Tag: North Carolina

On ‘O Come All Ye Faithful,’ Hiss Golden Messenger’s M.C. Taylor Sees the Light

Posted on by Editor

When M.C. Taylor presented his idea of a Hiss Golden Messenger holiday record last fall, the label team at Merge Records began scratching their heads. Anyone familiar with the singer-songwriter would agree he just doesn’t seem like the type.

But this juxtaposition is at the heart of Taylor’s intentions to create a more relatable soundtrack for a season he felt has been oversimplified by an excess of enduring holiday hymns and hits. As an artist, he has never connected with the holiday music resounding in big box stores throughout the season. Last winter, in the face of inconceivable global hurt, this flamboyant backdrop felt particularly jarring.

After he wrapped up the Quietly Blowing It LP in the summer of 2020, Taylor still felt the tugging desire to create. While the year stormed outside the tiny window of his home studio in Durham, North Carolina, he was determined to capture authenticity within an often-romanticized season. What began as yet another coping mechanism soon took shape as a Hiss Golden Messenger album, O Come All Ye Faithful.

“There were definitely moments when I was making it when I thought to myself: ‘Am I insane? Has the pandemic made me lose my compass on what my music is meant to do?’” Taylor tells BGS. “But once we were a couple of songs into it, everything sort of clicked into place. I was like, ‘This totally makes sense. This sounds like a Hiss record, actually.’”

A self-proclaimed “second-guesser,” Taylor found creative refuge in a more interpretative state of mind, rather than relying solely on his usual songwriting process. His only directives from the start were to make a record that feels “lush, slow, and contemplative.” Despite these uncharacteristic parameters, his purist approach to the album captures the poignant emotions of closing out a season, or a chapter.

As the year winds down, enjoy our BGS Artist of the Month interview with Hiss Golden Messenger’s M.C. Taylor.

BGS: The holiday album has been done by countless artists. What did you feel you could contribute or expand upon within this enduring tradition, and why is that important to you at this point?

Taylor: Well, I should say at the outset that I’m certainly not an expert on holiday music. I’ve realized that even more over the past couple of weeks when people, knowing that I’ve just made this record, will be like, “Oh man, you’re into holiday music. Have you heard this or that record?” And I’m like, “I haven’t heard any of it.” My collection of holiday records is remarkably thin. I have a handful of “holiday records” that I consistently return to.

But I’ve noticed that often the music I hear, the stuff that seems to get played out in public during the season, doesn’t hit the emotional note that I’m feeling. And it doesn’t really resonate with anyone I know either. This big, brash, brassy, super uptempo, almost turbocharged holiday music seems to be the background to this season, but I started to feel like maybe it doesn’t have to be. Maybe I can come up with something that feels more in step with how everybody I know feels around this time of year.

When did you write these three original tracks, and how do they fit into this concept?

I keep hedging my bets by calling it a seasonal record; I’m not sure how that’s exactly different from a holiday record. But these were all written with this record in mind.

The first one, “Hung Fire,” is a very intimate song and a meditation on this time of year and how hard it can be on many people. It’s sort of a meditation on suicide in a way, which is a bit heavy, but I felt like there was a place for it on this record. Aoife O’Donovan sings on that one. That was the first stuff that she sent back to me after I asked her to sing, and I was just like, “Oh my God!” She is an absolute ace in the hole. She’s one of the greatest singers that I know.

Lyrically, “By the Lights of St. Stephen” is loosely based on this old seasonal song called “The Wren” that I learned from a record by an English family acapella group called The Watersons. So, if you ever find that song, certain lines are similar, and then I kind of take it off into a different place.

I felt it was incumbent on me to nod towards Jewish seasonal traditions. My wife is Jewish, and my kids identify as Jewish, so we put Woody Guthrie’s “Hanukkah Dance” on there. And I was trying to work on another one, but it’s hard to fit the word ‘Hanukkah’ into a song. I had this idea of a song that featured candles, a big part of the tradition. I don’t know if anyone else hears this. Probably not. But I think of “Grace” as the other Hanukkah song.

From your perspective, why did “Shine a Light” and “As Long as I Can See the Light” work well with this theme?

I had a long list of songs I felt could be seasonal songs by association. Meaning if I put them together with other songs like “Silent Night” or “O Come All Ye Faithful,” they could be, in that context, interpreted as a song as it spoke to this particular time of year. Thematically, the record returns to the idea of light and dark, searching for light or a spark during a season that feels quite dark. It also uncovers the notion that we don’t understand light without darkness. I’ve always loved those tunes, and I wanted to see if we could do something to them that made them feel like they were supposed to be on the record.

When we spoke earlier this year, you felt uncertain about getting back on the road after adjusting to life at home. With your tour starting up again, has that feeling changed?

One thing I’ve grown to miss over the past couple of years, aside from playing live in front of people, is routine. And a tour gives me the closest thing that I have to a regular, everyday routine. I’ve always been a creature of habit, but the past couple of years brought this idea home that I function best with like a daily regimen; I like to know what I’m going to be doing. And I can’t say that I had that during this pandemic. Certainly, many of the traveling musicians I know were at loose ends as to what to do with themselves.

How did the pandemic and all the political fury affect your approach to this record?

This idea came in the fall of 2020, a few months after I finished Quietly Blowing It. Again, the approach goes back to this need for routine. I needed to be working on something that kept me busy in the days, and I also needed to be working on something that made me feel peaceful at a time full of chaos and anxiety. So, that was where I went. Music has always been a pretty dependable place for me to go. I’m not even sure that I would have made this record had we not been living in such a chaotic time that felt so full of uncertainty and grieving.

Growing up, what were your family’s traditions surrounding the holiday season? How do you feel that translates in these musical selections?

We celebrated Christmas, and my family was pretty tight. I grew up in Southern California, so I have this specific set of memories, like a beautiful, sunny Southern California Christmas Day — not the norm for most. Strangely, the soundtrack to Camelot was a constant. If you were to ask anybody in my family what holiday music you listen to, everybody would say Camelot. It took me until I was a full-grown adult to realize that that is not technically a holiday record. But somehow, it’s still really associated. If you place songs in the vicinity of the holidays, your brain will start making a connection.

Are there any particular points of nostalgia within your selections here?

It’s kind of a nostalgic feeling record, but I don’t know that it comes from childhood. The songs are not necessarily from my childhood, but I feel like the emotions within the record speak to a bittersweet set of emotions that have been with me since I was a kid. When I was quite young, I remember talking to my mom about the holidays, and she said: ‘This is always a really hard time of year for me.’ And I understood what she was saying. There is a sense of grief that comes with the closing of a year. I feel like that grief can be echoed in the natural world outside as we see things closing up for the winter before the hopefulness that comes with spring. My feelings about the winter holidays have always been a quiet time of contemplation.

Photo Credit: Chris Frasina

North Carolina’s Balsam Range Travel Through Life With ‘Moxie and Mettle’

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For nearly 15 years, Balsam Range have distinguished themselves in the bluegrass community as powerful performers and musicians, even winning an IBMA Award for Entertainer of the Year in 2018. While it is notable for a bluegrass band to have maintained its original members for so long, it is perhaps more remarkable that its five members all grew up within the same region of Western North Carolina.

With a diverse array of influences held together by the common thread of their geography and formative musical years, Buddy Melton (fiddle), Darren Nicholson (mandolin), Dr. Marc Pruett (banjo), Caleb Smith (guitar) and Tim Surrett (bass, dobro) create music that is rooted in the traditions of their youth but not confined to typical genre norms. Their newest album, Moxie and Mettle, explores themes of uncertainty and a sense of powerlessness that will likely resonate with listeners’ own experiences during the pandemic. Similarly, the theme of trying to feel content with one’s life can be felt on tracks such as “Richest Man,” named the 2021 IBMA Song of the Year.

The Bluegrass Situation spoke with Buddy Melton and Tim Surrett over Zoom.

BGS: What was the timeline of making this record around the pandemic? Was it something you were working on and then had to slow down, or were you working on while things were shut down?

Melton: We were in that stage where we needed to move forward with a new project, but we had been so busy it was getting difficult to find time to work up new material and get in the studio. We took advantage of the shutdown. It gave us something to focus on and keep the positive efforts and creative side of us together. We’d worked up a lot of the songs prior to that, but that time off allowed us to get busy and find the remaining songs and round out a good record.

I’ve heard lots of artists say the same thing. The shutdown gave them more time than usual to listen to and refine the recordings they made during it.

Surrett: Yeah, we just did it a little bit at a time. We’d get together and work up two or three songs and go record them. Then a couple of months later, we’d do the same thing again. It’s always a fun process for us to get together and just listen to songs and then tear into them.

Melton: Sometimes we work better with a deadline. So, it was bad for us to have that time in a way, because we didn’t push it too hard. It was fun and relaxing. I will say it was a different dynamic, not feeling rushed, and we just decided when we’ve got enough completed, we’ll worry about the record, but let’s use this as an opportunity to stay together and be creative as we can together.

What’s important to you when you’re picking songs? Is there something that speaks to you? Are there themes that you usually gravitate towards when choosing material?

Surrett: Well, for years, we kept getting the train songs. We had some good ones like “Trains I Missed” and what not. But no, I don’t think we look for a certain theme. The first thing I look for is if something is interesting musically. And then a song that tells the story is a great thing. And we’re blessed with songwriters like Milan Miller and Adam Wright who can write a little three-minute movie in a song, and it’s got interesting chords, or something that we feel like we can arrange. That gets us fired up.

Melton: I don’t know why it is, but by the time the albums are over with, for some reason, they sometimes have a common theme. I don’t know if subconsciously we are connecting with that message. And this particular one, Moxie and Mettle, has a lot of “traveling through life” sort of vibes about the songs with “Richest Man,” and “Grit and Grace,” and “Rivers, Rains and Runaway Trains,” and “Traveling Blues.” I don’t know if we’re missing that element in our lives and that’s why migrated to that. We also like to incorporate original artwork if we can. All of our album covers have been paintings for the most part. As we got to the end of it and start looking at the graphics and start talking about the pictures, we ended up using this Adam Wright painting of an old car sitting at an intersection. You’re wondering which way is it going to go but it’s just traveling, trying to get through life, and it seemed to fit the vibe of this record to me.

I was wondering about that, because after I listened to the record a couple of times, I had my own interpretation of the theme, and I was wondering if you went in with a theme, or came out on the back end with one.

Melton: We didn’t intend to have anything. But again, I think a lot of those songs have some similar storylines and meanings to them.

There are a lot of references to taking stock of life and trying to figure out what’s important, which everybody had to do, even if they weren’t consciously thinking about that kind of thing.

Melton: You could probably pull that out of just about every song on that record. It’s about being content with where you are in life, etc. So, they all have some similar thoughts, I think.

I know you guys are very involved in the Western North Carolina music scene. Could you tell me a little bit about the work you guys do in that community?

Surrett: We all grew up in this area. Haywood County is where we all live now but Buddy and Darren are from Jackson County. Music was so much a part of life growing up here in the mountains. Square dancing, clogging, mountain dancing, and old-time music were a huge thing, and you get indoctrinated with it. And there are so many great musicians that still come out of this region. We joke with people all the time that we’re not even sure we’re the best band in Haywood County. There are so many great players that come from this region, and you cannot help being exposed to it, especially growing up when most of us did. It was an enormous part of life here in the mountains. And it’s fun to see that go on as some of us have become elder statesmen of that scene now.

You seem like you are stewards of music in that region, and you run a festival, don’t you?

Melton: Yeah, The Art of Music Festival. It’s coming up in the first week of December. We took that on as a project for our area. We chose the lowest-occupancy weekend of the entire year to see if we could stimulate the economy in our county, just to try to help out. Most people will pick early fall or spring to have an event, so we chose a terrible weekend to try to put on a bluegrass festival. And it’s a really great thing. A lot of work and effort went into it, but it’s not just a bluegrass festival. Our primary desire was to bring some of our favorite artists and music to Haywood County to help to expose the local folks to music they wouldn’t necessarily hear otherwise. We have an orchestra that comes in, we bring some of our favorite studio musicians, we have full-scale bands with piano, drum, steel guitars, the whole bit, but then we’ll have bluegrass bands like Blue Highway and The Cleverlys. It’s been fun to create something. The opportunity to have a music festival that is open to anything we want to do with it. I think that’s important. It helps our music grow and it exposes people to our music that come for other reasons.

You draw from a wide range of influences and bring it into your sound. Is that something you actively try to do, or does it come naturally because you all listen to a lot of different music?

Surrett: All of us come from different musical backgrounds. Darren loves country music. Caleb and myself both come from a gospel music background with a giant love for jazz music. And for me, personally, I like the rock ‘n’ roll that I grew up on. So we’ve got a Beatles tune, we’ve got Allman Brothers. Marc, of course, thinks there’s two kinds of music: Flatt & Scruggs music and not Flatt & Scruggs music. Buddy’s got the gift of finding great songs and listening to songwriters. That’s where the majority of our songs come from. But nothing has ever really been off-limits. Everybody’s got a voice and if they bring it in we’ll give it a whirl. By the time we play it and sing it, it’s going to sound like us. We’ll give anything a try. But we haven’t tried Pink Floyd or anything like that yet.

Sounds like that’s what’s next.

Surrett: It’s not off the table.

Melton: We all grew up around this area where we were influenced by this common thread of Southern Appalachian culture and music. We all understand those timings and those concepts. We’ve all been around it our whole life. So, you go away and you learn different things, and when you come back, that history is the glue that puts it all together. Just like all our accents are the same. We don’t have family harmony. We got country harmony. That’s part of it. We don’t put t’s in “mountains.” It definitely helps to have some similar dialogue and accents and phrasing and stuff like that.

Surrett: It’s a rare thing for, as you well know, a bluegrass band to have five guys from the same ten-mile radius. It’s not a family relations-type thing, as far as we know. But it definitely brings a thread of commonness.

Melton: January will be 15 years, basically. That’s a long time for a bluegrass band of the same five guys to stay around.

Yeah, that’s amazing for a band when you can anticipate other people’s next move.

Surrett: We have several points in our program that are not really scripted. They just kind of organically happen. We know where it’s going, and you can feed off that and let songs change and morph. And it’s a lot of fun like that.

Melton: We’re just grateful to still be together after 15 years and for the many great people we’ve met along the road that we’ve missed seeing over the last year and a half. We’re so happy to see the music scene coming back around. Hopefully, we can all do a part to keep that alive. Like many things when you don’t have it is when you realize you need it. And music is so important to people’s lives. As it’s building back, it almost seems like there’s even more excitement prior to the shutdown. So, we’re just grateful for that and excited to be a part of it.

Photo Credit: David Simchock

WATCH: Rakish, “New Shoe Maneuver”

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Artist: Rakish (Maura Shawn Scanlin, fiddle & Conor Hearn, guitar)
Hometown: Boston-Based (Conor is from Washington D.C., Maura is from Boone, North Carolina)
Song: “New Shoe Maneuver”
Album: Counting Down the Hours
Release Date: February 4, 2022

In Their Words: “This tune formed during a phase in which I was exploring the possibilities of three-part tune writing. There’s something about adding a third section that opens a tune up to more melodic and harmonic variety that is so hard to beat. The tune stems from the language of the bagpipes; it draws on much of the compact and cyclical melodic ideas that are at the center of the piping style. The idea for the name came about when I went over to Conor’s place to play some music and discovered that we’d both bought pretty much identical new running shoes without talking to one another about it. The title is a reflection of that coincidence. We had a really special time getting to make the live video of this track, which is the first single off of our upcoming album, Counting Down the Hours. It was filmed at a great neighborhood gallery near us called Gallery 263 on one of the last hot days of the summer with Dan Jentzen filming and Peter Atkinson audio engineering.” — Maura Shawn Scanlin, Rakish

Photo credit: Dan Jentzen

LISTEN: Carley Arrowood, “Letting Go Now”

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Artist: Carley Arrowood
Hometown: From Union Mills, North Carolina, and currently living in Newton, North Carolina
Song: “Letting Go Now”
Release Date: November 5, 2021
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “‘Letting Go Now’ is a bittersweet love song, co-written with my lovely friend, Becky Buller! It’s a lighthearted tune about how sometimes we can just be desperate to hang on to someone we’re sure is the right one, regardless of red flags. We try to silence all the warning signs, but they wind up speaking volumes, and we realize they aren’t as devoted as we are, and it’s hurting us worse if we don’t let go. I love how Becky added a ray of hope to the poor heart in the song, though: ‘There’s a greater picture, a plan that I can’t see…’ refers to God’s awesome plans for our lives, regardless of how we think they should go. I really enjoyed writing this with Becky. I’m so thankful for her friendship and look forward to sharing more co-writing experiences with her in the future!” — Carley Arrowood

Crossroads Label Group · Letting Go Now – Carley Arrowood

Photo courtesy of Carley Arrowood

LISTEN: Si Kahn, “Been a Long Time”

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Artist: Si Kahn
Hometown: Charlotte, North Carolina
Song: “Been a Long Time”
Album: Been a Long Time (released in 2000, reissued 2021)
Release Date: October 15, 2021
Label: Sliced Bread Records

In Their Words: “I never waited in a house built of grey rock and stone for Gabriel Kahn, my father’s father, my grandfather, my Zade to come home from a job on the railroad. But it’s also true that after ‘Gabe’ deserted the Czar’s army in Russia, he indentured himself to the Canadian Pacific Railway, a year’s labor in return for ship’s passage to Canada, swinging a pick, digging with a shovel as they built the roadbed and laid the track. Did hearing his stories, told in Yiddish-tinged English, inspire me to write the song ‘Been a Long Time’? I don’t know. It’s been too long a time. But listening to the song now for the first time in many years, I am grateful to welcome him home.” — Si Kahn

Photo Credit: Janice Jo Lee

LISTEN: Bennett Sullivan, “Swerve”

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Artist: Bennett Sullivan
Hometown: Pisgah Forest, North Carolina
Song: “Swerve”
Album: Eager to Break
Release Date: November 5, 2021

In Their Words: “The song ‘Swerve’ is about exploring and discovering new relationships in your community and not letting differing ideologies or world views get in the way of connecting on a human level. It’s easy to get caught up in sides (especially online) but I think it’s different in person when you can actually see the human you’re interacting with. My desire when around new people is connection and learning and I think most people’s want/need is that, too. ‘Swerve’ is about joy, creativity, and love. The first verse and chorus came to me as I was driving through windy roads in North Carolina on the way back from a new friend’s house. I was passing houses wondering who lived in them and what it would feel like to deeply connect with more people in my local area.” — Bennett Sullivan

Bennett Sullivan · 06 Swerve

Photo Credit: Sandlin Gaither

Tray Wellington Conquers World of Bluegrass With His Five-String Banjo

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

A few short weeks ago the streets of Raleigh, North Carolina, were once again filled with bluegrass lovers at IBMA’s World of Bluegrass conference and festival. Banjoist and Momentum Award winner Tray Wellington was everywhere to be found during the festivities — performing, hosting this year’s Momentum Awards luncheon, and playing a main stage set at the Red Hat Amphitheater. This is remarkable because if you had looked for Wellington at IBMA just a few short years ago, you might not have run into him except on the youth stage or in the halls, jamming.

Catapulted by his prior work with the talented young band Cane Mill Road, his studies at East Tennessee State University’s bluegrass program, and a stable of accomplished and connected mentors and peers, Wellington went from a newbie to a seasoned veteran faster than a global pandemic could subside — and during it. Efforts for better and more accurate representation in bluegrass have contributed to his momentum (no pun intended), but above all, his talent and his envelope-pushing approach to the five-string banjo are the root causes of his mounting and well-deserved notoriety. 

Last year, during World of Bluegrass, Wellington performed as part of our Shout & Shine Online virtual showcase. For 2021’s edition of the biggest week in bluegrass, we connected via phone after the conference to talk about these leaps and bounds in his career, the ever-increasing tempo of his music-making and performing, and what’s coming up next for the young picker. We also discuss why making the bluegrass community more inclusive is so important — and how his own progress in the industry over a few short years reinforces that point. 

BGS: You were so busy at IBMA this year! Let’s start there — can you talk a bit about the growth that you’ve experienced over the past few years? Because this year you were everywhere and doing everything in Raleigh!

Tray Wellington: [Laughs] Yeah, it was kind of a crazy week! It was a lot of new things, like you said, that I’ve never done before. But I think it really opened me up to a lot more ideas of what I can do in the music industry. I started out the week going to the business conference and then on Wednesday I hosted the Momentum Awards. And that was kind of a crazy thing for me, you know, I’ve never done anything in that regard, as far as hosting a whole awards show. I got asked to do it and I was kind of nervous about actually doing it. I remember getting up there like, “Dang! I can’t back out now!”

It’s a cool experience! Especially when people come up to you afterwards and tell you you did a good job. It makes you feel good about your progress over the last couple of years and I’m glad that people put faith in me and thought I would do a good enough job at it so they did ask me to do it. 

You’re going from being an instrumentalist, a sideman, and a technician of the instrument to being a frontman and a recording artist. I wonder how that shift has felt to you? How does it feel to be in charge and “guiding the ship?” 

It’s been a really weird experience. Before, when I was just being a sideman, I had a great time with that, because it did open me up to a lot of different types of music and getting to learn a lot of music. But that’s something I still try to do with my band now. I try to incorporate those ideas from my band members, because I did learn so much [when I was in other bands]. I think the most important thing in a band is hearing other people’s perspectives. I love the other band members bringing songs to me and being like, “Hey, can we do this?” Working up their music [is just as important] as working up my music and the arrangements for my stuff. 

There have been people who do great front work who choose all of the material for their bands — I’m not saying that doesn’t happen. I just think that when I’ve seen bands that really get along and take each other’s musical perspectives in, it’s been a much more natural and calm feeling. Versus the feeling of, “Oh, somebody messed something up!” That was something I felt more when I was a sideman, I was so serious. It’s good to be serious, but it’s also good to stay relaxed.

To me, you have a very traditional approach to banjo playing while at the same time, you don’t necessarily seem too concerned with what is or isn’t bluegrass. Can you talk about what musically guides you and inspires you as you’re playing more in the bandleader headspace? How do you want to sound and why do you want to sound that way? 

It’s interesting that you mention that, because most of the time I usually get feedback that I’m more of a progressive musician, like 95 percent of the time. So it’s interesting that you say that — I love everybody’s observations. I would say, when I was playing with Cane Mill Road I definitely had more of a traditional approach to the banjo. I still get a lot of my attack from that. When I’m thinking about music, though, I love all forms of music and I want to play all forms of music. That’s something I really try to do. I try to incorporate sounds from jazz — I studied jazz a little bit in college. That was a big thing for me, taking in those sounds and inspirations. As well as taking from other forms of music, because that’s the way the genre grows. 

I’ve been really getting away from trying to sound like anybody, necessarily. That’s been my big thing. I want to be one of those musicians that tries to make my own voice on the instrument overall and gives my own ideas to it. A lot of that came from studying different players, like Béla Fleck and Scott Vestal and Noam Pikelny. Not just studying them, but studying the old school kind of stuff as well. 

You just took IBMA by storm, you’re signed to Mountain Home Music Company — so much is coming down the pipeline for you it almost feels like too big of a question to ask, but I have to ask: What are you excited about? What are you looking forward to as you just finished this really busy, business-y week? 

There’s a lot of stuff going on! It’s something I’m still thinking about myself, like what is my next major step? What’s the next move? That’s something I think a lot about. I’m looking forward to getting out and playing music live again next year. I’m playing more music live this year, but not as much with the pandemic. It’s slowed everything down. I’m also looking forward to getting into the studio at Mountain Home and recording — well, finishing my album. We’ve got some stuff recorded, but we’re kind of in the process of planning and trying to finish that project. I think it’s going to be really fun. I’m really trying to get away — not to like, disagree with what you said earlier! [Laughs] — but I’m really trying to get away from people perceiving me as more of a traditional player. 

You’re trying to sound like Tray Wellington.

Exactly. I’m trying to branch away. I’m more drawn to the modern sounds, so when I present this new album I am wanting it to be more of an eclectic kind of thing. 

I’m also excited about this upcoming performance I did for CNN on W. Kamau Bell’s program, United Shades of America with Nikki Giovanni. We did it at the Highlander Center, which is a historical civil rights school [in East Tennessee]. We went up there and I got to sit with Kamau and Nikki and a lot of great organizers from the area and get to play music for them. It was super fun. I’m wanting to do more stuff there in the future. It’s such a historic place. It’s crazy, before this shoot I didn’t know what the Highlander Center was and I grew up an hour and twenty minutes from there. The government of Tennessee hates the Highlander Center for their work there. It’s such a taboo thing to talk about in East Tennessee. I had never heard of it. They gave me a whole tour of the place and told me a ton of the history and I was like, “I’ve never even heard of this!” They had a building burnt down like two years ago by white supremacists. 

I know!! And this is after the state and the KKK trying so many times to run them out. It’s shocking so few people know about it, but that’s all by design. I’m so glad to hear you’re connected there! Especially with the current movement for inclusion in this music, it makes so much sense to partner with an organization like the Highlander Center, which is based in the home region of these musics and has always been a leader in the fight for justice. 

Yeah, absolutely. With diversity and inclusion in bluegrass, there needs to be more focus on it. Because the typical bluegrass fan base is white people, no matter what walk you’re from. It’s a lot of white people and white men, just to be honest. I think it’s one of those things where, if you want to get outside people into the music you need to encourage people who are of diverse backgrounds that this music can be inclusive. That’s the way that you move towards more people doing it.  There have been a lot of factors that have contributed to this. The biggest problem I’ve seen is not a whole lot of nationwide outreach. There are a few great programs, like Jam Pak in Arizona by Anni Beach, she’s doing great work right now.

We just interviewed Fair Black Rose, of Jam Pak, for the other part of our special IBMA Shout & Shine coverage! 

That’s great work they’re doing there! It’s a band of all diverse people from all walks of life. That’s such a great thing to see. I listened to one of their sets and I thought, “This is such a great thing.” Even when I started music I didn’t see anything like that at IBMA. It was such an interesting thing, despite the pandemic and this being a pretty low-attended year of World of Bluegrass. This was the most diverse year I’ve ever seen. … I remember going to IBMA five or six years ago for the first time and looking around and being like, “I’m the only person of color here.”

It’s that way at a lot of bluegrass festivals I go to — which is crazy, cause if you think about it, this is the International Bluegrass Music Association. There are supposed to be people from all over, as well. I’m not talking bad about IBMA, but I think the biggest need is more outreach. To people of color, but the LGBTQ+ community, too. Sometimes it’s a difficult thing to do, it can be easier said than done, but definitely I think it can be done, because other music forms have done it. For years! And they’ve had very big success. I think it just takes that initiative and drive to do it. 

Photo courtesy of Mountain Home Music Company

LISTEN: Rodes, “So Well”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Rodes
Hometown: Durham, North Carolina
Song: “So Well”
Album: All of My Friends
Release Date: October 22, 2021

In Their Words: “‘So Well’ was an idea that came to me on the drive home from work one night, that was then fleshed out on a guitar the next day. I was nearing the end of a tumultuous professional relationship and feeling frustrated and powerless. I think there are elements of it that can be interpreted as a breakup song, and in some ways it is. Ultimately, it’s a song about power imbalance and not having the right tools or access to bring someone to justice.

“We tried out a couple different arrangements for ‘So Well,’ but ultimately decided on one that centered on rhythmic acoustic guitar and a straightforward drum beat. I had the slide guitar line in my head, but I couldn’t quite translate it to the guitar while keeping it in tune. Ryan (Johnson, formerly of American Aquarium) stepped in and laid down a beautiful lead part that really anchors the whole song. I think he captured the mournful and resigned spirit of it perfectly.” — Rodes

Photo credit: Chris Frisina

LISTEN: Zoe & Cloyd, “Rebuild”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Zoe & Cloyd
Hometown: Asheville, North Carolina
Song: “Rebuild”
Album: Rebuild
Release Date: October 8, 2021
Label: Organic Records

In Their Words: “‘Rebuild’ is a song that didn’t start out as an album title track. Our bandmate Bennett Sullivan approached me with a song idea about interpersonal turmoil and resolution. The song became ‘Rebuild’ and I quickly realized that this was an overarching theme running through this entire collection of songs. The pandemic has touched us all in some way. Relationships have been strained, and in some cases, pushed to the breaking point. We’ve lost loved ones. We’ve been tasked with repairing ourselves and our connections. We all have to rebuild.” — John Cloyd Miller, Zoe & Cloyd

Photo credit: Sandlin Gaither

IBMA Awards 2021: See the Full List of Winners

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

The International Bluegrass Music Awards were handed out Thursday night at the IBMA’s first in-person awards ceremony since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Grammy Award-winning ensemble The Infamous Stringdusters hosted the 32nd annual edition of bluegrass’s biggest night from the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina.

On the heels of the release of his brand new album, Renewal, guitarist Billy Strings won the night’s highest honor, Entertainer of the Year, while also winning his second Guitar Player of the Year trophy. 2020’s Entertainers of the Year, Sister Sadie, received the Vocal Group of the Year award, while Smithsonian Folkways’ compilation album, Industrial Strength Bluegrass, which celebrates the regional bluegrass stylings of southwestern Ohio, was the Album of the Year winner.

Previously announced Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductees Lynn Morris, Alison Krauss, and the Stoneman Family were honored during the show as well. See the full list of winners below:

ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR:

Billy Strings

VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR:

Sister Sadie

INSTRUMENTAL GROUP OF THE YEAR:

Appalachian Road Show

SONG OF THE YEAR:

“Richest Man” – Balsam Range (artist), Jim Beavers/Jimmy Yeary/Connie Harrington (songwriters), Balsam Range (producer), Mountain Home Records (label)

ALBUM OF THE YEAR:

Industrial Strength Bluegrass: Southwestern Ohio’s Musical Legacy – Various Artists, Joe Mullins (producer), Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (label)

GOSPEL RECORDING OF THE YEAR (Tie):

“After While” – Dale Ann Bradley (artist), Public Domain, Dale Ann Bradley (producer), Pinecastle Records (label)

“In the Resurrection Morning” – Sacred Reunion featuring Doyle Lawson, Vince Gill, Barry Abernathy, Tim Stafford, Mark Wheeler, Jim VanCleve, Phil Leadbetter, Jason Moore (artists), Mark Wheeler (songwriter), Barry Abernathy, Jim VanCleve (producers), Dottie Leonard Miller (Executive Producer), Billy Blue Records (label)

INSTRUMENTAL RECORDING OF THE YEAR: “Ground Speed” – Kristin Scott Benson, Skip Cherryholmes, Jeremy Garrett, Kevin Kehrberg, Darren Nicholson (artists), Earl Scruggs (songwriter), Jon Weisberger (producer), Mountain Home Music (label)

NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR:

Appalachian Road Show

COLLABORATIVE RECORDING OF THE YEAR:

“White Line Fever” – Bobby Osborne with Tim O’Brien, Trey Hensley, Sierra Hull, Stuart Duncan, Todd Phillips, Alison Brown (artists), Merle Haggard/Jeff Tweedy (songwriters) Alison Brown, Garry West (producers), Compass Records (label)

FEMALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR:

Dale Ann Bradley

MALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR (Tie):

Danny Paisley
Del McCoury

BANJO PLAYER OF THE YEAR:

Scott Vestal

BASS PLAYER OF THE YEAR:

Missy Raines

RESOPHONIC GUITAR PLAYER OF THE YEAR:

Justin Moses

FIDDLE PLAYER OF THE YEAR:

Bronwyn Keith-Hynes

GUITAR PLAYER OF THE YEAR:

Billy Strings

MANDOLIN PLAYER OF THE YEAR:

Sierra Hull

Photo of Billy Strings by Jesse Faatz