John Reischman on The Salish Sea and Playing in The Tony Rice Unit

My guest this week is John Reischman and we're talking about his fantastic record The Salish Sea, recorded with his band The Jaybirds.

We chat about the band's long history together and the journey behind this record, including the Freshgrass Concerto Commission that led to the title track. John also shares his memories of first meeting Tony Rice and how he came to play with The Tony Rice Unit in the 1980s, including recording the albums Still Inside  and Backwaters.

You can find out more about John and buy copies of his records at www.johnreischman.com

Backwaters is now available as a remastered vinyl and download through Craft Recordings

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I actually I heard through the grapevine that he was trying to get a hold of me and they gave me his number, so I called him and we went and met and he said, Yeah, I'm putting this band together and gave me um a copy of acoustics and I think he played uh the test pressing of Mar West and and it was like super exciting music and and he had a few charts and he said you see if you can learn some of these and come back and we'll get together. Which I did to the best of my abilities and went back and had learned old gray coat and uh a bit of gasology, and he was very, very uh enthusiastic. He, you know, I remember this. Uh he said, Okay, well, I'm not looking for another mandolin player anymore, which was you know credibly incredibly exciting to hear.

Matt 1:06

Hey everybody, welcome back to Bluegrass Jamalong. Um, my guest on the podcast this week is John Reichman, Mandolin player, and we had a chat about his new record, the Salish Sea, which I really like, which is John Reichman and the J Birds, and they've been together for years, and we have a really interesting conversation about that record, about kind of them as a band, how they work, how they came together. Uh, really cool stuff. And we also chat about the title track um because it's part of a longer concerto piece that John wrote for um a Fresh Grass Commission. Now he's that's also been recorded as a separate thing, so it was really interesting talking about that as well. Um, chat about things like the use of twin mandolins, which was inspired by that first Grisman Roundup album and what influence that was on John. Um and also kind of with that Grisman connection, um, John went on to play with the Tony Rice union in the early 80s in his Tony's sort of post-Grisman phase. Um, and we talk about that as well. John was really keen to chat about that because he sort of thinks it's a an underdiscussed bit of Tony's career, which I would definitely agree with. Um there's sort of three records that came out around then that Johnny's part of two of. There was um Marl West, but then Still Inside and Backwaters, both of which John is on, and that instrumental phase of Tony's career, those kind of jazz-inspired, quite you know, lots of space in those records, lots of improvisation. They're really cool, and um, they're not maybe not talked about as much, and maybe that's partly because until recently, Backwaters um wasn't available, and that's come out again thanks to a reissue from Kraft Recordings. But also, Mar Weston Still Inside never made it to CD, they're sort of compiled into Deblin, but they never made it on to C D as records in their own right, they're not on the streaming services. So it was really interesting to dig into that bit as well and sort of John's time with Tony, how he met him, how that all sort of kicked off. So, yeah, really interesting conversation, it was really great to talk to John. Um, all the usual stuff applies. If you have enjoyed this episode, um, or by the time you get to the end of it, if you've enjoyed it, because you wouldn't know yet, would you? Um please do share it with somebody else who you think might like it. Recommendations are a really important part of the growth of this podcast, and so please do send an episode to somebody if you think they might like it. Um bluegrass jam along.com for info, lists of all the interviews, lists of all the fiddle tunes, all the chord sheets, everything you might possibly want. Uh yeah, but here comes my chat with John Reichman. John, welcome to Bluegrass Jamalong. It's great to meet you.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Yeah, like likewise, Matt, I'm happy to be here.

Matt 3:35

And you have a recent album that we're going to chat about called The Salish Sea, which I've been listening to and really enjoying. And the first and to me and to me, obvious question is what is the Salish Sea?

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Okay. Well, it's the body of water between uh the North American uh mainland and Vancouver Island. So it used to be known as the Strait of Georgia, but it's been changed to the name of the First Nations people, Salish Salish folks who lived there originally.

Matt 4:05

Excellent. That is brilliant. Um and it's a really interesting one because it's billed as John Reichman and the J-Birds. But it very much feels like a group record in terms of kind of the voices, the writing, the kind of general vibe of it.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yeah, that's well, that was intentional when I started the band 27 years ago. That you know, I basically wanted to be in a band, so I decided to start start one, and I never conceived it of it as being me and a backup band. You know, I like the collaboration and and I like having two lead singers and um yeah, everyone contributing. So yes. You're right.

Matt 4:46

That band's been kind of together pretty much in the same formation for a long time now.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Yeah. Well, we've just had one significant personnel change about almost ten years ago when Jim Nunley, who was a guitarist for a long time, who old friend of mine, he left, and uh Patrick Sauber is someone I'd known for for a good long while. And I just thought he would join the band as a sub, um, you know, fill in the dates we had on the calendar, and I'd, you know, sort out who we would hire. But he was such a great fit. I just had to ask him, you know, if you if he was willing to take on another band, because he was in at least four significant other groups at the time. And I thought he's so good it's worth dealing with having to get subs on occasion. So so he he said yes, and uh he's still in the group.

Matt 5:35

And how does that work? Are you kind of pretty geographically spread out?

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Uh yeah, we you know the four of the five of us have been together for 27 years, so we kind of know how we s each other, you know, what to expect from each other musically, and uh everyone's conscientious about having their their end of things together. So typically we just meet up in the town where we're starting the tour, and if there's time we'll run the sets, and uh if there's not, we won't. And we'll just hit the stage. And it you and it almost always feels feels really good.

Matt 6:10

And what's your process for the record of this? Because it's been a while since the last one, hasn't it? Well, how do you sort of find your material?

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Well, um, let's see now. Well, individuals have contributed, like Nick Hornbuckle has written a lot of great tunes over the years, and he contributed a pretty traditional sounding one for him. He's he's um a lot of his writing, you know, has uh been I wouldn't say it's um progressive, but it's it's different than a typical bluegrass banjo player might come up with. Uh the chord progressions and melodies, you know, he's a very melodic player. And he's got this unique style on the banjo where he he plays with just two fingers. Originally he played with three, but somehow uh it worked itself out for him to just proceed with the most success with two fingers, and because of that, he has a distinctive style. So so I knew he would contribute. And Greg Spatz has written a few tunes, our fiddler, and he he came up with this great one called the The Reunion. And Trisha Ganyon, our bass player, has um is quite a prolific songwriter, so she had a couple on the go. And then with Patrick, he doesn't write, but um, you know, we take drives and he'd suggest tunes, and I think that opening track, The Banks of Jordan, we were both listening to the Cook Duet, which is this apparently I can't I'm not sure their first names, but the the husband in the duet is Jack Cook's brother from the long years with the Stanley brothers and other folks. So um, and he and his wife have um not Jack but his brother uh have this had this gospel duet which was just you know killer vocals, great material, and that's where we landed on Banks of Jordan.

Matt 7:56

Yeah, and there's some great stuff on this record, and particularly the title track um I love and it's it's from a kind of longer piece, isn't it? It came out I understand it came out of a fresh grass commission.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

That's right. Yeah, I was asked to write this uh what they call a bluegrass concerto uh in 2024, which I was very excited about, very pleased that they would ask me to do that. So I started working on it. And at the time I didn't have much to contribute to the New Jabirds recording, so I thought that first uh tune, which was the Salish C, that first movement, would be a good one to include, even if I was gonna re-record it at a later date, because I was excited about the tune. And uh yeah, yeah, and then uh I think that was the only um part of the concerto that was up and running when we wrapped up the record and subsequently finished the second movement, which is a waltz, and the final movement, which is more of an up-tempo bluegrass tune, with a kind of breaks down into more new acoustic um approach, you know, long improvisation.

Matt 9:03

I've talked to a few people who've done the fresh grass commissions, both from the song cycle side and the concerto side, and uh, and it's interesting how people approach it. Did you sort of treat it as one piece in three movements, or is it more sort of three distinct but connected tunes for you?

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Aaron Powell I'd yeah, I'd say there's distinct but related, at least key-wise, and somewhat thematically, too. Like the first one is an E minor. Actually, I'd played around with different keys, like initially I thought it would be G minor and was working on it for a long time, and then realized this is gonna make more sense if it's an E minor, the the melod, the way the melody laid out. And then that led to the second movement, which is a slow waltz, also an E minor. And I actually I should say, as soon as they asked me, I you know, I was very excited and thought, oh, I can do this, right? You know, I had vet concepts of what I would want to include. And that first movement, I kind of conceived it initially as more of an old-time sounding thing. And that's the first little melodic phrase has this kind of uh frailing, or I where I mimic a frailing banjo, which locks into uh the you know this pattern that Nick has done, and we've done that a lot over the years. And um, but then it changed into a new, more of a new acoustic sounding piece. And then, you know, I and then they the way they they kind of sent out um uh synopsis of what they thought it should include, and they said, Oh, it could be three fiddle tunes and a waltz, or it could be this or that, and I just thought, well, I I love those bluegrass waltz, it's like Lonesome Moonlight Waltz, and um actually I just got re-familiarized with this great Norman Blake uh composition called the Nine Years Waltz, which was on a band called uh album by a band called Red, White, and Bluegrass that I had way early on, like you know, 50 years ago. And it's and uh I just found a link to it, and it's it's a beautiful tune. So that's another type of uh or example of those sort of lonesome waltzes, as I call them. And then for the third movement, I had this idea of or inspiration from David Grisman's first uh rounder record, where it's basically bluegrass, but it in on these major happy-sounding tunes like Boston Boy and Son on the Strings, he has twin mandolins, which I I really love that sound, so I wanted to kind of incorporate that.

Matt 11:38

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? You I think a lot of people associate Grisman with minor key tunes and you know that but there's just that record, but just sort of peppered throughout. There's a lot of major key stuff, and things like Dog's Bull on Hot Dog with the the twin mando lines and yeah, yeah, I love those tunes.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

I mean I love all the stuff he's written, but um but that something about and I and I guess the the tunes on on that rounder record that are in a major key that he uses the two mandolins maybe are traditional or you know yeah, traditional, I'd say, like Boston Boy and Son on the Strings. I think that comes maybe from Reno and Smiley. I'm not sure.

Matt 12:19

Yeah, and and so I I saw that you had planned, I think maybe you already have now, recorded the full Choice.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Yeah, just uh a couple weeks ago we we uh the the band uh went to North Adams to the Fresh Grass um site and that they have a studio there, and they invited me to come back and and record the piece. You know, they've been very supportive and enthusiastic about the whole project. And uh the original performance in 2024, uh I knew Daryl Anger was going to be there and and I love the twin fiddles, so so I invited him to uh to be part of it, which he's you know happy to say he was very excited about. And also my friend Sharon Gilchrist, who we've played a fair bit of music over the years, I invited her to come and play the second mandolin part. And um we performed it there and had had a good response from the audience. So uh and since then we've been performing it in the J birds just as a five-piece, which and it still goes over really good, so it seemed like timely to get it recorded.

Matt 13:26

And when you're writing something like that, particularly with like a very established band, are you thinking of those because you you know you mentioned a particularly kind of uh individualistic banjo style. And are you writing for those kind of voices as you do it?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Aaron Powell I th I think so. I think I had the band, the J-Birds, in mind. I mean, specifically Nick, because we've done this um with you know, kind of duet um conversational thing with uh this technique that I've used on various tunes like Salt Spring for one and and many others, which is you know, I just call it kind of a a fake frailing pattern. Um and then the way he he's you know developed this thing on the banjo, it has this old-time quality too. So I knew I did want to include that. And beyond that, I just thought twin fiddles, I love that. And I also like the idea of of uh twin mandolins. And uh and I don't know, maybe you know, subconsciously the first concerto I was ever aware of was Vivaldi's two mandolin concerto. So that might have had something to do with it.

Matt 14:32

And and what are your plans for that? Because you know, some people like Jerry Douglas and Jacob Jollifer put their concertos as kind of centerpieces of a record. Um Sierra Hull's just released hers as a standalone thing, kind of on the streaming service. Is it is it going to be on a kind of new album at some point?

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Aaron Powell Yeah, it'll be on a uh part of a new um solo record for me. Son I had one other session with uh different different tunes, but both this new new session, um, all the tunes were they didn't exist before the session. Like I I there was a couple musicians I knew I wanted to record with, and one is Sammy Brayman, who from the Only's. I don't know if you're familiar with her, but she's a fantastic old-time fiddler. And uh she's originally from Seattle, which is not that far away from where I live in Vancouver. And I thought, well, maybe she's gonna be home for Christmas, so I'll see if I can book the studio and get her and some other folks, including Allison DeGroot and Eli West, and uh um a bass player named Sam Howard. So booked the studio, got the band lined up, but I didn't have any tunes, so I just I had to write write some stuff, you know, which I would prefer to do than just cover some traditional things, which you know I like that too, but but I knew that Sammy was um a fan of tunes in F. And so I came up with this new tune in the key of F and then some others too, so it was interesting.

Matt 16:00

And so so how long in advance of recording did you get the tunes together then? Was it literally the last minute?

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Um I also should mention uh Patrick McGonagall, the fiddle player who used to be in the Lonely Heart String band, he uh co-produced the session. And and so I'd get together with him a little bit and say, What do you think? And he had had some good input. And uh so I I think I think it was maybe a three-week lead time. I had the tunes. And actually uh was able to perform at least one of them at a at a small festival. So so it and and the way we recorded that was just um no headphones, just in a circle with the with the mics open and not worrying about overdubbing or fixing things so much, which um which was really fun. It was really satisfying to to record music, which I'd never done quite like that before.

Matt 16:57

Well, it you allows for a kind of you use the word conversational before, um, and it it definitely allows for that kind of that feel.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Yeah, yeah, it was it was really satisfying. And and they're you know, primarily it's there's pretty straight old-time type melodies, you know, with my own little melodic quirks in there. But um but yeah, I it was just it it was not the kind of thing like on this uh concerto recording where we're taking solos where you want to get the best possible solo possible and uh so there we might overdub and fix things or edit, edit, you know, two takes together, that kind of thing. But uh n none of that really happened on this this earlier old time session.

Matt 17:40

With the concerto, like to what extent was it composed versus kind of leaving room for improvisation? Because some people go all the way down the the route of it's almost pretty much a composed thing, and some people leave a lot of space.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

No, it was it was like I the main melody, you know, was composed, and then people were free to solo however they s they s saw fit to you know reference the melody or leave it completely behind. Um I think the waltz is the most straightforward and um there that doesn't get too wild, it's pretty much the melody throughout or harmonized melody.

Matt 18:18

Yeah, sometimes with a really simple melody it's it's harder to stray from the melody when it when you get a really clear melody, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Yeah, I think so.

Matt 18:28

Um and it's interesting talking about sort of the instrumental side of things because when we talked before doing this interview, one of the things you brought up that you'd be interested to talk about was some of the music you made with the Tony Rice unit, um particularly in the instrumental phase of of what he was doing. And I'd love to know just to start that conversation off how you first met Tony, how that all came about.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Well, I was uh I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area uh in 78 and joined a band called the Good Old Persons, which was really influential band of that area, and I was a fan of theirs uh prior to that, and and uh so I uh I got the call and and moved to the Bay Area from where I was living in Oregon. And uh so I was part of the scene, and um I had seen the Grisman Quintet several times before that, before I even moved to the Bay Area, and I was a huge fan. And then and I also saw the Great American Music Band, and I saw Olden in the Way, so I was very aware of David Grisman. And um I and Tony was just living in the Bay Area, and I think we lived in the same in both lived in Marin County, and every once in a while he'd show up at the local bar where we played Paul Saloon or even the local pizza parlor. So I I met him that way, but I didn't I didn't um ever uh play with him. But I guess when he and David sort of parted ways, he decided he was gonna start his own band, the Tony Rice Unit, and he was looking for I guess he he always uh assumed and wanted Todd Phyllis to play bass and he needed a fiddle player and a mandolin player, and he had seen me play, so he I think he was somewhat aware of what I could do. But uh so I went over and talked to him. He called up and um or I called I actually I heard through the grapevine that he was trying to get a hold of me and they gave me his number, so I called him and we went and met and he said, Yeah, I'm putting this band together and gave me um a copy of acoustics, and I think he played uh the test pressing of Mar West and and it was like super exciting music and and he had a few charts and he said, Well, you see if you can learn some of these and come back and we'll get together, which I did to the best of my abilities, and went back and had learned old Greycoat and uh a bit of gasology, and he was very, very uh enthusiastic. He, you know, I rem remember this. Uh he said, Okay, well, I'm not looking for another mandolin player anymore, which was, you know, incredibly incredibly exciting to hear. You know, because I was just young, young guy, you know, twenty-five, something like that.

Matt 21:16

It's a really interesting phase of his career, and maybe it isn't talked about so much, and maybe it's because those those two records in particular, Mar Weston's still inside, they the some of the tracks came out on Devlin as a compilation, but those two records have been out of print for some time and never made it onto CD, and maybe that's one of the reasons that it's a bit less known. But you think of Tony and you think of his singing and his playing, and you don't necessarily think of him as much as a writer, but that phase of um kind of the instrumental stuff, he was writing writing a lot of tunes and creating in a different sort of way than we used to thinking of Tony.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Yeah, yeah, he was really prolific. And I mean, there was you know, I think those are pretty much all original, except maybe he covered Nardis. The Miles Davis tune, or Bill Evans maybe, is who really wrote it. But um and then when I joined, uh, we didn't perform for about a year because he was still looking for a fiddle player, but he was writing these tunes and he'd give me a cassette of the melodies and I'd go learn them and the chord progressions. But he came up with some beautiful melodies. I mean, not just the really fiery instrumentals like gassology, but beautiful uh waltzes like Waltz for Indura and um the one on Backwater is just some bar in the French quarters. I mean, that that's great. And um, so I was very fortunate to be in that position, you know. I was really in the right place at the right time.

Matt 22:44

And how kind of you talk about learning those tunes from charts and things, and I'm really curious as to what those were like in a way, because as an outsider listening to it, it and from some of the people I've talked to, it really feels like Tony was inventing a whole chord vocabulary that was his rather than playing what a jazz guitarist would have traditionally played across certain changes. He just found some shapes and some ways of getting between harmonic shifts that were very much him.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Yeah, yeah. I don't I mean, I'm not really a guitarist, although um in the early days he had the idea that on some of these waltzes maybe I could play second guitar, you know, sort of fill out the sound. So there are a few gigs where I'm playing playing uh second guitar behind him, which you know I did the best I could. And and it was ironically, it was easier for me to play his D28 than, you know, I'm not sure what I had a D18 that he might have played, and I played the D28, and I'd stand on stage playing this guitar and think, This is so ridiculous. This is so bogus, how can I, you know, but that didn't last that long. He just eventually Wyatt joined, so he had second guitar.

Matt 23:58

But that first record you did together was still inside, wasn't it? It was just a full review.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Yeah, yeah, that's right. And that was the first recording I was ever on, too, so. And I believe that was mostly, you know, we were we tracked it all live, and I don't I remember overdubbing on one tune, but most of it was just um, you know, multiple takes, and then he'd edit the best uh moments from from each take.

Matt 24:25

And was that recorded at Arch Street?

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Yeah. In the basement. I think there was an upstairs room where uh I think the original Grisman Quintet record was recorded. And the Bluegrass album bands uh recordings were upstairs, but this is just a more uh small space that you could uh completely isolate from the other musicians.

Matt 24:50

And was it I mean it feels like a clear choice for there to be no banjo on those records, and I'm guessing if you're going for a the sort of slightly more expansive jazzy feel, it takes away some some boundaries potentially, no? Because such a strong flavor banjo that suggests certain things.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Yeah, I think he just had this you know idea of a streamland stream streamlined band. Yeah, I mean he had the earlier uh recordings that had the name the Tony Rice Unit were just studio outings where he'd get his friend Sam, Sam Bush and Richard Green and Todd, and he was just replicating that. And it was I mean, it was great for me because you know Sam Bush was my favorite mandolin player and David Grisman, so so I thought this is great. I if I you know have have Sam's playing as a template, that's that's you know super exciting to me.

Matt 25:44

And had you done much of that kind of you know, the the sort of thing that the Grisman Quintet introduced with these extended breaks and the long builds and things that maybe people coming from a bluegrass or old-time background aren't used to getting to do.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Not that specifically. I mean, like I said, I'd seen the Grisman Quintet and and loved that music and loved the extended solos, but I had played a lot of swing, swing music and and slightly more modern, but I was a I was a Jethro Burns fan, and then subsequently, you know, Tiny Moore and Johnny Gimbal. You know, I love that stuff. And and Django Reinhardt, you know. Actually, I was sort of introduced to Django Reinhardt from seeing the Great American Music Band because they covered, I think, Swing 42 and Swing 39. And I I knew the name, and I knew there was a an LP uh under his his and Stefan's name at home that my older brother had possibly. And so I went back and checked that out. Thought, oh, this is great. I like this stuff a lot. And then discovered there was a mandolin player who could play that stuff, you know, equally well, and then Jethro Burns. So I really, you know, tried to play play that stuff. So I had a chord vocabulary and somewhat melodic sense of how to improvise on that stuff.

Matt 27:05

And it is it is really interesting to sort of look at the timeline around them because it's easy to think of those three records kind of still inside of Mar West and Bank Waters as being like a period of Tony's evolution. But like through the middle of that, he's recording bluegrass album bands, the Scouts and Rice going on, there's kind of you know, leading in towards Church Street Blues, like at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he um he invited me to come by the first Bluegrass album band session, so I got to, you know, meet those guys, listen to a few takes of of those tunes, which was great. And and I think also uh Cold on the Shoulder, I was there for some of that as well. So it was a great place to be in. And he Tony was always really generous with me. Very, very uh, you know, he was he was a good friend.

Matt 27:54

And the kind of it sounds like you did what the Grisman Quintet did, which is a lot of rehearsing before you went out and played live.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Well, part of that was because he had he couldn't line up a fiddle player that he that he was happy with, so uh so he's just biding his time. And I think Todd Phillips was living out of the area for a period of time too, so maybe in the fall of the eighty is when it came together, and then we started rehearsing. But it was different in the sense that, you know, David Grisman's music was some of it at least was highly arranged, you know, with the multiple parts and sections. And Tony's um pieces were for the most part, you know, a melody where you state the state the melody and then you solo over maybe a different chord progression, maybe it was just like a vamp session, which um you know was was pretty pretty fun to do. It's a little less less um uh heady than you know trying to wind your way through a a bebop melody or something like that, or a jazz standard where you go through different key changes. Although we did record uh on Green Dolphin Street, which has that kind of uh that approach.

Matt 29:08

Yeah, it's got more of a nod towards the the kind of Miles Davis kind of blue thing where you're just sort of given a uh almost a palette to solo over rather than a bunch of changes. Yeah, yes. And it it it really allows for uh an amount of space in there, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 29:23

It was pretty free. In and I was I was taught I just saw Todd uh uh in in Nashville when I was there for a music camp, and uh I was reminding him of uh every once in a while, you know, on a a tune like Gasology, where it was an extended solo section, he'd Tony would stop playing, and Todd and I would just kind of uh solo together freely or you know have a conversation again like that. So Todd has you know big ears and can really respond to what you're doing. And and I think you know, I was I had some of that going on as well.

Matt 29:58

And did you play a lot of shows as a band?

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Uh not no, not I wouldn't say so. We had one national tour, which uh I think Salt Lake City to Houston to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to uh New York, to Vermont. I think that was it. And uh that was great for me because I hadn't traveled that much up to that point. I hadn't been to those I'd never been to New York, so that was pretty exciting. Um and then we'd play up and down the West Coast to a certain extent, but and and in the Bay Area, but but not a lot. I just um when I was in Nashville, I I was uh teaching at this music camp with Sharon, and Sharon's brother came by and he mentioned that he had uh VHS recordings of the final show that that version of the band performed at Winfield, which you know I'm I I'm dying to see what that was like. And that was with um Todd, Tony, Wyatt, and myself.

Matt 31:02

Well you said, yeah, the Wyatt joined you for Backwaters, and I I interviewed Wyatt a couple of years ago. We talked about the 40th anniversary of Church Street Blues, because he's obviously the only other musician on that record. And um and it's just it's nuts how young he was. I know at that point. And he he couldn't quite remember the chronology. He his feeling was that Church Street Blues was recorded before Backwaters, because he thinks that was his first time in the studio, but he wasn't entirely sure.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Yeah, I'm not sure. You know, I I wasn't really aware of Church Street Blues being recorded at that at the time, or at least I have no memory of it. So but I remember Wyatt came out to visit and um and you know stayed at Tony's house, and and during the time where I was learning these new tunes, which would ultimately become a part of the Still Inside, Wyatt was there, and I'd go over to rehearse with Tony to play those tunes, and I remember Wyatt sort of playing along on those.

Matt 32:00

And you think about he's you know, I think he might have been seventeen when they recorded Churchy Blues and just the the confidence and the maturity of his rhythm playing on that record. But then you add on top of that just some of the harmonic stuff and the cold voicings and all of that for backwaters, and it's just you know, I mean it's it's sort of like Tony had got another Tony into play behind him.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

Yeah, I I he it's kind of uncanny because he wasn't really around Tony that much. I mean he was a much older, older brother, and so I guess he picked up enough when he was around him that he just you know developed this this strong this strong sense of uh his own playing.

Matt 32:47

And um and that that record backwaters, a few of Tony's records have had this treatment recently, but we went through the the sort of process of being remastered and reissued by Kraft Recordings. And it's uh great to have that back out there, you know. Be lovely to have Mar Weston still inside back out there as well.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

That that would be great. Uh so you've heard the reissue of uh Backwaters?

Matt 33:08

I don't have an original version of it to compare to, so it's hard to know.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Right, right. Yes, someone just gave me an original copy that I I don't have a turntable currently, but uh I'd love to hear it again.

Matt 33:21

Yeah, it's a lot it's a lot of people's favor. I I did a a poll recently across various Facebook groups and social channels and things just to kind of work out what people's favorite Tony Rice records were, because it's it's such a fascinating conversation. And some people just love that that record more than anything.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

Backwaters, yeah. Well, I think t it was Tony's favorite or maybe his one of his two favorites, which you know I'm very proud of that. Um Yeah, it's interesting. I I saw the um the listings of what I mean it kind of makes sense that that uh Manzanita would be rank right up there, which it's my favorite.

Matt 34:03

Yeah, and it was just interesting to see because you kind of you have and you my own favorites change week by week depending on where my head is and how I'm feeling and and all of that. But it's yeah, it's just lovely to to hear people kind of expressing just how much they they love those records, you know. Um and so so post-backwaters, how did that kind of iteration of the unit come to an end?

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Uh well, I think Tony was a little frustrated because he was he wanted to do this uh instrumental ensemble and people kept clamoring from for him to sing, which you know he was singing, but not not not when in our performances. And he'd go out and play with the bluegrass album band, you know, a little bit, but it was just not taking off like he had hoped, and I I think there were some personal issues going on, and it just kind of had run its course, I guess, in his mind, and he which you know he ultimately moved back to the East Coast and started a version of the unit where he had singers, you know, like Jimmy Goodreaux's Mandolin Player Sings Tenor and and then Mark Chatz, and uh and why it was still in the band. And that was a great version. I remember seeing them, you know, in the early days and really thinking, oh yeah, this is smart for Tony to do this.

Matt 35:24

And what happened for you next? What was your sort of next project after that?

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Uh I continued on with the good old persons, which, you know, was a really, really uh good place to be because there is uh Kathy Kalla is a wonderful songwriter and prolific, and Paul Shalaski, the fiddle player, he also was a a great songwriter and tune writer. You know, he's the guy who wrote Casadero. And um and we we had a pretty good following, and uh I just stayed with that. And then living in the Bay Area, there were other musicians I'd just perform with locally. You know, this uh Paul Saloon was the bluegrass bar in San Francisco, and uh the different bands would play there, and one there was a band that played Western Swing that I'd I'd play with on occasion, and and because and actually I also was uh in a band called Rhythm Future, which was a Django-style band, and that was with um Beth Weil on bass and Paul Schilasky, who's a great swing fiddler on guitar and fiddle, and and my old friend David Balakrishnan, who I think believe still leads the Turtle Island string quartet. And uh and so we we would um we had this Django Reinhardt repertoire. So because of that, I ended up getting gigs playing rhythm guitar with with a pretty legit um band called the uh I think it was the Royal Society Sextet. And that was great, you know, you had to wear a tuxedo and play rhythm guitar, and it was so that was an interesting thing. And I I just do whatever I could, and then I'd have various day jobs at, you know, nothing serious, but just making ends meet. And then ultimately uh the good old persons kind of wound down their time together on 92, which kind of coincided with me meeting uh my wife Gwendolyn, who lived in Vancouver, and I moved to Vancouver in '92. And just didn't I'd still go to the States and tour with with various bands, but um didn't really start performing under my own night name uh till '99 when I um put the J birds together and a recording called Up in the Woods came out.

Matt 37:50

And I'd love to talk just briefly if we get a chance about Peghead Nation, because that's become a big part of what you do as well. And there's just you know the the ways we have to transmit this stuff and to get quality teaching rather than relying on whoever happens to live near you has sort of changed the game for a lot of people, I think.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

Aaron Powell Yeah, it's pretty great. And it's it's all it's gratifying to you know travel around and have people say, Oh yeah, I take your course on Peghead, you know, I really love it. You know, and uh and I'm always recommending, you know, if folks want to know about you know learning the mandolin, I say, well, you should check out Sharon Gilchrist's beginning mandolin course. And there's uh several other I mean it's pretty mandolin uh heavy, which is great. But uh I was you know Scott's an old friend, and uh I guess uh playing with Scott kind of w was part of that uh time sort of towards the end of the Good Old Persons and um after Tony before I moved to Vancouver and we were in a couple bands together and and played on each other's records. But uh back to Peghead, yeah, it's it's really it's really good. I mean it's it's a strange experience teaching a camera, but for the most part, I just you know the the I guess there's I haven't rec recorded any more of the melodic mandolin courses, which you know that could pick up again. And the most recent ones I've been doing are are old time mandolin, and that those are pretty straightforward, so they they go pretty quickly.

Matt 39:22

So it was interesting. I was talking to um Mike Marshall, and he teaches on artist works and obviously does various other things as well, and he said it's sort of become aware in recent years the maybe the legacy of that generation that included the Grisman Quintet and Tony Reishi, and it said, you know, people like him and and you and Daryl, a big part of that legacy is how this stuff is now handed on, because there's many more opportunities to do that now.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Yes, yeah, it's it's I'm happy to be part of that peghead family. And I think there might be a new Mandola course coming up, which um you know I've used the Mandola on various recordings and and performances um in recent years.

Matt 40:04

So yeah. Well, I mean, very much looking forward to hearing the concerto when the full recording comes out. Yeah. That's a new solo album.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Right. I uh I'm looking forward to it as well. And uh now my my big issue is how to sequence it in the overall recording. If that, you know, like at first I thought I'll just have it be, you know, a 15-minute piece. But then someone pointed out, well, people are gonna want to just hear one of these tunes or, you know, at a time rather than be committed to 15 minutes. So I have to sort of figure that out and then where it will come in the recording and and what the next component of this recording will be, because I I I have I guess seven tunes, so maybe three more, which uh might be a different ensemble still, maybe visiting the more new acoustic stuff since I've got the old time covered in the concertos there.

Matt 40:58

So yeah, oh then the whole thing will be instrumental.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

Yes. Pretty much all I've done as uh under my own name, I would as solo recordings.

Matt 41:12

Well, very much looking forward to hearing that. It's been really fun chatting to you about this, John. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

Great to talk to you too, Matt, and uh we'll see you uh on down the line, maybe in the UK.