May 22, 2025 • 67 mins
What does it take to become a musical chameleon who commands respect across diverse genres? Daniel Kimbro delivers a masterclass in musical versatility on this episode of Chewing the Gristle.
From his beginnings in a family folk band called Mountain Soul to his current status as bassist for Jerry Douglas and session player on Eric Clapton records, Daniel shares the winding path that shaped his musical identity. With disarming honesty, he reveals how growing up surrounded by Stanley Brothers, Sting, and classical music created the perfect foundation for a career that refuses categorization.
Daniel takes us deep into the heart of Appalachian musical traditions, particularly the fascinating world of murder ballads – those deceptively cheerful melodies paired with dark narratives. His own songwriting draws from this tradition, including "Loyston," a haunting tale about a town submerged underwater when the Tennessee Valley Authority built dams across the region. The conversation explores how these songs balance historical reality with creative embellishment, creating something both authentic and original.
Whether you're a musician seeking to diversify your influences or simply curious about the connections between bluegrass, jazz, and everything in between, this conversation offers rich insights into finding your authentic voice while honoring musical traditions. Check out Daniel's music and keep an eye out for The Woodshed Guitar Experience, where he serves as music director alongside world-class guitarists sharing knowledge in an unusually accessible environment.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Ladies and gentlemen, can you believe it?
It's already time for seasonsix of Chewing the Gristle with
yours truly Greg Cox.
So many delightfulconversations to look forward to
.
We'll talk about music.
Yeah, sure, but you know whatelse we're going to talk about.
Anything that comes to mind, sostay tuned.
We'll talk about music.
Yeah, sure, but you know whatelse we're gonna talk about.
Anything that comes to mind, sostay tuned.
We got some good ones for you.
(00:29):
Chewin' the Gristle, season six.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank youfor tuning in for another
installment of Chewin' theGristle with yours truly Gregory
Cochrie.
We've got the mighty DanielKimbrough, a buddy of mine, a
bass player extraordinaire.
You've seen him with JerryDouglas.
(00:50):
He's on Clapton Records.
The guy gets all over the place, but he's also a very talented
singer-songwriter in theAppalachian tradition.
He corrected me, I used to sayAppalachian, but it's
Appalachian.
You know that.
Ladies and gentlemen, this weekChewing the Gristle with Daniel
Kimbrough.
Come on, ladies and gentlemen,it's time for yet another season
(01:15):
of Chewing the Gristle and I'mhonored and pleased to have our
first guest of this season bethe majestic Daniel Kimbrough,
musician, extraordinaire, doublebass thumping, angelic singing,
cool songwriting, doggone it,and just a cool cat in general.
(01:37):
You've seen him with JerryDouglas.
He's on everything from you,just name it.
He's even on the latest EricClapton record.
It's crazy, it's crazy, it youjust name it.
He's even on the latest EricClapton record it's crazy, it's
crazy, it's just it's crazy.
But here we are communicatingvia the inner Google.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Daniel, how the heck are you?
I am fine.
I have had only a couple ofexistential crises this morning.
So for a Monday in the year ofour Greg 2024, that's pretty
good.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yes, I like it yeah, man.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Um, I'm just lamenting how much cooler your
lighting and studio scene is inour.
I guess your podcast isn'tnecessarily video-y, but I'm
looking at it via the internet,as you said we like to tease
people with, uh, having to usetheir imaginations.
I think that I think that's forthe best, I think so too.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You know they're spoiled.
They get to see everything allthe time, and for this podcast
they can only imagine what istranspiring.
A hundred percent Now.
Where are you this morning?
Now, do you live in Knoxvilleproper?
I do.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, I am in North Knoxville, tennessee, in my
house, which is just fine withme.
Yes, yeah, you know, you and Ispend a lot of time in hotels
and in airplanes and it's niceto have some time at home, buddy
.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It is indeed Now.
Are you home for the remainderof the year through the holidays
?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
More or less.
I have a few Christmas gigswith an esteemed colleague,
another, andy.
You and I have some Andyfriends in common we do.
This guy is an incrediblefiddler and mandol-er and he's
(03:26):
in the bluegrass scene and hisname is Andy Leftwich and he
plays with Ricky Skaggs andmyriad other killers of the
acoustic ilk, and so I amjoining him for a few Christmas
gigs with his bluegrass outfitand that'll be really, really
fun.
And then, yeah, I'm home untillate December.
(03:50):
Excuse me, it is December.
I'm home until late January.
Pretty much.
There's a few things here andthere, but no touring per se
until later in January.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
It sounds like we have similar things, to look
forward to the gig here andthere until the end of January,
when the road beckons againTotally.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
It happens.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
So you've been up to all kinds of activities this
year, not to mention or not, theleast of which is this new
record of yours where you'resinging, of course, your
glorious pristine voice Awshucks, and very cool.
Your turn of phrase is mostdelightful, my friend.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Oh man, well, that means you've listened to it,
which humbles me to no end.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Thanks, greg, I have indeed, I listened to it when I
was in Europe, cool, and then,in preparation for our gathering
here again, I also listened toit once again, thank you and I
enjoyed it immensely, as well asthe record you did with Martin
Harley, which has some nicestuff on it as well.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Thank you.
Yeah, so Martin Harley is aslide guitar cat from England.
He's actually Welsh, but he andanother friend of ours, sam
Lewis, and myself have workedquite a lot together.
Friend of ours, sam Lewis andmyself have worked quite a lot
together and, uh, martin and Samhave become dear friends of
mine and have been really,really encouraging of my efforts
.
Um, away from the the the sideperson thing.
(05:14):
Uh, you know, uh, I grew up ina family folk band and and so
songwriting was always, um, Idon't know, we just we talked
about it a lot on car rides oraround meals and stuff like that
.
We were talking about folkslike Bob Dylan and Townes Van
Zandt and numerous otherluminaries Warren Zevon, steve
(05:39):
Earle, whomever and so there areall of that sort of what would
now today be called Americana,and I always sort of had one
foot in in the Appalachianderived musics and then one foot
in the rock and roll or kind ofother side of the family tree.
It's all.
(05:59):
It's all the same sort of bluesderived stuff.
You know, I'm not telling youanything.
And then going to school, but Ialways had had buddies who were
really into progressive rockand stuff like that too.
So I just, I don't know man, Idon't think there's any rules.
I don't try to stay in anylanes, I just try to do, do the
thing that sounds fun and try touse that to pay the utility
(06:21):
bill at the end of the month orthe beginning or whenever the
hell that comes indeed.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah, so the lyric matter on this, on this latest
record of yours uh, how much isautobiographical and how much is
?
Just uh observing from uh ararefied vantage point.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, I would say mostly the latter, greg.
But to contextualize for thelistener, a lot of murder
ballads are happening here andthat is something very much
within the Appalachianvernacular Scotch-Irish music.
We tend to apply happy melodiesto very dire circumstances and
(07:13):
a lot of times thosecircumstances are telling of
unrequited love.
Yeah, and so when I wrote thesongs for this record, I was
just in kind of this mode of ofof honing in on those kinds of
things.
And there's some historicalstuff in there too.
(07:36):
The first, the first track,which is called Loyston
L-O-Y-S-T-O-N is, is a favoriteof a lot of folks which is
really humbling, and actuallyit's on the new Cherry Douglas
Band record as well, and that isa true story.
It's about one of the inundatedtowns.
We have the Tennessee ValleyAuthority, lakes around here
(07:56):
around East Tennessee and lakesall over the world.
When we build dams, towns gounderwater a lot of times, and
so that's what that song isabout.
And then other ones are more orless just embellishments of my
imagination, yes, and thecomment I get most when folks
listen to it is like wow, theseare really cool songs, are you
(08:16):
okay?
Which you know, I think.
Films are written and poems arewritten and paintings are
painted and it's just a spacethat you're in at the time.
I would take this opportunityto publicly say I harbor no one
any ill will.
It's just you know where I grewup and the kind of music that I
(08:39):
grew up playing.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yes, the second tune, keep On Livin, yeah, which is
the one where you uh grab thetitle of the record from.
If I'm not mistaken, that'sright damn, you really listen to
this.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Thanks, greg, my pleasure um that one might be
someone might think is a littleautobiographical.
Yeah, so my mom and dad theirfirst.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Their first concert.
My mom and dad, born in reallyrural places in east tennessee
and their first concert my momand dad, born in really rural
places in east tennessee andtheir first concert was a van
halen concert.
They they skipped church onenight and drove up to knoxville
um from points east and andcaught van halen and their last.
Their marriage lasted about aslong as the first iteration of
van halen did, so that's prettycool.
(09:21):
Um, so that that is a heavilyembellished um, uh, uh tale.
I got you, yeah, but you knowthat's.
That's the thing we get to do,isn't it?
Uh, it's the same thing as whenyou're taking a solo.
You know it's.
It's like you.
You get to manipulate the plothowever you want to, you know as
(09:42):
long as you're intentionalabout it, it all counts, it's
all valid.
So so, um, uh, I guess you couldsay um, what is that?
That?
Uh, that disclaimer that yousee in films all the time?
You know the names of the?
Uh, the characters have beenchanged to protect the innocent
yeah yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.
So it's kind of like that, youknow, but it's semi
(10:04):
autobiographical for or, excuseme, semi biographical from the
vantage point of my folks.
So, yeah, yes, yeah, I don'tknow how many, how many
songwriter folks you really haveon.
I mean, I've listened to a lotof your, your gristle casts, but
I don't really know how manyfolks you have on that are, that
are songwriter.
It's really cool of you to totake such an interest in the
(10:25):
subject matter man.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Well, it's uh, it, uh , it fluctuates.
You know, I I've always talkedto people like my my son is is
less inclined, uh, just becauseof his tastes and so on and so
forth, like when I talked to himabout how I like Bob Dylan and
so on and so forth.
You're talking about Dylan,your son, yeah, yeah, talking
(10:49):
about Bob Dylan with my son,dylan Cool, and I always
describe how, when you havesomeone who has that
connectivity with lyricalcontact and the delivery which I
was experiencing when I waslistening to your stuff same
(11:29):
thrill out of connecting withthat intention and delivery as I
do with a great improvisationalthing on guitar or whatever the
instrument might be.
Totally You're taking in andthat doesn't happen all the time
because a lot of times you knowespecially and this is just my
personal take, but withAmericana stuff it kind of gets
muddled a little bit.
Where it's not, I'm not beingtaken.
Uh, with the um, the lyrics inthe same way as in the music
(11:54):
doesn't quite entrance me thesame way you know what I mean.
It's kind of a weird thing forme personally, um, but there is
a thing where you get taken inand and you have have that
experience and um and uh, yoursdefinitely took me into that, oh
man.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Thank you very much.
That's a high praise, thank you, I agree a hundred percent.
I when, when, when you'reimprovising, you're
spontaneously composing.
And that thing that I wassaying about, about the plot, I
was touring last year with anincredible songwriter and also
an incredible instrumentalist.
Her name is Sarah Jarose, she'sfrom Texas and she was talking,
(12:34):
I was saying, after the gig.
You know how, after a gig, youget back to the green room and
everybody's on that adrenalinewave, but at the same time
you're extolling all of themusical virtue, virtues of your
bandmates while at the same timejust shitting all over your own
and and.
And I was just like, oh, my god, sorry about that chord that I
(12:56):
played the wrong, complete wrongnote in the 89th measure of the
14th song of the third whatever, and and sarah was saying, oh,
I said to her, god, that was agreat, great solo on whatever
the tune was.
And, uh, she said, oh, man, Iwasn't sure, like I felt like I
lost the plot, you know, and Ithought that was such a cool
(13:18):
comment and it's like, yeah,when you're, when you're really
in it, when you're in thismoment, this moment, right here,
with a neck of an instrument inyour hands you're zoomed out in
a way that allows you tomarionette the strings, as it
were, and with intent, andthat's the whole goal are the
(13:47):
kinds of things we talk about alot of times with the campers at
Andy Wood's guitar camp, whereyou and I met.
You know like you can talkabout different grips and
different shapes and differentscale, chord relationships and
all those kinds of things, butat the end of the day you have
to you know that Charlie Parkerthing, you know forget all that
and just play, but ideallylyrically, melodically,
(14:08):
thematically.
You have a larger Google Earthvantage point that you're really
trying to maintain through thewhole thing and I try really
hard when I'm writing, whetherI'm writing prose kind of things
for folks on my email list, orwhether I'm writing music, and
that can be instrumental orlyrical I'm trying to maintain
(14:29):
that vantage point and that'ssomething that I definitely hear
in your playing, when you'replaying solos, when you're
playing, you know your music isinstrumental mostly, I assume
you know, having heard the CockMarshall Trio often, like you,
toby and Dylan there is such arespect for whoever the person
(14:52):
with the microphone, as it were,is at the moment.
There's such a profoundemphasis on building an arc and
I just see all of that stuff asplot lines and character arcs.
Man, and that's the lifetimegoal is hopefully you set your
look what I can do aside and youuse what you can do as fodder
(15:18):
for those character arcs, asopposed to just a showcase of
technique.
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Exactly correct.
So you grew up in a musicalfamily?
Yes, and you actually had.
So the name of the band wasMountain Soul, if.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
I'm not mistaken.
Yeah, man, my mom and dad, mydad was the real driver behind
the the ambitional is ambitionala word behind the ambitional um
aspects of that group.
In other words, he was runningthe website and booking the gigs
and driving the winnebago, asit were, and and mom and I and
(16:01):
dad too, I don't know it wasjust always an opportunity to
listen to music together andthen we would try to sing songs
together and stuff.
And I started out as a guitarplayer and I just eventually
realized that the cover band Iwas playing in as a middle
school kid and as a high schoolkid, that the bass playing was
(16:22):
an opportunity to mitigate someof the skill gaps that I had on
the six string neck, and so Igrew up doing that.
But I was also really an activeband kid.
I got into the school band inthe fifth grade and was playing
(16:42):
trombone in the fifth grade andwas playing trombone, which was
fortuitous because we shared thesame sort of range for the most
part as the electric bass.
I taught myself where the E'swere on the electric bass and
then started teaching myself toread the bass clef.
And then I saw the double bassprofessor from the University of
(17:02):
Tennessee.
They were doing an outreachprogram and they came to a local
community center and I saw themplay.
And I saw Rusty Holloway, whowould become my eventual bass
teacher, play the upright bassand I thought, whoa, that's a
whole nother paradigm.
And then I witnessed EdgarMeyer play with a bow and sort
(17:25):
of do very bluegrass, fiddlykinds of things.
And then that opened my mind tothe classical realm, because I
think this happens with a lot ofus, where you check out
someone's playing, or maybeyou're checking out the liner
notes, and then you want to knowwhat else that cat played on,
and then it turns out you'relistening to a thing that you
wouldn't have otherwise pickedout of the CD bin.
(17:46):
Maybe I'm dating myself here,but you wouldn't have chosen to
maybe check that album out hadthat cat not been on that record
, and it's a really greatvehicle for discovery.
So, yeah, the musical family inthe folk realm really ended up
pushing me into really uniqueplaces, and I think that's one
of the cool things aboutacoustic music is that it can
(18:10):
lead you down some reallyinteresting branches of
different trees.
You know that you didn't, yeah,you know to abuse the wood
analogy.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
So then, growing up in that musical family, it was
not unusual, obviously, to thinkof that as a viable livelihood
and something that you would goin.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Or was it?
Speaker 1 (18:32):
kind of a little bit of both.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
It wasn't.
My folks were just never, everdiscouraging or like caution
flag waving.
It was never that.
It was always like, yeah, okay,that's what you want to do.
Cool, you know, we'll try tofigure out a way to buy the
slightly nicer trombone.
We'll try to find a betterelectric bass, because this one
(18:55):
has action inches high and and,um, you know, and and dad was
really good, like if we were.
I remember one time inparticular we went to play a
local radio station which had adaily.
It was a bluegrass-y kind offolk, very small low end of the
(19:18):
radio dial in the 80s kind ofradio station in the, the 89.9
wdvx, uh, and they were based ina camper in clinton, tennessee,
and and so you would go in andyou would play local licks at
six was the show and uh, uh, wewould play our, our songs, some
of which were original and somewere bluegrass and and folk
(19:40):
classics, and then, um, if wewere around oxoxville a lot of
times, dad would would sort ofparlay that into taking us
somewhere.
One time he took us straightfrom there to a, a concert down
here at the world's uh, excuseme, at the, the uh chill howie
park where the state fair isalways held in knoxville, and it
(20:01):
was uh, susan tedeschi, susantedeschichi, opening up for
Buddy Guy.
And then the main act was BBKing and I was like.
I remember having this moment.
Then I was like this is cool, Ijust played a bluegrass gig in
a camper and I was in highschool.
I just played a bluegrass gigin a camper and now I'm checking
(20:22):
out this person who I didn'tknow at the time, in Susan Susan
, and then of course, buddy Guyand of course BB King, and it
was just wild.
And then another concert wewere checking out Bela Fleck and
Tony Rice after you know what Imean them a lot of credit for
being really deliberate aboutexposing us to music, me and my
(20:45):
two younger brothers, withoutsaying this is good and this is
bad or this is valid and this isnot, uh, hip enough.
You know what I mean?
Because they were just.
They were just such listenyfolks from mom was always
blasting whatever sting had justdone, or old police stuff, or
she was, she was just athilariously loud volumes pumping
(21:08):
classical music through thehouse, and then and then, and
then dad would come home and itwould switch over to the Stanley
brothers or flattened Scruggs,you know, or or or, or whatever,
and and so it was just thatkind of thing.
And they were professional andare professional musicians at
different points of their lives,but for the most part they had
(21:30):
other means of income and I waskind of the next generation that
tried to figure out how toactually make that thing.
Be the whole thrust.
Yeah, yeah, I'll let you knowhow it's going.
Figure it out, be the whole,the whole thrust.
Yeah, yeah, I'll let you knowhow it's going.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Figure it out.
Well, as far as the bluegrassthing is concerned, I've been
always fascinated by thisbecause, um, when you grow up in
that, at least exposed to thatschool of playing, yeah, um,
there there is a songbook, am Iright?
There's?
There's like a group ofstandards, what, what would you
ask?
You know, uh, the quantity ofthese tunes and what you know
(22:14):
what I mean it's like?
What is the?
What is the bluegrass songbooklike in terms of learning curve
and quantity of tunes, and whatare the tunes that, if someone
wanted to, you know, enter therealm, yeah, of, of bluegrass?
What would you suggest as, likethis, uh, a quantity of
standards to start off with yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
I think it's very similar to when you start
learning blues or jazz.
We have, we have these certainI don't know half dozen tunes
that you're really expected Like.
Anybody can call them at anytime and you would know them.
The nice thing about from amusic I guess you could say from
a composition or a theory pointof view is that bluegrass stuff
(22:57):
is really approachable becauseit's pretty bluesy in the way
that it's 1-4 chord kind oforiented.
You know what I mean.
And so, um, and and and a lot ofthat is because that there's so
much crossover between bluesmusic and country music and
bluegrass music and those kindof, uh, inner, inner weave, um,
(23:22):
but you know, like I'm thinkinglike if you, if you took any of
the stanley brothers lexiconcatalog, or flattened scrugs and
like a little girl of mine intennessee, or salty dog blues,
or hot corn, cold corn, or um,you know, uh, you, you start to,
you start to know these songsand there are so many
(23:45):
instrumentals that are expectedto be known, like, on the guitar
side, blackberry Blossom and onthe fiddle side, or Billy in
the low ground, or, or, um, redhaired boy, and then, uh, you
(24:09):
know, daybreak and Dixie on thebanjo side or foggy mountain
breakdown come on you know, oreven the, the, the theme song
from the Beverly hillbillies.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
You know what I mean.
These are.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
these are all things that are really really pillar
pieces in the bluegrass lexicon.
So there are myriad resourcesonline.
It's not unlike jazz stuff.
There are playalongs all overYouTube.
There are bluegrass playlistson whatever digital platform you
(24:43):
choose to stream from, uh, forwhich we will not be paid.
Well, and anyway you, uh, youcan find these things, and there
are far more qualified listersum than than I am, but it's very
accessible and it's a lovelyprimer for anyone who wants to
try to get into music that ismaybe more harmonically or
(25:05):
melodically advanced and I'mspeaking of jazz here now.
And it's just because when youget these, you know, at a
bluegrass jam it's not uncommonfor someone to maybe not know
this particular version of thisparticular song, or maybe
someone adds a chord change inthat, someone else doesn't, and
so you hear numbers called a lotRight.
Go to the four there instead ofthe six, go to the four there
(25:25):
instead of the six, or go to thetwo there instead of the four,
or go to the minor two insteadof the five, or it's a minor two
, five, one in something like aDavid Grissman tune or whatever.
And so suddenly, because of anexperiential learning situation
where you're at a jam sessionand it's presented in a fun way,
(25:49):
you're suddenly familiar withhow maybe a little bit of a
number system with music works.
Right, then next thing you knowyou understand what a two, five
one is.
And then someone's teaching you, um, take the a train, and
suddenly that's not all thatdifferent from another Flatt
Scruggs tune.
Or like you're doing a 6-2-5-1,which is Salty Dog Blues, or
(26:10):
Don't Let your Deal Go Down fromthe Flatt Scruggs catalog.
And then suddenly you'rethinking about, oh wait, what is
a dominant seventh chord andwhat is a minor two chord?
And then next thing you knowyou're playing the jazz music,
the jazz music.
Yeah.
So anyway, I feel like I feellike it's a really great vehicle
(26:33):
for understanding those kindsof things.
And I think you can look atplayers like gosh, jerry Reed or
Chet Atkins you had one of myfavorite episodes of yours of
the podcast with Steve Warner,oh yeah, and these you know,
tommy Emanuel, my friend, thesecertified official guitarists,
(26:55):
you know these cats are allheavily schooled, and maybe even
primarily schooled in that kindof country roots music.
And even Bill Monroe I meanBill Monroe's mandolin licks are
so Robert Johnson-y it's noteven funny, man Right.
Even Chuck Berry stuff you hearthat in mandolin playing all
(27:18):
the time Sure.
So I just feel like thebluegrass thing is such a great
primer for so many differentkinds of music, especially if
you play an instrument that isin the rhythm section, like a
rhythm guitar would be inbluegrass or the bass would be.
And I think there's probably nobetter example of that than,
(27:40):
like our mutual friend, how wemet Andy Wood.
You know he's an incrediblebluegrass mandolin player and
acoustic guitar player and thatwas really how he's from Western
North Carolina, that's how thatcat got introduced to music,
and the melodic and harmonicconcepts of that music are
presented in such a casual waythat it sort of demystifies and
(28:03):
unscarifies music in a way thatis really really approachable,
and I think that's a healthy,healthy thing for young brains.
And so I just encourage anybodywho wants to try to get a
handle on melody against a chordsound to check out bluegrass
music.
You know those fiddle tunes andthose guitar tunes and what
(28:27):
does the melody sound like andwhy do you play that chord with
that melody note?
And next thing you know you'replaying giant steps and next
thing, you know you're playingGiant Steps.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yes, well, speaking of kind of the transition to
learning more sophisticatedmusical concepts and so on and
so forth I'm interested in.
You know, you did go touniversity, went to University
of Tennessee, right?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
That's right.
Yeah, great jazz school there.
So I was curious as to thattransition, because it might be
interesting for folk to kind ofget their mind around someone
who is already from a familybackground already kind of doing
music as a living.
Yeah, and I'm sure most of thepeople that you went to school
(29:13):
with were not from that.
That's true Rarified vantagepoint I've used that twice now
in our conversation.
So I'm interested is how yougot your mind around that in
terms of saying, okay, well, Iwant to learn a little bit more
about what's going on here,because what was your goal at
that point?
Because you were already kindof doing what most of those
(29:34):
people, let's be honest, thatare going to music school will
never end up doing uh, a lot ofthem, right, because that's just
the way the business works,it's a good point.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
I haven't really ever thought of it that way, Greg.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
So, um, how was that transition and what were your
goals going to that school?
Um, what did you want to getout of it?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I think much in the same way we were talking about
how a name on a liner note canlead you down a new rabbit hole.
It was the same way for me withmusic school, in that when I
saw Rusty Holloway playing theupright bass at the age that I
was which was maybe, like Idon't know, a junior in high
(30:16):
school that instrument seemed sounwieldy and weird and
unapproachable from like a justoh well, I'd played guitar
before and it's like, okay, well, the electric bass neck makes
sense, but this verticallyoriented, fretless bass neck
that is, you know, feet long inin in scale, seems so weird.
(30:40):
And and we got one and startedmessing around on it and and it
was like, okay, it kind of makessense, but this hurts, and like
they're like how do you playthis thing consistently in tune
once you start venturing up theneck and and and and um.
(31:01):
So really learning to play thedouble bass I had never really
seen it happen before, apartfrom in some videos and and
seeing you know the cat on thelawrence welk show or whatever
on PBS playing one.
So that was the vehicle to goto music school, because I knew
(31:22):
that teacher and I knew that Iwas supposed to go to college
and get the hell out ofMorristown, tennessee somehow.
So it was just that simple.
It didn't ever occur to me thatthere were already music schools
that were teaching roots musicand bluegrass, and there were
fiddle camps and guitar campsand mandolin camps and even even
bass camps.
I didn't know that those thingsexisted and so it was just like
this is my way to immersemyself in this and figure out
(31:45):
how this unwieldy instrument canbe better.
And if I'm gonna make a livingas a bass player, surely I'm
gonna have to be able to do morethan one thing pretty well.
And so when I started studyingwith Rusty, he was really
adamant about that.
He's like you're going todouble major in the symphonic
(32:06):
musics and in the jazz stuff andyou're going to work on the
electric bass as though it werethe double bass as far as a
pedagogical technical approach.
It were the double bass as faras a pedagogical technical
approach, and you're going toapply the grid electric bass
system to the upright bass.
And so it was just honestly,the whole impetus behind music
(32:27):
school was to really get my headaround the things I didn't
understand intrinsically abouthow the double bass worked and
about how jazz worked and howyou know like, uh, you know like
, you get to a point inbluegrass music or in folk music
where a minor two to a dominant, five to a one chord makes
(32:48):
sense.
But like, yeah, but there'ssomething spicy in that one
chord.
It's like oh, it was a majorseven, oh, it's a major seven
with the.
There's a sharp 11 in there too.
You're getting a nice lydiansound in there.
Man, whoa, you know.
And then you start getting somealtered sounds and it's like oh
, my gosh, that we're speaking awhole, a whole new accent of
the same old language here.
Uh, and and and anyway.
(33:10):
So it it became a vehicle toincur ass loads of financial
debt while learning a lot.
It's just an opportunity to forme.
I didn't do college in thetraditional sense.
It took me forever to graduatebecause I took no core classes.
(33:31):
I just took so many music hours.
I get that.
Core classes, I just took somany music hours.
I get that.
I mean, I just immersed myself.
I played in every ensemble thatI could so that I would not
have to practice by myself asoften as I should have done, but
anyway, maybe that's along-winded, convoluted answer
to the question, but it's thesame thing as the liner notes,
greg.
Like, okay, if I'm going to dothis base thing, I'm going all
(33:55):
the way in as far as I know howto go in in my current
circumstances here in EastTennessee, I'm going to
Knoxville and I'm studying thebase, and that's why you know
Right.
And so you did get a degree.
I did Right.
Before I finished school theystopped awarding two degrees for
the amount of hours in thedifferent courses that I took.
(34:16):
So I'm a little bitter aboutthat still these many years on.
But yeah, I have a degree instrings music with an emphasis
in studio music and jazz.
Oh nice.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yes, yeah, which is, I can tell you exactly how much
it's worth actually.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
But I'm not going to yes, Well luckily I went to
college in a time where it waspretty doggone cheap, which is
good, cool, that's cool, that'sgreat Greg.
Times have changed a little bit, but hey, what are you going to
do?
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah, but I mean, as you say, there are so many more
ways Experiential learning is.
You can't put a financial valueon that.
Getting out, being in thecircumstance, going to a jam
session, going on the road andplaying the same licks over and
(35:15):
over, listening to the samealbums over and over until you
can't stand it anymore and itjust becomes a part of your
musical DNA.
Those are crucial things to do,and that's what you did.
That's what I continue to tryto do.
Yeah, this is the way, as theMandalorian might say.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
We interrupt this regularly scheduled gristle
infested conversation to give aspecial shout out to our friends
at fishman transducers, makersof the greg caulk signature
fluence gristle tone pickup setcan you dig that?
And our friends at wildwoodguitars of lewisville, colorado,
bringing the heat in the shadowof the Rocky Mountains.
(35:56):
Now let me ask you this You'reliving in the mighty Knoxville.
That's pretty doggone close toNashville and through your
experiences with who you've allplayed with, there's probably
not the necessity to relocate tomore of a quote-unquote music
(36:17):
town.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
But would you agree with that?
To an extent I agree with that.
There's definitely some FOMO.
Sometimes that comes up andrears its ugly head in my
subconscious, but the world issmaller than it used to be in
terms of travel logistics and interms of recording technology.
(36:39):
I mean, for example, we'redoing this, of course, over the
internet, as you said, uh, doingthis interview, but, um,
nashville is, depending uponwhat part of town, between two
and a half hours and three hoursaway for me and I, uh, I gain
an hour across the time zones,and so it just has become this
work commute.
I, I consider myself based outof Nashville and I live in
(37:01):
Knoxville.
That's how often I'm there twoor three times a month, usually.
Um, it'll go over again nextweek, uh, for a quick, quick
recording session with some,some killers, uh and um, some
killers.
And it's funny.
I used to be really in my headabout not having tried Nashville
, but it turned out that ourfamily life started earlier than
(37:27):
we intended it to.
My wife is an educator.
She is a school teacher of20-some years here in Knoxville.
She teaches band.
Actually, she teaches beginningband.
Oh, no, kidding, bless her.
Yeah, yeah, she's incredible.
She's an incredible educatorand she does lots of clinics
where she's hired to go todifferent places, different
cities, and educate kids whohave auditioned for maybe like
(37:48):
an honor band or something likethat, and so she had a good
thing going, and then we had ourdaughter, and then we had our
son and it was just like youknow what, knoxville is a more
effective place to live for ourfamily lifestyle, and so we're
going to do it here, and peoplegive me credit for figuring out
(38:12):
how to make it work, which isreally, really sweet, but I
honestly just feel like I justsaid yes to as many things as
possible.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Yes, I've said those words myself.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yeah, and so I live here.
I do quite a few remoterecording sessions here at my
house on electric bass or onupright bass, especially double
bass, doghouse bullfiddle.
And then, yeah, I get onairplanes and tour buses in
Nashville and that's the way itis, and away you go and away I
(38:46):
go.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Let's talk about the balance between obviously
playing with Jerry Douglas it's,it's an awesome thing.
I mean, it's a musicallyoutstanding.
You know he's obviously gotlegendary status and so on and
so forth.
But now you find yourself doingthis more original material,
(39:08):
yeah and um.
And I'm wondering do you alwaysforesee the necessity of being
the sideman, or are you at somepoint going you know what, I'm
going to do my own thing and nomatter what that takes, I'm
(39:29):
interested if that's enteredyour thought processes.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yeah, I don't think I consider those things
proprietary.
I don't sort them into thosetwo piles.
I just see it all as feedingthe music portfolio.
I think a music career in 2020,whatever must be a diverse one,
where you say yes to as manythings as you can until it
(39:58):
becomes time to say no to thecorrect things, and that saying
of no is informed by things like, of course, logistics I am
booked, I am not booked but it'salso by mental health, and by
which I mean not just exhaustionor mitigation thereof.
But am I into this and does itsuit me creatively and does it
(40:21):
allow me to put my best feetforward as an accompanist or as
a performer in a more featuredcontext?
And so ideally for me?
Let's be real.
The bottom line is how muchdoes it pay and can I afford not
(40:43):
to do it?
But there are things that we dothat pay absolute nothing and
we go do them, or maybe they pay, but they wash out after you
factor in the cost of the travelor whatever that you know.
So many of us, we work and workand work to get to the point to
(41:03):
where we get to the gigs thatwe really want to do, and most
of the time we don't make anymoney on those particular gigs,
but we go do them because of thepeople that we want to play
with, and that happens to me alot in Nashville.
You go do a bar gig inNashville because I can't wait
to play with Jordan Pearlson orwith Matt Alger or with my
friend Sam Lewis or whatever,and those are really really fun
(41:29):
to do and they feed youcreatively.
And then you try to balancethat against you know.
Yeah, well, god, okay, athree-week tour.
Here we go.
I don't feel like being gonefor three weeks and losing that
much sleep between time zones,but it's going to be really
really cool to be on stage everynight with Jerry Douglas and
Tommy Emanuel.
So let's go.
You know what I mean.
And so I guess the answer toyour question is I try at this
(41:53):
point in my life to really finddoes that boost me creatively
and is it worth my timefinancially?
And if as many of my yes boxesare checked as possible, if I
can check those boxes, then Ican go do it, and that's about
it.
I think that right now I do feelmore motivated to put my own
(42:15):
songwritery thing out there, andthat's due in no small part to
a lot of the affirmations thatI've received from some heroes
and peers like Jerry and Tommy.
Jerry Douglas and I there's theJerry Douglas Band, which is
four of us myself and theincredible Mike Seal on electric
guitar and the incredibleChristian Settlemyer on the
violin and we go do our thing.
(42:35):
But sometimes that's not aslogistically possible, and so
Jerry and Tommy are under thesame music management umbrella,
got it?
And so there was this idea hey,what if Jerry opens with his
thing for Tommy Emanuel and thenplays with Tommy?
But how can we make that?
They've done that before.
(42:56):
How can we up the ante of thattour?
And it was like hey, daniel,would you consider doing this?
And the answer was yes.
And Jerry was like hey, I'veheard some of your songs, why
don't we do some of them on thattour?
And so that was an opportunityto push aside the fear guy and
say you know what Hell?
(43:16):
Yeah, let's go try a couple ofthese songs in front of these
folks and see what happens.
And people loved it.
And Jerry was like these aregood songs, man, and he's
produced enough songwriters towhere I can take his word for it
.
And I can tell the impostersyndrome-y guy to shut up for a
minute and listen to the guywho's won 16 Grammy Awards,
(43:37):
right, and sometimes it takesthis isn't meant to sound kind
of like braggadocious andname-droppy, but it takes that
to get above yourself sometimesand get that Google Earth view
of your own creative thing.
You know what I mean.
And so it's like when someonelike Greg Hawk or Andy Timmons
comes up to you when you've justsung some bluegrass songs at a
little music camp and they saydude, this is good, you should
(44:00):
do this more often.
It's a nice thing to hear.
And so I guess the long asswinded answer to your question
is is I try to balance all of it.
To balance all of it If there'senough accompanist opportunity
that gives me an opportunity tosee someone like Sarah Jaroz
(44:20):
work a room and compose a setlist.
And how does that work?
How do I address the audienceand keep them engaged?
And then how do I get to see aninstrumental person like Tommy
Emanuel build his set andinterface with an audience?
And what is that experiencelike versus what it's like when
(44:42):
I am listening to one of hisrecorded pieces and it's like,
oh, he did this differently liveand I bet I know why it lands
differently in front of peoplethan it does in front of just a
microphone in a sterile studio.
And then I guess all thedecisions inform, all the
decisions is is the answer, youknow.
And so I, I don't try to be, Idon't try to exclude any musical
(45:06):
experience, and maybe thatsounds woo, but I really don't.
It's like I just I wanted, Iwant to be the music director at
Andy Wood's Guitar Camp and tryto play Tom Coyle Fusion, and
then I want to walk down thehill and sing Rocky Top, you
know, or whatever you know, andthen I want to go sing my murder
ballads, and I don't know if Idon't focus on any one of those
(45:29):
things too much.
Maybe that's not ideal, maybe Iwould be more of a specialist
and I could be a little morevirtuosic, but I like to wear
this jack-of-all-trades hat andI'm certainly a master of none
of them.
But the learning experience ateach of these junctures is just
too rich to deprive myself of.
(45:53):
I can dig it all.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Yeah, man, yeah, I was going to ask you about the.
Um, the bluegrass vocal thinghas always been fascinating to
me because there's just such athere's just it's.
There's a purity of voice andthe pitch totally there's never
like swooping up to the pitch,it's just just there.
And I'm just wondering how doesthat happen?
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Well, if you find out , if you'd let me know, I would
really appreciate it, becausethat is something that I
struggle with.
I keep thinking like one ofthese days I'm going to get out
from behind my own shadow andtake some vocal lessons from
someone who is really good at it, like it is that thing.
I think it's if I put myethnomusicological hat on and I
(46:44):
think about how mountain singingworks here in the Smoky
Mountains, for example, or howfield haulers work, or even the
Gaelic and Gaelic traditions inScotland and Ireland.
It's just the way, and a lot oftimes and I could be totally
off base here, no pun intended,but I think a lot of these songs
(47:10):
were, or the styles of thesesongs, the style of singing,
occurred in historical placeswhere they were accompanying
tasks, and so it wasn't aperformative thing as much as it
was a recitation.
And whenever you recitesomething, you do so in a
(47:33):
plainer speech until you startto take ownership of those words
, and then you begin toembellish it, and when you're
reading a poem that you reallycare about or that really speaks
to you, you start toincorporate what can only be
defined as musical elements.
There are pitch rises and falls, there are dynamics, there are
softer, there are louder.
There are different ways thatyou emote within the context of
(47:59):
a recitation and I think thatthat is probably why Appalachian
musics are so honest in theirdelivery and I try to do that.
There are people who do it withso much more nuance and skill
than I do, but what I do try tobring to it is as honest a vocal
(48:21):
sound and intent as I possiblycan.
And you're right, there's justnot a lot of melisma, little
turny embellishments, but whenthey are, they're very, very
clean, clear and deliberate.
There aren't a lot of scoops.
Unless there are scoops, it'sjust a very intentional way of
being unintentional.
Almost it's really hard toqualify the sound of Appalachian
(48:45):
singing.
Well it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
You're getting at that effortlessness, yes, and
that was one of the things forme it's like thinking about when
I would listen to when I was ayoung'un I was exposed to once I
got to college, you know, jimmyBryant, oh God, yeah.
And Joe Maphis, yes, and justthat alternate picking Totally,
(49:11):
you know, and they and just that, uh, alternate picking Totally,
you know, and they were justclean as a whistle.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
And it wasn't until and I was like, how could the
cause?
Every time I did I would tenseup.
You know, when I was doing myblues, playing or whatnot, I was
, everything was loosey, goosey,body language, everything loose
, you know, no problem.
And then as soon as I was goingto do this other stuff that was
not necessarily my originalwheelhouse I would tense up, you
know, and there would be this,you know, tensing up both left
(49:41):
and right hand.
And it wasn't until I saw thoseguys on YouTube of all things,
when you could actually lookthese guys up and see what.
And they're playing at some oldblack and white television
program and the look, the bodylanguage couldn't have been more
laid back.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Oh, I know.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
There was program and the look, the body language
couldn't have been more laidback and there was no tense.
Tenseness and I think it's thesame thing as you're talking
about with because of thisrecitation aspect of some of
those.
There's just an effortlessness,because it's just like, oh,
this is what I'm doing now, thisis what I've always done, and
not to say that there wasn'tpractice to get to that point,
but I think it never came from aposition of overthinking.
(50:17):
It maybe Does that make sense.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
No, it makes perfect sense.
And I think that's one of thegreat failings of musical
academia.
When you codify and this is notmeant to throw anyone under any
bus, but you know you have theABCs of jazz method, you know
you have a David Baker, jamieAebersold and the late great
Knoxvillian Jerry Coker, thesesort of really structured ways
(50:42):
of codifying what is primarilyan improvised music are very,
very useful to teach it, butthey're not necessarily useful
to install it in an innate wayand it becomes really, really
difficult this is the strugglethat all of us music educators
eventually encounter it becomesreally really difficult to
(51:03):
encourage that looseness andencourage that playfulness and
relaxation.
And so when it is presented toyou at such a young age and all
of the great grassers that Iknow, all of them encountered
the style of singing, the styleof playing at such an early age,
(51:25):
and I'm not saying that there'sno hope for those of us who try
to mutate ourselves later on inlife.
I still do that with the claw,hammer, banjo and Jesus, greg.
If you could hear how terribleI am at playing away in a manger
on the piano, literally, thebook is right there behind my
two, behind my bases over there.
(51:45):
It's, I'm serious, it's one,three, five left-hand first
position and see way in a manger.
Seriously, I'm so bad at pianoand it breaks my heart.
It's like, why didn't I do thiswhen I was a kid?
But anyway, um, yeah, if it was.
(52:07):
One of the things that I hope wefigure out one day, as as a, as
a species, is is how to installthe freedom while we install
the rules, right, right, and Idon't know the answer to it, man
, but, um, I don't know it.
I think it's the same, I think,when we study other kinds of
(52:28):
music that are non-western.
I think that really helps too.
I mean, god, listen to DerekTrucks play and you're like,
dude, your microtonal bends thatyou use if you're using a
tremolo bar or if you're usingyour fingers, yeah, to
manipulate string bends in suchspecific ways.
(52:51):
There is, you eventually get toa freedom when you get so
specific, I think and I don'tknow how to do it yet and I'll
let you know if I figure it out,but I know what you're saying.
I have no idea.
I have no idea what I just said.
That was such a terrible answer.
(53:11):
No, that's good.
That's good.
Speaker 1 (53:15):
But this whole idea of you know, of of effort and
it's really a hard thing toconvey to people because you
know you say, well, just take iteasy and not try so hard, but
in order to get to that pointyou've tried unbelievably hard,
totally man, I know, I know,right, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is
(53:36):
like that.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
I think it's really important to have other
vocations outside of music,because I think sometimes those
can give you permission to be alittle more playful with music
and try hard in new ways.
For me that's like fly fishing,Like more effort with a fly
fishing cast or more effort witha golf swing in no way results
(53:59):
in a better thing.
It does not produce a betterresult, right?
Right, Because what you do isyou start to introduce some sort
of herky-jerky thing thatinterrupts the whole transfer of
energy, either to a ball or toa fly line, and I haven't
figured out the rightcombinations of words that would
(54:21):
describe that in a musical way,but I think the same principles
are there.
It's probably all been writtenby George Lucas somewhere in
Frank Oz's Yoda voice, but it isthat there is no try kind of
thing and there is a thing thathappens.
(54:45):
I'm sure many listeners havedone the same thing that I have
done and gone down like TroyGrady, YouTube plunges, you know
, and watched you know, likepicking techniques.
And I've watched the EricJohnson video like 90 times and
I love it so much and it'smostly just because I love the
alchemy of whoa.
(55:06):
These are really simple fiveand six note pentatonic patterns
of whoa.
These are really simple fiveand six note pentatonic patterns
, but God, when you play them atspeed, live in concert.
The alchemy of that.
It sounds like such a thing.
It's so much richer than it iswhenever it's stripped down and
into its constituent parts.
The sound is it's like eating agreat piece of sourdough bread.
(55:27):
You know the ingredients andyou know the process, but, God,
you still have these explosionsin your mind from your taste
buds.
And so there's something aboutwhen you distill emotion down to
its purest iteration.
You can find freedom in thereeventually, and I guess
repetition factors into thatsomehow.
(55:48):
But surely the fastest way toget it is to watch a master of
it as often as possible.
That's the best thing I canrecommend to Tim when you're
seeking for, when you're seekingthat kind of fluidity, yes, yes
, I don't think there are verymany better examples of it,
(56:10):
especially in an improvisationalcontext, than the person
sitting opposite me on this Zoomtransmission.
I mean it.
I love at the Woodshed when wedo our artist concert.
I always like it when you andToby and Dylan go first, because
it gets me so fired up and Iwatched you guys and I watched
(56:31):
the abandon with which youperform and it makes me so much
less scared about messing up oneof mark letary's grooves or so
much less scared about singingsomething or forgetting the
third b section, which istotally different from the other
two.
In one of Andy Wood's songstunes Right, you know what I
(56:53):
mean.
Like you get out of the way ofthe result and you get into the
process, and that is the onlyway to be free is to be a
process-oriented person.
I think you focus on theprocess and then the result
takes care of itself.
It's the same thing I tellstudents.
It's the same thing I tell myteenage kids.
You know, I'm teaching my kidto mow the yard.
(57:15):
It's like, don't worry aboutwhat it looks like at the end of
it, Just keep the wheels inline with the line that you made
the last time.
Right, right, right.
It becomes a meditative thing.
You know what I mean.
Anyway, yeah, Anyway, yeah.
My opinions only folks, myopinions only.
Don't tell.
Speaker 1 (57:31):
Jeff Berlin, I said any of this.
Well, I hope we get to do someplaying again this year.
I was in Europe this year whenyou guys did the camp, so we'll
see what happens this year.
I don't know, my schedule withthe ensemble has been a little
crazy, but it's been a blast.
I mean the reason why I askedearlier.
Of course you're a youngerfellow than I am and my kids are
(57:55):
older, and once your kids getold enough, where they're
they're kind of out and aboutand doing their own thing then
you get a little bit more wiggleroom to go.
Well, maybe I just want to domy own thing.
You know what I mean, and umand so as a result, it's like
I'm realizing so many things ofbeing on the road doing my own
thing and that you just don'tknow unless you've really
(58:16):
immersed it.
And I don't regret any of thethings I did to get to this
point, because I wouldn't beable to do what I'm doing now.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
Exactly Regret is a useless emotion.
Speaker 1 (58:24):
Exactly, and I'm grateful for all those
opportunities.
But, good God, it's fun justgoing out and playing your own
thing, you know it's totallytotally it's.
You know, we're having fun.
Speaker 2 (58:35):
Yeah, Having said all that bullshit I did about you
know, I try to keep a balance,man, and I'd like to I get it.
Speaker 1 (58:40):
Believe me, I've cause.
I know exactly.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
It's like, honestly, what I want to do is I just want
to go sing my own songs inplaces where the fly fishing is
incredible.
So if anybody you know figuresout, exactly I just get to go to
like montana.
Montana and wyoming all thetime during the summer hit me up
and you never know you, you mayindeed manifest it, my good,
I'm trying, I'm trying, weshould, we should, uh, actually
(59:02):
properly talk just for a second,if you don't mind.
Great, we, we did.
You and I did meet at andywood's woodshed Guitar Camp.
That's correct, andy Wood hasbeen a friend of mine.
He lives here in Knoxville.
He's another bluegrass kidalong.
We're 40-year-old bluegrasskids now.
But Andy has a guitar camp thathappens yearly in Crossville,
(59:26):
tennessee.
Excuse me, and I am now themusic director for that.
I stepped into Adam Nitti'sincredibly, huge, incredible
shoes because he couldn't do thesecond year of the camp and I
succeeded him in the bassplaying position and that camp
is still very young and we'refiguring out lots of different
(59:48):
ways to improve it each year.
And you have been a featuredclinician there every year,
except for maybe the last one,and we have folks like the
regular clinicians include, ofcourse, andy and yourself and
Andy Timmons and Mark Letary andBrent Mason is there every year
and Brent Mason.
(01:00:09):
Brent Mason is there every yearand we've had Tom Quayle a
couple of times and Ben Eller,who a lot of folks will know
from his incredible YouTubechannel.
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
I need to get Ben on this program as well.
Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Yeah, talk about a great music educator.
Ben is really great atcodifying principles.
Codifying principles right,without rigidity, without
installing rigidity at the sametime.
You know what I mean?
uh, and then, like we've hadfeatured folks like joe
bonamassa and robin forge anderic johnson, and we just had
steve morse this last year and,and the setting is incredible,
(01:00:47):
it's a lot beside this pastorallake that I fish in the mornings
and then we go teach andrehearse in the afternoons.
And it is not a guitar camp,greg, it's a music camp.
And that's one thing SteveMoore said.
He said I've never been to aplace where cats were just like
talking about how to make thesong better as opposed to how to
make the shred better.
(01:01:07):
Right, right right right.
And I love that.
How to make the shred better,right, right, right, right.
And I love that.
And we all sit and we eatdinner together with the campers
and it's just a reallyapproachable, cool thing.
So if you're interested in that, just Google the Woodshed
Guitar Experience, correct.
And we're really like we haveconversations after that camp
every year.
I just had one with Randy, oneof the primary financial movers
(01:01:28):
and shakers with that camp everyyear.
We just I just had one withRandy, one of the one of the
primary financial um movers andshakers with that camp, and he's
like well, what do we what fromyour vantage point, daniel?
What do we need to dodifferently next year?
And I love that.
That's such a lovely, lovelyapproach, again, a process based
approach to putting on a reallyunique thing.
And so, um, I just want to Iknow there's a lot of guitar
(01:01:48):
players hanging out- oh, yeah,absolutely and listening.
So please check out the woodshed.
Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
It's really really cool it's good times and the
food's good too, which is it'sgood it is, and and it, yeah,
it's cool yeah, and I think thatone one thing especially great,
in addition to all the thingsyou just mentioned, is the fact
that, uh, in some of these othercamps there is really kind of a
us and them mentality, with theclinician slash artist versus
(01:02:19):
the peeps, and I mean there'salways some good interaction in
all the camps, but this camp inparticular, you're just hanging
out with people all the time,which is great.
Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I mean, boundaries are good.
Right, you need to have a, youneed to have time to compose
yourself, maybe before or aftera performance, or you need to
have time when you can just letyour hair down and and scream at
somebody about how frustratedyou are about the way you just
played Tom Quayle's song andmaybe maybe you don't want the
person who just paid asignificant amount of money to
(01:02:47):
be there.
You don't want them to hearthat because you don't want them
to feel like their experiencehas not been a pristine one.
But at the same time, like youjust said, the accessibility for
the folks that are there tolearn and I always learn just
ass loads every time I'm there,you know, in watching my peers
(01:03:08):
work and in watching the folkswho attend the camp as campers.
They are watching their ownexplosions go off, their own
eureka moments.
It's rewarding for everybodythere, you know Right, and it's
a good thing.
Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
It is a good thing and there's a Bucky's right's
right at the off-ramp atCrossville, you can get some
delicious cuisines.
Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Speaking of Martin Harley, can you imagine he came
over for a US tour and I tookhim to a Buc-ee's.
Can you imagine a person fromthe UK experiencing pulling into
a Buc-ee's the first time whenTom Quayle first?
Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
arrived the first year he came in, we had just
introduced ourselves.
Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
We didn't really, and me and Dylan and Toby took him
in the gristle missile and we'relike we're taking you someplace
, and he was astounded.
Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
Now, every time I go to one, I always snap a little
picture and send it to him.
Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Yeah, yeah, he almost tuned his guitar in fourths.
Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
I like to say it's all that's great and horrible
about America in one fell swoop.
Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
Dude, that is so accurate.
There is not a single thing inBuc-ee's that doesn't have sugar
in it.
The lettuce has sugar in it?
Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
I'm pretty sure it's incredible.
Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Yeah, man, exactly correct.
I wanted to send a hello along,uh, from roscoe beck.
Uh, he was in town and uh, witheric johnson a few months ago
we had dinner.
Like eric was like, no, no, yougot to meet roscoe you're
having.
He's a major hero of mine, gregroscoe's, my boy, I mean I know,
I know you guys are close andthat's roscoe is one of the
(01:04:46):
kindest people I've everencountered and he was
immediately come here and he gotme like like were open, they
were going to start in like 45minutes and he's like on stage,
he turns his rig on, he's likeplay this, play this, check this
out, cause I you know, yeah,I'm going to play a Roscoe Beck
bass the original Fender versionof it.
You know I used to lust after inthe Fender catalog by the lamp
(01:05:10):
light when I was in high schooland he was just so, so kind and
sweet and we sent text messagesback and forth, the same with
Eric and anyway, it's been sogreat to get to know more of the
folks in the community thatfolks like you and Timmons and
Andy Wood you guys really reallylike fan the flames of
(01:05:31):
collaborative music exchange andI think that's really really
cool.
So thanks for me you didn'tknow that I was, but I was
dropping your name real hard andthat outcome I got to have
dinner with Roscoe Beck, one ofthe reasons anyway.
So I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
Well, I'm glad that turned out.
Yeah, he's a gentleman and ascholar, oh my God.
Well, I'm glad that turned out.
Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Yeah, he's a gentleman and a scholar.
Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
Oh, my God, as are you, my good man.
It was an absolute pleasuregetting to talk with you today.
Likewise, I'm honoredEverything that you do and it's
always fun hanging out with youand I hope we get to do that
again in person and do somemusic in the not-too-distant
future.
Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
I'm so flattered to be among the mighty gristles.
Grist to be among the mighty umgristles, gristlers, gristlers,
yes, gristlin, gristlin throughthe great whistle.
I'm trying to find whistleanalogies.
Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
I like them all yeah, alright, my friend.
Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
Thanks so much.
You have a good uh, christmasis coming up, you have a great
holiday season and let the goodtimes roll, and hopefully I will
see you in the not-too-distantfuture here in 2025.
Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
Thanks, greg, appreciate you man.
Hi to Dylan, hi to Toby,likewise my friend.
Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
Take it easy, have a good one.
Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
See you.
Speaker 1 (01:06:36):
Bye-bye.
Well, thanks for tuning in,ladies and gentlemen, to another
episode of Chewing the Gristle.
We certainly do appreciate youstopping by.
Make sure you tell your friendsall about us.
I think they might enjoythemselves.
So thanks again for tuning inand we'll see you next time.
Ladies and gentlemen, can you believe it?
It's already time for seasonsix of Chewing the Gristle with
yours truly Greg Cox.
So many delightfulconversations to look forward to
.
We'll talk about music.
Yeah, sure, but you know whatelse we're going to talk about.
Anything that comes to mind, sostay tuned.
We'll talk about music.
Yeah, sure, but you know whatelse we're gonna talk about.
Anything that comes to mind, sostay tuned.
We got some good ones for you.
(00:29):
Chewin' the Gristle, season six.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank youfor tuning in for another
installment of Chewin' theGristle with yours truly Gregory
Cochrie.
We've got the mighty DanielKimbrough, a buddy of mine, a
bass player extraordinaire.
You've seen him with JerryDouglas.
(00:50):
He's on Clapton Records.
The guy gets all over the place, but he's also a very talented
singer-songwriter in theAppalachian tradition.
He corrected me, I used to sayAppalachian, but it's
Appalachian.
You know that.
Ladies and gentlemen, this weekChewing the Gristle with Daniel
Kimbrough.
Come on, ladies and gentlemen,it's time for yet another season
(01:15):
of Chewing the Gristle and I'mhonored and pleased to have our
first guest of this season bethe majestic Daniel Kimbrough,
musician, extraordinaire, doublebass thumping, angelic singing,
cool songwriting, doggone it,and just a cool cat in general.
(01:37):
You've seen him with JerryDouglas.
He's on everything from you,just name it.
He's even on the latest EricClapton record.
It's crazy, it's crazy, it youjust name it.
He's even on the latest EricClapton record it's crazy, it's
crazy, it's just it's crazy.
But here we are communicatingvia the inner Google.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Daniel, how the heck are you?
I am fine.
I have had only a couple ofexistential crises this morning.
So for a Monday in the year ofour Greg 2024, that's pretty
good.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yes, I like it yeah, man.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Um, I'm just lamenting how much cooler your
lighting and studio scene is inour.
I guess your podcast isn'tnecessarily video-y, but I'm
looking at it via the internet,as you said we like to tease
people with, uh, having to usetheir imaginations.
I think that I think that's forthe best, I think so too.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You know they're spoiled.
They get to see everything allthe time, and for this podcast
they can only imagine what istranspiring.
A hundred percent Now.
Where are you this morning?
Now, do you live in Knoxvilleproper?
I do.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, I am in North Knoxville, tennessee, in my
house, which is just fine withme.
Yes, yeah, you know, you and Ispend a lot of time in hotels
and in airplanes and it's niceto have some time at home, buddy
.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It is indeed Now.
Are you home for the remainderof the year through the holidays
?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
More or less.
I have a few Christmas gigswith an esteemed colleague,
another, andy.
You and I have some Andyfriends in common we do.
This guy is an incrediblefiddler and mandol-er and he's
(03:26):
in the bluegrass scene and hisname is Andy Leftwich and he
plays with Ricky Skaggs andmyriad other killers of the
acoustic ilk, and so I amjoining him for a few Christmas
gigs with his bluegrass outfitand that'll be really, really
fun.
And then, yeah, I'm home untillate December.
(03:50):
Excuse me, it is December.
I'm home until late January.
Pretty much.
There's a few things here andthere, but no touring per se
until later in January.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
It sounds like we have similar things, to look
forward to the gig here andthere until the end of January,
when the road beckons againTotally.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
It happens.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
So you've been up to all kinds of activities this
year, not to mention or not, theleast of which is this new
record of yours where you'resinging, of course, your
glorious pristine voice Awshucks, and very cool.
Your turn of phrase is mostdelightful, my friend.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Oh man, well, that means you've listened to it,
which humbles me to no end.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Thanks, greg, I have indeed, I listened to it when I
was in Europe, cool, and then,in preparation for our gathering
here again, I also listened toit once again, thank you and I
enjoyed it immensely, as well asthe record you did with Martin
Harley, which has some nicestuff on it as well.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Thank you.
Yeah, so Martin Harley is aslide guitar cat from England.
He's actually Welsh, but he andanother friend of ours, sam
Lewis, and myself have workedquite a lot together.
Friend of ours, sam Lewis andmyself have worked quite a lot
together and, uh, martin and Samhave become dear friends of
mine and have been really,really encouraging of my efforts
.
Um, away from the the the sideperson thing.
(05:14):
Uh, you know, uh, I grew up ina family folk band and and so
songwriting was always, um, Idon't know, we just we talked
about it a lot on car rides oraround meals and stuff like that
.
We were talking about folkslike Bob Dylan and Townes Van
Zandt and numerous otherluminaries Warren Zevon, steve
(05:39):
Earle, whomever and so there areall of that sort of what would
now today be called Americana,and I always sort of had one
foot in in the Appalachianderived musics and then one foot
in the rock and roll or kind ofother side of the family tree.
It's all.
(05:59):
It's all the same sort of bluesderived stuff.
You know, I'm not telling youanything.
And then going to school, but Ialways had had buddies who were
really into progressive rockand stuff like that too.
So I just, I don't know man, Idon't think there's any rules.
I don't try to stay in anylanes, I just try to do, do the
thing that sounds fun and try touse that to pay the utility
(06:21):
bill at the end of the month orthe beginning or whenever the
hell that comes indeed.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah, so the lyric matter on this, on this latest
record of yours uh, how much isautobiographical and how much is
?
Just uh observing from uh ararefied vantage point.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, I would say mostly the latter, greg.
But to contextualize for thelistener, a lot of murder
ballads are happening here andthat is something very much
within the Appalachianvernacular Scotch-Irish music.
We tend to apply happy melodiesto very dire circumstances and
(07:13):
a lot of times thosecircumstances are telling of
unrequited love.
Yeah, and so when I wrote thesongs for this record, I was
just in kind of this mode of ofof honing in on those kinds of
things.
And there's some historicalstuff in there too.
(07:36):
The first, the first track,which is called Loyston
L-O-Y-S-T-O-N is, is a favoriteof a lot of folks which is
really humbling, and actuallyit's on the new Cherry Douglas
Band record as well, and that isa true story.
It's about one of the inundatedtowns.
We have the Tennessee ValleyAuthority, lakes around here
(07:56):
around East Tennessee and lakesall over the world.
When we build dams, towns gounderwater a lot of times, and
so that's what that song isabout.
And then other ones are more orless just embellishments of my
imagination, yes, and thecomment I get most when folks
listen to it is like wow, theseare really cool songs, are you
(08:16):
okay?
Which you know, I think.
Films are written and poems arewritten and paintings are
painted and it's just a spacethat you're in at the time.
I would take this opportunityto publicly say I harbor no one
any ill will.
It's just you know where I grewup and the kind of music that I
(08:39):
grew up playing.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yes, the second tune, keep On Livin, yeah, which is
the one where you uh grab thetitle of the record from.
If I'm not mistaken, that'sright damn, you really listen to
this.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Thanks, greg, my pleasure um that one might be
someone might think is a littleautobiographical.
Yeah, so my mom and dad theirfirst.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Their first concert.
My mom and dad, born in reallyrural places in east tennessee
and their first concert my momand dad, born in really rural
places in east tennessee andtheir first concert was a van
halen concert.
They they skipped church onenight and drove up to knoxville
um from points east and andcaught van halen and their last.
Their marriage lasted about aslong as the first iteration of
van halen did, so that's prettycool.
(09:21):
Um, so that that is a heavilyembellished um, uh, uh tale.
I got you, yeah, but you knowthat's.
That's the thing we get to do,isn't it?
Uh, it's the same thing as whenyou're taking a solo.
You know it's.
It's like you.
You get to manipulate the plothowever you want to, you know as
(09:42):
long as you're intentionalabout it, it all counts, it's
all valid.
So so, um, uh, I guess you couldsay um, what is that?
That?
Uh, that disclaimer that yousee in films all the time?
You know the names of the?
Uh, the characters have beenchanged to protect the innocent
yeah yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.
So it's kind of like that, youknow, but it's semi
(10:04):
autobiographical for or, excuseme, semi biographical from the
vantage point of my folks.
So, yeah, yes, yeah, I don'tknow how many, how many
songwriter folks you really haveon.
I mean, I've listened to a lotof your, your gristle casts, but
I don't really know how manyfolks you have on that are, that
are songwriter.
It's really cool of you to totake such an interest in the
(10:25):
subject matter man.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Well, it's uh, it, uh , it fluctuates.
You know, I I've always talkedto people like my my son is is
less inclined, uh, just becauseof his tastes and so on and so
forth, like when I talked to himabout how I like Bob Dylan and
so on and so forth.
You're talking about Dylan,your son, yeah, yeah, talking
(10:49):
about Bob Dylan with my son,dylan Cool, and I always
describe how, when you havesomeone who has that
connectivity with lyricalcontact and the delivery which I
was experiencing when I waslistening to your stuff same
(11:29):
thrill out of connecting withthat intention and delivery as I
do with a great improvisationalthing on guitar or whatever the
instrument might be.
Totally You're taking in andthat doesn't happen all the time
because a lot of times you knowespecially and this is just my
personal take, but withAmericana stuff it kind of gets
muddled a little bit.
Where it's not, I'm not beingtaken.
Uh, with the um, the lyrics inthe same way as in the music
(11:54):
doesn't quite entrance me thesame way you know what I mean.
It's kind of a weird thing forme personally, um, but there is
a thing where you get taken inand and you have have that
experience and um and uh, yoursdefinitely took me into that, oh
man.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Thank you very much.
That's a high praise, thank you, I agree a hundred percent.
I when, when, when you'reimprovising, you're
spontaneously composing.
And that thing that I wassaying about, about the plot, I
was touring last year with anincredible songwriter and also
an incredible instrumentalist.
Her name is Sarah Jarose, she'sfrom Texas and she was talking,
(12:34):
I was saying, after the gig.
You know how, after a gig, youget back to the green room and
everybody's on that adrenalinewave, but at the same time
you're extolling all of themusical virtue, virtues of your
bandmates while at the same timejust shitting all over your own
and and.
And I was just like, oh, my god, sorry about that chord that I
(12:56):
played the wrong, complete wrongnote in the 89th measure of the
14th song of the third whatever, and and sarah was saying, oh,
I said to her, god, that was agreat, great solo on whatever
the tune was.
And, uh, she said, oh, man, Iwasn't sure, like I felt like I
lost the plot, you know, and Ithought that was such a cool
(13:18):
comment and it's like, yeah,when you're, when you're really
in it, when you're in thismoment, this moment, right here,
with a neck of an instrument inyour hands you're zoomed out in
a way that allows you tomarionette the strings, as it
were, and with intent, andthat's the whole goal are the
(13:47):
kinds of things we talk about alot of times with the campers at
Andy Wood's guitar camp, whereyou and I met.
You know like you can talkabout different grips and
different shapes and differentscale, chord relationships and
all those kinds of things, butat the end of the day you have
to you know that Charlie Parkerthing, you know forget all that
and just play, but ideallylyrically, melodically,
(14:08):
thematically.
You have a larger Google Earthvantage point that you're really
trying to maintain through thewhole thing and I try really
hard when I'm writing, whetherI'm writing prose kind of things
for folks on my email list, orwhether I'm writing music, and
that can be instrumental orlyrical I'm trying to maintain
(14:29):
that vantage point and that'ssomething that I definitely hear
in your playing, when you'replaying solos, when you're
playing, you know your music isinstrumental mostly, I assume
you know, having heard the CockMarshall Trio often, like you,
toby and Dylan there is such arespect for whoever the person
(14:52):
with the microphone, as it were,is at the moment.
There's such a profoundemphasis on building an arc and
I just see all of that stuff asplot lines and character arcs.
Man, and that's the lifetimegoal is hopefully you set your
look what I can do aside and youuse what you can do as fodder
(15:18):
for those character arcs, asopposed to just a showcase of
technique.
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Exactly correct.
So you grew up in a musicalfamily?
Yes, and you actually had.
So the name of the band wasMountain Soul, if.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
I'm not mistaken.
Yeah, man, my mom and dad, mydad was the real driver behind
the the ambitional is ambitionala word behind the ambitional um
aspects of that group.
In other words, he was runningthe website and booking the gigs
and driving the winnebago, asit were, and and mom and I and
(16:01):
dad too, I don't know it wasjust always an opportunity to
listen to music together andthen we would try to sing songs
together and stuff.
And I started out as a guitarplayer and I just eventually
realized that the cover band Iwas playing in as a middle
school kid and as a high schoolkid, that the bass playing was
(16:22):
an opportunity to mitigate someof the skill gaps that I had on
the six string neck, and so Igrew up doing that.
But I was also really an activeband kid.
I got into the school band inthe fifth grade and was playing
(16:42):
trombone in the fifth grade andwas playing trombone, which was
fortuitous because we shared thesame sort of range for the most
part as the electric bass.
I taught myself where the E'swere on the electric bass and
then started teaching myself toread the bass clef.
And then I saw the double bassprofessor from the University of
(17:02):
Tennessee.
They were doing an outreachprogram and they came to a local
community center and I saw themplay.
And I saw Rusty Holloway, whowould become my eventual bass
teacher, play the upright bassand I thought, whoa, that's a
whole nother paradigm.
And then I witnessed EdgarMeyer play with a bow and sort
(17:25):
of do very bluegrass, fiddlykinds of things.
And then that opened my mind tothe classical realm, because I
think this happens with a lot ofus, where you check out
someone's playing, or maybeyou're checking out the liner
notes, and then you want to knowwhat else that cat played on,
and then it turns out you'relistening to a thing that you
wouldn't have otherwise pickedout of the CD bin.
(17:46):
Maybe I'm dating myself here,but you wouldn't have chosen to
maybe check that album out hadthat cat not been on that record
, and it's a really greatvehicle for discovery.
So, yeah, the musical family inthe folk realm really ended up
pushing me into really uniqueplaces, and I think that's one
of the cool things aboutacoustic music is that it can
(18:10):
lead you down some reallyinteresting branches of
different trees.
You know that you didn't, yeah,you know to abuse the wood
analogy.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
So then, growing up in that musical family, it was
not unusual, obviously, to thinkof that as a viable livelihood
and something that you would goin.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Or was it?
Speaker 1 (18:32):
kind of a little bit of both.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
It wasn't.
My folks were just never, everdiscouraging or like caution
flag waving.
It was never that.
It was always like, yeah, okay,that's what you want to do.
Cool, you know, we'll try tofigure out a way to buy the
slightly nicer trombone.
We'll try to find a betterelectric bass, because this one
(18:55):
has action inches high and and,um, you know, and and dad was
really good, like if we were.
I remember one time inparticular we went to play a
local radio station which had adaily.
It was a bluegrass-y kind offolk, very small low end of the
(19:18):
radio dial in the 80s kind ofradio station in the, the 89.9
wdvx, uh, and they were based ina camper in clinton, tennessee,
and and so you would go in andyou would play local licks at
six was the show and uh, uh, wewould play our, our songs, some
of which were original and somewere bluegrass and and folk
(19:40):
classics, and then, um, if wewere around oxoxville a lot of
times, dad would would sort ofparlay that into taking us
somewhere.
One time he took us straightfrom there to a, a concert down
here at the world's uh, excuseme, at the, the uh chill howie
park where the state fair isalways held in knoxville, and it
(20:01):
was uh, susan tedeschi, susantedeschichi, opening up for
Buddy Guy.
And then the main act was BBKing and I was like.
I remember having this moment.
Then I was like this is cool, Ijust played a bluegrass gig in
a camper and I was in highschool.
I just played a bluegrass gigin a camper and now I'm checking
(20:22):
out this person who I didn'tknow at the time, in Susan Susan
, and then of course, buddy Guyand of course BB King, and it
was just wild.
And then another concert wewere checking out Bela Fleck and
Tony Rice after you know what Imean them a lot of credit for
being really deliberate aboutexposing us to music, me and my
(20:45):
two younger brothers, withoutsaying this is good and this is
bad or this is valid and this isnot, uh, hip enough.
You know what I mean?
Because they were just.
They were just such listenyfolks from mom was always
blasting whatever sting had justdone, or old police stuff, or
she was, she was just athilariously loud volumes pumping
(21:08):
classical music through thehouse, and then and then, and
then dad would come home and itwould switch over to the Stanley
brothers or flattened Scruggs,you know, or or or, or whatever,
and and so it was just thatkind of thing.
And they were professional andare professional musicians at
different points of their lives,but for the most part they had
(21:30):
other means of income and I waskind of the next generation that
tried to figure out how toactually make that thing.
Be the whole thrust.
Yeah, yeah, I'll let you knowhow it's going.
Figure it out, be the whole,the whole thrust.
Yeah, yeah, I'll let you knowhow it's going.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Figure it out.
Well, as far as the bluegrassthing is concerned, I've been
always fascinated by thisbecause, um, when you grow up in
that, at least exposed to thatschool of playing, yeah, um,
there there is a songbook, am Iright?
There's?
There's like a group ofstandards, what, what would you
ask?
You know, uh, the quantity ofthese tunes and what you know
(22:14):
what I mean it's like?
What is the?
What is the bluegrass songbooklike in terms of learning curve
and quantity of tunes, and whatare the tunes that, if someone
wanted to, you know, enter therealm, yeah, of, of bluegrass?
What would you suggest as, likethis, uh, a quantity of
standards to start off with yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
I think it's very similar to when you start
learning blues or jazz.
We have, we have these certainI don't know half dozen tunes
that you're really expected Like.
Anybody can call them at anytime and you would know them.
The nice thing about from amusic I guess you could say from
a composition or a theory pointof view is that bluegrass stuff
(22:57):
is really approachable becauseit's pretty bluesy in the way
that it's 1-4 chord kind oforiented.
You know what I mean.
And so, um, and and and a lot ofthat is because that there's so
much crossover between bluesmusic and country music and
bluegrass music and those kindof, uh, inner, inner weave, um,
(23:22):
but you know, like I'm thinkinglike if you, if you took any of
the stanley brothers lexiconcatalog, or flattened scrugs and
like a little girl of mine intennessee, or salty dog blues,
or hot corn, cold corn, or um,you know, uh, you, you start to,
you start to know these songsand there are so many
(23:45):
instrumentals that are expectedto be known, like, on the guitar
side, blackberry Blossom and onthe fiddle side, or Billy in
the low ground, or, or, um, redhaired boy, and then, uh, you
(24:09):
know, daybreak and Dixie on thebanjo side or foggy mountain
breakdown come on you know, oreven the, the, the theme song
from the Beverly hillbillies.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
You know what I mean.
These are.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
these are all things that are really really pillar
pieces in the bluegrass lexicon.
So there are myriad resourcesonline.
It's not unlike jazz stuff.
There are playalongs all overYouTube.
There are bluegrass playlistson whatever digital platform you
(24:43):
choose to stream from, uh, forwhich we will not be paid.
Well, and anyway you, uh, youcan find these things, and there
are far more qualified listersum than than I am, but it's very
accessible and it's a lovelyprimer for anyone who wants to
try to get into music that ismaybe more harmonically or
(25:05):
melodically advanced and I'mspeaking of jazz here now.
And it's just because when youget these, you know, at a
bluegrass jam it's not uncommonfor someone to maybe not know
this particular version of thisparticular song, or maybe
someone adds a chord change inthat, someone else doesn't, and
so you hear numbers called a lotRight.
Go to the four there instead ofthe six, go to the four there
(25:25):
instead of the six, or go to thetwo there instead of the four,
or go to the minor two insteadof the five, or it's a minor two
, five, one in something like aDavid Grissman tune or whatever.
And so suddenly, because of anexperiential learning situation
where you're at a jam sessionand it's presented in a fun way,
(25:49):
you're suddenly familiar withhow maybe a little bit of a
number system with music works.
Right, then next thing you knowyou understand what a two, five
one is.
And then someone's teaching you, um, take the a train, and
suddenly that's not all thatdifferent from another Flatt
Scruggs tune.
Or like you're doing a 6-2-5-1,which is Salty Dog Blues, or
(26:10):
Don't Let your Deal Go Down fromthe Flatt Scruggs catalog.
And then suddenly you'rethinking about, oh wait, what is
a dominant seventh chord andwhat is a minor two chord?
And then next thing you knowyou're playing the jazz music,
the jazz music.
Yeah.
So anyway, I feel like I feellike it's a really great vehicle
(26:33):
for understanding those kindsof things.
And I think you can look atplayers like gosh, jerry Reed or
Chet Atkins you had one of myfavorite episodes of yours of
the podcast with Steve Warner,oh yeah, and these you know,
tommy Emanuel, my friend, thesecertified official guitarists,
(26:55):
you know these cats are allheavily schooled, and maybe even
primarily schooled in that kindof country roots music.
And even Bill Monroe I meanBill Monroe's mandolin licks are
so Robert Johnson-y it's noteven funny, man Right.
Even Chuck Berry stuff you hearthat in mandolin playing all
(27:18):
the time Sure.
So I just feel like thebluegrass thing is such a great
primer for so many differentkinds of music, especially if
you play an instrument that isin the rhythm section, like a
rhythm guitar would be inbluegrass or the bass would be.
And I think there's probably nobetter example of that than,
(27:40):
like our mutual friend, how wemet Andy Wood.
You know he's an incrediblebluegrass mandolin player and
acoustic guitar player and thatwas really how he's from Western
North Carolina, that's how thatcat got introduced to music,
and the melodic and harmonicconcepts of that music are
presented in such a casual waythat it sort of demystifies and
(28:03):
unscarifies music in a way thatis really really approachable,
and I think that's a healthy,healthy thing for young brains.
And so I just encourage anybodywho wants to try to get a
handle on melody against a chordsound to check out bluegrass
music.
You know those fiddle tunes andthose guitar tunes and what
(28:27):
does the melody sound like andwhy do you play that chord with
that melody note?
And next thing you know you'replaying giant steps and next
thing, you know you're playingGiant Steps.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yes, well, speaking of kind of the transition to
learning more sophisticatedmusical concepts and so on and
so forth I'm interested in.
You know, you did go touniversity, went to University
of Tennessee, right?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
That's right.
Yeah, great jazz school there.
So I was curious as to thattransition, because it might be
interesting for folk to kind ofget their mind around someone
who is already from a familybackground already kind of doing
music as a living.
Yeah, and I'm sure most of thepeople that you went to school
(29:13):
with were not from that.
That's true Rarified vantagepoint I've used that twice now
in our conversation.
So I'm interested is how yougot your mind around that in
terms of saying, okay, well, Iwant to learn a little bit more
about what's going on here,because what was your goal at
that point?
Because you were already kindof doing what most of those
(29:34):
people, let's be honest, thatare going to music school will
never end up doing uh, a lot ofthem, right, because that's just
the way the business works,it's a good point.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
I haven't really ever thought of it that way, Greg.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
So, um, how was that transition and what were your
goals going to that school?
Um, what did you want to getout of it?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I think much in the same way we were talking about
how a name on a liner note canlead you down a new rabbit hole.
It was the same way for me withmusic school, in that when I
saw Rusty Holloway playing theupright bass at the age that I
was which was maybe, like Idon't know, a junior in high
(30:16):
school that instrument seemed sounwieldy and weird and
unapproachable from like a justoh well, I'd played guitar
before and it's like, okay, well, the electric bass neck makes
sense, but this verticallyoriented, fretless bass neck
that is, you know, feet long inin in scale, seems so weird.
(30:40):
And and we got one and startedmessing around on it and and it
was like, okay, it kind of makessense, but this hurts, and like
they're like how do you playthis thing consistently in tune
once you start venturing up theneck and and and and um.
(31:01):
So really learning to play thedouble bass I had never really
seen it happen before, apartfrom in some videos and and
seeing you know the cat on thelawrence welk show or whatever
on PBS playing one.
So that was the vehicle to goto music school, because I knew
(31:22):
that teacher and I knew that Iwas supposed to go to college
and get the hell out ofMorristown, tennessee somehow.
So it was just that simple.
It didn't ever occur to me thatthere were already music schools
that were teaching roots musicand bluegrass, and there were
fiddle camps and guitar campsand mandolin camps and even even
bass camps.
I didn't know that those thingsexisted and so it was just like
this is my way to immersemyself in this and figure out
(31:45):
how this unwieldy instrument canbe better.
And if I'm gonna make a livingas a bass player, surely I'm
gonna have to be able to do morethan one thing pretty well.
And so when I started studyingwith Rusty, he was really
adamant about that.
He's like you're going todouble major in the symphonic
(32:06):
musics and in the jazz stuff andyou're going to work on the
electric bass as though it werethe double bass as far as a
pedagogical technical approach.
It were the double bass as faras a pedagogical technical
approach, and you're going toapply the grid electric bass
system to the upright bass.
And so it was just honestly,the whole impetus behind music
(32:27):
school was to really get my headaround the things I didn't
understand intrinsically abouthow the double bass worked and
about how jazz worked and howyou know like, uh, you know like
, you get to a point inbluegrass music or in folk music
where a minor two to a dominant, five to a one chord makes
(32:48):
sense.
But like, yeah, but there'ssomething spicy in that one
chord.
It's like oh, it was a majorseven, oh, it's a major seven
with the.
There's a sharp 11 in there too.
You're getting a nice lydiansound in there.
Man, whoa, you know.
And then you start getting somealtered sounds and it's like oh
, my gosh, that we're speaking awhole, a whole new accent of
the same old language here.
Uh, and and and anyway.
(33:10):
So it it became a vehicle toincur ass loads of financial
debt while learning a lot.
It's just an opportunity to forme.
I didn't do college in thetraditional sense.
It took me forever to graduatebecause I took no core classes.
(33:31):
I just took so many music hours.
I get that.
Core classes, I just took somany music hours.
I get that.
I mean, I just immersed myself.
I played in every ensemble thatI could so that I would not
have to practice by myself asoften as I should have done, but
anyway, maybe that's along-winded, convoluted answer
to the question, but it's thesame thing as the liner notes,
greg.
Like, okay, if I'm going to dothis base thing, I'm going all
(33:55):
the way in as far as I know howto go in in my current
circumstances here in EastTennessee, I'm going to
Knoxville and I'm studying thebase, and that's why you know
Right.
And so you did get a degree.
I did Right.
Before I finished school theystopped awarding two degrees for
the amount of hours in thedifferent courses that I took.
(34:16):
So I'm a little bitter aboutthat still these many years on.
But yeah, I have a degree instrings music with an emphasis
in studio music and jazz.
Oh nice.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yes, yeah, which is, I can tell you exactly how much
it's worth actually.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
But I'm not going to yes, Well luckily I went to
college in a time where it waspretty doggone cheap, which is
good, cool, that's cool, that'sgreat Greg.
Times have changed a little bit, but hey, what are you going to
do?
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah, but I mean, as you say, there are so many more
ways Experiential learning is.
You can't put a financial valueon that.
Getting out, being in thecircumstance, going to a jam
session, going on the road andplaying the same licks over and
(35:15):
over, listening to the samealbums over and over until you
can't stand it anymore and itjust becomes a part of your
musical DNA.
Those are crucial things to do,and that's what you did.
That's what I continue to tryto do.
Yeah, this is the way, as theMandalorian might say.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
We interrupt this regularly scheduled gristle
infested conversation to give aspecial shout out to our friends
at fishman transducers, makersof the greg caulk signature
fluence gristle tone pickup setcan you dig that?
And our friends at wildwoodguitars of lewisville, colorado,
bringing the heat in the shadowof the Rocky Mountains.
(35:56):
Now let me ask you this You'reliving in the mighty Knoxville.
That's pretty doggone close toNashville and through your
experiences with who you've allplayed with, there's probably
not the necessity to relocate tomore of a quote-unquote music
(36:17):
town.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
But would you agree with that?
To an extent I agree with that.
There's definitely some FOMO.
Sometimes that comes up andrears its ugly head in my
subconscious, but the world issmaller than it used to be in
terms of travel logistics and interms of recording technology.
(36:39):
I mean, for example, we'redoing this, of course, over the
internet, as you said, uh, doingthis interview, but, um,
nashville is, depending uponwhat part of town, between two
and a half hours and three hoursaway for me and I, uh, I gain
an hour across the time zones,and so it just has become this
work commute.
I, I consider myself based outof Nashville and I live in
(37:01):
Knoxville.
That's how often I'm there twoor three times a month, usually.
Um, it'll go over again nextweek, uh, for a quick, quick
recording session with some,some killers, uh and um, some
killers.
And it's funny.
I used to be really in my headabout not having tried Nashville
, but it turned out that ourfamily life started earlier than
(37:27):
we intended it to.
My wife is an educator.
She is a school teacher of20-some years here in Knoxville.
She teaches band.
Actually, she teaches beginningband.
Oh, no, kidding, bless her.
Yeah, yeah, she's incredible.
She's an incredible educatorand she does lots of clinics
where she's hired to go todifferent places, different
cities, and educate kids whohave auditioned for maybe like
(37:48):
an honor band or something likethat, and so she had a good
thing going, and then we had ourdaughter, and then we had our
son and it was just like youknow what, knoxville is a more
effective place to live for ourfamily lifestyle, and so we're
going to do it here, and peoplegive me credit for figuring out
(38:12):
how to make it work, which isreally, really sweet, but I
honestly just feel like I justsaid yes to as many things as
possible.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Yes, I've said those words myself.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yeah, and so I live here.
I do quite a few remoterecording sessions here at my
house on electric bass or onupright bass, especially double
bass, doghouse bullfiddle.
And then, yeah, I get onairplanes and tour buses in
Nashville and that's the way itis, and away you go and away I
(38:46):
go.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Let's talk about the balance between obviously
playing with Jerry Douglas it's,it's an awesome thing.
I mean, it's a musicallyoutstanding.
You know he's obviously gotlegendary status and so on and
so forth.
But now you find yourself doingthis more original material,
(39:08):
yeah and um.
And I'm wondering do you alwaysforesee the necessity of being
the sideman, or are you at somepoint going you know what, I'm
going to do my own thing and nomatter what that takes, I'm
(39:29):
interested if that's enteredyour thought processes.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yeah, I don't think I consider those things
proprietary.
I don't sort them into thosetwo piles.
I just see it all as feedingthe music portfolio.
I think a music career in 2020,whatever must be a diverse one,
where you say yes to as manythings as you can until it
(39:58):
becomes time to say no to thecorrect things, and that saying
of no is informed by things like, of course, logistics I am
booked, I am not booked but it'salso by mental health, and by
which I mean not just exhaustionor mitigation thereof.
But am I into this and does itsuit me creatively and does it
(40:21):
allow me to put my best feetforward as an accompanist or as
a performer in a more featuredcontext?
And so ideally for me?
Let's be real.
The bottom line is how muchdoes it pay and can I afford not
(40:43):
to do it?
But there are things that we dothat pay absolute nothing and
we go do them, or maybe they pay, but they wash out after you
factor in the cost of the travelor whatever that you know.
So many of us, we work and workand work to get to the point to
(41:03):
where we get to the gigs thatwe really want to do, and most
of the time we don't make anymoney on those particular gigs,
but we go do them because of thepeople that we want to play
with, and that happens to me alot in Nashville.
You go do a bar gig inNashville because I can't wait
to play with Jordan Pearlson orwith Matt Alger or with my
friend Sam Lewis or whatever,and those are really really fun
(41:29):
to do and they feed youcreatively.
And then you try to balancethat against you know.
Yeah, well, god, okay, athree-week tour.
Here we go.
I don't feel like being gonefor three weeks and losing that
much sleep between time zones,but it's going to be really
really cool to be on stage everynight with Jerry Douglas and
Tommy Emanuel.
So let's go.
You know what I mean.
And so I guess the answer toyour question is I try at this
(41:53):
point in my life to really finddoes that boost me creatively
and is it worth my timefinancially?
And if as many of my yes boxesare checked as possible, if I
can check those boxes, then Ican go do it, and that's about
it.
I think that right now I do feelmore motivated to put my own
(42:15):
songwritery thing out there, andthat's due in no small part to
a lot of the affirmations thatI've received from some heroes
and peers like Jerry and Tommy.
Jerry Douglas and I there's theJerry Douglas Band, which is
four of us myself and theincredible Mike Seal on electric
guitar and the incredibleChristian Settlemyer on the
violin and we go do our thing.
(42:35):
But sometimes that's not aslogistically possible, and so
Jerry and Tommy are under thesame music management umbrella,
got it?
And so there was this idea hey,what if Jerry opens with his
thing for Tommy Emanuel and thenplays with Tommy?
But how can we make that?
They've done that before.
(42:56):
How can we up the ante of thattour?
And it was like hey, daniel,would you consider doing this?
And the answer was yes.
And Jerry was like hey, I'veheard some of your songs, why
don't we do some of them on thattour?
And so that was an opportunityto push aside the fear guy and
say you know what Hell?
(43:16):
Yeah, let's go try a couple ofthese songs in front of these
folks and see what happens.
And people loved it.
And Jerry was like these aregood songs, man, and he's
produced enough songwriters towhere I can take his word for it
.
And I can tell the impostersyndrome-y guy to shut up for a
minute and listen to the guywho's won 16 Grammy Awards,
(43:37):
right, and sometimes it takesthis isn't meant to sound kind
of like braggadocious andname-droppy, but it takes that
to get above yourself sometimesand get that Google Earth view
of your own creative thing.
You know what I mean.
And so it's like when someonelike Greg Hawk or Andy Timmons
comes up to you when you've justsung some bluegrass songs at a
little music camp and they saydude, this is good, you should
(44:00):
do this more often.
It's a nice thing to hear.
And so I guess the long asswinded answer to your question
is is I try to balance all of it.
To balance all of it If there'senough accompanist opportunity
that gives me an opportunity tosee someone like Sarah Jaroz
(44:20):
work a room and compose a setlist.
And how does that work?
How do I address the audienceand keep them engaged?
And then how do I get to see aninstrumental person like Tommy
Emanuel build his set andinterface with an audience?
And what is that experiencelike versus what it's like when
(44:42):
I am listening to one of hisrecorded pieces and it's like,
oh, he did this differently liveand I bet I know why it lands
differently in front of peoplethan it does in front of just a
microphone in a sterile studio.
And then I guess all thedecisions inform, all the
decisions is is the answer, youknow.
And so I, I don't try to be, Idon't try to exclude any musical
(45:06):
experience, and maybe thatsounds woo, but I really don't.
It's like I just I wanted, Iwant to be the music director at
Andy Wood's Guitar Camp and tryto play Tom Coyle Fusion, and
then I want to walk down thehill and sing Rocky Top, you
know, or whatever you know, andthen I want to go sing my murder
ballads, and I don't know if Idon't focus on any one of those
(45:29):
things too much.
Maybe that's not ideal, maybe Iwould be more of a specialist
and I could be a little morevirtuosic, but I like to wear
this jack-of-all-trades hat andI'm certainly a master of none
of them.
But the learning experience ateach of these junctures is just
too rich to deprive myself of.
(45:53):
I can dig it all.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Yeah, man, yeah, I was going to ask you about the.
Um, the bluegrass vocal thinghas always been fascinating to
me because there's just such athere's just it's.
There's a purity of voice andthe pitch totally there's never
like swooping up to the pitch,it's just just there.
And I'm just wondering how doesthat happen?
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Well, if you find out , if you'd let me know, I would
really appreciate it, becausethat is something that I
struggle with.
I keep thinking like one ofthese days I'm going to get out
from behind my own shadow andtake some vocal lessons from
someone who is really good at it, like it is that thing.
I think it's if I put myethnomusicological hat on and I
(46:44):
think about how mountain singingworks here in the Smoky
Mountains, for example, or howfield haulers work, or even the
Gaelic and Gaelic traditions inScotland and Ireland.
It's just the way, and a lot oftimes and I could be totally
off base here, no pun intended,but I think a lot of these songs
(47:10):
were, or the styles of thesesongs, the style of singing,
occurred in historical placeswhere they were accompanying
tasks, and so it wasn't aperformative thing as much as it
was a recitation.
And whenever you recitesomething, you do so in a
(47:33):
plainer speech until you startto take ownership of those words
, and then you begin toembellish it, and when you're
reading a poem that you reallycare about or that really speaks
to you, you start toincorporate what can only be
defined as musical elements.
There are pitch rises and falls, there are dynamics, there are
softer, there are louder.
There are different ways thatyou emote within the context of
(47:59):
a recitation and I think thatthat is probably why Appalachian
musics are so honest in theirdelivery and I try to do that.
There are people who do it withso much more nuance and skill
than I do, but what I do try tobring to it is as honest a vocal
(48:21):
sound and intent as I possiblycan.
And you're right, there's justnot a lot of melisma, little
turny embellishments, but whenthey are, they're very, very
clean, clear and deliberate.
There aren't a lot of scoops.
Unless there are scoops, it'sjust a very intentional way of
being unintentional.
Almost it's really hard toqualify the sound of Appalachian
(48:45):
singing.
Well it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
You're getting at that effortlessness, yes, and
that was one of the things forme it's like thinking about when
I would listen to when I was ayoung'un I was exposed to once I
got to college, you know, jimmyBryant, oh God, yeah.
And Joe Maphis, yes, and justthat alternate picking Totally,
(49:11):
you know, and they and just that, uh, alternate picking Totally,
you know, and they were justclean as a whistle.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
And it wasn't until and I was like, how could the
cause?
Every time I did I would tenseup.
You know, when I was doing myblues, playing or whatnot, I was
, everything was loosey, goosey,body language, everything loose
, you know, no problem.
And then as soon as I was goingto do this other stuff that was
not necessarily my originalwheelhouse I would tense up, you
know, and there would be this,you know, tensing up both left
(49:41):
and right hand.
And it wasn't until I saw thoseguys on YouTube of all things,
when you could actually lookthese guys up and see what.
And they're playing at some oldblack and white television
program and the look, the bodylanguage couldn't have been more
laid back.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Oh, I know.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
There was program and the look, the body language
couldn't have been more laidback and there was no tense.
Tenseness and I think it's thesame thing as you're talking
about with because of thisrecitation aspect of some of
those.
There's just an effortlessness,because it's just like, oh,
this is what I'm doing now, thisis what I've always done, and
not to say that there wasn'tpractice to get to that point,
but I think it never came from aposition of overthinking.
(50:17):
It maybe Does that make sense.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
No, it makes perfect sense.
And I think that's one of thegreat failings of musical
academia.
When you codify and this is notmeant to throw anyone under any
bus, but you know you have theABCs of jazz method, you know
you have a David Baker, jamieAebersold and the late great
Knoxvillian Jerry Coker, thesesort of really structured ways
(50:42):
of codifying what is primarilyan improvised music are very,
very useful to teach it, butthey're not necessarily useful
to install it in an innate wayand it becomes really, really
difficult this is the strugglethat all of us music educators
eventually encounter it becomesreally really difficult to
(51:03):
encourage that looseness andencourage that playfulness and
relaxation.
And so when it is presented toyou at such a young age and all
of the great grassers that Iknow, all of them encountered
the style of singing, the styleof playing at such an early age,
(51:25):
and I'm not saying that there'sno hope for those of us who try
to mutate ourselves later on inlife.
I still do that with the claw,hammer, banjo and Jesus, greg.
If you could hear how terribleI am at playing away in a manger
on the piano, literally, thebook is right there behind my
two, behind my bases over there.
(51:45):
It's, I'm serious, it's one,three, five left-hand first
position and see way in a manger.
Seriously, I'm so bad at pianoand it breaks my heart.
It's like, why didn't I do thiswhen I was a kid?
But anyway, um, yeah, if it was.
(52:07):
One of the things that I hope wefigure out one day, as as a, as
a species, is is how to installthe freedom while we install
the rules, right, right, and Idon't know the answer to it, man
, but, um, I don't know it.
I think it's the same, I think,when we study other kinds of
(52:28):
music that are non-western.
I think that really helps too.
I mean, god, listen to DerekTrucks play and you're like,
dude, your microtonal bends thatyou use if you're using a
tremolo bar or if you're usingyour fingers, yeah, to
manipulate string bends in suchspecific ways.
(52:51):
There is, you eventually get toa freedom when you get so
specific, I think and I don'tknow how to do it yet and I'll
let you know if I figure it out,but I know what you're saying.
I have no idea.
I have no idea what I just said.
That was such a terrible answer.
(53:11):
No, that's good.
That's good.
Speaker 1 (53:15):
But this whole idea of you know, of of effort and
it's really a hard thing toconvey to people because you
know you say, well, just take iteasy and not try so hard, but
in order to get to that pointyou've tried unbelievably hard,
totally man, I know, I know,right, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is
(53:36):
like that.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
I think it's really important to have other
vocations outside of music,because I think sometimes those
can give you permission to be alittle more playful with music
and try hard in new ways.
For me that's like fly fishing,Like more effort with a fly
fishing cast or more effort witha golf swing in no way results
(53:59):
in a better thing.
It does not produce a betterresult, right?
Right, Because what you do isyou start to introduce some sort
of herky-jerky thing thatinterrupts the whole transfer of
energy, either to a ball or toa fly line, and I haven't
figured out the rightcombinations of words that would
(54:21):
describe that in a musical way,but I think the same principles
are there.
It's probably all been writtenby George Lucas somewhere in
Frank Oz's Yoda voice, but it isthat there is no try kind of
thing and there is a thing thathappens.
(54:45):
I'm sure many listeners havedone the same thing that I have
done and gone down like TroyGrady, YouTube plunges, you know
, and watched you know, likepicking techniques.
And I've watched the EricJohnson video like 90 times and
I love it so much and it'smostly just because I love the
alchemy of whoa.
(55:06):
These are really simple fiveand six note pentatonic patterns
of whoa.
These are really simple fiveand six note pentatonic patterns
, but God, when you play them atspeed, live in concert.
The alchemy of that.
It sounds like such a thing.
It's so much richer than it iswhenever it's stripped down and
into its constituent parts.
The sound is it's like eating agreat piece of sourdough bread.
(55:27):
You know the ingredients andyou know the process, but, God,
you still have these explosionsin your mind from your taste
buds.
And so there's something aboutwhen you distill emotion down to
its purest iteration.
You can find freedom in thereeventually, and I guess
repetition factors into thatsomehow.
(55:48):
But surely the fastest way toget it is to watch a master of
it as often as possible.
That's the best thing I canrecommend to Tim when you're
seeking for, when you're seekingthat kind of fluidity, yes, yes
, I don't think there are verymany better examples of it,
(56:10):
especially in an improvisationalcontext, than the person
sitting opposite me on this Zoomtransmission.
I mean it.
I love at the Woodshed when wedo our artist concert.
I always like it when you andToby and Dylan go first, because
it gets me so fired up and Iwatched you guys and I watched
(56:31):
the abandon with which youperform and it makes me so much
less scared about messing up oneof mark letary's grooves or so
much less scared about singingsomething or forgetting the
third b section, which istotally different from the other
two.
In one of Andy Wood's songstunes Right, you know what I
(56:53):
mean.
Like you get out of the way ofthe result and you get into the
process, and that is the onlyway to be free is to be a
process-oriented person.
I think you focus on theprocess and then the result
takes care of itself.
It's the same thing I tellstudents.
It's the same thing I tell myteenage kids.
You know, I'm teaching my kidto mow the yard.
(57:15):
It's like, don't worry aboutwhat it looks like at the end of
it, Just keep the wheels inline with the line that you made
the last time.
Right, right, right.
It becomes a meditative thing.
You know what I mean.
Anyway, yeah, Anyway, yeah.
My opinions only folks, myopinions only.
Don't tell.
Speaker 1 (57:31):
Jeff Berlin, I said any of this.
Well, I hope we get to do someplaying again this year.
I was in Europe this year whenyou guys did the camp, so we'll
see what happens this year.
I don't know, my schedule withthe ensemble has been a little
crazy, but it's been a blast.
I mean the reason why I askedearlier.
Of course you're a youngerfellow than I am and my kids are
(57:55):
older, and once your kids getold enough, where they're
they're kind of out and aboutand doing their own thing then
you get a little bit more wiggleroom to go.
Well, maybe I just want to domy own thing.
You know what I mean, and umand so as a result, it's like
I'm realizing so many things ofbeing on the road doing my own
thing and that you just don'tknow unless you've really
(58:16):
immersed it.
And I don't regret any of thethings I did to get to this
point, because I wouldn't beable to do what I'm doing now.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
Exactly Regret is a useless emotion.
Speaker 1 (58:24):
Exactly, and I'm grateful for all those
opportunities.
But, good God, it's fun justgoing out and playing your own
thing, you know it's totallytotally it's.
You know, we're having fun.
Speaker 2 (58:35):
Yeah, Having said all that bullshit I did about you
know, I try to keep a balance,man, and I'd like to I get it.
Speaker 1 (58:40):
Believe me, I've cause.
I know exactly.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
It's like, honestly, what I want to do is I just want
to go sing my own songs inplaces where the fly fishing is
incredible.
So if anybody you know figuresout, exactly I just get to go to
like montana.
Montana and wyoming all thetime during the summer hit me up
and you never know you, you mayindeed manifest it, my good,
I'm trying, I'm trying, weshould, we should, uh, actually
(59:02):
properly talk just for a second,if you don't mind.
Great, we, we did.
You and I did meet at andywood's woodshed Guitar Camp.
That's correct, andy Wood hasbeen a friend of mine.
He lives here in Knoxville.
He's another bluegrass kidalong.
We're 40-year-old bluegrasskids now.
But Andy has a guitar camp thathappens yearly in Crossville,
(59:26):
tennessee.
Excuse me, and I am now themusic director for that.
I stepped into Adam Nitti'sincredibly, huge, incredible
shoes because he couldn't do thesecond year of the camp and I
succeeded him in the bassplaying position and that camp
is still very young and we'refiguring out lots of different
(59:48):
ways to improve it each year.
And you have been a featuredclinician there every year,
except for maybe the last one,and we have folks like the
regular clinicians include, ofcourse, andy and yourself and
Andy Timmons and Mark Letary andBrent Mason is there every year
and Brent Mason.
(01:00:09):
Brent Mason is there every yearand we've had Tom Quayle a
couple of times and Ben Eller,who a lot of folks will know
from his incredible YouTubechannel.
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
I need to get Ben on this program as well.
Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Yeah, talk about a great music educator.
Ben is really great atcodifying principles.
Codifying principles right,without rigidity, without
installing rigidity at the sametime.
You know what I mean?
uh, and then, like we've hadfeatured folks like joe
bonamassa and robin forge anderic johnson, and we just had
steve morse this last year and,and the setting is incredible,
(01:00:47):
it's a lot beside this pastorallake that I fish in the mornings
and then we go teach andrehearse in the afternoons.
And it is not a guitar camp,greg, it's a music camp.
And that's one thing SteveMoore said.
He said I've never been to aplace where cats were just like
talking about how to make thesong better as opposed to how to
make the shred better.
(01:01:07):
Right, right right right.
And I love that.
How to make the shred better,right, right, right, right.
And I love that.
And we all sit and we eatdinner together with the campers
and it's just a reallyapproachable, cool thing.
So if you're interested in that, just Google the Woodshed
Guitar Experience, correct.
And we're really like we haveconversations after that camp
every year.
I just had one with Randy, oneof the primary financial movers
(01:01:28):
and shakers with that camp everyyear.
We just I just had one withRandy, one of the one of the
primary financial um movers andshakers with that camp, and he's
like well, what do we what fromyour vantage point, daniel?
What do we need to dodifferently next year?
And I love that.
That's such a lovely, lovelyapproach, again, a process based
approach to putting on a reallyunique thing.
And so, um, I just want to Iknow there's a lot of guitar
(01:01:48):
players hanging out- oh, yeah,absolutely and listening.
So please check out the woodshed.
Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
It's really really cool it's good times and the
food's good too, which is it'sgood it is, and and it, yeah,
it's cool yeah, and I think thatone one thing especially great,
in addition to all the thingsyou just mentioned, is the fact
that, uh, in some of these othercamps there is really kind of a
us and them mentality, with theclinician slash artist versus
(01:02:19):
the peeps, and I mean there'salways some good interaction in
all the camps, but this camp inparticular, you're just hanging
out with people all the time,which is great.
Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I mean, boundaries are good.
Right, you need to have a, youneed to have time to compose
yourself, maybe before or aftera performance, or you need to
have time when you can just letyour hair down and and scream at
somebody about how frustratedyou are about the way you just
played Tom Quayle's song andmaybe maybe you don't want the
person who just paid asignificant amount of money to
(01:02:47):
be there.
You don't want them to hearthat because you don't want them
to feel like their experiencehas not been a pristine one.
But at the same time, like youjust said, the accessibility for
the folks that are there tolearn and I always learn just
ass loads every time I'm there,you know, in watching my peers
(01:03:08):
work and in watching the folkswho attend the camp as campers.
They are watching their ownexplosions go off, their own
eureka moments.
It's rewarding for everybodythere, you know Right, and it's
a good thing.
Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
It is a good thing and there's a Bucky's right's
right at the off-ramp atCrossville, you can get some
delicious cuisines.
Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Speaking of Martin Harley, can you imagine he came
over for a US tour and I tookhim to a Buc-ee's.
Can you imagine a person fromthe UK experiencing pulling into
a Buc-ee's the first time whenTom Quayle first?
Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
arrived the first year he came in, we had just
introduced ourselves.
Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
We didn't really, and me and Dylan and Toby took him
in the gristle missile and we'relike we're taking you someplace
, and he was astounded.
Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
Now, every time I go to one, I always snap a little
picture and send it to him.
Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Yeah, yeah, he almost tuned his guitar in fourths.
Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
I like to say it's all that's great and horrible
about America in one fell swoop.
Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
Dude, that is so accurate.
There is not a single thing inBuc-ee's that doesn't have sugar
in it.
The lettuce has sugar in it?
Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
I'm pretty sure it's incredible.
Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Yeah, man, exactly correct.
I wanted to send a hello along,uh, from roscoe beck.
Uh, he was in town and uh, witheric johnson a few months ago
we had dinner.
Like eric was like, no, no, yougot to meet roscoe you're
having.
He's a major hero of mine, gregroscoe's, my boy, I mean I know,
I know you guys are close andthat's roscoe is one of the
(01:04:46):
kindest people I've everencountered and he was
immediately come here and he gotme like like were open, they
were going to start in like 45minutes and he's like on stage,
he turns his rig on, he's likeplay this, play this, check this
out, cause I you know, yeah,I'm going to play a Roscoe Beck
bass the original Fender versionof it.
You know I used to lust after inthe Fender catalog by the lamp
(01:05:10):
light when I was in high schooland he was just so, so kind and
sweet and we sent text messagesback and forth, the same with
Eric and anyway, it's been sogreat to get to know more of the
folks in the community thatfolks like you and Timmons and
Andy Wood you guys really reallylike fan the flames of
(01:05:31):
collaborative music exchange andI think that's really really
cool.
So thanks for me you didn'tknow that I was, but I was
dropping your name real hard andthat outcome I got to have
dinner with Roscoe Beck, one ofthe reasons anyway.
So I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
Well, I'm glad that turned out.
Yeah, he's a gentleman and ascholar, oh my God.
Well, I'm glad that turned out.
Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Yeah, he's a gentleman and a scholar.
Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
Oh, my God, as are you, my good man.
It was an absolute pleasuregetting to talk with you today.
Likewise, I'm honoredEverything that you do and it's
always fun hanging out with youand I hope we get to do that
again in person and do somemusic in the not-too-distant
future.
Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
I'm so flattered to be among the mighty gristles.
Grist to be among the mighty umgristles, gristlers, gristlers,
yes, gristlin, gristlin throughthe great whistle.
I'm trying to find whistleanalogies.
Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
I like them all yeah, alright, my friend.
Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
Thanks so much.
You have a good uh, christmasis coming up, you have a great
holiday season and let the goodtimes roll, and hopefully I will
see you in the not-too-distantfuture here in 2025.
Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
Thanks, greg, appreciate you man.
Hi to Dylan, hi to Toby,likewise my friend.
Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
Take it easy, have a good one.
Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
See you.
Speaker 1 (01:06:36):
Bye-bye.
Well, thanks for tuning in,ladies and gentlemen, to another
episode of Chewing the Gristle.
We certainly do appreciate youstopping by.
Make sure you tell your friendsall about us.
I think they might enjoythemselves.
So thanks again for tuning inand we'll see you next time.
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