Tag: Sugar Hill

It’s Time to Induct Dolly Parton Into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Country superstar Dolly Parton died on August 25, 2026, and the entire world is mourning a beloved musician, singer, songwriter, and picker – and the bluegrass community has lost one of its most prominent global ambassadors.

Born in 1946, Parton enjoyed a resplendent and diverse musical career that spanned seven decades, beginning in her beloved Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee, where she grew up steeped in “old-timey” and “mountain music.” She would go on to be inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (despite her objections to the latter honor), as well as the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2005 she was awarded the National Medal of the Arts and in 2006 she received the Kennedy Center Honors. Parton would garner 11 Grammy Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Grammy (and more than 50 additional nominations), three Emmy Awards, 13 ACM Awards, 10 CMA Awards, four IBMA Awards, and many, many more accolades and trophies – including two Academy Award nominations and an honorary Oscar.

While Parton is known as an artist and songwriter – reportedly penning more than 3,000 songs in her lifetime – she enjoyed a well-rounded career in many fields, in the arts and beyond, starring in films, writing and producing stage shows, plays, and musicals, producing films and TV, publishing and writing books, bringing food and home goods lines to market, planning a chain of truck stops – and being “Dreamer-in-Chief” of Dollywood, her namesake theme park in her home county in East Tennessee. In the most recent days of her life and career, Dolly was a truly ubiquitous celebrity and cultural figure, not just in the USA, but around the world.

It would be nearly impossible to overstate her influence not only in country, roots music, and Americana, but in bluegrass, too. Parton was a devoted proponent and picker of bluegrass over the course of her entire career; she released more than a handful of decidedly bluegrass albums out of her dozens of LPs. Two of them, The Grass Is Blue (1999) and Heartsongs: Live From Home (1994), are often regarded as two of her best releases of all time – especially The Grass Is Blue, reportedly touted by members of her own team and inner circle. And bluegrass touches and influences would show up across her body of work, including in her original musical and her film and TV projects. Even more old-time and mountain music threads have been woven through her musical output than straight-up-and-down bluegrass has, with bedazzled mountain dulcimers and autoharps and tin whistles just as common in her videos and stage appearances as her trusty rhinestoned guitars and banjos.

At the turn of the century, Parton released The Grass Is Blue as well as Little Sparrow (2001) and Halos & Horns (2002), partnering with iconic bluegrass and country label Sugar Hill. The albums arrived at a tumultuous and fraught time in Parton’s career, when daytime television talk shows and tabloids seemed to be her business (and music’s) bread-and-butter. She and her management successfully leveraged the sounds, aesthetics, and cultural signifiers of bluegrass with this trifecta of albums – which were musically excellent, though critics regarded some of them with mixed opinions – to yet again employ a “rags to riches” storyline, as she had her entire career.

At this relative low point of visibility in her career, experiencing a sort of commercial and pop cultural lull, bluegrass was there to spark the resurgence that would bring Dolly not only back into the mainstream, but would lay the foundation for the peak of her cultural magnitude in the 2010s and 2020s. It’s a storyline – a trope and an archetype – she had inhabited across her career, from the little “one room cabin” Tennessee mountain home to Hollywood and her white “limozeen.” But just like those earliest days of her young life, as a youngster singing into a tin-can microphone she fashioned with a stick on her front porch, bluegrass, old-time, and mountain music have always been at the core of Parton’s success and her broad appeal.

Her collaborations with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, especially Trio (1987) and Trio II (1999), boast perhaps the most superlative bluegrass recordings Dolly ever cut, and they are certainly the most well-known. Although The Grass Is Blue listens as more traditional, straight-ahead bluegrass and is adored by ardent fans, the Trio albums had much larger audiences. Trio included “Those Memories,” written by Alan O’Bryant (Nashville Bluegrass Band) while Trio II credited Del McCoury (“I Feel the Blues Movin’ In”), Harley Allen (“High Sierra”), and the Seldom Scene’s John Starling (“He Rode All the Way to Texas”) as songwriters. To this day both McCoury and O’Bryant joke about their Trio cuts being their biggest hits – and McCoury will giggle as he admits he never wants to sing “I Feel the Blues Movin’ In” again after Dolly had done it. Parton’s voice always typified the ever-elusive “high lonesome sound” of bluegrass, as coined by its proverbial father, Bill Monroe, but especially so with her sharp soprano combined with the powerful belt of Ronstadt and the soft patina of Harris’s voice.

Both Trio albums have all-star bands as well, including (but not limited to) Herb Pedersen, Mark O’Connor, John Starling, and Ry Cooder (Trio) and Starling, O’Connor, Carl Jackson, David Grisman, Roy Huskey Jr., Edgar Meyer, Larry Atamanuik, and Alison Krauss (Trio II). That’s right, Krauss – in 1999 already a multiple Grammy winner with two RIAA Gold records – was a side musician on the project, playing fiddle on four of the tracks. Heartsongs also had an incredible and vast roster of bluegrass greats lending their talents: Alison Krauss, Carl Jackson, Huskey Jr., Suzanne Cox, Rhonda and Darrin Vincent, Ronnie and Rob McCoury, Randy Scruggs, Ron Block, Adam Steffey, Jerry Douglas, Viktor Krauss, and more.

On 9 To 5 And Odd Jobs, a concept album of working class songs built around “9 To 5” and released in late 1980 just before the eponymous hit film, Bobby and Sonny Osborne can be heard joining Dolly on the vocal trio on “Hush-A-Bye Hard Times,” while Sonny lends banjo elsewhere on the LP, too. Parton’s White Limozeen (1989), a cosmic crossover journey from the mountains to the discotheque and back again, was produced by Ricky Skaggs – who played guitar and mandolin on the project – and featured Béla Fleck performing its striking banjo parts, like on the delightful opening track “Time for Me To Fly.” Little Sparrow, The Grass Is Blue, and Halos & Horns have similarly deep, impressive, and virtuosic credits as the Trio projects and Heartsongs, covering vast swathes of the bluegrass scene in the ‘90s and aughts. All of your favorite bluegrassers have picked with the queen.

Parton had a habit of surrounding herself with the best in bluegrass, in the studio and on stage. On morning and late-night television appearances, or during awards show performances, Dolly would be surrounded by pickers like Sam Bush, Chris Thile, Jim Mills, Bryan Sutton, Barry Bales, Stuart Duncan, and many more. Whether promoting Heartsongs, The Grass Is Blue, Trio, Trio II – or even going far back into her career, in its earliest days – Parton brought bluegrass and its influences and textures to many millions on TV. And still many more millions all around the world with her recordings, songs, and collaborators.

It seems everyone agrees that, despite her stratospheric level of fame, Parton is remarkably down to earth, present, and accessible. Taking a sample of her many features on songs by bluegrass artists demonstrates this. An international superstar, she would still – over and over – offer up her talents and time to guest with bluegrass artists on their own recordings and releases.

“Heartbreaker’s Alibi” by Rhonda Vincent is a downright craveable modern bluegrass rager, with Parton and Vincent sharing vocal duties and harmonizing effortlessly as they loop, swirl, and embellish around each other. That would not be the only time the pair would collaborate. Parton has gone on the record more than once to gush about bluegrass singer-songwriter Claire Lynch, who sang background vocals with Dolly on The Grass Is Blue and Little Sparrow. It’s clear she’s a true fan and inhabitant of this music; Parton has also been featured on songs by the Grascals, Carl Jackson, Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers, Reneé Fleming & Béla Fleck, Ralph Stanley, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, and oh-so-many more. Her live television performance of “Mule Skinner Blues” with Bill Monroe is one of her most iconic videos and appearances; it’s perhaps equalled only by her reprise of the track on The Grass Is Blue – and her lovely, giggling ad lib on that recording, “I’m a lady mule skinner.”

Her many forays in and through bluegrass were never seen as interloping, and the bluegrass community would respond with near unanimous support. (Which, for bluegrass, ought to be easily rounded up to “unanimous,” with how opinionated and divided its fans can be.) Parton has been nominated for awards by the International Bluegrass Music Association six times in her career since 2000, when she won Album of the Year for The Grass Is Blue. She was also nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year then (and in 2001), but lost both years to, remarkably, Rhonda Vincent. In 2000, she appeared at the annual IBMA Awards show – hosted by her longtime friend and collaborator, Marty Stuart – in Louisville, Kentucky. Audience members, fellow nominees, and performers present that night speak about how kind, funny, and accessible she was then, too. Parton laughed and joked with Stuart at the lectern after performing a track from The Grass Is Blue, clearly right at home among her bluegrass family.

Parton has also won three IBMA Collaborative Recording of the Year awards and most recently two Gospel Recording of the Year trophies for “In the Sweet By and By” (2022, with Carl Jackson, Larry Cordle, Bradley Walker, and Jerry Salley) and “Sacred Memories” (2017, with Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers, Ricky Skaggs, and Sharon White). It’s notable that, despite all of these bluegrass bona fides and accolades, and the universal love felt for Dolly in the bluegrass community – professionally and otherwise – that she’s not been awarded a Distinguished Achievement Award by the IBMA or inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. One anonymous IBMA elector commented that, to their knowledge, she had not yet at any point even made the ballot for what’s regarded as bluegrass’s highest honor.

If Parton were to be inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame, she would join Bill Monroe as the only inductees in history to be honored by the Bluegrass Music, Country Music, and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame. She is certainly deserving of that honor. While some would argue the Distinguished Achievement Award from IBMA would be a better fit, with its broader scope, it’s indisputable that Dolly Parton meets the criteria for induction into the Hall. The basic standard, the first measuring stick of the IBMA and its panel of electors by which to measure eligibility, reads thusly: “Candidates should be judged according to their contribution to the advancement of bluegrass music and the indelibility of that impact.” Indelible describes it, doesn’t it?

Dolly Parton’s impact goes still beyond her recordings, her network of pickers, her global reach, her awards, and her media appearances. She’s also been an economic driver of her own on a regional and national scale, with Dollywood booking dozens of bluegrass acts each year for their shows, festivals, and special events. It’s a rite of passage in bluegrass to perform at Dollywood, and the bluegrass and country on offer at the park by touring regional and national bands is always first rate. Bands and acts like Della Mae, Willow Osborne, Blue Highway, Sierra Hull, Flatt Lonesome, the Grascals, Hillary Klug, Dailey & Vincent, Doyle Lawson, the Boxcars, and innumerable others have played gigs at Dollywood. Plus, the park employs pickers and musicians for their entire season, local or traveling, to perform daily, some strolling the grounds with their banjos, and others in theatrical shows, revues, or straight-up string bands.

Dolly and her thousands of songs are essential to the bluegrass canon – and the greater American roots music songbook, too. Go to almost any bluegrass show, festival, or jam around the country and you’ll hear folks play her songs. “Jolene,” “9 to 5,” “Wildflowers,” “Silver Dagger,” “Coat of Many Colors,” “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” and “Smoky Mountain Memories” are just a few of her essential originals fully adopted and absorbed into the bluegrass lexicon. It’s quite the feat to be a songwriter, let alone a successful one, let alone so prolific – but to have your songs regarded as folk songs and also accepted as bluegrass standards? An even rarer feat.

Much ado is made, at length and at regular intervals, about bluegrass as a trend, or bluegrass “having a moment,” or the various bluegrass inflection points in pop culture or commercial music over its near century of history. Folks point to Old & In The Way as the best-selling bluegrass record of all time – until O Brother, Where Art Thou?, of course. Or they point out the astronomical success of Alison Krauss & Union Station, or the huge ticket sales of the post-O Brother Down From the Mountain Tour. Nowadays, we all look to Billy Strings as a harbinger of what’s possible and an indicator of how far the ceiling has been raised on bluegrass’s upper reaches.

From Deliverance or The Beverly Hillbillies, to Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers or Kesha jumping on stage with Mountain Grass Unit, to Billy Strings selling 40,000 tickets in one weekend in one city or Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival packing more than 500,000 fans into Golden Gate Park each fall, bluegrass has its “moment” often. Over and over. On a nearly predictable cycle, listeners and fans pour into this community, finding music they’ll love for the rest of their lives.

Meanwhile, Dolly Parton, one of the most recognizable figures in the entire world – and in the entire history of popular music and commercial music – had been earnestly, consistently, and subtly, despite the rhinestones and false nails and blonde wigs piled to the sky, bringing bluegrass to the masses. Among the many wildflowers she’s grown in the Smoky Mountain meadows of her career, we often lose the old-timey, mountain music, bluegrass “forest for the trees.” Parton had been a proselytizer for bluegrass for more than 70 years, before she even knew she was, and certainly, by the time she reached fame, deliberately and intentionally spreading the bluegrass gospel for the rest of her life.

Dolly Parton’s contributions to bluegrass – as a singer, a musician, a producer, an artist, a performer, a stylist, a storyteller, and as a songwriter – are vast, varied, and essential to this genre. Her love of bluegrass validated the form, and her commitment to propagating and perpetuating the music was one of the most “bluegrass” things about her. With her passing, bluegrass has lost perhaps its most consistent and beloved global ambassador.

Below, go back through the BGS archives and continue to explore Dolly Parton’s rich impact and influence on bluegrass:

Photo courtesy of the Country Music Hall of Fame ® and Museum.

Jim Mills: A Remembrance – By Tim Stafford

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: Below, Grammy award and IBMA award winner, guitarist, songwriter, and author Tim Stafford pays tribute to his friend, collaborator, and one-of-a-kind banjo picker and historian, Jim Mills, who passed away at the age of 57 on May 3.)

I started out as a banjo player, but switched to guitar early on; our little group got a better banjo player. But I’ve always loved the banjo, especially pile-driving, inventive players like Earl Scruggs, J.D. Crowe, Paul Silvius, Ron Stewart, Ron Block, Sammy Shelor, Jason Burleson, so many others. I especially like playing rhythm guitar with a great banjo player – it’s like a bluegrass drum track. I’ve not enjoyed that feeling any more than when I got to play with Jim Mills.

Jim was a force of nature on the banjo. He was such a fluid, powerful player and he could be very aggressive on the instrument, which stood in strict opposition to his demeanor – they didn’t call him “Smiling Jimmy Mills” by accident. He played things on record that I had to continually rewind. How did the banjo survive that?

(L-R:) Barry Bales, Stuart Duncan, Jim Mills, Adam Steffey, Tim Stafford, and Brent Truitt, Nashville, TN 1998. Photo by Mike Kelly.

Once in the studio, I remember Jim breaking a string on the intro to “Bear Tracks,” a pretty hilarious outtake. It sounded like the world had exploded in the headphones. Jim just said, “What the ?!??!?” and Barry Bales let out a huge laugh – we had never heard anything like it.

It amazed me how eloquently Jim could talk in quiet rapid stretches and at length about everything related to old, Gibson flathead banjos. Like most vintage instrument topics, it’s a field of deep arcana, and the club sometimes seems too exclusive even if you truly love the sound of the things. But Jim never made it seem like anything but pure joy when he spoke, always returning to that million dollar smile. He was sharp, his collection of instruments was unrivaled, and he turned the basement of his house into a showroom.

And boy, did he know Earl Scruggs and his playing – inside out, all his instruments, all the bootleg recordings, even ephemera related to Flatt & Scruggs. He collected it and treasured it all, because it had never really gotten any better than Earl as far as Jim was concerned. The fact that Jim’s “desert island banjo” was Mack Crowe’s 1940 gold-plated RB-75 was validated for him by the fact that Scruggs himself mentioned Crowe as an influence on his playing in his 1968 book Earl Scruggs and the Five-String Banjo. Of course, Jim wrote his own definitive book, Gibson Mastertone: Flathead Five-String Banjos of the 1930s and 1940s.

Extremely intelligent, driven people are usually good at whatever they put their minds to. Tony Rice’s passion was restoring and repairing Bulova Accutron watches, and he was considered an authority in that area of expertise by people who had no idea he even played guitar. Ricky Skaggs told me that Mills was very involved in buying and trading antique shotguns as well as banjos and was just as well known in that arena.

It was all part of one cloth for Jim, though. A third-generation banjoist, a native son of North Carolina – the homeplace of the bluegrass banjo and a place so many great players still call home. When he joined Ricky Skaggs’s Kentucky Thunder, it was on one condition — he was staying in North Carolina.

We first met in the early ’90s when he was playing with Doyle Lawson and I was part of Alison Krauss and Union Station. He, Barry Bales, Adam Steffey, and I jammed for hours one day in Tulsa, Oklahoma as I recall. One of the songs he wanted to do repeatedly was “John Henry Blues.”

A few years later, the three of us played on Jim’s first solo record, Bound to Ride, for Barry Poss and Sugar Hill records. We tracked it at Brent Truitt’s Le Garage studio along with Stuart Duncan. Later Jerry Douglas overdubbed and Ricky Skaggs, Alan O’Bryant and Don Rigsby came in for guest vocals. And I sang “John Henry Blues.” It was such an honor to be on this record. Later on he did an instructional DVD for John Lawless and Acutab and I ended up backing him up on some tunes there.

I also played on a few records with Jim during this time, including Alan Bibey’s In the Blue Room. Near the end of a Patrick McDougal song called “County Fool,” after the last chorus, I knew Jim was going to come roaring in, taking us out to the end of the song. In anticipation, I hit a G-run that ended on the downbeat, on the bottom root note, a very unusual place for a G-run. I was sure engineer Tim Austin and producer Ronnie Bowman would want me to do it over, but they liked it so it stayed. Today I listen to that track and I’m the one who’s smiling – Jim could make you do things like that.

Jim wasn’t just a banjo player – he was a fine all-around musician and singer. His lead, fingerpicked guitar playing was superb and he was a fine songwriter. One year he came up to me at IBMA and said he had a demo of a song he’d written that he was sure Blue Highway could do. The demo was just him playing all the instruments and singing and it knocked my socks off. He had pitched it to Skaggs, but the boss man passed. The tune was based on a documentary Jim had seen and was called “Pikeville Flood.” We cut it on the Midnight Storm record and it remains one of our most popular live songs.

It was always a pleasure to see Jim and just get to hang out with him. Can’t believe I won’t get the chance to do that again. RIP buddy.

Photo Credit: Richie Dotson

Artist of the Month: Sarah Jarosz

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

The songs of Sarah Jarosz have always been snapshots. Each, whether literally or obliquely, is a tableau – a window into a moment in time, an attempt to capture but never contain the intangible present. Whether demonstrable story songs or abstract, poetic text paintings, Jarosz’s catalog of material shows a ubiquitous skill – a writerly athleticism – for ushering her listeners into the scenes she inhabits or constructs. From her earliest release to her newest, Polaroid Lovers (out January 26 on Rounder Records), Jarosz’s point of view has been confident, relatable, and inviting.

Simultaneously, the expansive body of work she’s produced since her 2009 Sugar Hill debut, Song Up in Her Head, tells a tale as much of uncertainty as of skill and finesse and, within that uncertainty, a commitment to relishing the journey – rather than rushing toward an arbitrary destination.

A teenager when she first gained national notoriety, Jarosz was often compared to her mentor-peer-friend Chris Thile and her contemporary, Sierra Hull. While child bluegrass, Americana, and string band stars – proverbial and oft-mythologized prodigies – have a much more gentle route to adulthood than say, their Hollywood counterparts, it’s still a time hallmarked by experimentation, growing pains, exploration, and a prerequisite amount of floundering. Musically, Jarosz may have “floundered” a bit less than say, Hull or Thile or any kid whose teen years may have had a recorded, audio history. Nevertheless, you can trace a through line of angst, introspection, and finding oneself underlying the precocious self confidence of her early albums.

By the time Jarosz reached 2013’s Build Me Up From Bones, which gained her her first Best Folk Album Grammy nomination, that uncertainty was no longer an undertone, but a focal point in her music. On both Bones and the follow up full-length, Undercurrent, which then won the Grammy for Best Folk Album, Jarosz picks up and runs with those musical expectations, whether overt or projected. She plays with the dichotomy between the public nature of her growing up a heart-on-her-sleeve songwriter and bluegrass picker and the individual, private nature of seeking and finding her own agency within those paradigms. She purposefully built broad and appealing, commercial songs that are both assured in their sincerity and unconcerned with virtuosity or authenticity for their own sakes. She knows exactly what she’s doing, even – if not especially – when she does not.

Needless to say, the following projects World On The Ground and Blue Heron Suite feel like they are both indelible home bases built on the steady foundation of the albums that led to them. Each are distillations of Jarosz’s musical commitment to bringing her audience inside the turmoil and delight, growth and doubt, beauty and bittersweetness of life and song. Jarosz had arrived at her destination, hadn’t she? In her beloved New York City, a Grammy winning artist, picker, and songwriter who knows who she is and why she does what she does.

Ah, but remember, it’s the journey Sarah Jarosz is after and not the destination. Polaroid Lovers is a lens into the new growing pains, the new uncertainty, the new uprooting and, eventually, re-rooting Jarosz finds herself in the middle of now. She recently moved to Nashville, building a life with her new husband, bassist Jeff Picker. Polaroid Lovers, like its predecessors, brings the listener into how living in Nashville has reshaped Jarosz’s songwriting and creative and recording processes.

It may not sound like a Music Row album – it sounds, as all of her work does, exactly like Sarah Jarosz. Whatever that sounds like! – but it’s a collection that has the Row tangled among its roots and certainly in the water. Polaroid Lovers was recorded at Sound Emporium and produced by Daniel Tashian, plus it has many a credited co-writer, a bit of a departure for the songwriter who, besides in her work with Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins in I’m With Her, rarely co-writes material for her own albums, preferring to pen most lyrics and tunes herself. Music Row and Americana hit writers like Ruston Kelly, Natalie Hemby, Jon Randall, Gordie Sampson, Tashian, and others each lent their own fingerprints and touches to this set of song snapshots.

Does Polaroid Lovers sound new? Does it sound like Nashville? Yes, it certainly does, but it doesn’t sound instant or ready-made either, and it always sounds like quintessential Jarosz. This is evidenced nowhere on the record as strongly as one of its lead singles, “Columbus & 89th.” Among more than a few masterworks in Jarosz’s catalog that center on her beloved, transplanted (former) hometown, New York City, “Columbus & 89th” is perhaps the best example of the form. Wistful and hopeful, with a tinge of bittersweetness from the wisdom that comes with age, it paints such a specific picture – of a literal street corner – but, as in all of her snapshots, this polaroid is not confining or finite, it’s resplendent and limitless. Following the photography metaphor one step further, it’s not difficult to see how the perspective Jarosz has gained by moving away from the city might have enabled her to render such a picture perfect homage to New York.

This is a vibrant, animated collection of Polaroid Lovers. This is Sarah Jarosz at her best– for now.

Watch for our Artist of the Month interview feature with Jarosz to come later this month, plus we’ll do a catalog deep dive and showcase plenty more content pulled from the BGS archives. For now, enjoy our Essential Sarah Jarosz Playlist:

Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez

Ricky Skaggs Remembers Tony Rice

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Tony Rice, revolutionary guitar player and Bluegrass Hall-of-Famer, died Friday, December 25 at the age of 69.  His passing was confirmed and memorialized by friend, collaborator, and fellow Hall-of-Famer Ricky Skaggs, per the request of Tony’s family.  He was a true icon and will be remembered and revered by everyone in the community.  Read Ricky’s full post below:

 

 

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“Sometime during Christmas morning while making his coffee, our dear friend and guitar hero Tony Rice passed from this life and made his swift journey to his heavenly home. It’s still quite a shock to the whole family. After talking with Tony’s wife Pam and their daughter India, they asked if I would make a statement on their behalf and give them some privacy to process during this difficult time. I was honored to help out. Tony is also survived by his brothers Wyatt and Ronnie, and all of you who loved his music and those who will continue to share it with others.

Tony Rice was the single most influential acoustic guitar player in the last 50 years. Many if not all of the Bluegrass guitar players of today would say that they cut their teeth on Tony Rice’s music. He loved hearing the next generation players play his licks. I think that’s where he got most of his joy as a player. With many IBMA Awards and a Grammy Award, Tony was a gracious recipient of the International Bluegrass Music Award’s highest honor as an inductee into their Hall Of Fame in 2013.

Not only was Tony a brilliant guitar player but he was also one of the most stylistic lead vocalist in Bluegrass music history. When I joined the group The New South in 1974, I knew I’d found a singing soul mate with Tony. Our voices blended like brothers. In 1980 we recorded the album “Skaggs And Rice” for Sugar Hill as a tribute to our duet hero’s with just the simplicity of guitar, mandolin, and our voices. All these years later people tell me how much the purity of that record still touches their heart. That’s who Tony was, a singer from the heart.

I will miss him as I’m sure all of you will. But where Tony is right now, he’s not missing us. He’s in the place that God has prepared for those who love Him and receive Him. Rest In Peace dear brother. Thank you for your great talent and the music that will continue to inspire more and more generations to come.”

– Ricky Skaggs

Photo via ‘Tony Rice Sings Gordon Lightfoot’

New Grass Revival: Four Members Look Back on Their ’80s Albums (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on by Editor

A beloved band that was perhaps ahead of its time, New Grass Revival will be inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame during the IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards on October 1. In the second half of our oral history with New Grass Revival, we hear from band members Sam Bush, John Cowan, Béla Fleck and Pat Flynn. Read the first half of the interview, which is part of our celebration of the 75th anniversary of bluegrass.

In 1981, founding members Courtney Johnson (who died in 1996) and Curtis Burch left the band after a long tour with rock ‘n’ roll star Leon Russell. As a result, New Grass Revival began its newest incarnation with Béla Fleck and Pat Flynn.

Sam Bush: Courtney and Curtis were older than me and John and they were just burned out. We had worked harder on the road with Leon than we’d ever worked in our lives.

Pat Flynn: New Grass Revival had established a following on the circuit in the late ’70s, but Leon Russell had sucked them into his orbit and taken them away from the bluegrass world. So by the time that band [lineup] broke up, they really had to start over.

SB: I had met Béla in a band he played in called Tasty Licks, and Béla had hired me as the fiddler on his first album, Crossing the Tracks.

PF: Béla was a smart kid. He thought, “If I’m going to come out with a solo album and nobody knows who I am, why don’t I hire high-profile people to play on it?” That’s a smart move!

Béla Fleck: I liked the original band when I heard it, but I admit I was attracted to smoother and jazzier stuff at the time. I have matured a bit since then and now I am a huge fan of the early band, their bravery and iconoclastic spirit, and a poetic expression of their time and place. They were committed to the moment and improvising, and taking the music to a new place that resonated with a lot of folks who loved bluegrass, but it didn’t totally represent them.

SB: Pat and his friend Scott Myers had opened for New Grass Revival on the Colorado tours we did. We loved his guitar playing because it wasn’t like the bluegrass players. He was a rock electric guitar player that could do it on acoustic.

PF: I’d moved from Los Angeles to Aspen, Colorado, and got to know the band at Telluride. Sam had a hand in writing some songs, but they really didn’t have an in-house songwriter. I had always written songs for the bands I was in. And Béla brought a unique and original instrumental vision. So all of a sudden you had two new people that could supply original material.

SB: They were the two musicians who could bring the next step of another sound for us. I called Garth [Fundis, the band’s producer] and said, “You’ve got to come hear these new pickers we’ve got, this is something, this is really good.” I knew it was too hot for me to handle — I didn’t feel I was qualified to produce the four of us. We needed another ear, an outside opinion, because we had so many ideas between the four of us.

PF: On the Boulevard was the first album we released in the US, but we’d done a live album in France almost a full year prior. Technically Live in Toulouse was the first album we made as a new band.

JC: We’re playing like a well-oiled machine; it’s really a good record. It has one of Sam’s instrumentals on there called “Sapporo” that might be 11 minutes long!

SB: The idea of “Sapporo” started when the band went to Japan for the first time. It was my favorite city over there; it was also my favorite beer. A mandolin player over there taught me a five-note Japanese scale and that is a recurring riff you hear us play as we jam.

JC: The first year we were together with Béla and Pat, the energy and the love and everything was way up, confidence was high. And On the Boulevard is one of my favorites. There’s no drums, it’s just the four of us.

PF: It was very fresh. I remember the recording sessions at Jack’s Tracks studio in Nashville. We had a decent budget from Sugar Hill, enough to record comfortably and take our time. I experimented with different guitars and arrangements. We were able to bring the music into the magnifying glass of a studio and really look at it in depth.

JC: The dynamic of the band had changed so much, because Béla was already miles ahead of everybody in terms of his ability to play. He practiced all the time. In the old band, I was in charge of shoveling coal into the engine and Sam was flying around on top painting whatever picture he wanted to paint. Courtney and Curtis, they were kind of like myself, advanced support players. But now you’ve got two other players who can play at the same level of Sam. So we could take this train anywhere. We could get off the tracks.

PF: I had brought some songs with me to the band and I was very happy with “On the Boulevard.” I had written it prior to joining. It was pretty much autobiographical. I’d been living in Thousand Oaks, California, and there’s a boulevard that runs through the middle of the Valley, and as I watched it from the window it was like its own little world, a parade of passing people. It was one of the earliest things we worked out.

SB: My songwriting partner Steve Brines had died a sudden death of a heart ailment he didn’t know he had. So Steve was gone and I was still writing instrumentals, but I lost my enthusiasm for songwriting.

PF: I was especially happy with “One of These Trains,” the way the material came out, and the band took to it so naturally. I was encouraged that I was in the right place with the right people. I loved Sam’s instrumental “Indian Hills,” and John did a great blues number called “Just Is.” We were discovering each other’s powers and personalities as musicians and friends. I remember it very fondly. We were struggling for employment to connect with the old fans and that album was a big help — when it came out, we created a pretty big buzz.

SB: Toni Foglesong told her husband Jim, who was the president of Capitol Records Nashville, “I heard a band that makes a sound like nothing I’ve ever heard before.” So, Jim came to hear us and he said, “I want you guys to record. I don’t know how we’re going to sell you but I want you to be yourselves.”

Two studio albums followed: New Grass Revival in 1986, and Hold to a Dream in 1987.

SB: Every time new people joined, we encouraged them to bring their influences into the music. When Pat joined he was influenced by those Southern Californian songwriters like Jackson Browne, and the country-rock Telecaster picking he knew. One song where I specifically hear Pat’s southern rock influence is “In the Middle of the Night,” on the ’86 album.

PF: I was very involved in the country-rock sound like the Eagles and the Flying Burrito Brothers and the songs I wrote were well-fitted for a bluegrass approach. I didn’t have to make adjustments musically or lyrically, just in the area of arrangements. I had to make sure the songs I wrote had great solo spots for the instrumentalists and I had to fit the songs to whoever was singing, either John or Sam. So I started to instinctively shape my material where there was plenty of room for improvisational playing and also good range of vocals for those two.

BF: This band was full of guys with very different musical influences. If you didn’t want to be challenged, it was the wrong place for you. Some folks surround themselves with people that love all the same stuff they do, and that can work too. But in New Grass Revival, we were all into different stuff, which we brought to the band to see if we could get our favorite stuff included.

SB: Béla is a jazz player and when he came in his favorite musician was Chick Corea. I had his records, but they didn’t make so much sense to me until then.

BF: I think my interest in jazz gave me some cool tools to work with in a bluegrass context. I wrote a tune called “Metric Lips” [on Hold to a Dream], which was partly in jig time. I feel like that main melody had some Chick Corea influence. Sam was highly influenced by John McLaughlin and his great bands. One of them was Shakti, a collaboration with Indian musicians. This seemed to encourage his interest and ability in odd meters, which I also was quite fond of exploring. So if you look at “Metric Lips,” you have Irish music, Indian music, and fusion jazz represented, along with some raging bluegrass. It’s puzzling that it actually works, but in my opinion, it does.

PF: When you’re in a bluegrass band, it’s blend or die! You’re cramped inside a van together and you’re sleeping feet to nose. You’re in a very confined space together more than you are with your significant others back at home.

JC: We called our bus The Bread Truck. We’d bought it from a dry cleaning business. It wasn’t like the 36-footers I had in the Doobie Brothers; it was less than half of that, closer to a van.

PF: John slept half the time, I would be reading a book or writing a song, Sam would be listening to reggae or some weird eclectic thing, Béla was always fiddling with a new tune.

BF: For me it’s the intention and commitment to the ideas that make them work in this band. The same ideas might not work for a band that didn’t play so confidently. Of course we loved bluegrass and that was the common denominator. Each guy also played with a savage fervor or intensity, and perhaps that was another denominator.

PF: We could really charge each other up with the solos. We admired each other, and when somebody threw a flaming ball out there it would be a challenge. And in that exchange, gosh, we became so much better players. I remember listening back to tapes and thinking I lifted myself up and above myself. We all did.

BF: The new band with me and Pat was a somewhat cleaned-up version of the band. We still improvised and pushed hard, but we also were going for a supercharged, seamless tightness.

PF: The thing I remember that we developed between the first two albums was a hardcore consistency. We could turn it on and it would just come on full-bore despite whether or not there was a good sound system or the weather was bad or the crowd was sluggish. We could always count on each other to present a united front. There were no weak links. We just locked into that energy and never lost it.

BF: And we made singles for country radio, which is hard to imagine the early group doing.

SB: We knew we were going into a country market, but I think there’s a misconception that Capitol Records changed us, when in fact the change came from us. We were the ones that said, “We’ll try this song,” and maybe we wouldn’t have tried it in the past.

BF: We were still too out there for it to work, but we were trying to take the music closer into the mainstream, and that was bringing a lot of new people into the scene and showing them what bluegrass could produce.

PF: We would laugh about that in a sad way. The jocks would come to us and say, “I love your stuff, I listen to it at home,” and we’d say, “What about playing it on air?!” They’d say “Yeah, but it’s bluegrass….” We finally got “Callin’ Baton Rouge” into the top 40 which opened up a lot of shows and airplay for us. But we ended up disbanding before we could really bring that home.

SB: For our last album, Friday Night in America, Wendy Waldman became our producer and we really tried all kind of things on that. It’s hard for an athlete to know when to stop, but I really think our last record might be our best one.

PF: I saw a deepening musically. John’s vocals had got better and better, but he also doesn’t get the props for his bass playing. He was a terrific player — listen to his work on Friday Night in America, see how he connected the melodies, the tone he got and the way he tied together the four instruments. They would get noticed, but the glue was John.

SB: John and I had been together 15 years and we were burned out. We lived on the road and I was suffering responsibility overload. And we couldn’t possibly accommodate all that Béla was writing, the type of tunes he was writing. I physically couldn’t play them and neither could the rest of us! We all loved each other, but it was time for him to go on, he needed to express himself. Because at that point it’s not about making money, it’s about musical happiness and your satisfaction.

PF: We’d got together in 1981, and we played our last job as a band on New Year’s Eve, the last day of 1989. We were opening for the Grateful Dead at the Oakland Coliseum, 10,000 people inside and 5,000 outside. That night was particularly memorable — on the right side of the stage sitting nearest Béla was Bonnie Raitt, on the left side, near to me, was Jane Fonda — and I’d always thought what a shame we didn’t release that. Years later someone walked up to me and said, “Remember when you guys opened for the Dead?” I said yes. He said, “Have you got a copy of that set?” I said no. He said, “Do you want one?” A tape of our concert had leaked out among the Dead fans. I contacted a friend at Capitol Records and then that set was remastered and released on a two-CD set called Grass Roots, which has stuff you wouldn’t find on our records. It had its rough spots as a live tape, but you’ll hear that energy and visceral connection we had with each other on stage, you sure will.

(Editor’s note: Read part one of our New Grass Revival Bluegrass 75 feature.)

 

EXCLUSIVE: Sarah Jarosz — Live at The Troubadour

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What better way to kick off the weekend then with this incredible live recording of Sarah Jarosz’s ‘Mansinneedof’?  We’ve got the first look at this Grammy-nominated talent’s upcoming five-song EP release, Live from the Troubadour (Sugar Hill), recorded at the legendary West Hollywood venue in August 2012.  Joining Sarah on the track is Alex Hargreaves on fiddle and Nathaniel Smith on cello.

Find out more about Sarah and her new album at SarahJarosz.com