
âWhat if Belaâs Drive had the vocals of Chris Thile/Michael Daves?â
Youâve probably never asked yourself that exact question, but I bet youâre imagining it now. Hank Smith, a progressive banjo player from the Raleigh area, has started a project that will seek to make that idea a reality.
Hank Smithâs banjo playing is equal to the best young progressive 5-string pickers on the scene, e.g. Pikelny, Pandolfi, and Thorn, but his career in the last 13 years been largely based in the southeastern jam-band/Americana scene more than the bluegrass circuit. Smith joined one of the top southeastern jam-grass bands, Barefoot Manner, in 2002. âI joined them straight out of graduate school. We toured the country until 2009 as a full-time band, but then people started getting real jobs and such,â says Hank. âBut we still like to do fun pick-up gigs and festivals when we can.â
After a few different short-lived projects, Hank decided to tackle the grand poobah of all banjo challenges and lead a BĂ©la Fleck and the Flecktones tribute band, which he called Blu Bop. âIt was one of the more insane things Iâve done,â says Hank. âEveryoneâs reaction was âWell, thatâs ambitious!â but we had some great gigs and raised some eyebrows, and it was also Bela approved!â
Hank, along with six other accomplished musicians, spent a year working up the material, featuring songs such as: Frontiers, UFO TOFU, Sinister Minister, Big Country, and Stomping Grounds. After booking some southeastern shows, Hank was at the 2013 IBMA conference handing out promotional handbills when someone alerted him that BĂ©la and his wife Abigail Washburn were close by in the hotel. âI had never even spoken to BĂ©la before, but a journalist told me I should go over and hand him a handbill. I gave it to him, he looked at it and said, âSo youâre the guy!â I had a brief moment of âOh no, this could be bad,â but he smiled and said âI think this is great. Some of the best years of my life were with this band and I think itâs fantastic that someone wants to do this! Best of luck.ââ
BĂ©laâs music has always been in Hankâs life since getting his first banjo. âI knew who BĂ©la was before Earl,â he remembers. âIâd been playing his [Flecktones] stuff for a long time, so I knew it on a cursory level, but Iâd never played it with anyone else. What changes when you unpack it is how much it works on an ensemble level. When we [banjo players] are playing bluegrass, we are just hammering through it, but this is ensemble music where you play your part; maybe itâs a few bars or maybe a very long passage, but then you step back and let the next person play their part. Youâre just part of a greater whole. Itâs great to see the inner workings of Belaâs music that Iâd never heard before.â
In a true testament to the complexity of the Flecktones music, it took six great players to fully complete the sound of Bela, Victor, and Futureman. Blu-Bop consisted of Larry Q. Draughn on drums, Myron Koch on saxophones, Paul Messinger blowing the harmonicas, Justin Powell on the keyboards, Hank Smith on various banjos, Lindsey Tims on both fiddle and mandolin, and Scott Warren on bass.
âBy watching the other musicians learn this music I realized that itâs still extremely  banjo-centric,â says Hank. âThese other instruments have to play these complicated 16th note runs that we take for granted because we roll. They canât do that. It can be very difficult for them to play these banjo runs with the speed and precision required.â After seeing a couple of videos of their performances, Bela sent them a note saying, âThis is great! You guys have worked so hard on this. I canât wait to send it to the other [Flecktones] guys!â (Keep up with future Blu-Bop shows at their website and on Facebook.)
At this point, Hank and fiddler Lindsey Tims had played together in several bands, including Morning After and Barefoot Manner, and decided to record a duo album. âWe wanted to honor all the music that weâd been listening to and playing through the yearsâthe more progressive side of bluegrass,â says Hank. âWe rushed through it,â Hank remembers. âWe recorded and mixed it in our living room in five days so it would be out for IBMA.â The album, Impulse, is an instrumental powerhouse that revolves around banjo and fiddle interplay and can, in my opinion, stand toe-to-toe with any instrumental progressive bluegrass album out there. (You can find it on iTunes and Spotify.)
Impulse fell short of the IBMA instrumental album of the year nomination, but it was still one of the most successful projects Hank had done by this point. When Lindsey decided to take a break from the musician lifestyle, Hank started working on a band that would continue the progressive instrumental side of the album but would also feature strong vocals. Hank knew many great musicians that would work for the project, but replacing Lindsey on fiddle was the part he had to get right. Luckily, he had a lot of experience playing with fiddler Pattie Hopkins-Kinlaw in two other bands, Kicking Grass and The Morning After. Pattie, a classical violinist, started playing when she was 4, and her passion for the instrument took her to Asheville in her young adult years to embed herself in the heart of bluegrass. Her desire to trace the instrument back even farther led her to a backpacking trip through Ireland in search of teachers and jam sessions. âIt is always eye-opening to be immersed in a culture that is not your own,â says Pattie. âUnderstanding the roots of our music was a real learning experience for me. As a fiddler, acquiring the skills that enable me to learn specific bowings, articulations, and melodies to produce a pure Irish sound on the fiddle was compelling. This particular journey changed my perception of the music from the stage and my own personal point of view. It made me contemplate my role as a young artist and educator at that time. I wanted to implement that feeling into my own world, both in performing and teaching.â
Both Hank and Pattie are IBMA Leadership graduates who consistently immerse themselves in both learning and teaching. âI am very passionate about education,â Pattie says. âI believe that as Americans we should learn our indigenous music. I started a violin studio in which my students learn classical and American styles, and like me, they sit in symphonies, read music and chord charts, and can jam on the 12-bar blues. I feel education walks hand-in-hand with my artistry and one without the other would not make me as passionate about my art.â
Bassist Scott Warren, who also holds down Victor Wootenâs lines in Blu-Bop, will be laying the foundation for this project as well. âScott will add add a whole new element to the bluegrass side of us,â Hank says. âMost bassists canât play lines and solos like he does.â And to bring back the Drive album with Thile/Daves vocals teaser, we have Ben Parker and Robert Thornhill on mandolin and guitar. Theyâve performed as The Reckless Brothers duo since 2011 and sing with the comfortable ease that is the foundation of all the great duos in country music.
A common trait of bands who could be described as having an âall-star lineupâ is the varied degrees of musical experience each person brings to the group. âAll of the members are seasoned and serious about the music,â Pattie explained. âWe all come from different backgrounds but seem to have a common link that has connected us from the beginning. Each individual brings his or her piece of the puzzle to the table, and this ensemble forms its own unique sound.â
One might think coming off the Flecktones tribute project and starting an all-star band might be enough for someone to tackle, but ever the life-long student of the 5-string, Hank has also become an understudy with Jens Kruger. âOne of the worldâs premier banjo players has taken an interest in what Iâm doing,â says Hank, who is still surprised at his fortune. Jens Kruger, easily one of the greatest all-around banjo players to pick up the instrument, is creating some of the most beautiful instrumental music in the world right now, both in symphonic and progressive bluegrass areas. (Check out The Kruger Brothers album Suite- Volume 1.)
Hank describes his time with Jens as âprofoundâ and âlife-changing,â and from the sounds of it, quite Yoda-ish. âJens has taught me to approach the music from outside yourself,â says Hank. âHe tells me things like âMost people write from the heart or from an intellectual level, but itâs only as good as youâre willing to tolerate. You want people to discover new things about themselves that they didnât know before. We paint with sounds. You start with a blank canvas and add a color and then another. So you start with a bare bones thing and build it up until you have a beautiful melody. We tweak [our shows] each time a little bit. We try to find the moment where we lose the audience and then we go back and try to fix that part where we thought we lost them. Itâs really just melodic content and emotional delivery and inspiration outside of your own mind.ââ
The Hank Smith and Patty Hopkins-Kinlaw Band hopes to record a full-length album in January of 2016. âPattie will write half of it, and I will write half of it,â says Hank. âIt will be an evolution of the Impulse album, but with vocals. It will be a one stop shop for all of the musical influences weâve ever had.â
The Hank Smith and Pattie Hopkins-Kinlaw Band will be performing throughout the IBMA conference at the following dates:
- Tuesday, Sept. 29 – 2:30 p.m. Duo showcase at Raleigh Convention Center, Room 304
- Tuesday, Sept. 29 – 7:00 p.m. Full band showcase at The Vintage Church
- Tuesday, Sept. 29 – 9:00 p.m. Full band showcase at The Convention Center, Room 304
- Wednesday, Sept. 30 – 9:00 p.m. Full band showcase at The Pour House Music Hall
- Wednesday, Sept 30 – 1:00 a.m. Full Band showcase at The Vintage Church (MerleFest)
- Friday, Oct. 2 – 12:00 a.m. Full band showcase at King’s Barcade (After Hours Showcase, without Lindsey Tims)
Other performances by Hank Smith this week:
- Friday, Oct. 2 – 6:30 p.m. Homegrown Music Network 20th Anniversary Festival with Barefoot Manner
- Saturday, Oct. 3 – 1:30 p.m. Morning After Music at Street Fest on The Hargett Street Stage
- Saturday, Oct. 3rd – 5:00 p.m. Acoustic Manner at The Shake It Off Benefit Show, Lincoln Theatre
On September 18th, they debuted the band at the Lincoln Theater in Raleigh, NC. A set of videos from the show has been released, showing off their progressive instrument chops with the Hank Smith-penned tunes:
Pattieâs soulful voice takes center stage with the great JJ Grey tune, Palestine.
Ben Parker and Robert Thornhill singing the Danny Barnes classic, Get It While You Can.