Top 15 Video Chart #1 Donna Ulisse Volume 4 – Issue 9
When I Go All Bluegrass on You
Macie Dilling & Stephanie Cherryholmes
Preserving the Tradition of Bluegrass into the Future
Stand By Your Band Stand By Your Band The Women Behind Sideline, Weathering the Storm and Planning the Future By Stephen Pitalo When you’ve got a band that is used to a hard-driving sound, it’s hard to stay in neutral. During the pandemic, the members of Sideline have been finding ways to connect and to perform outside their usual comfort zone: Two of the members’ wives have emerged as leaders, strengthening their tight circle that includes band and family to meet all challenges that came their way.
With a band like Sideline, founders banjo player Steve Dilling, guitarist Skip Cherryholmes and bassist Jason Moore needed to reassess their options; wives Macie Dilling and Stephanie Cherryholmes took the reins on certain parts of the Sideline operation in what has become the largest worldwide pandemic of the past century. These men may have been in highly-awarded groups, with multiple Grand Ole Opry appearances and years of national and international touring, but it was the strength of their partners in life that kept things on the right track. We spoke with the ladies to see just how the team at Sideline is working, coping and
surviving.
Stephanie Cherryholmes: It’s been stressful for sure, but we
have been trying to do what we can to stay active on social media and keep the momentum going for the band. Skip has a home studio that he works in occasionally and he has been trying to work in there as much as possible. He is always trying to come up with ideas for the band to keep the band looking current. We try to do live videos as much as possible because it’s the best way to interact with the fans. Macie Dilling: The uncertainty has been hard. I hear Steve getting phone call after phone call of shows getting canceled. So, we have had to become creative in ways to make a living and keep the band going strong. Steve has kept busy teaching lessons. He usually must cut down his schedule in the summer but since he has been home this summer, he’s had a full teaching schedule. Stephanie: Skip and I both help each other with everything so it’s no different in the band. I help him with social media, keeping the website updated, merchandise, and staying organized. We try to sit down every Sunday night after Aiden goes to bed and come up with content ideas and any kind of marketing ideas to help the band. That wasn’t something we always had time for before the pandemic, so it’s been a nice thing to be able to do. In March and April, the only news was about shows canceling, so we had to get creative with ideas. It’s been a lot of fun to help him with it though. Macie: Steve was playing music when we started dating, so this is the only life we have known. We are coming up on 35 years of marriage, so we have done this for a long time. I try to help Steve as much as I can keeping up with correspondence and reminding him to return phone calls. Sometimes I play the role of his personal secretary. I enjoy getting to interact with the fans. Sideline fans are the best and I can’t believe the support they have given us during these uncertain times.
Stephanie: Since our son, Aiden, was born in 2017, Skip has been super busy. This is the most time Skip and Aiden have been able to spend together and it’s been so wonderful. It’s been nice to spend so much time together as a family. We have established a new “routine” together which is something we have never been able to do living off of a musicians’ schedule. Macie: It’s definitely been different I’ve enjoyed the time we have spent thing we have been able to do is our drinking coffee on the porch, which I
having Steve home, but together. My favorite morning time together usually never had time
to before when I had to work. We usually cook breakfast and have a leisurely, relaxed morning. Stephanie: Family life has changed a lot. Usually, I am used to doing my own thing, so at first, it was a big adjustment having Skip there all the time. It’s been so nice though. We have a new routine that we have really enjoyed. Macie: Well I have had to learn to share the remote control. Our dog has really enjoyed having him there. But seriously, it’s been so nice having him home. The slower-paced lifestyle has been great to be able to experience together.
Stephanie: One of the Sideline Girls started a meal train for the family and that has been so nice. I also started an Amazon Wish List for my grandparents with essentials they have been regularly using. My grandparents have been so overwhelmed with all of the love and support. They haven’t had time to get online very much, but I have been reading them all of the comments and messages they have received from the bluegrass community. They have shared so much with musicians and fans through the last 40 years, so I am so thankful they are receiving some love back during this time when they need it the most. We say it all the time, but the bluegrass community has the best people in it.
Macie: After Easter, Steve’s dad (Don) started getting sick. We found out on July 5 that he had terminal cancer. Kind of knocked the wind out of our sails, but again with Steve being home, we have been able to spend much more time with him than he would have if he were on tour. I have a small group of friends that I call my Sideline Girls, and they have all come together and supported us in so many ways. Prayers, gifts, food – you name it. They have been there 100% of the way. It was such a nice blessing. From there, the bluegrass community found out and they have rallied around us. It’s been overwhelming at how much support we have had. Don and Linda have cried daily about how much love they have received from the bluegrass community.
Raising the Summit Raising the Summit by Emerald Butler The 2019 IBMA Momentum Vocalist of the Year, AJ Lee is raising the bar, or it may be more fitting to say that she’s raising the “summit.” Still riding with the momentum from her band’s first album released last year, AJ Lee & Blue Summit are keeping music lovers entertained even throughout this year of quarantine and social distancing. As AJ puts it, the band is still “spreading the good word of Bluegrass.” From the very beginning, Aissa Joelle Lee was immersed in Bluegrass. Growing up around the San Francisco Bay Area, AJ started performing at the early age of 5. Her mother Betsy Riger-Lee, an experienced performer and singer herself, introduced AJ to Bluegrass and Classic Country music by the time she could hear.
“Growing up my mom was very inventive trying to teach me to play music. She always kept it interesting,” AJ shared. Betsy started AJ out on a ukulele. “My mom wanted to make it even easier for me, so she tuned a ukulele to a mandolin tuning since I was still so small.” Early on, AJ began performing in the Kids On Stage Bluegrass program and was later invited to join the Tuttle family in their family band. The Tuttles & AJ Lee must have been the firepit that fed the flames of the forward-moving torches. Though Molly Tuttle has made her waves in the industry, she’s not the only Tuttle that has kept playing. “I’ve known Sulli (Tuttle) since we were kids,” AJ reminisces
over Blue Summit’s beginnings. “I grew up with Sulli, but I met Jesse (Fichman) at the California Father’s Day festival, and Jan (pr. Yahn) Purat at the Brown Barn festival, and we ran into Chad (Bowen) when the band was based out of Santa Cruz.”
The band came up with their name while trying to get booked at a festival. “We were trying to send in some demos to the Kate Wolf music festival and we didn’t have a CD yet. We did the recordings at our old bass players house and we were like ‘what should we call the band?’ and we figured Blue Summit was fitting for the demo name because it was bluegrass on the summit in Santa Cruz, so it stuck, and then we just added AJ Lee on the front of it just a few years ago.” The band seems to have a wide range of musical influences, but AJ shared that it can be a challenge to pinpoint her biggest influences. “I’ve listened to all different genres of music. Like any other middle schooler, I loved Maroon 5, so that was some pop
influence. I know that Adam Levine listened to R&B early in his career because he had a rock band, and that’s how his band progressed, so I started to listen to that stuff too. I’ve kind of taken elements from all different artists and tried to blend them into one.�
That blending can be heard in the band’s album “Like I Used To.” The album is made entirely of a collection of AJ’s original songs. The sounds range from traditional bluegrass to blues, swing, country, Celtic, and even some pirate music. “When we started the album, we rented an Airbnb here in Felton, CA, and we had our friend Parker Miller record it,” AJ explained. “We just moved all the furniture out of the living room, piled it into the next room, and Parker set up all his stuff. He set up microphones everywhere; there were chords all over the floor. It was great because this Airbnb was in the Felton hills and you could just look out the windows and see
the trees and the mist. It was inspiring to record there. The second half we pretty much did the same process in my house, and we did a marathon of a few days just recording that way. It was pretty fun. We stayed up really late at night just messing around with most of the tunes.” AJ and the boys from Blue Summit have been full-time musicians for a couple of years now, and most of them live together in a home in the Bay Area. According to AJ, the biggest argument they get into is over who is supposed to take out the trash. Though many festivals and shows have been postponed or canceled this year, AJ and the band have been staying busy with live streams and jamming. AJ did share that they are working towards recording another album, but a release date has not been confirmed. Though the band has had a few live performances, show dates are currently ever-changing, but fans can follow the band on their Facebook page. AJ did share that she hopes folks “stay safe, stay healthy, and don’t forget to play some music.” https://youtu.be/MfPww0t8fo8
As the Crowe Flies As the Crowe Flies The Crowe Brothers Band Keeps the Family Legacy Alive By Stephen Pitalo If I were to say we were interviewing two brothers with a long history in a “Crowe� band, that would need some clarifying. In the rock and roll dominion, multi-platinum artists The Black Crowes have the Robinson Brothers as their familial duo in arms; in the bluegrass world, The Crowe Brothers Band charted their course with a legacy that traces back to their father, bluegrass legend Junior Crowe.
Growing up in Clayton, Georgia, Josh, and Wayne began playing music as boys with their dad, according to Josh. “Growing up in the household with Dad meant that music was all we ever knew,” Josh said. “We grew up with music being the structure of everything because, by the time I was three years old, dad and his band had already made it to the Grand Ole Opry. That gave us our drive and determination to strive always to be the best we could possibly be at anything we did in the music business. Daddy became something of a regional celebrity overnight after playing the Opry and growing up listening to his bands kept us interested in the music all up through the years until we started playing alongside him.” “My heroes and biggest influences on my music and in my career are the Louvin Brothers, Jim and Jesse, and the Wilburn
Brothers, just to name a few,” Josh said. “The brother duets had some of the most significant influence in our career, but my dad has, and always will be the greatest and most important influence I’ve had in music and in general.” “The first time I played music with Daddy on stage was in our hometown of Clayton, Georgia at the grand opening of Belk,” Josh recalled. “We made eleven dollars apiece. I was eleven years old at the time, so that would have made it about 1968. We played with dad and in other local bands all through our teenage years until meeting Raymond Fairchild.”
Teaming up with Fairchild in 1975, the brothers worked the bluegrass festival circuit and traveled the country with him full-time for the next 15 years, and moved to Maggie Valley, NC. “We met Raymond at a small bluegrass festival in Walhalla, South Carolina where he was performing,” Josh said. “I played a couple of tunes with Raymond in a backstage jam session and
he hired me as his guitar player on the spot. Soon after that, I introduced him to Wayne and that was the start of Raymond Fairchild and the Crowe Brothers. Josh said that his memories of that time help him articulate an answer to an oft-posed question: what’s the best and worst thing about being in a band with your brother? “The best part of being in a band with my brother is that we have sung and played together all our lives,” Josh explained, “so it wasn’t as hard to take it to the next level when we wanted to go out on the road and do it professionally. The worst part is that we were brothers (laughing) and we have fussed and argued our fair share through the years, but when it comes down to it, even though I’m the younger brother, I’ve always stepped in to handle the business end of things.” Josh likes to keep the music and fun at the maximum and keep the tensions and turmoil to a minimum. “Wayne took time off in 1990 because he sought more time with his family, and he wanted to spend less time on the road. He still continued to work with us at Raymond’s Maggie Valley Opry House back in Maggie Valley, North Carolina. I formed the Josh Crowe band when Wayne left. During that time, I contacted David Mclaughlin to fill in on some upcoming shows I had and that’s when the idea started that led to Crowe and McLaughlin.”
“The upside of performing with Crowe and Mclaughlin was that we were delving into other genres and subgenres outside of the more traditional bluegrass music of Raymond Fairchild and the Crowe Brothers and the Johnson Mountain Boys. The downside of it is that we wish we had gotten more of the Crowe and Mclaughlin sound out than what we did. The Josh Crowe Band was formed around the music and sound of the Crowe Brothers, so it carried a lot of similarities to working as a brother duo.” In 2005, Josh and Wayne began touring once again as the Crowe Brothers, reuniting their brother harmonies. Josh is also an accomplished songwriter and has written many of the songs that they perform, including “The Winds Are Blowing in Maggie Valley,” “I Knew It Wasn’t You (Telephone Song), “Broken Heart Bound,” “Take Me By The Hand,” “Million for a Broken Heart,” and “Grandma’s Little Boardside Cabin.” Along the way, The SPBGMA Association
(Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America) awarded them Best Bluegrass Rhythm Guitar and Best Instrumental Band, and the band gained a nomination from IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) for Emerging Artist of the Year. https://youtu.be/I_t7snIAoBs Chart hits are no stranger to the band as well; in 2009, their recording of “Cindy Mae” (written by Cody Shuler), went number one on several bluegrass charts. Then in 2011, “He Could Pick the Hound” (penned by Steve Watts), also reached the number one slot, although Josh holds another song more nearly and dearly than the charted tunes. “I would have to say that ‘The Winds are Blowing in Maggie Valley’ is my favorite song of the Crowe Brothers because it has done the most for us throughout our career,” Josh noted. “I wrote the song sometime along 1982 and recorded it in 1985, and it has since become one of our most recognized and requested songs.” Since the pandemic, Josh and Wayne have been working on new material for their record company 615 Hideaway Records in Nashville, Tennessee, and trying to release a new single every few months for radio play. 615 Hideaway Records also works on producing new video content to go with their latest music upon its release. Josh wanted to give a big shout-out to all the fans and supporters. “The Crowe Brothers would like to say a big thank you to all of our fans and supporters throughout the world who have made our music possible for going-on forty-six years,” Josh said.
Lynn Young: Lessons in Fun and Fellowship Lynn Young: Lessons in Fun and Fellowship by Kara Martinez Bachman According to poet W.B. Yeats, “Education is not the filling of a pot, but the lighting of a fire.” What’s true of poetry is even more so of music. Yes, every good teacher instills knowledge, but every GREAT teacher inspires both through example and by assuring lessons aren’t stiff and functional but are actually fun and allow for experimentation and passion. It sounds as if musician and educator Lynn Young does exactly that. Whether he’s teaching the general concepts of old time fiddle jam music, showing somebody a claw-hammer style technique on a banjo, or getting a beginner started on guitar or mandolin, he’s set his mind to inspiring a new generation of young performers. He didn’t start out teaching; he actually started out as a forest ranger. While working in Public Affairs for the Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service, he put together a group of fellow musicians to perform at a big celebration marking the 50th anniversary of Smokey the Bear. That was back in 1994, and Young said “the Chief of the Forest Service asked if we could play for events.” Then came 16 years of performing with the group on behalf of the U.S. Forest Service. Called The Fiddlin’ Foresters, Young said his group traveled the country with educational programs consisting of music about topics such as “fire prevention,
invasive species, the importance of water, and the importance of public lands.”
“For 16 years, we traveled all around the country,” Young reminisced, about the now-defunct band. They’d appear at National Forest celebrations. They performed at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. They’ve played at venues ranging from The Kennedy Center to the Opryland Hotel. After he retired, Young wasn’t done with music and education. He soon became one of the instructors for banjo player Pete Wernick, of bluegrass band Hot Rize. “After I retired, Pete Wernick called and asked if I would be his instructor,” Young explained. The number of students of all types has multiplied over the years. Sometimes it will be a notable musician, such as Wernick. Sometimes, it will be a child receiving his or her
first lessons in old time fiddle music. Young estimated he’s taught over 140 students since 2008. Right now, he said his schedule is full; he currently instructs about 22 students. He also teaches at the Big Horn Bluegrass Camp, located in Buffalo, Wyoming. Young said he is “real proud” that today, eight of the ten instructors at the camp “were all students of mine.” This teacher believes instilling a love of music isn’t about teaching to read notes and understand theory; it’s about lighting that fire W.B. Yeats described. He believes he’s a popular instructor because he goes straight to “teaching people how to play” immediately.
https://youtu.be/IAWs8K0Mcng “We do what’s most fun first,” he said, “and start having fun from the very first lesson.” Then, he essentially aims to make
himself obsolete. As any good teacher should do. “I don’t so much teach them how to play, I teach them how to teach themselves how to play. In other words, the ‘p’ word…practice.” “My personal interest is old time fiddle jam music,” Young said. Because of this, he was instrumental in 2006 in helping start a weekly jam at the Occidental Hotel in Buffalo. Music plays an important role in this teacher’s life, and he believes it should play a role in everyone’s life. He sees value in it. “It’s like my ministry,” he said. people to play music. Bluegrass is an eight-, nine- or 10-year-old…or they don’t sit alone to play, like
“I think it’s important for a music that’s simple, that a 78-year-old…can play. And at a piano.”
“It’s cool for kids to play music,” he added. “And it’s fun. It’s fun and fellowship.”
The Melancholy Space of Peter Rowan The Melancholy Space of Peter Rowan by Kara Martinez Bachman Grammy Award-winning bluegrass performer Peter Rowan is learning and changing due to the social distancing of Covid-19. The lessons are spiritual, putting him better in touch with a contemplative state that encourages meaningful work. He’s turning lemons into lemonade, toying with deeper ideas and more nuanced, gentler methods for making his guitar sing. Rowan’s writing and performance chops stretch as far back as five decades and supply as solid a grounding as exists anywhere in bluegrass. Back in the early 1960s, he performed with Bill Monroe, eventually becoming lead singer and guitarist for the legend’s Bluegrass Boys. He cites dudes such as Carter and Ralph Stanley as his early influences (he even wrote an album about them). He was once in a band with the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia, a bluegrass outfit called Old & In the Way. As a songwriter, he’s penned hit songs such as the marijuana-infused-classic recording, “Panama Red.” That’s just the tip of the iceberg. With so much under his belt, you’d think by now, Rowan would have experienced just about everything. There’s one certainty in life, though: There’s always a new curveball. For Rowan, the recent curveball is Covid-19.
“Since I play a lot of bluegrass, acoustic guitar has a lot of beautiful qualities about it,” he explained. “Exploring it during this new time has opened a new door.” He’s noticed his playing is a little different. “I’ve been playing lighter and lighter these days since there’s no need to project.”
He said more “space” is appearing in his music, and that “honestly, I’ve been playing more with my fingers now than with a flatpick.” He said his songwriting has evolved since the social distancing and lockdowns began. Just one change is that when he’s plugged-in, he’s found himself writing things that are “soaked in reverb and echo.” He’s been pickin’ differently. Strummin’ differently. Playing around with different ideas and ways of making music that are more nuanced and contemplative. There’s something to the isolation from audiences that has done this to many musicians, and Rowan is not at all immune. He’s acutely aware of the change both in the world and in himself. “As soon as this happened, I started what kind of bluegrass record I would he explained, of upcoming work for with previously. He’d been scheduled
to instinctively rethink make for Rebel Records,” the label he’s recorded to go into the studio in
April and was to include some jamming with musicians such as Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings. The virus put it on hold. Rowan said the delay has allowed him to think more about what he’ll do. He realized this record “really has to have some meaning.” “Mortality is the theme that is emerging more,” he said, hinting at what occupies his mind at the present.
Rowan seems to have a comprehensive view of life that’s perhaps informed by his interest in Buddhist ideas. When he speaks of both the wider world and of music, you can sense he sees the interconnectedness of things. It’s there even when he talks about his guitar: “Wood is still alive, it’s not dead…you’re in touch with the natural world through an instrument.” Even though the isolation has given him new experiences as a musician, he’s not overlooking other growth opportunities that arrived with the social distancing. It’s forcing him to explore technology that helps reach audiences in new ways.
“It’s such a weird time. There’s just no gigs at all unless you play online,” he said. He’s done that recently, connecting his high-quality recording mics to the internet to participate in a video with three other musicians, each performing their parts from the safety of their homes. He liked doing it and might do another soon. He said it feels a little like making short films: “I get a little tickle of creativity from it.” On that topic of short films, Rowan has been enjoying watching films about people stuck at home. He relates to them. “I’ve been watching some socially-distant films, and they’re melancholy,” he said. “I do feel that melancholy myself.”
https://youtu.be/WW0lQ0n-khU
A Gold Tone in Bluegrass Adding “Gold Tone” to “Bluegrass” by Susan Marquez In Brevard County, Florida, not far from the Kennedy Space Center, a couple of troubadours entertained folks along Florida’s east coast throughout the 1970s. Wayne and Robin Rogers were active folk musicians, who became entrepreneurs with the opening of Strings N’ Things Music Center in Titusville, Florida in 1978. The business was the brainchild of Wayne, who went with Robin to a local music store after she had an accident with her guitar. He looked around the store, noticing it was mostly band instruments and realized they had no idea how to fix a stringed instrument. He saw a need and he created a business to fill it. Learning as they went, the couple made a few mistakes, but they learned from them and continued to grow. Little did the couple know that they would build a multi-million-dollar music instrument manufacturing company. They ran the business during the week and played at the local Best Western on the weekends, learning to juggle business with raising two daughters. Wayne, in addition to being a musician, is also an innovator. People from all over brought instruments to the store for him to repair in a small shed behind their home. His first design was the Gold Tone banjo – the original TB-100 Travel Banjo, often called “The Traveler,” due to its shorter sized neck and smaller sized body. The banjo was sold via mail order. A positive review of the instrument in the Banjo Newsletter resulted in huge demand for the banjo, and it is still a bestseller to this day.
Gold Tone Banjos became the Gold Tone Music Group in 1993, a supplier of fine instruments to musicians around the country.
Amanda Rogers, the daughter of Wayne and Robin, grew up in the business. “I’ve done a little of everything here.” She currently serves as Gold Tone’s operations manager, overseeing the company’s finances and coordinating with distributors. Amanda explains that the company has always sold directly to dealers, but the COVID-19 crisis has created changes and challenges. “We are now selling directly to consumers,” she says. “Folks are now able to order instruments directly from our website.” The headliner is the company’s namesake, the Gold Tone line of products. Banjos are made of maple from the United States and Canada, rosewood and ebony from Africa and Indonesia, and blackwood from Australia. Wayne’s innovations often referred to as “folkternative” instruments, are often a mash-up of different instruments in one. The banjitar features six strings, and the cello banjo, which Amanda says is a redesigned version of an instrument that was popular in the 1920s and the Little Gem banjo ukuleles, featuring a composite see-through plastic rim, winner of the “Best in Show” award at
the Summer National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) conference in 2018. Gold Tone instruments are high quality, yet affordable, ideal for beginners and hobbyists to professionals, and for all genres of music, including bluegrass, folk, pop, and rock. Many professional musicians choose Gold Tone, including Kid Rock, Bruce Springsteen, and Bela Fleck. Mumford and Sons used all Gold Tone instruments on their first album. In addition to selling the Gold Tone line of products, Gold Tone Music Group is the sole distributor in the United States Jose’ Ramirez guitars. The famous guitars have a 135-yearhistory of excellence. Many seasoned guitarists choose Ramirez’s handcrafted guitars, including Eric Clapton, Andres’ Segovia, Manuel Barreuco, Carlos Santana, and George Harrison. “We are proud to distribute Jose’ Ramirez guitars,” says Amanda. “They fit in well with the entire Gold Tone Music Group.” The company also sells Earth Tone drumheads, Wind Song advanced acoustic and acoustic-electric guitars. “We also sell the Zero Glide Nut System, something my dad came up with,” says Amanda. The system is designed to fit into the stock nut of any fretted instrument. Loop2Learn is the app owned by Gold Tone that is touted as the next step in home learning. The app allows someone to loop a part of any video, on YouTube or their device, giving them the ability to watch it over and over again to learn from it. Videos can be slowed up to 60% to help master difficult passages. The mom-and-pop business mentality is still present at Gold Tone, despite the company’s amazing growth. Both Wayne and Robin are still involved with the business, and Wayne is still tinkering and innovating, designing the next generation of
instruments.
Why Grain Thief is Stealing the Show! Why Grain Thief is Stealing the Show! by Susan Marquez The formation of a band is sometimes very exact, and other times is quite organic. Such is the case with Grain Thief, a five-piece string band based in Boston, Massachusetts. At the band’s core is Patrick Mulroy (guitar/vocals). Grain Thief was the man he used for his solo project from 2011 to 2014 when he toured the East Coast after recording two EPs and moving back to Boston from Washington, DC. While living in Washington, Mulroy played in a heavy metal jam band called Thundertyts. In Boston, he continued to use the name Grain Thief, bringing in a revolving group of musicians, including drummers, guitarists, and bass players. Tom Farrell joined the band early on. Mulroy and Farrell met in 2008. He became a regular, playing bass guitar while Mulroy played his newly purchased blonde TelecasterŽ. Zach Meyer and Alex Barstow were reluctant members at first. Meyer was a saxophonist and was prodded to join the band on mandolin. Barstow was a trained classical violinist and had also played drums in a punk band. Meyer convinced him to jam on some old-time tunes. Meyer grew up in the old-time fiddle community in Washington State. Rounding out the band is Mike Harmon, who is a recording engineer. He plays bass and adds a third vocal harmony to the band.
The band has been together in its current formation for five years. “Playing in this band has been like an act of discovery,” laughs Barstow. Mulroy agrees. “We learn from each other all the time. We learn about music theory and to do that, you have to know what you’re doing. These guys certainly know what they are doing. There are dynamics in a group that you can’t get from academia.” Grain Thief’s first EP, Animal, was recorded and released in 2015. That record showcases the band’s folk, bluegrass, and old-time music. “It’s very rootsy, with country and bluegrass sound with a modern lyrical content,” says Mulroy, who describes Grain Thief as not a bluegrass band, but a “bluegrass music band.”
The follow-up to their first EP was Stardust Lounge. “That one was somewhat of a departure,” says Mulroy, who showed his songwriting skills on most of the songs. The project began in April 2016 but took a year and a half to complete. The album is filled with songs of loss and regret, and the struggles of the everyday working man, but with a twist. The arrangements in Stardust Lounge are a departure from Animal, keeping their interpretation of Americana music open-ended. Named after a cheap hotel in Lake Tahoe, the album captures the band’s take on Americana, while still honoring their New England roots. The band has traveled around the Northeast, including Western Massachusetts,
Vermont,
New
Hampshire,
New
York,
and
Connecticut. They’ve played many festivals, including Grey Fox Bluegrass, Ossipee Valley Music Festival, Podunk Bluegrass, and Thomas Point – 95 dates in all last year. When interviewed at the Folk Alliance Festival in New Orleans in January, the guys were looking forward to a busy 2020 festival season, as they prepared to release new music. That has changed, of course, due to the COVID19 pandemic, however, the new music was still released. A new single was released in late January. Pedal Down was a preview to the LP, Gasoline, the album the group was working on in March. The peppy song was recorded and filmed in an attic in Brighton, Massachusetts. The album, released in July, was recorded over two weekends at an Airbnb. “The highlight for me was getting into a space where we were isolated from the rest of the world,” says Barstow. The album was cut with all five standing in a circle. “I like that we did away with all the extra additives that typically goes into recording an album,” says Farrell. “It was just us and Dan Bui (Twisted Pine), who engineered the album. One unusual aspect of the album is the addition of a Cajun accordion, played by Meyer. “I have been wanting to play accordion on one of our albums, and they kept telling me no,” he says. “But I kept practicing and they finally told me yes!” https://youtu.be/zzX6qMR54Gk Locals in the Somerville, Massachusetts area have enjoyed hearing the band live each Wednesday at the Burren pub. “We began a residency there in 2017 to entertain the Wednesday crowds,” Mulroy says. “That has lasted longer than we ever expected.” The band members have other jobs besides the work they do in Grain Thief. Mulroy is a contractor, Harmon owns a recording studio, Meyer is a mechanical engineer and Barstow is a
software engineer.
Murder, Music, and Love for America: The Sammy Sadler Story Murder, Music, and Love for America: The Sammy Sadler Story by Kara Martinez Bachman It seems country artist Sammy Sadler loved music before he could even walk. Before he chose country over baseball. Before he was fired upon while on Nashville’s Music Row, taking a bullet that almost ended him. “My parents told me that at a young age, I would pull myself up at the stereo and try to sing,” Sadler reminisced. “I loved Elvis, and as I got older, in middle school and high school, I fell in love with country.” He also played baseball, and eventually came to the point where he had to choose a career path, deciding between his love for the ball game and his love for country music.
“I chose music,” Sadler said. It wasn’t too long before he was getting noticed. Sadler — who would eventually record three #1 independent singles, have four “Top 15” records on the Texas Music Chart, and log three Billboard country singles (recorded with John Anderson and Steve Wariner) — came to a career turning point in 1989 when he suffered a near-life-threatening gunshot wound. It happened after he’d already released several charting singles and was about to drop his first full album on Evergreen Records. It seems nobody was after him; they were
after the person he walked with on Music Row. The target of the assassination was Kevin Hughes, Cash Box magazine chart manager. The notable killing would become known as the “Murder on Music Row,” and the details surrounding it were all about corruption and a payola scandal that would bring down the music industry magazine. There is so much intrigue about that day that Sadler even authored a book about it, titled “Hit with a Bullet: A True Story of Corruption, Greed, and the Real Murder on Music Row.” “It took them 14 years to catch the man that actually pulled the trigger,” Sadler said. It was an ordeal. A little too close to the assassin’s target, he’d been hit as well, and the bullet severed the main artery in his arm. “I was bleeding to death, and I didn’t know it.” Repairing the injury was extensive. Before it was all done, some of the finest doctors had to get involved, including a surgeon Sadler described as “the second-best neurosurgeon in the United States.” The first operation took 18 hours. The second took 13. The rehabilitation — getting back to full functionality again — took two full years. “I was very blessed,” he said. “God was watching over me. I’m thankful to still be here.”
It was a real blow, temporarily sidelining a blossoming career that at the time of the shooting, had been truly taking off. Sadler is quick to make clear, however, that he never really “went away.” He saw it as a career setback that could be overcome. Just as that bullet was a setback for his body and not a fatal blow, it wasn’t fatal to his career, either. He kept on going as a professional musician. He kept on going. “Once we got those two years behind us, I went back on the road,” he said. It was an unwavering commitment to his passion for country. On that very same country. Released first single from contain a mix of classic country.
topic…country…his latest single is about OUR just over a month ago, “In America” is the an upcoming 10-track CD that’s expected to up-tempo numbers and ballads that are pure
“This song, ‘In America’, it’s a timeless song,” he said. “It’s something everybody needs to listen to.” He said the patriotic number was written by some friends of his and he connected to it. “This song was written many, many years ago,” Sadler said. “When I first heard this song, I knew it was a special piece of material.” https://youtu.be/v5_LASEMZZs It’s still early, but Sadler hopes the release of this song will make waves on the charts. He said the video has been getting some views, a sure sign his fans are pleased and the song is connecting to listeners during these times that are both stressful and uncertain for both our country and for the world beyond. “It’s been out four or five weeks,” Sadler said. “We’re excited about the record being out there, and hope it’ll be hitting the charts soon.” “We’re planning to release my [full] album in October, and probably shooting a video in September for the next single,” Sadler said, of upcoming plans. Just as all musicians have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, Sadler has not been able to tour as he’d like. He hopes things get back to normal soon. “It’s a shame that we’re in the situation that we’re in,” he said, of Covid-19 and the politics and policies stemming from it. “There’s a lot of lives that it’s changed.” Sadler said it’s even more important now that people unite as Americans. In a brief written comment that accompanies one of his YouTube videos, he gave his thoughts on the song in a nutshell.
“We may argue and bicker,” he wrote, “but there are things we all have in common; the freedoms we share and American traditions that we hold dear are what make our country the beacon of hope throughout the world.”
Tomorrow Never Knows Tomorrow Never Knows Turkeyfoot Delivers The Promise of Tomorrow in an Uncertain Time By Stephen Pitalo With the release of their debut full-length album The Promise of Tomorrow, Colorado-based Turkeyfoot hopes to take their sound to the masses. Turkeyfoot is a nickname for the big bluestem grass that grows across much of the Great Plains, where lead singer-songwriter Jordan Brandenburg grew up. With Brandenburg on mandolin, Michael Rudolph on bass, Bridger Dunnagan on fiddle, Dave Pailet on guitar and dobro, and Alex Koukov on banjo, the band knows that setting themselves apart from the regular bluegrass acts is a hard road, but The Promise of Tomorrow has them off and running. The five members were friends first, and after playing around one condenser mic at a weekly bluegrass jam in Denver, the band was soon playing across the West. “Friends of our band, Meadow Mountain, used to host a weekly single mic jam at Cerebral Brewing in Denver,” explained Brandenburg. “This is where most of us met and is where the current lineup of Turkeyfoot was solidified. Meadow Mountain decided to pass on this jam and Turkeyfoot has been hosting it for over two and a half years now.” Each member draws from his own experiences in his approach to bluegrass. “I had started listening to bluegrass on my own around age 17,” Brandenburg said, “and shortly thereafter I met Matt
Menefee [of Cadillac Sky and now the Golden Age] and he started taking me with him to jams in East Texas. I really caught the bug in terms of listening to bluegrass at that time but was only dabbling with the mandolin. I stopped playing music after college but got back into it full force when I moved to Denver and met everyone in the scene here.” “I had some friends who were into bluegrass in high school,” said Koukov, “and one of them convinced me to buy a one-day ticket to Rockygrass back then. My mind was blown by the community and the sheer amount of joy everybody seemed to be experiencing there! I started taking banjo lessons shortly after.”
“I started playing bluegrass when I started to see the social group around it in Bozeman, Montana,” said Dunnagan. “I had played violin before that, but really got into fiddle styles when I realized that allowed me to meet and play with all sorts of people.” “I started because my mom and stepdad wanted a bass player for their old-time duo,” said Rudolph. “As a teenager, my biggest influences were electric in classic rock. I started to identify more with bluegrass in college.”
“I started listening to bluegrass through Yonder Mountain String Band and other jam grass groups like String Cheese Incident when I was in early high school,” admitted Pailet. “I attempted to play some then, but only really got more into it in college.” In 2018, after coming up just short of first place at the RockyGrass Band Competition, the band kept giving it a go with new audiences around the country. The new album’s songs were recorded in just four days at Vermillion Studios with engineer Eric Wiggs. Lacking a real label to back their effort, a
Kickstarter campaign pulled the funding together, with the band offering perks such as dinner cooked by banjo player Koukov and fly-fishing trips with Brandenburg and Dunnagan. “We got a ton of support from this community,” Brandenburg said. “For me, it’s been cool to see that your friends are excited about the things that you’re doing.” While Promise of Tomorrow is still a decidedly bluegrass record with straightforward instrumentals such as “Snaggletooth Stomp” and “Westwater”, other moments harken more to an old country or Americana sound by adding pedal steel to the mix. On “Another Painful Lesson Learned”, the band tackles the downfall of a romantic relationship. “It’s about a realization of values,” Brandenburg rationalizes. “And maybe the things I’ve been moving towards aren’t the things that are really going to allow me to be the person I want to be. We’re all just growing up and figuring it out.
“All songwriting is autobiographical in a way,” Brandenburg continued, “and for me, timing-wise, it’s been interesting to
see that some of these songs are newly relevant as we’ve been going through layoffs and anxiety due to coronavirus. We are thinking, what does tomorrow hold? But still holding onto the hope that tomorrow might be a better day.” Although the nicely produced collection has no overall theme, Brandenburg said the title track was a tribute to his family. “There was really no intended theme for the album, although when we completed it, it seemed to all mesh pretty well together. But the song ‘The Promise grandparents’ move from graduates to go and start a first in Colorado and California.”
of Tomorrow’ was inspired by my Oklahoma as young high school new life for themselves out West, Wyoming and then eventually
Those struggles connected with Brandenberg, which he mined to produce several tunes on the new album. “My grandma came to live with us when I was around seven,” he said, “and so I grew up hearing all these stories of what it was like to grow up during the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma, and that’s the main theme of the title track.” https://youtu.be/u5PsrrILeTA EACH MEMBER’S BIG INFLUENCES: Alex: Ron Block, Britney Spears Jordan: Sam Bush, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Tim O, David Grisman, IIIrd Tyme Out Bridger: Miles Davis, Stuart Duncan, Bruce Molsky. Michael: Bass influences are Barry Bales, Alan Bartram, Mike Bub, Edgar Meyer, Bluegrass Album Band, Blue Highway, and currently Mike Twelve.
Dave: Jerry Douglas, Rob Ickes, Bryan Sutton
Joy: the Goal Prairie Wildfire Joy: the Wildfire
Goal
Igniting
Igniting
Prairie
by Kara Martinez Bachman As the saying goes, “you gotta start somewhere.” When it comes to Prairie Wildfire, they’ve started out somewhere pretty darn good. These four young gals with a penchant for folk, country, and bluegrass met when they were just kids at a bluegrass camp in their hometown of Buffalo, Wyoming. That was five years ago. Today, they’re making a name for themselves locally and even regionally, with regular gigs and a growing following of people who have now heard their name. This group makes it clear that there are still young people who love old things. When it comes to bluegrass, these young ladies are embracing the “old” and loving every bit of it.
They’ve been jammin’ as Prairie Wildfire for about five years now, and their main stomping grounds is the historic Occidental Hotel there in Buffalo. Upright bass player Morgan Blaney loves the venue that embraces her favorite genre. “It’s a community of people who love music, whether they like to play or like to listen,” Blaney said. “The building itself is absolutely beautiful, it was built in the mid-to-late 1800s.”
The girls have gigged in Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, and other nearby states, and they’ve already had some cool experiences because of their passion for music. “We’ve met so many great musicians,” Blaney said. “We actually met Dale Ann Bradley and got to perform a few songs with her. That was amazing. The thing that we love about bluegrass is being able to play with other people, regardless of what level you’re at.” She said it’s exactly that sense of respect for all musicians, of any age or level — and a pervasive humility — that draws her to this style of music.
“The main reason I love bluegrass music is people don’t really get a big head when they’re successful in bluegrass,” she explained. Blaney –a music major at the University of Northern Colorado — started as a child learning classical piano. She said she was “alright at it,” but it didn’t grab her the way the upright bass captured her when she started with the instrument at about age 10 or 11. “Different instruments click with different people,” Blaney said. “I picked it up and just liked how it felt for me. I picked one up and it clicked.” Three of the members of Prairie Wildfire met at a bluegrass music camp. The lineup for years included Blaney, plus guitarist Holly Qualm and mandolin player Sage Palser. The roster was expanded when banjo player Tessa Taylor was just recently added to the lineup. Blaney said just as it is with most performers, some of their previously scheduled gigs have been canceled due to the Coronavirus pandemic. They’re keeping busy, though, close to home. “We were extremely lucky in that we have the Occidental, and I get to play there four times a week,” she said. Unlike many musicians, the girls aren’t spending time isolated in the studio. Although Prairie Wildfire has recorded music before, including an album that offered some classics plus six originals they’d written, another recording isn’t on the table at this time. https://youtu.be/L3ZvfbkmQcE
“Recording is a big commitment, and it’s become more and more expensive,” Blaney said. “We’re mostly focused on playing live.” A few of the band members are also more focused on college studies than on growing the band. The goal here, according to Blaney, isn’t necessarily to become a household name or even to have a full-time career in the music business. The goal is simpler, and perhaps much more satisfying. “We just got into it for the joy of playing together,” Blaney admitted. And that says it all.
Pick up a CD at www.prairiewildfireband.com
Bluegrass Stories with The Prickley Pearables Bluegrass Stories with The Prickly Pearables by Shelby C. Berry As today’s performers grow into tomorrow’s legends, songwriting has become essential to their success, and 12year-old Cabe Rieck and 15-year-old Holt Rieck take this seriously. Although they call Santa Rosa Beach, Florida home, the brothers spent most of their lives in New Mexico, where they were quite obsessed with cacti. Cabe even had a cactus garden. This obsession led to The Prickly Pearables, the name of their upbeat, Newgrass Americana band. “We write a lot of fun and storytelling songs,” said Cabe. “Those tend to be longer than most songs, with long verses or lots of verses. The stories in our songs are great for entertaining, to make people laugh, and to make a moral point.” Focusing on Americana original songs, the Rieck brothers, Cabe on the mandolin and Holt on the guitar, conjure up a musical melting pot stirred by folk, jazz, blues, and, of course, bluegrass. “We really try to do all original songs with a splash of old, traditional bluegrass songs as well,” said Holt. “We write all sorts of different genres – bluegrass, Americana, jazz, Kalypso, blues, rock, pop, and some gypsy jazz. It’s all about what is eclectic and storytelling. We just write whatever type of music tells the story best!”
At age 7, Holt was learning to play jazz and ragtime music on the piano. A few years later, Cabe picked up the acoustic guitar, and Holt followed shortly after. “I later picked up the mandolin at a bluegrass festival after we started playing stringed instruments. We wrote some songs together and separately after that, and we came together and wrote Cross Country Road Trip about three years ago,” said Cabe. Their first recorded songs were Christmas gifts to their grandparents, and each were later nominated for the kids’ award division of the New Mexico Music Awards. “At this point, we haven’t released any recorded music since that original recording for our grandparents,” said Holt. “We have started doing some home recordings since the beginning of COVID, and we are getting ready to release those. We hope to release an album by next year!”
Influenced primarily by their music teachers Lisa Carmna, Taylor Sims, and Robert Bruen, the Prickly Pearables Band surround themselves with other young musicians. “We went to see a bluegrass performance in Pensacola, Florida, and afterward, they have jam sessions where we were invited to join. The Koch family introduced us to Tomorrow’s Bluegrass Stars, and we later learned that we had other friends who were a part of TBS as well!” said Holt. Starting TBS with the online musical festival this spring, The Prickly Pearables Band values the time TBS provides to expose
them to other musicians their age.
“The boys love making connections through Tomorrow’s Bluegrass Stars and making friends that have shared passions,” said April, the Rieck mom. “A really big thing that has helped us advance as musicians is the people that helped to teach us and help us,” said Holt. “We wouldn’t be where we are today without those people and lots of others who have mentored us along the way.”
https://youtu.be/zQ2lqG-yNJY Tomorrow’s Bluegrass Stars Purpose and Mission To establish a group that supports and encourages young bluegrass musicians through embracing them, their families and their bands and promoting opportunities for these musicians within the bluegrass community through exposure, interaction, education, showcasing talent, mentoring, networking, resources, connections and events. To
experience
a
bluegrass
environment
where
the
young
musicians
are
discovered and valued for their musical abilities, investment in bluegrass music and most especially for being the future of bluegrass music through
receiving opportunities and the legacy of bluegrass music to share with the current generation and to pass on to future generations.
Fan Photos – September 2020 issue
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