You’ve reached the end of the week! For a little treat, how about a few brand new songs and music videos? You Gotta Hear This!
If you’re looking for bluegrass, we’ve certainly got it this week– Chris Jones & The Night Drivers share their first recording of a Tom T. Hall original, “Mama Bake a Pie (Daddy Kill a Chicken),” since their dear friend and Bluegrass Hall of Famer passed away a few years ago. Plus, bluegrass legends Seldom Scene preview their upcoming album, Remains to Be Scene, with a new single, “Last of the Steam-Powered Trains.” And, wrapping up our bluegrass trifecta, banjo player Max Wareham pays tribute to NHL team the Boston Bruins with an excellent shredding instrumental tune, “The Black & Gold.”
From elsewhere across the roots music landscape, duo Swearingen & Kelli offer “Break Me Down,” a powerful acoustic number with plenty of grit, slide guitar, and blues influence. Plus, don’t miss Justin Wells’ new music video for “Sad, Tomorrow,” a contemplative slow burn of a song that focuses on mental health, melancholy, and forging ahead.
It’s a lovely collection of new roots music to take you into the weekend, and you know what we think – You Gotta Hear This!
Chris Jones & the Night Drivers, “Mama Bake a Pie (Daddy Kill a Chicken)”
Artist:Chris Jones & The Night Drivers Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Mama Bake a Pie (Daddy Kill a Chicken)” Release Date: January 17, 2025 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “This is an old and lesser-known Vietnam War-era song of Tom T. Hall’s and the first song of his I’ve recorded since his passing a few years ago. I think I didn’t feel ready to until now. He had a unique ability to incorporate bits of humor into a sad story, and this is definitely one of those. This song is vivid and poignant in a way that is vintage Tom T. I was going to record this several years ago, but when I brought it up to Tom T. and Dixie, they wrote ‘Hero in Harlan’ that very day to give me something new to do instead.” – Chris Jones
Seldom Scene, “Last of the Steam-Powered Trains”
Artist:The Seldom Scene Hometown: Bethesda, Maryland Song: “Last of the Steam-Powered Train” Album:Remains to Be Scene Release Date: January 14, 2025 (single); March 14, 2025 (album) Label: Smithsonian Folkways
In Their Words: “This song was written by Ray Douglas Davies and recorded by the rock group The Kinks in the 1960s. The Scene has always looked outside the box for material, and we thought this one fit the bill.” – Lou Reid
Swearingen & Kelli, “Break Me Down”
Artist:Swearingen & Kelli Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Break Me Down” Release Date: January 24, 2025 Label: Gone Rogue Music
In Their Words: “I wrote this song a few years back, but it never really got its due. I was also really obsessed with slide guitar at that time. It’s a little gritty, and when Jayne added her vocals on top, I thought, ‘Ok, this is exactly what this song needs.’ I love the discovery process of writing and recording. Sometimes it takes a while to find the exact combination of sounds with an arrangement to tell the story the way you really want to.” – AJ Swearingen
Track Credits: AJ Swearingen – Guitars, drums, percussion, bass, vocals Jayne Kelli – Vocals, organ
Max Wareham, “The Black & Gold”
Artist:Max Wareham Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts Song: “The Black & Gold” Album:DAGGOMIT! Release Date: January 17, 2025 (single); February 21, 2025 (album)
In Their Words: “Sports and music might have more in common than we think – this tune is a tribute to the Boston Bruins’ legendary ’22-’23 season, during which they broke most NHL records. Musically, the A part was inspired by Bill Emerson and the B part is a nod to the style of banjo legend, Rudy Lyle.” – Max Wareham
Track Credits: Max Wareham – Banjo Laura Orshaw – Fiddle Chris Henry – Mandolin Chris Eldridge – Guitar Mike Bub – Bass Larry Atamanuik – Snare
Justin Wells, “Sad, Tomorrow”
Artist:Justin Wells Hometown: Lexington, Kentucky Song: “Sad, Tomorrow” Album:Cynthiana Release Date: January 15, 2025 (single); February 20, 2025 (album)
In Their Words: “The title of the song comes from a story Nicole Kidman told Marc Maron on Maron’s podcast, WTF. Kidman talked about how she often took her characters home with her, acting in front of a mirror. Her young child had grown accustomed to seeing and hearing her mother work on these roles. A day or so after Kidman’s father died, she was grieving at home, and her kid heard this. Her kid asked ‘Mom, why are you crying?’
“‘Well, I’m crying because I’m sad, because Papaw died.’
“Her child, accustomed to seeing her Mom go in and out of emotions while working on her acting, replied, ‘Well, are you gonna be sad tomorrow?’
“I wanted to write this song about that feeling of helplessness you have when a friend is struggling with depression, when the only thing you can do sometimes is just be there. I ended up asking my dear friend Adam Lee to help me finish it, which was considerably apropos, because we’d both been each other’s therapist through lockdown, when we were kinda losing our minds. Considering all of the above, the song carries an even bigger weight because it’s one of the last songs that my friend Robby Cosenza played on before he passed. Robby was a Lexington icon, playing on hundreds of albums including a Ringo Starr record as well as my debut album, Dawn in the Distance, and he was instrumental in helping me get my legs under me when I started my solo career.” – Justin Wells
Photo Credit: Seldom Scene by Jeromie Stephens; Swearingen & Kelli by Daniel Shippy.
The avant-garde, southern rock icon Col. Bruce Hampton had a belief that defined his career: don’t take yourself seriously – take what you do seriously. That saying holds strong for East Nash Grass, a group who have entertained the crowds at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge (in Madison, Tennessee) with incredible bluegrass and charming stage antics every Monday night for nearly six years.
Bluegrass music has a longstanding tradition of bands performing recurring shows. In the 1970s, J.D. Crowe & the New South rose to popularity while performing five nights a week at the Red Slipper Lounge in Lexington, Kentucky. Meanwhile, the Seldom Scene was gaining traction in the Washington, D.C., area with weekly performances at the Red Fox Inn and later the historic Birchmere. Performing that much allowed those bands to not only grow musically, but to grow their own, almost cult-like fanbase.
While the members East Nash Grass – Harry Clark (mandolin), Maddie Denton (fiddle), James Kee (mandolin), Gaven Largent (Dobro), Jeff Picker (bass), and Cory Walker (banjo) – are getting ready to celebrate six years of performing Monday nights at Dee’s, their sophomore record Last Chance to Win is charting No. 4 on Billboard’s Bluegrass Chart, they’re booked at festivals all over the country, and they’re nominated for IBMA’s New Artist of the Year award.
BGS recently caught up with James Kee and Cory Walker to discuss the new album, the origins of the band, and the longstanding residency at Dee’s.
East Nash Grass started with a rotating cast in 2017, playing every Monday night at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge. Can you tell me about the origins of the group, and when the lineup came together as something more than a weeknight pickup band?
James Kee: We had a lot of lineup changes in the early days – we solidified that lineup by 2018 or so, but it wasn’t as strong as the current lineup. We had Maddie [Denton] then, but Cory started playing with us full time in 2019, as did Harry [Clark]. And when that happened, East Nash Grass became serious. We just gelled together. It was super comfortable musically, and also professionally.
Cory Walker: I got a gig in 2015 or ’16, at Arrington Vineyards, and came up with the band name then. There was such a resurgence of bluegrass in the East Nashville area. Putting together the band, if I couldn’t get this one person on mandolin, there were five others I could call. Then, Harry and I met this guy that worked at Dee’s and wanted to put together a weekly bluegrass show. So that’s how we were associated in the very beginning. But I wasn’t playing every Monday night, and around that same time Harry moved to Lexington for a couple of years to play with the Wooks.
You’ve definitely become known for your unique stage presence and antics, between (and often during) songs, and you take that same energy from Madison to stages all over the country. How has playing a weekly gig for six years shaped the way you perform?
CW: I’ve played with so many people who use the same old formula. I don’t want to be a mouthpiece for the thing that has always worked. That’s one of the things I love about playing in this band, turning peoples heads upside down. It’s fresh air.
JK: We’ve each been a sideman in all these different bands, and so many can suck the air out of the room between songs. They’re great, but we really wanted to loosen up from that. I have the same irreverence for the “same old” that Cory does.
How has your stage presence been received in more traditional performance spaces?
JK: It’s not for everyone, but never any negative experiences. Often, they’re not sure what to think. People might think we do something different than other bands, but we do a lot of the same, just in our own way. We got on the Ryman stage and thanked Tim Allen – twice.
CW: But, he was there… this is really new territory, as far as the stage show. I love to go back to the Dee’s stream from the past week and watch the clown moments, where somebody does something off the wall and then everyone else responds to it in some way. In any other band scenario, that person would be fired, immediately.
Your performances are always unique, but so is this new record. How did you choose material, and go about recording Last Chance to Win?
JK: We knew there were some songs that people wanted us to record, that we’d already been doing. That was “Slippin’ Away,” “How Could I Love Her So Much,” three or four songs. We went in and cut those and got used to the environment, this particular studio and this first album with Jeff [Picker] on bass. I brought a lot of material to the first record, and I wanted to see what everybody else would bring to this one. It ended up having this old-time vibe that just naturally occurred, and so we ended up finishing out the record with more songs that fit that.
Everyone in East Nash Grass seems to get their own voice, despite each of you having worked for countless solo artists. What’s it like to all come together and cultivate your own fanbase?
CW: Having a band where everyone has a say really makes people care more about the music and want to stick around. Even though we’ve all worked for bigger acts, we’re getting in together at the bottom floor. The people at our release show were primarily our age and younger. Those people will stick around, too.
Gloria Flickinger’s first public singing engagement was at age three. Her parents placed her on a chair to reach the microphone at a radio station broadcasting a church program.
More than 70 years later, Gloria – by then long known as Gloria Belle – was still singing the gospel music she loved in churches in the Tennessee region.
Between her first performance and her death on May 5, 2023, at age 84, Gloria Belle broke barriers as a multi-talented musician in the male-dominated world of first-generation bluegrass. She set a standard for all-around musicianship, independence and grace-under-fire for future generations of women in bluegrass.
Gloria grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry and the Wheeling Jamboree on the radio – where her attention was caught early on by Little Miss Evelyn singing with the Bailey Brothers. She also was taken by the powerful voices of Mollie O’Day and Wilma Lee Cooper. At age 11, she picked up a mandolin that she said her mother “had never learned to play like she wanted to.” She learned basic guitar from her mother, as well, and learned to pick out melodies by listening to Mother Maybelle Carter and Bill Clifton.
When she was 13, her parents took her to a Bailey Brothers performance at Valley View Park in Pennsylvania. In a 2006 interview, Gloria said, “When I saw that show, I said, ‘That’s it.’” She was going to be a musician. At 15, she dropped out of high school, saying, “I don’t need a high school education to play music.”
After leaving school, Gloria took day jobs (most notably in a potato chip factory). She honed her instrumental skills, played for a time with a local band and continued singing in churches with her parents – who were enduringly supportive of her music.
During that period, a teenaged Tom Gray (legendary bass player with the Country Gentlemen and Seldom Scene, as well as others) jammed with Gloria in a parking lot in West Grove, Pennsylvania. He said, “She impressed everyone with her singing. What a strong voice. And she could play most of the instruments. Our mentor, Bill Clifton said, ‘There is a woman who can sing like Molly O’Day.’”
One family vacation, the Flickingers drove to a showing of the Farm and Home Hour – live broadcast programming started by entrepreneur Cas Walker to promote his Knoxville retail businesses. Danny Bailey, formerly of the Bailey Brothers, invited Gloria and her mother to perform a few tunes.
About six months later, Bailey wrote to Gloria, asking her to come to Knoxville as soon as possible to replace departing performers.
On the way to Knoxville, the family stopped in Huntington, West Virginia, so Gloria could meet her hero, Molly O’Day. The older woman received them graciously, recommending which of O’Day’s songs Gloria should incorporate into her repertoire.
One of these was “Banjo Pickin’ Girl”– which Gloria would play in seven shows a day, six days a week during one long, North Carolina summer.
Jump ahead to 1959, Gloria was 21.
Almost immediately, Gloria began breaking new ground as a bluegrass musician. Beyond being the “girl singer,” she was establishing herself as an instrumentalist and harmony partner, as well as a lead singer.
For five years, Gloria played with Cas Walker’s live radio and TV programs. Walker dubbed the singer “Gloria Belle,” because he couldn’t pronounce Flickinger.
Gloria sang duets with Danny Bailey, as well showcasing on banjo and twin mandolins. During this period, she recorded two singles, becoming only the second woman (the first was Donna Stoneman) to record a bluegrass mandolin solo.
After leaving Walker’s organization, Gloria easily found other work. She spent a season at the Ghost Town shows in Maggie Valley, North Carolina. It was there she played ‘Banjo Pickin’ Girl’ so often, she said, “I felt like a robot.”
She then performed with Betty Amos and her All-Girl Band, playing country and bluegrass.
In 1967, Rebel Records released Gloria Belle Sings and Plays Bluegrass in the Country. She was only the fourth female bluegrass artist with her own album, and the first woman to play lead instruments (banjo, guitar and mandolin) on a solo project.
On two later solo albums (A Good Hearted Woman, 1976, and The Love of the Mountains in 1986) she preferred to concentrate on her singing, only playing one stunning mandolin solo that kept up with the speed of her stellar back-up band, the Johnson Mountain Boys.
Around this time, the band Bluegrass Travelers invited Gloria to join them as band leader. Gloria again broke new ground, fronting an all-men’s band. She also demonstrated her strong sense of values by insisting that all band members, including herself, receive the same pay.
In her important book on women in bluegrass, Pretty Good for a Girl, Murphy Henry wrote, “What we are seeing here is a picture of the quintessential bluegrass side musician, only this had never been done before by a woman in bluegrass. . . . Gloria Belle went where the work was.”
Occasionally, being a female musician could open doors in bluegrass. The audience appeal of a “girl singer” encouraged Jimmy Martin – one of the top names in bluegrass – to invite Gloria to join his Sunny Mountain Boys. While he never took full advantage of Gloria’s instrumental abilities (she played snare drum before moving to bass with him), Gloria’s voice shone as a harmony singer, including on high baritone parts of trios and quartets. While Martin discouraged her from playing on recordings, she sang on many tracks, adding harmonies that Henry described as “spine-tingling.”
Gloria distinguished herself in other ways. As a tiny woman on stage, she held her own with grace, kindness and gratitude for doing the work she had always wanted to do. (And she hauled her upright bass across the stage effortlessly.)
As a boy, Mark Newton saw Gloria perform with the Sunny Mountain Boys. “She held her head high. She was confident. She was determined.” And he remembers the passionate gleam in her eyes when she played and sang.
Timmy Martin (Jimmy Martin, Jr.) met Gloria when he was a young boy playing in his dad’s band. He bought his first – and still favorite – car from Gloria at age 14.
Gloria was assigned to ride shotgun when the teenaged Timmy drove the bus, entertaining him with conversation during long hours on the road. “She was always really, really nice,” even during stressful episodes – like when the band had to sleep on a broken-down bus somewhere near Kansas for days.
A frequent comment about Gloria’s days with Jimmy Martin’s band was, “It can’t have been easy.” But Gloria seems to have laughed off the wisecracks and insults.
Author Bob Artis quoted Martin as joking, “She’s not very good, but we let her sing with us ‘cause we feel sorry for her.” Whether he garbled her name during an introduction or deliberately distracted the audience during her solos, Gloria didn’t let it bother her: “I was just doing my job.”
Gloria left the Sunny Mountain Boys for several years, during which time she played with an all-female country dance band and later in a duo with Charlie Monroe. In 1975, she returned to Martin’s band, recording with him a final time in 1978.
Gloria returned to Cas Walker in Knoxville, taking other jobs in the region as time permitted. Eventually, she moved to Florida, where she took temporary day jobs, jammed and for a short time performed with an all-female group called Foxfire.
Until this time, Gloria had remained single by choice. But after crossing paths musically with luthier and guitarist Mike Long for many years, Gloria married Long in 1989. Until then, she said, “I wasn’t going to marry somebody who would stop me from playing music.”
The couple formed Gloria Bell and Tennessee Sunshine. Based in Virginia, they toured and recorded five albums, three of which were entirely gospel. Nancy Cardwell, Executive Director of the International Bluegrass Music Foundation said, “Gloria …was definitely the band leader, and Mike treated her like a star…”
During her later years, Gloria remained visible in the bluegrass arena. Murphy Henry notes two memories of the Gloria at IBMA gatherings that stand out particularly: “…a Women in Bluegrass performance at Fan Fest, where she played killer mandolin on the rapid-fire instrumental ‘Dixie Breakdown,’” and “a Women in Bluegrass workshop where she and Hazel Dickens stole the show by singing a hair-raising version of ‘Banjo Pickin’ Girl.’”
In 1999, Gloria was the first person Mark Newton contacted when he planned his duet album, Follow Me Back to the Fold, a tribute to women in bluegrass. In 2001, Newton’s project was named IBMA Recorded Event of the Year. Henry wrote, “At the IBMA Awards Show… Gloria Belle participated in the grand finale… When she stepped up to the [mic] to belt out her verse of the title song, the audience broke into spontaneous applause for her energetic performance.”
Also in 1999, Gloria became only the ninth woman to be awarded the IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award. And in 2009, she won another Recorded Event of the Year award for Proud to be a Daughter of Bluegrass.
The IBMA Foundation’s Cardwell said, “That ‘She Persisted’ T-shirt that was popular a few years ago could have been inspired by Gloria Belle. She was one of the first women in bluegrass during her era to tour, perform and record professionally in well-known groups . . . as a side musician who wasn’t a part of a family band or married to someone in the band.
“She played lead and rhythm instruments well . . . and pulled her weight musically as a band member . . . she was a role model and an inspiration for all the great female instrumentalists, singers and band leaders that have come along in bluegrass music in later years.”
Acclaimed bassist and band leader Missy Raines remembers her reactions to Gloria’s stage appearances. “Her impact on this young girl was real. She always dressed for the stage – lots of sparkle. She sang great and played everything. She endured Jimmy Martin’s stage banter with grace and fortitude that can only come from a true professional.”
Becky Buller, a much-lauded singer and fiddler who also worked her way from side musician to band leader, believes she had much to learn from Gloria. She conducted a long search to find her, but only succeeded after Gloria was too ill to speak. But the 2006 video brought Gloria’s personality to life for Buller. “I especially loved her laugh.”
Friends remember how close she was with her parents, who were a constant source of support and kindness. After her father’s death, Gloria’s mother continued to be a presence at Gloria’s performances as well as in her home.
Barbara Martin Stephens, who first hired Gloria for Jimmy Martin’s band and who stayed friendly with her and Mike, had nothing but praise for Gloria: “She was always a kind person,” she said, who never spoke ill of anyone. “And she was a happy person,” Barbara said. “You just don’t find many people like that.”
Editor’s Note: To honor Gloria Belle, the IBMA Foundation will establish a scholarship fund in her name. Foundation board member Becky Buller said the foundation provides around $50,000 in grants and fellowships annually for a wide range of educational and research pursuits. Buller recognizes that in the last decades of Belle’s life, she may not have gotten the recognition she deserved. She hopes an enduring scholarship will keep Gloria’s name and spirit at the forefront of the bluegrass community.
It’s terrifying to imagine now that when I was 18 I got in a station wagon with six other teenagers and drove 12 hours from Toronto to Wilkesboro, North Carolina, to the Merle Watson Memorial Festival. Terrifying because I don’t think any of us had much driving experience, money or sense. I had a big crush on one of the other passengers and would have gotten into the car whichever festival it was going to, but now when I look at the lineup for that year (1994), I’m glad we made it. Over the weekend that crush turned into a romance that lasted for what amounts to a lifetime at age 18, so most of my memories are not of the performers I was listening to who came to dominate my ears for years to come. But the moon-eyed haze I was floating around in tied up my first experience of bluegrass with all the intensity and longing of love and the freedom and excitement of traveling.
I like that bluegrass means such different things to its adherents, but that they all feel it strongly. It can be an exercise in authenticity, an article of faith, a technical jungle gym and an emblem of a time and place in history. It’s a genre that’s small and quirky enough that some people feel they can inhabit, protect and partly own it. Now it’s so embedded in my musical history that I don’t know if I can speak about it intelligibly with anyone who doesn’t already love it as much as I do. Here are some of my favourite songs by some of the artists that were playing at the Merle Watson Memorial Festival in 1994. — Doug Paisley
Tony Rice more than anyone else is the reason I am a guitar player and a musician. His many layers of musicality and his broader interests from modern acoustic instrumental music to restoring Accutron watches to his appearance on stage to his insights and comments in interviews make him a fascinating character. I’m so grateful for his time on earth.
When I began to play bluegrass, the high-water mark of what a bluegrass group could be was for me the Seldom Scene. They were such an assemblage of distinct characters. John Starling and John Duffey are two of my favourite singers.
In my daily life I can connect to so much feeling in Iris DeMent’s music, but if I’m going through a hard time I think I’d approach it very carefully because it’s just so powerful.
Aside from all the great and probably familiar things we can say about Emmylou Harris, I love her forays into more traditional music — especially on “Roses in the Snow” with Tony Rice on guitar.
Once I had finally recovered from the New South lineup with Tony Rice, I then discovered that there was a whole other set of tunes with Keith Whitley on vocals, and my head just about exploded.
Such a beautiful singer. I heard from dobro player Don Rooke that Claire Lynch may be living up in our neck of the woods now. I hope I get a chance to see her play here.
Although I’ve listened to Doc Watson all along I never tried to emulate or learn from his guitar playing the way I did Tony Rice or Norman Blake. There’s something inscrutable and compelling about it for me, and I’d rather take in his music not as a guitar player, but purely as a listener.
On his new album Depreciated, John R. Miller shows a true appreciation for traditional country songwriting and progressive bluegrass musicianship, even though his music isn’t neatly defined by either one. A West Virginia native who now lives in Madison, Tennessee, Miller unveiled the material at a club show in Nashville just a few days after the album’s release on Rounder Records. His original songs are rich in detail and humor, although his lyrics can get moody enough to satisfy anybody who’s looking for the darker side of acoustic music. Delivered in his rough-hewn baritone, his songs somehow feel like familiar stories that you want to hear again.
Before returning to the road, Miller caught up with BGS at an East Nashville coffee shop to talk about his acoustic heroes, where he found his first guitar, and why he puts a fiddle in a rock ‘n’ roll band.
BGS: You announced this record by releasing “Lookin’ Over My Shoulder,” which is not exactly a happy song, but it does makes me laugh. What was on your mind as that song was taking shape?
Miller: I wrote that after I moved away from the town I’d lived in for a while. It’s a small-town scenario. When you go back after being away, you’re in the mode of trying to avoid some people. It can be tricky to navigate but I thought it was a funny little song that I didn’t think we would end up recording. Then we rearranged it a little bit and turned it into what it is now – and it’s the first song on the record. You just never know, I guess.
Where is your hometown?
The place where I grew up is just off the highway in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. It has historically been pretty rural. There’s a lot of development around the highway, so it’s turned into a strip mall highway town. Just over the mountain, it gets real country real quick. But for most of my 20s I lived in a river town called Shepherdstown. It’s small, just a couple of bars in town and everybody knows everybody. That was home for a long time, but I felt like I needed a fresh start, so I moved down here. I spent so much time traveling and felt untethered in the first place. A lot of my friends started getting older and moving away. A few of them actually came down here. This was the next place, where I knew the most people and the most couches to crash on for a little while. I decided to give it a shot and I’m still here.
When did you gravitate toward playing guitar?
I was about 14 when I picked up guitar. My dad had a nylon string guitar in the closet that I never saw him play. I was starting to get into music more, and into punk bands that I found out about from my friends. Basically I was trying to learn power chords on this classical nylon string guitar classical guitar. Eventually I wrote that out and got a Stratocaster and tried to do garage bands in high school.
Were you and your friends listening to acoustic music too?
Maybe not when I was a teenager. We were mostly into indie rock and punk rock growing up, like skater kids. It probably wasn’t until I was 19 that my musical interests expanded a little bit. I started getting into songwriters. The real gateway for me was that Steve Earle and Del McCoury Band album, [1999’s The Mountain], which is one of the best out there. I had already found my way into Steve Earle’s music and then that dovetailed nicely with bluegrass and old-time music with that record. That was a big one for me.
Are you a bluegrass fan?
Oh yeah. I’ve lived in the bluegrass world a little bit and during times in my life a whole lot. I used to play in a string band too. It was more like a fiddle-centric string band, but we did some bluegrass stuff as well and got on that circuit for a little while. There were a couple of guys in the string band that were ahead of me in terms of what they knew about and what they liked, so they helped me learn about a whole lot of stuff.
Who were some of your influences in bluegrass?
I’m a huge Jimmy Martin fan. That stuff’s so cool and just kind of ragged in all the right ways. The Stanley Brothers, of course. There are some modern bluegrass bands that I’ve grown to love a whole lot. Town Mountain is one of the best out there. We crossed paths with them a little bit back in the day and it’s cool to see them still doing it. The Seldom Scene’s Live at the Cellar Door record is a classic too. I really love that. I also really love that early newgrass stuff, like Old & In the Way and John Hartford. That Old & In the Way record was a constant in the van.
Speaking of that, how did you get the idea for “Half Ton Van“?
That song in particular, I spent months looking for an old van to get the band moving. I was on Craigslist and Marketplace a whole lot. I feel like I was seeing a lot of the same tricks, you know? I went to look at a lot of terrible vans. It was a few years ago and I had already been through a few vans with other bands, and it always feels like I’m trying to find one at the last minute. I ended up getting one that was full of rust holes and leaking oil and everything like that. So the song is an amalgam of all those experiences of people trying to sell their junk to you.
At your show, the crowd really responded to “Shenandoah Shakedown,” which surprised me. It has that gothic feel, and seems to be the sleeper on the record.
That one seems to be doing pretty good. I wouldn’t have expected that either because it’s kind of different. It doesn’t strike me as an accessible song necessarily. That one is heavily inspired by living on the river out there. It’s more of a collection of vignettes of time spent up there, and some mushrooms and whatnot involved, you know? Some of the characters are composites but there are specific people in it, for sure.
There’s a lot of fiddle on this record too. Why do you like having that in the mix?
I love fiddle tunes and fiddle music and I spend a lot of time at fiddlers conventions, like the Clifftop Appalachian String Band Music Festival in West Virginia, or in Mt. Airy, North Carolina. It’s been a constant in my life for a really long time now. I’ve got a lot of buddies in that world and I play a little fiddle myself too. It’s a great way to just sit down and play tunes with people. The communal feeling and the non-commerciality of it is really cool. So I’m a little obsessive about it. Putting fiddle in a full rock ‘n’ roll band sounds good to my ears, and I also feel like if it wasn’t there, I would miss it — the presence of it.
Why did you want to include a guitar instrumental, “What’s Left of the Valley,” on here?
I’ve definitely written a couple of guitar pieces, but my partner Chloe really liked that one. I played it for her and it was her idea to just try it in the studio. We took a break from doing the stuff we had on the docket and gave that a try. It ended up feeling so nice, I thought it would be a good way to break up the songs on the record. I like that kind of stuff too, like an instrumental interlude.
At your show I was happy to hear you cover a Gary Stewart song, “Single Again.” What is it about that honky-tonk sound that appeals to you?
Man, it just sounds so cool to me. There’s a really wide range of it but that Gary Stewart stuff is so cool and so nuanced. A really high level of musicianship playing pretty accessible music is pretty awesome. I love country music very much. That’s been my soul food. Early to mid ‘70s is the sweet spot for me.
As a songwriter going into a music career, did you always want to have a full-band sound?
I don’t mind playing by myself — it’s kind of its own thing — but I’ve always played in bands and I love that connection. It’s so much fun. I prefer to be making music with my buddies and I’m fortunate to be playing with the band I’ve got now. They’re easygoing folks and great musicians. We’ve been on the road for a little over a week now and this is the first long tour that we’ve gotten to take together. We’re all getting used to it again.
Listening back to this record now, what goes through your mind?
I’m really proud of the work we did and what I love most about it is that I got to actually sit and play the songs live in a room with some of my close friends. Adam Meisterhans, who played guitar with us the other night, co-produced the record. He and I played in bands in West Virginia. I know him from Shepherdstown too. He’s like a brother to me. So it’s been cool to very intentionally work on a project and have it get finished and work out, you know? It’s nice to know that we did it the way we wanted to.
Andy Hall is one of the fiercest slide guitarists we have around not just today, but probably ever. If there’s any doubt, you needn’t look further than his newest release, 12 Bluegrass Classics for Resophonic Guitar. The Denver-based singer and Dobro player of the Infamous Stringdusters has always pushed the envelope, but had never taken the time to put his own stamp on the formative tunes that all musicians of the genre play with one another. From teaching thousands of students online via ArtistWorks, to his work with Earl Scruggs, Dolly Parton, or Jack Black, it’s obvious that Hall is a master of the instrument, and the art itself.
BGS visited with Hall to talk all things pandemic, resophonic guitars, and what this record means in a time like our own.
BGS: What was your initial inspiration for this recording?
Andy Hall: It was an interesting time in the spring when I was recording it, you know, but it’s all about taking opportunities that present themselves and making the most of the situation and what you can do. When everything stops, you have no idea what’s happening, you’re pretty quickly trying to figure out how to continue to be expressive. Our band the Stringdusters has toured so much for so long. …I don’t want to say I took it for granted, but when it all went away it was surprising — there was this withdrawal from doing the things that I love to do.
These are songs I’ve played for years and years, and I’ve always wanted to put my stamp on them, my take, you know? I totally overlooked them as anything I would record, because I always played them in jams. For most people, they don’t know these songs. So, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get a recorded version of all these jam songs. It was really just a matter of me sitting, playing, and enjoying these tunes enough to get a good representation of them.
At the same time that you’ve put your own stamp on these tunes, you said that they were formative. I noticed the speed-up in “House of the Rising sun,” just like Mike Auldridge of the Seldom Scene would do. Are there any influences you’re drawing from, more than others, on this record?
Everyone has their own version of what their “classic” tune would be for a certain instrument. So “House of the Rising Sun,” definitely based on the Mike Auldridge version. To me, if you do that song on Dobro, that’s just how it goes. “Dixie Hoedown” was on Jerry Douglas’ first solo record, and something like “Fireball Mail” couldn’t be a more quintessential dobro song. I was always too impatient to sit and get every nuance of somebody’s playing, so I kinda gloss over it for the general idea and fill in the blanks myself. So due to my impatience I have my own style with a lot of them.
So that’s what a lot of these are like, but you can trace most of them back to an original version — like “Cherokee Shuffle,” Sally Van Meter, a great dobro player from Colorado, did that on a record called the Great Dobro Sessions. One that’s totally my own is the first one on the record, “Leather Britches.” I’d never really heard a version of that, but I wanted to try and get that repetitive, cyclical, rolling sound of the fiddle. So a lot of them are jam tunes that I never heard a Dobro version of, and wanted to develop my own thing with.
“Foggy Mountain Rock” really comes through that way.
I actually was fortunate enough to get to play with Earl Scruggs some, and that tune is a perfect example of how I didn’t take the time to learn it officially like Josh Graves. When I auditioned for Scruggs’ band, I went to his house and jammed with both Earl and a fiddle player named Glen Duncan. My mind was just blown, you know, we’re just sitting in Earl’s living room playing “Foggy Mountain Rock.” When we finished playing it, it was clear I hadn’t done it the way he was used to hearing it. And he complimented it! “Oh, I love how you put that four chord in there. I love when people do their own thing.” That really justified my whole approach. If Earl Scruggs says it’s cool, then I’m good.
Do you teach many of these in your class over at ArtistWorks?
There are a couple in my school. “Panhandle Rag” is in there, “Cherokee Shuffle.” I’m about to transcribe not just the melodies, but the solos for a few of these so that the students can have a crack at them. It seems primed for that kind of thing. This is a specialty project geared at Dobro nerds. With the Stringdusters or other projects I do it’s a bit more broad, usually song-based. This record definitely ties into ArtistWorks; it’s just getting deep into the slide guitar thing… because that’s what I love!
“I am a Pilgrim” is so woody, while “Cherokee Shuffle” has that cutting metallic ring of the Dobro… Can you talk about some of the guitars you used on this record?
“I am a Pilgrim,” “Amazing Grace,” and maybe “Foggy Mountain Rock” were all played on a 1929 Squareneck Tricone National guitar. To me it just has a super unique blues sound. So I used it on the tunes that were slower, just to get some variety. I wrestled with how much variety to put on the record in that way, because I have a bunch of different slide instruments. I’ve got a Chaturangi, which is an Indian slide guitar with all of these resonant strings, of course lap steels and things of that nature, but I decided I wanted to keep it kind of Americana sounding. The National fit into that. All the rest I did on my favorite Beard guitar.
Speaking of formative years, I’m curious if there are any younger Dobro players that stick out to you, or even influence you?
For sure. As a Dobro player, when I was in my twenties, at a certain point I kinda felt like I had heard everything, because there weren’t all that many. I’d heard all of the Jerry Douglas and Rob Ickes, Mike Auldridge and Josh Graves. There’s a lot to dig into, but compared to any other instrument, there was a much smaller pool of stuff to draw on. It’s been cool as new players come up to hear new styles. I think the first guy that was new when I first moved to Nashville was Randy Kohrs. He had a technique that nobody else had.
Out of that came a couple of younger players that I really love like Josh Swift, who played in Doyle Lawson’s band for years. His technical ability is just insane — nobody else can do what he does. There’s a young guy named Gaven Largent who I remember teaching when he was probably 12. There’s a guy named Tommy Maher, who plays in a band called Fireside Collective. Andy Dunnigan from the Lil Smokies, he uses the Dobro very lyrically, and he’s the lead singer too. I love seeing that — a lead singer Dobro player!
I’d say one of my biggest influences in recent years is Roosevelt Collier, a lap steel player. I met him in 2013, on JamCruise, and of course became fast friends with the slide guitar connection. We stayed in touch and actually did a record together a few years back. Roosevelt’s very gospel, sacred steel, very singing, very emotive style, is something I’ve really tried to absorb. It just gets you in the chest.
What do you foresee, or hope, will be the impact of this record?
There’s something about the coronavirus, or the lockdown, that made every part of life simpler. A lot of things got stripped away and we just got down to basics, be it hanging out with our families and making food, or with the music we’re not doing big tours or big production — we’re sitting in our basements by ourselves playing. It’s certainly one of the silver linings of the whole pandemic thing, the simplicity and the sweetness, and that’s what I was feeling with this. It’s just a reflection of me sitting and playing, and hopefully people will relate to that. People have had to strip everything down to being simple, and that’s what this record is. It’s a reflection of that return to the basics that the pandemic has put on us. It’s really forced us to get back to the root of why we do what we do!
On our latest episode of The Breakdown, the Seldom Scene’s classic 1975 release, Live at the Cellar Door, is featured, and if ever there was a party of a bluegrass album, this is it.
Hosts Patrick M’Gonigle and Emma John interview original Seldom Scene band members Tom Gray and Ben Eldridge to find out what was really going down on that mad and marvelous night in 1975.
Season 2 of The Breakdown is sponsored by The Soundtrack of America: Made In Tennessee. Visit TNvacation.com to start planning your trip.
In honor of the new documentary film, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, and in appreciation of her connection to bluegrass — and in an attempt to shout it from the proverbial rooftops! — we’re reprinting Dan Mazer’s 1996 Bluegrass Unlimited interview with Ronstadt split into two parts, but in its entirety on BGS. Special thanks to the team at Bluegrass Unlimited for partnering with BGS to spotlight how bluegrass has touched one of the most important and truly iconic voices to ever grace this planet.
“Linda Ronstadt Talks Bluegrass” By Dan Mazer. Bluegrass Unlimited, June 1996
…Our conversation moved to a discussion of Alison Krauss’ musicianship. Krauss seems to have an incredible variety of influences, which come out when she wants them to. “And in an appropriate manner,” Ronstadt continued. “There seems to be a general agreement among all the people that I know – whose various subjectivities are very strict and very demanding – that Alison has the best taste of any of those people.
“Every fiddle player that I’ve ever worked with will be tempted to play sound(s) like donkeys braying; or just play too much – play ‘flash’ licks in an inappropriate manner. (I call it) ‘The Paganini Syndrome.’ And Alison never is.
“Her pitch is completely stunning! I’m a pitch nazi, and she’s even a little more strict than I am, in terms of pitch. And the thing that I like the very best about her playing is her rhythm. She’s got that great, easy, loping sense of the groove that bluegrass players generally don’t have. When it’s right, of course, it’s got a great swing to it. But bluegrass players have a tendency to get a little stiff and a little on top of the groove. And she never does! I don’t think she’s played with drummers that much, but we put her together with Jim Keltner, and it was just an amazing thing. She’s got the same sense of the groove that he does, and he has the effortless pocket. I consider her as good as any musician I’ve ever worked with. My cousin (David Lindley) said she was his favorite fiddle player ever. And I love her. And also, she owns Maria Callas’ bed! (Laughter) I don’t know why, or how she managed to get her hands on it, but she did. I was jealous. I wanted to be the one to get it. Emmylou Harris and I are both Maria Callas fans. Slobbering, drooling Maria Callas fans!”
When asked to comment on other bluegrass acts, Ronstadt confessed that she doesn’t listen to any modern music of any style. In fact, she was unfamiliar with many of the major country acts. Nor had she ever heard of the IBMA. “Honestly, the only ones I know (are) Ricky Skaggs, Alison, and (the) Seldom Scene,” she said. “But before that, it really was those original guys (Flatt and Scruggs and Monroe). I mean, it was such a short-lived era. And before that, the Blue Sky Boys, which wasn’t really bluegrass, but which really sorta fed right into it. I love those guys, and I listen to the Louvin Brothers a lot. So I listen to all the stuff that led right up to it.
“I know very little of any kind of contemporary music. I just don’t. I listen to NPR, and I listen to Maria Callas and them, and I listen to a lot of Mexican music, and that’s about it. And if it penetrates through that it’s usually because Emmy calls me up, or John Starling calls me up, or Quint Davis. Quint Davis is the guy that runs the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and he put on that thing on the Mall for the inauguration. That’s where I saw Alison. I was just blown away by her!
“I don’t know modern stuff. I haven’t a clue. It seems like when we did the ‘Trio’ record, nobody was interested in traditional music. And then that record was pretty successful, and at that point, Ricky Skaggs was extremely successful, but all of a sudden, I don’t know. I don’t watch this type of stuff on television. I haven’t got the vaguest idea, and I don’t listen to the radio. I have a great respect for anything that anybody does. I mean, I think it’s just so hard to make a record – any record – that I don’t like to put myself in the position of, ‘This is good, and that’s not good,’ like a bean-counter. But I have to say that (modern country fails) to capture my interest.
“There’s always music in front of my face. If I was gonna sit and listen to Mozart, (and) someone said, ‘OK, this is gonna be it (you can only listen to Mozart) forever,’ I’d go, ‘OK.’ And if someone was playing me some Mexican traditional music, and they said, ‘This is gonna be it forever,’ I’d go, ‘OK.’ Because there’s enough in any of those things, to (keep me interested).
“Somebody came over to my house the other day with some musicians from Madagascar. They sit down in my kitchen and played this Malagassi music, and it just blew me through the wall! So, if they had said at that point, ‘Well, you’re gonna have to sing a little Malagassi now,’ I would’ve said, ‘Well, OK. Fine!’ I could’ve got right down and sung with them, and had no problem at all. But I can only concentrate on one thing at a time, and if that thin is interesting, I just don’t have any particular need to shift my attention.
“When John Starling comes out to visit me, he sits down at my kitchen table with his guitar, and we start singing. I get pried back to English. But I’d really rather sing in Spanish or Italian. Because all that stuff (bluegrass and country) is based on rural southern pronunciation. And in Spanish – if I’m singing a Latin jazz thing that’s a Caribbean base, I have to push myself from my northern Mexican rural accent into a Caribbean accent, which is painful for me. I find it an unpleasant way to pronounce the language, but I have to do it in order to get the rhythms right. So I do it. I really push myself into that other accent. But I prefer singing in my own accent – the accent of my family’s region. I can just get so much more sound out of my voice in that language.”
Over the course of a career, an artist makes many decisions based upon the age-old dilemma of commercialism versus artistic merit. What the public wants to buy is not always what the artists likes [sic] to paint, play, or sing. Ms. Ronstadt has lately recorded opera, Big Band and Mexican music, none of which usually sells platinum in today’s market. It seems that she has reached a point in which she doesn’t have to worry about selling a certain number of records; her musical decisions are now totally artistic. “Well, they were to start with, too. It’s just that I wasn’t as good at executing them!” She protested with a laugh. “And I find that now. I’m making my choices based on an artistic thing, but I am also finding that my choices were made for me when I was a baby. It’s getting harder, though. I do find that the record companies have a tendency to stick their oar in a lot more now. It’s very nervous-making. Although, the one person that I’ve allowed to submit material and give advice – I don’t always take it, but I always consider it – is (Asylum Records President) Kyle Lehning. He’s an amazing guy! He really, genuinely likes music, first of all, which is rare for a record person. Second of all, he’s extremely knowledgeable, and he has great taste in songs. And he seems dedicated to the idea of trying to save what he can that’s quality, and nurture it.
“(The latest project) started with several nagging phone calls from John Starling!” She laughed. “John Starling doesn’t get down behind traditional Mexican music! And then Emmy calling me, because Emmy and I are such fans of the McGarrigle Sisters. We were talking about doing some television stuff. We were just trying to think of how we could get in the living room together again with John Starling. So we started working on tunes, like the Carter Family songs that only Emmy and I would be interested in. And maybe John Starling or Claire Lynch, or somebody. John had, a long time ago, sent us Claire Lynch records, saying, ‘You really gotta sing with this girl. She’s real wonderful.’ So claire and Emmy and I have done some stuff together.
“And then, I’ve been working with Valerie Carter. She put a record out in the ‘70s. Everybody in Hollywood was after her. She’s an extraordinary singer, and she was exceptionally beautiful. She was about 19, I think, then. Lowell George and Mick Jagger and Jackson Browne and J.D. Souther and Danny Kortchmar – everybody wanted to work with her. Everybody tried to, and then George Massenberg, who is my production partner – who I met through John Starling – did produce a record from her, and so did Lowell George. I sang on it. Then she just had some problems, and she dropped out of sight for about 15 years, which was really a tragedy for us. ‘Cause she’s one of those girls that can sing as well as Whitney Houston. She’s got that kind of chops. But it doesn’t sound like her. It’s a very distinctive voice. But that kind of ability. It was too bad, ‘cause she was (a) really interesting singer. So she’s now been singing on the road with James Taylor a lot. I used her to sing a lot on my last record, that I put out. The blend between her and me and Emmy was just really magical! So we’ve done some stuff together, the three of us.
“But what Emmy and I wanted to do was just explore. See what we could go find out there. We wanted to push the limits a little bit, and see what we could find in terms of texture, combining styles, of things that we liked that don’t always fit in one little (category). Like the McGarrigle Sisters. Where do you put that? It’s not really traditional folk music, and it’s got traditional roots. It certainly isn’t bluegrass. And the sentiment is too unbridled for current pop, ‘cool’ standards. But it’s very intelligent music.
“There’s other stuff that is kind of like that; that’s kind of ‘out there.’ And there’s some stuff that’s just real, real traditional. So we’ve just been fooling around with various singers. And then I sang with Claire Lynch and my cousin John, who’s got a wonderful voice – on two songs.”
Although she maintains that after a project is finished she doesn’t care what happens, Ronstadt is intensely involved in its creation. “Oh, I mix everything! I do every single thing,” she declared. “I make the record, I do the arrangements, I do the harmony arrangements, I do a lot of the instrumental arrangements. Nothing is done on the record without me being there. But when it’s finished, I never listen to it again. You can take it and throw it off a cliff, for all I care. I’ve heard it and I’ve done it, and that’s the experience; and now I go on to something else. So at that point, I surrender it to the record company, and they do whatever. They can shoot it with a gun if they want to. I don’t care what they do. Long as they don’t shoot me.”
Returning to the topic of bluegrass, Ronstadt commented, “I understand what [the banjo] does, rhythmically. And I appreciate what it does – that syncopated thing; the difference in all those accents.
“I think of the banjo kinda like I think of the trumpet in mariachi, which is: trumpet was brought in about the same time that the resonator was added onto the back of the banjo. It was a ‘radio’ event, and a good one. It was a really good thing; it needed that high end to cut through. But if somebody came to bed and blew a trumpet in my ear, I’d get annoyed! If somebody came to bed with me and started plucking a banjo, I would probably jump right up to the ceiling! But it’s a great instrument in the orchestral blend. It’s really got a great place. And I don’t think the banjo will ever go out of style.
“Those other instruments are a lot more flexible. They can bear a lot more. I’ve really become a complete mandolin fan, ‘cause I’ve been working with David Grisman. I just think he’s a genius. I knew his playing. I knew he was considered a ‘hot chops’ player. I think he plays bluegrass sometimes, but he really predates and transcends all of that stuff completely. I mean, he can play like a classical player. I’ve never heard anybody with dynamics like that, and I’ve never played with anybody that could play with a vocalist; and play little internal harmonies. He just flits around like a little hummingbird – all around the vocal line – and plays a beautiful little harmony for a while, and then he goes off to a rhythm pattern, then he comes back. He has great ideas for voicings, and he has very, very good rhythm ideas. I just love to work with him. I think he’s brilliant.
“You know what I think is missing from bluegrass at this point? And from all that kind of traditional music? Dancing. That’s what I discovered with Mexican music, was that it is dance music. Period. I think, as is fiddle (music). As soon as you uncouple it from (dancing), the music changes. It’s the same way with pop music. As soon as it became recorded music – people started dancing in discos to recorded music – the music stopped being alive, and it stopped changing in a real vital way. Started changing in a more static, strange, mechanized way.
“So my suggestion, to the bluegrass world would be, one should never uncouple that music from dancing. There should always be dancers involved with bluegrass music.”
The author commented that singing is also something that’s been taken away from most people and given only to professionals. “Yeah, it’s an outrage! In Mexican culture, everyone sings,” she responded. “Everyone knows all the words, and they all sing. We sing at the dinner table. Whatever you’re doing, you sing. You sing in a funeral, you sing at a birthday, you sing at a wedding. You sing if you’re happy, you sing if you’re sad. It’s a thing you get to do to help you along with your life. Everyone should sing. It’s a biological necessity. Even little babies sing. I mean, even when they’re pre-verbal, you hear them kind of leaning into a sound.”
Barely three minutes into the brand new documentary, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, the viewer is already presented with none other than Dolly Parton, who exclaims, “Linda could literally sing anything.”
Over the course of her singular, era-defining career Ronstadt did sing almost anything — from The Pirates of Penzance to American standards to Mexican folk songs — but she’s rarely referenced in the same breath as bluegrass. The BGS x Linda Ronstadthistorynotwithstanding, it’s understanding that the twain rarely meet, in conversation and consideration. Of her most easily recognizable hits, among them “Willin’,” “You’re No Good,” and “Desperado,” perhaps “Blue Bayou” is the closest to bluegrass — and in its Ronstadt iteration, less so than in other covers of the languid ballad.
Scratch the surface, though, no matter how slightly, and her bluegrass cred runs deep. This should come as no surprise, given her immaculate performances alongside Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris on Trio and Trio II — the first song the three sang together, informally, at Harris’s house in L.A. was “Bury Me Beneath the Willow.” The Sound of My Voice digs a little deeper still, reminding that Ronstadt’s very first hit, “Different Drum,” recorded with folk-rock trio the Stone Poneys, was discovered by Ronstadt, who first heard the song from a now almost-forgotten bluegrass band, the Greenbriar Boys.
Elsewhere in the film, Ronstadt mentions that during her early days in the city she frequented Los Angeles’ The Ash Grove, the foremost folk and bluegrass venue there in the ‘60s and ‘70s. She also made appearances and recorded with the Seldom Scene, and remained close friends and musical confidantes with John Starling. One of the last studio recordings Ronstadt ever released was a duet of the Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard classic, “Pretty Bird” with bluegrass legend Laurie Lewis. The track was released on Ronstadt’s Duets project as well as Lewis’s The Hazel and Alice Sessions and the pair worked together prior, as well, performing as “The Bluebirds” with Maria Muldaur at Wintergrass Music Festival in 2005.
The bluegrass tendrils are there, undeniably, woven alongside so many other influences and inspirations and impressions that informed Ronstadt’s art. Still, it was surprising to this writer to find that in June 1996 Bluegrass Unlimited, the foremost and longest-running print publication dedicated solely to bluegrass music, had featured a lengthy, in-depth interview with Linda Ronstadt herself. Even by author Dan Mazer’s own admission, “Ms. Ronstadt’s bluegrass/country connection is tenuous at best.” And yet, for nearly five thousand words, the article displays that Ronstadt isn’t just tangentially connected to bluegrass, it is a permanent part of her musical self.
In honor of the new documentary film, and in appreciation of this connection to bluegrass — and in an attempt to shout it from the proverbial rooftops! — we’re reprinting Dan Mazer’s interview with Ronstadt exactly how it appeared in 1996, split into two parts, but in its entirety on BGS. Special thanks to the team at Bluegrass Unlimited for partnering with BGS to spotlight how bluegrass has touched one of the most important and truly iconic voices to ever grace this planet. — Justin Hiltner, BGS Associate Editor
“Linda Ronstadt Talks Bluegrass” By Dan Mazer. Bluegrass Unlimited, June 1996
While preparing an article on the influence of bluegrass on today’s country music, I had the opportunity to interview several prominent country stars. During discussions with Bluegrass Unlimited’s editorial staff about artists to interview, the name Linda Ronstadt came up.
Linda Ronstadt? It seemed an odd choice at first. Ms. Ronstadt has had a long and varied career, and while her forays into bluegrass with the Seldom Scene have been recognized and celebrated within the bluegrass community, as an artist, she just didn’t seem to fit in with the likes of Marty Stuart, Hal Ketchum, and Patty Loveless. On the other hand, her classic recordings of “Blue Bayou,” “Silver Threads and Golden Needles” and “When Will I Be Loved?” are still copied by country music cover bands some 20 years after their release. Some of her work as also been covered by bluegrass artists.
Because Ms. Ronstadt’s bluegrass/country connection is tenuous at best (especially in recent years, when her recordings have featured opera, Big Band and Mexican music), it was with little hope that I sent an interview request to Ms. Ronstadt’s publicist. To my surprise and delight, the request as answered quickly with a call from the publicist to set an appointment for a telephone interview. Ms. Ronstadt called me from her home in Los Angeles, and graciously granted me a significantly longer interview than we had arranged – that was just because the conversation was so interesting and enjoyable! She is remarkably well-spoken, intelligent and passionate. In the end, we decided not to include Ms. Ronstadt’s remarks in the profile of country artists with bluegrass roots.
Ms. Ronstadt grew up in Tuscon, Ariz. Her family listened to a broad variety of music on the radio. Opera, country, rock ‘n’ roll, and jazz filled the house. Some radio shows also featured bluegrass. “We were right in the pat of XERF, Del Rio, Tex,” she said. “And we (had) the Louisiana Hayride. We were right there, where there was a lot of big transmitters, and not a lot of interference. So I heard (bluegrass) when I was little, growing up.
“When we were kids just listening to stuff on the radio, we tried to sing it. My brother and sister and I could always harmonize real early. So we used to sing the stuff we heard on the radio. We heard Bill Monroe, and we heard Flatt and Scruggs, we heard Homer and Jethro doing a sendup of ‘Don’t Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes.’ I had such a cross-section! And then, when I was in high school, I think it really intensified.
“I’ve always been interested in harmony. I’ve always been a harmony singer. When I was a real little child, I could sing harmony. I’m always surprised when children say, when they’re three, that they can’t. But all my brothers and sisters could, real early. I could hear strange harmonies, too. But I understood Mexican harmonies better, and they have a tendency to be very, very clear kind of parallel thirds.”
(Author’s Note: “Parallel thirds” refers to what, in bluegrass, corresponds to the lead and tenor part singing close harmony at the interval called a “third.” Brother duets also feature this harmony.)
As an artist, Ronstadt doesn’t feel authentically connected to bluegrass. “I feel that I would have had to live in the rural south, and grow up in the mountains,” she said. “There’s just such a difference between mountain South and plantation South. Culturally and musically.”
Since she grew up near the Mexican border, and her father is Mexican, Ronstadt mostly sang Mexican music as a child. “There’s a great deal of similarities (between bluegrass and Mexican music),” she noted. “One of them is that the three-part harmony stuff that we sang a lot is Mexican mountain music, and it’s country music. The music of an agrarian lifestyle is what I’ve always been most attracted to. I love it, and having grown up in a kind of isolated, rural setting, it was something that reflected what I was witnessing around me.
“I’ve always had an ear for any kind of a thrilling, wild, high tenor. And again, in Mexican music, there’s a loose parallel, especially up in the mountains, where they sing real high in this falsetto, in the huapango style.
“The language and the pronunciation of the language – whatever the rural accent is – influences the style of singing and the vocal intonation so profoundly! With bluegrass music it was those ways of pronouncing 16th Century English, probably, frozen in those mountains. But in Mexico, of course, it was the indigenous language of nahuatl, which was what was mostly spoken there, which gave the pronunciation and forced the tonality into that nasal thing.
“Also, having to communicate across long distances, you get a real high, ringing (tone). Men get a lot of power out of that high register; way more than women do, which is why – having absolutely nothing to do with sexism –I feel that bluegrass is very wonderful when it’s three male voices. Mariachi music, also (is an example), which is from a different region (Jalisco). But when all those male voices are singing up in the high register, it’s a different sound from a woman’s voice singing up in a more comfortable register. I can sing bluegrass tenor pretty well, but it doesn’t quite have the power that it will ever have from a man forcing himself up way high in that register. It just doesn’t have the same dynamic. It’s still good. I call it ‘pink grass.’”
Until recently, bluegrass has been almost entirely a male reserve. Ronstadt feels that there is good reason for that, although, as she pointed out, “There was old-time music before that, which of course, happily embraced women singers. But I still think it was just that thrilling sound of those male voices in two- and three-part harmony, pushed way, way up high, that really gave it a very distinctive characteristic. And it’s pretty hard to compromise that, regardless of your sexual politics, without making it into something different.
“There are women singers today that have what I think (are) very, very good, and very authentic-sounding bluegrass voices. I think Claire Lynch has a wonderful voice. I love her singing! And those girls that sing with Alison Krauss; the Cox Family. But it’s hard to say. Where do you draw the line? Is that bluegrass, or is that old-time? I think that’s a combination; both things.”
When thinking of acts that embrace and also expand bluegrass, the Seldom Scene immediately comes to mind. Many people argue with some justification that the inclusion of a banjo defines an act as a bluegrass band. Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, Reno and Smiley and the Stanley Brothers all performed certain songs (usually gospel numbers) without the banjo, but the Seldom Scene broke new ground with their unprecedented, mellow guitar-based sound. Furthermore, because Ben Eldridge’s banjo playing is unparalleled for taste and restraint, the Seldom Scene can be mellow even on tunes that include the banjo. They also distinguished themselves by using Linda Ronstadt as a backup vocalist on some of their earlier recordings. They remain her favorite bluegrass band.
“They really are an urban band with very, very strong rural influences,” she said. “They had all the benefit of a sophisticated, cosmopolitan atmosphere, which Washington, D.C., certainly is, and they were able to refine in any direction they wanted to. I really think they made an extraordinary synthesis. I love that band; I always have.
“Mike (Auldridge) is such a unique player. Nobody sounds like him. He’s got that real beautiful, lyrical, velvet thing that happens, but it’s still got plenty of strength and guts behind it. There are more famous Dobro [resonator guitar] players than that, but I like him the best and I always call him when I want a Dobro [resonator guitar] player.
“John Starling is an exceptional singer, and has a wonderful sense of the groove. He’s a very, very fine guitar player. Emmylou Harris and I both spent so many hours and hours and nights and nights and months and months with him, way on into the night, just grooving on that sound and exploring it! He’s given us a wealth of something. It’s hard to define. But just having that superb musicianship to lean on, and the focus of his sensibility, which is very keen and very well-developed in that direction.
“I remember getting snowed in at John Starling’s house with Lowell George, and Emmy, and Ricky Skaggs (in 1974 or 1975). Fayssoux Starling was there, who was a good singer. And we sang forever! I mean, we sang all night, and they were there for three days. I was sick, so i was there for a month, they were there for three days, and in that time, Ricky Skaggs taught me a whole lot about how to sing bluegrass harmony. I knew a little bit about it, but he really showed me how the suspensions worked, and it helped me to refine it a lot. I understood (the suspensions), but didn’t know quite how to really imply them. He Walked me through ‘em, and after that, I had ‘em.”
(Author’s Note: “Suspensions” is a musical term referring to creating tension in a chord by sounding a not that is not in the chord, and then releasing that tension by lowering the dissonant note. For example, a guitarist will sometimes play a “D” chord and add a high “G” note on the third fret of the first string for one measure, then release that fret, so that the “F#” note rings.)
Ronstadt is surprised that she is sometimes cited within country music. “I was never a country singer,” she stated. “I never thought of myself as a country singer. Always very surprised if anybody else did. I was a pop music singer, and I used various root forms that were acceptable to me, and that was one of the things that was readily acceptable to me.
“I’ve always had a little rule about my singing. If it wasn’t there in the living room by the time I was eight years old, it generally won’t be very successful if I take a swing at it, at least to my standards. But thanks to the radio, there was a lot of stuff in play by the time I was eight. And thanks to the fact that my family has very eclectic kind of taste, anyway.
“So, when I came into pop music, I played songs that I loved. I didn’t care whether they were written by George Gershwin or Hank Williams. A song that would really inspire me for one reason or another, I’d try to sing it. And I’d always try to put it into its appropriate setting. So if it (was) a bluegrass song, I’d try to put it in that kind of setting, and I knew enough about the mechanics of how it worked, so that I would do that. Then there were these singers and players that I really admired, and tried to emulate. But that thrilling high tenor sound, there’s just nothing like it.”
The closest Ronstadt has come to recording bluegrass in recent years was on the “Trio” album, which featured her along with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris. A follow-up recording was eagerly anticipated, but never materialized. “The ‘Trio’ record became so difficult, schedule-wise, that we all gave up,” she said. “But Emmy and I did quite a lot of singing together. We had a great time! See, Emmy and I started out with this idea to do a record together, where we would use some guest artists. And we sort of progressed down that road, but it never got to where everybody would agree on a release date. Everybody did agree at some point, but the people kept changin’ their minds.
“But Emmy and I really are kind of locked on to each other musically. Emmy and I have sung some stuff together that’s gonna be on my record; Emmy and I have sung some stuff together that’s gonna be on her record. And we also did some stuff with Valerie Carter, who’s just a great singer.”
Ronstadt’s bluegrass influence is definitely shown in her current release.
Dale Ann Bradley has made a lasting impression with bluegrass listeners as a solo artist, as well as a member of the all-female band Sister Sadie. And before that, she recorded and performed with the New Coon Creek Girls in Renfro Valley, Kentucky, where she established a foundation that would carry to her multiple performances on the Grand Ole Opry and five IBMA awards in the female vocalist category.
An approachable artist who describes her audiences as “my people,” Bradley is quick to admit that her musical path hasn’t always been easy – in fact, her new album is named The Hard Way, a nod to the Jim Croce song she covers, “The Hard Way Every Time.” But in spite of that title, it’s a beautifully subdued project that stands among the most satisfying of the Kentucky native’s long career. That’s as much due to her gentle singing as her gift for finding songs that suit her.
Bradley invited the Bluegrass Situation to chat prior to a Nashville show earlier this month at the Station Inn.
BGS: I wanted to start by asking about the production on this record, because to me it sounds very crisp. It seems like there’s a “less is more” approach.
Bradley: It is. I have learned, on some things, that’s the correct approach. This one’s more guitar-oriented than a lot of them I’ve done – since [1997’s] East Kentucky Morning. Because I had such good guitarists play, it really didn’t need to be souped up. And the lyrics are so story-telling that the song, and the great musicians that I had, found their own way and their own place to be. … This is the third one I’ve produced and I’m always scared to death! I never take that for granted because it’s just like painting a picture or having a young’un! [Laughs] You don’t know what’s going to happen.
What is it about production that makes you want to keep coming back into that role?
If I want to try something, to able to do it. Even though I know that sometimes it works and sometimes it don’t. I have the utmost respect for any producer that I’ve had because I’ve had the best there is. … From Sonny Osborne, I learned that a good performance is a lot better than everything being technically perfect. He drilled that into my head – it’s all about emotion. With Tim Austin, I learned drive and punch with the guitar, and he helped me a lot with my guitar playing. And with Alison Brown, I learned not to be afraid of creativity. Put it down, and if it works, it works. And if it don’t, then you’ll know not to do it the next time. She’s so creative. I’ve worked with three different producers with three different outlooks, and learned from all of them.
“The Hard Way Every Time” is a beautiful song, with a lot of truth in there.
It is for me. The generation that I come from, we’re all at that point where we’re looking back, and we think, “Well, I sure did that the hard way.” Kept doing it and kept doing it. I hope it reaches a young generation. It seems to be, but I think there’s something in there hopefully for everybody.
How do you find the songs you want to record?
All the memories… I may not be able to recall what I had for lunch or breakfast, but a song will stay with me. Songs that have been poignant in my life have been so much so that I’m never going to forget them. I don’t cut cover tunes just to be different. I do it because it shows how talented these musicians are. … And I want to show that in music it doesn’t really matter what genre it is. If it really breaks your heart or makes you happy, it’s all good. Then there are songs that I want to do in the bluegrass style because I didn’t want to do them in the other style.
I’ve often thought that there might not be any song that’s off limits for you. Is that true?
Well, it was close this time. I’ve never been as scared as I was with “Wheel in the Sky.” I really belabored it. Everybody was saying, “Let’s cut it,” but what do you do after Steve Perry’s cut something? Or Journey’s played it, you know? Then I got to looking at it some more. That was probably the last song that I picked. And I got to listening to those lyrics, and I thought, Bill Monroe would have wrote that: “Winter’s here again, O Lord…”
And I’ve done that with other songs, like “Summer Breeze.” The lyrics are just about life and emotions, and it’s important to me. I love novelty, funny little songs but I just really like the ones that have a message, or maybe leave one.
How did the guitar come to be your instrument?
It was probably going to be the only one that I had any possibility of getting. I would have loved to have had a banjo and mandolin, but I finally got a little ol’ cardboard, classical-style guitar that somebody ordered from a catalog. I knew I might get that one if I pressed enough. If I pressed too hard, I wasn’t going to get nothing! But I had a love for it. And still do.
I never was around anybody that played, is the thing. I had a friend who was my age, and we wrote songs together. He was very talented and he didn’t play bluegrass-style. He was a Jim Croce fan, so he would play that and I was so mesmerized, but that was the only guitar influence I had until I came to Renfro Valley. They were all seasoned Central Kentucky musicians and I learned so much from them.
You were at Renfro Valley for years, and then you became a bandleader. What do you remember most about that time? What was that transition like for you?
It was a transition that had to take place, before I would have ever gotten out of the community I was from. I learned a lot about the history. I learned Bradley Kincaid songs and who Bradley Kincaid was, and how Renfro Valley is such a treasure. I loved it and I got to perform country and gospel. I started singing traditional country there, and then the entertainment director would let me do traditional bluegrass songs with the country band. And that worked out good.
When that position with the Coon Creek Girls came open, I was tickled to death to get that. … Renfro Valley is in “The Hard Way Every Time.” Major, maybe over 50 percent! [Laughs] But I learned, and I’m thankful now that I learned those hard life lessons with good people that had hearts. I was thrilled to work there. The talent there in the late ‘80s and ‘90s – I’m telling you, it was as good as you’d hear anywhere.
And then you decided you wanted to be in front, and go on tour?
Well, what happened was, the Coon Creek Girls had been together for years and everybody got married and had babies. I still didn’t want to step completely out, so we called it Dale Ann Bradley and Coon Creek. And then things changed from there, and I signed with Compass, and then it grew its way into me totally being responsible. [Laughs] Good, bad, and indifferent!
What is some of the best business advice you’ve ever gotten.
[Laughs] Don’t spend your money! Cut corners, but not so much where you make somebody uncomfortable. But when you can, cut corners. Don’t buy what you can’t pay for. And work hard. Respect your money. I had to learn that the hard way, too — that’s the other 50 percent of The Hard Way!
Who would you say are some of your heroes?
Oh, Dolly Parton of course. I loved John Duffey and John Starling. What got me really hooked on bluegrass was that I’d hear Ralph Stanley and Bill Monroe on the radio — and Lester and Earl on The Beverly Hillbillies when I got to see that. Dolly was a hero, and the Seldom Scene, The Country Gentlemen, Charlie Waller, so many in the country field, too. Dolly could do anything. Bluegrass was naturally there, with her being 80 miles across the mountain from where I was from. And I loved Glen Campbell – he was another one that could do everything. So many that you can’t name.
So many of those artists you named have an incredible ear for a song.
They do, and it’s a gift that they can sing anything. And I adore Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles. You can’t stay on this earth and get any better than that.
You’ve won some IBMA Awards, and Sister Sadie earned a Grammy nomination this year. I would imagine that aspiring musicians may look to you as a role model. Do you see yourself that way?
Well, I don’t feel that I’m even worthy enough to put myself up as a role model. But if they like this style of music, I want to be somebody that makes them unafraid to express themselves. And I’ve always tried to treat people as good as I can. In those two ways, I hope that I am. In other ways, everyone’s got to walk their own journey, you know?
The IBMA Awards now have women winning the instrumental categories. As a woman in bluegrass yourself, what does an accomplishment like that mean to you?
Well, obviously it’s good that the mindset has changed, in order to really study the female musicians because some of them are quite great. The thing that worries me a little bit is that I don’t want it to matter if it’s male or female, if you’re a good player. I know so many females who are wonderful players and I don’t think we should get it just because we’re women. Let’s get it on our playing and our accomplishments. I don’t get into that (mentality of) “you’ve got to let me play because I’m a girl!” [Laughs] I’ve never been thrown out of a jam session, but I ain’t been in too many either.
Do you see a difference from when you started until now?
Definitely. I see girls cutting their gig, is what I see. Learning. And playing and singing and writing. I do see a female presence strongly coming in there. There was a time of course, I know not so very long ago: “Well… girls can’t sing bluegrass.” Now that needed to go!
I’d like to see the festival scene open those doors more.
Yeah, they’ve moved up to about two girl acts. And I didn’t really realize that was the case, because in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the Coon Creek Girls were the girl act. [Laughs] And I thought, “We’re getting hired, what’s the problem?” “Well, you’re the only girls!” [Laughs]
Going back to the title of this record for a second, I know there’s a lot of hard work that goes into a career like yours. But what would you say is the reward in that?
Oh gosh. There’s been so many. The reward was that I was able to do it. I was able to sing from the very first venue until now. I got the opportunity to sing and to write and to express myself in a musical way. I’ve met the most precious angels — and a lot of musicians have. They’re angels themselves. So many good friends that have been so good and gracious and merciful to me. And along with that, it provided a way for me to support myself and my son. That’s the reward. That right there is everything.
Photo credit: Pinecastle Records
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