January 2022
Tony Rice Inducted; North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
By Edward Tutwiler
In late October 2021 at the historic Gem Theater in Kannapolis, NC, officials inducted David Anthony Rice as the 2021 member of the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. Of course this was just one of many awards that have been bestowed to Tony Rice during his illustrious career. A career that saw him as an influential acoustic guitar player in bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, new-grass and acoustic jazz and oft-times lead vocalist with many highly visible bluegrass musical groups. Among those many accolades are included: a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental in 1983; IBMA Instrumental Performer of the Year for Guitar – 1990, 1991, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2007; IBMA Instrumental Group of the Year,
The Tony Rice Unit, – 1991, 1995; IBMA Instrumental Group of the Year, Bluegrass Album Band, – 1990; IBMA Instrumental Album of the Year, Bluegrass Instrumentals, Volume 6 (Rounder); and Bluegrass Album Band – 1997; and there may be some that have not as yet been well documented. Tony was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2013. Tragically, this 2021 induction into the NC Music Hall of Fame as a last recognition of Rice’s achievements came in the form of a posthumous award as Mr. Rice had suddenly passed away at the age of 69 at his home in Reedsville, NC on December 25, 2020. Since the award was
presented posthumously, Rice’s wife, Pam, their daughter, India, and grandson, Talbott, represented him. His widow, Pam Hodges Rice, accepted her husband’s award with an emotional and heartfelt brief, “God bless you all. Thank you so much.”
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Do remember that this was already 2010 and I was just finding my way back home. As far back as the early 1990s Mr.
I will not attempt to repeat here the many tributes that writers m u c h greater than I have scribed in tribute to Mr. Rice in the last year. You can go on line with y o u r computer and read them your self. Rather, permit me a few reflections. I must admit that I found my way back to this acoustic string-music genre (my roots if you please) in the early 2000’s after having misspent half a lifetime fawning over music groups comprised of three over amplified electric guitars and a screaming tenor singer.
Americana Rhythm is published six times a year. All correspondence should be sent to PO Box 45, Bridgewater VA, 22812 or CONTRIBUTORS email to greg@americanarhythm.com. Copies of Americana Ed Tutwiler Rhythm are made available free at various pick up locations within Wayne Erbsen the publication’s region. Subscriptions are available inside the United Donna Ulisse States (only) for $24 US currency made payable by check or Mike Aiken money order sent to, Subscriptions at PO Box 45, Bridgewater, Andrew McKnight VA, 22812. Foreign subscription requests should be sent to Dan Walsh greg@americanarhythm.com. Copyright 2021. All rights reRebecca Frazier served. Reproduction of any content, artwork or photographs DISTRIBUTION is strictly prohibited without permission of the publisher or origi- North River Publishing Integrated Music Media nal owner. All advertising material subject to approval. PUBLISHER/EDITOR IN CHIEF Greg E. Tutwiler Associate Editor Ed Tutwiler MARKETING & PROMOTION Mark Barreres (GrassRootsNetworking.com) Letters, Comments, Suggestions ADVERTISING greg@americanarhythm.com Business office 540-433-0360 www.americanarhythm.com advertising@americanarhythm.com
answer and for me to determine that I had homework to do.
I happened to be at Merefest in 2010 when the official release of the authorized biography of Tony Rice, titled, Still Inside: The Tony Rice Story that was written by musician Tim Stafford and journalist Caroline Wright took place. Tony Rice made a public appearance at that event, and if memory serves me correctly, spoke a few difficult words of appreciation. The audience stood in mass and raised a deafening cheer. Shameful as it is to now admit, I quietly asked Greg, our publisher, “Who is Tony Rice?” I can tell you it did not take but a few seconds for me to find out the
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Rice had been diagnosed with Muscle Tension Dysphonia which constricted the muscles around his voice box and ended his singing career. Eventually, he was forced to focus entirely on instrumental music. The struggle with his voice was only the beginning of his physical difficulties. Progressive arthritis that began as tendonitis in the elbow expanded into a full arthritis in his hands that made playing the guitar very painful and ultimately nearly impossible. By 2014, Tony Rice was forced to retire completely from performing.
Singing Praises For Years All who put pen to paper or voice to blog in tribute to Tony Rice since his passing and for years before say that Tony Rice always strived to excel with every performance and played every time with the attempt to play better than before.
January 2022
Several sources report that a fellow bluegrass guitarist, Norman Blake, once observed with only slight exaggeration that most bluegrass guitarists play within the instrument’s first five frets. Blake told that Mr. Rice defied that norm, and preferred to play the full range of the instrument. Blake reported that Tony kept his guitar’s action set low, with the strings almost buzzing the neck, so he could play dazzling runs in the higher registers. Robbie Fulks is a professional musician and blog writer. Shortly after Tony Rice’s passing, he contacted Todd Phillips who played bass in at least three bands along with Tony Rice and quizzed him about Mr. Rice’s zeal for perfection, Phillips replied with this, “I’ve been thinking through this since he died. He was all about precision and accuracy. He had an obsession with having the perfect pick; and there was the efficiency of his hands, the motion. You know how everybody said he stood there like a statue: everything was directed toward the fingertips.”
Early Festival Appearance If you remember in the last issue of AR we told the story of an early bluegrass festival in Cave Springs, NC that was filmed for release to theatres. At that festival and captured forever on the film is multiple performances by Tony Rice as he appeared with three different bluegrass bands all on that same magical weekend. Since becoming aware of his outstanding talent mostly from viewing that festival film and from absorbing the many tracks of Tony Rice in all his greatness aired on multiple Sirius/XM tribute shows since his passing; as well as watching music videos of his playing on the Youtube.com web site; I truly feel sadness. I feel sadness for the thousands of bluegrass fans who, like me, will never get to hear him play and sing live at a festival somewhere; I feel sadness for a family who lost a patriarch; and I feel sadness for a man robbed of
a talent that obviously gave him immense personal satisfaction. At the request of Tony Rice’s family, his good friend and professional recording partner, Ricky Skaggs, released a statement that read in part: “Tony Rice was the single most influential acoustic guitar player in the last 50 years. Many if not all of the Bluegrass guitar players of today would say that they cut their teeth on Tony Rice’s music. He loved hearing the next generation players play his licks. I think that’s where he got most of his joy as a player.” “Not only was Tony a brilliant guitar player but he was also one of the most stylistic lead vocalists in Bluegrass music history. When I joined the group The New South in 1974, I knew I’d found a singing soul mate with Tony. Our voices blended like brothers. In 1980, we recorded the album ‘Skaggs And Rice’ for Sugar Hill as a tribute to our duet heroes with just the simplicity of guitar,
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mandolin, and our voices. All of these years later, people tell me how much the purity of that record still touches their heart. That’s who Tony was, a singer from the heart. “I will miss him as I’m sure all of you will. But where Tony is right now, he’s not missing us. He’s in the place that God has prepared for those who love Him and receive Him. Rest in peace dear brother; thank you for your great talent and the music that will continue to inspire more and more generations to come.” True greatness comes along seldom in almost all fields of endeavor; and when that greatness does appear, that appearance is often fleeting. Such was the case of Tony Rice and the field of Americana string music. I truly regret, as should all you other newcomer fans regret, that we will never stand in a festival field somewhere before a stage and feast our ears on the live guitar playing of the best of the best—David Anthony (Tony) Rice
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January 2022
Guitarist Allen Shadd If you met Allen Shadd at a bluegrass jam or backstage at a festival, you might never guess that he’s breathing rarified air in an elite club of only four people in the world—he has won, three times, the National Flatpicking Guitar Championship in Winfield, Kansas. Shadd carries himself in a casual manner, often pointing out his own perceived weaknesses. His selfdeprecating jokes and relaxed demeanor belie his innate intensity and musical passion, which for him have taken many forms throughout his childhood, teens, and adulthood.
didn’t help me. In 1997 I had attitude, I was competitive.” Shadd won first place that year, but his memories of the experience are not entirely positive. He muses, “Everybody goes out there and gets nervous and uptight, and it made me into something I really didn’t like.” He decided that he probably would not compete again.
matter, you know? That was my perspective in 2012. I just went out there for the first time and really had fun, I listened to all the great guitar players instead of not wanting to hear everybody else play. That was the year everything changed for me. I won in 2013 and didn’t go back until 2019, the first year I was eligible, and I won again. The first time it was a goal, the second time was a dream, and the third time was a surprise. I don’t know if there’ll be a fourth or not, it doesn’t really matter to me.” In 2014, Shadd released Miles from the Hard Road, a solo album featuring his compelling original flatpicking compositions, signature contest arrangements, and unique renditions of covers. Shadd’s dexterity is showcased in a band setting on the album, but his live shows often find him solo, whence he creates a full band sound all by
Shadd’s guitar career began at age seven in his native Florida, where he started out by playing along with his dad’s favorite country radio station. “Merle Haggard, George Jones. Old country music is what I grew up listening to, and I love it to this day,” he says. “But I went to a bluegrass festival for the first time when I was ten, and it blew me away. Everywhere I looked, there were groups of musicians playing together, and I thought ‘I gotta do this!’ That’s what lit my fire to start learning.” Shadd gravitated towards a guitar mentor, Billy Sandlin of Claire Lynch’s Front Porch String Band, who would often invite Shadd to be a guest onstage with the band. “Billy was my hero until he passed away last year of cancer,” Shadd says. “Growing up in Florida, this is the Southern rock capital of the world, so of course I also had an electric guitar as a teenager and went around playing country in the bars.” In 1995, Shadd made his first go at winning the flatpicking guitar championship at Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas. He was so thrilled to make the top five finals that he decided to give it another try in 1996, when he placed second. “Once I got second place, I realized I’ve got to keep going now, I’ve got to win this thing. I put pressure on myself that probably
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Never say never. Shadd did indeed compete again, with various levels of commitment and preparedness in 2003 and 2005. But in 2012, Shadd began noticing a personal transformation. “In 2012 I went out there with zero nerves. It was a hard year. My son was born, it was a 22 hour labor, we almost lost him in the delivery; he wasn’t breathing for about 20 minutes, and they finally got him going. Three weeks later my dad passed away from cancer, so when I went to Winfield that year, for me, it’s like—This isn’t life or death, this is a guitar contest. It’s just Winfield, it doesn’t
himself. He credits listening to other instruments, like piano, and other styles, like fingerpicking, for his lush arrangements that feature chordal harmonies, voice-leading, and strong melodic components. When asked how he developed his talent throughout the years, Shadd explains, “I don’t read music, don’t read tablature, don’t do theory. I play by ear. I’m blessed in that sense; if I hear something, I can usually play it, especially with bluegrass flatpicking style guitar.” He admits that certain styles of music are “above his pay scale,”
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like modern free form jazz and jam band music. “There has to be a melody for me to follow in my mind,” he says. It would appear that guitar expertise comes easily to Shadd, who can sit down and improvise on complicated acoustic tunes he’s never heard before. “At this point in time, I can do it because I’ve heard it all before. Or played it all before. If somebody hasn’t been playing 50 years like I have, it’s not going to be the same for them. But I have to sit down and learn songs too,” he says, using a recent arrangement of a Billy Joel cover as an example. How does Shadd remain inspired to play the guitar, given those fifty years of experience? “It goes back to what I was saying earlier about evolving. When I was 19 years old, I’d been playing in the bars, playing country telecaster for a number of years, and I’d gotten burned out. I quit playing for six years, and when I got back into playing, I told myself, I’m never going to push myself again to the point where I hate what I’m doing. If it’s not fun, don’t do it. I just try to play things I actually enjoy, and I know as guitar players we’re self-critical and I’m no different—I’m very critical of my own playing, but I’ve gotten comfortable with a lot of the things that I do over time that I actually can enjoy. When I sit down to practice, I don’t do a bunch of eighth notes; most of the time I like to hear full chords, and I play rhythm a lot because I like the way the guitar feels vibrating against my chest—the fullness, the sound, the tone, the warmth of it, everything you don’t get when you’re doing deedle-deedle-deedle.” Shadd advises guitarists to steer clear of discouragement and instead, create realistic goals and selfrewards for achieving them. Shadd celebrates those who’ve guided him on his path, such as his late mentor, Billy Sandlin, and muses about his personal evolution from heavyhanded competitor to where he is now. “Life’s short. This last year, I’ve lost so many people; it’s depressing, but in the same sense, it makes you realize how short life really is. The most any of us can hope for…is once I’m gone, somebody somewhere will say, ‘I remember him, he helped me, he showed me this, I learned this from him,’ or ‘He inspired me to do this.’ And to me, that means more than winning a contest.”
January 2022
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January 2022
anywhere near there and driving was becoming a little dangerous. The fellas in the band were sacked out in the benches and Rick was having a hard time.
No Room At The Inn
Hello friends! It’s almost the happiest time of the year…for some. I know there are those of you who do not enjoy all the hustle and bustle. Some of you have the blues around all the red and green and some might not believe in the story from the Bible…and all of that is okay. I, however, am one of those sappy individuals who crave the season; the noisy family gatherings, the tinsel and wrapping paper tracked throughout the house, the anticipation of exchanging gifts, the smell of cinnamon and sage coming from the kitchen, the smell of pine in the living room…the whole nine yards, which includes my favorite part, the reading of the birth of Christ on Christmas Eve. I cry every time we share that story with our family. It is tradition, feels like every memory I hold and is the inspiration of one of the best projects I will ever be a part of.
passenger van pulling a trailer. We had completed a few shows and were tired, knowing we would be driving through most of the night. I did not reserve hotel rooms for us because I wasn’t sure how far down the road we would get before we had to cry “uncle” and sleep. When my husband Rick, who was behind the wheel told me
Finally, another half hour down the road we stopped again at a high dollar place (because at that time I could have cared less what we had to pay to get some rooms) and were once again told there was no availability due to this football thing going on. As I was about to turn and leave, the nice guy behind the counter said he thought there was a mom and pop hotel across the road that might have rooms. I could have
“I did what a true tortured writer would do, I wrote a song.”
How It Came To Be As me and my Poor Mountain Boys prepare to tour this coming season with our Christmas show, “All The Way To Bethlehem”, I am reminded of the start of the journey I took as the writer of this project. Let me share a little of the story and give you a glimpse of the scope of what inspiration can do to pen and paper. We were touring in the fall of 2014, in Indiana I believe and had to make our way to Kentucky for a library show at 3:00pm the next day. Being a hardworking bluegrass group, we still traveled via a 12
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he was starting to see flying monkeys around 3:00am I told him to get off the next exit and I would get us 3 rooms. We pull into the Best Western and I run in with my credit card. The sleepy attendant said he was sorry but there were no rooms and were not likely to be any rooms anywhere for the next 40 miles or so because there was a big football thing going on. I sighed and went back out to the van and told Rick to drive another hour if he could and I’d get rooms then. Well, same story an hour later…no rooms
I was and said he was laying down and I could watch him as he slept…lol. I cried as I tried to lay my luggage on the lumpy mattress to try and sleep on top of the suitcases. Well, that didn’t work so I took the small, worn towels out of the bathroom and laid them across a questionable chair and sat in what was left of
cried. We cranked up the van and roared across the highway to a hotel that was missing every other letter in the name of the place. Though it looked a little rundown, I sprinted into the hotel front office and promptly woke up a sleepy front desk guy and sure enough, he had three rooms. When we got the keys and limped into the musty smelling rooms I told my husband I just couldn’t stay there. He looked at me as if he didn’t recognize who
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the dark wondering why any of this would feel familiar to me.
I Wrote A Song Then it struck me, the innkeeper in Bethlehem, the one who turned Mary and Joseph away was probably a lot like all the hotel guys we ran into that night. The tax mandate thing that called all people to the City of David was a lot like the football thing and there simply was no room to sell them. With that awestruck moment happening so close to my guitar, I did what a true tortured writer would do, I wrote a song called “You Cannot Stay Here” as my husband snored his way through the early morning. This song would launch a two year songwriting journey where I wrote from the perspective of the different characters in the greatest story ever told. After the completion of this project I truly felt as if I had journeyed to the Holy Land. It changed the way I feel about writing and gave me the gift of performing the whole show as a bluegrass cantata for audiences every year who now enjoy hearing a new take on an old story. I am smiling from ear to ear as I type this because these songs are so dear to me. If these 11compositions are the only thing I am remembered for at the end of my life, it is well with my soul.
Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
January 2022
Resonator Guitar In Bluegrass Do you ever find yourself fixating on a facet of life’s people, places and things that would not leave you alone until you dig out enough facts to satisfy your curiosity? No? Well, count your blessings because sometimes this annoying habit will not leave some folks alone until they tell others what they have learned. Such was the case with me recently at a festival where I was listening to Jerry Douglas play the resonator guitar. I just needed to know more about this interesting instrument and I hope you do also. A resonator guitar, sometimes referred to as a resophonic guitar and depending upon the manufacturer of the instrument maybe even referred to as a Dobro®, is actually a specially constructed acoustic guitar. The special construction allows the instrument to produce sound by conducting the string vibrations through the bridge to one or more spun metal cones (known as resonators) instead of to the guitar’s flat top (also called the sounding board). The resonator guitar is also sometimes referred to as a steel guitar because the player uses a steel bar to touch the strings with one hand while he or she plucks or picks the strings with the other hand. The original purpose of the resonator design was to produce a louder guitar that would not be overwhelmed by horns and percussion instruments in dance orchestras. This unique design produced a distinctive tone that soon found life within the bluegrass and blues genres of music. Resonator guitars in use today are typically acoustic steel guitars with a large aluminum cone located under the bridge and may either have a wood or a metal body. Wood-body resonator guitars and metal bodied ones do not sound the same. The metal body versions produce a brassier sound usually preferred by blues players. These guitars may also be designed with either a squareneck or a round neck. The square
necked versions employ heavier steel strings and are always set up with the high action favored by steel guitar players. This style is limited to a horizontal (Hawaiian
Gold Tone Paul Beard SignatureSeries Squareneck Resonator Guitar
By Edward Tutwiler
The origin story Spanish guitars were introduced into the Hawaiian Islands as early as the 1830s; however, Hawaiian players developed a unique open tuning style that differed from centuries-old accepted playing methods. In the late 1880s, steel guitar strings became available, and an island player ( Joseph Kekuku) developed a method whereby he played in an open tuning while he was seated with the guitar across his knees and tuned the strings by pressing a steel bar against them with one hand while plucking the strings rather than strumming them with the other hand. Other Hawaiian players soon began playing in this new manner. This horizontal position, open tuning, and steel tone bar/plucking playing style became popular throughout the islands. Soon the technique spread internationally becoming known as Hawaiian style playing and the guitar becoming known
as a steel guitar (because of the steel strings and steel tone bar). Hawaiian music, centered upon the sound of the steel guitar being played in this new innovative manner, became a musical fad in the United States during the early part of the 20 th century and triggered the manufacture of guitars designed specifically to be played with a steel tone bar. Thus, the resonator guitar is really an offspring of the original acoustic Hawaiian guitar. The first resonator guitar was invented in 1926 by an instrument maker named John Dopyera and a musician named George Beauchamp. It had raised steel strings and a large aluminum cone under the bridge, called a resonator to increase the volume output. The original intent of the design was for playing music in the steel guitar style, while producing sufficient volume to compete with brass and reed instruments in an orchestra setting. In 1927, Dopyera and continued on page 9
guitar) playing position as in the lap steel guitar style. The round necked version is playable either horizontally or in an upright (Spanish guitar) position. It may be set up with a variety of action heights. Players usually select a compromise that allows barring the top strings with a tube bar on one finger while still allowing the use of the frets as desired. The steel or tone bar used to play the steel guitar is a hard, smooth object pressed against the guitar strings to affect their tone when plucked or picked. One type of steel tone bar is tube shaped and placed around a player’s finger. This device is referred to as a slide and the style of playing is called slide guitar.
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January 2022
Thanks to our partnership with ReverbNation (www.reverbnation.com) we are honored to give you a peak at a few of the nation’s hardest working indie artists. Each month we select one entry to showcase for you here. Enjoy! THIS MONTH’S FEATURE:
By Greg Tutwiler
Electric Blue Yonder
FEATURE ARTISTS Montgomery, Alabama’s Johnny Veres (Vocals), and Beth Hataway Veres, (Vocals) along with Sam Pittinos on Drums, and Russell Thomas Bush on Bass, make up the Folk, Psychedelic, Rock group Electric Blue Yonder. Often described as, Space Folk, it’s a combination of finger-style parlor guitar, old-time, and mountain music, interlaced with haunting melodies and entangling harmonies. They meld these roots with elements of psychedelic pop, rock, and post-rock in what culminates into what some call, “a unique sonic experience” for the listener.
Origins Johnny and Beth began writing for what would become Electric Blue Yonder in 2010. In 2015 He and Beth start performing as Blue Yonder, a songwriting duo with a mostly folk centered focus. By late 2017 the band had formed around them with a new sound and so Electric Blue Yonder began. Johnny and Beth were both raised in Montgomery. After they met, Johnny said the band just evolved over time. “I had a reiteration of an experimental music project from college going when we met,” Johnny told us. “It was mostly improvised instrumental music, but
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soon after Beth joined, I started writing some of the early songs that became this project.” He and Beth began singing and working out their first harmonies. A friend in the project told Johnny that the “experiment had run its course,” and that the two should pursue the songs we were writing. “It took a couple years to develop our songs and style,” Johnny said. “When we were ready to share what we were working on, we still didn’t have a name. I’d been into older parlor guitar music and groups like the Ink Spots. We got the opportunity to perform for an Air Force event, and “Blue Yonder” came to mind – literally, from the ‘Wild Blue Yonder’ and, metaphorically, the idea of exploring different worlds of sound. From there we became Electric Blue Yonder when we filmed for an episode of the Zimmern List, at Saw’s juke joint. (Or maybe, when the Hadron Collider fired up and our universe crashed into this one.) It depends on where you were standing.
Where did Space Folk come from? “Our music is roots driven with psychedelia woven throughout,” Beth said. “We like to explore different planets of sound. So, we thought the term space folk was an accurate way to describe what we are doing. I’d like to think that both beings on and off world would enjoy it.” Beth said she and Johnny together write all of the music for EBY. “Generally, we write songs together with one person leading depending on who came up with the melody,” she said. “However, we do write separately as well and for multiple projects.” “I like to find a progression on the guitar or piano and work on it until it’s compelling to listen to on its own. Then we play the progression and sing melodies with nonsense words until words start to fall out of the ether. We don’t always write this way, but both of us gravitate towards this method,” Johnny added.
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Nod To The Beach Boys Their new album, Mourning Sounds, is out now, and Johnny says it is, “a narrative experience that leads the listener through the journey of loss and processing grief. That can be loss of a loved one, grieving for the state of our society, or the realization that the world you lived in was an incomplete picture of the world around you. Meant to be listened through front to back, it parallels the grieving process, beginning lost and adrift at sea in a life raft. The title is a nod to the Beach Boys Pet Sounds, and you’ll hear a light hearted B-Side that reflects the more playful nature of Brian Wilson’s writing. We’re really trying to be there with you in your moments of darkness so that together we can swim back to the surface.” “Our music is a slow burn,” Johnny said. “We explore a variety of different sounds and sometimes that makes it difficult to put us into a box with a label. I think the biggest factor in ‘staying the course’ for me is all the incredibly talented people that have come into our world through our music and the support they show us. We made a choice in taking the longer road with our art. It isn’t always easily digestible, but it will make you think if you listen carefully. We don’t write for what we think will be commercially successful. It comes from our hearts, and we hope it reaches the listeners that way too.
www.electricblueyonder.com
January 2022
Resonator Guitar Continued from page 7 Beauchamp formed the National String Instrument Corporation to manufacture resonator guitars under the brand name National. The first models were metalbodied, and featured three conical aluminum resonators.
The Dobro In 1928, Dopyera left National to form the Dobro Manufacturing Company with his brothers Rudy, Emile, Robert, and Louis, The name Dobro was a contraction of the Dopyera Brothers name. This Dobro company released a competing resonator guitar with a single resonator and a wooden body. The design was less expensive to manufacture and produced more volume than did the National tricone. In the intervening years, various instrument manufacturers have produced many variations, styles, and designs of resonator guitars under many different brand names. Over time, dobro became
a generic term for any woodbodied, single-cone resonator guitar and national became a generic term for a metal body tricone version. It is worth noting that in recent years, the Gibson Guitar Corporation acquired the rights to the Dobro® name and has become very protective of its use. How did the steel or resonator guitar make the jump from island music to bluegrass you might ask? The resonator guitar was first introduced to bluegrass music by Josh Graves, who played with Flatt and Scruggs, in the mid1950s. Graves played his resonator guitar by employing the three-finger picking style developed by Earl Scruggs for the five-string banjo. He played in a fast and loud manner. His new innovative way of playing helped elevate the resonator guitar to where it held and still holds its own with the fiddle and banjo; and propelled the instrument into becoming one of the defining features of the bluegrass sound. Josh (aka Buck and Uncle Josh)
Graves became known as the King of the Dobro®. He was inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 1997 and credited with introducing the resonator guitar into bluegrass music. Josh Graves is considered a major influence on many present and past leading resonator (or steel guitar) players, including Jerry Douglas, Mike Auldridge, and Phil Leadbetter as well as many others.
Opry Debut It always seems important when discussing historical moments in string music to define when this or that first appeared on the Grand Ole Opry stage. In the case of the resonator guitar, that moment occurred New Year ’s Day 1939. The player’s name was Beecher Ray “Pete” Kirby (aka Bashful Brother Oswald) and he was a member of Roy Acuff’s Smoky Mountain Boys. As the Opry was featured on nationwide radio broadcasts, Kirby created a sensation playing his resonator guitar and gave the instrument great exposure.
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When Hawaiian Joseph Kekuku devised that unique and original playing method for the guitar all those many years ago, he planted a tree with many branches. We limited our focus here only upon the branch that fruited the acoustic resonator guitar; however there are so many derivations of that humble Hawaiian guitar in use today the discussion of which would merit a book study. For instance, by 1934, steel guitarist, George Beauchamp invented the electric guitar pickup. This invention meant resonant chambers were no longer essential for a guitar to be heard. This also meant steel guitars could now be manufactured in any design. It could be merely a rectangular block fixed with guitar strings and attached to a metal frame with table legs. This table-like instrument became known as a console steel guitar. By the 1950s, these devices were enhanced technologically to become the more versatile pedal steel guitar featured in many modern country bands today
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Daryl Mosley; Small Town Dreamer Unless Daryl Mosley is on the road touring, he spends the majority of time hanging out in Waverly, Tennessee. It’s a quaint, Mayberryesque community just west of Nashville where he grew up. As a songwriter, it’s the perfect nest for inspiring ideas real, salt-of-the-earth people living day to day life with all the joys and sorrow that come with it.
One Of The Finest Songwriters In Our Business Songwriting legend Jerry Salley says Mosley is “easily one of the finest songwriters in our business”. Daryl has had seven #1 songs, received three song of the year awards, and was awarded Songwriter of the Year twice by the IBMA. He was a member of the bluegrass band, New Tradition until 2001 when he joined the legendary Osborne Brothers. In 2010 he formed the
band, The Farm Hands, where he’s been until recently. In 2020 he decided to venture out on a solo career. While Daryl Mosley is now celebrated as one of Bluegrass music’s top rated songwriters, he didn’t actually start out that way. “It’s kind of funny how it all worked out,” Daryl told me recently. “I live about five miles from Loretta Lynn. I’ve known the family my whole life. When I was a teenager, Miss Loretta knew that I was interested in a music career. And she was the very first one that
By Greg Tutwiler encouraged me to pursue songwriting. I’ll never forget what she said to me. She said, ‘Don, you gotta learn to write songs. A lot of folks can sing them, but the good ones can write them, too.’ And so with that encouragement, I started trying to figure out how songs were built, and started trying to focus a lot more on the writing process.”
Loretta’s Impact The impact of who she and her music was on the country music industry wasn’t lost on the young Daryl. “I went to school with Peggy and Patsy, her twin daughters,” Daryl recalled. We met in first grade, that’s how far back this goes. So I was aware that she was a country star, but to be honest, I never saw her as the icon that I later understood her to be. When I was singing with the Osborne Brothers and working with the Grand Ole Opry, Loretta would show up to the Opry, and there was just this buzz
January 2022
backstage. All the other artists, I mean, big major country stars were like, ‘Is she here yet?’ It was like waiting on the queen. Truly. That’s when I began to realize, at a different level, the true significance of this woman’s career.” Daryl said being in music as a career is something he’s always known he wanted to do. “I was always about trying to learn to play instruments and be a better singer and that sort of thing,” he said. “But, I found myself wandering into the Bluegrass world because of a mutual friend who introduced me to the music. We put a little band together to play some of the local contests, and then while we were rehearsing for one of those contests, a record company guy happened to be there and heard us. We ended up getting a record deal and things just kind of began to snowball. So much of that was just, happenstance, and good luck I guess, but it was always what I wanted, it was always what I was looking at pursuing.”
Natural Songwriter The songwriting aspect of his career was a natural progression of the career path, and almost came initially out of necessity. “That was the funny part about it,” Daryl said. “When I was with New Tradition, that was the first touring band I was ever with, when we needed a song, I would just write one. The process, pretty much from the early days, came kind of easy for me. Of course, I look back on those songs now, some of the songs didn’t hold up very well, and some held up really well. From the very beginning days of touring, songwriting and creating the music that we were performing was always really important to me.” Daryl said it took him a while to fully appreciate the depth of his knack for writing songs. “I used to not give songwriting a lot of thought,” he mused. “We needed a song, so I’d write one. I just assumed anybody could do this. I just assumed that every band had an artist cranking out these songs for them. It was later on,
when we were out performing, that other writers would come up wanting to talk to me about the writing process. I would get invited to be on songwriter panels, to discuss the writing process. And I started realizing that, for some people, it’s not as natural for them as it was for me. So when I reached that point, I really buckled down and said, ‘you know what, songwriting is really part gift and park craft. Obviously, the good Lord has blessed me with the gift, but the craft part belongs to me. So I’ve got to work to be as good of a songwriter as I can possibly be.”
higher and higher on my priority list. So it’s really about my desire to create the best songs I can, and to try to create a legacy of really good songs. So I needed more time, and wanted more time to do that. Of course, the guys that I was traveling with, they’re all great musicians, but they weren’t songwriters. So it didn’t make sense to slow them down so that I could pursue this a little bit more diligently. So I stepped out on my own back in 2019, and it’s been good. It’s worked out really well.” Daryl’s latest album, Small Town Dreamer, is his sophomore project as a solo artist.
Going Solo Daryl is now at the place in his life where it’s time to pursue a solo career. “Being a solo artist was never really something that I wanted, nor something I was avoiding,” he said. “It just wasn’t something that was high on my priority list. I was happy in a band, and I enjoy the camaraderie of touring together with other people. But the older I get, the more that the importance of songwriting moves continuously
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January 2022
By Greg Tutwiler
Merlefest has held a special place in our hearts here at Americana Rhythm for more than 15 years. It was while working with another publication, Singer & Musician Magazine, that I was encouraged to check out this amazing four day celebration. I had never heard of Merlefest, and only vaguely knew the name Doc Watson. I was blown away! I had been involved in music as an amateur musician, and then as a disc jockey since the late 70s. Never had I experienced such an event. I came home with many emotions and experiences, but the burning question in my mind was, ‘why had I never heard of Merlefest?’ Originally created in 1988 as a way to honor Merle Watson, the late son of Doc and Rosa Lee Watson, the annual event had already been taking place for 12 years before I happened upon it. When I asked around my home area, a little less than four hours away
from Wilkesboro, North Carolina where the festival was held, few people knew what I was talking about, or anything about many of the groups I had seen play there. It was the spark I needed to create a publication dedicated to promoting the kind of music I was now falling in love with. Thus the birth of Americana Rhythm Music Magazine. Fast forward to the spring of 2020; Due to the uncertainty in the world, for the first time since 1988, there would be no Merlefest. Postponed. I was so disappointed. Then in the winter of 2021, the message came again; postponed. Not again! But this time though, came a glimmer of hope. It was rescheduled for September, ’21. After scrambling to ensure the safety of the attendees, volunteers, and artists alike from the resurge of Covid-19, Merlefest 2021 sprang into action on September 16 th with a triumphant return. With only a few visible adjustments, the planning team and volunteers pulled off an amazing experience.
While my wife and I were sad to exit the Wilkes Community College campus at the conclusion of the festival on Sunday, September 19th, we took comfort in the thought that Merlefest would be back soon; this time, in just seven shorts months, as it returns to its regular time slot of late April. April 28th – Mayst, 2022 to be specific. We’ll be there! Will you?
Outstanding performances by Sturgill Simpson, Margo Price, Tedeschi Trucks Band, LeAnn Rimes, Sam Bush, Mavis Staples, Charley Crockett, Paul Thorn, and many others, filled the four day festival with passion driven entertainment, and even a few tears of joy, as the crowds delighted at being together again and sharing the bond of music. Festival Director, Ted Hagaman offered this; “I want to thank all of our MerleFest family—artists, volunteers, staff, and fans—for their patience and support as we worked together to put on a safe and enjoyable festival that spotlighted the very best in roots-plus music.”
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Emmylou Harris, Greensky Bluegrass, Rissi Palmer, and more will be joining the annual homecoming of musicians and music fans on the campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. MerleFest’s new Festival Director, Wes Whitson, said, ”Endless gratitude to all artists, staff, volunteers, vendors, and fans for their patience and support for the 2021 festival. Our team has put together another great lineup for 2022 and we’re looking forward to sharing four days of the very best in traditional+ music with fans.” Stay tuned to www.merlefest.org for the 2022 line-up and how to purchase tickets
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January 2022
Listen to the expanded interviews by searching Americana Music Profiles on all of your favorite Podcast platforms! ARTICLES BY DAN WALSH
Meet Dan Walsh - we are thrilled to have him as our Profiles writer! Dan is a freelance writer and editor from Rochester, NY. He spent more than 15 years editing Mobile Beat Magazine, a leading publication for event entertainers. His writing focus on performers and music grew out of his own background as a musician and songwriter. Beyond his fixation on words and music, Dan enjoys spending time with his wife, Susan, his son Julian and their two dogs.
Frank Migliorelli Known as a band that makes roots music with strong pop and rock elements, the Dirt Nappers, led by Frank Migliorelli, usually serve up songs dealing with serious adult themes of love and loss, cultural issues, and much more. However, as with every other band and artist in the world, the pandemic forced a change of focus for at least a few months. In this case, it brought a passion project Frank had dreamt up a while back from the back burner to the front. “I had this idea years ago to do a bunch of songs that were inspired by some pretty great children’s books, and started writing and demoing them,” says Frank. “When the pandemic hit, I had all of these ideas and asked my band if they would be into recording a kids record.” The resulting album is called We’re Not Kiddin’ Around and features eight songs inspired by children’s books like Go, Dog, Go!, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel and Harry the Dirty Dog, that Migliorelli encountered over the years. “I used to write kid’s music for a living, publishing music for video games and educational products,” Frank explains. “Plus I would do ‘story time’ in my kid’s classrooms when they were growing up—which usually was embellished with a guitar and a few songs.” At some point he remembers, “I started thinking, every good book deserves a good song, and the idea for this project was born…” To complement the album, the band is launching a companion website (www.musickideos.com) that highlights activities, features music videos, and resources for kids, caregivers, and teachers to explore.
Jay Elle On Jay Elle’s new full-length, 12-song album, Ride the Wave, he shares his way of dealing with the pandemic. “I think that much of what we do in life is ride one wave after another, as best as we can,” says Jay. “Some waves are fun to ride...and some are tough. Riding a pandemic is no picnic. But what choice do we have? I take life as it comes, and ride the wave.” His refreshingly droll perspective no doubt aids him as he takes that ride. “The pandemic feels like one of those endless rainy days that I hated as a child. Boring!...There was no one to hang around with on rainy days. At home, I was on lock down with the same old toys. No guitar then. No internet. This new album is about how to best enjoy yourself while waiting for the sun to shine again.” Music was always part of Jay Elle’s life, especially at family gatherings, and at home, the radio was always on. After learning a few guitar chords from a school friend and a cousin, Jay’s musical curiosity was piqued. But a lifelong obsession with the beauty and power of song ignited when his aunt bought him a guitar of his own. Jay remembers, “I...dedicated more time to guitar playing and songwriting than other activities. I would get this spine tingling feeling when I heard certain songs, a blast of energy, like I could do just about anything. It felt hopeful and positive.”
When it comes to writing songs, Frank began to find his personal voice after many years of writing for product marketing, as well producing others’ records for his own indie label during the 1990s. “That all kind of wrapped up...and I realized I have a recording studio here, and I’m playing for really nobody, and I thought I should start writing again...Eventually this thing known as the Dirtnappers came out.”
That positive energy led Jay to the Geneva Conservatory of Music, where he studied theory, composition, classical guitar, and singing. But with his heart more attuned to popular music, he soon joined a band and dove into blues, rock, jazz and pop. Rather than a rebellion against classical music, he sees his journey into the pop realm as more of a move toward the middle of the musical spectrum. It’s really all about the song: “Between the rigor of rendering a classical piece as it was written, and the open fields of blues or jazz improvisation, I feel that the pop song format is ideal if you can bring some of these elements together to serve a great melody and meaningful lyrics.”
To find out more, visit www.dirtnappers.com
To find out more, visit www.jayellesongs.com
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January 2022
Listen to the expanded interviews by searching Americana Music Profiles on all of your favorite Podcast platforms! ARTICLES BY DAN WALSH
Marty Falle Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, and for 15 years now a South Carolina resident (on Hilton Head Island), Marty Falle’s first exposure to music was from parents who made him pick an instrument: “I was in second grade. I chose the viola. I don’t know why. Then I went on to tenor saxophone, then bass guitar, guitar and piano.” He jumped into performing rock music when he faked his way into a juniorhigh band. “They needed a bass player and I told them I played bass, but I really didn’t know how to play at all…” So he got a bass and learned. School choir helped cultivate Marty’s singing voice and led to his love of rock music with strong harmonies. After college, as a traveling salesman in eastern Kentucky, he learned about bluegrass and country music, and Appalachian culture. He jumped into performing country music with an all-original first album, Ohio. After CMT picked up his video for one of its songs, “Hoochie Coochie Gal from the Buckeye State” he ended up in Nashville and began connecting with professionals there who helped him develop as an artist. He also found himself leaning more and more toward the bluegrass end of the musical spectrum. “...those albums [Long, Long Road and Bloody Coal] started getting a little more bluegrass, and a little more bluegrass...I finally decided to jump in the bluegrass waters all the way with this record, called Virgin on the Bluegrass.” Marty built his latest album by repurposing selections from his personal “back catalog” of country songs generated by his time in Kentucky coal country and other experiences (“Bloody Coal,” “Superman Jimmy”), and also write new material specifically for the record (“Grandma Needs Her Whiskey,” “Virgin on the Bluegrass”). He came up with the album title initially as a reference to it being his first attempt at a completely bluegrass recording. “I guess there’s a double-entendre to that...I thought ‘Ok, now I’ve got to write a song. And I did; I put a little waltz together, just a nice little song about a couple of young people coming into their own.” To find out more, visit www.reverbnation.com/martyfalle
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Once Great Estate Once Great Estate is a band that was born out of the landscape and history of North Florida, the lifelong home (apart from a four-year college stint) of the group’s driving force, Tracy Horenbein. Along with fellow travelers Jeffrey Chagnon (bass), F. Matthew Burns (guitar and mandolin), Christopher Ash (fiddle and guitar) and drummer Steve Burke, in 2018 Tracy migrated to particularly southern Americana territory. After a career in music that touched on many different genres, even punk rock (back in the late 1980s), Tracy took a new direction in order to bring her songwriting to the fore, as she explains: “I really just wanted to get back to what I originally fell in love with, which was songwriting. To me, the Americana genre is where that shines the most.” Her approach to songwriting is uncomplicated. “I basically just go somewhere by myself and start imagining little scenarios in my head, little minimovies, and just start putting it down on paper—and hope that it translates…” Apparently her songs have translated quite well, even being described as “cinematic southern rock” by one reviewer. The band’s name arose directly from Tracy’s experience while walking “out in nature” on the 20 acres where she lives near Ta l l a h a s s e e , which has been in her family for generations. “I was just walking around one day, observing how the property had changed...It’s a ‘once great estate’ but there’s still beauty in the decay...It’s transitioned into a different kind of beauty; not so manicured as it once was, but still lovely.” The band recorded it’s most recent album, Even The Undertaker, during the pandemic, with the title track hitting #1 on the country chart in South Africa. The title is from a quote by one of Tracy’s favorite writers, Mark Twain: “Let us endeavor to live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry.” She sums up it succinctly as an exhortation to “try and make your time here count.”
To find out more, visit www.oncegreatestate.com
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Ronnie Joudo Hailing from Sydney, Australia, singer-songwriter Ronnie Joudo has developed a distinctive sound inspired by country music and Americana, with a fresh modern twist. He has connected with audiences and seen success with four top 40 hits on Australian independent charts. He was also an Australian Songwriter Association Finalist in 2020, for his song, “Falling in Love in Galveston.” He has released his debut, a six-song EP, Damn This Town, despite the limitations of the pandemic. “We wanted to release it a little bit earlier...but we’ve been hit pretty hard with Covid, and we’ve got a lot of restrictions in place. Instead of taking your normal six months to get it all down and out, it took us nearly two years.” Growing up listening to Americans like Merle Haggard and George Strait, as well as Australians like Slim Dusty and Jade Hurley, it’s not surprising that Ronnie gravitated toward making country music. After previously performing as drummer, he picked up the guitar just before the turn of the century, and immediately began developing as a songwriter. “The writing came,” he recalls, “when I hooked up with a gentleman named Ace Fender. He was an amazing songwriter who wrote for some of those legends. He taught me a lot.” About his process, Ronnie says, “For me it’s like a mini-movie that plays inside my head, and once I get it going I just seem to blow it out.” His inspiration comes from his own life and also stories he hears from others. “Falling in Love in Galveston,” grew out of a good friend’s difficult search for new love after a divorce, while “Roadside Angels” has a family connection. “That was a story from my brother, who lives in Western Australia,” Ronnie says. “He was working in a mine and he would travel to work one-and-a-half hours each way, and he would see all these crosses and monuments and flowers on the side of the road...He was thinking about who these people were and where they were going, and he said ‘I call them roadside angels’.” To find out more, visit https://ronniejoudomusic.com
January 2022
Listen to the expanded interviews by searching Americana Music Profiles on all of your favorite Podcast platforms! ARTICLES BY DAN WALSH
Sun King Rising After beginning piano lessons at the age of five, John Blangero embarked on a musical journey that, on the face of it, seems an extremely unlikely path to a place in the “Southern rock and soul” niche he currently inhabits, by way of his alter-ego project, Sun King Rising. By age 10, he had a firm grasp of classical and gospel music. He joined his first rock band at 14, and was soon writing and performing his own music. After paying his dues playing in a few local bands, he experienced a level of regional success in the early 1970s with his own band, Harlequin, a theatrical progressive rock outfit. John’s musical path then took an extended detour into the realm of medical science, as he completed a Ph.D and became a biomedical r e s e a r c h scientist. This led to a 20-year. hiatus from actively making music, as his career brought him ultimately to Texas. Beyond the personal mental benefits of reigniting his musical passion, John’s return to music-making resulted in the creation of many new songs, heavily influenced by the southern rock and Texas soul of his home ground. Released in October 2020, John’s first solo album, Delta Tales, with 10 originals and one cover, features more “organic rock” music like that of Joe Cocker, Leon Russell and many others. John says, “I titled the album Delta Tales because it focuses on southern themes and because I live in the Texas delta of the Rio Grande Valley...I wouldn’t call it a ‘concept album’ but I always like to say it’s ‘thematically coherent.’ It’s really tales from a southern perspective.”
Creed Fisher A determined, prolific songwriter, Creed Fisher has generated a lot of music that blends rock, country and bluegrass, and has connected with audiences through a strong emphasis on working folk, love of country, having fun and telling compelling stories. With all that he has achieved in the last few years, it’s probably surprising for many when they find out that this Texan only got started playing music at the ripe old age of 35. That was in 2010. Going through a divorce, and having time for some deep soul searching brought Creed to the emotional outlet of songwriting, even before learning to play. He bypassed the traditional route of learning other people’s music before creating his own. “I was writing songs before I picked up the guitar,” he explains. “That’s what led me to pick up the guitar.” Buying one in a pawn shop set him on the path to getting his songs out into the wider world. Creed’s latest album, Whiskey and the Dog, features his take on the traditional country sound, with songs covering the full gamut of emotions. “I started writing from dysfunction and pain,” he says, “but you have to mix it up. It can’t all be sad songs. You gotta take people on a rollercoaster of emotions; laugh, drink and cry.” Creed’s approach to writing also channels the traditional through his modern point of view, reaching back to a key element that he feels is missing from much of today’s most popular music. “Storytelling. That’s what people are longing for, what’s missing in country.”
John’s unique position as a scientist and musician led to an interesting juxtaposition. While most other musicians used the enforced down time of pandemic restrictions and quarantines to create, record and/or promote their music, connect with fans online, or otherwise work to pay the bills, John’s profession meant that he was actively working on defeating the virus. He and his colleagues at the University of Texas Rio Grande have worked tirelessly on the genetics of human response to COVID-19 infection.
After getting a late start (at least in terms of narrowminded music industry thinking), Creed took a fullon DIY approach to achieve success outside of mainstream avenues. “The odds were against me all along,” he says, “but I just wouldn’t go away. I messed up a couple times, fell down, but fought through it all to get where I’m at.” His advice to anyone with a big dream they’re looking to fulfill or a major challenge they need to overcome? “Keep digging, keep working. When you do that you do things you never thought possible.”
To find out more, visit www.sunkingrising.com
To find out more, visit www.creedfisher.net
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Josh King North Carolina native Josh King (a life-long resident of the Greensboro area) grew up surrounded by music. With a church pianist grandfather, it’s no surprise that the church was his earliest influence, including a lot of singing in harmony. After the typical abortive attempt at piano lessons around age 10 or 11, in high school he found himself playing bass and singing for a punk rock band Josh’s songwriting evolved from those earliest days with the band into something closer to the singersongwriter mold as he discovered that he had thoughts he really wanted to express, and he listened to artists that inspired him. After accumulating and recording a number of more acoustic-driven songs, Josh ended up recruiting most of his previous bandmates to create a new group called House of Fools, which was signed to Drive-Thru Records. The indie rock sixpiece spent years on the road, touring with acts such as Jimmy Eat World and Steel Train along the way. Josh’s solo tunes lean toward the Americana realm simply because they are stripped down to the essentials, in terms of instrumentation and production. “For my solo stuff,” he explains, “it’s still the same songs. And I think if I took it to those guys, they would end up being House of Fool songs.” Josh kicked off his solo career with 2018’s Into The Blue, and has since released two more solo albums. The latest, Feel Good, was almost two years in the making. “2020 was a year of such loss,” says Josh. “I had a lot of change and a lot of time alone to think. All of my work was cancelled at the drop of a hat and I suddenly became a stay-at-home dad for my one-year-old daughter. The album is a weird mix of political songs, love songs, a song inspired by my grandparents, a memorial for a best friend, an anthem for feeling like an outcast…but every one represents a moment in time over the last year and a half.” To find out more, visit https://www.facebook.com/joshkingnc
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January 2022
Listen to the expanded interviews by searching Americana Music Profiles on all of your favorite Podcast platforms! ARTICLES BY DAN WALSH
Kari Holmes Don’t let her diminutive physical stature fool you: Kari Holmes is living large when it comes to her music career— averaging 200 gigs a year (pre-Covid), winning the indiecentric Josie Music Awards Artist of the Year for 2021 (along with four other nominations), and connecting with audiences of all ages along the way. When asked about her audiences, “It’s been interesting, to say the least,” she says. “I’m not joking: It’s literally anyone from a toddler who can dance to my music (I just love little kids, and they love me)...all the way up to the older generation…they relate, they appreciate my voice and my music.” With two EPs under her belt, and now signed to Nashville America Records, she is looking forward to a full album release in February 2022. (Until then, you can check out her singles and get her EPs at her website.) So where does Kari’s drive to do music come from? A musical older sister, a music-loving dad, and stories of an opera-singing great-grandmother got the ball rolling. Then, she says, “At 17, I taught myself how to play guitar, and so I started writing songs and playing out…” By age 21, she had formed her first band and toured around her native Michigan. After two years at a community college aimed at becoming a teacher, Kari realized a full-time music career is what she really wanted. She hasn’t looked back. Although Kari presents a beautiful “the girl next door” image, she knows of love, loss and heartbreak and has written over 100 songs expressing these heavy emotions. But she also writes of hope, faith and the importance of keeping your dignity, as she aspires to be a positive role model. “Writing is how I react to life, good and bad, and with that, I can reach out to others,” she says. “Performing on stage is the second step…It’s where I leave everything. The one thing that I want people to take away from my shows is a feeling. That’s what music is all about anyway...to let your emotions take you for a ride.”
Michael Monroe Goodman Growing up in rural Kentucky, about 45 minutes from Nashville, but now somewhat of a fish out of water living in Los Angeles, Michael Monroe Goodman’s roots run deep in the Americana soil. “We knew about life, maybe more than city people,” he says. “I’m proud of my home state of Kentucky. You need that strand of where you’re from or you don’t have an anchor. At its heart, country’s a state of mind, not a location.” Michael’s country state of mind began developing even before he was born. His parents were friends with his middle-namesake, the legendary Bill Monroe, who approved of the name choice. “They were backstage probably once a month or something at the Opry with Bill…and after I was born, we’d go there when I was a baby…I just kind of soaked it all in for the first three years of my life… After that I’d see Bill at festivals and stuff, with my dad on the weekends. So, I grew up around Bill, but I had no idea, as a kid, who Bill Monroe was, as a legend, as a pioneer. To me he was just like ‘Uncle Bill’.” Growing up, Michael always made country music his priority, ever since playing his first professional gig at the age of 15, on Live at Libby’s in Maysville, Kentucky. “I’d been writing songs for a couple of years by then,” he recalls, “and this show had hosted quite a few ‘90s stars before they were famous. I auditioned on the Friday night, did one song. They liked me and I performed on the radio from there the next night. I did that show a few more times and I knew my heart was set on country music. It was my voice. Right out of high school I joined a band and started really learning my craft.”
By all accounts, 30-year-old Kari Holmes’s amazing musical ride is really just getting started.
When it came time to stake out his own claim in the country music scene, Michael found that going by only his first and last name wasn’t enough to set him apart from the crowd. “When I put out my Unbreakable Heart album back in 2015…I kinda found there were way too many Michael Goodmans in the world…Some people said, ‘Why don’t you go by your full name?’” Along with the uniqueness of the three-name configuration, Michael adds, “It’s kind of wearing a badge of where I came from.”
To find out more, visit www.kariholmes.com
To find out more, visit www.michaelmonroegoodman.com
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Pat Berlinquette Pat Berlinquette had pursued music from a number of angles (punk as a youth, electronic later on) far from the world of Americana. He had also put music aside for a while to build a successful career in marketing. The music never let him go completely, however. After spending about five years of “messing around, picking up the guitar once a month and maybe writing a song, but never doing anything with it” Pat’s life as he knew it was upended when his mother’s battle against cancer entered its final stage. After moving back to his childhood home to help care for his mom, Pat says, “The muse opened the door and came back into my life at a very inopportune time…My mind was racing with these song ideas and I had music in my head constantly. In retrospect, that was kind of a defense mechanism, I think, to deal with the situation…” By the time his mother passed away, Pat had amassed 60-plus songs. He says his muse then exited the scene again, once his mom was gone. However, he knew he had to do something with this creative output, which he felt was a gift from his mother. “My mom knew my dream in my life was music, and I had deferred that and selfsabotaged that for so long…She had one foot here and one foot somewhere else. The fact that it went away when she was no longer here is enough for me.” Doing something with the songs meant hooking up with long-time friend Kenny Siegal, a musician, producer (of Langhorne Slim and many others) and creator of Old Soul Studios in Catskill, New York. Kenny made an “A list” of 12 songs that he would help Pat bring to life with the help of seasoned studio musicians, including, on a few tracks, some harmonica from John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful. In anticipation of a full album release, Pat has been releasing a track each month on Spotify and Apple Music. He looks forward to sharing his music live as a solo act in the near future, and with a band when the opportunity presents itself.
To find out more, visit https://www.instagram.com/pat.berlinquette/
January 2022
Listen to the expanded interviews by searching Americana Music Profiles on all of your favorite Podcast platforms! ARTICLES BY DAN WALSH
Rock Hearts Drawing their name from Jimmy Martin’s 1958 done-me-wrong song, Rock Hearts came together in 2013, fusing the talents of a bunch of southern New England bluegrass veterans “who love to sing and pick bluegrass, old country tunes, and seek out newer tunes from other genres to ‘bluegrassify’.” From the moment they got together, they all knew they were onto something special. After extensive previous music careers, lead singer/rhythm guitarist Alex Mcleod says, “We all agree that for the first time, we’re all at this point in our professional music lives where we have found the perfect situation. Joey [Deetz] our banjo player says, ‘You know what we do? We speak the same musical language’.” Rounding out the lineup are: Billy “BT” Thibodeau (mandolin, guitar, lead vocals), Austin Scelzo (fiddle, vocals), and Rick Brodsky (bass). With the big splash the band made with a showcase (Bluegrass Ramble) at the most recent IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards last September, it’s clear that Rock Hearts’ unified vision is giving them a powerful voice in the bluegrass scene. As Grammy nominated singersongwriterpublisher Rick Lang says, “For anyone unfamiliar with this group they are a powerhouse, featuring some of New England’s finest. They bring lots of talent, experience, and a distinctive sound of their own.”
Tuatha Dea From its beginning, from Gatlinburg, Tennesseebased band, Tuatha Dea, has embraced its Celtic heritage and meshed the traditional music of Scotland and Ireland with their own bold blend of mainstream rock, mountain drumming and Appalachian blues to produce a truly unique sound. Family patriarch, band co-founder/leader and Tennessee native Danny Mullikin says, “We’ve been celebrating that heritage for years and years. There’s a lot of [Irish and Scottish] festivals and games…I always liked the music…The mix of rock and Celtic music that’s been created over maybe the last 25 or 30 years—we were always fans of that. Actually, I met my wife at a Celtic festival.” Danny also mentions the Celtic origins of bluegrass music as an influence on the band’s sound. A true family band, the group was conceived by Danny (percussion, guitar and vocals), his wife Rebecca (lead vocals and hand drums), his son Brandon Mullikin (lead guitar), and his daughter Tesea Dawson Mullikin (bass, keyboard and flute), the band organically evolved to include Rebecca’s sister Katherine Holman (lead vocals, hand drum and keyboard) and Katherine’s fiance Chris Bush (didgeridoo, native american flute, penny whistle, bagpipes and drums). Rounding out the lineup are Jeremiah Waldo on bass and Brett Maney on drums.
Rock Hearts is scheduled to record the follow-up to their high successful 2020 debut record, Starry Southern Nights, in April 2022.
The band’s name is a shortened version of “Tuatha Dé Danann” (roughly translated from Gaelic as “children of the gods,” according to Danny), referring to the mythological race inhabiting Ireland before the arrival of the ancestors of the modern Irish—essentially the fairy folk. Like other artists with Gaelic names, they’ve had to deal with the problem of pronunciation. They say “tow-ATHAdee-a”, despite that fact that the Gaelic is actually “TWO-a-dee-a.” “I will say, we don’t pronounce it correctly,” admits Danny. “We found out very early on that if we told people, ‘Hey, the band’s name is Tuatha Dea [pronounced properly], they would go online and look up “Two A Day”—and not find us. So, being here in the United States, we both anglicized it and went with phonics.
To find out more, visit www.rockheartsbluegrass.com
To find out more, visit www.tuathadea.net
While the band hasn’t set out to create a specifically “new” sound, Alex McLeod explains that “We try and play traditional-leaning bluegrass with a sprinkle of experimentation.” In reference to the songs from outside the tradition that they’ve covered in “bluegrassified” form (such as Townes van Zandt’s “Don’t Take it Too Bad”), Alex says (laughing), “We like to harvest songs from nonbluegrass genres. My feeling is that they were bluegrass songs, it’s just that the original writer didn’t realize they were.”
www.AmericanaRhythm.com
Val Storey Val Storey grew up steeped in country music from day one. Both of her parents were s i n g e r songwriters originally from Roanoke who moved close to Nashville to pursue their dreams of country music success. Her dad even opened a recording studio. It took some trauma to trigger her instinct to start making her own music. “My mom and I were in a car accident,” Val recalls. “I hardly talked at all…I was a little over three years old and should have been talking. When we were in the hospital, which we were there for about three months, she said I just started singing…I guess I did it mainly to sooth myself.” At about age 11, Val really caught the singing bug. Although a somewhat introverted girl, she asked her father to help her enter a contest. “He said ‘Can you sing?’ and I said, ‘I think so,” she remembers, laughing. “He was so sweet and brought a band into the studio and let me record my first little things to kinda practice, and have a track for the talent show.” She won. With that kind of introduction to the country music world, it’s no wonder that Val went on to great success as a studio singer in Nashville. When a member of her mom’s quartet (with Jordanaires Dwayne West and Ray Walker—no pressure!) had to miss a session, she asked a 14-year-old Val to sub. “I loved it.” Her first full-length solo venture was an album of gospel music, Where Flowers Bloom. (“I did that so my grandmother would be very happy, and she was,” Val adds.) She withdrew from actively playing out as she focused on raising a family, but later was drawn back to stage during the last eight or so years. After surviving and recuperating from a devastating motorcycle accident with her husband in August 2020, she continued to pursue performing and recording. Her sophomore album, produced by the legendary Larry Cordle, is set for release in the spring of 2022. A preview track, “Love at the Five & Dime,” has been released, in tribute to the song’s writer, Nanci Griffith, who passed in August 2021. To find out more, visit www.valstoreysings.com
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January 2022
Music From Around The World
Music From Your Neighbors
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elcome to the Holiday edition of SPINS for 2021. Whew! We made it! Thank you for supporting all the great musicians this year! Artists are still turning out great music everywhere, and we’re still here to tell you about it! Check these out, and please tell them we sent you. Buy a CD. Support your favorite musician so they can keep making their music! Got one you want us to consider? send it to: Uncle Woody The Spin Doctor PO Box 45 Bridgewater, VA 22812
Lorraine Jordan and Carolina Road I Can Go To Them
Balsam Range
The Sun Harmonic
Folk For Little Folk Vol. 1
Stash
Mixie And Mettle www.balsamrange.com
Coast to Coast
Gordie “Crazylegs” MacKeeman
Walk Away
www.thesunharmonic.bandcamp.net
www.crazylegs.ca
www.stash-us.com.com
Since forming in 2007, Balsam Range has earned 13 IBMA awards, including twice Entertainer of the Year. Their latest release has them cooking on full gas with four #1 radio singles. You’ll want to add this to your collection
Canadian songsmith Kaleb Hikele is the creator of The Sun Harmonic; a folk rock act featuring songs penned by Kaleb. It’s an independent, home studio relase, where he’s recorded for the past 11 years. Good stuff Kaleb
Another Canadian musician, award winning, Gordie MacKeeman is a high-octane folk artist, earning him the nickname, “crazylegs.” His latest, Folk For Little Folk, is perfect for the kids, or the kid in you. Get up and dance
Ted Russell Kamp has recorded 12 plus albums as a solo artist, and played with Shooter Jennings for more than 15. His latest effort, Stash, with friends Joey Peters, and Rich McCully, is full on 70s vibe. We love it
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The Furious Seasons
Brad Colerick
The Faux Paws
Twisted Pine
Home All Day Home All Night www.thefuriousseasons.com
Hope Street
The Faux Paws
www.bradcolerick.com
www.thefauxpawsmusic.com
Right Now www.twistedpineband.com
One of the biggest cheerleaders for the preservation of traditional blugrass music, Lorrane Jordan and her band Carolina Road have a new all gospel record; I Can Go To Them. If you’re a purest, and gospel fan, this is for you
A Better Day A-Coming is the 24th record from this Virginia based folk duo. It was recorded in their living room during 2019/2020 - it’s their first since 2013. A summer/ fall tour will feature guest musician/friend Garrison Keillor. You’ll want this one
Nebraska native Brad Colerick now resides in Southern California where he aptly named his latest project after; Hope Street. His bluesy folk music has earned him Billboard magazine’s “one of a baker’s dozen of acts to watch ... “ in the folk community
The Faux Paws have been traveling and making music for nearly 10 years, without an official collection of music. Finally, their debut record is out, and it’s a good one! Their folky, grassy groove is contagious. One of my top bands to watch for in 2022
One of the other bands I can’t wait to see (again) is Twisted Pine. Their set at the famous Lincoln in Raleigh, NC for the IBMA Ramble last September was outstanding. The Boston based band has been called, “a wider version of a string band.” Whatever it is, Love it
Valerie Smith
Josh King
Sidline
Renaissance
Feel Good
Chris Jones and the Night Drivers
Dream Rich, Dirt Poor
www.bellbucklerecords.com
www.joshkingmusic.com
Ups Downs and No Name Towns
Make Each Second Count
www.aaronburdett.com
www.sidelinebg.com
www.chrisjonesgrass.com
The 2019 IBMA Song of the Year band for “Thunder Dan,” Sideline does again what they do best - hard driving bluegrass with a contemporary twist. They never disappoint, and always entertain. This new collection is top shelf
Known by many as the host of Bluegrass Junction’s, True Grass, Chris Jones has been called a “singer-songwriter who happens to front a bluegrass band.” The new album is full of fresh lyrics, and lots of good grass
Aaron Burdett is listed as one of the top 10 most important musicians of western North Carolina by WNC magazine. His critically acclaimed writing style and folky roots delivery make him one artist to keep your eye on this year. You’ll want to hear this one
www.carolinaroadband.com
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American roots artist and songwriter Valerie Smith’s latest album is a reflection of where she believes she’s at as a musician - a Renaissance. With themes of love, acceptance, self-worth ... mostly about optimism. It’s a great new collection
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The Greensboro, NC native, Josh King arrives with his debut CD, Feel Good. “Songs should tell a story,” Josh said. (hear interview on Profiles podcast) His music has great melodies delivered with a walloping punch of rock and country. Well worth a listen
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Aaron Burdett
You can send new Americana CD releases for consideration to PO Box 45, Bridgewater, VA, 22812 / greg@americanarhythm.com
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www.AmericanaRhythm.com
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January 2022
Americana Music Profiles On Pantheon Network part of the Pantheon nextwork. It’s like the MTV for music podcasts. And now Americana Music Profiles is featured on more than 70 different podcast platforms worldwide - meaning the story interviews are exposed to more than a half million listeners!
Have you had a chance to check out the Americana Music Profiles podcast yet? If you’ve been enjoying the Profiles articles here in Americana Rhythm magazine, you’ll really want to check out the “rest of the story,” as radio broadcaster, Paul Harvey, used to say.
Go to www.AmericanaRhythm.com and click the podcast button. It will take you to the library page. Or just google Americana Music Profiles and you’ll get all kinds of link options - it’s on all of your favorite podcast servers. If you’re an artist, and you want to learn how to be featured on Americana Music Profiles, just email us at info@AmericanaRhythm.com.
The podcast itself has been running for the last four years or so, but last November (20), we got invited to be a
We’re excited to have Eagle Nest Outfitters as one of the sponsors of Americana Music Profiles in 2022!
SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Send us your name and address along with your check or money order for $18 for 6 issues, made out to Americana Rhythm, to PO Box 45, Bridgewater, VA, 22812. (PLEASE PRINT CLEARLY) You can also subscribe Via PayPal on line at www.AmericanaRhythm.com Name: Address: City: State:
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