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Grass Series

by Mac Randall, 11/04/2006

The Grass Series - Please Keep on the Grass

For the past century, America’s vast mix of people from all ethnic and religious backgrounds has provided the perfect ingredients for the evolution of such musical genres as Blues, Bluegrass, Country, Jazz and Rock n’ Roll. This Grass Series continues the tradition of blending different artists and styles of music drawn from the past few decades, full circle back to elements of their own essential roots.

Of all musical genres, there is no other that evokes the traditional heart and soul of North America more than Bluegrass. It embodies a diversity of folk music and instrumentation from around the world yet is distinctively American. While the Blues was evolving in the American South, Bluegrass was developing in remote regions of Appalachia, and for centuries, this “mountain music” evolved from indigenous musical traditions ranging in style from the spiritual to the comical. Remarkably, it wasn’t until the mid 20th century that mountain music was consolidated, refined and labeled as Bluegrass by way of a timely convergence of musical personalities and new technologies. These new technologies were the phonograph and radio, which, for the first time, brought rural music to people all over America.

Around the same time, Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass boys hit the scene appearing on the Grand Ole Opry in 1939 and, by way of these ‘new technologies’ and a very active touring schedule came to be well known as one of the most popular bands out of Nashville. As Bill was from Kentucky, the name, Bluegrass, came from his state motto; “The Bluegrass State”. Bill Monroe’s sound was unique at the time because of its hard driving and powerful traditional acoustic instruments and its distinctive vocal harmonies. After experimenting with different instrumental combinations, he settled on the mandolin, banjo, fiddle, guitar and bass for his band. When Earl Scruggs, a banjo player from North Carolina joined the band in 1946 with his distinct 3-finger picking style, it further energized the public and helped define the Bluegrass genre.

When Scruggs and the guitar player, Lester Flatt left the group to form their own band called; The Foggy Mountain Boys, they decided to add a dobro (resophonic guitar) which completed the definitive line-up of instruments which embodies Bluegrass music today. By the 1950’s Bluegrass bands were wildly popular and Bill Monroe became known and acknowledged as the “Father of Bluegrass Music”. Today Bluegrass music is heard around the world.

Everyone will enjoy this authentic Grass Series, performed by some of Nashville’s top musicians.

StonesGrass SYN023

It wasn’t just Gram Parsons. Yes, hanging around and toking up with a soon-to-be country legend in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s clearly affected the Rolling Stones’ musical approach, lending them a distinctive new twang that you can hear on songs like “Wild Horses” and, especially, “Dead Flowers.” But the sounds of rural America, both black and white, were haunting the minds of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards well before that. Listen, for example, to the relatively obscure “Sittin’ on a Fence,” a 1966 condemnation of traditional lifestyles cloaked in jaunty back-porch acoustic garb. Or check out “2000 Man,” from 1967’s long-underrated Their Satanic Majesties Request--strip away all the psychedelic electronics and you’ve got a bluegrass song. Which is the whole point of this disc, brought to you by the cream of Nashville’s traditional country scene. Mac Randall

BeatlesGrass SYN024
Right from the start, the Beatles played like hillbillies. The tight, nasal Lennon-McCartney harmonies on their very first single, “Love Me Do,” could easily have rung down from somewhere in the Smoky Mountains. It comes as no surprise, then, to learn that every member of the Fab Four loved country music. Neither is it a shock to hear how well their songs respond to a bluegrass revamping. Appropriately, two of the 12 cuts here--“What Goes On” and Buck Owens’ “Act Naturally”--were, in the Beatles’ own versions, features for Ringo Starr, the group’s number-one country fan. As for “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” that’s basically a bluegrass tune anyway; all these Nashville pickers are doing is letting it get back to where it once belonged. –Mac Randall

FleetwoodGrass SYN025
Through its many incarnations, Fleetwood Mac has always had a touch of the high lonesome sound. It certainly came through during the band’s early years with brilliant, troubled guitarist Peter Green, who wrote the timeless “Albatross.” But the arrival of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks in 1975 brought those country leanings even further to the fore. Blessed with a rich, honey-and-whiskey voice, Nicks sang straight from the heartland. And Buckingham’s intricate guitar work on songs like “Never Going Back Again” and “World Turning” showed that he’d put in plenty of time pickin’ and grinnin’--or, perhaps more appropriately, considering those songs’ disheartened lyrics, pickin’ and scowlin’. On this disc, though, it’s all grins, thanks to eight bluegrass veterans who know how to bring the Mac to the mountain. –Mac Randall

EaglesGrass SYN026

When you think about it, it only makes sense. Back in the ‘70s, the Eagles helped take California country-rock mainstream, following on the heels of artists like the Byrds, the Fabulous Burrito Brothers and Poco (whose bassist Timothy B. Schmit later became an Eagle himself). At first they did it as Linda Ronstadt’s backing band; then, with songs like “Take It Easy,” “Desperado,” and “Lyin’ Eyes,” they did it on their own, eventually becoming one of the most successful rock groups of all time. But success often means losing touch with your roots. Which is why it’s so appropriate that this band of Nashville veterans is putting the country back into the Eagles’ country-rock. Bring on the mandolins, banjos, fiddles and dobros, and welcome to the Hotel Appalachia. –Mac Randall

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Grass Roots SYN039
Traditional folk songs are the root of bluegrass. After all, it’s a lot easier to start picking when you’re resting on the solid ground of a tried-and-true melody--audiences tend to pay more attention that way. They certainly paid attention in 2000, when the soundtrack album accompanying Joel and Ethan Coen’s movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” became an unexpected smash hit, bringing millions of listeners up to speed on the pleasures of both traditional folk songs and bluegrass. The leitmotif of that soundtrack, “Man of Constant Sorrow,” can be found on this disc, along with many other standards of the genre like “Wildwood Flower,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Orange Blossom Special,” and “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” all played by Nashville session veterans who know a thing or two about roots. –Mac Randall

MarleyGrass SYN040
Grass and Bob Marley are often mentioned in the same sentence, but the grass being referred to isn’t usually of the blue variety. Jah only knows what the bard of Trenchtown would think about a bunch of country pickers turning his ghetto anthems into mountain music. Yet one suspects that he’d get a kick out of it, and that he’d pick up on the traits that reggae and country have in common. At their best, both styles are steeped in spirituality, and both aim to uplift the lonely, the poor and the disenfranchised. “One Love” and “Redemption Song” could pass for classic hymns; “Get Up, Stand Up” and “I Shot the Sheriff” could easily be age-old folk songs. That’s just the kind of material that bluegrass musicians love to dig into, and dig in they do. –Mac Randall

Simon & Grassfunkel SYN041
Granted, the songs of Simon & Garfunkel ain’t exactly country. What could be more urban than singing about the New York Times, the Central Park Zoo and the 59th Street Bridge? All the same, the rural background of Paul Simon’s songwriting style is undeniable. In the early ‘60s, he and Art Garfunkel soaked up the folk balladry of the British Isles. Their arrangements of traditional tunes (“Scarborough Fair,” “Peggy-O”) clearly show that influence; so do Simon originals like “April Come She Will” and “Leaves that Are Green.” Bluegrass emerged from the same Celtic musical wellspring, of course, even though it comes to us by way of Appalachia rather than Queens. This album, brought to you by some of Nashville’s top sessioneers, just makes that essential connection a little easier to hear. –Mac Randall

TaylorGrass SYN042
You’d have to be hard-pressed to call James Taylor a country boy. Yes, he did spend several formative years in North Carolina, but he’s a lot better associated with New England locales. Martha’s Vineyard, say. Or Milton Academy. Or McLean Hospital. And yet songs like “Fire and Rain,” “Carolina in My Mind” and “Sweet Baby James” have a plain-spoken, down-to-earth quality that doesn’t correspond to any stuck-up Yankee blueblood caricatures. It’s a quality that’s also well suited to country music--or, for that matter, country interpretation. Which brings us to what we have here: 12 Taylor classics retooled in fine bluegrass style by a crack team of Nashville pros. A nifty idea, and one that allows bassist Charlie Chadwick, guitarist Jerry Cortez and their colleagues to shower the people with down-home picking. --Mac Randall

AeroGrass SYN060
Before the so-called “father of bluegrass”, Bill Monroe, introduced a sense of discipline and musicianship to the form, this was a music typically played with riotous, passionate--and usually drunken--abandon by the folks who brought it down from the hills. These “hillbillies” (as they were called) would have felt right at home with the guys in Aerosmith, who approached their music with much the same spirit—especially in the early half of their career. And when the bad boys from Boston (or, more accurately, New Hampshire) would emulate the sound and feel of a locomotive chugging along a pace of its own choosing—one, it should be noted, that usually kept-a-rollin' all night long—it reflected a rhythmic affinity with bluegrass, as well. While their rock-meets-R&B foundation, embodied by Joe Perry's dirty guitar licks, owes as much to the blues of Robert Johnson (“Sweet Emotion”) as it does the funk of James Brown (“Walk This Way”), it is still roots music—albeit roots music that Aerosmith liked to play turned up to 11. Here, however, we get to consider their compositions with slightly less distortion and perhaps more lucid arrangements--but certainly no less vigor.

DeadGrass SYN062
One has to wonder how the Grateful Dead spent an entire career getting pigeonholed as psychedelic hippies when you consider the extraordinary range of musical styles they embraced. On album, as in their legendary live sets, they explored everything from modern jazz to world music, and were never shy about their love for traditional American roots music, either—blues, country, folk and, most certainly, bluegrass--a fact exemplified as much by their choice of covers down the years as by the originals featured here. As early as 1970's American Beauty you can hear mandolin virtuoso David Grisman featuring on the Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter classics “Ripple” and “Friend of the Devil” (both included here). Garcia himself, meanwhile, was as accomplished on banjo and pedal steel as he was the guitar (to wit, his involvement with bluegrass offshoot band, Old And In The Way), and that familiar “picking” style can be heard throughout his lead playing with the Dead. But all this bluegrass influence should not come as a surprise to anyone. Lest we forget, before the acid kicked in this was a group that began life as the banjo-pickin', tub-thumpin' outfit Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions.

GospelGrass SYN063
Gospel and bluegrass as we now know them both came to exist around the same time, in the era of the Great Depression. Their respective roots, of course, date farther back in American history, via centuries old “Negro spirituals” and the early folk music traditions that trickled down from the mountains of Appalachia. Despite the obvious racial divide, an eventual crossover was inevitable, seeing as how the two forms were, quite literally, neighbors. But not just in geographic terms. Both, in essence, were the music of the American south's poor, downtrodden and disaffected. Bluegrass might sound like a party but it cloaked an on-going obsession with such themes as pathos and death. Gospel, meanwhile, for all its perceived weightiness, had but one main concern: delivering uplift and hope. How fitting, then, to tether a selection of classic gospel staples to the natural ebullience of bluegrass, and let fly! Let us now rejoice.

Best ‘uv Grass SYN064
Selecting our favorite song tracks from the Grass Series for this compilation turned out to be a most difficult task for us. There were simply too many great tracks to choose from. Every song in the series is unique, top notch and delicious. The ingredients for our songs are hand picked and carefully selected from the finest quality organic resources available. We then take those ingredients and, with the greatest of skill and care, we chop, slice, dice, marinade, sauté and mix them in very precise proportions and combinations. They are then served up with a spicy gravy and colorful garnish. Each serving is guaranteed to delight and surprise your musical pallet. Whether you like the finest gourmet cuisine or a down and dirty Texas-style BBQ we’re darn sure you’ll enjoy sinking your chops into these finger-thumping, toe-tapping tunes. We just hope that you enjoy listening to these here songs as much as we enjoyed creating them.