Spotlight Album Review: Tony Trischka "Earl Jam"

Over nearly 50 years, banjo maestro Tony Trischka has managed to satisfy both bluegrass purists and progressive bluegrass fans, who are drawn to groups expanding the genre with outside influences like jazz and psychedelic music (which he did in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s with Country Cooking, Skyline, and Psychograss). On his new album, Earl Jam (a sardonic nod to rockers Pearl Jam), he pays tribute to his hero Earl Scruggs, bringing together an all-star cast which bridges generations and styles.

The genesis of Earl Jam was a series of informal gatherings that Earl Scruggs and John Hartford had at Earl’s house in the ‘80s and ‘90s. One afternoon during the pandemic Tony received a small package from a friend with a thumb drive containing over 200 songs and tunes. Tony decided to honor Earl, who as a member of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, was essentially the father of bluegrass banjo, by playing Earl’s solos note-for-note, but embellishing the songs with the creative imagination of Tony and his fellow players. As Bela Fleck, a genius himself, has said, “I was fortunate to study with Tony Trischka. If Earl created the tradition single-handed, Tony developed a whole new set of strategies to use it for self-expression.”

The album kicks off in high gear, with the Delmore Brothers classic “Brown’s Ferry Blues,” with the young country & bluegrass phenom Billy Strings on guitar, Sam Bush on mandolin, Tony on banjo, and Bela on “definitely non-Scruggs banjo solo.” Another young star, Molly Tuttle, is featured on guitar and vocal on “Dooley,” a Dillards tune, with Sam Bush again on mandolin and vocals, and Tony’s son Sean (usually a drummer) on harmony vocals. (Tony first met Molly as a teenager at a music camp in California, where she proved to be a formidable banjo player.)

A third star from the younger generation, Sierra Ferrell, is featured on a couple of tracks. She does vocals on Bob Wills’ “San Antonio Rose,” with Darrol Anger and Casey Driessen (who’s performed with The Duhks and Abigail Washburn’s Sparrow Quartet) on fiddles, along with members of her band - Oliver Craven (formerly of the Stray Birds) on guitar, Josh Rilko on mandolin, and Geoff Saunders on bass – plus two other young Nashvillians, Phoebe Hunt and Lindsay Lou, on harmony vocals. Sierra and her bandmates also bring a palpable feeling to “Amazing Grace,” abetted by the divine harmonies of the McCrary Sisters.

The old guard is represented by several greats: the ageless Del McCoury on lead vocal and guitar on “Roll On Buddy” (with son Ronnie on harmony vocal and mandolin) and “Little Liza Jane”; Vince Gill on lead vocal and guitar on “Bury Me Beneath the Willow”; and Dudley Connell of the Seldom Scene on vocal and guitar on two in the public domain, “Freight Train Blues” and “Cripple Creek.”

Given Tony’s credentials, you’d think he was raised in the south, but au contraire, he grew up in Syracuse before moving to NYC and, for several decades now, Fair, Lawn, NJ. He teams up with his old compadres from upstate New York, the Gibson Brothers, for a killer unconventional cover of “Lady Madonna” and enlists a couple other New York area standouts: Bruce Molsky, the Beacon-based fiddler, for a duet on “My Horses Ain’t Hungry,” and his regular guitarist Michael Daves from Brooklyn for “Chinese Breakdown” and “Casey Jones” (the latter with Daves on vocals, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Michael Bub on bass, Dominick Leslie on mandolin, and harmony vocals again by Phoebe Hunt and Lindsay Lou).

Recently Tony was joined by Daves and two other standouts from the Brooklyn music scene (Jared Engel and Jacob Jolliff) for a session we did at WFUV. (You’ll find that in the WFUV Archives: https://wfuv.org/content/tony-trischka-sunday-supper-2024) At 75, Tony is simultaneously a teacher and a student, a well-respected peer and a mentor to young artists. You could go to school on Earl Jam: an introduction to a timeless repertoire with state-of-the-art playing, put together by one of music’s nicest and most humble geniuses.

Photo by Greg Heisler