Carolyn Herring | Elusive Real Thing
August 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Caroline Herring digs deep—deep into the rich soil of American roots music for her sound, and deep into the recesses of her own consciousness for her themes. The musically understated, psychologically intense songs of this Atlanta-based Mississippi native ponder the eternal verities while probing the complex nature of contemporary existence; she delivers them in a fine-grained alto replete with the residue of hard-earned insight. On Lantana, her beautiful and eloquent third album (Signature Sounds), Herring fills the listener’s heart with hope one moment and sends a chill down the spine the next. This pivotal album, which documents a personal and artistic crossroads for its author, cements her status as a truth teller, and no matter how bitter or disturbing the story leading to the truth may be, she approaches it clear-eyed and straight-on, getting down to the nub of it with quiet tenacity. No wonder fellow artist Dar Williams, who co-headlined a European tour with Herring in 2006, described her as “the elusive ‘real thing.’”
Dale Ann Bradley | Saturday & Sunday
June 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Bluegrass/Ameri
Mac Morin | Piano Genius
June 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Mac Morin, dancer, piano & keyboard player, is a talented Troy, Cape Breton native whose ancestors were noted Cape Breton step dancers for several generations (including Mary C. MacDonald Morin - Mother - and John R.’Roddie Eddie’ MacDonald - Grandfather). Mac has been dancing for over 10 years, first being taught by his mother and then the talented Warner sisters of Mabou, Cape Breton. Since then he has taken on the role as teacher in various private and workshop venues across North America and in Europe. Mac has been playing with Natalie MacMaster again since the summer of 2006 and within that time, has recorded and toured with The Rankin Family, Howie MacDonald, Mary Jane Lamond, Bela Fleck, Ian MacDougall, and members of Beolach. He continues to travel to teach Cape Breton step dancing http://www.macm
Molly Mason | Ashokan Music
June 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Husband and wife duo Jay Ungar and Molly Mason perform some of the greatest songs of ’60s… 1860s that is. They share a mission of unearthing traditional American fiddle and dance gems from Civil war songs to New England contra songs to country swing tunes and bringing them to a new generation of listeners in search of a simpler time. http://www.jaya
Don Rigsby | High Lonesome
May 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment
From remote Isonville, Ky., to an international following in Bluegrass music, Don Rigsby has remained true to his mountain roots and made his own marks as a powerful tenor and distinctive mandolin player. Rigsby has released three solo albums. His first, “A Vision,” won the Association of Independent Music’s “gospel album of the year” award and was nominated for an IBMA award. He received the 1999 Bluegrass Now Magazine Fan’s Choice Award for vocal tenor of the year and the 2001 Governor’s Kentucky Star Award. “Empty Old Mailbox,” the title track from his third album, won the 2001 Song of the Year award from SPGBMA. In 2005, Rigsby was awarded two IBMA awards for his role as producer of the Larry Sparks project “40” for Recorded Event of the Year and Album of the Year. He has recorded two albums with Dudley Connell, with plans for a third, and continues to perform and record with Midnight Call and Longview. http://www.donr
Paddy Moloney | Chieftans Legend
May 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment
What an honor to speak to Paddy Moloney of the Chieftans on the show today! Six time Grammy winners, The Chieftains, are now recognised for bringing traditional Irish music to the world’s attention. They have uncovered the wealth of traditional Irish music that has accumulated over the centuries, making the music their own with a style that is as exhilarating as it is definitive. http://www.thec
Kathryn Leigh Kirt | Ditties & Tunes
April 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Today on the show, we spoke with musician and mother Kathryn Leigh Kirt, telling us about her CD filled with “ditties,” short enough for any parent to learn to sing, and for any child to learn! She also shared her “adult” music with us… More information about Kathryn Leigh Kirt and her music from her CDBaby site:
Itty Bitty Ditties for the New Baby includes 13 original songs written by Kathryn Leigh Kirt, a singer/songwriter who lives and sings in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The songs are performed by Kathryn with a lot of help from friends and family members. The guitar player is her brother-in-law Nathan Guilford from Oklahoma City. The singers include Kathryn’s father-in-law Bill Morris of Houston, Texas, her neice Siri Peterson from St. Paul, Minnesota, and her singing partner Elizabeth Thompson from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Last but definitely not least is Faith Hart, Elizabeth’s daughter who was six years old at the time of the recording. She masterfully handles all of the speaking parts. The songs were inspired by the experience of being a new mom, and they focus on things that a baby does everyday. New parents will have no problem relating to songs such as “I Love Milk, Yes I Do!” and “Three Wet Wipe Mess.” Some of these songs are easy enough for a toddler to sing, and Kathryn hopes that the whole family will join in and sing to the new baby! Singing can help parents, siblings, and babies feel calm and happy. Now that is a dream come true.
Doyle Lawson Transcript
March 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors. On the fourth part of each show we feature authors of sound. One of my favorite authors of sound is a man named Doyle Lawson. He has played with just about anybody you can think of in the field of bluegrass. His band is always the best in the business. Welcome to the show.
Doyle: Thank you very much. It’s good to talk to you.
Dr. Kent: Now, tell me a little bit, where are you right now?
Doyle: Well, I am actually in Fredrick, Maryland, on my way down to Bethesda for a concert tonight at the Strathmore Theatre. And then we come back to Fredrick to the Weinberg Theatre tomorrow night.
Dr. Kent: How is the life on the road? How does it treat you?
Doyle: Well, I’ve been doing it for 45 years, and it’s treated me pretty good. [laughs] It all depends on how you take it and how you look at it. If you love to travel, as I do, it doesn’t bother you. If you’re not one that enjoys to travel and being on the road a good deal of the time, then I would suggest that you maybe take up bookkeeping or something like that. [laughs]
Dr. Kent: Your bands are always so incredible. How do you go about choosing the members of your bands?
Doyle: Well, I look for people that will fit the moods of the style of music I play, that can blend in with us and join in their efforts and keep the transition between one musician and another as seamless as possible, and still keep that sound that’s identified as Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver.
Dr. Kent: And they can all sing, that’s for sure.
Doyle: Primarily, the first thing I look for is the vocals, their vocal prowess and how they’ll blend with my voice and the other guys in the group at the time. But vocals are the primary thing I look for at first, and then I look at their skills as far as playing whichever instrument that I need to be played.
Dr. Kent: Let’s talk a little bit about your gospel music. I think you do gospel music the best of anybody in the business. Why is it that you have that soul in all of this music? Where does it come from?
Doyle: Well, I grew up in east Tennessee and my father was involved in quartet music. They sang all a cappella. During those days, when I was a child, most churches in and around the east Tennessee, southwestern Virginia area would have a quartet within the church, or a trio of some sort, but a lot of a cappella music.I learned to love gospel music being brought up in church and hearing my father in the quartet he’d sing with. It just left a lasting impact on my life. And I’m quick to tell people that as far as gospel music is concerned, he was my first and biggest influence.
Dr. Kent: Your newest album is called “Help Is On the Way.” There’s a whole bunch of albums that you all have put out. I love that every album is full of gospel music, full of vocal music, full of soul. This newest album, Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver “Help Is On the Way,” let’s listen to the title track, “Help Is On the Way.”[music]
Dr. Kent: That song is the title track from “Help Is On the Way,” released in 2008 by Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. And that mandolin solo was yours, am I right?
Doyle: Yes, sir, that was me.
Dr. Kent: When did you start playing the mandolin?
Doyle: I started trying to learn to play mandolin when I was about 11 years old. One of the fellows that sang with my dad in the quartet, I discovered he had a little mandolin and asked my dad to see if I could borrow it. He did and I did, and I began to teach myself to play the mandolin.I’m self-taught pretty much, but along the way I had some help from the legendary Jimmy Martin of bluegrass fame, which was actually who I wound up going to work for my first professional job. In February of 1963, I took a job with Jimmy. But I started liking the mandolin when I was about four or five years old.I’ve played a lot of different instruments. The fact is, my first professional job I was a banjo player, but mandolin has always been my first love. And still, above all the things that I play, that’s my favorite and primarily that’s what I play most of the time.
Dr. Kent: The one thing I have heard about Jimmy Martin, who has now left us, but one of the best voices in the history of bluegrass. One thing that I’ve heard about him is that he was a school himself. He taught everybody how to sing, how to play. Didn’t matter if he was better than them at that instrument, but he would tell you if you were doing it right. Is that right?
Doyle: Absolutely, Jimmy was a taskmaster for sure, but he had when it came to his music, he knew exactly what he wanted and settled for nothing less than that. That was, of course, that was my earliest days of professional training.Before that my dad was the same way in the music he sang, even though they didn’t play, they sang; and they were very disciplined with it, as was Jimmy.So, that’s carried with me all these years. I’m much the same way when it comes to my group. When it comes to my music, I have a definite idea about how I want it to be. I tell them; the reason I hire these people is because I know that they can do what it is that I ask.
Dr. Kent: And you have such a different brand of bluegrass, I think. My opinion. One of my favorite albums is called “A School of Bluegrass.” It’s all of your outtakes from over the years.
Doyle: Yeah, that was something that I had. Over the years I would tape rehearsals and sometimes pick up a live show along the way or something like that. I got to looking through all the things that I had stored up. I discovered that pretty much I had rehearsals or some music by just about every formation of the groups down through the years to celebrate my 25 years as a bandleader.So the record company suggested that, since I’ve had so many great musicians come through here and go on and do quite well for themselves, that maybe they would like to call it “A School of Bluegrass,” because I am known as a taskmaster sometimes.But I never asked people to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself.
Dr. Kent: And you put out an album a year, at least. How do you do that?
Doyle: Well, you stay after it. There’s an old saying, out of sight, out of mind, and I’ve always tried to stay productive for the people. It’s good for me as a professional musician. It keeps my chops up. Keeps my interest up.I don’t want to slide into that safety zone where I say, “Well, OK, I’ve done this. I’ve done that. I’ve done this. I want to coast awhile.” I don’t believe in coasting. If you are going to be out here doing it, be productive.For two reasons: one, it keeps your talents up to par; and it gives people something fresh to know that Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver are still out there working hard to make sure that they have music that they can enjoy.
Dr. Kent: Now, my last question for you. How do you balance this: In the bluegrass world today, there is such a different group of folks that love the gospel and love the non-gospel music. How do you keep the gospel music alive?
Doyle: Well, you know, it’s something that for me that is more than just doing the music. It’s something that I believe in. My faith is very real and important to me in my walk of life and I believe myself, and show as an example of the way I think people should behave.I love gospel music, as I stated earlier. So I have found that my audience, whether it be an all-gospel concert or a mixture of both… sometimes I may go out at a concert and I start to trying to get a feel for the audience what they are enjoying the most.Sometimes I may do 60 percent bluegrass and 40 percent gospel. Or I may do 60 percent gospel and 40 percent bluegrass. It all depends on what they are really enjoying. If they are really enjoying the gospel music more, I do that. If they are enjoying the secular, I make sure that I do a good amount of gospel, but I kind of leave that up to each audience where we are going as to how much I’m doing of either one.
Dr. Kent: This has been a real honor speaking with Doyle Lawson of Quicksilver. You are a legend. It’s been great chatting with you and your new album is called “Help Is On the Way” from 2008.We’re going to listen to a track, a secular track called “Sadie’s Got Her New Dress On.” Thank you for being on the show.
Doyle: Been my pleasure. Thank you.[music]
Dr. Kent: Thank you for sitting in to Sound Authors. I’m Dr. Kent. I’ve been speaking with Doyle Lawson of Quicksilver. That’s who we are listening to in the background.And with two novelists: Kate Maloy with “Every Last Cuckoo,” Jim Olson with “The Eagle Unchained,” and then a woman who’s an expert on writing, Carolyn Howard-Johnson. Go visit all them on the web. Visit us atsoundauthors.com and we’ll see you soon.
Doyle Lawson | Bluegrass Gospel Harmony
March 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment
If Bill Monroe is the father of bluegrass, Doyle Lawson is the father of Bluegrass Gospel Harmony. His band has always had the best vocalists, and over decades in the business, each release he puts out is better than the last. We spoke with him about gospel, being on the road, and being in the business for so many years…More about Doyle Lawson from his website www.doylelawson.com:
I was born on April 20, 1944 in Ford Town, a part of Sullivan County, near Kingsport, TN, to Leonard and Minnie Lawson. I have two brothers, James and Les, and one sister, Colleen. As far back as I can remember, I loved the sound of music. Just about everyone listened to The Grand Ole Opry, and our family was no exception. Though I listened to all the stars on the Opry, the group that impressed me most was Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys. His music was different, more intense. High lonesome is the term we used for it. I could hardly wait for Saturday nights to arrive so I could listen. I decided early on that I wanted to play that kind of music. My father, mother, and sister all sang gospel music when I was young. They were members of trios and quartets that sang a cappella music in churches and at revivals, and such. No doubt, that was where I acquired my love of quartet music. When I was 11 or 12 years old I expressed an interest in learning to play the mandolin, so my Father borrowed one from one of the members of their quartet, Willis Byrd so I could try. I mostly taught myself to play by listening to the radio, a few records, and watching the occasional TV show. I eventually returned that mandolin to Mr. Byrd, and years later, he gave it back to me at one of the first concerts Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver played in Sneedville, TN. I still have it. I met Jimmy Martin when I was 14 years old. He is from Sneedville, TN where we had moved to in 1954. Around that time, I made up my mind that I wanted to play music for a living, and realized that only playing one instrument was somewhat limiting, so I made it a point to learn how to play the banjo and guitar, too. Four years later, in February 1963, I went to Nashville and got a job playing banjo with Jimmy Martin. In 1966, I started working with JD Crowe in Lexington, KY. I first played guitar and later switched to mandolin. In 1969, I was back with Jimmy Martin for about six months playing mandolin and singing tenor but then went back with J D Crowe until August of 1971. I started with the Country Gentlemen on September 1, 1971 and stayed with them until March 1979. By this time, I had played in bands for more than 10 years, that had their “sound” before I joined them. I wanted to put together a group that would have “my sound”. To that end, in April 1979, I formed a group that I first named Doyle Lawson & Foxfire but soon changed to Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver. I was looking for “our sound” and that first group tried many different types of songs. I wanted a strong quartet like the ones my dad used to sing with. In the next few months, Terry Baucom, Jimmy Haley, Lou Reid and I laid the foundation for what has become the Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver sound. The makeup of my band has changed many times in the last 27 years. I jokingly tell folks that Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver is the “farm team” for bluegrass. I try to integrate each member’s special talents into my group, while not sacrificing the Quicksilver sound. While the sound changes a bit with the introduction of a new band member, it is important to me that people hear what they expect to hear when we take the stage, no matter who is in the group. My Father passed away in 1994, but my Mother still lives in Kingsport, TN, only thirty minutes from us. Suzanne, my wife, and I were married June 24, 1978. I have one son, Robbie, and we have two girls, Suzi and Kristi. Robbie and his wife, Carla, live in Kentucky. Suzi graduated from King College and works for the Daymon Corp in Meadowview,VA. Kristi attended King College for 2 years and is trying to finish up her education at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. We live close to South Holston Lake and enjoy the solitude of the water and mountains. Suzanne bought a small sailboat last fall and when I’m home and there is a breeze, we sail. I collect western memorabilia of Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, etc. I also enjoy looking at old cars, and I recently bought a 1946 Ford Coupe. It has been restored from the ground up and I’m enjoying riding around town in it.We are all members of Cold Spring Presbyterian Church and while Suzanne and Suzi are there almost every Sunday, I miss a few when I’m out on the road. I love golf, and play every time I have the opportunity. We have a Men’s Bible Study on Tuesday mornings and if I’m home, I try and make Bible Study and then several of us play golf.
I have been hosting the Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver festival in Denton, NC for more than twenty-five years. A few years ago we started a golf tournament on Thursday, the week of the festival. I’d like to be able to say we were defending our title every year, but we aren’t. (Just wishing)The gospel music that we record and perform on stage has always been important to me. Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver have made many more gospel recordings than secular ones. It is apparent to me that the folks who buy our music and come to our concerts feel, as I do, that there is no better message than the message of Jesus Christ. On the first Sunday of May, in 1985, I rededicated my life to our Lord Jesus. It is my fervent hope that my “musical mission” will lead others to Him.
Mike Marshall | Mandolin Melody
March 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment
It was a great pleasure to speak with musician Mike Marshall on the show today, about his newest projects and his upcoming work. His playing is always full of life, rich, touched with the heart of classical, world, jazz, folk and bluegrass music… More information about Mike from his website www.mikemarshall.net:
Mike Marshall is one of the world’s most accomplished and versatile acoustic musicians, a master of mandolin, guitar and violin whose playing is as imaginative and adventurous as it is technically thrilling. Able to swing gracefully from jazz to classical to bluegrass to Latin styles, he puts his stamp on everything he plays with an unusually potent blend intellect and emotion a combination of musical skill and instinct rare in the world of American vernacular instrumentalists.
Now living in Oakland, California, Mike grew up in Central Florida, where throughout his teens he played and taught bluegrass mandolin, fiddle and guitar. In 1979, at the age of 19, he was invited to join the original David Grisman Quintet. Mike has since been at the forefront of the acoustic music scene, playing on hundreds of acoustic-music recordings both as lead artist and ensemble performer. His 1982 Cd, Gator Strut, is a classic example of a new generation of bluegrass virtuoso instrumentalists forging new directions in this vital musical style. Throughout his career, Mike has performed and recorded with some of the top acoustic string instrumentalists in the world, including jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli, fiddle virtuoso Mark O’Connor, five-string banjo phenom Bela Fleck, bassist and MacArthur Fellowship winner Edgar Meyer, and classical violinist Joshua Bell.Mike and violinist Darol Anger formed a partnership in 1983, together they formed the band Montreux with pianist Barbara Higbie, bassist Michael Manring, and steel-drum virtuoso Andy Narell. The group released five recordings on the Windham Hill label and toured extensively throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and Japan from 1984 to 1990. While continuing to be an active member of Montreux, in 1986 Mike founded a classical string quartet of mandolin family instruments — two mandolins, mandola and mandocello. The Modern Mandolin Quartet released four recordings for Windham Hill Records that redefined the mandolin in a classical-music setting. In 1995, the Quartet made its Carnegie Hall debut and, in 1996, received a “Meet The Composer” grant from the Lila Wallace Foundation.Meanwhile, Mike had traveled to Brazil and begun his love affair with choro, an indigenous music that is to Brazil what bluegrass is to the U.S. He embarked on an in-depth study of the style that resulted in the CD “Brasil (Duets).” This recording showcases Mike at the top of his form as a mandolinist in duet settings, and features top instrumentalists such as Andy Narell, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, bassist Michael Manring, and keyboardist and flutist Jovino Santos Neto. Mike has continued to push the boundaries of acoustic instrumental music. After tapping Fleck and Meyer for the “Brasil (Duets)” roject, he collaborated with the two masters on a 1997 Sony Classical release titled “Uncommon Ritual.” The album charted on the Billboard Top Ten Classical Chart, where it remained for more than three months. The follwing year, the ensemble opened the Chamber Music Series 1998 season at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. Mike worked with Meyer yet again on the 1999 “Short Trip Home,” another Sony Classical recording with Joshua Bell and fiddle-and-mandolin player Sam Bush.Mike has two holiday recordings to his credit: In 1998, he released “Midnight Clear,” a solo guitar recording, and in 2000 he recorded “A Christmas Heritage” with banjo player Alison Brown, Darol Anger, mandolinist Tim O’Brien, Todd Phillips and pianist-composer Phil Aaberg. That band, called New Grange, also released an eponymous CD on Compass Records.Today Mike can be heard on the Car Talk soundtrack recording every week on NPR along with Earl Scruggs, David Grisman and Tony Rice. In addition Mike composed and recorded the theme music for the San Francisco based radio program Forum heard daily on KQED radio.Darol Anger remains an important collaborator for Mike. To date, they have released 6 albums as a duo on Compass and Windham Hill Records. Together they have also recorded under the moniker Psychograss with guitarist David Grier, banjo player Tony Trischka and bassist Todd Phillips.Over the past several years, Mike has also been collaborating Chris Thile, of Nickel Creek. The two mandolinists began playing together at festivals, and their performing together eventually evolved into a duo, recording their first album in 2003. The cd, entitled Into the Cauldron, is a mandolin duet project performed entirely on mandolin and mandocello. Into the Cauldron was released on Sugar Hill records, and was listed in the top ten of Amazon.com’s favorite recordings for 2003.As he does so engagingly in music, Mike also applies his adventurous aesthetic to his two principal hobbies: wine making and food. Already known as one of the best cooks in the music business, he has been trading guitar lessons for cooking lessons from Michael Peternell a chef at Berkeley’s Chez Panisse. “Cooking is quite a passion for me,” he told Bluegrass Now in a 2003 interview. “When I moved from Florida to join David Grisman’s band here in California, it became very evident that I was too broke to afford the food I’d grown up on! So I’d call Mom: Hey, how do you make those roasted peppers? What’s the deal with the sauce?’ Now I make all my own pastas by hand-ravioli, gnocchi, all that stuff.”Back in the realm of music, Mike is currently working on further collaborations with Darol Anger, performs intermittently with Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile and has just released a CD project with pianist Jovino Santos Neto entitled Serenata featuring the music of Hermeto Pascoal Brazil’s most important musician/composers living today. The Cd has been released on Mike¹s own label called, appropriately, Adventure Music.
Lucy Kaplansky Transcript
March 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Dr. Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to “Sound Authors”. On the fourth segment of each show we feature authors of sound and Lucy Kaplansky is certainly a wonderful example. Her voice is warm and soothing. Her arrangements are incredible with the back up of the amazing musician Larry Campbell on all of her releases. Welcome to the show, Lucy Kaplansky.
Lucy Kaplansky: Thank you very much.
Kent: Now, I saw you back in, it must have been nineteen ninety seven or ninety eight, in Middlebury, Vermont.
Lucy: Oh my God! That’s a long time ago!
Kent: Indeed, and I remember that I told you that I was good friends with Neil and Leandra. I grew up listening to them and then you told me about Larry Campbell and that he was the amazing reason that you had so much success with Flesh and Bone. Recently I had Larry play on one of my records, which was a great pleasure.
Lucy: Oh yeah, he’s pretty astonishing, that guy, and he plays about a hundred instruments. I’m very lucky to have gotten to play with him so many times.
Kent: Now, let’s go back to very beginnings. Apparently, you were a kid that went to New York City and tried to make it?
Lucy: Yeah, I left Chicago right after high school to be a singer. There was a big article in the New York Times; this is a long time ago already, thirty years ago. A big article in New York Times about a folk revival in Greenwich Village and I came to New York and it was actually going pretty well.When I was twenty-one I got a pretty great review in the New York Times but I was too neurotic to let myself pursue what I really wanted. So, I quit and I ended up becoming a clinical psychologist and then long story made short, I figured out, with the help of a good therapist that what I really wanted to do all along was sing and I was already thirty-four at the time. So I came back to music and I’ve been playing music full time mostly since then.
Kent: Thank goodness for that. You’ve now done six solo releases and “Cry, Cry, Cry” is an amazing project with Dar Williams and Richard Shindell. How does it feel to keep turning out these releases?
Lucy: Well, I’m lucky to have a record company that wants to keep making records with me and I guess that I like to think that I’m getting better, getting better at writing especially. I’ve learned more and more about making albums so I think I’m very proud of the way my albums sound. I’m proud of the songs. So, I’m happy that I’ve been able to do all these albums that I’m proud of.
Kent: Let’s listen to one song called Manhattan Moon from a new record called “Over the Hills”.[music - Manhattan Moon]
Kent: That’s a beautiful song. Manhattan Moon, from the brand new release, Over the Hills by Lucy Kaplansky.What an amazing sound, you have a beautifully warm voice and then with that soft Pedal Steel by Larry Campbell and that infectious mandolin, it’s wonderful sounding.
Lucy: Thank you so much, I like it too.
Kent: Manhattan Moon, the reason I find that fascinating is that you’re on Red House Record’s label and it’s almost a midwestern folk revival this last ten years and you still live in New York, right?
Lucy: Oh yes, I’ve been living in New York a long time.
Kent: How does that feel?[laughs]
Lucy: Being a New Yorker?
Kent: Being a New Yorker in the middle of a field of, sort of Prairie Home Companion, midwestern folk musicians on Red House Records.
Lucy: Well…[laughs]
Lucy: You know, well I’ve never really thought about it. I mean they’re my label, I deal with them on the phone and email anyway, mostly. I mean, I would probably even if I lived in Minneapolis which is where they’re based. They have artists from all over the country, so it’s not just midwest based label. I think it originally was.
Kent: Wonderful, but you know… I’m happy that you’re out here on the east coast because that makes it possible to tune in.Your music is wonderful, do you have any new projects coming up?
Lucy: No, not yet. I mean… I got some things in mind, in terms of new projects but nothing’s materialized yet and right now I’m just kind of… I’m a mom and I’m concentrating on trying to write songs, doing a lot of shows, being a mom and that’s taking really most of my time.
Kent: That sounds wonderful, so let’s listen to one more song, it’s a title track from Over the Hills. Thank you so much for being on the show, it’s been a pleasure and I love you.
Lucy: Thank you very much for having me.
Kent: All right.[music - Over the Hills]
Kent: That’s the stunning sound of Lucy Kaplansky on the song Over the Hills, from her newest release, Over the Hills on Red House Records.Thank you so much to Lucy Kaplansky for being on the show. Thank you also to Lisa Genova, the author of the fiction book, Still Alice; Leigh Le Creux, with her book, Astro Socks; Gary Gach with his Idiot’s Guide to Buddhism.Be safe and I will see you next week.
King Wilkie Transcript
January 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Announcer: You’ve been listening to “Sound Authors” where authors sound off. If you’d like more information about “Sound Authors” and Dr. Kent’s guests, visit soundauthors.com. Now, back to Dr. Kent and friends.
Dr. Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to “Sound Authors”. It’s a beautiful sunny Friday in New York.My next guest is Reid Burgess of the band, King Wilkie. They have a beautiful, soulful brand of bluegrass, and their newest album is absolutely stunning. Welcome to the show.
Reid Burgess: Hey, Dr. Kent. Thanks for having me.
Kent: I’m a good friend of Nick Reeb, your fiddle player.
Reid: I did not know that.
Kent: Yeah, and he actually did some recording on a project of mine in New York. You can tell him hello.
Reid: Oh wow, yeah, that’s right. He used to live up here. I’m up here now. Actually, I’m in New York.
Kent: Fantastic. Well, are you guys on tour right now or what’s going on?
Reid: No, there’s not a lot happening. We’ve got a couple of warm up shows in New York City in March. Then after that we’ll start touring and we’ll continue on and off through the end of the year.
Kent: Well, the new album is stunning. It’s a new sound for you all. I’ve followed your music obviously because of Nick and because he makes me proud. He played fiddle with a little band I was in in college, and that was fun, but this is a whole new level. The songs are beautiful, and the sound is new. Tell me a little bit about what you guys worked on this last year.
Reid: Well, we were finishing off the record and we’re already on to the new one which I’m glad. These things can take a long time, and then by the time it’s finished you’re really ready to move on.
Kent: [laughs] So you’re ready for the next project?
Reid: But I like our latest record because it took a lot of chances. Like you said before, we kind of had our roots in bluegrass music, but this one kind of went in some very odd places. I liked that we didn’t repeat ourselves.As far as doing a second album, I think it would be impossible for any band to get the same kind of frantic love or excitement about doing a second record than they did with their first one.But I think with the new one we kind of avoided all that drudgery by just making another record that seemed so new and so different that it almost was like making our first record.
Kent: So let’s listen to a little bit of “Savannah”. It’s a beautiful track.[music]
Kent: That’s a little bit of “Savannah” from King Wilkie’s newest album. It’s a beautiful track. Who wrote that one?
Reid: Myself and Johnny; he’s the guy singing on it.
Kent: You’ve been a team for quite a while. Tell me how that started.
Reid: Well, it goes pretty far back. We met and the initial band was kind of started at Kenyon College in Ohio. Then we got further and further into the roots of bluegrass music and decided that we should really immerse ourselves and move down to Virginia.It was kind of this romantic idea where we’d be learning from the elders - the old, original guys, who all seemed to be living down there. We ended up getting in pretty deep and not a lot of sleep the next five years.Knee deep in bluegrass and I don’t know, at this point with the latest record, we’re kind of… I think we’ve always been fans of diverse musical styles. Though I guess it’s just anyone who’s got an iPod today pretty much listening to anything. So we were fans of early bluegrass and early country and folk, but also regular rock and roll stuff.
Kent: I can hear the sounds of old time music in there, which is really nice.
Reid: Yeah, well that’s Nick. Nick’s gotten real deep in the old time. There’s a wealth of amazing American music that’s traditional. It’s an amazing hybrid of European and African elements coming together that’s uniquely American. But our band - all that gets filtered through us and the approach and the filter has expanded. So whether we’re songwriting or digging into older music, hopefully it’s still something that’s creative and comes out.
Kent: Well, I really think that the music is new, and there’s a small number of musicians out there that I hear this kind of beautiful sounds coming out of. You know, Old Crow Medicine Show, Gillian Welch.
Reid: There’s tons. There’s a lot of people doing really creative stuff.
Kent: And this is definitely in there among them. We’ll come check out kingwilkie.com; that’s got all of your new stuff up on there. The album is available everywhere, I assume?
Reid: All over, yes.
Kent: All over. And you guys are going to be supporting it coming up in a couple months?
Reid: Yeah. Well, we toured through this fall, up through the last fall. We’ll start touring again this spring, and we’ll be out all summer hopefully.
Kent: So let’s listen to a little bit of “Wrecking Ball” on the way out here.[music]
Kent: Well, thank you so much to Reid Burgess of King Wilkie. That’s beautiful music, “Savannah” and “Wrecking Ball” off their brand new album. Go check them out kingwilkie.com.Thank you also to my guests today, Reid Burgess of King Wilkie as I said; Dr. Paul Mullen talking to us about literacy; Jarret J. Krosoczka with his awesome “Punk Farm Animals” and Grampa Mike up at the beginning.Thank you also to the World Talk Radio folks, especially Anthony Farabay, the chief engineer. Everybody have a safe week and I’ll see you soon.[music]
King Wilkie | Low Country Suite
January 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Today we spoke with Reid Burgess of the young bluegrass crossover group King Wilkie. Their new album Low Country Suite is stunning, soft, sometimes depressed, sometimes upbeat, part old-time, part folk. We had a great conversation…
Band biography of King Wilkie from their MySpace site:
From the opening notes, King Wilkie’s Low Country Suite announces a new beginning for the band. Using the same tools that they used to make a splash on the bluegrass circuit—fiddles, banjos, dobros, string bass, acoustic guitars, and mandolins—they forge a new sound. During the years since the release of their debut album (2004’s Broke), time passed slowly, songs were written, and musical boundaries and definitions were set aside. The resulting album “has a ‘we’re not in Kansas anymore’ theme,” explains co-founder Reid Burgess. “The main thing was freeing ourselves up stylistically and showing different sides of the band.”
In reality, this surprising stylistic shift was a natural outgrowth of the band’s musical curiosity, as Burgess points out. “On this record we decided to let everything else in. You can try really hard to choose your influences, but in the end it’s going to come out sounding like something different…like yourself.”
Produced by Jim Scott (Tom Petty, Dixie Chicks, Red Hot Chili Peppers),Low Country Suite finds the Charlottesville, Virginia-based band deftly tapping into rock’s blue-highways heritage, drawing on the pioneering spirit of The Byrds circa Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Gram Parsons’ solo LPs, and the Rolling Stones in their “Country Honk” mode. Yet Low Country Suite, while deviating from the band’s initial blueprint, incorporates their deeply rooted study of the past into a new musical framework of their own invention. The album’s gentler songs are equally informed by the sixties folk of Nico, Nick Drake, and Leonard Cohen, as by Bill Monroe, the Flying Burrito Brothers, or the Byrds. “King Wilkie create their own genre of music — a beautiful, true and honest sound,” says Scott.
The band formed in Charlottesville in 2003 and started a journey that took them from an all-consuming obsession with bluegrass, which, in turn, took them to the stage of the Grand Ole Opry and led to an acclaimed debut album on Rebel Records, the pioneering bluegrass imprint and longtime home of Ralph Stanley. The International Bluegrass Music Association named them emerging artists of the year in 2004. But even as they were being embraced by their peers in bluegrass, their music was shifting and extending outward in directions that could no longer be contained under the bluegrass banner.
According to singer John McDonald, “no matter how hard we worked and studied, we realized we’d never sing bluegrass like Del McCoury, so we sat down to work on songs that reflected our own strengths and lives and musical influence.” Burgess elaborates, “Originally, I had wanted to do something in the genre, but it became clear that it wasn’t really working — it wasn’t personal enough.”
After this revelation, the music began to evolve naturally, spurred by a desire to leave precedent behind and concentrate on their own idiosyncratic sound and songwriting. The band had toured nonstop for two years, taking their elegantly endearing live show from coast to coast and abroad. But when it came time to record their follow-up record, King Wilkie literally went to school. Returning home to their Virginia countryside, they holed up in a secluded 18th-century schoolhouse, logged hundreds of rehearsal hours, then packed their bags for California.
Low Country Suite was recorded in Scott’s Valencia studio, northeast of L.A., over 10 days in August of 2006. A number of tracks are fleshed out with organ, piano, percussion and lap steel. “We wanted to add some bite” Burgess explains. Low Country Suite is aided immeasurably by the crystalline sound quality achieved by Scott, letting each burnished strum, pluck, hum and thump emerge; capturing the impassioned weariness in the band’s vocals, and allowing an identifiable aura to take shape.
The LP derives its title from the marshy Low Country region of the southeastern United States. “I’ve always romanticized that area and the South in general,” says Burgess. Suite may refer to a collection of songs, or perhaps is a reference to lyrics about a hotel suite in Memphis, where a sultry affair with a divorcee in her 40s took place, as described in the Kinks/Muppets-influenced “Ms. Peabody.” Says Burgess, “Most of the songs are about different relationships, or about anxious attachment in general, feeling too attached. I think the record’s mainly about restlessness, coming of age, loss of innocence.”
Burgess acknowledges that Low Country Suite is a dark album. “I want our record to be the yellow umbrella among black ones at a funeral,” he muses. “That’s us in a nutshell, I guess. At this point we’re running with that.”