Dierks Bentley Shines with Sierra Hull, Molly Tuttle, and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes on CMA Awards

A big night for country music ended up being a big night for bluegrass as well when Sierra Hull, Molly Tuttle, and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes joined country star Dierks Bentley on the CMA Awards stage for a show-stopping performance. The quartet, backed by Bentley’s band (including the evening’s winner of Musician of the Year, Charlie Worsham) played a rousing rendition of Tom Petty’s “American Girl,” a huge single for Bentley this year from the compilation album, Petty Country.

Bentley has released plenty of ‘grassy and string band tracks across his career, especially on his 2010 album Up on the Ridge, and he is close friends with many bluegrass musicians and legends. He used to haunt the World Famous Station Inn in Nashville well before his fame and recognition – and well after, too. He’s even gifted commemorative hit records to the bar (which still hang on the walls today) and he’s appeared at the divey listening room dozens of times. He’s also a friend of the McCoury family and has collaborated with Del and sons on multiple occasions. In addition, he’s brought Tuttle and her band Golden Highway out on the road as an opening act repeatedly, and he guested on Keith-Hynes’ now GRAMMY-nominated album, I Built a World.

Tuttle even shared an image to social media from a past MerleFest where Bentley can be seen braving the North Carolina rain to catch her band’s mainstage set in the very front row of the VIP section. It’s no surprise that he would tap Hull, Tuttle, and Keith-Hynes for the CMA Awards, even if the context feels a bit out-of-left-field for diehard bluegrassers.

“American Girl” was truly a highlight of the star-studded awards show, which despite more than a few perceived flubs and snubs highlighted plenty of Good Country, Americana, roots music – and yes, bluegrass! Here’s to plenty more primetime television moments in the future highlighting incredible bluegrass pickers such as these.


 

Doc Watson’s Musical Legacy Still Inspires

Doc Watson has been gone for more than a decade, and yet his music and legacy remain more alive and relevant than ever. And thanks to the ongoing MerleFest, which brings a wide-ranging cast from the Americana world to Doc’s North Carolina stomping grounds every April, that’s not going to change anytime soon. We consider the enduring impact of Doc through conversations with some of those who bear his stamp, including Gillian Welch and Jerry Douglas, in this special episode of Carolina Calling.

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Subscribe to Carolina Calling on any and all podcast platforms to follow along as we journey across the Old North State, visiting towns like Durham, Asheville, Shelby, Greensboro, and more.


Music featured in this episode:

Doc Watson – “Sittin’ on Top of the World”
Doc & Merle Watson – “Jimmy’s Texas Blues”
Gillian Welch – “Everything Is Free”
Andrew Marlin – “Erie Fidler”
Doc Watson – “Tom Dooley”
Doc & Merle Watson – “Sheeps In The Meadow / Stoney Fork”
Doc & Merle Watson – “Poor Boy Blues”
Doc Watson – “And Am I Born to Die”
Doc Watson – “My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains”
Jerry Douglas – “A New Day Medley”
Doc Watson – “The Last Thing On My Mind”


Photo of Doc Watson courtesy of MerleFest

WATCH: Jim Lauderdale & the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, “Drop the Hammer Down”

Artist: Jim Lauderdale and The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys
Song: “Drop the Hammer Down”
Album: The Long and Lonesome Letting Go
Release Date: September 15, 2023
Label: Sky Crunch

In Their Words: “The first place I heard The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys and got to sit in with them was at MerleFest a few years back.  Now we have come full circle with an album together and a song that Josh Rinkel and I wrote called ‘Drop the Hammer Down.’ Here is the first time we performed it, last spring at MerleFest.” – Jim Lauderdale


Photo Credit: Jim Lauderdale by Scott Simontacchi; the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys by Amy Richmond.

Young Mandolinist Wyatt Ellis Collaborates with Sierra Hull

At only 14 years old, mandolinist Wyatt Ellis is a sight to behold in the official music video for “Grassy Cove.” The tune was co-written with the superbly talented Sierra Hull and recorded as part of a larger project that’s coming out at a later date. “Grassy Cove” came about after Ellis completed a Tennessee Folklife apprenticeship with Hull. Its music video was filmed at the Station Inn in Nashville, TN – with Cory Walker on banjo, Deanie Richardson on fiddle, Justin Moses on guitar, and Mike Bub on bass – and debuted only days ago.

Ellis made his Grand Ole Opry debut at just 13 years old. He also performed at MerleFest this year and has nearly 100,000 followers on social media across his combined pages, so keep your eyes on this rising star!


 

Doc Watson at 100: His Influence Lives On Through MerleFest, New Tribute Album

This year’s MerleFest, slated for April 27-30 at Wilkes Community College in Doc Watson’s old North Carolina stomping grounds, falls during what would have been the great man’s centennial year. Watson was born 100 years ago this past March in the tiny crossroads of Deep Gap, where he resided for his entire life. But even though Watson himself has been gone for more than a decade, since his passing in May of 2012, his presence is still very much felt at the festival he launched in memory of his late son Merle Watson way back in 1988.

“The first MerleFest I went back to after Doc’s passing, he was bigger than life to me,” says legendary resonator guitarist Jerry Douglas, a MerleFest perennial who has played there almost every year and is on this year’s schedule as well. “Everywhere I looked, I saw Doc in some way and I heard him onstage all the time. He was just ever-present. Not seeing and hearing him made me really want to see and hear him again. Him not being there is still a huge hole for me. It hurts. But even if he’s not there physically, he’s there spiritually. I think the festival survives and is what it is because of Doc Watson, not because of who comes to play there.”

If MerleFest’s ongoing popularity remains the most visible manifestation of Doc Watson’s enduring influence, it is far from the only one. Watson was blind from the age of 1 and became a professional musician for the most practical of reasons, that it was one of the few ways he could make a living. And being sightless hardly slowed Watson down at all. Discovered by folklorist Ralph Rinzler in the waning years of America’s pre-Beatlemania folk revival, Watson was a flat-picking guitarist of such speed and precision that he remains a major touchstone to this day. From Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings on down, just about every notable guitar player in the contemporary folk and bluegrass cosmos still bears his stamp as a touchstone.

“Doc led the way,” says Douglas. “He plowed the ground, sewed the seeds and he’s responsible for all the guitar players out there now playing Tony Rice-style guitar. Doc is the acoustic guitar star.”

But Doc’s far-ranging influence goes well beyond just folk and bluegrass. Exhibit A to that effect would be I Am a Pilgrim: Doc Watson at 100 (FLi Records/Budde Music), a multi-artist tribute compilation released around the time of Watson’s birthday last month. I Am a Pilgrim has contributions from a lot of the artists you’d expect covering songs associated with Watson, starting with Douglas in the first-track pole position with “Shady Grove.” Also present are Dolly Parton with the Tom Paxton composition “The Last Thing on My Mind,” Steve Earle rambling through Mississippi John Hurt’s “Make Me a Pallet,” Rosanne Cash singing a lovely version of the title track, Watson’s longtime accompanist Jack Lawrence picking “Florida Blues” and Punch Brothers guitarist Chris Eldridge giving “Little Sadie” a soulful turn.

The album includes a fair amount of less likely contributors, too, including the American bluesman Corey Harris, West African guitarist Lionel Loueke, Tom Waits sideman Marc Ribot and electric slide guitarist Ariel Posen. The latter gives the old standard “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” a sacred steel feel that would be perfect for the Sunday morning gospel set that Watson used to lead at MerleFest every year.

Perhaps no musician’s presence on I Am a Pilgrim is more unexpected than Bill Frisell, a guitarist primarily known for an avant garde strain of atmospheric jazz. John Zorn is one of his regular longtime collaborators, and Frisell never met or played with Watson. But even though he himself admits he’s not the first musician you’d think of in regards to Watson, Frisell makes for an intriguing wild card on this album, the lone artist appearing on multiple tracks. He accompanies the Tennessee singer/songwriter Valerie June on “Handsome Molly,” adding some six-string sonic fairy dust to the arrangement. And he closes the album with a lovely solo instrumental rendition of the Doc/Rosa Lee Watson co-write, “Your Lone Journey.”

“For me, Doc Watson has been important even though there’s quite a few steps removed from him to me,” says Frisell. “He had extraordinary command and technique. But what attracted me the most was his spirit and the feeling that it came from such a deep, spiritual place. I’m inspired by people who find their own way. He’s the root of the tree and invented this whole world, took what was around him and made it his own. People I look up to – Thelonious Monk, John Cage, Bach, Doc Watson – somehow look through a different lens, find things the rest of us don’t see and show it to us with clarity. It inspires you to try to do something good, too.”

Almost as important as how Watson played guitar was the way he carried himself in his interactions with others, offstage as well as on. Pretty much everybody who knew Watson still sings his praises as someone who had exactly the right attitude about all the hosannas that came his way over the years. Winning seven Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts and countless other awards did not seem to change his outlook one bit. When the town of Boone commissioned a sculpture of Watson toward the end of his life, the only way he agreed to cooperate was if the city called it “Just one of the people.” It occupies a bench on King Street in Boone, near where Watson began his career busking for change.

“Doc was a humble man,” says B. Townes, Watson’s MerleFest co-founder. “He never met a stranger and, in his own words, he was not a star, just a person. Not only was he the legendary award-winning flatpicking guitarist, he had a warm welcoming way with people, no matter who you were. To me, he was a father type. He was my ears to the music. I guess I was his eyes to what a festival might be. Doc’s spirit is certainly still with us at every MerleFest. So many artists when they’re onstage will bring up memories of Doc. That helps keep the spirit alive.”

 

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MerleFest has always been billed as “traditional plus,” meaning traditional music plus every other style Watson was interested in – everything, in other words. This year’s lineup offers the usual impeccable mix of old and new artists bearing his stamp, from Country Music Hall of Famer Tanya Tucker to modern-day hitmaker Maren Morris. There’s also classic rock with Little Feat and Chris Robinson’s Brothers of a Feather, and the classically influenced bluegrass of Kruger Brothers. Along with latterday keepers of the flame Josh Goforth and Presley Barker, MerleFest 2023 has the return of the Avett Brothers, who launched their career at the festival in 2004. And most all the usual suspects will be there, too, regulars like Sam Bush, Peter Rowan, Roy Book Binder and Douglas.

“MerleFest is the first place we all gather every year,” says Douglas. “It’s in the right place at the right time – in North Carolina, the cradle of bluegrass civilization as we know it. Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Don Reno, Bobby Hicks, all these great musicians who drank the water and became great musicians because of where they came from.”


Top photo courtesy of the Doc Watson Archive. Pictured (L-R) Stuart Duncan, Bela Fleck, David Grisman, Jerry Douglas, Jack Lawrence, and Doc Watson

MIXTAPE: Doug Paisley’s Merle Watson Memorial Festival 1994 Playlist

It’s terrifying to imagine now that when I was 18 I got in a station wagon with six other teenagers and drove 12 hours from Toronto to Wilkesboro, North Carolina, to the Merle Watson Memorial Festival. Terrifying because I don’t think any of us had much driving experience, money or sense. I had a big crush on one of the other passengers and would have gotten into the car whichever festival it was going to, but now when I look at the lineup for that year (1994), I’m glad we made it. Over the weekend that crush turned into a romance that lasted for what amounts to a lifetime at age 18, so most of my memories are not of the performers I was listening to who came to dominate my ears for years to come. But the moon-eyed haze I was floating around in tied up my first experience of bluegrass with all the intensity and longing of love and the freedom and excitement of traveling.

I like that bluegrass means such different things to its adherents, but that they all feel it strongly. It can be an exercise in authenticity, an article of faith, a technical jungle gym and an emblem of a time and place in history. It’s a genre that’s small and quirky enough that some people feel they can inhabit, protect and partly own it. Now it’s so embedded in my musical history that I don’t know if I can speak about it intelligibly with anyone who doesn’t already love it as much as I do. Here are some of my favourite songs by some of the artists that were playing at the Merle Watson Memorial Festival in 1994. — Doug Paisley

Alison Krauss – “Endless Highway”

I’m deeply attached to this album and feel that it’s some of the most emotional bluegrass singing. I also love Jeff White’s guitar playing.

Tony Rice – “Walls”

Tony Rice more than anyone else is the reason I am a guitar player and a musician. His many layers of musicality and his broader interests from modern acoustic instrumental music to restoring Accutron watches to his appearance on stage to his insights and comments in interviews make him a fascinating character. I’m so grateful for his time on earth.

Seldom Scene – “Wait a Minute”

When I began to play bluegrass, the high-water mark of what a bluegrass group could be was for me the Seldom Scene. They were such an assemblage of distinct characters. John Starling and John Duffey are two of my favourite singers.

Iris DeMent – “Our Town”

In my daily life I can connect to so much feeling in Iris DeMent’s music, but if I’m going through a hard time I think I’d approach it very carefully because it’s just so powerful.

Peter Rowan – “Moonshiner”

The myriad permutations of Peter Rowan’s music are mind-boggling. On my record shelf he’s the Zelig of great acoustic music.

Emmylou Harris – “Before Believing”

Aside from all the great and probably familiar things we can say about Emmylou Harris, I love her forays into more traditional music — especially on “Roses in the Snow” with Tony Rice on guitar.

Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys – “Sweet Thing” (The Stanley Brothers)

I realize this may not be a landmark tune for the Stanley Brothers, but it always sticks with me and I also love George Shuffler’s guitar playing.

JD Crowe & The New South – “Tennessee Blues”

Once I had finally recovered from the New South lineup with Tony Rice, I then discovered that there was a whole other set of tunes with Keith Whitley on vocals, and my head just about exploded.

Claire Lynch – “Second Wind”

Such a beautiful singer. I heard from dobro player Don Rooke that Claire Lynch may be living up in our neck of the woods now. I hope I get a chance to see her play here.

Tony Rice – “Shadows”

I discovered Gordon Lightfoot’s songs through Tony Rice. He brings out all the power and sadness in this tune.

Doc Watson – “Winter’s Night”

Although I’ve listened to Doc Watson all along I never tried to emulate or learn from his guitar playing the way I did Tony Rice or Norman Blake. There’s something inscrutable and compelling about it for me, and I’d rather take in his music not as a guitar player, but purely as a listener.


Photo Credit: Dave Gillespie

Artist of the Month: Amythyst Kiah

Amythyst Kiah is having a moment with Wary + Strange, an album that positions her among today’s most compelling singer-songwriters. Although she is an East Tennessee native, her personal lyrics somehow feel universal — this isn’t an album about rivers and mountains, but instead touches on identity (“Black Myself”), grief (“Wild Turkey”), and unsolicited advice (“Soapbox”). Written from a place of questioning and reckoning, a gently-played song like “Firewater” would satisfy anyone who enjoys an acoustic aesthetic, as well as those who draw confidence from the music of others.

“A lot of these songs come from a moment in my 20s when I was grappling with trauma while also trying to navigate the experience of being a Black and LGBT woman in a white suburban area in a Bible Belt town,” says Kiah, who moved to Johnson City after growing up in Chattanooga. “I’ve had moments of feeling othered in certain aspects of my life, and it took me a long time to figure out who I wanted to be and how to move through this world.”

With that perspective and a guitar in hand, she’s been sharing her music on stages ranging from the Grand Ole Opry to Newport Folk Festival to Jimmy Kimmel Live, where she performed “Black Myself.”

Upon announcing the record, she noted, “‘Black Myself’ is the first song I’ve written that was confrontational. I’d always made it a point to sing songs that anybody could relate to, but this was something that had been welling up inside me for a long time, and working with three other Black women in Our Native Daughters put me in the position where I finally had the courage to put those words out. The reception of the song so far has given me hope that there are people out there who are ready to confront the shared trauma of racism, to look within ourselves and see how we might be perpetuating racist beliefs, and to do what is needed to create equality for all people.”

Next month, Kiah (pronounced “KEE-uh”) is in the running in multiple categories for the Americana Music Honors & Awards. (As a solo artist, she’ll compete for Emerging Act of the Year, while “Black Myself” is up for Song of the Year. Our Native Daughters is also up for Duo/Group of the Year.) With this incredible career momentum, she’s criss-crossing the country in the months ahead: After a gig with Brandi Carlile and Sheryl Crow at the Gorge in Washington, she’ll be everywhere from Maine to Mexico, with a MerleFest gig in the mix too. Enjoy new music and some crowd favorites in our BGS Essentials Playlist with Amythyst Kiah below. And don’t miss our two-part Artist of the Month interview. Read part one here. Read part two here.


Photo credit: Sandlin Gaither

Artist of the Month: Steep Canyon Rangers

In a state with no shortage of bluegrass bands, North Carolina’s Steep Canyon Rangers have always set themselves apart with compelling songwriting and a camaraderie that feels authentic, whether they’re up on stage headlining Merlefest or at a performing arts center supporting Steve Martin. (The band shared IBMA Entertainer off the Year honors with Martin in 2011.) These guys have integrity, sure, but they also have an adventurous spirit, a subtle sense of humor, and a keen perspective that reflects where they are in life.

On their upcoming album, Arm in Arm, bluegrass fans will find a lot to like, but so will those listeners who pay attention to songwriting. It happens to be the first time they’ve recorded an album outside of North Carolina, opting to work at Southern Ground studio in Nashville, and to produce the album with Brandon Bell. Some of the sonic textures may sound different, but the emotions in their music remain intact.

“We’re not trying to sound like a style or genre,” says Graham Sharp, the band’s banjo player, frequent songwriter, and occasional lead singer. “We’re not trying to fit into a certain mold. For a long time, we were a traditional bluegrass band, and that meant the themes would have to fit into that mold: work songs, heartbreak songs, train songs. But we’ve evolved to play any groove, any style, and it has opened us up to so many more possibilities.”

BGS will spotlight Steep Canyon Rangers as our Artist of the Month with back-to-back interviews with two of its founding band members, Woody Platt and Graham Sharp, conducted by noted North Carolina author and journalist David Menconi. (Read part one with Woody Platt here. Read part two with Graham Sharp here.) Arm in Arm arrives on October 16, but we’ve include a few of its early tracks below in our BGS Essentials Playlist for Steep Canyon Rangers.


Photo credit: David Simchock

Doc Watson: Live Moments and Memories

While the late great Arthel “Doc” Watson released scores of albums over the course of his career, he only made the main Billboard charts once and peaked at a modest 193 (for his 1975 album, Memories). But Watson made a far bigger mark as a performer, often in some unusual settings — from the most prestigious concert stages down to humble living rooms.

Even though Watson wasn’t a huge record seller, few artists in the history of American music ever generated more transcendent moments. He remains revered as one of the best flatpick guitarists of all time, and MerleFest (the festival he founded in memory of his late son) stands as an essential acoustic-music event.

Here are some of Watson’s signature moments of performance, captured for the ages. (Listen to the playlist below.)

“Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms” – The Three Pickers: Earl Scruggs/Doc Watson/Ricky Skaggs, 2003

We begin with a collaboration between Watson and his fellow North Carolina legend, master of the bluegrass banjo Earl Scruggs, with the old Flatt & Scruggs warhorse “Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms” — the closing track from the live album they recorded together in Winston-Salem in 2002. The picking is as hot as you’d expect, especially on this track where Ricky Skaggs urges a solo by calling out, “Try one, Doc!” He gets gone.

“Railroad Bill” – Legacy, 2002

Legacy was the Grammy-winning retrospective album Watson made with his longtime, late-period accompanist David Holt, with songs and stories going all the way back to his earliest days playing music. The package includes a live show recorded in Asheville, North Carolina in 2001, with one of his best-ever versions of the Etta Baker Piedmont blues classic “Railroad Bill.” Watson could indeed play about as fast as a runaway train, and this features some of his swiftest guitar runs ever captured.

“Corrina” – Doc Watson and Gaither Carlton, 2020

Watson’s newest release is this live recording of some of his earliest shows in New York City, 1962 in Greenwich Village, when he was one of the rising stars of the budding folk revival. Watson performs here with his father-in-law, the renowned old-time fiddler Gaither Carlton. But what’s really notable is that Watson is playing banjo in the old style rather than guitar. It turns out he was almost as formidable on five strings as six.

“Tennessee Stud” – Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken, 1972

This Americana landmark captured a revolutionary moment, an intergenerational, country-rock summit with the Dirt Band on one side and the country/folk/bluegrass establishment on the other. And it wasn’t live onstage, but live in the studio, with the tape machine left running to record between-song conversations. That captured some of Watson’s priceless homespun pearls (“That’s a horse’s foot in the gravel, man, that ain’t a train!”), as well as what stands as his definitive recording of this stately, well-worn standard. “Tennessee Stud” made Watson a star all over again to yet another generation of roots-music enthusiasts.

“I Am a Pilgrim” – Doc Watson on Stage, featuring Merle Watson, 1971

Watson had many fine accompanists over the years, but none better than his son Merle, who was always on Doc’s wavelength. Ever modest, Doc always claimed that Merle was the better player. He was, of course, wrong about that, but Merle was a great picker in his own right. Recorded live at Cornell University, this is an excellent version of the old spiritual that also appeared on Circle. “I Am a Pilgrim” would remain an evolving onstage set piece for Doc over the years. After Merle’s tragic death in 1985, Doc would customize the lyrics in performance: “I’ve got a mother, a sister and a brother and a son, they done gone on to that other shore.”

“Blue Smoke” – Doc Watson at Gerdes Folk City, 2001

Another track drawn from one of Watson’s early-period excursions up to New York City, this was recorded during 1962-63 engagements at the legendary Gerdes Folk City nightclub. And this cover of the instrumental by Merle Travis (for whom Doc named his son) is aptly named. When he really got to cooking, Watson could play guitar so fast he just about left a vapor trail.

“Every Day Dirt” (from The Watson Family, 1963)

Ralph Rinzler, the musicologist who first discovered Doc in the early 1960s, recorded this album live at the Watson family homestead in North Carolina. It captures some of what life must have been like growing up singing and playing with Doc; son Merle, wife Rosa Lee and father-in-law Gaither Carlton are among the relatives present. “Every Day Dirt” shows off just how personable a vocalist Watson could be, although as always the real draw is the obligatory killer guitar-picking.

“The Cuckoo Bird” – The Watson Family, 1963

From that same recording, Doc plays guitar accompanied by his son Merle on banjo, covering the old Clarence “Tom” Ashley song that appeared on Harry Smith’s epochal Anthology of American Folk Music. Thanks to the familial radar that comes when blood relatives play together, the instrumental interplay is perfect. This is also a great example at Watson’s mastery of the art of call-and-response between his guitar and voice.

“What Would You Give in Exchange for Your Soul?” – Bill Monroe and Doc Watson, Live Recordings 1963-1980: Off the Record Volume 2

Watson’s modesty was such that his natural inclination was to regard himself as a sideman — even though he was rarely if ever not the best picker and singer in the room. But he plays the role of foil perfectly here, vocally as well as instrumentally, to Monroe’s rippling mandolin and high lonesome tenor on this live version of the first song The Father of Bluegrass ever recorded.

“Wabash Cannonball” – Doc Watson on Stage, featuring Merle Watson, 1971

Before he started playing guitar, Watson’s first childhood instrument was actually a harmonica, which he wore out so fast from playing it so much, his parents had to give him another one at Christmas. A new harmonica became a perennial favorite gift. This version of the venerable folk-music classic features Watson blowing a mean harmonica and his descending runs on guitar are also a thing of beauty.

“Your Lone Journey” – Steep Canyon Rangers’ North Carolina Songbook, 2019

We close with a bit of a wild card, in that it’s a performance by someone else. But it’s one in which the presence of Watson’s spirit looms large enough to be felt. “Your Lone Journey” is a song that Doc and Rosa Lee wrote, and it bids a poignant farewell to a loved one at the moment of death. It is performed here by Watson’s fellow North Carolinians Steep Canyon Rangers, recorded on the main Doc Watson Stage to close out the 2019 MerleFest.


Editor’s Note: David Menconi’s Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music, from Blind Boy Fuller and Doc Watson to Nina Simone and Superchunk will be published in October by University of North Carolina Press.

BGS Long Reads of the Week // May 15

Welcome to another week of long reads! The BGS archives are simply chocked full of golden content from across the years. So each week we’re sharing our favorite longer, more in-depth articles, stories, and features to help you pass the time. If you haven’t already, follow us on social media [on FacebookTwitter, and Instagram] for our #longreadoftheday picks — and as always, we’ll put them all together right here at the end of each week.

Our long reads this week are bluegrass two by two by two, they’re historic, they’re virtuosic, and they remain unbroken, too. Read more:

22 Top Bluegrass Duos

Ever since the earliest days of bluegrass and old-time all anyone has ever needed to start a “band” is just two folks, pickin’, singin’, and otherwise. This long read, a delightful collection of twenty-two of the greatest pairs to ever render a number together and call it bluegrass, could easily kill and an entire afternoon or evening — it’s a rabbit hole you’ll want to follow to its end. From Charlie and Bill to Skaggs and Rice and so much more, too. [Check out the full story]


Brandi Carlile: An Interview from Doc Watson’s Dressing Room

Just about a year ago now, in the afterglow of MerleFest 2019, we published this conversation with Brandi Carlile that we had in Doc Watson’s dressing room backstage at the festival grounds in Wilkesboro, NC. Carlile was about to headline the iconic bluegrass, Americana, and roots festival for the very first time — a somewhat historic occurrence that was not lost on those gathered in the storied main stage green rooms of the thirty-plus-year event. [Read the conversation]


Sierra Hull Seizes the Moment in 25 Trips

 

In our interview with singer/songwriter, mandolinist, and multi-instrumentalist Sierra Hull, we dig into the fresh sonic territory she explores on her most recent album, 25 Trips. For the first time, Hull worked with producer Shani Gandhi, who helped shape the album’s diverse production styles — from stripped down tracks with just guitar and vocals, to familiar bluegrass arrangements, to songs with fuller production than those found on Hull’s first four albums. [Read more]


Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Jeff Hanna Reflects on Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume 2

In September of last year, to mark the 30th anniversary of the “Circle 2” album, we had a conversation with Jeff Hanna about how the group was able to issue a follow-up to the first iconic Will the Circle be Unbroken record that somehow recaptured that magic while covering plenty of new ground. We coupled our interview with a special screening of archival footage from the documentary film about the making of Circle 2 at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. [Read the interview on BGS]