Tag: newgrass

They’ve Got You Covered: 10 Tributes You Need to Hear

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

2020 was a year of many things – COVID-19, existential elections, the shuttering of the music industry, and on and on – but one common, non-catastrophic throughline of the musical variety was cover songs. Many musicians and artists, finding themselves with more free time than usual and more standard-fare albums and cross-continental tours back-burnered, took the opportunity to explore live records, collaborations, and yes, covers. From Molly Tuttle to Wynonna, livestreams to socially-distanced shows, covers became an unofficial pandemic pastime. 

Now, in 2021, many of these cover projects conceived and created in 2020 have made it to store shelves – digital and otherwise – and we’ve collected ten tributes worth a listen:

Shannon McNally covers Waylon Jennings

It’s fitting that Shannon McNally released The Waylon Sessions on Compass Records, whose headquarters now occupies “Hillbilly Central.” As Tompall Glaser’s former studio, the building helped give rise to country’s outlaw movement and it’s where Waylon himself recorded. With guests like Jessi Colter, Buddy Miller, Rodney Crowell, and Lukas Nelson, the project recontextualizes Waylon Jennings’ material, which is usually associated with hyper-masculine wings of the country scene. As McNally puts it in a press release, “What Waylon Jennings brought to country music is what country music needs right now, and that unapologetic and vulnerable sense of self are what women are tapping into artistically right now as the industry evolves.” 

Steve Earle covers Justin Townes Earle

Many a musical child has covered their parents’ catalogs in retrospect, but it’s rare that we see the reverse. A gorgeous, gutting, and laid-bare album, Steve Earle’s J.T. is a ten-song tribute to his son, Justin Townes Earle, who passed away suddenly in August 2020, shocking the Americana and folk communities. Earle’s signature emotion bristles and crackles throughout the project, giving Justin Townes’ songs an even stronger quality of visceral electricity. Proceeds from the album will go to a trust for Etta St. James Earle, Justin Townes’ daughter and Steve’s granddaughter. 

The Infamous Stringdusters cover Bill Monroe

Spread out from North Carolina to Colorado and beyond, the Infamous Stringdusters utilized home recording from their respective studios during the pandemic to accomplish musical creativity their jam-packed schedule hadn’t really allowed in the “before times.” Their brand new EP, A Tribute to Bill Monroe, returns the virtuosic jamgrass outfit to territory familiar to those who first found the group when they were cutting their teeth, striding out from traditional bluegrass into the vast, expansive newgrass-and-jamgrass unknown. The project illustrates that the true strength of this ensemble is found in utilizing traditional bluegrass aesthetics for their own creative purposes. For example, you might listen through the entire record without realizing the Stringdusters made a Bill Monroe tribute album without mandolin!

Mandy Barnett covers Billie Holiday

Mandy Barnett is a cross-genre chameleon; between her talent, her voice’s timeless Americana tinge, and her appetite for classics — from Nashville staples to the American songbook — she often finds herself reaching far beyond Music Row and classic country to R&B, standards, and in her most recent release, Billie Holiday covers. Every Star Above was recorded in 2019, pre-pandemic, and includes ten songs from Holiday’s 1958 Lady in Satin album – songs previously also covered by Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington, and many, many others. The project feels akin to Linda Ronstadt’s pop and big band forays, never fully detached from Barnett’s country roots, but built atop their solid foundation. In another Ronstadt-esque move, Barnett partnered with recently departed jazz arranger Sammy Nestico; Every Star Above was the award-winning composer’s final project.

Charley Crockett covers James Hand

Country-western crooner Charley Crockett is truly prolific, having released nine full-length albums in the past six years. As the story goes, before his friend, acclaimed Texan singer-songwriter James “Slim” Hand passed away unexpectedly about a year ago, Crockett promised he would record his songs. “Lesson in Depression” captures the sly, winking quality of the best sort of sad-ass country, which isn’t burdened by its own melodrama. While it’s certain Crockett (as Tanya Tucker would put it) would have rather brought Slim his flowers while he was living, there’s a poignancy in how 10 For Slim – Charley Crockett Sings James Hand, like Earle’s J.T., immediately demonstrates how these impactful musical legacies will live on.

Lowland Hum cover Peter Gabriel

Lowland Hum’s album covering Peter Gabriel’s So — which they’ve cutely and aptly entitled So Low — began as a passing joke, but the folk duo of husband-and-wife Daniel and Lauren Goans followed the passion and fun that led them to Gabriel’s hit 1986 release, quickly unspooling the passing whim into inspiration for a full-blown project. “We already loved the iconic record, but in translating Gabriel’s melodies and otherworldly arrangements,” they explain on their website, “we fell even deeper in love with the songs, Gabriel’s voice, and his uncanny ability to fully inhabit both vulnerability and playfulness…” Their “quiet music,” minimalist approach is well suited to the material and the entire project is incredibly listenable, comforting, and subtly envelope-pushing.

Chrissie Hynde covers Bob Dylan

After The Bard released “Murder Most Foul” and “I Contain Multitudes” early in 2020 (and in the pandemic) founder, singer, songwriter, and guitarist for The Pretenders Chrissie Hynde was inspired to once again revisit Dylan’s catalog – a limitless fount of material with which she was already intimately familiar. Her new album, Standing in the Doorway, features nine Dylan tracks recorded with fellow Pretenders guitarist James Walbourne – almost exclusively via text message – and for their coronavirus YouTube video series. Hynde opts for deeper cuts, showcasing her affinity for swaths of Dylan’s career often overlooked by other would-be cover-ers. This classic, “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” feels appropriately sentimental and longing, a perfect encapsulation of the day-to-day of the realities of the pandemic, filtered through a Bob Dylan lens and Hynde’s distinctive voice. 

Various Artists cover John Lilly

John Lilly is a songwriter’s songwriter. Based in West Virginia, his original music has been covered by modern legends like Tim O’Brien, Kathy Mattea, and Tom Paxton. April In Your Eyes: A Tribute to the Songs of John Lilly gathers various artists from the folk, old-time, and bluegrass communities – in West Virginia and otherwise – spotlighting the incredible depth and breadth of Lilly’s catalog. The title track is stunningly rendered by Maya de Vitry and Ethan Jodziewicz, who were connected with Lilly originally through West Virginia’s iconic old-time pickers’ gathering affectionately referred to as “Clifftop.” Paxton, O’Brien, and Mattea all make appearances on the project, as do Brennen Leigh & Noel McKay, Bill Kirchen, and many other members of Lilly’s musical family and inner circle, giving the project an intentional and intimate resonance.

American Aquarium cover ’90s Country Hits

BJ Barham’s American Aquarium dropped a surprise album, Slappers, Bangers, & Certified Twangers: Volume One in May. Featuring ten covers of some of the band’s favorite ‘90s country hits, it’s a dose of all-star-tribute-concert packaged in a pandemic-friendly stay-at-home-form – and available on John Deere Green vinyl, of course. One particularly sad casualty of the coronavirus pandemic has been these sorts of musical nostalgia bombs – when was the last time any of us attended a theme night or tribute show at say, the Basement East in Nashville or Raleigh, NC’s The Brewery? – and Slappers, Bangers, & Certified Twangers has us in the mood to attend the first ‘90s country covers live show possible now that things are finally reopening.

Various Artists cover John Prine

A year without Prine seems far, far too long to travel with such a Prine-shaped hole in our musical hearts. But his presence and legacy certainly still loom large; the Prine family has announced “You Got Gold: Celebrating the Life & Songs of John Prine,” a series of special concerts and events held across various venues in Nashville in October. Oh Boy Records is also planning to release a new tribute record, Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine, Vol. 2, to coincide with You Got Gold. The first two tracks from the project that have already been unveiled feature Sturgill Simpson performing “Paradise” and Brandi Carlile’s rendition of “I Remember Everything,” which you can hear above. Each month until October, the Prine family and Oh Boy will release another song from the project, unveiling special guests who each pay tribute to Prine, his songs, and the enormous vacuum his loss has left in the roots music industry.

 

Bluegrass Memoirs: The Earl Scruggs Celebration (Part 3)

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s note: Read part one of Neil V. Rosenberg’s Bluegrass Memoir on the Earl Scruggs Celebration of 1987 here. Read part two here.)

Boiling Springs, NC on Saturday, September 26, 1987: My workshop in the Gardner-Webb College Library with Snuffy Jenkins, Pappy Sherrill and the Hired Hands ended at 4:30 that afternoon when Dan X. Padgett presented Snuffy with a hat. From my diary:

Afterward I hung around and listened for a while to the Hired Hands’ young banjo picker Randy Lucas play the Bach “Bourrée,” “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” and another classical piece expertly on the banjo.

Here’s a nice example, from Bill’s Pickin’ Parlor, of Randy’s recent work in this milieu:

Then, supper time came.

I went for some barbecue (big regional difference thing — this barbecue was red, vinegary; with shredded pork) with Tom [Hanchett] and Carol [Sawyer] and then was kind of enticed away by Dan X Padgett…

I’d met Padgett the afternoon prior, when I first arrived in Boiling Springs; a respected local banjo elder, he was the teacher of the young banjo player in Horace Scruggs’ band whom I’d met earlier today. Padgett had a long and interesting career, with deep connections to Earl Scruggs and Snuffy Jenkins, as well as memories of an earlier generation of banjo greats. He was interviewed for the Earl Scruggs Center by Craig Havighurst in 2010. 

I went with him…

…to his car (an old Cadillac) to look at various memorabilia like photos of him with various important country and bluegrass people. He also showed me a very worn copy of the very first F&S songbook and when I expressed a strong interest in copying it he loaned it to me. I also talked with him about the possibility of obtaining a banjo like one he played during the afternoon, a miniature Mastertone about the size of a mandolin with an actual tone ring, flange, and resonator. He said he’d see about it and we ended up standing at his trunk trying out various instruments. 

I was picking away on “St. Anne’s Reel” when I noticed there were some people standing around me, and when I finished and looked around there was Doug Dillard looking at me with that big smile. Quite an introduction!

In an edition of the Shelby Star a week or so earlier, Joe DePriest wrote of Dillard’s association with Earl Scruggs, telling how in 1953 the Salem, Missouri teen first heard “Earl’s Breakdown” on the car radio. It hit him so hard “he ran off the road into a ditch.” Dillard got his folks to take him to Scruggs’s Nashville home. “We knocked on the door, and he came, and we asked him to put some Scruggs tuners on my banjo. He invited us in.”

A newspaper clipping from a 1987 edition of the ‘Shelby Star’ of an article by Joe DePriest on Doug Dillard

Earl welcomed banjo pickers to his home, especially if they wanted Scruggs Pegs. In the “Suggestions for Banjo Beginners” on the first page of Flatt & Scruggs Picture Album — Hymn and Songbook from 1958, Earl invited those interested to contact him in Nashville, and many did:

The first page of the 1958 ‘Flatt & Scruggs Picture Album — Hymn and Songbook’

In 1962 Doug and his brother Rodney went with their band The Dillards to LA, where they were “discovered” at the Hollywood folk club The Ash Grove. With best-selling Elektra LPs, they toured extensively in the West and appeared on CBS’s The Andy Griffith Show as “the Darling Family.” 

In 1966 Doug left The Dillards and ventured into what would soon be called “country-rock,” touring with the Byrds and forming a band with former Byrd, Gene Clark. Dillard’s banjo playing had been strongly shaped by his close listening to Scruggs. In the ’60s when players like Bill Keith and Eric Weissberg were pushing banjo boundaries in bluegrass, Doug was pushing boundaries in a different way by finding a place for Scruggs-style banjo in rock. He fitted solid, straight-ahead rolls into pieces like Gene Clark’s “The Radio Song”: 

Dillard was heard often on popular Hollywood studio recordings and movie soundtracks during the ’70s. He even had on-screen roles in Robin Williams’ Popeye and Bette Midler’s The Rose.

DePriest’s article quoted Dillard: “During all this time, ‘I never said goodbye to bluegrass.'” He moved to Nashville in 1983 and started a band. 

The bluegrass music business was booming in Nashville. A bunch of young pickers were there, touring in bands and doing studio sessions. New Grass Revival featured newcomers Bela Fleck and Pat Flynn; John Hartford, Mark O’Connor, Jerry Douglas — all were in town. The Nashville Bluegrass Band started in 1984; that year Ricky Skaggs won a Grammy for his version of Monroe’s “Wheel Hoss.” Up in the Gulch district, between the Opry and Vanderbilt, the Station Inn was serving bluegrass seven nights a week.

I was introduced to the Doug Dillard Band this afternoon right there where Dan X Padgett and I had been jamming. His four-piece outfit drew from a pool of talented bluegrass musicians. 

Rhythm guitarist, vocalist and emcee Ginger Boatwright was a seasoned veteran. During the ’70s she’d toured and recorded with Red White and Blue(grass), and later formed The Bushwackers, an all-female group that began as the house band at Nashville’s Old Time Picking Parlor. Her story is told well in Murphy Hicks Henry’s book Pretty Good for a Girl: Women in Bluegrass. Henry calls her “The first ‘modern’ woman in bluegrass” alluding to her folk revival roots, her styles of humor and dress, and, most importantly, “a softer, smoother, more lyrical quality” of singing.

Having a second guitar as a regular lead instrument in a four-piece band was uncommon at this time. When I met Doug’s young lead guitarist I was surprised to discover he was the son of Lamar Grier, whom I’d hung out with twenty years earlier when he was a Blue Grass Boy. David Grier was 26. He’d studied the lead guitar work of Clarence White (there’s a photo of him with White in Bluegrass Odyssey), Tony Rice, and Doc Watson. He was already an experienced pro.

Playing the electric bass, which was unusual for the time, was Roger Rasnake, a singer-songwriter from Bristol on the Tennessee-Virginia border.

In 1986 Flying Fish released this band’s first album, What’s That? (FF 377). Here’s the title cut. The band is augmented to six pieces by Vassar Clements on violin and Bobby Clark on mandolin; both played on the album. What we see and hear first is Ginger’s dynamic emcee work. Doug’s composition shows a banjo picker who knew fiddle music — a melodic “A” section followed by a punching Scruggs-style “B” part. 

Rasnake made a point of telling me Roland White had sent his regards. 

Roland was an old California friend, whom I’d met in 1964 and gotten to know when he was playing with Monroe. He’d just joined the Nashville Bluegrass Band. It was a pleasant surprise to hear from him.

Roger wanted to buy a copy of my book, so I took him up to the library and he bought one which I autographed. I signed several others during the day, including several that people brought with them.

I rested a bit before heading over to Gardner-Webb’s Lutz-Yelton Convocation Center. 

That evening was the Doug Dillard concert in the gym. It was good, with Ginger Boatwright doing the MC work, Lamar Grier’s son David picking some nice lead guitar, and good singing by Roger, Doug, and Ginger. 

Rasnake did one of his own songs from their album, “Endless Highway.” 

It’s familiar today because Alison Krauss covered it in her 1990 album, I’ve Got That Old Feeling.

There was a grand finale at the end with picking by Horace and the boys, and also fiddler Pee Wee Davis, whom I heard briefly in the back room for a while. I bought a souvenir photo of the Dillards with Andy Griffith. Home and in bed by 11.

On Sunday morning:

Up and away by 7:30, carried my bags to Tom and Carol’s dorm. We hit the road and drove to Shelby where we went, on Joe’s advice, to the Pancake House, a local place on the strip which was sure to have livermush. We went in and sat at a table and when the menu came I eagerly perused it. Sure enough, at the top of the list on the right-hand side was “Livermush and Eggs.” And, in case I’d missed it, about halfway down the same list was “Eggs and Livermush.” So I ordered that and actually ate some. Very peppery, other than that not much taste and what there was didn’t really excite me. I mixed it with eggs, like one does with grits. Maybe it’ll help my banjo-picking, who knows.

In Chapel Hill I stayed the night with Tom and Carol and had a bit of time to visit friends and relations and buy a box of instant grits at a supermarket. Next day I was back home in Newfoundland, writing up my diary.

The weekend at the Earl Scruggs Celebration brought me face to face with a music culture in which bluegrass nestled. Seeing, hearing and talking with Snuffy, Pappy, Horace, and Dan put me in touch with generations older than mine, what Bartenstein has called “The Pioneers” and “The Builders” of this music. I feel fortunate to have seen, met and heard them all. Just as important for me was hearing new younger performers like Ginger Boatwright, David Grier, and Randy Lucas.

This was my first opportunity see my folk guitar hero, Etta Baker. It came near the start of her late-in-life performance career. In 1989 the North Carolina Arts Council gave her the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award; in 1991 she won an NEA National Heritage Fellowship. Wayne Martin produced her first CD, for Rounder, in 1991. Later she collaborated with Taj Mahal. Meanwhile Music Maker Relief Foundation, an organization “fighting to preserve American musical traditions,” gave her the support she needed to pursue her career as a musician up to her passing at the age of 93.

It was also my first time to see Doug Dillard. If Snuffy and Pappy personified the era when bluegrass emerged from old-time, Dillard’s new band blended the contemporary sounds of an era when classic, progressive, and newgrass elements were shaping and blending the sounds heard as bluegrass thrived in a festival-dominated scene. 

Instead of an alpha male lead singer/emcee/rhythm guitarist, he had an alpha female. Replacing the mandolin or fiddle one expected in a band with a banjo was an acoustic lead guitar. Instead of an old “doghouse” upright the bass player had an electric. The lead vocals were shared between male and female. Repertoire ranged from bluegrass classics through old pop and rock favorites to band member compositions. The group was touring widely. State of the art bluegrass, 1987.

So how did all this fit together for me? I recalled the start of my visit when Joe DePriest took Tom, Carol, and me to visit the Shelby graveyard. 

He showed us three graves: first that of Thomas Dixon, the local writer whose The Clansmen was turned by D.W. Griffith into The Birth of a Nation. Not far away was the grave of W.J. Cash, author of the immensely influential The Mind of the South. Joe and Tom pondered how the two men would have felt about being buried so close to each other; the image that sticks with me is one of Cash glaring at Dixon.

Joe gave us copies of the Greater Shelby Chamber of Commerce’s glossy full-color brochure, Shelby…it’s home. In it Thomas Dixon is identified as the author “whose novel Birth of a Nation became the first million-dollar movie” thus avoiding the fact that book and movie inspired the racist revival of the KKK. It describes Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist W.J. Cash simply as “author,” not mentioning his progressive stances in print against the Klan and Nazism.

Tom wondered, what if the paths of Cash (who lived in Boiling Springs) and the young Scruggs had crossed at the time? He told us:

Cash … thought that the South had no “Culture” to speak of — what would he have had to say about Scruggs’s contribution?

Joe took us to a third gravesite, that of a local Confederate colonel killed in a Civil War battle; after detailing that part of his life its headstone:

… describes him as a lover of the arts who twice rode by horseback all the way to a far-off northern city (Baltimore? New York?) in order to hear Jenny Lind sing. This tells you where Cash’s mind was when he spoke of Culture.

The Shelby brochure ended its historical section saying “Cleveland County has also produced two North Carolina governors and an ambassador, but our most famous son is country singer Earl Scruggs.”

So much for official culture in 1987! 

Gardner-Webb’s decision to honor Earl Scruggs reflected a shifting intellectual landscape. A local musician of humble origins — a mill worker — had taken on new meaning and significance because of his national and international recognition and popular culture success. He deserved honor and celebration in his home. I was glad to help.

I don’t know if there were any further Earl Scruggs Celebrations at Gardner-Webb, but today there’s an Earl Scruggs Center in Shelby, which is planning to hold its inaugural Earl Scruggs Music Festival in September 2022. 

(Editor’s note: Read part one of Neil V. Rosenberg’s Bluegrass Memoir on the Earl Scruggs Celebration of 1987 here. Read part two here.)

Neil V. Rosenberg is an author, scholar, historian, banjo player, Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductee, and co-chair of the IBMA Foundation’s Arnold Shultz Fund.

Photo of Neil V. Rosenberg: Terri Thomson Rosenberg

LISTEN: Ruby Mack, “Little Bird”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Ruby Mack
Hometown: Greenfield, Massachusetts
Song: “Little Bird”
Album: Devil Told Me
Release Date: October 23, 2020

In Their Words: “‘Little Bird’ is a spirited newgrass ditty about laying down your pride and being vulnerable to the risk and improbable feelings that flood in when you follow your heart versus the stasis of playing it safe. I wrote it with a friend when I didn’t have the courage to tell the one I loved that I loved her. ‘Little Bird’ was the 2am phone calls in the heat of the summer. We never kissed and we never told a soul. Historically, songwriting has been a vehicle for sharing everything I couldn’t say directly. I conceal my truths in poetry, metaphor, and melody. ‘Little Bird’ is a page from one of my oldest diaries.” — Emma Ayres, Ruby Mack

https://soundcloud.com/loudmouthpro/04-little-bird-ruby-mack/s-yNxMKMklVbp

Photo credit: Gianna Colson

On New Solo Album, Resophonic Guitarist Andy Hall Reaches for the Jam Songs

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Andy Hall is one of the fiercest slide guitarists we have around not just today, but probably ever. If there’s any doubt, you needn’t look further than his newest release, 12 Bluegrass Classics for Resophonic Guitar. The Denver-based singer and Dobro player of the Infamous Stringdusters has always pushed the envelope, but had never taken the time to put his own stamp on the formative tunes that all musicians of the genre play with one another. From teaching thousands of students online via ArtistWorks, to his work with Earl Scruggs, Dolly Parton, or Jack Black, it’s obvious that Hall is a master of the instrument, and the art itself.

BGS visited with Hall to talk all things pandemic, resophonic guitars, and what this record means in a time like our own. 

BGS: What was your initial inspiration for this recording?

Andy Hall: It was an interesting time in the spring when I was recording it, you know, but it’s all about taking opportunities that present themselves and making the most of the situation and what you can do. When everything stops, you have no idea what’s happening, you’re pretty quickly trying to figure out how to continue to be expressive. Our band the Stringdusters has toured so much for so long. …I don’t want to say I took it for granted, but when it all went away it was surprising — there was this withdrawal from doing the things that I love to do.

These are songs I’ve played for years and years, and I’ve always wanted to put my stamp on them, my take, you know? I totally overlooked them as anything I would record, because I always played them in jams. For most people, they don’t know these songs. So, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get a recorded version of all these jam songs. It was really just a matter of me sitting, playing, and enjoying these tunes enough to get a good representation of them.

At the same time that you’ve put your own stamp on these tunes, you said that they were formative. I noticed the speed-up in “House of the Rising sun,” just like Mike Auldridge of the Seldom Scene would do. Are there any influences you’re drawing from, more than others, on this record?

Everyone has their own version of what their “classic” tune would be for a certain instrument. So “House of the Rising Sun,” definitely based on the Mike Auldridge version. To me, if you do that song on Dobro, that’s just how it goes. “Dixie Hoedown” was on Jerry Douglas’ first solo record, and something like “Fireball Mail” couldn’t be a more quintessential dobro song. I was always too impatient to sit and get every nuance of somebody’s playing, so I kinda gloss over it for the general idea and fill in the blanks myself. So due to my impatience I have my own style with a lot of them.

So that’s what a lot of these are like, but you can trace most of them back to an original version — like “Cherokee Shuffle,” Sally Van Meter, a great dobro player from Colorado, did that on a record called the Great Dobro Sessions. One that’s totally my own is the first one on the record, “Leather Britches.” I’d never really heard a version of that, but I wanted to try and get that repetitive, cyclical, rolling sound of the fiddle. So a lot of them are jam tunes that I never heard a Dobro version of, and wanted to develop my own thing with. 

“Foggy Mountain Rock” really comes through that way. 

I actually was fortunate enough to get to play with Earl Scruggs some, and that tune is a perfect example of how I didn’t take the time to learn it officially like Josh Graves. When I auditioned for Scruggs’ band, I went to his house and jammed with both Earl and a fiddle player named Glen Duncan. My mind was just blown, you know, we’re just sitting in Earl’s living room playing “Foggy Mountain Rock.” When we finished playing it, it was clear I hadn’t done it the way he was used to hearing it. And he complimented it! “Oh, I love how you put that four chord in there. I love when people do their own thing.” That really justified my whole approach. If Earl Scruggs says it’s cool, then I’m good. 

Do you teach many of these in your class over at ArtistWorks?

There are a couple in my school. “Panhandle Rag” is in there, “Cherokee Shuffle.” I’m about to transcribe not just the melodies, but the solos for a few of these so that the students can have a crack at them. It seems primed for that kind of thing. This is a specialty project geared at Dobro nerds. With the Stringdusters or other projects I do it’s a bit more broad, usually song-based. This record definitely ties into ArtistWorks; it’s just getting deep into the slide guitar thing… because that’s what I love! 

“I am a Pilgrim” is so woody, while “Cherokee Shuffle” has that cutting metallic ring of the Dobro… Can you talk about some of the guitars you used on this record?

“I am a Pilgrim,” “Amazing Grace,” and maybe “Foggy Mountain Rock” were all played on a 1929 Squareneck Tricone National guitar. To me it just has a super unique blues sound. So I used it on the tunes that were slower, just to get some variety. I wrestled with how much variety to put on the record in that way, because I have a bunch of different slide instruments. I’ve got a Chaturangi, which is an Indian slide guitar with all of these resonant strings, of course lap steels and things of that nature, but I decided I wanted to keep it kind of Americana sounding. The National fit into that. All the rest I did on my favorite Beard guitar.

Speaking of formative years, I’m curious if there are any younger Dobro players that stick out to you, or even influence you?

For sure. As a Dobro player, when I was in my twenties, at a certain point I kinda felt like I had heard everything, because there weren’t all that many. I’d heard all of the Jerry Douglas and Rob Ickes, Mike Auldridge and Josh Graves. There’s a lot to dig into, but compared to any other instrument, there was a much smaller pool of stuff to draw on. It’s been cool as new players come up to hear new styles. I think the first guy that was new when I first moved to Nashville was Randy Kohrs. He had a technique that nobody else had.

Out of that came a couple of younger players that I really love like Josh Swift, who played in Doyle Lawson’s band for years. His technical ability is just insane — nobody else can do what he does. There’s a young guy named Gaven Largent who I remember teaching when he was probably 12. There’s a guy named Tommy Maher, who plays in a band called Fireside Collective. Andy Dunnigan from the Lil Smokies, he uses the Dobro very lyrically, and he’s the lead singer too. I love seeing that — a lead singer Dobro player!

I’d say one of my biggest influences in recent years is Roosevelt Collier, a lap steel player. I met him in 2013, on JamCruise, and of course became fast friends with the slide guitar connection. We stayed in touch and actually did a record together a few years back. Roosevelt’s very gospel, sacred steel, very singing, very emotive style, is something I’ve really tried to absorb. It just gets you in the chest. 

What do you foresee, or hope, will be the impact of this record?

There’s something about the coronavirus, or the lockdown, that made every part of life simpler. A lot of things got stripped away and we just got down to basics, be it hanging out with our families and making food, or with the music we’re not doing big tours or big production — we’re sitting in our basements by ourselves playing. It’s certainly one of the silver linings of the whole pandemic thing, the simplicity and the sweetness, and that’s what I was feeling with this. It’s just a reflection of me sitting and playing, and hopefully people will relate to that. People have had to strip everything down to being simple, and that’s what this record is. It’s a reflection of that return to the basics that the pandemic has put on us. It’s really forced us to get back to the root of why we do what we do!

Photo credit: Tobin Voggesser

New Grass Revival: Four Members Look Back on Their ’80s Albums (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on by Editor

A beloved band that was perhaps ahead of its time, New Grass Revival will be inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame during the IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards on October 1. In the second half of our oral history with New Grass Revival, we hear from band members Sam Bush, John Cowan, Béla Fleck and Pat Flynn. Read the first half of the interview, which is part of our celebration of the 75th anniversary of bluegrass.

In 1981, founding members Courtney Johnson (who died in 1996) and Curtis Burch left the band after a long tour with rock ‘n’ roll star Leon Russell. As a result, New Grass Revival began its newest incarnation with Béla Fleck and Pat Flynn.

Sam Bush: Courtney and Curtis were older than me and John and they were just burned out. We had worked harder on the road with Leon than we’d ever worked in our lives.

Pat Flynn: New Grass Revival had established a following on the circuit in the late ’70s, but Leon Russell had sucked them into his orbit and taken them away from the bluegrass world. So by the time that band [lineup] broke up, they really had to start over.

SB: I had met Béla in a band he played in called Tasty Licks, and Béla had hired me as the fiddler on his first album, Crossing the Tracks.

PF: Béla was a smart kid. He thought, “If I’m going to come out with a solo album and nobody knows who I am, why don’t I hire high-profile people to play on it?” That’s a smart move!

Béla Fleck: I liked the original band when I heard it, but I admit I was attracted to smoother and jazzier stuff at the time. I have matured a bit since then and now I am a huge fan of the early band, their bravery and iconoclastic spirit, and a poetic expression of their time and place. They were committed to the moment and improvising, and taking the music to a new place that resonated with a lot of folks who loved bluegrass, but it didn’t totally represent them.

SB: Pat and his friend Scott Myers had opened for New Grass Revival on the Colorado tours we did. We loved his guitar playing because it wasn’t like the bluegrass players. He was a rock electric guitar player that could do it on acoustic.

PF: I’d moved from Los Angeles to Aspen, Colorado, and got to know the band at Telluride. Sam had a hand in writing some songs, but they really didn’t have an in-house songwriter. I had always written songs for the bands I was in. And Béla brought a unique and original instrumental vision. So all of a sudden you had two new people that could supply original material.

SB: They were the two musicians who could bring the next step of another sound for us. I called Garth [Fundis, the band’s producer] and said, “You’ve got to come hear these new pickers we’ve got, this is something, this is really good.” I knew it was too hot for me to handle — I didn’t feel I was qualified to produce the four of us. We needed another ear, an outside opinion, because we had so many ideas between the four of us.

PF: On the Boulevard was the first album we released in the US, but we’d done a live album in France almost a full year prior. Technically Live in Toulouse was the first album we made as a new band.

JC: We’re playing like a well-oiled machine; it’s really a good record. It has one of Sam’s instrumentals on there called “Sapporo” that might be 11 minutes long!

SB: The idea of “Sapporo” started when the band went to Japan for the first time. It was my favorite city over there; it was also my favorite beer. A mandolin player over there taught me a five-note Japanese scale and that is a recurring riff you hear us play as we jam.

JC: The first year we were together with Béla and Pat, the energy and the love and everything was way up, confidence was high. And On the Boulevard is one of my favorites. There’s no drums, it’s just the four of us.

PF: It was very fresh. I remember the recording sessions at Jack’s Tracks studio in Nashville. We had a decent budget from Sugar Hill, enough to record comfortably and take our time. I experimented with different guitars and arrangements. We were able to bring the music into the magnifying glass of a studio and really look at it in depth.

JC: The dynamic of the band had changed so much, because Béla was already miles ahead of everybody in terms of his ability to play. He practiced all the time. In the old band, I was in charge of shoveling coal into the engine and Sam was flying around on top painting whatever picture he wanted to paint. Courtney and Curtis, they were kind of like myself, advanced support players. But now you’ve got two other players who can play at the same level of Sam. So we could take this train anywhere. We could get off the tracks.

PF: I had brought some songs with me to the band and I was very happy with “On the Boulevard.” I had written it prior to joining. It was pretty much autobiographical. I’d been living in Thousand Oaks, California, and there’s a boulevard that runs through the middle of the Valley, and as I watched it from the window it was like its own little world, a parade of passing people. It was one of the earliest things we worked out.

SB: My songwriting partner Steve Brines had died a sudden death of a heart ailment he didn’t know he had. So Steve was gone and I was still writing instrumentals, but I lost my enthusiasm for songwriting.

PF: I was especially happy with “One of These Trains,” the way the material came out, and the band took to it so naturally. I was encouraged that I was in the right place with the right people. I loved Sam’s instrumental “Indian Hills,” and John did a great blues number called “Just Is.” We were discovering each other’s powers and personalities as musicians and friends. I remember it very fondly. We were struggling for employment to connect with the old fans and that album was a big help — when it came out, we created a pretty big buzz.

SB: Toni Foglesong told her husband Jim, who was the president of Capitol Records Nashville, “I heard a band that makes a sound like nothing I’ve ever heard before.” So, Jim came to hear us and he said, “I want you guys to record. I don’t know how we’re going to sell you but I want you to be yourselves.”

Two studio albums followed: New Grass Revival in 1986, and Hold to a Dream in 1987.

SB: Every time new people joined, we encouraged them to bring their influences into the music. When Pat joined he was influenced by those Southern Californian songwriters like Jackson Browne, and the country-rock Telecaster picking he knew. One song where I specifically hear Pat’s southern rock influence is “In the Middle of the Night,” on the ’86 album.

PF: I was very involved in the country-rock sound like the Eagles and the Flying Burrito Brothers and the songs I wrote were well-fitted for a bluegrass approach. I didn’t have to make adjustments musically or lyrically, just in the area of arrangements. I had to make sure the songs I wrote had great solo spots for the instrumentalists and I had to fit the songs to whoever was singing, either John or Sam. So I started to instinctively shape my material where there was plenty of room for improvisational playing and also good range of vocals for those two.

BF: This band was full of guys with very different musical influences. If you didn’t want to be challenged, it was the wrong place for you. Some folks surround themselves with people that love all the same stuff they do, and that can work too. But in New Grass Revival, we were all into different stuff, which we brought to the band to see if we could get our favorite stuff included.

SB: Béla is a jazz player and when he came in his favorite musician was Chick Corea. I had his records, but they didn’t make so much sense to me until then.

BF: I think my interest in jazz gave me some cool tools to work with in a bluegrass context. I wrote a tune called “Metric Lips” [on Hold to a Dream], which was partly in jig time. I feel like that main melody had some Chick Corea influence. Sam was highly influenced by John McLaughlin and his great bands. One of them was Shakti, a collaboration with Indian musicians. This seemed to encourage his interest and ability in odd meters, which I also was quite fond of exploring. So if you look at “Metric Lips,” you have Irish music, Indian music, and fusion jazz represented, along with some raging bluegrass. It’s puzzling that it actually works, but in my opinion, it does.

PF: When you’re in a bluegrass band, it’s blend or die! You’re cramped inside a van together and you’re sleeping feet to nose. You’re in a very confined space together more than you are with your significant others back at home.

JC: We called our bus The Bread Truck. We’d bought it from a dry cleaning business. It wasn’t like the 36-footers I had in the Doobie Brothers; it was less than half of that, closer to a van.

PF: John slept half the time, I would be reading a book or writing a song, Sam would be listening to reggae or some weird eclectic thing, Béla was always fiddling with a new tune.

BF: For me it’s the intention and commitment to the ideas that make them work in this band. The same ideas might not work for a band that didn’t play so confidently. Of course we loved bluegrass and that was the common denominator. Each guy also played with a savage fervor or intensity, and perhaps that was another denominator.

PF: We could really charge each other up with the solos. We admired each other, and when somebody threw a flaming ball out there it would be a challenge. And in that exchange, gosh, we became so much better players. I remember listening back to tapes and thinking I lifted myself up and above myself. We all did.

BF: The new band with me and Pat was a somewhat cleaned-up version of the band. We still improvised and pushed hard, but we also were going for a supercharged, seamless tightness.

PF: The thing I remember that we developed between the first two albums was a hardcore consistency. We could turn it on and it would just come on full-bore despite whether or not there was a good sound system or the weather was bad or the crowd was sluggish. We could always count on each other to present a united front. There were no weak links. We just locked into that energy and never lost it.

BF: And we made singles for country radio, which is hard to imagine the early group doing.

SB: We knew we were going into a country market, but I think there’s a misconception that Capitol Records changed us, when in fact the change came from us. We were the ones that said, “We’ll try this song,” and maybe we wouldn’t have tried it in the past.

BF: We were still too out there for it to work, but we were trying to take the music closer into the mainstream, and that was bringing a lot of new people into the scene and showing them what bluegrass could produce.

PF: We would laugh about that in a sad way. The jocks would come to us and say, “I love your stuff, I listen to it at home,” and we’d say, “What about playing it on air?!” They’d say “Yeah, but it’s bluegrass….” We finally got “Callin’ Baton Rouge” into the top 40 which opened up a lot of shows and airplay for us. But we ended up disbanding before we could really bring that home.

SB: For our last album, Friday Night in America, Wendy Waldman became our producer and we really tried all kind of things on that. It’s hard for an athlete to know when to stop, but I really think our last record might be our best one.

PF: I saw a deepening musically. John’s vocals had got better and better, but he also doesn’t get the props for his bass playing. He was a terrific player — listen to his work on Friday Night in America, see how he connected the melodies, the tone he got and the way he tied together the four instruments. They would get noticed, but the glue was John.

SB: John and I had been together 15 years and we were burned out. We lived on the road and I was suffering responsibility overload. And we couldn’t possibly accommodate all that Béla was writing, the type of tunes he was writing. I physically couldn’t play them and neither could the rest of us! We all loved each other, but it was time for him to go on, he needed to express himself. Because at that point it’s not about making money, it’s about musical happiness and your satisfaction.

PF: We’d got together in 1981, and we played our last job as a band on New Year’s Eve, the last day of 1989. We were opening for the Grateful Dead at the Oakland Coliseum, 10,000 people inside and 5,000 outside. That night was particularly memorable — on the right side of the stage sitting nearest Béla was Bonnie Raitt, on the left side, near to me, was Jane Fonda — and I’d always thought what a shame we didn’t release that. Years later someone walked up to me and said, “Remember when you guys opened for the Dead?” I said yes. He said, “Have you got a copy of that set?” I said no. He said, “Do you want one?” A tape of our concert had leaked out among the Dead fans. I contacted a friend at Capitol Records and then that set was remastered and released on a two-CD set called Grass Roots, which has stuff you wouldn’t find on our records. It had its rough spots as a live tape, but you’ll hear that energy and visceral connection we had with each other on stage, you sure will.

(Editor’s note: Read part one of our New Grass Revival Bluegrass 75 feature.)

 

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

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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.)

 

Stuart Duncan’s Coffee Is a Disaster, But His ‘Goat Rodeo’ Fiddling Is Sublime

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Stuart Duncan, speaking by phone from his home outside of Nashville, is at a loss over how to describe the beautiful dissonance of the just-released collaborative album, Not Our First Goat Rodeo.

“I think all of us have — even if it is nebulous — some sort of idea in the back of our mind of how we’ll sound performing any given piece of music,” he tells BGS. “As soon as a little bit of rehearsal happens, the glue starts to come together within a very short period of time – 10 minutes, whatever – of rehearsing and talking. ‘Here’s where the emphasis is.’ ‘Make your note a little shorter, Stuart.’ Those things come together really quickly. Then it is just capturing the best performance of those ideas and moving on.”

A multi-instrumentalist who’s perhaps best known for his sublime fiddle playing, Duncan has racked up awards and accolades for his work in the Nashville Bluegrass Band and as a highly sought-after sideman for acts ranging from Garth Brooks and Robert Plant to Diana Krall and Panic at the Disco. The final piece to the Goat Rodeo quartet — which also encompasses Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile, and Edgar Meyer — Duncan’s virtuosity contributes crucially to the group’s category-defying sound.

This Artist of the Month interview is the first of four installments as BGS salutes the incredible and iconic musicians of Not Our First Goat Rodeo.

BGS: Your first album together (The Goat Rodeo Sessions from 2011) was described as being partly composed and partly improvised. Was that the same approach this time?

Duncan: I would say even more composed, [although] all the material has some improvisation in it. Certainly for me. But there are things that I have to do the way they are written or else it won’t arrive at the proper conclusion — which is what the whole “goat rodeo” name means. Everything has to go just right or catastrophe happens.

This album’s studio session was only ten days for the ten songs, so there wasn’t a lot of time to fool around.

The writing and the sheet music had to be together before we even arrived at the studio or any kind of first rehearsal. The first album involved at least a day or two of rehearsals, and more time for writing. We had like nine months to get that together. This one was more like nine weeks. It came together fast.

We were staying at a nice home in the Berkshires. We had all of our sheet music laid out. Edgar was taking notes. He was the primary copyist — doing the notations for Yo-Yo’s parts, because he was more familiar that sort of bowing. Last-minute tweaks were happening up until the night, even the day, of the first session.

Were there particular musical pieces you brought to the table?

I arrived with little stabs of things for both projects. The most obvious one this time was the pizzicato hammering on thing in “Your Coffee Is a Disaster.” That’s something I had been working on for a long time. It is something that I sort of arrived on while holding my violin in a recording studio waiting for something to get finished in another room. Just noodling around. Holding the instrument like a mandolin and playing it that way on my lap rather than a bow. It took Edgar hearing that and realizing it was the same tempo — or could be played at the same tempo — as one of his other intros. Playing those together kind of started Edgar thinking: “Hey, what if we sandwiched these two ideas?”

So there was a good deal of puzzle piecing the arrangements?

When Edgar’s bowing his bass, and Yo-Yo’s bowing and I’m bowing, we’ve got a lot of bowing. Lots of sustained possibilities. We like to use this to our maximum potential. Like having the violin go down and the cello go up at the same time — and they cross each other in a moment of dissonance. The bass comes in and provides a counterpoint underneath that strengthens that dissonance and comes to a resolution, we hope, at some point.

The middle part of “Your Coffee Is a Disaster” has some of that — counterpoint of violin and cello not arriving at the same note at the same time but a half a beat staggered from each other.

 

It sounds like an especially stimulating creative environment.

With the minds of Edgar and Chris on compositions thrown in with what I have to offer, as far as improv, it’s a thick soup — it’s a chowder.

Were there instances of too many ingredients in the chowder?

Oh sure, it’s way easy to go too far. Some folks, even some folks close to me, have said that we should have thrown out a few more things than we did. Other people, you know, are perfectly happy. It is an individual thing. I just want to get comfortable enough with what we did in the studio to perform it again live at some point.

Despite the limited time you four have had together, you all seem to have a great camaraderie.

We had to stop each from telling jokes so we could get some work done, or it would be Story City where we could sit there all day and tell stories. It kept people focused on the job at hand. We were so glad to be together again. It was really great, and we hope for more.

And has some communication shorthand developed too?

There were times when little nuances of translations had to occur between something that Yo-Yo would say to Edgar because Yo-Yo would know Edgar knew what he meant, but maybe wasn’t so sure he knew that Chris would know. Some deep Latin term from the classical world. So, Edgar would then translate the question to Chris, although Chris would probably know a lot about classical music. There were a couple times when Edgar had to reframe the question to ring Chris’s bell, then Chris would have to translate it to me. It would have to go around in a circle before I would understand what was being talking about.

There were some bowing things that happened where I was equally as frustrated at getting it right as Yo-Yo. I remember one time Yo-Yo said, “Why is the bowing so different for this [song]?” It was a piece that I had started writing on the mandolin. And Chris said, “It wouldn’t seem weird to you if you ever wielded a flat pick.”

Is everyone’s very broad musical interests a key factor to Goat Rodeo being such a unique collaboration?

Completely, definitely. Not just because we all have wide interests musically, but also you are dealing with two monster composers who can weave all of that information into something believable, however unlikely the premise might be.

I’ve also heard Yo-Yo say in interviews that he’s listening to everyone else at the same time he is concentrating on playing. His ears are open; he’s not just using his eyes and his musical abilities. That’s a huge important thing for all of us. Because of what other people do, it influences what we do.

We are completely used to that in the bluegrass, jazz, swing worlds where we are trading licks. Someone plays a lick and you echo what they play. Then make it your own and it goes back around. But when you’re dealing with a written piece of music, that is played the same way each time, there are other things you can listen for with each other. Where the note lands. Where someone else is feeling a flourish or a cascade of notes.

Also, you have someone like Edgar, who can write something into a piece of music that sounds like improv. He know to leave a space as if someone was thinking of the next thing to play rather it being right there. He’ll leave a few rests in there as if someone is playing off the top of their head. Leaving space for the listener.

What is one recording that ranks as a G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time) for you?

Apart from all of bluegrass, old-time, jazz, swing, and blues that I grew up playing, loving and still worship, one of my favorite recordings is the Bach: Complete Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin by Arthur Grumiaux from the early ‘60s.

You can spend decades appreciating different kinds of music and then you think you don’t like classical music that much or it doesn’t hold your interest. Then somebody hands you something like that and says, “Check this out,” and it blew me away. I’ve been a fan of that recording ever since.

My sensibilities of how to perform a piece of music with Yo-Yo Ma were changed by hearing that recording. I became more sensitive to what was required from a violin to play that kind of music. The more aware, the more you can immerse yourself in what your instrument is capable of doing.

(Editor’s note: Read the remaining installments of our Artist of the Month interview series here.)

Photo credit: Josh Goleman

Artist of the Month: Not Our First Goat Rodeo (Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile)

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A remarkable blend of improvisation and composition, Not Our First Goat Rodeo is the just-released second volume of music from four American acoustic icons: Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile. The eclectic group chose their name based on the aviation term “goat rodeo,” indicating a delicate situation in which 100 things need to go right to avoid disaster.

That intricacy is apparent throughout Not Our First Goat Rodeo, and so is the band members’ mutual respect and sense of joy that stems from collaboration. One such example is “The Trappings,” a cinematic piece featuring Aoife O’Donovan, who lent her talents to the first collection and returns as a guest vocalist for the new project, too.

Sharing the story behind the track, Yo-Yo Ma recalls: “‘The Trappings’ came out of a question of aesthetics. I believe Edgar was talking about pop music, how he used to think, ‘Oh, if something’s too poppy, I’m not going to like it.’ But that’s like saying ‘classical music is boring,’ or that jazz, rock, rhythm and blues are one way, or even ‘people from different countries are’…. You know that as soon as you make a general statement like that, it’s not true, because you can think of hundreds, thousands of exceptions. ‘The Trappings’ is one of those.”

The group’s initial set, 2011’s The Goat Rodeo Sessions, is a classical crossover masterpiece that won Grammy Awards for Best Folk Album as well as Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. The critically acclaimed project also spent 11 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard‘s bluegrass albums chart. Nine years (and many other outside projects) later, the group’s camaraderie and undeniable chemistry remain intact.

Yo-Yo Ma observes, “What is so amazing about playing with Chris, Edgar, Stuart, and Aoife is that when I’m working with them, I’m almost not a full participant, because I’m actually a fan. I’m such a big fan that I approach what they’re doing with a mixture of wonder and awe at these fellow musicians whom I feel very close to, but who are doing things that are almost beyond my imagination.”

This month BGS will conduct interviews with each of the ensemble’s members about Not Our First Goat Rodeo as well as their individual inspirations and insights. Check out our Tunesday Tuesday featuring “Voila!” and enjoy this brand new Essentials Playlist featuring music from Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile.

Read part one with Stuart Duncan here. Read part two with Edgar Meyer here. Read part three with Chris Thile here. Read part four with Yo-Yo Ma here.

Photo credit: Josh Goleman

Gig Bag: Jeremy Garrett

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Welcome to Gig Bag, a BGS feature that peeks into the touring essentials of some of our favorite artists. This time around, Jeremy Garrett details the items he always has nearby when out on the road.

The main thing I take on the road in my gig bag is some reusable utensils and a water bottle. So much waste can be generated while traveling, and it’s important for us all to do our part to curb that waste as much as possible. Cutting down on one-time-use water bottles and plastic ware can be a great way to reduce our impact on the environment.

Another thing that I bring on the road always, especially when riding in a bus, is a very comfortable pair of “house shoes.” Sometimes even just bringing one small familiar thing from home on tour can help tie those two worlds together a little better and keep you grounded.

I always pack two raincoats. Especially during festival season. There’s been more than one occasion where the extra one has come in handy, for a crew member, band member, or even a second dry one for you to wear. They are small and light weight and wrapped up, take almost no room in a suitcase.

 

 

 

This extra insert cable never leaves my suitcase. These things can stop working on a pedal board sometimes and leave you in a bind. Not me!!

A multi-tool is a great thing to have along.

I throw this bottle of Benadryl in my case, because you never when you might eat something or get bit by something that you are allergic to. Last year I found out was allergic to shiitake mushrooms. The hard way. Having Benadryl on hand really helped with this matter.

One more thing that I’ll try to squeeze into my suitcase at the end if there is space, is a Theracane. Sometimes a back can get sore playing music a lot or sleeping in a different place every night and this has helped me to be able to work those playing knots out after the show.

Photo credit: J.Mimna Photography

Lonely Heartstring Band See Light and Darkness in ‘Smoke & Ashes’

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The Lonely Heartstring Band curiously placed “The Way It All Began” in the middle of their new album, Smoke & Ashes, yet it serves as a cornerstone of the project. Somewhere between sweet romance and saying goodbye, the song conveys a contrast of emotions that are woven throughout the album. They recorded the album with Lake Street Dive’s Bridget Kearney as producer; together they ventured beyond bluegrass boundaries while retaining the acoustic approach that led to an IBMA Momentum Award in 2015, as well as a deal with Rounder Records.

The band is composed of twins Charles Clements (bass) and George Clements (guitar), Gabe Hirshfeld (banjo), Patrick M’Gonigle (fiddle), and Maddie Witler (mandolin). Starting a winter morning in Boston with mugs of hot tea, the Clements brothers fielded a phone call with the Bluegrass Situation.

BGS: Let’s start with “The Way It All Began,” which has a wistful and sweet quality. What were you hoping to evoke in that song?

George: Patrick brought that song to the band, and he told me it was his idea about how a relationship starts. It’s two people who are young and traveling together, trying to capture that reflective, looking-back element.

Charles: I’m pretty sure it’s based on a true story from his life and I think it’s actually bittersweet. It’s a moment that comes together in a relationship, for a summer, then by the end, there’s distance. It’s the way it all began, but the way it ended too.

George: We had a lot of fun arranging that song, coming up with different ideas, like little modulations in the middle with the fiddle.

Did you have a certain sound in mind when you went into these sessions?

George: Yeah, I think we wanted to capture the natural sounds of the instruments as best we could. We recorded this record at Guilford Sound in Vermont and that studio has a really cool, natural reverb chamber, so we were able to capture some spaciousness in that.

Charles: For that song, a high priority was to make sure it had that laid-back, California, spacious, unhurried feeling. We went back and forth on tempos quite a bit actually – that’s too slow, that’s too fast. It’s a delicate thing because you want things to groove and move forward, but you don’t want to lose the character of the song just because you want more energy. A great example of that is Neil Young. He’d do these slow grooves that still keep you rolling forward, but they’re not fast songs.

The song “Smoke & Ashes” has some interesting imagery in there. Several times, you are singing “Come back…” Who are you saying that to?

George: When Patrick and I were coming up to the lyrics to that, it was like a post-apocalyptic song in the sense that we’re losing a lot of things that we love in life. They’re slipping away, like maybe nature is becoming threatened by mankind. I think the “come back” is like, let’s return to the things that matter most. Come back to your senses, come back to reality. Come back to the moon, the sun, the things that are universal.

Why did that song make sense as the title track?

Charles: That’s a good question. We went back and forth on album titles. We settled on it because we think it has good imagery and openness to it. Smoke and ashes can be a pessimistic thing, like things have burned down, but it’s also kind of optimistic. It has a sense of rebirth to it. There’s a sense of ending and starting.

George: We thought it had enough space for the listener to put their own interpretation to it. And I think that “Smoke & Ashes” is a pretty unique track on the album because it’s real slow and spacy, with lots of interesting chord changes. I think we all liked the way that track turned out.

“Just a Dream” has a cinematic, sweeping quality to it. Are you all inspired by movies or film scores when you write music?

Charles: Yeah, when I wrote that song, I think I was letting my imagination run free and create these kind of dreamlike images. … You know, an album is like the inverse of a movie score. The listener obviously has to bring their own imagination. [An album] requires a lot more of an audience than a movie does. Movies sometimes are just gonna give, give, give. With a song you have to bring a little more attention to your own life, your own imagination, and fill it in more with questions about, “What are they trying to say?” I think about that a lot. With songs, you have to supply your own movie a little bit.

Do you all collect vinyl?

George: Charles is a big collector. Patrick has a lot. I don’t have a vinyl collection at the moment because I don’t have a record player. [Laughs] I’ve been moving around so much that I just don’t want to lug all of that around – but someday I’d like to have a collection.

Charles: Maddie, our mandolin player, has probably the largest collection in the band.

Do you turn each other onto music that you discover on your own?

George: Oh yeah. We spend so much time in the van. That’s all we do in the van, either listen to audiobooks and podcasts, or just show each other new music. We’ve got a big text thread going where things will get sent out sometimes.

Charles: Yeah, the Lonely Heartstring Band text thread goes back about five or six years now. It’s full of stuff! (laughs)

George: Somebody should transcribe that. It would be a great, hilarious coffee table book.

I like to hear you all sing together on “Only Fallen Down.” So I wanted to ask, who are some of the vocal groups that you really enjoy?

George: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young comes to mind. We also really like The Wailin’ Jennys. Charles and I grew up with a lot of Everly Brothers and Simon & Garfunkel, though that’s more two-part harmony.

Charles: The Trio album – Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt. That’s powerful three-part harmony there. And obviously the Bluegrass Album Band, as a model of how to do tight, three-part, bluegrass harmony.

That song seems to be about a temporary setback, but with a sense of determination to go on. Do you see some parallels in your own life? That decision to forge ahead through the challenges?

George: Yeah, like every day. [Laughs] Being in a band is not easy. There are always challenges in relationships. So I think the lyrics reflect an intimate relationship between two people but it can have a universal appeal. Any time you have a challenge or you feel like you’re ready to give up, you can always change your attitude and say, “Well, yeah, this is a setback. I can pull myself up by my bootstraps and keep on going.”

In that song, there’s a line that says something like “Reach out for a hand to pull me through.” That’s a line that we came up after the song was written. That line replaced another one lyric. I really like that line because I think the hardest thing to do when you’re down is to ask for help. Sometimes we wallow in our own misery, and I think what you have to do is ask for help. You don’t have to do it on your own, basically. If you’re having a tough time in life, there are always people who want to help. That’s the amazing thing about the human spirit. We are here to help each other.

Charles: “Only Fallen Down” is a simple song when you think about it. It has a clear, straightforward message. I think that song stands out on the album because it is like a Beatles-esque sweet song. It’s very direct, not trying to be obtuse or metaphoric. I think we were ready for something like that, where you can feel good, like a simple soul song where we’re not trying to say anything other than that simple idea.

Do you think your audience will hear a departure from your prior album when they hear this one?

George: Yeah, I think they will. When I listen to our first record, it’s a little more traditional style – although not super traditional. We still had our own take on things. But this record doesn’t have any covers. It’s all our own original music. I think it reflects more of our unique musical sensibilities without trying to be anything other than what we are. We’re not using electric instruments, we’re not using drums. We still have that Lonely Heartstring Band sound.

Photo credit (on location): Louise Bichan
Photo credit (studio): Mike Spencer