Pickers: a catchall thread for modern bluegrass, nu-old-time music, rootsy americana string bands, etc.

you into Jerry Douglas?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu0gko-PqeI

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FWIW I play mandolin and bouzouki and guitar, in mostly acoustic settings. To an extent, this should be my wheelhouse. There's a lot of Americana and nu-old-tymey in the set lists of the bands I support. I respect man alive's approach. But it is not for me - I suck at memorizing single-note stuff. I play chordally, or chordally with embellishment.

Jerry Douglas is good, although I haven't listened to that much. I'll try to just keep posting things I'm digging lately.

Jake Eddy's rearrangement of Goodbye Liza Jane:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urU6vFU6Ijk

I love this Bryan Sutton duet with Russ Barenberg (that's Russ doing the opening lead, which sounds otherworldly)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzT8TiNMB3I

The name Big Sciota is funny and makes me think of sciatica.

Am I gonna get eaten alive if I bring up Billy Strings itt? Really digging him lately and he feels so much more "genuine" (for lack of a better word) than the legions of bluegrass leaning jam inspired bands we've suffered heard from over the last twenty years. Like normally any bluegrass artist that is embraced by the jam scene sends up "DO NOT WANT" warning lights, but Strings has gained a huge following and still seems to keep bluegrass front and center in his sound, while still exploring and pushing the edges with it (as opposed to say, Phish or whoever that just drops in a token "bluegrass" song now and then).

all correct, imo

dude rips

you can take that to mean he is cool or he's a hell of a player

both are true

in case you haven't discovered the transatlantic sessions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsD4snTewqA

Is there anyone who has a problem with Billy Strings? I thought he was pretty much unfuckwithable

I never heard of the guy, but I cast a gimlet eye on certain newer bluegrass acts until someone I trust gives me the signal so I think I will give this Billy Strings fellow a listen.

For instance I, like Yanc3y before me, never really liked the Bad Livers that much.

I don't know those guys really well, but he seems like he's about 5x the player they are.

One album I've been enjoying lately is the improbably titled/covered "I've Got a Bulldog" by Bigfoot - which, contrary to what you'd expect, is a very straightforward ensemble old time music record (albeit one with really nice, lively energy) and not a late 90s alt rock record.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mSWFchBocDVg0eeL3TD6L37qL9yZ6E1Fo

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/618Xll3-67L._SS500_.jpg

There’s a group called the Harmolodic String Band recording bluegrassy versions of Ornette Coleman tunes:

https://harmolodicstringband.bandcamp.com/album/the-shape-of-grass-to-come-vol-1

I saw the Bad Livers open for the Butthole Surfers in 1990 or so. In that context they were fine.

I once saw the Ebony Hillbillies playing in Penn Station in NYC and bought one of their CDs. They ruled.

haha, I was just talking about the Harmolodic String Band. Actually, I sort of feel like I willed them into retroactive existence, because I was talking to a friend about how something in a Tony Rice solo sounded like Ornette to me, and then I made some kind of pretentious (and probably stretched) connection between bluegrass and Ornette, and then it came to me later that day "The Shape of Grass to Come" - what a great idea. Except it had been done. And btw I really like it, it's really good. I wish there was more of it.

This track works esp well I think
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DsYCZYPxw0

Chris Thile is playing 10 mins from me. It would probably be a good show, but his persona and his facial expressions really irk me and I don’t know if I can stand watching him for an hour or more.

Is there anyone who has a problem with Billy Strings? I thought he was pretty much unfuckwithable

Not so much around here maybe but there are definitely corners of the internet that look askance at pretty much any bluegrass player who is young, successful and getting profiles in the NY Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/arts/music/billy-strings-renewal.html

Thought that was actually a good profile, had no idea his childhood was that rough.

Speaking of Ornettegrass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGVIrck0pNI

Reminds me of something I posted during a Rolling Country discussion of Americana:

I think Americana should mainly be what you make of it, from what you're looking for and what you come across, in any event. As with true cratedigger and trashdiver Harry Smith putting together The Smithsonian Anthology of American Folk Music, or more likely, something like this re Colorado etc.:

Some Saturday nights there were barn dances, way out in Elgin or Sonoita. In barns. Everybody from miles and miles would go, old people, young people, babies, dogs. Guests from dude ranches. All of the women brought things to eat. Fried chicken and potato salad, cakes and pies and punch. The men would go out in bunches and hang around their pickups, drinking. Some women too, my mother always did. High school kids got drunk and threw up, got caught necking. Old ladies danced with each other and children. Everybody danced.
Two-step mostly, but some slow dances and jitterbug. Some square dances and Mexican dances like La Varsoviana. In English it's "Put your little foot, put your little foot right there," and you skip and whirl around. They played everything from "Night and Day" to "Detour, There's a Muddy Road Ahead," "Jalisco no te Rajas" to "Do the Hucklebuck." Different bands every night but the same kind of mix.
Where did these raging wonderful musicians come from? Pachuco horns and guitar players, big-hatted country guitarists, bebop drummers, piano-players that looked like Fred Astaire. The closest I ever heard anything come close to those little bands was at the Five Spot in the late fifties. Ornette Coleman's "Ramblin'." Everybody raving how new and far-out he was. Sounded Tex-Mex to me, like a good Sonoita hoedown.

------Lucia Berlin, "Homing"

Lucia Berlin is so good. Believe she was married to a jazz musician for a while, can’t remember his name.

who wrote the Billy Strings thing for the NYT? i don't have a subscription.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfLJvXNeY-M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7FrSTXJPfE

I love this...

Awesome

Something about this type of music just fits my life very well rn both for singing and playing. It's soothing and not loud, I can listen to it around the kids with only mild groans at worst, and as far as jamming all I need to bring is an acoustic guitar - no amps or pedals, no spending 20 mins "dialing in tone," no earache after a session, common repertoire of tunes for easy jams with strangers etc.

Molly Tuttle is another one I've been listening to a lot lately. Here's here with a banjo player I don't know but who seems awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duJa9vMZV2M

who wrote the Billy Strings thing for the NYT? i don't have a subscription.

Grayson Haver Currin

thx

that’s quite a name

Spy magazine alumnus, sounds like.

Pitchfork alumnus (or maybe sometimes current still?) and great writer.

yeah, a dude worth reading for sure

both for his writing and, generally, the music he's writing about

Tony Furtado plays banjo, slide, dobro, etc. He's pretty good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpj-FZY_SeA

Yeah, he's been around a while; thanks for the reminder.

from my Nashville Scene ballot, re Best Reissues of 2016:

This isn't great, but fun, and gets better as it goes along (they credit New Lost City Ramblers for what they've lifted, and the folks NLCR lifted it from as well)(spoken stuff is is speedy, brief, and all at the beginning of this live-in-the-Stanford-radio-station set: no interviews, station IDs etc) orig posted on the ILX Garcia side projects thread,Jerry Garcia Solo/JGB/Grisman/etc. - S/D
Hart Valley Drifters, Folk Time: not trying to sound strictly mountain-y---maybe a little too relaxed at times--but the picking is sharp and vivid, also without trying too hard, as Garcia trades off guitar and banjo with Ken Frankel; David Nelson's rhythm guitar and Robert Hunter's bass keep chugging along, and things get more engaging when Frankel plays fiddle for just about all of the second half (not much dobro that I've noticed, but Norm Van Maastricht gets bonus points for his name). Bluesier on "Sugar Baby" and then, right at the end, Mississippi Sheiks' "Sitting On Top Of The World", cool and bouncing us to another, contiguous world, just down the mountain aways, where Garcia has no prob suggesting Mississippi John Hurt sitting in with the Sheiks. I'd put this track in a Garcia acoustic comp (he's already the star here, but never ever hogging the spotlight, not that there is one).

A couple years later, it got included in this!
Jerry Garcia, Before The Dead: (Already have a couple inclusions, boot & legit, but 4 remastered
CDs for $19.99, so no prob.)The whole thing starts on May 26, 1961, with a hootenanny
at Brigid Meier's sixteenth birthday party (she's so excited!)
Set is very nice, made distinctive by Garcia's instantly
recognizable singing, which, as on most of the rest of the box,
doesn't have that high lonesome Dead etc. pitch, but is clear
and contemplative and unaffected. Usually with future
New Rider David Nelson,
pretty often with Robert Hunter, and several guys I really
need to look up, he gets more and more into banjo
--a bit more than I am, at times---but still got the guitar
and those pipes.
One blemish:
a set of songs of the American People complaining about
marriage/wives, carefully selected for polished performances
with his own first wife (who sounds pretty good), about a
week after their wedding (he calls the exact time).
She and the audience chuckle when he mentions this,
but it reminds me of a bootlegger who claimed that Jerry
sold all their wedding gifts to buy a guitar, and I'm sure
he played it well. This already-disenchanted evening's a bummer, man, but at least it's brief.

He quickly masters (far as I can tell) lots of old-timey and bluegrass, wheeee!

Now I really wanna hear his pre-Dead picking with David Grisman, where's that?!

Yeah, he's been around a while; thanks for the reminder.

This is interesting - of course it makes sense that my 90s folk fascinations are now in the "been around a while" category. I still think of them as new because they're new relative to Flatt, Scruggs, Bill Monroe etc.

Furtado, yes, but also Brit/Scot
peeps like Eliza Carthy, John McCusker, Nic Jones. Plus yr neo folkies like Richard Shindell, Kate Rusby, John Wesley Harding. Some or most of whom are put of the scope of this thread but still dear to me when I approach acoustic music.

* out of the scope

I've discovered and become fascinated by this solo clawhammer banjo record put out by, of all things, Vulf records.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lor0-CB1ag

It's so outside the range of what Vulf typically releases (not generally a huge fan) that I was kind of baffled. If anything it has more of the vibe of a Fahey record -- what sounds like outdoor recording with the atmospheric noises left in (dog barking, cars), slightly off mic vocals, and a bit of experimentation surrounding an otherwise beautiful and semi-traditional sounding clawhammer performance.

Turns out there is a story behind why it's on Vulf
https://www.reddit.com/r/Vulfpeck/comments/hw4mhm/question_who_is_rob_stenson_why_did_vulf_records/

Don't know where else to put this, but a friend put this record out (Bandcamp-only) after working on it monastically for I don't even know how many years, and he's very bad at self-promotion. He's virtuoso jazz guitarist but dedicated himself to singer/songwriter-ing and recording over the last decade. It's not like I listen to tons of stuff like this, but I love his playing:

https://loukasound.bandcamp.com/album/testing-your-patience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz0UHAJBtCc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bYrKquLyP8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApSJCkluGLE

sorry to jump over your friend, Jordan, but i'm wondering if anyone here can recommend to me other banjo players that do stuff similar to Rob Stenson in that video above?

Alpine, a fair amount of Nora Brown's stuff has a similar vibe (some songs have vocals but a lot are instrumental like this one).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdHrQZRDHIs

She is some kind of banjo/old-time wunderkind, I think she was like 15 when this came out, is maybe 17 now?

generally speaking, what you are looking for is clawhammer banjo music

Actually this dude who I follow on instagram (who I don't even think records or plays out) does some really nice clawhammer tunes that have that same kind of backwoodsy vibe

https://www.instagram.com/jeff_swann1975/

This 2020 release is pretty good, if you're into early Doc---see link at end:
Doc Watson & Gaither Carlton, s/t:

These largely unheard tapes were recorded at Doc Watson’s two earliest concerts, presented in New York City’s Greenwich Village in 1962. Those shows were among the rare appearances Doc’s father-in-law, fiddler Gaither Carlton, made outside of North Carolina. The instrumental pieces, including Gaither’s signature tune “Double File,” include intricate musical interactions developed through years of family music-making. On the songs and ballads, Doc’s instantly recognizable baritone voice is accompanied by his own guitar and Gaither’s fiddle, or by the traditional combination of fiddle and banjo.
https://docwatsonandgaithercarlton.bandcamp.com/album/doc-watson-and-gaither-carlton

Also 2020, from my Nashville Scene ballot comments---took me a few spins to get into all of this, but worth it:
Jake Blount's Spider Tales is in the black Appalachian tradition, title referring to a subset of stories in song and vice-versa, w spiders making their way through all kinds of situations. Although it starts with some fairly humdrum instrumentals, and then begs comparison with many good versions of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night"---but, past those first four tracks (which I may warm to, now that I know what's up ahead), "Move Daniel" moves good, with the confluence of his voice and fiddle also striking on "Brown Skin Baby," "The Angels Done Bowed Down, " "Boll Weevil," and the killer finale, "Mad Mamma Blues," a sexy murder ballad, Appalachian swing blues. Instrumentals work better when fiddle-led and fed, with his banjo's percussive support, esp. on "English Chicken," "Rocky Road To Dublin," which is not of black origin I take it, but fits, also "Beyond This Wall," which seems like it might be a modern original or recent trad.-arr. https://jakeblountmusic.bandcamp.com/album/spider-tales

Speaking of xpost Appalachian swing, this 2018 set is a lot of fun: Roland White and Friends (lotta youngbloods, incl. from Grasicals), A Tribute To The Kentucky Colonels

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/A1jIH75WJtL._SL1500_.jpg

Anybody heard the latest Norman Blake---? I still need to check it.

That Roland White isn't on Bandcamp, but this'un is, good too:
I Wasn't Born to Rock 'n Roll (But I Love to Cook)
Roland White's 1976 solo album 'I Wasn't Born To Rock 'N Roll', originally issued on the Ridge Runner Records label, is re-mastered from the original tapes and released for the very first time on CD.

Roland White, along with his brother Clarence, made bluegrass and country music history as members of the Kentucky Colonels. Roland also played in Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys and Lester Flatt's Nashville Grass, and later in Country Gazette and the Nashville Bluegrass Band. Clarence famously played with the Byrds, among many others, until his tragic death in 1973.

This album features Alan Munde, Kenny Wertz, Roger Bush and Dave Ferguson playing traditional tunes, as well as a composition called "Powder Creek" co-written by Roland & Clarence. This was the first appearance of this special tune on an album, a song which Roland now describes as having been composed with his brother on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1963 !

The package includes original liner notes by Gene Parsons (The Byrds), new reflections from Roland, original album artwork, and one unreleased bonus track not included on the original LP.
credits
released July 3, 2020
https://tompkinssquare.bandcamp.com/album/i-wasnt-born-to-rock-n-roll-but-i-love-to-cook

A beautiful tune from this guy, who is sort of my instagram buddy now

https://www.instagram.com/p/CXHmbvNNiSR/

I hadn't heard about Bela Fleck's new album My Bluegrass Heart. Lead single (released in July) features Billy Strings & Chris Thile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCgjhl5g9PM

Huh, weird that I didn't mention the Bela Fleck record in this thread, thought I did - it's very good. Dense with a lot to dig into. I'm actually going to see him with a bunch of the people from the record on Sunday - I'm kind of shocked it hasn't been canceled, but I figure I'm vaccinated, recently boosted, and may also have had the virus a couple weeks ago, so now is as good a time as there's gonna be to see a concert for a while (and it will be my first indoor show in two years).

Also, this dude, who I stan for, just put out a cool little tour EP that's very enjoyable

https://jakeeddycartereddygrahambrewerjohnduncan.bandcamp.com/album/live-on-tour-fall-2021

This has some really good stuff on it, and I love the wholesome cover photo

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/qd4AAOSwcfdbFW1P/s-l1600.jpg

Also, this dude, who I stan for, just put out a cool little tour EP that's very enjoyable

https://jakeeddycartereddygrahambrewerjohnduncan.bandcamp.com/album/live-on-tour-fall-2021

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, January 6, 2022 1:56 PM (three weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

This got featured in bandcamp's best country music Jan 2022

Last November, four young lightning-fingered bluegrass musicians hit the road for a quick tour, picking their way across the Southeast before the Omicron variant of COVID made that kind of thing a lot trickier. This collection compiles highlights from performances in Texas and North Carolina, with a heavy emphasis on traditional bluegrass played as if the band’s collective hair is on fire. The whole band is solid, but when guitarist Jake Eddy gets going, it sounds like someone accidentally hit the fast-forward button—in a good way.

https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-country/the-best-country-music-on-bandcamp-january-2022?utm_source=notification

I saw Billy Strings' live thing at the Capitol Theater last week. It was unfortunately just way too loud for me and that diminished my enjoyment a lot, have never heard a louder "acoustic" show. Mandolin was downright ear piercing. It also was extremely jammy and spacey, which isn't entirely my thing, but I don't think I would have minded if not for the loudness, and in fact some of the jams were quite good. Incredible players, all of them, extremely tight and together band even when they went way out there. Billy is a charming presence and a bit of a ham. Overall I like the band and think they are a good force in music right now.

I say acoustic in quotes because they have massive pedal boards and use their instruments more like electric instruments about half the time.

Someone posted a pretty big cache of Tony Rice live shows to reddit (including Rice/Blake, Superpickers, J.D. Crowe & New South etc.)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GxOds0DpFDKtiQWFSqteioB1Co8z1-jm

incidentally, what would be the easiest way to make all that stuff playable on my phone without having to click one track at a time (specifically thinking for car listening). Is there a way I can keep them online but in a better streaming format?

Lately I’ve been trying to push a little into the jazzier Tony Rice Unit albums, like Backwaters. It still feels a bridge too far into cable menu channel music for me, but his playing on them is incredible.

Not sure this is the correct thread for this band. They refer to their own sound as "transcendental twang". But I'm super psyched for this forthcoming release:

https://arborlaborunion.bandcamp.com/album/yonder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3c0hrKiPco

There's a new Tommy Emmanuel "Accomplice" album out ("Two") that follows the one he released in 2018. Features duets with a number of talented players including Molly Tuttle, Billy Strings, and Yasmin Williams.

https://open.spotify.com/album/17sn081QrEUaQEI3t2oiJb

Here are the videos for the recordings with Billy Strings (doing Doc Watson tunes) & Yasmin Williams, both great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnUG-SgILy8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SSCzfft4Gw

the billy strings record with his dad from last year is so great! i mean, just fantastic. the songwriting is excellent and the arrangements are so tasty and basically catnip for old school bluegrass nerds.

My dude
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teA-If9JxMY

new Nora Brown EP with Stephanie Coleman is good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T67bfkm2Bw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjqeQ5cylFk

Love this Dan Crary (of awful album art "Lady's Fancy" fame) performance

That Nora Brown vid is lovely too. She's great.

Saw a video of her playing John Cohen's banjo, which was also played by Roscoe Holcomb. She also mentioned a banjo her father made. So it sounds like she's got a deep connection to the old time music world? Not sure what the story is, but she sure is great.

Did not see this coming---given his formative-years impressions of Django and Bob Wills, would expect at least some of it to tend toward swingrass (swine grass?), a la xxxpost Roland White:

Bluegrass, Willie Nelson's 151st album, presents 12 classic Willie Nelson compositions--including "On the Road Again," "Yesterday's Wine," "Still is Still Moving to Me," "Good Hearted Woman" and more--freshly interpreted by Willie and his bluegrass ensemble. For the album, Willie picked 12 personal and fan favorite compositions from across his career to perform anew. All songs on Bluegrass were written by Willie except "Good Hearted Woman" which has music and lyrics written by both Willie and Waylon Jennings.

CD Release Date: 9/15/2023
Vinyl Release Date: 9/29/2023

The first ever thread I discovered ILM through was an awful album art thread that featured this classic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh4NDOo3XtE

Things have come full circle as I’ve now discovered it’s a fucking masterwork of flatpicking guitar.

I didn't know this guy until a few days ago, but pretty incredible
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsZ968M5D0Y

Enjoyed this live performance of Alison Brown and Steve Martin's duet from her new album On Banjo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doBcW7Hx9SY

Gotta throw out a mention of my buddy Devon, a fantastic young banjo player. Killer baritone voice too. Great guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZHqcdU_rAs

Everybody needs to listen to Summer Dean

"She's In His Arms But I'm In The Palm Of His Hand"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ_hFtAIw4g

Is her throwback sound better than others who are also singing old school style country? She does it well.

Veranda are a Mom & Pop operation, with just the right helpers (guests x regulars always tight x fluid): Quebec Francophone originals with French airs further lifting bluegrass and old-timey. Results don't usually make me think "Cajun," but Arcadian refreshment out on the front porch, yeah. They've got a bunch here, but so far I'm totally detained by the latest, L​à​-​bas:https://verandamusic.bandcamp.com/album/l-bas
One of their colleagues is banjoist Guy Donis, and given the title of Guy Donis & The Montreal Bluegrass League, I was hoping for more like this, but nope, it's just good strong American-associated tradgrass-folk, with "Deep Ellum Blues" etc. stirring the jar:https://guydonis.bandcamp.com/album/guy-donis-the-montreal-bluegrass-league

More originals with arresting use of trad elements: singer-songwriter-flatpicker Molly Tuttle's aptly titled Crooked Tree, with some twisted plots and relationships flying through grassy tunes played by heavy hitters, also mellower trips like her childhood memories of Daddy taking her to Cali situations involving for instance "dawg music" of Grisman.

Speaking of whom, he is, without showboating, romping all over 2022 reissues of Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard's 1965 debut, Who's That Knocking?---along with

Chubby Wise, arguably the architect of bluegrass fiddling...and Lamar Grier, who played banjo as a member of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in the 1960s.

I haven't played the earlier reissue of Rounder Records' 1973 Hazel and Alice yet, but bow bad could it be?
https://hazeldickensandalicegerrard.bandcamp.com/album/hazel-alice

And this is real freaking good, from 2018:

set of newly unearthed recordings, Sing Me Back Home: The DC Tapes, 1965-1969, out September 21 on Free Dirt Records. Sourced from Alice's private archive and digitized with help from the Southern Folklife Collection at UNC Chapel Hill, the recordings invite us to witness the creative process of these towering figures—just two voices and a handful of instruments working out arrangements at home. Across 19 tracks the duo sings the classic country of The Carter Family, The Louvin Brothers, and Jimmie Rodgers; contemporary hits of the 1960s penned by Dolly Parton and Merle Haggard; and barn-burning traditional standards that blur the line between old-time and early bluegrass. Sing Me Back Home is a raw, unfiltered listen to Hazel & Alice at the height of their collaborative energy.

My parents have the 1973 Hazel and Alice and of course it's great. Thanks for these links, I didn't know about all these reissues.

As entertainment anyway, don't know that I've taken in any ideas beyond that in his yarns. If so, they went in one eye and out the other.
Although I can't help missing Bradbury and even ER Burroughs, most of the new retro Old Mars is Big Red Fun, as concisely described here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Mars

Welcome! I covet your parents' album. Also: Alice's Hiss Golden Messenger-produced Follow The Music, from 2014, when she was 85---here with a lot of others I haven't heard yet, incl advance tracks from Sun To Sun, which comes out Oct. 20!
https://alicegerrard.bandcamp.com/music

I *have* heard Follow The Music, and dig it. Some more originals w trad elements.

Just dropped. Amazing record
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbXwZ_PAp_0
https://open.spotify.com/album/1GhQW4Cs0dcMELeXF20pYE?si=Ir8TrfEiTq2m6M0r8EwxeQ

I think this is my favorite track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd-Z16tga10