Tag: Mark Fain

The Mythology and Alchemy of Thomm Jutz

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Thomm Jutz has worked with a wide cast of characters since moving to Nashville in the early 2000s – John Prine, Nanci Griffith, Todd Snider, Billy Strings, and the SteelDrivers’ Tammy Rogers. But on his latest record, Ring-A-Bellin’, he strived to capture each song with the smallest musical unit possible.

The result of the 18-track album, released April 3, is a distinctly timeless vibe that feels just as much rooted to the present day as it does the mid-1900s or Civil War era, due to its recurring themes of history, mythology, and working with your hands. From self improvement (“Sharpen Your Knife”) to using natural disaster as a metaphor for perseverance (“Holy Mother Mountain”), the mastery that comes with time (“The Hammer And The Anvil”) and becoming more grounded in yourself (“Settle Me Down”), the GRAMMY-nominated transplant from Germany waxes philosophical and takes listeners back to a period long before we walked the Earth.

According to Jutz, the approach – recording with only a small group of people all in the same room not wearing headphones – is his way of replicating the process for how musicians would’ve recorded a century ago.

“This is how I want to make music right now,” he declares. “I don’t want to make a layered record – not because there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not what I’m feeling at the moment. It’s like saying I don’t want to use red in my paintings right now, because I’ve used enough of it already.”

During a lengthy conversation with BGS at his Belmont office on Music Row, Jutz spoke about his concept of home, how psychology and mythology informed Ring-A-Bellin’, and a companion book that takes listeners even further into the world of his 18 new songs.

You’re releasing this album with a companion book. Tell me a little about what’s inside and why you decided to adopt this approach?

Thomm Jutz: It’s more and more important to create some kind of parallel narrative to the music nowadays. Vinyl has seen a resurgence over the last couple years, but it is not practical for me to take on my one trip to Europe every year. Because of that, I wanted to create something that was still a larger format, fun to hold, and had all the liner notes present without being something so small it’s hard to read.

I’ve also always enjoyed writing and reading – especially during my last 10 years as an instructor at Belmont – so I wanted to articulate some of those thoughts as they relate to the songs on this record in a longer form. When I got to working on it I quickly realized I was in over my head with the graphic design aspect of it, so I consulted my friend Gina Meredith. I just told her what I wanted artwork for and commissioned various folks to create pieces for each song. But rather than tell them what to make, I just sent them the music and had them use the songs as their creative prompts. Because of that I don’t always see the linear connection between the songs and the graphics that were made, but that’s also my favorite part.

A lot of my thoughts on this record revolve around analytic and Jungian psychology, alchemy and things like that, which are difficult to talk about in a tiny CD booklet, so I wanted to do something that allowed for a more longform format.

Overall, this record has a timeless feel – it could be (and is) from 2026, but if I didn’t know any better I wouldn’t second guess if someone told me it was from the mid-1900s or Civil War era as well, especially songs like “Sharpen Your Knife” and “The Hammer And The Anvil.” What are your thoughts on the vibe you were able to conjure up here?

I’m a traditionalist at heart, so everything I do is always trying to bring something new to the way I perceive what came before us, whether that’s lyrically, thematically, or in the recording process – which in this case was mostly all done live. I just think there tends to be more mystery with that music. There’s new music that does that too, but it’s easier for me to find that in old music because the cultural context can be studied since it’s not as close to my own lived experience. No matter how much I listen to or read about Charley Patton, I’ll never understand what he fully experienced because I was never there.

Regarding the songs you mentioned, both talk about people working with their hands, but they’re also metaphors for working on yourself – like you are the hammer, you are the anvil, you are the iron that’s being forged. Those mantras are rooted in human thought and analytical psychology, which is something I’ve dealt with and thought about a lot over the last 15 years. Particularly in terms of how mythology and history go together, and how understood the former is.

On one hand, some people think a myth is a lie and others say a myth is a fact, but both are wrong. A myth is a metaphor and must be understood as one. These songs are an effort to create a mythological framework that is a mirror image of my development as a person and artist. If you ever want to develop as an artist, you must develop as a person first.

With so much of this record wrapped up in concepts like history, psychology, and mythology, what’s the timeline for bringing the 18 songs on it to life?

These songs came from a period of about three years, but when I started I wasn’t setting out to make a record – I just wanted to experiment with a couple things. I had a few songs that I co-wrote with my friend Adam Wright that I wanted to test out with only me singing and playing and Mark Fain on bass. And it worked out really well. As I got fascinated with that process I began looking through my catalog and noticed that the songs which spoke to me the most were all ones that formed a narrative arc.

However, it’s not an autobiographical record that says, “I was born here,” “I did this,” and “This is how it made me feel.” But more so, one that explores spiritual development. I’m not interested in autobiographical songwriting. I find it very claustrophobic how you have to spell everything out to the listener. When you do that you’re shutting them out with nothing to do, which has me opting for a more open approach. A song is only ever truly finished when the listener interprets it for themselves, not with what the person who wrote it intended.

One of the songs on Ring-A-Bellin’ that is tied to more recent events is “Holy Mother Mountain,” which was inspired by the fallout of Hurricane Helene, specifically in Western North Carolina. But it’s also a metaphor for overcoming adversity. Care to explain?

That song is a good example of how writing with someone else – in this case Mando Saenz – can profoundly shape an idea. I remember Helene happening and having this line “Holy Mother Mountain” appear to me out of nowhere. From then on I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I brought it to a writing session with him and said I didn’t know what to do with it. Then the co-writing dance ensued, with him taking the lead, followed by me for a bit, until it started becoming much clearer that there was no way to move forward without it being about Hurricane Helene somehow.

While it was inspired by that, the song is also about overcoming adversity and understanding that it’s going to happen again. Just because you live through Helene doesn’t mean there’s not another storm coming right behind it. If that storm showed us anything, it’s that perceived climate safety in Appalachia is not true. Also, “mother” and “mountain” are not just a nice alliteration, but there’s also a feminine quality about a mountain. An inverted mountain is a valley – or a place you can seek refuge in – and if you go on top of a mountain, you might find yourself closer to some kind of spiritual awareness.

The song is much more a collection of images that relate to the archetypal images of mother and mountain. Maybe even the word “holy” in the title has something to do with the fact of how little modernity treats nature with respect. Maybe that’s what we need to do – not bring offerings, but bring out attention to it instead of riding around and abusing it like crazy.

On “Too Many Walls” you sing about the idea of home. Given that you moved to the states 25 years ago from Germany, what is “home” to you?

Home and time are two of the biggest themes we write about, and it’s longing that connects the two – longing for home, longing to belong somewhere, longing to live in a different period of time, longing to get over something. Over the last couple years, I’ve also started thinking more about how strange a thing it is to build a house, because you’re just enclosing space that’s been there all along. You’re building and calling it something that wasn’t there before, but the land was always there. It’s a strange construct, and at the same time we need shelter.

From an early age I didn’t feel at home where I was because I longed for a place where music was part of the everyday lived experience. But in Germany after 1945 that was completely out of the picture, because the Nazi regime had completely and absurdly abused any sense of folklore. Since I was longing for an environment where people played music, I went to Ireland for the first time with my wife when I was 18 since it was much closer than coming [to the United States], which we couldn’t afford at the time. I was amazed by the music coming out of the pubs there – it felt so natural, like it was rising out of the Earth.

That fascination carried over into my love of American roots music. In that sense, “home” is where I feel connected to a place through music since that’s my main way of expressing myself. Additionally, southwestern Appalachia and the Black Forest that I’m from in Germany can look astonishingly similar sometimes, so when I go back to visit my parents I occasionally feel like I’m navigating the mountains around Johnson City, [Tennessee]. When I’m in Johnson City I sometimes imagine I’m back in Germany. But Appalachia has more importance to me now because it’s where I live and long to be. If it weren’t for all the writing I do in Nashville and my work at Belmont, I’d be in Appalachia fulltime, because it just speaks to me. When I haven’t been in a while I can start feeling something deep inside me – it’s not a heaviness, but a feeling of “I just really wanna fucking go.” [Laughs]

What has bringing this record to life taught you about yourself?

It’s taught me that I know nothing about graphic design and should always let someone else handle that instead. [Laughs]

In all seriousness, it has taught me that while I don’t consider myself a great singer, I can still enjoy the way I deliver a song if I do it correctly. It’s also taught me that while I have great deficiencies as a guitar player, I do enjoy the way I play guitar and this record, where I’m keenly aware of everything wrong with my playing. Even Tony Rice said that about his playing.

It’s not a sense of having completed my journey as a guitar player, but quite the opposite. It’s more like I’m aware of what’s missing. It’s also taught me that staying on the path of creating and writing a lot. You have to be in it for the long game in today’s environment and be doing it for the right reasons or you’ll run yourself ragged. I already understood that a little bit, but now I understand it even better. Maybe that’s what it’s all about – gaining a little awareness and moving on.

Photo Credit: Don VanCleave

Darin & Brooke Aldridge Sing “Jordan” (Ft. Ricky Skaggs, Mo Pitney & Mark Fain)

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Darin & Brooke Aldridge
Hometown: Cherryville, North Carolina
Song: “Jordan” (feat. Ricky Skaggs, Mo Pitney and Mark Fain)
Release Date: March 24, 2023
Label: Billy Blue Records

In Their Words: “‘Jordan’ is one of those songs that you’re gonna be singing along with the first time you hear it. It’s sure to get stuck in your head, and you might even find yourself trying out all the different vocal parts! This song is a classic, and we couldn’t have been more honored to have Ricky Skaggs and Mo Pitney join forces with us. From the first note, it felt like we had been singing together for years. It all came together so easily! Ricky made some wonderful suggestions that we loved and incorporated into the song. We hope you love it as much as we loved creating it!” — Darin & Brooke Aldridge

Photo Credit: Kim Brantley

MIXTAPE: Jeff Picker’s Low End Rumblings on the Bass in Bluegrass

Posted on by Editor

Maybe I’m biased*, but I’ve always felt that the bass is the most important instrument in the bluegrass band. It might not immediately draw your ear, but a bassist’s interpretation of the groove and harmony of a song holds substantial power over how the song is ultimately felt by the listener. Without a great bassist, a band full of shredders can sound anemic and sad; a heartfelt lyric can seem tedious and derivative. But add some tasty low end, and the same band will soar; the lyric will swell with passion! (Attention sound engineers: simply cranking the subs won’t cut it.) As such, the bassist’s importance in a bluegrass band is considerable.

Even so, great bassists are rarely given their due, unless they also happen to be virtuosic melodic players. Well, that ends today! Here are some examples of masterful low end artistry from some of my favorite denizens of the doghouse. Please excuse the shameless inclusion of one of my own tracks, because, well… I have an album to promote. Enjoy! — Jeff Picker

*I’m definitely biased.

Tony Rice – “Shadows” (Mark Schatz, bass)

Mark is one of my favorite bluegrass bassists. His tone is huge and clear, and his bass lines are subtly creative. On this track, listen to the fluid transitions back and forth between standard bluegrass time and a more open feel. Also note his slick fills and voice leading throughout.

Nashville Bluegrass Band – “Happy on the Mississippi Shores” (Gene Libbea, bass)

If aliens came to earth, demanded to know what bluegrass bass sounded like, and stipulated that I had only one song with which to demonstrate it, I’d play this. Gene Libbea’s feel is perfect; his note choices are just varied enough to add a bit of intrigue to the basic harmony of the song, while never sacrificing the pendulum effect that drives the bluegrass bus. The occasional unison fill with the banjo adds to the fun.

Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys – “Loving You Too Well” (Jack Cooke, bass)

I love this approach to the bluegrass waltz. Jack Cooke’s playing here is busier than what you might hear from many bluegrass bassists these days, and there’s a certain playful and casual quality to it, which I find refreshing. He bounces around between octaves, and between full walking lines and half-notes. Old-school, “open air” bass playing.

Matt Flinner – “Nowthen” (Todd Phillips, bass)

This song may sound slow and simple, but make no mistake: to groove like this, at this tempo, in this exposed instrumentation, is HARD. Todd Phillips demonstrates his mastery here: clear tone, impressive intonation, and intentional, direct timing. I also love how softly Todd plays — at times, he seems to barely touch the bass. To me, that conveys maturity and experience.

Patty Loveless – “Daniel Prayed” (Clarence “Tater” Tate, bass)

I had fun studying the bass playing on this track when I got to perform it with Patty and Ricky Skaggs a few years back. Clarence “Tater” Tate played both bass and fiddle for Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys over the years, and had about as much pedigree in bluegrass as can be achieved. I dig the playing here, because it feels like an old-school, 1950s approach (bouncy, busy, slightly loose bass playing), but with contemporary recording quality. If you focus on the bass, you can tell how much fun he’s having with the slightly crooked form and joyous lyric — it sounds like a musical smile.

Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer – “Clyde Waters (Child 216)” (Viktor Krauss, bass)

The first time I heard this song, I didn’t even realize there was bass on it. But I found myself coming back to it, drawn by the story-like quality of the musical arrangement, and I realized that the bass plays a major part in that dynamism. Viktor Krauss displays impeccable taste in his musical choices here. He knows when to play, when not to, when to articulate an additional note, when to sustain. For a player as technically proficient as Viktor, such restraint is impressive. His playing serves the song, first and foremost.

Del McCoury Band – “Learnin’ the Blues” (Mike Bub, bass)

As everybody in Nashville knows, when Mike Bub and his Kay bass show up at a gig, a fat groove is imminent. This track showcases Bub’s rock solid hybrid feel — he bounces between 4/4 walking and half-time, triplet and ghost note fills, and even has a little two-bar break in the middle. This is the type of bass playing that makes it virtually impossible to sound bad (not that Del and the boys needed any help in that department). Bub is also a great guy with a sense of humor and tons of knowledge and stories about Nashville’s music history.

John Hartford – “Howard Hughes’ Blues” (Dave Holland, bass)

Bluegrass as a musical style is pretty specific — there’s room for a wide variety of personal voices, of course, but there are definitely some foundational qualities and vernacular that indicate whether a player is truly versed in the style. On this track, jazz legend Dave Holland sounds like exactly what he is: a jazz musician playing bluegrass. Normally a recipe for disaster, here somehow it works. His tone, feel, note choice, and general approach sound foreign in the style, but they actually mesh with Hartford’s loose and jovial manner quite well. A slightly bizarre but enjoyable approach to bluegrass bass.

Ricky Skaggs – “Walls of Time” (Mark Fain, bass)

I’ve spent a lot of time studying Mark Fain’s playing for my job with Ricky Skaggs, and I’m always finding subtle little musical gems in his bass parts. It’s Mark’s tone, taste, and timing that anchor most of the canonical Kentucky Thunder recordings that we all love. This track showcases his mastery of the bluegrass groove at a slow tempo — listen to the way he spruces up what could be a one-and-five-fest with ghost notes, fills, and syncopation.

Jeff Picker – “Rooster in the Tire Well” (Jeff Picker, bass)

When I was making my new record, With the Bass in Mind, one of my musical goals was to find some space for the bass to shine and for me to use some of the technique I don’t use very often as a sideman. As such, the record has many bass solos. This song has no bass solo, however, since this Mixtape isn’t about bass solos! There are some cool bass lines in it, though (if I do say so myself). I tried to choose my notes carefully, to help anchor the band through the song’s many metric changes.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – “Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson” (Dennis Crouch, bass)

This track is not exactly bluegrass, but what an incredibly grooving bass part. Here is a rare example of a time when slap bass was musically appropriate! Dennis is a friend of mine and a great guy and bassist. He plays with gut strings, punchy tone, and undeniably solid time. He’s also the master of throwing in a couple creative measures of voice leading at exactly the right moment in the song. I try to catch Dennis out playing in Nashville whenever I can.

Stan Getz and the Oscar Peterson Trio – “I Want To Be Happy” (Ray Brown, bass)

This is obviously not bluegrass, but no bass-centric mixtape would be complete without tipping the hat to King Ray. His half-time feel throughout the melody is flawless, and just listen to that crushing avalanche of groove beginning around 00:37. Ray is a bluegrasser’s jazz bassist because he plays on top of the beat, and his playing has a relentless forward motion, like the banjo playing of Earl Scruggs. I’ve loved this recording since I was 15 — you won’t find better bass playing anywhere.

Photo credit: Kaitlyn Raitz

Darin & Brooke Aldridge’s ‘Inner Journey’ Always Leads Back to Bluegrass

Posted on by Editor

The first time they ever sang together, Darin and Brooke Aldridge harmonized on “The Prettiest Flower,” an old hymn familiar to any Baptist church. They’ve scarcely stopped since then, with their latest album Inner Journey placing their stunning musical blend at its center on classics like “Teach Your Children Well” as well as songs written by the likes of Kasey Chambers, First Aid Kit, and Nanci Griffith.

“Brooke and I have always been trying to develop our sound. On this one, we stayed true to our bluegrass roots in some of the material,” Darin says. “We’re more of a vocal band. We can base things around Brooke’s singing and our duet style and harmonies, and we want our songs to send a message out that speaks to us.”

Versatile enough to sing a Louvin Brothers song one minute and a Bryan Adams song the next, the married couple commands a musical vocabulary that nonetheless lends itself to bluegrass. Darin Aldridge co-produced the project — their first for Rounder Records and sixth overall — with Mark Fain. And on the afternoon following this interview, Brooke Aldridge picked up her third consecutive IBMA female vocalist trophy, indicating that their audience is on this journey too.

BGS: This album begins with “I Found Love,” which has a tie to Earl Scruggs, right?

Darin: It does. I listened to that on a plane ride back from somewhere in New England and I had my iPod with me and the Earl Scruggs and Friends record was on there, with Vince Gill and Rosanne Cash singing it. I just thought, “Man, that would be a good grass-up number right there for us.” It’s a pretty good tempo and a duet and it speaks to what I was just saying – about what I want to get out there, in our life and in our history, and what we want to go forward with. Then I got to looking at the writing credits and it was Earl and Randy Scruggs and our buddy Vince. That was perfect. That’s all we needed.

Brooke: It’s one of those positive songs that we set out to do a long time ago when we first started making records. We talked about how we wanted to have a positive and uplifting message in most everything that we ever recorded. Some people have told us down through the years that we weren’t going to do very well doing that kind of thing. But I think that’s not the case at all! We’ve done very well sticking true to what we love and what we believe in, in each other.

But when you hear a good heartbreak song like “Every Time You Leave,” how do you respond?

Brooke: Oh, gosh, you just realize how true those words are. Because just like “Every Time You Leave,” we’ve all been through hard relationships or hard times in our families where we’ve lost loved ones or things haven’t worked out quite the way we wanted. I think that really speaks measures to me when we’re listening to songs like that and trying to decide what’s going to affect somebody out there listening.

Darin: The harmony speaks to us as well. We got to do that song with our buddy Jimmy Fortune. We got to tour a lot with Jimmy in the last couple of years and wanted to get a good song that represented that out there on the road for our singing together, and it just comes perfectly.

I want to ask you about “Your Lone Journey.” I learned that from a Doc Watson record.

Darin: Yeah, we did, too.

Why did you choose to include that song on here?

Darin: We got to visit Doc and become friends with him through MerleFest, through him being in North Carolina. A friend of mine took me up to visit him at his house about a year before he died. We’d been featured in Bluegrass Unlimited maybe a couple months before, and Rosa Lee brought the magazine to us when we got there. She said, “I’ve been reading about you all and glad that you all are here.”

She got to telling us the story of how she wrote that song. She was just sweeping in her kitchen, wasn’t she, Brooke?

Brooke: Yeah. And I think the words just came to her. She was sweeping and her and Doc arranged it, I guess, and made it theirs. What a great-sounding song.

Darin: Yeah, we sat there with them in the living room and talked about that, and he got to talking about Merle, and when he couldn’t wait to see him in heaven with his own eyes again. It is powerful, man. We just wanted to include that and it’s got an old-timey feel to it. Brooke’s got a really good mountain voice as well. It really fits.

Brooke: What Doc and Rosa Lee had brought to the music over the years and what they mean to us — we definitely wanted to include one by them. And it was funny because Doc kept saying that a lot of people title this song, “Your Long Journey.” And he’s like, “That’s not how Rosa Lee wrote it. It’s ‘Your Lone Journey.’” We made sure to get that right on this record.

Darin, have you been playing guitar your whole life?

Darin: I started probably 12, 13, something like that.

Never put it down?

Darin: Nah, I picked up the mandolin when I was 15 or 16. My brother and his baseball buddies had a little basement band. They’d all get around — he was a drummer – and pick on rock music and stuff like that, so I slowly learned that. I’d listen to the tunes after they’d quit playing and I’d start figuring them out, so I could sit in with them. Then the next week or two, I’d learned the tunes better than they had. Then their guitar player would ask me, “How’s that really go?”

Brooke: A little Van Halen? (laughs)

Darin: Yeah, all that stuff — ‘80s hair band stuff, I was big on [that]! Then I got to singing more in church as I grew and got into a gospel band through some buddies in the marching band. They went to church somewhere and said, “You play and sing — you got a banjo?” I actually had a banjo at the time but really hadn’t learned how to play it. I was like, “Oh, yeah, I can play banjo.” So I learned real quick, just so I could be in the band and start picking and singing. And I quickly moved to the mandolin after that. One of the guys could just play in a certain amount of keys, A and D maybe.

Ricky Skaggs has always been a huge influence and I wanted to do something I saw him do on the Opry, which was a quartet with a mandolin and guitar. Since we were singing in churches a lot, I wanted to do some of that material like Bill Monroe did. I recorded [the Opry] on a VHS tape, so I went upstairs with the mandolin and watched it. This song was in G, so I sat down and figured out the notes on the mandolin. I come down there to show it to him so he could play it, because I was the guitar player in the band. He said, “No, man, you just play mandolin.” [All laugh] So I just started playing mandolin from then on.

Brooke, did you start singing when you were around 12 or 13, too?

Brooke: Probably from the time I could talk, I started singing. My mom, my sisters and I used to sing in church. As I was getting a little bit older, my parents realized at an early age that I could pick up lyrics to a song just by hearing at one time. They started putting me in singing competitions. The school system where I was, in Avery County, used to have a yearly talent show. It would start out in the elementary schools, and if you placed first, second, or third you went onto the county-wide talent show and got to showcase your talent in front of everybody.

Those kinds of things, and doing community events and competitions all throughout my childhood, really prepared me for loving this more so when I got to adulthood. And so it’s been a neat journey. After Darin and I met, I had goals and dreams, of course, just like everybody in the music business does. We still talk about how we never imagined we’d get to do some of this stuff we’ve gotten to do. It’s been really cool to see those things become reality.

What are you looking forward to the most with this record coming out?

Darin: It’s been a few years since we put one out. I think we’ve grown a lot in those two years, and everything that’s followed, with what we’ve been doing, recording, trying to say as artists. We have grown maturely, too, in our music. And I think this record reflects that.

Brooke: I think that’s why we chose the title that we did, Inner Journey, because as kids, you imagine or dream about things that you can be when you grow up. And then, when you come into adulthood, you stop and think about where you came from, and what you’ve gotten to do, and if your heart really followed that path from a child to now. And I feel like ours definitely has. It’s been our inner journey. God has put us exactly where we needed to be at that exact moment.