Tag: roots music

The Natural Course of Things: A Conversation with the Infamous Stringdusters

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What do you get when you cross a bunch of roots-minded female singers with a bunch of bluegrass-adjacent male musicians? Why Ladies & Gentlemen, of course the new release from the Infamous Stringdusters which features appearances by Joan Osborne, Lee Ann Womack, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Abigail Washburn, and eight more of the finest voices roots music has to offer. It's the sixth record in nine years for the band — which is comprised of co-founders Chris Pandolfi (banjo) and Andy Hall (dobro), along with Andy Falco (guitar), Jeremy Garrett (fiddle), and Travis Book (bass) — and it showcases why the Stringdusters are considered one of the most innovative groups currently on the circuit.

First off, kudos on some great guests. [Joan] Osborne and [Lee Ann] Womack are two of my all-time favorite voices. So, did you guys just put a bunch of singers' names on a dart board and start throwing? How'd you figure out who you wanted?

Chris Pandolfi: The concept for this thing was two-fold: On the one hand, we wanted to do something different, as far as an album goes, just to mix it up. But a big part of it was also that we had made a lot of great friends along the way and we thought, “Who could we utilize, in terms of special guests?” And this concept evolved out of that — “What if we call on some of these awesome lady singers that we've met over the years?”

As the process started, the list was mainly comprised of people who were more in our community, in our musical scene. But, then, of course, some of those names were not, necessarily, people that we knew before the advent of this project — like Joan Osborne. The list was a combination of the two and, as the material evolved and we were getting a feel for the aesthetic of these different songs, we just did the best we could. Once the list was close to what we thought it would be and we got some confirmations from people, we — along with our producer — just did our best to match up what songs we thought would be best for each lady.

To me, that's one of the awesome successes of this album: It really uses these artists, I think, in a context that works for them. Look at the Joss Stone track or the Lee Ann Womack track … or Celia Woodsmith, who had the perfect voice for that song. All the ladies, in their own ways, brought their thing to the project and I think, in the process, they helped us take these songs and make them something that we couldn't have necessarily done on our own. They helped us make the most of all these unique and different sounds and styles that they have. It really came together that way. Certain people weren't able to do it, and the list filled out from there. But where we ended up, as far as the guests and what songs they were on, I think that's one of the cool successes of the album. The song “Have a Little Faith” was actually written for Joss Stone, with her in mind. I know that.

I was going to ask … considering that the span does run from Joss Stone to Sarah Jarosz, which came first — the singers or the songs? Did you write for specific voices or was that the only one?

Andy Hall: Yes, I believe so. Aside from that, we all write individually or co-write or whatever and bring songs to the band. So we all had songs, individually, that we were ready to bring to the next project. But I think that was the only one that was written for the singer. In other instances, say for Aoife O'Donovan, hearing that song “Run to Heaven,” it sort of reminded us of Crooked Still, just the way that sounded. In that instance, that became clear that would work that way. Each song just triggered a little something … an idea. That was one of the fun, creative parts — who would sound good on what song.

So how'd you figure out that Joss likes a little bluegrass in her soul?

AH: [Laughs] Andy Falco was hired to play in her band for a Rock in Rio festival a number of years ago. That's how that connection came about. Our connection with Joss was one of the things that inspired this record because Joss came to the States, and we opened up for her in Kansas City. She wanted to do a video of us and her playing together, during the day. She sang our song “Fork in the Road” with us backing her up for this video project she was doing, and it just sounded so cool. That was one of the sparks for this project. But that's also how that connection came about.

Interesting. Who was the first to say yes? And who was the biggest long-shot you can't believe you landed?

CP: Hmmm … Who was the first to say yes?

AH: The first person who recorded with us was, I believe, Jen Hartswick who didn't sing, but played trumpet on a number of songs. Then Mary-Chapin Carpenter was the first vocalist to put her track down. She was in Nashville while we were tracking. But, as far as asking, I don't remember.

How free were the reins when it came time to let them do their thing? Was it, “Have at it, gals!”

CP: Our producer was on hand for every session, I think, except for one or two. He did a really great job with this project — Chris Goldsmith — just in terms of staying true to his vision, which a lot of it was sonic, and he got a really cool, consistent sound across the record, although there is a real variety of styles there. I think that vision extended into how these songs would sound best. But, then again, there were cases — Joss is a great example … that track, by design, was made to let her do her thing which is to cut loose and almost improvise a lot of the phrasing. In cases where that would make the music come to life, that's what happened. In other cases, probably Goldsmith had a clearer vision of how it was supposed to sound. To some extent, every song was about letting these ladies do their thing.

The Sara Watkins track jumps to mind. She has such a compelling vocal on there and it's all because she does her thing. There's a moment where she really goes for it, and she's such an awesome singer and performer that the idea of getting her to do her thing, that's the whole point. So, to some extent, I think that was going on with everyone.

Obviously, all the guest vocalists aren't on the road with you, so how are you touring this record?

AH: We have Nicki Bluhm on the road with us for this whole tour and she is really helping. She's singing a lot of the Ladies & Gentleman songs that we do. Sometimes we'll do a few just on our own, but Nicki's on every show for the whole Spring tour so she's singing a lot of it. We also had Della Mae opening for it on a bunch of it, and Celia Woodsmith would come up and sing her song.

It's amazing how you cross paths with musicians on the road and that's, initially, how we made a lot of these contacts. We ran into Aoife O'Donovan — she was in L.A. when we were there recently, so she came and sang with us, and did a Jam in the Van session with us. We've designed part of the tour to have female bands supporting us, so we have Paper Bird coming out to open some shows and, hopefully, they're going to be able to help share some of the vocal duties. We have a lot of guests, but Nicki is anchoring all that.

More broadly speaking, you guys are very invested in being innovators within “bluegrass.” That's often a very subtle thing, though, right? So break it down … what are some of the things you guys do to open it up a bit and set yourselves apart while still honoring the traditions?

CP: One big thing that we're really focused on, consciously, is playing our own original music. The process of crafting original music is the thing that, simultaneously, helps us develop our sound as a band. We have a lot of co-writing going on, but mostly we arrange the music together. And we just try to figure out new ways to make all these instruments go together and distill all the different styles and influences into one sound that makes sense. We're pretty conscious about that.

We're really conscious about our live show. We're pretty committed to making the live experience really different every night. Of course, we're not the first band to ever do that, but we just try really hard to do our own version of that. And our fan base has come to expect a lot of variation and innovation, as far as on a night-to-night basis. They expect to see something different, and we're playing almost three hours a night, so we have to mix it up for our own sakes, too. Those are two big ones: playing our own stuff and focusing on having that live show be something that is really predicated on being different every night.

AH: One thing, specifically, that I know we've worked on a lot in the past few years is that we don't have a mandolin, which a lot of bluegrass-type bands have. The mandolin is a key rhythmic thing. Since we don't have that, we've had to get really creative with how we play rhythm and play rhythms that are not, say, bluegrass. Like on the Ladies & Gentlemen record, there are a lot of songs that don't have a traditional bluegrass beat. We've consciously spent a lot of time developing unique ways to play our instruments that you wouldn't necessarily expect or hear in other string band contexts. Myself being a dobro player, I take a lot of the rhythmic responsibilities, which is not a common thing. Not having a mandolin, we've had to get somewhat innovative with how we create rhythm and play grooves that aren't necessarily bluegrass. To me, that's something unique that we do.

It seems like there has to be a lot of trust between the band and the fans. You have to trust that they're going to follow you wherever you go, musically. And they have to trust that you're not going to do some crazy, way out of left field thing. Do you ever worry about splitting the difference in such a way that you isolate them … or any part of them?

AH: Well, yeah. The scene of traditional bluegrass and, say, the broader music scene that we're playing more in now, there is quite a difference there. We've chosen to be part of a music scene that is broader, where we play in festivals that are not just bluegrass festivals. I think, in that context, it's not quite as strange to have music that is slightly more creative, record to record. A lot of the fans we're appealing to are a little more used to that. But this is the first time we've ever done a record like this that is a very different, specific vision. Sure, you certainly wonder, “What are people going to think?” [Laughs]

CP: And we have, over the course of our career, definitely alienated people. That's part of the natural course of things. What we do is our thing. We decide where the music goes. That's one of the cool upsides of not being in what most people would perceive as a more popular style of music: You're not really beholden to any record label or anything like that. In the grassroots scene, there is some idea that your fans are going to follow you wherever you will go. Obviously, there's an extreme there and there are anomalies to that rule. But, for the most part, we're lucky: We have these great fans who want to check out all the different voices.

I have a side project that involves electronic elements and it's clearly not for the hardcore bluegrass people of the world. But there are plenty of people in our fan base who, though they don't listen to anything like that, they are excited for that to be their introduction to this musical world. I think that's a good glimpse into the way they think. They're like, “We love this band. We want to see what they're going to do. If this particular thing is not my cup of tea, then there's always going to be another album that comes out.” I think they are getting used to the fact that there are a lot of variations between projects and between songs and the live show, so it's almost part of the whole thing. So, for me, I'm not ever too worried that they're not going to dig it. As long as we make music that we believe in, I think our fans will get behind it.

Photo credit: McCormick Photos & Design, LLC

Stephen Colbert Is Late Night’s Roots Music Champion

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Getting a coveted performance slot on a late-night TV show is no easy task. Unless you have a Billboard hit or the last name Bieber, odds are you won't make it onto what's become some of television's most prime musical real estate. For roots musicians, that means fewer shots at late-night stardom and fewer chances to reach the wide audiences such performances award. But luckily, The Late Show's Stephen Colbert is changing the game, championing up-andcoming roots musicians and introducing their music to his legions of loyal fans. 

We've rounded up some of our favorite roots performances from The Late Show below. Check 'em out!

Kacey Musgraves, "Late to the Party"

Kacey Musgraves is no small star, so it's not as much of a surprise that Colbert would invite her to the stage to perform "Late to the Party," one of the standout tracks from her sophomore album Pageant Material.

John Moreland, "Break My Heart Sweetly"

John Moreland, however, is a surprise — Colbert gave the talented Oklahoma singer/songwriter his network television debut when he invited him to perform this track from 2013's In the Throes (despite Moreland releasing High on Tulsa Heat last year) earlier this month.

Lake Street Dive, "Call Off Your Dogs"

Lake Street Dive is a big name in the roots community, but their reach doesn't extend far beyond the genre's boundaries. Colbert had them over anyway, and the Brooklyn quartet got to wow the audience with this tune from Side Pony.

Margo Price, "Hurtin' (On the Bottle)"

The first country signee to Jack White's famed Third Man Records, Margo Price may not be a household name yet, but it's only a matter of time before she is. This performance of her debut single on The Late Show is sure to be part of what seals that deal.

Aubrie Sellers, "Light of Day"

Daughter of Lee Ann Womack, Aubrie Sellers is no stranger to the late-night circuit, although this performance on Colbert was the first time she was the one gracing the stage, performing a cut from her debut album New City Blues.

Wilco, "Random Name Generator"

Okay, so maybe a band as big as Wilco doesn't exactly need a television champion, but it's great to see them hit the stage to perform this tune from 2015's Star Wars nonetheless.

Lucinda Williams, "Dust"

Finally, don't miss this stunning performance from Lucinda Williams of a poem by her father (the late poet Miller Williams) that she reinterpeted and set to music to serve as the opening track for her stellar new album The Ghosts of Highway 20.

Squared Roots: Sam Lee Follows the Footsteps of Alan Lomax

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In his work collecting field recordings and documenting oral traditions of roots music, Alan Lomax captured the history of a nation — of a world, really — as it was happening. Lomax learned the trade from his father, John, and carried the torch forward, moving in circles that included Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, and myriad other singers — many of whose names were never known, though their contributions were no less vital in Lomax's eyes and ears. Because his work was necessarily integrated racially, Lomax was the target of investigation and scorn during the mid-century years of McCarthyism and civil rights struggles. He, nevertheless, found ways to carry on with his mission, leaving a massive trove of historical documentation as his legacy.

English folk singer Sam Lee has taken it upon himself to adopt a similar vocation, learning and recording old world songs from Gypsy and Traveller singers in the UK, including Stanley Robertson, May Bradley, and Freda Black. Much like Lomax, Lee gets the job done by keeping one eye on the past and one on the future, using whatever technology he can to best capture these traditions before they are gone. His latest album, The Fade in Time, stands as a testament to his passion and respect for not only the old-time music, but his own duty as its keeper. 

It's pretty well impossible to quantify the importance of Lomax's role in music history. From your perspective, what does his work mean — to you and the broader roots music world?

I think, firstly, it’s important to say I will probably never fully understand or appreciate the impact he made on the world, for that is to understand the enormous social revolution that happened in the U.S. and world over the '50-'60s and before and after. How he brought such a formidable energy and determination to the task of documenting the cultures of America, but also the rest of the world. The care he brought to this endeavour and sense of importance and value … to give voice to the outcasts, the marginalised, the poor, the persecuted, the outsiders. How, through his deep love of people and ability to converse with anybody on their level — combined with his weight as an academic, as a charismatic leader — how he focused the attention of a nation on the treasure on its doorstep.

The responsibility he took in the legacy of his father was such a huge task with cultural divides and technology all working against him. Now, in a time of supposedly progressed cultural assimilation and technology as good as one could ever dream of but facing the cultural ecocide and extinction we see ahead of us, I feel the Lomax journey is one to reflect upon as a reminder of the need to protect, conserve, and celebrate the beauty of self-made, localised, home spun, informed, and unaffected culture on both U.S. and UK shores — but also across the world where the great vanishing is happening, the huge forgetting of the old ways. Lomax married old world creativity with the possibilities of technology and popularisation in a ground-breaking way that’s still possible as long as we keep listening to the old ones!

In the early 1940s, he was pushing against the boundaries of race and class with his presentations, and he felt the establishment push back. But he saw that as part of his calling because a documentarian has to approach the world with equanimity and objectivity. Is that how you view the job, as well?

Nicely put. And, yes, as a "documentarian" (I’ve never been called that, by the way, but I like it, so thanks!) I think the issues are not about the establishment pushing back so much as they are generally very embracing of the work I and the Song Collectors Collective do. The challenges today are about making it financially feasible to execute this sort of research not being in an academic institution and doing it in such a way that serves the communities as well as the multitudinal interests of the outside world.

But, yes, the need for equanimity is constantly there when faced by both the regular failure in the searching for old tradition bearers, the occasional rejection, apathy, or resistance from the communities toward the work due to much more serious social issues they’re facing. But most of all what troubles me is the reactions from some of the institutions that should be endorsing and supporting the work and the establishment within the folk community. Sometimes I think those that are supposedly endorsers of folk culture seem to care so little for the communities that have kept it alive and honouring the keepers of the lore. This frustrates me a little.

Lomax spent most of the 1950s in Europe to avoid the House Un-American Activities Committee. By the time he died, his FBI file contained more than 800 pages. But he never stopped his work. Can you imagine how it must have felt to get tangled in the “Red Scare” or something similar?

It’s funny because the consequence of the Red Scare was that Lomax spent a lot of time in the UK recording our singers and the documents of which have had great impact on the preservation and popularisation of our traditions and repertoire, so it was very much in us Brits' favour. However, the folk singer's responsibility is to be fighting back against institutional or political insanity, and I am lucky that I may never live to experience such unbelievably systematic vilification by the state. In my mind, though, the subtle evils of governmental policy and corporate ravages are as devastating and corrosive as they eat away at community.

Ironically, the effect of the Red Scare was to galvanise the people into a formidable force of solidarity like we have never experienced. I am not sure how huge the collective voice of opposition is today at the slow erosion of our civil liberties. Maybe one already exists, but I hope one day there will be a file on me somewhere. I won’t have done my duty, if i haven’t challenged the regime enough to gain some sort of "listing."

Of all the amazing sessions he documented, which ones would you have wanted to witness?

Ouch! This question hurts to think about. I longed to wonder what sitting in on those Jelly Roll Morton recording sessions would have been like as that was, in my mind, a phenomenal meeting of two worlds and a transmitting of such a principal memory of the birth of a musical genre. But also, having spent a lot of time with Shirley Collins — the English folk singer and ex-lover and collecting assistant of Lomax — she tells me endless stories of their time together recording singers on their porches and, in some ways, I feel like I was there vicariously through Shirley’s telling of stories.

While I was at the Library of Congress in September 2015, I was reading some of his diaries and of the numerous recording situations he found himself in. The one that stands out was an episode of him gathering a whole crowd of Black American workers in this old shack and recording the songs of some of the best entertainers amongst them … each one stepping up, or being pushed up to sing something or play a tune. I am not sure if it was the way he described this dark room crowded with faces piling in to see this single white man record their music, their faces gleaming out from the darkness, the sense of uncertainty and fear, yet also the compulsion to record and commit this precious music that they themselves were probably not aware of its cultural wealth, depth, and evolved brilliance. Everything about the way Lomax described this experience and the joy that came from them tentatively sharing and being acknowledged and their songs valued seemed like such a magnificent mini revolution … this idea of Lomax going to each singer one by one and letting them know how very special they are … I think that is radical!

He clearly understood his place in history, even as it was unfolding around him. Do you have a similar sense, as you attempt to capture the oral traditions of your world?

Yes, I very much do and, with that, goes an immense sadness alongside the privilege. It’s like sitting near a rare white rhino or some vanishing beast, powerful and majestic, feeling the vibrations as it moves and breathes, knowing that when imminent death arrives, no one else will ever get to feel the ground shake beneath it or smell its unique breath, feel its presence. The old singers I get to meet and record are the last of the old world. They are fading custodians who sit at the edge of this great, nearly forgotten tradition and, when I leave, I know I may never see them again as is sometimes the case, returning a year later to find they have passed on.

What is left is a musical and cultural silence filled only with the noise of cheap MP3 downloads, karaoke-style music devoid of any muscle or memory. I guess that is where my responsibility as being the artist steps in and is ever more necessary — to take the essence of what I have experienced and develop it into new, informed, and "acceptable" music that can survive in the modern-day campfires and porches of musical appreciation — the mobile phones, earbuds, and YouTubes of planet Internet.

LISTEN: Jesse Milnes and Emily Miller, ‘Fun’s All Over’

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The Deep End Ranch in Southern California's Santa Clara River Valley is an unexpected roots music haven that exists just north of Los Angeles. The homestead, which was built in 1908 and sits amidst a grove of lemon trees, plays host to the Deep End Sessions — a series of unplugged, unadvertised house concerts curated by David Bunn and Ellen Birrell. In January of this year, Jesse Milnes and Emily Miller settled into the Deep End for a residency. When they left, they had one of the best souvenirs imaginable — a record.

Milnes and Miller both grew up steeped in the Appalachian musical tradition, forming the Sweetback Sisters in 2006 and signing to Signature Sounds. After three albums and two EPs, they scaled it back to a duo with Milnes on fiddle and Miller on guitar. Their Deep End Sessions recording serves as their official duo debut, although one track, “Fun's All Over,” is reprised from their Sweetback Sisters days, where they rocked it out with drums and Telecaster.

"I've been playing 'Fun's All Over' forever,” Milnes says. “A fast fiddle tune that's fun to sing is a handy thing to have in your back pocket. I've played it at squaredances, fiddle contests, and on a ton of street corners and subway stops. I think I learned this from a recording of the Williamson Brothers and Curry. I've been playing it so long that I wouldn't guarantee that it's anything like their version. My dad, Gerry, plays it, too, and I probably got a lot of it from him."