Tag: Eddie Adcock

22 Top Bluegrass Duos

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Everyone knows that in the early days of bluegrass, before that term was even coined, all you needed to make a “band” was two people and two instruments. Fiddle and banjo? Sure. But in those days, they’d take whatever they could get. Duos are still a strong presence in the music today, in brother/sibling duos, spouse-led bands, and legendary collaborations.

Check out these twenty-two bluegrass pairings — and their accoutrement — on BGS:

Bill & Charlie Monroe

Before Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass, made his indelible mark on the genre (quite literally giving it its name), he was already a popular performer with his brothers Charlie and Birch. Birch left The Monroe Brothers in the mid-1930s, and Charlie and Bill went on to enjoy success on the road, in the studio, and on the radio — until rising tensions and a fateful fight in 1938 caused them to split ways. But, without that fight, we may not have “bluegrass” at all.

Flatt & Scruggs

December 1945. The Ryman Auditorium. Nashville, Tennessee. Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys stepped on stage for the Grand Ole Opry with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs among their ranks for the very first time and bluegrass as we know it today was born. Flatt & Scruggs left Monroe in 1948 to join forces and went on to become one of the few ubiquitous, household names of bluegrass.

Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard

Undeniably trailblazers, Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard are widely regarded as the first women in bluegrass to capture the “high lonesome” sound popularized by Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, and others. They toured across the U.S., often supporting causes that benefited forgotten, downtrodden people from all backgrounds and walks of life. They were inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2017.

The Stanley Brothers

Natives of the music-rich southwest corner of Virginia, Carter and Ralph Stanley were prolific recording artists and touring musicians in bluegrass’s first generation. Countless songs written and/or popularized by the Stanley Brothers and their backing band, the Clinch Mountain Boys, are staples of the genre today. Carter passed in 1966 and Ralph continued until his death in 2016 with the Clinch Mountain Boys — who still tour today with Ralph’s son, Ralph II.

Don Reno & Red Smiley

Unsung trailblazers of the first generation of bluegrass pickers, Reno & Smiley were tireless innovators with a jovial, sometimes silly flair to their songs and instrumental prowess. Their duets are simply some of the best in all of bluegrass. The duo performed together off and on from the early 1950s to the 1970s — but both passed away much too young, Smiley in 1972 at the age of 46 and Reno in 1984 at the age of 58. Reno’s frenetic, electric and pedal steel guitar-infused licks remain unmatched in banjo picking today.

Jim & Jesse McReynolds

With matching suits and impeccable pompadours brothers Jim and Jesse McReynolds often brought rockabilly, rock ‘n’ roll, mainstream country and pop sensibilities to their take on sibling harmonies and bluegrass brother duos. Jesse’s crosspicking on the mandolin was — and continues to be — absolutely astonishing. Jim passed in 2002, Jesse continues to perform on the Grand Ole Opry to this day. At the time of this writing, he is ninety years old.

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum

Laurie Lewis often takes top billing — as leader of the Right Hands and before that, the Bluegrass Pals, and others — but since 1986 her musical partner Tom Rozum has almost constantly been at her side on the mandolin and harmonies. Their duo recording, The Oak and the Laurel, was nominated for a Grammy in 1995. Here is the album’s title track:

Bill Monroe & Doc Watson

What is there to say? Two of the folks who paved the way for this genre, laying a foundation so strong and far-reaching that we still can’t fully comprehend its impact. Bill and Doc collaborated on more than one occasion and we, as fans and disciples, are lucky that so many of these moments are captured in recordings and videos.

Del McCoury & David “Dawg” Grisman

At face value, an unlikely combo, but their friendship goes back to the early 1960s and their musical endeavors together began soon after. As Del slowly but surely became a bastion for traditional bluegrass aesthetics applied broadly, Dawg embraced jammy, jazzy, new acoustic sounds that sometimes only register as bluegrass-adjacent because they come from the mandolin. Opposite sides of the same coin, their duet makes total sense while at the same time challenging everything we think we know about the music. In this clip, Dawg sings tenor to Del — not many would be brave enough to try!

Ricky Skaggs & Keith Whitley

They got their start together in the Clinch Mountain Boys with Ralph Stanley, making some of the best recordings in the history of the band’s many iterations. Before they both struck out on wildly successful, mainstream careers they recorded a seminal duo album together, Second Generation. It remains one of the most important albums in the bluegrass canon — especially as far as duos/duets go.

Norman & Nancy Blake

Norman is well known for his flatpicking prowess, which has graced recordings by John Hartford, Bob Dylan, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and so many others. He and his wife, Nancy, were married in 1975 after having begun their musical forays together a year or so earlier. Nancy’s command of many instruments — cello, mandolin, and fiddle among them — balances neatly with Norman’s jaw-dropping, singular style on the flattop. Their inseparable harmonies and timeless repertoire are merely icing on the cake.

Jimmy Martin & Ralph Stanley

How their first album together, First Time Together (cough), is not more well-known is truly impossible to understand. The King of Bluegrass and the Man of Constant Sorrow twining their extraordinary voices must have been ordained by a higher power. It’s a good thing they answered the call. Be careful, Jimmy’s percussive G-runs feel like a slap in the face — in the best way.

Darrell Scott & Tim O’Brien

Their live albums together and their co-written masterpieces belong in every museum and shrine to roots music around the world. Both of these triple threat (Quadruple? Quintuple? When do we stop counting?) musicians are rampantly successful in their own right, but together they are simply transcendent. Their cut of “Brother Wind” deserves a listen right this instant and “House of Gold” gives you the harmony acrobatics gut punch you need every time. It was nearly impossible to choose just one, but here’s a hit that was recorded once by a little group called the Dixie Chicks.

Ricky Skaggs & Tony Rice

Again, words fail. Skaggs & Rice is a desert island record. Each and every time these two have graced a recording or a stage together, magic has been made, from their days with J.D. Crowe & the New South and on. We only wish that they could have done more together.

Vern & Ray

Vern Williams and Ray Park were California’s original bluegrass sons. Though they were both born and raised in Arkansas, they relocated to Stockton, California, as adults. They’re often credited with “introducing” bluegrass music to the West Coast. They disbanded in 1974 (both passed in the early 2000s), but their influence is palpable to this day, even if they’re sorely unheard of east of the Mississippi. This deserves correction! Immediately!

Eddie & Martha Adcock

Eddie is a pioneering banjo player who’s a veteran of both Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys and The Country Gentlemen, two decidedly legendary and influential acts. His style is somewhat wacky, certainly singular, but effortlessly bluegrass and traditional as well. He married Martha in the late 1970s and the pair have toured prolifically as a duo. In 2008, Eddie underwent brain surgery to correct debilitating hand tremors. He was kept awake, playing the banjo during the procedure — and there is jaw-dropping film of this online!

Dailey & Vincent

When Dailey & Vincent burst onto the scene in the mid-aughts after both having notable careers as sidemen, the bluegrass community rejoiced at the reemergence of a wavering art form within the genre — traditional duo singing. However, Jamie and Darrin, whether they knew it at the time or not, had their sights set much higher. Now more of a full-blown stage show than a bluegrass band, their recordings and concerts are a high-energy, charismatic, and downright entertaining mix of classic country, Southern gospel, quartet singing, and yes, bluegrass.

Kenny & Amanda Smith

Husband and wife Kenny and Amanda first recorded together in 2001, going on to win IBMA’s Emerging Artist of the Year award two years later. They’ve now cut eight albums together, all clean, clear, crisp modern bluegrass that centers on Amanda’s impossibly bright vocals, which maintain a personal, country hue alongside Kenny’s fantastic flatpicking. SON!

Tom T. & Dixie Hall

Two of the most recent inductees into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, Tom T. and Dixie Hall wrote hundreds and hundreds of songs cut by country, bluegrass, and Americana artists alike. Tom T.’s reputation and chart-topping originals tend to eclipse Dixie, but he is unyielding in his efforts to point that same spotlight at his beloved wife instead, who passed away in 2015. Though she never performed — definitely not to the extent that Tom T. did — the marks she left on bluegrass, country, and her partnership with her husband are indelible. This number was co-written by the pair:

The Louvin Brothers

Recipients of IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award in 1992, the Louvin Brothers are another example of early bluegrassers who enjoyed the amorphous, primordial days of the genre before it became more and more sequestered from mainstream country and country radio. Their duets are iconic, with counter-intuitive contours and lines that bands and singers still have difficulty replicating to this day. Their most famous contribution to the American music zeitgeist, though, might not be their music, but the spectacular cover art for their 1959 album, Satan Is Real. If you haven’t seen it, Google it right now.

Delia Bell & Bill Grant

Natives of Texas and Oklahoma, respectively, Delia Bell and Bill Grant met through Bell’s husband, Bobby, in the late 1950s. Between their band, the Kiamichi Mountain Boys, and their duo project they recorded more than a dozen albums together through the 1980s. Famously, Emmylou Harris became a fan when she heard their cut of “Roses in the Snow,” which Harris went on to record on her eponymous bluegrass record. Bell died in 2018.

The Osborne Brothers

Though they popularized a style of three-part harmony that had never been heard before — the infamous “high lead” harmony stack — their band, no matter who it may have included over the years, was undeniably helmed and anchored by Bobby and Sonny. (Which does explain the name.) You may remember “Rocky Top” and “Ruby” first and foremost in their discography, but the hits they’ve contributed to the bluegrass songbook are innumerable. Here’s one such classic.

High Fidelity: A Natural Feel for Traditional Bluegrass

Posted on by Editor

It must be closing in on ten years since I first met Corrina Rose Logston Stephens, when she and I were both recruited into Retro & Smiling, a band devoted to the musical legacy of first generation Bluegrass Hall of Famers Don Reno and Red Smiley and their Tennessee Cut-Ups. Soon after that, the southwest Illinois native entered the music business program at Nashville’s Belmont University and began to establish herself as a formidable talent in the city’s bluegrass community.

In 2014, while working with a variety of bluegrass acts, including pioneering mandolinist (and Hall of Fame member) Jesse McReynolds, she and a couple of favorite colleagues—multi-instrumentalists Jeremy Stephens (whom she married that April) and Kurt Stephenson—did a little recruiting of their own in order to enter the long-running band competition at the Society for the Preservation of Blue Grass Music in America’s annual confab. With the addition of yet another multi-instrumentalist, Daniel Amick, and bassist Vickie Vaughn, High Fidelity won the contest, and a self-released album followed in 2016. The next year, the quintet signed with Rebel Records, and has now released their label debut.

Hills And Home is a stunning collection that, perhaps more than any other self-described traditional project, reveals the breadth of bluegrass music’s early years; it even features twin banjos, a rarity last featured a decade ago on Tony Trischka’s award-winning Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular, but once favored by artists like the Osborne Brothers and Eddie Adcock & Don Reno. And while there are a few familiar numbers, much of the album consists of relatively obscure works, like the Lilly Brothers & Don Stover’s “I Would Not Be Denied,” all rendered with an exquisite attention to detail that amplifies, rather than stifles, the fresh and compelling energy of High Fidelity’s approach.

As an enthusiastic fan of Corrina’s playing, I was curious to know whether she was wholly devoted to older styles of bluegrass, or whether the originality that was at the center of her senior thesis recording was still on her mind—and that’s where our conversation began.

You made an album of your own while you were at Belmont called Wind Caught My Bike, that was mostly originals written and played in a contemporary vein. And your album after that, Bluegrass Fiddler, was traditional. So are you still writing in a less traditional, more contemporary vein?

I am, I definitely am. But being a stylist in the sense of being able to separate styles and articulate those styles accurately has always been important to me, and something that I’ve admired. The person who I’d say is my biggest mentor, Jim Buchanan, he’s excellent at doing that; he can play like Jascha Heifetz, and then play Stéphane Grappelli, and then play some hoedown—and it all sounds different. Seeing that, being around people like him and Jeremy and Kurt made me want to do that. I wanted everything I did to be authentic, and only when I wanted to blend them, then I wanted that to happen; I didn’t want to be some mish-mash of things just because of my carelessness. But when I write, it’s just an outflow of [who] I am—a combination of all those influences. And there are no limitations on it, unless I want there to be.

Many of the musicians featured on the Bluegrass Situation are very eclectic, and it feels natural for these musicians to take elements from different kinds of music and put them together. And what I hear you saying is that you’re oriented more toward feeling that you want to be respectful of the integrity of a style; that’s what I hear you saying when you talk about being authentic. It’s a way of putting yourself into, rather than drawing from, that style. What’s attractive about that for you?

I am extremely detail-oriented. Everybody has to reign me in! So I think, why does this sound like this era of bluegrass and this person playing it, and why does that not necessarily. And if I want to convey a sound, then I have to abide by its specifics. I feel there’s a lot of power in being able to understand and articulate those things. You have people like Chris Thile, who understand those things and choose to put them together—as I do, in different situations—but I was always attracted to the first generation stuff, just probably because of how I grew up. And as I became closer friends with Kurt and Jeremy—I was 14 when I started playing in 2004, and I met Kurt in 2007 and Jeremy in 2009, and we were friends before we got serious dating—I saw them being able to segment that stuff, and that was always appealing to me.

High Fidelity is doing all old songs, but they’re by artists who sounded different from each other. Where do you locate yourselves between reinterpreting the song, which could be anything, and recreating the record?

I think the biggest thing is that there’s no formula, it’s all a feel thing. Somebody said—it could have been Chris Thile—that if you want to copy somebody, you should try it and see what happens, because you’re not going to end up sounding exactly like them. I, and I’m sure Kurt and Jeremy, have been in that place where you’re thinking, “I’m going to sound exactly like them.” Which is way harder than just saying, “Oh, this sounds like that to me.” So in High Fidelity, when we do “I Would Not Be Denied,” I’m not trying to sound exactly like the Lilly Brothers, or sing exactly like them, but I listen to what they’re doing, and I pull the highlights out of it.

High Fidelity’s sort of the convergence of that with many other added things, because Daniel and Vickie come from totally different places. Kurt and Jeremy and I grew up listening to it, and then Daniel and Vickie grew up listening to and playing music, too, but not the dyed-in-the-wool traditional bluegrass. And so they pull things out of different places. I think it’s a natural process, where you take in those influences, but you don’t obsess over sounding exactly like them, but you allow them to inform what you’re doing—and with your own constraints imposed of what you believe traditional bluegrass from that era sounds like, then something comes out that’s really interesting.

I feel blessed that High Fidelity has found this in a really natural way. I’ve never tried to sound like a man when I’m singing, but I listen to the timbre of the tenor singers’ voices, and I see that I need to push more with High Fidelity—much more than I do when I do my own thing. When I do my own thing, it’s just a natural outflow. So what ends up happening is that I don’t sound like I’m trying to sound like a man, but I’m trying to tap into the essence of bluegrass tenor singing. And then people are like “whoa, this is a girl singing this,”—and there are lots of things in High Fidelity that are interesting elements. Like when you look at a picture of us and then you listen to the music, there are some mind things that happen!

You’re strong in your faith, and in your musical preferences, and yet you guys are very much a part of a bigger musical and social community that’s built around bluegrass and the like.

Musically, that doesn’t ever seem like it’s an issue, because we each have a very diverse palette of what we like. Kurt plays with his wife, Andrea, and they do much more contemporary music—and of course, the things that I do are off the spectrum of insanity! Jeremy is also really rooted in old-time music, and he’s done a lot of commercial stuff with Ray Stevens, and things like that. I think there’s a stigma of, if you’re a traditional band, you don’t like any of that other stuff. But that’s not us at all. We went and played ROMP last year, and that was awesome; we didn’t feel weird there. We were proud and honored to be ambassadors for traditional music that day. So I don’t think we feel awkward about that; we love all these things.

And as far as our faith is concerned, the fact that we are all Christian people was just a coincidence that happened in putting the band together, and it was really cool. Because we were, wow, we can all approach these songs of the same mind. Which, other than Jeremy working with the Chuck Wagon Gang, is something that we had never really experienced in bluegrass band situations.

So the fact that we’re all Christians, and our example is Jesus…Jesus was out there doing stuff with everyone. There was nobody that was off-limits to him. And he said to go out there in the world and do stuff; be an example. That is a motivator for us, because we see ourselves as being a young traditional band, that are Christian, that are out there doing what we feel we’re called to be doing—being out there in the world. That’s what we feel the Bible says we’re supposed to do. So none of that ever really feels awkward as far as being part of the greater music community.

What do you guys hope that releasing this record will do for you?

The cool thing is that we started off doing what High Fidelity does because we just wanted to do it. We didn’t care what anyone thought. We thought it would be a sideline, cool, fun project, a recreational thing to supplement our musical endeavors. We never thought we were going to have a second record. And then people responded to it, and Rebel Records approached us, and we were like, wow, maybe we should do this.

Believe it or not, we had an existential crisis before this record. We felt like we’d pulled all the stops for the first one. Jeremy had had his little keepsake pile of songs forever, and he was like, “I’ve used all the gems, what are we going to do?” So we got to digging through stuff, and we amassed a bunch of stuff and sorted through it.

I say all that to say, we’ve really come with no expectations but to do what we wanted to do. And we’re satisfying ourselves musically in that way. One thing we never really focused on was putting ourselves out there. That’s always the burden of the musician, to have to do the business things. I love independently releasing things, and that’s very satisfying, but I know there’s a lot of things that come with having a record company behind you. Rebel has been amazing and I’ll never look at any of this the same way again. So I hope that the record gets us out there for people to know who we are, and I hope High Fidelity continues being a thing that grows. Before, it was a sideline thing, but it never stayed there. It just went like a rocket ship, and I hope the trajectory continues.

Photo credit (lead image): Warren Swann
Photo credit (within story): Russ Carson

 

WATCH: High Fidelity, “The Hills and Home”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: High Fidelity
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “The Hills and Home”
Album: Hills And Home
Release Date: Aug 3, 2018
Label: Rebel Records

In Their Words: “The Country Gentlemen’s Starday cut of ‘The Hills and Home’ is one of my favorite recordings. I first heard the song maybe 15 years ago and it just blew me away. To me, the song was unique in that it was a trio throughout, with powerful harmonies from Charlie Waller, John Duffey, and Eddie Adcock. I was also taken by Eddie’s banjo playing on the recording. His second solo emulated a steel guitar, which I found to be very fascinating. The song itself is wholesome, with a positive message about home and family. When searching for material to record on our new album, ‘The Hills And Home’ was the first song that I thought of. I felt that it would be a good fit for the group. The song lends itself to who we are striving to be as a band, both in style and in the values we hold dear.” — Kurt Stephenson, High Fidelity

Photo credit: Russ Carson

8 Legendary Artists on Our Bluegrass Bucket List

Posted on by Editor

It was 2012 which taught me that, even though bluegrass is a relatively young genre, I was taking that young age for granted. In just a few months, both Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson passed away before I had gotten the chance to see either of them live in concert. Being a banjo player, I was especially broken-hearted over never having met Earl and thanked him for everything he gave me, indirectly, via the banjo. Even though I resolved to catch shows by as many living legends as possible after that particularly devastating year, I have not done well enough. In order to learn from my personal shortcomings, here’s a list of the legends that we all simply must see and hear as much as we possibly can. There’s no time like the present.

Curly Seckler

Chances are, if you’re listening to a recording of Flatt & Scruggs, you’re hearing Curly Seckler sing the tenor. His singing and mandolin graced more than 100 songs during his tenure with the Foggy Mountain Boys. In the ’70s, he joined Lester Flatt’s Nashville Grass and inherited the act after Lester passed on. After retiring more than 20 years ago, he continued to release albums and appear as a guest with nearly every bluegrass band of note, on stage and in the studio. He’s a Bluegrass Hall of Famer, an IBMA Award Nominee, and one of the last surviving members of the first generation of bluegrass.

Mac Wiseman

AKA “the Voice with a Heart,” Mac Wiseman got his start with Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, and went on to join Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys before setting out on his own, carving out a solo career that continues to this day. Though he’s currently 91 years old, he just released a musical memoir, I Sang the Song (Life of the Voice with a Heart), on Mountain Fever Records and he has hundreds more songs backlogged for future release. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Bluegrass Hall of Fame inductee rarely performs these days, but musicians, writers, and fans continue to make the pilgrimage to his home just outside of Nashville where he holds court from his armchair — and still does his own vacuuming.

Jesse McReynolds

With his brother Jim, Jesse McReynolds toured and recorded some of the best brother duo bluegrass music ever created. A tireless innovator, Jesse has recorded an album of Chuck Berry covers, a Grateful Dead tribute album, and even appeared on the Doors’ Soft Parade. Lucky for all of us, Jesse still tours, playing festivals and concerts around the Southeast. He also performs quite frequently on the Grand Ole Opry and is the Opry’s oldest member. At 87 years old, he’s still got it — and you need not take our word for it, just catch him tearing through “El Cumbanchero.”

Eddie Adcock

Eddie Adcock is one of the wackiest, most joyful, ingenious banjo players to have graced bluegrass music with his playing. He, too, spent a stint playing with the Blue Grass Boys and went on to join the Country Gentlemen. He toured as a solo act with his wife, Martha, for many years. Their annual benefit concert for Room in the Inn, a homeless shelter network in Nashville, is always a highlight of the Christmas season. It’s worth attending just to catch Eddie, but the lineup is usually brilliantly star-studded. Interesting tidbit: Eddie had brain surgery to correct debilitating hand tremors and was kept awake during the surgery so he could play banjo and the doctors could determine to what extent they could eliminate the tremors. There’s video of this. Go find it.

Bobby Osborne

At 85 years old and after more than 60 years of performing professionally, Bobby Osborne filmed his first music video for “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You,” the single off his brand new record, Original. That’s right, it’s a bluegrass Bee Gees cover. And it isn’t the only surprising cut on the new record, either. There’s “They Call the Wind Maria” from the Broadway musical Paint Your Wagon and Elvis’s “Don’t Be Cruel.” The record plays like a walk back through Bobby’s — and the Osborne Brothers’ — highly influential career in bluegrass, country, and the folk revival. You can catch Bobby touring across the country with the Rocky Top X-press and on the Grand Ole Opry. It might be the only context in which you hear Rocky Top without being mad about it.

Larry Sparks

Larry Sparks got his start with the Stanley Brothers in the early 1960s and, after Carter Stanley passed away, he became lead vocalist, singing some of Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys’ most iconic songs. His own band, the Lonesome Ramblers, continues to carry the torch for traditional, straight-ahead, no-nonsense bluegrass music, but without the hubris and self-righteousness that these uncompromising bands sometimes espouse. Larry was inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 2015 and he is a two-time winner of IBMA’s Male Vocalist of the Year award. He’s still going strong with nary a sign of stopping. You need to do yourself a favor and see him live.

Roland White

Too often eclipsed by the fame and influence of his late brother, Clarence, Roland White is the quintessential bluegrass living legend. He appeared on the Andy Griffith Show with his brothers in its first season, he performed with the Kentucky Colonels, the Country Gazette, and the Nashville Bluegrass Band, and he founded the Roland White Band in 2000, after nearly 60 years in the industry. He recently turned 79, but he still teaches at camps and workshops, tours across the country, and plays monthly at the World Famous Station Inn in Nashville. Over the past few years, he’s re-released two live albums by the New Kentucky Colonels: Live in Sweden 1973 and Live in Holland 1973. These recordings should be required listening. Go get them.

Norman Blake

Do you know what Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Joan Baez, John Hartford, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Tony Rice, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, and Inside Llewyn Davis have in common? Norman. Blake. To call his guitar playing “iconic” would be sorely understating it. His influence reaches beyond bluegrass to almost any player who has ever picked up a flat-top box, whether those players know it or not. His latest record is Brushwood (Songs & Stories), recorded with his wife and longtime musical partner, Nancy. It’s a folk album that channels the roots of the music, but with a political bent that’s as unapologetic as it is classically folk.

Eddie Adcock photo by Eddie Janssens. All photos courtesy of the artists.