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Bluegrass Memoirs: ‘Industrial Strength Bluegrass’ and the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion (Part 3)

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: Read part one of our series on the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion here. Read part two here.)

Working on CityFolk’s Dayton Bluegrass Reunion, I heard local terminology for the culture in which this music grew. “Industrial working-class Appalachian migrants” was rarely spoken. “Hillbilly” was said sometimes with disdain, sometimes with pride. The preferred in-group term was “briar.” Briars came from the Appalachian hills, transplants proud of their continuing organic down-home connections. I was told that the call letters of WPFB, where Moon Mullins had represented bluegrass for two and a half decades, stood for “We Play For Briars.”

Don Baker’s introduction to the second act of the reunion framed a dramatic shift of scene from Mullins’ milieu to a younger Dayton band: The Hotmud Family.

Inspired by the New Lost City Ramblers, this band began in 1970 playing old-time music based on pre-war hillbilly recordings. The band included Suzanne Thomas Edmundson, Dave Edmundson, and Rick Good, along with a succession of bassists. Suzanne, born in Dayton of Kentucky parents, was a second-generation briar. According to Jon Hartley Fox the Hotmuds were “perhaps the most significant band to emerge from the vibrant scene of the 1970s in southwestern Ohio” (Industrial Strength Bluegrass, 140-1). 

They began including bluegrass in their sound during a 1974 appearance at the Mariposa Folk Festival. In blending old-time and bluegrass, they placed special emphasis on vocal harmonies, something many old-time bands overlooked. Between 1974 and 1981 they made eight albums and appeared widely at bluegrass and folk festivals. Here’s their 1975 bluegrass/old-time blending of “Weary Blues,” a song originally recorded in 1929 in Atlanta by Chattanoogan Jess Young’s Tennessee Band as “Old Weary Blues”:

The Hotmud Family came to be associated with Dayton’s Living Arts Center, described by Hotmud banjoist Rick Good in Industrial Strength Bluegrass (153-57). Established in 1967 by the Dayton Board of Education, this facility offered after-school instruction in the arts for grades 5-12 students in East Dayton. 

In 1975 it began providing programs aimed at the local Appalachian-based culture. It turned to the Hotmud Family, now a nationally known band with an enthusiastic local fan base from their weekends at Sam’s Bar and Grill. At the Center, Hotmud gave lessons, ran a song circle, and led informal jam sessions. Once a week they held a live Country Music Jamboree, which was broadcast over WYSO, the Antioch College radio station. The Center closed in 1977, but the Jamboree continued with other performers at other local venues until 1986. 

Act Two of the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion opened with a solo rendition of “Red Rocking Chair” by former Hotmud lead vocalist Suzanne Thomas Edmundson. Then came the group’s reunion, when Thomas was joined by the other founding Family members Dave Edmundson and Rick Good along with bassist Gary Hopkins. They did three pieces and an encore. During the 1980s the band gave occasional reunion performances. This was one of their last.

For Act Three, Baker’s stage directions began: “Beer Sign On.” 

A borrowed neon sign hung onstage now lit up for the reunion of a band associated with Dayton’s bluegrass bar scene, the Allen Brothers.

Formed in the late ’60s to back their father Red Allen, they began performing without him and were touring in 1974 when brother Neal died. After a brief hiatus, the three other brothers (Harley, Greg, and Ronnie) carried on into the early ’80s, recording Rounder and Folkways albums. The new Smithsonian/Folkways album Industrial Strength Bluegrass — which just won Album of the Year at the 2021 IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards — includes Harley Allen’s “Suzanne,” first recorded by the Allen Brothers in 1982, here recreated by Mo Pitney and Merle Monroe:

They continued to play together in the Dayton area into the mid-’80s, but by then Harley had begun a solo career, first joining banjoist Mike Lilly in a band Jon Hartley Fox calls “one of the best bluegrass acts Dayton ever produced” (Industrial Strength Bluegrass 136). In 1985 the Allen-Lilly Band closed a set at the Berkshire Mountain Bluegrass Festival. Harlan County native Lilly led the way into “Little Maggie” with coon dog and motorcycle as Frank Wakefield watched: 

Harley went on to a Nashville career as a singer-songwriter, winning two Grammys and singing on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack hit “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow” before dying at the age of 55. 

At the Reunion, the Allen Brothers put together a band with Harley on mandolin, Greg on banjo, and Ronnie on bass, with Wendell Barrett on guitar, and David Harvey on fiddle.

Here’s how they sounded with a similar band (different fiddler and mandolinist), with Monroe’s “Uncle Pen” enlivened by guitarist Harley Allen’s transformation of Jimmy Martin’s “G run” and a fancy ending, followed by a bluegrass trio rendition of the Paul Siebel’s classic “Louise.”

At the Reunion, they did three tunes and an encore. Then it was intermission time.

The second half began with Baker introducing Act Four, the Dry Branch Fire Squad. This band was led by mandolinist Ron Thomason, a Virginian who had migrated to the region as a child. Around since the mid-’70s, it’s still active today. Thomason came up in Dayton’s regional scene in the ’60s, working in bar bands and on the road with Ralph Stanley. 

Committed to traditional bluegrass, Thomason, now living in Colorado, has had many talented musicians in his band. He is famous for his emcee work, which regularly grows into humorous monologue. Baker’s directions for this act listed two pieces (including one gospel song), separated by:

“Rap — Ron Thomason”

Here’s a sample of Ron’s “rap” — a comic speech from a 2007 California festival:

At the time of The Dayton Bluegrass Reunion, Dry Branch had four albums on Rounder, the start of a long string with that label. Like the Hotmud Family, they were folk and bluegrass festival regulars. 

The band this evening consisted of Ron on mandolin, John Hisey on banjo, Mary Jo Leet on guitar, and Charlie Leet on bass. In 1987 a similar lineup recorded “Aragon Mill,” a Si Kahn song that Ron had learned while working at coal miner’s union rallies with Hazel Dickens:

Act Five brought on another performer still active today, Larry Sparks and the Lonesome Ramblers. Sparks had come up in the Dayton bar scene at about the same time as Ron Thomason. He worked with the Stanley Brothers and Ralph Stanley at the end of the ’60s and made his first album on his own in 1970s. He became a member of the Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 2015 and has a new album out on Rebel. 

At this concert his Lonesome Ramblers had a reunion dimension. Mandolinist and singer Wendy Miller, who’d played on Larry’s earliest recordings and was with the band through most of the ’70s, was back for this evening’s concert. Also in the band were banjoist Barry Crabtree and Larry’s son, Larry Dee, on bass. 

They did three songs: “Dark Hollow,” “Face in the Crowd,” and “Kentucky Chimes,” all regulars from his albums and concerts. He closed with an eight-tune medley of his other hits. There are many videos of Larry’s great singing and lead guitar work. Here’s one of my favorites:

Acts Six and Seven dramatized the transformations of Dayton’s foundational 1956 band — The Osborne Brothers and Red Allen.

Act Six was all reunion. Red Allen had been officially retired since 1984, although he’d recently recorded four tracks on Home Is Where The Heart Is, David Grisman’s new Rounder album, joined on these tracks by son Harley and banjoist Porter Church, who’d been in his band The Kentuckians. 

Red started this band in 1959 with mandolinist Frank Wakefield. In November 1961, in Nashville for the D.J. Convention, they cut six classic tracks at Starday with top bluegrass musicians of the day: Don Reno on banjo; Chubby Wise on fiddle; and John Palmer on bass. The whole great session is on YouTube: 

Sierra Hull reprises Wakefield’s “Mountain Strings” on the new Smithsonian/Folkways album Industrial Strength Bluegrass. The track was nominated for IBMA’s 2021 Instrumental Recording of the Year.

In the early ’60s Wakefield and Allen worked out of the D.C. area, with a radio show in Wheaton, Maryland. In 1964 they did a Folkways album in New York, produced by David Grisman and Peter Siegel. 

Soon after, Wakefield, whose innovative music is discussed by Ben Krakauer in Industrial Strength Bluegrass (182-183), began working with New York band The Greenbriar Boys and later he relocated to Saratoga Springs, New York. Here’s how he sounded in 2008 — still pushing the boundaries:

Red kept the Kentuckians going in the mid-’60s with a succession of great sidemen, among them banjoist Porter Church and mandolinist Grisman, who produced two albums of the Kentuckians on the County label.

In 1967 Red worked briefly for Bill Monroe and took Lester Flatt’s place in the Foggy Mountain Boys when Flatt had heart surgery. The next year he was in Lexington working with J.D. Crowe and Doyle Lawson.

By the early ’70s he was back in Dayton, working with his sons and playing locally what Rick Good calls “bargrass” (Industrial Strength Bluegrass 156). For tonight’s concert Red and Frank’s Kentuckians included Porter Church on banjo, Buddy Griffin on fiddle, Ron Messing on Dobro, and Larry Nager on bass. 

During Red’s four-song set, Red Spurlock and Noah Crase, banjoists who’d played with Red during his early years, sat in for choruses with the band. A reprise of Wakefield’s famous “New Camptown Races” brought guest David Harvey, son of Dorsey Harvey, another influential mandolinist, to play harmony.

The final segment, Act Seven, featured Dayton’s Grand Ole Opry stars, the Osborne Brothers. Two days before the concert the Dayton Daily News said the Osbornes had “achieved the greatest fame of those taking part in this tribute to the flowering of bluegrass music in Dayton.” It would be hard for anyone to follow them. After joining the Opry in 1964 they’d moved from Dayton to Nashville. During the late ’60s and early ’70s, a string of country hits (“Rocky Top” is the best known today) led to industry awards for their vocal work.

With this success the Osbornes’ recordings moved toward a contemporary country radio-friendly sound, mixing pedal steel, piano, fiddle, drums, and electric bass alongside their bluegrass banjo and mandolin. Their live sound also changed. In 1967 they added electric bass; in the early ’70s, a drummer. Next came electric pickups on banjo and mandolin. They did this to make themselves heard in the big country package shows they were playing, where all the other acts were highly amplified. Their “going electric” was viewed with alarm in the acoustic-oriented bluegrass festival world, but it only lasted for a few years.

Throughout these years, their unique vocals remained a constant. They continued to record and tour. Their repertoire drew largely from decades of recordings along with newer material. They now carried a straight-ahead bluegrass band including fiddle and acoustic bass.

This evening, playing with the Osborne Brothers were Paul Brewster on guitar and third voice in the trio, Terry Eldredge on bass, and Steve Thomas on fiddle.  They did four songs, all favorites from their earlier recordings, including a version of “Kentucky,” the Blue Sky Boys hit of the ’30s that they’d recorded for Decca in 1964 and which remained in their repertoire right up until Sonny’s 2005 retirement. Here’s an early ’90s Opry performance of it, introduced by Bill Anderson. The band includes future Grascals member Eldredge on guitar and third voice and Terry Smith on bass, along with second guitarist (and bus driver) Raymond Huffmaster, Dobroist Gene Wooten, and fiddler Glen Duncan. 

According to Baker’s stage directions, the closing act consisted of:

“Music — Medley”

An earlier draft reads:

“[medley in B natural: each unit from each of the 7 segments chooses a song which they play when their turn comes]”

My memory of this is vague, but I think that’s just how the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion ended, in B natural. But it wasn’t over quite yet. In that day’s Dayton Daily News columnist Nick Weiser had announced: 

“Following the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion at Memorial Hall, the Canal Street Tavern, located at 308 E. First St., will have a reception for the audience and the participants of the Bluegrass Reunion Show. Mark Bondurant will open the show at 9:30 with a reception to follow after the show. Many of the musicians from the Memorial Hall show are scheduled to get together and jam at the Canal Street Tavern reception. Admission is $1 at the door.”

I went with my camera…  Next time!

(Editor’s Note: Read part one of our series on the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion 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.

Neil would like to thank Tom Duffee, Rick Good, and Al Turnbull.

LISTEN: Haunted Like Human, “Ohio”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Haunted Like Human
Hometown: Nashville, TN; originally Fayetteville, Georgia (Dale Chapman) and Milton-Freewater, Oregon (Cody Clark)
Song: “Ohio”
Album: Tall Tales & Fables
Release Date: October 15, 2021

In Their Words: “‘Ohio’ is a special song for us. It started in the fall of 2018 when we were touring off of our EP Folklore and stopped to spend time with some of Cody’s family in Ohio. In chatting with his grandmother, she was telling the story of falling in love with her husband when he was in her native South Carolina, and how when she was pregnant he sent her up to Ohio to live with his family while he worked and sent money back. Things kept keeping him in South Carolina and she said offhand, ‘You know, he was just trying to get back to Ohio.’ I remember in that moment thinking that there was a song in that one statement and I sat with it for about a year until we really started writing again for this record. The end result is a story told through letters back home of a man wanting to do right by his family while also wanting to get back home to them.” — Dale Chapman, Haunted Like Human

Photo credit: Caroline Voisine

Bluegrass Memoirs: ‘Industrial Strength Bluegrass’ and the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion (Part 2)

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Editor’s note: Read part one of Industrial Strength Bluegrass and the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion here

In 1987 I became involved with CityFolk’s Dayton Bluegrass Reunion, “An All-Star Salute to Dayton’s 40 Year Bluegrass History.” Between October 1987 and March 1989, I worked by mail and telephone to help shape the Reunion, planned for April 1989. 

While this was to be called a “concert,” executive producer Phyllis Brzozowska envisioned it from the start as musical theater. I liked her idea — I’d long thought of bluegrass that way. My experience on the stage started at age 12, in a little theater company production of Our Town, Thornton Wilder’s 1938 Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a small community in the early 20th century. Wikipedia describes the play this way:

“Wilder uses metatheatrical devices, setting the play in the actual theatre where it is being performed. The main character is the stage manager of the theatre who directly addresses the audience.”

In Dayton, playwright Don Baker would have a role like that of the stage manager in Our Town, acting the part of a loquacious emcee, telling the story of the Dayton bluegrass community. He would work from a script that Larry Nager was writing. As he spoke, a screen behind him would show slides relating to the narrative’s cultural and historical points.

The concert was divided into seven acts, “Segment/Settings” of 12 to 15 minutes. Each featured a different group of musicians and had room for three to five songs and an encore. Don’s narrations opened each act. Planning reflected concerns about the content and sequence of the acts. How was forty years of artistic ferment to be represented? 

When I spoke of the project to my bluegrass buddies, the first question was always “Will the Osborne Brothers reunite with Red Allen?” This 1957 show gives a good portrait of the band’s sound and repertoire — cutting-edge bluegrass of its era:

As the bluegrass festival movement ramped up in the ’70s, Allen and the Osbornes occasionally crossed paths. The Osbornes were doing well on the country charts with songs like “Rocky Top” that featured Bobby’s solo and trio high lead:

Allen, considered one of the classic bluegrass lead singers, had gone on to work in several good bands. He still approached audiences as he had in Dayton bars. Larry Nager explains: “Red loved the spotlight, making the crowds laugh (often at jokes more fitting for a stag party than a bluegrass club)” (Industrial Strength Bluegrass p.89). An on-stage festival reunion with the Osbornes had been tried, didn’t work out, and was now out of the question. 

Who else would be in the concert? At the start planners thought in terms of contrasts in categories like venues (working-class bars; upscale nightspots, colleges), audiences (industrial working-class Appalachian migrants, yuppies, college kids), and radio (country, folk).

As we’ll see later, these categories overlapped; that’s what gave the region’s bluegrass such vibrancy. Beyond categories lay personal dimensions: certain bands and musicians were like oil and water. The production committee faced artists’ and fans’ differing perspectives, values, and priorities. Terms bandied about during production meetings included “First Generation, Second Generation, Urban” and so on. 

Another planning challenge: the concert featured some working bands, each on their own professional trajectory. But as a reunion it also featured retired individuals and groups. 

The final concert performance sequence reflected our work to keep tension levels low, make things flow, and illustrate the artistic collaborations that had come out of this cultural scene. 

My primary task was writing the introduction for the program, seeking to explain why CityFolk was presenting hillbilly music as heritage.

I was assisted by Barb Kuhns and Larry Nager, who were writing artist bios and gathering illustrations for the program. Musician and producer Nager knew the history from the inside, as his chapter, “Sing Me Back Home: Early Bluegrass Venues in Southwestern Ohio” in Industrial Strength Bluegrass (pp. 77-100) attests. Kuhns, professional librarian and fiddler with the Corndrinkers, an old-time group, had been active in promoting the music of some of the lesser-known pioneers in the local scene of which she’d been part for many years. 

With just over a month to go until the show in April, I spent a March weekend in Dayton helping the planning production staff finalize concert details.

In early April CityFolk sent news to the press of the coming event. “Dayton show will reflect Kentucky bluegrass roots” was the title of a 12-paragraph story in Sunday’s Louisville Courier-Journal, Kentucky’s equivalent of the New York Times. On Wednesday, the Dayton Downtowner, a weekly, carried two stories, and on Friday the Dayton Daily News (a supporter of the event) ran two generous stories.

On Friday night April 22, 1989, each of the concert goers who filled Memorial Hall — a Beaux-art national historic site (1907) of 2500 seats in downtown Dayton — received a 16-page 8 ½ x 11 program. Its cover duplicated the concert’s posters.

On the first page was Phyllis Brzozowka’s introduction. Next, an essay by former Dayton newspaperman Tom Teepen, who told the evocative story of his experiences with the music in Dayton. 

My piece, “Industrial Strength Bluegrass,” filled the next four pages. Then came seven photo-packed pages devoted to “The Artists”: Paul “Moon” Mullins and Traditional Grass, Noah Crase and the Valley Ramblers, The Hotmud Family, The Allen Brothers, Red Allen, The Dry Branch Fire Squad, Larry Sparks and Wendy Miller, Frank Wakefield, David Harvey, and the Osborne Brothers. 

The booklet closed with several pages of lists: a “Selected Discography” including addresses for local and national retailers; planning production staff; thanks for assistance; CityFolk staff; board of trustees. Its endpapers were a map of southern Ohio, with portions of Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia. A lot to look at while waiting for the curtain to rise!

Behind the curtain, Baker’s Lime Kiln workers provided lighting and a stage manager. I was part of the backstage crew. And the sound was something else! Afterwards Phyllis wrote:

Pete Reineger, from the National Council for the Traditional Arts and a local crew…ran an equivalent of 4 stages with 36 open microphones throughout the performance.

I have been unable to locate any recordings of this event — no tape, no video. I saved a copy of Baker’s stage directions, which lay out the concert’s sequence. But Larry Nager’s script for his narrative, which told the history of Dayton bluegrass in seven segments, one for each act, no longer exists. In it, he recalled, Don’s role was that of “the omniscient voice of the hillbilly diaspora.” 

Though the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion is now a lost play, its structure can be seen from Baker’s stage directions. However, because I was busy bustling around backstage, I didn’t know how the concert was going over with the audience until later. 

The reunion began with an introduction by Phyllis, following that came sounds from offstage, described in the stage directions as:

Halsey & Meyers Commercial 

Radio Rap — Moon Mullins.

Halsey Myers is still a going concern. Joe Mullins says that the Traditional Grass, the band he worked in with his father Moon from 1983 to 1995, recorded a radio commercial for this Middletown hardware store. It was so popular they got requests for it at personal appearances. Joe and his son Daniel found an old cassette recording of the ad followed by an example of Moon’s colorful on-air WPFB persona:

These radio clips would have been familiar to many in the audience who knew the local bluegrass scene. Paul “Moon” Mullins was the true loquacious voice of Appalachian migrant music — bluegrass — in southwest Ohio. 

As the curtains opened Baker took the stage to tell the story of Mullins and the music. Photos synced to the script appeared on a screen behind him. Some were of Dayton musicians and venues, while others evoked a variety of historical and geographical milieus ranging from Dayton to national and international.

Baker’s light dimmed and focus shifted to the other side of the stage, where Mullins and his band, The Traditional Grass, were highlighted. Mullins had come to Dayton from Kentucky in 1964 to take a job as a DJ at WPFB, a Middletown country station that had been a bluegrass center in the 40s and 50s. Jimmy Martin, the Osborne Brothers and many others had performed there. The short-lived Martin-Osborne band’s hit trio “20/20 Vision” from those days is recreated by Dan Tyminski on the new Smithsonian Folkways album, Industrial Strength Bluegrass: 

In the mid-’60s WPFB had dropped bluegrass but Mullins brought it back. He’d started his radio and musical careers (he’d fiddled with the Stanley Brothers) in eastern Kentucky. Migrant audiences in southwestern Ohio bonded with him. He revitalized the music at WPFB and began playing with local bands. 

I first saw his name in June 1968 when we were both on the flyer for Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Festival at Bean Blossom, Indiana. I was in the banjo workshop (with Ralph Stanley, Dave Garrett, Bobby Thompson, Vic Jordan, and Larry Sparks); “Paul Mullins, WPFB Radio, Middletown, Ohio” was emcee for the Saturday shows, co-hosting on Sunday with Grant Turner of the Grand Ole Opry.

Twenty-one years later, on the evening of the Reunion, Mullins had recently left WPFB. He’d started The Traditional Grass in 1983 (they would continue until 1995); it included his son Joe, who was singing tenor, picking banjo, and following his dad’s footsteps in radio. Guitarist Mark Rader was the lead singer, and Glenn “Cookie” Inman, bassist. They opened with “Weary Lonesome Blues,” a popular Delmore Brothers song from 1937:

After three more songs, everyone except Moon left the stage and he was joined by members of The Valley Ramblers, a band he’d co-founded with Noah Crase in the late ’60s. Crase was a highly respected banjo player, a former Blue Grass Boy best-known for “Noah’s Breakdown,” the tune that started Bill Keith on his exploration of melodic banjo. 

Editor’s note: Read part one of Industrial Strength Bluegrass and the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion here

Neil V. Rosenberg would like to thank Barb Kuhns, Daniel and Joe Mullins, and Larry Nager

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 Rosenberg: Terri Thomson Rosenberg

Bluegrass Memoirs: ‘Industrial Strength Bluegrass’ and the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion (Part 1)

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

On April 22, 1989, Cityfolk, a Dayton, Ohio-based concert series, mounted their most ambitious evening to date, The Dayton Bluegrass Reunion, “An All-Star Salute to Dayton’s 40 Year Bluegrass History.” It was held at Memorial Hall in downtown Dayton.

I’m reminded of this concert now because of an essay I wrote for its program booklet: “Industrial Strength Bluegrass.” That is the title of a new book by Fred Bartenstein and Curtis W. Ellison, subtitled “Southwestern Ohio’s Musical Legacy.” This anthology presents a remarkable in-depth portrait of a key regional bluegrass scene, which co-author Bartenstein has likened to seminal regional scenes in other genres like blues (Chicago) and jazz (New Orleans).

In March, Smithsonian Folkways released a 16-track album with the same title, edited by Joe Mullins and son Daniel Mullins. On it are 16 contemporary recordings by today’s leading bluegrass artists, doing the region’s key repertoire — like “Once More,” the Osborne Brothers and Red Allen’s 1958 high lead trio, recreated on the album by The Grascals; and “20/20 Vision” by Jimmy Martin and Osborne Brothers in 1954, done here by Dan Tyminski. Joe Mullins opens the album with his band, The Radio Ramblers, doing “Readin’, Rightin’, Route 23,” an anthem to the Appalachian migrants who nurtured bluegrass in the region.

My experience with the Dayton Bluegrass Reunion began in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the fall of ’87 at an annual meeting of the American Folklore Society (AFS). One month to the day after the Earl Scruggs Celebration, I met Phyllis Brzozowska, executive director of Cityfolk, “an arts organization,” as she later wrote, “working full time to bring to the public the variety and excellence that exists in traditional arts today.” 

Phyllis grew up with Irish dancing in Dayton. By 1978 she had a Celtic music radio show on WYSO-FM, the Antioch College station, and began booking bands. “A band I knew from Pittsburgh called ‘Devilish Mary’ was coming through town. They were a great dance band that played ole’ timey music and Irish traditional music.” She and a friend organized a “ceili” at a downtown club in Dayton. By 1981 she’d formed Cityfolk. 

By 1987, Cityfolk had branched out from Irish to include other roots music in their events — including bluegrass. In the 1980s a broadening of interest in the traditional arts was nurtured through public sector folklore lobbying in Washington. The Festival of American Folklife, established in 1967 by Ralph Rinzler at the Smithsonian, led to the establishment of a Folk Arts department at the National Endowment for the Arts and the creation of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. The National Folk Festival, around since the ’30s, moved to Washington and became the National Council for Traditional Arts (NCTA) in 1976. 

These national institutions supported performing arts markets for traditional artists. Local and regional arts organizations like Cityfolk and PineCone grew and flourished during the ’80s, and public folklorists were active in the AFS. Phyllis was wanting to talk with me because I’d written a book about bluegrass. She was planning a reunion concert to celebrate 40 years of bluegrass in Dayton, applying for funding from the Ohio Arts Council and the Dayton Performing Arts Fund. She asked me if I would work as a consultant and writer for this event’s program. 

Brzozowska wanted to tell the story of bluegrass in Dayton as dramatically as possible, so they were hiring Don Baker, “one of the leading theater directors in the South.” Baker had grown up in Appalachia and started his career at Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky. In 1984 he co-founded Lime Kiln, a theater in Lexington, Virginia. 

For the Reunion, Brzozowska later recalled, Baker “constructed a theatrical foundation on which the music and narrative would be presented. He also designed the set, contributed input to the script, set the pacing of the show and when the lights went up, was the perfect stage M.C. for the evening.” 

In producing the show Brzozowska took counsel from three Dayton old hands — Harley Allen, Fred Bartenstein, and Paul “Moon” Mullins. Additional input came from old-time fiddler and Dayton City librarian Barb Kuhns and writer-musician Larry Nager. As a consultant and writer, I worked with them on the planning of the concert and on program booklet. I also helped backstage on the night of the concert. 

My experiences with southwestern Ohio bluegrass began in the late fifties. Oberlin classmate Jeff Piker came from Cincinnati as a freshman in ’58. Inspired by a Pete Seeger concert at Antioch, he’d bought a used Vega banjo at a music shop in the Appalachian migrant neighborhood of Over-The-Rhine that Nathan McGee writes about in Industrial Strength Bluegrass (pp. 164, 166). It had homemade Scruggs pegs! 

That made Piker a popular guy with us campus bluegrass jammers. We all borrowed the banjo to learn how to use the pegs. During the January 1959 winter break we took it with us when we went to Yellow Springs to visit Antioch College friends. Bluegrass was catching on there. 

Chuck Crawford, Neil V. Rosenberg, Franklin Miller III at Pyle Inn, Oberlin, Ohio, January 1959

A year later, in March 1960, our band opened for the Osborne Brothers at Antioch. I’ve written about that in Bluegrass: A History (pp. 155-58). In 1962, another band I was in opened at Antioch, for Sid Campbell and Frank Wakefield, and I’ve written about that too, in Bluegrass Generation: A Memoir (119-123).

One detail from that 1960 concert I didn’t mention: when Jeremy Foster called to invite us to open the show for the Osbornes, he said he’d booked the Osborne Brothers because they were nearby and available. We knew of this band only from the sound of their MGM album, The Osborne Brothers and Red Allen. Jeremy was disappointed that they had changed — Red Allen was no longer with them. That made their music less appealing to him. But, as I learned later, Bobby and Sonny didn’t want fancy guitar backup and didn’t need a flashy lead singer. They were focused on their trio.

In the fall of 1963, when I was managing Bill Monroe’s park, the Brown County Jamboree, in Bean Blossom, Indiana, we got reacquainted when they gave their first show there (Bluegrass Generation, pp. 224-226). With Benny Birchfield playing guitar and singing the lowest voice in the trio, they had moved from MGM to Decca. Their first single, “Take This Hammer,” had just come out. Their final MGM album, Cutting the Grass, was due out soon.

They were polishing the high lead trio they’d been working on for five years. That winter I taped them guesting on the WSM’s after-the-Opry broadcast, Ernest Tubb’s Midnite Jamboree. Their harmonies were attracting attention in country music circles.

At Bean Blossom, Bobby and Sonny had told me about their regular Thursday night gigs Ruby’s White Sands in Dayton and invited me to come over some time. In May ’64, Jim Work and I took friends from California, Jerry Garcia and Sandy Rothman, to see them there. 

The Osbornes joined the Opry a few months later. By then they were coming to Bean Blossom twice a year and we’d gotten better acquainted. “Banjer” talk with Sonny was always entertaining. He had experimental bridges, banjos, and capos. On stage, he had great new licks for every show. 

With Bobby I shared an interest in bluegrass history. One Sunday in 1964 I invited the band back to our apartment in Bloomington for supper. While they were there I showed Bobby the work I was doing on the Bill Monroe discography and asked him if he was interested in doing something like that for the Osborne Brothers. He was. We began corresponding about their discography, and started trading tapes.

Benny Birchfield left the Osborne Brothers at the end of ’65. The following spring, in Cincinnati for an academic meeting, I ran into him at the Ken-Mill Café in Over-The-Rhine. He was playing bass in a band that included lead singer and guitarist Jim McCall, with Vernon McIntyre Jr. on banjo. Benny introduced me to the band as a banjo picker from Bean Blossom and invited me to sit in for a set on banjo. That was fun.

On Labor Day, 1966, Carlton Haney held his second Roanoke Bluegrass Festival in Fincastle, Virginia. The Osborne Brothers were there — riding high with their first charted Decca hit, “Up This Hill and Down.” Their Sunday trio on “I Hear A Sweet Voice Calling” with Bill Monroe was one of the high points of the festival that year — a religious experience for many who heard it. 

At that festival, my first, I finally met Pete Kuykendall. We’d been corresponding and trading tapes for several years, and he’d published bluegrass discographies in the mimeo magazine Disc Collector. Now he was promoting a new bluegrass monthly, Bluegrass Unlimited. I told him about the Osborne Brothers discography, and he agreed to publish it in BU (it appeared the following July). Promoter Haney invited me to join him, Ralph Rinzler, and Mayne Smith in introducing Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys and The Osborne Brothers in a special broadcast about the festival on the local TV channel.

In April 1967 I saw them at a club outside Indianapolis. The third voice in the trio was now being sung by Harley Gabbard, later the co-founder of The Boys from Indiana. His name comes up often in Mac McDivitt’s chapter on the southwest Ohio recording scene in Industrial Strength Bluegrass (pp. 43-76). One of Gabbard’s contributions to the regional repertoire, “Family Reunion,” written with his nephew, Aubrey Holt, is performed on the new Folkways CD by Rhonda Vincent and Caleb Daugherty. 

I saw Gabbard again the following October when he dropped in and sang bass on one cut we were recording for George Brock’s gospel album at Rusty York‘s Jewel Records in Mt. Healthy, Ohio. McDivitt’s chapter also devotes a section (pp. 63-65) to Jewel and York’s remarkable careers in bluegrass and rockabilly. Here’s Harley Gabbard with the Osbornes doing what was, as of May ’67, their new single: “Roll Muddy River.”

So, during the years I’d lived in Indiana (1961-68) I’d dipped into the Southwestern Ohio bluegrass scene a number of times. I knew some of the music, some of the people and some of the history. But I had been living in Newfoundland for twenty years. Fortunately Barb Kuhns (Dayton City librarian) and Larry Nager knew the Dayton region scene deeply in a way I didn’t, which was essential, because the sequence and repertoire of the concert had to reflect the drama of the reunion story.

(Editor’s Note: 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

WATCH: Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers, “Living Left to Do”

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Artist: Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers
Hometown: Xenia, Ohio
Song: “Living Left to Do”
Album: Somewhere Beyond the Blue
Single Release Date: June 4, 2021
Label: Billy Blue Records

In Their Words: “We’re very thankful to have plenty of new music and a good tour schedule for 2021. But we’re most encouraged with the renewed opportunity to reunite with friends and loved ones we’ve missed so deeply, and to be back together doing what we love. ‘Living Left to Do’ was written by Conrad Fisher and is about enjoying our calling, celebrating God’s goodness, and the blessed assurance of life eternal. We’re ready to live, love, laugh and have a lot more to do!” — Joe Mullins

Photo credit: Kim Brantley

LISTEN: The Shootouts, “Saturday Night Town”

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Artist: The Shootouts
Hometown: Northeast Ohio
Song: “Saturday Night Town”
Album: Bullseye
Release Date: April 30, 2021
Label: Soundly Music

In Their Words: “It was inspired by a book I read about a historic small town in Ohio. Throughout the book there were stories of fun-loving locals who would cut loose at the end of a long week, referring to it as a ‘Saturday Night Town.’ I instantly knew that was meant to be a song title. We all come from, or know someone who comes from, a small town like this. Even if they end up leaving, it’s hard to get that out of your blood. I think we can all relate to a much-needed break at the end of a long week, no matter what town you call home.

“That same book inspired another track called ‘Rattlesnake Whiskey,’ which is also on Bullseye. Both of those songs were written in 2015, before The Shootouts began. They were some of the first original songs we performed live, and they quickly became fan favorites. They didn’t quite fit with the batch of tunes that became our debut album, Quick Draw, but they definitely felt like a perfect fit for Bullseye. Luckily, Chuck [Mead, producer] thought so too. I think we got the definitive versions, and I’m glad we finally got to record them both.

“Fun fact: We end almost every show with ‘Saturday Night Town’ and have almost since the inception of the band. It really allows the band to stretch out a bit and trade some tasty licks.” — Ryan Humbert, The Shootouts

Photo credit: Jamie Escola

LISTEN: Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers, “Readin’, Rightin’, Route 23”

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Artist: Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers
Hometown: Xenia, Ohio
Song: “Readin’, Rightin’, Route 23”
Album: Industrial Strength Bluegrass
Release Date: March 26, 2021
Label: Smithsonian Folkways

In Their Words: “The great Appalachian migration of the 20th century placed tens of thousands of families from the hills and hollers into the industrial region of southwestern Ohio. Three shifts a day produced steel, paper, automobiles and more, from Cincinnati northward to Hamilton, Middletown, Dayton and Springfield, in the Miami valley of Ohio. No one makes better music than homesick hillbillies and they picked and sang at neighborhood taverns, churches, radio stations and fairgrounds. My parents left Kentucky in 1964 and I was born in Middletown, Ohio, one year later. Dad was a fiddler and radio personality spotlighting bluegrass music for the entire region.

“‘Readin’, Rightin’, Route 23′ was penned by Dwight Yoakam early in his career. His roots travel US Route 23 from eastern Kentucky to the Columbus, Ohio region. My mother’s parents lived a few miles off Route 23 in Lawrence County, Kentucky, in a’ ‘holler.’ Our family made the trip from Ohio to see my mamaw and papaw Williams hundreds of times. This song’s second verse was so personal to me, it took a lot of rehearsal to sing through my emotions. Seeing their porch light burning brightly, as a kid, meant I was soon to welcomed into their loving arms. In these troubled times, it’s a memory I cherish and find very comforting.

“‘Readin’, Rightin’, Route 23′ is the opening track to the forthcoming album entitled Industrial Strength Bluegrass. The 16-song project will feature songs all connected to the rich history of bluegrass music created, written or recorded in my neighborhood, southwestern Ohio. I can’t wait until the world hears Dan Tyminski, Lee Ann Womack, Doyle Lawson and more artists performing songs draw from a deep well of classic bluegrass!” — Joe Mullins

Photo credit: Russ Carson

BGS 5+5: Cut Worms

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Artist: Cut Worms (Max Clarke)
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio
Latest Album: Nobody Lives Here Anymore

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

It’s a perhaps predictable or trite answer, but if I had to choose a single entity, I guess I’d say The Beatles or Dylan — either one, respectfully. They both just covered so much ground and have such a wide breadth of material and cultural scope that it’s hard for me to really see or hear anything — contemporary or otherwise in the time since they’ve existed — that doesn’t have some part of their influence in it. Usually whether the artist knows it or not, there’s some influence there. Even people that hate them.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I don’t know that I have a single favorite memory. When a show is going well, it’s great and it doesn’t get much better. It’s a place you can reach at different points in time where you’re kind of just floating there and this thing is happening. It’s really more about being in that moment. It doesn’t quite stick around in a memory.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?

I would say film, TV, and books. Those are the main mediums through which I experience good stories. To me it’s all about the stories and narrative styles and touching on some kind of feeling. What someone (who I can’t recall at the moment) referred to in poetry as being “the words behind words.”

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I don’t know that there was ever a single moment, but at some point I realized music was able to transport me in a way that other things could not. It seemed like a worthwhile endeavor to try to figure out how to do that. I am still trying.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

All of them. It’s hard work I tell you.

Photo credit: Caroline Gohlke

Lydia Loveless Gives Her Songs More Space, Sarcasm on Self-Issued ‘Daughter’

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Lydia Loveless wrote her fifth studio album, Daughter, after a self-confessed period of personal upheaval. The dissolution of a marriage and an interstate move away from her longtime home of Columbus, Ohio, left her seeking to redefine herself both inwardly and societally. Released independently, Daughter presents an electric balance of deep vulnerability and power, replete with wry humor and honest, unadorned regret.

Recorded by Tom Schick (Mavis Staples, Norah Jones, Wilco) at The Loft in Chicago, Daughter features anthemic hooks and reflective moments of spaciousness. With Loveless writing on keyboards, synths and drum loops, the work comes together to present a group of compelling songs that create a treatise on selfhood, womanhood, hypocrisies of Western society, and the reverberant pain and joy of being human. Loveless spoke with BGS from her North Carolina home about the album she considers her most personal one yet.

BGS: Daughter lays out so many emotions and states of being that women are usually cut off from expressing — there’s a lot of sardonic humor, a lot of anger and frustration, there’s this rejection that every woman should have maternal desires. I love these very plain descriptions of living with depression, and the vocals sit right on top of the mix so you can hear every single word you’re saying. What was your internal process like while writing these songs?

Loveless: I mean, I’ve always been a bit of a sad sack. [Laughs] But I always couched it with humor. I feel like I found my place on this record with that. Because I’ve had a lot of people say that it’s… they don’t really say that it’s funny, but they can sense a lot of the humor and sarcasm in it. So I feel like I got to a solid place with that and I was probably reading a lot of depressing old ‘60s writers [Laughs] so that helped pull the content along I think.

In Daughter, you write very honestly about how your personal and professional life has shifted in the last three years — a move and the end of a marriage. What is it like to make a piece of art that dealt directly with that change?

It was super cathartic. I feel particularly excited about it and confident in it because it’s a self-release so it pretty much has got my stamp all over it. I think the idea that it’s up to me to make it more successful has had some sort of reverse psychology. Like I’m not very freaked out, I’m just excited and proud, and happy with the whole process.

One of the aspects of this record that I love are the variances in instrumentation and gear — the drum loops and keys as well as analog synths. It adds this whole other dimension to the album. How did these different instruments affect the way you write, if at all?

I think it helped me a lot to come up with better melody and more focused songwriting. I think in the past I’ve always been a very hard guitar player. [Laughs] It’s not like I don’t like that or that I’m embarrassed by it, but I wanted to try something different. I felt like it opened things up a lot. The whole band was playing every instrument except the drums because we’re not all that good. [Laughs] It was very exploratory and it helped me to give the songs a lot more space than I usually do.

Is that something that you’re hoping to continue?

Yeah. I feel like every time I make a record, the only way I really break through my inevitable period of writer’s block is by doing something that I don’t know how to do, so that I can learn it and be inspired by the newness of it. I’m sure I’ll run out of things like that eventually but I think it’s what helps me stay mentally in shape, for sure.

In past interviews you’ve talked about having been totally exhausted by touring. What was it like to sort of…stop? Because right now, many of us are at home dealing with having to be still. It’s very jarring for a lot of people. What was your experience with stillness in making Daughter and also now, during the pandemic?

It’s pretty tough, because the thing I miss the most about regular life is traveling and touring. Not necessarily going to the bar or getting dinner at a restaurant. I just miss being somewhere else all the time [Laughs], because that’s my natural state. It’s definitely something that I’ve had to work really hard on not going crazy with. Because it’s something I really enjoy — so that’s been the hardest part… not being able to just go random places and hop on a plane or go to the beach or whatever, you know?

Do you have three records, books, or movies that you’re enjoying right now and would recommend to readers?

I’m reading My Brilliant Friend right now. I’m studying Italian so I wanted to read something set in Italy — not that I’m reading in Italian. [Laughs] It’s great writing and the characters are very real. My movie watching has been lots of cornball thrillers. I think everyone should see Face/Off at some point in their life to feel better about their creative endeavors. Musically, I’ve been listening to a lot of Harry Styles. I’m a basic, basic human.

This record is a compelling statement on feminism, and specifically the concept that women only have worth insofar as they can be associated relationally with a man, as a daughter, wife, sister, etc. What do you hope people take from this record — this listening experience?

I think a lot of people have been frustrated with that whole “it’s somebody’s daughter” thing for a long time. I’m sure there’s been commentary on it, but I just have personally struggled with it for so long. So I am glad that I was able to get it down in a sonically pleasing — to me — way. [Laughs] So hopefully other people find it not just moving, lyrically, but think of it as a set of solid songs instead of just me screaming into the ether about how much it sucks that people don’t get feminism!

You’ve said that “Love Is Not Enough” is the closest to a political song you’ve been able to write thus far. What are you hoping to communicate with listeners through that song specifically?

I mean, I guess it’s sort of a grumpy song. But yeah, I think we’re all going through that right now. Everyone’s taking a lot more action than before and I don’t think we can really fool ourselves of this idea that if we just vote and say kind words, everything will be okay. [Laughs] There’s a lot more work to do. I think that society is really maybe finally coming together in that sense. But I also feel like this is in some ways my most personal record ever. And I think in some ways that makes it a lot more relatable. I feel like the more personal something is, the more people can connect with it. That’s my hope.

Photo credit: Megan Toenyes

BGS 5+5: Arlo McKinley

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Artist: Arlo McKinley
Hometown: Norwood, Ohio
Latest Album: Die Midwestern (Oh Boy Records)
Rejected Band Names: Hatchet Wounds, Black Locust Inn, Thousand Dollar Car

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

With so many influences I could name, I always go back to Blaze Foley. His ability to put so much feeling and emotion into a simple song without ever taking himself so seriously. He always influenced me in my writing, and has been a reminder to always be myself.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I would have to say that performing and knowing that one of my heroes, John Prine, had taken the time out of his day in the middle of the week to come see me play would probably top the list. He came to watch the band play at the High Watt in Nashville. That was a night I’ll never forget.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?

I read a lot when not listening to or writing music. Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, Greil Marcus, Ted Chiang and many others. Ted Chiang writes very smart, socially-conscious science fiction that really stands out to me. I highly recommend checking him out if you haven’t already.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

That would have to be growing up in the Baptist church. Seeing that music could be so much more to people than just a sound and evoke real emotions in people appealed to me in a way that is hard to put into words. Along with that I grew up constantly surrounded by so many kinds of music that my family would be listening to. Country, punk, bluegrass, folk, metal, hip-hop, etc. It’s the only thing that I ever thought that I should be doing so I’d say the simple answer is, from the moment I discovered music I knew that’s what I wanted to do with my life.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

It would be to keep pushing myself to grow as a musician, always pushing myself to never create the same album twice. It would be to also keep creating music that people can correlate to their own lives in one way or another.

Photo credit: David McClister