Vince Gill Looks Back on His Bluegrass Years (Part 2 of 2)

In the second half of our interview with Vince Gill, the country legend reflects on his bluegrass history, explaining how he became interested in the music, what he learned by listening closer, and why it led to one of his most famous songs.

Editor’s Note: Read the first part of our Artist of the Month interview with Vince Gill.

BGS: “Go Rest High on That Mountain,” in my opinion, is going to live forever. And I think the bluegrass audience loves hearing Patty Loveless and Ricky Skaggs sing with you, too.

Gill: You know, I wouldn’t have been able to write that song if I hadn’t played bluegrass music and learned the structure of that music and how it works — and the emotion of it. Bluegrass music is so honest and so real. Some of those morbid murder ballads and the saddest of the sad songs are what I love most. Give me “Mother’s not dead. She’s only a-sleepin’. Patiently waiting for Jesus to come.” That’s about as good as it gets. “The Little Girl and the Dreadful Snake.” I could just go on and on and on.

All these tortured songs, but you know they’re real life. They’re not somebody going, “How can I slip one up on the world and make a bunch of money having a big hit record?” They’re so honest and real. And the fact that my past had so much to do with Ricky and Patty, they were the only two people that I would’ve consider it singing on that song.

I still love it when Patty comes to do the Opry.

There’s a really unique thing that happens when our voices sing together. It’s so… obvious. I sang on her very first record in the early ‘80s. I sang on her first hit record and she sang on my first hit record. So it’s my little sis.

Tell me about how you found bluegrass. Was there an entry point for you?

Yeah, I knew of it because my dad played the banjo a little bit. He never could figure out the three-finger, Scruggs-style banjo. He cussed Earl his whole life because he couldn’t figure it out. He played more of a folky banjo. Not drop thumb, not old-timey, but more of a frailing kind of banjo. So I was always around the music, as best I can remember, forever. There were obviously the Flatt & Scruggs things from The Beverly Hillbillies that were in everybody’s DNA. Then I was playing mostly in rock bands in junior high school and high school.

A kid named Bobby Clark was the one that really got me pointed towards bluegrass. He had a little band in Oklahoma City and his father was a repairman. I had broken the string on my dad’s banjo, messing around with it, and I didn’t know how to change it. So I took it to Charlie and he put a string on it pretty quickly and everything was fine. I wasn’t gonna get my butt kicked. Then I started talking to Charlie, and he says, “You play music, don’t you?” And I said, “Yeah, I love to play. I play electric guitar and play in rock bands and stuff.” He goes, “My son Bobby is a really fine mandolin player and plays bluegrass. You ever played any bluegrass?” I said, “No.”

They stuck an acoustic guitar in my hands and Bobby said, “We just had our lead singer leave the band and we’re looking for a singer.” So they did a pretty good job of raising me and teaching me and showing me how bluegrass worked. I played in their band for the last couple of years of high school. Then in another bluegrassy kind of band called Mountain Smoke. And I started playing all the festivals down around Oklahoma and Texas and Kansas. And ran into all the people that I’ve known in my whole life since I was 15, 16 years old.

Wasn’t that how you met Cheryl White [from The Whites]?

Yeah, I used to carry her bass around the festivals. I always had a thing for the girl bass players for some reason. There was another family band from Missouri called the Calton Family. Got sweet on Brenda. Then I got sweet on Cheryl. And she says I should’ve picked a harmonica player. [Laughs]

Those were such fun days and innocent. I loved the camaraderie that went on in that music. Not only with the people that came to the festivals, but the musicians. Everybody jammed together. There wasn’t a whole lot in it for anybody. Everybody was just kind of getting by. It was amazing, as I look back, what it did for me in the way that I respected other musicians and listened to other musicians. It was really important that I had a lot of that in my past. I haven’t forgotten it.

When I first heard bluegrass, I was just blown away by musicianship of it.

Yeah, I mean Stuart Duncan was as great as he was at 12 or 13. So was Mark O’Connor when he was 12 or 13. And Marty and Ricky and Jerry and on and on and on and on of these wonder kid pickers. Unbelievable. I kind of squeaked in because I could sing a little bit and figured out how play as I went. I kind of played whatever was left over in a lot of the bands I was in, and that was fine.

I saw you play mandolin on quite a few songs when you played Bluegrass Nights at the Ryman. What is it about that instrument that you really enjoy?

I think the mandolin is the most important drive of a bluegrass band. The banjo and that are the two most definitive sounds. In bluegrass, mandolin players are like the drummer, even more so than the guitar player to me. It’s that backbeat and driving it. Sam Bush was a great teacher of how you drive that music, you know? I loved the ferocity and intensity that he played with. When he played, that was powerful to watch as a 15- or 16-year-old kid.

That’s what I like. I like making it dance. I liked the importance of playing that instrument in bluegrass. I’m probably a much better guitar player in bluegrass than I am a mandolin player. But in some bands I had to play banjo. Sometimes I had to play, unfortunately, fiddle on a few things. Terrible! I played Dobro, I played everything. I played bass with Ricky’s band for a minute and then got to play some other instruments, but had a love for all of it. I still do. Probably I love it more now because it reminds me so much of my early days, and those first forays into learning about playing music.

Did Dobro come naturally to you?

It all kind of did. I mean, I put in the hours and I practiced hard. The neat thing was, you had such good people to learn from. I always had big ears and could always hear well and find what I was hearing in my head, figuring out how to play it.

There are so many brother duos that came up in bluegrass. Do you think that rubbed off on you with your harmony singing now?

Absolutely, yeah. I was trying to either be Ralph Stanley or Phil Everly or Ira Louvin or whoever. Don Rich and Buck Owens should’ve been brothers. I was a high singer so bluegrass was a natural fit. There have always been predominant high singers that were the focal point. Whether it was Ralph and Carter or whoever, man, that was a blend. You didn’t understand it when you were 15 or 16, what it was that made that blend so beautiful. It was the blood, you know. The DNA was the same.

I didn’t get to experience that until my oldest daughter was 18, 20 years old and we started singing together. I started calling her my little Everly because I’d spent my whole life trying to be Phil. You know, singing the high parts for everybody else, and blend perfectly, and every nuance they did, I’d do. And I’d just want ‘em to think I was related to ‘em. She wound up naming her daughter Everly because of that, because I called her my little Everly.

But yeah, I love sharing music. I love the collaboration of music more so than I like it by myself. It’s not as interesting by yourself, but when you get to play off somebody, and play with somebody, it’s very powerful.


Photo credit: John Shearer

IBMA Reveals Award Nominees, Hall of Fame Inductees, Distinguished Achievement Winners

Five of the top bands in bluegrass earned IBMA Entertainer of the Year nominations from the International Bluegrass Music Association. The ballot was revealed on Wednesday morning in Nashville.

The Entertainer of the Year nominees are Balsam Range, Sam Bush Band, The Earls of Leicester, Del McCoury Band, and Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers.

Due to a tie, seven titles will compete for the Song of the Year category. The IBMA Awards will take place Thursday, September 26, at the Duke Energy Performing Arts Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, with hosts Jim Lauderdale and Del McCoury.

Mike Auldridge, Bill Emerson, and the Kentucky Colonels have also been named as inductees into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame.

Distinguished Achievement Award recipients include radio personality Katy Daley, Mountain Home label founder Mickey Gamble, former IBMA executive director Dan Hays, The Lost and Found founder Allen Mills, and Japanese language magazine Moonshiner, now in its 37th year covering bluegrass and acoustic music.

The full ballot is below.

ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR

Balsam Range
Sam Bush Band
The Earls of Leicester
Del McCoury Band
Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers

VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR

Balsam Range
I’m With Her
Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver
Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out
Sister Sadie

INSTRUMENTAL GROUP OF THE YEAR

Sam Bush Band
Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper
The Earls of Leicester
Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder
The Travelin’ McCourys

NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR

Appalachian Road Show
Carolina Blue
High Fidelity
Mile Twelve
Billy Strings

SONG OF THE YEAR (7 nominees, due to a tie)

“Dance, Dance, Dance”
Artist: Appalachian Road Show
Writers: Brenda Cooper/Joseph Cooper/Steve Miller
Producers: Barry Abernathy, Darrell Webb, Ben Isaacs
Executive Producer: Dottie Leonard Miller
Label: Billy Blue Records

“The Girl Who Invented the Wheel”
Artist: Balsam Range
Writers: Adam Wright/Shannon Wright
Producer: Balsam Range
Executive Producer: Mickey Gamble
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

“The Guitar Song”
Artist: Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers with Del McCoury
Writers: Bill Anderson/Jamey Johnson/Vicky McGehee
Producer: Joe Mullins
Associate Producer: Jerry Salley
Label: Billy Blue Records

“The Light in Carter Stanley’s Eyes”
Artist: Peter Rowan
Writer: Peter Rowan
Producer: Peter Rowan
Associate Producer: Tim O’Brien
Label: Rebel Records

“Next Train South”
Artist: The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys
Writer: Mac Patterson
Producers: The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, Dave Maggard, Ken Irwin
Label: Rounder Records

“Take the Journey”
Artist: Molly Tuttle
Writers: Molly Tuttle/Sarah Siskind
Producer: Ryan Hewitt
Label: Compass Records

“Thunder Dan”
Artist: Sideline
Writer: Josh Manning
Producer: Tim Surrett
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

City on a Hill
Artist: Mile Twelve
Producer: Bryan Sutton
Label: Independent

Del McCoury Still Sings Bluegrass
Artist: Del McCoury Band
Producers: Del and Ronnie McCoury
Label: McCoury Music

For the Record
Artist: Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers
Producer: Joe Mullins
Associate Producer: Jerry Salley
Label: Billy Blue Records

I Hear Bluegrass Calling Me
Artist: Carolina Blue
Producers: Bobby Powell, Tim and Lakin Jones
Executive Producers: Lonnie Lassiter and Ethan Burkhardt
Label: Pinecastle Records

Sister Sadie II
Artist: Sister Sadie
Producer: Sister Sadie
Label: Pinecastle Records

GOSPEL RECORDING OF THE YEAR

“Acres of Diamonds”
Artist: Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers
Producer: Joe Mullins
Associate Producer: Jerry Salley
Label: Billy Blue Records

“Gonna Sing, Gonna Shout”
Artist: Claire Lynch
Producer: Jerry Salley
Label: Billy Blue Records

“I Am a Pilgrim”
Artist: Roland White and Friends
Producers: Ty Gilpin, Jon Weisberger
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

“I See God”
Artist: Marty Raybon
Producer: Jerry Salley
Label: Billy Blue Records

“Let My Life Be a Light”
Artist: Balsam Range
Producer: Balsam Range
Executive Producer: Mickey Gamble
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

INSTRUMENTAL RECORDING OF THE YEAR

“Cotton Eyed Joe”
Artist: Sideline
Producer: Tim Surrett
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

“Darlin’ Pal(s) of Mine”
Artist: Missy Raines with Alison Brown, Mike Bub, and Todd Phillips
Producer: Alison Brown
Label: Compass Records

“Earl’s Breakdown”
Artist: The Earls of Leicester
Producer: Jerry Douglas
Label: Rounder Records

“Fried Taters and Onions”
Artist: Carolina Blue
Producers: Bobby Powell, Tim and Lakin Jones
Executive Producers: Lonnie Lassiter and Ethan Burkhardt
Label: Pinecastle Records

“Sunrise”
Artist: Sam Bush & Bela Fleck
Producers: Akira Otsuka, Ronnie Freeland
Label: Smithsonian Folkways Records

COLLABORATIVE RECORDING OF THE YEAR

“Burning Georgia Down”
Artist: Balsam Range with Atlanta Pops Orchestra Ensemble
Producer: Balsam Range
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

“Darlin’ Pal(s) of Mine”
Artist: Missy Raines with Alison Brown, Mike Bub, and Todd Phillips
Producer: Alison Brown
Label: Compass Records

“The Guitar Song”
Artist: Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers with Del McCoury
Producer: Joe Mullins
Associate Producer: Jerry Salley
Label: Billy Blue Records

“Please”
Artist: Rhonda Vincent and Dolly Parton
Producers: Dave Cobb, John Leventhal, Frank Liddell
Label: MCA Nashville

“Soldier’s Joy/Ragtime Annie”
Artist: Roland White with Justin Hiltner, Jon Weisberger, Patrick McAvinue, and Molly Tuttle
Producers: Ty Gilpin, Jon Weisberger
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

MALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR

Shawn Camp
Del McCoury
Russell Moore
Tim O’Brien
Danny Paisley

FEMALE VOCALIST

Brooke Aldridge
Dale Ann Bradley
Sierra Hull
Molly Tuttle
Rhonda Vincent

BANJO PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Gina Furtado
Mike Munford
Noam Pikelny
Kristin Scott Benson
Scott Vestal

BASS PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Barry Bales
Mike Bub
Beth Lawrence
Missy Raines
Mark Schatz

FIDDLE PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Hunter Berry
Becky Buller
Jason Carter
Michael Cleveland
Stuart Duncan

RESOPHONIC GUITAR PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Jerry Douglas
Andy Hall
Rob Ickes
Phil Leadbetter
Justin Moses

GUITAR PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Kenny Smith
Billy Strings
Bryan Sutton
Molly Tuttle
Josh Williams

MANDOLIN PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Alan Bibey
Sam Bush
Sierra Hull
Ronnie McCoury
Frank Solivan

WATCH: Tyler Childers, “House Fire”

Kentucky country troubadour Tyler Childers has announced his highly anticipated upcoming album, Country Squire, and gives us a taste of what’s to come with the lead track “House Fire.”

Childers says about his mission behind the album, “I hope that people in the area that I grew up in find something they can relate to. I hope that I’m doing my people justice and I hope that maybe someone from somewhere else can get a glimpse of the life of a Kentucky boy.”

Country Squire was recorded at The Butcher Shoppe in Nashville and features renowned musicians such as Stuart Duncan, Miles Miller, and Russ Pahl. And like Childers’ 2017 release Purgatory, Country Squire is produced by Sturgill Simpson and David Ferguson.

You can grab your tickets for Childers’ headlining fall US tour on May 23, and find the track list – nine original songs — and more info about the record here, as you wait for its release on August 2 via Hickman Holler Records and RCA Records.

Guitarist David Grier Steps Out as a Lead Singer, Too

David Grier gets asked all kinds of questions.

He’s asked about his phenomenal cross-picking guitar techniques, which put him among the greatest bluegrass/folk players of the last several decades, talked about in the same breath with Doc Watson, Clarence White, and Tony Rice.

He’s asked about his dad, Lamar, who played banjo with Bill Monroe. Yeah, that Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass.

He’s asked about Clarence White’s brother Roland, the Kentucky Colonels mandolinist who was an early teacher of his. And of course he’s also asked Clarence, Grier’s big influence, who brought bluegrass guitar into the rock age with the Colonels and then, on electric guitar, powered early country-rock with the Byrds.

He’s asked, maybe too much, about his beard, a prodigious gray broadsword of whiskers stretching from chin to navel, an abstraction of which is the signature feature of his silhouette, featured on his T-shirts and other merch.

But one thing the D.C.-raised, Nashville-based musician is never really asked about: His singing. And for good reason. He’s never done it.

“It’s always been, ‘Why don’t you sing? You play guitar!’” he says, an irrepressible joviality marking his droll drawl.

Somehow, he sighs, people often seem to think that simply because he plays guitar he ought to sing too.

“I know I play guitar,” he says, more amused than exasperated. “I never donated any time toward [singing]. I tried once or twice through the years. Just like anything else, I gave it five or ten times and stopped.”

Until now.

His new album, Ways of the World, features five songs with him on lead vocals. That’s a first. In his career going back to the early ‘80s and covering ten solo albums now, several side projects (Psychograss, Helen Highwater Stringband), and hundreds of guest spots and sessions, he’s never stepped out as a vocalist before.

And in a rather bold move, he puts his lead vocals alongside some noted vocal talents: Maura O’Connell, Tim O’Brien, Shad Cobb, Andrea Zonn, and Mike Compton. What’s more, he’s feels pretty good about it.

“I do,” he says. “I know later I won’t, because every time I think something’s perfect, I listen to it later and go, ‘Gee, why didn’t I hear that before?’”

So the next question comes naturally: “Why now?”

“It was the Helen Highwater Stringband,” he says. “Three or four years ago they said they needed another singer for a vocal trio. They looked at me. I said, ‘I don’t sing!’ They said, ‘You do now!’ I went, ‘Wow.’ They were encouraging. It was helpful. All that went into account and then I did it on stage. People weren’t running for the exits, so this is good. And it just kept going.”

If he was going to sing, he needed words, and he dove right into that as well. Songwriting was another new challenge.

“I’d written the first two lines: ‘I’m afloat on the great big waves of the ocean, I drift on the ways of the world,’” he says of the title song, with Zonn singing with him, which opens the album. “I thought, ‘Hell! That’s going to be a song!’”

But he thought he’d need help and, while heading out for a five-and-a-half-week tour in South Africa, he went to a friend to have him finish it. That didn’t happen. So with two off-days he set to it himself.

“I finished it in an Airbnb on the beach in South Africa,” he says.

It was a whatever-it-takes approach to songwriting. “Dust Bowl Dream,” with harmonies by O’Brien, came from a bar bet for a round of drinks with some Nashville buddies as to who could write the best song in a week.

“I wasn’t even going to write a song,” he says. “Thought I’d just buy drinks for the buddies. But I had this melody that was lonesome and I thought, ‘Well, dust bowl is lonesome.’ Wrote the words in an airport, wrote the verse, chorus, second verse. I thought it was great. Got to the hotel later that day and started playing. First verse was great, second was great, last verse was horrible! I wrote another and that was worse. I went back to the first version I wrote and thought, ‘If I don’t sing it, that’s great.’ So I talk through it, like Bill Anderson would. It’s a recitation, and I think it really helped the tune. You feel it more.”

Now, all you who savor every splendiferous Grier guitar lick, dread not. The five songs featuring vocals are accompanied by eight sparkling instrumentals, and the ones with singing also feature, of course, his spectacular picking.

The heartfelt vocal numbers are surrounded by a selection of wryly titled original picking showcases (“Waiting on Daddy’s Money,” “The Curmudgeon’s Gait,” and so on) and sparkling interpretations of, or variations on, old fiddle tunes (“Billy in the Lowground”). And playing with Grier is a stellar cast of associates: a core of Casey Campbell on mandolin, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Dennis Crouch on bass, with John Gardner on drums for some songs, and banjo from Justin Moses and Cory Walker. What’s more, there’s electric guitar by Bryan Sutton on one song (“Dustbowl Dream”) and on “Farewell to Redboots,” there’s trumpet by Rod McGaha — something perhaps even more surprising than Grier’s singing.

“For me having a trumpet on a song is brand new,” he says. “I just heard it in my head that way and imagined it that way. But having it happen was amazing.”

The whole experience, it seems, was liberating in a way that led Grier to try some different approaches to his picking, as if the pressure was off to make the album completely about that. The result is a rich, engaging tone throughout.

“I think on this record there’s less flash, just for flash’s sake,” he says. “Less, ‘Watch what I can do! Watch! This is hot!’ This is more reined in for a bit. Some of the solos are simplistic, and in my mind harken back to the beginnings of bluegrass music.”

He cites the intro to one song, “Dead Flowers,” an original, not the Rolling Stones song.

“That’s as basic as you can be,” he says, noting that it happened that way in the moment when he was caught off guard. “I got in the studio and thought someone else would kick it off. ‘Who’s gonna kick it off?’ Crickets. ‘You start it.’”

On the other hand, he also found himself spontaneously taking some other unexpected directions in “Red Boots.”

“There are three solos in that,” he says. “First one of me, then the horn, then me again. The first one’s just the melody, nothing fancy. The melody is cool. But the last solo is completely different, a little bit of Wes Montgomery, some string-bending in there. Just popped out! I’d never played that before. Every time I’d played that song it was just the melody, ‘cause I’m generally sitting here playing by myself. In the studio it was, ‘Well, I’ve done that. I want to do something different.’ I like that. Fresh and exciting. Note by note. Not the boring same old thing.”

And that’s the thread of the whole album.

“A lot of improvisation on this record,” he says. “From my viewpoint, it’s playful. All in the vibe. Not some hot lick thrown in just to show I can play a hot lick.”

Not that he isn’t proud of his playing here.

“There’s things in there people might want to learn when they hear it,” he says.

And speaking of learning, one more question: Has he ever tried fingerpicking?

Grier sighs.

“That’s another thing maybe I gave five minutes.

Well… given what he said about singing, stay tuned for the next album.


Photo credit: Scott Simontacchi

Doc Watson & David Grisman, “Watson Blues”

It’s fitting that this week, leading up to the 32nd year of MerleFest in Wilkesboro, North Carolina — a festival named after Doc Watson’s late son, Merle — that for Tunesday Tuesday we spend a few minutes with a song named after Doc himself. Bill Monroe wrote “Watson Blues” (or “Watson’s Blues,” as it’s also called), naming it after his friend and premier flatpicker, and the two performed it live and recorded it together on more than one occasion. This version with David “Dawg” Grisman, though, showcases the effortless way that Doc could keep up with and quietly, subtly innovate alongside musicians and artists who were much more famous for roaming further afield.

What’s additionally striking about this particular recording is how simple and focused the track is. Doc’s steady, unwavering hand pushes the song along at a perfectly breezy clip, matching the mellow, round, warm, huggable tones from his flattop. Meanwhile, Dawg plays the roll of Big Mon convincingly, peppering his signature, wacky, jazz-inflected phrases only rarely, choosing instead to let the tune stand on its own. Stuart Duncan’s plaintive twin fiddling is the icing on this tasty, minimal, “Watson Blues” cake.

If you’re headed to MerleFest this weekend, make sure this track is on your driving playlists to/from the festival — and be sure to check out our 2019 MerleFest preview for tips and tricks for the weekend. And, finally, make sure you stay tuned after the 3:52 runtime of “Watson Blues” passes — Doc, Dawg, and Jack Lawrence give us an incredibly tasty version of “Bye Bye Blues” to wrap up the album. It’s an acoustic pickin’ heroes encore.

John McCutcheon, “Living in the Country”

Legendary folk singer, folklorist, and activist Pete Seeger isn’t generally remembered for his instrumental prowess, despite being adept at guitar picking and playing the banjo, which in turn, birthed an entire generation of banjo players who cite his instruction book, How to Play the 5-String Banjo, as their guide into three-finger playing when no other such manual existed. He was not only accomplished in frailing and old-time styles on the banjo, he famously played 12-string guitar, and not only to accompany himself on the folk songs he was known for — he picked his fair share of tunes on the instrument as well.

John McCutcheon, a multi-instrumentalist and folk singer/songwriter who could arguably simply be regarded as a modern analog for Seeger, pays tribute to that 12-string guitar picking, and the man himself, on “Living in the Country,” a cut off his upcoming fortieth recording, To Everyone In All The World — A Celebration of Pete Seeger. Hammered dulcimer, McCutcheon’s instrument du jour, rings and resonates like a 12-string guitar turned on its ear, with the same lilting rhythm of Seeger’s tentative finger plucks. The arrangement fills out with percussion, pads, and the ever-entrancing, improvisational genius of Stuart Duncan’s fiddle, giving a convivial sort of late night, folk festival fire-circle jam aesthetic to what began as a humble, 12-string soliloquy. Pete Seeger could pick, and John McCutcheon, Stuart Duncan, et. al. sure can, too.


Photo by Irene Young

John Jorgenson Revisits His Southern California Bluegrass Roots

John Jorgenson is not only a man of many talents, he’s a musician with many interests. Perhaps you’ve heard his gypsy jazz, or remember when the Desert Rose Band — a neo-trad country group that included Jorgenson, Chris Hillman and other luminaries of the California country and country-rock scene — was riding high at radio, or perhaps you saw him playing an indispensable role in Elton John’s touring band. As Jim Reeves might have put it, he’s done a lot in his time.

Even so, you might not know that John Jorgenson is also a bluegrass guy — unless, that is, you saw him on the road with Earl Scruggs during the legend’s final touring years, or happened to buy his 2015 box set, Divertuoso, which included a disc of bluegrass alongside one of gypsy jazz and another of eclectic, electric music. Earlier this year, that disc was issued as a standalone album, From the Crow’s Nest. Featuring the regular (and equally eclectic) members of the John Jorgenson Bluegrass Band (J2B2) — Herb Pedersen, Mark Fain and Jon Randall — it’s a delicious collection that scatters well-known songs (Pedersen’s “Wait a Minute”; Randall’s “Whiskey Lullaby” co-write; and the Dillards’ “There Is a Time”) among a trove of newer material, much of it written or co-written by Jorgenson.

From the Crow’s Nest ought to go some distance in alerting wider audiences to a new standard-bearer for a style of bluegrass that, while its roots trace back to the early 1950s, hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. Though Southern California is a long way from the Grand Ole Opry and other spawning grounds for the original bluegrass sound, it served in the post-World War II years as a magnet for job seekers from both sides of the Mississippi River, and that meant bluegrass pickers, too — and so, when we met up, that made for a good starting point for our conversation.

Listening to your album reminds me that you are a product of a Southern California roots music scene that included bluegrass from early on. How did you get exposed to it?

Probably the first time was when a band came to my high school and I thought they were from another planet, because I’d never heard anything so fast in my life. I played music already — I played classical music, and rock — but that was sort of an anomaly, and then I didn’t really see it again for a while.

I came to it sort of in a backwards way. I had a scholarship to the Aspen Music Festival. They brought me in as a jazz bass player; they wanted to start a jazz program. And I accepted the scholarship as long as I could also be in their classical program, playing the bassoon. Well, I had my tuition paid for, and my room paid for, but I didn’t have money for meals. So I needed to figure out how to make some money, and then I saw an ad that said: Wanted: strict jazz player for immediate gigs. So I checked out an upright bass from the school and went to this audition. And they weren’t playing jazz — what they were playing was David Grisman’s first album. This was the summer of 1978, so this album was new. I’d never heard it.

So they’re playing all instrumental stuff and I thought, OK, I really like the sound, especially of that mandolin. I liked the flatpicking guitar, too. I was already a guitar player, but I just loved the mandolin. When I got home that summer, my neighbors had a Gibson A model and I borrowed it. Not too long after that, I ran into a friend who had been instructed to put together a band that could play bluegrass and Dixieland to cover two different areas of Disneyland. And he asked, “Hey, do you know anybody that could play bluegrass fiddle and Dixieland cornet?” And needing a job at the time, I said, “I can play mandolin and clarinet.”

And then I kind of learned backwards, whatever I could. I learned from New Grass Revival, and then Bill Monroe, and Flatt & Scruggs, and the Stanley Brothers, and the Osborne Brothers. And all the others — Tony Rice, Sam Bush, the Bluegrass Cardinals, whoever was playing around at the time. Larry Stephenson was playing with the Cardinals at that time, and I remember I was — I don’t want to say shy, but I’m shy around people I don’t know. And to me at the time, they were real bluegrass musicians and I was a pretender. I sort of felt an attitude from some people, too, but he was not like that at all. He was really friendly.

Did playing bluegrass at Disneyland motivate you to build connections with the larger bluegrass scene, or was it a standalone kind of gig?

Actually, when we first started, we were terrible! We learned three songs and then we’d play those, move to a different place and play them again. But everyone was ambitious, so we all practiced; we learned songs, we got better. And then we started to play out around Los Angeles. I think the first time we played out as an act, we opened for Jim & Jesse at McCabe’s [Guitar Shop]. There was also a venue called the Banjo Cafe, with bluegrass every night, on Lincoln [Boulevard] in Santa Monica. So the Cardinals played there; Berline, Hickman & Crary would play there; and touring acts, too — Ralph Stanley would play there. And a young Alison Brown, a young Stuart Duncan.

I know that there are a lot fans of Desert Rose Band among bluegrassers, and some gypsy jazz fans, too, but for a lot of people, you came onto the radar when you were going places with Earl Scruggs — 15 years ago, maybe? How’d that come about?

Actually, it was because of Brad Davis. He was playing with Earl, and we were kind of guitar geek friends. We ended up sitting next to each other on a plane one time, and were chatting, and he said, “I’m playing with Earl Scruggs,” and I said, “I’d love to do that.” He said, “You know, they like to have an electric guitar, maybe there might be a spot.” He really set that up for me.

I said, “OK, I’m happy to play electric guitar, but I would really love to play the mandolin.” So I would bring both, and if I played too much mandolin, Louise [Scruggs] would say, “John, don’t forget that electric guitar.” Then they said, “Don’t you play saxophone? We used to have that on a song called ‘Step It Up and Go.’” So I said, “What about the clarinet? It’s not quite so loud.” And as it turns out, Earl said his favorite musician was Pete Fountain, and he loved the clarinet. So every time after that, Gary Scruggs would call me up: “Dad says don’t forget the moneymaker.”

The J2B2 record was originally part of a box set — a disc of gypsy jazz, one of bluegrass, one of electric stuff. So you have these different musical itches, and some musicians would choose to try to synthesize these things into something new and different and unique, but you seem to have an interest in keeping them each their own thing. Why is that?

It’s because, to me, the things that I love about bluegrass are what make it bluegrass. I love the trio harmony, I love these instruments, the way each instrument functions in the band. And I love gypsy jazz, and some folks might say they’re closely related — they’re string band music, they both have acoustic bass and fiddle and acoustic guitar, and each instrument has a role. There are a lot of similarities, but the things that I like about each one are what make them different. I think each music has an accent, and a history and a perspective, and I really want to be true to those, because those are the elements that touch my heart.

I feel like what I do and what this group does is quite traditional, compared to a lot of people. It’s not jamgrass. It’s not Americana. It’s bluegrass. There are folk elements, and all those other things, of course. But really, my touchstones for that style of music are all the classics: the trio harmonies of the Osborne Brothers, and the slightly softer Seldom Scene and Country Gentlemen sounds, the early Dillards, the Country Gazette, and the whole Southern California sound… you don’t think of Tony Rice’s roots as Southern California, but they are.

And probably at one point, if I could have sounded like I was from Kentucky, I wouldn’t have minded that. But at the end of the day, well, I love Bill Monroe as much as the next guy, and I’m going to take inspiration, but I feel like I’m part of a lineage of bluegrass that’s just as viable as any other, and why not have that sound be a part of me?


Photo credit: Mike Melnyk

Mountain Heart: The Evolution of a Bluegrass Band

I met Josh Shilling on January 5, 2007, the afternoon of the day on which he’d later make his first appearance with Mountain Heart. On the Grand Ole Opry. Singing a song he’d written. At 23.

A lot has happened since then, but in the world of bluegrass, where one eye—at least—is always looking back, it’s worth looking back even further, because Mountain Heart had already been a hard-working, award-winning band for nearly a decade. I wrote the liner notes for their 1998 debut and I’d followed them ever since. When they invited me over to that pre-Opry rehearsal, I knew Mountain Heart as a ferociously talented band that knit together a diverse set of influences—diverse, that is, within a thoroughly bluegrass framework; a distillation and extension of important ‘90s musical trends carried forward and elaborated upon in a new decade.

It was obvious, though, that Josh was bringing something different to the band, even before he brought his piano—and as the years have passed, that’s become a central element. Some bands have different members pass through, yet retain a trademark sound; some keep the same personnel, but move from one sound to another. Mountain Heart has been unusual in that it’s done both—none of the founding members remain, and in many respects, neither does much of the original sound. Yet its evolution has been, if not preordained, organic and thoughtful, and a good chunk of the responsibility for that belongs to Josh, who’s both a musician’s musician and a performer who can connect with thousands at a time.

When we got together to talk about the group’s stunning new album, Soul Searching—the title track written by Shilling and the Infamous Stringdusters’ Jeremy Garrett—that passage of time was an obvious starting point.

You’ve been with Mountain Heart now for….

Eleven years.

I’d say there are a lot of more recent fans of the band who see Mountain Heart as coming out of bluegrass, and so they assume that you came out of bluegrass as well. But you had a whole other thing going before you ever started with the band.

Yeah. I grew up at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains—I lived right up the street from (banjo player) Sammy Shelor, I was 45 minutes from the Doobie Shea studio with Tim Austin, Dan Tyminski, Ronnie Bowman—all those guys were up there. So I was around bluegrass, and my dad loved it, but I was drawn to the piano, and so I would always just sit at the piano and figure out simple songs. And then I was drawn to Ray Charles, the Allman Brothers, Leon Russell and people like that. That’s what really pulled me into music. When I started playing live, my first bands were country bands, and then little rock bands, and then all of a sudden, within a year or two, I was in a straight-up r&b band, singing Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles. So that was where I kind of homed in on my vocal style and chops, and learned a lot of chords and all that.

When you go to adding that to a band like Mountain Heart, it really opens things up. I’m sure it freaked some people out ten years ago, but these days, we’ve been yelled at enough, and now I feel like our crowd is way more diverse, and younger. One of the things that’s allowed the band to exist for 20 years this year is turning the pages, bringing new faces. When I joined, it was [fiddler] Jimmy VanCleve, and [mandolin player] Adam Steffey, and [bassist] Jason Moore, and then Aaron Ramsey came right after me, who is just one of the finest players alive. And then we’re talking [guitarist] Jake Stargel, Cory Walker, Molly Cherryholmes, and Seth Taylor and Jeff Partin, and on and on and on. We constantly get incredible players, and I feel like the songwriting’s getting better each record, and that’s what’s allowed us to keep doing it.

Looking at it from the outside, it seems like one of the things that Mountain Heart does is, it takes these great bluegrass musicians, and lets them play other stuff besides bluegrass.

Not only that, I’ve seen a lot of these guys kind of find themselves, and we nurture that. The current guys definitely don’t try to control the way a musician plays. When Seth Taylor joined the band, his guitar hung down to his knees, and he played way out over the hole, and it was the most unconventional, not-Tony Rice-looking guitar style I’d ever seen. But we didn’t try to change that, and he went from amazing to just a force of nature over the course of a couple of years. When I first met Aaron, he was staring at the floor; you could tell that in his brain there was a metronome going, and he was just chopping [mandolin], staring at the floor, and that was it. And within a year or two, this guy was a rock star—he was out front, he was the show. And he still is a huge part of the show.

I’ve seen the band be that for everybody—we don’t try to control anyone, and we definitely do push each other. It’s awesome, the way we all kind of piggyback off each other. And there’s a competitive edge, to keep up with each other, but there’s also a respect in that band. Even on a bad night, everyone’s like, “you’re my favorite.”

So we have parameters, but we push those. We kind of know how the song starts and how it ends, and we all know the main melody and the arrangement. Like with “Soul Searching” or “More Than I Am”—live, they might have a two minute intro. It allows us to be expressive each night. But at the same time, if we go play the Opry, we can simplify and just play a three-and-a-half minute version of that song.

How long did you guys work on this new record?

Between the writing and the A&R and thinking through general ideas, this project started several years ago. But Seth and I had played a lot of these tunes into voice memos for probably a year and a half, and they would develop a little each time. Songs like “Festival”—it was a really slow song, and we all liked the message, but it was never good enough to put on a record. And then one day I imagined the bass line being like “Day Tripper” or “Low Rider”—this really bass-centered groove. So we tried that, and everybody immediately said yes, this is gonna work perfect.

So there were lots of times when we’d meet and talk through the songs, and then eventually we booked the studio time and went to rehearsal. We ran through the songs for two days as a band—singing lead through a PA and everything. Recorded everything, found the tempos we liked, wrote the tempos down, wrote the keys down, made signature notes on what we knew we were going to grab, and what instruments, and if we were gonna have percussion or drums. And then we went into Compass and cut all eleven songs and all the lead vocals in three days. Pretty much everything I sang on there was live, to the point where, when we went in to edit, you couldn’t edit anything.

We cut all of the band’s parts in three days, and then we had Kenny Malone play some percussion, Scott Vestal came down and played some banjo, Ronnie Bowman sang harmony on one, [fiddle player] Stuart Duncan came in one day. And so essentially, it took about three years of A&R and talking, about three days of recording, and then we literally catered the last few days, got some drinks and watched our heroes play along with our tracks.

It’s a band-produced project; we did the art work—we took a stab at it with a couple of different artists, and could not land on what we wanted. And Seth actually drew this herringbone frame on a piece of paper, took a picture of it and sent it to my wife, Aleah, who’s a graphic designer and develops software, and she pulled it into Photoshop—and a lot of this was made on a cell phone. So we all took part in the entire design, from the photography to the design, to the A&R, the writing, the mixing. Garry West was involved for sure as co-producer, and Gordon [Hammond] did a great job of mixing, Gordon and Sean Sullivan tracked a lot of this stuff, Randy LeRoy did a great job mastering.

We’re talking about the next one already, but we may do it all ourselves next time—make it a point that every piece of this is gonna be put together by hand in some form or fashion. I think these days fans like that; they’d rather have…already, with a lot of our presales and a lot of our CD orders, we send out drawings and stuff. I think people really appreciate those things.


Photo by Sebastian Smith