Tag: New Grass Revival

New Grass Revival: Sam Bush and John Cowan on the Early Years (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on by Editor

One of the most celebrated and innovative bands of the 1980s, New Grass Revival will be inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame during the IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards on October 1. As part of our coverage of the 75th anniversary of bluegrass music, BGS caught up with founding member Sam Bush and vocalist/bass player John Cowan to talk about the early years in this first of two stories exploring their remarkable discography. Read part two of the story here, featuring insight from Béla Fleck and Pat Flynn, as well as Bush and Cowan.

The four founding members of New Grass Revival are Curtis Burch on guitar and Dobro, Courtney Johnson on banjo, Ebo Walker on bass, and Sam Bush on mandolin. They had all played together in the five-piece band, Bluegrass Alliance.

Sam Bush: We wanted to fire our [Bluegrass Alliance] fiddle player Lonnie Peerce, and when we told him this he said, “You can’t fire me, I own the name of the band.” So we said, “Let us put it this way: we quit.” We were already influenced by the Country Gentlemen and the Osborne Brothers and Jim & Jesse and the Greenbriar Boys and a really great record by the Charles River Valley Boys called Beatle Country. That’s one of the reasons we called ourselves New Grass Revival — we were trying to point out that we were reviving a new bluegrass that had already been invented by those people. We were only hoping to further the progressiveness we already dug.

Bush had been friends with Courtney since he was a teenager, when the banjo player was lead singer in a band playing Stanley Brothers tunes.

SB: We had no particular plan to play differently but our very first practice I remember Ebo hitting a bass lick in D minor that we later discovered he got from Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” We played licks back and forth over it and all of a sudden Courtney went into the melody of “Lonesome Fiddle Blues” by Vassar Clements. That’s how we came to work up “Lonesome Fiddle Blues” for our first album. It was like a band epiphany, that we could improvise over a riff the way rock ‘n’ roll bands did. We were just playing it the way we felt it.

Courtney and Curtis were steeped in traditional bluegrass, but Bush was a musical sponge, soaking up everything from Homer and Jethro to Jefferson Airplane to the Rolling Stones to French jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty. The band’s first, self-titled album, from 1972, included covers of Leon Russell’s “Prince of Peace” and Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Great Balls of Fire.“

SB: This is the days before cars had cassette players, so Ebo had a tiny cassette player we took with us on the road, and we’d made a tape we could listen to. One side was John Hartford’s Aereo-Plain. And on the other side we had Leon Russell and the Shelter People. Without John Hartford there would be no newgrass. Growing up close to Nashville, I would watch him on local TV, and one night he did a bluegrass version of “Great Balls of Fire” on the Glen Campbell show, and I recorded it from the TV — that was the one we learned. Courtney even played his chromatic run the same way John did it.

While making their first album Bush encountered the man who would be his songwriting partner, Steve Brines.

SB: We lost our Louisville club gig when we ended Bluegrass Alliance, so in order to make a living that first winter in ’70-’71 I ended up playing electric bass with a folk group called the Cumberlands: Harold Thom and his wife Betty, and a banjo player called Jim Smoak. Jim had co-written a couple of songs with this poet-lyricist over in Lexington called Steve Brines and we played one on that early album — “Cold Sailor.” After I made his acquaintance Steve and I started trying to write together. Steve lived up in Lexington and I lived down in Barren County, and he’d send me five to ten sets of lyrics in the mail and I’d make up music, put it on a cassette and send them back. Our rule was I wouldn’t change one word, if he didn’t change one note.

It was a productive partnership – Bush and Brines wrote half the songs on their second album, Fly Through the Country. By then, Walker had left the band and they had gained a new player: John Cowan.

John Cowan: I joined in 1974. I did not grow up in bluegrass. I was a rock ‘n’ roll kid playing in local garage bands. But I had an awareness of New Grass Revival because I lived in Louisville, which was their home, and the woman who became my wife once dragged me to go see them. I didn’t want to go, but I was blown away. Six months later I got a phone call from Sam living down in Western Kentucky with Courtney and Curtis and he said he got my number from this guy, and would I be willing to come down and audition for us?

SB: He was a city guy, and when he pulled up and saw us, it was like “Oh my god what have I got myself into?”

JC: Courtney and Curtis were truly unique individuals. They were from South Georgia, super country dudes, born and raised playing bluegrass. I was wild-eyed and “What is all this stuff?” To their credit they welcomed me with open arms.

SB: We played some tunes together and asked him to join the band and he said, “I sing too — do you mind if I sing a song?” And in the tradition of Barney Fife I puffed up my chest and said, “Well, I’m the lead singer but yeah, go ahead.” And he sang “Some Old Day” in the same key as John Duffey did it in, only with this powerful voice and this beautiful vibrato. At the end of it I said, “John, I used to be the lead singer, now you are.”

JC: The day they hired me we rehearsed with the drummer. The next morning I got up and he was gone! I was like, “Where did Michael go?” Courtney said, “Oh hell, we fired him. We don’t need him with you!” I felt kind of bad about it, he was a really nice guy.

Soon the band’s rock ‘n’ roll influences were coming to the fore.

JC: They were already experimenting with jamming on traditional instruments over songs and it was right up my alley, because I was also a big prog rock fan. I was obsessed with Yes. On the title track of Fly Through the Country, Sam played this little thing that looked like a can of Spam — it was a resophonic mandolin, he played slide on it. When Béla joined, he said the big joke was that you could listen to the first part of the song, go out for lunch, come back, and you’d still be playing it.

SB: People would call us “The Grateful Dead of Bluegrass” because of our long tunes and our experimentation. We had to put it in our contract that we wouldn’t be billed like that, because then we had Deadheads coming expecting us to play their songs, and we didn’t do any.

JC: Our touchstone was the Allman Brothers. Their live album At Fillmore East came out three years before and we both knew it by heart; to this day I could sing every note and every solo. So that was a crucial record for our band. Sam exposed me to Jack Casady’s [of Jefferson Airplane] bass playing. When I joined the band I was 21, and Courtney was already 38, I was so out of my element. I’d only ever played with guitars and keyboards and drums, and I was smart enough to at least say, “I don’t know what I’m doing, you guys have to help me.” They’d give me a joint and say, “Go listen to this stuff — here’s John Hartford, here’s Norman Blake, here’s the Dillards….” It was so foreign and beautiful to me.

SB: One of the first songs John taught us was “These Days.” He sang like Gregg Allman when he first arrived, and his voice and vocal style changed to fit into what he had joined.

JC: I would imitate him [Gregg Allman], Lowell George, Stevie Wonder. But when I got in that band, now what do I do? I was smart enough to realize it wasn’t going to work for me to try and sing like Ricky Skaggs or Bill Monroe, that’s not in me. But Sam was very encouraging to me and the more I sang the more I developed my own voice.

SB: Garth [Fundis, the band’s producer] had introduced me to a piano player, Chuck Cochran, and Chuck played electric piano with us on “These Days” at the end of the Fly Through the Country. It was the last song we recorded, and we went, “Huh… We can make this fusion of more instruments into our sound.”

Their next album, When The Storm Is Over, went further, incorporating more of Cochran’s keyboards, as well as drums and percussion.

SB: We wanted to augment our sound and appeal to a wider audience, and Chuck and Garth introduced us to the great drummer Kenny Malone. He played on our next three records and I started producing the records myself. Stephen and I continued to write. The subject matter of our songs was totally different than bluegrass-style songs. I’ve always just said newgrass music is contemporary music played on bluegrass instruments.

JC: Sam’s going to solo for eight minutes, then he’s going to toss it to Courtney, then Curtis, and I’m the guy who’s in charge of keeping the train on the tracks and keeping the coal in the engine. That was my job and I loved it. To this day, when you’re playing that kind of music and all the players are in sync spiritually and musically and emotionally there’s nothing like it. To me that’s what punk music is: just this tremendous energy of people.

In 1977 their first live album, Too Late to Turn Back Now, was recorded at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival.

JC: It was such a fruitful time for music and we were in the middle of it. Jackson Browne, Miles Davis, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, John Coltrane, Little Feat…. Those people were our models, we listened and listened and it came out in our music. At Telluride we took this Willis Alan Ramsey track off this one solo album he made, the song “Watermelon Man,” and to me that was us doing Little Feat. That’s “Dixie Chicken.” That’s “Fat Man in the Bathtub.” There was a lot of Little Feat groove in what we were doing.

SB: We were trippier on stage than on most of our records, but you can hear it on that live record. Our association with Leon Russell — we’d opened for him in 1973 — had opened the doors. I don’t know that we were psychedelic exactly, but I was trying a phase shifter on my fiddle, like Jean-Luc Ponty, and Curtis would play lap steel with distortion.

JC: We had all grown together. Sam and I were fixated with Delaney & Bonnie at the time. We played “Lonesome and a Long Way from Home,” which Delaney co-wrote with Leon Russell, and we were so obsessed with them vocally that we talked about this: “I’m going to do Bonnie, you’re going to be Delaney.”

The band’s popularity was growing and they were finding their audience, thanks to the support of fellow musicians like the Dillards and Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. In 1979, Leon Russell had dropped in on the band’s soundcheck when they played at the Apollo Delman Theatre in his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The band released the album Barren County that same year.

SB: Leon saw our name on the marquee and hadn’t seen us for years so he stopped by. We went back to his house that night, we jammed all night, and then we went and recorded with him in Nashville and in Hollywood where his studio was. It was really cool. We were teaching Leon bluegrass songs.

The result was the album Rhythm and Bluegrass, Vol 4, which Russell recorded in 1980 under his country alter ego, Hank Wilson. However, the project stayed unreleased until 2001.

SB: We were always most proud of that record. I co-produced it, I just didn’t know that’s what you called it. Leon had a bluegrass songbook and he’d say, “What do you think, should we do this one?” And I’d say, “Nah, let’s try this one.” So that’s how we started as his backup band. For two years! John and I had so much fun singing harmony with him. I love singing baritone, and vocally we were glued to him. And the way John and I did call-and-response in our singing was very influenced by the way Leon and Mary [his wife] did it on their records.

A live album, recorded in 1981, captures the spirit of their collaboration with Leon Russell.

SB: There were shows where you’d see him bounce up and down on his piano stool and that’s when we knew we were going to go into this Pentecostal church service with him, and the songs would just keep speeding up and speeding up and the audience was getting more and more excited. It was amazing, the rock ‘n’ roll hysteria. We learned a lot about show business from him.

Russell played keyboards on Commonwealth, which was Johnson and Burch’s last album with the band.

SB: Listening to the solo that I played on “Deeper and Deeper” [on Commonwealth], having not heard it for years, that one I managed to go to place I hadn’t planned on. Of course you have a game plan and an outline of what you want to achieve with a solo, but that solo was one of the happiest surprises.

(Editor’s note: Read part two of our oral history of New Grass Revival.)

 

Hello, Darling: The Dillards’ Rodney Dillard Brings New Music to ‘Old Road’

Posted on by Editor

With their landmark 1968 release, Wheatstraw Suite, The Dillards opened the doors for the progressive bluegrass and country-rock movements. In August, Rodney Dillard, the band’s sole surviving original member, released a new album by the Dillards, Old Road New Again, that he describes being a “bookend” to Wheatstraw. Although not as artistically groundbreaking as its predecessor, Old Road still features non-traditional bluegrass instrumentation and, probably more importantly, it finds the 78-year-old musician in a reflective mood about how he sees the world today as well as the Dillards’ legacy.

Talking from his home outside of Branson, Missouri, Dillard shares that “before I was just trying to reflect what rural life was like, but I grew up in it. This one, more or less, is more reflecting an old person’s perspective on life.” It’s a point-of-view that can be heard on “Tearing Our Liberty Down” and “Take Me Along for the Ride,” which offer non-partisan statements on the state of the world, while “Earthlink,” “Common Man,” and “My Last Sunset” find a man taking stock of his life.

“My Last Sunset,” with its vocal nod to the Eagles’ “Already Gone,” also represents the album’s full-circle theme; however, the theme is best epitomized on the title track, a rousing telling of the Dillards’ story. The tune also features several guest artists pertinent to that era: Don Henley (a friend and neighbor from Rodney’s L.A. days), Bernie Leadon (who played in Dillard & Clark with Rodney’s brother Doug), and Herb Pedersen (who joined the Dillards on Wheatstraw and has played with Rodney on and off since).

Adding to Old Roads’ ties to the past are appearances by Sam Bush (founder of the game-changing New Grass Revival) and Ricky Skaggs (who went from bluegrass traditionalist to progressive during the ‘70s) as well as Sharon and Cheryl White. In the past, Rodney had been hesitant about having an album feature lots of big-name guests. “I didn’t want to make it like I was trying to make an event out of it,” he explains. “I did it because I was able to have Henley, Ricky, Herb and Sam Bush with me… people who I truly respected before they were stars.”

Rodney offers some especially kind words for Skaggs for appearing on “Tearing Our Liberty Down,” which makes some pointed statements about America without pointing out particular political parties. “He took a big risk, I think, standing his ground with ‘Liberty Down,’” Rodney relates. “I’m just overwhelmed that he would consider doing it. He could have refused to do it, but he didn’t because he stands his ground.”

He also credits Pederson, who plays on most of Old Road’s tracks, with being a key factor in the Dillards’ breakout sound on Wheatstraw, which was Pedersen’s first album with the band. “When Herb came in, he added his harmonies.” Rodney reveals, “It became a different thing. It became Wheatstraw Suite.”

Featuring full orchestration, drums, and electric instruments, Wheatstraw Suite shook up bluegrass traditions while also being an important touchstone in the burgeoning country-rock scene. The album’s innovative sound was a creative decision, not a commercial one.

“It wasn’t about selling toothpaste. It was music,” Rodney shares. “We were selling what we believed in. It was what we thought was fun, creative and maybe had something to say that no one had said (before).” Don Henley, who covered the Dillards’ “She Sang Hymns Out of Tune” on his Cass County album in 2015, and Elton John, who picked the Dillards as his opening act in 1972, have cited Wheatstraw as a highly influential album. In considering the impact of the album and his band, Rodney says, “I’m just very grateful and thankful that I could play just a small part in the history of what music was in the ‘60s.”

One curious thing about Wheatstraw Suite is that it marked the Dillards’ return to Elektra Records, who released their first three albums, after an abbreviated stint at Capitol Records. The band had left Elektra originally because the label didn’t understand the direction that they wanted to pursue on a single entitled “Hey Mr. Five-Strings.” A cover of a ‘50s hit called “Hey Mr. Banjo,” the Dillards’ interpretation, as Rodney described it, “added knitting needles for rhythm played on a fiddle.”

Capitol was supposed to be greener pastures for the group; however, the label proved to be a worse fit for the Dillards than Elektra. “They assigned us this producer Ken Nelson, who was doing country, but he didn’t understand what we were doing. Then they gave us this guy who produced ‘Danke Schoen’ for Wayne Newton. That’s when Mitch and I looked at each other in a conference with this guy and said we wanted out. And we walked out.”

Rodney readily admits that the band should have never left Elektra. He also is very thankful for the help that Elektra’s founder Jac Holzman provided then and ever since. “If it hadn’t been for Elektra I don’t know what would have happened [with the Dillards]. I’m just grateful to have had that label,” Rodney proclaims, adding Jac “has been instrumental in getting [Old Road] off the ground,” as well as contributing to the album’s liner notes.

Los Angeles in the ‘60s was home to a vibrant, highly synergistic music scene, which Rodney remembers as being spearheaded by people with a passion for what they were doing. Peers like Linda Ronstadt, Leadon, and Henley, he mentions, were “all these guys who just loved music.” One popular musician hangout was the Troubadour’s foyer, which was just a folk room with instruments on the wall and people drinking tea.

“We would sit around, and we would just sing. We had a wonderful time… (people) would come up to the house that Doug, Dean (Webb, the Dillards’ mandolin player) and I had together in Topanga, where we’d pick and played music… Gosh, Herb and I would sit in with Clarence White and the guys down in the King’s Lounge,” he says, remembering a venue in Palmdale, outside of L.A.

The Dillards — Rodney and Doug Dillard, Dean Webb and upright bassist Mitch Jayne — left Salem, Missouri, and headed west to Los Angeles in 1962. Rodney says they chose L.A. because they felt Nashville didn’t respect bluegrass music and country music had a sameness to it back then. They also thought people might be more open-minded in Los Angeles. The drive took three months because they had to stop along the way to make money to continue on.

Once in L.A., however, their story resembled a Hollywood movie. They went to the legendary club, The Ash Grove, which Rodney humorously describes as the “petri dish for folk culture.” Setting up in the club’s lobby, the group started an impromptu performance. When club owner Ed Pearl came over, Rodney thought he was going to kick them out. Instead, they were invited to play that night. In the audience at that show were Jim Dickson, who later produced the Byrds, and an agent from William Morris Agency, which represented Andy Griffith and his TV show.

Within a week or so, the band had secured a deal with Elektra Records as well as an audition for The Andy Griffith Show. When Griffith stopped their audition short, Rodney says he told his brother, “They’re kicking us out.” So he was surprised when Griffith said, “You got the job!” They were hired to portray a hillbilly band, The Darlings, for an episode, but proved so popular that they wound up appearing on the show several more times over the years.

Because Andy Griffith was such a hit TV show then (and has remained in reruns ever since), the Dillards — as the Darlings — became quite well-known and brought bluegrass into millions of homes. Rodney praises Griffith not only for having given the group this big opportunity but also for letting them play their own music on the show.

The Darlings’ fame also got the Dillards booked on network TV programs like The Judy Garland Show and The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show. During a Playboy After Dark appearance, the band intentionally played fast to see if the dancers could keep up, according to Rodney: “So you’ll see those people are busting their chops just trying to look like professional dancers, and they just look people eradicating cockroaches.”

Although they played comical hillbillies on The Andy Griffith Show, the Dillards resisted perpetrating Hollywood’s country bumpkins on TV shows. “If they had haybales and painted freckles on the dancers and everybody looked like Daisy Duke,” Rodney states, “we said, ‘Nope, we’re not standing in front of that.’” The band, particularly in their early days, were known for their humor, but it was more sophisticated than typical hayseed variety. Their Live!!! Almost!!! provides a good example of their comedy style, and it’s referenced a bit on Old Road with Beverly Cotton-Dillard’s comical banjo ditty “Funky Ole Hen.”

While Rodney has always pushed the boundaries of bluegrass, he has great reverence for its traditions too. In 2009, the Dillards were inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. “I love that music,” he states. “I don’t want to see bluegrass die.” But he also says that the music can’t live in the past. “As far as Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, the Blue Sky Boys — all those folks — they did what they did. Any of us who imitate them are just being pastels of what they did.”

Rodney talks excitedly about seeing two kids on YouTube playing old-time music with a contemporary feel. He is happy that younger musicians are interested in bluegrass and roots music and happy, too, that they don’t seem rigid over how to play it. “People now have their own free will over their creativity,” he exclaims.

He references an old Dillards’ tune, “Music Is Music” before talking about how he loves all sorts of music — “if it’s real…if it’s not manufactured.” He mentions how Earl Scruggs, a man he greatly admired, “had no rules. He loved good music; he was not judgmental at all.” Keeping it real and making it good is the type of approach Rodney brought to Wheatstraw Suite back in the day and Old Road now.

Rodney admits that the Dillards have had a rather bizarre career, with people familiar with them from The Andy Griffith Show and those who know them from the band’s work, particularly their trailblazing music on Wheatstraw Suite, along with Copperfields and Roots and Branches. Although the Dillards didn’t have the commercial success achieved by acts like the Eagles, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and New Grass Revival that followed after them, Rodney is quick to note, “I didn’t miss out on being on television and being in somebody’s room every day for 60 years.”

Old Road New Again, which is the Dillard’s first album of new material since 1991, represents Rodney’s long-desired bookend to the Wheatstraw album. And while the title can be interpreted as taking a look back into the past, he also sees a positive, forward-looking sentiment — “I’m an old road but I can still be new again” — in the title’s meaning. The road he’s taken has given him an interesting ride, Rodney says, and he is grateful that Old Road has been attracting some attention because the album “may be my swan song.”

“I’m not trying to be pathetic,” he confides with a spry sense of humor, “but I am 78 years old.”

 

Béla Fleck – Toy Heart: A Podcast About Bluegrass

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

On this episode of Toy Heart, Béla Fleck talks to host Tom Power from his home studio and for the first time, he tells his story in bluegrass.

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Fleck started out in New York hearing Earl Scruggs for the first time, learning from Tony Trischka, and then making the decision to go (new) south to learn from J.D. Crowe. He auditioned for Bill Monroe, but eventually found ‘his people’ and joined New Grass Revival. He tells of mistakes the band made along the way, the hard decision to leave that band and start the Flecktones, recording with his hero Earl Scruggs, and how he found his way back to bluegrass after all. He also unveils the one change he thinks anyone can make to their practicing to become a better musician.

Three Decades In, Leftover Salmon Let out a ‘Festival!’ Yell

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Three decades ago at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, two bands of oddballs who couldn’t get invited to play the main stage said “screw it,” and teamed up for a bar gig back in town… And the rest, as they say, is history.

That slapped-together combo took the name Leftover Salmon. They’ve since gone on to influence an entire generation of bluegrass-based music. Most fans are familiar with the broad strokes of their tale — the renegade musical brotherhood of Vince Herman and Drew Emmitt, the band’s bluegrass/rock fusion and resulting evolution into the prototypical jamgrass group, and the spirit of good times, good friends, and good tunes which still permeates the scene they helped create. But few have heard the entire story until now.

In Leftover Salmon: Thirty Years of Festival!, author Tim Newby dives deep into hazy memories and unforgettable highlights, tracing the twisted path that led the band to its current, esteemed place in roots music lore. Across 13 chapters and more than 300 pages Newby coaxes the story from the band’s revolving lineup — deftly treading the line between historian and hardcore fan — and in the end much is revealed of the band’s high-minded beginnings and unshakable ethos, as well as the struggles they’ve seen along the way. And it’s all done with a wild “Festival!” yell running between the lines.

To be sure, the Leftover Salmon story is not over yet. The band continues to traverse the country on tour – recently swinging through Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium and thrilling a hometown crowd at Denver’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre shortly after — and they plan on returning to the studio this fall to record “three or four tunes” for release “over the interwebs.” But in the meantime, Herman shared some laughs with The Bluegrass Situation about the process of looking back, what the book means to the band, and why none of this would have happened if not for the Iran-Contra scandal.

BGS: Were you surprised Tim wanted to do this book?

Herman: Absolutely. It’s a massive endeavor and he put like three years into it. That alone is an amazing honor — no matter how it came out. [Laughs] But no, we were definitely surprised and delighted that he wanted to do it.

Was there any hesitation in laying everything out there?

Not on my part. We were pretty psyched about all the fun we’ve been able to have over the years, and to have somebody locate it within the larger picture of the music community, it just felt like an honor. Sure, we had some rowdy times and wild things have happened, and it might sound a little more like a rock ‘n’ roll band in the book than a bluegrass band, but I hope it throws some light on how deeply we respect the bluegrass tradition, where that all sprang out of and how we are trying to integrate that along with a more inclusive rock ‘n’ roll vision. I think the book addresses pretty well how we tried to walk that tightrope.

Tim told me you let him root around in your lives for weeks at a time. He said he was at your house digging through old file cabinets and everything. What was that like from your perspective?

Well, it was comforting because I’ve moved around a whole lot over the years and I’ve been toting that stuff with me for a long time. [Laughs] There was finally some validation of “All right, maybe it was a good idea to keep this stuff.”

Did he dig up anything you had forgotten about, or give some insight on how the others viewed things that happened?

One of the things he dug up that I hadn’t looked at in years and years were [late, founding banjo player] Mark Vann’s calendars. He was sort of like our manager early on, and it was cool because they had notes on them about booking gigs and what we got paid, some expenses and all that. Man, we played a lot of years for $500 a night! [Laughs]

One thing I learned was that the Iran-Contra scandal helped create the band, and this was not a connection I would have made on my own. Can you explain?

[Laughs] Well, there are two ways it affected me. When I moved to Boulder, [Colorado] from Morgantown, [West Virginia] in 1985, I was just gonna be here for a couple of months and then go be a witness for peace on the border of Nicaragua, so that part of the Iran-Contra scandal was definitely on my mind when I moved here.

But a few years later when I started a band called The Salmon Heads, we had played our first gig on the hill at Taylor’s in Boulder, and we had an accordion and washboard instead of drums. We played our first set and the bar manager said, “You guys don’t have to do your second set. We’re gonna call it, you don’t play college music.” But we said “Fuck that shit” and continued to play, and it was fun.

That night after the show, someone threw a brick through the window of the club in a random act — and it was not related to us in any way shape or form — but the next morning everyone on the hill was wondering what happened to Taylor’s last night. So we seized that opportunity and made some posters for a house party we were playing, and they said, “Come see what the Aya-Taylor had determined was not college music!” At the time the Ayatollah was in all the papers, so we created the Aya-Taylor, and that party was raging that night. It’s the intersection of history and music.

It’s not all funny stories, as the book goes into some of the more difficult decisions you’ve had to make and plenty of hard times. Were there any tender spots where it still hurt to think about?

Oh yeah, definitely. Especially around Mark Vann [who died from cancer in 2002] and rebuilding and trying to keep going. We finally decided to call it quits for a while and didn’t really expect to come back, and that was an intense time. We were driven to the point where we just weren’t having fun hanging out together anymore, and it was tough because we never really took the time out to grieve Mark, I think. We had to push on because that’s how we all made our living — it’s always been a blue collar band working paycheck to paycheck. That was really difficult and eventually the spiritual price of it was just too much.

The book also traces the evolution of Colorado’s music scene, which you guys were sort of inadvertently at the epicenter of.

Yeah, when we got to town there wasn’t a bluegrass scene. I rolled into a Left Hand String Band show when I drove here from West Virginia and that connection was made immediately. But bluegrass was kept in its corner and the big thing in town was blues and electric stuff. We just felt like we were this musical niche that was best used for Grange Halls and old-timey dances, and to see it move out of Grange Halls and into concert halls over time was definitely a satisfying experience for us, and something I think we might have had a little to do with.

But it’s certainly not like we started anything new, and I’ve always been the guy who says we were really just walking in the footsteps of New Grass Revival and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. People like to say, “This started here” and “That started there,” but it’s always a continuation of some tradition with a new twist, perhaps.

After looking back on these 30 years, do you feel like the band has changed – musically or as friends? Or is it still the same spirit as when you began?

I just had a friend from Japan who was my college roommate in 1982 come visit, and I hadn’t seen him all those years. He came and we went to our show at Red Rocks, and then a friend of mine gave him a ride to the airport. On the way my friend asked my old roommate, “So how’s Vince seem to be doing all these years later?” And he answered, “Vince is still in college!” So I guess we won!

Maybe that’s part of why this thing has worked for so long.

We get to have these joyous jobs where we meet new friends and constantly reconnect with old ones, and play a lot of festivals, which is when humans are at their finest form, I think. And through all this stuff, we’ve been able to build this life that’s pretty dang pleasurable. Not that it’s easy on relationships or anything, but our day-to-day living is pretty dang pleasant.

Photo credit: Bob Carmichael

John Jorgenson Revisits His Southern California Bluegrass Roots

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John Jorgenson is not only a man of many talents, he’s a musician with many interests. Perhaps you’ve heard his gypsy jazz, or remember when the Desert Rose Band — a neo-trad country group that included Jorgenson, Chris Hillman and other luminaries of the California country and country-rock scene — was riding high at radio, or perhaps you saw him playing an indispensable role in Elton John’s touring band. As Jim Reeves might have put it, he’s done a lot in his time.

Even so, you might not know that John Jorgenson is also a bluegrass guy — unless, that is, you saw him on the road with Earl Scruggs during the legend’s final touring years, or happened to buy his 2015 box set, Divertuoso, which included a disc of bluegrass alongside one of gypsy jazz and another of eclectic, electric music. Earlier this year, that disc was issued as a standalone album, From the Crow’s Nest. Featuring the regular (and equally eclectic) members of the John Jorgenson Bluegrass Band (J2B2) — Herb Pedersen, Mark Fain and Jon Randall — it’s a delicious collection that scatters well-known songs (Pedersen’s “Wait a Minute”; Randall’s “Whiskey Lullaby” co-write; and the Dillards’ “There Is a Time”) among a trove of newer material, much of it written or co-written by Jorgenson.

From the Crow’s Nest ought to go some distance in alerting wider audiences to a new standard-bearer for a style of bluegrass that, while its roots trace back to the early 1950s, hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. Though Southern California is a long way from the Grand Ole Opry and other spawning grounds for the original bluegrass sound, it served in the post-World War II years as a magnet for job seekers from both sides of the Mississippi River, and that meant bluegrass pickers, too — and so, when we met up, that made for a good starting point for our conversation.

Listening to your album reminds me that you are a product of a Southern California roots music scene that included bluegrass from early on. How did you get exposed to it?

Probably the first time was when a band came to my high school and I thought they were from another planet, because I’d never heard anything so fast in my life. I played music already — I played classical music, and rock — but that was sort of an anomaly, and then I didn’t really see it again for a while.

I came to it sort of in a backwards way. I had a scholarship to the Aspen Music Festival. They brought me in as a jazz bass player; they wanted to start a jazz program. And I accepted the scholarship as long as I could also be in their classical program, playing the bassoon. Well, I had my tuition paid for, and my room paid for, but I didn’t have money for meals. So I needed to figure out how to make some money, and then I saw an ad that said: Wanted: strict jazz player for immediate gigs. So I checked out an upright bass from the school and went to this audition. And they weren’t playing jazz — what they were playing was David Grisman’s first album. This was the summer of 1978, so this album was new. I’d never heard it.

So they’re playing all instrumental stuff and I thought, OK, I really like the sound, especially of that mandolin. I liked the flatpicking guitar, too. I was already a guitar player, but I just loved the mandolin. When I got home that summer, my neighbors had a Gibson A model and I borrowed it. Not too long after that, I ran into a friend who had been instructed to put together a band that could play bluegrass and Dixieland to cover two different areas of Disneyland. And he asked, “Hey, do you know anybody that could play bluegrass fiddle and Dixieland cornet?” And needing a job at the time, I said, “I can play mandolin and clarinet.”

And then I kind of learned backwards, whatever I could. I learned from New Grass Revival, and then Bill Monroe, and Flatt & Scruggs, and the Stanley Brothers, and the Osborne Brothers. And all the others — Tony Rice, Sam Bush, the Bluegrass Cardinals, whoever was playing around at the time. Larry Stephenson was playing with the Cardinals at that time, and I remember I was — I don’t want to say shy, but I’m shy around people I don’t know. And to me at the time, they were real bluegrass musicians and I was a pretender. I sort of felt an attitude from some people, too, but he was not like that at all. He was really friendly.

Did playing bluegrass at Disneyland motivate you to build connections with the larger bluegrass scene, or was it a standalone kind of gig?

Actually, when we first started, we were terrible! We learned three songs and then we’d play those, move to a different place and play them again. But everyone was ambitious, so we all practiced; we learned songs, we got better. And then we started to play out around Los Angeles. I think the first time we played out as an act, we opened for Jim & Jesse at McCabe’s [Guitar Shop]. There was also a venue called the Banjo Cafe, with bluegrass every night, on Lincoln [Boulevard] in Santa Monica. So the Cardinals played there; Berline, Hickman & Crary would play there; and touring acts, too — Ralph Stanley would play there. And a young Alison Brown, a young Stuart Duncan.

I know that there are a lot fans of Desert Rose Band among bluegrassers, and some gypsy jazz fans, too, but for a lot of people, you came onto the radar when you were going places with Earl Scruggs — 15 years ago, maybe? How’d that come about?

Actually, it was because of Brad Davis. He was playing with Earl, and we were kind of guitar geek friends. We ended up sitting next to each other on a plane one time, and were chatting, and he said, “I’m playing with Earl Scruggs,” and I said, “I’d love to do that.” He said, “You know, they like to have an electric guitar, maybe there might be a spot.” He really set that up for me.

I said, “OK, I’m happy to play electric guitar, but I would really love to play the mandolin.” So I would bring both, and if I played too much mandolin, Louise [Scruggs] would say, “John, don’t forget that electric guitar.” Then they said, “Don’t you play saxophone? We used to have that on a song called ‘Step It Up and Go.’” So I said, “What about the clarinet? It’s not quite so loud.” And as it turns out, Earl said his favorite musician was Pete Fountain, and he loved the clarinet. So every time after that, Gary Scruggs would call me up: “Dad says don’t forget the moneymaker.”

The J2B2 record was originally part of a box set — a disc of gypsy jazz, one of bluegrass, one of electric stuff. So you have these different musical itches, and some musicians would choose to try to synthesize these things into something new and different and unique, but you seem to have an interest in keeping them each their own thing. Why is that?

It’s because, to me, the things that I love about bluegrass are what make it bluegrass. I love the trio harmony, I love these instruments, the way each instrument functions in the band. And I love gypsy jazz, and some folks might say they’re closely related — they’re string band music, they both have acoustic bass and fiddle and acoustic guitar, and each instrument has a role. There are a lot of similarities, but the things that I like about each one are what make them different. I think each music has an accent, and a history and a perspective, and I really want to be true to those, because those are the elements that touch my heart.

I feel like what I do and what this group does is quite traditional, compared to a lot of people. It’s not jamgrass. It’s not Americana. It’s bluegrass. There are folk elements, and all those other things, of course. But really, my touchstones for that style of music are all the classics: the trio harmonies of the Osborne Brothers, and the slightly softer Seldom Scene and Country Gentlemen sounds, the early Dillards, the Country Gazette, and the whole Southern California sound… you don’t think of Tony Rice’s roots as Southern California, but they are.

And probably at one point, if I could have sounded like I was from Kentucky, I wouldn’t have minded that. But at the end of the day, well, I love Bill Monroe as much as the next guy, and I’m going to take inspiration, but I feel like I’m part of a lineage of bluegrass that’s just as viable as any other, and why not have that sound be a part of me?

Photo credit: Mike Melnyk

The Unbroken Circle: An Interview with Tim O’Brien

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Let’s say your banjo-obsessed buddy asks you to join him at the local Tuesday night bluegrass jam. Bluegrass. Sure, you’re aware of the term. You loved that George Clooney movie. You’ve got a couple verses of “Wagon Wheel” up your sleeve for wedding receptions. Plus, you’ve been wondering how Garrison Keillor suddenly got so good at the mandolin. Why not dive a little deeper?

As a newcomer to the strange pastime of standing in a circle with fiddles, banjos, and mandolins, you will be perfectly positioned to ask a really good question: “Where did all of these songs come from?” Your banjo friend might try to satisfy you by calling the songs “traditional,” but that’s just evading the question. Sure, some common tunes arrived in America on boats from Europe, and some of them were “collected” by folklorists like John and Alan Lomax who combed through rural America in the early 20th century, but the bigger-picture truth is that the bluegrass canon has been alive and evolving throughout its history. Even before bluegrass’s inception in the 1940s, the story of folk music in the 20th century is one of surprising re-discovery, unorthodox re-interpretation, and, yes, the addition of songs that happen to be brand new. Right up there alongside the other great writers and re-interpreters — A.P. Carter, Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, and many others — there’s a whipper-snapper (by “traditional” music standards) named Tim O’Brien.

Tim’s band, Hot Rize, emerged in the late ’70s as part of a neo-traditional reaction to New Grass Revival and David Grisman’s no-holds-barred hippie bluegrass boom of the early ’70s. There was a back-to-basics element to Hot Rize’s chemistry — led by O’Brien’s distinctive tenor and mandolin playing — but bassist Nick Forster played an electric bass, banjo player Pete Wernick occasionally played through a trippy phase-shifter effect, and they all wore obnoxiously ugly ties with their formal wear. (Traditional Ties was one tongue-in-cheek album title.) In other words, in a world of stiff suits and tall Stetsons, they injected a playfulness that both revitalized the tradition and reminded it not to take itself too seriously. In that way, they weren’t a reaction to New Grass Revival so much as their fraternal twin. Both bands effectively proved the point: Long-haired kids can play their own kind of bluegrass.

Tim’s original songs “Nellie Cane” and “Ninety Nine Years” share the rare double distinction of being staples of many local jams and also popular covers in the repertoires of Phish and the Punch Brothers, respectively. He’s also re-energized old songs like “Blue Night,” “Pretty Fair Maid,” and “Look Down that Lonesome Road,” bringing them and many others into popular bluegrass rotation.

Before all that, O’Brien was just a kid from West Virginia listening to the Beatles on the radio and playing wedding gigs with his talented sister, Mollie O’Brien. This month, he released a record, Where the River Meets the Road, that returns him to his West Virginia roots. True to form, he uses the opportunity to try his hand at old gems like “Little Annie” and to bring to life surprising re-interpretations of other West Virginians’ songs, like Bill Withers’ “Grandma’s Hands.” We talked about the new record as well as his many decades spent nudging the folk tradition forward. 

The band on Where the River Meets the Road is killer. They really move together like a tight band, rather than just background studio musicians. Some of them are familiar folks from the bluegrass world like Stuart Duncan and Noam Pikelny. How’d you end up incorporating Chris Stapleton?

I’ve known Chris for a good while. When he first moved to Nashville, Bryan Sutton was hired to produce demos of his. I went and played and sang on his demos, and I was really impressed. We wrote together a little bit, messed around. We stayed in touch. He sang on a record I made called Chicken and Egg. I was really pleased he was able to sing on this one.

That’s a great duet. Your voices are totally different, but the harmony is kind of striking. It really works.

He came in there and nailed that thing. I have to say, that track was good before he sang. You know how it can get in the studio. It’s pretty mellow listening to the same track over and over. Then he came in, started singing, and we all shot up straight in our chairs. Our spines straightened and our hair stood up on the back of our necks. I said, “Yeah, more of that!” It was really wonderful.

I saw on your schedule that you’re headed to Wheeling, West Virginia, tonight.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m playing my hometown tonight. It’s really exciting and terrifying at the same time. I haven’t played there in so long, and I think most of the people who bought tickets in advance are friends of mine, so you’re kind of on display. But I’m excited about seeing the old hometown.

Have you spent much time there since you left home many years ago?

No. You know, my dad died in 2011, and my mom had died before. I have a few cousins there, but I’m not close to them. I’ve only just sort of passed through a couple of times. I played with the Wheeling Symphony a couple of years ago and that was fun. My sister and her husband and my partner Jan and I sang.

Wheeling has a symphony?

Wheeling was the biggest city in the state for a long time. It was the only symphony in the state before they ever had one in Charleston. Yeah, Wheeling was a rich town with a steel mill at one point. People dressed in finery, you know. It’s a faded town now, but it has surprising culture. [Laughs]

And it had a great radio station that you grew up listening to, right? WVA?

WVA was a great resource. I was into pop music and stuff at the time, but WVA was a place you could actually see live performers on a Saturday night. I enjoyed listening to the radio, as well, but I liked going down to the Saturday night show and seeing the pros play their guitars.

But you were just a kid mostly listening to pop radio and Beatles records. So, in other words, you weren’t from a traditional music family on an inevitable path toward a folk career?

No. Not at all. My parents loved music, but it was just on the sidelines. They liked the music of their era — Glen Miller and Benny Goodman and stuff like that. When my sister and I got into music, they encouraged us. They tried to steer us toward a well-rounded experience growing up, so we could choose what we wanted to do.

Did you and Mollie sing together and learn from each other growing up?

Well, she was playing the piano and I started playing guitar. By the time she was in high school, she was studying voice there, so, yeah, we would get some little gigs — school plays, different things. We would play at weddings, sing a few Peter, Paul, & Mary songs, Beatles songs, or whatever.

Then you left college to move west and pursue music. Did your parents think you were crazy?

Well, I was the youngest of five. Being the youngest, my parents cut me a lot of slack, I’d say. They had been through it with the rest of them. Also, you know, I was determined. They wanted me to stay in college, but I just wasn’t going to respond. So they said okay. I think they were holding their breath for about three years. Then I put out a record on a little label — I think it was ’77 or ’78 — and that’s when they finally said, “Oh, maybe this will lead to something.” They developed a more open mind. Then my parents became big fans of whatever I was doing and supported it. So it was a gradual thing, kind of a wait and see. They lightly steered me, but they knew they couldn’t do the final job, you know? I’m lucky I had that background with them.

So after growing up in West Virginia, you moved out west to Colorado to get your career started. Why did you feel like you had to leave the south to play bluegrass music?

My dad said, “You just want to go as far away as you can, don’t you?” I said, “Well, sort of.” [Laughs] Really, I was going out there because I loved the weather and the scenery, the lifestyle out west. I thought in a ski area, maybe I could play music and ski — both things I was excited about. So I went to Jackson Hole. Some other friends that had worked at summer camp with me were going to spend a winter there, so I went out and joined them and scuffled around for the winter. I ended up looking for a more active music scene and I ended up in Boulder. I guess I could’ve moved to a college town in West Virginia, but I wanted to see the rest of the country.

It’s funny — when I sing the song, “High Flying Bird,” from this record, I realize it’s symbolic of what I wanted to do when I was young. I wanted to get the heck out of there. I didn’t want to be rooted and tied down in West Virginia. I wanted to see the rest of the country, the rest of the world. And I didn’t realize that song was from West Virginia until now. You get away and you find perspective on where you left. You can see it from a longer view. The music provided a connection to West Virginia, as well as my family, so I kept going back. I realized it was a valuable base to have started from, and I continue to value that.

What is it that’s made you interested in reconnecting with your West Virginia heritage? Why now?

I feel like I’ve been given a gift of this music and this background. I got involved with the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame when they wanted to start that about 12 years ago. Meeting all these people as they come through to be inducted was really wonderful. You learn that a lot of people you knew about and music that you’d heard came from West Virginia.

Until I heard your record, I had no idea Bill Withers was from West Virginia.

Yeah, and that’s the thing. Part of the aim of the Hall of Fame is to connect those dots. We’re doing it for the public, but as it turns out, the members of the board and the members of the Hall of Fame are learning about the rest of the scene and connecting dots themselves. I think why I did this project now is, well, I needed to put a record together! [Laughs] I originally wanted to do a record of all original material, but I didn’t think I could pull that off for another year. I’d been thinking about a West Virginia record for a while, and I didn’t realize how much work I’d already done organizing it, making lists of songs, brainstorming on it. I’d already done a lot of that. So it came together really fast. It felt right.

One big part of your story is that you’ve made so many different types of music, so many types of records over the past nearly four decades. Do you have to keep exposing yourself to new songs and new sounds to keep your ideas fresh? How do you do that?

You just keep looking. You go to the record store. Nowadays, I get online — YouTube or Spotify. Then back to my own old record collection. My huge CD wall. Every year, I clean a lot of stuff out of it, give it away, put it in the free box at the Station Inn or something. Then there’s a lot of stuff that always stays there — the first generation of bluegrass masters, or the Lomax field recordings, or classic songwriters like Randy Newman or whatever. Then my friends around me are always writing new stuff, and I’m trying to keep up with their stuff. It’s a constant search, and I always feel the need to refresh the palate. But it’s funny — even by going back to the same stuff you’d passed over, you’ll hear new things and learn. So I’m always combing. Part of the week’s work is to comb for new music.

I like that — it’s part of the week’s job. It’s what you do when you wake up. Reminds me of the first time I saw you solo, at Grey Fox in 2012, when you did a solo guitar tribute to Doc Watson. I’m a North Carolinian and I know Doc’s stuff pretty well, but you put a new stamp on those tunes. It was like rediscovering Doc. So, for me, it was a sort of revelation, but I heard a guy next to me say, “Wish he’d brought his mandolin …” I can imagine for you that must be frustrating. Do you have to put effort into not being pigeonholed?

Yeah, you do get pigeonholed in bluegrass. I think back when I was starting, if you did bluegrass, you couldn’t do anything else. People wrote you off. When Pete Wernick called me [in 1978] and said, “Hey, why don’t we get a band together?” — our solo records were both coming out around the same time in ’78 — I said, “Yeah, that would be great.” I told him I wanted to play some traditional bluegrass, for sure, but I also wanted to do some country music and different things. I asked him if he played dobro so we could get away from the traditional thing.

Nowadays, the rock ‘n’ roll and country players, even the jazz players, are respectful of bluegrass. They understand it’s a training ground, that there’s a certain amount of woodshedding you have to do to even try to play bluegrass. So, yeah, I didn’t want to be pigeonholed. But I am pigeonholed. I’m always referred to as a bluegrass artist — and I’m glad to have a handle to carry it around on. Bluegrass music is Bill Monroe’s music, but then the bluegrass audience is a separate thing. There’s the genre as defined by the history, the classic examples. Then there’s the genre as defined by the audience — though it may only be a small part of what that audience listens to. So, in a way, I’m lucky to have been labeled a bluegrass artist while still sneaking in this other stuff. If I play something on acoustic instruments, they tend to accept it. Bluegrass fans are a very tenacious, very loyal bunch. They keep giving you another chance.

Can’t they be a pretty judgmental bunch, too?

I’m sure there’s judgmental stuff going on, but I don’t really look for that or worry too much about that. I just go my way and hope things will work out. And they have. I tried to get on a major label — I sort of glanced at the big time there. It didn’t take. I thought maybe I’d get the big publicity for a while and then I’d be on my way. Instead, I dug into the trenches of the folk and bluegrass worlds and developed an audience slowly but surely. You’re a product of what you do, so if my output has been eclectic, the audience that has remained has been willing to accept that. There’s enough of them out there to make a career.

Back in the Hot Rize days, and also what you do now, your music was right on that line between the traditional and the progressive — or neo-traditionalist, as people called Hot Rize. Did you ever feel any tension between those two camps? Or was the general attitude different in Colorado?

With Hot Rize, it was interesting. West of the Mississippi, we represented a traditional bluegrass band, but east of the Mississippi, we were these wild card guys. Our hair was too big and our ties were wrong and we had an electric bass.

But you guys had a sense of humor about it, too.

Yeah, we did. I mean, you’ve probably been at a bluegrass jam where people play a tune and, when it’s done someone, will say, “Well, that’s not bluegrass,” and everyone will laugh. Bluegrassers are always referring to their relationship with Bill Monroe’s music. They’re always measuring that. It’s part of our thing.

Sort of a self-conscious conversation we’re always having.

Yeah. And there is a tension. I’ll say this: There are a couple of places where we couldn’t get booked because Pete [Wernick] is Jewish. But, like I said, we took it where we could. Luckily, we came along at a time when people like New Grass Revival and David Grisman had broken a lot of ground. There was a hippie element that supported an alternative to the music. We were on a wave that was returning back to a traditional sound — the Johnson Mountain Boys, Nashville Bluegrass Band, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver were starting out at about the same time. They were hip and innovative in the way they were presenting traditional music, but they weren’t breaking the walls down like New Grass Revival did. This was viewed by a lot of people as a refreshing return to form. We enjoyed that. You know, we tried to play the kind of no-boundaries music when we started, and it just didn’t work out. Charles [Sawtelle] was playing bass at first, and we had a different guitarist. When Charles started playing guitar, he was much better at the traditional stuff. And we felt better playing it. You’ve just got to find your feet in whatever situation you’re in. That seemed to be the way to go, so we kept going there.

Since then there have been many ups and downs in terms of bluegrass’s broader popularity, the general awareness among the public. Is there anything that surprises you now about what the scene is like or feels particularly different about the 2017 bluegrass world?

The biggest draws in bluegrass now are the jam bands. Again, if you defined it in terms of Bill Monroe’s music, they’re not bluegrass. But they’re playing banjo and bluegrass and they’ve got a lot of attention. There’s a crowd that will get interested in that and look behind it for their influences. They might get into Widespread Panic or the Grateful Dead — or they might go to Doc Watson and the people that he learned from. The thing about bluegrass — even with the ebbs and flows of it — it’s always been growing. With O Brother, Where Art Thou, or with Alison Krauss crossing over into country, or with String Cheese Incident becoming a big draw — there might be a surge related to those things. But mostly the genre grows slowly like a tree. It’s healthy. The roots are growing, as well as the branches.

From those days starting out with Hot Rize in ’78, it just seems to keep growing. That’s the overall trend. Young kids are going back to the old stuff and remaking it. Even if you do something that’s been done before, your version of it will appeal to someone in a new way. It’s heartwarming to see it. Evolution is part of the definition of tradition. Each musician is a link in the chain and, whether you like it or not, you’re part of a tradition. You’re not going to do it exactly like the old folks did it, and you’re not going to do something completely original. You might as well get used to it.

In the same vein, you’re circling back to Wheeling tonight.

Yeah, it’s really exciting. I’m playing a little restaurant bar! [Laughs] Almost everyone there will be my friend, so that’s a little intimidating. But it’ll be fun. I just want to go out and walk the streets a little bit.

10 Tunes for Your End of Summer Road Trip

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Summer’s pretty much over, but there’s still time to get in one last road trip to see Uncle Phil and Aunt May down Pennsyltucky way. So roll down the windows of the minivan, bluetooth your Spotify into the entertainment system, and hit the highway to this playlist of 10 Tunes for Your End of Summer Road Trip.

New Grass Revival: "On the Boulevard"
Guitarist Pat Flynn wrote this one as the title cut for the first of four albums recorded by the band’s last lineup (that included Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, and John Cowan). It’s a nice, easy cooker that’s perfect to get you off the onramp and onto the road.

The Allman Brothers: "Jessica"
Some 40+ years since the Allmans dropped this in 1973, it’s still one of the greatest country instrumentals of all time. Dicky Betts wrote the record for his daughter with Les Dudek helping out on the bridge. Air guitaring is allowed in the passenger’s seat only.

Little Feat: "Let It Roll"
The title cut from the first post-Lowell album from the Feat, this one simply smokes, from the opening B3 spread by Billy Payne to the funky horn riffs to the song’s drive-off-the-cliff ending. Please don’t follow.

Robert Earl Keen: "Amarillo Highway"
If you’re going on a road trip, who would be the first Americana artist you’d invite? I’d invite Robert Earl Keen to sing while I drive (and beat four-on-the-floor with my free foot).

Dave Dudley: "Six Days on the Highway"
Earl Green and Muscle Shoals songwriter Carl Montgomery wrote this one for Dave Dudley. It’s a little known fact that going on a family road trip without playing this song once is illegal in 29 states and the District of Columbia.

Junior Brown: "Highway Patrol"
Dave’s the rebel and Junior’s the law — and, funny enough, they sound almost the same. One of the best songs ever recorded by a dude who easily has the best guitar collection on the planet.

John Hiatt: "Memphis in the Meantime"
Any excuse to include John Hiatt in a playlist is an acceptable excuse … except no excuse is needed. This tune rocks as hard as any he’s ever recorded.

The Band: "Endless Highway"
This is a song that was batted around the Band for a number of years but never got a proper airing. Capitol Records does us a favor by including it on a rarities record and we inject it into the proceedings, right between John Hiatt and Cross Canadian Ragweed.

Cross Canadian Ragweed: "Highway 377"
A road trip without at least one sinister song is like a campfire without a ghost story. Herein, we travel down the dark road that is “Highway 377,” courtesy of the dearly departed Cross Canadian Ragweed.

Homer & Jethro: "Freda on the Freeway"
Every sinister song needs a silly antidote and this one’s perfect. Country humorist Don Bowman recorded this one in ‘66, but his musical brethren Homer & Jethro bring this one home to roost.

Save the full playlist to your Spotify account right here.

Photo credit: Princess Stand in the Rain / Foter / CC BY-NC

Old, New, Borrowed, and Blue: A Conversation with Sam Bush

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I first heard Sam Bush in the early 2000s — I was 11 or 12, probably — when my dad brought home Glamour & Grits. The CD jacket was a minor epiphany. Here was this wildcat-looking guy wearing big, black shades and a cheetah print headband. In his hand was a busted old Gibson mandolin. Not a Les Paul. Not a Strat. A mandolin. Something in my tiny little music-obsessed mind said "DOES NOT COMPUTE."

From there, I found New Grass Revival, the genre-expanding string band founded in the early '70s. I started with On the Boulevard, featuring R&B expatriate John Cowan and a very cute-looking banjo player named Béla Fleck, and moved on to Fly Through the Country, where Sam’s Duane Allman-inflected slide mandolin solos gave my pubescent mind something else to struggle to categorize. Through my teenage years spent banging on guitars in garage bands, it was Sam Bush who kept me holding out hope that there could be something interesting — something cool — in the otherwise hokey genre my dad loved called bluegrass.

Though I wasn't around to witness the string band world of the '70s, I’ve learned to revere those heady days. All my heroes were buddies: There was John Hartford, the hip eccentric with steamboat stories; Norman Blake was the traditionalist who looked more like a train conductor with his wire-rimmed glasses and worn-out shoes; and Tony Rice landed somewhere near Richard Petty on the redneck scale and mostly dressed like a lounge singer, but he and David Grisman had dominant 9th chords, goddammit, and they weren’t afraid to use them. Sam Bush, on the other hand — Kentucky-born mandolin-toter though he may have been — was cut from a different cloth. He was rock 'n' roll, 100 proof, who managed both to piss off Bill Monroe (“Stick to the fiddle, son”) and to introduce the Big Mon’s licks to a new generation.

I got to talk with Sam this week about his new record, Storyman. We touched on his songwriting process, festivals in the 1970s, and the future of his instrument of choice: the mandolin. These days, 46 years into his career, he’s often praised with patriarchal titles — Father of Newgrass, King of Telluride — but while he embraces his role as elder statesman, I got the sense that he mostly thinks about playing music, discovering new records, and writing songs with new friends or old heroes — for a man in his fifth decade of professional music making, he still brings to the stage a surprisingly joyful, boyish energy. In fact, if you see him off stage at a festival, he’s probably jogging to another set, mandolin case in hand, floppy curls bouncing above his unmistakable grin. He’s still loving it, even after all these years.

I’m struck that Storyman really showcases a band. It’s not just a backing band, but a band band.

Absolutely, yep. And that’s my love. That was my first wish as I tried to accomplish this singer/songwriter record. Really, my favorite musicians I get to play with are those four guys. We’re all in a band together.

That’s cool. It’s a pretty eclectic batch of tunes.

We did a couple of different treatments on this one, with an out-and-out country shuffle song on the duet with Emmylou [Harris], and then a Jimmie Rodgers kind of song with the one Guy [Clark] and I wrote, "Carcinoma Blues." Within our group, keeping it all acoustic, that seemed to be another thread to follow. Because I love to play electric music and to mix the two, but these songs were all definitely acoustic-style songs to me, so in that way, the obvious choice was our band.

Guy Clark and Emmylou Harris are a couple of my favorite songwriters. What was it like writing songs with those two?

Guy was the most masterful songwriter I’d ever worked with. With Guy, it’s kind of like the way he made his guitars: simple, to the point, not one wasted chisel. He liked his guitars plain and unadorned, just like his songs. And with Emmylou, you know, I played in her band for five years, so she’s taken on the role of big sister for me. For us to write together and sing together, it’s really a comforting feeling.

So there’s the country-style song, “Handmics Killed Country Music,” with Emmylou, and there’s even a little reggae thrown in there on “Everything Is Possible.”

Yeah, that tune with Deborah Holland! Steward Copeland and Stanley Clark and Deborah Holland, the three of them were in a band called Animal Logic. She’s a tremendous talent. So Deborah and I wrote this tune a number of years ago, and she had these real positive lyrics already going, so we said, we need to make this a Bob Marley-sounding song. So we put it together.

Funny you mention Bob Marley. When I was a kid, my dad’s two favorite bands were New Grass Revival and the Wailers. And you guys played Marley tunes, so I grew up thinking that combination of newgrass and reggae wasn’t weird at all. But sometimes people talk about you as if you dip your toes into separate styles — a little bit of reggae, a little bit of country, a little bluegrass — as if the genres are a buffet line. Do you think of those divisions when you’re arranging or writing a tune?

I don’t think about the genre divisions when we’re actually sitting and arranging. And that’s fine with our band, because there are different areas we can play in, so we’re fortunate that we can just think about the song. The way these songs were written kind of dictated the arrangements.

How was the recording process?

Really, we just went into the studio down in Florida, and the way the banjo and mandolin solos sound, that’s the way we played it that day. Boy, when you think of it, Scott Vestal is kind of the star of the record to me. He just plays so beautifully. His parts, his banjo picking is just perfect to me. I never suggest anything for him to play, and Stephen Mougin the same way. As Stephen and I were writing “Play by Your Own Rules,” we were trying to find a little fiddle tune-style melody to go with the lyrics. Those kinds of songs really turn me on. I guess we’ve got a couple of those on the record, that one and the one called “Bowling Green.”

Your hometown, right? Tell me about that one, “Bowling Green.”

On that one, Jon Randall came over to the house one day and he already had most of the first verse written, which was about my mom and dad, of all things. [Laughs] He had me and Lynn in tears. I said, "Well, hell, let’s finish that one." In that one, we specifically mention a couple of fiddle tunes. My dad, man, he loved the fiddle. God, he couldn’t have enough fiddle. His favorite tune in life was "Tennessee Wagner" and he just called it “The Wagner.” He loved fiddle contests, and all the Texans would come up to the fiddle contests and they would add an extra chord to the song. So my dad would say, “I don’t want to hear that 'Texas Wagner.' I want to hear the one from Tennessee!” So that’s why the song says, “He loved to saw 'the Wagner' / The one from Tennessee.”

That’s cool that it’s an homage, not just to those fiddle tunes, but to the music in your family.

Yeah, and that song’s true, you know. We would work in the tobacco fields and come in for the midday meal, which wasn’t lunch — it was dinner. And then at night, it wasn’t dinner — it was …

Supper!

[Laughs] Supper, that’s right. So we’d come in for dinner and we’d play a tune or two. It’s all true. Then we’d listen to the Opry. It’s just like the scene out of Coal Miner’s Daughter. We’d sit around and listen to the Opry on Friday and Saturday nights, gathered around that radio. My dad would just sit and wait for somebody to play a fiddle tune.

You know, I grew up with a lot of music, including some bluegrass, but I’m still pretty new to the insider’s bluegrass world. I’ve been to the last few IBMAs, since they’ve been held in Raleigh, and it’s always cool to see the mix of bluegrass communities that come out of the woodwork. From the real dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists from Southwest Virginia, to the Colorado folks with Grateful Dead T-shirts on …

Yeah, and that’s been true for all of my professional life, which started in 1970 when I got out of high school. That Spring, before I graduated, I went to the Union Grove Fiddle Festival, and that was the first time I found hippies out in the field playing. They were called the New Deal String Band from Chapel Hill. They were a little older than me, and I made pals with them. Of course, there were old-time traditionalists. You had the hippies and rednecks, the young people and old people. And that’s the great thing about acoustic music, bluegrass, old-time, folk music — the music was the tie-in. It isn’t just for one age group. I’m hoping this record is that way, too. It’s not for one age group.

I’ve heard Union Grove was a wild time back then. A lot of folks think of ’71 at Camp Springs, too, as a real watershed moment when you and Tony played with the Bluegrass Alliance. Now it’s been 45 years. Did you know it was a big deal at the time?

No, we were just trying to stay in tune! Camp Springs in ’71 — now looking back I know that, right around that very weekend, a lot of things turned around in bluegrass. Tony Rice’s last performance with the Bluegrass Alliance was that weekend. Tony was leaving our band to join J.D. Crowe’s band. That was a big turnaround in bluegrass music when Tony went on with Crowe. And the reason J.D. Crowe’s band had a vacancy is cause Doyle Lawson left Crowe to join the Country Gentlemen. And the reason there was a vacancy in that band was because Jimmy Gaudreau left the Country Gentlemen to form the Second Generation with Eddie Adcock. I mean, four bands turned around within a month.

And then, within two months, the Bluegrass Alliance became Newgrass Revival. Probably within the next year, they started getting the Seldom Scene going in D.C. And you still had the New Deal String Band over in Chapel Hill. And the Osborne Brothers, to me, were just outrageously great then. They were totally the kings of progressive bluegrass-style music. So those early '70s were really important. But right off the bat, it was obvious to me that bluegrass-style music wasn’t for one age group. It wasn’t for one type of person. And it doesn’t revolve around trends. It revolves around people learning to play and sing.

Talking about trends and tradition reminds me of Nick Forster’s speech at IBMA last year, where he said something like, “I love the Earls of Leicester, but we should realize that we gave our Grammy to a cover band …” What do you think about that? Too much homage being paid to the traditional stuff?

You know, I think bluegrass-style music has been in a good spot for a while now. Unfortunately, we just lost Ralph Stanley. I was privileged to see the Stanley Brothers in ’65, and, when I first saw Ralph, I knew I was seeing an incredible musical force, and he always has been. And he sure will be missed. But we still have some of the greats. The next great king of bluegrass for me is Del McCoury, and boy is it resting in great hands. And, of course, the Travelin' McCourys are a force — and then you think of Sierra Hull, and way on the top of the scale, the Punch Brothers, and then over on the West Coast, David Grisman has the David Grisman sextet, and then on the rock 'n' roll side, you’ve got the Sam Bush Band. We all give a nod to old-time bluegrass all the time. Too numerous to name them all because they’re all great — and anybody younger than 50, I think of them as the young bands! Within the world of bluegrass, the variety is pretty healthy I think.

I just saw Sierra play with the McCourys at DelFest, and, man, she’s great. I’ve seen you a few times now at Tony Williamson’s Mando Mania workshop at Merlefest. I take it you’re feeling good about the future of the mandolin?

Oh, the future of the mandolin is really rolling right along. Tony Williamson does such a great job with Mando Mania because, every year, he introduces me to a new, young player that I haven’t met. So Tony’s the one out there with his ear to the ground paying attention to all the young mandolin pickers, and, once again, he brings someone new that I haven’t met before that I’m always knocked out with.

As far as mandolin itself, I hesitate to start naming mandolin players because I’m a fan of all the young pickers. Now, with the advancement of people like Adam Steffey and Chris Thile, and now Sierra Hull — I see her as kind of having learned from Chris and Adam — the bar is being raised. I’m fascinated by the things they can play. I’m just glad to be in there somewhere!

You think [Bill] Monroe’s style is going to stick around alongside all the modern stuff?

As far as Monroe style, you know, that’s alive and well very much in the hands of Ronnie McCoury, Roland White, and especially Mike Compton. I really believe there will be people that always will want to play like Bill Monroe. Actually, it’ll be interesting: I think in the next 20 years we may see more people playing like Monroe than we have lately. The same way that guitarists love to dig up stuff from Muddy Waters and Elmore James and Skip James, you know, Freddy King and Albert and B.B. King. The way guitarists are honoring them, I have wondered if there might be a resurgence in Bill’s style, the same way that all banjo players want to play like Earl Scruggs.

Thinking of all the distinct styles of heroes like Scruggs or Monroe — you know, the first name guys, Doc [Watson], J.D. [Crowe], Clarence [White] — they sound now like they came up with their own style out of whole cloth.

Yeah, true.

A lot of young folks nowadays — and I mean friends of mine, great pickers — are coming out of programs like Berklee. Do you think there’s anything lost with the more conservatory-style instruction?

No, I think it’s just a different way to look at it. Once again, it sure hasn’t hurt Sierra Hull to go to Berklee for a couple years. You know what, great musicians come from both areas, whether you were schooled or simply learned by ear and are following the traditions. What’s the old joke? “Can you read music?" "No, not enough to hurt my playing.” Or, "How do you get an electric guitar player to shut up in the studio?"

Show him some sheet music?

[Laughs] To me, I mean, I chose to start playing after graduating from high school. I chose to move to Louisville from Bowling Green, Kentucky, and I started playing five or six nights a week in a bluegrass band. I was either going to go to college and play violin or do that. And I chose the more improvisational side. Of course, they’re both valid, but for myself, I believe I chose correctly. I tell you what — nothing will make you tighter than five nights a week playing in a bluegrass band. You spend a number of months in the wintertime doing that, when you hit your first festival, you are ready. You have done your homework. It was that way with New Grass Revival. When we recorded our first album, we were playing so much that, when we hit the studio for our first record, I know we did the whole thing in three days. We knew those songs — bam! — like the back of our hands. We were ready to go.

Any new stuff outside of bluegrass you’re digging these days?

You know, my listening tastes are pretty eclectic, I guess. Let’s see, what am I into these days? John McLaughlin’s new record called Black Light. The new Eric Clapton record called I Still Do has got some really great stuff on it. There’s a record called D-Stringz, and it’s Stanley Clarke on bass, Biréli Lagrène on guitar, and Jean-Luc Ponty on violin. And then, on the other side of the coin, I’ve been looking for this Country Gentlemen record on Mercury called Folk Session Inside forever … for I don’t know how long. Lynn and I walked in a great record store in Louisville, Kentucky, called Matt Anthony Records, and there it was — for eight dollars. [Laughs]

Man, that’s a good feeling.

So I finally just got Folk Session Inside — I’d had a tape of it, of course, but I’d never owned the record. Just when I least expected it, I was walking out of the store with that Country Gentlemen record and I was totally thrilled.

Photo credit: Shelley Swanger

3×3: Frank Solivan on Fallon, Fishing, and Finding the Right Jeans

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Frank Solivan
Hometown: Originally Modesto, CA now in Alexandria, VA
Latest Album: Family, Friends, & Heroes
Nicknames: shwoolio, spanky, Franklin

 

Starting supper in Santa Fe.

A photo posted by Frank Solivan (@fsolivan) on

What was the first record you ever bought with your own money?
With my own money … New Grass Revival, Friday Night In America

If money were no object, where would you live and what would you do?
I'd probably want to move back to Alaska for part of the year to fish and hunt and be in the epic beauty of that place. Maybe live in Hawaii and spend lots of time with a Hawaiian sling and mask, snorkel and fins. Living island-style.

If your life were a movie, which songs would be on the soundtrack?
There'd have to be too many to mention. Songs from the Highwaymen to Tower of Power to Ray Charles to Stevie Wonder, Little Milton, Garth Brooks, Merle Haggard, George Strait, New Grass Revival, Flatt and Scruggs, and Bill Monroe.

 

@dangbooth and @fiddlinmanders pickin' at @cartervintageguitars today. #kidsinacandystore

A photo posted by Frank Solivan (@fsolivan) on

What brand of jeans do you wear?
Whichever ones fit! I usually have to try on a number of pants before I find the right fit. Recently, I found some in Target. But, in years past, I would wear Wranglers and Carhartt.

What's your go-to karaoke tune?
Don't have one, but if I did, I'd love to sing some Adele.

What's your favorite season?
Winter

Kimmel or Fallon?
Fallon

Jason Isbell or Sturgill Simpson?
Can I say both?

Chocolate or vanilla?
Depends on my mood. If I need some comfort, I'm on the chocolate

Photo credit: Chester Simpson