The International Bluegrass Music Association announced this year’s nominees and recipients for the 34th Annual IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards today in downtown Nashville at SiriusXM’s Music City Theater. The announcement ceremony included live performances by nominees the Lonesome River Band and Sam Bush, who will be inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame at the IBMA Awards show in Raleigh, North Carolina, this September.
Additional inductees into the Hall of Fame, which is housed at the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky, include first-generation bluegrasser and country chart-topper Wilma Lee Cooper and an innovator and virtuoso who has expanded the borders of bluegrass and acoustic music throughout his career, David Grisman.
Recipients of the Distinguished Achievement Awards – IBMA’s highest honor outside of Hall of Fame induction – were also announced, highlighting the significant contributions of artists, musicians, and organizations such as Red Wine (Italy’s foremost bluegrass group), banjo player and band leader Terry Baucom, author and musician Tom Ewing, promoter and organizer Carl Goldstein, and media outlet and online hub BGS, The Bluegrass Situation.
“We are so honored and humbled by this recognition,” says BGS managing editor Justin Hiltner. “Bluegrass is all about community, and to have our community – the genre that built us – recognize our efforts in this way means the world. What Ed [Helms] and Amy [Reitnouer Jacobs] have created and brought all of us into is something truly special. Thank you to IBMA, the organization and its membership, for this award.” (Read more here.)
In the Instrumentalist, Recordings, and Artists’ categories, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, Billy Strings (and his father, Terry Barber), Michael Cleveland, Del McCoury Band, and Sam Bush Band lead the nominations. View the full list below and make plans now to attend the IBMA Awards Show in Raleigh, North Carolina, as part of IBMA’s World of Bluegrass conference on Thursday, September 28, 2023.
ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR:
Appalachian Road Show Billy Strings Del McCoury Band Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys
VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR:
Authentic Unlimited Balsam Range Blue Highway Del McCoury Band Sister Sadie
INSTRUMENTAL GROUP OF THE YEAR:
Billy Strings Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper The Infamous Stringdusters Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway The Travelin’ McCourys
SONG OF THE YEAR: “Blue Ridge Mountain Baby” Artist: Appalachian Road Show Songwriters: Barry Abernathy/Jim VanCleve Label: Billy Blue Records Producer: Appalachian Road Show
“Crooked Tree” Artist: Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway Songwriters: Molly Tuttle/Melody Walker Label: Nonesuch Records Producers: Jerry Douglas and Molly Tuttle
“Heyday” Artist: Lonesome River Band Songwriters: Barry Huchens/Will Huchens Label: Mountain Home Music Company Producer: Lonesome River Band
“Power of Love” Artist: Rick Faris Songwriters: Johnny Colla/Huey Lewis/Christopher Hayes Label: Dark Shadow Recording Producer: Stephen Mougin
ALBUM OF THE YEAR:
Crooked Tree Artist: Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway Label: Nonesuch Records Producer: Jerry Douglas and Molly Tuttle
Lovin’ of the Game Artist: Michael Cleveland Label: Compass Records Producers: Jeff White, Michael Cleveland, and Sean Sullivan
Lowdown Hoedown Artist: Jason Carter Label: Fiddle Man Records Producers: Jason Carter and Brent Truitt
Me/And/Dad Artist: Billy Strings and Terry Barber Label: Rounder Records Producers: Billy Strings and Gary Paczosa
Radio John: The Songs of John Hartford Artist: Sam Bush Label: Smithsonian Folkways Producer: Sam Bush
GOSPEL RECORDING OF THE YEAR: “The Glory Road” Artist: Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers Songwriters: Paul Martin/Harry Stinson/Marty Stuart Label: Billy Blue Records Producers: Joe Mullins and Adam McIntosh
“Jordan” Artist: Darin & Brooke Aldridge with Ricky Skaggs, Mo Pitney and Mark Fain Songwriter: Fred Rich Label: Billy Blue Records Producer: Darin Aldridge and Mark Fain
“The Scarlet Red Lines” Artist: Larry Sparks Songwriter: Daniel Crabtree Label: Rebel Records Producer: Larry Sparks
“Take a Little Time for Jesus” Artist: Junior Sisk Songwriter: David Marshall Label: Mountain Fever Records Producers: Junior Sisk and Aaron Ramsey
“Tell Me the Story of Jesus” Artist: Becky Buller with Vince Gill and Ricky Skaggs Songwriter: Fanny Crosby, arrangement by Becky Buller Label: Dark Shadow Recording Producer: Stephen Mougin
INSTRUMENTAL RECORDING OF THE YEAR:
“Contact” Artist: Michael Cleveland with Cody Kilby, Barry Bales, and Béla Fleck Songwriter: Michael Cleveland Label: Compass Records Producer: Jeff White, Michael Cleveland, and Sean Sullivan
“Foggy Morning Breaking” Artist: Alison Brown with Steve Martin Songwriters: Alison Brown/Steve Martin Label: Compass Records Producers: Alison Brown and Garry West
“Gold Rush” Artist: Scott Vestal’s Bluegrass 2022 Songwriter: Bill Monroe Label: Pinecastle Records Producer: Scott Vestal
“Kissimmee Kid” Artist: Jason Carter Songwriter: Vassar Clements Label: Fiddle Man Records Producers: Jason Carter and Brent Truitt
“Scorchin’ the Gravy” Artist: Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen Songwriter: Frank Solivan Label: Compass Records Producer: Frank Solivan
NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR:
Authentic Unlimited East Nash Grass Henhouse Prowlers The Tennessee Bluegrass Band Tray Wellington
COLLABORATIVE RECORDING OF THE YEAR:
“Alberta Bound” Artist: Special Consensus with Ray Legere, John Reischman, Tisha Gagnon, Claire Lynch, Pharis & Jason Romero, Patrick Sauber Songwriter: Gordon Lightfoot Label: Compass Records Producer: Alison Brown
“Big Mon” Artist: Andy Leftwich with Sierra Hull Songwriter: Bill Monroe Label: Mountain Home Music Company Producer: Andy Leftwich
“Foggy Morning Breaking” Artist: Alison Brown with Steve Martin Songwriter: Alison Brown/Steve Martin Label: Compass Records Producer: Alison Brown and Garry West
“For Your Love” Artist: Michael Cleveland with Billy Strings and Jeff White Songwriter: Joe Ely Label: Compass Records Producer: Jeff White, Michael Cleveland, and Sean Sullivan
“From My Mountain (Calling You)” Artist: Peter Rowan with Molly Tuttle and Lindsay Lou Songwriter: Peter Rowan Label: Rebel Records Producer: Peter Rowan
MALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR:
Greg Blake Del McCoury Danny Paisley Larry Sparks Dan Tyminski
FEMALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR:
Brooke Aldridge Dale Ann Bradley Jaelee Roberts Molly Tuttle Rhonda Vincent
BANJO PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Kristin Scott Benson Alison Brown Béla Fleck Ned Luberecki Scott Vestal
BASS PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Mike Bub Todd Phillips Missy Raines Mark Schatz Vickie Vaughn
FIDDLE PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Jason Carter Michael Cleveland Stuart Duncan Bronwyn Keith-Hynes Deanie Richardson
RESOPHONIC GUITAR PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Jerry Douglas Andy Hall Rob Ickes Matt Leadbetter Justin Moses
GUITAR PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Chris Eldridge Trey Hensley Billy Strings Bryan Sutton Molly Tuttle
MANDOLIN PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Alan Bibey Jesse Brock Sam Bush Sierra Hull Ronnie McCoury
DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECIPIENTS:
Terry Baucom The Bluegrass Situation Tom Ewing Carl Goldstein Red Wine
BLUEGRASS MUSIC HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES:
Sam Bush Wilma Lee Cooper David Grisman
Photo of Sam Bush by Jeff Fasano; photo of Molly Tuttle by Samantha Muljat.
(Editor’s Note: This conversation between Black Opry co-director Holly G and BGS executive director Amy Reitnouer Jacobs was moderated by journalist Jewly Hight and marks the culmination of our Artist of the Month coverage of Black Opry. Find more on Black Opry here.)
“I just wrote this down, because I need to look at this every single day,” Amy Reitnouer Jacobs informs Holly G while scribbling on a sticky note: “Your name’s on there. You get full credit.”
Holly G, the creator of the Black Opry, has just dropped a gem of practical, principled wisdom that she’s developed through dealing with event organizers, entertainment companies, and institutions who expect her to lend them her presence, while withholding her critiques of the racial biases baked into how they operate. Her hard-line posture? “My participation is not an endorsement.”
Even in a matter as small as pinning that sentence to her wall, an act we observe on the Zoom screen, longtime BGS leader Reitnouer Jacobs knows well the importance of receiving proper credit, and compensation, as a persevering music industry dreamer and doer who’s also a woman.
These two founders of influential, community-shaping music platforms have crossed paths on plenty of occasions, but they’d never before stopped to compare notes. Their work addresses the insularity of music scenes in different ways, Holly G’s taking aim at country music’s exclusion of Black performers and Reitnouer Jacobs’ at bluegrass’ fierce protectiveness of perceived threats to its purity. Still, the similarities between what they’ve experienced, how they’ve responded and who they’ve paid attention to pile up rapidly in our Zoom conversation.
By the time we’re through, Reitnouer Jacobs signing off from her Los Angeles home office and Holly G abandoning her laptop to check on guests she’s invited to a Black Opry mixer at a rented house in Nashville, they’re feeling a significant overlap in their labor and making plans to actually, some day, do something together.
Jewly Hight: You both had careers completely outside of music and then your own fandom drove you to start blogs and put your stakes in the ground in the digital space. I was thinking back to the crossroads moment that you each must’ve reached where you were starting to get a response and see other ways that you could decide to get involved in those musical spaces. What really mattered to making the decision to expand each of your missions?
Holly G: I don’t feel like it was a decision for me. I’ve never consented to any of this. [Laughs]
I feel like it really, really shifted right after you interviewed me for the first time, and that article went up on NPR. That’s when everybody was like, “Oh, this is serious.” And because what we were actually doing was so vague, because I didn’t have a plan, people were just asking me to do everything; I had never said what I could or couldn’t do. By the time people started asking me for heavier lifts, I had already met these artists and I was so invested in the artists and seeing how hard they worked. I was like, “I’m never gonna say ‘No’ to anything. What could be good for them? What could push them forward?” A lot of it just went over my head, ‘cuz I was just saying “Yes.” And then I was like, “Oh shit, how did we get here?”
Amy Reitnouer Jacobs: That actually really resonates, when you said once you started meeting the artists that suddenly you saw where the needs were. That was a huge shift for me. I mean, I got into this as a fan, but I really didn’t think about writing about this community, this genre until I started to become friends with the artists that were involved and get to know them and become kind of part of their circles.
I think there was definitely a moment of, “Oh wait, you’re not being served? We’ll work on that. We’ll start covering that. Wait, you also are not being represented over here? Let’s cover this, too.” I’ve had to learn how to say “No” over the years, but my immediate instinct is always to say “yes” and then figure it out.
HG: My rule is if it’s not gonna negatively affect my mental health, then I say, “Yes.” That’s where I draw my line at. As an outsider, when you come in, you see the gaps, but then you also see how easy it would be to fix them. Sometimes people don’t know or they’ve just never been asked to do the right thing. But if you can have somebody [involved] that’s not an artist, they’re like, “There’s no ulterior motive.” Nobody thinks that I’m asking for Black people to get on stage so that I can go sing, ‘cuz we all know I can’t.
JH: It changed everything when you each were put in close proximity to artists who were working toward things, and had ambitions and scenes that they were part of or wanted to be a part of. What did it actually look like to turn your desire to help into strategies?
ARJ: When you’re actually given real responsibility that you have to show up for and deliver, suddenly it all becomes a lot more real. I had to go through a perspective shift.
I would say producing the IBMA Awards was a really big thing, because it was suddenly very, very real. It wasn’t just me being like, “What the fuck, IBMA? Come on, get your shit together.” It was like, “Now they’ve handed me something that I can make a change in, and I have to do it and I have to do it right. And I have to do it to not only to an industry standard, but to the personal standards with which I wanna move forward and I wanna see this industry move forward.” So that and doing a [BGS] stage at Bonnaroo, doing a lot of the curatorial stages, like what Black Opry does as well. I think when you suddenly are putting this out in a packaged way for everyone to see, it kind of makes it all a little bit more real.
HG: It’s really cool to hear your perspective, because as you know, there’s not a lot of people who have journeys that are like ours.
When you say going from yelling about it to being in the room and they’re asking you what to do about it is a very weird feeling. Especially because I wasn’t criticizing [the country music industry] with any intent for anybody to ask me any questions. It’s like going into somebody’s house and you’re like, “I hate this wall color.” And they’re like, “Okay, well paint it.” And I’m like, “Well, I’m just giving you my opinion.” You know what I mean?
JH: There’s a big difference between critiquing from a distance and being handed a thing and asked to work on changing it. That raises the stakes.
HG: I was speaking before I knew what I know now, but as a fan, you’re not thinking about how the industry works. You’re just seeing the flaws and you’re like, “Well, this doesn’t make any sense.” But you’re not ever thinking with the expectation that you’re gonna have to be the one to fix it.
When we started booking shows that we were actually getting paid for, as soon as money started coming in, I was like, “Whoa, that always feels like a big responsibility to me.” Because it wasn’t a career aspiration of mine, not in any real substantial way. Once money started coming in, I’m like, “Number one, this needs to be distributed fairly.”
It took me a long time to take money from shows. My agent would yell at me all the time. She’s like, “Why aren’t you paying yourself?” And I’m like, “Well, because I wanna make sure the artists get paid.” And she’s like, “This is a business. You’re doing work. You have to pay yourself.” Finally, after exhausting myself and realizing that the exhaustion was because of the work that I was putting into it, I’m like, “Okay, I’ll pay myself.”
ARJ: Holly, that really struck a chord with me, what you said about the money. When those stakes came in, it was like, “Oh, this isn’t just a blog anymore.” There is something on the line and there’s someone investing in me and in this idea, too, and they’re investing with the trust that I’m gonna do the good work.
It took me over five years not to start necessarily paying myself, but to start prioritizing myself and considering myself part of that package, rather than just putting everything I had into it, at the sacrifice of personal life and sometimes physical and mental health and financial choices.
HG: I wouldn’t have made it that long. But you know why, though? I got to that point so much quicker, only because a lot of the things that people were asking me to do were so emotionally draining, like to constantly go through racial trauma and explain myself. That shit is so exhausting. I very quickly was like, “What am I getting out of this?” I do not mind taking money from that at all.
I still don’t think that I’ve seen the changes I would like to see overall – in any facet of the industry. But what I have seen is individual artists’ lives completely changed. They can tour in a different way because of the way that we tour. Our tour minimum is $400 per show. So they can go out and play a show with us for $400, and that means that they can go to that area and play a couple other bars where they might not really get paid anything, but they’ve gotten something to get up there to help them get a little bit of a leg up.
JH: You were talking about learning how things work in the industry. I imagine that part of that involved coming to understand the established pipelines that exist in country music, in bluegrass, and in roots music, how they work, who they work for, and who they don’t work for. Realizing that they are not built in a way that is meant to serve everyone. You didn’t just accept that those established models are the only options. What kind of relationship do you each have to the industry? And where do you place your trust?
HG: I don’t trust anybody. My mission is to serve the artists. My personal feeling is that we need to build systems outside of what exists and so that we can build it in a better way. Because you’re not gonna go into an institution that’s been around for a hundred years and fix things that have been wrong for a hundred years. It’s not gonna happen, especially not gonna happen quickly.
However, it is not my right or privilege to tell an artist that they shouldn’t participate in the industry. So that being said, I have to work in parallel. Yes, I’m building things, but I also have to interact with the industry in a way that I can advocate for the artists that wanna participate in that.
And so when I do interact with the industry, it’s basically like, “What can I get out of you?” Because I know this is how they look at me. And so my first thing is, “What do you have that I can get that will serve me, that will serve my artists, that will serve my mission and my brand?” If what I can get from you feels like it’ll be worth whatever it is that you want to take from me, then I do it. But if I can’t get something back, that’s gonna make that exploitation worth it–because that’s what the whole industry is, exploitation–then I just move on.
ARJ: It took me a while to realize that, when I was talking about not prioritizing myself and not paying or taking care of myself, that in doing so I was actually falling into the trap that so many of these institutions had established of not paying women the same amount, not paying us what we’re worth.
I know that there are industry standards of not paying Black women what they’re worth, even less. I thought for a while that just by being part of this panel or whatever, I’m doing the right thing, ‘cuz I’m there and I’m representing something new and different and fresh and modern.
But by accepting an honorarium that I would find out later was less than some of the male names also appearing at a conference, I was falling into the same trap. It still enrages me, still gets me mad and so I feel like now I can be in, but not of a lot of these institutions. I’m happy to work with them if they’re gonna pay up and have us there for a reason, but I’m not going to serve them. I am not going to help, assist or fix what is institutionally wrong.
That’s partially why I’m really proud that BGS has continued to be independently run and owned this whole time, because we don’t answer to anybody, and nor do I plan to.
HG: I’ve pissed quite a few people off, ‘cuz I’ll work with them, but then after it’s over, they do something else. Then I criticize them and they’re like, “But wait, you came and did a panel for us.” And I’m like, “My participation is not an endorsement.” My presence does not mean you are off the hook for everything that you have done or going to do in the future. And so it has been interesting to watch them fall apart as I continue to criticize them and to see which ones come back after that. And that’s how I can tell whether or not they actually wanna do the work. If I criticize you and you come back for more, that tells me how you wanna do the work. That’s been a really good filtering tool for me.
JH: Even with the healthy skepticism that you’re each describing, you’ve managed to execute really massive events and partnerships. How do you make those decisions about what powerful people or institutions are worth partnering with?
HG: There’s no science to it, I feel like, because the other thing is there’s good people at bad places and that’s across the board. If I can find the good people at the bad place, then I’ll work with those people. And that’s just kind of how I do it.
I’ve gotten to the point now where I tell them that part up front: “This does not absolve you from anything that you do. I’m still gonna speak up.” One of the things that I’m afraid of happening is for people to look at what I’m doing and be like, “Okay, well she got in the room now, so I guess everything’s fine. She’s not speaking out anymore.” I don’t want it to look like I’ve closed the door behind me. If you can’t handle that, then we don’t have any business together. And as long as you find those good people, they’re gonna understand that and they’re gonna push forward anyway.
And sometimes because of that, I’ve had people tell me, “Please continue to criticize us, because that’s the only way I can get my bosses to do [anything] is when you won’t shut the fuck up on Twitter.”
ARJ: For the most part, I find that there are really good people on the ground, doing the work and for me, a lot of it just comes down to – I don’t know – intuition. It’s not necessarily a financial thing. It’s not necessarily a visibility thing. I think that’s kind of my unofficial business strategy, which is probably not something that they teach you to do when you have an MBA. But I never planned to get into this job to begin with, so I just go on intuition and I work with people I love. I return to things that I love and places that take care of our artists and take care of our community and take care of us. Those are the people that I will continue to invest in and go back to.
JH: Bluegrass, Americana, roots, and country are so often spoken of as though they are strongholds of authenticity insulated from commerce, to an extent. But we know that all of these spaces are inherently commercial if anyone’s trying to make a living off of them. So as people who are very invested in building community where it doesn’t exist in the ways that it needs to, how do you hold those two things next to each other?
HG: I do not. I think that also the whole conversation about authenticity is bullshit. It’s a way to move the goalpost, so that they can keep the people they want in and keep the people they want out out: “That’s not real country. That’s not real Americana.” It doesn’t fucking matter, because what makes it real is usually who makes it. If they look at somebody and they recognize that person as somebody that they want in that space, they’ll accept anything. It doesn’t matter what it sounds like if it comes from the right person. It’s a tool that they use so that if somebody comes along that they don’t feel like fits in because of their gender, their sexuality, their color, whatever it is, they can then say, “Oh, well then it’s not real X, Y, Z,” and they can get away with it.
JH: I also want to get at how you’re acknowledging that this is commercial, but also insisting that building community matters. How do you do both at the same time?
HG: Very easily. ‘Cuz you do things where you bring people together behind the scenes when you know everybody’s in town. That’s what we do. We get a house and we make sure everybody has somewhere to come together. But when you ask me to show up at the thing, I’m gonna ask you for a check. You’re gonna pay me to have official participation, but behind the scenes, we do things that build community. I feel like that’s all relative, right? So I’m not gonna go to a festival that’s just starting up and be like, “We need $20,000.” But if you’re paying everybody, make sure you pay us what’s fair in relation to what you have. So it’s just figuring that part out, but also always making sure you’re asking for it. I’ve learned to ask upfront, “What’s your budget?” Because that way I know where the conversation is gonna go.
JH: That’s sort of like reverse gatekeeping, in a sense. When you put together events or decide to gather artists to participate under the name of Black Opry, some of those things are for the public, outward-facing performances. Then there are things you do, like rent this house and invite who you want to be here, where you’re creating a safe, private space.
HG: The way that I curate the shows is more community driven. I try to pair up artists, especially if they’re traveling for a tour, that I feel like their personalities either mesh or there’s something in their story that I know would [connect] with each other or like things like that. It doesn’t matter if two artists’ music would sound great on the same bill, if those people don’t connect. I mean, I can put people together that sound completely different. I’ve had Jake Blount and Kentucky Gentlemen on a show together before, and they all were so excited to be with each other. The best part of our shows is usually the green room. That’s kind of a private, intimate space.
ARJ: You keep saying a lot of parallel things to what we do. I didn’t realize how parallel some of our experiences have been, and it just makes me love you more, Holly.
So much of what we’ve done over the years, it will never be public facing and the public will never even know about, because it’s not why we do it. And I think it’s what makes artists continue to come back to BGS events or wanna be covered on the site. Artists that, 10 years ago, I would’ve never thought I’d ever get the time of day from will say “Yes” to things because we put them first and we have given them a safe and fun and communal space to be together.
When I started BGLA originally, and then BGS, I wanted it to be this place for modern fans, for younger fans, for all fans that I didn’t think were being served or represented. I think for a while I was really susceptible to this yarn that they were spinning of, “There’s just not enough women in bluegrass. There’s just no Black people in bluegrass.” And I’m like, “Wait, I don’t know if that’s right.” And then the more you dig and the more you get involved, you’re like, “These communities have been here the whole time.” This is not only about creating community, this is about connecting community. This is about bringing communities together, representing them, and, and connecting the dots, whether it’s a digital community or artists in a green room or in a house to hang out for a jam.
HG: It’s so funny, like how the parallels keep coming up. Cause people have asked me a lot recently in interviews, “How do you feel about this revolution in country music?” And I’m like, “It’s not a revolution. It’s recognition.” This has been here the whole fucking time.
JH: There are deeply entrenched perceptions about what the country fan base looks like that are based on the continual and artificial segregation of the industry. And there are equally entrenched perceptions of what a bluegrass fan base looks like, based on the fervent reverence for the models laid down by the first generations of musicians. How have you developed ways of speaking to audiences within audiences, those that have gone unseen and overlooked?
HG: I’m telling you, I thought I was the only one when I started Black Opry. It was more like a search and explore mission than it was like an intentional, “I’m gonna find these people.” Because as a Black person that loves country music, I promise you, anytime you tell somebody that, you get looked at like you just fell out of a UFO.
I was equally surprised when I found artists. I didn’t think there were more than five artists. I was like, “We got Mickey, Jimmie, Kane and Darius.”
There was so much passionate relief when people started seeing you and feeling seen. It still surprises me. And I’ll be honest: We still haven’t gotten to where we need to be as far as the fan base with country music. There are a lot more queer fans simply because there are a lot more white, queer people that like country music. So we’ve built up a really, really big white, queer fan base.
A big priority for me this year is how do we connect with Black fans? Because the Black publications and the places that Black people go to for music typically don’t interact with country music.
But I will say, every show that we’ve had that I’ve been to, there’s at least one Black person that comes up to me and goes, “I thought I hated country music, but I saw the word Black in front of it, so I came just to see what it was. ‘Cuz it sounded weird. And I loved all of this. If I knew country music was like this, I would’ve known I liked it.” We’re trying really hard to figure out how we get to those people in a more broad way and get more of them. We need our audiences to look like what we want our stages to look like.
A lot of the places I’ve been to, regardless of how kind the organizers have been, it doesn’t always feel safe. And so there’s no part of me that wants to advocate for Black people to come into some of these spaces, because I can’t guarantee they’re gonna feel good. At Newport [Folk Festival], we felt good, even with being all white people. It’s just the type of people that they attract; they’re good people. And so we’ve really, really been interested in seeing how we can figure that piece of it out, where we get more Black people to these spaces. But, I can’t consciously advocate for too much of that yet, because I need to see the institutions doing the work to make it safe.
JH: So it’s still very much an open question of how you find, reach, and speak to Black country fans.
ARJ: Something that we asked ourselves very early on was not how do we reach other Bluegrass fans or where do we look for other Bluegrass fans, but where are we not looking? Who are we not reaching? What’s gonna be unexpected in that crossover Venn diagram of fandom?
Because like you were saying, you felt like you were the only one. I felt like I was in a minority of young, urban dwelling, West Coast, female fans that didn’t grow up in the South, you know? I started the whole thing from a need to connect with other people. I mean, it really stemmed out of loneliness. But I realized that my online demographics wouldn’t have made me a targeted fan if I were launching BGS. Like, any advertising or any kind of targeting we would’ve been doing, I myself wouldn’t have been found.
I think we just realized within our first three, four years, we have to turn ourselves outwards and reject everything that we’ve been told of who fans are and who communities are. And we have to be looking elsewhere, and we’re continuing to do that. It’s a question that we’re constantly asking ourselves, and I think it’s something that you’re never done searching for because there’s always someone else who feels like they have been excluded or that they are alone in this, whether they’re a fan or a player, or they don’t know what they are yet.
I remember one of the first meetings that I had with some IBMA folks. They were like, “You keep putting up all this like modern stuff and this isn’t real bluegrass.” And I’m like, “You’re gonna tell me if a kid walks in to McCabe’s guitar shop in Santa Monica and wants to buy a Deering banjo and pick up a banjo for the first time ever because he watched a Mumford and Sons video, that you’re gonna tell him ‘No’? That you’re gonna say ‘No’ because that’s not bluegrass?” Fine, we don’t have to put a label on it. Why don’t you open up that door and introduce ’em to Earl Scruggs. Let’s take them down that rabbit hole and connect the dots once again for that person. How about we take their hand and help guide them through this expanse of everything?
JH: Since you mentioned a first-generation bluegrass icon, something that’s baked into country, bluegrass and roots music is venerating elders and creating canons. And that’s just as much about excluding people as it is about who belongs in the canon.
You each make elders very present in what you do. Holly, you recently advocated for the Country Music Hall of Fame exhibit that includes the Black Opry to also include its predecessors, Frankie Staton and the Black Country Music Association. Amy, you make decisions about meaningful coverage of multiple generations of performers all the time, and BGS just published an appreciation of an underappreciated first-generation picker, Gloria Belle. How do you think about ways of doing that better than you’ve seen it done?
HG: I don’t wanna make it seem like I strong-armed [the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum]. I would not have had a problem strong-arming them, but they were gonna do it anyway. So they said, “We’ve already sent a letter to [Frankie]. Calm down.” And I was like, “Oh, okay.”
I don’t really think of it so much in that light that you’re describing as I do that we don’t have a record of Black country music history. For me, it’s about building that record. There’s so many people – like Wendy Moten. Wendy’s been singing with Faith Hill and Tim McGraw and Vince Gill for years and years and years. She’s part of Black country music history to me, and we have no record of that. Nobody’s ever talked about it. It’s about finding those people from the other generations that have been doing this long before it was something I ever thought about, and making sure they’re included in this narrative so that whoever comes up after us doesn’t have to work so hard to find these things out.
There’s no reason I shouldn’t have known the things that I’m finding out now until I had to literally dig for them — and I get access to a lot of it, ‘cuz people see what I’m doing and will bring stuff to me. But it’s not out there and ready for the public.
ARJ: Building that history is such an important part. And because we have a platform, because we have this online record that we are building, that’s part of our responsibility, is to help maintain that.
Gloria Belle, like we heard about her passing and then we waited and there were no obits. And we were like, “Who’s, who’s gonna cover this? Oh wait, it’s us. We have to be the ones to cover it.” I should know that 10 years on. But I still get reminded time and time again, we still have to do the work.
I am not one to venerate folks who maybe don’t deserve it. But I do think it’s the same idea of you’ve gotta know the rules in order to break them. You have to know the history in order to figure out where you’re going and how to break out of that and how to change it.
JH: You both are continually adapting how you present and position what you’re doing. Do you feel like you have come up against the limitations of genre? And have you looked for ways to free your efforts up from those limitations?
HG: Yeah, that one’s been tough. I know what kind of music I personally like, and I like music that would be described as Country music by literally anybody who heard it. It’s usually not a gray area, the things that I like personally, and that’s what brought me to where I am.
But also, all of the artists that I talk to across the board say that genre is a harmful concept to their careers. And so it’s deconstructing that concept, but also realizing too that the advocacy, everybody needs all of this stuff. It’s not just people in this space. So it’s like, “Where do I fit into that?” Regardless of how I feel about anything, there’s enough people in [all parts of] the industry telling Black people “No.” And so if a Black artist comes to me and wants to work with us, I really don’t give a shit what they sound like. The answer is gonna be “Yes.” I’m never gonna turn anybody away. Right now where I’ve kind of settled is anybody can come and play with us with any style, but the advocacy work that I do is going to focus on country music spaces and institutions, just because that’s where my passion is and that’s where I see the greatest need for it. I do acknowledge that there’s problems across the board. If you look at the work that the Black Music Action Coalition does, they’re doing it across all genres.
I’m sure you get this too, Amy, where it’s like you want to work on the things that you care about and you like, but also once you have this level of responsibility, that really doesn’t matter anymore. It’s out the window. It should never be about what personal taste is. It should be about what’s best for the group at large.
ARJ: It was very confusing, I think, for folks to initially come to the site and realize that it wasn’t just Bluegrass. And our whole point was like, “This is pulling from the traditions of the genre that is called Bluegrass.” But that has taken on different incarnations and iterations over the years since it was established. I guess you could say, by the IBMA standards of 1945, you know, Bill Monroe. For a while it was about bucking people’s expectations when they would get to the site of what they thought they were gonna get versus what they were given on the website.
Then we made a very conscious shift to be called BGS. We still use the Bluegrass Situation. A lot of people still know us as that, but we have really made a conscious effort to switch over to BGS, in the long tradition of things like CBGB, or NME Magazine. After a while, it just becomes those letters. So that’s always been my hope, that it becomes more of an umbrella organization and that it’s not limited. I still lean on genre when I feel like it’s advantageous. Because at the end of the day, I’m not going to stop it from existing. It exists. It’s how certain people can identify what they want to listen to or how we search for a playlist, even. It’s just how things are organized, whether we like it or not.
So when I can be disruptive within those structures, I will utilize it. I know that I can make certain calls, or I can show up to certain conferences and I can make an impact within this community and I can have some kind of small change within this community. And that is what drives me, and that is when I’m willing to use genre, if it means that I can insert myself and continue to be a part of that and enact change.
HG: A lot of artists tell me that they feel like genre is weaponized against them. I feel like we have an opportunity to take that and then weaponize it back against the industry itself. Because it’s literally just a marketing tool, so you just have to figure out how to play the game so that it helps the artist more than it hurts him.
The bluegrass community is collectively grieving two major losses as both Jesse McReynolds and Bobby Osborne – two revered and iconic Bluegrass Hall of Fame-inducted mandolinists and Grand Ole Opry members who helmed first-generation bluegrass bands with their brothers – have passed on. McReynolds, who was 94, died on Friday, June 23 at his home in Nashville with his wife, Joy, at his side; Osborne’s death was announced on social media early Tuesday, June 27 – he was 91. Both pickers were two of the sole survivors of bluegrass’s first generation. They leave enormous musical legacies that will live on, surely into infinity.
In 2017, the Bluegrass Situation team had the incredible honor of inviting Bobby Osborne to join our super jam at the world-famous Bonnaroo music festival in Manchester, Tennessee. To our delight, he said yes.
BGS co-founder Ed Helms and Bobby Osborne
Over more than ten years of creating and holding space for roots music in our industry, there are so many moments of which we are so proud. But one of the most memorable and meaningful BGS achievements from the past decade was hearing 20,000+ audience members and fans, packed into That Tent, roar unfathomably loud for the iconoclastic voice that made a hit of “Rocky Top” – and so many others.
That day, Bobby seemed to bask in the limelight. He was kind, down-to-earth, approachable, and seemed genuinely tickled at the fanfare and excitement that orbited him and his sharp, technicolor suit and sparkly hat. After a storied career that landed him and his brother, Sonny, in so many widely variable musical contexts, from the obscure to the mainstream, Bobby was perfectly at home at Bonnaroo. His audience knew it, and they ate it up. We all did.
Bobby Osborne with Casey Campbell (background) and Mike Barnett (foreground)
In light of his passing, the entire BGS team is holding gratitude for his kindness, generosity, and, most of all, for his music. Rest in peace to one of the most important and impactful first generation bluegrass music makers, Bobby Osborne.
We hope you’ll enjoy these back stage and performance photos, shot by Elli Lauren Photography, from Bonnaroo 2017 and the BGS Super Jam at That Tent.
Bobby Osborne, Paul Hoffman, Ed Helms, and members of Greensky Bluegrass and Bryan Sutton’s house band.
Lillie Mae and Bobby Osborne share a laugh on stage prior to their duet.
Bobby OsborneEd Helms, Casey Campbell, Bobby Osborne, and others
Bobby Osborne and Casey Campbell (background)
Bobby Osborne closes his 2017 Bonnaroo appearance with a bow and a tip of his hat.
(Editor’s Notes: Headline image of Béla Fleck & the Flecktones. Scroll to see a photo gallery.
To mark Planet Bluegrass’s 50th annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival, we asked author and music journalist David Menconi to reflect on its impact – and the vibrant community that’s grown up around this iconic roots music event.)
The circuit of roots music festivals in America has some similarities to the Professional Golf Association. There’s at least one festival as well as one golf tournament pretty much every week of the spring, summer and fall. But a few stand out as special and even career-making – golf’s four major championships, and the handful of prestigious main-event music festivals. North Carolina’s MerleFest is like The Masters, the early-season springtime kickoff each April, while late-season festivals like San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass line up nicely with the British Open.
But there’s no question which music festival stands as the summit of the circuit, and not just because it’s in the mountains of Colorado. That’s the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, which marked its 50-year anniversary with the 2023 edition last weekend, June 15-18. The fact that Telluride has prospered for half a century makes Telluride something like golf’s U.S. Open championship, the big one that everybody wants to be a part of. Telluride’s status is something that the musicians who play it are well aware of.
Del McCoury Band performs Thursday, June 15, at the 50th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival.
“Festivals and musical trends come and go, and acoustic music has been through some serious peaks and valleys the last 50 years,” says Chris “Panda” Pandolfi, banjo player for Telluride regulars The Infamous Stringdusters, who were on this year’s lineup. “The one mainstay throughout has been Telluride Bluegrass Festival. When we started out, Telluride was the place to be and the definitive crossroads we aspired to, and it still is. Lasting 50 years is an amazing testament to its importance. Bluegrass is more popular than ever now, and Telluride is a big part of that.”
There are literally hundreds of music festivals spanning every style imaginable nowadays, including massive annual gatherings like Bonnaroo in Tennessee and Coachella in the California desert. But there were just a small handful of festivals when Telluride Bluegrass Festival started up in 1973 in the scenic Colorado mountain town that bears its name. And even though Telluride’s daily capacity of 10,000 fans is significantly smaller than a lot of the other major festivals on the circuit, it has still maintained its prestige status.
A drone shot of the festival grounds of Telluride Bluegrass Festival.
In spite of that smaller size, Telluride does have a few structural advantages that set it apart. One is a picturesque setting of surpassing natural beauty on the western edge of Southwestern Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. For performers as well as attendees, there’s not a better view anywhere than what you see at Telluride.
“The view from the crowd is amazing, but from the stage it’s the most incredible view imaginable as an artist,” says Pandolfi. “It’s this multi-layered inspirational snapshot of some of the best music fans, at the best-run festival, in the most beautiful environment in the world. I think a lot of people have this experience, knowing of Telluride as this iconic festival with an outsized reputation, but it more than lives up to the hype. First time we played there, I remember feeling intimidated because so many heavy-weight players we looked up to were there. But as soon as we got onstage, everything clicked.”
Yasmin Williams performs on Telluride Bluegrass Festival’s main stage – its sole stage.
Another major difference between Telluride and its festival peers is scale, and not just in terms of the size of the crowds. Most festivals cram as many performers onto as many stages as possible, all of them running simultaneously, resulting in sensory overload as well as the fear that you’re missing out on something elsewhere. By contrast, Telluride still has just one stage. Every act gets a solo spotlight at Telluride.
“Every year’s festival lineup is an interesting thing,” says Craig Ferguson, who oversees Telluride Bluegrass Festival under the auspices of Planet Bluegrass. “I’ve always said, just watch and it will book itself, and that’s really true. Our process is unique because we have just the one stage and not a bunch of bands, so everybody in the crowd gets to have the same experience. There’s not 18 different stages, so we can create one festivarian experience that everyone shares. We do the booking one act at a time, and we often wind up with interesting combinations.”
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss perform at Telluride Bluegrass Festival.
Indeed, those interesting combinations can venture well beyond what you see at a typical folk or bluegrass festival. Along with Sam Bush, Emmylou Harris, Peter Rowan, Del McCoury and The Infamous Stringdusters doing a Sunday morning gospel set, this year’s lineup features ringers like the West African ngoni master Bassekou Koyate and the venerable jam band String Cheese Incident. Some of the anomalous acts from previous years include pop-star jazz pianist Norah Jones, the comedic folk duo Tenacious D and even singer/rapper/actress Janelle Monae. Even with the unlikely acts, the Telluride experience sells itself. It doesn’t take much convincing to get any artist to play.
“Janelle Monae was the most interesting person to talk to,” Ferguson says. “I snuck into her RV just as she was sitting down to a meal by herself, and I was able to sit and talk to her for an hour. I think she would’ve signed up to play every year if she could have, she was so enthralled by the fact that there were elk in the park. It was the most wonderful conversation, and she was great. We’re famous for our curveballs and she was the oddest, I’ll give you that.”
BGS’s own Ed Helms with Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas at Telluride Bluegrass Festival.
Apart from the change-ups, multiple generations of musicians in the world of acoustic music count Telluride among their major artistic, career and personal milestones. One of them is Sarah Jarosz, a four-time Grammy winner who first went to Telluride as a fan at age 14 and played it herself for the first time two years later. Telluride is where Jarosz first connected with idols and future peers like Gillian Welch and Abigail Washburn. It’s also where Gary Paczosa saw Jarosz for the first time at her 2007 Telluride debut. He subsequently signed her to Sugar Hill Records and produced her first four albums.
“It’s the quintessential place to see your heroes, and even get to jam with them,” says Jarosz, who is back on this year’s lineup. “You’ll hear, ‘There’s a jam at this house down the street after the shows.’ So I brought my mandolin and before I knew it, Chris Thile was showing up. Also Jerry Douglas, Tim O’Brien. That was really life-changing, this proximity to heroes that allowed me to become friends with them. And even though Telluride is rooted in bluegrass, they always bring in artists from beyond that world – Janelle Monae, Decemberists, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. It feels like anything can happen, and the audience that goes is very supportive of that.”
The stalwart House Band of Telluride Bluegrass Festival.
Still, no matter how far afield the lineup wanders, Telluride is ultimately rooted in bluegrass.
“Bluegrass is a fable, and a team sport,” says Ferguson. “That informs how we create the lineup. Looking to the future, socially as well as musically, we think of bluegrass as an allegory. It’s a context that is invitational to all these other styles, country or jazz or classical, and it complements all of them. That remains the heart and soul of this festival, surrounding bluegrass with these other complimentary musics. We are fortunate to be of service to the festivarian community. It’s an annual privilege to see how much it brings to people’s lives, the connection to community.”
Young festivarians celebrate Telluride Bluegrass Festival's 50th Birthday.
Nickel Creek.
Bassekou Koyate.
Greensky Bluegrass.
Charles Wesley.
Sierra Ferrell.
Mary Chapin Carpenter.
Dierks Bentley brings Long Jon to Telluride and Sam Bush up on stage.
Peter Rowan.
Chris Thile.
Gregory Alan Isakov.
The Infamous Stringdusters.
A gorgeous, though chilly, festival grounds.
Leftover Salmon.
Punch Brothers performed their last sets with Gabe Witcher as a member of the band at Telluride.
Sarah Jarosz.
Sam Bush Band with special guest Emmylou Harris.
Del McCoury joins String Cheese Incident on stage at Telluride Bluegrass Festival.
The Earls of Leicester.
Tim O'Brien Band featuring Shad Cobb, Jan Fabricius, Mike Bub, and Noam Pikelny.
Watchhouse was joined by Emmylou Harris.
Yonder Mountain String Band with Sam Bush and guests.
The crowd cheers for Yonder Mountain String Band.
Sam Bush Band backgrounded by the mountains and evening sky.
As we approach the end of the year, I’ve been reveling in the sensation of the world slowing down, surreal in a society that seemingly spins faster than ever. And as December draws to a close, I finally have a moment to take a deep breath and reflect on the year we’ve had.
At the top of 2022, I eagerly anticipated celebrating the ten year anniversary of BGS. In the process of digging through archives of old emails and photos I was reminded of so many special moments I’d forgotten: events and people that have helped shape the last decade. Everything from our very first blog post, to hanging backstage at countless festivals and shows, to producing an all-star video series in the middle of quarantine; every memory an individual building block of who we are today and where we’re headed tomorrow.
The Bluegrass Situation started in 2012 with the goal of bringing together like-minded music fans who didn’t feel represented in the existing roots music scene. But it’s become so much more than that. And it’s hard for me to express the gratitude and love I feel for every individual who has contributed in building an inclusive, fascinating melting pot of creativity and tradition.
So as this year – and our birthday celebration – draw to a close, I want nothing more than to say thank you for being a part of it all.
Wishing you and yours a peaceful and beautiful season with wonderful things awaiting us all in the New Year!
It was still early in the pandemic – April of 2020 maybe – when the idea started percolating amongst Ed and the BGS staff. Here we were, stuck at home in lockdown, seeing so many of our artist friends struggling to make ends meet while the world around us came to a screeching halt. We didn’t know what we should do, but we needed to do something.
And hence the Whiskey Sour Happy Hour was born. A riff on Ed’s long-running live variety show at Largo in L.A., the Whiskey Sour Radio Hour, we would pull all of our collective favors to create a four-part series that could hopefully bring a little joy to our friends and fans, and raise some money for two amazing charities in the process.
Collaborating with our friends at the Americana Music Association, WSHH quickly became a mashup of our very favorite folks – musicians, comedians, and entertainers – but also a way for our team to feel like we were re-connected. After months of isolation, it was re-energizing to not only be working on something creative, but something we were proud of, too.
Talent pooled in from all over – from Billy Strings to Stephen Colbert, Lee Ann Womack to Kenny G (yes, that Kenny G) – everyone performing live from their living rooms and brought together by host Ed Helms.
No other number signified the massive effort and joy that went into the WSHH than the all-star superjam rendition of “The Weight.” With over twenty-five contributors jamming along from across the country, it was six minutes of glorious respite, where the weight of the pandemic was suddenly lifted and we were once again surrounded by the comfort of friends.
Cover photo: I’m With Her (Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan)
The energy was palpable in Nashville that day. It was Americanafest, and everyone who was anyone in this community was in town for the week-long conference, festival, and awards show.
The Bluegrass Situation’s Midnight Windup, held in The Cannery, was hosted by Ed Helms and his band The Lonesome Trio and featuring a cavalcade of guests that included David Bromberg, the Milk Carton Kids, Aoife O’Donovan, The Infamous Stringdusters, Joy Kills Sorrow, Black Prairie, and the Steep Canyon Rangers joined by an up and coming guitar slinger with an unforgettable name: Sturgill Simpson.
Even though we’d technically been up and running for over a year, that night felt like something of a launch party at an event that has subsequently become a homecoming every year since. We’re honored to return to Nashville to celebrate our tenth anniversary with several events during Americanafest, including a night of pure bluegrass hosted by fiddler Jason Carter and friends, a special pre-awards show happy hour at the City Winery Lounge (cake was involved!) and an afternoon of live music from the artists of Nettwerk Music Group at the Basement on Friday.
NASHVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 18: (L-R) Jerry Douglas, Jacob Tilove and Ed Helms perform at the Bluegrass Situation showcase during the Americana Music Festival on September 18, 2013 in Nashville, United States. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Festival) *** Local Caption *** Ed Helms; Jacob Tilove
NASHVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 18: Aoife O'Donovan performs during the Bluegrass Situation's showcase at the Americana Music Festival on September 18, 2013 in Nashville, United States. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Festival) *** Local Caption *** aoife o'donovan
NASHVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 18: Comdedian and actor Ed Helms and David Bromberg gather backstage during the Bluegrass Situation's showcase at the Americana Music Festival on September 18, 2013 in Nashville, United States. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Festival) *** Local Caption *** Ed Helms; David Bromberg
NASHVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 18: (L-R) Aoife O'Donovan and Joey Ryan of The Milk Carton Kids gather backstage during the Bluegrass Situation's showcase at the Americana Music Festival on September 18, 2013 in Nashville, United States. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Festival) *** Local Caption *** aoife o'donovan; kenneth pattengale
NASHVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 18: (L-R) Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale of The Milk Carton Kids perform during the Bluegrass Situation's showcase at the Americana Music Festival on September 18, 2013 in Nashville, United States. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Festival) *** Local Caption *** joey ryan; kenneth pattengale
NASHVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 18: (L-R) Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale of The Milk Carton Kids gather backstage during the Bluegrass Situation's showcase at the Americana Music Festival on September 18, 2013 in Nashville, United States. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Festival) *** Local Caption *** joey ryan; kenneth pattengale
NASHVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 18: Tim O'Brien and Jim Lauderdale gather backstage at the Bluegrass Situation showcase at Americana Music Festival on September 18, 2013 in Nashville, United States. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Festival) *** Local Caption *** Tim O'Brien; Jim Lauderdale
NASHVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 18: (L-R) Ed Helms, Ian Riggs, Larry Campbell and David Bromberg perform at the Bluegrass Situation showcase during the Americana Music Festival on September 18, 2013 in Nashville, United States. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Festival) *** Local Caption *** Ed Helms; Ian Riggs
NASHVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 18: (L-R) Ian Riggs, Larry Campbell and David Bromberg perform at the Bluegrass Situation showcase during the Americana Music Festival on September 18, 2013 in Nashville, United States. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Festival) *** Local Caption *** Ian Riggs; Larry Campbell; David Bromberg
NASHVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 18: Ed Helms (second from right) gathers with the Infamous Stringdusters backstage at the Bluegrass Situation showcase at Americana Music Festival on September 18, 2013 in Nashville, United States. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Festival) *** Local Caption *** Ed Helms
NASHVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 18: (L-R_ Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale of The Milk Carton Kids perform during the Bluegrass Situation's showcase at the Americana Music Festival on September 18, 2013 in Nashville, United States. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Festival) *** Local Caption *** joey ryan; kenneth pattengale
NASHVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 18: Brian Wright and Aoife O'Donovan perform during the Bluegrass Situation's showcase at the Americana Music Festival on September 18, 2013 in Nashville, United States. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Festival) *** Local Caption *** brian wrigth; aoife o'donovan
NASHVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 18: Emma Beaton of Joy Kills Sorrow performs during the Bluegrass Situation's showcase at the Americana Music Festival on September 18, 2013 in Nashville, United States. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Festival) *** Local Caption *** Emma Beaton
NASHVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 18: Nate Smith (center) performs with Emma Beaton and Jacob Jolliff of Joy Kills Sorrow during the Bluegrass Situation's showcase at the Americana Music Festival on September 18, 2013 in Nashville, United States. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Festival) *** Local Caption *** Emma Beaton; Nate Smith; Jacob Jolliff
NASHVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 18: (L-R) Ian Riggs, Larry Campbell and David Bromberg perform at the Bluegrass Situation showcase during the Americana Music Festival on September 18, 2013 in Nashville, United States. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Festival) *** Local Caption *** Ian Riggs; Larry Campbell; David Bromberg
Cover photo by James R. Martin; gallery photos by Erika Goldring
Dylan going electric in 1965. Lomax making his historic archive recordings in 1966. Joni taking the stage after 50-something years in 2022. Newport Folk is a festival full of milestone moments and lots of surprises. And for a brief moment in time in 2014, BGS was a small part of Newport Folk Fest’s long and storied history too, when we presented our Bluegrass Situation Workshop Stage inside the intimate Whaling Museum building on Sunday at the Fort.
Amidst a festival lineup that included such stalwarts as Nickel Creek, Trampled by Turtles, Dawes, Valerie June, Hozier, Jack White, and Mavis Staples, the BGS crew – helmed by co-founder Ed Helms and his Lonesome Trio bandmates Ian Riggs and Jake Tilove – hosted a few “up and coming” acts we were very excited about, singing songs about significant “firsts” in their lives. Some of those young whippersnappers you might have heard of, like Shakey Graves (joined by Chris Funk of the Decemberists and Langhorne Slim), Aoife O’Donovan, Wilie Watson (with special guest Sean Watkins), and Watchhouse (who were still going by Mandolin Orange at the time), which marked Andrew and Emily’s very first – but certainly not last – appearance at Newport.
That big “first” for us was significant – to be welcomed into the “Folk” Family and made to feel like we were all part of something big and wonderful. And it’s that feeling that’s brought us back to the Fort year after year ever since.
To commemorate the 10th birthday of the Bluegrass Situation, co-founders Ed Helms and Amy Reitnouer Jacobs are taking it all the way back to the beginning. In the first installment of an ongoing interview series, the enthusiastic bluegrass fans reveal how they first met, their shared vision for a modern aesthetic, and the meaning behind the unexpected (yet appropriate) name.
Amy: As we’re looking back on 10 years of The Bluegrass Situation, it occurred to me that you and I have never really reflected on how all of this started and how this thing kind of built up. So I wanted to get our own take on it and… reminisce, stroll down memory lane a bit, and think about it.
Ed: We need a little oral history for the archives! [laughs] And for our own… ’cause it’s exciting to reminisce a little bit.
Amy: I’ll kick it off and ask, what was your intro to bluegrass? Why do you care about this music to begin with and what drew you into it?
Ed: The earliest I can trace back would be growing up in Atlanta, Georgia. My mom’s from Nashville, so we would take road trips from Atlanta to Nashville all the time. In addition to that, I spent many, many summers at a summer camp in the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina. That’s another road trip that’s about a three or four-hour drive from Atlanta.
So, on those drives, we’re always pulling off at truck stops and whatever, and we would pick up cassette tapes at the checkout counter. And my dad, who grew up in Alabama, was always a big fan of opera and classical music. He would grab these string band tapes for some reason. And I started listening to these very generic, early string band tapes when I was 8 years old in the car. They didn’t resonate with me as artists, but the music connected with me somehow. And I associated it with those places — Nashville and the North Carolina mountains.
Then as I got older, I was one of those kids that kind of thought everybody was fake, you know, like Holden Caulfield. Just distressed by all the artificiality of our world and of the people around me and like, “Oh, everyone at school, everything is so performative. Like, who’s real? Who’s the real deal?” And that kind of drew me, musically, into older and older music. I got obsessed with authenticity and where are the roots of things. … I think it scratched some itch that I had for authenticity-seeking, and probably allowed me to feel superior to all my classmates in junior high.
Then when I could actually get to a record store, I remember the very first bluegrass album that I bought was the Bluegrass Album Band. I didn’t know who J.D. Crowe and Vassar Clements and Jerry Douglas were, but all I knew was that on the cover of this CD at Turtle’s Records & Tapes in Atlanta was guys holding banjos and guitars and mandolins. So I bought that album and to this day it’s one of my favorite albums. I’ve never asked Jerry Douglas about this, I should, but it felt like the intention of those albums was to kind of just be the ultimate catalog of, you know…
Amy: I mean, it’s called the Bluegrass Album Band.
Ed: Right. They just called themselves the most generic name. And it’s almost like they were just trying to create a library of excellent bluegrass artists playing the canon or something. Or maybe they were really ahead of their time with like meta irony and they were just like, “We’re going to call ourselves the Bluegrass Album Band, ’cause it’s hilarious.”
And of course Tony Rice’s guitar playing on that – I was very much into guitar at the time, I later picked up a banjo – Tony’s guitar playing was so magical to me. I could not understand how human hands could play what he was doing. I would just pour over these solos. I remember the solo to “Your Love Is Like a Flower,” it just was like, how the hell is that being played? I could not wrap my head around it. And I listened to it a million times, and I didn’t have the technology to slow it down, so I couldn’t do that.
Amy: That album and that band really represent a generational shift. It’s not newgrass. It’s playing the canon, but with this mix of the new guard and some folks with some real cred from the second generation.
Ed: You’re right. It isn’t an old sound, what they’re doing. It’s a new sound at that time, because no one was doing Tony Rice licks before Tony Rice. But the harmonies are timeless and the structure of the songs is very traditional. That album means so much to me and I listen to it to this day and I’m still blown away! I actually can play that solo from “Love Is Like a Flower” now, but only at about half speed. And it’s one of the proudest things, when I finally found – someone had transcribed it in tablature, and I was like, “This is string theory explained. This is like if you had Carl Sagan sit you down and explain the mysteries of the universe.” I was like, “Holy shit, I got it! The holy grail!”
Amy: Yeah. To me, it’s still magic. ‘Cause I am not someone who can play an instrument, at least very well, so when I first heard bluegrass, I was just like, “How does that happen? How do you even get the notes from your brain to your fingers and do it so well, and in a way that I’ve just never heard before?” It still kind of blows me away.
Ed: Can I ask you the same question? Where did you first connect to bluegrass music?
Amy: I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, and there was a lot of country and bluegrass around there. Admittedly, I didn’t like it because to me it represented… I mean, I was really busy listening to showtunes and learning Sondheim lyrics and stuff. I was that kid. And I just thought country and roots music was inherently uncool and representative of this place that I felt like I was stuck in.
It wasn’t until I went to college in North Carolina… It was probably the first few weeks of school, one of my housemates who is still a very dear friend of mine invited me to a show, and it was Nickel Creek. I had never heard of them. I had no idea what I was going in to and Erin said, “I just think you’re going to like this. Just come with me to the show. I’ll drive. We’ll go.” And I can honestly say, that show changed my life. I can still remember the whole show so clearly.
Ed: What year are we talkin’?
Amy: 2005? Somewhere around there. I was kind of reeling from it, because it had been a really long time since I felt like I had been challenged by music that was being played by young people, that I really connected with, but also was just kind of flummoxed by. From there it became a deep dive. I was really fortunate going to school where I did, that there was great bluegrass around. I mean, there was this bar about 30 minutes away called The Cave in Chapel Hill, and we used to go see the Steep Canyon Rangers play there every month. And I mean, this is a tiny underground basement bar, maybe holds 50 people, and they would just have bluegrass jams.
Ed: How close were you to Asheville?
Amy: It was about three hours from Asheville. Asheville is where we went for, like, fall break and our little weekend trips and stuff. We would go to Boone and Asheville, and even Mount Airy had a bluegrass fest that we went to. So that’s when I really started getting into it. And I could say, I think my first significant album purchase was pretty soon after that first concert. It was Why Should the Fire Die? by Nickel Creek. I played that into oblivion and had it in my car for like, 10 years, back when we kept stacks of CDs in our cars.
From there it kind of fell into the background, because I was studying film and I moved to New York. I was working all the time and didn’t really make space in my life for music. By the time I moved out to LA, I was working for a producer and I had one or two friends out here that I knew. Again, working a lot, not making any money and trying to find my place in the city, and not really connecting with a lot of the other assistants that I was meeting at the agencies. And I remember going to see the Get Down Boys at some bar on the west side of LA and having this thing reignited in me that I had felt back in college and was like, “OK, I think these are my people.” There was this momentum happening in LA at that particular time. And that’s how I started getting to know the scene out here and had the idea for the BGLA blog.
Ed: Tell us about BGLA.
Amy: I admittedly was a little bored at work. I was working at the Academy of Motion Pictures at this point, which was exciting, especially for three months of the year around the Awards, but the rest of the time was kind of slow. So I started this Blogspot and wrote about what was happening on the scene in Los Angeles. And then people started pitching me, cause I don’t think anybody was really covering it out here. So suddenly I was getting inquiries to interview these people… I mean, I started going really deep in the music and the history and background and getting to know the scene out here. But I remember getting connected to Sean Watkins (of Nickel Creek), and it was this beautiful, full-circle moment. It was the first time I met Sean and got to talk to him, and we became friends and kind of opened a whole other door to the roots music scene and what it could be. And then I think I met you pretty soon after that.
Ed: So when did we meet? I cannot remember.
Amy: Well, I remember when we first met, but I doubt you remember when we first met. I remember this because it was probably the most nervous I’ve been in my whole life. I saw you at a Sarah Jarosz show at Hotel Cafe. And I walked up to you and gave you one of my business cards for Bluegrass LA. And I was like, “I think you’ll like my blog.” That was it! And I don’t imagine you remember that, but that is technically the first time I met you.
Ed: At some point we had a cup of coffee to talk about possibilities.
Amy: Yes, that’s true.
Ed: But then maybe we bumped into each other… I assumed it was Largo, but I have the vaguest memory of getting a business card from you. So yeah, that part tracks.
Amy: Why don’t you talk about the LA Bluegrass Situation, because that predates me.
Ed: You weren’t even a part of the first LA Bluegrass Situation?
Amy: No. I was there. I went one night. But we didn’t know each other at that point. I just went as a fan.
Ed: The first time I ever went to Largo was when John Krasinski took me to see Aimee Mann playing at the Fairfax Largo. We went in through the back and I just was like, “Whoa, what is this incredible vibe?” This whole place is just so, so cool. And eventually Flanny (the owner of Largo) invited me to do stand-up on some people’s shows, and one night he said, “Why don’t you do a show?” And I thought, “OK, cool. It’d be fun to mix music and comedy.” So I think the first show that I did at Largo was called “Hams and Jams.” [Laughs] The idea was like, “Oh, it’s hams, like comedy people, and jams, music people!” And I just mixed up some comedians and musicians with a terrible name that Flanny was so gracious about rolling with.
We really loved that combination, but I was really struggling to wrap my head around the LA bluegrass scene. It just was so disparate, but somehow we managed to get excited about trying to cultivate the scene and coalesce things a little bit more. And I think that was the idea… that was the sort of original inertia behind the first LA Bluegrass Situation. The name literally just came from Flanny talking about it before we named it. He just kept talking about it as the bluegrass situation that we were dealing with. So then when it came time to be like, “What are we going to call it?” I was like, “Well, you’ve been saying this awesome thing because there’s something a little cheeky about a ‘situation.'” Like, it feels like, you know, “We got ourselves a situation, here!” Like it just kind of has some irreverence built into it.
So that’s what we named it, and Flanny and I both pulled as many strings as we could with whatever relationships we had at the time and put a totally magical lineup together. Like I still can’t wrap my head around it. I mean, it was Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch and Steve Martin and Steep Canyon Rangers and Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers and the Infamous Stringdusters… Oh, and of course the Lonesome Trio, my crew, with my friends Ian and Jake. We were sort of the hosts.
Amy: I remember I got an email from you not long after that, which was pretty shocking. What was the impetus of that, do you remember?
Ed: Yeah, I think that I was feeling pretty heady after that first LA Bluegrass Situation and probably getting over my skis a little bit and being like, “We can create the ultimate hub of bluegrass for Los Angeles and it will be this Tower of Babel that everyone will flock to!” I had so many ideas. There were so many things that I found lacking in Los Angeles that I had taken for granted in New York. There are just so many website resources. “You want a banjo teacher? Look here, there’s tons in New York City. You want to see what shows are happening? Look here!” You could just find stuff in New York City and you couldn’t find stuff in Los Angeles.
Amy: I look at the branding of that initial site and that first logo — I think DKNG did our first logo in Santa Monica — and I remember being really proud of the fact that we didn’t look stereotypical of the era.
Ed: You’re so right. And I give you so much credit for that because the very first LA Bluegrass Situation, Hatch Show Print did a bunch of posters for us. And they were so cool. I still have a bunch and I’m really proud of that, but it was also leaning really hard into a very conventional, stereotypical bluegrass aesthetic. It was a funny wake-up call for me – that plus your input. It helped me realize that what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go as fans and supporters of this idiom was not retro, like it was…
Amy: Forward-thinking.
Ed: Forward. And that artists like Chris Thile were doing that musically, right? But there was a little bit of a reckoning of “What’s our brand going to feel like? What do we want it to evoke? And who do we want to connect with? Do we want to connect with young people who are finding this stuff for the first time and finding it really fresh and exciting?”
Amy: That was always the crux of it for me. To a large extent, that aesthetic is still very alive and well within the roots music community. I had an inkling that there was an audience that had different tastes, but still could love this music and that it didn’t all have to look the same way. I could have never predicted where it went and what we’ve worked on since, but I think at the beginning we were very “of the moment.” It was the same time that Mumford & Sons and the Lumineers were on the top of the charts, and there was this kind of “authenticity” movement taking place.
Ed: I remember going to business meetings with Hollywood producers and one guy had a banjo in his office. And I was like, “You play the banjo?” And he’s like, “No, no, but I want to learn!” But you’re right. It was a moment. I’ve felt like an old fuddy duddy since I was 12 years old, but I was like, “Was I ahead of the curve here?”
Amy: Yeah, similarly, I’ve kind of always felt like an old soul; I never really felt like I truly fit in to my time, so I think there was something that really drew me in to that zeitgeist, but what amazed me was that once we really got into it, it was so much more complex and modern and exciting than I ever expected.
Editor’s Note: Look for the next part of this conversation with Ed Helms and Amy Reitnouer Jacobs in the weeks ahead.
As we celebrate a decade of the Bluegrass Situation, we’ve combed through our archive to reminisce and enjoy some of our favorite moments from the world of roots music. In lieu of our usual Artist of the Month feature, we’ve decided to shine the spotlight on our own musical history. Here are 10 picks that capture the road of how far we’ve come over the last decade…
Do You Play the Banjo w/ Della Mae @ MerleFest (2013)
Kimber and Celia of Della Mae wandered the grounds of MerleFest to ask the ever-important question: “Do You Play Banjo?” (Don’t miss a true BGS highlight at 2:30)
Back Porch of America series (2013)
Our first series premiere, The Back Porch of America was like stepping back into history as host Matt Kinman visits with Mark Newberry, a fifth generation chair maker on Jennings Creek, near Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee.
See Langhorne Slim and friends Kristin Weber, Shelby Means, and Kai Welch perform “Countryside Shuffle” at the original Imogene & Willie store in Nashville for The Bluegrass Situation during our first ever AmericanaFest.
Soundcheck – Noam Pikelny (2014)
Soundcheck was a series that sat down with artists before they hit the stage. In this episode, Noam Pikelny, recipient of the Steve Martin Banjo Prize and founding member of Punch Brothers, hung out with BGS ahead of his Nashville show in support of his 2013 release, Noam Pikelny Plays Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe.
Bonnaroo Superjam Finale – Lake Street Dive, Dierks Bentley, The Avett Brothers, Ed Helms, and More (2014)
The Bluegrass Situation held court for five years on That Stage at Bonnaroo, curating and hosting a lineup of our favorite musicians that culminated in an epic annual Superjam. we’ll always have a fondness for this particular night, when BGS co-founder Ed Helms lead the final number “I’ve Had the Time of My Life” (yes, the one from Dirty Dancing) alongside Rachel Price from Lake Street Dive, The Lone Bellow, Dierks Bentley, Sarah Jarosz, The Avett Brothers, and many many more of our favorite folks.
Live at Telluride – Chris Thile & Edgar Meyer (2014)
Check out that view! BGS & Mason Jar Music scoured the town of Telluride, Colorado to find this perfect beautiful spot for Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile to play “Why Only One?” during Telluride Bluegrass 2014, one of several jaw droopingly gorgeous videos from the series.
Live from Old Settlers Music Festival – The Earls of Leicester (2016)
It doesn’t get much more legit than The Earls of Leicester, the bluegrass supergroup organized by dobro-master Jerry Douglas. Here, the guys gather round some Ear Trumpet Mics to bring their traditional flair to a modern audience. One thing is for sure: those bow ties have never been cooler.
AmericanaFest UK – Birds of Chicago (feat. Allison Russell) (2019)
Folk duo Birds of Chicago (aka Allison Rusell and JT Nero) perform “Try a Little Harder” for BGS-UK’s first video series. This heartfelt performance was filmed at Paper Moon Vintage in Hackney, London, during AmericanaFest UK’s 2019 conference by Wonderscope Cinema.
Shout & Shine Online – Lizzie No (2020)
Harpist, songwriter, and Basic Folk co-host Lizzie No recorded the first of our Shout & Shine Online series, which comprises short-form, intimate video performances by underrepresented artists in Americana, folk, blues, and bluegrass.
Whiskey Sour Happy Hour – “The Weight” (Superjam, feat. Ed Helms) (2020)
Presented by our co-founder Ed Helms and the Bluegrass Situation, the superjam finale of the Whiskey Sour Happy Hour series features an all-star cast performing in their homes for a great cause. Thanks to the Americana Music Association, TX Whiskey, and Allbirds for their support in helping us raise over $75,000 towards pandemic relief
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