Tag: David Grisman

John Jorgenson Revisits His Southern California Bluegrass Roots

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John Jorgenson is not only a man of many talents, he’s a musician with many interests. Perhaps you’ve heard his gypsy jazz, or remember when the Desert Rose Band — a neo-trad country group that included Jorgenson, Chris Hillman and other luminaries of the California country and country-rock scene — was riding high at radio, or perhaps you saw him playing an indispensable role in Elton John’s touring band. As Jim Reeves might have put it, he’s done a lot in his time.

Even so, you might not know that John Jorgenson is also a bluegrass guy — unless, that is, you saw him on the road with Earl Scruggs during the legend’s final touring years, or happened to buy his 2015 box set, Divertuoso, which included a disc of bluegrass alongside one of gypsy jazz and another of eclectic, electric music. Earlier this year, that disc was issued as a standalone album, From the Crow’s Nest. Featuring the regular (and equally eclectic) members of the John Jorgenson Bluegrass Band (J2B2) — Herb Pedersen, Mark Fain and Jon Randall — it’s a delicious collection that scatters well-known songs (Pedersen’s “Wait a Minute”; Randall’s “Whiskey Lullaby” co-write; and the Dillards’ “There Is a Time”) among a trove of newer material, much of it written or co-written by Jorgenson.

From the Crow’s Nest ought to go some distance in alerting wider audiences to a new standard-bearer for a style of bluegrass that, while its roots trace back to the early 1950s, hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. Though Southern California is a long way from the Grand Ole Opry and other spawning grounds for the original bluegrass sound, it served in the post-World War II years as a magnet for job seekers from both sides of the Mississippi River, and that meant bluegrass pickers, too — and so, when we met up, that made for a good starting point for our conversation.

Listening to your album reminds me that you are a product of a Southern California roots music scene that included bluegrass from early on. How did you get exposed to it?

Probably the first time was when a band came to my high school and I thought they were from another planet, because I’d never heard anything so fast in my life. I played music already — I played classical music, and rock — but that was sort of an anomaly, and then I didn’t really see it again for a while.

I came to it sort of in a backwards way. I had a scholarship to the Aspen Music Festival. They brought me in as a jazz bass player; they wanted to start a jazz program. And I accepted the scholarship as long as I could also be in their classical program, playing the bassoon. Well, I had my tuition paid for, and my room paid for, but I didn’t have money for meals. So I needed to figure out how to make some money, and then I saw an ad that said: Wanted: strict jazz player for immediate gigs. So I checked out an upright bass from the school and went to this audition. And they weren’t playing jazz — what they were playing was David Grisman’s first album. This was the summer of 1978, so this album was new. I’d never heard it.

So they’re playing all instrumental stuff and I thought, OK, I really like the sound, especially of that mandolin. I liked the flatpicking guitar, too. I was already a guitar player, but I just loved the mandolin. When I got home that summer, my neighbors had a Gibson A model and I borrowed it. Not too long after that, I ran into a friend who had been instructed to put together a band that could play bluegrass and Dixieland to cover two different areas of Disneyland. And he asked, “Hey, do you know anybody that could play bluegrass fiddle and Dixieland cornet?” And needing a job at the time, I said, “I can play mandolin and clarinet.”

And then I kind of learned backwards, whatever I could. I learned from New Grass Revival, and then Bill Monroe, and Flatt & Scruggs, and the Stanley Brothers, and the Osborne Brothers. And all the others — Tony Rice, Sam Bush, the Bluegrass Cardinals, whoever was playing around at the time. Larry Stephenson was playing with the Cardinals at that time, and I remember I was — I don’t want to say shy, but I’m shy around people I don’t know. And to me at the time, they were real bluegrass musicians and I was a pretender. I sort of felt an attitude from some people, too, but he was not like that at all. He was really friendly.

Did playing bluegrass at Disneyland motivate you to build connections with the larger bluegrass scene, or was it a standalone kind of gig?

Actually, when we first started, we were terrible! We learned three songs and then we’d play those, move to a different place and play them again. But everyone was ambitious, so we all practiced; we learned songs, we got better. And then we started to play out around Los Angeles. I think the first time we played out as an act, we opened for Jim & Jesse at McCabe’s [Guitar Shop]. There was also a venue called the Banjo Cafe, with bluegrass every night, on Lincoln [Boulevard] in Santa Monica. So the Cardinals played there; Berline, Hickman & Crary would play there; and touring acts, too — Ralph Stanley would play there. And a young Alison Brown, a young Stuart Duncan.

I know that there are a lot fans of Desert Rose Band among bluegrassers, and some gypsy jazz fans, too, but for a lot of people, you came onto the radar when you were going places with Earl Scruggs — 15 years ago, maybe? How’d that come about?

Actually, it was because of Brad Davis. He was playing with Earl, and we were kind of guitar geek friends. We ended up sitting next to each other on a plane one time, and were chatting, and he said, “I’m playing with Earl Scruggs,” and I said, “I’d love to do that.” He said, “You know, they like to have an electric guitar, maybe there might be a spot.” He really set that up for me.

I said, “OK, I’m happy to play electric guitar, but I would really love to play the mandolin.” So I would bring both, and if I played too much mandolin, Louise [Scruggs] would say, “John, don’t forget that electric guitar.” Then they said, “Don’t you play saxophone? We used to have that on a song called ‘Step It Up and Go.’” So I said, “What about the clarinet? It’s not quite so loud.” And as it turns out, Earl said his favorite musician was Pete Fountain, and he loved the clarinet. So every time after that, Gary Scruggs would call me up: “Dad says don’t forget the moneymaker.”

The J2B2 record was originally part of a box set — a disc of gypsy jazz, one of bluegrass, one of electric stuff. So you have these different musical itches, and some musicians would choose to try to synthesize these things into something new and different and unique, but you seem to have an interest in keeping them each their own thing. Why is that?

It’s because, to me, the things that I love about bluegrass are what make it bluegrass. I love the trio harmony, I love these instruments, the way each instrument functions in the band. And I love gypsy jazz, and some folks might say they’re closely related — they’re string band music, they both have acoustic bass and fiddle and acoustic guitar, and each instrument has a role. There are a lot of similarities, but the things that I like about each one are what make them different. I think each music has an accent, and a history and a perspective, and I really want to be true to those, because those are the elements that touch my heart.

I feel like what I do and what this group does is quite traditional, compared to a lot of people. It’s not jamgrass. It’s not Americana. It’s bluegrass. There are folk elements, and all those other things, of course. But really, my touchstones for that style of music are all the classics: the trio harmonies of the Osborne Brothers, and the slightly softer Seldom Scene and Country Gentlemen sounds, the early Dillards, the Country Gazette, and the whole Southern California sound… you don’t think of Tony Rice’s roots as Southern California, but they are.

And probably at one point, if I could have sounded like I was from Kentucky, I wouldn’t have minded that. But at the end of the day, well, I love Bill Monroe as much as the next guy, and I’m going to take inspiration, but I feel like I’m part of a lineage of bluegrass that’s just as viable as any other, and why not have that sound be a part of me?

Photo credit: Mike Melnyk

Old & In the Way, ‘Old & In the Way Breakdown’

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As a genre, bluegrass has always had outward-facing ambassadors — bands and musicians with platforms that enabled them to reach a wider audience than the usually insular ‘grass niche. The Dillards, as “the Darlings,” brought bluegrass to thousands of TV viewers on The Andy Griffith Show; the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band birthed an entire generation of fans with their iconic Will the Circle Be Unbroken album, showcasing the genre’s founders and heroes; Alison Krauss, with her wildly successful crossover-and-back career — she has won more Grammy Awards than any other woman ever — showed the masses that bluegrass can be aesthetic, understated, and artful without sacrificing its raw, rustic energy. It just takes a tiny taste, a glimpse behind the curtain, to hook outside listeners with that high lonesome sound.

In 1973, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Vassar Clements, Peter Rowan, and John Kahn coalesced as Old & In the Way, becoming one of the most influential bluegrass ambassador bands in the history of the music. Their eponymous debut record is widely regarded as the best-selling bluegrass album of all time — before the soundtrack for the infamous O Brother, Where Art Thou? surpassed it. Though Old & In the Way only lasted a year, their legacy lives on, extended and expanded through several live recordings. Released in 1997, Breakdown was recorded live at the Boarding House in San Francisco, California, by Owsley “Bear” Stanley in October 1973. The “Old & In the Way Breakdown” showcases that Garcia was not only a fan of old-time and bluegrass, but he had the chops, too, tearing it up on the five-wire. Budding bluegrass fans take note: We call this tune “Patty on the Turnpike,” too.

Join BGS as we celebrate Jerry Garcia’s songbook, from the Grateful Dead to Old & In the Way and beyond at the Theatre at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles on March 30. With bluegrassers Sam Bush, Molly Tuttle, Billy Strings, Sean Watkins, and many more. Get your tickets for Jubilee: A Celebration of Jerry Garcia now.

Jerry Garcia: Expanding the Musical Consciousness

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Before becoming the psychedelic guitar-playing icon of the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia was already living a life completely dedicated to music. Heavily immersed in the folk idioms that coalesced with the beat poet scene in San Francisco — and in the peninsula towns of Menlo Park and Palo Alto — in the beginning of the 1960s, Garcia’s concentration, determination, and passion for musical collaboration planted the seeds for a force that would not only influence the world in song, but that would let loose a seamless tie to multiple genres through multiple generations. What’s now viewed as Americana, Garcia was creating with the Dead right from the outset. His impact looms far and wide, perhaps even greater as the years since his passing roll on. From the bluegrass world of the McCourys to esteemed guitarists like Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, and David Rawlings, to jam bands like Leftover Salmon, and the current generation of musicians like the National, Jenny Lewis, and Ryan Adams, Garcia’s ethos is being deeply felt and utilized.

Garcia had a mind hungry for knowledge and interested in art, comics, and horror films, even as music ran through his family. After initially getting an accordion for his 15th birthday and successfully trading that in for a guitar, the quest for constant improvement was born as he devoured the styles of Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed, Buddy Holly, and Bo Diddley. As the ‘60s approached and the initial rock boom faded, Garcia and his friend (and soon to be Grateful Dead lyricist) Robert Hunter found themselves in the middle of a very fertile Bay Area folk scene. Being steeped in Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music led to a fascination with the Carter Family and then Flatt & Scruggs.

It was at this time, in 1962, that Garcia began his complete immersion into the banjo and the bluegrass style of Earl Scruggs. He formed the Hart Valley Drifters with Hunter and David Nelson (later of New Riders of the Purple Sage and the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band), and the scene grew to encompass the likes of Eric Thompson, Jody Stecher, Sandy Rothman, Rodney Albin, Janis Joplin, Jorma Kaukonen, David Crosby, Paul Kantner, and Herb Pedersen. The Hart Valley Drifters performed at the Monterey Folk Festival in 1963 in the amateur division and won Best Group, and Garcia took the Best Banjo Player award, which strikes with irony as, throughout his career, Garcia would never consider music to be a competition of any kind. He was more into turning people on.

While absorbing as much music as possible and focusing on his craft with diligence, Garcia came into cahoots with people like Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and John “Marmaduke” Dawson through a string of continuous collaborations and a rotating cast of characters at joints like the Boar’s Head, Keppler’s Bookstore, and the Tangent. McKernan was the blues aficionado with the biker looks and heart of gold who would lead Garcia into the electric blues band the Warlocks, which then became the Grateful Dead, while Dawson would be the one who had the canon of songs for Garcia to base his pedal steel guitar learning around to form the New Riders of the Purple Sage.

But it was on a cross country road trip with Rothman in 1964 that Garcia met David Grisman, the young mandolin player to whom Thompson had tipped him off. It was at Sunset Park in West Grove, Pennsylvania, where acts like Bill Monroe and the Osborne Brothers were featured, where Garcia and Grisman first did some pickin’ together, and a friendship was born that would lead to musical ventures that would have more than a lasting impact.

Both Garcia and Grisman were imparted with some crucial advice from Monroe, which was to start your own style of music. Garcia, no doubt, led the Dead (as much as he refused to admit to any leadership role) to their unique musical domain, while Grisman created his own “Dawg” style of music that was the precursor of “New Grass” in the ‘70s. According to Grisman, “Jerry was always the true renaissance music man.”

While each had gone on to create their own paths, it was 1973 when they started hanging out together at Stinson Beach, picking and having fun, when Peter Rowan (a former Bill Monroe Bluegrass Boy member) joined in along with legendary fiddler Vassar Clements, and, needing a bass player, John Kahn was brought in. Old & In the Way was born. In typical Garcia nature, the musical fun led to some local gigs which, thankfully, were recorded by Owsley “Bear” Stanley. With the guitar and the Dead being Garcia’s main drive, getting back to the banjo and picking with his pals in Old & In the Way was not only stress free, but fun and a piece of his musical puzzle that really exemplified how the muse consumed him. It wouldn’t be out of the norm, at the time, to find him in the span of a week or two playing gigs with the Dead, Old & In the Way, and one of his other musical soulmates, Merl Saunders.

The release of Old & In the Way, taken from Bear’s recordings at the Boarding House in San Francisco in October of 1973, hit the world in 1975 on the Dead’s Round Records label. It was through the Dead Heads fan club mailing of a 7-inch, 33 rpm sampler that many fans got their first dose of Old & In the Way. Many of that generation — and a few that followed — were exposed to bluegrass thanks to that release. The album continued to turn on the masses and was widely respected as one of the best-selling bluegrass albums of all time.

While fame was never of interest to Garcia, the expansion of musical consciousness was, perhaps, the most beneficial and unintended consequence of his popularity. Just like the Dead were doing with their music — turning kids onto Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, and Johnny Cash songs — here, Garcia and Old & In the Way were turning rock and rollers onto bluegrass and the songs of Peter Rowan, the Stanley Brothers, and Jim and Jesse McReynolds. The aspect of turning people on to music was certainly not limited to bluegrass, where Garcia was concerned. The Jerry Garcia Band was his outlet for a good 20+ years, wherein he’d groove to just about any and everything. Motown, Louis Armstrong, Los Lobos, Allen Toussaint, Irving Berlin, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Van Morrison … the stream of tremendous musical taste was just about endless. And, of course, adding his own flair, passionate vocals, and one-of-a-kind guitar to it all made for hundreds of satisfying shows and numerous albums.

Jerry Garcia made music that was loaded with adventure. Improvisation was his nature, always seeking out what was around the bend, never wanting to play the same thing the same way twice. That adventure is what drew so many to him and his music. That adventure lives on, not only eternally in his music, but also through the lives, songs, and good deeds of those he inspires.

Illustration by Zachary Johnson

Hot Club Sandwich, ‘Swang Thang’

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Swing is the most bluegrass-y subspecies of jazz. The chunk of the guitar chopping and comping away, the improvisational fiddle, and the walking bass solos almost guaranteed to elicit applause are more than reminiscent of ‘grass. It’s not uncommon to hear standards played in the style of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli wafting from more progressive bluegrass jams. Quintessential numbers like “Swing 42” and “Minor Swing” morph seamlessly into new acoustic favorites like “16/16” and “E.M.D,” both written by David “Dawg” Grisman. Dawg, arguably more than anyone else, is responsible for bringing swing and gypsy jazz to the bluegrass masses — but he isn’t just a jazzy missionary to more folky, old-time realms; he has made a home for himself in the heart of the swing scene, as well. He’s as comfortable straddling the fence as he is jumping down and spending some quality time on either side.

On the opening track of Hot Club Sandwich’s just-released album, No Pressure, the duo of mandolins make this bluegrass comparison most palpable. But don’t be mistaken: This band, this album, and this track are all swing. Hot Club’s mandolinist Matt Sircely and Dawg himself, the writer of “Swang Thang” and the album’s producer/advice guru, twin the tune’s bouncy, whimsical, jovial head and swap licks with each other during the solo sections. Listeners may feel a sudden urge to run away to the countryside in France, or to sip wine or snooty coffee at a street side café, or watch an indie movie or Fiat/Vespa car chase after a dose of this swang. It’s a pleasure to hear Dawg do what he does best with this Washington-based string outfit that’s been carrying the swing banner for going on two decades.

That Ain’t Bluegrass: Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley

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Artist: Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley
Song: “Friend of the Devil” (Originally by Grateful Dead)
Album: The Country Blues

Where did you guys first find this song? From the Grateful Dead or from a secondary source?

Trey Hensley: I picked it up from the Dead. The first — maybe the second — record that I bought by the Dead was American Beauty. It felt pretty natural, the original is somewhat bluegrassy. It has [David] Grisman on it, so it felt like it would be a cool tune to cover. I took it to Rob one of the times we were rehearsing and it just fell in — it was perfect.

What else about the song made you feel like it would fit solidly within bluegrass, not just on the fringes?

TH: I liked the subject matter; it’s just a well-written song. It already had the melody of a bluegrass tune, and I know that the Dead got a lot of people into bluegrass, from Jerry [Garcia’s] banjo playing and Old and in the Way. That slightly outlaw-ish subject matter just fell right in with what I think of when I think of traditional bluegrass tunes.

What was the process for you guys putting together this song?

Rob Ickes: I felt kind of ignorant because it’s such a huge song and everybody knows it, but I had never heard it before! I love that. I think my ignorance helped my enthusiasm for the song. I had never heard it before, but when Trey brought the song, I just loved it. I loved the subject matter, also, and it sounded like a cool bluegrass thing. We came up with that little hook on the top of the song — it kind of reminds me of “Blackberry Blossom,” the way the chords go. We came up with that melodic figure, that’s like a fiddle tune, with a bluegrass feel to pull it more toward ‘grass than the original version. Also, I heard that the Dead never performed the song at that tempo (on the record) again. They would perform it pretty slow.

I think because it’s a Dead song, it lends itself to a sort of space jam in the middle of the tune. When we play it live, we really pick it out. It’s a showcase for both of us, but especially Trey on the guitar. He really takes it to the moon and back. We just did a bunch of shows with Tommy Emmanuel and David Grisman, and we closed with that song every night and would send it out to David, because he played on the original, of course. People went nuts over that instrumental section.

Is the jam section your favorite part of playing it live? What else do you love about performing it out?

RI: For me, it’s just hearing what Trey does with it every night. [Laughs] It’s always totally different. He’s just a great improviser. It’s fun to hear all the different stuff that comes out of him every night.

TH: I would say the improvisation part. It puts me in that Dead state of mind. You want to come up with something different. Being into bluegrass and jazz and all kinds of different stuff, improvising is my favorite part of music, in general. Especially on that one. There are no rules. It has a shape, but within that there are no rules. It’s pretty much a free-for-all. And I like that it can be as loose as we want it to be. It feels great and it’s always fun.

Ever since the beginning of bluegrass as a genre, there’s always been this tradition of covering songs from outside of bluegrass. Why do you think that’s something that still continues to this day?

TH: That first Bill [Monroe] record has so much on it that, by today’s standards, would not be considered bluegrass — like organ and other stuff that’s kind of outside the driving thing that bluegrass has become. I think that’s the beauty of bluegrass: It can work within whatever you want it to be.

RI: You know, Earl Scruggs was listening to Benny Goodman, and he was really into this clarinet player named Pete Fountain. Bill Monroe was listening to Jimmie Rodgers. Arnold Schultz, a great blues guitarist from Kentucky was, of course, a big influence on Bill. That’s what I like about what Trey and I are doing. It’s kind of rooted in bluegrass, it has that energy, but we’re exploring other music forms. When we play live, we’re usually playing acoustics, but we have some pedals. We’re playing through pickups. I’ll use a phase-shifter at certain points on that song and Trey will use a wah pedal, kind of tipping his hat to Jerry Garcia — even musically, he’ll quote some Jerry Garcia licks in his solo. We’re using this bluegrass background, but we don’t live in that shell. I’m a big fan of John Scofield and some other electric guitarists, and those guys have a lot of effects pedals that they use in a very musical way. It’s not just some BS. It’s fun to explore that with these acoustic instruments. It allows us to try new things sonically that are very exciting. We love mixing it up.

I grew up listening to Tony Rice. I always think of that late ‘70s/early ‘80s period when he was in the studio so much, doing the David Grisman stuff. And his solo albums were very jazz- and improvisation-oriented. At the same time, he was doing the Bluegrass Album Band. It was all killer. Really, really top-notch. I’ve always been inspired by musicians like that, who always continue to seek inspiration. You have to go out and look at new things to get inspiration. You can’t just look at the same four walls every day.

You know that ain’t bluegrass, right?

[Both laugh]

TH: I’ve heard that for years now! [Laughs] I like to take it with a badge of honor. I love bluegrass, but I love to expand on bluegrass. I think anything that I’m ever going to do is going to have that core of bluegrass. It’s never going to go away, because I love it so much. But if everybody wants to be like Bill, they’d expand upon the music.

RI: The sentiment you’re talking about … who knows? But I think it’s usually more of a fan thing. Those people like the tradition that bluegrass encapsulates. There are definitely some musicians that feel that way, too. I’ve always listened to musicians who are exploring and trying new things. That’s what Bill and Earl were doing. It’s ironic, because I think what people love about bluegrass is that exploring. So, to want to shut it down is kind of contradictory to what made it great in the first place. I also get that people like it because it represents something, whether it’s the “good ol’ days” or whatever. And I get that, when people started adding drums to country, it drove a lot of people away from country music. The same happens with bluegrass fans today. I guess I just listen to music that makes me feel something and I don’t really care about the instrumentation. I’m listening for what people are putting into it.

Defying Expectations: A Conversation with Peter Rowan

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Peter Rowan is a serious wellspring of knowledge about 20th-century music. It’s a wild ride to interview him about a new project — in this case, his recent Hawaiian-inpsired album, My Aloha. In a half-hour conversation, we touched on the early Grand Ole Opry, varieties of New Orleans blues, Hawaiian mandolin playing, and plenty more. His obvious breadth of knowledge squares with a freewheeling half-century career: He’s studied with masters like Bill Monroe and Carter Stanley and collaborated with brilliant contemporaries like Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, and Clarence White, not to mention his forays into country, reggae, Tex-Mex, Irish, and now Hawaiian music. By now, his surprises shouldn’t surprise us.

We usually expect our bluegrass musicians to stick to bluegrass music, just like we expect B.B. King to play the blues. Try to imagine Ronnie McCoury or Tony Rice making a record with a Tibetan throat singer. But somehow Peter Rowan — a true bluegrass guru, if there is one — has managed to consistently defy this expectation. He’s made an identity out of idiosyncrasy.

And unlike some legacy artists who “collaborate” with peers solely for the sake of novel juxtaposition, when Rowan makes Irish music with Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill or Tex-Mex with Flaco Jiménez, he doesn’t just collaborate; he immerses himself. He absorbs. Bill Monroe told a young Peter Rowan, “If you can learn my music, you can play any kind of music.” Coming from Monroe, that sentiment could’ve been taken as territorial ego, as bandleader bluster. But Rowan took Monroe’s words to heart. He’s turned a foundation in bluegrass into a life-long dedication to diving deep into new musical languages. 

It’s tempting to conclude any survey of Rowan’s career by contrasting Monroe and Rowan as the founder vs the experimenter, the father vs the prodigal son. This sounds satisfying but largely misses the point, because the Father of Bluegrass didn’t respect genre boundaries, either. Combining influences from far-flung musical worlds was exactly Monroe’s bailiwick. Seventy years in the rearview mirror, however, his string band innovations are often taken for granted. It’s easy to forget that Bill Monroe, himself, stole mandolin licks from Hawaiians, studied blues with Black guitarists, reimagined fiddle songs from the old folks back home, and generally told the status quo where to shove it. So, if Peter Rowan’s new Hawaiian record makes you scratch your head, remember he’s just carrying on the family tradition.

I’ve been listening to your My Aloha record. It’s beautiful and spare and cohesive. It’s great. Even though I knew you did all kinds of projects and recorded a lot, this one surprised me. How did it come about? How did you decide to do a tribute to Hawaiian music?

That song “Uncle Jimmy” kind of explains it. When I was four years old, he came back from Hawaii, from New Caledonia in the South Pacific, where he’d been working with the Navy. He had a ukulele and grass skirts and coconut bras. He handed them out in our living room. There’s a photograph … I wish I had included it … with all of us decked out — him with his sailor cap on and he’s doing that vaudevillian knee-whacking thing they did back then, that visual comedy thing where you cross your hands in front of your knees and it looks like your knees are passing through each other. So that was Uncle Jimmy. He always said “hubba hubba ding ding,” and I never knew what that meant. When I was over in Hawaii meeting the two Hawaiian players on the record — you know, you talk in story over there — and as I explained Uncle Jimmy, they said, “You’ve got to do this! You’ve got to finish this song. This is really part of the story.”

So you decided to record in Hawaii. What was that like?

I sort of fell into their whole approach, is what happened. I’ve always gone to Hawaii over the years, and it’s so musical. And the land itself seems to have some sort of enchanted healings that themselves turn into music — what they call Mana. I’ve been playing the last few records of bluegrass and one twang record out of Texas. I was just thinking, why am I so attracted to this sound? Really it’s because I heard it first. I heard a ukulele before I heard anything else. Uncle Jimmy was playing ukulele, and I learned from him. I learned “Five Foot Two, Eyes Of Blue,” “Bye Bye Blackbird” and all these tunes. And Uncle Jimmy, he didn’t have a completely happy life. He didn’t pass on as a fulfilled person. But he had that willingness to go out on a limb. He even did some shows with me and my brothers.

So he was an influence on you during a really formative period.

Well, that’s the first instrument I learned, the ukulele. It had never dawned on me that it was going to open any doors. A few years ago a friend of mine made a baritone uke, a nice one, so I started playing it and songs started coming. When I would go over there [to Hawaii], you know, I’d hit the water and swim and then come back to the instruments and play. You’re in a zone. It’s a different zone. And the songs started coming. It’s more of a watery thing, a little bit sunbaked. That’s really why I did the project, because I was writing the songs.

They definitely channel that Hawaiian vibe, or what I think of as that mid 20th century Hawaiian sound. It sounds like it’s a tribute to a period of time, too, that era in the 40s when Uncle Jimmy was going over there.

They’re also more ragtimey chord changes like my parents would’ve listened to. Also there’s a strong connection to Jimmy Rodgers. I loved those chord changes from the 30s, those Jimmy Rodgers elements. I did a record with Jerry Douglas called Yonder, and we touched a little bit on this real old time sounding guitar and dobro songs. This reawakened that approach.

When Hawaiian people hear my interpretation of Hawaiian music, they sing along. They’re very humbled. It’s just like in bluegrass and old time music. There is a lineage of players, and I became fascinated with the history of the whole thing. It kind of cleared my palate to make this next project for Rebel Records, which is sort of my story as it relates to the Stanley Brothers. It helped. Singing Hawaiian music is so different. Singing falsetto is a tradition in bluegrass, too. In bluegrass you have to find that vocal break point with a harder, sharper edge. Hawaii gives you a soft break point. It also gives you more range — you can sing lower and then go into a higher range of falsetto singing. Bluegrass, you know, is very tight. You’ve got to jump through the hoop. It’s like that rabbit in a log with the hound dog after you — bluegrass chases you. You’ve got to make your breaks and vocal turns really fast. Hawaii just gives you a lot more time to make those vocal breaks. So different from bluegrass. It was like, “woah, where am I here?” [Laughs]

So it it was unfamiliar but in a comfortable way. A new project, a cleansing of the palate.

Yeah, and I like that because that’s where songs really come from. You bust out of one thing — you might not even know why you did — and you’re in a new frame of mind and you see things differently. Maybe you get a song. Also Hawaii is a mother. More cultures have come there and been absorbed into Hawaiian culture than almost anywhere. Especially Asian cultures, so there’s a strong Asian element. I just really wanted to go there.

Well, Hawaii as a place where lots of cultures have mixed together, that reminds me of bluegrass, too — bluegrass as this thing that Bill Monroe created out of all these different traditions. So you’ve got a lot of experience exploring a type of music like that.

Very true. I think I mention something about that in the liner notes. There is one inescapable fact, which is that “Kentucky Waltz” is a direct rip off of a 1915 Hawaiian song. And the mandolin playing on that song by Johnny Almeida is exactly how Bill Monroe would play the song 30 years later.

I never knew that. Wow. So what does that say about Monroe?

What is says is a great thing. Not only was Bill keeping his cards close to his chest, which was how you’d survive in those days — it’s what you could come up with that was unique, what you could incorporate into your own song. Bill would say, “I would never steal another man’s note, but I might write one song off another,” meaning ‘I would take his melody, but I wouldn’t steal his note!’

What did he think the difference was? Writing a song off another song but not stealing?

Well, that’s a just Bill Monroe’s deception talking. [Laughs] He would steal anything he could! That was the name of the game in those days. He sang Muleskinner Blues on the Opry and got six encores, then the next week Roy Acuff releases “Muleskinner Blues” with him singing it. That galled Bill. That was like, “ooh!” But that’s how it was in those days. You just don’t let on. You’ve got to keep the surprise to your advantage. He was really competitive.

He was also really territorial about the music he created, right? Didn’t it seem like he wanted it to be carried forward in a specific way?

You mean, the way he called it “my music?” Well, yeah. But he saw me coming along and he said, “If you can learn my music, you can play any kind of music.” I thought that was saying how bluegrass gave you the foundation, which it does, but he was also talking to me as a person. I wasn’t thinking of it as a personal advice at the time, but I think he saw in me — I think he didn’t quite know what to make of me. I mean, I knew too much. I didn’t just go hide from him and then show up on stage. I sought him out. I asked questions. I came from college where they teach you how to ask questions. Plus in those days, in the 60s, it was a time of inquiry. Why are we at war? What is going on in the world? Are they really going to drop the hydrogen bomb while we’re out here on the road playing bluegrass? You just wondered, what is going on? It re-stimulated Bill in his own way. He had a renaissance at that time with these 20-year-olds in his band. He was 53 at the time. That’s when I had a lot of contact with the Stanley Brothers, who were almost from a foreign country themselves, you know, that area in Virginia.

Deep Southwest Virginia, right.

Oh my gosh, yeah. And I just cut this song about Bill taking me to see Carter Stanley. You never know why at the time, you know, but we were all still dressed up for doing our show in Knoxville. We drove up and met Carter. He was dressed in a sport coat, too, because he was going to meet Bill. That’s how it was. You never dressed down in those days. You stepped right up there and put your good shirt on, you know.

It was a sign of respect, right. I mean especially for Monroe’s generation.

Exactly. Bill hated to see anyone sloppily dressed. When I asked him what his thing was with the clothes, he told me that the people he played with when he started out were farmers who might only have one shirt, one clean shirt. So you show your respect for them by dressing up for them, and that meant something. I’ll tell you something funny. John Prine tells a story — his parents told him when the Monroe Brothers came through Paradise, Kentucky, they thought the Mafia had arrived. All these guys in their hats and suits and cases. They were like, who are these guys, moonshine emperors? Are we having a showdown? [Laughs]

So you sat with Bill Monroe and Carter Stanley while they visited. What did they talk about? What was their relationship like?

I think their relationship was very decent. In Ralph’s book he said that Carter and Bill were very close. They were close in age, you know. Close to the same age, although Carter would’ve been a little younger. I had seen the Stanley Brothers play a lot and we had been on shows together. But for me to drive Bill…it was a special break from tour, you know, before we played Knoxville that night — we had to get a car after leaving the bus in Knoxville. We drove up there I think for two reasons. I think Carter felt his mortality. Within a year he would be dead. And when I met him I was a little bit shocked. He was weak and sick and, you know, he looked jaundiced. His eyes — in my diary at the time I wrote, “I’ve looked into Carter Stanley’s tombstone eyes.” He looked bad. I think he had been diagnosed with a liver problem and he wanted to see Bill. It was an exchange where Bill tipped his hat to Carter and said that he was one of the best singers he had ever worked with. You know, Carter wrote songs and Bill wrote songs and then they both recorded their versions of the same songs. So I started thinking a lot about Carter and over the years, you know — in Old And In The Way we did “Pig In A Pen,” “White Dove,” we did “Going To The Races.” The Stanley Brothers have been the backbone of a lot of what I’ve played. It was easy to play and fun to play, but it wasn’t until I went to make these recordings recently in Nashville that I realized how Carter is a deceptive singer. To go to the five chord and sing the third, that’s not easy. To put a blue note on the third of the five, it’s like, wow, wait a second. That’s what gives this whole thing its sound!

Right. Not very intuitive. But a cool, bluesy choice, very Stanley Brothers.

It is. And it’s very strange, I could only get those notes from coming on top of them. I couldn’t come up to them. Because with Bill, you know, the music was based on a sort of fanfare [sings a mandolin intro melody], a lot of upward moving lines. Then the downward lines are the bluesy lines [sings descending blues melody]. So that’s a challenge there, to combine those two feelings. Often the verse begins with a rising line and then the end of the line descends, that kind of dying fall, that bluesy fall.

Of course Monroe had learned a lot from the blues and taken a lot from the blues, but the Stanley Brothers, too. It’s like bluegrass is a branch on the blues tree. Do you think of yourself as carrying on that tradition?

Well, yeah. And remember this, about the Stanley Brothers — the last years of their recordings were done up at King records up in Cincinnati. King Records. They had two other groups: Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, who actually did some finger poppin’ on the Stanley Brothers’ “Finger Poppin’ Time,” which was their tune. And the other guy on the label, the only label that would sign this guy, his name was James Brown. So, I mean, look where they were coming from in their musical input.

From Southwest Virginia to King Records, that’s kind of a cultural leap, too.

Well, that was on their route, their circuit, you know. Go up to the Midwest and play for all those coal miners. In Ohio there were bars everywhere. Then what started to happen was in the 60s they started to play college campuses. That changed everything. That generation became a whole enlightened generation of bluegrass followers. They now had an audience. It wasn’t just 30 coal miners in a little funky bar hidden away in rural Ohio. It wasn’t a schoolhouse. Honestly, I played the end of that era — some of those gigs were still in play, is what I’m trying to say.

You were getting into bluegrass, when was it, the early 60s?

Yeah, that was right in the boom. And strangely enough, looking back at it, within five years we had Old And In The Way going on the West Coast. In those times, being young, you’d be going from one project to another — on Elektra records with me and [David] Grisman doing Earth Opera, out in LA doing Muleskinner for Warner Brothers. It was fast moving, and there weren’t many of us! I mean, there weren’t 150 bluegrass players on the planet. There were twenty-five. So, you know, you could have something different to offer for a musical project. But what I didn’t really understand was how to bring out the bluegrass. We did a little bit of that in Sea Train. We did Orange Blossom Special and Sally Goodin because they were crowd pleasers. But every time I tried to sing a bluegrass song it was shot down. These guys, they were from New York. They knew Blues, but maybe I couldn’t be convincing enough to do anything as lonesome as what came out of bluegrass. We got into that on Muleskinner after that period with Sea Train. Then with Old And In The Way we just went for it! With Jerry Garcia on our side, thank you very much. You know, ‘Call up Vassar Clements and let’s go!’ Jerry just wanted to play the grass. I think his version of White Dove is the most stirring.

Really? Interesting to think of Jerry’s version of bluegrass as getting to the heart of it, compared to The Stanleys. I guess you’re the only one who played with both of them…

Well, you know, when I sang White Dove with Ralph it was like, oh, surprise, we don’t do White Dove slow in this band — they would swing it. The mountain people, if they’re going to dwell on stuff, it’s going to be right to the cradle and grave. But when it gets down to the uplift of bluegrass, they weren’t trying to do it as art. They did it as a lifeforce support system. So there’s all these uptempo melodies, and even a waltz would be kind of bouncy. Bill, you know, had been to New Orleans. He had heard New Orleans music. Arnold Shultz, his black blues guitar partner, was from New Orleans.

Did you ever talk to Bill about Arnold Shultz?

I did, yeah. I talked to him about New Orleans, too. He said the first time he had his own band they went down to New Orleans and stayed for two months. So I said, “What kind of music did you hear there?” And he said, “A man could hear any kind of music at that time.” That would’ve been the 40s.

Would that have been with Charlie [Monroe], or with the early Bluegrass Boys?

Well, maybe ’48. That’s what I had in my diary, that it was with Flatt and Scruggs. That was sort of where he took them to train them. I don’t know, but that’s what he told me, so that’s what I wrote down. What he said was, in those days you had the sock time — think “True Life Blues” — you had jump time, and of course you had ragtime. And, he said, and then you have the slow drag. [Laughs] It’s a slow 4/4. So what Bill did was sped it up, kept the sock time in there, and if you want to think of the slow drag translated into Bill’s particular take, think of “Blue Moon Of Kentucky,” the original recording. Or “In The Pines.” These were musical genres within the blues of New Orleans.

Did you write down a lot of what Monroe told you?

I would keep a diary the whole time and listen to him talk. You know, we’d be riding along in the bus, a little disjointed, bouncing around, and he’s playing on the mandolin. He’d say, “That there comes from American Indian peoples.” Then he’d play something else and say, “Now that comes from New Orleans.” I was like, New Orleans? And he said, “Yes, sir.”

Photo credit: Amanda Rowan

WATCH: Tommy Emmanuel and David Grisman, “Cinderella’s Fella”

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Artist: Tommy Emmanuel and David Grisman
Hometown: Nashville, TN
Song: “Cinderella’s Fella”
Album: PICKIN’
Release Date: November 3, 2017
Label: Acoustic Disc

In Their Words: “‘Cinderella’s Fella’ was written after sampling a fine strain of weed grown by my late friend Jerome Schwartz in Petaluma. He called it ‘Cinderella’ and thus I became her ‘fella’ after inspiration took hold in the form of this airy dawg/jazz waltz. It was a gas playing and recording with the one and only Tommy Emmanuel in my living room, and I’m really looking forward to our first tour together.” — David Grisman

Photo credit: Clara Emmanuel

Jumping into the Deep End: A Conversation with Billy Strings

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Guitar virtuoso Billy Strings (born William Apostol) is on the road somewhere between here and there, when he picks up the phone. That question “Where exactly?” gives him pause. “The other day, I couldn’t remember where I was,” he admits, a note of earnestness betraying his 25 years of age. It’s that sweet natured tendency the young have to overshare. “It took me probably at least 40 or 50 seconds just to go, ‘Oh yeah.’ I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that before, but it’s a really strange thing.” It’s the kind of problem that comes with being a popular bluegrass musician, and one he’s forever adjusting to as he zips from city to city. “We were in the van once, and I literally asked the question, ‘Is this where we are?’” he says with a laugh, knowing the existential weight of his own seemingly ordinary question.

Billy’s ever-probing mind, technical proficiency, and weighted voice all suggest a much older player. He recently released his debut LP, Turmoil & Tinfoil, recorded with Greensky Bluegrass’s producer, Glenn Brown, in the dead of Michigan’s winter. Even in that setting, it burns with a feverish heat. “It was like being snowed in, like cabin fever,” Billy says about the session, which could explain the album’s bracing pace. As much as he nods to tradition on Turmoil & Tinfoil, he also playfully stretches the bounds of bluegrass via face-melting guitar phrasing (thanks to his abiding interest in heavy metal, classic rock, the blues, and more) and socially conscious songs. Both the wounded “Living Like an Animal” and the frustrated “Dealing Despair” pry into issues of personhood and community at a time when both seem more fractured than ever. What others have termed his “authenticity,” Billy chalks up to “honesty,” and it serves, in a way, as his battle cry. He’s not afraid to keep asking questions, big or small.

Just out of curiosity, how many back-up strings do you bring on tour, given your penchant for breaking them in your wilder fits of playing?

Nowadays, I actually have three guitars onstage with me. I have two Preston Thompsons on stage, and then I have a Roy Noble on stage with me, as well. Rarely do I get to the third one anymore, but there have been times where I’ll reach for the Roy Noble.

So would you say, then, that a particularly crazy night on stage is a Roy Noble night?

Yeah, I guess so. You could.

Tradition has long been a defining force within bluegrass. How have you navigated your way through it?

I grew up playing bluegrass music and traditional bluegrass music, and I have a deep passion for that, as well, but I like all kinds of music.

Right, I know you’re a big metal fan, specifically.

Yeah, I love some death metal and some rock ‘n’ roll and blues. I like all sorts of stuff. When I was younger, I was a little bit more closed-minded about a lot of things, whether it was “Why would you want to play bluegrass but not bluegrass?” This or that, you know? But eventually I got out of that shell, and I want to get so far away from that “This is bluegrass and this ain’t” as I can. It’s just music. I’m just trying to let myself be free with music.

I think that’s something that we’re seeing a lot from the younger generation, bringing all these influences into the genre.

Definitely. I think there will always be a hint of traditional bluegrass in my shows because that’s how I learned to play guitar. My ears were trained by “How Mountain Gals Can Love” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” — that’s the music I cut my teeth on. You’ll always hear it, I think, but I’m also going to do whatever the song calls for. I used to be embarrassed to show anybody a song that I wrote, and I’m just trying to ditch that whole mentality. Who cares if a song is that or this, or if somebody likes it or they don’t? It’s the song.

You’ve mentioned in the past that you’ve never learned anything note for note; instead, you just hear it and emulate it. What does your writing process look like, then, for original compositions?

It looks like me walking around my house with my guitar, staring at my reflection in the microwave. Pacing back and forth when nobody’s home, just scribbling on notebooks and stuff, and being on my Google Doc. I sit there with my guitar and I sing it and then, if I got something cool, I’ll write it down.

“Dealing Despair” is such a powerful original song in light of how divided the country seems. Where did that come from?

I actually wrote that quite a while back. It was after another unarmed Black man was shot down by police, and I was awfully pissed off. I was shook. I’m feeling it lately, too; there’s so much going on in the world.

It feels so divided. I mean, it always has been, but more than ever it seems.

Yeah, and we should just talk about music. But I’m feeling it lately, and you’ve gotta write about what you’re feeling, and that goes back to what I was saying about letting it happen and not worrying about if people are going to like it or not because certainly some people might take that song as a little aggressive.

I know some listeners keep clamoring for artists to shut up about politics and just be artists, but bluegrass has always been a space to sort through social issues.

Well, man, that’s folk music. Look at Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan. You have to sing about that shit. You absolutely have to. It’s kind of our duty. I’m not going to punch anybody in the face. I’m not going to carry a gun. I’m not going to fight a war. But with my guitar, I will. All I have is my songs to fight back against the ugliness that’s out there.

But that fight exists as an “either/or” these days, and it can alienate certain listeners.

I want people that are loving and not cruel to each other to come to my shows. I really don’t care what anybody thinks. I’m just doing my thing.

Turning away from politics, your father also played on this album.

Yeah, he’s on the last track [“These Memories of You”].

I thought so! The harmonies have this interesting familial tone.

What you just said is a huge compliment to me. My voice sounds the best when it’s right next to his; I can’t sing with anybody like that. My dad didn’t even know that song. He just walked right into the studio, and I wrote the lyrics on a piece of paper, and he just did it. He knows how to follow me, and I know how to follow him. My dad is a seriously heartfelt musician. When he plays a song, he really means it. He’s not just saying the words.

You learned from him when you were younger, so what was that moment like in the studio?

He was so happy to be there. It was kind of like he was a little kid. He sits around the house and plays, but he rarely goes and plays on stage anywhere — let alone in a recording studio.

And look how the tables have turned.

Those moments are what I cherish the absolute most. For instance, when I was six or seven years old, I was learning “Beaumont Rag,” and I just played the rhythm, but I kept messing it up in this one part. Right in the middle of the song, I said, “Stop. Dad, why don’t you play it and let me listen?” I listened to what he was trying to say with the guitar, and I go, “Now, let me try it again,” and I nailed it. He started laughing. He reached over his guitar and squeezed my little hand. He called my grandmother and said, “Listen to your grandson right now!” I was a little kid, but I’ll never forget that moment. Now there have been several moments since then, like when I got to introduce my dad to David Grisman in real life because my dad introduced me to David Grisman when I was seven years old. We got to sing songs all night.

That is so wild.

Yeah, it is wild because we come from a tiny little town and it’s not always been easy, and our family has had a lot of crazy stuff. Those moments are super good for me because I feel like it’s that same thing: It brings me right back to when I got the “Beaumont Rag” right. It really pushes me, and there are all sorts of reasons that I’m doing this, but that’s a huge one — because mom and dad are proud. I’m so grateful that they turned me onto this music. My childhood was a lot of bluegrass. I’m so grateful for that because I love this music.

It’s interesting, too, because it seems like listeners are, in part, gravitating toward what they keep calling your authenticity. At 25 years old, that can be a loaded statement. How have you found your own way through that kind of praise?

I don’t know. I haven’t heard that word thrown around me that much.

Maybe not to your face.

Yeah, right. When I was talking about my songwriting, I’m just trying to do my thing and just be honest. Even in life. Don’t dip your toes in the water; just jump right into the deep end. Don’t get yourself into a situation that you don’t want to be in because you know what you really want. Don’t lie to yourself. Just be yourself.

You are wise beyond your years.

I think a lot, you know?

That comes across in your playing, too.

When I’m playing, it’s easy to learn a song and go through the routine and just play it night after night. But when I go out on stage, that’s not what I do. I try to actually pour it out with my guitar, from my heart. If you listen to a lot of the people I grew up listening to — Mac Wiseman, Bill Monroe, Larry Sparks, Keith Whitley — when they’re singing, they’re not kidding. That’s why you can cry when you hear it. I love players like that. And there’s so much music out there today, you know Top 40 everything, that’s garbage.

Well, it’s too constructed, but I can see how your dad shaped you to sing from the heart.

Every time he picks up the guitar, he does that.

What a great way to learn.

I also learned a lesson from Sam Bush without him saying anything. I leaned over and took a drink of my beer — this was quite a while ago — and I looked over at Sam Bush and he had his eyes closed playing the hell out of the rhythm. It’s like, “Why do I think that I can just stop playing the song right now to take a sip of beer? Wake up, kid. You’re playing a song. What are you doing?” It’s that attitude. Whenever those dudes play, Sam Bush gives it 110 percent. Bryan Sutton was telling me the other day that Doc would never pick up his guitar and just play a little ditty or half of a song; he would always play the whole song.

Speaking of Bryan, I know you collaborated on “Salty Sheep.” How did that come about?

I think I just called him and asked him. [Laughs] It was so amazing for me. We sat a microphone in between us, and we sat in two chairs really close to each other, just facing each other. With no headphones on, we just played the tune a couple times, and holy shit.

Well, talk about Doc Watson vibes.

Well, that’s what me and him geek out on. When we go to lunch, we’re always talking about Doc Watson. We both love him so much.

So we can expect a covers album from you two soon?

I have no idea. I’m down, but you’d have to ask Bryan. He’s such a wonderful friend and mentor. He’s done this 20 years, and he’s got a lot of advice for a young guy like me. I’m so grateful for that advice. He just gives it away for free because he’s a good friend and he cares about guitar and Doc’s legacy and all that. I’m honored to have him as a friend, and completely honored to have him on the record.

MIXTAPE: Casey Campbell’s Mandolin Masters

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With his latest release being Mandolin Duets, Vol. 1, who better than Casey Campbell to put together a Mixtape of mandolin masters for us? No one. That’s who. He has studied them all — and played with many — so take his carefully selected collection to heart (and ear).

Bill Monroe & Doc Watson — “Watson’s Blues”

Where else to begin but with the Father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe. There are hundreds of recordings to choose from, but I’ve always been a big fan of this duo album of Bill and Doc Watson entitled Live Recordings 1963-1980: Off the Record Volume 2. It features some great duet singing from Bill and Doc, as well as a bevy of short, sweet, and to-the-point instrumentals. I am partial to “Watson’s Blues” not only because this particular recording features the writer (Bill) and the inspiration for the tune (Doc), but also because it is a bluesy little number (and I like my bluegrass to be bluesy).

Ronnie McCoury — “McCoury Blues”

Ahhh … it was the mid-2000s. MySpace was all the rage, and we had yet to discover fidget spinners, stick basses, and Netflix. You know, the good ol’ days. I came across “McCoury Blues” while scouring through Rhapsody (the Spotify before Spotify existed), and, in my opinion, it is a 21st-century take on “Watson’s Blues” with Ronnie’s smooth tremolo and Del McCoury’s powerhouse guitar runs. More importantly, this song led me to the Bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza album. This project, spearheaded by Ronnie and David Grisman, is a mandolin goldmine including Ronnie, David, Sam Bush, Ricky Skaggs, Buck White, Frank Wakefield, Bobby Osborne, Jesse McReynolds, and Del McCoury on rhythm guitar. Of course, growing up in the bluegrass world, I had heard all of these players before, but this album was my introduction to the concept of musical style and the intricate differences between musicians. Throughout my mandolin obsession, I have continually returned to this album to draw inspiration (read: steal licks). If there is one album I would recommend to any mandolin fan, it would be Bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza.

Mike Compton & David Long — “Tanyards”

If you haven’t picked up on the pattern yet, I’m a big fan of duet recordings. A large part of that came from this album by mandolin masters Mike Compton and David Long. My mother picked me up from middle school in her silver PT Cruiser — yes, we were that cool — with a copy of this album in the passenger seat. We listened to it on the way home, then I listened to it again, and again, and again. Mike and David have such fluid playing styles, and you would be hard-pressed to find other players that could replicate the chemistry on this album. This track does a great job of showcasing each player and also letting the two intertwine as they swap licks. It is one of my favorite albums of all time.

Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder — “Crossing the Briney”

Adding a little Irish flair to the list, here is a song that starts out bare and ends with a full-on orchestra with all of the bells and whistles (literally). This song is featured on Ricky Skaggs’s Instrumentals albums and, in my opinion, is the standout hit. I mean, where else can you hear instrumentation like this, AND a kickass Andy Leftwich fiddle solo in the middle? This song also opened my mind to how to take what is essentially a pretty standard Irish fiddle tune and raise it to a new level. Admittedly, Ricky doesn’t really get to stretch out on this tune, so it’s not the best representation of his great mandolin playing. But don’t worry: He is one of the best players mixing modern and traditional styles together, and there are plenty of great examples on this album.

The Whites (Buck White) — “Old Man Baker”

Buck White is a national treasure. Not only is he one of the sweetest humans I’ve ever had the honor of spending time with, but he is also one of the swingin’-est mandolin players you will come across. Whether he is kicking up his heels as a special guest with the Grand Ole Opry Square Dancers or playing mandolin on one of his many iconic albums with the Whites, there is no doubt he has a huge smile on his face and joy in his heart. This tune, written for fiddler Kenny Baker, is one that I often play when I am warming up on the mandolin. It’s a tough tune, for sure, with plenty of pinky work and string-jumping, but it is undoubtedly the most fun song on this list to play. Buck’s playing is just like his personality: bouncy, memorable, and always tasteful. If you are at all interested in hearing some Texas Swing mandolin playing, check out more of his catalog.

Strength in Numbers (Sam Bush) — “Texas Red”

Picking one song from the Strength in Numbers album is like picking a favorite child. People in the music business like to throw around the word “supergroup” for every other band, in hopes that it will create some kind of buzz or increase sales. Strength is one of the few occasions where the term accurately applies: Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Mark O’Connor, and Edgar Meyer. Between the late ’70s and mid-’80s, each of these trail-blazing musicians had helped to established a new frontier of acoustic music. Here they are, together in their prime, with one of acoustic music’s most influential instrumental albums of all time. PS: This album is Sam Bush Rhythm 101. Class dismissed.

David Grisman & Doc Watson — “Kentucky Waltz”

When I am teaching lessons or at a camp, it is without a doubt that I’ll get asked about mandolin tremolo. What is it? How do I do it? How do I make it better? All of these questions (and more) can be answered with Doc & Dawg’s version of the “Kentucky Waltz.” It is one of the most beautiful, simplest recordings of a mandolin and guitar I have come across. For the uninitiated, David Grisman is an icon in the mandolin and acoustic music worlds, heavily influencing today’s top mandolin players like Sam Bush, Ronnie McCoury, and Ricky Skaggs. With dozens of must-have albums spanning throughout his 50-year career, David led the way to the frontier of “new acoustic music” during the ’70s and ’80s. Even today, at 72, he is still going strong. touring with the David Grisman Bluegrass Experience, the David Grisman Sextet, and as a duo with Del McCoury. Despite all of his ground-breaking compositions and albums, when it comes to keeping it simple and making the most of a melody, David is still the king.

Radim Zenkl — “Memory of Jaroslav Jezek”

I couldn’t consider this list finished without introducing you to something a little outside the box. For his Galactic Mandolin album, Czech Republic mandolinist Radim Zenkl (pronounced Ra-deem Zeen-kl) experimented with different mandolin tunings for each song. Because a mandolin has four sets of strings (eight total), it is normally tuned GG-DD-AA-EE. This particular tune has the mandolin tuned in minor thirds. When I first heard this tune, I felt like it was a crazy of mixture of big band jazz and harp music, or something I might’ve heard on the original Nintendo version of The Legend of Zelda. I’m kind of mesmerized by its weirdness.

Andy Statman — “Pale Ale Hop”

While we are spending some time outside the box, now would be a good time to introduce you to Andy Statman. If there is a musical genre out there, Andy has covered it: bluegrass, jazz, Irish, klezmer, rock ‘n’ roll, etc. “Pale Ale Hop” showcases his rockin’ mandolin playing, transforming into something you might hear at a surf-rock dance party in the ’50s. My favorite thing about Andy is that, for all of his experimental compositions, he is a true student of all music and can play the most traditional bluegrass style you could imagine, then turn around and play a John Coltrane solo. If you’re interested in more of Andy’s left-of-center music, check out his earlier LPs, like Flatbush Waltz or Nashville Morning, New York Nights.

Jethro Burns & Tiny Moore — “Flickin’ My Pick”

Here is a classic album with two of the best jazz and swing mandolin players of the past century. Jethro Burns is known primarily as one half of Homer & Jethro, one of the great country comedy duos of the 1930s-60s. Despite all of his joking around, Jethro was a serious musician, playing anything from classical to bluegrass. On this particular song, he is playing the acoustic mandolin and taking the second solo. The other player you’ll hear is Tiny Moore, a pioneer of the electric mandolin. Tiny played with Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys and Merle Haggard’s band, the Strangers. Together, these two legends recorded Back to Back, which would become one of the definitive albums for jazz mandolin enthusiasts.

Norman Blake — “Valley Head”

Getting back to the roots of old-timey mandolin music, here is a tune written and played by Norman Blake. Although he is known mostly as one of the great bluegrass guitarists, both Norman and his wife Nancy are great mandolin players and have recorded quite a bit of mandolin music over the years. Similar to the “Kentucky Waltz” earlier on this list, the thing I love about Norman’s playing and this track, in particular, is the simplicity. Sure, this tune might have a lot of notes, but Norman sticks to the melody the entire way through, letting the song speak for itself. For those interested in more of Norman and Nancy’s mandolin playing, check out Natasha’s Waltz, an album that features a slew of great mandolin tunes.

Chris Thile — “Watch ‘At Breakdown”

Sometimes you’ve got to give the kids what they want … and they want Chris Thile. Between his work with Nickel Creek, Mike Marshall, the Punch Brothers, Michael Daves, the Goat Rodeo Sessions, Edgar Meyer, Jon Brion, Béla Fleck, and Brad Mehldau, among others, Chris has traversed just about every inch of the musical landscape. As if that weren’t enough, he is now the host of A Prairie Home Companion, collaborating with a new lineup of musical guests every week, including Jack White, Jason Isbell, Lake Street Dive, and more. With such a long and diverse resumé, he has become one of the most popular and influential mandolin players in the realm of Bill Monroe, David Grisman, and Sam Bush. “Watch ‘At Breakdown” is the starting track on Chris’s How to Grow a Band album, and shows off his bluegrass chops, while hinting that there are no bounds to his abilities.