Tag: bluegrass fiddle

The Show On The Road – Che Apalache

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week we feature a border-breaking bluegrass band who came all the way from Buenos Aires to celebrate their Best Folk Album Grammy nomination. Before Che Apalache hit the red carpet, they stopped by host Z. Lupetin’s LA living room studio to talk about their unlikely founding and how they’ve created their intoxicating brew of traditional North American and often overlooked South American string band sounds.

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Lead by a trilingual world traveler, fleet-bowed fiddler, spitfire vocalist, and sonic scholar Joe Troop, Che Apalache formed almost accidentally when Joe began teaching curious local Buenos Aires pickers his own North Carolina folk traditions. Amongst his talented students he found three kindred spirits in Argentinians Franco Martino on guitar and Martin Bobrik on mandolin, and Pau Barjau on banjo, who is originally from Mexico. The result has been one of the most unexpected and have-to-hear-this-to-believe-it stories in modern roots music, culminating in their brilliant second record, Rearrange My Heart, which was produced by fan of the band (and a guy pretty good on the banjo), Béla Fleck. Lucky for all us, Che Apalache play several songs during the episode!

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.