Category: Music

Playing old-time before it was old-time

As you may be aware, my dad’s family comes from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and Virginia (Ashe County, NC and Smyth County, VA if you’re keeping score). Every once in a while when we’d be visiting back there in the 60’s and early 70’s, I’d get to sit with some people on a porch or in an old store and play music.

Back then, in those parts, they just called it “music,” because that’s what they played. These days, it would be called “Old-time.”

My musical travels took me far from anything like that, to European classical music and what would now be called “classic rock.” But eventually, thanks to landing in the bluegrass-rich Bay Area, I came back to my acoustic roots. This time, though, it was in the thick of the bluegrass world, and somewhere around 2001, I started playing a fair amount of bluegrass. When Lisa and I returned to the Bay Area in 2019, we reconnected with our old bluegrass friends, and I connected with some new ones.

Little did I know that that bluegrass connection would bring me back to the fiddle tunes I played on back porches in Lansing, North Carolina more than 50 years earlier.

You never forget your first one

Fast forward to June of 2025, when I was at the California Bluegrass Association (CBA) Father’s Day Festival in Grass Valley, CA. I was going walkabout around midnight, as one does at these things. It’s a nice way to wind down from a busy day of music, and the campground is calm and peaceful.

Except where it’s not.

As I walked back toward our campsite, I heard the unmistakable sound of a wee-hour jam. I realized that the closer I got to our camp, the louder the jam got, which put me a bit on edge. Lisa and 10-year-old grandchild Elena were (theoretically) asleep in our camp. But as I got closer, I realized that the jam was happening five meters from our tent.

And this was no bluegrass jam. No Blue Night or Old Home Place.

First, it was in the dark (old-time musicians thrive on darkness). Of the 15-20 musicians I could make out in the shadows, perhaps half of them were wearing multi-colored glow sticks (the cultural distance from “old-time” to “rave” is substantially shorter than that from “old-time” to “bluegrass”).

Second, the energy emanating from the musical circle could have powered lights for half the campground. Five or six fiddlers were driving the bus, with a few mandolins, a handful of guitars, and a couple of banjos rounding it out.

I was torn between worrying about my family, trying to sleep in the tent, and entranced by what I was hearing (and sort of seeing). The “band” was mono-focused on a single tune for 5-7 minutes at a time. I’ll give my personal perspective on the differences between bluegrass and old-time jams below, but the first thing that struck me was the shared goal. There were no solos, no harmony singing. In fact, in old-time, there’s very little singing – it’s all about the melody and the groove.

And groove, they did. A tune would finish, there’d be some minimal discussion about the next tune (or the beer, the weather, whatever), and then somewhere in the dark, a fiddler would start a tune. Within an orbit or two of its form, the collective had locked in and returned to the previous level of energy.

I stayed for 20 minutes, then reluctantly walked back over to our tent – I had to be a fully engaged adult the next day. I crawled in, expecting to see Lisa and Elena lying wide-eyed and awake.

Both were sound asleep, even though the jam was clearly audible, tending toward loud. Before I knew it, I was gone too, lulled into sleep by the repetitive tunes.

The next morning, I asked Elena if the music didn’t keep them awake. They looked up askance from their cereal: “No. It just put me to sleep.”

Catching them in the light

Saturday night, I was out for another walkabout. Prowling the late hours at a music festival is like diving on a coral reef – it will always be wonderful, and occasionally there’s magic.

This late evening, I stumbled onto another old-time jam, but for this one they had chanced a camp with actual electric lights – sometimes you have to take risks for your art. I recognized some of the musicians from the Thursday night jam, some were different. But the energy and focus were identical. And I had the presence of mind to deploy my camera.

I also had a mission to stay out until past midnight that night. We were breaking camp the next day and ending a joyous week of family, friends, and music – it was not a night to turn in early.

Importantly, Saturday night at the Father’s Day festival is legendary for the “pop-up” square dance. At midnight. In the middle of the central road through camp. It’s not on the printed schedule, but it is as reliable as the bleary sun rising the next day.

It is here that you learn old-time music’s super-power: fiddle tunes are the fuel that drives dancing. A bluegrass song, like most songs, has a form. An introduction, verses and a chorus, with “breaks” (solos) in between. But then the song is over, just as the dancers are warming up.

A fiddle tune – “old-time music” – has no such boundaries. Most fiddle tunes have the form A-A-B-B – two parts, each played twice. There are infinite variations on that form, but the point is that when you get to the end you just start back at the beginning, until the musicians or dancers are tired out.

I don’t know when the dancers and musicians in the road got too tired to continue. It was very late early and in a relatively few hours I had help fix breakfast, break camp, load the cars, all that stuff. I wouldn’t trade those responsibilities for anything – they are part of my best life. But it was tough to pull myself away from the joyful chaos of all those musicians and dancers under the street light.

Dipping my toe back in

Two months later, I was at the Northern California Bluegrass Society’s Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival, outside Hollister, CA. I had made a point to be in touch with people I knew who would be part of any old-time jam that got going, and I heard whispers that something would happen Saturday night.

As darkness descended, my friends Tom Diamant and Rowan McCallister pulled chairs away from our cluster of sun protection awnings (and, to be fair, the light). I followed them out to their playground-adjacent spot.

“Can I play bass?”

Rowan, who’s as gracious a human as you’ll ever meet, said, “Well, Karen was going to play bass. But she plays banjo too. So maybe she can play banjo, and you can play bass.”

Karen (I’ve inexcusably forgotten her last name) just as graciously agreed to play banjo, and I got the honor to play bass.

Pretty shortly, Dana Frankel showed up too. She plays fiddle in the Bay Area bluegrass band Mission Blue, but has an alter-ego as a hardcore old-time player. I quickly recognized her as one of the fiddlers from the glow stick-lit jam at Father’s Day.

The five of us started playing under an exquisite rising moon.

I was standing behind Tom Diamant, specifically so I’d have a good look (I mean, the best look I could get in the dark) at his hands, so I could deduce chords.

Old-time chords are not bluegrass chords

In bluegrass, a song’s chords are mostly engraved in stone, based on some kind of majority rule, and/or the chords used on the most beloved recording of that song. In old-time, melody is queen, and the chords are mostly left to the discretion of the rhythm players (if any). I am not sufficiently versed in old-time chord battles, but I understand that some old-time communities have hard-and-fast rules about what chords are and aren’t acceptable. E.g. “Thou shalt not play a 4-chord, as it is the devil’s work, and thou must substitute a 6m always.“

Fortunately, this group (or at least Tom) isn’t like that. Not least because I love me a good 4-chord.

But quite often Tom was intuiting the chords only a step or two ahead of me. And honestly, that’s half the fun. When I’m in a bluegrass jam, the chords are preset, and with few exceptions, they’re predictable as clockwork. In an old-time jam, whatever the rhythm players agree on (that doesn’t offend the melody players) is fine.

Since I knew basically none of the tunes, I was reliant on Tom, and my native ability to sniff out a good chord, to know what to play. It was downright glorious. When I invariably chose the wrong chord, or simply played the wrong note, just wait just a minute, because you’ll get another shot at it when it comes back around.

Build it and they will come

The sound of our playing drifted across the campground, attracting other musicians, and listeners, just as I had been at Father’s Day. I peered into the darkness, and indeed it was my friends and fellow Critical Grass band-mates, Jeremy Reinhard and Leah Wollenberg, come to join.

Shortly, Leah said, “I don’t know so many old-time tunes, but do you know Roscoe’s Gone?” One of the hallmarks of a good old-time jam is that if 1.5 fiddle players know a tune, that’s enough to give a shot. The others watch, listen, and copy until they get it down.

It’s called “chasing a tune,” like the revenuers chasing a moonshiner down a Franklin County, Virginia back road. Our group was game to give it a try.

Leah started to play it, and slowly but surely the others joined in. Tom, another guitar player or two, and I came to some kind of agreement about chords. The next thing you knew, we’d all “caught” the tune and were playing it unbridled.

There I was, in the molten center of the jam, and I would have been happy for it to go until dawn.

What’s the appeal?

What has always attracted me to playing and performing music is the moment when all the musicians lock in together and make something bigger than the sum of the pieces. I’ve felt that in orchestras, choirs, rock bands, and plenty of bluegrass jams. I certainly feel it when Critical Grass is on our A-game.

However, there’s an ethos to many campground bluegrass jams that inclusion is an important component. The musicians sit in a circle, and song choice is rotated around the circle like clockwork. This allows each musician to pick a song on which they get to sing lead. And within each song, solos (“breaks”) are distributed like pieces of birthday cake – everybody gets one. [1]

I am living testament to the value of this ethos. In the early 2000’s, at Kamp Koala at the Strawberry Music Festival, musicians such as Lisa Burns, Larry Chung, Dave Courchaine, Jeff Ward, Wendy Wendt, Rodger Phillips, Scott Micale (RIP), Megan Lynch, and others created a hole in songs so I could build up my chops. More importantly, they welcomed my two sons into those songs, and gave them room to take breaks. Now John is Critical Grass’s mandolin player, and David plays guitar to accompany his ten-year-old on fiddle. I have undying respect and appreciation for this tradition.

In these old-time jams, with no singing to sing of, [2] and no solos, there’s no need to make a hole in the song or the circle for newbies. This isn’t to say newbies aren’t welcomed. More accurately, they’re brought in, while the train is running, at full speed. Conveniently, though, the train is running in a musical circle, so if they miss it this time around, it will be back shortly.

The old-time players seemed just as helpful to the newbies as those bluegrass players were to me a quarter century ago. In the front left of the “Hawk is a Mule” video, you’ll see a fiddle player with close-cropped hair. That’s Luke Abbott, and he’d often pause his playing to hold up chord fingers to the newer rhythm players. The delicious irony of this is that Luke is the creator and maintainer of StrumMachine, an invaluable app that (wait for it…) teaches musicians chords to songs and provides accompaniment. If a man is called to be a teacher…

One jam, under a groove

George Clinton envisions one nation, under a groove. Sadly, we are far from that ideal. But I now understand the appeal of a raging old-time jam:

It’s the groove.

A fiddle player friend of mine says it’s trance, which seems on-point. You don’t have to remember the third verse of “Cabin in the Hills of Caroline,” or prep for your solo, or bemoan how you could have played it better. Whatever you’re doing, it’s the same thing over and over again, allowing your fingers to do all the work, and your brain to check out. I see how it put Elena to sleep – it’s the musical equivalent of counting sheep, but with a much better melody.

I now understand what it’s all about, and I’m a fan. I still love my bluegrass friends. And I adore my bluegrass band. But when dark falls on the festivals, I will be out looking for the old-time people. To chase a tune, and once they pull me on-board, sit in the middle of a musical whirlpool with no predefined end.

But next time… next time, I’ll have my glow sticks with me.

[1] Interestingly, this is most notable in California. In the Nashville bluegrass jams I’ve been in, song choice is made by whoever has the best next song to play. And the breaks are designed to fit the song, not vice versa.

[2] Virtuoso mandolin player and co-leader of epic band Watchhouse, Andrew Marlin, wrote a fiddle/mandolin tune called “Hawk is a Mule.” The entire lyric consists of singing “Well a hawk is a mule.” halfway through the B-part.

I am a live music junkie, and I’ve been to my share of shows.

I’ve seen Chanticleer sing Renaissance polyphony by candlelight. I’ve seen the National Symphony Orchestra in full swing with Mstislav Rostropovich at the helm. I’ve seen Stephen Stills and Neil Young prowl around a stage, glaring, daring each other to produce a better solo during For What It’s Worth. I saw Chicago, at their height in the early 70’s, horns and Robert Lamm’s B3 raging. I sat in the rain while Tony Rice and Bela Fleck traded licks at Merlefest. I was the old white guy in the middle of the auditorium in Berkeley, losing my mind as George Clinton and Parliament brought The Funk. I sat in the 4th row and watched Yo-Yo Ma play trios with old college friends. Linda Ronstadt bouncing across the stage at Shoreline. Broadway performances of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Godspell. I saw Ladysmith Black Mombazo sing and dance with Joseph Shabalala directing the entire affair. I was down front to watch the original Seldom Scene perform Wait a Minute. I stood at the stage on the Isle of Man, as Roger Daltry performed the entirety of Tommy. Lyle Lovett and his large (it’s not big) band. Lisa and I stood in a special reserved seating area in Hyde Park and watched Bruce Springsteen sing Twist and Shout with Paul McCartney. I saw Live From Here at the Ryman Theater. Elton John playing solo for a small-ish crowd on the Isle of Man. The Tallis Scholars performing Palestrina near the Severn River. Bruce Hornsby. I’m With Her. Hot Tuna.

And yes, I have seen Doc Watson sing Columbus Stockade Blues.

I know I’ve left some important ones out, but even recalling and typing that list gives me shivers. So I don’t write that title lightly. But there we were on Friday, August 5th, 2022, when the American Acoustic Tour came to Mountain Winery in Saratoga, CA. The line-up was the Punch Brothers, Watchhouse (formerly known as Mandolin Orange), and Sarah Jarosz – maybe that’s enough for you.

It was certainly enough for me and Lisa to grab tickets, toward the front, as soon as we saw it was coming through. Mountain Winery is an extraordinary venue – outdoor, yet intimate. Artists love it, audiences love it, and it brings out the best in both.

But neither my love for the artists on the line-up nor the venue properly prepared us for what was in store.

It began, in the dawn of twilight, with the entire ensemble performing the bluegrass standard Little Birdie. First a cappella, then raging bluegrass, then a cappella again. We cheered, everybody waved and left, except Sarah Jarosz. I’m not doing any band bios here – their individual accomplishments (including her Grammys) don’t tell the story.

She performed a set of some of her hits, including a recent cover of U2’s Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. She said, “You know the words – go ahead and sing along.”

Which is a good place to tell you about the audience. Audiences for these artists come for the music. They are not there to party, and they make themselves part of the show only when it’s appropriate.

Sarah said to sing along, so we did. We got to the last time around and Sarah stopped singing, just strummed along on her octave mandolin, a beatific smile on her face. She was accompanying the crowd, and everybody was thrilled with that arrangement.

Then Chris Thile came back out, and said, “What about this woman?” We cheered.

And at this point we need to talk about Chris Thile, his genius, and his ego. Yes, he has a big ego, and he likes to be in the limelight. But we humans are not a menu from which you can take what you like and ignore what you don’t. His ego is inseparable from his once-in-a-generation genius. And his ability and willingness to have what the business world calls BHAGs – Big Hairy Audacious Goals.

Anybody can put together a tour of great musical acts. But it takes, well, it takes a genius to say, “What if we move people on and off the stage for three hours? We create every possible permutation of the amazing musicians we have, performing each others’ songs, and sometimes, songs that are ‘foreign’ to all of us.”

Exhibit A: Sarah Jarosz has finished her set. Thile is out there. They invite out Watchhouse’s cello player, Nate Smith. Perform a Punch, Jarosz, or Watchhouse tune? Nah, let’s go to the classical section of the record store:

And with that, the show flowed on. Watchhouse, occasionally augmented by Sarah or Chris.

I need to mention that as Watchhouse performed The Wolves, with its chorus line, “But I’ll go out howling at the moon tonight…,” a beautiful half-moon shone down from a clear sky onto the Mountain Winery. I’m sure I wasn’t in the only person in the audience with a lump in my throat. If you’ve never understood what The Wolves is about, neither did I, until I read this. Hint: it’s not a feel-good song.

Then Punch Brothers, weaving their usual acoustic magic, with the audience singing along to My Oh My.

Then the impossible happened… Thile and fiddle player Gabe Witcher began making weird chopping, cutting sounds with their instruments, standing face to face, like Stills and Young, daring the other to do something weirder. As this scene played, Noam Pikelny started the magical drone on his banjo. Sarah walked out, and I realized they were reprising the Live From Here performance of Massive Attack’s Teardrop. As did many in the audience, and we promptly lost our minds.

My wife calls this music, “The chamber music of our time.” Some people will try to squeeze “grass” into the name somewhere. Sure, these musicians can (and do) fire up a bluegrass standard now and again. The instrumentation is there, and they all grew up on bluegrass, so when they play bluegrass and fiddle tunes, it’s as good as you’ll ever hear it.

But Itzhak Perlman playing klezmer music does not make klezmer music western classical music. It makes Itzhak Perlman a genre-hopper, and a genius one at that.

“American Acoustic” might be a great name for the genre, as well as the title of the tour.

One of the most glorious portions of the show was when all 11 musicians were on the stage. At times, there were 4-5 instruments being played arco (bowed), with the rest plucked. I will bet a lot of money that Gabe Witcher, a high-demand composer and arranger in L.A., was responsible for the string arrangements.

There was one song, sadly, I can’t remember which one, that faded to a string quartet of Gabe and Emily Frantz of Watchhouse on fiddle, Nate Smith on cello, and Paul Kowert on bass, all arco. As the plucked instruments subsided, those players stood in a group and watched as the quartet brought the piece to a beautiful, mildly dissonant, heart-rending ending.

Anyway, as anticipated, the show ended with everybody on stage. [Except for Watchhouse’s guitar player, Josh Oliver, and bass player, Clint Mullican.] It started with Chris, Emily, Andrew, and Sarah singing, “Rye whiskey, rye whiskey, rye whiskey I cry…” We all knew where that was going. But what if the Punch classic Rye Whiskey was played not by five great musicians, but nine great musicians? Recall when you saw Punch Brothers playing this live (you have, haven’t you?). Now visualize 2x the horsepower, with the same verve and joie de musique…

Let me put this way: the shadows you see on the back wall behind the stage – that’s how big those musicians really are.

Oh, and Emily Frantz sang Rye Whiskey like Thile had written the song for her. Her presence on stage is, in a word, overwhelming. For this tune, she abandoned the honey of her Tarheel voice and went full moonshine county. Pass that bottle over here.

Sorry, I gotta glance back at that. Watch at 2:50. You have Paul and Nate doing a bass/cello arco duet of the melody, while Andrew stands between them, best seat in the house, just grooving. At 3:08, Gabe and Emily land on it with both feet and we’ve got four masters playing the melody, arco, across three different octaves. Critter, who usually smiles, is grinning from ear to ear. He’s heard and played this tune a hundred times, but man, never quite like this.

The encore, for which I was delighted to see Clint and Josh return, was not a song, but an entire set, and rather than me try to describe it, I’ll pass you over to YouTube.

The second song is Can’t Be Sure by the Sundays. It’s a lovely tune, by an indy band with a passionate cult following. Kinda like… nevermind. I had never heard the tune, so went and listened to the original. The American Acoustic cover was accurate, loving, and brought their own vibe to it. Not surprisingly, Sarah crushed it.

The third encore piece was the Watchhouse classic Wildfire. And here, I want to address those of you who say that Thile’s ego gets in the way. This is a Watchhouse song, Andrew is singing lead, and Chris knows exactly where his place is – to sing “Mmmmm” in the back-up. Then watch at 0:40. Guitarist Josh Oliver is kind of hanging back – Chris steps back and waves him up to the mic. It’s Josh’s band – he gets near the mic. Chris Thile is devoted to the music, and when that means he steps back, he does.

The very last tune looped back around to bluegrass. In this case, classic bluegrass gospel. It was if they were saying, “We know we’ve taken you on a light-speed tour to our own corner of the galaxy. We’ll bring you back home to safe and familiar ground.”

And as they closed the show, Thile held out his hands and emphasized the line, “…where all is peace and joy and love…” It was, without doubt, a final prayer and benediction.

My cousins, Roald and Ellie Kirby, who live in Troutdale, Virginia, invited me to an old-time jam on the last day of my residency in the North Carolina mountains. It was at the homestead of a friend of theirs in Elk Creek, Virginia.

“Do you know Elk Creek?”
“No, but play it one time around and I’ll fake it.”

Even better, their friend, Jerry, lives at the very end of Possum Run Lane.

“Do you know Possum Run Lane?”
“Sure do. Same chord pattern as Old Joe Clark, right?”

I’d show you what it looked like on the drive up, but Google street view stops when you leave VA-21 out of Independence. Me and the Prius made it down the dirt road, dirtier driveway, and cattle barrier with no problems. I think Roald and Ellie were relieved, and perhaps a little surprised, to see that I’d made it there.

There was a pond – Roald, who is an avid fisherman, had just landed a bluegill on a popper. And there was a beautiful 20′ long custom-made picnic table, with more food than the dozen of us could possibly consume. I regret that I didn’t get a picture of it.

They told me that, back in the old days, there’d be a hundred pickers standing around the picnic area, and you couldn’t see the top of the picnic table for the dishes covering it. There’s times in my life when I feel that I was late getting to a party – this was certainly one of them.

However, I did get a picture of my dessert, which was blueberries from Roald’s blueberry patch, and a giant hunk of cherry pie, which Ellie had made from the fruit of their cherry tree.

Eventually, the glorious sound of instruments tuning wafted across the pond.

This jam was “In A,” meaning that all the tunes have to be in the key of A. Apparently they have a different key each week, so there’s not the hassle of capo adjustment and retuning. Fortunately, the tunes I wanted to play/hear were in A, so I was content. But no Forked Deer for me this time (it’s in D).

Many jams have a fairly rigorous protocol of song selection passing around the circle – this is one of ’em. It’s bad form to suggest a tune until it’s your turn, but fortunately I really enjoyed the picks that other people made.

At some point, I noted that when I picked with the Irish/Celtic musicians in the Isle of Man, they always stopped and applauded and/or cheered after every tune. I said that I missed that about bluegrass jams in the U.S. For no reason that I understand, the protocol there is that the song ends, then everybody looks down at their instrument and tunes. There’s never any acknowledgment of the great music that just happened.

“Well, sometimes Rita will say, ‘Woo-hoo!’ You can do that if you wish. “
“Excellent – I’ll do that.”
“Okay, but don’t overdo it.”

I just followed Rita’s lead, and whenever she’d say “Whoo-hoo” after a tune, I did too. All things in moderation.

One woman told me that it was nice having me there, because it reminded her of the old days, when there’d be dozens of musicians standing around eating chili and deviled eggs, and she’d know only 1/3 of them. I told her I was proud to stand in for a couple of dozen hungry pickers.

I could go on, but there’s not that much more to say. The music broke out, and when that happens, you don’t need commentary.

I was the one who asked for Road to Malvern. Most of the people weren’t sure they knew it. But a couple of people said they thought they had it under their fingers. The rest of the crowd said, “Great – y’all start and we’ll catch up.” That’s the hallmark of a great jam – a willingness to plow forward, even when not everybody is sure they know the tune.

I thought it was wonderful.

I had to leave early – I was driving down the mountain to catch a plane out of Charlotte the next morning. It was sad to lose the altitude I’d been living in for the prior 18 days. But man, there was absolutely no better way to spend that last day in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

They were just getting into Bill Cheathem when I left – it sounded great coming over the pond as I walked to my car. I hope Jerry and them will invite me back for next year. I could use another piece of Ellie’s cherry pie and some tunes beside the pond.

P.S. The “One More Time” in the title is a reference to the practice in old-time jams to call out, “One more time!” when, well, it’s the last time through the tune. Because otherwise, there’s nothing to stop it from going all night.

[This article goes back to January, 2011 when I was living in Asheville, North Carolina. There’s a legendary pub there called “Jack of the Wood”. Every Thursday night was (is?) “Bluegrass Jam” night. The locals and tourists come down to eat, drink, and listen to live bluegrass music. The local musicians come down to pick and get free beer.]

I’ve talked plenty of times about the picking at Jack of the Wood. And I’ve often wished that I had pictures. I mean, every week we see flashes going off throughout the room – I assume we’re becoming part of somebody’s “My visit to Asheville” Facebook album.

But last week, a guy named Jai Beasley spent the whole evening taking pictures and I persuaded him to sell me a few images. Here’s how I spend my Thursday evenings.

There’s a guy who was a regular there back then – Jon Stickley. Jon’s a stupendously nice guy and I’m honored to pick with him. The night that all these pictures got taken, I turned to John and said, “Do you ever think about how this is kind of magic? I mean, a bunch of people – many of whom barely know each other… we take these instruments made of wood and string, and this amazing music comes out of it and people are happy and smile and dance…”

Jon, a professional bluegrass musician, stared back at me. “Man, that’s all I think about.”

[Updates from 2022]

John now fronts his own trio, the “Jon Stickley Trio”. You’ll note that the fiddle player in that trio, Lindsay Pruett, appears in some of the pictures from 2011.

Another reflection from ten years on. You’ll note that few of the musicians are smiling. It’s not that we’re not having fun – it’s that there’s a lot of concentration going on. I am reminded of a jam that we had at my house in Nashville when we lived there. We were fortunate and some very fine pickers showed up. I had also invited a member of my extended family who lives in Nashville. He plays guitar but is not really conversant with the bluegrass thing. During one song, I leaned over to him and said, “Do you want a break (solo)?” He shook his head. “No man – this is serious business.”

He meant that the music itself was serious business that required focus and concentration. And I also inferred that he didn’t feel comfortable taking a solo among the hot pickers around us. I get it – I’ve been there plenty of times. Weaving magic from wood and string is, indeed, serious business.

I don’t remember when I first performed music in front of people. But I was probably doing piano recitals around the age of 7-8 (1965, if you’re keeping score at home). I sang with the Landon Boy’s Choir on the Ranger Hal TV show in Washington, D.C. sometime around 1966 or 1967. And from then on, I was on one musical stage or another pretty much non-stop through college. I played in orchestras and jazz bands at school, and sang in the madrigal choir (yes, we wore silly clothes). I formed 2-3 rock bands and played at shows and dances. I played bass in the Duke Symphony, sang bass in the Duke Chapel Choir, and played viol de gamba in the Early Music group. I was the electric bass player for a series of performances of the Bernstein Mass, and the double bass player for a series of performances of Handel’s Messiah.

I loved it. I loved playing music with other people, I loved seeing the audience respond to the music, and the musicians respond to the audience. Yes, applause is the single most addictive drug there is – don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. I’ve rarely felt so alive as when I’ve been on a stage making music with good musicians.

Somehow, from the time that I left Duke until the past few years, I haven’t “played out,” much, as the expression goes. There are some number of reasons for that – none of them good. There were a few times when I’d have a regular opportunity to play publicly, such as my stint in Asheville, when I was jamming at Jack of the Wood. For a few years in there, Lisa and I sang in Schola Cantorum, a community choir on the Bay Area peninsula. It was a blast and I’m so glad we did it. But playing music didn’t occupy the space in my life that I wish it had. Why? Meh, that’s a topic for me and my therapist, but I’m here to tell you I’m back.

Few months ago, I bumped into Chris Quale, who is the band dad for a hot bluegrass band called Crying Uncle. His two sons, Miles and Teo, are half of the band, and he’s the bus driver, roadie, sound guy, manager, and CFO. But when he’s not that, or w*rking at his j*b, he’s a passionate, and very good acoustic guitar player.

Chris invited me to pick with his mandolin buddy, Nick Khadder. They then invited me to invite my son, John Haupert (also a mandolin player) to join us. After a few evenings of us picking together, I thought, “You know, we’re actually good enough to play in front of people.” That’s when the universe giggled, and sent me an email saying that the Gather Kitchen, Bar and Market in Berkeley was looking for bluegrass bands to play at their alliteratively perfect Bluegrass Brunch.

Now, there’s a fact of the bluegrass world, first elucidated to me by Chris Flanders: “A gig is both necessary and sufficient to make a collection of musicians a band.” So I told the people at Gather that I had a band, and I told my fellow musicians that we had a gig. While neither of those statements was exactly true on its own, by the Flanders Theorem, together, they were both true.

For our first gig, we enlisted Nick’s daughter, Lucy, a dynamite fiddler. She’s also a very good bass player, but I won’t let her near my bass for fear that the band would then fire me. Also, I can’t play fiddle, so it made more sense for me to play bass. Anyway, the five of us had a blast the first time out, and the folks at Gather (both staff and patrons) seemed to enjoy us.

We went back on Saturday, January 29th, 2022. Unfortunately, Lucy couldn’t join us because she was in the recording studio (I can’t make this stuff up). But Chris can walk around his house and randomly tap three different very good fiddle players on the shoulder. In this particular random walk, he tapped Teo (a member of Crying Uncle) and Nikko.

So I spent a Saturday morning having an inexcusable amount of fun. I was playing music with friends in front of an appreciative crowd. John’s brother David, his wife Mary, daughter Elena, and my mother-in-law Liz, turned out to support us, as did members of Chris and Nick’s families.

I am an absurdly fortunate person, and try to lead with gratitude. I am thankful for my bandmates, and their families (including mine) for supporting this time away from other family responsibilities. I am grateful to all the musicians who have inspired and taught me over the years, so I’d play the best I could. And I am appreciative of the people at Gather – particularly Jodi Munson – who gave us a place to play and responded to our music so positively.

I also need to emphasize the sublime joy of playing music with young people. Every tine I get to pick with “kids” (these days, anybody under 30) I am renewed and invigorated. Their youthful energy pushes me and makes me play better. Importantly, their playing is a promise that people will play music as long as I live, and beyond. I find this gratifying. Miles, Teo, and Nikko Quale, and Lucy Khadder all randomly drop into our backyard fire pit picking sessions on occasion. When one of them shows up with a fiddle, the quality of the music triples, and all of us older guys just smile at each other. And speaking of gratitude, what a blessing to have these kids – all with absurdly busy lives – take time out to come pick with us.

What you see and hear here is not professional quality, either the video itself or the playing. But it is, as Chris says, objectively good music. And check out at 15:30, when John steps over right next to me. Musically speaking, it makes all the sense for the bass player and mandolin player in a bluegrass band to be close to each other – each of us is half of the drum kit. But that wasn’t what I was thinking about right then. No, I was thinking, “I’m playing live music with my son on a sunny afternoon while our audience eats brunch and digs the tunes. This is my best life.”

P.S., Teo isn’t in the video because who knows why, but the second set sparkled (a bluegrass brunch sparkly second set) because of him. So:

[This post originally appeared on June 20th, 2020]

Live From Here, a modern musical giant, is no more. Its parent, American Public Media, announced that LFH is yet another victim of Covid-19. When you can’t gather musicians and their fans together to celebrate live music, there’s not much alternative. I come here to bid it good-bye, and say thank you.

I converted to LFH in November of 2016. I was reeling from the Presidential election, and that was even before we knew just how unspeakably awful things were going to get. As if to wink out the last star in an ink-black night, the Universe took Leon Russell from us on November 13th. That Saturday, I was listening to the newly rebranded Live From Here. [1] At the end of the show, host and lead musician Chris Thile stepped up to the mic and said, “Oh man, we lost Leon Russell last week.” Here was a guy just a year older than my elder son, bowing to one of my musical heroes. He then gave a quick but accurate summary of Russell’s work, ending with, “He’s basically on every record you love.” Then they played a Leon Russell song. Not Song for You or Delta Lady – probably his most recognizable pieces. No, they played Prince of Peace, which reminds us that anybody we encounter in the street “… might be the Prince of Peace returning.” With no less than Trey Anastasio on guitar. I was 100% certain that the song choice was not a coincidence. These are my people – I am part of their congregation.

The constant refrain from the LFH stage was that music is more than a pastime. It is a central force of healing and harmony. And they were determined to spread that beauty as far and wide as they could in their two hours on the radio. Every Saturday, they’d hold a church of love and music at some lucky venue somewhere in the U.S.

And what an army for love it was. The LFH band, though it would morph and shift personnel, was always embarrassment of musical riches. I just want to type their names. Starting from the bass players: Mike Elizondo, Paul Kowert, Alan Hampton, Chris “Critter” Eldridge, Julian Lage, Brittany Haas, Gabe Witcher, Jeremy Kittel, Alex Hargreaves, Rich Dworsky, Brett Williams, Gabriel Kahane, Brad Mehldau, Ted Poor, Nate Smith, Marcus Gilmore. And the women who acted as foils for Thile and melted us with their singing and playing: Madison Cunningham, Sarah Jarosz, Gabby Moreno, Aoife O’Donovan, Rachel Price.

But the main celebrant was Thile, a once-in-generation mandolin player and McArthur Genius Grant recipient. When he played, his facial expressions and body language told you everything. No matter the musical genre, or whether he was in a lead or subordinate role, at that moment, in that place, he was playing the greatest music of all time, and he was all-in.

And speaking of genres, Live From Here personified the ethos that many music lovers live by: “There are two kinds of music: good and bad.” If it was good music, LFH was all about it. Nowhere was this more evident than the Musician’s Birthday segment (“It’s been a hell of a week for musicians’ birthdays!”). The band and singers would celebrate a handful of notable musicians’ birthdays with snippets of music. Multiple centuries? No genre duplicated in the list? “No problem – we got this.” And they did got it, because of the consummate virtuosity of every last person onstage. Check out this survey of Maybelle Carter, David Byrne, Peter Illych Tchaicovsky, bluegrass fiddler Benny Martin, and Stevie Wonder.

This seemingly effortless excellence made it possible for them to throw out the script on occasion. For a while, Thile would take tweets during a break, pick one (live, on stage) and tell the band, “Okay – we’re going to play <random tune>.” Or “Fiddle Tune Request Time”, where they took requests from the audience (“No! That one has words!”) and then played a medley of those tunes, each one probably better than you’ve ever heard it before, from just a wispy outline of a plan. Check this out: Thile, Chris Eldridge, and Jeremy Kittel dance across three classics. Watch bassist Mike Elizondo, a musical behemoth himself, grinning with delight at his stereo-center seat for the show.

This cauldron of musicality’s gravitational pull attracted giants old and new. Paul Simon, David Crosby, Randy Newman, Bruce Hornsby, Mandolin Orange, Vulfpeck, Emmanuel Ax, Milk Carton Kids, Pixies, Anaïs Mitchell, Common, Gregory Alan Isakov. The names go on. And so many of those names I didn’t know until I saw them on the LFH stage. They were in Durham, NC – my college hometown – and Thile said, “I have some friends in a band here and we thought it would be cool to have them on. So, please lose your minds for… Sylvan Esso!” Me: “Sylvan who?” Audience: [loses its mind]. And it went the other way. In St. Louis, they had the entire St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, led by Gemma New. I thought, “How many of the people in the audience have never seen a professional symphony orchestra live? And how many of those people are going to have their minds blown?” If the audience response to Mozart was any indication, quite a few.

Let’s talk about the audience. AKA “the congregation”. I was in it a handful of times, and it was, indeed, church. The crowd was musically hip, politically liberal, and ready to go wherever the LFH bus went. Yes, they – we – were canonical “NPR”, but if the Sunday go-to-meeting clothes fit, wear them with pride. They sang along, they participated (I will forever regret that I never got to yell “Old Dangerfield!” for Fiddle Tune Request Time). And they applauded and cheered their brains out for whatever happened onstage. They were as much a part of the experience as Thile and the other musicians; without them, the show simply couldn’t be.

Before I go, I will leave you with a smattering of hints for mining the Live From Here vein. I can only wish for you that you’ll disappear into it for hours and come out centered, warmed, and content.

• The band plays Weather Report’s River People. You need to listen to this twice. The first time, just enjoy the groove, not least Thile’s body language when the synth fires up. And dig Brittany and Critter, both of whom grew up in the bluegrass world, crushing jazz fusion. The second time through, close your eyes and focus on Mike Elizondo channeling Jaco Pastorius on bass.
• Sarah Jarosz is a Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and instrumental virtuoso. She all but defines the “Americana” genre. But LFH allowed her to release her inner Liz Fraser, [2] Natalie Maines, and Billie Eilish.
• Here’s a sense of the musical virtuosity onstage. Violin legend Hillary Hahn plays the Bach Double Violin Concerto with Thile. But the unsung hero here is bass deity Paul Kowert, whose continuo work provides the entire foundation on which the melody rests. I’m a bass player – I know how hard this is – but Kowert does it with a delicate touch and pure elegance. I’m actually a bit miffed because Hahn never gives him the time of day during the piece. I hope and trust that she gets how crucial his contribution is, but I wish she’d at least tossed one look his way.
• One of the best segments of the show was the occasional “Fast AF Fiddle Tunes”. [3] Here’s Brittany Haas “taking us to fiddle camp.” I first learned of the tune Half Past Four here and it’s become a favorite. Note during that one where Sarah Jarosz, back on home fiddle tune turf, frails the hell out of the piece, looking completely blissed out. Every time I watch this video, I see her and the others’ faces and think, “This is why we play music. For those moments when we are floating in a bubble of sound and beauty with our fellow players.” There isn’t a better feeling.
  
  N.B. to the violin/fiddle players: Occasionally Brittany lifts her head off the fiddle’s chin rest, destroying the classic violin player posture. But then she looks like the old Appalachian fiddlers, many of whom played with the fiddle tucked up against their shoulder. My narrative is that Brittany has simply surrendered the instrument to a previous incarnation of herself, who was born in 1896 in southwestern Virginia.
• You can’t talk about Live From Here without talking about Aoife O’Donovan. She was one of the most frequent Thile foils at the pulpit, and they have a special musical bond. She sometimes performs with Punch Brothers (he calls her “The first Punch Sister”) and she was the only guest musician on the Goat Rodeo sessions (i.e. she was jamming with Yo-Yo Ma). Here she is singing happy birthday to Joni Mitchell. Listen to the audience swoon.
• Sara Watkins, the fiddle superstar of Nickel Creek and I’m With Her, owns the stage and puts the audience in her pocket with this cover of Nikka Costa’s Like A Feather. Pure attitude.
• If you’re into music, you know how complex and layered Good Vibrations is. It’s Brian Wilson at the height of his compositional and studio engineering craft. Nobody would dare try to reproduce it live. Unless you’re Live From Here. Then you just mix Punch Brothers with I’m With Her, add Rich Dworsky and Ted Poor, cue the Farfisa organ, and you’re off to the beach.
• I’ll end with this. Here, Thile summarizes the Live From Here credo, the audience sings along, and for a few minutes, in the midst of nothing being right, all is right with the world.

I remember 1980 vividly. Reagan was elected and I was scared. A month later, John Lennon was murdered, and I wondered how we’d survive. Somehow we did, and 28 years later, I’d sit in an Asheville movie theater with tears of joy in my eyes watching a Black man being sworn in as President. The night came crashing back down just eight short years later, and in its aftermath Leon Russell was gone. I wish that in 1980 there’d been the light in the darkness that I’ve had the past four years, bringing me musical solace every Saturday, Live, From Here.

If you are a member of the LFH production family – whether your name is Chris Thile or you are the person who laid out the sandwiches backstage – thank you. You have brought musical beauty into my life and I am better for it.

Pax vobiscum.

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[1] LFH was technically a continuation of Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion. They had wisely distanced themselves from him and PHC – you can look up the details.

[2] Here’s where you see Thile investing 100%, no matter his role. The mandolin is playing a part done by a programmed percussion generator. Doesn’t matter – if he is to be an echoing slow-decay percussion machine, then he will be the best one of those there is. Note also Noam Pikelny, the Bela Fleck of his generation. Another synth part. Another perfectly executed repetitive drone, by hand. This is consummate musicianship.

[3] Sadly, it too got rebranded, probably a nod to the family-friendly format. But the intent was always there.