Tag: fiddle

A Role Model and Mentor, Laurie Lewis Still Seeks Out Bluegrass Masters (Part 2 of 2)

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Laurie Lewis’ new album, and Laurie Lewis, is as much a tribute to her strong relationships as it is to her musical talents. Featuring old friends like Kathy Kallick, Todd Phillips, and Tom Rozum, and younger collaborators like Tatiana Hargreaves, Molly Tuttle, and Leah Wollenberg, her embrace of great friends and great music is on full display. In the second half of our conversation, the IBMA Award-winning artist talks about her history in the Bay Area, her aspirations and challenges, and the things that give her joy.

Editor’s Note: Read part one of our BGS Artist of the Month interview with Laurie Lewis.

BGS: Years ago, you and Kathy Kallick gave bluegrass a female voice. Were you conscious of breaking barriers at the time? And are you aware of what a model you are to women our age?

I appreciate that in hindsight. In the moment, we were just trying to make the best music we could make together, and we were both in a musical community in the Bay Area that didn’t have the barriers that the outside world had for women in bluegrass. We were doing what we wanted to do, what was fun for us. And not thinking that it was the most special thing or groundbreaking or ceiling-shattering stuff.

It was when I started performing more outside the Bay Area that I began to realize that what we had been doing was unusual. But at that point, I was just headstrong and I was just going to do what I wanted to do and not be stopped. I had disdain for festivals that would only book one girl bandleader at a festival, while they would book 12 male bandleaders at a festival. It pissed me off, but it didn’t stop me. And things are still a little bit like that — it’s amazing how slowly things change.

Did you set out to mentor young women?

Life for me just sort of unfolds, and I have to say I don’t set out to do these things in advance. I didn’t decide, “Now that I’m a wise older woman…” to mentor younger people. What actually started it was when younger people started showing up at music camps. I was a little afraid of that, because most music camps I had been doing were with adults. And I was a little afraid of my ability to relate to and coach young people.

When I was first asked to teach at a fiddle camp specifically for young people, I was sort of daunted by it. But the relationships that grew out of that camp have been incredibly important to me. Tatiana was there — she also went to Bluegrass at the Beach when she was like seven, that’s when we met. And Emily Mann, who wrote one of the songs I sang with Molly, was a preteen at that camp.

It has been a thrill to watch them blossom. It has been so gratifying to me. I don’t have children, and that’s a choice on my part, but I really appreciate them. I really enjoy hanging out with them and being able to have them in my life. I didn’t decide to focus on young women, but I suppose just because I am a woman, that has happened. People want role models – to see someone who’s like them. I am more like a young woman than I am like a teenage boy!

Any comments about being a role model?

Well, I feel very, very grateful that that’s happened. I’m really just trying to do the best I can do and play what’s in my heart and express myself in the best way I can, which seems to be through music. I am very gratified that people see me as a role model. I have a feeling of responsibility about that — so I better not fuck up.

Why is teaching important to you?

I get very excited teaching about things that excite me. Music excites me, and I want to spread the gospel. I am evangelistic about things like Chubby Wise’s fiddle playing, and how his solos are the bedrock of bluegrass fiddling. Singing harmonies, and how to work on making a vocal blend, are is endlessly fascinating to me, so I like a chance to talk about it and explore it with other people.

It also helps me, because when I am teaching I go back to the masters and I listen again to things maybe I haven’t listened to in 10 years. I always hear new things and I always learn myself. It keeps the music fresh for me in that way. It’s not just a one-way street. Teaching’s definitely a two-way street.

Do you want to talk about your shyness? You’ve said you are incredibly shy, and yet when you are on stage you fill auditoriums with your presence and your energy. How does that work?

I’ve certainly conquered a lot of my shyness. Shyness is really fear-based. You have to learn to face your fears. And in many, many instances, by facing them they just melt away. They are like a wraith. They just go away. I have learned that over the years. I used to be afraid to talk on the phone. It was so hard for me to call people up and just be a regular person on the phone and have a one-on-one conversation. I made myself do it. I made myself get on stage. I made myself open up to an audience. Sometimes it’s easier to open up to an audience than it is to open up to three people in the room with you. Strength in numbers when it comes to shyness.

I was really shy — and I’m not so shy any more. I still very seldom will talk to strangers. I told Tom yesterday that I was on a hike, and I met this young man and we talked a whole lot (this guy was named after Superman’s father, Jor-El). Tom said, “How did you start talking to him?” And I said, “I don’t know, it was a beautiful day….” and Tom said, “This is so unlike you.” It is unlike me that I would talk to a stranger, but we had a very great conversation. It turns out we were both born in Long Beach, we have a lot in common. … I’m still breaking down my barriers. By the time I’m 90 I’ll be talking to anybody and everybody. You won’t be able to shut me up.

How is today feeling for you? You have this great new album – and the world is upside down.

It’s frustrating, but — it’s just my own little personal problem. It’s really too bad, but so many people are suffering so much right now. I don’t have it in me to be all upset about it being a bad time for me. The album will still be here, the music will still be here when the virus has run its course. The virus is not going to kill my music.

How are you keeping your spirits up?

I go up into the hills and I walk. And right now it’s springtime, it is so beautiful. The world is just so gorgeous. There are wildflowers everywhere. If you can get out into nature, it is the most healing balm that I know of, and that’s what works for me. It makes the human problems seem so small, and it connects me to the universe. It takes me outside of myself.

What’s next for you?

I’m loving playing with the current Right Hands configuration: Brandon Godman on fiddle, Patrick Sauber on banjo and Haselden Ciaccio on bass (along with Tom). We’ve been planning a new album. We’ve got so many things we’re cooking up: new songs and old stuff that we’ve been doing. I feel like we need to have a record of how we sound together.

Do you have a special goal, something that you want to achieve that you haven’t done before? 

I would really love it if other people would sing some of my songs and make them part of the folk tradition. That would thrill me more than anything. I would like to get interviewed by Terry Gross. That would be pretty great! Of course, because I’ve been doing this for so long I would like to get broader recognition, but I’m fine with things the way they are. But mostly I’m just very, very grateful that I get to do what I want to do. I can put together a life out of it and I can keep playing. I’m in my 70th year. I just feel lucky.

Photo credit: Jeff Fasano

LISTEN: Nate Lee, “Love Medicine”

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Artist: Nate Lee
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Love Medicine”
Album: Wings of a Jetliner
Release Date: June 12, 2020
Label: Adverb Records

In Their Words: “’Love Medicine’ embodies all the things I wanted for Wings of a Jetliner — toneful players, exciting rhythm, meaningful lyrics, and songs that are brand new, or presented in a new way. From the beginning stages of planning the album, I wanted the instrumentalists to be the main event, with their solos heavily featured and not just an afterthought. Professor Dan Boner, who produced Wings of a Jetliner, is an accomplished instrumentalist himself and he really helped my vision come alive by creating an environment where everyone was comfortable trying new things and letting their ideas flow. Wyatt Rice, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Ned Luberecki, and Todd Phillips are world-class players, and trading solos with them was thrilling!

“My dear friend Chris Sanders, who wrote ‘Love Medicine,’ has a masterful grasp of chordal harmony and dissonance that perfectly supports the song’s message about addiction. Her harmonic choices, influenced by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, offer a perfect tonal palette for improvisation. Although ‘Love Medicine’ was written about addiction, the lyrics resonate with people who are in all kinds of tough situations. The first line is especially resonant during this time of social distancing: ‘Draw the line, close the door, ain’t gonna cross that threshold no more.'” — Nate Lee

Photo credit: Scott Simontacchi

On New Duet Album, Laurie Lewis Gathers Old Friends and Close Companions (Part 1 of 2)

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Laurie Lewis has lived most of her life in Berkeley, California, yet she’s primarily associated with music from Appalachia. A highly respected producer, she is admired equally for her singing, songwriting, fiddling and arranging, and her influences range from old-time and bluegrass to swing and jazz.

In 1986, Lewis released her first solo album, Restless Rambling Heart, which included seven original songs. Since then, she has recorded more than 20 albums with a variety of musical friends. She holds numerous honors from the International Bluegrass Music Association, as well as Grammy nominations for her own albums and collaborations.

Now nearly 35 years into her career, Lewis regularly pays tribute to female bluegrass pioneers, performs with and fosters a new generation of female musicians, and teaches at many of the nation’s most acclaimed music camps. BGS caught up with her by phone to discuss her new duet album, and Laurie Lewis, featuring old friends and new musical partners alike.

BGS: Why a duet album?

Lewis: It came about accidentally. I had an idea that I wanted to record a duet on (the Carter Family song) “You are My Flower.” Molly Tuttle and I got together to try it out and we had so much fun playing and singing that we went upstairs to my little studio. We turned on the microphones and just sang and played. It was so musically full, it didn’t need anything else. I thought, “Thank heavens, I have finally gotten around to singing this duet the way I’d wanted to for the last 20 or 30 years.” Then I got together with Tatiana Hargreaves. When we toured together, she and I worked up a tune I had written that she played on the fiddle, and I just loved that and I wanted to capture that. Then we got excited and did another song – and then I had three songs! I thought, “Maybe I’m making a duet album.”

Tom Rozum and I had worked out the Monroe Brothers’ version of “Will the Circle be Unbroken” for a Monroe tribute, and I just loved the way that sounded, and I thought we definitely should record that. It snowballed from there. I had lots of duet ideas where I thought a particular friend would be perfect on a particular song. So I went about collecting the versions of the songs. I recorded more things than are on the album. I have a few that are held back, just because I didn’t want it to be super-long and have people lose interest halfway through thinking they would never get to the end!

How did you decide to keep the instrumentation so spare – no more than two voices and two instruments?

After listening to what I recorded with Molly and Tati, I really liked what I heard. I fell in love with playing as a duet with Tom. We’re both essentially band musicians and used to having a whole band surrounding us, not just picking up the slack, but filling out the sound. When we started playing as a duo many years ago, it seemed really scary to both of us – and really empty. But we kept doing it, and I fell in love with the emptiness, that loose weave that you get with just two people and two instruments. And the way it becomes a conversation – my favorite way to have a conversation, just one on one.

How did you choose your partners and songs?

They’re all people who I have had long musical relationships or long friendships with. I’ve known Molly and Leah Wollenberg since they were babies. As the project went on, it felt as if these are some of my closest companions in life. These are the core people who have made a huge difference to my musical life in one way or the other

One of the last things I recorded for the album was “Old Friend” with Kathy Kallick. As the album started to take shape, I realized, “Oh my God, I have to have Kathy on here.” We have been singing partners and friends for more than 40 years. I just have to have her on here. But I couldn’t think of a song. The idea came to me as I was backpacking in the mountains: “‘Old Friend,’ of course!” It was recorded originally in 1989 and we’ve been friends much longer. It seemed like the perfect vehicle for us at this point.

Do you write specifically for an album, or do you just come up with songs, say, when you’re hiking, and then it shows up on an album?

Yes. I would say yes to both of those. For instance, I never expected “The Pika Song” [to end up] on the new album. I was just making up a little poem about pikas when I was hiking on the John Muir Trail. And then I was sitting around playing the banjo one day and I started singing it. When I mentioned it to Tatiana, she told me that some friend had just said that she thought the pika was [a perfect animal to match] Tati. She got really excited – she’d never seen one, but she got to hear all about them and play on the song and sing about them, so that was pretty fun.

Sometimes I will write things specifically for a group or for an album. I have lots of songs that I just don’t finish and sometimes the impetus of recording an album is what pushes me to commit to being done. So in that way I do write for albums. And sometimes just because the creative juices start flowing when you’re in a recording situation, a new song just comes along. And I’m grateful for that.

Did you choose songs that represented your own versatility?

Oh, no. I didn’t think about that. I really just thought about who was the right person to sing with on a particular song. Like the songs I did with Nina Gerber. There is nobody I would rather do certain songs with than Nina Gerber. “My Last Go Round” is a Rosalie Sorrels song. Nina worked closely with Rosalie and I got to play with her a few times. I recorded that song on a tribute album for Rosalie, and when we played the tribute concert, I played it for the first time with Nina. It felt so deep and healing. Music has a real way of being able to soothe and heal grief, and it really felt good to do it with her, and we’ve been doing it every time we play together since then. Nina’s electric guitar is the absolute perfect thing for “This is Our Home.” She fell right into it, just knew exactly what to play. She’s a mind reader.

Todd Phillips and I occasionally play “Baby, That Sure Would Go Good” in concert. We did it for years, but I never thought about recording it. When suddenly I was doing a duet album, I thought it would be perfect. And of course it was really fun. Todd’s bass playing is just out of this world. I mean that in every way you can think of. It’s crazy, but it’s great.

Tell us about “Troubled Times,” which is so appropriate right now. When you wrote it, were you thinking of something specific?

I wrote that about 20 years ago. I honestly cannot remember what inspired me to write it. It had some other verses, at least one other verse which I left out, because it wasn’t as good as the ones I used. I think it was politically motivated at the time, motivated to the outside world and my reaction to what was going on, but I can’t remember what specific event or events inspired it.

I had only performed with Leah Wollenberg once, at the Freight & Salvage, although I’ve known her all her life. One day I said to her, “Would you come over and sing one of my songs with me so I would have a recording of it”? I really didn’t know how it would go. So she came over and we recorded it. When I listened to it I said, “This is good! This is great!” So I asked her if she would be on the album. I think that I’ve just been sitting on that song waiting for the right combination of events, but also the right combination of voices to sing it with me.

Can you talk about the role of friendship in your music? You sustain such long-term friendships and musical partnerships. Is that unique to you?

I don’t think that’s unique to me. Musicians communicate very deeply through shared music. It’s impossible to play heartfelt music with other people without loving them, or at least learning to love them. And once you love somebody, you want to keep them in your life. So if there’s a problem, you work it out. You address it. You don’t let things go by and be on the surface. It’s what we do — we forge personal relationships that are strengthened through music, or are begun through music and continue past music.

Editor’s Note: Read part two of our Artist of the Month interview with Laurie Lewis.

Photo credit: Maria Camillo

LISTEN: Rod McCormack, “Fingerprints”

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Artist: Rod McCormack
Hometown: Terrigal, NSW, Australia
Song: “Fingerprints”
Album: Fingerprints
Label: Sonic Timber Records

From the Artist: “‘Fingerprints’ was written for my beautiful wife Gina. As I flew over to the States to record this album, she reminded my that I hadn’t written a love song for her yet — and after 20-odd years I thought it was about time. I was so glad to work with John Scott Sherrill on this song idea, and then to have Gina sing on it with me was a real treat. I really wanted ‘Fingerprints’ to have an Appalachian feel to it, and hearing the fiddle and banjo weave around the acoustic guitar still takes me back to our early years together. Along with the current single, ‘Shimmers,’ ‘Fingerprints’ is probably the most requested song from the album.” — Rod McCormack

Photo credit: Steve Kearney

WATCH: Becky Buller, “The Barber’s Fiddle”

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Artist: Becky Buller
Hometown: St. James, Minnesota; adopted hometown: Manchester, Tennessee
Song: “The Barber’s Fiddle”
Album: Distance and Time
Release Date: September 18, 2020
Label: Dark Shadow Recording

In Their Words: “This is a celebration of the fiddle and the glorious tradition of passing music down from one generation to the next. I co-wrote this with Lynda Dawson and it is inspired by three fiddling barbers, including Gene Boyd of the Star Barber Shop in Bristol, Virginia, and Bill Womack from Woodbury, Tennessee. The song features my fantastic band (the Becky Buller Band — myself, Nate Lee, Prof. Dan Boner, Ned Luberecki, and Daniel Hardin) along with these special guest singers and fiddlers: Jason Carter, Kati Penn, Sam Bush, Laurie Lewis, Shawn Camp, Laura Orshaw, Michael Cleveland, Jason Barie, Stuart Duncan, Johnny Warren (playing Paul Warren’s fiddle), Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Deanie Richardson, Tyler Andal, Brian Christianson, and Fred Carpenter.” — Becky Buller

Photo credit: Stephen Mougin

WATCH: Midnight Skyracer, “Average Faces”

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Artist: Midnight Skyracer
Hometown: Stroud, UK
Song: “Average Faces”
Album: Shadows on the Moon
Release Date: June 5, 2020
Label: Island Records

In Their Words: “I got the seed of inspiration for this song after overhearing a conversation outside a pub: a man’s futile attempts to chat up a woman starting with ‘I’m sure I know you from somewhere,’ with her response being ‘I don’t think so, I’ve just got one of those average faces.’ A couple of days later I wrote a rough outline of a chorus and a first verse and then roped in my twin sister (and guitarist in the band), Charlotte to help form it into a full song before sending it to the rest of the band.

“This one really came together in the studio when we added the drum track, the only part on the album not played by a band member. It was actually one of the very last things we did. We were in our final couple of hours at Real World Studios and had packed down all the mics and dividers we’d had set up for the week so that our brilliant engineer, Josh Clark, could get his drum kit set up. He was just about to go in for his first take when he smacked his head hard on one of the heavy counterweights used to balance the overhead mics. Josh may have been slightly concussed, but he nailed the part all the same!

“For the video for this song we had initially booked in to use quite a different venue, but having waited outside that one for an hour or so (eventually it turned out that the owner had had a family emergency and left their phone at home) Eleanor and Leanne started wandering about town asking in every pub, bar, and restaurant, if we could use their space to film a music video. The wonderful people at Cru Wines, Bradford on Avon, very kindly obliged and let us use their upstairs room for the day. We were all very good and held off drinking the delicious glasses of wine we used as props until we’d finished filming!” — Laura Carrivick (fiddle and dobro), Midnight Skyracer

Photo credit: Elly Lucas

Watkins Family Hour, “Bella and Ivan”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

“Bella and Ivan,” one of two instrumentals on our Artist of the Month Watkins Family Hour’s brand new LP, brother sister, begins with a folky, whirring Vitamix of notes. It’s a frenzied melody, one that allows the siblings’ bluegrass virtuosity to glint like a bright reflection off a sly smile. Sean’s aggressive, Tony Rice attack and the slight Celtic bounce of Sara’s bow are demonstrating that they, too, can accomplish the unlikely complicated ease of the duo’s tight, familial harmonies.

And they do. Ever since the first notes of Nickel Creek’s “Ode to a Butterfly” transformed an entire generation of listeners into bluegrass fans, Sean and Sara Watkins have been giving us these effortless-while-acrobatic instrumentals. Each one reminds us in its own way that no matter how far afield the pair may travel from their genre of origin, they carry it with them still — and can execute any of its aesthetics with immediacy and delightful, mocking aplomb. 

Named for a friend’s two dogs who love to wrestle, “Bella and Ivan” isn’t so much rough housing as it is a scripted, choreographed, pro fight. Their interplay is just as exciting to those of us who suspend disbelief as it is to those who don’t; the musical dialogue precariously and joyfully unfolds in a way that refuses to either feel rehearsed or totally off-the-cuff. 

In whatever iteration one encounters the music of Sean, Sara, and/or Watkins Family Hour, they’re giving listeners every last ounce of that ethereal “something” that sparked our love for them in the first place. While they constantly reinvent themselves and explore new sonic territories, somehow that “something” remains indelible. It’s just Sean and Sara Watkins.

Sara Watkins Wants Us to Ride Along on Watkins Family Hour’s ‘brother sister’

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Sara Watkins is up to something — or at least, there’s a pretty good chance she’s up to something. The singer/songwriter and fiddler first found international recognition with Nickel Creek, but these days she stays busy with a rotating lineup of other creative outlets, from her solo work (three albums and counting) to her harmony-singing supergroup, I’m With Her. Oh, and then there’s the raucous Watkins Family Hour, an act with her brother, Sean, that holds regular residencies at LA’s Largo with a delightfully irregular cast of collaborators liable to join them.

This time, though, they wanted to focus on the core of the group. Their new album, brother sister, marks the first time that the siblings have sat down to write together. “We were both in a place where we wanted to focus on the potential of the Family Hour in a different way, a totally new approach than what we’d done before,” says Sara. “Apart from a few shows every year, we had never really focused on just us — particularly in writing.”

BGS caught up with Sean and Sara individually to hear more about how brother sister came together. Read the interview with Sara below, and take a look at Sean’s interview from earlier this week.

BGS: This is your first album as Watkins Family Hour in five years. What made you decide to prioritize this particular project again?

Sara Watkins: The first record that we did was sort of an accident. We made it when our friend offered us some free studio time, just to document what we’d been doing for a while. That record was very natural arrangements to songs that we’d been playing for a long time, cover songs. It was about a year and a half ago when we started talking about doing this record. We were catching up on what we’d each been up to, and as we were talking — I don’t remember who suggested it first — it became clear that we were both really interested in digging into the potential of the Family Hour, but focusing on the core element that’s always been there, which is my brother and me. This record is the first example of our collaboration as co-writers outside of a band format. Maybe as a reaction to the first Family Hour album, but also as a reaction to being in the projects that we’ve been a part of, we wanted to really focus on the potential of this combination.

Is there something specific about writing with a sibling that is either a positive that can’t be replicated, or an obstacle you don’t face with other people?

I think that any time you can be completely honest or you communicate well, it plays to your advantage. I don’t know if it’s sibling-related. For the first twenty-seven years of my life, which was the first twenty years of my musical existence, we shared our musical experience pretty closely. Sean and I have the advantage of a shared foundation — a shared musical foundation, a shared personal foundation — but I think at this point in our lives, what made writing together intriguing is actually how much time we’ve spent apart.

Instrumental tracks are rarely the ones held up as singles or played on the radio, but they’re a huge part of the bluegrass tradition — and something you and Sean do really well. In the writing and recording process, where do you begin in expressing a feeling without lyrics?

Playing instrumentals scratches a specific itch for me. It’s less guaranteed [with an instrumental song] that someone’s gonna get the gist of what you’re saying, but I don’t know that that matters. Even with lyrics, Sean and I have found that we get different things out of the same song — more cynical for him and more optimistic for me, or vice versa. People might hear a lyric completely differently, and that doesn’t make it a failure of expression. Maybe that’s a success.

When I listen to instrumentals, I really enjoy things that I can grab hold of. I enjoy a melody or a hook that comes back around. And I enjoy feeling like I’m along for the ride as a listener: that the person who’s playing is taking me with them. Sometimes you can sense, when someone’s soloing, that they’re also along for the ride — that maybe they don’t know where it’s going. I think a lot of us get that from like a Dave Rawlings solo. That’s really exciting.

So I think that’s the goal, for me: to take the listener, give them enough to hold onto, and invite them along for the ride. When we’re writing an instrumental, we want to try and take somebody’s hand and bring them with us. Otherwise, they’re just listening to a flurry of notes.

The melody and cadence on “Fake Badge, Real Gun” could be just as at home in a pop song. What were you going for when you sat down to record?

Sean has a real knack for melodies that have a pop sensibility. He has a really great way of blending and marrying that with the foundation and the scope of his bluegrass background. I think he’s uniquely good at that. This song is really hard to sing. [Laughs] It’s probably the most challenging song that I sing. Because of where the melody goes in my register, I’m always just singing it with my fingers crossed.

We were consciously trying to satisfy what the song wanted, which was percussion and some low end, but we wanted to give that to the song in a way that didn’t make it feel detached from the record. We kept the drums tight and to one side, and gave it bass that wasn’t too percussive. Then, when we recorded some of the other songs on the record that are much quieter — like the Warren Zevon song, “Accidentally Like a Martyr” — we recorded to tape, and Clay [Blair], who was our mix engineer, hit the take really hard. That means there’s some distortion on the tape, but it gives it a presence that I think matches the intensity of the songs that have a bigger instrumentation.

“Neighborhood Name,” a song about gentrification by Courtney Hartman and Taylor Ashton, is a newer number that you decided to cover on this album. What drew you to it?

It speaks to what a lot of people are aware of and sensitive to right now, as the world is changing and neighborhoods are changing. Some of us don’t know what our place is in that and others are being pretty directly affected. It’s also something that has happened for generations. This song doesn’t put an ethical stamp on it, to my ear, as much as it just speaks to the relatability of the sadness of being displaced. In addition to that, it speaks to the question of wondering if anybody’s gonna remember you — if you made a mark at all. And that’s something that’s always relatable, to everyone.

The song I’ve listened to the most is “The Cure.” What does that song mean to you, specifically the phrase “I avoided the cure, but it found me anyway”? Does it have any special meaning?

Life has a way of being persistent in the lessons that you need to learn. We might procrastinate on things that we know are going to be valuable for us or to start things that might be beneficial. Life pokes and prods in a way that often will bring you to those places, whether you like it or not. It’s a funny thing that a lot of us are so reluctant to do the thing that we know is going to bring us the outcome we’re looking for. It’s a strange but calming phenomenon that I think a lot of us can relate to.

Absolutely. It’s kind of a hopeful message. What’s one thing that has made you feel hopeful recently?

That’s a hard question, not because I’m devoid of hope, but because you could be so pessimistic in so many ways: The resilience of nature gives me hope, but we’re also being so mean to nature, and maybe it’s not going to be resilient forever. One thing that I have been enjoying is a lot of family time lately. I think digging into relationships and feeling the invaluable place that relationships should have in our lives, remembering that, feeling attached to that in a new way has made me hopeful. I feel that there are a lot of people realizing that again, and I think that’s really good for the world.

(Read our interview with Sean Watkins here.)

Photo credit: Jacob Boll

WATCH: Mile Twelve, “Long Done Gone”

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Artist: Mile Twelve
Hometown: Boston, Masschusetts
Song: “Long Done Gone”

In Their Words: “Back in February we had a few days off the road and decided to spend one of them in Brooklyn, New York, playing music and making videos with some friends. We called up Michael Daves, Jacob Jolliff, and Tony Trischka and ended up having this epic afternoon of arranging a few bluegrass standards for eight people to jam on. Things got pretty wacky, including this video, which is a mashup of the bluegrass song ‘Long Gone’ and the fiddle tune ‘Done Gone.’ We decided to try this medley at first because we thought it would be funny but it turned out they’re both in the key of Bb and it ended up working great. Hope you enjoy!” — Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Mile Twelve

Photo credit: Kaitlyn Raitz

WATCH: The Slocan Ramblers, “New Morning”

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Artist: The Slocan Ramblers
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Song: “New Morning”
Album: Queen City Jubilee
Label: SloMusic

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘New Morning’ right after our second album Coffee Creek came out, and it came to me pretty quick. There’s this funny period after you put out an album — a moment of calm and then the crashing realization that it’s on to the next one. It’s that push to get back to work that got me writing again, and this song came out first. I was listening to Béla Fleck’s Tales from the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 2 endlessly around that time, so maybe you can find some bits of inspiration in there. Big thanks to Trent Freeman (check out his awesome band The Fretless) for the videography.” — Adrian Gross, The Slocan Ramblers

Photo credit: Jen Squires