Goodnight, Texas

The coast to coast duo of San Francisco based, Avi Vinocur (formerly of The Stone Foxes), and North Carolina’s Patrick Dyer Wolf, make up the clever collaboration of what has been lovingly dubbed, garage roots Appalachian. Calling themselves, Goodnight, Texas, the pair have somehow managed to make the band work –despite living in opposite ends of the US.

Their music, all original, has a vintage feel, almost familiar, yet unique at the same time, driven by the organic nature of their instruments – In this case, a banjo, acoustic guitar, and a 1918 mandolin, combined with the storytelling folk rock band feel that comes with adding the remaining pieces of the group when they get to travel as a full band. It then becomes a five-piece band where folk, blues, and rock ‘n’ roll, along with dry wit and dark truths, meet hope and utmost sincerity.

Avi and Patrick met in 2007, when Patrick briefly lived in San Francisco. But they didn’t start playing together until after Patrick moved back to North Carolina. In 2010 they started

By Greg Tutwiler

actually named, Goodnight. It’s about 45 minutes from Amarillo, TX. “Goodnight, along with a lot of other places in the middle of the country, are places that we didn’t grow up in, and we didn’t really know much about, but we were always fascinated by,” Avi said. “We wanted to learn about them and wanted to go there and meet the people. So Goodnight piqued our interest when we found the name on a map. We decided to go figure out what it was, and name our band after it, and hope the people there didn’t hate that. They were all very, very welcoming and excited.” touring together, and put out their first album in 2012, as Good Night, Texas.

Interestingly, the band’s name comes from a town in Texas

The band plays bluegrass instruments, but more like a rock band – in this case, kind of heavy, and kind of dark. “We’ve always struggled to define our genre,” Avi exclaimed; “What exactly are we? A few people have thrown out names, like Doom Country, and Garage Appalachian. And then certainly things like, Folk Rock, or Antique Store Rock. There’s a lot of words, but we’ve never figured out the perfect one continued on page 15

ARTICLES BY DAN WALSH

RC Hall

When asked about is introduction to music, RC Hall recalls, “my old man bellowing out Hank Snow tunes in the old Galaxie 500 on family road trips when I was a kid.” He adds, “I grew up in backcountry Missouri listening to The Beatles, Skynyrd, Iron Maiden and Zeppelin, alongside ’80s and ’90s country.”

RC has lived what to some would seem like many lives. At 55, he’s been a wrangler, ski bum, mountain guide, and even a National Geographic photographer and writer, which literally led him to the ends of the Earth, including Antarctica, Patagonia and Mozambique on once-in-a-lifetime assignments. But after suffering burnout, RC put his camera away for the first time in years, and reacquainted himself with an old friend: the guitar.

I had never intended to be a singersongwriter, but in the winter of 2011-12, I spent six months woodshedding by myself in a cabin in the Ozarks trying to become a competent chicken picker. With all that time to myself, songs just started popping out. I wrote them down and kept playing them, along with my favorite covers.”

“I have been in some wild situations in my life, but I have never been so terrified as I was at that first gig at the VFW Hall in Buena Vista,” RC says. It was enough to keep him moving forward. He had borrowed a guitar from a “cowboy” singer that night, and when he handed the instrument, the guy said, “You got it, son!...It felt really good to hear that…I just decided to keep chipping away at it.”

By 2015, RC had started laying down some demos at his home studio. When he hit 55 years on the planet, he felt it was “now or never” for his pursuit of music. “In 2021, I decided to contact Lloyd Maines to see if he would produce an album for me.” Hall says. His “crappy home-made demos” were enough to get Lloyd’s attention and, a year and-a-half later he has produced his first offering, Wood, Wire and Whiskey

To find out more, visit www.www.rchall.net

Songs From The Road Band

“Bluegrass is, by nature, a collaborative form of music,” says Charles R Humphrey III, Songs From the Road Band’s bassist and bandleader. The band began as a part-time collective of western North Carolina musicians, but has grown, over the years, into a full-time touring band, with “community” remaining its driving force. This spirit of collaboration became especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic, through which Pay Your Dues, the band’s debut, was born.

“Like all other musicians, we found ourselves with a lot of time on our hands,” says Charles. “We used much of that time writing and creating music with others.” The band later headed to Asheville’s famed Echo Mountain Recording and spent time laying down the tracks that would become Pay Your Dues. “During the pandemic, our music community became more important to us than ever, and we wanted the album to reflect that.” Recording during the pandemic did pose some challenges, and the release has been a long time in the making. With the exception of the album’s lone cover (a fan-favorite ‘grassed-up version of Elvis’ “Suspicious Minds”), all the tracks on the album are co-writes between Charles and other writers.

“I’ve been accused—it’s not a bad thing—of being a ‘frying pan writer’ as opposed to a ‘crockpot writer,’” Charles says, when asked about his process. Considering the 140-plus songs that the band culled to generate the album, he describes it further: “When I write, I make an appointment, and I cowrite. I like to start from scratch. I tell people don’t show up with too much, because we don’t want to change anything and hurt anybody’s feelings. It’s very rare that it takes longer than two hours. We’ll do a little work tape and have our lyrics and that song’s done. Then it’s just a matter of finding a home for it.”

The band is looking forward to extensive touring to expose their music to a wider audience. Charles is also making a little time for one of his other passions: fly fishing. “It’s not coincidence that the tour ends up in Idaho and Montana, where the fly fishing is excellent.”

To find out more, visit www.songsfromtheroadband.com

“All my life I’ve always ended up rotating back to music as a means of survival, whether it be for my mental state, or possibly financial state.” So says Murphy, a folk/blues-style singer-songwriter with a difficult early life story, and also a unique experience of musical self-discovery and wider fame.

While dealing with childhood challenges like a lack of reliable living circumstances and even homelessness, along with a degenerative eye disease, Murphy turned to music for solace and identity. As a young adult, he decided to follow the music where it would lead him. He says, “This is a defining point where I said, ‘Well, I’m not gonna suffer and struggle, I’m gonna go try to make a difference for myself. If I can’t get hours at my job, I’m gonna go play guitar, because it made me feel better, and I can make other people feel better.” After getting a welcoming reaction from the people down at the Baltimore pier where he went to busk, Murphy had an important realization. “I knew for a moment that I was doing something positive with being just who I was,” he says.

Later, after refocusing on YouTube as a venue for sharing his music, he was invited to audition for American Idol (Season 19, 2021), becoming a fan favorite, despite not progressing to the final round. Nonetheless, the exposure afforded by the show propelled Murphy forward on his mission to share music and raise spirits everywhere he went. Never one to simply bask in his own success, he offers words of encouragement to other performers and anyone looking to take a new step in life: “...even if you’re not sure how well you will be received, go in as genuinely as you can, because everyone needs someone that commits to themselves.”

These days, along with a busy touring schedule, Murphy also makes time to share his talents and positivity with students at TheRecW (The Recording Workshop) in Chillicothe, Ohio. His most recent release is a 7-song EP, called, appropriately, Extended Play, available now on Spotify, and is teasing “something wonderful” to be released in late 2023.

To find out more, visit www.murphymusic.netcom

Goodnight, continued from page 12 to capture it. However; one of the ones that made us smile was, Garage Appalachians, so we somewhat adopted that.”

The sound itself was not entirely intentional though. “I think we wrote music that just felt like this, but in combination with other music,” Avi reflected. “Then we decided to try to focus on it, and expand on the specific sound we were doing. We picked up the mandolin and banjo secondarily. They were not our main instruments, but we really felt playing them inspired us. They added to the songs, and the sound gave us new creative ideas, and new ways of songwriting came out of them in our hands. So we were inspired by that, and kept it going. I got really into Tim Erickson at one point. He’s a real traditionalist. He does a lot of Celtic and traditional singing, and instrumentals, and he plays a lot of old instruments. There were these videos that he would put online, and it was super inspiring to me. I thought, I kind of want to be like that; writing songs in a more conventional way. I’d like to use these instruments to try to make something that feels both like a current song, but on these old instruments.

I wanted to make them feel mysterious, and have the listener feel like; ‘are they cover songs? Are they traditional? Are they not?’

We like trying to see how far we can go with playing with the blurred line between what’s traditional and what’s original. We do play all original, but we try to make it sound as if, maybe you’ve heard it before.”

It was like a mission statement at the beginning of the band. It’s fun to make songs that sound like they’re really old. Did they actually write it like that like?

Avi says the band has evolved a fair amount since the beginning. “But I definitely still try to tell stories that are, you know, dark in nature, or possibly maybe the song sounds happy with the concept that music is much darker. The lyrics are much darker I think. It’s an inspiring canvas to start with,” he said. “And then you can sort of build off of that. I still sort of dig around that for inspiration. I read a lot of stories about American history. It can be inspiring to just find a story, and try to picture what a soundtrack to that might be.

When writing songs, Avi says that most often it’s the melody part of the song he gets first. “I’ll have lyrics sort of in a pile; notes and one-liners, and such. I will find that new melody and then sift through the pile and see what that lines up. So yeah, for the most part, the music usually comes first. And then the idea comes after. But there are some times where you just write a poem, and you’re like, I’m gonna figure out what this is afterwards.”

Listen to the expanded interviews by searching Americana Music Profiles on all of your favorite Podcast platforms!

ARTICLES BY DAN WALSH

Crandall CreekMorgan Tucker

Crandall Creek came into being in 2015 when Jerry Andrews decided he wanted to start a bluegrass band. Jerry also had some stories to tell, which would best be shared via songwriting. He brought together a bluegrass band that created its own music with an ear toward the mountain harmonies he heard as a child, growing up in Moundsville, West Virginia.

Rewinding to when music first got its hooks into him, Jerry recalls without hesitation that he was ten years old when he first got his hands on a guitar. “We had an Epiphone semi-hollowbody guitar. It was black. I remember it like it was yesterday…I found a Mel Bay handbook and taught myself how to play guitar.” He played rock music in high school, then later country, but in 1982, as Jerry describes it, he “put the guitar down, and I didn’t look at an instrument until 2015.” Family and holding down multiple jobs took Jerry’s focus off music for a while.

Music got jolted back to life for Jerry when he decided he wanted to see Donna Ulisse in concert. “She came to Glenville State College in West Virginia and did a songwriting seminar and a concert…I called to get tickets and oddly enough they said they weren’t handling the tickets but they’d give me a number to call.” When he dialed the Nashville number, Jerry ended up on the line with none other than Donna Ulisse herself. She told him to bring his guitar and play some of the songs he had written back with his country band at her songwriting clinic.

Not long after reviving his passion for music and songwriting, Jerry assembled the group that would become Crandall Creek. Their third and latest album is a nine-track effort called Handprints on the Glass They have also recently released a new single, “Refrigerator Homemade Picture Show.” Written with bandmate Kathy Wigman Lesnock. Jerry explains that “the song came to me one day as a cascade of my grandkid’s artwork peeled off the refrigerator door. As I picked it up, it made me think of all the creativity kids have. Sometimes I wouldn’t know what the picture in the drawing was, but I applauded just the same.”

Morgan Tucker is an Australian alternative country singer-songwriter with true “country” bona fides, as he comes from a small town in New South Wales, called Dorrigo. He counts as his key musical influences outlaw country pioneers like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, along with modern-day torch bearers Sturgill Simpson and Charley Crockett.

After sampling a wide range of music styles, by his mid-twenties Morgan ultimately arrived “at home” in the alternative country realm. “Up to then I put my toe in few different types of music,” he recalls, “ranging from hardcore and punk to hip-hop…as you do as a teenager…”

Morgan fronted the Sydney alt-country/rock band Billygoat & the Mongrels from 2005 to 2013. Known for their raucous high energy shows they earned a loyal following through Sydney’s inner west, playing regularly at top live music venues and festivals. The group released two albums and an EP, and their song “My old Friends” was featured on the TV show 600 Bottles of Wine . During his time with the band, Morgan began to hone his writing chops.

In 2013, Morgan moved back to Dorrigo and has continued to write and perform, playing solo with bands across NSW’s mid north, north coast and northern tablelands.

Towards the end of 2022, he released his debut solo album For Better or Worse.

“It’s a collection of songs written over the last ten years, since I moved away from Sydney and back up home to the mountains at Dorrigo,” Morgan says. “I’m very good at starting songs but not very good at finishing them. So, to get these eleven songs there’s probably another hundred that never got finished.” The album came about when Morgan made a connection with Australian country music legend, Bill Chambers. “Then when I had the deadline in my head, that’s when four or five of the songs got written, in the few months leading up to the album.”

Jason Barie

Hailing from Florida and currently playing with the Radio Ramblers with Joe Mullins, fiddler Jason Barie got an early start on his musical road. Starting at age 10, he took classical lessons at school, but his dad had something else in mind. “Dad found a little music store in Tampa called the Bluegrass Parlor, which offered lessons on all of the bluegrass instruments and sold vintage records,” Jason remembers. “I started fiddle lessons at that store and by age 14 had joined my first band. By age 15 I was working on stage as a freelance fiddler for many local bands in central Florida.”

In fact, Jason was so dedicated to mastering the art of fiddle-playing, he spent so many hours working on tunes for various fiddle competitions, he was able to claim the title of Florida State Champion. He would go on to claim the title a total of six times. After graduating high school, Jason stayed the course and continued down his personal road to professional success, landing his first national touring gig with Florida-based group Sand Mountain. The next nine years saw a series of gigs with various groups, including legends Bobby Osborne and the Rocky Top Express and Jesse McReynolds and The Virginia Boys. These two groups provided Jason with the opportunity to play the Grand Ole Opry.

Never one to sit still in his career, Jason continues the progression: “I then spent two years with Larry Stephenson as his first ever fiddle player. The call came in January of 2009 to audition with Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. I spent almost six years working side by side with the Bluegrass Hall of Fame inductee. I am now touring with the Ohio radio man Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers.”

Not surprisingly, Jason has garnered numerous awards and has been involved with Grammynominated recordings through so many years of playing with the cream of the bluegrass crop.

Jason has recorded four albums of his own (as the driving force with a lot of other musicians along for the ride). The latest release is called Radioactive.

Listen to the expanded interviews by searching Americana Music Profiles on all of your favorite Podcast platforms!

ARTICLES BY DAN WALSH

Danny PaisleyJake Ybarra

Since his father’s passing in 2004, singer/guitarist Danny Paisley has preserved and advanced the tradition of classic bluegrass begun by his dad, Bob Paisley, who, along with Ted Lundy, performed originally as the Southern Mountain Boys, then later as The Southern Grass, the latter of which became quite popular on the festival circuit. The band was made up mostly of Paisley’s and Lundy’s sons.

Danny Paisley and The Southern Grass have carved their own niche in the bluegrass world, producing consecutive chart-topping albums. The group has been given over 15 Bluegrass Music Award Nominations and won the 2009 IBMA Song of the Year for “Don’t Throw Mama’s Flowers Away.” In 2021, Danny Paisley joined an elite group of vocalists to be awarded the IBMA Male Vocalist of the Year for the third time, an achievement attained by only five others in Bluegrass music history.

Concerning the ongoing “family band” nature of his music, Danny says, “We just keep passing the tradition on…Ryan [his 22-year-old son and the band’s mandolin player] has different ideas than I do, and I had different ideas than my father did, so we each put our little mark on the music, and just keep on going. I think that’s what music is all about.”

While holding to the traditions of bluegrass, Danny embraces the need for changes that can speak to the current generations of listeners: “We can’t expect young people to be drawn to music singing about cabins and old mountain homes…a young person today doesn’t relate to living a hard life deep in the mountains and growing up in a cabin…” For Danny, putting together new recordings is all about finding a balance of the old and the new. “It’s hard in today’s age to find fresh songs…a lot of my fans like to hear the old ones that I’ve been playing for 30 years…but to bring in new people I have other songs…”

The band’s latest release is Bluegrass Troubadour, which features 10 tracks by 10 different writers, including “Fancy Gap Runaway” by Ryan Paisley.

David Starr

For 25-year-old Jake Ybarra (pronounced “e-BARa”), the first step on his creative journey came in Harlingen, Texas, where he was born into a musical household. With a classically trained pianist for a mother, a semi-professional horn player for a dad, and a couple of guitar-playing brothers, music was constantly in young Jake’s ears. When he was eight, the family moved to Greenville, South Carolina, and music began leaving a permanent mark.

“We grew up Southern Baptist,” he explains, “so I sang in a bunch of quartets and boys choirs growing up. One was a group called Chicora Voices, and we would do recitals, sometimes with the Greenville Symphony. You learn to listen and learn what your voice can do.”

When he hit the age of 15, Jake put aside dreams of baseball stardom to dive into music more seriously, initially playing in a series of rock bands in school. However, as he moved on to college at Furman University, Jake’s attention was drifting toward storytelling and creating his own music.

“I found myself listening less to rock bands and more to lyricists,” he recalls. Thinking about influential albums, he says, “The first ones that really got to me were Jason Isbell’s Southeastern and The Freewheeling Bob Dylan. Until then I didn’t realize how sad songs could be, but they could also be beautiful at the same time. That led me to Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, James McMurtry, John Prine and Lucinda Williams.”

After graduating, Jake turned his attention to songwriting fulltime. In 2020 he recorded what he calls his “pandemic project,” a foursong EP called Basement Songs, and posted it on Instagram. It garnered enough attention to land him a management deal and an opportunity to record his debut album, Something In The Water, with producer William Gawley.

“It is very gratifying when I get on stage and I see people reacting emotionally,” he says. “I know they’re into the words as much as the music.”

David Starr’s unique mix of soulful vocals and honest lyrics has helped him create a folk/roots sound all his own, which, in turn has garnered him prestigious showcase performances at Folk Alliance International, AmericanaFest, and Southwest Regional Folk Alliance. It has also consistently landed him at the top of the Colorado Music Chart. A master guitarist, he is endorsed by Breedlove Guitars and was honored to create his own limited edition signature guitar with the company.

The Arkansas native has honed his playing and songwriting during a decades-long career that has seen him release more than 10 albums. While touring internationally, David has shared the stage with esteemed artists like John Oates and John McEuen, and opened for acts like America, John Oates (Hall & Oates), Travis Tritt, Restless Heart, Karla Bonoff, The Steel Wheels, Survivor, and many others.

Music was a constant in his life from an early age. After initially playing drums, David later taught himself guitar. “As long as I can remember I was picking at guitars trying to figure stuff out. As a singing drummer growing up, at some point I thought, ‘You know I just want to be out front and part of that thing,’ so I taught myself enough to get by.

David’s latest project is Better Me. It includes highenergy acoustic-driven songs such as the title track and “Closer To You,” the feisty blues-rock “Poison The Water,” as well as the haunting “Any Chance Of Going Home,” which features classic fingerpicking with Starr’s sharpened storytelling lyrics.

He is a founding member of the board for the Grand Mesa Arts & Events Center in Cedaredge, an intimate event space aimed at attracting musicians and visual artists to Colorado’s Western Slope. He also produces the town’s annual Apple Fest, which draws over 15,000 people to the area, securing live music from more than a dozen acts on the Starr’s Guitar Stage over the course of the three-day festival.