Tag: Earl Scruggs

MIXTAPE: Jeff Picker’s Low End Rumblings on the Bass in Bluegrass

Posted on by Editor

Maybe I’m biased*, but I’ve always felt that the bass is the most important instrument in the bluegrass band. It might not immediately draw your ear, but a bassist’s interpretation of the groove and harmony of a song holds substantial power over how the song is ultimately felt by the listener. Without a great bassist, a band full of shredders can sound anemic and sad; a heartfelt lyric can seem tedious and derivative. But add some tasty low end, and the same band will soar; the lyric will swell with passion! (Attention sound engineers: simply cranking the subs won’t cut it.) As such, the bassist’s importance in a bluegrass band is considerable.

Even so, great bassists are rarely given their due, unless they also happen to be virtuosic melodic players. Well, that ends today! Here are some examples of masterful low end artistry from some of my favorite denizens of the doghouse. Please excuse the shameless inclusion of one of my own tracks, because, well… I have an album to promote. Enjoy! — Jeff Picker

*I’m definitely biased.

Tony Rice – “Shadows” (Mark Schatz, bass)

Mark is one of my favorite bluegrass bassists. His tone is huge and clear, and his bass lines are subtly creative. On this track, listen to the fluid transitions back and forth between standard bluegrass time and a more open feel. Also note his slick fills and voice leading throughout.

Nashville Bluegrass Band – “Happy on the Mississippi Shores” (Gene Libbea, bass)

If aliens came to earth, demanded to know what bluegrass bass sounded like, and stipulated that I had only one song with which to demonstrate it, I’d play this. Gene Libbea’s feel is perfect; his note choices are just varied enough to add a bit of intrigue to the basic harmony of the song, while never sacrificing the pendulum effect that drives the bluegrass bus. The occasional unison fill with the banjo adds to the fun.

Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys – “Loving You Too Well” (Jack Cooke, bass)

I love this approach to the bluegrass waltz. Jack Cooke’s playing here is busier than what you might hear from many bluegrass bassists these days, and there’s a certain playful and casual quality to it, which I find refreshing. He bounces around between octaves, and between full walking lines and half-notes. Old-school, “open air” bass playing.

Matt Flinner – “Nowthen” (Todd Phillips, bass)

This song may sound slow and simple, but make no mistake: to groove like this, at this tempo, in this exposed instrumentation, is HARD. Todd Phillips demonstrates his mastery here: clear tone, impressive intonation, and intentional, direct timing. I also love how softly Todd plays — at times, he seems to barely touch the bass. To me, that conveys maturity and experience.

Patty Loveless – “Daniel Prayed” (Clarence “Tater” Tate, bass)

I had fun studying the bass playing on this track when I got to perform it with Patty and Ricky Skaggs a few years back. Clarence “Tater” Tate played both bass and fiddle for Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys over the years, and had about as much pedigree in bluegrass as can be achieved. I dig the playing here, because it feels like an old-school, 1950s approach (bouncy, busy, slightly loose bass playing), but with contemporary recording quality. If you focus on the bass, you can tell how much fun he’s having with the slightly crooked form and joyous lyric — it sounds like a musical smile.

Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer – “Clyde Waters (Child 216)” (Viktor Krauss, bass)

The first time I heard this song, I didn’t even realize there was bass on it. But I found myself coming back to it, drawn by the story-like quality of the musical arrangement, and I realized that the bass plays a major part in that dynamism. Viktor Krauss displays impeccable taste in his musical choices here. He knows when to play, when not to, when to articulate an additional note, when to sustain. For a player as technically proficient as Viktor, such restraint is impressive. His playing serves the song, first and foremost.

Del McCoury Band – “Learnin’ the Blues” (Mike Bub, bass)

As everybody in Nashville knows, when Mike Bub and his Kay bass show up at a gig, a fat groove is imminent. This track showcases Bub’s rock solid hybrid feel — he bounces between 4/4 walking and half-time, triplet and ghost note fills, and even has a little two-bar break in the middle. This is the type of bass playing that makes it virtually impossible to sound bad (not that Del and the boys needed any help in that department). Bub is also a great guy with a sense of humor and tons of knowledge and stories about Nashville’s music history.

John Hartford – “Howard Hughes’ Blues” (Dave Holland, bass)

Bluegrass as a musical style is pretty specific — there’s room for a wide variety of personal voices, of course, but there are definitely some foundational qualities and vernacular that indicate whether a player is truly versed in the style. On this track, jazz legend Dave Holland sounds like exactly what he is: a jazz musician playing bluegrass. Normally a recipe for disaster, here somehow it works. His tone, feel, note choice, and general approach sound foreign in the style, but they actually mesh with Hartford’s loose and jovial manner quite well. A slightly bizarre but enjoyable approach to bluegrass bass.

Ricky Skaggs – “Walls of Time” (Mark Fain, bass)

I’ve spent a lot of time studying Mark Fain’s playing for my job with Ricky Skaggs, and I’m always finding subtle little musical gems in his bass parts. It’s Mark’s tone, taste, and timing that anchor most of the canonical Kentucky Thunder recordings that we all love. This track showcases his mastery of the bluegrass groove at a slow tempo — listen to the way he spruces up what could be a one-and-five-fest with ghost notes, fills, and syncopation.

Jeff Picker – “Rooster in the Tire Well” (Jeff Picker, bass)

When I was making my new record, With the Bass in Mind, one of my musical goals was to find some space for the bass to shine and for me to use some of the technique I don’t use very often as a sideman. As such, the record has many bass solos. This song has no bass solo, however, since this Mixtape isn’t about bass solos! There are some cool bass lines in it, though (if I do say so myself). I tried to choose my notes carefully, to help anchor the band through the song’s many metric changes.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – “Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson” (Dennis Crouch, bass)

This track is not exactly bluegrass, but what an incredibly grooving bass part. Here is a rare example of a time when slap bass was musically appropriate! Dennis is a friend of mine and a great guy and bassist. He plays with gut strings, punchy tone, and undeniably solid time. He’s also the master of throwing in a couple creative measures of voice leading at exactly the right moment in the song. I try to catch Dennis out playing in Nashville whenever I can.

Stan Getz and the Oscar Peterson Trio – “I Want To Be Happy” (Ray Brown, bass)

This is obviously not bluegrass, but no bass-centric mixtape would be complete without tipping the hat to King Ray. His half-time feel throughout the melody is flawless, and just listen to that crushing avalanche of groove beginning around 00:37. Ray is a bluegrasser’s jazz bassist because he plays on top of the beat, and his playing has a relentless forward motion, like the banjo playing of Earl Scruggs. I’ve loved this recording since I was 15 — you won’t find better bass playing anywhere.

Photo credit: Kaitlyn Raitz

First Generation: Meet the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame’s Earliest Inductees

Posted on by Editor

Though it’s not that hard to find some who will argue the point, bluegrass is widely held to have originated when banjo phenom Earl Scruggs joined Grand Ole Opry star Bill Monroe’s band in early December, 1945. Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys — the possessive wasn’t just there for show — were already among the anchors of the radio show’s cast, but contemporary accounts (and a handful of bootleg recordings) make clear that, to the ears of an almost instantly enraptured audience, Scruggs’ rapid-fire banjo playing elevated the group’s sound to a new level.

Almost instantly, groups sprang up — or reoriented themselves — in pursuit of the new sound, and although banjo players and fiddlers were the most obvious converts, the truth is that virtually all of the intricacies the band brought to their sound were soon emulated. By the time Scruggs and guitarist/lead singer Lester Flatt left the Blue Grass Boys at the beginning of 1948, the quintet’s live performances and a handful of recordings had already inspired some notable followers, who, out of artistic desire and commercial necessity, quickly busied themselves in developing their own distinctive takes on the sound of the “original bluegrass band.”

As we near the 75th anniversary of this foundational origin story, BGS will be looking back across the sweep of those years — and first up, of course, a clutch of true pioneers that share a common accomplishment: they are the acts honored by induction into the IBMA’s Hall of Fame in its first five years and their plaques proudly hang at the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky.

Bill Monroe (inducted 1991)

A complex personality with a skill set that included equal measures of innovation and synthesis, the mandolin-playing Monroe (b. 1911) moved from a mid-1930s duo with his brother to assembling a hot string band during World War II to fronting that original bluegrass band — an achievement which earned him his “Father of Bluegrass” title. Though it’s easy to discern the elements he brought together in that music — old fiddle tunes; Scotch-Irish ballads; African-American blues, jazz and gospel; western swing and more — his creativity extended beyond simply stirring them together and kept him a central figure from its inception until his death in 1996.

Indeed, while his early classics are essential to the bluegrass canon, even his late-life instrumental compositions have enjoyed a growing influence among today’s hottest young players. In fact, he collected his first Grammy for 1988’s “Southern Flavor.” Monroe was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970, and as the composer of “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” he joined the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys in 1993, and entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence in 1997.

Representative tracks: “Blue Yodel No. 4,” “I’m Going Back to Old Kentucky,” “Lord Protect My Soul,” “Midnight on the Stormy Deep,” “Southern Flavor”

Earl Scruggs (inducted 1991)

Though he wasn’t yet 22 years old when he joined Monroe’s band at the end of 1945, Earl Scruggs (b. 1924) was ready to step into the spotlight, and, with the exception of a stretch of ill health in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, he never relinquished it until his death in 2012. Unlike many instrumentalists who change their approach according to musical context, Scruggs believed that his picking style — built around right-hand patterns called “rolls” — could fit anywhere, and after his groundbreaking years with Monroe and then Lester Flatt, his career seemed devoted to proving the point.

Having created much of the musical vocabulary for bluegrass banjo picking, he moved on to playing with his sons in the Earl Scruggs Revue, a country-rock-bluegrass fusion band that was arguably more successful — at least in commercial terms — than Flatt & Scruggs had ever been. In the 21st century, Scruggs championed a broad variety of younger musicians while continuing to play those same sweet rolls he’d created as a young man. He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys in 2008.

Representative tracks: “Blue Ridge Cabin Home” (Flatt & Scruggs), “Foggy Mountain Chimes” (Flatt & Scruggs), “Travelin’ Prayer” (Earl Scruggs Revue), “The Engineers Don’t Wave From the Trains Anymore” (with Tom T. Hall), “The Angels” (with Melissa Etheridge)

Lester Flatt (inducted 1991)

With an expressive, emotive voice and an impressive array of demeanors that ranged from dry and sly to devout and down-home, rhythm guitarist Lester Flatt (b. 1914) was the perfect musical complement to Earl Scruggs, and their 1948-1969 output was at least as influential as Monroe’s. Flatt & Scruggs won a 1968 Grammy for their classic recording of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.”

But where Scruggs was not only interested in playing with his sons, but also interested in putting his banjo into a wider range of contexts, Flatt preferred sticking to the country side of bluegrass. In the aftermath of their breakup, Flatt’s drawl deepened and slowed as he presided over a series of gifted lineups that included peers like Josh Graves and Vassar Clements, alongside young up-and-comers from banjoist Kenny Ingram to a teenaged Marty Stuart. Flatt & Scruggs were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1985.

Representative tracks: “I’ll Never Love Another” (Flatt & Scruggs), “I’ll Go Stepping Too” (Flatt & Scruggs), “On My Mind” (Flatt & Scruggs), “You Are My Flower” (Flatt & Scruggs), “Gonna Have Myself a Ball”

The Stanley Brothers (inducted 1992)

The career of Ralph Stanley (b. 1927) and Carter Stanley (b.1925) illustrates both the profound impact that the original bluegrass band had on their peers, as well as the complementary artistic and commercial drives that impelled those successors to create their own unique style. In their first recordings, made while Flatt and Scruggs were still Blue Grass Boys, you can hear the Virginia-born Stanley brothers revamp their old-time string band approach into an approximation of the pioneers’ sound, yet within a matter of months, they had found a compelling variant.

The Stanley sound was built in part around Ralph’s stolid but driving banjo and soulful tenor singing, but even more around Carter’s mournful lead vocals and powerful songs. Over the years, while they moved from the Nashville-based Columbia and Mercury labels to scrappy (and multi-racial) Cincinnati indie, King, their sound became even more recognizable, as owner Syd Nathan hectored them into de-emphasizing the fiddle and leaning more into the innovative work of flatpicking lead guitarists like George Shuffler. The brothers’ partnership came to an end in late 1966 with the early, alcohol-related death of Carter; Ralph would continue on with his own twist on the Stanley Brothers’ sound until his death in 2016.

Representative tracks: “The Lonesome River,” “Our Last Goodbye,” “Let Me Walk, Lord, By Your Side,” “I’ll Just Go Away,” “Pig in a Pen”

Reno & Smiley (inducted 1992)

The first banjo player to follow Scruggs, albeit briefly, in the Blue Grass Boys, Don Reno (b. 1926) deliberately sought to create a distinct and instantly recognizable style of his own on the instrument. By the time his partnership with singer-guitarist Red Smiley (b. 1925) had settled into regular recording for King Records in the early 1950s, he had succeeded completely, and for good measure had done the same with flatpicked guitar solos, too. As Grand Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs once put it, Reno & Smiley were a country band with a banjo instead of a steel guitar.

Though Reno could and sometimes would blister a banjo solo, many of the band’s signature numbers were heart songs, country shuffles, earnest gospel outings and more, including occasional flashes of rockabilly and jazz. Reno wrote many of them, sang tenor and occasional leads, and shared the instrumental limelight with their steady fiddler, Mack Magaha, and occasionally with one or another mandolin player, including his son, Ronnie. The partners split for a few years in the mid-‘60s, then reunited for a brief period before Smiley’s death in 1972. Reno continued to record and perform with partners ranging from Bill Harrell to his sons until he passed away in 1984.

Representative tracks: “I’m Using My Bible for a Roadmap,” “I Know You’re Married,” “Little Rock Getaway,” “Please Remember That I Love You,” “Just About Then”

Jim & Jesse (inducted 1993)

Though Jim McReynolds (b. 1927) and Jesse McReynolds (b. 1929) were born just a few dozen miles from the Stanley Brothers, the music of Jim & Jesse could hardly have been a more different kind of bluegrass. The duo’s singing was smooth and refined — especially guitarist Jim’s silvery tenor — while the instrumental sound was driven by Jesse’s innovative mandolin cross-picking and their overall approach by the latter’s eclectic tastes and influences (he appeared, for instance, on The Doors’ 1969 album, The Soft Parade).

The brothers were comfortable in reaching for a more countrified sound, helped by banjo players like Allen Shelton and Carl Jackson, who were adept at playing radio-friendly licks on a dobro-banjo as well as ‘grassier fare when that was called for. Smart businessmen as well, the duo were among the first to appear on television in the early 1950s, recorded an entire album of Chuck Berry songs in the mid-1960s, started their own label in the early 1970s, and remained a popular fixture on the Grand Ole Opry until Jim’s death on the last day of 2002. As of this writing, Jesse McReynolds continues to perform — and to innovate, too, with releases like a 2010 Songs of the Grateful Dead collection.

Representative tracks: “Pardon Me,” “Are You Missing Me,” “She Left Me Standing on the Mountain,” “Cotton Mill Man,” “Memphis”

Mac Wiseman (inducted 1993)

Nicknamed “The Voice With a Heart,” Virginia’s Mac Wiseman (b. 1925) was a founding member of Flatt & Scruggs’ Foggy Mountain Boys in 1948, but soon left to join Monroe (and Don Reno) in the Blue Grass Boys. By the early 1950s, he’d started his own career, recording for Gallatin, Tennessee’s Dot Records — and then going to work for the label. A consummate professional, he also served as a musicians’ union official for a time, and was a founding member of the Country Music Association. He frequently recorded material other than bluegrass, especially when rock ’n’ roll and the pop-country Nashville sound beckoned in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and throughout his career, he was never afraid to use a variety of instruments besides the archetypal bluegrass ones.

Still, as a performer, bluegrass was his bread and butter from the mid-1960s on, and rather than carry a band, he would recruit players from other acts (and occasionally skilled amateurs, too) and lead them on stage with a heavy guitar strum and a quick “watch me, boys!” Wiseman’s songbook included old folk numbers, songs he heard on the radio as a polio-stricken child, big band tunes, Music Row compositions and much more. In later years, he recorded several memorable projects that highlighted songs his mother had taught him and songs that told his life story, before his death in 2019.

Representative tracks: “I Still Write Your Name in the Sand,” “I Wonder How the Old Folks Are at Home,” “Mother Knows Best,” “My Little Home in Tennessee,” “’Tis Sweet to Be Remembered”

The Osborne Brothers (inducted 1994)

Bobby Osborne (b. 1931) and Sonny Osborne (b. 1937) were among the first of what might be called “semi-second generation” bluegrass artists; unlike those who preceded them in the Bluegrass Hall of Fame, neither had performed professionally before 1950. By 1954, though, they’d hooked up with Jimmy Martin for a memorable set of recordings, and 1956 found them signed on to MGM on their own. Together with singer-guitarist Red Allen, the Brothers — Bobby singing lead and playing mandolin, Sonny singing baritone and playing banjo — had come up with an inventive new vocal arrangement that put the spotlight pretty much on them alone.

Lest that sound too cold, it should be noted that they deserved it, for not only was Bobby a formidable lead singer and Sonny brilliant in the support role, but their fearless, try-anything (the two recorded separately with avant-garde jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton in the mid-’60s) instrumental skills were profoundly original. The Brothers joined the Grand Ole Opry and signed with Decca Records in 1964, and spent the next decade fusing bluegrass and country in a way that eventually earned them a CMA Vocal Group award. Irascible, opinionated, and both artistically and commercially successful, the Osborne Brothers were at the forefront of the music until Sonny’s 2005 retirement — and while Bobby continues to perform to this day, the influence of their duo continues to grow, too.

Representative tracks: “Once More,” “The Cuckoo Bird,” “Tennessee Hound Dog,” “Pathway of Teardrops,” “Sweethearts Again”

Jimmy Martin (inducted 1995)

East Tennessee native Jimmy Martin (b. 1927) hungered to perform with Bill Monroe as a youngster, then got his chance in 1949 when Mac Wiseman quit the Blue Grass Boys. As lead vocalist and guitarist, he helped to make some of Monroe’s most memorable recordings, then partnered in various settings with Bobby and Sonny Osborne before taking the helm of his Sunny Mountain Boys in the mid-1950s. A brash, colorful guy who could boast with the best and then back it up, Martin served in the cast of the Louisiana Hayride (alongside Elvis) and the Wheeling (W.V.) Jamboree before a growing bluegrass festival circuit threw him a lifeline in the absence of a Grand Ole Opry membership.

Among early Hall of Fame inductees, he may be considered more influential than most of his peers. Service in his Sunny Mountain Boys constituted the training ground for several generations of musicians, from banjo man J.D. Crowe to newgrass pioneer Alan Munde to Americana favorite Greg Garing — and his appearance on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken was legendary. Martin was an unstoppable force of nature who knew exactly what he wanted from a musician, yet was unable to clearly explain it. Still, he did well enough that his records are instantly recognizable, even when you’ve never heard them before.

Representative tracks: “That’s How I Can Count on You” (with the Osborne Brothers), “Rock Hearts,” “You Don’t Know My Mind,” “Tennessee,” “Freeborn Man”

Pictured above, first row (L to R): Bill Monroe, The Osborne Brothers, Mac Wiseman, Jim & Jesse; Second row: Reno & Smiley, The Stanley Brothers, Jimmy Martin, Flatt & Scruggs

Bluegrass Turns 75

Posted on by Editor

We’re taking a different approach to the Artist of the Month concept this September, as we acknowledge the upcoming 75th anniversary of bluegrass music. Many historians consider its origin to be that December night in 1945, as bandleader and mandolin master Bill Monroe established guitarist Lester Flatt and banjo picker Earl Scruggs as part of the Blue Grass Boys lineup during a Grand Ole Opry show at the Ryman Auditorium. At that pivotal moment, a new American art form was born.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BzLtd0NAoJE/

Although bluegrass is unquestionably rich in history, it is still evolving to this day. In an effort to cover all the decades since then, BGS will offer five posts this month about the evolution of bluegrass, from that indispensable first generation to the newest class of talented pickers. [Read about the first generation.] [Read about Rodney Dillard and the Dillards.] [Read part one of our New Grass Revival oral history. Read part two here.] [Read about 10 women who made bluegrass better in the ’80s and ’90s.] [Listen to our 21st Century Bluegrass playlist.]

Our staff has also collected our personal favorites from the immense bluegrass canon in the playlist below. We owe a lot to Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, and all the musicians who have led us to this milestone, and we’re proud to reveal our theme this month as Bluegrass 75.

 

Bluegrass Memoirs: Scruggs Pegs & Earl’s Hooks

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Let’s begin with a 45 RPM record I played banjo on. 

In July 1964, I was hired by the Rick Sutherlin Orchestra to play banjo for one night at the Monroe County Fair in Bloomington, Indiana. They needed a banjo player, because they were going to back up the fair’s featured music that night, the famous barbershop quartet, The Buffalo Bills. 

The Rick Sutherlin Orchestra was a big band based in Bloomington. Its leader Sutherlin, from a local family, was not a great musician. I remember him at the fair waving his baton at the front of the stage while one of the sidemen did the countdowns before each tune. I’m pretty certain I got the gig because Tom Hensley, who’d played bass in our bluegrass band, the Pigeon Hill Boys, played piano for the orchestra. They needed a banjo; he suggested my name. Hensley, like most of the other members of the big band, was at the Indiana University School of Music. He recently retired after over 40 years as Neil Diamond’s pianist.

A banjo solo was needed for the show, so one of the other orchestra members, trombonist Gary Potter, came to consult with me. Potter and I had been classmates at Oberlin College, playing in Dick Sudhalter’s jazz band in 1960. The following year we had roomed in the same boarding house, and he’d played bass with our campus bluegrass band, The Plum Creek Boys. Now he was at the start of a long career teaching music, principally at IU’s Jacobs School of Music. 

We decided on Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice,” a contemporary folk hit. I’d been playing it with David Satterfield in our Bloomington bluegrass band. Dave, an IU Grad student from Columbus, Indiana, had lived in Greenwich Village a few years before and done some singing with Dylan at that time. This song was in his repertoire.

I loaned Gary a copy of Sing Out! that had Dylan’s words and music so he could work on the arrangement. At this point he suggested inserting the sound of the Scruggs pegs, the musical hook in Flatt & Scruggs’ “Flint Hill Special.” Scruggs had added two additional tuning pegs to his banjo. They had cams which pushed on the second and third strings, enabling him to raise and lower the pitch of each string while it was being plucked. That created a slurred note sound resembling that of a slide guitar or a pedal steel.

Gary had heard that sound when we were at Oberlin and thought its riff with the strings being tuned down and back up would make a nice introduction for my banjo part. He enjoyed the challenge of arranging the sound of the pegs for the orchestra.

The performance at the fair went over well, and soon after that someone — maybe Sutherlin? — suggested we try doing a banjo + big band LP. Thus the Delmarti 45, intended as a demo, was born. The recording was made, as the label indicates, by Don Sheets. Sheets had a recording studio in Brown County on Highway 135 halfway between Bean Blossom and Nashville. He did custom recording work — high school bands, choirs, that sort of stuff — and specialized in jingles. I worked for him there occasionally. A gold record for one of his jingles hung on the studio wall.

The recording was made on the IU Bloomington campus in August 1964, at the Indiana Memorial Union building’s Alumni Hall. The band was on the hall’s stage. Sheets set up his recording equipment on the floor in front of the stage. What I recall most vividly about the recording session is how solid the rhythm section was. “The Marti Mae Singers” was Don’s wife Marti, who overdubbed the harmony voices in his studio afterward.

The record was published in the fall of 1964. Our banjo + big band idea didn’t find any takers at record companies. At the time, bluegrass banjo crossover projects like this one were already up and running, and the heyday for Scruggs pegs had passed.

Earl Scruggs invented his pegs in 1952 after recording “Earl’s Breakdown,” an instrumental that incorporated as its hook a musical trick he’d been playing since boyhood — making a slur by plucking the second string (a B note), tuning it down while still ringing to an A, and then quickly back up to B, right in the middle of an instrumental break. A quick twist! He and Lester recorded it in October 1951. 

It was released at the end of the year on a Columbia single, the B side of “‘Tis Sweet To Be Remembered,” the first Flatt & Scruggs title to make the Billboard charts. All winter long, Columbia advertised the single as a best-seller. The band, then based in Raleigh, was playing it on the radio and the road daily. 

The tedium of having to retune the string by ear every time he played it prompted Earl to invent a labor-saving device. He installed a tuning peg with an adjustable cam on it in the banjo’s peghead between the first and the second string. Turning the peg up made the cam stretch the second string up to B. Turning it down loosened it to A. That enabled him to play these peg hooks accurately every time.

At the same time as he installed the new tuning peg he placed an identical one between the third and the fourth string so that the third string could be moved down from a G to F# and back.

Earl did this because moving the second and third strings down is a natural part of tuning the banjo from an open G chord (the default, for Scruggs-style) to a D chord. This boyhood musical trick came from something he did whenever he played at a dance — change tunings. Certain dance pieces were in G, the most frequently used tuning. Others were in C or D, each with its own tuning. Scruggs used all three throughout his musical life.

In the spring of 1952 Earl could use his new tuners not only for “Earl’s Breakdown,” but also to move quickly from G to D in order to play “Reuben,” the old-time tune that had launched him as a three-finger picker, which he often picked with the band. 

Tablature for “Flint Hill Special” from Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo, p. 103

That fall, just after moving to Knoxville, they recorded “Flint Hill Special,” Earl’s newest composition. It used his new pegs for the tune’s hook.  This riff came at the start of the recording and was repeated at the end of each banjo chorus. That’s what Gary Potter incorporated into his charts for our version of “Don’t Think Twice.”

Released within weeks as the B side of “Dim Lights, Thick Smoke,” “Flint Hill Special” was advertised by Columbia as a best-seller all spring of 1953. It got a lot of radio play. 

At the end of August, not long after Lester and Earl started broadcasting for Martha White Flour in Nashville, they recorded another new peg hook instrumental, “Foggy Mountain Chimes.” In the second half of each chorus Earl tuned both strings down, changing the banjo’s open chord to a D, then played harmonics — “chimes” — in that key before tuning back up to G. 

“Foggy Mountain Chimes” was released in November 1953. The following month Decca released a single recorded in Nashville by the Shenandoah Valley Boys. On one side was “Plunkin’ Rag,” a new banjo instrumental with yet another Scruggs peg hook. 

With the pegs as with every other aspect of his music, Earl Scruggs was being listened to in Nashville and copied by young banjo players everywhere. “Plunkin’ Rag” was just the start. More about that next time!

Neil V. Rosenberg is an author, scholar, historian, banjo player, and Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductee.

Photo of Neil V. Rosenberg: Terri Thomson Rosenberg

LISTEN: Newport Folk Festival Opens Bluegrass Archive for Saturday Stream

Posted on by Editor

Where do you begin to talk about bluegrass at Newport Folk Festival? And how do you capture 60 years of musical magic in just one show? The curators of the festival’s archive have taken a very cool approach, pulling out musical highlights from their first decade as well their most recent decade for the upcoming Burnin’ & Pickin’ Bluegrass set.

The 90-minute show — featuring some recordings that have never before been released — will stream during the festival’s Revival Weekend on Saturday, August 1, starting at 1:37 pm ET. The list of performers on the show has not yet been announced, but considering the breadth of talent that the festival has hosted, you might hear iconic figures like Roy Acuff, Bill Monroe, and Doc Watson, or a new generation that includes Carolina Chocolate Drops, Old Crow Medicine Show, or Gillian Welch & David Rawlings. Legendary artists like Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, and Elizabeth Cotten could potentially show up on the set list, too.

One thing we do know: The Burnin’ & Pickin’ Bluegrass set will include this previously unreleased recording of Ralph Stanley and Ray Cline’s “Sally Goodin'” from 1968.

To honor the festival’s incredible heritage, please consider a donation to Newport Festivals Foundation, which in the last year has provided financial relief to over 400 musicians impacted by the pandemic and over 100 grants for music education programs across the country.

Billy Glassner, archivist for Newport Folk Fest, tells BGS, “Bluegrass has always been an important ingredient in the Newport Folk magic. From its first year in 1959 when Earl Scruggs brought the Cumberland Gap to the shores of the Narragansett Bay up through last years’ collaboration between Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle, that high lonesome sound has been a constant companion to the Newport Folk Festival.”

Glassner hints at more music to come from the vault, too. He adds, “The Newport Folk Archives house an embarrassment of bluegrass riches and curating this set proved to be a joyful yet challenging experience. The only way we were able to make the tough decisions of what to cut was with the knowledge that this is only the beginning of our efforts to make the recorded history of Newport more available to our fans.”

Tune in to Newport Folk’s Festival Revival Weekend from Friday, July 31-Sunday, August 2.

 

“The Shorthairs and the Longhairs”: The Story Behind ‘Bluegrass Country Soul’

Posted on by Editor

Bluegrass Country Soul captures one of Carlton Haney’s legendary festivals in Camp Springs, North Carolina, on Labor Day weekend of 1971. It is credited as the first bluegrass documentary, and is essential viewing for both lifelong bluegrass fans and those new to the genre.

This classic film features bluegrass music’s pioneers, as well as those who would take the music into the future. Earl Scruggs, The Osborne Brothers, Ralph Stanley, Chubby Wise, Mac Wiseman, J.D. Crowe, and Jimmy Martin were featured alongside The Country Gentlemen, Del McCoury, Sam Bush, Tony Rice, Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, Alan Munde, and more. The film documents Rice’s last show with The Bluegrass Alliance and his first show with J.D. Crowe & the Kentucky Mountain Boys. Many of the festival’s legendary moments are preserved in color for posterity.

A larger than life figure who is credited as starting the first multi-day bluegrass festival, Carlton Haney organized the weekend’s festival, and serves as the de facto host of the film, sharing thoughts about bluegrass music, bluegrass festivals, bluegrass fans, and the bluegrass “stow-ry.” His passion for the music is evident, and makes for a great depiction of one of bluegrass’s most significant and one-of-a-kind personalities.

Albert Ihde, the film’s director (pictured below), spoke with BGS about the film and its legacy to commemorate the 50th Anniversary boxed set of the film, released this summer. The special edition set includes the original film, recently remastered and restored; CDs of performances not featured in the film; bonus footage including exclusive interviews with Ricky Skaggs, Bill Emerson, Missy Raines, and more; and a full-color coffee table book about the film.

BGS: How did the opportunity to film Bluegrass Country Soul present itself 50 years ago?

Albert Ihde: It was almost by accident, in a sense. A couple of buddies of mine and I were preparing a screenplay for a company in Washington, D.C. that had hired me to write a film, and then I would direct. The only thing that they insisted on was that it had to be about a Country & Western singer. Now this is 1971, and back then they called it Country & Western. I said, “Okay. Fine. Let me do some research on that.

A buddy of mine, Bob Leonard, and I were out scouting locations in Berryville, Virginia when we saw posters for Carlton Haney’s 4th of July Festival, and Earl Scruggs was going to be playing. We thought, “Well, that looks interesting.” To make a long story short, I got in touch with John Miller, who was the partner of Carlton’s there at Berryville, and John took us on a tour of the sites because I wanted to see what it looked like. It was right on the Shenandoah. Gorgeous location. He gave us passes to the Fourth of July Festival. We had no idea what bluegrass was, compared to country music, and we thought, “This looks like it’ll be fun. We’ll go to see this.”

Director, Albert Ihde

A bunch of us got a VW wagon, and my wife hooked up a camper on the back of our car. We went out, and we parked and saw it, and I have to tell you, as soon as I heard that music coming from the stage, we were all hooked. We talked to Carlton. Quite a deal! Talked to Fred Bartenstein (a local disc jockey who helped with the annual festival) and they told us more about what they were doing. I wanted to put Carlton in a film right then and there as soon as I met him.

We got back to D.C. and the company that hired me to write this screenplay, it turned out that they couldn’t raise the money to make the movie. So we took the film and decided we would try and find the money ourselves. Fortunately the first guy that I sent it to called us into his office. He was a major D.C. investor, philanthropist, and owned lots of real estate in D.C. He said that the thing that interested him most about the screenplay was this bluegrass festival out in Berryville. He said, “Why don’t you do a film about that?”

My partner and I looked at him and said it’s gonna be hard to raise money for a documentary, and he said, “How much do you need?” We get our calculator out, we start going through it, and we throw a figure out to him. It’s not gonna be as expensive as the film that’s going to have all the actors that would be taking us six to eight weeks to shoot. This, we could shoot in one weekend. He said, “Listen if you get Carlton Haney to agree to allow you to come and shoot the film at his festival, I’ll go out and find the money.” And we said, “Okay.”

The next day, Bob Leonard and I were on a plane to North Carolina and met with Carlton and Fred, pitched the whole idea to him, and Carlton was on board right at the beginning. He said, “Absolutely. No problem.” I said, “Well, are you gonna get all of these musicians to agree to this?” And he said, “Yes, I can do that.”

We had all of twelve days, two weeks, or something like that, to get the whole thing together to get down to Camp Springs on Labor Day weekend. And we lucked out. We happened to have this incredible festival with all of the pioneers of bluegrass, along with all of the up and coming newgrass guys who were changing the music as we watched. It was a great mix of both the old and the new, and as Carlton called it, “the mixture of the short hairs and the long hairs.”

That was it! You’ve got the hippies sitting right next to the guys right off the farm in coveralls. A guy in a Confederate hat sitting right next to hippie girls. It was a great mix. And everybody got along. And it was at a time in America when the country split. Nixon and the protests trying to bring our troops home from Vietnam. It was a strange time. But the thing that happened at the festival… everybody was getting along all right! Also of course, most of the audience were bluegrass musicians of their own or were learning or wanting to be. So that’s how we got into it.

What were some things about Carlton’s personality that made him such a compelling figure to follow for a film?

A number of people have said he was like the “P.T. Barnum of Bluegrass.” So it was kinda like, just put a camera on him and let him go, because you never know what he’s gonna say! Of course, the great thing about filming is, you can always edit it, and we edited out a lot of Carlton.

At one point, it was towards the end of the weekend, we were filming Carlton out on the lot, and I say “Carlton, we need something to kind of summarize the whole thing, and put a tag on the end of the film.” He said, “Oh, that’s okay. I know exactly what to say. Do you want me to make you laugh or do you want me to make you cry?” And I looked at my cameraman, and Bob was ten years older than me, and he had a lot of experience doing this, and I looked at Bob and I said, “What do you think? Make us cry?” And Bob nodded his head “Yeah, make us cry, Carlton.” And Carlton said, “Okay, start the camera rolling.”

So we started the camera rolling, and Carlton is saying goodbye to the kid who is packing up his gear at the end, and then he turns to the camera and he says, “You know, when people leave, it makes me sad, because all my friends are leaving. But I know that they had a good time, and that they’ll be back again next year.” And tears are coming to his eyes! And he says, “And that’s bluegrass and that’s a bluegrass festival.” And I said “Cut!” Bob and I just burst out laughing, and I said “Carlton, you’re going to get an Academy Award for that!”

To this day, Fred tells me, he runs into people and he says they will quote to him the lines that Carlton had in the film. “The shorthairs and the longhairs,” [and,] “You look down upon the stage and you can hear the soul of man — Ralph Stanley.” They just came out of his mouth!

The other thing was, he could not look at the lens, no matter how hard I tried. [Carlton] had this real shyness problem, and yet you put him on the stage and hand him a mic in front of ten thousand people, he was fine. But put a camera in front of him, he was looking away. Kind of shy and withdrawn. I think he was very concerned about his looks. He had terrible teeth. As somebody once said, that’s part of the times back then when nobody had health insurance or dental insurance… that was the last thing that people spent money on. So I think Carlton was a little shy about the way he looked. But he was an interesting guy.

Pictured: Ralph Stanley

You mentioned that one thing that was so compelling about the film, and at bluegrass festivals in general, was seeing people from different walks of life united by this music and finding common ground, even if it was for a weekend. What do you think that message has for us today where we are as divided now as we were fifty years ago?

I hope it has the same result. Every time I have shown the film — and I have shown it to heads of studios in Hollywood, I showed it to corporations up in New York City — no matter where I’ve shown it, people leave the theatre with big smiles on their faces. It’s not necessarily because they’re bluegrass fans, but because they enjoy it. They had fun. They were delighted. Something about that music, about the people playing it, about the commitment that these people have to it. There’s more to it than just country music. I think that’s what Carlton was trying to say about the soul. It’s a commitment to the music that is thorough.

I don’t know whether Carlton told me this or not, but at some point I learned early on: bluegrass music is not commercial country. Meaning, you’re gonna lose your shirts on it, but you’re doing it because you love it. That really says it all, and I think that comes through with music and with Carlton and with all of the people that are on stage in the film and all the people playing out in the field… You see the commitment to the music.

Ellen [Pasternack, the project’s Executive Director and Ihde’s wife] and I have a background in professional theatre, regional theatre around the country, and what you’re always looking for working in theatre are actors who can really commit to doing a performance. It’s that commitment to the art — whether that’s music, theatre, dance, or painting — that’s where you find the joy in the art. And I think that comes through in the film, even if you don’t know anything about bluegrass. I hope that comes through still to this day, and maybe gets people thinking “past the politics” for a moment or two just to look at the music and listen to the music. And to see, “If this was going on back then, why can’t it happen again?”

Photos and trailer courtesy of Bluegrass Country Soul.

Doc Watson: Live Moments and Memories

Posted on by Editor

While the late great Arthel “Doc” Watson released scores of albums over the course of his career, he only made the main Billboard charts once and peaked at a modest 193 (for his 1975 album, Memories). But Watson made a far bigger mark as a performer, often in some unusual settings — from the most prestigious concert stages down to humble living rooms.

Even though Watson wasn’t a huge record seller, few artists in the history of American music ever generated more transcendent moments. He remains revered as one of the best flatpick guitarists of all time, and MerleFest (the festival he founded in memory of his late son) stands as an essential acoustic-music event.

Here are some of Watson’s signature moments of performance, captured for the ages. (Listen to the playlist below.)

“Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms” – The Three Pickers: Earl Scruggs/Doc Watson/Ricky Skaggs, 2003

We begin with a collaboration between Watson and his fellow North Carolina legend, master of the bluegrass banjo Earl Scruggs, with the old Flatt & Scruggs warhorse “Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms” — the closing track from the live album they recorded together in Winston-Salem in 2002. The picking is as hot as you’d expect, especially on this track where Ricky Skaggs urges a solo by calling out, “Try one, Doc!” He gets gone.

“Railroad Bill” – Legacy, 2002

Legacy was the Grammy-winning retrospective album Watson made with his longtime, late-period accompanist David Holt, with songs and stories going all the way back to his earliest days playing music. The package includes a live show recorded in Asheville, North Carolina in 2001, with one of his best-ever versions of the Etta Baker Piedmont blues classic “Railroad Bill.” Watson could indeed play about as fast as a runaway train, and this features some of his swiftest guitar runs ever captured.

“Corrina” – Doc Watson and Gaither Carlton, 2020

Watson’s newest release is this live recording of some of his earliest shows in New York City, 1962 in Greenwich Village, when he was one of the rising stars of the budding folk revival. Watson performs here with his father-in-law, the renowned old-time fiddler Gaither Carlton. But what’s really notable is that Watson is playing banjo in the old style rather than guitar. It turns out he was almost as formidable on five strings as six.

“Tennessee Stud” – Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken, 1972

This Americana landmark captured a revolutionary moment, an intergenerational, country-rock summit with the Dirt Band on one side and the country/folk/bluegrass establishment on the other. And it wasn’t live onstage, but live in the studio, with the tape machine left running to record between-song conversations. That captured some of Watson’s priceless homespun pearls (“That’s a horse’s foot in the gravel, man, that ain’t a train!”), as well as what stands as his definitive recording of this stately, well-worn standard. “Tennessee Stud” made Watson a star all over again to yet another generation of roots-music enthusiasts.

“I Am a Pilgrim” – Doc Watson on Stage, featuring Merle Watson, 1971

Watson had many fine accompanists over the years, but none better than his son Merle, who was always on Doc’s wavelength. Ever modest, Doc always claimed that Merle was the better player. He was, of course, wrong about that, but Merle was a great picker in his own right. Recorded live at Cornell University, this is an excellent version of the old spiritual that also appeared on Circle. “I Am a Pilgrim” would remain an evolving onstage set piece for Doc over the years. After Merle’s tragic death in 1985, Doc would customize the lyrics in performance: “I’ve got a mother, a sister and a brother and a son, they done gone on to that other shore.”

“Blue Smoke” – Doc Watson at Gerdes Folk City, 2001

Another track drawn from one of Watson’s early-period excursions up to New York City, this was recorded during 1962-63 engagements at the legendary Gerdes Folk City nightclub. And this cover of the instrumental by Merle Travis (for whom Doc named his son) is aptly named. When he really got to cooking, Watson could play guitar so fast he just about left a vapor trail.

“Every Day Dirt” (from The Watson Family, 1963)

Ralph Rinzler, the musicologist who first discovered Doc in the early 1960s, recorded this album live at the Watson family homestead in North Carolina. It captures some of what life must have been like growing up singing and playing with Doc; son Merle, wife Rosa Lee and father-in-law Gaither Carlton are among the relatives present. “Every Day Dirt” shows off just how personable a vocalist Watson could be, although as always the real draw is the obligatory killer guitar-picking.

“The Cuckoo Bird” – The Watson Family, 1963

From that same recording, Doc plays guitar accompanied by his son Merle on banjo, covering the old Clarence “Tom” Ashley song that appeared on Harry Smith’s epochal Anthology of American Folk Music. Thanks to the familial radar that comes when blood relatives play together, the instrumental interplay is perfect. This is also a great example at Watson’s mastery of the art of call-and-response between his guitar and voice.

“What Would You Give in Exchange for Your Soul?” – Bill Monroe and Doc Watson, Live Recordings 1963-1980: Off the Record Volume 2

Watson’s modesty was such that his natural inclination was to regard himself as a sideman — even though he was rarely if ever not the best picker and singer in the room. But he plays the role of foil perfectly here, vocally as well as instrumentally, to Monroe’s rippling mandolin and high lonesome tenor on this live version of the first song The Father of Bluegrass ever recorded.

“Wabash Cannonball” – Doc Watson on Stage, featuring Merle Watson, 1971

Before he started playing guitar, Watson’s first childhood instrument was actually a harmonica, which he wore out so fast from playing it so much, his parents had to give him another one at Christmas. A new harmonica became a perennial favorite gift. This version of the venerable folk-music classic features Watson blowing a mean harmonica and his descending runs on guitar are also a thing of beauty.

“Your Lone Journey” – Steep Canyon Rangers’ North Carolina Songbook, 2019

We close with a bit of a wild card, in that it’s a performance by someone else. But it’s one in which the presence of Watson’s spirit looms large enough to be felt. “Your Lone Journey” is a song that Doc and Rosa Lee wrote, and it bids a poignant farewell to a loved one at the moment of death. It is performed here by Watson’s fellow North Carolinians Steep Canyon Rangers, recorded on the main Doc Watson Stage to close out the 2019 MerleFest.

Editor’s Note: David Menconi’s Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music, from Blind Boy Fuller and Doc Watson to Nina Simone and Superchunk will be published in October by University of North Carolina Press.

Béla Fleck – Toy Heart: A Podcast About Bluegrass

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

On this episode of Toy Heart, Béla Fleck talks to host Tom Power from his home studio and for the first time, he tells his story in bluegrass.

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Fleck started out in New York hearing Earl Scruggs for the first time, learning from Tony Trischka, and then making the decision to go (new) south to learn from J.D. Crowe. He auditioned for Bill Monroe, but eventually found ‘his people’ and joined New Grass Revival. He tells of mistakes the band made along the way, the hard decision to leave that band and start the Flecktones, recording with his hero Earl Scruggs, and how he found his way back to bluegrass after all. He also unveils the one change he thinks anyone can make to their practicing to become a better musician.

Aaron Jonah Lewis, “A Banjo Frolic”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Ask ten banjo players this question: “Who is the Mozart of the banjo?”

You’ll probably get ten different answers. If any were to double up, perhaps one would be Béla Fleck (a banjo player more than most will remember has conquered many a classical composition on the instrument) and perhaps another would be Earl Scruggs (given that “Mozart of” could easily morph into “a style-originator of” to others.) Fiddle champion and banjo virtuoso Aaron Jonah Lewis posits a much more pragmatic — and almost actually analogous — candidate on his new album, Mozart of the Banjo, tributing a banjo player a step closer to Mozart in more than a few ways, but chiefly in that he did not perform bluegrass.

Joe Morley was a “classic fingerstyle” banjo player, composer, performer, and instruction book author who lived and made music at the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries, at which time banjos were central to popular music in Britain and the United States. “A Banjo Frolic,” one of twelve Morley pieces performed by Lewis on the album, demonstrates this “golden age” sound, oozing ragtime and musical theatre and Vaudeville and minstrelsy. While Morley’s compositions weren’t technically “classical” music, Lewis explains in the project’s in-depth liner notes, “…[It] did occupy an interesting space in that it appealed to royalty, the upper and middle classes and the lower classes of society as well.” A truly banjo notion. Morley also paralleled Mozart in that they were both child prodigies, both left enormous bodies of work, and both died poor and were buried in unmarked graves.

We may be enjoying a current renaissance of the banjo, where more and more players, fans, and even casual passers-by of the instrument understand its important role in American history and its folkways and art forms. Still, it’s fascinating that so many forgotten or overlooked facets of the instrument’s past and its legacy remain excluded from that greater, better-understood narrative. Mozart of the Banjo: The Joe Morley Project and Aaron Jonah Lewis are attempting to tell more of the banjo’s full history, and purposefully connect it to its Black and African inputs, as well as its extant forms in the U.S. and around the world, reminding all of us banjo fans — and at such an apropos time, as well — that none of our favorite forms of music, banjo-y or otherwise, exist in a vacuum.

BGS 5+5: Tall Tall Trees

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Tall Tall Trees
Hometown: Asheville, North Carolina
Latest album: A Wave of Golden Things
Release Date: January 31, 2020
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): TTT, Trips T

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

In sixth grade band our music teacher Mr. Hangley, who was the sweetest, most enthusiastic, rosy-cheeked band leader, switched me from alto to baritone saxophone. One day we were playing one of his favorite John Philip Sousa marches, and at the very end, I improvised a little bass riff and everyone including Mr. Hangley turned around in surprise. Something immediately clicked in my brain and I was totally hooked. Thank you public school music teachers everywhere.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

The song “A Wave of Golden Things,” which ended up being the title track, is the oldest song on my new record. It was written on an out-of-tune piano in my Harlem apartment back in 2012 on the afternoon of the Sandy Hook school shooting. I was so overcome with profound sadness, the song just came pouring out of me. I made a quick recording of it on my old tape machine and couldn’t bring myself to listen to it for a long time. I was scared of it for some reason. After all the years, and so many school shootings later, I felt it was time to let it go, and it became the underlying spiritual theme for this album.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

Growing up in the suburbs of NYC, I always dreamed of living in “the city,” with all its excitement and electric energy. Moving there in my early twenties was the best decision I could have made. It’s impossible to not be inspired there, with its never-ending parade of random insanity and so much high-level art and music. I was involved in so many different projects during the fifteen years I lived there, and really got to understand what moved me, and what didn’t. New York City shaped who I am today artistically.

Still, while living there, I began fantasizing about nature and a quieter life, and after some extended retreats in the South, I landed in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. It’s an incredible place, steeped in banjo music and history and I’m really just getting my feet wet in the scene. I love being only an hour away from the towns where Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson came up. I have found myself unplugging my banjo more (haha, I know weird) and spending more time working it out on the porch. Living in the mountains has definitely had a positive effect on my psyche and the music of A Wave of Golden Things.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I have spent so many of the best nights of my life on stage, it’s pretty impossible to have a favorite. One particular night does comes to mind. I was touring solo through Europe, just me, a manual VW hatchback, and an intermittent GPS. I was scheduled to play an early evening set at a music festival in Austria and had a seven-hour drive, which magically turned into ten hours. I arrived minutes before my show, set up on this beautiful lakeside stage and started to play.

Three songs in, the sky opened up and sheets of rain sent the entire audience running for shelter, with many ending up on stage under the tent huddled around me. The wind knocked out the stage lighting and I finished out my set in the dark, lit up only by the LEDs in my banjo. The people were soaked, dancing and having so much fun. Such a magic moment for me. Afterwards, I smoked a j with Nada Surf. Pretty damn good time.

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

I have been obsessed with books, art, and music for my entire life. Everything else has pretty much been secondary. In recent years, I’ve discovered graphic novels and I’ve been blazing through everything by Neil Gaiman, especially the infinitely brilliant Sandman series, and also the work of super genius wizard Alan Moore. I am in total awe of the worlds they create and the stories they bring to life within those worlds. I so want to write music that does that.

I am also very deep into spiritual thinkers, people like Alan Watts, Terence McKenna, and the recently-passed Ram Dass. I have spent countless hours of my life listening to, or reading, their teachings and can’t help but assume they have informed my writing and worldview.

Photo credit: Sandlin Gaither