Tag: bluegrass

The Lil Smokies’ Matthew “Rev” Reiger on Slowing Down for Their New Album, ‘Break Of The Tide’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

They may be called The Lil Smokies, but the bluegrass bangers birthed by the band originating from Big Sky country are anything but small.

Formed in the late 2000s when the group’s current sole remaining original member, Andy Dunnigan, began bringing his Dobro to picking parties during his college days in Missoula, Montana, the Smokies have gone on to become one of the West’s most captivating modern-day string bands, as they release their fourth studio album, Break Of The Tide.

Out April 4, the album is the Smokies’ first since 2021’s critically acclaimed Tornillo and features new band members, bassist Jean Luc Davis and banjoist Sam Armstrong-Zickefoose, for the first time. They’re joined by the core of Dunnigan, fiddler Jake Simpson, and guitarist “Rev” Matthew Reiger. According to Reiger, who joined the Smokies in 2015, his nickname stems from a life changing trip to California’s High Sierra Festival in 2007, where he earned the label for his love of the Stanley Brothers and gospel music. When he later joined the band, the name stuck, due to him sharing first names with their banjo player at the time, Matt Cornette.

“High Sierra changed the whole course of my life,” Reiger tells BGS. “It was at that festival that I made the decision to drop out of music school, grow out a band, get a band and most importantly, set out on a path to create a life where I really enjoyed the music I played instead of the academic pursuits. We made it back to the festival 10 years later to play it for the first time in 2017, so it’ll always have a special place in my heart.”

Ahead of the release of Break Of The Tide we caught up with Reiger to talk about the four-year process of bringing the album to life, recording in Texas, and the band’s separate lives while not together on the road.

What’s it been like for you, first joining an already well-established band and then welcoming two new members into the fold in recent years now with plenty of experience with the Smokies under your belt?

Matthew Reiger: It was a fast moving train when I jumped into the band. I had a decent place in Seattle at the time that I sublet to abandon everything I had and jump aboard. At the time we played and moved a lot faster. It was an incredible ride at the beginning and has been the whole way through, but what I love is the steady progression from runaway train to a rowboat on a gentle pond, which musically is more of where we’re at right now. This new record is as honest as anything we’ve ever recorded. Most of the songs were slowed down a bit, which is a good metaphor for how we are as people now.

Right now is about as introspective and pensive a time that I’ve ever experienced. A lot of people are making changes and finding a new path forward after COVID and the instability that ensued. For example, I recently started practicing with a metronome, not trying to play faster, but rather to see how slowly I could play a song. I want to see just how slow and deliberate I can play the song of my life. When you do that you find some challenging points where it’s not all bouncy, happy, and driving forward. The stillness is sometimes unnerving, but I’m happy we’re going through it on this record.

In that regard, [producer] Robert Ellis played a big role in slowing things down, especially on my songs. The way he heard the songs was perhaps even more honest than I heard them. It was quite a display of skill and artfulness on his behalf.

This was the second album in a row you’ve gone to Texas to record, following 2021’s Tornillo with Bill Reynolds at Sonic Ranch. What made y’all want to head back there to record with Robert at Niles City Sound this go around?

It was all for Robert. I’d fly anywhere in the world for the opportunity to work with him. He likes to produce the records he works on in Texas and I don’t blame him. We also recognized the impact of using a familiar place and equipment to a producer. On Break Of The Tide I probably played four guitars and there were a couple more involved beyond that. I think there’s a special alignment between instruments and the places where they live – they’re all there for a reason. It could be a big deal or seemingly innocuous, but there’s a reason they’re in that space and I think you can create some really cool things in those environments. That really came through on this record.

As we mentioned previously, Break Of The Tide is the Smokies’ first record since 2021. Was that four-year gap intentional and a byproduct of what you said earlier about slowing down, or is it due to something entirely different?

COVID, the resulting instabilities, and the band’s general desire to slow down were all factors, but if I had to pick a standout factor it’d be all the uncertainty within the touring music world. Just finding the time, money, and other resources necessary to continue doing that in the midst of a global shakeup was on our minds. It has taken every bit of determination and willpower I can muster – and I’m sure the rest of the guys would agree, too – to keep playing and stay together as a group. Adding an album to that was too much for us for several years and once you summon the courage to go do that you have the arduous process of working through the business side of things and everything that goes into making a record that’s non-musical.

You just touched on some of the struggles and the grind of being a touring musician, especially these last few years. Are those things y’all are singing about on songs like “Lately” and “Keep Me Down” from this new record?

You’re spot-on. I don’t think there’s any way to explain how challenging it is to juggle one’s personal life and touring. It is something I didn’t understand until I did it. The size and shape of the pieces you have to make the puzzle are always changing. It takes a radical toll on who you are at home, even when you’re not touring. You have this recovery period, you have this social adjustment, you have this relationship adjustment, and it’s sort of like you’re always jumping onto or off of a moving treadmill. Going on tour is like jumping on the moving treadmill since you often stumble because everything’s moving so fast, but then when you return home you have to slow down that uncomfortable pace and hop off the treadmill, which feels weird at first even though you’re hopping back onto stable ground since you’re so conditioned to running at full speed. Because of that there’s a lot of picking yourself up each time you go on tour and each time you come home, which is something both those songs touch on.

Similar to what we just talked about with “Lately” and “Keep Me Down,” it seems like “Break Of The Tide” and “Bad News Babe” are sister songs about being there for people you love while also knowing when to cut them off. Your thoughts?

I love the term “sister songs!” Like we talked earlier, touring takes a huge toll on personal relationships. I’ve said before that my first marriage isn’t to the Smokies or touring, but to music in general. It’s my first partner and has been for a long time. It takes a very special person to be in a relationship with someone who already has a partner, though it’s all very trendy in the coastal areas. [Laughs]

“Break Of The Tide” in particular is a song about feeling powerless, which is one of the biggest struggles we can face, and how it’s difficult to help those you love and even harder to walk away and recognize you can’t save them when those situations arise. Sometimes you just have to walk away to protect everyone involved, including yourself, which is oftentimes easier said than done.

We’ve been talking about the sacrifices of being a touring musician, but I’m also curious about your sacrifices within the band, particularly the miles between y’all being spread out in Seattle, Montana, Oklahoma, and Colorado. How has that affected how you operate together as a group?

It certainly makes it harder to get together and practice. [Laughs] I live just west of Seattle on Vashon Island, which is a 24-mile existence with a lot of retired folks. Everything’s a little slower than you expect and there’s a lot of hippie stuff going on – like I have a shower in my backyard. It’s super rural with a lot of farms, but it’s also just outside Seattle. Driving my car there is a little tricky, because I have to hop on a boat, but there’s ways to cross on a ferry and get to the city in 45 minutes to an hour. You have to put in some work to get there, which is what I love not only about this island, but the band as well.

It’s important for us all to feel like ourselves when we’re not on tour, because it’s a lot of costume-wearing when we are out on the road. Having that separation makes it easier to go back out on tour with more energy once it’s time to throw the costumes back on and jump in the van with a bunch of crazies for a while.

From the title of this record, Break Of The Tide, to songs like “Sycamore Dreams,” nature’s influence can be heard throughout the project. How would you say the outdoors informs The Smokies’ sound?

In some ways I think you could argue that nature is the only muse. There’s something so powerful about the ocean that I love. It’s the biggest thing in the world and connects nearly every point in it. In order to write in the way that I want to I have to be able to feel small and insignificant, and there’s nothing quite like an ocean to remind us just how small we all are and to be grateful for that. Because of that I’ve written very few songs that didn’t mention water.

What has music, specifically the process of bringing this new record to life, taught you about yourself?

I’ve spent most of my life trying to write music, but something that I’ve come to see – especially these past few years and what I hear on this record – is that the best art is not so much written, it is captured, and in order to do that you have to practice your listening. Writing and working on things is great, but in the end you have to turn off the metronome, stop thinking and just listen. That’s where you’ll find the beauty in every facet of life, not just in music.

Photo Credit: Glenn Ross

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Tim O’Brien, Joe K Walsh, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

This week our roundup of premieres and new music is a special, “Oops! All Bluegrass!” edition of the weekly series. But still with plenty of variety herein.

Kicking us off, Infamous Stringdusters fiddler Jeremy Garrett unveils “Fly Away to Your Love,” a driving and bluesy modern take on how love can take command of your life, drawing inspiration from Romeo and Juliet. Garrett’s labelmates, Montana-based bluegrass band the Lil Smokies, continue with the theme of love, romance, and sacrifice with “Lay it Down for Love” – because investing in love always pays off.

Guitarist Cameron Knowler showcases “Mule at the Wagon” an acoustic guitar trio number from his new album CRK, which releases today and text paints the beautiful – and stark – Yuma, Arizona, its surrounding states, deserts, and the plains. Plus, mandolinist and professor Joe K. Walsh launches his new album, Trust and Love, today so we’re highlighting a lovely and vibey instrumental, “Oatmeal,” that he appropriately wrote over breakfast.

Bluegrass legend, multi-instrumentalist picker and singer-songwriter Tim O’Brien announces his upcoming album, Paper Flowers, today as well. The lead track from the project, “Lonesome Armadillo,” was written with folk icon Tom Paxton and O’Brien’s partner Jan Fabricius, who features across the new album. It’s a funny tale of a backyard critter trap and a surprise armored four-legged prisoner. Meanwhile, supergroup Sister Sadie bring us a devastating and heartfelt song, “Let the Circle Be Broken,” about interrupting cycles of generational trauma and finding redemption in ourselves and support systems. Written by Sadies Deanie Richardson and Dani Flowers with in-demand songwriter and artist Erin Enderlin, the track is moving and deeply resonant.

Each week of new music is its own adventure, but this roundup feels particularly superlative. You know what we think– You Gotta Hear This!

Jeremy Garrett, “Fly Away to Your Love”

Artist: Jeremy Garrett
Hometown: Drake, Colorado
Song: “Fly Away to Your Love”
Album: Storm Mountain
Release Date: March 28, 2025 (single); June 27, 2025 (album)
Label: Americana Vibes

In Their Words: “When troubles may come, in any relationship, the idea is to persevere – to overcome with grace. The hope of love eternal, or at least a love that stands the test of time. And in the end, like Shakespeare’s famous Romeo and Juliet, if it can’t be, then there is no hope of anything better. So, will it command your life? Is dying in hopes to be with the one you love better than life itself without that someone? Fly away to your love is a modern take, written in an old-time way, encompassing that passion and story in a song.” – Jeremy Garrett

Track Credits:
Jeremy Garrett – Lead vocal, fiddle
Chris Luquette – Guitar
Ryan Cavanaugh – Banjo
Travis Anderson – Bass

Cameron Knowler, “Mule at the Wagon”

Artist: Cameron Knowler
Hometown: Yuma, Arizona
Song: “Mule at the Wagon”
Album: CRK
Release Date: April 4, 2025
Label: Worried Songs

In Their Words: “‘Bull at the Wagon’ is a fiddle tune I sourced from The Lewis Brothers, a great old New Mexico-via-Texas string band with a sweet tooth for rambunctiousness. I changed ‘bull’ to ‘mule’ because, well, I’ve had a few donkey encounters out in West Texas, not far from where the Lewises cut their four sides for the Victor label in 1929. It’s one of those titles that popped into my life at the damndest times – while playing tunes with Frank Fairfield in Los Angeles, performing at a border crossing party in Terlingua, Texas, and visiting with Norman Blake at his home in Rising Fawn, Georgia. To my ear, its melody moves past some of the stylized landscape found in American traditional music these days; maybe it’s the way the four chord asserts itself in the second part, or the way the five chord lands so starkly and dominantly in the third; this mix of quick and static passages is highly generative for arranging and improvising.

“I wanted to see what this tune would yield in a lilting, sort of pastoral setting, so I called my talented friends Jordan Tice and Robert Bowlin who graciously agreed to record it with me at The Tractor Shed in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. Jordan tuned to open G (capo 2), I played out of standard (capo 2), Robert in standard with no capo. Mr. Bowlin and I are playing our old Gibson J-35s and Jordan is using his Preston Thompson OM. The performance found on CRK is one of the first takes.” – Cameron Knowler

Track Credits:
Robert Bowlin – Guitar
Cameron Knowler – Guitar
Sean Sullivan – Engineer
Jordan Tice – Guitar, producer

The Lil Smokies, “Lay It Down for Love”

Artist: The Lil Smokies
Hometown: Montana
Song: “Lay It Down for Love”
Album: Break of the Tide
Release Date: April 4, 2025
Label: Americana Vibes

In Their Words: “The greatest honor of my life is to have spent it fully immersed in music. That’s not to say it hasn’t come without cost. Words can’t carry the weight of the sacrifices required, though I’ve enjoyed trying to explain. All I know is that the loss and doubt I’ve faced has given me a more beautiful life than I ever imagined when I set out on this path. I wouldn’t change a thing. ‘Lay it Down for Love’ was written in some of the darkest days of my life, when there was no evidence that my wagers would come back to me. Today I hear it as a reminder that those days come and go, but investing in love always pays off.” – “Rev,” Matthew Rieger

Track Credits:
Andy Dunnigan – Dobro, vocals
Matthew Rieger – Guitar, vocals
Jake Simpson – Fiddle, guitar, vocals
Jean Luc Davis – Bass
Sam Armstrong Zickefoose – Banjo

Tim O’Brien & Jan Fabricius, “Lonesome Armadillo”

Artist: Tim O’Brien & Jan Fabricius
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Lonesome Armadillo”
Album: Paper Flowers
Release Date: June 6, 2025
Label: Howdy Skies

In Their Words: “There’s an awful lot of talk about migrants invading from the south, but nobody’s talking about armadillos. After we started trippin’ over little holes in our yard, Jan baited a raccoon trap, focused the security camera on it, and then we drove to Memphis to play a show. On the set break, we saw we’d caught the hard-shelled offender, but after the show we saw that he’d arched his back, bent the trap, and escaped. We told Tom Paxton about it the next week and he said, ‘Let’s tell his story.’

“Jan and I started weekly co-writing sessions with Tom in the spring of 2023 and twelve of the fifteen songs on our June 6th release, Paper Flowers, come from those Wednesday afternoon Zooms. It’s our first real collaborative project and a narrative of Jan’s and my life together runs through the record – from courtship to growing old together, with a road trip, the armadillo, and a granddaughter’s wedding in between.” – Tim O’Brien

Track Credits:
Larry Atamanuik – Drums
Mike Bub – Bass
Jan Fabricius – Mandolin, vocal, songwriting
Mike Rojas – Accordion
Justin Moses – Resophonic guitar
Tim O’Brien – Guitar, vocal, songwriting
Tom Paxton – Songwriting

Sister Sadie, “Let the Circle Be Broken”

Artist: Sister Sadie
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Let The Circle Be Broken”
Release Date: April 4, 2025

In Their Words: “Dani Flowers, Erin Enderlin, and myself wrote ‘Let the Circle Be Broken’ right after my Dad passed away. He was an abusive man who verbally, emotionally, and sexually abused me for most of my 18 years living at home with him. When I confronted him as an adult, he said that it had been done to him as a child. This song is about that generational trauma and abuse that keeps getting passed down. The continuing of that trauma and abuse stops with me. It doesn’t go any further. It was such a healing and therapeutic experience to write this with Dani and Erin. The recording session for this was so emotional for me. I felt like I was talking to my Dad at the end during the instrumental fade. He was there and he heard me. That circle is officially now broken.” – Deanie Richardson, fiddle

“Deanie, Erin, and I wrote this song about generational trauma, which each of us have experienced different levels of. This song is about how we’ve decided that these cycles that have been repeated over and over in our families end with us. I was born into a family of some of the worst types of people to ever exist in this world and it is sometimes so hard to sit with the fact that you come from a line of people who are capable of doing such awful things to others — to you. While I can’t say the same for many of my family members, I can say for sure that my children will never experience from me what I experienced from my mother and what she experienced from hers and what she experienced from hers.” – Dani Flowers, vocals

“The song ‘Let The Circle Be Broken’ touches us all within this band because of its very personal nature. We feel it every time we perform it on stage. Deanie, Dani, and Erin wrote an incredible song that touches the audience. It’s not uncommon to look out and see tears streaming down people’s faces. As a creator, it’s very overwhelming.” – Gena Britt, banjo

“I resonate so deeply with the message of ‘Let The Circle Be Broken’ and I find myself a little emotional every time we play it. As someone who is actively working to heal my own generational family trauma, seeing the strong women around me working to do the same makes me feel hopeful, grateful and connected.” – Rainy Miatke, mandolin

“I think ‘Let The Circle Be Broken’ is a beautifully written song that a lot of people need to hear. It has a very important message about stopping generational messes and I cry almost every time we play it. I love Deanie so much and I know this song means so much to her, as it does to all of us. ‘Let The Circle Be Broken’ I think could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, too, and that’s the sign of a fantastic song. Dani Flowers, Deanie Richardson, and Erin Enderlin crafted an amazing piece of art.” – Jaelee Roberts, vocals

Track Credits:
Deanie Richardson – Fiddle
Gena Britt – Baritone banjo
Dani Flowers – Lead vocal
Jaelee Roberts – Harmony vocal
Mary Meyer – Mandolin, piano
Maddie Dalton – Upright bass, harmony vocal
Seth Taylor – Acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Dave Racine – Drums, percussion

Joe K. Walsh, “Oatmeal”

Artist: Joe K. Walsh
Hometown: Portland, Maine
Song: “Oatmeal”
Album: Trust and Love
Release Date: April 4, 2025
Label: Adhyâropa Records

In Their Words: “There are so many tunes that I love that are comprised of an entirely (or almost entirely) diatonic melody which has been harmonized with non-diatonic chords. Some favorite examples are ‘Moon River,’ ‘Someone to Watch Over Me,’ David Grisman’s ‘Dawg’s Waltz,’ Pat Metheny’s tune ‘James,’ and Matt Flinner’s tune ‘Fallen Star.’ I’ve taught a tune-writing ensemble at Berklee for many years, with the idea that each of member of the ensemble writes and presents a tune every week, and I like to use this idea as a prompt for the students. This tune was one I wrote over breakfast in response to this prompt one morning before heading to Boston for school.” – Joe K. Walsh

Track Credits:
Joe K. Walsh – Mandolin
Rich Hinman – Pedal steel
Zackariah Hickman – Bass
John Mailander – Fiddle
Dave Brophy – Drums

Photo Credit: Tim O’Brien and Jan Fabricius by Scott Simontacchi; Joe K. Walsh by Natalie Conn.

Artist of the Month: Alison Krauss & Union Station

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

After 14 years, one of the biggest and most well-known bluegrass bands in the history of the music, Alison Krauss & Union Station, have returned with a brand new studio album, Arcadia. Released on March 28 to the delight of bluegrass and AKUS fans the world over, the collection doesn’t merely pick up where the group left off with 2011’s Paper Airplane. Instead, Arcadia soars back through the band’s deep and mighty discography landing somewhere, sonically, between So Long, So Wrong (1997) and Lonely Runs Both Ways (2004) – in other words, this iconic bluegrass band made a bluegrass album.

Alison Krauss & Union Station, by many measures, are one of the most prominent bluegrass bands to ever emerge from the genre. With the smashing success of her late ’90s to 2010s projects with Union Station and the incredible momentum behind their particular blend of bluegrass, “mash,” easy listening, country, and adult contemporary, Krauss catapulted to roots music notoriety, becoming a household name. She’d lend her voice to the blockbuster Coen Brothers film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, tour with Willie Nelson and Family, make two smash hit records with rock and roll legend Robert Plant, back up Shania Twain, duet with artists like Dolly Parton, Andrea Bocelli, Kris Kristofferson, Cyndi Lauper, Ringo Starr, and countless others. Was bluegrass, which Krauss had called her musical home since she was a pre-teen fiddle contest phenom, merely a springboard into fame and notoriety?

Of course not. This is the idiom in which Krauss has made most of her art; this is a second language – or perhaps, a first – and the fluency and virtuosity Krauss and her band have displayed are two of the most important bluegrass exports that registered and resonated with the masses who would become her fans. Krauss’s crystalline and powerful voice, sensitive and deliberate deliveries, endless grit, and one-of-a-kind skill for song curation only bolstered the electric, engaging charm of the bluegrass bones endemic in her artistry. It’s no wonder that this iteration of bluegrass ended up becoming arguably the most mainstream and most recognizable in the U.S., if not the world.

So, Krauss spread her wings and flew, carrying those bluegrass sensibilities – however overt or subtle – into everything she made. Whether the clean and country Windy City or the soulful and rockin’ pair of Raising Sand and Raise The Roof with Robert Plant, or the easy and romantic Forget About It, she had new horizons to run towards. But she always brought bluegrass with her. To arena tours, giant amphitheaters, sheds, pavilions, the biggest festivals, and beyond. By the time Paper Airplane took off, many in bluegrass regarded AKUS as bluegrass’s zenith, its peak, its maximum. Would anyone ever go further, achieve more, or play to larger audiences? This, after all, is the woman and band who up until they were bested by Beyoncé herself boasted more GRAMMY wins than any other artist in the organization’s history. Who could ever top them?

Well, it turns out Alison Krauss & Union Station weren’t just blazing a trail only they could trod down. Arcadia, fourteen years on from their most recent studio release, enters a universe – a resplendent ecosystem, a vibrant economy – that wouldn’t have existed if not for this band creating the factors that would allow it to exist. Folks like Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, Sierra Ferrell, Tyler Childers, Zach Top, and many more have raised the roof on what’s possible for bluegrass and bluegrass-adjacent artists, what heights they can achieve, and what genre and style infusions are acceptable and marketable.

But AKUS and Arcadia, especially by returning to many of the musical markers from their ’90s and ’00s offerings, reenter the world that they created not as legacy artists or sceptered elders. They seem to be quite happy to consider themselves among these fresh giants in or around or from bluegrass as peers, contemporaries. Legends in their own rights, yes, and with a mythical gravitational pull to all of these acts and musicians they have inspired across generations, but Arcadia doesn’t feel stoic or mothballed, or almighty and shrouded by clouds high atop a sacred mountain. There’s mash that sounds direct from the halls of SPBGMA at the Music City Sheraton, there’s tender, longing romance, there’s rip roarin’ fiddle, there are transatlantic touches, there’s a dash of dystopia, and plenty of that iconoclastic melancholy for which Krauss has become known. There’s also a new voice in the mix, IIIrd Tyme Out’s frontman Russell Moore, who sings lead on four of the album’s ten tracks, filling the “big shoes” of former member Dan Tyminski.

In short, Alison Krauss & Union Station may be roots music royalty, but their status has in no way dulled their dynamism. They could rest on their laurels, but Krauss and her cohort are clearly still staring down fresh, new horizons. Could there be a new wind in their sails, as they embark alongside this new class of arena-ready, large scale bluegrassers? Has a tacit permission been given to return to their essential roots? Or maybe it’s just a matter of time. When bluegrass is in you, in the soil from which you grew, it has a tendency to ooze out all along or all at once. That trail of ‘grassy touches is what got Alison Krauss & Union Station here in the first place, and it’s what will bring them through the next fourteen years, too. Whatever sounds, songs, and stories occur between.

Alison Krauss & Union Station are our April 2025 Artist of the Month. Our 3+ hour Essentials Playlist below covers their entire discography, as well as Krauss’ own releases and other collaborations. Stay tuned for exclusive content coming later this month – like our interview with Alison about the album, powering through dysphonia, how she collects songs, and more. Plus, we have a collection of Six of the Best Alison Krauss Covers and our discography deep dive for beginners and longtime fans alike. Don’t forget about our exclusive Toy Heart podcast interview with Alison hosted by Tom Power or our recent interview with Russell Moore himself about how excited he is for this brand new gig. We’ll be diving back into the BGS Archives for all things AKUS, so follow along on social media as, for a month at least, we’ll be a proud Alison Krauss & Union Situation.

Photo Credit: Randee St. Nicholas

“I Once Was Lost, But I’m Pretty Found Lately” – Olivia Ellen Lloyd Finds Herself Again

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

In the wake of several viral country songs released in 2023 – most notably the ill-conceived pair of Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” and Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” – renowned author and country journalist David Cantwell penned an essay for TIME magazine with an absolutely stunning (while quite simple) observation included. Cantwell considered place, citizenship, and ownership. To whom does the “small town” belong?

“…For most of today’s country fans that small town isn’t TV’s tiny Mayberry; it’s a suburb or exurb of some decent-or-giant-sized metro,” Cantwell explains. “I wish more country songs would talk about that proximity, how city folk and small-town folk flow back and forth for work and fun – and are very often the same people.”

And are very often the same people. Humans don’t live their lives along strict, black-and-white boundaries and borders – no matter how often society attempts such demarcations. Our lives are lived in the gray, in the blurry in-betweens, as collections of many disparate and often dichotomous parts.

Singer-songwriter Olivia Ellen Lloyd is just such a person, caught up in the nebulous purgatory between rural and urban, city folk and country folk, doing it for herself and doing it for ambition. Her brand new independent album, Do It Myself, finds Lloyd with a sense of confidence that could only be earned through a hard-working, bootstraps approach to making music – a mindset that, whether within or outside the arts, is well known to West Virginians like herself.

After a stint living in Nashville, Lloyd returned to New York City, following up 2021’s fantastic Loose Cannon with the heartfelt, sensitive, and often point-blank songs of Do It Myself. Like Loose Cannon, this material is danceable, country, honky-tonkin’, and bluegrassy while it boasts deft and majestic moments of WV DIY, punk, and rock and roll. After crisscrossing the country proffering her art, Lloyd seems to have realized that being both a city person and a country person is never a drawback, it’s a superpower. Having her feet in NYC, her heart in West Virginia, and her work anywhere and everywhere, Lloyd has clearly determined it’s not a dilution of the “authentic” or roots-music-ready facets of herself to straddle these arbitrary borders and own that duality.

As a result, Do It Myself is remarkably successful. Like Hazel Dickens in D.C. or Dolly Parton in Nashville or Tina Turner in Memphis, Lloyd has found her voice and found herself not by running from who she thinks she can’t be anymore, or editing out the parts of herself that don’t seem to “fit” with country tropes and perceptions of good ol’ American rurality. Instead, she’s reached this current era of music making by resting easy – or not so easy, at times – in the knowledge that the best she can do as a singer-songwriter-artist is to be herself, whoever that is, in the truest format possible at any given time.

We began our BGS Cover Story interview by discussing that ongoing search for herself and how that particular journey shows up throughout Do It Myself – in the lyrics, sonics, and beyond.

It feels like your music in general, whether we’re talking about Loose Cannon or the new album, Do It Myself, you’re most often turning over the idea of finding yourself – and not that that’s a static thing to be found. It’s not that you find it once and you’re done finding it. Your music orbits around these questions of, “Who am I? Is this me?” I feel that really strongly in this record. So, as you’re releasing this album I wondered, who is the self you have found? And how goes the search for yourself?

Olivia Ellen Lloyd: I think what’s really interesting is I don’t know that I would’ve put a finger on that until recently. I’ve also come around to the understanding that that is what my music has done, which is help me come back to myself and find myself. I would say it’s currently going pretty well, but boy it has been a journey to get there.

I think writing this record, I was much closer to her – to me – when I started writing this record, but I wasn’t as close as I thought I was. It’s taken not only writing it and realizing that I wanted to put it out and all that stuff, but also deciding to self release it and deciding to continue to champion my own work where I’ve truly found that. That, “Oh there she is!” [feeling]. I feel very recently like I have arrived at the person that I’ve been looking for and that’s exciting and also really scary, because boy, has most of my work orbited around, “What the fuck happened? How did we get so lost?”

I once was lost, but I’m pretty found lately.

How do you feel about writing songs that are so personal and that are so much about growth, introspection, and questioning and then having to carry them around on your back for a year or two or three on tour – or for the rest of your life! How does that process feel to you or that emotional or mental understanding?

Interestingly, at least with my first record, I think I wrote often with no aim, so there were no expectations. I mean it’s funny, Justin, because you are one of the few people in the music industry and in my music world who knew me when I was writing many of these songs, but not performing often. The process of writing was very much a way to try and tune into this inner voice that I’ve been learning to listen to. It was an attempt to get in touch with myself, which I really have struggled to do for various reasons throughout my life.

I think I’m also quite an impulsive person, historically, and I have a lot of tattoos – a lot of stupid tattoos – and I kind of think of these songs, especially the personal ones that no longer represent [me like tattoos.] I don’t drink anymore really – I wouldn’t say that I’m sober, but drinking is not a big part of my life anymore – and all of Loose Cannon and much of this record involves talking about those moments in my life. But I have this tattoo of a possum drinking a High Life. That’s not who I am anymore, but that was a part of how I got here. When I think about these personal songs that involve a lot of myself and a lot of what’s really going on I think, “Well, that’s a part of the patchwork,” but it doesn’t have to be – luckily – the whole story or the end of the story, either.

The way that you’re utilizing so many different roots styles, it’s disarming of a listener, so you can have a danceable, honky-tonkin’ track that’s still lonesome as fuck, tear in your beer. It feels like it can still be very country, very Americana in the way that it is melodramatic, but it still feels grounded in reality.

I think that playing with genre in the same way that we experiment with different sidemen and co-writers is just another tool that we can use. I see a lot of artists, especially right now, there’s just so much pressure to hit. There’s so much pressure to hit on a vibe, hit on a moment. Part of the joy of this is playing in those in-between spaces and finding something unexpected.

Come on, if we’ve got Dolly and Patsy and Loretta, they did a lot of the groundwork so we should get to play around that space! We’re not gonna outwrite or outsing those women, we simply cannot, so the opportunity we have is to explore. I don’t wanna go back. I don’t wanna go back to any type of past anywhere. The future is scary for me, but I’m really curious about what could come next, after those things, and how we can develop those sounds.

You’ve spoken on social media and on microphone about your approach to genre and how so much of it comes from growing up in West Virginia having this agnostic approach to genre aesthetic, on a practical day-to-day level. You’re doing West Virginia music, you’re bringing in Nashville, you’re bringing in New York City. Can you talk a little bit about that?

For the first record I got the feedback that you can hear the country and the city kind of intermingling together and someone was like, “This [new] record feels like so much more New York.” I think I understand where people are coming from, but actually I think what’s happened is I built a musical community in New York City around bluegrass, which I think is one of the great community music forms. It is a great way to bring people together. I’m so grateful that I knew a bunch of those songs and then I got better with those songs and then I met people who were passionate about that music. But actually, this record was more about digging into the sounds that I grew up with. I grew up going to DIY punk shows, I grew up with my dad listening to the Grateful Dead, the Band, some Jerry Jeff Walker, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

I think this record really returns to a landscape that’s more true to how I was raised, which was eclectic, a little bit daring, and a little bit more rock influence. I think I’ve been quoted once and I’ll say it again, I think the reason that the places in West Virginia gravitate more towards that kind of music is because music got gentrified and country became this bizarre fascist, patriotic propaganda wing of the Republicans and of government.

If you are not one of those things, if you were not a kid who could afford to go to Berklee and you were not somebody who was all that proud to be a fucking American in the 2000s, you likely grew up listening to a lot of that. Especially in rural places, you likely grew up listening to a lot of punk, a lot of rock, a lot of indie pop. Like many people do, I walked way far away from that stuff and dug into the roots of country and folk and bluegrass. I swirled around in that stuff for so long, and then I came back to myself; I came back to the first music that really inspired me and felt less academic.

In my opinion, the most interesting part is all of those genres coming together. I do think that I’m very wary of anybody who talks about “good folk music” or “real bluegrass” or anything like that, because typically some very nice man in a fisherman sweater in New England has told them [to think that way]. I learned to like music the way that most normal people learn, I just listened to it and I didn’t worry about whether I was listening correctly or not. I think we gotta return to that.

Community has come up multiple times already in our conversation and I know how important community is to you – how pivotal it’s been in your musical career. How do you balance the “doing it for yourself” with the “doing it with community”? How do you do it for yourself and trust yourself and give yourself permission to be who you are and take up space to do it your own way, while also being a member of a community and doing it for the collective at the same time?

Have you been listening to my therapy conversations? [Laughs] I struggle with deep individualistic tendencies. I have a tendency to be like, “Fuck it.” That can also be bad. Notably, have yet to accomplish a successful relationship, because of this thing I do. “Fuck it, I’ll deal with it myself. I’ll just do everything myself. I will stop relying on you. I don’t need to rely on anybody for anything.”

I hope it comes through in the music that many of my songs, including “Do It Myself,” include enough self-awareness to know that I’m talking about choices that I’m making and things that I’m doing and they are not always the healthiest choice or the best choice. That’s okay. I think there’s a side of this where, yeah, I have been way too [self-reliant]. As I sit here selling shows out, opening for Jeff Tweedy, and unable to get a booking agent or a manager. Yes, I have isolated myself a little bit too much for people to be paying close attention.

Certainly “doing it myself,” in this context, many people told me to wait to put this record out. Maybe that would’ve made sense for a more reasonable person, but I think this is really important: Your community is everything. You need to be able to trust that the people around you are people who are willing to let you show up like however [you are]. In the last two years, I have focused so hard on surrounding myself with people who I know I can trust to both keep me honest and on my shit and love me through mistakes and they will engage in conflict resolution. They will be gentle with me and like I can do the same for them.

It’s not possible to be self-sufficient, emotionally, creatively, if you do not have a community that supports that in you.

I love that on the album you have “Live With It” back-to-back with “Do It Myself.” I think it’s pretty striking, they’re kind of a reaction or a response to the other – and vice versa. That line, “If this don’t kill me…” feels like such a natural lead in to “Do It Myself.” I wanted to ask you about “Live With It” and also about that placement of those, like bookends.

Thank you for asking about “Live With It.” My producer Mike Robinson is gonna be so happy and that’s his favorite song on the record. I mean, that’s my pandemic [song]. The chorus of that song I wrote during the pandemic. Looking back, it was probably also the worst point in my life for my drinking. I was at a point where I was not in control. Things were so bleak that it was like, what’s the point of trying to slow down or get a handle on it? There was no future to look forward to.

But by the time I finished the song, what I really hoped to accomplish is [communicating that] there are many times in our life where we have a pessimistic view on our own personal outcomes. We’re not really convinced that things could get better and yet there is an interesting tendency with human beings, we just keep going anyway most of the time. I find that to be both very curious and also something that is inspirational in its own way. We can continue to live and survive through unsurvivable things, even when we don’t know entirely why or how. That’s what “Live With It” is about. It’s four people experiencing something that they, for whatever reason, don’t see why they have to live through it or how they’re going to, but they do.

I also love the feel change in “Every Good Man.” So good. It’s nasty. That song is a bit like “Stand By Your Man,” playing with country tropes in a really fun way, but that feel change – I think I made a stank face just listening to it. Can you talk about that one a little bit?

Once again I just have to say, I think a lot of what you hear and the really cool musical stuff is owed to the creative partnership that Mike Robinson and I have. I can’t say enough good things about him. I met Mike at a fucking bluegrass jam and he was playing the banjo, which is like his fourth instrument, you know? I think these days he mostly makes money as a pedal steel player. Everyone is sleeping on his ability to play the acoustic guitar. Like, truly.

I met Mike six years ago now and out of the blue he coached me into a music career. He would deny that, but that is 100% what happened. He bullied me into it. And something I really love is that I can bring songs to him and he finds exactly [how it should sound], especially when he’s excited about the songs. Both “Every Good Man” and “Live With It” were definitely high on his list of loves. He finds these like beautiful moments and we have such a similar [approach], we were raised on the same music. For “Every Good Man,” that feel change came from some moment in a John Prine song.

Another song that I really like – it might be my favorite – is “Knotty Wood.” It feels like country. It feels like church. The lyric, “Who says memories can’t be bought? We always sold ours for a song…” grabbed me. You’re talking about how we compare and contrast and measure ourselves against other people and our perceptions of other people’s lives. “Don’t they look good when you paint over the pain and knotty wood?” It’s such a great hook. I love the imagery of it. I love that it takes me to my grandma’s house. But I feel like it begs the question: Do you ever worry that in synthesizing your experiences, putting them into songs, and taking them to the world that there’s any part of that process that is also “painting over the knotty wood”?

Yes, and my mother would definitely say yes. The genesis of that song actually came from my mother and I growing up in the same small town. I grew up a mile from [where she grew up] and from our home to her childhood home it was less than a mile. That house, my grandparents’ house, I spent probably two days a week there and almost every day after school I walked from my elementary school to my grandparents’ house. It was my home, too.

It got sold after he died, we couldn’t hang onto it. It got sold again during the pandemic by an actually really lovely woman. She started renovating it on Instagram and I watched this place that held generational memories be stripped in some cases to the studs and rebuilt. It was pretty public. I felt a sense of ownership of our place – that I do not factually own and never have – that got me. Being curious about place and home made me think about the journey my grandparents went on to become property owners and to become middle class. And about that moment in the height of prosperity in the ‘50s, all the things my grandparents sacrificed.

I think the song is about thinking about those generational ties, thinking about the things my grandparents sacrificed, and did not sacrifice or did not give away. I’m also thinking about how, especially right now in this weird American moment – “Don’t other people’s lives look good when you paint over the pain and knotty wood” – how many people want to talk about their humble, hardscrabble beginnings without having to actually live them.

There are so many other reasons why it’s taken me so long to get here, why it’s taken me so long to put my songs out. But it all revolved around the generational trauma of growing up relatively poor and with people who had to give up everything in order to get anything.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have the small-town, Appalachian upbringing and also have the confidence and gumption of [privilege]. I mean, it’s rare. It happens, but you don’t often then also come equipped with the gumption to believe that you have the right to be a fucking artist. All my grandparents wanted was just a nice home in a small town.

I’ve been hustling, self-promoting my own art and music, and in a desire to attain the things that the people I’m criticizing have attained, we get to the third verse. … The crux of that song is, I think, a way more interesting story than “rags to riches.” It’s middle class to rags.

I mean, my grandparents went to war so they could get an education, right? My grandfather’s nickname was “Bones,” because he was so thin he looked like a bag of bones. The trajectory of their lives into middle class comfort is astounding, and the way that his grandchildren and children are sliding back into poverty is much more so. It’s much more true to what is happening in this country than this “rags to riches” bullshit that we are still being asked to sell, but it’s trickier to talk about.

Listen to Olivia Ellen Lloyd on Basic Folk here.

Photo Credit: Aaron May

The Seldom Scene: a New Release, a New Member, and a Farewell to a Revered Singer

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

After 53 years and 23 albums, the release of the newest Seldom Scene recording is still something to celebrate. Remains to Be Scene is their first recording since the death of founding banjo player Ben Eldridge in 2024 and the last before Dudley Connell announced his retirement. In addition to Connell, the album features Fred Travers on Dobro, bassist Ronnie Simpkins, mandolinist Lou Reid, and Ron Stewart on fiddle and banjo.

Since its earliest days, the Seldom Scene has been known for busting open once-limiting bluegrass boundaries. The latest album continues this tradition, with songs pulled from sources like The Kinks, Woody Guthrie, and Jim Croce. Another tradition is incorporating new talent.

In 1995, three of five band members left to form another group. Looking to replace them, founding member John Duffey invited Simpkins, Connell, and Travers to a picking session. To those who didn’t know him, Duffey, with his huge stage personality, was intimidating.

Remembering that day, Simpkins said, “I did not want to be late, but I did not want to be early. So, I got there way ahead of time, and I kept an eye on John’s house to see who else got there.

“And I noticed this other car down the street. That person was just sitting there and would ease the car up closer to John’s as the time drew near. And I came to find out it was Dudley. So, we timed it until Ben got there, and we all went in together.”

Simpkins takes Connell’s retirement as a continuation of the band’s legacy: “The band has always transitioned.” Today he welcomes Clay Hess, a band leader and a former lead guitar player with Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, who stepped in quickly when Connell, injured in a fall, was unable to play the last few shows of 2024.

As always, the Seldom Scene is committed to the same scalp-tingling vocals, remarkable song selection, and quirky, sometimes outrageous, stage shows that fill festival seats after five decades. Simpkins said, “I just feel blessed to be in this group … and to try to keep the same spirit the original guys had when they started out back in 1971.”

On the release of his last recording as a Seldom Scene member, Dudley Connell spoke to BGS about Remains to Be Scene, his musical career – starting in the 1970s – and his memories of some of the greatest characters in bluegrass.

The Seldom Scene has a tradition of pulling songs from everywhere and the latest recording is the same way. How do you decide on songs?

Dudley Connell: If you look back at the Scene’s recording career, all the way back to the original guys, it was unique. John Duffey had very eclectic taste. He brought “Rider” into the band from the Grateful Dead. He brought “Sweet Baby James” in from James Taylor. And continuing that tradition, I brought in “Boots of Spanish Leather” by Bob Dylan and “Nadine” from Chuck Berry.

It’s interesting having a band of five people, all with slightly different tastes, but with commonality at the same time. So, that’s the way we’ve continued the work all the way through our 30 years together. Everybody would show up with a basketful of songs. Sometimes, Lou might bring a song in that he really liked and say to me, “I could hear you singing this more than me.” Likewise, I could say to Fred, “I really like this song, but I don’t think I could sing it as well as you could sing it.” And it worked that way really well.

How does a band stay together so long?

We, of course, spent a lot of time together, but we also spent a lot of time doing our own thing. Now, with [a band leader] like Bill Monroe or Ralph Stanley, they take the fee and then they give you whatever they want to pay you per show. But with the Scene, John [Duffey’s] feeling was that if you’re out there on the road and you’re doing the work, you deserve equal cut. So, everything we made was split equally. You could fly, you could drive, you could stay at the Waldorf Astoria, or you could stay at the Super Eight. It was your money to spend and to travel as you wanted.

I think it created a certain sense of camaraderie that continues to this day. Everybody’s getting paid the same, so everybody’s expected to do equal work, and it gives you a sense of belonging. There’s no boss, everybody has an equal say, and that was true from the very first rehearsal.

Every group you’ve been with has been known for exceptional harmonies. Can you talk about harmony a bit?

I think a musician’s greatest asset and greatest tool is his or her ears. If you’re singing a trio, you want the blend to be there. You don’t even have to actually know who’s singing what part. There’s a certain buzz you get when the harmony is just right, and you hit a chord just right, and everybody’s phrasing together, and their mouths are in the same sort of position. When that happens, this is just like magic.

Let’s go back to the Johnson Mountain Boy days, when I first met Richard Underwood. Richard learned to sing with me. When we sang together and I switched from lead to tenor on a chorus, you could hardly hear the switch. It came natural to him, because I’m the only person he ever sang with. You know, he later went on to become a great singer on his own right, but he was the first singer that I really worked with a lot on blending and making a pleasing sound.

Now, my experience with David McLaughlin was more organic, as it was with Don Rigsby. Don and David and I all grew up as disciples of the Stanley Brothers. They had such a tight blend.

Now a more challenging partner for me was Hazel Dickens. Hazel and I toured quite a bit together in the ’70s and ’80s. But Hazel had a completely different sort of approach. Hazel was full bore, wide open all the time, and sometimes she could get just a little bit pitchy. I looked at it as my job to try to keep her close to the melody. It was great for me, because it taught me how to blend and also how to pull her to the proper pitch when necessary.

When I came to work with The Scene, it was completely different. They were all about the harmony.

What are your memories of The Scene before you joined them?

The Scene were a huge influence on everybody in D.C. The Scene was almost like a gateway drug to bluegrass music. They were largely playing for urban audiences in the early days, and a lot of young people really responded to it. In fact, The Seldom Scene record Live at the Cellar Door almost has cult-like status. When I was a teenager, we’d go to each other’s houses to listen to music. Right next to Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan would be The Seldom Scene Live at the Cellar Door.

I think what made that record so absolutely deserving of cult status is that it’s really freewheeling, it’s really the band live. It’s not just the music and the wonderful singing, the wonderful song selection. It’s also the playfulness with the audience.

As far as I was concerned, John Duffey was The Scene. It wasn’t just that he was a great singer and instrumentalist, but also he had this gift – presenting the music to all kinds of different audiences. You couldn’t not respond to John Duffey or his emcee work – or his pants, for that matter. An interesting thing about John that a lot of people don’t realize is that he was actually kind of shy, kind of insecure. This bigger-than-life character that emerged on stage – I’m not saying that it was phony. It really was John. But when he walked on stage, it was like a switch kicked on, and he became a great entertainer and a great communicator.

I think people who weren’t familiar with bluegrass, it put them at ease a little bit. It drew a lot of people in who maybe wouldn’t have paid attention to a banjo or a Dobro. All entertainers feed off audiences. If you’ve got a really lively, energetic audience, you pour a lot of that back. If the audience feels more relaxed, you slow down a little bit with your delivery and your introductions. And John was an absolute master of that. I learned a lot about presenting a show from my year with John.

And how did you come to play with The Scene?

The Johnson Mountain Boys were on their way out. I’d done a little bit of work with Longview by this time. Then I got this notice in the mail that T. Michael Coleman, Mike Auldridge, and Moondi Kline were leaving the Scene and forming a band called Chesapeake. And it was sort of assumed that the Scene were going to dissolve. I knew John well enough and I called him on the phone and said, “John, I’m really sorry to hear about this. It sounds like the end of an era.”

And he said in the off-the-cuff, John Duffey style of talk, “Well, we’re really not dissolving the band. We’re just looking for a lead singer, guitar player, tenor singer, bass player, baritone singer, Dobro player.” You know, basically replacing three-fifths of the band. I don’t know where it came from, because I really had not called John looking for a job, but after he told me what he was looking for, I said, “Well, John, let’s get together and sing sometime.” Complete silence.

After the initial silence, he said, “Well, do you know of any of our stuff?”

So, I went over to John’s, and Ronnie was there, and Fred. John had given me about half a dozen songs to learn and when I look back at it now, he was testing me. He wanted to see if I could sing harmony parts over and under him. By that time, I’d had the experience with Hazel and had sung with a lot of different people. I was ready.

So, we started these Wednesday rehearsals and we’d done this for about two or three months in preparation for our debut – New Year’s Eve at The Birchmere, 1995. By the time it actually came to play our first show. I was really, really into it. And it was one of the toughest shows I think I ever played, because all the original guys were there – John Starling, Mike Auldridge, Tom Gray. Lou Reid was there, too. And I’m thinking, “I don’t know, man. I don’t know if I belong in this – with these people that I’ve listened to for years.”

One of the things I remember was our opening song, “Our Last Goodbye,” which is this old Stanley Brothers song. I had worn these baggy chino kind of pants and I was so grateful that I didn’t wear tight pants because my legs were literally shaking, and I didn’t want anybody to see that.

So, it was a very exciting night, and after that we had a year with John.

You were quite young when you formed the Johnson Mountain Boys. Can you tell us about those years?

I came along at a very fortunate time in the Washington, D.C. area in the ’70s, and actually on through the ’80s as well. You could see bluegrass every night of the week between Washington and Baltimore.

Now, I’m not going to tell you that the places were swank and nice. They were kind of seedy bars. But when I look back on it now I think that was actually a very beneficial thing for us. We were young, we were very enthusiastic about the music, and we could go into these bars and play four or five sets ’til, you know, one or two in the morning … and then go play another one the next night. So, by the time that the ’80s rolled around and we started actually playing festivals for larger crowds, we were pretty well rehearsed.

I found that the musicians that we met, like Del McCoury and Bill Harrell and a lot of the acts around Washington, embraced us because we were doing something different – actually doing something [traditional bluegrass] that had been done before, but we were kids doing it.

Ben Eldridge– the first time I ever met him, we were playing this indoor bluegrass event. Ben came over and said, “I wish I was doing what you guys are doing.” I know that he was kidding me, but the point being that he really respected the traditional stuff. He said it because he was very sweet man and very kind man. But I think there was some truth in that, too.

How much time was there between you playing in the two bands?

We actually intertwined for just a little bit. When we got off the road full-time in 1988, we were kind of burned out. I went back to college. David [McLaughlin] started selling real estate. Eddie [Stubbs] went to work with his father and we just sort of drifted apart, personally and musically.

Now, we did get together and play some in the ’90s and we produced a record that was nominated for a GRAMMY, Blue Diamond. But that was not like the previous Johnson Mountain Boy records. So, The Seldom Scene coming along at that time in my life, when I was curious about experimenting with different kinds of music, was perfect.

They played a lot locally and I was working full-time for the Smithsonian and didn’t want to travel very much. And the Scene, to this day, has followed that model. We don’t get on the tour bus and go out for weeks at a time. It reminds me of the reason John Duffey left the Country Gentleman. He said he got tired of saving up to go on tour. I understand what he meant. They were just going out trying to get their name out there. The Johnson Mountain Boys did the same thing. I remember once we drove to Florida to play for 900 bucks for three days.

That’s another thing that John did, he just set the price to where it made it worth his while to go. Here’s a kind of famous John Duffey story: A promoter in California called John and said, “I really, really like what you’re doing, and I’d like to get you out here to California.” John said, “Great! Make me an offer.” The promoter said, “Will 500 bucks do it?”

John thought for a minute and said, “Which one of us do you want?”

I’d like to talk a bit about your career as an archivist. Did you go to school to learn that?

Actually, I didn’t. After the Johnson Mountain Boys got off the road, I went back to college. One of my classes was Career Development. There were a lot of people around my age who were looking for a change in their work and their livelihoods.

One of my assignments was to interview someone that I thought had a really interesting job. So, I chose to interview the curator and the director of Smithsonian Folkways records. His name was Tony Seeger, and yes, he is a part of the Mike and Pete Seeger world. The Smithsonian had just acquired Folkways Records. I went into the interview asking Tony how he got his job, what his educational background was, how he ended up at Smithsonian Folkways, what his life was like. About halfway through the interview, he started asking me about my background and what I’ve been doing.

Before I left his office, he basically hired me to come in and try to figure out how to how to keep Folkways alive.

And then you did archive work for another organization?

It’s called the National Council for the Traditional Arts. Since 1933 they have put on folk festivals with all kinds of ethnic and roots music. They started recording all the festivals in 1972. When I got there, they were just quite a thing of beauty – 5,000 hours of one-of-a-kind recordings in a non-climate-controlled room. So, I went to work there, preserving the recordings. And oddly enough, the very first that I put up to digitize was Alison Krauss. I thought, “I think I found the right place.” I worked there for 19 years.

Why retire now, and what’s next?

My wife, Sally, had retired from 40 years at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum. I had retired from the National Council for Traditional Arts. This would have been the end of 2023, so I was still traveling on the weekends.

During the pandemic, we got a dog named Woody. It’s almost like having a child in the house. He was adopted and he was afraid of everything, so we spent a lot of time with him. Before that, Sally used to travel with me everywhere and it got to be that she had to stay home and take care of the dog when I was out on the road. I wanted to have time to travel, to Europe and to different places that I’d not really been able to explore. I think it’s a misconception some people have about a traveling musician: “Wow, you got to go to all these great, cool places. You must have seen a lot.”

Well, I saw a lot of hotel rooms. I saw a lot of backstages, but I didn’t see some of the things these towns are known for. What Sally and I want to do now is, while we’re in reasonably good health and while we can still get around well on our feet, we want to do some traveling and not be restricted by a schedule.

Favorite memories?

Marrying Sally, definitely a favorite memory. In the ’80s, an organization called the United States Information Agency USA had a subgroup called Arts America. They created cultural exchanges with third world countries. I got to travel to Southern Africa and later Southeast Asia. You can’t buy that kind of education. It’s quite an eye opening event. I remember coming back from those trips and having a different way of looking at my lifestyle and where I live and how fortunate we are.

Another highlight was getting to meet my heroes and finding out that they were really nice people who didn’t want anything more than to see me and our bands, whether it be the Seldom Scene or the Johnson Mountain Boys, succeed. I never felt any jealousy or any animosity, you know, toward us, these young upstarts. In the ’70s and ’80s, everybody knew everybody, and everybody wanted everybody else to succeed.

But probably the biggest thing was having a year with John Duffey and many years with Ben Eldridge; hearing their stories, the hardships, and the fun stuff and the silliness that happens on the road. All those things are highlights for me.

Closing thoughts?

The music of the Scene is completely unique to anything else in the bluegrass world. I think the Scene could follow just about anybody. We followed Alison Krauss and we followed Ricky Skaggs, and I never really felt uptight about our performance following these major acts, because nobody else does what the Scene does. That’s true with Clay Hess taking my place, too. I’ve heard some of their performances on Facebook – sounds like the Seldom Scene to me.

I feel like I’ve lived a very full life. It’s like when Tony Trischka was asked, “Tony, have you been playing banjo all your life?” He answered, “Not yet.”

That’s the way I feel about music – I’m not done yet.

Photo Credit: Jeromie Stephens

Celebrating Women’s History Month: Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Laurie Lewis, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Our partnership with our friends at Real Roots Radio in Southwestern Ohio concludes as we wind down our weekly celebration of Women’s History Month. We’re proud to have brought you four collections of a variety of powerful women in bluegrass, country, Americana, folk, and elsewhere who have been featured on Real Roots Radio’s airwaves each weekday in March, highlighting the outsized impact women have on American roots music. You can listen to Real Roots Radio online 24/7 or via their FREE app for smartphones or tablets. If you’re based in Ohio, tune in via 100.3 (Xenia, Dayton, Springfield), 106.7 (Wilmington), or 105.5 (Eaton).

American roots music, historically and currently, has often been regarded as a male-dominated space. It’s certainly true of the music industry in general and these more down-home musics are no exception. Thankfully, American roots music and its many offshoots, branches, and associated folkways include hundreds and thousands of women who have greatly impacted these art forms, altering the courses of roots music history. Some are relatively unknown – or underappreciated or unsung – and others are global phenomena or household names.

Over the last few weeks, radio host Daniel Mullins, who together with BGS and Good Country staff has curated the series, has brought you just a few examples of women in roots music from all levels of notoriety and stature. Week one featured Dottie West, Gail Davies, and more. Week two shone a spotlight on Big Mama Thornton, Crystal Gayle, Rose Maddox, and more. Week three, paid tribute to Emmylou Harris, Wild Rose, Mother Maybelle, and more. This final installment of the series celebrates Laurie Lewis, the Coon Creek Girls, Amanda Smith, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Petticoat Junction, and Jeannie Seely.

Plus, you can find two playlists below – one centered on bluegrass, the other on country – with dozens of songs from countless women artists, performers, songwriters, and instrumentalists who effortlessly demonstrate how none of these roots genres would exist without women.

Laurie Lewis (b. 1950)

A GRAMMY-winning singer, songwriter, and fiddler, Laurie Lewis is a California native who has been blazing trails in bluegrass for over four decades. She became enamored with folk music after attending the Berkeley Folk Festival in her youth – she has since made an indelible mark on American roots music with her work in bluegrass and beyond!

Whether leading her band, Laurie Lewis & The Right Hands, performing solo, or collaborating with her pal Kathy Kallick – with whom she helped found the Good Ol’ Persons in 1970s, pushing norms in the process – Laurie’s soulful vocals and skilled fiddle work have made her a standout in bluegrass for a lifetime. Her songwriting paints vivid pictures of love, loss, and the land, while her honest voice pulls at the heartstrings, earning her two IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year awards.

Her recording of “Who Will Watch the Home Place” was named IBMA’s Song of the Year in 1994 and has touched hearts for generations. It’s a certified bluegrass classic and is still a staple on bluegrass radio programs. Another beloved composition, “Love Chooses You,” has been recorded by Laurie, Jeannie Kendall, Kathy Mattea, and more.

Laurie Lewis isn’t just a performer – she’s a mentor, a producer, and a keeper of the bluegrass flame, not only by encouraging the next generation of bluegrass music makers, but also by shining a light on significant voices of the past like Vern & Ray and Hazel & Alice. This West Coast bluegrass leader was honored by the IBMA with their Distinguished Achievement Award in 2024.

Suggested Listening:
“Love Chooses You”
“The Bear Song”
“I’m Gonna Be the Wind”

The Coon Creek Girls (active 1937 – 1957)

We’re heading back to the 1930s with an all-female string band that made history, the one and only Coon Creek Girls! It was 1937 when talent scout and radio pioneer John Lair formed the Coon Creek Girls for the Renfro Valley Barn Dance radio show on the airwaves of Cincinnati’s WLW. Led by the talented Lily May Ledford on banjo alongside her sister Rosie, Esther Koehler, and Evelyn Lange, these ladies brought high-energy mountain music to the masses.

Their popularity on radio brought opportunities to tour around the Midwest and even record in Chicago. They didn’t just play, they broke barriers! In 1939, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt selected the Coon Creek Girls to perform at the White House for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the King and Queen of England. A hillbilly band of women? Unheard of at the time! But they proved talent knows no boundaries.

The Coon Creek Girls would be an influence on folks like Cathy Fink, Suzanne Edmondson (of The Hot Mud Family and Dry Branch Fire Squad), and even Pete Seeger. While the historic group would disband in the 1950s, John Lair would revive their legacy decades later by helping pull together another all-female bluegrass band to again perform at the Renfro Valley Barn Dance (which had relocated to Mount Vernon, Kentucky, becoming a popular country music tourist destination for decades). With the blessing of Lily May Ledford, this new act was called The New Coon Creek Girls and would make music consistently for nearly twenty years, helping springboard the careers of Pam Perry and Pamela Gadd (of Wild Rose), Wanda Barnett, Vicki Simmons, Deanie Richardson, Dale Ann Bradley, and more.

The Coon Creek Girls inspired generations, proving women belonged in country and bluegrass. Their legacy lives on in every banjo-pickin’ girl who follows in their footsteps!

Suggested Listening:
“Flowers Blooming In The Wildwood”
“Banjo Pickin’ Girl”

Amanda Smith (b. 1975)

Amanda Smith’s voice soars like the mountains of West Virginia from which she comes. She has been a force in the bluegrass world for years. Amanda met her husband Kenny in the mid ’90s at a Lonesome River Band concert (he was playing guitar with LRB at the time). Not only did Kenny fall in love with Amanda, but he fell in love with her voice as well.

Kenny would leave LRB at the turn-of-the-century and he and Amanda would form the renowned Kenny & Amanda Smith Band, a duo celebrated for their tight harmonies and masterful musicianship. They were named Emerging Artist of the Year by the IBMA in 2003 and they haven’t slowed down since. With a sound built on Amanda’s gripping vocals and Kenny’s exquisite guitar work, they have been a staple of the bluegrass world for nearly twenty-five years, racking up many #1 hits on bluegrass radio and frequently seen on stages across the country – both as a duo and with the Kenny & Amanda Smith Band.

Their band has also introduced bluegrass audiences to some of the top pickers of today’s generation, including Jason Davis, Zachary McLamb, Cory Piatt, and Alan Bartram (Amanda’s brother-in-law). Whether delivering beautiful ballads or bluegrass barnburners, Amanda’s voice is one of the most beloved in the genre today, leading to multiple awards, including the IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year honor in 2014. From festival stages to radio waves, Amanda Smith continues to leave a lasting mark on bluegrass.

Suggested Listening:
“Feeling of Falling”
“Mountain Top”

Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915 – 1973)

The Godmother of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Sister Rosetta Tharpe was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Born in 1915, Tharpe was shredding on an electric guitar before rock even had a name! With a gospel heart and a rock and roll soul, she fused spirituals with electrifying riffs, paving the way for Chuck Berry, Elvis, and even Jimi Hendrix. Her hit, “Strange Things Happening Every Day,” was one of the first gospel songs to cross over to mainstream charts and is pointed to by many as the first rock and roll record, proving that faith and fiery licks could share the stage.

The juxtaposition of performing her powerful gospel songs in smoky barrooms is the stuff of legend. Her gospel hits like “This Train,” “Down by the Riverside,” “Up Above My Head,” and “The Lonesome Road” are still revered and helped shape the musical identity of artists as diverse as Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Tina Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis, Rhiannon Giddens, and more. Despite being a woman in a male-dominated industry, she didn’t just break barriers – she smashed them! Sister Rosetta Tharpe was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

Suggested Listening:
“This Train”
“Up Above My Head”

Petticoat Junction (active 1988 – 1998)

A bluegrass festival mainstay of the ’80s and ’90s, Petticoat Junction was a popular all-female traditional bluegrass band that helped open doors for some of today’s “girl groups” like Della Mae and Sister Sadie. In fact, there are several direct connections between Sister Sadie and Petticoat Junction. Not only was Sadie banjoist Gena Britt a member of Petticoat Junction (primarily playing bass), but reigning IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year Jaelee Roberts has followed in her mother’s footsteps. Andrea Mullins Roberts was an anchor of Petticoat Junction’s sound with her rich, traditional voice and strong guitar playing before becoming a respected booking agent, manager, and behind-the-scenes businessperson in today’s bluegrass industry.

One of the most celebrated lineups of Petticoat Junction featured Robin Roller (banjo) and Gail Rudisill-Johnson (fiddle) alongside the aforementioned Andrea and Gena. This particular four-piece ensemble released a pair of great albums for Pinecastle Records in the early ’90s, in addition to touring heavily at festivals from coast-to-coast. Deriving their name from the popular ’60s sitcom (whose theme song would be a hit for Flatt & Scruggs), their heartfelt vocals and instrumental prowess shone brightly, whether on original songs or on material from the likes of Jimmy Martin, Reno & Smiley, Flatt & Scruggs, and more.

In addition to continuing to open avenues for other all-women bands, Petticoat Junction’s influence is still being felt in the 21st century as they’ve influenced acts like Flatt Lonesome and Starlett & Big John.

Suggested Listening:
“I’d Miss You”
“Lift Your Eyes To Jesus”

Jeannie Seely (b. 1940)

From the bright lights of the Grand Ole Opry to the heart of country music, today we’re tipping our hats to “Miss Country Soul,”  Jeannie Seely! Born in Pennsylvania, but a Nashville star through and through, Jeannie Seely made history in 1966 with her Grammy-winning hit “Don’t Touch Me,” an envelope-pushing and controversial song due to its featuring a woman expressing sexual desires. With her bold style, unmistakable voice, and trailblazing spirit, she became a beloved icon in country music.

Seely shattered barriers, becoming the first performer to wear a miniskirt on the Opry stage (among other fashion trends she helped bring to country music), being the first woman to host an Opry segment, and fiercely advocating for women in country. Jeannie’s also a respected country music songwriter, writing hits like “Leavin’ and Sayin’ Goodbye” (Faron Young), “He’s All I Need” (Dottie West), “Enough to Lie” (Ray Price), and more; folks like Merle Haggard, Rhonda Vincent, Connie Smith, Ernest Tubb, and Little Jimmy Dickens have recorded her songs over the years.

More than 50 years later, Jeannie is still gracing the Grand Ole Opry stage, holding the record for the most Opry performances ever – 5,200+ appearances and counting! Just as Dottie West encouraged her when she was a young country artist, Jeannie is constantly investing in the future of country as a dear friend and mentor to her Opry sisters, like Carly Pearce and Rhonda Vincent, and even to the young bluegrass band, Cutter & Cash and The Kentucky Grass. She proves that true country never fades. So here’s to Jeannie Seely – an icon, a trailblazer, and a country legend who continues to shine!

Suggested Listening:
“Can I Sleep In Your Arms”
“So Far, So Good” (featuring The Whites)

Photo Credit: Sister Rosetta Tharpe from the Michael Ochs Archives; Jeannie Seely by Cyndi Hornsby; Laurie Lewis by Irene Young.

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Balsam Range, Bold Forbes, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

The last Friday of March brings a weekly new music roundup that includes bluegrass, folk, Americana, and more!

Kicking us off, Boston-based Autumn Hollow have a new single, “After All of This Is Gone,” a jangly, deep-pocketed rocker that reflects on the new reality we all find ourselves living in – or perhaps coping with through abject denial – after the COVID pandemic. Bold Forbes also unveil the first half of an A Side/B Side single release, “Make Away,” a song that’s string band and folk revival combined, but in a twangy, modern sonic package.

Blue Cactus call on their friends Brit Taylor and Russ Pahl for “Bite My Tongue,” a track and accompanying music video that takes on inequalities, patriarchy, and injustice (with a danceable groove!). Susto Stringband also bring us a video on their album release day, “Double Crown.” It’s got an old-timey line up of instruments, but a decidedly pop sensibility, and it celebrates community – that is, their favorite neighborhood honky-tonk haunt in Asheville, the eponymous Double Crown.

We’ve got plenty of bluegrass herein, as well. Jaelee Roberts has a brand new single, which was co-written by two of her mentors, Tim Stafford and the late Steve Gulley. “Heavy As A Stone In Her Heart” floored Roberts with its lyrics and raw emotion and she just knew she had to cut it. Kristy Cox has a brand new music video for her new single, too, which features John Meador – who recently announced his departure from Authentic Unlimited to perform in Vince Gill’s touring band. Cox and Meador team up to great success on “In My Dreams,” which of course includes plenty of dreamy harmonies. Don’t miss North Carolina powerhouses Balsam Range with a new track, as well. “When It Comes to Loving You” was written by Daniel Salyer and Jeff McClellan, features Don Rigsby, and is built around Balsam’s classic, driving sound.

There’s plenty of excellent roots music to enjoy. You Gotta Hear This!

Autumn Hollow, “After All of This Is Gone”

Artist: Autumn Hollow
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Song: “After All of This Is Gone”
Album: Say No More
Release Date: March 28, 2025 (single); May 2, 2025 (album)

In Their Words: “‘After All of This Is Gone’ reflects on the lingering impact of the pandemic and the rush to return to normal. As a teacher who returned to in-person work early, I saw how quickly the conversation shifted away from what we had all been through. There was little acknowledgment of the lasting changes – only an expectation to move forward. This song serves as a reminder that the effects of that time didn’t simply disappear and that it’s important to recognize how they continue to shape us.” – Brendan Murphy

Balsam Range, “When It Comes To Loving You”

Artist: Balsam Range
Hometown: Haywood County, North Carolina
Song: “When It Comes to Loving You”
Release Date: March 28, 2025

In Their Words: “The wait is over! From the first time I heard Daniel Salyer’s demo of ‘When It Comes to Loving You,’ I knew it would make a great Balsam Range song and I believe it has! It’s our first new single since the release of our last album, Kinetic Tone, in December 2023, and I couldn’t be more excited for music fans to hear it. With a cool groove and lyrics that are so well put together, I truly hope you all enjoy it as much as we do creating it. Me, Tim, Marc, and Alan are so excited to be joined by the great Don Rigsby on tenor vocal and fiddle. There will be no mistaking when you hear his powerful voice. Thanks to Daniel Salyer and Jeff McClellan for a great song!” – Caleb Smith

Track Credits:
Caleb Smith – Acoustic guitar, lead vocal
Tim Surrett – Bass, harmony vocal
Marc Pruett – Banjo
Don Rigsby – Fiddle, harmony vocal
Alan Bibey – Mandolin

Bold Forbes, “Make Away”

Artist: Bold Forbes
Hometown: New York City, New York
Song: “Make Away”
Release Date: March 27, 2025

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Make Away’ after a dinner party I attended in Austin, Texas, some years back. I left the party feeling like ‘this is why one stays alive,’ but also I somehow mistrusted this feeling. What kinds of lives and labor went into producing the food we ate that night, how fragile was the peace that allowed us to meet so joyously and cavalierly, and how long would it last?

“I traveled to the central valley of California on a road trip the summer before – where so much of that night’s food came from – and the rows and rows of crops seem to stretch forever in all directions away from you on that flat, hot road. Billboards line the highway with propaganda advertisements from the farm owners lobbying for more water from the state, with photographs of ‘family farmers’ – inevitably blond, white, crisp-collared people. Of course, very few of the thousands of workers working the rows of crops fit that description: people being criminally underpaid for doing the hardest work in the country and then being rhetorically savaged every day by this country’s citizens who profit and benefit from this work.

“What does it mean to take pleasure in the daily indulgences of life in a society organized in this way? Could the daily sweetness of life ever merge with the struggle for a better, more just world? ‘Make Away’ is a song that prays for an answer to these questions.” – Nick Bloom

Track Credits:
Nick Bloom – Rhythm guitar, lead vocals, songwriter
Reid Jenkins – Fiddle, vocals
David Halpern – Bass, vocals, guitar

Blue Cactus, “Bite My Tongue”

Artist: Blue Cactus
Hometown: Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Song: “Bite My Tongue”
Album: Believer
Release Date: April 25, 2025
Label: Sleepy Cat Records

In Their Words: “‘Bite My Tongue’ is a call to continue raising our voices and speaking out against injustice until we are finally heard. While we’ve certainly made progress, the fight for equality is far from over. What I will say, and what this song is ultimately saying, is that the power has always been and will always be with the people; if it didn’t, they wouldn’t be trying to ban protests. Special thanks to Brit Taylor for singing with us on this song and to Russ Pahl for the guitar duet Mario’s always dreamed of.” – Steph Stewart

Track Credits:
Steph Stewart – Vocals, acoustic guitar, songwriter
Mario Arnez – Vocals, electric guitar
Brit Taylor – Vocals
Whit Wright – Pedal steel, producer
Russ Pahl – Electric guitar
Jonathan Beam – Bass
Ryan Connors – Keys
Taylor Floreth – Drums, percussion

Kristy Cox, “In My Dreams” (Featuring John Meador)

Artist: Kristy Cox
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee, by way of Adelaide, Australia
Song: “In My Dreams” (feat. John Meador)
Album: Let It Burn
Release Date: May 31, 2024
Label: Billy Blue Records

In Their Words: “I’m excited to release this new song and video with my friend John Meador for our song, ‘In My Dreams.’ I had a lot of fun writing and recording this track and love where Steve Kinney took the concept for the video.” – Kristy Cox

Jaelee Roberts, “Heavy As A Stone In Her Heart”

Artist: Jaelee Roberts
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Heavy As A Stone In Her Heart”
Release Date: March 28, 2025

In Their Words: “The first time I heard the demo of ‘Heavy As A Stone in Her Heart’ I was absolutely floored by the lyrics, melody, and raw emotion and knew without a doubt that I had to record it. Slow, sad songs that tell a story always speak to me most and this one absolutely stole my heart and broke it, too. ‘Heavy As A Stone in Her Heart’ is extra special to me because it was written by two of my favorite songwriters and singers that are also my mentors – Tim Stafford and Steve Gulley. I have looked up to Tim and Steve my entire life and I feel so grateful that this song made its way to me! ‘Heavy As A Stone In Her Heart’ came together so beautifully in the studio with a very stripped-down arrangement and without harmony vocals with the intention of focusing on the depth and feeling of the lyrics and I hope that it resonates with all of you the way it does with me. I so wish that Steve was still here with us but I know he’s listening from Heaven and this song is dedicated to him and his musical legacy.” – Jaelee Roberts

“I’m so glad that Jaelee Roberts is releasing ‘Heavy As A Stone In Her Heart’! Steve Gulley and I wrote this song back in 2007 and I know Steve would be absolutely thrilled at the news and to hear the song done so beautifully. Jaelee is a special talent and I can’t think of anyone who could have done a better job with this song.” – Tim Stafford

Track Credits:
Jaelee Roberts – Vocals
Byron House – Bass
Cody Kilby – Acoustic guitar
Andy Leftwich – Mandolin
John Gardner – Drums
Ron Block – Acoustic guitar

Susto Stringband, “Double Crown”

Artist: Susto Stringband
Hometown: Asheville, North Carolina
Song: “Double Crown”
Album: Susto Stringband: Volume 1
Release Date: March 28, 2025
Label: New West Records

In Their Words: “This song is a tribute to one of our favorite dive bars in Asheville called The Double Crown. When we were living in Asheville, my wife Caroline and I would often go to The Double Crown for Western Wednesdays, where they feature lots of honky-tonk and adjacent genres of music. She’s from Texas, so it was fun for her to get a little slice of home when we’d go there on Wednesday nights to listen to the music, drink Lonestar, and two step a bit.

“One night in particular we were crossing the street to get to Double Crown and we just started making up a song about it. We finished it later on, but to this day the opening lines of this song remind me of crossing the street with her in the moonlight with the music coming from the bar and a bunch of folks (and dogs) crowded outside waiting to get in, or waiting at the window for drinks. The place had such a magical vibe for us that night, and I’m so glad we captured it in a song.

“When we started working on the Susto Stringband album, I showed the tune to Clint (of Holler Choir) and Ryan (our producer) and they figured it would be very fitting to include it on the record, given that the whole project was born in Asheville and the song is not only a tribute to the double crown, but the whole scene Caroline and I found ourselves in when we lived there.” – Justin Osborne, Susto Stringband

“Justin really captures the essence of our local favorite bar, The Double Crown, in its truest form with this song, in my opinion. Western Wednesday is hosted there each week and has become an Asheville cultural staple. The images referenced in the lyrics –two-stepping and romances, both fleeting and permanent – are vivid and very real. The sweetness of the melody pairs perfectly with the sentiments I feel about this bar. I’m very proud to be a part of this representation of a time and place that holds so much personal relevance for me.” – Clint Roberts, Holler Choir

Photo Credit: Balsam Range courtesy of the artist; Bold Forbes by Julia Discenza.

 

Basic Folk: Olivia Ellen Lloyd

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Olivia Ellen Lloyd‘s latest album, Do It Myself, sees the West Virginia-born, Brooklyn-based songwriter reflecting on the powerful imagery of water. She shares how it has been a source of grounding and calmness in her life; from childhood memories spent on the Potomac River to her current love for the ocean, these elements have shaped her artistic journey. In an interesting twist, it was her friends and family that pointed out that she’s always trying to get around water. From there, she reflected on the positive impact that being in and around water has had on her mental state.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • AMAZON • MP3

Olivia also opens up in our Basic Folk conversation about her complex relationship with her hometown of Shepherdstown, West Virginia, where she’s experienced both hardships and good memories (her grandfather was actually the mayor and there’s a street named after him). Ultimately she decided to leave, but she still spends about half the year there. She talks about how, especially on the new album, her sound is impacted by the duality of small-town life versus her evolving relationship with New York City. We also discuss the foundation of her musicality, which was strongly influenced by her late father, who stressed the importance of learning music by ear. As she navigates her identity as an independent woman in the music industry, she discusses the challenges of societal expectations and the importance of self-reliance. With humor and vulnerability, Olivia Ellen Lloyd explores themes of resilience, love, and the struggles many women face in finding their voice and place in the world.

Photo Credit: Joseph Robert Krauss

Jason Carter & Michael Cleveland’s New Album is a Fantastic Twin Fiddle Workshop

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Following more than 30 years since first meeting and countless times sharing the stage during festivals, the two most accomplished fiddlers in International Bluegrass Music Association history have finally teamed up for their debut album together.

Released March 14 via Fiddle Man Records, the aptly titled Carter & Cleveland sees the combined 18-time IBMA Fiddle Players of the Year Jason Carter and Michael Cleveland flexing their bluegrass muscles on compositions from some of the most prolific songwriters around – like Darrell Scott, John Hartford, Tim O’Brien, and Del McCoury.

Coincidentally, it was with McCoury and his sons’ band, the Travelin’ McCourys, with whom Carter spent the last 33 years playing until the February announcement that he’d be stepping away from the groups to focus on his solo material and collaborative projects, like this one with Cleveland.

“I just thought it was time to start pursuing other things, like my own career,” explains Carter about his decision to leave the bands. “That being said, I never thought I’d be leaving the [Del McCoury] Band. I recently gave a fiddle lesson and the person I was teaching told me he was surprised I left the band and I remember telling him, ‘I’m kind of surprised too.’ [Laughs] But it’s so rewarding to be doing something new with my own band along with getting to play with Mike.

“I’m also really excited to see the McCourys play with their new mandolin player, Christian Ward,” he continues. “There’s no bigger fan of Del or the Travelin’ McCourys than me. This will be the first time since I was 18 years old that I’ll be able to sit out in the audience and watch his show. I can’t wait!”

It was also with McCoury where Cleveland, then 13, first met Carter back in the early ’90s during one of Carter’s (then 19) first gigs with him.

“[The Del McCoury Band] has always had the players that I aspire to be like,” says Cleveland. “I remember going to and recording the band’s shows from the soundboard when Jason was just starting out with them. Then I’d go home and try to play guitar over the recordings to best imitate each part. They quickly became some of my biggest influences in this music, and still are.”

Ahead of the album’s release, BGS spoke with Carter & Cleveland over the phone to discuss the duo’s years-long partnership, the process of bringing this record to life, and their thoughts on the history of duo records in bluegrass music.

You have tunes from Del McCoury, Darrell Scott, John Hartford, Bill Monroe, Buck Owens and other roots music legends on this project, but no originals. What was behind that decision?

Jason Carter: Well, for me, I didn’t have any original tunes at the time we started doing this, so I just started throwing out songs I liked. Then I called some songwriters – Tim O’Brien, Terry Herd, Darrell Scott, and others – and the songs I liked most of what they sent I then played for Mike. I’ve only written one fiddle tune so far, but actually have four or five writing sessions lined up this week, so maybe if there’s a Carter & Cleveland Volume II, I could have a cut on there.

Michael Cleveland: We’ve talked about needing to sit down and write together, it just hasn’t come to fruition yet. When I’ve sat in with Del or Jason in the past we never had time to rehearse, which is similar to how these songs came together. We were able to talk about material and send things back and forth, but we didn’t have much time to sit down and rehearse before recording because we’re both so busy. I hope we get to do that someday, but at the same time songwriting isn’t the main focus for me. I know folks that’ll write a tune every day, but for me that only happens once in a while; when it does I make sure to run with it.

What are some standout songs for y’all on this project?

JC: That’s tough, because I like all the songs on the record. At any given time I could have a different favorite. There’s also some that didn’t make the record we still have in the can and might put out later that could actually be my favorite songs. That being said, I really like the part of “With a Vamp in the Middle” where [Mike] finger picks the fiddle while I’m strumming…

MC: That was your idea!

JC: I heard you play something that sparked that. [Laughs] When you’re in the room as a fiddle player and you hear Michael Cleveland play, it’s all special. He [is] leagues above everyone else.

MC: It’s hardly ever a problem that you have too many good songs, but that was definitely the case when we went in to record. As soon as we put the word out about it we had a bunch of our musical heroes sending us songs to record and they were all great! When I first heard the demo of “Give It Away” from Tim O’Brien I liked the song immediately. Tim was playing old-time banjo on it in the key of D while singing, but once I heard Jason sing it in the key of B I knew it was meant to be a hard-driving bluegrass song.

I also really enjoy “Kern County Breakdown.” The only time I’d ever heard that – which made me want to record it – was from Alison Krauss. She used to play it as a fiddle instrumental and I always wish she recorded it. I don’t know if it’ll happen, but I’m still holding out hope that she’ll put out a fiddle album one day.

She does have her first album in 10 years dropping later this month, so you never know!

Throughout the history of bluegrass music there have been many timeless duo records from the likes of Ralph Stanley & Jimmy Martin to Ricky Skaggs & Tony Rice to Bill Monroe & Doc Watson. What are your thoughts on being the next chapter in that series of collaborations?

JC: I hadn’t really thought of it like that before…

MC: If this album is mentioned in the same breath as any of those, that would be great! We also talk a lot about our favorite twin fiddle albums, which this seems to be more of, and have tossed around the idea of doing this project for 15 years. There’s albums from Kenny Baker and Bobby Hicks, Buddy Spicher and Benny Martin, Buddy and Vassar Clements, and so many more, but there hasn’t been one for a long time now. That’s what originally inspired us to do this. In the last few years people have also finally figured out what a great singer Jason is, which afforded us a lot more room to experiment than if it were a twin fiddle instrumental album.

JC: Mike just has such a good ear. I remember sending him a couple versions of demos I played and sang on and he’d immediately get back to me with suggestions like adding a fiddle lick at the beginning, like on “Outrun The Rain.” He thought it would be great for a high harmony thing two above the lead. As soon as he heard this stuff he had ideas. It was really cool to see how that all came together.

Mike just mentioned the idea for this album has been floating around for 15 years. When did y’all eventually get to work on it?

JC: We started recording a couple years ago. The first session we recorded we actually did at [guitarist] Cody Kilby’s house during COVID, then it was another year or so after that until we got working on it again. Because we didn’t have any rehearsal time, I remember sending voice memos of myself playing fiddle, guitar, and/or singing to Mike to listen to and send suggestions back. I remember being at a show with Del tucked away in the dressing room by myself trying to record versions of these songs or trying to run through an arrangement before sending it to Mike through text message.

MC: I had a great run with the label I was previously involved with, Compass Records, but they weren’t really interested in collaboration albums. With all of my projects and Jason as busy as he is, we were always just in the middle of other things until Jason put out [2022’s Lowdown Hoedown] and I completed [2023’s Lovin’ Of The Game]. It was around that time we decided to take the leap and finally start working on this.

Speaking of taking a leap, I know y’all co-produced this record too. What was your motivation behind that?

MC: We had talked about bringing somebody in. I’ve worked with Jeff White for years on my albums. In a way he helped to produce this one too, which is fitting because I always felt like we co-produced my albums together. For this record there were people we’d send stuff to listen to, even down to the final mixes, just because we respect their opinions, but the final calls were all us.

JC: Even when you’ve got someone like Bryan Sutton in the studio for tracking, he may have an idea he throws out that becomes a big help as well. That could come from anyone involved in the session, even engineer Sean Sullivan, who we leaned on heavily as well because they do this every day. These people are here for a good reason, because they’re super talented and play some of our favorite music. And when it comes to Cleve, I’m all ears. He always has good advice.

MC: When you first start recording, you don’t always know what sounds good. It’s like with playing, singing, or anything else, the more you put yourself in those situations the more you understand what you want to hear and how to achieve it. Working with Jeff in the past, we’d be together during the day when all of the sudden he’d say, “Hey Mike, I gotta take off for a few hours, produce for a while.” It freaked me out the first time he did that, but it forced me to get comfortable in the situation and forced me to trust my ear more. Jeff having that faith in me also gave me a little more confidence in myself that I was making the correct decisions and to continue trusting my instincts.

JC: With the Travelin’ McCourys, all of those records were produced by the band along with most of the stuff we did with Del, too. I did produce my solo record, Lowdown Hoedown, though. But even on that, when we were recording Sam [Bush] and Jerry Douglas were there. I remember Jerry – who produced a lot of the McCourys’ stuff early on – always had great ideas on arrangements and different things to put in when he spoke up, which was a huge help. Getting to be in the studio with him is an education you can’t get anywhere else.

Jason, you briefly spoke of a few of the album’s players there. But they’re far from the only top-notch pickers you have on this record, with the likes of Vince Gill, Charlie Worsham, and Sierra Hull, among others. How’d y’all go about deciding who to bring into the fold?

JC: We just tried to think of who would best fit with the songs as we listened to demos for each.

MC: It also came down to who was available at certain times. Guys like Bryan Sutton, Cory Walker, and Alan Bartram played on most of it. I remember days where Sam Bush was available on mandolin and others where Harry Clark filled in. Some of the first sessions we did after the pandemic were with Cody Kilby and Casey Campbell followed by David Grier and Dominick [Leslie].

And going back to something Jason said earlier, I also leaned on Bryan a lot, specifically about what songs he thought it would be good to have Sam on, which led to his inclusion on “Middle of Middle Tennessee” and a few others.

What has music, specifically the process of bringing this record to life, taught you about yourselves?

MC: This was one of the first things I’ve done without a producer being there. Most of the time we would agree on decisions, but other times you don’t know what the right thing is and somebody has to make the call, because that’s typically something a producer would do. When it’s just you there’s no question, but when you’re working with somebody you want to make sure it’s a collaboration and not one person running the ship. Recording this album has taught me to be more aware of that.

JC: The singing part of this too, that’s still pretty new to me. I’ve sung on other people’s records, my solo album and with the Travelin’ McCourys, but being the lead singer throughout is a new venture for me and something I really enjoyed getting to do with Michael.

What do the two of you appreciate most about one another as both musicians and people?

JC: Everything about Mike’s playing, he’s just on another planet right now, and as a person he’s the same way. I recently got married and Mike was my best man, because no matter what he does he is the best man!

MC: Hearing Jason play with Del, he’s always been the fiddler I’ve wanted to be. We’re both into the same stuff, which is why I think we work together so well. It’s why we’re able to jump on stage and play twin fiddles without rehearsing, which is usually a mess when you do that. Getting to work with him on this album has been a dream come true for me.

Photo Credit: Lead image by Sam Wiseman. Square image by Emma McCoury.

Tommy Emmanuel’s Fiery Guitar Picking Is Not Just for Musicians, It’s for Everyone

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Tommy Emmanuel is in his happy place: spending a Thursday afternoon at Nashville’s Gruhn Guitars in anticipation of recording a new solo album. “I’m here getting a new pickup system featured in one of my guitars, buying strings, hanging out with the guys, and getting a little Gruhn mojo from the shop,” he says. “The weekend, I’ll spend stringing up and playing my guitars, making decisions about which guitar I’ll use for what song, and stuff like that.”

For the next hour, however, he’s upstairs in the store’s amp room, settled in to discuss his two new albums – the just-released Live at the Sydney Opera House, recorded over the course of two performances in May 2023, and a solo album in the works – along with many other topics. Highlights from that conversation follow.

I was trying to find a starting point for this interview, which is challenging because there are so many. I listened to your January interview with Rick Beato and had a “stopped me in my tracks moment” when you said you spent three days listening to Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department. I thought, “Tommy Emmanuel is a Swiftie! We’ll start there.”

Tommy Emmanuel: Taylor, as a writer, is definitely a big influence on me. Someone who achieves what she achieves is doing something beyond the norm. Even beyond talent, it’s a spiritual experience, it’s big, and it’s deep, and I like to observe, listen, and learn from people who achieve like that.

You described her songwriting as “crying from the heart.” That stood out because that’s really what music is – it comes from the heart. We always hear that tone is in the hands, but is the heart not at the core of that?

Exactly. I was [writing a new song] and trying to find something that could give me the right melody to say with the chorus what I wanted to say without words, making the melody this cry from the heart. It’s– [sings melody], the chords change underneath, and so there’s movement, but there’s this cry from the heart right in the middle of everything.

Can you tell us more about this new solo album?

Normally, I record here, fly to LA, mix and master it with my friend Marc DeSisto, and I’m the producer. With this album, I’m working here in Nashville with Vance Powell, the busiest guy on the planet. We start on Monday and we’ve got to get it all done in four days.

I have eight new songs, including this piece we’ve been talking about, “A Drowning Heart.” There’s “Black and White to Color,” “Young Travelers” – I’ve got some interesting titles. The songs are different to what I’ve written in the past. There’s a couple of typical fingerpicking tunes that I really like. They’re a little more folk-influenced. The other ones I’ve been talking about are much more ’80s rock and roll style. I have a song called “Scarlett’s World.” The introduction and ending sound a bit like Dire Straits. I did that on purpose, because it’s such a cool sound. That song is inspired by the movie Lucy with Scarlett Johansson. I love that movie. I love her work. My granddaughter is like Scarlett and she is a force of nature. I got the idea to call the song “Scarlett’s World” when I was with her.

I’m enjoying this phase of my life. Whatever page I’ve turned to get to this stage has been worth it, because some songs have come to me in this last six months that I really love playing in my shows. Playing new songs live gets rid of anything that doesn’t need to be there, because sometimes you can write a song, you’re trying to be clever, you’re trying to be creative, you’ve got all these good ideas going, and then you play it for somebody and you realize, “Oh, this part here is not necessary.” You throw it out and get to the meat and potatoes. Forget all the other stuff. Just tell me the story. Take me somewhere. That’s why I like to perform my songs to an audience before I record them. Your instincts are on a hundred. When you walk on stage, your physical and spiritual instincts have risen up and they’re ready to serve you.

Of course, you’ve also just released your live album. You’re known for working without a set list. With such a rich repertoire, how do you sequence your shows, and sequence them so that the performance speaks both to musicians and non-musicians?

That’s so important to me. My music is not for musicians; it’s for everybody. I’m trying to be an all-around artist, entertainer, writer, player, performer. I’m trying to give people a bit of everything. [The show] has to be a journey, a story, entertaining, and when it’s over, I want people to think, “I’ve got to see that again.” There’s a passage in the first Indiana Jones movie that I never forgot. One of the characters says, “What are you going to do now, Indy?” Harrison Ford says, “I don’t know. I’m just making this up as I go along.” That’s me. That’s how I live my life.

Your history with Maton Guitars goes back to your days playing electric guitar. The common trajectory is the player begins on acoustic, and then goes on to electric. True to originality, you did the opposite.

I started on electric. When I was starting to be a songwriter and making my own records, I was mostly writing on electric, 60 to 70 percent, and the rest was acoustic. I started doing solo shows on acoustic and all of a sudden I realized, “Holy smoke, this really works well.” So I started writing more songs to play as a solo acoustic player. It was more pop and rock and roll music, funky, all that sort of stuff.

The record company wanted me to do something we could get on radio, so I made some jazz-oriented records. I got a lot of airplay on jazz stations and that kind of forced me into that direction for a while. It was good, because I learned to write and perform that way. When I moved to Nashville, I wanted to be on the Opry and play the Ryman, so I focused on being more country- and bluegrass-based, which is my roots. My biggest influences when I was a kid, before Chet Atkins, were Jimmie Rogers and Hank Williams. They were my first two loves of music.

What are the biggest challenges of doing what you do the way you do it?

Everything comes down to commitment. How committed am I to be a better player? I often tell people who want to talk about my technique, “I don’t talk about my technique. It’s invisible.” The music is what counts, not how I do it. My abilities fluctuate because I’m a human being. I’m not a robot; I’m not going to be exactly the same every time.

If you want it to be good, to flow, and to be wonderful to watch, then there’s a lot of work ahead. You’re going to have to work so hard to make it that way. I never stop working on my abilities, because it’s so important. My role model, Chet Atkins, worked harder than anybody I’ve ever seen at practicing and making sure that every little detail was so smooth. I will follow that with adding that my age is challenging me as well. There are things I could do twenty years ago that I can’t do today and I have to be okay about that. I have to find new things to replace some of the things that I physically can’t do.

I’ve just come off a five-week tour, which was grueling, long, lots of travel, not a lot of chance to do some serious practice. Every day was like, get to the venue, get my guitar out, start playing, work on some songs that maybe I didn’t play the night before or the night before that, remember some of my other songs that I haven’t been playing, put them in the show, and constantly find ways of making it different and interesting from the night before.

I’ve got to be in good shape physically, mentally, and spiritually to get up there and play my heart out for nearly two hours and throw my whole life into it. I’ve got to eat well, rest well, and have enthusiasm for what I’m doing. I can’t remember a time where I was standing on the side of the stage and thought, “Not this again.” That never has entered my mind. I’m like, “I can’t wait to get out there. I can’t wait to play. I can’t wait to see how this night is going to go and what I’m going to do that’s going to surprise me.”

You’ve told us a bit about your introduction to bluegrass, coming to acoustic guitar from electric, and your passion for jazz. Can you draw a through line between all those genres? How do they shape what you do?

It’s about musical abilities and musical ideas. When I play with Ricky Skaggs, or Molly Tuttle, or anybody, it’s about me fitting into what they do and serving the music as best I can. There’s a bit of bluegrass in everything I play. There’s a bit of blues in everything I play. I don’t feel like I need to be in a box or have a style stapled to me. It’s all music to me.

When I play with Billy Strings, I can hear Doc Watson and Tony Rice, of course, but I can also hear little bits of Stevie Ray Vaughan, B.B. King, George Harrison. You know, we’ve all got it in us. It’s all styles of music together. Bluegrass is such an open-ended thing to me. If I’m playing “Highway 40 Blues” and I take a solo, I don’t necessarily think, “Oh, I’d better tap into Tony Rice.” I just play what I feel at that moment.

A number of musicians have told me that they sometimes get sick of their own playing. Does this ever happen to you, and if so, how do you climb out of that rut?

I get tired of myself sometimes and usually something comes along that lifts my faith in my gift. Right when I think I’ve had enough of me, I need a break, something happens and somebody needs me to play for them, and they remind me, “Don’t forget – you’re here for a reason. You’re here to serve others. When you play, people feel something. They feel happy. So get out of your own head and do it for someone else.”

There are times when you definitely need a break. I just had a week after the tour I finished in Zurich a week ago. I flew into England to be with my grandchildren and my daughters and I didn’t play much. I played a little bit after the girls had gone to bed. I made my dinner, played a little bit, and then watched Netflix and chilled out. It was good. I needed that break.

When your colleagues talk about you, they always describe you as a good guy, a nice guy, a mentor. How much of that comes from the kindness and mentoring you received from Chet Atkins?

I’m just trying to hand on what was handed to me. When you’ve been loved on by a guy like Chet Atkins, you know you’ve been loved. When you’ve been loved on by someone like my mother, who led by example her whole life … what a great soul, a great spirit.

When I moved to the big city when I was young, I was so used to people being almost aggressive towards me, because they thought I was showing off or thinking I was much smarter than them. And it never entered my mind. But they were full of jealousy or fear or whatever, I don’t know. So when I got to the big city and I saw musicians who did things I couldn’t do, when I got to know them, they were so encouraging to me. They were so honest with me. They treated me with a dignity that other people didn’t. And so I just want people to feel good when we play together, because it’s a very honest experience.

Who is your dream artist to work with?

Marty Stuart. What a talent! He’s a free spirit and the kind of guy I like being around. I would love to work with Marty.

You’ve spoken openly about your long battle with addiction. You are in recovery and you’ve also done the work through therapy. What part has guitar played in your recovery journey?

The guitar has always been my go-to thing to help me get through stuff. When I went through my first divorce, we’d been married for 15 years and I thought we were doing great. Everything was wonderful, I’ve got two little daughters, then my wife wanted to separate and then she was with someone else. I had to let her go and I went through a painful divorce.

I was broken beyond measure and my world went upside down. It was during that period that I wrote some of the best music I’ve ever written. It came to help me and gave me something good to focus on. Next thing I know, people are loving the music I’ve written, and I’m out, I’m starting again, I’m off on a new road.

The thing I love [about sobriety] is being clear. I’m present. My love of music and playing in general has grown so much since I’m not ruled by drugs or alcohol. I’m [five years] free and I’m so grateful. What I do now is better, it’s more honest, it’s more real. I don’t feel self-obsessed, self-absorbed, or feel sorry for myself for all the bad things that nearly destroyed me.

I know what addiction is now. I know how to deal with it. It’s finding what the problem is, being willing to talk about it, put the work in, follow the steps, and keep doing the work that has made my life so beautiful and so much better. Sometimes I think, “How the hell did I ever survive that?” I’m guessing that my maker was with me all the way. I’m totally free today, but I don’t take it lightly. It’s living one day at a time, and it’s beautiful.

And finally, what is the difference between playing guitar and being a guitarist?

Being a guitarist is being a gun for hire. Being a guitar player is a way of life. A guitar player is someone who loves to play for people and who loves his instrument deeply.

Photo Credit: Alysse Gafkjen