Tag: IBMA

Del McCoury, Jim Lauderdale Will Host IBMA Awards

Posted on by Editor

Del McCoury and Jim Lauderdale will host the 30th Annual IBMA Awards show on September 26 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

“This year we celebrate both the 30th anniversary of the International Bluegrass Music Awards and the 80th birthday of Hall of Famer Del McCoury! What could be better than Del co-hosting the Awards Show with the legendary Jim Lauderdale?!” said Paul Schiminger, executive director of the IBMA. “It is sure to be a fun and memorable evening with unforgettable performances by awards nominees. This is the biggest night in bluegrass music, as we honor excellence over the past year and over entire careers.”

Even among the pantheon of music’s finest artists, Del McCoury stands alone. From the nascent sound of bluegrass that charmed hardscrabble hillbilly honky-tonks, rural schoolhouse stages, and the crowning glory of the Grand Ole Opry to the present-day culture-buzz of viral videos and digital streams, Del is the living link, headlining sold-out concerts to music festivals of all genres, including one carrying his namesake. In 2010 McCoury received a National Heritage Fellowship lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 2011 he was elected into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. A two-time Grammy winner, McCoury has won numerous IBMA Awards, as well, including Entertainer of the Year a record-setting nine times.

Jim Lauderdale won the Best Bluegrass Album Grammy in 2002 for Lost in the Lonesome Pines, his collaboration with Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys, and won a second Grammy for his album The Bluegrass Diaries in 2008. A lauded singer-songwriter, he has been a symbol for creative integrity and prolificacy for thirty-two albums over decades of recording. He’s an A-list Nashville songwriter whose songs have ruled the music charts while recording an eclectic catalog of albums. His prolific streak of releases continues in 2019, as he finishes his tenth bluegrass album.

Claire Armbruster and Mary Burdette return as executive producers of the show.

Photo of Jim Lauderdale: Scott Simontacchi
Photo of Del McCoury from DelMcCoury.com

22 Top Bluegrass Duos

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Everyone knows that in the early days of bluegrass, before that term was even coined, all you needed to make a “band” was two people and two instruments. Fiddle and banjo? Sure. But in those days, they’d take whatever they could get. Duos are still a strong presence in the music today, in brother/sibling duos, spouse-led bands, and legendary collaborations.

Check out these twenty-two bluegrass pairings — and their accoutrement — on BGS:

Bill & Charlie Monroe

Before Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass, made his indelible mark on the genre (quite literally giving it its name), he was already a popular performer with his brothers Charlie and Birch. Birch left The Monroe Brothers in the mid-1930s, and Charlie and Bill went on to enjoy success on the road, in the studio, and on the radio — until rising tensions and a fateful fight in 1938 caused them to split ways. But, without that fight, we may not have “bluegrass” at all.

Flatt & Scruggs

December 1945. The Ryman Auditorium. Nashville, Tennessee. Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys stepped on stage for the Grand Ole Opry with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs among their ranks for the very first time and bluegrass as we know it today was born. Flatt & Scruggs left Monroe in 1948 to join forces and went on to become one of the few ubiquitous, household names of bluegrass.

Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard

Undeniably trailblazers, Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard are widely regarded as the first women in bluegrass to capture the “high lonesome” sound popularized by Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, and others. They toured across the U.S., often supporting causes that benefited forgotten, downtrodden people from all backgrounds and walks of life. They were inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2017.

The Stanley Brothers

Natives of the music-rich southwest corner of Virginia, Carter and Ralph Stanley were prolific recording artists and touring musicians in bluegrass’s first generation. Countless songs written and/or popularized by the Stanley Brothers and their backing band, the Clinch Mountain Boys, are staples of the genre today. Carter passed in 1966 and Ralph continued until his death in 2016 with the Clinch Mountain Boys — who still tour today with Ralph’s son, Ralph II.

Don Reno & Red Smiley

Unsung trailblazers of the first generation of bluegrass pickers, Reno & Smiley were tireless innovators with a jovial, sometimes silly flair to their songs and instrumental prowess. Their duets are simply some of the best in all of bluegrass. The duo performed together off and on from the early 1950s to the 1970s — but both passed away much too young, Smiley in 1972 at the age of 46 and Reno in 1984 at the age of 58. Reno’s frenetic, electric and pedal steel guitar-infused licks remain unmatched in banjo picking today.

Jim & Jesse McReynolds

With matching suits and impeccable pompadours brothers Jim and Jesse McReynolds often brought rockabilly, rock ‘n’ roll, mainstream country and pop sensibilities to their take on sibling harmonies and bluegrass brother duos. Jesse’s crosspicking on the mandolin was — and continues to be — absolutely astonishing. Jim passed in 2002, Jesse continues to perform on the Grand Ole Opry to this day. At the time of this writing, he is ninety years old.

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum

Laurie Lewis often takes top billing — as leader of the Right Hands and before that, the Bluegrass Pals, and others — but since 1986 her musical partner Tom Rozum has almost constantly been at her side on the mandolin and harmonies. Their duo recording, The Oak and the Laurel, was nominated for a Grammy in 1995. Here is the album’s title track:

Bill Monroe & Doc Watson

What is there to say? Two of the folks who paved the way for this genre, laying a foundation so strong and far-reaching that we still can’t fully comprehend its impact. Bill and Doc collaborated on more than one occasion and we, as fans and disciples, are lucky that so many of these moments are captured in recordings and videos.

Del McCoury & David “Dawg” Grisman

At face value, an unlikely combo, but their friendship goes back to the early 1960s and their musical endeavors together began soon after. As Del slowly but surely became a bastion for traditional bluegrass aesthetics applied broadly, Dawg embraced jammy, jazzy, new acoustic sounds that sometimes only register as bluegrass-adjacent because they come from the mandolin. Opposite sides of the same coin, their duet makes total sense while at the same time challenging everything we think we know about the music. In this clip, Dawg sings tenor to Del — not many would be brave enough to try!

Ricky Skaggs & Keith Whitley

They got their start together in the Clinch Mountain Boys with Ralph Stanley, making some of the best recordings in the history of the band’s many iterations. Before they both struck out on wildly successful, mainstream careers they recorded a seminal duo album together, Second Generation. It remains one of the most important albums in the bluegrass canon — especially as far as duos/duets go.

Norman & Nancy Blake

Norman is well known for his flatpicking prowess, which has graced recordings by John Hartford, Bob Dylan, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and so many others. He and his wife, Nancy, were married in 1975 after having begun their musical forays together a year or so earlier. Nancy’s command of many instruments — cello, mandolin, and fiddle among them — balances neatly with Norman’s jaw-dropping, singular style on the flattop. Their inseparable harmonies and timeless repertoire are merely icing on the cake.

Jimmy Martin & Ralph Stanley

How their first album together, First Time Together (cough), is not more well-known is truly impossible to understand. The King of Bluegrass and the Man of Constant Sorrow twining their extraordinary voices must have been ordained by a higher power. It’s a good thing they answered the call. Be careful, Jimmy’s percussive G-runs feel like a slap in the face — in the best way.

Darrell Scott & Tim O’Brien

Their live albums together and their co-written masterpieces belong in every museum and shrine to roots music around the world. Both of these triple threat (Quadruple? Quintuple? When do we stop counting?) musicians are rampantly successful in their own right, but together they are simply transcendent. Their cut of “Brother Wind” deserves a listen right this instant and “House of Gold” gives you the harmony acrobatics gut punch you need every time. It was nearly impossible to choose just one, but here’s a hit that was recorded once by a little group called the Dixie Chicks.

Ricky Skaggs & Tony Rice

Again, words fail. Skaggs & Rice is a desert island record. Each and every time these two have graced a recording or a stage together, magic has been made, from their days with J.D. Crowe & the New South and on. We only wish that they could have done more together.

Vern & Ray

Vern Williams and Ray Park were California’s original bluegrass sons. Though they were both born and raised in Arkansas, they relocated to Stockton, California, as adults. They’re often credited with “introducing” bluegrass music to the West Coast. They disbanded in 1974 (both passed in the early 2000s), but their influence is palpable to this day, even if they’re sorely unheard of east of the Mississippi. This deserves correction! Immediately!

Eddie & Martha Adcock

Eddie is a pioneering banjo player who’s a veteran of both Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys and The Country Gentlemen, two decidedly legendary and influential acts. His style is somewhat wacky, certainly singular, but effortlessly bluegrass and traditional as well. He married Martha in the late 1970s and the pair have toured prolifically as a duo. In 2008, Eddie underwent brain surgery to correct debilitating hand tremors. He was kept awake, playing the banjo during the procedure — and there is jaw-dropping film of this online!

Dailey & Vincent

When Dailey & Vincent burst onto the scene in the mid-aughts after both having notable careers as sidemen, the bluegrass community rejoiced at the reemergence of a wavering art form within the genre — traditional duo singing. However, Jamie and Darrin, whether they knew it at the time or not, had their sights set much higher. Now more of a full-blown stage show than a bluegrass band, their recordings and concerts are a high-energy, charismatic, and downright entertaining mix of classic country, Southern gospel, quartet singing, and yes, bluegrass.

Kenny & Amanda Smith

Husband and wife Kenny and Amanda first recorded together in 2001, going on to win IBMA’s Emerging Artist of the Year award two years later. They’ve now cut eight albums together, all clean, clear, crisp modern bluegrass that centers on Amanda’s impossibly bright vocals, which maintain a personal, country hue alongside Kenny’s fantastic flatpicking. SON!

Tom T. & Dixie Hall

Two of the most recent inductees into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, Tom T. and Dixie Hall wrote hundreds and hundreds of songs cut by country, bluegrass, and Americana artists alike. Tom T.’s reputation and chart-topping originals tend to eclipse Dixie, but he is unyielding in his efforts to point that same spotlight at his beloved wife instead, who passed away in 2015. Though she never performed — definitely not to the extent that Tom T. did — the marks she left on bluegrass, country, and her partnership with her husband are indelible. This number was co-written by the pair:

The Louvin Brothers

Recipients of IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award in 1992, the Louvin Brothers are another example of early bluegrassers who enjoyed the amorphous, primordial days of the genre before it became more and more sequestered from mainstream country and country radio. Their duets are iconic, with counter-intuitive contours and lines that bands and singers still have difficulty replicating to this day. Their most famous contribution to the American music zeitgeist, though, might not be their music, but the spectacular cover art for their 1959 album, Satan Is Real. If you haven’t seen it, Google it right now.

Delia Bell & Bill Grant

Natives of Texas and Oklahoma, respectively, Delia Bell and Bill Grant met through Bell’s husband, Bobby, in the late 1950s. Between their band, the Kiamichi Mountain Boys, and their duo project they recorded more than a dozen albums together through the 1980s. Famously, Emmylou Harris became a fan when she heard their cut of “Roses in the Snow,” which Harris went on to record on her eponymous bluegrass record. Bell died in 2018.

The Osborne Brothers

Though they popularized a style of three-part harmony that had never been heard before — the infamous “high lead” harmony stack — their band, no matter who it may have included over the years, was undeniably helmed and anchored by Bobby and Sonny. (Which does explain the name.) You may remember “Rocky Top” and “Ruby” first and foremost in their discography, but the hits they’ve contributed to the bluegrass songbook are innumerable. Here’s one such classic.

Patrick McAvinue, “Der Belsnickel”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

When Patrick McAvinue was awarded IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year in 2017, only six other fiddlers had ever won the award — one of them had won it eleven times. In the past handful of years the consistent, predictable fields of nominees in the instrumentalist categories have begun opening up more and more. Voters are now recognizing younger, up-and-coming musicians alongside returning stalwarts, rather than just the same old guard making it to the final round of voting year after year.

McAvinue is undoubtedly part of this “new wave” in bluegrass and that’s not simply due to the inventory in his trophy case. He’s toured with traditional bluegrassers Audie Blaylock & Redline as well as the more country-infused, Southern gospel-steeped bluegrass entertainers Dailey & Vincent, and his own cross-genre and folk outfit, Charm City Junction. In bluegrass, a genre that capitalizes on virtuosity — and often as a result, specialization — McAvinue demonstrates that a diverse approach isn’t necessarily a pitfall.

His brand new solo record, Perfect Fit, takes this idea to its utmost potential (there’s a Radiohead cover on the album). Another track, “Der Belsnickel,” is an impossibly quick, slightly atonal frolic — one that definitely calls to mind the episode of The Office referenced by the song’s title. Remember Dwight’s Schrute family holiday traditions? If you do, hold those in mind while this tune blazes by, performed in this video by McAvinue, his bandmates with Dailey & Vincent, and Matt Menefee on banjo. You’ll surely find “Der Belsnickel” is both impish and admirable.

Dale Ann Bradley Hears the Truth in ‘The Hard Way’

Posted on by Editor

Dale Ann Bradley has made a lasting impression with bluegrass listeners as a solo artist, as well as a member of the all-female band Sister Sadie. And before that, she recorded and performed with the New Coon Creek Girls in Renfro Valley, Kentucky, where she established a foundation that would carry to her multiple performances on the Grand Ole Opry and five IBMA awards in the female vocalist category.

An approachable artist who describes her audiences as “my people,” Bradley is quick to admit that her musical path hasn’t always been easy – in fact, her new album is named The Hard Way, a nod to the Jim Croce song she covers, “The Hard Way Every Time.” But in spite of that title, it’s a beautifully subdued project that stands among the most satisfying of the Kentucky native’s long career. That’s as much due to her gentle singing as her gift for finding songs that suit her.

Bradley invited the Bluegrass Situation to chat prior to a Nashville show earlier this month at the Station Inn.

BGS: I wanted to start by asking about the production on this record, because to me it sounds very crisp. It seems like there’s a “less is more” approach.

Bradley: It is. I have learned, on some things, that’s the correct approach. This one’s more guitar-oriented than a lot of them I’ve done – since [1997’s] East Kentucky Morning. Because I had such good guitarists play, it really didn’t need to be souped up. And the lyrics are so story-telling that the song, and the great musicians that I had, found their own way and their own place to be. … This is the third one I’ve produced and I’m always scared to death! I never take that for granted because it’s just like painting a picture or having a young’un! [Laughs] You don’t know what’s going to happen.

What is it about production that makes you want to keep coming back into that role?

If I want to try something, to able to do it. Even though I know that sometimes it works and sometimes it don’t. I have the utmost respect for any producer that I’ve had because I’ve had the best there is. … From Sonny Osborne, I learned that a good performance is a lot better than everything being technically perfect. He drilled that into my head – it’s all about emotion. With Tim Austin, I learned drive and punch with the guitar, and he helped me a lot with my guitar playing. And with Alison Brown, I learned not to be afraid of creativity. Put it down, and if it works, it works. And if it don’t, then you’ll know not to do it the next time. She’s so creative. I’ve worked with three different producers with three different outlooks, and learned from all of them.

“The Hard Way Every Time” is a beautiful song, with a lot of truth in there.

It is for me. The generation that I come from, we’re all at that point where we’re looking back, and we think, “Well, I sure did that the hard way.” Kept doing it and kept doing it. I hope it reaches a young generation. It seems to be, but I think there’s something in there hopefully for everybody.

How do you find the songs you want to record?

All the memories… I may not be able to recall what I had for lunch or breakfast, but a song will stay with me. Songs that have been poignant in my life have been so much so that I’m never going to forget them. I don’t cut cover tunes just to be different. I do it because it shows how talented these musicians are. … And I want to show that in music it doesn’t really matter what genre it is. If it really breaks your heart or makes you happy, it’s all good. Then there are songs that I want to do in the bluegrass style because I didn’t want to do them in the other style.

I’ve often thought that there might not be any song that’s off limits for you. Is that true?

Well, it was close this time. I’ve never been as scared as I was with “Wheel in the Sky.” I really belabored it. Everybody was saying, “Let’s cut it,” but what do you do after Steve Perry’s cut something? Or Journey’s played it, you know? Then I got to looking at it some more. That was probably the last song that I picked. And I got to listening to those lyrics, and I thought, Bill Monroe would have wrote that: “Winter’s here again, O Lord…”

And I’ve done that with other songs, like “Summer Breeze.” The lyrics are just about life and emotions, and it’s important to me. I love novelty, funny little songs but I just really like the ones that have a message, or maybe leave one.

How did the guitar come to be your instrument?

It was probably going to be the only one that I had any possibility of getting. I would have loved to have had a banjo and mandolin, but I finally got a little ol’ cardboard, classical-style guitar that somebody ordered from a catalog. I knew I might get that one if I pressed enough. If I pressed too hard, I wasn’t going to get nothing! But I had a love for it. And still do.

I never was around anybody that played, is the thing. I had a friend who was my age, and we wrote songs together. He was very talented and he didn’t play bluegrass-style. He was a Jim Croce fan, so he would play that and I was so mesmerized, but that was the only guitar influence I had until I came to Renfro Valley. They were all seasoned Central Kentucky musicians and I learned so much from them.

You were at Renfro Valley for years, and then you became a bandleader. What do you remember most about that time? What was that transition like for you?

It was a transition that had to take place, before I would have ever gotten out of the community I was from. I learned a lot about the history. I learned Bradley Kincaid songs and who Bradley Kincaid was, and how Renfro Valley is such a treasure. I loved it and I got to perform country and gospel. I started singing traditional country there, and then the entertainment director would let me do traditional bluegrass songs with the country band. And that worked out good.

When that position with the Coon Creek Girls came open, I was tickled to death to get that. … Renfro Valley is in “The Hard Way Every Time.” Major, maybe over 50 percent! [Laughs] But I learned, and I’m thankful now that I learned those hard life lessons with good people that had hearts. I was thrilled to work there. The talent there in the late ‘80s and ‘90s – I’m telling you, it was as good as you’d hear anywhere.

And then you decided you wanted to be in front, and go on tour?

Well, what happened was, the Coon Creek Girls had been together for years and everybody got married and had babies. I still didn’t want to step completely out, so we called it Dale Ann Bradley and Coon Creek. And then things changed from there, and I signed with Compass, and then it grew its way into me totally being responsible. [Laughs] Good, bad, and indifferent!

What is some of the best business advice you’ve ever gotten.

[Laughs] Don’t spend your money! Cut corners, but not so much where you make somebody uncomfortable. But when you can, cut corners. Don’t buy what you can’t pay for. And work hard. Respect your money. I had to learn that the hard way, too — that’s the other 50 percent of The Hard Way!

Who would you say are some of your heroes?

Oh, Dolly Parton of course. I loved John Duffey and John Starling. What got me really hooked on bluegrass was that I’d hear Ralph Stanley and Bill Monroe on the radio — and Lester and Earl on The Beverly Hillbillies when I got to see that. Dolly was a hero, and the Seldom Scene, The Country Gentlemen, Charlie Waller, so many in the country field, too. Dolly could do anything. Bluegrass was naturally there, with her being 80 miles across the mountain from where I was from. And I loved Glen Campbell – he was another one that could do everything. So many that you can’t name.

So many of those artists you named have an incredible ear for a song.

They do, and it’s a gift that they can sing anything. And I adore Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles. You can’t stay on this earth and get any better than that.

You’ve won some IBMA Awards, and Sister Sadie earned a Grammy nomination this year. I would imagine that aspiring musicians may look to you as a role model. Do you see yourself that way?

Well, I don’t feel that I’m even worthy enough to put myself up as a role model. But if they like this style of music, I want to be somebody that makes them unafraid to express themselves. And I’ve always tried to treat people as good as I can. In those two ways, I hope that I am. In other ways, everyone’s got to walk their own journey, you know?

The IBMA Awards now have women winning the instrumental categories. As a woman in bluegrass yourself, what does an accomplishment like that mean to you?

Well, obviously it’s good that the mindset has changed, in order to really study the female musicians because some of them are quite great. The thing that worries me a little bit is that I don’t want it to matter if it’s male or female, if you’re a good player. I know so many females who are wonderful players and I don’t think we should get it just because we’re women. Let’s get it on our playing and our accomplishments. I don’t get into that (mentality of) “you’ve got to let me play because I’m a girl!” [Laughs] I’ve never been thrown out of a jam session, but I ain’t been in too many either.

Do you see a difference from when you started until now?

Definitely. I see girls cutting their gig, is what I see. Learning. And playing and singing and writing. I do see a female presence strongly coming in there. There was a time of course, I know not so very long ago: “Well… girls can’t sing bluegrass.” Now that needed to go!

I’d like to see the festival scene open those doors more.

Yeah, they’ve moved up to about two girl acts. And I didn’t really realize that was the case, because in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the Coon Creek Girls were the girl act. [Laughs] And I thought, “We’re getting hired, what’s the problem?” “Well, you’re the only girls!” [Laughs]

Going back to the title of this record for a second, I know there’s a lot of hard work that goes into a career like yours. But what would you say is the reward in that?

Oh gosh. There’s been so many. The reward was that I was able to do it. I was able to sing from the very first venue until now. I got the opportunity to sing and to write and to express myself in a musical way. I’ve met the most precious angels — and a lot of musicians have. They’re angels themselves. So many good friends that have been so good and gracious and merciful to me. And along with that, it provided a way for me to support myself and my son. That’s the reward. That right there is everything.

Photo credit: Pinecastle Records

Molly Tuttle: Confident and ‘Ready’

Posted on by Editor

Even before releasing her first full-length album, Molly Tuttle made history. She became the first woman to be named IBMA Guitar Player of the Year, a title she’s won twice, in addition to winning Americana Music Association’s Instrumentalist of the Year, all on the strength of her 2017 EP, RISE. But to focus exclusively on Tuttle as a guitarist would be a mistake. She isn’t interpreting others’ songs. She’s writing and singing her own, and as her debut record When You’re Ready proves, she’s doing it not only with classically trained musicianship, but with an exciting willingness to explore and trust her own wide-ranging artistic instincts.

Tuttle talked with BGS about When You’re Ready, feeling optimistic about women in music, and why California’s Bay Area has her heart.

BGS: When You’re Ready is such a confident debut. Were you feeling confident from the jump, or did your confidence grow as you recorded?

Tuttle: I think it grew. As I was writing the songs, I got more and more confident just saying what I felt and what I was thinking in the songs. I remember feeling really confident in the studio in what I was saying and in the parts I was playing. Ryan Hewitt, who produced it, helped me feel confident. He wanted everything to sound really strong – it was a good experience.

A lot of these songs seem to explore relationships and how we interact with each other. Do you feel like there are some currents that run through thematically and connect all of these songs?

I think there’s kind of a theme of longing on the album, and also a theme of just being confident in who you are and what you’re feeling. When I was writing it, it was, “I’m just going to say where I’m at.” The theme on the album for me would be accepting your feelings and embracing them.

You’re from California, then you went to college in Boston, and now you’re living in Nashville. Do you feel like all of that geographic diversity changed the trajectory of your music?

I think so. I got exposed to lots of different kinds of music in California, and then especially when I was at Berklee, there were all sorts of different kinds of music going on all the time at school. Then, obviously, Nashville is one of the most amazing music cities in the world. I think living in California was influential, growing up there. I really relate to the Bay Area and a lot of my songs are still inspired by California. It’s where my soul is, still.

What is it about the Bay Area you love so much?

I really love the ocean. I love the nature there, the scenery. I think people are really open there. Everyone — well, not everyone, but a lot of people in the Bay — are just trying to be good people and trying to be accepting of other people. That was something I was taught in school a lot as a kid: that you should accept everyone as they are. Of course, nobody is perfect at that. But I think people are trying to do that there, and that’s a feeling I’ve tried to carry with me.

When you write, are you focusing on the guitar part first and then the lyrics, or does it vary?

There are times when I do the guitar part first, but for this album, I was really focusing on the lyrics and melodies. The guitar parts were the last parts that came with these songs — and I really wanted to have interesting guitar parts on this album. I thought it’d make it more interesting to have a singer/songwriter record with guitar lines that could weave it all together, so I worked on that after I finished writing the songs.

The guitar playing on “Take the Journey” jumps out: the percussion, the lead, the bass, the counter-melodies — that’s all you on acoustic guitar. How’d you come up with this song?

I wrote that with Sarah Siskind. We wrote it pretty quickly in a couple of hours, which for me is quick for writing a song. We had a song that was in that modal-key feel — you don’t really know if it’s major or minor. When we were writing it, I went into this different tuning: it’s an open G tuning, but you get rid of the third and tune the B up to C, which makes it like a Gsus4.

I like that style of guitar playing. When I was a teenager, I learned clawhammer banjo because I really liked old-time music. Someone showed me that you could move the clawhammer style onto the guitar and play a really percussive-sounding style. I went with that and created different rhythms that I like to use — more syncopated — and really worked on getting the bass notes to pop out, letting my hand hit the guitar so it’s percussive sounding.

Your vocals on “Don’t Let Go” move between smooth and comfortable verses to more of a staccato and breathy chorus. How’d you decide to approach the vocals this way?

Where the melody is in my range, I naturally had to go up to a breathy head voice, so we thought that could be a really cool thing, to make it sound really emotional. And on this one, when I was singing the chorus, I did get really emotional in the studio. That helped me get the quivers in my voice. I think you can hear it in the track. There are little things that came out in my singing that I hadn’t really done before recording this. I had to go to an emotional place to get the take that worked.

Do you have a favorite song on here or is that impossible?

I think my favorite is “Sleepwalking.”

All of that imagery on “Sleepwalking” – and on some other songs too – blurry screens, white noise, and even sleepwalking itself: it’s such a direct contrast to the specific, refined sounds you’re making. What is it about the hazy imagery that you’re drawn to?

Yeah, I think a lot of my songs have themes of trying to make a connection with a person or a place or a feeling. There are a few songs that talk about white noise or static or anything that’s kind of blurring the connection. That’s something I feel — like with technology, sometimes it makes me feel like I’m not actually connected to anything and not connected to myself.

I think that comes through in my songs. “Sleepwalking” is a song I wrote about that specific feeling of being disconnected from the world around you. Maybe you’re relying on one person or one place or feeling to be your connection. It’s kind of a love song, but it’s kind of a cry for help in a way. [Laughs]

Of the women who are widely known first as guitar players – a number that’s still too low – most aren’t acoustic, steel-string players. It’s also a physically demanding instrument, especially the way you play. Why were you drawn to it? Why do you think you’ve succeeded?

I’ve never really seen limitations on guitar for me as a woman. I remember, I was first drawn to it in a really natural way when I was a kid. I just liked the mellow sound of it. So I don’t remember specifically what drew me to it, but I remember seeing guitars around, and I told my parents I wanted a guitar. That was after I’d tried like three different instruments and failed at all of them. [Laughs] I tried to play fiddle, and I think I got tired of just not sounding good on it. Guitar is a lot less abrasive when you’re first starting out. I had a tiny guitar when I started, and my dad showed me some stuff on it.

I really liked that you could play it while you were singing. I never thought about it being a physically demanding instrument, even when I first played and my fingers got really sore. It felt pretty natural to me. Then, when I went to Berklee, I was 19 and all of a sudden there were no other women in any of my guitar classes. [Laughs] That was weird. It was definitely an uncomfortable experience at times.

But it was good because I’d walk into class and be the only one, and because all this attention was instantly on me, I thought, “Oh, I better practice and be good or they’re just going to write me off as some girl trying to play guitar.” It felt like there was some added pressure there, which is not really fair, but at least it made me practice more.

You’re not the “best woman guitar player.” You’re the best guitar player. Do you feel like the industry and culture in general are beginning to consider contributions of women more fairly – that you’re weighed equally?

I think it’s definitely changing at a rapid pace right now, especially with the #MeToo movement. Now that’s starting to affect the music world. I’m seeing so many women coming up and their careers are just exploding in new ways – like at the Grammys. There were so many women winning awards and playing.

I think women are feeling really empowered to just say, “No. I’m not a female musician. I’m just a musician.” Women are fully embracing feminism more and just feeling like we can say what’s on our minds. We don’t have to tiptoe around these issues anymore. I think that’s helping everything change. We are not accepting any crap anymore — like “you’re a female guitar player.” [Laughs] I certainly don’t want to be pegged as a female guitar player. My gender doesn’t have anything to do with my guitar playing. We’re talking about the issues more and that’s helping everything to change.

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen

Tristan Scroggins, “Chinquapin Hunting”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Mandolin has long been the keystone on which bluegrass is built — and it’s not simply because Bill Monroe, the undisputed Father of Bluegrass, played the instrument. Its backbeat chop, set against the boom-thump of the upright bass, isn’t just the backbeat, it’s the backbone of the music — setting the pace, driving the songs forward, and/or gently setting them down in the pocket. Of course, with its multiple hundreds of years of history, the mandolin is easily one of the most innovative instruments in the bluegrass lineup, equally comfortable in traditional bluegrass situations as those jazzy, classical, western swing, and world music genres that also lay claim to the instrument.

In bluegrass, invention on mandolin takes many forms, but one of these has become a pillar unto itself in bluegrass mandolin pedagogy: crosspicking. Pioneered by Grand Ole Opry member and Bluegrass Hall of Famer Jesse McReynolds (among others), crosspicking is a counterintuitive right hand approach that gives the mandolin a lilting, bouncy, arpeggiated, melodic feel that’s all at once astounding and — when done right — seamless. On his brand new EP, Fancy Boy, IBMA Momentum Award winner Tristan Scroggins pays tribute to crosspicking on five quintessential tunes, one of which is “Chinquapin Hunting.” The hours upon hours Scroggins has devoted to the technique show, as he carefully and deliberately teases crosspicking melodies out of each of these tunes — no matter how difficult that task may be.

It’s refreshing to hear the eight-stringed stalwart of the genre played so thoughtfully and intentionally, without simply being a mashed out, toneless chopping speed demon. Not that crosspicking can’t be accomplished also at a foot-stomping clip — Scroggins shows this method’s expansive depth and breadth with aplomb.

Punch Brothers Explain What Hasn’t Changed

Posted on by Editor

The Bluegrass Situation interviewed all five members of Punch Brothers upon the release of their compelling new album, All Ashore. At the end of the individual interviews, we asked each member just one question that overlapped: “So much has changed in the music world – and even in your band’s musical evolution – over the last ten years. But what would you say has stayed the same between that first record and now?”

As one would expect from Punch Brothers – who are nominated for IBMA Instrumental Group of the Year – every member offered an interesting perspective. (Read the other interviews here.)

Gabe Witcher: “The thing that’s stayed the same is, I think, the level of excitement we all have, still, just to play music with each other. And the shared wish to keep exploring what this ensemble can do, and to keep reaching for new things. Making new discoveries. Finding new sounds. Everyone is so super committed to that on their own, but also, once we get together, it’s kind of a miracle in a way. This kind of spontaneous and natural thing that happens when new, exciting things keep popping up. Like, ‘Oh my God, that’s awesome! What is that? Remember that, save that. Let’s use that. Let’s figure out what that is.’ That has never gone away. And I think that as long as that thing’s there, we’ll continue to make music.”

Chris Eldridge: “To me, in a way it’s all the same and it’s all different. I feel like we’re doing now what we were doing then, and in a way, it doesn’t feel so different to me in terms of how we want to work on our music. … I feel like consistently from then until now, there has been a real sense of wanting to be a band. I think that’s kind of the thing. Whatever is cool about the Three Musketeers – all for one, one for all – that from the get-go was the thing and still very much is a thing.

“Everybody is playing pretty selflessly in Punch Brothers and everybody really just wants the music to be good. At the end of the day, that’s the overriding thing that’s what brought us together as people, that’s what keeps us together as people, as musicians. We all just really love music and we share a common vision about how it should be and what it can be.

“Even as people have different ideas to move things forward, most notably Thile, there’s always been a real shared sense of purpose in this band. It should be that way for any band, but somehow, sometimes, I don’t think it is. And I think that’s been one of the things that has really contributed to us still wanting to make music together and working hard on it when we do. We just love music and we always have.”

Paul Kowert: “So, we live in the most politically tumultuous time of our lifetimes. We’re in our mid-30s, that’s a big change. Among the bandmates, three of us are married and two of them have kids, so that’s a huge change. I mean, that influences the tour schedule a little bit. Besides that, I don’t know what’s really different, you know? I mean we’re just making more music.”

Noam Pikelny: “I think everyone in the band genuinely likes each other. That’s like a rare thing. Paul is in the corner, shaking his head. (laughs). But we genuinely like each other as human beings and I think we really respect each other musically. So there’s this real sense of responsibility to each other to keep this as part of our musical lives. To me that’s a beautiful thing, that this is something that we can keep coming back to over the years. It doesn’t always have to be the main project. It could go dark for a couple of years while people are doing other things, it could come back. And it feels like not that much time has passed.

“The reason we decided to transition from just an album [Thile’s 2006 project, How to Grow a Woman From the Ground] into a band is probably the same reason why we’re still making music together right now. It’s artistically rewarding and I think we decided to keep doing this beyond the first album because we felt we were just scratching the surface of what was possible. … And 12 years later, I still have this sense of, ‘Well, we’re just scratching the surface, so we’re gonna keep doing it.’ There’s still more we want to uncover.”

Chris Thile: “We love making music with each other. We crave making music with each other. When we are in the midst of other projects, no matter how much we are enjoying those other projects, there is always this feeling, like, ‘I can’t wait to get back with my boys and see what they think about this….’ I think that a mutual love and respect has resulted in a partnership that will last until one of us dies.”

Photo credit: Josh Goleman

Jamie Dailey Previews IBMA Keynote Speech on “Branding Bluegrass”

Posted on by Editor

Ten years ago, the duo of Jamie Dailey and Darrin Vincent—former members of Doyle Lawson’s Quicksilver and Ricky Skaggs’ Kentucky Thunder respectively—burst onto the bluegrass scene in a big way, winning six awards at the International Bluegrass Music Association’s (IBMA) annual gala that ranged from Emerging Artist to the marquee Entertainer of the Year title. It was an auspicious debut, echoed over the next couple of years by more IBMA trophies and other awards, too.

But the accolades of the bluegrass industry, welcome as they were, didn’t deter Dailey & Vincent and their crackerjack band from striking out on a path that’s led them far beyond the pastoral outdoor festivals that still account for much of the music’s presentation. They’ve partnered with Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores to release an immensely popular set of Statler Brothers songs; hosted their own TV shows on PBS and RFD-TV, featuring a wide array of musical styles and entertainment; toured across the country and around the world; and will be producing a Christmas special and associated album later this year. In 2016, they were inducted into the cast of the Grand Ole Opry by the noteworthy pairing of Jeannie Seely and Old Crow Medicine Show.

This year Jamie Dailey will give the keynote address at the World of Bluegrass business conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday, Sept. 25. The theme: “Branding Bluegrass.” Asking him about the invitation seemed like a natural place to begin our conversation.

When you got the invitation to give the World of Bluegrass keynote, did you have to think about it for a while?

Yes, sir, I was quite apprehensive about it. I have something of a different opinion about what’s going on than many do, and the way that I go about doing things business-wise—and creatively—is really not in the bluegrass vein, though it has the foundations. And as you know, when you do things like that, you’re already getting the stink-eye, as I call it. So that’s why I didn’t want to do it. But I called three of my music friends who are pretty much heavyweights in bluegrass, and one in country music. I told them and they said, “Oh, you have to do it, you have to do it.” And they kept pressuring me!

I’m not a theologian, and I don’t have 16 different degrees from Harvard hanging on the wall. But what I do have is experience and instincts. And I can see the dangers that are facing this industry, because we’re too bound by traditions—and we should be bound by traditions in general, but we can’t let that drive us to the point that the music begins to die. And that’s my concern about where we are as an industry.

You started as a full-time musician with Doyle Lawson in 1998, so you came in at the very tail end of the way things had been, and right into the thick of things—Napster, satellite radio, and so on. It seems like the industry has changed completely over your career.

It has. When I started with Doyle, I started watching what was going on. I could see the industry starting to roll over, and I could see changes coming. And I would talk with him a lot about how we needed to get a team. And we did that; we got Don Light as manager, and we went with Rounder Records. From that time to the time I left, which was after nine years, there was even more of a change in the industry. So when we got ready to start Dailey & Vincent, one of the first things I said to Darrin was, we need a publicist, a manager, a booking agent, a business manager, and a good attorney. And for a minute, Darrin looked at me like I’d lost my marbles. But I knew that with the things that were going on, with the way the business was changing, we needed a strong team. And that’s how we started. I wish more bands would take that a little more seriously than I think some do.

You guys started around the same time and place that the Infamous Stringdusters did, and even though you’re very different musically, it seemed like what you shared was an understanding that you need to take care of business.

If you want to talk about branding, the Infamous Stringdusters are a great place to start; look at what they’re doing. The Infamous Stringdusters are headlining Red Rocks; I was talking to Chris Pandolfi on the phone recently about that. They’re doing it their way—with bluegrass foundations, but adding their art form and their hearts to it. And I love to see that. They have a strong team, they have good instincts and lots of good sense, and I’m just very proud of what they’re doing.

That’s got to be a piece of the message — that you need to have a musical identity, but also have some kind of business vision to match.

You do. And if you don’t, you have to get people with you that do, to help you create that and keep it intact.

Now, here’s the other side of it all on branding, and this is something I wish our industry would get better at realizing. We live in the most interdependent age in history. And basically, interdependency means the borders of the world are more like nets than walls now; we can reach more people now than we’ve ever been able to reach. But I don’t feel like, as an industry, that we’re really taking full advantage of that. Darrin and I are trying to take all the advantage of it that we can—by TV, by radio, by doing different kinds of records, from country to bluegrass to gospel. Because we love all of it, and we like to sing and play all of it. That’s what we need to be taking more advantage of.

What do you think stands in the way of bluegrass artists doing that?

Looking at it from a bird’s-eye view, I think they’re scared to do things differently. Because they’re bound by tradition, by bluegrass music lovers who want them to do the same thing over and over and over again. They don’t want to see anything outside of a three-chord song, they don’t want to see anything that’s past a four- or five-piece bluegrass band, that takes it any different direction that what our forefathers did. But listen here: I sat with Earl Scruggs, and I asked Earl, what do you think about adding, say, drums, to a bluegrass band, and doing some different things, even a piano? He said, “I think what you are trying to do is great. Be an artist, play the music you want to play.” And he said, “Son, you’ll always have those bluegrass foundations, because it’s the way you sing.” That really stuck with me.

It seems to me that if you feel that traditional bluegrass’s existence is threatened—and it certainly is economically—then the flip side of that is, you have to be really proactive in reaching out as broadly as you possibly can.

It’s interesting that you bring that up. The first year that I booked our group, 22 of the festivals I called—that I had played with Doyle Lawson for years—had cancelled. By year two, another 13 were gone. And it kept happening. And I told Darrin and Don, here’s what we need to do: we need to start finding buildings that we can promote in; hire a promoter to do it; start learning how to fill those buildings up and put butts in those seats—get people coming to see us.

So we started that by our third year. And what has happened through that is, we grew from 300 or 400 people the first time into complete sellouts now as we go across America. Those people are telling their friends, and they’re telling their friends, and you get more people coming; our demographic is all the way from 15 years old to 95. We just have a broad-ranged audience. And now out of the 115 dates we do a year, about 75 are by ourselves in those buildings. We’re working on pulling new people, and using our TV appearances to do that; that has been an important part of our brand. The rest of the time, we do play Merlefest, or Grey Fox, or some Norman Adams festivals—and that way we make sure that our foundation is still intact with the traditions but not completely bounded by them, because the brand has to grow.

We are living in an ever-changing world, every day. Look at how the record companies are struggling to try to find ways to sell records. Look at the brand new cars that don’t even have CD players in them. People that buy new cars who don’t like to use their phone to listen to streaming services are going to have to learn to buy the records; put them on their phones; hit the Bluetooth and play them in the car. We’re faced with changes whether we want them or not, and we have to meet them head on, we have to think about it, and we have to be proactive.

What’s the biggest challenge coming in the next 10 years? Biggest opportunity? What’s on the horizon?

The biggest challenge that I do see, honestly—and I could be wrong, we’ll revisit this in five years and maybe you’ll say, “boy, Jamie, you really missed on that one”—for bluegrass artists is watching some of these festivals decline. Some of them are still in really good shape, and hopefully will continue to be, but a lot have declined. I see a demographic that follows this music that is starting to roll out, that I don’t see anymore, because they can’t get out now, they’re not as mobile.

And a lot of the younger listeners won’t come in and watch a straight-ahead bluegrass show. They might want to see Dailey & Vincent, and they might want to see the Grascals, but they also want to see Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle. So the biggest opportunity is to market to that, to become more diverse with shows like that, where everybody wins. Because if you have Billy Strings fans and Molly Tuttle fans coming, and you’ve got Dailey & Vincent fans coming and Grascals fans coming, where you have them all there, listening to all the artists, more than likely we’re going to make some fans from each other’s fan base. Our industry is making some progress there, but I think we’re running a little bit slow on that, a little bit behind.

What Darrin and I figured out very quickly is, play the music we feel in our hearts. Whether it’s original or not, whatever it is, play what we love; play it the way we like to play it, and let the chips fall where they may. And in my simple country boy head, it comes down to, if you like it, you’ll buy it and come see it. And if you don’t, you’ve got plenty of other choices to go and see other artists. And that’s kind of where we are with it. I love bluegrass. I love gospel. I love country. But we’ve got some work to do in the bluegrass industry, because I feel like we are behind.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Che Apalache: Connection Through Context

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

As a column, Shout & Shine tends to hinge on unpacking, refuting, and/or subverting expectations about who does and doesn’t  “own” American roots music and its constituent genres. So it’s interesting that, in a conversation with Joe Troop, frontman of Argentina-based, bluegrass-flavored, Latin-infused string band Che Apalache, not only would we come up against those sorts of expectations — and how the band refuses to fit any molds set forth by them — but also in certain cases, we realize they fit quite tidily into the norm, the tradition, and the heritage of the music. Despite however far or wide a band may stray from what we may automatically suppose these genres ought to look like, feel like, and sound, roots music will almost always demonstrate that we are more connected and more similar than we’ve been led to believe.

We connected with Troop on the phone ahead of Che Apalache’s performance headlining our Third Annual Shout & Shine: A Celebration of Diversity in Bluegrass — the namesake of this column — at the International Bluegrass Music Association’s World of Bluegrass conference and Wide Open Bluegrass festival in Raleigh, North Carolina, next week.

This whole slew of unspoken, subtle expectations about who has a claim to roots music is already being subverted by just the existence of Che Apalache, so I wonder, as you tour — especially right now, as you tour the U.S. — how have you felt yourselves coming up against those expectations with your audiences, or perhaps anyone who wouldn’t ever suppose someone from a different hemisphere would even want to play bluegrass?

I fell in love with bluegrass because it’s amazing music, really. It’s such a beautiful thing to have happened in the world. This instrumentation, this ensemble, I tend to think of it also outside of bluegrass, but bluegrass is what gave it technique, there’s a lot of evolution that came from bluegrass. Don’t get me wrong, I love bluegrass, but there are some social issues in the bluegrass world — but there are also things that are understandable, because it’s an extension of American society. As American society continues to evolve and change, bluegrass is naturally going to do the exact same thing. It’s kind of a self-evident history. Being historically accurate is something that bluegrass musicians were never good at. They took something that wasn’t an Anglo-Saxon “pow-wow” and they made it into that.

Americans are not good at historical accuracy; our culture is predicated upon the exact opposite.

America’s perhaps the most hyper-nationalized country in the world right now. That’s something that you get to reflect upon a lot when you spend years — I, personally, have been out of the country for thirteen years of my life, so I’ve thought about that a lot, how nationalism seeps into every nook and cranny of your construct of identity. It’s pretty frightening. I would say bluegrass never escaped from that. Because of advertising and marketing and corporate dominance, Americans basically just want sunshine shoved up their asses 24/7. They just want to be told how great they are.

Not only because you come from South America, but the array of backgrounds and starting points for all of you in the band, I wonder how you feel you are working to deconstruct that paradigm? Is that an active thing?

Yes. Absolutely. It’s 100 percent intentional. I’m also cognizant of the fact that I’m privileged, regardless of the fact that I’m gay. I’m a middle-class American, that puts me way ahead of almost anyone anywhere else in the world, as far as having economic ability and being able to go to college without breaking a sweat, all that. My parents were not privileged growing up. They’re baby boomers, they had this idea of what they wanted for their children, that’s what they procured for us, but that gave me a different view than most of my family, who were blue collar. I grew up between two worlds and my parents were the segue between those worlds. Back then, identity was constructed very differently and there wasn’t much wiggle room.

So why be intentional through art? Personally, I developed an empathetic point of view because I had multigenerational friendships, and bluegrass is a brilliant genre because it does — unlike almost any genre in the United States — allow you to intermingle with people of different social statuses. Bluegrass is more of a launching pad than almost anything else, contrary to the very conservative ties it may have. If not the best, it’s one of the best musical forms with which to cultivate a greater sense of empathy. Then, when you want to make a greater artistic statement, you know how to untangle that mess a little bit more. Che Apalache tries to put out things that are very intentional, to help people reflect who may not have had any exposure to certain belief systems before — and I’m referring to my own belief systems as well. I have an agenda, clearly. Mainly that’s to help this process [of breaking down these paradigms] along in some sort of way where people are obligated to think.

I want people who hate these things — immigrants’ rights and gay people — to first fall in love with us almost like someone would as a child, because art has that innocence and beauty that’s primordial. If we can hook them in with artistic prowess and then challenge them to grow, that’s social art. That’s what we’re going for.

Musically then, what are the similarities and differences in your approach to string band music coming from the perspective of Argentina and South America, rather than North Carolina or Appalachia?

So we’re in Latin America, and in the 1970s, the United States backed Operation Condor, which was an intentional ousting of and/or assassination of democratically-elected governments in the southern cone of South America. They were replaced by very violent dictatorships. American intermingling in Latin America has led to the basic destruction of young intellectuals in the ‘70s, their baby boomers, who were pressing very important social issues. All of this led to some serious bullshit down in South America. Our histories are very intertwined. Talk about Americans needing sunshine shoved up their asses — to deny the fact that America and the CIA were directly responsible for what happened in South America would be equivalent to saying that Hitler and the Third Reich weren’t responsible for the Holocaust. It’s an important thing to understand when presenting a string band in South America, because most people are going to simply reject it. A lot of people would not look favorably on anything iconically American. That’s just part of what you have to understand before you even start to understand what an Argentinian string band means. You have to have context to know what you’re doing in the world. That’s what Americans are so pitiful at, having context. The inherent symbolism of a string band in South America is something that we’re conscious of both there and here.

What I hear you saying is that you’re patently, obviously American in Argentina and Latin America, but at the same time, you’re existing in this odd middle ground where, in the U.S., folks will view you as patently foreign. How do you bridge that divide?

Through queerness! [Chuckles] That’s my guiding light. It all started because of queerness. I fell in love with bluegrass simultaneously with the recognition of my own sexuality. That was the major defining factor in the construct of my identity. Being different, while at the same time being 100 percent Anglo-Saxon, North Carolinian, banjo and fiddle player, was like trying to tame two wild, bucking mules with a rope around each, trying to pull them back together.

Something that I continually go back to is that if we, as othered folks, are able to stand in the center of disparate halves like this–

Yeah! Who else is going to do it? I think being “other” means that you’ve already had societal defeat, you’re nothing. Back when I was coming to terms with my sexuality, gay meant death. I went to Spain when I was 19 and no one gave a shit. I have to give Spain a hand, I love that place. In a personal way, queerness plus Latin culture gave me the liberty to deconstruct my own idea of my identity.

I want to be very clear in connecting all of these thoughts, for our readers, to Che Apalache’s music. Let’s talk about “The Wall.” I love how it subverts that style of song with what it talks about. I feel like it’s the perfect synergy of all of these things you’re talking about.

That song was again, very intentional. I knew it had to be about the wall. It took getting piss drunk on a bottle of whiskey and writing it all out, in my friend’s bathroom crying — it had to be exactly that. The whole mission there was to create a song inspired by Ralph Stanley and what he represented. He’s one of those luminous voices that comes once in a century, he sounded like he was a hundred years old even in his 20s. He was an amazing but also very humble guy. He campaigned for workers’ rights, unions, and workers’ syndicates. He may have fallen into the clenches of Obama, in a way — because Obama didn’t deliver on a lot of the key issues he campaigned for — but the symbolism of Ralph Stanley campaigning for Obama, that speaks for itself, regardless of what happened afterwards. The idea was to put democracy back into the hands of the people. Ralph Stanley has that legacy.

Sure, there are degrees of radicalism — it all tends to be relative.

In southwest Virginia, what he did was extremely radical. You have to contextualize it.

There’s such a history and legacy in that region of folks who would have been relegated to the forgotten pages of history being on the front lines of progressive issues.

Totally. So that song, [“The Wall,”] on a musical and ethnomusicological level, comes from that! Four-part vocal harmonies and Southern gospel unify our band. In April we even did a residency in southwest Virginia through the Crooked Road. We got to play at the Ralph Stanley Museum and his birthplace. In those regions, a lot of those folks are conservative, they identify as Trump voters. We couldn’t think of a better way besides taking that style of music and try to somehow rope them in, then when the fourth verse comes through, they’ve already fallen in love with us, but then we’re tearing their wall down.

And that act isn’t something that you’ve set out to do just because Trump is president; you’re building on what all of these artists and people have done before you, using this specific style of music to make these changes in the world.

Totally. Exactly. We performed this song at [the Old Time Fiddler’s Convention in] Galax, Virginia, and you can see a lot of people listening politely, and only a couple of folks getting angry, but most sat listening respectfully. But hopefully, when they got up the next morning, it made them think.

Once again, queer people, othered people, are the perfect example of this hot button issue of “come togetherness.” We, the othered folks, are leading the way, showing how to come together despite our differences in a way that honors ourselves and our identities, without being complicit in our own oppression. That’s the power we have, to show people what it looks like to truly come together, to start these dialogues, and conversations. Whether it’s at IBMA and Shout & Shine, or at Galax, or around the country, or in Latin America.

That’s it exactly. I made a promise to myself to fly the gay flag, the rainbow flag at Galax next year over our campsite, because it’s usually just stars and bars there. I think that it would be nice to have other folks there to be a part of that! There’s strength in numbers. I would be reticent to go in there with an overt political agenda, though. Because that’s not strategic enough. I think what people like about Che Apalache is that it’s fresh, it’s breathing new energy into something, that for a lot of people has grown stale. That’s the majority of the comments we get. There are a lot of traditional bluegrass fans that follow us because they feel that the genre is doing what it always has — a resurgence of a new kind of thing. That new kind of thing isn’t going to be tipping the hat to the past in a cheeseball, more mash sort of way. People aren’t stupid. People want symbolism. People want string band music.

Photo courtesy of the artist.  

Hot Rize Turns 40: Nick Forster and Tim O’Brien Look Back

Posted on by Editor

He’s had 40 years to think about it, but it took Nick Forster a while to get to a real answer to some existential questions about Hot Rize, the bluegrass-rooted band he, mandolinist-singer Tim O’Brien, banjo wizard Pete Wernick and guitar master Charles Sawtelle formed in in Denver in early 1978. Just what is it that made Hot Rize, well, Hot Rize? And just what is it that make the band — which will host the 29th annual International Bluegrass Music Association Awards on Sept. 27 in Raleigh, North Carolina — still treasured, still distinctive, lo these two score years later?

Forster paused at the question, and then hemmed and hawed a bit before giving it a try. First he tried to break it down to the talents and sensibilities they each brought to the mix. Then he tackled the way they all interacted — the natural combo of O’Brien’s and Wernick’s instrumental skills, O’Brien’s voice, the instinctive guitar skills of Sawtelle (and later of Bryan Sutton, who stepped in when Sawtelle died of cancer in 1999). And then he looked at the balance of celebrating traditions and exploring new paths with choices of material. Blah blah blah. Whatever.

Finally, almost sheepishly, he mentioned one other thing: “Also maybe, I don’t know if it came through sonically, but we were having fun!” he offered. “We were pretty young and had a sense of humor and were having fun!”

Well, there we have it. For fans, for anyone who’s heard the band, there’s no “maybe” about it. From the very first gigs through the three-night anniversary celebration at the Boulder Theater in January with guests Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan and Jerry Douglas — commemorated on the new 40th Anniversary Bash album, recorded in January at the Boulder Theater — it’s that ineffable spirit that stands out, even if we can’t really identify it any better than Forster did.

But let’s let O’Brien have a stab at it as well.

“I don’t want to compare to Bob Marley or anything,” O’Brien says, risking those dangerous waters anyway. “But he was trying to make country music and rock ’n’ roll, and that’s what came out. He had his thing and place and time and what he did. We were too hippiefied and too Western or something to play it like the guys from the Southeast, I guess. We were a Boulder band, a college town band. But we were also a reaction to the Newgrass movement. We adjusted the steering a bit. That was a little too far to the left of us. So we went to the center, but we were still a good deal left of center. … So I don’t know,” he concludes. “It was a weird recipe that seemed to work.”

Not that they followed any recipe, let alone a long-term game plan.

“We thought we’d just play for the summer,” says O’Brien, pulling one right out of the Famous Last Words file.

That was the view from their first gig, in Denver, on May 1, 1978, growing out of jam sessions at the Denver Folklore Center, where they all had found jobs. From the very start there was something different, distinctive about them — the first song the four of them remember playing together was not bluegrass at all, but “Wichita Lineman.” Just two weeks after the May Day gig they were up in Minneapolis booked to play on a new public radio show called Prairie Home Companion, and a month after that they were on the bill of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. And without even thinking about it, they found themselves in a full-time proposition.

“The fact that we didn’t have a long commitment meant we would just be a band for as long as we had gigs,” Forster says, noting that Wernick, a.k.a. Dr. Banjo, served as de facto booking agent as well as band member. “So we kept saying, ‘Yes.’ Pete would say, ‘Do you want to play this wedding? This party? This club?’ ‘Yes!’ We had a goal of trying to make $100 a week take-home pay each. That was a lot of pressure on Pete.”

It was quite the time. Forster and O’Brien were in their mid-20s, Wernick and Sawtelle in their early 30s, all having found their way to Colorado from various points on the compass, meeting through working at the Denver Folklore Center. Fairly quickly, jam sessions grew into something more solid. Forster was recruited to play electric bass (which packed into a car trunk more easily than an acoustic bass), though it was an instrument he’d never played before. As soon as they hit the road they found themselves in the middle of some amazing settings.

“It was an incredible time to be in a bluegrass band, in my view,” Forster says, a time when many of the founding fathers of the form were still going strong, while a new generation — the “newgrass” crowd — was searching for fresh ways to expand the bluegrass lexicon. “I don’t know that we’re fully the third generation of bluegrass, but maybe two-and-a-half. So if we played festivals in the late ‘70s, and because there weren’t as many bands then, a lot of times you’d play the whole weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, two shows a day. So Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley and Jim & Jesse, and [such younger bands as] Seldom Scene and Hot Rize would do two sets a day.”

That was just a part of the vibrant world in which they found themselves.

“Between the sets, you’d sit at your merch table and there’s Bill Monroe sitting at the merch table, and Jim & Jesse, and you’re at someone’s farm in Oklahoma or Georgia, so lots of personal hang time with everyone.”

They didn’t exactly become pals with the old-timers, but a community quickly formed among the younger musicians, particularly after Hot Rize became a client of booking agent Keith Case, whose roster included Newgrass Revival (featuring Sam Bush), John Hartford, autoharp magician Bryan Bowers and Norman and Nancy Blake. Case took advantage of any opportunity to have two or more of those acts sharing bills as much as he could.

“That was so incredible,” Forster says, “to be part of this rolling band of gypsies. Almost every other weekend you’d run into one or even three or four of them.”

Gig by gig it kept going, and kept getting bigger, abetted by their association with their, uh, friends, Western swing ensemble Red Knuckles & the Trailblazers. (“Oh yeah,” Forster sighs. “Those guys.”) By 1990 it had gotten so big that Hot Rize was named Entertainer of the Year in the very first IBMA Awards. But it had also gotten so big that O’Brien and Forster in particular found themselves reassessing things.

“Three things happened concurrently,” Forster says. “We achieved so many of our original goals, frankly. We got to make records, got a bus, got to play the Opry and Austin City Limits, could play any festival. Spectacular. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but we felt a little like, ‘Okay, we’ve done this. This is the end of a chapter.’ Pete and Charles, being older than Tim and me, said, ‘You guys, you don’t understand! This is the brass ring! We hit the jackpot! We’re a band and we can play together and it’s going to get better.’ And we being in our mid-30s rather than mid-40s thought, ‘That’s cool, but we’re going to do other things.’”

And so Hot Rize went into “rest mode,” as Forster puts it. O’Brien, who had established himself as an in-demand songwriter, signed a solo deal with RCA and recruited Forster, who had gone on tour with Sam Bush and John Cowan, to join his band. In the course of that, Forster came up with the idea for a radio show combining roots music and discussion of environmental sustainability, about as Colorado a concept as you could find. That show, eTown, launched in 1991, with its demands ultimately being too much for him to stay on the road with O’Brien.

Meanwhile, Wernick started Live Five (sometimes known as Flexigrass) with some Klezmer-meets-Dixieland approaches, while Sawtelle worked with Peter Rowan and opened a studio, taking on production gigs. There were many calls for reunions, and now and then they would get together for one-offs or a few gigs. When Sawtelle was diagnosed with cancer in 1996 there was a feeling that they needed to do something bigger and took on a full tour, resulting in a live album. After Sawtelle died in 1999 there were occasional shows with several guitarists stepping in, including Peter Rowan a few times. Then Sutton came on board as a full-time member in 2002, though “full-time” was still fairly sporadic, peaking with a 2014 album, When I’m Free, and the first real tour since the sorta-hiatus.

And then they saw that 40th anniversary looming and it was too big to overlook.

“The approach was frankly just celebratory,” Forster says of the concerts. “This is a milestone and it should not go unnoticed. So let’s just do something fun and have a party.”

Photo credit: Jim McGuire