Tag: Tony Rice

BGS 5+5: Alex Graf

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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

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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”

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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

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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’

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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

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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

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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

Seeking Bluegrass in LA, Ed Helms & Amy Reitnouer Jacobs Made a Scene With BGS

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To commemorate the 10th birthday of the Bluegrass Situation, co-founders Ed Helms and Amy Reitnouer Jacobs are taking it all the way back to the beginning. In the first installment of an ongoing interview series, the enthusiastic bluegrass fans reveal how they first met, their shared vision for a modern aesthetic, and the meaning behind the unexpected (yet appropriate) name.

Amy: As we’re looking back on 10 years of The Bluegrass Situation, it occurred to me that you and I have never really reflected on how all of this started and how this thing kind of built up. So I wanted to get our own take on it and… reminisce, stroll down memory lane a bit, and think about it.

Ed: We need a little oral history for the archives! [laughs] And for our own… ’cause it’s exciting to reminisce a little bit.

Amy: I’ll kick it off and ask, what was your intro to bluegrass? Why do you care about this music to begin with and what drew you into it?

Ed: The earliest I can trace back would be growing up in Atlanta, Georgia. My mom’s from Nashville, so we would take road trips from Atlanta to Nashville all the time. In addition to that, I spent many, many summers at a summer camp in the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina. That’s another road trip that’s about a three or four-hour drive from Atlanta.

So, on those drives, we’re always pulling off at truck stops and whatever, and we would pick up cassette tapes at the checkout counter. And my dad, who grew up in Alabama, was always a big fan of opera and classical music. He would grab these string band tapes for some reason. And I started listening to these very generic, early string band tapes when I was 8 years old in the car. They didn’t resonate with me as artists, but the music connected with me somehow. And I associated it with those places — Nashville and the North Carolina mountains.

Then as I got older, I was one of those kids that kind of thought everybody was fake, you know, like Holden Caulfield. Just distressed by all the artificiality of our world and of the people around me and like, “Oh, everyone at school, everything is so performative. Like, who’s real? Who’s the real deal?” And that kind of drew me, musically, into older and older music. I got obsessed with authenticity and where are the roots of things. … I think it scratched some itch that I had for authenticity-seeking, and probably allowed me to feel superior to all my classmates in junior high.

Then when I could actually get to a record store, I remember the very first bluegrass album that I bought was the Bluegrass Album Band. I didn’t know who J.D. Crowe and Vassar Clements and Jerry Douglas were, but all I knew was that on the cover of this CD at Turtle’s Records & Tapes in Atlanta was guys holding banjos and guitars and mandolins. So I bought that album and to this day it’s one of my favorite albums. I’ve never asked Jerry Douglas about this, I should, but it felt like the intention of those albums was to kind of just be the ultimate catalog of, you know…

Amy: I mean, it’s called the Bluegrass Album Band.

Ed: Right. They just called themselves the most generic name. And it’s almost like they were just trying to create a library of excellent bluegrass artists playing the canon or something. Or maybe they were really ahead of their time with like meta irony and they were just like, “We’re going to call ourselves the Bluegrass Album Band, ’cause it’s hilarious.”

And of course Tony Rice’s guitar playing on that – I was very much into guitar at the time, I later picked up a banjo – Tony’s guitar playing was so magical to me. I could not understand how human hands could play what he was doing. I would just pour over these solos. I remember the solo to “Your Love Is Like a Flower,” it just was like, how the hell is that being played? I could not wrap my head around it. And I listened to it a million times, and I didn’t have the technology to slow it down, so I couldn’t do that.

Amy: That album and that band really represent a generational shift. It’s not newgrass. It’s playing the canon, but with this mix of the new guard and some folks with some real cred from the second generation.

Ed: You’re right. It isn’t an old sound, what they’re doing. It’s a new sound at that time, because no one was doing Tony Rice licks before Tony Rice. But the harmonies are timeless and the structure of the songs is very traditional. That album means so much to me and I listen to it to this day and I’m still blown away! I actually can play that solo from “Love Is Like a Flower” now, but only at about half speed. And it’s one of the proudest things, when I finally found – someone had transcribed it in tablature, and I was like, “This is string theory explained. This is like if you had Carl Sagan sit you down and explain the mysteries of the universe.” I was like, “Holy shit, I got it! The holy grail!”

Amy: Yeah. To me, it’s still magic. ‘Cause I am not someone who can play an instrument, at least very well, so when I first heard bluegrass, I was just like, “How does that happen? How do you even get the notes from your brain to your fingers and do it so well, and in a way that I’ve just never heard before?” It still kind of blows me away.

Ed: Can I ask you the same question? Where did you first connect to bluegrass music?

Amy: I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, and there was a lot of country and bluegrass around there. Admittedly, I didn’t like it because to me it represented… I mean, I was really busy listening to showtunes and learning Sondheim lyrics and stuff. I was that kid. And I just thought country and roots music was inherently uncool and representative of this place that I felt like I was stuck in.

It wasn’t until I went to college in North Carolina… It was probably the first few weeks of school, one of my housemates who is still a very dear friend of mine invited me to a show, and it was Nickel Creek. I had never heard of them. I had no idea what I was going in to and Erin said, “I just think you’re going to like this. Just come with me to the show. I’ll drive. We’ll go.” And I can honestly say, that show changed my life. I can still remember the whole show so clearly.

Ed: What year are we talkin’?

Amy: 2005? Somewhere around there. I was kind of reeling from it, because it had been a really long time since I felt like I had been challenged by music that was being played by young people, that I really connected with, but also was just kind of flummoxed by. From there it became a deep dive. I was really fortunate going to school where I did, that there was great bluegrass around. I mean, there was this bar about 30 minutes away called The Cave in Chapel Hill, and we used to go see the Steep Canyon Rangers play there every month. And I mean, this is a tiny underground basement bar, maybe holds 50 people, and they would just have bluegrass jams.

Ed: How close were you to Asheville?

Amy: It was about three hours from Asheville. Asheville is where we went for, like, fall break and our little weekend trips and stuff. We would go to Boone and Asheville, and even Mount Airy had a bluegrass fest that we went to. So that’s when I really started getting into it. And I could say, I think my first significant album purchase was pretty soon after that first concert. It was Why Should the Fire Die? by Nickel Creek. I played that into oblivion and had it in my car for like, 10 years, back when we kept stacks of CDs in our cars.

From there it kind of fell into the background, because I was studying film and I moved to New York. I was working all the time and didn’t really make space in my life for music. By the time I moved out to LA, I was working for a producer and I had one or two friends out here that I knew. Again, working a lot, not making any money and trying to find my place in the city, and not really connecting with a lot of the other assistants that I was meeting at the agencies. And I remember going to see the Get Down Boys at some bar on the west side of LA and having this thing reignited in me that I had felt back in college and was like, “OK, I think these are my people.” There was this momentum happening in LA at that particular time. And that’s how I started getting to know the scene out here and had the idea for the BGLA blog.

Ed: Tell us about BGLA.

Amy: I admittedly was a little bored at work. I was working at the Academy of Motion Pictures at this point, which was exciting, especially for three months of the year around the Awards, but the rest of the time was kind of slow. So I started this Blogspot and wrote about what was happening on the scene in Los Angeles. And then people started pitching me, cause I don’t think anybody was really covering it out here. So suddenly I was getting inquiries to interview these people… I mean, I started going really deep in the music and the history and background and getting to know the scene out here. But I remember getting connected to Sean Watkins (of Nickel Creek), and it was this beautiful, full-circle moment. It was the first time I met Sean and got to talk to him, and we became friends and kind of opened a whole other door to the roots music scene and what it could be. And then I think I met you pretty soon after that.

Ed: So when did we meet? I cannot remember.

Amy: Well, I remember when we first met, but I doubt you remember when we first met. I remember this because it was probably the most nervous I’ve been in my whole life. I saw you at a Sarah Jarosz show at Hotel Cafe. And I walked up to you and gave you one of my business cards for Bluegrass LA. And I was like, “I think you’ll like my blog.” That was it! And I don’t imagine you remember that, but that is technically the first time I met you.

Ed: At some point we had a cup of coffee to talk about possibilities.

Amy: Yes, that’s true.

Ed: But then maybe we bumped into each other… I assumed it was Largo, but I have the vaguest memory of getting a business card from you. So yeah, that part tracks.

Amy: Why don’t you talk about the LA Bluegrass Situation, because that predates me.

Ed: You weren’t even a part of the first LA Bluegrass Situation?

Amy: No. I was there. I went one night. But we didn’t know each other at that point. I just went as a fan.

Ed: The first time I ever went to Largo was when John Krasinski took me to see Aimee Mann playing at the Fairfax Largo. We went in through the back and I just was like, “Whoa, what is this incredible vibe?” This whole place is just so, so cool. And eventually Flanny (the owner of Largo) invited me to do stand-up on some people’s shows, and one night he said, “Why don’t you do a show?” And I thought, “OK, cool. It’d be fun to mix music and comedy.” So I think the first show that I did at Largo was called “Hams and Jams.” [Laughs] The idea was like, “Oh, it’s hams, like comedy people, and jams, music people!” And I just mixed up some comedians and musicians with a terrible name that Flanny was so gracious about rolling with.

We really loved that combination, but I was really struggling to wrap my head around the LA bluegrass scene. It just was so disparate, but somehow we managed to get excited about trying to cultivate the scene and coalesce things a little bit more. And I think that was the idea… that was the sort of original inertia behind the first LA Bluegrass Situation. The name literally just came from Flanny talking about it before we named it. He just kept talking about it as the bluegrass situation that we were dealing with. So then when it came time to be like, “What are we going to call it?” I was like, “Well, you’ve been saying this awesome thing because there’s something a little cheeky about a ‘situation.'” Like, it feels like, you know, “We got ourselves a situation, here!” Like it just kind of has some irreverence built into it.

So that’s what we named it, and Flanny and I both pulled as many strings as we could with whatever relationships we had at the time and put a totally magical lineup together. Like I still can’t wrap my head around it. I mean, it was Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch and Steve Martin and Steep Canyon Rangers and Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers and the Infamous Stringdusters… Oh, and of course the Lonesome Trio, my crew, with my friends Ian and Jake. We were sort of the hosts.

Amy: I remember I got an email from you not long after that, which was pretty shocking. What was the impetus of that, do you remember?

Ed: Yeah, I think that I was feeling pretty heady after that first LA Bluegrass Situation and probably getting over my skis a little bit and being like, “We can create the ultimate hub of bluegrass for Los Angeles and it will be this Tower of Babel that everyone will flock to!” I had so many ideas. There were so many things that I found lacking in Los Angeles that I had taken for granted in New York. There are just so many website resources. “You want a banjo teacher? Look here, there’s tons in New York City. You want to see what shows are happening? Look here!” You could just find stuff in New York City and you couldn’t find stuff in Los Angeles.

Amy: I look at the branding of that initial site and that first logo — I think DKNG did our first logo in Santa Monica — and I remember being really proud of the fact that we didn’t look stereotypical of the era.

Ed: You’re so right. And I give you so much credit for that because the very first LA Bluegrass Situation, Hatch Show Print did a bunch of posters for us. And they were so cool. I still have a bunch and I’m really proud of that, but it was also leaning really hard into a very conventional, stereotypical bluegrass aesthetic. It was a funny wake-up call for me – that plus your input. It helped me realize that what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go as fans and supporters of this idiom was not retro, like it was…

Amy: Forward-thinking.

Ed: Forward. And that artists like Chris Thile were doing that musically, right? But there was a little bit of a reckoning of “What’s our brand going to feel like? What do we want it to evoke? And who do we want to connect with? Do we want to connect with young people who are finding this stuff for the first time and finding it really fresh and exciting?”

Amy: That was always the crux of it for me. To a large extent, that aesthetic is still very alive and well within the roots music community. I had an inkling that there was an audience that had different tastes, but still could love this music and that it didn’t all have to look the same way. I could have never predicted where it went and what we’ve worked on since, but I think at the beginning we were very “of the moment.” It was the same time that Mumford & Sons and the Lumineers were on the top of the charts, and there was this kind of “authenticity” movement taking place.

Ed: I remember going to business meetings with Hollywood producers and one guy had a banjo in his office. And I was like, “You play the banjo?” And he’s like, “No, no, but I want to learn!” But you’re right. It was a moment. I’ve felt like an old fuddy duddy since I was 12 years old, but I was like, “Was I ahead of the curve here?”

Amy: Yeah, similarly, I’ve kind of always felt like an old soul; I never really felt like I truly fit in to my time, so I think there was something that really drew me in to that zeitgeist, but what amazed me was that once we really got into it, it was so much more complex and modern and exciting than I ever expected.

Editor’s Note: Look for the next part of this conversation with Ed Helms and Amy Reitnouer Jacobs in the weeks ahead.

LISTEN: Chris Castino & Chicken Wire Empire, “Kangaroo”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Chris Castino & Chicken Wire Empire
Hometown: St. Paul, Minnesota
Song: “Kangaroo”
Album: Fresh Pickles
Release Date: February 4, 2022

In Their Words: “My love for bluegrass began (in earnest) in 1993. As a guitarist in a jam band then, the mid ’90s were full of wonderful crossovers: Leftover Salmon was emerging, The Pizza Tapes were floating around, my favorite Tony Rice record …Sings Gordon Lightfoot came out, heck, even Phish was playing bluegrass. A lot of that music was lively, fun, and irreverent. And that’s what ‘Kangaroo’ (written in 1995) is as well. The tune is bouncy — fitting, I suppose. And little kids love it, which makes me happy!” — Chris Castino

chris castino · Kangaroo

Photo Credit: David Jackson

Inspired by Tony Rice, Punch Brothers Give ‘Em ‘Hell on Church Street’

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It was banjo player Noam Pikelny who heard first. On December 26, 2020, he messaged his Punch Brothers bandmate Chris Eldridge to tell him the news that Tony Rice, their bluegrass hero and Eldridge’s guitar mentor, had died on Christmas Day. “It just didn’t seem like it could be real,” says Eldridge. “It was a complete shock.”

The band felt more than just sadness at the legend’s passing; there was regret, too. Eldridge had thought about calling Rice to tell him what they had been working on — a reimagining of his landmark album, Church Street Blues — but had resisted the urge. “I thought, you know what, it’ll be cooler if I can just give him the music. ‘Hey, we made a thing for you…!’” The moment had never come. It was a heartbreaker.

Hell on Church Street, Punch Brothers’ sixth full album, was recorded in Nashville the month before Rice died. The 1983 solo record that inspired it is high canon among bluegrass lovers with its wistful songs and fiddle tunes repurposed as dazzling guitar solos, laid down in the period when Rice was opening up bluegrass music in multiple directions at once. Punch Brothers have remained faithful to the original tracklist, but equally to Rice’s boundary-pushing creativity.

What emerges is a kaleidoscopic mise en abyme — their versions of Rice’s versions of songs by Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Gordon Lightfoot, et al. — both reflecting bluegrass’s rich progressive history and refracting through their own endlessly inventive perspective. Those hoping for Chris Thile to indulge in some light Gordon Lightfoot karaoke, in other words, will be disappointed. A few have already cried sacrilege. Witness the internet backlash that accompanied the band’s release of the title track, which resets Norman Blake’s famous lyrics to an urgent 5/4 meter.

“You never want to admit you look at internet comments but some people were pissed,” says Eldridge. “I thought, oh boy, wait til these people hear ‘Gold Rush!’”

Even Pikelny admits he had a few early qualms about the technical ambition of that initial recording. “It took us a day and a half [in the studio] to play it with the effortlessness and ease it needed. But I’m glad we stuck with it, because if we were just going to play it like it’s already been played then really what’s the point? It becomes like a Civil War re-enactment.”

“And it’s just not true to the spirit of what Tony himself exemplified his entire career,” adds Eldridge. “This record was never a memorial — it was a living tribute created in the spirit of some of the deep lessons we learned from Tony: you have to be yourself. If you’re going to make music, play it the way only you can play it.”

Certainly only Punch Brothers would take bluegrass standard ‘Gold Rush’ and turn it into a piece of esoteric free-time improv, ethereally led by Gabe Witcher on fiddle. “For the record we all love that Bill Monroe tune,” says Eldridge, with a wry smile. “But I don’t even think I’ve played a fiddle tune that’s been that deconstructed and stripped of basic elements like pulse and beat before.” It is, laughs Pikelny, certainly not a version likely to be heard at a contest any time soon: “Contestant 11, you’ve been disqualified!”

Hell on Church Street is a record that might never have been made but for the pandemic. The band’s need to quarantine before they could assemble in the studio had restricted their time together and they were looking for a project that would satisfy them musically without turning their precious time in each other’s company into a songwriting bootcamp. “When we’re on the road together it’s camaraderie, it’s therapy,” says Pikelny. “We said, ‘What can we do that we can still enjoy being with each other?’”

Their minds turned back to a similar conversation they had had in Japan two and a half years previously. During their residency at the Blue Note in Tokyo, the band were asked to prepare a set of bluegrass standards for the 2019 Rockygrass festival (or, as Pikelny puts it: “Don’t bring all your original shit!”). With limited time to rehearse — or perhaps, given the allure of the Japanese capital, not a great deal of inclination — someone had suggested paying tribute to an artist or record they loved. The response was unanimous, almost instantaneous. It had to be Church Street Blues. “That record was so sacred to all of us,” says Eldridge.

The live set that followed at Rockygrass became one of the great wish-you-were-there experiences: a performance fizzing with spontaneity, in an atmosphere crackling with passion. It had been a busy festival for all of them — bassist Paul Kowert playing a set with Hawktail, Pikelny performing with Stuart Duncan — and when they took to the stage, they had been working on the material for just four hours. But the coupling of their collective virtuosity with one of bluegrass’s most beloved of song collections created instant electricity.

In Nashville last November they saw the chance to reignite that experience. “It’s not something we get to do much these days,” says Eldridge, “make music by the seat of our pants. And it’s one of the things that initially brought us together, all the way back the first time the five of us got in a room together. It’s something very special to us, and with this project we got to tap into that side of the band that tends to lie dormant for long stretches — to enjoy what it’s like when we don’t have super tight arrangements, when we just have to listen and be very reactive.”

It also allowed them to delve far more deeply into the songs on Church Street Blues than they ever have had before. “You get closer to the material when there’s a responsibility to make it your own,” says Pikelny. His own parents had loved Tom Paxton, for instance: Pikelny had been familiar with “Last Thing On My Mind” since he was a kid. “It had always seemed like just another heartbreak song — it was only when we started working on it I realised how profoundly sad it is.” At the start of their arrangement, Thile’s voice yearns out over the lone plucked notes of the fiddle, a sound like the ebbing of lost time.

But it’s “Streets of London” where Punch Brothers’ ability to mine the meaning of a song and transform it into sonic expression is most evident. Where Rice rendered the melancholy of Ralph McTell’s lyrics through his bell-like baritone, here the stories of abandoned, lonely lives are tossed about in broken melody and dismembered harmony. This is a sad song that’s been restrung with anxiety and tautened with menace, in a manner that detaches it from some nostalgic past and confronts you with the shamefulness of our world’s ongoing poverty and isolation.

What the band wishes, above all, is for the album to honour Rice’s own experimental and fearless musicianship. To most, the man himself had remained an enigma, withdrawn from the bluegrass world and even his peers to the end of his life, ever since the loss of his voice had stopped him performing. “He seemed like a king off in a castle,” says Pikelny. “I wish I’d once got to hear what Tony Rice’s guitar sounded like in a room, but he wasn’t accessible in the way of so many bluegrass heroes.”

But to Eldridge he had been more — a family friend and musical mentor, the man who used to crash on his parents’ sofa when his touring schedule brought him through DC. Eldridge can still recall the moment, aged 12, when Rice effectively changed the course of his own life forever. They were at the Graves Mountain bluegrass festival in Virginia, “and all of a sudden I was like, that’s a Zeus on stage and he’s throwing thunderbolts,” he remembers. “It wasn’t so much that his playing was so great, it was obviously really great that goes without saying, but the impression on me was that every note he’s playing is meaningful and is very direct. It was like they transcended being musical notes and took over your whole being.”

“Isn’t it true that the reason your nickname Critter got reinstated was due to Tony?” interjects Pikelny.

“It was entirely due to Tony! When I was in utero my parents referred to me as the critter, people called me it as a little boy but eventually they stopped and everyone called me Chris. Then when I went down to Merlefest with some of my college friends in 2001, we were hanging out with Tony, and the name came back with a vengeance! And here we are today…”

It’s a touching thought: that Rice’s legacy should have made so personal and lasting a mark on Eldridge, even as it continues to influence the musical world that he and Punch Brothers inhabit. “I would argue that he more than anybody ushered bluegrass into its modern form, in terms of the new standards of musicianship and song selection. He was probably more responsible for that than anybody.” Pikelny nods his head: “The way the music has expanded in all these different directions, Tony was involved in every single one of them, whether it was J.D. Crowe & the New South or David Grisman. It was like a superpower. He was such a team player, there was something about the way he played when he was around he just elevated everybody.”

They’ll never know exactly what their hero would have made of Hell on Church Street. Pikelny suspects there would be bits of it he may have even hated. But they hope that he would have recognised it as, above all, a love letter. “I hope he’d be proud,” says Eldridge. “Of what he encouraged us — and everybody else — to do.”

Photo Credit: Josh Goleman