CMT Blog: Bluegrass

When I wake up on the floor of a cheap motel room with Charles snoring in the bed above me, I can’t help but think about all the things that the first and second generations of bluegrass pickers went through to keep this music alive. Curly Seckler, of Flatt & Scruggs fame, says they assumed the first three rows of a corn field were open season for hungry musicians, traveling the roads without much cash. Thomas Haglund, the Swedish fiddler, says that money was so tight when he played with Jimmy Martin, his first job upon arriving at any festival was to search the grounds for a bass player for the night. When Flatt & Scruggs were doing their 4 a.m. live radio broadcasts, they didn’t want to wake up early and try to sing, so they’d just stay up all night until show time.

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Sugarland dominated the mainstream country sales chart this summer, but there’s still plenty of room for the indies to get some attention. Of course, Randy Travis and Emmylou Harris still sound sterling on the new songs I have included here, and rock musicians like John Mellencamp, Sheryl Crow and My Morning Jacket contributed excellent songs to my summer soundtrack. Bluegrass is well-represented too, with the Duhks, the Grascals, Blue Moon Rising, Tony Rice and Cadillac Sky. Now that Labor Day weekend is over, and autumn is upon us, at least I have these songs to remind me of a pretty fun summer.

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A young band hitting the road has a very simple definition of success - your first tour bus. One glimpse of a mighty Prevost on the highway is enough to make a musician’s heart flutter from within the confines of a smelly over-crowded Chevy passenger van. Could that be Alison Krauss and Robert Plant? Tim McGraw and Faith Hill? The tour bus is the Promised Land.

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Congratulations to Dailey & Vincent, who earned a spectacular 10 nominations from the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) this morning. They even snagged one for entertainer of the year - not bad for a duo that’s on its first album. (Jamie Dailey used to sing with Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver; Darrin Vincent was part of Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder.) They’re joined in the top category by some familiar faces: the Grascals, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, the Del McCoury Band and Rhonda Vincent & the Rage.

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The 6:05 to Denver, my old nemesis. Every time the band travels west, it’s on the 6:05 to Denver. For some reason, every single airline has at least three flights leaving Nashville between 6:00 and 6:05 every morning, making 4:30-5:40 the absolute busiest times of the day. It’s inexplicable why anyone would choose to navigate an airport at this hour, but every few weeks I find myself singing Danny Barnes’ song, “My Baby, She’s Workin’ for the TSA,” (quietly, I wouldn’t want to arouse suspicion) in the security queue, praying I’ll be directed toward my bag and not the little glass box. I’m very thankful for the additional element of safety the TSA provides, but it can be difficult to feel that way when you’ve got rubber-gloved hands making their rounds ’round your person.

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I first became a Cadillac Sky fan last year when they came to CMT to tape a session of Unplugged at Studio 330. Someone opened the studio door during their warm-up and I caught about 1 ½ seconds of “You Again”. That was all it took. I made sure I had their album before they left the building. One of the fullest sounding bluegrass bands I have ever heard. I think part of that is due to their musical nature. The roots are buried deep, but they’re not shy of crossing borders. Lots of evidence of that on Gravity’s Our Enemy, like “My Precious Waltz/I Hate How Happy She Is.” It won’t be released until Tuesday (Aug. 19), but you can check out the entire album here.

If a song is packed with fiddle, banjo and mandolin, does that automatically make it a country song? That’s what I used to think. But my 9-year-old daughter is slowly but surely teaching me otherwise. She plays the fiddle, but it’s not even the slightest bit country. At all. It’s not even bluegrass or Americana fiddle. It’s 100 percent Irish.

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If you ever find yourself driving between Cincinnati and Lexington, Ky., you should pull off I-75 and check out the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Renfro Valley. That town’s name will be familiar to an older generation of country fans, because it’s the home of the Renfro Valley Barn Dance, the famous radio show that started broadcasting there in 1939. The big, black barn is still standing. You can’t miss it from the highway. And after walking through the nearby museum, I was surprised by how many of my favorite singers are from the Bluegrass State.

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Michael Cleveland is a young fiddler that radiates joy when he plays. Plus, every time I’ve seen him perform, he’s remarkably in touch with his bandmates, stepping in at just the right moment, even if it’s just for a second or two. But when it’s his turn to solo, watch out. He’s my favorite fiddler in bluegrass music, because his intuitive playing always enhances the mood of the song, whether it’s mournful or exuberant, and he makes it seem so easy. Unlike a lot of pickers in their 20s, Cleveland is a former prodigy who now seems completely at home with traditional bluegrass. You won’t hear him radically stretching any boundaries on his new album, Leavin’ Town. Conventional topics all around - Jesus, trains, rambling, etc.

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There’s a fine little venue in Ann Arbor, Mich., that’s long been a friend to acoustic music. With a staff of mainly volunteers, The Ark manages to bring in some of the finest talent anywhere to their stage; Mountain Heart recently recorded their live record here. The area’s roots of bluegrass run deep. For years, Southerners looking for work in the auto and military plants went back and forth between the Detroit area and home, bringing their music with them. The Hillbilly Highway, 23, runs from here all the way to our home in Asheville, N.C., and beyond. Our buddy Ralph Lewis, a former Bluegrass Boy with Bill Monroe, talks about playing three nights a week for big crowds while he was working in Detroit. Bluegrass music tends to pop up where you’d least expect it; in Ireland last year, the first pub we walked into had bluegrass playing on a little beat up antenna radio and nothing ever sounded better. — Graham Sharp