Tag: carter family

For the First Time, Willie Watson Uses Original Songs to Tell His Own Stories

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Willie Watson has been a solo act for well over a decade, since leaving Old Crow Medicine Show way back in 2011. And while he’s put out records since then, in many ways his self-titled third release marks a new beginning. A lot of that comes from the fact that it’s Watson’s first solo work with original material, following two volumes of Folk Singer albums drawing from The Great American Folk Song book.

Watson worked with a co-writer on the original songs on Willie Watson, Morgan Nagler from Whispertown 2000, and the results sound like the sort of songs you’ll hear traded around folk festival campfires for years to come. The co-production team of former Punch Brothers fiddler Gabe Witcher and Milk Carton Kids guitarist Kenneth Pattengale capture the tracks in spare, elegantly understated arrangements with the spotlight firmly on Watson’s voice.

The album begins with a literal trip down to hell on “Slim and The Devil” (inspired by 2017’s white supremacist riots in Charlottesville, Virginia) and ends with “Reap ’em in the Valley,” an autobiographical talking gospel about Watson’s own long, strange trip. In between are songs about love, fear, the occasional murder. One of them is another cover, Canadian folkie Stan Rogers’ stately “Harris and the Mare,” and you’ve never heard a song that’s both so beautiful and so horrific.

BGS caught up with Watson on the eve of his album’s release.

So after so many years playing old folk songs, what got you into writing your own?

Willie Watson: I’ve always written songs, but never thought of myself as a “real” songwriter, like Gillian Welch or Dylan or Ketch [Secor]. That just didn’t seem like what I was engineered toward. I wanted to be that kind of songwriter, but told myself I didn’t measure up. So I got into traditional music. When I’d get together with friends at parties, I’d be more likely to sing songs that were traditional or someone else’s. Being in Old Crow was great, because I got to write with other people, mostly Ketch. Co-writing was easier on me.

Once I found myself on my own, I was very scared to write by myself. Being completely responsible for everything is scary and for whatever reason I could not bring myself to do that. Now I understand that no matter how simple, complicated, mature, childish or anything else I put into a song might be, it’s okay. I don’t have to tear apart and criticize, say terrible things about it before I’ve even written it down on the page. Left on my own, that’s typically what I’d do. It’s only now at age 44 that I can get past that. What a long road.

Do you remember the first song you ever wrote?

“Roll On” when I was 15 or 16. It was wintertime at my house in Watkins Glen, late one night when everybody else was asleep. I went out to smoke in the back yard and it was quiet. As I looked at the nighttime winter sky, I had this story come into my head about a cowboy in an old town. I wrote the words out quick, almost as I would have been playing it. Just looked up at the sky and thought of it and it washed over me fast. It was a pretty powerful first song, but I ignored it and have the most regret about that. For whatever reason, there was something in my life that made me not give it enough credit.

How did you connect with your co-writer, Morgan Nagler?

She’s a great songwriter who has made a few records, does a lot of co-writing with people you know. You’ve heard songs on the radio that she co-wrote. I was afraid to sit down on my own and write, and Dave Rawlings said I should call her. I was apprehensive about presenting ideas and words and parts of myself to a person I didn’t know, but it was immediately fruitful. The first day, four hours later we had a song I really liked, “One To Fall” – it’s on this record. That we came up with something I felt strongly about right a way got me fired up, so we kept going. Every time we got together we wrote a good song.

What was it like to appear in the Coen Brothers movie, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs?

It was amazing. They had me audition for another movie I did not get the part for, but they already had me in mind for the one after that. But it was terrifying. Little cameras scare me enough and the big gigantic ones are even scarier. Like a gigantic eye and you’re not supposed to look at them even when they’re right in your face. I’m no actor. I knew my lines, but did not know what to do. I called Joel [Coen] a month before to ask if there was anything he could tell me to prepare me. “The only thing I’ll tell you is your first instinct is probably right,” he said. Which didn’t help at all. On-set, I was still scared. I had to learn to get on the wrong side of the horse because of the camera shoot, which was awkward. So I was not knowing what to do until they took me to wardrobe. Once I had on the costume and the hat and looked in the mirror, I suddenly knew exactly what to do. When I saw how I looked, it all made sense: Just go out and be Clint Eastwood.

Fear, even terror, seems like a recurrent theme in your life as well as your work.

It’s a recurring thing for every human, if they’ll admit it. It’s so freeing to admit I don’t know what’s going on, I’m scared, I need help. So much of the time I’ve done the opposite and gotten nowhere. The only person making my life hard was me. Touring with different people, I see them get into stressful situations and I think, “It must be hard to be them today.” I was just like that for a long time, tearing through things everywhere I went. I was afraid and my way of dealing with that was to try and control things. A lifetime of that proved disastrous.

I got to the point of trying other things and eventually learned about humility. That started me changing and growing and recognizing that the only reason I made my life so hard was being afraid of everything. It’s so risky doing this and I am scared of it. I’m apprehensive about even saying that. The public wants you to be confident onstage and I am that. Sometimes not, though. It’s hard to put it out there and not be afraid. I’m gonna cry a lot in front of people onstage, and that’s brave and good for me. This record is me understanding that there’s power in those uncomfortable moments, and embracing them. There’s a lot of healing in being able to go ahead and do that.

Who are you dancing with in the video to “Real Love”?

That’s my wife Mindy and the song’s about her. Once we got together, it went quick with us. But there was not romantic interest when we met, we were just working together. She’d quit her job as a fast fashion designer wanting to do something fun, cool, more fulfilling. A mutual friend was trying to get us together, knowing she was interested in getting into denim work and that’s what I do. The friend knew I needed help. So she started as an apprentice, got good fast, and we ended up working together. For a year we sat and sewed together and became best friends, she’s the best I ever had.

I was careful about that relationship, didn’t want to ruin it. So that song’s about how it started and what it meant, how true our love feels. It outdid everything else I’ve experienced my whole life. It shows how every other relationship I’ve ever had, I wanted the wrong things and, I daresay, they all wanted the wrong things from me, too. It went both ways. I’m not even talking about romantic love. It ends up being about everyone in my life. The story of my love life is the story of my life, love in all its forms. It’s a bold statement that she is the only real love in my life so far.

How did you come to know Stan Rogers’ “Harris and the Mare”?

I’m a Stan Rogers fan and that song comes from Between The Breaks, a live album recorded at McCabe’s in Santa Monica. I was thinking, “Do I want to put this on a record with my songs?” I’d written simple rhymes, couplets that are almost kinda childish – and I’m gonna put them next to a well-crafted song by a master songwriter? But Kenneth and Gabe had heard me sing that one at shows for a while and really wanted it on tape, and I guess I did, too. And after the recording came out so awesome, how could it not be on the record? I found out it did tie into my life. We made this record and I was unsure if any of it made any sense. Once it was sequenced and I lived with it for a month or two, it came into focus. That’s a violent song about a man who doesn’t want to be angry and violent. And I’ve been that man in my life. I relate to this guy.

The other cover, “Mole in the Ground” – did you know that one from Anthology of American Folk Music?

Yes. I love Bascom Lamar Lunsford, he’s so weird and interesting to listen to. Those old recordings, I can’t listen to a lot of Carter Family or Blind Willie McTell. Three or four songs and I don’t want to hear more. But Bascom, I can listen to a good 30 minutes and that says a lot. Like “Harris,” that was a big puzzle piece where I was unsure how it would fit. What made it were the string arrangements. That tied it in with “Harris” and “Play It One More Time.” Gabe directed the string arrangement, but let them find their own way. It was a cool every-man-for-himself arrangement.

The closing song, “Reap ’em in the Valley,” really tells a lot about how you came to be who and where you are, describing an early encounter with a singer named Ruby Love.

I’ve always talked too much at my shows. But being alone onstage, I had to find ways to make it more interesting. Switching from guitar to banjo is a great tool in the arsenal, but people still got bored of that. Folk singers traditionally tell stories and lead sing-alongs. So I learned how to talk to people in a real personal way about mundane things, relating our lives to find common ground rather than tear each other apart. Just me up there, whether it’s in front of 15 or 50 or 1,500 people, it becomes a battle if it’s not working. Me against them. Sometimes it was a disaster, when I was not speaking from experience or the heart, places I knew. But once I started telling stories about me simply walking down a country road, they’d perk up and listen. So I became a storyteller. I figured I’d put one on this record, and that was one Kenneth and Gabe really wanted me to do.

I hope it translates. It’s my experience of looking back at evidence of what I call God in my life, how you can’t deny it. What I am now, Mr. Folksinger. That’s what people recognized me as, the place I ended up. It could have gone differently, but this is what I’m here for. Those impactful moments. I didn’t think much about Ruby Love over the years, until I started thinking more realistically and honestly the further I got from it. Meeting Ruby Love when my heart was so broken and how that felt, that’s what I never forgot about that night.

That’s the thing that stayed with the picture of it all, like a scene in a movie. That’s what vivid memories look like, movies. All that imagery rattling around my head. I relate a lot of that to the nature of God and God’s power in my head. It goes hand in hand with the moon and lake and sky, and how the moon affected Ruby Love. What Ruby Love did for that party and what the orchard did for his guitar.

Photo Credit: Hayden Shiebler

MIXTAPE: Paper Wings’ Folk Rebels Playlist

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

While we could easily be mistaken for “a pair of demure young ladies playing in a mid-19th century parlor” as thoughtfully observed by Bluegrass Today some years ago, we are in fact drawn to folk music not for its wholesomeness, but for its realness and its capacity to have you at the edge, staring down the rocky cliffs of life into the depths of your humanity. The songs that endure and have been carried into the future often tend to have a lot of darkness balanced with beauty (reverence and irreverence), because that’s what resonates with folks. It’s what we’re made of. And anyone who dares to sing complex truths and carry stories around in their heads can be a folk rebel.

On our new album, Listen to the World Spin, we stopped worrying about how traditional we sound or “should” sound and just made the music we wanted to make. These songs tend to have themes of the contrast between connection, solitude, our personal struggles, and how we relate to the greater world around us. We ask a lot of questions on this album, the answers to which could be complicated, but ultimately are simple because there is no answer. Sometimes the best thing one can do in life is just listen.

This playlist of songs features friends, heroes, and legends; inspiratoria from our pasts and present. As we refuse to put ourselves into a musical box, so too do the artists on this playlist. Best enjoyed on a long walk or drive, preferably alone or with someone who gives you company without robbing you of your sense of solitude. Much love, – W & E, Paper Wings

“Same Old Man” – Karen Dalton

I love this combination of rough old-time banjo and electric guitar. What a voice. – EM

“Nine Hundred Miles” – Barbara Dane

I remember hearing this track for the first time on Democracy Now and it hit me as being so so cool… a feeling I only really get from punk music and raw, gritty folk. If you haven’t heard of Barbara Dane, you must look her up. She was a very involved activist during the civil rights movement and also wrote some very sharp political songs. – WF

“Sunlight” – Rushad Eggleston

I am a huge fan of the cello goblin’s love song era. – EM

“I don’t love nobody” – Elizabeth Cotten

Nobody plays guitar this good. Elizabeth Cotten is a legend, not much else to say. – WF

“I’ll Wash Your Love From My Heart” – Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard

Hazel & Alice are such heroes of ours! Independent, fierce, deeply committed humanists and musicians who have shone light on the path of living a life that is true to those values. – EM

“What Will We Do?” – Foghorn Stringband

Reeb Willms and Nadine Landry are true modern badasses. This track features them singing a capella on this foghorn record, and somehow it’s just as energetic and captivating as when the whole band is playing. They are incredible instrumentalists, but they don’t even need their instruments to make really good music. – WF

“No Reason” – Sunny War

I first heard Sunny play this song live in Nashville and the guitar part instantly stuck in my head. It’s so satisfying, my brain craves it. – EM

“Bad Repetation” – Woody Guthrie

From the spelling of the title, to the pronunciation of “window,” to the fact that the timing changes on every refrain and I still haven’t worked it out, Woody is the epitome of bad-boy-American-folk-singer-fun-rebel-friend. – WF

“Say Darlin’ Say” – Laura Veirs

It was bold to do this song this way with electric guitar. The hook at the end gets stuck in my head from time to time. There are so many poorly reimagined/re-harmonized trad songs, and to me, this one works because it is sparse, it is catchy, and it isn’t perfect. – WF

“Lopin’ Along Through the Cosmos” – Judee Sill

Our friend John Mailander turned me onto Judee Sill in 2019 and I listened to nothing but her for months, absolutely obsessed. The words to this song mean so much to me, “However we are is ok.” Nobody writes a melody like Judee. – EM

“Cumberland Gap” – Spencer & Rains

I remember hearing Howard and Tricia practicing this version of “Cumberland Gap” at Clifftop as they were camped next to me and being totally obsessed. I don’t know where they dug up this version, but it’s so fun and a good reminder that even when you think you know the coolest version of a song, there is probably a cooler one still out there. Also, this whole album is fun and you can even hear Emily play bowed bass on it, watch out. – WF

“Chewing Gum” – The Carter Family

I dare you to jump rope with your best friend to this song and try not to laugh when you sing the words, “I wouldn’t have a doctor, I’ll tell you the reason why/ He rides all over the country and makes the people die.” – WF

“Left Hand Lane” – Paper Wings

We wrote this song on a night drive home to Berkeley, talking about doing our taxes and being afraid of accidentally doing them wrong. We had borrowed a car from our friend Vynce. I somehow managed to live in the San Francisco Bay Area for 7 years and never had a Fastrak beeper (the toll taking company for bridges, express lanes, IYKYK) but we got to live that Fastrak life on this particular trip and it made it into the song. Thanks Vynce!! – EM

“Pretty Bird” – Laurie Lewis & Linda Ronstadt

I listened to Laurie’s albums growing up and long before I even played music. I am lucky now to call her a dear friend. I love her writing and her taste in covers. To some this might be a song about a little bird but it takes next to no imagination to hear it cautioning a young woman “he would only clip your wings.” – EM

Photo Credit: Kale Chesney

25 Years On, It’s Old Crow Medicine Show’s ‘Jubilee’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Old Crow Medicine Show co-founder and frontman Ketch Secor is always busy. In September, Secor and flatpicking master Molly Tuttle co-hosted the Annual IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards, a brief respite from the ongoing national tour Secor and Old Crow are currently on. They hit the road earlier this year after releasing Jubilee, their latest record, celebrating 25 years as a band. With a few recent lineup changes, their energy is still fresh and exciting — and in this exclusive BGS interview, Secor explains that you really just have to see them live to fully understand and appreciate the bit.

This will be the second tour with the current lineup, right? What do you think will be different with touring Jubilee?

Ketch Secor: In typical Old Crow fashion, an 11th-hour lineup change occurred as we were putting the finishing touches on this album. We’ve hired two new players, and that’s Dante’ Pope on drums and piano, and PJ George as a utility player, so with these two additional players we have yet another iteration of Old Crow that has subtle differences from any other one we’ve had before. This kind of thing just makes it fun. That fluidity of the lineup has made it a lot more palatable — it’s still Flagstaff in the fall, but getting to see it with somebody who’s never been before, and getting to share the stage with people who bring out something new in you musically.

I feel like music for the old-time string band – and maybe this is the same for bluegrass – but music is really relational. It’s about who you’re with. I play different with different people. The pitcher isn’t gonna play differently because of who the shortstop is, but in a string band, the fiddler’s following a groove that the banjo sets, and if there’s a great mandolin player with chops then the fiddler is going to weave in and out of something differently.

How did you choose the guest appearances on this album, like Sierra Ferrell and Mavis Staples?

KS: That kind of thing just evolves. Making records in the 21st century, collaborations are what’s on the menu more so than when we were kids. We didn’t think about who was going to be the guests when we were kids. For Sierra, we thought that song needed something, and we realized it was a duet. I’d been sitting on that one for a couple years. I rewrote it as a duet, and we called the best woman to sing on a cock-fighting song — we called out to West Virginia.

Why are collaborations more necessary now?

KS: If I could be frank, it’s because labels are trying to do anything they can to sell albums. It adds to social media platforms. It increases the scope in ways that are much more specific to these times than just making great music. When Lita Ford came out with Ozzy Osbourne, that probably had a different purpose to it than it does today. Independent labels are taking a cue from hip-hop artists who experiment with this all the time. Bluegrass and old-time and traditional music tends to be 10 years behind those types of styles, so it makes sense that nowadays we’re all making collaborative contributions.

Were there any surprising or touching moments working with Willie Watson in the studio again? Was the chemistry there after 12 years?

KS: Yeah, I think that having Willie back is just important to the ethos of Old Crow Medicine Show, and celebrating its 25th anniversary. We’ve been working together since COVID on some things from live streams to concert appearances, and this was sort of the next frontier for Old Crow and Willie in burying the hatchet and making music together. When you’re in a 25-year-old band you get a lot of ex-boyfriends. Hindsight is 20/20, and I just know that nowadays it’s better to be back on stage together. 

How has your fiddling changed over the years? What are some of the areas you focus on when you practice? Old-time is known for being scrubby, but there’s a lot more going on there.

KS: Well, it’s changed over the years as I’ve gotten to be a lot better and gutsier as a violin player. I play it harder and stronger and faster than I did when I was 18 when I learned. For 25 or some years it’s been my dance partner. At the quarter century mark as a violin player, I feel like I know my partner well. I know where to take it, where on the neck to go. I know how to get the sounds that I’m looking for.

But I’m not a player who practices. My practice is just playing 95 concerts a year for 25 years and making 15 records in that period of time and being a special guest on 50 other records. I’ve grown up like a plant in the window when it comes to my violin playing. I see where the light is and I’ve grown towards it, and it’s bushier and brighter than it used to be when I was just a little twig. It just keeps growing all the time, but it’s not because I’m changing anything. There’s no additive to the soil.

You play old-time, but do you ever try other genres?

KS: I’ve played a few jazz gigs, but it’s not what I do well. I listen to all manner of songs. As a fiddle player, I like to think about all of the music that I’m channeling into the way I play, and a lot of it is traditional fiddle music, but a lot of it’s not. I feel like there’s Public Enemy and Nirvana and Bosco and the Carter Family, and other things that are not fiddle playing in my playing. But mostly what there is in my fiddle playing is mileage. It’s experience. It’s rust. It’s calcified. That’s the case with people who’ve played music for a lifetime. They get better not because they’re doing something different, but because they’re doing the same thing again and again. 

You mentioned that folk music should be topical — not kept in a museum case. Do you think that kind of folk has a special place in the world right now given the political and economic hard times we’ve been seeing?

KS: I think that anybody who’s making genuine art has a reflection of the world around in that work. We the artists are sort of like poetic mirrors of what we see. There’s lot of songs now that reflect the discord, either in a lamentation or in a protest or in just a pure reflection. My music tends to talk about the plight of the people who are most associated with this music, so that can be the people of the Southern Highlands. It can be the hardship of the African American co-inventors of this music. But I’m also a real vessel for global topics, and I say that because when I read the news it’s almost like it starts riding on my back. So I’m thinking about flood waters in Libya and earthquakes in Morocco and school shootings in Nashville. To me they’re all part of a human struggle to find peace in the world. 

What change do you hope comes about from songs like “Allegheny Lullaby?” How do people take that sentiment and make it actionable?

KS: That’s a song about a limitation of choice. That’s a matter of equity or inequity. So the equitable solution is: More choice. It’s widening the spectrum of options for people who live in the coal district, and that’s a very doable action item. It’s just a hard thing to do and live the exact same way, without a change in economics, but that’s the story of the American people. We adapt. And so I think the natural adaptation cycle in the Southern Highlands is in flux right now because of some strident efforts to hold it back. The results of those actions are that you got an opioid epidemic, a fentanyl epidemic — so many dysfunctions. I’m looking forward to the people eventually standing up and getting what they need. I wouldn’t put it past the people to get that. They got it before. They unionized in those situations and fought for livable wages, and they can do it again.

You talk a lot about nature, like mountains and feral critters, in your music. Is that an intentional part of folk or where does that come from?

KS: When I think about what made [American music] so rich, I know it’s the land and the soil and the people and the stories. So to evoke the same is just a natural link in the chain forged anew. And that’s all I’m doing. I’m just singing about the rivers that mean something to me when I sing them. I don’t think you’re ever going to get tired of thinking about the Big Sandy River, no matter if it’s clean or dirty. It’s called the Big Sandy, doesn’t that sound like freedom? 

What do you hope listeners will take away from this album?

KS: You know, we make music because we’re a live band. We make albums because we’re a live act. Come and see us. If you like this record, go buy a ticket. We’re coming to your town; we have for a quarter of a century. We loved you then, and we love you even more now. And if you hear something on this record you like, then that’s just one more reason to come buy that ticket and see us when we come to your community and make a unique and special community in yours for one night. This is an age-old P.T. Barnum routine. The hat is magic, the ring is heavenly. Once you gaze on what lies behind the curtain, you will be dazzled. That’s where the magic is. The album is a big arrow.

Photo Credit: Joshua Black Wilkins

From the Archives: Jesse McReynolds Shares Memories of His Grandfather’s Fiddle

Posted on by Editor

(Editor’s Note: Bluegrass Hall of Fame inductee and Grand Ole Opry member Jesse McReynolds passed away on June 23, 2023 at the age of 94. In his honor, we’re re-sharing this incredible first-person video from early 2020 that features McReynolds telling stories of his grandfather’s fiddle.)

A true legend as one half of iconic brother duo Jim & Jesse, 90-year-old musician Jesse McReynolds has inspired generations of pickers. But who influenced him? In this interview clip, the Grand Ole Opry star and Bluegrass Hall of Fame member reminisces about walking through the woods to visit his grandfather in Possum Holler, Virginia, near Coeburn. About a half a mile away, the sounds of his ancestor’s fiddle would greet him.

McReynolds further explains that his grandfather played on the Bristol Sessions, which ushered in artists such as the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. Now, McReynolds has inherited that treasured fiddle, which can be heard on his latest Pinecastle Records album, The Bull Mountain Moonshiners’ Way. “I don’t know how long it’s been around, but it’s sounding better all the time, I think,” he says.

(Originally published in February of 2020.)

Carolina Calling, Asheville: A Retreat for the Creative Spirit

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • STITCHER • AMAZON • YOUTUBE • MP3

 

Asheville, North Carolina’s history as a music center goes back to the 1920s and string-band troubadours like Lesley Riddle and Bascom Lamar Lunsford, and country-music pioneer Jimmie Rodgers. But there’s always been a lot more to this town than acoustic music and scenic mountain views. From the experimental Black Mountain College that drew a range of minds as diverse as German artist Josef Albers, composer John Cage, and Albert Einstein, Asheville was also the spiritual home for electronic-music pioneer Bob Moog, who invented the Moog synthesizer first popularized by experimental bands like Kraftwerk to giant disco hits like Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love.”

It’s also a town where busking culture ensures that music flows from every street corner, and it’s the adopted hometown of many modern musicians in a multitude of genres, including Pokey LaFarge, who spent his early career busking in Asheville, and Moses Sumney, a musician who’s sonic palette is so broad, it’s all but unclassifiable.

In this premiere episode of Carolina Calling, we wonder and explore what elements of this place of creative retreat have drawn individualist artists for over a century? Perhaps it’s the fact that whatever your style, Asheville is a place that allows creativity to grow and thrive.

Subscribe to Carolina Calling on any and all podcast platforms to follow along as we journey across the Old North State, visiting towns like Shelby, Greensboro, Durham, Wilmington, and more.

Music featured in this episode:

Bascom Lamar Lunsford – “Dry Bones”

Jimmie Rodgers – “My Carolina Sunshine Girl”

Kraftwerk – “Autobahn”

Donna Summer – “I Feel Love”

Pokey LaFarge – “End Of My Rope”

Moses Sumney – “Virile”

Andrew Marlin – “Erie Fiddler (Carolina Calling Theme)”

Moses Sumney – “Me In 20 Years”

Steep Canyon Rangers – “Honey on My Tongue”

Béla Bartók – “Romanian Folk Dances”

New Order – “Blue Monday”

Quindar – “Twin-Pole Sunshade for Rusty Schweickart”

Pokey LaFarge – “Fine To Me”

Bobby Hicks Feat. Del McCoury – “We’re Steppin’ Out”

Squirrel Nut Zippers – “Put A Lid On It”

Jimmie Rodgers – “Daddy and Home”

Lesley Riddle – “John Henry”

Steep Canyon Rangers – “Graveyard Fields”

BGS is proud to produce Carolina Calling in partnership with Come Hear NC, a campaign from the North Carolina Department of Natural & Cultural Resources designed to celebrate North Carolinians’ contribution to the canon of American music.

LISTEN: Drew & Ellie Holcomb, “Keep on the Sunny Side”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Drew & Ellie Holcomb
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Keep on the Sunny Side”
Album: Amerikinda: 20 Years of Dualtone
Label: Dualtone Records

Editor’s Note: The Amerikinda compilation features a slew of Dualtone artists and alumni all covering each other’s songs in celebration of the label’s landmark birthday. June Carter Cash won a Grammy for her recording of “Keep on the Sunny Side;” her version of The Carter Family classic was included on her 2003 album, Wildwood Flower, released by Dualtone.

In Their Words: “Congrats on 20 years Dualtone. Thanks for being one of the most artist friendly labels out there. You have a great team and we are honored to be a part of the family tree. What an honor to cover one of the greatest of American classic songs ‘Keep on the Sunny Side,’ made famous by the Carter Family. We tried to add some tension to our version, with the tough, real life lyrics of the verses, juxtaposed with the one of the happiest choruses out there.” — Drew & Ellie Holcomb

Photo credit: Ashtin Paige

LISTEN: Susan Werner, “To Be There”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Susan Werner
Hometown: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Song: “To Be There”
Album: Flyover Country
Release Date: September 27, 2020

In Their Words: “In the early months of this year I’d been writing a ‘country’ album, and when the pandemic hit I thought, ‘Well, we aren’t the first generation to face something like this, somebody must have written a plenty good song already.’ I went through the Carter Family and Louvin Brothers and Hazel Dickens catalogs and couldn’t find anything about a flu; black lung yes, influenza no. Having written a ‘gospel’ album in 2007, I remembered that one element of the best gospel music is hope, the anticipation of something better, whether on Earth or in Heaven. And in this moment, everybody on Earth is united in hope, hope that we arrive safely on the other side of this dark time to see and embrace our friends and family, to hold them close, and for the musically inclined among us, to stand shoulder to shoulder with them and hear them singing on either side of us. That was always Heaven itself to me; I don’t know that until this year I realized it.

“I grew up in a kind of magically musical singing family; my farming parents and all six kids, we’d spontaneously harmonize in the car on the way to church, to my grandparents’ farms for holidays. We had no idea other families did not do this, by the way. I was home in Iowa this February (yes, for the caucuses) and went with my folks to church — I’m an agnostic, honestly, I just go to see friends and family and to sing with them. To my left I heard my father, to my right, my mother. Who knew that something could arise that would take that, singing, away from us? Unthinkable. So I had to weave that into the lyrics of this ‘hymn.’ Heaven might have singing angels, but I know for a fact Earth does and I can’t wait to get back in the company of others in church or on stage or in the bar, it’s all good and it’s all the work of God.” — Susan Werner

 

Brennen Leigh’s ‘Love Letter’ to the Musical, Magical Prairie

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Nearly twenty years after leaving home, striking out to make a living in the bluegrass and country scenes first in Texas and now in Nashville, singer-songwriter Brennen Leigh is still longing for the prairie. Born in North Dakota and raised in rural Minnesota, Leigh’s brand new album, Prairie Love Letter, lives up to its name in all but the stereotypical, assumptive ways implied by its title. 

Produced by Robbie Fulks, Prairie Love Letter idealizes Leigh’s harsh, forbidding homeland — as paeans to the prairie are wont to do — but not without the nuance a nomadic, troubadour lifestyle affords, and Leigh’s perspective as a woman in 2020. It’s all underscored by the ever-growing distance between her and the grassy plains for which she pines, marked by months and years, continually ticking by.

Being that the sum of Fulks’ and Leigh’s musical comfort zones lands squarely upon the intersection of old country, bluegrass, Americana, and what we’ll call “alt-roots,” the album cheerfully denies genre ascriptions while reinforcing the Great Plains states’ propensity for birthing country music forged in the furnaces of hard living, firmly-held values (though not necessarily strictly conservative), and a desperate need for the distraction and diversion music brings. 

BGS reached Brennen Leigh by phone at her home in Nashville and began our conversation with the album’s seemingly pugnacious, yet perfectly apt lead track.

There’s something particularly resonant about the album’s opener, “Don’t You Know I’m From Here,” because you’re talking about rural life and how these authenticity signifiers are so important to rural life and identity, but they’re also really important to roots music. There’s a really interesting symmetry to “Don’t You Know I’m From Here” where it seems you’re simultaneously asking that question of the region you’re from — Minnesota, North Dakota, the plains — but also asking that question as a woman in roots music and country. What do you think?

I honestly never thought about it in that specific way, but when you put it that way, that is how I feel. Obviously, the going home, the rural element — what did you call them? Signifiers. That’s huge. We’re all in a sort of “countrier than thou” battle all the time. I try to just write what’s true to me as much as I can, and be affected by that as little as possible. When you talk about country music, it’s something I do feel secure in. I don’t need to show or tell anyone — nor have I ever been accused of lacking that authenticity. However, I’ve struggled just as much as the next independent artist. Sometimes it leaves one feeling, “Well, why has this other person been pushed to the top of the pile?” They say not to compare, but you know. Why is this other person edified, when they’re not country, so to speak? [Laughs] It’s hard not to compare yourself to others and get into that mindset.

Also what you said about women — we women, it’s like there’s only room for one at a time. We all have to fight each other. That’s not how I really feel, but your lizard-brain would make you feel like you have to fight with other women for that one slot they give us. This year, one of the silver linings of this pandemic has been that it’s given me some time to appreciate a lot of my peers in ways that I couldn’t before. Or that I didn’t take the time to before. My fellow performers, that are kind of my same age or similar level of fan base, exploring their catalogs has made me feel more like I’m part of that bigger Americana community. 

I think that’s an interesting way to get at the crux of this question, because on one hand just talking about authenticity is kind of make-believe, right? “Authenticity” is not a concrete thing, we ascribe authenticity. We perceive it. So talking about it is almost propagating the problem, and to step outside of it and look at it objectively is the real question. I think the nugget in “Don’t You Know I’m From Here” is that the speaker in the song isn’t seeking external validation in asking that question, but rather validating themselves internally. 

That’s exactly what it is. I don’t need to go home and have everyone at home validate me for being from there. It’s something that comes from inside. I know where I’m from. I know I’m a Minnesotan and I was born in North Dakota. And yet, I get questions cause my accent has changed and I’ve lived in the south now for I think eighteen years. It’s funny, when I moved to Texas I had a little bit of this fear that my music wasn’t going to be “southern” enough. [Laughs] That people were going to think I was inauthentic. But it hasn’t come into question and up north, that was one of my fears, that people would go, “Who is this person from Nashville singing about our part of the country?” That hasn’t happened either, because they’re starved for people to sing about it, because there aren’t a lot of people singing about it. 

The album is really flexible with which genre aesthetics it aligns with, it feels like the exact kind of country that comes out of the Upper Midwest. That hardscrabble, bootstraps mentality that we all are used to being attributed to the south, that’s how the plains survives, too. The album’s themes feel really similar to the way that southern country music speaks about life and work and pleasures, but it’s still different. To me, the way that’s most tangible is in how the record playfully denies any genre label. How did the bluegrassy, Americana meets old country quality come together and how is it tied to Minnesota and North Dakota’s music?

For one, we didn’t really plan it in a specific way. Robbie Fulks produced it — Robbie and I talked about how to treat each song. We both are believers in stories. The literature of stories. How do I present this little three- or four-minute story in a way that the listener is going to hear and feel what’s going on? We treated it case by case. 

As for the genre… “ambiguity” that you mention, I think it just comes from my influences. I come from old country and bluegrass. The part of the country where I grew up, it’s popular music, but not in the same sense that it is here or in Texas. It’s not as much a part of the culture. It depends on the family. In my family, bluegrass and old country is what we did. We played on the porch and we sang and we went to bluegrass festivals and we went to country music concerts when we could find them. That’s kind of always been in my roots and it came naturally. I’d be curious to see how people would classify it, because we weren’t like, “By golly we’re going to make a country album!” We just did what we knew how to do. 

A song like “Yellow Cedar Waxwing,” that one feels so bluegrassy. What was the balancing act like, with Robbie, whether to lead you to bluegrass or away from it on a song? 

I think we more or less talked about instruments and how they were appropriate to each song. That one is a very vivid memory in my imagination of being a kid and going with my grandmother to pick juneberries on a specific occasion. Here we were, on a gravel road, with buckets over our arms, and we were gonna pick juneberries. Maybe that song was written with thought of the Carter Family, that pre-bluegrass kind of feel. We thought we needed to put a little banjo and stuff on it. The story kinda had a little bit of a bluegrass thing; Grandma, picking berries, it lent itself to that. I’m comfortable with being fluid between the more classic country thing and the more modern thing and the bluegrass thing. I’m not thinking about how it’s going to be taken, I’m not even worried about it too much. But I am interested to know [what listeners think]. 

There’s a striking theatrical quality to these songs and their characters and their stories. Do you feel that as well in this set of songs? Do you see them as something of a soundtrack or a musical in their own way?

That’s an astute observation, because some of what influenced me growing up was old westerns and musicals, like Oklahoma! That western landscape, where you could just see for miles, always had a symphony and horns. Musicals are kind of in my background. I’ve even thought about writing a musical sometime about something. Originally I was thinking, “Oh maybe I can make these songs fit into a musical!” But I made a record instead. [Laughs]

It was something I kind of wanted to do for a number of years. I always thought there was something musical and something magical about that area. I used to eat up those episodes of Prairie Home Companion that had the “News from Lake Wobegon” stories. Those were my favorite part. I remember when I was painting my apartment in Nashville when I first moved here, I binge-listened to a bunch of those stories from Lake Wobegon. Then I read My Ántonia for the first time. It knocked me over. Something about Willa Cather’s writing about the prairie.

To kind of return to the ideas we began with, this record feels like, almost more than anything else, that it’s examining ideas of what it means to be an insider versus an outsider and how the line between each of those positions is often much more blurry than we think. 

I’m coming around to that now. I think in my first few years gone I felt hurt when I would come home. When someone would say, “Well you don’t sound like you’re from Minnesota.” That hurt my feelings, because I wanted to have that stamp of belonging. Now I’m older and I realize that everything that has made me who I am to this point is valid. Living in Texas for fifteen years? I’m proudly part Texan now. I can claim part-Texan. I have some of the same feelings about certain places in Texas [as places in the Upper Midwest.] 

That feeling of belonging, that’s what everybody wants. I mentioned My Ántonia, it takes place in Nebraska on the prairie. The reason I tie that book to the album and give it so much credit for inspiring me is because they do have a lot of the same themes. These characters are homesick, they just want to belong somewhere. There’s a part earlier on in the book when the main character feels blotted out. It’s his first time on the prairie and he looks out and he can’t see any mountains and he feels blotted out. What a beautiful and devastating way of putting it… The funny thing is I never really felt like I fit in that well when I lived there. 

As someone who idealizes this place and loves it and returns to it not only literally, but also with these songs and this album, what is it like to be from there, away for eighteen years, and writing about now?

When you’ve lived away, you realize there’s some beauty in it. Like my mom says, “Brennen, you just don’t remember how cold it was.” It was so cold in the winter. She’s right, I have forgotten! Putting on your long johns and two pairs of socks and snow boots every single day and freeze in a car on the way to school. I have forgotten those things and it has changed a little bit. North Dakota is very conservative, Minnesota is a swing state last I checked, but even the cultural geography of Minnesota has changed since I moved.

There are a lot more immigrants and things have changed politically. Obviously, Minneapolis — I don’t touch on Minneapolis very much [on the record] — but there’s been the unrest there. That’s pretty far from where I’m from. Where I’m from, I guess it’s kind of mixed in terms of politics. There are just a few things, like the pipeline issue, I couldn’t leave that alone. It made me so mad! [Laughs] Mostly because I knew they had chosen that area because it was worthless to them. That area is not worthless. It’s god’s country. I know a song can’t do very much, but I felt angry enough to write it.

All photos: Kaitlyn Raitz

Bluegrass Memoirs: Mayne Smith & Alice Gerrard

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Tom Power’s recent Toy Heart episode with Alice Gerrard, whom I first knew as Alice Foster, reminded me of a 1959 visit several of us Oberlin College folkies made to Antioch College. In 2009, doing research on my early bluegrass experiences, I sent my friend Mayne Smith an email asking about his experiences when he met Alice and her late husband Jeremy Foster during that visit. 

Mayne and I are the same age and have known each other since 1953. We got into folk music as teens in Berkeley, California, and discovered bluegrass together from 1957 to 1959 while in Oberlin, Ohio. We first heard it on records and radio, and at this time had seen it live only once, when we met banjoists Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman at a 1958 spring vacation homecoming party in New York City. We had begun trying to play bluegrass with a circle of Oberlin classmates, folk music enthusiasts learning new music and working on new instruments. 

In the introduction to my memoir, Bluegrass Generation, I mention our trips to Antioch as undergrads, where we met the Fosters. 

Antioch was, like Oberlin, a liberal arts college that drew students from all over the country and beyond. At the time, its co-op system, which placed students in jobs every second semester or so, was thought to be radical. Unlike Oberlin, which still drew on a pious abolitionist point of view about many things, it tended to be a more socially relaxed place. A Fun Place to Party. 

Mayne Smith, Kaz Inaba, and Neil Rosenberg after a morning of jamming at the Hotel New Hankyu in Osaka, Japan. April 31, 1991.

Mayne was the first of our Oberlin bluegrass circle to meet the Fosters during one of these trips. This music was still a new and distant thing to us; we didn’t own tape recorders. In my email I asked Mayne: 

What memories do you have of visiting Antioch and meeting Alice and Jeremy? I went there several times and recall you being there, but don’t have any documents like tapes or photos that include you. Any recollections, however hazy, would be welcome. I remember that you had some kind of document from the Fosters giving you honorary membership in [their band] the Green County Stump Jumpers — do you still have that, was it dated? 

Mayne answered the next day: 

Neil, I have (for me) unusually vivid memories of our first visit to Antioch and hanging out at the Fosters’ place because it was there that I contracted the Stanley Brothers virus. I think it must have been in the spring of 1959 because I had already heard Flatt & Scruggs and understood that this was called bluegrass music. 

But first, Jeremy’s hand-drawn certificate (on a 4×6 card) is undated, but it reads: 

I also vaguely remember showing Marge [Ostrow] (later married to Mike Seeger for a while) how I played Carter Family style guitar. I think I got it from Dave Fredrickson — using the thumb to pick melody, then the index finger brushing down/up. I heard later that Mike was impressed by the fact that Marge had adopted this approach, and asked her where she learned it. 

But about the Stanley Brothers. I recall a thinly carpeted living room with expansive white bookshelves along the wall opposite the windows. At some point, in an afternoon I think, Jeremy put on a tape of the Stanley Brothers in live performance — my gut tells me it was one of the ones Mike Seeger had recorded at New River Ranch in like 1957. As soon as I heard that totally live, undoctored sound I was captivated, and I believe I sat and lay on that hard floor listening to live Stanley Brothers shows (several sets, at least) for hours. My mind was blown. Knowing it was totally live and without studio gimmicks and buried background effects, it came home to me how the fluctuating balance of instruments and voices was accomplished by movement in relation to the microphone and each other, how at times there were lovely breathing spaces in the sound while people shifted from instrumental breaks to solo vocals to harmony vocals. How nobody was using a lot of physical effort to project the sound, yet it penetrated, flowed, darted ahead, waxed and waned like the mating dance of a single complex organism — and how comfortable and familiar the musicians were with what they were singing and playing. 

I was learning not only about how bluegrass fits together, but also about what a band can be like when it’s been playing constantly together, day in and day out, for weeks — for years. 

I don’t believe I’ve ever had a more intense listening and learning experience, nor one that had such a profound effect on my life. 

I should also mention that this was partly possible because I could tell that [Jeremy] and Alice understood what I was going through and supported me by staying out of the way. I felt toward them the way a bridegroom feels about the best man and maid of honor: I could give myself over to the intensity of the music in a nurturing environment. (In retrospect, it was kind of like having a trusted support team when you first get stoned on something very strong.) 

I will always be grateful to them both. 

If you were around when this happened, I don’t remember it. I just blanked on everything else but those sounds. 

I wasn’t at the Fosters when this happened, which was not in the spring of 1959 as Mayne recalled, but a few months earlier, during the January break between semesters. While he visited them, I was off jamming with Guy Carawan, who’d given a concert at Antioch that weekend. I didn’t meet Alice and Jeremy until they brought the Green County Stump Jumpers to an Oberlin Hootenanny a year later. 

In May 1959, our old Berkeley folk scene friend Sandy Paton (co-founder of Folk Legacy records) was the headliner at the annual Oberlin Folk Festival. By then our circle had become The Lorain County String Band. Sandy heard our festival set and said he knew a British folk record company producer who was looking for American bluegrass and old-timey. He suggested we make a demo he could send to his friend. We cut it at the student radio station, but it was never sent. 

That summer, back home in Berkeley, we started The Redwood Canyon Ramblers, Northern California’s first bluegrass band. The story of that band, and of Mayne’s subsequent career as a singer/songwriter and steel guitarist with continuing excursions into bluegrass, is told well at Mayne’s website.

But it does not include an important detail — his groundbreaking work as a scholar. His Master’s Thesis, “Bluegrass Music and Musicians” (Indiana U., 1964) and the article he developed from it, “An Introduction to Bluegrass” (Journal of American Folklore, 1965) opened the door to the serious study of this music. His transcendent aural immersion at the Fosters was the seed that gave him the vision to accomplish this work. I and the many who have followed are indebted to Mayne Smith for blazing the trail.

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
Photo of Mayne Smith, Kaz Inaba, and Neil Rosenberg: Ed Neff

On New Duet Album, Laurie Lewis Gathers Old Friends and Close Companions (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on by Editor

Laurie Lewis has lived most of her life in Berkeley, California, yet she’s primarily associated with music from Appalachia. A highly respected producer, she is admired equally for her singing, songwriting, fiddling and arranging, and her influences range from old-time and bluegrass to swing and jazz.

In 1986, Lewis released her first solo album, Restless Rambling Heart, which included seven original songs. Since then, she has recorded more than 20 albums with a variety of musical friends. She holds numerous honors from the International Bluegrass Music Association, as well as Grammy nominations for her own albums and collaborations.

Now nearly 35 years into her career, Lewis regularly pays tribute to female bluegrass pioneers, performs with and fosters a new generation of female musicians, and teaches at many of the nation’s most acclaimed music camps. BGS caught up with her by phone to discuss her new duet album, and Laurie Lewis, featuring old friends and new musical partners alike.

BGS: Why a duet album?

Lewis: It came about accidentally. I had an idea that I wanted to record a duet on (the Carter Family song) “You are My Flower.” Molly Tuttle and I got together to try it out and we had so much fun playing and singing that we went upstairs to my little studio. We turned on the microphones and just sang and played. It was so musically full, it didn’t need anything else. I thought, “Thank heavens, I have finally gotten around to singing this duet the way I’d wanted to for the last 20 or 30 years.” Then I got together with Tatiana Hargreaves. When we toured together, she and I worked up a tune I had written that she played on the fiddle, and I just loved that and I wanted to capture that. Then we got excited and did another song – and then I had three songs! I thought, “Maybe I’m making a duet album.”

Tom Rozum and I had worked out the Monroe Brothers’ version of “Will the Circle be Unbroken” for a Monroe tribute, and I just loved the way that sounded, and I thought we definitely should record that. It snowballed from there. I had lots of duet ideas where I thought a particular friend would be perfect on a particular song. So I went about collecting the versions of the songs. I recorded more things than are on the album. I have a few that are held back, just because I didn’t want it to be super-long and have people lose interest halfway through thinking they would never get to the end!

How did you decide to keep the instrumentation so spare – no more than two voices and two instruments?

After listening to what I recorded with Molly and Tati, I really liked what I heard. I fell in love with playing as a duet with Tom. We’re both essentially band musicians and used to having a whole band surrounding us, not just picking up the slack, but filling out the sound. When we started playing as a duo many years ago, it seemed really scary to both of us – and really empty. But we kept doing it, and I fell in love with the emptiness, that loose weave that you get with just two people and two instruments. And the way it becomes a conversation – my favorite way to have a conversation, just one on one.

How did you choose your partners and songs?

They’re all people who I have had long musical relationships or long friendships with. I’ve known Molly and Leah Wollenberg since they were babies. As the project went on, it felt as if these are some of my closest companions in life. These are the core people who have made a huge difference to my musical life in one way or the other

One of the last things I recorded for the album was “Old Friend” with Kathy Kallick. As the album started to take shape, I realized, “Oh my God, I have to have Kathy on here.” We have been singing partners and friends for more than 40 years. I just have to have her on here. But I couldn’t think of a song. The idea came to me as I was backpacking in the mountains: “‘Old Friend,’ of course!” It was recorded originally in 1989 and we’ve been friends much longer. It seemed like the perfect vehicle for us at this point.

Do you write specifically for an album, or do you just come up with songs, say, when you’re hiking, and then it shows up on an album?

Yes. I would say yes to both of those. For instance, I never expected “The Pika Song” [to end up] on the new album. I was just making up a little poem about pikas when I was hiking on the John Muir Trail. And then I was sitting around playing the banjo one day and I started singing it. When I mentioned it to Tatiana, she told me that some friend had just said that she thought the pika was [a perfect animal to match] Tati. She got really excited – she’d never seen one, but she got to hear all about them and play on the song and sing about them, so that was pretty fun.

Sometimes I will write things specifically for a group or for an album. I have lots of songs that I just don’t finish and sometimes the impetus of recording an album is what pushes me to commit to being done. So in that way I do write for albums. And sometimes just because the creative juices start flowing when you’re in a recording situation, a new song just comes along. And I’m grateful for that.

Did you choose songs that represented your own versatility?

Oh, no. I didn’t think about that. I really just thought about who was the right person to sing with on a particular song. Like the songs I did with Nina Gerber. There is nobody I would rather do certain songs with than Nina Gerber. “My Last Go Round” is a Rosalie Sorrels song. Nina worked closely with Rosalie and I got to play with her a few times. I recorded that song on a tribute album for Rosalie, and when we played the tribute concert, I played it for the first time with Nina. It felt so deep and healing. Music has a real way of being able to soothe and heal grief, and it really felt good to do it with her, and we’ve been doing it every time we play together since then. Nina’s electric guitar is the absolute perfect thing for “This is Our Home.” She fell right into it, just knew exactly what to play. She’s a mind reader.

Todd Phillips and I occasionally play “Baby, That Sure Would Go Good” in concert. We did it for years, but I never thought about recording it. When suddenly I was doing a duet album, I thought it would be perfect. And of course it was really fun. Todd’s bass playing is just out of this world. I mean that in every way you can think of. It’s crazy, but it’s great.

Tell us about “Troubled Times,” which is so appropriate right now. When you wrote it, were you thinking of something specific?

I wrote that about 20 years ago. I honestly cannot remember what inspired me to write it. It had some other verses, at least one other verse which I left out, because it wasn’t as good as the ones I used. I think it was politically motivated at the time, motivated to the outside world and my reaction to what was going on, but I can’t remember what specific event or events inspired it.

I had only performed with Leah Wollenberg once, at the Freight & Salvage, although I’ve known her all her life. One day I said to her, “Would you come over and sing one of my songs with me so I would have a recording of it”? I really didn’t know how it would go. So she came over and we recorded it. When I listened to it I said, “This is good! This is great!” So I asked her if she would be on the album. I think that I’ve just been sitting on that song waiting for the right combination of events, but also the right combination of voices to sing it with me.

Can you talk about the role of friendship in your music? You sustain such long-term friendships and musical partnerships. Is that unique to you?

I don’t think that’s unique to me. Musicians communicate very deeply through shared music. It’s impossible to play heartfelt music with other people without loving them, or at least learning to love them. And once you love somebody, you want to keep them in your life. So if there’s a problem, you work it out. You address it. You don’t let things go by and be on the surface. It’s what we do — we forge personal relationships that are strengthened through music, or are begun through music and continue past music.

Editor’s Note: Read part two of our Artist of the Month interview with Laurie Lewis.

Photo credit: Maria Camillo