Uncle Earl (November 2007)

“Gimme that Old-Time religion…”

It may seem strange that a group of four young musicians of disparate backgrounds and musical tastes should come together to make music which predates them by the best part of a century.  However, Uncle Earl seem set to cut a swathe through “Old-Time”, the precursor of modern bluegrass and country and drag it kicking and screaming into the 21^st Century – all the while respecting the sound and spirit that make it what it is. Not since the turn of the Century when the Cohen Brothers’ classic movie “O Brother Where Art Thou” made it the trendy music-de-jour for a few months has Old-Time had a profile in the UK.  On the evidence of Uncle Earl’s energetic live shows perhaps a revival is long overdue.  The band have already roped in a bona fide rock legend to guide them on their latest album, have secured distribution by roots favourites, Rounder Records, and are gaining friends and fans the length and breadth of the country.  As they neared the end of their first UK tour Trevor Raggatt grabbed a few pre-show minutes with three quarters of the “g’Earls” – fiddle virtuoso Rayna Gellert, guitarist Kristen Andreassen and banjo player Abigail Washburn.

As this has been the band’s first full-scale UK tour I wonder how the reception’s been.  Washburn’s enthusiasm echoes the energy which characterises the group. “Amazing! We would never think to deserve the audiences we’ve had.  We’ve been selling out all over. But there’s been a really different sort of behaviour, different response to the music.  In the States it’s so ingrained, having to get rowdy during fiddle tunes and yell at the performers… and dance...” Gellert nods and qualifies, “Of course here, culturally, that’s not an automatic response.  So sometimes we’ve had to wrap our brains around the fact that people are enjoying themselves even though they’re being really quiet.  It’s just that they’re very attentive.  They are paying attention, they’re not hollering.”

The atmosphere in Bedford’s Harpur Suite, a chapel like Georgian building does indeed feel very different to their opening gig at London’s sweaty Borderline club where country fans were rubbing shoulders with seasoned music journos and a selection of the capital’s bright young things. Washburn muses on this for a moment, “In the city, it seems like the people have a sense of music melding and crossing borders.  The rock “n” roll kid can get a lot of inspiration from older music.  I think it’s more that way in a sophisticated metropolitan music scene.  Most of the towns we’ve been going to we’ve drawn a more traditional crowd.”  

Again Gellert agrees, “But we’re really excited when younger folks come out to shows.  It makes us think that we might be doing something that someone thinks might be vaguely hip!” This provokes a round of laughter. “You know I feel like Bonnaroo, this big rock festival we played at in Tennessee, is an example that.  It was a kind of unique situation and it was awesome!  It was amazing! We didn’t expect to be received the way we were.  It went over great and we had a blast.”

“And they were young people.” continues Andreassen, “The same people who came to see Wilco or Lily Allen or The Police. So whoever they happen to be at that festival to see, that was the crowd came to see us.  And that’s really fun for us because, even though we feel we’re bringing a new thing to it, on one level we are playing museum music.  We came up through the folk circuit which is a very polite and sedate audience; adults who know what they like.  So it’s really great fun to be just rocking out to a bunch of kids who, in some ways, couldn’t care less who we were.  They just enjoyed it. They were all just like, ‘Hey wow, acoustic instruments!  Woo hoo!’ ”

Uncle Earl (L-R): Abigail Washburn (banjo & vocals), Kristen Andreassen (guitar, ukulele, harmonica, vocals & clogs), KC Groves (guitar, mandolin & vocals), Rayna Gellert (fiddle, guitar  vocals)

This does beg the question of how a handful of twenty-something girls get hooked on a music which saw its heyday when their grandparents were young. For Gellert the answer’s a no-brainer – she’s the offspring of an old-time dynasty, and her parents are also respected musicians within the genre.  Instead, Andreassen takes the floor, “I guess in the context of American music old-time is not that far off from what I grew up listening to; country music.  Certainly in the grander scheme of things, there’s stuff that could be so much more different.  I think I had a very typically American suburban kid take on music – you buy a Pixies CD and you go out to the concert and get psyched about that and jump around in the pit.  But you don’t really think about playing something yourself.  I went and studied in college at Cape Breton in Nova Scotia - community economic development - I just got really interested out there.  They’ve got a really living fiddle tradition, which was something that was really new to me… the idea that people played fiddle for fun and went to square dances for fun… it just seemed so approachable and so alive.  And it was just such a great way to relate to people - the whole idea that you can play music together was a revelation.  So I started dancing because that was the most approachable entry point for me.  And from Cape Breton dance got into American clogging and then into fiddle playing because that is the kind of music that went with the clogging.  And then playing guitar and singing, because that’s just what happens.  So it was a sort of domino effect - the slippery slope after you start the step dancing. Yeah, that’s my story!” Washburn nods, “I had a similar experience of going away to a foreign country.  I lived in China for a number of years and when I came back I was looking for something about America to be really proud of and to connect with. I heard an LP of Doc Watson singing and playing “Shady Grove” and I just fell in love with it. So basically, I bought a banjo started playing it and took it back with me to China.  And then of course I met these girls a little later and started playing music with them.”

With such diverse backgrounds, remaining member KC Groves came to the music via bluegrass and country, it’s no wonder that their music steps a little beyond the traditional vision of old-time. “I think that when we first started playing there was a sense that we each had these different musical backgrounds and Uncle Earl was this sort of other musical space in the middle of us when we did specifically Uncle Earl things.” muses Andreassen, “It was more tune based than what I was doing in my songwriting and was different from my dance company - which was just tunes and dancing. So it’s very much just its own thing. And for Reyna I guess it was more songs and originals than what she was doing - with her playing mostly just old-time tunes.”

At this point Washburn leans in and adds sagely, “Of course I didn’t have much history with music at all!” – the cheeky grin which spreads across her face causing howls of laughter around the room.  She excuses herself to get down to the serious matter of set-list preparation while Andreassen continues her train of thought.

“But as we’ve kept playing together and spent most of the year together - certainly this year - it’s got to be a lot more integrated in the rest of our lives, and it’s starting to become more fluid. And all of a sudden we worked up a song of KC’s that was on an album she recorded 10 years ago but has never seemed likely to be Uncle Earl material… I mean – gasp – it had a bridge! It had a couple of minor chords in it… and then all of a sudden that’s ‘No sweat’ and just part of what we can do.”

“Of course that flows both ways.  Because I never used to write songs and now I’m writing songs…So that Uncle Earl space where all of our stuff overlaps seems to be seeping out further and further.”

Knowing how precious the British folk fraternity can be about preserving the purity of the art I wonder how Uncle Earl feel about the balance between curating and preserving music and taking into a new place, developing and evolving it? At this point Kristin Andreassen swivels in her chair to look at her fiddle-playing colleague eyebrows raised expectantly. “Yes, I been tortured by that whole concept for a really long time.  Growing up with old-time music I used to have a very specific ideas about what it was - what counts as old-time - and I was very very protective of a very traditionalist kind of strain of the music.  Being in this band has definitely forced me out of my comfort zone.  I’ve really given myself over to what this band is about because…” a pause for thought, “It’s like when I’m teaching fiddle  I’ve always encouraged people to just listen and listen and listen… but also to know that they can’t sound like some dead guy because they’ve absorbed all other kinds of music.  Everybody has their own filter when they play this music and it took me a while to figure out that Uncle Earl has its own filter and that’s just cool. I mean I’m still really into preserving old sounds, old tunes - it’s something that I really love and have devoted a lot of time and energy to - but I like that what Uncle Earl does is really honest.  We don’t try to make music sound a way that doesn’t make sense to us.  We all have different musical influences and it’s going to come through with us sounding like a bit of all those influences.  So yeah, Uncle Earl, we’re not archivists!”

Fortunately this guardedly liberal approach to the genre hasn’t led to the group being criticised by the die-hards. “Well to our face anyway… people are very encouraging! So many people have been really supportive and get a kick out of what we do.  I have no doubt, having been in the old-time scene as long as I had been, that there are people out there who are totally turning up their noses at what we do but we don’t have to hear about that. Hah!”

With four talented and successful solo artists in one band it’s perhaps a little surprising that this doesn’t lead to super-group ego tantrums or a negative competitiveness.  This raises another laugh, “I think we’re just such girls! We’re always striving for balance and sharing the spotlight and that sort of thing.  So sometimes we’ll advocate for each other saying, ‘You know, you should do that song tonight.’ or ‘Reyna’s not singing enough, people like her singing…’ or whatever it is.  I think that’s one of the things about Uncle Earl that’s different from another kind of band.  We all bring things that we’re kind of the lead on… I mean, if Reyna brings a fiddle tune it’s like ‘Here’s something I already play. I think you guys should do something with this’.  But we take that spotlight...” “…and we try to distribute it.”

“I think some other bands would laugh at that… but I think it really works to our favour because we have such a strong pile of material to draw from that there aren’t really any duds in the set.  You know, like some bands end up with filler songs that you don’t remember.” “But because we distribute it we each get to sing a couple of songs, so we sing our best stuff…”

Which neatly brings us around to the latest album, “Waterloo, Tennessee” which was produced by – of all people – Led Zeppelin legend, John Paul Jones. Perhaps something of a stretch of the imagination but Gellert is universally positive about his contribution. “You know, it’s hard to say how he actually affected the sound of the album.  He did encourage us to do more of original material – that was part of his concept early on. He thought it would be good for us to put more of our own stuff in the mix.  So that was more of his angle as opposed to someone who was really based in old time music who might have said ‘Oh here are some field recordings of traditional songs you might want to learn’.”

Certainly the he’s managed to bottle the g’Earls’ live energy and portray it effectively within the tracks rather than settle for the clinical sterility of the studio sound. Gellert is full of praise for the team Jones chose to work on the album. “That’s such an important thing for a string band; that whole jamming aspect of it. Everybody sitting together and playing together.  It’s really hard to try to recreate that energy when you’re all separated in different booths.  You can’t really do that.  I think both John and our engineer, Dave Sinko, understood that and helped us make as comfortable a studio environment as possible - you know, with all of us being able to see each other and make eye contact and just play.”   Andreassen continues, “Yeah, Dave’s just a great engineer and he had the vibe we were looking for.  He was game for trying to get really live sounds and not getting too attached to a Nashville approach - which we were afraid of.  Most of the tracks were recorded with at least the instrumental parts live; with us all sitting in the one room around our mikes with one centre mike to get a room sound.  So we just had to pick takes that we could all live with.  Most of the vocals were overdubbed but that’s about it.”

And this vision of old-timey players gathering around a big old radio mic – such an iconic image from the Cohen Brothers movie – is a highlight that Uncle Earl preserve within their live show.  But, as Andreassen explains, that’s not always easy sailing. “We have to fight for that. We were just talking about that today.  So many times the sound-men are like ‘You can’t use that mike’.”

“And we’re, ‘No, no, no, you don’t understand! We need to…’ ”

“And they’re saying, ‘No, this is a studio mike.  You’re supposed hang it upside down and use it to record vocals. It doesn’t belong on stage.’ And we’re, ‘We’ve used it every other show in our careers and we’re going to try to use it tonight!’ So it would be easier for us to abandon that thing but we really like playing around one mike.” Nodding seriously Gellert interjects, “Yeah we like clumping up around one mike.” before Andreassen continues.

“We started around one mike back in the old days. But we’ve been expanding and expanding and expanding and sometime in some future galaxy or universe we’ll all have our own mikes and pickups.  Reyna’s the last one holding out!  So now we have the illusion of one mike but all the instruments are plugged in and we just get around to do group vocals on it.  So now it has become kind of a stage show element.”

Two weeks earlier at their London gig they shared the stage with their rock-legend producer for over half their set.  With the hoo-hah surrounding the Led Zeppelin reunion that must have been a little surreal.  The fiddler grins, “Awwww… little John!  It’s weird.  We all had this experience at Bonnaroo of actually seeing him be a rock star.  He played in this big rock star jam with Ben Harper and Questlove in front of 40,000 people who just went nuts when he walked out on stage.  And we all had this kind of experience of being like, ‘Gasp, that’s John Paul Jones…’ because he’s not like that.  He’s the most down-to-earth, lovely human being to be around and he never pulled any kind of attitude with us ever at all. There’s nothing about hanging out with him that makes you go ‘Dude, he’s a rock star!’. Sure he’ll tell Zeppelin stories and that’s really amazing and trippy and all… but that’s not to say we don’t appreciate his rock-starness but he doesn’t make himself that imposing. So it’s more like we were getting to play tunes with John and we’re always happy to play tunes with him. He’s a blast to play with.”

One of the more unusual songs on “Waterloo Tennessee” is the bizarrely titled, “Streak O’ Lean Streak O’ Fat”  Gellert elaborates, “Ah, that’s an old fiddle tune from Georgia that was recorded by a couple of really great string band in the 20s and 30s. The version we learned was recorded by ‘Seven Foot Dilly And His Dill Pickles’ - well actually if I want to be really geeky I can tell you really specifically about the recording but I’m going to stop myself…” A pregnant silence hangs in the air for several seconds… “OK then what it is, is…” Some minutes later she returns to the thread, “…but anyway, Dilly’s shtick was that he would play the guitar and he would just talk.  Sort of random stuff and his whole patter is just really funny; about food and things, ‘Oh you know I remember when I used to take those little Johnson girls round to those dances… I liked my chicken brown…’ and all that kind of stuff. Abby really liked that tune so she was like, ‘I think we should record it because that’s a really great fiddle tune.  It’s fun to play, we don’t play any C tunes.  We should play a C tune…’.  So anyway we were playing it and me with my little 78s going around in my head I was missing the patter. So I said, ‘Hey, you know what be really funny, Abby, would be if you translated all that patter into Chinese!’ and she was like ‘Okay!’ and off she went.  But of course what she did was instead of doing a direct translation she went off on a tangent that is now some kind of deep symbolism about Chinese politics!”

“Yeah now it’s all some sort of metaphorical approach to the Chinese Cultural Revolution because Mao’s favourite dish was this ‘hong shao rou’ - this sort of braised fatty dish – therefore it means something about whether you’re Maoist or not if you like hong shao rou.  You’d have to ask Abby about all that.”

And now the song has grown further wings.  While they were touring the UK the final touches were being put to a hilarious and bizarrely compelling video to accompany the song.  Set in a Chinese restaurant it splices the gang-land tension of West Side Story onto Hong Kong Chop-Socky Kung Fu with a good helping of Riverdance, clog dancing, Grand Ol’ Opry and Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers thrown in for good measure.  Gellert explains, “Yeah… now we’ve made this music video of it.  And that was kinda because it was the ‘freak show’ cut on the album. So the options were to either take something really pretty and accessible, like ‘Last Goodbye’, and make a pretty and accessible music video or just do the weirdest possible thing and make people go ‘What?’  So we took the weird track and made a weird video!”

As the time for the band to hit the stage looms ever closer our allotted time is over and I throw in a final comment suggesting the song might simply be a cynical move to clean up in that lucrative Chinese culinary square-dancing market? Both musicians let out a belly laugh… “Yep!  Pure crass commercial reasons! Because you know how clog dancers always bring in the big bucks!”

Click here to see Uncle Earl's new video for "Streak o' Lean, Streak o' Fat"

BACK TO INDEX