Tag: Jim Lauderdale

The BGS Radio Hour – Episode 204

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Welcome to the BGS Radio Hour! Since 2017, the weekly show has been a recap of all the great music, new and old, featured on BGS. This week, we bring you old bluegrass newly recorded by the Infamous Stringdusters, music from our Artist of the Month, Peggy Seeger, and so much more! Remember to check back every Monday for a new episode of the BGS Radio Hour.

The Brother Brothers – “Circles”

Celebrating their upcoming Calla Lily (available April 16), Adam and David Moss of the Brother Brothers joined us on a recent 5+5. We talked John Hartford, writing music for dance, and the inspirations and songwriting techniques behind these two brothers and their new album.

Johnny Chops – “Trouble With the Truth”

Austin-based Johnny Chops brings us a song this week from his upcoming Yours, Mine and the Truth EP. This song pretty much fell out of the sky and onto Chops’ paper in his writing room one morning. The video continues to tell the story of the song, building a dark and bleak vibe through dramatic and abandoned filming locations.

Sinner Friends – “Unforgivable You”

Sinner Friends don’t just sound like vintage bluegrass: they record like it too, down to just a few microphones, no editing, everything done right then and there. Recorded and released by Bigtone Records, the result is on par with those early bluegrass recordings that defined the genre. This week, they bring us a song from their newly released Sinner Friends Miss You (The Quarantine EP). 

Keb’ Mo’ – Yamaha x BGS Artist Session

For 2021’s Folk Alliance International and SXSW conferences, BGS teamed up with Yamaha to film performances from some of the artists we’re most excited about. Our first segment is from none other than Keb’ Mo’, playing a Yamaha FGX5 – modeled after the vintage FG180, Keb’s first guitar which he unfortunately lost in the Nashville flood of 2010. Aren’t we all just waiting on the medicine man these days? Keb’ performs two songs for us, “Every Morning” and “The Action.”

The Gina Furtado Project – “Kansas City Railroad Blues”

Gina Furtado brings us the “magic fire” of the banjo on this new single, finding the sound that first made her fall in love with the instrument. It’s the latest single in an exciting and excellent batch from Furtado and Mountain Home Music Company, produced by banjo phenom Kristin Scott Benson, and accompanied by Drew Matulich, Wayne Benson, and siblings Malia and Lu Furtado.

Ervin Stellar – “Nothing to Prove”

From Grand Rapids, Michigan, Ervin Stellars joined us on a 5+5 last week – that is, 5 questions, 5 songs. We talked everything from Wes Anderson and the Coen Brothers to waves and mountains. And let’s not forget his new album, Nothing to Prove.

Mimi Naja – “All You Know of Me”

Known for her work with Fruition, Mimi Naja recently dropped Nothing Has Changed, her first solo release since 2014. We caught up with Naja to talk about songwriting, inspirations, and a dream meal pairing of Thai with Khruangbin.

Peggy Seeger – “The Invisible Woman”

Peggy Seeger is our Artist of the Month for April here at BGS! Her just-released First Farewell is a goodbye to recording and the road, but she is not leaving that lineage behind. Coming from a musical family including the likes of Pete and Mike Seeger, the traditional continues, as Seeger enlists her sons Neill and Callum MacColl on the new album. Stay tuned all month long where we’ll be featuring Peggy Seeger!

The Alex Leach Band – “The Turntable”

Alex Leach has been adored by the Eastern Tennessee bluegrass community since he first started appearing at the WDVX radio station in Knoxville as a small child. Through the years, he’s played with Ralph Stanley, hosts a weekly show on WDVX, and now has his newest endeavor, The Alex Leach Band, who just released their latest album (produced by Jim Lauderdale), I’m the Happiest When I’m Moving. 

Acoustic Syndicate – “Sunny”

Acoustic Syndicate has been making music in Western North Carolina’s jamband scene for over two decades, but their latest studio endeavor is the first in seven years. “Sunny” is a promising first release with Organic Records, the band joined by Brian Felix on piano and Lyndsay Pruett on violin.

Elizabeth King – “Living in the Last Days”

Memphis-based Elizabeth King brings us this deeply thought number this week from her latest album of the same title. “Living in the Last Days” is about the trouble that so casually surrounds our current days, and King sings about it with a lot of conviction. The song should inspire us all to look a little more closely at what surrounds us, and what we can do to make this world a better place for all.

Bobby Osborne – “White Line Fever”

“White Line Fever” was a hit for Merle Haggard in the 60s, but had never been cut as a bluegrass song. That is, until Alison Brown and Bobby Osborne got a hold of it. One thing leading to another, and Jeff Tweedy wrote a second verse about Bobby (being the voice of Rocky Top) and his 60 years on the road as a musician. Mixing all of this with some A-list bluegrass musicians like Sierra Hull and Stuart Duncan, well… this is the result! As Brown says, “it was hard to believe the song hadn’t been a bluegrass standard all along.”

Cha Wa – “My People”

Joseph Boudreaux Jr, vocalist for Cha Wa, teaches us about ‘ancestral recall’ with this song, a phenomenon where people consciously or subconsciously draw on the experiences and lives of their ancestors to perpetuate a certain lifestyle or culture. “‘My People’ reminds us that no matter who you are — rich or poor, big or small — we’re all in this together as humans,” Boudreaux told BGS. “Cause one day we gon’ all be in the same boat.”

Photos: (L to R) Keb’ Mo’; Gina Furtado by Sandlin Gaither; Peggy Seeger by Vicki Sharp

Go Behind the Scenes of Citizen Vinyl, North Carolina’s First Record Press

Posted on by Editor

If you want to make an LP in NC, there’s a brand new vinyl destination: Citizen Vinyl, North Carolina’s first record press. Here’s some history about this landmark from North Carolina’s music campaign, Come Hear NC:

“Asheville, N.C., has long been viewed as a special place, funneling new sounds from the mountains to the world. In its heyday, the Asheville-based WWNC was one of the most popular radio stations in the country, and from its studios new bluegrass sound was presented for the first time to broad audiences across the country. It’s possible that Jimmie Rodgers (who lived in Asheville for a while) played ‘Carolina Sunshine Girl’ there, and the fiddles and banjos that have for so long rung out from the hollers and valleys of Western North Carolina found a way to the airwaves from the station’s studios.

“The building’s halls are full of history. Jim Lauderdale said of playing in places where great music has been made, ‘You get the feel about great music, it’s still livin’.’ No longer a radio station, it now houses Citizen Vinyl, North Carolina’s first record press. Mandolin Orange, based out of Chapel Hill, will be first off the press with a new double LP. Their music, full of guitar, fiddle, harmony, and a little twang, would have been right at home in one of WWNC’s old recording sessions.”

Check out the exclusive tour of the Asheville-based facility below:

Discover more about Citizen Vinyl and Come Hear NC here.

Photo courtesy of Come Hear NC

LISTEN: My Darling Clementine, “I Lost You”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: My Darling Clementine (with Steve Nieve)
Hometown: Manchester / Birmingham, UK
Song: “I Lost You”
Album: Country Darkness
Release Date: November 6, 2020
Label: Fretsore Records

In Their Words: “‘I Lost You’ comes from [Elvis] Costello’s 2010 album, National Ransom, and is co-written with Jim Lauderdale, who was also part of the touring ensemble Elvis put together at that time. Lou and I shared a festival bill with Jim at the River Town Festival in Bristol in 2017 and joined him on stage for a few songs. Our paths have crossed a few times since. Most recently I met him at a songwriter festival in Lafayette, Louisiana. Jim is one of the sweetest and funniest guys, a master of the high harmony, and has the closest living voice to that of the great George Jones. He is also a very fine country songwriter.

“The original version of ‘I Lost You’ opens with a guitar riff which then reoccurs later throughout the song. We replaced that with Steve [Nieve]’s arpeggiated piano motif. Although written originally for one voice, the song works particularly well as a conversational duet. The male character is regretting taking the woman for granted who, due to his negligence, ‘goes to strangers.’ He is feeling bereft and foolish having lost her. Of all the 12 songs we have reinterpreted as a duet for this Country Darkness album this was possibly the most straightforward to adapt for two voices. It also served as a timely reminder to both Lou and I, especially me, not to take each other for granted!” — Michael Weston King, My Darling Clementine

Photo credit: Marco Bakker

Grace Potter Sets the Scene with Dramatic ‘Daylight’

Posted on by Editor

Grace Potter possesses one of the most commanding voices in popular music — which is a good thing, because on Daylight she’s got something to say.

Potter co-wrote much of the new solo album with producer Eric Valentine, with whom she fell in love while still married to a member of her band — which is now broken up, too. After their divorces, Potter and Valentine married, started a family, and now live in Topanga Canyon, California.

The overwhelming emotions of these dramatic life changes are channeled into Daylight, with many of the songs written with Valentine, and on occasion, his longtime buddy Mike Busbee, who died in September.

“Love Is Love,” a potent opener to the project, grabbed immediate attention as the first single, but in this interview with BGS, Potter goes deeper into musical pathway that ultimately led her to Daylight.

“Release” is about the aftermath of the breakup. Who was the first person you played that for when you finished it?

Grace Potter: Eric. Busbee actually texted it to Eric but it was only half the song. Our voice recorder cut off before we finished. But he just wanted Eric to hear where we were at with the writing and Eric had to pull over the car because he was bawling listening to it. And Eric doesn’t cry easily. So that was a really important moment and one that I didn’t expect.

That song, I’d started it myself in the bathtub and it had sat in my voice memo bank for like a year and a half before Eric had heard it and was like, “Let’s not sleep on that one. Let’s pursue that and see where it goes.” Obviously it went and went and went and it’s definitely the one that gets under my skin, every time. It’s hard to play live actually.

And you’re setting yourself up as the character that set this all in motion, too.

Yeah. “I know that I caused this pain…” And that really is the full taking ownership and being accountable for your choices and knowing that those choices are not always this self-righteous, “I can do no wrong” thing. Humans are vulnerable. Humans do make mistakes. Humans change their mind. Lives and careers and happiness and financial fortitude – it all shifts and changes over the time that we live. And the more I’ve lived, the more I realize that it’s okay to give yourself permission, to be that vulnerable.

You quoted the opening line to “Release,” and the opening line on “Shout It Out” sets up that song’s storyline, too. I’ve always thought that those opening lines are something you do really well, but I didn’t realize until researching for this interview that you went to film school.

Oh yeah.

So I’m curious, do you think there’s a correlation there? Because when you make a movie, you have those establishing shots in the beginning, and in your songs you have those establishing opening lines.

And sometimes I like to mislead. I like that opening line to take you in, like, a Quentin Tarantino direction. But it’s actually like a Nora Ephron romance. But I really love storytelling. It’s the same thing I do when I’m writing my sets too. Every single song and every musical experience has to take you on an emotional journey. So there’s a launch point and there’s a revelation, which you know, within the first 20 minutes of a movie, you’re always supposed to basically set up the premise of the movie and potentially introduce one twist. For me, my life was full of so many twists while I was writing Daylight that it wasn’t hard.

After the Nocturnals ended, you had to start a band again. What’s an audition process like to be in your band?

I just want to be around people I like first. Then hopefully they’re good at music. For real. Life is too short to be in a band with people that don’t fit into your ethos or feel, or just don’t feel right. You get these feelings, you get a sense when you’re in a room with someone, if they suck the air out of the room and they have that negative energy, it really changes your entire life and your entire demeanor.

You can feel yourself going kind of gray. I call it the Eeyore effect. You know, it’s this “uhhhhh” feeling. So I generally avoid Eeyores. Although an occasional well-balanced, calm person who doesn’t talk all the time is a wonderfully welcomed part of the road because we can’t all be psychotic extroverts. It’s enough with just me and my baby. But I really enjoy finding musicians who specialize in something that’s just one step quirkier than what you would expect.

Busbee, what I loved about him was that not only was he an amazing songwriter, he played the trombone. Just randomly, like, “I studied trombone.” Really? Eliza Hardy Jones, my keyboard player and singer in my band, is a next level, Olympic champion quilter. Quilting is her thing. She’s actually got a huge show in 2020. She’s doing a massive exhibition in Nebraska at the quilt museum.

Our new drummer, Jordan West, was working for Roland demoing the audio equipment, but actually was hiding in plain sight for so many people. I was looking for a female drummer who could sing, or a female bass player who could sing, or a female guitarist who could sing. I just wanted two female voices that could do all the Lucius parts. So it was fitting the puzzle pieces together for me. Instead of auditioning a bunch of people saying, “I know exactly what I’m looking for,” I just waited until I found a flow of people that felt right. And if they happen to play an instrument I needed, then you’re hired.

Kurtis Keber, our bass player, who’s been with us since last year, came into our world through my previous drummer, Matt Musty, who is now out with Train. We miss him all the time, but these happy accidents happen where you find your people. I saw Kurtis the other day. I was like, “Kurtis, what are you doing? Are you in the studio?” He goes, “No, no, I’ve been building. I’m helping do some carpentry.” My longtime guitarist [Benny Yurco] is now becoming obsessed with recording and becoming one of those crazy studio guys — from the humble beginnings of not even using one guitar pedal to this mad scientist lab they have in Burlington, [Vermont] now.

I like jack-of-all-trades people who like doing lots of things. Those are the things that attract me to people. Their strangeness. Their idioms, their specific obsession with just the tiniest little thing. You know, loose leaf tea. You can talk for an hour and a half about loose leaf tea? I’m in, count me in.

I read the lineup of your Grand Point North festival this year and you did an acoustic set on that Sunday night. What is it about that presentation that you enjoy?

Well, Warren Haynes from Gov’t Mule has been a longtime collaborator and it’s been something that we have talked about doing because we share a joy of being musical and not really knowing what’s going to happen. And not having the stakes be so high that there’s an entire band behind you train wrecking. You know what I mean?

Usually you have to rehearse and really gain a mastery over every single song and arrangement, but when you’re doing an acoustic set, there’s so much freedom to explore. Warren’s musicality and my musicality are complementary to one another where we can take it in a lot of different directions and kind of wring out the towel different every night.

We’d done it a lot backstage and not in front of people, but we felt like it would be a cool thing to share because so many musicians, they just get out there and they run the Ferris wheel, they crank the thing up and they do the same show night after night. There’s been nine years of my festival. People have seen me play with my band. They’ve seen Warren play. He’s played three times in my festival. So I really wanted to treat the audience to a different experience.

Is part of that perspective because you went to a lot of festivals growing up?

Yeah. I came from the jam band world. Warren really ushered me into it. I was very much standing in the shadows of some amazingly talented people who paved the way for me. The festival circuit is really the only way that I was able to break out on my own and be noticed and stand out. I think it’s because of those festivals that I have the sense of diversity. I can take it in a lot of different directions and it’s more fun that way.

And if you’d go to a music festival, you’re going to hear seven, eight, ten genres of music in one place and love every single one of them. I think my instincts took me in that direction, to continue on in my career through creating in the moment, more than creating for a forever thing. …

I think none of my records have ever done my musicality justice because it’s like a high school photo album. It’s this one moment — and maybe it was a very manipulated moment that isn’t even the real reflection of what I was feeling in that moment. So Daylight was the opportunity to completely break that down, take away that premise, take away this idea of having to bottle lightning, and package it and sell it to the world. And instead have an experience. Be vulnerable and open to it and see where it takes you.

As you were talking about festivals, I was wondering, did you ever get an ear for bluegrass?

Absolutely. I grew up listening primarily to Appalachian and Celtic music, which have so many deep connections. And from my family’s record collection, I was obsessed with traditional English, Irish, and Scottish songwriting because the storytelling has these archetypes in it. It’s like the Brothers Grimm. There’s these really intense, very dark stories of women that are shape-shifting and there’s these evil goblins, and then they turn into a beautiful woman. This is a combination of fantasy and reality and love and lust and danger and war. There’s all these amazing cinematic storytelling moments in those songs.

So I grew up around that, but then bluegrass came into my world because in the festival scene, there was so much crossover. I got to meet and be in a songwriter circle early on in 2006 with Béla Fleck, Chris Thile, Jim Lauderdale, and Buddy Miller. It was such a cool lineup, pulling all these people together from all these walks of life and just playing. And it was very humbling. It made me realize I got to get my shit together, my instrumentation, because these guys know how to hold it down.

I understand that you’ve moved from Vermont to Topanga Canyon, which must’ve made your inner hippie very happy.

Oh man! My inner hippie became my outer hippie. I walked to the store two days ago in a pirate shirt with a Burberry trench coat, sweatpants, Doc Martens, and a flower crown. And I didn’t even think about it until somebody sent me a photo of it and I was like, “I did what?” That was just my usual day-to-day getup. That’s Topanga. I live and breathe that lifestyle and those people really get me.

It’s a real community too. It’s a small, small group of people. And again, I think the thing I’ve been finding that I want in life is accountability. And in a big city like L.A., you can hit someone with your car, drive away and never see them again and not really ever worry about getting caught. But if I, or anyone in town, sees anything out of the ordinary, we check in on each other. That’s how tight-knit we are, and how much we care about one another. And it’s a really, really wonderful community to be a part of.

What do you hope that fans will take away from the 2020 version of Grace Potter on tour?

You know, everything about my life has been unexpected, even to me, so I certainly can’t tell people what to expect yet because I just — every bit of it has been this ride. And as I’ve gone on as a musician, I realized that my favorite part of being a musician is inviting people into that ride with me. Instead of presenting them with a packaged thing, that is what it is, I don’t know what it is! I don’t know how this is all going to work. I’ve got a baby now and my life has fundamentally changed in so many ways. I can’t wait to see how it manifests onstage. I guarantee you there will still be headbanging, that’s for sure!

Photo credit: Pamela Neal

String Cheese Incident, Jim Lauderdale Share “Stories For Another Day”

Posted on by Editor

Colorado-based jamgrass troupe String Cheese Incident turned 25 this year, and although they’ve already established themselves as one of the most accomplished groups in jam music, they show no signs of slowing down in the next quarter-century. The band has spent their 25th year touring the country and releasing new music on a regular basis, their most recent single featuring the country-music-great Jim Lauderdale. (See the premiere below.) We called up SCI’s lead singer Bill Nershi to discuss the history of the band, how they’ve managed to stay so productive, and more.

BGS: Thinking about the fact that you’ve been a band for a quarter of a century has got to be awe striking. How have you managed to continue doing things your own way for so long?

Bill Nershi: Ever since we started, which was really 1995, we decided we were going to actually go for it. We met and played some local shows for a while, and then we moved out here to Boulder in ’95 and really started getting after it as far as touring. All these bands used to look for record deals and when we talked about it with other bands who had been through that we heard a lot of negative stories about dealings with record labels, so that’s when we decided to start our own label.

Twenty-five years ago, that must have been a big decision to make. How did the band come to the conclusion that music is what you were going to commit to?

We’ve always been trying to achieve things and get the best results we can from playing together. We work hard on rehearsing. Trying to improve our weaknesses as a band and trying to promote the positives. But really, when we first started, we were encouraged by the audiences that we were playing to and that really motivated us.

I had been playing a long time, and other people in the band had played music with different people, but that was the first time for me that I got together with a group that clicked right away. Even before our skills were really developed musically, there was a chemistry that we could feel — mostly that the crowd had picked up on — and that encouraged us to go for it. From then it was just “How are we going to go about this?”

We’re not going to be the band that has the hit single. So, we looked at some of the bands that had paved the way for us a little bit. How did the Grateful Dead do it? They didn’t have a hit for a really long time but they developed a following. And Phish of course was already successful. So we decided we were going to have to start traveling around and playing lots of shows in lots of different areas of the country to hit all the regions. We had two years where it seemed like I was gone almost the whole time. I think we played 450 shows in two years, and that gave us a lot of momentum for developing a bigger fan base.

It sounds like you approached this very methodically and really thought about how you were going to fit into the grand scheme of music.

Yeah, it needs to be thought out. Especially when you’re out that much and making sacrifices. You know, not seeing your family, or even just not being able to be at home. The idea for us was always, “We want to make every gig count.”

We were going around the country playing these clubs. Some of them had good sound systems, some of them didn’t, but we were carrying our own sound system. Money that we were making touring, which was not a lot back then, we put back into the band. We bought a sound system. We bought a bus from Crested Butte Mountain [Resort], and it was a good transit bus. We gutted it and put in bunks, so when other people were driving around in those little vans, which were just kind of torture chambers on wheels, we had our bus that we were driving around the country with.

We had a trailer with the sound system and our back-line amps and stuff, so we were going into places and sounding a little bit better than the last band sounded, you know? Trying to make it count when you’re making a lot of sacrifices. You don’t want to be wasting shows and wasting the ears that you do get in the room.

And that hits on another point: You’re perhaps best-known for your live performances. How does performing a song live contribute to its development before you hit the studio to record it?

Sometimes you have a new song that you play the same way for months, or even a year, and then you discover a different part or a way to open up a section of a song and go a little bit of different direction. Or you decide, “Hey, this would be better if it had one more verse here.” Things happen that change the song. It’s a bit of a quandary whether that’s better, or whether it’s better to release a song, let people hear it, and then play it live, which is what we’ve been doing mainly lately.

Sitting down and arranging a song in the studio before you play it live — what does that process look like for you?

You want to try to look at the song at some different angles and play it with some different approaches to see if there’s anything there that you may have missed or you might be able to add to the song, or what parts are expendable if you want to make it a little shorter.

The thought in the back of your head is, “I hope I don’t put this out and decide that part of it would be better played a different way, because then we’ll have to change the song and it’s going to be different than what the recording is.” You’re trying to exhaust some different ideas to make sure that you’re not missing something, and at the same time thinking about what are the crucial things that make this song tick so they can be brought the forefront when you record. Build the songs around the best ideas in the songs.

Moving on to this latest single with Jim Lauderdale. I hear very clear elements of his sound along with very clear elements of your own sound. What did that collaboration process look like?

I’ve written, and other members in the band have written, with Jim Lauderdale before and we’ve always had good results. You never walk away from sitting down with Jim empty-handed. He’s like a stream of ideas. You get done with one idea and he’s already singing some melody into his recorder, or some lyric from your conversation with him. And he has this whole chain of ideas going at all times.

I like to show up when I write with Jim with some different ideas of my own. Whether it’s a chord progression, or a lyrical idea, or a concept. Just an idea for a song. So I went out to Nashville and spent a few days out there with him, and you don’t want to go into a project like that and be sitting around going, “Uh….” So you come in with some ideas.

For this song, “Stories for Another Day,” I had this melodic chord progression with all these different parts. I played with a few different ideas and I played this one thing in D minor that I had been working on. I had been trying to think about how to make it work as an instrumental, or with lyrics. I played it for him, and he picked three chords out of one of the three different sections and said, “Let’s just write a song with that chord progression right there. Those three chords.”

So I had a lot of stuff that was maybe gratuitous in this concept that I had and he plucked this one simple idea out of it. We sat down and started writing some lyrics to that. It’s great writing with Jim.

Looking at some of the artists you’ve collaborated with in the past 25 years, the list is seemingly endless. How much of your own sound has sprouted out of collaborating with so many different kinds of artists?

Everybody’s contributing, so you get this blend of different styles and you can come up with something you definitely would not come up with on your own. You also learn things from the different people that you write and play music with. They rub off on you either consciously or subconsciously. Co-writing and collaborating is really important.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

IBMA Awards 2019: See the Winners

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With their first nomination in the top category, Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers secured the IBMA award for Entertainer of the Year on Thursday (September 26) from the International Bluegrass Music Association at a ceremony in Raleigh, North Carolina.

“Well, I don’t know how in the world this happened. I want every one of you guys right here,” he said to his band. “I’ve told them for years that one ol’ boy with a few corny jokes and a banjo in tune sometimes can’t do this by himself. It’s a team effort every time we leave the house and every time we climb on the stage.”

The group also picked up a trophy for Collaborative Recording of the Year with “The Guitar Song,” a duet between Mullins and Del McCoury. Meanwhile, McCoury won Album of the Year for Del McCoury Still Sings Bluegrass.

McCoury and longtime friend Jim Lauderdale traded introductions and hair jokes as co-hosts of the event, which has annually honored the top achievements in the thriving bluegrass community since 1990. Lauderdale opened the show with a performance of “When Carolina Comes Home” joined by all of the previous Instrumentalist of the Year winners. Moments later, a clip was shown from the inaugural 1990 event with Alison Brown (banjo), Alison Krauss (mandolin), Lynn Morris (guitar) Missy Raines (bass), and Andrea Zonn (fiddle).

A number of musicians made their first appearance at the podium in select categories, including Alan Bibey for Mandolin Player of the Year, Sideline for Song of the Year (“Thunder Dan”), and Sister Sadie for Vocal Group of the Year. Tina Adair spoke on behalf of the group, while her colleagues Dale Ann Bradley and Gena Britt barely held back their tears. (Deanie Richardson is also a member of the group.)

“You know what, I love making music,” Adair said. “I’ve been singing since I was 3 years old on stage. It’s something I’ve always loved to do but I love it even better with these gals right here.”

In addition, Billy Strings was named Guitar Player of the Year. The fast-rising talent also claimed the New Artist of the Year trophy. He was unable to attend.

Brooke Aldridge earned her third consecutive award as Female Vocalist, while IIIrd Tyme Out’s Russell Moore rebounded with a Male Vocalist Year win, his first since 2012 and sixth overall. Additional familiar faces include Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper for Instrumental Group, their fifth win. Cleveland collected his 12th trophy in the fiddle category as well.

Other returning winners in instrumentalist categories are Kristin Scott Benson (banjo), Phil Leadbetter (resophonic guitar), and Missy Raines (bass). Raines also took home the Instrumental Recording of the Year honors for “Darlin’ Pal(s) of Mine,” which featured Alison Brown, Mike Bub, and Todd Phillips. Claire Lynch’s “Gonna Sing, Gonna Shout” earned the Gospel Recording of the Year award. But it was Leadbetter whose name brought the crowd to its feet, as the five-time cancer survivor shared the joy of his latest remarkable recovery.

The recipients of the 2019 International Bluegrass Music Awards are listed below:

ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR:
Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers

VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR:
Sister Sadie (this is the band’s first win in this category)

INSTRUMENTAL GROUP OF THE YEAR:
Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper

SONG OF THE YEAR:
“Thunder Dan” — Sideline (artist), Josh Manning (writer) Tim Surrett (producer), Mountain Home Music Company (label)

ALBUM OF THE YEAR:
Del McCoury Still Sings Bluegrass – Del McCoury Band (artist), Del and Ronnie McCoury (producer), McCoury Music (label)

GOSPEL RECORDING OF THE YEAR:
“Gonna Sing, Gonna Shout” – Claire Lynch (artist), Jerry Salley (producer), Billy Blue Records (label)

INSTRUMENTAL RECORDING OF THE YEAR:
“Darlin’ Pal(s) of Mine” – Missy Raines with Alison Brown, Mike Bub, and Todd Phillips (artist), Alison Brown (producer), Compass Records (label)

NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR:
Billy Strings

COLLABORATIVE RECORDING OF THE YEAR:
“The Guitar Song” — Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers with Del McCoury (artists), Joe Mullins (producer), Jerry Salley (associate producer) Billy Blue (label)

FEMALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR:
Brooke Aldridge

MALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR:
Russell Moore

BANJO PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Kristin Scott Benson

BASS PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Missy Raines

FIDDLE PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Michael Cleveland

GUITAR PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Billy Strings

MANDOLIN PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Alan Bibey

RESOPHONIC GUITAR PLAYER OF THE YEAR:
Phil Leadbetter

Previously announced inductees into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame — Mike Auldridge, Bill Emerson, and The Kentucky Colonels — were honored at this evening’s show.

At the Industry Awards Luncheon held earlier in the day, these recipients were announced:

BROADCASTER OF THE YEAR:
Michelle Lee

EVENT OF THE YEAR:
Blueberry Bluegrass Festival – Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada

LINER NOTES OF THE YEAR:
Epilogue: A Tribute to John Duffey
Akira Otsuka, Dudley Connell, Jeff Place, Katy Daley

GRAPHIC DESIGNER OF THE YEAR:
Michael Armistead

WRITER OF THE YEAR:
David Morris

SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR:
Jerry Salley

SOUND ENGINEER OF THE YEAR:
Ben Surratt

The previously announced 2019 Distinguished Achievement Award recipients — Katy Daley, Mickey Gamble, Dan Hays, Allen Mills, and Moonshiner — were also honored at today’s luncheon.

Hosts With the Most: Del McCoury, Jim Lauderdale Team Up for 2019 IBMA Awards

Posted on by Editor

Loose and lovable Jim Lauderdale and Del McCoury will host the 30th annual IBMA Awards in Raleigh, North Carolina, coming up on September 26. McCoury is a nine-time winner of IBMA Entertainer of the Year — the most of any artist — while Lauderdale has won two Grammy Awards for his exceptional bluegrass work. These fan favorites don’t just bring a wealth of bluegrass experience to the stage; they’re seasoned masters of ceremonies as well. We got together at Nashville’s City Winery for a public conversation about the show.

BGS: As a 30th anniversary edition, I’m sure there will be quite a focus on the history of the music and of the awards over these 30 years. Del, what do you remember about the first IBMA Awards?

DM: It was so exciting, ’cause it was the first time that bluegrass music was really recognized. And there were still quite a few of the senior people there, you know, who started in the music years ago. We were fortunate that they were still there. Bill Monroe was even there, you know? But we’ve lost a lot of the great pioneers since that first one, and that’s probably the biggest difference, I would think.

BGS: When was your first one, Jim?

JL: I believe it was 1998, and I got to do a song with Ralph Stanley during the awards. Then I started going back and doing showcases. And I saw the move to Nashville and then the move to Raleigh, which I think has been really, really a great thing.

BGS: Do you guys ever surprise the jammers playing on some floor and stride in and go, “Hey, fellas, can I play a song?” And they go “Holy cow, that’s Jim Lauderdale and Del McCoury!”?

JL: Not quite like that! I go, “Hey everybody!” I like to be inclusive. But I do like to pop in if it calls for it.

DM: For me, I’m a little too old for that these days. But I remember the time when the festivals started when I would stay up all night and jam with people and go do a gospel show in the morning. And of course, I had a voice that would take that kind of punishment then, but I don’t have that voice anymore. So I do have to get my rest. But it’s a temptation, if you hear a jam session, to at least go listen to it.

JL: That’s the thing about bluegrass. Of course in any musical genre you can jam but you’ve got your acoustic instrument and you come across a group of folks that maybe you’ve never even met, but [you have] the bluegrass vocabulary or common language with these songs. It’s something that everybody can pick up.

BGS: Del, because of your 80th birthday and your longtime involvement in IBMA, I understand that they’ve just told you that on Saturday at the Wide Open Bluegrass festival, there will be a big “Del-ebration” for you. What do you know yet about this?

DM: I’m embarrassed! I had an inkling they were going to do something, you know? But I didn’t know who was going to be on that Saturday night show until me and Jim came here today. We’re going to have different folks from other genres of music come in, and me and Jim will do duets and sing all kinds of stuff.

JL: When we get together, you never know what’s going to happen. But I’ll tell you, in all seriousness, for as long as I’ve known Del, I’ve loved to make him laugh. …For several years I used to love to do this, when Del and the band was backstage somewhere. I’d walk up and say, “Hey you guys, what are y’all doing here?” And then I’d say to whoever is standing next to me, “It’s like these guys go to almost all of my shows! They’re from Canada, right? Anyway, good to see you guys!”

BGS: You guys have an interesting thing in common that people might not know, because you’re both guitar-playing frontmen. But you both started playing the banjo early on, right?

DM: Yeah, we did, didn’t we?

BGS: Del, in your case, the fellow who coaxed you away from the banjo into the lead guitar and the lead vocal was Mr. Bill Monroe, right? You hoped to play banjo, but he needed a guitar player. Is that the story?

DM: Yeah, myself and Bill Keith, you know, we auditioned together and he took Bill on banjo and wanted me to start playing guitar. I had played some guitar before that, but after I heard Bill Keith, I thought, yeah, that’s what Bill needs that guy. He needs that guy right now, cause it was a different thing. You know Bill called him Brad. He didn’t want to have two Bills in the band, so he called him Brad. He said what is your full name? And Keith said, William Bradford Keith. He said we’ll call you Brad. And he did from that time on.

BGS: And you never looked back. You were a singing guitar player from that point forward?

DM: Yeah, begrudgingly I was. Because I liked banjo. I’d heard Earl Scruggs when I was about 11, and Don Reno. They were our idols, those guys, so I learned to play. I did a date with Bill Monroe up in New York City. He took me up there, and he offered me a job, and I didn’t take him up on it. So maybe a month later, I did decide to come down here and when I did, Bill Keith was here, at the same hotel. He told us both to come to the Clarkston Hotel, which was on Seventh Avenue. You’d get a room about two dollars and 62 cents a night, from what I remember. Bathroom down the hall. No air conditioning. That’s the things I remember about it.

The next morning I walked into the lobby with my banjo and another guy walked in from somewhere else. About that time, Bill Monroe walked in and he said, “Come on, boys. Follow me.” We went next door to the Clarkston Hotel’s restaurant, I think. We sat down and he said, “Now go ahead and order something. I’m paying for it.” So we sit there, and Bill was not a man of many words. I didn’t know who this other guy was, and he didn’t know who I was, and Bill didn’t introduce us either.

So we got done eating, and he paid and we walk next door to the National Life building. That’s where they had the Friday Night Opry [and WSM’s studios.] We went into this room and I saw an old Gibson guitar case over in the corner. When we got in there, Bill said, “Del, you could take guitar there.” I thought, “What kind of deal’s this? I wasn’t lookin’ to play no guitar.”

So we tried out that way and Bill Keith told me later, only about 10 years ago, “You know, he tried me on the guitar, too.” [Monroe] tried us both ways and he wanted to see what’s gonna work best. And Keith said, “I was no guitar player.” And I said, “Well, when I heard you play banjo, I figured I was no banjo player either!” [Bill Keith] was really good. And so [Monroe] hooked us up that way and then I thought, “Well, I guess I was up for the challenge, I’ll try this job.” But I had to learn all the words his songs. That was the hardest part.

BGS: Jim, how did you make the journey from banjo to a guitar-playing songwriter?

JL: I was a pretty good banjo player, but I got to a certain point in my late teens where it’s like I’m just not as good as Earl, Ralph Stanley, Don Stover, or Bill Keith. Those were my go-to guys at that time. I was getting a little discouraged. But I did get a dobro. I was such a big Mike Auldridge fan and I was playing that a little on the side. I thought, I’ve reached my peak. I’m not going to get any better. So I start playing rhythm guitar and writing songs. When I did come to Nashville and did that record with Roland White, I thought, “OK, this is it.” You know, finally after 22 years this is my big break.

So I moved up to New York City because I wasn’t able to really make a living here in Nashville. New York City’s the most next logical choice! But I had some friends from college up there. And I got a country gig before I moved up there. But anyway, I sent this record with Roland out to the bluegrass labels that I knew of — sent a cassette — and every one of them wrote back and said we like the record, but you’re an unknown and you’re not on the circuit. But stay in touch. Keep us posted. And that discouraged me so much. I just thought the writing is on the wall. So I started doing more country stuff. But in New York I was in a couple of bluegrass bands too.

BGS: You’ve seen this music keep renewing itself and raising up younger artists and seeing them join the flow, and you’ve watched the audiences change and evolve over the years. What are your observations about this music? How healthy is it? Where do you think it may be going, and what do you hope for?

JL: It seems really healthy, and you’re absolutely right about that with the younger audiences and the younger players. It’s so cool to see these kids sometimes playing that are eight, nine, seven. I know at IBMA, they’ve got a program for youth. And at different festivals — Pete Wernick has a thing at Merlefest. There is a big outreach, and parents I think are so supportive of that to see their kids playing bluegrass, and kids love it. I’ve had this theory for a long time that if you start out playing bluegrass, you can play anything if you want to, because the ear training is just incredible.

Inset photo credit: Amy Beth Hale, IBMA
(L-R) Craig Havighurst, Jim Lauderdale, Del McCoury

The String – Del McCoury, Jim Lauderdale and IBMA 2019

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Del McCoury is a bluegrass hall of famer and repeat host of the International Bluegrass Music Association Awards. Jim Lauderdale is a beloved Nashville songwriter whose wide range of projects and songs includes Grammy Awards in bluegrass. Their personalities are as big as their resumes, so they’ll make memorable co-hosts of the 2019 IBMA Awards in Raleigh.


LISTEN: APPLE MUSIC

In a joint interview in front of a live audience, Jim and Del talk about the World of Bluegrass and their past and potential future as banjo players. You never know what might happen. Also in the hour, the next wave of the genre with Bluegrass Ramble showcase artist Jaelee Roberts. The 18-year-old is a new voice and songwriter who’s being welcomed by leading musicians into her first steps as a recording artist. IBMA’s World of Bluegrass runs Sept. 24-28 in Raleigh, NC.

IBMA 2019: The Top 5 Reasons to Go

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

It’s September. Festival season is going strong — music conference season, too! — and it seems, just about everywhere you turn, roots music is being made and enjoyed.

On September 24, the International Bluegrass Music Association’s business conference and festival will begin in Raleigh, North Carolina. Last year more than 230,000 attendees descended upon the Triangle area to take in the bluegrassy spectacle. We’ll be there once again this year. Here are the top five reasons we think you should be, too:

1. World of Bluegrass

Starting on Tuesday, the World of Bluegrass business conference kicks off the entire week of programming in Raleigh with panels and seminars, a keynote speech by Alison Brown, IBMA constituency meetings, a gig fair, a health fair, showcases, and focused business tracks for songwriters, broadcasters, talent buyers, and more. Learn about the Music Modernization Act, engage in one-on-one songwriting mentor sessions, and don’t miss the exhibit hall! It’s not just a place to stock up on strings ‘n’ Shubbs, you’ll almost undoubtedly bump elbows with the genre’s greatest pickers and artists, too. Like this moment at the Gibson booth when luthiers and musicians Dave Harvey and Brian Christianson share an impromptu tune.

2. Bluegrass Ramble

Did we mention showcases? This year, IBMA’s showcase extravaganza, the Bluegrass Ramble, will include more than 200 sets from over 30 bands all around downtown Raleigh. Don’t miss the World of Bluegrass Kickoff Party with Special Consensus at the Lincoln Theater on Tuesday night.

Need another couple suggestions to help narrow down your options? We’re excited to see acts like California bluegrass band AJ Lee & Blue Summit, banjoist Gina Furtado’s solo effort, the Gina Furtado Project, and newcomer Jaelee Roberts. Set aside time for a new band from Clinch Mountain Boys alumnus, banjo player Alex Leach, and High Fidelity, perhaps the best truly traditional bluegrass band on the scene right now, too.

3. The Awards

The 30th Annual IBMA Awards Show will be held Thursday, September 26 at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts just down the block from the Raleigh Convention Center. Hosted by Del McCoury and Jim Lauderdale, bluegrass’s biggest night will see awards handed out for Gospel Performance, Collaborative Recording, Entertainer of the Year, and more — including three inductions into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.

But, this is not the only awards event during the week! BGS is proud to sponsor the Momentum Awards luncheon the day before the “big” awards show, where young, up-and-coming, and just-getting-started musicians, events, and professionals are recognized for their contributions to the bluegrass community writ large. The lunchtime presentations are peppered with showcase bands, as seen here in 2016 with Loose Strings.

The IBMA Industry Awards (formerly the Special Awards), for categories such as Event of the Year, Sound Engineer of the Year, and Broadcaster of the Year — and more — will be announced during a luncheon on Thursday, as well. It’s an awards-packed week!

4. Wide Open Bluegrass

For the first time, the entirety of IBMA’s “fan fest,” Wide Open Bluegrass, is free! Yes, you can even get into the main stage at Raleigh’s Red Hat Amphitheatre for free. (Tickets for reserved seating are still available!) This year’s lineup at the main stage includes a special tribute to Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard and a celebration of Bluegrass Hall of Famer Del McCoury.

Don’t miss the StreetFest, too! Vendors line Fayetteville St. from the capitol to the Duke Energy Center with more than a handful of stages and a world-class lineup of bluegrass, string bands, old-time, folk, and Americana. Wide Open Bluegrass is the biggest bluegrass festival east of the Mississippi, and if you’ve been you understand why.

Also, make plans to join us for our Fourth Annual Shout & Shine: A Celebration of Diversity in Bluegrass on Friday, September 27! With our friends at PineCone we’re taking over the StreetFest’s dance tent for an entire day of dance, music, and celebrating the vast array of diverse voices and creators who love bluegrass. Music starts at noon and goes til 11:00 pm! Did we mention there’s going to be a Shout & Shine Square Dance Party?

5. THE JAMMING

If you don’t spend at LEAST two to three nights out of the week staying up ‘til dawn camped out in a hallway or a hotel room enjoying some of the best off-the-cuff music the world has to offer, you just aren’t doing IBMA right. We recommend the whole enchilada, going to the business conference, the Bluegrass Ramble, the main stage at the Red Hat — but if there’s just one thing you can muster during the week of bluegrass events at World of/Wide Open Bluegrass, it should be a mosey through the Marriott for a little bit of jamming. A lotta bit of jamming. Who knows who you’ll run into on the elevator or around the corner…

Photo of Marcy Marxer, Alice Gerrard, Cathy Fink, and Tatiana Hargreaves at Shout & Shine 2017: Willa Stein

Buddy & Julie Miller Get Back on Track With ‘Breakdown on 20th Ave. South’

Posted on by Editor

There’s a bit of dramatic license baked in to the title of Buddy & Julie Miller’s new album Breakdown On 20th Ave. South. The wheels are not coming off this epic 35-year marriage, most of which has been spent on that very street in Nashville’s Belmont neighborhood. But the long haul doesn’t come without strife and tests, as older married folks know. And when a songwriter as unguardedly emotional as Julie Miller began to express her feelings about being sidelined during the busiest-ever stretch of Buddy’s long and fruitful career, the results were bound to be provocative.

“We started out writing a record and my brother died right in the middle of it and I just sort of fell apart,” said Julie in late May in an interview in the home in question. “And I had fibromyalgia, so combine the two, and you’re not good to go. I just sort of went to pieces. So Buddy went and made a living.”

“And I kind of shut her down in some ways,” Buddy said. “I took that opportunity, which I shouldn’t have done, away from her to make Universal United House of Prayer at that time and then took every gig that came along for the next 12 or 13 years. She was kind of put on…”

“I took care of dogs,” Julie said with a wistful laugh.

Thus the songs on Breakdown — songs of yearning, of incompleteness and the striving for connection — have that specific power that comes from being both personal and universal.

Buddy Miller has been as in demand as any musician in Americana for more than a decade. He produced stellar albums for Richard Thompson, Shawn Colvin & Steve Earle, and others. He steered the music on the television show Nashville for multiple seasons. He hosts a radio show for SiriusXM with Jim Lauderdale. It’s evidence of the respect and the singular place Buddy has carved out since picking up the guitar in the early ‘70s and heading to the ferment of Austin, Texas.

That’s where he met Julie Griffin, and soon he was auditioning for her band and then for her hand. Julie recorded a handful of solo albums for a Christian music label in the ‘90s, and Buddy’s been releasing music nearly as long. Yet when the Millers started to focus on recording as a unit, the results have been particularly spectacular. Their self-titled duo debut in 2001 earned the Americana Music Association’s first-ever Album of the Year award. Eight years later Written in Chalk took the same honor, though Buddy concedes that was part of the difficult time for Julie and it was not truly a 50/50 creation.

If anything, Breakdown is a Julie-dominated project, written by her on her timetable, recorded over a long stretch in unusual circumstances. That’s where we pick up our conversation with the first couple of Americana music.

Buddy: After [Nashville] was over we just spent time together, just sitting together watching TV, something we’d never done before — or for a long time. Then slowly, we started approaching music at her speed, whatever that was. When we started recording, we didn’t record it in here [his much-admired home studio on the main floor]. We recorded in a little corner of the bedroom. She’d write a song and I’d slowly bring up little pieces of gear and something to record on — a laptop. Instead of live players we’d just play the two of us and build tracks.

BGS: Were you trying to sort of trick yourselves into recording, instead of the full production with everybody coming over at a set time?

Julie: Exactly! It was like, let’s pretend we’re not really doing it. We’re just having fun!

Buddy: We would say we’re not doing a record. We were getting the songs recorded but we would never say we’re doing a record. But we like how it sounded. … I want to look at somebody if I’m making a record. I love playing with players and having a drummer to look at and play off of. And upstairs I was looking in the dog’s face this far from me. But it was a really great experience doing that.

Julie, respecting your privacy, what can you say about your fibromyalgia and how you’ve been feeling lately?

Julie: Well I’ve had it since 1978 maybe — a really long time — more than half my life. And you get sort of used to a certain amount because it’s always there. But it gives you wallops now and then. And being on the road with fibromyalgia is such stress. It’s indescribable. And Buddy, because I’d always been heave ho you know, he didn’t get it. I could say it, but it didn’t click. Which is understandable. You have to be sick to get it, you really do. It’s progressively gotten more painful over the years, so it’s pretty painful at this point. But I’m never pessimistic about it. God will do something. The medical professional will acknowledge something.

I understand that’s a big challenge of this disease — getting validation from doctors.

Julie: It was incredible how many years I had it with doctors going ‘I guess you’re crazy’ in so many words. And that was making it twice as bad. You know good and well you’re in pain and you’re crying and you’re not crazy – or maybe you are crazy, but crazy people can be in pain, too. [Laughs]

Is there a connection between music making and the creative headspace, and feeling relief?

Julie: You know what? That’s interesting you’d say that because when I was writing I could focus on one thing. I could focus on the writing or the fibromyalgia. And I was just lost in the writing, so I was oblivious to so much — [to] a degree of my fibromyalgia. It made me realize I was meant to write songs.

Was there a stretch when you were estranged from the writing process?

Julie: There was a long time I was estranged from it. In fact, ten years or more after we’d signed with New West and I’d gotten sick and my brother had passed, I thought they were done with me. And Buddy said, ten years later, “No they’re just waiting for a record!” I was like what? They’re willing to take a record now? “Yeah, they’re just waiting for it.” So I was so excited. And ten years before I had written a lot of songs for the record, but they didn’t make it on this record. In fact the songs I wrote for this record didn’t make it. Accidentally other songs came that ended up on the record, so I’ve got a lot of songs.

Buddy: We started with a whole different list. When we knew we were working on a record, the list would change on a weekly basis because she’d write a new song. And it’s just the two of us working, and it’s hard to have a perspective on what we’re doing when it’s just one bouncing it off the other. She’d write a song and we’d record it that day.

So you have a lot of work tapes and demos.

Julie: Oh, you wouldn’t ever want to ever hear ‘em! There are so many of ‘em that you’d lose your mind.

Buddy: And some of them are on the record.

Julie: For the first six years, from 18 to 24, I’d try to write a song and I’d get so disgusted with how bad it was, I’d write it and throw it in the trash. But after I came to know the Lord… Here’s what the big thing was with him — he loved me and accepted me whether my song was good or not, and that enabled me to learn how to write a song.

Was getting involved with HighTone Records in the ‘90s a real pivot point?

Julie: Well it was really funny because Christians didn’t really like my music! [Laughs]

Buddy: There was that too — I meant to say that! That’s one reason it was easy to get out of it, because they didn’t get it at all.

Julie: They kind of let me go, and off I went, and the next people who wanted me to sign up were some Jews from San Francisco! So I just did it, you know? They heard me sing harmony on Buddy’s record. They got Buddy first, and then they got me and so that’s how it happened. I mean, I didn’t leave Christian music. I just went with who wanted me.

Buddy: Yeah, I was playing guitar with Jim Lauderdale. We all met when he moved to New York around 1980. Jim was working in the Rolling Stone mail room and we were all playing together. We moved to LA and I called Lauderdale and I said, “If you need a guitar player let me know,” and that’s when I got back into playing with Jim. HighTone asked Jim if he would do a track on this Points West record [a 1990 compilation of West Coast country music]. He said, “I can’t, but my guitar player would probably do it for you.”

So I did a couple tracks for them and based on that, a couple years later after we moved to Nashville, they must have had a hole in their release schedule, and they asked if I could do a record. I said, “Absolutely, yes.” They said “Do you have the songs?” I said, “Absolutely.” And we didn’t, at all. [Julie laughs] But we got that record together in a pretty quick time. Then they heard Julie singing on a song called “Hole in My Head” on that record that I wrote with Jim. Larry Sloven, who owned the company along with Bruce Bromberg heard her, and he said, “She sounds tough. She’s great.” He liked her voice.

Julie: [Laughing] Just a sweet little girl and they said I sounded tough. I’ll never understand it.

Buddy: At that point, Emmylou Harris had cut Julie’s song, “All My Tears,” on Wrecking Ball, so they knew she was a writer, and they said, “Would she want to do a record?” That was shortly after my first record, I think, and she was happy about it at the time at the time.

Julie: Very happy!

Buddy: They were really supportive. One thing we got with HighTone — and we probably got it because they had no budget so they had no oversight, and we made our records at home — we just turned in a finished record. There was nobody looking over our shoulder. There was no A&R department. They were just encouragers who had hopefully come up with a tiny budget, and they were really good folks over there, in that respect, and they gave us freedom to make whatever kind of records we wanted to make.

This interview was recorded for WMOT’s talk show The String. The full conversation can be streamed here.

Illustration by Zachary Johnson
Photo credit: Kate York