Tag: Tony Rice

David “Dawg” Grisman Recorded His Own Journey to the Bluegrass Hall of Fame

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: This story was first published in November 2023 by our friends at Roots Radio WMOT 89.5. Visit their website to hear the best in listener-powered independent American roots music and to read more by journalist and producer Craig Havighurst.)

Sixty years ago, an 18-year-old David Grisman made his way to a place called the Coral Bar in West Paterson, New Jersey. He brought with him a portable Wollensak reel-to-reel tape recorder and a good measure of youthful chutzpah. He found the dressing room of his quarry – bluegrass stars the Osborne Brothers – and asked Sonny and Bobby if it would be okay if he recorded their show that night.

“And Sonny Osborne looked at me and said, ‘You can record the show. But if that ever comes out on a record, I’ll find you and I’ll kill you.’”

Grisman, now 78, recounts this memory at his home in Port Townsend, Washington. It’s a turn-of-the-20th century house with high ceilings, period furnishings and beguiling, music-themed paintings on the wall by David’s wife Tracy Bigelow Grisman. I got to visit the master mandolinist this summer, just weeks before he was announced as one of 2023’s inductees into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, an honor that was consummated in late September during the IBMA Awards.

While he was hailed by the bluegrass establishment for his “distinctive and influential” mandolin playing, his visionary advances in string band music, and the creation and cultivation of an offshoot of bluegrass so particular that Jerry Garcia dubbed it “Dawg Music,” Grisman’s legacy also includes a lifelong passion for recording acoustic music. Taking cues from his mentor, the folklorist Ralph Rinzler, Grisman has captured live shows, friendly jams, and studio sessions across six decades. Many of his best tapes have been released since 1990 on his own record label, Acoustic Disc.

Artist-owned labels are rare enough in their own right, but there may never have been a label that documented an artist’s own influences and output across time as abundantly as Acoustic Disc does for Grisman. He’s reissued historic music that touched him, including that of mandolinist Dave Apollon and Argentine jazz guitarist Oscar Alemán. He’s documented his personal mandolin heroes and pals like Jethro Burns and Frank Wakefield. But at its core, Acoustic Disc is a catalog of Grisman’s various collaborations, as leader of his David Grisman Quintet, in his influential bluegrass supergroup Old and In The Way, and in duos with Jerry Garcia, Del McCoury, Andy Statman, Tony Rice, and Doc Watson.

For several decades Grisman partnered in the label with longtime friends Harriet and Artie Rose, but in 2020 he and Tracy acquired full ownership and took it all digital, which Grisman says “has allowed me to triple my production of new releases.” The newest, out last week, is a 50th Anniversary Edition of Old & in the Way Live at Sonoma State, recorded in November of 1973. That follows on a recent digital release of an informal 1976 session that Grisman calls the New Smokey Grass Boys with Darol Anger on fiddle, Tony Rice on guitar, Todd Phillips on bass and Robert Bowden on banjo. Also recent, the six-volume collection Dawg Works covering all of Grisman’s instrumental compositions recorded with a who’s who of acoustic and bluegrass pickers.

Acoustic Disc (encompassing the legacy CD releases in physical and digital form) and its sister label Acoustic Oasis (all download) offer a thread of immersive snapshots from the life of a man who seemed to be everywhere that mattered in bluegrass from the early 1960s into the 21st century. And we might not have this rich portrait of Grisman’s influential career if fortune hadn’t brought him early on into the world of renowned folklorist, artist manager, and promoter Ralph Rinzler as he grew up in Passaic, New Jersey.

“I was really into early rock and roll. You know, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis,” Grisman said. “It was being born really. And so I was one of those young, impressionable kids. But around 1958 or ‘59 it started evaporating. Buddy Holly got killed, you know? Little Richard got either busted or became religious. Elvis went to the Army. And pop music got very vapid.”

Into the vapid void came folk music, first the polite kind like the Kingston Trio but soon this rougher, richer sound called bluegrass began to reach teenaged Grisman. He and some friends formed a folk music club at his high school, and the cousin of his favorite teacher came to talk and demonstrate records and instruments. That was Ralph Rinzler, and the encounter changed Grisman’s life. Rinzler, 10 years older, hosted late night listening sessions at his home, which happened to be four blocks away, sharing music by Jimmy Martin and the Stanley Brothers, until Grisman’s mother telephoned to call her son home.

In 1961, Rinzler invited Grisman along on a road trip to the New River Ranch for an outdoor show with Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys and another blazing mandolinist named Frank Wakefield. “There was a small backstage. I heard them play mandolin duets,” Grisman said. “And that really blew my mind. The whole experience blew my mind.”

In Rinzler, Grisman had latched onto a key figure in American folk music. He was a mandolinist with the popular Greenbriar Boys at Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village. He’d go on to manage Monroe and Doc Watson, promote many shows, and run the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and Folklife Program. His passion as an archivist rubbed off.

“I got this all from Ralph, you know? He was going on these field trips, finding these musicians and recording them,” Grisman says of their early years together. “For a while, Ralph lent me his Nagra, the premier portable Swiss tape machine. I made a tape of Jesse McReynolds and Bobby Osborne playing duets in a shed outside a show in Maryland in 1965 that I still have.”

So Grisman was thinking like a producer by the time he started at New York University in Greenwich Village, and at age 18 he officially became one. First he took a recorder to Wakefield’s Hyattsville, Marylad home where he captured an informal jam session with great songwriting bluegrass star Red Allen. His young partner on that trip Peter K. Siegel, another acolyte of the music, worked with Grisman to gather the personnel and repertoire for the album Bluegrass by Allen, Wakefield and the Kentuckians on Folkways Records in 1964. The jam tape, which Grisman used as a practice guide for his own mandolin playing, was released by Acoustic Disc on CD and download as The Kitchen Tapes.

Grisman produced two more Red Allen albums and played in his band for a bit before the next major shift in his life, one that reflected the times. In 1967, he conspired with fellow bluegrasser Peter Rowan to go electric with the psychedelic folk-rock band Earth Opera. They made two albums for Elektra before disbanding, and by 1970, Grisman had moved to the Bay Area, where he’d spend most of his life. A fellow he’d met back east in ‘64 or so was out there making quite a name for himself in rock and roll, but Grisman knew that Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia’s first instrument was banjo and that he was good at it. That led to the first project that truly set Grisman apart as one of the great influencers of bluegrass music.

It wasn’t Grisman’s tape recorder that was running on October first and eighth of 1973 at the Boarding House in San Francisco, but Owsley “Bear” Stanley knew what he was doing as sound engineer for the Grateful Dead. Grisman was on stage with Garcia on banjo, Peter Rowan on guitar, Vassar Clements on fiddle and John Kahn on bass. The set lists blended classic repertoire with Rowan originals like “Panama Red” and “Midnight Moonlight” that would become standards.

Ten tracks from those two live sets were put out in 1975 on the Dead’s in-house record label as Old And In The Way, which became by some reckonings the best-selling bluegrass album of all time. With its reach from rock and roll through the songwriting sensibility personified by Rowan and the daring improvisation of Vassar Clements, it was certainly among the most influential. Grisman released both shows in their entirety for the first time as Live At The Boarding House – The Complete Shows in high definition digital download. It’s an extraordinary time capsule of a pivotal confluence in roots music.

The Mill Valley, California house where Grisman settled became a hub for musicians where the mandolinist got to work out the sound and approach he’d been thinking about for years, one grounded in the sounds of stringed instruments working together more than the high lonesome singing of traditional bluegrass music.

“At some point early on, we realized that we could play instrumentals if we made it interesting enough,” said Grisman about a stretch in a band with the innovative fiddler Richard Greene. “And so we would do ‘Lonesome Moonlight Waltz’ (by Monroe). We’d do a Duke Ellington tune. We’d do Django (Reinhardt) and Stéphane Grappelli tunes. We started mixing it up. And then I guess I always had this composer in me. And as soon as I had this outlet for it, I had a list of tunes.”

Original tunes and another reel-to-reel tape recorder played a role in bringing Grisman together with Tony Rice, an early ’70s hotshot bluegrass guitarist whose Kentucky tutelage with traditional band J.D. Crowe & the New South was coming to an end.

“I had put together an album of the music I had written – all these tunes that I later did with my first quintet. And I had this tape with me. And Tony wanted to hear it and we’re in this living room filled with people,” is how Grisman remembers their first encounter. So instead, they did some picking, and Grisman was astonished, overwhelmed with memories of the master flatpicker Clarence White, who had recently been killed by a drunk driver. (“I figured I’d never hear that (style) again,” he said.) Eventually, Grisman was able to play his recorded music for Rice. “I put the tape on,” said Grisman. “And he listened to it and said, ‘I’d give my left nut to play that music.’”

That extreme sacrifice wouldn’t be necessary. A short time later, Rice had decamped for the Bay Area and joined what became the David Grisman Quintet with Todd Phillips on second mandolin and a young Bay Area fiddler named Darol Anger (now a Nashvillian). Soon, the great Mike Marshall took over the second mando seat with Phillips shifting to bass, where he’d have an outstanding career. With this, Dawg Music really took off, with its fusion of bluegrass, gypsy jazz, and classic swing. It was all instrumental, with all the architecture and improvisational freedom of a jazz band, played on bluegrass instruments, propelled by a fierce sense of timing and dynamics. Acoustic Disc offers a triple-length, 20-year retrospective DGQ compilation and a 1979 live show at the Great American Music Hall.

Also in that decade, Grisman decided to build a studio in his home, a rarity at the time. A San Francisco recording studio he’d worked at was closing down and he was able to make a deal for the recording console and tape machine, opening up the prospect for sessions that could be spontaneous and unbounded by budget. The most historic of them might be his duo recordings with Jerry Garcia. The two had been out of touch for about a decade when Garcia sponsored Grisman for an artist grant from the Dead’s foundation, which prompted a call and a get together.

“(Jerry) walked in the door, and he said, I know what we should do. We should make a record. And so I said, Wow, I just started a record company, and I have a studio in the basement. He said, Great, we’ll do it for you. And we walked downstairs. And I put two microphones up, and I still have the tape of what we played for the first time,” Grisman said. “Anyhow, it’s just been kind of serendipitous like that. And then we did over 40 sessions for the next five years until he passed away.”

The seminal release in 1991 was simply called Garcia Grisman, with vocal/instrumental arrangements including the blues standard “The Thrill is Gone,” Irving Berlin’s “Russian Lullaby,” and an acoustic “Friend of the Devil.” Like Old And In The Way, this album circulated like mad among open-minded bluegrass and roots aficionados who adored its mellow swing, its fascinating repertoire, and the chance to hear Jerry Garcia play acoustic guitar in a manner so different from the Dead. They also released a jazz forward album called So What and an ostensible children’s album called Not For Kids Only that became, according to Grisman, his label’s all-time best-seller.

In early 1993, Tony Rice spent a few days at Grisman’s home making an album that tapped those masters’ love of great vintage instruments. Tone Poems featured 17 instrumentals, each with a pairing of guitars and mandolins made between the 1890s to the 1990s. (Acoustic Disc offers an expanded edition.) And what else to do in the evenings but invite Jerry Garcia over to meet and pick with Tony Rice? Recordings from those picking parties circulated among bluegrass nuts for years as bootlegs but were finally released formally as The Pizza Tapes, and Acoustic Disc offers the complete recordings as a 170-minute download. Other iconic duo sessions paired Grisman with Doc Watson (Doc And Dawg was another guidepost album for me and others) and Grisman with Del McCoury.

Grisman moved from California to a small seaside town on the Olympic Peninsula about a decade ago, but he still has a studio where Dawg magic happens. One recent project with implications for Grisman’s family legacy is the Dawg Trio with dissident banjo player and songwriter Danny Barnes (also now a Puget Sound resident) and Grisman’s son Sam on bass. Their collection Plays Tunes & Sings Songs is a multi-generational romp that shows the grooving power of Sam, who has his own Sam Grisman Project, a band that’s touring with a mix of original music and Dawg meets Dead repertoire.

While Grisman avows that he’s never been a Grateful Dead fan per se, being generally uninterested in electrified music, he’ll forever be part of the Dead’s story and reach because of his relationship with Garcia. As such, Grisman will play a key role in the upcoming exhibit Jerry Garcia: A Bluegrass Journey, which opens in March of 2024 in Owensboro, Kentucky. It will tell the story of Garcia’s acoustic roots, including Old and In The Way and the Grisman/Garcia sessions, establishing what a historic relationship it was.

Speaking of museum-worthy stuff, Grisman told me that he donated most of his studio multi-track masters to the Southern Folklife Collection at UNC Chapel Hill a while ago. The rest of the archive lives in his climate-controlled studio, where he works with Tracy and a small team to produce releases for Acoustic Disc and Acoustic Oasis. The growing collection assures us that Grisman’s diverse musical legacy will be available in perpetuity. They’re even talking about releasing that Osborne Brothers bootleg tape from 1963 – with permission of course.

(Editor’s Note: Read more writing by Craig Havighurst and listen to The String at WMOT.org)

Craig Havighurst is WMOT’s editorial director and host of The String, a weekly interview show airing on WMOT 89.5 Mondays at 8 pm, repeating Sundays at 7 am. He also co-hosts The Old Fashioned on Saturdays at 9 am and Tuesdays at 8 pm. Havighurst has been a regular contributor to BGS over the past decade. 

Photo Credit: Eric Frommer

MIXTAPE: Bertolf’s Dutch Bluegrass & Newgrass

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

My name is Bertolf Lentink, I was born in 1980 and I’m from the Netherlands. I was spoon-fed bluegrass music by my father, who endlessly played his records by the likes of Doc Watson, Tony Rice, and Tim O’Brien in my parental home. At a young age, I learned to play both from and with him.

I have released six albums here in the Netherlands and they were more in the singer-songwriter/pop style. But for my seventh album, I decided to return to my roots and my first love: bluegrass. I had the chance to record an album of my own material with some of my favorite musicians of all time, such as Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, and Mark Schatz – guys I’ve been listening to and admiring since I was like 6 years old. The band was completed by two fantastic instrumentalists of the younger generation: Wes Corbett and David Benedict. The album was recorded and mixed by David Sinko in the Sound Emporium Studio in Nashville. I really had the best week of my life recording it; it was everything I hoped for and more.

The album is called Bluefinger because residents of Zwolle, the city I live in, are called Bluefingers. But it’s also a reference to bluegrass and getting blue fingers from studying so hard on the guitar trying to be good enough to record with my heroes.

Bluegrass music has surely travelled all around the world. It even made its way to the Netherlands and continues to inspire young people here. This is a mixtape of the stuff that inspired me and that’s going on in the blue- and newgrass department here right now. Dutch Grass! – Bertolf

“Before The Storm” – Bertolf featuring Ilse DeLange 

It was quite a surreal experience to record with my heroes, but at the same time it felt really familiar when I heard those guys’ instruments coming through my headphones. Like I was coming home somewhere I’d never been before.

“Uncle Pen” – Bill Monroe

Bill Monroe learned to play from his Uncle Pen. Full name: Pendleton Vandiver. Uncle Pen’s great-great grandfather was Bill Vandiver, an immigrant from the Netherlands. Vandiver is actually derived from the Dutch Name “van de Veer.” So if Bill Monroe is the Father of Bluegrass and Uncle Pen is the uncle of bluegrass, then Bill van de Veer is the great-great uncle of bluegrass. So there’s the Dutch connection with bluegrass for ya! 

“Keep on Pushing” – Country Gazette

My love of bluegrass music is entirely my father’s fault. In 1972, when he was 16 years old, he heard a song on the radio: “Keep on Pushing,” by Country Gazette. That song was actually on the Dutch pop charts at that time! My father was completely blown away and it was the start of his love of this kind of music. And when I grew up, he played nothing else but bluegrass, so I couldn’t help but to fall in love with it, too. (The original ’70s recording of “Keep on Pushing” is not on Spotify, so here is the ’90s remake.)

“Amsterdam” – Douwe Bob

Douwe Bob is a famous artist here in the Netherlands. I wrote this song with him and we thought it was nice to try and write a bluegrass song not about the hills of Kentucky or something, or to once again pretend to be American, but to write a bluegrass song about the city we know, Amsterdam. 

“Crying Shame” – Blue Grass Boogiemen & Tim Knol

Blue Grass Boogiemen are a great high-energy bluegrass band from the Netherlands who have been on the scene for a long time now. Here’s a song from an album they made with the great singer-songwriter Tim Knol (who happens to sing a nice harmony vocal on my album Bluefinger as well)

“Fallin’” – Nathalíe

Here in the Netherlands, I’m playing live with a great band of musicians who also happen to have their own bluegrass bands. This song is from the band Nathalíe, that feature my band members Nathalie Schaap on vocals and double bass, Jos van Ringen on banjo, and Janos Koolen on mandolin. I really love what they’re doing.

“The Bipolar Bear” – The Charivari Trio with Janos Koolen

Janos Koolen is the mandolin player in my band. He’s a fantastic multi-instrumentalist and composer as well. Here’s his beautiful composition, “The Bipolar Bear,” with the Charivari Trio.

“Tapdancing on the Highwire” – Ilse DeLange

My career in music started by playing in Ilse DeLange’s band. She’s a big country/pop star here in the Netherlands, and she’s very fond of bluegrass music as well. Here’s one of her songs that I really love from a live album we did back in 2007. 

“One Tear” – 4 Wheel Drive

4 Wheel Drive is probably my favorite Dutch bluegrass band. The band also features Joost van Es on fiddle, who’s playing live with me right now. I went to see them live a lot as a kid, and I was always left really impressed and wanting to learn to play, too. I also need to mention the bands The Country Ramblers and Groundspeed, who were from the city of Kampen (which was jokingly called the “Nashville by the Ijssel”), but sadly their albums are not on Spotify. 

“Deeper Than the Holler” – G-runs ‘n Roses.

G-runs ‘n Roses is a band from the Czech Republic, with two Dutch guys playing in it: Ralph Schut on guitar, banjo, and vocals and his brother Christopher Schut on bass.

“Till I Found Someone” – The Bluebirds

The Bluebirds are a band that do great and heartfelt three-part harmony. Here’s a song that I wrote with them, with J.B Meijers on dobro.

“Team Hoover” – Bertolf

I’d like to end this mixtape with an instrumental that I’m really proud of, once again from my album, Bluefinger.

I hope you enjoy it and thanks for listening! Cheers from The Netherlands.

Photo Credit: Dirk Schreuders

Bluegrass Memoirs: Lexington, Kentucky and J.D. Crowe, 1972

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

[Editor’s note: All photos by Carl Fleischhauer, except publicity shot of Esco Hankins]

On the afternoon of Sunday, August 13, 1972, Carl Fleischhauer and I were in Jackson, Kentucky, at the finale of Bill Monroe’s Kentucky Bluegrass festival where we’d been since Friday. In my notes, I wrote:

We left after talking briefly with Monroe (I bought his new LP [Bill Monroe’s Uncle Pen] and latest single [“My Old Kentucky and You”] from him) and drove [85 miles northwest] to Lexington where we got a motel — the Flora — run by an 85-year-old lady who liked Bill Monroe and told us that Uncle Dave Macon stayed in the Flora whenever he visited Lexington. Dinner late on the [U of KY] campus or near at an Italian restaurant — snuck in leftover wine and had ravioli. Sure was good to bathe and sleep in an air-conditioned room.

Monday morning after breakfast downtown and some cursory hunting in record cut-out bins, we headed to the Esco Hankins Record Shop. Tennessean Hankins, a Roy Acuff-style singer, began his recording career in 1947. He settled in Lexington in 1949 and performed for years on WLAP with his wife Jackie and his band, which included Dobro player Buck Graves. He also performed weekly on The Kentucky Mountain Barn Dance, which started in Lexington in 1949 and was broadcast on WVLK. 

Jackie and Esco Hankins publicity photo, original date unknown.

Flatt & Scruggs joined the Kentucky Mountain Barn Dance cast that year, influencing both Graves – to whom Earl taught his right hand, three-finger roll – and young J.D. Crowe, who was a regular in the audience and often went with his dad to observe Scruggs rehearsing with Flatt for their radio shows at WVLK. In 1950, at age 13, inspired and informally tutored by Earl, J.D. got his first banjo and began practicing what he’d seen watching Earl in action.

Esco Hankins Record Shop, Lexington, KY, April 1972.

Hankins held amateur country music contests, and at one he discovered teenager Crowe, who soon became part of his band. Marty Godbey’s Crowe On The Banjo: The Music Life of J.D. Crowe (2011) is a fascinating biography that narrates in great detail much of the story I would hear in my interview with Crowe that day in 1972. Early on, Godbey quotes from one of her interviews with J.D.: “I played for him quite a bit, it was my first paying job.” 

Esco Hankins in his record shop in Lexington, KY, August 1972.

I knew nothing of Crowe’s connection with Hankins on that morning when we walked into Esco’s shop. We browsed, bought some records, and then got into a conversation with him about country music history. He generously gave me a number of old songbooks and then, when we mentioned our interest in interviewing Crowe, he phoned Lemco, the Lexington record company with whom Crowe had recently made three albums and several singles, to get J.D.’s number. My notes:

…he ended up calling first Lemco and then J.D. Crowe and then handing the phone over to me to talk with J.D. — I thought it was still Lemco and went into a long rap about my project and what I was doing and how I would appreciate if they could put me in touch with J.D. — and the voice said, “This is J.D.” and I was embarrassed but maybe it was a good thing…anyhow we made an appt. for 3:00…

Esco Hankins in his record shop in Lexington, KY, August 1972.

Today, Crowe is best remembered as the banjo picking leader of the progressive New South, whose 1975 Rounder 0044 album with Skaggs, Rice, Douglas and Slone has become a modern bluegrass icon. He also was, in 1980, a founding member of the bluegrass supergroup The Bluegrass Album band, playing solid, perfectly timed, and driving banjo based on the style of Earl Scruggs and singing the harmony parts he’d learned with Jimmy Martin. He died on Christmas Eve, 2021. 

When I interviewed him in 1972, he’d been living in Lexington, his birthplace, since returning in 1961 after a five-year stint with Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys. For the next seven years he’d worked day jobs (with a couple of brief stints back with Martin) while playing in local taverns with his group, The Kentucky Mountain Boys. 

In 1968 they began appearing six nights a week at the Red Slipper Lounge in the Lexington Holiday Inn. It was a change from his former blue-collar tavern milieu – lots of young college students in the crowds. This gig was going strong when Carl and I visited him.

The Holiday Inn, Lexington, KY, April 1972. Featured at the Red Slipper Lounge at the motel that night was J.D. Crowe and Kentucky Mountain Boys.
The Holiday Inn, Lexington, KY, April 1972. Featured at the Red Slipper Lounge at the hotel that night was J.D. Crowe and the Kentucky Mountain Boys. Left to right: Larry Rice, Bobby Slone, Tony Rice, J.D. Crowe, and Donnie Combs.

J.D. was now working full-time at his music. A number of notable musicians had worked for him in The Kentucky Mountain Boys, like Doyle Lawson and Red Allen. At this point, in 1972, his band consisted of Larry Rice, mandolin, Tony Rice, guitar, Donnie combs, drums, and Bobby Slone, bass. He had just changed the name of the group to the New South. 

I had first seen Crowe in April 1960 when I went to Wheeling, West Virginia, with a couple of college friends. A month earlier we had opened for the Osborne Brothers at Antioch College. Bobby Osborne had urged the audience to come see them at the Wheeling Jamboree at WWVA. We took him up on it at spring vacation.

We drove down from Ohio and took a cheap room in a hotel close to the Virginia theater where the Jamboree was held. That evening we saw the Osborne Brothers as expected, but just the two of them were there. Bobby played guitar and sang “Down The Road” while Sonny picked the five. Good music, but no band! We enjoyed some of the country acts like Rusty and Doug and the fiddling of Buddy Durham. But we weren’t expecting any more bluegrass when Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys were introduced. It was the most memorable moment of the evening for us.

The four-piece band – Jimmy Martin, Crowe, mandolinist Paul Williams, and fiddler Johnny Dacus – bounded up to the mic from backstage and opened with Crowe’s the up-the-neck single-string banjo intro to “Hold Whatcha Got,” Martin’s latest single. 

The audience, which included a bunch of young women seated up front who had cowbells and knew how to use them, went bananas. It was a tight band, thought by many to be Martin’s best, and we were very impressed. Crowe’s banjo break was amazing. It marked him as a unique stylist.

Thereafter, when talking with fellow banjo pickers, I identified this single-string work as “J.D. Crowe style.” The success of “Hold Whatcha Got” led Martin to record several more using the same rhythm and banjo break style. 

Following our experience in Wheeling, we began listening to Martin’s late Saturday night show, after the Jamboree, on WWVA. The live sound of new songs like “My Walking Shoes” – driving, up-tempo stuff with Crowe’s banjo out front – caught our ear. 

J.D. told Marty Godbey about watching Earl rehearse: “I was more interested in trying to learn the breaks to songs and backup than instrumentals.” His work on Martin’s Decca recordings was definitive; Martin’s banjoists were told to play it like J.D. 

He began to record on Lemco with the Kentucky Mountain Boys in 1969 when the band included Doyle Lawson and Red Allen. This was the most recent Crowe recording I’d heard at the time of our August 1972 interview. 

That afternoon Carl and I drove to his trailer park home. We set up my cassette recorder and mic, and I began the interview with a few ethnographic questions: “Let me ask you just some of the basic things, like how old you are and where you were born and so on.”

J.D. Crowe home, Lexington, KY, April 1972.

He was 34 and told of childhood with country music on a farm six miles outside of Lexington. Then he described how his musical calling emerged in the fall of 1949 after Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs came to town. 

I saw them in person before I ever heard their records. Cause, the first record I heard of them was one called “Down The Road.”

“Down The Road” was Lester and Earl’s newest record release in October 1949.

His family were regulars in the audience at the Kentucky Mountain Barn Dance. 

And I saw, they came here — fact, I never heard of ‘em!

They was there one night, and they was so well received that they was hired.

His first banjo was a 39-dollar Kay, but within a year he’d moved up to a Gibson. Scruggs was his informal mentor. At fifteen he was playing dances and at sixteen Jimmy Martin hired him after hearing him playing on the radio with Hankins. “Hankins?” I asked.

Yeah, I guess that was the first person I worked with professionally.

J.D. Crowe at home in Lexington, KY, August 1972, during a visit and interview with Neil V. Rosenberg (left).

After five years working full-time in Martin’s band – in Detroit, Shreveport, and Wheeling – J.D. quit. It was 1961, he was twenty-four.

I think I just, a, kindly got tired, I mean, you know, wanted to try something different. 

This was a phrase he used several times in the interview: I just wanted to try something a little different, he said later, speaking of the band he started. Moving back to Lexington, he got a day job, and formed The Kentucky Mountain Boys, who played five nights a week in local clubs until 1968. Then the Holiday Inn gig came along:

I give up my job and I’ve been doing it full-time ever since.

As a bandleader, he stressed the hard work involved in building a career:

…you know how the music goes, unsure, you know. Which anything is, really when you get down to it. It’s just what you want to make out of it, and how hard you want to work… And a, believe me, it’s, it’s rough. A lot of people, you know, think it’s a lot of, a bowl of cherries, you know, just have a good time, but it’s not like that.

“I suppose the picking is only the small part,” I said.

That’s just the smallest part of it, really.

J.D. explained how his full-time band operated – fall, winter, and spring they played six nights a week at the Holiday Inn. Then they took the summers off: 

Work road shows. 

He told me about his band members — mandolinist Larry Rice, his brother Tony, and Bobby Slone — and explained about the Rices’ California connection:

They were born in Danville, Virginia, but … they went to California when they were just little shavers and they lived out there I guess ten or twelve years in Los Angeles. And that’s where Larry came from, he was living there at the time… Bobby Slone, our bass player, he’s been with me I guess about six years. Well, he used to live in California also, and he had worked with them when they was growing up and so he told me about them. And of course, Tony I met after Larry joined me. He moved back to North Carolina and he came up. 

His band were all veterans of the late ’60s LA scene where folk-rock and country-rock had blended with bluegrass. That musical mindset had a kind of creative vision that Crowe could empathize with. 

I used to be, if it didn’t have a banjo in it, then I’d cut it off. But now, with the exception of rock and roll and blues. I’ve always liked it. I used to listen to blues, just all the time. I like the style of B.B. King, of course he’s still going, you know, and, a Fats Domino, Little Richard, you know … they was in the fifties. And there’s just a lot of ‘em, and of course the rock changed you know, course what they call country rock, which is good, I like that. In fact, we do quite a few numbers of that ourself.

I asked: “When you were leaving Jimmy Martin, were you thinking of putting some of that into your music?” He explained:

That wasn’t out yet … I didn’t have too much choice. You (could) only do country, do bluegrass, or you just do hard rock. But now there’s so much new stuff’s out that it’s just endless, to what you can do, and take over songs and adapt them over, your own little thing, in style.

You can take with what you had and combine it with a couple other forms of music and come up with a little different gimmick, a little different style. That’s the whole thing, that’s what you got to have. 

Perhaps the most novel aspect of the New South sound at this time was the fact that since the prior September – almost a year before – they had been playing electrified instruments.

I had the idea, you know a, maybe that might be the answer, because, like I say, like we couldn’t get any records played on country stations. 

The Osborne Brothers had gone electric in 1969; J.D. said their example had influenced him “a little bit.” Also in 1969, Earl Scruggs had begun playing an electrified banjo with his sons in the Earl Scruggs Revue. Jim & Jesse had done an electric album in 1971. I asked J.D. if he’d recorded with his electric group.

The latest single is. Course I use a steel and a piano and a drummer, the whole works on that. In fact I didn’t play too much banjo, on account, if there’s a lot of banjo, some things, they won’t even, some stations won’t play it.

At J.D. Crowe’s home in Lexington KY, August 1972, during a visit and interview with Neil V. Rosenberg (right) as reflected in a mirror that also caught photographer Carl Fleischhauer.

We’d just been at a festival; I wanted to know what he thought about festivals. Had they helped his music?

The festivals have helped to a certain extent. You know. Right now, they’re trying, they’re getting too many of them, in my opinion. Cause you can over do a good thing, you know and, which I know we worked some of ‘em that didn’t turn out so good … most of ‘em, though, we’ve worked this year have all been great big ones, I mean a lot of people. And I figure they will probably continue having that kind of a crowd. And I think that it’s, it’s helped.

“Is it a different kind of crowd than the country music crowd?” I asked.

A, not really, I’d say a people that go to bluegrass festivals would also go to see Porter Wagoner and Conway Twitty and Merle Haggard — Nashville, you know. They like it, course they like bluegrass too. A lot of your country people, you know, like other types. There’s — they like it, but they won’t come out to see it, you know, they don’t like it that good. They can take it or leave it, in other words. That’s what you got to get to, those people, the general public. You know, cause there’s a lot of people come to the festivals and — but you know if you figure, the population of the world and you know, don’t look, it’s not too good a’ odds, so…

An experienced observer of the ongoing bluegrass scene, J.D. was keenly involved in his music business. He spoke of recording studio dynamics, record company practices, broadcasting politics, fan magazine reviews, and other factors in running a band. 

At that point I turned off the recorder and asked if he would show me his electrified banjo. When I turned the recorder on again, he was giving me the history of his banjo, starting with the neck:

This, this is original here, this part as you can see was pieced from a tenor, you turn it over and it’s a great job — see, that’s been pieced.

(N:) Oh, yeah.

(J.D.:) From there up. They matched it perfect, see, you can tell, right there, it starts up on the neck, go right in there, or right here, you can see its smaller up the neck.

(N:) It’s a splendid job.

J.D. Crowe at home in Lexington KY, August 1972.

J.D. had seen a lot of old Gibson Mastertones over the years. He knew chapter and verse about wood types and design details. But I wanted to know about his electric setup. I knew nothing about electric instruments, which were anathema to the ’50s folk revival I’d grown up in. He spent some time showing and explaining the details of his still-experimental pickup system (Godbey describes it well, p. 110). Carl asked if he could take a picture, J.D. politely told him no.

He told me what it was like to be playing electric, with the strings closer to the fretboard (“low action”) than on an acoustic:

(N:) Can you do licks that you wouldn’t otherwise do?

(J.D.:) Yeah. You can do a lot of stuff that holds, you know, you can get a sustain. That’s what nice about it. 

Then he announced what he was hoping on for the future:

I’ve got a six-string ordered.

In 1970 Sonny Osborne had added a sixth bass string to his five-string; it was part of a lush sound – string sections, twin steels, etc. – on their latest recordings. J.D. liked the possibilities the added string would enable, especially because he, like Sonny, was playing an electrified instrument. He’d even had to cancel a contract for a bluegrass festival that didn’t allow electric instruments. He told them:

Hell no! We’re gonna play electric…. We played up here electric for nine month and [then] we played acoustical; I sounded like I was playing a two-dollar Kay. Cause your hearing gets accustomed to that volume. And it’d take me three or four months to get back on the acoustical route.

Our interview ended there. Afterward I evaluated it in my notes:

Interview with J.D. Crowe — nothing spectacular, your hr.’s worth of history, but attitudes and early learning gone into pretty carefully. Very friendly but reserved in a reassuring way. Carl busy snapping away.

J.D. Crowe at home in Lexington, KY, August 1972.

We left Lexington immediately, heading for Louisville, where we were to stay with friends of Carl’s. Consequently, I didn’t get a chance to see J.D. and his New South in action at the Red Slipper Lounge. 

In 1973, the electric edition of the New South recorded an album in Nashville for Starday. Titled J.D. Crowe and the New South, it was issued on CD in 1997 under the title Bluegrass Evolution. Crowe played his 6-string on two of its ten cuts. Here’s one, “You Can Have Her.”

The album wasn’t released until 1977, two years after they stopped playing electric. In 1975 when Larry Rice left the group, J.D’s new mandolin player, Ricky Skaggs, had insisted on “acoustical.” By then J.D.’s vision of “something a little different” was working just fine without the extra electricity; Rounder 0044 came soon after. 

The Holiday Inn, Lexington, KY, April 1972. The Red Slipper Lounge featured J.D. Crowe and Kentucky Mountain Boys; including Tony Rice (back to camera), Larry Rice (barely visible behind Tony Rice), J.D. Crowe, Bobby Slone (hidden), and Donnie Combs, drums.
The Holiday Inn, Lexington, KY, April 1972. J.D. Crowe and the Kentucky Mountain Boys; Tony Rice (back to camera), Larry Rice, J.D. Crowe, Bobby Slone (partly hidden), and Donnie Combs, drums.

That day I wished we’d taken the time to catch the band in action, but we had only five more days for our bluegrass field trip. Kentucky was just the start; our next planned stops would take us to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Recently, a recording of an evening at the Red Slipper was uploaded to YouTube. Here’s the 1972 sound of the electrified New South (with drums): 

Thanks to Tim Stafford and Carl Fleischhauer.

Neil V. Rosenberg is an author, scholar, historian, banjo player, Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductee, and co-chair of the IBMA Foundation’s Arnold Shultz Fund.

Photo of Rosenberg by Terri Thomson Rosenberg.

Edited by Justin Hiltner

BGS 5+5: Alex Graf

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Alex Graf
Hometown: Durango, Colorado
Latest Album: Sagebrush Continuum

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Obviously as a flatpicker, Tony Rice. But maybe even more so, I’d have to say John Coltrane. For someone who lived such a short life, his trajectory as an artist and as a human is really beyond incredible. His recordings have influenced me in terms of specific language but also just the raw truth and honesty you can hear in the sound he got out of the instrument.

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

I don’t think of it as just one moment; maybe three vignettes (for brevity). First, watching the Dineh punk band Blackfire play at the Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance when I was 14. The intensity of their performance was electrifying to see as a young person. Second, a few years later, seeing jazz guitarist Pat Martino play at Birdland in NYC. I remember leaving that show with my Dad and feeling like Pat’s 8th note lines had been fused to my brain. Last, my first real jam session and the first time I felt the moment of completely losing myself in the music. It’s an incredible feeling and so many of us are chasing it down!

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

I used to be really into the “nature connection” world, animal tracking, bird language, plant identification, etc. At the core of a lot of these skills is a heightened awareness towards the ever-unfolding drama of the “natural” world. For a long time, I had kept the natural world completely separate from my musical world. I felt as though the two were somehow at odds or incompatible. In the last year or so I’ve been starting to realize just how intertwined they truly are. There is no music without nature, no nature without music and it’s a lot more fun like that.

What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?

The best musical advice I ever got was from my grandpa, maybe about 10 years ago, before he passed. He knew I played a lot but that I was mostly keeping the music to myself (it’s always been a deeply personal thing for me). He told me that I needed to share the music, I needed to play WITH people and I needed to play FOR people. After he passed, I realized the value of what he told me and ever since, I’ve been trying to share music with more and more people!

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

I see my musical purpose as expressing myself in the truest way possible. I have this feeling/thing I’m trying to communicate, something I’m unable to say with just words, and each time I play my instrument or sing I’m getting a little closer to really expressing what that is. I think it’s the duty of a musician to try their best to express that mysterious feeling within them and at the same time, transform that feeling into something beautiful for the world to behold and enjoy.

Photo Credit: Carrie Phillips

MIXTAPE: Doug Paisley’s Merle Watson Memorial Festival 1994 Playlist

Posted on by Editor

It’s terrifying to imagine now that when I was 18 I got in a station wagon with six other teenagers and drove 12 hours from Toronto to Wilkesboro, North Carolina, to the Merle Watson Memorial Festival. Terrifying because I don’t think any of us had much driving experience, money or sense. I had a big crush on one of the other passengers and would have gotten into the car whichever festival it was going to, but now when I look at the lineup for that year (1994), I’m glad we made it. Over the weekend that crush turned into a romance that lasted for what amounts to a lifetime at age 18, so most of my memories are not of the performers I was listening to who came to dominate my ears for years to come. But the moon-eyed haze I was floating around in tied up my first experience of bluegrass with all the intensity and longing of love and the freedom and excitement of traveling.

I like that bluegrass means such different things to its adherents, but that they all feel it strongly. It can be an exercise in authenticity, an article of faith, a technical jungle gym and an emblem of a time and place in history. It’s a genre that’s small and quirky enough that some people feel they can inhabit, protect and partly own it. Now it’s so embedded in my musical history that I don’t know if I can speak about it intelligibly with anyone who doesn’t already love it as much as I do. Here are some of my favourite songs by some of the artists that were playing at the Merle Watson Memorial Festival in 1994. — Doug Paisley

Alison Krauss – “Endless Highway”

I’m deeply attached to this album and feel that it’s some of the most emotional bluegrass singing. I also love Jeff White’s guitar playing.

Tony Rice – “Walls”

Tony Rice more than anyone else is the reason I am a guitar player and a musician. His many layers of musicality and his broader interests from modern acoustic instrumental music to restoring Accutron watches to his appearance on stage to his insights and comments in interviews make him a fascinating character. I’m so grateful for his time on earth.

Seldom Scene – “Wait a Minute”

When I began to play bluegrass, the high-water mark of what a bluegrass group could be was for me the Seldom Scene. They were such an assemblage of distinct characters. John Starling and John Duffey are two of my favourite singers.

Iris DeMent – “Our Town”

In my daily life I can connect to so much feeling in Iris DeMent’s music, but if I’m going through a hard time I think I’d approach it very carefully because it’s just so powerful.

Peter Rowan – “Moonshiner”

The myriad permutations of Peter Rowan’s music are mind-boggling. On my record shelf he’s the Zelig of great acoustic music.

Emmylou Harris – “Before Believing”

Aside from all the great and probably familiar things we can say about Emmylou Harris, I love her forays into more traditional music — especially on “Roses in the Snow” with Tony Rice on guitar.

Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys – “Sweet Thing” (The Stanley Brothers)

I realize this may not be a landmark tune for the Stanley Brothers, but it always sticks with me and I also love George Shuffler’s guitar playing.

JD Crowe & The New South – “Tennessee Blues”

Once I had finally recovered from the New South lineup with Tony Rice, I then discovered that there was a whole other set of tunes with Keith Whitley on vocals, and my head just about exploded.

Claire Lynch – “Second Wind”

Such a beautiful singer. I heard from dobro player Don Rooke that Claire Lynch may be living up in our neck of the woods now. I hope I get a chance to see her play here.

Tony Rice – “Shadows”

I discovered Gordon Lightfoot’s songs through Tony Rice. He brings out all the power and sadness in this tune.

Doc Watson – “Winter’s Night”

Although I’ve listened to Doc Watson all along I never tried to emulate or learn from his guitar playing the way I did Tony Rice or Norman Blake. There’s something inscrutable and compelling about it for me, and I’d rather take in his music not as a guitar player, but purely as a listener.

Photo Credit: Dave Gillespie

WATCH: Steve Dawson, “House Carpenter”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Steve Dawson
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “House Carpenter”
Album: Eyes Closed, Dreaming
Release Date: March 24, 2023
Label: Black Hen Music

In Their Words: “This is a traditional song that I’ve played over the years in different forms and with different people. I first learned of it when I was playing in Kelly Joe Phelps’ band and he would pull this one out every now and again, although he did it in a totally different way. I suppose the version that I knew the best was by Tony Rice, so this is somewhat inspired by his version. It’s one of those songs that has many versions, many different melodies, and many different sets of lyrics. The album version features Jay Bellerose on drums, Jeremy Holmes on bass, Chris Gestrin on Moog and Tim O’Brien on mandolin. This live version was recorded with my live band — Joachim Cooder on drums and mbira, Jeremy Holmes on bass, and Darryl Havers on keyboards. I was honored to have John Reischman sit in with us on this one on mandolin. John is someone who I got to know while living in Vancouver and is one of the more inspiring musicians and humans to hang and play music with! I’m using an unusual tuning on the Weissenborn to get an interesting quality to the guitar sound, and hopefully we’ve managed to produce a worthy version of this fine trad tune.” — Steve Dawson

Photo Credit: Laura E. Partain

BGS 5+5: Irene Kelley

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Irene Kelley
Hometown: Latrobe, Pennsylvania
Latest Album: Snow White Memories
Personal Nicknames: Renie

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

I’d have to say the artist who influenced and inspired me the most has been and continues to be Dolly Parton. It all started in 1980, when I was the lead singer in a rock ‘n’ roll band, and I heard Dolly singing on TV from another room. I basically stopped in my tracks and ran to the TV to see who that voice was coming from. I started watching Dolly’s show regularly and got really interested in her original songs. She was responsible for converting me into a country music fan, and then later, a songwriter. The first song that I learned to play guitar on (just to be able to sing to it) was “To Daddy.” The simplicity of the chords, the beautiful melody, and the storyline compelled me to want to perform the song at my shows in the early ’80s.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

Gosh, that comes and goes so often that I can’t really narrow it down to just one song. Sometimes songwriting is a breeze, and a song will just make itself known in 30 minutes. Other times, it’s like milking a cow. It doesn’t give milk, you’ve got to go in there and pull it out. When I started to record my own records in 2000, I found myself recording songs I’d written, and then second-guessing the lyrics, sometimes going back and rewriting them several times before mixing. That can be a good thing though because it really makes me focus on the songs and truly want to make them the best that I can make them. Especially since I am the one who will be singing them night after night.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

That would probably be the first time I played the Grand Ole Opry in April 2001. My mom and sister came to town from my hometown of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and both of my daughters, Justyna and Sara Jean were there — it was truly a special night. They all sat on the stage as I performed. My mom watched me go from singing rock as a teenager in her basement, to country and bluegrass (her favorite music genres) on that hallowed stage that night.

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

I love to hike in the parks around Nashville and the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. Those are my favorites. I keep flower and vegetable gardens at home, and getting my hands in the dirt is always good therapy, too. These are the times I can truly talk to God, and lo and behold, sometimes He’ll send me a song idea.

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

I had some classical training as a teenager and I still use some of those techniques if time and environment allow. Just to remind myself on proper breathing for singing, I learned to touch my toes and breathe in deeply. The air goes where it’s supposed to and that’s a good reminder, especially if I’ve got some jitters before a show and can’t get centered. Also, standing facing a wall and singing the song “Satan’s Jeweled Crown” that I learned from an early Emmylou Harris record is a great way for me to warm up my voice before a show and a recording session. That song in the key of D has all of the notes I need to stretch my voice, hold a vibrato, and get on pitch. I have been doing that for over forty years I’d say, but I don’t ever sing that song in my shows. Go figure!

Photo Credit: Anne Goetze

Béla Fleck Talks Banjo, Bluegrass Gatekeepers on ‘WTF With Marc Maron’

Posted on by Editor

Since the 1970s, Béla Fleck has put his own mark on nearly every kind of music, from bluegrass and classical, to jazz and Latin, not to mention the exceptional albums with Indian and African roots. That can make him a hard guy to interview because there’s just so much to cover. Fortunately, accomplished podcast host Marc Maron is up for the task.

In this wide-ranging interview that lasts roughly an hour, Fleck talks about growing up in New York City, and meeting his birth father much later in life. Leaning heavily on Fleck’s origin story, the conversation explores the musician’s earliest experiences with the banjo, and as the visit continues, it’s clear that he is a lifelong advocate for the instrument, insisting since he was a child that people should take the banjo seriously. The conversation also touches on the important musicians that inspired him along the way, such as Earl Scruggs, Tony Trischka and Tony Rice. (Fleck describes playing on Rice’s album Cold on the Shoulder as “one of the greatest experiences ever.”)

In the fast-moving conversation, one fleeting moment gives further insight into Fleck’s approach to music. About halfway into their visit, Fleck addresses Maron’s self-confessed limitations on guitar. “Fast fingers is not necessarily the only goal,” Fleck responds. “It’s supposed to be an expression of you, and who you are. That’s what music is.”

Near the end, Fleck admits that he avoided bluegrass for a long time as his career progressed, reveals a couple of his upcoming projects, and talks about his family life with wife Abigail Washburn and their two kids. Whether you’re a lifelong fan or new to bluegrass, you’ll want to hear the full conversation between Béla Fleck and Marc Maron below.

Béla will be on the road throughout 2023, including a duo run in the northeast with Abigail Washburn October 14–30, and co-bills with his My Bluegrass Heart band and Punch Brothers. Dates and tickets can be found here.

Photo Credit: Amy Reitnouer Jacobs

Dan Tyminski Tips His Hat to Tony Rice on New Tribute EP

Posted on by Editor

Not unlike the rest of the acoustic music community, Dan Tyminski is still grieving the loss of bluegrass guitarist Tony Rice, yet he laughs as he recalls the memory of following his hero around like a documentarian. “Oh, I stuck video cameras in his face and said, ‘Man, just do this for me for a second!” Tyminski recalls with a smile. “I remember having a camcorder, and it was just the opportunity. You know, you can’t pass something like that up.”

Bluegrass has long paid tribute to the masters, which obviously and importantly carries the tradition forward. Beyond that, there are just songs in the bluegrass canon that are beloved among generations — such as Rice’s timeless interpretations of Norman Blake’s “Church Street Blues.” His graceful touch on landmark acoustic albums are too numerous to mention. In the spirit of collaboration, Tyminski gathered his friends and fellow admirers for One More Time Before You Go, an EP that reflects an admiration for Rice without simply replicating those classic records. Instead, it’s a well-curated look into Rice’s life and career, and perhaps a gateway for a new generation to discover the guitarist’s artistic genius, too.

Tyminski called BGS from the recording studio to speak about One More Time Before You Go.

BGS: “Church Street Blues” is a fitting way to start this EP. Was that the song that got you turned on to Tony?

Tyminski: It’s one of the first songs I remember trying to pick apart and study how he did it. When I saw him do it for the first time, for sure, I realized his right-hand technique is almost uncopy-able. And then I obsessed on it for a little while. It was the best way I could pay tribute to him. He made my brain work really hard for that one.

Do you remember what kind of reaction you had when you first heard him play?

I can remember the first solo. A friend of mine called me over to a little horse stall where we were camping out at a bluegrass festival in upstate New York. And he played me Bluegrass Album Band, Vol. 1, “Blue Ridge Cabin Home,” and the first guitar solo — I had never heard a guitar solo done in such a way. At that point in time, man, that was unheard of. And it just parted my hair. It was amazing, and that was when I first realized how much I loved the guitar. Even over the banjo, because I was a banjo geek up until that point.

Tony’s ability as a guitarist is obviously well-known, and he had that gift for finding and recording great material. But I wanted to ask you about his sense of rhythm. How crucial is that, do you think, to the Tony Rice sound?

I don’t even know if it can be stressed high enough. That is ultimately what pulls me in to all of his music. It’s his sense of rhythm and timing. He has the most interesting right hand on an acoustic guitar that I have ever heard. No one else is able to pull off the techniques that he used to play that stuff. Each note that came out was highly dependent on the note before it, so if any one note were off, the whole thing derailed. When he was at his peak, he did stuff simply no one else could do.

In the song you wrote about Tony, “One More Time Before You Go,” there’s a lyric where you reference his life and legacy. I’m curious, to you, what is the legacy?

To me, it changed the world of guitar. It changed how it was played and how it was looked at. I don’t think there are any new musicians in bluegrass right now who don’t have an element of Tony Rice’s playing in them.

When you finished writing that song, who did you play it for first?

Like all things, I played it for my wife first. (laughs) She is always supportive and kind. And then, you know, I didn’t really play it for anyone for a little while because I didn’t write it as something that I necessarily wanted to publicize. I wrote the song truly as a way to self-heal. I was in mourning and I called someone else who I knew was in mourning as well – Josh Williams. He spent some of the last years touring with Tony. He came over to the house, and through our own stories and talking about it, we came up with this song. At the time I wrote the song, I didn’t really have this EP in mind. This song was kind of the birth of wanting to get enough material to make it sensible to put that song out.

I appreciate the fact that this EP isn’t overly reverent or stiff. There’s a liveliness to it that you don’t always get on a tribute record. Did you go into these sessions with a certain sound in mind, or a vibe you wanted to capture?

I wanted to capture the essence of who I thought the players were. Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas and Todd Phillips — there were critical moments in all that stuff they recorded with Tony that kinda made them sound like who they were. We didn’t grind out and try to make the most perfect recording we could. We played full passes through and I wanted to capture the essence of what each individual sounded like to me.

Was there a combination of sadness and happiness at that moment?

Bittersweet doesn’t even cover it. I was thrilled and excited to have some of my heroes here in my little studio at home, and at the same time, there’s no way not to consider the reason why everyone is there is because we all miss the man.

You have a natural voice for “Ten Degrees and Getting Colder.” Why is that song special to you?

The era that it came from. It was on that record that got me into bluegrass music in the first place. When I heard the 0044 record [J.D. Crowe & The New South from 1975] with Tony and Jerry and Ricky and Bobby Slone, that record set a mark for me for the rest of my bluegrass career, for sure. That was one of the highlight songs for me. The kickoff on that is probably one of the best guitar kickoffs of all time and I wanted to take my crack at it.

To sing it, did you get inside of that character in the song?

In the case of this, I really did. I really tried to make sure that I listened to the song and had the feel of what he was trying to [convey]. A few things surprised me, going back. I really did try to pay homage and do it in very close tempos and give it due consideration that way. That one’s almost faster that I thought it was! I’ve played it for years by myself but I’ve never played it against the record. And son of a gun, when it came down to recording it, I realized, that was right up there! It made my right hand work a little bit.

I think of that as a road song, and hearing you sing it reminded me of seeing Tony on tour with Alison Krauss & Union Station back in 2007.

That was a dream come true when we got to do that with Tony. That was the most time we got to spend and actually talk to him about personal stuff, and how records came to be, and how solos came to be. That’s a dream come true, to get to have your hero out on the road with you.

Did he accept the role of hero? Or did he deflect from the attention?

“Deflect” might not be the word that I’d choose, but you can’t not be aware that everyone is looking at your every move. So, he handled it with grace, and he was always willing to share. He was just a kind man.

I watched an interview where you said that Tony decided to drive to all the tour dates, rather than get on the bus.

He would not fly and he would not get on that bus. We insisted, in fact, that he take a driver with him. You know, a co-pilot. So, if he was going to drive, he would have someone else, because all of our drives were through the night to the next city. It turns out those were just Tony’s hours. He had a co-pilot but that other man never touched the wheel. Tony drove everywhere. That was his style.

There’s also a line in “One More Time Before You Go” about him being a mystery untold.

He was. Because in a quiet room, he wasn’t boisterous or loud – you didn’t get a lot out of Tony. But what you got was gold. He was really confident in the things that he did say. I think he was aware that he had that kind of power over a room, but he never abused it. He was just the man who could do that one particular thing better than everyone else.

I liked hearing “Where the Soul of a Man Never Dies” with Billy Strings on there.

And I’ve got to credit Billy with the pick, because there were a lot of duet songs you could choose from. That was one of the first songs that came back from Billy and it took about a flat second to say that’s the perfect one. Because with Billy, I wanted him to play guitar, and it gave me a chance to play a little bit of mandolin. That was just a totally live cut. We sat there and jammed for a little while, and took track #3 of #4 or whatever it was. It was so much fun and his right hand is so unique and great. You can hear Tony and Doc – you can hear a lot of people – in Billy’s playing.

Have you known him a long time?

No, I hadn’t known him a long time at all. I met him once before and we got together for the session. We’ve since booked stuff together. Hopefully I’ll spend a little more time with him. He’s an interesting guy and a great player.

Isn’t that something how bluegrass can bring people together and you feel a chemistry right away?

Well, for me, it’s always been a community. When I was little, growing up, what attracted me more than anything was the ability to go to bluegrass festivals and meet new people and instantly pick together and play together and eat together. There was a sense of community that you could just feel. That’s big in bluegrass.

If you could introduce Tony to a new bluegrass listener, where would you start?

That’s a good question because there’s a lot of different eras of Tony. I think different eras of Tony’s career appeal to different appetites of music. It would depend a lot on the person. It would depend on the situation. He has a lot of landmark music. You could pick almost anything he did and say, “That’s going to be someone’s favorite music.”

For me personally, as I get more and more into him, I can go back and listen to the earliest stuff I can find of his where you can hear the evolution of Tony Rice. How he went from his early Clarence White-style to who he ultimately became. His whole career fascinated me, mostly in the right hand, and how he went after his solos and his rhythm playing. Outside of his solos, I can tune into his rhythm playing and not even have to wait on a solo. I’m satisfied with just his rhythm. He was a monster.

For those listeners who already love Tony’s work, what do you hope they’ll take away from this project?

Just a love for the instrument and how much influence he had on other people who are doing it now. There are a bunch of young people out there who are not just carrying the torch, they’re stoking the fire and making it bigger. Tony’s a big part of what has made these young people want to do that.

Photo Credit: Scott Simontacchi

BGS 5+5: Lonesome River Band’s Sammy Shelor

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Lonesome River Band (answered by Sammy Shelor)
Hometown: Floyd, Virginia
Latest Album: Heyday

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Tony Rice. Tony changed the sound of bluegrass music through the 1970s and ’80s with his rhythm and lead guitar. He made rhythm guitar the leader of the band. His album Manzanita was the best practice tool for a banjo player ever. It was a bluegrass album without a banjo so I could play along with it and create my own ideas without being influenced by another banjo. I was fortunate to get asked to play some Tony Rice Unit gigs in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He then did some gigs with Lonesome River Band a couple of years later, and we learned a lot of the early Tony material and Bluegrass Album Band stuff. Nothing more memorable than playing shows with your hero!

What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?

Most of my influences in music became my friends, so I had access to a wealth of knowledge and advice about the business. I would say the best advice was treat your audience with respect on and off stage and make them your friends. They will support you forever.

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

I started messing with banjo at the age of 5. I learned as much as I could from my grandfather who played and other local musicians. In the 1970s, Wayside Park in Stuart, Virginia, became a really big bluegrass festival and brought in the top names in bluegrass at the time. After seeing bands like the Osborne Brothers, Seldom Scene, JD Crowe & the New South, and many others, I began to dream of doing what they were doing. I spent my teenage years putting in a lot of practice learning from all of those bands and listening to as many different banjo players as possible to learn everything I could.

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

I grew up and still live in the rural areas in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I can take 10 steps from my house and be in the woods and enjoy walking and taking in all nature has to offer. It keeps your mind from getting cluttered and open to your surroundings. Everything in nature is musical.

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

I always try to find some quiet time before a show to get my head together. Then try to warm up on banjo for at least 30 minutes prior. I have two young sons at home, so rehearsal time at the house is nonexistent these days.

Photo Credit: Sandlin Gaither