Tag: the stanley brothers

BGS 5+5: Crary, Evans & Barnick

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Crary, Evans & Barnick
Hometown: Placerville, California
Latest Album: Prime Time
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Three Old White Guys in a Folk Trio

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

Mark Twain said the two most important days in your life are the day you’re born and the day you discover why. For me it was the day in 1952 (I was 12) when I turned on the radio and accidentally heard Don Sullivan, a Kansas City hillbilly country singer on his noon hour live radio show sing twangy songs and play the steel-string guitar. The sound of the guitar that day struck me like something straight from God. I didn’t even know what it was, but I knew I wanted to play one, to hear more of that beautiful noise. — Dan Crary

My life’s direction pretty much came into focus on February 9, 1964, when I was seven years old. After watching the Beatles’ first live U.S. television appearance, the world wasn’t the same for me after that moment. I went to school on that Monday morning knowing that I would be a musician someday. — Bill Evans

During my year spent with the Mobile Riverine Resources/USN/9th Infantry Division Mekong Delta ’68-69, I met a fellow who had purchased a Hi-Fidelity component stereo system from the PX. He set it up in his hootch. He had pals stateside who were mailing him “care packages” containing the latest vinyl LPs by the boxful. Buffalo Springfield, Jeff Beck, Cream, the Doors, etc. When we thought the coast was clear, we’d load up a “bowl” and then listen to those great sounds coming out of those three-way speakers and the music would take us to another place. I did not play any instrument at that time, but I knew right then that I wanted to figure out how to play. All I had to do was get home in one piece. I did, and once stateside I latched on to the bass guitar and have not ever let it go… over 50 years now. — Wally Barnick

Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?

Musicians who were influential: 1) Fritz Kreisler: When I was 5 years old, about 1945 (!) my mom and grandma took me to a concert in the Kansas City Music Hall of violinist Fritz Kreisler. I never forgot it, it’s like yesterday. 2) Bud Hunt, old-time banjo and guitar guy on The Brush Creek Follies, a ’50s Kansas City country music show. My old Webcor wire recorder caught him one night playing “Wildwood Flower.” I had never heard anything like that, changed my life forever. 3) Sabicas, Segovia, Doc Watson: Their brilliant performances made me want to get serious. 4) The Stanley Brothers: Sheer, stunning beauty for the ages. — Dan

I’ve been playing professionally now for over forty years and the people who have had the most influence on me are those who I’ve gotten to know through playing and touring with them in bands or getting to know them as personal friends: folks like Ron Thomason of Dry Branch Fire Squad, Tony Trischka, Alan Munde, Jim Nunally in California and, most of all, Sonny Osborne. And I’ll count Dan and Wally in this group too — I admire what they have both accomplished in their lives and my respect and love for the both of them knows no limits. — Bill

How often do you hide behind a character in song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

Seems like they’re all about me, at least the ones about trying to get it right and loving my lady. — Dan

I’m a composer of instrumental tunes, not songs with lyrics. Often, I set out an assignment for myself in order to get the process started, such as composing a melody over a particularly challenging chord progression or modulation, or something that has an Irish flavor, such as “Winston’s Jig” on Prime Time. In this way, I’m assuming a kind of another identity, most definitely. I feel that way about it, at any rate. — Bill

It is typical that I select and attempt singing songs that mean something to me, even when they are written by someone else. So the short answer is… I sing every song like I mean it, as if it’s mine and as if I’m telling my story. — Wally

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

In the ’80s a French festival promoter told me on the phone that Byron Berline and John Hickman and I were, because we worked as a trio, “not real bluegrass.” Then, about three days later we three were onstage playing “Gold Rush” to a few thousand fans at the KFC festival in Louisville. Suddenly, with no advance notice, Bill Monroe himself walked on stage with a big smile, sat down with us and we all played the rest of the set together. At one point Bill announced to that audience that, except for his own Blue Grass Boys, we were his #1 favorite bluegrass band! If I live to be a thousand…. — Dan

That’s tough to narrow down to just one memory. Perhaps the most musically revelatory moment for me on stage was hosting an evening in Berkeley at the Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse around the year 2000 with J. D. Crowe, David Grisman, Ron Block, Ron Stewart, Alan Senauke, and Missy Raines. It was an amazing thing to hear Crowe and Grisman experience the groove they created together on stage. Ron Block, who played guitar that night, commented to me after our show had ended that he had never felt such intense rhythm and awareness of musical space on any stage before. Musicians talk about how powerful a player J. D. is and I was lucky to actually experience it very intensely by being on stage with him. — Bill

Probably the first time that I performed a Cream song (“Sunshine of Your Love”) and I discovered that I could sing and play it, remembering all the lyrics and changes, and the (bar) crowd loved it! — Wally

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

Today I will try to be worthy of the guitar. — Dan

Giving back what’s been given to me and giving more, in whatever way that I can. — Bill

If it ain’t fun, skip it. — Wally

Photo credit: Nola Barnick

Jesse McReynolds – Toy Heart: A Podcast About Bluegrass

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Host Tom Power talks to Bluegrass Hall of Fame member Jesse McReynolds of Jim & Jesse and the Virginia Boys about his career in bluegrass.

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • MP3


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.

MIXTAPE: Bradley & Adair’s Generations and Inspirations Collide

Posted on by Editor

“We went into the studio and decided to do a whole album of duets. These are old songs, some of them are from the ‘40s, ‘50s, early ‘60s, one from the ‘80s, and a new song. We grew up with these songs and our parents grew up with these songs. Just like our latest record, many of the songs on this playlist are songs we’ve loved all of our lives. At the same time, some of them are newer, or unique takes on previous hits. That’s the great thing about music is the diversity and uniqueness that comes with it. We hope you enjoy some of our picks!” — Dale Ann Bradley and Tina Adair

Jack Greene – “There Goes My Everything”

This was the first song I heard on the radio. – DAB

The Osborne Brothers – “Once More”

I’ve been listening to them my whole life and am a student of their classic and seamless harmonies. This song is an example of that. – Tina

Simon & Garfunkel – “The Sound of Silence”

It’s a prophetic song that is still unraveling today as in the ‘60s. A look at human nature that continues to be so thought-provoking. – DAB

Alison Krauss & Union Station – “So Long, So Wrong”

This song encompasses everything I love about bluegrass. Great playing, fantastic vocals and an absolute amazing production/arrangement. – Tina

Glen Campbell – “Galveston”

It’s just a consummate recording in every way. – DAB

Brandy Clark – “Stripes”

This is one of my favorite written “new” songs. Brandy is one of the most clever songwriters in Nashville right now and this song shows it. Fun fact… I have a version of this recorded. Maybe someday I’ll let everyone hear it. Ha ha! – Tina

The Grateful Dead – “Ripple”

This is a song from The Grateful Dead that so much expresses the way I feel spiritually. – DAB

Blue Öyster Cult – “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”

Talk about drive and timing with an iconic guitar riff, and one of the best rock bands ever. – DAB

Reba McEntire – “Fancy”

Well I’ve always been a huge fan of Bobbie Gentry’s voice and songwriting; however, one of my heroes in this business has been the one and only Reba McEntire (for her ability to interpret a song, entertain you and her amazing business sense). I admire her on so many levels. Her version of “Fancy” is one that can always entertain a crowd … and I love that. Reba was my first concert I attended outside of local bluegrass festivals. – Tina

The Stanley Brothers – “Jacob’s Vision”

Great writing and singing in pure Appalachian style. This song touched my heart the first time I heard it. – DAB

Harry Chapin – “Cat’s in the Cradle”

This is a song that has taken my breath away. – DAB

Poco – “Crazy Love”

I love the harmonies and guitar fingerpicking and just Poco’s overall laid-back feel with this song. It’s always been a fave of mine. – Tina

Mason Williams – “Classical Gas”

I love the guitar and this is so good! We all wanted and tried to play this. – DAB

Ludwig van Beethoven – “The Moonlight Sonata”

It’s such an emotionally driven piece. I always got lost while listening and felt several different feelings. – DAB

Linda Ronstadt – “Desperado”

Any style, any arrangement… we’ve all been “Desperado.” – DAB

Photo courtesy of Pinecastle Records

Junior Sisk Hitches His Wagon to the Stars of Traditional Bluegrass

Posted on by Editor

Junior Sisk is on a mission. Although he’s been a fan of traditional bluegrass since childhood, he’s now fully focused on keeping that history alive. That passion for tradition is evident in Load the Wagon, the award-winning vocalist’s first release since disbanding Ramblers Choice.

“The Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs, Jim & Jesse, and all of them had big hits, but they also had hidden treasures on all those LPs. A lot of them that were never played and they’re not a jam tune. That’s what I’m looking for,” Sisk says. “It’s going to be like new tunes to a lot of folks. That’s what I’m after – to still pay tribute to the founding fathers of traditional bluegrass music, but in the Junior Sisk style.”

The Virginia musician’s recovery mission has unearthed a number of gems on Load the Wagon, like Flatt & Scruggs’ little-known “Lonesome and Blue” and the heartfelt “Lover’s Farewell,” a Carter Family gem suggested by his new bandmates Heather Berry-Mabe (guitar, vocals) and Tony Mabe (banjo, guitar, vocals). Jonathan Dillon (his mandolin player from Ramblers Choice), Gary Creed (bass, vocals), and Douglas Bartlett (fiddle, vocals) round out the lineup.

Sisk also re-cut the song that remains his most requested number, “He Died a Rounder at 21,” from his time with Wyatt Rice & Santa Cruz in the mid-‘90s. Leading up to a show at Station Inn, he invited BGS on the bus for a chat.

BGS: The first song on this album, “Get in Line, Buddy,” will be a familiar tune for fans of the Country Gentlemen. What made you want to record it here?

Sisk: Me and Bill Yates got to be good friends there for a long time right toward the end, and every time we’d play together at a festival, I’d always get together with him and ask him to do “Living on the Hallelujah Side” that he’d done with the Country Gentlemen, and this one right here — “Get in Line, Buddy.” Those are a couple that he sang solo on. It was just great, great singing.

It’s like what I’m trying to do right now. I’m in line with Flatt & Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, and all that. I’m way down the line, but I’m in line anyway. And it still rings true today when you come to Nashville. When you walk the streets, you see them on the streets. You see them in all the clubs and everything. Everyone’s standing in line. I feel like I’m still standing in line for traditional bluegrass music.

With “Get in Line, Buddy” and “Best Female Actress,” there’s a sad story there, but you find a way to put humor into those songs. It’s not an easy thing to pull off. How do you approach that?

Well, when I go into the studio and start to record, I’ve always done a lot of tongue-in-cheek songs. I’m noted for that, but I sing with a lot of emotion. I sing with a lot of feelings. That’s why a lot of times I’ll lose my voice, to tell you the truth, because I’m singing so hard and with as much feeling as I can.

I love to look out in the crowd and see them either crying, if I’m singing a pitiful song, and if I’m singing a tongue-in-cheek song, I like to see them laugh and carry on. It just makes for a good show, I think. And Charlie Moore has been one of my favorites. He’s one of the most underrated bluegrass artists ever. He’s a great singer.

You also have some songs on here, like “Just Load the Wagon,” which are plain-and-simple funny. I’m curious, where did you get your sense of humor? Was there someone in your family where you picked that up?

Yeah, my dad. He’s a songwriter. He’s probably got a thousand songs at the house for me to choose from. But every song he writes, at the top of the page he writes the date he wrote it, and he writes, “Sing in the key of D and sing like Carter Stanley.” [Laughs] I said, “Dad, you can’t sing ‘em all like Carter Stanley and they can’t all be in D!” But if he had his druthers, that’s what it would be. That’s pretty much me, too. I was raised, born and bred, on the Stanley Brothers’ music.

This one here, I thought the folks would really enjoy, and now that I’ve gotten rid of the Rambler’s Choice name and went to the Junior Sisk Band, I’m trying to pay tribute to traditional bluegrass music, so we brought back the old-style banjo, the mountain-style banjo-playing with the clawhammer on this one. And it’s turning out to be one of my favorite tunes that we’re playing now. It’s a lot of fun and the crowd can react to it. It’s a toe-tapping tune.

You mentioned that the Ramblers Choice name is gone. Why was that an important move for you to shift to Junior Sisk Band?

Well, Jason Davis, Kameron Keller, and a couple of guys left. My dad always says when wintertime comes around and things start getting slow, somebody blows a whistle and everybody switches. It’s pretty much like that. If you don’t have any work, I’m going where the work is. But I was actually straying away from my heart – I was straying away from traditional bluegrass music a little bit. I just did not want to do that. I finally came to the conclusion that what I’m going to do until the end of my career is pay tribute to traditional bluegrass music, and try to keep it alive as long as I can. That’s what we’re trying to do today, is keep it straight-ahead bluegrass, right in the middle of the road, and turn the younger fans onto traditional bluegrass music.

Why is it important for you to carry that torch for traditional bluegrass?

I’m just tickled to death to see the young’uns out here today that come to our shows, or to see them out jamming at festivals and playing the old-style music. You don’t see that a lot anymore. It seems that the younger generations is trying to play every note they know. …When I hear somebody with real emotion, and real feeling, who’s a traditional young’un coming up, I love it. Because we’ve lost so many — Ralph Stanley, James King, and a lot of traditional artists here lately. I think I’m a torch holder and that’s what I hope to be until the end of my career. As long as I’m able to breathe and sing, I’m going to keep their music alive.

It hurt to lose James King, didn’t it?

Oh, it was hard. I was there holding his hand on the day he died, in the hospital. I was on one side and Dudley Connell was on the other. And we told him we would keep his music alive. I’m getting chills now, but it meant the world to me, just to be there. He was a torch holder as well.

You re-recorded “He Died a Rounder at 21” from your days with Wyatt Rice & Santa Cruz. What’s it like to sing about that guy now, 24 years later? Does it bring out a different emotion in the song for you?

It’s still the same. The story in that song is awesome. I’ve grown up with a lot of folks in the bluegrass industry and I’ve seen a lot of ‘em pass away from alcoholism and just the hard life, the bluegrass life. People around home say, “Wow, you’ve got it made. You go on stage and play 45 minutes…” They don’t know about the 15 hours you travel to get there. It’s a hard life. You don’t eat right. You don’t take care of yourself. And I can understand where this guy came from. He only lived 21 years – but 21 years was like a thousand years in his time. I understand that, and that’s why I put everything I got in that song. Because it rings true.

Was there a pivotal moment for you when you decided to go into bluegrass full-time?

In my early teens, I lived and breathed it. I sat at the end of the bed in my mom and dad’s room with an old LP player and played Dave Evans, Larry Sparks, the Stanley Brothers, just trying to learn everything George Shuffler ever did on guitar. I was in it hot and heavy, and eat up with it.

In the early ‘80s, I moved up around the DC area and that’s when the Johnson Mountain Boys came on the scene. I followed them everywhere they went. They brought me back to life, and still today if I get to feeling sad, or get down about the music, I can put a Johnson Mountain Boys DVD in, and it will bring me right back. There was so much excitement and energy, they just tore me all to pieces. That’s what it’s all about.

Photo credit: Susie Neel

BGS 5+5: Donna Ulisse

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Donna Ulisse
Hometown: Hampton, Virginia
Latest album: Time for Love
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Lots of family and friends just call me “Da”, which didn’t work so well for me when we were in Russia doing some shows because da means yes in their language so I was always turning my head in big crowds, thinking someone was calling me! My band members sometimes call me by my initials: D.U.

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

My dad and I have always had a major crush on Loretta Lynn! From as far back as my memory will go, I have admired her sassy songs and her way of delivering them. In my world, she is and will always be the cat’s meow. It took becoming a serious songwriter to realize that I also loved her writing. When I was young I didn’t give much thought to who wrote her songs, I just simply loved them. As I matured in this business I was struck by how many of the artists I adored actually wrote their own songs and Loretta was at the top of the heap.

When I started my journey into the bluegrass genre, my first producer, Keith Sewell, hit the talkback button in the studio after we cut a song I wrote called “When I Look Back” and said he thought I wrote like a mix of Loretta and Dolly. I didn’t touch the ground for two weeks after that. What a wonderful compliment! Loretta’s influence is certainly pronounced throughout my song catalog.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

This one is easy! I was 12 and I was asked to sing one song at a popular venue in Mathews, Virginia, called Donk’s Theater. The show was loosely patterned after the Grand Ole Opry, with a staff band that would help spotlight young talent and I was one of the fortunate recipients. My mom and dad were SO excited! They invited all kinds of family and friends, probably thirty or so. The week before the show dad took me out shopping; I’ll never forget it. He let me buy a Gunne Sax dress that reached the floor. I thought I looked just like Loretta Lynn. I twirled in front of my mirror for hours when I got home and used my hairbrush to practice holding a microphone.

The night of the show is still so clear. The place was packed and the spotlights were incredibly bright. I was given a generous introduction and I walked out and sang a Loretta Lynn song, “Somebody Somewhere,” to the top of my lungs. I loved it, every moment, smell, sight, clap, note… all of it. Years later, my Aunt Helen told me that my mom and dad lost all their color when my name was announced and never blinked or swallowed while I was on stage, bless their hearts. I guess I didn’t have to be nervous, Mom and Dad did that for me.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

In all honesty, I knew I would be on stage when I was very young, maybe 5 or 6 years old. I have never dreamed of another career, it was always going to be the stage for me. But if you want to know the exact moment my star was born, it would be that Loretta Lynn song I performed on the Donks stage when I was 12. I owned it and never looked back.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

I’ve never been good with homework, but I believe the topic of my mission statement would be perseverance! I have never given up on my dream of performing, even through the darkest of times. I was one of the blessed when I was signed to Atlantic Records in the early ’90s. A major country deal is a huge accomplishment and much coveted. I was out in L.A. doing a Dick Clark show when I got the call that I lost my deal. It was brutal, heartbreaking. I was so lost in those days but I knew deep down there was a place for me to sing.

I turned my heart and hopes into songwriting and it saved my music life. Through songwriting I discovered the mountains that lived in my soul and I started writing Appalachian sounding tunes that led me into this warm and wonderful world of bluegrass. I am having success in this business a little late, but so very cherished and appreciated. This is the world I was always meant for and perseverance got me here!

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

My husband and I bought a little farm outside of Nashville a few years ago. I’m not your typical farm girl but I love this land. It has a sweeping field that leads down to a creek and I spend lots of time watching goats and cows and all the changes that spread across the field. In the spring, vibrant yellow flowers show off the new season like a Sunday hat. In the summer there is so much purple bursting out all over the tall grasses, reminding me of an Irish hillside. In the fall there are elements that look like a harvest, like a bounty was laid there though we don’t plant anything, and in the winter the field lays there like temptation and whispers for springtime. This is where so much of my inspiration is found these days. I write about the spirit and the glory and the life that I see from my table on the porch.

The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys Make Old-Time Music New

Posted on by Editor

Plenty of artists find a day job while they work on their careers in music. CJ Lewandowski found a career in music while working his day job. A mandolin player and singer, he was working at Ole Smoky Distillery in Sevierville, Tennessee, and would frequently fill in as musical entertainment when a hired act fell through. Eventually, the distillery approached him about forming a band, and the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys were formed.

“There’s never really been a plan,” jokes Lewandowski, who says that regular hours on stage helped the longtime friends tighten up fast as a band. “We play the music that we like, and we happen to have some songs that we’ve written.” That no-plan plan has gotten them pretty far. In 2018, the group won Emerging Artist of the Year at the IBMA awards and in August they released their Rounder Records debut, Toils, Tears, and Trouble. They’ll also appear at Bourbon & Beyond festival in Louisville, Kentucky, on September 20.

The twelve-song album includes fan favorite “Old New Borrowed Blue,” an original, as well as inventive interpretations of songs by legends and unsung genre heroes alike. The band’s Stanley Brothers-inspired take on Roy Acuff’s “Searching for a Soldier’s Grave” is right at home alongside the Boys’ rendition of “Bidding America Goodbye,” made popular by Tanya Tucker. And “Next Train South,” originally recorded by Dub Crouch, Norman Ford & The Bluegrass Rounders in 1974, pays homage to the bluegrass tradition of Lewandowski’s native Missouri.

But as much as the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys have found solace in the bluegrass sounds of generations past, Lewandowski says he’s most inspired by the potential in the genre’s future. “I’m excited about the possibilities: the possibilities of where we can take it, the possibilities of who we can meet, and the possibilities of who we can influence,” he says. “I just hope we’ll be able to leave our mark on bluegrass as much as bluegrass has left its mark on us.”

Lewandowski opened up to The Bluegrass Situation about the role music played in his upbringing, how their days as a house band helped the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys find their footing, and why old-time music will never fade away.

BGS: What first brought you to bluegrass?

Lewandowski: I found bluegrass when I was a teenager, at a time in my life when it felt like everything was leaving me. I was a mama’s boy, and my mom passed away when I was ten. Then I had some other folks, family members, pass away. Things were changing within myself as well. I was trying to discover myself, and all this other stuff was piling up on me, too.

I found bluegrass music at that time, and along with it, I found a bunch of friends. I was never somebody with a bunch of friends in my own age bracket, and all these folks playing music around home here were thirty, forty, fifty years older than me, but I related to them. My grandpa died around that same time, too, and he was a pretty big influence on me, so I found some folks that became grandfather figures to me. They took me under their wings.

One thing I say a lot is that bluegrass has always been there for me. It’s been my medicine. It’s helped me through all those hard times, and put me in a lot of good situations, too. It’s a constant — it’s always there.

For Toil, Tears, and Trouble, you recorded several songs that were written or made popular by other artists — “Bidding America Goodbye,” “Cold Hard Truth” — as well as less-known songs by Missouri bluegrass artists. Why?

There’s a lot of great material out there. You could take a really popular song and completely change it and make it your own, or you could take a song that doesn’t even sound like it would apply to your music — the songwriter might not even know what bluegrass music was, but the song is great — and we can put our bluegrass touch to it and make it something that works. We like to pay homage to people of the past, but we want to start our own past as well, carve our own little niche out.

We’ve got songs on the album that have never been recorded before, by anyone, and that doesn’t mean they have to be written in-house by the band. “Hickory, Walnut, & Pine,” “Next Train South”– most people have never heard of them. It’s cool to dust off those songs, to pay homage to someone who might have not been in the limelight as much as Jim & Jesse, or the Osborne Brothers, and then add our own influence.

So obviously you’ve been inspired by bluegrass, but I’m sure you haven’t been entirely insulated from other kinds of music. You recorded a gospel album a few years ago, in fact. What other genres of music have impacted the way you sound?

Gospel has always been a part of all of our raisin’s. Country, of course, has influenced us too. If we all weren’t playing bluegrass music, we’d probably be out playing old country stuff. We all like steel guitar, and we all like twin fiddles. We all really like ’80s and ’90s country a whole lot, too — Alan Jackson, Randy Travis. We’ve been called honky-tonk bluegrass. And you never know where you’re gonna find something new.

With your job as the house band at the distillery, you logged more hours of stage time than most bands do in years of their careers. How do you feel like that experience benefited you?

We were playing anywhere between five to ten hours a day, sometimes seven days a week, [we] were teaching people about bluegrass music and entertaining them at the same time — and working day jobs. It was almost like a paid practice. We learned pretty quickly that imagery was a huge part of the show. We started in bib overalls, and then we’d go to summer suits, with our hair styled, and then we’d go to the cowboy hats for the springtime.

There’s always been a progression. There has to be something. You have to realize that a lot of the folks who came into that distillery didn’t know what bluegrass was, and they left with a sense of it. We were exposing new people to bluegrass music, which has always been a goal of ours. It was an education for them, but an education for us as well — all the while, we were getting tighter as a group. We spent over a year and a half solely playing at that distillery, with no intentions at all of traveling or anything. It allowed us to hone in on a lot of things together.

You often hear people describe your music as “old-time.” What does that mean to you?

The music that we play is the music that we were raised up on. There’s always been a progression to bluegrass music, since the very beginning of it. You can look at when Flatt & Scruggs came on the scene — key changes, tempo changes, five-string banjo roll, all that crazy stuff. So over the recent years of bluegrass music, it’s progressed, but it’s progressed somewhat faster than we — the band, I mean — may have wanted it to.

So we rewound the progression a little bit and found where we thought the music should be in this time. Some people would say that there’s stuff older-sounding than what we’re playing. And then a lot of people say that there’s stuff that sounds newer than what we’re playing, of course. People can take it however they want to, because everyone has a different definition of traditional, everyone has a different definition of old-time, or old-fashioned, everyone has a different definition of progressive music, as well. So we kind of keep it simple and say that we play bluegrass. [Laughs]

Are there any aspects of bluegrass music that you think it’s particularly important to try to preserve, or that you worry are vanishing?

Excuse my language, but I think that’s a big ol’ crock of shit. This music has been around for a long time, and it’s bigger than it ever has been. Yes, everywhere has their own definition of bluegrass and how they want to play it and how they want to present it. And there’s a lot of freedom in that. Just look at Bill Monroe: He evolved until the day he died. I’d tell anybody, just play the music that you love, and if you’re true to yourself and true to your music, the music can’t die. It won’t die. It’ll never die.

Photo credit: Amy Richmond

22 Top Bluegrass Duos

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Everyone knows that in the early days of bluegrass, before that term was even coined, all you needed to make a “band” was two people and two instruments. Fiddle and banjo? Sure. But in those days, they’d take whatever they could get. Duos are still a strong presence in the music today, in brother/sibling duos, spouse-led bands, and legendary collaborations.

Check out these twenty-two bluegrass pairings — and their accoutrement — on BGS:

Bill & Charlie Monroe

Before Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass, made his indelible mark on the genre (quite literally giving it its name), he was already a popular performer with his brothers Charlie and Birch. Birch left The Monroe Brothers in the mid-1930s, and Charlie and Bill went on to enjoy success on the road, in the studio, and on the radio — until rising tensions and a fateful fight in 1938 caused them to split ways. But, without that fight, we may not have “bluegrass” at all.

Flatt & Scruggs

December 1945. The Ryman Auditorium. Nashville, Tennessee. Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys stepped on stage for the Grand Ole Opry with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs among their ranks for the very first time and bluegrass as we know it today was born. Flatt & Scruggs left Monroe in 1948 to join forces and went on to become one of the few ubiquitous, household names of bluegrass.

Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard

Undeniably trailblazers, Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard are widely regarded as the first women in bluegrass to capture the “high lonesome” sound popularized by Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, and others. They toured across the U.S., often supporting causes that benefited forgotten, downtrodden people from all backgrounds and walks of life. They were inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2017.

The Stanley Brothers

Natives of the music-rich southwest corner of Virginia, Carter and Ralph Stanley were prolific recording artists and touring musicians in bluegrass’s first generation. Countless songs written and/or popularized by the Stanley Brothers and their backing band, the Clinch Mountain Boys, are staples of the genre today. Carter passed in 1966 and Ralph continued until his death in 2016 with the Clinch Mountain Boys — who still tour today with Ralph’s son, Ralph II.

Don Reno & Red Smiley

Unsung trailblazers of the first generation of bluegrass pickers, Reno & Smiley were tireless innovators with a jovial, sometimes silly flair to their songs and instrumental prowess. Their duets are simply some of the best in all of bluegrass. The duo performed together off and on from the early 1950s to the 1970s — but both passed away much too young, Smiley in 1972 at the age of 46 and Reno in 1984 at the age of 58. Reno’s frenetic, electric and pedal steel guitar-infused licks remain unmatched in banjo picking today.

Jim & Jesse McReynolds

With matching suits and impeccable pompadours brothers Jim and Jesse McReynolds often brought rockabilly, rock ‘n’ roll, mainstream country and pop sensibilities to their take on sibling harmonies and bluegrass brother duos. Jesse’s crosspicking on the mandolin was — and continues to be — absolutely astonishing. Jim passed in 2002, Jesse continues to perform on the Grand Ole Opry to this day. At the time of this writing, he is ninety years old.

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum

Laurie Lewis often takes top billing — as leader of the Right Hands and before that, the Bluegrass Pals, and others — but since 1986 her musical partner Tom Rozum has almost constantly been at her side on the mandolin and harmonies. Their duo recording, The Oak and the Laurel, was nominated for a Grammy in 1995. Here is the album’s title track:

Bill Monroe & Doc Watson

What is there to say? Two of the folks who paved the way for this genre, laying a foundation so strong and far-reaching that we still can’t fully comprehend its impact. Bill and Doc collaborated on more than one occasion and we, as fans and disciples, are lucky that so many of these moments are captured in recordings and videos.

Del McCoury & David “Dawg” Grisman

At face value, an unlikely combo, but their friendship goes back to the early 1960s and their musical endeavors together began soon after. As Del slowly but surely became a bastion for traditional bluegrass aesthetics applied broadly, Dawg embraced jammy, jazzy, new acoustic sounds that sometimes only register as bluegrass-adjacent because they come from the mandolin. Opposite sides of the same coin, their duet makes total sense while at the same time challenging everything we think we know about the music. In this clip, Dawg sings tenor to Del — not many would be brave enough to try!

Ricky Skaggs & Keith Whitley

They got their start together in the Clinch Mountain Boys with Ralph Stanley, making some of the best recordings in the history of the band’s many iterations. Before they both struck out on wildly successful, mainstream careers they recorded a seminal duo album together, Second Generation. It remains one of the most important albums in the bluegrass canon — especially as far as duos/duets go.

Norman & Nancy Blake

Norman is well known for his flatpicking prowess, which has graced recordings by John Hartford, Bob Dylan, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and so many others. He and his wife, Nancy, were married in 1975 after having begun their musical forays together a year or so earlier. Nancy’s command of many instruments — cello, mandolin, and fiddle among them — balances neatly with Norman’s jaw-dropping, singular style on the flattop. Their inseparable harmonies and timeless repertoire are merely icing on the cake.

Jimmy Martin & Ralph Stanley

How their first album together, First Time Together (cough), is not more well-known is truly impossible to understand. The King of Bluegrass and the Man of Constant Sorrow twining their extraordinary voices must have been ordained by a higher power. It’s a good thing they answered the call. Be careful, Jimmy’s percussive G-runs feel like a slap in the face — in the best way.

Darrell Scott & Tim O’Brien

Their live albums together and their co-written masterpieces belong in every museum and shrine to roots music around the world. Both of these triple threat (Quadruple? Quintuple? When do we stop counting?) musicians are rampantly successful in their own right, but together they are simply transcendent. Their cut of “Brother Wind” deserves a listen right this instant and “House of Gold” gives you the harmony acrobatics gut punch you need every time. It was nearly impossible to choose just one, but here’s a hit that was recorded once by a little group called the Dixie Chicks.

Ricky Skaggs & Tony Rice

Again, words fail. Skaggs & Rice is a desert island record. Each and every time these two have graced a recording or a stage together, magic has been made, from their days with J.D. Crowe & the New South and on. We only wish that they could have done more together.

Vern & Ray

Vern Williams and Ray Park were California’s original bluegrass sons. Though they were both born and raised in Arkansas, they relocated to Stockton, California, as adults. They’re often credited with “introducing” bluegrass music to the West Coast. They disbanded in 1974 (both passed in the early 2000s), but their influence is palpable to this day, even if they’re sorely unheard of east of the Mississippi. This deserves correction! Immediately!

Eddie & Martha Adcock

Eddie is a pioneering banjo player who’s a veteran of both Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys and The Country Gentlemen, two decidedly legendary and influential acts. His style is somewhat wacky, certainly singular, but effortlessly bluegrass and traditional as well. He married Martha in the late 1970s and the pair have toured prolifically as a duo. In 2008, Eddie underwent brain surgery to correct debilitating hand tremors. He was kept awake, playing the banjo during the procedure — and there is jaw-dropping film of this online!

Dailey & Vincent

When Dailey & Vincent burst onto the scene in the mid-aughts after both having notable careers as sidemen, the bluegrass community rejoiced at the reemergence of a wavering art form within the genre — traditional duo singing. However, Jamie and Darrin, whether they knew it at the time or not, had their sights set much higher. Now more of a full-blown stage show than a bluegrass band, their recordings and concerts are a high-energy, charismatic, and downright entertaining mix of classic country, Southern gospel, quartet singing, and yes, bluegrass.

Kenny & Amanda Smith

Husband and wife Kenny and Amanda first recorded together in 2001, going on to win IBMA’s Emerging Artist of the Year award two years later. They’ve now cut eight albums together, all clean, clear, crisp modern bluegrass that centers on Amanda’s impossibly bright vocals, which maintain a personal, country hue alongside Kenny’s fantastic flatpicking. SON!

Tom T. & Dixie Hall

Two of the most recent inductees into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, Tom T. and Dixie Hall wrote hundreds and hundreds of songs cut by country, bluegrass, and Americana artists alike. Tom T.’s reputation and chart-topping originals tend to eclipse Dixie, but he is unyielding in his efforts to point that same spotlight at his beloved wife instead, who passed away in 2015. Though she never performed — definitely not to the extent that Tom T. did — the marks she left on bluegrass, country, and her partnership with her husband are indelible. This number was co-written by the pair:

The Louvin Brothers

Recipients of IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award in 1992, the Louvin Brothers are another example of early bluegrassers who enjoyed the amorphous, primordial days of the genre before it became more and more sequestered from mainstream country and country radio. Their duets are iconic, with counter-intuitive contours and lines that bands and singers still have difficulty replicating to this day. Their most famous contribution to the American music zeitgeist, though, might not be their music, but the spectacular cover art for their 1959 album, Satan Is Real. If you haven’t seen it, Google it right now.

Delia Bell & Bill Grant

Natives of Texas and Oklahoma, respectively, Delia Bell and Bill Grant met through Bell’s husband, Bobby, in the late 1950s. Between their band, the Kiamichi Mountain Boys, and their duo project they recorded more than a dozen albums together through the 1980s. Famously, Emmylou Harris became a fan when she heard their cut of “Roses in the Snow,” which Harris went on to record on her eponymous bluegrass record. Bell died in 2018.

The Osborne Brothers

Though they popularized a style of three-part harmony that had never been heard before — the infamous “high lead” harmony stack — their band, no matter who it may have included over the years, was undeniably helmed and anchored by Bobby and Sonny. (Which does explain the name.) You may remember “Rocky Top” and “Ruby” first and foremost in their discography, but the hits they’ve contributed to the bluegrass songbook are innumerable. Here’s one such classic.

BGS 5+5: Kind Country

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Artist: Kind Country
Hometown: Minneapolis
Latest album: Hard Times
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Evil Country

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

It has got to be Jerry Garcia, his ability to fuse elements of American music and bring it to a new audience is undoubtedly an inspiration. A lot of Jerry’s inspiration came from the original bluegrass artists — Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers and the like. Their work ethic, drive and dedication to the music serves as a framework for us all.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Well it’s still pretty recent to be considered a ‘memory’, but just this last week at First Avenue in Minneapolis. The room holds such significance for any Minnesotan artists who steps onto that stage, and all of us being there together was very special. I remember at one point, Chris and I finished a song lying on our backs, and the crowd went nuts. I was laughing, looking up at the lights, and everyone on stage was smiling. And when I looked out into the crowd, I could see so many people who had been with us since our first show smiling too. It really felt like family; it really felt like home.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

We hang out out with a lot of crafters: jewelers, carpenters, luthiers, glassblowers and such. Their process of obtaining quality materials, paying attention to detail, incorporating their art into something useful and meaningful at the same time. We strive to emulate that our music.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

Before most of our shows we go on really long van rides. It’s sort of a forced ritual.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

Driving the highways across the Great Plains is very comforting to me. In the summer, when everything is in bloom, it’s just the green touching the blue. I’ve spent much of my childhood and adult life against that backdrop. And watching the sun set over Sandy Lake in central Minnesota from the view of the porch at our family cabin speaks volumes to me. When the water is still like glass, dragonflies hover over the water and almost silence except the occasional call of a loon. In those moments of stillness, all the troubles of the world melt away. In the summer time as a boy I would eat supper on that deck with my grandparents, aunts uncles and cousins. This year I’ll be spending evenings there with my wife, children, nieces and nephews. These places hold a special place in my heart and mind and I imagine that’s where my songs come from.

Photo credit: Tim McG Photo

Mandolin Orange: How Bluegrass Brought Them Closer (Part 2 of 2)

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Because they have developed a fan base that stretches across genres and generations, it isn’t so easy to, ahem, segment Mandolin Orange into one specific category. But throughout a decade of performing together, bluegrass has been a major part of the music created by the duo’s Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz. In the second part of our BGS cover story, they discuss their biggest bluegrass influences.

Editor’s Note: Read Part One of the BGS Cover Story with Mandolin Orange.

BGS: There’s a real country feel on “Lonely All the Time.” Are you classic country fans?

Andrew: Yeah. It’s not something I dig into, and really break apart, like I do with old-time and bluegrass music, but I think Emily and I both grew up listening to classic country. My dad is a country music fan, and that was a song that inadvertently got written from his perspective, living alone these days. I wanted to do a classic country duet sound for that, and Emily had the idea to do harmony all the way through it, like a George Jones and Melba Montgomery tune.

Emily: I think our road to classic country has been more roundabout. We listen to a lot of bluegrass, and when you listen to a lot of the older country, it’s a lot more acoustic and smaller-sounding, sonically. A lot of it is not very different than standard bluegrass tunes. It feels like that’s a natural path for us to go down with this band.

Andrew: Yeah. I like Hank Williams and early Johnny Cash, where it’s just a small ensemble playing the music.

Who are some of the bluegrass musicians you return to, just for enjoyment?

Emily: Andrew spends a ton of time listening to Bill Monroe, from a place of really digging into mandolin, and I guess for enjoyment too. But for listening pleasure, I would say a lot of the brother duets – the Stanley Brothers, the Louvin Brothers…

Andrew: Yeah, the Stanley Brothers for the songs, too. They were lonely, man. They were lonely dudes! I think the Stanley Brothers had a natural, bluesy feel, and their songs were so heavy and beautiful. Definitely, for songwriting, the Stanley Brothers would be a big influences, especially on our tune, “Suspended in Heaven,” on the new record. But also the Sam Bush and Tony Rice era. I listen to a lot of Sam Bush and Tony Rice, and just keep getting farther and farther into the Sam Bush catalog. I love his energy and what he brings to whatever ensemble he’s playing. It’s cool that he has a documentary out about him now. He’s getting the respect that he is due.

You may never emerge if you dive too deeply in Sam’s catalog. That stuff is so great, and sounds so good at festivals. He’s like the king of festivals.

Yeah, I think that’s because he’s able to maintain what he wants to do musically, but he’s still energetically appealing to mass audiences. That’s a hard to thing to do at a festival and I feel like he does it well.

That festival crowd can be tough. How many festivals have you all played over the last 10 years?

Andrew: We’ve played a bunch of ‘em. And playing quiet music. That can be an intimidating thing sometimes.

How did you overcome that?

Andrew: We shut our eyes and just hope they don’t mind hearing some quiet music. (laughs)

Emily: I think it was actually realizing that there is a place for that at festivals, even though it doesn’t seem like it. We’d get on stage and feel outgunned at the outset, but the more that we talked to people and realized that they appreciated having that in their festival experience, to offset all the crazy jamming going on. Everybody needs to balance out a bit. Once we realized that, we were able to own it a little more and recognize that that could be our role.

Andrew: It’s more like the hangover weed crowd than the late night drunk crowd, I would say.

I want to go back to “Suspended in Heaven.” It does have that Stanley Brothers sound, but it also has that church music sound, in a way. Are you influenced by music of the church?

Emily: Probably more in that we listen to and enjoy the old gospel tunes that are part of the bluegrass repertoire. We both grew up with church music but it wasn’t necessarily this kind of church music.

Andrew: My mom’s mom was the piano player for the church I went to, growing up, and then my mom took over her responsibilities, then my sister took over for a little while. So it’s like three generations of piano players at this church in Afton (North Carolina) that we went to, growing up. I was around a lot of old hymns and old gospel music, and you can’t really separate my mom from gospel music. I think in wanting to pay homage to her, and to her life, it made sense to write a standard old gospel tune. I guess the lyrics are not traditionally leaning but the sound definitely is.

Tell me how you became interested in bluegrass music.

Emily: For me, it was in the very beginning when I was taking Suzuki violin lessons as a kid. Our teachers didn’t give lessons in the summer but they did fiddle camps. I always played by ear but that was my first experience of being encouraged to learn to play by ear and not being forced to read sheet music. So I learned “Old Joe Clark” and “Bile ‘Em Cabbages Down” – all the first fiddle tunes you learn. And gradually I phased completely out of doing anything classical.

I was able to take more fiddle lessons and play in a local bluegrass band around the time I started high school. And learned a ton from the guys I was playing with, about how to sing tenor and what role the fiddle is supposed to play. It’s cool that traditional bluegrass has pretty hard-and-fast rules about what the given instruments are supposed to do, and I’m really glad that I learned that. We don’t play that way ourselves, on our own tunes necessarily, but it’s really fun to jump in and make a bluegrass song sound just like bluegrass-–if you know the rules.

Andrew, how about you?

Andrew: I’d only just started getting into bluegrass when Emily and I met each other, actually. I grew up with country and switched to rock ‘n’ roll, and then from there I fell into a metal zone. I was in a metal duo, actually, before I moved to Chapel Hill. I don’t think there are any recordings of that out there – hopefully not. I credit the Skaggs & Rice record a lot as being that switch for me that flipped me to bluegrass. When I heard that, I was like, ‘Who is this guitar player?” And the way they are singing together, it’s really quality. Especially Ricky Skaggs’ mandolin playing on that record.

So from there, I found out about Norman Blake and David Grisman and John Hartford and of course Sam Bush. I just fell in love with it, and especially the mandolin. So I think when Emily and I first met, I’d only been playing the mandolin for a year or so.

Emily: Andrew didn’t know very many bluegrass tunes. I was more of the source, at that point.

Andrew: She was showing me a bunch of fiddle tunes to learn on the mandolin, which really helped me figure the instrument out. I’m still figuring it out. So I’d say meeting Emily was a big part of my schooling in bluegrass, in a lot of ways.

After ten years of knowing each other, do you have a good intuition about what the other person is thinking?

Emily: I would say yeah, especially musically. I think all those years, too, of playing just the two of us, it becomes like a second language, and you don’t even necessarily realize it’s happening.

Was there a time when you did realize it was happening? Where you thought, “Wow, this is actually pretty good.”

Andrew: It depends on what we thought the other one was saying. (both laugh)

Emily: I remember reading an interview with Gillian Welch a long time ago, when she was talking about playing with a duo, about how it’s so much harder than playing with a full band, but also how it’s so much easier. And a lot of the things that she said about it made me realize how we were communicating, in a way that I didn’t necessarily realize before.

Andrew: I definitely love the spontaneity of playing in a duo, playing with just one other person. It’s really hard to make that split-second decision to vamp on a chord if you forget a lyric, or to extend a solo section, when there are four other people on stage with you. But when it’s just the two of us, we can kind of look at each other and give an eyebrow raise, and it’s like, “Oh yeah, I forgot the lyrics, so….”

Emily: It’s not even visual sometimes, but if somebody misses something, you automatically compensate for it in some way, and it’s not even conscious. I guess that’s probably possible in larger ensembles but it probably takes ten times as long to get there.

Photo credit: Kendall Bailey

Roland White: A Tribute to a Bluegrass Hero

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To begin, a disclosure: Roland White is kind of a hero of mine for his perseverance, his originality, his sense of humor, his experience and much more. Also, he’s an employer of mine; I’ve been playing in the Roland White Band on most of its dates for close to 15 years now, and I’ve recorded two albums with him, including his new one, which I also co-produced. Lastly, and maybe most importantly, Roland’s a friend of mine. And he has a great story.

Played with Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass? Check. Played with Lester Flatt? Check. Toured around the world as a member of the Country Gazette and then the Nashville Bluegrass Band? Check. Had a band with Béla Fleck? Check. Helped organize and make Jim Lauderdale’s very first album? Check. Fronted his own band since the turn of the century? Check.

That’s a lot of boxes, and any one of them could be turned into a meaty article. Here, though, I’m going to concentrate on the story of the group whose legacy inspired the new album, Roland White & Friends: A Tribute To The Kentucky Colonels; it’s the starting point for the larger Roland White story, illuminating the way it was for young bluegrass musicians in the 1950s and 60s and how Roland, his brother Clarence, and the rest of the Colonels were able to craft an enduring and influential body of music.

Shortly after he turned 16 in 1954, Roland’s family relocated from Maine to Southern California. He was already playing the mandolin by then, and younger brothers Clarence and Eric were playing guitar and banjo (tenor, not the bluegrass 5-string). They joined their sister, JoAnne, who sang, around the house and at local functions. Soon after moving to Burbank, the boys rather casually entered a talent contest, and in short order found themselves dressed in hillbilly clothes and, as The Three Little Country Boys, performing on a variety of local stages and radios shows — even, if briefly, on television. All of this before any of them had heard a lick of what was just beginning to be called bluegrass.

Roland recalls that it was in a comment from a visiting uncle in the middle of 1955 that he first heard Bill Monroe’s name — and naturally, it was in connection with the instrument they shared. “My uncle Armand asked me if I’d ever heard of Bill Monroe. He said, ‘He plays the mandolin, he’s on the Grand Ole Opry and,’” Roland adds with a grin, “‘he is fast!’” Not surprisingly, that piqued his interest — but to actually get hold of a record was, at the time and under the circumstances, something of a project, involving a walk into town to the music store, perusing a catalog, ordering it, waiting, and then picking up the little 45rpm disc of his choice: “Pike County Breakdown.” (It was actually the B-side of “A Mighty Pretty Waltz,” and yes, it was fast.)

What followed was a “conversion” experience of the kind that was happening around the same time to other people his age, give or take a few years — a cohort that includes the slightly older Mike Seeger and Ralph Rinzler; the slightly younger Del McCoury and Neil Rosenberg (like Roland and Clarence White, all members of the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Hall of Fame); and the slightly younger still Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, and Peter Rowan. What most of them had in common was some distance, geographic and sometimes sociological, from the Southeastern epicenter of the emerging bluegrass sound; what all of them had in common was a profound desire to hear and play more of it.

More records soon made their way into the White household, often mail-ordered from Cincinnati’s Jimmie Skinner Music Center, and so did a five-string banjo, which Roland learned to play in the Scruggs style. Eric moved over to bass, and the band, now just The Country Boys, began studying the picking and singing of Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Reno & Smiley, the Stanley Brothers, Jimmy Martin, and more. While they focused on the whole sound, there was room, too, for Clarence to study the lead guitar stylings of Earl Scruggs, Don Reno, and the Stanley Brothers’ George Shuffler, as well as the rhythm guitar playing of Flatt, Martin, and others. And though skilled banjo players were still rare — especially in California — by 1958, they’d met and recruited Arkansas native Billy Ray Lathum for the job, allowing Roland to devote himself once again exclusively to the mandolin.

1959 was a big year for The Country Boys. For one thing, they were joined by Leroy McNees — Leroy Mack, as he’s still known — whom they met first as a fan, but soon persuaded to take up the Dobro. Mack not only rounded out the band’s sound, but quickly became a valuable asset as a songwriter. For another, the band got its first bookings at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles, a key venue in the emerging folk revival, and one that also booked national bluegrass acts as they made their long journey out to the West Coast.

Indeed, the Ash Grove turned out to be an important place where folk audiences and bluegrass musicians could meet one another; as Roland put it, “Playing the Ash Grove opened the way for us to play to a totally new audience — a folk music audience that we had known nothing about. They dressed differently from the Country-Western audience (they were college students, professors, beatniks, doctors, and lawyers) and they paid close attention to the music.”

Not only did the Ash Grove provide the group a new audience, it gave them a different sound; the less raucous, more attentive audience and more sophisticated sound system allowed Clarence White to hear himself better than ever before. Within a matter of weeks, he began to take solos — plenty of practice time at home had allowed him to explore and build on what he’d been hearing on records — and The Country Boys started to build a unique sound that featured lead acoustic guitar in a way that reached well beyond their influences.

By 1961, The Country Boys — now a five-piece band — had built a good circuit for themselves, playing to folk audiences at the Ash Grove and on college campuses around Southern California while maintaining a foothold in the dynamic country music scene. Their prominence gave them an inside track that landed them an appearance on The Andy Griffith Show — just before Roland got his draft notice, a then-common occurrence. While he served for the next two years, the band continued without him, taking a couple of important steps, including the replacement of bass player Eric White with Roger Bush; a name change to The Kentucky Colonels; and recording their first LP in 1962. The project, which featured some of Leroy Mack’s most enduring originals, also debuted Clarence’s distinctive, increasingly powerful lead guitar work. Over in Germany, where he was stationed, Roland admits that “it floored me.”

By the time Roland was discharged from service in the fall of 1963, Mack had left the band, replaced by transplanted Kentucky fiddler Bobby Slone. With Mike Seeger’s then-wife, Marge, acting as their booking agent, the Colonels were booked for their first East Coast tour, playing folk clubs in the Boston area, New York, Washington D.C., Baltimore and beyond. In each, they made connections with local bluegrass musicians, ranging from melodic banjo pioneer Bill Keith to the members of the Country Gentlemen to David Grisman, and when they came east again in 1964 — a trip anchored by an appearance at the Newport Folk Festival — they did more of the same. Interestingly, though, and a sign of the distance that still separated the folk revival circuit from the country music one, they never got even as far south as Nashville; as Roland says, “there was nothing for us there.”

Sadly, while their focus on folk audiences had served to give them broader appreciation than they might have gotten while working in Southern California’s country music scene, it also meant that, as those audiences began turning their attention to more electrified folk-rock and newly emerging rock artists, the Colonels would see harder times. Though they continued playing into 1966, the group eventually disbanded, with Roland soon taking the guitar/lead singer job with Bill Monroe and moving to Nashville, and Clarence turning first to studio work, and then to electric guitar playing with the Byrds.

Even so, the magic that the Colonels had made continued to appeal to both Roland and Clarence, and in 1973, they reformed their original brother trio with Eric. Adding banjo man Herb Pedersen and dubbing themselves the New Kentucky Colonels, they embarked on an April tour of Europe and, though the banjo position remained unstable, they started to make plans for more touring and recording — only to have them come to an end when Clarence was killed by a drunk driver while loading out from a Palmdale, California club.

What did the band leave behind? Not much in the way of recordings, unfortunately. The Kentucky Colonels made hardly any in the studio — the album done while Roland was in the Army and an all-instrumental album, Appalachian Swing!, one of the most influential bluegrass recordings of the 1960s are the sum total — and while enough of their shows were recorded at the Newport Folk Festival, at California venues, and on that final European tour to fill a couple of albums, they’ve often been out of print or hard to find.

Yet it’s clear — and the new record makes the point with its wide-ranging roster of guests, from guitarists like Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle and Jon Stickley to banjoists such as Kristin Scott Benson (Grascals) and Russ Carson (Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder) and fiddlers like Brittany Haas (Hawktail), Kimber Ludiker (Della Mae) and Jeremy Garrett (The Infamous Stringdusters) — the legacy of the Colonels can’t be measured so simply. From songs like “If You’re Ever Gonna Love Me” and “I Might Take You Back”— both co-written by Leroy Mack, and recorded by scores of bluegrass artists — to guitar showcases like “Listen to the Mockingbird” and “I Am a Pilgrim,” their influence has been carried forward through the bluegrass generations, not only by Roland White, but by Tony Rice, Jerry Garcia, and a host of others who met and heard and jammed with them during those critical years in which they were playing the national folk music circuit.

And for Roland White, for whom those years were just the beginning of a storied career that has taken him, by turns, deeper into the heart of bluegrass and further out to broad-ranging audiences, the opportunity to revisit them in the company of new generations of musicians has been an exciting one. “I really enjoyed playing and singing with all these musicians,” he says. “They appreciate the old music that we made, but they brought their own touch to it, too. It’s good to know that these songs, and these sounds are in good hands.”

Illustration by Zachary Johnson
Photo by Russell Carson, Carson Photoworks