A&E

PLAY BY YOUR OWN RULES

A conversation with Sam Bush

BY GARRET K. WOODWARD S TAFF WRITER

Fresh out of high school in 1970, Sam Bush was a teenager in Bowling Green, Kentucky, with aspirations of being a touring musician.

With his mandolin and fiddle in hand, he took off for the bright stage lights of Louisville, teaming up with bluegrass guitar wizard Tony Rice as part of the iconic ensemble that was The Bluegrass Alliance.

Just a year later, Bush would form New Grass Revival, a groundbreaking string act that would forever change the landscape of that “high, lonesome sound.”

Incorporating influences from all aspects of their backgrounds, NGR would seamlessly blend the traditions of bluegrass with more contemporary and experimental styles. This year, the group was rightfully inducted into the IBMA Bluegrass Hall of Fame.

Now 68, Bush has been hitting the stage with The Sam Bush Band for several decades. Regarded as a pillar of bluegrass music, Bush remains a torchbearer for not only the past and its deep roots, but also the bright future and ultimate survival of string music in the 21st century.

Smoky Mountain News: You’ve been on the road touring for decades. During the shutdown, what was it like to actually have to stand still?

Sam Bush: That’s been its own challenge. I always wondered what it’d be like to maybe be you know? I’m now 68 and as I was approachjust started playing music for a livhave would be to play four or five nights in a club. And so, that was the

Michigan and played a festival. Michigan in Want to go? October — it was spitting snow on Sunday afternoon when we played. The Grey Eagle drive-in concert series And that’s where I [first] met Del McCoury will kick off with legendary bluegrass group that weekend. Matter of fact, Tony [Rice] bor

The Sam Bush Band at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, rowed Del’s guitar for that [Michigan] set. And

Sept. 20, at the Maggie Valley Festival look how you’ve made friends for life — that’s

Grounds. happened for us in playing music for the last

Tickets start at $100 per carload (allow50 years. ing up to six people per vehicle), which includes a 20x20-foot space to park and to SMN: That’s one of the things I love most tailgate. Pre-packaged meals will be availabout working not only in the music industry, able for purchase. Beverages will also be but especially with bluegrass, is that when I do served onsite. cross paths with those people, it is the most

For more information on tickets and/or the embracing and welcoming genre. social distancing guidelines for the series, SB: Well, it always has [been]. As I was visit www.thegreyeagle.com, click on the learning to play bluegrass music, the audience

“Calendar” tab and scroll to the show date. for bluegrass was such a small club to get to be in — we all knew each other. And we’re all making friends out in the audience. retired. Well, I found [out] pretty early on that Bluegrass style music is pretty unique, in I’m not ready to retire. I just love playing music that many people in the audience play an and I’ve never appreciated it more than perinstrument and play the music — all the more haps in the last 10 years. I’ve learned a new reason that they’re an educated audience appreciation over the years and I’ve always felt you’re playing for. fortunate to get to do this for a living. And when we got to those festivals, we

SMN: What is it about that last decade knowledgeable about what we’re doing. That that’s really circled back and brought it home was a real boost over playing a loud club where to you? you can barely be heard over the roar of the

SB: I guess it’s just getting to a certain age, drums. ing [60] it was just like, “Wow. I’ve really been SMN: The majority of your life has been on doing this a long time.” I started traveling for a the road and playing music, interacting with living since I was at 18. people from all walks of life. What has the cul[Right] out of high school, moved up to mination of those experiences taught you Louisville, Kentucky, from Bowling Green and about what it means to be a human being? ing. It’s hard to believe that you’ve done something so long. But, on the “I always wondered what it’d be other hand, I’ve always gotten to make a living doing something that I like to maybe be retired. Well, I truly love to do. found [out] pretty early on that

SMN: When you think back to 50 I’m not ready to retire. I just love years ago when you made that move after high school, what sticks out playing music and I’ve never most? What you were thinking about appreciated it more than perhaps with that first big leap? SB: Well, what I was realistically in the last 10 years. I’ve learned a thinking about at the time was the new appreciation over the years fact that I got to leave a job as a bus boy at the Holiday Inn in Bowling and I’ve always felt fortunate to Green and move up to the big city of Louisville and play music. get to do this for a living.”

Back then, the normal job you’d — Sam Bush knew that the people in the audience are first thing I got to start doing when I moved to SB: Well, it’s taught tolerance for people. Louisville, playing bluegrass music for a living We don’t all think alike and that can’t be five nights a week. expected. It’s taught acceptance of new ideas,

Festivals were in their early infancy then in ideas you haven’t thought of, that you didn’t 1970. As the festival scene grew, we would still know about at first. And forgiveness of things play all winter in these clubs. You get to play in you don’t understand. the clubs and it was as if going to festivals was Overall, [it’s taught] a great sense of gratiour reward. tude. Let’s face it, things don’t go like you want

I remember when I was in The Bluegrass them to. This year is teaching the world more Alliance and we had been playing in the clubs patience. So, maybe we can all be more accepta little bit, a couple months. And it got to be ing of different ideas as we progress through all October. We drove up from Louisville to of this.

BY GARRET K. WOODWARD

Motel 6 in Laramie, Wyoming. (photo: Garret K. Woodward)

Oh, the day we met I went astray, I started rolling down that lost highway

It’s 4:41 a.m. at the Motel 6 in Laramie, Wyoming, which means it’s nearing 7 o’clock back at my apartment in Waynesville, North Carolina. My guitar sits atop the bed with fresh sheets and fluffy pillows, right across from my late grandfather’s old Coleman cooler on the floor near the door.

Tuesday morning and I’ve been on the road since Saturday afternoon. Leaving Waynesville, I packed up the Tacoma and headed west, eyes aimed for Jackson, Wyoming. The only anchor point being a Wednesday lunch rendezvous with my parents and aunt at Dornan’s — my mother’s favorite place to sit and gaze at her beloved Grand Teton mountains on a rooftop with a glass of wine (I concur).

Somewhere around Sidney, Nebraska, the landscape shifts from hundreds of miles of cornfields and grasslands in the rearview mirror to small rocky bluffs and wide-open spaces of ancient dirt and a horizon you never seem to get any closer to reaching. The late summer sun fell behind that faraway line, blood red and finally relenting its position to the impending night on the prairie.

And it was also at that point, on the Wyoming/Nebraska state line, where darkness coats the landscape as if a black velvet blanket was draped over everything surrounding you by the cosmos above. The endless headlights and taillights of Interstate 80 are your only frame of reference, perhaps your only tether to reality, when holding steady at 90 miles an hour with the nearest gas station some 40 miles away.

There’s always been a piece of my heart out here. I first realized that missing piece resides in Wyoming when I was a kid, back home in Upstate New York following a lifealtering family trip to Jackson. And I’ve been lucky enough to revisit and reclaim that piece — if but for a moment — when I returned out here as a teenager in the early 2000s, as a rookie reporter for the Teton Valley News in 2008, and as a road weary wanderer in 2018.

I think this current trip back to Jackson and the Tetons means much more this time around. In a world of daily chaos and unknowns that tend to spawn (whether con- sciously or subconsciously) an existential crisis seemingly as often as one makes the morning coffee, those mountains remain a familiar sight that puts my soul at ease. When I’m in their presence, I find clarity and a sense of self in an era where we either seek those things out or somehow forgot how to reach for them in the first place.

Of course, for all of us, this year has been a rollercoaster ride of emotions. What’s been tough has been living and being alone during most of 2020. Sure, I’ve always kind of been an extroverted loner anyhow. And yes, I due pursue the idea of solitude (for body, mind and soul), all while knowing the difference between it and loneliness.

But, for someone like myself, who always is on the move (personally and professionally), being forced to sit in my one-bedroom apartment for several weeks and months during the shutdown proved difficult. Without social interaction or places to go, I really had (and continue) to sit and digest my thoughts: past, present and future.

Which is why I find myself so eager to drive thousands of miles into the West this week. Hand firmly on the steering wheel. Black and grey hair flowing in the breeze of open truck windows on an endless highway. Thoughts about nothing and everything. And don’tcha know that while in that instance, if you put on The Allman Brothers Band, the melodies seem to hold back the sands of time?

The sun will be up soon here in Laramie. The cold night will once again transition into the warmth of the noonday sun across the high desert plains. Reaching for the guitar on the bed with fresh sheets and fluffy pillows, I think I’ll try and learn a Hank Williams tune this morning.

The crisp air outside the hotel window signifies the end of summer, the slow march to fall and soon winter once again. The holidays seem so far away, but they’ll be here soon enough. The same goes for Upstate New York and my parents’ farmhouse, where that annual Christmas visit is thousands of miles to the east on the road map. But, the distance is that much closer when I raise the wine glass and cheers my folks and my aunt atop Dornan’s, our sacred Tetons looming in the distance.

Who knows where the road will lead, eh? Just as Gregg Allman sang those many years ago, “And the road goes on forever…” As does time itself, whether we accept that or not. It’s embracing the hard truths and pushing forward with your head held high that is the measuring stick for a life well-lived.

Once you hold those truths and appreciate the journey, come hell or high water, you will soon find the people, places and things that will ultimately fill in those missing pieces of your existence.

Maybe this is just merely a ramble of some scruffy writer sitting in a cheap motel in Wyoming, exhausted from the long drive and craving the nearest diner with big breakfast plates and endless coffee. Or maybe it’s the sentiments of someone who keeps waking up day after day and chasing after whatever make his heart sing. I’m leaning more towards the latter.

Life is beautiful, grasp for it, y’all.

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743 HAYWOOD RD WEST ASHEVILLE ISISASHEVILLE.COM 828.575.2737

Artist grants now available

Artists in all disciplines are eligible to apply for grants to support their professional and artistic development through a partnership of the North Carolina Arts Council and Asheville Area Arts Council, Haywood County Arts Council, Arts Council of Henderson County, Tryon Fine Arts Center, Rutherford County Recreation, Cultural, and Heritage Commission, and the Transylvania Community Arts Council.

Artist Support Grants will be distributed to eligible applicants by Haywood County Arts Council in the following counties: Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, Polk, Rutherford, and Transylvania.

Applications for the grants are available www.haywoodarts.org/grantsfunding. The deadline is Sept. 30. Grants will range in awards from $500 to $1,000.

• Elevated Mountain Distilling Company will host Arnold Hill (rock/jam) 8 p.m. Sept. 26 and Bohemian Jean (classic rock/folk) 7 p.m.

Saturday, Oct. 3. Free and open to the public. www.elevatedmountain.com.

• Frog Level Brewing (Waynesville) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends and Good Bonez 6:30 p.m. Sept. 18 and

Outlaw Whiskey 6:30 p.m. Sept. 26. Free and open to the public. www.froglevelbrewing.com.

• The Ghost Town in the Sky parking lot (Maggie Valley) will host a drive-in concert series with St. Paul & The Broken Bones (soul/rock) on Oct. 29. All shows begin at 7:30 p.m. Gates open at 6 p.m. Hosted by

The Grey Eagle and Worthwhile Sounds, tickets are available at www.thegreyeagle.com.

• Lazy Hiker Brewing (Franklin) will host Will

James 7 p.m. Sept. 19 and Andrew Thelston

Band 7 p.m. Sept. 26. For more information and a complete schedule of events, click on www.lazyhikerbrewing.com.

• The Maggie Valley Festival Grounds will host a drive-in concert series with Sam Bush

Band (bluegrass/jam) Sept. 20, Mandolin

Orange (Americana/folk) Oct. 2 and Del

McCoury Band (bluegrass) Oct. 3. All shows begin at 7:30 p.m. Gates open at 6 p.m.

Hosted by The Grey Eagle and Worthwhile

Sounds, tickets are available at www.thegreyeagle.com.

The same program is accepting applications through a partnership of the North Carolina Arts Council and Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center.

Artist Support Grants will be distributed to eligible applicants by Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center in the following counties: Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Jackson, Macon, Swain, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

To learn more about the Artist Support Grants, visit www.coweeschool.org/nc-arts-council.

Emerging or established artists are encouraged to apply to support a range of professional and artistic development including the creation of work, improvement of business operations, or expanding capacity to bring work to new audiences. Artist fees are also allowable expenses.

For information or questions, contact Leigh Forrester, executive director of the Haywood County Arts Council, at www.haywoodarts.org or 828.452.0593.

• Nantahala Brewing (Sylva) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. www.nantahalabrewing.com.

• The Smoky Mountain Event Center (Waynesville) will host a drive-in concert series with Mt. Joy (Americana/indie) Oct. 3,

Yonder Mountain String Band (bluegrass/jam) Oct. 7 and Whitey Morgan (outlaw country/rock) ALSO: Oct. 10. All shows begin at 6:45 p.m. Gates open at 6 p.m. Hosted by the

Asheville Music Hall, tickets are available at www.ashevillemusichall.com.

• The “Haywood County Medical Exhibit: 1870-1950” will be held at The Shelton

House in Waynesville. The showcase will run through October. Admission is $7 adults. $5 students. Children ages 5 and under free.

Admission includes Shelton House. 828.452.1551 or www.sheltonhouse.org.

• The annual Cashiers Valley Leaf Festival has been canceled because of coronavirusrelated issues. The festival typically features more than 100 artisan vendors and welcomes thousands of visitors in celebration of the colorful autumn season in the mountains.

• There will be a free wine tasting from 2 to 5 p.m every Saturday at The Wine Bar & Cellar in Sylva. 828.631.3075.

An oldies group known for singing four-part harmonies of memorable songs from the ‘50s, ’60s and ‘70s, The Sock Hops will perform an outdoor concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 18, at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin.

The performance includes many hits: “Why Do Fools Fall in Love,” “At the Hop,” “Sherry” and “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

This event will take place outdoors as a Although the Bardo Arts Center at Western Carolina University is closed to the public during the WCU fall semester due to COVID-19 restrictions, audiences will have the opportunity to view virtual events and experiences, with a line-up of streaming events beginning in September.

The WCU Fine Art Museum is currently offering an interactive 360- degree virtual tour of the exhibition, Cultivating Collections: Paintings, Ceramics, and Works by Latinx and Latin American Artists. This multi-year series of exhibitions highlight specific areas of the WCU Fine Art Museum’s Collection, which includes over 1,800 works of art in a wide range of media by artists of the Americas.

Throughout the fall more virtual events will be available, learn more at arts.wcu.edu/cultivatingcollections.

The BAC Performance Hall has partnered with the SouthArts Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers to present a free documentary film series that audiences can watch in the comfort of their home. The films this fall are available to watch on browsers through computers and mobile devices, along with Rokus, Amazon “drive-in” style concert. Patrons may stay in their vehicle or bring lawn chairs to sit in a designated socially distant area near the elevated stage. Curb hop concessions will be available for purchase (cash only). Watch the theatre website for news about cancellations due to weather.

Tickets are $18 each. To purchase tickets or to find out more information, visit www.greatmountainmusic.com or call

WCU virtual art events

866.273.4615. Firesticks, SmartTVs and more through the app, “Eventive TV.”

Each stream is followed by a post-film interview with the film’s director and/or other member of the film crew. The film series opens with the documentary, “Coded Bias,” streaming at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15, and 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 20.

“Coded Bias” explores the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini’s startling discovery that facial

recognition systems do not see darkskinned faces accurately, and her journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the U.S. to govern against bias in the algorithms that impact us all. Shalini Kantayya, the film’s producer and director, will be interviewed immediately following each stream. Learn more about this film, the entire series, and how to register for a free ticket by visiting arts.wcu.edu/filmseries.

Discover further virtual WCU arts events and experiences by visiting arts.wcu.edu/blog.