When I was a senior in high school, my lacrosse teammate Andy Thorn loaned me a couple CDs and a mandolin. The two CDs were the original David Grisman Quintet album and Sam Bush’s Glamour and Grits. I was an angsty teen drummer in a punk band, and when I popped the Grisman album in my Sony Discman and pushed play, my life changed forever.
We started a little band and I started learning mandolin and making weekly trips to the local record store to buy every “newgrass” album I could. I didn’t know anything, so searching through the bluegrass/country section was an adventure of discovery. I learned to recognize the font that Rounder Records used and started using liner notes to find other musicians to listen to.
A lot of the tracks on this list are track #1 on the album, and I think that’s because when I heard them for the first time, they magically seared themselves into my brain. When I hear them today they inspire the same excitement as they did when I first heard them, and they have had an enormous impact on the music that I create for the Jon Stickley Trio. — Jon Stickley
David Grisman – “E.M.D.”
The first track I ever heard in the vein of bluegrass/newgrass. I heard David Count “1,2,3,4…” just like the Ramones! Then they launch into the most indescribable, unbelievable, clean, rockin’ jam I’ve ever heard. Also my first introduction to my guitar hero, Tony Rice. Nothing compares to this track!
Sam Bush – “Whayasay”
Another leading cut. This was my introduction to the one and only Sam Bush. His kickoff tells you everything you need to know about Sam’s music. It’s masterful, tasteful, and it freakin’ ROCKS. Then he goes totally Mark Knopfler at the end. Blew my young mind!
Jerry Douglas, Russ Barenburg & Edgar Meyer – “Big Sciota”
I picked this record up at the store because, on the back cover, they are dressed in gorilla suits. I thought, these dudes MUST be cool. Something about the tone of this record is unparalleled. It’s just the nicest-sounding acoustic record I’ve ever heard. Still cook dinner to it almost every night and my wife walked down the aisle to another track from the album called “The Years Between.”
Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder – “Pig In A Pen”
Holy crap. This is another album I bought blind at the record shop knowing absolute nothing about the music. To this day I have never heard anything rock this hard! Also, my first intro to a big guitar hero, Bryan Sutton.
Bryan Sutton – “Decision At Glady Fork”
Senior year of high school my uncle Pat took me to the Béla Fleck Bluegrass Sessions concert. I knew who Sam Bush and Béla were, but it was my first time hearing Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, and the young Bryan Sutton. They played this song and the audience pooped their pants!
Béla Fleck – “Blue Mountain Hop”
The ultimate supergroup in my opinion. This song got me thinking about composition and arrangement in a new way. It seems like each new part of the song was written with each individual soloist in mind. Also the giggles and growls in the intro remind you that they’re having a ball.
Béla Fleck & the Flecktones – “Sinister Minister”
Two words. Victor Wooten. Blew. My. Young. Mind! I’ve listened to this version of this song more times than I can count, and it’s one of the covers that we do in the trio. The Flecktones probably had more of an impact on our trio than anyone else out there.
The Bluegrass Album Band – “Blue Ridge Cabin Home”
This is another album where I had no idea what I was buying. It wasn’t until I looked at the back of the CD that I realized that Tony Rice was on it. It was my introduction to J.D. Crowe, Doyle Lawson, Bobby Hicks, and Todd Phillips. I fell in love with bluegrass banjo by listening to this song, and I was thrilled to find out there were five more volumes!!!
The Nashville Bluegrass Band – “Dog Remembers Bacon”
Another record store score that I grabbed just because “bluegrass” was in the title. LOL. These guys became my favorite group for years and this was always one of my favorite tracks. I learned about Gillian Welch from this album. Stuart Duncan is the best fiddler in the world!
Acoustic Syndicate – “No Time”
Man, I love these dudes SO much. My Uncle Pat gave this album to my dad around ‘98, and I promptly stole it. The chill energy of this album really spoke to me and I feel like it really embodies the spirit of the North Carolina festival scene. Super sentimental band for me!
Tracks from our new album “Scripting the Flip” that draw heavy on these influences:
Jon Stickley Trio – “Scripting the Flip”
This song is pretty much a bluegrass fiddle tune turned on its head. It reminds me of some of my favorite newgrass instrumentals that take the music somewhere new.
Jon Stickley Trio – “Driver”
Well, given that my buddy Andy Thorn got me into this music waaaaay back in the day, I had to bring it full circle and write a tune for him to come in and play on. This piece definitely draws on the music of the Flecktones and some of the tunes they play in odd meters.
Jon Stickley Trio – “Bluegrass in the Backwoods”
Kenny Baker, Bill Monroe’s longtime fiddler, was surprisingly one of the most innovative of the classic bluegrass pickers! He is thought of as a traditional fiddler, but his music is really anything but. I think this tune was way ahead of its time and we love the elements of gypsy jazz and Latin music in the melody. We HAD to cover this on at some point and it was so much fun!
We’ve so enjoyed looking back into the BGS archives with you every week for some of our favorite reporting, videos, interviews, and more. If you haven’t yet, follow our #longreadoftheday series on social media [on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram] and as always, we’ll put all of our picks together right here at the end of each week.
Our long reads this week are pioneering, longsuffering, triumphant, innovative, and so much more.
April 13 just so happens to be the birthday of this bluegrass pioneer, a man who has had an incredible impact on the genre over the course of his lifelong career. So of course we started off the week in long reads with this 2016 interview with Sam Bush, written by Mipso guitarist and vocalist, Joseph Terrell. Sam talks New Grass Revival, Bluegrass Alliance, the future of mandolin, and so much more. It’s worth a read, birthday or not! Happy Birthday, Sam! [Read more]
It just so happens, we’re featuring two birthday long reads in a row! On Tuesday this week we wished country legend Loretta Lynn a very happy birthday with a revisit to an archived edition of Canon Fodder on Van Lear Rose, her 2004 critically-acclaimed collaborative album made with Jack White. Lynn has changed and innovated upon country music in many more ways than one, and she continues to do so as her career goes on! Just like with Van Lear Rose. [Read more about the album]
We love a two-fer. With this look back into the archives, you get a film choice for tonight or this weekend, too. The Madness & the Mandolin is a documentary following the many challenges and breakthroughs of Kelley Gibson’s (son of The Gibson Brothers’ Eric Gibson) journey and evolution with autism. The film explores methods like exercise, meditation, reading, and music as tools that, combined, can often be the most powerful treatment. We spoke to the project’s producer/director Dr. Sean Ackerman last year.
The Madness & the Mandolin is available to rent on Amazon Prime. [Read the interview]
2019 was a banner year for The Del McCoury Band and The Travelin’ McCourys, Del celebrated his 80th birthday, his Opry anniversary, and DelFest conquered the mid-Atlantic once again. While 2020 is certainly off to a rockier start, the entire bluegrass world — and roots music altogether, too — are so glad to still have this legend of bluegrass making music, laughing a lot, and killing the hair game. At BGS, we’re grateful we got a chance to chat with Del backstage at the Opry last year. [Read more]
She’s not in the Country Music Hall of Fame or the Bluegrass Hall of Fame, and Hollywood has never adapted her story for any sized screen. She’s certainly more than deserving of the former — regarding the latter, you’ll just have to read our feature to see why Rose Maddox deserves to be canonized and then some for her myriad contributions to country, bluegrass, and every other genre in between. [Read about this musical pioneer]
Michael Cleveland is one of the defining fiddlers of his generation, known for his incredibly quick licks, deep groove, and shiver-inducing double stops. His virtuosity has been recognized by artists from many different genres and their thoughtful collaborations have proven that Cleveland is much more than just a flashy fiddler.
His talents were recognized at a young age by many of bluegrass music’s biggest stars and as a teenager he appeared as their guest in such settings as the Grand Ole Opry and A Prairie Home Companion. As one of the most-awarded musicians in IBMA history, Cleveland invited many of his heroes to collaborate on his 2019 album, Tall Fiddler. The project will compete for Best Bluegrass Album at the Grammy Awards on January 26.
Unlike many solo albums, Tall Fiddler features Cleveland’s band Flamekeeper throughout. Half of the record features selections from their popular touring show while the other half features Cleveland and band playing with masters such as Tim O’Brien, Béla Fleck, and Tommy Emmanuel. The origin of many of these collaborations were explored in Flamekeeper: The Michael Cleveland Story, a documentary detailing his journey, from being born blind to forming Flamekeeper.
Cleveland spoke to BGS by phone from his home in Indiana.
BGS: I wanted to ask you what it feels like to be nominated for a Grammy, but I have to imagine it feels pretty good! What does it mean to you?
MC: Well it’s pretty exciting! The last time I was nominated I thought I’d go through the list just to see who’s actually won and who’s been nominated in the past and it is mind-blowing for me to be considered.
And then to be nominated with the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys — I’ve known Jeremy Brown since he was probably a baby. None of my family ever played music, but my grandparents had a bluegrass association in Henryville, Indiana, which is just across the river from Louisville, Kentucky. So we got a lot of bands come out of the Louisville area and from other parts of Indiana. Jeremy’s dad, Tommy Brown, used to play with a band called Jim Simpson and the Kentucky Mountain Grass and it was one of the best bands in the area. Whenever they came to Henryville it was an event.
When they broke up Tommy formed his own band called Tommy Brown and the County Line Grass and I would see Jeremy playing on stage with his dad when he was a little kid. I’ve known all those guys for a while and have a connection with them so it’s really cool to be nominated at the same time as them and all the other artists.
Tall Fiddler is your eighth album. What makes this album stand out from the others?
This album was a little different because it wasn’t strictly a solo album or a band album. I wanted to do something where I could collaborate with other people, but I wanted my band to be on the album as well. It’s just a killer band, they’re who I tour with all the time, and I wanted to hear what they would do with the guests. So the band is on half the album and then there’s special guests on the other half.
We did the title cut, “Tall Fiddler,” with Tommy Emmanuel. That was especially cool because we got to do that live in the studio. Tommy came in and we had never played with him. We’d just worked this up based on a recording of his called Live! at the Ryman where he had played it. So Tommy comes in the studio and I think we knocked that out in just a few takes. It’s a dream come true for me, because I want to see my band collaborate with people like that.
Like Josh [Richards] singing with Del McCoury and getting to play with Tommy, and Dan Tyminski, and Jerry Douglas. The guys in my band are great players and deserve to play with people like that. That’s always been a goal of mine and for my career — to get to collaborate with as many great musicians and heroes of mine as I can. And that’s been possible because of this album and the Flamekeeper documentary, you know? Like, I’ve gotten to record with Béla Fleck.
Yeah, tell me about “Tarnation” and how that track came about.
When we made the Flamekeeper documentary we did some of the filming in Nashville. We got Del, Sam [Bush], Béla, Todd Phillips, and some other people that I’ve worked with in the past to be a part of it. John Presley, the producer of the documentary, said “I think it’d be cool to hear you play some of these guys’ music,” and I said “Yeah, that’d be great!”
We had just got done filming a lot of stuff and I was messing around and started playing a little bit of one of those tunes and Béla’s like, “Oh, you learned that? Let’s play it!” and after that he asked if I liked learning tunes and I told him I love learning new stuff and he said, “I’ll give you a call and maybe we can do something together.”
So then, when I was working on this record I reached out to him and I asked if he’d be interested in collaborating on something and I said “I would love for it to be something that you and I could write together.” He agreed, so we sent stuff back and forth for a while, like voice memos of ideas, and then he came up with that slow part in the beginning — which I really liked, it’s really bluesy. He asked if I could come down to his house to finish working on it.
To be able to go to Béla Fleck’s house and write a song with him. I mean, that’s something I would never dream that I would be able to do. But it’s cool for me to get to be around all these people that we worked with on this album. The thing that strikes me is not only that they’re incredible musicians — needless to say — but their whole [personalities]. They’re great people. They’re just having fun playing music, you know?
You’ve always struck me as a versatile musician because of your ability to collaborate with so many different artists and complement the style while still sounding like yourself. Like how you play on Andy Statman’sSuperstring Theory album, for example.
See, that’s the thing. I’ve loved traditional bluegrass for a long time and would mostly just listen to that. But there’s so much music out there that I still haven’t heard that’s classic stuff to other people. I just started listening to Boston and they are awesome! My girlfriend says I live under a rock. But a lot of the music I play in places like Nashville, I don’t really have a whole lot of chances for experimentation. With someone like Andy [Statman] there’s no holds barred. Whenever Andy plays a song it’s going to be different every time.
I have noticed in your live shows that it seems like you’ve been experimenting with having a song or two with an extended solo section that’s a little more open ended than traditional bluegrass might be.
Yeah we’re trying to incorporate more of that because I think the audience like to see something and think, “Oh, this is not what happens every day.” And it’s a fine line because I’ve always been of the mind that you practice, you know the arrangements, and that’s what you play. Maybe you don’t play what’s on the record the whole time but you play it pretty close and you play that every day and that makes it good. And it does.
I always like to hear live recordings for the differences. Like when someone plays a different solo or somebody misses a note but it’s OK; it’s alive. It’s authentic. And it’s sometimes hard for me to remember that it’s music. It’s not supposed to be perfect. When we do the extended solos, that’s when I really pull out stuff and think of things that I would never play. If all you did was just play that arrangement every time and make it as perfect as possible, you might never be able to experience that.
I went to MerleFest one year and I came away thinking [about] all these guys like Sam [Bush], and the McCourys, and Béla, and Tim O’Brien, and Doc Watson. All these people are great instrumentalists and great old-time bluegrass players but they all do so much more than that. And just because somebody’s plugged in, and turned up loud, and improvises, that doesn’t mean they don’t know their stuff when it comes to traditional bluegrass.
In our plaintive annual quest to unearth some semblance of a holiday-themed canon from the bluegrass songbook writ large, a few concessions must immediately be made. As argued in a past wintry edition of Tunesday Tuesday, titles of otherwise wordless and themeless songs are more than enough to justify a tune’s place in holiday and Christmas party playlists — or at least, this writer vehemently believes that they should be.
That particular context might just be unnecessary, though, because anyone ought to welcome absolutely any excuse or justification to marvel at the sheer magic (holiday and/or otherwise) of Bobby Hick’s fiddling. Yes, this is no more than a contrived set up to allow some unbridled gushing about “Snowflake Breakdown.” The hoedown-style fiddle tune was a cut on Hicks’ 1978 album, Texas Crapshooter, which boasted an A side of all Texas and western swing tunes, featuring Buddy Emmons on pedal steel and Buck White on piano among others, and a B side of his signature bluegrass fiddling style, staffed by Sam Bush, Roy Huskey Jr., Alan Munde, and fellow Bluegrass Hall of Famer Roland White. The “wow, these pickers on this tune are each so unique and genius in their own rights, they’re like snowflakes” metaphor is just a little too irresistible here, so just go with it.
For us fans of a bluegrass fiddler who plays with a heavy dose of North Carolina by way of Texas and a dash of the best parts of fiddle contests, has an unparalleled pedigree as a Blue Grass Boy with Bill Monroe, and a reputation as one of the most confounding double-stop talents in the universe, all we want for Christmas is (really, truly, honestly) more Bobby Hicks.
In public radio and podcast fandom Jad Abumrad’s voice is not only immediately recognizable, it’s iconic. As a host of WNYC’s hit show, Radiolab, Abumrad has explored myriad topics ranging from secret World War II missions to the social and cultural impacts of contagious diseases. He has a knack for storytelling, uncovering and contextualizing minute details that many other writers and journalists may have simply shrugged at or glossed over.
This instinct, a sixth sense that guides him to these subtle nuances that often rest undisturbed just below the surface or hide in plain sight, is focused on a new subject in his brand-new podcast (also produced and distributed by WNYC), Dolly Parton’s America. The nine-part series lives up to the oft-invoked, seldom accurate characterization of “a deep dive,” covering ground that even the most ardent Dolly experts and fans may have never trod.
A self-described “new initiate” of country music, Abumrad grew up in Nashville, but given Dolly’s standing as an almost omnipresent cultural touchstone he realized much later that during those Tennessee years he almost couldn’t see the Dolly Parton forest for the Dolly Parton trees. “I knew her music, in terms of the crossover stuff — ‘9 to 5’ and ‘Islands in the Stream,’” he admits. “But the first place I started was going back to ‘60s Dolly and ‘70s Dolly. That’s a very different Dolly.”
Though what he found in those early decades of her career was often unexpected, it was never truly shocking or surprising, especially given the pop culture monolith that Parton has become since those years. A monolith that Abumrad describes as being able to bring people together across all manner of divides — something particularly remarkable in this current global moment.
“You see these stories emerge of not only her changing over time, but what was happening around her in the south, in Appalachia, and in America,” he continues. “The early Dolly music and lyrics became almost like a portal that I could step through to talk about history, to talk about politics, to talk about culture, to talk about feminism. It’s all there in her music.”
And so, it’s all in the podcast. In the two already released episodes Abumrad et. al. cover topics as broad and varied as Dolly’s constantly being undervalued as a songwriter, her being “typecast” as a secondary character (a “dumb blonde”), her shift from the sad, forlorn songs of her early career to her jubilant, encouraging anthems later on, and even her own struggles with suicidal ideation.
With such an entity as Parton, a bystander might assume that any approach to unspooling the many tendrils of her vastly variable and dynamic career would be insufficient, myopic, and/or excruciatingly intimidating. Abumrad faces this daunting task with aplomb, acknowledging the many ways such a project can go awry, but not allowing that acknowledgment to dissuade him. Rather than shy away from storytelling that might open him and the podcast up to criticism about omissions or oversights or missteps, he leans into the humanity that allows for those scenarios. “This is a project where I was trying to see Dolly through other people’s eyes, so that I could understand them and understand their lives and their experiences… I wanted to understand Dolly not simply as a performer and an icon, but as somebody who’s created all this culture… Why do they love it? What do they see in it? What is it about it that calls them? I felt like that was a way to understand the country at this moment.”
BGS editor and contributor Justin Hiltner spoke to Abumrad on the phone about Dolly Parton’s America; the two took turns picking their favorite Dolly tracks, as if standing in front of a Dolly-only jukebox in a Dolly-themed dive bar.
JH: If you and I were standing in front of a jukebox full of Dolly Parton songs what would be your “pick” if you were asked to play Dolly Parton for a room full of people? What would be the first song you would think of?
JA: I think [with] any jukebox selection you have to disclaim: There’s no way to be comprehensive, so any selection you make is going to be one tiny sliver of a tremendous catalog of thousands and thousands of songs.
But, I think the first one I’m going to have to pick is “Muleskinner Blues.” I think it was 1970? I think that’s right. 1970. I would play this one because that song is just… it is pure fire. The rhythm section is so badass and her on top of it, you just cannot — you have to move when you hear it. And I say this as somebody who didn’t grow up with this genre. I grew up in a house full of opera and bad hair metal. Country music was not my jam. But this is one of the first songs that when I heard it I was like, “Oh my god. This SONG.”
The moment that she ad-libs, “I’m a lady muleskinner–”
Oh my god, it’s so good.
It’s so good! And I think about it all the time. When we talk about bluegrass, [people like to say,] “Oh, you know, we don’t have that many women forebears, we don’t have many [women] to point to.” I hear that [ad-lib] and I hear her telling the history of women in roots music and American music. “I’m a lady muleskinner” is like, “I’m not just singing this song that’s always been sung by men, this song is MINE now.” I love that.
Let me follow that inspiration, because one of the things that I think about that song is where it falls in her history. She was on the Porter Wagoner show, right? She’s this crazy prolific songwriter, but she’s kind of under the thumb of this guy, who’s a legend and an amazing hitmaker in his own right, but he was kind of holding her back. At that point she’s starting to bristle. We talked to a bunch of people… I think of them as “Dolly-ologists,” these new academics who think about Dolly a lot, before this song it was a lot of sad songs, often sung from the perspectives of little girls, about something that had been done wrong to them. This is the first song that she grabs her power, in some way.
When she holds that first note she holds it as long as she wants and the band has to follow her. So she’s like, “Y’all gonna follow me.” Then as soon as she lets go the band follows her. It’s literally her taking charge of the band. You feel that power, you feel that energy. It’s such a good song. I’ve been listening to it non-stop.
I think my first jukebox pick, what might be my favorite Dolly cut ever, is “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind” with Chet Atkins. Have you heard this?
Yeah!
It’s just two guitars, it’s just them. They’re kind of conversing while they play. There’s this subtle moment where Chet makes a joke like, “Why don’t you pick one, Dolly?” Then he continues to pick a solo and Dolly laughs like, “That’s not me, that’s not me!” But there’s this sort of respect in his voice, where he’s telling the listeners that she’s a picker. Like, “Don’t forget, don’t sleep on Dolly Parton. She can play guitar!” She’s the real deal.
They mix up the words at one point, they aren’t singing the right harmonies together. Then at the end, they’re just laughing together, and Dolly sighs, “Oh, I love you Chet.” He’s like, “Oh, I love you Dolly.” I think it’s my all-time favorite Dolly Parton recording ever. And for a song that she’s re-recorded so many times, to hear it pared down like that — definitely my number one pick.
Wow. That’s awesome.
What’s another one for you?
Let’s see, I’m really zoned in on ‘70s Dolly right now. I hope you don’t mind that most of my picks are going to be in that era.
Nothing wrong with that!
I just love the moment that her songs go kinda funky and percussive. I’ve always been less of a lyric guy and more of a music/tambour kind of guy. I love from “Jolene” on when she starts adding different instrumentations to her songs.
I have a couple of picks here… let’s go with “Joshua.” Again, it’s a song she did right after “Muleskinner” and I feel like that’s the moment when she truly becomes [a star] — if you want to look at her ascent to global superstardom, I think it begins in those few years and “Joshua” was her first number one. I just love the production of the song, I love how her voice was recorded, it’s a little bit distorted. I love how all the instruments are panned hard left or right. The rhythm guitar is over on the right and Dolly’s voice is on the left — or maybe it’s vice versa. I love the whole ‘70s production of it.
It’s such a weird story! It’s [about] an orphan girl meeting a crazy old man living by himself in the woods and they fall in love. There’s something kind of offbeat and oddball, but also kind of poetic about it. When it modulates, it goes up a semitone, like somewhere in the middle. It’s just cookin’. I love it.
My next pick, and really this is hard, I would probably pick something off of The Grass is Blue. And I think that my favorite one is “Train, Train.” I mean, you can’t be upset at a bluegrass song about a train, for one, but also that album means so much to me. You have this woman who has conquered every genre, has hits on so many different charts, and for her to come back to bluegrass — and I always make sure to emphasize the “back” to bluegrass because she’s been based in this. Her music since day one has been bluegrass music, the mountain music, as she calls it.
And the band on that record, the band that she toured with doing promo for that record, they were ridiculous! Chris Thile was in the band, if Chris Thile wasn’t, Sam Bush was. Jim Mills — it’s everybody. Jerry Douglas. This stacked roster of bluegrass pickers and then she takes that band to like, the CMA awards. To see bluegrass in primetime, in the mainstream like that always means so much to those of us who have always loved bluegrass first and foremost. I keep beating the drum of, “Induct Dolly Parton into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame! Induct Dolly Parton into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame!” I think it’s a no-brainer, and “Train, Train” is the perfect distillation of that for me.
Totally! You know, it’s interesting, what I remember is being in the UK — we went to the UK to shadow her for the premiere of 9 to 5 the musical — and on the way to the show I had to be in the car [with her] posse from the Dollywood Foundation and the Imagination Library, like David Dotson and some of these folks. They all were echoing basically what you just said. That album, more than any other album of hers, is most meaningful to the people around her. I think a lot of people feel like you feel. I don’t want to say it was one of her less successful [records], but it didn’t have the crazy crossover [appeal.] That album meant a lot to a lot of people.
Do you have another one? Maybe to close us out? One more for you, one more for me.
Sure, let’s see. I’ll give you a choice and you can tell me which one will be more interesting. “Love is Like a Butterfly” or “He’s Alive.”
Oh shoot, do both.
Okay, I’ll do both in one shot. So, “He’s Alive” is not the kind of song I’d ordinarily choose to put on, as a — I’ll be completely transparent — godless liberal. I come from a country that was torn apart by religion and my parents are scientists, so when we came from Lebanon my parents were like, “Don’t you damn set foot in a church!” [Laughs]
The first time I heard “He’s Alive” I got goosebumps. I hadn’t been that moved by a song in a long time. We were driving from Knoxville to Dollywood, actually, with one of Dolly’s biggest fans, and she put that song on for us. It was crazy, driving through the hills seeing signs like “Jesus saves you” and “Jesus loves you.” Then that song comes on and, as you know, the first few minutes are kind of a little bit overblown and orchestral and there’s this bombast going on, but when the chorus and the gospel chorus come in? Oh my god. That is more intense than any techno DJ drop. We were all just pinned to our seats for that. It feels like she’s alive, right? [Laughs]
I played it for my wife and my family the other day and they were like, “You like this?” But when it gets to the chorus they were like, “Oh, I get it.”
I’ll throw in “Love is Like a Butterfly” because when she had a string of number ones going from Dolly the “girl singer” to being Dolly the superstar, that was one [important song.] I don’t know, there’s something about her voice on that song. She’s describing this almost trance of love, she’s in love with someone and she’s weightless and entranced the way a butterfly is in the wind. The song isn’t as poetic as some of her others, but there’s something in the way she sings it that I just feel what she’s describing without even hearing the words. Something about her voice that is so… it literally flies. It’s like a butterfly. Her voice captures that. I’m so mystified by her voice on that recording.
I think my last choice would be, “Why’d You Come in Here Lookin’ Like That,” not only because it’s just a really good jukebox song — it is a perfect rollicking country song for a night at the dive bar. But also I realized — I’m openly gay, I’m a career banjo player who happens to moonlight (during the day) as a music writer, and so I went through this whole dynamic [when I was younger] of discovering my sexuality after I had already been in this music for my whole life. I realized, “Oh wait, I don’t think I belong here. I don’t think this space is for me. I play banjo, I love bluegrass.”
Something that I really appreciate about Dolly, from long ago, before I even knew she was a queer icon — and rightly so! — I could project my queerness onto and into her art and see myself in it. There’s something about “Why’d You Come in Here Lookin’ Like That” that’s just like, “Why does this straight man have to come up in my business and remind me that he’s unavailable to me?” That’s what I hear listening to that song, and it’s funny that I could go down a list of like ten other Dolly songs that feel like that to me. That feel like the queer experience realized through Dolly’s lens.
That’s really interesting… how so many of her songs create that space, so you can read it that way. I love that you have a list that goes beyond that. I might have to call you back and ask you to elaborate on that. [Laughs]
It was something that I really didn’t want to have this conversation happen without mentioning. I mean, even if you don’t count the rhinestones and the false nails and the big boobs, and everything. Boiled down to just nuts and bolts, and thinking of her as just a songwriter, she’s still allowing space for people to see their own experiences in her music. That’s not a very common thing in country. It is because heartbreak is all through country and everybody’s heart gets broken all the time, but other than that it really takes that sort of [approach] — well, what you’re talking about through this whole entire project. She touches on all of these issues that are sort of endemic to our culture, in a way that’s so organic that we ingest them almost without realizing it until now, in retrospect, I look back thinking, “Well of course she’s a queer icon, she’s creating space for us to relate to her music.” Even if it’s coming from such a specific place.
She, as a songwriter like you say, has created that space. Even without having to look at the persona in any way.
She still has not gotten her due as a songwriter, and it’s painful at times. To see that be such a big part of what you’re doing [is important.]
Yeah, I appreciate that, that’s where we start the series is taking her seriously as a songwriter, cause I agree. Robert Oermann said in one of our episodes that if she had been born two hundred years ago she’d be Mozart. (I think maybe he means more than two hundred.) Because she’s that touched by that creative spirit. That’s never been acknowledged. Bob Dylan gets it, Johnny Cash gets it, but she hasn’t.
Photo of Jad Abumrad: Bo Jacober Illustration: Christine de Carvalho
It’s hard to pick my favorite protest songs. The Woody, the Dylan, the ’60s counterculture pop hits, the singularly chilling “Strange Fruit” — I love them all. The original “This Land Is Your Land” is an anarchist hymn, Dylan’s “Masters of War” is as scathing and righteous today as it was then, “Ohio” by CSNY was so poignant and cathartic in its time, and Billie Holiday laid bare the terrorism of whiteness, breaking the silence for a new generation to sing and speak their truth.
But I’ve opted to go toward the personal: the formative songs that revealed to me just how powerful songwriting could be in conveying a message. The ones that viscerally grabbed me, shook me and changed me; that still send a chill down my spine when they twist the knife. The songs that made me look up from the pages of my diary and want to write songs about the world and the way it could be.
In the past three years I have ramped up my commitment to learning to write this kind of song, and I have had plenty of inspiration. So much so that Front Country’s next record is almost entirely protest songs of one kind or another. Songs of meaning and truth and change. Here are six of the songs that made me the hopelessly idealistic and sanctimonious songwriter I am today. — Melody Walker, of the band Front Country.
“The Wagoner’s Lad” – Traditional
The old ballads are not known for being feminist anthems — far from it — but this one has to be my favorite. The first verse is one of the most honestly brutal accounts of what life was (and still is) like for women in most of the world living under Abrahamic religious rule: “Oh, hard is the fortune of all womankind / They’re always controlled, they’re always confined / Controlled by their parents until they are wives / Then slaves to their husbands the rest of their lives.” As well as the first known field recording sung by Buell Kazee, I recommend Joan Baez’s version because I love her interpretation of the lyrics, and my favorite modern version is by The Duhks. Interestingly, Doc Watson recorded it with a declawed first line “The heart is the fortune of all womankind,” as did several others after him, and I’d be ever so curious to know the story behind that change.
“Killing in the Name” – Rage Against the Machine
You know how parents in the latter half of the 20th century were convinced that music was radicalizing and warping the minds of their children? Well, I can safely say that Rage Against the Machine was my gateway drug into politics and protest, and I’ve never looked back. The raw angst and explosive energy drew me in, and the messages made me stay. Fox News themselves couldn’t write a more cliché tale of my descent into liberal madness: I went to my first RATM show at age 13 in Oakland, California, got a million pamphlets outside the show, read them all, and was immediately indoctrinated into progressive politics. Rare in the realm of protest music, this song, the performance, and the production still sound as fresh today as they did all the way back in 1991. This song was released in the wake of the Rodney King protests and it’s famous refrain sadly still rings true in America: “Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses.”
“One Tin Soldier” – written by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter
Cheesy as all get out, preachy as hell, but one of the most hard-hitting story songs with a pacifist moral out there. The one time I got to go to sleep-away summer camp at 10 years old, our cabin counselor would sing us to sleep with her favorite folk songs, and when she sang this one I was pretty sure it was the best songwriting I had ever heard in my life. What can I say? It never fails to turn me into a blubbering mess by the end. Truly great songs can stand up to any style or instrumentation, so take your pick of the original ’70s AM gold, punk rock, and pop reggae versions — or this legendary clip of the Bluegrass Alliance from the documentary Bluegrass Country Soul featuring baby Sam Bush and Tony Rice!
“Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” – Buffy Sainte-Marie
I first heard this song on a live Indigo Girls album and it turned me on to Canadian-American First Nations singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie. Though she has had a long and successful career as a writer and performer since the early ’60s, including co-writing the inspirational “Up Where We Belong,” this song is from her ’90s comeback album and it pulls absolutely no punches in its accounting of ongoing terrorism against indigenous people in North America. One listen to this song is an invitation to learn more about the activists of the American Indian Movement and how corporations still collude with governments every day to displace and destroy native cultures around the world.
“My IQ” – Ani DiFranco
No one artist embodies the 3rd Wave Feminism of the 90s more than prolific and perpetually independent songwriter Ani DiFranco. Every song is a stream-of-consciousness integration of the personal and the political, redefining and queering the protest song in a polarizing performance style you either love or hate. She paved the way as a completely DIY artist with her own independent record label from the beginning, sending a message not just through her music, but also her entire business model. Each song is a subversive blend of breakup song, political manifesto, slam poetry piece and almost jazz-like playful vocal exploration, unwilling to be pinned-down as a singular statement. I finally settled on one that ends with my favorite of her famous zingers: “Every tool is a weapon… if you hold it right.” I love this well-worn, reimagined live version from 2002.
“If I Had A Hammer” – Pete Seeger & Lee Hays
Speaking of tools, it’s easy to see why this menacingly titled early hit of the “folk scare” put the fear of revolution in the hearts of the powerful. While it was debuted in 1949 by writers Pete Seeger and Lee Hays at a meeting of the Communist party, it became as mainstream as apple pie by the time Peter, Paul & Mary had a hit with it in 1962. Perhaps considered a children’s song today, it has a subversively empowering message in its simplicity. The night Trump got elected, Front Country had just flown to Seattle to start a tour, and there was a palpable sense of grief in the air at those West Coast shows. We closed every show of that run acoustic, on the floor, with a singalong of this song. It seemed to provide a much needed collective catharsis for ourselves and our fans. When one feels helpless, this song reminds the singer that we each have our own unique tools to bring to the work of dismantling systems of oppression and creating the world we want to see. There are a mind-bending number of recording of this song, so here are a few lovely ones.
In the second half of our interview with Vince Gill, the country legend reflects on his bluegrass history, explaining how he became interested in the music, what he learned by listening closer, and why it led to one of his most famous songs.
BGS: “Go Rest High on That Mountain,” in my opinion, is going to live forever. And I think the bluegrass audience loves hearing Patty Loveless and Ricky Skaggs sing with you, too.
Gill: You know, I wouldn’t have been able to write that song if I hadn’t played bluegrass music and learned the structure of that music and how it works — and the emotion of it. Bluegrass music is so honest and so real. Some of those morbid murder ballads and the saddest of the sad songs are what I love most. Give me “Mother’s not dead. She’s only a-sleepin’. Patiently waiting for Jesus to come.” That’s about as good as it gets. “The Little Girl and the Dreadful Snake.” I could just go on and on and on.
All these tortured songs, but you know they’re real life. They’re not somebody going, “How can I slip one up on the world and make a bunch of money having a big hit record?” They’re so honest and real. And the fact that my past had so much to do with Ricky and Patty, they were the only two people that I would’ve consider it singing on that song.
I still love it when Patty comes to do the Opry.
There’s a really unique thing that happens when our voices sing together. It’s so… obvious. I sang on her very first record in the early ‘80s. I sang on her first hit record and she sang on my first hit record. So it’s my little sis.
Tell me about how you found bluegrass. Was there an entry point for you?
Yeah, I knew of it because my dad played the banjo a little bit. He never could figure out the three-finger, Scruggs-style banjo. He cussed Earl his whole life because he couldn’t figure it out. He played more of a folky banjo. Not drop thumb, not old-timey, but more of a frailing kind of banjo. So I was always around the music, as best I can remember, forever. There were obviously the Flatt & Scruggs things from The Beverly Hillbillies that were in everybody’s DNA. Then I was playing mostly in rock bands in junior high school and high school.
A kid named Bobby Clark was the one that really got me pointed towards bluegrass. He had a little band in Oklahoma City and his father was a repairman. I had broken the string on my dad’s banjo, messing around with it, and I didn’t know how to change it. So I took it to Charlie and he put a string on it pretty quickly and everything was fine. I wasn’t gonna get my butt kicked. Then I started talking to Charlie, and he says, “You play music, don’t you?” And I said, “Yeah, I love to play. I play electric guitar and play in rock bands and stuff.” He goes, “My son Bobby is a really fine mandolin player and plays bluegrass. You ever played any bluegrass?” I said, “No.”
They stuck an acoustic guitar in my hands and Bobby said, “We just had our lead singer leave the band and we’re looking for a singer.” So they did a pretty good job of raising me and teaching me and showing me how bluegrass worked. I played in their band for the last couple of years of high school. Then in another bluegrassy kind of band called Mountain Smoke. And I started playing all the festivals down around Oklahoma and Texas and Kansas. And ran into all the people that I’ve known in my whole life since I was 15, 16 years old.
Wasn’t that how you met Cheryl White [from The Whites]?
Yeah, I used to carry her bass around the festivals. I always had a thing for the girl bass players for some reason. There was another family band from Missouri called the Calton Family. Got sweet on Brenda. Then I got sweet on Cheryl. And she says I should’ve picked a harmonica player. [Laughs]
Those were such fun days and innocent. I loved the camaraderie that went on in that music. Not only with the people that came to the festivals, but the musicians. Everybody jammed together. There wasn’t a whole lot in it for anybody. Everybody was just kind of getting by. It was amazing, as I look back, what it did for me in the way that I respected other musicians and listened to other musicians. It was really important that I had a lot of that in my past. I haven’t forgotten it.
When I first heard bluegrass, I was just blown away by musicianship of it.
Yeah, I mean Stuart Duncan was as great as he was at 12 or 13. So was Mark O’Connor when he was 12 or 13. And Marty and Ricky and Jerry and on and on and on and on of these wonder kid pickers. Unbelievable. I kind of squeaked in because I could sing a little bit and figured out how play as I went. I kind of played whatever was left over in a lot of the bands I was in, and that was fine.
I saw you play mandolin on quite a few songs when you played Bluegrass Nights at the Ryman. What is it about that instrument that you really enjoy?
I think the mandolin is the most important drive of a bluegrass band. The banjo and that are the two most definitive sounds. In bluegrass, mandolin players are like the drummer, even more so than the guitar player to me. It’s that backbeat and driving it. Sam Bush was a great teacher of how you drive that music, you know? I loved the ferocity and intensity that he played with. When he played, that was powerful to watch as a 15- or 16-year-old kid.
That’s what I like. I like making it dance. I liked the importance of playing that instrument in bluegrass. I’m probably a much better guitar player in bluegrass than I am a mandolin player. But in some bands I had to play banjo. Sometimes I had to play, unfortunately, fiddle on a few things. Terrible! I played Dobro, I played everything. I played bass with Ricky’s band for a minute and then got to play some other instruments, but had a love for all of it. I still do. Probably I love it more now because it reminds me so much of my early days, and those first forays into learning about playing music.
Did Dobro come naturally to you?
It all kind of did. I mean, I put in the hours and I practiced hard. The neat thing was, you had such good people to learn from. I always had big ears and could always hear well and find what I was hearing in my head, figuring out how to play it.
There are so many brother duos that came up in bluegrass. Do you think that rubbed off on you with your harmony singing now?
Absolutely, yeah. I was trying to either be Ralph Stanley or Phil Everly or Ira Louvin or whoever. Don Rich and Buck Owens should’ve been brothers. I was a high singer so bluegrass was a natural fit. There have always been predominant high singers that were the focal point. Whether it was Ralph and Carter or whoever, man, that was a blend. You didn’t understand it when you were 15 or 16, what it was that made that blend so beautiful. It was the blood, you know. The DNA was the same.
I didn’t get to experience that until my oldest daughter was 18, 20 years old and we started singing together. I started calling her my little Everly because I’d spent my whole life trying to be Phil. You know, singing the high parts for everybody else, and blend perfectly, and every nuance they did, I’d do. And I’d just want ‘em to think I was related to ‘em. She wound up naming her daughter Everly because of that, because I called her my little Everly.
But yeah, I love sharing music. I love the collaboration of music more so than I like it by myself. It’s not as interesting by yourself, but when you get to play off somebody, and play with somebody, it’s very powerful.
IBMA World of Bluegrass announced its Main Stage schedule, as well as three special performances, for the Wide Open Bluegrass Festival next month in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Sam Bush will make a guest appearance with Del McCoury Band, while and a new band created by Jerry Douglas called the Ringers will perform for the first time ever. Douglas formed the group with Ronnie McCoury, Todd Phillips, Christian Sedelmyer, and Dan Tyminski.
In addition, a special performance titled “You Gave Me a Song”: Celebrating the Music of Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard will feature Alice Gerrard, Laurie Lewis, Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Justin Hiltner, Jon Weisberger, and Eliza Meyer.
Wide Open Bluegrass is the free weekend festival that takes place at Raleigh’s Red Hat Amphitheater and on seven additional stages in downtown Raleigh on September 27-28.
These artists join previously announced talent such as I’m With Her (Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, & Aoife O’Donovan), Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Balsam Range, Sister Sadie, Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen, and Molly Tuttle for Main Stage performances at Red Hat Amphitheater for this year’s festival. Performances at Red Hat Amphitheater will begin at 5 pm and will feature premier bluegrass acts for six hours.
The performances at Raleigh’s Red Hat Amphitheater will be open to the public for free, subject to venue capacity. A limited number of reserved seats in prime sections of the venue are available for purchase to ensure admittance for every performance.
Here is the schedule for the Main Stage performances at Red Hat Amphitheater for the 2019 Wide Open Bluegrass festival:
Friday, September 27 5:00 – Sister Sadie 6:05 – Balsam Range 7:15 – Molly Tuttle 8:25 – I’m With Her (Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan) 9:45 – The Ringers featuring Jerry Douglas, Ronnie McCoury, Todd Phillips, Christian Sedelmyer, and Dan Tyminski
Saturday, September 28 5:00 – “You Gave Me a Song”: Celebrating the Music of Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard 6:10 – Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen 7:15 – Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver 8:30 – Del McCoury Band, with Sam Bush, and Special Guests (more to be announced)
Artist:Steelwind Hometown: Oklahoma City Latest album:Blue
Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?
We would love to have biscuits and gravy along with sausage, bacon, and fried eggs with the one-and-only Sam Bush, followed by a raging morning jam on the porch. How could you not have a good day after that?
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
When recording we love to set the mood with the lights down low and candles lit — you’d think we were inviting a girl over for dinner. Our go-to delivery food was Chipotle… we love Mexican food! Smoothie King was also near the studio and we became addicted to the almond mocha smoothie with cold brew coffee in it. The more caffeine, the better!
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
One of our new songs called “When We’re Gone” was re-written three or four times. The song started out in a minor key, then we switched it to a major key, and then switched it back to a minor key. By the time we were done it sounded nothing like the original version, but we loved the end result.
As songwriters sometimes we get lucky and write a song in 15 minutes, which happened with “My Baby’s Gone.” However, we really had to grind out “When We’re Gone.” We love how it can relate to everyone’s life, not just ours, which is something we try to do with all our songs. We even had a fan in Germany say it’s his new favorite song!
Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?
Blake Parks (fiddle) has been influenced most by world-renowned fiddler and resident Oklahoman, Byron Berline. Blake actually learned to play fiddle by watching instructional VHS tapes that Byron had made. Michael Henneberry (guitar) draws a lot of inspiration from Canadian singer-songwriter Fred Eaglesmith. While Steelwind’s songs certainly have their own feel, if you listen closely you’ll likely hear some of Fred’s influence.
Becca Herrod (mandolin) is a die-hard Alison Krauss fan, and her music has beautifully impacted her musical style. Kenny Parks (bass) loves the playing of Mark Schatz, and you can hear him doing bass runs reminiscent of Mark’s style.
Adam Davis (dobro) is a disciple of “Flux” aka Jerry Douglas. Joel Parks (banjo) is a huge John Hartford fan. In fact, the whole band is!
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
While Blake and Michael co-write all of Steelwind’s songs, they discovered bluegrass music at different points in their life.
Blake was around 12 when he went to RockyGrass, a festival in Colorado. It was there he saw musicians his own age playing and enjoying bluegrass music. He then realized it was much more than just music his parents played and was inspired to become a musician himself.
Michael fell in love with bluegrass when he worked as a logger in the New Mexico mountains during his summers off from college. He lived without electricity there, and their main source of entertainment was music. There’s something about mountains and bluegrass that go together, and that’s where it all started with Michael.
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