Tag: fiddle

BGS 5+5: Rachel Baiman

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Rachel Baiman
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Latest album: Thanksgiving EP
Label: Free Dirt Records
Personal nicknames: “Baimo” (from my guitar player Cy)

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

Literature is a big influence on my writing. One of the first songs I wrote, “Weight of the World,” is based on an amazing scene from the book Cold Mountain. While I’m driving I like to listen to The New Yorker Fiction podcast; short stories are great for writing songs because they are small windows into a particular scene, situation, or world – kind of the same amount of story that you can fit into a song.

“Throw Away the Moon,” a song I wrote with Caroline Spence, is based on a crazy short story I listened to in which the people had decided that the moon was looking too old and scuffed up, so they got a crane to take it out of the sky and replaced it with a new, shinier model. Poetry is big for me, too. I’ve written two songs based on poems: Sylvia Plath’s “Mad Girl’s Love Song” and Ishmael Reed’s “When I Die I Will Go to Jazz.” Reading fiction helps me to see the world around me as a million different stories and characters, to hear phrases and thoughts as song lyrics.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I was just reminded of this great stage memory from a show I did in Washington DC many years ago with Christian Sedelmyer as 10 String Symphony. We were in the middle of a song on which Christian sang the lead vocals. Suddenly he starts hacking and coughing…misses half the verse and finally we finished the song. Christian said to the audience, “I’m so sorry, there must have been some dust on this mic or something,” and the whole audience yells out, “It was a moth!” So he had swallowed an entire moth in the middle of the song. We told that story fondly for many subsequent shows.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

I have a pretty strict tour regimen. When I’m touring my own trio I have to be really careful with myself to make sure that I can operate at 100 percent and play a good show every night. I’m in charge of everything–schedule, driving, booking accommodation, writing set lists, selling merch, making sure everyone is well-fed and in a good mood–so it feels a little bit like being an endurance athlete.

I don’t drink almost at all on tour. I don’t even drink coffee unless it’s one of those three-hours-of-sleep nights and I really need it. I stick to green tea. I try to get plenty of sleep, go running every other day, and eat a ton of Rx bars. Then when I get home I feel like I can relax and party a little bit. I generally party a lot more at home than I do on the road, which is probably not what most people would expect.

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

An awesome pairing of food and music can be found at Plaza Mariachi in Nashville. My friend Alexa Voytek introduced me to this spot; she’s always got her finger on the pulse of something really interesting and fun. Plaza Mariachi is big, open-court mall celebrating Latin American culture. There are tons of great food stands, bars, and in the middle of the mall, traditional music and dancing. Friday is Mexican cowboy night and you can bet it’s a hell of a time.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

I don’t usually hide the “me” because I think it’s all too obvious to the people for whom it would matter, but I have definitely written songs about other people and tried to hide it. I think that all songwriters do, we have to write about emotional situations, and you can’t always say to people what you actually think about their lives, nor would they want you to.

Sometimes you write about somebody as you see it, and you could be completely wrong, but it still makes for a great song. At the end of the day, the feelings are merely fuel for the creative process. The song goes through so many iterations and then it becomes a piece of art all on its own. It shouldn’t really matter who it’s about or how accurate it is to that person, but rather how it rings true as a song or statement of its own.

Photo credit: Gina Binkley

Kenny Baker, “Frost on the Pumpkin”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Look, it’s October. We’re well into it, really. It’s the season of leaf-peeping, big and cozy sweaters, apple-flavored everything, and complaining about those who do or don’t enjoy a pumpkin spice coffee drink. But somehow, here at BGS South in Nashville and across the country from Oakland to Chicago to Miami the oppressive heat and generally obstinate weather of summer refuses to cede its ground to bonfires, apple pies, and hayrides.

So, while we wait for the ever-warming climate to give in, allowing us perhaps one or two enjoyable weeks of late-harvest vegetables, dazzling colors, warm waning light, and a slight nip in the air (before a brown, muddy winter), Kenny Baker’s “Frost on the Pumpkin” will have to get us in the mood. It’s like an immersive auditory candle, bringing our favorite time of year wafting on the swampy, 90 degree breeze. It reminds of a barn dance, insulated with bales of straw and heated with warm, dancing bodies — and maybe some whiskey in the cider and nog.

After all, what’s more autumnal than a resonant, warm, ruddy-sounding fiddle, played at the perfect happy-medium dancing speed by one of the most down home, soulful pickers to ever pick up a bow? Well, actual autumn might be. But for now, “Frost on the Pumpkin” will have to suffice. And if, wherever you are, this tune isn’t just a harbinger of our favorite season, but a soundtrack, will you send some of that crisp air our way? We could use a little frost on our pumpkins…

Curtis McPeake, “Leather Britches”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

There’s a beauty in the timelessness of bluegrass. It facilitates spaces where the youngest prodigies and the most traveled, veteran virtuosos intermingle with ease. The genre is young enough that a few of its trailblazers are still among us, and stories of the legendary architects of the form are still told firsthand. The 90-year-old banjo player and recording artist Curtis McPeake is a testament to that timelessness. His career began seventy years ago; in his early days he performed and recorded with Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys. He later became the only banjo player to ever be a member of the Grand Ole Opry house band and he was also an in-demand session musician, appearing on records by country stars like George Jones and Melba Montgomery. So the fact that McPeake has been named a recipient of one of 2018’s Distinguished Achievement Awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association should come as no surprise.

But, McPeake will not be accepting the award from retirement — he still picks the banjo as fine as ever, he also buys and sells instruments, and he continues to record and perform. Earlier this year he and his collaborator, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Andy May, released a full-length album, The Good Things (Outweigh the Bad). On its final track, “Leather Britches,” you can hear that same timelessness in McPeake’s duet with Nashville stalwart fiddler Aubrey Haynie. They kick the tune with fiddle and banjo only, showcasing that classic pre-bluegrass format, Haynie fiddling fantastically far and wide while McPeake holds it all together with his three-finger roll, seventy years in the making.

WATCH: The Earls of Leicester, ‘Long Journey Home’

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Earls of Leicester
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Long Journey Home”
Album: The Earls of Leicester Live at The CMA Theater in The Country Music Hall of Fame
Release Date: Sept. 28
Label: Rounder Records

In Their Words: “In the bluegrass canon, the song ‘Long Journey Home’ has appeared under many alternate titles for different artists. Yet I’ve always felt Earl Scruggs’ banjo raised the Flatt and Scruggs version to a higher level. When planning our live record, we wanted to have a few fast tempo songs that we could count on to raise the blood pressure for both the listeners and our own. The tempo and fire that this song brings through Charlie Cushman’s banjo as well as Shawn Camp and Jeff White’s vocals made it an easy choice, and a welcome new entrant into the Earls repertoire.” – Jerry Douglas

Photo credit: Patrick Sheehan

Mark O’Connor, ‘Pickin’ In The Wind’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Mark O’Connor comes about as close to being a household name as any musician in bluegrass (and its adjacent genres). Because bluegrass is predicated upon instrumental skill, the origin point of O’Connor’s recognition will always be his virtuosity, his musical expertise, and his command of his instrument. He’s a true master of bluegrass fiddle and contest fiddle forms, he’s a trailblazer in fiddle-flavored classical compositions of all manners and sorts, his musical code-switching extends to jazz, gypsy jazz, and swing, and he is pervasive on recordings and sessions from his years spent in Nashville. He even has his own violin and fiddle curriculum, The O’Connor Method, which pedagogically capitalizes on and celebrates American music, rather than Western European music, as usual.

Yet, no matter the level to which he transcends any/all musical barriers or the ubiquity of his name and brand, many folks don’t know he’s a maddeningly adept guitar player as well. In his youth, as he racked up wins at fiddle contests far and wide, he was also taking home flatpicking trophies with the same bravado. On his iconic 1976 album, Pickin’ In The Wind, the title track and the first tune on the record opts not to showcase his signature fiddling, but rather his guitar picking — backed up by a band that is no less than jaw-dropping: John Hartford on banjo, Sam Bush on mandolin, Norman Blake on dobro, Roy Huskey Jr. on bass, and Charlie Collins on the rhythm guitar. The tune listens down as straight-ahead bluegrass, but with a chord progression and arrangement that never strays into the simplistic, thanks in part to O’Connor’s compositional taste and the supreme talent of his fellow musicians. It’s an O’Connor staple that doesn’t require a single bowstroke.

So, in celebration of O’Connor’s birthday (August 5), it seems appropriate that we shine a light on the guitar stylings and the unbelievable ensemble of “Pickin’ In The Wind.”

WATCH: Becky Buller & Sam Bush, ‘The Rebel and the Rose’

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Becky Buller
Hometown: St. James, Minnesota
Song: “The Rebel and the Rose”
Album: Crêpe Paper Heart
Label: Dark Shadow Recording

In Their Words: “’The Rebel and the Rose’ is a period piece, with its reference to a soldier and his love navigating love and loss amid the turmoil of civil war. It is also, however, a classic story about choices, desperation and hope … and the redemptive power of love. The tender message within is quite fitting for contemporary life; a commentary on things that tear us apart and things that bring us together … and how quite often, the tearing apart or joining together is a choice of the heart, separate from any issue. This song is special to me on so many levels, from writing it with my dear friend, Tony Rackley, to recording it with my hero, Sam Bush. The message of hope in this song is timeless; not one of us is so broken that love can’t mend us.” — Becky Buller

Photo credit: Shelly Swanger

WATCH: Lonesome River Band, “Wreck of My Heart”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Lonesome River Band
Hometown: Floyd, Virginia
Song: “Wreck Of My Heart”
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “It’s a great song with one of the coolest, catchiest melodies I’ve heard in a while. It’s just so different than anything we’ve done in a while, and those songs are hard to find. We shot the video in Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia at a few locations: The Birthplace of Country Music Museum and the Paramount Center for the Arts. We’ve played both those venues before. It was kind of neat to go back there and do something like that. The song is about a woman leaving, so we just kept singing to a woman who kept getting up and going. We all had fun and it shows at the end and when we’re on stage. We’re all just cutting up.” — Brandon Rickman

Photo Credit: Anthony Ladd

The Hit Points, ‘Guile’s Theme’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Bluegrass, as a genre, is built upon nostalgia. Especially in its contemporary iterations. Modern bluegrass plays like a primer of the form itself, referencing the genre’s founders, its historical moments, its popular songs, and all of its favorite themes and buzzwords, no matter how trope-ish — because nostalgia is a commodity.

But, what’s that sound? It’s not pining for the hills and home, it’s nostalgia for an entirely different time, place, and feeling. The feeling being a creeping dread at the inevitability of your loss at the hands of Ryu, E. Honda, or Chun-Li. The decadent, joyful nostalgia that The Hit Points — fiddler guru Eli Bishop (Lee Ann Womack, the Deadly Gentlemen) and banjo wizard Matt Menefee (Cadillac Sky, ChessBoxer) — conjure on their blazing cover of “Guile’s Theme,” from Nintendo’s iconic video game, Street Fighter, will send you careening back in time. You’ll land on a couch, or high pile carpet, or flimsy futon in front of a TV, where as youths (or as youthfuls), you consumed hours and hours of video game entertainment. And with it, you also consumed hours and hours of incredible music, without ever realizing that the otherworldly, impossibly complicated tunes could actually be performed by human beings. Let alone by bluegrass musicians, on bluegrass instruments, with such ease and aplomb that it would nearly strike listeners as just another new acoustic, Dawg-grass tune.

The Hit Points’ debut, self-titled project is chock-full of nearly note-for-note covers of 8-bit music, crafted with loving care and aggressive creativity — and surrounded by a talented cast that includes Jake Stargel (Mountain Heart), Sierra Hull, Royal Masat (Billy Strings), and Paul Kowert (Punch Brothers), it shouldn’t be a surprise. This is instrumental acoustic music and bluegrass pickin’ at its best.

LISTEN: Junior Sisk with Del McCoury, “The Guilt Was Gone”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Junior Sisk (with Del McCoury)
Hometown: Ferrum, Virginia
Album: Brand New Shade of Blue
Release Date: June 8, 2018
Label: Mountain Fever Records

In Their Words: “When I first heard the demo of ‘The Guilt Was Gone,’ Shawn Camp was singing the fire out of it! I thought to myself, ‘That sounds like a Del McCoury song if I ever heard one.’ Then I remembered asking Del if he’d sing a song with me some time and he said, ‘Anytime! Just holler.’ So, I did and here it is!” — Junior Sisk

Photo credit: Kady C. Photography

LISTEN: 10 String Symphony, ‘The Ballad of Bruno’

Posted on by Editor

Artist: 10 String Symphony
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “The Ballad of Bruno”
Album: Generation Frustration
Release Date: July 13, 2018
Label: Tasty Note Records

In Their Words: “‘The Ballad of Bruno’ was inspired by a children’s cartoon history show that Rachel happened to catch accidentally while on tour. The program told the story of an ancient philosopher named Bruno who had some very advanced and controversial ideas for his time. He was one of the first to argue that the universe was infinite, and that the earth was not, in fact, the center of the universe. He was imprisoned for his blasphemous ideas and eventually burned at the stake in Rome. Several real biographical situations make their way into the song, including his seven-year imprisonment in the Tower of Nona. As an ancient hero of critical thinking and free speech, we thought Bruno deserved a song. The chorus, spoken in Bruno’s voice, proclaims ‘I gave to them infinity and yet they were so daft, they crushed me between their fingers for what they could not grasp.'” — Rachel Baiman/Christian Sedelmyer

Photo credit: Gina Binkley