Grab tickets to the rest of the festivities at the Bluegrass Situation Presents: A St. Patrick’s Day Festival at New York’s New Irish Arts Center, with de Groot and Hargreaves participating in an opening night jam session with fiddler-banjoist Jake Blount and traditional dancer Nic Gareiss on March 17 as well as a headlining show from Blount and Gareiss on March 18.
Known as the Gate City, Greensboro, North Carolina is a transitional town: hub of the Piedmont between the mountain high country to the west and coastal Sandhill Plains to the east, and a city defined by the people who have come, gone, and passed through over the years. As a crossroads location, it has long been a way station for many endeavors, including touring musicians – from the likes of the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix at the Greensboro Coliseum, the state’s largest indoor arena, to James Brown and Otis Redding at clubs like the El Rocco on the Chitlin’ Circuit. Throw in the country and string band influences from the textile mill towns in the area, and the regional style of the Piedmont blues, and you’ve got yourself quite the musical melting pot.
This historical mixture was not lost on one of Greensboro’s own, Rhiannon Giddens – one of modern day Americana’s ultimate crossover artists. A child of black and white parents, she grew up in the area hearing folk and country music, participating in music programs in local public schools, and eventually going on to study opera at Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio. Once she returned to North Carolina and came under the study of fiddler Joe Thompson and the Black string band tradition, she began playing folk music and forged an artistic identity steeped in classical as well as vernacular music. In this episode of Carolina Calling, we spoke with Giddens about her background in Greensboro and how growing up mixed and immersed in various cultures, in a city so informed by its history of segregation and status as a key civil rights battleground, informed her artistic interests and endeavors, musical styles, and her mission in the music industry.
Subscribe to Carolina Calling on any and all podcast platforms to follow along as we journey across the Old North State, visiting towns like Durham, Wilmington, Shelby, and more.
Music featured in this episode:
Rhiannon Giddens – “Black is the Color”
Andrew Marlin – “Erie Fiddler”
Carolina Chocolate Drops – “Cornbread and Butterbeans”
The Rolling Stones – “Rocks Off”
Count Basie and His Orchestra – “Honeysuckle Rose”
Roy Harvey – “Blue Eyes”
Blind Boy Fuller – “Step It Up and Go”
Rhiannon Giddens, Francesco Turrisi – “Avalon”
Carolina Chocolate Drops – “Snowden’s Jig (Genuine Negro Jig)”
Barbara Lewis -“Hello Stranger”
The O’Kaysions – “Girl Watcher”
Joe and Odell Thompson – “Donna Got a Rambling Mind”
Carolina Chocolate Drops – “Country Girl”
Carolina Chocolate Drops – “Hit ‘Em Up Style”
Our Native Daughters – “Moon Meets the Sun”
Rhiannon Giddens, Francesco Turrisi – “Si Dolce é’l Tormento”
BGS is proud to produce Carolina Calling in partnership with Come Hear NC, a campaign from the North Carolina Department of Natural & Cultural Resources designed to celebrate North Carolinians’ contribution to the canon of American music.
Photo Credit: Ebru Yildiz
Enter to win a prize bundle featuring a signed copy of author and Carolina Calling host David Menconi’s ‘Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Music,’ BGS Merch, and surprises from our friends at Come Hear North Carolina.
The image of bluegrass is mountain music played and heard at high altitudes and towns like Deep Gap and remote mountain hollers across the Appalachians. But the earliest form of the music originated at lower elevations, in textile towns across the North Carolina Piedmont. As far back as the 1920s, old-time string bands like Charlie Poole’s North Carolina Ramblers were playing an early form of the music in textile towns, like Gastonia, Spray, and Shelby – in Cleveland County west of Charlotte.
In this second episode of Carolina Calling, a podcast exploring the history of North Carolina through its music and the musicians who made it, we visit the small town of Shelby: a seemingly quiet place, like most small Southern towns one might pass by in their travels. Until you see the signs for the likes of the Don Gibson Theatre and the Earl Scruggs Center, you wouldn’t guess that it was the town that raised two of the most influential musicians and songwriters in bluegrass and country music: Earl Scruggs, one of the most important musicians in the birth of bluegrass, whose banjo playing was so innovative that it still bears his name, “Scruggs style,” and Don Gibson, one of the greatest songwriters in the pop & country pantheon, who wrote “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” “Sweet Dreams,” and other songs you know by heart. For both Don Gibson and Earl Scruggs, Shelby is where it all began.
Subscribe to Carolina Calling on any and all podcast platforms to follow along as we journey across the Old North State, visiting towns like Greensboro, Durham, Wilmington, Asheville, and more.
Music featured in this episode:
Charlie Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers – “Take a Drink On Me”
Flatt & Scruggs – “Ground Speed”
Don Gibson – “I Can’t Stop Loving You”
Andrew Marlin – “Erie Fiddler” (Carolina Calling Theme)
Hedy West – “Cotton Mill Girl”
Blind Boy Fuller – “Rag Mama, Rag”
Don Gibson – “Sea Of Heartbreak”
Patsy Cline – “Sweet Dreams ”
Ray Charles – “I Can’t Stop Loving You”
Ronnie Milsap – “(I’d Be) A Legend In My Time”
Elvis Presley – “Crying In The Chapel”
Hank Snow – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Don Gibson – “Sweet Dreams”
Don Gibson – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Chet Atkins – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Johnny Cash – “Oh, Lonesome Me”
The Everly Brothers – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Neil Young – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Flatt & Scruggs – “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”
Bill Preston – “Holy, Holy, Holy”
Flat & Scruggs – “We’ll Meet Again Sweetheart”
Snuffy Jenkins – “Careless Love”
Bill Monroe – “Uncle Pen”
Bill Monroe – “It’s Mighty Dark To Travel”
The Earl Scruggs Revue – “I Shall Be Released”
The Band – “I Shall Be Released”
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”
The Country Gentlemen – “Fox On The Run”
Sonny Terry – “Whoopin’ The Blues”
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee – “Born With The Blues (Live)”
Nina Simone – “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free”
BGS is proud to produce Carolina Calling in partnership with Come Hear NC, a campaign from the North Carolina Department of Natural & Cultural Resources designed to celebrate North Carolinians’ contribution to the canon of American music.
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Asheville, North Carolina’s history as a music center goes back to the 1920s and string-band troubadours like Lesley Riddle and Bascom Lamar Lunsford, and country-music pioneer Jimmie Rodgers. But there’s always been a lot more to this town than acoustic music and scenic mountain views. From the experimental Black Mountain College that drew a range of minds as diverse as German artist Josef Albers, composer John Cage, and Albert Einstein, Asheville was also the spiritual home for electronic-music pioneer Bob Moog, who invented the Moog synthesizer first popularized by experimental bands like Kraftwerk to giant disco hits like Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love.”
It’s also a town where busking culture ensures that music flows from every street corner, and it’s the adopted hometown of many modern musicians in a multitude of genres, including Pokey LaFarge, who spent his early career busking in Asheville, and Moses Sumney, a musician who’s sonic palette is so broad, it’s all but unclassifiable.
In this premiere episode of Carolina Calling, we wonder and explore what elements of this place of creative retreat have drawn individualist artists for over a century? Perhaps it’s the fact that whatever your style, Asheville is a place that allows creativity to grow and thrive.
Subscribe to Carolina Calling on any and all podcast platforms to follow along as we journey across the Old North State, visiting towns like Shelby, Greensboro, Durham, Wilmington, and more.
Music featured in this episode:
Bascom Lamar Lunsford – “Dry Bones”
Jimmie Rodgers – “My Carolina Sunshine Girl”
Kraftwerk – “Autobahn”
Donna Summer – “I Feel Love”
Pokey LaFarge – “End Of My Rope”
Moses Sumney – “Virile”
Andrew Marlin – “Erie Fiddler (Carolina Calling Theme)”
Moses Sumney – “Me In 20 Years”
Steep Canyon Rangers – “Honey on My Tongue”
Béla Bartók – “Romanian Folk Dances”
New Order – “Blue Monday”
Quindar – “Twin-Pole Sunshade for Rusty Schweickart”
Pokey LaFarge – “Fine To Me”
Bobby Hicks Feat. Del McCoury – “We’re Steppin’ Out”
Squirrel Nut Zippers – “Put A Lid On It”
Jimmie Rodgers – “Daddy and Home”
Lesley Riddle – “John Henry”
Steep Canyon Rangers – “Graveyard Fields”
BGS is proud to produce Carolina Calling in partnership with Come Hear NC, a campaign from the North Carolina Department of Natural & Cultural Resources designed to celebrate North Carolinians’ contribution to the canon of American music.
The Bluegrass Situation is excited to announce a partnership with Come Hear North Carolina, and the latest addition to the BGS Podcast Network, in Carolina Calling: a podcast exploring the history of North Carolina through its music and the musicians who made it. The state’s rich musical history has influenced the musical styles of the U.S. and beyond, and Carolina Calling aims to connect the roots of these progressions and uncover the spark in these artistic communities. From Asheville to Wilmington, we’ll be diving into the cities and regions that have cultivated decades of talent as diverse as Blind Boy Fuller to the Steep Canyon Rangers, from Robert Moog to James Taylor and Rhiannon Giddens.
The series’ first episode, focusing on the creative spirit of retreat in Asheville, premieres Monday, January 31 and features the likes of Pokey LaFarge, Woody Platt of the Steep Canyon Rangers, Gar Ragland of Citizen Vinyl, and more. Subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and be on the lookout for brand new episodes coming soon.
Welcome back to Harmonics! While host Beth Behrs is planning a brief hiatus from the show (at least regarding new episodes – you can still follow along with everything Harmonics via the newsletter and social media), she is sending us off with one new episode to hold us over. For this episode, Beth sits down with longtime BGS favorite (and recent Artist of the Month alum!) Amythyst Kiah.
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Kiah tells the story of her life’s musical journey, discusses the importance of claiming her space in the roots music world as a queer Black woman, and ponders religion, philosophy, and spiritual moments experienced through music. The pair also talk about mental health and the transformative power of therapy, feeling like an outsider and the dangers of isolation, repressing feelings and toxic positivity, and wonder: Do we each truly have a specific purpose in life?
Listen and subscribe to Harmonics through all podcast platforms and follow Harmonics and Beth Behrs on Instagram for series updates!
Photo credit: Sandlin Gaither
Artist: Laurel Premo
Hometown: Traverse City, Michigan
Latest Album: Golden Loam
What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?
For me dance is such a huge influence. I’ve spent quite a few years as a dance musician for square dances, being a traditional fiddler. That role of being more the motor for the good time, as opposed to being the focal point, has always resonated deeply with me. But beyond that, I know that just my experience as a participant in social dance in both American old-time and Nordic traditions has given my body a vocabulary that comes out in my music. I’ve found a through line in my voice that, no matter the tempo of the music, I always am wanting to make these larger slower pulses, make longer groups of beats, tap my foot at a slower frequency. I’m certain that that longer embodiment of phrases, and the pull, and balance, from dance have played into my nature there.
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
I have a really early memory, I’m not sure what age, but before I was big enough to hold any instruments. I was in my bedroom, standing next to the door, and I could hear my folks playing music on the other side of the wall in the living room, my mom really tearing it up on some fiddle tune. In that moment, alone, I remember that I started air-fiddling and kind of marching around or dancing in the little corner. I just wanted to be part of whatever was going on there.
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
I took a while composing this lap steel track, “Father Made of River Mud,” from the new record. For a bit, it was separate pieces, in different tunings, that I didn’t know if I’d be able to fold together as one. It’s a really beautiful moment for the maker of a piece, when some kind of grace math helps everything line up in your head, and then you get to hear the thing for the first time in its full form. That tune is like a circle, it doesn’t really have to end at any one point.
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
I try and spend some time ruminating with memory that reflects back at me the elements of my personal experience that I want to embed in the performance, to make more vibrant what I’m laying down there for listeners. It’s almost a way of remembering myself to myself, because there are a lot of possible distractions when you’re recording or performing. Every little step of the setup could be something that takes you away from your body and the meaning you’re trying to imbue in the work. So, I just real quickly try to go into the wilds to try and counteract all of the civilization that I’m traversing through.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
In the last two to three years, my wild haunts have been woods, dunes, and rivers. I grew up in the woods, so shadows and green, what reverb the places with a great amount of life growing have, and the scents of being real close to the ground — those are all deep in me, and as an adult I go back to similar places to find quiet, and to kind of listen beyond that quiet. Walking rivers for the past few years, learning fly fishing, has brought about a whole other set of turns, including just a beautiful sideways weight from the gravity of the river flowing against you. I definitely take gestural impulses from my time spent in the wild, and work to keep all my senses open to what rhythms lay in front of me.
Photo credit: Harpe Star
Artist: Greensky Bluegrass
Hometown: Kalamazoo, Michigan
Song: “Monument”
Album: Stress Dreams
Release Date: January 21, 2022
Label: Thirty Tigers
In Their Words: “I enlisted the help of my buddy Chris Gelbuda to help turn a bunch of ideas that I had had into my first lyrical venture for Greensky. This song is essentially about what it was like to have my life, career, and world slammed to a halt by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was really emotionally shocking to have everything we’ve worked for and built ripped out of our hands almost overnight. With all of that in mind, we decided that the musical vibe of the song should take on the air of the first song that we would want to play when we get back on stage in front of thousands of people dancing and partying in a field at a festival… I think we got pretty close!” — Anders Beck, Greensky Bluegrass
Photo credit: Dylan Langille
Artist: Tristan Scroggins
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Seneca Square Dance”
Album: One-Ring Circus
Release Date: October 15, 2021
In Their Words: “The Seneca are a group of Indigenous Iroquoian-speaking people who historically lived south of Lake Ontario. Many were moved to Oklahoma after the War of 1812 which might explain why this tune has been traced to the Southwestern Missouri/Oklahoma area. I learned this tune from Molly Tuttle and we would play it together a lot. Its simple melody makes it easy to experiment with different harmonies and picking techniques. I had already experimented with a solo arrangement of this tune for mandolin, but when I started playing tenor banjo I was really excited about the possibilities that the extra sustain of the banjo presented. This particular arrangement utilizes crosspicking techniques to present melody and rhythm at the same time similar to three-finger banjo playing.” — Tristan Scroggins
Photo credit: Natia Cinco
Ah! There’s a chill in the air, color in the leaves, and a craving for the spookiest songs in bluegrass — it must be fall. Bluegrass, old-time, and country do unsettling music remarkably well, from ancient folk lyrics of love gone wrong to ghost stories to truly “WTF??” moments. If you’re a fan of pumpkins, hot cider, and murder ballads we’ve crafted this list of 13 spooky-season bluegrass songs just for you:
The Country Gentlemen – “Bringing Mary Home”
THE bluegrass ghost story song. THE archetypical example of “What’s that story, stranger? Well, wait ‘til you hear this wild twist…” in country songwriting. (Yes, that’s a country songwriting archetype.) The Country Gentlemen did quiet, ambling — and spooky — bangers better than anybody else in bluegrass.
Cherryholmes – “Red Satin Dress”
Fans of now-retired family band Cherryholmes will know how rare it was for father and bassist Jere to step up to the microphone to sing lead. His grumbling, coarse voice and deadpan delivery do this modern murder ballad justice and then some.
One has to wonder, though, with so many songs about murderous, deceitful women in bluegrass — the overwhelmingly male songwriters across the genre’s history couldn’t be bitter and misogynist, could they? Could they?
Zach & Maggie – “Double Grave”
A more recent example of unsettling songwriting in bluegrass and Americana, husband-and-wife duo Zach & Maggie White give a whimsical, joyful bent to their decidedly creepy song “Double Grave” in the 2019 music video for the track. Just enough of the story is left up to the imagination of the listener. Feel free to color inside — or outside — of the lines as you decide just how the song’s couple landed in their double grave.
Alison Krauss – “Ghost in This House”
Come for the iconic AKUS track, stay for the impeccable introduction by Alison. Equal parts cheesy and stunning, if you haven’t belted along to this song at hundreds of decibels while no one is watching, you’re lying. Not technically a ghost story, we’re sliding in this hit purely because a Nashville hook as good as this deserves mention in a spooky-themed playlist.
The Stanley Brothers – “Little Glass of Wine”
Ah, American folk music, a tradition that *checks notes* celebrates the infinity-spanning, universe-halting power of love by valorizing murdering objects of that love. Kinda makes you think, doesn’t it? Here’s a tried and true old lyric, offered by the Stanley Brothers in that brother-duet-story-song style that’s unique to bluegrass. What’s more scary than an accidental (on purpose) double poisoning? The Stanley Brothers might accomplish spooky ‘grass better than any other bluegrass act across the decades.
Missy Raines – “Blackest Crow”
A less traditional rendering of a folk canon lyric, Missy Raines’ “Blackest Crow” might not feel particularly terrifying in and of itself, but the dark imagery of crows, ravens, and their relatives will always be a spectre in folk music, if not especially in bluegrass.
Bill Monroe – “Body and Soul”
The lonesome longing dirge of a flat-seven chord might be the spookiest sound in bluegrass, from “Wheel Hoss” to “Old Joe Clark” to “Body and Soul.” A love song written through a morbid and mortal lens, you can almost feel the distance between the object’s body and soul widening as the singer — in the Big Mon’s unflappable tenor — objectifies his love, perhaps not realizing the cold, unfeeling quality of his actions. It’s a paradox distilled impossibly perfectly into song.
Rhiannon Giddens – “O Death”
Most fans of roots music know “O Death” from the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack and the version popularized by Ralph Stanley and the Stanley Brothers. On a recent album, Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi reprise the popular song based on a different source — Bessie Jones of the Georgia Sea Island Singers.
The striking aural image of Stanley singing the song, a capella, in the film and on the Down from the Mountain tour will remain forever indelible, but Giddens’ version calls back to the lyrics’ timelessness outside of the Coen Brothers’ or bluegrass universes and reminds us of just how much of American music and culture are entirely thanks to the contributions of Black folks.
Johnson Mountain Boys – “Dream of a Miner’s Child”
Mining songs are some of the creepiest and most heartbreaking — and back-breaking — songs in bluegrass, but this classic performance from the Johnson Mountain Boys featuring soaring, heart-stopping vocals by Dudley Connell, casts the format in an even more blood-chilling light: Through the eyes of a prophetic, tragic dream of a miner’s child. The entire schoolhouse performance by the Johnson Mountain Boys won’t ever be forgotten, and rightly so, but this specific song might be the best of the long-acclaimed At the Old Schoolhouse album.
Oh daddy, don’t go to the mine today / for dreams have so often come true…
Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch – “Didn’t Leave Nobody But the Baby”
A lullaby meets a field holler song on another oft-remembered track from O Brother, Where Art Thou? The disaffected tone of the speaker, in regards to the baby, the devil, all of the above, isn’t horrifying per se, but the sing-songy melody coupled with the dark-tinged lyric are just unsettling enough, with the rote-like repetition further impressing the slightly spooky tone. It’s objectively beautiful and aesthetic, but not… quite… right… Perhaps because any trio involving the devil would have to be not quite right?
AJ Lee & Blue Summit – “Monongah Mine”
Another mining tale, this one based on a true — and terrifying — story of the Monongah Mine disaster in 1907, which is often regarded as the most dangerous and devastating mine accident in this country’s history. AJ Lee & Blue Summit bring a conviction to the song that might bely their originating in California, because they make this West Virginia tale their own.
Jake Blount – “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”
“In the Pines” is one of the most haunting lyrics in the bluegrass lexicon, but ethnomusicologist, researcher, and musician Jake Blount didn’t source his version from bluegrass at all — but from Nirvana. That’s just one facet of Blount’s rendition, which effortlessly queers the original stanzas and adds a degree of disquieting patina that’s often absent from more tired or well-traveled covers of the song. A reworking of a traditional track that leans into the moroseness underpinning it.
The Stanley Brothers – “Rank Stranger”
To close, we’ll return to the Stanley Brothers for an often-covered, much-requested stalwart of the bluegrass canon that is deceptively terrifying on closer inspection. Just who are these rank strangers that the singer finds in their hometown? Where did they come from? Why do none of them know who this person or their people are? Why are none of these questions seemingly important to anyone? Even the singer himself seems less than surprised by finding an entire village of strangers where familiar faces used to be.
For a song so commonly sung, and typically in religious or gospel contexts or with overarchingly positive connotations, it’s a literal nightmare scenario. Like a bluegrass Black Mirror episode without any sort of satisfying conclusion. What did they find? “I found they were all rank strangers to me.” Great, so we’re right back where we started. Spooky.
