Decade of Difference

Shawn Colvin picked up a guitar as a 10 year old and started to learn the music she heard from her parents, mostly 50s era folk artists. She began playing publicly in college at a strip of bars on Main Street near Southern Illinois University.

She slowly built a local and then regional following with her own band, before substance abuse problems derailed her career. Her next step was with a country-swing band, and that necessitated a move away from Illinois to Austin, Texas. A later move to California and into folk music resulted in strained vocal cords and a performing hiatus.

She next returned to music in New York in Buddy Millers’ band and onstage in off-Broadway shows. This led to a spot backing Suzanne Vega and then a recording contract of her own. Colvins’ first record won a Grammy.

1989s’ Grammy winning Steady On was the first of a series of successful records in the 90s, highlighted by the Grammy winning single Sunny Came Home in 1998. The song spent four weeks at number one on the adult contemporary charts, exposing Colvin to an audience beyond the folk scene.

Her current tour takes a look back at her first Grammy winning album on its 33rd anniversary. She is playing the record in its entirety with only her acoustic guitar to accompany her vocals.It is a revisit of the record she released in 2019, an acoustic version of that first record to celebrate its 30th anniversary

Originating in the Minneapolis music scene, the Jayhawks have established themselves as one of the premier groups to rise for the alternative country scene of the 1980s. Gary Louris and Mark Olsen formed the core of the band and although Louris was not a founding member, he joined prior to their first record and began contributing songwriting on the groups second release.

The band’s first major release came in 1992 with Hollywood Town Hall. It was the Jayhawks first appearance on the national sales charts and critics loved the mix of nostalgic sounds fused with modern songwriting and great vocal harmonies. After the Jayhawk’s following album, Olsen left the group leaving Louris in charge. After two more records the band went on hiatus.

Mark Olsen and Gary Louris reunited the Jayhawks for a new record in 2011. Mockingbird Time was the first record from the group in almost ten years. Touring over the following two years led to renewed tension between Olsen and Louris with Olsen leaving the group again. It is just the most visible lineup change for a group that has undergone many of them over their career. 

After many years of opioid addiction, Gary Louris finally chose to seek help. He had developed the addiction after receiving a prescription for the drugs. The group MusiCares, which offers assistance to musicians, paid most of the cost for him to attend Eric Clapton’s treatment center in Antigua.

“Opiates are very hard to come off of, those things stay in your system,” Louris said. “So they weaned me off.

Fusing progressive bluegrass with a jam band mentality, the Yonder Mountain String Band has cultivated a devoted following over their more than two decades of existence. Their story begins in Illinois where Dave Johnston and Jeff Austin were students at the University of Illinois. Johnston invited Austin, a novice mandolin player, to join his band. Although he could not play anything very well, Austin was instructed to just play fast and loud.

Both musicians moved independently to Colorado but reconnected, forming Yonder Mountain String Band there, playing their first show at Boulder’s Fox Theater. The four-piece band collectively had broad musical tastes, which they applied in equal parts to their new band. The result was a mix of rock, punk and bluegrass that attracted the attention of fans on the jam band circuit. The group released their first album in 1999.

Owning their reputation for great live shows, Yonder Mountain String Band began releasing live albums early on. Now with five volumes, their Mountain Tracks series pulls material from their live shows.

The band has had two personnel changes along the way. Original member Jeff Austin left in 2014 citing creative differences, and more recently Nick Piccininni has replaced Jacob Jolliff on mandolin. It is a new challenge for Piccininni, who had been playing traditional bluegrass.

The bands’ live shows have also changed recently. They have been famous for playing completely different song sets each night for a week or more on tours. But that is changing somewhat, partly because they reassessed some songs that had been vehicles for jamming. Those songs now appear in sets in much shorter form, which means the band is playing certain songs more frequently.

Darrell Scott began his musical career as a teenager, playing in Southern California before moving to Toronto and then Boston to attend college.

In the early 90s, Scott relocated to Nashville to start a career in country music and appeared on several albums as a session musician and backup singer. By 1996 Scott had his first composition reach the charts with a song recorded by Suzy Boggus. The late 90s and early 2000s saw Scott’s songs recorded by numerous major country and Americana acts, and Scott himself landed a recording contract with Sugar Hill Records.

Much of Scotts’ career has revolved around collaboration, a musical skill he says he learned at an early age. As a kid he played in a family band and found out how to harmonize, play various instruments and generally get along with a group of musicians. It is a lesson well used over Scott’s career.

Darrell Scott’s most recent album of original material, 2016’s The Couchville Sessions is drawn from work he did in 2001 in his living room. Scott had recorded three albums worth of material in about a year, and his record label released the first two, leaving the last unused for 15 years. After meeting Little Feat founding member Billy Payne, Scott realized that he was the perfect final musician to bring the project to completion

James McMurtry’s father, novelist Larry McMurtry gave him his first guitar when he was seven and his mother taught him how to play. While a student at the University of Arizona and in the following years while working as a bartender in Texas, McMurtry performed and recorded his first demo.

This demo came to the attention of John Mellencamp when he was working on a movie written by the elder McMurtry, and he was impressed – choosing to produce James McMurtry’s first album.

James McMurtry says that he became interested in songwriting when he first saw Kris Kristofferson perform. As a nine-year-old he was in the audience at the Mosque in Richmond for a show with Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristofferson. Kristofferson inspired him and coincidentally introduced him to Stephen Bruton. Bruton was playing in the band that night and later he played on McMurtry’s’ first tour and early albums.

McMurtry released The Horses and the Hounds, his first album in six years in 2021. It was written prior to the pandemic and before his father passed away. McMurtry says that he is simply continuing the family business. That business is storytelling, adding that “I don’t want to write about me. I’d rather make stuff up. I’m not interested in me.”

Aaron Lee Tasjan got his musical break when he caught the eye of Drivin’ n Cryin’s Kevin Kinney, who invited Tasjan to play guitar in the band. Tasjan also opened the shows with his own band. From there he went on to play with the New York Dolls before launching a solo career.

Tasjan started playing as an 11-year-old, teaching himself and by 16 won a guitar competition at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Offered a scholarship to Berklee School of Music, he turned it down to move to Brooklyn and continue his music career.

After several years in Brooklyn, Tasjan moved on the Nashville where he launched his successful solo career. From his first record in 2014 through last years’ latest Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan! he has held on to the advice Kevin Kinney from Drivin’ and Cryin’ had given him that no artist should be defined by one sound or genre.

That has proven to be the case with Tasjans’ records which have all had their own distinctive sound. It was a point of conflict between the artist and his record label. When signed he was performing as a solo acoustic artist and more of the same is what the label expected. Tasjan compares his sonic variety to the tradition established in the 60s by artists like Bob Dylan and the Byrds.

Missy Raines is one of several International Bluegrass Music Association award winners appearing at this year’s Red Wing Roots Festival. She has taken the Bass Player of the Year Award a remarkable ten times, and she was the first woman to win the award.

A West Virginia native, Raines grew up listening to bluegrass via her parents, fans of the progressive bluegrass band the Seldom Scene. She started playing piano, then guitar but after her father brought home an upright bass she shifted to that. Once her parents saw her enthusiasm for the instrument, they supported her by making opportunities for her to play with more experienced musicians.

Self-taught, she credits her first experience playing in a band in Charlottesville as helping her focus and become more serious about the instrument.

It is difficult for the bassist to be front and center in a bluegrass band, but Missy Raines accomplished it. She had won the Bass Player of the Year award several times while in Claire Lynch’s’ band, but it was in her duo with Jim Hurst that she first tried being the band leader. She credits that experience for making it possible to be where she is today, saying “If it hadn’t been for that experience, I don’t know that I could have gone straight from being in the back of the band for so many years and then going to the front of the band.” In the duo, there was nowhere to hide.

Her 2013 album New Frontier introduced Raines to a whole new audience by bringing on what she described as an ‘Americana-ish’ sound. That venture was stalled somewhat by a broken arm that forced her to take six months off from music.Raines has since returned to her more traditional acoustic style.

East Tennessee native Trey Hensley began singing gospel as a six-year-old. After hearing Jimmy Martin at a festival, he turned his attention to bluegrass and guitar and just a few months after that he was on stage at the Grand Ole Opry with Marty Stuart and Earl Scruggs.

Hensley met Marty Stuart when he was ten at a music festival. His dad took him to get his guitar case signed. Unbeknownst to Trey, his dad put the  guitar in the case. When they met Marty, his dad said, “Marty, my son would love to play you a song.” Trey played him an old Carter Family song and Marty had him come up onstage and play at his next show that night.

After recording three albums, Trey Hensley joined Rob Ickes in their Grammy nominated duo. Hensley brings powerful vocals along with guitar work that has earned an International Bluegrass Music Association Award for Guitar Player of the Year.

As important as his musical talents, Hensley brings another musical perspective. He grew up with more interest and exposure to rock music, and it shows through the duo’s song selections. The pair decided to cover Brown Eyed Women from the Grateful Dead because Hensley had heard and liked it. Ickes was only barely familiar with the Dead’s music.

When asked about what he would do if he was not a musician, Hensley offered a very practical answer: “I was going to go to college for AutoCAD design and engineering stuff. I really liked that, but I really like playing guitar more.”.

Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley began their collaboration long after Rob Ickes had established himself as a premier instrumentalist, collecting the Dobro Player of the Year Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association fifteen times while also winning two Grammys.

Born in California, Ickes moved to Nashville, and in 1994 was a founding member of Blue Highway and remained with the band for 21 years

During this time, Ickes released several solo albums and was a founder of a jazz leaning Jamgrass band, Three Ring Circle. His solo recordings are known for including many genres in the song selections as well as bringing together musicians from many different backgrounds.

Ickes was ready for a change after more than two decades with Blue Highway, and Trey Hensley’s move to Nashville offered the opportunity. The pair met when Hensley performed a stand-in vocal for a Blue Highway session. Ickes was impressed and since he had already recorded albums on his own while in Blue Highway, proposed to Hensley that they record.

The chemistry was good. Ickes left Blue Highway to focus on Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley. In a fortunate turn, about a month after the announcement the pair received a Grammy nomination for their first album. This made it much easier for the new duo to book shows and gain exposure.

Langhorne Slim’s early artistic interest was expressed through involvement in community theater before shifting to music as a teen. Teaching himself to play guitar, he began writing his own songs first by rearranging chords on songs he had learned. In college while studying for a music degree, Sean Skolnick took the stage name Langhorne Slim from his hometown Langhorne, Pennsylvania and started playing in area clubs.  He landed a gig as the opening act for the quirky Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, who toured with their music accompanying slideshows they collected from estate sales and thrift shops.

He spent several years touring before he landed a record deal, only to have that derailed by the sale of the label while he was recording his first full length album. Finally in 2008 a second company stepped in and helped Langhorne Slim complete the self-titled Langhorne Slim.

Langhorne Slim has struggled through substance abuse problems throughout his career, admitting that as a teenager, drunk from a six pack of beer, he was struck that either he would have to quit or eventually it was going to kill him. Scolnick finally addressed the problem as a 33-year-old and has remained sober since that time. Around that same time, he suffered a serious breakup and moved to a now permanent home in Nashville – in a big pink house. It is his first permanent residence in fifteen years – time he has spent on the road.

The latest release Strawberry Mansion is named for the Philadelphia neighborhood where his two grandfathers were raised. Written during the pandemic, the album is influenced by his experiences prior to and during the lockdown. After developing an addiction to the medication prescribed for his anxiety disorder, Skolnick found himself on tour in Europe and without his meds. Unable to get them he was urged by doctors to curtail use of the drug. He achieved that, only to have his world turned upside down by the pandemic.