Author Archives: Azlyrics

Recording King has announced the introduction of their new small sized, short scale, metal body resonator guitar.

Called simply the Parlor Metal Body Resonator, this round neck guitar is made to offer a distinctive voice in the Recording King reso family. Even with the smaller body, they are utilizing a full 9.5” cone, the same hand-spun ones that go into their pricier full size models.

The body is made from bell brass, nickel plated, with a 24.25” scale V-shaped mahogany neck attached, and a rosewood fingerboard. Neck width at the nut is 1.75”, and the bridge is a maple/ebony biscuit.

Recording King created this video to show how well the Parlor Metal Body Resonator guitar sounds in an open tuning.

They are offering this new guitar for $699.99 through their worldwide network of dealers.

Here are a few additional photos supplied by the manufacturer.

Pinecastle Records has a new music video this week for Lorraine Jordan & Carolina Road, featuring one of the songs from their current project, Bill Monroe’s Ol’ Mandolin.

Like so much of their music, this one looks back to an earlier time with a remake of a country hit from Crystal Gayle called Ready For The Times To Get Better. First released more than 40 years ago, Jordan says that it conveys a message that resonates just as clearly today.

“I’m very excited about the release of the Ready for the Times video. The footage is real life situations that have happened during a really hard time in our present life. Ready for the Times to Get Better is the perfect song for the times. I’m so proud of our producer, Mickey Stroud, for producing and putting together a great video. Also to Melanie Wilson for photos of disaster events, and Donna Newton for photos of where I live, and where IBMA is held in downtown Raleigh, NC which was recently vandalized.”

Stroud picked up that same theme, saying that setting all these images to the track proved cathartic for him.

“Crystal Gayle released the big hit, Ready For The Times in 1976. While inflation was a problem, it was a relatively good year. Microsoft and Apple were formed, Nadia Comaneci scored the first perfect 10 in gymnastics and the first Rocky movie was released.

Contrast that year with the craziness of 2020, and the song becomes even more relevant, taking on a most impactful meaning. Lorraine Jordan realized that and re-released the song with a powerful video that utilizes story-telling images from a group of photographers with Unsplash.com, Donna Newton, and Melanie Wilson. Creating the video was a release of heartfelt emotions.”

With Lorraine on mandolin, Carolina Road is Ben Greene on banjo, Randy Graham and Allen Dyer on guitar, Matt Hooper on fiddle, and Kevin Lamm on bass.

Bill Monroe’s Ol’ Mandolin is widely available wherever you stream or download music online, and on CD directly from the band.

If this week’s column seems at all disjointed, it’s only because The Night Drivers and I are in the studio all this week, and I’m writing this in between takes of our new medley of Next Sunday Darling is My Birthday and One Night in Bangkok.

It got me thinking about the whole recording process, though, and how different that process can be, depending on what kind of budget you usually work with. 

We in the bluegrass music world tend to work with budgets that shock people in other genres of music for their austerity. In Nashville, if I mention our typical recording budget to someone in the country or Christian music business, they either laugh openly, or they say something like, “I don’t mean your photography budget, what do you spend on the recording.” Other times I just get a pitying kind of look, similar to the look I’d get if I just described how my dog “Squiggles” was run over by a furniture truck. It’s the “I’m so glad I’m not you” look.

Even within bluegrass music, there’s a wide range in recording budgets, literally ranging from $100,000 + at the top end to, well, zero at the bottom end.

I have to confess that I kind of like smaller budgets for recording (please don’t tell my record label I said that), partly because I don’t like recording projects to drag on. I’m also not a fan of the “perfect” record, and perfection is sometimes what you end up striving for if you have a lot of money to spend on a lot of studio time. 

Some of my most favorite bluegrass recordings were done very quickly and cheaply, some recorded in a single day. On the other hand, I’ve heard a lot of high-budget, “perfect” bluegrass albums that were very impressive on first listen, but that I never really had a desire to listen to again. There are exceptions, naturally. We’ve all heard recordings that clearly would have benefited from one more take on a song or two (one in which the bass player was playing in the same key as the guitar player, for example).

Many with little or no experience in the studio might wonder how there could be that big a difference in time and money spent from one recording project to another, and further, how that difference would manifest itself in the recording process.

I thought it might be helpful to describe a typical day in the studio during low and high budget recordings:

Low Budget Recording, Day One:

Studio: Their studio of choice costs $25/hour including engineer (the mandolin player’s cousin) and is in the back room of a barn.

10:00- 10:30 a.m.: The band arrives at the studio, after yesterday’s rehearsal, making sure arrangements are set for the day’s recording. 

The engineer gets set up and gets tones set for the various instruments. 

10:30-11:00 a.m.: The band plays its first take of the album’s first song. A goat walks through the session and begins chewing on the banjo player’s shirt. A second take is necessary.

11:00 a.m.-noon: After a couple of minor bass retakes, the first rhythm track and lead parts are done. It’s on to the second song.

12:00 noon: Two more tracks are done. The mandolin player feels he had a few chops out of place. The producer (everyone in the band) decides it’s fine and everyone moves on.

1:00-2:00 p.m.: Pizza is delivered and eaten. Everyone chips in except the mysteriously absent fiddle player.

2:00-5:00 p.m. Five more songs are tracked, with lead vocals recorded live.

The recording day is over. Plans are made to return tomorrow morning to do four more songs and record all harmony vocals. Mixing will be completed by the end of the week.

Totals for session:

Eight songs recorded with lead vocals and some instrument fixes and overdubs

Money spent, excluding pizza: $150

A guest dobro player was also used, but he has agreed to play in trade for two dozen eggs and some goat’s milk.

High Budget Recording, Day One:

10:30 – 11:00: Four of the band members arrive at the studio. The producer was there but has run out for more coffee. The lead singer is outside smoking a cigarette.

The studio is on Music Row in Nashville and costs $125/hour including engineer (the friends and family rate). There are a lot of framed platinum records on the wall, and the engineer does a lot of name-dropping.

11:00 – noon: The engineer works on bass tones. The producer and two of the band members discuss the demise of the Cardinals in the playoffs last fall. The engineer, while running the bass through a different processor, mentions going to a Mets game two years ago with “Tim and Faith” (“We got luxury box seats thanks to the connection with Tug,” he adds).

12:00 noon – 1:00 p.m.: The bass player takes a coffee break, while the mandolin player starts playing into a microphone. The engineer is somewhere else in the building. The guitar player is looking over the chart for the first song.

1:00 – 2:00 p.m.: Sushi is delivered and charged to the recording tab.

2:00 – 3:00 p.m.: Tones are set for most instruments, although the fiddle player has left to run an errand.

3:00 – 4:00 p.m.: Several takes are done on the first rhythm track. The producer expresses second thoughts about the arrangement, and a discussion ensues with the lead singer who wrote the song. An adjustment is made and they do three more takes.

5:00 – 6:30 p.m.: They settle on a take they like and spend the rest of the day on rhythm guitar and bass punches in the fourth line of the third verse.

6:30 – 7:00 p.m.: The rest of the band leaves, while the lead singer puts several takes of a scratch vocal down on the track

Totals for session:

One rhythm track partially completed, without any lead instruments. Plans are made to recut all the rhythm guitar the next day.

Money spent, including sushi: $1,190

If we check in on these two projects one month later, we find that the band recording in the barn already has the shrink-wrapped product in hand and has spent $2,500, including mastering, photos, and the catering for their album release party.

The band working with the large budget is doing fixes of the baritone part on the chorus of one of the five songs they have partially finished. The banjo player has quit and moved to Australia. They’re discussing replacing his parts. They’ve run through $22,000 of their budget so far.

I wonder if anyone’s ever thought of trying to get a $75,000 budget, then recording the whole thing in one day like Jimmy Martin would do anyway, then putting $74,000 down on a house by the lake (with a good room for a recording studio and/or a goat pen).

615 Hideaway Records has announced the signing of banjo legend Bill Emerson to the label, with plans for a new album with Bill and his son Billy in the works for the near future.

A first single has just been released, featuring Bill on banjo and Billy on lead vocals recutting Ophelia, the classic Robbie Robertson song from The Band, initially recorded in 1975. Fans of the original might not hear it as a bluegrass number, but speed it up a bit, and it works remarkably well in this setting.

The Emersons are supported by Tom Adams on guitar, Wayne Lanham on mandolin, Shelby Gold on fiddle, and Teri Chism on bass.

Here’s the track…

Sammy Passamano, label head for 615 Hideaway, says that while they are delighted with this single, recorded at Phoenix Productions in Browntown, VA, they aren’t rushing to get the Emersons back in the studio until virus concerns are reduced.

“Bill Emerson is a living legend and still has that magic touch. We are working around some 2020 blues, and not rushing the music. When we can get Bill in the studio to record, we will.”

Ophelia is available now for download purchase through Amazon. Radio programmers can find it at AirPlay Direct.

The full album which will hopefully be completed next year will be titled simply, Emerson.

Earlier this month, the 2020 South Carolina State Fiddling Championship was held at the Hagood Mills Historic Site in Pickens, SC. Even with COVID-19 restrictions in place, the organizers were delighted with the turnout, both among competitors and audience alike.

Prizes were awarded in five different categories, for both a junior and an adult division. The junior division was for those 16 and under.

This year for the first time, the October 16-17 event was live-streamed online, and video from all of the competitions can be viewed on YouTube.

And the winners of the 24th annual South Carolina State Fiddling Championship were:

Adult Fiddle

Junior Fiddle

Adult Guitar

Junior Guitar

Adult Old Time Banjo

Junior Old Time Banjo

Adult Wildcat

Junior Wildcat

Adult Old Time String Band

Junior Old Time String Band

The adult categories were judged by Michele Turner (Taylors, SC), Steve McGaha (Easley, SC), Carol Rifkin (Asheville, NC), and Dan Wood (Travelers Rest, SC). In the junior categories, judges were Daniel Yother, Peyton O’Kelley and Emily Brazinski, all from Pickens, SC.

Congratulations and well done all!

Mountain Home Music has released a new music video for Thomm Jutz, one from his current album, To Live In Two Worlds, Vol 2.

It’s a song that Jutz wrote with his frequent collaborator, Tammy Rogers of The Steeldrivers, called In This House. In it we hear the voice of a man telling how his mother kept a brave face for her children when he was young, while she suffered abuse at the hands of her husband.

Thomm explains how this one came together. It’s quite a tale.

“Tammy Rogers and I write about once a week, typically on Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m. We’ve been doing so for over two years and have probably 100 plus songs at this point.

Tammy had the original idea for this. It was just a title. We often write like that, just starting with a title or a line instead of a whole story or concept. It’s fun to start with little more than an image that’s inspired by a title.

Stuff we’d heard and read about, that we had observed, and a good amount of fiction make up this song.

I remember a book turned into a TV series called Via Mala when I was a kid in Germany. A whole family conspiring to kill their paternal oppressor. It scared the hell out of me back then. 

On a vacation with my parents we drove through Via Mala, a mountain gorge in Northern Italy. It was easy to see how secluded that area was 100 years ago, which is when the novel took place. The setting was very similar to the isolated hollers of Appalachia. 

Since Appalachia, especially Western North Carolina, is on my mind so much these days, it makes sense that Via Mala found its way from my subconsciousness onto the page, 40 years later, and connected with Tammy’s title, In This House.

It took us about an hour to write this song and I immediately knew that I’d want to record it for one of my own albums. That’s what we did in May of 2019, and it will be the first single of my new record To Live In Two Worlds, Volume 2.”

Watch and listen…

Jutz is supported on this recording by Mike Compton on mandolin, Justin Moses on banjo, Tammy Rogers on fiddle, and Mark Fain on bass.

In This House and To Live In Two Worlds, Vol. 2 are available now wherever you stream or download music online. Radio programmers can get the tracks via AirPlay Direct.

The Farm Hands have been through a lot in 2020, as we all have, and they are back as strong ever with some new members, an updated sound, and even a new web site. But they are still playing the same mix of traditional bluegrass and Gospel music that has kept this bunch on the road for a decade.

Co-founder and reso-guitarist Tim Graves told us today that this has been a tough year, with several band members leaving, including Daryl Mosley, who started the group with Tim about ten years ago. It was Daryl’s plan to start his own group and function as a solo artist, which he has done, but that was all set before the virus struck.

Graves says that it didn’t take long to reconfigure a touring band.

“The other guys quit when the pandemic hit. We had a full year on the books, but they left when we were shut down. We started working again some in June, and are booked pretty regular now through the end of the year.

So we have three new members. Bryan Graves is on bass, my cousin, who played with Uncle Josh for some time before he died. Kelsey Crews is on banjo, David Mansfield is on guitar, and Kimberly Bibb is still with us on fiddle.”

Even while gigs were slow this summer, the new edition of The Farm Hands were plenty busy in the studio. A new record from Pinecastle is expected in January.

And Tim says that he can’t wait for all their fans to see and hear what they have in store.

“Everybody in the band can sing all the parts, so we can split all the vocals among us. Plus they all play multiple instruments, giving us a chance to mix it up, even having twin fiddles on some songs.”

Graves says that 2021 looks good for The Farm Hands, officially shortened from The Farm Hands Quartet since they have gone to five members.

Keep an eye on their web site for a chance to catch them live somewhere near you.

They say that youth is often wasted on the young. That may be true at times, but when the young folks in question show a reverence for the roots and offer a salute to their seniors, you have to give them credit for their appreciation. Cane Mill Road is one such outfit, and while some might question their broad-minded intents and their efforts to glean material that’s beyond the normal bluegrass boundaries, they manage to make it all work. In so doing, they instill a verve and vitality that affirms the fact that agility and ability are both essential additives as far as their ongoing efforts are concerned.

Recorded live in concert, Let’s All Do Some Living lives up to its title by confirming both their creativity and credibility all at the same time. They start their set with a rollicking cover of Townes Van Zandt’s White Freightliner Blues, a song that could have been written precisely for this purpose. That sets up a sound that freely reverberates throughout the entire album, one that emphasizes the instrumental acumen of each of these young musicians — fiddler, singer and mandolin player Liam Purcell, banjo player Tray Wellington, singer and guitarist Casey Lewis, and bassist Eliot Smith — offering each ample opportunity to solo and bring their musical skills solidly to the fore.

That said, Cane Mill Road is more than a band of skilled soloists, and the fact that they’ve not only melded their talents into a cohesive whole, but also expanded their musical possibilities at the same time makes these performances all the more impressive. A medley that combines a pair of disparate standards — Summertime and The Thrill Is Gone — might seem surprising at first, but they pull it off with ease and aplomb. Likewise, a revisit to the Rolling Stone’s oft-covered classic, Wild Horses, might seem somewhat risky given the variety of versions that precede it, but here again they adapt it to their parameters rather than the other way around.

Cane Mill Road may still be working their way towards the realms of greater recognition, but they’ve accomplished quite a bit so far, as evidenced by a list of accolades that include the IBMA’s 2019 Momentum Award for Band of the Year, as well as two other awards and five additional nominations from IBMA that they’ve accumulated over the past two years. Likewise, if Let’s All Do Some Living is any indication, Cane Mill Road has clearly found the right route to stardom.

D’Addario has added a new item to its accessory line which should attract a good bit of interest from bluegrass players. 

If you have spent any time in the company of grassers, you will have heard stories about the wonder of natural tortoise shell as a plectrum material. Prized by both guitarists and mandolinists, and even some banjo players, for its warmth of tone, true organic shell products have become largely unavailable and quite expensive since laws protecting the hawksbill tortoise have been passed around the world, and the supply of antique items made of shell has dwindled.

A number of companies have risen up producing synthetic materials that are said to mimic the feel, response, and tone of natural shell, with many players singing the praises of this or that pick.

Now D’Addario has entered the competition for a shell replacement with a material derived from dairy proteins called casein. It has been utilized for a number of applications, from paint additives to glue production. Based on phosphoproteins found in the milk of most mammalian species, designers with D’Addario wondered whether these organic origins might offer a sound similar to shell when shaped for picks, and so the process was begun.

At roughly the same time, the company had been approached by mando-master Chris Thile about developing a mandolin pick that could meet his demands. That collaboration has resulted in a new line of picks, including the Casein Chris Thile Signature Pick, a rounded triangle shape with beveled edges which Thile says he is honored to have share his name.

“I’ve been frustrated by my pick options as a mandolinist… I went to D’Addario with my conundrum and we went to work on a solution together. The result is the first pick I’ve ever used that combines a balanced, full-spectrum tone with speed and precision, edge-to-edge, pick-to-pick. This pick does it all! I couldn’t be more proud. HALLELUJAH!!!”

Now available from music retailers worldwide, the Chris Thile pick is made to a thickness of 1.4 mm and sells for $24.99. There is also a 2.0 mm teardrop shaped pick made of casein offered for $21.99.

Thile is donating all of his royalties from this project to the D’Addario Foundation, a non-profit that supplies both funding and products to further music education in primary schools all over the world.

Visit your favorite music store to see and try this new pick for yourself.

Ontario’s Chopped Liver, a contemporary bluegrass trio based in Toronto and Hamilton, is preparing to release their second album in November called D.B. Cooper, with a second single available today in advance of the full project.

The band typically focuses on their original material, but for this one they have reached back for a reworking of the Mel Tillis classic, Matterhorn, so indelibly recorded by The Country Gentlemen in the early 1970s. You might wonder how anyone could hope to improve on the Gentlemen’s version, and you could be right, but the three players that make up Chopped Liver simply offer this tribute after their own fashion.

As a northern, urban-based band, their singing immediately takes on a different flavor, but guitarist and lead vocalist Andrew Ivens says that wanted to further mold the song to their distinctive sound.

“The Country Gentlemen are gigantic for all of us. The way they approach storytelling, along with their style of vocal harmony have always been a huge influence on our playing and writing. We’ve played Matterhorn the way they did it on all those records live for a while now, but wanted to change it up and put our own spin on it for the studio. We settled on adding a few chords here and there, and altering the drive with the clawhammer banjo. Since we recorded this album live-off-the-floor, there are a lot of playful and improvised musical interactions between us in the group. That really exemplifies what I love so much about playing with these guys.”

Have a listen and see what you think.

Andrew is supported in Chopped Liver by Victor Vrankulj on banjo and Adam Vrankulj on bass. All three share vocal duties.

The next record is expected on November 24, the anniversary of the 1971 hijacking where a man identified as Dan Cooper took control of a Northwest Orient Airlines flight, demanded and received $200,000 in cash, and leapt from the plane with the money and a parachute, never to be seen again.

Andrew says that the band took the audacious nature of Cooper’s feat as their inspiration for this new project, including a song about his daring escapade 50 years ago.

“The title track D.B. Cooper, tells the story of one of the band’s favorite fugitive folk heroes who eluded the FBI with a suitcase full of money, and jumped from a commercial airplane in the middle of a stormy night above the Pacific Northwest in 1971. To this day, his identity has not been discovered and whether or not he survived the jump has remained a mystery. We tried to tap into that outrageously brazen attitude that this heist would have taken as a ‘jumping off’ point for a lot of the writing on this album.”

D.B. Cooper will be available on November 24 wherever you stream or download music online, and on CD directly from the band’s web site.

Here’s one for everyone who thinks that young people are abandoning traditional bluegrass.

Alan Sibley, noted Mississippi mandolinist, vocalist, and bandleader, has united with Anthony Howell, banjo and mandolin man with Williamson Branch, to record an album of new instrumental music. Its title, Time To Pick, is something every bluegrass lover can identify with, and expresses the sentiment that this pair of pro grassers wanted to convey.

Sibley, still a fairly young man himself, started teaching Howell the ways of the bluegrass as a youngster, and watched him blossom into a first rate musician. Something of a celebrity in the deep south, Alan hosts The Bluegrass Trail program on RFD-TV, along with his band, The Magnolia Ramblers, and special musical guests each Sunday evening.

He tells us that he has known young Mr. Howell since he was knee high.

“Anthony is from Zama, MS, a little town about fifty miles from me. His parents brought him to me for mandolin lessons when he was 11 years old, and it wasn’t long before I started teaching him guitar and banjo as well.”

A debut single from their album, Mark’s Reel, is out today, one Anthony wrote in memory of master luthier Mark Gresham from Bloomingdale, GA who passed away in September of last year. It’s a nice medium tempo number in the fiddle tune form, starting out with Alan on the mandolin. Howell is on banjo and guitar, Melody Williamson on fiddle, and Mark Tribble on bass.

Here’s a taste.

You can find Mark’s Reel now wherever you stream or download music online. Radio programmers can get a copy via AirPlay Direct.

Look for Time To Pick to hit on December 1.

It’s that time of year again…

Time for all you bluegrass songwriters to sharpen your pencils and get ready to submit your latest creations to the DC Bluegrass Union and their 2021 Hazel Dickens Song Contest. This annual event is held in honor of one of bluegrass music’s most compelling writers, who lived most of her life in the greater Washington, DC area.

Entries are only $30 each with a chance to win a $500 first prize. The entire submission process can be completed online, and the competition is open to any bluegrass songwriter that does not earn more than 50% of their annual income from songwriting or music publishing royalties.

The contest will be judged by a panel of three professional writers, who will consider all the submitted songs, and choose three winners. They don’t consider the quality of the performance on your entry audio, just the melody and lyrics of your song.

As we mentioned, the top prize earns $500, with an award of $250 for second place, and $100 for third.

In addition, the winning songs are promoted online by the DCBU, where they can be heard by artists hungry for good new material.

All entries must be received by January 5, 2021 to be considered, with winners announced on February 15.

Complete contest rules and submission information can be found online.

Rounder Records has released a music video for Innocent Man, a track included on their current album for The Steeldrivers, Bad For You.

The video, created by Grant Claire, captures nicely the eerie and somewhat ominous vibe of the track, a co-write by Steeldrivers fiddler Tammy Rogers and John Paul White, formerly of The Civil Wars, who also co-produced the song.

Rogers says that while this is the first time White has worked with them in the studio – he sings harmony on this one – he has been a long time friend of the band.

“I’m so excited to have both the song AND video for Innocent Man out in the world! I remember the day I wrote it with John Paul White…I felt like it was such a strong statement, but still perfectly styled for the SteelDrivers. John Paul has been like ‘the 6th SteelDriver’ for years, with his co-writing some of our most popular songs.”

Lead vocals on this one come from the newest Steeldriver, Kelvin Damrell, who joined up on guitar in 2018.

Have a look/listen…

Along with Rogers and Damrell, The Steeldrivers are Richard Bailey on banjo, Brent Truitt on mandolin, and Mike Fleming on bass.

Innocent Man, and the full Bad For You album, are available now wherever you stream or download music online.

Finally! Banjo players rejoice… a book on the stylings of Seldom Scene banjo player Ben Eldridge is in the works.

Though now retired from the band, Ben was with the Scene from their first jams in his basement in 1971, through their most iconic recordings, which left an indelible mark on bluegrass. Acts I, II, and III, Live at the Cellar Door, and Old Train changed the way we look at the music, and Ben was on board for those and a dozen more albums until he stepped away in 2016.

Countless banjo players labored over those records to learn his stuff – long before slow down software, or even computers, were around to assist in the effort! His impact is difficult to overstate. In 1981, I bought a Stelling Staghorn primarily because he, and Alan Munde, were playing one.

Tentatively titled Ben Eldridge on Banjo, the book is being written by DC-area banjoist and all-around bluegrass promoter, Randy Barrett. He tells us that it will be formatted as a tab book, but with extensive input from Ben, both about the solos and songs included, and about his life and career in bluegrass music.

“I’ve been a Ben Eldridge superfan for more than 40 years. Ben’s elegant and tasteful playing has formed the stylistic bedrock of a generation of banjo players, including me. Somehow, he manages to combine both drive and bounce, and his ballad playing is simply otherworldly. And yet Ben is underrated in the pantheon of banjo greats. It’s my hope that this book will help change that.

This will be a combination of Ben’s musical history and influences, and his philosophy about how banjo fits into bluegrass. And there will be lots of tabs of his iconic breaks and back-up, and more. It’s a real honor to be working with him on the project.”

Randy has already put a lot of work into the book, completing transcriptions of many of the pieces he will feature in the book, and consulting with Eldridge at some length. Both Ben and his son, Chris, will be involved, as the younger Eldridge spent a great deal of his youth traveling with the band, and has some important memories that Barrett wants to work into the narrative.

The author says that his goal is to capture the mindset that led to such memorable banjo playing.

“I’m most interested in getting into Ben’s process in fashioning his solos. In talking about the book with Ben, he says of his time with the Scene, ‘I was just a helper.’ That says volumes about his banjo philosophy.”

Wonderful news for the banjo community. I’ll be first in line for one of these!

Education at every level, all over the world, has been retooled on the fly this year, since municipal and state shutdowns have closed schools of every type. Teachers, students, and parents alike find things they like and dislike about online learning, but it seems that even once the restrictions are lifted, some form of virtual education is here to stay.

New methods are being explored to keep students engaged, but especially with younger learners, opportunities to travel to remote locations have been limited. 

Now Henhouse Prowlers, Chicago’s hometown bluegrass band, has come up with something that should interest teachers across the US, called Bluegrass Ambassadors Field Trip. It is a multi-genre virtual music program created for kindergarten through grade 2, including bluegrass of course, with supplemental videos and a passport workbook, highlighting music from around the world. They have also developed a one-hour presentation for middle and high school students called Bluegrass 45.

Though based in Chicago, the Prowlers have toured extensively all over the world in association with the US State Department, and while abroad seen that interacting with youngsters through music is a universal language. Traveling throughout Africa, they have noticed that while adults are sometimes reticent about reacting to an unfamiliar musical style, children start dancing without reservation.

That recognition was the spark for them to launch Bluegrass Ambassadors, a non-profit entity formed to support music education worldwide. They develop school programs and arrange for musicians and bands to visit schools to let students experience sounds that may be new to them.

At this stage, a fundraising effort is underway to offer the Field Trip to teachers in Illinois free of charge. Running through October 28, the band is soliciting donations online through Swell Fundraising, and asking everyone to help them cover the costs, with prizes!

They even made this explainer video to share their vision.

The Bluegrass Ambassadors Field Trip is currently being structured to meet the education requirements in the state of Illinois, but I have no doubt that they would love to expand it more widely across the US.

Please donate if you can.

“This is the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment that gave women the right to vote, and now it is more important than ever that women’s voices are heard,” stressed veteran songwriter, singer, and musician, Louisa Branscomb.

Branscomb was petitioned by another award winning songstress, Asheville’s Anya Hinkle, to bring the unique connection between women and bicycles to light during the suffragettes’ centennial year.

“Our song, I Got A Lot Riding On These Wheels, symbolizes just how important it is for everyone to feel they can have a voice. There is a lot riding on these wheels,” says Branscomb.

Produced COVID-style from separate locations during a three week time span, the pair composed, recorded, produced, and created the music video. The on-screen presentation says it all. The bicycle gave women the thrill of freedom that carried into the suffragette movement, and ultimately the right to vote. In words spoken by Elizabeth Cady Stanton only 100 years ago, “woman is riding to suffrage on a bicycle.”

Those two wheels allowed women to spread their wings, leave home, and go where they wanted under their own power. This new mode of transportation spawned a change in women’s fashion, providing more freedom of movement. The exercise from riding bikes made women stronger, healthier, and more independent. Unsurprisingly, none of these things were popular within the turn-of-the-century power structure.

Branscomb elaborated, “Women getting the vote happened with collaboration, networking, and finding common ground. Similarly, the song transcends politics. It is collaborative, upbeat and positive, and celebrates the history of women getting the right to vote.”

Drummer Adilene Delgado, who came to rural Tennessee from Mexico as a toddler, hopes one day to gain the right to vote. As a dreamer she says, “Some of us can’t vote, so we’re begging you to!”

I Got A Lot Riding On These Wheels was born when Hinkle began reflecting on the connections between the suffragettes, the bicycle, and how the bicycle is still a vehicle for following your dreams all over the world. Hinkle contacted Branscomb to co-write and assist in producing the project. The two assembled a diverse cast of women: Adilene Delgado on drums, Mary Lucey (of Lovers Leap, who regularly appears with Hinkle) on clawhammer banjo and harmony vocals, Celia Millington-Wyckoff (a lifelong devotee of cycling as well as bass playing), Natalya Weinstein (of Zoe and Cloyd) on fiddle, Louisa on mandolin (plus a cameo part on tenor banjo), and Anya on guitar and lead vocals. The project was captured guerilla-style by Hinkle carrying a portable rig to the musicians’ homes. She then engineered the song with help from David Arnold and videographer, Gen Kogure, who also happens to be a competitive cyclist. 

Hinkle outlined her process. “Cycling always gave me a sense of power and freedom, and still plays a central role in my life. This year I thought about the connection between the freedom of cycling and history of women’s right to vote, with the suffragettes having used bicycles as a symbol of emancipation.”

“I had recently met Louisa and was impressed by her pioneering work as a female banjo player and band leader in acoustic music going back many decades, in addition to her iconic role as a songwriter. I wanted her to help me bring this song to life because she truly understands the power of songs to make a difference in this world.” 

Branscomb readily agreed to jump in. “I remember that freedom to get away, escape, and take on the world once you got on your first bike. So when Anya called me, I welcomed the chance to share the vision of the song with her.”

“We wanted to select a diverse group of Asheville professional women musicians, to convey that sense of excitement and camaraderie, even though we had to record COVID-style, at different places and times using a portable recorder.” 

All the collaborators see the video as timely. 

Branscomb reflected, “It was a challenge to make this happen, with women I admire but (still) haven’t even played with in person! Everyone jumped in with such great spirit. It was just perfect that while Natalya and I were recording, Anya and Natalya’s young daughters were flying around on their first bicycles, tassels and all.”

Weinstein highlighted this generational tradition. “I learned to ride in my driveway with my dad, now my daughter is learning with me. So the song also reflects handing down this tradition to the next generation, not just how to ride a bike, but the symbol of freedom that comes with it.” 

“For me,” Branscomb concluded, “the song is literal, but the symbolism goes beyond. It’s more than a song about voting: it’s about empowering women, and the value of respecting individuals’ voices in their own destiny. And it is also very timely for bluegrass and folk music. We are breaking barriers with heightened awareness of women’s issues and inclusiveness. The song is upbeat and fun. Who doesn’t remember their first bike? But the message is much deeper. No matter how you vote, or what your frame of reference is in music, the future is always riding on these wheels: the right to speak, and the right to be heard.”

Anya Hinkle and Natalya Weinstein appear courtesy of Organic Records.

The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys – photo by Amy Richardson

Fortunately, we haven’t heard many stories of COVID-19 infections within the bluegrass community, but it seems that the big story of 2020 has befallen C.J. Lewandowski of The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys.

C.J. has received a positive test result, is symptomatic, and is recovering at home until he can return to the band. That does mean that their scheduled show tomorrow night at Nashville’s Station Inn has to be postponed until later this year. Steve Thomas & Time Machine will perform in their place.

The Boys have issued this statement on the situation…

“The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys have postponed our upcoming Station Inn appearance on Friday, October 23rd, due to C.J. Lewandowski’s COVID-19 diagnosis. C.J. has been taking it easy while recovering at home. We are all incredibly appreciative of the well wishes from the bluegrass community for C.J.’s speedy recovery. We plan to be back together for a 2-day residency at the Station Inn on December 11th and 12th.”

We certainly add our ‘get well soon’ to those already submitted, and wish C.J. a speedy and complete recovery! We know he’s a trooper and will be back as soon as he possibly can.

Wash those hands, everybody!

When guitarist Steve Volz made the fateful decision to relocate from the US to Germany, little did he know that in doing he’d become an ambassador of sorts for genuine American music. While that may be overstating the case a bit, given his work with the German-American trio known as Standard Crow Behavior, it’s clear he’s made an emphatic impression. The band, which takes its name from a traditional Stateside radio show, excels in old time music that runs the gamut from bluegrass and folk to pop and jazz, with elements of everything in-between. 

Volz and his bandmates, Judith Beckedorf (vocals, mandolin, banjo) and Filip Sommer (vocals, violin, and mandolin), joined forces at a fortuitous time. Beckedorf had just returned from a year abroad in Nashville, where she had gained an initial exposure to folk and bluegrass. At the time the two met, Volz had been playing in one of the only bluegrass bands that could be found in Dresden Germany. That alone proved an immediate enticement as far as Beckedorf was concerned. Meanwhile. Sommer had been playing in a folk band that had recently disbanded, and as a result, he too was looking to embark on a new musical venture. Beckedorf made the effort to bring the three of them together, and it was only at their initial rehearsal in January of 2018 that Sommer and Volz first met.

Fortunately, the three musicians shared the same influences — the Punch Brothers, Nickel Creek, the Milk Carton Kids, the Wood Brothers, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and, as Volz says, “basically anything that Chris Thile is involved in. For me personally, I can’t deny a heavy influence from growing up with the Beatles, Tony Rice, Grateful Dead, and the Eagles, which I think helped create a natural sense of singing harmony.”

Volz migrated to Germany in June 2013 to join a brother who had previously settled in Dresden. “In the final year of my history studies in upstate New York, he and I were considering the possibility of moving over there to try it out,” he recalls. “Although I was skeptical at first, I wasn’t having much luck fishing for teaching jobs stateside, so I decided to do it. My brother thought that me moving here would be good for my development, but another motivation was to get me involved with a band he had joined playing Czech polka music! It was then that we started singing folk and bluegrass tunes together, and I started to get more involved with flat-picking.”

While some might guess that Volz encountered some culture shock in his new environs, he denies that was the case at all.

“The transition wasn’t so crazy,” he insists. “Ultimately, it’s still a Western country which had been very Americanized over the last 60 years. Of course the biggest adjustment is just the language. Dresden ain’t like Berlin, so to enjoy living there you really ought to speak German. Otherwise, some of the things I had to get used to included shops being closed on Sundays, having to introduce myself and then say goodbye to every single person at a social event or gathering, and recognizing the fact that Germans take the act of christening each new beer with a small ‘klink’ very seriously! You also have to learn to open a bottle of beer with anything that provides leverage.”

Volz does admit that initially at least, it was no small challenge to find other musicians who shared an actual interest in bluegrass.

“I can’t say what it’s like in other cities in Germany, but in Dresden it was definitely rare,” he reflects. “Yet when my brother and I started our folk/bluegrass band in 2015, it was really well received, mostly because people hadn’t really experienced that before, especially the tight three part harmonies. There’s definitely an audience, but it’s never gonna be mainstream. Even so, there are a lot of people who appreciate good old handcrafted music.”

Fortunately, the band has been able to broaden its audience, courtesy of the fact of their tour following the release of their first EP, and then again in February 2019. They had planned to be out on the road this past September, but the pandemic forced them to cancel their plans and put things on hold, at least until next April. 

Volz says he’s pleased with the music scene in his adopted country, citing the fact that people are willing to pay to see live entertainment. “The audiences are good listeners,” he suggests. “Bluegrass is a special niche, and when you find local audiences that are into it, they are super excited. I was amazed at this festival we were at in La Roche, France. There were so many older folks from France, Switzerland, and Czech Republic all sitting around and pickin’ away at some standards while singing Bill Monroe tunes.”

That connection to the contrary, Volz insists that there’s little in the way of a common bond between bluegrass and traditional folk music of Germanic origin. “Hmm, there are some old folk songs which also involve stringed instruments and harmony singing, but not much,” he concedes. “There isn’t a strong culture of folk music here. These days, it isn’t popular in Germany to have anything associated with national pride and heritage, so a lot of these traditional folk songs aren’t celebrated. However, there are some singer/songwriters from the ’60s and ’70s, writing songs of a political nature, often just accompanied by guitar. That’s the most grassicana-sounding thing you would find. But pure bluegrass isn’t very common. Only the song structure and simplicity are relatable.”

Nevertheless, Volz does understand why bluegrass can attract such a fervent following beyond American borders.

“Everyone can listen to it, appreciate it, play along and sing along to it,” he reflects. “Seeing this group of old fellas sitting around in France and playing tunes that they all knew in common… I think that hits the point right there. It doesn’t matter which country, language, or background they have — in that moment bluegrass was the element binding them together. There’s also something magical about voices in harmony that just seem to uplift people, even more so when the songs can be sung along to!”