Embedded Files
Interview by Thomas A. Adler with Courtney Johnson, Sam Bush, and John Cowan. Conducted at their room at the Holiday Inn, Bloomington, Indiana. December 5, 1975.
TA: Thomas A. Adler
CJ: Courtney Johnson
SB: Sam Bush
JC: John Cowan
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TA: Well, I just wanted to start by asking for the background on each of you, individually. I know you're from Bowling Green. How old are you now?
SB: Twenty-three.
TA: Um, how do you spell "Hiseville?" [to CJ].
CJ: H-i-s-e-v-i-l-l-e.
Kathy Bush: People always think it's "Hyattsville," like Hyattsville, Maryland, and they're always sayin' "Hyattsville."
TA: Where is that?
CJ: Uh, it's in Kentucky and that's about all I can tell you. [Laughs].
TA: East? West?
CJ: South-central. It's around Mammoth Cave area.
TA: Not too far from Bowling Green.
CJ: About thirty-five miles. Forty minutes, about forty.
TA: Well, what I wanted to find out for each of you, for all four of you really, to start with by way of background was just the dull stuff like… where you're from, and your ages and stuff like that, but also your backgrounds, in terms of your families and the kind of music that they were into and how you grew up and got into it. All that kind of stuff, if you want to just, uh, ramble.
SB: Well, my dad is— Well, all of us, I know, Courtney and Curtis and me, our dad played; Courtney, his dad plays the guitar, Curtis's dad plays the guitar, and mine plays the fiddle.
TA: Do they play bluegrass?
SB: Curtis's dad plays bluegrass; mine plays more, you know, old-time fiddle music.
CJ: My dad plays more like …sort of the Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, and bluegrass all sort of mixed together.
SB: My dad's a real fan of country music. I think Curtis's dad's pretty much a Jimmy Martin—
CJ: Yeah, Curtis's Dad's pretty much a bluegrass freak.
TA: He's from Brunswick, right?
SB: Yeah, Georgia.
TA: When did you start? How? I mean, tell me about your own background, and getting into it.
SB: Okay, I'll tell you mine. I started playing when I was eleven, and played with my sisters, Claire and June.
TA: What'd they play?
SB: Claire played the guitar, and June, and they both sang. It was right during the folk boom, you know? So I started playing mandolin with them. And when I first started out I started playing fiddle tunes. I didn't really know anything about bluegrass, I didn't know about Bill Monroe or nothing like that; for a while, let's see, I played in this little bluegrass band called The Grayson County Boys; uh, Danny Jones you know? He played the guitar and sang. And uh, that's how I met Courtney. The banjo player was sick one night and he come in.
TA: With the Grayson County Boys?
SB: Yeah, it was on TV, came in and played on the TV show; I played fiddle with them guys. And uh, I played mandolin when I was eleven and fiddle when I was about twelve.
TA: You really started on the mandolin—
SB: Yeah—
CJ: And here you are.
TA: Well, you play banjo and stuff too, don't you? I mean I know you don't do that with the Newgrass Revival, or I haven't seen you, but you've been on stage and played the banjo in funny situations that I've heard of. Heard tapes of you—
SB: Well, I wouldn't call myself a banjo player....I know how to play some stuff on the banjo.
CJ: Yeah.
SB: That don't make you a banjo player.
TA: What kind of music did you grow up listening to? You said you hadn't heard bluegrass—
SB: Just country music, and old-time fiddle music, and then Beatle music. And—
CJ: Flatt and Scruggs.
SB: Flatt and Scruggs, and Bill Monroe; and the influence has just changed as you go along.
TA: How about you, Courtney, what's your whole story?
CJ: Very little, really.
TA: You said you started playin' banjo twelve years ago. How old were you then?
CJ: I musta been about twenty-two or -three when I started playing banjo, but I played guitar before that.
TA: And there was music in your family, too, you said?
CJ: Well, my dad played fiddle and he played just about all the instruments. So I just learned to play guitar from him.
TA: That was really how you started out?
CJ: Yeah, playin' guitar.
TA: How old were you when—
CJ: I think I started playing guitar when I was seven or eight or nine or something. Really, a long time ago, really; too long. [Laughs]. But I never learned to play it really well, so—
TA: So did you grow up listening to family music and— what else?
CJ: Well, you know, country, basic country music. Flatt & Scruggs, stuff like...the thing that was on the radio at that time.
TA: What groups have you been in or associated with since you started to play?
CJ: Well, the first group I was ever in was called the Rocky Road Boys, I guess, a little group around Cave City. But it was supposed to be bluegrass. [Laughs].
TA: The Rocky Road Boys? and then?
CJ: Then I played with the Roane County Boys, Delmer Sexton. You know him?
TA: No, I don't.
CJ: You've heard of Bobby Jewel, haven't you?
TA: Yeah.
CJ: He played with 'em a long time ago. They were a pretty good bluegrass band.
SB: Yeah, they were.
CJ: Then, too— After that, well that's— Sam, and Wayne Stewart, and myself, and a guy from Bowling Green played bass—
SB: Tom Bertrards. [Pronunciation of name unclear].
CJ: Yeah, Tom Bertruse.
SB: And that's "Poor Richard's Almanac."
TA: "Poor Richard's Almanac."
CJ: Yeah. That was how long ago? Six, seven years ago.
SB: It was the summer of—
CJ: Sixty-eight or nine.
SB: Sixty-nine.
CJ: Sixty-nine, yeah.
SB: We played in all of sixty-nine, and about half of '70. That was the second edition of Poor Richard's Almanac; the first one was Alan Munde—
CJ: Yeah.
SB: —on the banjo and it was all instrumental, just about. [Laughs].
CJ: But, after that, I started playin' with the [Bluegrass] Alliance, which was just a while after Sam started playin' with them. When was it, '72?
SB: So, we'd been playin' good off and on since about—
CJ: '68 or 9. '68 I guess.
SB: Well, we've known each other since about '65 or so. God damn, you were ugly back then.
CJ: You was too.
TA: I'll leave that in.
CJ: [Laughs].
TA: What would you say, how would you describe the history of how the Newgrass Revival came to be? I know it came out of the Bluegrass Alliance; how did the Alliance get together in the first place?
SB: Well, the first Alliance was Lonnie Peerce, and Dan Crary, Buddy Spurlock—
CJ: Ebo—
SB: Ebo Walker, and Wayne Stewart. Then Wayne left them, and we got Poor Richard's Almanac together, and uh, Dan Jones started playing mandolin with the Alliance when Wayne quit, and so time went on. Poor Richard's Almanac, I mean, we never seriously played for a livin'. You know, we just—
CJ: Played.
SB: We were just playin' for fun.
CJ: Just played to play.
TA: What, with the Alliance you mean?
SB: No with—
CJ: No.
SB: Poor Richard's Almanac. I mean we never really went on the road, you know.
CJ; We got serious when we got in the Alliance, though.
SB: Oh, yeah; we was makin'—
TA: Seeking fame and fortune with the Alliance.
SB: Yeah, right. And so I graduated from high school in '70, and Dan Crary and Dan Jones both was quittin' the Alliance, and so—
CJ: You really started playing guitar, then; you stepped into Dan Crary's place.
SB: Yeah, I took Dan Crary's place. I didn't take his place, but I mean I started playin' guitar with the band, and Bob Hoban started playing mandolin. He'd already started playing mandolin with them before I said that I wanted to play guitar with them. So then after Crary and Jones left it was Hoban on mandolin and me on guitar. So we went to Reidsville and seen Tony Rice down there, so we said, "Let's get him to play guitar,” and I can play mandolin, and Hoban can just kind of play what's left over. Kind of have a utility man, you know, get a real big sound. But after a couple weeks Hoban decided— Well, he just didn't feel very needed, so he just left and went back to Chicago. So that put me on mandolin and Tony on the guitar, and so that was— All this time Buddy Spurlock was on the banjo, so then Spurlock left.
TA: This was all in about the last half of 1970?
SB: Yeah, this is it, yeah, and then Spurlock left and Courtney come in and so then it was Tony and Lonnie and Ebo and Courtney and me.
CJ: Yeah that was the last of '71, wasn't it?
SB: That was goin' in to '71.
CJ: Goin' into '71.
SB: Then we played the festival circuit in '71 with that, and then September '71 Tony quit and went with J.D. [Crowe] and got Curtis on guitar—
TA: September '71?
SB: Yeah, and then in, what was it, November? last of October?
CJ: Have we been together four years?
TA: Well starting, I know, in January '72 Bluegrass Unlimited listed you in their "Who's-Playin'-Where" as the "Newgrass Revival."
SB: Yeah, right.
TA: Already right at the beginning of '72.
SB: We changed the— We [somewhat ironically] we—left—the—Alliance, in, uh, late October of '71.
CJ: Yeah.
SB: And the four of us got the Newgrass Revival going, and Lonnie kept the Alliance.
TA: Yeah. Let me stop and ask about the name for a minute. The Alliance put out an album called "Newgrass"—
SB: Yeah.
TA: Whose idea was that? The title?
SB: Dan Crary, I think. I'm not sure, I guess that they all had some- thing to do with it, but Dan Crary—
CJ: That was before us.
TA: Yeah, I know.
SB: Yeah, we weren't around then.
TA: Yeah, but they used that word, and then "Newgrass" Revival. You came along using— The reason I'm asking is just 'cause people are talkin' about a different kind of updated bluegrass or whatever you'd call it and referring to it as "Newgrass."
CJ: Well, that record, the name itself didn't have anything to do with why we called ourselves "Newgrass Revival,” I don't think.
SB: Not at all, not really. We kicked a lot of names around.
TA: Well, how'd you settle on—
SB: Just thought that sounded the best at the time, about as modern as it was.
TA: So was it Dan Crary that just made up the term? He's responsible for the word?
SB: Yeah, but I mean, that kinda— That coulda— I don't know where he got it from, but, uh, before Crary said "newgrass" they were already talkin' about certain things that mean that. Like, uh, Emerson and Waldron, "New Shades of Blue Grass" was their first album title, so Emerson and Waldron was really the first ones to do rock-and-roll songs bluegrass.
CJ: Yep.
TA: Yeah. That was obviously gonna be the next question, that is, is there such a thing as "newgrass"? Or, what is it? Is it just rock- and-roll stuff?
SB: No. I don't know.
CJ: We haven't decided. I mean I don't really know.
SB: We're changing ourselves, so we— It's hard for us to— like, sometimes we wish we hadn't named the band "Newgrass Revival,” because it automatically puts a label on us, you know. That puts a label on you too, like if we were the Bluegrass Revival, uh—
CJ: Yeah.
SB: I mean, we like the name and everything, but—
TA: Yeah, right.
SB: But we hope that we don't just play "newgrass" music, if there is such a thing, you know. Some people say that only Bill Monroe plays bluegrass music, you know; I mean really, I've heard people say that, and so, therefore—
CJ: We don't play bluegrass.
SB: We don't play bluegrass, and we're not the only band that leans towards newgrass either, you know?
TA: Wait a minute, I got lost a minute ago. You say you don't play bluegrass?
SB: Well, not if Bill Monroe's the only one that plays it.
TA: Oh, yeah, all right.
CJ: Yeah, if it's based on Bill Monroe bluegrass, you know—
SB: Oh, no; I think what we're trying to do now, we're not just trying to play bluegrass or newgrass, or any kind—
CJ: We're just—
SB: —of music; we're just trying to play what suits the song, because now we've got enough people that— Of the guys that we got in the band now, we can go in a lot of new and different directions than we used to go, and we just don't feel like we ought to limit ourselves.
TA: Yeah, that seems clear. It started comin' out funny, saying, uh, that you don't play bluegrass.
SB: Yeah, right. No, no, 'cause, we're trying to keep our tunes in perspective in that, make our bluegrass type tunes bluegrass, and make the ones that aren't, you know, make 'em go to suit the song.
TA: When, where, how, why, and all that did you start adding pickups to the instruments? Electrifying instruments—
SB: It's just here in the last few months.
CJ: Well, I guess I been usin' it about a month and a half, a month—
SB: I don't know, electricity is not such a big issue.
TA: Any more.
SB: To me any more, it's not. Because, you know, it's not 1950 anymore, and nowadays there are these transducer pickups that give a really close sound to acoustic. It's not an acoustic sound, but we believe that playin' over a microphone is not an acoustic sound either. The only acoustic sound is when you sit in a circle and pick and have fun, you know, and not when— When you're playin’ in bars you just get tired of not hearin' yourself, and you know, that's why rock musicians can play in bars and have a good, have a better time, cause they can hear themselves, you know. You can reach back there and crank it up and have a good time.
CJ: It makes a lot of difference when you can hear yourself.
SB: A friend of ours, Jim Hall up in D.C. said— They played in the Grass Menagerie; I heard the Grass Menagerie were the first ones to ever do electricity right with bluegrass. They really, really got a good sound. Really good. And Jim Hall, you know, played dobro and plays steel guitar now, and he said, "If playin's a effort, something's wrong." You know, playing should be fun, it should not be a chore. And we're just doin' it, we're using the amps mainly to hear ourselves.
TA: Are there any problems with your reception on account of that? Do you think that people— Are there any hassles anymore, or—
SB: Only to the bluegrass people that believe that when you put a pickup on your instrument it kills it.
TA: But I mean, does that — do they confront you with it, or not?
SB: Well, there's so many other things, you know, to bitch about, about us, that that's just, you know, another thing. [Laughs].
TA: Well, where do you suppose you're headed? As a group what are you aiming at? You already said that with your agent getting you work, you're playing all you want.
SB: Yeah, we're playing a lot, plenty.
CJ: Yeah, we playin' plenty, that's for sure.
TA: So where does it go from here?
SB: Well, we want to become a better recording band. That's one goal. I'm sure. And we also wanna get a lot tighter as a stage band, too. We want to get better.
CJ: As a direction, you know, as a direction, wherever it leads us, I guess.
SB: Because we've never really planned out the direction that we've gone.
CJ: Not really. We've never planned anything. It just happens, you know.
SB: Like—
TA: I know it's a hard question to answer; let me put it this way, instead: where would you like to see yourselves, uh, five years from now?
SB: Oh. I see. You mean——
TA: What would you imagine yourselves, uh—
SB: You mean materially?
TA: In any way you want. What kind of music you're doin', where you're goin'.
SB: Well, we'd just like to be to where we could be presented well,
in a concert.
TA: In a concert?
SB: Yes, oh, definitely. We would like to be a concert band.
CJ: Concert, that's what we really want to play, you know, not in clubs.
SB: We would like to be financially secure, where we wouldn't have to sweat for nothin', but I'm sure so would everybody else. We just want a good atmosphere to be listened to, really, and, you know that goes along with recording, too. Being presented right on record; we want to make really good records. You definitely have to play differently in a studio than you do live, and so you should make records, because a record is something you can listen to for twenty years. A performance is gone after tonight. You can make a tape of it, but it's different. It's just different. There's no visual to a record.
TA: Who are you doing your music for, other than, obviously, yourselves? Who are you aiming it at?
SB: Anybody that wants to listen.
TA: Do you think of what you're doing as music for other musicians?
SB: Well, yes, it can be.
CJ: In a way. It just depends.
TA: Do you think that sometimes your music goes past or around or over the heads of your audience?
CJ: Well, yeah.
SB: Sometimes.
CJ: I think so, maybe.
TA: It seems to me that occasionally there's a certain obvious insensitivity on the part of the audiences; they don't, perhaps know you, or know—
SB: But also, you know, "My Walkin' Shoes Don't Fit Me Any More" is over some people's heads. I think listeners are more sophisticated than they used to be.
CJ: I think so too.
SB: People want to hear the unexpected. In a way.
TA: Is it still fun? I mean, you look like you have a lot of fun on stage. Is it that much fun still?
SB: Yeah. It is now.
CJ: Yeah. We do have fun.
SB: Now that we got John [Cowen] it is.
CJ: There has been a point that — there was a point when it wasn't fun at all, you know.
SB: There's been a point where we didn't have fun.
TA: What made it not fun?
SB: Well, it just...
CJ: Well, 'cause we weren't gettin' along good. We were having trouble in the band. We didn't enjoy playin' together.
TA: Does workin' on the road have its own hassles? What's not enjoy- able about workin' on the road?
SB: Stayin' in motels.
JC: The fact that you're not home.
SB: Just the fact that you're not home makes things not very fun. ‘'Cause we like being home just like everybody else.
TA: Um, do you think of your music as traditional in any way?
SB: Yeah, in some ways.
CJ: To a certain point, it is traditional.
TA: How?
JC: Well, we try to play the traditional tunes traditionally.
TA: So it's really a style.
JC: Right.
TA: The style keeps it—
JC: We try and keep it in context, I would say; if it's a traditional song, which I've always been told, when I was playing bass in the band, to keep it straight. I mean that's the way that music was written for the bass, and so I imagine it would be the same with their instruments.
TA: Let me—
CJ: Basically, though—
SB: Basically, we are, and then you vary it off your basic theme. It's for sure we don't play "Little Georgia Rose" the way Bill Monroe plays "Little Georgia Rose," but I think the way we play is still bluegrass.
TA: Well you're keeping a lot of things the same, and then changing some things, so maybe I should ask it that way; when you play "Little Georgia Rose,” what are you trying to keep in it? And what are you willing to change?
SB: Well, we're trying to keep the spirit, the mood of the thing.
CJ: The basic feel of the original thing is what we're trying to do, and what we add to it is something that fits the basic thing you know, not out of context with the original thing. It adds life to it and it still keeps the tradition.
SB: 'Cause we're not trying to play better than Bill Monroe played it. You know, we just—-
CJ: We're just trying to play it as good as we can play it. What sounds good to us to play.
TA: When you try to change things, there's— I have to think of an example for a minute, but I know there's tunes you do that come out of bluegrass that you made substantial changes in. "Doin' My Time” be a good example, I guess. You know, putting in long vamps and stuff to that. There's, uh, you know, some kind of mixing of different things going on in there. Do you see that as rock-n-roll creeping in, or is it something else, or jazz, or, uh—
SB: Well, you know, everything you hear's gonna change it, and it's hard for me to see it as anything besides what it is, which is us playin’, because I'm close— When you're close to something you can't always see the things that other people see in it. You know everybody sees different things about the same piece of music, you know. Yeah, it's kinda— Sure, it's rock'n'roll, and jazz, and things.
CJ; The only reason it's like it is, is because of the guys that's playin'.
SB: Yeah, right. Cause we’ve got different influences too; John has always played rock'n'roll, and blues, and rhythm-and-blues, and jazz-rock.
TA: Let me ask you a minute, John— I was putting these boys on the spot earlier —— about your background. Tell me everything about yourself.
CJ: Well, he's got a road map on his shoulder over there. [Laughs].
JC: Now, uh—
TA: You're from Evansville?
JC: No, I'm from Louisville.
TA: Louisville originally..
JC: Yeah, I moved. I played there, you know, grew up playing there in bands, in little basement bands and local bands that played in band contests and—
TA: Strictly rock?
JC: Yeah. And then I moved to Evansville in my senior year in high school, started playing professionally then.
TA: When was that?
JC: Uh, in '70. '69 or '70. And I played in bars you know, played in rock bands and soul bands and rhythm'n'blues bands, and—
TA: When did you first encounter bluegrass? Or anything like it?
JC: When I got in this band. [Everyone laughs]. I never listened to it...I thought it was dumb music. I couldn't relate to it at all because I'd never heard it; you know, I was just used to what I was hearing, and all I'd ever heard, you know. I got the same image, I think, that lots of people get of bluegrass, which is the wrong image, you know. They see these guys up there in little checkered suits and bow ties, [sings] "Ooh-hoohoo!", you know, and that's all I knew about it, and so I thought it was dumb, you know. But I don't think it's dumb at all any more. It's valid music, as much as anything else, probably more than rock'n'roll because it's been around a lot longer. If you want to go by how long something's been around.
TA: So, uh—
JC: So my first exposure to it, really in any way at all, was this band. You know, when I went to try out I said, "Look, y'all, I don't know anything about this music at all," 'cause I didn't know if they'd want someone that didn't know anything about it, but they said—
SB: It was kind of what we wanted [All laugh].
JC: So that was really my first exposure at all to bluegrass. Except that I've been living in Louisville and I heard a couple of bluegrass bands. As it turns out, they were bluegrass bands.
TA: Was there music back in your family too?
JC: Yeah, yeah, you know, goin' to church, and my dad had a real good voice, you know, singing in choir, that whole trip. Plus I had music in school a little bit. Got over it.
TA: On this thing of bluegrass and what you keep in it, or what you're happy with in bluegrass and what you're not, apart from the musical part of it, the whole social aspect of bluegrass— Bands and audiences act with each other and everything, do you think that's something you're trying to retain, or change? Or what's good about that and what's bad about that?
SB: You mean about the bluegrass show?
TA: I'm really trying to ask about everything about bluegrass other than the music. It seems like a whole way of life, almost.
SB: Well it is. We're not trying to do any revolutionary change in the bluegrass approach or anything, you know, just get up a nice bluegrass approach, and in our show, and in our dress, you know, our looks—
JC: I think we're trying to approach it on our own level.
SB: Well, that's just how we'd like to look, you know.
TA: So you're sort of saying that the music really ought not to have anything to do with how a person dresses? Or—
SB: Oh, no. You know, I can't, I don't want to wear cowboy hats on stage, but if Bill Monroe does, fine, let him wear a cowboy hat.
TA: Well there's other things too; it seems as if lots of bluegrass bands do certain kinds of humor, they stick in gospel material even if they don't particularly care about it themselves; you know, they feel like they should, and you all don't get into that. Is that sort of a conscious thing? Both of them, both things?
SB: Well, we just never have been in much of a position to play gospel music; we didn't feel like that gospel music was that important to any audience that likes us.
JC: It doesn't mean anything to us anyway, so there's no sense in playing it.
SB: I like gospel songs; you know we might work up some gospel songs sometime, cause audiences like 'em, you know. I don't think the Dillards go to church all the time, but I know I'd just about rather hear the Dillards do a gospel song than anyone.
TA: Well, what, what musicians or groups are currently influencing you? You've talked in print about Leon Russell, and selected others, but, uh—
SB: You see, we all listen to different stuff. I'd say—
TA: Well, who are you listening to now? Who excites you?
JC: Little Feat.
SB: Me and John really like Little Feat.
CJ: Mahavishnu Orchestra.
SB: Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Curtis is really in Django Rhinehart.
JC: We all like Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne a whole lot, ‘cause they're good writers.
SB: Jean Luc-Ponty.
CJ: Jean Luc-Ponty, yeah.
SB: —James Taylor, John Hartford, Doc Watson—
JC: We all listen to Hartford a lot.
CJ: We don't listen to hardly any bluegrass at all.
SB: If we listen to bluegrass it's usually old bluegrass.
CJ: Yeah.
TA: It's really in your past already and you keep absorbing new things; It's kind of like out front there's new stuff coming in all the time.
JC: Right.
SB: Well, we just like to listen to new things, different things. We're all the average listeners too. We like to listen to other things.
CJ: Well, I think when you're pickin', then listenin's a little bit different than just bein' a listener in general.
SB: Oh, yeah, because you listen to—
CJ: Because you won't— I mean you don't want to listen to things that you have heard all your life and can do, you know?
SB: Yeah, really, I don't listen to things I can't do.
TA: What can't you do?
SB: Oh, lots of stuff.
TA: Like, I mean, you're—
SB: I don't know, I can't play like David Grisman, and I can't play like Jethro Burns, and I'm not saying anybody's any better than anybody else. I'm just saying that everybody plays different, and that's why I like to listen to 'em. Can't play like Bill Monroe, either. Neither can anybody else.
TA: That's for sure.
CJ: Anybody that has a style of his own and picks it decent is a good picker, you know.
SB: That's right. Dan Crary, for instance, is one. Alan Munde—
CJ: Clarence White—
SB: Allman Brothers—
CJ: All kinds of people.
SB: All— good music's just good music.
CJ: That's what it is.
TA: So that maybe answers some of the earlier questions that I was having a hard time getting across.
JC: Because what you listen to is definitely reflected in what you play.
TA: I'm a firm believer in that.
SB: Oh, sure. Everything you listen to, if you like it, you're gonna have thought about it, and whether you realize it or not, it's liable to come out your fingers.
CJ: Yeah, when you're playin' basically off the top of your head a lot, something's bound to come out, you know.
TA: Do you do a lot of stuff off the top of your heads, on stage?
SB: Yeah.
CJ: Really, yeah.
TA: I notice there's a lot of continuity. Obviously the basic arrangement of songs has to be the same with any band, but then it looks like you're cueing each other, kind of visually almost as well as musically, for what's gonna go on. You know, just like a little teeny nod of the head, or sometimes it's not even that; it's just glancing at someone. Are you really doing that to say, "the vamp's over now," or—?
SB: Well—
CJ: If—
JC: Probably whatever's—
SB: If we're into something that we haven't done, then somebody has—
JC: Then we have to figure out how to get back into whatever we were doin'.
SB: I guess it's usually me, and I'1ll lead us, if it's kind of like the one that'll change it brings it back out. We'll just kind of take turns; well, to look helps, because you know it's comin', and you all can see. .
CJ: . You don't necessarily have to know exactly what's comin'.
SB: If you can see, you should use your eyes to your advantage.
CJ: Cause you know it's comin', you know somethin's gonna happen.
TA: Let's see, one more thing I wanted to ask for sure was about the records. You know, whatever records you all are already on. There's the first Newgrass Revival album, the Starday—
CJ: King.
TA: The Starday-King one, and now this is, the one that's comin' out is on Flying Fish.
SB: Right.
TA: And then—
JC: Sam—
TA: You [to SB] were on the Poor Richard's Almanac—
CJ: Yeah.
TA: Um, have any of you recorded elsewhere?
CJ: Doc Watson.
SB: Courtney and I were on Doc Watson's latest album.
JC: "Memories."
JC: Sam's on—
CJ: Sam's on one of Hartford's that's gonna come out.
SB: I’m on, I'm gonna be on one of his that's comin' out.
JC: Plus he's on a couple Brother Oswald albums.
SB: The one with Brother Oswald; it had Brother Oswald and Charlie Collins....that's country.
CJ: Tut.
SB: Yeah, Curtis and I are supposed to be on one with Tut [Taylor] that'll be on Takoma.
TA: Have you even cut that one yet?
SB: Yeah, oh yeah, it's been cut a long time; they've just been havin' a lot of problems with it. And that features Curtis and I and Butch Robins, Norman Blake, and Tut. We just kind of switched it around.
JC: There's that Flying Fish record that just came out.
SB: And there's that one there [Showing me an album from a large box of them that Sam carries around with them].
CJ: This one here.
TA: Which one is— oh, for heaven's sake.
SB: You hadn't seen that?
TA: No, I hadn't seen it.
CJ: Jethro, and Tut, and Norman, and—
TA: Is that out already?
All: Yeah.
JC: 1It's been out for a week.
SB: It's a good jam session on there.
CJ: It is. It really is pretty good.
TA: You're— oh, Jethro Burns [As TA looks at the album]. Is he your main mandolin playing hero?
JC: There ain't no other.
SB: Yes.
TA: How about— What are the heroes for the rest of you?
SB: Who are you boys' heroes?
JC: Oh, God.
CJ: Oh, that's a hard question.
JC: My singing and writing hero is Joni Mitchell.
SB: [To CJ] Who's your banjo-playing hero?
CJ: I don't know.
SB: —that you like — besides yourself.
CJ: I like a lot of 'em. Bill Keith, probably.
TA: Which ones don't you like?
CJ: I like all of 'em that pick good.
SB: Aw, we ain't gonna get into that.
TA: No, I didn't think you should. But if he likes all of 'em—
CJ: I like all of 'em that can pick good. [Sam laughs].
JC: There's something good pickers may—
CJ: I'd say Alan Munde, I like Alan a lot. Bill Keith, and what I've heard of Bobby Thompson. I've never heard, really, hardly anything, except what little recording he's done. I've never heard him pick.
JC: What about Raymond Fairchild?
CJ: Yeah, that Raymond Fairchild— [Sam laughs uproariously].
TA: What's goin' on with—?
SB: Raymond Fairchild is not really one of his favorites.
TA: That's—it seems reasonable to me—
SB: He's got a great big reputation.
TA: I was— I mean, as an interviewer I'm inclined to agree with what you say and nod politely, but I've always hated Raymond Fairchild.
JC: We all do too.
SB: Well, we all do too. We all feel that way, you can just leave Raymond Fairchild off the list, and—
CJ: But—
SB: What about Pete Schwimmer?
CJ: Yeah, Peter Schwimmer, he's—
Jack: David Holland's a great bass player.
Cud: Yeah, and John Hartford, yeah, just a lot.
TA: How about Harley Bray???
CJ: —Scruggs——
TA: You know Harley Bray?
CJ: No.
TA: I'm surprised John Hartford never introduced you.
SB: He's with Pat Burton.
CJ: Yeah, yeah, I know of him.
TA: —from the Bray Brothers, the Bluegrass Gentlemen.
CJ: I know who you're talkin' about, but I don't think I've heard him pick.
TA: Let me go into your past specifically, a little. Courtney, I want to find out about everything I could about how, when, where, and why you began to play, when you learned to play banjo. You said you were about 22. How did you—
CJ: Well, really—
TA: Where'd you first see a banjo?
CJ: My brother traded for an old banjo. That's the first one I ever seen, an' it wasn't any good. Had a plastic neck on it, and a plastic resonator, and that's why, that's why I got started.
TA: Now it was a five-string.
CJ: It was a five-string, yeah. And after that, I traded for a good banjo.
TA: Who showed you how to play it, or did you begin to learn?
CJ: Well a guy there at home showed me basically the starting point, Bill Slayton.
TA: And he just started you with Scruggs?
CJ: He played Scruggs style. Ralph Stanley influenced me more than anything else, you know.
TA: How?
CJ: Just listenin' to his records, that's the way I played.
SB: —rather than the Scruggs style approach, that's why Courtney sounds different.
CJ: Yeah. See— I know, I picked like Ralph Stanley, and that's all I'd ever heard, until I heard Alan Munde.
TA: Uh-huh. And then—
CJ: And then when I heard Alan Munde, that just turned my whole approach around.
TA: Really, Munde. Meeting him? Or hearing him, or—?
SB: Both.
CJ: Both. Mountain View, Arkansas.
TA: Uh-huh.
CJ: It was sixty-eight, I guess.
TA: And so—
CJ: Sixty-seven!
TA: Well, what all did that do to you? How did it change your style?
CJ: Well, I don't know. I thought it was impossible to do what he was doin'; he was playin' Texas fiddle tunes, you know—
SB: On the banjo.
CJ: On the banjo, and he was just— You know, it was the first time I'd ever heard it, and I just didn't know what to think about it. I knew I wanted to change my pickin' right then [All laugh].
SB: Man, there was guys rolling on the ground, and everything, with Alan.
CJ: Alan Munde, he was the ultimate at that time.
SB: Yeah, and as far as smooth banjo pickin', still is.
CJ: still is, yeah; you know, he's an incredible picker. He knows a lot more than he does, you know.
SB: He's got such beautiful runs. Oh, yeah, always tasty.
CJ: He knows an incredible amount of stuff, and you never hear him do it; but I'd say basically he influenced my pickin' more than anybody else. Until I got in the band, and then Sam has influenced it since. Probably more than anything else, I suppose. I don't listen to banjo players much.
TA: It's funny, you once told me that Bill Emerson came closer to doin' exactly what he wanted to do than any other banjo player.
CJ: I think he does. I think he does.
TA: Do you mean that other banjo players are kind of trapped by their own styles?
CJ: Well, I, I’m just sayin' he—
SB: He executes what he does perfectly.
CJ: Yeah. He probably don't do as much as a lot of people do, you know, but he'll do more of what he aims to do more than anybody else will, I think.
TA: How do you go about trying to do what you aim to do?
CJ: [Laughs].
TA: That is, how do you invent a lead break?
CJ: I don't know. It's hard to say.
SB: He ain't satisfied with what he already knows.
CJ: Yeah, really.
TA: Do you think you play backup different?
CJ: Yeah, I definitely play backup different than anybody else. I believe I do.
TA: You've got really a unique kind of style, now.
CJ: I don't— It's just—
SB: You just don't play like anybody else.
CJ: I just play what I hear, you know, or try to play what I hear.
TA: Do you get licks from Sam and Curtis a lot?
CJ: Sure, I've learned from everybody in the band. I think all of us have learned from each other.
SB: Yeah, well that's one of the reasons for playing in a band.
TA: What do you think about while you're-—- You know, if you've got a lot of the breaks you play already figured out, in a way—
CJ: In a way—
TA: So—
CJ: It's just like, we was talkin' about the basic thing, you know, is there, and what you do to it, you know—
TA: Are your hands doing it, or is your head doing it?
CJ: It's your head doing it.
SB: It's your head doing it to your hands.
CJ: Yeah, but you know, banjo players—-
TA: You're still, really—
CJ: The basic thing is there, and everybody knows it.
SB: We're just striving, we're striving for music, instead of licks.
TA: All right.
CJ: When we do a lick, you know, if somebody relates to it as a lick, it's not meant to be that way, it's just—-
SB: Because sometimes the best music doesn't mean the hottest lick.
JC: To me, that's what separates Sam from other mandolin players; now, I don't know anything about mandolin as an instrument, but a lot of players I hear that are supposed to be real hot, to me it just sounds like they put every lick they know together in four bars.
TA: Just stringin' the licks together, instead of playing music?
JC: Yeah, and to me, Sam's breaks start somewhere and go somewhere, and come back somewhere.
CJ: Really.
JC: They're melodic.
TA: So even if you can't exactly say how it is you go about creating breaks, you've got a really definite idea of what it should do. Or what it shouldn't be, anyway; it certainly shouldn't be a string of licks.
CJ: Really.
SB: Oh, yeah.
CJ: We may not do what sounds right every time, you know, but—
SB: [Laughs]—no, we don't!
CJ: But when you do something that don't sound good, you don't do it again. [Sam laughs again at the shallow profundity].
SB: That's really true. You try not to.
TA: Obviously when you heard Munde, you sort of set yourself up some new goals and directions to head in, but where are you going from here?
CJ: Well, I decided I was gonna learn to play like him, you know, which I never did. I never could, because he played like he felt, and I play like I feel.
TA: Do you think your style is changing, still?
CJ: My style has definitely changed, over the years.
TA: I mean, it's still changing, isn't it?
CJ: Oh, yeah..
TA: Is it turning into something new?
CJ: I think it changes all the time, myself, you know.
TA: Then it's just a never-ending thing.
CJ: BAs long as I learn things, it'll change. As long as I have the desire, enough, to keep learning new stuff, it'll never stay the same.
TA: What do you think's the most important kind of things in good banjo playing?
CJ: Timing.
TA: Timing?
CJ: Yeah. It's the most important thing, in any kind of playing, you know, that counts.
TA: Do you mean keeping timing like keeping a roll going? You keep a lot of notes going—
SB: It's not necessarily the notes.
CJ: Not necessarily, you know, that—
SB: It's not the notes.
TA: And then suddenly you'll stop.
SB: —and that all your—
JC: It's meter, your meter has to be straight.
SB: Your individual notes have to be right on time.
CJ: It's how you phrase your notes, you know? It's the phrasing. It's not the notes, it don't make any difference what notes you play, you know, a lot of times.
JC: Phrasing's part of timing.
SB: If you're really hitting it, it all goes hand in hand, the notes, the phrasing, and the timing.
CJ: It's all, you know, there.
TA: How do you learn how to do that? How do you learn that timing?
JC: I don't think you can.
SB: By—
CJ: Just by—by doing it.
TA: Either you have it or you don't? Sort of? In terms of—
SB: Sort of.
JC: I think it's kind of that too, because you know there's some people that just never will be able to do it, no matter how much they practice. I think it has something to do with talent.
SB: Well, you can work and study to develop the talent you have.
JC: Yeah.
SB: You have to have a certain amount of talent, you know, that goes along with the work and study.
CJ: The talent, you know, having the talent is being able to get out of you what you feel. I think that's what talent is.
SB: 'Cause that's one of the things about bluegrass: the timing. You know, it's timing music, it's not note music.
JC: I'll tell ya, I would have never thought it, but playing bluegrass has helped my timing more than rock'n'roll ever did.
TA: Really?
JC: You gotta fuckin'—excuse me, you gotta buckle down.
SB: You can't put "fuck" in BU or Pickin'! [Laughter].
CJ: No, but you're right, you have to buckle down, to play well.
JC: But I just think that's kind of ironic, that's just kind of ironic, 'cause you know the way I used to just hate bluegrassers. I don't know what, I just had a weird idea about it. But as a player, playing my instrument, it's made me a lot better player, just because you're timing has to be—
TA: Do you think it's hard music to play?
JC: I think for a bass player it is.
SB: Damn right, I think for anybody it is. It's a god-damn hard job to play rhythm guitar.
CJ: Really.
SB: There just ain't that many good rhythm players.
JC: And you don't have a drummer to fuckin' lay back on, either.
TA: Speaking of talent, let's see, tell me about Curtis [Burch]. He's not here. How old is he?
SB: He's thirty.
TA: Give me the whole smear on him, you know, his background— Is his family musical too?
SB: Yeah, he's got a brother that's a really good banjo player.
JC: His daddy plays, too.
SB: His dad is a pretty good rhythm player, singer.
CJ: Yeah.
TA: How did he get into the whole thing?
SB: Who, Curtis?
TA: Yeah.
SB: I reckon probably him and his Dad—
CJ: I think he just picked; him and his family picked together, you know? Sorta had a band.
SB: Curtis plays the banjo too, I think he knows the banjo, started—
CJ: He started out playin' banjo, I think.
JC: Yeah, that's right.
TA: Banjo? Wow, and guitar, and dobro. Does he play mandolin and fiddle too?
SB: He plays mandolin.
CJ: Yeah.
SB: Curtis is better on the mandolin than most mandolin players.
CJ: Curtis is pretty good, really, a good musician, you know.
SB: Yeah, he's a good instinctive musician.
CJ: He's an incredible dobro player.
SB: We all think Curtis is the best dobro player. You know, we don't like to use "best" and stuff like that, but—
CJ: Really.
JC: It is a kind of prejudice—
CJ: He's different; I mean, he definitely has a style.
SB: We're really prejudiced.
JC: Aw, we listen to—
SB: There just ain't nobody that we would rather hear play dobro than Curtis. And there's nobody that we would rather play with as a lead guitar player than Curtis.
CJ: He just knows things about slide instruments, you know.
SB: Cause Curtis goes for music on the guitar, instead of licks, too.
TA: He grew up right there? Around Brunswick?
SB: I think so.
CJ: He was born in Alabama.
JC: He was born in Montgomery.
CJ: Montgomery, Alabama, that's right.
CJ: But he's spent most of his life in Brunswick, Georgia.
SB: I know he played in a band called the Bluegrass Rebels—
CJ: Yeah.
SB: —with his dad and brother, I think. And him and Ralph Lewis used to play together around Nashville.
CJ: Well, he's played, uh— I know he used to sit in with a lot of people.
SB: Yeah.
TA: How did you—
CJ: The Gentlemen, he almost got—
SB: He almost got a job with the [Country] Gentlemen, playing bass one time.
CJ: Yeah.
SB: Curtis is a real good upright bass player.
TA: And how was it Curtis came in?
SB: Well, we were just playin' in—
TA: How'd you meet him?
SB: We met him—
CJ: —Savannah, Georgia.
SB: Well, actually we met him at Reidsville in '70, in '69 at Reidsville, the festival at Reidsville.
CJ: I never knew him.
SB: We didn't really know who he was. We just met him. Then, let me think— It was spring, 1971; the band played at this place called "The Other End" in Savannah, Georgia, and we went over to this guitar — and Curtis had heard "Poor Richard's Almanac" and "Bluegrass Alliance," and—
CJ: Bill Godbey! [Or something like that].
SB: Curtis really was turned on by the whole idea of it, something new, you know; and so he kind of— We went over to this guy that sells guitars, Bill Godbey, in Savannah, and repairs 'em, does real good repair work, and we left the repair shop after we'd been in a while, and Curtis came in and Godbey told 'im we'd been there, and that we was playin' in town, and Curtis said, "Are you sure?" and you know, "What could they possibly be doin' in Savannah?" and so Curtis and this friend, and Ricky, his brother, and Dale Moore come in there, and boy they—
JC: I've heard him talk about that night, a couple of times. He said they just sat there and drooled, you know; he said that Sam and them was their hero, at that time. [Sam laughs].
SB: And so we got Curtis up to play the dobro. You know, we had heard how good dobro player he was. And when Tony started talkin' about— We were real impressed with Curtis and we were impressed with his guitar playin' too.
TA: So you just called him up?
SB: Well, when Tony said he was gonna quit we called him up and we got together, and Curtis—
CJ: And he had just visited Nashville at the time.
TA: Uh-huh.
CJ: So he was huntin' a job, you know.
SB: Yeah, he'd been in Nashville tryin' to get a job, anyhow. So he just moved on up to Louisville, and Tony quit at Reidsville in '72.
CJ: Yep.
SB: No, '71.
JC: Y'all sound like a bunch of old men.
SB: Well, we're just— I mean, we don't sit around and argue about it all the time, you know.
CJ: After a while you forget all this stuff.
SB: We've learned that pickers just come and go, you know. We will too. But anyway he was at the festival, and uh, Tony quit, and the next day Curtis was playin' with us. He hopped up there, and picked it.
CJ: He finished out the festival with us.
SB: Yeah.
CJ: Played just on the—
SB: He had a Glen Campbell haircut at the time.
TA: No!
CJ: Yeah.
TA: A real Glen Campbell haircut?
SB: It was. You really ought to talk to Curtis too. He ought to be back pretty soon.
TA: Well, what else? That's all the questions I had, what else can you tell me?
JC: I don't know.
TA: What do you want told?
CJ: We can't tell you anything if you don't ask us the questions.
TA: Well, what do you want told? About yourselves?
JC: Just listen to us. You know, we—
CJ: We just want people to listen to us.
JC: Yeah, gettin' all that bad rap from the bluegrass world really hurt this band. Now we're playing outside of that, so—
TA: What bad rap do you mean? I just seem sort of unaware of this—
SB: Oh, I just think most of the straight bluegrass people, the first thing they thought about, the first thing they would think about is, hippie bluegrass. You know? And I just don't— We just don't really live like hippies. I don't feel we do, whatever a hippie is, and we've got—we're just like everybody else, you know. When you make your livin’ playin' music, you know, there's just certain ways you have to live, man. You know, people think you're weird. You know the average person will just think you're some kind of hermit or nomad, you know; you get up at one o'clock in the afternoon, hell you don't go to bed till four, you know? I mean, that's your hours that you work. And we just want to do— We want to travel and do our job, but, you know, but the thing that separates our job is that we really have fun at our job, while we're playin'. We also—we just love to unload equipment, set it up, and— [All laugh].
CJ: We have fun workin'.
SB: —pack it upstairs—
CJ: —set up, pack it upstairs—
SB: —not get paid, and all kinds of shit, you know, we love it,
CJ: —drive for twelve hours, and play, and—
SB: We like to get hassled by cops, because they're suspicious of a band, long-hairs. But as far as the treatment from the bluegrass world, it's just a shame that our looks freak people out to the point where some won't even listen to us. You know, I'm sure that's half of it. So in that way it's hurt us, but also in the same light anybody that just automatically looks at you and freaks out—
CJ: There's gonna be—
JC: Well, they're—
SB: If they're that— If they can't see past that, you know, they won't listen.
TA: Those people wouldn't see into the music anyway.
JC: There's been some things that were just silly, like Bean Blossom. And Colorado.
CJ: Yeah.
TA: What happened in Colorado?
JC: Well, we were booked to play on a festival for quite a bit of money, and it was Bill's festival, and—
SB: Naw, it wasn't Bill's festival, but apparently, he had a rider—
CJ: A rider—
SB: A rider that he could approve the other acts, you know. I mean, it's a legit rider and everything, but—
JC: And he didn't approve us, so—
SB: He didn't approve us, so—
JC: —it got cancelled, and we lost quite a bit of money.
SB: —so we lost dough on the deal, and when it comes to— You know, people can say whatever they want to about us, you know, and any old bluegrasser or anyone can say what they want to about us, but, God, when it comes to cuttin' a guy's bread off, that's just ridiculous!
CJ: Knockin' you out of the money!
SB: That's just ridiculous!
JC: And the thing that's ironic is they all really respect him, you know. I don't know anything about him, you know, so I don't have any reason to, but the three of them, they love him and they respect his music,
SB: Who, Monroe? Yeah, we do.
JC: I mean, they love his music and respect him.
SB: We do.
JC: And so it's kind of ironic that he should be doin' stuff like that, because they've never done anything, they've never hurt anybody else at all.
SB: We don't understand why old bluegrassers feel personally threatened by us, 'cause there's nothing to be threatened about.
JC: We don't want to take anything away from them.
SB: We're not trying to, you know.
TA: Maybe they just—
SB: They can't really, seriously expect us to play like them, you know.
TA: But I guess they know that what you're doing, just by playing like yourselves, is changing their music. Or they feel like it is.
SB: I sure don't want 'em to play like us.
JC: The thing that's even weirder about it is that's how Monroe's music started.
TA: That's right.
JC: Wasn't what he did really progressive for what happened at that time?
TA: Sure.
SB: Well, yes, but I'll tell you what he—
JC: Takin' a mandolin, and using it for that kind of chop.
SB: Well, also I think Monroe has taken songs, current songs of the day, and I think that's how some songs have become bluegrass.
TA: "Danny Boy."
SB: Really. You know, our band—
CJ: Also, I've heard him play— I heard a record with him and electric guitar and accordion, electric guitar!
SB: I mean, Bill Monroe has tried lots of things, you know.
TA: Yeah.
CJ: Electric guitar, too.
SB: He's tried lots of things; and Flatt and Scruggs, man, you know they've had drums on all their records for years. Osborne Brothers have, Jimmy Martin has—
TA: They brought in a dobro thing. They brought in the dobro, too, didn't they?
SB: Yeah, that's right That's the only thing Monroe hasn't used: drums.
JC: It's just silly. It just used to be a bad joke, but when they start doin' stuff like with the jobs and shit, that's too much.
SB: Yeah, that's just weird. We are never ever, you know, at a bluegrass festival gonna take anything away from Bill Monroe. Or any other bluegrass musician that is really—
CJ: Established.
SB: —a bluegrass musician. We're not gonna do it, you know. I know how people respect the bluegrass artists. I know how their audience respects 'em. And you're just not gonna take anything away from that, and I think Bill Monroe has more respect than any of 'em. He does. There's, you know, there's something about him that commands respect.
JC: That's right.
SB: That's right. But, you know, he just shouldn't get to the point where— But you know that's not a big issue. That's over, you know, and Bill Monroe's certainly not the only one that's ever done that to us, so I wouldn't want that to sound like he's the only one that ever did that to us. Because, hey, we're in a bad position, because for the good of our pickin' we need to be first act, top billing, you know? But that also goes along with records, record sales, and stuff.
CJ: Well, we haven't had a record out for, uh—
SB: We haven't had a record out since '72.
TA: And that one's out of print.
SB: And that one—
CJ: It's outdated.
JC: You can't get it. It wasn't distributed well at the time.
SB: That album was not exactly "Sergeant Pepper" either. [Laughs].
CJ: You know, it's completely outdated.
SB: It's outdated, and you just can't, you gotta— People are impressed by records, you know. I'm impressed by records.
TA: Yeah.
CJ: You need something out that can be played, you know.
SB: That's why I carry a box of records around with me, to listen. I listen to records. And if your music gets presented on records, people will listen to your own personal music more. You know, we're trying to write more of our own stuff, a lot more, so it will be our own music.
TA: I've got just a little piece of tape left, could we listen to some of your own personal music?
SB: Yes, suh!
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