This month, BGS is celebrating 100 years of the Grand Ole Opry! It would be hard to overstate the influence of the Opry on American roots music – hell, on music in general – over the past century.
From Earl Scruggs joining Bill Monroe to create the sound of bluegrass; to DeFord Bailey becoming the first Black Opry star and the first Black musician to break into the commercial music scene in Nashville; to the legendary meeting of Johnny Cash and June Carter; the Opry has been a catalyst for so many iconic moments. Below, we kick off our “Artist of the Month” celebration with our Opry 100 Essentials Playlist, which includes some of our favorite live recordings from the Opry, songs famously debuted on that legendary stage, and some of our favorite roots songs written about the Opry and its lore, too.
Did you know that Dolly Parton made her first Grand Ole Opry appearance in 1959 at the age of 13 and received three encores? To get a sense of how young Dolly might have sounded on that stage, we’ve included one of her very first singles, “Girl Left Alone,” (the B-side of the now well-known “Puppy Love”), recorded when she was just 11 years old and released the same year as her Opry debut.
Elvis famously made his Opry debut in 1954 at the age of 19, singing “Blue Moon of Kentucky” in a style that was so poorly received a manager told him to “go back to driving a truck,” or something of that nature. You can hear his rockabilly version on our playlist.
In 1969, Linda Martell was the first solo Black woman to perform on the Opry, singing “Color Him Father” for her debut. Although she faced rampant racism throughout her career, her first performance on the Opry was met with two standing ovations and she went on to perform there 12 times over the years.
The Opry has also been fodder for songwriting, inspiring many tracks over the years. Early Opry star David “Stringbean” Akeman met Bill Monroe while playing semi-professional baseball and went on to play clawhammer-style banjo in his band from 1943 to 1945. After parting ways with Monroe’s band, Stringbean became an Opry star in his own right and penned the song “Opry Time in Tennessee.”
Stringbean and his wife were tragically murdered in 1973 by thieves who had heard of him storing cash in his home. In 2009, Sam Bush released his song, “The Ballad of Stringbean and Estelle,” co-written with Guy Clark and Verlon Thompson. “The thieves laid in wait for hours/ But things didn’t go their way/ But he wouldn’t let go of his Opry pay,” sings Bush on his album, Circles Around Me.
Shortly before the Opry was moved from downtown Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium to the newly built Opry House in 1974, John Hartford released “Tear Down the Grand Ole Opry,” a scathing commentary on the commercialization of country music. “Right across from the wax museum/ They used to line up around the block/ From east Tennessee and back down home again … Broad Street will never be the same,” Hartford sings nostalgically on his legendary Aereo-Plain album.
While the Opry is known as a country music gold standard, over its 100 years as a live-broadcast radio show it has held clout across the genres and in popular culture – not just in country. This year, as part of the celebration of its 100th anniversary, the Opry has been featuring 100 Opry debuts and first-time performances. These special appearances have showcased the broad impact of the Opry, hosting the likes of pop star Sabrina Carpenter who said, “My mom raised me on the artists who have stood up here.”
Whether in country, bluegrass, Americana, or beyond, the Grand Ole Opry continues to be a musical powerhouse, 100 years after its barn dance birth. While we look ahead to the next century of Opry magic, we’re beyond excited to join the Grand Ole Opry family in celebrating Opry 100 for the entire month of November. Enjoy our Opry 100 Essentials Playlist below and relive the Opry 100: A Live Celebration television special on NBC from earlier this year here, too. Plus, stay tuned all month as we have brand new and archive articles, interviews, and features we’ll be sharing here and on socials all spotlighting the incredibly legacy and community of our beloved Grand Ole Opry as we countdown to November 28, 2025 – the Opry’s official 100th birthday!
Lead Image: Opening of the Grand Ole Opry House in 1974, courtesy of Ryman Hospitality Properties.
They always say, “Don’t meet your heroes,” but in the bluegrass world, I’ve mostly found that not to be true. Take Steve Martin & Alison Brown, for instance – two of the most recognizable and veritable banjo players alive today. Earlier this year, I was fortunate enough to join them (along with Rhiannon Giddens and a formidable lineup of bluegrass, folk, and old-time musicians) onstage at the legendary Hollywood Bowl. It was a night I’ll never forget.
And earlier this month, I had the pleasure of rejoining Steve and Alison in conversation about their new collaborative project, Safe, Sensible and Sane, (out now via Compass Records). It’s a beautiful album filled with original songs, guest appearances from musical friends, and a whole lot of banjos.
Hope you enjoy our conversation!
Ed Helms: First of all, let me just say huge congratulations. An album like this is such a big undertaking and this is phenomenal. I’ve been listening to it basically on a loop for the last couple of days. And my family, my kids are loving it.
Steve Martin: Thanks. Thank you. It’s not easy to rope the family in.
I know! My four- and seven-year-old are extremely critical of anything banjo-related. You won them over.
SM: Awesome.
Right off the bat, what jumps out at me about this album is the title – which immediately strikes me as a kind of direct counterbalance or maybe even a rebuke of these unsafe, nonsensical, and totally insane times that we’re living in. I do think that the album title sets such a warm, funny, and welcoming tone that the music then totally delivers on. Am I getting close?
SM: You’re so far. [All laugh]
Tell me what it is. Walk me through.
SM: I’m almost embarrassed to tell you. Alison, should we confess?
Alison Brown: You told us never to tell, but it’s up to you. [Laughter]
SM: When Alison and I were writing songs together, I had come across a book published in the 1930s on how to improve your letter writing. 80 years old, 90 years old, and it had a list of phrases you can use in your letter writing or business letter writing to brighten up your letters. It said things that are formal phrases, like “thank you for the frank statement of your affairs.” And it went on, things like that.
One of them was “safe, sensible and sane.” I just listed these suggestions and I wrote Alison and said, “I think there’s song lyrics in here somewhere.” Alison organized it, so they kind of rhyme, then Alison wrote this tune for it, and Jason Mraz made sense of it. Because the lyrics are actually nonsense, we have noted that the more we listen to it they actually start to make sense in some way.
That is wild. That is such a weirdly specific rabbit hole of where that came from.
Is the banjo itself something that feels safe, sensible, and sane to each of you in some way? Is it a place of home?
AB: For sure. I think so, certainly speaking for myself. It’s definitely been an anchor for me in my life and I noticed, Steve, watching your documentary, how many scenes the banjo was in the background and realizing that it’s been trailing you your whole life, too.
SM: Yeah. I find you’re right, in the sense that it’s not a “dangerous” instrument like the guitar, sure. Which can be naughty. The banjo is safe, sensible, and sane – but the way Alison plays and the way these great banjo [players] turn it into a kind of extraordinary jazz instrument. It’s too bad that most people probably have an idea of what the banjo sounds like and they’re way off.
I think what you’re saying is that the banjo can be edgy.
AB: it can be edgy, but it can be mainstream, palatable at the same time.
SM: Edgy in the sense of avant-garde, yes. There are some. Didn’t you write a 12-tone banjo song, Alison?
AB: I did. I had a chance to produce and play on a track called “Old Atonal Music” and I actually wrote a 12-tone row banjo solo, which–
Oh my gosh.
AB: Which was then analyzed by the classical community. And fortunately it really was a 12-tone row, so that’s about as edgy as you get.
That’s getting out there.
AB: Boy, are we.
This just got so nerdy so fast.
AB: It sure did. I knew that was gonna happen.
The last time I saw you guys, we had the incredible privilege of joining Rhiannon Giddens at her show at the Hollywood Bowl, and I remember showing up to rehearsal for that and you guys were working on what I thought was just “Cluck Old Hen.” I’m watching you and listening and thinking, “What are these lyrics? What is this? This is so funny.”
Of course, now I know that’s “New Cluck Old Hen,” which is on the album. But what I observed that day in the rehearsal stages was just the rapport that you guys share, which seems so easy and effortless, light, fun, and playful – and well earned. It makes me very curious about the origin of your friendship and was it music immediately? Where did you first connect and what was it you saw in each other?
SM: Go, Alison.
AB: Okay, we were on a Caribbean island at the same time by chance, really just by luck. It was a place that we both vacation regularly with our families and I knew we were gonna be down there at the same time that Steve was gonna be down there. We were gonna overlap for a couple of days and Steve suggested we get together for lunch. Of course, banjos had to be involved, so we had a really wonderful lunch and then sat and spent the afternoon playing banjo together, just sonically clicked really easily.
Because Steve and I both really love finding beautiful melodies in the instrument, we’re both in the same pursuit when we’re playing and composing music. Writing this music, it’s been surprising to me how easy it’s been. It is almost like the tunes were just waiting to be written and we just had to pull them outta the sky.
How long ago was that first connection?
AB: I would say maybe about 10 years ago.
Then was it right away, “Let’s start collaborating!” Or did you guys circle back to each other?
AB: It took me a little while to get up the nerve to see if Steve actually would co-write some music together. [Laughs] I got a chance to do a few shows with Steve and Marty [Short] when the Steep Canyon rangers weren’t able to make shows, so we got a chance to jam some more backstage and play some more clawhammer banjo and three-finger banjo, which is my favorite combination. Like chocolate and peanut butter. Clawhammer and three-finger.
I totally agree. It’s so beautiful. And there are a lot of great players that do both, but usually I think most people assume that a song is in an old-time style or in a sort of three-finger style. So to hear [you] two just beautifully mixed together, you guys are really sharing a language that transcends the style of playing. You’re playing very differently, but there is a fluidness.
I think the song “Evening Star,” which might be my favorite on the album, is such a great example of that, starting out with your three-finger, beautiful lilting rolls and melodic runs. Then Steve comes in picking up the same tune in a [clawhammer] style that feels like a really even, woven-in feel. It doesn’t change the feeling of the song in any way. I think that’s a testament to the connection that you guys share musically.
SM: Our roots and love of the banjo are very similar in the sense of Appalachian sound, the Celtic sound, the modal mountain sound. That’s what gets me. We both like to find those melodies that reside within those tunings and history.
And Alison, as I recall, you sent me this beautiful part and I contributed another part and then Alison found– You can tell the story. You found yourself in Dublin?
AB: Yeah, actually that one, I knew that we were gonna be in Glasgow. I dunno if you have ever become acquainted with the music of John McSherry, Mike McGoldrick, and John Doyle, they have a fabulous trio. They’re completely badass Irish players, Celtic players and I knew that it would sound great to play this tune with them. John Doyle in particular, when he plays rhythm guitar, it’s like riding a big wave. They’re also heroes.
SM: They’re heroes of mine, too.
AB: It’s funny, though, because the genesis of that tune was really Steve telling me about a song he wrote called “Canadian Girl” where he was playing clawhammer in 3/4 time. I’d never even thought about the clawhammer playing in 3/4. But it’s so beautiful. Then I tried to write a melody that could work for both.
I think it’s a real testament to Steve’s banjo playing, too – like you were saying, a lot of banjo players will choose a lane. They’re either three-finger or they’re clawhammer. But Steve’s really unique that he plays both. I think that’s part of the reason why our two banjos go so well together, ’cause he completely understands the three-finger thing. But when he’s playing clawhammer, he brings some of that sensibility to it.
SM: You can also play the modality that you find in clawhammer on three-finger. I remember a song I found on a record recorded by Dick Weissman called “Trail Ridge Road” and it was played with picks, but it had this unique– I just call it modality. I’m sorry to keep using that word, but it had this minor sound that just kept rolling. I always loved it. I think that sound stuck with me forever. I even wrote him once to tell him that.
I think your song, “The Crow,” falls in that category, right?
SM: It is in double C. [It has] that drone sound, ’cause you have two strings tuned to the same note. Yeah, that does have a bit of that in there.
That was one of my favorite songs to learn. I found a transcription in a Banjo Newsletter and I was able to work it up and I love it. Another one of my all-time favorite tunes.
SM: Alison told me that banjo players like to play my songs because they’re easy. [All laugh]
How do you guys collaborate? Walk me through that process. Are you sending each other tracks and just saying, “Hey, here’s an idea.” A little melody or a catch or a hook, and then you’re building on it together? Or do you try to make sure you’re in the same space, just steeping the tea together?
SM: All of the above. Garry [West] and Alison flew out to California, where we spent like three, four days there just writing and recording. We got ideas, initial ideas for songs there. Then we started communicating by text and sending song ideas. It’s the new way to write things. It’s everything.
But we did meet and get that sound of two people together. You’re listening to the other player.
AB: That’s the thing, when I get a chance to sit around with Steve and just play, it always gives me more ideas for where we can take the banjo. Or gives me a new way of thinking about what he’s doing that maybe you could expand on. That’s really exciting. But technology’s totally been our friend, so we’ve done a lot of this by just swapping ideas back and forth and it’s amazing how efficiently you can do that.
How frustrating is it that Zoom, the latency of these video conferences, you can’t quite jam.
SM: You cannot play over the internet! You can’t play, you gotta bounce it back and forth.
That’s [why] I flew down to Nashville to record with Vince Gill, so it’d all be in the same room.
You mention flying down to Nashville to work with Vince and others. This album is so much more than just a double banjo album. It’s this grand collaboration. So many special guests, close friends of yours like Tim O’Brien, Aoife O’Donovan, Sarah Jarosz, Vince Gill, Jason Mraz, Jackson Browne, Jeff Hanna, the Indigo Girls – I’m from Georgia, so that’s a huge one for me. I love, love, love the Indigo Girls.
You two obviously have such a deep well of relationships and friendships throughout music. How did you decide who to rope in on these particular songs? What was that decision-making process like?
SM: I’ve said this before, I’m a talk singer. I sing like Robert Preston, The Music Man. I know Alison sings harmony, but she’s never presented herself as a lead singer, as I know. So we’re forced to find someone to sing these songs. A good example is the song “Michael,” which was written without anybody in mind. The lyrics to that are imperfect in the best sense, in a good sense. Sometimes they don’t quite scan out. Sometimes the rhyme is soft.
Alison was at an event with Aoife O’Donovan and said, “Hey, would you mind singing?” And [Aoife] just understood the song so perfectly. You just go, “Oh, that’s it!” There’s no need to look anywhere. She just really knew how to sing it. You’re looking for people who know how to sing these songs. Like Jason Mraz instantly understood “Safe, Sensible and Sane.” He knew that it was in some way humorous, that none of us could figure out why.
Both of those songs have a little international flair to them. “Michael” almost has a samba or Brazilian feel? And then “Statement Of Your Affairs” with Jason Mraz, is it like reggae?
SM: Is it reggae?
There’s something Caribbean there.
AB: It’s definitely Caribbean, yeah.
Really everything sprang from the banjo. The melody for “Michael,” I just wrote that chorus melody as a banjo tune and really could not fathom how you could do anything other than play a newgrass banjo tune with that melody. It was amazing that Steve could set words to it and then he developed this whole story. It was really fabulous.
SM: What I liked is Alison sent me the tune, I listened to it, and it inspired me to a situation, an atmosphere. And she said, “We can change those lines, some of those melodic lines, and shorten ’em.” I say no. That’s what you want, that unexpected line that extends too long or it forces the words to do something tricky. I really like that challenge.
I love your closing number, “Let’s Get Out of Here” [with] Sam Bush, who counts that one in. I’ve heard it said often that Sam Bush is the best drummer in bluegrass. He sets such a great, driving tempo and rhythm.
SM: I couldn’t play without the mandolin! I’d be all over the place, rhythmically.
AB: No, that’s true. There is nothing like Sam’s chop. When Stuart Duncan and I were teenagers, we were presidents of the “Sam Bush Chop Fan Club.” A super nerdy thing.
This is one for both of you. You’re both multifaceted, creative people. You move so effortlessly between different creative disciplines, collaborative contexts, different bands, different musicians, different media and art forms. Obviously, Steve with film and comedy and writing and performing. You’re also a passionate art collector. Alison, you have tremendous business acumen running Compass Records for so long with your husband.
This is a question as a fellow sort of striving, creative person: How do you balance all of it? I always wonder when I see people like you, is this something that you set aside and approach each discipline as a chunk? Or do you feel more like these are constantly interwoven? Is there a seamless overlap of your various disciplines and ideas and you’re just weaving in and out? Or is it more, “I do this for this time” and now, “It’s comedy time. I’m gonna work on this.” How do you break it down?
SM: Go ahead, Alison. I know my answer.
AB: Okay. So mine probably is less interesting, ’cause mine is kinda like that right brain versus left brain thing. I find that sometimes I’ll be doing just banjo for a stretch of time or music or producing a record or getting to go out and play shows. Other times, I’ll be behind the desk doing spreadsheets and financials – that kind of thing. In some kind of bizarre way, the two things inform each other.
I think for me, I spent so many years in school and got an MBA studying finance. I was an investment banker for a while, so there’s part of me that really enjoys doing all that and feels a responsibility to my mom and dad, too, that I do some of that stuff on some kind of regular basis. I have to look analytically at the music business. I think it helps me when I go in the studio to think about positioning a record – whether I’m producing or just writing my own stuff – positioning it for success, because I understand the challenges of the business landscape in a way that if I was just a banjo player, I wouldn’t understand.
Then when I get to go out and play, it’s like a complete relief just to be out and let your mind be a little bit more free. I know you can be structured and disciplined about creating, but it’s a completely different mindset to sit and look at financials than it is to have enough of an expansive view in your mind to be creative for a moment. But, somehow, the two things work together.
SM: I’ll give my answer. Most people have a job. They maybe, let’s say, go to work at nine and they come home at six – or sometimes they work [until] maybe seven or eight. And if they’re gonna do any extracurricular thing, like practice the banjo, they have to do it at night or on the weekend.
But I just wake up. I don’t have a job, so I can have breakfast and have an idea and go pick up my banjo and go play it. There’s a lot of time where you’re just really doing nothing, because you don’t have a job.
I think it really is that concept they used to apply to basketball players, “being in the zone.” Where you don’t have a sense of time. It’s just there and it’s either working or not. And it’s fun, especially at this age where my creative mind is more agile, where I’m not afraid to go other places or think of things. Ideas seem to come without as much angst, because it doesn’t have to be a success. It just has to be fun.
I know Alison hates hearing that. [All laugh]
AB: No, actually. I’m glad to hear that!
SM: The creative part of my life has become really fun. Whether I’m working with Alison or with Marty or live stage shows… or just dinners! Dinners will be fun.
That’s really beautiful and really inspiring and I’m really grateful to both of you for opening up a little bit and talking me through this. Congrats! This is a fantastic album. It’s a really wide pastiche of different ideas and feelings and vibes, and it all works together. So congrats and thank you.
SM: Thank you, Ed. It’s always great to talk with you. And you’re a great player, too. Don’t forget that!
Thanks, guys.
AB: I’m thinking what we need to do is a triple banjo thing!
SM: I’m up for it! We’ll figure it out.
AB: We’ll figure it out.
SM: Fifteen banjo strings. Can’t get enough. You can never have too many.
On a recent afternoon, Paul Hoffman is standing in a parking lot in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Lead singer/mandolinist for Greensky Bluegrass, Hoffman is pacing around the backstage lot before the gig at XL Live that evening deep in reflection about questions posed over the phone – the core of which focus on the upcoming 25th anniversary of the groundbreaking jamgrass outfit. A while back, in the depths of rural New Hampshire, I interviewed Hoffman for another project and I asked him just what the original intent was behind Greensky Bluegrass.
“To play heavy metal music on acoustic instruments,” he replied, a sly grin emerging across his face.
Now, 25 years since its inception, Greensky Bluegrass has adhered directly to Hoffman’s sentiments. These days, the group has become a marquee live act, one which uses its string instruments to transcend all genres of music, whether bluegrass or blues, rock or country, funk or soul – or even heavy metal.
Case-in-point, the ensemble’s latest album, XXV, is not only an ode to a quarter-century of passion, purpose, and performance, but also a mile marker by which Greensky Bluegrass can measure their own road to the “here and now” – this realm where the passage of time doesn’t necessarily matter, only fleeting moments onstage with the ones you love do.
XXV brings together many of those dear friends and collaborators of Greensky – Sam Bush, Billy Strings, Lindsay Lou, Nathaniel Rateliff, Aoife O’Donovan, Holly Bowling, Ivan Neville, Natalie Cressman, and Jennifer Hartswick. Each of these special guests represent chapters of the band’s continued journey to something – somewhere, anywhere – that kind and curious folks congregate in the name of fellowship, compassion, and sonic joy.
With the starting line of Greensky Bluegrass being an impromptu Halloween gig in 2000 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, other pivotal dots pop up quickly along the way. Like the inevitable camaraderie between the group and other Michigan artists like Strings and Lou, who came up in the same scene and have supported each other ever since. Or, like Sam Bush himself – Bluegrass Hall of Famer and the symbolic face of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival – being featured on the project, reminding how the Telluride stage brought Greensky Bluegrass into the national spotlight when they won its famed band contest in 2006.
For Greensky, the friendships made along the way brought endless opportunities to play alongside one another at a show, a festival, or late-night jam. Opportunities that would always be too good to pass up – don’t forget, fun is the original point, and should remain so.
XXV is also a fresh snapshot of Greensky Bluegrass. The songs are pulled from across the entire timeline of the outfit, from their early days in Kalamazoo to the mountains of Colorado. From the bright lights of Nashville to the backroads of Southern Appalachia. From the blue skies of Anytown, U.S.A., to the sandy beaches of some international destination.
After 25 years, what remains is a band of genuine souls where gratitude is only matched by hunger and curiosity for what resides just around the next corner. Greensky Bluegrass, decades later, remain ready to surprise the listener and to carry on the pure intent that emerged those many years ago.
Now that this album’s coming out, whether consciously or subconsciously, the celebration of 25 years is currently underway. What’s been kind of rolling through your mind?
Hoffman: Primarily gratitude. I’d be remiss to not be grateful that we’ve been able to [do this for 25 years]. It’s a celebration, truly. It feels so cool. We’re doing [the anniversary shows] in our hometown and playing the [Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo] for the first time, which we’ve talked about since we were a very young band. And, you know, something interesting I’ve learned is how excited people are about this retrospective project. In true Greensky fashion, it’s this unique, hybrid idea. Like, “What if we did this? What if it took this turn? What if we recorded this and revamped this?”
We didn’t just make a new record, we stopped to reflect and commemorate in a way that was meaningful to us. And it seems like it’s translating. It’s not even out yet. It’s a unique perspective on gratitude that maybe I didn’t expect. [For XXV], I don’t want to say that it was easy or something. Because we did it pretty quickly and we didn’t have to write any material and we didn’t have to make huge choices about how to present it, because there already is an arrangement and an idea. But, in some cases, we did things differently because we could and we were not beholden to some authority on how it needs to go.
[The recording process] was so casual and creative in this really innocent way – “Let’s just record this and see what happens.” And we just kept recording stuff. We didn’t even know what we were going to do next. Every moment is monumental in some way or another, but 25 years is nothing to scoff at. And this all was birthed from, “What could we do?” With making new music and new albums, there’s a pressure to create something better than we’ve ever done. Or genuine to the brand we’ve created and to ourselves, but also exploratory enough [and] a departure from the norm enough that it’s new and exciting. It feels like such a relief to do [XXV], to approach creating new material from a different perspective.
How did you decide on the guests?
I wanted to find guests that celebrate our story, that are close to us and collaborators and such, but also elevated the material in some meaningful way. And there were real pleasant surprises along the way there.
What did it mean to have Billy and Lindsay on the record, seeing as all of you emerged from the same scene in Kalamazoo and have always supported each other?
I mean, to say that it was sort of obvious and natural is probably an understatement. We joked about why we chose “Reverend,” because Billy plays it [live]. But, I also feel it’s an important song. And for me as a writer, it’s kind of a landmark in my journey as a creative. But again, even though I knew [Billy] would crush it on the guitar solo, some of the phrasing choices he makes are subtly different than mine – I love it. And, man, I can’t stress enough, what a gift [“Reverend” is]. I wrote that song almost 20 years ago. It means something different to me now, and it has throughout my life singing that song.
You’ve always been a very sonically elusive band. Was that by design or just how things evolved?
I think that we just have a spirit to not be limited. So, if we want to emulate all the things we love – and we’d love a diverse amount of things, musical things – we honor the acoustic nature of our heritage as a band, but we want so much more. We want [things] to keep us interested and engaged. We’ve allowed ourselves that creative freedom to try anything. And we think we’ve jumped the shark many times. [Laughs]
With getting older, you also start having different perspectives on what you were creating and how you want to present it.
Yeah. You know, art is timeless in some ways, because you can change your opinion about it or the way you relate to it as you mature.
When you had mentioned that you guys “jumped the shark many times,” I think that’s one of the things I appreciate about Greensky – you’re not afraid to just take a leap.
It’s one of my favorite things about musicians I admire, too, are the ones that I watch struggle to either challenge themselves, push themselves, push their boundaries, or convey a message with emotion that’s challenging, you know? If you’re willing to make a mistake, if you’re willing to truly find the line of your capacity, you have to be willing to cross it to know where it is. I’ve always said – in my later maturity – that I wonder if I’ve crossed it too many times, and in sort of a noble quest with noble intentions. [Laughs]
That’s something I love about Billy’s playing a lot. Despite being one of the greatest guitar players I’ve ever seen, I’ve watched him up there grasping for things and struggling. Struggle doesn’t always have to have a negative [connotation]. To not struggle would be complicit and boring.
The upcoming Halloween shows in Kalamazoo are the official 25th anniversary of when the stars aligned, when you, Mike [Bont], and Dave [Bruzza] played together as Greensky for the first time.
When you started asking the question, my brain went to right about now, [25 years ago]. We met [a few] weeks before Halloween. I was a college freshman and I went to this bar called the Blue Dolphin, where there was a bluegrass open mic. I saw Dave and Bont play and approached them after the thing and was like, “Hey, I just bought a mandolin,” that I’d gotten in late August before moving to college. So, I’d only had it for four or five weeks.
I didn’t know what the hell I was doing at all or what bluegrass even was. I bought the mandolin because of David Grisman, who’s so bluegrass-adjacent that I didn’t know who Bill Monroe was. I knew “Shady Grove.” [All of] which is still just a remarkable thing for me to think about. Like, what hell would my life have been had I not made that choice [to play mandolin]? What a bizarre twist of fate and then here we are 25 years later.
So, you guys met and you said, “Let’s jam”?
Yeah. A couple days later, I showed up at Bont’s house for a rehearsal. Him and Dave would just get together and pick. They were both learning bluegrass. Everything was so casual and just for fun. They would have band practices where we would get together and learn songs and stuff. And I just showed up for the next one and then didn’t go away.
What was the name of that [open mic] band?
Greensky Bluegrass. They were already playing as Greensky Bluegrass, which was named by a friend of Dave’s that played mandolin with him a little bit for fun. It was a joke in jest, “Wouldn’t it be funny to have a bluegrass band named Greensky Bluegrass?”
I don’t think I ever knew that you guys were called Greensky before the official [2000] Halloween show.
Well, I mean, what is “official” is interesting to think about. They were already [Greensky]. It wasn’t their first open mic, either. So, the first time the three of us [“officially”] played was the Halloween show. But, I think I joined them at open mics for a week or two or something [before Halloween]. And Halloween was a party. There was a poster made for fun or something. We were on the bill. Dave was in another band called Seeds & Stems. It was a house party in a house that Dave lived in. [Laughs] A pretty wild party, if I may say so.
So, it was billed as Greensky Bluegrass?
“Billed” is still kind of generous. But, yeah, we played a set in the basement and in the living room. I think the living room upstairs was just acoustic and then the jam band played downstairs in the basement, like colleges do, you know? A couple days later, we played a show at a venue in town, Club Soda in Kalamazoo, that was kind of a legendary rock club through the ‘90s and stuff. It was small, but we played there on a triple bill November 5 or something, [just] days later. And that one, I [still] have the poster. I think that was our first paid show.
Were you doing covers or did [Dave and Mike] have originals, too?
They were playing just bluegrass standards for the most part. It’s funny, that [first] night [I met] Dave, he gave me CDs – Seldom Scene, Live at The Cellar Door, a Rounder Records bluegrass compilation, and a Bill Monroe live show. And [he] was like, “Listen to these. See you on Tuesday at Bont’s house.”
In hindsight, man, to be 18 and have that kind of freedom, you know what I mean? I’ve been recently jamming on electric guitar at my house by myself for fun. And I’ve been thinking, “I wonder if I could find some dads around to start a band with for just fun.” And that experience is so foreign to me now, because I’m so immersed in this thing that’s become my life.
Looking back on it, you kind of jumped into the deep end pretty quickly.
I didn’t take a mandolin lesson until COVID. [Laughs] I was self-taught, because I already knew how to play the guitar – “knew how to,” I use that a little loosely, too. Took some [music theory] classes in high school and college and I’m sort of classically trained. But, I was able to teach myself my own instrument for a really long time. I should have sooner harnessed the strength of learning from another, because when I took a lesson during COVID from a friend, I was like, “I should’ve done this a lot sooner.” [Laughs]
You know, so much of what I was learning in those early days was how to express myself as a writer and find my voice. That stuff always superseded my need for technical prowess. I think we all kind of share that sentiment, all five of us – how to present this passion piece is more important than how to do it. We took on this every-other-week gig and stuff like that [in Kalamazoo]. And the commitment to go play shows for the same crowd every other week inspired us to grow, because we needed to. We had that jam band sensibility of satiating the fans. What can we do next week that’ll keep people excited? What can we do that’s new? How can we make this better?
When you look back, you can see where the dots connect. But, when it’s happening in real time, you don’t realize what the domino effect is, where all of a sudden you’ve found yourself in this band that you’re still in 25 years later.
Yeah. I was 18 [when we started the band]. I’ve lived with Dave and Bont for 25 years of my life. I didn’t even live with my parents that long. [Laughs] I’ve spent 200+ days of [every] year of my life with those two guys for 25 years, and the other ones for many years, as well. It’s kind of wild. It’s so cool that we created this project, [which has become] just a celebration of our relationship and that’s so much more important than what it has become. We care about each other and we genuinely have a lot of aligned goals, artistically and personally. We’re still grinding for it, and I’m grateful for what we have.
I think we’ve been very successful. I feel less “grinding” now and more, “Let’s just go and have some fun and play some shows.” Play where people want us to play and not measure our success by how many tickets we sell. And I’m starting to learn that more now. It took 25 years for me to figure out that what we have is great. We’ve got something cool, let’s just keep doing it.
And that’s got to be a nice place to get to, because you don’t get to 25 years by accident. The fact the original three members are still there is amazing, because that story is not that common in the grand scheme of things in this industry.
Even in our culture. It’s not even [common] in business partnerships, families, friendships. And the reality of that – that I’m learning with age – is that relationships change and everything shouldn’t be measured by the testament of time. I want to find value in a moment that is for the sake of “now” and not some transactional [thing]. Like, if I’m nice to you “now,” then we’ll have this friendship that serves us both and we’ll be there for each other. All that kind of stuff is great, but I want to live in the moment.
I think what’s remarkable is that we’ve stayed together, because we’ve all grown and changed in similar ways and our journeys have aligned the whole time, or for the most of the time. We’ve veered away from each other and back to each other many times. But, when one of us has wanted something different, we’ve all kind of shared that desire. In a way, we’ve been able to all be very sincere to ourselves and grow and change together.
I don’t mean to speculate what other bands are like or anything like that, but I don’t have a lot of relationships in my life that have lasted this long. And not just people, but to things like food or activities I enjoy. The only thing maybe is the way I’ve worn my hair for 30 years. [Laughs] When we grow, our tastes change for all things. But, my [creative, intrinsic] tastes for these four other men have not changed.
My new album’s theme, along with the theme of this Mixtape, is a roots-inspired journey through the South, with songs that evoke the feeling of traveling across its landscapes and into the heart of the Deep South. I hope the fans enjoy the journey of these songs and all the sounds and people it takes to make them come to life on Southern Sky – it takes a village.
That village comes to life across the nine-track journey of Southern Sky, where Irish roots fuse with Southern soul driven by Dobros, fiddles, and rich storytelling that soar with Appalachian tradition and Southern warmth. Inspired by the textures of the South, the spirit of the album is like Allen Toussaint’s Southern Nights, where Appalachian tales intertwine with the deep twang of the South.
Southern Sky features a multitude of musical titans – Vince Gill, Tim O’Brien, Ricky Skaggs, and Sam Bush to name a few – all contributing to the exceptional sound that I strive for. – Danny Burns
“Summer in Siam” – The Pogues
I always loved this tune, growing up listening to the Pogues and having met Shane many moons ago.
“My Old Friend the Blues” – Steve Earle
Steve is one of my favorites. I’ve had the honor to sing with him, open shows with him, and hang on his bus. His songs are epic; this is a great example of that.
“Southern Nights” – Citizen Cope
I first met Clarence Greenwood in New Orleans when I was driving him, Neal Casal, and Jon Graboff (the Cardinals) around while they were playing Tipitina’s. I fell in love with Clarence’s songs and his performances. Another great American artist and songwriter.
“Whenever You Come Around” – Vince Gill
I’m a huge fan of Vince and this track is about as good as it gets. I’ve always admired his songs, his voice, and everything he brings to the table.
“Locals Only” – ERNEST
I first heard this song down in Mexico during the pandemic while hanging out on the beach in Puerto Morelos. It became a bit of an anthem for those days by the water.
“Waiting On You” – Cecilia Castleman
A truly killer talent. Cecilia can play, she can sing, and I’m sure her skills as an engineer and producer are just as strong. This song is fantastic.
“Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground” – Willie Nelson
This has always been one of my go-to lonesome Willie tunes.
“That’s How Every Empire Falls” – John Prine
Epic song written by RB Morris out of Knoxville. I love both versions, but it was John’s take that first introduced me to it.
“The Lucky One” – Alison Krauss & Union Station
What can I say about Alison’s voice– absolutely world-class. Pair that with a world-class band, production, and song and it’s just unbeatable.
“Years” – Sierra Ferrell
This is pure ear candy. So intriguing and instantly captivating. It feels amazing and sounds incredible. Perfect work!
“Colony” – Damien Dempsey
A heavy hitter in the Irish scene, this track is a prime example of his finest work.
“Settle For A Slowdown” – Dierks Bentley
I really loved this album; it feels like a perfect introduction to where country meets bluegrass with a modern twist.
“Señor” – Tim O’Brien
Love Tim and his take on this epic Bob Dylan song.
“Linger” – Áine Burns
Love Áine’s take on this Cranberries hit – can’t wait to hear more from her before the year’s end.
This feature ought to start with a laundry list of our subject’s accomplishments, but rootsy country hitmaker Dierks Bentley’s résumé and inventory of accolades, awards, and trophies would be far too long to include. After 30+ years in Nashville, Bentley has more than made it and his particular brand of country – down-to-earth approachability, bro-ey (while remarkably non-toxic) good-time vibes, honeyed crackling vocals, an unwavering sense of humor, and fierce love for bluegrass virtuosity – has now gained such a strong gravitational pull, it continues to shift Music Row. (For the better, of course.)
In June, Bentley released his eleventh studio album, Broken Branches, and launched an eponymous continent-spanning tour with everybody’s favorite, fellow trad country lover Zach Top, and swampgrass North Georgia duo the Band Loula in tow. Broken Branches features guests like Miranda Lambert, Riley Green, John Anderson, and more and – like all of the albums in his expansive Dierkscography – quite a few string band- and bluegrass-inspired moments, as well.
The Broken Branches Tour, which has been clipped and shared thousands and thousands of times on social media over the past several weeks, includes many hits, striking sets and theatrical tech, cameos from the infamous Hot Country Knights, and, yes, plenty of bluegrass. On the set list, Bentley and Top duet on an incredible “Freeborn Man” – we’re leaving out spoilers here so you can catch the tour’s scant remaining dates yourself and still be delighted. Bentley also performs the title track from his hit bluegrass album, 2010’s Up On The Ridge, and Logan Simmons and Malachi Mills of The Band Loula join him elsewhere in the set for a delicious bit of church.
Singing a Bill Monroe bluegrass gospel number in tight, intricate three-part harmony may seem like an odd choice for a big mainstream country arena show, but longtime fans and listeners of Bentley will know this is no aberration. This is the norm. Whatever the sonics of his music, from the most poppy and radio-ready country to the more Americana-coded to straight-ahead bluegrass, classic rock, and New Orleans grooves (and back again), Bentley brings bluegrass with him everywhere he goes. He brings its pickers, legends, and unsung heroes, too, uplifting them for all to enjoy.
When Mills, Simmons, and Bentley step to the center stage of an enormous auditorium or amphitheater to sing “Get Down On Your Knees and Pray,” depicted behind them on towering LED screens is a little log cabin dive bar with a neon cross steeple and a flickering “open” sign. As they lead the audience in the stark, convicting, hair-raising number – with grit and heart and endless spirit – you realize, yes, this is church. This is gospel. This is country and bluegrass, front porch music and arena music. This is Saturday night and this is Sunday morning.
It’s hard to imagine all of these intricate roots music details not only being palpable in a show of this scale, but they’re also measured, vulnerable, and intimate – traits not known as hallmarks of either country or bluegrass. It’s here that we find exactly the conglomeration of reasons why Bentley retains such widespread appeal and adoration from fans of all entry points. While neither he nor any other artist is universally loved, Dierks Bentley accomplishes being the modern country “everyman” not by diluting himself and his personality beyond recognition, but by purposefully, creatively, hilariously – and spiritually! – putting all of himself on the line in his music.
Before the Broken Branches tour launched earlier this summer, Good Country sat down backstage with Dierks Bentley and the Band Loula during a break from tour rehearsals, after the trio had just run through “Get Down On Your Knees and Pray.” We spoke about what bluegrass means in a country context, the appeal of gospel to folks of any (or no) faith, tent revivals and camp meetings, the joys and vulnerabilities of singing harmony, and much more.
Obviously, Dierks, across your entire career you’ve had a relationship with bluegrass. And not just Up On The Ridge, which we just heard you rehearse a bit of for the Broken Branches Tour. You’ve got records and posters on the wall at the Station Inn here in Nashville, you namecheck Keith Whitley on the new album. You’ve worked with the McCourys over and over, Charlie Worsham, an excellent bluegrass picker, is in your band. There are so many more bluegrass touchpoints. Your bluegrassy CMA Awards show appearance last year was very popular with our audience.
And for y’all, the Band Loula, you call yourself “swampgrass.” The harmonies clearly have the grit and the gospel of bluegrass and the timbre of how your voices blend together reminds me of bluegrass.
It might be an obvious question to ask, but I figured we could go around the circle here and get each of your takes on what does the genre mean to you? What’s your relationship with bluegrass? What does bluegrass mean to you in the constellation of country music that you make now?
Dierks Bentley: When I think about bluegrass, obviously it’s the music and all that, but really it’s just people with acoustic instruments gathering to play and sing together. I never really did a lot of stints on my own, solo. Probably I’m not good enough, but bar gigs where I was just doing cover songs never really interested me. I always liked being in a band. I love the way this instrument talks to that instrument, this voice talks to that voice, and this voice gets added and– “Whoa!”
Like the Osborne Brothers, they’re switching harmonies. Sonny is singing the high tenor, then the next thing you know, he is on like a low baritone part. The voices, the way they move around. That’s the main thing, that’s what drew me in when I walked into the Station. And there were guys my age. I always thought bluegrass was kinda like Hee Haw stuff. I walked in and I was like, “Oh my God, there’s guys my age.”
It was about just playing songs together. And they were doing a lot of Merle Haggard songs, George Jones songs mixed in. Johnny Cash songs mixed in with Stanley Brothers, the Osborne Brothers, and all that too. So it was just, “Wow.”
It’s more about the community of people congregating through and with their instruments. And using those to have fun – and drinks as well. [Laughs] Lotsa drinks, a lot of moonshine back then. The real stuff! No label on it.
Not 30 proof. [Laughs]
DB: That’s what it means to me and that’s what I hear in [The Band Loula’s] music, a lot of, if you want to call it, “front porch” picking music. Picking their roots – you know, deep, Southern gospel-y kind of roots, the mixing of that, and those voices together.
That’s what bluegrass has always been to me. It’s about the community as much as it is about the instrumentation and the bands. It’s the great community of people.
(L to R): Logan Simmons and Malachi Mills (of the Band Loula) confer with Dierks Bentley during rehearsals for the Broken Branches Tour. Photo by Zach Belcher.
Logan Simmons: I’ll say something that comes top of mind for me. I spent my whole life going to tent revivals. It’s not just, “I go and it’s summer camp, ’cause somebody made me.” It’s like the pinnacle of who I am.
I really believe that it’s the pillar of my family. We go for about 10 to 15 days every year. It’s beside my nanny’s house, and all it is, red-back hymns and bluegrass. The service happens every night and you go for about an hour and a half before service starts, before preaching starts, to hear bluegrass, gospel bands.
That’s how I learned harmonies, hearing all my godmothers and aunts sing the wrong ones around me. [Laughs] And you’ll hear somebody over there, Linda’s like [sings operatically and off-tune] and she’s not on it at all. But I was at least learning something and I feel like with my roots in general, it already infused that bluegrass sound into my life.
Then when Malachi and I became friends and started making music together. He has a lot of Motown roots. I think, blended together, the blues and bluegrass just made something beautiful. And, on top of that, the family harmony we have together. We’ve been friends forever, half our lives.
Malachi Mills: It all comes back to blues, yeah. And just like you said, that cross-pollination of the different genres. North Georgia is like the southern point of Appalachia. Like she said, it really influences the music we make by our harmonies. That’s the biggest thing we take from it. I love bluegrass music, but I’m not like a bluegrass buff. I would lose at bluegrass trivia. [Laughs] But it’s just in our bones and in the harmonies that she was talking about. Growing up in church and everything influences the way that we sing together and the notes that we pick whenever we’re singing harmonies. One of the biggest things that I love about bluegrass is the rhythm and pocket. And the intonation of the instruments. Bluegrass players choose to be intentional about [all of] it, the pocket, the timing, the tuning. It’s all so dead on. The details matter when you’re making records.
Dierks Bentley and band give Good Country and members of the media an exclusive sneak peek at their Broken Branches Tour set at rehearsals in May 2025 in Nashville. Photo by Zach Belcher.
I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s striking that y’all have this bluegrass song as part of this big, arena-sized stage show. Because for me, translating those details in such a big space and in such a broad format could be really hard.
Then I hear and see y’all singing in three parts with a neon cross behind you and suddenly yes, this is church. This is what it is. Any close-singing harmony vocals are great, but when it really sounds like bluegrass to me is when you can hear the reeds of your voices match up when you’re harmonizing. That was a really beautiful moment.
Could you talk a little bit about capturing those details for a big audience in big rooms like this – or even outside, in amphitheaters. How do you take a Bill Monroe gospel song and translate it to that space?
DB: Well, there’s “Bluegrass” Ben Helson out there walking the hallways. Ben and a couple other guys in the band have played with Ricky Skaggs. Ben played with Ricky and Tim [Sergent] still plays with Ricky. I always say, if you can graduate from the Ricky Skaggs school of bluegrass and country music, you’re probably a pretty good musician. He also played with Rhonda Vincent.
I’m a big Del McCoury fan. They did [“Get Down on Your Knees and Pray”] and Del has such a cool version of it. We were just kinda thinking of songs to do with these guys that would be great using their voices. Like [they] said, they’re the blues and bluegrass. I’m still trying to figure out their sound. It’s such a unique mixture; it’s so Americana in the way that in this country we have this melting pot of stuff. We thought it would be cool to do a little three-part thing, so that one came up.
Marty Stuart also did a really cool version of that song. But Ben [Helson], our guitar player really came up with that [arrangement], leaning into the swampy stuff they do. Gave it that feel, a little Southern – I don’t know what the vibe is there, but that telecaster is playing and it just has a cool kind of dirty, bluesy vibe to it. Then working up the harmonies, there’s just something about hearing a cappella bands.
I remember seeing Billy Strings at a bluegrass festival years ago and the band all stopped – no one knew who he was back then. Bryan Sutton had told me who he was, so I was where he was. He played like a Thursday set in the middle of the day. They had just done three songs and then they stopped and did a four-part harmony thing. There’s just something about it that’s so powerful. It goes straight to your soul.
The oldest version of entertainment there was was probably harmonizing. Finding people, seeing how your voices sound together, it’s a weird, cool thing. Singers talk about it all the time, in any genre of music about how seeing how we sound together is an intimate thing.
It’s vulnerable and it’s immediately establishing that community that you’re talking about. “We may not be a band, but now we’re a thing.”
DB: I feel like I blend well with anybody, because I’m like the condition. I sing it pretty straight here and allow the people around me to really do their stuff. I’m just gonna hold the line. There’s like nothing special about my voice, but it’s good to blend with ’cause other people have these amazing voices. They can do a lot of movement and a lot of great vibrato. I’m like the dumbest Del McCoury School of Bluegrass [student], just find that note and put everything into it. [Laughs]
Not to mention, introducing people to bluegrass as well – I love that. You have a chance to be a bridge to your heroes and that is always fun. People have been that to me, Marty Stuart probably the biggest. You get into Marty Stuart’s music and you find out who he likes, and then, whoa! He brings you back there. So [I hope] this turns somebody onto Bill Monroe. That’s pretty cool.
Dierks Bentley has a quiet moment on stage during rehearsals for the Broken Branches Tour. Photo by Zach Belcher.
Country – a lot like blues, R&B, and the early days of rock and roll – it has this often tempestuous and inspiring relationship between the fun of Saturday night and the conviction of Sunday morning. So seeing y’all sing that song in front of the depiction of a church as a dive bar, complete with a neon cross and a flickering “open” sign – to me that’s “a little bit holy water, a little bit Burning Man” epitomized. You guys are embodying that relationship between the sacred and the secular here. And that duality is all over your new album, too, Dierks.
MM: I’ll say, I think that one of the biggest things that contributes to that is the goosebump, hair-standing-up-on-your-arm feeling. It’s knowing that you have a part in something and whenever you sing and play bluegrass music together, you have to give way to one another on stage. So it’s the whole stage saying we’re doing this very intentionally in unity, in harmony.
And everybody in the crowd, whether they know that or not, they feel it. That’s what I think people feel. Even if you’re not a believer and maybe the message that’s being said [doesn’t apply], but you still resonate with serving each other. With being present, which is a strong energy. I think that’s what makes me excited about playing this song. I don’t know what’s gonna happen emotionally for me whenever that moment happens, ’cause it’s gonna be so much of that unified energy.
DB: Unified energy is a good way of putting it. It’s unified and it really is energy.
We’re pretty involved with the church. I have an older daughter who’s involved in the church and another middle daughter who doesn’t believe it like I did. But there’s something divine that you just can’t ignore, whether you believe it or not – just look at a sunset, look at a flower, look at a fish, look at so much unnecessary beauty in the world. There’s just some energy that exists and you can’t deny it when you sing a song like this. It just taps [something] on anybody. Recognizing how small you are in this world and the power of whatever version of prayer you do.
LS: I liked how you said it joins secular and holy together and that actually made me think of the tent revival, as well. I think growing up in Appalachia, like Malachi said – I wish I could just teleport you there so you could experience!
DB: That would be cool, a tent revival – I can’t even imagine.
I haven’t been to a camp meeting or revival in so long!
LS: Everybody’s invited to camp meeting. I don’t know if you’d love it. Our tent – I say tent, it’s like a shack on a square, it’s like a big square, four sides. So we’ll say, “Are you on the upper line or the lower line?” We’re on the upper line, which is not a good thing. It’s like you think upper line is like uppity people or something, but it’s not. Our shack is the oldest and [most] untouched of the whole campground. It was built in 1846.
DB: Wow!
LS: So there’s holes in the roof and like, my bunk bed, I get water drops on my head if it rains. There’s hay floors, there’s no air, and there’s a lot of us, so it’s all packed in there. But camp meeting is where I learned my first Bible verses and where I smoked my first joint. [Laughs] So it all marries together how you said, like holy and secular at the same time. I think of that picture of going to the gospel tent revival, going to camp meeting, singing those red-back hymns, doing all those things – but then also learning the grit of growing up.
I just loved when you said joining those things together, because that was such a representation of my upbringing. Yeah, it’s a little bit holy water, a little bit Burning Man. It’s definitely Saturday nights and Sunday mornings – and the tent revival is where I feel like those two worlds are so evident.
Dierks, in all you’ve done across your career there are all these bluegrass moments. The country that you “grow,” it’s mainstream, it’s radio-ready, but it’s like there’s bluegrass in the “soil” you grow it in, so you can always taste bluegrass in everything you do. Like on the new record, “Never You” with Miranda Lambert feels that way and “For As Long As I Can Remember”–
DB: There’s a little “Circles Around Me” by Sam Bush [reference] there at the top of that song.
Oh my gosh, yeah! Exactly what I’m talking about.
You said a little bit earlier turning people onto your heroes always feels great, but for you, from your own perspective being that guy that used to just hang out at the Station Inn and now being the Dierks Bentley and going on tour in sheds and arenas and amphitheaters… Why do you keep bluegrass with you?
Dierks Bentley: It is selfish in a lot of ways. I have such a great band and I just take so much joy watching them do cool stuff that I can’t do. It’s like our guitar player, Ben, he’s just an unbelievable flat picker. Charlie Worsham’s in our band and Charlie won the CMA Musician of the Year. He is just an incredible musician. Dan [Hochhalter] is an incredible fiddle player. Tim is so underutilized. Our steel guitar player – who plays banjo and everything else – he’s one of the best singers to me. Hearing him is like hearing Merle Haggard. He sings like nobody else, but he’s also so underutilized. And Steve’s been playing with me since 1999.
It’s just a great group and we love bluegrass music, featuring that, and having the music part of the show. I like being in a band setting, so just getting to be around it and hear these instruments swirling around me playing, I think it’s just cool.
I got a chance to play ROMP Festival last year and I feel lucky to be friends with guys like Jerry Douglas and Sierra Hull and have them come up on stage and play with us. I still think bluegrass music is the punk rock of country. It’s just the coolest genre of music there is.
It’s gotta be centering or grounding to a certain degree just to have that as something you can go back to, to feed yourself and fill yourself back up even while you’re touring.
DB: Absolutely. In the show we go from playing Tony Rice to John Michael Montgomery. We play bluegrass with the Hot Country Knights with costumes on. It’s just it’s all very selfish! It’s like, “How can I have a lot of fun in the next 90 minutes?”
I wanna do our radio country. I want people singing songs back, because that’s a great feeling. I want to get a little bluegrass in there. Just see if we get away with that. Then, can we try to get canceled on the way out? [Laughs] I dunno. It’s really fun for me. And having these guys [out with us] and getting to harmonize with them, it’s gonna be really fun. Check back in a few months, see how it turned out.
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When it comes to the rich, vibrant musical landscape that is American music, few bands have the sonic range, technical capabilities and curious prowess as that of Leftover Salmon — bluegrass to blues, country to Cajun, rock to roots, jazz to jam.
And it’s that jam element at the melodic core of Salmon. They jam under the cascading snowflakes atop a Colorado ski slope or with beads of sweat rolling down their faces in the backwoods of Florida. They jam early in the morning or way late into the night. They jam for massive crowds or simply for themselves. What matters most is the music and where it can take you, onstage and on the road.
Though Salmon is in the midst of its 35th anniversary celebration, the actual timeline goes back four decades, where, in 1985, a young guitarist named Vince Herman took off from West Virginia in search of the “mythical bluegrass scene” in Colorado.
His quest eventually led him to a bar in Boulder one night, the same evening a talented multi-instrumentalist, Drew Emmitt, was performing onstage in the Left Hand String Band. The sign on the door said “Live Bluegrass Music Tonight,” so Herman strolled in.
From there, the duo became inseparable, ultimately joining forces in 1989 to play a New Year’s Eve gig in Crested Butte under the name Leftover Salmon (a combination of Emmitt’s band moniker and Herman’s short-lived Colorado group The Salmon Heads).
With Salmon’s latest album, Let’s Party About It, the outfit once again rises to the occasion, providing soothing, feel-good tunes that radiate gratitude, graciousness, connectivity and compassion in a modern era of uncertainty, confusion and fear.
Backstage before a show in Asheville, North Carolina, Herman and Emmitt talked at length about the road to the here and now. In simplest terms, Leftover Salmon is currently riding a big wave of popularity and cultural importance — a high-water mark of its legend, lore and legacy.
What spurred you to go to Colorado in 1985?
Vince Herman: It was fall [in Morganton, West Virginia]. It was getting cold in this place I was living, which was in an attic of a house that we were remodeling. It didn’t have any heat. I went to college there [at the West Virginia University] and had six credits to go. I kind of ran out of motivation and it was getting cold. We just figured it was time to do something else.
Why Colorado?
Well, it was the bluegrass scene there. I was playing a lot of old-time and some bluegrass in West Virginia. And I knew there was a progressive bluegrass scene based around the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. The band Hot Rize was in Boulder, which was a major influence on me. So, I figured Boulder would have a good progressive bluegrass scene. And it sure did, proven by pulling up and seeing a “Live Bluegrass Music Tonight” sign [at a bar].
Did you drive across the country by yourself?
No, I came across with a guy named Lou Pritchard. There’s all kinds of Pritchards in the music business. He’s a teacher [now] in southern West Virginia. So, I threw the dice and sold a guitar to make the trip. We lived the first week in a storage shed. We rented it. It was a storage shed, but hell, it had power, you know? [Laughs] The plan was, “Let’s go to Colorado and see what happens.” Lou was thinking about starting a brewery because small breweries were just made legal. I ended up getting a job cooking in a restaurant and just playing tunes on the Boulder Mall. [Back in West Virginia], I was playing for free beer and somebody’s wallet, played a little bit in a Grateful Dead band called Nexus. But nothing professional in any way.
Were there aspirations to start a band and really give it a go?
Yeah, definitely. It was, “Go to Colorado and find like-minded players.” I didn’t know for sure whether I’d have a music career, but other things were totally unsatisfying. I’ve had a lot of jobs, man. I’ve been a cook, bartender, fisherman, roofer, painter, landscaper. I’ve done all the jobs you can imagine. But this is by far the best.
So, your first night in Boulder, the stars align. You walk in on a bluegrass jam and run into Drew, who’s been with you since that moment.
VH: Yeah, it’s been 40 years. I said hello [to Drew] that night and, I guess, it was probably six or nine months later I was in the Left Hand String Band. I did about a year there, and then they got a better guitar player. So, I started The Salmon Heads after I got kicked out of Left Hand. [Laughs]
You told me one time that if you tried out for Salmon now, you wouldn’t get in.
Oh, for sure. Definitely. My philosophy has always been to be the worst player in any band I’m in. So, it has served me well over the years. [Laughs]
So, New Year’s Eve 1989, you form Leftover Salmon.
We went through every combination of those two band names — Left Hand String Band and The Salmon Heads — and stuck with Leftover Salmon for the first night, never knowing it would be any more than one night of a gig [in Crested Butte]. The older the tune, the more the bluegrass stomp kind of thing would go on, people would slam dance. We were like, “Something’s good about this.” And we had a bunch of gigs the next morning. All the bar owners talked to each other. There was no plan [to form a group], but we got all those calls the next morning to book the band.
[Drew Emmitt enters the backstage area and sits down.]
What about for you, Drew? You and Vince have been together for 40 years. What was it about Vince that you felt this was a guy you wanted to play with?
Drew Emmitt: Well, I came from more of a bluegrass-serious kind of world. And I always loved the lightness that Vince always brought to the music, all the fun. Playing music with him was always fun, and singing with him. He’s got a very powerful voice. We both sing kind of loud, so we sing well together. The lightness and the fun factor — that’s what, in so many ways, has driven this band. It’s just always been fun. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been onstage just laughing hysterically because there’s so much madness going on.
I’ve been following you guys for almost 20 years and, no matter what kind of day your day is, you’ll always have fun at a Salmon show. And it seems, lately, that there’s a reinvigoration in the band, a few more logs being thrown on the fire.
VH: Absolutely. Jay Starling on keys, dobro and lap steel adds a great element to it, you know? And [drummer] Alwyn [Robinson] and [bassist] Greg [Garrison] together in the rhythm section. It just brings such energy to it. And Drew, [banjoist] Andy [Thorn] and I just get to ride on that stuff.
What is it about Drew that works for you?
VH: He’s relentless, man. (Turns to Emmitt). You hit that mandolin and just get that tremolo going — nobody like it. It sure gets a crowd riled up.
You have a new album out. What does it mean that people still believe in what the band is and what the band does?
VH: Hot Rize was a real major influence. I saw Tim [O’Brien] and was like, “Okay, so we’ll be in this little musical niche.” It’s never going to be the Rolling Stones or Pink Floyd level kind of stuff. But, it could be this niche that I could age in and stay in, and be able to do it for a long time. That’s kind of what the folk/bluegrass world looked like to me. I just feel very lucky to have kind of imagined that so many years ago, and to have actually lived it. It’s pretty unusual and I’m incredibly grateful.
What’s been the biggest takeaway from this journey thus far?
DE: The fact that people are still coming to see us. And it’s still working, and actually working better than it ever had. The fact that we can keep playing this and that it’s still relevant. And there’s this scene that has built up around this music. There’s a lot of different bands out there that are building the momentum, [with] probably the main driver of that would be our buddy, Billy Strings.
And you guys blazed a lot of that path Billy’s walking on.
DE: And we followed in a blazed path. We came up behind the people that blazed it for us. And then we contributed our part of it, which was maybe adding a little more rowdiness, a little more rock and roll. But, keeping with that progressive thing that we learned from Hot Rize, New Grass Revival, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Old & In the Way — bands that were pushing the limits of bluegrass. I love traditional bluegrass, but it’s so fun to take traditional bluegrass and do crazy stuff with it.
Traditional bluegrass gives you the tools to do whatever you want.
DE: Exactly. Because it’s an art form, and you’ve got to learn it if you want to play bluegrass, which I’m still working very hard at, trying to learn to how to do it. What this band has brought to the scene is a levity, a fun factor. Over the years, so many of these amazing musicians have sat in with us, and they always have such a good time because it’s just wide open. Like, for instance, when Sam Bush sits in with us, he has such a good time ‘cause we just let him go.
Is that by evolution or by design, that ethos?
VH: I guess it has a lot to do with the Grateful Dead. You know, really saying, “It’s okay to have fun with music.” Go out looking for stuff in the middle of a jam. It gave us permission to do that, and [the Dead] brought so many people to bluegrass.
DE: And I hope we can keep doing it for a while. I hope that I can keep looking across the stage and seeing Vince for a long time. I’m glad to still be onstage with this guy. [Turns to Herman]
VH: I just keep being reminded of the importance of community, and helping us all get by with this [music]. Thank God we have music in the midst of all this chaos [of modern society], something that brings people together under a positive banner, and reinforces the humanity in all of us — there ain’t nothing better than music to do that.
Editor’s Note: Don’t miss Leftover Salmon and so many other great artists on the BGS stage at Bourbon & Beyond 2025. More info at bourbonandbeyond.com.
You Gotta Hear This! It’s another excellent roundup of track and video premieres plus new music arriving on digital “store shelves” today. There’s bluegrass, folk, Americana, and more.
Kicking us off, Kentucky’s Bibelhauser Brothers enlist their hero and friend Sam Bush on their rendition of “One Tin Soldier,” from their upcoming album, Down The Road. As an added bonus, Aaron Bibelhauser and Sam Bush had a nearly hour-long chat about the track, too – you can find and watch that video below. Also in a bluegrass space, Irish ‘grasser Danny Burns offers his cover of “Brother Wind,” a modern classic written by Tim O’Brien. Dan Tyminski joins Burns on the track, which does O’Brien and Darrell Scott’s versions of the song justice, for sure.
Alt- and indie-folk outfit JOSEPH return with new music, bringing us a video for their new track, “Bye and Bye,” borrowing a classic and often ecclesiastical line to explore growth, loss, and the drawn out transformations life brings each of us – while tipping their hat to a bar by the same name. You can also hear Appalachian mountain music duo the Wildmans perform “Autumn 1941,” a song co-written by Berklee’s Mark Simos and Roger Brown that touches on the harrowing reality of eugenics in the mountains of the Southeast.
East Nashville’s favorite band of lovable bluegrass delinquents, East Nash Grass, released a new single earlier this week, too! Don’t miss the excellent and lovely “Followin’ You,” written by ENG guitarist James Kee and new Travelin’ McCourys fiddler Christian Ward especially for Maddie Denton to sing. Plus, Nick Dumas is readying a bluegrass album, offering our readers a peek at a new video for “Where Have You Been,” a song about how sometimes folks you love “go away” without actually leaving.
There’s still more fantastic roots music, though! Award-winning fiddling phenoms Deanie Richardson and Kimber Ludiker are teaming up on a twin-fiddle album coming soon from Mountain Home Music Company; you can hear “Cacklin’ Hen,” the first offering from that project, below. And, wrapping us up this week, Jessica Willis Fisher went into the studio with Bryan Sutton playing guitar and mandolin to record the heartfelt and touching, “Seeds,” a country/Americana flavored track about interrupting generational cycles of pain and trauma and refusing to reap the seeds someone else may have sown in your heart and mind.
It’s quite the collection of music, and, as we say every week: You Gotta Hear This!
Bibelhauser Brothers, “One Tin Soldier” (Featuring Sam Bush)
Artist:Bibelhauser Brothers Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky Song: “One Tin Soldier” featuring Sam Bush Album:Down The Road Release Date: May 15, 2025 (single) Label: Common Loon Records
In Their Words: “Our latest collaborative effort, ‘One Tin Soldier,’ marks the first studio version of the familiar song that features Sam Bush singing and playing mandolin. The Father of Newgrass jumped right in as an honorary Bibelhauser Brother on this fourth single from our forthcoming album, Down The Road, slated for release this October. (I actually had a candid, nearly hour-long conversation with Sam on video to chat about the track – check that out here.) With his help, we’ve made an honest attempt to frame this song as a missing link in ‘newgrass’ history, connecting the dots between some larger-than-life personalities quintessential to the evolution of the bluegrass world. Much like many of our heroes, we’d like to keep the traditional torch burning bright, while igniting our own flame, fusing elements of blues, country-rock, and soul with our primordial bluegrass sensibilities.” – Aaron Bibelhauser
Track Credits: Sam Bush – Mandolin, vocal Adam Bibelhauser – Vocal, bass Aaron Bibelhauser – Vocal, guitar Steve Cooley – Banjo Jeff Guernsey – Fiddle
Danny Burns, “Brother Wind” (Featuring Dan Tyminski)
Artist:Danny Burns Hometown: Donegal, Ireland Song: “Brother Wind” featuring Dan Tyminski Album:Southern Sky Release Date: May 16, 2025 (single); August 22, 2025 (album) Label: Bonfire Recording Co.
In Their Words: “I first discovered ‘Brother Wind’ on the Transatlantic Sessions on BBC many moons ago. I’ve had the great pleasure of knowing Tim O’Brien and working with him — he was one of my very first collaborators in Nashville when we cut a few songs at John Prine and Ferg’s Butcher Shoppe [studio]. I asked him about ‘Brother Wind’ and he said, ‘Yeah, you should cut it.’ So, we did — tried to stay true to his original version while adding something new. Having Dan T. come in and sing on it brought it to another level of cool.” – Danny Burns
Track Credits: Danny Burns – Vocals, guitars Dan Tyminski – Vocals Ethan Burkhardt – Upright bass Billy Contreras – Fiddle Matt Menefee – Banjo, mandolin Cody Kilby – Guitars Jerry Roe – Drums
Video Credit: Shot by Ryan Kay at the Station Inn, Nashville, Tennessee.
Nick Dumas, “Where Have You Been”
Artist:Nick Dumas Hometown: Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Song: “Where Have You Been” Album:Where Have You Been Release Date: May 16, 2025 Label: Skyline Records
In Their Words: “Everyone has been in that place – where someone close to you just isn’t there like they used to be, even if they haven’t gone anywhere. This song really struck me because of how real and universal that feeling is. And when Jim Van Cleve came in to mix it, he completely brought out the emotional tension in a way that blew me away. There’s this haunting, almost cinematic atmosphere that he created in the mix – it’s ominous, raw, and it elevates the story in a way that made me hear the song differently. It gave the whole track this weight, like you’re walking through fog trying to find someone.” – Nick Dumas
Artist:East Nash Grass Hometown: Madison, Tennessee Song: “Followin’ You” Album:All God’s Children Release Date: May 13, 2025 (single); August 22, 2025 (album) Label: Mountain Fever
In Their Words: “East Nash Grass was touring Ireland the first time I heard the demo recording of ‘Followin’ You,’ which I was told that our guitar player, James Kee, and our good songwriting pal and fiddler, Christian Ward, had written for me to sing on our upcoming record, All God’s Children. We were on the way to our next gig, driving through scenery too incredible to describe, and I was enchanted by an iPhone recording of Christian playing the guitar and singing this new song. The chorus is simple: following you. That’s all. And right there, in the beauty of simplicity, I understood that we had all been brought together to make this music to share, not because someone told us to or because of any hidden agenda; but purely because there was no other option for us.” – Maddie Denton
Track Credits: Harry Clark – Mandolin James Kee – Guitar Jeff Partin – Bass Maddie Denton – Fiddle Cory Walker – Banjo Gaven Largent – Dobro
JOSEPH, “Bye and Bye”
Artist:JOSEPH Hometown: Portland, Oregon Song: “Bye and Bye” Release Date: May 16, 2025 Label: Nettwerk Music Group
In Their Words: “This song is about being a woman in her late thirties with none of the results she expected from the plans she made – no husband, no house, no kids, no religion. The start of the song came one night when I was getting dinner with my then-girlfriend Talia at a bar called the Bye and Bye on Alberta St. in Portland. Our sister Allie had just quit the band, I was about a year past my divorce, I had a hunch the relationship I was in couldn’t keep going in its current form. I told Talia, ‘I feel like, in a way, I just died. Like everything I am – every bit of identity I’ve had – is over.’ I started crying in the way that isn’t tidy so I ran to the bathroom and let the tears rip. It had been a rough few days and as I sat on the toilet lid bawling I opened my notes app and typed ‘Crying in the bathroom of the Bye and Bye/ Saturday’s mascara in my eye/ it’s Tuesday.’” — Natalie Closner
Artist:Deanie Richardson & Kimber Ludiker Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee; Silver Spring, Maryland Song: “Cacklin’ Hen” Release Date: May 16, 2025 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “I’ve been a Kimber Ludiker fan for many, many years now since I heard her play at the Grand Master’s Fiddler contest. I was a judge that year and she completely blew me away. I think Kimber is one of the most tasteful, versatile fiddlers that we have in bluegrass music today and the work she’s done with Della Mae speaks volumes for her integrity and her talent. Kimber and I have been talking about doing a twin fiddle record for at least three years now and we’re so glad that we found a home and so glad that we found a place to record this record. Mountain Home has been so generous and good to me and allowed Kimber and I the space to come record this twin fiddle record. And we took it back-old school — just twin fiddles through the whole thing and we’re super excited for you guys to hear some fun music.” – Deanie Richardson
“Deanie Richardson has long been one of my favorite fiddlers and has always been my favorite to play with. We’ve been dreaming about a twin fiddle record for years and Mountain Home is the perfect label to share our excitement and vision. With our bands Della Mae and Sister Sadie, we’ve both had a long commitment to showcase and create a platform for women in this music, and we’re excited to add our fiddling to the canon of tunes in our music. I especially hope young girls will be excited to have more and more recordings of instrumentals played by women to inspire their learning.” – Kimber Ludiker
Artist:The Wildmans Hometown: Floyd, Virginia Song: “Autumn 1941” Album:Longtime Friend Release Date: July 11, 2025 Label: New West Records
In Their Words: “‘Autumn 1941’ is a song Roger Brown, former Berklee College of Music President, co-wrote with Berklee songwriting professor Mark Simos. Mark has written for Alison Krauss, the Infamous Stringdusters, and Del McCoury. Del recently released the other song in this series titled ‘Working for the WPA.’ The ‘Autumn 1941’ story hails from Roger’s North Carolina Appalachian roots, it was passed down through his family and while some of the specifics remain unknown, different versions of this story of eugenics prove to be true across Appalachian regions and more largely other minorities throughout American early-mid 20th century history. Stories of this same movement took place in Virginia and communities like Floyd, our hometown. Once we got into the studio with this song, it just flowed and out of it came a haunting authenticity we hadn’t yet discovered in our music.” – The Wildmans
Jessica Willis Fisher, “Seeds”
Artist:Jessica Willis Fisher Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Seeds” Album:Blooming Release Date: May 16, 2025 Label: Bard Craft Records
In Their Words: “When we’re young, much of our life is shaped in ways we can’t control. Seeds are planted in our life and when we grow up, we can be left reaping the effects of toxic generational patterns. A big part of my life the last few years has been weeding out so many beliefs and habits that, if left to continue to grow, would choke me to death in many ways. Some days are harder than others and I still have doubts that rise up about which way to go in life, how to best move forward, how to heal from the abuse I experienced when I was younger.
“That vulnerability and honesty felt important to include on this record which centers around healing and growth.” – Jessica Willis Fisher
It’s been a decade since Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg became musical and life partners, melding her background in musical theater and singer-songwriter music together with his blues, jazz, and banjo-picking roots. Now, with a new double album, Beacons, their band Nefesh Mountain dives deep into the myriad ways music can serve as a light in dark times.
The album’s eighteen tracks across two discs convey not only a ferocious command of numerous roots styles, but also a level of compassion and empathy lacking from so much topical music.
“We’re always trying to … walk that high wire between trying to provide an escape … and not neglect[ing] what’s so clearly happening day by day to all of us, as we watch the news and look at our phones and feel this fear and anger and depression,” says Lindberg. The news, he adds, has become “this thing that we can’t run from.”
For many artists on the folk/roots continuum, this desire to comment on the state of the world might mean focusing entirely on our current political leadership. For Nefesh Mountain, though, it means relating with their audience on an even more personal level than usual.
“That’s really part of our job, I think, as artists right now,” Lindberg says.
This echoes a message of “revolutionary love” that many other artists have gotten behind, courtesy of author Valerie Karr.
“Wonder is where love begins,” Karr wrote in her 2020 memoir, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love. “When we choose to wonder about people we don’t know, when we imagine their lives and listen for their stories, we begin to expand the circle of who we see as part of us.”
This notion is what inspired Ani DiFranco’s 2021 album Revolutionary Love and seems to be echoed on Beacons, with Nefesh Mountain’s determination to weave radical love into their approach to progressive bluegrass and Americana music. Indeed, Beacons seems to strive toward illuminating our common humanity.
Granted, this mission of “radical love” began with the name Lindberg and Zasloff chose for their band in the first place. “Nefesh” is a Hebrew word denoting life force, the sentience that pervades all living things. Radical love requires as much vulnerable expression as it does being open to the array of scary, emotional, dark trepidation so many people have in common. Among the topics Lindberg and Zasloff breach on Beacons: coming clean about a history of substance use, discussing the hard truths around their seven-year fertility journey, and their shared determination to maintain a sense of wonder in a world that can feel relentlessly staid. (“If we’re looking for some heaven, babe/ There’s some right here on the ground,” Lindberg sings in “Heaven Is Here.”)
The first disc of Beacons features a deft exploration of the group’s Americana tones. Though Lindberg and Zasloff are from the Northeast, their Nashville connections and twang-centric improv skills deliver a set of songs that could play just fine on say WSM, the radio home of the Grand Ole Opry.
The set begins with “Race to Run” – a radio-friendly country song about overthinking the struggles of the creative life (“I’m tired of trying to stay out in front/ But you remind me … it’s your own race to run”). “What Kind of World” is a rumination on a sense so many folks share these days, of powerlessness in the face of climate change. (“Is it just me? Can you feel it too?”) But, the song’s lyrics extend into geopolitics and the sense of divide that leaves so many feeling unstable.
Asked about the song’s vulnerable and rather personal honesty, Lindberg notes: “Remember, it was a year and a half ago when the fires from Canada kind of made their way down. We live in the New York area … so the line in the song is, ‘I saw the golden hour at 11 a.m./ They say it’s from the fires, it’s not us or them.’
“Now, a year later or so,” he adds, linking last year’s fire headlines with those of 2025, this time in California. “We had to sing this in Orange County a few weeks back while they were [still seeing smoke].”
As Lindberg’s proverbial camera pans out, the song considers the role of the average citizen in the face of such behemoth powers as climate and politics. “What’s it all for if we’re not all free,” the lyrics ask, shifting from fear about climate disasters to a purpose of climate justice. This ability to move from complaint to action item in a single verse, all couched in infectious twang, is what sets Nefesh Mountain apart from many others in the country space.
The Americana disc’s finest moment, however, is “Mother,” a song written by Lindberg that addresses so many of motherhood’s side effects. “I’ve lived many lives,” Zasloff sings. “…It’s all part of the job as a mother.”
Zasloff notes that her first two children – from a previous relationship – were practically grown when she and Lindberg began trying for a child of their own. What ensued was a seven-year fertility process that echoes what so many women encounter when they discover becoming pregnant is not always as easy as it seems.
“I burst out crying when [Eric] first shared [‘Mother’] with me,” she says, “because it was so personal and so empowering and beautiful for my husband to write that about me.”
In addition to the way the song tackles their infertility journey, it also reckons with Zasloff’s history with alcohol – something she chose to leave behind in order to become a mother. “I decided in that moment of having that song come into the world,” she says, “that I was wanting to talk about something personal that I had never talked about publicly, ever. Which is the fact that I am sober. I’m an alcoholic and I just celebrated 20 years of sobriety. And I actually became sober to become a mother. It’s part of my whole story.”
Livin’ with that drink, Lord, Always left me wanting more But I was saved When I became a mother
After that high point, the group moves into the traditional “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning,” which Lindberg notes has long been a part of their live show. “We’d always mess with the arrangement,” he says. “I kind of just called it in the studio. We had a little bit of extra time. I didn’t know it was going to be on the album, but it’s one that the band knew when we were down in Nashville and we kind of arranged it on the fly.”
“We’re all New York guys and jazz players,” he adds. “So we wanted to lean into that a little bit and bring this real Americana spiritual into a different sonic space, really let improvisation take over, and help that add to the obviously beautiful meaning of the song.”
Nine tracks in, Beacons switches to bluegrass, bringing in giants of the form to round out the band. Of course, anytime Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Rob McCoury, Cody Kilby, and Mark Schatz come together in any room, the sound is bound to slap. Toss in Lindberg, whose pre-Nefesh background is jazz improvisation, and something truly special crops up.
“Regrets in the Rearview” opens this second disc, feeling like a bluegrass answer to the Americana set’s opener, “Race to Run.” Its instrumental section sets a high bar for the rest of the collection, as the band hands around lead duties, featuring some of the finest bluegrass instrumentals in the biz.
But it’s “This Is Me,” coming in at bluegrass track number three, that delivers one of the double album’s finest moments. Capitalizing on the band’s commitment to building connections and “radical love,” “This Is Me” tells the bluegrass side’s most personal story.
“A question that’s been thrown at us for years now, and especially to Eric,” says Zasloff, “is: How did a Jewish kid from Brooklyn get into bluegrass? … He came to me and he said, ‘I think I wrote a response song so that people will stop asking me that question.”
“I was thinking about it,” Lindberg says. “How did I get into bluegrass? [“This Is Me” is] more about if we’re lucky enough to find that thing that really makes us come alive and makes our soul kind of catch fire –whether it’s writing a song … or painting or sculpture or any trade anyone does. If that’s the thing, then it doesn’t matter, geographically, where we’re from.
“I’m of the belief, nowadays especially, with what we’re trying to do in the roots world, [that it’s important to] try to break down all the barriers,” he continues. No matter where people are from, he adds, “there are people that find this music and go, ‘Wow, that is lighting me up!'”
With that, Lindberg hearkens back to the title of the album. That music might be a light in dark times is, of course, no new concept. (Consider “This Little Light of Mine.”) But the fact that the idea has been floated before doesn’t mean it’s not worth mentioning. At a time when so many folks feel powerless to the onslaught of news and information coursing through the internet and the real world alike, it can be easy to feel like none of us are enough to meet the moment. But Beacons is a reminder that there is no darkness without light.
“No one knows how we become who we are,” Lindberg says, before offering a word of advice. “Everyone just be yourself –regardless of the questions you get or the pain or the hate that you see. You’ve just got to stay true.”
A quarter century removed from his passing, John Hartford’s music and overarching legacy may have a stronger hold on bluegrass and American roots music than ever before.
From modern-day stars like Billy Strings and Sam Bush playing his songs in front of thousands each night, to popping up in books, old-time jams, workshops, films, and other functions, Hartford’s songs are officially a part of the Americana zeitgeist.
This trend continues on Julia Belle: The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project Volume 2. Released February 28, the follow-up to 2020’s inaugural installment of the Fiddle Tune Project features another 17 songs from the always grinnin’, GRAMMY award-winning, steamboat-loving singer – this time performed entirely by women. Nearly 50 artists, musicians, and singers feature throughout, ranging from Rachel Baiman, Phoebe Hunt, Ginger Boatwright, Brittany Haas, and Deanie Richardson, to Allison de Groot, Della Mae, The Price Sisters, Uncle Earl, Kathy Mattea, Alison Brown, and Sierra Hull.
According to Julia Belle co-producer Megan Lynch Chowning (who was joined in that role by Sharon Gilchrist and Katie Harford Hogue, John’s daughter), once the decision was made to move forward with an all-women cast it came time to narrow down who to include on it–something that was as much of a dilemma as it was “an incredibly cool revelation.”
“We decided about halfway through to just make it a reality rather than a selling point,” she jokes. “It’s in the same spirit of whenever you open up a record from the Bluegrass Album Band, nobody says, ‘Wow, what a great all-male band that is!'”
Ahead of Julia Belle‘s release, Harford Hogue, Lynch Chowning, and Gilchrist spoke with BGS about their involvement in the project, preserving John Hartford’s legacy, and favorite moments from recording.
(Editor’s Note: Thefollowingare three separate conversations combined into one and edited for brevity.)
Nearly 50 artists are involved in Julia Belle. How did you go about deciding who to include on the project and which songs they’d play on?
Sharon Gilchrist: It was really important for us to have a multi-generational presence on this record. One of Katie’s personal wishes for the album was that every artist on the record have some personal connection to Hartford. With it being an all-female record, I was also curious to find women who had actually worked with or had some kind of rapport with him. For example, Laurie Lewis, Kathy Kallick, and Suzy Thompson are all on “Champagne Blues” and were all peers of Hartford’s back in the day. Ginger Boatwright actually inspired the song that John wrote which she sings on, “Learning to Smile All Over Again.”
In addition to the sheer number of people involved, I love how you also really allowed them to lean into their own creative tendencies while at the same time staying true to the style and spirit of John Hartford.
Katie Harford Hogue: Since Volume I the whole premise of this album series has been to choose artists that play this vein of music or consider my dad a mentor or someone they look up to. We hand them the book [John Hartford’s Mammoth Collection of Fiddle Tunes] and tell them to choose the tunes that speak to you, then come to the studio and put them through your filter.
For me to tell an artist how to do art – why would I do that? The whole point of being an artist is that you’re putting yourself into it and are using your own expressions, your own metaphors, and your own way of relating to the music. So we wanted their expression in it and the really cool thing is that Dad comes through no matter what we do. His DNA is in these tunes and there’s no way to get them out, not that we would ever want to. Having people come in and just go for it was risky, but an incredibly fun way to make an album.
Megan Lynch Chowning: A lot of the tones, audio, and overall vibe check comes from Sharon, who has been a John Hartford fan her entire musical life and is somebody who is so incredibly in tune with the sounds and feel that comes from his songs. She worked tirelessly listening to everybody’s work before they came in to record to get an idea of what’s going to help each person be the best possible version of themselves while they’re here.
Then there’s the issue of none of these songs – at least the fiddle tunes – having any chords assigned to them. When John wrote them there were no chord progressions, so every artist had to write their own. That in itself was a big part of people getting to take each song in their own directions. It was amazing to watch over and over again, and Sharon handled it all like an absolute rock star.
While some people’s legacy fades over time, it seems like John Hartford’s only grows stronger. What are your thoughts on that and how this project aims to further propel that legacy forward?
KHH: I’ve heard it said before that the way he communicated wasn’t limited to a particular generation. I don’t know if it was the way he thought about things or if some of the ways he did things were more universal. … You can go back to the masters of music and art – da Vinci, Bach – and their methods of creativity are still very valid now, they simply don’t go out of style.
When you hone into the foundation of it the relevancy goes with it, because everyone’s just going back to what’s real, which is what I think my dad also did. He was very true to the way he made music and the way he thought. A lot of people trying to make a career might stop and think, “What does the public want?” or “What do the masses want and how can I provide for them?” There’s nothing wrong with that, but there is another way to do it, making the music you want to make and not worrying whether or not it’s commercially viable.
That being said, “Gentle On My Mind” [Hartford’s most successful song, written in 1966] was very helpful in allowing him to do that full-time. Most everyone else has to get a full-time job and do the music on the side to stay true to themselves, but he got the best of both worlds in that way. He was able to take the success of that song and then go do his art with his heart and soul in it. I mean, who else writes about steamboats? Who else would write about the things that he wrote about and try the things he did on stage or just go out on a limb? And it all worked! In a way, everything aligned for him. That’s why I think he continues to be so relevant – he took a big risk and it paid off.
MLC: In the very first meeting the three of us had to discuss Volume II, preserving and carrying on the Hartford legacy was the focus of what we were trying to accomplish. On any given day you’ve got Billy Strings and Sam Bush playing John Hartford songs in their live shows. The biggest takeaway I have from this whole thing is John Hartford’s unceasing dedication to learning. He started transcribing and learned to write standard notation after he was diagnosed with cancer and instead of saying, “Oh no, I’m sick and this is going to slow me down,” he took it as a sign to move forward and learn a bunch of new things. That’s what led to him becoming obsessed with the fiddle, traditional styles and all that. That to me is the whole message behind these albums, that there’s so much more to do and so much more to write, play and learn. That’s been the most inspiring thing about being a part of this project.
SG: He was both a student and innovator of traditional music who forged his way forward by not sounding anything like anybody else. John is one of the largest beacons shining the way forward on how you do that.
What were your favorite moments from recording these songs? I personally can’t get enough of “Spirit of the South.”
KHH: What was so fun for me about these sessions was that even in rehearsals everyone was shredding. Upon walking in the room you’re hit with this energy and you just want to jump in. It was so exciting talking with everyone and feeling their joy around each song. Then there were the stories from Ginger Boatwright and Kathy Chiavola – both good friends of my dad – and Alison Brown telling me about his influence over her on the banjo.
Not being a musician, that all fed me, because that was a part of my dad’s life that I wasn’t necessarily connected with very much when he was alive. But now I can hear his music and I can see what he was doing and it just has a whole different impact on me. I’ve now had my own kids, raised them, done some things, and can relate more to what he was doing, so every time someone comes back to the studio and records a song, tells a story or talks about his influence, it feel like there’s a drawing of Dad and everyone’s going in and adding details that I hadn’t known about before or that just flesh out the picture that little bit more.
MLC: One favorite was getting Katie’s mom and John’s first wife, Betty, to sing on “No End of Love,” which is a song that John wrote for her. She is an incredible musician who first met John when they were both up for a radio show slot in the St. Louis area. After they got married Betty put her singing career on hold to manage the family, so being able to get her in the studio to sing that song with Katie and her granddaughter Natalie [Hogue] on guitar and hearing her voice – which has been on hold for a long time as she lives other aspects of her life – gave me chills. To me, stuff like that is the essence of folk music and why we do what we do in terms of keeping these songs and traditions alive.
Megan, didn’t you play John’s Tambovsky & Krutz violin on “No End 0f Love”? What was that experience like?
MLC: I actually have John’s fiddle here at my house and play it in the John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project live show, so I’ve been handling it for a while now. Talk about chills – it’s the fiddle he used the last five or so years of his life. It was his main fiddle for the “Down From the Mountain” shows and The Speed of the Old Long Bow record. It’s actually the fiddle on the cover of that album. Katie called me last year out of the blue and said she was moving houses and had taken the fiddle from one closet to another before questioning why it was there in the first place and not in my hands being played at these shows.
To play it on [“No End of Love”] was funny, because it sounds a lot different than my fiddle even though both were set up by the same person. It always felt comfortable to play, but the first few months I had it it was kind of dead from sitting in a closet for two decades. Since I’ve been playing it regularly it’s really come to life. Just the metaphorical part of this fiddle coming to life at the same moment these tunes are being brought into the world is special. It’s how I believe everybody who has the opportunity to be involved in traditional music should be thinking about it. We should constantly be honoring the stuff that came before us while also bringing it into new spaces.
Katie, you mentioned not being too connected to your father’s music when he was still alive, but what do you remember most about those times?
KHH: People saw his stage persona when he was out, but even when he was home he was still playing. He didn’t go home and just say, “Oh, I’m tired of that.” He played some more. “Obsessive” is not too strong a word to use when it came to the way his brain worked about music or art. It would be Thanksgiving or Christmas and he’d be working out melodies in the living room with Benny Martin simply because they enjoyed it.
Later on, my wedding reception was held at my dad’s house and we had originally set up music on a sound system so as not to burden him, but he, my brother, and my uncle ended up all grabbing their instruments and playing as a trio for it. He wasn’t a musician because he was trying to be famous; he was a musician because he couldn’t not be one. As much as his right hand was a part of him, his fiddle and his banjo were a part of him too.
What has working on TheJohn Hartford Fiddle Tune Project taught you about yourself?
MLC: These experiences have taught me that I’m capable at parts of this job that I previously shied away from. I grew up as a contest fiddler; that was my background. Because of that I was very good at learning specific arrangements of things and then executing them with precision. While that’s all great and fine – one: it’s not a very good living, and two: it’s not all that great for having a very broad musical vision or sense of yourself. That’s why I started playing bluegrass and working for country artists. My skills and musicianship both expanded, but working on these albums – both as a player on Volume I and as a producer/player on Volume II – I’ve learned much more about my internal ability to hear things I didn’t know that I could hear and to make decisions I didn’t know I could make.
It reminds me of this exercise that John Hartford used to do with people at his jams or in his band – called the “window exercise” – where everybody who’s playing has to do something different than everybody else and then has to change that thing every eight bars. If you’ve got five or six people sitting around in a circle, one person can be chopping, one person can be playing longbows, melody, harmony, shuffle pattern… but only for eight bars. It requires you to not only come up with new things, but also be aware of what everyone else is doing simultaneously.
It was a musical brain exercise he invented that we teach at our workshops and sometimes even at the live show. To me, working on these albums has been like a real-life window exercise. It feels like even from beyond the grave John Hartford is challenging me to go bigger, be more creative, and more aware all the time. He’s just expanded who I am as a musician and what I now know that I’m capable of that I didn’t know I was capable of before. It’s weird to be grateful to someone who’s been dead for 25 years, but that’s how I feel because I’m a different person and a different player than I was before I started this.
SG: It showed me the importance of being hands-off with other people’s musicianship and to give them every opportunity to bring as much of themselves to any project as possible. That’s when you’re going to get the best music out of somebody. This project was a lesson in learning to do that, but also knowing when to jump in and direct or provide guidance when necessary.
Katie did a great job of that as well. This whole project is her brainchild and was a huge undertaking and the coolest part is the way she’s doing it. She’s doing it just like her dad. He would be so honored and pleased to see her fostering that in his own tunes and giving others the opportunity to share in and carry on that tradition.
KHH: I was a stay-at-home mom when my kids were born and poured a lot into them growing up, but once my youngest got to high school I began backing off and looking to do some of the things I’d been putting off. Coincidentally, the fiddle tune project was coming to fruition around the same time.
It was like walking out on a limb – especially as an older woman – to go out and start on some of these things not having been in the industry or corporate world in quite a while, but I did it. I have learned so much about not just the music industry, but things like how to use computer software like Photoshop and Illustrator and doing video for social media. It’s a lot of fun and something I’m very proud to be able to say that I did. I want to encourage other women to do the same. Don’t worry about what other people are saying, what you’ve done before, how old you are or what stage of life you’re in – don’t let anyone devalue your experience. If you’ve got an idea, go do it!
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