Matt Flinner

This week’s video is a beautiful tune written by Ross Martin, “Bitterroot.” This tune was written in Hailey, ID (in the Sun Valley area) after driving from Missoula, MY through the Bitterroot Mountains. When we arrived at the venue (the Ezra Pound Home, which is operated by the Sun Valley Arts Council) about 90 minutes or so before showtime, we asked each other how our tunes were coming along. Ross said something like, “I’m about to start writing mine.” And in what must have been about 30-45 minutes, this is what he had. I guess there’s nothing like necessity to facilitate inspiration! Or maybe it was just the beautiful drive.

This is the first tune we knew we had to record for our “Winter Harvest” CD, and it helped set the tone for the whole disc. This video was recorded at Down Home Guitars in Frankfort, IL (just outside of Chicago) on Oct 15, 2011. Enjoy!

Not much to say about this one. If you like banjo music, especially loud and fast banjo music, and you wonder how the banjo could be made to sound faster and louder, then this video might be for you. Recorded at the Ghost Ranch Bluegrass Camp with help from Eli West.

In January of 2012 I got to be part of something unique. Bassist Greg Garrison puts together a series in Denver called “Improvised Roots,” in which jazz musicians and bluegrass musicians meet with the commonality of improvisational ability, interest in roots music, and a good dose of courage. His lineup for the January shows included singer/guitarist Aoife O’Donovan, local sax giant John Gunther, myself, Matt Flinner on mandolin and banjo, and one of my musical heroes, Dave Douglas, on trumpet.
So the instrumentation for much of what we were going to play was to be bass, banjo, sax, trumpet and voice. Pretty weird ensemble. And I have to say I felt a little nervous being the only chordal instrument. I’d have to practice more ways of playing a Bb7#9 chord to try to keep things interesting. Not to mention I don’t play the banjo all that often these days, and I’m called upon to play with some stellar players and a guy who I consider to be one of the best and most creative jazz musicians alive today.
It turned out to be a very fruitful mix for two nights at the Dazzle Restaurant and Lounge. Aoife’s often deceptively complex yet memorable songs went nicely into Dave’s intricate arrangements and virtuosic solos from him and John. And Greg tied the whole thing together with his tune, “Not Sure What That Is.” We figured out how to blend as an ensemble and in the end I think we achieved that ultimate goal of making the whole greater than the sum of its parts. And it was an absolute thrill ride. Thanks to Greg, Dave, Aoife and John for all the inspiration I walked away with.

When you’re in an instrumental group that plays mostly original material, you’ve got to go back to your roots from time to time to establish that connection with your past and remind everyone where all this music really comes from. Bill Monroe was the Father of Bluegrass Music, and wrote a lot of classic songs like “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” “Uncle Pen” and “I’m Going Back to Old Kentucky.” He also wrote many many classic instrumentals such as “Rawhide,” “Big Mon” and this tune, “Wheel Hoss.” When we go back to our roots, Bill Monroe is certainly one of the places we go first.

This tune was recorded during our 100th “Music du Jour” show at the Chautauqua Community House in Boulder, CO on April 28, 2012.

This is one of our favorite older tunes to play.  It is generally credited to Willie Narmour, and is named after his home county of Carroll County, Mississippi.  If you want to go back and listen to his original 1929 recording, click here.  Ross got this tune from a Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley recording, and I learned it from a Mike Compton recording with the Nashville Bluegrass Band.  There are many versions out there, from Gid Tanner to Fiddlin’ Doc Roberts to Larry Sparks to Chet Atkins, and they all vary quite a bit in form.  As is the case with many older tunes, it has evolved somewhat since its original version.

This was recorded at one of our favorite venues, Village Concerts in Palmyra, VA, on Nov 7, 2010.  Polly King’s place is a warm, intimate and welcoming setting that always makes us and the audience feel good.  Thanks Polly!

This week’s video features a few of our favorite musicians: Cahalen Morrison, Eli West and Ryan Drickey playing Norman Blake’s “Church Street Blues” with the Matt Flinner Trio.  Cahalen and Eli are a great modern old-time duo, and their “Holy Coming of the Storm” CD is a must-have.  And Ryan Drickey is a fiddler with a keen sense of adventure; he’s a classically trained player who has become a master of old-time fiddling (one of very few to make that leap convincingly).  Anyway, we’re big fans of these guys and were excited to get to play with them on our High Street Concerts show in Lyons, CO on January 22, 2011.  Watch for Cahalen & Eli’s “Our Lady of the Tall Trees,” coming soon (and produced by Matt Flinner!).

This week’s video is of a tune that came to us from a Doc Watson recording from 1984.  Doc and Merle Watson put out many great albums from 1964 until Merle’s tragic death in 1985, and their “Down South” recording is one of my favorites.  That’s where we got this tune.  Doc’s version (the song probably dates back to before Doc’s time) has lyrics, which we don’t sing; in essence the protagonist of the song is complaining about marriage, and is asking to get his 15 cents back so he can “go home to Mammy” (maybe 15 cents was the price of a marriage license way back when?).  Anyway, we decided to turn the song into a fiddle tune, and it turned out to be really fun to play.  Many fiddle tunes started out as songs with words (like Soldier’s Joy, Cripple Creek, Old Joe Clark, etc.), and in that spirit we thought this tune might make a nice addition to the fiddle tune repertoire.

This video was recorded at the Buttonwood Tree in Middletown, CT on March 28, 2012.  It’s a great little cultural oasis, with live music, theater, dance, poetry and art presented regularly in an intimate, welcoming space.  Thanks to Anne-Marie Cannata for having us, and to Dave Gumbart for the fine video work.

This week’s video is a tune I wrote while we were in Santa Cruz, CA.  Eric Thorin is a versatile bassist, and I wanted to write a tune that exploit his slapping technique.  So this tune goes back and forth between the bass and mandolin, then bass and guitar, then bass and mandolin, etc.  I wrote “Slapping Is Encouraged” at the top of the chart as an instruction for Eric, and that ended up sticking as the title for the tune.

We first played this at a house concert at Irene Herrmann’s house in Santa Cruz as part of a “Music du Jour” tour.  Irene is a great classical musician as well as an old-time musician, and we were honored to play at her home for the wonderful folks in Santa Cruz.

This video performance is from a show in Putney, VT at the Next Stage Theater on March 25, 2012.  Thanks to Barry Stockwell and all the Stockwell brothers for putting the show on.

We recorded this tune on our “Winter Harvest” CD.  To order a copy, click here.

We’re starting a regular Thursday video series this week.  Every Thursday a new video will be posted on the Matt Flinner Trio YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/mattflinnertrio), featuring performances by the Matt Flinner Trio, other groups Matt is involved in, and the occasional instructional video or other arcana.

Our first video is a tune from the new Matt Flinner Trio CD, “Winter Harvest.”  This tune, “Wheels,” was written by Eric Thorin on March 20, 2009 at The Rail concert series in Lafayette, CO.  “Wheels” refers to a friend of Eric’s who is always on the move—and this tune is a tribute to him!

This performance is from a show in Putney, VT at the Next Stage Theater on March 25, 2012.  Thanks to Barry Stockwell for hosting the show.

To order a copy of “Winter Harvest,” visit our online store.

As you surely know by now, Earl Scruggs passed away last week.  He was 88 years old and was out touring and performing just about to the end.
His legacy will be talked about for a long time to come, but what has always struck me about Earl Scruggs was the fact that he seemingly came out of nowhere in the mid 1940s and forever transformed the way an instrument is played as well as the way we hear American string band music.  There are always innovators who come along, but Earl’s innovations were a huge quantum leap for the banjo—a leap that took the instrument from old-time string band music into bluegrass and beyond.  And though Bill Monroe is considered the father of bluegrass music, it was Scruggs’ incredible, driving, syncopated banjo style that really defined bluegrass as a distinct new form (my favorite early description is “folk music in overdrive”) that took off in the late 40s.  And Earl did all this while he was still in his early 20s.  I can’t think of any other musician that completely transformed an instrument to the extent that he did, and to me that kind of genius is absolutely magical.  Scruggs truly wrote the book on the 5-string banjo (literally and figuratively), and it took several decades before any more really major innovations came along—and even those were essentially extensions that grew from Earl’s foundation.

There’s a lot of Scruggs’ music out there, but if you’re looking for the best stuff to listen to to get a sense of his style and his genius, check out the classic recordings of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.  Listening to the classic Flatt and Scruggs recordings from the early 50s, you get a sense of the full spectrum of style that Scruggs created.  There’s the drive of “Down the Road” or “Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms,” the swing and boogie-woogie feel of “Foggy Mountain Special” and “Six White Horses,” the use of “Scruggs” tuners on “Earl’s Breakdown” and “Foggy Mountain Chimes,” and the alternate tunings on “Reuben” or “Farewell Blues.”  And then you get his occasional lead guitar playing, using the same three-finger style (though with different roll patterns) on songs like “You Are My Flower” and “God Loves His Children.”  And then you have the fact that his playing was a great influence on Josh Graves, his eventual bandmate who helped the Dobro get off the ground to become a legitimate bluegrass instrument.  Pretty wide-ranging influence indeed.

Though Foggy Mountain Breakdown is surely the most famous tune in Earl Scruggs’ music, here’s one of my favorite tunes he played; he didn’t write this one, but he absolutely made it a banjo classic and a bluegrass standard.  His musical sense, his way of varying the melody, the way he phrased—it was always impeccable.

And here’s a pretty cool one with Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson from a little later in Earl’s life:

There are many other great Earl Scruggs You Tube videos out there.  I hope you enjoy these and hope that they may lead you onward to explore more great music by this American legend as well as other banjo innovators who came after him, like J.D. Crowe, Bill Keith, Alan Munde, Tony Trischka, Bela Fleck, and on and on and on.  I think I speak for all of us when I say thank you, Earl!