Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Dan Tyminski

Transcript

Dan Tyminski · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Set podcast.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: My guest today's guitarist, mandolinist, singer, songwriter Dan Timinski.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Dan, good to have you on the podcast.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: Very happy to be here.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, you were born in Rutland, Vermont.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Yes, indeed in nineteen sixty seven.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: And did you grow up in Vermont?
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: I grew up in Vermont. Yeah, the sprawling metropolis of
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: West Rutland, Vermont, I say jokingly. Yeah, it was a
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: home for me up until you know, the mid late
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: eighties before I moved south.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I spent a lot of time in Vermont.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: We had a house in Manchester, and I went to
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: college in Middlebury, which are like a half hour in
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: either direction, or forty five minutes from Rutland. What was
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: the music scene like for you growing up?
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: That's funny, you'd say, man, I used to deliver Coca
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Cola to Manchester. The music scene for me was something
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: you had to search for a little bit. I was.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: I was lucky enough to have parents who liked the
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: music enough to go somewhere every weekend for you know,
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: to hear some live music, and they dragged me along.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: You know, a lot of it. You know, it might
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: have been a country bar, it might have been a
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: square dance, fiddle contest, bluegrass festival, in an array of
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: whatever live music there was. I got. Uh, I got
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: all the access we could. But we had to drive,
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: you know, we had to We had to seek it out.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Okay. Were your parents musicians or do they play a
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: lot of music in the house.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: My parents were not musicians. My mother did, uh did
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: sing a little bit. And way back in the day,
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: my first memories of seeing anyone player sing was was
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: my mom singing. And uh so she was you know,
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: definitely lies in my influences. And uh, but there were
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: more music fans. I mean, we didn't go for for
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: her to perform anywhere, you know, we went out to
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: hear whatever music was playing. And uh, I got a
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: lot of access early in my life to live music.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Okay, but how about playing records at home or listening
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: to the radio.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: There was some playing of music at at my house,
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: but it was not I wouldn't say it was a
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: music filled house. It was not. It was a it
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: was a television field house. It was it was there
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: was I remember like on Sundays my dad would would
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: religiously play the Polish Poka Hour. There was a radio
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: program where I listened to Polish Poka music for an
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: hour on Sundays. It was actually funny. It was called
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: the Polish Poka Hour and it was two hours of music,
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: very very strange, but so there was that there. I
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: never had a music collection. I was never a listener
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: of music. Account of recorded music, I don't. I can
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: still count all the recordings I have ever purchased on
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: my on my fingers. I've never I've never really never
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: had any recorded music and and didn't grow up with it.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: My brother back in the day had some. And I
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: can name a few albums. The few albums that I
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: have listened to, I've listened to religiously, and I've studied them,
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: and I can I can tell you all the parts
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: of all the players on all those records. But that's
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: just a very small handful of recordings.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Okay, So what records did your brother have that you remember?
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Well? The Double O forty four record was the reason
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: I'm playing music right now. The JD Crow in the
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: New South Uh with Jerry Douglas and Ricky Skaggs and
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Tony Rice and Bobby Sloan. That was the record that
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: was my by far, far and above every other thing,
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: my biggest influence. That was the record I listened to
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: over and over and over again. That was back when
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: I wanted to, when I thought I was a AO player.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, I mean I lived in Vermont in the era
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: when you're growing up and basically was AM radio and
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: there might be a small FM station, but you heard
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: a lot of pop hits and occasionally you would hear
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: a country song. I remember flipping the dial on my
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: sixty three Chevy convertible and hearing Joe Lean for the
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: very first time. So in terms of your environment, A,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: were you listening to the radio or B were you
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: were growing up? Was it really more of this country stuff? Er?
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Was everybody listening to pop?
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: All my friends growing up listen to rock and roll?
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: It was they were. They were all rockers, Boston Journey
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: and ac DC and def Leppard and stuff like that.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: The radio stuff. My parents when they did listen to music,
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: they listened to a lot of old time country music.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: So I got a lot of you know, everything from
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Kitty Wells to Hank Williams too, you know a lot
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: of a lot of the old time country music was
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: was part of their thing. They loved to, uh, to
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: listen to the Opry. You know, they talked to you
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: know dearly about the Grand Old Opry was their their
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: their high mark of of all of music. But they
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: liked old time country music. And I got a little
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: bit of that, but I got just a lot more
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: live old time country music. We would go listening to
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: whatever bar bands that were around. And you know, my
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: my very first influences were was a man named Smoky
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: Green in upstate, New York, and he was my first
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: time performing with anyone on a stage was with Smokey.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: I think I was six years old at a little
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: club and.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Uh wait, wait wait, wait wait wait wait, you were
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: six years old and you were performing. What were you doing.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: That the very first time? Uh? I just I remember
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: I was with my parents who were listening to a band,
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: and I asked my mother if she would ask the
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: band if I could sing a song with the band,
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: and I think, to shut me up, she said, if
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: you want to sing a song with him, you go
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: up and ask him somewhere. And I was pretty shy kid.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: I really didn't speak much. I didn't I wasn't very outgoing,
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: but somewhere I found the courage to walk down that
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: aisleway and I went up to Smoky Green and I
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: tugged down his pant leg and he turned around and
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: looked for me and then had to turn his head
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: down to realize it was a little kid. And I said,
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: can I sing a song with you? And he said
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: why sure? And I sang. I sang, please Daddy, don't
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: get drunk this Christmas John Denver song. And I remember
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: standing up there with my knees knocking together, literally scared
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: to death. But I sang the song, and when I
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: was done, everyone applauded, you know, and made a big
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: deal of it. And that feeling, that excitement, that nervous
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: energy has stayed with me, you know, for the you know,
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: the next fifty years.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's set the stage a little bit more. Would
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: your parents do for a living?
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: My dad was a mechanic. He was a a transmission
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: and rear end specialist, and in his uh later years
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: of his his work, he was a fleet mechanic for
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: Coca Cola. He was the guy in charge of keeping
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: all of the the vehicles running for the Coca Cola
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: company there in Rutland. And my mother she she didn't
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: really work my whole life growing up, but I remember
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: her having a job as a cashier. She was a
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: head cashier at a department store. You know, middle class.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Uh nothing nothing real real exciting and lines of work.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: At least as I saw it, music was I was.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: I was kind of the first one to well my brother,
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: I'll i'll say it was much older than me. So
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: my brother and I we were the first ones to
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: uh had any other direction than mechanics.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, so just you and your brother only two kids?
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: No, we have a sister. My brother was the only
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: other child that that was was musical, although if you
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: were to have to, you know, she won't admit it
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: to anyone. My sister actually has a beautiful singing voice,
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: she just will not let anyone hear it. My brother
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: and I played some music together out with for for
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: other people.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, so where are you in the hierarchy? Are you're
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: the middle kid, the youngest kid.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: I'm the baby by a lot. My my brother and
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: sister are nine and eleven years older than I am.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: And I came along. I was, I was the I
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: was the surprise. You know a dozen years later, and.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: How did your brother and sisters lives play out.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: My sister still lives in in Vermont, in in the
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: house that that I grew up in actually, and uh
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: and my brother we played music together and we're close
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: for for a lot of the years growing up, but
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: grew apart. I haven't haven't had a close relationship with
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: my brother in years. So I know he's still up
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: in the New Hampshire area, and my sister is in Vermont,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: and I made my way to eventually Tennessee.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: When you say you don't have a close relationship, do
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: you have any contact at all or not for a
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: long time.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: No, it's a it's a difficult situation as sometimes siblings
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: do or brothers do. They they fall apart, and I
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: won't go into deep circumstance, but yeah, none of my
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: none of my family have a relationship with with my
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: brother anymore. He kind of decided that he was gonna
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: sever all paths to to basically everyone. So I don't
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: know anyone in my family who has a relationship ship
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: with my brother anymore. He kind of just went am
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: I A for me many years ago? The well everyone
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: else as.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Well, Okay, so you're growing up in Rutland, you have
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: this experience over the state line singing. At age six,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: you go to school. Are you in the school plays?
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Do you start to perform?
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: Not even a little bit. No, it was there was
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: a clear line draw man. That was my escape life
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: that I got on the weekends in school. Had nothing
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: to do with any of the arts. No. No. In
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: high school, I eventually, you know, for vocational I took
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: welding and metal fabrication.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, so what kind of kid were you?
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: Were you?
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Good at school, good at sports, bad loaner, spark of
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: the party.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: As a kid, Let's see, it's hard to describe yourself
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: as a kid. I mean I've heard a lot of
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: other people describe me as kids, and some people's opinions vary.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: As a kid, I was, I was I was very quiet.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: I was very to myself. I was very I wasn't
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: quick to engage, you know, I mean to you know,
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: to to really open it up. I mean, I had
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: parents that, though they traveled and you know, did a
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: lot of things together, my parents fought a lot every week.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Really of my life, I've seen a lot of violence,
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: and I and and I just I didn't engage with
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: anyone I really tried to. That's like at school, I
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: was like in my own little bubble I was. I
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: didn't really I only had a couple of friends. And
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: as it, you know, turned into high school. You know,
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: I would say more on the outcast part of school.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: I mean I was intelligent. I was able to make
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: any grade I wanted in any of the classes. But
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: I gave about enough effort to make my see and
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: pass and got out of school as quickly as I could.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: Didn't didn't care for school.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: It was a different era. My parents fought a lot,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: and they hit us a lot, but they stayed together.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: So what was your situation, Well, my parents stayed together.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: My parents didn't hit me, They didn't hit the kids.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: They hit each other. That My parents were brawlers. You know.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: My mom was a fighter. She could she could whip
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: a man's butt. I mean you you wouldn't want to
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: tangle with with either one of them. Really. They both
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: came from really big families. Dad had ten brothers and
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: sisters and my mom had sixteen brothers and sisters, and
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: they all grew up having to fight. They all grew
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: up having to fight for everything. With each other. And
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: you know the families were were close, yet not close.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: They fought amongst each other. I mean, two boys and
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: a girl from one family married two girls and a
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: boy from the other family. Wow. So we had a
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: lot of family turmoil. And you know there was there was,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: There was a lot going on growing up. You know,
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: some some stayed close, drifted apart. It was just you know,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: I I I couldn't deal with the with with the
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: fighting and the the what I felt was was it
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: was a lot of it was very negative. I was
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: I really was looking for for a way out from
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: day one. You know, from when I was a little kid.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: I knew I couldn't wait to get away and play music.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: I knew I was a musician when I was very small.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Oh okay. Was everybody in that same area of West Rutland.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Very close Yeah, West Rutland and Rutland, A lot of
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: them were, I mean in the surrounding towns. Yeah.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: And so was it like on the weekends they would
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: all get together.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: No, that wasn't. You know, we had we would go
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: and visit some family. It wasn't. It wasn't like that
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: type of family. There were just two big families that
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: happened to have some you know, some marriages that went,
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: you know to two boys and a girl married two
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: girls and a boy. So we had some connections there
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: for a while. There were a row of us on
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: Clarendon Avenue where I lived. There were a bunch of
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: a line of Timen, you know, in five or six
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: houses in a row were Timinsky's and the Timinski's and
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: the Woodies. It was go back in the day. Man.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: There were just there were There were a lot of them.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, So how many generations was your family in America?
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: My grandfather, my dad's father, came over from Poland, and
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: my mom's parents were here for generations.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, So at what point do you start to play
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: an instrument.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: I started playing when I was five or six. I
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: started playing a mandolin and I played and because I
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: was you know, I I I was good at it,
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: and you know, everyone told me I was good at it,
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: and you know, I just I kind of played around
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: with it until I was probably twelve. It wasn't you know,
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: I really say my music started. I got bit by
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: the bug when I was twelve. I that JD. Crow
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: record and it was like a beacon from the sky
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: just came down and sucked me up. I couldn't think
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: about anything else but that, the sound of that banjo.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: And it turns out, I discovered years later it was
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: really the relationship the banjo had with the other instruments,
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: particularly the guitar, that I really fell in love with.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: But in my mind, all I could think about was
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: that banjo.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: So you pick up the mandolin. Was there a mandolin
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: in the house or did you ask your appearance to
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: buy you one.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: My brother was in the military. He was stationed in Virginia,
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: and he came home on leave one weekend with a mandolin,
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: and he just happened to leave the mandolin at the
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: at the house with me. He saw that I liked it,
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: and he left the mandolin and I and I just
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: tinkered around on the on on that little little harmony mandolin,
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: little round teardrop style mandolin. That. Uh, that was my
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: first my first answer.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Okay, so you didn't have any lessons.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Oh heck no, there were no. There were no lessons.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: There was no There was not even there was. There
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: was me in a bedroom and and you know, trying
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: to make more noise than was being made outside of
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: the bedroom, you know.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: So how did you know how to tune it?
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: It was in two I mean when I got it,
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: it was in tune. I mean basically in tune. And
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: I I always had an ear for tuning. I didn't,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: you know, we there were no tuners. We just you know,
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: I could tell if it was a little too high
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: or a little too low. And I could tune it
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: right from the very right from the very start, I think.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So from age six when you pick up the
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: mandolin to age twelve, when you get inspiration hearing the
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: krone and stuff, are you playing country songs on the mandolin?
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: What are you actually doing?
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: I'm playing songs on the mandolin and traveling to bluegrass
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: festivals and playing in jam sessions and playing a little
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: bit with my brother. My brother played the guitar and
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: sang and I would sing. Really the only reason I
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: sing at all is was to sing with, you know,
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: with my brother. I didn't really ever care to sing.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: I always like to play. And there was just there
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: were spar shows and my parents would take me places.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: I did radio shows when they were spots, you know,
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Smoky Green had a radio show. My parents would take
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: me there, I would play and just sing anything I could.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, it wasn't particularly bluegrass until I was a teenager.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, So from six to twelve you were doing all this,
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: or after twelve.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: From six to twelve, I was still going to shows
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: and concerts and festivals and anything that my parents could
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: get to. I went some somewhere most weekends. You know,
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: there was some music somewhere. We would travel to it,
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: and then I would go home and try to you know,
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: I would more than anything. When I was playing manteline,
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: I would sit and watch television and play whatever the
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: music I heard on the television was all the theme
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: songs to all the shows, the commercials, whatever little jingle
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: would come on. I would just you know, I would
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: just learn how to mimic, you know, whatever I heard.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: I wasn't really interested in. I never really learned a
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: bunch of songs. I just it was a toy. From
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: when I was six to twelve. It was just something
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: I played with. I never really really tried to learn anything.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: It was just I played it because I could.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, So now you're twelve, you get this great inspiration.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: How does your life change?
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: Well, I tell my parents that I want a banjo,
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: and they they looked at me, to quote the line
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: from that movie, they looked at me like I had
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: lobsters crawling out of my ears. They said, there are
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: no banjo players around here. There are no music stores
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: that we know of. I mean, where would we even
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: get a banjo? And I was adamant. I said, I
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: want a banjo. And we found a music store in Castleton,
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: Vermont that had banjo's, a couple of banjo's hanging on
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: the wall, not very expensive, pretty, you know, very very
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: entry level instruments. And they they got me a banjo
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: like two months before my thirteenth birthday. And I took
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: that banjo and I did everything wrong you can do.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: I I knew what it sounded like. I was. I was.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: I was quick enough to be able to decipher these
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: are the notes I want to hear, but somehow was
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: not smart enough to figure out how the finger pattern went,
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: so my fingers are crossed. Compared to other banjo players,
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: my h The main technique in a banjo is your
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: thumb would cover the fifth string and the fourth string predominantly.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: Your middle finger would cover the first and second string,
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: and your first index finger would cover the third, you know,
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: the third and the second string, it kind of stays
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: in the middle. Somehow I learned to have my index
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: finger covering that that you know, D and B string,
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: and I learned my my middle finger was in the
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: middle on the G string. My fingers are just crossed
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: around backwards from everybody else's. And I did that for
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: a couple of years before anybody noticed. By the time
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: anyone noticed, I'd already developed a unchangeable pattern I could play,
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: so I never I never went back. So I have
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: one of the more unique banjo right hands from teaching myself,
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: you know, I I tell everyone, if you have it
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: when you're getting started, take some early lessons, learn some
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: technique out of the gate. It would it'll so help
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: the new musicians out there who want to learn, because
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: I found that. For me, it was out of a
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: stumbling block with the banjo. And then, of of course
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: I didn't know at the time my career was really
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: going to be on a guitar, you know, mandolin and
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: guitar mostly, so the mandolin and the guitar were pretty translatable.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: I played that mandolin early on.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Let's just stay with the banjo. What was your inspiration
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: for saying you wanted to play the banjo.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: I heard JD. Crow in the New South. I heard J. D.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: Crow play I'm Walking, Yes, indeed, I heard him play
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Old Home Place. And when I heard that, there was
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: something about that music, particularly the double O forty four record.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: That's the record that I studied that I listened to
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: that I can you know, I can play every note
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: of every instrument, of every solo on the whole red
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: you know, I've studied that record inside and out. It's
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: the one that spoke to me. Who knows why any
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: particular piece of music speaks to anyone person, but that
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: one grab me right to the right to the core.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, So now you're playing the banjo. Are you playing
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: the banjo with anybody else?
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: Now? I'm playing the banjo with again with my brother
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: uh Stan, and we we ended up starting a band
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: called Green Mountain Bluegrass. And we we held that together
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: for about five years, and we ultimately played up and
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: down the East Coast. You know, by the by the
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: time we were you know, had played a few years.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: We played from Maine to Florida, anywhere we could, any
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: bluegrass festival. I mean, you know, we were we weren't
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: making any money. We were just we were just so
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: gung ho to go and play. And yeah, anytime I
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: could get in any jam session at any bluegrass festival,
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: I was the guy that walked around with a with
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: a banjo out of the case on, you know, strapped
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: on walking around looking for jam sessions. I just it's
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: I lived it every every every moment of every day.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: That was what was in my head.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: So it was not matter like with a rock band
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: that you were playing with the kids in school.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: No, not at all. In fact, there was the kids
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: in school had no idea what I did. They eventually
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: found out that I that I played a banjo, and uh,
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: and I really took you know, that was from the
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: school aspect and my my, the friends that I had
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: growing up, you know, that was more. I was more
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: probably ashamed of that, or I was hiding it. You know,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: I didn't Uh, they didn't think bluegrass music was cool.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: They were rock and rollers. So you know, I didn't
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: tell them I was out playing banjos. I just I
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: went on the weekends and did my thing and then
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: had a different life while I was while I was home.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: So at these festivals, you just showed up. These were
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: not paying gigs where there was somebody booking the gig,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: whether it be an agent or yourself or whatever.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: Correct though it was a little bit of both. I mean,
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: when we had the band Green Mountain Bluegrass, we would
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: book any festival that we could, and then we would
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: go there and camp out for the weekend. We would
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: go and we would play our show whenever our show was,
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: but we were really there to drink and party and
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: pick and have the best time we could. We just
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: camped out and you know, it was like vacation every week.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: And does that scene exist at all today.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: The bluegrass festival scene. I mean, I still like to
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: go to the bluegrass festivals for the same reason I
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: don't have the freedom I once had to go and
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: walk around and you know, jam bust with with a
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: banjo on my on my shoulder. But I still like
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: festivals for the same reason. I still walk around. I
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: still enjoy watching everybody get together and it's an amazing
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: it's an amazing sense of community. Man. The bluegrass festivals
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: are what ultimately won me over and why I stuck
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: with this this music.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Okay, for those people not in this world, can you
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: define bluegrass.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: You know, it's that's a question I have heard so
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: many times, and I've heard so many people ask it.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: You asked that question. It's a it's a difficult question
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: to answer. I mean bluegrass music. To me, it's it's
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: the evolution of mountain music. It's it's it's the music
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: that that people played with the simplest instruments they could find.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: You know, they played what you would early call that.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: Some might call it country music or old time country music.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: It was not too unlike bluegrass music. I think when
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: bluegrass kind of got its its niche was simply Earl Scruggs,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: you know, three finger banjo, and then of course you
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: had Bill Monroe with some high harmonies, and you had
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: some influential bands that played that style of music. But
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: you know, everyone there are a lot of opinions of
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: what bluegrass music actually is. You know, it's it's a
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: typically it's a guitar, bass, a banjo, and a mandolin
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: and a fiddle. That's if you play that and sing
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: certain songs, I think, well you have bluegrass music. But
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: opinions vary a lot on what bluegrass actually is. It's
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: fun to hear the different interpretations. I've spent a lifetime
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: trying to explain it and also trying to interpret other people's,
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: you know, opinion of what bluegrass music is. Not everyone agrees,
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: and that's even within hardcore bluegrass bands. Lifers can still
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: argue about what bluegrass music actually is. You know, it's
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: funny to me. I mean, I like all types of music,
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: and bluegrass music is the core. It's the heart of
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: what I do. And if you identified as bluegrass, then
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: there it is bluegrass music.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: So what point did you pick up the guitar.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: When I joined Alison Krause Union Station.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: So you weren't playing the guitar before that, you were
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: just playing banjo and mandolin.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Correct, I mean I had access to a guitar, like
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: I knew how to play a you know, I could
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: play GC and D. I could play the court, you know,
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: of course, but I never no, I never had a
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: guitar of my own. I never had no. I didn't
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: really the guitar was was not my thing. I spent
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: all my time those formative years trying to play a banjo. Again.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: I played mandolin just because it was like a toy.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: It was fun. I played the mandolin, but I spent
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: all my years, you know, playing the banjo, and I
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: honestly I wanted to join Alison Krause's band as the
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: banjo player. I was. I was mortified the day I
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: found out ron Block got the job and and I
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: didn't have a shot at that anymore. I never dreamed
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: I would get asked to be the guitar player. And uh,
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: when I was, I immediately went shopping for a guitar
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: and and you know, sat in the sat in the woodshed,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: as as they would say, and uh, and tried to
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: play ketchup, you know. And I spent a hell most
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: of my career playing ketchup because that was that was
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: kind of my last instrument. But turns out it was
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: the instrument I was meant to play. It's the instrument
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: I enjoy playing, you know, the most. It was. You know,
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize the love I had for a guitar
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: until late in my career, I mean until after I
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: was a guitar player.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: You know, some musicians can pick up any instrument and
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: within a short period of time play it is that
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: who you are.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: That's how people would describe me. Probably that knew me
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: growing up, I mean that was part of our stick
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: in the Green Mountain blue grass days. I would play
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: a song where I would, you know, run around and
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: play all the different instruments on the stage. I was
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: never a deep catalog on any one instrument, but it
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: was easy enough for me. Yeah, I mean, there's there's
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: a relationship. Once you can play one, you kind of
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: have an understanding of the next one. And I think
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: a lot of the players that play bluegrass music that
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: are really that can really play any one instrument well,
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: can probably pick up most of them and play, you know,
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: the ones that you know, most people that can play
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: anything with a pick can play anything with a pick.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: You know. Fiddle is a different category altogether. I think
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: you have to be a totally weird person to play
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: a fiddle, which is I'm that weird person. I mean,
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: when I'm home, that's the only thing I really pick
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: up here around the house anymore for my own enjoyment.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: I like playing the fiddle, but again as a toy
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: because it's just fun to pick up and play. I
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: don't I don't try to make any money play in
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: a fiddle.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: Well, let's say I dropped a clarinet at your house
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: and I came back a week later. Would you be
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: able to play it?
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: I would probably be able to play something you wouldn't
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: want to hear. Yeah, I mean it's uh yeah, I'll
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: I'll pick up anything and try to make music out
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: of it. Yeah, I've. I've always kind of been that
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: type of a tinkerer.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: So you graduate from high school, you get your direloma, Yes,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: but you get your diploma. How do you see your
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: life playing out? What do you what do you want
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: to do?
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Boy? At the at the point of graduating. I mean, I,
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: like I said, I I wanted to play music gosh forever.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: Like I I couldn't wait to go and play music.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: But I mean, I think I spent I spent a
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: little point as a teenager thinking I wanted to play baseball.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: You know, I was. I was a pretty decent baseball player.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: I thought to myself, I could probably play baseball. It's
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: gonna sound silly, but there was a point past that,
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: you know, the years leading up to graduation, I wanted
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: to play foosball. I wanted to uh, I wanted to
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: be a professional football player. I thought that would have
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: been an amazing Okay.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Wait wait wait, I was always a shitty foosball player.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: But the people put a lot of time in. You know,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: they could work it, et cetera. You gotta put a
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: lot of time in to be a good foosball player.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: I may have more time on a foosball table than
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: I have on instruments. Growing up, there was a foosball
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: my brother had. I had a foosball table from the
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: time I could see over the edge of it. There
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: was a foosball table in the rec center that we
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: you know, the place where the kids hung out at school.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: I've always played foosball and I got I got my
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: ten thousand hours in. You can't see this on the podcast,
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: but I'm wearing this is my foosball shirt.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, this is my foosball shirt.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: It says, that's yeah. The shirt I'm wearing literally is
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: a foosball shirt. No I am. I'm all about the
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: game of foosball. So there was a like I said, okay,
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: you know, there was a point I wanted to play foosball.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: But when I by the time I actually graduated, I
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: knew that I was going to, you know, play music somehow,
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: some way, somewhere, I didn't know where, I didn't care
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: where I just I knew I was a musician.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's stop for one second. Is there some sort
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: of profe foosball.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: League, now, ye know, there is, of course there is there. Well,
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: so let's back up back in the day now, when
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: I was playing foosball and hearing about these people in
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: the in the you know, mid late seventies and early eighties,
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: foosball was actually quite a big deal. There were million
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: dollar tournaments. There's a million dollar tour. People were winning
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: huge prizes. I mean, this is gonna be hard to believe,
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: but it was the sixth biggest money sport that you
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: could get into. If you were Wow, if you go
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: back to the you know, mid late seventies, it was huge, right,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: you were stars, you were on talk shows. You know,
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: you were doing the Tonight Show, if you were a
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: big foosball Well, anyway, I loved the game. I always
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: love to gain. So still now you skip ahead, now,
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: all these years later, it is reduced down to very very,
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: very very small compared to what it used to be.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: The There are only, to my knowledge, two professional foosball players,
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: and by that I mean people who act actually make
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: their living playing foosball. Only there are a couple guys
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: todd Ler, Fredo, Tony Spraderman, not necessarily in that order,
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: but there are a couple guys that make their living.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: And there's still a foosball tour that travels all over
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: the country, all over the world. Really yeah, I still
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: go to tournaments everywhere. I'm from here to Colorado to California, Texas,
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: the Northeast. There are foosball tournaments everywhere. I play music,
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: so it's really hard to catch a lot of them
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: for a lifetime. I took thirty two years of my
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: life off of foosball. The last major foosball tournament that
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: I played was in nineteen eighty nine. Okay before a
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: couple of years ago. Two years ago, two and a half,
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: I guess now, I got back into foosball. I randomly
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: saw it on the internet. Got me thinking about some
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: guys that I used to know. I looked them up
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: online and lo and behold, I start getting the speeds
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: of Come to the foosball tournament in Lexington the tour kickoff,
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: and I thought, well, that sounds like me. So I
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: I show up thinking I'm gonna, you know, step right
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: back in the way I was and I realized, you know,
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: the foosball players got really good between when I was
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: when they are now. Right, But I'm still a decent
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: you know, Like I went my first tournament back, I
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: meddled in a couple of different events, won a little bling,
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: and I and I drove home with table number eight
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: in my trunk and put it in the garage. And
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: you know, for you know, the past close to three years,
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: I've been I've been leaning over a foosball table, trying
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: to get the trying to get my chops back.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, but isn't foosball a little bit like tennis that
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: to really be good you have to practice against someone
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: who's pretty good themselves.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: Okay, this is absolutely wow. Okay, this is what people
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: don't consider is and you have nailed it, absolutely nailed it.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: To be at the highest level of well anything, you
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: have to play against the highest level players. So foosball,
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: absolutely you have to be able to play against great players.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: But we have an advantage now that I didn't have
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: when I played all that foosball in the eighties, seventies
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: and eighties. There was no Internet, there was no YouTube,
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: there was no If I wanted to watch a master
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: play foosball, I had to drive for hours and stand
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: over a row of rows of people and try to
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: catch what little information I could. Now I can pull
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: up any of the top players in the world on
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: YouTube and study their every move. Watch everything they do,
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: Watch how they react to certain shots, Watch how they defend,
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: watch what There's just so much information that you can
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: glean now from watching that. I'm fascinated with it. So I,
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: you know, I spend my I spend my time studying
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: so that I know the players. When I show up
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: to the tournaments and and I've done well, I've you know,
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: I I'm uh, I'm still a formidable competitor when it
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: comes to foosball. I've played enough against the time I mean,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: I've played against the world champion. I've played I've been
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: in the pits with the best players in the world
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: and held my own.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: You know, it's okay. As I say, I was never
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: a good foosball player, but when foosball became a big
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: deal in my life, it was the machine you put
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: money in, and then they had tables you could take
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: it home, but they were not of the same level.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: Is there a standard foosball table like did every all
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: the tournaments are on.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: There is and it depends on where you are in
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: the world as to what table it is. Right now,
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: in America, the current league table is called the Tornado Table,
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: but it has changed through the years. When I first
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: started playing, it was a ts tournament soccer table. They
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: called it the Million Dollar table Ts table, and then
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: it switched to the Dynamo Table, and then it switched
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: to there's still there's still some other branches. There's a
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: Warrior table, there's a Warrior tournament series, or at least
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: there used to be, but now it's Tornado.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: And is there any real difference between these professional level tables?
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: Huge difference if you're good on a let's say there's
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: a there's a Bonzini circuit, Like if you play in Europe,
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: you'll play a lot on Bonzini tables. And if you're
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: a good Bonzini player, that does not mean you're a
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: good Tornado player, and vice versa. They're completely different skills.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: I mean, it takes it takes a while to really
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: develop the touch. I mean it's it's like if you're
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: a guitar player and you're gonna all of a sudden,
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: say you're gonna switch to a different instrument. Well, you
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: know how to hold a pick and you know how
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: to press a string down, but there's a whole different
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: set of variables that you have to learn to be
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: able to play from table to table. And there are
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: tournaments like international tournaments that have multi table tournaments where
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: you have to play one match on a Tornado and
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: then the next match on a Bonzini and the next
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: match on there's. Yeah, it's it's interesting. So there are
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: there are people who are great at at each one
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: and there's there's only a few players that are really
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: masters on all of those tables. You know right now,
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: the man his name is Tony Spraderman. He's the guy
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: to look you know, He's the guy I watch. He's
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: he's he's my foods, my current foosball hero and uh
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: I befriended him, met him at a few tournaments and
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: got to got to play against him a little bit.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: And it's the most fun I could probably have right
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: now at this point in my life, is to stand
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: against one of those high level players and play foosball.
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: That is the I will not see that level of
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: adrenaline and anything else I do at this age in
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: my life. No, nothing even close.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Well, it's exciting. Switching gears back to our narrative. So
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: you graduate from high school, do you get a day
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: job or you immediately play music? What what happened?
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: I did. I graduated from high school and my dad
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: was a fleet mechanic for the Coca Cola company, and
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: he asked me if I wanted to go to work
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: for him as as an assistant mechanics assistant and when
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: I worked part time, and I thought that'd be excellent.
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: So I went and I took a took this job
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: with my dad that if I was smart, if I
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: was a smarter kid, I would have stayed right there
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: with that job because it was perfect. It was really
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: good pay, you know, compared to everyone else. It was
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: really good hourly pay. And I could pick my own hours.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: I didn't have to go untill noon if I didn't
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: want to, you know, I just I just had to
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: work twenty hours a week. It didn't matter what twenty hours.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: But after a few months of doing that with my dad,
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: actually not even a few, probably two months I think
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: I worked with my dad, they needed a driver and
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: they asked my father. They said, can your son drive
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: one of these trucks. And of course my dad he says,
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: oh yeah, he can drive that thing. Never I'd never
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: been behind the wheel of a truck like that in
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: my life, right, But he goes, oh, yeah, he can
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: drive it. And they said, do you want a job,
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: you know, driving? They said it'd be another you know,
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: three three more dollars an hour, and you'll get to
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: work some overtime and you know a lot more money benefits.
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: And they I said, yeah, sure, I took this job
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: driving Coca Cola truck delivering down to Manchester. And uh,
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: couple things. First of all, I'm really really bad with directions,
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: Like I am the poster child for the for the
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: you know, the Google Maps. I need to follow that
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: blue line wherever I'm going right. Well, back in the day,
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: there was you know, we didn't have that. We had
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: a sheet full of instructions and it was so I
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: was taking an extra two hours a day just spending
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: just being lost trying to find places. Right. It was
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: the worst job I could have ever had. But during
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: the course of that job, that is when I knew,
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: be on the shadow of a doubt, that there was
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: there was nothing that would keep me from playing music.
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: I was looking for literally the first opportunity I could
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: for a for a music job. And it turns out
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: that after I had that job less than a year,
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: I think I maybe eight months, I delivered Coca Cola
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: maybe seven months, seven or eight months, and I got
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: an offer from the Lonesome River Band and they asked
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: if I was interested in and in playing with him,
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: and and at the time again I thought I was
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: going to be banjo. Turned out it was they really
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: wanted the mandolin player more than they wanted the banjo player.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: But at the thought of taking a bluegrass job, I was,
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: You've never seen a person happier to walk in and
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: give his notice to a company. I was. I walked
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: in literally giddy. I said, well, sorry, boss, I said,
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to be able to keep this job,
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: you know, I was. I was out. And then of
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: course that first I think the first three years combined.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: I went back and saw this in my in my records,
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: my first three years, my tax record showed a I
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: made nine thousand dollars for three years combout three years together,
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: nine thousand dollars, and uh, probably one of the happiest
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: times in my life. Couldn't. I was. I was on
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: top of the world. Man, tell me about it.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Forgetting the money. What were you doing that made you
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: so happy?
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: I was. I had moved away from home. I moved
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: to Virginia. I was on my own. I was away
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: from any stigma that bluegrass wasn't cool. I was now
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: in an area where were They honestly didn't take you know,
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: the area that I moved to, they didn't take to
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: a lot of northern people moving into that area. But
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: I was. I excelled in the bluegrass world, and I
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: was accepted, you know, just with open arms everywhere I
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: went because of the music. And I got to basically
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: redefine myself as who I was. I got to I
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: got to have a clean slate and say this is
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: this is who I am. You know, I I dropped
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: some habit that certainly would have killed me or at
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: the very least ruined me had I not moved away
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: and taken the music job.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: You know, And what kind of habits are we talking about?
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: Oh stuff you don't want to go in on into
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: this podcast. I'm sure you know, just uh you know.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: I was. I didn't grow up. I didn't have the
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: happy fluffy childhood, and I turned to I turned to
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: anything I could turn to to mask it, and I
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: did any drug I could find until it was gone.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: Didn't matter what it was. You know. Luckily I never
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: found anything that was really hard, or I might not
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: ever made it out as you know the way that
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: I did. But I like I I got an offer
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: to move away, and I got to wipe the slate clean.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: I got to say this is who I am now,
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: and I let I let some things go.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Okay. But traditional, I mean, I understand that lifestyle. Drumont
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: is a blue state. Now you go back forty or
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: fifty years a different state, much more rural, much more red,
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: much more local people living on the edge. But traditionally
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: one gets in the music business and it's the so
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: called sex drugs in rock and roll. You're telling me
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: you got into the band and then you went straight.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: Music for me was never the sex drugs in rock
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: and roll. So yeah, the type of music I played
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: did not. I never found anyone that was doing cocaine
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: and acid and mushrooms and taking pills and like, there
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: was just none of that and any of the music
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: that I was playing. The worst, the worst thing I
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: ever saw, basically, really in my whole career of playing music,
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: the worst thing I've ever seen with any of the
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: musicians that I've ever run. I mean, I've seen you know,
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: I've seen weed smokers. That's that's the height of the
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: big drugs, you know. And the music that I've played
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: there's there's been. It's been a really clean existence. And
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: then of course I ended up with Alison Krause and
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: Union Station, which arguably one of the cleanest, most moral
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: bands that you'll you'll ever you'll ever know of, you know,
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: and maybe in history. So I just for me, my path, Yeah,
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: it it was a it was a clean up process
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: for me. I I was where I I can see
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: it is kind of fun. I never thought about it
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: that way. Normally you would grow up pretty clean and
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: then hit the music and then all of a sudden,
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: you know, the debauchery starts. But no, it was the
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: other way around. I was. I was close to my
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: demise at a at a young age, trying to mask
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: who knows what, you know, whatever a kid is trying to,
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: you know, hide from. I was hiding from it. And
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: I got to start over, man, I got to I
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: got to move away from any influence that I had,
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: and it was it was an amazing point in my life.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: The only thing I really gave up that you know,
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: was was Who's Ball?
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: So how did the Lonesome River Band know you to
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: find you to ask you to join the act?
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: They had played a show in upstate New York in
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: the mid eighties that the band that I was had
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: with my brother, Green Mountain Bluegrass, was the opening act
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: for So we had played the same night in this
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: music hall in upstate New York. And after we had
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: played the show together, we hung out for a little while,
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: had a drink. We're talking because it was it was
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: a big deal for us. We were opening up for
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: a genuine southern bluegrass band. That was a big deal
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: for you know, this this little bluegrass band from from Vermont,
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: and uh we just we met him back then, and
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: I guess a couple of years had passed and I
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: think they were they were looking for a banjo player
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: and as the the guy who they had called, they
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: wanted to hire this guy named Kevin Church. I know
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: that Tim Austin had called Kevin Church and said, Hey,
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: would you'd like to play banjo? Kevin said no, I'm
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: into the gig that I have right now. He says,
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: but have you thought about that kid Dan to Minsky?
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: And Tim said, who is Dan? To Minsky? He said,
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: remember you played with that band from Vermont. He says, oh, yeah,
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: he had remembered me from the show we played. So
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: he just he called and asked if I was interested
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: in coming down and trying out, And again he really
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: didn't make me any offer. In fact, he said, well,
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: right now, where we need a couple of musicians, you know,
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: where we had two members leave and there's not a
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: lot of work. And if you'd have to move here,
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: you couldn't take the job and still live in Vermont.
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: You'd have to move to Virginia. And if you moved
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: to Virginia, you're gonna have to have some other job
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: to support yourself because we're not making enough money to
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: support you. So just you got to know what you're
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: getting into. And man, all I could hear was do
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: you want to play bluegrass music? That's the only that's
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: the only thing that registered in my mind. And I said, yeah, absolutely,
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: And I went there and I was you know, I
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: took whatever whatever jobs I could to support myself until
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: the music finally got to a point where it supported me.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: So there were three years you with the Lonesome River Band.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: How often did they work and at what point in
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: the tenure, if at all, could you give up your
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: day job.
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: Well, the day job really wasn't much of a job
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: anyway to start with. So really the bulk of any
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: money I made was was with the band. I mean,
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: the first three years that I worked with the Lonesome
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: Ever Band, there was no money, but I was with
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: them a total of five years. The last couple of
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: years we actually got we had redesigned how we had
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: done things. I was making a little more of a
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: little bigger cut of the money, and we were working more.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, by the time Ronnie Bowman came in the band,
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: we had reconfigured. We actually started to actually take off.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: It was a very It was some turmoil in my
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: life because it was a weird timing. When Alison asked
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: me if I wanted to join Union Station. I was
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: such a huge Union Station fan at that point in time.
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: I didn't care if it was on guitar, I didn't care.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: She just said, would you learn how to play a
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: flute and join this band? I would have said yes,
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: that was where I was at at that point in time.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: But when she asked me to join the Union Station Band,
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: we were at the height of what the Lonesome River
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: Band had ever done in their career. We had just
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: one album of the year with carrying the tradition, we
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: were starting to pretty much get to name our festival.
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: We could play, you know, places we weren't able to
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: play previously. So it was a tough decision to take
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: the job with Alison. I ended up taking this job
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: and didn't stay with her except maybe four or five months,
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: maybe five or six months. I went back to the
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: Lonesome River Band. I don't know if a lot of
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: people know this. I took the job with Allison and
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: didn't stay went back to the Lonesome River Band for
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: another year or year and a half before I was
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: asked again if I would consider coming back to the
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: Union Station and then of course I went back, and
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: you know the rest is history.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, how did Alison find you the first time?
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: Through the recording that I had done with the Lonesome
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: River Band. The very first thing that I did with
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: that band was a record called Looking for Yourself and
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: Somewhere or another they had heard that record and she
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: she uh that I got my name through through that record.
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: I apparently liked it enough to call. I remember the
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: first time I got a call from Alison's band. It
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: wasn't it wasn't Alison Crouse who called me. It was
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: actually Alison Brown, who was playing banjo in the band
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: at the time, and they had called and asked if
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: I would consider coming aboard, and I gave him a
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: hard no. Man. I was at that point in time,
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: I was so into the Lonesome Riverband. I had just
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: taken the job. It was the early years of the LRB.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: I didn't you know. I wasn't ready to leave before
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: I figured out what we had. And it wasn't until
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: a couple of years later that I really became infatuated
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: with Union Station. And when I got the offer again,
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: there was no way to say.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: No, okay, so why did you leave and then come back?
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: I felt guilty that I was letting my brothers down.
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: I felt like Ronnie and Tim and Sammy were you
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: just you have a kinship when you have a band,
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: you travel that many miles with people that you're close to.
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: You just I felt like I was letting my family down,
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: and I felt like there was you know, I was.
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: I was well they were first of all, they were relentless.
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: They they wanted me back, and they let me know
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: in every way, shape and form get me back. You know,
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: I'll give you. I'll give you a little I'll give
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: you one little gem here that a lot of people
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: don't know that this is funny, but the song that
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: Ronnie Bowman wrote was actually one of the songs that
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: got me back. Ronnie Bowman wrote a song called you
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: Gotta Do what you Gotta Do. If you're familiar with
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: the Lonesome River Band, you might know this song. It's
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: a song about a girl that says when when the
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: songs the song reads, I just got a call from
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: my good girl today. She said she must be going
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: on her way, that there's better things on down the line,
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: and I won't try to change her mind. It seems
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: she seems to think we're better off this way. But
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: my heart it breaks in two. I can't believe we're
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: really through. And the song goes on and on and
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: it's this man pleading to a woman. But what people
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: don't know is Ronnie wrote that song about me going
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: to Alison, he says, and though I though I want
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: you to stay, you're leaving any way, but you gotta
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: do what you gotta do. And that was the song.
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: So he sings me this song, you know, and I
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: and I cried like a baby. And it was just
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: because my heart was already broken that I felt like
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: I'd let him down. And yeah, somehow it got the
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: best of me and I after about four or five months,
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: I think five months maybe with Alison, I explained that
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: I couldn't do it. I had to go back to
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: the Lonesomeriver Band, and then we went back and recorded
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: one or two more things. I forget after, but I
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: felt like it was a meat, you know, A year
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: back with the Lonesome River Band and I was scratching
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: my head wondering what I was doing because in my mind,
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: the ultimate music was being made by Alison Crouse and
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: Union Station. They were the to me. They had the diversity,
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: they had the depth, the multi dimensional sound. Lonesome River
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: Band for me, it was a really that was we
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: were kind of we had one specialty thing, you know,
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: that we did. We weren't as diverse, we weren't as
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: multi dimensional with our material. I felt like to me
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: as as Union Station was. There was just I was
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: fascinated with the way they were just they seemed like
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: they were outside of music altogether. They could do anything.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: I don't know, it just it seemed so big to
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: me when I got when I got the call to
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: go back the second time, I couldn't say I couldn't
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: say no. I wanted to be a part of that
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: type of music that was not just the same song
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: over and over again that I felt like I was
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: doing with the Lonesome River Band. By that point, I
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: was a little bit over what we were doing and
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: ready to ready to be with Alison.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, just to be very specific, because the way you
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: said the story earlier that you wanted to be the
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: banjo player, but somebody else got that role. And then
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: she asked if you could play guitar, So literally, you're
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: playing in the rondsome river band, you're making these records.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: She got a hold of you and said, did you
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: want to play banjo on a granulartle level?
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: What? No, I never got a I never got a
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: banjo offer for Alison in Union Station. With the times
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: when I when I had befriended that whole bunch. The
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: whole time I was with the Lonesome River Band, I
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: would still go to the Allison shows if I could
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: make one, and sometimes I would jump up on stage
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: and sing a song with her, you know, I would
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: guest up on stage and do a song here there.
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: In my mind, I always wanted to be the banjo
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: player in that band. I always hope that if Alison
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: Brown were ever to leave, that she would ask me
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: to play banjo. And when they got ron Block in
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: that band, it was just settled. You know. I was
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: out of that altogether. Same thing with the Lonesome River Band.
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: When I took that Lonesome River Band job, I thought
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: I was taking the banjo job, and I only played.
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: I only ever played one show on the banjo with
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: the Lonesome River Band because they needed both. And they
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: said we could find a banjo player if you'd be
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: willing to play the mandolin. So I said, sure, I'll
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: play mandolin until we can find the right guy, and
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: then I'll play band. You know, I never did get
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: to play banjo, which was the whole point for me
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: growing up. Playing was all I ever wanted to do
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: was play a banjo for any band, right that was
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: my that was my dream. But no, I got the
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: guitar job with Alison, you know after well wait, just.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: A little bit slower, you know.
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, in order, I took the job with the Lonesome
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: River Band, right. I played with the Lonesome River Band
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: for three or four years before I think close to
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: four years before I moved over to Alison. I moved
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: to Alison Crouse Union Station, played for about four or
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: five months, went back to the Lonesome River Band and
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: played for No, No, No No.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: I got the order.
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: Oh okay, I'm missing the question.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: So you go on stage, somebody calls you and says, hey,
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: we want you in the band, but you got to
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: play guitar. How does it literally go down?
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: Oh? How it goes down? Was on April twenty fifth
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: at Merle Watson Memorial Bluegrass Festival. I was getting ready
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: to go and play with Alison, you know, a guest
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: spot and ether she was playing at Merle Fest and
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: I was going to go up and play a guest
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: spot as I normally was, as I was doing at
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: that endy time, I was around him. I was getting
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: up because we were friends. I was jamming with him and
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: Tim Stafford came up to me and said, hey, Dan,
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: I want to talk to you because I'm getting ready
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: to put my notice in with Alison, and I feel
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: like she's going to come running to you directly, so
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: I wanted you to have some time to think about
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: it before she puts you on the spot, just as
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: a courtesy. Right. So, now I'm really nervous, and I'm thinking, well, okay,
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: he's gonna quit. That doesn't mean she's going to come
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: to me, right And then it couldn't have been half
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: an hour later I see her be lining towards me.
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: She goes Dan, She said, I need to ask you
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: a question, and I said, okay, what do you got?
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: She said, Tim Stafford just put in his notice. She said,
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: do you want the job? And I said, I absolutely
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: would would love to, you know, like, oh my god,
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: I would love the job on guitar. I said, yeah,
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: what do I gotta do? And the only thing that
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: she said was I don't want you smoking wheed and
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: I said, no problem, that's a deal. And I took
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: the job and couldn't couldn't imagine what, you know, what
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: that job would ultimately bring to my life. I mean again,
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: that was and then, of course I had that job
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: for about five months until I felt so guilty about
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: leaving the Lonesome Riverband that I went back. But yeah,
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: she came to me at a bluegrass festival and said, well,
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: actually the first thing she said, she says, hey, I'm
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: not going to be able to have you sing with
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: us today, and I said, okay, cool. And then of
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: course she explained why and asked me if I wanted
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: the job, and I said.
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: Sure, Okay, when you join Alison Kraus, you know, she's
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: this teenage phenom. Then she's getting some credibility credit she
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: always had credibility, She's getting more outside of the bluegrass world,
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: getting more acclaim. Then she has a hit with baby
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: Now That I've Found You. Then she has a song
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: moments like this on the Twister soundtrack, the original nineteen
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: ninety six Twister. Have that happened? Where was that relative
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: to your tenure?
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: I was coming on right in the so I jumped
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: on board right in time to be on the Baby
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: Now that I Found You track. That was my entrance
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: into the band. When she was doing the Baby I was,
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: I was on the Twister track, and you know, of
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: course everything from from Baby Now that I Found You on.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: Just to stop there for a second. I mean that
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: had been a hit in the sixties by the Foundations,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: I believe. Did anybody there think that, Wow, this is
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: going to be hit record.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: I have never No, it's my short answer. No. No,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: I mean at least I sure didn't. I mean, you
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: get you get used to kind of putting bluegrass or
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: anything that's even related to it in this little box
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: of you know, something that's set aside from mainstream or
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: you know, popular music, so you never think hit song,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: you know, like that. When when we did Baby, you
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: know Baby Now that I found I mean I remember
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: again that was one of the things I loved about
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: the band was that they didn't necessarily tried to conform
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: to a bluegrass mold. They just played music with those
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: bluegrass instruments. Didn't matter what the music was, they just played.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: They had We were a bluegrass oriented, you know, pop band.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: She played everything, and I remember Baby Now that I
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: found you. First of all, I think that had drums
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: that had a little bit of percussion on it, and
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: I remember I've always that at that time, I had
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: a little stigma with anything. It's like, man, you know,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: bluegrass music doesn't have to have the drums. Man, I thought,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: stepping out. I don't know if that's a good idea,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: if it's a bad idea. But the truth is that
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: every time, you know, she did something different and that
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: was you know, and stretched in the music it was
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: it was exciting for me. So to get to be
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: on that I didn't know. I didn't I didn't even
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: consider whether a song like that could be a hit
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: or could be you know, looked at in popular music,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: and then you know, boom, the majority kind of grabbed
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: onto it.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: Okay, so you joined at that time. Obviously the year
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: two thousand with the Old Brother soundtrack is a turning
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: point for you personally. But in that interim, that five
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: or so years with Alison Krause, tell me about that.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: Best time in my life, I mean interesting time in
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: my life. We're talking about now I have kids for
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: the first time in my life. So now I'm juggling.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: Well, let's just stop for the second here. Where and
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: when do you meet your wife?
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: I meet my wife right before I moved to Virginia
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: to join the Lonesome River Band. I met her maybe
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: a month or a month and a half maybe a
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: couple months before I left. I just I had just
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: met her, and then I moved to Virginia.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: She was in Vermont.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: She was in Vermont. I met her from Vermont.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, you moved to Virginia. Then what happens with
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: the relationship.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: Well, so I moved to Virginia with a with a
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: very good friend of mine. His name is Tag Leon,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: who I really credit with gosh, maybe my whole career,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: because I would not have moved to Virginia to join
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: the Lonesome River Band if my buddy hadn't said I'll
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: go with you. Because I told them the circumstances. I said,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: I'd never be able to afford it. It seems impossible,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: you know. I was. I wanted to take the job,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: but I didn't know that I could. And Tag was
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: the one who gave me the the push, said hey,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: I'll go with you. So my buddy moved down with
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: me to Virginia for the first I think four or
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: five months, which, of course, I maintained a long distance
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: relationship with Alisa, my first wife, and ultimately she moved
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: in when Tag moved out, like a half a year later,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: and I've you know, she moved to Virginia to be
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: with me, and then we got married a couple of
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: years later.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: So you said she was your first wife. How many
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: times you've been married.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: Twice? I was twice. I was with Alisa, my first wife,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: through most most of my career until eleven twelve years ago,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: and I've been with my new wife now for four years.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: To what degree did being a traveling musician negatively impact
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: your first marriage and how does one maintain a steady
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: home life being a traveling musician.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: That's a good question, and I don't think there's any
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: one formula. It depends on the two individuals and how
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: they are compatible with each other. I mean, my wife
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: knew what I did when she moved down. She knew
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: I was a musician. It was always music first. But
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: the truth of the matter is as you spend more.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: And I mean I had years where I was home
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: a lot. I had years where I was not home
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: at all, just so busy, just gone most of the year.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: I can't imagine what it's like to be the person
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: left at home while someone else is gone. I can't,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: you know. I've tried to wrap my mind around that,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: and I just I think it takes a special person
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: to be able to be married to a musician and
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: allow that much of your time with that person to
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: be away. And again, it's easier to be connected now,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: I think than it is or than it was in
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: that era where now you have FaceTime and you like,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: you can feel like you're right there with someone anytime
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: you want. I didn't have that with my first marriage, right,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: So just different. A lot of time away makes it
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: very difficult, you know, in a host of many ways,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: for different reasons, for different people. You know, I thought
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: things were were fine right up until the day I
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: discovered that they weren't right I was. I was informed
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: one day that it wasn't fine and that it was
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: going to have to you know, And I never I
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: never dreamed, because in my mind I didn't. If I
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: was home three days a year, that's what I was home.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: I was. I'm still, I'm married, I'm a dad. This
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: is what I do. You just you just take it, however,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: you know, you just do whatever you can. I think,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: you know, who knows if I would have if it
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: would have been a different point in time, or in
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: some ways tried harder, or if just been ultimately closer.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: You know, I got married to a person when I
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: was when I was young, and I don't think either
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: of us necessarily knew what we wanted long term and
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: a person we just both came from relate from upbringings
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: where we wanted someone that would be peaceful and easy
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: to be around. And that was the common ground that
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: I had with my first wife. We just didn't fight,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: We didn't argue, we didn't we just we just both
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: had the we're going to get along. If there ever
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: was anything that started to be like turmoil or negative,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: we just moved and shifted gears and went on to
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: something else and just and just lived. And it worked
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: for me and it didn't work for her.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: So how many kids do you have in what are
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: they up to?
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: Now? I have three children of my own and now
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: my my new wife has children, so we have we're
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: a brady bunch. Now she has three and I'm a
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: grandpa with three of mine and then have a step
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: grandchild of my my new wife has a grandchild. So
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: my kids are you know, they're they're all grown and
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: doing their own thing now. I mean they're they're I
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: have my daughter hard to believe is now in her thirties,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: but they're like they're they're twenty seven, twenty nine, and
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: thirty one. So and let you know, I had them
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: every two years. And both my boys are into golf.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: They are exceptional golfers and are both in caddy program.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: They're they're they're both golf caddies. And when they're not
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: when they're not caddy, they're on the course playing. They
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: they're on a golf course every day they can be.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: My daughter lives in uh in, Kentucky with her husband
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: and three children and is one of the most amazing
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: people I know. I could go on, are you get this?
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: You know it's you know, are your kids off the payroll?
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: My kids have been off the payroll for for so man,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: My kids were not. I had the three easiest kids
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: that literally asked for nothing, wanted nothing, all went their
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: their own way quickly upon growing. I mean they yeah,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: my kids have been self sustaining most of most of
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: their lives. They were I had three pretty easy ones.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I went through it and in
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: some situations, you know, I went through with my daughter
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: and at at one point in time, my daughter ended
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: up with UH with a drug problem in her late
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: teens and had to seek some some help. And I,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: you know, I spent some while a while really afraid
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: I was going to lose her. It broke my heart
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: because I felt like it was a point in time
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: that I wasn't there for her in a way that
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: I could have been. And ultimately she she got some
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: help and and I learned some things along the way,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: and she is in the minority of numbers of people
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: who have the type of problem that that she had
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: and turn it around and is now one of the
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: most Like went back to school and got her high
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: school She had drop out of high school and went
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: back got her high school degree, then went got a
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: college degree, getting a got a nursing degree. She's, uh,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: she's a powerhouse. She's she's had three kids, you know,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: and because of the drug problem. Three natural child no
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: two natural child birth, just twins. She had twins naturally.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: Her husband and her her husband now and her both
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: really they've they devoted their life now to to rehab
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: and getting other people clean. And uh, he has a
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: corporate job in Kentucky at one of the big rehab
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: centers down there, and right now she's at home still
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 3: somehow going to school and raising three kids. She's like
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: the powerhouse of women that you could ever find. Exceptional person.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: You said that going through her addiction and rehab, you
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: learned a few things. What did you learn about yourself?
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: You had to go through forty hours as a parent,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: so she had to do thirty days in this place.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: Where as a parent and as the person who had
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: to spend like I think it was close to forty
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: five thousand dollars was the check that I had to
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: write for that one. You had to do forty hours
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: of schooling yourself as a parent. And I thought I
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: knew a lot more because I had fought my battle
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: with drugs. Right, I had done everything you could do. Like, Okay,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: I didn't do heroin. I didn't know what heroin was.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: That wasn't luckily it was never presented to me. Probably
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: would have done it as a younger person. But when
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: I when I ultimately learned about addiction and learned what
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: what some people have control over others don't have control over,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: I found that I myself. The lesson for me was
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: I thought I always looked at it as a way
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: where man, if you know it's killing you just say no, right,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: I just had this this common sense that Okay, enough
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: is enough, you know, if it's hurting you stop it already, right,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: And it wasn't until I did my my forty hours,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: you know, in the program, until a doctor put it
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: to me like this, And I wasn't aware of the
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: stat that one out of ten human beings have an
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: attict gene that if they do get addicted to something,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: they stay addicted to it. Even if they come off it,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: there's still they're an addict for life. One out of
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: those ten people are unlucky. Right. Well, for me, I
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: fell into the category of someone who could say no.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: I mean I have been addicted to different things, horrible things,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: but was able to say enough is enough. I could
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: say no, and a true addict can't say no. And
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: a doctor explained it to me like this. He said,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: it is it, he says. Try to understand this. If
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: you were a diabetic and you needed insulin to stay
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: alive and someone looked at you and said, damn, it
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: just make more insolent, he said, that's what it's like
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: to be a true addict. You just don't have the
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: ability to say just say no. It's a matter of
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: life or death to an addict in a different way
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: than I saw it, So I never looked at addiction
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: that way. I looked at it as people just making
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: bad choices. And though sometimes it is that, as often
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: as not, it's people introduced to something that they no
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: longer have a power to say no to. And those
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: are the people who need a community around them to
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: help them. And it's it's again I've said for a
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: lifetime that what I love about Bluegrass was the community.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: It's what saved me. It's where I felt safe. It's
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: the same way through through the rehab process. You know,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: the community had to change before the habits changed. And
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: she dug her way out of an enormous hole that
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: I'm just so proud of, you know, because she has that.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: And then in turn, once she started having children, couldn't
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: take any pain medicine to have these have these children,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: and I just thought, wow, you know, how do you
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: how do you? How do you have twins? How do
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: you have one? You know, forget about twins. So it's
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: it was, you know, it was an experience, but again
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: part of the building block whatever. You know. However, she
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: was being prepared to be the person she needs to
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: be right now. I mean, she's the strongest person that
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: you could probably find. And uh, and I just she
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: just sent me a video too. She just uh she
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: just got baptized, uh a week ago and she sent
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: me a video and I just I just couldn't believe
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: it because she's a stubborn one. And uh, as she
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: put to me, you know, after she says, you know,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: she says, you know, I'm a stubborn one. She says,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: it took God a long time with with me. I said, yeah,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: but uh, she just continues to impress me in every way.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know what to say it now. I'm just
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: not bragging about my kiddies, but uh, I have. I
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: have very talented, beautiful, smart kids that hopefully are good people.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: You know, the what I can say about my kids
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: is all the reports that I have from other peoples
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: who from other people who have met my kids have
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: been glowing. And that's the That's kind of the the
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: biggest thing you could want as a parent is to
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: think that your your kids represent you well and that
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: you know, people see them as good human beings. And
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: I have three precious human beings.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, going back to how we got started, on this,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: you know, in the middle of nineties. Start to play
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: with Alison. You're doing your thing. She's the queen of
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: her world. How does T Bone Burnette come along? How
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: does the old brother thing come along? And how do
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: you end up singing Men of Constant Sorrow?
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: So at the time all that was going down, our
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: manager was Denise Stiff, and I think now Denise Stiff
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: she had and T Bone and the Coen Brothers had
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: had hired Denise to help wrangle talent for the for
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: the movie. You know, she kind of she was one
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: of those people who knew everyone, and they discovered her
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: and employed her to find people. And of course, you
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: know Alison Krause, Union Station one of her main client.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: And and so when we discovered that they were doing
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: a Coen Brothers movie, the whole band Allison Union Station,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: we're all big Cohen Brothers fans. We thought, man, if
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 3: there's any way to be any part of this, please
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: let's do it. So we found out they were having
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: auditions and we went as a band to audition. We
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: didn't even know what for. We just went to play
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: them some music and see if there was anything that
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: was going to line up for the movie, and of
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: course that's all I knew at the time, as we
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 3: were going in as Alison Krause Union Station and see
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: if we could be a part of this movie. And
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: that was exciting just in and of itself. And we
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: did our thing, and we talked for a while and
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: met Joel and Ethan Cohen, and we met T Bone,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: and you know, everyone seemed to get along and they
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: liked the music and seemed like we were gonna be
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: involved in some way. So our days finished, and I
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: remember as we were walking out, we were literally walking
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: toward the door, and we got just about to it,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: and Denise, our manager, turned around to T Bone and said, hey,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: t Bone, have you cast George Clooney's voice yet, because
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: Dan right here she goes. I just thought, she goes,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: Dan might be a candidate for George's voice. And he said, well, no,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: we haven't, and they and they looked at me and
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: they said, well do you want to you want to
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: come back maybe tomorrow on audition. Right now, this is
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 3: this has dropped out of the sky. I had no
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: idea this was coming. I don't think anyone did until
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: she just happened to think of it and said hey,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: Dan might be a candidate. So they said, would you
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: come back tomorrow? And I said sure. So I go
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: home and I well, I remember leaving. I remember calling
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: my wife and saying, hey, let's you know, I'm going
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: to do this audition. Looks like this voiceover thing, right,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: And she goes, oh, a voiceover, that's great? What is that?
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 3: You know? And I explained, well, in this case, it
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: would work out to where you would go to the
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: movies and you're going to see George Clooney on the
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: big screen and you would hear my voice coming out
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: while he's singing. And she pauses and she goes, damn,
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: that's my fantasy, right, So and I've been telling that
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: joke for you know, for for twenty years now, but
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: it seemed so far fetched to me that, you know,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: going back the next day, I went as much for
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 3: the ridiculousness of it as as I ever thought that
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: I would actually get this this part, because it was
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: just too weird. I didn't think I sounded anything like
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: George Clooney when I hear him talk, I hear me.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: I just didn't hear any anything, right, So I decided
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 3: to go back and I, you know, asked what to do,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 3: and they said, well, either come back, and they said,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: they gave me two choices of songs. They said, you're
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: either that. We either want you to do Rank Stranger
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: or Man of consten Sorrow. They said, you pick one
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 3: and do it. So I showed up the next day
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: and I picked Man of Constan Sorrow and I did
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: Man of Constant Sorrow for now, who knows. Now, I'm
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: not saying that it would have been different, but what
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: if I had to pick Rank Stranger? Would the song
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: have been different? About to try it out with a
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 3: different song? Right, So they give me so anyway, So
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: they tell me do one of these songs. So I
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 3: do Constant Sorrow and they they say, right when I'm finishing.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 3: First of all, it would be really you. You would
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: have loved to have been there, because just as I'm finishing,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 3: and now, mind you, I'm doing a version much different
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: than what ultimately made it in the movie, I'm doing
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: a version that was higher, faster, less funky. Right, and
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: just as my song finishes in walks the Fairfield four
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 3: who everyone knows from you know, from the Old Brother soundtrack,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: and when they walked through the door, literally my guitar
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: was still ringing, and they came in and started singing,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: all of them when they filled this hall with a song,
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 3: and they sang the whole song, and when they got done,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 3: everyone was clapping and they were hugging each other, and
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: like it was this whole big thing, right, And I've
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: probably dramatized it in my mind now, but it was.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 3: It was so fantastic. And they finished up, and I
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 3: remember t Bone looking at me and said, hey man,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 3: great job. We'll call you, which which was how you
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 3: know this the same words I've heard, you know, after
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 3: losing a lot of different gigs. You know that's no
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: big it's no big thing. Just you know, it either
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: works or doesn't. So I leave and I'm just, you know,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking it was ridiculous in the first place that
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: I even't got an audition and went home. And the
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: next day, pretty early in the day, the phone rang
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: and I picked up the phone and it was t
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 3: Bone Burnett and he said, Dan, he says, well, he said,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 3: I've been talking with Joel and Ethan and listen, when
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: we see George Clooney singing, we hear your voice coming out.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 3: Do you want this gig? And of course, of course
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: I said yes, and and and then by your uncle
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: man A's. Then then my world change. You know, I
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: had no idea what was what was to come from this?
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 3: You had asked before? Did I did I sense if
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 3: now that I found you was a hit song? Not
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 3: even even less of this because now we're just we're
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: playing weird bluegrass music movie soundtrack. And I've been a
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: part of a couple of different movie soundtracks that again,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: didn't you know? They're not nothing? Is that big a
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: deal that oh brother became right, So we're doing this
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: this part. And here's the thing that that people don't know,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 3: or a lot of people don't know. We we got
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 3: to be in the movie. So we're we're filming now.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 3: While they're filming the movie in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and t
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: Bone comes up to me and says, hey, George wants
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: a chance at singing this song. Would you go into
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 3: a recording studio we have booked tomorrow and would you
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 3: play this song with with Clooney. Now, you have to
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 3: understand the position in life I'm at at this point
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: in time, and what I know and what I don't know,
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 3: and and where I am all all of a sudden,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 3: out of the sky drops this chance to record with
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 3: George Clooney. That's ten times bigger deal to me than
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 3: singing the song myself and doing this weird voiceover right.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 3: I actually get to go in the studio with the
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 3: man and record it. So of course I say yes.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 3: And the next day we go into the studio and
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 3: there's George Clooney and I'm in there and we're running
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 3: over the song. And now George can sing. People you know,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 3: say I did it because George Clooney can't sing. That's
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: not true. George Clooney can sing. He likes to be
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 3: really I've heard him be really hard on himself right
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 3: about Well, I just looked up and they weren't digging
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 3: it right. And that's that was not the case at all.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 3: If he could have got through the whole thing without
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 3: making a mistake, he could have sang it. But we
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 3: tried the song and we're playing it and all of
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: a sudden he makes it, sings the wrong word, says, ah,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 3: dang it, let me start it again. So I start
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 3: the song again and he tries it again, messes up.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: We try it again and he messes up. Now meanwhile,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: he's self conscious because you know, he's not sure that
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 3: he he a singer himself. Whatever reason, right, he walks
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: out of the room, takes his headphones off and looks.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: He walks up to me, and he says, Dan, he said,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: we're in here on a day off. He says, I
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 3: don't even know what we're doing. He says, this is crazy.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: He says, I'm going to make He said, I'm going
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 3: to make you a deal. He said, I'll act and
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 3: you sing. And he stuck his hand out to shake
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 3: my hand, and I shook his hand, and I'm thinking,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 3: I'll act, you sing. I'm thinking, oh, come on, man,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 3: Like my whole world was crumbling right in front of me.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: Now I've now he doesn't now he's not going to
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 3: do it, and we're back to this thing that you know,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 3: who knows how it's going to be now, right, So
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 3: I call back home and I tell you know, and
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: I'm explaining to my wife at the time. You know,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 3: I'm all bummed out. He didn't want to do it,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 3: I said, you know, he said, all act you sing.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: I said, can you imagine right now, skip ahead a
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 3: couple of years down the road, had he sang that
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 3: song which he could have no doubt about it, he
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 3: could have sang it. Had he sang it, I would
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 3: have made my three hundred and sixty dollars for the session,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 3: like I was used to making for a session of
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 3: just drumming a guitar for a couple. That's good pay
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 3: for how I was brought up. Had he sang it,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 3: I would have made my three hundred and sixty five
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: dollars and never been any none the wiser, and I'd
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 3: have moved on. But because he said, all act you sing,
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 3: I got to pay off my house and buy new cars,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 3: and then buy another house, and then put my kids
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 3: through college and do I got to do more from
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 3: him saying all act you sing than I ever dreamed
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 3: in a thousand eons a person who played a banjo
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 3: could ever ever ever do in music. It was it
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 3: was the life. It was the thing that absolutely changed
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 3: everything for me. I mean, I never I mean up
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 3: to that point, you know, I was I was making
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: musicians pay. I mean, I was getting calls to keep
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: my you know, I was having to wire money to
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 3: keep my lights on. My lights would get turned off,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: you know, every couple of months. It seemed right, all
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 3: of a sudden, my house is paid off, we have
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 3: new cars, there's money in the bank, no credit card bills,
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 3: no any It was the life life changer of life changers.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 3: You couldn't I couldn't imagine. And then on the spiritual side,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 3: it it made me rethink how I listened to music
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 3: in the first place, because I was not happy with
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 3: how it had to be recorded. It was one take,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 3: there were no fixes. If you did something wrong, you
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: just had to do the song over. It was just
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: there was no I was used to technology. Man, you
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 3: could go on a stead. Was the beauty of a
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 3: recording studio is you get to capture the best, very
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 3: best of your best and if it's not you can
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 3: do it again. And if this line isn't the best,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 3: well you can do that, like you can make a
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 3: really great representation of what you're able to do in
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 3: a recording studio. And old brother Art Thou was the
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 3: complete opposite. It was organic. It had to be one take,
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 3: one microphone, No, there was no headphones, there was no nothing. Man,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 3: You just sat down, literally, I was sitting down playing
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 3: in that stupid can. Man. It was the weirdest thing
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 3: for me. It was not I was not satisfied with
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 3: my performance, but to say, to put it the best
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 3: way I can. When I was done, I couldn't believe
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: they wouldn't let me go in and fix any lines,
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 3: or that it had to be one take. I would
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 3: have much rather. I would have much rather done it
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 3: in a different in a different way. And then after
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 3: I learned what the magic of that whole project was,
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 3: it was it was the beauty of what music actually
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 3: is and how it's a how why live music is
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: so great, and it's something I've always been an advocate for.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, I've always loved live music. But after Old
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 3: Brother Yeah changed the way I listened to music too.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 3: Didn't just change my life financially, changed my life spiritually
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 3: the way I went after music from that point forward.
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, just to dial down on this for one second.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: You literally only sang the song once or you did
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: multiple versions of the song from beginning to end.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 3: Oh. I sat in that studio and sang till I
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 3: was horses. I could be I probably did the song
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 3: thirty times or more front to back, and then I
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 3: think we kept the first or second take when it
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: was after I did it, like literally, that's you know, studios.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 3: I sat and I did it over and over. And
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 3: this is the thing, this is what was killing me
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 3: was I had so many performances that were well, if look,
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 3: if I just go fix the line that I messed up,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 3: that's the perfect performance, right, And it was like, no, no, no,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 3: this is this has to be one take pure, had
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 3: to be organic like this is. And this is a
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 3: credit to the Cohens into t Bone all the music.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, they made sure that instruments we played that
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 3: we recorded with the microphones that we used. They made
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 3: sure that everything was that era. We recorded in microphones
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 3: of that era, with instruments of that era, and we
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 3: did it one time through from beginning to end, because
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: that's the way they did it in that era.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, T Bone is a legendary producer. As I say,
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: this is sort of a real strip down recording thing.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: But did he do anything as a producer that direct
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 2: you or give you insight that change your performance?
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 3: This was absolutely I mean for starters. I mean there
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: were times where when I found myself wondering what is
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 3: he doing? Because these people are just in there doing
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 3: whatever they want to do. Like when we did like
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 3: some of the stuff that we played. He just threw
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 3: us into a room and said play. He didn't say
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 3: do this, do this, He didn't, you know, He just
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 3: said play and we played. And I think part of
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 3: his genius is understanding what chemistry works, and if it's working,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 3: just let it do its thing. If it's not working,
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 3: then you might have to steer a little bit. And
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 3: when it came down to the version that I did,
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 3: particularly the solo version where it was just the guitar
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 3: and the voice of Manecon's sorrow, there were so many directions.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 3: In fact, I had never had to be so conscious
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 3: of a visual while I played up until that point.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 3: Like it was. They kept telling me, you have to understand,
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 3: if you sing into this can and you knock him dead,
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 3: you're going to make fifty dollars. Now, this is way
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 3: back when you're going to make like you're going to
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 3: be rich. Now. They said, you're hungry. They said, you
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 3: just stole a chicken so you could eat. You're that hungry.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 3: You're so hungry, you just stole a chicken. They said,
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 3: you just sold your soul to the devil. Your fingers
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 3: are flying. They said, you're you're trying to play rock
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 3: and roll, but it hasn't been invented yet. You're just
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 3: you're trying to knock it so far out of the part.
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 3: You're just trying to blow them away. Now play a
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 3: man a consasar And it was you know, it was
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 3: it was. It was strange. There was so much direction
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 3: of what was going on visually while that was going
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 3: down that. Yeah, it was an interesting process to see
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 3: how they go about making something fit a movie. You
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 3: know that was because that that that was a that
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 3: was a strange one. It They made it in such
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 3: a way where it stood on its own, just as music,
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 3: but that soundtrack was all very specific to the scenes
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 3: that they were playing behind.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, movies are a long detailed process. You seing the
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: stuff how long til the movie comes out? And listen, people,
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: whenever you're involved in a movie, people are super positive
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: and frequently most times the movie is not successful. So
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: what was your experience of the movie actually being released?
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 3: So they first announced that they were gonna let us
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 3: let us see the movie in Nashville, everyone who worked
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 3: on at all, the people who performed and their families,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 3: and they were gonna have a private showing and at
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 3: the Bellcourt Theater here in Nashville, and so we of
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 3: course got ready to go see this movie, and we
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 3: knew it was a big deal and it's a Coen
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 3: Brothers and I had no idea what to expect, even
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 3: though I had seen some of the script and read
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 3: several of the scenes and you know, and been involved
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 3: in shooting of some of it. Boy, when you're there
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 3: shooting the movie and you're not actually looking back on
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 3: the camera to see what they filmed, you still don't
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 3: have any idea of us going. And I remember sitting
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 3: down to the movie and it blew like it blew
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 3: me away. Like though, first of all, I'm a huge
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 3: Coen Brothers fan, and I got you know, I had
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 3: a lot of schooling on how it was tied to
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 3: the Odyssey, you know, going in, so I got a
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 3: lot of this. Like, the movie to me was fantastic. Right.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 3: So I'm sitting there loving the movie, and then comes
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 3: the song and I hear my voice right come out,
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 3: and I, for lack of a better way to describe,
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 3: I've never been more embarrassed in my life. I sunk
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 3: down in my seat. I sunk down in my seat,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 3: and I got I tried to disappear like I was
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 3: trying as hard as I could to implode and just
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 3: be and just to to it, just to a singular nothing.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 3: It was the strangest I can't hard to explain. I
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 3: was like it was embarrassing and of course everyone collapsed
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 3: and everyone's looking and every you know, and it's a
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 3: big it's a big to do, and it was how
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 3: was the first time I'd had quite that much attention, right,
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 3: And it was it's it's weird to be the the
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 3: the person everyone's looking at, you know, because at this
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 3: point I've had a career with Alison and I was
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 3: really good at knowing how to stand beside that the
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 3: person everyone's looking at. That's an easier job supporting role,
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 3: was what I felt like. I was, you know, tailored
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 3: for now to be the guy. You know, it was
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 3: uncomfortable to just to For no better way to explain it,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 3: it was it was extremely uh nerve wracking in the
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 3: first you know, the first especially the first year, you know,
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 3: following then after you get that much attention, you know,
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 3: after after a little while that that attend you know,
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 3: you you it doesn't feel as strange, it doesn't feel
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 3: as you know, there there is now there is no embarrassing,
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 3: you know, now it's pure joy, like the attention from
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 3: old Brother that I get because it's still now, it's
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 3: twenty five years later, and when I do Constant Sorrow Live,
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 3: the cell phones still come out. You just see everyone
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 3: responded like it's it's amazing. And to think that you
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 3: get to be a part of everyone's life like that,
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, it's it's it turned from embarrassment
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 3: when I first started to pure joy when I when
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 3: I you know, hear it and see it. Now it's
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 3: it's come around to where it's you know, the fascination.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 3: You know, it's still fascinating, and the fascination continues with people.
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, I still do interviews about Oh Brother. You know,
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 3: there's not too many things you can say. Twenty five
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 3: years later, it's still still on the platform, and Oh
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 3: Brother is kind of one of those things.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, the movie's going to be released. I remember going
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 2: on Napster or whatever downloading your song. This is a
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 2: song many people have sung, Rod Stewart saying it, I'm
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 2: pretty sure, Bob Dylan saying it, etc. Yours is a
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 2: one listen version, Okay, and it's really amazing and it
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: it was successful. Was there any concept of you and
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 2: the people you work with saying this is gigantically successful,
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: let's follow it up.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 3: Man. So yes, there was of course a thought of
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 3: of that, and I was I was approached to UH
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 3: to potentially do a solo record, you know after after that.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 3: Now we have to go back and look at where
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 3: I was at this point in time, and Uh, I
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 3: had just done I just signed on to do a
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 3: record with this this record label that my friend Tim
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 3: Austin and and ex bandmate. He was the guy who
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 3: ran the Lonesome River band that I played with for
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 3: those years and UH, and I was scheduled slated to
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 3: do a record for him, and t Bone asked if
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 3: I wanted to do some sort of a project, you
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 3: know after you know, this thing and I and I
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 3: had to tell him. I said, well, I'm doing this
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 3: other bluegrass record, you know, I've got to do. And
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 3: he goes, well, he goes, he goes. It's kind of like,
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 3: you know, if you're ever going to do anything, you know,
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 3: let's we either need to do it or you know,
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 3: if you want to do something else, well then whatever.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 3: So I go to you know, I go to Tim
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 3: and I remember talking to talking to him at the time, saying, Hey,
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 3: I've got a chance to do this thing with with
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 3: T Bone, and he goes, Man, he goes, you got
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 3: to be kidding. He goes, you can't. You can't let
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 3: me down on this record. I can't have this record.
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 3: This is this is gonna end. He goes, My label
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 3: will fold if you don't do this record. He goes,
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 3: especially now right. So in my mind, now I go back.
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 3: If if I wanted to be that guy, I could
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 3: have said, sorry, sue me, whatever you got to do.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 3: I got to do that, you know, I got to
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 3: take advantage of this. Right. Had I not had I
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 3: not been with Alison Krause and Union Station, there is
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 3: no doubt in my mind that I would have taken
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 3: the opportunity to follow that up with whatever T Bone
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 3: wanted to do. I mean, if he would have said, hey,
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 3: I want you to do you know this, this way, this,
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 3: this way, let's just try it, I would have done
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 3: anything to try it. Right. But I was and I
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 3: don't know how to really even get people to understand
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 3: I wasn't just content. I was so content with the
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 3: job that I had with Alison in Union station that
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 3: I was even uncomfortable stepping outside of the you know,
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 3: I was uncomfortable at that point stepping into a spotlight
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 3: being that guy that everyone was looking at. I thought
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 3: it was just such an awesome thing that now, of course,
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 3: after old Brother, even though the Alison job was great
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 3: before Old Brother, well it was you know, multi multi
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 3: times greater. After the work picked up, the prices went on,
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, everything was better. So when it came right
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 3: down to it, it was just more important to me
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 3: to see if I couldn't, you know, help my buddy
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 3: do what do what he needed to do with his mission.
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 3: And at the end of the day, when I wait,
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 3: everything in the basket, the only thing that really mattered
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 3: to me was I was playing with Alison in Union Station,
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 3: and I've got the greatest job that I you know,
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 3: what you could look at as a lottery winning type
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 3: of job, you know, like that was I had the
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 3: job of jobs. I didn't really have to do anything solo.
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 3: It wasn't until so many, so many years after that
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 3: I really found any DESI you know, like I don't
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 3: know in some ways, I guess late Bloomer. I mean
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 3: now that I'm doing solo now, you know, I don't
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 3: see how I I ever conceded to to doing anything
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 3: else like I love, I love what I do now.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 3: It's and when I had the opportunity to, I just
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 3: didn't see it. I just wanted to be a bandmate.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 3: I wanted to step away from that spotlight. It didn't
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 3: it didn't appeal to me in a way that made
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 3: me want to want to try to follow it up.
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 3: But there was an opportunity way back when.
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, talking about your greatest kids, how'd you end
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 2: up working with a vichy.
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 3: Oh? Getting to so this one, this was another one
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 3: that that stepped out of left field. I never saw coming.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 3: I couldn't have imagined how this would profoundly change my
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 3: life because this one really this I mean, you know, hey,
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 3: brother arguably is a bigger hit. Well no, not arguably,
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 3: I mean it's statistically a such so much of a
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 3: bigger hit than than Man of consa Sorrow, it's not
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 3: even funny. I get a call from my assistant one
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 3: day who says, hey, we just got a reach out
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 3: from this DJ who wants to know if you will
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 3: sing a song on his record, And I said, okay,
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 3: what goes you know he does d M, and I
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 3: had to ask what EDM was. I did not know
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 3: what the term ed M stood for. She she tells
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 3: me electronic dance mix, you know this stuff in clubs
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 3: that goes and I laughed and I was like, oh
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 3: my gosh, okay. I said, how about uh, how about
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 3: thank you but no thank you? This This was my
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 3: answer just it was just flat I thank you but
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 3: no thank you. Those are my words. And being the
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 3: quality person that she is in a shout out to
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 3: Shelley for this one. Thank you Shelley Calabresi for this one.
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 3: H She goes, would you like to hear it before
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 3: we give an official no thank you? Right? So I think, well, sures,
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 3: you know, if send me the song, that's that's that's
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 3: fine whatever. So she goes, okay, that's She goes, I
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 3: figured you would say no thanks, but you know, let's
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 3: listen to it and then, you know, then we'll give
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 3: an official no thank you. So she's sending me the
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 3: song and all I know is she's sending me this
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 3: song and I and I she told me a vichy, right,
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 3: So I go through my mind and I think, who
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 3: do I you know? Who in my world would know
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 3: this this cat right, And my daughter really was the
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 3: one who popped into my mind because my girl at
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 3: the time was nineteen and she listened to everything. I
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 3: mean she would she would listen. She would follow up
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 3: a CDC with mel Tormae. I mean she would listen.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 3: She listened to the whole spectrum of music. So I
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 3: texted her right really quickly. Well, because I wanted a
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 3: quick response, I figured I would text her instead of
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 3: calling her. You know, she was a teenager. They'll respond
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 3: to a text immediately. If you call them, they won't
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 3: pick it up anyway. So I text her. I said, hey,
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 3: you ever heard of this guy a EGI? And she
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 3: responds immediately, she goes sweetish DJ. He's a genius. He's
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 3: probably my favorite artist. Why when I'm thinking, oh wow,
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 3: so I said, I type up, I think he wants
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 3: me to do a song on his next record. And
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 3: I see the bubbles coming up. You know that she's
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 3: responding to my text and it's one word bullshit. This
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 3: is what And I can't believe it's my little girl
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 3: right now in my mind, my little halo wearing, cherub
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 3: cheeked little angel of a daughter. You know, is cussing
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 3: at me online. So now I'm thinking, okay, how do
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 3: I respond to this? What do you what do you know?
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 3: What are you saying? And as I'm texting now, the
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 3: phone rings and it's her and I answer. I go hello.
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 3: She goes, Dad, are you messing with me? Because if
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 3: you're messing with me, I'm not in a place right
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 3: now where I can't even handle it. Because she started
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 3: going higher and faster. She she she went nuts on me,
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 3: ending up and saying, if this is real, if this
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 3: is actually happening, and this is real, if this is
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 3: an offer and you don't do it, I'm out. That's
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 3: what she says. And I'm thinking to myself, you live
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 3: on your own. I'm not paying your bills. You're already
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 3: What do you mean? I said, what do you so?
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 3: What do you mean you're out? And she goes, just
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 3: try me, So I thought, wow, this is serious. Just then,
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 3: as she's saying just try me, my phone buzzes and
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 3: it's the song that just showed up from my assistant.
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 3: So I tell her, let me let you go. I
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 3: got to listen to this song. It just just showed up.
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 3: I'll let you know how it turns out she goes,
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 3: oh my god, it doesn't matter what it is to it.
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 3: So I hang up and I listened to the song. Now,
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 3: the song is not the big fantastic version everyone knows,
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 3: you know. The demo of the song was just a guitar.
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 3: It was two strings on a guitar, just going boo
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 3: dud do do do do d right, and a vocalist
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 3: sang the song I for. I don't know how else
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 3: to put it. I loved it right. It was the
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 3: right key for me, it was the right tempo for me.
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 3: The message was was that bringing people to get like
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 3: everything about that song I did, like I love Now
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 3: in my mind, I'm envisioning how it sounds to me,
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 3: like everything I hear upstairs in this this brain of mind,
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 3: you know, has a banjo in it, right, so I'm
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 3: hearing like kind of the the bluegrass version. I ultimately
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 3: ended up doing myself right, but I I can hear
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 3: myself doing it. So I called back my assistant and
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 3: I tell her, hey, listen, I said, I just listened
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 3: to the song. I said, I don't know how to
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 3: say this, but I love it. It's killer. I said,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 3: let's do it. I said, listen. What's the big deal?
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 3: I said in I said, listen, we do the song.
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 3: Who cares? No one ever hears it? So what we've
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 3: done it, it'll make my daughter happy, right, This is
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 3: all I'm thinking. I'm thinking, we'll do this song, no
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 3: one will ever hear it, and I'll just move on.
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 3: And then I do this song. He doesn't have any
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 3: version of it, he says, can you just do it
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 3: to a click track? So I sang the song with
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 3: no music. I just stood in the studio and I
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 3: took my guitar and I hit a note being I
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 3: don't even know if I used the guitar. I think
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 3: you might have hit a note on the piano. Hit
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 3: the geno, he said, here's the note, here's it is.
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 3: So I hit the genoe and I just started singing
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 3: it right to a click And I sang the song
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 3: and sent it away to Los Angeles where a Vichy was.
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 3: And you know, i'd never met the man. I just
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 3: sent him a vocal across the air waves skip ahead,
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 3: just like not many weeks later, not many weeks like
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 3: just like a like. A couple few months later, that
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 3: song was number one in sixteen different countries at the
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 3: same time. It was a global smash that I couldn't
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 3: imagine and I and I was unaware of it because
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 3: I really don't listen to radio. I don't listen to anything. Right.
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 3: I just got a call from my buddy one day
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 3: and my buddy caused me. He says Ti Minsky. He goes, man,
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 3: you got to hear what's going on. He goes, someone's
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 3: out there. Someone is ripping you off. And I said,
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 3: what they said? Someone is ripping you off. There's this
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 3: dude out there and it's it's like it's just like
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 3: edm stuff. He says, but they are copying you to
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 3: a t. They said, it's one hundred percent you know,
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 3: it's one hundred percent a Dan to Minsky rip off.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 3: And I said, do you mean a song called Hey Brother?
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 3: And he goes yeah, And I said, dude, that's me.
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 3: He goes, how can that be you? He goes, your
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 3: name's not on anything? And I said, well, I was
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 3: worked for hire. You know, correct my name. You won't
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 3: find my name on it. If you look up any
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 3: of their stuff, you don't see Dan Tominsky. Well turns
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 3: out I gotta I gotta look back. That's that's one
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 3: of the biggest things I've ever you talk about the
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 3: one that got away. If my name could have been
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 3: attached to that, I can't even imagine what the sound skin.
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 3: I'm like I it would have dwarfed anything, you know,
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 3: old brother Wawreth I ever did. It was ridiculous. But instead,
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 3: you know, that's how I got a one time payment,
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 3: which was, you know, wonderful. At the time, I thought,
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 3: you know, great, and then you know, later on I
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 3: got a writing deal in My publisher said do you
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 3: have any idea how much money that song made? And
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 3: he gave me a quick rundown, and it was. It
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 3: was embarrassing, man. It was a lot of zero's, a
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 3: lot of commas. That song was was absolutely the most
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 3: fantastic thing to be a part of in it And
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 3: though you know I didn't get rich from that one
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 3: in particular, what it led what it led to in
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 3: my life, man, And I wouldn't have without it, period.
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 3: I just simply wouldn't have what I have now. Without it,
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't have had the courage to write the songs
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 3: that ultimately led to the Southern Gothic record. I wouldn't
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 3: have had the courage to write any bluegrass stuff, which
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 3: have has turned into everything that I'm about now. So
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 3: you know that that getting to work with with Tim Bergling,
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 3: who the world knows as avicy that was. That was
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 3: one of the biggest things I could have ever been
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 3: involved with, and I am so I'm so thankful for
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 3: the opportunity to get to be involved in that one
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 3: because it's it's just it's led to an uncountable well
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 3: of things I wouldn't have without it.
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 2: So presently, what's your deal with solo and Alison Grause?
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 3: Uh oh, I am no longer a member of Alison
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 3: Krause Union Station. They will be touring and putting out
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 3: some music and it will just be with with someone
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 3: different than than myself. I'm doing Dan Tominsky. I have
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 3: got the solo career machine started and couldn't imagine veering
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 3: away from it. It's taken me, it's taken me fifty
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 3: plus years now to get to steer this ship, and
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 3: I can't. I can't lose my grip.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 2: You're a very loyal guy. There are two very big
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 2: stories that you told with loyalty. Ay, how hard was
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 2: the decision to leave Union Station? And it's like I
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 2: was talking to Jerry Douglass. He can come and go.
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 2: Why couldn't you come and go?
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 3: I could come and go. There there were a lot
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 3: of circumstances that probably led up to I mean, you know,
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 3: Jerry has a different situation than I have to be
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 3: able to to come and go. I mean, I guess
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 3: I if I wanted to, I think I I mean, well, no,
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 3: I know I could have ided, you know I had.
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 3: I made this decision honestly, more last minute than I
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 3: than I ever thought I would. I didn't. I didn't
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 3: feel at first when it was first proposed to come
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 3: back and they were gonna, you know, Allison was gonna
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 3: have Union you know, do another Union station thing. I
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 3: was first shocked. I I never I I really thought
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 3: it was done. I mean, it had been eight eight
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 3: plus years since, you know, since there was any consideration
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 3: of anything. So when I first hearted, I didn't. I
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 3: couldn't believe, you know, that she wanted to do something.
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 3: So I had to consider it. And my first thoughts were,
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 3: and I'm and I'm gonna play the loyalty card. It
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 3: felt like it was something that I had to do.
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 3: I couldn't see myself saying no, because I felt like
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 3: there was a world of fans, and there was a
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 3: band of people, and there was there were too many
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 3: things that that, you know, too many people. I would
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 3: be letting down if I didn't do it. And I said,
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 3: you know, let's you know, let's let's do whatever whatever
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 3: we're going to do. And I got you know, we
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 3: spent our time together, we worked up songs. There was
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 3: I was actually going to do a bunch of probably
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 3: sing more songs than I would have in the past,
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 3: on this new thing they were about to put out,
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 3: and in the process, somewhere in the middle, I couldn't
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 3: do it. Somewhere somewhere in the middle, I felt like
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 3: I was letting go of my identity. And it's kind
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 3: of hard to put in words. I think the best
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 3: way I could explain it is, I've spent my lifetime
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 3: being other people's versions of myself. I was first, you
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 3: know what, I only sang in the first place so
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 3: I could accent my brother, you know, I was his
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 3: version of what he needed. Then I joined the Lonesome
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 3: River Band, and I never got to do what I
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 3: wanted to do. With the Lonesome River Band, I did
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 3: whatever they needed me to do, and that was fantastic,
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 3: So I did it. Then I joined Alison Krause and
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 3: Union Station, which, don't get me wrong, I loved every
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 3: aspect of it, but I was what she needed me
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 3: to be. I wasn't still playing what I wanted to
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 3: play in the band, you know, I had to adapt
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 3: and be someone else's version of myself. And I feel like,
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 3: for the first time in my life, and at this point,
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 3: I get to be my version of myself for the
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 3: better or for the worse. When people hear what I'm
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 3: doing currently, they get decisions that I am making about
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 3: myself versus decisions someone else was making. And if it
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 3: came down to doing another Alison Krause project, I didn't
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 3: feel like I had the control to be me I was,
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 3: you know, I didn't. I didn't want to be steered
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 3: as much as I was having to be steered with,
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 3: whether it be song selection, how I sang those songs,
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 3: the there you know, a lot of a lot of particulars.
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, I reached a point in my career where
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 3: I get to steer the ship and I feel like
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 3: if I let go of that, I won't get it back,
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 3: and I'm not willing to do that I'm gonna stick
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 3: with the solo.
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, before we wrap it up. How good a golfer are.
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 3: You depends who I'm golfing against. There are some people
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 3: I can whip handily. There are some people I would
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 3: never bet a nickel against. Good as a relative term
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 3: when it comes to that game. Uh, the game of
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 3: golf is one of the hardest games that I've ever
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 3: I've ever took up. And some people would say I'm
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 3: a very good golfer, and then some people would say,
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 3: you know, he's a hack. Just depends on who I'm
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 3: playing next to. Golf took up my foosball void, you know,
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 3: when I stopped playing foosball in nineteen eighty nine and
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 3: all through the nineties, and you know, I took up
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 3: golf kind of fill that void. So I have that
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 3: OCD personality to where anything I spend my time doing,
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 3: if I'm not going to be able to do it well,
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 3: I'm probably not going to do it at all. So
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 3: golf was the same I I ate, you know, Drank
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 3: slapt everything was was golf for a for a period
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 3: of time, and I think at one point in time
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 3: golf died just had me ranked as the number five
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 3: musician golfer in the country. Now that being said, there
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 3: are a bunch of musicians that I would never bet
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 3: a nickel against because there's a lot of good golfers
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 3: out there. But Uh, at one time I could hold
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 3: my own. Now I play a lot more for fun
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 3: than I do for UH. If I'm serious about anything
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 3: I play anymore, it's foosball, not golf.
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 2: Okay, when did you take up golf?
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 3: Uh? When I moved to Virginia. When I when I
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 3: moved away from home, when I let foosball go, literally,
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 3: I that's I. I made a switch because I found
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 3: a buddy of mine that I moved to Virginia with
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 3: is Uh is a golf pro, Tag Leon. I got
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 3: to give Tag a shout out. He's now the head
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 3: golf pro at at in Southern Pines, North Carolina, at
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 3: Talamore Golf and Resort. He has a fantastic facility down there.
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 3: People should go check out Talamore. But Tag moved down
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 3: with me, and I had a roommate that was a golfer,
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 3: and I, you know, I remember seeing his clubs and
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 3: he had a bunch of golf shoes. I remember, like
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 3: I thought, thought to myself, who would have that many
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 3: pairs of shoes? It was. It was blew my mind
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 3: right because he had like eight pairs of golf shoes.
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 3: And anyway, we went out one day and he was like, yeah,
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 3: give it a try, and I remember taking a I
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 3: was big into baseball, right. I wanted to be a
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 3: baseball player so I could hit it hard. But I
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 3: was a horrible golfer. But I took it up and
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 3: I started going to the driving range for fun, and
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 3: before you knew it, I was trying to keep a
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 3: score and realized how bad I was, and then decided
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 3: I was going to have to really get serious in practice.
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 3: And you know, I spent as here. I got to
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 3: thank old brother. You know that along with being able
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 3: to take care of my house payments and everything else
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 3: that I came along with that, I was able to
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 3: join a country club and have a place for my
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 3: family to hang out and play. And I have my
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 3: two boys. They're definitely into golf right now. Because of
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 3: you know, it's my fault. I had them around the
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 3: golf course all while they were growing up, and now
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 3: they're both I have two fantastic golfers for boys. They're
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 3: both in the plus handicaps there. They can quit me
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 3: so easy. They could. They could either one of them
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 3: could beat me with one hand. And I can't stand
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 3: it because I'm so competitive. But you know, golf, I
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 3: took up golf when probably nineteen ninety ish.
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, your peak, How much were you playing and do
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 2: you play at all?
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 3: Now? My peak, I played seven days a week. I
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 3: played every single day, and I practiced before and after
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 3: I played. I mean I played every day. And when
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 3: I did that, I played most days. I mean I
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 3: played minimum five days a week. Or let's just say
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 3: every day that I was home. Every day that I
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 3: was home, I played golf all through my kids going
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 3: to school. The routine was I would drop them off
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 3: at school, go play golf all while they were in school,
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 3: stand on the driving range and hit balls until it
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 3: was time to pick them up, Go pick them up,
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 3: and then I was home. So yeah, I played golf
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 3: every day. You know. In my peak my best scores,
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 3: I've shot a sixty seven was my best score. I
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 3: shot a couple of sixty nine's and I never got
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 3: down to a scratch. I was a one handicap was
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 3: my best I got to be a a one handicap,
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 3: where my kids one of them's a plus four, one
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 3: of them's a plus six. It's grotesque what they do
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 3: with the game. But I played a lot when I played,
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 3: now not nearly as much I do not. I enjoy
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 3: the game so much more now than I enjoyed it
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 3: when I was trying to be good at it, because,
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 3: like I said, the OCD thing, I couldn't enjoy it
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 3: for trying to always improve. And if you're trying, really
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 3: trying to improve, you simultaneously or frustrated with your performance,
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 3: you kind of have. You know, improvement comes with not
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 3: being satisfied with where you're at. So I've taken a
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 3: shift to the point where I really enjoy playing the game,
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 3: don't worry about a score as much. Still can probably
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 3: shoot a goods. You know, I'm my best score of
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 3: the year. My last year, I shot seventy two one time,
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 3: so I was one over par. That was my best
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 3: score of the year. I shot close to par once.
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm captain seventy eight. I shoot a lot
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 3: of seventy eight, so that seems to be my my
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 3: go to number. I can play well, I shoot seventy eight.
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 3: I play like crap. I shoot seventy eight. It's my number.
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 2: Did you take lessons to learn how to play golf?
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 3: No, I've never taken lessons to learn how to do anything.
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 3: And again I would say the same thing to golfers.
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 3: If you are starting out the game, take a couple
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 3: early lessons, because one of the things that really did
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 3: hurt me in my golf game is I ingrained a
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 3: few really bad habits early on that I carried over
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 3: from baseball that really made me struggle with golf. I
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 3: had to unlearn a few things that I taught myself
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 3: that I could have easily avoided had I taken some
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 3: early lessons. So I don't think you necessarily have to
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 3: take lessons the whole time you play, unless you're doing
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 3: it as a profession. But to get the fundamentals down
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 3: early on so that you can do so that you
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 3: can practice correctly from the start, I think is a
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 3: huge bonus. And I would recommend it to anyone that,
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 3: even if they don't think they need lessons, go ahead
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 3: and take that lesson and then decide after if you
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 3: if you want to use that or not.
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, how often do you play now.
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 3: Golf. You know, my wife likes to play golf now,
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 3: so I try to get out once a week, you know,
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 3: if I if I can. I mean, I'm more fair
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 3: weather now, if it's if it's cold, or if it's windy,
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 3: or if I have a hangnail, or if you know,
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 3: whatever my TV reception isn't good, whatever it is, you know,
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 3: anything will keep me from playing now. You know, it's
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 3: got to be all the conditions have to be right.
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 3: But if the weather's nice and and I have somebody
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 3: who's willing, I'll still go out and knock it around.
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, I still love the game. I've been trying
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 3: to get into it a little bit more as of late.
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 3: So this this year, I plan on playing more golf
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 3: than I played last year because I'm I'm determined to
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 3: get you know, a little bit. You know, it's it's
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 3: it's fun for me now, but it's not as fun
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 3: if I'm nowhere near as good as I could be.
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 3: So I'm gonna practice a little bit this year and
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 3: try to find that happy balance where I can, you know,
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 3: play a little more and still have fun with it.
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 2: Okay, you're playing golf. What's the status of your career now,
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 2: how much you're working, how much do you want to work,
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 2: and any specific goals at this point.
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 3: Well, I still want to work. I mean I'm I'm
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 3: not you know, I'm at the point now to where well, well,
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 3: you know, heck, I have to work. I mean, you know,
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 3: I still got to keep these lights. I still got
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 3: to keep the light bol paid. So I have to work.
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 3: Fortunately for me, I love my work. So it's it's
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 3: it's it's been a it's it's kind of been a
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 3: nice situation to be able to to go after something
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 3: that you enjoy doing. I mean, I've never felt like
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 3: I've worked ever. I mean I've I've traveled to play music.
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 3: I mean traveling that's the hardest thing that I do.
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 3: And as far as how much do I want to travel,
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 3: you know, if I play, if I play fifty, you know,
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 3: or to sixty dates a year, that is that that's
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 3: like my high end. That's as much as I would
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 3: want to go. I mean, I I don't like traveling
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 3: like I once did. I've said this for a while now.
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 3: I have played for a long time. I have played
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 3: for free. I only get paid to travel. You pay
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 3: me to travel and I'll play for you for free.
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 3: That's how it works anymore. And uh, I don't want
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 3: to stay out on the road. I don't want to.
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm I enjoy my home life. I enjoy
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 3: my my wife, I enjoy playing golf. I'd like to
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 3: spend a little more time. I'm, you know, enjoying my
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 3: my Uh, how do how do I put it? I'm
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 3: I'm I'm not you know, I'm not anywhere close to
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 3: giving up yet, but I'm I've started the back nine,
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 3: so I'm trying to ease into it.
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you ultimately had two gigantic successes. Okay,
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 2: you're doing what you're doing. You gotta work, you got
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 2: to keep the lights on in the back of your
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 2: mind everything, and well, you know, i'd like to get
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 2: back to that spotlight before I go here.
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean this is the I mean, at the
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 3: at this point, I'm able to you know, it's I'm
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 3: finding I'm finally and I say finally because i haven't
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 3: been for a bulk of my career, but I'm finally
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 3: happy in in the center portion of that stage. Like
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 3: I I'm enjoying what I get to do now versus
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 3: what I've done in the past. I mean, I'm I've
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 3: talking to an audience, getting to tell jokes, getting to
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 3: steer if you will. Man, it was an acquired taste
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 3: for me. It wasn't something I started out loving, but
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 3: once I got a taste for it, I can't see
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 3: myself ever doing anything else. I mean, I am a
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 3: I'm a I'm an entertainer. I mean I want to
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 3: be on that stage. I want to play for the people.
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 3: I mean again, traveling isn't as easy as it once was.
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 3: I don't want to I don't want to try to
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 3: do one hundred dates a year, you know, But I
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 3: want to make sure that I do dates that you know.
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 3: I want to make sure that I get to go
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 3: out and connect with people, because at this stage of
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 3: the game, when I get to connect to an audience,
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 3: it's the happiest I can be in the music arena.
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 3: And I don't see myself ever stopping that.
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 2: Well, Dan, you tell a great story. You've filled in
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 2: a lot of details that I've always had questions about.
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 2: I want to thank you for taking this time with
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 2: my audience.
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, listen, I don't know if I've done
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 3: if I've done all that. But but I have enjoyed
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 3: your time and uh and it is get the fun,
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 3: you know. It's fun to get to talk about the
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 3: things at length that you don't necessarily get to touch
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 3: on in other formats. So I really appreciate what you do,
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 3: and I hope we can do it again sometime.
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's a lot of stuff we haven't covered, but
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 2: we've come to the end of the feeling we've known
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 2: for today till next time. This is Bob left six