Tag: Sally Van Meter

Lindsay Lou’s Bluegrass Women Features These Twenty Talents

Posted on by Editor

Lindsay Lou’s Bluegrass Women arrived in August 2026 as a true gift to the genre.

Nascent for over a decade, this project took root back in 2015 when Lou started a list containing two titles — “I Only Exist” and “All I Ever Loved Was You.” Though primarily associated with the men who popularized them, both bluegrass standards were written or co-written by women. Thus marked the start of an impassioned cataloguing as Lou realized, “If these two songs have surfaced for me, then there have got to be so many more. I would keep this list somewhere I could see it in my office, wherever I lived,” she relayed recently in an interview with Live for Live Music.

Ten years later, ten traditional songs had made their way to the forefront of her list, all of which were written, co-written, or first performed by women. While forging her own career in this male-dominated sphere, she found encouragement in her continuous unearthing of women among the forebears.

Women have always been essential to the architecture of the bluegrass, however quieted their contributions may have been. With more women in the spotlight than ever before, Lindsay Lou felt inspired to weave a throughline between contemporary “bluegrass women” and their ancestors. In March 2025, she partnered with co-producer Shani Gandhi to round up an intergenerational cast of twenty women defining the genre today. A Tetris of tour schedules, this star-studded cast managed to complete the compilation in only four days of recording, with Lou masterminding ensembles and arrangements.

Together, this collection of women celebrates their musical predecessors, shedding new light upon many of the women woven throughout bluegrass history. Join us as we explore, in no particular order, the tremendous trove of talent responsible for the masterpiece that is Bluegrass Women.

Laurie Lewis

Truly a singular talent, Laurie Lewis remains an unwavering pillar of the bluegrass scene and beyond. A hero to every participant on Bluegrass Women, Lewis’s singing, songwriting, and fiddling continue to inspire across generations.

Among her inordinate accolades includes co-founding The Good Ol’ Persons in the ‘70s, one of the first prominent all-women bluegrass groups. Her musings traverse across genres, slinging folk, Americana, and country influences to boot. She is heralded in the music scene as an avid collaborator, producer, teacher, and mentor, in addition to actively tending to her own projects. Her most recent record, O California! arrived in January 2026, released by her band, Laurie Lewis and the Right Hands.

The inaugural notes of Bluegrass Women are played by Laurie Lewis and Tatiana Hargreaves in a glorious twin fiddle kick on the opening track “All I Ever Loved Was You” (though recorded and popularized Ricky Skaggs and Keith Whitley, its lyrics were penned by Skagg’s mother, Dorothy). Hargreaves has said of her fiddling counterpart, “I wouldn’t be playing the music I play if it weren’t for Laurie Lewis,” a sentiment that echoes the interconnectedness of musicianship at the project’s core.

Tatiana Hargreaves

Of her fiddling counterpart, Laurie Lewis boasts, “Tatiana Hargreaves is a versatile, powerful, and deep musician. Not just a damn good fiddler.” Having recorded her debut album at age 14 and winning first prize at the Clifftop Appalachian Fiddle Contest the same year, Tatiana Hargreaves has truly packed a punch in the decade and a half (and change) since. With a range of styles under her belt, Hargreaves’ fluency in both bluegrass and old-time grants her a dextrous dynamism. At present, she teaches improvisation and bluegrass fiddle at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and primarily records and performs in a duo with prolific banjo player Allison de Groot (also featured on Bluegrass Women), and with her four-piece old time band, Hard Drive.

On Bluegrass Women, Hargreaves lends her fearsome fiddling to three tracks — “All I Ever Loved Was You,” “Jubilee,” and “Won’t You Come and Sing for Me.”

Allison de Groot

A clawhammer banjo player from Winnipeg, Canada, Allison de Groot became familiar with the scene by way of The Duhks, a renowned Canadian folk-fusion band likewise out of Winnipeg. As she traced the lineage of the clawhammer banjo, she became enamored with its prominence in the American South and became a teacher and performer. Between lessons and many trips to the southeastern United States, a love affair with old-time took root. Her duo with Tatiana Hargreaves continues the centuries-long conversation between fiddle and banjo; their creative alchemy doulas the dialogue to new depths.

De Groot lends her banjo playing to the tracks “I’ve Endured” and “High on a Mountain” on Bluegrass Women.

Maddie Witler

While primarily known for her virtuosic mandolin playing, Maddie Witler began her musical journey at age 9 on the fiddle. If those skills weren’t enough, in the time since, Witler has made her acquaintance with most stringed instruments, adeptly fluent in each language. After growing up in the greater LA area and moving to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music, she became a founding member of the illustrious Lonely Heartstring Band. In 2019, Witler joined Della Mae, one of the most prominent all-women groups of the contemporary bluegrass landscape, parting ways with them in 2022. In 2021, Witler released her first solo album, Astronaut, debuting her skills as a songwriter, singer, and arranger.

On Bluegrass Women, Witler edifies the tracks “All I Ever Loved Was You,” “Jubilee,” and “Won’t You Come and Sing for Me” with her apt mandolin contributions.

Alison Brown

Alison Brown, too, is a widely influential instrumentalist whose work has permeated across generations. She reunited with her love of bluegrass banjo playing when, after receiving an MBA from UCLA, she quit her job on Wall Street to tour with Alison Krauss & Union Station. She also toured with Michelle Shocked before forming her own group in 1993, The Alison Brown Quartet. With 12 solo albums, a Grammy, and multiple Grammy nominations under her belt, Brown is largely regarded as one of the most accomplished banjo players of our time.

Of recording with Alison Brown and Laurie Lewis for Bluegrass Women, Lindsay Lou speaks to the experience’s profoundness in her four-part YouTube series documenting the album’s recording.

She reflects, “We’ve seen mentorship and cross-generational connection and collaboration happen on stage with men plenty, but you haven’t seen it as much with women historically. To be a part of a session with Laurie and Alison, who have been doing this for so many more years than anybody else on the session, you instantly have this reverence.”

Alison Brown lends her banjo playing to the tracks “All I Ever Loved Was You,” “Jubilee,” and “Won’t You Come and Sing for Me.”

Hasee Ciaccio

Hasee Ciaccio is a musician and educator residing in North Carolina. Her upright bass playing has earned high praise in the bluegrass circuit, with Ciaccio having recorded and toured among the likes of Laurie Lewis, Alice Gerrard, and bluegrass powerhouse group Sister Sadie. Ciaccio is also on the board of Bluegrass Pride, an organization working to uplift LGBTQ+ bluegrass musicians of all levels.

Ciaccio’s bass playing lays the foundation for much of Bluegrass Women. She’s featured on seven of the ten tracks — “All I Ever Loved Was You,” “Like a River,” “I Only Exist,” “Jubilee,” ”Won’t You Come and Sing for Me,” “Freight Train,” “Your Lone Journey,” and “CC Rider.”

Courtney Hartman

A champion flat-picker, Courtney Hartman grew up in Colorado with nine siblings, four of whom she played music with. Because they needed one to play guitar, and inspired by her mother taking lessons, Hartman gravitated to the instrument following stints with piano, fiddle, and violin.

After attending Berklee College of Music, Hartman spent seven years recording and touring with Della Mae. Her newest solo album, With You, began during an isolated, heavy moment. Shortly after discovering that she was pregnant, a string of tumultuous events (her husband falling off a ladder and rendered immobile for months, a totaled car, being dropped from her booking agency) ravaged her life in quick succession. Following the birth of her daughter, Hartman forged her own list of women to draw inspiration from — ones who had continued their creative practice in the midst of becoming mothers. Their navigation of caregiving and musicianship imbued faith that she, too, could straddle both. With You features many of the mothers that inspired Hartman, both as co-writers and musical guests.

In a full-circle moment, Hartman joined Lindsay Lou’s project, the entirety of which was recorded while Lou was pregnant with her first child. Hartman is credited on the tracks “I Only Exist,” “Like a River,” and “Freight Train.”

Gena Britt

Gena Britt, a connoisseur of both bluegrass banjo and bass, is no stranger to a project like Bluegrass Women. In 2001, Britt co-founded Daughters of Bluegrass, a collective of over 40 women in bluegrass who have recorded four albums to date. In addition to being a highly sought-after studio vocalist and instrumentalist, with solo projects also under her belt, Gena is currently a member of the dynamic Sister Sadie.

Gena is featured on six tracks on Bluegrass Women — “Your Lone Journey,” “Freight Train,” “Like a River,” “High on a Mountain,” “I Only Exist,” and “CC Rider.”

AJ Lee

A prominent presence in today’s bluegrass scene, AJ Lee is lauded for her acute mandolin skills, unparalleled vocals, and sharp songwriting. Hailing from the Bay Area, at age 7 she was asked to join The Tuttles, a family band consisting of bluegrass educator Jack Tuttle and his two children, (you guessed it) Molly and Sully. Around the time she graduated high school in 2015, AJ sewed the seeds culminating in her own band, AJ Lee and Blue Summit. The group just released their fourth full-length album, Cover to Cover, earlier this month.

On Bluegrass Women, AJ’s artistry can be found on the tracks “Freight Train,” “Like a River,” and “I Only Exist.”

Wila Frank

Wila Frank is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer based out of Nashville. One half of the emergent folk duo Paper Wings, and fiddler/electric guitarist for Lindsay Lou, Frank also champions her own stirring solo repertoire. Her debut album, Black Cloud (2023), received critical acclaim, and a 2026 single release, “Emergency Contact,” hints towards more in the works (we hope!).

Frank appears on half of Bluegrass Woman, credited on the tracks “Like a River,” “High on a Mountain,” “I Only Exist,” “CC Rider,” and “Your Lone Journey.”

Brittany Haas

Widely regarded as one of the most prolific fiddlers of her generation, Brittany Haas is an absolute flurry of talent. Her playing is sensitive, inspired, and expansive. Her current projects include her duo with her cellist sister (Natalie Haas), the innovative instrumental project, Hawktail, and as the newest member of the Grammy-winning Punch Brothers. A teacher and performer, Haas’s playing is infectiously inspiring to all who listen.

Haas joins Bluegrass Women on the tracks “High on a Mountain” and “I’ve Endured.”

Sally Van Meter

Another former member of the Good Ol’ Persons alongside Laurie Lewis, Sally Van Meter is a musical giant in her own right. Though primarily recognized for her dobro playing, Van Meter is dextrous on an assortment of string instruments. With a professional music career that began in 1976, Sally Van Meter’s past five decades have been an impressive spread of performance, teaching, touring, and recording.

Van Meter plays on “CC Rider,” a traditional 12-bar blues song first written and recorded by Ma Rainey, the “Mother of Blues.” The song was later covered by a vast assortment of artists, at one point becoming a mainstay opening number for Elvis Presely.

Sierra Hull

Legendary mandolinist, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter Sierra Hull could fill a dictionary with the accomplishments of her career, despite being just 34 years old. A six-time Grammy nominee and the first woman to receive the IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year honor (having now won seven times), Sierra Hull is a groundbreaking artist in the bluegrass scene. She released her fifth studio album, A Tip Toe High Wire, last year.

Hull’s talent enriches two tracks on Bluegrass Women — “High on a Mountain” and “I’ve Endured.” Of the songs, Sierra remarks, “These are songs that seep into your DNA. When you can step out of your own original lane for a minute and go back to what feels like the source, there’s something really powerful about that. It takes me back to who I am in a really grounding kind of way.”

Bronwyn

As anyone who’s heard a Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway record knows, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes is an astonishing fiddler, with brilliance and fire emanating through her every performance. Recently, though, she’s exposed even more of her talents to the world — she’s begun a solo project as simply Bronwyn, playing, singing, recording, and touring original material. Her third album, Rattlin’ Bones, was released on the same day as Bluegrass Women.

The amicable dissolution of Golden Highway allowed for Bronwyn to open up the floodgates of self-discovery; in fact, she cites bandmates Molly Tuttle and Shelby Means as chief proponents of Bronwyn exploring her voice. She says, “There was a large part of my life where I didn’t sing and was only interested in playing the fiddle, but being on tour with Golden Highway and around Molly and Shelby, these great female bluegrass vocalists, it shifted everything.”

Bronwyn’s fiddling appears on the tracks “Freight Train,” “Like a River” and “I Only Exist” on Bluegrass Women.

Molly Tuttle

Molly Tuttle herself, too, joins the record — yet another nod to the interweavings present among this group of women. Tuttle’s reputation precedes her, as the first woman to win IBMA’s Guitar Player of the Year (an award she earned two years in a row). Likewise, her albums Crooked Tree (2022) and City of Gold (2023) with her band, Golden Highway, each took home the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album. For her new solo album, So Long Little Miss Sunshine (2025), Tuttle shifts into new stretches and shapes, tackling elements of pop, rock, flat-picking, and country in one fell swoop.

Tuttle joins for the song “Freight Train,” penned by the superlative Elizabeth Cotten, a self-taught, left-handed guitarist who wrote the song around the age of 11 in the early 20th century.

Emma Rose

Yet another multi-hyphenate talent, Emma Rose is a groundbreaking singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and sought-after upright bass player. She was a founding member of the juggernaut all-women outfit, Big Richard, and she currently tours with Lindsay Lou, while also nurturing a solo project, under the names Emma Rose or Sounds of Honey.

Emma Rose lends bass playing to Bluegrass Women on “I Only Exist,” “High on a Mountain” and “I’ve Endured.”

Sarah Jarosz

Sarah Jarosz’s sublime vocals, instrumental prowess, and narrative-driven songwriting render her an unsurpassed talent. With seven full-length solo albums to her name, three albums with supergroup I’m With Her (alongside Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins), and a sprawling inventory of collaborations, Jarosz’s contributions to the roots scene have been nothing short of magnificent.

Jarosz is featured on the track “I’ve Endured,” written by the brilliant Appalachian singer, songwriter, and banjo player Ola Belle Read.

Phoebe Hunt

A fiddler of dynamic abundance, Phoebe Hunt has explored for decades the multiplicity of sound her instrument can produce. She’s spent years touring for various projects and for her own solo work, all the while founding a non-profit called Fuel Our Fire, garnering transformational songwriting experiences for at-risk communities. She’s also a gifted educator, and she began an initiative to help parents teach their children how to play the ukulele during the pandemic. Her most recent album, Nothing Else Matters (2023) features only the voice and fiddle, a peeled back honoring of her musicality in its most vulnerable form.

Hunt joins on Bluegrass Women for an awe-inspiring rendition of Hazel Dickens’s “Won’t You Come and Sing For Me.”

Jenni Lyn Gardner

Jenni Lyn Gardner is a robust singer, songwriter, producer, and mandolinist. She rose to prominence in the bluegrass scene when she joined Della Mae in 2010, and remained in the band for nearly a decade-long stretch. She’s also fronted her own solo project, and has served as a producer on countless albums and tracks across the roots music landscape.

Jenni Lyn Gardner joins Bluegrass Women for two tracks — “CC Rider” and “Your Lone Journey,” a song co-written by Doc Watson and his wife, Rosa Lee.

Aoife O’Donovan

One of the most treasured voices in bluegrass, Aoife O’Donovan is a Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and guitar player. She’s widely known for her lead vocals as a founding member of the unparalleled Crooked Still (which fellow Bluegrass Women musician Brittany Haas later joined) and for her role as one-third of I’m With Her. O’Donovan has a penchant for evocative lyrics, textured storytelling, and hypnotic vocals. In addition to her many collaborations and features, O’Donovan has released four critically acclaimed albums of solo work.

On Bluegrass Women, Aoife is featured on the track “Your Lone Journey.”

Find out more about Lindsay Lou’s project with an episode of her mini-doc on BGS.

Lead image: Tatiana Hargreaves, Laurie Lewis, and Lindsay Lou by Sawyer Gieseke

When Springtime Comes Again: 12 Bluegrass Songs for Spring

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

We hope, wherever you’re reading this from, that snow, frost, and the cold are truly retreating, giving way to longer days, warmer weather, and the gorgeous, humid, cicada-soundtracked days of summer. But, before we get to full-blown bluegrass season – and, hopefully, our first live music forays since COVID-19 shut the industry down in early 2020 – let’s take a moment to intentionally enjoy spring with these 12 bluegrass songs perfect for collecting a wildflower bouquet, romping and frolicking in the meadow, and pickin’ on the back porch while the evenings are still cool. 

“Wild Mountain Flowers for Mary” – Lost & Found

A classic via Lost & Found, bluegrass certainly does not lack metaphors and analogies for love built around spring and the flowers re-emerging – see “Your Love is Like a Flower” below – but this somewhat melancholy track is an exceptional example of the form. And that banjo solo by Lost & Found founding member Gene Parker will stop you dead in your tracks.

“There Is a Time” – The Dillards

Famous for the rendition sung by Charlene Darling of the ever-popular Darling family on The Andy Griffith Show, this haunting, seemingly timeless folky melody from The Dillards – who also played members of the Darling clan – cautions, “…Do your roaming in the springtime/ And you’ll find your love in the summer sun.” The suspensions in the banjo roll linger on the minor chord, echoing this sentiment and categorizing spring not by its own, shining qualities, but by the darkness in winter and fall. A true classic.

“Little Annie” – Molly Tuttle, Alison Brown, Kimber Ludiker, Missy Raines

A staple of impromptu pickin’ parties and jam circles, “Little Annie” is properly ensconced within the bluegrass canon, but is infused with new life in this application by Tuttle’s lead vocal, a slight queering of the lyric that’s perfectly at home in the hands of this veritable supergroup, assembled by D’Addario at Folk Alliance International’s conference in 2018. 

“Texas Bluebonnets” – Laurie Lewis 

Laurie Lewis is effortlessly, archetypically bluegrass even, if not especially, in applications that infuse other genres into the music, like this Tex-Mex flavored, twin fiddle arrangement of “Texas Bluebonnets” that truly never gets old. Yes, that’s Peter Rowan and Sally Van Meter guesting, and Tom Rozum jumping onto lead during the choruses so Lewis can utter the tastiest tenor harmony vocal. Stick around for the Texas double-fiddle break and do yourself a favor and bookmark the track for easy reference. You’ll be returning to it often, as this writer does. 

“The First Whippoorwill” – Bill Monroe 

The birds returning in spring are a sure sign of the seasons changing and the warm weather returning, though the whippoorwill’s role in folk music has always been as a bittersweet harbinger, never quite viewed without at least some semblance of suspicion, perhaps an acknowledgement of the whippoorwill’s mournful tendency of singing long into the dead of night. This recording of “The First Whippoorwill” is a tasty example of Monroe’s iconic high lonesome sound, with acrobatic breaks into entrancing falsetto woven into the harmonies. 

“Sitting on Top of the World” – Carolina Chocolate Drops

Whether you know this common blues, old-time, and bluegrass number from the Mississippi Sheiks, Doc Watson, John Oates, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, or any other of its many, many sources the fact still stands: Don’t like peaches? Don’t shake the tree. Demonstrably a song for spring, summer, and beyond.

“Roses in the Snow” – Emmylou Harris

Though BGS calls sunny southern California home – and BGS South is relatively temperate and mild in Nashville, TN – we know there are climes across this continent where spring promises snow as reliably as thaw. Emmylou Harris released her iconic bluegrass album in 1980 and its title track is another homage to love bringing warmth, newness, and growth even in the cold: “Our love was like a burning ember/ It warmed us as a golden glow/ We had sunshine in December/ And grew our roses in the snow…”

“Each Season Changes You” – The Osborne Brothers

Love is as fickle as the breeze! There’s a small irony in the song’s central conflict, that the singer’s love changes their mind as often as the seasons change – which, when taken whole, seems like a much more stable, predictable love than most? Even so, and done in so many different iterations, the central metaphor still holds, forever baked into the vernacular of these folk musics.

“One Morning in May” – Jeff Scroggins & Colorado

If you’ve been a bluegrass fan over the past five to ten years and you don’t immediately hear Greg Blake’s voice singing “One Morning in May” whenever it pops into your head, something must be awry. During Blake’s stint with Jeff Scroggins & Colorado, this spring-centered track was a highlight of their live show, a clean, modern rendering of what’s a properly ancient folk lyric. Lost love, war, nightingales, and yes, springtime – it has everything! 

“Your Love is Like a Flower” – Flatt & Scruggs

Perhaps the song that defines the form. Flatt’s languid, lazy phrasing seems to underline the leisure of spring that grows into the laziness of summer. The rhythm of love, tied to the seasons and the budding blooms. Another timeless sentiment, distilled into a favorite, stand-by bluegrass number.

“Springtime in the Rockies” – Lead Belly

You know the film and the country hit, but have you heard Lead Belly himself tell the story of hearing the tune from “Gene” coming by and playing him some music? Worth a listen and worth inclusion on this list, which would suffer if it didn’t include “When It’s Springtime in the Rockies” in one form or another!

“Spring Will Bring Flowers” – Balsam Range

Processing grief and loss through the ever- and unchanging seasons is a common thread through rootsy songs about spring. This more recent recording from powerful North Carolina bluegrass vocal group Balsam Range hearkens back to springy, ‘grassy numbers from across the ages – its intermittent banjo licks a call back to Jimmy Martin’s “world filled with flowers” in “Ocean of Diamonds.” 

Background photo by velodenz on Foter.com

On New Solo Album, Resophonic Guitarist Andy Hall Reaches for the Jam Songs

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Andy Hall is one of the fiercest slide guitarists we have around not just today, but probably ever. If there’s any doubt, you needn’t look further than his newest release, 12 Bluegrass Classics for Resophonic Guitar. The Denver-based singer and Dobro player of the Infamous Stringdusters has always pushed the envelope, but had never taken the time to put his own stamp on the formative tunes that all musicians of the genre play with one another. From teaching thousands of students online via ArtistWorks, to his work with Earl Scruggs, Dolly Parton, or Jack Black, it’s obvious that Hall is a master of the instrument, and the art itself.

BGS visited with Hall to talk all things pandemic, resophonic guitars, and what this record means in a time like our own. 

BGS: What was your initial inspiration for this recording?

Andy Hall: It was an interesting time in the spring when I was recording it, you know, but it’s all about taking opportunities that present themselves and making the most of the situation and what you can do. When everything stops, you have no idea what’s happening, you’re pretty quickly trying to figure out how to continue to be expressive. Our band the Stringdusters has toured so much for so long. …I don’t want to say I took it for granted, but when it all went away it was surprising — there was this withdrawal from doing the things that I love to do.

These are songs I’ve played for years and years, and I’ve always wanted to put my stamp on them, my take, you know? I totally overlooked them as anything I would record, because I always played them in jams. For most people, they don’t know these songs. So, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get a recorded version of all these jam songs. It was really just a matter of me sitting, playing, and enjoying these tunes enough to get a good representation of them.

At the same time that you’ve put your own stamp on these tunes, you said that they were formative. I noticed the speed-up in “House of the Rising sun,” just like Mike Auldridge of the Seldom Scene would do. Are there any influences you’re drawing from, more than others, on this record?

Everyone has their own version of what their “classic” tune would be for a certain instrument. So “House of the Rising Sun,” definitely based on the Mike Auldridge version. To me, if you do that song on Dobro, that’s just how it goes. “Dixie Hoedown” was on Jerry Douglas’ first solo record, and something like “Fireball Mail” couldn’t be a more quintessential dobro song. I was always too impatient to sit and get every nuance of somebody’s playing, so I kinda gloss over it for the general idea and fill in the blanks myself. So due to my impatience I have my own style with a lot of them.

So that’s what a lot of these are like, but you can trace most of them back to an original version — like “Cherokee Shuffle,” Sally Van Meter, a great dobro player from Colorado, did that on a record called the Great Dobro Sessions. One that’s totally my own is the first one on the record, “Leather Britches.” I’d never really heard a version of that, but I wanted to try and get that repetitive, cyclical, rolling sound of the fiddle. So a lot of them are jam tunes that I never heard a Dobro version of, and wanted to develop my own thing with. 

“Foggy Mountain Rock” really comes through that way. 

I actually was fortunate enough to get to play with Earl Scruggs some, and that tune is a perfect example of how I didn’t take the time to learn it officially like Josh Graves. When I auditioned for Scruggs’ band, I went to his house and jammed with both Earl and a fiddle player named Glen Duncan. My mind was just blown, you know, we’re just sitting in Earl’s living room playing “Foggy Mountain Rock.” When we finished playing it, it was clear I hadn’t done it the way he was used to hearing it. And he complimented it! “Oh, I love how you put that four chord in there. I love when people do their own thing.” That really justified my whole approach. If Earl Scruggs says it’s cool, then I’m good. 

Do you teach many of these in your class over at ArtistWorks?

There are a couple in my school. “Panhandle Rag” is in there, “Cherokee Shuffle.” I’m about to transcribe not just the melodies, but the solos for a few of these so that the students can have a crack at them. It seems primed for that kind of thing. This is a specialty project geared at Dobro nerds. With the Stringdusters or other projects I do it’s a bit more broad, usually song-based. This record definitely ties into ArtistWorks; it’s just getting deep into the slide guitar thing… because that’s what I love! 

“I am a Pilgrim” is so woody, while “Cherokee Shuffle” has that cutting metallic ring of the Dobro… Can you talk about some of the guitars you used on this record?

“I am a Pilgrim,” “Amazing Grace,” and maybe “Foggy Mountain Rock” were all played on a 1929 Squareneck Tricone National guitar. To me it just has a super unique blues sound. So I used it on the tunes that were slower, just to get some variety. I wrestled with how much variety to put on the record in that way, because I have a bunch of different slide instruments. I’ve got a Chaturangi, which is an Indian slide guitar with all of these resonant strings, of course lap steels and things of that nature, but I decided I wanted to keep it kind of Americana sounding. The National fit into that. All the rest I did on my favorite Beard guitar.

Speaking of formative years, I’m curious if there are any younger Dobro players that stick out to you, or even influence you?

For sure. As a Dobro player, when I was in my twenties, at a certain point I kinda felt like I had heard everything, because there weren’t all that many. I’d heard all of the Jerry Douglas and Rob Ickes, Mike Auldridge and Josh Graves. There’s a lot to dig into, but compared to any other instrument, there was a much smaller pool of stuff to draw on. It’s been cool as new players come up to hear new styles. I think the first guy that was new when I first moved to Nashville was Randy Kohrs. He had a technique that nobody else had.

Out of that came a couple of younger players that I really love like Josh Swift, who played in Doyle Lawson’s band for years. His technical ability is just insane — nobody else can do what he does. There’s a young guy named Gaven Largent who I remember teaching when he was probably 12. There’s a guy named Tommy Maher, who plays in a band called Fireside Collective. Andy Dunnigan from the Lil Smokies, he uses the Dobro very lyrically, and he’s the lead singer too. I love seeing that — a lead singer Dobro player!

I’d say one of my biggest influences in recent years is Roosevelt Collier, a lap steel player. I met him in 2013, on JamCruise, and of course became fast friends with the slide guitar connection. We stayed in touch and actually did a record together a few years back. Roosevelt’s very gospel, sacred steel, very singing, very emotive style, is something I’ve really tried to absorb. It just gets you in the chest. 

What do you foresee, or hope, will be the impact of this record?

There’s something about the coronavirus, or the lockdown, that made every part of life simpler. A lot of things got stripped away and we just got down to basics, be it hanging out with our families and making food, or with the music we’re not doing big tours or big production — we’re sitting in our basements by ourselves playing. It’s certainly one of the silver linings of the whole pandemic thing, the simplicity and the sweetness, and that’s what I was feeling with this. It’s just a reflection of me sitting and playing, and hopefully people will relate to that. People have had to strip everything down to being simple, and that’s what this record is. It’s a reflection of that return to the basics that the pandemic has put on us. It’s really forced us to get back to the root of why we do what we do!

Photo credit: Tobin Voggesser

Laurie Lewis & Friends, “Dear Old Dixie (Live)”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner
This edition of Tunesday turned out to be an oddly circuitous task. We often take this space to highlight our Artists of the Month, pointing out instrumentals from throughout their catalogs and across their careers, but for singer, songwriter, guitarist, poet, frontwoman, and long-distance hiker Laurie Lewis, the tunes are simply in too-short supply. Not because they don’t exist, but because Lewis’ cosmic level lyricism tends to eclipse her virtuosic command of the majority of bluegrass’s titular instruments. You may most often see her with a dreadnought strapped around her shoulders, but rest a fiddle there instead and you’re bound to enjoy some of the best bluegrass fiddling — with an even sprinkling of contest style, West Coast country, and the melody-driven old-time of the Pacific Northwest throughout.
In this clip from a live performance on The Texas Connection in 1992, Lewis is joined by longtime musical partner and bandmate Tom Rozum as well as Sally Van Meter, Alan Munde, Peter Rowan, Peter McLaughlin, and Cary Black on a sleek and stupefying rendition of “Dear Old Dixie.” It’s a banjo number, naturally, so Munde kicks it off with an uncharacteristically normative, Scruggs-like play through the melody. The remaining bandmates each take a turn, but the fire’s really lit when Lewis saws out her own solo, reminding all of us that she only ends up placing herself behind the guitar more often than not because she chooses to. With slippery, deliciously dissonant double stops she capitalizes upon the signature energy and showmanship concentrated within every note, every bow stroke, and every string pluck she issues.
While a quick stroll through her catalog, especially on streaming platforms, may not immediately land you in a pile of recordings of burning Bill Monroe tunes, or contemplative waltzes, or danceable hornpipes, you’ll probably find yourself confounded by the natural imagery, tender emotion, and raw spiritual power of her lyrics instead. That’s understandable. With a little digging, though, that picture of a legendary artist’s work can be expanded to include lifelong rations of indomitable pickin’ like this, too. And it ought to.

Photo courtesy of the artist.