Monday, November 11, 2013

Free Form, Freewheeling Bluegrass Mashup



Pop superstar Bruce Hornsby and country legend Ricky Skaggs, two artists with more hit singles, awards, accolades and nods from fans and contemporaries alike are set to descend upon the stage of the Paramount in Huntington on the 20th and while it may seem at first to be a most unusual pairing, It is not as far fetched as it appears.
In the 1980’s, Ricky Skaggs set the bar early on with an impressive string of #1 hits including the iconic Country Boy, while on the pop charts Bruce Hornsby’s The Way It Is became the most played record of 1987 and sent his debut album multi-platinum.

“Bruce and I met while he was at the top of his game in the pop field and I was at the top of mine in the country field,” recalls Skaggs. “We were on the same bill at a festival in upstate New York and at the end of my show he introduced himself and asked me to sit in for a couple of songs during his set. Fast forward a few years, I find this CD that Bruce had done called Hothouse, and on the cover was a caricature of Bill Monroe and Charlie Parker. I just thought, man, what a funny mind to put together this kind of dream band that you know he would have loved to have played with.”


Skaggs was busily gathering artists at that time to perform on a tribute album to the great father of bluegrass, Bill Monroe.

“Bruce was the first guy to say yes. He showed up in the studio and jumped right in with me and my band and it was effortless. I remember listening to the playback in the control room and I turned to him and said, ‘hey, if you’re ever up for doing a whole record like this, I sure would be as well.’”

That dream reached fruition with the 2007 CD release, Bruce Hornsby & Ricky Skaggs, which led to a subsequent tour.

“A while ago I went back and listened to a number of shows that we had recorded during that time,” Hornsby remembers. “I was so excited by the quality and energy of the performances that I sent some roughs to Ricky, who was equally excited and together we decided to put it out.”

            In August, the duo released Cluck Ol’ Hen, a compilation of twenty-one live cuts from their 2007-2008 tour. Skaggs talks about the process involved in choosing the tunes for the new album.

            “Obviously we wanted the best performances that we could find from the whole band, but we also wanted performances that weren’t on the original studio record.  If you listen to that record it’s really more Hornsbyesque than it is bluegrass. It was our first time in the studio to really put this thing together and we didn’t know exactly what we were going to be doing, but when it got to the live show we started adding more Bill Monroe music, more hard driving bluegrass, so we kind of just made our decisions based on what we felt like would really make good listening.”

Hornsby and Skaggs have taken to the road once again and while the evening set lists may remain more or less intact, the musical arrangements are in a constant state of flux, offering a new and very different experience at every show.

            “We’re having a ball,” Skaggs laughs. “Bruce loves to mix stuff up. Just the other night I was a little out of tune and kind of touching up some strings on the mandolin and it sounded almost like this exotic riff. Well, that’s all it took. We just started jamming on something and made this weird kind of a Middle Eastern -- it actually came out more Middle Eastern Kentucky I guess than anything else -- but we loved it and that’s the thing about playing with Bruce. He loves music, he loves to experiment with music and he’s always pushing the boundaries for himself.”
            Hornsby concurs that as this journey they began so long ago continues to evolve, the respect the two have found in each other as artists follows along the very same path.
            “Ricky is a very open-minded musician, interested in a broad range of music. It was never a challenge collaborating with him. I don't do just one thing, and neither does he, so it's easy to explore a lot of musical areas together.  He also generates some of the best mandolin chops I’ve ever heard.”
            Currently in its second month, the tour has traversed a large expanse of the country with dates being added that will see Skaggs and Hornsby performing together well into 2014.
“We’re taking Bluegrass to places it hasn’t been before," Skaggs says elatedly. "When we’re on stage there is nowhere else that either of us would rather be. The music that we’re making now is music that I honestly believe people will be listening to 50 years from now, and thinking that it was cool enough that they’ll draw some inspiration from it.”