Bluegrass fans remember Courtney Hartman as the fiery flatpicker with prog grassers Della Mae, and before that with her family band, The Hartmans, back in Colorado.
Since moving on from the Dellas, Courtney has relocated to New York City and created a partnership with singer and old time banjoist Taylor Ashton. The duo are touring now in support of their debut release on Free Dirt Records, Been On Your Side. Officially releasing August 31, they asked us to premiere a track ahead of time to share their music with all of our readers.
Nature Of Us is neither pure bluegrass nor old time. You might call it contemporary folk if you need a label, but whatever you call it, you’re sure to find it to be a deeply reflective song about kinship and intimacy.
Hartman tells us a bit about how the song came to be…
“It is rare to find trusted relationships from which art grows. I wrote Nature of Us with a dear friend of mine and Taylor’s, Maya de Vitry. It stands to be one of the very few songs I have ever written from start to finish sitting beside someone. We wrote by the edge of Percy Priest Lake, outside of Nashville, threading the song together slowly, until the sun had snuck away from us. The lyrics speak to a depth of friendship, to those relationships whose subtle complexities can only be described as ‘the nature of us’.”
You can see Courtney & Taylor’s tour schedule online to try and catch them when they come your way. They are in Colorado this week and next, then returning to the east coast for a run of shows leading up to a visit to the UK in October.
The good folks with the Great Smoky Mountains Association have released a video preview of their third and most recent album of the traditional mountain music of the region.
On Top Of Old Smoky – New Old Time Smoky Mountain Music includes 23 old songs and tunes reinterpreted by more than a dozen top old timey musicians. These newly-made recordings are all of songs originally collected by folklorist Joseph Hall when he traveled through the Smokies during the 1930s, and again in the ’50s.
Artists who appear on the record include Dolly Parton, Norman Blake, Bryan Sutton, Alice Gerrard, Tony Trischka, Stephen Wade, Sheila Kay Adams, Martin Simpson, Dom Flemons, Jody Stecher, Kate Brislin, Courtney Hartman, and David Holt.
Have a look and listen to the video for a taste of what the CD contains.
On Top Of Old Smoky – New Old Time Smoky Mountain Music is only available directly from Great Smoky Mountains Association online.
Darol Anger quickly reached monster status when he debuted with the David Grisman Quintet at 21 years of age in 1977. He went on to co-found the innovative Turtle Island Quartet and record more than a dozen albums, both under his name and as collaborations with other prominent string artists.
Of late his fascination has been showcasing and promoting younger musicians. Anger is currently an Associate Professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and his latest CD, E-And’A, finds him alongside a group of very talented pickers some years his junior. Joe Walsh from The Gibson Brothers in on mandolin, Courtney Hartman from Della Mae is on guitar, Sharon Gilchrist, late of the Tony Rice Unit on bass, and banjo champion Lukas Pool is tickling the five.
The tracks are a mix of classic fiddle tunes (Denver Belle, Fiddler’s Pastime), and new tunes written for the record. Darol says that it’s his first bluegrass album since Psychograss almost 10 years ago.
Here’s a live performance video of one of the tracks, called Pogo Big.
In addition to Tara Linhardt crawling the campgrounds at Grey Fox last weekend, David Moultrup was capturing more of the scene from the stage.
Here is his report and a gallery of fine photos.
Grey Fox 2013 showed again why it is one of the crown jewels of the bluegrass community. Hosted by philosopher extraordinaire Ron Thomason and the Dry Branch Fire Squad, the festival has something for everyone. The joint effort of artists, producers, volunteers, merchants, and festival-goers creates a weekend which has inspired and generated so much passion, so many musicians, and even some big name bands. It fosters a love of the music, and a community without walls. It is an event that has headliners, but the headliners, especially, know that the importance of the festival transcends them.
For example, the Infamous Stringdusters rolled into the festival in an impressive bus, bringing their own smoke machine and special effects. They brought the crowd to a frenzy, and took time to look back. Reso master Andy Hall reminisced fondly about meeting guitarist Andy Falco, and possibly banjo player Chris Pandolfi, while jamming on the hill at the festival. Nora Jane Struthers was passionate about growing up going to the festival, and beside herself with joy at the opportunity to contribute to the music from stage. She was ecstatic at the opportunity to have her father join her for her performances. The sharing of the music from one generation to the next saturates the festival experience.
It’s impossible to look across any part of the festival grounds without seeing families with kids in tow. Many of those kids are going to the Bluegrass Academy, which sparkled on the main stage on Sunday. They were joined by the Grammy nominated band Special Consensus for a rousing version of Fox on the Run, so appropriate for Grey Fox. Over the weekend many of the youngsters were busking on the byways of the festival, with the money made going to support the Bluegrass Academy. This year more than $1,000 was made for that effort.
The nightly performances on the main stage were graced by a gorgeous moon above and a welcomed cooling. The daytime temperatures leaned into 100 degrees with a blistering sun and humidity that should be illegal outside of saunas.
The Saturday night Supersonic All-Star Jam lived up to its billing. In the middle of unique combinations of extraordinarily talented artists producing one of a kind performances, the special thread of community shone through again. This time there was a nod to the other end of the road from the Bluegrass Academy. Bryan Sutton joined Della Mae’s guitarist Courtney Hartman for a duet on I Am A Pilgrim. Bryan dedicated the song to Tony Rice, noting that it was the first song Tony learned to play. Bryan asked everyone to send good thoughts to Reidsville, NC, where Tony wasn’t feeling too well. A stage full of stars, and a hill packed with fans, joined in the moment. Eyes spoke volumes on the stage, and former band mates, friends, and admirers appeared to be following Bryan’s request.
Grey Fox has a second performance stage called Creekside, which provides a more intimate space for performance, and a dance stage named the Catskill Stage, which offers dancing into the wee hours of the morning. The Grass Roots tent, the Slow Jam tent, and the Bluegrass Academy tent round out the formal areas for activities.
Grey Fox is like the city with never ending stories. There’s Rushad Eggleston eating one of the flowers from the stage flower box while playing his cello like a guitar and singing a song. There’s Danny Paisley introducing his son Ryan as the third generation Paisley at Grey Fox. There’s the McCourys joined by Keller Williams and merging two worlds of music into one.
Beyond the stories from the stage, the Grey Fox culture has some endearing signposts which have developed. A hot house environment, typical of mid-July in New York, needs ice to keep food safe. The Ice Truck has become a legend at the festival. The Ice Man drives the festival grounds, calling “iiiiiiiice” in a gravelly, elongated voice, over the loudspeaker. The Ice Man has cultivated such a following that he sells his own Ice Man tee shirts. Also, money from Uncle Sam ain’t acceptable at Grey Fox food vendors. In order to buy food, people need to get “Funny Money,” which also has developed its own following.
Some of the photos in the slide show deserve particular stories. But no one story can really capture the vastness of Grey Fox. It is a physically demanding site, with much walking and climbing necessary. Two obviously fit young men were overheard Sunday morning expressing total fatigue to each other. The producers make special accommodations for handicapped access, but the site is demanding. Between the site, and the yearly weather challenges, Grey Fox demands a strong commitment. But it gives back in a richness which can touch everyone who makes the trip.
Woody Edwards got some photos yesterday afternoon at Nashville’s Cumberland Park, where Travelin’ McCourys and Friends performed at the conclusion of the Tennessee Titans game.
This past weekend was a big one for bluegrass at the Berklee College of Music. Not only did the school award Alison Krauss an honorary doctorate, and feature some of their talented bluegrass students and recent graduates in the big pre-commencement concert on Friday night, Saturday saw one of our youngest bluegrass stars, Sierra Hull, receive her diploma.
It is the custom at Berklee to have members of the student body perform the night before graduation at a concert where they feature the music of the honorees chosen each year. These are elaborate affairs, and it is a high honor for any student to be selected.
When time came to offer a tribute to Ms. Krauss, Sierra Hull kicked off Everytime You Say Goodbye and offered her own rendition of the song, doing an admirable job in a key unsuited to her voice. She was joined by Alex Hargreaves, Mike Barnett and John Mailander on fiddle, Courtney Hartman on guitar, Nick DiSebastian on bass and Lukas Pool on banjo. That was followed by Molly Tuttle singing Take Me For Longing with Pool switching from three finger to clawhammer banjo.
The stage then filled with students for a rambunctious medley of both the bluegrass and old time versions of Cluck Old Hen, under the enthusiastic direction of Matt Glaser, with recent alum and Gibson Brothers mandolinist Joe Walsh joining in. After a video tribute to Krauss’ career highlights, Alison took the stage to sing Down In The River To Pray with a student Gospel choir.
The entire concert is available in the video below, with the bluegrass section beginning at roughly 1:07:00.
The good folks at Berklee have also sent along a number of still photos from the weekend’s festivities.
