Tony Rice – Cold on the shoulder
Growing up in Illinois, I don’t have the anger of a teenager. My parents encouraged my brother and I to speak our minds and I remember a lot of laughter. My brother’s band ate at lunch and we always played music, and we were stupid. We weren’t into drugs or alcohol, so I was fully conscious of whatever I did [laughs]. I was a dreamer, however, my grandparents were fascinated by things from when they were children. That was the appeal of Bluegrass. I was always going back in time and thinking about the old days and what they looked like. You will hear songs driving towards the landscape and the landscape will become a part of your day dreams.
When I was about 13, I was out of my mind for an album called Cold on the Shoulders, written by Tony Rice. I had it on cassette, but, except for a small picture of it, I had nothing. So I imagine what it was like: the most valiant, the hardest, the most humble person. He will sing through Gordon Lightfoot, or Jimmy Rogers’ Mule Skinner Blues and replace them completely. I like my choice about being rumored, but the stories and poetry of all those songs were amazing. Until then, I wanted to do music but I don’t know if that’s possible, so I dreamed of playing fiddle in Tony’s band. I saw him play around in 1986 or 87 and have seen my pictures there open to the mouth, in shock.
MTV
While MTV was playing pop videos, I could suddenly see what everyone I heard on the radio looked like. I’ve always loved Bluegrass and Rock Hand, and I’ve seen a lot of rock videos. I really liked Def Leppard’s Rock Ages [featuring an owl, mild bondage and the band dressed as monks] And was trying to figure out what that meant. In ‘Fulin’, the singer is in a pyramid strip wearing Elliott’s tight white pants [laughs]. Also liked Van Halens’ Jump and Cameo’s You Make Me Work, and then Whitney on Houston. MTV was impressed with the way I dressed. I wasn’t a fashion person, although I wore leggings for a while and I liked dark-brown eyeshadows. I applied my hair and aqua net hairspray over my hair. In the winter, by the time I got to school, my hair was frozen.
Color Purple
This was a huge movie when I was 15 or 16 years old. I thought it was the most amazing movie ever. I went to Indiana to stay with some of my friends and watched it on VHS there – so 80! The character Happy Goldberg was the same age for me but I don’t know if I’m related to the film. It’s hard to say what drew me to him but it was so beautiful to watch, he’s a hero in it and the story and music are incredible. She is so emotional, dark and so sad and intense that I can’t see her anymore, but the scene in the end where she regained everything she lost is just incredible. Although it’s about race and injustice, and it all wins out in the end, it’s basically about craving for something. Longing is the central theme in bluegrass songs: longing for home, lost love, land, family… and the girl next door is the most beautiful girl in the world. It’s a beautiful craving for simple things, and why would those songs still last 100 years.
Bluegrass festivals
My family went all over the East-East for a trip to the Bluegrass festivals and they were always exploding. You’ll see people that you haven’t seen anywhere else, but the same faces that went from festival to festival. When I was 13, I won the Walnut Valley Fidel Championship. They had four or five different stages, bluegrass bands, merchants selling stuff, a playground and food trucks. You can buy turkey legs and we will pull our sleeves over the turkey legs so that it looks like we are eating our hands. We thought it was funny. Later, in my teens, I started playing With the first lineup of Union Station. We weren’t known, so while there might have been thousands of people at the festival, they would have been at a different stage from what we were playing. It was so muddy that our banjo player – who was always very well dressed – said: “I will not spoil my clothes.” So he went on stage in American flag shorts. I always slept on the floor of the van and by the time I woke up my face was stuck with rubber.
Cox Family
When I was 14, I heard a recording of this singing family from Louisiana. This singer was so awesome I went crazy with him, but couldn’t find anything about who he was. The summer I turned 17, we had a party in Texas and they were on the bill. It’s crazy how rude this was – I was so stupid! – But I woke up in the morning and crashed into a camper van asking people: “Do you know the Cox family where I can find them?” The sun had not even risen. Eventually I found someone who recognized them and took care of me and we hung out all day. It was so funny because someone sent my record to Suzanne, the youngest girl, so they were listening to my stuff while I was listening to them. We have been friends ever since and I have recorded a whole bunch of their songs. They are now bluegrass royalty; A beautiful family.
Happy van
I spent most of my teenage years in the van. I drove with my parents ’little brown Honda station wagon [bluegrass star] Ricky Skaggs got crank, and when I was 16 or 17 I had 77 dodge vans with plaid inside and no air conditioning. Mike Harman of Union Station had a van that we called a “happy van.” We have sold t-shirts out of them; My mother made a big cutout [bluegrass great] Bill Monroe so he felt like he was wearing our t-shirt and we hung him on the side of the van. When I was 15, I got a driving permit and Mike said: “You’re driving!” So my first experience of driving anywhere outside the parking lot was a Pennsylvania turnpike. He said to me: “Looking at all this stuff? None of this should move while you are driving. “I wasn’t thrilled, but when you were younger you didn’t think what could happen.
At one point, I played a show with Tony Rice in Baltimore, Maryland. It was 2am and he said: “You drive!” So I ran Tony’s famous Lincoln Continental with my permission. Now, when you think about things I want to do 15 years old, it sounds crazy, but I love the conversation. He talked about music all the way; Leon played Redbone and talked about why he loves her. So I was there, spending this special time with my all-time musical hero, keeping my eyes on the dials and trying not to crash the car and kill myself.
The amazing grace of Andresia Bosselli and Alison Krauss, from Bosselli’s album Believe, is now out on Deca
