In Their Words: “‘Winter’s Night Waltz’ was written in the spring of 2019 while Chatham County Line was preparing to cut a record with our longtime Norwegian buddy Jonas Fjeld and the one-and-only Judy Collins. Tracked at Echo Mountain recording studio in Asheville, North Carolina, featuring Greg Readling, Dave Wilson, John Teer, Russell Waldon (Judy’s musical director and fabulous piano player), as well as the masterful drummer Bill Berg (Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks as well many other classics). This recording you hear was done with all of us (except for Bill) in one room and in one complete take. At the time it seemed unfortunate that ‘Winter’s Night Waltz’ didn’t make it onto this album, but it gave me the chance to add my own voice to the duet and work with an amazing vocalist, Lauren Stovall of The Railsplitters and By the Lee. Lauren and I headed to Vermillion Road studios to cut the vocal tracks and I’m sure you’ll agree that Lauren absolutely nailed her part and that I didn’t muck things too much on my end. ;)” — Chandler Holt
At BGS, we seek out roots music from all corners — for those readers encountering us for the first time, we’re not “just bluegrass.” With our annual year-end list, we’ve shaken off the “best of” title and instead gathered 20 recordings that inspired our staff and contributors. For many reasons (but especially the long-awaited return of live music and festivals), we look ahead to 2021, but first… here are the albums and songs that inspired us in 2020.
Courtney Marie Andrews – Old Flowers
Courtney Marie Andrews couldn’t touch my heart deeper. Her music has been the healing salve for the wounds of 2020. To me, she’s the true definition of an artist: A songwriter, a musician, a painter, a writer, a singer, a poet, an activist. My favorite song on her magical 2020 album is “Old Flowers.” It’s the perfect metaphor of resilience and rebirth after suffering, both in love and in life. Becoming whole again. If that ain’t a theme we could all grow from this year, I don’t know what is! – Beth Behrs
Anjimile – “Maker (Acoustic)”
Anjimile’s Giver Taker was the album I can’t stop (and won’t stop) telling people about in 2020. The full version of their single, “Maker” was a beautiful amalgamation of cultures and influences synthesized by an artist not constrained by cultural and creative preconceptions. To me, Anjimile’s acoustic version of the lead single distills the brilliance of their songwriting into its purest form. – Amy Reitnouer Jacobs
Danny Barnes – Man on Fire
Danny Barnes’ Man on Fire was a worthwhile gift to us all this year. Over the last couple of years, I’d heard chatter of a project in the works with names like Dave Matthews, John Paul Jones, and Bill Frisell involved. I am constantly in awe of what Barnes can create using the banjo as a pencil. This record was no exception, combining his unique style and songwriting with an electrified crew. – Thomas Cassell
Bonny Light Horseman – “The Roving”
There’s an odd bit of sorcery in the first measures of “The Roving,” a new version of an old folk tune on this supergroup’s debut. It opens tentatively, the instruments falling into the song like autumn leaves: First an acoustic guitar, then cymbals, then piano, all coalescing into a windblown arrangement that’s both understated and sublime. – Stephen Deusner
Bob Dylan – Rough and Rowdy Ways
Packed with jumbles of historic/cultural references and tall tales, bluesy swagger and prayerful romance, and climaxing with the shattered-mirror JFK assassination epic “Murder Most Foul,” Dylan’s first set of originals in a decade is breathtakingly masterful. It’s also, often, hilarious. Nearing 80, the Bard’s as playful as ever. And as poignant. And, justifiably, as cocky. – Steve Hochman
To me, Bob Dylan’s best era started in 1989 with his 26th studio album, Oh Mercy, and continues to this day with his 39th, Rough and Rowdy Ways. “Murder Most Foul” shows us that the master of his generation is as much in control of his folktale troubadour craft as he’s ever been. – Chris Jacobs
Justin Farren – Pretty Free
Knowing nothing about Justin Farren, I was immediately sucked into his evocatively detailed story-songs that involved returning diapers to Costco, getting a “two-paycheck ticket” while trying to impress a girl, and (in the all-too-appropriately-titled for-2020, “Last Year Was The Best Year”) a wild Disneyland adventure. Full of humor, sorrow, regrets and hope, Pretty Free was a musical world I visited often this year. – Michael Berick
Mickey Guyton – “Black Like Me”
Mickey Guyton’s lyrics illuminate the individuality and dilemma of any non-white vocalist in country music, and in particular the difficult journey of Black women in the field. Her performance is gripping and memorable, paying homage to many others who’ve faced ridicule and questions about why they’re daring to perform in an idiom many still feel isn’t suited for their musical style. – Ron Wynn
Sarah Jarosz – “Pay It No Mind”
Atop a Fleetwood Mac-style groove, Sarah Jarosz imagines the advice a distant bird might offer. But her songbird is no sweet, shallow lover. She comes with the weight and wisdom of something more timeless. Jarosz lets her fly via mandolin-fiddle interplay that personifies the tension between the endless sky and the “world on the ground.” – Kim Ruehl
Lydia Loveless – Daughter
“I’m not a liberated woman,” Lydia Loveless declares on her fifth album, “just a country bumpkin dilettante.” Don’t you believe it. Written in the shadow of her 2016 divorce and beautifully sung in a voice both epic and straightforward, Daughter finds this Americana siren at the height of her formidable powers. – David Menconi
Lori McKenna – The Balladeer
Lori McKenna‘s singular talent for capturing the joy in everyday details is on full display, from the church parking lots and hometown haunts of “This Town Is a Woman” to the stubborn tiffs and make-up kisses on “Good Fight.” But The Balladeer acknowledges the hard-as-hell times, too. With gentle accompaniment, commanding melodies, and McKenna’s signature lyrical wit, The Balladeer showcases a modern songwriting master. – Dacey Orr Sivewright
Jeff Picker – With the Bass in Mind
I love “new acoustic music,” but am often afraid I’ll be disappointed by it. Jeff Picker’s With the Bass in Mind immediately eases those worries by offering music that is creative, thoughtful, unexpected, and virtuosic while still feeling grounded and musical. All while effortlessly answering the once-rhetorical question: “What would a solo bluegrass bass album even sound like?” – Tristan Scroggins
William Prince – Reliever
William Prince‘s Reliever feels like the best pep talk I’ve ever had. In particular, “The Spark” finds him astonished with loving a partner who loves him back, no matter his own perceived flaws. As a whole, the album explores complicated emotions with a comforting arrangement (with duties shared by Dave Cobb and Scott Nolan). Sung with assurance by Prince, almost like he’s confiding in you, Reliever is both encouraging and excellent. – Craig Shelburne
Scott Prouty – Shaking Down the Acorns
We’d be remiss in our jobs as procurers of roots music culture to not include this stoically beautiful record on our year-end list of the very best. A hearty collection of 24 (mostly solo) old-time fiddle and banjo songs, there is something ever-present, comforting, and timeless about Prouty’s playing, and I have no doubt this is a record I’ll be revisiting like an old friend for years to come. – Amy Reitnouer Jacobs
Emily Rockarts – Little Flower
Montreal-based songwriter Emily Rockarts’ debut album Little Flower is one to remember. Produced by Franky Rousseau (Goat Rodeo Sessions), the album features lilting cinematic ballads punctuated with dance-in-your-room indie anthems. Rockarts’ musicianship is undeniable; her stunning melodies and refreshingly earnest lyrics make for a remarkable combination that is unlike anything else I’ve heard. Run, listen to Little Flower now! – Kaia Kater
Sarah Siskind – Modern Appalachia
Sarah Siskind brought her luminous, Nashville-honed songwriting back home to North Carolina a few years ago and let the mountains speak through her. Leading an all-star Asheville band live off the floor at iconic Echo Mountain studio, she’s made a heart-swelling set of songs that gather her special melodic signature, her meticulous craft, and her insight into how a rich musical region is evolving. – Craig Havighurst
Emma Swift – Blonde on the Tracks
Emma Swift reminded the music world of the power that artists have to control their work when she self-released Blonde on the Tracks, an eight-song collection of Bob Dylan covers. Her interpretations are as powerful and innovative as her methodical and thoughtful initial distribution sans streaming services. – Erin McAnally
Julian Taylor – The Ridge
Mohawk singer-songwriter Julian Taylor resides in what is now referred to as Toronto, but his masterful country-folk record, The Ridge, hits your ear as if plucked directly from Taylor’s childhood summers spent on his grandparents’ farm in rural British Columbia. Refracted through Taylor’s crisp, modern arrangements and undiluted emotion, The Ridge seamlessly bridges the elephant-in-the-2020-room chasm between rural and urban — musically, familially, lyrically, and spiritually. – Justin Hiltner
Molly Tuttle, “Standing on the Moon”
2020 has handed us its fair share of cover albums, with stay-at-home orders urging many to reach for the familiar — but none have meshed a variety of musical sources so creatively as Molly Tuttle’s whimsical …but i’d rather be with you. Her version of “Standing on the Moon” is the nostalgic and homesick, Earth-loving galactic trip of my pedal steel-obsessed, Deadhead dreams. – Shelby Williamson
Cory Wong – Trail Songs (Dawn)
A record that I didn’t know I needed came in early August when Vulfpeck guitarist Cory Wong released Trail Songs (Dawn). A change of pace for Wong, it features predominantly acoustic instrumentation and organic sounds. The album kicks off with “Trailhead,” which sounds like a Dan Crary instrumental until the groove drops in the second verse. BGS standbys Chris Thile and Sierra Hull make appearances as an added bonus. – Jonny Therrien
Donovan Woods – “Seeing Other People”
We may seem unsentimental, stoic, unemotional — especially when faced with something like a partner moving on, or a breakup, when it may be easier to seem fine, have a pint, and download Tinder. Donovan’s gift in this song is to show those complicated “yes, and” internal thoughts and emotions. It is beautiful. – Tom Power
With their progressive mindset and undying faith in the power of the jam, the electrifying live shows put on by Greensky Bluegrass have captivated roots and rock fans alike for nearly two decades – but the Midwestern five piece has always been more than a group of gifted musicians. Layered, thought-provoking songcraft is also a big part of their DNA, and with their new album, All For Money, those two worlds come together like never before.
This month, the band – composed of mandolin player and primary songwriter Paul Hoffman, guitarist Dave Bruzza, banjo picker Michael Arlen Bont, Dobro player Anders Beck, and bassist Mike Devol – embarked on a milestone tour of listening halls that are well suited to showcase both sides of the Greensky Bluegrass double helix, and according to Hoffman, that everything-at-once approach is the next step of their journey.
“We don’t have any grandiose dreams or visions of things we haven’t accomplished,” he says, “and I think it’s been that way for the last 10 years. Being able to go out and play the right venue in all the right towns where we can put on a big show and present everything we do … it’s about getting that to happen everywhere now.”
BGS: You guys were inspired early on by The Grateful Dead, and I hear that improvisational spirit on the new album. Do you feel like All For Money is a return to your roots?
Paul Hoffman: We talk about this album being a lot more like a show than previous records because for us, [studio work and being onstage are] kind of two separate art forms. … With this record we went for the show aspect right from the get-go. It’s a little loose, and a little improvised, and we’ve succeeded with that more and more on every record – finding ways to capture that live spirit but still utilize all the tools available to us in the studio. Like for example, maybe there’s a place where there’s two mandolins at once. We couldn’t do that live, but if it sounds cool on the record, let’s do it.
Tell me about recording in Asheville. What kind of vibe do you guys get there?
We love that town. In the young days of the band we thought we should move there and maybe it would spark our career. We didn’t, and it was probably for the best, but the studio is really cool. It’s like an old church and it’s got a lot of room to work in. All our early records were done in Michigan in this studio that’s really small, and you don’t need a big room or an extra room downstairs with a ping pong table and video games and a kitchen and three couches. You don’t need any of those luxuries, but as soon as we went to [the studio,] Echo Mountain, to record the last record, it was like “Man, this is nice” … and now we probably do need them. [Laughs]
Digging into the live show versus studio album idea, you have a couple of really lengthy songs here. “Courage for the Road” is over nine minutes long, and I get that in a live setting, but why stretch it out for the album?
I think sometimes we’ve found that our fans are separate. Some of them are live music aficionados and don’t really enjoy listening to the records, and some people who like our records come to the show and are like “Why are all these songs so long and psychedelic?” I think there’s a part of us that figures those things don’t need to be separate, and maybe if we did a bit more from both sides of the equation, there’s something there for everybody.
The goal for that song is for it to remain interesting the whole time, and when I listen to it I feel like I’m listening to a well-mixed, well-recorded, live jam. It was so organic with how it happened that it kind of had to be left alone, and I think that translates to the listener as live energy. That’s the thing you sacrifice in the studio if you start overdubbing too much, and that’s when some people complain. What they’re really complaining about is that it loses some of that honest energy and integrity, so those jams should preserve that.
Tell me about the inspiration behind that song. Is this literally about being on the road, or more of a relationship thing?
It’s all of the things. I like to write about multiple things at the same time, and I think it helps. People are gonna read into it how they want anyway. So I’ll often start talking about something and then realize I’m talking about something else, too. It works really well as a simple song about being on tour, but it also works as a song about being in love with someone and not being able to let go, or being obsessed with something for the wrong reasons.
Why might you need some courage for being on the road?
It’s a lonely place sometimes, and that in itself is a paradox. You’re surrounded by people who love you every night, but then the lights go down and the crowd goes home and you’re all alone again. It’s hard to even have an argument for feeling lonely on tour when so many people are coming to see us and support us, but they are real things. And even in general, when you make that commitment to quit your job and leave your family for six weeks at a time, and maybe come home with little to show for it, it’s hard for musicians to keep sticking it out.
Tell me about the song “All For Money” and the interlude in the middle. When you were writing it, were you thinking, “It would be cool to do two minutes of jamming right here”?
Sometimes it comes up in the moment, but with that song it was real intentional. I wanted to explore this idea of the pressure of success and the whole “Be careful what you wish for” kind of thing. Back in the day when we were playing in a bar and all we had to do was win over some fans, in hindsight that’s almost easier than living up to the expectations of all these fans now, who travel and spend money to see us all the time.
They see us a lot so it’s like you’ve got to come up with new tricks and something happened in the last couple of years where it was like the pressure built up. That’s not to say it was too much or that we don’t love it, but it occurred to me that there was a real paradox of success happening where it was like “Man, this is hard!” Sometimes we joke around like “Why don’t they stop following us?!” … Which is absolutely not what we want.
So there’s a joke there, or at least a duality to be explored, and I wanted to set the song up in a way that it’s supposed to get creepy or disorienting, and to make you feel uncomfortable. I talk about being supported but surrounded, contained but captured, and then it comes around to that triumphant chorus that’s all about the love and the songs creating emotion and camaraderie. It goes on this journey of joking around and all these lies we were told in the beginning, and then it gets scary and uncomfortable on purpose. It’s almost supposed to be discomforting, more than a jam.
I love your lyrics, because as you explained there are lots of layers and you’re not afraid to question yourself. What were you trying to get at with “Do It Alone”?
I was trying to touch on this angst-y, rock and roll thing. I wanted something that had an anthem vibe, something a crowd would cheer along with, and again I was thinking about a couple of different things at once. One moment I’ll be thinking about a friend of mine who’s in love with a girl who doesn’t love him anymore, and the next I’m like “Man, I miss my dog.” [Laughs] Sometimes really specific lyrics about really different things can help you get some insight into that other thing.
Photo credit: Dylan Langille/ontheDL Photo
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