George White, Author at Bluegrass Today

It’s country… it’s bluegrass… it’s The Roys

Call it what you want–bluegrass, country, or inspirational–it’s clear that The Roys are in a trajectory to be one of the top bands in the business.

Lee and Elaine Roy talked about their roots, milestones and their current success just before an October 18 performance at Faith City in Titusville, FL, less than 15 miles as the crow flies from the launch pads at Kennedy Space Center.

Just what that ‘business’ is doesn’t need a name or a pidgeonhole to fit in, it’s the music and the connection with the audience that’s most important, they say.

The common musical thread, whether originals or cover songs, is that its roots are traditional, calling back memories of the pure songs in Americana of yesteryear: the old songs still echoing with many of us that remain the soul of both country and bluegrass.

“The best advice that we ever got was that the best thing we could do with our career is to bring new music to the genre,’’ Lee said.

The Roys say they are proud to be able to offer more of those familiar and pure sounds, set in the current time, and take pride in the content of the message they put out. One day, Lord willing, their songs may become standards although they are way too humble to ever say so.

The Roys love traditional bluegrass and appreciate it’s musicianship, but they took a slightly different path. They chose to branch out to the more ballady end of bluegrass – you could even call it country – as a means to tell their stories, Lee said.

“We’re not 160-beats a minute, 10 songs in a row,’’ Lee said.

Added Elaine: “We’re doing the music that is really, truly in our heart and soul, stuff that we want to write about. I have always been a story person, that’s why I like Dolly Parton. If you look at her songs, there are a lot of stories in there,” said Elaine.

Lee said the country v. bluegrass debate seems to come up a lot with The Roys.

“People always ask me how we blend the two (country and bluegrass)? I tell them I was raised on the Osborne Brothers, Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley. I was also raised on Conway Twitty, George Jones and Merle Haggard. When we were picking growing up, one guy might sing Blue Moon of Kentucky, and the next guy might sing Hello Darlin’ and the next guy might sing These Four Walls. It was bluegrass, country and old time fiddle tunes.

“We played Bean Blossom last year for the first time and everybody told us ‘Oh my gosh, you’d better rip out some old traditional stuff.’ I told the band that we are going to do our set. I figured I had one chance to either alienate the crowd or make the crowd our new fans. They told us we’ll be back next year and that they appreciated the fact that they didn’t hear Little Cabin Home on the Hill for the 15th time.’’

Moving to Nashville from Fitchburg, MA has turned out to be successful path to stardom for The Roys, but they admit that Music City was a bit intimidating at first.

“We’ve been their eight years now. It’s pretty awesome. I think when you get there you find the scope of it. You say ‘that’s a great player, that’s a really great player and that’s a really, really great player. It’s a pretty amazing town with a lot of talent and the networking is what really got it going for us: going to writer’s rounds and writing with different people. It’s no different than if you go to LA for acting or New York City for Broadway. I love it. It’s got everything you need without it being too big,’’ Lee said.

Their first big break was guest appearances with Country legend George Jones.

“It was a friend of ours that knew George, and their booking agent and they kind of pitched us. We had a song that we re-recorded called Grandpa’s Barn, and they really liked that song. We got to do a few shows, then a few more and a few more. Sometimes we’d meet up with them on a Friday and we wouldn’t see them for two weeks and then we’d do a whole weekend with them,” Lee said.

Career highlights seem too numerous to count, but Elaine says that each one is a special milestone.

“There’s been many. We’ve won awards I never thought we would win and we sang on the Grand Ole Opry November 1st. That was like the pinacle. We’ve always wanted to sing on the Grand Ole Opry. We’ve sung in Bogata, Columbia, South America with Compassion International singing for underprivileged children. Our music has brought us to many many places that we never, ever thought we’d go: Australia, Europe.”

“When you start this you have dreams and hopes and aspirations. You never know what the Good Lord has in store,” she said.

As for the future, it seems the sky is the limit for The Roys, but they make a big effort to keep things in perspective.

“I think you always want to grow your career and keep it moving in the right direction. You start out with a list, like I want to win a Grammy. That’s all great, but honestly I just want to be happy because the day that music doesn’t make me happy, I’ll go get a job somewhere. For me, you want to get the recognition from your peers, but I just want to keep playing music and making music that’s fun to play, and surrounding ourselves with great players that want to play with us and want to play the music we play. You have to have a good team.

“In all honesty, if my career goes no higher, as long as I can pay my bills, I’m happy,’’ Lee said.

And The Roys are happy that their new songs can in some small way reach deep like the great songs of the past that remain in the heart of rural America.

“At the end of the day someone comes up and says ‘you made me cry,’ I’m like ‘awesome.’ At least we evoked some kind of emotion,’’ Lee said.

Todd Taylor with Cage & Focx

Banjo man Todd Taylor captured lightning on tape in the mid ’80s when he covered Free Bird and successfully crossed over into mainstream music enough to make the Top 40 with a gold record. Now, like blazing hot sauce on an already delicious gumbo, Taylor has kicked new energy into the songwriting duo of Cage & Focx for Tonky Honk Bounce, a catchy blend of power rock and driving banjo which they hope can become the next major redneck anthem.

A music video for Tonky Honk Bounce will drop in January, along with a marketing blitz already planned and funded, Gibson Cage says. And, so far, Cage is encouraged by all of it: the new musical mix with Taylor on banjo, the way the three get along, and the early feedback from what is hoped to be the first of many crossover hits.

“We’re number one on every test market that I put it on and I’ve only used mini clips of the song. It’s number one on Reverb Nation in Nashville and there are a few radio stations we‘ve sent them to. All around they’re playing our song and we haven’t even released this thing yet.’’

He said that the roots of the new group goes back to an earlier impression of Taylor.

“I actually met Todd on a radio program back in the day and we hit it off right off the bat. We played some of the swampy stuff back in the day and he knew exactly the sound I wanted to hear on the songs. I just knew it was fantastic match. He laid into it and started coming up ad libbing on the original idea that I had. It just felt like melted butter over corn.’’

Fast forward to 2013, and Cage said he remembered what rock and roll banjo added to a certain kind of song, and which banjo player was up for the job.

“I moved out to Nashville about two years ago. I hooked up with Anthony and started writing. And it was kind of like – I don’t know – meant to be kind of thing because we were doing this music and I knew something was missing and I thought of Todd. You know how egos are with most players and stuff, what he would be like or how he would work in. It was like a dream come true. I sent him the tracks and now I’ve got 500 banjo tracks sitting in my computer.’’

Cage said Focx not only rocks, but is a huge asset as a skilled audio engineer who has worked in many genres over the years and understands them all. Both live in Nashville now and, with Taylor on board, want their new band to represent a new and more edgy twist on the country scene in Music City.

“Everything is ready and we’re planning to strike. Right now it’s just hard to have the patience that you need. You have to make sure your product is 100 percent and not ‘garage’ if you know what I’m saying.’’

Anthony Focx added…

“We started out being a rock/country sound, and then we added him (Taylor), and it’s really took a cool turn, a different sound that’s pretty unique. You have the heavy guitars rockin’, but the banjo changes the sound and makes it a fresh different sound – and that’s a good thing.

It’s a cool sounding instrument. It’s not really rock and not really country. It’s an interesting sound that we have. I’m sort of at a loss for words on it. Two things that blend into one makes it interesting. It’s really really cool.

I’ve seen lots of music that had violins with heavy metal sound, but I’ve never seen it with banjo.’’

It’s sort of hard to believe it’s come to rock and roll banjo when you rewind back to Taylor’s childhood as a member of the traditional bluegrass played by Taylor Twins with his brother Andrew. But Todd says that even then there were hints that someday he would rock.

“Roy Acuff was the first person that ever put us on the Grand Ole Opry when we were like probably 14. We used to do a lot of Nashville Network TV shows and we toured with Bill Monroe, Carl Story, Jim and Jesse, all them people. We also worked amusement parks. That’s where I started.

Early on when I started transcribing them rock and roll songs on the banjo, I was hanging around Troy Caldwell a lot (the late guitar player for the Marshall Tucker Band).

In my teens I was doing all that and I started perfecting it. I was with Troy (Caldwell) one day and said ‘Man, I’d like to have some gold records and stuff like that one day.’ He said ‘Well, you keep playing that rock and roll banjo. That’s pioneering something.’ I also got some insight from John McEuen of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.”

His last television show appearance playing traditional bluegrass was Regis and Kathy Lee in 1989.

“I had already planned on taking the banjo to rock and roll. Back then in them days you never heard of any bluegrass bands doing the ‘Picking On’ stuff or any of that. That was unheard of. Nobody had done anything of that. Everybody told me it can’t be done in Nashville.

But Taylor contacted representatives from Lynyrd Skynrd to see if they would allow him to record Free Bird.

“They gave their blessing. I went in the studio in South Carolina, in Marshall Tucker’s old studio, and recorded that whole album, Something Different, and the rest was history baby.

It took me to the Top 40 and pioneering rock and roll banjo.”

Free Bird was the big hit, the B-side was Stairway to Heaven.

“I’ll never forget being at the Top 40 with Rick Dees. Man I was young. I’ll never forget them days. If it hadn’t a been for doing that, I’d a been a regular Joe Blow banjo player.”

Taylor said that applying the rock and roll formula to banjo, which is inherently mathematical in Earl Scruggs style picking, takes a little work and has been done for many years, but only as a background instrument.

“Back then in the ’70s there was banjos in rock and roll and John McEuen had played on [Led Zeppelin’s] Hangman, and was the banjo player in a lot of that stuff, but it was a back instrument.

Here’s the way I can explain it (rock and roll banjo)… Everybody’s different. It’s just something you have to make up on your own. Some of the licks sound like guitar licks and stuff, but all them songs are original. I just make everything up. A true musician plays outside the box, you play it from the heart, by feel.

Yeah… it’s good to know chords and all that stuff, but the best music comes just from the feel of the heart.”

Being on stage as a featured artist with Cage & Focx has also given Taylor a new energy and excitement for the future.

“I feel like I’ve been re-born again. I told them… ‘hey you’ve got it. Anything you want, I’m there. I’m your banjo player. Todd Taylor plays with you and that’s it.’

“I’ve been doing the Todd Taylor stuff and it’s fun to do all that but I’m going to tell you doing this is like when I got that first gold record for Freebird. I love being on stage with Gibson and Anthony, just the power of it. Our last concert in Nashville was amazing. It blew my mind. They couldn’t get over it. That’s just a little taste of what’s to come. I love rockin with them. They’re great guys.’’

Kristin Scott Benson talks bluegrass and The Grascals

Banjos are big these days, as evidenced by Mumford and Sons’ Grammy for album of the year, and a recent flurry of activity for traditional bluegrass band The Grascals, including a Grammy nomination of their own, and an appearance on Jay Leno.

Some within the music community sense friction between the growing popularity of bluegrass and the use of traditional string instruments and themes by pop, county, and alternative rock artists. But not everyone agrees.

Grascal of five years Kristin Scott Benson, four time IBMA Banjo Player of the Year, at 38 is a 20-year veteran of bluegrass bands. She’s proud for the success of Mumford and Sons and celebrates all styles of music, but especially string instruments.

The music of Mumford and Sons “is very different than ours,” she said. “There is a jam band scene and more of a traditional bluegrass scene, which is where we are. I mean it’s pretty remarkable that they’ve won album of the year. It’s amazing to me.’

“It won’t hurt us. We just do what we do and it’s a very traditional form of bluegrass. It’s a lot different than Mumford and Sons or the Avett Brothers. There’s a whole scene (with those bands) and a gigantic audience.’

Grabbing a share of that growing audience is not as easy as one would think, she said.

“It would be nice if we could intertwine those two some but it’s not easy to do. From a business standpoint it’s not easy to do because the audience is so separate. We just played Palatka Florida, and I can assure you no one in that place have ever been to one of those shows.

I think their audiences would be more receptive to new things and be open-minded.”

And that acceptance, or lack thereof, remains at the heart of the challenge faced by all bluegrass musicians and fans as they continue the tradition of excellence in performance and innovations in musicianship within traditional instrumentation, she said.

“It’s a double-edged sword. Traditional bluegrass has always to the ‘coolest of the cool’ had a stigma attached to it as hillbilly and backwoods. Even as a kid growing up, loving bluegrass and the banjo, of course you feel that.”

Benson also feels the popularity of the new styles, including an enthusiastic response to banjo playing. But it may not be a two-way street, she said.

“Interestingly, and I think the jam band scene’s audience would personify this well, they seem to be very open minded. If they like it they like, it and they don’t care what it is.

On our own side of the fence, we can have audience members that are very close minded, ironically, because the only music they want to hear is traditional bluegrass.”

It can work both directions.

“It’s weird because mainstream audiences have to be open minded to hear our music, like it and accept it–and admit that they like it. That requires an open mind. At the same time, our audience, a lot of them, could benefit from being more open minded to the other side.”

The Grascals keep the traditional style of bluegrass alive and along the way share a old-time concept for musicians in a successful band: they like each other, she said.

“We stay really busy and we’re together a lot. I think my favorite thing about this band is how everybody gets along. The quality and the time you spend with people matters a great deal. It’s like any other job: a million factors go in to make it what it is. I’ve had a great five years here.

Another great thing about this job is we’re all on the same page. Everybody is attached. Nobody is overly young. Our youngest member is the fiddle player and he’s in his 30s like me. You kind of all need to be on the same page, the same season of life. We’re all quite content to stay around that 100 [dates a year] mark.

Thankfully, bluegrass bands typically can be classified as sort of what you call weekend warriors. Four of us have kids. I have a six-year-old boy. It works great because we’re home all week and we play on the weekends.”

It’s a living but Benson shares a passion for performance with other elite players, as well as kids just starting out and experiencing banjo playing for the first time.

“I just feel like there’s no other genre. At a festival, it’s not unusual for you to speak to 100 people that you kind of know. The lines are blurred between the bands and the listeners and it makes for a really special, unique experience to be a bluegrass musician. It’s just the finest group of people you could every play for.

“In fact you could even go further and say that our industry is comprised mostly of that. You look at the vast majority of promoters, they’re not professional music promoters. It’s a labor of love. JT (event promoter J.T. Shealy) is a perfect example of this.

Shealy had the Grascals booked for six months when I visited at their show in Mims, FL, and can’t help but smile when thinking about all the recent publicity from the Leno appearance.

“I had them here last year too. We have two or three big bands in here each year and they are probably one of the best. This is top drawer,’’ Shealy said.

Benson can‘t say enough about those who help promote bluegrass and The Grascals.

“Whether it’s a promoter or a radio DJ that has a show on from 6 a.m. to 10 using is own private collection. It’s absolutely a grass roots, salt of the earth special community that you won’t find in any other genre of music.”

Bluegrassers often experiment with other styles of music, but Benson said it’s no surprise that many eventually come back to their roots.

“A lot of times it goes back to who you are and what you did first. You can do that as an adult. You can do all those different things and kind of morph your musicianship, but there really is an element of ‘who are you?’ and ‘where did you come from?’ And what meant everything to you musically when you were 15 years old?

It’s never going to go away and that’s at the core of your musical self. Even as a professional musician, you can never re-create that feeling you get as a teenager that captivates you and sets you on the path. Even if you’re not a musician, if music just meant that much to you as a listener, if it ever grabs you in those formative years, what you are during that time will always be there. It’s a well that you can always return to.”

Bluegrass is a traditional form of music but remains fresh because it celebrates innovations, Benson said.

“It’s important to look at the evolution of bluegrass and realize that there have always been those innovators. What the Osborne Brothers did in the 70s was crazy out of the box. There are just so many (innovators) that you could just look down the line and look at how it’s evolved and how it’s changed.

One cool part of bluegrass is we do still have the purists that maintain the tradition and that’s the legs that everyone stands on.”

You can keep up with Kristin and the Grascals online.

Alan Bibey tells all

Veteran bluegrass mandolin player Alan Bibey of Grasstowne does it the old-fashioned way—and doesn’t mind telling you why.

He took a few minutes to explain between sound check and Grasstowne’s November 29 performance in the North Brevard Shrine Center in Titusville, FL. Bibey is both relaxed and excited about the night’s performance, but part of that excitement, he says, is working with new players.

Building rapport with new personnel is a common aspect of maintaining a working band, just as it takes any co-workers some time to become friends and have stories to tell on one another, he said. It’s not all serious, as pleasant banter often revolves around Bibey, 48, having been in the business longer than some of his bandmates have been born.

There are pleasantries, but also an undercurrent of a strict requirement to near perfection that is not only encouraged but insisted upon. These are bluegrass’s elite. Done correctly, bluegrass at this level demands a high level of instrumental ability and creativity, a strong voice capable of singing in tune, and it also needs a certain soul: the original feeling so genuinely found in legends like Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, Jimmy Martin and many others.

The songs may be new, but Bibey said they need to continue to show respect and reverence to its roots in rural America, and in Southern Gospel music. The hope is that tradition will continue and Bibey doesn‘t apologize for remaining close to those roots.

“I think in a way it has [continued]. With us for sure. We’re on the traditional side.”

It could go back to when Bibey’s dad took him to see Bill Monroe when he was five years old.

“I’ve told this story a bunch of times. He held me on his shoulders and I was watching from an old flatbed truck. When I got home that night I said ‘That’s what I want to do.’ He put me on the chords and I started chopping.”

The first set begins and it’s all there: the impeccable harmonies, strong breaks from each player, and the bass keeping the tempo like a freight train.

Bibey kicks into a lead, electrifying the discriminating crowd with first a combination sprinkled with rock and jazzy notes, and then finishing with a triple-time run that causes a spontaneous if muffled ‘whoop’ from a few members of the crowd.

“I think it just evolves,’’ Bibey said of his bluesy licks. “I’ve played a lot of different kinds of music but I always come back to bluegrass.’’

An original member of the New Quicksilver, IIIrd Tyme Out, and BlueRidge, in 2000 Bibey was included in Mel Bay‘s book, The Greatest Mandolin Players of the Twentieth Century. In 2007 and 2009, Alan was voted Mandolin Player Of The Year by the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America organization in Nashville, TN. The Gibson Company had produced an Alan Bibey Signature Mandolin in 2004, reaffirming his status.

Picking is no doubt important, but the singing in bluegrass is also a key to a good overall sound, he said.

“I sing lead, tenor, baritone, really a little bit of everything. You hear a lot of different styles. For me I really try to sing in tune. I have my own studio at home so I tend to hone in on that even more because I’m always listening.”

Playing blindingly fast, another signature of some types of traditional bluegrass, takes a special type of musical connection between players, Bibey said.

“You always hear that you only as strong as your weakest link, and there’s a lot of truth to that.”

Grasstowne’s amazing successes during 2008, (SPBGMA Album Of The Year for The Road Headin’ Home) with former bandmates Steve Gulley and Phil Leadbetter, were for the most part unexpected, but the band had the advantage of established players at that time, he said.

But it’s just a matter of time before Grasstowne climbs back up to the top.

“I loved those guys, and it was awesome but this band, as a unit, can be the best this band’s ever been. I think it’s that the bluegrass industry as a whole doesn’t know these guys as well as they did the other, but they’re phenomenal.”

A mighty close call for Todd Taylor

This cringe-inducing story comes from George White, a free lance writer who we hope can be a regular contributor for Bluegras Today.

Every musicians’ worst nightmare is a severe injury to their fingers. For legendary banjo player Todd Taylor, it also includes a squirrel, classical music, and six potential Grammy nominations.

Taylor, 45, was hurt in late September in his backyard in Spartanburg, SC when a pellet-gun replica of an AK-47 malfunctioned, snapping a metal bar onto the ring and middle fingers of his left hand.

“When you cock it, there’s a mechanism on the side that you grab with your right hand. When I pulled it back, it stayed. When I went to put the pellet in it, that mechanism messed up and over 100 pounds of pressure got my fingers, right there at the fingernail.

When it sliced my fingers, that didn’t hurt. The pain that hurt was the pressure of my fingers being like squashed. It had malfunctioned before and I had said ‘I’m not going to fool with it anymore.’ Then I see another squirrel go runnin’. It happened fast because I was trying to get it loaded.

“There was a voice in my head like a guardian angel that said ‘don’t do it,’ but I did it anyway, and that’s what happened. It happened in the blink of the eye.”

Then it hit him.

“It was like my whole life flashed in front of me: everything that I’ve accomplished. I was like ‘Man, I can’t believe it. How could I be so stupid?’ ’’

Todd Taylor began touring the bluegrass circuit with his brother, Allen, as The Taylor Twins, and made several television appearances. He became the first banjo player to take the banjo to the Rock-n-Roll worldwide Top-40 countdown with his remake of the classic Lynyrd Skynyrd anthem, Free Bird.

Taylor, a native of Spartanburg, has been recognized for lifetime achievement on banjo and service to South Carolina. He was presented with the Order of the Palmetto by Gov. Nikki Haley.

He currently has a new CD out, Indescribable, and is promoting his best-selling book Pickin’ Over The Speed Limit. With this year’s six possible Grammy nominations, he has had a total of 29 since 2002.

A stunned Taylor tried to downplay the injury at first.

“I went straight in the house and lost my wallet. I think I went into shock from all the blood I lost. Then I was starting to fool myself thinking that it ain’t nothing, I can just patch it up.

“When I put my fingers into the water they just laid open and I was like ‘O my God.’ Then I was on the phone to my dad to get me to the ER.”

The accident had fractured the bones in the tips of both fingers, and sliced them open requiring seven stitches each.

The question was, considering his career as a picker, how best to repair the damage. Would he be able to play again, full speed?

They administered pain medication and a tetnus shot, and rolled him into x-ray.

“The only thing I was saying the whole time ‘Am I ever going to be able to play again?’’

The doctor came in.

“He told me ‘Being who you are, and all you’ve accomplished in music and everything, we could sew those fingers up but we’re not. We’re going to send you to the best hand surgeon. We’re going to call him in and he’s going to take care of it.’

“I told him ‘That ain’t what I asked you. Give me the honest truth. You’re looking at the x-ray, tell me the truth.’ He said ‘You are one lucky man. If it would had gotten your fingers (on the knuckle) you probably wouldn’t have been able to play again like you had.’

The Good Lord was looking out for me.’’

Then came the excruciating wait for the wounds and bones to heal, for a chance to see if he could still pick.

“The first two weeks were the toughest in my life because I didn’t know if I was going to be able to play again. If you don’t play the banjo for two days it’s like something’s missing in my life. A void is in your life. We you get back to playing you’re happy.’’

“Everybody said I could play again but I wanted to know for myself. I took all the bandages off and my fingers were swollen but I could do it. Then I put it up for a week and a half and that was able to determine if I was going to do it or not.’

On Oct. 9, he tried again, this time playing the Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, a Grammy eligible piece he painstakingly transposed from cello, using the standard G tuning rather than playing in drop tuning as others have played it.

“The first thing in my mind, the Bach piece I’ve done has never been arranged like I’ve done there. I arranged it note for note as the cello plays it because Bach shouldn‘t be messed around with. It has some hellacious stretches.

“I could play it all and I was like ‘Thank you Jesus.’ I was on my hands and knees. It was like nothing had ever happened.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMXhV34PSw8

The accident could have been a payday, but at the ultimate price for a picker.

“They said ‘you’ve got over a million dollars on your hand.’ You know what I told them ‘I don’t care. If somebody offered me $5 million never to play the banjo again I’d tell them to go jump in a lake.’ “

Hand specialist Dr. James Essman of the Carolina Hand Center treated Taylor and is encouraged.

“The patient had lacerations through the nail of the left middle and ring fingers. He also had fractures at the tips of both fingers. His prognosis is good, however it will take a couple of months for the nails to completely grow back.”

Taylor said he thinks about his hands every day and has never before had a finger injury of any kind.

“I’m lucky it was the left hand because the right hand is the real key to banjo playing.’’

A mighty close call, indeed.

Following is a list of categories in which Taylor is eligible for the 2013 Grammy Awards:

Best Short Form Music Video — Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major — Todd Taylor (Thornton Cline; Jerry Fortenberry)
Best Classical Instrumental Solo — Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major — from album INDESCRIBABLE, Todd Taylor (Thornton Cline; Mike Moody)
Best Instrumental Arrangement — Bach Cello Suite No. 1 In G major — Todd Taylor, Arranger Todd Taylor
Best Country Solo Performance — Six Gun’s — Todd Taylor, Writer Todd Taylor
Best Instrumental Composition Composing/Arranging — Waterfall — Todd Taylor, Composer Todd Taylor
Best Engineered Album, Non classical — INDESCRIBABLE — Todd Taylor, Mastering Engineer Todd Taylor