My mind has been concentrated on making music for my latest record, Wanderer’s Compass. I let Wanderer’s Compass be a collection of as many influences in music I’ve had as possible. I’ve been playing long enough that I used to learn my fiddle parts from an LP and move the needle back to catch the solo parts. Then of course over time, with the advent of the internet, the influence highway, so to speak, became much wider. I’ve always thought it is hard to put music in a box, since it is art, even though I essentially understand the reason for genres. To me the whole point of art is to let all of your influences and experiences be the palette in which to create your vision. This playlist is really fun for me to listen to, and I hope you enjoy it as well. — Jeremy Garrett
Dire Straits – “Where Do You Think You’re Going?”
This song was off a record that I heard early on in my life and the soul that Mark Knopfler brought to this song continues to influence me to this day.
Larry Sparks – “Blue Virginia Blues”
Larry is a master of song delivery, selection, singing, and incredibly soulful guitar playing that is old school, yet crosses any boundaries from that world into the new because art like that knows no bounds.
Tony Rice – “Urge for Going”
From the album Native American, this track is the epitome of how to produce a song to pull all of the essence from it for the listener to hear. Any bluegrass musician can tell you that Tony Rice is the man to listen to for song production, not to mention his unmatched guitar skills.
Jeremy Garrett – “Wishing Well”
“Wishing Well” is an original and on this track I stretch way out on the fiddle for a jam.
David Grisman – “Fish Scale”
David is one of the best and truest musicians of our time. This is a one-of-a-kind song from a one-of-a-kind artist, David Grisman. I particularly love Tony Rice’s playing on this track.
The Stanley Brothers – “The Lonesome River”
This is one of history’s most eerie and interesting sounding bluegrass duos. Their songs and the way they sing them are my personal favorite sounds of the traditional bluegrass era.
Strength in Numbers – “Blue Men of the Sahara”
This ensemble was one of the most creative in acoustic music. This particular song showcases what happens when you marry music stylings from around the globe, and Mark O’Connor rips a fiddle like nobody’s business.
Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson – “Pancho and Lefty”
This cut is pure magic if you ask me. I love everything about it, from the wacky-sounding synth stuff to the magic that Haggard brings when he comes in for his verse. Sends chills up my spine.
George Jones – “Choices”
There may not be any better country singing than this right here.
Jimi Hendrix – “Red House”
There is perhaps no one more inspiring to a musician who wants to tap into soul and vibe. Hendrix is the one who paved the way for all of us in that regard.
Deep Forest – “Sing with the Birds”
This music was an indicator for me at an early age that I loved world music and the technology that continues to evolve to help create some of it. This is programming at its finest and it’s flowing with creativity.
Jeremy Garrett – “Nevermind”
This is a Dennis Lloyd cover that I love to perform. Dennis is an Israeli pop artist. It’s a culmination of my bluegrass chops on fiddle, guitar, mandolin, along with effects, experimentation, and programmed beats.
Editor’s note: Read part one of Industrial Strength Bluegrass and the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion here
In 1987 I became involved with CityFolk’s Dayton Bluegrass Reunion, “An All-Star Salute to Dayton’s 40 Year Bluegrass History.” Between October 1987 and March 1989, I worked by mail and telephone to help shape the Reunion, planned for April 1989.
While this was to be called a “concert,” executive producer Phyllis Brzozowska envisioned it from the start as musical theater. I liked her idea — I’d long thought of bluegrass that way. My experience on the stage started at age 12, in a little theater company production of Our Town, Thornton Wilder’s 1938 Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a small community in the early 20th century. Wikipedia describes the play this way:
“Wilder uses metatheatrical devices, setting the play in the actual theatre where it is being performed. The main character is the stage manager of the theatre who directly addresses the audience.”
In Dayton, playwright Don Baker would have a role like that of the stage manager in Our Town, acting the part of a loquacious emcee, telling the story of the Dayton bluegrass community. He would work from a script that Larry Nager was writing. As he spoke, a screen behind him would show slides relating to the narrative’s cultural and historical points.
The concert was divided into seven acts, “Segment/Settings” of 12 to 15 minutes. Each featured a different group of musicians and had room for three to five songs and an encore. Don’s narrations opened each act. Planning reflected concerns about the content and sequence of the acts. How was forty years of artistic ferment to be represented?
When I spoke of the project to my bluegrass buddies, the first question was always “Will the Osborne Brothers reunite with Red Allen?” This 1957 show gives a good portrait of the band’s sound and repertoire — cutting-edge bluegrass of its era:
As the bluegrass festival movement ramped up in the ’70s, Allen and the Osbornes occasionally crossed paths. The Osbornes were doing well on the country charts with songs like “Rocky Top” that featured Bobby’s solo and trio high lead:
Allen, considered one of the classic bluegrass lead singers, had gone on to work in several good bands. He still approached audiences as he had in Dayton bars. Larry Nager explains: “Red loved the spotlight, making the crowds laugh (often at jokes more fitting for a stag party than a bluegrass club)” (Industrial Strength Bluegrass p.89). An on-stage festival reunion with the Osbornes had been tried, didn’t work out, and was now out of the question.
Who else would be in the concert? At the start planners thought in terms of contrasts in categories like venues (working-class bars; upscale nightspots, colleges), audiences (industrial working-class Appalachian migrants, yuppies, college kids), and radio (country, folk).
As we’ll see later, these categories overlapped; that’s what gave the region’s bluegrass such vibrancy. Beyond categories lay personal dimensions: certain bands and musicians were like oil and water. The production committee faced artists’ and fans’ differing perspectives, values, and priorities. Terms bandied about during production meetings included “First Generation, Second Generation, Urban” and so on.
Another planning challenge: the concert featured some working bands, each on their own professional trajectory. But as a reunion it also featured retired individuals and groups.
The final concert performance sequence reflected our work to keep tension levels low, make things flow, and illustrate the artistic collaborations that had come out of this cultural scene.
My primary task was writing the introduction for the program, seeking to explain why CityFolk was presenting hillbilly music as heritage.
I was assisted by Barb Kuhns and Larry Nager, who were writing artist bios and gathering illustrations for the program. Musician and producer Nager knew the history from the inside, as his chapter, “Sing Me Back Home: Early Bluegrass Venues in Southwestern Ohio” in Industrial Strength Bluegrass (pp. 77-100) attests. Kuhns, professional librarian and fiddler with the Corndrinkers, an old-time group, had been active in promoting the music of some of the lesser-known pioneers in the local scene of which she’d been part for many years.
With just over a month to go until the show in April, I spent a March weekend in Dayton helping the planning production staff finalize concert details.
In early April CityFolk sent news to the press of the coming event. “Dayton show will reflect Kentucky bluegrass roots” was the title of a 12-paragraph story in Sunday’s Louisville Courier-Journal, Kentucky’s equivalent of the New YorkTimes. On Wednesday, the Dayton Downtowner, a weekly, carried two stories, and on Friday the DaytonDaily News (a supporter of the event) ran two generous stories.
On Friday night April 22, 1989, each of the concert goers who filled Memorial Hall — a Beaux-art national historic site (1907) of 2500 seats in downtown Dayton — received a 16-page 8 ½ x 11 program. Its cover duplicated the concert’s posters.
On the first page was Phyllis Brzozowka’s introduction. Next, an essay by former Dayton newspaperman Tom Teepen, who told the evocative story of his experiences with the music in Dayton.
My piece, “Industrial Strength Bluegrass,” filled the next four pages. Then came seven photo-packed pages devoted to “The Artists”: Paul “Moon” Mullins and Traditional Grass, Noah Crase and the Valley Ramblers, The Hotmud Family, The Allen Brothers, Red Allen, The Dry Branch Fire Squad, Larry Sparks and Wendy Miller, Frank Wakefield, David Harvey, and the Osborne Brothers.
The booklet closed with several pages of lists: a “Selected Discography” including addresses for local and national retailers; planning production staff; thanks for assistance; CityFolk staff; board of trustees. Its endpapers were a map of southern Ohio, with portions of Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia. A lot to look at while waiting for the curtain to rise!
Behind the curtain, Baker’s Lime Kiln workers provided lighting and a stage manager. I was part of the backstage crew. And the sound was something else! Afterwards Phyllis wrote:
Pete Reineger, from the National Council for the Traditional Arts and a local crew…ran an equivalent of 4 stages with 36 open microphones throughout the performance.
I have been unable to locate any recordings of this event — no tape, no video. I saved a copy of Baker’s stage directions, which lay out the concert’s sequence. But Larry Nager’s script for his narrative, which told the history of Dayton bluegrass in seven segments, one for each act, no longer exists. In it, he recalled, Don’s role was that of “theomniscient voice of the hillbilly diaspora.”
Though the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion is now a lost play, its structure can be seen from Baker’s stage directions. However, because I was busy bustling around backstage, I didn’t know how the concert was going over with the audience until later.
The reunion began with an introduction by Phyllis, following that came sounds from offstage, described in the stage directions as:
Halsey & Meyers Commercial
Radio Rap — Moon Mullins.
Halsey Myers is still a going concern. Joe Mullins says that the Traditional Grass, the band he worked in with his father Moon from 1983 to 1995, recorded a radio commercial for this Middletown hardware store. It was so popular they got requests for it at personal appearances. Joe and his son Daniel found an old cassette recording of the ad followed by an example of Moon’s colorful on-air WPFB persona:
These radio clips would have been familiar to many in the audience who knew the local bluegrass scene. Paul “Moon” Mullins was the true loquacious voice of Appalachian migrant music — bluegrass — in southwest Ohio.
As the curtains opened Baker took the stage to tell the story of Mullins and the music. Photos synced to the script appeared on a screen behind him. Some were of Dayton musicians and venues, while others evoked a variety of historical and geographical milieus ranging from Dayton to national and international.
Baker’s light dimmed and focus shifted to the other side of the stage, where Mullins and his band, The Traditional Grass, were highlighted. Mullins had come to Dayton from Kentucky in 1964 to take a job as a DJ at WPFB, a Middletown country station that had been a bluegrass center in the 40s and 50s. Jimmy Martin, the Osborne Brothers and many others had performed there. The short-lived Martin-Osborne band’s hit trio “20/20 Vision” from those days is recreated by Dan Tyminski on the new Smithsonian Folkways album, Industrial Strength Bluegrass:
In the mid-’60s WPFB had dropped bluegrass but Mullins brought it back. He’d started his radio and musical careers (he’d fiddled with the Stanley Brothers) in eastern Kentucky. Migrant audiences in southwestern Ohio bonded with him. He revitalized the music at WPFB and began playing with local bands.
I first saw his name in June 1968 when we were both on the flyer for Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Festival at Bean Blossom, Indiana. I was in the banjo workshop (with Ralph Stanley, Dave Garrett, Bobby Thompson, Vic Jordan, and Larry Sparks); “Paul Mullins, WPFB Radio, Middletown, Ohio” was emcee for the Saturday shows, co-hosting on Sunday with Grant Turner of the Grand Ole Opry.
Twenty-one years later, on the evening of the Reunion, Mullins had recently left WPFB. He’d started The Traditional Grass in 1983 (they would continue until 1995); it included his son Joe, who was singing tenor, picking banjo, and following his dad’s footsteps in radio. Guitarist Mark Rader was the lead singer, and Glenn “Cookie” Inman, bassist. They opened with “Weary Lonesome Blues,” a popular Delmore Brothers song from 1937:
After three more songs, everyone except Moon left the stage and he was joined by members of The Valley Ramblers, a band he’d co-founded with Noah Crase in the late ’60s. Crase was a highly respected banjo player, a former Blue Grass Boy best-known for “Noah’s Breakdown,” the tune that started Bill Keith on his exploration of melodic banjo.
Editor’s note: Read part one of Industrial Strength Bluegrass and the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion here
Neil V. Rosenberg would like to thank Barb Kuhns, Daniel and Joe Mullins, and Larry Nager
The winners of the 31st annual IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards were announced Thursday night via video awards show, hosted by Sierra Hull, Tim O’Brien, Joe Newberry, and Rhonda Vincent.
The “biggest night in bluegrass” was well-adapted to its virtual setting and boasted three Hall of Fame inductions, guitar and banjo tributes to Doc Watson and J.D. Crowe, a continent-spanning collaboration by Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley and Taj Mahal, and celebrations of the 20th anniversary of O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the 75th anniversary of the birth of bluegrass. Marking the occasion, Del, Ronnie, and Rob McCoury opened the evening from an empty Ryman Auditorium, regarded as the birthplace of bluegrass and a former home for the show.
Special performances were shot live at home, in studios, and at various small venues — as well as the Station Inn and the Ryman. Billy Strings paid tribute to Hall of Famer and Male Vocalist of the Year nominee, Larry Sparks, with a cover of “John Deere Tractor” — with double pickguards, to boot. In the Doc Watson tribute, each of the five Guitar Player of the Year nominees (Trey Hensley, Billy Strings, Bryan Sutton, Molly Tuttle, and Jake Workman) took their turn virtually swapping solos on “Black Mountain Rag,” with T Michael Coleman, Watson’s longtime friend and bandmate, holding them all together through the webcams and headphones. Many other unique collaborations, tributes, and performances were peppered throughout the award announcements. The most stunning performances, though — like Vocal Group of the Year and Entertainer of the Year winner Sister Sadie’s “900 Miles” — were from the mother-church setting of the Ryman, where in a pandemic twist, the bands each performed not facing an audience, but with the auditorium’s empty pews as a background.
As IBMA Executive Director Paul Schiminger put it in his speech from the Ryman stage, in a virtual conference year and a pandemic, returning to the birthplace of the genre was “an unexpected gift through it all.” 75 years of bluegrass were poignantly brought together beneath the rafters of the hallowed, though empty, Ryman Auditorium.
Here are the winners of the 2020 IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards, in the order they were announced:
New Artist of the Year
Mile Twelve
Instrumental Group of the Year
Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper
Gospel Recording of the Year
“Gonna Rise and Shine” Artist: Alan Bibey & Grasstowne Label: Mountain Fever Records Producer: Mark Hodges
Banjo Player of the Year
Scott Vestal
Resophonic Guitar Player of the Year
Justin Moses
Fiddle Player of the Year
Deanie Richardson
Bass Player of the Year
Missy Raines
Mandolin Player of the Year
Alan Bibey
Guitar Player of the Year
Jake Workman
Collaborative Recording of the Year
“The Barber’s Fiddle” Artists: Becky Buller with Shawn Camp, Jason Carter, Laurie Lewis, Kati Penn, Sam Bush, Michael Cleveland, Johnny Warren, Stuart Duncan, Deanie Richardson, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Jason Barie, Fred Carpenter, Tyler Andal, Nate Lee, Dan Boner, Brian Christianson, and Laura Orshaw Label: Dark Shadow Recording Producer: Stephen Mougin
Instrumental Recording of the Year
“Tall Fiddler” Artist: Michael Cleveland with Tommy Emmanuel Label: Compass Records Producers: Jeff White, Michael Cleveland, and Sean Sullivan
Vocal Group of the Year
Sister Sadie
Song of the Year
“Chicago Barn Dance” Artist: Special Consensus with Michael Cleveland & Becky Buller Writers: Becky Buller, Missy Raines, Alison Brown Label: Compass Records Producer: Alison Brown
Album of the Year
Live in Prague, Czech Republic Artist: Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver Label: Billy Blue Records Producers: Doyle Lawson and Rosta Capek
Female Vocalist of the Year
Brooke Aldridge
Male Vocalist of the Year
Danny Paisley
Entertainer of the Year
Sister Sadie
Also honored during the broadcast were three inductees into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame: owner of the Station Inn, J.T. Gray, The Johnson Mountain Boys, and New Grass Revival.
The Industry Awards were held on Wednesday, September 30. Hosted this year wittily and absurdly in video format by Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn, the Industry Awards recognize outstanding professional work within the many arms and branches of the bluegrass industry at large.
The Industry Awards recipients:
Broadcaster of the Year
Michael Kear
Event of the Year
Augusta Heritage Center Bluegrass Week, Elkins, WV
Graphic Designer of the Year
Michael Armistead
Liner Notes of the Year
Katy Daley, Live at the Cellar Door – The Seldom Scene
Writer of the Year
Derek Halsey
Sound Engineer of the Year
Stephen Mougin
Songwriter of the Year
Milan Miller
The recipients of the Distinguished Achievement Awards, honoring lifelong contributions by forerunners and ambassadors for bluegrass music, were honored with presentations on Wednesday as well:
Norman & Judy Adams, Adams Bluegrass Festivals
Darrel & Phyllis Adkins, Musicians Against Childhood Cancer
Darol Anger, fiddler/educator
Wayne Rice, San Diego’s KSON “Bluegrass Special” host
and Jack Tottle, band leader and educator at East Tennessee State University.
The Momentum Awards, handed out via video ceremony on Tuesday, September 29, focus on artists and industry professionals who are in the early stages of their bluegrass careers and the mentors who have helped them reach their young success.
Nominees for the 31st Annual IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards have been revealed, with six nominees competing for Entertainer of the Year in 2020: Balsam Range, Billy Strings, Del McCoury Band, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Sister Sadie, and Special Consensus. The extra nominee is due to a tie; in addition, the Album of the Year category has seven nominees, also due to a tie.
Three inductees will join the Bluegrass Hall of Fame: owner of Nashville’s iconic Station Inn, J.T. Gray; hardcore bluegrass traditionalists The Johnson Mountain Boys; and one of the premier bands at the forefront of the contemporary/progressive bluegrass movements of the 1970s and ’80s, New Grass Revival.
Additionally, the following will receive the Distinguished Achievement Award: festival pioneers Norman & Judy Adams, Musicians Against Childhood Cancer (MACC) founders Darrel & Phyllis Adkins, fiddle virtuoso/educator Darol Anger, San Diego’s KSON Bluegrass Special host Wayne Rice, and bluegrass innovator Jack Tottle.
The IBMA Awards will be broadcast on SiriusXM’s Bluegrass Junction on Thursday, October 1. However, the annual World of Bluegrass Conference will be virtual-only, due to COVID-19 concerns.
The IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards nominations are below.
ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR (Tie)
Balsam Range Billy Strings Del McCoury Band Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver Sister Sadie Special Consensus
VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR
Balsam Range Blue Highway Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver Sister Sadie Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out
INSTRUMENTAL GROUP OF THE YEAR
Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper Mile Twelve Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder Sam Bush Band The Travelin’ McCourys
ALBUM OF THE YEAR (Tie)
Chicago Barn Dance Artist: Special Consensus Label: Compass Records Producer: Alison Brown
Home Artist: Billy Strings Label: Rounder Records Producer: Glenn Brown
Live in Prague, Czech Republic Artist: Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver Label: Billy Blue Records Producers: Doyle Lawson and Rosta Capek
New Moon Over My Shoulder Artist: Larry Sparks Label: Rebel Records Producer: Larry Sparks
Tall Fiddler Artist: Michael Cleveland Label: Compass Records Producers: Jeff White, Michael Cleveland, and Sean Sullivan
Toil, Tears & Trouble Artist: The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys Label: Rounder Records Producer: Dave Maggard
Tribulation Artist: Appalachian Road Show Label: Billy Blue Records Producers: Jim VanCleve, Barry Abernathy, and Appalachian Road Show
SONG OF THE YEAR
“Both Ends of the Train” Artist: Blue Highway Writers: Tim Stafford/Steve Gulley Label: Rounder Records Producers: Blue Highway
“Chicago Barn Dance” Artist: Special Consensus with Michael Cleveland & Becky Buller Writers: Becky Buller/Missy Raines/Alison Brown Label: Compass Records Producer: Alison Brown
“Haggard” Artist: The Grascals Writer: Harley Allen Label: Mountain Home Music Company Producers: The Grascals
“Hickory, Walnut & Pine” Artist: The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys Writers: Slaid Cleaves/Nathan Hamilton Label: Rounder Records Producer: Dave Maggard
“Living Like There’s No Tomorrow” Artist: Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver Writers: Jim McBride/Roger Alan Murrah Label: Billy Blue Records Producers: Doyle Lawson and Rosta Capek
GOSPEL RECORDING OF THE YEAR
“Angel Too Soon” Artist: Balsam Range Label: Mountain Home Music Company Producers: Balsam Range
“Because He Loved Me” Artist: Dale Ann Bradley Label: Pinecastle Records Producer: Dale Ann Bradley
“Gonna Rise and Shine” Artist: Alan Bibey & Grasstowne Label: Mountain Fever Records Producer: Mark Hodges
“I’m Going to Heaven” Artist: Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver Label: Billy Blue Records Producers: Doyle Lawson and Rosta Capek
“Little Black Train” Artist: Appalachian Road Show Label: Billy Blue Records Producers: Barry Abernathy, Darrell Webb, and Ben Isaacs
INSTRUMENTAL RECORDING OF THE YEAR
“Tall Fiddler” Artist: Michael Cleveland with Tommy Emmanuel Label: Compass Records Producers: Jeff White, Michael Cleveland, and Sean Sullivan
“Shenandoah Breakdown” Artist: Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver Label: Billy Blue Records Producers: Doyle Lawson and Rosta Capek
“Soldier’s Joy” Artist: Jesse McReynolds with Michael Cleveland Label: Pinecastle Records Producer: Jesse McReynolds
“The Appalachian Road” Artist: Appalachian Road Show Label: Billy Blue Records Producer: Jim VanCleve, Barry Abernathy, and Appalachian Road Show
“Guitar Peace” Artist: Billy Strings Label: Rounder Records Producer: Glenn Brown
NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Appalachian Road Show Carolina Blue High Fidelity Merle Monroe Mile Twelve
COLLABORATIVE RECORDING OF THE YEAR
“Chicago Barn Dance” Artists: Special Consensus with Michael Cleveland & Becky Buller Label: Compass Records Producer: Alison Brown
“I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” Artists: Jason Barie featuring Del McCoury & Paul Williams Label: Billy Blue Records Producer: Jason Barie
“Tall Fiddler” Artists: Michael Cleveland with Tommy Emmanuel Label: Compass Records Producers: Jeff White, Michael Cleveland, and Sean Sullivan
“The Barber’s Fiddle” Artists: Becky Buller with Shawn Camp, Jason Carter, Laurie Lewis, Kati Penn, Sam Bush, Michael Cleveland, Johnny Warren, Stuart Duncan, Deanie Richardson, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Jason Barie, Fred Carpenter, Tyler Andal, Nate Lee, Dan Boner, Brian Christianson, and Laura Orshaw Label: Dark Shadow Recording Producer: Stephen Mougin
“On and On” Artists: Gena Britt with Brooke Aldridge Label: Pinecastle Records Producer: Gena Britt
MALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR
Ronnie Bowman Del McCoury Russell Moore Danny Paisley Larry Sparks
FEMALE VOCALIST
Brooke Aldridge Dale Ann Bradley Amanda Smith Molly Tuttle Rhonda Vincent
BANJO PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Kristin Scott Benson Gena Britt Gina Furtado Ned Luberecki Scott Vestal
BASS PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Barry Bales Mike Bub Todd Phillips Missy Raines Marshall Wilborn
FIDDLE PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Becky Buller Jason Carter Michael Cleveland Stuart Duncan Deanie Richardson
RESOPHONIC GUITAR PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Jerry Douglas Andy Hall Rob Ickes Phil Leadbetter Justin Moses
GUITAR PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Trey Hensley Billy Strings Bryan Sutton Molly Tuttle Jake Workman
MANDOLIN PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Alan Bibey Jesse Brock Sam Bush Sierra Hull Ronnie McCoury
Junior Sisk is on a mission. Although he’s been a fan of traditional bluegrass since childhood, he’s now fully focused on keeping that history alive. That passion for tradition is evident in Load the Wagon, the award-winning vocalist’s first release since disbanding Ramblers Choice.
“The Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs, Jim & Jesse, and all of them had big hits, but they also had hidden treasures on all those LPs. A lot of them that were never played and they’re not a jam tune. That’s what I’m looking for,” Sisk says. “It’s going to be like new tunes to a lot of folks. That’s what I’m after – to still pay tribute to the founding fathers of traditional bluegrass music, but in the Junior Sisk style.”
The Virginia musician’s recovery mission has unearthed a number of gems on Load the Wagon, like Flatt & Scruggs’ little-known “Lonesome and Blue” and the heartfelt “Lover’s Farewell,” a Carter Family gem suggested by his new bandmates Heather Berry-Mabe (guitar, vocals) and Tony Mabe (banjo, guitar, vocals). Jonathan Dillon (his mandolin player from Ramblers Choice), Gary Creed (bass, vocals), and Douglas Bartlett (fiddle, vocals) round out the lineup.
Sisk also re-cut the song that remains his most requested number, “He Died a Rounder at 21,” from his time with Wyatt Rice & Santa Cruz in the mid-‘90s. Leading up to a show at Station Inn, he invited BGS on the bus for a chat.
BGS: The first song on this album, “Get in Line, Buddy,” will be a familiar tune for fans of the Country Gentlemen. What made you want to record it here?
Sisk: Me and Bill Yates got to be good friends there for a long time right toward the end, and every time we’d play together at a festival, I’d always get together with him and ask him to do “Living on the Hallelujah Side” that he’d done with the Country Gentlemen, and this one right here — “Get in Line, Buddy.” Those are a couple that he sang solo on. It was just great, great singing.
It’s like what I’m trying to do right now. I’m in line with Flatt & Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, and all that. I’m way down the line, but I’m in line anyway. And it still rings true today when you come to Nashville. When you walk the streets, you see them on the streets. You see them in all the clubs and everything. Everyone’s standing in line. I feel like I’m still standing in line for traditional bluegrass music.
With “Get in Line, Buddy” and “Best Female Actress,” there’s a sad story there, but you find a way to put humor into those songs. It’s not an easy thing to pull off. How do you approach that?
Well, when I go into the studio and start to record, I’ve always done a lot of tongue-in-cheek songs. I’m noted for that, but I sing with a lot of emotion. I sing with a lot of feelings. That’s why a lot of times I’ll lose my voice, to tell you the truth, because I’m singing so hard and with as much feeling as I can.
I love to look out in the crowd and see them either crying, if I’m singing a pitiful song, and if I’m singing a tongue-in-cheek song, I like to see them laugh and carry on. It just makes for a good show, I think. And Charlie Moore has been one of my favorites. He’s one of the most underrated bluegrass artists ever. He’s a great singer.
You also have some songs on here, like “Just Load the Wagon,” which are plain-and-simple funny. I’m curious, where did you get your sense of humor? Was there someone in your family where you picked that up?
Yeah, my dad. He’s a songwriter. He’s probably got a thousand songs at the house for me to choose from. But every song he writes, at the top of the page he writes the date he wrote it, and he writes, “Sing in the key of D and sing like Carter Stanley.” [Laughs] I said, “Dad, you can’t sing ‘em all like Carter Stanley and they can’t all be in D!” But if he had his druthers, that’s what it would be. That’s pretty much me, too. I was raised, born and bred, on the Stanley Brothers’ music.
This one here, I thought the folks would really enjoy, and now that I’ve gotten rid of the Rambler’s Choice name and went to the Junior Sisk Band, I’m trying to pay tribute to traditional bluegrass music, so we brought back the old-style banjo, the mountain-style banjo-playing with the clawhammer on this one. And it’s turning out to be one of my favorite tunes that we’re playing now. It’s a lot of fun and the crowd can react to it. It’s a toe-tapping tune.
You mentioned that the Ramblers Choice name is gone. Why was that an important move for you to shift to Junior Sisk Band?
Well, Jason Davis, Kameron Keller, and a couple of guys left. My dad always says when wintertime comes around and things start getting slow, somebody blows a whistle and everybody switches. It’s pretty much like that. If you don’t have any work, I’m going where the work is. But I was actually straying away from my heart – I was straying away from traditional bluegrass music a little bit. I just did not want to do that. I finally came to the conclusion that what I’m going to do until the end of my career is pay tribute to traditional bluegrass music, and try to keep it alive as long as I can. That’s what we’re trying to do today, is keep it straight-ahead bluegrass, right in the middle of the road, and turn the younger fans onto traditional bluegrass music.
Why is it important for you to carry that torch for traditional bluegrass?
I’m just tickled to death to see the young’uns out here today that come to our shows, or to see them out jamming at festivals and playing the old-style music. You don’t see that a lot anymore. It seems that the younger generations is trying to play every note they know. …When I hear somebody with real emotion, and real feeling, who’s a traditional young’un coming up, I love it. Because we’ve lost so many — Ralph Stanley, James King, and a lot of traditional artists here lately. I think I’m a torch holder and that’s what I hope to be until the end of my career. As long as I’m able to breathe and sing, I’m going to keep their music alive.
It hurt to lose James King, didn’t it?
Oh, it was hard. I was there holding his hand on the day he died, in the hospital. I was on one side and Dudley Connell was on the other. And we told him we would keep his music alive. I’m getting chills now, but it meant the world to me, just to be there. He was a torch holder as well.
You re-recorded “He Died a Rounder at 21” from your days with Wyatt Rice & Santa Cruz. What’s it like to sing about that guy now, 24 years later? Does it bring out a different emotion in the song for you?
It’s still the same. The story in that song is awesome. I’ve grown up with a lot of folks in the bluegrass industry and I’ve seen a lot of ‘em pass away from alcoholism and just the hard life, the bluegrass life. People around home say, “Wow, you’ve got it made. You go on stage and play 45 minutes…” They don’t know about the 15 hours you travel to get there. It’s a hard life. You don’t eat right. You don’t take care of yourself. And I can understand where this guy came from. He only lived 21 years – but 21 years was like a thousand years in his time. I understand that, and that’s why I put everything I got in that song. Because it rings true.
Was there a pivotal moment for you when you decided to go into bluegrass full-time?
In my early teens, I lived and breathed it. I sat at the end of the bed in my mom and dad’s room with an old LP player and played Dave Evans, Larry Sparks, the Stanley Brothers, just trying to learn everything George Shuffler ever did on guitar. I was in it hot and heavy, and eat up with it.
In the early ‘80s, I moved up around the DC area and that’s when the Johnson Mountain Boys came on the scene. I followed them everywhere they went. They brought me back to life, and still today if I get to feeling sad, or get down about the music, I can put a Johnson Mountain Boys DVD in, and it will bring me right back. There was so much excitement and energy, they just tore me all to pieces. That’s what it’s all about.
Yes, even in this digital era, albums still matter, in particular in the genres covered by the team here at BGS, where storytelling is revered. Throughout 2019, we covered hundreds of new releases in folk, bluegrass, Americana, TV and film soundtracks, and really anything that had a roots feeling that rang true to us. Here are our eleven favorite albums we heard this year.
Charley Crockett, The Valley
From gospel-blues vocal cues to honky-tonkin’ steel guitar, Charley Crockett’s latest release, The Valley, has a little something for every roots music fan. His low croon makes an endearing vessel for deep lyrics — the album wrestles with mortality (likely a side effect of the two heart surgeries Crockett underwent in the weeks surrounding the recording sessions), love, and loneliness — but quick tempos, catchy melodies, and a hopeful takeaway keep the tone light. I have a feeling opener “Borrowed Time” will still be on loop in my head come 2030. – Dacey Orr
Maya de Vitry, Adaptations
Americana, especially its folkier, song-centered haunts, is remarkable in the way that it grapples with the realities of the millennial condition — granted, this most often occurs in a somewhat tactless, blinders-on, privilege unchecked sort of way. A deeper undercurrent is eroding that norm, though, a flow in which songwriters and music sculptors like Maya de Vitry thrive, reckoning not with the woes of this generation and this angst-filled time in history in saccharine, derivative ways, but by baring all, relinquishing shame, and believing the radical idea that human connection means seeing — and being seen. In Adaptations, de Vitry takes this unspoken mandate deeper still, not only lifting up whatever opaque barriers may obscure, but also shining a cleansing light on them, packaging her own (very relatable) internal and external debates in songs that are catchy, musical, intuitive, and craveable. – Justin Hiltner
Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi, there is no Other
We talk about music cutting across borders, linking cultures, spanning eras. Few albums have embodied that as deftly, as enchantingly, as unforcedly as this set from folk-blues-and-beyond stylist Giddens and Italian percussionist Turrisi. On much of this, they mesh Southern traditions stretching back to music brought by enslaved peoples from Africa and immigrants from Europe with Mediterranean sounds echoing through the centuries back to the Crusades. It proves a natural mix, as much can ultimately be traced to common origins in the Middle East and North Africa — though you don’t have to know the musicology to be enraptured by the vibrant performances. And that goes for their Menotti opera piece (via Nina Simone) too. – Steve Hochman
Takumi Kodera, Sunset Glow
Japan’s flourishing bluegrass scene is little-known to most Americans, but it’s a community that has been developing in the shadows of Western-centered bluegrass for years. This past August we saw an example of the talent coming out of Japan with the release of Tokyo-based banjoist Takumi Kodera’s debut album, Sunset Glow. It’s a record rich with creative textures and thoroughly composed arrangements of both original tunes and bluegrass standards. Kodera is definitely an artist to follow going forward. – Carter Shilts
J.S. Ondara, Tales of America
In 2013, J.S. Ondara moved from his native Kenya to Minnesota (the home state of his hero Bob Dylan) seeking inspiration and musical opportunity. Six years later, he released his breakout record, Tales of America: a reckoning of the realities of romanticism that come with moving to a place you only knew in your mind, and the dichotomy of the failures and freedom of the modern “American Dream.” With veteran producer Mike Viola at the album’s helm (and supported by an impressive roster of guest artists like Andrew Bird, Dawes’ Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith, and Joey Ryan of the Milk Carton Kids), Ondara steps outside of the shadow of his idol’s influence and completely into his own. – Amy Reitnouer Jacobs
Joan Shelley, Like the River Loves the Sea
Shelley traveled all the way to Iceland to record this album, but that distance gave her a new perspective on the place she calls home. This is at heart a Kentucky album: She incorporates various strings of regional music, sings and plays with other Louisville musicians (including Will Oldham and Nathan Salsburg), and gains some perspective on a place often described as being five years behind the rest of the country. But her steady voice and imaginative melodies, her incisive words and deft picking all mean that songs like “Awake” (about the angst of being in a city) and “The Fading” (about the beauty of entropy) hit with a quiet, intense power even if you’ve never set foot in the Bluegrass State. – Stephen Deusner
Larry Sparks, New Moon Over My Shoulder
Larry Sparks makes bluegrass music to satisfy his own traditional leanings, yet New Moon Over My Shoulder would appeal to anyone who cares about emotion, vocal control, and eloquence in their music collection. His gospel songs shine, his guitar playing is exquisite, and his delivery of “Annie’s Boy” proves he’s one of the most expressive vocalists that bluegrass has ever known. – Craig Shelburne
Andy Statman, Monroe Bus
Time and time again, as musicians with deep, unassailable bluegrass cred release albums that challenge absolutely every precept and entrenched tennant of the genre, a rule of thumb is made apparent: To be a “legit” bluegrass picker is to not give a shit about what is or is not bluegrass. With Monroe Bus Brooklyn-based mandolinist Andy Statman turns tradition on its ear — it’s still fully recognizable, just placed slightly out of reach, as a kind mother knowingly weans a petulant child, keeping the prize in sight as a security blanket. The album takes twists and turns through jazz, blues, bebop, klezmer, and yes, bluegrass, and it all feels right. So much so, a listener might not even blink at the title’s evocation of the Father of Bluegrass. – Justin Hiltner
Billy Strings, Home
Billy Strings is a force to be reckoned with. As a flatpicker, a singer, a writer, and a performer, the IBMA Award-winning guitarist has been storming the bluegrass scene, and 2019 was especially good to him. While continuing his seemingly endless tour, Strings released his highly-anticipated sophomore album, Home. The project hits all the right buttons — classic bluegrass styling, vibrant playing, and discerning songwriting. In its class of new releases in 2019, Home shines among the brightest. – Jonny Therrien
Tanya Tucker, While I’m Livin’
What makes this Tanya Tucker album so special? For me, it comes down to one word: personality. Nobody else sounds like her – the rasp, the catch in her voice, the way she phrases words like “Vegas” and “Texas” to make the story in a song her own. Her undiminished bravado is put to good use on “Hard Luck,” but very few vocalists can scale things back with equal power. Tucker does it every time. – Craig Shelburne
Yola, Walk Through Fire
Figure skating isn’t the first thing to come to mind when considering the year’s best albums, but Yola’s blazing debut, Walk Through Fire, reminds me of the glory days of the sport, before the scoring system changed, when judges would deliberately reserve perfect scores — the ever-elusive 10s — for athletes taking the ice toward the end of the competition. The terroir of Dan Auerbach’s production style met its match with Yola; they fashioned an album that’s transcendent, truly timeless, and an apt distillation of this exact moment in country and Americana. It’s fortuitous then, that at the end of the 2010s, we’ve reserved one last perfect score with which to declare this masterpiece not only one of the best albums of the year, but of the decade, too. – Justin Hiltner
Get Billy Strings on the phone, and the interaction will probably seem as much like a musical recital as a verbal conversation. He’ll most likely have a guitar in his hands, noodling around on scales or snatches of songs, sometimes as conversational punctuation marks. But mostly, it sounds like he’s thinking out loud with the instrument.
It’s a good time for Strings right now, who earned IBMA Awards last week for New Artist of the Year and Guitar Player of the Year. His very fine second album, Home, is out on Rounder Records. Checking at 50-plus minutes, Home is a wide-ranging album that showcases his remarkable, classic-bluegrass voice and even more remarkable six-string wizardry, confirming his status as one of the top young guns in the field. The album has 14 songs, pretty much every one of them a journey.
We caught up with Strings shortly before he hit the road on what will be a full season of touring across the U.S. this fall.
BGS: Is there ever a day when you DON’T play music?
Strings: Not usually. I do try to play all the time. Sometimes when I’m on the road playing every night, onstage more than two hours, I might feel like I want a little break: “When I get home, I’m not even going to touch it for a couple of days.” Never happens. It only takes about a day to get the itch and feel like I need to practice.
What form does practice usually take?
A little of everything. That right there is just doing some scales all over the neck in different keys. Metronome practice is good and I have not done enough of that lately. That will really whip your ass into shape. Playing along with records, too, or playing fiddle tunes, playing through songs I know and love. Coming up, I did not have these rigid practice regimens. I just played music.
But recently I’ve started getting into it more. I was inspired by the Rocky movies: “Man, he works out for months, running up and down stairs and training so hard for just one gig!” Every night I get in the ring, but I never train, never hit the bag. I need someone like Mickey yelling at me, “C’mon, kid, lemme see that major scale again! Now slip the G run!”
I saw a quote about how you learned to play with bluegrass, but learned to perform when you were in a metal band. What did you take away from your time playing metal?
I grew up watching bluegrass bands in suits and hats, singing and playing into the mic and standing very still. When I was playing in a metal band, we were all over the stage running into each other, spitting and headbanging. I remember I would start a show by running from the back of the stage into the audience, and they’d push me back onstage.
It was just this crazy energy and that was my first performing experience onstage in front of people. I do think bluegrass is more about music, listening to the notes. The metal band, we’d jump around so much it was difficult to play the correct notes. The music may have suffered, but we tried to put on one helluva show and I still sort of bring a little of that.
Your new album is called Home. Is there any significance to that as a title?
I would say there’s a lot. That came from a poem I wrote titled “Home” and turned into a song that was kind of obvious as the opus of the album once we recorded all the songs — the just kind of wild song of the bunch. So I figured we’d name it after that. I’m 26 years old, this is my second album and I’m sort of settling into life as a young adult. Up to now, not knowing what was happening kind of kept me alive.
Now I’m starting to feel a little bit like a grown-up. Also, on the road, we’re always dreaming about getting home. What does it mean to you? Home is something different for everybody — a place, a state of mind, a drink, a meal. When I get home, my friend’s grandpa grows some real good weed outdoors in Michigan soil. Smoking that is home right there. Home sweet home.
“Away From the Mire” is the longest song on the album and it seems like the centerpiece, a real journey. Did you know it was going to go that far when you started recording it?
It was spontaneous. We were recording, working on that one a couple of days and trying to figure out what to do with it. It felt like it needed a big guitar solo because I’m a fan of that. It’s a classic thing that always happened with ‘70s rock and roll bands: great song, verse, chorus, bridge and EPIC solo before it’s over.
A lot of times, me and the band will get into these moments and “Mire” was one of those we sort of landed on where I took my guitar and they followed along. It was not composed at all, just a jam. It did not take too many times through to get it. We were oiled up, had been in the studio a few days, and didn’t have to spend too much time on any of the songs. That whole jam in the middle, it’s all live.
Doc Watson seems like an obvious influence on your playing. Did you ever meet him?
Unfortunately, I never got the chance to meet Doc. I worshiped the man, you know? I started listening to his records and watching VHS tapes when I was 5 or 6 years old. Doc left a huge impression because his music was so alive with such heart and soul. I took my dad to see Doc once, the only time either of us got to see him. It was the Midland Theatre in Newark, Ohio, six hours away, the closest he was coming to us. So I got tickets for my dad, my mom, me and my friend Benji, who drove us there in his truck.
Seeing him in-person was incredible. He played “Shady Grove” and “Way Downtown,” and my mom and my dad and me were all crying because we could not believe that really was Doc right there. I enjoyed the hell out of it. That was in 2010, Doc with David Holt and T. Michael Coleman, and he forgot a lyric here and there but still picked something great. I’ll never forget it as long as I live and I’m so glad I brought my parents.
Growing up listening to Doc was something special, and a mutual love for Doc is a connection I share with my dad. We bond over Doc’s music, play it together and I think we do it justice, a little. He knows so many old Doc songs, the deepest cuts. He’ll pull out one he’s not played in years and remember all the words. He embodies the soul Doc put out there. We really worship Doc around my house. He was, is and always will be the best.
Were there other influential elders?
When I was little, my mom and dad took me to a couple of bluegrass festivals. Larry Sparks and Ralph Stanley made a huge impression. Those guys would walk through a crowd like a hot knife through butter, in their big hats and suits with banjo cases. That was the first time I heard bluegrass on a PA, loud. I’d heard it around the campfire all my life. But hearing Larry Sparks’ band up there with the fiddle and banjo and guitar and harmonies, I knew then what I had to do. I’d already been messing around on guitar. Seeing those dudes, I knew it was serious.
Have you ever thought about what else you might do if not for music?
There was this picture I drew in kindergarten with a thing that said, “When I grow up I want to be a (blank).” I put “bluegrass player” and drew a picture of a guy with a banjo. So there it is. All I need now is the purple pants. I don’t know what else I’d do. I’m not a good mechanic or woodworker and I don’t like painting houses or carrying shingles up a ladder.
And I don’t like somebody wagging their finger in my face telling me what to do. I’m not good at dealing with authority figures. I’ve always had to do it my own way. I never thought music would even be possible as a career so I thought I’d always be a loser. But the last six or seven years have brought the incredible realization I can make it with music and not have to be a bum or drug addict.
Does that account for some of the heavy subjects on the record, like the song about drug overdoses (“Enough to Leave”)?
I always end up talking about this stuff, because it inspires a lot of my songwriting. When I reach down and look for what to write about, I always come up with things I’ve experienced in the past relating to substance abuse or loss or poverty. It’s sad how many people are struggling with all of that. I have a lot of friends who have gone in all sorts of directions, some good but some not. I’m lucky to have gotten out, and it haunts me. I still think about it a lot.
Maybe I’m looking in the rearview mirror too much when I should be looking out the windshield. But back there is what motivated me to get to where I’m at. It’s where I got my drive as a teenager, being around bums and meth-heads. I did not want to end up like that. It was either that, or keep running toward the light and working hard. I got a job in Traverse City, but I was playing gigs and realized, you can make a living that way even if you’re not a star. So that started to happen and I’ve been walking slowly upward ever since, reaching higher goals.
How much of a master plan do you have?
I know what I’m trying to go for, but at the same time I don’t. It’s a transparent vision where I know it’s something large and cool where I want to do good and be successful, but I don’t know what it looks like. I do feel like I’m moving toward dreams. More people are coming out to the shows, I’m able to explore more creatively and musically. That’s success and I feel good about it. I went from playing for tips to clubs and theaters, slowly working my way up. I remember renting minivans at Enterprise and having to sleep in parking lots because we could only afford one hotel room. I even got robbed once like that.
But I’ve always been willing to do whatever it takes to make the dream happen. If I have to stay up all night and drive 16 hours to play music, I’m willing to do it. The thing is, the more we grow as a band, we’re able to make those plans better so we don’t have to kill ourselves — play a few less gigs with a few less hours between them. It feels like it’s working, which I’m happy as hell about. I work hard but it’s so much fun it does not feel like work even though I’m physically exhausted. I’m sore and tired all the time but happy as shit, too. I’m lucky, man, really grateful.
For the record, Joe Mullins is a cornerstone of the modern bluegrass community. He’s chairman of the International Bluegrass Music Association, as well as a radio station owner and an award-winning musician. Plus he’s just an easy guy to talk to. During a visit with the Bluegrass Situation, Mullins traced his decades-long career, from teenage gigs to For the Record, his latest album with the Radio Ramblers, featuring Jason Barie on fiddle, Mike Terry on mandolin and vocals, Duane Sparks on guitar and vocals, and Randy Barnes on upright bass and vocals.
BGS: Did you go into these latest sessions with a certain sound or musical direction in mind?
Mullins: We had three or four new songs that we wanted to do, and wanted to make those our own. I try to make certain that when we combine rare tunes that we want to cover with new songs, that we get the perfect balance of a variety of vocal and instrumental arrangements. I don’t like the same ol’, same ol’. We’re fortunate in the band to have so much vocal versatility. There are three of us that can sing any part, plus a bass singer if we want to do a quartet number. So, I make certain there’s a good balance vocal arrangements, keys, tempos, subject matter… If you listen to all 12 songs in a row, I don’t want you to get bored and go to sleep.
That’s harder than it sounds.
It is! Especially when you combine original material with some rare tunes that you want to cover, and that you want your audience to hear. I always find a few of those. We’re called the Radio Ramblers because I have been on radio and on stage since ’82. I was 16 the first time I played a major bluegrass event as a banjo player, the same year I started in broadcasting. So I’ve got a real deep well to draw from, everything from old-time stuff to contemporary country, classic country, Americana music, and everything bluegrass. On this new album, we’re covering a Johnny Cash/Hank Jr. tune (“That Old Wheel”), and doing new songs, and something from a hundred years ago, out of a hymnbook. So there’s a little bit of everything.
I’ve heard you talk before about the bluegrass history in Southwestern Ohio, and you made a reference to Sonny Osborne and J.D. Crowe as being mentors to you. What was that relationship like?
My dad was a broadcaster and a good bluegrass fiddle player. He was in and out of bands. He sat in with the Osborne Brothers a bunch when I was a kid. He sat in with J.D. Crowe when Doyle Lawson and J.D. had the Kentucky Mountain Boys going. He was on a ton of recording sessions in the ‘60s and ‘70s with a variety of bands. In Southwestern Ohio, the Cincinnati/Dayton region, it’s just thick with bluegrass history. Everybody from Flatt & Scruggs to the Stanley Brothers — they all recorded in this area at one time or another. Larry Sparks started here and grew up here.
The Osborne Brothers started here. Their parents had left Kentucky to get a job in Dayton, Ohio, when they were boys. Bobby and Sonny started their career right here in the same neighborhood where the Radio Ramblers started. They started in the late ‘40s, early ‘50s, and we started in the early 2000s. Matter of fact, Bobby started singing on the radio in Middletown, Ohio, in 1949 — the same station my dad started working at in 1964, and the same station I started working at in 1983. So there’s just a lot of connection there.
The Osborne Brothers and J.D. Crowe and Ralph Stanley and Don Reno — all these first-generation bluegrass leaders were all family friends. They were in and out of the house when I was a kid. My mom fixed breakfast or supper for everybody I just mentioned, multiple times. Dad sat in with them and played on Larry Sparks’ first record, and played on all kinds of recordings in the area. I saw these guys growing up a lot.
So when I decided to attempt the five-string banjo, I had seen J.D. Crowe and Sonny Osborne and Ralph Stanley in their prime, multiple times, and had all the recordings already in my bedroom. Then, when it came to me pretty naturally, and I had the opportunity to play and perform and record as a young guy, if I was having a struggle with something, I always had access to J.D. Crowe or Sonny Osborne or Don Reno or Ralph Stanley. “How do you do this?” “How do you that?” I got to see them often and I got some one-on-one time with all of them.
Did that strike you as amazing at the time? Or was it later in life that you realized how incredible that was?
Later in life I realized I am the most blessed guy in the world. The most fortunate cat, you know? To be 15 or 16 years old, trying to learn how to play banjo, and have access to these guys always – and get to be encouraged by them, and sing by them… Sonny especially, he would lecture about all kinds of stuff besides banjo playing. “Make sure you go to college! Quit smokin’!” That’s just who he is. We still talk often and I play one of his banjos on this record. He’s had custom banjos built and designed for many years and I’ve had one of them for the last six years.
I wanted to ask about your dad and touring with the Traditional Grass. Was he easy to travel with?
Not always. [Laughs] I often look back on the Traditional Grass – we had it going on in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. We had a ball! We were on the road all the time and back then it was just wide open. Us, the Del McCoury Band, the Bluegrass Cardinals, the Lost & Found Band — and the first generation guys were still out there. We saw the Osborne Brothers, Ralph Stanley, and Jim & Jesse all the time.
I was real young and I look back on it now a ton, because Dad was my age then. He still was a pretty hard-charger. All the other guys in the band were young and it didn’t matter how late the show was, or how long the party went on, he hung in there with us. [Laughs] He wasn’t really hard to get along with. He just got tired and cantankerous sooner than all of us young cats did, I guess. But he didn’t worry about details. He worried the most about playing great music and having a good time.
In the ‘90s, you were pretty visible with Longview, too.
Very fortunate. Worked out great. Traditional Grass toured like crazy in the early ‘90s. We burned it up from ’89 to about ’95. I about burned myself out and burned myself up, just living hard on the road. I was very fortunate to have an opportunity to buy a local radio station here in this wonderfully historic bluegrass neighborhood in Southwestern Ohio.
The Longview thing was already in the works before I came off the road with the Traditional Grass. We started conversations around ’94. I was on the road with that band through the summer of ’95 and launched my first radio station as an owner in the summer of ’95. And Longview recorded first in December of ’95, so by the time the album came out, there was a good buzz with it and it was an immediate success. And we had to go out and tour part-time.
So I had just enough time to get my radio business started and established without a heavy tour schedule. And then I had this wonderful, high-profile gig as a special event recording band that also got to tour and play everything from MerleFest to Wintergrass, from Telluride to Myrtle Beach. We played everywhere as a special event band in the late ‘90s and it kept me from falling off the radar.
If you look back on the late ‘70s when you were developing, to now, where you’re thriving in a lot of different areas, so many things have changed in bluegrass. But what would you say has been a consistent thread from those days until now?
You’ve still got to be able to play in time and sing in tune. [Laughs] I don’t care how young or old you are! Some of the consistent threads are that there’s nothing to hide behind in bluegrass music. You still have to be able to cut the gig. You still have to be able to bring it. I’m still on stage every night with five guys who have to know exactly how to manhandle their instrument, and vocally, it’s all out there.
The simplicity of that part of it — for my band and the sound we look for — it hasn’t changed. It hasn’t changed from the original formula that Monroe and the Stanleys and the Osbornes and all of ‘em have put on stage since the ‘40s and the ‘50s. It’s still got to be players that are masters at the craft. It’s still a combination of art, entertainment, and blood, sweat and tears. That’s bluegrass.
There are three things that you need to know about Del McCoury before anything else: His hair is incomparable, he giggles almost ceaselessly, and he still sings bluegrass.
Fifty years ago, after ending his stint with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys as lead singer and guitarist, McCoury released his debut solo project, Del McCoury Sings Bluegrass, with his now-iconic pompadour coiffed proudly and precisely on the cover. The album was released on Arhoolie Records, whose founder and proprietor, Chris Strachwitz, produced the album, phoning the young McCoury barely a day before the session to offer him the deal. Because of the severely short notice, the band was cobbled together from whomever was available and the songs chosen from whatever Del knew: A lot of Bill Monroe material, plenty of traditional bluegrass, and some old-time country, too.
Since those days in the late 1960s, songs have been the most significant driver of McCoury’s inspiration and creativity all along. “In the early years,” he remembers, “my producers would bring songs to me and I would usually just do them, even though sometimes I didn’t really like the song. As time went by, I got to thinking, ‘I’m just going to record songs that I like, instead of doing everything [anyone] brings to me.’ I figured I’m the one who’s going to have to sing these songs!”
It’s this love for the songs themselves that has informed his entire career, sculpting the iconic McCoury style that can be detected through each and every one of his albums. It’s remarkable that he’s been able to sustain such a particular, tangible musical identity over the decades without it ever growing stale or cliched. That identity — innovation balanced with tradition and overlaid with melody-focused, virtuosic picking, while centered on soaring, high lonesome vocals, all accomplished with a wink and a smirk — doesn’t always come from overt attempts at consistency. “I’ll tell you what it is,” he says in a tone that foretells that this is not some ironclad secret. “It comes down to, simply, I just record songs that I like. It’s hard to say where they’re going to come from. … I don’t think about if anybody else is going to like it when I do it. I just think about me having to sing it.” And as far as production and arrangements? That’s no proprietary recipe under lock and key, either: “But really, it’s whatever suits the song.” Whatever he’s throwing into the pot, it is downright delectable on McCoury’s brand new album, Del McCoury Still Sings Bluegrass.
Thank goodness that he does. If his signature chuckle, a constant as he tells stories and discusses the new record over the phone, wasn’t indication enough, Del has always been a beacon of joy in bluegrass communities. From the first second of track one, the slightly silly, totally burning, almost-a-love-song “Hotwired,” through a high-speed Alan Jackson cover, a classic fast waltz, yes, a train song, too, and another couple of handfuls of carefully curated material, that joy is palpable. It’s a striking through line that stems first from his absolute adoration of just doing the thing. It’s a love he’s always had. “In the early days,” he says, “When I was playing bluegrass festivals, we’d stay up all night, play all night, and go and do a show the next day in the afternoon. I had that much interest in it that I could play night and day and never stop. When you get older, you can’t do that; you have to pace yourself. But I still have that interest, I really do.”
Even casual observers would not note McCoury’s current clip as “pacing oneself.” He’s a member of the Grand Ole Opry and a Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductee, he tours nationally, he hosts the radio show Hand Picked with Del McCoury on SiriusXM’s Bluegrass Junction, and he presents an annual roots-music-festival-meets-family-reunion, DelFest, in Cumberland, Maryland, every May. All of that notwithstanding any current album release cycles and press junkets he may be running. While plenty of other artists with such long, successful careers would be pumping the brakes, Del is still looking ahead. “I just never lost interest in it. I never lost interest in recording records and entertaining folks. It’s something I love to do.”
And the folks love him back. Whether listeners come from the most staunch camps of bluegrass diehards, or from hippie festivals and jammy string band gatherings, or symphony halls and performing arts centers, they all count Del as one of their own. The rarity of that fact is not lost on him. “[That’s why] when we do a show, we never have a set list. We figure these people paid to see us, so we’re just going to do what they want us to do, we’ll see what they want to hear. It keeps me enthused, the audience excited, and also the boys [excited, too.] And the audience never know[s] what we’re going to do. ‘Cause I don’t!”
By choosing to record and perform material that he connects with personally, he’s passing down that care and respect for songs to every one of his audiences, who, in turn, learn to appreciate and then reinforce that care. So, when a song comes along on Still Sings Bluegrass that includes an extended, rip-roaring electric guitar solo (in this case played by Del’s grandson, Heaven), or when “To Make Love Sweeter for You” kicks with a jangly upright piano, you don’t hear the predictable, “that ain’t bluegrass” balking. Furthermore, the traditional, straight-ahead policers are visibly absent from DelFest, where more fringe, jammy acts like Trey Anastasio and The String Cheese Incident are just as likely to appear as Larry Sparks — or Tedeschi Trucks Band. And whether he’s recording a set of songs such as this fresh crop, curated by the man himself, or lending his voice and his band to projects like Del and Woody, an album of unrecorded Woody Guthrie songs, or American Legacies, the New Orleans-meets-Nashville, jazz-meets-bluegrass, Del McCoury Band-meets-Preservation Hall Jazz Band crossover album, his footing within bluegrass never falters and is rarely challenged.
Del doesn’t believe there’s a secret antidote to the signature, absolutist trains of thought some find in bluegrass and he clearly says so. When asked why he thinks his fans might let him off the hook he laughs, “You know what, I’m afraid they’re gonna let me go any minute!” But we know this isn’t true. Now more than fifty years into his song-led career, Del’s creative vision has never been so clear, his perspective never more innovative, his hair never more enviable, his laugh never so charming, and his music never more joyful.
No matter how that ends up sounding from the stage or through the speakers, by definition, it’s still bluegrass.
If we really have no choice but to endure winter (other than high-tailin’ it toward the equator), we might as well give in, cozy up, and spin some wintry bluegrass songs. Cold rain, cold snow, cold wind, cold hearts … some folks like the summertime when they can walk about, but wintertime … well, it’s a season that happens, too.
Tony Rice — “Girl From the North Country”
The north country = where the wind blows cold on the borderline. It feels like Tony sings about winter and its themes quite a lot. It just fits.
Emmylou Harris — “Roses in the Snow”
Not to throw around the term “iconic,” but this one is iconic. We’re familiar with the idea that love is like the seasons, but this time, love is like a greenhouse. It can grow roses in the snow! It’s a refreshing twist on a concept that usually ends up with the flower of love frozen over and wilted in the cold.
Larry Sparks — “Snow Covered Mound”
The only conscionable reason to highlight any recording of this song besides Ralph Stanley’s is … Larry Sparks. His voice captures winter and its grief perfectly. It will send a shiver up your spine.
The Osborne Brothers — “Listening to the Rain”
Some places aren’t lucky enough to enjoy the austere beauty of snow in the winter months, getting rain, and gray, and mud, and gloom instead. Of course, cold rain with a heapin’ helpin’ of lost love sounds about right.
Ronnie Bowman — “Cold Virginia Night”
IBMA’s 1995 Song of the Year leans into the cold heart metaphor. It is beautiful. And catchy. And still reverberating off the walls and in the halls of every former IBMA convention host hotel.
Jim Mills — “Sledd Ridin’”
If you gloss over the strange spelling of “sledd,” you’ll find this rollicking banjo tune feels like a day spent on the snowy neighborhood hill. Time for hot cocoa.
Reno & Smiley — “Love Oh Love Oh Please Come Home”
In a dynamic twist, the woman has left the man alone, at home, with their baby, while the snow has covered up the ground.
Del McCoury — “Rain And Snow”
It’s a murder ballad. It’s a lover’s lament. It’s sung in an astronomically high register. And it’s pretty sexist. It’s bluegrass to a T. It also happens to be a goddamn classic. Del McCoury does it right.
J.D. Crowe & the New South — “Ten Degrees and Getting Colder”
Somehow the saddest part of this song isn’t that he’s traded off his Martin. This song is a masterpiece and distillate of the troubles of a working musician: The coldest months are always the hardest months.
Bill Monroe — “Footprints in the Snow”
Once again, we are reminded that the father of bluegrass not only originated the genre, he’s responsible for a good many of its themes, too. In this case, winter isn’t an analog for heartbreak; it’s a silver lining, guiding the song’s speaker to his love via her footprints. You can’t trace footprints in the summer!
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
