Artist:My Brother’s Keeper Hometown: Cincinnati, Ohio Latest Album:Wartime Cartoons Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): Most of the band goes by our given names. Titus, Joshua, Adam, and Benj(amin), but our bass player “Wyatt” has been holding strong to the nickname “Sawmill” and has a “Sawmill” vanity license plate on his Ford Focus to prove it.
Answers provided by Benj Luckhaupt.
Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?
I’m sure any artist would say “it’s hard to choose” and I’m going to say the same. Brian Wilson, Chris Thile, Alison Krauss, Tony Rice are all so formative to us, but as a songwriter I would say Bruce Springsteen has inspired me above all. His melodies are insanely catchy, his lyrics are gritty and literary. I appreciate his ability to be both subtle and straightforward, sometimes in the same sentence. He tells you the facts and then makes you think about the implications. Bruce also covers such a wide range of the human experience. His music is a great blueprint for the “song first” approach and I really try to incorporate that into my writing, even in the bluegrass medium. I want to write simple songs that make you think. There’s also such a variance in sound (think between Nebraska and Born in the USA) and yet it all works. I could nerd out about this forever.
What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?
Definitely film and literature. We look to film often to inspire our visuals. We have a music video that is very Wes Anderson-esque, and the visuals for the album cover of Wartime Cartoons were inspired by the starkness of show Severance. There are certainly a few songs inspired by movies. A song called “The Banshees” on our last album was inspired by the landscape and darkness of a movie called The Banshees of Inisherin.
Literature, song and poetry are all so closely related. Leonard Cohen was a great author outside of songs. Spending a lot of time in books has had major influence on my writing, directly and indirectly. I love to start my day with a book about religion or history and end my day with a book about music or musicians. Sometimes I try to do an audiobook in between. Just taking in all those beautiful words is such a wonderful way to increase your vocabulary and worldview.
Titus and Wyatt are both photographers, and I think that art form opens up creative pathways as well, and of course contributes to the visuals of the band.
What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?
This kid told me to think about what I’m thankful for and write about that. That was great advice. He was like 5 or 6 years old and I do think about thankfulness every time I write. Out of the mouth of babes.
What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?
Most people are pretty surprised when they find out that we love hip-hop and mainstream pop. They’re even more surprised when we tell them that our music is inspired by those genres. I’ve even had people say things to me like, “I like all music except for that rap crap” and I’m always like, “Oh, really? Because I love it!” Some people are even surprised when they hear how much we love The Beach Boys.
Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?
I’d like to sit down with Tony Rice and eat whatever fish he just caught and fried up. I’m sure we wouldn’t talk much, but we’d probably listen to Miles Davis and I’m sure I would learn a lot.
(Editor’s Note: Welcome to our Reissue series! For the next several weeks, Basic Folk is digging back into the archives and reposting some of our favorite episodes alongside new introductions commenting on what it’s like to listen back. This episode featuring Cindy Howes interviewing Chris Thile was originally posted on September 9, 2021, after Chris released his solo album, Laysongs. Enjoy!)
Chris Thile has been making music nonstop since he was five years old. His musical parents found him a mandolin and he started taking lessons and jamming at nearby Southern California pizza shops. He met Sara and Sean Watkins when he was twelve, and they started Nickel Creek. In the meantime, Chris’ parents moved the family from California to Murray, Kentucky, and really started getting serious about evangelical Christianity. This would have a huge impact on Chris; his record Laysongs asks a lot of questions surrounding his experience with religion as a young kid. He talks about the transition from being a family with no religion in their routine to being enveloped so intensely in faith.
Another important aspect that comes along on the album is Chris’ striking love for classical music. His grandparents gave him some pieces by Bach and set him up for a lifetime of studying and playing classical. Elsewhere in our Basic Folk conversation he gets into what it was like to grow up alongside Sara and Sean as bandmates, friends, and fellow Christians. One of the themes of the new album is about community, namely, engaging in a community that you love. Chris recognized that he dissented from Christian community in his young adult life where everyone was thinking the same way – Chris felt excluded, so he left. Now, in music, he’s found a new community where everyone thinks the same, so still certain people are excluded. He talks about how the pandemic helped further shape those feelings about exclusionary community. We also get into a riveting conversation about Chris’ thoughts on writing simple pop music and one of his deepest passions: wine.
While Boston may claim its title as the bluegrass capital of the Northeast, acoustic quartet On the Trail is living proof that the Connecticut bluegrass scene is not only alive and well, it is thriving. Composed of four impeccable musicians who each attended Western Connecticut State University to earn vastly varying degrees, On the Trail weaves together an uncommon collection of backgrounds to deliver a unique sound.
Drawing inspiration from opera to the Beatles to jazz, these four achieve a sonic richness that will leave listeners edified and enamored. True to their band’s name, they trailblaze full force with the release of their first full-length album, Where Do We Go from Here.
BGS recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Tom Polizzi (mandolin, guitar, vocals), Matt Curley (bass, vocals), Charlie Widmer (guitar, vocals), and Austin Scelzo (fiddle, vocals) to discuss all things On the Trail.
Congrats on the new album! Will you tell me a little bit about how you all ended up in a bluegrass band together?
Tom Polizzi: Well for me, I was a really, really serious jazz guitar player for a number of years – it was my whole life. Then around the end of high school I started to get a little more disillusioned with what jazz was about and where that could take me in life. I knew about Chris Thile, though weirdly I didn’t know about mandolin’s association with bluegrass, but I knew I was really interested in mandolin, the tone and potential of the instrument. I got a little $400 scholarship from the music department at my high school and bought myself a mandolin as a graduation gift for myself.
I learned to play walking around a camp that I worked at that summer with the thing on my back, playing while I walked anywhere around the camp. I remember standing somewhere at that camp with the mandolin and someone asked, “Do you want to play a bluegrass tune?” I was like, “A what?” And then they taught me “Cherokee Shuffle.” From there, I just started learning fiddle tunes and while in college I pretty much gave up on jazz aspirations. Even though I got my scholarship to school with jazz, I just kind of started playing Doc Watson and bluegrass tunes and the rest is history.
Austin Scelzo: My background was in classical violin. I learned to read [music] growing up in school orchestra and then went on to study it in college. But in the summers of my later high school years, I got sent to those iconic fiddle camps that get so many people in the door and that opened up my whole world to non-classical playing, which eventually propelled me into spending my summers in college exploring different music camps and festivals. My freshman year of college I went to Grey Fox, my first bluegrass festival. And throughout college, I started playing in a bluegrass country group locally. I would play classical music in school systems and then spend summers floating from festival to festival, living out of my car and really digging into the bluegrass stuff, which over time grew to become my primary musical expressive tool. So between the classical/arranging mindset and my investment in traditional bluegrass, that’s kind of where my musical tastes lend themselves to this group.
Charlie Widmer: Austin and I met when I was 19 years old – he’s actually the one that married my wife and me; he got ordained for it. We’ve known each other for such a long time. I had auditioned on a whim for a musical at 16. Didn’t know I could sing. They were doing Grease and I had a crush on a girl at the time. I went into that room and I met my now-wife, that same day at the audition, and I ended up getting the lead role. And then that kind of spiraled into more musical theater and trying to get into music school.
When Austin and I met, I was in school for classical singing and we were both interns at a church in Ridgefield [Connecticut], where we were both paid section leaders in the choir. After about a year of working together, somehow we ended up sitting next to each other. You know, we were in an a cappella group together, lots of different choirs, all these classes, but we just hadn’t connected. But as soon as we sat next to each other it was clear that we were getting along.
And so, fast forward five years, I was in the middle of a gig with my hip-hop soul band. I’d been doing stuff as a front man for a hip-hop soul group and it was awesome. I’m drenched in sweat, and Austin and I are talking in the break and I say to him, “Hey, man, I’ve been listening to Chris Thile and his group, Punch Brothers, and they’re sick, man. If that’s, like, a possibility in bluegrass, I’d love to do something where I’m playing guitar – let me know if a gig pops up.” We kind of agreed that he needed another year to finish school and get settled into being a teacher and everything. And a year later, almost to the day, he said, “I got us something if you want to drive.” It was perfect timing. My other group was falling apart. When this started, it just kept working and going. I don’t think any of us ever thought at that point, six years later we’d be here with an album.
Matt Curley: I was the last member to join On the Trail and I’ve been in the group for about three-and-a-half, four years now. I started playing guitar when I was in middle school and in early high school, I was playing in punk rock bands. When I got to high school, I really wanted to play in the jazz band playing guitar, but the guitarist was very good, So I thought, “I’ll play bass. It’s easy, it’s four strings.” Then the band director points to the upright bass. I remember thinking, “No, no, not that one!” So during that rehearsal it was the first time I ever played upright, and I eventually came back to the bass.
I’m the kind of guy who’s switched instruments several times. I switched to percussion, joining the drum line. I ended up marching drum corps for a few years, which led me to majoring in percussion at WestConn and then to get my master’s degree in Tennessee, right outside of Nashville, in classical percussion performance. For a while I thought I was going to be in professional orchestras, as I was training and practicing to take auditions for triangles and cymbals. Glad I didn’t do that. Then I started teaching band down there in Tennessee and I ended up moving back up here. I was teaching and Austin was the orchestra teacher in the same school, so we started jamming. Up to this point, I knew nothing about bluegrass. Even living in Nashville for a while, I knew nothing about bluegrass. Then I just happened to own a bass, so that led to me showing up to an On the Trail rehearsal. Here we are, three and a half years later.
CW: We also had a banjo player with us for the first three years, Chet, who was from Mississippi and originally grew up in Nashville. Chet lent a hand on some of the songs, even on the album. He got a doctoral offer to go down to Florida and get his doctorate in philosophy. He’s a genius, really such a smart guy – we always hope that Chet will join us again. We just always have a lot of fun together. I think that can be rare in groups.
Absolutely. Y’all have amazing chemistry and it’s evident. You recently released the band’s first full length album, Where Do We Go from Here. What are you each proudest of on the album?
TP: I think the fact that I actually wrote songs with lyrics and they made it somewhere. After I finished school with an audio engineering degree, I did our whole first EP – all of the editing, mixing, mastering – myself. And with this record, I felt like that kind of stuff culminated in a different way, where I knew how to be on the other side of the booth, so to speak, in a way that was productive. I think I was able to help us keep the sessions thoughtful and productive throughout, from a perspective of final product.
I also love that I’ve got a couple of very sad or introspective songs on the album, one of which my fiancée didn’t know I had written. We were on the phone with her mom and she was talking about “Help Me” on the album. She said something along the lines of, “This is so devastating. Tom, you really wrote something beautiful.” And Claire goes, “You wrote that devastating song about heartbreak and loss?!” I had all these things written years ago after I broke up with my ex-girlfriend. Claire had never heard it because I don’t sing it – Charlie sings it on the record and we don’t play it at shows very much. She didn’t know I was capable of even having such sad words in my brain.
AS: I love that this album captures three or four original songs from each of us. My three songs all have a really different feel than anything else I’ve put out and they all mean something really powerful to me. They each capture a timestamp of a part of my life. The title track, “Where Do We Go from Here,” was one of the last songs we recorded, and one of the last songs that we even talked about putting together. It almost didn’t make the album at all. But we’re so proud of that track. That’s the song I’m by far the most pleased with. I also really like the way that “Trouble in My Soul” captured a different side of my voice that I’ve never captured on a record. It’s a lot more gritty, which is kind of cool, and then “Can’t Get You Out of My Mind” has some really nice moments too.
CW: For me, honestly I think the whole album is the pride point. When we did our first record, we had no clue what we were doing. I was really green to bluegrass in so many ways. Those first couple years were trial by fire, where I had no clue about any artists or vernacular and I was constantly terrified of every gig and jam. It felt like everyone was speaking a language. This record feels very full circle – we’d been talking about it forever. It really captures who On the Trail is. As songwriters, I think all of us have gained some confidence, though so much of that has come from just performing these pieces and getting positive feedback from the audience the last six years. When we started we didn’t know we had something, but our friends and family and even strangers told us to keep going. It just kept fueling us, you know? So, yeah, when I think about the proudest thing, it’s that we have this collection.
Given the diversity of musical backgrounds you each come from, where do you feel like your aligned priorities are? Do you have through lines about what you all prioritize and value musically?
TP: I would say one of the biggest factors that held us together is just that joy of making music. One of our biggest frictions, probably, is that diversity of background – even now, in the background of this interview, I’m just wrapping up my marketing job, my day gig, Matt’s driving home from teaching school, and Charlie and Austin both freelance more and do more things that are full-time music. A lot of it has been about finding that balance that brings us all joy and keeps us believing in what we’re doing. But you know, on our toughest days, what drives us ahead is that we love making music together, we love making music on our own and sharing it with one another.
CW: Yeah, as any musician knows, we’re always just chasing that incredible moment. We all share a true appreciation of music, and we are all deeply aligned regarding what exciting music feels like. When something’s hot, we all can agree immediately – it’s not even so much of a discussion.
AS: We’re all also pretty consistent with the vocal harmony, regardless of the song. No matter the arrangement, we value strong vocal harmony and strong vocal presence. So a big part of this group is understanding harmony to a point where we can get really good three-part and other types of arrangements.
TP: For probably the first year and a half, I didn’t sing a note in the band. Vocals have become such a big thing. I learned from these guys, who are and always will be better singers than I, but they coaxed it out of me.
MC: Same for me. I’ve never taken a voice lesson or anything and now I’m singing four or five songs. It’s incredible.
For our final question – you’re our One to Watch, but who are you watching right now? Any creatives, musical artists, or otherwise that are inspiring you right now? Could even be a TV show or a Tik Tok creator.
TP: I’m sure they’ve been featured here a lot, but someone who’s been talked about a lot in our band is AJ Lee & Blue Summit. We love them. We’ve played with them. We’re inspired by them. Lots of our friends just around here, you know, keep us moving. The Ruta Beggars are doing fantastic things. Cahaba Roots, High Horse – all of those guys have so much going on. And if you’re looking for a good TV show to watch, watch Shrinking, because it’ll just rip your heart out. Oh, and one sleeper album – if you love all the music that we’ve talked about, this is an album I’ve heard no one else talk about. Maybe I’m just not talking to the right people, but it’s an album called Passages by Ethan Sherman. It’s got Wes Corbett on the banjo, and Thomas Cassell plays amazing mandolin on that album. I found it very inspiring.
CW: For me, a constant, big influence in songwriting and sticking to your vision and making it work has been Theo Katzman, who’s one of the guys from Vulfpeck. His last record especially resonated incredibly. All of his records have, but that one was during the process of making my album, as well as On the Trail’s album, and it empowered just feeling brave enough to do what we felt was right for the music. He was a big inspiration.
Allen Stone is also a huge inspiration for me as a singer and as a songwriter and he just dropped a new project. I always come back to Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers. Nickel Creek’s last album, I thought, was stunningly brilliant and beautiful.
MC: It’s really a great time for bluegrass, country, and folk music, even in the Northeast, not just down south [or] in Nashville. There are a lot of groups that are getting really big here. I mean, we have a Connecticut group, North County Band, that is doing some good things. Another group that I played with this summer, Raquel and the Wildflowers, from the Poughkeepsie area, are also doing great things. Shout out to the Rock Hearts, the other group Austin fiddles with. They’re great too.
AS: I mean, I would definitely have to reiterate the bands that Tom mentioned. We’re so steeped in the New England scene, we play so many shows, and my best friends are in so many of these bands. We’ve been friends with the Ruta Beggars forever. I mean, they were my earliest experience seeing young people play bluegrass music at Grey Fox. I just love those guys – they are so hardworking. They just got signed this year and are doing awesome stuff.
I go to IBMA every year with the Rock Hearts and I see some of the upcoming bands, and every once in a while one will really strike me, and the one that struck me this year was Never Come Down. I got to hang out with them in Colorado and I was hanging with the Stillhouse Junkies, who have a new player from New England that just joined them this year, so they’re a quartet now. They’re doing some really cool new stuff. Another band is Della Mae, and they’ve been around for a really long time, but they’re still producing amazing new songs. I mean, some of the songwriting that comes out of the group has absolutely made me weep, multiple times. Some of the songs are unrecorded—they’re still building a repertoire that’s really meaningful and really powerful.
I think we always have an eye on Twisted Pine, too, who just came out with a new album, and they have all these really fun videos, too. They’re doing something that I think we hope to do as well, which is kind of keep a foot in the bluegrass door, but also step into spaces that bluegrass music hasn’t been to. I think our music is suited for that, to get it outside of the traditional festival circuit, the traditional concert series, and preserve the tradition we’re so grateful for while also being innovative.
Punch Brothers’ new audio-based variety show, The Energy Curfew Music Hour, takes listeners to a fictitious, not-so-distant future where, as the show materials describe, “diminishing resources and extreme weather have ushered in a worldwide effort to ration electricity. America has instituted a weekly ‘energy curfew’ where the power grid goes down completely and we all live electricity-free for 24 hours. The Energy Curfew Music Hour hits the airwaves an hour before the lights go out while the nation tunes in and turns off together before the Dark Day.”
The Audible exclusive, eight-episode series was recorded in front of a live audience at the Minetta Lane Theatre in New York in early 2024 and features a cavalcade of all-star performances backed by Punch Brothers, who serve as co-hosts and house band.
BGS executive director Amy Reitnouer Jacobs spoke to Punch Brothers’ frontman Chris Thile about the show and what’s next for the band.
What a good way to start my week, chatting with you! I’d love to start by hearing how The Energy Curfew Music Hour started.
Chris Thile: [My wife, Claire Coffee] and I came up with the idea a long time ago… originally it was like a show within the show for Live From Here.
We always thought maybe two-thirds of the way in the show, we would all of a sudden flash-forward to a future that was like this. And we’d gather round one microphone, because I’ve always loved the sounds of those old variety shows and their campy-ness. And then of course, practically speaking, there’s not much of a platform for acoustic music out there. That was the thing I missed the most on Live From Here: I was obliged to at least try to concern that show with the width and breadth of the music being made in the world, regardless of aesthetic.
Norah Jones joins Punch Brothers on stage at Energy Curfew Music Hour at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre in New York City.
There’s something in what you mentioned about old-time radio shows with one microphone. When you think about when those were popular, it was the Dust Bowl, the Depression, a time that was really hard for most people. And the radio brought everyone together. So, in an age where we are so splintered as a society, I find [Energy Curfew Music Hour] very comforting. But there are elements of dark humor throughout too… am I reading too much into it?
Oh, no you’re right on it. There’s a certain aspect we always talked about, trying to strike the balance between shameless optimism and at the same time as I think it is really staring the monster [of reality] in the face. The extent to which we’ve imagined life has changed in a very short amount of time is huge. None of us have pseudonyms. We’re all [playing ourselves], so it can’t be that far in the future.
The extent to which we’ve imagined that life has changed is dramatic and potentially traumatic. And there’s some gallows humor throughout that. But despite taking place in this “dystopian future,” there’s nothing actually futuristic about the show. We wanted it to feel like a little bit of escapism, but a little bit real too.
Yeah, we know that change happens very fast in our world today. It’s not that hard to put yourself in those shoes when you’re listening.
That’s good to hear. Claire and the band and I keep talking about the increased emphasis on collaboration, compared with Live From Here, which was more just “Here are some acts that we love…” But those acts coexisting or working with me or the band … those were few and far between on that show, whereas on this show, it’s every episode. That’s also something of an analogy for the kind of thing we have to do just as human beings, not just as musicians, to effect the kind of change that we’re all hoping to see [in the world].
Gaby Moreno guests with Punch Brothers during the Energy Curfew Music Hour.
Can you talk a little more about working with Claire? I know you guys have worked together on Attention!, [a new narrative live show for mandolin and orchestra], which you’re taking more places now. What is your process like being married and collaborating?
I think I realized [during the pandemic] how shamelessly I had used Claire’s incredible taste as a sounding board for just about everything I’d done since we met. So I hired her to produce the solo record I made, Lay Songs. Then I hired her for Attention! and she helped me tell the story of how I met Carrie Fisher on a rooftop bar in San Diego in my mid-twenties, in what ended up being a really silly story, but also a very foundational experience for me in many ways.
When you’re telling a story like that – really when you’re working on any art – you get so inside of the thing, it’s very difficult to know how it’s coming across or if any of the stuff that’s so clear to you is landing with any other human. Claire is one of the very few people in my life who has absolutely no problem telling me when I’m full of shit, and it can be intense, but it invariably yields a better result.
So, when a couple people had asked me whether I wanted to do something like Live From Here again, I thought about it for a little while and remembered Claire’s and my idea for a show within a show. I asked Claire whether she would be interested in trying to make that a whole show and then fairly soon after that, the idea of Punch being the house band and co-hosts with me materialized and it was really off to the races.
It all felt very comfortable and natural. Claire is not a musician by trade; she’s an actor and writer and now director, and she’s always been the person that all her writer friends go to for their first round of notes. She has an extraordinary ability to strip away and identify what’s in between the writer and their audience – of what’s getting in the way. We’ve benefited a lot from that.
Sylvan Esso perform during a taping for Energy Curfew Music Hour episode 5 at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre in New York City.
You’ve got some incredible names in this first season as guests – Norah Jones, Lake Street Dive, Jon Batiste, Kacey Musgraves, and James Taylor, just to name a few. Who brought the most surprising acoustic performance to the show?
Sylvan Esso came in and were really excited to not do what they normally do. To be there with them using Punch Brothers, wielding us like a laptop and basically muting and unmuting us, but all in analog! I think that was a moment of proof-of-concept for me. When we did that, I found myself cackling with surprise and delight. I hadn’t suspected that it would crack the show open to a whole other level.
You’re premiering some new Punch Brothers songs on the series too. Is there something else cooking for the band? What’s ahead now that you’ve added Brittany Haas to the lineup?
The band feels very, very new. We’re in uncharted territory and it’s so interesting. Four-fifths of the band is the same. You change one component and it feels completely new in the writing room, in the rehearsal room, and on stage. At this stage in the band’s career, that’s really interesting. So yes, there are new Punch Brothers songs and they’re being written specifically for Energy Curfew now, but of course, with an eye towards whatever’s coming next.
Season One of The Energy Curfew Music Hour is out now via Audible and is available to stream for free for Amazon Prime members. Discover more about the show here.
Photo Credit: All photos by Avery Brunkus, courtesy of Audible.
Artist:Mark Stoffel Hometown: Murphysboro, Illinois Latest Album:True Tones Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): Dr. Pretzel and recently The Mandolinator
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
Before I picked up the mandolin, I played the piano, inspired by my mom who was an accomplished classical player. When I was around ten years of age, my parents switched piano teachers and the new one taught me something completely new: blues, boogie, and ragtime. I did appreciate the classical stuff, but the boogie stuff got me really excited. Not too long after that I performed in school – I kicked it off with a fast boogie-woogie piece, then I played a solo on harmonica (probably not the greatest!) while continuing the piano rhythm with my left hand. The audience went nuts and I that’s the first time I felt that my calling was to be a musician!
What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?
Much later in my career I was given a book by Nate Lee, amazing fiddler and mandolinist. The book is entitled Effortless Mastery, penned by a jazz pianist named Kenny Werner. I started reading and from the get-go I was mesmerized. It’s all about embracing yourself – your ideas, your expression, your every musical moment. Do not ever worry about what other people might think of your playing and don’t always compare yourself with others. I’ll never be a Chris Thile, because only Chris Thile can be Chris Thile. I am Mark Stoffel. It’s as easy as that. Kenny Werner writes it in a way that totally spoke to me and it really – to this day – helps me every day. When I compose I no longer dismiss any ideas, when I practice, perform or record, I try to be myself and stay true to it. That was the best advice I received in my career so far.
Genre is dead (long live genre!), but how would you describe the genres and styles your music inhabits?
We’re all just a product what we’ve been exposed to. I grew up listening to lots of classical music. Then my dad, in the ’70s, got into rock, soul, and disco music and he bought tons of records and spun them all the time. Then I got bluegrass, first the more contemporary stuff – which at the time was Tony Rice, New Grass Revival, the Seldom Scene – then I gradually worked myself backwards in time to gain an appreciation for first generation bluegrass.
I think all of that is what informed what I do today. Genres are worthless to me. There are only two categories: Good music and bad music. As long as it has good drive, good melody, compelling lyrics, and a soul, it’s good. I love AC/DC as much as Flatt & Scruggs.
If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?
I’d be a baker and make original Bavarian pretzels for my fellow Americans.
What would a perfect day as an artist and creator look like to you?
Get up in the morning, have a cup of coffee, grab my mandolin, and play whatever comes to my mind, most likely come up with some new riff or melody. That will set the tone for everything else that happens that day, and all will be good.
Sarah Jarosz is what happens when young women are taken seriously. A huge part of the mandolinist’s story is that she had supportive male mentors and that has added to her confidence. We all know the age old story of “Young woman shows promise, gets exploited by the patriarchy and it affects her work.” We need to hear stories like this. Starting in her hometown of Wimberley, Texas, just 45 minutes outside of Austin – the live music capital of the world – Sarah found the mandolin at 10 years old. Labeled a prodigy, and thanks to the encouraging spirit of folk music, she found mentorship with seasoned professionals like David Grisman, Ricky Skaggs, Tim O’Brien and Béla Fleck. Following her time at The New England Conservatory of Music, she moved to New York and would go on to collaborate with people like Chris Thile in the Live From Here House Band and her trio I’m With Her, featuring Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins, and won four Grammys.
After making the move to Nashville, on her latest album, the very impressive and sonically expansive Polaroid Lovers, Jarosz collaborated with producer Daniel Tashian, which originally was just a low-stakes co-writing project. The success of her first co-writing experience with Daniel led her to pursue other songwriting sessions with Ruston Kelly and Natalie Hemby. The collaboration found on the record has opened Sarah up to new sounds and new experiences. In our conversation, we talk about Sarah stepping into her own voice with confidence on this record and knowing her musical self enough at this point in her life. She describes her experience with confidence using the Dunning–Kruger effect, in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities. AKA “fake it till you make it,” AKA “leap and the net will appear.” She also talks about her parents’ influence on her early musicality and how her mom is doing with her cancer remission. An overall theme of this conversation is that Sarah never lost sight of her goal: Keep it all about the music and don’t let noise get in the way of your important work.
I first encountered Brittany Haas when I was 14 years old, attending the Mark O’Connor Fiddle Camp outside of Nashville. Brittany was only a few years older than me, but she was miles ahead of me musically and professionally, already gigging with some of the best traditional musicians around. I bought a copy of her self-titled CD and learned every single track on it. When I would meet other fiddle players my age, we would often bond over this recording and its shared influence on our playing.
Haas went on to join Boston-based band Crooked Still, one of the most influential string bands of the last 20 years. In the small community of acoustic music makers and lovers, Crooked Still was the kind of iconic band – much like Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers – that created a hundred baby bands in its wake, each inspired by the reinvention of traditional song in modern and exciting ways. There was even a period of time when seemingly all of the young women involved in the folk and bluegrass scene (myself included) began dressing like Haas, wearing messy buns in their hair and colorful leggings under short boho dresses.
Following her time with Crooked Still, Haas went on to play with Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, in the house band on Live From Here, and with her own genre-bending quartet, Hawktail – among many other projects. Unlike other powerhouse women instrumentalists like Missy Raines, Molly Tuttle, and Sierra Hull, who have carved out career paths by leading their own bands, Haas has stayed largely under the radar to the wider public, working primarily as a collaborator or band member.
As my own musical interests have grown and changed, I have found myself feeling guilty at times for not putting my focus on being an improvisational instrumentalist, fearing that I’m taking a too traditionally female path as a songwriter, and reenforcing gender expectations. But as Brittany has kicked through ceiling after ceiling as an instrumentalist, I’ve thought “Hey, it’s OK, Brittany is so good that nobody will ever doubt that a woman can do it!” For years, Haas has been a pinnacle, an example for the rest of us female instrumentalists. So, you can imagine the thrill that I felt when it was announced that Haas would be the newest member of Punch Brothers, a band that is representative of the highest caliber instrumental prowess in today’s acoustic music scene.
Haas’ first gigs with the band have been as part of The Energy Curfew Music Hour, a live radio-style show created by Claire Coffee and Chris Thile in collaboration with Audible. The show features Punch Brothers along with special guests like Jason Isbell, Gaby Moreno, and Sylvan Esso among others.
BGS had the opportunity to ask Brittany Haas a few questions about her career and her hopes for joining the band in the lead up to a handful of Energy Curfew Music Hour shows in New York City this month at Minetta Lane Theater.
Chris Thile & Punch Brothers perform at Energy Curfew Music Hour with Jason Isbell in December. Photo by Rebecca J Michelson.
You’ve had a lot of experience working with various members of Punch Brothers in different bands and formats over the years, what about the particular aesthetic and ambition of Punch Brothers made you want to accept the gig?
I’ve been a fan of the band for a long time – I guess as long as they’ve been a band. So the idea of joining was very exciting. I think any fan would tell you that there’s something about the band – the expansive nature of their approach to writing and arranging music – that is really unique. They’re making music that doesn’t sound like anything else. Getting to jump into something that’s been evolving and expanding into and beyond itself for so long is really cool. And as an instrumentalist in this “new acoustic” musical universe, it’s basically a dream gig, joining four incredibly talented and smart people and making music through which I know I will grow as an artist.
You’re known as a fiddle player that’s rooted in old-time traditions, but also improvisationally virtuosic. Do you feel like your background in old-time will bring a different flavor to the band moving forward?
Old-time is a genre in which I feel a lot of joy and comfort, so it’s always nice when that can be utilized in service of a tune or a song. Lately, in playing with my sister and with Hawktail, I also feel that my voice is strongly Celtic and Scandinavian – basically a combination of the genres I grew up around at fiddle camp and got obsessed with. I think that stuff will come out naturally no matter what new music we’re creating and perhaps some of the music will be written in that direction.
When stepping into a role that has been created and maintained by one specific fiddle player for so many years (Gabe Witcher), how much freedom do you have to remake the parts for the older material in your own voice?
I think this is true in many areas of life– the more deeply you know something, the more you can put yourself into it. Once you know intimately how it goes, you can be freer and more artful and playful with it while staying true to its nature. So that’ll be a journey for me with the back catalog material. Also, sometimes the parts he played were just the best thing that could happen in that musical moment. Some of the parts are more written than textural/improvised, so in those cases I will need to stay true to what he played. And I love his playing! Playing like Gabe is fun for me, because it stretches me in a different way than I normally go.
What made you want to wear a suit for this gig?
I’d never worn a suit before joining the band, so I saw it as an opportunity to try that. I always thought that the women I saw wearing pantsuits looked awesome. Plus it’s great having so many pockets for mic and in-ear packs. The other part of my thought process was, this is a band and I want to integrate into it, so it makes sense to wear the uniform. No one said I had to wear a suit. I’m sure it would be cool with everyone if one of them wanted to start wearing dresses, so it’d be cool for me to do that too, and maybe I will at some point.
You’ve made incredible records in a lot of different fiddle genres at this point, is there any uncharted territory that you hope to explore in the future?
The depths of my own mind! I’m partially kidding; I do want to write more music. But there is always uncharted territory! Darol Anger is an inspiration in this – he never stops practicing and devising new ideas for getting around the fiddle. I hope to keep learning tunes from different musical traditions. Lately I’ve enjoyed learning conjunto music and I’d like to spend more time with Eastern European folk music, getting comfortable in different time signatures, etc.
What is a record that has been inspiring you lately?
James Taylor’s album Hourglass from 1997. We learned a few of those songs to play with him on the show and I fell in love with them. Also Alasdair Fraser’s album Dawn Dance, which I returned to recently after first being obsessed with it about 25 years ago. It is still as lovely as I remembered.
What is your process for preparing to play with so many different guest artists on the show – how do you approach constructing fiddle parts?
Mostly listening. Generally, when we get together with the guest artists that’s when most of the decision making about parts happens. So my job is just to show up being familiar with the music. Sometimes there are more specific string-oriented parts to play.
You’ve been a part of the Live From Here house band in the past, how does the vision and format for the Energy Curfew shows differ from that show?
The format feels similar, although there is more of an air of collaboration, because there is a bit more time for creation and also the same core band for every show. And, the premise of the show centers on the idea of it being purely acoustic music, so that’s mostly what it is with some inventive ways around that rule when needed.
Photos courtesy of Audible. Lead image by Avery Brunkus; inset image by Rebecca J Michelson.
The songs of Sarah Jarosz have always been snapshots. Each, whether literally or obliquely, is a tableau – a window into a moment in time, an attempt to capture but never contain the intangible present. Whether demonstrable story songs or abstract, poetic text paintings, Jarosz’s catalog of material shows a ubiquitous skill – a writerly athleticism – for ushering her listeners into the scenes she inhabits or constructs. From her earliest release to her newest, Polaroid Lovers (out January 26 on Rounder Records), Jarosz’s point of view has been confident, relatable, and inviting.
Simultaneously, the expansive body of work she’s produced since her 2009 Sugar Hill debut, Song Up in Her Head, tells a tale as much of uncertainty as of skill and finesse and, within that uncertainty, a commitment to relishing the journey – rather than rushing toward an arbitrary destination.
A teenager when she first gained national notoriety, Jarosz was often compared to her mentor-peer-friend Chris Thile and her contemporary, Sierra Hull. While child bluegrass, Americana, and string band stars – proverbial and oft-mythologized prodigies – have a much more gentle route to adulthood than say, their Hollywood counterparts, it’s still a time hallmarked by experimentation, growing pains, exploration, and a prerequisite amount of floundering. Musically, Jarosz may have “floundered” a bit less than say, Hull or Thile or any kid whose teen years may have had a recorded, audio history. Nevertheless, you can trace a through line of angst, introspection, and finding oneself underlying the precocious self confidence of her early albums.
By the time Jarosz reached 2013’s Build Me Up From Bones, which gained her her first Best Folk Album Grammy nomination, that uncertainty was no longer an undertone, but a focal point in her music. On both Bones and the follow up full-length, Undercurrent, which then won the Grammy for Best Folk Album, Jarosz picks up and runs with those musical expectations, whether overt or projected. She plays with the dichotomy between the public nature of her growing up a heart-on-her-sleeve songwriter and bluegrass picker and the individual, private nature of seeking and finding her own agency within those paradigms. She purposefully built broad and appealing, commercial songs that are both assured in their sincerity and unconcerned with virtuosity or authenticity for their own sakes. She knows exactly what she’s doing, even – if not especially – when she does not.
Needless to say, the following projects World On The Ground and Blue Heron Suite feel like they are both indelible home bases built on the steady foundation of the albums that led to them. Each are distillations of Jarosz’s musical commitment to bringing her audience inside the turmoil and delight, growth and doubt, beauty and bittersweetness of life and song. Jarosz had arrived at her destination, hadn’t she? In her beloved New York City, a Grammy winning artist, picker, and songwriter who knows who she is and why she does what she does.
Ah, but remember, it’s the journey Sarah Jarosz is after and not the destination. Polaroid Lovers is a lens into the new growing pains, the new uncertainty, the new uprooting and, eventually, re-rooting Jarosz finds herself in the middle of now. She recently moved to Nashville, building a life with her new husband, bassist Jeff Picker. Polaroid Lovers, like its predecessors, brings the listener into how living in Nashville has reshaped Jarosz’s songwriting and creative and recording processes.
It may not sound like a Music Row album – it sounds, as all of her work does, exactly like Sarah Jarosz. Whatever that sounds like! – but it’s a collection that has the Row tangled among its roots and certainly in the water. Polaroid Lovers was recorded at Sound Emporium and produced by Daniel Tashian, plus it has many a credited co-writer, a bit of a departure for the songwriter who, besides in her work with Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins in I’m With Her, rarely co-writes material for her own albums, preferring to pen most lyrics and tunes herself. Music Row and Americana hit writers like Ruston Kelly, Natalie Hemby, Jon Randall, Gordie Sampson, Tashian, and others each lent their own fingerprints and touches to this set of song snapshots.
Does Polaroid Lovers sound new? Does it sound like Nashville? Yes, it certainly does, but it doesn’t sound instant or ready-made either, and it always sounds like quintessential Jarosz. This is evidenced nowhere on the record as strongly as one of its lead singles, “Columbus & 89th.” Among more than a few masterworks in Jarosz’s catalog that center on her beloved, transplanted (former) hometown, New York City, “Columbus & 89th” is perhaps the best example of the form. Wistful and hopeful, with a tinge of bittersweetness from the wisdom that comes with age, it paints such a specific picture – of a literal street corner – but, as in all of her snapshots, this polaroid is not confining or finite, it’s resplendent and limitless. Following the photography metaphor one step further, it’s not difficult to see how the perspective Jarosz has gained by moving away from the city might have enabled her to render such a picture perfect homage to New York.
This is a vibrant, animated collection of Polaroid Lovers. This is Sarah Jarosz at her best– for now.
Watch for our Artist of the Month interview feature with Jarosz to come later this month, plus we’ll do a catalog deep dive and showcase plenty more content pulled from the BGS archives. For now, enjoy our Essential Sarah Jarosz Playlist:
To complete our Dawg in December Artist of the Month series, we asked several musicians who have worked with and made music with the inimitable David Grisman what it’s like to really know him.
A mythological figure in American roots music, the Dawg remains remarkably accessible and embedded in the scene, despite his unofficial role as a sort of guru-meets-mentor-meets-hermit. He’s been a teacher and encourager of multiple new generations of pickers and mandolinists, from Grammy-nominated Ronnie McCoury to young, impressive upstarts like Teo Quale – who, with his brother Miles and band, Crying Uncle, performed for Dawg’s Bluegrass Hall of Fame induction at IBMA’s annual awards show in September. Others, like fellow Hall of Famer Alice Gerrard, began their friendships with Grisman long ago, before his skyrocketing notoriety and impact.
We asked these three pickers and friends of Dawg – Gerrard, McCoury, and Quale – to reflect on their relationships with the man, who despite being placed high upon a pedestal by many in bluegrass, new acoustic, and old-time music, remains a grounded and down-to-earth mandolin player with an extraordinary legacy.
Alice Gerrard
Alice Gerrard: “I remember sort of my first impression of David – I think it also was Hazel’s too, because he was this very young looking kid from New York, but he played this great mandolin. It was kind of, “What’s going on here?” you know, but the thing that really stands out in my mind is when we were riding to New York [once]. I don’t remember, it might have been my van, but it was a van, and we were going there to record the second Folkways album.
“I think that’s the one that had, ‘The One I Love is Gone.’ We were on our way to record that album in New York and Peter Siegel – who is a friend of David’s and I think Peter was the one who suggested that David play mandolin on the album, because we didn’t really know David at that point. But we did trust Peter. So, David is in the band with us and and we were practicing that song as we were driving up to New York from D.C.
“Hazel was singing the tenor, and I was singing the lead, and there was a problem. Because, you know, often those Bill Monroe harmonies are kind of a mix of major against minor and stuff like that. Hazel was having a hard time getting it, but I’m not. (I’d have to go back and really think about whether she had it right and Peter and David had it wrong.) But it ended up with David lying on the floor of the van between the front and back seats. I don’t know why he was doing that, but he was lying on the floor and singing it with Hazel, trying to get her to find this particular note.
“It was just hilarious! I mean, it was like, I don’t know, two or three hours worth of David’s face, singing ‘The One I Love Is Gone,’ and him fairly well convinced that she did not have the right note. I don’t remember. I mean, I don’t remember the specifics of that, but it was hilariously funny, and of course, what she ended up with was great, but I’m not sure whether he was trying to get her to hit a minor note or what.
“He was just this little kid, you know? From New York. And played this great mandolin. It was beautiful what he did on that song.
“I had to think about how we first met him and how we first decided to record. So I called Peter Siegel on the phone and he told me that he was the one– I mean, David was a friend of his in New York. [Peter] came down to D.C. with David. They were going to go to this bluegrass show, but that got rained out, so they didn’t go. They canceled the show. They [both] heard about this party. I remember where it was. It was at my cousin’s house, who at that time was living sort of on the edge of Georgetown.
“And so, according to Peter, they just came to the house and Hazel and I were sort of sitting somewhere singing together. It was Peter’s idea to use David. And I’m so happy that we did because yeah, he’s amazing.”
Ronnie McCoury
Ronnie McCoury: “When I started playing music, I started playing the mandolin with my dad. I was 14 ‘81– like ‘82 or ‘80, somewhere around there, either before I started playing or right after. My dad got this package in the mail and David had gotten a hold of him and said, ‘I found these tapes of a show we did in Troy, New York in 1966.’ And it was my dad, David, Uncle Jerry [McCoury], and Winnie Winston. [Dawg] said, they sounded pretty good and he’d like to put them out. So he did. It’s called Early Dawg on Sugar Hill. It was half this live stuff and the other half was studio. Along with that package he sent a couple albums of his stuff.
“I mean, that’s just how he is, you know? He just sent this along. He didn’t even really know that I was playing music at the time. I had no idea he was a California guy. I found these albums [he had sent], I had never heard anything like that played on a mandolin, because I was just [getting started]. You know, I’m a child of bluegrass. I was born into it. My dad started a band in ‘66. I was born in ‘67. [It’s] always been a part of me.
“This new music I was hearing, I couldn’t even grasp it. I didn’t know what it was, but I went to bed at night all through my teens putting his albums on and it would play one side and I’d be usually asleep by that time. I did that basically every night to David’s records.
“When I was probably 18 or so, David called my dad and said, ‘Hey, I want to do some bluegrass and I want to do this thing called the David Grisman Bluegrass Experience and we’ll do some shows.’ Basically, it was my dad’s band [backing him up]. We did that quite a bit, for a year or two – just on and off.
“I got to know David and every time we go west, we always were basically playing Northern California and either Grass Valley, California – for the festival – or touring out there playing with my dad. It was just starting for my dad a lot more in the West. He’d been going there for years, but sporadically, and we’d always wind up going to the Dawg’s house. I had been playing a Kentucky mandolin, and he told me, ‘Hey, I got a mandolin at my house for you.’ And I never thought anything about it, and I surely wouldn’t ask about it.
“My dad went out, while we were still in Pennsylvania, and he recorded with David for what is called Home is Where the Heart Is. Dad did a show at the Great American [Music Hall], I think, with Dawg, and he came home with this Gilchrist mandolin. The neck was coming out of it at the time and I had a guy repair it – Warren Blair, who was playing the fiddle.
“He laid that mandolin on me, I believe I was probably 19 or 20, and it’s the same one I play today. I’m 56. I got a Loar 10 years ago and played it a little while, but David and Sam Bush and all my peers said, ‘Hey man, stay on that Gilchrist.’ So I stuck with it. I owe him such a debt. He gave me something that is such a part of me, it defines me, I guess. I’ll tell you, it’s his giving heart. He has a huge heart.”
“My dad met David in 1963. He was playing with Bill Monroe and Ralph Rinzler was his manager at the time– Bill’s first manager. He played in New York somewhere and they stayed at David’s house. David’s father passed when he was 10 and his mother, I can’t remember if his mother was even there, but my dad would have been 24. [Dawg] would have been six years younger than my dad. He was a teenager, you know. I don’t know if Monroe did, but my dad wound up staying with David, because Ralph put him there. He and my dad go back to when he was a teenager. There’s such a long friendship there.
“One time, we were at Grass Valley and Dawg said, ‘Have you heard of this kid?’ He comes riding up on a little bicycle with his mandolin on his back and I said, ‘Well, I’ve heard the name Nickel Creek, but I didn’t really know much.’ He says, ‘Chris Thile’s his name.’ He comes riding up, you know, and he jumps off his bike and he wants to play for David.
“We’re standing around picking and [Chris] sings, ‘Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms’ – super high, you know – and he’s playing. David said, ‘Hey, man, do you know this tune?’ And he starts playing ‘Big Mon.’ Or ‘Monroe’s Hornpipe,’ I think it was. [Thile] didn’t know it, so David’s playing it and he starts showing him it. And [Chris is] just like a sponge. He starts just running it real slow, then he’s like, ‘Oh, that’s neat!’ And he hops on his bike and he’s off. Like an hour or so later, he comes riding up, jumps off his bike, and he’s got it down. It was pretty neat to see David show him.
“The first time I ever heard or met Jake Jolliff was with David. The first time I ever met Julian Lage was with David. Both of those guys, probably at the time, were 10 and 11, something like that.”
Teo Quale
L to R: Teo Quale, David Grisman, and Mile Quale. (Photo courtesy of the Quales and Crying Uncle Bluegrass Band).
Teo Quale: “I first met Dawg as a young kid at a Manning Music event when I was about 6 or 7 – so about 10 years ago. Actually, the first time I was around David was when I was still a baby, but I don’t really remember that!
“Anyway, he jammed a bit with us and Tracy played bass. He and Chad [Manning] played later on. At the time, I was playing fiddle and I really wanted to start learning the mandolin, but my fingers weren’t strong enough yet. So, my mother got me a ukulele and replaced the strings with ones tuned in fifths. Then about a year later, I finally started on the mandolin.
“David has been an inspiration to me ever since meeting him. Over the years, I’ve also had the opportunity to take some lessons with him and he’s always been really generous with his time and his knowledge, but always in that relaxed Dawg way. His music has influenced the way I approach every aspect of my playing, from improvisation to composition.
“Most of my other heroes were also greatly influenced by David – Mike Marshall, Darol Anger, Ric [Robertson] and [Dominick Leslie]. I’m thankful that I get to call him a friend and that I’m also around so many musicians who were touched by him. I don’t get to see him as often as I’d like, but we keep in touch.
“He was born on the same day and year as my grandfather, both two really special people in my life. I play one of his old mandolins now (made in 2006, the same year I was born!), and I am thankful each time I pick it up, knowing that a part of Dawg will always be in this instrument.”
Over his celebrated career, which has now spanned nearly half a century, Tim O’Brien has gained notoriety as an instrumentalist and singer with the bluegrass band Hot Rize, and for his original songs, which have been recorded by Garth Brooks, The Chicks, Nickel Creek, and many more. In recent decades, the Grammy Award-winner has recorded as a solo artist and in collaboration with Darrell Scott, Dirk Powell, Sturgill Simpson, and most recently with his wife, Jan Fabricius.
We caught up with O’Brien on the heels of his annual trip to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, where he is considered an institution, to discuss his new record Cup of Sugar, which sees him taking on the role of a societal elder. Throughout the collection of songs, O’Brien takes on the perspectives of several different animals as a way of learning from the natural world, as well as characters such as Walter Cronkite. In our conversation, O’Brien explores what it means to be comfortable with your role and direction as an artist, and clarifies his artistic goal – to continue being more and more himself.
BGS: You have a lot of animal references on this album, what do you think is bringing you to those themes right now?
Tim O’Brien: You know, it’s funny, I had actually written a song with Thomm Jutz called “Old Christmas Day” on January 6th. January 6th was Christmas in the Julien Calendar before they changed it to be more in line with the solar system. Anyway, the legend was that on Old Christmas Day, the animals all talk to each other. After writing that song I was actually thinking about trying to do a whole record of animal songs… but I went to a bunch of stuff I had already, so I decided to split it up. I think that’s what inspired the direction.
I love “Shout LuLu,” the song about the Tennessee border collie, who inherited the wealth of her owner Bill Dorris. Dorris was the subject of controversy because of the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate general and leader of the KKK, which was displayed prominently on his land facing the highway. How does the story of Lulu relate to the story of the KKK statue in your mind?
Well, a dog probably doesn’t see black or white, or understand discrimination. It’s just a dog, and maybe we all wish we could be that way… it’s hard to be innocent in this world, but a dog doesn’t care, and that’s what’s great about it.
The natural world can teach us a few lessons, that’s kind of like a running message through time. Human beings, since the first cave paintings, have commented on animals; they are interesting to us, and they represent different things. We study them and try to learn from them. I like what Lulu teaches us about the beliefs of her owner.
“Took Lulu to Hogan Road where Nathan Forrest’s statue stood/ She didn’t shout she didn’t beg, stood next to Forrest with lifted leg/ Statue covered with paintball pink, now it has a Lulu stink/ Don’t know from white supremacy, just knows a place she likes to pee/” – “Shout Lulu” excerpt
You talk in your record notes about having the perspective of an elder who has seen a lot of changes both in the world at large and in the music business, can you talk about this viewpoint and what you’re trying to say in these songs with regards to that specifically?
I’m closing in on 50 years doing this, I’m about to turn 70 this year, and so many things have changed. But the music still goes on, and people still make it for the same reasons; they want to express something, they want to tell a story, they want to connect with people… but the changes get harder and harder to adapt to as you get older.
Social media is so important now and it’s something I don’t really interact with at all. I’m lucky that Jan [Fabricius] does all of that, but it just doesn’t really occur to me. I probably won’t ever do it. These days you’re in charge of promoting your shows, because the clubs are kind of cutting corners, and they’re hurting financially, and that’s just the way it is. I’m just watching all of those changes and I’m kind of indifferent to them mostly. I try to keep my head down and just try to make my music.
Being an elder, well we lost two great mandolin elders this week, Bobby Osborne, and Jessie McReynolds. You just realize how much our music helps us define our lives.
Nancy Blake said once, “Ya know, people wonder why we sit around and practice our own material, but it’s kind of the way we define our lives.” I feel like that is true for me.
But you see these guys going, and it’s the last of the first and second generation going away… and you wonder who else is going away… I go watch Chris Thile and I say, “Take that baton and run with it, I’ll follow up on the rear!” I like to learn new things all the time, but mostly I’m trying to do the best I can in the direction I’ve already established and faithfully follow that.
I love the song “The Anchor,” which is told from the perspective of Walter Cronkite. What made you want to write about him? What does he represent for you?
Well, the way that the news is disseminated today is in a million ways. They shape it to a certain audience, and they shape the news to that, so you get a million different versions of the news. If you get happy with a certain outlet, maybe you don’t notice a lot of things going on… I think the same thing happened back when there were only three news outlet. But they weren’t selling it, they were propped up by other shows. They weren’t really competing for advertising dollars in the same way, mostly the networks realized they had to have a news thing. I was just thinking about that difference.
Cronkite was the trusted guy and when he made a telecast one night and said, “It looks to me like this Vietnam conflict, we can’t win it.” President Johnson said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite then I’ve lost the nation… I won’t run for president again.” Cronkite had a lot of power, but he was trying to remain neutral. It’s really hard, it’s hard to remain neutral about the news, and if there’s a truth in the news, it’s hard to reach it.
I’m addicted to the New York Times and I read it every day, so I’m just as much a part of this as anyone. I have my one outlet and I stick to it.
There are a lot of songs on this album told from a perspective that is not your own, was that intentional?
Actually, Danny Barnes brought it up to me, he said, “Do you ever write a song that’s not from your own perspective?” It was helpful to aim from that direction, but I think your own perspective kind of comes through regardless. It’s just the reverse of reading a novel and identifying with one of the characters, you kind of bring some of your own personality into it. Sometimes you have to trick yourself into writing songs, and I think trying for a perspective other than your own is one technique that helps.
How have you seen your songwriting or approach to songwriting change throughout your career?
When I first started writing, I was at sea about what to start writing about, and what’s good and what’s not good. Do you imitate others? Then you get some experience, and you get some good reactions, and you trust yourself more.
One thing that’s kind of more true for me now, in the last 10 years. I realize that in a certain way, I kind of write about the same things over and over, just different versions. Like, I’m always talking about, or trying to get people to see, the bigger picture and include everyone in my world. I used to worry that writing the same songs, [topically], was a problem, that I need to break it apart and start over… but then I realized that everyone I admire has their own thing that they do, and you just get better at it. Maybe you just continue to go deeper…
Thelonious Monk said that the genius is the one who is most like himself. That’s hard to find. I think maybe I found it and I don’t like it…
Just kidding.
Was there anything important about this record that was different from the way you’ve worked in the past?
Jan [Fabricius] and I have a cottage industry here, we have a cottage, and an industry. [Laughs] We’ve also been writing songs together. I think one of them is one of the better ones on this release, “She Can’t, He Won’t and They’ll Never.”
We also have a record label… and for the last record and this one, I’ve used artwork that I’ve drawn myself. I showed something I drew to [Danny] Barnes and he told me, “That’s so much better than anybody else could do it.” That kind of inspired me to do more of my own drawings. A lot of this is just continually becoming more and more comfortable with yourself.
(See our full post on Tim O’Brien’s episode of Basic Folk here.)
Photo Credit: Scott Simontacchi
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