Saturday, June 7, 2008

Ellis Paul

By Greg Tutwiler

Ellis Paul is not a native of Virginia. He really doesn’t have any musical roots here. But for now,he’s calling Charlottesville home. And as long as he does that, this area can expect to be treatedto some of the finest Contemporary Folk music on the circuit today. His credentials speak forthemselves. Ellis has released 11 CDs (with number 12 on the way), a DVD, a book of poems andshort stories, earned Thirteen Boston Music Awards, and collect a mailing list of 20,000 loyal fansduring his relatively short 15+ years as a full time entertainer.

That’s not the kind of career you just step into though. It takes talent and creativity for sure, but italso requires a deep passion for doing it. In speaking with Ellis recently, that was the one thingthat struck me; Ellis Paul thrives on his career as a musician, it’s who he is, not what he does.

Ellis grew up in Maine but got his start during college in Boston while studying to be a socialworker. He started playing open mic nights in the Boston music scene during a time whenContemporary Folk was beginning to come into the main stream markets. “Around that time therewere a lot of great musicians in that area who’ve gone on to have career length longevity,” Ellistold me. “Vance Gilbert, Martin Sexton, Eddie Griffin and Dar Williams; all those folks were doingit at the same time as I was.”

He spent a couple years working with inner city youth after graduation where he drew inspirationjust focused on learning the songs, and how to began to require more time, and he was beingasked to open for a lot of national acts. “When I was about 26 I quit my fulltime position and hit theroad touring,” he said.

Writing With Intension
The key to being a successful songwriter is understanding your audience and being able toarticulate your ideas in a way that pulls the listener in, and then them something to take with them.You can’t do that with shallow lyrics. And lyrically, Ellis is considered among the top in his field.

I asked Ellis about his songwriting. “To me, they’re supposed to be three-dimensional wells thatyou can go to; more than just for entertainment,” he said. “I try to create pictures that tell stories,and maybe have some lessons involved, some truth involved, and something beyond just theenergy and vibe. I write about where my life is at; whatever point I’m in when I’m starting thecollection of songs.”

Ellis says he writes from a combination of truth and fiction. “And sometimes the fiction is used toenforce or support the truth. Because of that, I write songs that are inspired by other people who Iknow. I don’t generally write from the headlines or about stuff on the forefront of the news. It wouldbe hard for me because I’m not affected by it directly. But if my life does become affected by it, orI know someone affected by it, and I can witness that, then I can write about it a lot easier.”

Ellis is a fan of all genres of music. Not limiting himself to just his own personal style, he can drawfrom all forms to enrich his songwriting. “When I listen to other musicians, I listen for someonewho can motivate my imagination into creating pictures in my head. I like story tellers. I gravitateto the kind of people doing that kind of writing. They can be straight, gay, black, white, old oryoung, it doesn’t matter really. Even the motive of a rap artist can captivate my mind as well. I justlike great lyricists.”

Why A Songwriter
“I like the art form,” he said frankly. “I’m too lazy to be a novelist,” he said with a chuckle. “But I dolike writing a lot. And I do love traveling though it is a little bit harder now that I have kids andbeing married. But I do like the life style. It works for me. It’s not easy at times, but it manages tobe fun even after 20 years of doing it.”

“I think the best part is when you get done writing a song and you know that you really capturedwhat you were trying to capture. When you set the trap and you catch what ever creature it wasyou were looking to knock down. That’s when it’s most fulfilling. And you listen to the song forabout a week or two and you play it out, and hopefully people like it as much as you do. And thenyou’re on to the next one. Those little moments are what keep me going. I’ve had a lot of greatshows and put out a lot of albums, and been in the studio and worked hard in there, but I think thebest moments are really just writing a song and looking at it when it’s finished and saying, ‘wow, Ireally caught what I wanted to catch there.”

Ellis admitted that sharing it with other people makes you know if it was worth the time and effort,and whether or not your perspective is something you can trust. “But if I was just writing songsand sticking them under the bed, and never playing them for anybody, I would probably do itanyway, whether people heard them or not. If I was stuck up in Alaska working for the forestryservice and had a guitar up there, I’d probably be writing every day. So, I don’t need any people tohear them, but it’s always good to have friends and family to play them for.”

We all know children change things, including a songwriter’s perspective. “You know, I’m writingsongs for my daughter now,” he said. “I don’t know if they’re going to show up on records or not,but I’m having a lot of fun watching a person so young react to music like that. It’s a real thrill towatch. I’ll probably be writing from the perspective of a songwriter who’s a parent, even if I’m notwriting about being a parent, it will probably affect the perspective.”


A Planned Career
When someone starts something, he should have a vision of where he’d like to end up. And Elliscertainly didn’t enter his career blindly. “Well, the goal was to be Bruce Springsteen; and it didn’tend up that way, funny thing that,” he laughed. “Then I learned how to be really happy to be EllisPaul and get what I have been able to get out of it. I like the songs I’m writing, and I like the showsthat I put on. From my side of the stage it’s been really fulfilling. Of course, I would like to makemore money, I would like to meet more people, I’d like to be on the cover of Rolling Stone, but it’sfine that I’m not.”

Something NewEllis has a new CD coming out on Rounder Records in late September, 2006 called Ellis PaulEssentials. If you’ve never heard his music, this will be a great introduction. This a great collectionof songs; 32 of them on two CDs.

“Under different circumstances it would be considerd a greatest hits record,” Ellis said, thenlaughed. “But since there are no hits, it’s going to be called The Esseciatal Ellis Paul. I re-recorded five songs and added two new songs and added in some live stuff.”

The Country Gentlemen

By Greg Tutwiler

Guitarist/Vocalist/ Songwriter Charlie Waller is a legend, and so is the band he formed in July1957, The Country Gentlemen. Since then, more than 100 musicians have passed through theranks of the Country Gentlemen, a band that has been at the forefront of innovation and popularityin bluegrass music for 50 years. They were the first band to break away from the traditional moldof the 40s and 50s bluegrass sound. Finding gigs in the metropolitan Washington D.C. area,audiences on college campuses, and making fans at urban coffee houses during the 1960's, theywere among the first of such groups to market their brand of music away from rural areas.

Much talent found the Country Gentlemen a launching pad into long careers in the spotlight of Bluegrass and Americana music. Musicians such as Cliff Waldron, Bill Emerson, and groups likeThe New Shades of Grass as well as The Seldom Scene had their beginnings in the CG. The lateJohn Duffey was a founder and leader of The Seldom Scene along with Tom Gray. Bill Emersonwent on to lead the U.S. Navy Band, Country Current, until his retirement. Doyle Lawson is one ofthe top performers today, fronting his band Quicksilver. Jerry Douglas, Jimmy Gaudreau, EddieAdcock, and Bill Yates, also began as Country Gentlemen. Of course probably the mostsuccessful Gent was Ricky Scaggs, who has risen to super star status in both country andbluegrass music.

And so many great songs originated from Charlie Waller and his bandmates including, “Legend of the Rebel Soldier,” “Bringing Mary Home,” “Fox On The Run,” “Calling My Children Home,” “Waltz of the Angels,” “The Fields Have Turned Brown,” “Matterhorn,” and many others. In 1996 CharlieWaller, Eddie Adcock, John Duffey, and Tom Gray, (now called the Classic Country Gentlemen),were inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Fame.

A Diamond In The Rough
Charlie Waller, the lone original Gent who remained the leader until his death (at 69) in 2004, hadhopes and dreams that someday his son, Randy Waller, and he would share the stage. WhenCharlie died of a mass heart attach on August 18th, 2004, some believed he took the CountryGentlemen flame along with him. His son Randy knew, and set out to prove, that Charlie Wallerhad set the stage for passing the CG torch all the way back in 1975.

“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been gearing up for this,” Randy Waller, now 47, told me. “Dad toldme in 1975, when the Country Gentlemen had, ‘run its course,’ that he and I would do a duet thinglike Doc and Merle Watson. And that would be the way it would go. My whole life I depended onthat. And, of course, as I could see that the Country Gentlemen weren’t going away, in the back ofmy head, I planned to step up to the plate when the time came.”

So Randy went about his life, playing his own kind of music, having his own turn at a legitimatemusic career, playing with all kinds of artists from Lionel Richie to Richie Havens. “I was on theroad with Johnny Paycheck, Bobby Bare, Mel McDaniel and the like. I got to do a lot of stuff, writea lot of songs; but Nashville is just a very politically oriented place. And by Nashville’s standards, Iwas over the hill. So I had settled into a nice career.”

Play Ball
“I had actually gotten out of music,” Randy told me. “I was moving furniture. But when dadsuffered a stroke in 2000 I found myself between a rock and a hard place. The base player at thetime, Ronnie Davis, called and said ‘your dad’s been in the hospital for several weeks now and theband’s not playing. These guys are professional musicians, and if they’re not playing, they’regoing to look for work elsewhere. I really wanted to jump at the chance. But all my life I’ve heardthings like ‘you’ll never be as good as your daddy,’ and quite honestly, I’d even have to agree withthat. You know, there really was only one Charlie Waller. But in this situation, if I didn’t help himout he was going to lose his band. So I agreed to do it. It was one of the scariest things I’ve everfaced, and it was, at the same time, a sense of I was so happy I could do this for him, and that Ishould be there.”

Randy did the shows for his dad for about three weeks until Charlie could take back the helm.“They went over really well,” Randy said. Ronnie had taped one of his last shows off the soundboard and gave it to Randy. “So Ronnie gave me this tape to listen to. There was one song onthere that was kind of scary actually. It sounded like my dad singing. So I took the tape and put itin my car stereo for Dad to listen to, because it was the only decent one I had at the time. I said ‘Iwant you to listen to this and tell me who is not a Country Gentlemen.’ So he sat there listeningand the first thing he said was, ‘well that’s not Greg.’ I figured he’d say that, because Greg, thebanjo player, missed a lot of the shows due to his job. But it was him.”

Charlie went on through the rest of the musicians, confirming that each was the right guy in hisband. ‘So who’s not the right guy,’ Charlie said. “I said that’s not you singing, that’s me,” Randytold him. “He couldn’t believe it. He said, ‘you can do this, I didn’t know that you could do this.’ Sothat’s when he asked me to come on into the band.” So, in 2002 Randy came on board as anofficial member of the Country Gentlemen, sharing the stage with his dad for two years before hedied.

The Passing Torch Is Lit
Charlie’s dream was realized, and he made good on a 25 year old promise. “It worked out evenbetter than I had imagined,” Randy said. “It worked out where he asked me into the band, and wegot to spend a lot of time riding down the road talking about how I should run the band.” Randyhad grown up listening to the music of Charlie Waller and the Country Gentlemen. “I had a heroright from the start,” Randy said. And now he was sharing the stage with his hero, preparing forthe day when it would be his turn on center mic. “He told me he had worked very hard to getthings the way he wanted them, and that he wanted me to keep them that way, which I have done,with a few exceptions.”

“My dad was so unique that nobody would ever believe that anybody else could ever do what hedid. So I tended to shy away for that scene. You know, it’s like once Charlie Waller’s done a song,it’s already been done. I did perform some of the Country Gentlemen songs, but I did them myway. But now of course I do my best to do them as close to the way he would have done them.The Country Gentlemen is still his band. Even though he’s not there physically, he’s still therespiritually. And I’m carrying this whole thing on for him. It’s something we talked about for severalyears before he died.”

The New Gentlemen
When Charlie Waller died, the very next weekend the band played three shows. “It was strange,and I didn’t know how people would take it,” Randy said. “But I couldn’t worry so much about whatwould people think. I was more concerned about how my dad would have done it. I was there withhim at my grandmother’s funeral, and he played immediately afterwards. He left to play. And I wasat my grandfather’s funeral, and he left to play. So I knew what my dad would do. You know,everybody was shook up terribly, of course. We knew his health wasn’t the greatest, but we neverthought his heart would get him. We always kind of figured he would be hospitalized for a longtime and we’d have time to sort of prepare, but we didn’t”

So many people said without Charlie Waller there can’t be the Country Gentlemen. “We’ve goneon, and we’ve carried out my father’s wishes, and we’ve proven that wasn’t the case,” Randy said.“I just basically re-formed the CG with people that I felt fit better. And I caught flack for that. Butnow, the band’s better than it’s been for years. It’s not that the other guys weren’t incrediblemusicians, they were. I think they were just bored, or resigned to be Charlie Waller’s back upband. But we don’t have Charlie Waller anymore. I do my best to do his songs honor, but at thesame time, I need pickers who can step out of the shadows and work out the songs with energy.”

“I used to do things differently. Now I have to be more responsible. I want to perform my dad’ssongs in a way that he would be proud. But we do have new material. This is not a tribute band.It’s kind of like what Lynnard Skynard has done. They still play the old Skynard songs, and theystill play them the original way, but they have new songs that Johnny’s doing now. It’s still in thesame vein, but it’s also new. Charlie Waller had a God given talent. His voice was natural, henever worked for it. When he opened his mouth this golden voice came out. For me, I have had towork really really hard to practice and try to emulate a lot of his vocal inflections, but I want to dothat.”

The Country Gentlemen were the first innovators of Bluegrass music. They were one of the firstgroups to change the direction of Bluegrass music. “I’m honored to be carrying on that tradition,”Randy said. “I’m the guy who has to carry this tradition on into the next 25 years. We’re holdingtrue to what my dad did. So I try to be innovative enough to keep the band fresh. I like to say partof Charlie is still up there though, because I’m only 50% mama. His blood is still up there. Thetalent I have came from him. And actually, we do still have an original member in the band, mydad’s old guitar.”

Old School Freight Train

By Greg Tutwiler

When you hear a name like Old School Freight Train you might initially think you were going tohear a group playing some funk tunes from the 70s. The term “old school” is commonly used bythe younger generation to mean something classic, usually 10 plus years older than yourself.When I asked Pete Frostic, mandolin player, about it he said, “One time, early on, we showed upat a gig where they had been billing us as a 70’s funk band. Needless to say, we made sure tonever make that mistake again. It was a club down in Wilmington, North Carolina. I don’t recallthere being too many people that stayed a real long time. There were not very many people thereto begin with, and even fewer when we left,” he laughed. “We were wondering why so manypeople were leaving, so, on the set break, we looked at one of the flyers. It’s pretty funny now. Atleast it wasn’t our fault.”

There’s nothing old school, musically, about this group. Blending Jazz, Bluegrass, Folk, Celtic,Latin, and World rhythms together, OSFT has come up with a formula that’s clicking with a lot offolks. It is an improvisational style of music that makes every time they play a genuinely differentlistening experience.

An Early Beginning
Pete and Jess Harper (guitar, lead vocals) got together while attending William & Mary Universityin Williamsburg, VA, along with Ben Krakauer (5 string banjo) who was still in high school at thetime. “Ben and I had a band together for a while prior to 2000, and Jesse and I had a bandtogether, and when those bands kind of fell apart we started to pick up the pieces and form oneband, with the idea that we were going to play everything that we were all interested in,” Pete said.Jesse had met Darrel Muller (upright bass) playing a gig in Boone, North Carolina and invited himto join in. The four of them started playing in the fall of 2000, adding a female fiddle player whoeventually decided she didn’t want to travel as much as the rest of the band. They met Nate Leath(fiddle) at a festival he and has been with the group ever since, rounding out the line-up.“With this group, we really wanted to focus on the music,” Pete told me. “All of the other bands wetreated like, ‘hey, we got a gig, let’s learn some tunes.’ But this group didn’t play gigs for the firsteight months we were together. We only rehearsed; twice a week for eight months. We justfocused on learning the songs, and how to arrange, and pick songs and write.”

Not Really Bluegrass
Their sound comes from what they listen to, which Pete is always expanding; everything fromBluegrass, David Grisman, Classic Jazz, Funk and Soul like Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles.“Those were the influences when we started – but more recently we’ve been getting into a lot ofworld music like Indian and Brazilian. So the horizons are just spreading out for us as we continueto discover and enjoy more music. All of us want to learn as much as we can about anything whenit comes to music. So whatever we’re listening to at the time really influences the writing and thesound and arranging.”

Smoky Beginnings
In the beginning they played mostly bars. “It was the worst of the worst, smoky bars, nasty places,anywhere they would let us play,” Pete recalled. “A few people would listen and encourage us, butbasically it was a good to hone our abilities playing together, and get used to playing gigs live, andget used to taking chances. We didn’t really worrying too much about totally bombing something. Ithink it’s important in our music at least, to be able to take chances and feel like if you fail it’s notthe end of the world.”

These days Old School plays listening rooms where there’s 200 seats or more, and even somebigger venues where there are 500 seats or more, and even bigger ones when they’re openingfor someone like their mentor David Grisman. “We do play some of the more progressiveBluegrass festivals, like MerleFest and the Four Corners Folk Festival. We play some collegecampuses too, but we all wish we were doing more of those because it’s such a great time whenwe do that. It’s a perfect match for us. They’re just difficult gigs to get because the people whobook them change every year.”

Old School Freight Train?
“It was one of the first songs that we learned. It was something that Darrel and Jesse wrotetogether, and we didn’t have anything better. It just stuck with us. We couldn’t forget it. You know,you want a name that people remember. Even if people mess up the words and put them indifferent order, that’s fine, at least they still remember us.”

What makes OSFT unique is the improvisational aspect of their music. It’s always different.“There’s a lot of songs that have built in solos, so each of us gets to improvise on that level, but I’dsay more than that, our band is all about, or has come to be all about, group rhythmicimprovisation. Basically we’re trying to make a groove just really feel good, and I think that ithappens slightly differently pretty much every night, which is really fun for us. Like if Darrelchanges up his line, if one beat is slightly off place, I get to react in an entirely different way. Andthen maybe the fiddle will react in a different way because of what I’m doing differently. So it’smore of a group improve thing that way.”

Music Evolution
“Once our music changed to the point where we realized it just didn’t make any sense for us to beplaying the earlier stuff any more, we just put it aside and never play it anymore. Some of thetunes were more Bluegrassy in the beginning, and I remember those feeling really good at thetime, but then at a certain point we realized that wasn’t what we were supposed to sound likeanymore. So let’s just put this tune to the side and move on.”

The group’s been together almost six years, yet their current CD, Run, is just their second officialrelease. However, they have appeared on seven Pickin’ On records released by CMH Records inCalifornia. “They’ll call us up and say ‘we want you to do an album of Pickin’ On in the style ofsomeone like Cold Play, and here are the tunes we want you to cover.’ At first we viewed it likejust a pay check, but now in hindsight we really learned a lot from those CDs. It made us figureout how to play grooves that weren’t Bluegrass grooves, and it made us learn how to function kindof like a pop band, because the Cold Play rhythm section is basically drums. And so we had tofigure out how we were going to make this drive and feel good with that same intensity that theyhave, without drums. So these CDs kind of brought us to a real hyper awareness of our rhythmsection. I really think we benefited a whole lot from doing those.”

A Song Democracy
While OSFT will occasionally perform or record a cover song, most of the band’s music is originalmaterial. “Generally one of us will write a tune, but then all of us contribute on the arranging sideof it. Whatever each band mate would be playing on the song, they pretty much make upthemselves, with a few exceptions. We try not to say no to any tune until we’ve played it live. Wewant to make sure we give everything a fair shake and see how audiences react and see how itfeels to play it up on stage.”

“We all have so many creative ideas, we’re just brimming with stuff. When we’re rehearsing andarranging something we’re generally picking from five or six different little arrangement options.It’s nice to have everybody saying ‘hey, how about this.’ Sometimes it can be a little hectic like youmight feel frustrated that your idea didn’t get in, but then usually four people will agree that onething is better, and if it’s not your thing you need to realize that probably those other four guys areseeing it from a more objective viewpoint.”

All of Old School’s songs, original or cover, have a similarly unique feel. “As a band now, we putour stamp on anything we play. I think that any tune we would pick to play would have that stamp.”

Pickin’ On Fun
“You never get too comfortable where you are because there’s always the next level,” Pete said.“But we have consciously said we’re never going to play a room again where’s there’s smokingallowed. The smoke in a room for us makes it so difficult to play, and it really affects the singing.You’re literally standing on a stage with your head in a cloud for four hours. And it’s more thanthat. It’s really the attitude that comes along with that. It’s the fact that we’re just the band in thecorner making the noise, and we want to be the focus now because we think our music is worth it.We don’t want to play rooms anymore where people just view us as a bar band.”

“The lucky thing about this band is these guys are my best buddies. We get to hang out and wehave a lot of fun on the road. It’s hard traveling but all of us pretty much thrive on humor, so that’spretty much what keeps us going out there. Now that we’re busier we kind of leave each otheralone in the off times, which took us a while to learn to do. But we’ve been off for two weeks and Iwill not have seen these guys for two weeks, so I look forward to getting back together with them.They’re some of my favorite musicians too, so I feel lucky to get to play with them everyweekend.”

Run
OSFT recorded their current CD just like they perform their stage shows. “We cut Run live. Wewere isolated a bit, but we all played together, no overdubs, just took the best takes of each tune.One of things I love about this band is that we all play together as a unit so well. So doing the CDthat way was kind of a natural thing to do. It really helps with the energy. I think that a lot ofrecords that you hear are missing that element, that vibrancy that you can really get fromeverybody recording at the same time. And I also think that the polish that’s on a lot of newrecords that you hear is just kind of almost annoying to me. I want to hear some grit, I want tohear some emotion in the music and I want to hear some mistakes because then I know thatsomebody was going for it, you know? They might have screwed something up but that’s okay. Ithink that’s an important part of music.”

Friday, June 6, 2008

Doyle Lawson

More Behind The Picture - By Greg Tutwiler

Cream always rises to the top. And, that’s no different in the music world. Longevity doesn’tnecessarily translate into notoriety, but in this case, Bluegrass icon Doyle Lawson has had a longand notable career, and he and his band Quicksilver are one of the bluegrass industries top acts.Doyle and his band have recorded more than 30 albums, and received numerous awardsincluding nearly ten IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) awards, and recentlynominated in five categories this year including, Mandolin Player of the Year, Vocal Group of theYear, Album of the Year for More Behind the Picture Than the Wall, Song of the Year for “Sadie's Got Her New Dress On,” Entertainer of the Year Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year.

Doyle was born near Kingsport, Tennessee in 1944, where he began his career as a bluegrassmusician in 1963 with Hall of Honor member and bluegrass pioneer Jimmy Martin. For the next 15years he honed his skills doing what he loved best, singing and playing the mandolin, in emergingbluegrass groups the Kentucky Mountain Boys, and the Country Gentlemen. “From the time I wasa small child I knew this was my life, what I was going to be doing as a career, and I never strayedfrom that,” Doyle told me recently.


And in 1979 he struck out on his own, forming the band Quicksilver. Those formative years paidoff as Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver rose to the top. They released a series of acclaimedalbums—including the pioneering all-gospel Rock My Soul in 1981. Sticking closely to thetraditional bluegrass roots, Lawson developed a style that blended traditional and gospel elementswith some progressive influences that became the distinctive Lawson/Quicksilver sound.

Gospel Beginnings
Much of the groups early music was influenced by drawing on material contained in Doyle’sfather’s shape-note hymnbook collection, and on the sounds of African-American gospel quartetsand southern gospel groups he heard as a young kid. They recorded more than 15 all-gospelbluegrass albums that featured a wide range of styles, making a powerful impression in thebluegrass community. He was also a member of Bluegrass Album Band, which helped bring therepertoire and musical approaches of the music’s early giants to new generations of musiciansand fans in a series of acclaimed albums made between 1980 and 1996. All of that helped tosolidify Doyle Lawson’s position as a major player in bluegrass music today.

I spoke with Doyle about his career and his music, and his take on things recently. I asked him ifhe ever thought his career would lead him to where he is now. “My sights were set on that (acareer), but certainly not the extent it has become. In my early days, I had no intent on becominga band leader. All the good things that have come my way, or the accomplishments; I neverlooked at it that way, I wanted to play music and be on stage with a band,” he said. “But then youmature, and as you mature as a musician, and as an adult. You start looking at things from adifferent perspective, and then it evolves into whatever it becomes. But the more things that starthappening, you seize that moment and you start to see how you can enhance that or broaden it,or do more with it, or take it to the next level.”

One Lucky Guy
After more than 40 years in any industry, one generally contemplates retirement. Not Doyle. “I’m alucky guy. I get to do what I love to do, and earn my living doing it,” he said. “I love to travel, eventhough I’ve been all over the world, I still like the country side. I love the west too. It doesn’t botherme at all if I decide to leave East Tennessee and drive to Southern California. It probably bothersmy driver more than me,” he laughed. “I just love the country, and the views that we have. I enjoythis part of the world that God has allowed me to live in. There’s always something that I can seethat I never noticed before. But the love of music, the being on stage, that’s the reward for all theother stuff I do to stay in this business. My reward is getting to get up on stage and perform, andhopefully bring a smile to people’s faces and put a little joy in their heart, and make them glad thatthey came. Hopefully they’ll go away with less of a load on their shoulders if they had a roughweek or whatever. That’s the reward for me.”

Although the music has changed, Doyle Lawson strives to stay true to what he knows are theroots of bluegrass music, and believes are important to preserve for future generations. “Thereare vast differences in music today,” he said. Not only in our music, but music in general, simplybecause of the passing of time, and the implementation of the computer world, and the internetages that we live in. You know, we’re able to reach people more quickly either by email or our website – people go on it and they can order your recordings, read about the band, and check yourschedule. And of course the venues we play, as far as bluegrass, are bigger and better as far asthe environment and sound capabilities.”

“And the music itself has changed somewhat. But that goes hand in hand with the passing of time.With each generation of musicians you have a little bit different outlook on the approach of themusic. There’s a lot of great music being played - new music. Not to take anything away fromanyone’s talent, but there is music being played today that I may not necessarily considerauthentic Bluegrass. It’s very very good acoustic music, but my own take on it is that the musicwas defined with the music of Bill Monroe, when he added Earl Scruggs on the Banjo. That kind ofsolidified the style that became know as Bluegrass.”

“And I think now, some of our music is just a little far to the left, or right. But again, I want toemphasize that I’m not saying that it’s bad music. In fact some of these new folk’s ability arealmost beyond my comprehension, but when you talk about authentic bluegrass, the Monroe styleis the base line. I think we need to be cautious in some ways to not have bluegrass go the sameway country music has as far as drifting from their original roots. You know, progress has its price.I don’t think there’s any sure fire solution, but I hope that bluegrass doesn’t arrive at the pointwhere what people call bluegrass music, and market as bluegrass music, has no kinship at allwith where it started. I believe in progress, and I think there’s room to grow and progress and stillremain within the boundaries of tradition.”

Changes
When I spoke with Doyle, he was rehearsing a new bass player. After 28 years as a band leader, Isuppose you would experience changes in your line-up. “Changes are always going to occur,sometimes more than others,” he said. “Sometimes one will drop out, sometimes a couple will goat once. I’ve had three quit at the same time. But a part of it is that I have always freely featuredpeople in my band by putting them out front. In some ways that could probably shorten their stayhere, but on average you’ll get four to five years from somebody. I’ve had a couple that stayedalmost ten years though.”

“The thing you’ve got to remember is, if the music had stopped with Bill (Monroe), I wouldn’t havea job today. Anything that doesn’t grow will die. So while I would like to keep people in the samespots for the duration of the band, you know it’s not going to happen. I look at the guys who havegone on from Quicksilver, and see their careers now, and it feels good to have been a part of theircareer. I feel like in some way, I helped the music as a whole continue on, and that’s the bottomline. It’s not if some key musician leaves, the music’s going stop. You shouldn’t look at it that way.When changes occur you just go on, wish them the best, and hopefully in turn, they will passalong something to someone else.”

More Behind The Picture
The latest CD, More Behind The Picture Than The Wall, is up for five IBMA awards. That justdoesn’t happen often. And while Doyle doesn’t record a CD to try to win awards, they’re alwaysnice confirmations that what you believed to be a great product is in fact well received. So what’sbehind the wall of a great CD? “I go into a recording session with these songs that I like. I tend tobe theme oriented, so I like one song to compliment the other,” he said. Quite honestly, the titlecut of this CD, I got it half way through the recording session. It just seemed like that song was thekey element to work around. And I decided that as good as the song was, and the story it told, thatthat needed to be the title.”

“We do write some of our songs. I co-wrote a couple with Jamie Daily. But mostly I tend to lookoutside for our material. I have people that are what I consider my favorite writers. They just seemto turn out good songs consistently. Not every song will fit what I do of course, but they’ll fitsomebody. That’s the mark of a good songwriter. They can write songs that will fit more than oneartist.”

Gospel Overtones
Doyle Lawson has established himself in this industry, and has made major contributions to itmusically as well. For Doyle, it is about doing what he loves to do. And it’s about his convictions tohis faith and the tradition of bluegrass. “I don’t ever want to record anything that I would beashamed of for my children or grandchildren to hear, or would be a bad influence on some youngperson,” Doyle said. “But my faith is a very viable part of who I am too. I’m quick to tell anyone thatI’m the instrument that God uses for the good of what He wants to accomplish. So I always try togive Him credit first. I just do what He’s allowed me to do to the best that I know how to do it. Butmy faith and my religious convictions are very important to me.”


Thursday, June 5, 2008

The Seldom Scene

By Greg Tutwiler, Editor

In 1957, Charlie Waller, Bill Emerson, and John Duffy formed the Country Gentlemen. And, for nearly 10 years they rode a folk revival wave, breaking all of the traditional rules, and setting the bar for every progressive bluegrass band that followed. In that late 1960s, that original line-up disbanded, however Charlie Waller continued the Country Gentlemen, now a tradition carried on by his son, Randy.

John Duffy, mandolinist, settled into a life of instrument repair in Arlington, VA, content to pick a little here and there on the weekends. He eventually found himself in a weekly jam session with new buddies, Mike Auldridge, a graphic artist with the Washington Star; Tom Gray, who worked for National Geographic; John Starling, a physician and ear, nose and throat specialist, and Ben Eldridge, a mathematician and computer expert. Like many guys who have their weekly card game, these guys had their weekly jam session; one that turned into a weekly Thursday night sell-out gig at the tiny Red Fox Inn in Bethesda, Maryland. And for the next 24 years John Duffy and the varied line-up of the Seldom Scene wooed and won audiences locally as well as nationally, becoming one of the country’s premier progressive bluegrass groups.


In 1995 Dudley Connell was quite content in his job with the National Council for the Traditional Arts as an archrival specialist. You see, Dudley had walked away from the road professionally in the late 80’s after a 10 year stint with the Johnson Mountain Boys. Two of his band’s 10 albums had received Grammy nominations. That was quite a career in itself.


The Seldom Scene was, of course, a Washington D.C. based band, along with the JMB, so Connell was no stranger to John Duffy. But a blurb in a 1995 issue of Bluegrass Unlimited magazine took him aback. The Seldom Scene was hanging it up. How could that be?

"It almost felt like a death in the family for me," Dudley recalled. "You know, they were a Washington institution, and have been sense their inception." So Dudley called John Duffy to offer his sentiments. "I said, ‘I’m so sorry to hear that you guys are hanging it up after all these years.’ And he said humorously, ‘we haven’t really absolutely decided we’re going to quit, we’re just looking for a lead singer, guitar player, bass player, bass singer, dobro player, etc.’ He was kind of making a joke about it you know. And I don’t know why I said it, but I said, ‘hey John, what do you think about you and I getting together and singing sometime?’ There was complete silence in the other end of the line, and I thought, uh oh, I’ve stepped over a line here. Then he said, "Well, do you know any of our material?" and I said ‘not really, I’ve heard you on the radio, but I’ve never studied your stuff.’ He gave me a list of half –a-dozen songs to learn and we made a date to get together."


The New Scene
That was spring of 1995, and because of conflicting schedules, the guys weren’t able to get together until September. "I actually wasn’t looking for a job when I called," Dudley said, "but by the time September rolled around I wanted that job so bad. It had gone from sort of a casual interest to, wow, this could be a great gig. I have a full time job. The band doesn’t tour much. And when they do go out the money is good. And as I studied the music I began to think, you know I could really get behind that. I really started enjoying the idea."

"So I went over to John’s house, along with Ronnie Simpkins who had joined by now as bass player, and Fred Travers who had joined as the dobro player. We met with Ben and John and started playing some stuff. It just felt great right out of the shoot. John was a really easy guy to sing with because his pitch was always just so true." Their first show was New Year’s Eve at the Birchmere in 1995. Remaining founders, John Duffy, and Ben Eldridge (banjo) publicly welcomed Dudley Connell (guitar and vocals), Travers and Simpkins into the band. "It just went great," Dudley remembered.

Decision Time
Sadly, in December of 1996 John Duffy died due to a sudden heart attack. Just like that, a legend was gone, and once more, a legendary band considered hanging it up. "We did end up having about a year with John until he passed away. But in that year, it was probably the highlight of my music career. The thing with the JMB is that we were all basically kids when we started playing. With John, it was the first time I had ever worked with a real veteran of this music business. He was just a real bluegrass hero. He was one of the most innovative players, in my opinion, to ever play, besides Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs. That time was like magic for me."

Dudley figured the magical ride was over. The legend was gone, how could they possibly continue? Who would want the band without John? "I really thought that was it," Dudley said. "What a tragedy. And we were really just getting it going as a band. Things were working. After John died, we got together at Ronnie’s house to try to figure out what we were going to do with these contracts we were sitting on. And Ben was really the one who said maybe we ought to just test the waters and see if we could carry on without him. So we called our agency, and they went to the promoters who were holding the contracts, and said do you still want the band without John? Only two promoters canceled their contracts. So we decided to go on and see if we could make it work."

They needed a mandolin player though. "The first replacement was Dan Comiskey who was with Alison Krauss, but we knew that was only a temporary thing. We used Mark Newton on a couple shows, and we used Don Rigsby on quite a few shows. Ben had talked to Lou Reed, who had played with the group once before, in the 80’s. He played a set with us on a show in North Carolina, and that worked. He knew the material, and it just clicked. That was July of ’96, and there hasn’t been a personal change since then. Actually our current line-up is the longest running configuration of the band since its inception."

What Makes It Work
So Dudley and the guys, with the exception of Ben, are the next generation of the Scene. I asked him what it was like filling legendary shoes. "Well it has been 12 years, and most of the time its fine. Even though we’re the new guys, we’ve been around a while. Although we’ve started to develop our own material, we still do songs like, "Wait A Minute," "Old Train," and "Muddy Waters," and all of those old tunes that people want to hear. But people are starting to ask for the stuff that we’ve recorded with this band too. So the legacy kind of continues in that way, and that’s a good thing. But we’ve never tried to copy the guys from the past because you can’t really do that and pull it off. It’s a real balancing act for a band that’s been around for 30 plus years; trying to play the music that people want to hear, that they come to hear, but also to introduce new stuff. That’s the tricky part."

"We get a lot of people that have followed the band since its inception and know all of the material, but we also have the newer fans that has just heard of the band, and never heard the older songs. More and more these days, we get audiences that never got to see John Duffy. I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, it’s good that the band is still able to sell CDs and shows, and stand on its own, but on the other side too, it’s sad, and shows that people do forget about the old. It’s just the way things go. But we like to remind folks that there were others that came before us. I can’t stress enough the importance of John Duffy to bluegrass music. He was larger than life. And he had this sort of urban wit, and he was able to sell a song like "The Fields Have Turned Brown," to an urban audience. That really helped the music a lot. He took it out of the country and brought it into the city."

What Makes ‘Em Different?
Dudley believes one of the things that is still nice about being in Seldom Scene is the whole approach to how they play music. "We really don’t have to go out and perform. We like it, and we do it because we like it, but our livelihood doesn’t depend on it. Everybody has full time jobs. In a way, this is still just a hobby for us. So it takes a lot of pressure off. And the band has maintained that spirit. It’s really still like the weekly card game where your friends get together and play music for the fun of it. It’s a real joy. For me, being in the Washington area, it’s the best gig out there. I’ve played with other groups additionally along the way, and I still play a little bit with Hazel Dickens, but I kept running into scheduling conflicts, so I’ve really backed off that. The Scene is really the priority for me now."

And why wouldn’t it be? Dudley says, "It’s sort of a free-willing, rollicking party on stage with the audience. You just never know what’s going to happen, and that keeps you on your toes. And it keeps the music really interesting too. The audience is always different, and they’re yelling for requests. It really is like a party. We do everything from Eric Clapton to Carter Stanley and everything in between; Steve Earl, Bob Dylan, and John Prine even. One of the things I’ve really enjoyed about working in this band is that there are not a lot of restrictions as far as material. Everybody listens to everything, and everybody comes with their own ideas."

SCENEchronized
And finally after four years the Scene has a new CD, SCENEchronized. And it’s good. But why did it take so long? "Can I be honest? Lazy," Dudley laughs. "Really, as I mentioned earlier, we all have full time jobs, and families, and it is just like a hobby in many respects. So it’s kind of hard to find the time to go into the studio and cut a new record. When we go to play, we’re 100% behind what we’re doing. But when we go back to our other lives, everything gets re-prioritized. That’s basically what happened. But I don’t think it will be that long until the next one though."