[Archive] My 2009 interview with Sam Bush

Note from Brandon: 14 years ago today, I embarked on a solo road trip from Pennsylvania to Aspen, Colorado to start my career in writing and digital media. I had a few odd jobs during my Colorado ski town chapter, one of them with Aspen.com during the "hyper local" era of Internet publishing (think: Patch.com). A newspaper conglomerate owned it and wanted to capitalize on (A. a very valuable domain name with great SEO and (B. the affluence of the Aspen tourism market.

I drove from my parents' house in central PA to Lawrence, Kansas in a stick shift 1995 Pontiac Sunfire. It was my Mom's old car that had stayed in the family - my brother drove it in high school and college. That car had well over 150,000 miles on it.

In hindsight, it's a miracle the Sunfire survived such a winter cross-country trip. It did me solid in my Colorado era. I drove it all around the Rockies that year. There were definitely some issues that nickel and dimed me: The alternator blew out once when I was on the way to a restaurant job, stranding me as it started snowing. The Sunfire got a flat tire in Glenwood Springs on Mother's Day and put a donut on outside a restaurant where people were eating brunch. I remember that one vividly: There I was, changing a tire in a strip mall parking lot instead of eating brunch with my mom. Later that summer, the electrical circuits on the Sunfire eventually fried and the headlights stop working, signaling the end of its run.

On that first night of that fight road trip in January 2009, I remember talking to a bunch of KU basketball boosters when I got to my motel in Lawrence. It looks like the Jayhawks were playing Kansas State. I was exhausted and hungry from the drive. Nothing was really open, but I found a Pita Pit, ate it in bed, then drove through Kansas to Colorado the next day.

Anyway...

I've been thinking about that Aspen.com job a lot lately. It was such a different time in the Internet. Those were the early days of "being a blogger" and, incredibly, figuring out how to get paid for it. It was early Web 2.0, when the blueprint for building a digital publishing empire seemed wide open. Aspen.com ran on Drupal, I think, which was a nightmare CMS to work with compared to the ease of Wordpress and other CMSs of the era.

The editorial guidelines were focused on the things that made Aspen Aspen, but the site's owners also encouraged me to try new things and build my written voice: As long as each article focused on something about Aspen itself, it would probably get the greenlight. I got paid $40 an article. I don't think anyone actually edited anyone's work there, but I loved how open-ended it was.

In retrospect, the lack of an editor might have been a bad expectation to set for a writer at a young age. There was never much critical feedback about your work, so you always had to put the pressure on yourself to change what you didn't like or make yourself better.

I mostly wrote “lifestyle” content about hotels, restaurants, and multi-million dollar real estate in that gig, so it was always fun when I could write about music. I'll share more experiences about all that in due course on here.

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It looks like Aspen.com is owned by Aspen Ski Co these days, which makes a lot of sense. It's a proper owner. I think that's all the newspaper group wanted in the first place and how I fit in the picture - pay some kid $40 to make some content so it looks alive enough to flip to a big business with deep pockets.

I did some digging on the Wayback Machine and found an interview I did with the bluegrass legend Sam Bush before a concert at Snowmass Village. For kicks, I thought I'd share it. The photo at the top is me on a ridge in Woody Creek.

I totally forgot about this interview. It was a big "get" for me at a young age - Bush, the so-called "King Of Telluride", was promoting his show, and I was super excited to talk about Colorado's deep love for bluegrass music.

It's fun to read and hear what he had to say. I've been thinking about the art of writing a lot lately, so it's also very fun to revist my writing style and think about what's stuck, what stunk, and what's evolved.

Ciao.

Bluegrass at Base Village: Sam Bush discusses Aspen, Bluegrass, The Summer of Love, and being a Kentucky Colonel.

Bill Monroe, the late mandolin-pickin’ granddaddy of modern bluegrass, once described his beloved genre as “Scotch bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin'. It's Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It's blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound. It's plain music that tells a good story. It's played from my heart to your heart, and it will touch you. Bluegrass is music that matters."

Bluegrass matters because – much like jazz – it is deeply rooted in the nitty-gritty of the American experience. It’s a genre of colloquial homespun lyrics, plucky melodies, and tight, breakneck acoustic riff. Bluegrass has a certain rustic nostalgia and rural romanticism, serving as an apropos soundtrack for a sequestered high alpine town like Aspen. Dust back the pages of Aspen’s history a century or so and it is easy to envision the scene: motley and haggard silver miners sitting around a fire, drinking whiskey, and strumming at a weathered banjo while crooning a Stephan Foster song after a long day in the craggy underbelly of Smuggler Mountain.

In addition to a healthy offering of local bluegrass bands, many national acts pick, pluck, and fiddle their way through Aspen throughout the year, including Sam Bush. On January 14th at the Belly Up, Sam Bush and his band played to an enthusiastic crowd. Bush will be returning to Aspen for a free throw down on the snow at Base Village in Snowmass. I managed to get Bush on the phone from his suburban Nashville home to discuss bluegrass, his musical career, and playing Aspen.

“It was ragin’!” Bush noted with a genteel Kentucky draw, referring to his previous gig during the prime of ski season. The first time Sam Bush came to Aspen was around 1972. “Snow was piled up 10 feet high. It was a great time of year to be in Aspen. I never saw anything like it.” Since then, he has popped up in the town multiple times, including collaborations with Lyle Lovett at the Wheeler Opera House.

“Playing with Lyle lets you know just how good I look in a suit!” Bush joked, referring to Lovett’s habit of dressing formally for concerts. In August, Bush did a seven show, Texas-only tour with the legendary singer/songwriter, who has taught him the importance of consistency in musical phrasing. Bush added, “The larger the band, the less you need to play.”

Bush has been perennially pioneering new frontiers on the sweeping bluegrass soundscape since he won his first Junior National Fiddle contest at the age of 15. During high school Bush admits, “I was a sponge for music. I played drums in the marching band, electric guitar in a rock band, and fiddled bluegrass. I was juggling genres before I was barely old enough to drive.”

At 17, Bush was featured on the Grand Ole Opry, won his 3rd National Fiddle contest, and then drove overnight with a car full of buddies from Weiser, Idaho to Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. The year was 1967, when an estimated 100,000 people descended on the counter-culture enclave for the Summer of Love. “Outside there was this crowd almost a half-mile. And you could see it was a band playing, but you couldn’t hear anything. Finally someone said, ‘That’s the Grateful Dead, man.’ ”

It is easy to hear why Sam Bush would be influenced by the likes of The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, as well as Kentucky bluegrass legends Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatts. Bush delicately picks at an electric-mandolin and saws on the fiddle in a feathery frenzy. He is a musical ringmaster flirting between airy, freeform improvisations and tight, structured riffs. The harmonious result is technically progressive, rhythmically complex, and fundamentally rooted in a thick slice of authentic Americana - like a highly-caffeinated Chopin waltz with an unhinged bluegrass attitude. This sonic recipe gives Bush cross-generational appeal, heightened by fan-friendly covers like Bob Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country,” Little Feat’s “Sailing Shoes,” and John Hartford standards that creep into his set lists. As a founding member in New Grass Revival with banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck, Bush helped fuel an improv-centric resurgence in bluegrass. He has been titled the “King of Newgrass,” and it is easy to understand why. His band, with Bush at the helm, has a certain rolling buoyancy, like a steamboat running full throttle on a carefree sunny day.

Spring for Sam Bush means the busy festival season is just around the corner. Bush noted, “Merlefest in April down in North Carolina really kicks off the festival season for us.” This year will mark Sam’s 35th consecutive performance at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in mid-June, where he is known as “Mr. Telluride.” The festival is a celebrated annually as a stomping ground for acoustic music legends, as well as a showcase for talented up-and-comers. Bush testified, “I treat all festivals and gigs equally.” Yet, he noted, “Playing Telluride can be demanding because of the town’s isolation in the mountains. These are demanding elements for both the audience and pickers. It is just majestic. Like Aspen, these are parts of the world that only a very few get to see.”

"I’m lucky to be a musician and see so many parts of the United States.”

Bush’s schedule affirms he will hopscotch across the country for projects and collaborations. After the show in Aspen, he has three gigs lined up with the Colorado front-range-based Yonder Mountain String Band in the Pacific Northwest, piggybacking on their live East Coast collaborations in thee autumn of 2006. In early April, Bush will sit in with the tenor saxophonist Bill Evans at the iconic Iridium Jazz Club in mid-town Manhattan. An album and tour with guitarist Jerry Douglas and bassist Edgar Meyer is in the works, implying the acoustic music super group may even be headed back to the Western Slope for an Aspen summer concert series. Back in Nashville, he is hard at work on a forthcoming solo album. Look for it to be released in late summer 2009.

Bush was born and raised in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He was made a bona fide Kentucky colonel while he was still in high school, “sometime between 1968/1969,” while playing in a rock band called “Poor Richard’s Almanac.” A friend’s mom was friendly with the governor at the time. “I always make sure whatever mandolin case I have with me on the road has a Kentucky Colonel sticker on it.” Last year, the Kentucky State Senate honored Bush for his contributions and conservation of bluegrass music. He performed in the Senate’s chamber. “The experience was overwhelming.”

Despite the accolades, albums, hundreds of multi-genre musical collaborations, and scores of honors, Bush promises he still takes things “one gig at a time.” Music lovers will have a reason to celebrate the longer days of spring with a funky and free hill country hoedown at the base of beautiful Snowmass. Sam Bush is ready and looks forward to it. “Playing Aspen and all these little mountain towns are always a real treat for us.”

Event Details

Who: Sam Bush
What: Free concert for the Bud Light Hi Fi Concert Series
Where: Base Village, Snowmass, CO
When: March 22, 2009 - Show begins at 4pm
Why: Because it is spring!