Tag: Bobby Hicks

BGS 5+5: Jason Carter

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Jason Carter
Hometown: Lloyd, Kentucky
Latest Album: Lowdown Hoedown
Personal nicknames: Fiddler

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Del McCoury. I first heard Del when I was around 15 years old. At that time I was playing guitar and knew I wanted to play music for a living. When I heard Del I knew that was the band I wanted to join, and knew his sons played banjo and mandolin, so the only options were bass and fiddle. My dad had a fiddle and he started teaching me to play around that time. For the next few years I spent most of my time learning fiddle solos to Del McCoury songs. My parents were very supportive. My Mom would drive me to school and I remember we listened to “I Feel the Blues Moving In” every day of my senior year. She said she never got tired of the song either. I was obsessed with his music from an early age!

The February after my graduation I hired on with the Del McCoury Band. I think the stars aligned. At that time Del still drove the bus. There were many nights I would sit and practice fiddle through the night while he drove. Lots of times I wouldn’t know what to play for a solo on his songs. I’d ask for his help and he’d sing melodies for me to play. Over the years watching how he’s run his band, giving them the freedom to express themselves musically and how open he is to exploring different genres of music through bluegrass. I feel very fortunate to have been able to spend the last 30 years in his band.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

One of my favorite memories is when the Del McCoury Band played Oswego, New York, with Phish. They invited us to play on their main stage set and after seeing a sea of 80,000 people in front of the stage I got pretty nervous. We played a couple tunes with them and someone broke a string. Trey said, “Hey, play one of those fiddle/banjo duet things you guys do.” The thoughts of breaking down the wall of sound from this rock band to just fiddle and banjo scared the hell out of me until Rob and I started playing. The crowd continued dancing as if the entire band was still playing. It was pretty cool how that crowd and that band accepted our music. We got to play several more times with them and Jonathan Fishman has actually played entire sets with the Del McCoury Band and The Travelin’ McCourys and most recently he recorded on my solo record Lowdown Hoedown.

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

Whether it’s gardening, golfing, hunting, or fishing, I like to be outdoors. All those hobbies seem to clear my mind of anything else going on in the world. Sometimes I hunt a farm around Goodlettsville, Tennessee, not far from Grandpa Jones and Stringbean’s old houses. I’ve sometimes wondered if I was crossing the same paths that they walked when they hunted together. It’s also nice to put the boat in and go down the Cumberland River. The view of Nashville from the river is pretty cool! Sometimes I pass by John Hartford’s house. That always brings back memories of all the jam sessions we used to have. Those are great memories.

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

From my earliest memories I remember my dad’s band The Buffalo Creek Express playing shows. I tried to mimic them as a kid. When I was 8 years old one of dad’s friends, Mike Parsons, came to our house and his son who was only a couple years older than me was playing guitar. I thought this kid is good! I wonder if I can do this. I asked my dad if he would show me how to play. After Mike left my dad showed me the chords to the song they were playing. “The House of the Rising Sun.” The next time Mike came to the house I was the kid playing.

What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?

In 2001 we were on the Down From The Mountain tour. Bobby Hicks was the fiddler in the Ricky Skaggs band that was also on the tour. It seemed like every day we were playing tunes together. Bobby was very generous about teaching me his style of fiddling. One day I was having a hard time with something he had showed me. He straightened me out pretty quick and before he left and before I walked on stage he said, “Just get out there and play from the heart and those people are gonna love you.” I’ve never forgotten that moment or the encouragement he gave me.

Photo Credit: Michael Weintrob

Bluegrass Memoirs: New Twists & Scruggs Pegs Take Off

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

In December 1953, Decca released “Plunkin’ Rag” by the Shenandoah Valley Boys. It was the first recording by a banjoist other than Earl Scruggs to use Scruggs pegs: Hubert Davis. 

Born in Shelby, North Carolina, in 1932, Davis grew up in a musical family. He was already playing the banjo when, at the age of ten, his older brother, fiddler Pee Wee, brought Earl Scruggs, a co-worker from Lilly Mills, into the family home for some music. Earl had just moved to town to work at the factory. He was boarding with another Lilly Mills employee, Grady Wilkie. In Earl Scruggs and Foggy Mountain Breakdown: The Making of an American Classic author Thomas Goldsmith tells how Earl’s mother prevailed on her friend Wilkie to help Earl get a job at the mill. Wilkie, a guitarist, and Earl stowed their instruments in the car when they drove to work. In a 1977 interview, Hubert Davis told Bruce Nemerov that Pee Wee, Grady, and Earl: 

…worked on the second shift. They would catch up about supper time and they’d run out to the car and get their music out and run in to the packing house. They’d play for thirty minutes or an hour and go back to work. Swaller their food whole to get more time for pickin’. And I was there, son, at suppertime every evening. I was sitting there against the wall listenin’. 

By the time Hubert was fourteen (1946), he was studying Earl’s playing with Monroe on the Opry. Occasionally Earl came home, visited the Davises, and gave Hubert a banjo tutorial: “he’d show me the parts I didn’t have right.” 

At fifteen Hubert began playing professionally. By 1951 he was working for Virginian Jim Eanes. In 1948 Eanes had been an original member of Flatt & Scruggs’s Foggy Mountain Boys, but was quickly hired away by Monroe. Bluegrass historian Jack Tottle tells what happened after Eanes joined Bill at the Opry: 

His full baritone-range voice turned out to be incompatible with Monroe’s mountain tenor for duet singing. To Jim’s frustration, no matter how high he sang, it was still too low for Monroe’s high vocal harmony. 

Eanes subsequently developed a career as a mellow country singer with a bluegrass band, recording for a small North Carolina label, Blue Ridge. Soon after Hubert joined him Jim had a hit with “Missing in Action,” a Korean war-themed country song. Ernest Tubb’s major-label cover on Decca was also a hit, giving Jim an opportunity to sign with Decca. 

Eanes began recording in Nashville in 1952 with producers Paul Cohen and Owen Bradley. In October 1953, after several country-sound sessions using studio musicians, Eanes returned to record with two members of his bluegrass band, the Shenandoah Valley Boys: Hubert Davis and Bobby Hicks. 

They made two banjo instrumentals: “Ridin’ the Waves” and “Plunkin’ Rag.” These were issued on a 78, credited not to Eanes but simply to The Shenandoah Valley Boys. In “Plunkin’ Rag” Davis used both Scruggs pegs to create the melody. Chet Atkins, playing backup guitar, is heard playing responsorial licks to the melody in its peg sections, and Bobby Hicks — this was his first recording session — contributes fiddle breaks. 

“Plunkin’ Rag” was released in December. By that time Davis had left Eanes, who then advertised over the air for a banjo player. A lanky teenager named Allen Shelton got the job. At the start, Eanes said, “he could only play one tune, but he would play all the time.” An enthusiastic learner, Shelton was a fan of Davis: “he was second to Scruggs as I ever heard it.” 

When the time came for Eanes’ next Decca session in Nashville, on March 2, 1954, Davis had rejoined the band. At this point, probably in February, as Davis recalled, he and Shelton met. Both later spoke of sitting up all night in a hotel room working on “some licks Scruggs was playing.” 

It’s certain that one of the two banjos in that hotel room had Scruggs pegs. Some of the licks they were working on must have involved the pegs, for Davis came to Eanes’ session with two instrumentals that used them: “Cotton Picker’s Stomp” and “There’s No Place Like Home.” 

“There’s No Place Like Home” was the title Decca gave to Davis’s version of “Home Sweet Home.” As with “Plunkin’ Rag,” Davis used the pegs to play the melody. But this was not a new composition, but a very old song, dating back to 1823. The novelty here, its hook, was the idea of using Scruggs pegs to play a familiar melody.

A few months later another banjo picker made a recording using Scruggs pegs. Haskel McCormick was the 16-year-old banjo picker on “Banjo Twist” by the McCormick brothers of Westmoreland, Tennessee. The track was on their first single, released in August 1954 by Hickory Records, Roy Acuff’s new Nashville label. McCormick, who would go on fill in for the hospitalized Earl with Flatt and the Foggy Mountain Boys a few times in 1956, incorporated portions of the hooks from both of Scruggs’ hits, in this, the first of three pieces he recorded that used the pegs. Here’s a brief bio of McCormick by NCTV, which opens with “Banjo Twist:”

Columbia recognized the popularity of Scruggs’ instrumentals that fall by reissuing four of them, including all three Scruggs peg-hook tunes, in their “Hall of Fame” series. While young banjo pickers like McCormick were writing new tunes with his pegs, Earl now took another direction, using one of them in his breaks for Lester’s song, “Till the End of the World Rolls Around.” Columbia released it in December 1954. 

By then Allen Shelton, now in the Raleigh-based band of Hack Johnson and his Tennesseans, had elaborated on the idea of playing “Home Sweet Home” with Scruggs pegs. Early in 1955 Shelton recorded a version of “Home Sweet Home” with Johnson that included a vocal trio on the chorus. Their Colonial single was a regional hit. 

This prompted Reno & Smiley, who recorded for King (a widely distributed independent label) to make a cover. Reno, traveling through North Carolina, heard the Johnson single and called King owner Syd Nathan to tell him about it. Nathan ordered him to get their band into the studio right away and record it. He couldn’t get in touch with his band members… 

…so I went to the studio in Charlotte and cut it by myself. I dubbed in three vocal parts and banjo, guitar, and bass. It took me most of the night and I don’t want to cut any more like that! 

The recording was a bigger hit than Johnson’s, and helped Reno & Smiley, one of the most influential early bluegrass bands — but until that point solely a recording act — launch their touring career.

Although Hubert Davis was first to record “Home Sweet Home” (as “There’s No Place Like Home”) with the pegs, it and the other instrumental he recorded with Jim Eanes didn’t get released until June 1955, after the Reno & Smiley version. By then, Shelton and Johnson had released “Swanee River,” another old familiar song with the same juxtaposition of pegs and vocal trio. Another similar piece, “Old Kentucky Home,” appeared soon after under a new band name. Hack Johnson was gone; now, with the same sound on the same label, they were The Farmhands. 

In the fall of 1955, Earl Scruggs recorded his fourth and last instrumental with a peg hook. In it he reset his peg for the second-string so that it moved up to C from B. His hook riff went through two chords instead of one. “Randy Lynn Rag,” celebrating the birth of his son, was released in February 1956. 

By now the idea of using the pegs to play old familiar pieces had caught on. Early in 1956 Sonny Osborne recorded four tunes using the pegs for Gateway, the Cincinnati label he’d been with since 1952: “Hand Me Down My Walking Cane,” “Jesse James,” “Swanee River,” and “Auld Lang Syne.” Accompanying him in the studio were Red Allen, guitar; Bobby Osborne, mandolin and fiddle; Art Stamper, fiddle; and Les Bodine, bass. These were the last recordings made under Sonny’s name, done just a few months before the first MGM sessions by the Osborne Brothers and Red Allen.

In May Columbia released Flatt & Scruggs’ new gospel single. Earl used the pegs to play his part of the melody in the breaks to the quartet “Joy Bells.” 

It was getting radio play that summer when a letter came to Mike Seeger from Moe Asch, owner of New York’s Folkways Records, asking him “to produce an LP of Scruggs-style banjo playing.” Seeger was certain his older half-brother, Folkways star and folk banjo guru Pete Seeger, “was the reason that Moe wrote me.” 

Living in the Washington-Baltimore area, Mike Seeger had been taping bluegrass shows at local country music parks. “Most bluegrass players were establishing new songs and sounds and so didn’t record the old-time tunes that they played on shows,” he said. Seeger wanted to demonstrate “the connection of the new style to the older music” so he focused on the old-time repertoire for the album. 

He started recording that fall of 1956, with the help of local bluegrass musician and collector Pete Kuykendall. They began after a Monroe show at New River Ranch in Rising Sun, Maryland, where Blue Grass Boy Joe Stuart lingered backstage to play his banjo setting of an old-time fiddle tune for Seeger’s portable tape recorder. Subsequently, eight other DC region banjoists, most of them young, were recorded. A trip south captured pioneers from western North Carolina, including Earl’s older brother Junie. Earl was not on the album. Finally, one picker from New York City’s Washington Square bluegrass scene was recorded. 

Seeger’s friend Ralph Rinzler, living in New York at the time, wrote the album notes. Here for the first time the word “bluegrass” was used in print to describe and explain the music. American Banjo Three-Finger and Scruggs Style, the first bluegrass LP, had a total of 31 tracks by fifteen banjoists. Scruggs pegs are heard on two cuts. 

On side B, band 3, Smiley Hobbs, a North Carolinian virtuoso living in northern Virginia, used the pegs to play the melody of the old folksong “Rosewood Casket” in a vocal-instrumental combination similar to Shelton’s.

The very last track on side B featured the Washington Square picker, seventeen-year-old New Yorker Eric Weissberg. Backed by Seeger on guitar and Rinzler on mandolin, he played a two-song medley, combining the tunes of the traditional ballad “Jesse James” and folk revival star Woody Guthrie’s popular composition “Hard Ain’t It Hard.” He used the pegs on the latter piece, which the Weavers, the most popular folk revival group at the time, had recently popularized. Weissberg’s mix of traditional and folk revival repertoire was a harbinger. 

In the next Bluegrass Memoir, more on Eric Weissberg.

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

Photo of Neil V. Rosenberg: Terri Thomson Rosenberg

Bobby Hicks, “Snowflake Breakdown”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

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

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

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

Gimme a Breakdown: 10 Tunes to Get You Going

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Breakdowns are the barn-burning, breakneck, slapdash stalwarts of bluegrass and old-time traditions. They can be banjo songs, mandolin songs, fiddle songs — but every single one is truly a dancing song. Sometimes, all you need is an up-tempo bluegrass tune to get you going, so here are 10 breakdowns that will help you avoid any/all other types of breakdown.

“Foggy Mountain Breakdown”

Of course we had to lead off with this icon! Earl Scruggs’ most popular instrumental, for sure. It may be overplayed, but going back to Earl’s original reminds us why it’s ended up getting so many miles. It deserves the recognition and repetition, that’s for sure.

“Shenandoah (Valley) Breakdown”

It’s like “Boil Them Cabbage Down” but fast fast fast. This one goes by two names because with a tune so nice, they named it twice. Alan Munde gives it the melodic treatment, but you’ll notice his bouncy melody-driven take doesn’t lose a single ounce of drive. That’s Munde for you.

“White Horse Breakdown”

Casey Campbell and Mike Compton give “White Horse Breakdown” an incredibly tasty mando duo treatment, juxtaposing their distinct approaches to traditional, Monroe-style mandolin. This one just lends itself to duos, whether fiddle/banjo, mando/mando, or whatever combination you fancy!

“Crucial County Breakdown”

Béla Fleck and his illustrious Drive band (Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Tony Rice, Mark Schatz, and Mark O’Connor) turn the breakdown format on its ear for this newgrass-meets-traditional take. A nice reminder of why Béla and Drive are absolute essentials in the modern bluegrass canon.

“Blue Grass Breakdown”

The best example of a mandolin-centered breakdown, this one was named before bluegrass had been combined into one word — before the genre itself existed! The Father of Bluegrass himself, Bill Monroe, wrote the tune and kicks it off as only he can. It’s like “Foggy Mountain” but with F chords!

“Champagne Breakdown”

It’s a decadent, indulgent, wild one that registers only barely as a breakdown as we know them — I mean, modulations?! — but the Country Gentlemen were always about pushing the envelope and this delightful tune surely does that. You never quite know where it’s going to go next and that, my friends, is what breakdowns are all about.

“Pike County Breakdown”

All I can tell you is, make sure you get that signature lick right in the A part or the jam circle might give you some sidelong stares. Scott Vestal nails it on this recording, of course — along with Aubrey Haynie, Wayne Benson, Adam Steffey, Barry Bales, and Clay Jones. STACKED. Clean, hard-driving bluegrass. It’s what the world wants.

“Old & In The Way Breakdown”

In 1973, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Vassar Clements, Peter Rowan, and John Kahn coalesced as Old & In The Way, becoming one of the most influential bluegrass ambassador bands in the history of the music. Jerry Garcia shows his five-string chops quite well on this tune, which also goes by the name “Patty on the Turnpike.” But then it wouldn’t be a breakdown, now would it?

“Snowflake Breakdown”

And now, a fiddlin’ breakdown. Breakdowns are an integral part of fiddle contests — contests often require each contestant to play a tune considered a “breakdown” during competition. This one, performed by Bluegrass Hall of Famer Bobby Hicks, is often heard in contest situations, if not for the unexpected chord changes, simply because emulating Hicks never hurt anyone in a fiddle competition. No one really wonders why that is, either.

“Dawggy Mountain Breakdown”

Written by David “Dawg” Grisman, “Dawggy Mountain Breakdown” doesn’t just sound familiar because of its purposefully malapropistic name, it’s also the theme song for NPR’s incredibly popular radio show, Car Talk. The show’s hosts, Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers (AKA Tom and Ray Magliozzi), were/are big bluegrass fans and especially fans of Dawg and his music. It’s a beautiful little bluegrass easter egg on public radio — which are much too few and far between, if you ask me.

“Girl’s Breakdown”

(Edited to add:) Thank you to a commenter on social media for pointing out that, as is much-too-easy to do in bluegrass, our list of breakdowns didn’t include a single woman! Alison Brown, one of the world’s premier banjo players, even penned a satirically-titled tune to skewer this sexist paradigm in bluegrass. Y’all have heard “Earl’s Breakdown” plenty, it’s time for a dose of “Girl’s Breakdown.”

Lede photo by Thomas Dwyer on Foter.com / CC BY-NC

MIXTAPE: Mike Barnett’s Favorite Fiddlers

Posted on by Editor

If you want to know who the best fiddlers in bluegrass and old-time are, ask one of the best fiddlers in bluegrass and old-time … right? Here, Mike Barnett rattles off not just a list of songs by great players, but the reasons they are so great. Enjoy his insider’s view.

“Flannery’s Dream” – John Hartford

Records from John Hartford like Wild Hog in the Red Brush and Speed of the Old Long Bow got me really excited about the energy in old-time music. I never got to meet Hartford, but feel a connection to him through his music. He brings a special vibe that I’ve often tried to channel. I’ve heard stories that he used to have a guideline that nobody in his band could repeat their accompaniment/part for more than one section of a song, everyone had to mix up their playing often, which gives his music a certain drive and breath.

“Black and White Rag” – Johnny Gimble

When I heard Johnny Gimble play at Mark O’Connor’s camp maybe 14 years ago, it was so strikingly Texas, so rooted in that tradition. I particularly remember his feel when playing Texas rags captivating me, like here in the “Black and White Rag.” Johnny helped me understand more deeply the true spirit and community of Texas-style music.

“Bound to Ride” – John Hartford, Tony Rice, and Vassar Clements

Vassar Clements invented his own, incredibly unique style of fiddling. The vibrato, silky tone, double stops and slides … it’s like magic whenever he touches the fiddle, and I can tell within two notes if it’s him. This recording of “Bound to Ride” is a great snapshot into Vassar’s unique way of playing around a melody, backing up the vocal, and lifting the energy of a song.

“Dill Pickle Rag” – Buddy Spicher and Vassar Clements

Buddy Spicher is one of the legends, and one of those fiddlers you’ve probably heard but maybe didn’t know it was him. It was Buddy who got me wanting to play second fiddle — the harmony. This recording of Buddy with Vassar on “Dill Pickle Rag” shows some of Buddy’s genius and virtuosity (and Vassar’s!).

“Lonesome Moonlight Waltz” – Kenny Baker

Hard not to mention Kenny Baker here. I listened to his album Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe frequently growing up, and I’m still trying to understand those bowings! His playing is so clean, clear, good tone and time, and great melody player.

“Sally Goodin'” – Paul Warren

“Sally Goodin'” was actually the first COUNTRY hit! #funfact It was Tony Trischka who got me listening to Paul Warren when I was about 17. Another one of the legends in bluegrass fiddle, Paul brings a grit and edge that is often lost in modern bluegrass fiddling.

“Estrellita” – Bobby Hicks

Once Bill Monroe was asked if he had a favorite fiddler of those who’d played in his band. Bill said, “I’ve had a lot of fiddlers come through my band, but I believe Bobby Hicks was the truest fiddler I ever had.” Bobby is the double-stop king, and took a lot from what Tommy Jackson did with his single note playing around a vocal and made it his own.

“Back Up and Push” – “Benny Martin

Benny Martin’s double stops, attack, and full-throttle style really resonate with me. The tone he gets in this version of “Back Up and Push” makes it seem as if he’s got a brick tied to the end of his bow. And when he gets to the shuffle, it’s clear that so many contemporary fiddlers have been heavily influenced by how he did it.

“Raggedy Ann” – Curly Ray Cline

If you’re wondering who ever had the most fun playing the fiddle, all you need to do is search “Curly Ray Cline Orange Blossom Special” on YouTube, and you’ll find that it was in fact Curly Ray Cline! He’s most known for his work with the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers and Ralph Stanley and is as much a treat to watch as to listen to. I love his note choice and where he plays in the beat — what he does with the time.

“Fire in the Mountain” – Scotty Stoneman and Bill Emerson

Scotty Stoneman was a wild man of a fiddler. His double stops and slides, and aggressive approach to the fiddle, are some things I’ve always gone and checked back in with in my listening. You can hear some of what I’m talking about with Scotty’s sound in the recording of him playing “Fire in the Mountain.”

“Learnin’ the Blues” – The Del McCoury Band

The Del McCoury Band is one of the finest — if not THE finest — bluegrass bands still in the business. One G run from Del will set you straight for the whole year. Jason Carter has got the old bluegrass sound, and I love how much he digs in and goes for stuff, and pulls so much sound and soul out of the fiddle.

“Pickin’ the Devil’s Eye” – Bruce Molsky

I’ve always loved this recording Bruce Molsky made with Rushad Eggleston, Darol Anger, and Michael Ducé of “Pickin the Devil’s Eye.” The groove masters! Or maestros! Bruce’s propulsive bowing, groove, and reverence for tradition is really remarkable. He’s basically a one man band, and hearing him here is transcendent.

“Buffalo Nickel” – Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

Stuart Duncan has played on countless recordings so it was hard to choose just one, but Béla Fleck’s Bluegrass Sessions was one of the most influential for me, and a major landmark in acoustic music. “Buffalo Nickel” is gorgeous, and Stuart plays the melody with so much taste, tone, feel, soul, intonation … all the good things. To me, Stuart has always been sort of a perfect combination of all the things I love about fiddling.

“Future Man” – Strength in Numbers

Mark O’Connor is one of the most versatile players on the planet, combining so many styles and influences so flawlessly to create his own incredible voice. Telluride Sessions by Strength in Numbers is another must-have album. The way everyone plays together, and Mark’s precision and virtuosity … amazing. His solo here on “Future Man” is a highlight — a glimpse of what Mark is capable of.

“Ducks in the Millpond” – Aubrey Haynie

Aubrey Haynie is the initial reason why I got into bluegrass. His sound made me want to learn how to do that. One of my favorite fiddle albums out there is Aubrey’s The Bluegrass Fiddle Album. I like this cut of “Ducks on the Millpond” — a really cool instrumental that weaves between three sections. Aubrey mostly plays the melody with so much tone and taste, and varies it slightly toward the end.

“Sweet Georgia Brown” – Billy Contreras

Not everyone is familiar with the fiddle stylings of Billy Contreras, as his genius is less substantially documented. I think he is the greatest improviser on the violin to ever live, and a master when it comes to bluegrass, swing, modern jazz… he can do it all. His brilliant, almost mathematical mind for music, combined with his deep heart for it all, is endlessly inspiring.

“Lee Highway Blues” – Darol Anger and Stuart Duncan

Growing up, I listened to so much music that Darol Anger is responsible for: Republic of Strings, duo with Mike Marshall, his own projects, his work with the David Grisman Quintet, etc. Besides his amazing lead playing, he is known for paving new roads for the violin as a rhythm instrument with his infectious groove and development of the fiddle chop. His album, Diary of a Fiddler, has so many thoughtful duets with great fiddlers of different styles.

“It Don’t Mean a Thing” – Stuff Smith

Matt Glaser, who turned me onto so much priceless music during my time at Berklee College of Music, introduced me to Stuff Smith. I love Stuff’s emphasis on groove and blues, and the grit and directness in his sound.

Photo credit: Justin Canerer