Bluegrass fans know Mike Compton from his long and eclectic resumé, including decades of touring and recording traditional Monroe-style mandolin with greats like John Hartford, Doc Watson, Peter Rowan, Ralph Stanley, Alison Krauss, and David Grisman, as well as venturing into more mainstream music with with Sting, Gregg Allman, Elvis Costello, and many others. He was also heard on the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou? and traveled with the smash hit tour, Down from the Mountain, which highlighted the artists and musicians on that incredibly popular soundtrack.
But, as Toy Heart host Tom Power points out, it’s not just virtuosity that makes Compton stand out as a mandolinist – it’s just as much about the heart, feel, and grit that he brings to the instrument.
Tom speaks with Compton for over an hour for this exclusive Toy Heart interview, walking through his life and career, from the musical influence of his great grandparents and growing up in Meridian, Mississippi, to the indelible mark left on his own playing style by Bill Monroe. Compton also recalls his childhood, skipping school to hide out in a “dirt pit” to practice all day, his time in Nashville – including a historic visit to China with the Nashville Bluegrass Band – and recounts his collaborations with the legendary John Hartford. You’ll also hear Compton discuss the impact that playing on O Brother, Where Art Thou? had not only on himself and his own career, but on bluegrass as a whole.
There’s something special that occurs when music is rooted in friendship and a shared mission. Perhaps no one exemplifies this better than Sam Grisman Project, founded by the youngest son of “Dawg music” pioneer David Grisman. Seeking to honor the likes of his father, Jerry Garcia & the Grateful Dead, and other musical heroes, SGP maintains a singular style and groove.
With its core iteration featuring seasoned multi-instrumentalists and songwriters Ric Robertson, Chris “Hollywood” English, and Aaron Lipp – and often featuring a host of other guests who run the musical gamut – SGP is bringing fresh authenticity, originality, and passion to the roots music and jam band scenes.
BGS spoke with Sam Grisman in early February 2024 about the origins of, inspirations, and plans for this remarkable and rising group.
What are the origins of Sam Grisman Project?
Sam Grisman: Ever since rekindling my musical friendship with the great Ric Robertson, who I’ve known since I was 14, I’ve been wanting to start a band that showcases the impact that the legacy of my dad and Jerry’s music has had on me. Ric and I started scheming on ways to make some music together and what that might look like. I figured we might have a good opportunity to play out in the live touring landscape if we paid tribute to the catalog of music that my dad and Jerry recorded together; that it could create the space for us to really do whatever we might want musically. We’re not limiting ourselves to the catalog of music that my dad and Jerry played together or individually, but we are honoring the spirit of what they did together, which was to dive into great songs that they had a shared love of.
I’ve always had a talented group of friends, going back to the time that I spent growing up at bluegrass festivals, fiddle camps, and the Mandolin Symposium. We have chemistry, and that is irreplaceable. Ric started playing music with Aaron Lipp around the time we turned 20 and he has been a part of my musical reality since then. He and Ric have developed strong chemistry, where they’ve been finishing each other’s musical sentences for years now. Aaron is from Naples, New York, about an hour away from Rochester, New York, which is where the great Chris English hails from. When Ric started making some music with Chris and telling me about what an amazing drummer and human being he is, I knew he would fit into the core of this band perfectly.
Who are you honoring with this project and why?
We’re honoring the musical heroes who influenced us the most. For me, because they provided the soundtrack to most of my earliest musical memories, that’s my dad and a lot of his friends who came through our house in Mill Valley to record. The friend who came around the most was Jerry [Garcia], but also John Hartford, Mike Seeger, Doc Watson, Tony Rice, Del McCoury and Ralph Stanley.
We honor our heroes, not just my dad and Jerry. We play lots of John Hartford music and Townes Van Zandt songs. Lots of Bob Dylan’s music, some Alan Toussaint, Dr. John, John Prine, Warren Zevon, Randy Newman, and Peter Rowan.
Can you describe what Dawg music is and what you’ve learned from your father?
Dawg music is a highly evolved form of acoustic music that is a synthesis of many different genres including old-time, bluegrass, hot club swing, jazz, and funk, with elements of classical music. It’s really a sort of genre-less genre pioneered by my father. It showcases – but is not limited to showcasing – the sound of the mandolin. The instrumentation in his quintet has traditionally been one or two mandolins, guitar, upright bass, and violin, but that’s expanded over the years to include percussion and drums.
That instrumentation of percussion, mandolin, guitar and bass is what I modeled the core of this band after. I’ve learned so much from my father about music and the music business – how to treat your friends and how to honor your elders. I am profoundly grateful to have been born to my particular set of parents and I’m grateful that there are other folks who have a deep appreciation for my dad’s impact on the musical landscape. I’d like for people to also appreciate how wonderful a human he is, so this is a small way that I get to share my dad with other people. He loves everybody, he’s grateful for the support, and he can feel it.
Who are some of the musical guests that have performed with SGP, and what does that mean to SGP?
It means a lot. It’s a representation of the community that we’re a part of. We’ve brought in some of our heroes as guests including dear family friends like Lowell Levenger “Banana” from the Youngbloods, Maria Muldaur, Eric Thompson, and Peter Rowan. We’ve had my dad sit in three times, which has been an absolute honor, and we’ve had a whole slew of our guests who bring different insights and a similar passion to the project: Dominick Leslie, Alex Hargreaves, Roy Williams, Bennett Sullivan, Nathaniel Smith, Phoebe Hunt, Lindsay Lou, my dear friend Tod Patrick Livingston, Mike Witcher, Chad Manning, Wyatt Ellis, Matt Eakle (the great flute alumnus from my dad’s quintet), and more. Eddie Barbash came and played a set with us in New York. Max Flansburg, who has a similar passion for this material and highlights a different corner of the Garcia/Hunter catalog than we do, played two of our New Year’s shows with us. We also had our old-time banjo hero, Richie Stearns, on all of those gigs that weekend. We’re going to have Logan Ledger on some shows coming up, and we’ll have Victor Furtado and Nathaniel Smith in the band.
When did SGP start touring in its current iteration, and how is the experience of touring with your best friends?
We had our first run as a band in January 2023. This conversation with you comes at the end of our longest break as a band, where we’ve had the entire month of January off. We’re starting back up on February 4th in Tucson, at a festival called Gem and Jam. It’s an absolute treat to travel the country with the people I care the most about, and to make great music and memories and friends everywhere we go. It’s important to anchor ourselves and ground ourselves in the music, because there’s a lot of work that goes into being out on the road that can make you lose perspective on how special it is to be doing something that you love for a living and to be able to do it for people who love what you’re doing.
SGP is obviously celebrating and continuing a particular musical legacy, but doing so with your own flavor. What makes SGP unique?
Our branding is our individuality and our honesty. I grew up in the house where my dad and Jerry recorded all of this music and I really do enjoy playing that music with my best friends. It gives me a sense of purpose to be able to play some of that music for folks who are passionate about it. There’s definitely room in the live music space for bands who take a preservationist approach to carrying on the musical traditions and catalogs of artists that came before them. A lot of musicians try to sound like their musical heroes, but that’s not our approach. I hired my friends to participate because I love their individuality and how they play, sing, and write music. I wouldn’t want to steer them towards sounding more like Jerry Garcia or my father.
We have been influenced by listening to tons of great music our entire lives, but we try to stay true to ourselves when we’re playing, so nobody is reaching for a sound that isn’t theirs. We all enjoy injecting our individuality into this music and having the flexibility to take the material in different directions depending on how we’re feeling. It’s amazing to have such versatile friends to work with.
How does original material fit into the broader vibe of SGP?
All three of the core guys – Ric Robertson, Aaron Lipp, and Chris English – are amazing songwriters. All the time I’ve known Ric, since we were teenagers, he’s been writing great songs. He was always a great singer, but he’s become one of my absolute favorite singers on the planet. There’s a lot of his music that lends itself incredibly well to looser, more long-form arrangements, which is something that SGP has become comfortable with.
Aaron Lipp is also an amazing songwriter who writes incredibly poignant music and aphoristic lyrics. Chris English writes amazing, feel-good music – not always overtly happy, but always with a strong message. His tunes add a lot of depth to our sets and take us to a more groove or bassline-oriented place, which is really refreshing for us and our audiences. I think there’s always going to be room for original music in SGP. As much as these guys are inspired to play their own tunes, I want to play them.
You released a great EP in 2023. Is there anything else currently in the works?
We’re gonna make a full length album at some point in 2024. Over the course of the last hundred or so gigs we’ve developed a pretty good repertoire and a strong rapport with each other. I don’t think it would take very long to put some of these tunes down in the studio, but we also multitrack most of our shows and we have an archive of live music to sort through. We’re going to be putting some shows up on Nugs.net pretty soon. We have a pro-taping policy to encourage folks to come and tape the show. I share Jerry [Garcia]’s philosophy that if you bought a ticket to the show, the performance is really yours as long as you’re not charging anybody else for it. Some of those shows have made it to archive.org, which is a free internet resource where folks can listen to live music. At some point we’ll probably put together some compilations of live material and put them up on the streaming services. I think our live show is always going to be the emphasis of what we do, so it’s important to have some recorded examples out there for people to check out.
What’s in store for SGP in 2024, and what does pursuing that mean to you?
We’ve got another solid year shaping up. We played about a hundred gigs in 2023 and we’ll probably make it pretty close to that in 2024. I’m going to expand the cast of characters a little bit in 2024 and bring some other friends into the fold. I’m looking forward to introducing my new friends and audiences to my dear musical compatriots who care about this music as much as I do. I’m grateful and humbled to get to do it. It means a lot to get to honor my father every night by playing his music. We take out the mandola that he gave me for my 21st birthday, the mandola he recorded “Opus 38” on. We get to play “Opus 38” on that very same mandola for people who appreciate what’s happening, and I feel like he and Uncle Jerry are with us every night. It’s a big blessing all around.
Doc Watson has been gone for more than a decade, and yet his music and legacy remain more alive and relevant than ever. And thanks to the ongoing MerleFest, which brings a wide-ranging cast from the Americana world to Doc’s North Carolina stomping grounds every April, that’s not going to change anytime soon. We consider the enduring impact of Doc through conversations with some of those who bear his stamp, including Gillian Welch and Jerry Douglas, in this special episode of Carolina Calling.
Subscribe to Carolina Calling on any and all podcast platforms to follow along as we journey across the Old North State, visiting towns like Durham, Asheville, Shelby, Greensboro, and more.
Music featured in this episode:
Doc Watson – “Sittin’ on Top of the World” Doc & Merle Watson – “Jimmy’s Texas Blues” Gillian Welch – “Everything Is Free” Andrew Marlin – “Erie Fidler” Doc Watson – “Tom Dooley” Doc & Merle Watson – “Sheeps In The Meadow / Stoney Fork” Doc & Merle Watson – “Poor Boy Blues” Doc Watson – “And Am I Born to Die” Doc Watson – “My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains” Jerry Douglas – “A New Day Medley” Doc Watson – “The Last Thing On My Mind”
My name is Bertolf Lentink, I was born in 1980 and I’m from the Netherlands. I was spoon-fed bluegrass music by my father, who endlessly played his records by the likes of Doc Watson, Tony Rice, and Tim O’Brien in my parental home. At a young age, I learned to play both from and with him.
I have released six albums here in the Netherlands and they were more in the singer-songwriter/pop style. But for my seventh album, I decided to return to my roots and my first love: bluegrass. I had the chance to record an album of my own material with some of my favorite musicians of all time, such as Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, and Mark Schatz – guys I’ve been listening to and admiring since I was like 6 years old. The band was completed by two fantastic instrumentalists of the younger generation: Wes Corbett and David Benedict. The album was recorded and mixed by David Sinko in the Sound Emporium Studio in Nashville. I really had the best week of my life recording it; it was everything I hoped for and more.
The album is called Bluefinger because residents of Zwolle, the city I live in, are called Bluefingers. But it’s also a reference to bluegrass and getting blue fingers from studying so hard on the guitar trying to be good enough to record with my heroes.
Bluegrass music has surely travelled all around the world. It even made its way to the Netherlands and continues to inspire young people here. This is a mixtape of the stuff that inspired me and that’s going on in the blue- and newgrass department here right now. Dutch Grass! – Bertolf
“Before The Storm” – Bertolf featuring Ilse DeLange
It was quite a surreal experience to record with my heroes, but at the same time it felt really familiar when I heard those guys’ instruments coming through my headphones. Like I was coming home somewhere I’d never been before.
“Uncle Pen” – Bill Monroe
Bill Monroe learned to play from his Uncle Pen. Full name: Pendleton Vandiver. Uncle Pen’s great-great grandfather was Bill Vandiver, an immigrant from the Netherlands. Vandiver is actually derived from the Dutch Name “van de Veer.” So if Bill Monroe is the Father of Bluegrass and Uncle Pen is the uncle of bluegrass, then Bill van de Veer is the great-great uncle of bluegrass. So there’s the Dutch connection with bluegrass for ya!
“Keep on Pushing” – Country Gazette
My love of bluegrass music is entirely my father’s fault. In 1972, when he was 16 years old, he heard a song on the radio: “Keep on Pushing,” by Country Gazette. That song was actually on the Dutch pop charts at that time! My father was completely blown away and it was the start of his love of this kind of music. And when I grew up, he played nothing else but bluegrass, so I couldn’t help but to fall in love with it, too. (The original ’70s recording of “Keep on Pushing” is not on Spotify, so here is the ’90s remake.)
“Amsterdam” – Douwe Bob
Douwe Bob is a famous artist here in the Netherlands. I wrote this song with him and we thought it was nice to try and write a bluegrass song not about the hills of Kentucky or something, or to once again pretend to be American, but to write a bluegrass song about the city we know, Amsterdam.
“Crying Shame” – Blue Grass Boogiemen & Tim Knol
Blue Grass Boogiemen are a great high-energy bluegrass band from the Netherlands who have been on the scene for a long time now. Here’s a song from an album they made with the great singer-songwriter Tim Knol (who happens to sing a nice harmony vocal on my album Bluefinger as well)
“Fallin’” – Nathalíe
Here in the Netherlands, I’m playing live with a great band of musicians who also happen to have their own bluegrass bands. This song is from the band Nathalíe, that feature my band members Nathalie Schaap on vocals and double bass, Jos van Ringen on banjo, and Janos Koolen on mandolin. I really love what they’re doing.
“The Bipolar Bear” – The Charivari Trio with Janos Koolen
Janos Koolen is the mandolin player in my band. He’s a fantastic multi-instrumentalist and composer as well. Here’s his beautiful composition, “The Bipolar Bear,” with the Charivari Trio.
“Tapdancing on the Highwire” – Ilse DeLange
My career in music started by playing in Ilse DeLange’s band. She’s a big country/pop star here in the Netherlands, and she’s very fond of bluegrass music as well. Here’s one of her songs that I really love from a live album we did back in 2007.
“One Tear” – 4 Wheel Drive
4 Wheel Drive is probably my favorite Dutch bluegrass band. The band also features Joost van Es on fiddle, who’s playing live with me right now. I went to see them live a lot as a kid, and I was always left really impressed and wanting to learn to play, too. I also need to mention the bands The Country Ramblers and Groundspeed, who were from the city of Kampen (which was jokingly called the “Nashville by the Ijssel”), but sadly their albums are not on Spotify.
“Deeper Than the Holler” – G-runs ‘n Roses.
G-runs ‘n Roses is a band from the Czech Republic, with two Dutch guys playing in it: Ralph Schut on guitar, banjo, and vocals and his brother Christopher Schut on bass.
“Till I Found Someone” – The Bluebirds
The Bluebirds are a band that do great and heartfelt three-part harmony. Here’s a song that I wrote with them, with J.B Meijers on dobro.
“Team Hoover” – Bertolf
I’d like to end this mixtape with an instrumental that I’m really proud of, once again from my album, Bluefinger.
I hope you enjoy it and thanks for listening! Cheers from The Netherlands.
Artist:Tommy Emmanuel Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Tennessee Stud” featuring Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Album:Accomplice Two Release Date: April 28, 2023 Label: CGP Sounds
In Their Words: “I’ve always loved this song. I wanted to pay tribute with Nitty Gritty to Doc Watson and the original version that appears on the Will The Circle Be Unbroken album. Jeff Hanna sang on that version with Doc. Jeff and I split the verses up so we could come together on the choruses. It was a very relaxed feeling recording with the Nitty Gritty guys. They know it so well and I loved coming up with little changes in the riffs and chords to try to add my own touch to this classic. I love working with such an iconic band. I see them still giving music their ALL! Their passion for music, good songs, and performing for the fans is all still present when you see them and doesn’t seem like the years have taken their edge at all. More power to Nitty Gritty!” – Tommy Emmanuel
In the liner notes to his new album Bluegrass Vacation, released at the beginning of April, Robbie Fulks talks about his formative experiences in the genre. He also mentions how, as a young musician in the early ’80s, he drifted away from it in search of the coolness of trendier sounds. “But what made me think there was anything cooler than bluegrass?” he asks, playfully reprimanding his younger self.
Bluegrass Vacation makes the case that there is indeed nothing hipper than some of the world’s most decorated musicians tearing into a tried-and-true format. And it doesn’t hurt when they do so in service of smart, funny, heartfelt material, which is what Fulks delivers here and is emblematic of his output for the past three decades. While he proves that he can write rollicking back-porch jams like “One Glass of Whiskey” and “Let the Old Dog In,” he also slows the tempo for tender acoustic beauties like “Molly and the Old Man” and “Momma’s Eyes.” And in the stunning “Angels Carry Me,” he pushes bluegrass boundaries with a multi-movement piece of fearless lyrical and musical complexity.
Considering it took 2 ½ years from first session to album release due to pandemic holdups, Fulks is thrilled to finally have Bluegrass Vacation out in the world. He talked to BGS about early influences, his impressive cohorts on the record, and whether he’d consider dipping back into the genre again.
BGS: What are your earliest memories of bluegrass and what drew you to it?
Robbie Fulks: Early memories are a reel-to-reel tape of Doc Watson’s first Vanguard record. There were a couple of other records on the tape as well, but Doc was the first thing up, “Nashville Blues” going to “Sitting on Top of the World,” that warm, beautiful, versatile sound. Doc did all these different things that kind of put him one foot in bluegrass and one foot out. That was probably the earliest thing that hooked me. And then after that it was like The Country Gentleman and Will The Circle Be Unbroken. A couple of other records that my folks had, and then the festivals.
What made you decide that now was the time to do an all-bluegrass record?
Generally, over the last 10 years, I’ve been making more inroads. My bluegrass hot-shot Rolodex has expanded to where it’s like, holy shit, I have Jerry Douglas’ email and can call Sam Bush (laughs). It just seemed like it had reached a tipping point the last couple of years where it was like I gotta do this. The older guys are going to be dead soon including myself, and that’s part of the reason (laughs). But I’ve been leaning that way more and more for the last five to 10 years.
Did your songwriting process change at all?
I varied my angles on the songwriting as I went along. On a couple of them, I had a genre thing in mind. Like “Lonely Ain’t Hardly Alive,” I was thinking about Jimmy Martin in the late ’50s and early ’60s and wrote to that. With “Angels Carry Me,” that came about because I had inked (mandolinist) Sierra (Hull) on a session. I started thinking about what kind of a groove I would like to hear her on and wrote from the groove forward thinking about the way she plays.
And did writing for bluegrass steer you in the direction of any particular subject matter?
I’ve noticed that I gravitate repeatedly toward four or five rough subjects over and over again. One of them is alcohol, and that shows up in a couple songs. One of them is memories of when I was a kid, and that shows up. Or music itself. When these subjects show up, I always think “Should I go ahead, or not go ahead?” Because it’s well-trodden ground for me. Like “Old Time Music Is Hear to Stay,” I thought “Well, I’m writing another song about music. I’ve done of lot of that. Should I go forward?” And as I went forward with the song, I just found that I really liked it and that compensated for any qualms about having done something similar before. I guess it’s a long-winded way of saying no, it really wasn’t any different. Just going into a room with an instrument and seeing what happened.
Considering the incredible instrumentalists on this record, did you give them a lot of direction? Or was it more like, “Here’s the song. Let it rip?”
Generally, I’ve noticed in the studio that the less I say, the better. Because it’s surprising how you can say four words that seem well-chosen and exactly what you want and then things go haywire because it’s overinterpreted or misinterpreted. My approach is that I definitely have things in mind and I chart and have rough end points in mind. But when you hear the first go at it, I go with the idea that that’s what it’s going to be, like 90 percent, and then I direct the other 10 percent of it as delicately as I can.
Tell me about recording “Angels Carry Me,” which is fearless with how it expands the notion of what a bluegrass song can be.
The people that were on the session, it skewed a little younger, because Sierra was there and (guitarist) Chris (Eldridge) was there. And (fiddler) Stuart (Duncan) is just kind of ageless and genre-less, just pure music. Todd (Phillips) is the same way on the bass. He’s a really wide-brained guy. I think if it had been different players, it might have been more of a challenge. But those players can go anywhere and just have adventurous spirits, as do I. It was never a question that it would be too weird for somebody to get their mind around.
That song also has one of my favorite lines I’ve heard in a long while: “And only a fool thinks he can leave just by driving away.”
That was a line that took me by surprise. I worked on the song for three or four weeks in an attitude of mystery and concern (laughs). Because I didn’t know where it was going or what I was doing. It was kind of amorphous. But the appearance of that line at the end, it seemed like, “Ah, that could have been in my sights the whole time and I just didn’t know it.” It appeared as a gift.
Did you have to embellish any of “Longhair Bluegrass,” which talks about you going to see a festival as a kid with your parents?
I think the only untrue part is that in the fourth verse, I put an example of somebody at the festival, an old-timer that was not into the younger generation and their attitude. And I put in Wilma Lee Cooper because I looked at a poster of that Culpepper festival. Her name fit and I thought the age bracket kind of fit. In the session, Sam Bush said, “No, she was real easy-going about it.” I said, “Who wasn’t?” And he said, “Probably Ralph Stanley.” So I put that in. That was a little untruth, because I didn’t see Wilma or Ralph at that festival looking around angry. And maybe my parents weren’t stoned out of their heads like I implied in the song (laughs).
You talk in “Old Time Music Is Here to Stay” about picking up the electric guitar and then losing interest in it as you returned to more traditional sounds. How accurate is that?
100 percent. I think it was just a natural thing for me to want to swim with the current when I was 17 years old. But even at the time, I think it was at the back of my mind that this music by, I don’t know, Aztec Camera and Big Country or U2, it was OK, but it just didn’t grab me in the way that I was grabbed by a Doc Watson record. It was a little bit more work coming to the popular music of the late ’70s, early ’80s. But what can you do? The stuff that gets in you when you’re five or ten years old, that’s the stuff that doesn’t go away.
Did you feel extra pressure on this record because you wanted to do the genre proud?
There was pressure there, but it was more from being in an isolation booth and looking out the glass door and seeing Sam Bush over there or Ronnie McCoury over there. No matter how welcoming these people are, it’s a mind fuck to pick up your instrument and be playing with them (laughs). It freaked me out a little bit.
I know you just finished this one, but is it possible you could return to the genre again somewhere down the road?
I’m starting to think about what to do next. I’m open-minded. If people like this enough, I loved doing it. I would do another one.
This year’s MerleFest, slated for April 27-30 at Wilkes Community College in Doc Watson’s old North Carolina stomping grounds, falls during what would have been the great man’s centennial year. Watson was born 100 years ago this past March in the tiny crossroads of Deep Gap, where he resided for his entire life. But even though Watson himself has been gone for more than a decade, since his passing in May of 2012, his presence is still very much felt at the festival he launched in memory of his late son Merle Watson way back in 1988.
“The first MerleFest I went back to after Doc’s passing, he was bigger than life to me,” says legendary resonator guitarist Jerry Douglas, a MerleFest perennial who has played there almost every year and is on this year’s schedule as well. “Everywhere I looked, I saw Doc in some way and I heard him onstage all the time. He was just ever-present. Not seeing and hearing him made me really want to see and hear him again. Him not being there is still a huge hole for me. It hurts. But even if he’s not there physically, he’s there spiritually. I think the festival survives and is what it is because of Doc Watson, not because of who comes to play there.”
If MerleFest’s ongoing popularity remains the most visible manifestation of Doc Watson’s enduring influence, it is far from the only one. Watson was blind from the age of 1 and became a professional musician for the most practical of reasons, that it was one of the few ways he could make a living. And being sightless hardly slowed Watson down at all. Discovered by folklorist Ralph Rinzler in the waning years of America’s pre-Beatlemania folk revival, Watson was a flat-picking guitarist of such speed and precision that he remains a major touchstone to this day. From Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings on down, just about every notable guitar player in the contemporary folk and bluegrass cosmos still bears his stamp as a touchstone.
“Doc led the way,” says Douglas. “He plowed the ground, sewed the seeds and he’s responsible for all the guitar players out there now playing Tony Rice-style guitar. Doc is the acoustic guitar star.”
But Doc’s far-ranging influence goes well beyond just folk and bluegrass. Exhibit A to that effect would be I Am a Pilgrim: Doc Watson at 100 (FLi Records/Budde Music), a multi-artist tribute compilation released around the time of Watson’s birthday last month. I Am a Pilgrim has contributions from a lot of the artists you’d expect covering songs associated with Watson, starting with Douglas in the first-track pole position with “Shady Grove.” Also present are Dolly Parton with the Tom Paxton composition “The Last Thing on My Mind,” Steve Earle rambling through Mississippi John Hurt’s “Make Me a Pallet,” Rosanne Cash singing a lovely version of the title track, Watson’s longtime accompanist Jack Lawrence picking “Florida Blues” and Punch Brothers guitarist Chris Eldridge giving “Little Sadie” a soulful turn.
The album includes a fair amount of less likely contributors, too, including the American bluesman Corey Harris, West African guitarist Lionel Loueke, Tom Waits sideman Marc Ribot and electric slide guitarist Ariel Posen. The latter gives the old standard “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” a sacred steel feel that would be perfect for the Sunday morning gospel set that Watson used to lead at MerleFest every year.
Perhaps no musician’s presence on I Am a Pilgrim is more unexpected than Bill Frisell, a guitarist primarily known for an avant garde strain of atmospheric jazz. John Zorn is one of his regular longtime collaborators, and Frisell never met or played with Watson. But even though he himself admits he’s not the first musician you’d think of in regards to Watson, Frisell makes for an intriguing wild card on this album, the lone artist appearing on multiple tracks. He accompanies the Tennessee singer/songwriter Valerie June on “Handsome Molly,” adding some six-string sonic fairy dust to the arrangement. And he closes the album with a lovely solo instrumental rendition of the Doc/Rosa Lee Watson co-write, “Your Lone Journey.”
“For me, Doc Watson has been important even though there’s quite a few steps removed from him to me,” says Frisell. “He had extraordinary command and technique. But what attracted me the most was his spirit and the feeling that it came from such a deep, spiritual place. I’m inspired by people who find their own way. He’s the root of the tree and invented this whole world, took what was around him and made it his own. People I look up to – Thelonious Monk, John Cage, Bach, Doc Watson – somehow look through a different lens, find things the rest of us don’t see and show it to us with clarity. It inspires you to try to do something good, too.”
Almost as important as how Watson played guitar was the way he carried himself in his interactions with others, offstage as well as on. Pretty much everybody who knew Watson still sings his praises as someone who had exactly the right attitude about all the hosannas that came his way over the years. Winning seven Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts and countless other awards did not seem to change his outlook one bit. When the town of Boone commissioned a sculpture of Watson toward the end of his life, the only way he agreed to cooperate was if the city called it “Just one of the people.” It occupies a bench on King Street in Boone, near where Watson began his career busking for change.
“Doc was a humble man,” says B. Townes, Watson’s MerleFest co-founder. “He never met a stranger and, in his own words, he was not a star, just a person. Not only was he the legendary award-winning flatpicking guitarist, he had a warm welcoming way with people, no matter who you were. To me, he was a father type. He was my ears to the music. I guess I was his eyes to what a festival might be. Doc’s spirit is certainly still with us at every MerleFest. So many artists when they’re onstage will bring up memories of Doc. That helps keep the spirit alive.”
MerleFest has always been billed as “traditional plus,” meaning traditional music plus every other style Watson was interested in – everything, in other words. This year’s lineup offers the usual impeccable mix of old and new artists bearing his stamp, from Country Music Hall of Famer Tanya Tucker to modern-day hitmaker Maren Morris. There’s also classic rock with Little Feat and Chris Robinson’s Brothers of a Feather, and the classically influenced bluegrass of Kruger Brothers. Along with latterday keepers of the flame Josh Goforth and Presley Barker, MerleFest 2023 has the return of the Avett Brothers, who launched their career at the festival in 2004. And most all the usual suspects will be there, too, regulars like Sam Bush, Peter Rowan, Roy Book Binder and Douglas.
“MerleFest is the first place we all gather every year,” says Douglas. “It’s in the right place at the right time – in North Carolina, the cradle of bluegrass civilization as we know it. Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Don Reno, Bobby Hicks, all these great musicians who drank the water and became great musicians because of where they came from.”
Top photo courtesy of the Doc Watson Archive. Pictured (L-R) Stuart Duncan, Bela Fleck, David Grisman, Jerry Douglas, Jack Lawrence, and Doc Watson
Artist: Tommy Emmanuel & Billy Strings Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Doc’s Guitar/Black Mountain Rag” Album:Accomplice Two Release Date: April 28, 2023 Label: CGP Sounds
In Their Words: “I knew I wanted to have Billy Strings play with me on ‘Doc’s Guitar/Black Mountain Rag.’ The moment we played together the very first time at MerleFest (2016), I heard his beautiful phrasing and his Doc quotes that took me back to hearing Doc when I was a teenager. Billy has Doc in his DNA, so getting him to come and record these tunes was only a matter of finding a time to capture it in a studio. The actual recording was quick, and we only did a couple of takes and we were done.
“I had never heard Doc in Australia as I had spent most of my life in very rural areas where record stores were rare and music by Chet, Merle and Doc was impossible to find. It was an American tourist who saw me play at a show and came up to me afterwards and told me I sounded a bit like Doc Watson. I said, ‘Who is Doc Watson?’ He gave his tape out of his car stereo and I heard Doc for the first time. I think that was around 1973-4. I was smitten with his singing and his great playing, and I could hear the influences of Chet Atkins and Merle Travis all over his playing, but there was some Jimmie Rodgers, too. Then I found more recordings that led to some his fiddle tunes and blazing guitar works! My personal favorite recording by Doc is the album Reflections — a duets album with Chet Atkins. His legacy and body of work and influence are monumental and unequalled in my eyes. Thanks Doc for showing so many of us the way!” — Tommy Emmanuel
It’s terrifying to imagine now that when I was 18 I got in a station wagon with six other teenagers and drove 12 hours from Toronto to Wilkesboro, North Carolina, to the Merle Watson Memorial Festival. Terrifying because I don’t think any of us had much driving experience, money or sense. I had a big crush on one of the other passengers and would have gotten into the car whichever festival it was going to, but now when I look at the lineup for that year (1994), I’m glad we made it. Over the weekend that crush turned into a romance that lasted for what amounts to a lifetime at age 18, so most of my memories are not of the performers I was listening to who came to dominate my ears for years to come. But the moon-eyed haze I was floating around in tied up my first experience of bluegrass with all the intensity and longing of love and the freedom and excitement of traveling.
I like that bluegrass means such different things to its adherents, but that they all feel it strongly. It can be an exercise in authenticity, an article of faith, a technical jungle gym and an emblem of a time and place in history. It’s a genre that’s small and quirky enough that some people feel they can inhabit, protect and partly own it. Now it’s so embedded in my musical history that I don’t know if I can speak about it intelligibly with anyone who doesn’t already love it as much as I do. Here are some of my favourite songs by some of the artists that were playing at the Merle Watson Memorial Festival in 1994. — Doug Paisley
Tony Rice more than anyone else is the reason I am a guitar player and a musician. His many layers of musicality and his broader interests from modern acoustic instrumental music to restoring Accutron watches to his appearance on stage to his insights and comments in interviews make him a fascinating character. I’m so grateful for his time on earth.
When I began to play bluegrass, the high-water mark of what a bluegrass group could be was for me the Seldom Scene. They were such an assemblage of distinct characters. John Starling and John Duffey are two of my favourite singers.
In my daily life I can connect to so much feeling in Iris DeMent’s music, but if I’m going through a hard time I think I’d approach it very carefully because it’s just so powerful.
Aside from all the great and probably familiar things we can say about Emmylou Harris, I love her forays into more traditional music — especially on “Roses in the Snow” with Tony Rice on guitar.
Once I had finally recovered from the New South lineup with Tony Rice, I then discovered that there was a whole other set of tunes with Keith Whitley on vocals, and my head just about exploded.
Such a beautiful singer. I heard from dobro player Don Rooke that Claire Lynch may be living up in our neck of the woods now. I hope I get a chance to see her play here.
Although I’ve listened to Doc Watson all along I never tried to emulate or learn from his guitar playing the way I did Tony Rice or Norman Blake. There’s something inscrutable and compelling about it for me, and I’d rather take in his music not as a guitar player, but purely as a listener.
Since the beginning, BGS has sought to showcase roots music at every level and to preserve the moments throughout its ever-developing history that make this music so special. One of the simplest ways we’ve been able to do just that has been through our Sitch Sessions — working with new and old friends, up-and-coming artists, and legendary performers, filming musical moments in small, intimate spaces, among expansive, breathtaking landscapes, and just about everywhere in between. But always aiming to capture the communion of these shared moments.
In honor of our 10th year, we’ve gathered 10 of our best sessions — viral videos and fan favorites — from the past decade. We hope you’ll enjoy this trip down memory lane!
Greensky Bluegrass – “Burn Them”
Our most popular video of all time, this Telluride, Colorado session with Greensky Bluegrass is an undeniable favorite, and we just had to include it first.
Rodney Crowell and Emmylou Harris – “The Traveling Kind”
What more could you ask for than two old friends and legends of country music reminiscing on travels and songs passed and yet to come, in an intimate space like this? “We’re members of an elite group because we’re still around, we’re still traveling,” Emmylou Harris jokes. To which Rodney Crowell adds with a laugh, “We traveled so far, it became a song.” The flowers were even specifically chosen and arranged “to represent a celestial great-beyond and provide a welcoming otherworldly quality … a resting place for the traveling kind.” Another heartwarming touch for an unforgettable moment.
Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan – “Some Tyrant”
In the summer of 2014, during the Telluride Bluegrass Festival we had the distinct pleasure of capturing Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan’s perfectly bucolic version of “Some Tyrant” among the aspens. While out on this jaunt into the woods, we also caught a performance of the loveliest ode to summertime from Kristin Andreassen, joined by Aoife and Sarah.
Rhiannon Giddens – “Mal Hombre”
Rhiannon Giddens once again proves that she can sing just about anything she wants to — and really well — with this gorgeously painful and moving version of “Mal Hombre.”
Tim O’Brien – “You Were on My Mind”
Is this our favorite Sitch Session of all time? Probably. Do we dream of having the good fortune of running into Tim O’Brien playing the banjo on a dusty road outside of Telluride like the truck driver in this video? Definitely.
Enjoy one of our most popular Sitch Sessions of all time, featuring O’Brien’s pure, unfiltered magic in a solo performance of an original, modern classic.
Gregory Alan Isakov – “Saint Valentine”
Being lucky in love is great work, if you can find it. But, for the rest of us, it’s a hard row to hoe. For this 2017 Sitch Session at the York Manor in our home base of Los Angeles, Gregory Alan Isakov teamed up with the Ghost Orchestra to perform “Saint Valentine.”
The Earls of Leicester – “The Train That Carried My Girl From Town”
In this rollicking session, the Earls of Leicester gather round some Ear Trumpet Labs mics to bring their traditional flair to a modern audience, and they all seem to be having a helluva time!
Sara and Sean Watkins – “You and Me”
For this Telluride session, Sara and Sean Watkins toted their fiddle and guitar up the mountain to give us a performance of “You and Me” from a gondola flying high above the canyon.
Punch Brothers – “My Oh My / Boll Weevil”
The Punch Brothers — along with Dawes, The Lone Bellow, and Gregory Alan Isakov — headlined the 2015 LA Bluegrass Situation festival at the Greek Theatre (a party all on its own), and in anticipation, the group shared a performance of “My Oh My” into “Boll Weevil” from on top of the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood.
Caitlin Canty feat. Noam Pikelny – “I Want To Be With You Always”
We’ll send you off with this delicate moment. Released on Valentine’s Day, Caitlin Canty and Noam Pikelny offered their tender acoustic rendition of Lefty Frizzell’s 1951 country classic love song, “I Want to Be With You Always.”
Dive into 8 of our favorite underrated Sitch Sessions here.
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