Episode 350: #1 Bluegrass Songwriter Reed Jones

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Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, a songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is where I discuss music, movies, books, pop culture, theology, and more with friends, colleagues, and sometimes just by myself. Now make sure to let me know what you think of today's episode by leaving me a review on iTunes or by tweeting at me @RickLeeJames. RickLeeJames on Twitter. And please join my mailing list at RickLeeJames.com where you can receive an email every time a new episode is released. By the way, in case you're interested in a daily dose of kindness and encouragement beyond this podcast, I also run the Twitter account @MrRogersSay where I post daily quotes from Fred Rogers, one of the voices in my head. Well, I guess that's it for the intro, so sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of Voices in My Head.

Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host Rick Lee James, and I am so glad that you can be here with us today for a very special podcast. This is different today because a lot of my interviews, I would say most of them, are on the phone or over Skype, but today I'm actually with a very talented artist named Reed Jones, and he's going to be playing some music live on the show today, and I'm very excited about that. Let me just read a quick bio about Reed, and we'll get going with our conversation. Reed Jones is a musician, a multi-instrumentalist, a singer and songwriter, faith journeyman, a husband, a father, a teacher, and so much more. Heavily influenced by bluegrass legend Tony Rice, Jones has played with bands like Unlimited Tradition, Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers, Cumberland Gap, and the acclaimed international bluegrass act, Audie Blalock and Redline. With Redline, Jones helped record "I'm Goin' Back to Old Kentucky," which boasted several charting singles, including the number one "Cry Cry Darky" Darlin'. Jones also wrote and recorded "The Road That Winds," the title track off Redline's 2016 release that was featured as the theme song for the Travel Channel series Backroad Gold. Redline's most recent release, 2019's Originalist, contains 4 songs that Jones wrote or co-wrote. Of those songs, "The Gate Called Beautiful" from Acts III and "Love Is an Awful Thing" have both reached number 1 on the bluegrass charts, with the latter holding the spot for 3 straight weeks. Reed Jones is here with me today to share some coffee, some conversation, and some live music. Reed Jones, welcome to Voices in My Head.

Thanks for having me, Rick. I really appreciate it.

Well, it's good to have you here today, and I appreciate the coffee that you— you just did pour-over coffee for me this morning, and this never happens on the podcast, so I'm so grateful to have it today.

Hey, I'm glad to be able to make it. I love sharing coffee with people.

Well, that's— it's a wonderful gift and a wonderful coffee from Hemisphere Roasters. We're going to put a plug in for them later in the show as well, but it's kind of a neat about that. But I'm so glad to have a chance to visit with you today, and I wonder if we could begin by having you play your number one song that you had recorded with Audie Blalock and Redline called "The Gate Called Beautiful," Acts 3.

Sure, we will. We'll give it a shot here, see if we can't do that this early in the morning.

The days of my birth. And weak and silent, his dignity and hope relentlessly fade. Do you know what it's like to bed for your break while he spit on the ground where you've been longing to tread at the gate called beautiful. Healing is found. The low made high. Poverty crowned. The vessel was empty. Is now run aground at the gate called Beautiful Moon, healing the bound. Then a glance at the name captured my soul. A strength runs through. My body made whole. A newness of life cleaned everyone's heart. Peace came down and wholeness imparted. At the gate called Beautiful, healing is found. The low may find poverty crowned, vessel of service. Is now run aground at the gate called Beautiful. Healing Wells at the gate Beautiful.

I hope you don't mind, I did a little quiet harmonies there with—

Join right in, man. That's great.

It's a lovely song, and I'm really glad that you shared that with us this morning. There's not a lot of songs written for Max-3. No, it's kind of fun to get to hear one, and then one that's done so well, and it obviously has been connecting or it wouldn't have gotten the radio play.

Sure, absolutely.

And that it did. Let's talk a little bit about the song. Yeah, I can probably, as I said, count on one hand the songs I've heard written for Max-3. Maybe on one hand, I don't know. But what drove you to write a song about this particular scripture?

Well, I'm kind of inherently a word person, and just the naming of things I think is interesting. And I was— at that time my church had been doing a— it was like a time for prayer every Wednesday evening. We would get together and we would reflect on a certain passage of scripture, and Acts 3 was the chapter, and we would spend some time just reading some— reading the scripture, sitting in silence and reflecting on what God might be saying through it. And as I was reading this story, I just thought, how inherently beautiful is that, or poetic is the name, the Gate Called Beautiful. Yeah, it's just so— there's a natural poetic nature to it. And so as I was leaving that night and had spent a lot of reflection time reflecting on it, I thought, well, I wonder if anyone has ever written a song about this particular thing, because I love the power of the restoration story, the healing and hope that is offered. I mean, you start thinking about that individual's life, you know, this guy who had been disabled from birth, and he was brought to the gate every day to beg, and you don't really get any a whole lot of story after the healing. You know, he gives a little bit of testimony in front of the Jewish leaders of the day, but really you don't get a lot from him. And I thought it's such a powerful story and such an inherently poetic phrase that something should be done with it. And so I had— this was in 2012, I think— and I went home and thought about writing the song from the perspective of the beggar. I like that idea of, you know, you think of Jesus and the upside-down kingdom and the idea of how he kind of flipped the whole power structure of religion on its head. And I thought, well, to tell it from the perspective of this beggar, yeah, I'll try to do that in a couple verses and choruses. And so I wrote the song, um, I wrote it once and then rewrote it shortly thereafter just for brevity's sake because the song's kind of long as it is. And so I hadn't done anything with it, and I don't, I don't really do a lot of song pitching or things of that nature, and it just never really felt like there was the right time to do it. And then for whatever reason, this last record we were recording with Audie Blalock and Redline, and I thought, well, this might fit well here, and I think maybe it's time to do something with it. And I don't know what God has planned for that song, but I still feel like there's more there, just not because of the song, but because there's such a powerful message to, you know, this idea of of offering hope and healing and restoration to people that are in need of it, whether it's spiritual healing, emotional healing, or physical healing, or financial healing, whatever it is. I just think there's— it's such a— it is such a spacious song. There's so much room for people to find their own brokenness within it. And I know that in that way, it's— the song has been a blessing to me. As a songwriter and just also as a Christian, just attempting to find what broken things do I have that I need to allow to be transformed.

Well, I always— yeah, I was rereading that passage again this morning a couple times through from Acts 3 just because I wanted to make sure it was fresh in my mind. And I was reminded of a quote by Thomas Aquinas. And of course, in Acts 3 is that I guess semi-famous verse of, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give to you. In the name of Jesus, rise and walk." There's a story from, I think it's in the 1200s, and Thomas Aquinas, a religious leader, once visited— I don't know if you've ever heard this story, but he once visited the Pope. The Pope was showing him all of the treasures of Rome. Just all the beautiful buildings and the gold and the riches that they had. And the Pope said to Thomas Aquinas, he said, "Well, Thomas, no longer can the Church say, 'Silver and gold have I none.'" And Thomas Aquinas replied, "Yes, Holy Father, but have you ever thought that the Church is in danger of also not being able to say, 'In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk?'" I don't know if you'd ever heard that story before, but I thought of it as I was reading through the passage again. It's a powerful and convicting passage of Scripture because I don't know that I've ever seen it happen, you know, like where somebody could just go, "I don't have silver or gold." Usually we go, "Here, let me write you a check." Right, exactly.

Yeah, and I think that's what's really powerful about it is, is I think there's so many times we don't realize what type of healing we're actually in need of. And he— I mean, the second verse of the song starts out, then I glance into name, because obviously in the name of Jesus Christ. But he also is— he, like Peter said, look at me.

Yeah.

And I always thought about what, what does that— what did that, like, look— yeah, look like? I mean, that was really intense. Like, this guy, I don't know if he ashamed, I'm sure, just to sit there and to be begging and probably not wanting to meet somebody else's gaze. But then, you know, for Peter to be like, listen, I don't have— I don't have what you think you need. Yeah, but I have something that's far greater. And I wonder how many times we ask God for things that we feel like we need, but God has something so much greater. And we get discouraged in the times when we don't get what we want, so to speak. But There's just so much, there's so many layers and nuances to that story that I think it's a pretty incredible thing. And so it kind of blew my mind that there wasn't already a ton of things already written out there song-wise for that.

Well, you know, I think for all of our Bibles and the internet and everything out there, we're still one of the most biblically illiterate societies, maybe more than we ever have. We choose to look up cat photos and things rather than, you know. Right. And I'm guilty as anybody else. As far as that goes, but there is a rich well to be written from in Acts, especially, you know, those stories that we have. Well, thanks for that song. It's really well done. And I want to go on because that is a bluegrass song that actually was on the bluegrass radio charts, that it hit number 1, and that's a pretty exciting thing. But I want to talk about the way, because you are such a versatile and talented instrumentalist. You're a singer, you're a songwriter, you do all this, but a lot of it's behind the scenes. You'll be playing guitar, you'll be playing bass, or on one of the albums you're even doing like Hammond B-3 work, right? And you play with a rock band too, Someday Morning, right? And you're also with bluegrass, as we've already mentioned. And this was Audie Blalock and Redline that recorded that song. Um, but I want to talk to you about maybe the interesting connections and just kind get your thought on it. The connection maybe that exists between like gospel and bluegrass music, because every time I go to a bluegrass festival, half of it feels like you're at a church service. Right. They'll start breaking out songs, and yet the other half of the crowd maybe could care less about that. You know, it's kind of interesting.

Yeah.

But also there's this interesting connection too, which things that also don't necessarily seem to have a common tie, and yet they do. Like, you're a rock musician as well, right? We had talked about just beforehand on the show, there's this interesting connection between— as much as everybody wants to give rock music like a hard time for being sex drugs and rock and roll type thing, there are actually a lot of really thoughtful and reflective spiritual writers in that genre too. And we had talked about just beforehand, I think of somebody like Bruce Springsteen, who is an artist that he can almost be bluegrass at times. You know, he did that album a while back that was folk cover songs and it was all acoustic and it was not straight bluegrass but it was a lot of the instrumentation, you know, from— and especially using music from the era it came from. So it was— mandolins and banjos. There was some horns and things like that. But then it's just as common to see somebody like Bruce Springsteen playing with Rage Against the Machine or some like really heavy, you know, rock band. And there's Springsteen with this, these Catholic roots behind him. And a lot of times he dives into like these spiritual themes and whatnot. I just find it so interesting the way that all this music as different as it is, is so connected, not only in its musical roots, but there is this certain spirituality about it. I just wanted to kind of pick your brain about your thoughts on maybe some of that, because I have a feeling you have a few.

Yeah, yeah, it's something I spend a lot of time thinking about. I guess music is a product of culture, ultimately, people and their way of life. It's born out of that. And so maybe speaking to the bluegrass gospel side of things, and you know, there's always been this dichotomy in bluegrass, but has never been a dichotomy in my mind, this idea of Saturday night versus Sunday morning. Yeah. And so the idea that, that, you know, think of country music and bluegrass and you're talking about drinking and cheating and all these kind of things, and that's a Saturday night activity, and then, you know, those same people would get up and go to church on Sunday morning. That's always existed, and bluegrass being a product of a lot of mixing of cultures, but specifically the Appalachian culture, which is where a lot of my familial roots are, the common thread between those two things for me is just, it's real. Um, and sometimes I think that religion, specifically religion, not necessarily just faith or spirituality, but religion can seem so fake and false and phony. Um, and you can find that same kind of phoniness on Saturday night at a club or whatever, at the same time, people being who they aren't. Um, and I think that those— what, what it all comes down to is we all have I don't know, some inner longing or need to fill ourselves with something. They can be filled with different things and lots of times I feel like it's filled with a combination of the two. As for me growing up in the church, having always heard church music, and I feel very fortunate that my parents enabled, they allowed me to listen to all kinds of different music. My parents would allow me to play different kinds of music. They would take me to places. Not necessarily to shelter me from the rest of the world, but to teach me how to actually interact with the rest of the world. And then I got to doing a lot of reading and studying on, on some of the matter. And I forget what book it was in, but I do love A.W. Tozer quite a bit, and he talks about elevating the secular to the level of the sacred, and that this idea of secular sacred divide doesn't even really exist. These are artificial boundaries that we've all thrown up. And so for me, I think that like playing on stage, whether I'm playing at a rock club, it's still equally as sacred of a space. Yeah, I think what Jesus was most interested in was the relationships that he had created with people along the way. And you know, there's not a whole lot in my opinion that's more intimate than sharing a stage with someone else.

Yeah.

Or bearing your soul to other people. Um, you know, as a songwriter, if I write a song and then say, hey, what do we think about— for Redline, for example— well, Audi, what do you think about recording this song? It's a very— I mean, he's one of my best friends in the world. It's still a very uncomfortable experience to share something that you wrote and something that's that personal and open it up for somebody else's thoughts or opinions or scrutiny.

Yes.

And so relationships, I think, are so inherently important, um, as they were to Jesus, as they are between an artist and a listener, between fellow musicians. And so I don't think that— I don't think that there should really be that much of a divide between secular music and sacred music. Some of the music that I write, for example, like The Gate Called Beautiful, is not a traditional sounding bluegrass song. And I think that sometimes bluegrass gospel can sometimes err on the side of being a little superficial and erring more on the side of— and I'm saying this having just sang for you a story song, but just like stories and just like recounting that this happened, whereas at least in that song, I'm attempting to invite you in and say, where do you fit in this? And so that secular-sacred divide to me doesn't really exist. I can find God in the relationships I have that cut across all genres, all types of music. I just think that we like to put music into boxes.

Yeah.

And we also like to put God in boxes.

Yeah.

And if we believe in a God that cannot be encompassed by whatever boundaries that our intellect or whatever can place around him, then why would music— like, why would music that is intended to give him honor and praise, how can that be placed in a box like that? Like, I feel like, I don't know, sometimes we want to control it a little more than we probably should. We should just let go and say, you know, it's okay. Like, people, everyone, everyone has this common humanity and this common need for for what's real. Yeah, well, ultimately what's real is God.

Yes.

And so I think the real— I think the thing about bluegrass and bluegrass gospel and rock music, and whether it's Springsteen or whatever, is attempting to get down to the roots of it and just what is real about it. And so if it's real, then how— I don't see how you can stand against it.

Yeah, no, that's, that's a very good observation, the reality of it. And I, I think that's very good. I wonder if sometimes times, you know, before the time of record labels, and which you know a little bit about because you're a bit of a music historian yourself, but, um, and maybe we can get into some of that later. But, you know, before we were so eager to, to maybe label everything, I think there was— you're right, there's something that is— you, if it's universally true, it's going to resonate, you know, on some level. Which is why, to me, I, I find God in places I don't think it was intended to be found, that God was intended to be found. Like, I'll listen to music by Jason Isbell, and I don't know that he intends for it not to be, but the songs are not necessarily about God. But I'll find these moments that I'm like, "Wow, something just moved in my heart that I think is so genuine and true to what I know of the Spirit moving." I think that there is such a source of creativity that maybe none of us realize that we are tapped into when we are creating.

Right.

You know, and there's something of the Holy Spirit that's moving in us and doing that, I think.

I'm struck by the phrase that you used, if, you know, something that is universally true. Well, in my opinion, there's really only one thing that is universally true, and that's ultimately the Almighty God. And so I think that a lot of secular music and sacred music, all of it is an expression. We just, we like to know where the boundaries are and say, well, this person's in or this person's out. This is secular and this is sacred. When if you view reality as God-centered and there's God in the middle and then we're all scattered about at various levels of closeness to God, then And really, all of music that is attempting to be universally true is just an expression of the same thing, of people at different proximities to God at different times. And sometimes I may be further away, sometimes I may be closer, or what have you, but it's all an expression of the same thing.

Yeah.

And really, we all talk about it as musicians, none of us create anything. Like, we all just— we're a product of our influences and all these kind of things. I mean, all creativity— I think there's only one entity that has ever truly created anything. And so I feel most connected to God when I'm being creative, because ultimately I think God is a creative and a restorative being.

And so you're right, it's, it's kind of like Legos. I'm only thinking that because my son is 6 and he really likes Legos, and he creates all the time, but You know, he didn't build the Legos to start with. Like, somebody gave those to him. And I feel like music is sort of like that. We're taking all these pieces and we're rearranging them and shifting them. But I like how you said that, you know, the creativity doesn't start with us necessarily. And yet, don't we get joy, you know, when we watch children, even if it's not like aesthetically like something we would think like, oh, this is a masterpiece, but it's the fact of like seeing them create it and love it and joy and just kind of love it in front of you while they're doing it. It becomes so beautiful and so wonderful. And you had talked about a minute ago, you didn't know you were doing the perfect transition, but you were when you were talking about not boxing in God. And I'm going to quote you here, all right?

That's dangerous.

You say in the bio that you sent to me, you said, I think in order to be true to the Creator, we have to embrace the creative and restorative work he has wrought in each of us, even if it doesn't fit in a neat tidy box. So I want to ask you about that. I had a conversation with another person on this podcast not too long ago, and we were talking about songwriting and the way that— I have this theory that sometimes the way that we break out of the box creatively is to sometimes put ourselves into another box. Maybe that makes sense, but let me explain a little bit what I mean by that. If, let's say you are a straight bluegrass musician or something, okay? And you've decided, all right, I need to break that mold a little bit. And you have somebody like, for instance, let's take Paul Simon, who I've used before actually on this show, who, I mean, everybody knew Simon and Garfunkel and all these kind of songs that were in that. But when he did that Graceland album, like, he had to leave the box he used to be in to like create this South African, you know, like, groove. And so it was— it was— it's kind of always interesting to me, like, sometimes the best way to break out of one box, to me, is to like really force yourself into another one. And which is kind of interesting, it doesn't seem like it would work that way. But it does kind of open you up to a new creativeness you wouldn't have had before. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that as far as unboxing from one into another.

Yeah, so it— I keep getting reminded of this conversation I had with Audie Blalock, the band leader of Redline, you know, having spent countless hours, you know, driving down the road just talking about music and creativity because we, we love all kinds of different music and The way that I've begun to conceptualize it, and we've had this conversation a number of times, is that most people think that creativity means removing all boundaries. And don't get me wrong, like, I think that— I think we need to listen to music and experience music without boundaries. But I mean, obviously certain things sit in certain genres or within certain definitions. Specifically, I mean, I live in a traditional bluegrass world where things are so specifically defined. Yeah, I actually like some of that, um, almost down to the instrument.

If you don't have a mark—

it is. Yeah, right. No, it's very true. Like, it's, it's so formulaic and it's already kind of pre-planned for you that this is the way it has to be, otherwise it's not bluegrass. But at the same time, removing all boundaries to me as a creative person is so unbelievably crippling Yeah, it's like, because then you don't have any space to exist within. And I think of songwriting and creativity in general is about creative problem solving. So it's almost like you mentioned putting yourself in another box. The way that I, the way that I conceptualize that is basically creating another problem that you have to solve.

Yes. Yeah, very good way to say that.

And so like, I think of it as I think of songwriting as, okay, well, I want to work within these parameters. I want to try to do something like this, whether it's lyrically or musically or whatever. I know we had talked a little before, and maybe we'll talk about the song later, but Love Is an Awful Thing, um, was— I, I created a set of parameters. I'm going to write a traditional bluegrass song, and because I don't do that very often, I'm going to write a traditional bluegrass song, and it's only going to have 2 chords but I don't want it to sound like just another recycled melody and whatever. So there I created a box and I had to exist within that box and figure out a way to, to get out of it, so to speak. So like, I think that creativity— humanity is, is at its most creative when it's, you know, backed into a corner.

Yeah.

So thinking of just the most basic needs of figuring out how to survive I need a tool to do this. I need— in a relationship with other people or whatever, I'm backed into this corner. Then you're creative to figure out, how do I solve this problem? Whereas if it's just everything is at your disposal, I don't know how— I can't create that way.

Sure.

It's too overwhelming.

It's like a marriage only works if there are some— like you stand at the altar and you say, I will do I will not do that. And you have to make it work within those things or it does fall apart. It's very interesting the way that life is structured that way. Relating it to God once more, and we're going to move on to another topic in just a second, but I was thinking about just the idea of being inside a box. I had a church history professor that used to say, because God has said to us certain promises and he has revealed himself to be this. It's not that God isn't in a box, but the box is so much bigger than what we thought it was and we could ever conceive or imagine. But God has himself said, "I will be this," and "I am that." And so it's kind of interesting that even God himself, who we always think is much more vast than any of us, I think, could ever imagine, even himself seems to work in these defined parameters that God has placed on himself. Does that make any sense?

Yeah.

It's sort of like this interesting thing.

It's kind of trippy and paradoxical.

Yeah, but it seems like it works that way for us too. Right. We all work that way. If we're made in the image of God, it's kind of—

Right.

Wow. Well, we could go on and on about that, I'm sure.

Absolutely.

But there's a lot. Yeah, go ahead, pour yourself more coffee. After all, you made it and it's wonderful.

Yeah, if you want some coffee.

I'm still working on the one I have, but thank you. It's really good, and we've got to talk about Hemisphere Roasters too in just a minute. But because you're not simply a musician, and obviously, as I mean, nobody is simply one thing, right? Yeah. But obviously from people listening to you talk today, you've got a lot of great thoughts on many things, and in many ways you are a music historian. I already referenced it a bit, but you were heavily influenced by a musician named Tony Rice.

Yeah.

And you wrote a research paper in college on Rice's now legendary recording, which is called The Bluegrass Album. I did. And your research paper that you used, it was cited in the official Tony Rice biography called Still Inside: The Tony Rice Story. What's it like to have a place sort of not only in making music, but you're sort of written into musical history now a little bit.

Well, I mean, I don't think that anybody would ever take a look at those notes in the back of Tony Rice's biography. But that was— I had a— I went to Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and I had this history professor who taught a lot of my classes. His name was Mark Metzler-Solwyn, and he was just a fabulous history professor. And he was very interested in like pop culture history. And he knew that I was a bluegrass musician. And so he had always encouraged me to just explore that. And one of the most, probably one of the most formative musicians in my life is Tony Rice, somebody who could exist within within the boundaries of traditional bluegrass and traditional bluegrass people will hold him up as like, that is, he's the best bluegrass guitar player or whatever. But at the same time, he totally like existed outside of that as well. He did like, the book's called Still Inside. That was a record he did. He did a series of records in the early '80s that were very jazz-oriented. You know, he would do like original stuff but then also a lot of jazz. He just would do, he was very famous for doing like Gordon Lightfoot songs. And I love Gordon Lightfoot, but to me, Tony Rice, like, it's like Gordon Lightfoot wrote those songs with him in mind. And Tony just, I mean, to me, didn't write a lot of music himself, but there's never been a better interpreter of music ever. There's things that he does. That, I don't know, they're just— it's amazing tonally, musically, all of that. And so to— I had to write a 25-page original research project my senior year, and he said, why don't you, you know, you play bluegrass, you're somewhat connected to that community, you probably can gain access to some of these people. So I was like, well, I'm going to do it on— at that time, what was one of the most formative bluegrass records. Yeah, so Tony Rice had a, um, he was with Rounder Records and he, um, he owed them a bluegrass record. And so he's like, well, I'm going to just get together these people. So he got JD Crowe on banjo, Doyle Lawson on mandolin. He ended up getting his bass player at the time, which was Todd Phillips, and he got Bobby Hicks, who was at that time was playing— he had played with people like Bill Monroe. He was playing with Skaggs at that time.

Italian.

And so he put this group together and basically he was like, I'm just gonna record, I'm gonna pay homage to the first-generation bluegrass pioneers. And so they did all these old Flatt and Scruggs and Bill Monroe and Jimmy Martin and some Osbourne Brothers and all these, they were gonna do that. And he just called it, he was, Tony's really big into like blue note jazz records And a lot of times they would just like equally bill everyone, like their name and whatever. So he called this, this album The Bluegrass Album. And then it had everybody's name just kind of billed equally. Well, that became known as the Bluegrass Album Band. And they called The Bluegrass Album Band Volume 1 because they ended up doing 6 records, most of them in the '80s, but They did, I think, an instrumental record once Tony's voice started to fail much later. But, um, that was the first one, and so that one was a big deal to me. And so I wrote a paper on it because it changed my life musically, and I got to talk— like, I interviewed, um, like, JD Crowe and Doyle Lawson. I interviewed Tony Rice. I still have— I will never erase on my phone— I have a voicemail where Tony, um, I'd missed his call when he called for me to interview him, and the voicemail is, "Hey Reed, this is Tony Rice," and I'm like, I will never, as long as I live, ever erase that voicemail. That's because to me he is the, like, the ultimate in bluegrass guitar and even vocally back in the day. So anyway, that song, or that paper, ended up getting cited. Tim Stafford was one of the writers that book, he plays in Blue Highway, a very, very noted bluegrass band, probably one of the most influential bluegrass bands in the last 20 years, if not a little more. And then he, before that, was with Alison Krauss and Union Station. He at that time reached out to the lady I was playing with, her name is Billie Renee, that was Billie Renee and Cumberland Gap, and said, hey, I need to get in touch with your guitar player. And so he emailed me and was like, "Hey, can I have your paper?" And it's not like I'm some great authority on it, because I'm certainly not, and I think that now looking back I would do that paper quite a bit differently than I did. But I think the sheer fact that somebody in an academic setting would write a paper like this is noteworthy enough to say, "Well, then that should probably be included in here," because it demonstrates the scope of Tony's influence and career and the significance of it. Even though my paper was probably not good.

Well, hey, would you mind, do you have a song, it doesn't have to be one that Tony Rice wrote necessarily, but as you said he was a great songwriter. Maybe just like a verse and a chorus of one of his songs that really speaks to you and you love.

Yeah, oh yeah. So Tony, I'm just trying to think. There's so many things I could talk about and play with Tony Rice. I remember If you don't mind, I'll just do a couple of real quick things.

Yeah.

He had interpreted the song Muleskinner Blues. Mm-hmm. He did it on a record called Cold on the Shoulder. It was actually the first Tony Rice record I got. And this was like in the early 2000s. The internet was not what it is now and what have you. But there was a bluegrass music shop in Columbus, Ohio. And so I, on Tony Rice's website, I had found like there was a clip of like a little clip of several songs on each record. And so I went back through and was listening, and the one on Muleskinner Blues was the intro he did to that, and it blew my mind. And so I called, I was like 16 or 17 years old, I called Bluegrass Music Shop in Columbus and I said, do you have Tony Rice's Cold on the Shoulder? And they're like, yeah. I'm like, I'll be there in an hour. And so like I went and I, I, I got it and I put that record in, a CD, in the, in my car stereo and he busts into Cold on the Shoulder and I, it's this guitar kickoff and it like, I don't know how I didn't like come out of my seat. It was like I've never heard somebody do that.

Yeah.

And then I think it's the third track on that is Mule Skinner Blues, um, and again And I'm not Tony Rice by any stretch, you know, any— although me attempting to be a bluegrass guitar player is just a failure trying to mimic Tony because he is the ultimate. But he goes— the intro, the thing that hooked me, and it's not going to be exactly like it, but he goes, "Well, good morning, Captain.

Good morning to you, sir." And then he—

do you need a mule spinner? And they all came in and it was like, I, I'd never heard anything like that before.

And it's almost like blues.

It is, yeah. There's a big mixture of— yeah, all of that is— it's just so Tony. I mean, and he took that— I mean, obviously thinking of Bill Monroe and him taking some of the blues influences and an African-American gentleman named Arnold Schultz that was important in his life. And so like taking— he did things like the Rocky Road Blues or the Bluegrass Stomp, but these different things that have— they're essentially like 12-bar blues.

Yeah.

And incorporating that. And then Tony— but guitar was always a rhythm instrument. And then Tony in bluegrass essentially made it a lead one, building off of Clarence White's influence. Who's very famous for having played with The Byrds. And also, you know, think of like, um, on The Andy Griffith Show, you know, like Tony played Clarence. He had the very legendary guitars formerly owned by Clarence White, and you can see that guitar in, um, you know, on, on The Andy Griffith Show and stuff.

Is that like one that Andy would play, or—

No, Andy always played a '50s D-18. Um, this is a 1935 Martin D-28. And, you know, it, it just— I don't know, everyone that I've heard that has actually played it— I've been close to it and I photographed it and what, but, but it just wasn't the right situation where I felt like I could ask Tony to play it. But everyone I know that has, it's like, that guitar is just like— yeah, it's not that great, but in his hands, in the hands of the master, it is magic. It is purely magic. I will— if I can give an album recommendation, I'll do, I'll do a bit of this one Jimmy Rogers song that Tony recorded. He did a record called Church Street Blues that I think everyone needs to listen to.

Okay.

It's essentially, um, he— it's him with the guitar and that's it. Very, very minimal overdubbing. There's maybe one or two songs where his brother plays rhythm guitar with him just for like instrumental purposes, but to highlight Tony's ability to sing and to play and to interpret songs. It is just, it's a stunning piece of work. And he does this Jimmy Rogers song called "Any Old Time." And again, I won't do it much justice, but it just, it's one of my favorite Tony Rice things. So, if I remember, it goes—

I just received a letter. You're down and out, you say. At first I thought I would I traveled on the other way, but in my memory fingers, all you once were to me. So I'm gonna give you one more chance to prove what you can be. Any old time you wanna come back home, drop me a line, and when you say no more, you're wrong. You had your chance to play the game fair. When you left me, sweetheart, you only left to love who cares. Now that you're down, I'm going to stick by you. If you could only tell me that you're wrong. Many days I dream you'll find me here like the day you left me alone. Any old time you wanna come back home. Sweetheart, you only left to love who cares. Now that you're down, I'm gonna stick by you. If you will only tell me that your roaming days are through, you'll find me here like the day you left me alone. Any old time you want to come back home.

It's a little early to be doing that, but, uh, no, it's great. That stuff is so near and dear to my heart, musically speaking, and his musicianship was just second to none.

Well, that's true. Well, keep your guitar in your lap because we're starting to run out of time a little bit, but I want to have you close close the show today in just a couple of minutes with, with another one of your songs that has gone to number 1 and stayed there for a few weeks. And so we're excited about that. But there's so much interesting about you, I feel like we're gonna have to do a follow-up podcast. Yeah, that's nice because we're gonna— we're going on and it's great and I'm just loving it.

Sorry, these are— I'm very passionate about all of these things and faith and music.

And this is why I record these things, man. I love getting to hear this. And this is a very special episode. I don't always get to have live music on the show, so this is a treat for me. I just wish— my only regret is the people listening don't get to see your beautiful Gibson guitar.

Oh yeah, this is a cool guitar with a cool story too, but maybe that's for another time.

Yeah, we'll share about it another time for sure. But I do want to take a quick chance because again, you're not all just bluegrass. There's a band that you play with called Someday Morning. Not Sunday like the day, but Someday, S-O-M-E-D-A-Y. And you guys have a great EP that's on iTunes, and man, it's like straight-up rock and roll, and it's really good stuff. I've been enjoying listening to that as well. And, you know, the band released their EP titled Day Broken, and you play various guitars on the album, you play Hammond organ on the album, you sing harmony harmony vocals. And I just want to mostly encourage listeners to go listen to that as well because it just kind of shares— shows the diversity and the talent that you have. But a lot of people don't know that maybe in addition to all the talent they're hearing today, you're also a teacher. Like, for your living, aside from being a professional musician, you're a social studies teacher which is fascinating. And it's an interesting time, I'm sure, to be a social studies teacher right now. You're having to keep up on a lot of current events. But you also— I wish I could touch on everything today, but we've referenced a couple times the Hemisphere Coffee Roasters. So before we have you do this closing song today that I want you to do, you have a great story about this coffee that you and I are drinking today. And those of you listening, you can also be drinkers of this coffee if you hear this story. But I want you to share, if you don't mind, sort of your partnership with Hemisphere Coffees and why it's so special. And it's really good, by the way. Thank you for making this. It's pour-over coffee and it's better than usual. But please, if you don't mind telling the story you told me just earlier this morning, it's a great thing.

So Hemisphere Coffee Roasters is just an amazing company run by an amazing couple. Their names are Paul and Grace Kurtz, and they live in Mechanicsburg, Ohio, and their background is in mission, and they spent a lot of time in various parts of the world, most of the time specifically around that belt around the equator where coffee is typically grown. And they just, to me, they are what I consider to be a very accurate expression of what it means to be a Christian in our world. And that it's one thing to— it's one thing to preach, it's one thing to use words, which that's very important, I would never negate that, but it's another to live your life and be a fabulous example with your deeds. And that's exactly what they do. So there's a lot of exploitation that takes place in the coffee industry. People who readily lose their farms, who are stuck in cycles of debt and are unable to pay them off as, you know, coffee growers. And just a lot of, you know, big companies and middlemen and foreigners that can come in and exploit local people. And so they saw an opportunity years ago, I think before the whole like direct trade, fair trade thing was like the hip thing to do. They were doing it because it was an expression of their faith. And so they directly import coffee from growers from around the world whom they have relationships with. Their motto was always, you know, "We shake the hand of the farmer." And so it's that, again, that idea of putting an emphasis on relationship. And they literally know these farmers personally, and that I think can have a big impact in the quality of the product they receive because of— there's no less than like 100 steps between that the farmer does before that bean would ever get here, that all of which can have profound impacts on the final product. And so having those relationships can help in that respect, but I think more importantly they are able to lift up coffee-growing communities all around the world. So Red Line Roast, which is a product of our partnership between Audie Blaylock and Red Line Hemisphere Coffee Roasters, has several of those great stories embedded in it. There's a bean in there from Nicaragua, and there's a gentleman named Diego Chavarria who is a Nicaraguan coffee farmer who is able to lift up his entire community by providing gainful employment for people. And also, he— I think it's been somewhere in the neighborhood of like 30 churches, I think, that he has been planting. Been planted, um, as a result of Diego's faith and all of that. There's also a bean from Thailand where there are 80 women who now have full-time employment, um, that were able to leave the sex trafficking industry, um, because that was the only option to them in order to provide food for their families, and now have gainful employment, been able to leave that industry and work, um, on a coffee plantation there.

Thank God.

And so it's just really amazing work that they do. And they're just fabulous people. And so I had, being involved in the Mennonite world, had heard that, hey, there's these Mennonite people in Mechanicsburg that have a coffee company. And so I'd been getting my coffee from them for a long time. And then eventually it was kind of like, this could be a really cool partnership between our band and Hemisphäre. And also a great way to kind of trumpet the, you know, to be able to share a story like that from stage. Oftentimes people erupt into, you know, cheering and clapping, you know, kind of interrupting when you say there's 80 people that now, you know, are no longer part of the sex trafficking industry. It's like you realize how personal and powerful these stories are. Like, these aren't just like— they're not numbers, right? These are human beings.

Like, 80 human beings.

Yes.

Lives changed.

Yeah, that's—

I mean, it's a powerful story, and I just think they're just— they're great people. They do amazing work. And so part of what we do in Redline is, I mean, we sell Redline Roast, but we also— I just want to spread the news of, you know, that again, it kind of intersects with the Gate Called Beautiful that we did earlier, the idea of offering healing and hope to a world that is full of brokenness. And I feel like Hemispheres, they're a great example. They're not a— it's not a nonprofit organization. Organization. They're, they're a business.

Yeah.

Yet, you know, they're able to live out their faith and their business. They're able to make a living for themselves.

Yeah.

Without stepping on other people in the process and lifting people up rather than pushing them down. It's just a really powerful thing, and I just think that it's a great example that business people, that everyone needs to hear. It's just such a powerful story. So they're, they're awesome. So I would encourage you to check them out.

It's one of those stories that I would want to start and say, "And the kingdom of God is like..." Right, exactly. It's great. Well, thank you for sharing not only music but coffee specifically with me, but I'd really like listeners to look up Hemisphere Coffee and find out more because they can buy that. Well, our time is coming to an end. We're about to reach the limit of what we have today. Real quick, before I— I do want you to share your song "Love Is an Awful Thing," which you talked about at the beginning and has spent, I believe, 3 weeks at the number 1 charts on bluegrass radio. But before we do, where can people find out more about you and the bands you're involved with?

Yeah, Sunday Morning has a Facebook page that we occasionally maintain. That's kind of a really fun band because we don't— it's not about, you know, becoming famous or rich. It's not about playing a bunch of shows. We just do it as a creative, like, this is a creative thing for us and it's a life-giving thing. So, um, that one you can check out on Facebook. But, uh, Audie Blalock and Redline, we've on Instagram, Facebook, we have audieblalock.net. Um, you can find us there. Um, you know, you can get all the Audie Blalock stuff. You can hear it all on Spotify and, you know, get it on iTunes and Amazon and all the various digital outlets, but it's true, not that hard to get a hold of.

So great. Yeah, well, perfect. Well, close the show for us today. And by the way, all these links we're gonna have on our website at voicesinmyheadpodcast.com. I actually compiled them last night, ready to put them on the website. So it's gonna be a place— so if you just want to go to one place to find all of these links that Reed is talking about, just go to voices voicesinmyheadpodcast.com, and I'll try to make it as easily clickable as possible. So close the show for us today if you would. Play your song Love Is an Awful Thing, which has been recorded also by Audie Blaylock and Terry Lyon.

And so yeah, I'll do this last one. I just do want to say thank you for having me on the podcast. I hope that I'm not too long-winded because I get so passionate about all this stuff. It's just such a— it's a blessing to be able to share, you know, faith and music and, you know, history and coffee. Yeah, so all of that stuff. So yeah, this is Love Is an Awful Thing. This is off of Originalist, and it definitely sounds a lot different when you start having, you know, like blazing banjos and forward rolls and all these great things. But I'll just do a kind of a stripped-down, maybe slightly slower version of the song, my attempt at writing a traditional sounding tune. So it's a traditional traditional bluegrass song. And again, all the lyrics in this song, it's called Being Creative. It's like after I write a song like this, I have to tell my wife, listen, we're okay, love is not an item. I'm inspired by the word awful and how you can be in awe of something, right? But then it can also be awful. So this is based on that duality, and it's not based on true events.

Okay, gotcha, gotcha, understood.— the road and the street. Sad song I can't help but sing. I can't have it both ways, but I'm trying. 'Cause love is an awful thing. Your love is an awful thing. There's nothing quite like the first days of love when everything sweeps you away. No words can You can tell all of the things and all you could never convey. You're a fork in the road and a mystery. Sad song I can't help but sing. I can't have it both ways, but I'm trying. 'Cause love is an awful thing. Your love is an awful thing. Thought I knew down, but I've been wrong before. Thought I was safe from the fall. You broke me in ways I could never foretell. In ways of regret to recall. You're a fork in the road and a mystery. You're a sad song I can't help but sing. I can't have it both ways, but I'm trying. Love is an awful pain. Your love is an awful pain.

Thank you so much. Good stuff. Well, Reed Jones, you can hear him on albums with Audie Blalock and Redline. You can hear him on albums with Sunday Morning and various other places online. Thank you for being one of the voices in my head this week.

Hey, thank you for letting me take up residence residence there for an hour or so.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or a speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that and more at rickleejames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be online. And now for the benediction. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Hope.

God bless you and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.