Tag: Flatt & Scruggs

That Ain’t Bluegrass: Lonely Heartstring Band

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Artist: Lonely Heartstring Band
Song: “Rambling, Gambling Willie” (originally by Bob Dylan)
Album: Deep Waters

Where did you first hear “Rambling, Gambling Willie?”

Patrick M’Gonigle: Matt [Witler] actually found the song. It was released probably seven or eight years ago now, as part of The Witmark Demos — a set of outtakes from when Bob Dylan recorded The Freewheelin’ sessions. He released a whole bunch of other music from that session. I think it was Matt that thought it would make a cool bluegrass song.

We actually have an interesting side note about that: We had a guy come to a show a couple of years ago and we played that song, introducing it as a song that didn’t make The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan record. The guy said he went home very confused. He had The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan album, and he said, “I grew up listening to that record. I know that song intimately. And I never had The Witmark Demos. So I don’t get this.” When he found his copy and looked at the track order, sure enough “Rambling, Gambling” was not on the track order. Then he put the record on and “Rambling, Gambling” was on it! He had one of a very small handful of misprints of the stereo version of that record, and it’s worth a ton of money.

I thought this was going to be a Mandela Effect kind of thing!

It was actually on there!

The title of the song almost answers this question, but what made you all think this would make a good bluegrass song?

It’s got a great, classic chord progression. Also, the timing of the words allowed us to speed it up and have it work. A lot of songs, you speed them up, and the words just become insane or crunched together. The song itself, the words are at a slower pace, so when we sped it up, they totally fit. It’s super fun to play on as a soloist. It had all of the elements. We did the same thing recently with a song that we learned from Willie Nelson. If we hear [three-chord] songs that are slow, but also have a slow word flow, they lend themselves to this. “Rambling, Gambling Willie” was our first experiment with that.

What was your process of arranging the song and putting it together?

It was a few years ago now. When we sped it up, the verses ended up being quite short. There are a lot of them — I think the original version has maybe eight or nine verses. We chose six of them. We chose the ones that told the story cohesively. We cut a bunch of them, and we realized, because we were speeding it up, it didn’t make sense to do verse-chorus-solo. So we did two verse-choruses in a row between solos, which kind of acted as one verse.

The other thing we did, when we worked up the harmonies on the first chorus of each pair, we would do a low harmony and, the second one, we’d do a high harmony, so it would still have kind of an arc over the two verses. One of our favorite, one of our most popular bluegrass songs when we arranged that song was “Born to Be with You” by J.D. Crowe and the New South, which we still play. That has a really cool arrangement style where the banjo finishes every break. We applied that to this song, too. When it gets to the chorus parts, because we would solo over verse-chorus, Gabe [Hirshfeld] on the banjo would always solo over the chorus part.

Bluegrass has always had this tradition of reworking and revamping songs from outside of bluegrass since the very beginning. Why do you think this still happens?

I feel like there are several answers to that. For us, we love — in terms of traditional bluegrass sounds — J.D. Crowe and the New South. J.D. is a great example of someone who does that. Like the song “Born to Be with You,” that’s a ‘50s doo-wop song by the Chordettes. The original sounds nothing like what J.D did with it.

Also, I think a lot of the bluegrass themes are pretty constant throughout bluegrass. We have a banter joke on stage that there are only like six themes in bluegrass: heartbreak, drinking or making alcohol, trains, God, and death. In pop music, especially folk revival — ‘60s, ‘70s pop music — there was a kind of poetic awakening and there was a lot more content. That’s one answer: You can talk about more complex themes.

Then, on the other hand, it’s just natural. Especially in this day and age, when there’s so much good music happening all over the place, if you grow up listening to the radio, it’s not just the Grand Ole Opry anymore. Everyone’s listening to everything.

You know that ain’t bluegrass, right?

Whatever, man. [Laughs] In our band, it’s different for everyone, but I think, in general, I see the term “bluegrass” as either a help or a hindrance. It’s a double-edged sword. On the one hand, sure, it’s bluegrass. In my opinion, bluegrass is whatever anyone wants to call bluegrass. I’m not concerned with it. Maybe it’s not traditional bluegrass, if you define traditional bluegrass as anything that happened before 1953 or whenever. I don’t feel like it’s constructive, especially in our band, to talk about what is or isn’t bluegrass. To us, that song is bluegrass because we’re taking pentatonic solos over essentially a 1-4-5 [chord progression,] the mandolin is chopping, the banjo is rolling, and we have three-part harmony that’s stacked in thirds. That’s awfully bluegrass, if you break it down as a specific musical form.

If you start trying to define what bluegrass means to us, it can start holding us back, because we can easily decide that nothing is bluegrass. I think it’s better for everyone, especially touring, performing musicians who are trying to expand their markets, trying to talk about diversity, or any sort of expansion, because if you start putting labels on whatever bluegrass is, the conversation is over pretty quickly. Everyone has a different idea.

But, at the same time, bluegrass as a positive aesthetic is really powerful. Bringing in the imagery of traditional bluegrass, in a good way, to any sort of music, incorporated into any of those styles can be super awesome. People can immediately conjure some sort of nostalgic, rural, aesthetic. Those are powerful aesthetics that are very popular in American culture. That’s the double-edged sword, to us.

Ken Irwin had a very interesting thing to say to us after we played at Pemi Valley Bluegrass Festival in New Hampshire — that’s a pretty traditional festival. We were up there playing our music, but at that point, we were probably playing more of the Flatt & Scruggs and Bluegrass Album Band kind of stuff. I kept saying, “Here’s one of our songs” and then, “Here’s a traditional bluegrass song.” Ken pointed out that, if we say that, people will start putting those divisions in their own minds about our music. If the audience loves traditional bluegrass and they want to call our music “bluegrass,” then we should let them. But as soon as we start saying what is or isn’t bluegrass from stage, we might be steering someone’s opinions in directions they wouldn’t otherwise go.

Jerry Garcia: Expanding the Musical Consciousness

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Before becoming the psychedelic guitar-playing icon of the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia was already living a life completely dedicated to music. Heavily immersed in the folk idioms that coalesced with the beat poet scene in San Francisco — and in the peninsula towns of Menlo Park and Palo Alto — in the beginning of the 1960s, Garcia’s concentration, determination, and passion for musical collaboration planted the seeds for a force that would not only influence the world in song, but that would let loose a seamless tie to multiple genres through multiple generations. What’s now viewed as Americana, Garcia was creating with the Dead right from the outset. His impact looms far and wide, perhaps even greater as the years since his passing roll on. From the bluegrass world of the McCourys to esteemed guitarists like Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, and David Rawlings, to jam bands like Leftover Salmon, and the current generation of musicians like the National, Jenny Lewis, and Ryan Adams, Garcia’s ethos is being deeply felt and utilized.

Garcia had a mind hungry for knowledge and interested in art, comics, and horror films, even as music ran through his family. After initially getting an accordion for his 15th birthday and successfully trading that in for a guitar, the quest for constant improvement was born as he devoured the styles of Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed, Buddy Holly, and Bo Diddley. As the ‘60s approached and the initial rock boom faded, Garcia and his friend (and soon to be Grateful Dead lyricist) Robert Hunter found themselves in the middle of a very fertile Bay Area folk scene. Being steeped in Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music led to a fascination with the Carter Family and then Flatt & Scruggs.

It was at this time, in 1962, that Garcia began his complete immersion into the banjo and the bluegrass style of Earl Scruggs. He formed the Hart Valley Drifters with Hunter and David Nelson (later of New Riders of the Purple Sage and the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band), and the scene grew to encompass the likes of Eric Thompson, Jody Stecher, Sandy Rothman, Rodney Albin, Janis Joplin, Jorma Kaukonen, David Crosby, Paul Kantner, and Herb Pedersen. The Hart Valley Drifters performed at the Monterey Folk Festival in 1963 in the amateur division and won Best Group, and Garcia took the Best Banjo Player award, which strikes with irony as, throughout his career, Garcia would never consider music to be a competition of any kind. He was more into turning people on.

While absorbing as much music as possible and focusing on his craft with diligence, Garcia came into cahoots with people like Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and John “Marmaduke” Dawson through a string of continuous collaborations and a rotating cast of characters at joints like the Boar’s Head, Keppler’s Bookstore, and the Tangent. McKernan was the blues aficionado with the biker looks and heart of gold who would lead Garcia into the electric blues band the Warlocks, which then became the Grateful Dead, while Dawson would be the one who had the canon of songs for Garcia to base his pedal steel guitar learning around to form the New Riders of the Purple Sage.

But it was on a cross country road trip with Rothman in 1964 that Garcia met David Grisman, the young mandolin player to whom Thompson had tipped him off. It was at Sunset Park in West Grove, Pennsylvania, where acts like Bill Monroe and the Osborne Brothers were featured, where Garcia and Grisman first did some pickin’ together, and a friendship was born that would lead to musical ventures that would have more than a lasting impact.

Both Garcia and Grisman were imparted with some crucial advice from Monroe, which was to start your own style of music. Garcia, no doubt, led the Dead (as much as he refused to admit to any leadership role) to their unique musical domain, while Grisman created his own “Dawg” style of music that was the precursor of “New Grass” in the ‘70s. According to Grisman, “Jerry was always the true renaissance music man.”

While each had gone on to create their own paths, it was 1973 when they started hanging out together at Stinson Beach, picking and having fun, when Peter Rowan (a former Bill Monroe Bluegrass Boy member) joined in along with legendary fiddler Vassar Clements, and, needing a bass player, John Kahn was brought in. Old & In the Way was born. In typical Garcia nature, the musical fun led to some local gigs which, thankfully, were recorded by Owsley “Bear” Stanley. With the guitar and the Dead being Garcia’s main drive, getting back to the banjo and picking with his pals in Old & In the Way was not only stress free, but fun and a piece of his musical puzzle that really exemplified how the muse consumed him. It wouldn’t be out of the norm, at the time, to find him in the span of a week or two playing gigs with the Dead, Old & In the Way, and one of his other musical soulmates, Merl Saunders.

The release of Old & In the Way, taken from Bear’s recordings at the Boarding House in San Francisco in October of 1973, hit the world in 1975 on the Dead’s Round Records label. It was through the Dead Heads fan club mailing of a 7-inch, 33 rpm sampler that many fans got their first dose of Old & In the Way. Many of that generation — and a few that followed — were exposed to bluegrass thanks to that release. The album continued to turn on the masses and was widely respected as one of the best-selling bluegrass albums of all time.

While fame was never of interest to Garcia, the expansion of musical consciousness was, perhaps, the most beneficial and unintended consequence of his popularity. Just like the Dead were doing with their music — turning kids onto Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, and Johnny Cash songs — here, Garcia and Old & In the Way were turning rock and rollers onto bluegrass and the songs of Peter Rowan, the Stanley Brothers, and Jim and Jesse McReynolds. The aspect of turning people on to music was certainly not limited to bluegrass, where Garcia was concerned. The Jerry Garcia Band was his outlet for a good 20+ years, wherein he’d groove to just about any and everything. Motown, Louis Armstrong, Los Lobos, Allen Toussaint, Irving Berlin, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Van Morrison … the stream of tremendous musical taste was just about endless. And, of course, adding his own flair, passionate vocals, and one-of-a-kind guitar to it all made for hundreds of satisfying shows and numerous albums.

Jerry Garcia made music that was loaded with adventure. Improvisation was his nature, always seeking out what was around the bend, never wanting to play the same thing the same way twice. That adventure is what drew so many to him and his music. That adventure lives on, not only eternally in his music, but also through the lives, songs, and good deeds of those he inspires.

Illustration by Zachary Johnson

9 Bluegrass Songs to Whet Your Appetite

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No one really needs any help gearing up for the beautiful gluttony of the holiday season, but in the spirit of gorging oneself on cookies, pie, turkey, ham, and all manner of seasonal treats, here are nine bluegrass songs to get your stomach growling.

Flatt & Scruggs — “Hot Corn, Cold Corn” 

Hot corn goes with your meal. Cold corn makes your meal (and your loud relatives) bearable. If the chickens all a-runnin’ and the toenails a flyin’, this is your best bet.

Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder — “Pig in a Pen”

Bake them biscuits! Raise a barrel of sorghum! We’re Alabamy-bound!

Reno & Smiley — “Dill Pickle Rag”

Have a pickle with your leftover turkey sandwich!

Doc Watson & Clarence Ashley — “Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy”

The importance of proper cast-iron care cannot be overstated. Do not use soap or any cleaning agents (scrub with salt on stubborn grime when needed), oil after rinsing and washing in warm water, and make sure to re-season regularly.

Lost and Found — “Leftover Biscuits”

Sure, this describes a pretty misogynistic scenario in which the kitchen is dirty because the singer’s wife left him, but maybe also it can just be the day after Christmas when no one wants to even acknowledge the tower of dishes in the sink and everyone’s content to eat cold ham on day-old rolls? Maybe?

Jim & Jesse — “Y’all Come!”

Eating everything from soup to hay! HAY!?

Bruce Molsky — “Shove the Pig’s Foot a Little Bit Further into the Fire”

No one wants an underdone pig’s foot.

David Grier — “Angeline the Baker”

Angeline, could you bake me up some cinnamon rolls, chocolate chip cookies, yeasty rolls, and a pie or three, a fruitcake, a pumpkin roll …

The Nashville Bluegrass Band — “Soppin’ the Gravy”

A clean plate does not count as a truly clean plate, until you’ve taken whatever bread you have on hand and have completely sopped up all that gravy. Soppin’ veterans will then move to the gravy pan and sop up all of that, too. Don’t think about your arteries. It’s the holidays!

Photo credit: Philip Clifford on Foter.com / CC BY-SA

8 Legendary Artists on Our Bluegrass Bucket List

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

Curly Seckler

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

Mac Wiseman

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

Jesse McReynolds

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

Eddie Adcock

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

Bobby Osborne

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

Larry Sparks

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

Roland White

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

Norman Blake

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

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

MIXTAPE: It’s a Cheating Situation

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About two weeks into February, you’ll find that darlings in love glow; strong, single types treat themselves; and the unlucky who’ve been wronged get a brutal reminder of that wronging. Who needs all those normative flowers, heart-shaped boxes, chocolate-dipped strawberries, and bubbly? Who needs that ungrateful someone who-shall-not-be-named with the wandering eye? We’ll take depressing songs about heartbreak and infidelity instead, thanks. At least, that’s what we’ll keep telling ourselves.

Ricky Skaggs: “Don’t Cheat in Our Hometown”

Ricky started performing this song with Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys back when both he and a young Keith Whitley were in the band. (The best iteration of the Clinch Mountain Boys ever? Yes.) Now, it would seem like the subject of this song would go without saying. While we do not condone philandering, we do recommend sticking to this rule of thumb, if you find yourself thinking it’s smart to break his heart and run down his name. (As a bonus, check out the album artwork from Ricky’s eponymous country record. It is everything.)

Darrell Scott: “Too Close to Comfort”

There’s one line in this song that bugged me for a while: “Lying with strangers one more last time.” It felt clunky, the grammar felt off. Then one day, it just hit me. There have been plenty of “last times” before this one. It’s the singer’s last “last time.” Just once more. Anyone with first-hand experience of the foolin’ around kind knows that with this line — hell, the whole song — Darrell Scott delivers songwriting gold, once again.

J.D. Crowe & the New South: “Summer Wages”

It would seem that there’s a much higher rate of friends stealing friends’ girls in bluegrass music than other genres. Tony sings this with such conviction; it really is one of the best existentially sad songs of bluegrass. “Never leave your woman alone when your friends are out to steal her. She’ll be gambled and lost like summer wages.”

Dolly Parton: “I’m Gonna Sleep with One Eye Open”

Dolly has no shortage of cheating songs in her repertoire. (Let’s be honest: “Jolene” would’ve been too easy a choice.) It’s nice to hear a woman sing cheating songs because, despite the greater number of songs sung by jilted men, we know infidelity isn’t really a gender issue; it’s pretty much just a human one.

Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys: “I’ll Go Stepping Too”

Just a classic. Lester’s drawl, Earl’s banjo, the iconic fiddle turn-around kickoff … you gotta love it all. Equal footing in an unfaithful relationship might not be the best approach, though. Just make sure you put out the cat before you go stepping, too.

John Prine: “It’s a Cheating Situation”

John Prine and Irish folk singer Dolores Keane hit the nail so solidly on the head. They sing to the humanity we overlook in wandering spouses or significant others. “It’s a cheating situation. Just a cheap imitation. Doing what we have to do. When there’s no love at home.” This one was written by Moe Bandy, who happens to be so adept at penning cheating songs, we had to include him later on in this list, too.

Nickel Creek: “Can’t Complain”

This song feels like a sort of roots music trance experiment — with its title as mantra. To the offending party, cheating often feels like an inevitability, but does that absolve the sin? In retrospect, do the circumstances change the nature of the outcome? Or perhaps the crux is that, despite the way things end and the bridges burnt, maybe it’s all still worth it. There’s a redemptive message we can get behind.

The Kendalls: “Heaven’s Just a Sin Away”

Now this is a song with a hook. Yeah, it’s a little weird to hear a father and daughter sing in harmony about forbidden love, but let’s just gloss over that and enjoy it for what it is: a killer, old-fashioned, bittersweet, real country, cheatin’ duet with some sick twin electric guitar. Bonus: Check out their tune “Pittsburgh Stealers.” Once again, a cheating song, but with steel mills and, yes, football wordplay for a hook. Simply masterful.

Shania Twain: “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?”

Two words: guilty pleasure. This is like the country version of “Mambo No. 5” … “List a bunch of women’s names!” But damn, it’s an earworm. End of caption.

Moe Bandy: “I Just Started Hatin’ Cheatin’ Songs Today”

Listening to heartbreak song after heartbreak song can be particularly painful when you empathize a little too strongly with them. Throw-a-bottle-at-the-jukebox painful. But those moments are when we find the therapeutic power of song at its strongest. It is comforting to know there are other sad bastards out there taking out their hurt on depressing records, too, right?

Doyle & Debbie: “When You’re Screwin’ Other Women (Think of Me)”

The reason we had to put this song last on this list is because it renders all of the other songs above null and void. This is the only one that matters. This is the magnum opus of cheating songs done up right by America’s number one country sweethearts. Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all.

Photo credit: KTDrasky via Foter.com / CC BY

Traditionally Speaking: Shawn Camp in Conversation with Trey Hensley

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“We’re probably just blocks from each other in Nashville,” Shawn Camp tells Trey Hensley once they’ve both joined the conference call line. We can hear the faint sounds of Camp going about his morning routine, rustling around in a kitchen cabinet, and pouring himself a cup of coffee.

Hensley gently corrects the assumption: “I’m actually out in L.A. today. We’re playing tonight at a festival. So I’m just getting around this morning, too.”

Even from halfway across the country, the two pickers, singers, and songwriters share close proximity in their musical backgrounds. Camp, the older and more decorated of the two, and Hensley, the promising 20-something, were youthful devotees of some of the same old country and bluegrass records, and their listening provoked the same response: the urge to pick up an instrument and learn the stuff. Having a firm yet flexible grasp on tradition readied them for the variety of musical situations they've found themselves in since — including Camp's Flatt & Scruggs-conjuring supergroup the Earls of Leicester and Hensley's wide-ranging roots duo with dobro master Rob Ickes, both of which have recorded new albums.

On the phone, it takes no time at all for Hensley and Camp to start trading mutual admiration with the modesty of a couple of small-town Southern boys.

You each currently count one of the world’s leading dobro players as a band mate. I’m, of course, talking about Jerry Douglas in the Earls of Leicester and Trey’s duo partner, Rob Ickes. And those two guys have even made all-dobro albums together. Is this is first time your paths have really crossed?

Shawn Camp: I met you at the Station Inn, Trey. Rob sent out an invitation when you guys played over there for the first time, and that’s the first time I ever heard you. Evidently, you’ve been around a lot longer than that. You’re really a talent. Man, I was blown away by your pickin’ and your singin’.

Trey Hensley: Aw, shoot. I sure appreciate it. I remember the night meeting you out there. I’ve been a fan of yours for a long time.

SC: Are you on tour out there with Rob?

TH: Yeah, we’re playing a few gigs out here in California this weekend.

SC: Well, hey I wanted to ask you, did you write “My Way Is the Highway”?

TH: Yeah, I sure did.

SC: Good song, man.

TH: Thanks. I appreciate that very much. I’ve not written a whole lot, but I’m trying.

SC: Did you write it by yourself?

TH: Yeah, I sure did. I wrote it several years ago and just kind of threw it out there to Rob one day.

When you were both young and green, you got a taste of what it was like to be welcomed into the lineage of bluegrass tradition by first generation bluegrassers. Trey, you were just a kid when Marty Stuart brought you on the Opry to do a Flatt & Scruggs number, and Earl Scruggs showed up . There’s YouTube evidence of that. And Shawn, you originally came to Nashville for a sideman gig with the Osborne Brothers. I was unable to find YouTube evidence of you playing with them, but I don’t doubt that it’s true.

SC: There’s probably some evidence out there floatin’ around. We played on a Hee Haw episode, and I think we did a few little TV shows when I was with ‘em. I was only with ‘em about six months. I was just a green cushion fiddler between Blaine Sprouse and Glen Duncan, who they wanted when they hired me, I think. I was 20 years old when I moved to town from Arkansas. They heard me out on the road. I was working with a band called Signal Mountain, a bluegrass band out of McAlester, Oklahoma. They saw me playing and wanted me to join them for a while. So that’s how I kinda got my foot in the door in Nashville.

What did receiving that little bit of approval from first-gen legends do for you?

SC: It was an amazing little trip. I’d been growing up listening to their Decca records from the early ‘60s that my dad had. They were of the caliber of Merle Haggard or somebody, at the time. In my mind, they were at that level. So, for just a green kid dropped in the middle of ‘em, all the sudden I’m in overdrive and we’re flying down the interstate. It was exciting for me.

Since you brought up Merle Haggard … Trey, when you were a kid playing around East Tennessee, you went from playing bluegrass to playing Haggard songs with string band instrumentation to plugging in your Tele. You kept shifting in style and material. What did you learn about blending different strains of tradition?

TH: Everything that I was doing was reflective of what I was listening to. The first records I took my own money and bought were Flatt & Scruggs at Carnegie Hall! and Flatt & Scruggs did the Songs of the Famous Carter Family. For the first probably four or five years that I played music, that was mainly what I did — traditional bluegrass music. And yeah, I had the opportunity to play with Marty and Earl and do a song off of the Carter Family album on the Opry not long after I got started. I drew influence from Flatt & Scruggs at the end [of their partnership], which was not one of their most popular eras. They were doing Dylan stuff and everything else. So there was always the influence of kind of breaking out [of the traditional mold].

But there are these definitive moments, like a Merle Haggard record — I kinda knew that that’s what I wanted to do, at that point. So I started doing more country stuff. And then I got the Buck Owens record Carnegie Hall Concert and, that first guitar solo on “Act Naturally,” as soon as I heard that, I went out and bought a Tele and started working on that. When I was playing around where I grew up, a lot of people had grown accustomed to hearing a bluegrass band. It was never like I was doing anything totally different, but going from acoustic to electric did kinda jar a few people’s musical taste. I guess 2008, that’s when I started playing more electric stuff and opened up for Charlie Daniels. I liked doing electric stuff, but I like doing the acoustic stuff maybe a little more.

Shawn, you were talking about your earliest years in Nashville. You’ve ranged far and wide since then in your songwriting and performing careers, from a rockabilly bluegrass duo to the roots supergroup World Famous Headliners and the Earls of Leicester. What was appealing to you about the idea of reviving the Flatt & Scruggs repertoire with this band?

SC: It just had always been in my soul, really. I listened to [Flatt & Scruggs] Live at Carnegie Hall!, too, and had several other Flatt & Scruggs records when I was a kid. I grew up with bluegrass. I just loved Flatt & Scruggs, and it just seemed like it would be a fit. Jerry Douglas called me, and he’d been doing some stuff with Johnny Warren and Charlie Cushman, making banjo and fiddle records with them. He said they were doing a Flatt & Scruggs band and wanted to know if I wanted to be Lester. And I said [goes into his lazily drawling Lester Flatt imitation], “Well, ah, absolutely.”

[Laughter]

SC: So I did. I jumped in there. It’s been fun.

You have a distinct vocal sound. People can easily recognize Shawn Camp’s voice. So what does it require of you to play Lester Flatt?

SC: I just to try to bend the notes the way he did. It kinda adds to the sound. The whole band kinda works off of that tension of those notes being bent. I try to get the phrasing as close to the way that Lester did as possible, but I’m never gonna sound exactly like him. I’d love to, for this show, but it’s never gonna happen. But everybody’s trying their best to fill the shoes of the man that was in the Foggy Mountain Boys, so if I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t be doing my part, I don’t think.

I’ve seen you perform in a lot of different kinds of contexts, but I don’t think I’d ever seen you more dressed up than when I caught an Earls show at the Ryman. Was that part of it a hard sell for you? Why is the look essential to doing this stuff?

SC: Actually, I’m probably the one that kept at everybody, saying, “You know, if we’re gonna do this, we’ve gotta look the part.” You can’t do it without the ties. You can’t do it without, at least, the suit. Flatt & Scruggs wore suit jackets. It looked like a good uniform. There was just a little bit of legitimacy to ‘em, you know?

About 25 years ago, I bought an old string tie — a Colonel Sanders tie — at a junk store, still in the package. It had rhinestones on it. When I bought it, I thought, “Man, one of these days, maybe I’ll be in a band that I can actually wear this old thing.” So last year at IBMA, when we were up for several awards, I took that thing out of the package for the first time.

Trey, in your duo with Rob, there’s no set stage wear, although I did notice that the cover of your first album depicted you in a rootsy, rural scene, both of you leaning up against a rusty old truck.

TH: [Chuckles] Yeah, it kinda varies. But I love what you guys are doing, Shawn, from the look on down. It’s awesome.

SC: Well thank you, man. It’s easy to do it when everybody’s playing the part. If one spoke fell out of the wheel, we’d be in trouble.

Trey, you’d been a solo front man leading your own band for years. For just the past couple of years, you’ve been paired with a world-renowned musician. I imagine that, on some of the first tour dates you played with Rob, he was the draw and you were the unknown quantity. Is that pretty much what it felt like?

TH: Oh yeah, absolutely. My wife and I had talked about moving to Nashville for a few years. She was looking at some jobs in Nashville. Right after I’d recorded on the Blue Highway album, I had this conversation with Rob. … Rob called me up and was very nice, complimenting what I was doing and said if I ever wanted to move to Nashville and pick some, that would be great. So that just kinda gave me enough courage. It’s still cool to go to the gigs. There’s people there that know Rob, and it’s nice to play in front of fresh ears.

Shawn, you’ve been most consistently recognized for your songwriting, since you’ve had such success in that arena. What does a celebrated songwriter bring to material that’s much older than him, to songs like “The Train That Carried My Girl from Town,” “Just Ain’t,” and “I’m Working on a Road”?

SC: All I know is, it’s a nice thing to do, for me, as far as I don’t feel the pressure of doing my material. I think the ego kind of disappears, to a degree, within the band. It’s like everybody’s just trying to do something somebody else did the best that they can do. It’s just more fun. It takes a little bit of the alpha dog pressure off of your shoulders. You don’t have to lead the pack so much as just try to be a part of the thing.

A lot of times, when everything’s hinging on the words that you’ve come up with, the show is all leaning on that. You kinda feel like you’re an old rooster on a chopping block: You’re about to get it. You never know if it’s gonna work or not, so you’re kind of vulnerable.

These songs, this material, it’s been tried and true, and you can feel the power of those old songs. It’s a departure from the same old, same old that I’ve had to do here in Nashville. But I’m not done doing that. I want to come back to it and make a regular record soon.

Trey, you and Rob aren’t performing an established canon. You’re casting a fairly broad net with the material you’re assembling alongside your originals. On The Country Blues, you cover Elton John, Ray Charles, and Sonny Boy Williamson along with Merle Haggard and Charlie Daniels. What appeals to you about reuniting these parallel, rooted traditions of country, blues, and R&B?

TH: Even though there’s a lot of different material on the record, I don’t really feel like any of it feels misplaced or anything. When we’re picking songs, even just for a jam session, it all kinda fits — and, if it doesn’t fit, we can recognize that pretty quick. That Elton John song is from Tumbleweed Connection, which has always been one of my favorite records. I kinda threw it out there one day when we were picking, and it pretty much fell into place the way we recorded it.

I’m a big fan of so many different kinds of music. And a lot of the songs, even though they’re by well-known people, it’s kind of important to go on the more obscure side of things. If we’re doing an Elton John song, we sure don’t want to cover “Rocket Man.” Well, there are a few exceptions. We did “Friend of the Devil,” the Grateful Dead song, which is pretty popular, but there’s a totally different spin on it.

SC: You guys sound like a band. I mean, just the two of y’all playing together, it sounds like a band. You guys are so tight. And Rob’s playing these harmony notes against you. It’s a really full sound. I wanna just tell you that. I know you know that, but I want you to know that I know that. You know what I mean?

TH: [Laughs] I sure appreciate that. That is very nice of you to say. This record’s primarily a band, but playing in this duo thing, it’s kinda fun to jump on the bass part or to be able to play something that sounds like a drum, just fill it up the best that we can.

The new album feels very contemporary and jammy, like you were experimenting with guitar tones and effects. Is that what the recording process was like?

TH: Yeah, that’s exactly how it was. We did three or four takes of each song and, for the most part, there would be a whole take that we’d use on the record, but there might be a guitar part from a different take thrown in. We all played something different each time, because there was really no written script. We went in with no charts, no anything — just four main guys, and we had a couple different fiddle players and Ron Block played banjo on a tune. I think that came across: that we were just playing music. Although we were working on an album, it didn’t come across like we were working on an album. We were just kinda having fun.

I think it could work at a jam band festival.

TH: I’m a big Grateful Dead fan. A lot of the jam stuff from my angle comes from that. It was just us kinda jamming on what we like.

Shawn, I’ve seen the Earls circle up around one mic to perform live, like the Foggy Mountain Boys did. How does your approach to recording compare to what they did? Are you using vintage gear and production techniques?

SC: We’re recording just about the same — exactly as they would’ve done it. We’re using old Neumann mics from the ‘40s. On this new album, we used an RCA 77, which once was Earl Scruggs’ banjo mic, that I bought last year. We’re using old, vintage equipment. We kinda cut in a line with the mics kinda set up the same as we work ‘em on stage. The guys on the outside of the line may have, at times, used headphones, but mostly we’re not using headphones. We wanna hear each other naturally around the mics. And there are no overdubs. We didn’t fix anything. So if you hear anything on that record, that’s just the way we played it. It’s not, like, Pro Tools edits and stuff like that going on.

Shawn, you’re a couple of decades further down the musical path than Trey is. Got any good advice for him? Or any bad advice?

SC: I really don’t know what to tell anybody these days. I know the music business has gotten really weird in Nashville. I know that nobody’s making much money. Somebody ran up to Roger Miller one time in an airport and said, “Hey, you got any advice for an up-and-coming songwriter in Nashville?” He said, “Yeah. Keep your change in one pocket and your pills in the other, because I just took my last 37 cents.”

[Laughter]

SC: That was probably good advice. I think Trey just needs to keep doing what he’s doing. You’re doing great, brother. I’m glad you’re doing it. I’d love to hear y’all over the radio every time I turn it on. You’ve got a great voice, reminiscent of Keith Whitley or somebody. I’d love to hear more of it. Love your songwriting, too. Just keep up the good work. That would be my advice.

TH: Man, I sure appreciate it. I’m looking forward to hearing y’all’s new record. The first one, it’s been in my truck since it came out. So I’ll have to head down to the store and pick up the new one, as soon as it comes out.

SC: Let me know when you’re ready to visit one of these days here in Nashville, and we’ll see if we can’t come up with a song together.

Illustration by Abby McMillen. Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley photo by Stacie Huckeba. The Earls of Leicester photo by Anthony Scarlati.