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Artist in Residence
08/21/2008 Jerry Douglas apparently enjoys challenges. Throughout his first concert as the 2008 artist-in-residence at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Douglas challenged himself and his band with difficult arrangements, dazzling ensemble interplay, and daring improvisation. After each astounding display, Douglas responded with a deep breath and a joyful exclamation. How fun was that? he said at one juncture, echoing a sentiment he repeated throughout the night. The sold-out crowd of more than two hundred in the museums Ford Theater let him know they agreed, exploding in applause after each tune during the three-hour concert. Douglass August 19 performance launched a four-part series of concerts marking his term as the museums artist-in-residenceonly the second non-singing instrumentalist to be named to the prestigious post. Past artists in residence include banjo master Earl Scruggs, as well as Cowboy Jack Clement, Tom T. Hall, Guy Clark, and Kris Kristofferson. On this night, Douglas concentrated on showcasing his new album, Glide. He played the majority of the show backed by his band, a quartet of young instrumental hotshots. He also shared the stage with guests, including country star Travis Tritt, steel guitar legend Lloyd Green, and singer-songwriter Ed Snodderly. Douglass show traced his career as well. He referred to his days playing Dobro for the acoustic family group The Whites when introducing Green; he talked of his emergence as part of a young set of amazingly accomplished acoustic pickers when mentioning his former neighbors Edgar Meyer and Bela Fleck and their group Strength in Numbers; and he spoke of touring the United Kingdom and playing with Celtic musicians like fiddler Aly Bain. Throughout, Douglas proved why he is considered one of the most inventive musicians of all timeand the greatest player ever to pick up a Dobro. Museum Director Kyle Young, in his introduction, said, Like Bill Monroe on the mandolin, Charlie Parker on the saxophone, Earl Scruggs on the banjo, and Jimi Hendrix on the electric guitar, Jerry has forever altered the sonic scope and expressive capabilities of the Dobro. Jerrys friends call him Flux, a nod to his speed-of-light dexterity with the slide. One of Jerrys fans has said, If they had to pay for every note they heard at a Jerry Douglas concert, nobody could afford to go. Indeed, the notes flew fast and furious at Tuesdays concert, but each was steeped in intelligence, taste, and soul. The reigning CMA Musician of the Year, an award he has won three times, Douglas has risen to career heights rarely visited by an acoustic string musician. He has appeared on more than two thousand albums, including those by Ray Charles, Elvis Costello, John Fogerty, Phish, Earl Scruggs, Paul Simon, and James Taylor. He has won twelve Grammy Awards and is currently in his tenth year as the featured soloist in Alison Krauss & Union Station. The New York Times has described him as the Dobros matchless contemporary master. Douglas began by introducing his band, the guys who travel with me all the time, and Im very proud of them : fiddler Luke Bulla, drummer Chad Melton, bassist Todd Parks, and guitarist Guthrie Trapp. They kicked it off with Unfolding, an Edgar Meyer composition featured on Douglass Glide album, which went on sale the same day as this concert. (The Dobroist also played on the original recording of the song, the title cut on Meyers debut MCA Master Series album in 1985..) The opening set found the band tearing through Wild Rumpus, a Douglas tune inspired by the Maurice Sendak book Where the Wild Things Are; the darkly unsettling Route Irish, named for the road between the Baghdad Airport and the citys coalition-controlled Green Zone; the beautiful A Remark You Made, written by saxophonist Wayne Shorter for the jazz band Weather Report; and Emphysema Two Step, a Douglas and Russ Barenberg composition from Douglass 1987 MCA Master Series album, Changing Channels. Adding to the outstanding musicianship, Douglas told the kind of stories only a master musician would know. For example, he told of appearing in a segment of the CMA Awards with Marty Stuart, the two of them supporting Country Music Hall of Fame member Bill Monroe. During the rehearsal, Monroe kept playing new tunes for the two younger players and telling them, Now you play it. Game for the challenge, Douglas said, I couldnt figure it out, but I tried it anyway. I played it, and he said, Thats wrong. Monroe repeated the challenge to Stuart, also telling him he got it wrong, too. We finally got it, and Bill said, Thatd make you a powerful number, Douglas recalled, noting the interplay went on for two hours. Douglas then introduced Travis Tritt, who joined the band for Marriage Made in Hollywood, a cover of a song by Irish singer-songwriter Paul Brady that is on Douglass new album. They also performed Drift Off to Dream, a 1991 hit from Tritts debut Warner Bros. album. They started into it, but Tritt had only sung a few lines when Douglas stopped playing, walked over and tapped Tritt on the shoulder to get him to stop, too. Were in the wrong key, arent we? Douglas asked. Tritt laughed and nodded, saying, Its your night, Dog. I was going to go with it. Douglas responded, Youre a friend, Im not going to do that to you. They then performed a memorable version showing what a strong singer Tritt is and how empathetic Douglass accompaniment can be. Next up, Douglas brought out steel guitarist Lloyd Green. As far as Im concerned, hes the best steel player that ever lived, Douglas said. When I was playing with the Whites, I would really study every move Lloyd Green made, on all those Don Williams songs, and every record by Charley Pride, Warner Mack, all those things. I would listen to how he phrased, and how he framed-in the singer and would make the singer better every time. I think Lloyd Green had a lot to do with shaping country. Green played Two Small Cars in Rome, a steel-string duet with Douglas thats also on the Glide album. Green then accepted a request from Douglas to play Jukebox Charlie, an instrumental tune the steel guitarist originally recorded with Johnny Paycheck in 1966. It also appeared as an instrumental on Greens 2003 instrumental album, Revisited. For the second set, Douglas opened with a meditative solo medley on Dobro, then was joined by fiddler Luke Bulla on the Scottish fiddle tune, Trouble on Alum. The band then went into We Hide & Seek, an intricate instrumental that showed off the bands agile skills. Douglas introduced Johnson City, Tennessee, singer-songwriter Ed Snodderly, who played two of his sweet folk-country compositions, Diamond Stream, which has lyrics quoted in a stone engraving in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museums Rotunda, and Pearlie Mae, which Snodderly sang on Douglass Grammy-nominated 1992 album, Slide Rule. The band then tore into Pushed Too Far, a song on Douglass new album that originally appeared on an MCA Master Series sampler. Tritt returned to perform Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde, another of his hits featuring Douglas. The band closed with three more instrumentals, showing their breadth and their ability to play amazingly fast while always staying together. Man, Im loving this, Douglas said after one of the instrumentals. And just think, I get to do three more of these. (Remaining concerts are scheduled for August 27, September 16, and September 30. Each will feature a different lineup of special guests and backing musicians. Michael McCall
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Jerry Douglas gave the Dobro a new voice
08/07/2008 Hall of Fame residency celebrates his ay with the instrument By Peter Cooper -Staff Writer It frightened him, this record that few these days have ever heard or pondered. "Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper's Family Favorites," recalled Jerry Douglas, the virtuoso musician who saved the formerly arcane instrument known as the Dobro from extinction and went on to impact the music of Alison Krauss, James Taylor, John Fogerty and (literally) countless others. Advertisement In the coming week, Douglas will begin a four-show residency at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and he'll release a sure-to-be-celebrated album called Glide. But the thing that shook him was Family Favorites. "I was maybe 10 or 11, and Wilma Lee & Stoney came to a place near our house called Ponderosa Park, in Salem, Ohio," he said. "There was a talent contest before they played, and I either won it or came in second. But Wilma Lee heard me playing Dobro, and she wound up giving me a record of hers. One half had Shot Jackson playing Dobro, and the other half had Josh Graves playing Dobro. I took it home and put it on, and it was the scariest, 'grab your heart and rip it out of your chest' thing I ever heard." By then, as evidenced by his talent competition placement, Jerry Douglas was already smitten with the Dobro. That made him . . . well, unusual. In country music, the Dobro (it's a proper brand name, like Q-Tip, but "resophonic guitar" is less used than "cotton swab") was an instrument known for its whine and twang. It was the instrument that particularly annoyed people who didn't like country music. Its players, some of whom were phenomenal technicians, often wore funny outfits on stage to help play up the notion that if they played the Dobro they must be hicks. Through Family Favorites, Douglas assumed that if they played the Dobro they must be wizards. The Dobro was, and is, a wooden-bodied acoustic guitar with a metal resonator plate that amplifies the sound. It's like the fellow at work who always talks too loud. To make matters more difficult, the instrument requires its owner to make sounds by sliding a metal bar across the upraised strings. A standard guitar will be pitch-perfect if tuned correctly and if its player manages to place his or her finger in between two metal frets that can be more than an inch apart. But the Dobro will only ring in proper tone if the player has the metal bar in a much more precise spot. Think of it as the difference between kicking a field goal and hitting a bull's-eye. So the Dobro is difficult, and until Jerry Douglas, that meant it was limited. Loud and limited. But Douglas is a bull's-eye guy who became the Henry Higgins to his instrument's Eliza Doolittle. "My dad was a musician, and he and his band did a song called 'When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again,' " Douglas said. "I remember learning to play the melody to that song all the way through, the way Earl Scruggs would have done on a banjo. It was making a cohesive statement with the melody, and at the same time keeping the whole thing moving. And I remember that when I showed that to him and his band, they were going, 'Whoa, how'd he do that?' So then I thought, 'I've got something going here that's different.' " He had more than that. With the Dobro, Jerry Douglas discovered the lost continent, defied gravity and won the Daytona 500 with a semi-truck. He created a space-age sound with a Paleolithic instrument. And he learned to use that sound to augment rather than to distract. In so doing, he moved the Dobro from the "at least it's not an accordion" section into acceptance, relevance and even popularity. At first, Douglas' playing was a bridge between the harsh, wry old-school style of his hero, Josh Graves, and the lovely, folksy style of Mike Auldridge, who played with bluegrass band The Seldom Scene. And then Douglas traveled on out, beyond influences or predecessors. In the 1980s, Douglas became a first-call player on Music Row sessions, inhabiting a position that was unheard of for Dobro players. He has now appeared on more than 1,600 albums, and is revered by high-profile players including Fogerty, who called him "my favorite musician." Douglas produced an instantly identifiable tone from an instrument that most listeners could not pick out of a police lineup. No one played Dobro like Douglas until Douglas. And no one has achieved any prominence since then without playing Dobro like Douglas. The only comparison in American music is Earl Scruggs' reinvention of the banjo. In the new millennium, Douglas halted most of his session work and joined Alison Krauss' Union Station band (now called Alison Krauss and Union Station, featuring Jerry Douglas), yet country albums still often feature Dobro parts that sound like Jerry Douglas. The only way to hear a Dobro on the radio that doesn't sound like Douglas is to tune into a "classic" or "oldies" station. "People come up to me and go, 'I heard you on this song,' " he said. "I think, 'Should I tell 'em it's not me, or just be quiet and glad that the instrument's on the radio?' " He tends to opt for quiet and glad. It's best to count to five Mississippi and silently thank Wilma Lee Cooper rather than do any out-loud self-crediting. "When you hear the Dobro now, it's a nice, pleasant sound," he said. "It's not used as a whiney, tinny instrument. It has a real voice, and that's a good thing."
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Jerry Douglas, left, Lloyd Green, right
08/17/2008
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More discussion with Jerry Douglas
08/17/2008
More discussion with Jerry Douglas
Did you play any instruments prior to the Dobro?
I got a guitar when I was 6. It was a Silvertone from Sears. The cheapest one you could get, with the painted on binding. There was nothing about the guitar that shouted "classic." I also had a banjo. There was a guy in Cleveland on TV who had a theme song that was "Hey Mr. Banjo, play a song for me." You could order a banjo off the TV. This was before Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man," so maybe a stray TV signal got over to Dylan. That little wooden-topped banjo was the first thing I had that made musical sense to me.
So the guitar didn't make too much sense?
No, but when I was 10, my dad took me to see Flatt & Scruggs and I heard Uncle Josh Graves play and I wanted to play a Dobro. The Silvertone strings were already really high up off the neck, and dad raised the strings 1/16th of an inch to make it into a "Dobro."
So your first Dobro wasn't a Dobro? What happened to it?
We stacked our guitars on a cedar chest, under a window. Mine was on top, and I came home from school in 3rd or 4th grade and the case had a bump in it. I opened the case, and the sun coming through the window had loosened the bracing. The top of the guitar had exploded. So it was trashed. We got another thing that had a metal cover plate and F holes, but it didn't have a cone.
When the guitar broke, did you consider playing something else. Like, maybe baseball?
I was a musician by the time the guitar broke. I thought about music when I was at school. And it wasn't hard for me when I was a kid. I don't remember ever making a noise on the Dobro that I didn't like. I tried to get this three-finger thing down first of all. I was trying to play fiddle tunes right away on the Dobro. I loved fiddle tunes. I knew what the chords were, but I was trying to figure out what all the notes were in the chords: How to make a roll, and make something cohesive and connected, where there were not any dead spots. I figured out the roll that you play on a Dobro, the three-fingered roll. Then, to connect the phrases, I figured out how to play all the notes in a fiddle tune. I was probably 12 when I did that. I played the thing a lot. I didn't stop playing outside or stop playing football. I didn't come in and practice four hours a day or anything like that. But it came easy to me, and I never really struggled with it or decided to quit.
The Country Gentleman were open to lots of different kinds of music, even though they were playing bluegrass festivals and such. Was it a good thing that you apprenticed in that band, rather than for a strict traditionalist like Bill Monroe?
It was a great thing for me to be in the Country Gentleman. The band then was Charlie Waller, Bill Emerson, Doyle Lawson and Bill Yates, and then Ricky Skaggs was in the band, too. It was a tradition for them to pull material from outside the bluegrass genre. They'd do Dylan songs. They did "Fox on the Run," which was a Herman's Hermit's song. They were the Washington, D.C. version of bluegrass music, the more white-collar version. They could play down-and-dirty bluegrass as well as anybody else, but they wanted to set themselves apart. So I'm lucky I got in that kind of band right away. That opened my eyes and ears to a lot of different music. Ricky and I were just a few years apart. He was 19, I was 16. We both fell into Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli at the same time. And we were both listening to Eric Clapton, too. So that stuff was going to creep in. And Ricky had the serious Ralph Stanley thing ingrained in him, like Flatt & Scruggs was to me. But we were open to other influences. All that rock 'n' roll was happening, and I was soaking that up like a sponge.
Was Mike Auldrige (of The Seldom Scene) an influence?
When I joined the Country Gentlemen, I'd listened to Mike Auldridge a lot. I was like the bridge between Josh and Mike Auldridge. I played lots of rolls and notes, but learned to play maybe in a slide-y, tasteful, one-note-says-1000-words school. Auldridge was a revelation to me. He had this tone, and he didn't play the rolls the way Josh did. He was playing a different kind of material. The Seldom Scene were really outside of bluegrass, but still with bluegrass instrumentation.
Were festival audiences in the 1970s always open to hearing you play in new styles, or to hearing bands that didn't fit a traditional bluegrass mold?
Oh, it was horrible. You could get in a fistfight really easily if you had a drummer on stage. It was "I'm not going to watch you. I'm going to take my kids and my wife, and we're leaving. And my dog. I won't let my dog listen." I heard "You're not supposed to play anything more than a 16 bar solo. You're straying from the form. And that's written down in stone, and you can't do that or you'll be stoned to death." I heard, "You call yourself a bluegrass musician? You're not." It was simple as that, and still is to some people. It's like classical music. When did you begin to feel that you were something other than a sideman?
I guess the first time I felt like a separate entity was when Ricky Skaggs and I started Boone Creek. Then I was a band partner, a leader. Before that, I just joined the band. With Boone Creek, I started writing my own instrumentals. I started thinking about it in those terms, at that point. Then I came to The Whites and I was a support guy, but I felt like I was just as much of an artist with that. The same way Lloyd Green was playing on records with Don Williams. I heard Don Williams records and thought, "This guy Lloyd Green is his right hand man. He's as much a hook and voice of these records as Don is." I took that and framed The Whites that way. I framed their vocals the same way that Lloyd did with Don Williams. He was a master at making the vocals better. He would point his part right back at the vocal. He sang a solo, in a language that I understood. I knew what he was thinking about while he was playing. In some ways he more closely defined the melody than the singer. When I got with The Whites I didn't think of myself as the leader. I was a sideman and reveled in it. To mirror those vocals and set them up& Set the vocal up on a tee for them to hit it, and they knocked it 1000 miles. I get that same feeling from playing with Alison Krauss, too.
In Alison's show, you also get to stand alone for a bit and play anything that's on your mind.
And then there's a part of the show where I get to be by myself and get some things out of my system that I don't want to throw out during this beautiful vocal. It appeases me in some way to do that, to identify myself. It keeps me from doing something weird during her vocal.
Who was the top session Dobro player in Nashville before you?
I guess it would have been a steel player. Probably Hal Rugg or Lloyd Green. Lloyd was the classy Dobro player. He didn't play Dobro like a steel player so much. There wasn't that much call for them to play Dobro, though.
When did you start playing on those Nashville records? I started sessions, probably in 1980. Emmylou Harris' Roses in the Snow was some of the first radio stuff I had. After that was Ricky's "Don't' Get Above Your Raisin'" and Randy Travis' things. Emmylou's record wasn't meant to make country radio buy into bluegrass, but it actually got on the radio and people liked it. That started the real traditional country movement. That was the real beginning of that, and all of a sudden I started playing on a lot of sessions. I was still in The Whites.
Did the bluegrass folks celebrate your arrival in Nashville, and the way the Dobro was now being used?
I guess they were happy about it. They talked about it a lot. "I heard ya on Reba's record." But I was still really thinking about everything in bluegrass terms. The Music Row stuff was just my side job. Until it became a situation where when I went out on the road I lost a lot of money, because I was getting so many calls for sessions. And I had a family to feed. I loved playing with the Whites and was satisfied. The Dobro players were happy that their instrument had some success in broader terms. They were glad it had more of an appeal than just being the guy on stage who had to wear the funny suit and the blacked-out teeth. We'd come a long way from that point. Then it was, "This is an instrument, just the same as the electric guitar is an instrument."
What was your first standout part on a radio record?
The first solo was a Gary Morris song called "Leave Me Lonely." I had a long solo in the middle of this beautiful ballad. That was like jumping off of a diving board for me. I had to educate engineers about how to record the thing. I had to teach them what microphone positions worked. Then, it was a gradual evolution of engineers hearing things different ways. By the way, I wasn't playing a Dobro brand. I was playing an RQ Jones guitar, which had a wider frequency than a Dobro. Some people didn't know what it was, because it wasn't whiney and tinny and thin. It didn't sound "hillbilly" anymore, and that was what made it okay to be a solo instrument.
You had an extremely successful career going as a session player. Why quit sessions and go off to tour with Alison Krauss and Union Station?
When I joined the band with Alison and the guys, I quit doing sessions because we were gone so much. I didn't want to be gone from home for two weeks and then do a week of sessions when I got home. That's not conducive to staying married. Also, the job with Alison came at the perfect time for me. I was tired of sessions. I was worried about if I had played this solo in a different song already. It was starting to sound the same to me. I wasn't enjoying what I was hearing when I got there as much as in the past. It was a musical slump. The only thing that saved me from going into a deeper slump was getting to play on records and produce records, like Maura O'Connell's Blue Is The Color Of Hope. That gave me an outlet for more original ideas and more chances. Then I didn't have to stick to a formula. Then I could take a chance in the studio and not worry about what radio was going to think of it. Just be a musician, not a formulaic player. In a regular session, you know you have to stay in certain boundaries in order to make a song fit. That's an art form: knowing how to make a hit record for the time period you're in, and knowing when that time period shifts to something else and how to adjust. That kind of thing seems even more constrained now than ever. We have these cycles in country music. We go from a huge roots uprising and go around the dial. You get to about five o'clock and things get real smooth. You get to seven, and they're like glass. At 11, you don't know what it is. It's some amalgam of pop and country and you can almost hear the label heads rolling. It's not sure what it is anymore. Then we get back to midnight and we have another folk and roots uprising. Then we get back around again and the steel guitar is just the instrument to remind you that it's a country record. But they go in cycles. I've seen about six of them. You can count on it to come back around. I think it's going to keep happening. And the roots of the music hold on a little longer each time around.
With your new Glide album, did you feel a need to touch on every aspect of your playing?
This record, I think, is more focused than any record I've made. It seems like more of a country record. There's some crazy stuff on it, but it still feels like country. The last record was more of a slide, crazy, electric record with some ballad stuff mixed in. This one's a straighter Dobro record. I guess if we tore it down song by song, it does touch on a lot of different places. But it all seems like part of the same thing to me. I don't look at them as different kinds of music. I'm the thread running through all of it. It may be different geographical music, but it has me running through it. It has the Dobro running through, and it's accessible music.
Do you ever wish you were doing more sessions now?
I hear songs on the radio sometimes that I wish I'd played on. I think, "Boy, I could have added something to this." But a whole lot more I hear something and figure, "Nah, I'm glad I'm not doing that anymore, 'cause I would have left there feeling like I'd worked for the man." What would you like to do better as a musician?
My only regret is that I'm not a great sight-reader. I think that would help me out in other situations that I'd like to get myself into. It's not a limitation of the instrument itself, it's me. It's not the guitar, it's me. If I was 25, I'd be sight-reading like a son of a (gun). I took piano lessons for a while, trying to learn how to read and write music, but I was cheating. I was memorizing the music, and my teacher kept busting me. And then I ran out of time to do that. I'd like to get back to doing that. I'd like to be able to read and write to where I could write my ideas down, hand them off to somebody and they could play it back to me.
Do contemporary Dobro players ever come up to you and say, "Thanks for bringing the instrument to a place where I can have a career playing sessions?" I mean, every Dobro that's featured on the radio now is an overt nod to your style and your sound.
Nobody ever says that. I've never thought about it happening, either. Never asked for it. Maybe someday somebody will do that. Maybe I'm not that old yet. Maybe it's just the guys that are doing it, it hasn't occurred to them. And they don't have to say it to me. I opened a door, but the door was cracked. I was there at a time when I could get my foot in. It hasn't been as easy for them.
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BILLBOARD Review
08/15/2008 BILLBOARD August 15, 2009 On the 12th outing of Jerry Douglas' multiple-award-winning reign as the world's master of the Dobro, he once again proves his mettle on a dazzling display of nine instrumentals and two vocal gems featuring Travis Tritt and Rodney Crowell. Douglas continues to delightfully defy preconceptions of the Dobro, and bluegrass itself, on a letter-perfect New Orleans funeral march ("Sway Sur La Rue Royale"), the cool, jazzy ""Bounce" and turbo-charged tradition--featuring Earl Scruggs and Tony Rice-- on "Home Sweet Home". Tritt ("Marriage Made in Hollywood") and Crowell ("Long Hard Road") turn in great moments of their own, with Douglas' Dobro and background vocals offering country and Americana formats something to solidly sink their teeth into. From regal restraint to reckless abandon, Douglas is never anything less than astonishing. --GE
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Dobro player "Glides" fm sidelines to center stage
08/01/2008 By Michael D. Ayers NEW YORK (Billboard) - A few months ago, famed dobro player Jerry Douglas was having what he describes as "the worst day of my life." It concerned something seemingly trivial: an advertising campaign for a new line of guitars, and amid the "throwdown" that was ensuing, his wife called him, asking if he was sitting down. It was at that moment Douglas was told he had been selected by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum as its 2008 artist-in-residency. "To me, what that place stands for is not modern-day country music, but where country music started, where it came from," he says, a childlike gleam in his eye. "So, I went nuts and was so honored that they asked me." Fans of Douglas' work will argue that this honor has been a long time coming. As a session musician for countless acts including Randy Travis, Alison Krauss + Union Station and Garth Brooks, he's been behind the scenes for decades. In bluegrass circles, he's been much more prevalent, often teaming with such stalwarts as Bela Fleck, Sam Bush and Tony Rice. But Douglas is also well into a solo career, one that will be showcased with his four Hall of Fame artist-in-residency performances. He'll kick things off with a concert celebrating the August 19 release of his 12th studio album, "Glide." The timing seems to have fallen right into place. Most of the record was done last year, but as Douglas was polishing it, something didn't feel right. "There was a piece missing," he says. "I went off down to Florida with my family, and when I was driving back, this Travis Tritt song came on the radio. I don't listen to country radio, but I had it on because I was tired. I started thinking, 'What a great singer he is.' Every time he called me in (to work with him), the song was a hit," he recalls. So Douglas convinced Tritt to join him in the studio for a cover of Paul Brady's "A Marriage Made in Hollywood," and then he felt "Glide" was ready. Among the album's 11 cuts, only two contain vocals. The set reflects the many types of music Douglas plays, from Mardi Gras-inspired funeral marches to atmospheric, bluegrass-influenced instrumentals. "I wanted the core of the whole recording process to be the band that I travel with," he says. "I felt that these guys were playing as good as anyone that I could ever hire, and our personalities are all in line. There's no second-guessing at all." Douglas promises to kick off his residency shows in grand fashion, with a slew of guests. "I know all it really means is I get to do four shows in this little theater, however I want to," he says. But then that little light kicks back on, as he ponders it for a moment. "I want to raise the bar for what to expect from a country artist-in-residence."
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gactv.com
05/25/0197
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New CD, GLIDE, Release August 19
06/23/2008 On Tuesday, August 19, 2008, KOCH Records will release GRAMMY® Award-winning Dobro master Jerry Douglas's new solo album, Glide. Douglas will celebrate the launch of his latest recording as he headlines the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum's "2008 Artist-In-Residence" series in Nashville, TN commencing on August 19. The residency will include special guest appearances by several of his close musical compatriots, and will continue on August 27, September 16, and September 30.
Internationally recognized as the world's most renowned Dobro player, Jerry Douglas undoubtedly ranks amongst the top contemporary maestros in American music. Douglas has garnered twelve Grammy Awards and numerous International Bluegrass Music Association awards, and holds the distinction of being named "Musician of the Year" by The Country Music Association (2002, 2005, 2007), The Academy of Country Music (11 times), and The Americana Music Association (2002, 2003). In 2004, the National Endowment for The Arts honored Douglas with a National Heritage Fellowship, acknowledging his artistic excellence and contribution to the nation's traditional arts, their highest such accolade.
2. Glide 4. Route Irish 5. Sway 6. Unfolding 7. A Long Hard Road 8. Home Sweet Home 9. Two Small Cars In Rome 10. Trouble On Alum (Hector the Hero/Wooed and Marret) 11. Pushed Too Far
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Jerry Douglas Named Artist in Residence for CMHOF
06/20/2008 NASHVILLE, Tenn., June 19, 2008
His incomparable resume includes 12 Grammy Awards, appearances on more than 2000 albums and a decade as the featured soloist with Alison Krauss & Union Station. Later this summer, three-time (and reigning) CMA Musician of the Year Jerry Douglas will add a new accolade to the list: The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museums 2008 artist-in-residence.
Dobro in hand, Douglas will host four memorable evenings in August and September, each carefully curated by the artist to illustrate different facets of his glittering career. He will hold court in the Museums Ford Theater on August 19 and 27, and September 16 and 30; each show begins at 7 p.m.
Hailed as Dobros matchless contemporary master by The New York Times and lauded as my favorite musician by John Fogerty, Jerry Douglas has taken a once obscure and relatively unexplored instrument and harnessed it, through the power of his immense skill and creativity, to create some of the most distinctive sounds in American popular music. Guests attending Douglass residency shows should expect four unique evenings, with set lists and special guests drawn from across the wide swath he has cut into contemporary acoustic music. Douglas, whose latest solo album, Glide, will be released by Koch Records on August 19, follows Cowboy Jack Clement, Earl Scruggs, Tom T. Hall, Guy Clark and Kris Kristofferson as the Museums sixth artist-in-residence.
The tapestry of modern American acoustic music is woven with Jerry Douglass rich musical embroidery, said Museum Director Kyle Young. He has embellished recordings by Eric Clapton and Ray Charles, Earl Scruggs and Garth Brooks, James Taylor and Paul Simon, Pat Metheny and Phish, and a couple thousand more. He is a composer, producer, band member, recording artist and session player extraordinaire. But his talents are perhaps best enjoyed live, where he coaxes his Dobro through surprising and satisfying twists and turns and demonstrates its versatility across many genres of music.
Whether he is fronting his own band, performing with Alison Krauss & Union Station or working on one of his many side projects, Jerry continues to explore and expand the Dobros vocabulary. He possesses a restless and majestic creative spirit that is constantly seeking new forms of expression, and in our residency tradition, we are excited to give him our stage for four one-of-a-kind performances.
The son of an Ohio steelworker who played bluegrass on the side, Gerald Calvin Douglas was eight years old when he first heard both Bashful Brother Oswald and Josh Graves at a Flatt & Scruggs concert. Young Jerry originally wanted to play the banjo but became smitten by the Dobros sound: The Dobro really caught my ear, the way Josh Graves played it&it was like a voice. Douglass father altered a guitar so that the strings were high, allowing the youngster to play it like a Dobro. When Douglas was 12, his father bought him a real Dobro, and he began playing with his fathers band, the West Virginia Travelers. In 1973, 17-year-old Jerry joined innovative bluegrass band the Country Gentlemen who, while respectful of tradition and steadfast in their use of acoustic instruments, were known for taking the genre into new arenas of repertoire and stylistic performance. He toured with them between his junior and senior years of high school, and again after his graduation.
Douglas next served a brief stint as a member of J.D. Crowes New South; he and bandmate Ricky Skaggs left in 1976 to form their own group, Boone Creek. The groups tenure was brief, and ended when Skaggs was asked to join Emmylou Harriss Hot Band. As the decades end drew near, Douglas rejoined the Gentlemen and began work on his first solo record, Fluxology. The album, which was released by Rounder Records in 1979, drew its title from Douglass nickname, Flux. This was the first of many solo projects recorded by Douglas when he was not recording or touring with others.
Also in 1979, Douglas again left the Gentlemen and this time joined Buck White & the Down Home Folks, who were touring as the opening act for Emmylou Harris. Douglas played on Harriss seminal acoustic album, Roses in the Snow, and quickly became a sought-after session man in countrys emerging traditionalist vanguard. His work could be heard on some of the most highly regarded albums in the acoustic music field, including Tony Rices classic 1979 album Manzanita. In 1983, Douglas won a Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental for his work on J.D. Crowe & the New Souths instrumental track Fireball. It was the first of dozens of music industry honors for him.
Douglas retired from the Whites road band in 1985 to concentrate on session work, appearing on recordings by Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Gail Davies, Skaggs and dozens of others. Simultaneously, he fronted two of MCAs Master Series albums, Under the Wire (1986) and Plant Early (1989), which explored newgrass and Nashville New Age. In 1989, Douglas joined Strength in Numbers, an irregular ensemble whose members included Sam Bush, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Mark OConnor. He also continued his session work.
By the late 1990s, Jerry not only continued to be in constant demand for recording sessions but had begun producing a growing number of albums, for himself as well as artists such as the Del McCoury Band, the Nashville Bluegrass Band and Jesse Winchester.
As the millennium neared, Douglas was invited to join Alison Krauss & Union Station, with whom he is about to celebrate his 10-year anniversary. Now known as Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas, the band has allowed Douglas the best of both worlds: the opportunity for adventurous sonic collaboration with one of American musics most respected artists, as well as ample free time to continue pursuing his own projects. On one such break, Douglas worked with producer T Bone Burnett on the soundtrack for the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? The smash CD, which has sold nearly 10 million copies, has been credited with reviving and broadening interest in acoustic roots music.
Douglas also formed the Jerry Douglas Band, where he has continued to break stylistic barriers. The group has headlined such diverse and prestigious festivals as Bonnaroo, the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, and toured as the opening act for Paul Simon in 2006.
In June of 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts honored Douglas with a National Heritage Fellowship award (the country's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts) for his contributions to the excellence of Dobro guitar music. In addition to his Grammy and CMA Award accolades, he has also been honored by the Academy of Country Music, the International Bluegrass Music Association and the Americana Music Association. While he may be the most lauded Dobro player in music history, Douglas finds his greatest reward in pushing musical boundaries and expanding the vocabulary of his beloved instrument. Being a musician&keeps me happy. Its my job but its also my quest.
Jerry Douglas residency event tickets ($30) will be on sale exclusively to Museum members July 14-20 (a one-year Museum membership is $25 for adults, $10 for youths). Tickets will go on sale to the public at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, July 21 and should be purchased online at www.countrymusichalloffame.com. For more information, call (615) 416-2001. Museum doors open at 6:00 p.m. for the 7:00 p.m. shows.
These programs are made possible, in part, by grants from the Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission and by an agreement between the Tennessee Arts Commission and National Endowment for the Arts. Accredited by the American Association of Museums, the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is operated by the Country Music Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization chartered by the state of Tennessee in 1964. The Museums mission is the preservation of the history of country and related vernacular music rooted in southern culture. With the same educational mission, the Foundation also operates CMF Records, the Museums Frist Library and Archive, CMF Press, Historic RCA Studio B, and Hatch Show Print.
More information about the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is available at www.countrymusichalloffame.com or by calling (615) 416-2001.
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SESSION SUPERSTAR
05/01/2008 TUSCON WEEKLY Dobro legend Jerry Douglas is one of the busiest, most honored musicians you've never heard of By JIM LIPSON
The hardest-working man in showbiz? Forget the late James Brown. With nearly 2,000 appearances on vinyl, CDs and soundtracks, more than 100 different producer credits, a touring band of his own, a side project with Sam Bush and Béla Fleck, and, oh yeah, 10 years so far as the featured soloist with Alison Krauss and Union Station (AKUS), Dobro player extraordinaire Jerry Douglas must have some kind of calendar/day planner. "Actually, when I joined AKUS, I had to put a lot of the session work on the backburner. Still, there are some things I can't pass up," he said during a recent phone interview, "like working with (jazz and fusion greats) Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny," as he did recently. "That seemed like a special occasion, and I'd kick myself if I didn't say yes." Indeed, his discography reads like a who's-who of what is sometimes referred to as newgrass, jazz-grass or progressive country music. "They used to call it 'new acoustic,' but that was kind of stupid," he said commenting on the age-old conundrum of marketing. "Sometimes, they like to classify it as 'bluegrass/splinter.' We really don't know what to call it, except it's just 'good music.'" Throughout his career, Douglas has played the role of an ultimate Nashville session player. But unless you're really tuned in to his corner of the music world, it's a good bet you've never heard of this guy, who has quietly gone about his business while racking up a full dozen Grammy awards. (That's 12 awards, not nominations.) "Of course, you're in shock about (getting) any of them," he said. "For O Brother, Where Art Thou?, it was a bit of a surprise how they really embraced that record." Douglas was featured throughout that soundtrack. But it was the award for one of his own compositions--the instrumental "Unionhouse Branch," with AKUS, which won Best Country Instrumental Performance--of which he's most proud. "Any time you're recognized for something you've actually created, it's a great honor." Douglas admitted it's not every kid's dream to grow up and be a great Dobro player. (The Dobro is similar to a National steel guitar. Like the National, it's played with a slide.) "But my father was a guitar player and always had a bluegrass band. I grew up listening to Flatt and Scruggs on the radio with live broadcasts from Nashville. And when we couldn't get the radio in, we'd put a record on." Living in Ohio, however, Douglas could also listen to the rock 'n' roll stations from Cleveland at night, and he credited this influence for helping to shape his out-of-the-box approach to bluegrass. Aside from his regular gig with AKUS and the session work, Douglas expressed the greatest reverence for his connection with Strength in Numbers, the aforementioned side project with Bush, Fleck, Mark O'Connor and Edgar Meyer. "Béla and Sam are my favorite musicians. I can listen to them at any time and marvel at what they do. They are masters ... everyone else is a version of them." This year in June, as in years past, they will meet up at the holy grail of acoustic festivals, Telluride. "When we're on stage, it's hardly fair to the audience. ... We're amusing ourselves so much, we're just hoping they will stay with us." Another side project Douglas has taken the lead in is something called the Transatlantic Sessions. This is an ambitious collaboration that brings American musicians together with British counterparts. "The idea is to bring musicians, singers and songwriters from the U.S.A. and U.K. to one place. We film for two weeks in a castle or a manor, and it's great, because everyone checks their egos at the door." Initially filmed as a BBC series, Transatlantic has produced two DVDs, with another one in the works. A handful of CDs from the project has been released as well. Currently on break from AKUS, Douglas is fronting his own band. Featuring all original material, "These are tunes I've recorded, and this is the only chance I get to play them." In the band's early stages, three years ago, they played only a handful of shows. Now they are up to 60 dates a year, with last year's tour opening for Paul Simon. Douglas promised a big, full sound, including drums, something he acknowledged is not always welcomed in traditional bluegrass circles. But then anything traditional is not really in the Jerry Douglas vocabulary, musical or otherwise.
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EDGAR MEYER, JERRY DOUGLAS AND SAM BUSH
11/02/2007 By JON PARELES, NEW YORK TIMES Anyone expecting straightforward bluegrass from Jerry Douglas on dobro, Edgar Meyer on bass and Sam Bush on mandolin or fiddle got just a little bit of it on Wednesday night. At the end of the trios concert at Zankel Hall, the musicians breezed through a banjo tune. Before then, nearly all the music they played was poised comfortably between genres: deeply rooted in bluegrass technique but toying with the parameters and options of string-band music. The trios members were as attentive to structure and sonic detail as any chamber-music ensemble, while their tunes conjured mountain musics Celtic roots along with blues, reggae, jazz and the modes of Eastern European or Middle Eastern music. Between the exquisite compositions, they cracked jokes. They have been making musical hybrids for a long time. Mr. Bush started his untraditional New Grass Revival in 1971, and newgrass is as good a term as any for what these musicians do in their many bands. (Among other projects, Mr. Douglas is in Union Station with Alison Krauss, and Mr. Bush tours with Lyle Lovett when not leading his own band.) Their fusions now sound cozy and natural, without flaunting their tricky structures or technical feats. On Wednesday night the melodies sang, through pensive waltzes and unhurried reels and jaunty tunes like the Irish-reggae hybrid The Lochs of Dread. The technical feats are there. Where most bluegrass bassists spend their lives playing oompahs, Mr. Meyer writes himself into the counterpoint, and he often conceives his bass fiddle as a fiddle, doing everything but putting it under his chin; he maintains a light touch and nimbly bows what could be fiddle tunes, only pitched lower. In a solo piece, Mr. Douglas used the richness of his dobro so that each gleaming melody note seemed to be just peeking above a pool of chords. The three musicians have calibrated the ways they share textures; in one piece, mandolin and dobro pinged 16th notes back and forth, perfectly staggered at top speed, and in another, a bowed drone on Mr. Meyers bass brought out somber resonances. The trio played pastorales and cheerful toe-tappers, though the toe-tappers were likely to move in odd meters or keep unfurling new material. When they wanted to, the musicians could pour on the razzle-dazzle, with Mr. Bush zooming around the mandolin fretboard and Mr. Douglas playing solos that twanged and skidded and chicken-plucked. Even with its musicianly flourishes and structural embellishments, the music was down-home. But the trio was after more than good-timey grins and thrills. Their music was thinking all the time, just not getting pretentious about it.
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Session Stars at Festival Reunion
01/18/2008
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Jerry Douglas Signature Resonator Guitar
01/17/2008
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Fine Points
08/20/2007 THE MUSICAL LIFE FINE POINTS by Daniel Menaker AUGUST 20, 2007 Devotees of Antiques Roadshow, which, if nothing else, has exposed the financial folly of refinishing old furniture, know that a backstory adds value to any old thing: Because its a matter of public record that your grandfather did time in the Hannibal jail for stealing this hutch from a barber who once trimmed Samuel Clemenss mustache, its worth a lot more. Brrrrinng! So one wonders what the 1980 Martin M-42 custom guitar in the display case at Matt Umanovs vintage-guitar store, on Bleecker Street, would fetch if it didnt have a knife gash in it from a bar fight in Mexico, and if the scary-looking metal folding knife that allegedly caused the gash didnt come with it. Guitarists believe some guitars have a strong mojo. In this case, were offering the mojo itself with the instrument, Danny Reisbick, the store manager, said the other day. The asking price for the wounded guitar, with knife: $6,995. Umanov recently sold a steel resonator guitar that is accompanied by a gentler but no less colorful mojo item: a mud-dauber wasps nest inside its body. Price with the nest: Brrrrinng! $3,495. So much to know! The visit of Jerry Douglas, the Dobro player for Alison Krauss and Union Station, to the Umanov store a couple of weeks agothe day of the groups appearance at the Beacon Theatreproved to be an impressive reminder of how refined fine points can be. Douglas, who was looking for a Keeley overdrive pedal, noticed almost immediately that the store had, besides the lacerated Martin and the mud-dauber resonator, two guitars made from koa wood, which comes from Hawaii. He saw them from afar. Hawaiian-style guitars are slide guitars, played on the lap, like Dobros. Oh, that one was made from a tree on the west side of the island, and the other one was made from a tree on the east side, Douglas, a stately man of some fifty years with brown, thatchy hair, said. You see how the grain on that one, from the east, is pretty straightlots of rainfall there. But the grain on that one is more twisty and gnarled, so its from the west side, where theres much less moisture. He picked up one of the guitars, asked for a metal slide from a display case, sat down on a stool, laid the instrument on his lap as if it were a baby, and sent forth a volley of bluesy notes. Then he played a bit that recalled Don Ho, the Hawaiian musician responsible for the vogue for the Hawaiian-guitar warble some decades ago. Douglas then turned his attention to a brand-new National resonatora metal guitar patterned on older models favored by blues musicians. Can you believe this? he said, pointing at the factory-generated dings in the metal, like pre-washed and pre-torn bluejeans. He turned the guitar over and said, with some merriment, Look, theyve even simulated belt-buckle marks back here. As Douglas walked out of the store, he spied a box of assorted picks on the counter and went through their taxonomy, too. He singled out a thumbpick, which in his hand immediately became remarkable for its elegance and sturdiness. He said, This is a Golden Gate pick. I can go through one of these in just two sets, because I use my thumb so much. I taught myself the Dobro and my techniques are really weird; I use my thumb to dig out notes more than anyone else. After two sets, this would start to bend. Later that night, at the Beacon, Douglas had his customary solo session, at the start of which he commented on the dark side of noticing exquisite detail. Weve been on the road together for quite a while now, he told the audience, and added, gesturing toward one of his bandmates, and the way that guy chews is driving me crazy. He proceeded to play three of his own songs, and you could listen to them just on their surfaces, of course, and be appropriately dazzled. But you could also consider for a moment the backstorythe body of knowledge that gave those notes such expressiveness. Yeats called it the fascination of whats difficult. f
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JERRY DOUGLAS wins 2007 CMA Musician Of The Year
11/08/2007 Congratulations to JERRY DOUGLAS on being awarded CMA Musician Of The Year at the 41st Annual CMA Awards. Having been nominated in 2 categories, Musician of the Year and Vocal Group of the Year (as part of Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas), Douglas took home top honors in the category honoring instrumentalists, his third such honor. This win adds to his ever-growing collection of awards, which now includes 3 CMA Awards, 12 Grammy Awards, 10 ACM Awards, 2 Americana Music Association Awards, and the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship. Jerry Douglas was also seen by millions of viewers on ABC TV performing the song "Simple Love" with Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas during the CMA telecast. This caps off an already stellar year for Douglas, who has already participated in a sold out tour with Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas, a recent series of concerts with his friends Sam Bush and Edgar Meyer (including a sold out performance at Carnegie Hall), a GAC special with Alison Krauss & Union Station, highly-acclaimed headline engagements at such prestigious festivals as the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and MerleFest, and as a featured artist on a PBS special honoring Paul Simon. Recognition overseas continues to grow following his performances with his band at the Celtic Connections Festival in Scotland and his serving as Music Co-Director for the BBC TV series Transatlantic Sessions 3, featuring highly acclaimed artists from Scotland, Ireland, and The United States. Expect more things to come from Jerry Douglas in 2008, including a tour with his band and a new solo album on KOCH Records. Stay tuned to www.jerrydouglas.com for updates.
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Dont miss JERRY DOUGLAS with Paul Simon on PBS
06/26/2007 JERRY DOUGLAS was among a select group of performers asked to celebrate the distinguished of Jerrys close friend Paul Simon, one of America's most respected songwriters and musicians as Paul received the first-ever LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GERSHWIN PRIZE FOR POPULAR SONG. At Paul Simons invitation, Jerry traveled to Washington DC to participate in a concert at Warner Theatre in celebration of this honor along with a diverse group of esteemed performers including Yolanda Adams, Marc Anthony, Dixie Hummingbirds, Art Garfunkel, Alison Krauss, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Lyle Lovett, Stephen Marley, James Taylor and Buckwheat Zydeco, and presenters Billy Collins (former poet laureate), Bob Costas and Lorne Michaels. Tune in to your local PBS station at 9:00-10:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, June 27, 2007, to see Jerry perform Graceland with Alison Krauss and The Boxer with Shawn Colvin and Alison Krauss on PAUL SIMON: THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GERSHWIN PRIZE FOR POPULAR SONG. More info at PBS.org The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song is named in honor of the legendary George and Ira Gershwin. This newly created award recognizes the profound and positive effect of popular music on the world's culture. The prize will be given annually to a composer or performer whose lifetime contributions exemplify the standard of excellence associated with the Gershwins. Paul Simon is the first recipient of this honor. In addition to touring with Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas across North America this Summer, Jerry has recently completed highly-acclaimed engagements at such prestigious festivals as MerleFest and the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Visit jerrydouglas.com for a complete listing of tour dates, including performances with The Jerry Douglas Band and other exciting artist packages to be announced for Fall 2007.
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Music Review: Stars of 'grass excel from blue to n
05/14/2007 Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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Douglas, Rice, AKUS prepare jam session
05/10/2007 Thursday, May 10, 2007 |
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Douglas, Rice, AKUS prepare jam session
05/10/2007 Thursday, May 10, 2007 |
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Jerry Douglas Honors Paul Simon
04/24/2007
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Review - Best of Jerry Douglas's Sugar Hill Years
04/20/2007 JERRY DOUGLAS/Americana Masters Series:
One of the architects of NAC, Douglas was part of that crew of pickers that was making great music in the early 80s that no one what to do with or what to call, even if all of them went on to set the new standards. Culled from his five sets for Sugar Hill, this is a look at a master picker doing his thing, pushing boundaries and topping himself because he can. Deceptively down home, this is world class picking that won’t do anything less than blow the dust off your ears. He can play anything from his resophonic guitar and simply does and does it all great. Hot stuff. Chris Spector Midwest Record Lake Zurich, IL
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Douglas a Blur of virtuosty
02/16/2007 Michael Lisi, Albany Times Union
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Concert a delight for Trapp fans
02/02/2007 Lawrence F. Specker for the Mobile Register "Have you guys ever met this fellow?" Jerry Douglas asked his audience, a good way into Saturday night's show at the Mobile Civic Center Theater. The response wasn't just enthusiastic; it was personal. Several hundred people seemed eager to claim Douglas' guitarist, Guthrie Trapp, as one of their own. It was a reasonable assertion, given Trapp's roots in Baldwin County and Pensacola. Proud parent Joe Trapp of Lillian later told me he thought he knew half the people there. It made for a warm friends-and-family vibe that heightened what was already a stellar concert. Guthrie Trapp, a 27-year-old guitar whiz who moved away to Nashville five and a half years ago to seek his fortune, never spoke from the stage. But he didn't have to. Just the fact that he was there, chosen as a sideman by one of one of Nashville's most respected and most inventive instrumentalists said plenty. You couldn't ask for a better homecoming. But just in case anyone missed the point, nine-time Grammy winner Douglas was generous with his praise. "I haven't found a thing yet the boy can't do," he told his audience. "There's just nobody else like him in the whole wide world." And then there was the music. Thanks to fun opening sets from Dread Clampitt, Rollin in the Hay and The Wrights, Douglas' band got a late start but made it worth the wait. Material included one or two tunes Douglas has played with his most famous project, Alison Krauss and Union Station. "We Hide and Seek" was a particular standout, re-creating that ensemble's ability to sound tempered and joyful at the same time, world-wise without being world-weary. The sense of that group's presence was so strong that you could almost see Krauss standing there -- though the song is an instrumental even when that other ensemble plays it. But the set list naturally emphasized Douglas' solo catalog -- and that, as they might say, is a whole 'nother ball game. Grounded in bluegrass, Douglas has made a name for himself as an artist who brings outside influences in, rather than sticking to the handbook. This was never more clear than when he introduced a classic song he covers on his newest album, "The Best Kept Secret." "There was a wonderful bluegrass band in the late '70s and early '80s," he said, pausing for effect, "called Weather Report." "Bill (Monroe) would've loved 'em," he added. "They played some of the same notes he played." When the laughter died down, Douglas paid a more solemn tribute to that frontier-busting jazz group. He'd recorded another Weather Report song years ago, he said, but "I waited a long time to even attempt this one." With that, the band launched into "Remark You Made," Douglas playing his dobro like Wayne Shorter might have played his horn, and bassist Todd Parks switching easily to a bend- and vibrato-heavy style that couldn't have been farther from bluegrass or country. And again on the Douglas original "Ankara to Izmir," the group threw in everything but the kitchen sink on a composition inspired by a bus trip Douglas once took across Turkey. Sometimes music gets to a point where asking "what kind of music is it?" is as pointless as asking how water tastes. Saturday's show was like that. Despite bluegrass roots, it wasn't a bluegrass show. Despite obvious jazz, country and rock influences, the band didn't color within any of those lines, either. It was fearless music, that's what kind of music it was. It was the kind of thing you get when people play what's inside them, rather than playing to what they think the listeners' expectations might be. Trapp took his fair share of solos, as you'd expect, including one memorable blast late in the show when he got to wring out the honky-tonk Telecaster techniques he's honed with Nashville's Don Kelley Band. In that one case he clearly went on for longer than his bandleader had asked, but got clean away with it because it just kept getting better the longer he went on. Douglas was as floored as the crowd. But was what unexpected, aside from that one free-running romp, was the way Trapp's solos fit into the show. This wasn't the rock or country idiom where the script has a line that says "insert hot solo here" and some gunslinger stands in the spotlight and does it by the numbers. In Douglas' band, the mandate appears to call for solos that fit the compositions, that draw instant by instant on what the other players in the band have just done and what they are doing just now. It's a subtler, tougher challenge to shine in this environment, and Trapp did. You could plainly see that sometimes he was the challenger, sometimes he was the one being challenged. Joe Trapp said he saw it too, and he ought to know -- and it made him that much prouder. "We're just happy he's with a bunch of guys who are doing so well," he said. He was, as you'd expect, pleased as a parent could be with the way his son's homecoming played out. "We didn't know what to expect. Jerry just went above and beyond to draw attention to Guthrie," he said. "We couldn't be more excited about it."
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Jerry Douglas Band, Glasgow
02/04/2007 By Rob Adams, The Herald So, Fred Flintstone bumps into Charlie Parker and banjo genius Bela Fleck provides the soundtrack. Except Fleck is playing not banjo, but saxophone. Such is the stuff of Jerry Douglas's dreams. But, rather than turn over and pull the quilt over his head, Douglas fashions a piece of music that describes this unlikely conglomeration of characters. Thus his band whizzes through a piece of bebop at a lick to rival the Flintstones theme and that includes, no surprise here, a dobro solo from Douglas that would earn him a gig with any jazz group. Douglas seems to do this sort of thing for fun. Never mind the thousands of country and bluegrass sessions he's featured on if it's music, he'll find a way of dragging his metal bar across the guitar strings that makes his instrument sound as if it was custom built for the style. He's articulated uilleann pipe music before, complete with grace notes and authentic phrasing, and here he turned a Turkish bus trip into convincing dobro impressionism as well as tracing his own journey from bluegrass to futurism. With such a polymath for a bandleader, Douglas's musicians have to be super alert and just as able. Opening with the classic Douglas rootsy rumble Takarasaka, they rocked and rolled with his every change of direction. These are serious players. Guitarist Guthrie Trapp plays with the sort of fingerbustin' feverishness that's lit up sessions from Sun Records onwards but wouldn't sound out of place in a hot club jazz quintet, and fiddler Luke Bulla also earned the audience's appreciation with sparky contributions that were as creative as they were spontaneous.
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Guitaritst Trapp to Mobile with Jerry Douglas
01/26/2007 By LAWRENCE SPECKER Entertainment Reporter It'll be Jerry Douglas' show on Saturday, but Guthrie Trapp's homecoming. Dobro player Douglas is a figure well-known to area music lovers, particularly those who've turned out for sold-out shows by bluegrass crossover act Alison Krauss and Union Station. A star member of that world-famous ensemble, he's also enjoyed a formidable career as a studio and solo musician in his own right. He has nine Grammy awards to his credit. On Saturday he leads his own band into the Mobile Civic Center Theater, topping a bluegrass-flavored bill that also includes The Wrights, Alabama-based trio Rollin in the Hay and Dread Clampitt. And in his band is Trapp, a Lower Alabama guitar prodigy who, in the minds of many supporters, has the potential to achieve the same kind of far-reaching success that Douglas has enjoyed. And Douglas does not disagree. "He's got a long, long career ahead of him," Douglas said. "Whatever he wants to do, he can do it."
Life on the line
Guthrie Trapp, now 27, was born in Pensacola to Joe and Mary Trapp, and grew up in Lillian. "I feel like I'm from both places," he said. "Lillian is home, for sure, but Pensacola too." His rapid musical rise indicates that he had both rare talent and a rare degree of support from family and friends. One uncle was a musician and his parents were avid music lovers, exposing him to a wide range of material. According to his own online biography, his father's hands-on involvement in music included promoting at least one Pensacola appearance by the New Grass Revival, an influential progressive bluegrass group. Its members included mandolin player Sam Bush, who was to play a pivotal role in Guthrie's later career. By age 10, Guthrie Trapp was into bluegrass, and by 14 he was a member of an established group, the White Sands Panhandle Band. Looking back, Trapp said he figures he was playing at least semi-professionally even earlier than that. "I started playing gigs out when I was probably 12 or 13 and was getting paid for it and had to show up on time and know all the material," he said, "so I guess that would be the beginning of it." Norman Jeter, active these days as the guitarist for area bluegrass trio Delta Reign, was one of those who recognized Trapp's talents early. Joe Trapp would drop his son off for informal lessons. "One thing that has always impressed me, when he was first starting out, I'd show him a song," Jeter said. "Two weeks later, he was showing me how it really went." By the time he was 14 or 15, Trapp said, he was sitting in with older musicians in venues like the famed Flora-Bama Lounge and Package. A couple more years, he said, and he was a regular performer in such places, not just a guest. "It's unbelievable how much he stood out," Jeter said. "And it really couldn't have happened to a nicer family." He said that what distinguishes Trapp's playing are his smoothness and his confidence. "He takes charge," Jeter said. "He presides over the guitar." Trapp said he has too many mentors and teachers from those days to name, but he's grateful to them all. "They would all help me because I was so young," he said. Starting in 1995 he formed a duet with Gove Scrivenor. In the later '90s he joined one with Nick Branch, and that project grew into the band The Filthy Rich, which toured nationally and opened for well-known acts including the Sam Bush Band. By this time Trapp was proficient on mandolin as well as acoustic and electric guitar. He also had reached beyond his bluegrass roots to explore other styles. He moved to Nashville, where he has now lived for more that five years. Things continued to move swiftly. In addition to playing in local ensembles, he spent time in Patty Loveless' band, an eye-opening experience. He was "thrilled to death" to get the job, he said, but "I really had no idea how good she was." She liked to pick good musicians and let them run more or less free, he said, which was an "incredible" experience. It also was good preparation for the gig that was to come. "When I got that call to come try out with Jerry, I was blown away," he said. "This was an incredible opportunity." "Jerry, I've been hearing his name since I was a little kid," Trapp said. "Guys like him and Sam Bush and Bela Fleck, we held them up to be super pickers." In fact it was Bush, who'd been crossing paths with Trapp since the guitarist was 8, who advised Douglas to make the call. Douglas said Bush might have hired Trapp himself, except that he wanted someone who could sing harmony. "Sam Bush told me about Guthrie," Douglas said. "Every time Sam would be without a guitar player or a singer, he'd go, 'Man, there's this guy named Guthrie Trapp. He can kill a guitar, but he can't sing a note.' Well, I've heard Guthrie sing, and he's right." Given that Douglas' band plays instrumental music, this wasn't a concern. He called Trapp in early 2006 and invited him over. They didn't play at all, on that first meeting. They just talked. Trapp said that's actually not an unusual way of doing business in Nashville. Veterans understand that while they only spend a couple of hours a day on stage, they have to spend all day every day with their bandmates. They want someone who can play, but they need someone who can hang. "If the band doesn't get along, you might as well forget it," Trapp said. But Douglas evidently liked what he saw, both personally and professionally. When the Jerry Douglas Band hit the road last spring, supporting Douglas's new "The Best Kept Secret" album, Trapp was on board. He's the comedian of the group, Douglas said, but he's a serious player. "He lives, eats, sleeps and drinks guitar," Douglas said. "He's just amazing. I couldn't throw anything at him that he couldn't spit right back at me." "He just keeps surprising us," Douglas said.
Turning loose
Those who know Douglas primarily through his association with Krauss shouldn't come to Saturday's concert expecting him to replicate the Union Station sound. "It's a different show," he said. "It's more about turning people loose." Douglas said his roots are in folk and bluegrass, and that "never goes away." But he has reputation for ranging far afield, and in conversation about his playing style, he throws out names such as guitarist Django Reinhardt, violinist Stephane Grappelli, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis. "It all rubs off on you," he said. "It all influences you." Additionally, he said, the dobro is a relatively new instrument, meaning that performers are free to follow their own roads. The word dobro comes from an abbreviation of Dopyera Brothers, one of the first companies to make what are more generally known as resonator guitars. Where conventional acoustic guitars make sound by vibrating their wooden tops, resonator guitars use one or more speaker-like metal cones, lending a glistening, metallic sound favored by some blues players. It's a sound that Douglas has taken in previously unexplored directions. "I look at it more like a horn than a guitar, I guess," he said. Then again, this being his band, he's sort of the lead guitarist, he said, "even though I've got one of the best lead guitar players, standing to my left, that I could ever hope to hear." That said, he's not coming to town to teach a music theory class. "I like for all the music and everything we do to be accessible to the audience," he said. "We're not trying to run off from them and leave them in the dust. It's not as heady as a Coltrane show or something like that. But it's challenging. We want it to be challenging at the same time. I want you to hear something you've never heard before." "In the middle of the first song you just forget about (not having) a singer, because everybody up there is singing," he said. "It's just a different language." Douglas said his approach is to pick the best musicians he can find and then let them run. "I don't have a leash on anybody," he said. "They're just amazing musicians. I just stand back and go 'Wow. That's what you think of my song. My song never sounded that good.'" "He never tells us what to play," affirmed Trapp. "As creative as we want to get, he will not pull the reins back on that at all. He's all for hanging out there on a limb. That's the way to do it. That's the way to learn something. If you play it safe, you're never going to break through into those new territories." "We want to entertain them," said Douglas. "We're not trying to blow them away with chops, or leave them flabbergasted by our dexterity. there's more to entertaining people than that. I like to talk to people. I like to get used to where I am. "Every time we've (Alison Krauss and Union Station) played the Saenger I've gone down the street there to Wintzell's and just eaten like three meals a day there, and tried to read all the signs on the walls, which is impossible." Playing material from "Best Kept Secret" puts Trapp in the position of playing songs which, on disc, feature legendary guitarists such as Derek Trucks and Bill Frisell. Except that Douglas doesn't insist on mimicry. "He could learn anything they did ... but I really don't want him to do that," Douglas said. "I want him to be himself, and everybody else up there too." Ambitions The Jerry Douglas Band isn't Trapp's only venture, even now. When he's not on tour, he plays four nights a week with Nashville's Don Kelley Band, which he describes as "the greatest honky-tonk band in the world." There's also a regular Monday-night gig in the neighborhood tap room. Even though he played in arenas when the Jerry Douglas Band opened for Paul Simon last summer, he likes to revisit his Flora-Bama days, he said. "I still play in bars. I still love playing in bars," he said. "It's just more personal, I've always like that."
And Fender recently flew him to Anaheim, Calif., to play showcases for some of the company's musical instruments at the NAMM convention, a major industry gathering. (A Fender clip of him playing a Guild guitar can be seen on www.youtube.com; just search for Trapp's name.) He said that when it comes to solo recordings, he has "a lot of ambitions." "I need to do a guitar record really bad," he said. "I'm going to do one this year." Underneath the ambition, though, is a certain humility. Trapp said he doesn't feel like someone who's practiced or studied as much as he might have. He's always played by ear and by feel, he said. Consequently, he said, he doesn't think he's much good as a teacher. "I feel like I've been really lucky," he said. Then again, he said, "I don't regret it one bit. A lot of people tell me they would rather hear somebody that plays from their heart than somebody that plays from their head." The immediate thing is the joy of coming back home on a major tour. On previous runs with Loveless and Douglas, he never came anywhere near south Alabama. This is a special occasion, and he said he's been getting a deluge of calls and e-mails from old friends. "I couldn't be any happier," he said. "I couldn't ask for anything more at this point." © 2007 The Mobile Register
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Douglas' Year to Relax Filled with Nonstop Work
01/26/2007 By John Wirt for theadvocate.com The Jerry Douglas Band When: Friday, Jan. 26 (8 p.m.) Where: The Manship Theatre Tickets: $15-$35 Master dobro player Jerry Douglas is a prominent contributor to that roots-music phenomenon, the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. Hes also the winner of 12 Grammy awards, a Nashville session player heard on more than 1,500 albums, member of Alison Krauss and Union Station, leader of his own band and a solo recording artist. The Jerry Douglas Band performs tonight at the Manship Theatre. He assembled the group in early 2006 so he wouldnt lose his chops during a year when he expected to be relaxing following six years of relentless work. The band was really great so we started getting bombarded, Douglas said from his home in Nashville. And then we got the Paul Simon tour, too. So much for my year off. The Jerry Douglas Band opened for the touring Simon and then Douglas joined the headliner on stage for performances of the Simon and Garfunkel classic, The Boxer. Douglas was hesitant about accepting Simons invitation, but ultimately signed on. When I got my high-powered band together, I thought we should go do it, he explained. Paul and I have been friends for a long time. It was a blast. The Simon-Douglas tour was a traveling mutual admiration society. He has such an amazing band, Douglas said. His whole band watched us during our whole first show. Paul, all of them, standing over there with their mouths open. We all watched each other. It was that kind of thing. For us, it was a musicians paradise, fun every night. It never got old. As beautifully managed as the tour was, Douglas added, there was one disadvantage in being Simons opening act. The star and his band rehearsed to the last second every night. That left Douglas with almost no time for a sound check. Despite his decades of recording and performing, millions of people first heard Douglas in the O Brother, Where Art Thou? movie and soundtrack CD. Even before O Brother, Douglas was doing very well with Alison Krauss and Union Station, the great bluegrass band hed helped revitalize three years before the film. We were rolling along big time and O Brother lifted us to another level, Douglas said. They say strike while the iron is hot. The iron has been hot for a long time. I dont ever want it to cool down. Douglas, Krauss and other members of Union Station perform throughout the O Brother CD, which has sold nearly nine million copies. It was just a shoe that fit, Douglas said. And it came along at a really good time for the country. During the 9/11 thing, it was all crazy. O Brother was honest music that brought everybody right back to ground level. It was something real that you could grab onto. Everything else was in question at that point, but Bible sales and record sales of O Brother went through the roof. Douglas didnt particularly care how much the O Brother soundtrack might sell while he was making it. First of all, it was a Coen brothers movie (sibling filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen), he said. And we got to play songs as simple as You Are My Sunshine. It was all this music that everyone had told you forever that you could never make a living at. And there it was, the biggest record in the world. Soundtrack producer T-Bone Burnett was perhaps the one person who knew the O Brother music would find a huge audience. I asked T-Bone, How many copies do you think this record can sell? He said, really fast, Eight million. People are still buying it, people are still seeing the movie. Douglas latest trip to Louisiana, made in association with the Lafayette-based Louisiana Crossroads series, finds him performing in Lake Charles, Baton Rouge and Lafayette. The latter concert was a benefit for the Dr. Tommy Comeaux Memorial Endowed Fund for Traditional Music at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Tommy was a real good friend of mine, Douglas said. So I love the idea of going down to a place I love and helping at the same time. Down in Louisiana, Douglas also gets to see another of his brothers in music, slide guitar maestro Sonny Landreth. His tone has got such soul and hes such a sweet guy, Douglas said. You can really tell a lot about someones personality through their playing. Thats who they really are. You can see right into their soul. In his own playing, Douglas is forever searching for his next peak. Im always looking for something new and I dont ever feel like Ive found it. I hope that a lot of people feel that way. Its the way you get better. All the notes have been played in every possibly sequence, so from there its all in the soul and the attitude of whoevers playing them. Thats the only thing that makes them different.
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Louisiana Crossroads to feature Douglas, Landreth
01/25/2007 Herman Fuselier hfuselier@theadvertiser.com Two of the world's best musicians are performing today in Lafayette - and they're not The Cheetah Girls. A 12-time Grammy winner, dobro master Jerry Douglas has played on more than 1,000 albums and recorded with such stars as Garth Brooks, Ray Charles, Paul Simon, James Taylor and more. Douglas will be joined by Sonny Landreth. Eric Clapton, a god among rock guitarists, is a fan of Landreth, who lives in Breaux Bridge. Clapton describes him as "probably the most underestimated musician on the planet and also is probably one of the most advanced." Douglas and Landreth on the same stage is likely to tear a hole in the universe. At least that's what Todd Mouton, organizer of tonight's Louisiana Crossroads concert, is joyfully anticipating. "We live in a truly incredible place, and the fact that all these artists of such an amazing caliber are going to all this effort pretty much says it all," Mouton said. "We really need to focus on perpetuating these kinds of legacies. "There's plenty of room for individualism and new ideas in tradition. That's how traditions got started, by great people and great ideas." Douglas, Landreth and Lafayette drummer Doug Belote entertain for the Crossroads concert at Angelle Hall. The show is a fundraiser for the Dr. Tommy Comeaux Memorial Endowed Fund for Traditional Music at UL. The fund, which would create a university program devoted to the study of traditional music, is $50,000 away from its $1 million goal. The fund requires $600,000, matched by $400,000 from state funds, to create a million-dollar principal. Interest from that principal will be used to pay salaries and costs of the program. "We've funded nine of 10 professorships, which will all be combined into the university's first-ever arts-based endowed chair," said Mouton. "We need folks to help us with our last push across the finish line, which we hope to see this year, by the 10th anniversary of Tommy's death in November." Douglas is a friend of the late Comeaux, a noted pathologist and musician with BeauSoleil, the Basin Brothers, Clickin' Chickens, Coteau and others. Tonight's show marks Crossroads' 90th concert. "This is a real high point for us," Mouton said. "This tour is our most ambitious undertaking to date. "We've got a number of the world's best musicians together, and their work represents just how cutting-edge traditional music is, and always has been. "Jerry's the top. He can do anything he wants to do, and that he chose to come here and play these gigs says a lot about all of us. He loves this place and knows its real-ness."
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Jerry Douglas Caps Off Biggest Year of His Career
12/18/2006 NEW YORK, NY -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 12/18/2006 -- KOCH Recording artist Jerry Douglas is capping off the biggest year of his career, with much more in store for 2007. Releasing his solo record "The Best Kept Secret" and being featured on Alison Krauss & Union Station's "Lonely Runs Both Ways," Douglas has been kept very busy during 2006.
Douglas just completed a live broadcast at New York's Town Hall for "A Prairie Home Companion" on December 16th, and will perform at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville with "A Prairie Home Companion" on December 31st.
Douglas has won three Grammys in 2006: Best Country Performance By a Duo or Group, Best Country Instrumental Performance (composed by Jerry Douglas) and Best Country Album, all with Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas. Douglas was also nominated for Musician of the Year by the CMAs, and nominated for Instrumental Performer (dobro) and Instrumental Album by IBMA. After completing a sold out tour in early 2006 with Alison Krauss & Union Station, The Jerry Douglas Band headlined several festivals in 2006, including Bonnaroo, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, MerleFest, Vancouver Island Music Festival, Winnipeg Folk Festival, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, Johnny Keenan Festival (Ireland), and RockyGrass. The Jerry Douglas Band also opened for Paul Simon on a 29 city tour, playing such prestigious venues like Radio City Hall (New York City), The Greek Theater (Los Angeles) and more. Douglas also accompanied Paul Simon on "The Boxer" each night during encore.
More Jerry Douglas tour dates coming soon!
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2007 Telluride BG Lineup
12/01/2006 Lyons, CO (OPENPRESS) December 1, 2006 -- Planet Bluegrass proudly announces the preliminary lineups for two of the longest-running and most respected music festivals in America. The 34th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival, June 21-24, 2007, will feature Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Bela Fleck, and Chick Corea. Then July 27-29, the 35th Annual RockyGrass Festival, welcomes Nickel Creek, Marty Stuart, and Del McCoury Band to the Planet Bluegrass Ranch in Lyons, CO. Tickets for both festivals go on sale at 8am MST, Wednesday, December 6 at www.bluegrass.com / 800-624-2422. For the 34th straight year, the greatest musicians in acoustic music, along with 10,000 of their most devoted fans, converge on the tiny mountain town of Telluride, Colorado to celebrate the summer solstice together. This years lineup includes superstars Krauss and Harris; popular newgrass bands Yonder Mountain String Band and Bela Fleck & the Flecktones; and numerous unique combinations of artists: the genre-crossing of jazz pianist Chick Corea and banjo great Bela Fleck; the inter-generational duets of MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile. Festival royalty Sam Bush, John Cowan, Peter Rowan, and Jerry Douglas all return in 2007, counting over 100 Telluride appearances between them. All twelve-hundred passes for the popular Telluride Town Park Campground sold-out prior to any lineup announcements. Festivarians from 49 different US states and two foreign countries applied for these tickets using a random online lottery system. Tellurides slightly older and more traditional bluegrass-focused cousin, RockyGrass, welcomes some of the most lauded bands in bluegrass to Lyons, Colorado. Individually, the RockyGrass lineup boasts numerous Grammy winners and thirteen International Bluegrass Music Association instrument/vocalists of the year. The 2006 RockyGrass festival sold-out two months in advance. 34th TELLURIDE BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL June 21-24, 2007 - Telluride, CO * Alison Krauss & Union Station * Sam Bush Band * Chick Corea & Bela Fleck * Emmylou Harris * Telluride House Band featuring Béla, Edgar, Jerry, Sam, Bryan * Tony Rice & Ali |
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