Wichita's Blog

The Bluegrass Way - 6

-Be patient with yourself when learning to play an instrument.
Sometimes the person who catches the biggest fish, fishes an extra
5 minutes before calling it a day.

-Never blame the sound man when you sing out of key.

-"Fox on the Run" comes before “The Wildwood Flower” only in the music book.

-Play the music you love, and you’ll never play a job,
you’ll only have gigs.

Wichita Rutherford

Chris Thile - What a Mandolin player and a good fella too

                              


Chris Thile is a for true musical genius.  And oh what a good boy. Alison Krauss produced the first album he did with his band Nickel Creek.  It was good too.  Shew it was good.  Now they've done a bunch of albums. 

Chris can paly just about any style and has played with everybody from John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin to Charlie Daniels.  He's mighty hard to beat in the talent department. 

I got to interview him and here's how it went...

Chris Thile Interview

(You can hear all my interviews with Bluegrass stars over at 5MinutesWithWichita.com.  Just click on the archives once you're in there.)

The Bluegrass Way - 5

A Bluegrass icon always encourages the beginner.
It’s the Bluegrass way.

You can tell someone you're his friend; you can prove it by changing his banjo strings.

Never let a festival go by without whistling twice and yelling “Jimmy Martin!” at least once.

In the Bluegrass show of life, don’t be the audience,
be the singer!  Its The Bluegrass Way.

Alison Krauss Interview

I'll bet you've been hearing the word "Podcast"
thrown around a lot these past few months.  Its got that "It
sounds like a lot of technical trouble to me" feeling to it.  I
completley understand, and I have a podcast!  I learned how to and all about it from this fella over at Podcast411.com.
His name is Rob and he's a good boy.

Lots of podcasts are of music and
some are of people just talking and some have bad language and some
have tech information and it seems that podcasting, like blogging, has
a little something for everyone.   In my podcast I do just one
thing.  I talk to Bluegrass stars for 5 minutes.  Sometimes I'll talk to
Rock stars like John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin and Country
stars like Dierks Bentley.  Or even NASCAR drivers like Junior
Johnson, the guy who came up with the idea for NASCAR. 

To show
you how very, very easy it is to listen to a podcast, just click here and listen to my interview with Alison Krauss.  What a Sweetheart. 

Look at this little Sweetie

http://courtney903.blogspot.com/2006/08/thoughts-on-bluegrass-way.html

What a Sweetheart.  Thank you, you sweet little thing you.

The Bluegrass Way

-A sausage and biscuits and gravy breakfast can glue a friendship back together in a big hurry.

-Friendship and Love are the first two chapters in the book of Bluegrass.

-A good person, when exposed to Bluegrass, is never the same again.

-Always smile when the music starts.
It’s the Bluegrass way.

The Bluegrasser's Prayer

Here's a little prayer I pray when it seems there are more non-Bluegrassers around than Bluegrassers. 

You may find it helps you at work or when you're at the mall or out with friends or when you're enjoying your Bluegrass at a pretty good volume and aren't sure "what kind of people" are listening.  It goes like this:

"Dear God,

May those who don't like Bluegrass love us.

And those that DON'T love us, please turn their hearts;

And if You don't turn their hearts

please turn their ankles,
so we'll know them by their limping.
   
Amen"

The Bluegrass Way - 3

-If you judge other players out loud,
you don’t worry about your own playing enough.

-Clap and whistle real loud at every show, be it in the
kitchen, on the front porch or at Carnegie Hall.
It’s the Bluegrass way.

-Talk loud when you’re telling a player how good he/she is.
It’s the Bluegrass way.

-Its not how fast you play,
It’s how good you listen.

-A free banjo and two lessons is what you give your enemy’s kid.

Here's our movie, VAN HEFFER, in full...

Some people from California came to Nashville and followed us around and filmed us for a few months.  They were there when we put the band back together and then when we got our record deal.  It ended up being an underground "cult classic".  Its known as "The Spinal Tap of Bluegrass". We won "Fan Favorite" at The Nashville Film Festival.  It has Doc Watson, Ricky Skaggs, The Del McCoury Band, Vince Gill, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas and a load of others.  Now somebody went and put it on YouTube.  So here it is.  You can watch it.  The quality has suffered of course, but I can't help that.  Its 26 minutes long. 

When I was Little

When I was little nobody I knew was embarrassed of the music they listened to.  My friends liked everything from children’s songs to rock to R&B. Nobody laughed when you’d listen to one style then the next song you picked was a completely different style.  It was just music.  We liked it.  In some cases we even loved it.  I liked the big orchestras just as much as I liked Bill Monroe.  My Daddy would play bosa nova records and we’d dance around then he’d play a Beatles record.  We thought the Beatles was children’s music, made especially for us.  Ever hear “Octopus’s Garden”?  Well that’s a kid’s song if I ever heard one.  Now when I listen to it at age 43 I laugh at thinking what those boys must have been doing 15 minutes before writing songs like that. 

Now that I’m grown up I’ve got a couple of shows on Satellite Radio.  I was the very first Podcaster to get a major media deal.  And since then I’ve built a strong following playing the old stuff.  I mean THE OLD STUFF too.  The roots of American popular music.  Like the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Uncle Dave Macon and the Monroe Brothers.   At the beginning of my show “Nothing New Here” I always tell the listeners to turn it up.  To “Get loud and be proud!”  Its funny how someone will get in trouble at work for playing “That old fiddle… banjo… well I don’t know what it is but its too loud” stuff.  Then cut to 6 months later and that person is emailing me telling me how I need to play more of the Skillet Lickers and the Jimmy Martin songs I’m playing is only the “hits”.  Oh its hilarious really. 

Then I think back to when I was little.  My Daddy playing all that old scratchily music.  Then we’d go over to Doc Watson’s house and they would talk about Jimmie Rodgers in these hushed tones like he might be listening from the next room or something.  It was respect is what it was.   Then we’d eat supper and talk about the music on the way home.  Its amazing how those old songs and that old music will embed itself so deeply into one’s heart.  Especially in your formative years.  You can always tell when somebody was raised around our kind of music.  They’ve got that look in their eyes.  That shiny little light that glimmers when they smile.  Like all the kids had when I was little.   It’s the Bluegrass Way.

The Bluegrass Way - 2

If I’d know’d you wanted to went, I’d a seen you’d got to get to go.---

Its not the going there, its the getting there.---

Become a better player than anybody expects you to.
That’s what makes a master musician.

The Bluegrass Way

Always capitalize the word Bluegrass.

Just because you can’t play the mandolin,
doesn’t mean you can’t learn.

Just Because you don't play the banjo,
Doesn't mean you have to start.

Hats

Do you like hats?  I love seeing them on somebody who wears them well.  Jerry Cherryholmes wears a hat well.  So do his boys.  Bobby Osborne goes without saying as does Mac Wiseman.   Do we even need to bring Bill into this?   Few things are more humorous than someone who tries to wear a hat that just doesn’t “take”.  My uncle Edward for example.  78 years old and nobody ever told him that when he wears a hat it looks like there’s been an attempt to kidnap him and he got away and forgot to take off the blindfold they tried to put over his face.  Oh its pitiful.  You’d think one of his closer loved ones would say something to him.  I guess I could.  But what would we talk about at Thanksgiving?  His sister, Aunt Mayetta, always thinks the flower arrangement on the table is a cat and she tries to “shoo” it away.  “If Marilyn catches you on her table she’ll gut you like a Christmas goose! She will too.  I’ve seen her do it!”  She’s been saying that as long as I can remember.  I believe NASA is studying her for their Mars program because she’s been 87 for about 36 years and has apparently discovered some sort of suspended animation without having to be asleep.  She wears a little Christmas hat every year.  It’s the same one.  It just sits there… bobby pinned to the side of her head just daring me to pull it off and put it on myself and start talking like her.  It would be so easy.  She probably wouldn’t even know it.  Oh bless her heart.  Then she looks at me with those sweet little old lady eyes and says “How are you honey?  I sure love you.  You’re getting’ so big…”  Then she tells me the same story she always tells about how she got me my first hat on my 5th birthday.  A little cowboy hat.  With a badge on the front.  I’ve been wearing one ever since.  Sans badge.  “You looked like a little Bill Monroe” she’d say.  “Of course he had his own teeth and took better care of his hair.  But you sure were sweet.”  Oh the older ones loving the younger ones and the younger ones loving the older ones.  A bizarre dichotomy when you get right down to it.  Then add a bunch hats to all that.  Wow.  And it’s the Bluegrass way.

Dinner On The Ground

Have you ever had “dinner on the ground”?  If you haven’t you ought to because you’d love it.  To some people dinner on the ground is a picnic.  With fried chicken, potato salad and canned peaches on real plates and there’s celery with peanut butter and raisons on it and pie and real forks and cloth napkins.  And all the mothers and aunts and sisters have worked on it most of the morning so there would be enough for everybody and a bunch left over for later.  To others dinner on the ground is potted meat, crackers, sandwiches and drinking a grape Coke on the tail gate of a pickup truck. Or in the middle of the floor back in the stock room of their grandfather’s small town grocery store as he takes a few minutes off to eat lunch and tell them how he used to do this with his grandfather when he was a little kid like them.  Little kids just love it too.  Even if you do it just one time when they grow up they’ll say “Remember when we had dinner on the ground that time and we…”   You should do it.  Its not too late.  This next week find somebody and have dinner on the ground with them.  Somebody you love.  A bunch of people you love.  Even if they don’t “get it” they will when its over. And you know what else?  They’ll never forget it.  I never have.  I never will.  You won’t either.  You know why?  Because it’s the Bluegrass way.

What Makes "us" Different

Why are we different?  I don’t mean as humans from apes or one celled animals.  Why are we, “Bluegrass people”, different from everybody else?
You know who you are.  And I know who you are,  the very minute I meet you.  And you know me too.  We don’t have a secret handshake.  Or do we?  There are no code words.  Or are there?  When you meet somebody you shake their hand and you hold on just a nano-second longer.  You look them in the eyes.  Hoping to see “it” as you shake.  You may ask yourself “Does this person love the dobro?  I wonder if he cries when he hears ‘The Fields Have Turned Brown.’  Is he mad because Sonny messed up his rotator cuff?”  When you get that gut feeling as well as that knowing stare back into your eyes you almost expect them to say “I wish Blue Highway would do another Gospel album too.”  Oh the unspoken kinship that runs rampant among “us”.  What is it you ask?  It’s the Bluegrass way.

Your pal,

Wichita

Cases are Sacred Places

Have you ever gotten a look inside somebody’s instrument case?  If you ever get a chance get a look.  At first glance you’ll just see a picture of a little kid or some scraps of paper and some meaningless junk.  Maybe some spare change and some picks.  Ask if its OK to look at what they’ve got in there.  They’ll be more than happy to share with you what’s in there and why.  You’ll find there’s always more than one picture.  If it’s a guy’s case, there’s always a picture of his wife or girlfriend.  If it’s a girls case, a picture of her husband or boyfriend.  Some times you’ll find pictures of little babies, little kids, grandparents and family members.  Some are still here with us.  Some have already gone home.  A lot times you’ll find a picture of a hero.  Like Mac Wiseman,  Bill Monroe or somebody in the service.  Jason Carter has a picture of The Tiger in his case and Tim Stafford has a picture of Doc Watson as well as Tony Rice.  Look at one of the little pieces of paper.  You’ll find they always have a sentence or two and at the bottom it always says “I love you”.   You’ll be surprised at how many pictures of Jesus there’ll be.  I’ve even seen a pacifier and an old dog’s collar.  A guitar string package with Mutt Lange’s autograph next to an old worn autographed picture from the 50’s of Lester and Earl.  Doc Watson’s case always has a recipe somebody’s given him to give to Rosa Lee and Ricky Skaggs always has a Bible verse somebody’s given him before one of his shows that week.  These cases are sacred places.  Musicians rely on them.  They make their living with the old friends protected inside them.  And the inside of that case is the last thing they see before they start walking toward the stage; that small scrap of paper, that old picture of their Dad with a flat top haircut, that quarter Bill Monroe gave them when they were a kid and that picture of Jesus their Mom gave them. It all goes with them, in their hearts, on stage.  That’s something else. It sure is.  It’s the Bluegrass way.

Wichita Rutherford