(Editor’s note: Each issue of Good Country, our co-founder Ed Helms will share a handful of good country artists, albums, and songs direct from his own earphones in Ed’s Picks.
Tag: guitar
Mississippi Multi-Hyphenates
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Mississippi is well-known for storytellers who craft in multiple mediums. From songwriter-guitar shredder-photographer Marty Stuart, to filmmaker-actor-business owner Morgan Freeman, to author-TV personality-business magnate Oprah Winfrey, the list of multi-hyphenates originating in the state is formidable. Hailing from different parts of the state and from different generations, Charlie Worsham and Mac McAnally are both known as consummate songwriters, instrumentalists, storytellers, singers, producers, and prolific performers.
McAnally frequently jokes that spare time is the chief export of the state of Mississippi, and while hyperbolic, this does underline the fact that it takes time and space to become an expert music creator. Whether Mississippi afforded them both the opportunity to develop their crafts or whether their own obsessions forced them to carve pathways to success for themselves, we’ll never know.
The way the pair speak about playing instruments is reminiscent of the youthful compulsion with which some people describe playing video games or sports. Both Worsham and McAnally started very young. By age 12, Worsham was on the Grand Ole Opry’s hallowed stage. McAnally grew up playing in bars and honky tonks on the Tennessee state line and started playing sessions in Muscle Shoals studios by his early teen years.
In an industry rife with surly personalities, both McAnally and Worsham have reputations of kindness that precede them. It is no coincidence that both of their calendars are fully booked with tours, both solo and in support of other artists and acts, studio work, and various and sundry creative projects. Worsham’s most recent solo release, Compadres, is a who’s who of modern Nashville duet partners; he’s also a current member of Dierks Bentley’s band. McAnally has a fully packed solo tour schedule after losing his long-time collaborator and Coral Reefer Band leader, Jimmy Buffett, just last year and is currently collaborating with Disney on updating the Country Bear Jamboree.
Good Country spoke with Worsham and McAnally from their homes in Nashville. Worsham was making Valentine’s Day memes, preparing for a run of solo shows, and balancing it all with a toddler in the house. McAnally was fresh off a week-long run of shows in Hawaii co-headlining with fellow multi-hyphenate, Jake Shimabukuro, and gearing up for a run of solo shows himself.
The discussion was a mutual admiration society as they are clearly big fans of each other’s work. They talked about their progressions to becoming multi-hyphenates, the benefits of being able to pivot, what their younger selves would think about their careers, and in a Substack-exclusive epilogue, they paid tribute to the fellow multi-hyphenate greats that we lost this past year, Jimmy Buffett and Toby Keith.
As you both became multi-hyphenate creators, were there people in your pasts who either discouraged you from this or encouraged you towards this?
Mac McAnally: Well, I began just by being pretty much fascinated with everything. As far as the multi-instrumentalist part of it, that came from my dad, because he kept the books at an auction and he came home every week with some musical instrument, and it wouldn’t be connected to the last one that he brought. He was just fascinated with music, too, so he would trade up a saxophone one week. He’d have a clarinet the next week, a fiddle the next week. And then drums, which he was kind of glad I didn’t stick with. I was always interested and fascinated by what kind of sounds they made, whether I could help make them or not.
When it became the studio application, I don’t wanna say I was discouraged, but my application in Muscle Shoals was that there wasn’t really a dedicated acoustic guitar player. There was a rhythm section at every studio. Broadway had a rhythm section. Fame had a rhythm section. Muscle Shoals Sound had a rhythm section. Wishbone, where I was working mainly, had a rhythm section. But none of them had a dedicated acoustic player, so it allowed me to go cross-pollinate those different rhythm sections and learn with different producers.
I wouldn’t say I was discouraged, but initially, I was encouraged to be primarily an acoustic player. But I think just because I’m so fascinated with all of it, I was paying attention to all of those jobs; to what the engineers were doing, to what the producers were doing. And then, as I began to have opportunities to do some of those other jobs later on, I certainly believe that having done a few of them gave me more consideration or compassion for everybody that was doing them. I think that it is a good thing to go through life with respect for everybody, and how they’re doing their job. So the more jobs you’ve done, the more you can identify with individual situations of those jobs.
Charlie Worsham: I couldn’t agree more on that last statement. You know, I always have felt that way, and all my favorite people in music are people who have worn different hats over the years, because they have that added perspective and appreciation. And I think it was similar for me, Mac. I was curious. I wasn’t really good at sports, so for me instead of picking up a new sport, it was picking up a new instrument. I was fortunate to have supportive parents who would help me acquire that instrument and acquire a connection to someone who could give me lessons, or a book or video tapes to learn from, or whatever, or just be playing along to records.
That was a big driver for me – and I don’t think anyone ever discouraged me in a similar way. It wasn’t discouragement so much as an encouragement in the other direction, which was because I was a bluegrass kid. There were a handful of people in the bluegrass world who sort of said, “Hey, if you want to be a fiddler, or if you want to be a banjo player, you need to dedicate everything you got to that one instrument,” and I figured out pretty early on I that I was too curious about the full picture, like you said. I wanted to get a little bit of understanding about it all, especially once I got the bug for recording equipment.
I had a chance to come to Nashville when I was 13 and make a bluegrass record. And this guy named Bobby Clark, who played mandolin with Mike Snider at the time, had a 2-inch tape machine in the guest bedroom. I walked in, saw that thing, and I was hooked. It was game over. And so, of course, my new mission became that I had this room full of instruments and I needed a way to record them. That’s what got me into being a songwriter. It all kind of snowballed, because I ran out of fiddle tunes to record. I was like, well, I need to write something now that I’m running out of material to record. By the time I got to Nashville, my motto in those early years was, “Say yes, ‘til you can afford to say no.”
I really wanted to be the big ol’ electric solo rippin’ guitar player. But everybody was an electric guitar player, like you said. A lot of times they needed an acoustic player or the band needed a harmony singer and someone who could play mandolin. So it was a way to always be able to pay the rent. And then, as I got more and more connections, and I guess my stock rose, then I could afford to choose a little bit more what I wanted to do specifically. Looking back, I wouldn’t have wanted to do it any other way, because I love being able to pivot.
I have a question for your 16-year-old selves. What hat do you wear today that you would be most surprised about?
CW: So if 16-year-old us popped into the future and said, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming?” Man! What’s yours, Mac?
MM: I probably didn’t understand what record production was, so it would have seriously surprised my 16-year-old self. A), That there was a job that was really what this is, and B), I wanted to do it. My 16-year-old self just wanted to be a guitar player in a band. At the time I was kind of having to be a piano player in the band, because I knew the notes on the piano and that pretty much disqualified me as a guitar player. Everybody played a little guitar in North Mississippi and almost nobody played the keyboard. If you had a keyboard, you were a keyboard player. I had a Fender Rhodes, which meant I was gonna load it by myself every night and blow my back out by the time I was 20.
I didn’t want to be a singer. I didn’t think I could sing. I wanted to be a guitar player, and I didn’t even want to be the guy playing the solo. I honestly think that’s probably what’s got me so many gigs in bands, because I would always just sit and play rhythm for two hours while somebody jammed over “Down By the River.” I was just trying to make it groove.
My adult self is fueled a little bit by my ignorant teenage self, and like you, I wasn’t necessarily inclined to sports, but I was a big enough guy that they expected me to play football in Belmont, Mississippi. I was blessed by the fact that Belmont, Mississippi did not own a helmet that would go on my head – even in junior high school. My head is huge, and the high school coach took me into the equipment room and said, “Son, see if you get any of these high school helmets on that head of yours. You’re a big boy, and we’d love to have you out on that field.” And I sat and mashed as hard as I could. It looked like Mr. Peanut. I went trotting out on the field, and the coach said, “No, that ain’t on, son.” The face mask was still over my hairline, you know, so I didn’t get to play football.
But a record producer, somebody that is in the service of the music and in the service of helping somebody’s dream come true, I didn’t understand what that job was. I don’t view myself as particularly good at it, but I relish the fact that I get to do that on occasion. I just sort of think of myself as a steward of music. It doesn’t matter which of these hats, which of these hyphens is today’s job. I just like to wake up and go back to bed, having been in the service of music, and I don’t really care what way it is.
CW: It’s interesting, because I think I’m closer in my mindset today, for the first time, to my 16-year-old self than I’ve been since then. In that, like you, I just wanted to be where the music was. I wanted to be involved. By my early twenties, there was a part of me that if I brought my 22-year-old self to the present he’d be going, “Where’s the building you own on Music Row? And where’s your wall full of plaques and all your 10 number ones?” I was pretty fired up by then to go out and change the world and be a star. But at 16, I just wanted to be around the music. I wanted to get to Nashville and be in those rooms. I think that the part of me that’s fueled by gratitude and excitement, that 16-year-old self, would be blown away by how much music I get to make and the people who I get to make it with. And the fact that the liner notes legends that I revered and learned from know me and that people like Vince Gill, who were my ultimate North Star and still are, that they would know me, and even respect what I do, and want me to be around to help.
That early 20s self, who just thought I had to have the number ones and thought I had to have it a certain way, has given way to realizing that it’s unfolded in a much cooler way. Had I had that one hyphen, the guy in the spotlight, and if everything had gone the way I thought I wanted it to go, I would not have gotten the chance to do all these other things. Being a big star means that’s really all you have time to do. I’ve had the chance to be on the tour bus with Vince, with Old Crow Medicine Show, or right now with the Dierks Bentley gig. And I’m still hungry for certain things in the spotlight part of the hyphen, but it’s way cooler now – and I have so much more perspective and gratitude. It comes down to getting to be around the music and getting to witness that miracle of an idea coming to fruition. We’re sort of midwives for creativity.
MM: That’s well said, and I almost bet as many of these multi-hyphenates as you talk to, they are gonna have that in common. I didn’t even desire to get a record deal, but I got a record deal when I was 19 and I had a record on the charts when I was 19. I was just really on a dare out there. I was like, “They’re gonna send me back home within 6 months.” I didn’t have any ambition to be in the middle of the stage at all. And still don’t. It’s Old Testament miracles, daisy-chained together, that I ever got a record deal, because I never even played my songs to my parents. I was so bashful.
But had the record deal been a big blow-up kind of deal, as you said, Charlie, it takes up all your time, and it also can shorten your career.
CW: So true.
MM: You can only take the hard spotlight for a few years and then people kinda want you out of their living room.
Charlie, you’re actually a few decades closer to your 16-year-old self than I am. I still have the mindset of that, and I’m grateful every day, really, that I didn’t blow up when I was 19, because I didn’t have a clue how to handle that. It allowed me to watch a bunch more people, how they do it, how they make records to get to play along with a bunch of people, and, as you said so well, I got to play with heroes of mine that I would never dream to be even shaking hands with. All of that is partly a result of not being a big deal when I was 19.
CW: We do it backward, right? Because I think when people hit about 40, that’s when they’re actually finally prepared to be a big star and they’re at their peak. That’s one of the best pieces of wisdom I’ve been fortunate to glean from Vince in particular, as the great mentor that he is. He’s making the best records he’s ever made now, and that’s my own hope, too, that every 10 years I can be proud of the music I’m making today, and I can look back at the music I made 10 years ago. I’ll still be proud, but also part of me cringes a little bit, because that means I’m growing. That’s the dream really.
MM: I couldn’t say it better.
Can you both talk about what being from Mississippi means to you as music makers and in terms of how you developed as music creators?
CW: The older I get, the more I recognize that you can tell the whole story of America, and particularly American music, through the lens of Mississippi. All the really inspiring parts and all the really scary parts and tragic parts of it, too. It’s all wrapped up there, and somehow, it just seems like the folks who came out of Mississippi with music in their heart did just a bang-up job of documenting all of that.
I think back to when I first acquired an electric guitar. It took me a while. I had the banjo, I had the mandolin, and I was playing all the acoustic and bluegrass instruments. But I still wanted to be Vince Gill or Marty Stuart. And I finally got that electric, and it was B.B. King records that I used to learn first. The reason was I thought, “Oh, he didn’t play that many notes. I’ll figure all this out in no time. One weekend and I’ll be playing like B.B. King.” I very quickly learned, no. He might only be playing one note, but the way that he bends a note is like watching Mozart compose.
Growing up [in Mississippi], there was that factor of seeing Marty Stuart on TV, knowing he grew up where I grew up. Same with B.B. King and Pops Staples. And same with you, Mac. I’ve always looked up to you, as well. If there’s anything I know about Mississippi, I know the only thing bigger than our mosquitoes are our stories. We really know how to tell a story.
MM: It is the truth. I got to run around with Jimmy Buffett for years, he was a Mississippi guy who had done well and I respected him. And the same with all of the blues guys. I wasn’t so much a student of blues, but I knew that the blues essentially came out of our delta. I appreciate and honor the fact that it came out of our soil there.
Our home state is fiftieth in most things. We’re the poorest and the least educated, and the most overweight. We get the number 50 a lot. But I also think that the spirit of community– when everyone’s kind of close to one another because nobody’s that far apart. The poor and middle class are almost everybody. So you kinda know your situation and how everything you do affects everybody you know. It gives you a big picture from a small town. That is a big picture that applies to the whole world. There’s a ripple of good or bad, according to whether you’re doing good or bad, it goes out through your community. That, I think, informs our storytelling nature.
If you had to boil it down today and you could only pick one thing that you do, what would you choose?
CW: Today? There’s a part of me that wants to say, “Play mandolin,” as crazy as that sounds. It’s probably number six on the list of things I do. I learned over the years that being on tour and playing that two hours of music every night doesn’t necessarily mean that you keep your chops, because you’re playing the same two hours of material. And so over the last few years, I’ve sort of set a mission ahead of every tour: I want to pick a music nerd project – and last year it was mandolin. So I try to put in a couple of hours every day out on the road, learning solos I always wanted to learn, or just playing along, or jamming with the other guys in the band.
Since I’m sort of in the middle of a mandolin renaissance, there’s a part of me that would be relieved to just go, “Oh, that’s all I’m gonna do is just go get really good at mandolin right now.” Just because it’s what’s fueling my curiosity and my creativity. I also think it’d be impossible for me to not pick songwriting, especially off the heels of us talking about being from Mississippi and the fact that we’re kind of born into telling stories growing up there.
I process so much of my life and my feelings through writing songs. If I don’t get it out, it builds up and it comes out all sideways. One of my life’s mantras is “I ain’t right if I can’t write.”
But most days, to make a long story short, I just want to play guitar. You give me a guitar and I just want to play, and that’s fine by me.
MM: You could just superimpose my voice on what Charlie said pretty much. I love everything that I do. But I just came home from working every day for a long time and literally, before I took my shoes off, I was playing a guitar. Like you said, Charlie, on tour you play what you already know how to play. You don’t really challenge yourself, because you’re spending two hours just trying to make that show be as good as you can.
But I know that I still want to get better. At a certain age, you also want to maintain. I’ve got arthritis in my hands. I remember my grandmother, who was a musician as well, she crocheted all the time, and she crocheted things that we didn’t need, because she was afraid to stop. She was afraid her hands would lock up if she stopped, so we got sweaters and doilies and blankets and bedspreads. She was really just trying to keep her hands active. There’s an element of that in what I’m doing, too. But it also lights me up. I can’t imagine being separated from a guitar for any long period of time. That’s sort of terrifying.
CW: I brought a guitar on my honeymoon. That tells you how bad it is.
MM: Yeah, I was just all week last week with my buddy Jake Shimabukuro, and he’s blessed by the fact that his passion is the ukulele. He literally doesn’t go to dinner without it. Anytime we get in the van to ride from the airport to the hotel, I make a personal bet with myself whether we get to the first speed bump on the way out of the airport before he’s playing. He’s still just as fired up about it as ever, and that’s inspiring to a 66-year-old. And I hope there’s some 78-year-old that’s looking at me going, “Look at that idiot! He’s playing guitar before he sets his suitcase down!”
Even though you’re in different generations, the modern-day music business is so different from when either of you guys were coming up. And there’s a lot of extra hats that you guys are having to wear. Given that it is a different landscape, do you have advice for people coming up who aspire to do what you two do?
CW: Most of it is stuff I’m passing on secondhand. I’d love to start by saying I believe we are in the best time in my lifetime to go into this world of music with this multi-hyphenate mindset. My dad was a banker and my mom was a teacher, both professions that they held for decades. I grew up with this message from the world that this is kind of how it works, right? You get a job, and you keep that one job, and that’s what your job is. That has kind of gone away. I’m actually particularly grateful now that I never had a plan to stay on one track. Generally music, yes. But I was always prepared to pivot. Looking at where we are now, I think that the ability to pivot is going to be the most important skill someone could have, especially in music going into the future.
I could give you tons of great advice from other people like, never be the best musician in your band, because then you don’t have anything to learn. You’re gonna learn more if you’re the weak link in that band.
But in terms of personal advice that I can give, I think it’s figure out how to have a sustainable and not-so-toxic relationship with your public-facing platform, most of the time that’s going to be through whatever social media is happening. And you can count on that changing. It’s TikTok today. It’ll be something else in a couple of years. But I have found success in finding something that I know I can commit to, that I know I can be consistent with, and that isn’t going to just drain my soul.
You know, the definition of integrity I keep is that the insides match the outside. If it’s guitar nerd stuff, I know there are other guitar nerds out there, and I know that’s something I can always put 10 minutes of my time into. I do believe that our presence online, in so many ways, is becoming the currency of the future. I mean, even for songwriters, even for session players. You know, if someone heard your name twenty years ago, they’d pick up the phone and call a musician they trust and say, “Hey, have you heard about this kid? What are they like? Have you worked with them?” And basically, that was your best shot at getting called by that person. But now they’re more likely to just search you online and look at your YouTube or your Instagram. Iif you’re there and you have a consistent presentation of who you are, they can get to know you really quickly. You also have to keep in mind that it isn’t everything. There are seasons in life where it’s okay to let that go and shut it down and focus on something else. But it is something you kind of have to at least keep on the back burner.
Ultimately, if it ain’t who you really are, it’s just not gonna work long term. And if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that if you can’t pull it off long term, it’s not worth doing. Like Mac said earlier in this conversation, being a big star isn’t made for thirty years. You’re not meant to stand in that bright of a light for a long time. The real trick is being able to run the full marathon. With social media, you have to really be careful not to lose your spirit in it.
MM: I have missed my opportunity to take some of your good advice, because social media came too late into my life. I’m probably not ever gonna be anybody that posts a lot, but I will say just in general, whatever the new thing is tomorrow, that was the old thing yesterday.
What I would say to folks starting out is to widen the lens, to dream wider. When you are a teenager, when you’re full of hormones, you tend to dream narrow. There’s so many rewarding aspects of what’s available to us that you don’t know about in your teen years and if you narrow your dreams down to where all bands suck except the one you like, you eliminate not only a lot of career opportunities, but you eliminate a whole bunch of joy that’s just sitting there waiting in the music.
There are just all sorts of payoffs to leaving everything as a possibility. And then, besides that, I would just say, in the context of all success, in all the ways that we measure it and quantify it, if you can just remember that the music is the reward. It is the primary reward. Everything else, as wonderful as everything else is, is secondary to the music itself. Nothing will ever compete with that to me. The things that I’ve gotten to be part of, or play on, or make a little bit better just because I was there, that is the most career reward that I’ll ever have, regardless of how much revenue I ever generate or how many people mistake me for the musician of the year, or whatever songwriting accolades that we get. All of those are great, but they’re secondary to the work. The work is the reward.
CW: That is incredibly profound and true. I relate to that every day these days. It calls to mind for me, too, that when we talk about awards, number ones, or getting big checks in the mail, you don’t often in those kinds of conversations hear people talk about respect. I’ve found that the work is the reward. But to feel the respect of people that you admire and look up to, respect is about as sweet a feeling as anything you could get.
MM: It is awesome
CW: And it’s also kind of a hedge against hard seasons. If you operate with empathy and respect for others, one of the best ways to get respect is to respect other people in the first place.
MM: Absolutely
CW: It is a bit of insurance, I think, against hard times, because it means in your lowest point you got people you can call who are gonna shoot you straight, who are gonna help in any way they can. There are people with big mansions and number ones, and all the things who don’t necessarily have respect, and if I had to pick one or the other, I’d rather have the respect and not have all the rest than have all the rest, and not have respect.
MM: No, that’s correct. And there is no hard turn or dark corner that music can’t get you out of. Not necessarily financial and success-wise, but whatever headspace you’re in, music can turn bad into good. There aren’t many things that do that and we’re connected to one of those. The worst thing that ever happens to you can become a song that makes somebody else’s life better who is going through a similar thing. And they couldn’t articulate it. They couldn’t speak it. But we can help with that and help ourselves at the same time.
Editor’s Note: Longtime BGS and GOOD COUNTRY contributor Erin McAnally is the daughter of Mac McAnally.
Photo Credit: Mac McAnally courtesy of the artist; Charlie Worsham by Jess Williams.
Cary Morin’s ‘Innocent Allies’ is An Unfiltered Palette of the American West
Guitarist Cary Morin’s (Crow/Assiniboine) new album, Innocent Allies, includes a striking painting on its cover created by renowned Western painter/sculptor Charles M. Russell (1864-1926), who spent his formative years as an artist in Morin’s home state, Montana. Innocent Allies, Russell’s work, depicts horses, cowboys, and settlers, routine subjects for the visual artist. The piece references how the iconic beasts of burden, who helped build the American West, were often innocent partakers in the violence, imperialism, and White Supremacy of American empire advancing across the rural, montane, wide expanses of the West.
For the new record, Morin leverages his expansive musical vocabulary – flatpicking, fingerstyle guitar, blues, folk, singer-songwriter, rock and roll and pop textures, and instrumental lyricism – to synthesize more than a dozen of Russell’s paintings and works into songs and tunes. The result is pastoral, evocative, and certainly cinematic. But these songs, as Russell’s body of work, are not sanitizations of the past or representations of American mythmaking and revisionism.
Morin views these paintings with a hefty dose of nostalgia, mentioning throughout our telephone conversation how this art was ubiquitous throughout his youth, his life in Montana, and its influence reaches well into his present, while he tours the country playing guitar from his new home base in Colorado. But that nostalgia isn’t predicated upon turning blind eyes to the atrocities endemic to Americana imaginations of “cowboys and indians,” Manifest Destiny, and the genocide and displacement of Native peoples.
Like Russell before him, Morin offers a grounded, realistic, and eyes-wide-open perspective not only on Russell’s body of work and those iconic images, but on the entire American societal construction of the West, as well. He does so with a formless and gorgeous genre fluidity and with playing styles entirely his own. Each track is stunning and expansive, even in their moments of intimacy and coziness.
Innocent Allies is a delicious record, made ever more fascinating by its unique concept, its nuanced inspirations and influences, and Morin’s one-of-a-kind voice on guitar. We began our interview chatting about the album’s conception before discussing Montana bluegrass, the constructive uses of genre, Beyoncé’s impeccable choice in Rhiannon Giddens’ banjo playing, and so much more.
I wanted to begin by asking you about the art of Charles M. Russell and how it inspired the new album, Innocent Allies – not only is his work on the cover, but it’s also very clear that these are cinematic and very artful songs. They’re very evocative. How did you take a different medium than your own and translate it into your own art?
Cary Morin: The album and the artwork all comes from my upbringing in Montana in the ‘70s. People from Montana all know that Charlie Russell is our most famous artist that ever came out of Montana. There have been a bunch of [artists] actually, but he’s kind of the top of the pile. When I was a kid – probably even today, too – anywhere in the state, you’re gonna be surrounded by his paintings or his sculptures.
He moved from St. Louis, Missouri when he was, I think 16? His parents gave him a train ticket to go out [West] and they wanted him to work on a sheep ranch owned by a friend of theirs for a while to get this fascination that he had with Montana out of his system. But it kind of backfired. He ended up living out his days there, for the most part. He gradually became a really advanced sculptor and painter, eventually getting to the point where he could really [demonstrate] action in the things that he created. He could [depict] minute muscles and forces and accurate movement – same in his paintings.
He ended up doing thousands of paintings and sculptures. They’re in collections all over the world now. Not only in Montana, but there are some museums around the U.S. that have huge bodies of work from him. When I was a kid, the coffee table books that were soon to follow his work, my dad and my mom ended up having all of them. My dad was a huge fan of his books, his writing, his stories, the letters that he wrote to everybody, the paintings, the sculptures.
With that stuff just always laying around when I was a kid, I became pretty familiar with it. I’m by no means an expert at that, but I just grew up around it all and know it pretty well. With this album, originally I was going to do a tribute album. It was going to be as country as I could make it. I’m not really a country player, I grew up in Montana. I can understand how it’s put together, and I could play some pedal steel. I’m pretty much a novice, but I know enough to get by, at least in the studio. So, [originally], it was all going to be all written by another artist.
After a while, I just couldn’t get my head around putting out an album where I didn’t write a single song on it. I think we were at home listening to Red Headed Stranger and I thought, “Man, I really love the production on this.” That was another favorite of my dad’s. He loved Willie Nelson.
I thought the production feel of [that record] would go along with the paintings in the coffee table book that was sitting right in front of us. It was kind of like a moment and a suggestion. The more I thought about it, the more I was like, “This takes care of everything.” I know a fair bit about Charlie Russell and his paintings are so accurate, they all tell stories. So I just started writing stories about the paintings. Looking at them and trying to imagine that scene and that moment of time that he captured. I wondered what happened before that moment and maybe what happened after that moment. Pretty soon we had a good pile of songs. It was a really fun process. At the time, we didn’t know what we were going to do with it. I mean, maybe I felt like it was a good idea, but after if it ever got done, then what?
Well, it definitely sounds like your own kind of sculptural process to get to this album. Carving something and then seeing where it leads you; starting with an idea, but then following the art wherever it goes.
I want to ask you about genre, because we’re having this conversation in “the zeitgeist” right now with Beyoncé and with Lana Del Rey and other people “going country.” On one hand, genre feels so important in this moment and on the other hand, it feels like we are accelerating ever faster toward being in a post-genre world. When I listen to this album, like you’re saying, it does remind me of Red Headed Stranger. It is straight up and down country to me.
But I wonder how you view genre, yourself? Is identifying with genre useful to you? Do you think it’s kind of a vestige of the past? How do you identify with genre at this point and with this record?
Well, with me in particular, that’s a pretty interesting question, because in the early ‘70s, when I was starting to play music and get interested in music, I lived in Montana. With my dad being a military guy, I didn’t really have access to a lot of albums of a wide, eclectic variety of genres and of sounds. But I did end up listening to classical music and my folks were big country fans. My oldest brother was a rock fan. I would stumble across things. I became a bluegrass fan from the influence of my best friends.
I didn’t really understand genres. I just heard music and I liked it. I didn’t really know how to put labels on it. I wasn’t aware of publications that would outline where the boundaries are on music. I didn’t think of things as a specific genre – although, you know, I sure liked the way that Doug Kershaw played fiddle, however I came across that! Or, I really appreciated the way Chubby Checkers played piano. That was all from Louisiana, but I had no idea what Louisiana was, or what Canadian music was, or any of that. It was all just music that I liked.
Having grown up without all that knowledge, I think it did have an effect on how I play music, because I would kind of bounce from genre to genre. I played with a band for 20 years, and we would play like the way Stevie Ray Vaughan played blues guitar. I didn’t really understand that much about blues music, but I thought what he did on David Bowie’s album was amazing. And so that had an influence on the way I play guitar. I really love Pat Metheny, and that had an influence on how I play guitar. I really love Mark Knopfler. It’s like all these genres couldn’t be any farther apart, but they all had a place in my mind. I maybe didn’t realize it at the time, but all those little influences would end up having an effect on how I make albums.
Genres now, that I hear on the radio – which is really only when I drive around – that’s [usually] like a public station, a community radio station, so I don’t really hear pop music. But, everything’s kind of starting to sound the same. I don’t know why that is. I think that maybe money has something to do with it. You know, “What sells?” What the buying public listens to, in order for advertising to be sold. I guess I don’t really pay attention to it too much. But I think that a lot of it’s driven by money.
You know, I can’t understand why Beyoncé would shout out to the world, “I’m gonna face country music!” and have that feel [like a] benefit. I think that she would only do that if she was motivated by something other than her love of Hank Williams. [Laughs] You know what I mean?
[Laughs] it’s hard to imagine! And then, at the same time, in the 100-ish years country music has been around, this seems to be a routine move. There’s always this moment where the people on the inside aren’t making that much money, or feel like they aren’t making much money, and you see someone like Lana or Beyoncé coming and you think, “Wait… There’s money to be made here? What? Tell me more about this!!”
Exactly!
From listening to your music, I think I would describe you as “genre agnostic.”
But I was curious what your feeling was on the Beyoncé announcement and the press coming out on that.
I found it really interesting, because I’ve known Rhiannon [Giddens] for years. She played with Pura Fé an artist/group that I played with in Europe for like five years. To hear her pick up a fretless banjo and just beat it into submission, I was like, “Holy God!” I had never heard anybody play a fretless banjo before, let alone like that. What a perfect choice for Beyoncé. She picked one of the best banjo players that I’ve ever met. I was surprised and impressed.
Yeah, me too. And also to have Robert Randolph playing steel on the tracks. Beyoncé and her team very clearly knew that she couldn’t appear like a “carpetbagger.” It’s not the most perfect term in this context, you know what I mean. She didn’t want to be viewed as somebody who was interloping – she did a good job at that “authenticity signaling” for sure.
It’s a wild thing to watch happen and to watch the discourse, in the wake of the two tracks, half of the people being like, “That’s not country” and half of the people being like, “Black folks invented country music, Indigenous folks invented country music, this is nothing new.” To watch those factions bump up against each other again, it’s kind of endlessly fascinating to me.
Like John Travolta having a hand in the revival of Texas music! Some idea that somebody somewhere along the line has and it catches on and takes off. I like it, too. I think culturally, I love it when things evolve. I do remember when I was a kid that I would hear on the radio what people call “country music” and go, “Boy, isn’t this happening in what is called Southern rock already?” There’s always players borrowing from other players.
And then it’s the studio musicians that played in that stuff. They may have showed up on a Bob Marley album somewhere along the line, too, because they played in a studio. Hell, man, when I was a kid I didn’t even know who Bob Marley was. I think it’s great that people learn from each other.
I wanted to ask you about bluegrass. You talked a little bit about what bluegrass means to you earlier in our conversation, but also when we premiered your track, “Whiskey Before Breakfast,” but I wanted to give you a chance to talk about your bluegrass influence again – we are the Bluegrass Situation, after all. What does bluegrass mean to you as a genre, as a picker?
That also goes back to the ‘70s. When I was talking about all the music that I either got from my family or from older brothers and my best buddies – bluegrass was a pretty big deal in Montana back in those days. I remember early on listening to these albums that didn’t exist in my friends’ houses. Hearing about Flatt & Scruggs and maybe I heard it on TV. I’d see things on Hee Haw
And it definitely piqued my interest.
But the stuff that was going on in Montana, there was a band called Live Wire String Choir, which was a Montana bluegrass band. There was another one called Lost Highway Band that was a little bit electrified, but still bluegrass. And then there was the Mission Mountain Wood Band, which was kind of the king of all of them. They were straight ahead bluegrass, but from around Missoula. They actually appeared on Hee Haw one time, although I never saw that episode. They had an album called In Without Knocking back in the day and I was maybe around 12 years old, something like that. Everybody was buying that album. We had a copy of it, so I was learning those songs.
I think there was a plane accident and a lot of the band didn’t survive, but there’s one guy, his name is Rob Quist, who was one of the founders of the band. He still plays shows in Montana. His music and that band’s music turned me on to bluegrass. Through investigation and through the help of friends, I learned more and more about it. I got way into flatpicking. I never had an American-made guitar when I was a kid. I didn’t really realize the importance of that.
I was still fascinated with Tony Rice, and still fascinated with the crazy melodies that David Bromberg pumped out. I love John Hartford – so it was, I guess, a personal quest of mine. I have some friends that are pretty good bluegrass players. But I left Montana when I was 18 and I kind of pursued bluegrass for a while, but then I kind of got back into fingerpicking and fingerstyle guitar and eventually electric guitar.
And all that Clarence White stuff that I had heard and the Will the Circle Be Unbroken album, a lot of those artists that were kind of starting to press the boundaries of bluegrass music caught my attention. Eventually, I just abandoned that piece of guitar [playing] altogether and got really into playing electric guitar for many years. It wasn’t until maybe 20 years ago that I started really getting back into playing acoustic guitar. I never really abandoned electric, but I started playing fingerstyle guitar and pursuing it. I’d play for five, ten hours a day, daily. I just couldn’t get it out of my mind, largely thanks to Kelly Joe Phelps.
The early acoustic experiences that I had never really went away and I was really interested in creating music based on all of those influences throughout my life.That’s where the fingerstyle thing came back in.
I think the tune that I like the best on the album is “Bullhead Lodge.” And I love the Charles Russell painting that inspired it. I wondered if you could take us into your composition process for “Bowhead Lodge” and specifically, how you were synthesizing those related paintings while you were improvising, composing the tune – because I think that’s really fascinating.
Well, thank you. I’m glad that that song resonates with you. First of all, Charlie’s painting of his cabin on Lake McDonald – Charlie painted from memory, he’s not a guy that you would see sitting out in the middle of the fields with an easel, as romantic as that looks, he wasn’t that guy. He ended up painting a lot of depictions of his view of the lake from Bullhead Lodge. There are so many of them and they’re all just serene.
I was playing a show with Phil Cook in North Carolina and at sound check, he said, “Cary, we could just play this thing…” and he played this short, open-tuning melody. “We could play this thing for 10 minutes and people would love it,” he said.
We just kind of sat there and tweaked it for a little while. I don’t remember the melody he played. We didn’t do that during the show. But, I always remember him saying, “Play the simple thing and people will love it.” When I was looking at those paintings of Lake McDonald, I just started playing this melody. It wasn’t really written on the spot, I suppose. I goofed around with it for a couple of hours, but then I came up with sort of four variations of a similar melody. I started with a simple one and then changed it and changed it and changed it until the chords finally changed into what tags the song.
Because of that process, I like that song too, because it’s a great memory. I was glad that it made it onto the album. People have been talking about that recording, it seems like it’s resonated with folks.
Photo Credit: Grayson Reed
Larry Sparks – Toy Heart: A Podcast About Bluegrass
The legendary Larry Sparks, a prominent player in bluegrass for over six decades and a Bluegrass Hall of Fame inductee, joins host Tom Power for this episode of Toy Heart. Sparks shares insightful anecdotes from his early years, touring and performing with the Stanley Brothers and from his tenure with Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys. From traveling in a ‘67 station wagon to the challenges of navigating the music industry over so many decades, Sparks reflects on his particular journey through bluegrass, old-time, and country music. We explore his musical influences, his unique approach to bluegrass guitar playing, and the profound impact of gospel songs on his own soulful, down home sound.
LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • SPOTIFY • MP3
Sparks also offers a glimpse into his Nashville days, highlighting the unique challenges he faced in Music City. His stories reveal a dedication to preserving the essence of bluegrass and his commitment to honest storytelling. Hear Sparks describe making hits like “John Deere Tractor” as well as speaking to the spiritual resonance of gospel music. He paints a vivid picture of a musical legacy that spans more than 60 years, leaving an indelible mark on the heart and soul of the bluegrass community.
Photo Credit: Michael Wilson
Guitar Center Salesman Surprised “Gal” He Mansplained Chords to Is Molly Tuttle
(Editor’s Note: Welcome to the debut of our new humor column, The Resonator – from the pen of satirist and performer Greg Hess.)
RALEIGH, N.C. — Gary Plapinger (48), a local Guitar Center salesman, expressed surprise upon realizing that the person he had been explaining chords to was none other than acclaimed guitarist Molly Tuttle.
“I feel tricked,” remarked Plapinger in retrospect. “I dedicated a considerable amount of time to that gal’s musical education.”
According to witness Ashlyn Lockerbie (32), the entire interaction could have been avoided. “Molly [Tuttle] politely explained to him multiple times that she had been playing for years,” Lockerbie stated. “She wasn’t even looking to buy a guitar.”
Plapinger, however, held a different perspective. “I was suggesting she get a ukulele; thought her kids could enjoy it too,” he explained, despite Tuttle not currently having children.
Observing the cringe-worthy spectacle from her hiding place behind a bass amplifier, Lockerbie later managed to escape through the loading dock to avoid Plapinger. “I’m not proud of running,” she said with a haunted look. “But I had to save myself.”
In a statement released on Friday, Grammy award-winning Tuttle revealed that she had entered the store seeking directions after leaving her cellphone in an Uber. To her dismay, this led to an hour and twenty-minute encounter with Plapinger, including a lecture on the greatest guitar solos of all time, a photo presentation of his 1999 canary yellow Camaro, and an impromptu performance of “Stairway to Heaven,” all without Tuttle’s consent.
According to Facebook, Plapinger has been a part-time sales associate at Guitar Center since 2016, following his divorce. He also serves as an alternate lead guitarist for the local Led Zeppelin cover band, Boogie With Stu.
“I even added her to the guest list for my show at Foamie’s that night. Surprise, surprise, she didn’t show up!” he exclaimed, before turning his attention to a woman perusing pedal boards. “Her loss. She could have learned how to rock,” he added with a shrug.
Tuttle is currently touring the United Kingdom with Tommy Emmanuel and said that the incident has motivated her to aid other women facing similar situations.
“I never pass a music retailer without checking on the women inside and ensuring they want to be there,” said Tuttle, whose Run Don’t Strum Foundation has rescued numerous musicians to date. “After what I’ve been through, it’s the least I can do.”
Greg Hess is a comedy writer and performer in Los Angeles. His work has been featured in The American Bystander, The Onion, Shouts & Murmurs, Points in Case, and he cohosts the hit satirical podcast MEGA.
Handmade & Hot: The Importance of ‘The Pizza Tapes,’ 30 Years Later
In early 1993, David “Dawg” Grisman, Jerry Garcia, and Tony Rice gathered around a few microphones in Dawg’s Mill Valley, California recording studio. It was a casual, after-hours jam session during the recording of Tone Poems (Grisman and Rice), but engineer David Dennison kept the tapes rolling, capturing and preserving one of the most significant moments in American music history.
As a kid growing up in central Appalachia, bluegrass music was, at times, painfully familiar. In childhood memories, I’m being dragged to bluegrass concerts on the weekends by my parents, or even spotting Ralph Stanley dining at local restaurants. But these things weren’t special to a 14-year-old Gen Z, no matter the popularity of new, genre-adjacent bands like Mumford & Sons or the Lumineers.
Sometime though, in those early teenage years, I was digging through my dad’s CD collection (which in 2012, already being rendered obsolete, had been stored in a closet) when I found a copy of The Pizza Tapes. I was vaguely familiar with Jerry Garcia from his association with the Grateful Dead, and remembered seeing Tony Rice as a 7 or 8 year old kid, and despite my dad insisting how important he was, being bored out of my mind. But when I picked up the CD and turned over its pizza-themed cover (“It’s Hot!”), I recognized songs like “Man of Constant Sorrow,” “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” and “House of the Rising Sun.” This familiarity is what put the CD in my hands, but the mandolin never left them once I heard Dawg’s playing.
The Pizza Tapes, to summarize, was an accident gone right. While these recordings may have eventually been packaged into an album, that certainly wasn’t the case when the bootleg started making the rounds. The story surrounding the tapes was practically folklore, with various narratives centered around a pizza delivery worker getting them in some way from Jerry Garcia. After Grisman’s label, Acoustic Disc, formally released the recordings in 2000 (ultimately providing access to the recordings to even more listeners) their significance in acoustic music was further embedded.
David “Dawg” Grisman, while known primarily as a mandolinist, has a reputation for recording everything, and an equally important legacy as an instigator of collaboration. His friendship with Jerry Garcia, dating back as early as 1964 (when Garcia traveled to the east coast chasing the roots of bluegrass music), led to the bay area bluegrass supergroup Old & In the Way in the early 1970s. Meanwhile in Kentucky, Tony Rice was departing from J.D. Crowe & the New South, and moving to the bay area to play Dawg’s original music – starting the group that in 1977 became known as the David Grisman Quintet.
The Pizza Tapes are special for countless reasons, but the obvious attraction is the coming together of these two legendary guitarists, highlighting the distinctness of their two original playing styles, musically glued together by Dawg, their mutual friend and collaborator. Though the two guitarists already had a large portion of their careers behind them (Rice lost his voice in ‘94, and Garcia died in ‘95), it wasn’t until February 4 and 5 of 1993 that Dawg successfully sat them down together with guitars in hand. As is the dialogue on track 3, “Appetizer:”
DG: Trip seeing you guys together, man.
TR: Shoulda happened a long time ago.
JG: This is gonna be a hoot!
While both guitarists were of obvious importance to Dawg, their influence extended far beyond his Bay Area recording studio. By the ‘90s, Tony Rice was (and had been for some time) the very definition of bluegrass guitar, with the same being true for Jerry Garcia in the jamband world. For these two genres, which had already begun to cross pollinate, this laid-back jam session was something monumental, a bridge between the musical worlds of Tony Rice and Jerry Garcia.
In a world where recorded music is continually valued by its commercial success, albums like The Pizza Tapes are a breath of fresh air the listener can always return to. There was clearly no goal of marketability or profit in mind when these three sat down to jam – the recordings are intimately casual, made clear by Garcia’s words in the first 10 seconds of the album, when they fumble the kick-off to “Man of Constant Sorrow.”
There are so many lovable moments between and during these songs – Dawg’s slightly out of tune A-strings at the end of “Man of Constant Sorrow,” Tony’s fiery but loose guitar solo on “Rosalee McFall,” or most notably, the album’s fade-out with Jerry noodling on Tony Rice’s famed “Holy Grail,” the 1935 Martin D-28 (#58957) which had previously belonged to Clarence White, another friend and collaborator of Grisman’s.
JG: Tony gets a better tone actually than Clarence did.
DG: Don’t say he’s got a better tone – he’s louder.
JG: Louder is better David – on this planet, louder’s better.
(from “House of the Rising Sun)
As I discovered the rest of Dawg’s discography, I gravitated toward the more intentional David Grisman Quintet (1977) and Home Is Where the Heart Is (1988) as a rubric for my mandolin schooling. But over a decade later, I still go back to The Pizza Tapes to be reminded of why I play the mandolin, and ultimately music. It’s not to make money or achieve popularity, but to be playful, conversational, and to above all else make good music with my friends – tenets that were all exemplified by Dawg, Tony, and Jerry on those winter nights in 1993.
Acoustic America: Musical Instrument Museum’s Exhibit Gathers Iconic Instruments
In early November, the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona unveiled a brand new exhibition, Acoustic America, which celebrates iconic instruments of many heroes of folk, blues, bluegrass, and more. The exhibit is presented in partnership with our Dawg in December Artist of the Month, David Grisman and his record label Acoustic Disc, and showcases a remarkable collection of instruments that the museum states, “Have redefined music not only in the United States, but around the world.” This includes more than thirty instruments on loan from the Dawg himself.
“MIM is honored for this opportunity to collaborate with David Grisman and feature so many prized instruments from his collection,” says MIM senior curator Rich Walter, via email. “And after many years of loving his music, it has been a joy on a personal level for me, too. His influence as a mandolinist, composer, and bandleader is huge, and he absolutely changed the course of acoustic music as we know it today.”
Guests of the museum will be able to view storied and legendary instruments formerly owned and played by such luminaries as Earl Scruggs, Elizabeth Cotten, Mississippi John Hurt, John Hartford, Lloyd Loar, and many more. “Beyond the legacies of the individual artists and the beauty of these historic instruments,” Walter continues, “Seeing this collection together in one space is really striking because it reflects a broader American narrative. Exceptional individuals from diverse backgrounds crossed paths and connected their talents in ways that gave us distinctive new traditions that continue to inspire people around the world.”
To celebrate the new exhibition and Dawg in December, we’ve partnered with MIM to bring you these photos of select instruments from Acoustic America. Make plans to visit the Musical Instrument Museum in Arizona now! Tickets are available at MIM.org.
(Editor’s Note: Instrument information provided from the Acoustic America catalog.)
The F-4 model was Gibson’s premier mandolin until late 1922, when the F-5 was introduced. In addition to the characteristic oval sound hole and carved scroll, this early example features a three-point body style (note the points protruding from the body), elaborate torch and wire peghead inlay pattern, and special Handel tuning buttons with colorful inlays. David Grisman featured this mandolin on the cover of his first solo album, The David Grisman Rounder Album, and has recorded with it on other projects, including Tone Poems with Tony Rice and Not for Kids Only with Jerry Garcia.
Manager, talented musician, and legendary folklorist Ralph Rinzler (1934–1994) was one of David Grisman’s earliest and most influential mentors. Sharing a hometown of Passaic, New Jersey, Rinzler introduced Grisman to important recordings of folk music and inspired him to play the mandolin. Rinzler played this F-5 mandolin with the Greenbriar Boys, who were the first non-Southern bluegrass band to win at the Union Grove Old Time Fiddler’s Convention in North Carolina. He also managed the careers of Doc Watson and Bill Monroe and was instrumental in creating the first dedicated bluegrass festival in Fincastle, Virginia, in 1965. Two years later, Rinzler founded the Smithsonian Folklife Festival to celebrate and support living cultural heritage from around the world.
Few brother duet acts in country music were as influential as the Louvin Brothers. Ira and Charlie Louvin were born in Alabama in the 1920s, and their high harmony singing and Ira’s tasteful mandolin playing helped them define a sound popularized through radio broadcasts, commercial recordings, and appearances on the Grand Ole Opry – where they debuted in 1955. Ira customized this one-of-a-kind mandolin in the flashy style of professional country artists and played it extensively, including on the Grand Ole Opry stage. This special piece of mandolin history was also owned by David Grisman for many years.
This mandolin — serial number 75315; label dated February 18, 1924 — was the personal instrument of famed Gibson acoustic engineer Lloyd Loar. Loar was impressively inventive and patented designs for keyboard actions and electric instruments, among many others, but the F-5 Master Model mandolin is arguably his most iconic and enduring success. The interior of this mandolin is fitted with an original Virzi Tone Producer. F-5 mandolins with Loar’s signature on the label are the most valuable and sought-after in the world, and Loar F-5s from the batch signed on this date are known to be among the best-sounding. Perhaps it is not surprising that Loar kept this remarkable mandolin for himself!
This guitar was played extensively by the New Lost City Ramblers, who were pivotal to the national revival of Southern folk music in the 1950s and 1960s. Founding members John Cohen, Tom Paley, and Mike Seeger were dedicated to authentically reproducing folk traditions for new audiences. The group recorded several albums for Smithsonian Folkways and helped discover, document, and showcase talented artists such as Elizabeth Cotten, Dock Boggs, and Snuffy Jenkins. Prewar pearl-trimmed Martin guitars are among the most desirable acoustic instruments in the world.
In 1961, the Kentucky Colonels, led by brothers Clarence and Roland White, performed on The Andy Griffith Show, under the alias “the Country Boys.” The Kentucky Colonels were one of the most exciting and influential bluegrass bands of their era, and their national television appearance would have been much of the United States’ first memorable exposure to bluegrass. Dobro player LeRoy McNees (AKA LeRoy Mack) played this Model 125 resophonic guitar during the show and for many years afterward. After the guitar was damaged at an airport, McNees restored and outfitted it with gold-plated metal hardware.
A young Alison Brown spent her entire savings on this then-new banjo built by Geoff Stelling, hoping to emulate the crisp, solid tone of Alan Munde, an influential older banjoist who played a similar Staghorn model. Brown played this banjo on her first album, 1981’s Pre-Sequel, and she later played it with Alison Krauss’s successful band Union Station. One of the most gifted banjoists in the world, Brown was the first woman voted Banjo Player of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association (in 1991). She has also won multiple Grammy awards, founded her own record label, Compass Records, and was inducted into the Banjo Hall of Fame in 2019.
Guitarist and composer Michael Hedges (1953–1997) used a range of innovative and unconventional playing techniques — such as alternate tunings and percussive tapping on the strings and soundboard — to expand the possibilities of what a solo artist could do. In rediscovering the sound of vintage harp guitars with dedicated sub-bass strings, Hedges reimagined the guitar as a full-spectrum compositional tool. His 1984 album Aerial Boundaries illustrated his astonishing talent and helped define the contemporary new age acoustic music of Windham Hill Records. Hedges nicknamed this favored harp guitar “Darth Vader,” and his use of harp guitars revived interest in these long-obscure instruments.
All photos courtesy of the Musical Instrument Museum, Phoenix, Arizona.
LISTEN: Cary Morin, “Whiskey Before Breakfast”
Artist: Cary Morin
Hometown: Born in Billings, Montana; now based in Fort Collins, Colorado
Song: “Whiskey Before Breakfast”
Album: Innocent Allies
Release Date: January 26, 2024
In Their Words: “‘Whiskey Before Breakfast’ is a song that I learned as a child, when my interest at the time was mainly bluegrass music, something I loved very much. Since those early days, I have abandoned the guitar pick and prefer to play fingerstyle guitar. I was inspired to record this old traditional tune by my interest in the famous Montana band, Mission Mountain Wood Band. I loved their combination of bluegrass and other genres of the time. Their album, In Without Knocking, was always on my list of favorite recordings and I particularly liked the album cover, which is the painting by [Charles M. Russell] titled, ‘In Without Knocking.'” – Cary Morin
Photo Credit: Grayson Reed
WATCH: Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley with Molly Tuttle, “John Deere Tractor” (A Tribute to the Judds)
Artist: Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley and Molly Tuttle
Hometown: Franklin, Tennessee; Jonesborough, Tennessee; Palo Alto, California
Song: “John Deere Tractor”
Album: A Tribute To The Judds
Release Date: October 27, 2023
In Their Words: “It is an incredible honor to be included in this amazing tribute to The Judds. I grew up listening to these songs. I’ve always been a huge fan of The Judds and of that sound that they created with their producer Brent Maher. And ‘John Deere Tractor’ is one of my all-time favorite songs, so when we were asked to perform this song with the great Molly Tuttle, we of course jumped at the opportunity. I’m so proud to be a part of this album, and I’m so excited for everyone to hear it. Thank you to The Judds for creating such wonderful music that we’ll all be listening to forever.” – Trey Hensley
“I remember hearing The Judds on the radio for the first time — it blew my mind! It was a musical oasis on the radio, that’s for sure. As a kid growing up playing bluegrass, I loved their sound with the ACOUSTIC guitars(!), and the Dobros that were front and center in the mix (great production by Brent Maher!), and of course, their harmonies and song choices were impeccable. And Wynonna, what a voice! So strong, an amazing tone… ‘John Deere Tractor’ was a big song for me because my bluegrass hero, Larry Sparks, did a great version of it. I was really impressed when I saw that The Judds recorded it and loved their version also. It was such a thrill to record this awesome song, and I love the vocal performances by Trey Hensley and Molly Tuttle on this track. They hit it out of the park.” – Rob Ickes
Photo Credit: Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley by Jeff Fasano; Molly Tuttle by Bobbi Rich.
BGS Class of 2023: Our Year-End Favorites
Year-end lists can be so problematic – pitting distinct sounds and music against each other, peddling absolutes, attempting objectivity in a demonstrably subjective field. Each year, as we consider the music that impacted us over the course of twelve months, we try to challenge ourselves and each other, as BGS contributors, to think outside the year-end round up “box.”
For the BGS Class of 2023, our intention is to highlight music, songs, albums, and performances that have stuck with us, or that we know will continue to stick with us into the future. We wanted to deliberately look beyond the music and creators that merely have the resources, networks, and access to reach us; we wanted to utilize genre as a checkpoint or touchstone, but never as a blanket criterion; we wanted to broaden what forms of media or formats are included; and overall, we wanted to attempt a holistic look at what a year of listening, learning, watching, and hearing can look like to this particular group of people.
You’ll find ravishing and large indie folk, earnest and literary – and raucous and silly – bluegrass, legendary legacy artists and brand new lineups, soundtracks and live shows, and more. Ultimately, whatever the year, we always want our retrospective lists to be a starting point, a springboard, for our readers, followers, and for roots music fans. This is not the end-all, be-all “Best of 2023” list. Instead, it’s a reminder of the music that scored a year absolutely filled to bursting with excellent, exemplary, ecstatic roots songs, albums, and shows.
boygenius in Pittsburgh, June 2023
When I saw boygenius this summer, I was milktoast about the whole thing going into it. As soon as I arrived, I realized I was surrounded by young people – and not just any young people: All the beautiful freaks were out for Lucy, Julien, and Phoebe. The energy was palpable and something that I have not experienced in over 20 years. Everyone knew every word. They were FaceTiming friends who cried and sang along remotely with these heroes on stage. It was inspiring!
boygenius feels like an important band. I so wish they had been around when I was an outcast teenager feeling such confusing, wild emotions. Music has a way of helping the world make sense. boygenius radiates communion and it felt like an honor to be a part of their world. – Cindy Howes
Caitlin Canty, Quiet Flame
My favorite bluegrass album of the year is often an album that, through no fault of its own, ends up receiving little to no bluegrass radio airplay or IBMA Awards recognition, and as I listened to Caitlin Canty’s Quiet Flame over and over this year, I couldn’t help but expect it would end up criminally underrated by the general bluegrass community. It’s made by bluegrass pickers – Canty assembled Chris Eldridge (who also was the project’s producer), her husband Noam Pikelny, Brittany Haas, Paul Kowert, Sarah Jarosz, and Andrew Marlin for her band – and as a result Quiet Flame, more often than not, is just an unencumbered string band album that’s as much bluegrass as it is Americana and singer-songwriter folk. But while Mighty Poplar, with a similar lineup of folks, takes off in bluegrass circles, it raises an eyebrow that this impeccable, heartfelt, and complicated set of songs hasn’t seen the same trajectory. Not that that was Canty’s goal – it’s obvious her priorities in music making are grounded and community-minded, part of why this album is such a stunner. “Odds of Getting Even,” co-written with another BGS favorite, Maya de Vitry, is one of the year’s best songs, bar none. – Justin Hiltner
A Homeplace Pilgrimage to Earl Scruggs Music Festival, August 2023
BGS once again co-presented the Earl Scruggs Revue tribute set hosted by Tony Trischka at Earl Scruggs Music Festival, held just outside of Shelby, North Carolina at the Tryon International Equestrian Center in August. On my drive to the festival grounds, I made stops in Tryon proper, to visit Nina Simone’s childhood home, and also in Shelby, to visit the Earl Scruggs Center and to drive by both of the Scruggs homeplaces just outside of Boiling Springs, North Carolina. It was stunning to visit both homes on the same day, to realize the interconnectedness of so much of American popular music. Simone grew up with a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains from her front porch nestled in one of their hollers, yet we place Scruggs as an Appalachian musician and not Simone?
The festival and Scruggs Center, for their parts, did an excellent job of demonstrating how broad, varied, and intricate American roots music is, even while focusing closely on bluegrass, string band, and Americana music. Listeners of our podcast, Carolina Calling, will know how much BGS loves North Carolina music history – the show features episodes on both Scruggs and Simone. Seeing that history in person, while heading to a first-class, banjo-heavy festival was a favorite musical moment of this year, for sure. – Justin Hiltner
East Nash Grass, Last Chance to Win
East Nash Grass seems to be all the buzz on the bluegrass circuit these days and those who have ventured to Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge on any Monday night since 2017 can certainly understand why. The band’s long-standing residency at the Madison, Tennessee dive bar has taken them from a weekly pick-up band to performing at the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman Auditorium, and at bluegrass festivals across the U.S. Their sophomore album, Last Chance to Win, captures the band at their very best (albeit, without their lovable stage antics). Following a 2023 IBMA nomination for Best New Artist, it won’t be a surprise if we see this record, and these musicians, sweeping awards in 2024 and beyond. – Thomas Cassell
Alejandro Escovedo at Cat’s Cradle Backroom, Carrboro, NC, November 2023
There are countless good reasons why you should make a point of seeing the Texas punk/soul godfather if he’s ever playing anywhere near you. But what might be the best reason of all is it’s a lead-pipe cinch that everyone in your town worth hanging out with will be there, too – onstage as well as in the crowd. Escovedo was among a dozen stars drawn to the North Carolina Triangle for an all-star “Nuggets” tribute show overseen by Lenny Kaye in November. So, he came a night early and played a solo show, too, ably supported by local luminaries Lynn Blakey and Pinetops/The Right Profile guitarist Jeffrey Dean Foster. The love in the room was palpable on deeply moving originals like “Sister Lost Soul” and “Wave Goodbye.” And when Kaye and R.E.M.’s Peter Buck came on for a closing Velvet Underground cameo of “Pale Blue Eyes” and “Sweet Jane,” the circle was complete. – David Menconi
Ben Garnett, “Open Your Books” (featuring Brittany Haas and Paul Kowert)
Before I’d listened to the complete #BGSClassof2023 Spotify playlist and realized this track was one of our first additions, the app kept recommending “Open Your Books” to me – and it’s not hard to see why. From guitarist and composer Ben Garnett’s debut album, Imitation Fields, the track features bassist Paul Kowert and fiddler Brittnay Haas and is an example of what bluegrass music can be, and what traditionally bluegrass instruments can do.
The tune opens slowly, with guitar and mandola – provided by Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway’s own Dominick Leslie. Fiddle swells, orchestral arrangements, and dreamy acoustic production make for a piece that feels distinctly intellectual. It’s chambergrass, but it’s also highly listen-able. While there’s a strong melodic thread throughout, the surrounding instruments and their players are allowed to wander off up the guitar neck, throwing in trill-y banjo licks, and detouring outside traditional fills and solo styles. The record was produced by Chris Eldridge and also features Matthew Davis on banjo and additional guitar from Billy Contreras. I’d recommend this tune to low-fi lovers, roots music fans, and anyone looking for a chilled out moment. It’s perfect for an introspective drive or a rainy winter day spent drinking hot tea at the window. – Lonnie Lee Hood
Alice Gerrard, Sun to Sun
Never, over the course of her lifelong career in music, has Alice Gerrard stopped, having reached her musical destination. She has challenged herself, time and time again, not simply for reinvention’s sake, but because she is a consummate old-time and bluegrass musician, someone so solidly bitten by the string band bug that making music requires that constant movement, that aspirational looking into the future, girded by songs of the past. But Sun to Sun, her latest – and perhaps final – album, features songs decidedly of the present. A synthesizer of traditional art forms, Gerrard takes textures and colors we relate to “authenticity” and leverages them to serve the messages in these tracks. Aging, mortality, justice, apartheid, gun violence, community are all woven into this collection. Alice is their nexus point, around which the entire project revolves and reflects the cosmic light she continues to shine on all of us – and on roots music subjects too often hidden in the shadows. – Justin Hiltner
A Good Year for Soundtracks – Asteroid City, The Holdovers, and More
Between the Writers Guild and Screen Actors’ strikes, 2023 was a weird year for the entertainment industry. But for those releases that did make it to the screen, it was a great year for movie soundtracks, especially for roots music fans.
First up, Wes Anderson’s western sci-fi Asteroid City. In addition to the usual cadre of Anderson’s cast, the film was peppered with classic country and bluegrass recordings from the likes of Tex Ritter, Slim Whitman, Bill Monroe, and Johnny Duncan & the Blue Grass Boys (you read that right). That’s to say nothing of the incredibly catchy original ear worm, “Dear Alien (Who Art In Heaven)” which felt as classic as those twentieth century tunes of the frontier written decades ago.
Capping off the year was Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, a beautiful ode to a particular style of 1970s filmmaking that stars Paul Giamatti. Set in snowy western Massachusetts over a lonely winter break in 1970, the soundtrack plays like an old, soft blanket – familiar and warming. Newer tracks from Damian Jurado and Khruangbin weave seamlessly alongside ‘70s AM gold and Mark Orton’s pensive, folksy score. But the real standout of this soundtrack is a rediscovery of British folk artist Labi Siffre. His music has been shamefully overlooked in U.S. folk canon. Hopefully this movie can help start to rectify that.
Finally, it would be criminal if I didn’t mention the key placement of Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine” in the biggest hit of the year, Barbie. Here’s to another generation of young women finding themselves in Amy and Emily’s music. Thanks, Greta Gerwig. – Amy Reitnouer Jacobs
Kristen Grainger & True North, “Extraordinary Grace”
Take the anvil from my chest…
I am gasping for breath at this opening line. In her extraordinary, intimate voice, Kristen Grainger is pleading, letting us know she has lost hope. And we are right there with her. Whether we believed salvation came from the church or the Voting Rights Act, we believe no more. We are a fractured world, and it seems there is no bringing us together. Kristen’s melodies pull you in as much as her words, and I sometimes wake with this haunting song emerging from my dreams. Her bandmates’ graceful harmonies and instrumental accompaniment support the stunning words.
I once believed in extraordinary grace
I put my faith in saints and saviors
In the mirror, I can’t bear to see my heroine
Killing time until time returns the favor.
Still, there is cause for hope: the promise of more music from True North. – Claire Levine
Angélique Kidjo at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, April 2023
“We can’t hear! We can’t hear!” Not what a performer wants to hear an audience chanting – though Angélique Kidjo didn’t hear it for a couple of songs at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in April. She was giving it all, singing and dancing with vigor and verve, as she does. But the Benin-born star’s voice and all but the drums and percussion from her band were not reaching the crowd, that had already waited out a 45-minute rain delay. Finally, the stage crew got the message, but it still took some time to get things working. When they did, Kidjo betrayed no frustration – just pure, joyful release as she packed a full set’s worth of spirit into the handful of songs she could squeeze in the remaining time slot, including a few highlights from her re-infusion of Talking Heads’ Remain in Light album. Closing with her idol/mentor Mariam Makeba’s signature “Pata Pata,” she was radiant, as was everyone who stuck around to see and hear her. – Steve Hochman
The Lemon Twigs, Everything Harmony
This album is, without reservation or exaggeration, one of the most beautiful records I have heard in my entire life. Building on inspiration from ‘60s/’70s pop-rock (think the Byrds,Todd Rundgren, the Beach Boys, the Flamin’ Groovies), the Lemon Twigs achieve a layered delicacy of nostalgia and innovation. Their creative impulses are so detailed, articulate, and inspired that the entire album feels unfathomable; how could music reach such timelessness that it tickles at the preterhuman? Brothers Michael and Brian D’addario share the songwriting credits for pieces that feel distinctly matured from much of their earlier work. They’ve pared down the theatrics, tightened the sprawling lyrics, and created from a place that strikes a quintessential balance of self and influence. Their result is something oceanic – music that calls upon its ancestry in a way that is pervasive, striking, and sublimates the query of eternity. – Oriana Mack
Ronnie Milsap’s Final Nashville Concert, October 2023
Ronnie Milsap’s final Nashville concert will resonate with me for many years to come, both because of the multiple memorable performances and because it represented the best of country music from the standpoint of diversity and inclusion. Various performers from across the musical spectrum covered Milsap hits, with songs from every arena – honky-tonk and straight country tearjerkers, reworked doo-wop, R&B, and pop classics, love songs, and slice of life retrospectives. The roster of artists who displayed their love and affection for Milsap’s music crossed racial, gender, and sexual orientation lines, and it was also great to see the legend himself conclude the proceedings. While the Nashville audience and community will miss Milsap’s performances, this last outing provided plenty of wonderful moments and lots of great music that will never be forgotten. – Ron Wynn
New Dangerfield’s Debut at IBMA Bluegrass Live!, September 2023
For years a growing number of Black musicians have entered the trad scene and reclaimed Black traditions key to its development and evolution. Their work has run the gamut from preservation to experimentation. Audiences at this year’s IBMA Bluegrass Live! were introduced to a new Black string band that does it all: New Dangerfield. Made up of powerhouses Tray Wellington, Kaïa Kater, Jake Blount, and Nelson Williams, New Dangerfield has, in their own words, “risen to carry the torch.” In their premiere performance the band delivered an eclectic set of early jazz, early blues — and even a cover of R&B musician H.E.R’s “Hard Place,” led by Kater’s deliciously lush vocals. Each member, proficient instrumentalists in their own right, also showed off their technical chops and drew whoops from the crowd. Their set was something historic, and I’m excited to see what comes next from New Dangerfield. – Brandi Waller-Pace
Railbird Festival, June 2023
Set in the heart of Lexington, Kentucky, under a deep-red Strawberry Moon, the 2023 Railbird Festival was an under-the-radar masterstroke, highlighting the confluence of roots music and the mainstream. Held June 3 and 4 on the spacious lawn of The Infield at Red Mile, a sold-out crowd of 40,000+ enjoyed a non-stop lineup of performers from across the “Americana” pantheon, expertly curated and spread out over three stages. With 32 acts in total, country, rock, folk, bluegrass and more were all represented, as headliners Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan topped a bill including Charley Crockett, Whiskey Myers, Morgan Wade, Nickel Creek, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway – even Weezer and Sheryl Crow. Combine all that with a well-thought out fan experience and an off-the-beaten path vibe, and the weekend was an ideal kickoff to festival season. – Chris Parton
Sam Shackleton at the Horseshoe Tavern, October 2023
Country fandom has always been ideological, but in the last few years the genre’s politics have felt plainer – clear villains and clear heroes, but also messy interior politics. Through this time, I’ve mostly been listening to folk music far away from the fighting at home, from musicians like Sam Shackleton, a genius singer and banjo player from Scotland. He was supporting the Mary Wallopers, the radical Irish party band, in Toronto in October. Shackleton was great, working the audience, singing his songs, and classic folk tracks. The crowd was restless, the beer he was offered on stage seemed pro forma, but he tried. There was a version of “All You Fascists (Are Bound To Lose)” that gave me hope for a few minutes. We step out for a smoke, and Shackelton is on the patio, nursing a lager. I tell him I loved the show and that I wanted vinyl. He hugs me and thanks me. Walking back in, the room is filled with Irish expats who are singing along to the Wallopers in ways that feel a little hostile. I leave early, going for Chinese food. These couple of hours were country/folk in 2023 for me – inclusive, exclusive, hand shakes, hugs, and isolation – plus enough physical/emotional distance from the world that I didn’t ask exactly how the fascists would lose. – Steacy Easton
Sleeping in the Woods Festival, May 2023
At a time when money in the music industry is at an all time low, and expenses are at an all time high, I have immense gratitude for anyone starting new community projects to showcase and uplift musicians and songwriters. I was lucky enough to get to be a part of Nicholas Jamerson’s Sleeping in the Woods Festival in Cumberland, Kentucky in May of 2023, and this event makes my best-of list. The festival bills itself as songwriter specific and showcases many lesser known Kentucky songwriters and bands. The strategy is to create a listening environment and bring together a Southern audience hungry for more straight-shooting roots music and hard hitting lyrics after becoming fans of Tyler Childers, Sturgill Simpson, and of course, Jamerson himself. After a successful first year, the festival is poised to grow exponentially and become a beloved annual event for all of those involved. – Rachel Baiman
Billy Strings at Bourbon and Beyond, September 2023
After five years of programming the BGS stage at Bourbon & Beyond, the Louisville-based festival has become something of a homecoming for our whole team. But nothing was more special than this year, when we got to see Billy Strings headline the main stage in front of over 50,000 people. It seems like just yesterday (in reality it was more like 2018) that Billy played our own stage inside the Bourbon Tent, a memory made all the sweeter by his surprise appearance this year on our stage during Michael Cleveland’s set. Hopefully it’s one of many happy returns to B&B for Billy, his fans, and BGS for years to come. – Amy Reitnouer Jacobs
Sunny War, Anarchist Gospel
Nobody sounds like Sunny War. As her profile has risen over the past decade, Sunny has held onto her punk rock politics and direct lyricism, grounding her artistry in the blues. Listening to one of her songs is like looking at a diorama of a nearby planet, similar to our own, but with none of human society’s bullshit. 2023’s Anarchist Gospel features Americana heavyweights David Rawlings, Jim James, Allison Russell, and Chris Pierce, but always sounds exactly like Sunny. Her hypnotic guitar work and precise songcraft shine. Her vocals walk a fine line between eerie and inviting. And at the end of a year when riot grrl aesthetics have gone mainstream, Sunny War is a rare reminder of what the real thing sounds like. – Lizzie No
Photo Credit: Angélique Kidjo by Fabrice Mabillot; Billy Strings by Christopher Morley; boygenius by Matt Grubb.