6 Old-Time Tunes for Your Winter “Happy-Sads”

Every January and February contain the same complicated emotional cocktail – a hangover from the holidays, a buzz of hope for the future, grief for the year gone by, relief to have moved on, joy in the lack of plans, and perhaps even dread for any winter still to come. Whichever way you slice it, it is a time of mixed emotions, usually of the slightly melancholy variety, but not wholly sad. I call this the “happy-sads.” This gentle gloom has always been beautiful to me in art, music, TV, film, etc. – and especially in an old-time tune!

Old-time music covers a vast range. There are tunes for every occasion and feeling – and the bittersweet is abundant. It’s also possible to get something different from a tune, depending on when and how you come across it. The tunes I find myself most drawn to this time of year are those that lope along, tinged equally with a sweet sadness and hope. Here are six old-time recordings that won’t cure your January/February “happy-sads” but rather, indulge them.

“Lost Indian,” Tricia Spencer & Howard Rains

Based in Lawrence, Kansas, Tricia Spencer and Howard Rains have deep musical roots in Kansas and Texas, respectively. With two wailing fiddles right up top, this is the perfect recording to start off this list. When the band kicks in you want to dance, but also cry?

“Backstep Indi,” Pharis & Jason Romero 

A fretless gourd banjo is a sure-fire way to indulge all of your complicated winter feels. Pharis & Jason Romero are no strangers to the cold and gray up in their Canadian home. A modern old-time tune, “Backstep-Indi” winds in and out and back again making it the perfect recording for a reflective chilly day.

“Fire on the Mountain,” Matt Brown

Matt Brown’s recording of “Fire on the Mountain,” a tune from Kentucky fiddler Isham Monday, never fails to inspire peace, personally. It’s just ultimately serene and mournful like a proper January morning (or afternoon or evening). The G cross tuning, fingerstyle banjo, the simple delivery are all just right.

“Railroad Bill,” Etta Baker

The way Etta Baker’s fingerstyle guitar just chugs right along with a slow, but definite evolution during “Railroad Bill” has a familiarity and comfort to it. Her sound is still, steady, and warm, and that minor six chord really hits on a glum winter day.

“Weevils in the Grits,” Sami Braman

Sami Braman’s original tune, “Weevils in the Grits,” marches right along with Brittany Haas guest fiddling alongside her and her band. Open tunings on a fiddle can lean in the more “raging” direction or the drones that they create can open up the sound to something ethereal and archaic. Sometimes you get a combination of both, like we have here! BGS premiered “Weevils in the Grits” last year, too.

“Laughing Boy,” Earl White Stringband

There are several tunes off of the Earl White Stringband album that could have ended up on this list, notably the old-time jam hit “Chips and Sauce,” but this particular one stuck because of that fleeting moment where the melody winks at the minor chord while the band plays the major four and your heart explodes.


Photo Credit: United States Resettlement Administration, Ben Shahn, photographer. (1937) Aunt Samantha Baumgarner i.e. Bumgarner. United States, Asheville, North Carolina. Photograph retrieved from the Library of Congress.

10 Old-Time Fiddle Tunes With Outrageous Names

I love a great fiddle tune as much as the next person, but sometimes their names simply do too much. It’s not hard to imagine how these titles might have been changed and twisted over the years, in the game of telephone that inevitably exists in oral traditions. Some tunes, like “Shove That Pig’s Foot a Little Closer to the Fire,” have multiple rumored explanations for their names. Clawhammerbanjo.net discusses some of these possibilities in this lengthy explanation. We may never know for sure where these names come from, but here are 10 tunes that exhibit old-time at its most absurd:

“Jaybird Died of the Whooping Cough”

This may be a slightly traumatizing title for a post-pandemic society, but it’s still scientifically interesting. Can a jaybird, indeed, contract whooping cough? Here, the fabulous Foghorn Stringband research the situation. 

“Dick’s Handspike”

What exactly was “Dick’s Handspike”? Do we even want to know? Hilary Burhans demonstrates, with a beautiful tune undeserving of such a blunt (or sharp?) name. 

“Bullfrog on a Puncheon Floor”

Reportedly from the fiddling of Estill Bingham, Mark Gilston plays this lovely tune on mountain dulcimer. According to the University of South Carolina, a puncheon is an Appalachian term meaning “A split log or rough timber having one face smoothed by an adze, used for flooring, benching, siding of log buildings, etc.”  

“Sal’s Got a Meat Skin”

In addition to meaning a literal meat skin, the term can also be used as an insult, according to Urban Dictionary. If you want to know more, you’ll have to Google it. Here, the Snake Hollow Stringband from old-time hot spot Floyd, Virginia, performs “Sal’s Got a Meat Skin.”

“Soapsuds Over the Fence”

Taking its place in a longstanding tradition of “naming the tune whatever is actively happening within eyesight at the time of writing” we have “Soapsuds Over the Fence.” Played in this video by the equally wonderfully-named renowned fiddler, Harry Bolick.

“I’m a Nice Old Man”

Nothing says “I’m not a nice old man” more than proclaiming, “I’m a nice old man.” This tune is credited to the playing of Melvin Wine. No shade on Melvin! He just played the tune, and allegedly was a nice old man. Here we have it reimagined on Leicestershire smallpipes by Moira Bracknall. 

“Don’t Drink Nothin but Corn” 

I feel that this tune’s title is missing its last word – “liquor” – but as a Midwesterner, I can’t put it past folks to drink straight corn. Nevertheless, this tune somehow made its way all the way to Sweden, here we have the Hot Corn Band performing it. 

“Shove the Pig’s Foot a Little Closer to the Fire”

Perhaps the best-known of these outrageous tunes, “Shove the Pig’s Foot” has become a classic. Here is old-time royalty Bruce Molsky’s recording of the tune.  

“Big Footed Man In the Sandy Lot”

This tune sounds like a clue in a murder mystery. Why exactly was that big-footed man in the sandy lot? Here’s a beautiful rendition from Lukas Pool.

“Hell and Scissors”

What is it about Hell and scissors, they just go together like bread and butter! Here we have The Moose Whisperers featuring BGS favorite Jake Blount playing a great version at Clifftop.


Background image by Wes Hecks via unsplash.com

Jerry Douglas and Kelsey Waldon to Host BGS Jams Onboard Cayamo

Today’s the day we finally set sail for the 15th edition of Cayamo: A Journey Through Song! The BGS team is stoked to be back onboard the Norwegian Pearl and are eagerly awaiting our two jam sets we’re hosting this year, along with all the other collaborations and bits of magic that will inevitably manifest onboard, with folks on the lineup like Patty Griffin, Trampled By Turtles, Allison Russell, the Jerry Douglas Band, Jeff Tweedy, and so many more favorites and friends across the roots music board. As much as we can try to paint a picture of the collaborative, communal spirit of Cayamo, it’s something you can’t really feel until you’re there, in the middle of it all. Here’s just the start of what BGS will be getting up to this week:

BGS Presents: Party On Garth, Hosted by Kelsey Waldon

Dive into your ’90s nostalgia on the Pool Deck for this totally tubular Sail Away Show curated by BGS and hosted by Kelsey Waldon. From Garth and Reba to Kurt Cobain, this set will have you Boot Scootin’ (or flip floppin’) in the afternoon sun as we sail away from the beautiful shores of the Caribbean.

The BGS Nightcap Hosted by Jerry Douglas

Picture it: It’s late at night, an eclectic mix of your favorite artists are perched around someone’s living room, pulling out song after song until the wee hours of the morning, lost in the magic of the music. The BGS Nightcap brings those intimate moments rarely seen by the public to the Cayamo stage, with songs that run from deep cuts to personal favorites, curating one-of-a-kind artist collaborations that you’d never expect and can never forget. So pour yourself a strong one and settle in for the first ever BGS Nightcap hosted by Jerry Douglas.

Top 10 Sitch Sessions of the Past 10 Years

Since the beginning, BGS has sought to showcase roots music at every level and to preserve the moments throughout its ever-developing history that make this music so special. One of the simplest ways we’ve been able to do just that has been through our Sitch Sessions — working with new and old friends, up-and-coming artists, and legendary performers, filming musical moments in small, intimate spaces, among expansive, breathtaking landscapes, and just about everywhere in between. But always aiming to capture the communion of these shared moments.

In honor of our 10th year, we’ve gathered 10 of our best sessions — viral videos and fan favorites — from the past decade. We hope you’ll enjoy this trip down memory lane!

Greensky Bluegrass – “Burn Them”

Our most popular video of all time, this Telluride, Colorado session with Greensky Bluegrass is an undeniable favorite, and we just had to include it first.


Rodney Crowell and Emmylou Harris – “The Traveling Kind”

What more could you ask for than two old friends and legends of country music reminiscing on travels and songs passed and yet to come, in an intimate space like this? “We’re members of an elite group because we’re still around, we’re still traveling,” Emmylou Harris jokes. To which Rodney Crowell adds with a laugh, “We traveled so far, it became a song.” The flowers were even specifically chosen and arranged “to represent a celestial great-beyond and provide a welcoming otherworldly quality … a resting place for the traveling kind.” Another heartwarming touch for an unforgettable moment.


Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan – “Some Tyrant” 

In the summer of 2014, during the Telluride Bluegrass Festival we had the distinct pleasure of capturing Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan’s perfectly bucolic version of “Some Tyrant” among the aspens. While out on this jaunt into the woods, we also caught a performance of the loveliest ode to summertime from Kristin Andreassen, joined by Aoife and Sarah.


Rhiannon Giddens – “Mal Hombre”

Rhiannon Giddens once again proves that she can sing just about anything she wants to — and really well — with this gorgeously painful and moving version of “Mal Hombre.”


Tim O’Brien – “You Were on My Mind”

Is this our favorite Sitch Session of all time? Probably. Do we dream of having the good fortune of running into Tim O’Brien playing the banjo on a dusty road outside of Telluride like the truck driver in this video? Definitely.

Enjoy one of our most popular Sitch Sessions of all time, featuring O’Brien’s pure, unfiltered magic in a solo performance of an original, modern classic.


Gregory Alan Isakov – “Saint Valentine”

Being lucky in love is great work, if you can find it. But, for the rest of us, it’s a hard row to hoe. For this 2017 Sitch Session at the York Manor in our home base of Los Angeles, Gregory Alan Isakov teamed up with the Ghost Orchestra to perform “Saint Valentine.”


The Earls of Leicester – “The Train That Carried My Girl From Town”

In this rollicking session, the Earls of Leicester gather round some Ear Trumpet Labs mics to bring their traditional flair to a modern audience, and they all seem to be having a helluva time!


Sara and Sean Watkins – “You and Me”

For this Telluride session, Sara and Sean Watkins toted their fiddle and guitar up the mountain to give us a performance of “You and Me” from a gondola flying high above the canyon.


Punch Brothers – “My Oh My / Boll Weevil”

The Punch Brothers — along with Dawes, The Lone Bellow, and Gregory Alan Isakov — headlined the 2015 LA Bluegrass Situation festival at the Greek Theatre (a party all on its own), and in anticipation, the group shared a performance of “My Oh My” into “Boll Weevil” from on top of the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood.


Caitlin Canty feat. Noam Pikelny – “I Want To Be With You Always”

We’ll send you off with this delicate moment. Released on Valentine’s Day, Caitlin Canty and Noam Pikelny offered their tender acoustic rendition of Lefty Frizzell’s 1951 country classic love song, “I Want to Be With You Always.”


Dive into 8 of our favorite underrated Sitch Sessions here.

At Old Settler’s, Roots Music Gathers in Central Texas

This past weekend in Tilmon, Texas, not too far from Austin, legends, up-and-comers, and local artists alike gathered for the Old Settler’s Music Festival, a celebration of roots music of all stripes that’s been happening since 1987. The Del McCoury Band, Flaco Jimenez, Peter Rowan, and other greats were joined by the likes of Sierra Hull, The Suffers, Brennen Leigh, American Aquarium, and so many others. Take a look at our photo recap below.


All photos by Daniel Jackson

The BGS Radio Hour – Episode 206

Welcome to the BGS Radio Hour! Since 2017, this weekly radio show and podcast has been a recap of all the great music, new and old, featured on the digital pages of BGS. This week, we bring you new music from jam-grass band Leftover Salmon, the debut single from Watchhouse (formerly known as Mandolin Orange,) and so much more! Remember to check back every week for a new episode of the BGS Radio Hour.

APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY

Leftover Salmon – “Boogie Grass Band”

Leftover Salmon has been playing what you could call “boogie grass” for over 30 years now. After their COVID-induced live music hiatus, the founding Colorado jam-grass band brings us a new album Brand New Good Old Days, and this next song celebrates that boogie grass sound that everyone loves.

Avi Kaplan – “Song for the Thankful”

Avi Kaplan brings us a song about finding gratitude and beauty in every realm of life, good or bad. His hope for the listener is that they can “find gratitude in their life regardless of what end of the spectrum they are currently in.”

Peggy Seeger – “Lubrication”

As our Artist of the Month for April Peggy Seeger put it herself, “Folk is full of raunchy songs, but they’re not often sung.” In our recent interview, and on her recent album First Farewell, Seeger ruminates on the joys and sorrows of aging.

Sam Armstrong-Zickefoose – “Heart of Mine”

Sam Armstrong-Zickefoose wrote this song about feeling you’re on the outside looking in. Sometimes even after moving towards the direction of “fitting in,” it’s still easy to feel out of place.

John R. Miller – “Faustina”

John R. Miller is a true West Virginia picker-singer-songwriter if there ever was one. While inspired by folks like John Prine and Steve Earle, Miller is celebrated among the same stature — including by his friend from the same region, Tyler Childers. We mark John R. Miller’s 2021 signing with Rounder Records with “Faustina,” a single that brings promise of a great debut record.

Lady Nade – “Willing”

From Bristol, UK, Lady Nade wrote “Willing” to foster acceptance, loyalty, and friendship. The video was filmed in her hometown along the route of a Black Lives Matter protest last summer. As she explains, “the way the video and song came together portray the message of self, as well as community.”

John Mailander’s Forecast – “Returning”

For fiddler John Mailander, “Returning” captures the collective feeling amongst the musicians in the studio playing together at the time of recording, the rediscovery of connection and joy after so many months of isolation.

Watchhouse – “Better Way”

After more than ten years as the duo Mandolin Orange, burdened by the dichotomy between the name and the music they strived to create, Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz changed their name to Watchhouse, deciding through the COVID-19 pandemic that the time for change was now, given the growing and soon-to-be opportunities for bands to share their music on a live stage again. Here’s their first single since the change!

Alex Heflin – “Guest Room”

With his new album, Room for Everyone, Alex Heflin intends to highlight that inclusivity in both genre and personality always adds interest and excitement to a medium. In this case, the track “Guest Room” benefits from that approach.

Zach Schmidt – “I Can’t Dance”

Zach Schmidt spoke with BGS in a recent edition of 5+5 on the influence of Guy Clark – and greasy enchiladas! – on facing loss and working through it, spending time with Mother Earth, and more.

Mark Rubin, Jew of Oklahoma (feat. Danny Barnes) – “My Resting Place”

Mark Rubin wrote this old-time bluegrass number inspired by the drive of Jimmy Martin, yet based on a 100-year-old Yiddish poem. He says, “If I’m being honest, I wrote it with Del McCoury in mind as the thought of a 100-year-old Yiddish labor ballad sung on bluegrass stages cheers me to no end.”

Richie Furay – “Go and Say Goodbye (Live)”

Rock and roll legend Richie Furay’s new collection 50th Anniversary Return to the Troubadour celebrates his long career with bands like Poco and Buffalo Springfield — and his connection with former bandmate Stephen Stills’ music remains as strong as ever. Furay has recorded this song, written by Stills, with every band he’s been a part of over a half-century career.

The Rose Petals – “They Say You Loved a Good Man”

“They Say You Loved a Good Man” was written about former president Calvin Coolidge and his wife Grace, but ultimately, it’s a song about regret — living your life with the best intentions, yet still falling short of expectations.

Abby Hollander Band – “Still Got It Bad”

Abby Hollander recently joined BGS for a 5+5 — that is, five questions and five songs — and brought us this tender bluegrass heartbreak tune.


Photos: (L to R) Peggy Seeger by Vicki Sharp; Watchhouse by Kendall Bailey; Avi Kaplan by Bree Marie Fish

The String Cheese Incident Salute Tony Rice on This ‘Manzanita’ Favorite

The amount of love and respect that has poured out of the music community around the country and the globe for the loss of Tony Rice has been breathtaking to say the least. The breadth of Rice’s legacy cannot be understated as he pioneered not only the guitar’s role in a bluegrass band, but also created a new sound previously unexplored by acoustic musicians. A seminal flatpicker, his touch, timing, and taste are unmatched to this day, and there’s the separate matter of his beautifully rich voice. Here at BGS, we’ve shared Tony Rice memories and stories from the likes of Ricky Skaggs, Todd Phillips & Robbie Fulks, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and David Grisman, and many others.

The latest contributors to our collective debt of gratitude to Tony is the String Cheese Incident, collaborating virtually to cover “Old Train,” the lead track on what many consider his magnum opus, Manzanita. The String Cheese Incident is known for being a genre-bending group, but founding member Bill Nershi had this to say about their bluegrass roots and Rice’s artistry: “Tony Rice’s guitar playing shaped a generation of musicians. His impeccable tone, taste, and timing were unmatched and highly regarded by players and listeners alike. We are very fortunate to have so many great recordings of his life’s work. If you haven’t had the pleasure of hearing him perform, check out The Tony Rice Unit and David Grisman Quintet albums. I recommend you start with Manzanita. We’ll never forget you, Tony!”

Watch the String Cheese Incident perform “Old Train:”


Photo credit: Scott McCormick

5 Uncommon Trad Instruments Played Like You’ve Never Heard

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.

WATCH: David Grier & Tommy Emmanuel Shred “Workin’ Man Blues”

Flatpicker David Grier and his band have missed the stage in recent months, itching to perform with the regularity they once did. Luckily, the good folks at Nashville TuneStream have given them a stage from which they can perform safely and deliver their golden musical product to audiences around the world.

A weekly residency was established for Grier and co. at the livestream production company earlier this year, and we at BGS have been watching. If you haven’t yet had the privilege of seeing David Grier work his magic live, we strongly encourage you to do so at the next safe opportunity — though streams will certainly stand in until that point! A purist and traditionalist of sorts, Grier isn’t quite a household name, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a better flatpicker in the world. As a testament to his musicianship, Grier’s band is always loaded with heavy-hitting instrumentalists, this time including Stuart Duncan, Casey Campbell, Dennis Crouch, and renowned virtuosic guitarist Tommy Emmanuel.

Emmanuel leads the band through Merle Haggard’s “Workin’ Man Blues.” The train gets off to a powerful start, but Grier and Emmanuel derail the ensemble and venture off into a delightful guitars-only playground near the song’s end. During this pseudo-guitar duel, the rest stop entirely and share laughs with one another, as amused as we viewers at the mini guitar hero battle. The David Grier Band is scheduled to perform weekly for Nashville Tunestream, so watch this performance as a teaser and, if you can, support the band by tuning in!