Tag: hangin’ & sangin’

ANNOUNCING: Three Roots Music Series Joining BGS Podcast Network This Fall

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The Bluegrass Situation, a multifaceted media company co-founded by actor and banjo player Ed Helms, is pleased to announce the addition of three new roots music-themed programs to its BGS Podcast Network this fall.

The Shift List, hosted by Chris Jacobs, is a weekly conversation with the world’s top chefs about the music that fills their kitchens, restaurants and recipes. The series features chefs from Los Angeles, Copenhagen, and London, including Noma alums Rosio Sanchez (Hija de Sanchez) and Christian Puglisi (Baest, Ralae); Matt Orlando (Amass); Jessica Largey (Simone, Manresa); and Naved Nasir and Shamil Thakrar (chef and founder of Dishoom). Listen to a teaser here. The first two episodes will be released on September 17.

The Show on the Road, produced and hosted by Dustbowl Revival frontman Zach Lupetin, is a conversation with fellow artists about a modern musician’s life (as the name implies) on the road, while taking a few conversational tangents in between. Guests include Mandolin Orange, Shook Twins, Lindsay Lou, and more. The series premieres this October.

The Breakdown brings together BGS contributor Emma John and The Lonely Heartstring Band’s Patrick M’Gonigle for the ultimate deep dive into bluegrass back catalog. Through six episodes, they peel back the layers of a genre that’s not just hard-driving and high lonesome, but also bizarre, compelling, and full of completely mad stories. The limited-run series premieres this fall.

Other BGS podcasts include The BGS Radio Hour, The String hosted by Craig Havighurst, and the Hangin’ & Sangin’ archive. Subscribe and download at The Bluegrass Situation or wherever you get your Podcasts.

Hangin’ & Sangin’: Parker Millsap

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From the Bluegrass Situation and WMOT Roots Radio, it’s Hangin’ & Sangin’ with your host, BGS editor Kelly McCartney. Every week Hangin’ & Sangin’ offers up casual conversation and acoustic performances by some of your favorite roots artists. From bluegrass to folk, country, blues, and Americana, we stand at the intersection of modern roots music and old time traditions bringing you roots culture — redefined.

With me today in the Writers’ Rooms at the Hutton … Parker Millsap.

Howdy, everybody.

Welcome! 

Thank you! Good to be here.

I’m so glad to have you. Tried to get you on the last record and we couldn’t work it out. But here you are. It’s perfect. It’s all meant to be, the way I see it.

Absolutely.

Congratulations on this new record, Other Arrangements.

Thank you!

…

I first saw you play four years ago. You did a couple shows with Hayes Carll — the Basement and Music City Roots. The people at Music City Roots just about flipped out. Leapt to their feet. I think you got a standing ovation after every song.

[Laughs] It’s only a standing ovation at the end. Otherwise, it’s just an ovation.

[Laughs] Is that true? Even if they stand? Because they were on their feet, man.

Yeah. They save the standing for the end.

You were doing an acoustic trio, but even then, there was a fire in your performance. You’ve never been this mellow, folky guy. You have some mellow songs, but the overall sense. Even knowing that, on my first listen through to Other Arrangements, I was a little bit surprised. Then I paused and thought, “No. This makes sense. The grittier parts make sense.” Is that how you see it, too?

 

 

[Mock yells] “I don’t want to be the villain in your dreams anymore!”

[Laughs] Yeah, exactly! And, really, like any vocalist or musician, you want to cover all of the emotions — the whole gamut. You want to be able to make people feel sad or make people feel elated or whatever it is. But, yeah, this record, I just wanted to kind of rock out. It had been a minute.

Well, each record has been, not just a step forward, but a leap, I feel like, in terms of the production, in particular. I think the songwriting has been consistent and solid the whole time. Was that your vision or has it just been the natural flow?

I think it’s just getting better at it. Because I’ve thought about it. I’ll go back and listen to the old records. I just wasn’t as good. [Laughs] I like to think I’m getting better at it. And I try to make each record a little better and maybe a little closer to me. This record, lyrically, I feel like is less abstracted. Previously, I wrote a lot of character studies and story songs and things like that, where I could kind of take things that I was thinking and disguise them in a story of somebody else, put it at arm’s length. I still had to get into it, but could hold it at arm’s length and say, “That’s not about me.”

But, this record, is just a little more personal. I’m not trying to dress it up as much. It’s just like, “Here are some emotions, as a song.” [Laughs]

Watch all the episodes on YouTube, or download and subscribe to the Hangin’ & Sangin’ podcast and other BGS programs every week via iTunes, Spotify, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

Photo credit: David McClister

Hangin’ & Sangin’: Caitlin Canty

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From the Bluegrass Situation and WMOT Roots Radio, it’s Hangin’ & Sangin’ with your host, BGS editor Kelly McCartney. Every week Hangin’ & Sangin’ offers up casual conversation and acoustic performances by some of your favorite roots artists. From bluegrass to folk, country, blues, and Americana, we stand at the intersection of modern roots music and old time traditions bringing you roots culture — redefined.

With me today in the Writers’ Rooms at the Hutton … Caitlin Canty.

Hello!

I’m glad you’re here!

Me, too!

You have a new record, Motel Bouquet.

That is correct.

It’s your third record.

Yes.

We’ve hung out, but I’ve never actually gotten to interview you, so I have some questions.

Fire away.

…

The record, Motel Bouquet, produced by Noam Pikelny.

That’s right.

It’s such a dreamy record. The first time I listened to it was a snow day, and it was perfect … although listening to it on an allegedly spring day also works. But the pedal steel, the strings, the banjo, this web of dreaminess under your dreamy voice and your lovely songs. Let me ask, though, did you have trouble finding a decent banjo player? [Laughs] Because I know those are in short supply.

[Laughs] I started working on Noam with these … we played a couple shows together, and he and I had written two songs that are on this record. I’ve never worked with a producer I’d written with. He had already brought his ideas, when we’d played as a duo, he’d brought his thoughts to the table. So we went into the studio one day with some folks to catch one song, and we got three others that day, and it was so much fun and it felt so good that we booked two more days. That’s how this came together.

Because it came together really quickly.

Ooh, no.

Almost too quickly?

No! [Laughs]

Well, I mean the recording!

When I walked through the studio doors on that first day, everything since then has felt easy and fun and right and natural, like I won the lottery. The people I played with on the record … for people who aren’t scrolling through my press release right now … Stuart Duncan played fiddle, Jerry Roe played drums, Russ Paul played pedal steel, Noam played electric guitar, Paul Kowert played upright bass. That was the core band, and me and my Recording King. We were at Josh Grange’s studio in town, and it felt so good. We also got some backing vocals from my favorite singer on the planet, Aoife O’Donovan. Gabe Witcher also played some fiddle while they were on tour with Noam, weeks after we cut this. So the core thing was live in the room.

And with that limited time, you have to have the best of the best, and everyone has to walk in ready to go. The songs have to be solid — you can’t be sitting in the corner finishing the chorus.

No, we had charts and had thought through the arrangements. The folks who were coming to the table, they are those musicians who can turn on a dime and they are folks who have their own sound, their own ideas. What really struck me about this recording, more than a lot of situations I’ve been in was, when you have people with such strong personalities, but there’s no ego involved. That’s a really interesting balance, and I feel really lucky to have that — when people can bring their own thing, but also be supportive of the song and can put the voice in front. They have an idea of what they want to bring, but not step on the toes of another person.

They’re still there to serve the song.

It’s amazing. It was so fun. I wish it took 100 days to record! [Laughs] But the pre-roll, the reason I was rolling my eyes about it only taking three days was, before took so long! Constant editing and writing new stuff.

So you guys mapped it out pretty tightly going in, knowing that you were gonna be limited.

Yeah, and some of these songs I’d played.

You’d road tested them for a while.

Yes, and some were brand new — I’d never played them with anyone before. It was a good mix of the tried and true that had never found their sound, their place yet on an EP or the band hadn’t hit that sweet spot yet. It was just … I wish you could have been there!

I wasn’t invited, Caitlin, or I would’ve stopped by! [Laughs] What’s interesting to me, in listening to it, because I’m still somebody who listens to a record all the way through, a whole piece.

Thank you. Me, too.

And there are a lot of different things going on style-wise, but it’s still very cohesive as a piece. What do you think’s the magic there, the glue? It’s not just your voice.

Certainly not that. I think it’s the programming of this as only a handful of days means that you’re in the same mindset, you’re in the same time and place. You have the same people involved so they can see what we’re doing. It’s not like you just walk into a scenario and you leave it and hear about it three years later. They were the band.

Or you weren’t jumping around to different studios with different players, something like that.

I think the glue is when people can share that moment together. I almost feel like, when you’re in a van on tour, there’s an overlapping of our thoughts, in a way. Once you start eating together and hanging with each other, there’s just something that happens.

Watch all the episodes on YouTube, or download and subscribe to the Hangin’ & Sangin’ podcast and other BGS programs every week via iTunes, Spotify, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

Photo credit: David McClister

Hangin’ & Sangin’: Mary Chapin Carpenter

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From the Bluegrass Situation and WMOT Roots Radio, it’s Hangin’ & Sangin’ with your host, BGS editor Kelly McCartney. Every week Hangin’ & Sangin’ offers up casual conversation and acoustic performances by some of your favorite roots artists. From bluegrass to folk, country, blues, and Americana, we stand at the intersection of modern roots music and old time traditions bringing you roots culture — redefined.

With me today in the Writers’ Rooms at the Hutton … Mary Chapin Carpenter. Hi!

How are you?

I’m good! This is fun already!

We’ve already been talking and having a great time.

Yes, bonding over all sorts of age-related issues. Good stuff. So now I guess we should talk about you and your record and all that kind of stuff, right?

If you’d like. [Laughs]

We could go back to talking about how many pairs of glasses we each have but … Sometimes Just the Sky — what a brilliant concept this was, this album.

Thank you.

Most people would have gone back and picked their seminal record and redone the whole thing. You didn’t do that.

No, and it wasn’t my desire to do a hits record or something like that. It wasn’t really to do anything at all. It was simply to mark time in a way where the idea was how does time — and the passing of time — if one were to pick a few songs, how would they hold up? How would they be different, if you recorded them 30 years on with half a lifetime already under your belt? How would they change? How would they differ? Would they hold up? Would they be dated? It was sort of an excavation and an experiment, but also the idea being to celebrate the passage of time.

I remember Sir George Martin — I may not have this word-for-word perfect — but he said something to the effect of, “Age is something you have to learn to deal with, if you’re lucky.” I love that.

Well, not everyone could go back through a 30-year career, to the beginning, and find songs that do still stand up, just as songs, but that also are still emotionally relevant that many decades later.

Well, you know, I think I certainly got lucky with the oldest song on the record, which came from the first album I made, which was called Hometown Girl, and it’s a song called “Heroes and Heroines.” And it does speak to our current times that we’re in in a way that’s kind of eerie. But that wasn’t something I immediately assumed would be the case. Again, it was like an excavation of sorts, figuring things out.

…

The inspiration for [the title track, “Sometimes Just the Sky”] was a Patti Smith interview, which I think is fantastic.

You’ve read it?

I haven’t. I’m gonna go find it, though.

You just Google — here we are in 2018 — “Patti Smith sometimes just the sky,” and it’ll bring you to this interview. It was this beautiful interview or talk she was giving in 2012, I think it was, to some young folks, and she was saying — and I’m paraphrasing wildly — but she was saying, “I’ve put out books of poetry that maybe 50 people have read. But if there’s something in your life that you love and are passionate about, you can think of it as your calling. And you have to pursue it and you should, but you have to be prepared for rejection and failure and other things in your life, because you’re living — loss and regret, heartbreak.” She goes on to list the things that you have to be prepared [for], the adversity of things.

Of humanness.

Of humanness. But then she stops and she says, “But on the other hand, life is magical and it’s beautiful and it’s amazing and it’s so worth it. It’s as simple as … a perfect cup of tea with a friend. Sometimes, just the sky.” And it comes right out. That phrase just carved its way immediately into my heart and, a few days later, I finished the song.

So many of the themes of the songs that are on the record speak to what she was saying. It was important to me that it be the title song. It was important to me that it be the end of the sequence to tie it all together, because all those themes — the connective tissue of these songs — it all sort of makes sense, in that regard.

It’s that idea of finding the things that soothe or comfort us, the beauty in things.

That’s one of the things in the lyrics. In the very last verse, it talks about making lists. Making lists of things that you know, and then when you feel like you don’t know anything, you start another list. You make another one. Things that are gratitude-based, things that just make you happy, things that you have to remind yourself to look up, you have to remind yourself to look out, you have to remind yourself to keep your heart open.

…

I’m gonna ask you questions based on song titles across your discography: Which beauty are you a slave to?

Love.

What lies between here and gone?

The unknown, and you have to be open to that.

That’s a hard one.

That’s a really hard one. I don’t know about you, but I think of myself as this person … I try to be open to everything and embrace the unknown and seek adventure wherever it may be, and yet the duality — I also know I’m this person who craves safety and security and order out of chaos. It’s really hard to have that coexistence.

I fully concur. What have you learned from the middle ages?

… Probably that the most wonderful thing is to get through them! [Laughs]

What do you need to be happy?

All the things that song [“Don’t Need Much To Be Happy’] lists. Books and food in my belly, driving toward home, a hand inside of mine … things like that. That song is a list song.

What would be the title of your life story?

To Be Continued …

Watch all the episodes on YouTube, or download and subscribe to the Hangin’ & Sangin’ podcast and other BGS programs every week via iTunes, Spotify, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

Photo credit: Aaron Farrington

Hangin’ & Sangin’: Jerry Douglas

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From the Bluegrass Situation and WMOT Roots Radio, it’s Hangin’ & Sangin’ with your host, BGS editor Kelly McCartney. Every week Hangin’ & Sangin’ offers up casual conversation and acoustic performances by some of your favorite roots artists. From bluegrass to folk, country, blues, and Americana, we stand at the intersection of modern roots music and old time traditions bringing you roots culture — redefined.

With me today in the Writers’ Rooms at the Hutton … Jerry Douglas. Welcome!

Hello. How are you?

I’m good. How are you?

I’m good. I’m having a wonderful week.

Yeah, you’re getting puppies!

I’m getting puppies today! I’m getting puppies today. My granddaughter’s at the house — another puppy, then I’m gonna go see my new grandson on Sunday — more puppies. It’s puppy week!

That’s good livin’!

It is good livin’. I love it.

Okay. Let’s talk about this dobro thing that you’ve got going on.

I’m sorry. [Laughs]

As you should be. [Laughs] What was it about the dobro that first lured you in, so many moons ago?

I don’t know if it was the dobro by itself or the guy who was playing it. Josh Graves played the dobro with Flatt & Scruggs, and he was the one that made me want to become a musician. It wasn’t just the way he played it, because I was hearing Bashful Brother Oswald, at the same time, playing with Roy Acuff and that was good, but Josh Graves stepped up to the microphone and he blew the doors off the place! He could keep up with Earl Scruggs, and he played bluesy, too. He played the blues. I think that was the difference for me, because I was growing up close to Cleveland, Ohio, so I was hearing a lot of rock ‘n’ roll at the same time, and it all worked for me — made the instrument work for me.

My dad had a bluegrass band, but there wasn’t a dobro player within a million miles of me. [Laughs] I told somebody the other day that I stood a better chance of getting hit by a car than to find a dobro. It was not something you saw and they didn’t know what it was. You’d go to a music store and say, “Do you have any dobros?” and they’d look at you like …

But you found each other.

We did.

You’re like Béla Fleck with the banjo, to me. Musically, you guys both do things with these instruments that isn’t normally expected. Who’s leading that exploration — is it you or the instrument? Are you following where it’s taking you?

I’m trying to take the instrument to new places. It’s a great bluegrass vehicle, which has been proven over and over again, with Josh Graves and Mike Auldridge and Rob Ickes. There are several people who really can play one of these things. But I keep exploring and trying to find other ways to use it — in classical music, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll. I created a pickup that works with it that keeps it sounding like a dobro, but you can play to a 24,000-seat place without feeding back. You can compete with a telecaster.

Nice. Do you ever get tired of it and think, “I’m gonna switch to the French horn” or something? Does the mastery ever stop? Is it every complete? Or is there always something new to learn and explore?

There’s always something new. I keep my ears open, and I sort of adapt other things to the guitar. The guitar’s a conduit of whatever’s in [my head], what’s rolling around in there all by itself. It’s a cobwebby place. [Laughs] But I think that I’m kind of trying to lead it from one place to another, but I do get tired of hearing it. I got so tired of it that I started carrying around refrigerator-sized racks of things to make it sound not like a dobro. And then I got tired of that, and I just wanted to hear a dobro again! So it’s a necessary evil.

But I love the sound of the guitar. These newer guitars don’t sound like the dobros did that were on the records that I learned to play from. So I keep a lot of those old guitars around, too. The guy that builds my guitars has actually just come out with a line of guitars that sound like the old guitars. Because, when I play with the Earls of Leicester, I play only old guitars, but he’s got this new guitar I played on the new record with the Earls and no one noticed.

Old sound, new technology. Probably sturdier.

Better construction, yeah. The older dobros, the Dopyera brothers got really lucky. [Laughs] The cone, a lot of things about the guitar haven’t changed since 1927. But the construction has, and how they’re big, beefy, low-ended things that have all these voices that the old dobros didn’t have. But the haunting element, for me, that drew me in in the first place, that’s missing from the big, beefy, hybrid guitars.

…

You mentioned the Earls of Leicester. I mentioned the Transatlantic Sessions and other collaborations, but your latest record is a Jerry Douglas Band joint called What If. Where do you see that album fitting into the wider landscape of your work?

That was really pushing my audience, I think. I quit a long time ago trying to make records for my audience.

I would think you would’ve had to.

I make them for me. I figure, if they really like me, they’ll go wherever I go.

Or wait until the next thing comes.

Or just wait until it comes back around to what you like! [Laughs] I love that record because it’s so big and full. It’s the full band effort with two horns and electric guitar, and everything is on this record. Except keyboards. But John Medeski is gonna play with me at MerleFest! So who knows where we go from there. But I just like the full sound and being able to, more or less, play the band, at this point. It’s dobro driven, and I write everything on the dobro, but everybody gets a little piece of the action.

…

[Tell me a memory of or something you gleaned from] Earl Scruggs.

Earl Scruggs was probably the first thing I remember hearing — ever. Then, when I got old enough, even at five years old, I knew that was good. I knew that was a good sound. It was obvious, just the way my dad would react to it and everybody, before I ever saw him. And then, when I saw him, he was on a pedestal to me, as was Josh Graves and the whole band. That was like seeing the Beatles for me, at six or seven years old, to see Flatt & Scruggs live in Youngstown, Ohio, at Stambaugh Auditorium. I even know what date it was and everything. It was like seeing the Beatles.

And then, I grow up and I move to Nashville and Earl Scruggs becomes my friend. That’s just nuts. But then, to get on the bus with him and be playing in his band, just to wind him up and let him start telling stories … because he was a very quiet man, a very quiet, reserved man. But when he got started telling stories, he couldn’t stop. It was so good! Everything was so good. Every minute, every second that I spent with him, I cherished. I’m blessed to have hung out with and been in the presence of some of these people. And Earl Scruggs is way up there on the top of the heap. There are not many people you can look at and say, “That guy is definitely a legend.” He’s like a George Washington, Abraham Lincoln kind of guy. [Laughs] I haven’t met many of those, a couple others maybe, but he was the first one — the first sound I ever heard and what influenced me in the journey that I’ve had, and what made me take the path that I took.

Well, thanks, Earl.

Thanks, Earl. Gee-whiz.

Watch all the episodes on YouTube, or download and subscribe to the Hangin’ & Sangin’ podcast and other BGS programs every week via iTunes, Spotify, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

Hangin’ & Sangin’: Amber Rubarth

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From the Bluegrass Situation and WMOT Roots Radio, it’s Hangin’ & Sangin’ with your host, BGS editor Kelly McCartney. Every week Hangin’ & Sangin’ offers up casual conversation and acoustic performances by some of your favorite roots artists. From bluegrass to folk, country, blues, and Americana, we stand at the intersection of modern roots music and old time traditions bringing you roots culture — redefined.

With me today in the Writers’ Rooms at the Hutton … Amber Rubarth. Glad you’re here!

Very happy to be here.

…

You have so many projects. But let’s go way back, because I feel like you’ve been around a while and done a lot of things, and yet people still don’t really know your story. Does that seem fair?

Sure, yeah.

So, you grew up in California and you went to chainsaw sculpting school, which still fascinates the heck out of me. And then you taught yourself guitar and got into music. How does any of that make sense? Explain it to me. How did you get into chainsaw sculpting as a craft?

I don’t know how it makes sense. It probably doesn’t make sense. [Laughs] I think that’s more of an answer. But I’ve definitely gone toward what I feel interested in at any moment, more so than having an idea of what I want to do and taking the steps necessary to get there. I think I get excited by a lot of different realms of creativity, and the first thing that excited me was chainsaw sculpture. When I was 17, I saw a little poster on a tree that said “Chainsaw Sculpture Apprenticeship,” and I didn’t have anything else I wanted to do and I didn’t know what I would study in college if I went, and so I just moved up there and did that for four years.

…

Two of the characteristics I always think about with your art are beauty and gentleness. I don’t remember what had happened one day, but I texted you, and I was like, “I’m listening to your record because it’s all I can bear.” Something had gone on in the world that was horrible — I don’t remember if it was one of the various shootings … something had happened. Can we talk about the importance of having those things in our lives, beauty and gentleness? Because I think, as I get older, now, and even in the past year or so — I wonder why — those things are really, really important to me. What do they mean to you?

I totally agree with that, that they are important. The first thing I think of, when you say beauty and gentleness, is nature. I think, especially right now, when we’re all on our phones all day or on computers, and everything is so instantaneous, and there’s an aggressiveness to everything, I think it’s more and more important to have that, doing things for the sake of beauty, or having a gentle approach of letting something unfold in a really organic way, rather than saying, “I want to do this, and this is the step to do this.” I think, as the nature of the world right now, and media, and how we get information, and how aggressive that information is, how chosen that information is, filtered to be more dramatic or to affect you in three seconds, rather than a slow unfolding of something, I think it’s more and more important to be [gentle].

And it’s a conscious choice, because I feel like the natural response or reaction to that aggression would be to harden up. So, it feels like a conscious choice to soften. I’ve been experiencing it in a very tangible way over the past few months, of settling into my house and painting things, with paint colors, and bedding, and art. All of those things have become really, really important to me. I find myself being drawn to softer things than I ever have in my life. That’s an interesting observation that perhaps it is in response to this edginess and aggression that’s going on in the world. I just thought I was getting old or something, but I like your explanation better!

I think you’re right, though, that the natural response, as things are getting harder and harder, is to toughen up, but again, with nature, you see that there’s a natural balance that’s created. At a certain point, you can’t toughen up without vanishing.

Without breaking.

Yeah, exactly. The strength of a wildflower versus the strength of a steel rod.

There’s creating beauty, intentionally surrounding yourself, but the other part of it is finding the beauty in things that others might dismiss, whether it’s a conversation or a dream or a piece of wood, a graveyard — because your record is called Wildflowers in the Graveyard. Is that something you’re constantly on that frequency of seeking out the beauty in places where it might not otherwise be found?

I don’t know, consciously, if I’m trying to find those things, but I’m definitely drawn to them. It’s easy to get really wrapped up, and I definitely get wrapped up in the business of things, the loudness of things. For me, going into nature or sitting quietly or playing piano for a couple hours and losing myself in it, little things like that, are what keep me attuned to that frequency.

One of my friends is a tracker in South Africa and he always talks about this with tracking. Everything is speaking to you. He talks about trackers, how you go down a path and, if you’re not used to tracking, you’ll be like, “Oh, there’s a clearing over here and there are some footprints.” But as you get more and more attuned to what tracking is, you’ll say, “Oh, there’s a little bit of mud on this branch that an animal has come by in the last few hours. Or there’s a bird call that happens when the monkeys are out” or whatever. But it’s finer and finer tunings. I guess the quieter you can find [yourself] in life, the more you start seeing these beautiful things that are always there.


Watch all the episodes on YouTube, or download and subscribe to the Hangin’ & Sangin’ podcast and other BGS programs every week via iTunes, Spotify, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

Hangin’ & Sangin’: Valerie June

Posted on by Editor

From the Bluegrass Situation and WMOT Roots Radio, it’s Hangin’ & Sangin’ with your host, BGS editor Kelly McCartney. Every week Hangin’ & Sangin’ offers up casual conversation and acoustic performances by some of your favorite roots artists. From bluegrass to folk, country, blues, and Americana, we stand at the intersection of modern roots music and old time traditions bringing you roots culture — redefined.

With me today in the Writers’ Rooms at the Hutton … Valerie June. I’m so happy you’re here!

Me, too!

It has taken me so long to get you here, and here we are!

Finally! I’m glad to be here. I’m glad to be in Tennessee. I got in the car last night — I rent a car when I come to Nashville to get around, and I don’t drive very much — so I got in there, rolled down the windows, and I was like, “Tennessee air! Yes!” It’s so fresh!

It’s got that old home smell.

It does. It really does! It was an emotional moment. Every moment’s almost emotional with me, though. [Laughs]

Actually, that is a good start. I want to know: What were you like as a kid? Have you always been a faerie? Have you always been this mystical, magical creature?

[Laughs] I’ve always been visited by them, so yeah! And following rainbows, ever since that show Reading Rainbow! [Laughs]

Were you super precocious and just in another world? Was that your childhood?

I enjoy learning about other worlds. I guess that started with being raised in the country and nature between Jackson and Humboldt, Tennessee. Also learning about the spiritual world, when I was going to church, so that world. We learn a lot about this world, but what about the other worlds, as well, that help make this world?

Yes! That makes everything else come into focus for me, in regard to you. I feel like your music, actually a lot of Black roots music, is dancing on this line between the mystical and the mundane, with feet on the ground but hands toward the heavens, right — almost necessarily?

I think it can, generally, a lot of it. But it feels to me like, in America, a lot of American Black music is based out of spirituality and the church anyway. Black roots music is the root of music of all genres, in a lot of ways. I think about somebody like Sister Rosetta Tharpe and how she is the rock ‘n’ roll godmother, but she started in the church! So it’s really interesting. Everybody I love — of course, Aretha Franklin started there — so many people started there. It’s an interesting thing to think about. I used to think about it a lot. Now I’m on the other side where I am hanging out with the faeries a little bit more. [Laughs]

The banjo, to me, is almost the physical representation of that line, as well, because it’s earthy and yet it can sound otherworldly.

Yeah, it can. It really can. It’s a dreamy instrument to me.

Does it take you to other places? Do you get in a little bit of a trance with it sometimes?

I get in a trance. I would say that the biggest places it takes me are places kindred with, I don’t know, I feel so connected to African roots, when I listen to people like Fela Kuti or Ali Farka Touré. The same kind of twanginess that can happen with a banjo, that translation is so easy for me to think that this came from that, and that came from this, and how they’re all married and dancing in the same pot.

…

I read an interview with you in which you listed a bunch of heroes, musical and otherwise, everyone from Dolly Parton and Joanna Newsom to Kahlil Gibran and Wendell Berry and Frida Kahlo. I love that wide spectrum. We share a lot of the same inspirations. Do you feel like it’s important to pull from a pool that’s both wide and deep when it comes to inspiration and information?

I think the most important thing that I feel is that each individual must do everything, every day to go further into learning who they are. If that means to pull from many things, do that. But for some people, theirs is a very concentrated effort, and it is mastering one thing. I think that’s to be respected, as well as people who are ADD with their attention, of art, and music, and food, and everything! I’m a little bit like that. But there are others where you can just know that they’re just focused, like needlepoint, such a sharp focus on one craft, and how beautiful that is. So I think it’s always an individual diving deeper and deeper within themselves.

I think things that we see in the physical world, they first manifest in an invisible world. So that world is kind of more important in a lot of ways, and it takes time for things that are happening in the invisible world to form into the physical. So, that is an order of time. But if you have this magical place and it’s telling you to constantly focus on just being the best purist of folk music, do that! If it’s telling you you’re drawn to this and that, do that!

Whatever your own compass is, you must constantly be listening to that and constantly saying, “Okay, where is it today?” … Every soul that’s born has a purpose, and every soul has a responsibility to listen to only one voice — that inner voice inside of them — and be constantly checking it and listening to it. Because, when you look out at the world, from the moment you wake up and open your eyes, it’s gonna tell you something else. As a baby, when you’re really little, you know why you came. But then as you get older, things start to shape in different ways. You get pushed and pulled, and pushed down.

I was talking to one of my poet friends about it a few days ago — the choice to constantly follow your light. She kept using the word “practice.” She said, “It’s practice. You’ve got to practice. Every single day is practice.” And I was just like, “I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want to practice. I just want to be here!” [Laughs]

The diligence is exhausting, for sure. Yet, I’m with you: There’s no other way to be, I don’t think. I think about representation a lot, representation in the world, and for a lot of us, our images aren’t reflected back to us in the media or whatever. I interviewed Rhiannon Giddens a few months ago, and one of the ideas I posited was that white men, in particular, have a luxury of mediocrity, because the world is built for them. The world reflects their image back to them in all sorts of positive ways, that people like you and I don’t have. So they don’t have to try as hard. So I wonder if that plays a part for some people not even knowing that they have their voice or their light. They just assume the world is there for them and they don’t have to try.

Well, when you’re working in the invisible realm, which is where things occur first, and that’s your most powerful place, and you are truly working there, then everything that you see in the physical [realm] is an illusion. What I’m telling you is that, everything you said is true and it does exist. But where do you get the food to wake up in that kind of world and still shine? That is where practice comes in, and it goes into moving the real world, which is not something you can see — it’s something you’ve got to trust. And every day believing with full force that that flower that you see there, is gonna manifest here, and that there will be beauty and balance. I don’t necessarily think the goal is changing the world that’s out there. But once you start to change you, then things around you start shifting, and slowly it changes.

It ripples.

Like the Grateful Dead song — “ripple in still water.” I love that! I love it! And [the change] is so slow.

Yesterday I was at LaGuardia Airport, and the magazine covers right there, I was like, “Oh, let me look at the clothes on the magazine covers,” because I love clothes. It was beautiful. There were white women. There were Black women. There were Indian women. I was like, “I’m gonna take the change.” I’m gonna take the change where I can get it. Where I can get it and when I see it, I’m gonna honor that and give some light to that, and say, “Yes, thank you.” That’s what I want to see — multi-races, multi-ages, multi-sizes, that’s what I want to see. What do you want to see? It is really practicing the change you wish to see versus continuing to say, “Oh, it’s the white man’s world and this is the way it is.” No! We’re moving forward. We’re creating something beautiful.

Watch all the episodes on YouTube, or download and subscribe to the Hangin’ & Sangin’ podcast and other BGS programs every week via iTunes, Spotify, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

Hangin’ & Sangin’: I’m With Her

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From the Bluegrass Situation and WMOT Roots Radio, it’s Hangin’ & Sangin’ with your host, BGS editor Kelly McCartney. Every week Hangin’ & Sangin’ offers up casual conversation and acoustic performances by some of your favorite roots artists. From bluegrass to folk, country, blues, and Americana, we stand at the intersection of modern roots music and old time traditions bringing you roots culture — redefined.

With me today in the Writers’ Rooms at the Hutton … I’m With Her — Sara Watkins, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sarah Jarosz. So great to have you guys here. New record, See You Around, just out a few weeks ago. How fun is this? How much fun are you guys having?

Aoife O’Donovan: We’re having so much fun! It’s a beautiful day here in Nashville, and it’s great to be playing music.

I saw your show last night at the Station Inn. There’s something absolutely magical about the three of you. And, during the show, I kept trying to think, who else would’ve worked within this sort of a thing? And I kept coming up empty. I couldn’t think of someone who had both the instrumental prowess, and the vocal ability, and just the shine that you three have together. What is it? What’s the X factor?

Sara Watkins: I really like that there are three of us, too. Three is a nice number for a band. I feel like it makes the writing and arranging process a little more efficient. It’s easier to go toward each other and find a common goal with the three of us. Where, with a four- or five-piece, that can sometimes make things a little bit … it just changes it. It’s really nice having a tight three-piece.

It was almost accidental how the three of you came together. Was the magic there from the very first time you sang together?

Sarah Jarosz: Yeah, I would say so. It definitely felt a little bit like a spark. We did a workshop, sort a singer/songwriter workshop at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival with some other great musicians, as well — Tift Merritt, Nicki Bluhm. They’re so great, we love them. Because of everyone’s crazy schedules at the festival, it just so happened that the three of us were able to get together before to have a little something prepared for the workshop.

I remember sitting backstage in a tent behind the main stage at Telluride, we worked up a couple songs. I remember one of them was Aoife’s song “Magpie,” which is not the easiest song in the world, and I just remember thinking how seamlessly we all fell into it. That was kind of the first moment where I remember thinking, “this is really cool.” And then, later on that night, putting together a little 20-30 minute set was also pretty seamless. And I think, something that we’ve talked about before is that, we have a shared love of similar music, kind of a shared well that we’re pulling songs from, and so it was kind of easy to put a little set together.

I’m so fascinated by the vocal interplay and how you choose who takes lead, and who comes in on this part, and then who sneaks in under here, etc. What’s the process of working all of that out? Just a bunch of trial and error or following your hearts?

SW: It can happen, sometimes, where it’s just an idea, “Oh, maybe you should sing this part!” But a lot of times, the harmony arrangements and the instrumental arrangements happen during the process of writing. We’ll definitely tweak things after the song’s written, but it’s pretty much in there in the composition, a lot of it. And sometimes it’s just as simple as, one voice is drawn to this part, and then we switch. I don’t know. It’s never something we argue about.

It’s magic!

SW: And we like that we can switch around a lot and try to mix different textures — like if Jarosz is on top versus either of us, if we can mix it up and change the blend at different times, try to make it effective.

AO: And using a lot of duo and unison singing and not always having to rely on a three-part harmony blend separates song from song and arrangement from arrangement to really play around with the different combinations we have available to us.

It makes the live show, in particular, that much more captivating. It’s this constant flow, but it was just so seamless, as well. Like, “Oh, we’re switching here. We’re doing this.” It was just choreographed so beautifully.

SW: We’re dancers, too! [Laughs]

…

Two things really struck me last night, watching you guys play. One was the people in the crowd. There were Milk Carton Kids there, Béla and Abby were there, Ron Pope was there, Caitlin Canty got name-checked from the stage because she knows about being stuck on hills in Vermont. [Laughs] The level of admiration and adoration from your peers is really off the charts. That’s cool, right? That must feel really good.

SW: Yeah, I don’t know how much of it is adoration …

Oh, people love you guys.

SW: We all really enjoy the fact that we have a ton of friends who we love. We love their musicianship, and we’re really good friends. And we’re in this scene together, and we’ve known these people for so long. It’s really special that Béla and Abby were there, because I remember being at Telluride Bluegrass Festival trying to sneak backstage when the Flecktones were playing, when I was 12 years old, and I was just desperately trying to sneak past the guards or, I don’t know, make them think I was cute and let me in or something. Did not work. Go figure. So that’s a scene that I think about a lot when I see Béla, because we’ve all looked up to him — and his scene and his generation — our entire lives, and it’s pretty cool to get to be in a place where he is supportive of us. That whole thing — the way that each generation welcomes the next in this culture — I think is really, really special. It’s a very warm place, where we are now.

And the other thing — nice segue Watkins — the second thing that really struck me was the joy that was so obvious between the three of you. Watching Aoife’s face while she was watching either of you solo, it was everything! [Laughs] It was such a beautiful part of it, and I think that’s the X factor — the joy. It’s wonderful to see musicians loving what they’re doing like it’s day one.

SW: A huge part of what I love about being a musician is the community of players. That’s an enormous piece of what I love about this life as a musician. The fact that I get to work closely with great musicians who are really good friends of mine and then coming together at festivals and catching up. When you’re a kid growing up, you’re sharing tunes that you’ve learned and new things that you’ve learned, working up songs from your favorite people’s records. And, over the years, sharing that life and sharing that rhythm, and now being at a place where the family of musicians has grown and grown. It’s a really fun thing.

Watch all the episodes on YouTube, or download and subscribe to the Hangin’ & Sangin’ podcast and other BGS programs every week via iTunes, Spotify, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

Hangin’ & Sangin’: Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn

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From the Bluegrass Situation and WMOT Roots Radio, it’s Hangin’ & Sangin’ with your host, BGS editor Kelly McCartney. Every week Hangin’ & Sangin’ offers up casual conversation and acoustic performances by some of your favorite roots artists. From bluegrass to folk, country, blues, and Americana, we stand at the intersection of modern roots music and old time traditions bringing you roots culture — redefined.

With me today in the Writers’ Rooms at the Hutton … Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn. Welcome, you guys!

Both: Hi!

Echo in the Valley, the latest duo release. It’s your second. The first one, it did okay for you. You know, you got a Grammy, whatever. My real question, what’s the body count on this record?

Abigail Washburn: How many people have died in the making of the record?

No, on the record, how many people died? Because the last one had a body count.

Béla Fleck: That’s true, and we’ve moved away from that sort of thing on the new record. And we’re talking about the murder ballads, of course! [Laughs] For anybody out there who’s really getting uncomfortable. Yeah, we didn’t go so much into the murder ballads. Though, to tell you the truth, the one song that Abby wrote, “Shotgun Blues,” it sounds terrible, but nobody actually gets hurt in it. It’s actually a very sweet situation.

I’m not sure I believe that.

BF: It’s all about a girl who’s giving a guy a good talkin’ to.

AW: At the end of a shotgun.

BF: At the end of a shotgun, but no actual creeps get knocked off in the song. But we decided to stop doing it presently anyway, just because of the current horrible things that have been happening in our country, and just to give that stuff a bit of a rest.

AW: Because it was really supposed to be kind of humorous in a way, you know.

BF: Yeah, it was a joke.

AW: I mean it was a serious response to the fact that it’s usually women who die in murder ballads. So it had a serious intention, which was to expose that and take the power back in a funny way. But right now it doesn’t feel like shotguns are funny.

That’s true.

AW: So we had trouble continuing to play that song. Which is good, anyway, because there’s all this other material on this record that we’re eager to share with you.

BF: I was thinking we could rewrite the song a bit and make it be about a slingshot, about a girl holding a slingshot on this creep and just stay there until he gets his crap together, and if he doesn’t, oh boy, he’s gonna get zonked, right in the left eyeball.

AW: That’s creative honey. We’ll work on that.

…

I’m a big fan of Krista Tippett’s and On Being, and your episode is one of my very favorites.

BF: Thank you.

The way you guys think and talk about the banjo and the history of the banjo and what that means to you, and how you carry that forward and hold that in your music — its power, its potential, all of those things — it’s just remarkable to me. It was very moving to hear you talk about it. If you had to sum up what the banjo means to you in a few words, what would it be?

BF: Well, I’ll start and you just think about something better to say than what I’m gonna say.

AW: I usually do. [Laughs]

BF: Yes, she actually does. But for me, I just love the banjo, so of course, if you love something, you look for all of the cool things about it and the things that you identify with. It’s kind of justifying a life of pursuing something you really dig. And because you spend so much time around it, you learn those things that really make it special. So I know that there are a lot of other wonderful things in the world besides the banjo, but for me, making the banjo the most important thing in my life, until I met Abby and until we had kids, and that changed the balance …

Only just a little, though. [Laughs]

BF: Yeah, it goes back and forth. But then you learn the story of the banjo, and it becomes a very noble story. You can see the history of mankind through this instrument. It’s just powerful. There are so many stories in this thing — from African roots, and even before Africa, probably in Mesopotamia, and then coming here and being this hybrid instrument that crosses between Black and white society and, eventually, crosses over completely to white society, to the point where Black folks, a lot of folks don’t even really realize the banjo came from their heritage anymore. It’s kind of confusing. So I don’t know, I love history anyway. I’m a history buff. I love reading history books, and I read a lot of books about American history, and then I ended up sort of in the middle of it falling in love with this instrument. Now it’s time for Abby to say something much better.

AW: [Laughs]

Whatcha got, Washburn?

BF: Lay it on us!

AW: I completely agree with Béla, as to all the aspects of how it’s intellectually enlightening to learn through the banjo — its history and its path and its journey through the world, and especially in American society. For me, a lot of music is very much about spirit and spirituality, and what I mean by that is, there’s a spirit that can be channeled and passed along when something like this, an object that does have so much history to it, when I pick it up and start playing it, and I can feel the stories of people before. I know Béla and I both feel that these stories people have been singing about from the past are so important because they expose how humans have been and the patterns of human behavior throughout history — their hopes, their wants, the trials and tribulations they lived through, the joys and the successes of life. It’s just so helpful to hear those old stories and recognize that humans are still basically the same. There’s comfort in that, but there’s also a calling.

And so the spirit of the banjo, its heritage, and the voices that come to me through it teach me that there’s a lot to retain and preserve from our history and our roots, but there’s also a lot to be thought about, in terms of the potential of humans to transform and change. And there are ways we really need to do that. There are mistakes and sufferings we impose on each other that the old stories tell us about — like old murder ballads is a very obvious one. Protest songs, inspirational songs … like we do a version of a song called “Come All Ye Coal Miners,” which is a woman named Sarah Ogan Gunning in Appalachia telling the people, “I’ve lost two children to starvation, both my husband and my father died of black lung. This is wrong.” And yet, this is still happening today. So we can sing the same song that was written by her 60 years ago in the mining camps, and it’s still very powerful today, and it can be a catalyst for change. So I believe music is a catalyst for change and for preservation, and all of it’s important.

BF: And also just reminding us of things. Because we make the same mistakes over and over again, as people and as a race. So if you’re cognizant of things that have happened before, you might have a better chance of avoiding some of them.

I just want to throw one weird thing out there: It just sort of struck me that the banjo was rejected by Black people because it too much embodied the slavery days. And then later, it was rejected by white people because it too much embodied white Southern culture for a lot of people, and it was put down and made a joke of. So it’s been made a joke of from both angles. It’s very ironic. And then you’ve got people from all over the world … I mean, I come from New York City, what am I doing playing the banjo? But you know, there is a lot of banjo playing from the 1800s on in New York City. So anyway, that’s my last thing to throw in on that subject.

AW: I’m just gonna dovetail on what you’re saying. It feels like a powerful time right now. There’s a lot of polarity, lots of energy going in different directions, divisiveness, people sensationalizing emotion into reality. So it feels like a time when there can be a very transformative impact from things in culture, like music. And it does feel like a new day for the banjo. And that’s global, but also very connected to roots and to our local existence, too. And I think it’s the perfect device to channel what we need, which is preservation of what’s beautiful, what’s meaningful, what defines us, and the power to change what happens in the future.

Watch all the episodes on YouTube, or download and subscribe to the Hangin’ & Sangin’ podcast and other BGS programs every week via iTunes, Spotify, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.

Hangin’ & Sangin’: Grant-Lee Phillips

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From the Bluegrass Situation and WMOT Roots Radio, it’s Hangin’ & Sangin’ with your host, BGS editor Kelly McCartney. Every week Hangin’ & Sangin’ offers up casual conversation and acoustic performances by some of your favorite roots artists. From bluegrass to folk, country, blues, and Americana, we stand at the intersection of modern roots music and old time traditions bringing you roots culture — redefined.

With me today in the Writers’ Rooms at the Hutton … Grant-Lee Phillips!

Hey, how ya doin’?

Hey, welcome!

Good to be here! This is a nice little cozy shack you got here.

 

…

You’ve got a brand new record, Widdershins.

Yeah, out a week now.

Tell me if I’m getting this right: To me, this record is you reflecting back your experience of the current sociopolitical times in song form.

That’s pretty close, yeah. Sociopathic political maelstrom. [Laughs] Yeah, that’s it. This album was written pretty quickly — maybe November of 2016 into the early month of January 2017. Really encapsulates that time period especially.

Yeah, it just kind of barreled out of you.

Yeah, I mean sometimes I take my time, but sometimes you have to just get out of the way.

Well, the album opens with “Walk in Circles” and, in that tune, you sort of tick off all the people you’d rather … not make them mad, but …

Maybe you’re right, though, unintentional double entendre. [Laughs]

[Laughs] I’m sometimes smarter than I know! But you sort of list all these people that you’d rather be hangin’ with than the “righteous goons” which aren’t actually righteous — they’re self-righteous and greedy.

That’s right, yeah.

And then you proclaim that “You’d rather go down fighting for the water than start another war for oil.” Does that sort of sum up this moment for you, where you are in your life?

I think that’s a big part of it. It’s kind of like we’ve built our house on these sticks on the side of a hill and now the earth is shaking, and we ask ourselves “How do we deal with this? Do we add more sticks? Or maybe we have to rethink a whole lot of things in our life,” you know? Yeah, that’s the idea. I’d rather side with nature and those who move in accordance with nature. Maybe they walk counter-clockwise. Sometimes some of the old ways have their wisdom.

Oh, more often than not.

Yeah, when folks had no choice but to live in accordance with the earth and the stars and the animals.

…

There was an article circulating last year about how you can’t teach empathy. That’s something that you kind of have to have. And it seems like there’s a whole population of people who just don’t have that in them, and I don’t know how you teach somebody to care?

I’m not certain. I’ve seen such ugliness in the last week or so, in the wake of this horrible tragedy in Florida, and the ideas that have been floated out there, trying to take the wind out of the sails of these kids who have been through hell. And that’s a hard thing to understand, really, where one would come from. But I don’t know. I suspect that a lot of times, if we could sit down face-to-face, maybe we would have a different kind of discourse than we do online, where we’re just sort of hurling these Molotov cocktails at one another.

With some level of anonymity.

Right, we can run back and Google and get our stats together, and hurl another one.

…

You mentioned the shooting in Florida, and I do feel like this all-too-common experience that we’re having lately … your song “Totally You Gunslinger,” my interpretation of that song is you shining a light on what’s underneath someone’s need to be armed, whether it’s an ICE agent with a Rambo complex or a teen with social anxiety or whatever it is. And maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I’m gonna give you credit for this. I do feel that what’s underneath that is the toxic masculinity idea that is at the core of the violence, whether it’s rape culture or gun culture or whatever.

Yeah, I think you’re hitting it on the head there. Maybe this is a symptom of a culture where people feel fearful and powerless, you know? Where maybe your masculinity itself isn’t enough, you know?

Or what your idea of masculinity is.

Yeah, all of that. And these things are so easily exploited — our fear of the other, where we’re turned against one another so easily. We find ourselves scapegoating the immigrant or some branch of government, maybe they’re to blame. We’re always looking for the blame.

…

Do you feel like it’s enough to simply shine a light on those darker corners? Do we need to transform them, even a matter of degrees, and can a song do that?

I think what the role of a song is and the role of a songwriter, it’s like a tea kettle. When the conditions are such where the water comes to a rolling boil, and things are really intensified, then we whistle, we sing. We’re a symptom of that. “Wake up, you’ve got a fire on the stove!” [Laughs] But sometimes it’s the kind of thing where it will play its role in affecting change. I don’t think by itself it can. It’s just part of the human mechanism, you know? Shout out, sing out.

And serve as a connecting point.

Yeah, that’s right. I would hope that you would listen to some of these songs and maybe you see yourself or hear your own questions. You don’t feel so alone, maybe, that you’re the only person who has these crazy thoughts. There’s two of us. [Laughs]

One of the things that I think is a major part of this record, both in the writing and the making of it, is being fully present, in and to the moment, right? Do you feel like part of what we’re being tasked with right now is being fully present to history unfolding in a bigger way than we’re used to? A much more dangerous way?

More dangerous?

Well, they’re perilous times right now. I read that you were saying this [era], to you, echoes the early ‘90s and that time — in your career but also in the world. There was a war going on, and all sorts of stuff.

I think for me maybe the age I was — I was in my later 20s then — and waking up to, kind of late really, everything that was going on and wanting to express it and make sense of it. That’s the stuff that was on my mind more than anything. There have been artists that have really inspired me for years — Billy Bragg, for instance, R.E.M., as well — artists who can talk about the moment but also reflect the feeling of that moment, as well. It’s not a diatribe. It’s presenting this whole basket of parts that you can put together yourself.

I feel like you’ve done that with this record.

That’s what I’m hoping for.

Watch all the episodes on YouTube, or download and subscribe to the Hangin’ & Sangin’ podcast and other BGS programs every week via iTunes, Spotify, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.