Blue Ridge Mountain Girl

Sorry, that recent cold snap had me in a state of cryonic suspension from which I have but lately awakened. Without further ado, something to warm even the coldest heart—

That there is Jenni Lyn Gardner, appearing not with her usual bandmates from Della Mae, but with The Palmetto Bluegrass Band. The PBB consists of Kyle Tuttle on banjo, Nick DiSebastian on guitar and Josh Dayton on bass. If you like what you just heard, check out our earlier post from these good folks.

“Blue Ridge Mountain Girl” was written by the veteran songwriting team of Holyfield and Leigh. It appeared on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 1987 release, “Hold On.” In bluegrass circles, the tune was popularized by Blue Highway on their first album, “It’s a Long, Long Road.” It was this version that brought the song to Jenni Lyn’s attention, and it clearly still evokes tender memories for her. As she recalled recently—

My dad had a radio show that I would often co-host when I was a little girl and this is the song that I chose to play, every single time. It has stuck with me all this time and I enjoy singing it— even if it is from a man’s perspective.

The Palmetto Band’s interpretation of the song summons a lot of the spirit of Blue Highway without slavishly following that band’s version. Nick DiSebastian’s guitar solo takes the place of Rob Ickes’ dobro break, and his elegant cross-picking puts a smile on my face every time I hear it.

We recorded this informal session with Jenni Lyn & Co. at last year’s Joe Val Bluegrass Festival. This year’s edition of that frosty fest is right around the corner. Like triathletes in training, pickers all over New England are prepping for Joe Val, winding their clocks back and trying to get their sleep regimen pared down to just a few naps during the daylight hours. It’s not a routine for the faint-hearted, but as I trust we have demonstrated with this post, the compensations are many, including the knowledge that at any hour, in any corner of the Framingham Sheraton, music magic can happen.

Yers— Curly

Finding Harmony with Jenni Lyn Gardner

Jenni Lyn Gardner is best known these days as the mandolinist in Della Mae. Membership in that fast-rising group is surely a big commitment. Even so, Jenni Lyn likes to sow some musical oats occasionally. Like many other successful bluegrassers, she has established a side project for that purpose, The Palmetto Bluegrass Band. We caught up with Jenni Lyn Gardner & The Palmetto Bluegrass Band as they were running through some tunes at this year’s Joe Val Bluegrass Festival.  As you can see, the band’s sweet harmonies attracted some curious bystanders to their hotel room door. Small wonder. Have a listen—

Along with Gardner, the group is comprised of Kyle Tuttle on banjo, Nick DiSebastian on guitar and Josh Dayton on bass. You may recall that South Carolina is “The Palmetto State,” and the group’s name is a nod to Gardner’s roots in that corner of Dixie.

Gardner grew up steeped in bluegrass. Though still in the bloom of youth, she has already had many opportunities to mingle with legends of the genre. There is a brief video on YouTube of a very young Gardner playing backstage with the one and only Bill Monroe, and a photograph of that encounter hangs in the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky. It was another brush with greatness that brought the song in this video into Gardner’s repertoire. She tells the story better than I can:

I first heard the song “Born To Be With You” on the JD Crowe “Blackjack” album, but it wasn’t until I was backstage at [the] “Down From The Mountain” concert and heard Alison Krauss and Union Station standing in a circle warming up to it that it really caught my attention. I thought, man that is a cool song!

Cool song indeed. The close three-part harmonies in Gardner & Co.’s treatment made me think that it came to us from the white gospel tradition. In fact, I was following the wrong stream to foreign headwaters. In the 1950’s “Born To Be With You” was a hit for The Chordettes, a female quartet whose output overlapped at points with doo-wop (they are better remembered today for “Lollipop” and “Mister Sandman”).

As Gardner’s account shows, the song has been bouncing around bluegrass circles for a while. The most recent recording I heard of it was from the alt-bluegrass outfit Chatham County Line. In my view, whosoever shall essay this tune had better have good harmony chops. Jenni Lyn and friends certainly meet this requirement.

We’ve got more good stuff to share from Jenni Lyn Gardner & The Palmetto Bluegrass Band, but we’re also doing our dangedest to finish up a whole series of videos featuring Gardner’s “day job,” Della Mae. We shot a truckload of footage with that fine group and are looking forward to sharing a bunch of it with you soon.

Yer Pal— Curly

Sierra Hull: Some Finer Points

Yer Second Cousin Curly is based in that seat of bluegrass scholarship, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tonight, in the town across the river, the multitalented singer, songwriter and mandolinist Sierra Hull will be kicking off the inaugural Boston Summer Arts Weekend with a free concert in the heart of the city. In honor of her visit, here’s a final installment of our interview with her, which includes some fiery picking from this winter’s Joe Val Bluegrass Festival:

The comparisons Hull makes about various players’ techniques (including her own) might be too arcane for those who don’t play the mandolin, but to those of us enslaved to the eight-stringed midget, her observations are manna from heaven. The issue of whether or not to plant your pinky when you’re picking may not seem like a big deal, but it’s a subject of endless debate among mando players, and Hull’s down-the-middle approach is interesting in this regard.

Another insight Hull shares is the fact that she doesn’t use the classic closed chord pattern that Bill Monroe used as the foundation for his sound, favoring more open chords or simply using partial chords. At the outset of the video, you can see Hull tearing into Monroe’s “Old Dangerfield” on the octave mandolin. As that clip illustrates, Hull can more than hold her own on traditional bluegrass numbers, but her choice of chords gives her take on these tunes a distinctive flavor.

A native Tennessean through and through, we can’t exactly claim Hull as a hometown hero, but Boston was a home away from home while she recently studied at Berklee College of Music. Hull’s phenomenal technique and impeccable tone were already firmly in place before she came to Beantown. More than anything, studying with the late, great John McGann and others at Berklee seems to have given Hull the validation she needed to keep on doing what she’s doing.

The video clip also features some of Hull’s original instrumentals. She has penned some contemporary fiddle tunes that haven’t gotten half the attention they deserve. I hope that, as she keeps doing what she’s doing, Hull keeps doing plenty of those numbers.

Yer Pal— Curly

P.S.— Tip of the hat to Paul Villanova for his outstanding editing on the whole Sierra Hull series.

Keeping Time With Adam Steffey

The Boxcars are a bunch of bluegrass veterans who joined forces a couple of years ago. They have just released their second album, entitled All In. It’s available on the band’s website, among other places. This gives us an excuse to celebrate the work of The Boxcars in general and their ace mandolin player Adam Steffey in particular.

Way back in the old days, when there was still this thing called winter, Steffey held a mandolin workshop at The 2011 Joe Val Bluegrass Festival. Some of his observations might surprise you. Have a look, and while you’re at it, enjoy some tasty samples of The Boxcars’ show on the main stage at Joe Val:

Lots of pickers share Steffey’s passion for working out with a metronome. Even so, I suspect many would be taken aback to hear him say, “If I’m playing with a good guitar player and a good bass player, and I’m able to work rhythmically with what’s going on, I would never take another solo.” After all, as much as anything, Steffey is known for his fluid and tasteful solos. Those of us who marvel at the way he tosses off those lightning fast scale runs or laces intricate triplets into a melody have a hard time getting our head around the notion that he would just as soon stand in the back and chop away. We’re less concerned about “Keeping Time With Adam Steffey” than “Keeping Up With Adam Steffey.”

I hear a lot of Steffey’s influence in the playing of many of the most gifted younger mandolin players out there today. I would put him in an élite corps of masters who have reinterpreted the fundamentals of bluegrass mandolin as laid out by Bill Monroe, players like David Grisman, Sam Bush, Ricky Skaggs, Mike Marshall, Chris Thile and Ronnie McCoury.

The key to Steffey’s distinctive sound is twofold. On the one hand— the right hand, in fact— Steffey gets a very sweet tone from his instrument with very little discernible attack on the string. On the other hand— the left hand— Steffey doesn’t really use his pinky for fingering. Instead of stretching out his hand to make up for this, he slides around the fret board, creating a sound that is at once clean and slinky. As they say, “Often imitated, never duplicated.”

Yer Pal— Curly

Hallway Jams at Joe Val

The Joe Val Bluegrass Festival is upon us once again. For folks who are used to picking around a campfire, the jams at Joe Val require a mental adjustment. Have a look at this video and you’ll see what I mean…

The Joe Val fest takes place in the dead of winter within the confines of a Sheraton Hotel just off the Mass Pike in Framingham, Massachusetts. For three days in February, every available inch of the hotel is given over to bluegrass. The main stage is in the ballroom and the workshops and vendor displays are in the conference rooms. Any leftover space is filled with jams of every level. If you watch the video closely, you’ll catch a glimpse of some industrious teenagers who have repurposed a phone booth to run through some fiddle tunes.

Some aspects of the jams captured in this video are standard issue for bluegrass fests, but that doesn’t make them any less cool. Were a Martian anthropologist to drop by a bluegrass jam, it would note how participants in this earthling activity share the spotlight rather than showcase just a few talents. At the very start of the clip, you can see ­­­­­­Celia Woodsmith of Della Mae and Sten Havumakiof the Professors of Bluegrass and Billy Wylder teaching the changes on “Look Down That Open Road” by Tim O’Brien to veteran banjo picker Rich Stillman of Southern Rail. Stillman proceeds to acquit himself very nicely while apparently playing the tune for the first time.

Finally, the jams at the Joe Val fest, like most bluegrass picking sessions, are a demonstration of radical democracy. Not only do they feature players truly aged eight to eighty, but they also encompass everyone from novices to stars of the bluegrass circuit. No matter how many times I attend the Joe Val fest, I don’t think I’ll ever lose my sense of wonder at having the elevator doors open, revealing a bunch of musicians with national profiles jamming with everybody else in the lobby.

With this video, another new superhero from Team Curly makes her debut. Mistress of Mayhem Megan Lovallo cut this piece together, and she did a fine job of capturing the magic of the moment. Megan and I will be covering the Joe Val fest together this year. We look forward to seeing some of you in the halls…

Yer Pal— Curly

Joe Val Workshops: Down Home Schoolin’

A sizable chunk of the nation may be preoccupied with ice dams and rock salt, but that doesn’t mean that the Bluegrass Faithful have stowed their banjos and basses in the garage. It might be counterintuitive, but the biggest bluegrass festival in frosty Boston takes place annually in the dead of winter. Yes sir, like a freightliner that’s blown out its air brakes, the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival, is bearing down on us. February 18^th, 19^th and 20^th, few shall sleep in the mock Tudor splendor of the Framingham Sheraton. Get on board or jump out of the way!

I’ve already held forth here on the weird and wonderful mix of performances and jams that define the Joe Val Fest.  As, uh, exhaustive as my previous portrait was, I don’t think I gave enough emphasis to the Joe Val Fest’s major asset, which are its workshops.

Of course, many bluegrass festivals host workshops. Often there’s a tent devoted to such sessions where you can mingle with your heroes. What makes Joe Val’s workshops special? Simple: they’re indoors. It will probably always feel a bit odd to play “Foggy Mountain Top” while standing in a carpeted corridor, and the words, “the banjo licks workshop is about to begin in Conference Room C” may never sound quite right, but staging the festival in a large hotel has its consolations. Chief among these is the fact that, when you go to a workshop you can hear and be heard with a clarity that’s just not possible outdoors.

Check out this performance by Skip Gorman and Richard Starkey (a duo that sometimes performs under the name Rabbit in a Log) from a workshop at last year’s Joe Val Fest. The tune is Bill Monroe’s “Kentucky Mandolin.”

Nice, no? You can hear every note of those brushed chords that Gorman plays towards the end. That’s how it is a Joe Val: you can sit inches away from legends like Bobby Osborne or Frank Wakefield as they tell tales from their early years, or you can discuss the arcana of microphone and plectrums with hotshots like Mike Guggino or Jesse Brock (can you tell I play mandolin?). In these sessions, more than just about anywhere on the circuit, you feel the intimate bond between performer and audience that’s such a key part of bluegrass culture.

“Kentucky Mandolin” has become a standard (at least among mando players) even though in human terms it’s still only middle-aged. According to the discography compiled by Neil Rosenberg, inveterate chronicler of Monrovia, this instrumental was written by Bill Monroe for a recording date on November 9^th, 1967. To my ears, the minor key makes it of a piece with a number of plaintive tunes from the latter part of Monroe’s career, such as “Crossing the Cumberlands” and “My Last Days on Earth.”

To hear more from Gorman and Starkey’s workshop, click here. To check out a couple more Joe Val workshop sessions (these featuring Joe Walsh and friends), click here and here.

Finally, to learn more about the 2011 festival line-up, check out Ted Lehmann’s Bluegrass Blog or tune into Jeff Boudreau’s radio show, “In the Tradition,” on WCUW in Worcester, MA on the next two Tuesdays (February  8^th and 15^th) from 7:00 to 8:00 PM. Jeff will be interviewing a number of the performers who will be playing at this year’s festival. The line-up is a strong one, featuring representatives of the old guard like J.D. Crowe, Robin & Linda Williams and The Whites, newer acts like Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen, and interesting New England groups like Hot Mustard and Della Mae. Cool, you say? Are you kidding? Freezing!

Thanks to Gerry Katz and Evan Reilly for their guidance on this post.

Yer Pal— Curly