MIXTAPE: The Mallett Brothers Band’s Favorite Artists Live

We have just released Live In Portland, Maine and thought it would be fun to put a playlist together of some live recordings of our favorite artists. Live is where it’s at! — Andrew Martelle of The Mallett Brothers Band

JJ Cale – “River Boat Song”

JJ Cale is a favorite late-night cruising soundtrack for TMBB. If we have a late-night drive to the next gig, there’s a fairly good chance JJ Cale’s cool laid back vibe is carrying us down the road.

Jerry Jeff Walker – “Takin’ It As It Comes”

This really should be the anthem of all traveling musicians. On the road whether we’re playing the Continental Club in Austin, Texas, or Brooklyn Bowl in Brooklyn, New York, or Revolution Hall in Troy, New York, we’re all just takin’ it as it comes!

Todd Snider – “Play a Train Song”

Who doesn’t like a good ole train song! Todd Snider is certainly one of the best, his ability to tell a story through his songs is second to none. And, if you haven’t seen him live, you’re really missing out…

Jason Isbell – “Cover Me Up”

Jason Isbell is one of those artists that can cut to your soul. This recording is from the Ryman last year. Whether his time with the Drive-By Truckers or his solo stuff, he can sure write one hell of a song and put on the live show to back it up.

David Mallett – “Hard Light”

Will and Luke’s father David Mallett is one of the greatest songwriters of the last fifty years. This recording is from a live record he did years and years ago. Do yourselves a favor and dig in and see how it’s done!

Bruce Springsteen – “Born in the USA”

This recording is from Springsteen on Broadway. He’s the boss. This rules. There isn’t much more to say.

Dierks Bentley and The Travelin’ McCourys – “From the Bottle to the Bottom”

Dierks and the TMs playing one of Kris Kristofferson’s classic songs. The state of modern country music has been shaped by artists like Dierks Bentley being willing to go back to his roots and put out music that is not only mainstream country but also traditional bluegrass. And the Travelin’ McCourys are just a force, whether it’s playing gigs with their father Del or playing sets of Grateful Dead music.

The War On Drugs – “Holding On”

The War On Drugs gets plenty of airplay in the van and has helped us crisscross the country getting from gig to gig. Their sound is so unique and has a way of drawing you in to that emotional place they so often go.

Waylon Jennings – “I’m a Ramblin’ Man”

Waylon was one of the true original outlaws. He did it his way. He paved the way for so many great artists across the country to break from tradition.

Old & In The Way – “Panama Red”

Our fiddle player wouldn’t be playing fiddle if it wasn’t for this recording. Vassar Clements has a way of bridging traditional and non-traditional fiddling. Mixed with Jerry Garcia’s banjo playing and the powers of David Grisman and Peter Rowan, if this record can’t get you hooked on bluegrass than we’re not sure what can!

Guy Clark – “Stuff That Works”

Guy Clark is on of our favorite songwriting troubadours. He’s another one that gets a lot of airtime in the van. Dig in to his catalog. You’ll be a better person because of it.

Drive-By Truckers – “18 Wheels Of Love”

These guys are a constant point of inspiration for the band. They do it their way, which is usually folk with a healthy dose of rock ‘n’ roll. This is something TMBB certainly prescribes to. DBT doesn’t necessarily fit a mold, but hot damn if it doesn’t grab you by the heart with a shot of whiskey and some loud electric guitars.


Photo credit: Ray Macgregor Photography

Roland White: A Tribute to a Bluegrass Hero

To begin, a disclosure: Roland White is kind of a hero of mine for his perseverance, his originality, his sense of humor, his experience and much more. Also, he’s an employer of mine; I’ve been playing in the Roland White Band on most of its dates for close to 15 years now, and I’ve recorded two albums with him, including his new one, which I also co-produced. Lastly, and maybe most importantly, Roland’s a friend of mine. And he has a great story.

Played with Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass? Check. Played with Lester Flatt? Check. Toured around the world as a member of the Country Gazette and then the Nashville Bluegrass Band? Check. Had a band with Béla Fleck? Check. Helped organize and make Jim Lauderdale’s very first album? Check. Fronted his own band since the turn of the century? Check.

That’s a lot of boxes, and any one of them could be turned into a meaty article. Here, though, I’m going to concentrate on the story of the group whose legacy inspired the new album, Roland White & Friends: A Tribute To The Kentucky Colonels; it’s the starting point for the larger Roland White story, illuminating the way it was for young bluegrass musicians in the 1950s and 60s and how Roland, his brother Clarence, and the rest of the Colonels were able to craft an enduring and influential body of music.

Shortly after he turned 16 in 1954, Roland’s family relocated from Maine to Southern California. He was already playing the mandolin by then, and younger brothers Clarence and Eric were playing guitar and banjo (tenor, not the bluegrass 5-string). They joined their sister, JoAnne, who sang, around the house and at local functions. Soon after moving to Burbank, the boys rather casually entered a talent contest, and in short order found themselves dressed in hillbilly clothes and, as The Three Little Country Boys, performing on a variety of local stages and radios shows — even, if briefly, on television. All of this before any of them had heard a lick of what was just beginning to be called bluegrass.

Roland recalls that it was in a comment from a visiting uncle in the middle of 1955 that he first heard Bill Monroe’s name — and naturally, it was in connection with the instrument they shared. “My uncle Armand asked me if I’d ever heard of Bill Monroe. He said, ‘He plays the mandolin, he’s on the Grand Ole Opry and,’” Roland adds with a grin, “‘he is fast!’” Not surprisingly, that piqued his interest — but to actually get hold of a record was, at the time and under the circumstances, something of a project, involving a walk into town to the music store, perusing a catalog, ordering it, waiting, and then picking up the little 45rpm disc of his choice: “Pike County Breakdown.” (It was actually the B-side of “A Mighty Pretty Waltz,” and yes, it was fast.)

What followed was a “conversion” experience of the kind that was happening around the same time to other people his age, give or take a few years — a cohort that includes the slightly older Mike Seeger and Ralph Rinzler; the slightly younger Del McCoury and Neil Rosenberg (like Roland and Clarence White, all members of the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Hall of Fame); and the slightly younger still Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, and Peter Rowan. What most of them had in common was some distance, geographic and sometimes sociological, from the Southeastern epicenter of the emerging bluegrass sound; what all of them had in common was a profound desire to hear and play more of it.

More records soon made their way into the White household, often mail-ordered from Cincinnati’s Jimmie Skinner Music Center, and so did a five-string banjo, which Roland learned to play in the Scruggs style. Eric moved over to bass, and the band, now just The Country Boys, began studying the picking and singing of Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Reno & Smiley, the Stanley Brothers, Jimmy Martin, and more. While they focused on the whole sound, there was room, too, for Clarence to study the lead guitar stylings of Earl Scruggs, Don Reno, and the Stanley Brothers’ George Shuffler, as well as the rhythm guitar playing of Flatt, Martin, and others. And though skilled banjo players were still rare — especially in California — by 1958, they’d met and recruited Arkansas native Billy Ray Lathum for the job, allowing Roland to devote himself once again exclusively to the mandolin.

1959 was a big year for The Country Boys. For one thing, they were joined by Leroy McNees — Leroy Mack, as he’s still known — whom they met first as a fan, but soon persuaded to take up the Dobro. Mack not only rounded out the band’s sound, but quickly became a valuable asset as a songwriter. For another, the band got its first bookings at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles, a key venue in the emerging folk revival, and one that also booked national bluegrass acts as they made their long journey out to the West Coast.

Indeed, the Ash Grove turned out to be an important place where folk audiences and bluegrass musicians could meet one another; as Roland put it, “Playing the Ash Grove opened the way for us to play to a totally new audience — a folk music audience that we had known nothing about. They dressed differently from the Country-Western audience (they were college students, professors, beatniks, doctors, and lawyers) and they paid close attention to the music.”

Not only did the Ash Grove provide the group a new audience, it gave them a different sound; the less raucous, more attentive audience and more sophisticated sound system allowed Clarence White to hear himself better than ever before. Within a matter of weeks, he began to take solos — plenty of practice time at home had allowed him to explore and build on what he’d been hearing on records — and The Country Boys started to build a unique sound that featured lead acoustic guitar in a way that reached well beyond their influences.

By 1961, The Country Boys — now a five-piece band — had built a good circuit for themselves, playing to folk audiences at the Ash Grove and on college campuses around Southern California while maintaining a foothold in the dynamic country music scene. Their prominence gave them an inside track that landed them an appearance on The Andy Griffith Show — just before Roland got his draft notice, a then-common occurrence. While he served for the next two years, the band continued without him, taking a couple of important steps, including the replacement of bass player Eric White with Roger Bush; a name change to The Kentucky Colonels; and recording their first LP in 1962. The project, which featured some of Leroy Mack’s most enduring originals, also debuted Clarence’s distinctive, increasingly powerful lead guitar work. Over in Germany, where he was stationed, Roland admits that “it floored me.”

By the time Roland was discharged from service in the fall of 1963, Mack had left the band, replaced by transplanted Kentucky fiddler Bobby Slone. With Mike Seeger’s then-wife, Marge, acting as their booking agent, the Colonels were booked for their first East Coast tour, playing folk clubs in the Boston area, New York, Washington D.C., Baltimore and beyond. In each, they made connections with local bluegrass musicians, ranging from melodic banjo pioneer Bill Keith to the members of the Country Gentlemen to David Grisman, and when they came east again in 1964 — a trip anchored by an appearance at the Newport Folk Festival — they did more of the same. Interestingly, though, and a sign of the distance that still separated the folk revival circuit from the country music one, they never got even as far south as Nashville; as Roland says, “there was nothing for us there.”

Sadly, while their focus on folk audiences had served to give them broader appreciation than they might have gotten while working in Southern California’s country music scene, it also meant that, as those audiences began turning their attention to more electrified folk-rock and newly emerging rock artists, the Colonels would see harder times. Though they continued playing into 1966, the group eventually disbanded, with Roland soon taking the guitar/lead singer job with Bill Monroe and moving to Nashville, and Clarence turning first to studio work, and then to electric guitar playing with the Byrds.

Even so, the magic that the Colonels had made continued to appeal to both Roland and Clarence, and in 1973, they reformed their original brother trio with Eric. Adding banjo man Herb Pedersen and dubbing themselves the New Kentucky Colonels, they embarked on an April tour of Europe and, though the banjo position remained unstable, they started to make plans for more touring and recording — only to have them come to an end when Clarence was killed by a drunk driver while loading out from a Palmdale, California club.

What did the band leave behind? Not much in the way of recordings, unfortunately. The Kentucky Colonels made hardly any in the studio — the album done while Roland was in the Army and an all-instrumental album, Appalachian Swing!, one of the most influential bluegrass recordings of the 1960s are the sum total — and while enough of their shows were recorded at the Newport Folk Festival, at California venues, and on that final European tour to fill a couple of albums, they’ve often been out of print or hard to find.

Yet it’s clear — and the new record makes the point with its wide-ranging roster of guests, from guitarists like Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle and Jon Stickley to banjoists such as Kristin Scott Benson (Grascals) and Russ Carson (Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder) and fiddlers like Brittany Haas (Hawktail), Kimber Ludiker (Della Mae) and Jeremy Garrett (The Infamous Stringdusters) — the legacy of the Colonels can’t be measured so simply. From songs like “If You’re Ever Gonna Love Me” and “I Might Take You Back”— both co-written by Leroy Mack, and recorded by scores of bluegrass artists — to guitar showcases like “Listen to the Mockingbird” and “I Am a Pilgrim,” their influence has been carried forward through the bluegrass generations, not only by Roland White, but by Tony Rice, Jerry Garcia, and a host of others who met and heard and jammed with them during those critical years in which they were playing the national folk music circuit.

And for Roland White, for whom those years were just the beginning of a storied career that has taken him, by turns, deeper into the heart of bluegrass and further out to broad-ranging audiences, the opportunity to revisit them in the company of new generations of musicians has been an exciting one. “I really enjoyed playing and singing with all these musicians,” he says. “They appreciate the old music that we made, but they brought their own touch to it, too. It’s good to know that these songs, and these sounds are in good hands.”


Illustration by Zachary Johnson
Photo by Russell Carson, Carson Photoworks

IBMA Special Awards and Momentum Awards Nominees Announced

The International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) announced the nominees for this year’s Special Awards and Momentum Awards.

The Special Awards nominees are selected by specially appointed committees made up of bluegrass music professionals who possess significant knowledge of that field. The recipient of each award is decided on by the Panel of Electors, an anonymous group of over 200 veteran bluegrass music professionals selected by the IBMA Board of Directors.

The 2018 Special Awards nominees are:

Graphic Design

Drew Bolen & Whitney Beard: Old Salt Union by Old Salt Union
Lou Everhart: A Heart Never Knows by The Price Sisters
Richard Hakalski: Portraits and Fiddles by Mike Barnett
Corey Johnson: Sounds of Kentucky by Carolina Blue
Karen Key: Big Bend Killing: The Appalachian Ballad Tradition by Various Artists

Liner Notes

Craig Havighurst: The Story We Tell by Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers
Steve Martin: The Long Awaited Album by Steve Martin & The Steep Canyon Rangers
Joe Mullins: Sounds of Kentucky Grass by Carolina Blue
Ted Olson: Big Bend Killing: The Appalachian Ballad Tradition by Various Artists
Peter Wernick: Carter Stanley’s Eyes by Peter Rowan

Bluegrass Broadcaster of the Year

Larry Carter
Michelle Lee
Steve Martin
Alan Tompkins
Kris Truelsen

Print Media Person of the Year

Derek Halsey
Chris Jones
Ted Lehmann
David Morris
Neil Rosenberg

Songwriter of the Year

Becky Buller
Thomm Jutz
Jerry Salley
Donna Ulisse
Jon Weisberger

Event of the Year

Bluegrass on the Green – Frankfort, Illinois
County Bluegrass – Fort Fairfield, Maine
Emelin Theatre – Mamaroneck, New York
Flagler Museum’s Bluegrass in the Pavilion – Palm Beach, Florida
FreshGrass Festival – North Adams, Massachusetts

Sound Engineer of the Year

Dave Sinko
Stephen Mougin
Gary Paczosa
Tim Reitnouer
Ben Surratt

The Momentum Awards recognize both musicians and bluegrass industry professionals who, in the early stages of their careers, are making significant contributions to or are having a significant influence upon bluegrass music. These contributions can be to bluegrass music in general, or to a specific sector of the industry. The Mentor Award, in contrast to the other Momentum Awards, recognizes a bluegrass professional who has made a significant impact on the lives and careers of newcomers to the bluegrass industry.

Starting with recommendations from the IBMA membership, nominees are chosen through a multi-stage process by committees made up of respected musicians and industry leaders in the bluegrass world.

The 2018 Momentum Award nominees are:

Festival/Event/Venue

Anderson Bluegrass Festival – South Carolina
Farm & Fun Time – Virginia
Hovander Homestead Bluegrass Festival – Washington
Red Wing Roots Music Festival – Virginia
SamJam Bluegrass Festival – Ohio

Industry Involvement

Megan Lynch Chowning and Adam Chowning
Justin Hiltner
Kris Truelsen

Mentor

Daniel Boner
Cathy Fink
Scott Napier
Jon Weisberger
Pete Wernick

Band

Cane Mill Road – Nort Carolina
Man About a Horse – Pennsylvania
Midnight Skyracer – United Kingdom
The Trailblazers – North Carolina
Wood Belly – Colorado

Vocalist

Ellie Hakanson (Jeff Scroggins & Colorado, Greg Blake Band)
Will Jones (Terry Baucom & the Dukes of Drive)
AJ Lee (AJ Lee & Blue Summit)
Evan Murphy (Mile Twelve)
Daniel Thrailkill (The Trailblazers)

Instrumentalist [three are chosen in this category]

Tabitha Agnew (Midnight Skyracer)
David Benedict (Mile Twelve)
Catherine (“BB”) Bowness (Mile Twelve)
Thomas Cassell (Circus No. 9)
Hasee Ciaccio (Molly Tuttle Band)
Matthew Davis (Circus No. 9)
Bronwyn Keith-Hynes (Mile Twelve)
Aynsley Porchak (Carolina Blue)
Trajan Wellington (Cane Mill Road)

The 2018 Special Awards are sponsored by the California Bluegrass Association and Homespun Music Instruction, while the 2018 Momentum Awards are sponsored by the Bluegrass Situation.

The recipients of the 2018 Momentum Awards will be presented with their awards at a luncheon on Wednesday, September 26, and the recipients of the 2018 Special Awards will be presented with their awards at a luncheon on Thursday, September 27 in Raleigh, North Carolina, as part of IBMA’s World of Bluegrass event.

Old & In the Way, ‘Old & In the Way Breakdown’

As a genre, bluegrass has always had outward-facing ambassadors — bands and musicians with platforms that enabled them to reach a wider audience than the usually insular ‘grass niche. The Dillards, as “the Darlings,” brought bluegrass to thousands of TV viewers on The Andy Griffith Show; the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band birthed an entire generation of fans with their iconic Will the Circle Be Unbroken album, showcasing the genre’s founders and heroes; Alison Krauss, with her wildly successful crossover-and-back career — she has won more Grammy Awards than any other woman ever — showed the masses that bluegrass can be aesthetic, understated, and artful without sacrificing its raw, rustic energy. It just takes a tiny taste, a glimpse behind the curtain, to hook outside listeners with that high lonesome sound.

In 1973, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Vassar Clements, Peter Rowan, and John Kahn coalesced as Old & In the Way, becoming one of the most influential bluegrass ambassador bands in the history of the music. Their eponymous debut record is widely regarded as the best-selling bluegrass album of all time — before the soundtrack for the infamous O Brother, Where Art Thou? surpassed it. Though Old & In the Way only lasted a year, their legacy lives on, extended and expanded through several live recordings. Released in 1997, Breakdown was recorded live at the Boarding House in San Francisco, California, by Owsley “Bear” Stanley in October 1973. The “Old & In the Way Breakdown” showcases that Garcia was not only a fan of old-time and bluegrass, but he had the chops, too, tearing it up on the five-wire. Budding bluegrass fans take note: We call this tune “Patty on the Turnpike,” too.

Join BGS as we celebrate Jerry Garcia’s songbook, from the Grateful Dead to Old & In the Way and beyond at the Theatre at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles on March 30. With bluegrassers Sam Bush, Molly Tuttle, Billy Strings, Sean Watkins, and many more. Get your tickets for Jubilee: A Celebration of Jerry Garcia now.

LISTEN: Peter Rowan, ‘Carter Stanley’s Eyes’

Artist: Peter Rowan
Hometown: Boston / Northern California
Song: “Carter Stanley’s Eyes”
Album: Carter Stanley’s Eyes
Release Date: April 20, 2018
Label: Rebel Records

In Their Words: “We were playing over on the Tennessee-Virginia border, and Bill Monroe asked me to drive him up to the Clinch Mountains to have a meeting with Carter Stanley. I think, now, that Carter had received bad news about his health, and Bill wanted to lend his support. We drove up there, and I knew nothing as far as Carter’s health, but he didn’t look well. It was emotional, and I made it a song, after all.” –Peter Rowan

Defying Expectations: A Conversation with Peter Rowan

Peter Rowan is a serious wellspring of knowledge about 20th-century music. It’s a wild ride to interview him about a new project — in this case, his recent Hawaiian-inpsired album, My Aloha. In a half-hour conversation, we touched on the early Grand Ole Opry, varieties of New Orleans blues, Hawaiian mandolin playing, and plenty more. His obvious breadth of knowledge squares with a freewheeling half-century career: He’s studied with masters like Bill Monroe and Carter Stanley and collaborated with brilliant contemporaries like Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, and Clarence White, not to mention his forays into country, reggae, Tex-Mex, Irish, and now Hawaiian music. By now, his surprises shouldn’t surprise us.

We usually expect our bluegrass musicians to stick to bluegrass music, just like we expect B.B. King to play the blues. Try to imagine Ronnie McCoury or Tony Rice making a record with a Tibetan throat singer. But somehow Peter Rowan — a true bluegrass guru, if there is one — has managed to consistently defy this expectation. He’s made an identity out of idiosyncrasy.

And unlike some legacy artists who “collaborate” with peers solely for the sake of novel juxtaposition, when Rowan makes Irish music with Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill or Tex-Mex with Flaco Jiménez, he doesn’t just collaborate; he immerses himself. He absorbs. Bill Monroe told a young Peter Rowan, “If you can learn my music, you can play any kind of music.” Coming from Monroe, that sentiment could’ve been taken as territorial ego, as bandleader bluster. But Rowan took Monroe’s words to heart. He’s turned a foundation in bluegrass into a life-long dedication to diving deep into new musical languages. 

It’s tempting to conclude any survey of Rowan’s career by contrasting Monroe and Rowan as the founder vs the experimenter, the father vs the prodigal son. This sounds satisfying but largely misses the point, because the Father of Bluegrass didn’t respect genre boundaries, either. Combining influences from far-flung musical worlds was exactly Monroe’s bailiwick. Seventy years in the rearview mirror, however, his string band innovations are often taken for granted. It’s easy to forget that Bill Monroe, himself, stole mandolin licks from Hawaiians, studied blues with Black guitarists, reimagined fiddle songs from the old folks back home, and generally told the status quo where to shove it. So, if Peter Rowan’s new Hawaiian record makes you scratch your head, remember he’s just carrying on the family tradition.

I’ve been listening to your My Aloha record. It’s beautiful and spare and cohesive. It’s great. Even though I knew you did all kinds of projects and recorded a lot, this one surprised me. How did it come about? How did you decide to do a tribute to Hawaiian music?

That song “Uncle Jimmy” kind of explains it. When I was four years old, he came back from Hawaii, from New Caledonia in the South Pacific, where he’d been working with the Navy. He had a ukulele and grass skirts and coconut bras. He handed them out in our living room. There’s a photograph … I wish I had included it … with all of us decked out — him with his sailor cap on and he’s doing that vaudevillian knee-whacking thing they did back then, that visual comedy thing where you cross your hands in front of your knees and it looks like your knees are passing through each other. So that was Uncle Jimmy. He always said “hubba hubba ding ding,” and I never knew what that meant. When I was over in Hawaii meeting the two Hawaiian players on the record — you know, you talk in story over there — and as I explained Uncle Jimmy, they said, “You’ve got to do this! You’ve got to finish this song. This is really part of the story.”

So you decided to record in Hawaii. What was that like?

I sort of fell into their whole approach, is what happened. I’ve always gone to Hawaii over the years, and it’s so musical. And the land itself seems to have some sort of enchanted healings that themselves turn into music — what they call Mana. I’ve been playing the last few records of bluegrass and one twang record out of Texas. I was just thinking, why am I so attracted to this sound? Really it’s because I heard it first. I heard a ukulele before I heard anything else. Uncle Jimmy was playing ukulele, and I learned from him. I learned “Five Foot Two, Eyes Of Blue,” “Bye Bye Blackbird” and all these tunes. And Uncle Jimmy, he didn’t have a completely happy life. He didn’t pass on as a fulfilled person. But he had that willingness to go out on a limb. He even did some shows with me and my brothers.

So he was an influence on you during a really formative period.

Well, that’s the first instrument I learned, the ukulele. It had never dawned on me that it was going to open any doors. A few years ago a friend of mine made a baritone uke, a nice one, so I started playing it and songs started coming. When I would go over there [to Hawaii], you know, I’d hit the water and swim and then come back to the instruments and play. You’re in a zone. It’s a different zone. And the songs started coming. It’s more of a watery thing, a little bit sunbaked. That’s really why I did the project, because I was writing the songs.

They definitely channel that Hawaiian vibe, or what I think of as that mid 20th century Hawaiian sound. It sounds like it’s a tribute to a period of time, too, that era in the 40s when Uncle Jimmy was going over there.

They’re also more ragtimey chord changes like my parents would’ve listened to. Also there’s a strong connection to Jimmy Rodgers. I loved those chord changes from the 30s, those Jimmy Rodgers elements. I did a record with Jerry Douglas called Yonder, and we touched a little bit on this real old time sounding guitar and dobro songs. This reawakened that approach.

When Hawaiian people hear my interpretation of Hawaiian music, they sing along. They’re very humbled. It’s just like in bluegrass and old time music. There is a lineage of players, and I became fascinated with the history of the whole thing. It kind of cleared my palate to make this next project for Rebel Records, which is sort of my story as it relates to the Stanley Brothers. It helped. Singing Hawaiian music is so different. Singing falsetto is a tradition in bluegrass, too. In bluegrass you have to find that vocal break point with a harder, sharper edge. Hawaii gives you a soft break point. It also gives you more range — you can sing lower and then go into a higher range of falsetto singing. Bluegrass, you know, is very tight. You’ve got to jump through the hoop. It’s like that rabbit in a log with the hound dog after you — bluegrass chases you. You’ve got to make your breaks and vocal turns really fast. Hawaii just gives you a lot more time to make those vocal breaks. So different from bluegrass. It was like, “woah, where am I here?” [Laughs]

So it it was unfamiliar but in a comfortable way. A new project, a cleansing of the palate.

Yeah, and I like that because that’s where songs really come from. You bust out of one thing — you might not even know why you did — and you’re in a new frame of mind and you see things differently. Maybe you get a song. Also Hawaii is a mother. More cultures have come there and been absorbed into Hawaiian culture than almost anywhere. Especially Asian cultures, so there’s a strong Asian element. I just really wanted to go there.

Well, Hawaii as a place where lots of cultures have mixed together, that reminds me of bluegrass, too — bluegrass as this thing that Bill Monroe created out of all these different traditions. So you’ve got a lot of experience exploring a type of music like that.

Very true. I think I mention something about that in the liner notes. There is one inescapable fact, which is that “Kentucky Waltz” is a direct rip off of a 1915 Hawaiian song. And the mandolin playing on that song by Johnny Almeida is exactly how Bill Monroe would play the song 30 years later.

I never knew that. Wow. So what does that say about Monroe?

What is says is a great thing. Not only was Bill keeping his cards close to his chest, which was how you’d survive in those days — it’s what you could come up with that was unique, what you could incorporate into your own song. Bill would say, “I would never steal another man’s note, but I might write one song off another,” meaning ‘I would take his melody, but I wouldn’t steal his note!’

What did he think the difference was? Writing a song off another song but not stealing?

Well, that’s a just Bill Monroe’s deception talking. [Laughs] He would steal anything he could! That was the name of the game in those days. He sang Muleskinner Blues on the Opry and got six encores, then the next week Roy Acuff releases “Muleskinner Blues” with him singing it. That galled Bill. That was like, “ooh!” But that’s how it was in those days. You just don’t let on. You’ve got to keep the surprise to your advantage. He was really competitive.

He was also really territorial about the music he created, right? Didn’t it seem like he wanted it to be carried forward in a specific way?

You mean, the way he called it “my music?” Well, yeah. But he saw me coming along and he said, “If you can learn my music, you can play any kind of music.” I thought that was saying how bluegrass gave you the foundation, which it does, but he was also talking to me as a person. I wasn’t thinking of it as a personal advice at the time, but I think he saw in me — I think he didn’t quite know what to make of me. I mean, I knew too much. I didn’t just go hide from him and then show up on stage. I sought him out. I asked questions. I came from college where they teach you how to ask questions. Plus in those days, in the 60s, it was a time of inquiry. Why are we at war? What is going on in the world? Are they really going to drop the hydrogen bomb while we’re out here on the road playing bluegrass? You just wondered, what is going on? It re-stimulated Bill in his own way. He had a renaissance at that time with these 20-year-olds in his band. He was 53 at the time. That’s when I had a lot of contact with the Stanley Brothers, who were almost from a foreign country themselves, you know, that area in Virginia.

Deep Southwest Virginia, right.

Oh my gosh, yeah. And I just cut this song about Bill taking me to see Carter Stanley. You never know why at the time, you know, but we were all still dressed up for doing our show in Knoxville. We drove up and met Carter. He was dressed in a sport coat, too, because he was going to meet Bill. That’s how it was. You never dressed down in those days. You stepped right up there and put your good shirt on, you know.

It was a sign of respect, right. I mean especially for Monroe’s generation.

Exactly. Bill hated to see anyone sloppily dressed. When I asked him what his thing was with the clothes, he told me that the people he played with when he started out were farmers who might only have one shirt, one clean shirt. So you show your respect for them by dressing up for them, and that meant something. I’ll tell you something funny. John Prine tells a story — his parents told him when the Monroe Brothers came through Paradise, Kentucky, they thought the Mafia had arrived. All these guys in their hats and suits and cases. They were like, who are these guys, moonshine emperors? Are we having a showdown? [Laughs]

So you sat with Bill Monroe and Carter Stanley while they visited. What did they talk about? What was their relationship like?

I think their relationship was very decent. In Ralph’s book he said that Carter and Bill were very close. They were close in age, you know. Close to the same age, although Carter would’ve been a little younger. I had seen the Stanley Brothers play a lot and we had been on shows together. But for me to drive Bill…it was a special break from tour, you know, before we played Knoxville that night — we had to get a car after leaving the bus in Knoxville. We drove up there I think for two reasons. I think Carter felt his mortality. Within a year he would be dead. And when I met him I was a little bit shocked. He was weak and sick and, you know, he looked jaundiced. His eyes — in my diary at the time I wrote, “I’ve looked into Carter Stanley’s tombstone eyes.” He looked bad. I think he had been diagnosed with a liver problem and he wanted to see Bill. It was an exchange where Bill tipped his hat to Carter and said that he was one of the best singers he had ever worked with. You know, Carter wrote songs and Bill wrote songs and then they both recorded their versions of the same songs. So I started thinking a lot about Carter and over the years, you know — in Old And In The Way we did “Pig In A Pen,” “White Dove,” we did “Going To The Races.” The Stanley Brothers have been the backbone of a lot of what I’ve played. It was easy to play and fun to play, but it wasn’t until I went to make these recordings recently in Nashville that I realized how Carter is a deceptive singer. To go to the five chord and sing the third, that’s not easy. To put a blue note on the third of the five, it’s like, wow, wait a second. That’s what gives this whole thing its sound!

Right. Not very intuitive. But a cool, bluesy choice, very Stanley Brothers.

It is. And it’s very strange, I could only get those notes from coming on top of them. I couldn’t come up to them. Because with Bill, you know, the music was based on a sort of fanfare [sings a mandolin intro melody], a lot of upward moving lines. Then the downward lines are the bluesy lines [sings descending blues melody]. So that’s a challenge there, to combine those two feelings. Often the verse begins with a rising line and then the end of the line descends, that kind of dying fall, that bluesy fall.

Of course Monroe had learned a lot from the blues and taken a lot from the blues, but the Stanley Brothers, too. It’s like bluegrass is a branch on the blues tree. Do you think of yourself as carrying on that tradition?

Well, yeah. And remember this, about the Stanley Brothers — the last years of their recordings were done up at King records up in Cincinnati. King Records. They had two other groups: Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, who actually did some finger poppin’ on the Stanley Brothers’ “Finger Poppin’ Time,” which was their tune. And the other guy on the label, the only label that would sign this guy, his name was James Brown. So, I mean, look where they were coming from in their musical input.

From Southwest Virginia to King Records, that’s kind of a cultural leap, too.

Well, that was on their route, their circuit, you know. Go up to the Midwest and play for all those coal miners. In Ohio there were bars everywhere. Then what started to happen was in the 60s they started to play college campuses. That changed everything. That generation became a whole enlightened generation of bluegrass followers. They now had an audience. It wasn’t just 30 coal miners in a little funky bar hidden away in rural Ohio. It wasn’t a schoolhouse. Honestly, I played the end of that era — some of those gigs were still in play, is what I’m trying to say.

You were getting into bluegrass, when was it, the early 60s?

Yeah, that was right in the boom. And strangely enough, looking back at it, within five years we had Old And In The Way going on the West Coast. In those times, being young, you’d be going from one project to another — on Elektra records with me and [David] Grisman doing Earth Opera, out in LA doing Muleskinner for Warner Brothers. It was fast moving, and there weren’t many of us! I mean, there weren’t 150 bluegrass players on the planet. There were twenty-five. So, you know, you could have something different to offer for a musical project. But what I didn’t really understand was how to bring out the bluegrass. We did a little bit of that in Sea Train. We did Orange Blossom Special and Sally Goodin because they were crowd pleasers. But every time I tried to sing a bluegrass song it was shot down. These guys, they were from New York. They knew Blues, but maybe I couldn’t be convincing enough to do anything as lonesome as what came out of bluegrass. We got into that on Muleskinner after that period with Sea Train. Then with Old And In The Way we just went for it! With Jerry Garcia on our side, thank you very much. You know, ‘Call up Vassar Clements and let’s go!’ Jerry just wanted to play the grass. I think his version of White Dove is the most stirring.

Really? Interesting to think of Jerry’s version of bluegrass as getting to the heart of it, compared to The Stanleys. I guess you’re the only one who played with both of them…

Well, you know, when I sang White Dove with Ralph it was like, oh, surprise, we don’t do White Dove slow in this band — they would swing it. The mountain people, if they’re going to dwell on stuff, it’s going to be right to the cradle and grave. But when it gets down to the uplift of bluegrass, they weren’t trying to do it as art. They did it as a lifeforce support system. So there’s all these uptempo melodies, and even a waltz would be kind of bouncy. Bill, you know, had been to New Orleans. He had heard New Orleans music. Arnold Shultz, his black blues guitar partner, was from New Orleans.

Did you ever talk to Bill about Arnold Shultz?

I did, yeah. I talked to him about New Orleans, too. He said the first time he had his own band they went down to New Orleans and stayed for two months. So I said, “What kind of music did you hear there?” And he said, “A man could hear any kind of music at that time.” That would’ve been the 40s.

Would that have been with Charlie [Monroe], or with the early Bluegrass Boys?

Well, maybe ’48. That’s what I had in my diary, that it was with Flatt and Scruggs. That was sort of where he took them to train them. I don’t know, but that’s what he told me, so that’s what I wrote down. What he said was, in those days you had the sock time — think “True Life Blues” — you had jump time, and of course you had ragtime. And, he said, and then you have the slow drag. [Laughs] It’s a slow 4/4. So what Bill did was sped it up, kept the sock time in there, and if you want to think of the slow drag translated into Bill’s particular take, think of “Blue Moon Of Kentucky,” the original recording. Or “In The Pines.” These were musical genres within the blues of New Orleans.

Did you write down a lot of what Monroe told you?

I would keep a diary the whole time and listen to him talk. You know, we’d be riding along in the bus, a little disjointed, bouncing around, and he’s playing on the mandolin. He’d say, “That there comes from American Indian peoples.” Then he’d play something else and say, “Now that comes from New Orleans.” I was like, New Orleans? And he said, “Yes, sir.”


Photo credit: Amanda Rowan

ANNOUNCING: The BGS Midnight Jam at MerleFest 2017

The BGS Midnight Jam returns to MerleFest 2017 with North Carolina’s own Mipso as the host band. The Midnight Jam takes place at the Walker Center starting at midnight on April 29 and requires a separate ticket that is available for purchase by four-day and three-day ticket holders and Saturday ticket holders. Artists confirmed to play the Midnight Jam this year include:

Mipso
Jim Lauderdale
Donna the Buffalo
Peter Rowan
Bryan Sutton
10 String Symphony
Sierra Hull
and more.

“Many years ago, Tony Rice and a few others came up with the concept and started the Midnight Jam,” remembers Steve Johnson, artist relations manager at MerleFest. “From there, the Midnight Jam has become a highlight of the MerleFest weekend, bringing together unique configurations and surprising ensembles of musicians gathered at the festival. You never know who may walk out from behind the curtain to take the stage on Saturday night in the Walker Center! For 2017, we are extremely excited to have a MerleFest favorite, Mipso, serving as the host band.”

Tickets for MerleFest 2017 are on sale now and may be purchased at MerleFest.org or by calling 800.343.7857. An advance ticket discount runs through April 26, 2017. Gate pricing begins on the first day of the festival.


Photo credit: Sasha Israel

ANNOUNCING: The BGS Midnight Jam at MerleFest 2016

The BGS is very, very pleased to announce that we will, once again, host the Midnight Jam at MerleFest this year. Our popular Saturday after-hours hootenanny gathers many performers from the festival for impromptu artistic collaborations and one-of-a-kind superstar jams that have become legendary in the festival’s history. Artists confirmed to play the BGS Midnight Jam include Donna the Buffalo as the house band, along with Tommy Emmanuel, Peter Rowan, Mipso, Jeff Scroggins & Colorado, Wood & Wire, Billy Strings, Becky Buller, South Carolina Broadcasters, Jim Lauderdale, Lindsay Lou and the Flatbellys, and Joe Smothers. Additional artists may also be added.

“Many years ago, Tony Rice and a few others started the Midnight Jam,” remembers Steve Johnson, Artist Relations Manager at MerleFest. “From there, the Midnight Jam has become a highlight of the MerleFest weekend, bringing together unique configurations and surprising ensembles of musicians gathered at the festival. You never know who may walk out from behind the curtain to take the stage on Saturday night in the Walker Center! And, for 2016, we are extremely excited to have MerleFest fan favorite Donna the Buffalo serving as the host band along with the Bluegrass Situation.”

Here's a little taste of Midnight Jams past:

The BGS Midnight Jam takes place at the Walker Center; a separate ticket is required and available for purchase by four-day ticket holders and Saturday-only ticket holders.  

RECAP: Telluride Bluegrass Festival

For as long as I’ve been involved in the bluegrass world, people have been telling me of the transformative powers of Telluride Bluegrass Festival.

Every time festivals would get discussed, one of the first questions inevitably was ‘well have you been to Telluride?’ to which I would mumble some lame excuse about not having the time or money or anything else that would come to mind.

But this year, with the launch of the new site (and a complete lack of excuses), I booked my ticket and headed east.

I arrived in the valley early Thursday evening, the peaks of the Rockies surrounding me, after a gorgeous two and a half hour drive from Durango.  After settling in to the house, my group and I walked over to catch the last of John Prine on stage.  The sun was setting, casting an amazing, warm light on everything around us, and I knew I was already in love with this place.

We all headed over to my first Nightgrass show at the auditorium of the local high school, where one of my current favorites, Joy Kills Sorrow, took to the stage prior to Laura Marling (who, despite being a phenomenal singer and songwriter, was a bit too mellow for a set that started at 12am).

Friday, I awoke to the sounds of Edgar Meyer and Mike Marshall on the main stage (the entire festival is conveniently simulcast on local radio station KOTO) and spent the morning wandering the main street in town, eventually settling at Elks Park stage to see Bryan Sutton, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and Luke Bulla perform a tribute to the late Doc Watson. The woman introducing the set summed it up best: ‘We’re proposing a toast to our good fortune: to being human, healthy, and happy, right here.’  Right here.  For these few days.  Everyone together, collectively sharing in such amazing music.  Telluride’s mysterious and magical spell was beginning to weave itself around me.

After watching Doc’s tribute, we headed to the main stage to catch Del McCoury.  If you haven’t seen Del live, YOU NEED TO DO IT.  The man is a legend, and a showman to the greatest degree.  Just… ugh, seriously promise me you’ll see him.  It’s unlike anything else.

John Fogerty wrapped up the night.  Do you realize how many Fogerty songs you know??  Probably not, because the man played for over two hours and we all knew EVERY WORD.  Apparently it’s just something that’s built in to the American subconscious: they lyrics of John Fogerty.

Despite a laaaaate evening the night before (the jams around town tend to last til the wee hours), I was up on Saturday for an early morning gondola ride up the mountain, but not before catching the last few songs in Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer‘s workshop ‘How to Play Badly Without Anyone Noticing’ (with special appearance by Chris Thile), which is one hell of a way to kick off any day.

Spent the majority of my day at Elks Park stage, with new favorites Della Mae showing off their impressive and catchy musical prowess (seriously, go listen to these ferociously talented ladies right now…), followed by a Woody Guthrie tribute show featuring Tim O’Brien (Hot Rize), Emma Beaton (Joy Kills Sorrow), Peter Rowan (Peter Rowan Band), Kristin Andreassen (Uncle Earl) and Vince Herman (Leftover Salmon).  The Guthrie show was really something…. as the voice of the audience swelled during a rousing rendition of ‘I Ain’t Got No Home,’ it was pretty clear just how relevant Woody’s lyrics remain.

Later that night we all headed over to see Bruce Hornsby (where Bela Fleck and Chris Thile made guest appearances!), and the 1987 version of me was secretly [not-so-secretly] thrilled with the swell of the opening chords to ‘Mandolin Rain’ (admit it you totally love that song too…).

Sunday was a day to end all days.  From Peter Rowan to Brett Dennan to the Punch Brothers (in one of their best performances I have ever seen, only to be surpassed later that evening when they played Nightgrass), to Glen Hansard (of The Swell Season), and eventually the Telluride House Band with Bela, Sam, Stuart, Edgar, Bryan and Luke, it was a pretty remarkable meeting of the minds on one stage.

Sunday night wrapped with a post-show Nightgrass performance with the Punch Brothers (they played til almost 2am), followed by a late night on the porch, waiting for the sun to rise, incredibly resistant to the inevitable return to reality we all faced the next day.

People aren’t kidding when they say that Telluride is transformative.  It was unlike any festival event I’d attended prior (so clean!  so nice!  so organized!) and left me feeling more inspired than I’d been in a long time.  You’ll just have to check it out for yourself next year [no excuses].