Tag: The Grateful Dead

Ruination & Revival: Our Exclusive Interview with Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

In the catalog lore of Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, it’s April 14 that’s known as “Ruination Day”— the historically resonant date marking the “Black Sunday” of the Dust Bowl, the Titanic’s sinking, and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Themes of hard times and disaster have long floated throughout the duo’s music, but they found themselves facing catastrophe with new urgency on March 2, 2020, when a tornado laid waste to their Woodland Studios in their home city of Nashville.

That studio, which the duo took over in 2001, has the unusual distinction of being hit by three separate tornadoes over the years: it’s an unassuming icon of ruination and revival that’s withstood decades of change in personnel, technology, and weather. It became foundation and the namesake for August’s Woodland, a collection of new, original material from Welch and Rawlings after two deliciously deep archival releases and a set of covers titled All the Good Times (Are Past & Gone).

Having rescued their tapes, guitars, and other equipment from calamity, throughout 2020 Rawlings and Welch set about rebuilding Woodland around its original mid-century imprint. The creation of the record and the reconstruction of the studio became two spiritually intertwined processes, the rooms rechristened with songs that excavate the nature of change; Rawlings wrote violin, cello, and viola parts that friends laid to tape in the room he’d restored to its 1960s-era use for recording strings.

Even with the substantial building project, the extended pandemic circumstances offered ample time for writing new material together and the duo amassed dozens more tunes than they could ever release as one record. They ruminated on making a double album for a while. “We had so many songs kicking around because we didn’t want anyone to feel shortchanged if we were both singing,” Welch says.

A single-album concept instead snapped into place around “Empty Trainload of Sky,” which opens Woodland with Welch’s reflections on an unsettling optical illusion. The two tussle with loss and weariness across the record, gesturing at questions of how to keep moving through life’s seasons without hammering into any hard answers. Woodland feels like a statement of renewal and endurance from Welch and Rawlings, the sort of subtle roll forward that’s set them apart from other songwriters for so many years. The musicians spoke with BGS about their new material, old ideas, and what they still feel like they have left to do.

Prior to Woodland, the two of you had spent a lot of time working with your archival material for the Boots releases in 2020. What was the relationship you had between spending so much time working with this older material and then focusing your attention on a new record?

Gillian Welch: Not to put the Lost Songs stuff down, because I’m really happy that we, one, saved it from the tornado, and two, at that point, decided, “Why did we save this? Do we think it has value?” We decided yes, so we put it out. We haven’t given people a lot of opportunities to connect the dots between our albums. Years tend to go by, and I don’t know if they think we’re just on vacation or what, but we’re always writing. I’m happy that stuff’s in the world now.

I still stand behind our decision to not make an album out of that stuff. We’re really album-oriented artists,and if we can’t find a narrative that at least we understand, then it’s not an album. Sometimes people will put out a record and four or five years later, maybe they’re playing one song off it, maybe two. Traditionally, if we put it out, we’ll keep playing it, so we really have to like the song a lot.

So, did that archival material influence this record? Honestly? No. It just reinforced our yardstick, the filter we have in place, like, are we making a record? And the answer for all those lost songs was, “No, we’re not making a record.”

David Rawlings: We were working on some of the songs in late 2020, early 2021, but in general, they are not close in my mind. A lot of the stuff either took more final shape afterwards, or a few of the songs were kind of in shape before. But boy, working on those 50 songs was an awful lot and didn’t leave a lot of space for other things around it. It was really important, because that was one of the first things I was able to do here at the studio as I started to bring it back to life, post-tornado.

You’ve talked about having enough material to make a double album, how did you narrow everything down to the 10 songs that made the cut? What did you feel held these together?

GW: They seemed, in a way, to address the present moment. They were the most clearly about now and because of that, they seem to all fit together. Even though there’s plenty of contradiction within the album, there are these crazy undercurrents of loss, destruction, resurrection and perseverance; sadness, joy, emptiness, and fullness. It’s ripe with contrast. That’s just how we were feeling.

DR: There were different ideas, but I didn’t realize there was that large of a group, that there was the collection of 10 songs that felt like they amplified each other. I think all of the records that we’ve made that feel the best to me, one song sort of affects the way you think of the next and the whole album has a feeling that you’re not going to get if you just listen to your three favorites. I think that that feeling is heavier, or better. That, to me, is the benchmark of what you’re aiming for when you’re trying to make a record. One hopes that these other songs – one that you love for this reason, or that reason – that they eventually fall into some group like that. Or maybe we just start putting out singles.

Gillian, to what extent did everything you went through with the tornado recovery change your relationship with the natural world?

GW: I’m not sure that it did. I’ve always been really comfortable with the fact that there are things larger than us that are out of our control. It’s always sort of been a great relief to me, because I try so hard to navigate and control the things I can. Dave and I are such perfectionists. I don’t know how else to put it, except that it’s a great relief to just give it up for the things that are completely beyond your control. So I don’t worry about it really. The weather is going to be what it’s going to be. Woodland’s been hit by three tornadoes. Every tornado that’s come through Nashville has hit Woodland, but it’s still there. So I think I’m just not going to worry about it.

How do you feel like you both still challenge each other?

DR: Well, I think it’s the same as it ever was. If there’s something that doesn’t hit one of us right about something we’ve written or played, we will eventually come into agreement about that. I think we have a kind of way of taking what the other does, seeing what’s good about it and what isn’t. And that kind of ping ponging back and forth with thoughts, ideas, structures, and everything is what leads us to the stuff that we end up liking the best, and, more importantly, that other people respond to the most.

GW: I think we’re both still completely committed to trying to write better songs. It’s really interesting, because decades go by –we’ve played so many shows, and your voice changes. It just happens with the miles and it doesn’t have to be for the worst. There are things we can do now that we couldn’t do when we were kids, and certainly there are things that we can’t do now that we did in our early 20s. But I’m just so glad that there’s still a lot to explore. Musically, topically – I definitely don’t feel stale or tired of this. I feel like we both have a crazy sense of adventure.

What are some of those things that you feel like you can do now that you couldn’t do when you were younger artists?

GW: I feel like I’m able to listen while we play now, in a more elevated way. I can both listen to the smallest nuances of what I’m playing and singing and I can listen to what Dave’s playing and singing. I can make all these micro-adjustments to our four instruments, but at the same time, I can hear the sum of what we’re doing. I can also just listen to the whole sound and adjust for the whole thing. I’m not sure I used to be able to do that, or it didn’t occur to me to do it.

It sounds like a mixing board of the mind.

GW: Yeah, it’s like that! There are things that I admire so much in other musicians and sometimes I can see little echoes of that stuff that I like in our music, that we’re now able to do.

Whatever happens, at the end of the day, Dave and I are always pretty confident in, “Well, we did our best.” We really don’t slack off. If we missed the mark, whatever. You’ve just got to say, “We really tried.” It’s very exciting to feel like we’re getting closer to the music that inspired us to do this in the first place. We have a couple songs that I know came from my deep love of Jerry Garcia’s music and the Grateful Dead.

Sometimes, when we’re sitting playing in the living room, we’ll hit a passage and I’ll think, “Oh boy, Jerry really would have liked that.” That’s a good feeling, and that’s always been a great motivator – to try to do stuff that you think your idols would approve of. “Barroom Girls” got written because I thought Townes [Van Zandt] would like it. He was showing up at our gigs and stuff, and so I wanted to write a song that I thought Townes would like.

David, when Nashville Obsolete came out, you talked about this idea of keeping a place for old ways of doing things when the rest of the world has kind of pushed them aside. The last few years have had so much change, so fast – how has that idea developed for you?

DR: All of this equipment [in Woodland], almost none of it is new. It’s all the same stuff. It’s taking it a step further and maybe optimizing it for our own purposes. We’re still cutting on two-inch tape, mixing to quarter inch tape, and going through all analog equipment. The final step of going digital is the very last thing that happens. It’s not a museum, in the sense that I use a computer system – we’ve designed a bunch of DTMF code and different relays and stuff to run a lot of the equipment that we’re using. I will use modern technology in any way that I can that doesn’t touch the audio, in order to have things reset to where they are, or to have the lacquers cut with a particular precision. I will design whatever I need to in that department.

So, the goal is never for it to be a museum. The goal is always, how can you make the best sounding art? How can you do any of the stuff as well as you can? It feels the same with songwriting and music. There are modern songs that I admire so much, that you look and go, “How is that put together?” There’s stuff that goes back to the dawn of recorded music, from the late ’20s and ’30s that I think the same thing of. You just look around and cast your net at what moves you and what touches you, and then try to use those things as a jumping off place to contribute yourself.

At this point in your career, what do you still want to do that you haven’t gotten to do yet?

GW: I could say something quippy, like I still want to write a song as good as “Me and Bobby McGee” or “Like a Rolling Stone” or “Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain.” I still want to write a song that people will be singing for a long time. I still keep trying to do good work. Each song that we write is something that hasn’t existed before. So each time we start a song, I want to fulfill that inspiration.

So, you know, it’s like breadcrumbs— “Oh, I haven’t done that,” and you take another little step forward. Where will it ultimately lead? I have no idea. I’m sort of inching forward. Dave and I have never really had a grand plan. We just keep wanting to make music, so that’s what we do.

DR: I just always think that I want to get good at this. I really love the process of writing and performing in front of people, and have since the very first time I was able to get up on stage and play guitar. That was winning the lottery. When we started writing our own material and having people respond to it, there’s nothing really better. It’s a question of longevity, how long can we keep doing things and keep thinking of things that people feel are meaningful in their lives? How long can we stay relevant?

I don’t think that I’ll ever have a feeling of arrival. It’s all pushing forward. How can I play guitar better? How can we write better songs? How can I sing better? How can we record things better? It’s the learning that’s fun, it’s not even necessarily about getting better. It’s about wanting to explore and the pleasure in that process and the doing of it. I’m not real goal-oriented, there’s never been a statue I wanted to win. We’ve gotten some lifetime achievement awards over the past few years, and I’m like, “Are you kidding? We’re just starting to do this! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” It’s not memoir time, and it never will be.

Photo Credit: Alysse Gafkjen

Women’s History Spotlight: Hazel & Alice, Dale Ann Bradley, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

March is Women’s History Month, and BGS, Good Country, and Real Roots Radio have partnered to highlight a variety of our favorite women in country, bluegrass, and roots music with our Women’s History Spotlight.

Each weekday in March at 11AM Eastern (8AM Pacific) on Real Roots Radio, host Daniel Mullins will be celebrating a powerful woman in roots music during the Women’s History Spotlight segment of The Daniel Mullins Midday Music Spectacular. You can listen to Real Roots Radio online 24/7 or via their FREE app for smartphones or tablets.

Then, we will have a Friday recap here on BGS featuring the artists highlighted throughout the previous week. No list is comprehensive, but we hope to feature some familiar favorites as well as some trailblazers whose music and impact might not be as familiar to you.

This week’s edition of our Women’s History Spotlight features musicians and artists like IBMA Award winner Dale Ann Bradley, the legendary Dolly Parton, Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductees Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard, early country hitmaker Kitty Wells, and Kentuckian-West Virginian Molly O’Day. Tune in next week for the final installment of our Women’s History Spotlight!

Dolly Parton

You knew it was coming. You can’t tell the story of country music (or American pop culture) without Dolly Parton. Growing up in Sevier County, Tennessee, she is not just the Queen of the Smoky Mountains, but quite possible the Queen of the Universe (if there was such a ridiculous title). Her rags-to-riches story will continue to be told and re-told for generations. Aside from her beautiful voice and philanthropic work (the millions of books that she gives to children through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is her proudest achievement), there are numerous other aspects about Dolly Parton that are remarkable.

Her business acumen is frequently praised, but it still bears repeating. Aside from her numerous endeavors (including Dollywood), it’s often worth remembering that she fought to regain control of her own career and decision-making from Porter Wagoner after her star began shining brighter than his scope of influence. (Remember, it was the ending of this business relationship that was the impetus behind Dolly writing one of her most famous songs, “I Will Always Love You.”) Call it a business decision or just genius, but Dolly’s ability to juggle embracing her role as an undeniable sex symbol and avoiding being labeled as “unwholesome” by conservative crowds has to be one of the most difficult tightrope walks in American entertainment.

Vanity Fair’s 1991 article “Good Golly, Miss Dolly“ did a deep dive into the dichotomy of Dolly’s role as a sort of clean sex symbol: “Dolly, in her openness, demystifies sex. ‘One of the things that makes the image work is that people understand that I look one way, but am another, that there’s a very real person underneath this artificial look,’ she theorizes. ‘It’s not like I am a joke. People can laugh at me, but they don’t make fun.’ … Indeed, Dolly Parton has become the billboard for sex without being the product itself.”

It is the way that she ensures that the “very real person” that is Dolly Rebecca Parton doesn’t get lost in the glitz, glamor, and boob jokes that is part of the reason why she is so endearing and universally beloved by folks from all walks of life; in a world where polarization is en vogue, Dolly is one of the few topics on which everyone agrees! She epitomizes the best of us.

Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard

Members of the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard were an unlikely pair who blasted down doors for women in bluegrass. Hazel hailed from the mountains of West Virginia, while Alice was from across the country in Seattle, Washington. Alice attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where she was exposed to folk and bluegrass music. While a student there, she helped coordinate bringing The Osborne Brothers to the Antioch campus, making history as the first major bluegrass concert held on a college campus! After college, she wound up in the D.C. area, becoming active in their flourishing bluegrass scene, where she became friends and musical partners with Hazel Dickens – who had moved to the region with her family to find factory work years earlier.

Hazel & Alice became some of the first female bluegrass bandleaders and recorded some classic albums for Smithsonian Folkways and Rounder Records before embarking on successful solo careers by the mid-’70s. With Hazel’s mountain sound and Alice’s more folk-oriented sensibilities, their music appealed to both traditional bluegrass fans and those who were being introduced to the genre via the Folk Revival. Their original material which highlighted a woman’s perspective were critical in bringing a voice to women in the bluegrass canon. Decades later, their music and legacy is still rippling across American roots music, with artists as diverse as Rhiannon Giddens and Dudley Connell still celebrating their influence and impact.

Molly O’Day 

Born Lois LaVerne Williamson, country pioneer Molly O’Day was born in Pike County, Kentucky. She would become a popular radio star in West Virginia by the early 1940s, eventually leading Molly O’Day & The Cumberland Mountain Folks. Her band crossed paths with Hank Williams on the radio circuit and Molly even sang quite a few of his songs on radio and later in the recording studio. Molly learned “Tramp On The Street” from Hank Williams and it would land her a recording contract with Columbia Records. (Fun Fact: Her band at the time of her first Columbia recording session featured a young Mac Wiseman on bass!)

In an era when the term “hillbilly music” was still commonly used, Molly’s music, retroactively, could have country and bluegrass labels applied to it. Her powerful voice felt just as at home on an ancient balled like “Poor Ellen Smith” as it did on soul-stirring gospel songs like “Matthew 24.” By the early 1950s, Molly and her husband grew weary of life in the limelight and essentially retired from the music business, both dedicating their life to ministry. She would record a few gospel albums for some small record labels in the ensuing years, but her final album was released in 1960. She would pass away in the late 1980s, but she left a mark on country music and earned the respect of her peers at a time when the list of female country pioneers was relatively short.

Dale Ann Bradley

Revered as one of the most heartfelt bluegrass singers of her generation, this Kentucky songbird’s career started in earnest as a member of the Renfro Valley cast in her home state of Kentucky. The Renfro Valley Barn Dance was an extremely popular barn-dance style radio program in the 1930s and it spurred the creation of Renfro Valley as a country music entertainment destination in Kentucky. This helped kickstart the careers of folks like Steve Gulley, Jeff Parker, Dale Ann Bradley, and more by the 1990s.

While at Renfro Valley, Bradley would eventually join The New Coon Creek Girls, one of bluegrass’s only “all-girl” bands at the time, and aptly named after The Coon Creek Girls, a pioneering female string band of the 1930s who also started on The Renfro Valley Barn Dance.

Dale Ann’s soulful voice, largely influence by the Primitive Baptist tradition which she grew up around, quickly gripped the bluegrass world, leading to a successful solo career for the last three decades. In addition to recording songs that hearken to those familiar with mountain people and mountain ways, the appeal of Dale Ann’s voice has led her to adapt songs from outside of the genre to her style of bluegrass, tackling tunes from Tom Petty, Bobbie Gentry, The Grateful Dead, Jim Croce, and everyone in-between! Her diverse material has led me (and many others) to the conclusion that no matter the material, if Dale Ann is singing it, I already know I’m going to like it!

Kitty Wells

Hailed as the original Queen of Country Music, Kitty Wells hit a massive reset button on the role of women in country music after the massive success of her breakthrough hit, “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.” Written by J.D. Miller, it was penned as the antithesis of Hank Thompson’s hit, “The Wild Side of Life.” After writing the song, the search began for a woman to sing it. Kitty Wells had pursued a country career, to little avail, and had essentially consented that maybe it wasn’t in the cards for her, when she was contacted to record the song. “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” would become the first Number One hit by solo female in country music history, and its status as one of the most iconic country songs of all time only grows.

This explosion of success led to many other hit records by Kitty Wells, and opened the doors for those who would follow in her wake like Jean Shepard, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and more! You can’t celebrate Women’s History Month without honoring the gal who famously sang the line, “It’s a shame that all the blame is on us women!” (Still kind of bummed that Margot Robbie didn’t sing that line in Barbie. Seems like a missed opportunity to me!)

As an added bonus, here’s another cool version from 1993, where Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, and Tammy Wynette recruited Kitty Wells to join them on a new version of this country classic on their collaborative album, appropriately entitled Honky Tonk Angels.

 

Sam Grisman Project Honor “Dawg Music” In Their Own Way

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

There’s something special that occurs when music is rooted in friendship and a shared mission. Perhaps no one exemplifies this better than Sam Grisman Project, founded by the youngest son of “Dawg music” pioneer David Grisman. Seeking to honor the likes of his father, Jerry Garcia & the Grateful Dead, and other musical heroes, SGP maintains a singular style and groove.

With its core iteration featuring seasoned multi-instrumentalists and songwriters Ric Robertson, Chris “Hollywood” English, and Aaron Lipp – and often featuring a host of other guests who run the musical gamut – SGP is bringing fresh authenticity, originality, and passion to the roots music and jam band scenes.

BGS spoke with Sam Grisman in early February 2024 about the origins of, inspirations, and plans for this remarkable and rising group.

What are the origins of Sam Grisman Project?

Sam Grisman: Ever since rekindling my musical friendship with the great Ric Robertson, who I’ve known since I was 14, I’ve been wanting to start a band that showcases the impact that the legacy of my dad and Jerry’s music has had on me. Ric and I started scheming on ways to make some music together and what that might look like. I figured we might have a good opportunity to play out in the live touring landscape if we paid tribute to the catalog of music that my dad and Jerry recorded together; that it could create the space for us to really do whatever we might want musically. We’re not limiting ourselves to the catalog of music that my dad and Jerry played together or individually, but we are honoring the spirit of what they did together, which was to dive into great songs that they had a shared love of.

I’ve always had a talented group of friends, going back to the time that I spent growing up at bluegrass festivals, fiddle camps, and the Mandolin Symposium. We have chemistry, and that is irreplaceable. Ric started playing music with Aaron Lipp around the time we turned 20 and he has been a part of my musical reality since then. He and Ric have developed strong chemistry, where they’ve been finishing each other’s musical sentences for years now. Aaron is from Naples, New York, about an hour away from Rochester, New York, which is where the great Chris English hails from. When Ric started making some music with Chris and telling me about what an amazing drummer and human being he is, I knew he would fit into the core of this band perfectly.

Who are you honoring with this project and why?

We’re honoring the musical heroes who influenced us the most. For me, because they provided the soundtrack to most of my earliest musical memories, that’s my dad and a lot of his friends who came through our house in Mill Valley to record. The friend who came around the most was Jerry [Garcia], but also John Hartford, Mike Seeger, Doc Watson, Tony Rice, Del McCoury and Ralph Stanley.

We honor our heroes, not just my dad and Jerry. We play lots of John Hartford music and Townes Van Zandt songs. Lots of Bob Dylan’s music, some Alan Toussaint, Dr. John, John Prine, Warren Zevon, Randy Newman, and Peter Rowan.

Can you describe what Dawg music is and what you’ve learned from your father?

Dawg music is a highly evolved form of acoustic music that is a synthesis of many different genres including old-time, bluegrass, hot club swing, jazz, and funk, with elements of classical music. It’s really a sort of genre-less genre pioneered by my father. It showcases – but is not limited to showcasing – the sound of the mandolin. The instrumentation in his quintet has traditionally been one or two mandolins, guitar, upright bass, and violin, but that’s expanded over the years to include percussion and drums.

That instrumentation of percussion, mandolin, guitar and bass is what I modeled the core of this band after. I’ve learned so much from my father about music and the music business – how to treat your friends and how to honor your elders. I am profoundly grateful to have been born to my particular set of parents and I’m grateful that there are other folks who have a deep appreciation for my dad’s impact on the musical landscape. I’d like for people to also appreciate how wonderful a human he is, so this is a small way that I get to share my dad with other people. He loves everybody, he’s grateful for the support, and he can feel it.

Who are some of the musical guests that have performed with SGP, and what does that mean to SGP?

It means a lot. It’s a representation of the community that we’re a part of. We’ve brought in some of our heroes as guests including dear family friends like Lowell Levenger “Banana” from the Youngbloods, Maria Muldaur, Eric Thompson, and Peter Rowan. We’ve had my dad sit in three times, which has been an absolute honor, and we’ve had a whole slew of our guests who bring different insights and a similar passion to the project: Dominick Leslie, Alex Hargreaves, Roy Williams, Bennett Sullivan, Nathaniel Smith, Phoebe Hunt, Lindsay Lou, my dear friend Tod Patrick Livingston, Mike Witcher, Chad Manning, Wyatt Ellis, Matt Eakle (the great flute alumnus from my dad’s quintet), and more. Eddie Barbash came and played a set with us in New York. Max Flansburg, who has a similar passion for this material and highlights a different corner of the Garcia/Hunter catalog than we do, played two of our New Year’s shows with us. We also had our old-time banjo hero, Richie Stearns, on all of those gigs that weekend. We’re going to have Logan Ledger on some shows coming up, and we’ll have Victor Furtado and Nathaniel Smith in the band.

When did SGP start touring in its current iteration, and how is the experience of touring with your best friends?

We had our first run as a band in January 2023. This conversation with you comes at the end of our longest break as a band, where we’ve had the entire month of January off. We’re starting back up on February 4th in Tucson, at a festival called Gem and Jam. It’s an absolute treat to travel the country with the people I care the most about, and to make great music and memories and friends everywhere we go. It’s important to anchor ourselves and ground ourselves in the music, because there’s a lot of work that goes into being out on the road that can make you lose perspective on how special it is to be doing something that you love for a living and to be able to do it for people who love what you’re doing.

SGP is obviously celebrating and continuing a particular musical legacy, but doing so with your own flavor. What makes SGP unique?

Our branding is our individuality and our honesty. I grew up in the house where my dad and Jerry recorded all of this music and I really do enjoy playing that music with my best friends. It gives me a sense of purpose to be able to play some of that music for folks who are passionate about it. There’s definitely room in the live music space for bands who take a preservationist approach to carrying on the musical traditions and catalogs of artists that came before them. A lot of musicians try to sound like their musical heroes, but that’s not our approach. I hired my friends to participate because I love their individuality and how they play, sing, and write music. I wouldn’t want to steer them towards sounding more like Jerry Garcia or my father.

We have been influenced by listening to tons of great music our entire lives, but we try to stay true to ourselves when we’re playing, so nobody is reaching for a sound that isn’t theirs. We all enjoy injecting our individuality into this music and having the flexibility to take the material in different directions depending on how we’re feeling. It’s amazing to have such versatile friends to work with.

How does original material fit into the broader vibe of SGP?

All three of the core guys – Ric Robertson, Aaron Lipp, and Chris English – are amazing songwriters. All the time I’ve known Ric, since we were teenagers, he’s been writing great songs. He was always a great singer, but he’s become one of my absolute favorite singers on the planet. There’s a lot of his music that lends itself incredibly well to looser, more long-form arrangements, which is something that SGP has become comfortable with.

Aaron Lipp is also an amazing songwriter who writes incredibly poignant music and aphoristic lyrics. Chris English writes amazing, feel-good music – not always overtly happy, but always with a strong message. His tunes add a lot of depth to our sets and take us to a more groove or bassline-oriented place, which is really refreshing for us and our audiences. I think there’s always going to be room for original music in SGP. As much as these guys are inspired to play their own tunes, I want to play them.

You released a great EP in 2023. Is there anything else currently in the works?

We’re gonna make a full length album at some point in 2024. Over the course of the last hundred or so gigs we’ve developed a pretty good repertoire and a strong rapport with each other. I don’t think it would take very long to put some of these tunes down in the studio, but we also multitrack most of our shows and we have an archive of live music to sort through. We’re going to be putting some shows up on Nugs.net pretty soon. We have a pro-taping policy to encourage folks to come and tape the show. I share Jerry [Garcia]’s philosophy that if you bought a ticket to the show, the performance is really yours as long as you’re not charging anybody else for it. Some of those shows have made it to archive.org, which is a free internet resource where folks can listen to live music. At some point we’ll probably put together some compilations of live material and put them up on the streaming services. I think our live show is always going to be the emphasis of what we do, so it’s important to have some recorded examples out there for people to check out.

What’s in store for SGP in 2024, and what does pursuing that mean to you?

We’ve got another solid year shaping up. We played about a hundred gigs in 2023 and we’ll probably make it pretty close to that in 2024. I’m going to expand the cast of characters a little bit in 2024 and bring some other friends into the fold. I’m looking forward to introducing my new friends and audiences to my dear musical compatriots who care about this music as much as I do. I’m grateful and humbled to get to do it. It means a lot to get to honor my father every night by playing his music. We take out the mandola that he gave me for my 21st birthday, the mandola he recorded “Opus 38” on. We get to play “Opus 38” on that very same mandola for people who appreciate what’s happening, and I feel like he and Uncle Jerry are with us every night. It’s a big blessing all around.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Your Guide to the Internet’s Essential Bluegrass Content Creators

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

When I started playing mandolin in 2004, the internet was integral to my experience. I spent countless hours on websites like Mandolin Cafe, used a PayPal account I made when I was 9 to buy albums on eBay, and downloaded countless viruses onto our family computer pirating bluegrass recordings on Limewire. When the internet went public 30 years ago, it immediately changed the world and bluegrass. By the end of the ’90s, blogging had become mainstream and bluegrass had cultivated its own corner of the web with forums and listservs like BGRASS-L. When broadband replaced dial-up, people were able to share large files such as recordings and videos and information sharing exploded.

I grew up in a generation that saw regular people like Justin Kan (who would later go on to co-found Twitch) become celebrities through vlogging and like many people my age, I wanted to be a content creator. “Content” is just the soulless marketing word for the cultural ephemera humans have always created, but in the internet age. When I was in high school, microblogging became popular with platforms like Twitter (now X) while social media sites such as Vine and Snapchat that favored short form content appeared, creating another paradigm shift towards the hyper-specific, unpolished, slice-of-life videos we now see on TikTok and Instagram Reels.

My social media career began in earnest in 2019. I was burned out from touring and was trying to find a way to stay relevant without traveling so much. I started by posting clips of myself playing tunes that I was learning, which eventually morphed into a Patreon page. Patreon became hugely popular with artists after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, but at the time I began using it there were relatively few educational bluegrass pages. I ended up formatting mine in a similar way to podcasts that I subscribed to at the time. I studied up on how the algorithm works and during lockdown began creating and posting fervently.

A preview of Tristan Scroggin’s Patreon profile.

Once restrictions were lifted, I found myself drawn back into performing and had less and less time to consistently post. In the ever intensifying war for attention, consistency is key, but I found no satisfaction in churning out things I didn’t care about and the things I do care about take time. So I found myself burned out again, trying to learn how to slow down. It’s a vicious and common cycle.

Ultimately, I love creating new things and sharing them with people. This is true of all of the people on this list, many of whom are friends and part of a community that openly shares tips and tricks on how to navigate the unfiltered digital miasma of social media. For every entry on this list there are a dozen more who I couldn’t include for space. Separating the wheat from the chaff in the world of online bluegrass content can be difficult, but there are many shining beacons that have and will continue to influence those that follow them.

Billy Strings

Billy had a small cult following in his home state of Michigan before videos of him performing at festivals went viral. Videos became an integral part of Billy’s brand with footage from his concerts becoming inescapable for a time. Taping culture, the act of recording a live show and posting it online – an activity with ties to old school tapes of bluegrass shows that David Grisman, Jerry Garcia, and Sandy Rothman created and distributed along the West Coast to help spread bluegrass – had grown with social media and videos of full performances were shared religiously online. This practice has challenged more traditional bluegrass artists who have often relied on physical CD sales and see digital distribution as undermining that effort. Despite that, Billy’s most recent record Me / And / Dad was #1 in pure album sales in country, and #5 in all of music selling more than 15,000 copies upon release.

Billy’s Youtube channel has more than 300,000 subscribers and currently features everything from music videos to full concerts to behind the scenes mini-documentaries. Billy has since partnered with Nugs.net to livestream and host his current shows. Nugs is a livestream website that provides high quality video and audio of concerts, mostly rock and jam bands providing an updated version of the Grateful Dead tapers from days of yore.

Carter Vintage

Since their start nearly a decade ago, Carter Vintage Guitars has posted demonstration videos and in-store performance footage to their YouTube channel, which became a who’s-who collection of Nashville talent. While the videos started out as informal captures from around the store, by the end of 2016 the production quality had increased with Jon Roncolato and Keith Cypert making sure they looked and sounded great. While there are videos from hugely popular rock and Americana artists such as Jason Isbell, the majority of their most popular videos are from Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings from when they had recently moved to Nashville and were still relatively unknown.

Clover Lynn

@hillbillygothic Heres an old tune called Katey Daley hope yall enjoy #banjo #fyp #bluegrass #appalachia #music ♬ original sound – Clover-Lynn

Clover Lynn, also known as hillbillygothic, is from Southern Appalachia and plays banjo with a dark gothic-esque twist that challenges Steve Martin’s assertion that “you can’t play a sad song on the banjo.” She gained a massive amount of fame on TikTok and later Instagram for dueting posts. (A duet contains two videos in a split screen that play at the same time.) Specifically, she’d duet TikToks featuring men “challenging” feminism, spouting misogyny, or outright supporting violence against women. When they began spewing hate speech, Clover would appear alongside the original video loudly playing tunes like “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” over their bad opinions. This trend was extremely popular; the most popular post I could find had 8.2 million likes. Clover also uses her platform to advocate for the Appalachian region and its often overlooked BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ people, issues, and history.

Dirty Laundry

Marcus Veliz, through his page Dirty Laundry, has created a collection of moments and memories from his travels. Marcus is a wanderer driven by mindfulness. His videos offer short, musical meditations in nature that reflect on the beauty of living in the moment, which then informs his music. It’s all very “carpe banjo.” He has cultivated a following of nearly 40,000 followers on social media, but has deliberately chosen to focus on Instagram, because he values the community that he can build there. When scrolling on an app, these moments can be completely disembodied from the people who made them, but by creating a collection of these moments, Marcus, like a poet’s anthology, has created a digital visage of himself with Dirty Laundry that feels as if Woody Guthrie had an Instagram account. (Read BGS’s 2023 feature on Dirty Laundry here.)

Educational Videos by Eli Gilbert, David Benedict, and Lessons with Marcel

Educational content is hugely popular online. While there are countless pages dedicated to teaching bluegrass, I’ve collected just a few here. All three produce educational content that is supplemented by other work. Eli Gilbert has run his YouTube channel for nearly a decade, growing an audience of people learning the banjo (that included myself). Eli centralized these folks on his Patreon page and Discord server. While he’s not the first to post banjo tutorials or start a banjo Patreon page, he is currently the most popular banjo instructor on Patreon with more than 2,000 subscribers.

David Benedict has been well-known in the mandolin scene for quite some time. He curates a Mandolin Mondays series that’s run continuously since 2016. What started as videos of him playing tunes grew into a collection of over 400 videos in partnership with Mandolin Cafe that feature incredible mandolinists from all over the world. Check out his YouTube channel, too.

Marcel Ardans has over 500 full-length videos on his channel, Lessons with Marcel. Perhaps his most unique contribution to the genre is the bluegrass YouTube video essay. Video essays are exactly what they sound like and in the last decade they’ve gained immense popularity with the general public, especially on YouTube. With educational topics such as A Guide to Bluegrass History by Subgenre to more light hearted ones like The Untold History of Bluegrass Triangle, Marcel is filling a niche in the bluegrass community by providing thoughtful analysis in a style that audiences have become accustomed to. Marcel has also collaborated with many other popular social media pickers in the same sphere such as Jake Eddy and Hayes Griffin.

In 2023, Marcel was an official social media ambassador at IBMA’s World of Bluegrass business conference, where he held a guitar contest in partnership with IBMA and Martin Guitars.

Hillary Klug

Hillary Klug gained international popularity for multiple viral videos featuring her fiddling while buck dancing. In addition to her 100,000 YouTube subscribers, she has more than a million Facebook fans with her most popular video on FB sitting at over 64 million views. Hillary has been able to leverage short form content to reach people all over the world and her frequent collaborators – such as Cristina Vane, Brenna MacMillan, and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes – have also developed substantial followings on these platforms thanks to video creation in this style.

Molly Tuttle

When sites like YouTube and Facebook launched, they created networks that many used to connect with real world friends and family. But videos uploaded to share with distant relatives had the side effect of being visible to the general public. So when Jack Tuttle began filming his children, Michael, Sully, and Molly, to share their musical talent with family back in Illinois, suddenly thousands of people could see their virtuosity. The family formed a band called The Tuttles with AJ Lee, performing regularly and continuing to post videos that would garner hundreds of thousands of views until the oldest, Molly, went to college.

I distinctly remember watching their most popular video dozens of times which featured Michael, the youngest, playing El Cumbanchero. I watched that video over and over again with a sense of both jealousy and admiration. This feeling would become familiar as similar videos – such as a very young Sierra Hull playing with Sam Bush – would also go viral.

Molly has gone on to become one of the most popular bluegrass acts currently touring. She was the first woman to win the IBMA Guitar Player of the Year and she won a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album in 2022. In that same year, she was nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy alongside hugely popular artists such as Samara Joy and Latto. Molly’s brother Sully also still plays, professionally touring with childhood friend, bandmate, and fellow bluegrass internet child celebrity AJ Lee in her band Blue Summit.

The Petersens

The Petersens are a family band based in/near Branson, Missouri that has played theaters in that area for more than a decade. After their oldest daughter, Ellen, made the top 48 on American Idol (season 16), they began producing videos of themselves performing, which have become extremely popular. A video clip of Ellen’s audition is one of the first videos posted on their YouTube channel and currently sits at over 3 million views. They have since garnered more than 200 million views, which they’ve utilized to gain fans in countries all over the world. This form of vlogging has created an entire ecosystem and a style many other family bands emulate, such as the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys, The Family Sowell, the Cotton Pickin’ Kids, Williamson Branch, and more.

Bluegrass Barbie

A post by bluegrass.barbie on Instagram.

Bluegrass Barbie may not quite belong on this list, but I absolutely couldn’t write a piece about influential bluegrass social media personalities in the year 2024 without mentioning them.

As a chronically online teen, I watched the birth of internet “memes” – a term originally coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976. I very distinctly remember the first time I saw a bluegrass meme. Dread washed over me, as I was struck with a haunting vision of a future full of low effort, bottom text memes misquoting Bill Monroe. I lived in this “No Exit” style social media hellscape for years until 2023, when Bluegrass Barbie appeared.

This Instagram account doesn’t have the numbers (239 followers at the time of writing), but they do have the jokes. Rather than “dunking” on Mark O’Connor or Billy Strings ad nauseam, Bluegrass Barbie presents a look at the humor in growing up as a young woman in bluegrass in a way that is relatable, contemporary, and hilarious. It’s the only good active bluegrass meme account; fight me about it.

Russ Carson

Russ Carson, known as the banjo player for Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder since 2014, runs 81Crowe, a one stop shop YouTube Channel for banjo nerdery as well as a source of high-quality, behind the scenes footage of both his personal and professional life.

Russ creates more traditional vlog content. Videos of jam sessions have shown up on YouTube since the very beginning, but Russ innovated them by implementing a gopro he would wear on his head to film, simulating a POV experience for the viewer as a participant. In addition to performance and educational videos, Russ provides video content of private jam sessions and conversations with talented friends as well as his off-stage experience touring with one of the most well known bluegrass bands out there. His explanation of his personal thoughts on banjo as well as his other hobbies, including photography, are the kind of personal details that make vlogging what it is.

Take’s Bluegrass Album Channel

Takehiko Saiki’s Take’s Bluegrass Album Channel has an air of mystique about it. Since 2014 it has served as a digital museum where out-of-print vinyl records, albums, and CDs have been sporadically posted by the hundreds. In fact, this channel is no longer active. After posting 1,300 albums, Take started Take’s Bluegrass Album Channel Phase Two, which already has 1,000 more albums. Take is a fan of “roots music” in general and runs additional YouTube channels for folk, blues, jazz, and country music, but he seems to have a particular love for bluegrass. In addition to his album channels he has a channel for recordings of live performances from Bill Monroe to the Flying Burrito Brothers and everything in between.

These channels are a treasure trove for fans of classic bluegrass and an invaluable resource for amateur historians like myself. So much so that I felt conflicted about including it on this list for fear that it might disappear. Take is very clear that he will take down anything, immediately, at the request of the owner and states that the channel’s mission is to “make it possible for bluegrass lovers [all] over the world to have access to as many bluegrass albums not available on CD as possible.”

Photo Credit: Hillary Klug courtesy of the artist; Clover Lynn by Madison Tunnicliff.

BGS Top 50 Moments: A Tribute to Jerry Garcia

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

 

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music?
Would you hold it near as it were your own?

On a warm spring evening in Los Angeles, a revered mix of musicians gathered to lift up the legacy of Jerry Garcia and “to hold the music near as it were their own.”  JUBILEE: A Celebration of Jerry Garcia was a very special, one night only benefit concert paying tribute to his 75th birthday, produced by BGS, Goldenvoice, and the Garcia Family.

With an all-star lineup that included the likes of Hiss Golden Messenger, Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, Margo Price, Stephen Malkmus, Chris Funk, Sam Bush, David Hidalgo (Los Lobos), Jamie Drake, Josh Ritter, and Amos Lee, supported by a house band lead by Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell (of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers) and Sean and Sara Watkins (of Nickel Creek and Watkins Family Hour), the evening was a love letter to the man whose influence has continued to reach far beyond the confines of the Dead.

Relive some of the amazing collaborations in the photo gallery below:

Photo Credit: Elli Lauren

Jim Lauderdale Envisions the “Memory” of Friend and Co-Writer, Robert Hunter

Posted on by Editor

Jim Lauderdale’s new album Hope has a sound reminiscent of dreamy ‘70s folk rock records and largely centers around themes like perseverance, with much of the music bred from his 15-month hiatus from touring and performing. One of its most eloquent tracks celebrates the legendary Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, a longtime friend and collaborator of Lauderdale’s who died in 2019. As one of the final songs they wrote together, “Memory” arrived on June 22, just one day before what would’ve been Hunter’s 80th birthday. In addition, the album cover and packaging feature paintings by Maureen Hunter, Robert’s wife. About his dear friend, Lauderdale says, “Losing Robert just before the pandemic was so hard, but he left the perfect lyric, to sum up my feelings about him and to honor all the people we’ve lost since.”

In the light of Hunter’s companionship and storied career as a writer and musician, “Memory” is a perfect song to celebrate his life and work. Meanwhile, Hope features a cast of musicians who just get it when it comes to traditional country and folk rock. Chris Scruggs, Russ Pahl, and Kenny Vaughan are just a few who grace the record with their classic sounds. “I wanted to get a musical message out there during this time of what we’ve all been going through, about the hope for better days ahead,” Lauderdale says. “If we can find any glimmers of hope, that really helps get you through another day.”

Photo credit: Scott Simontacchi

The Show on the Road – Mt. Joy

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week we feature a conversation with songwriter and singer Matt Quinn of jangly-pop phenomenons Mt. Joy.

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • STITCHER • SPOTIFY • MP3

Much like host Z. Lupetin’s group Dustbowl Revival, Mt. Joy began thanks partially to some Craigslist kismet. After Quinn took the leap from PA to LA and reconnected with fellow guitarist Sam Cooper (who he used to jam with at their high school in Philadelphia), the band found their bassist Michael Byrnes, and Byrnes’ flatmate, producer Caleb Nelson, helped create their infectious breakout singles “Astrovan” and “Sheep.”

While most rising bands might shy away from writing extensively about addiction; or describing Jesus as a reborn Grateful Dead-loving stoner; or examining generational violence and brutality in Baltimore; with some deeper listening, it’s not hard to notice that Mt. Joy’s bouncy, arena-friendly sing-alongs are admirably subversive and often quite heavy below the pop shimmer.

A whirlwind of touring on some of America’s biggest stages followed the resounding streaming success of their first homemade singles, bringing the band from tiny rehearsal spaces and obscurity to the most hallowed festivals in America — like Newport Folk and Bonnaroo — and huge white-knuckle tours opening for The Shins, The Head and The Heart, and The Lumineers. By 2018 their joyous, full-throated rock sound had fully gelled with the addition of Sotiris Eliopoulos on drums and Jackie Miclau on keys. Their catchy and confident self-titled record arrived on Dualtone and seemed to go everywhere at once — with the acoustic-guitar led anthem, “Silver Lining,” surprising the band most of all by hitting #1 on the AAA radio charts.

But, as Quinn mentions early on in the talk, by the time the band released their much-hyped sequel record, Rearrange Us, in early 2020, the group of friends and collaborators were fraying at the seams. Relentless time away from loved ones caused breakups that were a long time coming, and trying to match incredibly high expectations had forced the band to ask themselves what they really wanted out of this new nomadic, whiplash life. Thus Rearrange Us dives courageously into darker shadows than its predecessor. In emotional standout songs like “Strangers” Quinn has an achy-voiced knack for pinpointing that exact moment when good love goes wrong — and how feeding off the endless adoring energy of the strangers he meets in every new town can only sustain him for so long.

In a way, the pandemic-forced time off coinciding with their record gaining steam was a blessing in disguise, allowing Quinn and the band to reflect and recharge. But of course, with a feverish fanbase from Philly to LA waiting, Mt. Joy wasn’t about to rest long. If you’re a fan, you may have noticed that they are currently playing safe, sold out drive-in shows across the East coast and Midwest with more on the way.

Photo credit: Matt Everitt

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.)

 

WATCH: Molly Tuttle, “Standing on the Moon” (Feat. Taylor Goldsmith)

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Molly Tuttle
Hometown: Palo Alto, California / Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Standing on the Moon” (Feat. Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes)
Album: …but i’d rather be with you
Release Date: August 28, 2020
Record Label: Compass Records

In Their Words: “I didn’t grow up listening to a lot of Grateful Dead music, but being raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Dead was part of the mythology of my family and the area I grew up in (kind of how I imagine people who grew up in Tennessee, where I live now, might feel about Dolly Parton). Our specific family lore was that Jerry Garcia had gone to my high school (Palo Alto High) and my mom’s older sister, my Aunt Titia, knew them and used to take guitar lessons from Bob Weir in Menlo Park. That’s a roundabout way of explaining that this song means so much to me, because it brings me back to my roots. Even though I love Nashville, sometimes I do feel like I’m standing on the moon wishing I were with my friends and family in San Francisco. The line, ‘A lovely view of heaven, but I’d rather be with you’ is my favorite and it’s why I named the album …but I’d rather be with you. Life is messy and imperfect but I’d rather be here in it with all of you!” — Molly Tuttle

“One of the greatest feats as a musician, in my opinion, is taking a Grateful Dead song and creating a version of it that goes beyond the stigmatized identity of a ‘Dead Cover.’ It’s hard to do and takes a lot of courage to make it happen. But Molly reached for that brass ring and then somehow even went beyond it. Her version has given the song new parameters, makes me feel new things, and surpasses any sort of referential quality and becomes Molly’s own song. I’m just happy I got to be one small part of bringing it to life.” — Taylor Goldsmith

Photo credit: Zach Pigg

BGS Podcast Roundup // May 22

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

We’ve got another round of podcasts for you this Friday, with episodes featuring one of the last founding fathers of bluegrass, a delicious Mexican-inspired meal from an award-winning Austin chef (in your home!), a young Nashville phenom’s debut on Rounder Records, and much much more.

Make sure to follow along with the BGS Podcast Network on our social media [Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram] and right here, where we’ll consistently gather our new episodes, as well as some past favorites:

The Shift List – Chef Fermín Núñez (Suerte) – Austin, TX

This week, our first in a series of shows from Austin, Texas, starting off with Fermín Núñez, executive chef of East Austin’s Mexican-inspired restaurant Suerte and Eater Austin’s 2018 chef of the year.

As you’ll soon discover, Chef Fermín is a man with a mission: To create the perfect tortilla, every single day. It’s his attention to detail that has made Suerte one of the most beloved new restaurants in Austin, and Chef Fermín’s love of music is woven into each part of the day, from the making of the masa, to prepping his mise en place, to the entire staff stopping at 4pm to clap to a cover of “Achy Breaky Heart” in Spanish and prepare for the night of service ahead.

Speaking of service, Suerte closed for a few weeks back in early March to regroup and recalibrate as the city of Austin sheltered in place because of the new coronavirus. In mid-March they reemerged with the Suerte Taqueria, providing highlights from Suerte’s menu for takeout — a highlight being the Suadero Taco Meal kit for families to enjoy at home. The kit includes all the ingredients needed to prepare Chef Fermín’s signature dish at home, including confit brisket, avocado crudo, black magic oil, signature tortillas, and sides. In addition to cooking instructions, they rounded out the experience with a video of Chef Fermín cooking along in his own kitchen, and a link to his favorite playlist in an attempt to bring the full Suerte experience into your kitchen.

The kits are still available, so if you live in the Austin area and need some high quality sustenance, head over to Suerteatx.com.

The String – Lilly Hiatt, Gabe Lee

Lilly Hiatt put in a lot of work at the local and regional level, including releasing two albums, before her third, Trinity Lane, met the moment and became a breakout work.

So a lot of ears were lifted toward her 2020 release of Walking Proof, and it was quickly acclaimed as punchy, vivid and memorable. We talk about going on the road with her dad songwriter John Hiatt back in the day, the deserved success of Trinity Lane and new musical directions. Also, a get-acquainted talk with Nashville-born, rocking country songwriter Gabe Lee.

Toy Heart: A Podcast About Bluegrass – Jesse McReynolds

One of the last founding fathers of bluegrass, Jesse McReynold’s story is the story of bluegrass — a music that emerged out of the country, into rural schoolhouses, onto rural radio, finding sponsorship along the way, enmeshing itself into the mainstream of American culture.

McReynolds tells the story of his grandfather, who played in the first recorded country music session, talks about being offered a gig with the Stanley Brothers, serving with the armed forces in Korea and singing alongside Charlie Louvin. He relates hunting down record deals and successes with his brother Jim, starting their own label, being sought out by counter cultural icons like the Grateful Dead and The Doors. Now nearing the age of 91, McReynolds spends some time reflecting as well, on his brother Jim’s death, his own struggles with the Opry, and how he feels about his legacy in the music. This is an icon of American music whose story isn’t often told, and we’re honored to play a part.

The String – Katie Pruitt, Jenee Fleenor

Katie Pruitt has been known as a phenom ready for big things in Nashville for a few years now. With patience and enough maturity to get the music exactly as she intended, Pruitt has now made her debut on Rounder Records.

The album Expectations is a bold, ambitious, and succulent collection, and vividly honest as well, with songs documenting a difficult journey from a conservative family in Georgia to a proud gay woman in Music City. This is a 25-year-old singer, songwriter, and guitarist poised for big things. Also in the hour, the journey of Arkansas born fiddler Jenee Fleenor. She was named CMA Musician of the Year and she’s releasing her first recordings of her own music after years supporting others.

The Show on the Road – Steve Poltz

This week on The Show On The Road, we feature a conversation with a Canadian-born paraparetic prince of pop-folk singers, who has jumped through more gauntlets of the modern music industry than almost anyone in his three plus decades of making records, Steve Poltz.

Poltz first hit the scene with the San Diego-based underground punk-folk favorites The Rugburns, then as an accidental hitmaker and MTV video heartthrob with collaborator and friend Jewel, and then as a wild-haired, two hundred shows a year internationally revered solo act. He’s put out a baker’s dozen of whacked-out, deceptively sensitive, and fearlessly personal albums that have won him devoted audiences from his ancestral home in Nova Scotia to the dance party dives of California to massive festivals across Australia and beyond.

As we are still quite separated during the pandemic, host Z. Lupetin called up Poltz in Nashville to discuss the long and twisty road Poltz has travelled — jumping from his inspired, most-recent album Shine On back to his childhood in swinging Palm Springs (where he met Elvis and Sinatra), to making $100,000 music videos for his ill-fated major label debut in ’98, to nearly dying on stage after substance abuse problems and never-say-no-to-a-gig exhaustion took its toll.

We now find him in a more peaceful, purposeful existence, where he is newly married and enjoying making music at home (government orders!) for the first time in decades.