Tag: IBMA

So Many Supergroups: Hear IBMA’s 2021 Instrumental Recording Nominees

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

We’re just over a week and a half away from the International Bluegrass Music Association’s annual awards show held in Raleigh, North Carolina. Bluegrass being a technical, virtuosic genre, the awards have always included efforts to note, encourage, and honor instrumental music and instrumentalists. Each year five bands or acts are nominated for Instrumental Group of the Year, as well as individual songs nominated for Instrumental Recording of the Year. Today we’ll spend a little time with each of the nominees in the latter category, a collection of five instrumentals that showcase collaborative, exciting lineups, some acrobatic mandolin picking, and the exciting depth and breadth of the musical talent evident in the bluegrass community. 

Appalachian Road Show — “The Appalachian Road”

Appalachian Road Show is Barry Abernathy, Jim VanCleve, Darrell Webb, Zeb Snyder, and Todd Phillips, kicking off the Instrumental Recording category with our first supergroup of the bunch. Their titular tune, from the 2020 album, Tribulation, feels like an exciting, galloping journey with twists and turns and a slight darkness, like evening creeping over an Appalachian holler. Appalachian Road Show is the second-most nominated band this year at the IBMA awards, also up for New Artist of the Year – but don’t be fooled, this group has been making fiery music like this centered on VanCleve’s signature sawing for several years now.

Bluegrass 2020 — “Foggy Mountain Chimes”

Scott Vestal reprised his Bluegrass ‘95, Bluegrass ‘96, and Bluegrass 2001 records in 2020 with a new generation, filling out the band with IBMA Award winner and fiddler Patrick McAvinue, guitarist Cody Kilby, Hawktail mandolinist Dominick Leslie, and his brother Curtis Vestal on bass. His ‘95 edition included Wayne Benson, Adam Steffey, Aubrey Haynie, Barry Bales, and Clay Jones, while the ‘96 record featured Mark Schatz, Jeff Autry, and Rob Ickes – in addition to Haynie and Benson. In 2001, Autry and Benson were joined by John Cowan, Randy Kohrs, and Jim VanCleve. 

It’s easy to tell, from this 2020 rendition of “Foggy Mountain Chimes” or from any sample taken from this series of recordings helmed by Vestal, that his commitment to traditional bluegrass, that constantly pushes the envelope, is matched only by his commitment to crafting recordings such as these, where the most tangible throughline – perhaps the only throughline, besides Vestal himself – is the community and the music-making first and foremost.

Bluegrass at the Crossroads — “Ground Speed”

And, another supergroup! Mountain Home Music Company, an imprint of Crossroads Label Group in Arden, North Carolina, has been releasing a series of recordings featuring crackerjack bands of artists and musicians from across their label community and friends. This lineup includes Kristin Scott Benson of the Grascals, Darren Nicholson of Balsam Range, Jeremy Garrett of the Infamous Stringdusters,  Skip Cherryholmes of Sideline (and yes, Cherryholmes), and professor, bassist, and musicologist Kevin Kehrberg. 

It’s not uncommon for this IBMA Awards category to include traditional numbers from the bluegrass canon but it’s certainly a treat to have two such thoughtful – and downright fun – Earl Scruggs numbers up for the trophy this year.

Industrial Strength Bluegrass — “Mountain Strings”

If you haven’t had the good fortune to stumble upon it yet, scholar Neil V. Rosenberg has been taking BGS readers down memory lane, describing the 1989 Dayton Bluegrass Reunion that went on to inspire not only a book, Industrial Strength Bluegrass, but this new Joe Mullins-produced Smithsonian Folkways compilation album by various artists, too. This track features Sierra Hull with a band including Ben Isaacs, Kristin Scott Benson, Glen Duncan, Josh Williams, and the rarest of rare, bluegrass drums by Phil Paul. “Mountain Strings” was originally recorded by Red Allen and its composer, mandolinist Frank Wakefield. The album’s in-depth and museum-like liner notes get it right when they describe Hull’s rendering of the tune as inhabiting “rock and roll swagger,” much like the song’s originators. The ear-puckering cross tuning will stick in your craw, executed with a precision Hull accomplishes universally and deftly.

Justin Moses with Sierra Hull — “Taxland”

The Instrumental Recording of the Year category is always great at showcasing bluegrass’s endemic talent, but this year it really confirms and reconfirms the skill of many pickers, several of whom are nominated on more than one recording in this category, as you will have read already! Sierra Hull appears once again, this time on a track with her husband and musical compatriot Justin Moses, who assembled yet another Instrumental Recording supergroup on his Fall Like Rain project released in January of 2021. “Taxland” – a Tunesday Tuesday feature when it was released as a single in October 2020 – was inspired by all self-employed musicians’ least favorite time of year and features some of Hull and Moses’ signature double mandolin stylings, backed by Michael Cleveland’s jaw-dropping fiddle, Bryan Sutton on guitar, and Barry Bales on bass. It’s a tune that feels rollicking and impressive, but entirely musical, too – a quality not all bluegrass instrumentals share.

Congratulations goes to all of this year’s Instrumental Recording nominees, every one a deserving finalist for the award.

 

With These Women Inducted Into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, Who Should Be Next?

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

For the first time in the thirty year history of the International Bluegrass Music Association a class of Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductees includes a woman in every act. The Hall of Fame, helmed by the IBMA and housed inside the Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky, infamously lacks women. Before this year’s class it included ten women, total, and only one woman — Louise Scruggs — had ever been inducted as an individual. All others had been inducted as members of bands, duos, or organizations. 

This year Alison Krauss and Lynn Morris join the rarest rank of individual female inductees, alongside influential manager Louise Scruggs. The Stonemans — including Patti, Donna, and Roni — join the likes of songwriter Dixie Hall, who was inducted with her husband, Tom T.; Polly, Miggie, and Janis of the Lewis Family; Marion Leighton Levy of the Rounder Records founders; Sara and Maybelle of the Carter Family; and Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard.

To mark the occasion, we’re celebrating women in bluegrass who certainly deserve induction into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, beginning with this year’s inductees. The point is, there is no dearth of women in bluegrass, from way back in its earliest days before the genre even had a name to the big-tent-bluegrass present, and many of whom are more than qualified for inclusion in this hall of honor — as innovators, ambassadors, creators, pickers, and forebears, all.

Alison Krauss 

Arguably the most well-known bluegrass musician to achieve mainstream success, Alison Krauss is a no-brainer addition to the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. With her stellar collaborations — with Robert Plant, James Taylor, T Bone Burnett, and so many others — her bluegrass bona fides, her technical prowess as a fiddler, her crystalline and influential vocals, and her unparalleled skill for song interpretation she’s the perfect multi-hyphenate bluegrasser to demonstrate to veteran fans or the uninitiated passers-by what the Hall of Fame is all about. Because, no matter how far Alison Krauss may stray from bluegrass, everything she does remains firmly rooted in her ‘grassy foundations.

Lynn Morris

Lynn Morris remains a criminally underappreciated figure in bluegrass, partly due to her career being prematurely ended by a near-fatal stroke in the late 1990s. In the decades prior, this IBMA Award winner was a powerful and influential banjo player, bandleader, and community-builder, carving out a pathway to success in roots music for herself — given that no pathways were being made available to women like her. Morris’ brand of bluegrass was unflinching, driving, and gritty, and to this day it continues to defy stereotypes about what women can contribute to a music that often holds up maleness and horse race-style competition as currency. While at the same time, she retained a level of tenderness and openness rare in masculine-centered bluegrass. Hopefully this induction will spotlight Morris’ important role in bluegrass’ golden age during the ‘80s and ‘90s. “Love Grown Cold,” a semi-viral hit for Morris on many a bluegrass social media page, is merely the tip of the iceberg of what will be this Hall of Famer’s long-lasting legacy in this music.

The Stoneman Family

Ernest “Pop” Stoneman, father and figurehead of country’s legendary Stoneman family, was the man who started it all. No, literally. Pop is credited with being a keystone picker, performer, and pseudo-producer of 1927’s Bristol sessions, which later came to be considered as the “big bang of country music,” the beginning of the genre’s commercial fortunes. His family of pickers, including Donna, Roni, and Patti, became stars of stage and screen thanks to their showmanship, homespun vibes, and blistering-fast picking. The impact of this musical family on country, bluegrass, and Americana music — as a unit and as individuals — can simply not be overstated. From Hee Haw to the Grand Ole Opry to winning a CMA Award to international tours with their own group and as side musicians, the fingerprints of the Stoneman Family are all over American roots music across the globe.

Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper

At one point, Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper were perhaps the most famous bluegrass act in the world, landing several singles and tracks in Billboard’s Hot Country Chart in the ‘50s and ‘60s — notably landing four songs in the Top 10. Not on a bluegrass chart, because such a thing did not yet exist, but on the country chart! Granted, at that time bluegrass was still considered simply a subgenre of country and hillbilly music, but imagine not just one “Wagon Wheel”-level hit to their name, but a handful! And somehow, in modern times, Wilma Lee & Stoney are at best relegated to footnotes and asides. Bluegrass has always been a commercial genre and the commercial success of this pair is alone worth induction into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, all their other achievements and accolades notwithstanding.

Ola Belle Reed

Ola Belle Reed is more than “I’ve Endured” and more than “High on the Mountain.” A Western North Carolina songwriter and picker, Reed typified the politically- and environmentally-conscious, subversive, and grounded style of musicmaking by Appalachian women who lived through the many upheavals and uncertainties within the region and around the world during the twentieth century. Her songs, like “Tear Down the Fences,” highlight that the south, Appalachia, and the people who live there are not monoliths. Just as Reed’s catalog of influential music is not a monolith, either. Truly a glaring omission from Bluegrass’s hall of honor.

Sally Ann Forrester

Born Wilene Russell, “Sally Ann” or “Billie” Forrester — wife of fiddler Howdy Forrester — was one of only two women to have ever been members of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys. (The other being Bessie Lee Maudlin, another prime candidate for Hall of Fame induction and inclusion in this list.) With the band, Forrester played accordion and sang as well as “keeping the books.” Inducting the women who were Blue Grass Boys, members of THE titular band of bluegrass, just makes sense! But with Forrester, it also represents an all-too-rare opportunity to canonize a bluegrass accordionist for the ages. Why wouldn’t we want to do that!? Take a listen to her accordion fills on “Rocky Road Blues” and just try to come up with a reason why bluegrass accordion isn’t more popular nowadays. Besides the obvious reasons.

Rose Maddox

Rose Maddox is traditionally credited as the first woman to cut a bluegrass album, recording Rose Maddox Sings Bluegrass in 1962 for Capitol Records and including many a bluegrass hit, like “Footprints in the Snow.” Maddox also marked the beginning of a series of women vocalists and musicians in bluegrass who could accomplish the high lonesome sound for which men like Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, the Osborne Brothers, and others were famous. Women who sang old-time and country up to this point often had rounder, more full, resonant, and rich voices, where men in bluegrass were seemingly attempting to shout tenor to dog whistles. Sexists weren’t sure women could replicate that testicles-in-a-vise-grip sound, but Maddox’s powerful voice immediately commands the same attention – and respect – of the highest and most lonesome. To think there used to be a time when people actually thought (or pretended to think) women couldn’t sing bluegrass!

Elizabeth Cotten

A pillar of American folk music, Elizabeth Cotten’s influence and impact knows no bounds, reaching far from downhome blues, ragtime, and old-time and into bluegrass, folk, Americana, rock, pop, and beyond. Her songs and her playing style continue to influence bluegrass today, but Cotten’s true legacy, one that will stretch on into infinity, is that her existence stands as permission for the Other – for marginalized folks like herself, a Black, working class artisan and musician from the South – to exist and to take up space within these historically white and often forbidding and exclusive roots music communities. Elizabeth Cotten is proof positive that the contributions of Black folks to American roots musics, including if not especially bluegrass, were truly seminal, essential, and vital to the music growing and developing into the entity we all love today. Elizabeth Cotten would be an excellent and unimpeachable first Black and African American inductee into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. Let’s make it happen.

Buffalo Gals

In the 1970s the group considered to be the first bluegrass lineup of all women was Buffalo Gals, including Martha Trachtenberg, Susie Monick, Carol Siegel, Sue Raines, and Nancy Josephson. Their first and only record, First Borne, is finally available digitally and via online streaming platforms, but up until recently was largely forgotten. We featured First Borne in our list of the 50 Greatest Bluegrass Albums by women and retold a now-infamous story about the Buffalo Gals performing in their sleeping bags when a festival promoter gave them a set early in the morning because, you guessed it, who would want to see women perform bluegrass!? Hearing this whimsical, zany mash-up of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” and “Loco-motion” we’d make this group headline. Just sayin’. With bands like Della Mae and Sister Sadie enjoying success and acclaim at all levels of the IBMA, perhaps it’s time to pay tribute to the all-women lineups like the Buffalo Gals who came before and blazed the trail.

Gloria Belle

A woman for a Sunny Mountain Boy! Gloria Belle is most famous as a member of Jimmy Martin’s backing band, but it would almost be an insult to reduce her career to having spent time in the shadow of the King of Bluegrass. She was a fantastic picker, multi-instrumentalist, and singer and the first woman to ever release an album on longtime bluegrass label Rebel Records. In 1999 she received IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award after a handful of decades of nonstop recording, touring, and performing in bluegrass. She even made an appearance on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s fantastically popular Will the Circle Be Unbroken album. Another case of an underrated woman who is constantly referred to on the back end of an ampersand after a man or men, Gloria Belle is a perfect example of a woman who deserves induction into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame on her own merits first and foremost.

Dolly Parton

Though she’ll often refer to it simply as “mountain music,” Dolly Parton is as bluegrass as they come. Albums like The Grass Is Blue, Heartsongs, and Trio demonstrate this fact to an obvious degree, but it’s worth pointing out — especially within the context of the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame — that Parton’s bluegrass runs deeper than just being an offshoot of her musical expression. With the shows and festivals at Dollywood, her collaborations with artists like the Grascals, Rhonda Vincent, and Alison Krauss, and her longtime commitment to philanthropy in her home region of East Tennessee and abroad, Dolly is the perfect example the Hall of Fame could utilize to communicate the importance and value of taking bluegrass ideals and spreading them around the world. Plus, who wouldn’t want a ticket to the IBMA Awards show at which Dolly Parton would be inducted? (Pro tip: Dolly has actually attended the IBMA Awards and performed once before, when The Grass Is Blue was nominated in 2000 and Marty Stuart hosted. Let’s please recreate that show. Please.)

We could continue this list into infinity, and that’s exactly the point. Artists and bands like Alison Brown, Laurie Lewis, Missy Raines, Kathy Kallick, Blue Rose, Emmylou Harris, The Whites, Patty Loveless, and so many others are waiting in the wings, qualified, ready, and willing to step up and thrive under the mantle of Bluegrass Hall of Fame induction. And plenty of young women, femmes, and non-binary folks are waiting to have examples to look up to, to signal to them that bluegrass can be a place where they can also make a home. The concept of a Hall of Fame may seem like an unimportant or inconsequential or self-serving enterprise at times, but it can be so much more than that! We can supply those examples. Let’s do it.

As Banjo Players and Friends, These Women Set the Tone in Bluegrass

Posted on by Editor

It’s always an honor to be nominated, as they often say, and even more special when you share a category with close friends. Achieving nominations once again for the 2021 IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards, Kristin Scott Benson, Gena Britt and Gina Furtado are competing for Banjo Player of the Year — and cheering each other on at the same time.

In a nod to the growing prominence of women who play one of bluegrass’s most iconic instruments, Benson and Furtado found themselves collaborating as producer and artist respectively on the latter’s most recent recording session, resulting in the release of “Made Up My Mind” and “Kansas City Railroad Blues” by the Gina Furtado Project.

Each also picked up additional IBMA Award nominations — the Project qualifying in the organization’s bellwether New Artist category, while Benson, already a five-time Banjo Player of the Year recipient, Steve Martin Banjo Prize winner, and a member of Grammy-nominated band The Grascals, earned an additional nomination in the Instrumental Recording field for her lead role in “Ground Speed,” released as one of a series of special in-studio collaborations for the Mountain Home label’s Bluegrass at the Crossroads series.

Furtado says, “Sometime last year during COVID, Kristin contacted me and said, ‘Hey, we’re so similar! We both play for Mountain Home. We both played with Chris Jones for a while. We both love dogs… we’re mothers… we play the banjo, and we’re not men! Why don’t we combine forces in some way and record a tune or something?’ Our busy lives prevented that from ever happening, but many months later I really needed to think of the perfect person to ask to produce my new batch of singles, and Kristin was exactly the right person.”

She adds, “I was really needing someone who brought not only brilliant musical ideas, but positive, feminine energy. Studios can be such man caves! I guess that’s not PC, but it is completely true. Kristin has motivated and inspired me so very much as a banjo player and human; from her sparkling solos, to formidable tone and timing… and yes, as a young woman learning to play the banjo, I was inspired in a unique way by this amazing woman out there shredding the best into the ground. Being nominated alongside her is super fun and above all extremely humbling!!”

As a producer, Benson brought out the best in Furtado’s recordings. “Gina can stand on her own as an artist,” she says. “My goal wasn’t to change anything about who she is as a writer, singer, or banjo player. I wanted to facilitate and shepherd her and the band through the recording process, from arranging to mixing, to hopefully help her achieve her goals in how she presents her music.”

Benson continues, “I think the ultimate success for women in bluegrass, or any other field, will be when we don’t pause to celebrate it because it’s so normal. That’s when we’ll know that women have seamlessly integrated into whatever we’re doing. Until then, I think we encourage and help each other as much as possible along the way..”

Attesting to the long-standing friendships that bluegrass nurtures, Benson adds, “I first met Gena Britt when I was in high school. She was already out-and-about, playing with an all-female group called Petticoat Junction, though she played bass in that band. She was always so kind and inviting to me. I’ll forever appreciate that.”

In addition, Britt shared an IBMA win with Sister Sadie last year as the Entertainer of the Year. Composed wholly of female musicians, the ensemble has picked up Vocal Group of the Year trophies for the last two years — and they’re back in that category this year, too. “I’m honored to be included in the final nominations for this year’s IBMA awards,” Britt concludes. “There are many incredible women nominated this year. But mostly… there are many amazing musicians that I’m proud to accompany.”

Photo courtesy of BGS sponsors, Crossroads Label Group. Pictured L-R: Gena Britt, Kristin Scott Benson, Gina Furtado

Tim O’Brien Recalls the Origins of Hot Rize… and That Other Band (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on by Editor

Tim O’Brien’s seemingly effortless tenor singing, musicianship, and songwriting have kept him in great esteem in the bluegrass community for more than four decades. One might say “seemingly effortless” is a fitting way to describe his career path, too. So much of it seems natural, as if each new thing was the obvious next step, whether it was creating a Western swing band alter ego within a bluegrass band, recording duet albums with his sister Mollie O’Brien, earning a Grammy nomination with an collection of Bob Dylan covers, or connecting lines between Appalachian music and traditional Irish music, tying back to his own heritage as a West Virginian of Irish descent.

Yet beneath his quiet demeanor is a thoughtful artist who brings a tremendous amount of intentionality to his work. We sat down with O’Brien, our BGS Artist of the Month for July, to ask him about how he got started and how some of these projects came to light.

(Editor’s Note: Read the first half of our interview with Tim O’Brien.)

BGS: When did you first start trying to play music professionally?

TO: In the fall of ‘73 I gave up on the idea of college and decided that maybe I could support myself playing guitar and a little bit of fiddle. I was just learning back then. I saved up for a car and I went to Jackson Hole and played shows in bars and whatever I could get. I had some friends that I had worked with as part of a summer camp out near there that were out there to spend the winter. Then, in the fall of ‘74, I ended up in Boulder and briefly played in a bluegrass band called Town and Country Revue with two guys who were affiliated with a music store that I worked for a short time. Then I met up with a guy that started a band called the Ophelia Swing Band and I joined them for about three years. Our front man was Dan Sadowsky, who later became known as “Pastor Mustard” at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival.

We did some bluegrass things, but we weren’t portraying ourselves as a bluegrass band. We had strings, but it was mostly a swing band. I had been playing guitar and fiddle at this point and ended up borrowing a mandolin for a while until I eventually got my Nugget in ‘76. We were into that Cab Calloway kind of a hepster swing and there was another violin player in the group named Linda Joseph so we’d play some twin fiddle parts in a Western swing style. We tried to make big band arrangements with a lot of call and response between the instruments. We were making it up as we went along, but very much enjoying it.

We made a record, [Swing Tunes of the 30’s & 40’s], for the same label that my solo record came out on, a Denver label called Biscuit City. That record came out in ‘77, but I quit the band right before the record came out. I briefly moved to Minneapolis but I went back and did a little run of gigs with them in the summertime. I went back and was trying to dig in in Minneapolis, and then Pete Wernick called and suggested that we should get a group together. My girlfriend at the time, shortly before we ended up getting married, was thinking that maybe we should move back to Colorado anyway. So we went back in January of ‘78 to start up Hot Rize.

Your description of the Ophelia Swing Band’s material reminds me a lot of Red Knuckles and The Trailblazers. I’ve always enjoyed the Trailblazers portion of Hot Rize shows because the music is so good but it’s almost hiding behind the facade of a well-presented comedy show. Sort of like Homer & Jethro. How did you end up presenting it in that way? Or playing that music in the first place?

What happened was, Pete said that we should get a bluegrass band together and promote these two records. I had just put out Guess Who’s in Town on Biscuit City and Pete had just released Dr. Banjo Steps Out. I said, “That sounds good, I’ll do it, but I’d like to venture out into some other kinds of music other than straight bluegrass” and I mentioned Hank Williams kind of stuff or Western Swing. I asked Pete if he’d ever play Dobro. He had never played Dobro, but he said he’d look into getting one (he ended up getting a lap steel) and said we could work some of that stuff in.

Our first guitar player was a brilliant instrumentalist named Mike Scapp [who also played with the Ophelia Swing Band]. He didn’t last very long though and when he quit, Charles Sawtelle had been playing bass, but switched to guitar. When Nick Forster came along we told him we were doing this country and western material and he said that he had a Charlie Christian Gibson [electric archtop] guitar and played that kind of stuff. So all of a sudden, we had electric guitar, steel guitar, acoustic guitar, and bass. (Charles would go back to the bass for that because he didn’t play that kind of music on guitar.) So, when we would play four sets at a bar or something, we’d feature some of that stuff on the third set just to break it up. We would say, “We’re going to bring another band up here,” but we would just stay on the stage and switch instruments. We’d make a joke about the name of the band — we had different silly names that we used — and it was just a stage patter and a bit of a different kind of music.

Then, about two years into the band, we had a formal concert at the City Park in Denver in a nice theater sponsored by the Denver Folklore Center. I’m not sure who said it but I think it was Charles who said, “Why don’t we do a quick change? We’ll wear cowboy outfits and actually be a different band.” So we worked out the basic formula in rehearsal where Pete would introduce us while three of the four change clothes and then we’d come on and he’d make his quick change and all of a sudden we were a different band. That night, we called ourselves Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers. Rather than this just being some bar, these were mostly bluegrass and folk music fans and Pete and Charles were well-known in that community at that time. So we changed clothes and played a part and never let on that we were the same people and everybody knew it, but they got into it. That seemed to work, so we kept doing it.

The following fall, we played in Louisville at the free bluegrass festival that was put on by Kentucky Fried Chicken. We were interviewed by a radio host there and she said, “Well, I want to interview Hot Rize, but who I really want to interview is Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers.” So we said, OK, and acted like the Trailblazers. When she asked us stuff about where we’re from, we were just making up these answers. All of that stuff about us being from Wyoming, Montana, which is on the border of Wyoming and Montana, and the Eat Cafe was all just jokes that we might have said while we were driving around in the car. But it became our story after that interview. After we’d finished we all looked at each other and said, “Well, I guess that’s our story. Now we have to remember it.” [Laughs]

That’s how it started. I had always wanted to play that music so I wanted to do the music justice, but the act was about not taking yourself seriously. It helped Hot Rize immeasurably to have that as a foil. Whenever we’d mention the name of that band we’d make a snide remark about them as if they were a different band and we were rivals. This helped create an understanding that this was a lighthearted event which helped a lot.

Yeah, I could imagine it helped a lot. Not only as a way to stand out with something different, but since you guys were from Colorado playing a progressive style of bluegrass I’m sure the Hot Rize material sounded even more like traditional bluegrass when juxtaposed against the Trailblazers.

That’s why we got Entertainer of the Year the first year that they awarded it at IBMA; we had a show. At that time you had bands starting like Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, The Johnson Mountain Boys, and the Nashville Bluegrass Band. The Johnson Mountain Boys were also working on a show, but those other two bands were still standing by their individual microphones. I loved those bands a lot and still do but having a show was good for us because it took a little stress off the music and let our music just be what it could be. We weren’t measuring ourselves against those other bands quite as much as we might have been otherwise.

It took a while for the promoters to understand it. There were some traditional festivals that wouldn’t let us do that. Out in Grass Valley, California, at the CBA festival, they didn’t even really want electric bass there, but they’ve made an exception for Hot Rize. But they wouldn’t let us do the Trailblazers. The same thing happened at Doyle Lawson’s festival the first time we played there. Milton Harkey said, “Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love the harmonies,” which proved that he had never heard it since the Trailblazers didn’t really have a lot of harmony singing. But after we played his fans got to him and asked why they didn’t let us play that Trailblazers stuff and explained it to him and they started letting us.

For some of those festivals like the one in Grass Valley, I think they just have their rules about what is and isn’t bluegrass. But the other ones like Doyle Lawson’s festival, they just didn’t want a bunch of bikers coming in. They didn’t want hippies taking a lot of drugs with electric music because it might get out of control.

What was it like to play in these traditional, sometimes conservative spaces?

We were always the funny ones. Our hair was too big and too long and our ties were wrong. We wanted to fit in so we wore suits, but we never hid who we were. Bluegrass, since the ‘60s at least, has always had lots of different fans. They might be Northerners or city folks that didn’t grow up with the banjo but they love it and kind of poke fun at themselves for being involved in a way. I think that’s the thing that’s sort of wonderful about music; it’s a free pass. It’s whatever anybody thinks it is and anybody can like any kind of music and art. How you react to it is up for grabs and, in a way, all responses are valid. People all respond to music differently and people will change it to express themselves within it.

(Editor’s Note: Read the first half of our interview with Tim O’Brien.)

Photo credit: Scott Simontacchi

BGS 5+5: Nefesh Mountain

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Nefesh Mountain (Eric Lindberg and Doni Zasloff)
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York City (born & raised); Montclair, New Jersey (current locale)
Latest Album: Songs for the Sparrows

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

As a musician, there are times when you have to sit and write, practice and create music — this process can be so inward, so solitary and alone. But these quieter moments are also filled with their own kind of magic, the kind that personally sustains you and over time hopefully also helps define you as an artist. There are other times when you find yourself in this great shared musical community with friends, bandmates, mentors, and of course audiences and fans. In these moments, we get to experience it all together as a community. I love all of it, and this crazy cycle that we go through as artists — it’s a great question, the mission statement. And while we’ve never really thought of our career having a “mission” exactly, there is a word that comes to mind that for me applies to all aspects of our musical life, and that is inspiration. Doni and I both want to inspire new thought and ideas with our music, and hope that through song we’re able to depict a better world than the one we see sometimes these days. But inspiration also flows in all directions, and we can feel it from an audience just as easily as they can feel it from us, which is such an encouraging thought. Ultimately for me, I think it’s the drive to inspire and be inspired that fuels a song, improvisation, lyric, or melody, and I’d consider us so lucky just to continue to keep receiving, and giving inspiration back and forth throughout our career… I guess you could say invent, inspire, repeat! — Eric Lindberg

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

For me it’s sometimes hard to separate music from life, and vice versa — and when asked this question, I always seem to come back to the artists that’ve shaped me over the years, especially at pivotal moments in my life. As a child, I remember being obsessed with the songs on “Free To Be You And Me.” The songs, messages, and humor on this album opened up a whole new world of inspiration for me at the time. We still listen to it with our kids today! Being a strong woman in the musical world is something that is just so important to me, and in part this is thanks to my next phase of musical influences: Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Carly Simon, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Joan Baez. For me, I came to a lot of bluegrass and old-time musical forms by way of these artists, tracing backwards from them and finding this amazing and wide world of Americana music like the Carter Family, Ola Belle Reed, Doc Watson, and so many others. Today, I’m also beyond proud that both my and Eric’s biggest bluegrass influences have become dear friends and collaborators on our albums: Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, John Doyle, Bryan Sutton, David Grier, and Mark Schatz among others, have all had such a deep influence on our music, and we’re so grateful for it. — Doni Zasloff

This is such a hard one. There are so many people who have been heroes and “north stars” in my musical life over the years, yet there are two names that always seem to jump to mind when I get asked this question: Pat Metheny and Béla Fleck. I think that I’ve always been drawn to artists who are able to portray their own world on their own terms, and Pat and Béla have done this time and time again, not only defining their sound as composers and improvisers, but all while truly pushing the boundaries of their instruments as well — guitar and banjo, respectively. I also learned early on through them, as well as others like Miles Davis, Bill Monroe, Bill Frisell and more, the importance of composing your own music, and that has been a huge influence on me as it relates to Nefesh Mountain. When I think of Pat and Béla’s music, I actually think of their compositions first. Pat’s “Question and Answer,” “Bright Size Life,” “Farmer’s Trust,” “Letter From Home,” “Last Train Home” and Béla’s “Spanish Point,” “Whitewater,” “Big Country,” “See Rock City,” “Up and Running” to name a few, have all been huge inspirations for me. I’ve learned so much from listening to these two over the years, and not all of it has been exactly music-related. They both always seem to take risks, break rules, and push forward with an inner drive that is just so inspiring to me, and they’ve help pave this musical road out there for other folks, like us perhaps, who also want to build their own world and story on their own terms. — EL

(L-R): Alan Grubner, Eric Lindberg, Doni Zasloff, Max Johnson, David Goldenberg

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

We’ve had so many incredible moments over the years, and one that always comes to mind for me was a number of years back at one of our first IBMA Wide Open Bluegrass festivals in Raleigh, NC. Our music, especially in a more traditionally bluegrass environment like IBMA, can be a bit different, to say the least. We were playing the 5:00 pm spot at the Capitol Stage, right in the center of the city, about to play a set that we knew had a few songs with Hebrew in them. I remember standing backstage looking out at a few thousand people at least, and just being terrified, scared that we would not be accepted for who we are. If you’ve never been, Wide Open Bluegrass is kind of a festival meets street fair. There are no tickets, and for these few days, about a million or so people in Raleigh come out to see some of the best bluegrass music around. So I’m looking out at this crowd that is growing by the second — and in my mind just assumed that they would all leave once they heard a lyric in Hebrew. But in the blink of an eye, I feel Eric come up next to me, grab my hand, and whisk me onto the stage — and less than 60 seconds later we were into our first song. I can barely remember any of the music from that particular performance, but what I do remember are the faces in the crowd… the smiles, the applause, the tears, the joy, the hope, and the rapidly growing numbers of people! When we got to our last song the crowd had more than tripled in size and we received our first standing ovation from the city of Raleigh, NC. It was a show and feeling I’d never forget. Of course, we’d played countless shows before and after that one, but there was a different sense of unknowing that day, of a deeper unknown, and felt like a trust fall between us and all the folks in that crowd who overwhelmingly all reached and caught us! – DZ

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

I think about this a lot, actually. I’m always curious about this connection between music, film, dance, literature and sometimes art as well — that all of it takes place, unfolds, and exists over time. A song, album, TV show, movie or book all have a specific and unique length, and I love that it’s our job as creators to ultimately tell a story within the parameters of our own medium. Our newest album, Songs for the Sparrows, is for me our most “cinematic” yet, in that we really wanted the album as a whole to take on the dramatic flow and characteristics of a film. We took a lot of time to write themes and motifs for this album, both melodically and lyrically, that would weave in and out of the songs. For us, these are our “characters” — the different voices and melodies that make appearances throughout. We also wanted a clear and definite beginning, middle, and end to the album, but overall really wanted it to feel like one story and one experience. I think the most exciting part of attempting to make music in this “cinematic” way is that it forces me to think more visually about the songs… to really focus on the images that we’re striving to create with all these beautiful acoustic instruments. There is a piece on the record called “Suite for a Golden Butterfly,” and for this one, Doni and I actually sat down and wrote out a detailed narrative before even a note of music was written. The music to all five movements came from this story that we wrote together about a Jewish family from Eastern Europe who flees to America to escape the Nazis, and for us it was such an exciting way to collaborate — each putting our own visuals, thoughts, and ideas into the music. — EL

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

The natural world has had a profound influence on our music and lyrics over the years, and as songwriters and composers, we are always looking for ways to convey feelings, stories, and emotions that will resonate, both with ourselves and the listener. We all in one way or another have such a strong relationship with the world around us, and we often lean on this shared “common ground” in our songs, and really love telling our story through the lens of these universal images of rivers, canyons, forests, fields, and of course mountains! One of the great gifts of being a touring musician is having the chance to see the world. When I sit at home at my desk to write or compose a new piece, my mind will often wander on its own, referencing images of the mountains of Colorado, the coasts of Maine, the California sun, the peaks in Switzerland, the hills and valleys in Ireland. It’s a bit abstract and hard to measure, but for me, these elements of nature and personal memories come out in our work all the time — sometimes in an intended lyric or melody, and sometimes in just a few notes of an improvised solo. — EL

We’re always looking for connections in our music… ways of telling our story and how we see the world while bridging bluegrass music with our heritage as Jewish Americans. One common thread that beautifully runs through Americana music and Jewish tradition is the undeniable reverence shown for our natural world, and that connection is so encouraging for me! We so often only look at our differences these days — our backgrounds, skin color, religion, gender, or even musical genre — but over the years of traveling and making music, I’ve found that we can just as easily look at all the things that connect us, that we have in common. Strangely enough, it’s a choice that we can make every day, and it gives me comfort to know that despite our differences we’re all “Somewhere on This Mountain” all at once, all looking up at the same trees, clouds, and sky every day. — DZ

Photo credit: Lawrence Rickford

Danny Paisley & Southern Grass Find a Family Blend on ‘Bluegrass Troubadour’

Posted on by Editor

After nearly 50 years in bluegrass, Danny Paisley has reached something of a breakout moment. He won Male Vocalist of the Year honors at the 2020 IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards — his second time in the past five years and his third IBMA trophy overall.

Paisley started performing bluegrass music as a teenager when he joined the Southern Mountain Boys, a band his father Bob co-founded with Ted Lundy. Lundy’s sons, TJ and Bobby, played in that group too, and now are in Southern Grass, the band Danny now leads. The lineup also features his son, Ryan, giving this traditional bluegrass group a unique two-family, three-generation legacy. Earlier this month, the band released Bluegrass Troubadour, their first album for Pinecastle Records. They recorded it last fall with producer Wes Easter, whom Paisley praises for his good ideas and good vibes, sharing that “after every session we were just happy and couldn’t wait to go back the next day.”

Speaking to BGS from his home in Landenberg, the southeastern Pennsylvania town where the singer-guitarist grew up, Paisley talks about how his not-strictly-traditional sound was shaped by that area’s rich musical history and how the new generation is rethinkng bluegrass.

BGS: You’ve been a bluegrass professional almost your entire life. When did you join your father’s band?

Paisley: I started playing with my father and traveling the rooms around 1974-75. Ted Lundy and my dad had a band for years. Ted’s sons, TJ and Bobby, started playing and I started playing, so we became a family group within the two families. Totally like a big family. Their mom is like my mom. And they call my mom “mom.” We grew up together. Basically all our lives we’ve been playing music together. That pretty much carried all the way through, because the Lundy brothers are back playing with me.

How was it being in a band where your dad was the boss?

Sometimes I would say to my dad, “I have this great idea.” Ever patient as he was, he always knew how to handle every situation. He’d always look at you and go: “That’s great, that’s great, when you get your own band you can try that.” To this day, I laugh about that. And I use that, too, on my son.

Now you have a similar situation with your son Ryan in Southern Grass. Does he bring a different generational perspective?

He wants to do more things [with technology], where I’m still old school and like to do things my way. He has good ideas and it makes me have to rethink… Young minds are sometimes way better than old minds. It’s hard for the younger generation today — for the third generation of bluegrassers to relate to the “Blue Ridge Cabin Home on the Hill.” They love the song, but not that theme of the cabin on the hill and things like that from the old days. I have heard of that from my grandparents. Now with the next generation, it is washed down even more.

The area where you grew up seems to have been a great musical influence.

I was very lucky. I grew up in a place here where there was a country music park, Sunset Park. On Sundays, they would have a major country or bluegrass artist… Bill Monroe, Mac Wiseman, Osborne Brothers… I got to see all of my heroes within five miles of my house. Down the road about 15-20 miles was another park called New River Ranch. It had the Stanley Brothers, Jim & Jesse, Reno & Smiley. Any given Sunday within 20 miles, you could go somewhere and hear some incredible music.

When I was very young, Flatt & Scruggs came and everyone was there to see Earl Scruggs. He was god to every banjo player and rightfully so. I remember that day leaving with this impression of Lester Flatt — just how calm he was and how he talked from the stage. He was in control of the whole thing so easily. … Del McCoury lived the next county over from me, so we often played shows with him. I loved his rhythm guitar playing and his voice. He could play that rhythm guitar and keep that band in time – he’d drive that band with that guitar. There was nothing like hearing him live.

Your music has been associated with “Baltimore Barroom Bluegrass” What was that scene like?

When I got older, there were all these bars and clubs in Baltimore, which is about 30 miles from home. I ended up playing in these clubs, four or five nights a week… you’d played from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., sometimes four or five sets. You got your chops in. You had a broad repertoire and you were playing to people who knew the music because Baltimore became a hub for Southerners who moved up from Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky for work. They were hard-living, hard-drinking, and hard-driving bluegrass fans. There’d be fights. There’d be carrying on, but boy you could have fun!

And another regional musical influence on you was the Galax sound, right?

Galax is a town in southern Virginia, on the state line of North Carolina and Virginia, and the Old Fiddlers Convention there draws thousands from all over the world. The Galax sound features a lot of fiddle — maybe not your standard bluegrass fiddle tunes, but a lot of different fiddle tunes that made their way into bluegrass music. …

Their banjo players had a certain sound to their playing. Ted Lundy had it. He came from Galax and my dad’s family came from over the state line in Ashe County, North Carolina. So naturally they would be drawn together when they got up here. Ola Belle Reed, who wrote “High on a Mountain,” lived a few miles from where I’m at here. She was from that same region. The driving banjo — there is a certain style in their hands and in their noting. You can tell they are from the Galax area. I play [guitar] with a thumb pick where a lot of the bluegrass guys play with a flat pick. That was from my dad also.

So Southern Grass’ driving rhythms are like a handed-down legacy?

Yes, of that area and of our fathers. We keep the rhythm sort of pumping, but you’ve got to play to each song. We’ll work the song. As the singer eases off singing, the rhythm will pull back, too, and then you can build back up. We do a lot of stuff like that dynamic. That’s what I like about my style of music, knowing and feeling the song.

Bobby Lundy used to play the banjo in the band and decided he needed some time off. When he said he was able to play, I needed a bass player. I call him my utility man of bluegrass, like he could play any position on a baseball team — he’s that talented. Because he has known me for so long, he knows what I am going to do on a guitar. He knows what I am going to do singing. He can walk me right into the singing with his bass. He can lead me right into the voice. He can just push the band and keep that timing from not going too fast or too slow. He can just keep it rock steady.

How did you pick songs for your new album?

Two of them [“He Can’t Own Them” and “I Never Was Too Much”] were written by Eric Gibson of the Gibson Brothers. He’s always one of my favorite writers. He sent a gang of songs he had not recorded. Every one of them was a great song. Those were the two that fit my style. Brink Brinkman — another excellent bluegrass songwriter — told me, “I have a song that I’d like you to hear.” As soon as I heard it [“Date With an Angel”], I wrote back: “I want it!”

“May I Sleep in Your Barn, Mister,” I learned from a guy named Cullen Galyean, a banjo picker and a great mountain singer from down in the Galax, Virginia, area. “Eat at the Welcome Table” is an old-timey spiritual song. When my dad moved up here to Pennsylvania, his neighbors were an African-American farming family. They had an old-timey string band and played gospel songs. They would sing that song. We put our own spin on it.

The album has an interesting mix of songs that come from different styles and influences.

That’s how music generally works for me. I love it all, and then I make it my own. My band is rooted in traditional music and traditional ways, but that shouldn’t hamper or restrict you. So, I keep my ears open to all kinds of things. You can sometimes take an idea from a non-bluegrass artist and use it in bluegrass.

It’s that way with my singing. I listen to everything from George Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis and Vince Gill to opera singers like Pavarotti – these guys all amaze me. How they control their voice and present it with such tone. For me that was lacking in my singing and I had to work at that… I learned to sing a little different as I got older – to take the edge off the high tenor part a bit. Things like that, and I noticed that people were responding better.

Congratulations on winning your second IBMA Male Vocalist of the Year win. Was the victory sweeter the second time around?

The first time I was so shocked. Any category when you are up there with Russell Moore, Del McCoury — all these guys that I enjoy. You’re shocked that people would appreciate what you do. The second time, it was like, “Oh my goodness.” It didn’t really set in until the next day or so. I love to go out and play to make people happy. I never thought of being something like Male Vocalist of the Year. It’s always the dream for everybody. It’s always a dream to play the Grand Ole Opry, but you’ve got to keep it realistic. A life lesson early on that I got from my dad: never get to where you think you’re better than anybody else. Because as soon as you do that, you’ll realize that you’re not.

Photo of Danny Paisley and Ryan Paisley courtesy of Pinecastle Records.

5 Uncommon Trad Instruments Played Like You’ve Never Heard

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

We’re all familiar with the standard bluegrass five-piece band (also a common lineup in old-time or string band music), but there are quite a few second- and third-string instruments — no pun intended — that are rarely invited to join ensembles of guitar, fiddle, upright bass, mandolin, and banjo. Dobro is perhaps first on this short list, but accordion, dulcimer (hammered and mountain), autoharp, washboard, harmonica and dozens of other music and noisemakers could be encountered alongside these acoustic staples.

The five musicians below are awe-inspiringly adept at their instruments, each considered more like afterthoughts or casual embellishments in American roots music, rarely considered centerpieces themselves. But no matter how uncommon they may be at your local jam circle, or around the fire at the campsite, after you’ve been introduced to each of the following, you’ll be craving more unexpected and uncommon sounds in your bluegrass lineups.

From bones to nyckelharpa to Irish harp, here are five uncommon traditional instruments played like you’ve never heard them before:

Simon Chrisman – Hammered Dulcimer

A familiar, towering figure in the West Coast old-time, folk, and DIY roots music scenes, Simon Chrisman is criminally underappreciated on a national or international level. He most recently released a duo album with acclaimed banjoist Wes Corbett, he has been touring and collaborating with the Jeremy Kittel Band, and he’s performed and recorded with the Bee Eaters, Bruce Molsky, Laurie Lewis, and many others. His hammered dulcimer chops exist on a plane above and beyond even the most accomplished players on the trapezoidal instrument, throwing in pop and bebop-inspired runs, reaching down to bend strings by hand to achieve particular semi-tones, bouncing along at a rate only matched by a three-finger banjo player’s rapid-fire sixteenth notes. It’s jaw-dropping, even in Chrisman’s most simple, tender melodies and compositions. This rollicking number, named for Corbett’s beloved cat, is neither simple nor overtly tender, but your jaw will find the floor nonetheless.

Rowan Corbett – Bones

Rowan Corbett is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and percussionist best known for his time with seminal modern Black string band, the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Also a longtime member of Baltimore-based acoustic-grunge/world-folk group ilyAIMY and a veteran of Celtic outfit Tinsmith, Corbett is something of a musical chameleon, though it never feels as if he’s just putting on genre costumes to match whatever melodic motif suits the moment. Instead he inhabits each one authentically and wholly. ilyAIMY, for being billed as a folk band, are captivating, passionate, and energetic, perhaps most of all while Corbett fronts the group. But all of his musical moxie across all of his instruments pales when he pulls out the bones — traditional, handheld percussion instruments similar to their more mainstream (if not more vilified) counterpart, the spoons.

It’s no wonder a bio for Corbett begins, “What are those and how does he do that?” Corbett’s percussion skills are precise and technical, laser-like accuracy meshed with generation-blurring soul. During a guest appearance with Rhiannon Giddens at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North Carolina, in September 2019, Corbett brought thousands of listeners gathered on the hillside by the amphitheatre to their feet with his bones and just a couple of bars. This improv/battle video with Greg Adams displays just a taste of Corbett’s prowess on the ancient instrument.

Amy Hakanson – Nyckelharpa

Pandemic aside, if you’ve jammed with an old-time fiddler in the past two years you’ve probably fumbled (if you’re like this writer) or charmingly tripped your way through a Swedish fiddle tune or two. Musicians like Brittany Haas and Molly Tuttle have brought Swedish tunes into their repertoires, birthing dozens of new acolytes of the crooked, wonky, joyful tunes. Many an American fan of Swedish folk traditions were introduced to them by Väsen, a genre-blending, nearly 30-year-old Swedish folk band adored by multiple generations of American musicians, thanks to their status as a favorite band of everyone’s favorite pickers. (Väsen counts Chris Thile, Mike Marshall, Darol Anger, and others among their most vocal proponents and collaborators.)

Nyckelharpa player and scholar Amy Hakanson was first introduced to the instrument by Väsen as well and in 2014 she took her fascination with the heady, engaging music to the source, to study nyckelharpa with Väsen’s Olov Johansson himself at the Eric Sahlström Institute in Tobo, Sweden. Her approach to the instrument — a traditional Swedish, bowed fiddle-like apparatus played with keys — has a storied, timeless air, even as she carefully places the nyckelharpa in modern contexts. This original, “Spiralpolska,” for instance, utilizes a loop machine, ancient droning and modern droning combined.

Sarah Kate Morgan – Mountain Dulcimer

The mountain dulcimer is simple and beautiful in its most common use, a gentle, pedalling rhythm section for languid, introspective folk tunes. Counterintuitively much more common in the hallways and hotel rooms of Folk Alliance International’s conference than IBMA’s or SPGBMA’s gatherings, this writer first encountered Kentuckian Sarah Kate Morgan and her melodic-style dulcimer among the many booths of IBMA’s World of Bluegrass exhibit hall. She was holding her own in an impromptu fiddle jam with mandolins, fiddles, banjos — all instruments much more familiar with picking intricate, free flowing hornpipes and hoedowns. But Morgan doesn’t just strum the dulcimer, capitalizing on its resonant sustain and open tuning, she shreds it. Playing a finely-tuned, impeccably intonated instrument with a radiused fretboard, she courageously and daringly dialogues with whomever accompanies her down every bluegrass and old-time rabbit hole she meets. It’s incredible to watch, not only with the understanding that most mountain dulcimers are treated as an aesthetic afterthought, but also knowing that Morgan’s prowess outpaces just about anybody on any instrument. A truly transcendent musician.

Alannah Thornburgh – Harp

Harp keeps coming up lately! And for good reason. No matter the genre label applied, harp is having a moment. We’ve kept up with Alannah Thornburgh for a few years, featuring her work with Alfi as well as across-the-pond collaborations like this one, with mandolinist (and BGS contributor) Tristan Scroggins. Living in Dublin, Thornburgh plays in the Irish harp tradition, but has toured and traveled extensively in the United States, giving her style a distinctly old-time and fiddle-tune-influenced approach. She takes on the complicated, contextual vocabularies of American old-time music with ease, almost leading listeners to believe that emulating the banjo or mandolin or executing new acoustic compositions or modern reharmonizations of old-time classics is what the harp was designed to do.

An Instagram video of Thornburgh displays a mischievous, winking arrangement of Béla Fleck’s “The over Grown Waltz,” from one of his masterworks, The Bluegrass Sessions: Tales from the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 2. An earworm of a tune well-worn and familiar to any acoustic music fan Generation X and younger, it’s not uncommonly called at some jams, but its hummable melody is secretly, deceptively, subversively complicated. Once again, Thornburgh simply smiles and pushes onward, as if reaching and pulling these intricate licks and banjo phrases seemingly out of thin air on a harp were as everyday an activity as brushing one’s teeth — or a wedding performance of Pachelbel’s Canon in D.

 

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Photo credit: Alannah Thornburgh (left) by Tara McAuley; Amy Hakanson by Amy Hakanson.

At the Ryman, Four of Bluegrass’ Finest Sing “Down in the River to Pray”

Posted on by Editor

In our celebration of the movie that returned bluegrass to the spotlight of pop culture, we’re throwing it back to the 31st Annual IBMA Awards from October 2020. During the ceremony, four of the five women nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year banded their angelic voices together to pay tribute to the 2000 landmark film O Brother, Where Art Thou? In the video below, Amanda Smith, Rhonda Vincent, Brooke Aldridge, and Dale Ann Bradley stand stoically on the stage of the famed Ryman Auditorium to deliver a brilliant rendition of “Down in the River to Pray.”

This a capella performance is a reminder of not only the music featured in the film, but also the unique characteristic that bluegrass and old-time music can have, feeling simultaneously nostalgic and modern. The women’s gentle voices are wonders to behold in their own rights, but sparks fly when they harmonize, emanating a warmth and life into the historic venue where bluegrass was born. Watch these four eminent women of modern bluegrass interpret an all-time classic recording from our BGS Artist of the Month, O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Editor’s Note: The 2020 IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards will air on Circle TV on Monday, January 18 at 8pm ET / 7pm CT. The ceremony will be broadcast on Circle and Gray TV stations and can also be seen on DISH Studio Channel 102, Sling TV, and other TV affiliates. Circle TV is also available on 275 million smartphones and tablets via the Roku Channel and XUMO apps in addition to a companion livestream on Circle All Access Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Photo credit: Shelley Swanger. Pictured L-R: Amanda Smith, Rhonda Vincent, Brooke Aldridge, Dale Ann Bradley

WATCH: Sister Sadie Sing “Since I Laid My Burden Down” On the Opry

Posted on by Editor

Sister Sadie, our BGS Artist of the Month in December, got a strong start to closing out 2020. The trailblazing all-female powerhouse performed on the Grand Ole Opry on December 5 and left the audience in ashes after performing a scorching rendition of “Since I Laid My Burden Down.” Folks and fans are wising up to the group since their recent successes at both the IBMA Awards and the Grammys, winning three awards in the last two years from the IBMA and earning their first Grammy nomination in 2018.

For those who might still be new to the band, check out our Artist of the Month interview to gain a deeper appreciation for the incredible music that has arisen so naturally from the tight bonds of friendship and out of the hard-worked hands of these all-stars in the acoustic community. Tina Adair sings and picks mean mandolin over the roaring undercurrent of Gena Britt’s rolling banjo and Deanie Richardson’s screaming fiddle. They’re joined in this performance by singer-guitarist Jaelee Roberts and bassist Hasee Ciaccio. From the famed Opry stage, watch the reigning IBMA Entertainers of the Year tear up some old-fashioned bluegrass.

Ricky Skaggs Remembers Tony Rice

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Tony Rice, revolutionary guitar player and Bluegrass Hall-of-Famer, died Friday, December 25 at the age of 69.  His passing was confirmed and memorialized by friend, collaborator, and fellow Hall-of-Famer Ricky Skaggs, per the request of Tony’s family.  He was a true icon and will be remembered and revered by everyone in the community.  Read Ricky’s full post below:

 

 

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“Sometime during Christmas morning while making his coffee, our dear friend and guitar hero Tony Rice passed from this life and made his swift journey to his heavenly home. It’s still quite a shock to the whole family. After talking with Tony’s wife Pam and their daughter India, they asked if I would make a statement on their behalf and give them some privacy to process during this difficult time. I was honored to help out. Tony is also survived by his brothers Wyatt and Ronnie, and all of you who loved his music and those who will continue to share it with others.

Tony Rice was the single most influential acoustic guitar player in the last 50 years. Many if not all of the Bluegrass guitar players of today would say that they cut their teeth on Tony Rice’s music. He loved hearing the next generation players play his licks. I think that’s where he got most of his joy as a player. With many IBMA Awards and a Grammy Award, Tony was a gracious recipient of the International Bluegrass Music Award’s highest honor as an inductee into their Hall Of Fame in 2013.

Not only was Tony a brilliant guitar player but he was also one of the most stylistic lead vocalist in Bluegrass music history. When I joined the group The New South in 1974, I knew I’d found a singing soul mate with Tony. Our voices blended like brothers. In 1980 we recorded the album “Skaggs And Rice” for Sugar Hill as a tribute to our duet hero’s with just the simplicity of guitar, mandolin, and our voices. All these years later people tell me how much the purity of that record still touches their heart. That’s who Tony was, a singer from the heart.

I will miss him as I’m sure all of you will. But where Tony is right now, he’s not missing us. He’s in the place that God has prepared for those who love Him and receive Him. Rest In Peace dear brother. Thank you for your great talent and the music that will continue to inspire more and more generations to come.”

– Ricky Skaggs

Photo via ‘Tony Rice Sings Gordon Lightfoot’