Tag: Christian Sedelmyer

Jerry Douglas’ New Album, ‘The Set,’ Tracks His Musical Evolution

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Undefinable by a single era, genre, or instrument, Jerry Douglas’ otherworldly picking prowess on Dobro and lap steel guitar knows no bounds. Whether it’s running through Flatt & Scruggs songs with the Earls of Leicester, kicking up covers like The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” or conjuring up jazz-like improv jams, the sixteen-time GRAMMY winning musician has a way of drawing the listener in with his tasteful tunes.

That trend continues on The Set, his first studio album since 2017 – although he did stay busy producing records for Molly Tuttle, Steep Canyon Rangers, John Hiatt, Cris Jacobs, and others during the time in between. Released on September 20, the record captures the sound of Douglas’ live set with his current band – Daniel Kimbro (bass), Christian Sedelmyer (violin), and multi-instrumentalist Mike Seal – with a mix of new and original compositions, reworkings of older songs from his catalog, a couple of intriguing covers, and even a concerto.

BGS caught up with Douglas ahead of his tour dates in support of the new record – and his induction into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame this week – to discuss the motivation behind The Set, the similarities between Molly Tuttle and Alison Krauss, and much more.

This is your first album in over seven years. What was your motivation for returning to the studio after such a large gap?

Jerry Douglas: I’ve been doing records for everyone else those past seven years. [Laughs] We’d go out and play a show and people would come up afterward and ask where they could find this song or that song. It got me thinking, since the songs I play live are scattered across many different records — some of which are out of print — that it’d be a good idea to get them all into one place, one album. It’s not a compilation record by any means, it’s just how I love to hear these songs now.

Speaking of how you love to hear these songs now, you’ve recorded many of them in the past. This includes “From Ankara To Izmir,” which you first recorded on lap steel before opting for the Dobro this time. What led to that shift?

When you first write a song you don’t know it, because you haven’t lived with it yet. You need to play it about 100 times and really flesh it out to see what all’s in there. When I originally recorded “From Ankara To Izmir” in 1987 for the MCA Master Series we had a much bigger, bolder band around it. However, the more I got to playing it out live the better the Dobro felt on it. It allows me to be more dynamic with the song, which I also cut with drums in 1993 before switching things up and leaving them out this time.

We actually haven’t used drums since the record I made with John Hiatt in 2021. He didn’t want them, so we used the rest of my band… it felt great having all that space the drums usually filled back, so we just continued as a four-piece after that. It’s gone on to inform a lot of the music on this record, not just with that one song.

I love the evolution that songs can take over time, whether it’s something as simple as changing out one instrument like you’ve done a couple times here or going from a full band to something that’s solo acoustic. Different arrangements breathe completely different life into a song, and your record is a great example of that.

Even Miles Davis recorded a lot of his songs two or three times with different bands. He wanted to hear them with the band he was with at that moment, which all included different people, personalities, characteristics, and playing styles. Music is meant to evolve over time as influences and circumstances change. Songs are traveling through their life collecting little pieces to add to themselves just like the rest of us do.

That room to experiment is only expanded with your band, who you’ve been with now for eight years. How did the chemistry you have with them help to drive the sonic exploration behind The Set?

Like you said, we’ve been together for a long time now. We’ve been everywhere together and have become good at picking up nonverbal cues from one another. A lot of times I’ll just give Daniel a look and he knows what to do. That trust allows us the freedom to experiment and keep things fresh for ourselves, which in turn keeps it fresh for the audience as well, whom we don’t ever want to leave behind.

That same attention to detail can be felt in the album artwork as well, which I understand comes from a connection you made across the pond while there for the Transatlantic Sessions?

Yes. William Matthews is a famous western watercolor artist who was in Scotland with me when we started rehearsing for the Transatlantic Sessions right after COVID. We typically tour the country at the end of January and into February for 10 days playing the entire show and William was following us around painting. One day I walked into his hotel room and his paintings were all the way around the wall. One of them was of Doune Castle – seen in both Monty Python & The Holy Grail and Game Of Thrones – that, unbeknownst to us at the time, ended up becoming The Set’s cover art.

Earlier we touched on all the producing work you’ve been up to lately. One of those has been Molly Tuttle, who you’ve worked with on her past two GRAMMY-winning albums. Given your close ties to another trailblazing woman of bluegrass, Alison Krauss, do you notice any similarities between the two and the approach they have to their craft?

They’re both amazing singers. I learned a long time ago that when Alison tells me she can do better, she does, and Molly’s the same. Both have a way of exceeding my expectations on a take when I thought they couldn’t do better than the one just before it, but every time the new one turns out head and shoulders above the one that I had been satisfied with. It’s taught me to always trust the artist no matter who it is I’m working with.

In that same sense, I think about Earls of Leicester as Flatt & Scruggs – what if they’d said “wait a minute” and gone back in [to the studio] to change one little thing? When you’re recording, everything happens so fast that you can come back to it and go in a completely different direction. That’s what I love so much about my new record, even some of the mistakes that I made on it aren’t really mistakes, they’re just different directions.

What has music taught you about yourself?

I’m an introvert who can speak in front of thousands of people and have a good time at a party, but when I’m alone I’m really alone, but in a positive way. It’s like having two lives, but I’m not acting in either one of them. What a privilege it is to be true to yourself and have a full life at the same time. I get to go out and play music, then come home and fix the faucet.

Lead Image: Madison Thorn; Alternate Image: Scott Simontacchi. 

With Two Instrumental Albums, Andrew Marlin Offers a Scrapbook and a Picture

Posted on by Editor

It’s been two years since Mandolin Orange’s prior album, Tides of a Teardrop, which took them everywhere from the stage of Nashville’s fabled Ryman Auditorium to a placement on the Billboard 200 album chart. Since touring for that album wound down, the duo of Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz has been mostly hunkered down at home in North Carolina, tending to their young daughter Ruby while riding out the pandemic.

Marlin has also used the time to develop a growing solo-album habit, releasing instrumental collections. February saw the near-simultaneous release of Witching Hour and Fable & Fire, following up 2018’s Buried in a Cape. And while both albums feature the same cast of players from Mandolin Orange’s circle, each has a very different feel. Witching Hour is billed as “A Sonic Account Of How The Journey Within Has No Destination,” while Fable & Fire is “A Soundtrack To Quotidian Wonder.” BGS caught up with Marlin by phone on the day before his 34th birthday.

BGS: How old is your daughter now?

Marlin: Almost two-and-a-half. It’s been a lot of not sleeping, but a fun time, too. She likes to strum a little bit. There are certainly instruments we don’t let her play, but we do have a few beater guitars we let her have some fun with. She loves to sing, too, she’ll break out in song randomly all the time. “Lonesome Whistle” from that record we put out in 2016, Blindfaller, she loves to sing that song. She has such a good memory on her, it’s amazing. All kids probably do, it’s just that she’s the only one I’ve ever spent that much time with. It’s fascinating, how much she retains and can recite.

Do you spend much time practicing?

It varies. I did sit down with a metronome and my first cup of coffee this morning to work on some tunes. I came to the mandolin “late,” at 20, when I feel like my favorites started when they were 7 or 8. In terms of foundational skills, I have to go back and relearn some things. I love the instrument so much, I want to think in terms of longevity. Figure out techniques that keep me relaxed without hurting myself on it. And if I get an idea, a melody that hops into my head, I’ll follow it because the most important thing is to keep writing. I try to be aware of my body, stay in tune with what’s happening. If I feel cramps or aches, I’ll stop and try to assess what’s happening. That’s the reason to practice technique, to relax and be comfortable without overworking joints harder than you need to. I hope to prevent that, but I do play a lot and time is not on my side.

It’s not unusual for guitar players to own multiple guitars, but what about mandolin players?

I can actually kinda mark what year something was based on which mandolin I was playing. For the past 11 years, I’ve gotten a new one about every two years. I finally got a Lloyd Loar in January of 2019 and I think I found my mandolin, at least for a while. There are all these different aspects of tones you want to get, and it’s different from player to player. Different instruments make you play different things you normally might not think of. It completely rearranges my musical mind, playing different instruments. As much as I envy my heroes having iconic instruments they always use, I enjoy picking up different mandolins, the different voices you get.

They’re almost like little people. You don’t tell your friends how to act, so why would you tell an instrument how to sound? Just work within what it does best and it will teach you how to pull out different aspects of your playing. All the songs on Fable & Fire were written on a Gibson A2 1921 that I bought on a whim on reverb.com, and it turned out to be a great little tune-writer. Every time I pick it up, seems like I write a song on it. And I wrote all the songs on Fable & Fire on that little instrument in about four weeks. I didn’t record with it because when it comes down to a record, I’d rather use the Lloyd Loar. I know its voice and tone, how to work its dynamics. But that little A2 has a very cool little voice, too.

How do you differentiate these two albums?

For me the concepts set them apart. They have very different grooves, melodic ideas and modes. Witching Hour was written over two years’ time, where I basically just took a handful of tunes I thought were strong enough to put on a record. So that’s what you hear, two years’ worth of material. But Fable & Fire is very cohesive start to finish, a set of songs written to be played side by side with each other. Witching Hour is a scrapbook, Fable & Fire is a picture.

Fable & Fire, especially, has some pretty exotic song titles. What does “Leeward Shore/Crooked Road to Bracey” mean?

(Fiddler) Christian Sedelmyer’s girlfriend Alexis really likes the sound of the Gibson A2 I wrote those songs on. She kept trying to convince me to play that mandolin on this record, and I wanted to honor the fact that she’d really listened and cared. Her middle name is Lee, what could I do with that? Well, leeward shore is the shore that faces the wind, an old nautical term. I named that A2 “Gale” because it has this sound that feels like it moves a lot of air — I joke that it could blow a candle out. So I thought it was fitting to call the first part of that medley “Leeward Shore,” the shore-facing wind, because she was such a proponent of Gale.

Then “Crooked Road to Bracey,” that’s a town not far from where I grew up. Just over the North Carolina line in Virginia, and it was the only close-by town with an all-night diner. So if we were super-hungry at 4 a.m., we’d hop in the car and go to Bracey. Pretty nerdy! But you’ve gotta find inspiration somewhere. Stories like that end up being part of the bones of these tunes. But one of my favorite parts of instrumental music is that it’s all irrelevant once someone else starts to listen. That’s important now especially, because everybody needs something to latch onto. Instrumental music is so open, it allows an infinite amount of interpretation.

“Hawk Is a Mule” is another — and also the only words you say on either record. What’s that story?

We were on the West Coast for the Buried in a Cape tour. Clint (Mullican) the bass player can spot a hawk from a mile away – he sees them before they see him. He kept pointing out all these hawks as we made our way toward Canada. And being East Coasters, well, we were excited to hop on into the dispensaries out there. We, um, accumulated quite a bit and wondered what to do with it before crossing into Canada. It became a joke, training a hawk to carry it into Canada for us, “like a drug mule but a hawk.” I ended up calling that melody “Hawk Is a Mule,” and that’s how it came to be. Just a bunch of people in a van making fun jokes.

In terms of writing, are instrumentals easier to come up with since they don’t have words?

It depends on the mindset I’m in. I’ve practiced the mandolin a lot in quarantine and also listened to a lot of instrumental music, so that’s been easier to write because of what I’m into now. When I sit down to write, I try not to force it. Just do what I’m into and play what I feel, and right now instrumentals are what I’m into.

Out of these 21 songs, which are your favorites to play?

They’re all right in my wheelhouse since I wrote them, but some really translate with the band. “Oxcart Man” on Fable & Fire, I love the way that one feels. It has a lot of ins and outs that give it a lot of life, especially Nat (Smith) on the cello. He’s able to go back and forth between plucking and powerful bowing. I don’t know how he does it but he works the dynamics beautifully, especially on that tune. The tone of the cello makes it almost seem to hide itself, but if you muted that it would take a lot of the pulse out of the tune. What the guys do on that song makes it one of my favorites.

Another is “Farewell to Holly Bluff/The Watch House.” Everybody really pushes the tone on that one. I hardly play that melody at all because it was so great to be part of the rhythm. Jordan (Tice) is a great lead guitarist, but he’s the rhythm engine here and ended up doing a lot less melodic passes than rhythm. His drive is a key element of both records.

“Jenny and the Dulac,” the last song on Witching Hour, has a groove and major-minor feel that’s unlike anything I’ve ever done before instrumentally. Christian and Brittany (Haas)’s twin fiddle parts really elevated that moment to where we were looking at each other going, “This is the coolest shit ever, let’s never let this song end.” Everybody was exploring the fretboard in a way that did not seem forced, just wide open. I love everybody’s solos, they all have a lot of personality.

Besides music and the people close to you, what do you look to for inspiration as a writer?

It’s less about looking for things and more about being open to it when you feel it. Either you turn those receptors on, or off. I’ve been writing since I was 14 and it’s been a major part for so long that I’ve almost always got the receptors on. Lately, especially, some of the instrumental titles come from snippets of children’s books I read to Ruby. And the other day, we were at the park and heard some people singing “Happy Birthday” to a little kid named Leo. That got me to thinking: “It’s Pisces season, a Pisces named Leo, that could be a fun thing.”

The muse is important to just keep on so that when something presents itself, I can snatch it and hold onto it forever. Not to get too heavy about it, but it does come at a cost. I’ll be talking to people about a memory of theirs from a tour five or six years ago, and realize that if you keep those receptors on so much you might not be quite as present as you want to be. It’s a balance, especially with Ruby. I’ve learned to turn that off when I need to so I can be very present with her. I’ve seen just how fast time with her flashes by. I don’t know where the last two and a half years have gone.

Photo Credit: Lindsey Rome

A New Cookbook From Music Community Gives Us ‘All the Thyme in the World’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Nashville business owner and frequent BGS collaborator Maria Ivey apparently didn’t have enough on her agenda when a tornado hit Music City in early March and the music industry subsequently shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s the moment when she started quite the gargantuan project — a community cookbook.

All the Thyme in the World features scores of recipes — soups and appetizers, sauces and mains, desserts and breakfasts — from the aptly described “grounded” music industry, which includes a true cross-section of musicians, performers, touring professionals, industry experts, writers, designers, and so on.

The volume leans into the homespun, down-to-earth charm of DIY community cookbooks common in the South and across rural America, taking wisdom from lovable food nerd Alton Brown himself, as referenced in the foreword:

“First, such books must be spiral-bound or they are not to be trusted. Second, all recipes must be directly attributed to a member of the community. Food is mighty personal, and the sharing of a recipe, especially one that may have been polished and perfected through years of practice, is powerful medicine. Third, community cookbooks must be truly democratic…”

Not only is All the Thyme in the World democratic, powerful medicine, mighty personal, and yes, spiral-bound, its profits will support the vital work of the Music Health Alliance’s COVID-19 & Tornado Relief programs. The first pre-order period closes June 1. Music + food fans are encouraged to order now to make the first printing.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-0UARbBex4/

BGS connected with Maria Ivey over email to discuss the project and give a sneak peek at a couple of the recipes.

BGS: A deadly tornado hit Nashville in early March, barely preceding the coronavirus pandemic, so “disaster mode” here has been going on a little longer and has been a little more intense than in a lot of other cities — and you still added this project to your plate! Why is it so important to you? 

Maria Ivey: We have to take care of each other!! If we want to believe that the music industry will snap back after some semblance of normalcy returns, we have to ensure that aid is given to keep creators creating. Music Health Alliance does just that. The idea for this cookbook came while I was sitting at the kitchen table, staring down the future wondering what the hell I would do with my hands and all of this time. I sent a few late night emails asking foodie music friends for recipes and help, which were then forwarded to other folks — some I knew, some I didn’t. While I was writing press releases for countless festival cancellations I was cooking nonstop. Three meals a day, sometimes four, crowding the fridge with leftovers and feeding the excess to the dog and chickens. Partly because staying home was the right thing to do and partly because I had to do what my bones told me to do. 

Proceeds from this cookbook will go to Music Health Alliance’s COVID-19 & Tornado Relief Program. I have personally witnessed the good this organization does for our musical community and am honored to aid their efforts with this cookbook. 

Why do you think musicians, creators, performers, and folks in the industry responded in such numbers? What is it about cooking and the kitchen that makes them so closely intertwined with music?

Cooking and music are both creative endeavors. It makes sense that some of the best songwriters or musicians I know are also the most interesting cooks. For example Christian Sedelmyer is a monster musician, but he’s equally capable in the kitchen, probably because he pays attention to flavors and knows how to make ingredients compliment each other. Not unlike what he does with the fiddle.

Inside you’ll find recipes from journalists and photographers, publishers and interns, a drum tech for arena tours and a tour manager who always drives the late shift, songwriters and banjo players, festival producers and super fans, a beloved Nashville guitar shop owner and The Late Show’s band leader, Bowie’s bass player and a Grand Ole Opry host. And Dolly Parton. I chose to leave off job titles and places of employment because none of those labels have a bearing on how food tastes. 

The cookbook is an incredible way to visualize the community we all have surrounding us (myself and BGS executive director Amy Reitnouer Jacobs both submitted recipes as well). What have you learned about this community that has surprised you most? 

I guess it’s not really surprising, but I was reminded of — floored by, even — how willing folks are to help each other. People I have never met volunteered to help me format recipes. My neighbors, all involved in music in some way or another, offered to help ship out books once printed. 

Gena Johnson emailed something like 50 people for recipes. Shelly Colvin, too. Both blasted the recipe request to god knows how many people helping to fatten the book up. Journalist and editor friends, like yourself, emailed me asking how to best spread the word. Grant Prettyman immediately jumped in to design the cover art and layout, citing his Atlanta upbringing and his mother’s collection of Junior League cookbooks as inspiration for the aesthetic.

A quick Google search led me to Pollock Printing, a third-generation family printer in Nashville. I had a long and happy conversation with the owner, John Craig — someone I’ve still not met in person — who knew several of my clients and told sweet stories of his dad leading bluegrass jams. Dacey Sivewright, a friend [and BGS contributor] who has been writing about music for over a decade, reached out to offer help editing the recipes. I stopped saying “I” and started saying “we.”

Then we had 100 recipes. And then 200. When the website went live, orders poured in from people I had never met and from places I had never been. My brother ordered 15 copies. I cried. And just like that, the world didn’t feel so scary and I didn’t feel so alone. We didn’t feel so alone. Apart, yes. But not alone. 

You must be so excited to get to tasting these recipes! Have you tried any yet? What have you tried and what are you excited to get to cooking?

JoJo Hermann (keys player for Widespread Panic) submitted a family recipe for whole bird “Vinegar Chicken.” I tried it a few weeks ago and it was incredible, the vinegar marinade takes what can be an otherwise bland protein and made it interesting and punchy, and the skin was super crisp. I made broth with the leftover bones. I laughed because he submitted the recipe and then his sister emailed me to make sure everything was correct. Definitely something that would happen in my family. 

Marshall Chapman sent in “Pork Noodle Soup,” a recipe she adapted from the New York Times. I made it on one of the colder days in March and it was instant warmth (fresh grated ginger and garlic) and comfort (rice noodles and pork fat). I haven’t made Jon Batiste’s recipe for “Katherine’s Red Beans,” but it’s on my to-do list for this weekend. Everyone I know who is from New Orleans is an excellent cook so I’m excited to try his take on this classic.

And there must be some Ivey family recipes in the mix as well?

Yes! I gave a recipe for “Green Jacket Green Beans” (when the beans turn Augusta National Green, they are ready to be eaten) and my husband, Taylor, put his “Sunday Morning Biscuits” in the book. I’m partial, but they are both excellent, and easy! Salt and fat. Always. I’ve been known to order a side of green beans with my biscuits and breakfast at Cracker Barrel, so it’s fitting that these recipes are our contributions. 

I’m glad to have had a reason to write them down. Several people said that about their recipes, too — thanking me for giving them a reason for writing down whatever their famed dish is, getting specific with measurements and ingredients. We have to archive this stuff! It’s so easy to Google for a recipe but I’d like to see a return to cookbooks, community cookbooks in particular. 

Let’s make it painfully clear for our readers before we go — how can they support All the Thyme in the World?

Pre-order here before June 1 to be included in the first print run! 

Photo credit: Melissa Madison Fuller

Christian Sedelmyer, “Brain Scan”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

If you have happened to spend any amount of time inside an MRI machine (as this writer has), you’ll know it’s not a particularly comfortable experience. Claustrophobia is almost guaranteed, as your body is ushered into a tiny, cramped tube where patients are instructed to lay impossibly still for as long as the gigantic magnet and coils rotate, whine, and grind around your body. If you’re lucky, and your particular imaging orders don’t require otherwise, some MRI machines are equipped with music through magnet-safe earbuds (“What Pandora station would you like to listen to today?”) or, in one rare case for this writer, Netflix was projected through a series of relayed mirrors to allow Parks & Recreation to appear within the machine.

MRI machines are loud, and the noise is not particularly pleasant. Bumping and squealing and repetitive clunks and bangs become like a sound bath, as your brain attempts to make sense of the cavalcade of random noises. Some patients pick out sounds and gibberish syllables from the noise (I often hear “DAD! DAD! DAD! DAD! DAAAAD!”), while others simply let the cacophony wash over them hypnotically. Others cannot help but be swept away by the adrenaline-boosting, horror film-esque atonal soundtrack.

On his brand new solo album, Ravine Palace, Grammy-nominated fiddler Christian Sedelmyer (Jerry Douglas Band, 10 String Symphony) proffers a gorgeous alternative to that soundtrack. “Brain Scan” is a tune that certainly calls to mind the prerequisite din of an MRI machine, but with slippery bowed chromaticisms and Sedelmyer’s signature musical wit — plus a healthy dose of joy, something often suspiciously absent from radiology departments. Andrew Marlin (Mandolin Orange) on mandolin, Eli West (Cahalen Morrison & Eli West) on guitar and clawhammer banjo, and Clint Mullican (also Mandolin Orange) on bass follow along with rapt attention, combining the detail-affixed listening of chamber music with the sly lilt and energy of old-time.

Even while the foursome toys with the dissonant themes of the melody throughout the tune the aesthetics here will always be more palatable, enjoyable, and irresistible than a gigantic piece of magnetic medical equipment — no one is surprised, here — but “Brain Scan” still captures the anxieties, uncertainties, and inevitabilities of such a procedure uncannily. In a package any listener would be happy to encounter, whether through scan-safe earphones or not.

The Ringers, Created by Jerry Douglas, Will Play IBMA Wide Open Bluegrass Festival

Posted on by Editor

IBMA World of Bluegrass announced its Main Stage schedule, as well as three special performances, for the Wide Open Bluegrass Festival next month in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Sam Bush will make a guest appearance with Del McCoury Band, while and a new band created by Jerry Douglas called the Ringers will perform for the first time ever. Douglas formed the group with Ronnie McCoury, Todd Phillips, Christian Sedelmyer, and Dan Tyminski.

In addition, a special performance titled “You Gave Me a Song”: Celebrating the Music of Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard will feature Alice Gerrard, Laurie Lewis, Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Justin Hiltner, Jon Weisberger, and Eliza Meyer.

Wide Open Bluegrass is the free weekend festival that takes place at Raleigh’s Red Hat Amphitheater and on seven additional stages in downtown Raleigh on September 27-28.

These artists join previously announced talent such as I’m With Her (Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, & Aoife O’Donovan), Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Balsam Range, Sister Sadie, Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen, and Molly Tuttle for Main Stage performances at Red Hat Amphitheater for this year’s festival. Performances at Red Hat Amphitheater will begin at 5 pm and will feature premier bluegrass acts for six hours.

The performances at Raleigh’s Red Hat Amphitheater will be open to the public for free, subject to venue capacity. A limited number of reserved seats in prime sections of the venue are available for purchase to ensure admittance for every performance.

Here is the schedule for the Main Stage performances at Red Hat Amphitheater for the 2019 Wide Open Bluegrass festival:

Friday, September 27
5:00 – Sister Sadie
6:05 – Balsam Range
7:15 – Molly Tuttle
8:25 – I’m With Her (Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan)
9:45 – The Ringers featuring Jerry Douglas, Ronnie McCoury, Todd Phillips, Christian Sedelmyer, and Dan Tyminski

Saturday, September 28
5:00 – “You Gave Me a Song”: Celebrating the Music of Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard
6:10 – Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen
7:15 – Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver
8:30 – Del McCoury Band, with Sam Bush, and Special Guests (more to be announced)

BGS 5+5: Rachel Baiman

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Rachel Baiman
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Latest album: Thanksgiving EP
Label: Free Dirt Records
Personal nicknames: “Baimo” (from my guitar player Cy)

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

Literature is a big influence on my writing. One of the first songs I wrote, “Weight of the World,” is based on an amazing scene from the book Cold Mountain. While I’m driving I like to listen to The New Yorker Fiction podcast; short stories are great for writing songs because they are small windows into a particular scene, situation, or world – kind of the same amount of story that you can fit into a song.

“Throw Away the Moon,” a song I wrote with Caroline Spence, is based on a crazy short story I listened to in which the people had decided that the moon was looking too old and scuffed up, so they got a crane to take it out of the sky and replaced it with a new, shinier model. Poetry is big for me, too. I’ve written two songs based on poems: Sylvia Plath’s “Mad Girl’s Love Song” and Ishmael Reed’s “When I Die I Will Go to Jazz.” Reading fiction helps me to see the world around me as a million different stories and characters, to hear phrases and thoughts as song lyrics.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I was just reminded of this great stage memory from a show I did in Washington DC many years ago with Christian Sedelmyer as 10 String Symphony. We were in the middle of a song on which Christian sang the lead vocals. Suddenly he starts hacking and coughing…misses half the verse and finally we finished the song. Christian said to the audience, “I’m so sorry, there must have been some dust on this mic or something,” and the whole audience yells out, “It was a moth!” So he had swallowed an entire moth in the middle of the song. We told that story fondly for many subsequent shows.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

I have a pretty strict tour regimen. When I’m touring my own trio I have to be really careful with myself to make sure that I can operate at 100 percent and play a good show every night. I’m in charge of everything–schedule, driving, booking accommodation, writing set lists, selling merch, making sure everyone is well-fed and in a good mood–so it feels a little bit like being an endurance athlete.

I don’t drink almost at all on tour. I don’t even drink coffee unless it’s one of those three-hours-of-sleep nights and I really need it. I stick to green tea. I try to get plenty of sleep, go running every other day, and eat a ton of Rx bars. Then when I get home I feel like I can relax and party a little bit. I generally party a lot more at home than I do on the road, which is probably not what most people would expect.

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

An awesome pairing of food and music can be found at Plaza Mariachi in Nashville. My friend Alexa Voytek introduced me to this spot; she’s always got her finger on the pulse of something really interesting and fun. Plaza Mariachi is big, open-court mall celebrating Latin American culture. There are tons of great food stands, bars, and in the middle of the mall, traditional music and dancing. Friday is Mexican cowboy night and you can bet it’s a hell of a time.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

I don’t usually hide the “me” because I think it’s all too obvious to the people for whom it would matter, but I have definitely written songs about other people and tried to hide it. I think that all songwriters do, we have to write about emotional situations, and you can’t always say to people what you actually think about their lives, nor would they want you to.

Sometimes you write about somebody as you see it, and you could be completely wrong, but it still makes for a great song. At the end of the day, the feelings are merely fuel for the creative process. The song goes through so many iterations and then it becomes a piece of art all on its own. It shouldn’t really matter who it’s about or how accurate it is to that person, but rather how it rings true as a song or statement of its own.

Photo credit: Gina Binkley

IBMA Awards 2018: Read the Full Winners List

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Some of the most decorated artists in bluegrass, such as Balsam Range, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, and the Travelin’ McCourys, picked up even more International Bluegrass Music Awards on Thursday night (Sept. 27) in Raleigh, North Carolina. Other top winners included longtime favorites like Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers, Special Consensus, and Becky Buller.

Instrumentalist awards were presented to Michael Cleveland (fiddle), Sierra Hull (mandolin), Justin Moses (Dobro), Ned Luberecki (banjo), Tim Surrett (bass) and Molly Tuttle (guitar). Hot Rize, the IBMA’s first-ever Entertainer of the Year recipient in 1990, hosted the show.

The recipients of the 2018 IBMA Awards, presented by the International Bluegrass Music Association, are listed below:

ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR:
Balsam Range

VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR:
Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver

INSTRUMENTAL GROUP OF THE YEAR:
The Travelin’ McCourys

SONG OF THE YEAR:
“If I’d Have Wrote That Song” – Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers (artist), Larry Cordle/Larry Shell/James Silvers (writers)

ALBUM OF THE YEAR:
Rivers & Roads – Special Consensus (artist), Alison Brown (producer), Compass Records (label)

GOSPEL RECORDED PERFORMANCE OF A YEAR:https://thebluegrasssituation.com/?p=10924&preview=true
“Speakin’ to That Mountain” – Becky Buller (artist), Becky Buller/Jeff Hyde (writers), Crepe Paper Heart (album), Stephen Mougin (producer), Dark Shadow Recording (label)

INSTRUMENTAL RECORDED PERFORMANCE:
“Squirrel Hunters” – Special Consensus with John Hartford, Rachel Baiman, Christian Sedelmyer, and Alison Brown (artist), Traditional arranged by Alison Brown/Special Consensus (writers), Rivers & Roads (album), Alison Brown (producer), Compass Records (label)

EMERGING ARTIST OF THE YEAR:
The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys

RECORDED EVENT OF THE YEAR:
“Swept Away” – Missy Raines with Alison Brown, Becky Buller, Sierra Hull, and Molly Tuttle (artists), single release, Alison Brown (producer), Compass Records (label)

FEMALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR:
Brooke Aldridge

MALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR:
Buddy Melton

BANJO PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Ned Luberecki

BASS PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Tim Surrett

DOBRO PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Justin Moses

FIDDLE PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Michael Cleveland

GUITAR PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Molly Tuttle

MANDOLIN PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Sierra Hull

Previously-announced inductees into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame – Ricky Skaggs, Paul Williams, Tom T. and Dixie Hall – were honored at this evening’s show.

At the Special Awards Luncheon earlier in the day, the recipients of the following awards were announced:

BLUEGRASS BROADCASTER OF THE YEAR:
Steve Martin (Northern Kentucky-based host of Steve Martin’s Unreal Bluegrass)

BLUEGRASS EVENT OF THE YEAR:
Bluegrass on the Green; Frankfort, Illinois

BEST LINER NOTES FOR A RECORDED PROJECT (tie):
Craig Havighurst – The Story We Tell by Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers
Peter Wernick – Carter Stanley’s Eyes by Peter Rowan

BEST GRAPHIC DESIGN FOR A RECORDED PROJECT:
Lou Everhart
A Heart Never Knows by The Price Sisters

BLUEGRASS PRINT/MEDIA PERSON OF THE YEAR:
Neil Rosenberg

BLUEGRASS SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR:
Jerry Salley

SOUND ENGINEER OF THE YEAR:
Ben Surratt

LISTEN: 10 String Symphony, ‘The Ballad of Bruno’

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Artist: 10 String Symphony
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “The Ballad of Bruno”
Album: Generation Frustration
Release Date: July 13, 2018
Label: Tasty Note Records

In Their Words: “‘The Ballad of Bruno’ was inspired by a children’s cartoon history show that Rachel happened to catch accidentally while on tour. The program told the story of an ancient philosopher named Bruno who had some very advanced and controversial ideas for his time. He was one of the first to argue that the universe was infinite, and that the earth was not, in fact, the center of the universe. He was imprisoned for his blasphemous ideas and eventually burned at the stake in Rome. Several real biographical situations make their way into the song, including his seven-year imprisonment in the Tower of Nona. As an ancient hero of critical thinking and free speech, we thought Bruno deserved a song. The chorus, spoken in Bruno’s voice, proclaims ‘I gave to them infinity and yet they were so daft, they crushed me between their fingers for what they could not grasp.'” — Rachel Baiman/Christian Sedelmyer

Photo credit: Gina Binkley