A key figure in the history of bluegrass, 80-year old singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist Alice Gerrard has just issued her latest LP. Produced by longtime admirer M.C. Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger and pressed up via the Tompkins Square label, Follow the Music finds Gerrard in strong voice and wielding focused intensity across 11 tracks.
To describe the ‘60’s bluegrass scene as male dominated shouldn’t imply the milieu was in any way unusual in the grand musical scheme of the period. Alice Gerrard and her departed playing partner Hazel Dickens were amongst the high lonesome exceptions. Gerrard (then known as Alice Foster) and Dickens cut their ’65 Verve Folkways debut Who’s That Knocking for 75 bucks in Washington, DC’s First Unitarian Church with the worthy assistance of Dave Grisman on mandolin plus Bill Monroe sidemen Chubby Wise on fiddle and Lamar Grier on banjo.
Today the Smithsonian Folkways CD Pioneering Women of Bluegrass collects that LP and Won’t You Come Sing for Me?, its ’73 follow-up. Gerrard and Dickens continued to make records together into the mid-‘70s, producing two more discs for Rounder, though just as important to Gerrard’s background is her participation in civil rights activists Anne Romaine and Bernice Johnson Reagon’s race and gender inclusive ’68 Southern Folk Festival tour, the lineup including Roscoe Holcomb, Elizabeth Cotten, Dock Boggs, Bessie Jones, and the New Lost City Ramblers.
Gerrard’s second husband was the late Rambler Mike Seeger. In 1980 they completed an eponymous album for Greenhays Recordings; it’s currently in print on a CD titled Bowling Green with extra stuff from a ’71 Japanese visit. And while she’s dished three prior solo efforts and played in the awesomely-named Back Creek Buddies with the also deceased clawhammer banjoist Matokie Slaughter (I’d love to hear their ’90 cassette release Saro) Gerrard remains most well-known for her work with Dickens.
Pioneering Women of Bluegrass corrals a bounty of high-quality straight-ahead material, but it’s substantially different from Follow the Music. Gerrard’s latest begins with a string drone gradually rising to meet her interpretation of a traditional lament. Through an impressive combination of vocal strength and emotional content it’s immediately clear that “Bear Me Away” could’ve been presented a cappella. Indeed, it’s safe to assume that Gerrard has sung it unaccompanied, as a cappella numbers are featured on her 2004 album Calling Me Home: Songs of Love and Loss.
However, the raw-toned bowing that carefully surrounds her vocal increases the natural expressiveness and offers a powerful whole. It’s followed by “Strange Land,” the first of four Gerrard originals combining that voice, now exuding a less mournful attractiveness, with the confident backing of strummed acoustic and plucked banjo.
Like the opener, “Wedding Dress” is of traditional origin, though many know it through a version by her ex sister-in-law Peggy Seeger. Possessing a singsong lyrical approach and an element of desperation that seems to have traveled across the Atlantic, it blends this attribute with string band toughness obviously deriving from Appalachia, as a returning undercurrent of drone deepens the ambiance.
A significant change of pace comes with “You Take Me for Granted,” a splendid cover of the Leona Williams composition that gave Merle Haggard a #1 C&W hit back in ’83. The musicianship here is especially well executed; assertive in all the right places with nary a showboat move throughout, the key is Gerrard’s singing, full of the richness and experience required to successfully encompass the hurt found in Williams’ lyrics.
It’s a standout, transitioning very nicely into the brightness of the title track; the second of Gerrard’s compositions, it sees her waxing a bit autobiographical (her terse description: “Sort of my story.”) and wading fairly deeply into the warm waters of Americana. As hers is a laudable role in the development of the traditions serving as that wide genre’s inspiration, the comingling of crisp banjo and guitar with electric bass and drums suits her rather well.
Anybody needing convincing over Gerrard’s abilities and sensitivity need look no further than “Boll Weevil,” a tune she learnt directly from the great fiddler Tommy Jarrell; here the dark themed piece is imbued with an appropriately edgy bow. It’s interesting to note that Gerrard came to this music not through family traditions but by discovering it as part of the mid-century folk boom; a 78 of Texas Gladden’s “One Morning in May” supplied the epiphany, and she was one of thousands seduced by the undying power of the Harry Smith-compiled volumes comprising the Anthology of American Folk Music.
While its biggest influence is Jarrell, “Boll Weevil” shares a topic with “Mississippi Bo Weavil Blues” by the Masked Marvel (aka Charley Patton), its banjo remindful of Dock Boggs’ “Sugar Baby,” the fiddle a tad suggestive of Uncle Bunt Stephens’ “Sail Away Lady,” as a slight air of menace conjures a hint of Bascom Lamar Lunsford’s “I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground;” all are entries from the Anthology.
“Boll Weevil” doesn’t reach the levels of amazement produced by the above list, but in contemporary terms the instrumentation (particularly the fiddle) is superb, and the precedent feels long absorbed rather than studious. And one of Follow the Music’s strongest aspects is unstrained breadth. Previously recorded, the Gerrard-penned “Love Was the Price” reengages the Americana vibe; this time at Taylor’s suggestion it’s bluesy, with Ry Cooder-ish slide.
From there, “Teardrops Falling in the Snow” saunters right up to the honky-tonk. Penned by Mac McCarty, Gerrard makes special mention of Molly O’Day, whose quite nifty 1949 version is the template. “Foolish Lovers Waltz,” the last of Gerrard’s originals, is also the LP’s gentlest tendering of contempo currency, as serene as “The Vulture” is severe.
Here she does go it alone, the depth of her vocalizing immersive, the subject matter bleak and eventually macabre, the whole ultimately gripping. It’s perhaps a selection that will give some of those Americana fans the fidgets; bluntly, it gets to the core of Gerrard’s art. “Goodbyes,” learned from her grandson Adam Heller, closes the record with beautiful folkish melancholy.
Extraordinary music is a reliably temporary scenario and vibrant examples of true longevity should be cherished. Alice Gerrard not only has a firm grasp on endurance, she’s frankly gotten better with age. ‘94’s Pieces of My Heart and last year’s Bittersweet are appealing collections, but as Gerrard states in the notes, in working with Taylor and a group of younger, eager musicians, she’s been pushed beyond her comfort zone; Follow the Music is an exceptional document from a valuable American artist.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
