Ricky and say, “Hey man, I don’t remember a lot from when I was four years old. Do you actually remember him handing you that mandolin? How is that possible?” Which is a question that maybe someone who was a little more involved in this community may not have thought of. They may have just accepted it as part of the lore.

As you’re describing this apprehension I’m wondering, are you thinking about how to mitigate for folks being like, “What about my favorite Del McCoury song? What about my favorite Ricky Skaggs anecdote?” How much of that are you anticipating and/or how much of this is you specifically turning over stones that haven’t been turned over before?

The format of the podcast is largely autobiographical. Each episode begins with, “Where were you born?” Or, “What was it like growing up?” I try to let the guest [lead]. On the radio show, q, say I have twenty minutes and ten pieces I really need to hit. In this case I have an hour, I have an hour and a half. I’m able to let them guide me where they want to go and I can steer them back around.

One nice thing about my interviewing background, and I think the reason q has been in any way successful in Canada and a bit in the U.S. as well, is because we focus on what the listener might want to know most. When I’m doing an interview I’m always thinking about how it’s coming out in someone’s headphones, how it’s coming out over somebody’s car stereo. What are they shouting at the radio? What are they shouting at their phone? I’m always trying to keep that in mind.

When you imagine that hypothetical listener, the average person you’re trying to target with the podcast, is it a diehard who knows everything about bluegrass, or is it somebody who’s maybe a new initiate? Who do you hope will come into the audience of this podcast?

More than anything what I’m trying to do is trying to get a record of some of this music. I think the podcast format is a great opportunity to get these kind of biographical stories on record. I found myself listening to people like Marc Maron, Howard Stern, and Terry Gross thinking, “Why can’t I do this for the music I love the most? Who’s doing this work?” The music that Del McCoury’s making, the music that Ricky Skaggs is making, or Alice Gerrard or Alison Brown, is as valid to me as something nominated for an Oscar or nominated for the Booker Prize. Who’s treating this music this way? Who’s giving it this attention to detail?

In any kind of music there’s a lot of myth-making and a lot of legend-making. I’m really interested in what the actual story is. Even if it might seem a little boring to them. The eight-hour drive from Nashville to somewhere else, I want to know what they talk about on that bus ride! I want to know the minutiae.

Some of my favorite interviews have been with people who I didn’t know. I’ve turned it on and I’ve gone, “Who is this person? Who is this director? Who is this actor?” And I found myself engrossed in the story. Take Jesse McReynolds, who told me on this podcast about driving around with his brother Jim from schoolhouse to schoolhouse, taking the car battery out of their car, putting it on stage, plugging the PA into it, and seeing if they could just get people to come. Is that not just a beautiful, human story? Bluegrass is the story of the original DIY music, as far as I can tell. These people were living what punks thought they were living for the first time in the 1970s. [Laughs]

I am aware that I’m entering sort of a hallowed ground of music and music aficionados. I really believe that this is just a matter of getting it on the record and using the little bit of training that I’ve had on public radio. Being able to sit down with Del McCoury and go through his entire life, his entire career, and ask, “What was it like when you had to quit music and go work in the logging industry? What was it like working in a sawmill? Tell me about the actual moment. I know the story that you were playing banjo [in your audition] for Bill Monroe and then Bill Keith came in, how’d that happen? Didn’t that hurt? You lost that gig — what was it like playing in a band with a guy you lost a job to?”

You do have these moments with so many of these icons that we know and love. We know their “mythology” intimately, yet you get stories out of them that people like you and I have never heard before, let alone people who don’t think and write about music every day for a living. You mention Del and Jim & Jesse, but is there another story that you’ve uncovered in your recording so far that you were surprised to hear?

I spoke to Del McCoury about the time he [spent] in the military. I said, “So you were in the military, how did that go?” Pretty broad, right? He tells a story about being in the military, about a couple of things that transpired while he was in the military that were hilarious. We laugh about it, and on the way out Ronnie and Rob McCoury stopped me and said, “Tom, we’ve never heard that story before.” These were his sons! Not just sons, but his business partners, his bandmates, and they said they had never heard him tell that story before.

I can tell you, Alice Gerrard told me what it was like to sing at Hazel Dickens’ funeral. I felt so honored that she would even be able to tell me that. I asked Béla Fleck, “Where is Tony Rice?” And what his relationship with Tony is like these days. I asked Jerry Douglas about drug use in bluegrass, something that often gets overlooked. And I should be clear, the goal is not to be in any way sensational. The world I come from in public radio, I find stories about humans way more interesting than stories about legends. What I was able to do is have human conversations while finding out the history of how a bunch of people created this thing that changed my life and it changed the lives of people all around the world. How is that possible? It’s largely by an unglamorous industry, a hard life on the road, touring nonstop, playing small barns, having lean years — the story of what actually happened there is more interesting to me than anything else.

I’ll give you one more. Ricky Skaggs, for the first time ever, tells the story of how Bill Monroe almost hired him to be a Blue Grass Boy. Hearing Ricky’s tone when he told me that story — he says to me, “I haven’t really talked about this before.” I felt so honored that I saw not a bluegrass legend on the Opry, but I saw a kid still being blown away because his hero spoke to him.

I think that’s one of the most beautiful things about bluegrass and even folks with even the most casual relationships to bluegrass understand that the community is just as important a part of the whole thing as the music itself. The legends that you’re describing just so happen to also still be human.

And they have stories they want to tell! And maybe haven’t even had the chance to tell them. I want to hear about it. I want to hear the story of how Béla Fleck heard that Tony Rice was making records without banjo and he thought, “That’s not right, and I gotta be the banjo player.” So he leaves New York! These are the stories of ambition, of love of music, honoring a tradition, and wanting to further things. Of humanity. I find it fascinating.

Ideally, if enough people listen to it, this season will just be one of many. I want to get to everybody! I mean, my white whale is Tony Rice. If you listen to these interviews a lot of them close with, “How do I get in touch with Tony Rice?” [Laughs] Alison Krauss is another I’d love to speak to, because other than Bill Monroe she is maybe the most transformative artist in the music’s history. I want to know what it was like to be a twelve-, thirteen-, fourteen-year-old child prodigy playing this music. I want to know what emails — I know there weren’t Tweets back then — or messages she got when she started adding drums to her music. I’m dying to talk to Larry Sparks! And the Osborne Brothers! These are crucial — I had to limit myself to eight people this time around and it was so challenging.

As someone who got a Bluegrass Unlimited subscription mailed to Newfoundland when he was fifteen, and a Banjo Newsletter subscription mailed to Newfoundland when he was sixteen, I still would not know anything about this if I wasn’t under the tutelage of, in my mind, the greatest mind in the history of bluegrass, Neil Rosenberg. It changed my life forever. When I first took this on the first thing I did was fly back to Newfoundland to see Neil. I told him, “I’m doing this thing, what should we talk about?” And he helped me out. If I can be a pebble onto the beach of the work he has done that would make me very happy.

Photo courtesy of Tom Power

Bobby Hicks, “Snowflake Breakdown”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

In our plaintive annual quest to unearth some semblance of a holiday-themed canon from the bluegrass songbook writ large, a few concessions must immediately be made. As argued in a past wintry edition of Tunesday Tuesday, titles of otherwise wordless and themeless songs are more than enough to justify a tune’s place in holiday and Christmas party playlists — or at least, this writer vehemently believes that they should be. 

That particular context might just be unnecessary, though, because anyone ought to welcome absolutely any excuse or justification to marvel at the sheer magic (holiday and/or otherwise) of Bobby Hick’s fiddling. Yes, this is no more than a contrived set up to allow some unbridled gushing about “Snowflake Breakdown.” The hoedown-style fiddle tune was a cut on Hicks’ 1978 album, Texas Crapshooter, which boasted an A side of all Texas and western swing tunes, featuring Buddy Emmons on pedal steel and Buck White on piano among others, and a B side of his signature bluegrass fiddling style, staffed by Sam Bush, Roy Huskey Jr., Alan Munde, and fellow Bluegrass Hall of Famer Roland White. The “wow, these pickers on this tune are each so unique and genius in their own rights, they’re like snowflakes” metaphor is just a little too irresistible here, so just go with it. 

For us fans of a bluegrass fiddler who plays with a heavy dose of North Carolina by way of Texas and a dash of the best parts of fiddle contests, has an unparalleled pedigree as a Blue Grass Boy with Bill Monroe, and a reputation as one of the most confounding double-stop talents in the universe, all we want for Christmas is (really, truly, honestly) more Bobby Hicks.

For ‘Dolly Parton’s America’ Host, It All Starts with “Muleskinner Blues”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

In public radio and podcast fandom Jad Abumrad’s voice is not only immediately recognizable, it’s iconic. As a host of WNYC’s hit show, Radiolab, Abumrad has explored myriad topics ranging from secret World War II missions to the social and cultural impacts of contagious diseases. He has a knack for storytelling, uncovering and contextualizing minute details that many other writers and journalists may have simply shrugged at or glossed over.

This instinct, a sixth sense that guides him to these subtle nuances that often rest undisturbed just below the surface or hide in plain sight, is focused on a new subject in his brand-new podcast (also produced and distributed by WNYC), Dolly Parton’s America. The nine-part series lives up to the oft-invoked, seldom accurate characterization of “a deep dive,” covering ground that even the most ardent Dolly experts and fans may have never trod.

A self-described “new initiate” of country music, Abumrad grew up in Nashville, but given Dolly’s standing as an almost omnipresent cultural touchstone he realized much later that during those Tennessee years he almost couldn’t see the Dolly Parton forest for the Dolly Parton trees. “I knew her music, in terms of the crossover stuff — ‘9 to 5’ and ‘Islands in the Stream,’” he admits. “But the first place I started was going back to ‘60s Dolly and ‘70s Dolly. That’s a very different Dolly.” 

Though what he found in those early decades of her career was often unexpected, it was never truly shocking or surprising, especially given the pop culture monolith that Parton has become since those years. A monolith that Abumrad describes as being able to bring people together across all manner of divides — something particularly remarkable in this current global moment. 

“You see these stories emerge of not only her changing over time, but what was happening around her in the south, in Appalachia, and in America,” he continues. “The early Dolly music and lyrics became almost like a portal that I could step through to talk about history, to talk about politics, to talk about culture, to talk about feminism. It’s all there in her music.”

And so, it’s all in the podcast. In the two already released episodes Abumrad et. al. cover topics as broad and varied as Dolly’s constantly being undervalued as a songwriter, her being “typecast” as a secondary character (a “dumb blonde”), her shift from the sad, forlorn songs of her early career to her jubilant, encouraging anthems later on, and even her own struggles with suicidal ideation.

With such an entity as Parton, a bystander might assume that any approach to unspooling the many tendrils of her vastly variable and dynamic career would be insufficient, myopic, and/or excruciatingly intimidating. Abumrad faces this daunting task with aplomb, acknowledging the many ways such a project can go awry, but not allowing that acknowledgment to dissuade him. Rather than shy away from storytelling that might open him and the podcast up to criticism about omissions or oversights or missteps, he leans into the humanity that allows for those scenarios. “This is a project where I was trying to see Dolly through other people’s eyes, so that I could understand them and understand their lives and their experiences… I wanted to understand Dolly not simply as a performer and an icon, but as somebody who’s created all this culture… Why do they love it? What do they see in it? What is it about it that calls them? I felt like that was a way to understand the country at this moment.”

BGS editor and contributor Justin Hiltner spoke to Abumrad on the phone about Dolly Parton’s America; the two took turns picking their favorite Dolly tracks, as if standing in front of a Dolly-only jukebox in a Dolly-themed dive bar. 

JH: If you and I were standing in front of a jukebox full of Dolly Parton songs what would be your “pick” if you were asked to play Dolly Parton for a room full of people? What would be the first song you would think of? 

JA: I think [with] any jukebox selection you have to disclaim: There’s no way to be comprehensive, so any selection you make is going to be one tiny sliver of a tremendous catalog of thousands and thousands of songs. 

But, I think the first one I’m going to have to pick is “Muleskinner Blues.” I think it was 1970? I think that’s right. 1970. I would play this one because that song is just… it is pure fire. The rhythm section is so badass and her on top of it, you just cannot — you have to move when you hear it. And I say this as somebody who didn’t grow up with this genre. I grew up in a house full of opera and bad hair metal. Country music was not my jam. But this is one of the first songs that when I heard it I was like, “Oh my god. This SONG.” 

The moment that she ad-libs, “I’m a lady muleskinner–” 

Oh my god, it’s so good. 

It’s so good! And I think about it all the time. When we talk about bluegrass, [people like to say,] “Oh, you know, we don’t have that many women forebears, we don’t have many [women] to point to.” I hear that [ad-lib] and I hear her telling the history of women in roots music and American music. “I’m a lady muleskinner” is like, “I’m not just singing this song that’s always been sung by men, this song is MINE now.” I love that. 

Let me follow that inspiration, because one of the things that I think about that song is where it falls in her history. She was on the Porter Wagoner show, right? She’s this crazy prolific songwriter, but she’s kind of under the thumb of this guy, who’s a legend and an amazing hitmaker in his own right, but he was kind of holding her back. At that point she’s starting to bristle. We talked to a bunch of people… I think of them as “Dolly-ologists,” these new academics who think about Dolly a lot, before this song it was a lot of sad songs, often sung from the perspectives of little girls, about something that had been done wrong to them. This is the first song that she grabs her power, in some way. 

When she holds that first note she holds it as long as she wants and the band has to follow her. So she’s like, “Y’all gonna follow me.” Then as soon as she lets go the band follows her. It’s literally her taking charge of the band. You feel that power, you feel that energy. It’s such a good song. I’ve been listening to it non-stop.

I think my first jukebox pick, what might be my favorite Dolly cut ever, is “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind” with Chet Atkins. Have you heard this? 

Yeah! 

It’s just two guitars, it’s just them. They’re kind of conversing while they play. There’s this subtle moment where Chet makes a joke like, “Why don’t you pick one, Dolly?” Then he continues to pick a solo and Dolly laughs like, “That’s not me, that’s not me!” But there’s this sort of respect in his voice, where he’s telling the listeners that she’s a picker. Like, “Don’t forget, don’t sleep on Dolly Parton. She can play guitar!” She’s the real deal. 

They mix up the words at one point, they aren’t singing the right harmonies together. Then at the end, they’re just laughing together, and Dolly sighs, “Oh, I love you Chet.” He’s like, “Oh, I love you Dolly.” I think it’s my all-time favorite Dolly Parton recording ever. And for a song that she’s re-recorded so many times, to hear it pared down like that — definitely my number one pick. 

Wow. That’s awesome. 

What’s another one for you? 

Let’s see, I’m really zoned in on ‘70s Dolly right now. I hope you don’t mind that most of my picks are going to be in that era.

Nothing wrong with that! 

I just love the moment that her songs go kinda funky and percussive. I’ve always been less of a lyric guy and more of a music/tambour kind of guy. I love from “Jolene” on when she starts adding different instrumentations to her songs. 

I have a couple of picks here… let’s go with “Joshua.” Again, it’s a song she did right after “Muleskinner” and I feel like that’s the moment when she truly becomes [a star] — if you want to look at her ascent to global superstardom, I think it begins in those few years and “Joshua” was her first number one. I just love the production of the song, I love how her voice was recorded, it’s a little bit distorted. I love how all the instruments are panned hard left or right. The rhythm guitar is over on the right and Dolly’s voice is on the left — or maybe it’s vice versa. I love the whole ‘70s production of it. 

It’s such a weird story! It’s [about] an orphan girl meeting a crazy old man living by himself in the woods and they fall in love. There’s something kind of offbeat and oddball, but also kind of poetic about it. When it modulates, it goes up a semitone, like somewhere in the middle. It’s just cookin’. I love it.

My next pick, and really this is hard, I would probably pick something off of The Grass is Blue. And I think that my favorite one is “Train, Train.” I mean, you can’t be upset at a bluegrass song about a train, for one, but also that album means so much to me. You have this woman who has conquered every genre, has hits on so many different charts, and for her to come back to bluegrass — and I always make sure to emphasize the “back” to bluegrass because she’s been based in this. Her music since day one has been bluegrass music, the mountain music, as she calls it. 

And the band on that record, the band that she toured with doing promo for that record, they were ridiculous! Chris Thile was in the band, if Chris Thile wasn’t, Sam Bush was. Jim Mills — it’s everybody. Jerry Douglas. This stacked roster of bluegrass pickers and then she takes that band to like, the CMA awards. To see bluegrass in primetime, in the mainstream like that always means so much to those of us who have always loved bluegrass first and foremost. I keep beating the drum of, “Induct Dolly Parton into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame! Induct Dolly Parton into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame!” I think it’s a no-brainer, and “Train, Train” is the perfect distillation of that for me. 

Totally! You know, it’s interesting, what I remember is being in the UK — we went to the UK to shadow her for the premiere of 9 to 5 the musical — and on the way to the show I had to be in the car [with her] posse from the Dollywood Foundation and the Imagination Library, like David Dotson and some of these folks. They all were echoing basically what you just said. That album, more than any other album of hers, is most meaningful to the people around her. I think a lot of people feel like you feel. I don’t want to say it was one of her less successful [records], but it didn’t have the crazy crossover [appeal.] That album meant a lot to a lot of people. 

Do you have another one? Maybe to close us out? One more for you, one more for me. 

Sure, let’s see. I’ll give you a choice and you can tell me which one will be more interesting. “Love is Like a Butterfly” or “He’s Alive.” 

Oh shoot, do both.

Okay, I’ll do both in one shot. So, “He’s Alive” is not the kind of song I’d ordinarily choose to put on, as a — I’ll be completely transparent — godless liberal. I come from a country that was torn apart by religion and my parents are scientists, so when we came from Lebanon my parents were like, “Don’t you damn set foot in a church!” [Laughs]

The first time I heard “He’s Alive” I got goosebumps. I hadn’t been that moved by a song in a long time. We were driving from Knoxville to Dollywood, actually, with one of Dolly’s biggest fans, and she put that song on for us. It was crazy, driving through the hills seeing signs like “Jesus saves you” and “Jesus loves you.” Then that song comes on and, as you know, the first few minutes are kind of a little bit overblown and orchestral and there’s this bombast going on, but when the chorus and the gospel chorus come in? Oh my god. That is more intense than any techno DJ drop. We were all just pinned to our seats for that. It feels like she’s alive, right? [Laughs] 

I played it for my wife and my family the other day and they were like, “You like this?” But when it gets to the chorus they were like, “Oh, I get it.” 

I’ll throw in “Love is Like a Butterfly” because when she had a string of number ones going from Dolly the “girl singer” to being Dolly the superstar, that was one [important song.] I don’t know, there’s something about her voice on that song. She’s describing this almost trance of love, she’s in love with someone and she’s weightless and entranced the way a butterfly is in the wind. The song isn’t as poetic as some of her others, but there’s something in the way she sings it that I just feel what she’s describing without even hearing the words. Something about her voice that is so… it literally flies. It’s like a butterfly. Her voice captures that. I’m so mystified by her voice on that recording. 

I think my last choice would be, “Why’d You Come in Here Lookin’ Like That,” not only because it’s just a really good jukebox song — it is a perfect rollicking country song for a night at the dive bar. But also I realized — I’m openly gay, I’m a career banjo player who happens to moonlight (during the day) as a music writer, and so I went through this whole dynamic [when I was younger] of discovering my sexuality after I had already been in this music for my whole life. I realized, “Oh wait, I don’t think I belong here. I don’t think this space is for me. I play banjo, I love bluegrass.”

Something that I really appreciate about Dolly, from long ago, before I even knew she was a queer icon — and rightly so! — I could project my queerness onto and into her art and see myself in it. There’s something about “Why’d You Come in Here Lookin’ Like That” that’s just like, “Why does this straight man have to come up in my business and remind me that he’s unavailable to me?” That’s what I hear listening to that song, and it’s funny that I could go down a list of like ten other Dolly songs that feel like that to me. That feel like the queer experience realized through Dolly’s lens. 

That’s really interesting… how so many of her songs create that space, so you can read it that way. I love that you have a list that goes beyond that. I might have to call you back and ask you to elaborate on that. [Laughs]

It was something that I really didn’t want to have this conversation happen without mentioning. I mean, even if you don’t count the rhinestones and the false nails and the big boobs, and everything. Boiled down to just nuts and bolts, and thinking of her as just a songwriter, she’s still allowing space for people to see their own experiences in her music. That’s not a very common thing in country. It is because heartbreak is all through country and everybody’s heart gets broken all the time, but other than that it really takes that sort of [approach] — well, what you’re talking about through this whole entire project. She touches on all of these issues that are sort of endemic to our culture, in a way that’s so organic that we ingest them almost without realizing it until now, in retrospect, I look back thinking, “Well of course she’s a queer icon, she’s creating space for us to relate to her music.” Even if it’s coming from such a specific place. 

She, as a songwriter like you say, has created that space. Even without having to look at the persona in any way. 

She still has not gotten her due as a songwriter, and it’s painful at times. To see that be such a big part of what you’re doing [is important.]

Yeah, I appreciate that, that’s where we start the series is taking her seriously as a songwriter, cause I agree. Robert Oermann said in one of our episodes that if she had been born two hundred years ago she’d be Mozart. (I think maybe he means more than two hundred.) Because she’s that touched by that creative spirit. That’s never been acknowledged. Bob Dylan gets it, Johnny Cash gets it, but she hasn’t. 

Photo of Jad Abumrad: Bo Jacober
Illustration: Christine de Carvalho

Hosts With the Most: Del McCoury, Jim Lauderdale Team Up for 2019 IBMA Awards

Posted on by Editor

Loose and lovable Jim Lauderdale and Del McCoury will host the 30th annual IBMA Awards in Raleigh, North Carolina, coming up on September 26. McCoury is a nine-time winner of IBMA Entertainer of the Year — the most of any artist — while Lauderdale has won two Grammy Awards for his exceptional bluegrass work. These fan favorites don’t just bring a wealth of bluegrass experience to the stage; they’re seasoned masters of ceremonies as well. We got together at Nashville’s City Winery for a public conversation about the show.

BGS: As a 30th anniversary edition, I’m sure there will be quite a focus on the history of the music and of the awards over these 30 years. Del, what do you remember about the first IBMA Awards?

DM: It was so exciting, ’cause it was the first time that bluegrass music was really recognized. And there were still quite a few of the senior people there, you know, who started in the music years ago. We were fortunate that they were still there. Bill Monroe was even there, you know? But we’ve lost a lot of the great pioneers since that first one, and that’s probably the biggest difference, I would think.

BGS: When was your first one, Jim?

JL: I believe it was 1998, and I got to do a song with Ralph Stanley during the awards. Then I started going back and doing showcases. And I saw the move to Nashville and then the move to Raleigh, which I think has been really, really a great thing.

BGS: Do you guys ever surprise the jammers playing on some floor and stride in and go, “Hey, fellas, can I play a song?” And they go “Holy cow, that’s Jim Lauderdale and Del McCoury!”?

JL: Not quite like that! I go, “Hey everybody!” I like to be inclusive. But I do like to pop in if it calls for it.

DM: For me, I’m a little too old for that these days. But I remember the time when the festivals started when I would stay up all night and jam with people and go do a gospel show in the morning. And of course, I had a voice that would take that kind of punishment then, but I don’t have that voice anymore. So I do have to get my rest. But it’s a temptation, if you hear a jam session, to at least go listen to it.

JL: That’s the thing about bluegrass. Of course in any musical genre you can jam but you’ve got your acoustic instrument and you come across a group of folks that maybe you’ve never even met, but [you have] the bluegrass vocabulary or common language with these songs. It’s something that everybody can pick up.

BGS: Del, because of your 80th birthday and your longtime involvement in IBMA, I understand that they’ve just told you that on Saturday at the Wide Open Bluegrass festival, there will be a big “Del-ebration” for you. What do you know yet about this?

DM: I’m embarrassed! I had an inkling they were going to do something, you know? But I didn’t know who was going to be on that Saturday night show until me and Jim came here today. We’re going to have different folks from other genres of music come in, and me and Jim will do duets and sing all kinds of stuff.

JL: When we get together, you never know what’s going to happen. But I’ll tell you, in all seriousness, for as long as I’ve known Del, I’ve loved to make him laugh. …For several years I used to love to do this, when Del and the band was backstage somewhere. I’d walk up and say, “Hey you guys, what are y’all doing here?” And then I’d say to whoever is standing next to me, “It’s like these guys go to almost all of my shows! They’re from Canada, right? Anyway, good to see you guys!”

BGS: You guys have an interesting thing in common that people might not know, because you’re both guitar-playing frontmen. But you both started playing the banjo early on, right?

DM: Yeah, we did, didn’t we?

BGS: Del, in your case, the fellow who coaxed you away from the banjo into the lead guitar and the lead vocal was Mr. Bill Monroe, right? You hoped to play banjo, but he needed a guitar player. Is that the story?

DM: Yeah, myself and Bill Keith, you know, we auditioned together and he took Bill on banjo and wanted me to start playing guitar. I had played some guitar before that, but after I heard Bill Keith, I thought, yeah, that’s what Bill needs that guy. He needs that guy right now, cause it was a different thing. You know Bill called him Brad. He didn’t want to have two Bills in the band, so he called him Brad. He said what is your full name? And Keith said, William Bradford Keith. He said we’ll call you Brad. And he did from that time on.

BGS: And you never looked back. You were a singing guitar player from that point forward?

DM: Yeah, begrudgingly I was. Because I liked banjo. I’d heard Earl Scruggs when I was about 11, and Don Reno. They were our idols, those guys, so I learned to play. I did a date with Bill Monroe up in New York City. He took me up there, and he offered me a job, and I didn’t take him up on it. So maybe a month later, I did decide to come down here and when I did, Bill Keith was here, at the same hotel. He told us both to come to the Clarkston Hotel, which was on Seventh Avenue. You’d get a room about two dollars and 62 cents a night, from what I remember. Bathroom down the hall. No air conditioning. That’s the things I remember about it.

The next morning I walked into the lobby with my banjo and another guy walked in from somewhere else. About that time, Bill Monroe walked in and he said, “Come on, boys. Follow me.” We went next door to the Clarkston Hotel’s restaurant, I think. We sat down and he said, “Now go ahead and order something. I’m paying for it.” So we sit there, and Bill was not a man of many words. I didn’t know who this other guy was, and he didn’t know who I was, and Bill didn’t introduce us either.

So we got done eating, and he paid and we walk next door to the National Life building. That’s where they had the Friday Night Opry [and WSM’s studios.] We went into this room and I saw an old Gibson guitar case over in the corner. When we got in there, Bill said, “Del, you could take guitar there.” I thought, “What kind of deal’s this? I wasn’t lookin’ to play no guitar.”

So we tried out that way and Bill Keith told me later, only about 10 years ago, “You know, he tried me on the guitar, too.” [Monroe] tried us both ways and he wanted to see what’s gonna work best. And Keith said, “I was no guitar player.” And I said, “Well, when I heard you play banjo, I figured I was no banjo player either!” [Bill Keith] was really good. And so [Monroe] hooked us up that way and then I thought, “Well, I guess I was up for the challenge, I’ll try this job.” But I had to learn all the words his songs. That was the hardest part.

BGS: Jim, how did you make the journey from banjo to a guitar-playing songwriter?

JL: I was a pretty good banjo player, but I got to a certain point in my late teens where it’s like I’m just not as good as Earl, Ralph Stanley, Don Stover, or Bill Keith. Those were my go-to guys at that time. I was getting a little discouraged. But I did get a dobro. I was such a big Mike Auldridge fan and I was playing that a little on the side. I thought, I’ve reached my peak. I’m not going to get any better. So I start playing rhythm guitar and writing songs. When I did come to Nashville and did that record with Roland White, I thought, “OK, this is it.” You know, finally after 22 years this is my big break.

So I moved up to New York City because I wasn’t able to really make a living here in Nashville. New York City’s the most next logical choice! But I had some friends from college up there. And I got a country gig before I moved up there. But anyway, I sent this record with Roland out to the bluegrass labels that I knew of — sent a cassette — and every one of them wrote back and said we like the record, but you’re an unknown and you’re not on the circuit. But stay in touch. Keep us posted. And that discouraged me so much. I just thought the writing is on the wall. So I started doing more country stuff. But in New York I was in a couple of bluegrass bands too.

BGS: You’ve seen this music keep renewing itself and raising up younger artists and seeing them join the flow, and you’ve watched the audiences change and evolve over the years. What are your observations about this music? How healthy is it? Where do you think it may be going, and what do you hope for?

JL: It seems really healthy, and you’re absolutely right about that with the younger audiences and the younger players. It’s so cool to see these kids sometimes playing that are eight, nine, seven. I know at IBMA, they’ve got a program for youth. And at different festivals — Pete Wernick has a thing at Merlefest. There is a big outreach, and parents I think are so supportive of that to see their kids playing bluegrass, and kids love it. I’ve had this theory for a long time that if you start out playing bluegrass, you can play anything if you want to, because the ear training is just incredible.

Inset photo credit: Amy Beth Hale, IBMA
(L-R) Craig Havighurst, Jim Lauderdale, Del McCoury

Crystal Gayle Goes Deep into Classic Country

Posted on by Editor

It’s a little startling when Crystal Gayle pops into the hallway of her Music Row office and cheerfully waves for this writer to come on back. Along with being a charming and welcoming host, she’s also one of country music’s most identifiable entertainers, a Grand Ole Opry member, a Grammy winner, and a genuine class act.

She’s also a recording artist again, ending a 16-year absence with You Don’t Know Me, a collection of country classics that honors her heroes, as well as her sister, Loretta Lynn, and Loretta’s late husband, Mooney Lynn. It was Mooney, she says, that ushered her into the spotlight as a teenager, and that memory prompted Gayle to begin the album with “Ribbon of Darkness,” a Marty Robbins hit in 1965.

“‘Ribbon of Darkness’ was my first song on the Opry,” she recalls. “I was probably 16 or 17, and my sister Loretta was sick and Mooney talked them into letting me get on stage and sing a song in her place. It was just a thrill! Of course, later on when I started out, I opened for Marty Robbins. Marty was so incredible. I got to work with Jack Greene, Stringbean, Grandpa Jones, Bill Monroe. … My album is filled with songs that mean something to me. This is a part of my life that a lot of people don’t know about.”

Gayle co-produced the album with her son, Christos, and continued the family connection by recording “Put It Off Until Tomorrow” with both of her singing sisters, Loretta Lynn and Peggy Sue. She also unearthed “You Never Were Mine,” a tearjerker written by her late brother Jay Lee Webb. Surrounded by fan gifts and photos from throughout her career, Gayle visited with BGS about her earliest days in Nashville, how she found her own voice, and why she’s still fond of her own country classic, “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.”

BGS: What was it like for you as a new artist in 1970, meeting Jack Greene, Marty Robbins, and all of these stars?

CG: I was in awe of everybody, but of course when Loretta would come through town — because she was singing as I was growing up — she would be with maybe Ferlin Husky. I remember loving that. Or the Wilburn Brothers. They were incredible! I loved the harmony that they did. I could sit and listen to their music all day long, I just loved it. Of course I was a fan as well, but you have to give them their space. [Laughs] I learned that from Loretta.

I’m curious about Mooney. How did he influence your career?

Mooney really believed in my ability of singing. He loved my voice and he actually got my contract with Decca Records, but the best thing about it, he got a very short contract. It was the long ones that can ruin a lot of artists, because now they’re on this label, they’ve got so many years left, and they can’t do anything and [the label isn’t] helping them at all. They are not pushing the records.

So I was very lucky when my contract was up and Owen [Bradley] called me in. It was like, “Well, you’re going to do this, this, this, or we say bye.” I said, “Okay, bye.” [Laughs] I mean, it was hard. It was a hard time and I really thought at that time, “I’m just going to go back to Indiana and do what I’m doing.” I was married and my husband was going to Indiana University. Then when we moved to Nashville, he went to Vanderbilt in law school.

But I was just lucky. I was in the right place at the right time because before I left town, I was fulfilling my [appearance] obligations and I ran into Lynn Shults, who was with United Artists. We were just talking and he says, “Well, what label are you with now?” I said, “No one.” He said, “Will you come and talk to me Monday?” So things fell into place. And they put me with Allen Reynolds.

To say the least, that worked out.

Oh it did.

There was one song here I didn’t recognize – “I’ve Seen That Look on Me a Thousand Times.”

That was a song that our engineer Eric Prestidge loved. He said, “You’ve got to listen to this.” It was a song that I thought, “You know, a girl doesn’t really sing this… And I’m going to do it.” And I loved that it was a Harlan Howard song.

Several times on this record, it’s a woman singing about the drinking and the cheating. What is it about those flawed characters that makes you want to step into those shoes?

I’ve always said that if I had all the heartache I’ve sung about in my songs, I’d be in poor shape. So you’re a little bit of an actress or an actor. I’ve worked so many little clubs and bars on the way up — and even in high school I’d work the little places I could get into without getting anybody in trouble — that you saw the heartache. You saw the people that these songs really was their life.

So you can get into that and sing about it. “Just One More” was one of Mooney’s favorite songs and when they’d come through and stop at Mom’s house, I’d have to sing a cappella — he had me learn “Just One More.”

How old were you?

I was probably in sixth or seventh grade. [Laughs] “Just one more and then another…”

A drinking song from a 12-year-old.

“I’ll keep drinking, it don’t matter….” [Laughs]

You’ve included “Hello Walls,” written by the great Willie Nelson. As a co-producer, what kind of vibe were you going for?

I was actually going to go for the style that Faron Young did, and have the type of harmonies with the “hello, hello” … and we didn’t [use that idea] because I let other people influence me. They said, “No, you can’t, you’ve got to change it a little.” But I did my own harmony on that particular song. You know, I opened for Faron. I used his band and we did some dates together.

I remember rehearsing with him and the group. They were incredible guys, and very, very special to me. They’d watch out. I was that young girl that — all of them, even Conway Twitty — if I was on their shows, they were going to watch out for me because as the little sister of Loretta, they knew that she’d kill them if they didn’t!

Here you are, this young woman, 20 or 21 years old, starting out with these middle-aged guys who are stars. I wondered how they treated you.

Everyone treated me great and I think it really showed a lot of respect as well for my sister. And you know, I’m not someone that’s going to come out there and be that floozy, too. I think the way you present yourself is a part of it. But no, they were all very, very, very good.

And with Faron, when I wanted to do “Hello Walls,” I had completely forgotten that Willie Nelson had written the song and I’m starting to sing it, and I said, “Of course, the phrasing.”

Your phrasing is distinct, too. At what point did you find your own voice, do you think?

I think working with Allen. He would say, “Now sing this song, do it different ways, and then listen back and see which you like the best.” See, he let me listen to my voice and not just go in and sing the song. Because I was a belter. I remember going in the first time and Charles Cochran’s playing the piano and I’m singing at the top of my lungs. Allen grins and he says, “Can you sing it a little bit lighter?” [Laughs] … Allen was laid-back like me, and was not forceful, but he did pull out things within me. He’d say, “Do you like this song? Because you’re going to be the one singing it. You better like it.”

What a gift, instead of a producer just telling you what to do.

Oh, it was incredible. I was used to people telling me everything but Allen knew it was going to be me out there pounding the road and he wanted me to have the songs that I felt really comfortable with. I get asked the question, “Do you ever get tired of singing ‘Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue’?” I don’t, because that song — Richard Leigh wrote it — is so well-written. I’ve always said it says so much in so little. I love it that it’s not all these words I have to think about to sing. There are so many songs out there where it’s like, “OK, what verse is next?” But this song just flows, and I think that’s one of the reasons that it was as big as it was.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

LISTEN: Staci Griesbach, “Blue Moon of Kentucky”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Staci Griesbach
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Song: “Blue Moon of Kentucky”
Album: My Patsy Cline Songbook

In Their Words: “This classic country staple from Bill Monroe is one that has been covered by so many artists, we wanted to really take it in a new direction by adding more of a funk beat to it. The tempo and groove allow for the musicians to really dig in, and whenever I’m listening back to this, I find myself in the groove completely. Michele Weir helped me with the arrangement and first we started with the bass line. I knew I wanted something funky, but also that we could incorporate pedal steel, guitar and fiddle. Once we had that groove established with the bass line, we knew we had it.

“As I’m thinking about it, it could also be fun to do a little traditional bluegrass feel up front and then go into the funk or vice versa for the solos. Perhaps that’s something I’ll think about for the live performances. Again, to me, a good song can present a playground for many interpretations and that’s the joy of creativity right there at its purest form.” — Staci Griesbach

Photo credit: Kim Thiel

WATCH: Carolina Blue, “I Hear Bluegrass Calling Me”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Carolina Blue
Hometown: Brevard, North Carolina
Song: “I Hear Bluegrass Calling Me”
Album: I Hear Bluegrass Calling Me
Label: Pinecastle Records

In Their Words: “‘I Hear Bluegrass Calling Me’ was written by one of our mentors and a very special friend, Roy Chapman, so it’s automatically important to us. We changed the arrangement a bit to fit our style because we wanted to tip our hats to a couple more of our bluegrass heroes: Bill Monroe, the originator of this music, and the Osborne Brothers, whose cutting-edge vocals and arrangements helped keep bluegrass relevant when it was in a period of decline. It’s a fun tune to play and listen to. We sure hope everyone is enjoying hearing it as much as we are playing it!” — Bobby Powell & Timmy Jones

Photo Credit: Corey Johnson

‘Wayfaring Stranger’ Shows London Author’s Journey to Bluegrass

Posted on by Editor

Award-winning author and journalist Emma John has intensely pursued many passions through her gift of writing. Her first book, Following On: A Memoir of Teenage Obsession and Terrible Cricket, was named the 2017 Wisden Book of the Year, and her newly published title, Wayfaring Stranger: A Musical Journey in the American South, tells a story of self-discovery in the Londoner’s trip to the hills of North Carolina.

An email discussion with John (who also regularly contributes to BGS) uncovered a number of universal truths about the wide-reaching allure in the people, stories, and culture of bluegrass.

BGS: Describe the overall experience of writing this book. Were there any particularly surprising or challenging points in the experience?

EJ: There were two very distinct parts to the process. First came the trip itself, which was supposed to take six months, but got extended far longer because I was enjoying myself so much. That was the fun part, and the real reason for writing the book in the first place. What was really hard was heading back home to the UK, sitting in a tiny little study, in the middle of winter, when there are only about 6 hours of daylight, and trying to recreate all my memories without feeling really miserable that I wasn’t still in the mountains! I found a solution: I went back.

Early in the book you describe bluegrass music as “the sound of the past, being enjoyed with all the verve and vivacity of the present.” What is it that seems to make bluegrass so timeless?

I think it’s the fact that it’s always been pretty true to itself. You don’t play bluegrass to be modern, you don’t play bluegrass – Lord knows – to make money or get famous. The only people who play bluegrass are the people who really love it and can’t help themselves. I think that has given it a truly unbroken thread over the past 80 years. Plus, acoustic instruments are never going to age as badly as electropop synth music or the keytar.

It sounds like your trip to North Carolina turned your life upside down in the best possible way. How much did the sheer unfamiliarity of everything play a role in your self-discovery?

It really hit me for six, as we say over here in Britain (that’s a cricket metaphor). The fact that from my very first day in North Carolina I stumbled into – and was immediately embraced by – a world of rural pickers meant that I had to start from scratch. On every score: the music, yes, but also the food (an endless quest to source a vegetable that wasn’t cooked in sugar), the culture (lunch before noon?! what is that?), manners (if I even said ‘damn’ I got funny looks), and accents (I struggled to make myself understood because of my incredibly clipped vowels, and I often had to smile and nod when Southern folk spoke to me because I had no idea what they were saying.)

In a way it was incredibly liberating. Yes, I was an alien, but I was also someone about whom no one had any preconceptions, really. In fact everyone seemed to believe the best of me at first sight! And so I shrugged off my more cynical side, and began to enjoy and try to live up to their confidence in me. I also found the openness and generosity of American society a lot more suited to my own natural character than my own country. I’ve always been gregarious and felt that at home in London where people are quite reserved I can be “a bit much.” In the South I found myself being the best version of me I could be!

As your friend Fred is describing the many achievements of Earl Scruggs, you write, “Fred said all this with a personal pride, as if Earl’s success reflected well on everyone, including himself.” What makes bluegrass so personal to those who follow the genre, and why do people take so much pride in being a part of this music?

Again, I think this is because the music is so niche, so people feel very protective of it. If you pour yourself into something that not a lot of other people appreciate or even notice, you feel incredibly attached to it and sometimes even defensive of it. The pride can come from family connection and ancestry — ‘My great granddaddy played on this fiddle!” — or from that strong sense of geography – “This is the music of our mountains!” – but it can also, I think, just come from ‘getting’ it. Bluegrass is a language that not everyone speaks.

In describing the atmosphere of Pete Wernick’s bluegrass camp you wrote, “When people weren’t playing their favourite songs, they were talking about them.” How much do the non-musical aspects of bluegrass such as the stories and characters play a part in the culture of the genre?

Very much. In fact it always amazed me at how no one got tired of hearing the same stories do the rounds a million times in picking circles! Remember that one about Bill Monroe and the bagels? One of his bandmates brings him a bagel and he eats it and says, “This donut tastes kinda strange.” I mean, we’ve all heard that, right? At least a dozen times. But the sharing of those stories – that everyone already knows! – is part of the ritual. It’s part of the homage you pay to the music. You don’t stop someone mid-flow and say, “Yeah yeah, I know how this one ends.” You listen to someone tell you about how Carter Stanley drank himself to death, or Stringbean was murdered, or Earl and Lester fell out. It’s a grand narrative that we all belong to.

Have you returned to playing classical violin since discovering bluegrass music? If so, has learning bluegrass fiddle changed the way you think about or play classical music?

I have not. The only time I play classical violin is if I want to show off in front of a bluegrasser, and then I’ll peddle out the first few bars of “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” or “Czardas” just to prove I know where fifth position is. But bluegrass fiddle has changed the way I think about all music. I just didn’t LISTEN to it before, or at least I listened in a very superficial way. I listened to the notes, but never the feel. I listened for familiarity, not for emotion. I consumed music so that it could fulfil a purpose, but I didn’t appreciate the utter genius of the people who were making it.

One of the interesting things about this book is that it can be enjoyed by someone who’s never heard of bluegrass equally as much as it can be enjoyed by a bluegrass veteran. What can a novice learn from your story? What can a veteran of the genre learn?

Well hopefully the novice will be interested by the very American story of this music’s history — its 19th century distillation in the Appalachian mountains, its crystallisation in the post-depression Southern diaspora, its rebirth in the hippie and folk movements of the 1960s. But one thing I really wanted people who are new to bluegrass to take from the book is the realisation that it’s a truly unique meeting place. That this kind of music can be and very much is a place where people with very different political outlooks, backgrounds, and experiences do sit alongside each other and put aside what divides them. It’s a music that demands your wholehearted commitment to the moment of playing, and in that moment, everything else gets stripped away, and you can have a pure human connection. And surely that’s what the world needs right now.

Have you discovered more bluegrass music in Europe since becoming interested in the genre? Have you found that other “bluegrassers” in Europe share a similar introduction to the music as yours?

I have! I think meeting the Kruger Brothers in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, was a big turning point for me, because the realisation that these two Swiss siblings had been channeling Doc Watson for years, and come up with their own adaptation of bluegrass, was really the first time I’d understood that it was OK to have your own relationship and tradition with this music. I always had this sense that bluegrass was someone else’s music, and something that as a non-American I would only ever be “playing” at, and never have a true part in. Now I realise that music is just music and I shouldn’t get hung up on that!

Photos courtesy of Orion Books

22 Top Bluegrass Duos

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Everyone knows that in the early days of bluegrass, before that term was even coined, all you needed to make a “band” was two people and two instruments. Fiddle and banjo? Sure. But in those days, they’d take whatever they could get. Duos are still a strong presence in the music today, in brother/sibling duos, spouse-led bands, and legendary collaborations.

Check out these twenty-two bluegrass pairings — and their accoutrement — on BGS:

Bill & Charlie Monroe

Before Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass, made his indelible mark on the genre (quite literally giving it its name), he was already a popular performer with his brothers Charlie and Birch. Birch left The Monroe Brothers in the mid-1930s, and Charlie and Bill went on to enjoy success on the road, in the studio, and on the radio — until rising tensions and a fateful fight in 1938 caused them to split ways. But, without that fight, we may not have “bluegrass” at all.

Flatt & Scruggs

December 1945. The Ryman Auditorium. Nashville, Tennessee. Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys stepped on stage for the Grand Ole Opry with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs among their ranks for the very first time and bluegrass as we know it today was born. Flatt & Scruggs left Monroe in 1948 to join forces and went on to become one of the few ubiquitous, household names of bluegrass.

Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard

Undeniably trailblazers, Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard are widely regarded as the first women in bluegrass to capture the “high lonesome” sound popularized by Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, and others. They toured across the U.S., often supporting causes that benefited forgotten, downtrodden people from all backgrounds and walks of life. They were inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2017.

The Stanley Brothers

Natives of the music-rich southwest corner of Virginia, Carter and Ralph Stanley were prolific recording artists and touring musicians in bluegrass’s first generation. Countless songs written and/or popularized by the Stanley Brothers and their backing band, the Clinch Mountain Boys, are staples of the genre today. Carter passed in 1966 and Ralph continued until his death in 2016 with the Clinch Mountain Boys — who still tour today with Ralph’s son, Ralph II.

Don Reno & Red Smiley

Unsung trailblazers of the first generation of bluegrass pickers, Reno & Smiley were tireless innovators with a jovial, sometimes silly flair to their songs and instrumental prowess. Their duets are simply some of the best in all of bluegrass. The duo performed together off and on from the early 1950s to the 1970s — but both passed away much too young, Smiley in 1972 at the age of 46 and Reno in 1984 at the age of 58. Reno’s frenetic, electric and pedal steel guitar-infused licks remain unmatched in banjo picking today.

Jim & Jesse McReynolds

With matching suits and impeccable pompadours brothers Jim and Jesse McReynolds often brought rockabilly, rock ‘n’ roll, mainstream country and pop sensibilities to their take on sibling harmonies and bluegrass brother duos. Jesse’s crosspicking on the mandolin was — and continues to be — absolutely astonishing. Jim passed in 2002, Jesse continues to perform on the Grand Ole Opry to this day. At the time of this writing, he is ninety years old.

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum

Laurie Lewis often takes top billing — as leader of the Right Hands and before that, the Bluegrass Pals, and others — but since 1986 her musical partner Tom Rozum has almost constantly been at her side on the mandolin and harmonies. Their duo recording, The Oak and the Laurel, was nominated for a Grammy in 1995. Here is the album’s title track:

Bill Monroe & Doc Watson

What is there to say? Two of the folks who paved the way for this genre, laying a foundation so strong and far-reaching that we still can’t fully comprehend its impact. Bill and Doc collaborated on more than one occasion and we, as fans and disciples, are lucky that so many of these moments are captured in recordings and videos.

Del McCoury & David “Dawg” Grisman

At face value, an unlikely combo, but their friendship goes back to the early 1960s and their musical endeavors together began soon after. As Del slowly but surely became a bastion for traditional bluegrass aesthetics applied broadly, Dawg embraced jammy, jazzy, new acoustic sounds that sometimes only register as bluegrass-adjacent because they come from the mandolin. Opposite sides of the same coin, their duet makes total sense while at the same time challenging everything we think we know about the music. In this clip, Dawg sings tenor to Del — not many would be brave enough to try!

Ricky Skaggs & Keith Whitley

They got their start together in the Clinch Mountain Boys with Ralph Stanley, making some of the best recordings in the history of the band’s many iterations. Before they both struck out on wildly successful, mainstream careers they recorded a seminal duo album together, Second Generation. It remains one of the most important albums in the bluegrass canon — especially as far as duos/duets go.

Norman & Nancy Blake

Norman is well known for his flatpicking prowess, which has graced recordings by John Hartford, Bob Dylan, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and so many others. He and his wife, Nancy, were married in 1975 after having begun their musical forays together a year or so earlier. Nancy’s command of many instruments — cello, mandolin, and fiddle among them — balances neatly with Norman’s jaw-dropping, singular style on the flattop. Their inseparable harmonies and timeless repertoire are merely icing on the cake.

Jimmy Martin & Ralph Stanley

How their first album together, First Time Together (cough), is not more well-known is truly impossible to understand. The King of Bluegrass and the Man of Constant Sorrow twining their extraordinary voices must have been ordained by a higher power. It’s a good thing they answered the call. Be careful, Jimmy’s percussive G-runs feel like a slap in the face — in the best way.

Darrell Scott & Tim O’Brien

Their live albums together and their co-written masterpieces belong in every museum and shrine to roots music around the world. Both of these triple threat (Quadruple? Quintuple? When do we stop counting?) musicians are rampantly successful in their own right, but together they are simply transcendent. Their cut of “Brother Wind” deserves a listen right this instant and “House of Gold” gives you the harmony acrobatics gut punch you need every time. It was nearly impossible to choose just one, but here’s a hit that was recorded once by a little group called the Dixie Chicks.

Ricky Skaggs & Tony Rice

Again, words fail. Skaggs & Rice is a desert island record. Each and every time these two have graced a recording or a stage together, magic has been made, from their days with J.D. Crowe & the New South and on. We only wish that they could have done more together.

Vern & Ray

Vern Williams and Ray Park were California’s original bluegrass sons. Though they were both born and raised in Arkansas, they relocated to Stockton, California, as adults. They’re often credited with “introducing” bluegrass music to the West Coast. They disbanded in 1974 (both passed in the early 2000s), but their influence is palpable to this day, even if they’re sorely unheard of east of the Mississippi. This deserves correction! Immediately!

Eddie & Martha Adcock

Eddie is a pioneering banjo player who’s a veteran of both Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys and The Country Gentlemen, two decidedly legendary and influential acts. His style is somewhat wacky, certainly singular, but effortlessly bluegrass and traditional as well. He married Martha in the late 1970s and the pair have toured prolifically as a duo. In 2008, Eddie underwent brain surgery to correct debilitating hand tremors. He was kept awake, playing the banjo during the procedure — and there is jaw-dropping film of this online!

Dailey & Vincent

When Dailey & Vincent burst onto the scene in the mid-aughts after both having notable careers as sidemen, the bluegrass community rejoiced at the reemergence of a wavering art form within the genre — traditional duo singing. However, Jamie and Darrin, whether they knew it at the time or not, had their sights set much higher. Now more of a full-blown stage show than a bluegrass band, their recordings and concerts are a high-energy, charismatic, and downright entertaining mix of classic country, Southern gospel, quartet singing, and yes, bluegrass.

Kenny & Amanda Smith

Husband and wife Kenny and Amanda first recorded together in 2001, going on to win IBMA’s Emerging Artist of the Year award two years later. They’ve now cut eight albums together, all clean, clear, crisp modern bluegrass that centers on Amanda’s impossibly bright vocals, which maintain a personal, country hue alongside Kenny’s fantastic flatpicking. SON!

Tom T. & Dixie Hall

Two of the most recent inductees into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, Tom T. and Dixie Hall wrote hundreds and hundreds of songs cut by country, bluegrass, and Americana artists alike. Tom T.’s reputation and chart-topping originals tend to eclipse Dixie, but he is unyielding in his efforts to point that same spotlight at his beloved wife instead, who passed away in 2015. Though she never performed — definitely not to the extent that Tom T. did — the marks she left on bluegrass, country, and her partnership with her husband are indelible. This number was co-written by the pair:

The Louvin Brothers

Recipients of IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award in 1992, the Louvin Brothers are another example of early bluegrassers who enjoyed the amorphous, primordial days of the genre before it became more and more sequestered from mainstream country and country radio. Their duets are iconic, with counter-intuitive contours and lines that bands and singers still have difficulty replicating to this day. Their most famous contribution to the American music zeitgeist, though, might not be their music, but the spectacular cover art for their 1959 album, Satan Is Real. If you haven’t seen it, Google it right now.

Delia Bell & Bill Grant

Natives of Texas and Oklahoma, respectively, Delia Bell and Bill Grant met through Bell’s husband, Bobby, in the late 1950s. Between their band, the Kiamichi Mountain Boys, and their duo project they recorded more than a dozen albums together through the 1980s. Famously, Emmylou Harris became a fan when she heard their cut of “Roses in the Snow,” which Harris went on to record on her eponymous bluegrass record. Bell died in 2018.

The Osborne Brothers

Though they popularized a style of three-part harmony that had never been heard before — the infamous “high lead” harmony stack — their band, no matter who it may have included over the years, was undeniably helmed and anchored by Bobby and Sonny. (Which does explain the name.) You may remember “Rocky Top” and “Ruby” first and foremost in their discography, but the hits they’ve contributed to the bluegrass songbook are innumerable. Here’s one such classic.

Dale Ann Bradley Hears the Truth in ‘The Hard Way’

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Dale Ann Bradley has made a lasting impression with bluegrass listeners as a solo artist, as well as a member of the all-female band Sister Sadie. And before that, she recorded and performed with the New Coon Creek Girls in Renfro Valley, Kentucky, where she established a foundation that would carry to her multiple performances on the Grand Ole Opry and five IBMA awards in the female vocalist category.

An approachable artist who describes her audiences as “my people,” Bradley is quick to admit that her musical path hasn’t always been easy – in fact, her new album is named The Hard Way, a nod to the Jim Croce song she covers, “The Hard Way Every Time.” But in spite of that title, it’s a beautifully subdued project that stands among the most satisfying of the Kentucky native’s long career. That’s as much due to her gentle singing as her gift for finding songs that suit her.

Bradley invited the Bluegrass Situation to chat prior to a Nashville show earlier this month at the Station Inn.

BGS: I wanted to start by asking about the production on this record, because to me it sounds very crisp. It seems like there’s a “less is more” approach.

Bradley: It is. I have learned, on some things, that’s the correct approach. This one’s more guitar-oriented than a lot of them I’ve done – since [1997’s] East Kentucky Morning. Because I had such good guitarists play, it really didn’t need to be souped up. And the lyrics are so story-telling that the song, and the great musicians that I had, found their own way and their own place to be. … This is the third one I’ve produced and I’m always scared to death! I never take that for granted because it’s just like painting a picture or having a young’un! [Laughs] You don’t know what’s going to happen.

What is it about production that makes you want to keep coming back into that role?

If I want to try something, to able to do it. Even though I know that sometimes it works and sometimes it don’t. I have the utmost respect for any producer that I’ve had because I’ve had the best there is. … From Sonny Osborne, I learned that a good performance is a lot better than everything being technically perfect. He drilled that into my head – it’s all about emotion. With Tim Austin, I learned drive and punch with the guitar, and he helped me a lot with my guitar playing. And with Alison Brown, I learned not to be afraid of creativity. Put it down, and if it works, it works. And if it don’t, then you’ll know not to do it the next time. She’s so creative. I’ve worked with three different producers with three different outlooks, and learned from all of them.

“The Hard Way Every Time” is a beautiful song, with a lot of truth in there.

It is for me. The generation that I come from, we’re all at that point where we’re looking back, and we think, “Well, I sure did that the hard way.” Kept doing it and kept doing it. I hope it reaches a young generation. It seems to be, but I think there’s something in there hopefully for everybody.

How do you find the songs you want to record?

All the memories… I may not be able to recall what I had for lunch or breakfast, but a song will stay with me. Songs that have been poignant in my life have been so much so that I’m never going to forget them. I don’t cut cover tunes just to be different. I do it because it shows how talented these musicians are. … And I want to show that in music it doesn’t really matter what genre it is. If it really breaks your heart or makes you happy, it’s all good. Then there are songs that I want to do in the bluegrass style because I didn’t want to do them in the other style.

I’ve often thought that there might not be any song that’s off limits for you. Is that true?

Well, it was close this time. I’ve never been as scared as I was with “Wheel in the Sky.” I really belabored it. Everybody was saying, “Let’s cut it,” but what do you do after Steve Perry’s cut something? Or Journey’s played it, you know? Then I got to looking at it some more. That was probably the last song that I picked. And I got to listening to those lyrics, and I thought, Bill Monroe would have wrote that: “Winter’s here again, O Lord…”

And I’ve done that with other songs, like “Summer Breeze.” The lyrics are just about life and emotions, and it’s important to me. I love novelty, funny little songs but I just really like the ones that have a message, or maybe leave one.

How did the guitar come to be your instrument?

It was probably going to be the only one that I had any possibility of getting. I would have loved to have had a banjo and mandolin, but I finally got a little ol’ cardboard, classical-style guitar that somebody ordered from a catalog. I knew I might get that one if I pressed enough. If I pressed too hard, I wasn’t going to get nothing! But I had a love for it. And still do.

I never was around anybody that played, is the thing. I had a friend who was my age, and we wrote songs together. He was very talented and he didn’t play bluegrass-style. He was a Jim Croce fan, so he would play that and I was so mesmerized, but that was the only guitar influence I had until I came to Renfro Valley. They were all seasoned Central Kentucky musicians and I learned so much from them.

You were at Renfro Valley for years, and then you became a bandleader. What do you remember most about that time? What was that transition like for you?

It was a transition that had to take place, before I would have ever gotten out of the community I was from. I learned a lot about the history. I learned Bradley Kincaid songs and who Bradley Kincaid was, and how Renfro Valley is such a treasure. I loved it and I got to perform country and gospel. I started singing traditional country there, and then the entertainment director would let me do traditional bluegrass songs with the country band. And that worked out good.

When that position with the Coon Creek Girls came open, I was tickled to death to get that. … Renfro Valley is in “The Hard Way Every Time.” Major, maybe over 50 percent! [Laughs] But I learned, and I’m thankful now that I learned those hard life lessons with good people that had hearts. I was thrilled to work there. The talent there in the late ‘80s and ‘90s – I’m telling you, it was as good as you’d hear anywhere.

And then you decided you wanted to be in front, and go on tour?

Well, what happened was, the Coon Creek Girls had been together for years and everybody got married and had babies. I still didn’t want to step completely out, so we called it Dale Ann Bradley and Coon Creek. And then things changed from there, and I signed with Compass, and then it grew its way into me totally being responsible. [Laughs] Good, bad, and indifferent!

What is some of the best business advice you’ve ever gotten.

[Laughs] Don’t spend your money! Cut corners, but not so much where you make somebody uncomfortable. But when you can, cut corners. Don’t buy what you can’t pay for. And work hard. Respect your money. I had to learn that the hard way, too — that’s the other 50 percent of The Hard Way!

Who would you say are some of your heroes?

Oh, Dolly Parton of course. I loved John Duffey and John Starling. What got me really hooked on bluegrass was that I’d hear Ralph Stanley and Bill Monroe on the radio — and Lester and Earl on The Beverly Hillbillies when I got to see that. Dolly was a hero, and the Seldom Scene, The Country Gentlemen, Charlie Waller, so many in the country field, too. Dolly could do anything. Bluegrass was naturally there, with her being 80 miles across the mountain from where I was from. And I loved Glen Campbell – he was another one that could do everything. So many that you can’t name.

So many of those artists you named have an incredible ear for a song.

They do, and it’s a gift that they can sing anything. And I adore Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles. You can’t stay on this earth and get any better than that.

You’ve won some IBMA Awards, and Sister Sadie earned a Grammy nomination this year. I would imagine that aspiring musicians may look to you as a role model. Do you see yourself that way?

Well, I don’t feel that I’m even worthy enough to put myself up as a role model. But if they like this style of music, I want to be somebody that makes them unafraid to express themselves. And I’ve always tried to treat people as good as I can. In those two ways, I hope that I am. In other ways, everyone’s got to walk their own journey, you know?

The IBMA Awards now have women winning the instrumental categories. As a woman in bluegrass yourself, what does an accomplishment like that mean to you?

Well, obviously it’s good that the mindset has changed, in order to really study the female musicians because some of them are quite great. The thing that worries me a little bit is that I don’t want it to matter if it’s male or female, if you’re a good player. I know so many females who are wonderful players and I don’t think we should get it just because we’re women. Let’s get it on our playing and our accomplishments. I don’t get into that (mentality of) “you’ve got to let me play because I’m a girl!” [Laughs] I’ve never been thrown out of a jam session, but I ain’t been in too many either.

Do you see a difference from when you started until now?

Definitely. I see girls cutting their gig, is what I see. Learning. And playing and singing and writing. I do see a female presence strongly coming in there. There was a time of course, I know not so very long ago: “Well… girls can’t sing bluegrass.” Now that needed to go!

I’d like to see the festival scene open those doors more.

Yeah, they’ve moved up to about two girl acts. And I didn’t really realize that was the case, because in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the Coon Creek Girls were the girl act. [Laughs] And I thought, “We’re getting hired, what’s the problem?” “Well, you’re the only girls!” [Laughs]

Going back to the title of this record for a second, I know there’s a lot of hard work that goes into a career like yours. But what would you say is the reward in that?

Oh gosh. There’s been so many. The reward was that I was able to do it. I was able to sing from the very first venue until now. I got the opportunity to sing and to write and to express myself in a musical way. I’ve met the most precious angels — and a lot of musicians have. They’re angels themselves. So many good friends that have been so good and gracious and merciful to me. And along with that, it provided a way for me to support myself and my son. That’s the reward. That right there is everything.

Photo credit: Pinecastle Records