The cover of Darrell Scott’s latest album, Old Cane Back Rocker, immediately sets the tone for your listening experience. The inclusion of the names of the Darrell Scott String Band (Bryn Davies, Matt Flinner, and Shad Cobb) lets you know right off the bat that this recording is a band effort. The photo on the album cover gives a visual of Scott’s family roots in rural Kentucky. His cousin Dwight Messer is standing in front of his former childhood home, now abandoned on the family land. The music reflects his family’s story: some, like Dwight, stayed behind and some, like Darrell’s father, Wayne Scott, moved up North to find work. Despite being raised in the North, Darrell’s home has always felt like Kentucky and the traditional music learned from there. These songs showcase those roots.
In our conversation, Darrell digs into the darkness that can be heard in his music, even if it’s not a sad song. He talks about his friend and frequent collaborator, Tim O’Brien, and how his performance and writing has allowed Scott to level up. Darrell also speaks to leaning into emotional songwriting and trusting his tears during the creative process. He shares the emotional account of rerecording his father’s song “This Weary Way” and how he used to think Hank Williams had actually written it.
Immediately after we finished our interview, Lizzie texted me, “What a cool eccentric intellectual dude.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. This episode honestly discovers the true essence of Darrell Scott — an artist whose music resonates with the soul, rooted in the traditions of Kentucky.
For a musician that could easily play every instrument in a standard bluegrass lineup – plus dozens more – it’s remarkable that Darrell Scott put out a post-pandemic record, Old Cane Back Rocker, that decidedly features a band. A picker’s picker and a songwriter’s songwriter, Scott has in the past recorded and released albums that feature other players only sparsely, fleshed out nearly entirely by his own playing. But this time, he wanted to feature his string band.
This wasn’t a post-pandemic realization either or a discovery brought on by the existential crises of the early pandemic, when communal music seemed like a far distant memory. No, Old Cane Back Rocker was actually tracked in 2019. COVID-19 was not the impetus for this collectively-created record, but rather the pickers themselves: Bryn Davies on bass, Matt Flinner on mandolin and banjo, and Shad Cobb on fiddle each inspired this new release, its track list, and its “out of many, one” approach.
For avid fans of this hit songwriter and country music renaissance man, Old Cane Back Rocker will feel like a return of sorts, a homecoming that reminds of many shows at the Station Inn and performances at bluegrass camps and festivals around the country. But, the album is even more fascinating and engaging when contrasted with Scott’s entire catalog, which showcases a diverse and circuitous lineup of production styles, genres and musical aesthetics.
For a new edition of First & Latest, we put Scott’s latest, Old Cane Back Rocker, up against his first release, Aloha From Nashville. As it happens, there’s a recording of Scott’s Travis Tritt-recorded hit, “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” on each album, making for the perfect starting point for our phone conversation.
When you first recorded “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” in the ‘90s, did you expect it would have this longevity? Did you have a feeling you’d still be recording it and performing it or did you think it would be the hit that it’s been?
Darrell Scott: No, hits are hard to distinguish, when you just hear the song – at least for me.
I think a hit has a lot more to do with the business, to make a hit, and it’s not the songwriter. It’s everything that follows after the songwriter. It’s the label. It’s the management. It’s the business connectivity, the promotion, the radio – all that has nothing to do with the songwriter. Zero. I remember saying one time, “A hit is that thing you hear a thousand times.” Repetition has a lot to do with a hit. It’s almost obvious.
Here’s one of the ironies. That song had been recorded three other times on major labels, but was never released before Travis Tritt got it. So tell me this, since it was a hit, why would three acts lose their deal [and not make it to release] with a hit? You see what I’m talking about? What made it a hit was the business machine that makes hits. A song is written by a songwriter. But a hit is made by the powers that be, after the fact.
In my case with that song, I had hurt my back, so I had to be on my back for a week. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t go to sessions. I had to cancel my entire week so that I could lie on the floor, because I couldn’t do nothing else. Honestly, I couldn’t even sit up. After 6 or 7 days when I could [finally] sit up, I was literally just heating rice in a microwave – and considering making soup. Just sitting at the table, which I hadn’t done all week. It was the most blessed thing to do such simple things. And that’s where the song came from.
I wonder what made you want to do another version of that song this time around, with a string band? Because this is a song you’ve recorded and put out in quite a few manifestations.
DS: There’s one really simple answer for that. We recorded this album in August of 2019. In September of 2019, I’d heard two or three months in advance that a cornfield, a corn maze – like those pumpkin farms and apple pickings and that style of thing. There’s one north of Nashville that I heard was going to put my image in their corn maze. They cut my image and then the words, “It’s a great day to be alive” in their corn maze.
I thought, you know what? That, I can’t pass that one up. We’re going to have to make a video of that, and of us doing that song, rather than just lip-syncing to the one from ‘95 – which is actually when I recorded it. Wait, maybe even ‘94, but somewhere way back there. Instead of using that track, it was like, “Hey, I’m recording a string band album. I’m just going to put this in the string band’s hands and we’ll throw it down.”
I think we premiered that video back in the day! Well, the song certainly does beg the question: Does “a great day to be alive” look the same to you now as it did back then? Or, what does “a great day to be alive” look like to you now?
DS: Man, anything that makes you grateful, is a great day to be alive.
If you look at that song, there’s two things I notice in that song. First of all, the things that this person is grateful for are simple things like rice in a microwave, making some soup. They’re pondering, “Hey, I know it’s hard out there in the world, but today’s a good day, and tomorrow may not be.”
It’s just taking that moment, when you realize, “Hey, it is a great day to be alive. I am glad to be alive.” There’s no shame in saying such a thing. And that’s still the case. You know, that wasn’t just in 1994 or ‘95 or ‘97. Any day that you can feel that way is a great day.
You have this uncanny ability to take your listeners into a small, tiny moment like that, a split second moment of gratitude or of grief or of just big feelings and turn it into this whole big song. And what I’m thinking of now is “Inauguration Day” / “The World Is Too Much With Me.” And I’m so glad that ended up on the new record, because I went back to that Facebook video of that song, dozens of times after I first saw it.
DS: I’ve alluded to it so far in our talk, but songs have a life of their own, and they have a timing of their own, and they don’t have a shelf life or preservatives. You know, almost anything’ll start showing mold in about three to four days here in Tennessee. And songs don’t have that kind of shortness.
I try to gravitate towards songs. On a good day or night, to have a song that’s timeless is the goal for me. One that doesn’t just burn out in the second listening or in three months or something like that. That’s what I try to go for. I’m trying to see a bigger picture than, “So-and-so will like this song” while I’m writing it. “Oh, my publisher will like this” or, “I’m going to pitch this to so-and-so.” If you’re thinking that while writing a song, you just sold the song down the river. You don’t have that song any longer, you have a commodity.
I’m not a commodities writer, I’m a songwriter. From an experiential point of view. So, “Inauguration Day” is simply how I felt on inauguration day.
Well, and I felt myself returning to that song over and over. Even though it’s a very specific and very topical song, the repeated line, “The world is too much with me, too much today,” it just feels like such a mantra.
DS: Right? Because some could feel the same way about– uh-oh, I’m blanking on the current president… Biden! But see, some people could feel that about any inauguration day, the day that Biden got in or the day any other president got in and that’s fine. But I absolutely wrote it on Trump’s inauguration day. I couldn’t do anything else, to tell you the truth. The world was too much with me that day. All I could do was I escaped over to my dad’s cabin. I have my dad’s Kentucky cabin here on my Tennessee property, and that’s where I went. I just crawled into a hole, pretty much, but inside the cabin was a five-string guitar that’s supposed to have six. I just played it with a bar, like a Dobro thing.
I came back to the house where there was a signal [to record the video] and there was wind in the microphone and all sorts of unprofessional things. But I then recorded that song within five minutes of being back at the house, having just written the song. That’s what I do. I follow my inclination. There again, I’m not writing a hit. I’m writing from a reaction in that case, just like “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” was a reaction to seven days of lying on a concrete floor.
It’s not my only skillset, but it shows up [in songs] like that. I’m just writing out of a need to write. I need to write. On inauguration day, I had to. I couldn’t do anything else, so I did that and that’s how it felt. It felt like the world was too much with me.
So the other two First & Latest tracks we’re here to talk about are “Title of the Song” from Aloha From Nashville and “Fried Taters” from Old Cane Back Rocker. I feel like the through line here is pretty obvious, the sense of humor that you have in your songwriting and in your music making.
DS: Right, because that’s another part [of my writing,] I do have a humorous side. I have a sarcastic side. I have a pointed, jabby way of observation, because – here’s what’s at the top of the page, above “songwriter” or “musician” and “singer” is observer. I’m first and foremost an observer. Part of that observation is being comedic or pathetic.
That whole first album of mine, Aloha From Nashville, “aloha” means hello and it means goodbye. I wasn’t sure which it was going to be, it being my first record I put out in Nashville. I took a lot of pot-shots at Nashville and the music industry within that album, and that’s why I called it Aloha From Nashville.
“Title of the Song,” it’s just a comedic song that’s so true that it’s almost doesn’t need to be said, except I went ahead and said it, you know? Writing a song about writing a title for a song, we all know the formula. It’s poking fun at that situation. The comedy is there, in both the writing and the production.
The reason I put comedy on this last record with “Fried Taters,” is it’s the same humor, it’s the same comedy. This one’s an instrumental, but I have a voiceover thing going on that’s making the snide commentary, that is kinda the same commentary as 1994 or ‘95, with “Title of the Song.” On “Fried Taters” it’s literally the words of a famous musician in jazz who really put down country music, audibly and frequently. Those are literal quotes from that person. I littered them throughout our little instrumental, to have that attitude.
Was that a tune by you? Did the melody come from you? Was that a band tune?
DS: I had the progression, that I wrote. Matt Flinner is such a great composer, who plays the mandolin and banjo in this group, he has so many records and compositions. He’s an educator, he teaches. He’s just a marvel as a composer. I knew that I could just flip [the chord progression] over to Matt. It had an A section and a B section, but that was about it. So he’s the one who put the melody to it. It’s a co write, but we never sat together with it. I did the chords and sent it off to him and he sent me back the melody and we were ready to record it.
I definitely appreciate you, more than almost anybody else, getting Matt Flinner to play banjo. He is so good on banjo.
DS: Yeah, he’s such a great banjo player and I’m so pleased that he plays it for me. I think probably, the only other time that he played banjo was in Leftover Salmon. Matt Flinner is such a great banjo player and many of us know this about him. I’m so lucky I get him to play banjo on every single gig, I mean, he may be on banjo more than he is on mandolin on our gigs. He’s a fabulous banjo player. I play banjo, too, but I know what a really great banjo player is. Matt’s got the composer ability. He’s got the band leader ability. He’s got the sideman ability, obviously the mandolin and the educator ability, but then he gets in there and and plays banjo that well.
What a lot of people think of first when they think of you is like, a one man band or that you’re a multi-instrumentalist or utility player, but clearly it was so important for you to have a band with you on this album. Why did you intentionally want to make this a collective work, rather than just hiring a band to back you up or playing it all yourself?
DS: Yeah, well, because I wanted this to be a band. I’ve played with these guys now for eight or 10 years. I don’t even know. Anytime a festival wanted me to have, in essence, a bluegrass band or bluegrass instrumentation, these are the very people I’d take. Every single one of them. We did a Live at Station Inn album and it’s the same people. If RockyGrass hired me, or Grand Targhee, or MerleFest, or something like that, this is who I would bring. But we’d never made a studio album. So I knew I had to do that.
Then the other part of it, I wanted it to be a band, but not just in the instrumentation. I want Matt to bring in a tune. I want Shad [Cobb] to bring in a tune. I want participation. I want everybody to sing harmonies, every chance we get. I very mindfully made this a band record – sound, input of songs, and stuff – because I know how to put together a solo album and all that. I’ve done it. I wanted this to be this band, because I know their abilities beyond just being sidemen.
I think bluegrass fans know that you’re a picker’s picker. But sometimes your albums, they’re so song-centered that that fact can fall to the wayside, despite the fact that you’re always improvising and using that vocabulary. So with this album and having the band right in the title, it felt like a return in some ways.
DS: Well, that’s what I wanted and why I wanted to do it with these people, it has everything to do with these exact people.
Here’s one of those ironies of our town or this music. So you what’s supposedly called a “sideman” like Shad Cobb, but Shad can lead his own band. He’s got boxes and boxes of songs and tunes. Matt Flinner has cases of songs and tunes. He used to tour with his trio and they would write a song per day, each of them. And that night they’d perform it!
This is what I’m talking about. These people, they do stuff like that. Where’s the hit making in that, you see what I mean? Just going back to that silly idea that the hit is everything. No, driving 300 miles and having a new tune that night times three people in the band, that’s news to me! Not what’s number one this week.
Ethan Setiawan knows the importance of a good pick. The Portland, Maine-based mandolin player has lately been experimenting with changing the entire sound of his instrument through one tiny, flat piece, pinched between his fingers. The material, girth, texture, and weight of his pick all play a crucial role in how his mandolin sounds, sometimes bright and plucky, or dark and full-bodied. “It’s good to have a sound and have gear that you like, but often the thing that helps me be more creative is just being able to change it up,” he says. “Change is helpful for your own growth and can really spark new ideas or keep things fresh.”
On his new record, Gambit, he finds himself somewhere in between, which is fitting given the way he fuses his entire musical background to create something completely new. It isn’t jazz, but it’s not not jazz. It’s bluegrass, but not in the traditional sense. It’s funk, but also old-timey.
The Berklee College of Music grad could easily fool you into thinking he’s much older than his years. A seasoned bandmate to some of bluegrass music’s finest — including Gambit producer Darol Anger, whom he first met as a high school student — Setiawan is beginning to carve out space for his own songwriting. Written in Boston, workshopped in California, recorded in Maine, and then mixed in Nashville, Gambit, as its title suggests, is a joyful mixed bag of the many styles of music that have shaped him into one of the most formidable mandolinists of his generation.
BGS: Darol Anger produced this record, and though you had been playing together for some time, this was your first experience working with each other in this capacity. What led to this partnership?
Ethan Setiawan: We’ve played a bunch of gigs over the years, and it just felt like a good next thing to do was to make a record with him. And he was on board thankfully. We had plans to [record] in August 2020, and then the pandemic started to happen, and it became apparent that wasn’t going to work. So eventually I did make this big road trip out to California where Darol was living at the time, and we had these really nice couple weeks out there, working through the material, just me and Darol kind of playing through the stuff, trying to solidify arrangements and get ideas down on paper to go into the studio with. And eventually in October, we made it into a studio, the Great North Sound Society Studio in Parsonsfield, Maine. We had this four-day session and worked probably 12 to 14 hours a day, every day. And sometimes sessions like those feel like work, you feel tired and drained after a day. But at least for me, those sessions felt really fun, really good. Part of that was not having played music with a band before that time for six months or whatever, and it was cool for me to see these tunes come together, and just working with Darol and seeing how he functioned in the studio. He put in the longest hours of everybody. He was up until 3:00 every night, replacing fiddle parts and working on everything.
The tunes on Gambit are all originals, but there’s so much tradition rooted in these styles of music you’re playing. How do you reconcile that when trying to create your own compositions?
I do a lot of that, pulling from past traditions or old recordings. A lot of the compositional ideas and things that remain the same throughout the record are tunes by people like Matt Flinner and Béla Fleck, other people that have kind of pushed the envelope compositionally. On the record there’s kind of a whole, well, gambit of different styles. There’s old-timey music with fiddle and banjo, Appalachian string band [style] — and kind of in chronological order, I guess the influences would start there. Then you’d move into bluegrass, get into jazz and eventually fusion, funk, that kind of thing. Darol actually summed it up nicely. He was in the David Grisman quartet way back in the day, so he kind of had a hand in forming this style of music. He said something along the lines of, it felt like a journey through the past 40 years of his career. It just ended up this way that all these tunes grabbed from different areas of the past 40 years. The old-timey, the bluegrass, the sort of new acoustic, the jazz. And hopefully by merit of them being my tunes, they kind of hold together as a collection at the end of the day.
How much of creating an original arrangement is improvisational?
For me, there’s always a lot of throwing paint at the wall. There’s a stage that kinda looks like that, where I write a lot of tunes or even just generate a lot of ideas, not even taking the tunes to a completed state. The way I write is kind of two stages: there’s the melody and there’s the harmony, these two sides of the composition. Basically, I write the melody and I try all different combinations of notes and phrase endings. With chords, I’m always trying different stuff. That does a lot to create a mood, I think, for the tune. For any one note, you could harmonize in many different ways, and for any one bar. So I think the important thing for me is just to try all the options, really try to be objective, and see what works the best and what feels the best. Mandolin is the main thing that I play, but I also play some guitar and some cello. So just getting off the instrument I’m most familiar with and getting onto something else can be really helpful in sparking some creativity.
Given this wide range of styles of music you’ve played over the years, how do you describe your sound now?
I’d say that it’s sort of a furthering of the stuff that Darol’s been really involved in, this new acoustic sound. Which is not a label I totally love—just the sound of it—but it’s kinda what we got, I guess. It’s using the attitude of bluegrass in a lot of ways, but not being confined to the stylistic trappings of bluegrass if that makes sense. If you think about how Bill Monroe created bluegrass, he’s kind of the guy that finally took all these influences and put ‘em together and said, ‘here’s the thing.’ He wasn’t even trying to be original; he just was being original. He was just taking all the music that he liked and synthesizing it into what he wanted to hear. And that isn’t often actually the attitude of bluegrass musicians today, but it’s an interesting concept to me and a really interesting way to sort of look at music. So that’s the essence of bluegrass that I’m trying to go after.
How has your relationship with bluegrass evolved since your earliest experience with it?
I think bluegrass is kind of the underpinning of everything that I do, even if it’s not at the forefront of the final product. When I started playing mandolin, I started playing these old-time fiddle tunes, which pretty quickly brought me to bluegrass. When we’re talking about progressions, that is kind of the natural next step for somebody who’s interested in the tunes and the music and improvising especially. You’ll get drawn to bluegrass and then eventually to jazz and so on. That bluegrass vocabulary on the mandolin is really the basis of most of my writing and my playing. And I think that comes through on the record almost more in the way that we approach the tunes and treat how we play the tunes more than the compositions themselves. There are a couple tunes that are a little more bluegrass, but they’re always a little weird. There’s always something a little funky about them. It’s sort of the attitude of the thing that I think has stuck with me the most.
Artist:Ethan Setiawan Hometown: Goshen, Indiana; now Portland, Maine Song: “Uncrossed” Album:Gambit Release Date: March 31, 2023 Label: Adhyâropa Records
In Their Words: “‘Uncrossed’ is my attempt at writing a somewhat friendly fiddle tune. It came out of my experience creating my first record, Flux. It sums up most of what was going on in my head in 2017. I can look at most of those tunes and point you back to a Matt Flinner tune or a Béla Fleck tune that I drew inspiration from, but it feels more like a school project to me, something that I set out to do with a specific goal in mind, whereas Gambit feels more like my own artistic statement. What I love about the album is that the sum of it is greater than its parts. It starts with an introductory meditation, and it moves through a Swedish tune, a real jammy number, some more jazz, and new age-influenced pieces, as well as the old-time and bluegrass elements. It’s not one thing, it’s a whole record.” — Ethan Setiawan
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.
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.
Artist:Matt Flinner Hometown: Pueblo, CO Latest Album: Traveling Roots Personal Nicknames: For a while when I was growing up, my nickname was "Bob" (my dad's name). In England, where I am right now, it's "Simon" (from a Mike Myers character on Saturday Night Live). I call Ross Martin, our guitar player, "Pollock," and Eric Thorin, our bassist, "Francis Bacon" … for reasons that are maybe best left out of this article.
What was the first record you ever bought with your own money? A 45 of Steve Martin's "King Tut" when I was about seven years old. I loved that record! I had nothing to do with the banjo or bluegrass at that point (and neither did that record), but when, years later, I played on Steve Martin's The Crow album, I thought it was sort of bringing things around full circle.
How many unread emails or texts currently fill your inbox? 3,792
If your life were a movie, which songs would be on the soundtrack? I think this changes constantly, but the low D-string on a banjo played over and over again would be my underlying soundtrack. To me, it's sort of a cosmic note that brings well-being to myself and the world around me.
What brand of jeans do you wear? Levi's
What's your go-to karaoke tune? "The Chicken Dance"
If you were a liquor, what would you be? Akvavit
Poehler or Schumer? Schumer (You mean Chuck, right?)
Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate
Blues or bluegrass? Bluegrass — especially bluesy bluegrass
Photos one and three by Mark Woodland and Mike McGrath, respectively, courtesy of the artist.
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