Tag: Sam Bush

“The Shorthairs and the Longhairs”: The Story Behind ‘Bluegrass Country Soul’

Posted on by Editor

Bluegrass Country Soul captures one of Carlton Haney’s legendary festivals in Camp Springs, North Carolina, on Labor Day weekend of 1971. It is credited as the first bluegrass documentary, and is essential viewing for both lifelong bluegrass fans and those new to the genre.

This classic film features bluegrass music’s pioneers, as well as those who would take the music into the future. Earl Scruggs, The Osborne Brothers, Ralph Stanley, Chubby Wise, Mac Wiseman, J.D. Crowe, and Jimmy Martin were featured alongside The Country Gentlemen, Del McCoury, Sam Bush, Tony Rice, Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, Alan Munde, and more. The film documents Rice’s last show with The Bluegrass Alliance and his first show with J.D. Crowe & the Kentucky Mountain Boys. Many of the festival’s legendary moments are preserved in color for posterity.

A larger than life figure who is credited as starting the first multi-day bluegrass festival, Carlton Haney organized the weekend’s festival, and serves as the de facto host of the film, sharing thoughts about bluegrass music, bluegrass festivals, bluegrass fans, and the bluegrass “stow-ry.” His passion for the music is evident, and makes for a great depiction of one of bluegrass’s most significant and one-of-a-kind personalities.

Albert Ihde, the film’s director (pictured below), spoke with BGS about the film and its legacy to commemorate the 50th Anniversary boxed set of the film, released this summer. The special edition set includes the original film, recently remastered and restored; CDs of performances not featured in the film; bonus footage including exclusive interviews with Ricky Skaggs, Bill Emerson, Missy Raines, and more; and a full-color coffee table book about the film.

BGS: How did the opportunity to film Bluegrass Country Soul present itself 50 years ago?

Albert Ihde: It was almost by accident, in a sense. A couple of buddies of mine and I were preparing a screenplay for a company in Washington, D.C. that had hired me to write a film, and then I would direct. The only thing that they insisted on was that it had to be about a Country & Western singer. Now this is 1971, and back then they called it Country & Western. I said, “Okay. Fine. Let me do some research on that.

A buddy of mine, Bob Leonard, and I were out scouting locations in Berryville, Virginia when we saw posters for Carlton Haney’s 4th of July Festival, and Earl Scruggs was going to be playing. We thought, “Well, that looks interesting.” To make a long story short, I got in touch with John Miller, who was the partner of Carlton’s there at Berryville, and John took us on a tour of the sites because I wanted to see what it looked like. It was right on the Shenandoah. Gorgeous location. He gave us passes to the Fourth of July Festival. We had no idea what bluegrass was, compared to country music, and we thought, “This looks like it’ll be fun. We’ll go to see this.”

Director, Albert Ihde

A bunch of us got a VW wagon, and my wife hooked up a camper on the back of our car. We went out, and we parked and saw it, and I have to tell you, as soon as I heard that music coming from the stage, we were all hooked. We talked to Carlton. Quite a deal! Talked to Fred Bartenstein (a local disc jockey who helped with the annual festival) and they told us more about what they were doing. I wanted to put Carlton in a film right then and there as soon as I met him.

We got back to D.C. and the company that hired me to write this screenplay, it turned out that they couldn’t raise the money to make the movie. So we took the film and decided we would try and find the money ourselves. Fortunately the first guy that I sent it to called us into his office. He was a major D.C. investor, philanthropist, and owned lots of real estate in D.C. He said that the thing that interested him most about the screenplay was this bluegrass festival out in Berryville. He said, “Why don’t you do a film about that?”

My partner and I looked at him and said it’s gonna be hard to raise money for a documentary, and he said, “How much do you need?” We get our calculator out, we start going through it, and we throw a figure out to him. It’s not gonna be as expensive as the film that’s going to have all the actors that would be taking us six to eight weeks to shoot. This, we could shoot in one weekend. He said, “Listen if you get Carlton Haney to agree to allow you to come and shoot the film at his festival, I’ll go out and find the money.” And we said, “Okay.”

The next day, Bob Leonard and I were on a plane to North Carolina and met with Carlton and Fred, pitched the whole idea to him, and Carlton was on board right at the beginning. He said, “Absolutely. No problem.” I said, “Well, are you gonna get all of these musicians to agree to this?” And he said, “Yes, I can do that.”

We had all of twelve days, two weeks, or something like that, to get the whole thing together to get down to Camp Springs on Labor Day weekend. And we lucked out. We happened to have this incredible festival with all of the pioneers of bluegrass, along with all of the up and coming newgrass guys who were changing the music as we watched. It was a great mix of both the old and the new, and as Carlton called it, “the mixture of the short hairs and the long hairs.”

That was it! You’ve got the hippies sitting right next to the guys right off the farm in coveralls. A guy in a Confederate hat sitting right next to hippie girls. It was a great mix. And everybody got along. And it was at a time in America when the country split. Nixon and the protests trying to bring our troops home from Vietnam. It was a strange time. But the thing that happened at the festival… everybody was getting along all right! Also of course, most of the audience were bluegrass musicians of their own or were learning or wanting to be. So that’s how we got into it.

What were some things about Carlton’s personality that made him such a compelling figure to follow for a film?

A number of people have said he was like the “P.T. Barnum of Bluegrass.” So it was kinda like, just put a camera on him and let him go, because you never know what he’s gonna say! Of course, the great thing about filming is, you can always edit it, and we edited out a lot of Carlton.

At one point, it was towards the end of the weekend, we were filming Carlton out on the lot, and I say “Carlton, we need something to kind of summarize the whole thing, and put a tag on the end of the film.” He said, “Oh, that’s okay. I know exactly what to say. Do you want me to make you laugh or do you want me to make you cry?” And I looked at my cameraman, and Bob was ten years older than me, and he had a lot of experience doing this, and I looked at Bob and I said, “What do you think? Make us cry?” And Bob nodded his head “Yeah, make us cry, Carlton.” And Carlton said, “Okay, start the camera rolling.”

So we started the camera rolling, and Carlton is saying goodbye to the kid who is packing up his gear at the end, and then he turns to the camera and he says, “You know, when people leave, it makes me sad, because all my friends are leaving. But I know that they had a good time, and that they’ll be back again next year.” And tears are coming to his eyes! And he says, “And that’s bluegrass and that’s a bluegrass festival.” And I said “Cut!” Bob and I just burst out laughing, and I said “Carlton, you’re going to get an Academy Award for that!”

To this day, Fred tells me, he runs into people and he says they will quote to him the lines that Carlton had in the film. “The shorthairs and the longhairs,” [and,] “You look down upon the stage and you can hear the soul of man — Ralph Stanley.” They just came out of his mouth!

The other thing was, he could not look at the lens, no matter how hard I tried. [Carlton] had this real shyness problem, and yet you put him on the stage and hand him a mic in front of ten thousand people, he was fine. But put a camera in front of him, he was looking away. Kind of shy and withdrawn. I think he was very concerned about his looks. He had terrible teeth. As somebody once said, that’s part of the times back then when nobody had health insurance or dental insurance… that was the last thing that people spent money on. So I think Carlton was a little shy about the way he looked. But he was an interesting guy.

Pictured: Ralph Stanley

You mentioned that one thing that was so compelling about the film, and at bluegrass festivals in general, was seeing people from different walks of life united by this music and finding common ground, even if it was for a weekend. What do you think that message has for us today where we are as divided now as we were fifty years ago?

I hope it has the same result. Every time I have shown the film — and I have shown it to heads of studios in Hollywood, I showed it to corporations up in New York City — no matter where I’ve shown it, people leave the theatre with big smiles on their faces. It’s not necessarily because they’re bluegrass fans, but because they enjoy it. They had fun. They were delighted. Something about that music, about the people playing it, about the commitment that these people have to it. There’s more to it than just country music. I think that’s what Carlton was trying to say about the soul. It’s a commitment to the music that is thorough.

I don’t know whether Carlton told me this or not, but at some point I learned early on: bluegrass music is not commercial country. Meaning, you’re gonna lose your shirts on it, but you’re doing it because you love it. That really says it all, and I think that comes through with music and with Carlton and with all of the people that are on stage in the film and all the people playing out in the field… You see the commitment to the music.

Ellen [Pasternack, the project’s Executive Director and Ihde’s wife] and I have a background in professional theatre, regional theatre around the country, and what you’re always looking for working in theatre are actors who can really commit to doing a performance. It’s that commitment to the art — whether that’s music, theatre, dance, or painting — that’s where you find the joy in the art. And I think that comes through in the film, even if you don’t know anything about bluegrass. I hope that comes through still to this day, and maybe gets people thinking “past the politics” for a moment or two just to look at the music and listen to the music. And to see, “If this was going on back then, why can’t it happen again?”

Photos and trailer courtesy of Bluegrass Country Soul.

New Movement Music: A Black American Soundtrack of Struggle and Protest

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

For Black Americans, this day, Juneteenth, has long been a celebration of the momentous historical event of emancipation from slavery — and the nearly two and a half years it took for that news to reach all enslaved peoples in this country. Juneteenth is belatedly gaining wider recognition and arrives at a time of reckoning with systemic patterns of white supremacy, especially police brutality, that remain deeply entrenched.

Like many waves of national protest before it, the uprising in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade and many others has spurred the creation of its own soundtrack, and the following list spotlights the contributions of seven roots-savvy, Black music makers. Some draw on lessons learned from how songs gave spiritual succor to those on the front lines of the 1960s Civil Rights struggle, with righteously raised fists and declarations of passion and purpose. Others opt for expression that feels far more personalized or particular, articulating an adamantly complex range of emotions and letting profoundly unsettled, and unsettling, questions hang in the air. All of them are fleshing out their own vivid, timely incarnations of movement music.

Leon Bridges specializes in sophisticated soul, sometimes artfully retro in presentation and other times landing at the thoroughly contemporary end of that musical lineage. His new song “Sweeter” is an example of the latter, two minutes and 50 seconds during which his buttery vocals glide over a lean drum machine pattern, delicate, gospel-dusted bits of guitar, keyboard, piano and bass and Terrace Martin’s saxophone figures. Bridges’ words land with the devastated finality of a black man whose life is leaving his body, taken from him by police. “I thought we moved on from the darker days,” he sings, his cadence fluttery and tone ruminative. “Did the words of the King disappear in the air, like a butterfly?” The blame-laying next line arrives in a burst: “Somebody should hand you a felony.”

Then, Bridges elongates his phrasing with righteous indignation, before steadying himself to spell out the loss: “‘Cause you stole from me/my chance to be.” The elegance he chose gives his performance subtly striking, emotional heft. “From adolescence we are taught how to conduct ourselves when we encounter police to avoid the consequences of being racially profiled,” Bridges wrote in a statement. “I have been numb for too long, calloused when it came to the issues of police brutality. The death of George Floyd was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. It was the first time I wept for a man I never met. I am George Floyd, my brothers are George Floyd, and my sisters are George Floyd. I cannot and will not be silent any longer. Just as Abel’s blood was crying out to God, George Floyd is crying out to me.”

Chastity Brown has been honing her ability to create space for emotional resistance within her songs for a while now. She draws on the pointed, confessional potential of folk and soul and the digital texturing techniques of contemporary pop and hip-hop, while depicting the patient pursuit and safekeeping of self-knowledge as a sign of strength — one that differs wildly from the sort of dominance modeled by systemic power.

In her new song “Golden,” created on her iPad in her garage studio and shared with the world this week, Brown sounds willfully unhurried singing over a skittery programmed beat: “I’ve got joy, even when I’m a target/If ya think that’s political, don’t get me started/You know I’m golden and I flaunt it.” That savoring of selfhood is in striking contrast to the furious question she circles around during the chorus: “Why have I got to be angry?”

In the artist notes accompanying the song, Brown explained that she began writing it when her nephew was beaten by four white cops while walking home in Harlem, mere weeks before George Floyd died in her adopted hometown. “This collective trauma that black, indigenous, immigrant, and queer/trans folk feel is real,” she spelled out. “It’s every god damn day. Yet, we still thrive and flourish in our nature beauty, we still have swag and songs for days. We still have wild and wondrous imaginations like we are all the children of Octavia [Butler]. …This is for me, my people, and the UPRISING to defund police here in Minneapolis and thereby set a new standard for how communities want to be protected.”

Shemekia Copeland, one of the brightest stars in contemporary blues, has been deliberate for years about broadening her repertoire and approach to encompass countrified styles, singer-songwriter song sources and statement-making folk and soul sensibilities and, in the process, positioning herself in the midst of roots music discourse. That’s the insightful perspective she brings to her just-released “Uncivil War,” whose string band style accompaniment boasts the contributions of Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas.

Coming from Copeland, and delivered with measured, dignified vibrato, the simple flipping of the name of the nation’s most notorious war to “uncivil” slyly strips a veneer of respectability from the racist and romanticized Lost Cause religion. She strikes a tone of weary but resolute optimism throughout. “It’s not just a song,” she clarified in a statement. “I’m trying to put the ‘united’ back in the United States. Like many people, I miss the days when we treated each other better. For me, this country’s all about people with differences coming together to be part of something we all love. That’s what really makes America beautiful.”

Kam Franklin, on her own and with her Houston horn band The Suffers, has the wide-ranging musical instincts, imagination, nerve, and ear for earthy verisimilitude to make big statements while zeroing in on small interactions. A couple of weeks back, she posted a brand new, self-recorded song fragment to SoundCloud, a platform well suited to off-the-cuff expression, and with it, this comment: “I saw a photo of Breonna Taylor with her homegirls earlier today, and it gutted me. I won’t forget her. I wrote this birthday song for her, her friends that wondered where she was before the news came out, and everyone that loved her.”

Titled “Happy Birthday Breonna,” it’s a pensive, sinuous bit of ‘70s soul that drives home the fact that Taylor was ripped from a web of close relationships. The first, and only verse, lands like a voicemail from a friend who grew worried when she couldn’t reach Taylor. Franklin’s graceful trills and softly insistent phrasing have an understatement that suggests fretful preoccupation. Then she moves into a point-counterpoint refrain, murmuring birthday wishes to Taylor in her breathy upper register and making a devastating declaration beneath: “You should be here.”

Singer-guitarist and actor Celisse Henderson began work on writing, recording, and filming a video for her song “FREEDOM” four years ago, following the slayings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, and watched as black deaths and protest momentum multiplied before she finally completed and released her project earlier this month.

In a message on her website, Henderson explained, “I, along with millions of people, watched video footage of these unarmed black men losing their lives in the most horrific ways. The truth that these unjust deaths revealed about our country, including the systemic failings of our criminal justice system, became my personal call-to-action. Then the 2016 election night happened, and the results added a whole new layer to the purpose of this song and project. Now, almost four years later, too little has been done, and the story remains the same. With the horrific and unjust killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd weighing heavily on our hearts and minds, it is time to release ‘FREEDOM’ as a rallying cry and a call to action to stand up and fight for our freedom.”

Historic footage of the March on Washington that opens the clip is a reminder of the buoying role that spirituals played in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and serves the narrative function of positioning Henderson to measure the too-meager progress for Black Americans since. The track is gospel-schooled and hard-rocking, powered by a thunderous, syncopated drum pattern and grinding electric guitar attack. With gospel fervor and a touch of theatrical flourish, Henderson summons a spirit of urgency and extends a broad welcome to all who are affected or disturbed by injustice.

Joy Oladokun, a Nigerian-American singer-songwriter who’s quietly carving out her place in Nashville’s professional songwriting community with introspective, melancholy warmth, steered a co-writing appointment with Natalie Hemby toward an expression of grief. The result was “Who Do I Turn To?” a naked airing of fear and distrust.

Oladokun’s reedy, plaintive performance is accompanied only by minimal piano chords. She spends the chorus adding up horrifying realizations that lead her to a resounding question: “If I can’t save myself/If it’s all black and white/If I can’t call for help/in the middle of the night/If I can’t turn to god/If I can’t turn to you/Who do I turn to?” Her voice subtly catches on the word “help,” as though knowing that life-giving protection is unavailable to her constricts her breath. Oladokun underscored the importance of the chorus lyrics to an interviewer: “[I]t’s illustrating that I don’t trust the police since I’m black. I don’t trust the police enough to know that they would think I’m not robbing my own home. I don’t think a lot of people understand what that is like. The feeling sucks.” In a separate statement she summarized her intent: “I wanted to write a firsthand account of how I feel and the question black people like me ask when this happens over and over again while nothing changes. I want it out now to help an already traumatized people cope, heal, and put words to their struggle.”

Wyatt Waddell, a young Chicago music-maker who’s been expertly, wittily, and self-sufficiently arranging home recordings of classic covers and singer-songwriter soul originals for the past few years, wrote “FIGHT!” as an anthem of admiration and uplift for young, Black Americans putting their bodies on the line in the streets and facing off against police force to agitate for change. “This song is me looking at what’s happening and what I’d tell the people protesting,” he specified in a statement. “I had to look outside of myself at what’s going on and how people are being affected. Hearing people’s fears, anxieties, and watching everything happening on TV really helped me write the song. I hope that it can be an anthem for my people as they’re fighting for a better America.”

Waddell begins with gospel-style repetition, creating a call-and-response pattern made up of his own layered vocals over a churchly foot stomp and hand clap groove: “There’s already so much pain/So much pain/So much pain/There’s already so much pain/And there ain’t nothin’ else we can do.” It seems like he could be building up to a confession of helplessness; instead, his funky refrain is bolstered by a sense of resolve and inevitability: “Nothin’ to do but fight.”

Photo credit: (L to R) Shemekia Copeland by Mike White; Chastity Brown by Wale Agboola; Leon Bridges by Jack McKain.

WATCH: Full Cord Bluegrass, “Downtown”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Full Cord Bluegrass
Hometown: Grand Haven, Michigan
Song: “Downtown”

In Their Words: “Most bluegrass songs are written with bucolic images, mountain hollers, and a country living context. I wanted to write a song about that same-minded person visiting a city. While the lyrics portray this, so can the music with its unconventional chords and rhythms. The rhythmic mandolin chordal riff for ‘Downtown’ was born out of an inspiration from the mandolin rhythm giant, Sam Bush, while the chords in the bridge are inspired by Steely Dan. … a blend of bluegrass and the city type chord progression. Portland, Oregon, where I lived for 13 years, is the ‘Downtown’ subject and declares my love-hate relationship with the city. That feeling of energy, sights and sounds of a vibrant environment come in to play with this one. This is something we can all understand…” — Brian Oberlin, Full Cord Bluegrass

Photo credit: Chantal Roeske

LISTEN: Shemekia Copeland, “Uncivil War” (Feat. Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and the Orphan Brigade)

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Shemekia Copeland
Single: “Uncivil War” (feat. Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and the Orphan Brigade)
Release Date: June 19, 2020
Record Label: Alligator Records

In Their Words: “It’s not just a song. I’m trying to put the ‘united’ back in the United States. Like many people, I miss the days when we treated each other better. For me, this country’s all about people with differences coming together to be part of something we all love. That’s what really makes America beautiful.” — Shemekia Copeland

Photo credit: Mike White

WATCH: Becky Buller, “The Barber’s Fiddle”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Becky Buller
Hometown: St. James, Minnesota; adopted hometown: Manchester, Tennessee
Song: “The Barber’s Fiddle”
Album: Distance and Time
Release Date: September 18, 2020
Label: Dark Shadow Recording

In Their Words: “This is a celebration of the fiddle and the glorious tradition of passing music down from one generation to the next. I co-wrote this with Lynda Dawson and it is inspired by three fiddling barbers, including Gene Boyd of the Star Barber Shop in Bristol, Virginia, and Bill Womack from Woodbury, Tennessee. The song features my fantastic band (the Becky Buller Band — myself, Nate Lee, Prof. Dan Boner, Ned Luberecki, and Daniel Hardin) along with these special guest singers and fiddlers: Jason Carter, Kati Penn, Sam Bush, Laurie Lewis, Shawn Camp, Laura Orshaw, Michael Cleveland, Jason Barie, Stuart Duncan, Johnny Warren (playing Paul Warren’s fiddle), Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Deanie Richardson, Tyler Andal, Brian Christianson, and Fred Carpenter.” — Becky Buller

Photo credit: Stephen Mougin

MIXTAPE: Songs That Changed Jon Stickley’s Life and Still Blow His Mind

Posted on by Editor

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!

Photo credit: Sandlin Gaither

BGS Long Reads of the Week // April 17

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

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.

Old, New, Borrowed, and Blue: A Conversation with Sam Bush

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]

Canon Fodder: Loretta Lynn, Van Lear Rose

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]

Eric Gibson’s Family Shares Autism Story in New Film

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]

Like Father, Like Sons: Del McCoury & the Travelin’ McCourys

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]

Rose Maddox: The Remarkable Hillbilly Singer Who Made Bluegrass History

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 Grabs Grammy Nom for (Not Quite) Solo Album

Posted on by Editor

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’s Superstring 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.

Photo Credit: Stacie Huckeba

Bobby Hicks, “Snowflake Breakdown”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

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.

For ‘Dolly Parton’s America’ Host, It All Starts with “Muleskinner Blues”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

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