It’s that time, when music writers everywhere are thinking and writing about the best of the year’s music, blurbing away for year-end round ups. (Speaking of, our BGS year-end picks will be unveiled next week.) While it’s right to view ranking, commodifying, and objectifying music with a degree of skepticism, there is certainly something constructive and generative about reflecting on the songs, albums, and performances that have stuck with us throughout a year. It’s especially illuminating when certain music immediately jumps out from the rest, requiring no particular organization or intention to be a constant presence throughout a year or to be remembered among the cream of the crop.
Tray Wellington Band’s cover of Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness” is one such song. When the group performed it earlier this year at FWAAMFest in Texas, it wasn’t the first time I had heard their rendition, but it was the first time I noticed an audience hearing it themselves for the first time. I was struck by the reactions, in a non-bluegrass audience they varied from utter shock to outright glee – even other bands and artists on the lineup were beside themselves, as Tray Wellington Band laid out their one-of-a-kind cover of such a recognizable melody. Later this year, I saw TWB perform again at Earl Scruggs Music Festival in Tryon, North Carolina, and yet again, down the road a handful of weeks later at IBMA’s Bluegrass Live! festival and conference in Raleigh. Each time, regardless of the audience’s starting point or their baseline understanding of bluegrass, of the banjo, of cover songs such as this, “Pursuit of Happiness” would generate electricity in the crowd.
There’s a reason why hearing a North Carolina-born, Raleigh-based (via east Tennessee) Scruggs-style banjo player’s take on “Pursuit of Happiness” reminds of Reno & Smiley performing Johnny Cash and Elvis hits and Flatt & Scruggs recording buckets of Bob Dylan songs. This is a tradition in bluegrass as old as the genre itself. Executed as artfully as this, it has the potential to bring countless new fans of string band music into the fold. That “Pursuit of Happiness” retains its impact, no matter the audience – thanks, in large part, to this band’s remarkable musicality as an ensemble – at bluegrass festivals, African American music festivals, or even in Earl Scruggs’ home county, speaks to that ineffable quality of this music that we all hold so dear. Sometimes, a bluegrass song just grabs you and it won’t let go. “Pursuit of Happiness” is destined to grab more than its own share of ears, and Tray Wellington and band deserve it and then some, for bringing this track to the world.
(Editor’s note: All inset photos by Carl Fleischhauer.)
In my previous memoir I described what I knew of Rusty York when Carl Fleischhauer and I arrived at his Jewel Recording Studios in Mt. Healthy, Ohio, on the afternoon of August 15, 1972.
We had walked into the midst of a recording session. In the studio was the Reverend Bobby Grove (née Musgrove), his wife Fayette, oldest son Bobby Junior (a drummer), some other friends, and five studio musicians – Eddie Drake, lead guitar; Junior Boyer, pedal steel; Bob Sanderson, bass; Jack Sanderson, rhythm guitar; and Denzil “Denny” Rice, piano.
L: Rusty York in the studio control room recording overdubs by Bobby Grove, seated. R: Bobby Grove during a recording session. At the Jewel Recording Studios in the Mt. Healthy suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, August 15, 1972.
Later I wrote in my notes:
Grove has made 35 LPs. Has a “club” – he mails out each record to a list of 10,000, with a request for a minimum contribution of $4.00.
Originally from Kentucky, the Groves now lived in Hamilton, Ohio, where Bobby had opened his own church about four years earlier. I noted:
Rusty makes up soundtracks for him from the LP masters which are minus the voice tracks – he uses these in personal appearances.
Bobby’s wife Fayette described this process to me. “Really cuts down on the expenses. He just takes the soundtrack along. It’s really marvelous,” she said.
The studio was probably about a fifty-foot square, with the master panel occupying a quarter, the studio space an “L” around it… In the recording room, where I set up my cassette (it looked ludicrous!), was an 8 track, a 16 track and a 2 track. The recording was being done on 8 tracks.
Recording session at the Jewel Recording Studios in the Mt. Healthy suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, August 15, 1972. At left, Bob Sanderson, bass guitar; right, singer Bobby Grove.Recording session at the Jewel Recording Studios in the Mt. Healthy suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, August 15, 1972. Performers shown here include Fayette Grove, Eddie Drake, Bobby Grove, Junior Boyer, and Bob Sanderson.
I ran the cassette intermittently trying to get snatches of conversation and brief interviews between phone calls, takes and visitors which never seemed to ruffle Rusty’s feathers. Obviously, he is a person of tremendous energy and talent, starting with his musical abilities (from rock to ‘grass) going to his present recording activities.
During this session Bobby had his bible tucked under his arm during every “take.”
After recording several songs, he asked Rusty: “Would it be all right, these next three songs, if I just sang the words — the country words — and then come in and do ‘em, like that? Then I’ll write ‘em. That way I’ll do something that we know real quick and we’ll just go through it and I’ll go home and write ‘em. And when I come in and mix it down just dub it in real quick?”
Rusty said, “Yeah that’s fine.”
During a break at a recording session at the Jewel Recording Studios in the Mt. Healthy suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, August 15, 1972. Rusty York, recording engineer; Bob Sanderson; Jack Sanderson. In the background, Eddie Drake.Tape box from the recording session for singer Bobby Grove at the Jewel Recording Studios in the Mt. Healthy suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, August 15, 1972.
In the five years since I had seen him, York had expanded…to two studios (the other, bigger, in Hamilton) with loads of sophisticated equipment.
Rusty: “I bought a professional recorder in ’61, just in my garage. In fact, you know, you were out there.”
“So, you got into it kind of gradually,” I respond.
He nodded: “I didn’t just go and buy a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of equipment like a guy I knew here in town. He’s hurting; but I’m booked, you know, all the time.”
“Since you do this all the time,” I said, “you probably get rates from the pressing people, and so on?”
“I’m their biggest customer, yeah.”
What drew him into recording, I wondered.
He explained: “It just happened. It was really nice to make fifty extra dollars on Sunday, you know, by doing our own album, you know. Or some kind of session. Still, I still play music, I thought that’s what I want to do, you know. It got to be a, where I could make so much more money and not be the big hassle, like getting stoned every night that you played, chicks all over your body.” [Laughter]
Rusty York at the mixing board at the Jewel Recording Studios in the Mt. Healthy suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, August 15, 1972.
Rusty appeared to be paying only scant attention to the recording session but every once in a while, would pinpoint out-of-tune instruments (…he can isolate mikes from the fairly well-baffled studio and hear exactly who’s doing what), suggest drum riffs, etc.
Rusty explained to us that his connections with Bobby Grove reached back to his earliest days in Kentucky:
“Yeah, we’ve all worked together at one time or another. Willard and I worked at Bobby’s father’s, he had a little barn dance and that, the Stanley Brothers –”
Grove’s son interjected: “Grandpa!”
Rusty said, “Huh?”
“You met my grandpa.”
“Yeah, probably before you was born.”
I asked: “What was his name?” “Jason Musgrove,” Rusty said.
Grove’s son recalled the venue well: “Did you know in that barn he had a sign, said no alcoholic beverages allowed in this area? He stayed drunk there all the time.”
“No!” Rusty replied in a mock serious whisper.
“That’s right”
“Well, we had a bottle or two out in the front of our car all the time.”
Grove: “I can picture him wrestling a bear.”
Rusty: “We saw a bear-wrestling match in there.”
Grove: “Was you there when that happened?”
Rusty: “Yeah. Were you around?”
Grove: “No, that was when I was born. ‘56” [Laughter]
Bobby Grove recording session at the Jewel Recording Studios in the Mt. Healthy suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, August 15, 1972. Left to right: Eddie Drake, rhythm guitar; Junior Boyer, pedal steel guitar; Bob Sanderson, bass guitar; Bobby Grove, vocal.Guitarist Jack Sanderson and singer Bobby Grove at a recording session at the Jewel Recording Studios in the Mt. Healthy suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, August 15, 1972.
Rusty explained: “His grandpa ran a, what did he call it? Green Valley Barn Dance. And right now, that place is worth millions of dollars, and he lost it cause he couldn’t make the payments or something. Forty-two dollars a month payment.”
Grove: “Kent Valley Lake”
“Now it’s, you know, you could probably get twenty, thirty million dollars for the place. Got a big lake –”
“I started playing, I guess, when I first come to Cincinnati, about ’52. I just picked up an old guitar. My father bought me an old five-dollar guitar.”
“I went to see Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs first time up in Jackson theater in about ’53, I guess. And I just couldn’t believe man, anybody could play a banjo like that, I just… Boy! I stayed for both shows that night… I mean it was just like heaven then, ‘cause nobody, you couldn’t never see it. There’s so much of it now, you know. Everybody can play good now, you know. But then, it was only him. I had a tenor banjo, I put fifth key on it. It was a Mastertone too, Gibson. Four-string.”
Folklorist Neil V. Rosenberg and recording engineer Rusty York at the Jewel Recording Studios in the Mt. Healthy suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, August 15, 1972.
The only five-string banjo style he’d known before Scruggs was that of his Grandma. He recalled that she’d made the head of her banjo from a groundhog skin.
“Willard Hale was from Somerset. Where I met Willard, I stopped into a little bar out in Cincinnati, and they had music. They set up a little amplifier and the mandolin with the guitar. Willard and this other fellow were singing duets and one guy played the mandolin. I set in with my banjo and then this one guy left and I – every weekend, I’d go out and play with them. Like Friday, Saturday night. Boy, free beer! I couldn’t believe it, you know, getting free beer and a, I found out later that this guy was getting paid for me all the time I wasn’t getting any bread.”
“Willard and I used to just stand on the stage, two of us, and play banjo and guitar and sing duets. Then Elvis came along and they started saying, ‘Hey you know “Hound Dog”’ and you know, man, ‘You from the country, you shouldn’t be asking for a song like that.’ And even country boys started liking Elvis, you know. And we had to switch over to electric guitar and a guitar and then switch over to bass, and we finally had to add drums, then turned into modern country. Although we were the highest paid ones in Cincinnati for a long time, just Willard and I. …Our salary was on ten-fifteen bucks apiece a night, but the kitty would be the kind of money, might be fifty bucks a night. And that was a lot then.”
“The highlight of our whole night was when we got the banjo and upright bass and Martin guitar out. And boy people really dug it, but we didn’t give ‘em too much of it, cause they still like to dance. [Otherwise] I played electric guitar and the other boy played bass. And we might play, sometimes an hour of bluegrass. Really it was a treat, you know, a change for the people.”
“I played banjo – ‘Down The Road’ and things like that. And every, the whole place would swarm the floor, you know. They’d do this soft-shoe backstep buck and wing hoedown. That’s what I call it. It’s almost like square dancing without any organization. Everybody just doing their own thing. But it, it’s that clog, what I call – the soft-shoe backstep buck and wing hoedown.”
I was curious about “Sugaree,” that jukebox single I’d bought in Oberlin back in 1960. Rusty explained:
“I was doing, you know, some bluegrass stuff and this guy came to me, said — that’s when the Chipmunks were popular [1959] — he said let’s go and record this ‘She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain’ we’ll go ‘She’ll be dum da da, Do diol lu’ (etc. — imitates twangy guitar doing first line of that song) and the Chipmunks go ‘Cha Cha Cha’ (high pitch).”
“On the way out there [to the studio] he says, what are we gonna do on the other side? I says, I don’t know. He said, well do ‘Sugaree’ or ‘Long Tall Sally’ or something, I said I don’t even know that. That was just decided on the way out to the studios. It was a bad record – shoo! I, I can’t stand to hear it.”
Rusty York at the mixing board at the Jewel Recording Studios in the Mt. Healthy suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, August 15, 1972.
“We recorded it at King records studio. Paid for the session ourself. Forty bucks it cost. We tried to peddle it to everybody – RCA and Mercury – and nobody wanted it. So, we put it out ourselves on my [own label], started Jewel. It got to be number two in Cincinnati, and they said something must be happening, you know we pressed the thousand, sold them, pressed a few more and this guy, Pat Nelson negotiated with Chess Records and we leased it to them.”
“I did another record and they never released it. I died, as far as — I did the Hollywood Bowl, and American Bandstand with Dick Clark.”
I was also curious about those “Bluegrass Special” EPs he’d done in the early ’60s. Did he still have copies?
“Ah, I’ve got ‘em on tape, but I don’t have the actual records. You know, those sold a lot of records. Like 200,000… Used to hear Jimmie Skinner and I on that fifteen-minute thing [Wayne Raney show on WCKY], selling the package.”
Rusty told me about the next chapter in his story, which was new to me at the time:
“I went with Bobby Bare; you know I was front man for his show. Played Reno, Las Vegas and just about every state in the Union and I went to Europe, about ten countries. … in ’64 and ‘5. It don’t seem that long ago.” …
I replied, “It doesn’t to me either.” I asked, “You’re not playing any, now, then, are you?”
“No, I started back playing about two months ago in one of the biggest nightclubs here. I just couldn’t take it, ‘cause I’d have to get early do a session and I make 90 buck an hour here, over there I might make – I was playing for the door. Sometimes we would make six hundred bucks a night for the band and sometimes a hundred, split five ways. So–”
“I enjoy just sitting around and playing, but I don’t know, as far as getting before a crowd and doing a thing, I’m not crazy about it. It’s really work, to me. … Most people, I’ve found, have an ego problem. I don’t know if it’s ego or insecurity, but they want to get up before a crowd and sing and–”
“Work it out, up there?” I interjected.
“Yeah. Most, most people that are in the business are very insecure and [play to/depend on] the crowd a lot. Bobby Bare was … he was a nice guy but he was kind of a, well was insecure. He’d like to sleep maybe eighteen hours a day, escape from reality.”
I was struck by York’s insightful comment about musicians having an ego problem. In later years I’ve characterized it in this way: the musician, selling himself or herself, is both product and salesperson. It’s a vision that has stuck with me, like “Don’t Do It.”
Since my research was focused on bluegrass, I was eager to hear what Rusty had to say about it. He began by talking about recording bluegrass.
“Here I don’t do a lot of bluegrass now. Most of them don’t have the money to afford to record. … I try to give ‘em a real good break. Something that’s gonna be around for a long time, I mean a bluegrass record is gonna be around forever, because there always will be somebody that likes bluegrass. I charge them a flat rate you know – sixteen hundred bucks or so for a thousand albums. In other words, they could not afford to pay studio time and do an album and pay for the tape and the mix so I just give them a flat break, price.”
I suggested, “You must know most of the good bluegrass musicians in this area.”
“Yeah, I do. They all want to record with me because they, I understand it a little bit better than some engineers.”
He told me that it’s the most difficult stuff to record, explaining:
“Well, most of ‘em play and sing at the same time. You got a mic for the banjo over here and voice up here — you got two mics, you’re gonna have phase cancellation between them. A mandolin player, you’re gonna have to do the same thing. The bass leaks into the voice mics, cause he’s got to sing too, and it’s really difficult. … And they want to get, this space is big and they all like to get right together.” Pointing to the spread-out, country sidemen working with Grove in the studio, he said: “See how far apart these guys are now? And they won’t overdub. It’s a real challenge, I’ll say that. To get a real group in here, that’s really got good harmonies, you know that’s really nice. I’d almost do it for nothing.”
I asked, “Do the country DJs around here play much bluegrass?” “The Osborne Brothers,” he said, adding “Paul Mullins plays a lot of bluegrass. He’s very well liked and a lot of people listen to him. He’s got little witty – you’ve heard him – little witty sayings and he’s about that… Yeah, I’ve got an album by him coming out by him. It should be out any day now, that he cut here.”
Rusty York at the mixing board at the Jewel Recording Studios in the Mt. Healthy suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, August 15, 1972.
I closed my notes for that day summarizing the work at Jewel:
Rusty’s operation involves packages – he sells 1,000 finished LPs for $1600 (more or less, depending on studio time, number of tracks – the latter a function of tape since 16 tracks takes 2” tape, etc.) and he sees to recording, mixing, pressing, printing, art, etc. The musician who is buying the package pays for the sidemen though Rusty often (as in Grove’s case) sets up the session sidemen too. He assigns master numbers, keeps records of his operation, etc.
In Bartenstein and Ellison’s book, Industrial Strength Bluegrass (Illinois, 2021), Mac McDivitt devotes a section to Jewel, saying that by 2008, when Rusty retired, “Jewel had cemented a reputation as the ‘go to’ place to record in the Cincinnati area” (53-55). Selling the business, York moved to Florida. He died in 2014. Bear Family has released two CDs of Rusty’s rockabilly recordings.
The annual Summertown Bluegrass Reunion brought together local pickers and dancers of all ages in Summertown, Tennessee, over Labor Day weekend. Located just off Highway 64 in a forested Middle Tennessee field flanked by wooden fencing, pasture, and brightly colored bunting, the festival hosted a dance competition, shade tree band competition, and a main stage with open dancing for music lovers, as well as a snack shack slinging their famous white beans.
The Summertown Bluegrass Reunion snack shack, serving famous white beans and more.
Saturday afternoon, Grand Ole Opry dancer Sarah Harris and her band took the stage, performing Stanley Brothers tunes like “I Think I’ll Just Go Away” and Flatt and Scruggs’ “Head Over Heels.”
Saturday evening saw several hundred campers and ticket holders pour into the rural festival while event organizer and founder Terry Pierce wandered through the crowd to catch up with old friends and ensure everyone was having a great time. The fest has been a staple for more than two decades, and it’s always a hub for local musicians to gather.
An open dance at the Summertown Bluegrass Reunion’s main stage.
Dancers from Tennessee and Alabama joined in the buck dancing competition as well, with some so young they needed a little assistance from a parent. Other youngsters held their own, showing off kicks, heel clicks and other moves. Two seniors competed as well. Flatfoot legend and 2017 NEA National Heritage Fellow Thomas Maupin attended, although he didn’t perform. Afterwards, guests were encouraged to take a dinner break and listen to the shade tree bands as they competed under the property’s canopy.
The “Lil Doll” (age 10 and younger) dance competition.A band performs during the Shade Tree Band Competition.Another local bluegrass band performs in the Shade Tree Band competition.
During the evening’s main show, Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, fiddle teacher Andy Spearman and his band, Wildcat Ridge, took the stage, and the crowd was treated to a performance by Tommy Jackson’s Rocky Top Revue, an award-winning square dancing team based in Franklin, Tennessee.
Fiddler Andy Spearman jams during the Summertown Bluegrass Reunion.Fiddler Andy Spearman and band, Wildcat Ridge, perform on the Summertown Bluegrass Reunion main stage.
While Summertown Bluegrass Reunion may not be the largest festival in the state, it’s full of homegrown music that fans have loved for generations, and they continue to turn out each year for the good tunes and fun times.
[Editor’s note: All photos by Carl Fleischhauer, except publicity shot of Esco Hankins]
On the afternoon of Sunday, August 13, 1972, Carl Fleischhauer and I were in Jackson, Kentucky, at the finale of Bill Monroe’s Kentucky Bluegrass festival where we’d been since Friday. In my notes, I wrote:
We left after talking briefly with Monroe (I bought his new LP [Bill Monroe’s Uncle Pen] and latest single [“My Old Kentucky and You”] from him) and drove [85 miles northwest] to Lexington where we got a motel — the Flora — run by an 85-year-old lady who liked Bill Monroe and told us that Uncle Dave Macon stayed in the Flora whenever he visited Lexington. Dinner late on the [U of KY] campus or near at an Italian restaurant — snuck in leftover wine and had ravioli. Sure was good to bathe and sleep in an air-conditioned room.
Monday morning after breakfast downtown and some cursory hunting in record cut-out bins, we headed to the Esco Hankins Record Shop. Tennessean Hankins, a Roy Acuff-style singer, began his recording career in 1947. He settled in Lexington in 1949 and performed for years on WLAP with his wife Jackie and his band, which included Dobro player Buck Graves. He also performed weekly on The Kentucky Mountain Barn Dance, which started in Lexington in 1949 and was broadcast on WVLK.
Jackie and Esco Hankins publicity photo, original date unknown.
Flatt & Scruggs joined the Kentucky Mountain Barn Dance cast that year, influencing both Graves – to whom Earl taught his right hand, three-finger roll – and young J.D. Crowe, who was a regular in the audience and often went with his dad to observe Scruggs rehearsing with Flatt for their radio shows at WVLK. In 1950, at age 13, inspired and informally tutored by Earl, J.D. got his first banjo and began practicing what he’d seen watching Earl in action.
Esco Hankins Record Shop, Lexington, KY, April 1972.
Hankins held amateur country music contests, and at one he discovered teenager Crowe, who soon became part of his band. Marty Godbey’s Crowe On The Banjo: The Music Life of J.D. Crowe (2011) is a fascinating biography that narrates in great detail much of the story I would hear in my interview with Crowe that day in 1972. Early on, Godbey quotes from one of her interviews with J.D.: “I played for him quite a bit, it was my first paying job.”
Esco Hankins in his record shop in Lexington, KY, August 1972.
I knew nothing of Crowe’s connection with Hankins on that morning when we walked into Esco’s shop. We browsed, bought some records, and then got into a conversation with him about country music history. He generously gave me a number of old songbooks and then, when we mentioned our interest in interviewing Crowe, he phoned Lemco, the Lexington record company with whom Crowe had recently made three albums and several singles, to get J.D.’s number. My notes:
…he ended up calling first Lemco and then J.D. Crowe and then handing the phone over to me to talk with J.D. — I thought it was still Lemco and went into a long rap about my project and what I was doing and how I would appreciate if they could put me in touch with J.D. — and the voice said, “This is J.D.” and I was embarrassed but maybe it was a good thing…anyhow we made an appt. for 3:00…
Esco Hankins in his record shop in Lexington, KY, August 1972.
Today, Crowe is best remembered as the banjo picking leader of the progressive New South, whose 1975 Rounder 0044 album with Skaggs, Rice, Douglas and Slone has become a modern bluegrass icon. He also was, in 1980, a founding member of the bluegrass supergroup The Bluegrass Album band, playing solid, perfectly timed, and driving banjo based on the style of Earl Scruggs and singing the harmony parts he’d learned with Jimmy Martin. He died on Christmas Eve, 2021.
When I interviewed him in 1972, he’d been living in Lexington, his birthplace, since returning in 1961 after a five-year stint with Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys. For the next seven years he’d worked day jobs (with a couple of brief stints back with Martin) while playing in local taverns with his group, The Kentucky Mountain Boys.
In 1968 they began appearing six nights a week at the Red Slipper Lounge in the Lexington Holiday Inn. It was a change from his former blue-collar tavern milieu – lots of young college students in the crowds. This gig was going strong when Carl and I visited him.
The Holiday Inn, Lexington, KY, April 1972. Featured at the Red Slipper Lounge at the motel that night was J.D. Crowe and Kentucky Mountain Boys.The Holiday Inn, Lexington, KY, April 1972. Featured at the Red Slipper Lounge at the hotel that night was J.D. Crowe and the Kentucky Mountain Boys. Left to right: Larry Rice, Bobby Slone, Tony Rice, J.D. Crowe, and Donnie Combs.
J.D. was now working full-time at his music. A number of notable musicians had worked for him in The Kentucky Mountain Boys, like Doyle Lawson and Red Allen. At this point, in 1972, his band consisted of Larry Rice, mandolin, Tony Rice, guitar, Donnie combs, drums, and Bobby Slone, bass. He had just changed the name of the group to the New South.
I had first seen Crowe in April 1960 when I went to Wheeling, West Virginia, with a couple of college friends. A month earlier we had opened for the Osborne Brothers at Antioch College. Bobby Osborne had urged the audience to come see them at the Wheeling Jamboree at WWVA. We took him up on it at spring vacation.
We drove down from Ohio and took a cheap room in a hotel close to the Virginia theater where the Jamboree was held. That evening we saw the Osborne Brothers as expected, but just the two of them were there. Bobby played guitar and sang “Down The Road” while Sonny picked the five. Good music, but no band! We enjoyed some of the country acts like Rusty and Doug and the fiddling of Buddy Durham. But we weren’t expecting any more bluegrass when Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys were introduced. It was the most memorable moment of the evening for us.
The four-piece band – Jimmy Martin, Crowe, mandolinist Paul Williams, and fiddler Johnny Dacus – bounded up to the mic from backstage and opened with Crowe’s the up-the-neck single-string banjo intro to “Hold Whatcha Got,” Martin’s latest single.
The audience, which included a bunch of young women seated up front who had cowbells and knew how to use them, went bananas. It was a tight band, thought by many to be Martin’s best, and we were very impressed. Crowe’s banjo break was amazing. It marked him as a unique stylist.
Thereafter, when talking with fellow banjo pickers, I identified this single-string work as “J.D. Crowe style.” The success of “Hold Whatcha Got” led Martin to record several more using the same rhythm and banjo break style.
Following our experience in Wheeling, we began listening to Martin’s late Saturday night show, after the Jamboree, on WWVA. The live sound of new songs like “My Walking Shoes” – driving, up-tempo stuff with Crowe’s banjo out front – caught our ear.
J.D. told Marty Godbey about watching Earl rehearse: “I was more interested in trying to learn the breaks to songs and backup than instrumentals.” His work on Martin’s Decca recordings was definitive; Martin’s banjoists were told to play it like J.D.
He began to record on Lemco with the Kentucky Mountain Boys in 1969 when the band included Doyle Lawson and Red Allen. This was the most recent Crowe recording I’d heard at the time of our August 1972 interview.
That afternoon Carl and I drove to his trailer park home. We set up my cassette recorder and mic, and I began the interview with a few ethnographic questions: “Let me ask you just some of the basic things, like how old you are and where you were born and so on.”
J.D. Crowe home, Lexington, KY, April 1972.
He was 34 and told of childhood with country music on a farm six miles outside of Lexington. Then he described how his musical calling emerged in the fall of 1949 after Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs came to town.
I saw them in person before I ever heard their records. Cause, the first record I heard of them was one called “Down The Road.”
“Down The Road” was Lester and Earl’s newest record release in October 1949.
His family were regulars in the audience at the Kentucky Mountain Barn Dance.
And I saw, they came here — fact, I never heard of ‘em!
They was there one night, and they was so well received that they was hired.
His first banjo was a 39-dollar Kay, but within a year he’d moved up to a Gibson. Scruggs was his informal mentor. At fifteen he was playing dances and at sixteen Jimmy Martin hired him after hearing him playing on the radio with Hankins. “Hankins?” I asked.
Yeah, I guess that was the first person I worked with professionally.
J.D. Crowe at home in Lexington, KY, August 1972, during a visit and interview with Neil V. Rosenberg (left).
After five years working full-time in Martin’s band – in Detroit, Shreveport, and Wheeling – J.D. quit. It was 1961, he was twenty-four.
I think I just, a, kindly got tired, I mean, you know, wanted to try something different.
This was a phrase he used several times in the interview: I just wanted to try something a little different, he said later, speaking of the band he started. Moving back to Lexington, he got a day job, and formed The Kentucky Mountain Boys, who played five nights a week in local clubs until 1968. Then the Holiday Inn gig came along:
I give up my job and I’ve been doing it full-time ever since.
As a bandleader, he stressed the hard work involved in building a career:
…you know how the music goes, unsure, you know. Which anything is, really when you get down to it. It’s just what you want to make out of it, and how hard you want to work… And a, believe me, it’s, it’s rough. A lot of people, you know, think it’s a lot of, a bowl of cherries, you know, just have a good time, but it’s not like that.
“I suppose the picking is only the small part,” Isaid.
That’s just the smallest part of it, really.
J.D. explained how his full-time band operated – fall, winter, and spring they played six nights a week at the Holiday Inn. Then they took the summers off:
Work road shows.
He told me about his band members — mandolinist Larry Rice, his brother Tony, and Bobby Slone — and explained about the Rices’ California connection:
They were born in Danville, Virginia, but … they went to California when they were just little shavers and they lived out there I guess ten or twelve years in Los Angeles. And that’s where Larry came from, he was living there at the time… Bobby Slone, our bass player, he’s been with me I guess about six years. Well, he used to live in California also, and he had worked with them when they was growing up and so he told me about them. And of course, Tony I met after Larry joined me. He moved back to North Carolina and he came up.
His band were all veterans of the late ’60s LA scene where folk-rock and country-rock had blended with bluegrass. That musical mindset had a kind of creative vision that Crowe could empathize with.
I used to be, if it didn’t have a banjo in it, then I’d cut it off. But now, with the exception of rock and roll and blues. I’ve always liked it. I used to listen to blues, just all the time. I like the style of B.B. King, of course he’s still going, you know, and, a Fats Domino, Little Richard, you know … they was in the fifties. And there’s just a lot of ‘em, and of course the rock changed you know, course what they call country rock, which is good, I like that. In fact, we do quite a few numbers of that ourself.
I asked: “When you were leaving Jimmy Martin, were you thinking of putting some of that into your music?” He explained:
That wasn’t out yet … I didn’t have too much choice. You (could) only do country, do bluegrass, or you just do hard rock. But now there’s so much new stuff’s out that it’s just endless, to what you can do, and take over songs and adapt them over, your own little thing, in style.
You can take with what you had and combine it with a couple other forms of music and come up with a little different gimmick, a little different style. That’s the whole thing, that’s what you got to have.
Perhaps the most novel aspect of the New South sound at this time was the fact that since the prior September – almost a year before – they had been playing electrified instruments.
I had the idea, you know a, maybe that might be the answer, because, like I say, like we couldn’t get any records played on country stations.
The Osborne Brothers had gone electric in 1969; J.D. said their example had influenced him “a little bit.” Also in 1969, Earl Scruggs had begun playing an electrified banjo with his sons in the Earl Scruggs Revue. Jim & Jesse had done an electric album in 1971. I asked J.D. if he’d recorded with his electric group.
The latest single is. Course I use a steel and a piano and a drummer, the whole works on that. In fact I didn’t play too much banjo, on account, if there’s a lot of banjo, some things, they won’t even, some stations won’t play it.
At J.D. Crowe’s home in Lexington KY, August 1972, during a visit and interview with Neil V. Rosenberg (right) as reflected in a mirror that also caught photographer Carl Fleischhauer.
We’d just been at a festival; I wanted to know what he thought about festivals. Had they helped his music?
The festivals have helped to a certain extent. You know. Right now, they’re trying, they’re getting too many of them, in my opinion. Cause you can over do a good thing, you know and, which I know we worked some of ‘em that didn’t turn out so good … most of ‘em, though, we’ve worked this year have all been great big ones, I mean a lot of people. And I figure they will probably continue having that kind of a crowd. And I think that it’s, it’s helped.
“Is it a different kind of crowd than the country music crowd?”I asked.
A, not really, I’d say a people that go to bluegrass festivals would also go to see Porter Wagoner and Conway Twitty and Merle Haggard — Nashville, you know. They like it, course they like bluegrass too. A lot of your country people, you know, like other types. There’s — they like it, but they won’t come out to see it, you know, they don’t like it that good. They can take it or leave it, in other words. That’s what you got to get to, those people, the general public. You know, cause there’s a lot of people come to the festivals and — but you know if you figure, the population of the world and you know, don’t look, it’s not too good a’ odds, so…
An experienced observer of the ongoing bluegrass scene, J.D. was keenly involved in his music business. He spoke of recording studio dynamics, record company practices, broadcasting politics, fan magazine reviews, and other factors in running a band.
At that point I turned off the recorder and asked if he would show me his electrified banjo. When I turned the recorder on again, he was giving me the history of his banjo, starting with the neck:
This, this is original here, this part as you can see was pieced from a tenor, you turn it over and it’s a great job — see, that’s been pieced.
(N:) Oh, yeah.
(J.D.:) From there up. They matched it perfect, see, you can tell, right there, it starts up on the neck, go right in there, or right here, you can see its smaller up the neck.
(N:) It’s a splendid job.
J.D. Crowe at home in Lexington KY, August 1972.
J.D. had seen a lot of old Gibson Mastertones over the years. He knew chapter and verse about wood types and design details. But I wanted to know about his electric setup. I knew nothing about electric instruments, which were anathema to the ’50s folk revival I’d grown up in. He spent some time showing and explaining the details of his still-experimental pickup system (Godbey describes it well, p. 110). Carl asked if he could take a picture, J.D. politely told him no.
He told me what it was like to be playing electric, with the strings closer to the fretboard (“low action”) than on an acoustic:
(N:) Can you do licks that you wouldn’t otherwise do?
(J.D.:) Yeah. You can do a lot of stuff that holds, you know, you can get a sustain. That’s what nice about it.
Then he announced what he was hoping on for the future:
I’ve got a six-string ordered.
In 1970 Sonny Osborne had added a sixth bass string to his five-string; it was part of a lush sound – string sections, twin steels, etc. – on their latest recordings. J.D. liked the possibilities the added string would enable, especially because he, like Sonny, was playing an electrified instrument. He’d even had to cancel a contract for a bluegrass festival that didn’t allow electric instruments. He told them:
Hell no! We’re gonna play electric…. We played up here electric for nine month and [then] we played acoustical; I sounded like I was playing a two-dollar Kay. Cause your hearing gets accustomed to that volume. And it’d take me three or four months to get back on the acoustical route.
Our interview ended there. Afterward I evaluated it in my notes:
Interview with J.D. Crowe — nothing spectacular, your hr.’s worth of history, but attitudes and early learning gone into pretty carefully. Very friendly but reserved in a reassuring way. Carl busy snapping away.
J.D. Crowe at home in Lexington, KY, August 1972.
We left Lexington immediately, heading for Louisville, where we were to stay with friends of Carl’s. Consequently, I didn’t get a chance to see J.D. and his New South in action at the Red Slipper Lounge.
In 1973, the electric edition of the New South recorded an album in Nashville for Starday. Titled J.D. Crowe and the New South, it was issued on CD in 1997 under the title Bluegrass Evolution. Crowe played his 6-string on two of its ten cuts. Here’s one, “You Can Have Her.”
The album wasn’t released until 1977, two years after they stopped playing electric. In 1975 when Larry Rice left the group, J.D’s new mandolin player, Ricky Skaggs, had insisted on “acoustical.” By then J.D.’s vision of “something a little different” was working just fine without the extra electricity; Rounder 0044 came soon after.
The Holiday Inn, Lexington, KY, April 1972. The Red Slipper Lounge featured J.D. Crowe and Kentucky Mountain Boys; including Tony Rice (back to camera), Larry Rice (barely visible behind Tony Rice), J.D. Crowe, Bobby Slone (hidden), and Donnie Combs, drums.The Holiday Inn, Lexington, KY, April 1972. J.D. Crowe and the Kentucky Mountain Boys; Tony Rice (back to camera), Larry Rice, J.D. Crowe, Bobby Slone (partly hidden), and Donnie Combs, drums.
That day I wished we’d taken the time to catch the band in action, but we had only five more days for our bluegrass field trip. Kentucky was just the start; our next planned stops would take us to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Recently, a recording of an evening at the Red Slipper was uploaded to YouTube. Here’s the 1972 sound of the electrified New South (with drums):
Artist:Water Tower Hometown: Los Angeles, California Song: “My Little Girl in Tennessee” Album:Live From Los Angeles Label: Water Tower Records
In Their Words: “We love traditional bluegrass with all of our heart. That is part of the reason we chose to release this Lester Flatt/Earl Scruggs song. When we met our second banjo player Jesse Blue Eads (we have two on stage with us usually; Tommy Drinkard plays the other banjo) we were busking and this was a tune that we all knew. We recorded this version in one take after a 55-date tour. On the way to the Palomino Recording Studio our van broke down, so we got the car towed. Then when we arrived at the studio, the bridge on the bass had fallen off and cracked. It was ‘one of those days.’ This all contributed to the raw feeling in the room as we recorded.” — Kenny Feinstein, Water Tower
Artist:The Infamous Stringdusters Song: “I’d Rather Be Alone” Album:A Tribute to Flatt & Scruggs Release Date: April 21, 2023 Label: Americana Vibes
In Their Words: “The concept of paying tribute to the grandfathers or originators of bluegrass is one we bounced around for a while and after Bill Monroe, the most logical, I think any bluegrass musician would agree, is Flatt & Scruggs. They’re legendary and without Earl’s banjo, bluegrass just doesn’t exist the way we know it today. For the album, each of us brought a song to the table that we wanted to sing and that had meaning to us. I reached out to my friend Jon Weisberger and asked him if he’d suggest a song that he thought hadn’t been overdone and would suit my voice. I was thrilled when he suggested ‘I’d Rather Be Alone’ because I was familiar with it but hadn’t really played it much or learned the lyrics and it was a perfect fit. It’s a lament and it’s a sad song but it’s so beautiful. The way the melody hangs the line out there — ‘You say you’re sorry that you went awaaaaay’ — it’s just classic Flatt & Scruggs!” — Travis Book, The Infamous Stringdusters
The image of bluegrass is mountain music played and heard at high altitudes and towns like Deep Gap and remote mountain hollers across the Appalachians. But the earliest form of the music originated at lower elevations, in textile towns across the North Carolina Piedmont. As far back as the 1920s, old-time string bands like Charlie Poole’s North Carolina Ramblers were playing an early form of the music in textile towns, like Gastonia, Spray, and Shelby – in Cleveland County west of Charlotte.
In this second episode of Carolina Calling, a podcast exploring the history of North Carolina through its music and the musicians who made it, we visit the small town of Shelby: a seemingly quiet place, like most small Southern towns one might pass by in their travels. Until you see the signs for the likes of the Don Gibson Theatre and the Earl Scruggs Center, you wouldn’t guess that it was the town that raised two of the most influential musicians and songwriters in bluegrass and country music: Earl Scruggs, one of the most important musicians in the birth of bluegrass, whose banjo playing was so innovative that it still bears his name, “Scruggs style,” and Don Gibson, one of the greatest songwriters in the pop & country pantheon, who wrote “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” “Sweet Dreams,” and other songs you know by heart. For both Don Gibson and Earl Scruggs, Shelby is where it all began.
Subscribe to Carolina Calling on any and all podcast platforms to follow along as we journey across the Old North State, visiting towns like Greensboro, Durham, Wilmington, Asheville, and more.
Music featured in this episode:
Charlie Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers – “Take a Drink On Me” Flatt & Scruggs – “Ground Speed” Don Gibson – “I Can’t Stop Loving You” Andrew Marlin – “Erie Fiddler” (Carolina Calling Theme) Hedy West – “Cotton Mill Girl” Blind Boy Fuller – “Rag Mama, Rag” Don Gibson – “Sea Of Heartbreak” Patsy Cline – “Sweet Dreams ” Ray Charles – “I Can’t Stop Loving You” Ronnie Milsap – “(I’d Be) A Legend In My Time” Elvis Presley – “Crying In The Chapel” Hank Snow – “Oh Lonesome Me” Don Gibson – “Sweet Dreams” Don Gibson – “Oh Lonesome Me” Chet Atkins – “Oh Lonesome Me” Johnny Cash – “Oh, Lonesome Me” The Everly Brothers – “Oh Lonesome Me” Neil Young – “Oh Lonesome Me” Flatt & Scruggs – “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” Bill Preston – “Holy, Holy, Holy” Flat & Scruggs – “We’ll Meet Again Sweetheart” Snuffy Jenkins – “Careless Love” Bill Monroe – “Uncle Pen” Bill Monroe – “It’s Mighty Dark To Travel” The Earl Scruggs Revue – “I Shall Be Released” The Band – “I Shall Be Released” Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” The Country Gentlemen – “Fox On The Run” Sonny Terry – “Whoopin’ The Blues” Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee – “Born With The Blues (Live)” Nina Simone – “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free”
BGS is proud to produce Carolina Calling in partnership with Come Hear NC, a campaign from the North Carolina Department of Natural & Cultural Resources designed to celebrate North Carolinians’ contribution to the canon of American music.
Carly Pearce and Sonya Isaacs can both trace their musical roots back to bluegrass, even as their individual careers have introduced them to fans beyond that genre. A rising country star, Pearce is a native of Taylor Mill, Kentucky, who just released her third album, 29: Written in Stone. She cites Isaacs — a sterling vocalist and instrumentalist in the gospel group The Isaacs — as one of her biggest vocal influences. Meanwhile, the Isaacs salute some of their own favorite songs with The American Face, a new album blending new material and well-chosen covers. These artists’ professional paths converged this fall when Pearce and, later, The Isaacs, were welcomed into the cast of the Grand Ole Opry.
Calling in to BGS, Carly Pearce and Sonya Isaacs converse about their formative years as musicians, their education in bluegrass harmony, and their immediate response to “Easy Going,” a cool collaborative cut on 29: Written in Stone.
BGS: Let’s start by talking about “Easy Going.” Carly, what was it about the song that made you want to bring in Sonya and Ben Isaacs to sing with you?
Pearce: When I was writing this song, I could hear the harmony. I grew up loving music and harmony and all of those things. As soon as we finished writing it and knew that we wanted it to be on the project I just heard The Isaacs. I grew up loving them and loving their harmonies. Nobody sings harmony better than the Isaacs family, so I asked Sonya.
Sonya, what did you think when you first heard the song?
Isaacs: I love Carly’s voice, too, and I was like, “Well, I’m sure anything that she wants us to sing on will be amazing. And knowing how she loves harmony singing, I thought, “This is gonna be really fun.” Of course, she’s one of the most incredible female vocalists of all time, I think. So, when she played us the song, I flipped out over it. I absolutely loved the song, and I was like, “I can’t wait to get in the studio!” … It was a good a vocal exercise, a good stretch! [Laughs] And it was a challenge because she’s so good, but that’s my favorite kind of session. We had a blast and I love the song.
I like the arrangement because you’re giving the musicians a chance to step out and do what they do best. It feels like a band record in some ways.
Pearce: Yeah! They were all so inspired in the studio by the song and I remember telling Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne, my producers, “Hang on, hang on, and let them do their thing.” I love instrumental bluegrass music, so I wanted to have that element and that feel in the song.
I do want to explore the bluegrass background that you both have. Sonya, can you kind of tell me how bluegrass fits into your overall musical direction?
Isaacs: Yeah. Our dad has been playing bluegrass all of his life. He’s 74 now and he grew up loving bluegrass. The Stanley Brothers, Bill Monroe, all of the legends of bluegrass. Dad loved it first, and when Carter Stanley passed away, my dad actually filled in for him with Ralph for a while and sang Carter’s part. He really fit that style. Dad always instilled a love for bluegrass music, especially traditional bluegrass music, into us kids. He taught us how to play our instruments. He was very key in teaching us the first things we ever learned. Over the years, with our own writing and different influences and artists that we’ve discovered along the way that had a little more of a contemporary sound, our style morphed and changed a little bit away from the more traditional bluegrass sound, but it’s always been the root of everything that we’ve ever loved.
Let’s talk about your dad a bit because the Isaacs just won an IBMA Award for a recording of “Garden Tomb,” which he wrote. I’m curious how that song came back into the forefront.
Isaacs: Dad moved to Kentucky about 20 years ago after he and Mom divorced. He hasn’t really traveled with us or been in the recording part of what we do for all those years. But, of course, he made pop-up appearances when we were around. So, Joe Mullins reached out to us — we love Joe Mullins and the whole Mullins family — because he was doing this project called Industrial Strength Bluegrass and wanted the Isaacs to be a part of it. [The project was named IBMA Album of the Year in September.] Joe has always loved the song “Garden Tomb” that my dad wrote many, many years ago. It was one of our earlier hits that we had many years ago. So, we thought it would be a good idea to do that song.
Our dad is, to me, one of the most underrated legends of bluegrass music. Mainly I think because he chose to do gospel instead of mainstream bluegrass, he was overlooked a lot. So we said, “We’ve got to get Dad in here to sing on this.” And then we decided to add the Oak Ridge Boys, to give it even more of an inclusive feeling. They agreed to come in and they were so proud of it. And my dad felt so honored that it was his song that was on this project. We’re very proud of this whole album — and to be from Ohio. This whole album is artists that are from Ohio or lived in Southern Ohio. It was a full-circle thing for us.
Pearce: I did, yeah. I sang in a bluegrass gospel band. That’s how I got my start on stage, outside of the childhood talent shows and things like that. I fell in love with it and feel like I understood what it meant to really be able to sing. I learned a lot of things in those years I was in that band, traveling around and watching bands like the Isaacs. There is no faking that harmony in that music! I think it made me a better singer today because of it.
You’re both known now for singing with other people. Carly, you’ve had a couple of hit duets, and Sonya, you’ve been singing with your family for a long time. Did bluegrass help you build that foundation, in terms of being able to blend your voice with another voice?
Isaacs: Absolutely. Anybody that can sing the third part with the Louvin Brothers, or with Ralph and Carter Stanley, it really teaches you to sing harmony and to find the part. You can listen to a Ralph Stanley song and hear all his vocal licks, and you can compare it to a Mariah Carey vocal lick. Even though they’re completely different styles, they’re both working their vocal cords and it takes a great skill and talent to be able to do the runs and licks that they do. So, absolutely, growing up singing along with those old records and finding that third part was very instrumental in me learning to sing harmony.
Pearce: For sure. The joy, for me, of singing is sometimes getting to collaborate with other vocalists and people that I love and adore. I’m such a fan of their voices. Sonya knows this, but so much of what I feel like people know my voice could be — kind of the flip into my head voice — is because I was trying to emulate Sonya’s voice when I was growing up, going to watch her sing. That’s why singing with her is so special for me.
Isaacs: Aww. It’s crazy because… how old are you Carly?
Pearce: I’m 31.
Isaacs: So, I’m 16 years older than her. It’s so funny for me to hear her say that she grew up listening to the Isaacs, and emulating me, because I don’t feel like I’m that much older, but I am. I’m just in denial, I guess, but I am so honored that she would say that! [Laughs]
Speaking of influences, Carly, you have Patty Loveless on your record, singing with you on “Dear Miss Loretta.” What was going through your mind when you heard her voice come in on that song?
Pearce: Oh, I sat in my car and bawled my eyes out. Patty and Sonya are two of my biggest influences and to have them be so gracious to be a part of my album, it’s something you dream of.
And it’s a song about Loretta Lynn no less. You really went for it, making Kentucky proud. Growing up, were you pretty well aware of the bluegrass history in Kentucky?
Pearce: Oh, for sure. My grandpa played clawhammer banjo and I grew up listening to Flatt & Scruggs and Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley. I definitely understood how many people come out of the state of Kentucky, like the Judds. I think that’s where I really started to fall in love with music — by listening to people who came from Kentucky.
Sonya, on The American Face record, you have six songs from the past and an equal number of new songs. Are there any of those that you’d want a bluegrass fan to check out?
Isaacs: The instrumentation on this record, and that we’ve always done, leans toward that contemporary acoustic sound with the addition of a few extra instruments like piano. But our roots are always going to be that acoustic sound, and that’s how we are live. But I think “We Can Work It Out” — the Beatles cover that we did — is very acoustic and fun. We have a song “More Than Words” that was originally recorded 30 years ago by a rock ‘n’ roll group called Extreme. We did that stripped down with just upright bass, some snaps and vocals. I guess it’s not really considered a bluegrass song but the vocals are definitely influenced by that. There are quite a few songs on here that the bluegrass fans would really, really like.
It feels like you’re both having this moment, where you received an invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry and you’re winning industry awards. People are really noticing both of you right now. What are you enjoying the most about this time in your career?
Pearce: I’m sure that Sonya would say the same thing, but moments like becoming a member of the Grand Ole Opry — that’s something that I wanted and dreamed of and hoped for my whole entire life. And now to say that I am a part of that family is so surreal for me. All of these things, the childhood dreams, are coming true. You hope that when you’re writing music and singing and doing all of these things that it’s impactful and that people are going to care. And the fact that I feel like people care is so special.
Isaacs: Ditto to that. That’s a great answer. Again, it goes back to growing up. Dad instilled a great love for bluegrass music but hand-in-hand with that is that old classic country sound. I think nowadays, the classic country would fall more into a bluegrass category than even current country, because it’s changed and evolved so much since those days. Dad always instilled in us in love for the Grand Ole Opry as well, so it was full-circle again to be inducted and to be an Opry sister with Carly. We’ve known her for years and we’ve written together and we go way back. It is a really neat time to get to share these moments.
Artist:Sideline Hometown: Raleigh, North Carolina Latest Album:Ups, Downs and No Name Towns
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a band?
It wasn’t really a realization of “wanted to” as much as a realization that we “should be” a band. We had been playing a small handful of shows for a couple of years while still with other groups (hence the name “Sideline”). We started to see a style developing, as well as a demand from certain areas. We came to the realization that we were starting to develop a following, and we had to either commit to the new endeavor or back off. In mid-2013 we made the decision to go for it. We’ve been a full-time group ever since.
Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?
We appreciate music from many different artists, spanning a wide variety of genres. Bluegrass standards like Flatt & Scruggs, The Bluegrass Album Band, and The Johnson Mountain Boys, as well as great artists like Journey, Ronnie Milsap, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. All having great talent and musical approach to learn from, and all having great success stories to be inspired by.
What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?
What we do relies heavily on us being a solid unit or “team” of players. While some may not call it an art form, I would say that the art of teamwork would be the biggest influence on our music and our lifestyle. Taking time as a group to attend concerts, live sporting events, or any recreational activity as a group, really adds to morale and team spirit, which then carries over into our musical creativity and stage performance.
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
We have recorded three separate projects, along with a few compilation projects for the Mountain Home Music Group out of Arden, North Carolina. Every time we have a session scheduled at Crossroads Studio we always come in the night before and go to the Wild Wing Cafe. It’s tradition, a great way to bond before we head into the session, and blesses the session with good luck!
If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?
Sideline was founded on the idea of having fun every time we step out on stage. As many musicians will agree, 2020 showed us all how much we took full-time musician status for granted. Now more than ever, we reach back to why we started and why we do this: To be entertaining, leave everyone with a smile, and kick as much musical butt as possible with every show.
It’s summer, our second in the “after times,” where road trips, national parks, and scenic byways are king. As you head off on your COVID-aware vacations this summer, don’t leave all the driving music to indie, easy listening, country & western, or rock ‘n’ roll. The chop of the mandolin, thump of the doghouse bass, and rapid-fire roll of the five-string banjo are just as suited to soundtrack your sunny forays. To prove that point, here are 16 bluegrass songs perfect for inclusion on your summer vacation playlists. (Listen to the full playlist on Spotify below.)
“Highway” – Claire Lynch
Bluegrass being an itinerant livelihood and a nomadic community, traveling songs are just as expected a feature as murder ballads, train tunes (a form of travel song unto themselves!), and moonshine running tales. This modern classic via Claire Lynch — written by Lynch and Irene Kelley — is a perfect example of the form, more ‘90s country offered by a string band than a traditional, four-on-the-F-style grassy track. It’s delightful — and perfectly winsome and longing when you find yourself listening while traveling down the highway.
“Handsome Molly” – Tim O’Brien
Our July 2021 Artist of the Month Tim O’Brien’s rendition of this bluegrass classic is a far cry from, say, a Flatt & Scruggs’ cut. O’Brien’s has a slight transatlantic bent — with a distinct island detour, perhaps through the sunny Caribbean. If you’ve found a craving to set your foot on a steamboat and sail the ocean ‘round deep inside your soul, this one’s for you.
“1952 Vincent Black Lightning” – Del McCoury Band
Another track with a transatlantic story, this ever-popular, most-requested number covered by the Del McCoury Band is a road trip staple — whether you get in or on your vehicle to hit the highway. It would be a sin to make a bluegrass summer vacation playlist and not include “1952 Vincent Black Lightning!”
“Val’s Cabin” – Laurie Lewis
A rare example of a bluegrass song actually about summer vacations, this Laurie Lewis original, “Val’s Cabin,” begins as a simple retelling of childhood memories — nostalgia being a common rhetorical device (and when attempted by many other writers, a well-worn trope) in bluegrass. But Lewis, a veteran through-hiker, wilderness excursioner, and backpacker as well as a Grammy-nominated bluegrass singer and songwriter, tinges the story with melancholy and the existential questions raised by the ever-worsening climate crisis. The song is as evocative as it is gorgeous; though the singer can’t find the way to “Val’s Cabin” any longer, every listener can.
“Paddy on the Turnpike” – Vassar Clements
If you ever happen to find yourself Crossing the Catskills on a summery jaunt, “Paddy on the Turnpike” must be in your listening rotation. Avoid the tolls, but still go for a ride on the turnpike with Vassar Clements’ wild, unpredictable, jaw-dropping, wonky fiddling. “Paddy” is a blank canvas for Clements and a study in bluegrass’ unending affinity for flat seven chords.
“Don’t Give Your Heart to a Rambler” – Tony Rice
A hit in nearly every jam circle that ever circled, “Don’t Give Your Heart to a Rambler” is almost as if “Gentle on My Mind” had been written by a much less kind or compassionate protagonist. Tony’s solo vocal stylings are as iconic as his six-string licks, nearly obliterating any memory of this song ever having been sung by anyone else. What’s more, the titular advice of the track still stands. Just don’t.
“Highway 40 Blues” – Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard Time
Because “Interstate 70 Blues” just doesn’t roll off the tongue. And that melodic hook should go down in history as one of the best country licks to ever lick! Cordle wrote one built for the long haul with “Highway 40 Blues.” It’ll keep you good company as you go wherever and back.
“Banjo Pickin’ Girl” – Annie Staninec
Is there any better reason to go around this world than being a banjo picker? There are never enough banjo pickin’ girls and this anthem, no matter how many times it’s picked up, studied, and retooled by another banjo pickin’ girl, always SLAPS. (Clawhammer pun intended.) Fiddler and multi-instrumentalist Annie Staninec, who’s traveled around the world making music quite a bit herself, gives an excellent old-time rendition of this favorite.
“A Crooked Road” – Darrell Scott
Darrell Scott turns a literary device pretty common in songwriting on its ear, with a tender eye for detail and emotion that he brings into all of his musicmaking. Life is, after all, about the journey — not the destination. Why not take the crooked, and thereby, the road less traveled?
“Up and Down the Mountain” – David Parmley & Continental Divide
Work life doesn’t suit you? Does “paradise” mean a fiddle and the open road? If so, “Up and Down the Mountain” is for you and your road trip playlist. Especially if you’re planning on trekking through the Rockies, Sierras, Ozarks, Applachians, or what-have-you. Turn off cruise control, watch for the runaway truck ramps, and go up and down those mountains! David Parmley & Continental Divide know something about geography and topography, after all…
“Roving Gambler” – The Country Gentlemen
Not sure why you’d be headed to Las Vegas during one of the hottest summers on record, but if you’ve got your sights set on a casino — wherever it may be — crank up “Roving Gambler” and hope your 2 a.m. slot machine binge or your evening “re-learning” blackjack ends more amiably than with gunfire. Speaking of which, perhaps “Blackjack” deserves a slot on this playlist…
“Travelin’ Prayer” – Dolly Parton
The kick-off of one of Dolly Parton’s masterpieces, her 1999 bluegrass album The Grass Is Blue, “Travelin’ Prayer” was actually written by Billy Joel. Yes, that Billy Joel. The original, from 1973’s Piano Man, featured banjo playing by Eric Weissberg and Fred Heilbrun. So of course the tune stands up to the bluegrass treatment and then some, between Stuart Duncan’s haunting fiddle cadenza to begin the track, the rip roarin’ tempo and train whistle harmonies, and the lonesome feeling of being away from your baby while he travels the world. We’re gonna assume Dolly’s blessed pen and ink added the lyric: “And keep him away from planes / cause my baby hates to fly!”
“Road to Columbus” – Kenny Baker
Growing up this writer frequented a bluegrass jam in Granville, Ohio, about 25 miles east of the state’s capital, Columbus. Like clockwork, every week as the jam wound down around noon on Wednesdays, Troy Herdman — a local bluegrass community stalwart, Doc Watson-style flatpicker, and mentor of many who lived in or around Columbus — would call this tune. Everyone would chuckle, and we’d play “Road to Columbus” as everyone, but especially Troy, hit the road to Columbus.
Herdman passed away last week at the age of 91. I certainly wouldn’t be the musician I was today if it wasn’t for Troy, and I know quite a few others who would say the same. So no matter where I travel, I always keep “Road to Columbus” nearby. Especially when I’m headed home to Ohio.
Many pickers speculate over whether Kenny Baker and Bill Monroe were referencing Columbus, Ohio, or Columbus, Indiana. But, according to Roland White — who introduces the song with an anecdote from his time on the road with Monroe — it’s about Ohio. For this Ohioan, that’s confirmation enough!
“That’s How I Got to Memphis” – Tom T. Hall
His own recording of one of his most popular hits may sound more like straight up and down country than ‘grass, but even the most casual fan of Tom T. Hall knows that this Bluegrass Hall of Famer is bluegrass to his core. If you’re headed down I-40 from Nashville — or, really, towards Memphis from any direction, no matter how direct or circuitous, this song is a must-add for your road trip playlist.
“Where Rainbows Never Die” – The SteelDrivers
This song is about a decidedly different kind of journey, not often referred to as a “vacation,” but even so it’s a poignant, encouraging, and downright delicious song to background any journey. If you’re road weary — or life weary — “Where Rainbows Never Die” is a certified pick-me-up that doesn’t shy away from reality, like the grit and coarseness in Chris Stapleton’s lead vocal wrapping you in its warmth. There’s a comfort in life not being sugar-coated — and in knowing somewhere, west of where the sun sets, rainbows never die.
“Home Sweet Home” – Flatt & Scruggs
Home never feels so sweet as when you’ve just returned after a long, restful, relaxing vacation. So we’ll close our summer vacation playlist with Flatt & Scruggs’ rendition of this tune pulled directly from the American songbook, “Home Sweet Home.” We hope a banjo roll always greets you at your door, and if not, this playlist will at least cover that for you. Wherever you roam, there’s no place like home! And no music like bluegrass.
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