Our latest guest on Toy Heart is bluegrasser, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter Tim O’Brien. His conversation with host Tom Power begins by remembering the music of his childhood, growing up in Wheeling, West Virginia listening to Chubby Checker on his crystal radio set and attending the nationally renowned country variety show and radio broadcast, the Wheeling Jamboree. Encountering the music of Merle Haggard and Doc Watson via local radio and television, he fell in love with music as a kid before a few friends introduced him to Bill Monroe’s mandolin playing while smoking a post-gig joint as a teen.
After dropping out of college, O’Brien hitchhiked west to Wyoming, before landing in Colorado and eventually founding Hot Rize in the mid to late ‘70s with newly married and relocated Dr. Banjo himself, Pete Wernick. Over the course of their winding and dense conversation, Power and O’Brien chat about Gibson mandolins, the burgeoning Colorado string band scene, working with Bill Monroe, and the strange, circuitous story of his fiddle’s provenance.
O’Brien’s career, as multifaceted as it has been, is a wellspring of stories, anecdotes, and yarns about the bluegrass scene of the ‘80s and ‘90s, Irish music, writing hit country songs, working with and alongside so many first generation bluegrass legends, and the inception of Hot Rize’s alter ego band, Red Knuckles & the Trailblazers. Having recorded and performed with the Chieftains, Darrell Scott, the Transatlantic Sessions, and so many others, Tim O’Brien’s career is a melting pot of styles and sounds with one primary throughline: the true originality of his own musical vocabulary. As Power puts it, “I couldn’t tell you what Tim O’Brien sounds like, but I know Tim O’Brien when I hear it.”
Our Toy Heart episode examines O’Brien’s expansive and impressive career at a fascinating juncture in its span, as he shifts from being a bluegrass and Americana workhorse to a forebear, mentor, and roots music elder to entire generations of young musicians.
The first time I saw Willi Carlisle was in Buffalo, New York, in the tiny basement of an old protestant church that Ani DiFranco bought. There couldn’t have been more than thirty or so people there – a queer couple or two holding hands, a mom and a dad plus their kid, a cluster of 20-year-olds too hip for their own good. I see twenty or so shows a year – neighborhood guitar pulls, little club gigs, shows in big theaters, and every so often an arena. Willi was world class, one of the best I’ve seen. He told stories in between the songs, tracing an anti-Vietnam song well into the 17th century, or talking about Mexican ballads and the power of the concertina, or about how a hometown story is both archetypal and plain, universal and contained to a very specific time and place.
As the Buffalo concert suggested, Carlisle is at his best when limning complex networks of historical figures, news, what is called “traditional music,” contemporary poetics, and the natural world. He is a lyric poet, in the most classical sense.
This fact could be seen especially in a track from his new album Critterland, “Two-Headed Lamb.” It’s an adaptation of a Laura Gilpin poem, which Carlisle translates and extends. I’ve always thought that the poem was a bit too glib, a bit too self-assured of its own moral ending.
Carlisle talks about the whole cycle of growth, how it is not a singular freak birth in a generic field, but how the freakish quality of a two-headed calf and the weirdness of that birth functions within a cycle: The farmer who finds it, persimmons growing out of season, a coyote picking at the corpse of a ewe, even “robins singing in an old growth tree.” As a creator, the song becomes an act of interpretation – a poem becomes a song, a song not quite a cover, a critique of a poem that might not work, but the working of the poem depends on an audience.
When asked about the poem, Carlisle responds:
As I explored Gilpin’s poem with friends and strangers, it’s been no surprise that “Two-Headed Calf” seems well-known in both rural and trans communities and their significant cross-section. And why not? It’s a poem about a creature too beautiful for this world, [whose] magisterial dimorphism and tragic death conjures real-world magic. Someone born feeling as if they have no gender, two genders, the wrong gender, might feel this magic themselves. So would someone who’s pulled an ailing calf from the womb of their beloved milk cow with a rope or their bare hands.
That’s a generous reading, a reading done in community – one that expands what an audience could mean, one that is as cyclical and as wide as open as could be. It’s generous to Gilpin, as well.
This whole act of semi-translation also explains the concept of Critterland, which Carlisle describes in our wide ranging conversation as a place where “…we have to dismantle the house, make something different. I think what we inherit (our bodies, songs, tools, houses) makes us the living proof of the suffering of our forebears. We’ve got their noses, their colonial holdings, their drinking problems.”
In a culture, we take and hold onto what is useful for us and the results of that taking we try to build more carefully.
In the list of animals that Willi names in the title track – “Yeah, the sparrow on the wing taught mе to find you/ And the opossum knows his own mind more than I do” – there is hope in being able to craft houses and buildings like the scuttling of everyday creatures. If the possum and the sparrow can (and may I add, the racoon, the crow, the squirrel, every city or country creature) then we can, too. Which is why the best of Carlisle’s songs are ones which mention small spaces – a mother singing “In the Sweet By and By” in the kitchen, or the devastating song “The Arrangements,” with its complex, sometimes compassionate, sometimes ruthless processing of a father who drank too much and loved too little, or in “The Great Depression,” a verse that limns Carlisle’s ancestors:
From the needle-prickin’ mothers who were never taught to read To the barefoot hungry soldiers that enlisted at 16 Oh in my dumb debasement, I still find great relief That on the lam and on the dole they counted themselves free…
Those are local examples, small, and there is some argument within them. Like some great folk singers, Carlisle’s sense of local spaces, his skill at deep readings of landscape, is a primary example of his excellence. I think of him as an Arkansas singer, but he has to earn a living – part of that possum life. Carlisle travels constantly, touring half the year or more to make enough money to be somewhere he feels home.
He explains it thusly: “One of the hard facts about touring so hard is that I haven’t really lived in Arkansas for more than a few months a year in six or seven years now. Hell, currently I’m living in southwest Missouri, just over the border. I don’t feel excluded from my life back home, usually, when I’m on tour. “
It’s another network, a cycle of creation, and intimacy. In a song called “Higher Lonesome,” is there something monastic there? Setting up lonely feelings to a higher power? Is he quoting the 1950s Texas technicolor film? Is it a song about drinking?
It’s all of those things and none of those things. He mentions his community and where they are in the world:
…By the time the ride is over, I’m sure I’ll ask to ride again See the snowfall in Wyoming, strung out on Johno’s coke Keep a mailbox in Nebraska, so I know the Lord knows She can write a letter once a year and say that we’re still close I can put my cents on Benjamin hear the songs he wrote…
The privacy of this song marks the depth and complexity of another, the last work on the record “The Money Grows On Trees.” It’s a 10-minute recitation, a story told in intense, Appalachian Gothic detail, about corruption and a young drug dealer gone wrong.
If any texts could be considered lonely, even in the midst of Carlisle’s careful noting of connections, these are. For example, when in another song, he sings to a “Jaybird” – another of those scuttering creatures, that eats off what is left. He says to the jaybird, that “he’s doing just fine, his head is a wreck and his chest is on fire.” This line, with neither denial nor irony, is a kind of Beckettian notice about continuing on despite the ongoing, struggling moments.
The whole album speaks of a (dis)regulation of feelings, slipping into the natural ebbs and flows of the titular Critterland so the work can continue. In the album, and in his live shows, a cobbling together happens as a kind of hope, but a hard-won kind.
Or, to give Carlisle the last word:
I don’t believe in despair – it would make me hate things, and I cannot bear to do that. So, alas, that means the only other option is the hard one: hope. Here in the first world we have unimaginable resources and power, so much more than we need. We could, realistically, reduce climate change, enshrine human dignity, end global poverty, and celebrate untold freedoms in our lifetimes. Why wouldn’t we? I’m naive, surely. Maybe I’m an idiot, and maybe I’m just obsessed with getting “what’s mine.” Music is a business, after all.
The work is the thing – to pay the mortgage, to tell stories that need to be told, to adapt stories that have been forgotten, to cry or laugh, to mourn, to change people’s minds politically, to seduce or to be seduced.
Carlisle’s practice, in an aching two-step, does this with tradition. There’s a reason why he’s a square dance caller, and there’s a reason why, for him, the dance goes on.
During a series of high profile Verizon ads during yesterday’s Super Bowl, Beyoncé announced that her upcoming Act II following 2022’s incredibly popular dance album, Renaissance, will find the globe-crossing singer/creative powerhouse returning to country. As music journalist Marissa Moss points out in a brand new post for the country newsletter she co-founded, Don’t Rock the Inbox, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s relationship to the genre is nothing new – as far back as 2007 the Texas born-and-raised artist rode a horse as she entered the iconic Houston Rodeo, an internationally known, marquis event in her hometown. Across the decades, Knowles-Carter has constantly utilized her music to remind her audience of her Americana roots, with songs, tracks, and production values that regularly reference country and roots music idioms. At the Grammy Awards on February 4, she wore a modernist couture cowgirl get up – a motif that has been peppered throughout the visuals for Renaissance and its world tour. As Lana Del Rey had just announced her next album, Lasso, would be country, the world wondered – why is Beyoncé wearing a cowboy hat?
But Beyoncé’s relationship to country goes deeper, still. In 2016, as Moss and many other journalists and industry insiders pointed out in reaction to last night’s announcement, Knowles-Carter appeared with The Chicks (at that time still referred to as The Dixie Chicks) in a fiery medley performance during the CMA Awards. The trio joined Beyoncé on her countryfied Lemonade track, “Daddy Lessons,” before morphing into a barn burning all-skate on the Chicks’ Darrell Scott-written hit, “Long Time Gone.”
These new songs, which were initially unveiled exclusively on the streaming service Tidal, are built on the “Texas Bama” terroir that all of Knowles-Carter’s music is intentionally rooted within. “Texas Hold ‘Em” begins with a full, warm, fretless old-time banjo, playing a looped, intricate melodic hook. If your ears perked up during Act II‘s teaser video upon hearing the five-string, you are correct – the banjo and viola on the track were performed by the one and only Rhiannon Giddens and were tracked with Demeanor, Giddens’ nephew, another roots music innovator and genre blender, acting as engineer.
It is beyond apropos for Beyoncé and her team to tap Giddens here, someone who has also built a career and prolific musical output on holding together seemingly disparate influences, textures, tones, and styles. It speaks to Knowles-Carter’s aptitude for not only trying on and exploring new or relatively unfamiliar idioms, but also inhabiting them wholly, intricately, and intuitively. It seems obvious to state, but Beyoncé is no roots music carpet-bagger or opportunist putting on “poverty tour” cosplay just to bolster her bottom line.
Though the production style and arrangements here are decidedly interconnected with Renaissance, the beats and underscoring beneath and around the clawhammer banjo and finger-picked acoustic guitar don’t feel entirely like Avicii’s “Hey Brother” or similar, more heavy-handed attempts to intermingle string band music with house, disco, and dance. Ultimately, these two tracks feel less like a “stomp & holler” money-grab/chart-grab and more like post-modernist line dancing music, carrying forward the placemaking and space-holding of her 2022 album. This is music about gathering, moving, and polishing the floorboards with a pair of cowboy boots.
As MacArthur “Genius” and New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom points out in a NYT blog entry on the new tracks, the most country-sounding aspects here don’t originally stem from “country” at all: “‘Texas Hold ’Em’ sounds like a Maren Morris-style bop, with many of country-pop’s current themes,” says Cottom. “There is a good reason for that. Those themes are very R&B and hip-hop coded: harmonies, danceable hooks, trap percussion and call-and-response.”
In the mind of this writer, though, “16 Carriages,” the proverbial B-side to the more glitzy and grabby “Texas Hold ‘Em,” is the most remarkable of the two singles currently available from Act II. It’s a Beyoncé train song, one that straddles the divide between urban and rural, city folk and country folk, hillbilly music and rhythm and blues. This is a deft balancing act, one that collectives like the Black Opry and artists like Mickey Guyton, Brittney Spencer, Black Pumas, Buffalo Nichols, Julie Williams, and yes, Giddens, have been demonstrating to the roots music industry and its fans for years and years, now. Such a balance can easily go awry, but as we know, Beyoncé so rarely goes awry – even in a would-be treacherous foray into this well-guarded and gatekept genre.
These two songs, but “16 Carriages” especially, illustrate how important it is to view music such as this not as aberrations from a country music norm, but as distillations and representations of what has always been possible in country. Especially if we let arbitrary, moralistic, and bigoted “rules” and expectations fall away and we let artists – whether the most famous in the world or the busker on the street corner – be who they are, unencumbered and empowered by their identities, in all of their idiosyncrasies and complications. Beyoncé’s Act II will showcase that we really do all belong in country, whether your hat and boots are literal shit kickers or are overlaid in hundreds of disco ball mirrors.
It’s not hard to imagine Willi Carlisle’s latest album, Critterland, as a decrepit-but-lovable roadside attraction, but here, the side show has decidedly taken center stage. Carlisle, a folksy, pastoral poet and songsmith, has invited all of us inside the big tent he pitched with his last record, Peculiar, Missouri, and to celebrate all of the beautiful ugliness we find in the spotlight. Produced by Darrell Scott, Critterland finds redemption in proudly – and holistically – owning and just as often subverting expectations around rurality, authenticity, community, and belonging. It’s a deft and artful confluence of schtick and performance, vulnerability and obscurity, artifice and genuineness, that could only be accomplished by a creative like Carlisle.
In Ryan Lee Cartwright’s book, Peculiar Places: A Queer Crip History of White Rural Nonconformity, the author and academic makes an astonishing case for the American societal and imperial construction of the “rural idyll,” and thereby, the co-construction of its antonym: the rural “anti-idyll.” The rural idyll is our general understanding of how rurality and the American dream intersect; of goodness and work ethic and respectability, of insiders and good ol’ boys and our kinda folks. The anti-idyll is the amorphous, intangible opposite of those white supremacist and capitalistic constructs.
Critterland is a joyous and liberated inhabitation of the latter concept, reveling in queerness, counter culture, other-hood, and so many kinds of rural, agrarian, and American anti-idylls. What are queer folks, poor folks, Black folks, brown folks, disabled folks in the country – and in country music – besides, first and foremost, antithetical representations of the American dream? The overlooked, enshadowed folks who inhabit the American anti-idyll… who is singing music for them? Who is inviting those very folks to step into the spotlight?
Willi Carlisle is certainly one. Tracks like “When the Pills Wear Off” and “The Money Grows on Trees” synthesize broad, generational, socio-economic realities that are often discussed, understood, and intellectualized – but rarely with their subjects first in mind. Carlisle is clearly making these songs for the people most impacted by their content; any translation they have in more zoomed-out contexts or to wider audiences is simply an added bonus. Others, like “Dry County Dust,” “Two-Headed Lamb,” and the titular “Critterland” seem to wink at the rural cosplay worn by all songwriters and music makers in roots music, but again, winking first to those who already understand it was always cosplay, from the very beginning.
Whether inhabiting the character of his onstage persona, which often but not always aligns with the human himself, or merely reflecting the pantheon of folks in his own life and communities, there’s a quality to Carlisle’s music and to Critterland that’s saying, “This music is for our kind of people.” And in the words of another backwoods poet, Jimmy Martin, “It takes one to know one, and I know you.” That could almost be the entire thesis statement of the album.
Darrell Scott’s production – and his own multi-pronged relationship to the anti-idyll – makes the clumsiness and haphazardness of this set of songs feel fully like a feature and not a bug. This is Critterland, after all, these side show animatronics are on their last legs and that’s why we love them. This sort of charm is certainly carried over from Peculiar, Missouri – which has delightfully variable production styles across the tracks – and really from all of Carlisle’s releases to date. (Including, if not especially, his hugely popularsessionswithWestern AF.)
Critterland, in the end, may not be the most magical place on earth, but it doesn’t want to be. And, it’s still a place you’ll end up returning to again and again. Because Willi Carlisle’s big tent is really, actually big enough for all of us. On our best and on our worst days and on all of the many days in between.
BGS will spend all of February celebrating Willi Carlisle as our Artist of the Month. Watch for an in-depth feature by music journalist and author Steacy Easton coming soon and, for now, enjoy our Essential Willi Carlisle playlist. Plus, don’t miss Willi and Critterlandin the debut issue of Good Country, a new bi-weekly email newsletter from BGS.
Stripping away convention, honing in on narrative, and keeping complex melodies afloat with her ethereal vocals, Sarah Jarosz is a superlative presence in the roots music landscape. The daughter of two schoolteachers hailing from Wimberley, Texas, she began learning to play the mandolin at age 9. By the time she turned 12, Sarah was already gracing stages alongside the likes of musical giants David Grisman and Ricky Skaggs.
Her multi-instrumentalist capabilities and songwriting proficiency only grew from there; at the age of 16, Jarosz signed a deal with Sugar Hill Records and released her first album, Song Up in Her Head, in 2009. This critically acclaimed record would be the first of what now surmounts to seven full-length, tremendously lauded projects. Polaroid Lovers, Jarosz’s latest and the muse of her current tour, is set to be released on January 26, 2024.
Over the span of nearly two decades spent recording and touring, Sarah Jarosz has established herself as a foundational thread in the tapestry of modern roots music. From impeccable collaborations (with Punch Brothers, David Grisman, Sierra Ferrell), to forming a supergroup alongside Aoife O’Donovan and Sarah Watkins (I’m With Her), to a whopping 5 hours and 45 minutes of music published under her name, Jarosz stands firmly in her power. As she forges ahead, she only continues to outdo herself.
While her entire catalog is sure to edify any listener, this compilation showcases some of Jarosz’s most essential tracks. Tracing the arc of her musicianship from adolescence to adulthood, the following 17 songs demonstrate the particular sonic maturity, lyrical astuteness, and emotional evocation that span all she creates.
“Mansinneedof”
From Jarosz’s first album, Song Up in Her Head, this indelible instrumental boldly answers the question, “Can a mandolin be a lead instrument?” with a resounding, “Of course!” The first of many Grammy nominations acquired throughout her career, this tune was considered for Best Country Instrumental in 2009. Impossibly advanced beyond her years, Jarosz’s nimble and articulate melody is akin to a sonic coast through star-studded galaxies.
“Come On Up To The House”
In a clear demonstration of the range of her musical influences, the most-streamed song from Sarah’s inaugural album is a cover of Tom Waits’s “Come On Up To The House.” Her cool, slippery voice lends a new angle to the iconic tune. Paired with astute backing vocals from Tim O’Brien and a slick fiddle solo by Alex Hargreaves, this song grooves right along – an ingenious, albeit unlikely, bluegrass cover.
“Annabelle Lee”
Jarosz’s sophomore album, Follow Me Down, is latent with a mystical quality that reaches towards the ethers, shepherded into expansiveness by a creative spectrum of influences. The third track, “Annabelle Lee,” features lyrics adapted from the illustrious Edgar Allen Poe poem of the same name. Jarosz sets the eerie tale against a conglomerate of haunting textures – the heightened pace and drums evoke a sense of urgency while Jerry Douglas makes his lap steel wail, a somber cello moans, and Dan Tyminski’s backing vocals lend fullness to the ravenous depths of this dark tune. It is also worth noting that Jarosz performed and recorded this tune, very fittingly filmed in an old hunting lodge in the Scottish Highlands, for the Transatlantic Sessions in 2011. (Watch above.)
“The Tourist”
Sarah sure knows how to pick a cover. From Prince to the Decemberists to Joanna Newsom, she can masterfully braid her grace and artistry into anything. “The Tourist” offers Jarosz’s take on Radiohead, an influence cited among many of Jarosz’s contemporaries, including Madison Cunningham and Chris Thile. In fact, Punch Brothers provide the musical backdrop on this track, their syncopated rhythms and blustery fills meeting Jarosz and Thile’s airtight harmonies to create a sense of whirling, palpable, delicate angst.
“Build Me Up From Bones”
Off of her Grammy-nominated third album, this titular track received an additional nom for Best American Roots Song of 2014. This song is SJ’s most popular of all time, having racked up a total of 70.7M streams on Spotify. Here, Jarosz’s songwriting forges into new territory; her lyrics are both poetic and measured, imbued with textures of velvety longing. The form matches the content, from Aoife O’Donovan’s dewy harmonies to the pizzicato string section to the gorgeous cello solo. Effectively, listeners are bathed in a most intimate listening experience that beckons infinite re-listens.
“1,000 Things”
In another track off of Build Me Up From Bones, here SJ shares songwriting credits with the legendary Darrell Scott. The result? Pure synastry. Underscored by pulsating Celtic rhythms, this uptempo earworm says 1,000 things despite its brevity.
“House of Mercy”
This tune, along with the album carrying it – Undercurrent – won Sarah her first two Grammys in one night. “House of Mercy” was crowned Best American Roots Performance of 2017, and it was indubitably worthy. Jarosz shares songwriting credits with Australian singer-songwriter Jedd Hughes, and together they achieve a dark story arc as the encumbered narrator addresses an unwanted visitor. Jarosz opens up her sound into cutting, fierce Americana twang – effectively offering audiences a new layer to her multitudes of sound.
“Jacqueline”
The closing track of Undercurrent is stark, honest, and bewildering. The song is named after the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in New York City where Jarosz, who once lived nearby, would often do her pondering. Accompanied solely by an electric guitar, Jarosz’s voice is agile and glimmering as liquid silver. She muses over the reflective surface and projected companion while disclosing her own state of unease, immersing listeners in an intimate, unyielding pensiveness.
“Your Water” (with Parker Millsap)
The first of a two-single release titled the Luck Mansion Sessions (2017), SJ here collaborates with fellow singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Parker Millsap. The track, written and originally released by Millsap, is delivered as a duet. The groove opens up into a soul-type feel, allowing for Sarah to showcase a more raw, bluesy, unmeasured latitude of her voice.
“See You Around”
“See You Around” is the title track off of supergroup I’m With Her’s first and – to every listener’s chagrin – only full-length album. In 2018, Jarosz linked up with two of the most astounding women in roots music, Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins, to form a trio of unadulterated excellence (it should be noted that that group won Americana Music Association’s Music Duo/Group of the Year). The album waffles between the three songwriters’ contributions, with each vocalist singing lead on an approximately even number of tracks. “See You Around” is driven by Jarosz’s signature poetic lyrics and fluttery melody, elevated to new horizons by the pristine, angelic blend of harmonies from Watkins and O’Donovan. The musical chemistry these women share evokes the divine; every single song on this album delivers listeners into the sublime.
“Johnny”
For her also Grammy-winning fifth studio album, World on the Ground (2020), Sarah Jarosz invites listeners to experience an array of vignettes; her songs on this album, more than ever, become vehicles for potent storytelling.“Johnny” is the second of three tracks on the album named, presumably, for a character the song aims to illustrate. Jarosz has said that during this album, she “[Tried] to take a step back and look out at the world in my songwriting, rather than looking inward,” and spent much time constructing the album as a patchwork of memories from her hometown in Texas, both faithful and fictionalized.
“Johnny” conveys the psychological landscape of a slightly drunk, slightly disillusioned man who is “just waitin’ on the stars/ that will never align.” It’s all slightly devastating, yet the melody latches onto an unforgettable earworm of a hook uplifted by its folk-pop flavor. Jarosz incorporates a strings section alongside drums, electric guitar, and mandolin, seamlessly using the nuances of sound to bolster the complex mundanities of Johnny’s life.
“Pay It No Mind”
Jarosz shares the songwriting credits on “Pay It No Mind” (also off of World on the Ground) with the renowned John Leventhal, who also produced the album and plays a slew of instruments sprinkled throughout. The song begins with just Sarah and a pensive guitar riff, musing upon a bird and her ponderings. The song then builds in dynamics, layering percussion and eventually a full orchestration of instruments and vocals. It’s slick, it’s sly, and it looks at the world with a cool sense of distance.
“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” / “my future”
In the midst of quarantine, Sarah Jarosz committed to staying connected with fans by using Garageband and her home microphone to record one cover each week from July to October of 2020. In January 2021, she released two of the covers, U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and Billie Eilish’s “my future,” on streaming services. These barebones covers are a time capsule of a moment drenched in emotion, isolation, and fear. Catharsis swells through the minimalistic recordings – Jarosz cradles her whole soul into these songs, and the results are absolutely astounding.
“Mama”
For her sixth full-length studio album, Blue Heron Suite (2021), Sarah Jarosz released a song cycle that she first premiered at Freshgrass in 2017, whereupon she was awarded with the Freshgrass Composition Commission. At the time, Sarah was reckoning with her mother’s cancer diagnosis and reflecting upon childhood trips to the town of Port Aransas, Texas, which at that time had recently been severely affected by Hurricane Harvey. Named for the Great Blue Herons she and her mother used to observe along the town’s shore, this album is imbued with love and hope in its deepest forms. “Mama,” the opening track, is an utterly gorgeous, pared-down arrangement of voice and guitar – a most gentle and tender ode to Jarosz’s mother, who is thankfully now in remission.
“For Free” (with David Crosby)
An astonishing songwriter and pioneer of three-part harmony in American roots/folk music as we know it, David Crosby was a long time supporter of Sarah Jarosz’s work up until his passing last January. Sarah graced the title track of Crosby’s final full-length solo album, For Free (2021). The two sing the entirety of this Joni Mitchell cover in tight harmony, their voices mirroring one another perfectly. The pared back solo piano accompaniment highlights the duo’s vocal finesse; every riff is intertwined with precision and elegance.
“Jealous Moon”
“Jealous Moon” was the first of four singles SJ released from her upcoming album, Polaroid Lovers (out this Friday). Co-written alongside Daniel Tashian, the record’s producer, Sarah remarks of the song, “I’m always seeking to push myself into new sonic territory, and this song gave me permission to not hold back.” In this track, she boldly steps away from her traditional acoustic tethers and moves towards a more pop-rock-twang fusion. Jarosz successfully elicits a sense of novelty while still embodying the sense of fullness and depth she puts into all she creates – reminding us that we still have yet to see the full bloom of her artistry.
The cover of Darrell Scott’s latest album, Old Cane Back Rocker, immediately sets the tone for your listening experience. The inclusion of the names of the Darrell Scott String Band (Bryn Davies, Matt Flinner, and Shad Cobb) lets you know right off the bat that this recording is a band effort. The photo on the album cover gives a visual of Scott’s family roots in rural Kentucky. His cousin Dwight Messer is standing in front of his former childhood home, now abandoned on the family land. The music reflects his family’s story: some, like Dwight, stayed behind and some, like Darrell’s father, Wayne Scott, moved up North to find work. Despite being raised in the North, Darrell’s home has always felt like Kentucky and the traditional music learned from there. These songs showcase those roots.
In our conversation, Darrell digs into the darkness that can be heard in his music, even if it’s not a sad song. He talks about his friend and frequent collaborator, Tim O’Brien, and how his performance and writing has allowed Scott to level up. Darrell also speaks to leaning into emotional songwriting and trusting his tears during the creative process. He shares the emotional account of rerecording his father’s song “This Weary Way” and how he used to think Hank Williams had actually written it.
Immediately after we finished our interview, Lizzie texted me, “What a cool eccentric intellectual dude.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. This episode honestly discovers the true essence of Darrell Scott — an artist whose music resonates with the soul, rooted in the traditions of Kentucky.
In early November, the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona unveiled a brand new exhibition, Acoustic America, which celebrates iconic instruments of many heroes of folk, blues, bluegrass, and more. The exhibit is presented in partnership with our Dawg in December Artist of the Month, David Grisman and his record label Acoustic Disc, and showcases a remarkable collection of instruments that the museum states, “Have redefined music not only in the United States, but around the world.” This includes more than thirty instruments on loan from the Dawg himself.
“MIM is honored for this opportunity to collaborate with David Grisman and feature so many prized instruments from his collection,” says MIM senior curator Rich Walter, via email. “And after many years of loving his music, it has been a joy on a personal level for me, too. His influence as a mandolinist, composer, and bandleader is huge, and he absolutely changed the course of acoustic music as we know it today.”
The Acoustic America Gallery at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, AZ.
Guests of the museum will be able to view storied and legendary instruments formerly owned and played by such luminaries as Earl Scruggs, Elizabeth Cotten, Mississippi John Hurt, John Hartford, Lloyd Loar, and many more. “Beyond the legacies of the individual artists and the beauty of these historic instruments,” Walter continues, “Seeing this collection together in one space is really striking because it reflects a broader American narrative. Exceptional individuals from diverse backgrounds crossed paths and connected their talents in ways that gave us distinctive new traditions that continue to inspire people around the world.”
To celebrate the new exhibition and Dawg in December, we’ve partnered with MIM to bring you these photos of select instruments from Acoustic America. Make plans to visit the Musical Instrument Museum in Arizona now! Tickets are available at MIM.org.
(Editor’s Note: Instrument information provided from the Acoustic America catalog.)
1910 Gibson F-4 Mandolin: Owned and played by David Grisman. Loan courtesy of David Grisman.
The F-4 model was Gibson’s premier mandolin until late 1922, when the F-5 was introduced. In addition to the characteristic oval sound hole and carved scroll, this early example features a three-point body style (note the points protruding from the body), elaborate torch and wire peghead inlay pattern, and special Handel tuning buttons with colorful inlays. David Grisman featured this mandolin on the cover of his first solo album, The David Grisman Rounder Album, and has recorded with it on other projects, including Tone Poems with Tony Rice and Not for Kids Only with Jerry Garcia.
1954 Gibson F-5 Mandolin: Owned and played by Ralph Rinzler. Loan courtesy of David Grisman.
Manager, talented musician, and legendary folklorist Ralph Rinzler (1934–1994) was one of David Grisman’s earliest and most influential mentors. Sharing a hometown of Passaic, New Jersey, Rinzler introduced Grisman to important recordings of folk music and inspired him to play the mandolin. Rinzler played this F-5 mandolin with the Greenbriar Boys, who were the first non-Southern bluegrass band to win at the Union Grove Old Time Fiddler’s Convention in North Carolina. He also managed the careers of Doc Watson and Bill Monroe and was instrumental in creating the first dedicated bluegrass festival in Fincastle, Virginia, in 1965. Two years later, Rinzler founded the Smithsonian Folklife Festival to celebrate and support living cultural heritage from around the world.
1947 Martin 2-15 Mandolin: Owned and played by Ira Louvin. MIM Collection.
Few brother duet acts in country music were as influential as the Louvin Brothers. Ira and Charlie Louvin were born in Alabama in the 1920s, and their high harmony singing and Ira’s tasteful mandolin playing helped them define a sound popularized through radio broadcasts, commercial recordings, and appearances on the Grand Ole Opry – where they debuted in 1955. Ira customized this one-of-a-kind mandolin in the flashy style of professional country artists and played it extensively, including on the Grand Ole Opry stage. This special piece of mandolin history was also owned by David Grisman for many years.
This mandolin — serial number 75315; label dated February 18, 1924 — was the personal instrument of famed Gibson acoustic engineer Lloyd Loar. Loar was impressively inventive and patented designs for keyboard actions and electric instruments, among many others, but the F-5 Master Model mandolin is arguably his most iconic and enduring success. The interior of this mandolin is fitted with an original Virzi Tone Producer. F-5 mandolins with Loar’s signature on the label are the most valuable and sought-after in the world, and Loar F-5s from the batch signed on this date are known to be among the best-sounding. Perhaps it is not surprising that Loar kept this remarkable mandolin for himself!
1928 Martin 00-40H Guitar: Played by the New Lost City Ramblers. Loan courtesy of Darrell Scott.
This guitar was played extensively by the New Lost City Ramblers, who were pivotal to the national revival of Southern folk music in the 1950s and 1960s. Founding members John Cohen, Tom Paley, and Mike Seeger were dedicated to authentically reproducing folk traditions for new audiences. The group recorded several albums for Smithsonian Folkways and helped discover, document, and showcase talented artists such as Elizabeth Cotten, Dock Boggs, and Snuffy Jenkins. Prewar pearl-trimmed Martin guitars are among the most desirable acoustic instruments in the world.
1929 Dobro Model 125 Resophonic Guitar: Owned and played by LeRoy Mack. Loan courtesy of LeRoy McNees.
In 1961, the Kentucky Colonels, led by brothers Clarence and Roland White, performed on The Andy Griffith Show, under the alias “the Country Boys.” The Kentucky Colonels were one of the most exciting and influential bluegrass bands of their era, and their national television appearance would have been much of the United States’ first memorable exposure to bluegrass. Dobro player LeRoy McNees (AKA LeRoy Mack) played this Model 125 resophonic guitar during the show and for many years afterward. After the guitar was damaged at an airport, McNees restored and outfitted it with gold-plated metal hardware.
1975 Stelling Staghorn Banjo: Owned and played by Alison Brown. Loan courtesy of Alison Brown.
A young Alison Brown spent her entire savings on this then-new banjo built by Geoff Stelling, hoping to emulate the crisp, solid tone of Alan Munde, an influential older banjoist who played a similar Staghorn model. Brown played this banjo on her first album, 1981’s Pre-Sequel, and she later played it with Alison Krauss’s successful band Union Station. One of the most gifted banjoists in the world, Brown was the first woman voted Banjo Player of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association (in 1991). She has also won multiple Grammy awards, founded her own record label, Compass Records, and was inducted into the Banjo Hall of Fame in 2019.
1913 Knutsen harp guitar: Owned and played by Michael Hedges. Loan courtesy of Taproot, LLC.
Guitarist and composer Michael Hedges (1953–1997) used a range of innovative and unconventional playing techniques — such as alternate tunings and percussive tapping on the strings and soundboard — to expand the possibilities of what a solo artist could do. In rediscovering the sound of vintage harp guitars with dedicated sub-bass strings, Hedges reimagined the guitar as a full-spectrum compositional tool. His 1984 album Aerial Boundaries illustrated his astonishing talent and helped define the contemporary new age acoustic music of Windham Hill Records. Hedges nicknamed this favored harp guitar “Darth Vader,” and his use of harp guitars revived interest in these long-obscure instruments.
All photos courtesy of the Musical Instrument Museum, Phoenix, Arizona.
It’s a rather warm evening in the mountains of Western North Carolina. With a sweltering sun slowly fading behind the ancient Blue Ridge peaks, Graham Sharp takes a seat at a picnic table underneath the welcoming shade of an old tree.
He takes a sip of a craft ale and gazes out upon the festive meadows of live music and fellowship behind Highland Brewing on the outskirts of Asheville. For Sharp, it’s a rarity these days for him to be able to sit back and enjoy the city he’s called home for the last 22 years.
Co-founder and de facto leader of the Steep Canyon Rangers, Sharp is at the center of one of the most enduring and cherished acts in the realms of Americana, bluegrass, and indie-folk — whether on its own merit or backing Steve Martin and Martin Short.
The Steep Canyon Rangers at the Western North Carolina retreat where they recorded ‘Morning Shift’ with Darrell Scott producing. Photo by Joey Seawell
At 46, Sharp has spent the majority of his adult life either on the road, onstage, or in the studio. And yet, like any endlessly restless and creatively curious musician worth one’s salt, Sharp feels like he’s just getting started.
“I’m the luckiest man on earth to be able to wake up in the morning and think, ‘I want to play banjo and write songs today,’” Sharp says. “Or am I going to get on a bus and go play some shows? That’s a good feeling to be excited about what you do — 25 years from now, I’ll probably be feeling the same way.”
What started as a rag-tag bunch of green horns jamming traditional bluegrass numbers in the dorms at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has evolved into a bonafide group selling out venues coast-to-coast.
Throughout the Rangers’ history there’ve been awards and accolades, including three Grammy nominations and one win. There’s also been big stages (Red Rocks Amphitheatre, the Ryman Auditorium, Hollywood Bowl) and even bigger crowds (Bonnaroo, MerleFest, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass).
But, the core of the group resides in its unrelenting quest to dig deeper within itself to uncover another layer of sound and sonic possibility. Most recently, the band has gone through its biggest test to date, with the departure last year of founding member and arguably the gravitational center of the act, singer/guitarist Woody Platt, who decided to take a step back from the spotlight and focus on family.
“There’s a lot of things you can’t control and Woody leaving is a pretty good lesson in that fact that there’s only so much that you have influence over,” Sharp says. “And I’ve seen that with everybody [in the Rangers]. Everybody had worked hard, stepped up and defined their roles better in the band — just buckle down and push ahead.”
Fellow Western North Carolina singer-songwriter Aaron Burdett stepped into the fold to not necessarily replace Platt, but give the Rangers a new avenue to stride down, in terms of songwriting approaches and musical interpretations.
“We really tried to bring Aaron in to have another voice in there. I love having him as another writer,” Sharp says. “We both generate our own stuff and bounce ideas off of each other, where some of it feels like going back to the beginning [of the band] in the feeling.”
And with the Rangers’ latest album, Morning Shift, the sextet now finds itself at the dawn of a new, unwritten chapter of its continued trajectory as a group as sonically elusive as it is bountiful in its melodic pursuits.
“I don’t think you’d call it a chip on the shoulder,” Sharp says. “But, it feels like there’s just a drive we all have to just get better, to have more people hear what we’re doing — and we know what it takes to get there at this point.”
Hunkering down for a week in the off-the-beaten-path, unincorporated community of Bat Cave, North Carolina, the Rangers transformed a small mountain getaway into a makeshift studio. They also enlisted the help of Darrell Scott, the musical legend being tapped to produce the record.
“Darrell isn’t going to mince words — he’s pretty decisive,” Sharp says. “And Darrell spans all these [musical] worlds. He’s a monster picker and singer, and a great writer. We felt like he also comes from that bluegrass [scene], but also is outside of it, [like we are].”
What resulted is an album of genuine depth and stoic intent, renewal amid a reinvigorated sense of self. It’s a full-circle kind of thing, with the Steep Canyon Rangers not only reflecting on the past, but, more importantly, still chasing after that unknown horizon of artistic discovery. Our BGS interview with Sharp at Highland Brewing in Asheville continued with a conversation about the group’s changing lineup and dynamic.
It’s been a big year for you guys in a lot of ways — physically, sonically. What’s the dynamic right now? What’s kind of changed?
Graham Sharp: Well, what I’ve noticed is my default method [is] when things go weird, to just work harder.
There’s more of a round-robin feel in the band than before.
GS: Yeah. I get that. That’s what people say, that the dynamic reminds them of The Band, where there’s three or four different singers. And that was part of the deal, part of the thought process of, “Let’s take this role that’s the prototypical lead singer/guitar role and de-emphasize that.” Not totally strip it of everything, but the guitar player’s going to sing 40 or 50 percent of the songs. He’s not going to sing 80 percent of the songs. And part of that plays like a little bit of a safeguard, where if something happens with Aaron two years from now, we don’t want to be back in the same boat, where it’s like we’re losing a big hole out of the middle of the band.
Mandolinist Mike Guggino, in the studio recording the Steep Canyon Rangers’ ‘Morning Shift.’ Shot by Joey Seawell.
Like equally distributed weight now.
GS: Yeah. That’s kind of how we want it. And I think that’s what it needs to be. There’s a lot of talent in [the band] and maybe this is a chance to uncover some of it.
Not to take anything away from Woody and his contributions, but it feels more of a cohesive unit than I’ve ever seen it before.
GS: Isn’t that crazy? And that’s what people have been saying. I don’t know what that is except to say everybody’s stepping up and also making sure everybody else shines a little bit more.
I also wonder if that plays into more camaraderie in the band.
GS: Maybe. I mean, the band is a brotherhood. You couldn’t have more camaraderie than we have. But, that said, if people are feeling like their talents aren’t being put into full use – there’s one thing about being great friends and being brothers, but also on some kind of subconscious level, if you feel like there’s stuff that’s not being utilized, then maybe there’s something else you should be doing, you know?
And there’s maybe a reaffirming of gratitude for how far you guys have come.
GS: No doubt, man. That’s definitely one of the overwhelming things that has come out of this [latest chapter], is just gratitude to still be doing it — just keep going and keep doing it. [With Morning Shift], this record feels like a jumping off point.
The album also reinforces that elusive nature that’s always resided in the Rangers, where the last thing you ever want to be is pigeonholed, musically.
GS: Yeah. But, I love to play the banjo, so I don’t want to grow away from that. And [sometimes] I feel like my writing doesn’t always lend itself to the banjo. So, a lot of my stuff on the banjo ends up being able to figure out how you play to this weird song that doesn’t really call for banjo like a bluegrass song would — that’s part of the fun of [songwriting].
Aaron has now been in the band for a year. What’s surprised you the most about what he’s brought to the Rangers?
GS: We knew he was a great singer when we hired him, so that didn’t come as a surprise. When he sent us his demos, we knew this was our guy. But, the biggest surprise has been just how far apart our musical worlds are. He’s a very different musician than anybody we’ve had in the band. There’s things that he does in his own rhythm. He just has a different touch on the rhythm guitar.
Graham Sharp of the Steep Canyon Rangers recording ‘Morning Shift’ in studio. Photo by Joey Seawell.
There’s definitely a feeling of reinvigoration within the band. Almost 25 years into the Rangers, the band is still at the top of its game. But, playing devil’s advocate, I think there’s now other mountains you can see that you may want to climb?
GS: I think you’re right. I mean, as a band, you only have one introduction to the world. Maybe we were lucky because we got two, the other with Steve Martin. But, right now, it feels more like a collective up onstage. And I think that’s invaluable. Everybody is putting in the work. For example, I’ve always played banjo for a couple hours a day. But, maybe now, I play it for three hours a day. You’re just stepping things up, bringing things up a notch.
What really sticks out when you look back at the early years of the band, this handful of college kids learning to play bluegrass music?
GS: It was 1999. Somewhere in my junior or senior in college. It was myself, [former bassist] Charles [Humphrey] and Woody. Then, [mandolinist] Mike [Guggino] showed up later because he was Woody’s friend from Brevard, [North Carolina]. There was no ambition at the time. The ambition was really, “Let’s learn to play [bluegrass] so it sounds like it does on these records.”
New Grass Revival. [Russell Moore and] IIIrd Tyme Out. We never got to where we sounded like any of those bands. We could never sound like Lonesome River Band. But, take a little bit of this, take a little bit of that and go play onstage at bluegrass festivals. Go to Sears and get some clothes that match. And [a lot of the bluegrass] legends were still around and playing those festivals. Earl [Scruggs] was still around. John Hartford. Jimmy Martin. You know, when you’re young and rising, you’ve got all the momentum, all the buzz. And when you’re established and older, it’s different. Right now, we’re in this in-between period where it’s not newer and it’s not legacy. But, we’re not Billy Strings or Molly Tuttle, either. I still just love going out [there onstage] and proving it every single time — that feeling of doing what it takes to be our best each night.
Arkansas-based country and old-time troubadour Willi Carlisle has announced his upcoming, Darrell Scott-produced album, Critterland, with a delightful stop-motion music video. (Watch above.) Set for release January 26, 2024 on Signature Sounds, the collection once again draws on Carlisle’s apt self-positioning as a sort of rural, countercultural, folklorist guru, crafting poetic yet down-to-earth songs that feel all at once fantastic, resplendent, whimsical, and– well, trashy. It’s a dichotomy not unknown to American roots musics, but rarely is this paradoxical construct inhabited so intentionally and subverted so artfully. It’s a language Carlisle isn’t just fluent in, it oozes from his spirit and lives in his bones.
On “Critterland,” Carlisle positions himself not as an omniscient narrator, but well within his own communities – musical and otherwise – as he examines how the “big tent” of his prior album, Peculiar, Missouri, could be put into action. And, in doing so, he demonstrates how varied, broad, deep – and sometimes ugly – open arm, open heart policies can be. But in that mundane, in that bittersweet, there is endless beauty.
With that thought in mind, Darrell Scott as producer and collaborator here isn’t merely a solid choice, but a nearly perfect one. You hear his touches in the confidence Carlisle has stepped into – with hundreds and hundreds of shows under his belt – with his soaring, passionate vocal on “Critterland,” raising its possums and raccoons and armadillos to saint-like status. Because, after all, aren’t all living beings divine? Don’t we all have something to contribute to our own, particular critterlands? Carlisle says so, and makes a compelling case.
For a musician that could easily play every instrument in a standard bluegrass lineup – plus dozens more – it’s remarkable that Darrell Scott put out a post-pandemic record, Old Cane Back Rocker, that decidedly features a band. A picker’s picker and a songwriter’s songwriter, Scott has in the past recorded and released albums that feature other players only sparsely, fleshed out nearly entirely by his own playing. But this time, he wanted to feature his string band.
This wasn’t a post-pandemic realization either or a discovery brought on by the existential crises of the early pandemic, when communal music seemed like a far distant memory. No, Old Cane Back Rocker was actually tracked in 2019. COVID-19 was not the impetus for this collectively-created record, but rather the pickers themselves: Bryn Davies on bass, Matt Flinner on mandolin and banjo, and Shad Cobb on fiddle each inspired this new release, its track list, and its “out of many, one” approach.
For avid fans of this hit songwriter and country music renaissance man, Old Cane Back Rocker will feel like a return of sorts, a homecoming that reminds of many shows at the Station Inn and performances at bluegrass camps and festivals around the country. But, the album is even more fascinating and engaging when contrasted with Scott’s entire catalog, which showcases a diverse and circuitous lineup of production styles, genres and musical aesthetics.
For a new edition of First & Latest, we put Scott’s latest, Old Cane Back Rocker, up against his first release, Aloha From Nashville. As it happens, there’s a recording of Scott’s Travis Tritt-recorded hit, “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” on each album, making for the perfect starting point for our phone conversation.
When you first recorded “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” in the ‘90s, did you expect it would have this longevity? Did you have a feeling you’d still be recording it and performing it or did you think it would be the hit that it’s been?
Darrell Scott: No, hits are hard to distinguish, when you just hear the song – at least for me.
I think a hit has a lot more to do with the business, to make a hit, and it’s not the songwriter. It’s everything that follows after the songwriter. It’s the label. It’s the management. It’s the business connectivity, the promotion, the radio – all that has nothing to do with the songwriter. Zero. I remember saying one time, “A hit is that thing you hear a thousand times.” Repetition has a lot to do with a hit. It’s almost obvious.
Here’s one of the ironies. That song had been recorded three other times on major labels, but was never released before Travis Tritt got it. So tell me this, since it was a hit, why would three acts lose their deal [and not make it to release] with a hit? You see what I’m talking about? What made it a hit was the business machine that makes hits. A song is written by a songwriter. But a hit is made by the powers that be, after the fact.
In my case with that song, I had hurt my back, so I had to be on my back for a week. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t go to sessions. I had to cancel my entire week so that I could lie on the floor, because I couldn’t do nothing else. Honestly, I couldn’t even sit up. After 6 or 7 days when I could [finally] sit up, I was literally just heating rice in a microwave – and considering making soup. Just sitting at the table, which I hadn’t done all week. It was the most blessed thing to do such simple things. And that’s where the song came from.
I wonder what made you want to do another version of that song this time around, with a string band? Because this is a song you’ve recorded and put out in quite a few manifestations.
DS: There’s one really simple answer for that. We recorded this album in August of 2019. In September of 2019, I’d heard two or three months in advance that a cornfield, a corn maze – like those pumpkin farms and apple pickings and that style of thing. There’s one north of Nashville that I heard was going to put my image in their corn maze. They cut my image and then the words, “It’s a great day to be alive” in their corn maze.
I thought, you know what? That, I can’t pass that one up. We’re going to have to make a video of that, and of us doing that song, rather than just lip-syncing to the one from ‘95 – which is actually when I recorded it. Wait, maybe even ‘94, but somewhere way back there. Instead of using that track, it was like, “Hey, I’m recording a string band album. I’m just going to put this in the string band’s hands and we’ll throw it down.”
I think we premiered that video back in the day! Well, the song certainly does beg the question: Does “a great day to be alive” look the same to you now as it did back then? Or, what does “a great day to be alive” look like to you now?
DS: Man, anything that makes you grateful, is a great day to be alive.
If you look at that song, there’s two things I notice in that song. First of all, the things that this person is grateful for are simple things like rice in a microwave, making some soup. They’re pondering, “Hey, I know it’s hard out there in the world, but today’s a good day, and tomorrow may not be.”
It’s just taking that moment, when you realize, “Hey, it is a great day to be alive. I am glad to be alive.” There’s no shame in saying such a thing. And that’s still the case. You know, that wasn’t just in 1994 or ‘95 or ‘97. Any day that you can feel that way is a great day.
You have this uncanny ability to take your listeners into a small, tiny moment like that, a split second moment of gratitude or of grief or of just big feelings and turn it into this whole big song. And what I’m thinking of now is “Inauguration Day” / “The World Is Too Much With Me.” And I’m so glad that ended up on the new record, because I went back to that Facebook video of that song, dozens of times after I first saw it.
DS: I’ve alluded to it so far in our talk, but songs have a life of their own, and they have a timing of their own, and they don’t have a shelf life or preservatives. You know, almost anything’ll start showing mold in about three to four days here in Tennessee. And songs don’t have that kind of shortness.
I try to gravitate towards songs. On a good day or night, to have a song that’s timeless is the goal for me. One that doesn’t just burn out in the second listening or in three months or something like that. That’s what I try to go for. I’m trying to see a bigger picture than, “So-and-so will like this song” while I’m writing it. “Oh, my publisher will like this” or, “I’m going to pitch this to so-and-so.” If you’re thinking that while writing a song, you just sold the song down the river. You don’t have that song any longer, you have a commodity.
I’m not a commodities writer, I’m a songwriter. From an experiential point of view. So, “Inauguration Day” is simply how I felt on inauguration day.
Well, and I felt myself returning to that song over and over. Even though it’s a very specific and very topical song, the repeated line, “The world is too much with me, too much today,” it just feels like such a mantra.
DS: Right? Because some could feel the same way about– uh-oh, I’m blanking on the current president… Biden! But see, some people could feel that about any inauguration day, the day that Biden got in or the day any other president got in and that’s fine. But I absolutely wrote it on Trump’s inauguration day. I couldn’t do anything else, to tell you the truth. The world was too much with me that day. All I could do was I escaped over to my dad’s cabin. I have my dad’s Kentucky cabin here on my Tennessee property, and that’s where I went. I just crawled into a hole, pretty much, but inside the cabin was a five-string guitar that’s supposed to have six. I just played it with a bar, like a Dobro thing.
I came back to the house where there was a signal [to record the video] and there was wind in the microphone and all sorts of unprofessional things. But I then recorded that song within five minutes of being back at the house, having just written the song. That’s what I do. I follow my inclination. There again, I’m not writing a hit. I’m writing from a reaction in that case, just like “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” was a reaction to seven days of lying on a concrete floor.
It’s not my only skillset, but it shows up [in songs] like that. I’m just writing out of a need to write. I need to write. On inauguration day, I had to. I couldn’t do anything else, so I did that and that’s how it felt. It felt like the world was too much with me.
So the other two First & Latest tracks we’re here to talk about are “Title of the Song” from Aloha From Nashville and “Fried Taters” from Old Cane Back Rocker. I feel like the through line here is pretty obvious, the sense of humor that you have in your songwriting and in your music making.
DS: Right, because that’s another part [of my writing,] I do have a humorous side. I have a sarcastic side. I have a pointed, jabby way of observation, because – here’s what’s at the top of the page, above “songwriter” or “musician” and “singer” is observer. I’m first and foremost an observer. Part of that observation is being comedic or pathetic.
That whole first album of mine, Aloha From Nashville, “aloha” means hello and it means goodbye. I wasn’t sure which it was going to be, it being my first record I put out in Nashville. I took a lot of pot-shots at Nashville and the music industry within that album, and that’s why I called it Aloha From Nashville.
“Title of the Song,” it’s just a comedic song that’s so true that it’s almost doesn’t need to be said, except I went ahead and said it, you know? Writing a song about writing a title for a song, we all know the formula. It’s poking fun at that situation. The comedy is there, in both the writing and the production.
The reason I put comedy on this last record with “Fried Taters,” is it’s the same humor, it’s the same comedy. This one’s an instrumental, but I have a voiceover thing going on that’s making the snide commentary, that is kinda the same commentary as 1994 or ‘95, with “Title of the Song.” On “Fried Taters” it’s literally the words of a famous musician in jazz who really put down country music, audibly and frequently. Those are literal quotes from that person. I littered them throughout our little instrumental, to have that attitude.
Was that a tune by you? Did the melody come from you? Was that a band tune?
DS: I had the progression, that I wrote. Matt Flinner is such a great composer, who plays the mandolin and banjo in this group, he has so many records and compositions. He’s an educator, he teaches. He’s just a marvel as a composer. I knew that I could just flip [the chord progression] over to Matt. It had an A section and a B section, but that was about it. So he’s the one who put the melody to it. It’s a co write, but we never sat together with it. I did the chords and sent it off to him and he sent me back the melody and we were ready to record it.
I definitely appreciate you, more than almost anybody else, getting Matt Flinner to play banjo. He is so good on banjo.
DS: Yeah, he’s such a great banjo player and I’m so pleased that he plays it for me. I think probably, the only other time that he played banjo was in Leftover Salmon. Matt Flinner is such a great banjo player and many of us know this about him. I’m so lucky I get him to play banjo on every single gig, I mean, he may be on banjo more than he is on mandolin on our gigs. He’s a fabulous banjo player. I play banjo, too, but I know what a really great banjo player is. Matt’s got the composer ability. He’s got the band leader ability. He’s got the sideman ability, obviously the mandolin and the educator ability, but then he gets in there and and plays banjo that well.
What a lot of people think of first when they think of you is like, a one man band or that you’re a multi-instrumentalist or utility player, but clearly it was so important for you to have a band with you on this album. Why did you intentionally want to make this a collective work, rather than just hiring a band to back you up or playing it all yourself?
DS: Yeah, well, because I wanted this to be a band. I’ve played with these guys now for eight or 10 years. I don’t even know. Anytime a festival wanted me to have, in essence, a bluegrass band or bluegrass instrumentation, these are the very people I’d take. Every single one of them. We did a Live at Station Inn album and it’s the same people. If RockyGrass hired me, or Grand Targhee, or MerleFest, or something like that, this is who I would bring. But we’d never made a studio album. So I knew I had to do that.
Then the other part of it, I wanted it to be a band, but not just in the instrumentation. I want Matt to bring in a tune. I want Shad [Cobb] to bring in a tune. I want participation. I want everybody to sing harmonies, every chance we get. I very mindfully made this a band record – sound, input of songs, and stuff – because I know how to put together a solo album and all that. I’ve done it. I wanted this to be this band, because I know their abilities beyond just being sidemen.
I think bluegrass fans know that you’re a picker’s picker. But sometimes your albums, they’re so song-centered that that fact can fall to the wayside, despite the fact that you’re always improvising and using that vocabulary. So with this album and having the band right in the title, it felt like a return in some ways.
DS: Well, that’s what I wanted and why I wanted to do it with these people, it has everything to do with these exact people.
Here’s one of those ironies of our town or this music. So you what’s supposedly called a “sideman” like Shad Cobb, but Shad can lead his own band. He’s got boxes and boxes of songs and tunes. Matt Flinner has cases of songs and tunes. He used to tour with his trio and they would write a song per day, each of them. And that night they’d perform it!
This is what I’m talking about. These people, they do stuff like that. Where’s the hit making in that, you see what I mean? Just going back to that silly idea that the hit is everything. No, driving 300 miles and having a new tune that night times three people in the band, that’s news to me! Not what’s number one this week.
Photo Credit: Michael Weintrob
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This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
